The LYLAS Podcast
The LYLAS Podcast, Season 3, Episode 58, "Breaking the Silence: Confronting the Shadows of Suicide"
The silent battles with mental health are often cloaked in the shadows of stigma and can lead to the most tragic event of all: suicide. Our latest episode takes a heartfelt look at this issue through a moving memorial service for a woman who lost her fight. This is a difficult topic. But if we want to change the stigma surrounding one of the leading causes of death in the United States, we have to start to become comfortable with discussing the uncomfortable. We need to move towards greater empathy and understanding. Our show is a call to action for more open conversations surrounding mental health, urging a collective approach to foster a more empathetic society in which no one suffers in silence. Help is available. Text or call 988. There is hope. There are people who care. There are other options.
Please be sure to checkout our website for previous episodes, our psych-approved resource page, and connect with us on social media! All this and more at www.thelylaspodcast.com
The silent battles with mental health are often cloaked in the shadows of stigma and can lead to the most tragic event of all: suicide. Our latest episode takes a heartfelt look at this issue through a moving memorial service for a woman who lost her fight. This is a difficult topic. But if we want to change the stigma surrounding one of the leading causes of death in the United States, we have to start to become comfortable with discussing the uncomfortable. We need to move towards greater empathy and understanding. Our show is a call to action for more open conversations surrounding mental health, urging a collective approach to foster a more empathetic society in which no one suffers in silence. Help is available. Text or call 988. There is hope. There are people who care. There are other options.
Please be sure to checkout our website for previous episodes, our psych-approved resource page, and connect with us on social media! All this and more at www.thelylaspodcast.com
Welcome to our faithful listeners and those who are just now joining us. We are so glad to have you and really appreciate you taking the time of your day, out of your drive, out of your work week. Whatever you're doing, maybe you're sitting down relaxing someplace and you're just kind of chilling out. Thank you for taking the time and chatting with us, listening with us, driving with us anyways, and chatting with us, listening with us, driving with us anyways.
Speaker 1:Well, if you're chilling, you might want to pick a different episode, because I don't want to ruin your chill. It is pretty heavy. Yeah, this one is one that we've sort of shied away from talking about. I think we've mentioned it on some of the other episodes, but we haven't outright done an episode on suicide and we tend to go in the flow. So whatever's sort of going on in our lives is what we tend to talk about on this podcast, and so, true to form, when I called Sarah this weekend, I'm like you know, I know we haven't done one, we've sort of shied away from it, but I'm feeling very motivated to talk about this after this weekend. So here we go. We're going to just rip it off like a band-aid because it's not a fun topic, but it's something that I'm finding myself feeling super passionate about in the way that we think about it, and so just to give you a little background here, I attended a memorial service via live stream, which is the thing now.
Speaker 1:I've done that a couple times, but I attended a memorial service for a woman, a mother that I knew, that recently committed suicide, and I wouldn't say that she was like a close friend of mine by any stretch of the imagination, but I knew her, had spent time with her, had had deep conversations, you know. And so it was shocking, to say the least, to me as somebody who didn't know her that well. For me, I was super stunned to learn the news, and so I attended her memorial service on Saturday and it was absolutely beautiful. I thought that they did a great job not shying away from talking about, you know, the way that she died, not necessarily with like specifics, but just suicide in general, but also, you know, really communicating who she was and all the good that she brought to this world. And so I've had a lot of conversations with my mom and my friends this weekend, because it's heavy on my mind the way that we think about suicide and mental illness in general. And I think you and I agree, sarah, that we started this podcast to start to become part of that movement to remove stigma away from mental health so that people will access treatment and hopefully get the support that they need.
Speaker 1:And you know one thing that when I'm talking to friends or my mom, even when we're talking about this, the sense that you get back from people is often well. Just give you an example Like my mom said here, you watched your friend, you know, fight for her life, and then this woman takes her life, you know, and she says has that been weighing on yours? I've been hard and I'm like you know I hadn't that been weighing on yours. They've been hard and I'm like you know I hadn't thought about it that way. Interesting that you had, because I see it as a choice.
Speaker 1:I think, when someone is struggling with crippling mental health issues, that they it's no different than having cancer. It's like cancer of the mind or some other type. In my and this is my perception of things, it is something that is killing them, just as a cancer would, just as heart disease might, whatever that other type of medical disease is. In my opinion, these people don't want to die. They're not making a choice because this is what they want. It's, you know, it is something else that's harming them. And so you know, I said, I said to my mom, I said we've got, you know we've got to stop or I would.
