Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ? - Jason MacKenzie:Healing After Unimaginable Loss

Episode Date: May 25, 2025

Send us a text Jason McKenzie shares his heart-wrenching journey through grief after losing his wife to suicide and his daughter to trauma-induced mental health struggles. His story reveals how childhood trauma ripples through generations and how he found healing through sobriety, purposeful grief work, and helping others. • Lost his police officer wife to suicide after years battling mental health issues stemming from childhood trauma • Daughters were just six and five when their mother died, causing deep trauma despite their young age • Developed a four-year drinking problem while trying to appear like he "had it together" • Experienced breakthrough moment when his nine-year-old daughter said "I'm disappointed in you" • Lost his 19-year-old daughter to a car accident related to mental health struggles • Discovered that many mental health issues stem from unprocessed childhood trauma • Creates TikTok videos about grief that have reached 40 million views and helped prevent suicides • Uses somatic experiencing therapy to process grief through body awareness • Writing a book called "Man Down" about grief specifically targeted to men • Emphasizes the power of intentional language in shaping our experience of grief • Practices positive reframing: "I can be grateful for 19 years with her because it's better than zero" • Believes healing comes through facing what seems unfaceable and sitting with difficult emotions Contact Jason through TonyMantor.com if you'd like to share your story on Why Not Me? The World podcast.   https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI) The content on Why Not Me: Embracing Autism amd Mental Health Worldwide, including discussions on mental health, autism, and related topics, is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect those of the podcast, its hosts, or affiliates.Why Not Me is not a medical or mental health professional and does not endorse or verify the accuracy, efficacy, safety of any treatments, programs, or advice discussed.Listeners should consult qualified healthcare professionals, such as licensed therapists, psychologists, or physicians, before making decisions about mental health or autism- related care.Reliance on this podcast's contents is at the listener's own risk. Why Not Me is not liable for any outcomes, financial or otherwise, resulting from actions taken based on the information provided. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Why Not Me The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mayator. Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make your laugh, some will make you cry. Real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world. hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World, Humanity Over handcuffs, the Silent Crisis, special event. Joining us today is Jason McKenzie. He's here to share a profound moment of reckoning.

After losing his wife to suicide and his daughter to mental health struggles, he faced a turning point for years later. A heavy day of drinking led to a heart-wrenching wake-up call from his nine-year-old daughter who voiced her disappointment in him. In that moment, he saw a man consumed by fear, doubt, and insecurity. To become the strong, courageous, and wise father his daughter respected, he knew he had to overcome and confront his inner demons. He's here to tell his heart-wrenching story with us and give us insight on his continuous work to overcome his grief. He has tremendous insights and a lot of great information. It's a true pleasure to have him join us today.

Thanks for coming on. My pleasure. Yes, mine is well. If you could, give us an overview on what you do. Yeah, I think what got us into contact with each other was, so I want a couple businesses. What is the leadership and management consulting companies? We do executive coaching, leadership, trading, et cetera. And the other one is we run a mastermind group for dads who own businesses.

So we teach them how to be skills to be better husbands and father and business owners and really fun, uplifting work, actually. Why we're talking is because I lost my wife to suicide and my daughter to a car accident. It was really a result of her mother's suicide. My daughter was just shattered her soul. And at the end of her life, she was 19, but she was dealing with this. The same trauma-induced mental health issues as her mom and ended up dying just over two years ago, drinking and driving. She was driving. She was killed four other people.

just a freaking disaster. So I just been talking a lot about grief and I'm writing a book about grief. And yeah, that's me. Wow, that must be just so hard to deal with. With that said, needless to say, it affects the family, affects you. How did you deal with it?

Can you give us a little bit of insight on what you went through going through these tragedies? Oh, yeah. I mean, the mental health aspect, I mean, I think, like, if you look at grief, you know, the issues that drives. I mean, I've been an addict, you know, after my wife's suicide and

very little awareness of, you know, the relationship between trauma and mental health. You know, my wife was really interesting, actually. She's a police officer. She suffered really bad childhood sexual abuse. And the interesting thing is a lot of people who have adverse childhood experiences are called to these helping professions, right? So sometimes they really realize it, you know, but they make them more susceptible to trauma. So, so, so the, five years leading up to my wife's death were just unbelievable. Like, you know, psych wards, homeless shelters, rehab, like just crazy stuff. And, you know, what was fascinating in a horrifying way was how our medical system pathologized her experience to the point of just basically

drugging her into clients. And no one ever said, hey, what happened to you? It was a long time afterwards where I was talking to a therapist friend of mine who has been working in the mental health space forever. And I was talking about this experience. And she goes, Cindy wasn't bipolar because she had a chemical imbalance. She was having emotionally driven responses to trauma and invalidating experiences. And she explained to me how that all worked. And it was like, man, that's a pretty eye-opening experience. Yeah, I mean, so anyways, my point to that was, you know, I'm not like a mental health expert by any stretch of imagination, but I used to do a podcast called mental health warriors. I've run a community for men dealing with mental health issues. I'm not doing that now, but I've

