Transforming Trauma into Advocacy: Lisa Sugarman on Mental Health and Suicide Prevention

In this episode of "Conversations with Rich Bennett," host Rich Bennett engages in a deep and insightful discussion with Lisa Sugarman, a Boston-based author, columnist, and mental health advocate. Lisa shares her compelling journey from parenting author to a devoted mental health advocate, driven by her personal experiences with suicide loss, including a transformative revelation about her father's death. The conversation explores the stigma surrounding mental illness, the impact of language on societal perceptions of suicide, and the challenges of discussing these topics on social media platforms. Lisa also highlights her involvement with The Trevor Project as a crisis counselor, emphasizing the significance of the 988 crisis support line. Rich and Lisa discuss the power of storytelling in mental health advocacy, Lisa’s written works that address both parenting and mental health challenges, and her forthcoming projects aimed at providing resources and support for those affected by mental health issues. This episode serves as a powerful dialogue on changing narratives and providing support in the realm of mental health and suicide prevention.

Here are links for you to bookmark, save, follow, memorize, write down, and share with others:

Lisa Sugarman

EMILY ANNE PHOTOGRAPHY – "everyday is a day worth capturing all of life's precious moments, one photo at a time." (emilyadolph.com)

Transcript

Rich Bennett 0:00
Thanks for joining the conversation where we explore the stories and experiences that shape our world. I'm your host, Rich Bennett. And today I am joined by Lisa Sugarman, a renowned Boston based author, columnist and crisis counselor. Lisa is passionately dedicated to mental health advocacy, particularly in suicide prevention and breaking the stigma around mental illness as a survivor of suicide loss. She offers a unique perspective on and support through her work with The Trevor Project and her own initiatives. Lisa's commitment to fostering open discussions about mental health, suicide and grief is both inspiring and impactful and something that we need more of. So join me as we delve into her experiences and insights on these crucial topics. How you doing, Lisa? 

Lisa Sugarman 0:52
I'm doing great. Rich Now that now that I've finally made my way to you all night, my technical troubles this morning, your certification guy, 

it happens. 

Rich Bennett 1:04
First of all, before we get into about suicide and everything in your books, who is Lisa Sugarman? Boston, Right. 

Lisa Sugarman 1:13
I grew up in Boston. 

Rich Bennett 1:14
Okay. 

Lisa Sugarman 1:15
Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, you know, born. Born in L.A., on the West Coast. But my parents are. Yeah, I know, but it's like it's almost not even relevant because my parents were speaking about moving when my mother was pregnant, and they had me. I was born. They switched gears, and almost as soon as I was born, we moved straight back here. I live grew up in Marblehead, Mass, which is about 17 miles north of Boston, right on the coast. So. 

Rich Bennett 1:42
Oh, nice. 

Lisa Sugarman 1:43
Yeah, I lived there forever. Married. Married. The guy from the neighboring rival town next door. We've been together for 37 years. Two daughters. Yeah. So I've lived here all my life. More or less. Moved around a little bit when our. Our kids were very little. But we came back here, settled back here, like about 23, 24 years ago. So we raised them in my hometown. And now our kids are are grown, living their lives, doing their thing. And I'm just all about mental health advocacy. I'm just kind of doing my own thing over here in my little corner of the world. You know, I've been through awareness. Yeah. Trying to try really hard to I mean, for for a long time, I've always been a content creator and a writer, but, um, for a long time, probably like a dozen years, I was a parenting author. I've written a bunch of parenting books and I've been on a lot of different parenting, family oriented platforms and kind of talking about that perfectly imperfect ness of raising kids and being a mom and kind of all those day to day things that we all go through. And then it was when I learned about two years ago, something happened in my life that really just completely threw me into a whole new headspace, whole new world. And that was learning that my dad, who I lost when I was ten years old to what I thought was a heart attack, had actually taken his own life. So I learned that when I was 45. So I lost my I lost my dad twice. I lost him twice. I've grieved him twice. And now I have a completely different narrative that I'm living with that was very different from the heart attack story that I had when I was a kid. And that I had for 35 years of my life. So I found out this truth about ten years ago. I've been really actively talking about it for about three or four, and I've been focusing all my work, pivoting everything around mental health and wellness and advocacy for about the last two. So all the content that I put out in the world, all the conversations like this that I have in the world, everything I do now revolves around helping to stop the stigma of suicide, helping to change the narrative on what it means to be mentally ill, on how to prevent people from having the same outcome. So I'm a three time survivor of suicide loss, so I lost my dad the year before I lost my dad. My cousin took his life and about three years ago, one of my best childhood friends very, very suddenly, without any warning at all, took his life. So it is not the kind of hat trick that you want to have in life. No, but I've got it. And I'm really just committed to doing something with it, too. You know, you hear everybody talk about turn pain into purpose. It's that's not bullshit. That's real. Like, I know I want to take that pain and that trauma and I want to do something with it. I want to help people with it. And that's what that's my goal. So that's. That's who I. 

Rich Bennett 4:56
Am. You are. You are doing that. I actually I want to because something I've noticed recently. Yeah, because we've talked about this on several episodes before, 

but it seems like some social media platforms, if you mentioned suicide, your penalized for it. Have you had that happen? 

Lisa Sugarman 5:19
No, not personally. And I think I'm pretty lucky in that regard. But I do know that that issue exists. I think it depends on the context. But you're talking about it in and what the platform is. You know, some are a little bit more liberal than others. I do know that some places have a little bit of pushback. I personally have not had any issues whatsoever. And I'm very out there like I'm using the word suicide and I'm using the word mental illness. I'm using depression. I mean I mean, all the words are a part of everything that I do. So I'm I'm lucky up to now, haven't had any issues. 

Rich Bennett 5:55
Okay. Because I noticed, like with my TikTok videos, they have dropped drastically. And my daughter and my son who's, you know, my son's big on Tik tok, but they told me it could have been from something like that because apparently they don't like the word suicide or died or anything like that. On Tik Tok. They prefer on alive. 

Lisa Sugarman 6:19
Really? So that's one I haven't heard before. 

Rich Bennett 6:22
Yeah. 

Lisa Sugarman 6:22
I, I haven't heard that at all. But I will say it's really, it's kind of ironic that you're talking about your views on Tik Tok. I'm kind of a latecomer to Tik Tok, and I don't know, I've probably been on for like six or eight months and, you know, was not investing a ton of time in that platform, but was definitely like sharing everything that I was doing on there as well. And with with what I would believe to be pretty decent success. I mean, you know, numbers are all kind of going in the right direction and lots of lots of really good engagement. It has basically stopped. I'm putting the same kind of content out, the same amount of content out, and all of a sudden out of absolutely nowhere, engagements are like nil or next to next to nothing. So I don't know. They've got funky algorithms. They all and I'm not I'm not out here to try and interpret algorithms. I could care less about that. I just want to reach I just want to reach the people who need to be reached. That's right. 

Rich Bennett 7:19
And that's the important thing. And yeah, yeah, I'm finding this out through social media because, you know, you always got to try all the platforms, right? But one of the things I've learned is depending on the episode, I'll only put it on 2 to 3 platform because like if it's a business episode, it makes sense to go on LinkedIn. 

Lisa Sugarman 7:41
Absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 7:41
You know, 

and Tik Tok is one of the ones I'm really not using that much anymore. I mean anything from it. 

Lisa Sugarman 7:51
I'm not either. I'm not really vibing at that much. Nothing against Tik Tok, but I just think that it's it's a little too finicky for me to try and invest an awful lot of time trying to figure out, you know, what their formula is. And I'll tell you, it's funny that you mentioned LinkedIn, too, because everything that I do also, you know, goes onto my LinkedIn page. I think that I have probably almost more engagement on LinkedIn than I do on Instagram than I do on Facebook than I do. And it's 

unbelievable to me the kind of engagement that I'm getting on LinkedIn. 

Rich Bennett 8:28
But it makes sense if you think about it, because when it comes to mental health and suicide, a lot of it is it happens in the workplace or has something to do with work. Yeah, so it makes sense. And I think nowadays you're seeing more and more businesses are calling in people to talk to their employees about it. 

Lisa Sugarman 8:52
That's right. 

Rich Bennett 8:53
Which helps a lot actually. In your opinion, how can change in the language that we use like like moving away from the term committed suicide impact, societal understanding, the stigma? 

Lisa Sugarman 9:11
Well, words matter, like at the root of all of it, like what we say and how we say it makes a big, big difference. It's it's kind of the foundation for our belief systems and taking, you know, your example of using committed suicide or actually not using it, which is really kind of what we're trending toward now. Right. Makes a big difference because, I mean, you just think about that particular phrase and how much has changed around it. A lot of people don't know that the mental health community is really trying to encourage people to get away from using that kind of language. Because when you think about that simple word choice, you think about the word committed. I'm talking about committed a crime, committed a sin. You know, someone is is somehow, you know, doing some kind of a negative behavior. And it really kind of casts an unfair stigma around maybe even the person you're talking about. Like, you know, you talk about someone taking their life and you talk about it in terms of committing suicide. And it just it's almost like, you know, they've committed a crime or a sin, so it unfairly persecutes that person just by nature of the word that you're using. So the whole mental health community is really moving behind, eliminating that from the vocabulary altogether. Because when you when you say died by suicide or ended their life or took their life, it it gives that that person who did die by suicide, it gives them back that respect. It gives them it preserves their either reputation or their circumstances. And you don't think of it in the same way right as you do when it's a negative. So. 

Rich Bennett 11:04
Well, and you think about it, too, you know, and I think about growing up a lot of times. If, of course, back then you you had a different you didn't mental health wasn't talked about know what was going on. That person was crazy and what did you do? You had them committed, meaning that you had them put in what we call back then a mental institution. And you're right, it's just a strong negative word. Probably one of the most negative words in our vocabulary. 

Lisa Sugarman 11:39
Mm hmm. Yeah. And when you attach it to something as significant as someone taking their life, it creates a whole different feeling around that person and that act. And it's it's very influential in a bad way. So by moving away from that, we we get to kind of preserve the integrity of that person. And if they're out of their position that they were in, I guess that's for lack of a better word when they did take their life. You know, most people who are taking their life, they're not they're not taking their life to try and get away from you or from me or from their job or from other people in their in their world. They're doing it because they're in so much never ending pain that they're trying to escape the pain. So how can you fault someone for that, especially when it's beyond their control? 

Rich Bennett 12:37
Actually, from your experience, what are some of the most effective yet, I guess, overlooked ways to support someone experiencing suicidal thoughts? 

Lisa Sugarman 12:51
The most important thing to do, and I say this now as a crisis counselor because I work with the Trevor Project as a crisis counselor on their lifeline. One of the most important things that we can do that validates someone's feelings or heart space or headspace is is just to listen, to listen, non-judgmental and hear what they have to say. And then honestly and openly and directly ask them, Are you thinking of killing yourself? And I know that that's a you know, anyone who may be listening to this right now might be cringing. And I get why you're cringing if you are, because that's a really offputting thing to ask somebody. First of all, it's super direct. Most people aren't expecting you're going to say something like that. And a lot of people just automatically assume that when you ask somebody directly, Are you thinking of harming yourself or killing yourself? People are like, Oh my God, I can't I can't possibly ask that because that's going to implant that idea. And now they're going to go ahead and do the thing it is. 

Rich Bennett 13:57
So it's the opposite. 

Lisa Sugarman 13:59
That is right. It's not the case. If anything, asking someone directly not only validates what they're feeling, it shows that you understand where they are emotionally and they and that you're taking them and they're, you know, in their feelings to heart. And if anything, it's going to reduce the likelihood of them actually taking their lives. 

Rich Bennett 14:20
So if they say, yeah, what do you do. 

Lisa Sugarman 14:23
If you if they say, yeah, I mean, obviously like it's it's situational, it depends on who you are to that person and where they are in the circumstances. But the one thing that you can always have in your pocket and this is the thing that if anybody takes anything away from our conversation today, I hope this is the thing that they take away. The nine, eight, eight crisis support and Suicide Lifeline is there is free is available, is staffed and is operating 24 seven 365 forever. And that is a place where someone who is either thinking of harming themselves in the process of harming themselves, dealing with other mental health challenges doesn't have to just be for suicide or, you know, a self-harming situation. It can be for any kind of mental. 

Rich Bennett 15:16
Like a panic attack. 

Lisa Sugarman 15:18
Anything, anything, an issue of depression, a grief attack, you name it. Any homelessness, job insecurity, abuse. You can call that number, you can call that number and you can talk to a counselor like me who is trained to help not only de-escalate the feelings that you're having, we're not there. None of us are there as counselors to solve your problems. We all wish we could, but that's not the design. The design is to listen, is to hold space, is to help you de-escalate the feelings that are making you feel like I want to jump off the bridge or I want to take my life. And we're also there to offer support and resources and that's that's there, that's available. Anybody can call and let's say let's say you're a parent and you're you're really concerned about your child. They're acting. They're you know, they're behaving in a very unusual way. You have the feeling that they're suicidal. You can call on behalf of your child. That's a that's called a third party call where you might call us and say, my child, something's wrong. I need help. Can you help me? In which case we can. We can either direct them to someone who can or we can offer resources or, you know, people will obviously will call for themselves. And and we're there to listen. 

Rich Bennett 16:33
Well, with that, let's say your child is an adult and your child is going through this episode, but you don't know how to talk to them and your child doesn't want to call nine and eight. But even if let's say I call nine, eight, eight, they could even help me to, I guess, help talk to her to say the words, because, you know, she don't want to get on or he don't want to get on or something like that. 

Lisa Sugarman 17:00
So absolutely. Yeah. Happens all the time. Yeah, we will help will help with language, will help with resources, will help with different, different ways that you might be able to support your child that may be either your child or your person, whoever you're calling for. Right. In ways that may be having occurred to you. 

Rich Bennett 17:18
And for those of you that aren't familiar with nine, eight, eight, it's definitely one of the best resources that has come out. And you can text them as well Kiran. 

Lisa Sugarman 17:32
Yes, you can. You can And you can also text. There's a crisis text line, which is strictly the texting platform. And in the case of the Trevor Project, who I volunteer for, we not only have the telephone hotline, you know, an 800 number that you can call, but we also have a texting platform as well. 

Rich Bennett 17:55
Actually. What's been your most profound learning from working as a crisis crisis counselor with the Trevor Project? 

Lisa Sugarman 18:05
Wow. There have been you know, there's have been so many profound learnings and moments and experiences that it's it's hard, hard to distill it down. You know what? I think for me, it was probably the way that I hold space for people like I've always been a very highly sensitive person. I've always been an empath and I've I've always wanted to hold space for the people in my life and the way that a lot of us typically do that is by kind of interject and you kind of inject your own lived experience, you inject your own opinions like, Oh, this happened to me like, Oh, I can relate. And we do that as a way to relate with people. And the training that I had to become a crisis counselor completely reformed that it it took out everything about me, about everything from my name. I don't use my my real name. We have to have aliases. You don't know the ring. You don't know where I'm from. You don't know if I have a pet. You don't know if I'm gay, straight or otherwise. You don't know if I'm married, if I have kids, Nothing. And that's a that was huge. Yeah, that was a huge learning curve for me. And it's actually been an incredible learning experience for me to kind of remodel and rewire the way that I hold space for people. Because now it's all about and I understand it now it's like it's all about helping that person who's in crisis or who just needs help to maintain agency over themselves like they are calling. They're the person that call is for them. It's not about me. It's not about my background. Even even if some of the things in my background and my history are relevant and could be helpful, they are not part of that conversation. So I think that was my big learning, my biggest learning moment, and also to that kind of along with that, that we're all dealing with something. Yeah, we all have something. We all have a story. We all have some measure of grief in our life, whether we've like lost a person or a relationship or a job or, you know, or a home, whatever it is. So it's understanding that, you know, this is such a huge world out there, but we tend to get really super isolated in our own little orbits and it opened up a whole big world where everybody's got something. 

Rich Bennett 20:37
Yeah, yeah, we do. And yeah, the good thing that the one thing I do love though, is you're more people are starting to come out and talk about it. Oh yeah. Which is helping other people. 

Lisa Sugarman 20:50
Mm hmm. That's the idea. 

Rich Bennett 20:51
Yeah. I mean, it's. Aren't we all here to help each other one way. 

Lisa Sugarman 20:56
That we should where. 

Rich Bennett 20:57
We should be? Yeah. Yeah, right, exactly. 

Lisa Sugarman 21:00
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 21:01
And that's you as storytelling. How does storytelling like you work with NAMI? 

Lisa Sugarman 21:07
NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness? Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 21:10
Contribute to greater awareness and understanding of mental health. 

Lisa Sugarman 21:14
Well, it goes back to what I just said a second ago, that we are all kind of part of the same fabric. Right? Right. We're all part of the same global community. So we all share the same kinds of experiences that transcend our race, our economic status, our background, our culture, our religion, you know, our sexual orientation. Like all those things, like we're all human beings, We're all human beings. We have to deal with with life and death and loss and grief and pain and suffering and mental illness and all those other things. And when we open up and we share our own unique stories, like we all have something of value to share, we all have a story that's worth sharing, whatever that story might be. And when we do that, we find a connection point me, either me to you or someone who's listening to us or someone else in the world. All of a sudden now that person's kind of reassured that it's not just them. Whatever their thing is, it's not just theirs. They're not the only one dealing with it. They're not the only one feeling sad or isolated or hopeless or depressed. And there's hope in that. There's community in that, and there's there's strength in that. And that's why, like I've gone right back to, like, grassroots storytelling. You know, I'm a writer, so I obviously write, I use social media quite a bit, but I'm out there talking to people and I'm just like, me to you or me to a group sharing my story because if somebody who hears my story of survival can can pick out one little piece of that story, maybe it's something I did, maybe it's something I said, maybe it's something that helped and they can take that away with them and that helps them in their life or their people will Then that's the whole point right? Right. 

Rich Bennett 23:04
How many books have you written now? 

Lisa Sugarman 23:06
I've written three, three, three, and fourth is on the way. 

Rich Bennett 23:10
Oh, wait a minute. Well, all right. 

Lisa Sugarman 23:15
I don't I don't sleep. I feel like. 

Rich Bennett 23:17
Where's the fourth one coming out? 

Lisa Sugarman 23:19
That's a good question. 

Rich Bennett 23:21
I if you had the answer, you would tell. 

Lisa Sugarman 23:24
Me, right? Yeah, I would. I would love to tell you the answer I am. Let's put it this way. I'm hopeful that I'll have a really big, beautiful, exciting announcement to make in the very short term about when that book is coming out. 

Rich Bennett 23:40
Maybe like in the spring or before the summer. 

Lisa Sugarman 23:43
I am I am hopeful that that is the case. 

Rich Bennett 23:47
To tell everybody, tell everybody about the books, because I think as well, I know it's very important that people get them because it's going to help them. 

Lisa Sugarman 23:58
I hope so. I really hope so. So these these were books that I that I had written when I was in that parenting space that I mentioned years ago. I'm super proud of those books. A lot of the content. Most of the content is what we call evergreen. Yes. Which means that it's always relevant. So with that, with the exception of a few little things here and there that, you know, that might be time sensitive, everything in there is is going to be as relatable now as it was then. So the first book that I wrote was a collection of the syndicated column that I wrote for many, many years, called It Is What It Is. That was kind of, I guess, all over the planet in lots of different places on platforms. And I wrote it for about a dozen years and it was like, you know, it was just like a brain dump. It was always I was always writing about my life as a parent or my life as a working mom or, you know, my life as a you know, as a wife or a single child, you know. 

Rich Bennett 24:54
Yeah. 

Lisa Sugarman 24:55
You know, an only child. And excuse me, I ended up 

threading about about 50 of my columns together as my first book called It Is What It Is. And that book came out. Oh, God, it came. It came a long time ago now. It's been a while. It's probably been a decade. So that book is still out there. And my second book with my publisher, Familias there are publishing house out in California. They publish books that help families be happy. So I found a beautiful home with them, wrote a couple of books with them. The first one was called Untying Parrot Anxiety 18 Myths that Have You in parenting, Myths that Have You in Knots and How to Get Free. And then the most recent book was called How to Raise Perfectly Imperfect Kids and Be Okay With It. And you know that you can just kind of take the overarching theme that that that cross-pollinate over to mental health in the sense that, you know, that nobody's perfect, nothing's perfect. We've all got stuff. We got to learn how to navigate through it. 

Rich Bennett 25:59
But that book, your latest book is great for a lot of people that have kids now, because a lot of the covered kids cover kids got it. Sounds like it should be a band, 

But, you know, they're the mental illness that they're going through right now is like off the charts. 

Lisa Sugarman 26:18
I know. I know. 

Rich Bennett 26:20
It's nuts. 

Lisa Sugarman 26:21
I know it's scary. And so the kind of overarching message of that book is it speaks as much to the kids as it does to the parents who the book is designed for. And it really just says, look, 

life is imperfect, Accept that it's imperfect, embrace that it's imperfect. And learning how to pivot is one of the greatest gifts you can ever give yourself or your kids. Yeah, because that's that's how we build resilience. So that's kind of the overarching theme for everything. And now this this most recent book is a very, very different, different sort of book. It'll probably be written in the same right now. It's been written in the same tone as everything else, which is really like super conversational or every chapter is pretty much standalone and every chapter is very short and digestible. That's kind of just how I've always written. But this book is is all about my father's story. It's about losing him twice. It's it's really a the this the book itself is a is telling a story to use as a vehicle for having the bigger conversations for having these kinds of conversations. Right. For for mainstreaming talking about we're not okay for you know breaking the stigma and changing this whole narrative on mental illness and and how to get help. And I have a huge mental health resources hub that is that I've been building up for quite some time on my my website. And it's yeah, this thing has has really become like my little baby. And it's it's continuing to grow daily with with, you know, new and different resources for 16 different categories worth of communities and populations out there. Bipoc community, Asian veterans, disabled kids, teens, LGBTQ, you name it. I have dedicated resource pages for everybody in those communities, and so that will be in the book. I also have a toolkit section on my website that have their PDFs. You can print them, you can download them, you can share them, you can post them, and they talk about like exactly what you and I talked about, what you asked me, like, what do you do when someone is threatening to take their life? What what do you say to them? I have PDF files that that I've created, documents that I've created that have the language that they have the tools for, you know, how to be more mindful for, you know, how to how to deal with a grief attack. For instance, if something hits you when you're not prepared. So all that stuff is going to be in the book. 

Rich Bennett 28:58
Including columns and articles that write. 

Lisa Sugarman 29:01
Yet? I am. Yep. I so I have a new column that came out the first of this year. So the, the column that I wrote for about a dozen years was called It is What It Is. This new column is called We Are Who We Are and and thank you. I appreciate it. It's it's just another platform to have these kinds of conversations to talk about this. The hard things. Yeah. Talk about the hard things and have the tough conversations and like this week's the drop today actually the you know, the title of that was, you know, what do you do when someone you love wants to Die? 

Rich Bennett 29:36
There's only one thing I don't know if I told you this before or not, but your website is beautiful is an awesome website. It is. Is great. Do you do it yourself or do you have somebody do it? 

Lisa Sugarman 29:47
I have got the most wonderful guy and his teammate. I use someone out of California. Yeah, his name is Connor Biddle and his agency is called Little Little Creative. And Connor and and his guy Jordan are amazing. I cannot recommend them enough. Congressman, with me now for a really long time through a couple of different iterations of this website, and he is just crushing it this time. Like I have all the you know, I have the design in my mind, but I don't have the ability to execute on a lot of. Right. So Connor, Connor is like, you know, he's like the Serena de Bergerac of my website. He's the guy who's making it all happen. 

Rich Bennett 30:30
So has he told you that you need to start a podcast and add that to the website? 

Lisa Sugarman 30:35
Funny you should say that my husband has been bugging the living shit out of me lately in the best possible way to do that. 

Rich Bennett 30:44
Seriously. 

Lisa Sugarman 30:45
He has. I know, I know. But it seems to me I have books to write, columns to write, content to create. And now you know. And I also have a series, Suicide Survivor series on YouTube that I created about six months ago, and I populate that. And new videos drop every week. So I got a lot of balls in the air, but I and I was on the radio. I had a radio show with my co-author here in Boston called Life Unfiltered, and we had that for a couple of years. And it's kind of loosely based on our book. And so I've had a lot of time doing live radio and doing podcasts, and I do miss it. I really do miss it because I do love having those conversations. So. 

Rich Bennett 31:32
Yeah, I'm thinking. 

Lisa Sugarman 31:32
About. 

Rich Bennett 31:33
It. I think he sure is doing the podcast. Unlike radio, you have more freedom. 

Lisa Sugarman 31:37
More free speech. 

Rich Bennett 31:39
True. And God knows we already know you're good at it. 

Lisa Sugarman 31:42
Little things. 

Rich Bennett 31:43
The other thing is too, I believe that just because of your background and your experience in radio and writing, you can have sponsors for your podcast before you even launch your first episode. 

Lisa Sugarman 31:58
Easily that you know, I it's funny, it's almost like you're Dave and I'm talking all over again. He says these things are his, his, his field, his business development. So he's always kind of got that business side on his brain. And he said the exact same thing. And you know, it's funny, I he also laughs at me because my husband says all the time that I would like give away the farm because I don't care about, you know, the kind of the upside of things in the way that a lot of other people might. I care about the messaging and I care about the help getting to the right people. But, you know, I do also have college tuitions to pay and all the same things that other people can. 

Rich Bennett 32:38
So the other thing. 

Lisa Sugarman 32:40
Can be a bad. 

Rich Bennett 32:40
Thing, at least cover your expenses. 

Lisa Sugarman 32:42
Well, that's the thing. That's the thing. Yeah. The fact of the matter is I have so many exciting projects and collaborations that I'm involved in. I'm so grateful for all of them. They're just even as someone who only sleeps a few hours a night, there are not enough hours in the day because I literally will work at my desk for 12 hours and yeah, I'll be able to turn around and do the whole thing all over again because I just am. 

Rich Bennett 33:06
So you like what you're doing? 

Lisa Sugarman 33:09
I love it, you know. Look, do I. Do I wish I didn't have the story that I had. Do I wish that that wasn't my experience? I hadn't lost so many people. Of course I do every day. But I I'm also very, very committed to taking that life experience and giving it away in the hopes that, you know, it helps someone else avoid making the same choice. 

Rich Bennett 33:34
It is. It is. I guarantee you it is. And so I want to thank you for 

Lisa Sugarman 33:39
Oh, you're. 

Rich Bennett 33:40
Welcome. You are. You are helping people. You are changing lives. You are saving lives. 

Lisa Sugarman 33:45
I hope so. I really do. 

Rich Bennett 33:47
Oh, yeah, you are. That's why you got I think I I'm thinking I see a video call coming up with me. You Dave, your husband. Correct. 

Lisa Sugarman 33:56
I know. Dave is my. 

Rich Bennett 33:57
Husband. Dave is your husband. Okay, so a three way video call. 

Lisa Sugarman 34:00
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 34:01
With the three of us just to. Well, Yogi Conner on there too. 

Lisa Sugarman 34:06
I know. Yeah, I know. 

Rich Bennett 34:07
That's awesome. 

Lisa Sugarman 34:08
For Connor. Like, urban designer, I, I he's such a saint. He's such a good guy. We go back and forth about a million times a day. But I'll tell you, I could never have created the the resource hub and just this platform without him. 

Rich Bennett 34:25
And what is the website. Lisa Sugarman dot com. Right. 

Lisa Sugarman 34:28
Lisa Sugarman Dot com. Yep. And everything that I do I mean I'm obviously on all the social assembly, you know, Instagram, Twitter and, and TikTok and all that, but everything that I do, including books, including columns, including YouTube, including every archive of everything I've either, you know, written or produced funnels right through that. Yeah. So it's kind of the catchall for everything. 

Rich Bennett 34:52
Yeah, I've talked to a lot of people about mental health, but what you're doing and your message, 

you have so much to offer. 

Lisa Sugarman 35:01
Thanks, Rich. 

Rich Bennett 35:02
And which is very important and God, I can't wait to do the mental Health roundtable with you on it. 

Lisa Sugarman 35:09
Oh, I can't wait. I can't wait. I'm down to do absolutely anything. Here's the thing. And I have a feeling you're a lot like this. I don't say no very often. I have my boundaries. I know what I can do and what I can't do. And I've learned how to say no more often lately than ever. But I mean, I don't usually turn away opportunities because it's because of being so willing to kind of go through every door that's been opened for me. Yeah, that, that I've, I've ended up where I am now and have had the experiences that I've had and have made the connections that I've had and and I just feel so incredibly grateful. You know, I it's why I have a hard time saying no to things because I see where they lead. 

Rich Bennett 35:54
Yeah. 

Lisa Sugarman 35:55
You know. 

Rich Bennett 35:56
So is there anything you would like to add before I get to my final question? 

Lisa Sugarman 36:01
No, I mean, we talked at length about having that nine eight number kind of, you know, in your pocket. Yes. In your on your brain. So that you always know that regardless of the situation, you've got something that will help you, something that will, you know, be there for you as a resource or the person you know, who you're trying to help. So that's the main thing. The other thing I guess I would just encourage everybody who's listening, please take a peek at my website, if only for this mental resources 

hub that I've created and and what that can offer. Everything on there is, of course, free. Every resource is a single click away. That's the way I designed it. I wanted people who were in crisis, who needed help to be able to have resources right there, available, vetted and a direct line right from my site to that resource. So just bookmark it, save it, pass it along. Yes. Keep that on your brain to That's that's probably the most important thing I would say. 

Rich Bennett 37:07
I'm glad you said that because I was going to say, you know, don't just take a peek, bookmark it and save it. Yeah. Send it to friends, the PBS people. Seriously, if you can't print them out, especially no matter what, I don't care who you are, you know somebody or will know somebody that is going through some type of mental health issues. And I'm sure you probably and if you kind of I hate to say this, but I think it's a fact you're going to know. You either know or you're going to know somebody that has decided or has killed themselves. And if you have that information available, allow it to you can embedded in your brain, print out the PDFs and carry them with you because you. 

Lisa Sugarman 37:58
Put them on your phone down. There's a file. They're always there. 

Rich Bennett 38:02
Yeah. Because you never know when you will need it. And you just having that number. That's how I love the 98. It just it's so easy 

to just get ready say a Geico commercial. But, 

but it's, it's, it's so easy to remember. Granted, when I was first told about it, I forgot it a few times because, you know, we say what when you think about you think 911 right away. Right. Well, no, you don't want to call 911 in a case like this. No. Eight, eight. And you know, like we were talking about, even if you're not going through something but somebody you love is a you don't know how to handle it, you can call nine, eight, eight and they will talk you through it. 

Lisa Sugarman 38:52
Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 38:55
So is there anything a hostess never asks you that you wish they would do? They asked you. And I said, What would be that question? What would be your answer? 

Lisa Sugarman 39:04
So I love the timing of this question because it's just landing on me in such a way that the answer just immediately popped into my head. Yet I've never thought about it before, so no one, in all the years that I've been talking about mental health and suicide awareness, all the things that I that I talk about now, no one has ever asked me if I personally have ever had suicidal ideations or made or attempted or been close to that point. No one has ever asked me that question before. 

Rich Bennett 39:41
Have you? 

Lisa Sugarman 39:42
I'm glad you asked. And 

there have been times when I have been in very dark places I've been so I mentioned earlier, that I'm very much an empath. I'm very much a highly sensitive person. What's interesting about learning about my dad's suicide is that it was both the worst thing I could ever have learned, the most traumatic thing I could ever have learned. But, you know, everything's got a yin and the yang, right? There was an interesting thing that happened, and I've never really written about this and I've never talked about it. So you're the first. I for a very long time was incredibly burdened by my emotional wiring. My my husband Dave and I, we laugh about it now, but the way that I have talked about my emotional wiring all these years is that think of it like the coating that coats your wires in your electrical system, in your house, right? You can touch the wire because it's coated. If it's not coated, you're going to get shocked. Just shock my emotional wiring is very, very thin. That coating has always been very thick. So I feel all the vibrations, the good, the bad, the the up, the down. I've always been that way. And for a very, very long time, I, I didn't think that I was depressed necessarily, like long term depressed. I didn't know if I had mental illness like my father, but I just felt like I was so exposed all the time and it was very hard to navigate because I felt everybody stuff so heavily and deeply that there were times when I just it was overwhelming. It was very overwhelming. And when I found out that my dad had been mentally ill and that he had taken his life, I knew what I was and I knew what I wasn't. And I knew that I wasn't suicidal in the way that my father obviously was. I like I said, I have had moments where I've thought, I don't want to feel this way anymore. I don't want to be this in this place anymore. Have I ever actively? No. Have I thought about what it would be like to not be here? Absolutely. Has it been fleeting? Yeah, pretty much. But it's been there and so that's the answer. That's the answer to the question that no one has ever asked me. So, yeah, I have had thoughts, you know, suicidal ideations before, but I also now have the benefit of all the experience that I have and the lived experience that I have and, and I and I know that it's not a troublesome thing. It's more of I don't know, It's it's more of something that keeps me connected to what I'm doing. 

Rich Bennett 42:30
Right. 

Lisa Sugarman 42:30
Wow. If that makes sense. 

Rich Bennett 42:32
No, no, no. Yeah, it makes it makes perfect. It makes perfect sense to me, huh? Wow. 

There you have. I was not ready for that. 

Lisa Sugarman 42:43
I know you weren't. I guess I saw your face and I. And 20 seconds before you asked me, I had no idea what I was going to say. 

Rich Bennett 42:52
Mm hmm. Wow. 

Lisa Sugarman 42:53
Timing is everything Lisa. 

Rich Bennett 42:56
I Yeah. God, I want to. I want to thank you so much for coming on. But also, again, I want to thank you for everything that you're doing. 

Keep it up. Don't stop. I will. And I know we're going to be talking again because we definitely got to do that. 

Lisa Sugarman 43:17
I know. I know. We're doing it. I'm in. You know. 

Rich Bennett 43:20
We are. 

Lisa Sugarman 43:20
Rich. Anything you want me to do, I'm doing. 

Rich Bennett 43:23
If you don't look, just. Just keep putting a boot up my ass and, you know, keep bugging me every every. What do I say, Rich? Do you have that thing scheduled yet? Because I get so many things going on. Well, I think I may have told you before. I tried to take all I wanted to take off. I forget what month it was, how to I wanted to be a guest on another podcast. Well, that sort of got nixed because I get kept getting more people wanted to come on. So I decided, All right, well, I'm going to take this month and focus on just recording in-person podcasts with people here that sort of got pushed off to off to an upcoming board. So I haven't got if my mentor here says he's going to yell at me, I haven't even worked on my book lately. So I now get yelled. 

Lisa Sugarman 44:18
At, look, you know, here's, here's, here's how I feel, because I understand this mentality. I understand this kind of way of life because I am always got, you know, I've always got a thousand balls in the air. And now I function best that way. I operate best that way. I produce better that way. But you know what? I've come to realize that we all have a certain plan in our heads. Like, I know I need to do these five things before I go to that other thing, because if I do the other thing first, it's not going to be what I want it to be. I need to get my other ducks in a row. I need to keep, you know, momentum going in these areas. So I get it. And the fact of the matter is we prioritize the things that are really important to us. So you're doing the thing right now. You may feel like like, oh, I'm blowing off this thing because I'm doing this thing. You're not you're doing the thing right now that you believe you need to be doing. And when you're ready to sit down and work on the book, are you ready to be the guest? You're going to do those things or I'll just put a boot up your ass and you'll do that way. 

Rich Bennett 45:17
I love it. Lisa, Thanks a lot. 

Lisa Sugarman 45:20
It's always a pleasure.