Notes on Resilience
Conversations about trauma, resilience, and compassion.
How do we genuinely support individuals who have experienced trauma and build inclusive and safe environments? Trauma significantly affects the mental and physical health of those who experience it, and personal resiliency is only part of the solution. The rest lies in addressing organizational, systemic, and social determinants of health and wellness, and making the effort to genuinely understand the impact of trauma.
Here, we ask and answer the tough questions about how wellness is framed in an organizational context, what supports are available and why, what the barriers are to supporting trauma survivors, and what best practices contribute to mental wellness. These conversations provide a framework to identify areas for change and actionable steps to reshape organizations to be truly trauma sensitive.
Notes on Resilience
88: Understanding Suicide: Creating Community Driven Solutions, with Kate Hardy
"Stigma is just another word for discrimination...We are making it hard to talk about."
Imagine being able to change the way we talk about and approach mental health crises.
In the first episode of our four-part series for Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, I speak with Kate Hardy, the founder and executive director of Six Feet Over, to examine the societal impact of suicide and the power of empathetic language in prevention and postvention.
We discuss the complex interplay between social determinants of health and suicide prevention, and how systemic inequities, exacerbated by events like the pandemic, amplify mental health struggles among vulnerable populations. We also explore how to normalize the conversation and the necessity for direct and respectful communication Our conversation centers on the urgent need for community-driven support, equitable funding, and policy changes to ensure comprehensive care.
The conversation then turns to the importance of building a life worth living and the critical role of support networks. This episode is not just about understanding suicide prevention—it's about fostering resilience, compassion, and trauma-sensitive leadership.
Resources
Call 988, a 24/7, free, and confidential support for people in distress.
Kate Hardy is the founder and Executive Director of Six Feet Over, a Michigan based suicide prevention and postvention nonprofit. Kate is the survivor of nine losses by suicide, beginning with the loss of her mother in 2003. She has been recognized as the 2017 American Association of Suicidology Loss Survivor of the Year, a former member of the 988 (formerly NSPL) Individual and Family Lived Experience Committee, the Lifeline Chat Work-group, an advisor on the Michigan Suicide Prevention Plan Workgroup, and a member of the International Messaging Advisory Group. She is currently an advisory committee member of Texas Suicide Prevention Collaborative and the Kansas Suicide Prevention Coalition, a board member of With One Voice, as well as several advisory workgroups, boards, committies and a national speaker. She lives just outside of Detroit with her husband of 20 years and their teenage son.
Learn more about Six Feet Over on their website, or email info@sixftover.org. On Facebook, check out Six Feet Over or Suck It Suicide. Or on Twitter or Instagram.
Go to https://betterhelp.com/resilience or click Notes on Resilience during sign up for 10% off your first month of therapy with my sponsor BetterHelp.
Producer / Editor: Neel Panji
Invite Manya to inspire and empower your teams + position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in fostering resilience and trauma sensitivity.
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Understanding that the language that you use is important. Also, when you're talking to somebody who is in a crisis now, a crisis can be anything from getting a B on a test to your house burning down. Everybody is different. But when we're talking about suicidal crises, somebody feeling like they should die, or they want to die or they're planning to die those people in general, they have a lived experience right that is useful and needed and we want them here and they need to be treated with dignity and respect.
Manya Chylinski:Hello and welcome to Notes on Resilience. I'm your host, Manya Chylinski, and this is the first episode for the month of September on the topic of suicide, and my guest today is Kate Hardy. She's the founder and executive director of Six Feet Over, a Michigan-based suicide prevention and postvention nonprofit. She and I talked about the cost of suicide to us as a society, the importance of social connections and why the words that we use matter when we're talking about suicide.
Manya Chylinski:I think you're going to find this episode very useful. Hi, kate, I'm so glad that you and I are talking today. Thank you for being here.
Kate Hardy:I'm happy to be here. This is exciting today.