I've actually been thinking about doing it again. Interestingly, in that community, there was a couple hundred guys in their at one point, and I would always talk to the guys that came in. And every single one had trauma when they were basically a kid. Something terrible happened to them when they were a kid. Now they're in their 40s, 30s, 40s, 50s. So many of them don't see the thread that runs through their whole life. Because it happened all that time ago.

What does that have to do with me being in my 50s and being an alcoholic or being like depressed or being like full of age, you know? just fascinating. Yeah, I mean, if you stop and think about it, we as we grow up, will have something happen to us and then we'll completely push it down in the surface where it's not seen. And then five, 10, 15, 20 years later, whatever that time frame may be, all of a sudden it just resurfaces. It can be from a smell. It can be from a song or anything that opens that trauma up and then you're back into it again. Absolutely. Absolutely right. You know what? For me, like, so I had a, during my wife's, you know, I mean, trying to, like, that whole

situation was just a frigging nightmare, trying to raise two kids and all this stuff and keep her alive. And so during that time, I developed a huge drinking problem, not even intentionally, but for me, being a typical guy, all I wanted people to see, like, what was important for me to project to the world was that I had my shit together. No one can have their shit together in a situation like that. It was a complete disaster every day. I'm not going to talk about all the terrible things that are going on in my head and heart,

so I drank to make them go away without even thinking about it. It wasn't like that was not an intentional strategy. And then afterwards, after my wife died, I drank every day a lot, every day for four and a half years. And I got remarried and everything and, you know, and finally had like my, you know, quote, rock bottom moment or whatever. And about six months later, I started to grieve my wife's death. So it was like five years after she died now. process, I didn't even know what was happening to me. I thought it was going crazy, actually. And my wife said,

you're grieving, you freaking idiot. Like, oh, God, maybe I am. But what I realized afterwards is, it never occurred to me, like not even a single time that I was drinking to numb the pain for my wife's death. Because I thought I had put it behind me, whatever that even means. Like, never crossed my mind. And I was like, afterwards, I was like, oh, my God. Like, I'm not a total idiot. You know, like, God, there must be so many other people that are in this same situation. So how did you get away from that? What did you use for motivation to change your path? Did you have an idea or a plan to get away from that so that you could actually finish your grieving

and then get into living your life? So what was interesting was for whatever reason, and I am super grateful about this because I don't really understand the reason. But as I was drinking and like I was absolutely hating myself for what I was doing because you're so caught up in this like web of like you're rationalizing it to yourself to try to make it make sense. But you know you're bullshitting yourself at the same time and you're like it's just this jumble of terrible thoughts. And so all the while pretending I got it all in control. And as I was getting close to the day and then I quit, like I knew I was lying to myself becoming more and more obvious. But the problem was I couldn't stop.

And I realized, so what happened was, so my new wife was starting to give me, like, I would say a hard time better. Like, you know, she's like, I'm not going to divorce you right now. Like, and I'm not close to that. But I need you to know that this is not going to be my life. I remember thinking at the time, I don't know who I'm going to choose because I can't stop. So like, if she decides she's going to leave me, like, I can't stop drinking. I've tried a million times. And which was also a horrible feeling.

And then what ended up happening, so the last kind of thing I was clinging on to was that I'm a great dad, you know, because a super. involved with my kids and like, you know, always like very present. I was never in like a, you know, barfing my guts out drunk all around them. But, you know, anyways, last sort of branch of rationalization that I was clinging on to with the death grip is I'm a great dad. So on the day I quit my, I was supposed to take my daughter to, we're going to do a daddy daughter date. My wife took my other daughter out of town. Didn't do any of the things I promised her. And she said afterwards, you know, I'm sitting there drunk on the couch and she said afterwards, I'm disappointed in you. It doesn't happen to great parents, right? Like, like, you're nine-year-old.

old doesn't tell your drunk ass that they're disappointed in you if you're a great parent. Like that's not how it works. And so for whatever reason, that just shattered the, I just had this like moment of clarity for some reason. And I've never wanted to have a drink since. So thank God. Now, the grief play, you know, manifested in other ways and stuff. But like, we don't need to go down that little rabbit hole. But yeah, so that creating that space just, man, it allowed, again, it allowed me to grieve. It allowed me to start exploring like personally, like listening to some podcasts, exploring personal development. I don't know, just went down this.

