Nursing U's Podcast

Ep #018 - Navigating "Suicide Season": Mental Health Challenges and Resilience in Nursing

• Nursing U • Season 1 • Episode 18

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For Individuals Struggling with Suicidal Thoughts

Hotlines and Immediate Support


  1. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (U.S

  2. Crisis Text Line

  3. Trans Lifeline

  4. The Trevor Project (LGBTQ+ Youth)

  5. SAMHSA’s National Helpline
    • Dial: 1-800-662-HELP (4357)
    • Website: www.samhsa.gov
    • Information and referrals for mental health services.


Support Groups and Counseling


  1. BetterHelp

  2. Suicide Anonymous

  3. NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness)
    • Peer-led support groups for individuals and families.
    • Website: www.nami.org


For Nurses Dealing with Patients Who Have Attempted or Committed Suicide

Support for Healthcare Professionals


  1. American Nurses Association (ANA)

  2. Nurses’ Peer Support Network

  3. Code Lavender Program
    • Emotional support programs for caregivers after traumatic events.

  4. International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS)
    • Resources for understanding and dealing with traumatic stress.
    • Website: www.istss.org


Education and Training


  1. QPR Institute (Question, Persuade, Refer)

  2. American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP)
    • Provides education on suicide prevention for healthcare professionals.
    • Website: www.afsp.org

  3. The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare


Peer Support and Counseling


  1. Healer’s Art Program

  2. The Joyful Nurse Project
    • Emotional support and peer resources.
    • We

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Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Julie.

Speaker 2:

And I'm Caleb. Welcome to Nursing U, the podcast where we redefine nursing in today's healthcare landscape. Join Julie and I as we step outside the box on an unconventional healing journey.

Speaker 1:

Together, we're diving deep into the heart of nursing, exploring the intricate relationships between caregivers and patients with sincerity and depth.

Speaker 2:

Our mission is to create an open and collaborative experience where learning is expansive and fun.

Speaker 1:

From the psychological impacts of nursing to the larger implications on the healthcare system. We're sparking conversations that lead to healing and innovation.

Speaker 2:

We have serious experience and we won't pull our punches. But we'll also weave in some humor along the way, because we all know laughter is often the best medicine.

Speaker 1:

It is, and we won't shy away from any topic, taboo or not, from violence and drugs to family and love, we're tackling it all.

Speaker 2:

Our nursing knowledge is our base, but we will be bringing insights from philosophy, religion, science and art to deepen our understanding of the human experience.

Speaker 1:

So, whether you're a nurse, a healthcare professional or just someone curious about the world of caregiving, this podcast is for you.

Speaker 2:

One last thing, a quick disclaimer before we dive in. While we're both registered nurses, nothing we discuss here should be taken as medical advice. Always consult with your doctor or a qualified healthcare provider for any medical concerns you may have. The views expressed here are our own and don't necessarily reflect those of our employers or licensing bodies.

Speaker 1:

So let's get started on this journey together. Welcome to Nursing U, where every conversation leads to a healthier world.

Speaker 2:

Good morning. Good morning.

Speaker 1:

Yay.

Speaker 2:

Back again.

Speaker 1:

Another Sunday, another Chiefs Sunday.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I know.

Speaker 1:

I know.

Speaker 2:

What time do they play? I think noon, oh, at noon oh okay, yeah, I think so today. Okay, all right. Well then we should get a roll, we should get moving.

Speaker 1:

We do a lot of talking beforehand but we have to catch up. We have to catch up. We both are very busy. We've got a lot of stuff going on during the week, a lot of little things editing the podcast and little things we got to do and plus our other lives. So we don't we don't usually chit chat during the week unless it's all business during the week all business right.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, this is our catch-up time, yeah, so, uh, in our conversation last week or the week before, I think, the week before um we were talking about um, it came up that we're entering into suicide season. That's a you know, made up term. I don't think anybody, I think it seems like we would talk about suicide season in the ICU because we experienced so so many times over the years when people would, so many times over the years when people would. You know, it's just an obvious fact that people kill themselves more between, uh, thanksgiving and new years than any other time of the year. Um, yeah and uh. So we want to talk about it and we're going to push this out, um, some sometime sooner than later, just to make people aware of of this time and and what happens. And you know, maybe we, in our conversation today, we can find a little bit deeper understanding of of why. I mean, I think we know why and I think you know we're not, we're not really gonna.

Speaker 1:

I mean, there's a lot of information on suicide and you you know so the this episode will be prefaced that that it is suicide and you know it's some. For some it's not very easy to talk about, especially if you've had it happen to someone very close to you or you possibly have even attempted yourself, and it's definitely not anything that we want to make light of or that we can solve for you. But I think you know our focus mostly today is going to be on nurses and some of our stories and dealing with patients that come into the hospital and that you are around. You know I we talked I think we talked about it in Riz's episode that just the energy of that situation when the patient comes in, even just starting in the ER, I mean you know if you've got lights and sirens bringing a patient in who's unresponsive and they're either bagging the patient or maybe they've already intubated them because they overdosed on something or however it happened, I mean that energy is high, high, high and it's quick and it's moving.

Speaker 1:

And you know you do not have all the pieces, you just have this person in front of you that you have to manage and you're saving their life or not. And so sometimes it stops there, sometimes it even stops in the field, but we get a lot of them. You know, we, we, the hospital, the healthcare system gets a lot of patients probably more so during this time of the year that are either contemplating suicide, have attempted suicide or succeeded at, you know, taking their own life.

Speaker 2:

And I hate the word succeeded. What about maybe a chosen effective method?

Speaker 1:

Right. I just hate that it's Succeed Well, I don't know, because sometimes you can have the you can use. Two people can use the same method and one goes and one doesn't.

Speaker 2:

True, that's true.

Speaker 1:

So it's not a Succeeded is not the right word, it's not a success, and I don't even know what that is. But more so, focusing on the energy that a situation like that brings in and how it affects the nurse is really you know. So we don't, we don't. We don't want to dismiss anything. We don't want to have people think that we're making light of or that we didn't bring this particular aspect up.

Speaker 2:

But you know our focus, you know, is going to be more on our experience yeah.

Speaker 1:

And we're nurses and we've dealt with a lot of people who have tried to take their own life, and some of them have and some of them have not, and there is all kinds in between of the ramifications of their actions. And that just you know it just like a ripple, like you drop a stone in a lake and it just ripples out and it affects them. And it just ripples out and it affects them, it affects their family, their children, the caretakers on scene, the people at the hospital, the doctors, the police officers, everyone involved in that. It ripples out and touches and affects, and that ripple, all of that is energy. And, nurses, I feel like take on a lot of energy from situations like that.

Speaker 2:

I think I've said it before that the one of the biggest indicators for a suicide attempt is having seen someone else do it, so that that kind of you know in informs why, why informs the number of suicides that are happening within the nursing culture.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's part of it, I think.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and and and the, the, the images some of them never go away. I remember part of it, I think of obviously, but he he had it was moored in the back of his head like it didn't, so it went in. But and I don't know the, the gist because, again, I wasn't a nurse then, but I remember bathing him because it was night time and turning him over and we had chucks underneath his head because there were brain matter coming out of his ears and coming out of the back of his head. And when we turned him the his head, the feeling of his head, like you'll I'll never forget it, it wasn't solid, it was swollen and squishy and he did not survive.

Speaker 1:

But the drama and I don't mean drama in a bad word, I mean drama meaning increased energy and emotions and things that come with something like that. When that happens, the story, the why, the mom, the letters, the where did he get the weapon? You know all of that stuff and as an intensive care unit nurse, you're there dealing with that and being around it for 12 hours or more.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're all the way in it, not just in the caregiving of the patient and making sure that they're stable and receiving the best care, but you're also managing all of the emotions of mom and family. You're you're asking all of the questions to your your it's like you're you're the one that is piecing together the puzzle to understand what happened. So you're an investigator, you're playing all of these roles and and as that, as that person who's I mean, it's just such a dynamic role that we play in those situations. It's really remarkable.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, cause it's not just, like you know, case management might come in and try to like get phone numbers, and you know, because there's a limit to what the bedside nurse can take the time to do, because obviously their priority is the patient and the clinical care, um, but you know it happens on a friday night.

Speaker 1:

there's nobody there till monday so you, you know the police might be calling. You have to have some information. The doctor wants to know, like you're expected to kind of know and have some kind of story. That was always something that I instill this day, like the icu nurse. You, when you, whenever we report, we it's a story. You you kind of create, telling a story absolutely even if the patient had been there for five days. You know you've got. We used to call them remember. Remember the old days. We called them a cardex. Remember that.

Speaker 2:

Like the report sheet.

Speaker 1:

Kind of it was like a heavier weighted paper and it had all like you would write kind of a summary of the shift and what happened and it would just log the thing. So just like patient notes now that are in the computer. But this was a visual log so that you would just pull out the card X and you would see kind of like a CSR which I haven't said that in a long time.

Speaker 2:

What does that?

Speaker 1:

even stand for what does that? Stand for? I don't know. Anyway, it's something you print off that has a summary of the patient.

Speaker 2:

Charting systems assessment report. Maybe Charting systems assessment report.

Speaker 1:

Maybe, maybe report, maybe that's turning systems assessment report, maybe, maybe, um, but you have to have. Every patient has a story and nurses get good at storytelling. They get good at coming up quickly. Over your years you'll develop, you just develop. You know. The story came in, had that doctor came in, we tried this. That didn't work. That killed her kidneys. Then we did this. She went on biped. You know like that's the story. But a lot of times with the, with the intentional and even unintentional, you know, overdose or suicide attempts, the story was much more dramatic.

Speaker 2:

It was much less clinical and more you know case management ish well, uh, I mean so kind of bring it back to suicide season like the. So why are? Why are these people choosing this time? I mean, the obvious things are, you know, broken family systems, um, not, you know, the absence of family systems meaning you're're, you're aging and um, and maybe your family's died and uh, and you're the only one left, and you're left with all the sadness and grief of having to go through this season of time without, uh, the joy and and connection of of family that you used to have. Those are some very obvious ones.

Speaker 2:

Finances I remember in 2008, 2009, 2010, maybe even 2011,. That financial crash took a lot of lives. I remember so many people, especially in the holiday season, when money gets tight because you buy gifts and everything, taxes are coming due and all the things. And I remember some really professional people attempting to take their lives and standing with them and, as a caregiver, there's the obvious awareness of the shame that they're experiencing. Having survived, there's very rarely a sense of joy. I don't know that I've ever experienced someone that was elated that they didn't.

Speaker 2:

Oh no, that they survived, that they that they survived. But especially around the financial crash, really impacted a lot of people in that way?

Speaker 1:

What else? Well, anybody with mental illness, what? Whether it's anxiety, depression, and you kind of you're able to handle it for the majority of the year. You know, summertime you get long days, lots, lots of light. You know you it's. You get long days, lots, lots of light. You know, you get into after the fall back, or the whatever that is um it's dark, it's dark at like five o'clock and dark. If you just think of like light and dark, it is dark. So you have a lot more darkness.

Speaker 1:

So if you have darkness in within, there's not a lot of light to filter through all of that, and so you do see a higher instance of either increased depression, increased anxiety, increased, you know all of that, and and it just becomes too hard to handle, it just becomes too hard.

Speaker 2:

I think it's vitamin, isn't it vitamin D, that is a mood regulator that is activated by sunlight and the skin specifically. Yeah, so the darkness is, you know, prohibitive of that, that process taking place. So it makes perfect sense that we would get more depressed.

Speaker 1:

And there's you know there's lots of things you can do. You can, you can get a sun lamp, you can do. So there's lots of things to do and people can just spit out those little things. But if you've ever suffered like real depression and you're very just baseline depressed, you can't make yourself do a lot of that stuff, and so it's a paralyzing feeling, it's a heavy, wet, weighted blanket on you, and so to think about, oh, let me get on Amazon and order, let me even just scrolling to find the one you want, because you have no, nothing matters, and it seems to be that that's the easiest thing to do for them is to just like eliminate.

Speaker 1:

You know, having, I mean, you've had suicidal thoughts, I've had suicidal thoughts and it's, it's a place that you just don't, it's very hard to describe, and so not even being able to put words to something like that. And then they come into the hospital and now we're just presented with this situation. You know, as nurses they because every nurse has bias too about probably even this topic Sure, you know, I mean you might have a nurse who lost a brother to suicide and she can completely understand the situation and is able to manage the family well and has a lot of connectedness to it and feelings that she's already processed through. Or you have someone who is suicide, is so foreign, and maybe they even have a religious or cultural bias about it and have like a thing about it. You know like you're clearly not right. You know I, and I know I I don't have that so I can't speak to that, but you know it's there and so maybe that is something that's there to keep them at a distance from from it so I don't know.

Speaker 1:

it's because it's not universal.

Speaker 2:

Every situation is different, oh absolutely One thing that is coming up for me.

Speaker 2:

It takes practice, but for me, whenever I start, whenever I have ruminating thoughts are so destructive, and whenever I, whenever I find myself getting into the rut of rumination, I've just developed the practice of gratitude that even you know, even when, even when there was nothing more than I have a mattress that's soft and sheets that are clean, thank you, thank you that I have sheets that are clean and a mattress that's soft and nothing else like in my mind. You know, of course there's a million other you that I have sheets that are clean and a mattress that's soft and nothing else in my mind. Of course there's a million other things that I am just unable to see at that moment. And that's kind of the key to navigating this topic and this season is that just because you can't see the good doesn't mean that it's not there. And if you will just be now that I, even on the side of rumination, as soon as I start cultivating the gratitude I become aware of all the other times, that on the other side of that moment is really something great.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And so that I'm cultured to that process now, so that now all these years later it's like I can get myself out of that rumination so fast now. And then there's faith. That comes into that process, like the lived experience kind of facilitates the faith. It's kind of a a dance. The more you trust in that in that process and then in that dance, the more faith you have in it and and it's easier to to navigate out of those deep dark places.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Well, you're, you're, you're practicing pivoting the thoughts. So you're, you're practicing refocusing what you're thinking about. So you're thinking about things that make you feel and like into focusing on things that make you like. Oh, okay, you know, because thoughts I mean thoughts alone will take you down.

Speaker 2:

They'll take you down, they will.

Speaker 1:

I mean, and it's not even like, I'm not talking about a thought that like, like an intuition, like a thought I'm talking about, like the thinking, what you said the rumination the ruminating the thinking, the thinking about the past, thinking about the future. What's going to happen? Where? Where have I been? And lo looming in that and all of that. Just stop, you have to stop.

Speaker 2:

That kind of brings up therapy for me.

Speaker 2:

I've done so much therapy and it has been a tremendous value for me, a tremendous service.

Speaker 2:

But there came a point where I recognized that what was happening in the office of the therapist was that we never shifted from the digging. We were always looking for the root cause, which is kind of like that goes into the objectivity thing and the enlightenment thinking that even psychoanalysis is a product of the enlightenment, thinking that we can figure or what's at the bottom of this, what's underneath these thoughts and these actions and whatever. If you never exit out of that, it's like you climb up this mountain, you figure out all these really deep and powerful things and then if you never exit that and get to the other side of actually living again and outside of the office, it's like you're sliding down the mountain backwards, it's and it becomes unproductive and that's definitely one of the dark sides of therapy and like I could see someone becoming suicidal or severely depressed after going through something like that. If they never exit, if they never get to the other side where they're actually creating the life that they want, it could be very destructive.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that is so powerful, Creating the life that you want. That's the purpose, and so I too have done therapy for so many years because in my world and in my knowing, that's all I knew. If you're having trouble and you feel a certain way, you go to therapy, you go to a therapist. And, yes, there are lots of things that I've learned in therapy. There's lots of things that I've learned about myself in therapy, but there were a lot of just like waste, lots of wasted time, in my opinion, ruminating about what happened, your childhood, your, what, the things, all the things. And I and I think it is good at some point in your life to kind of look back, to know where you've came from, to know, to recognize some of those things were hard on you, because that is what has created you and what you're looking at externally now. But what really matters and what really makes a difference in our lives is the now, right now, creating what is now, now creating what is now, looking for forward, but yet appreciating and living now.

Speaker 2:

And.

Speaker 1:

I guess you know when you're in those ruminating thoughts, sometimes thinking about the past gets you out of that for now.

Speaker 1:

But for me that didn't sustain anything.

Speaker 1:

That was a moment thing and it was really only when I started practicing living and being and mindfulness in the present moment of what here you are right now and how you feel now then creates what I then see outside of my inner brain and my you know what's within me and being exposed to all of the things that we were exposed to at the bedside, including suicide and patients who ended up taking their own lives and the aftermath of that loss with the family.

Speaker 1:

So then we go back to talk about grieving again. It is just all grief and nurses, unless you know the skills, which I never did you have to be able to release that and not if you feel like you need to release. That's not what I'm talking about. I mean feel like you need to release. That's not what I'm talking about. I mean practicing the active, necessary act, taking the necessary actions to release, whether it's after your shift, whether it's during your shift, but especially after. If I could have had a practice, a ritual or a practice of releasing that energy, processing it through. I wouldn't have been holding on to so much and it started to affect it affected me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, that's like, that's kind of you know the therapy is absolutely necessary, especially when you have carried the weight of all of the burdens of of being a healthcare provider. That you know, knowing that a patient's dying before they know and having to treat them, having to live with them through all of the phases of acceptance of their impending death, and carrying that knowledge, carrying the burden of that knowledge. You know, carrying the burden you know, like I said a few weeks ago, you know, walking past the family members after you just broke every rib in Meemaw's chest and you look at them in a conciliatory way or consolation, and the question do they like, can they sense the violence that I just did on me? Like, um, is it? Uh, and not not knowing that, carrying that all of the burdens that we care, I mean 20 years of, of all of that? Um, if you don't unpack that shit, yeah, like you have to, the therapy is not an option. You have to unpack that.

Speaker 2:

Um, I'm kind of getting lost with my words, but um, I, I, oh, I, I remember, I, you know it, uh, do you? Do you still like, sometimes I don't know that I, even now, with everything that I know, I mean, I do have rituals and practices that I that I do daily that help me, um, but do I really know how to let go of of the experiences that I'm having? Still? You know, um, that that's what was coming up for me when I was listening to you do, like, even now, all these years in, do I even really know how to let it go and process it out so that I'm just not carrying it? I don't think that I could honestly say that I fully am able to let go of everything.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I don't know if we ever can actually let it all go. But one thing I know that we both do is we have an awareness of just the fact that things do bother us and can cling to us when before, like the last couple years when I was, you know, full-time in ICU, I did not, I never thought that, I never thought that thought. I never went into the work. I never went into work thinking, you know, there's a lot, this is a lot, this is a lot and there's a lot going on. And you know, some of this is going to be hard and it's heavy. And because I never had conversations like the ones that you and I have, so, it wasn't.

Speaker 1:

I wasn't processing things the way that I do now. Now I am not in a high paced ICU anymore, but I do some of my shifts in the ER when I work. Them have been very busy and up to the par of what I would say I would experience in ICU, even in a very small ER. Not often, because I couldn't do that very often, but every now and then. You know, over the last couple of years I've had a shift and I am different. I am more peaceful.

Speaker 1:

I am more calm, I am in more control of my emotions, because I'm aware of them. I've done digging, I've evaluated them, I have allowed them to flow, I've acknowledged them. I've been learning about how and why all of this energy and how it, just how it affects, how it just kept me down. It kept me so tight and down and so really it's not work on the outside, it's not, it's work on the inside. And when you can feel peace and you can practice just being with yourself, whether it's meditating, sitting in nature, looking at the clouds, even reading, sometimes just being. I could never do that before. I was always busy, I was always outside of my own mind. I was always doing this, I always had something going. I didn't really even like to be by myself. I didn't like to be where no one was. I. I literally when, when the kids were little, I can remember coming home If no one was here, like I had anxiety. And. But now, practicing all of that, you, I can.

Speaker 1:

I just have a different outlook on things and so processing things, you know I suppose if you had like a really hard shift, we would know that like that was a things. And so processing things, you know, I suppose if you had like a really hard shift, we would know that like that was a lot. And I mean, sometimes I even do the like the wiping, the wiping wiping in the energy like get it out, get it out Sometimes too.

Speaker 1:

I'll do a fake zip up. I zip my toes, I zip up all the way around zipping my bag. It's just a you know like. I don't want to get so deep in that, and would we, you know knowing if you had a patient come in? Just think of yourself now, who you are now, and you were in a unit and you had an ER and you had a patient come in who needed all that stuff, aren't you? Isn't your approach different now than it used to be, say, five years ago, seven years ago?

Speaker 2:

Well, I mean, I actually wasn't practicing seven years ago. I, I, it's hard to believe I've been back at the bedside for going on five years now, which is just crazy. Um, but no, um, I mean I'm just, you know, know, a salty old dog. I guess I, I don't get super excited like I. You remember all those old salty nurses that we worked with. They never got excited yeah nothing.

Speaker 2:

Nothing excited them. I've kind of transformed into that person now, like it just water off, ducks back when things are going sideways, and uh, you know, before you kind of matched the energy of it and now, like I don't have to match the energy of it, I still am able to step up and perform and it's just much calmer than it was before You're you're.

Speaker 1:

you're above it.

Speaker 2:

You're a little bit above it, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean you. You you're lighter and not so dense down here with this like heavy stuff that you don't even know. That is stuff that's in there that's holding you down Like you don't even know.

Speaker 2:

I didn't even know.

Speaker 1:

I didn't even know I was, so you know in it and you're right now is like like this is a funny story. So I came home last night and my oldest daughter was having her friends giving here in the shop and I come in and like everybody's here, I she didn't talk to me at all about it and they had one last year at her house and now they're going to have it out here because there was a few more people coming and the shop was bigger. So so we didn't. I mean, she asked if she could come over and do it. I said, yeah, that's fine, great, why come in?

Speaker 1:

And like my husband and my son had been cooking all day, all cooking all of this stuff for her, she's in here frantic, like trying to cook the peas and the corn and the microwave, and they're shitting the oven and and all this and and, and you know there's like other people shaking the gravy and trying to get it all and I was like what is going on? So it, I was a crisis manager. Like I came in and I was like, oh, this is like a full Thanksgiving meal. Okay, well, I mean I've been doing that for 24 years. We've lived here and we've had Thanksgiving every year. So you just go into that mode of like, do, do, do, I'm stirring the thing.

Speaker 1:

We're getting that tinfoil out. I find the hot pads, she needs plates, she needs napkins. She's still wear. Get that going on, you know, and I was just like do, do, do and and even someone made a comment, was like my like thank you, you know, you came. Well, that's what we do, we manage crisis like that, but it doesn't feel, it doesn't drain me anymore. I think that's the difference.

Speaker 2:

but again, I still you? I don't know I mean I had a rough code a while back that really messed me up. I mean it got it got to me. I mean again, I was super calm, I was super cool, I did all the things, I barked the orders, but it was very yeah yeah, yeah but think about that situation and who you are now, and then think about that.

Speaker 1:

a similar situation when you were back in the unit Are there differences?

Speaker 2:

The energy level would have been so high through the whole thing, through the whole thing, and maybe that's the difference is that the energy level was so high back then and all the hormones that were just racing through the veins that were just racing through the veins. Maybe they prevented me from being able to see the damage that was being done, whereas today, with that level of calm and of course, the hormones are still there, but because I've stayed calm, my mind is not racing to find the answers, it's just there and doing the things. Maybe that is why I'm able to see the effects on my, on my soul and spirit more. Uh, now and and just again, the process of, of introspection, like developing the muscle of introspection, I think is also a factor in that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that. That really gave me an aha right there when you said that. So we are more in tune with our internal environment and our. So when we are in situations like that, we can see it clearer now but, we can name it and label it and because we the breathing, the meditation, the practices that it takes to get to a place where you can do introspection and you can look within, because you can't just start doing that.

Speaker 1:

It doesn't just happen like, oh, just take a look within. No way, you know, it takes some time and you have to be kind with yourself and you might only be able to sit for three minutes, maybe only two minutes, and with a meditation, or you might only be able to do one round of breathing. Because it's so, you know, and we each have our own little things, and you know, you've developed a, a in-depth breathing practice which completely has you only on the inside, only looking, being within, because you are only focused on your breath. That's it.

Speaker 2:

There's no thinking.

Speaker 1:

There is no thinking you can't, the breaths come too quick, the holding. When I do it with you, I think about, I don't, my mind doesn't wander. So it's interesting and maybe that's practice too, because I don't do that Wim Hof breathing very often, but I do just learned about breathing and it's practicing notice, notice it going through your mouth, notice it go out, notice your belly go big, notice your belly. Good, so it's just this practice of noticing and being and not being judgmental when the thoughts go and you know, you just shoo, shoo them away.

Speaker 1:

But and me with meditation, so being able to meditate, I mean I can meditate for two hours. The longer I do it, the more, the longer I am in that meditation. Not how many times, but just during that, like the like, after like 30 minutes, 45 minutes, and I'm into like an hour, like I am like it's like I'm high, it's like if I could literally stay there all day, every day, that would be wonderful, yeah, but we can't, we have to come back down and we do this. But just the practices of going inward that have opened our eyes to see things differently on the outside, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

So how does this, uh, how do we tie this all back into suicide season?

Speaker 1:

Well, I think that with you know we can generalize everything that nurses have to deal with. But suicide to me is on a higher level of energy that comes in and surrounds something like that you know, because you, you think about it, nurses will know. You think about the, the mi, the cardiac, you know, heart attack that comes in and that's pretty, that's intense.

Speaker 1:

You're running, you're doing, you're doing. But you know, a lot of times they survive. Most of the time they do um, especially if you get them in the cath lab. You know I mean quick, or you have an open heart who goes bad, and you know, you, you kind of know what to do. But it's, it's a lot clinical, something with suicide. There's something with suicide that brings in multiple other dimensions of energetics as far as the family, the story, the how did they do it, and just the in general of someone being at such a low that the only option they feel is there is to just eliminate themselves.

Speaker 2:

That is so heavy, you know you add mental health and nursing, and then you just got a whole other level of of depth I'm just remembering the my friend, my friend's, uh very apt statement that, uh, suicide is the seduction of rest. I'm just remembering that idea. We've talked about it before.

Speaker 2:

Um, it's so sad that that's the only option yeah that that there's so, so many times, just so worn out by the burdens of modernity, all the trappings of of modern living, and our disconnectedness, and um, so many broken families, god, so many broken families today, um, my own, my own included, um, and not knowing how to repair it, I mean, that's, that's probably the hardest thing, um, and maybe, maybe you can't, and you know that's okay too.

Speaker 2:

It's just what it is um you know, and then with the economy the way that it is, I, I, I, it feels a lot like 2008 to me, Um, and I can imagine so many people are out there not able to buy gifts for their kids or their family, or their mortgages coming due and and they get, they can't pay it and the crisis that that brings about.

Speaker 1:

Well, and you know I practice it because I believe that the the more you think about something, the more it brings in, Sure, and so you know, practicing thoughts of just what I. What I feel like, what I can do, is send my thoughts, using spirituality, sending my thoughts of love and even wealth to them and putting it out there. I feel like the more, the more people that are putting out goodness and kindness and compassion and love and, you know, things that elevate the society, because there's not, there's nothing just like that you or I can do about it.

Speaker 1:

I mean just cause it is you know we can't, we have no, no this is, this is.

Speaker 2:

This is what we're doing. We're having this conversation, right, you know, and, in your terms, putting the energetics out just by having this conversation and bringing awareness to the fact that more people kill themselves in this season than any other time of the year, and, um, talking about why and uh, the impact of it that you know. I guess one thing that I don't know that I've ever said on here before is that the thing that kept me from doing it was, uh, I had this, this woman, in my life. It wasn't a romantic relationship or anything, but, um, I, I met her and I recognized a very deep sadness and I never addressed or never asked about it. I just was.

Speaker 2:

Always every time I was around her, I recognized it and about six months later I discovered that, uh, her husband had killed himself and the sadness that I saw in her, um, and all of the, all of the emotions that I was feeling her give off were so heavy. I fully understood the weight of what I was feeling from her and I decided I couldn't do that to my kids. That experience in a lot of ways saved me. Experience in in a lot of ways, uh, saved me. I mean, I still almost lost my life, but um but I was not uh actively trying to do that.

Speaker 1:

Right, it was so. Is that something you thought about? Is that something you?

Speaker 2:

thought about in that moment when you called 911? No, no, no, no, that was. That was in that moment, I you know, again, I was addicted to Adderall and, um, I don't think, I don't think I had slept for three days or more. Um, so I was just, I didn't have a clear thought of anything. Uh, in that, moment.

Speaker 1:

So something deeper within you that was not in your awareness urged you to reach out to call 911? Because why didn't you just sit there?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

It's deep, it's in your subconscious. Something was there, there was a light there that urged you to call.

Speaker 2:

Sure, I don't think I mean that's. The thing is that I don't think I wanted to die. I don't think we want to die. I don't think that you kill yourself because you want to die. Suicide is a selection of rest, Like it is offering you something that you can't achieve now die. I wanted to be. I think I wanted to be saved. I think I wanted somebody to rush in and save me from the storm I had created for myself.

Speaker 1:

Well, something did. Something did something within.

Speaker 2:

You did want to be saved yeah, yeah, but I didn't know how to do it myself no, and nor was it even probably even conscious to you no, I, I mean I had to.

Speaker 2:

You know, I mean in in that sense that you know that moment was um, it was that. I mean I've always said that. I don't know if I've shared this on here before, but I've always said that, you know, it's kind of my Lieutenant Dan moment, like the storm is all around and and he's on the shrimp boat and they're lightning and storm. They haven't caught any shrimp. They've been out there for a long time, they're broken, they got nothing. And the storm comes and it shakes everything and Lieutenant Dan, with no legs, crawls up the mast of the ship and he's holding on with one hand and he's shaking his fist at God around him and and then the next morning the, the boat is just overflowing with shrimp. They're millionaires, they're uh. And then it cuts to. It cuts to the next scene, where forest is. I think he's getting married and and lieutenant dan walks in and he's got new legs.

Speaker 2:

And you got new legs yeah and so the that dark night of of the soul for lieutenant dan is what gave him new legs. He had to go through the storm to get to the place where where he could walk again, and in that way I I feel like all of that, all of that craziness that I had to go through, um, gave me new legs.

Speaker 2:

So, I, Lieutenant, it's I, I, I love Lieutenant Dan uh and his story, Um, and, and I would say that that's. It is amazing, Uh, that's I think, if we're going to speak to the audience, to anybody that's thinking about or has suicidal thoughts, you know, the storm is good. The storm, the storm brings, the storm will give you new legs if you let it. Don't cut it. Don't cut your journey or your story short. Yeah, yeah, yeah cut your journey or your story short.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and just noticing that can alter your path. You know it's in the I don't know you can't, because when you're at that depth of despair you're not logically thinking, you're not logically consciously doing all of that. It's just, it's not it and I don't. I, I feel like it's fate or the universe or God that you know, and whatever your life is determined to be, are the ones who live in the ones who don't. That that is something that always I'm like you know, that's so crazy. Like you know, I mean, there's stories that you're like she lived what I mean, are you kidding me? And then there's ones that like took a few Tylenol and and then and they died.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And you could say that about anything, about any condition that we've seen in the hospital. You know a heart attack of this, a triple a, you know emergent, or they come in, they have a toenail that gets infected and they get gangrene and they're dead you know they're dead yeah.

Speaker 1:

So it's it. It's just another type of that, and so I guess to pull out from that is it is part of your journey. It's part of what you're here to go through, to learn, to learn about yourself. To another opportunity, to to go within and see who, who and what you're really made of. Yep, I'm gonna get you a hat that says lieutenant dan lieutenant.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's great. Yeah, I mean that story's book worthy, honestly you're writing a book, aren't you?

Speaker 1:

writing a book. Well, you're writing kind of a manuscript I don't know what I'm writing. I don't know if it's a book.

Speaker 2:

I'm writing. Yeah, yeah, I I. It probably is someday.

Speaker 1:

I you know I'm growing new legs, uh, in writing, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I've not been much of a journaler, mostly because I think out of fear of what will come out of the brain. But I've just been pushing myself a little bit more and more and becoming comfortable with, with what comes out, and it's really not even what I thought. So we're we? We hold ourselves back so much because of fear. You know, yeah, and fear really isn't even anything, it's just something you're making up in your head, that you're so many times, so many times.