Manya Chylinski:Thank you for being here. I'm happy to be here. This is exciting. So, before we get to the topic at hand, the question I'm asking everyone this year is if you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be and why?
Kate Hardy:So I wish that I could come up with something like super profound, but that's just not how my brain works when it comes to fun questions like that. So the first thing that came to my mind was Jimmy Hoffa, and it's because I'm just really nosy and I'm a curious person. I just want to know what happened and where he is. That's it. That's all I want to know, and then we can enjoy our spaghetti or whatever, but like it's just being nosy, where are you? What happened?
Manya Chylinski:or whatever, but like it's just being nosy. Where are you? What happened? Yes, oh, that would be, I think, a fabulous dinner. I wish I could make that happen. That's a good one, that's. That's different than the kind of people other people have chosen, and they probably have like a lot of insight. Well, to be fair to you, every time I ask somebody else's question I think, oh no, how would I answer this question if somebody asked me? So I'm putting something on you that maybe I'm not even willing to answer myself.
Kate Hardy:I have asked every single person I've come across today.
Manya Chylinski:Well, good, I think it is an interesting question because you can really get into the mind of somebody kind of through the back door. All right, so you and I are here today to talk about the topic of suicide because this is airing during September, which is Suicide Prevention Month, and I'd love to get started with just overall question, which is, what is suicide costing us individually and as a society?
Kate Hardy:So suicide is costing us a lot. First and foremost, it's costing us the connection with people that we love and care about and missing out on what they bring to the world, because every person and then every individual individual, doesn't matter how big or small, they make an impact on the people around them, from a smile in the supermarket to being somebody's closest ally. So you're taking when somebody dies. In general, we are losing a part of the crafted, beautiful work that is humanity. I think with it makes it even more tragic, because those are people that really needed us and we know that their insight and their lived experience is also really important for us to have compassion and understanding.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, thank you for that. Well, suicide can be a very difficult topic for people to discuss, very scary if you're someone who's not immersed in the world of mental health or suicide prevention, and so that means we don't often talk about it and it still feels like there's a stigma about the whole topic. And how do we overcome those kind of barriers and be more open about it and normalize the conversation?
Kate Hardy:This is something that I say often is that anytime that there is a yucky taboo subject, it's not because it's a yucky taboo subject, it's because people have made it that way. If we are uncomfortable with something, we tend to put it off or not want to talk about it, and a lot of that has to do with what we've been taught and what skills that we have to be able to tackle it. Great example breast cancer. One point in time, yuck, yuck, no, no, we don't talk about breast cancer. We don't talk about colon cancer. We don't talk about testicular cancer. But now we have football players wearing pink and talking about breast cancer is super easy, as uncomfortable as it still is when somebody is diagnosed.
Kate Hardy:We at least have this idea that we have the tools and the ability to support somebody and talk about it with them, and I think that is entirely possible for mental health and specifically suicide related topics, and all that is is just getting people to have those tools and the confidence that they can talk about this with the people around them. One of my favorite things that anybody's ever said to me is that stigma is just another word for discrimination. So if there's stigma around a topic, we are discriminating against that one topic we are making it hard to talk about. So it's the people themselves, the people in my position who work in suicide prevention, postvention and mental health. It's our job to make it easier for people who don't do this work every day to be able to have these conversations. Make it easy and casual. It doesn't need to be hard.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, I think, if you're someone who's a friend, a loved one of someone who's having suicidal thoughts and feelings, and you know that, I think there's a lot of fear that if you talk about it or you bring up the subject, that you're going to put that thought into somebody's mind or you're going to prompt them into action.
Kate Hardy:That is a wholehearted myth. So if somebody is thinking about suicide, they're thinking about suicide. It's not as such a small, nuanced niche idea that people won't think of it on their own, and it's been around so long. It's not like it's not. That's just not how it works. So if somebody is thinking about suicide, they're thinking about suicide. If they and there's and there's a whole spectrum to suicidality, so it could be that they're just okay with the thought of dying all the way to they're making a plan to die and kill themselves. So there's a whole spectrum and people can be anywhere along that line.