And really, that whole experience just altered the trajectory of my life, you know, in a pretty significant way. And the bigger question is, how did it affect your kids? You were going back and forth with what you was processing while your kids had to go through that same grief and moving on. So how did that dynamic work? Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, for me, I think this is something I talk about a lot.

When my wife killed herself, my kids were, six and five, six and just turned five. And I actually thought if she had to die, it's better that it happened when they were young. You know, it's the least worst option is that it happened when they're young because, dude, I had no idea about the devastating impact of childhood trauma at that age. Like, I just, I thought I could love them to heal it, honestly, was what I thought. It turns out of force, I found out, I know now, it was basically the worst time, like it could happen because that's the age where you're forming all your ideas of like safe attachment and like all this kind of stuff right and so um you know so i did not appreciate the impact that it had on them

and i don't think they did either and then with my daughter that's what played up in her life man is just like this again emotionally different responses to trauma you know of her feeling like you know i'm not good enough or worthy because i was not worthy like it was not good enough for my mom to stick around and keep fighting for and now my other daughter who's still with us i mean i've had to tell her their mother is dead and their sister is dead. She is doing the work for sure, but she's just about to turn 20. Like, she can't even like wrap her head around. For her, the trauma plays out in her life in a lot of ways, but she's not ready to address it yet. So she's doing grades, going to school, but she's always in like fight or flight. She's got like, she's got some like anxiety

and it's obviously related to the horrible trauma. She's experienced twice. And we talk about that regularly, but right now she's, I'm not opening that can't a word right now. I can't do it. You know, I mean, it's her journey, man. You know, like, she knows we're here. Now, how old were your daughters again? They were six and five. Six and five. Okay.

So my daughter who passed away was the older one, so she was six, and my younger daughter just turned five. Okay, so now your daughter, the one that unfortunately passed away, how old was she when that happened? She's 19. She's 19, actually. She's going to turn 20 next month. Wow.

So that was another tragedy that you had. had to go through, then add to it that your daughter had to go through it as well. So how did the both of you get through that? Yeah, I mean, just with communication and love and compassion, and I mean, like, the thing is such a vastly different experience for both of us, right? Like, she doesn't even remember her biological mom. The trauma still lives within her, like, they'll loss, but she doesn't actually have any real memories of her mom, which is, like, traumatic in and of itself. And then with her sister, I think for both of us, like, losing my wife was brutal, but it does not even compare, honestly, losing my daughter. You know, my wife's mental health

issues were so bad that for so long that I had sort of, like, I don't know, like, I had mentally prepared myself as much as one can that it might end this way in suicide. Like, it was so bad. I mean, it's still when the cops, she was a police officer too. And when the cops showed up, though, You know, it's a freaking huge shock, obviously. But in a way, it was almost like a relief in some ways because, number one, her pain was over. Her pain was so inconsolable. Like, it was just mental anguish.

But also, it was kind of like a relief for me. It would seem like a relief in time because I'm like, oh, my God, this is what I thought at the time. I could have a normal life again. Like, this is, I'd learn a lot since then. And then, you know, from Madonna, I think the pain is way worse. It's just so visceral because she's like of me. I let my daughter. I mean, so I try to be very in an age-appropriate way without placing undue burden on my

daughter. You know, I'm very open and communicative with intention, I would say, about like, my grieving experience and putting words to it and stuff. And, you know, and I invite her to talk about it. We have a wonderful relationship, but it's very hard for her too. She's afraid that if she opens the vault, everything's going to just blow up. You know, like, and that's a real fear of a lot of people who have dealt trauma or grieving is like, if I give in to this like, wave of really intense emotions. I'm falling into a pit and I'm never getting out. But sometimes, you just have to let it all out. Yeah. Sometimes you have to let it all out just so that you can get that opportunity to start over. Yeah. And it always, the thing is, it always passes, right? Like, so

you don't fall into a pit and never come out, but it feels like you are going to. And when you're barely hanging on, like for me, like, and just to phrase an example, like me, I'm the breadwinner and the family, you know, and so I can't fall apart, man. Like, you know, I got to keep moving forward somehow, even when I don't care about any of it, and I can barely function. Everybody's experience is super unique, but my point is that, you know, you have to face it, or else you'll never ever move through it. Well, everyone grieves differently, and there is no right or wrong way. It's just how you deal with it, and then of course how you deal with it as a family so that you can move forward in life.