Speaker 1:It would be, I don't know, a movement in the way that we think, if we stop thinking about it like it's a choice, because I don't feel like and I'm wrong. Maybe I've never been in that position, but I gather that people that commit suicide don't feel like they have a choice, and I could be wrong in that, but that's the only option that they seek, and you're the professional, you're the counselor here, and I know, you know I'm sure this is something you've come across in your work. I'm coming at it for more of you know, just like the experience. I know other people in my life that have done the same thing, and I, you know it's just the way that we think about suicide is, though that person did it as a like choice. I don't know if that's even making sense.
Speaker 2:It does. I hear what you're saying and I think it's easy for us because at the end of the day, a decision is made, and the decision is made by that person to end their life, and so it's easy to kind of stand back and see that this was an independent action that someone took with the intention of inflicting self-harm. I mean, that's by definition what it kind of is, and the way in which, or the disease that I'm going to use the word disease just to keep it medical, you know what I mean or to join the two as an effort to not see one as being different than the other behavior associated with the disease, the behavior that then ends the life, is the person doing a self-inflicted action. That is, it is self-inflicted. You can't, you can't, you can't move away from that.
Speaker 1:No, but you could say the same thing about radiation.
Speaker 2:It is a choice that is harming the body with. But the intention is different, and I think that that's what, whenever we look in, even in doing like suicidal assessments of people, we have to look at a person's intention. So, whenever a person is taking radiation treatment, yes, they may be aware that it is going to have harmful effects on the body, that may also lead to premature death, but the intention is to be life preserving instead of life ending. And even whenever we look at like within the clinical world some people used to refer to as like parasiticidal behavior, self-inflicted, like cutting, whatever else is what is the intention is is the person's intent to die, and then that then leads to a whole other series of decisions that are made based upon an intention, because a lot of things follow down that path as part of like a even a clinical assessment, or whenever we go back and do psychological autopsies of folks, which is again maybe a dark term that's kind of used. But whenever we go back and look at a person's life or a sociological autopsy, like how a person, how a culture, responds to a tragedy or to an epidemic, then then we can make all kinds of inferences about what happened there. But I don't know that it provides the family, the loved ones, the friends with any greater level of comfort or ease in any of that, because it is just, it is so anti human, I think, from our nature and our design to to end life.
Speaker 2:Everything that we're doing, we're fighting for life, we're doing something to preserve life, whether that's breathing, eating, drinking, going to the bathroom, you know, fighting off a bear.
Speaker 2:From an evolutionary standpoint it's all. All of our behaviors are meant to live. And then whenever we have a disease, that then you know kind of really changes clouds whatever our thought processes, changes our physiology in terms of our neurotransmitters, the chemicals within our brain, changes our response system, emotionally and otherwise. It just then has its own manifestation of behaviors that kind of come along with it and so that's. I know it sounds so cold and callous to talk about it that way, but as a go ahead it's just as from a clinician kind of like base or from a research, you know, from that kind of stepping back away from it. That's kind of what it looks like, but it doesn't. I don't know that it makes it any better or different for a person experiencing those thoughts or feelings, because at that moment they're trapped and the only way out is through that method period right, I guess in my mind I think of it like a diseased mind right mind filled with disease, just like cancer is a disease filling your, your body.
Speaker 1:And so in my mind, people who do not have that disease, it's not a an option in life, right, like no one would consider that to be a positive thing to do or or an option, and so I guess that's what I mean, and like it's not that person in their right mind making a choice. You know, it's really a disease that is kind of perpetuating these behaviors.
Speaker 1:I mean you can get really granular about it, but I guess you know it taints. Unfortunately it taints that person's life and and this person in particular that I'm talking about was such a beautiful soul on this earth. She was just a really kind human um that gave a lot, publicly and personally, to the people that she loved and it just, you know it's so unfortunate.
Speaker 1:I thought they did such a great job of you know a lot of what you were saying and like you know family, like what they're left with and all the questions, and they were like you know they. They kind of went through questions that you would think she knew how much you loved her.
Speaker 1:There's nothing you could have done you know, all of those things that kind of float around in your mind, but also reminding us that she deserves to be celebrated and all that she contributed to this world in her time on earth. And, um, I just thought it was a really beautiful job of kind of meshing the two. It is, um, you know, not trying to shy away from this is what happened and mental. This is real and this has consequences. And this is somebody, um, from my understanding, that had sought professional help and, uh, knew she was in trouble and knew that she needed help and and unfortunately it just wasn't, you know, it didn't meet her needs.
Speaker 2:And that's hard.
Speaker 1:That's hard and I was telling my friends last night at dinner. I said you know, the hardest part is like she's me, she's you. You know we were very similar in many ways and I said I think that's maybe what's the scariest part is she had the community. She had the friends, she had the loved ones, she had the marriage. She had all the. She had the loved ones, she had the marriage. She had all the things, all the supports. She was seeking help outside from professionals. She did all the things and it wasn't enough.
Speaker 2:That's scary.
Speaker 1:I said I think that's you know, what's given me most pause is how scary that is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would. It's weird, you know, even though I worked in medicine, I totally align more, I think, with that kind of integrated framework of things I would always talk about like those thought patterns and even like suicidal thoughts is almost like a possession. It sounds like you and it looks like you and it feels like you, but it's absolutely not, but it's trying to almost I spoke of it like it was an entity and I would even warn him I'm just going to use this as an analogy because it's the only one that makes sense to me. It may not make sense to you, but it's going to try to convince you that this is the right path for you to be on, and we're just going to have to fight like hell in order to keep it from winning. And sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. And you know, we look at people like even celebrities, sometimes Robin Williams, anthony Bourdain, you know these people who, yeah, we just have these. We look at them and see these beautiful lives and everything that they have, and then it even makes less sense to us sometimes as to how a person gets to that kind of point.
Speaker 2:Numerous singers, there's so many. Um, the lead singer from Lincoln park, the lead singer from sound garden, who I love that man's voice, um, but I think it was and I'm so sorry I don't remember this guy's name now it's been years, but the lead singer from Lincoln park. I think um was said to have left a message that the day before that his life ended that it was one of the best days of his life and his whole family felt the love, everybody kind of felt the warmth, everybody was positive and great, and it was the fear that that feeling would leave again without his permission or control. That was the tipping point. So sometimes that happens. You know we can.
Speaker 2:We look back on their days and been like there was just they were so happy, it looked like everything was going well and going great and they were finally in a good spot where you know they work so hard to get to. Well. A good spot doesn't mean it feels secure, and whenever you're in that good spot and you've seen it so many times and then it gets pulled away, for some people that's just whenever they pull out and so it's. It's really, really. It's this situation that, if we try to make sense of it, I don't know that we can come up with something that fits in our heart, that makes sense with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So then how do we keep you know? Because sometimes I think just part of fear is you go through all of those emotions and one of those being anger. Angry, like you know, when I was sharing this last night with my friends, I had one, we had girls dinner and I was telling them what had happened and one of them said you know, how could you do that? You have a daughter. How could you do that? How could you, you know? And so how do we find the compassion without getting angry or placing judgment, because, I mean, that's part of it You're judging someone for their choices in life. You're judging them because they had a mental illness they could no longer fight, or even in the case like, think about people that are dealing with terminal illness and they move to a state where it's legal to choose your ending in life. Yeah, you know, those are all choices and options in life.
Speaker 1:How do we find compassion rather than anger in those situations?
Speaker 2:Yeah, even though the reaction looks the same in both in order to they're different in terms of a person's healthy mind, let's put it that way. So in the in the case of, like, a physician-assisted suicide, the person has actually been deemed to have a healthy mind in a sense. So I don't necessarily like again using those terms, but it is what it is. In the case of suicide, the mind, like you said, is what it is. In the case of suicide, the mind, like you said, is sick. There's some disease process that's happening, that's keeping that trap, to go along with this type of analogy. But to have compassion, I think that everybody's feelings in those moments are valid, you know she's, even if it's anger. Even if it's anger, it's okay Because that's just where that person's at in that moment. And sometimes we have to get to the point of anger before we can get to the point of compassion. And that's valid for her to feel that way, because maybe that's how she sees things. You know, again, some people see actions as being selfish in that moment, but then that's the heat coming through, you know, just like any other type of reaction. But then if you step back and allow some time, pause, like what you've said, then some element of compassion. You know it's compassion without, I don't know, maybe without being okay with the outcome, which is a hard balance, because I don't think it's a good idea to be okay with the outcome in a sense, but it's okay to have a sense of great empathy for someone who is in such a dark place that they felt like, even with all the access to healthcare, friends, support, whatever medications if that be the case, that this was still the option, and if that that's a point where a person is in a the deepest, darkest hole of hell and their only way of catching a breath might just be that.
Speaker 2:And in a lot of people who do leave notes at different points of times again, if you go back and do the psychological autopsy, a lot of times it's like that they almost in their final writing, it's almost like that they are finally feeling that relief and I don't like that and I wish that it would have been found in other ways and means and that's still that person's feeling in that moment too. You know, unfortunately they just took a different path with it. But I just think it takes some time and some pause and then just see what happens from there. Maybe she'll come around or maybe it'll just not be as as hot as a fire. But everybody's entitled to their feelings and beliefs about it and it just really sucks. But people learn when you're there. It's just a very it's a very deep and dark and scary place to be and I don't know how any of us would handle that in that moment, because if we've not been there, then it's really hard to kind of say it's hard to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's hard to understand. I you know. I think that's the biggest thing. These are almost like um. What do they call them? Like um, when you can't I can't think of the word, like, when you can't see it. Invisible um, they're like invisible diseases which we know, a lot of you know certainly there's some behavioral changes typically associated with depression. But a lot of times people we don't even know that they're fighting this internal battle with their brain or with their mind.
Speaker 1:And and the only thing I can ever equate it to is like when I was dealing with panic attacks, like I don't know.
Speaker 1:I mean I guess unless you saw me curled in the fetal position, you knew, but there were several times where I was really struggling and people probably had no idea. So it's just again. Hopefully we are moving as a society and as a generation to be more open to talking about these feelings, because if you don't tell somebody you're having these thoughts, a lot of times people have no idea and that's when we're stunned when something like this happens, because you know, a lot of times there's a lot of shame that comes with feeling or having these thoughts. I mean, you think about all the thoughts we think in our head. You know there's if, if that was blasted out to the world, how many of those thoughts would you be ashamed of? Or, you know, not want the world to know? And for me I would think that would be one of them. But we have to know in order to to at least attempt to try to get some supports in place.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:If you're having those types of thoughts. I've certainly done suicide risk assessments on children in schools and I I feel like that's different. We've had very few were, you know, kids make comments, I'm going to kill myself Very few actually in the 17 years I did them, were, you know, had plans and had really, like, thought through the steps. Thankfully, most of the time it was just I said some offhand remark, you know. So it's different. You kind of go through that though to tease out like, is this a real threat or is this, you know, does somebody just make a random comment, but it just I don't know. I'm like what else is there that we can actually do?
Speaker 1:I know that there are numbers that you can call and text if you're feeling if you don't want to talk to somebody you're close to to, but you know what is the society. What can we do to start to peel back? You know people getting help for this and other mental health issues.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean just kind of what you said. You know you may have done a lot of risk assessments and things like that within schools, but the National Health Institute, cdc and National Mental Health Institute everything that keeps statistics on human beings within the United States, suicide is one of the second leading cause of death in ages 10 to 14. With accidents being number one. So like a car accident, a TV accident or drown, like those things count as accidents and then it is also what I think it's either. It's second within the age group of 20 to 34 as well. So these are, like you know, those really important transitional pieces and at times in which a human being has the most touch on them.
Speaker 2:So I think a lot of times, whenever we think of suicide, typically we would think about well, the person or the age group that's most associated with it is a white male who's in his 70s, who's just retired and has a bunch of guns.
Speaker 2:Is that still the case? Sure, it's still kind of kind of. I mean it's not like the number one because we've had so much of a shift and a paradigm shift and things, and especially whenever COVID hit, really we haven't even. All of our stats are basically just crap now, because you know we went through something that was horrific and you know we need updated on it. But those guys are still important to assess. Yes, but it's this group that has the most touch on them that we're just missing, and I think that that's like the important piece for all of us maybe listening to think about. Think about that support system. A 70 something year old individual does not have as many people looking at them every single day as a 13 year old child in a classroom, or as a 19 year old who's working at like Wendy's, or as a mother who's struggling with three kids at age 25. And it's that age group that suicide is the second leading cause of death with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's terrifying. As a parent, obviously, you think about, I mean, everything you put into reference right In your world, and when you experience anything and I tend to be deeply affected by things I just I am, I have a lot of compassion and you know, you just start thinking about, like your own kids, and you know what if one of them was suffering with this, and how would you, what would you do? You know it's like anything, you would do anything to help that person, your child, and so it, just it had me thinking a lot, just A the stigma that's still so heavily tied to suicide and I guess, just that idea that, well, well, you know, they always looked at life as half glass empty, you know, is it or is it? Their mind was full of disease and they couldn't make, they couldn't see options in life and couldn't see any other choice.
Speaker 1:you know, I mean just that really idea of calling it what it is. It's a disease, it's not. I mean even we've referenced that we say a really dark place, really dark times, but like it's a disease of the mind, telling you you know untruths all day, telling you you know lies, and so I don't know. It just seems like we still almost view it like a choice.
Speaker 2:You know like I just didn't want to live anymore.
Speaker 1:I don't believe that, of the three people that I've known in life that have ended their own lives, I don't believe that they wanted to die and maybe that's just me choosing that as some sort of coping mechanism. But I believe that you know they didn't feel like they had a choice for whatever, for whatever reason, and I don't know enough. You know I wasn't like super close to any of those three people, so I don't know enough about like what their thoughts were. You know it wasn't like any of those three people, so I don't know enough about like what their thoughts were. You know it wasn't like I just I don't know enough of the details, but but it is. I don't know. It's a. It's a a dark subject for sure, something I've been thinking a lot about lately. You know, just think of it like a disease. You wouldn't get mad at somebody that got cancer. You know why would we get mad at somebody that has mental illness?
Speaker 2:that's fair, you know yeah, I think that is a thing like we get pissed, yeah, whenever some, because it's almost like we infer that the symptoms of their disease are actions against us at times, right.
Speaker 2:And within their control and that's an unfair inference to kind of make at those points, you know. But I think whenever it comes to what can we do, I think number one thing is just to acknowledge it as a leading cause of death. Until we as a society are able to see that that it as a leading cause of death, until we as a society are able to see that that is the second leading cause of death of our kids and young adults, I don't know that there's going to be that much change happening because we're just we'll look at again other disease processes, medical ones, we'll look at accidents and try to put in all different types of safeguards in order to protect people, but we're not doing a whole lot as a collective to protect each other, and particularly our kids.
Speaker 1:I mean, I know right now you're seeing a lot of stuff and I assume you see a lot of the same things. But just talking about, like, not giving kids access to social media, I mean that's something that I'm certainly, at this point, I don't plan on giving my, my kids, any kind of access to social media, because we know that, you know it has more outcomes in terms of mental health, health. So I guess it is one thing that we can do to help um, to help prevent this or exacerbate anything that's already existing Um. But I don't know, maybe that's something I need to do some research on. Like, what else can we do?
Speaker 1:I've sat through a lot of trainings and most of the time it is reactive. It's if you know, obviously, if someone mentioned something, you ask them if they have a plan. You know there's a lot of it's. You reach out, you help them, connect them. But what else? You know, like what else is there that we can do as a society, as a collective group?
Speaker 1:Is it limit social media? Like what is it? How can we improve the outcomes? Because it does seem to be a climbing statistic amongst our youth and that's not you know. I'm like that's not good enough. That's not good enough for my kids, not good enough for your kids, it's not good enough for whoever's listening to this. Like we have to do better at at figuring out mental health and we get so frustrated in education because it feels like we move like molasses, like we're still talking about these same things 17 years later. You know, it kind of feels that way with mental health as well, like we're still trying to break down barriers and and stigmas and we're still trying to get people access to help them. I don't know, it's like we're still trying to figure out, you know, how to prevent a depressed person from killing themselves.
Speaker 2:Or someone with a mood disorder.
Speaker 1:Or a mood disorder, yeah or right. There's so many other. I guess we shouldn't be specific to depression, but you know there's. There are other mental health disorders, but why haven't we figured out a way, a better way? Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean at this point, we know risk factors that increase things, and so a trauma history, um, a history of substance abuse, um, a history of mood disorders, a history of substance abuse, a history of mood disorders, depression can also be one of them we're talking, if we're getting real clinical things like bipolar disorder sometimes schizophrenia different types of mental health conditions that really have very pervasive and sometimes impulsive thought processes as a part of them, and sometimes impulsive thought processes as a part of them. We want to think about age groups in terms of risk factors. You know, like we just talked about young kids. You know, kids going away to college.