Kate Hardy:But if somebody is thinking about it in general, you're not giving them that idea. But it's always great to ask, because one thing that has been shown to help with people who are actively in some part of that spectrum, thinking about dying or killing themselves, is asking them are you thinking about killing yourself Very directly, not harming yourself? Are you thinking about killing yourself? That opens the door for them to then express that and get that out and they generally feel better and less suicidal after. So you're not putting it in their head. What you're doing is you're giving them the opportunity to feel some relief.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, Now I know there are resources that say these are the signs you should look for, these are what you're listening for. But how would I know that it's appropriate to say to somebody are you thinking about killing yourself?
Kate Hardy:So, as much as I would be like I would love to say this is when, and this is why it honestly, a lot of the time, it's just your gut If you know somebody really well.
Manya Chylinski:honestly, a lot of the time. It's just your gut.
Kate Hardy:If you know somebody really well and they're just off to you and there's a smattering of those warning signs in there where it's like they're talking about dying more, their behavior has changed to where they're acting more reckless, they're giving away their belongings, some things just seem off to you and you just don't. It doesn't feel right. You can always ask. If they say, no, great, I am happy to hear that. But if that ever changes, please let me know, cause I will. I will sit and listen. And if they say yes, you need to be prepared to support them and say you know, I'm really sorry that that's the way that you feel right now. What is it that is making you feel like that? And then you listen, don't solve, listen.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, that is true, for so many things is just need to actually listen, not try to solve the problem. Oftentimes, the person you were talking to knows how to solve the problem. They just need someone to listen.
Kate Hardy:Yeah, or they just need a little bit of relief, or sometimes you know, giving options to people once they've told you how they feel and what's making them feel that way, asking them, getting consent. Would it be okay if I helped you through this? Would you like for me to give you some ideas on what we can do to get you additional supports or bring additional people into this? And it's like incremental steps on building a rapport. While they're going through something so deep in a suicidal crisis Like you want to support them, but they need agency to be able to do it, and that's a skill and that's a tool that people should learn and I really want people to have.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, for a large number of reasons, and so what you're talking about is that social connection, and we know that in all sorts of ways, social connections can be protective for us when we're going through something difficult. So how can we be thinking about building strong support systems and helping someone find a sense of belonging, especially if they're feeling isolated or alone?
Kate Hardy:So there are so many really cool options out there for people. I know some people who are socially awkward or agoraphobic or high anxiety. Hi, I'm one of them. I have some social things, a lot of people that I don't do, but there's everything from gaming discord specific to like mental health and suicide support, where people just play games and talk about this stuff and they create their own little community and support between themselves.
Kate Hardy:There's faith is a really great protective factor. I'm a person without faith, but I deeply respect it for other people. Connecting with people on your belief system and your faith system that's an incredible way to go. Social media, as terrible as it is. There's a lot of options out there when it comes to that as well. But just opening up people around you and I think being a supporter of other humans and being aware of what other people might be going through and just reaching out on your own and not expecting people who might be struggling to do that themselves is a huge help too. Yes, you text first, you call first, you go to their house first, you do those things first If you're worried about them. Yes, and yeah, something you would want somebody to do for you, you can try to do it for somebody else in whatever capacity you're able to.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, yeah, I remember I was in a crisis. I was dealing with something difficult not suicidality, but I was really struggling. And a friend said I will wait for you to tell me when you need me. So text me when you need me. And I thought, great, I'm never going to talk to you now because I can't think what I need. I don't know what's happening to me right now and I don't know what I need. I'm, I don't know what's happening to me right now and I don't know what I need. And I felt like they were trying. They made an effort, but I needed them to be the one to keep reaching out.