Yeah, that's right. So now, I think you said, she's going to college. Is that correct? Yeah, but she's in her first year of college. So with the pressure that comes with the first year of college, then you add the pressure that she's going through because of the loss of her sister.

How is she handling that? I think she's doing all right. Yeah, I mean, she took a year off of college because there's no way she could have gone back like last year, like no way. But yeah, she's doing okay. Like pretty normal college experience, I think. So now that you've gone through some of the healing that you've processed,

what are your plans now moving forward? Do you have any particular ones etched in stone? So what's going through your mind in deciphering what you need to do so that you can move forward in life? Oh, I haven't come to grips with it. I mean, I don't know how one can. I don't know if I would frame it like that. I mean, I think it's that I'm moving through the experience with as much intention and purpose as I can.

But having said that, like my, in this really bizarre way, the experience of this my wife and the aftermath of that, like I was saying, set my life on a very different path, which actually led to me developing a whole hell of a lot of tools, you know, skills, like a network of people around me, a vocabulary to talk about and navigate this. a way different way than I did with my wife for sure. So it's not that, that sometimes I think it's like, on the really difficult days, I think the best, a lot of times the best you can do is just not do things to make it worse. And there's an infinite number of things you can do to make it worse. And they can all seem incredibly tempting, right? In that moment. So, but for me, plans wise, I mean, yeah, again, I'm writing a book about grief for men. A couple of years ago, I started, I never been on TikTok before, but I started a TikTok, because I've been in front of a camera, a fair amount. No, but I'm just going to make some videos about grief and stuff. And it's crazy what's

happen. I mean, they've got like 40 million views. I'd had five people actually reach out to me saying I was about to kill myself and I decided to keep fighting because of something I saw or something I resonated with them in one of the videos I made. So writing a book about grief for men. I'm publishing on substack as I write. Just I want to get it in many people's hands. And so that seems to be being called man down. I want to continue to find ways to make an impact in a space. But at the same time I want to be cautious about not being surrounded by other people's grief all day alone. Yeah, one of the good things that you are doing right now is that you are talking about it. Sometimes just having that ability to talk about it can relieve some of that stress so that you can

cope some. Oh, yeah. And then you add to it that you're writing a book to help people. So that's at least getting some of that emotions out for you. There's no instant gratification on writing a book or doing a blog, but the one thing that you can know is that you are helping people in many different ways. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. You know, that's a good thing you're doing.

So you've got to keep, as they say, one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And yeah, and some days, a thing, too, is like, I was talking to somebody about this the other day, and they were saying that people have this idea of what moving forward means, you know, and so I was talking to some day he's like, who lost so many really close. And he's like, yeah, some days I take, it feels like I take two steps forward. Another days I take three steps back. And I'm like, what if you stop looking at like that? That's not actually taking a step forward, taking a step back. It's just grief, man. Some days are great and some days totally suck. Like, that's, you know, that doesn't mean you're doing something wrong or that you're regressing. It's the, it's the, process, man. Yeah, so many people do not get the process. They just think that if they don't have a good day every day, they think that they're falling backwards and they're not. It's just getting through that emotional crisis at that point in time so that way they can move forward some. Just have to take it day by day, step by step, so that each day hopefully gets better.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The main thing is to try and be as positive as we can, because when it comes to mental health, we can talk ourselves into having a very bad day. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. When that happens, you just have to find a way to talk yourself out of that bad day so that you can turn it around so that at least you're having a better day by digging yourself out of what could have been a whole lot worse. That's right. And yeah, I think you just said that really, really well.

I just wrote a chapter in a book just the other day about this about, like, folks, you know, what you can control. And one of the things you can control is the words that you use to describe your experience. So like the amount of people men who have said to me are commenting on my TikTok to say things like, you know, I lost my kid. I'm permanently broken. Okay. Well, you're speaking that truth into existence, right?

