The moment she met Brett Miller, Clarie Miller knew he would change her life.
Then Clarie Brown, she returned to Albuquerque — where she grew up — from Maine in 1998, planning to visit family and get a glimpse of the mountains. While in town, Clarie was set up on a blind date with someone else — but she ended up meeting Brett Miller.
“As soon as we shook hands, I just knew that my whole life was different,” she recalled.
But Brett Miller struggled with mental health. Married about two years after meeting, the couple grieved loss after loss, with several relatives, parents and siblings dying in quick succession. After threatening to kill himself on more than one occasion, Brett Miller died by suicide in 2008.
He changed Clarie Miller’s life — and his death changed her life, too. Now the lead suicide prevention coordinator for the state Department of Health, Clarie Miller works alongside community organizations across New Mexico to curb suicides. New Mexico has one of the highest suicide rates in the United States.
She believes in her work and believes certain interventions can prevent suicide.
“I would not be doing what I’m doing if I didn’t believe, with my whole soul, that suicide is preventable. There’s also days that’s painful to say,” Miller said.
Suicide in New Mexico
Since 1995, suicide rates in New Mexico have consistently hovered around one-and-a-half times the nationwide rate, according to data from the state Department of Health. New Mexico had the fifth-highest suicide rate of any state in 2023, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s rankings.
The state Department of Health’s data shows suicide rates are far higher for men, who often face social stigma in reaching out for help. The suicide rate among men was more than four times that of women in 2021, the latest data available through the New Mexico Department of Health’s Indicator Based Information System dashboard.
Contrary to popular belief, suicides don’t spike during the holiday season; that’s a myth largely perpetuated by media coverage, according to research conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
But the holidays can bring unique stressors, said Maggie Boyle, associate director at Gerard’s House, which provides no-cost grief support to Northern New Mexico children and families.
“Isolation and feeling like a burden and misunderstanding just can really … quietly intensify during the holidays,” Boyle said.
She added, “The core message that I have, that we have at Gerard’s House, is that it’s OK to tell people what you need when you’re grieving — whatever that is.”
But the holidays can also bring an opportunity for families to keep an eye on their loved ones, said Marisol Peña, executive director of The Sky Center. The organization is the primary hub for the New Mexico Suicide Intervention Project, which provides suicide prevention and response services for youth and families.
Peña called it the Sky Center’s version of CPR: a four-step process to acknowledge — and potentially prevent — suicide. It starts with paying attention to signs of suicide:
- Isolation and withdrawal.
- Mood swings.
- Acting anxious and reckless or talking about wanting to die.
- Having no purpose or feeling trapped.
Then, Peña said, show you care, before asking the tough question: Are you thinking about suicide?
“One thing we always say is, don’t stray away from the word suicide. … It pierces this kind of veil around that darkness, isolation they’re feeling,” Peña said.
After that, find extra support, like going to the emergency room or contacting the Sky Center.
Peña said it’s essential to keep those four steps “in your back pocket.”
“We need to have this … in our minds and in our hearts in some way,” she said.
A ‘tough guy’ from Texas
Brett Miller grew up in Dumas, a town of less than 15,000 people in the Texas Panhandle.
He started playing football at 5 years old and stuck with the game through college. After being invited to try out for a professional team, he visited family — who by then had moved to Albuquerque — to share the good news.
But his prospects changed when he and his brother saw a fight at an Albuquerque fast food restaurant, Clarie Miller recounted.
“He and his brother jumped in to help, broke his hand, and never played ball,” she said. “But lucky for me, [he] stayed in Albuquerque.”
Shortly after they started dating, Brett Miller expressed his struggles with mental health to Clarie. He told her that something was “wrong” in his head.
He talked about suicide throughout the decade they were together. In one instance, Clarie Miller rushed home to narrowly avert a suicide attempt.
“This is a tough guy football player. It was hard for him to adjust to talking about his feelings,” she said.
When Brett Miller committed suicide in 2008, the children he shared with Clarie were 5 and 7 years old. Two more — from a previous relationship, though Clarie said she counts them among her children — were 14 and 16.
In the wake of Brett Miller’s standing-room-only funeral in Dumas, Clarie Miller floundered. Since her mother died just a few months before her husband, it felt like her support system disappeared. She changed jobs; the family moved. She attended walks put on by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, but she didn’t talk to anyone there.
“After Brett died, I did feel like I’d failed,” Clarie Miller said.
And she didn’t immediately tell her two younger children their father had committed suicide. There was no good time to tell them, no good answers to the situation. They didn’t learn the cause of their father’s death until more than 15 years after the fact.
“That’s not what I would have done now, knowing what I know. The best form of communication with suicide is honest, direct and open conversations,” Clarie Miller said.
‘The most amazing man I’ve ever met’
Clarie Miller’s path turned toward suicide prevention in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
After her husband’s death, Miller researched concussions and brain health, mental health and suicide prevention — and she knew it would be years before health officials understood the full extent of the mental and emotional fallout of the pandemic.
So Clarie Miller started supporting the New Mexico Department of Health’s suicide prevention program through an external organization. When someone couldn’t make it to a suicide prevention presentation, Clarie Miller stepped in to fill the gap — and realized that was what she was meant to do.
She was hired onto the state Health Department’s suicide prevention team in 2022. It’s an honor to do that job, she said.
“I’m so honored to be able to support New Mexicans and to be able to save lives and make sure that other families don’t have to go through what we’ve been through,” Clarie Miller said.
And she still cherishes the time she spent with Brett Miller.
“He was the most amazing man I’ve ever met, and I’m so lucky that we have four children together and we now have two grandkids,” Clarie Miller said.