Kate Hardy:Yeah, it's very similar to like decision fatigue, where somebody says what do you want to eat? And you go, I don't care. But then they say something you're like well, not that, it's not that you you're trying to be difficult, it's just you don't know until the options are laid out in front of you. Sometimes we need those options laid out.
Kate Hardy:One of my best friends was going through a really terrible thing recently and I know what her comfort foods are, but I live an hour away from her. So I offered to Uber eat a large McDonald's Coke and a large McDonald's Friday, or those are her comfort foods. I couldn't get to her, but I knew that me just offering to do that specific thing for her. Like, do you want me to do this for you? Will you even be able to eat right now? But like, can I do this for you? And she said not right now, but I'll let you know. And I said, cool, I already have it in the bag, so you just tell me when to send it and I'll send it. So it's doing those little things that really show people that they are on your radar and they are loved and important.
Manya Chylinski:So when we think about suicide prevention efforts, that needs to be inclusive, all kinds of people can feel suicidal. Can you discuss how the social determinants of health impact suicide risk and access to resources, and what do we need to be thinking about that?
Kate Hardy:Absolutely. We're seeing a lot of the impact of the social determinants of health. When it comes to Black youth specifically, their suicide rates have escalated quite drastically over the past three or four years and a large portion of that is due to their access to resources, their accesses to community support, and it's all tied together. So socioeconomic stressors, which ties into whether or not they have adequate healthcare. It ties into their transportation, as to whether or not they can get to healthcare. It ties into also, like a cultural sphere, as to every, every community, whether it be geographical, ethnic or otherwise. They all have their own culture, so, depending on how they view suicide or mental health also impacts that. So it all comes together. So some people, specifically like white uh, upper middle or wealthy folk, they tend to have more access to care and therefore, if they need something, they have it available to them.
Kate Hardy:We're seeing kids who, in 2020, did not have access to school counseling, school lunches, didn't have transportation to go anywhere. They didn't have food at home anywhere, they didn't have food at home. So crises that were not seen, or aren't generally seen, as suicide prevention, like food, housing, things in that nature, they impacted the suicidality Having the ability to go to a community center after school and get additional help or be with peers that impacted their suicidality. So I don't like saying it's a great example of it, but it is our current example of what happens when we don't have equity in this sphere and it's showing in numbers. What can we do about that?
Kate Hardy:So I hate to be this person, but you need to talk to your representatives, you need to talk to your government officials, you need to talk to your city and state and whatever it is because there is not enough money that goes towards suicide prevention or mental health anywhere in this country. As far as I'm concerned, it is seen as a fun little extra thing that we can pop in here once in a while, but generally it's community. Mental health centers need more funding. Crisis centers need more funding. There needs to be more emphasis on getting appropriate training and education to psychologists and anybody else who's working with people who have suicidal feelings. I know in Michigan it's not required for people, for psychologists, to get anything beyond a unit on suicide, but yet we're telling folks reach out for help, but when they're going for help, people are not trained to help them. It's like you go to a cardiologist and they're not trained on hearts.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, so that's important right, especially the funding you mentioned. In addition to reaching out to our representatives and thinking about that funding, are there any policy changes that you think would be particularly important or effective in preventing suicide or helping reduce those numbers?
Kate Hardy:So when it comes to policy and I think this definitely feeds into the social determinants of health is that all of the needs that a human has are all suicide prevention. If we make systems more equitable and easier to navigate, that alone and that is everything from housing and utility assistance or whatever it might be anything that anybody needs as a need we make those systems easier and more manageable for people. I think that would help a lot. It's bigger than just saying like there's one policy change. We just need to be better at supporting each other and understanding that every need that a human has is suicide prevention. Wish I could be like no, it's just one thing. Well, but it is a complex issue.