So or like the other things people say like a lot. Well, intention, obviously. But I mean like, oh, you know, no parent should have to lose a child or that's so unfair. Parents lose kids all the time. Unfortunately, that's so true. It's a part of the human condition. And it's not about fairness. It's about the fact that to live like some semblance of a meaningful and peaceful life,

you have to be able to accept that anything can happen to anyone at any time. That's right. But if you start walking around labeling that happens to you like that is unfair, you're not strengthening yourself, you know, fortifying yourself at all. Yeah, that's so true. Unfortunately, life is sometimes just not fair. fair to us. Yeah. So what we have to do is find a way to justify things so that we can keep moving forward and taking steps to a better path to feeling better about yourself and the situation

that you find yourself in. Absolutely. I'll understand. Yeah, and yeah, I totally agree. So I think we're, like, there's, we're immensely powerful. Like in, in, so the other thing, too, is, you know, one of the things I'm doing right now is somatic experiencing therapy, which is so incredibly helpful and interesting. But it's really about the idea that. So, for example, I'm almost too, this is more, like I'm not saying this as an arrogant way. It's actually quite the opposite. It's actually a hindrance. But sometimes I feel like I'm too knowledgeable about this for my own good. So when I go to see a therapist or something, like they're not telling me anything I don't already know. Right. So I got to the point where I was, you know, I stopped seeing a therapist.

And my wife was like, you know, I really think you should see a therapist. I'm like, I don't talk about this anymore, though. Like to a therapist, I understand what's happening, but I know I need to continue healing. Like, I know that for sure. Anyways, I went down this rabbit hole and cable across podcast on something called somatic experiencing, which is learning how to, developing your capacity to fully experience being human. So the idea is that when you have a, like I say, you get triggered to some kind of trauma response, it starts in your body, right? And so somatic experiencing is really about literally being present. They teach you, like they teach you going through this therapy, guide you to how to be fully

present and really understand the sensations and what's happening in your body and to be able to describe them, put words to them. It is wild how quickly a massive anxiety attack, for example, can just go away. It's freaking nuts. And then after that, the insights you have are just incredible. I think for me, like, I've been really committed to just turning over every stone on the path to healing. So I've experimented with psychedelics, like all kinds of different things, you know, because it's a really curious person. And I don't do anything in moderation.

I go overboard on everything. So I had to actually, like, after Chloe died, it was like two months later, I'm like, I'm going to write a book on grief and blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, and then I started to write it and I realized I'm a wreck and I don't know, Jack, about grief. And I need to experience this a lot more, like, to be in a position to be able to actually like writing about it. So, yeah, it's a, it's a situation of, where sometimes you think you know everything, but you don't. Exactly. And then sometimes you don't think you know, but you do.

Yeah. It's just living. It's just embracing what you can, kicking out the trash that you don't need around you, and hopefully building a situation to where it's tolerable, and you can keep moving forward. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So in closing, what would you like to tell? people that might be going through some similar situations or have been it but still haven't coped yet, what would you tell them just so that they can kind of understand that it's not

the end of the world? They can still survive and thrive and have a good life. Yeah, I mean, I think what I would tell them is a few things. Like, it's brief as an intensely personal experience. There's no playbook or program for it. That the only way to heal is to face what seems. unfaceable to just sit with the fissory, you know, and knowing that it won't kill you, but it's the only way to heal. And I think, too, like, I'm really passionate about this idea of, like, understanding what's near control and using words to the incredible power of the words we use. The words, language, is metaphor we use. They don't describe our reality. They define it. So, be really intentional about the things that you say. Like, again, I'm permanently broken. I'm this,

on that, you know, like, those are some of the things I think of really important to get across the people. Yeah, I agree, because you can talk yourself into being as depressed or as happy as you want to be. You've just got to get that correct mindset. It's like the guy that goes out every day and if he's constantly complaining, he's constantly talking, he's actually just talking himself into worse things. Whereas if he looks at things, realizes that stuff happens in this world, you just deal with it, then the next day hopefully is a little bit better, and you just keep moving upward and just keep building to what you hopefully can be down the road. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's also important. Like I always tell people that one of the things

that's in our control is how we choose to look at things. So I can, I'm very typically quite good at positively reframing things. Like I could say, okay, you know what? I could feel ripped off for the rest of my life that I didn't get to spend 70 years on this earth with Chloe. Or I could be grateful that I had 19 years with her because it's better than zero. I can do that a lot of the time. But when I'm crushed by a wave of grief, I can't do that in that moment. It's too painful. I miss her too badly. The thing is, I know that when it passes, I will be able to do it again, like to reframe it and feel grateful again. So, you know, even the knowledge that it's possible for me to own how I think about it gets me through the moments when I can't. You know, it's almost like an anchor

or some sort or a life, like a life buoy to hold on to, you know? Absolutely. Great thoughts. Well, this has been great, great conversation, great information. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on today. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Enjoyed being here. I see you, and thanks for much.

The pleasure's all mine. Thanks again. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to tonymentor.com, contact, then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show. One more thing we ask, tell everyone, everywhere, about why not me, the world, the conversations we're having, and the inspiration our guests give to everyone, everywhere, that you are not alone in this world.