Speaker 2:Truthfully, no one it's kind of like addiction is abstained from this kind of happening. You know, right, there are other risk factors financial insecurity, divorce, losses of different types that can kind of come into play. People that have experienced and lived through something whenever they saw their other people perish. It's that survivor's guilt that sometimes just serves as a continued eating away at an individual. We want to think about ways, or at least be observant to changes in behavior. You know that's always the number one sign that something's going on with somebody is that there is a change in their behavior. And in order for us to notice if there's a change in someone's behavior, we have to get off our damn phones.
Speaker 1:No, it's valid.
Speaker 2:You know pay attention.
Speaker 1:Right, you have to be you have to be observant of the people that you care about. Yeah, notice if something's wrong.
Speaker 2:Right and to use words and feeling words and to you know, even maybe do something really courageous and be willing to show your emotions with your kids, with your young adults, with whoever it is in your life without fear of it getting reprimanded, you know, or told that it's invalid.
Speaker 2:And if it's in one of those situations, then you know the quickest entry point for people to mental health services is through a school system, slash social services and then do their primary care doctor. So, even statistically, whenever I used to work in, you know, integration primary care, most of the people that actually did complete suicide I forget it was a high number, statistic had never met or seen a mental health provider, but they were being seen by their primary care provider who was writing their mental health prescriptions. So they never even made it to a psychiatrist or a psychologist in order to be able to see for help or treatment, to a psychiatrist or a psychologist in order to be able to see for help or treatment, and so the primary care doctor in those situations was the number one person who was serving, maybe, as their point person, and that was always a hard thing. I know that any day that I had a primary care physician standing outside my office. It was because they had just lost a patient to suicide.
Speaker 2:And in most of those cases it was one that they had never thought that it was, because they had just lost a patient to suicide, and in most of those cases it was one that they had never thought that it was going to happen with that they thought was well managed and well controlled on their you know, mood stabilizer, prozac or whatever it was. And then they'd be standing by my office and they were like I just, you know, I just didn't know, I didn't think, I didn't see it. And so even providers can kind of be struck by that if they're doing all that they can. You know, but to teach your kids, their first point of contact is sometimes a school system or a physician, especially whenever they don't feel like talking with a parent about it. Hopefully that's on the parents that are listening to this podcast, and if so, you might want to pivot a little bit, you know, um, but that's the.
Speaker 1:that's going to be the quickest way to try to get them some help well, I think, and just for the people that's left behind, like we said, like it's so hard, there are so many questions that run through your mind, um, and so hopefully you know those people are seeking support too, because ultimately, you know, unless your best friend happens to also be a therapist, you might need some other support, um, from a professional and they do offer that.
Speaker 2:They do offer specialized groups for people who are survivors of suicide. There are resources and we'll put them on our website so that way you can find them, that kind of help those who have lost grieving process, because it doesn't feel the same as though a person who may have died of cancer, because your conversations with other people about it are different. You know, the memorials that you attend are different because of the way a person died.
Speaker 1:Right and I get it and it's still. It's still a difference worth noting and remembered and you know, for all the beauty that they brought to this world and and to talk about it, I mean, I think that's why at first I was like, well, I don't want to like say anything. I'm like you know what. No, like she would say like, talk about it, talk about mental health, talk about how hard that the last conversation I had with her was about mental health, was about this podcast and why we started it and, you know, I think she would say, like, no, like we need to talk about this more.
Speaker 1:People need to feel comfortable and confident in saying what they're struggling with without being judged. Maybe as a society we just judge less, you know, and just be there to to, uh, hold space for the people that are left behind. You know, it doesn't matter how she's gone, she's gone. Yeah, like, what do we do? You know what's the next step for him, whoever it is that is lost, you know it's the next step.
Speaker 1:So it's uh, yet another heavy day over here. I tell you, it's like one after the. I'm like I hate to be this way, but it's like every day I'm like who died today? Like it's like something new, it's pretty just seems so. Maybe it's the age that we've hit, but I feel like most of my conversations of late seem to revolve around some sort of loss of human life and it's just really really unfortunate how it happens. But this seems to be just one of those really difficult conversations.