Manya Chylinski:It's so complex, so many different drivers, depending on who the person is. You've hit something that's so important to me, which is thinking about how the system impacts individuals, and what we're seeing is, my opinion, the system is, I'm going to say, sick. My opinion, the system is, I'm going to say, sick. It is designed the way it's designed for reasons and but it's it's not serving a very large percentage of us, and then the system's broken, but we individually express how that trouble, and so then it seems we turn to well, we individually have to fix it. I'm all about personal responsibility, but we're talking about a whole other layer here.
Kate Hardy:Yeah, and there are some policy changes that can definitely happen when it comes to the beginning and the end of a crisis.
Kate Hardy:So sending a mobile crisis unit out with a police officer to ensure safety, but a mobile unit who goes out with mental health specialists and sometimes a peer and can talk to somebody who's really going through it and get them what they need right, then that isn't a traumatizing experience.
Kate Hardy:If somebody is hospitalized, making sure that their care plan is actionable and equitable for them and everything is set up to where there aren't barriers and challenges for them so that way they actually can get care and the support that they need and deserve. There are a bunch of things that we can do and a lot of them are policy-based, but I think right now the general public thinks suicide. Call 988 or call 911, have them taken to the hospital. They spend three days in the hospital and they're cured. When that is like, from my perspective and knowing the research and whatnot behind it, that is the worst possible thing that you can do. The outcomes for involuntary hospitalization it increases suicide rates and suicide deaths afterwards. So there's been some policy change across the United States after seeing that research, but it's just more or less, we all need to get together and say that people deserve more than what they're getting right now.
Kate Hardy:They deserve better yes.
Manya Chylinski:Especially in their lowest. Yes, yes, absolutely. When people are at their lowest, when they're in that position, they have so much less ability to make decisions, to decide that things are going to be things will be okay to reach out to for help. I mean going to be things will be okay to reach out to for help. I mean we know that and when you're in a crisis and we're feeling emotional, it's harder to hear. When someone, it's harder to hear a message, even if we're listening for that message.
Kate Hardy:Yeah, absolutely, they have so much capacity and we want to make sure that we're fitting into what they have available, how many spoons they have, as we like to say in the field. Yes, yes, well, you know, we're fitting into what they have available, how many spoons they have, as we like to say in the field.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, yes, Well, you know we're getting into the idea of communication and the words that we use matter and I know over my lifetime I've seen the conversation about suicide change and how can we use language around suicide that's accurate and it's respectful and it doesn't sensationalize the subject.
Kate Hardy:I love this question so much I can't even tell you One of the specialties of our organization, Six Feet Over, is based around language. So the language that we use impacts not only the people who are struggling with their mental health or suicidality, but also those who have endured a loss by suicide. So, understanding that, yes, it's nuanced and I'm sure some people might have feelings about this, but this is all research-based. But we'll start with suicide loss. So suicide loss survivors not a super intuitive term, but that's what I am as a nine-time suicide loss survivor lost nine people. When somebody talks about my mom, who was my first suicide law, anytime somebody says committed, I'm like she didn't commit a crime, she didn't commit a sin. Uh, she killed herself or she died by suicide. It's accurate. It's not sensationalizing the action, it's not glorifying the action. It's just that's what happened, Right, she died by suicide or she killed herself. Accurate. So you want to, you want to be on that line of this is what happened and that's it.
Kate Hardy:So nobody's glorifying cancer, saying somebody died from cancer. So that's pretty much the line there. When it comes to like mental health, I personally try to say mental health concerns instead of mental illness, because some of it's just concerning. But that's just me. I think mental illness is still okay for the most part. It's more clinical. I say struggling sometimes, but struggling to me means that it's something that you can get through and pass and it's a right now thing. It may be prolonged, but it's not forever.
Kate Hardy:So understanding that the language that you use is important. Also, when you're talking to somebody who is in a crisis Now, a crisis can be anything from getting a B on a test to your house burning down. Everybody is different. On a test to your house burning down, everybody's different.
