If you or someone you love is struggling with suicidal thoughts or complicated grief, please know that support is available. You can call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org for free, 24/7 help.

When Loz Antonenko lost her husband Brian to suicide, she fell to the kitchen floor—bacon in one hand, the phone in the other—and everything she knew about herself, her future, and the world cracked open. What followed wasn’t a clean story of healing. It was messy, chaotic, and profoundly real.

In this episode of She Diaries, Loz shares how her identity was completely dismantled by loss—and how, piece by piece, she rebuilt from the ground up.

💔 Grief That Stripped Her Bare

Loz was with Brian for 11 years. Their relationship was close—codependent at times—and marked by Loz’s declining health and Brian’s silent suffering. She battled autoimmune disease, chronic fatigue, and eventually, two brain tumors. He battled the weight of cultural stigma, identity loss, and depression so well-hidden even his closest friends didn’t see it coming.

On the morning Brian died, Loz was preparing food for a birthday barbecue. A phone call from his parents changed everything. He had jumped from a cliff, right in front of his father and sister.

“I saw him in a body bag. And I thought—he can’t have died for nothing.”

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🌀 Losing Everything, and Then Herself

After his death, Loz found herself completely untethered. She had no roadmap for grief, no experience with loss, and no emotional reserve left to give anyone else. Friends drifted away. Family fractured. Even her own identity—once centered around illness and being cared for—no longer fit.

So she did the only thing she could.

She went to the gym.

And then she went again.

And again.

What started as a lifeline turned into a foundation. One man offered to teach her how to lift weights, and a new kind of support system began to take shape – strangers lifting beside her, showing up without needing her to be okay.

“You can’t pour from an empty cup. And back then, I was empty. I could only take. And that wasn’t selfish—it was survival.”

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⚡ From Survival to Structure: The Handbrake Habits

Loz didn’t find peace overnight. Instead, she found consistency. Movement, hydration, rest, food, and breath—five small things that became her anchors. What she calls “handbrake habits.”

They weren’t glamorous. They weren’t part of some high-ticket wellness trend. But they worked.

Eventually, she took the lessons she’d learned—through grief, trial, obsession, and breaking down again—and put them into a guide: Get the F*ck Unstuck, her no-BS book about turning daily habits into a new life.

“Everything he lived for, I now live for. That’s how I keep going.”

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🌱 Her Mission Now

Today, Loz is a coach, speaker, and author helping people get unstuck without ice baths or magic elixirs. She doesn’t pretend the road is easy. But she proves that even after the unthinkable, healing is possible—and not just possible, but powerful.

She’s still standing. Still unfiltered. And fully committed to helping others find a way forward too.

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🎧 Listen to the Full Episode

Loz’s honesty, energy, and unfiltered reflections will stay with you long after the episode ends. Her story is a reminder that rebuilding isn’t linear—but it is possible.

Listen to this She Diaries episode by hitting play above or find She Diaries on your favorite podcast app: