Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Welcome to the university lead mental health podcast, where your host, dr. Hans Watson helps you to learn the why behind mental health issues that you or someone you love may be facing. Dr. Watson is a nationally renowned psychiatrist who is also an expert in psychotherapy, a war proven leader of the U S military. And the only person we know to be an expert in psychiatry, psychodynamics diet is leadership, trauma, addiction, marriage education, and more. That's why he was the expert that was flown in to the other side of the country to train the therapists, treating the victims and their families. After the recent mass shootings you heard about in Florida, we are excited to help you to understand the why behind some real life situations. And now your host, dr. Hans Watson, D O.
Speaker 1 00:01:08 And welcome back once again for another podcast with university lead on dr. Watson, like always, and as you already know those of you, who've been following our podcast, I have here a good friend and a consultant, Jeremy, and we're once again, having a conversation in response to questions that have been posed. And today we have kind of a serious question, and we're going to try to debunk some of the myths around it. Today's question was asking about suicide and the people basically had questions of what can I do to avoid precipitating a suicide attempt. Uh, if I have some, a friend who is suicidal, what can I do to help that situation so that maybe they could heal and essentially how to act around somebody that's suicidal. And so today we want to talk about that and we want to address the serious topic of suicide, but we also want to debunk so many of the wives tales that exists around it because they actually can create quite, quite a lot of damage.
Speaker 1 00:02:11 And so that will be our goal today is to demystify and help people understand the serious thing that is the suicide epidemic. Now, this is particularly important for us to talk about because coming on the end of the COVID-19 quarantines, some people are just to their wit's end. And there's a lot of psychiatrists, psychologists, uh, the mental health community as a whole that are quite worried, whether there's going to be a suicide epidemic that happens on the tail end of COVID-19. And so that's one reason we need to do, we need to look at this so that the general public can start understanding what the real risk factors are for suicide. And so we'll jump into that. So Jeremy, welcome back. It's good to have you say hello to everyone. Thank you, dr. Watson. Hello everyone. I'm excited for this
Speaker 2 00:03:00 Topic today.
Speaker 1 00:03:02 So as we, as we start talking about suicide, the first thing that we need to look at with suicide is, is, uh, how the mental health community at large deals with suicide in general, uh, suicide is, is, uh, ah, how do we say this kindly we're not as good with suicide as we should be. Um, there are times where even the mental health professionals don't have the big picture for what it is. Uh, I like to cite, uh, Albert Einstein because he said something that, uh, that really resonated with me. He said, if you can't explain it simply, you don't know it well enough. And so in this case, if you can't tell me in two sentences or less, what is suicide, then you probably don't understand it well enough to be an expert in it. And, and you probably should be working on that if, especially if you're working in mental health.
Speaker 1 00:04:00 And so our goal today is to bring it simple enough that at the end of this, you'll be able to look at it and say, that makes sense in two sentences or less, I could explain what suicide is. And so, uh, hopefully we're able to do that so that if you encounter anybody at the end of this COVID epidemic or pandemic, excuse me, and you you're worried about somebody being suicidal, you'll be able to look at it and have a better view of, is this serious enough that I need to get them help? Or is it a time for me to just relax and just be vigilant and ready to help if it's needed? There's a big difference in that small little nuance and can make a big difference in our life. So Jeremy, uh, most everybody in their life has either heard of somebody or been touched by suicide in some way, or even, uh, even, um, had a, uh, an experience personally with suicide. And so, uh, what are the sentiments that you've noticed in people that you've talked with that have experienced suicide in some form in their life? Whether it was a loved on a friend or somebody, they knew a classmate, whatever it was, what sentiments have you seen as you've, uh, interacted with that in your life?
Speaker 2 00:05:12 Uh, I see a lot of people asking how could this happen and how could I personally have prevented it? And I think that's the patterns I see most often.
Speaker 1 00:05:29 I liked that. I liked that. And so first off before we can answer either of those questions and I see the similar thing, there's a lot of people that look at it and they say, why did this happen? How could this happen? And what could we have done to prevent it? And we're going to answer those questions today. Um, and, and with some generalities and we're going to make it simple. So first and foremost, uh, giving it all the respect that I can yet, we can't sugar coat, what suicide is otherwise, we're doing disservice and we're not actually doing any good. We could, we can say the politically correct thing here all day long, but at the end of the day, if somebody kills themselves, because you didn't hear the hard truth, we failed as a whole. And so let's, let's just be where anybody is watching this.
Speaker 1 00:06:18 This is kind of the down and dirty, the blunt truth of what suicide is. And I mean, no disrespect to anybody, but if we're going to decide, define suicide, it's this suicide is nothing more than a permanent way to try to avoid confronting my problems. In other words, suicide is the most permanent and sophisticated way to run away from things that scare me. And so there are a lot of things to run away from. There are a lot of ways we can run away or avoid and suicide fits into that category. And so I've had some people really don't like that definition because it puts a lot of responsibility on the person who would be attempting suicide, however it's accurate. And we have to acknowledge that if we're going to get past a suicidal situation, and I will tell you, my patients often come in suicidal and I can tell you suicide is not a common thing that I've had to deal with. My patients get better because we don't sugar coat it. And so Jeremy has I tell you is such a, such an honest and straightforward and frankly, blunt definition of suicide. Um, please give me your thoughts.
Speaker 2 00:07:41 I, I agree. I, um, uh, I've always considered it an escape, uh, the most, um, permanent form of escapism, which I think is the exact same thing. So what you're saying, just different semantics. Um, but, but I also feel like, um, it can only happen when someone is truly only thinking about themselves. How has that, you know,
Speaker 1 00:08:14 Yeah. That there is a certain part of that. That is, it is quite a, if we're going to be honest, it's quite a selfish act because you're, you're generally, uh, willing to sacrifice those that are left behind and create a lot of pain for them. Uh, you're you're willing to set that as the example of how to deal with hard things, to anybody who might be influenced. Uh, we find that the biggest risk of suicide in children is if they have a parent who has done suicide, the vast majority of those children will actually be at risk for suicide themselves, and many will actually succeed. And so we see, I can see eye to eye with that. It is quite a selfish act if we're going to break it down to its raw form. Yes. Um, and that's not to say, I don't want to be uncaring here. That's not to say that they're not dealing with real difficulties and real hard things, but it is basically saying, yes, I am willing to sacrifice and create pain for everybody else, just for a chance to escape it myself. And so that, that reflects somebody who's really quite desperate and they're quite overwhelmed
Speaker 2 00:09:29 And selfishness like saying, Oh, that's selfish, but that's a very generalized categorization of, of a person's personality that I think you probably don't see what is typically associated with selfishness in these individuals. But it's, it's more that I think that that life is coming down on them so much that they can't see the forest for the trees. They can't see the stop and smell the roses. It's, it's all just like, like here's the way they're carrying on their shoulders and they're escaping their own burdens. And there's, they're so buried perhaps that they can't recognize the burdens that's going to cause and the ripple effects that's going to cause for others. And so it is that I think so much that you're only focused on yourself. Not that you're a person of a, um, uh, of a lifelong selfish nature, but that you have gotten to that point, that your own burdens, your own trials and the weight that you're carrying yourself often 100% by yourself, you feel like there's no help there. That's all that. They can see that that's all that they have the capacity to, to focus on at the time.
Speaker 1 00:11:01 Right. I agree. And I think it is important to say, just because you have an action that is selfish does not make you a bad person. And I think that's the point you're getting at here. Good people can be selfish at times. And it's okay to recognize that even a good person, sometimes we'll do something, an action that is not good. You know, I use the example and, and if you listen to my podcast, you've heard me many times say it, there are only three people I'm aware of that that are believed to have been perfect by different groups. And that is Buddha Mohammad and Jesus, the Christ. So unless you're Jesus Mohammad or Buddha, quit holding yourself to a standard of perfection and instead recognized, I could still be a good guy, even if I do something wrong. Now, in this case, we hope that, uh, we hope that we can intervene.
Speaker 1 00:11:55 And that's one of the difficulties is, is not being able to predict who is and who isn't going to attempt suicide in a given situation. Um, and so, uh, mental health professionals for years have struggled with this and they really, uh, there's even been studies that show that we're no better than the general population at taking the population at random and predicting who will and who won't be suicidal out of the population at random, we have to have more information. And this is where it gets kind of funny because people will say, well, what are the risk factors? What are the risk factors? And this doesn't mean what causes it. It means what are the demographic data that are associated with this? And so let's go through some of this and figure out just how ridiculous it is to screen people based on risk factors. And so the first one is males are more likely to succeed at suicide. So if I'm screening the population to say, who do I need to intervene for in case they're suicidal and screen them for suicidality? Well, take half of the world's population. They're male. Okay. Um, that's not really helpful. So let's, let's throw that one. That one can't be used. We can't just screen half the half the world. Okay. So second, uh, they say it older individuals above 55 years old, you're actually more likely to commit suicide. Okay. So now let's
Speaker 3 00:13:26 Just say, okay, all the males above 55,
Speaker 1 00:13:29 How many millions are there and you'd have to have a psychiatrist or a social worker or a psychologist doing these screens? How many of them would we have to screen? That's not reasonable. We can't, we can't screen, I don't know how many millions and millions or possibly billions that, that sit in above there. Uh, so, okay. What about those that have, uh, thoughts of suicide? Well, there was a study that just came out the show, normal individuals in college, over half of them had had a thought of suicide and even thought of the way they would kill themselves. And of, of those, none of them had attempted suicide ever. So we can't just say those, that, those that look at think of suicide. No, that once again, isn't going to work. So there's, there's no good screening tool to say, okay, if you are this, this and this, we can predict it.
Speaker 1 00:14:19 And we're going to watch you closely. So we actually have to start looking at behaviors. We can't just screen based on demographics. You're male, you're older. You know, maybe you can take those into account, but more importantly, it would be the behaviors. And so we start looking at this and we look at avoidant behavior. So if you're a mental health professional, or if you're just a concerned individual, we need to start looking and saying, if you're doing a, B or C, I need to watch you and, and, and look whether suicide is a problem for you. And we'll talk about how to do that as we move on. But one of the biggest behaviors, and it gets down simple to what we've already let the cat out of the bag with this one. It's simple part is if somebody uses avoidance as their only coping mechanism, eventually life will make it.
Speaker 1 00:15:13 So you can't keep avoiding your problems. If you never learn to overcome difficult things, eventually life is going to get to the point that you can't keep. You can't keep avoiding hard things in life. And so you're going to have to start escalating and it may start with, well, I'm going to play video games instead of facing the world. Well, one day you have to actually get a job and pay for rent. So I no longer can just play video games all day. Okay. So now I can't do that. Maybe now I'm going to only play video games at night, but then I can't sleep because now the video games off, so now I'm not sleeping and I have to go to work and you can see how it just keeps escalating to where eventually you're going to have to face your fear because otherwise it's going to then lead to, okay.
Speaker 1 00:16:00 I'm using substances to numb the neurons in my brain so that I don't think about it because I'm high. And when that no longer works, we generally see it lead to a suicide attempt as a way to run away from the thing that I've been avoiding. And so the first thing we want to do whenever we're saying, is this somebody who's at risk of suicide. We want to look and say, is this an individual who has learned to confront hard things in their life? And one of the easiest areas that I found that is very accurate. And so in my practice, we look at this, how do you deal with social difficulty? Social difficulty is a very good indicator to whether there's somebody is using avoidance as their only technique. And that is a very good indicator. That suicide is on the spectrum of avoidance that you should watch with these individuals.
Speaker 1 00:16:54 And so you look at it, people who can't seem to endure social discord and difficulty are the ones that are really high risk. And so you look at that when I get in a fight with somebody are my only options to sever that relationship, or to pretend like it's not there and avoid confronting it. If those are my only two options, it's all or nothing. I am somebody that should be screamed at for being potentially suicidal, because there are many who aren't, who, who just have other coping mechanisms that are just as, just as a pathologic, it just doesn't result in a death. Um, and so that's the first big step there is, is identifying, did this person, when they comes to social difficulty, are they somebody who can start to work through it? And I didn't say you have to be good at it, but can you learn to work through it without having to either destroy the relationship or completely pretend and avoid like there's no problem. So what are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 00:17:58 I like that when you say, um, the ability to cope with Def difficult situations, um, I've often said that the two most memorable things that my dad taught me growing up were you gotta face the music and you got to bite the bullet. So if, if there was a job that had to be done that we didn't want to do, they would always be saying, it's like, you just got to bite the bullet and get it done. You know, it was like, you just have to do it. And if we had done something wrong and, um, I remember, um, one night we slept in his tent, in the backyard and, um, and I messed his tent up a little bit. And he was asking who did it? And that was my learning experience where I learned to be honest and fess up to things. And that was always taught his face, the music, you know, if you've done something, you have to face the music. Um, even if it's scary or something you don't want to do. And I'm kind of hearing that in this, that a lot of people, and I've experienced this with a lot of people that I've interacted with. I'm like, man, you've never been talked to bite the bullet,
Speaker 1 00:19:09 Face the music, come on. Like, how are you?
Speaker 2 00:19:12 Um, but I think those are our skills that, that, um, that aren't always instilled in people while they're growing up. And now you're kind of drawing a correlation there that, that having never developed the ability to do those things is actually, uh, leads to maybe being on the spectrum for potentially suicide. And that's accurate. And you, you, you brought up a good point
Speaker 1 00:19:46 Parenting. Um, it's so hard to be a parent and I would hate to ever criticize a parent who is trying their hardest. One of the things there with parents that we, we need to really keep a track of us. It's our job as parents to model to the children, how to overcome hard things. So we actually have to, as a good parent, one of the things that we need to demonstrate is times when we're struggling and that it's okay for us to struggle and show them how we're working through that. Because now all of a sudden it's a demonstration to those children saying my mom or my dad is a good person. And even they struggle. So if I struggle as a child and later as an adult, it doesn't mean that I'm a failure. I can still be a good person and struggle. And so that's one of the big things that we really want to do.
Speaker 1 00:20:44 And so when you say, how are you raised? Uh, I, it's really important to know it's not about not struggling, but it is about learning to face the music, as you say, and, and helping them to see that it's okay if you fall on your face and fell six times, that doesn't mean we give up. That means we learn from it and we figure out where we can change it to make it a success. Whereas, uh, you know, one of the examples that I had was, um, a young lady came to me, uh, is she was a teenager and I was doing psychotherapy with her. And, uh, the parents said, okay, she's suicidal. She needs to change things. And so we started talking the, in the mother and I was talking with her, just really struggled with, uh, any, anybody criticizing her. In fact, one time I just asked, are you doing this?
Speaker 1 00:21:41 And she immediately jumped to, are you accusing me? And so we, we slowed down. I said, Oh, I'd hate for you to think that. And we started talking and the mother then felt comfortable enough that she said, I'd worry so much that I'm going to be criticized. So then we looked at it and this mother had been somebody when her daughter was in school from elementary school on whenever she had a disagreement with a friend, the mother would immediately call the parents. And this was, you've heard of a Heather hover mother. This was the extreme of that. And she would immediately call the parents or the school administrators and her daughter had never done anything wrong in her life. And she had never done any of that. And in the end of the day, that had led to her daughter, never learning how to work through social difficulties.
Speaker 1 00:22:32 And so the way that we actually helped her daughter out was not to give that daughter psychotherapy. I actually accepted the mother into psychotherapy. And as the mother started learning to deal with difficulty herself and learning to accept it, maybe she didn't have to be there to protect her child from, from put them in a bubble. So they never had to experience adversity when she got to that point to where she could be vulnerable and let her kids see times where she was overwhelmed and scared and watch the work for it. We didn't see that suicidality in her daughter, and it didn't come back for at least the few years that I followed. And so, interestingly, as you say, how are you raised that mother was doing everything she could, and she worked twice as hard as most parents trying to defend her child from what you and I would consider normal disagreements on the school bus or anything else. And the whole way that I stopped her child from being suicidal was working with that mother to stop protecting her child. And then instead the mother, after that, she would come in just overwhelmed into therapy. And she would actually say,
Speaker 4 00:23:46 My daughter got in a fight with a boy on the bus today. And that boy is just terrible, terrible. And so then we talked through it and by the end of the session, she was saying, maybe the boys not bad. Maybe these are just kids who are struggling to interact with each other. And she would then let it be. And she would tell her daughter, I'm so sorry you're going through this. And they would actually work on strategies they could use and she'd come back the next week and tell me it worked. Actually my daughter was able to resolve that problem. And the daughter started getting a mantra of, I do hard things. It may take me a long time, but I do hard things. I overcome hard things and the suicidality went away. And so, as we're looking here, I liked that you introduced, how were you raised?
Speaker 4 00:24:31 But I want to be careful just because somebody's suicidal does not mean the parents were good or bad. It just means that somehow that that child either chose not to, or was never taught how to confront hard things. And therefore suicide became the lap, the option of last resort, because they had learned, you just avoid you, you, they had no idea how to even start to approach it. And that's most people that are suicidal is they've gotten into a situation where they have no idea how to even approach it. And that's where actually good psychotherapy and good treatment for suicidality starts is okay. What are some other ways we could approach this without just having to click the easy button now? So does that answer your, your thought there? Jeremy? It does. And I liked that because I could have made that entire point without mentioning where I'd learned it or anything about parenting.
Speaker 4 00:25:26 I think it was really based on something else that you just said about that young girl taking pride in, I do hard stuff. And I remember I, I climbed out Kathy town and that was the hardest thing I've ever done. And it was so miserable while doing that. And so incredibly fulfilling afterwards that I felt more alive and more, um, passion for life than I ever had before. And it was all based on doing something that normally I would escape. Uh, I would look for excuses. In fact, I had gone the year before and attempted and failed without 600 feet up. So this is hard. I don't want to do this. Um, came up with an excuse and said, get me off this mountain. I don't want to hang on this cliff for five days. Um, and so it was, I think, um, what, what I'm trying to take now is that doing those hard things, facing the music, attacking that aspect of life, that, that my team's thinks were to shy away from, to escape from and to say, no, probably an excuse. So you don't have to do this. This is going to be miserable, difficult, and just outright, no fun.
Speaker 4 00:26:59 It really gave me something to live for having accomplished that. And the fulfillment that I felt from doing something hard on my own, my dad, wasn't there to rescue me. Um, he's the one that taught me to climb and, and everything. So, you know, you could have been there to help me along, but, uh, this was something I did on my own. And, um, how does that impact it? Just making that decision to do these hard things, choosing to do them rather than to run
Speaker 1 00:27:38 A great question. And so, uh, there's two things I want to point out from there and let's answer your questions second. But the first one I loved that you
Speaker 4 00:27:46 Pointed out was even
Speaker 1 00:27:48 The most resilient and strong people can become overwhelmed just because somebody has suicidal thoughts or that does not mean they're not a strong person. Uh, it means that they have a situation that has, that they're not prepared for. And that does not indicate their resiliency or not. If somebody has no resiliency, obviously they're more likely to be in this category, but you,
Speaker 4 00:28:13 For instance, the Holocaust,
Speaker 1 00:28:16 Any of those Jewish individuals were extremely resilient. They had done hard things, but they got into a situation when they were headed to concentration camps and ghettos that they were overwhelmed and suicide was the only way out for them. I would never call any of those people, weak links. I would never call them. So please don't mistake what we're saying today, as an indication that somebody is weak or lacked resiliency, instead of it just means they've had so much heat on them. It doesn't matter how strong you are. Eventually if you have too much weight put on you, it will be too much. And so that's all it means. So in the, and then how does that sound and then I'll have you repeat it
Speaker 4 00:29:00 My question, or excuse me, your question.
Speaker 1 00:29:02 So the, the, all the viewers are fine
Speaker 4 00:29:05 When we, when we shift. Um, well, let's, I think that's perfect. Um, for my question, cause you mentioned the Holocaust and if you read Victor Frankl, he describes people who were incredibly resilient and, and just resilience, resilience, resilience, and fell a certain breaking point where they found out that their spouse had been killed or their child had been killed. And then that was like the final breaking point for them. Where were they? Let go. But my question was about, um, choice, which is something that Frankl also talked about
Speaker 1 00:29:42 Was, um, that, that it was always that choice of your attitude and that's what going longer than other people did. So, um, I was asking about the aspect of making the conscious choice to do hard things rather than to avoid them. Very good, almost on principle of, Oh, this is a hard thing. There's nothing else in it for me, other than I'm going to do it because I do hard things like that. Um, and so how we do it, it will sound over simplistic, but, uh, but the answer is still correct. And that is, we have to do two things when we, when we need to get past something that is overwhelming to us so that we don't need to resort to suicide. And the first thing is we've got to break it down into simpler terms. You, nobody can survive. If I told you, you're going to have to survive five years in the Holocaust, nobody could do that.
Speaker 1 00:30:47 But if I told you, you have to survive one day and then the next day you have to survive that day and you can see the pattern there. So that's the first one. And then the second one is you've got to get help when you can tell you're overwhelmed. That's one reason that good psychiatric care results in drops. Amazing, amazing drops in the rates of suicide attempts and successes and poor, poor healthcare, excuse me, poor mental health care. Uh, I hate to say it, but oftentimes if they're not helping them to become more resilient and instead we're just putting people in that comfort cocoon where, Oh, you're going to be good. As long as I'm here to give you hugs and Teddy bears and never, never forced you to grow stronger. And that actually makes it in my opinion, much worse because we're teaching them to avoid and we're teaching them to use therapy or mental health care as their avoidance tool.
Speaker 1 00:31:40 Well, eventually therapy has to stop. So now they're even worse than they were before because they became dependent on somebody they can't see anymore. So you built a crutch and now what happens when that crutch goes on vacation or something. Right, right. And a perfect example of the, the first of those points, which is break it down was actually, um, if you've never heard of Nick Rowe, a Negro was a Lieutenant in the Vietnam conflict and he was one of the first lieutenants that was accepted into the special forces. So he was a green beret. And so he was an advisor to the local Vietnamese army. And during that time, he was captured by, by the North Vietnamese army. And he was put into a concentration camp for many years. And he talked about those people who couldn't break it down to the small little pieces survive today and then survive the next day and then survive the next day and stop looking past just, and he talked about how they would stop eating.
Speaker 1 00:32:42 And they eventually would just die of starvation. Even though there are provided food. And he even said, it got so desperate for him that he couldn't eat rice anymore. He just, he would throw it up. And so he broke that down into small pieces. So he would take one grain of rice and he could swallow one grain rice, and then he would take another grain of rice. And he said, I spent a long time each day only eating one grain because I knew I would die if I didn't eat all my rice today. And I didn't want to think about tomorrow's rice. Cause I knew I'd throw it up. And so I had to do that. So he broke it down to there. And he also talked about how then he started, he made some friends that also had that type of resiliency that they were willing to live and they would, they would communicate any way they could.
Speaker 1 00:33:28 And sometimes it was only as they're walking by a week of the eye, a wink of the eye. And that was enough to where they knew I have support that guy's in it with me and they survived these camps. Whereas those that didn't get help and didn't break it down. They were the types who would starve to death. And so that's a good lesson for us. And in fact, he was the first one that came out and they developed the pow school called SERE school in the military based on Nick Rose experiences. And so as we're looking at that, that's the secret to suicide and that's the secret to surviving your hardest things. It's a recognizing eventually you're going to be overwhelmed. You need to reach out and get help from somebody. That's a good source if needs be and you are suicidal. It probably should be a professional.
Speaker 1 00:34:17 If on top of that, you need to learn how to break it down. That professional. If they're helping you to do that, they're probably going to be a good one. If they're not. And they're just telling you, you're great and giving you emotional hugs, if you need to fire them and get a better mental health professional one that can help you to learn to say before I met you, I couldn't confront my problems. It was overwhelming. I'm not doing them all yet, but some small ones I'm starting to knock out and that's giving me more strength than I had before I came here. And that's what we do is we don't take on the bear to begin with. We start with the smallest thing and then we work up. Once we gained the straight flat, we gained the strength, gain the strength to tell we can take on the bear. And so that I hope answers your question on how you approach it, which is get help, break it down into short, short, little goals, small goals. And then lastly, if you need to get professional help,
Speaker 2 00:35:14 Right? Yeah, I think that's so important. And as you were describing that, I was just struck by how, how that applies to everything in life, not just suicide, but how, how important that lesson is for everything in, in all of our lives. Um, that the other thing that, um, that I want to talk about though, is the getting help. You know, when it's getting serious, get help. One thing that I've observed, um, that I don't, I don't know for a fact, but my impression is that a lot of times when people get to this point from all the people I've heard saying, why didn't they just call me? Why didn't they just pick up the phone? It's like, when they've gotten to this point, they don't want to be rescued. They, this is their escape. They've planned. This path. Life has gotten so difficult. They don't want to deal with it anymore. They don't want you keeping them here at this point. Are they past the point of asking for help when they realize they need it? Or like how, how do we back that up a little bit and intercept things earlier on when people are still kind of at that point where they're saying, man, this is getting tough. I don't know if I want to deal with this anymore. How do we get them at that point?