Speaker 1:

It's crazy, I know it's crazy well, I think, just with it being, you know, the holiday season, and I'm sure lots of people will experience over the next several months things happening to people they know, or people that they don't know, or someone else, and it could be close it, um, you know, to just be aware of your own feelings and getting help however that looks for you, if you need a therapy, if that's what comes to your mind and you need to then go, if you need to call and talk to a friend, then call If you need to journal, if you, if you feel like you need medication.

Speaker 1:

I mean, you know, I was on medication antidepressants, for I literally just got off of them in the last year and a half and I probably started when I was 20, so at least 25 years, wow, it's amazing. And how do you feel? I feel good. I I had attempted it multiple times to wean off and then, I don't know, it was almost like a, like a whoopee, you know, like, ooh, I'm feeling too much, I need to. Ooh, I'm crying a little bit.

Speaker 1:

Oh, this, okay, okay, I don't want to go crazy here, I better get back on them. So I did that probably three different times in the last probably three years. Um, but this last time, and it's I've been adding in moda other modalities. You can't just like, be like I'm not doing that anymore and I'm saying just the way. It is not like that it is a trade and it's not. It doesn't seem like an equal trade because taking a pill every morning is very easy to maintain this Doing meditation, taking time for myself, being aware of what makes me happy, what brings me joy, what doesn't, learning from that, moving towards happiness, moving away from things that don't treat me good. It's a lot of work, but I feel so grounded and stable now. It's stableness.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's not just like a hit or miss. It's not just like the 20 minutes after I drank, you know, my first glass of wine and then finish off the rest of the bottle. It's not artificial, it's real like and I did it. I created it with help, you know, from God and and, but mostly myself, because I'm the one choosing and doing the action, and it has given me a lot more trust in myself that I am who people I think have thought that I was. You know, I have characteristics of being a leader, but it it showed on the outside, cause that was kind of a persona that I was able to like get into when I was at work, but I was not a leader.

Speaker 1:

I know, I know I I'll never not view you as a leader well, and I think I am, but I was not the leader of my internal life. I was being led by something, by forces, and I've gotten out of the passenger, I've gotten out of the passenger seat and I've gotten into the driver's seat for my life and my emotional life and my thought life, whereas before I was just a passenger and I was just like and that's why I had to get back on the meds several times, because I was just letting, letting it, but now I don't, I'm, I'm driving.

Speaker 1:

Thank you very much right right, right right sometimes I was in the fucking way in the back and the station wagon in them.

Speaker 2:

Backward seats no seat belt but you just throw that, that, that little f-bomb in there, just so it's. It's just so pointed and and perfectly timed, it's just so great.

Speaker 1:

I'll never stop saying that some of the smartest people are the biggest cussers. I'll never stop saying the most intelligent people cuss yeah, that's too funny I know well, we're at an hour. Yeah, I think we've said some good things, I think no, I think this was um a good time to do it, a good time to talk about it, because I'm I think it's just going to be something that people are dealing with more.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, during the season yeah yeah sadly, sadly, yeah, so you know, if anybody has any comments or anything like that please let us know.

Speaker 1:

Like this video podcast, share it with anybody that you think might need to hear it. You know lots and lots and lots of nurses and healthcare providers are going to be dealing with these situations. A lot, these situations, yep, a lot. And if you know somebody who might benefit from just hearing us talk about it, you know, because we don't nobody talks about it at work, you know. You know you're like what do you?

Speaker 2:

think we did a little, I mean nursing like nursing wise.

Speaker 1:

yeah, and you know, there's just I didn't always, I wasn't always super compassionate about it, I'll be honest.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, no, for sure, and.

Speaker 1:

I think some of that is that dark humor that we've talked about before, that that is that is necessary to kind of get us through really, really bad situations like that. That. You know we we're not a professional with it, but it comes out. But just so that people and healthcare workers know that they're not alone and that what they're experiencing is heavy and and can just be validating for for those. Sure, yeah, yeah. Well, maybe we'll have a lighter topic next week, or do we have a guest?

Speaker 2:

I don't know that we have anything scheduled yet. Um figure it out, but I think because we're going to bump this one up.

Speaker 1:

Then we'll have Renee afterwards. Yeah, we'll just get it all figured out.

Speaker 2:

Have a good week.

Speaker 1:

We'll see you next week.

Speaker 2:

Bye-bye. We hope you've enjoyed this week's episode.

Speaker 1:

Remember, the conversation doesn't end here.

Speaker 2:

Keep the dialogue going by connecting with us on social media posted in the below or by visiting our website.

Speaker 1:

Together, let's continue to redefine nursing and shape a brighter future for those we care for. Until next time, take care, stay curious and keep nurturing those connections.

Speaker 2:

And don't forget to be kind to yourself.