Kate Hardy:When we're talking about suicidal crises somebody feeling like they should die or they want to die or they're planning to die those people in general they have a lived experience right. That is useful and needed and we want them here and they need to be treated with dignity and respect. We don't call them crazy. They are definitely not dangerous. Most people who are feeling suicidal, they don't want to hurt anybody. They feel like they're hurting other people by staying so, being direct with them and asking them do you want to kill yourself, are you making plans on killing yourself? Do you being very direct like that? Because when you use words like you want to hurt yourself, that is too vague. There are people who self-harm in various ways and that's an unhealthy coping skill, but a coping skill nonetheless. So if somebody is a person who self-harms, when you say, are you thinking of harming yourself, and they say yes, you think they're talking about suicide.
Manya Chylinski:They're talking about something completely different.
Kate Hardy:So being very direct with all of your language is helpful, and it also is very clear and you know what conversation that you're having and they know what conversation they're having.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, it's very easy to be talking about two different things and neither of you knows it, especially when you're not being direct and when one or both of you are afraid to bring up a particular topic.
Kate Hardy:Yeah, people who have had a suicide attempt. We also say so. They're suicide attempt survivors or people with lived experience. We definitely don't use successful or unsuccessful, completed or incomplete. First of all, it's not something to knock off of a task list or to-do list and it's not a pass-fail test of any kind. So it's something that is sometimes used in academics, but it should not be used when you're talking to a person who's an actual human being.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, absolutely, Kate. We are getting towards the end of our time and for someone who's listening, who may be struggling with suicidal thoughts or who knows someone who is, what's a message of hope or an actionable step they can take going?
Kate Hardy:forward. Love the phrase create a life worth living. So creating a life worth living as a support person. What can we do, or what can I do for the person I'm concerned about to make their life worth living in? And then for the broader community, how can I make it better for them as somebody who, if somebody is struggling, try a crisis line. There's a bunch of them out there. 988 is just one of them.
Kate Hardy:If you are a person within a marginalized community, there are specialized peer-to-peer lines and specialized crisis lines that might work better for you and then also for the support people, the people who love, people who are going through a crisis of any kind. You deserve that support too, so find some counseling or therapy for yourself. Lean on additional friends and family, because you cannot be the only support person, so just take care of yourselves, look out for each other and create a world that's worth living in. I like that thought.
Manya Chylinski:Let's create a world that's worth living in. And, kate, before we go, can you tell our listeners what you do and how they can reach you and learn more about it?
Kate Hardy:Love that. So I am the executive director and founder of Six Feet Over, which is a Detroit-based nonprofit, and we work on suicide prevention and postvention through two different programs. Yeah, I am a suicidologist, but I specialize in all things suicide. If you would like to get a hold of myself or anybody within Six Feet Over, you can email info at sixfeetoverorg, which is S-I-X-T-O-V-E-Rorg. Check out our social media and our website and just get ahold of us. We're happy to hear from anybody who has questions, comments, concerns or wants to work with us.
Manya Chylinski:Excellent. I will put links in the show notes to make it easier for everyone to get a hold of you and Kate. Thank you so much. This has been such an eye-opening conversation and I appreciate you sharing about this really important topic.
Kate Hardy:Well, I'm glad I got to be here and you came up with amazing questions. Thank you from all of us in my world. Thank you for coming up with great questions.
Manya Chylinski:Well, you're welcome and thank you to our listeners for staying through the end. We appreciate you. Thank you for listening. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I did. So if you'd like to learn more about me, Manya Chylinski, I work with organizations to help understand how to create environments where people can thrive after difficult life experiences, and I do this through talks and consulting. I'm a survivor of mass violence and I use my experience to help leaders learn about resiliency, compassion and trauma-sensitive leadership to build strategies to enable teams to thrive and be engaged amidst difficulty and turmoil. If this is something you want to learn more about, visit my website, www. manyachylinski. com, or email me at manya@ manyachylinski. com, or stop by my social media on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thanks so much.