Speaker 2:It is because I just think that there's so much research, there's so many resources out there but, for whatever reason, all of us are too hesitant at grabbing at them. You know, I mean it took me four seconds to kind of do a recap on some things, and then I had to go back and look at some of our articles or whatever presentations I used to give and stuff like that. But it takes like two seconds to get this stuff, but we're all hesitant to do it, and I don't. Maybe that's what we need to be aware of is what keeps us from reaching past that point of hesitation in order to get something that could be helpful and beneficial, if not for ourselves, for someone else you know that human connection, paying attention and seeing people when, when they're not doing well.
Speaker 2:So and people put on a great act. But I don't know, I think if we see it as an act, then we see it as some form of like malice behind it or intention, and I don't think that we see it when we're doing it that way. You know what I mean. If I've had a bad day and if I put on a smile, then we're not going to see it as me being, you know, malicious intent, yeah, or fake it's, hey, I'm just pushing through or whatever else. But whenever other people do it, we assign some other type of you know, negativity towards it. And that's just you just said about how, like in in society, if you're tough, if you push through, right day and you still show up and put a brave face on.
Speaker 1:it's like you're rewarded in society. But to your point, what? If you show up and put a brave face on and then you commit suicide? Then how does society react? Oh shitty, brave face on and then you commit suicide then how does society react? Oh shitty, you're weak they couldn't take it, they had everything right. It's the language and the words that we use and the way that we reinforce behaviors. Like you know, I don't know it, just it's interesting when you think about it that way.
Speaker 1:How many times have you heard that in life she was so brave you would have never known something was going on. She had a brave face every day. We had no idea. Yeah. And that is, it's not.
Speaker 2:But for the family and friends that go through that, I think that there's this what could be a never-ending rabbit hole of questions that you can go down and then your own personal assignments of guilt or what could I have done, or whatever else, is kind of coming to play and at the end of the day, the answer is nothing.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and at the end of the day, the gravity of the situation is still there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The person's still gone. Mm-hmm, I think that's the hardest part. The finality of it is always for me so hard to grapple with. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. It's really really, really, really tough, but I think it again from a standpoint. I just think it continues to come down to talking about it, normalizing it and then briefing yourself with any signs or symptoms of something. But in order to do that, we have to be observant to our own internal self if we're feeling that way in terms of our own thought processes, feelings or whatever and then we have to be willing observance of other people, especially those that we kind of care about, in order to kind of, you know, be willing to help to change this dynamic in some way. I mean, we could sit here and talk about warning signs and things to be aware of and everything else, but at the end of the day, you know the people who are around you.
Speaker 1:Right, and we, you have to be observant in order to see warning signs. You have to have a real conversations in order for people to feel comfortable disclosing those types of thoughts to you. And then you have to know how to how to point people at, you know, in the right direction to get support. Yeah, and not everybody is walking around with a mental health license, you know, and so so I guess if you're like, well, okay, then what can we do? Be observant, understand, you know change in behavior is usually a red flag and then if somebody ever does disclose any type of thought patterns like that, you really need to seek treatment and support for them. Yeah, we will.
Speaker 1:If you go to our website, we have links to national support systems, suicide hotline, and that'll at least get you started if you, if you are in need and trying to help steer somebody in the right direction. Yeah, I don't even know a way to end this episode, just so blah. Yeah, it's call so blah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's call or text yeah. Call or text 988. Call or text 988. And that's the suicide hotline and you can get to talk to a live person in the United States at any point in time through that. There's no, the barrier is getting to a phone.
Speaker 2:Yeah the barrier is getting to a phone. Yeah, If that is even a barrier going to any first responder station, ER, then be willing to make the call for someone else if the need be. Yeah, you know. If you don't know, call 9-1-1. If you're, if you did not know if your spouse was having a heart attack or not, I'm pretty sure you'd call 9-1-1. If you don't know what this person has been ready to do, but you see things off about them there's. They might be pissed at you momentarily or maybe for a bit, but if it's going to potentially help them, I would still make the call yeah Um, okay, well, that's all I got.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, that's all I got with heavy and loving hearts if you are somebody who recently lost someone to suicide, our hearts go out to you. We're sending you so much love and light and peace. Yeah, no good way to end this one. So we're just going to say until next week, y'all. We're just going to say until next week, y'all.