Speaker 1 00:36:42 So Jeremy, I love it. I love it. It's as if Jeremy has a mental health professional, he knew right next, where we were going to go with this. But for those that don't know, Jeremy is not a mental health professional. He's, he's a normal civilian. Uh, and he actually works in computers. And so he is not, uh, he is not, um, he and I haven't fed him the answers here. This really is just a discussion, but he's led us to the perfect place, which is how do we do that? And he's shared with us one of the biggest wives' tales that is not true. And so thank you for, for sharing that. And that's one reason I love having these conversations with Jeremy is because he hasn't read the thousands of pages and hours and studied and focused on this. Like I have for the last few years of my life.
Speaker 1 00:37:29 And the simple answer is no, most people don't want to die. In fact, they actually would love to be rescued most of the time a suicide thought it is actually out of desperation and they would love nothing more than somebody to rescue them. Remember, these people oftentimes are overwhelmed and they're looking to escape. If somebody would rescue them, that would be great. And so, and the key there is if you're going to reach out to somebody it's, it's not that you have to fix it. That's that's not it. That's another way to tell us, well, I'm not prepared to fix it. Well, good. Don't just ask them, are you suicidal? And once you've asked them, if they're suicidal, then you get to say to them, if they are great, let's get you help. And if you don't know where to go, well, we have a place where if anybody suicidal, they can go because this place is you take somebody there.
Speaker 1 00:38:31 Anytime there's life threatening that life, limb or eyesight is when this place should be used. It's not where you go for your common cold. It's not where you go for that. It's where you're worried. Life, limb or eyesight. And we call it an emergency room. Well, suicide kills. It takes away our life. So suicide is always an important thing to where, if you said somebody's suicidal, you dial nine one, one. The ambulance comes and gets them and they take them to the ER, where they can be evaluated and see if they need to get professional, mental health care, to keep them safe until they can get that suicidality under control and get them connected. And so I love that you brought that up, which is no, they're not looking that they actually would love to be saved. And you don't end the second wives tale that we talked about there.
Speaker 1 00:39:20 You don't have to be prepared to take care of that. If you have the ability to dial on nine, followed by a one followed by a one. Yes. I'm dialing nine one one and say, I have a friend who I think is suicidal. I'm not even sure. Could you guys send an officer over to their house and check on them? The police will say, you bet, what's the address. They'd send them right over there. They check on them. That doesn't mean they're going to go to the hospital or anything else. It means a safety check. And I would even say, tell your friends, you're about to do that. I care about you so much. I'm going to have a police officer come check on you, right. This is where it will be. And that's where, um, that's where that we get to debunk that, that, um, wives' tale, which is they don't want to be saved. They're past the, the hope and which hasn't really ever been true for anybody I've worked with. Even after they've attempted suicide. Um, many people who attempt suicide didn't want to die. They just didn't know what else to do. And then the second one is that if you help somebody, you have to be able to do it. Now you certainly wouldn't be giving them a mental health care, but there's nothing wrong with saying, are you, and then getting them to that. So please do, does that answer your question?
Speaker 2 00:40:36 Does that, that, that sheds a whole new light on things. Um, and it made me think, because one thing I was thinking while you were saying that is like, Oh man, like I should be conscious of putting people's address in my phone. Then if this is a concern, because sometimes it was smartphones. Now I'm dumber than I've ever been. I used to know people's phone numbers by heart. I used now. I'm like, ah, I'd be good. If I can even tell you what city they're in
Speaker 1 00:41:08 And you don't even have to worry about that. Because if you were to call nine one one and say, Hey, this person is, I'm worried, they're suicidal. And I don't know their address, but I do have their cell phone number. The police can say great. And they can use that self service to triangulate them and get somebody over there. And this other thing that I brought that instead you call the police. If that's the case, now this is a good point for us to, to go ahead and a pause and say, now, if anybody out there is struggling with suicide, we want you to know the suicide helpline and that number. Get ready to write it down. If you need to do that to +1 800-273-8255, once again, +1 800-273-8255. Or if you want a phone or any sort of a internet search device, you can always just start suicide helpline and that will come right up for you. But, but back to our topic, I want to make sure we are not neglecting
Speaker 2 00:42:04 Public service announcement, but right.
Speaker 1 00:42:07 So yeah, I really liked that. And then the other key with this is with suicide. What happens when somebody does commit suicide? How do we address that? Because bottom line, the truth is they ran away from a problem. And how can somebody address that without having their children or other people start to use suicide as their own coping mechanisms? So, so that's where I'd like to go next. This is, this is a, one of the tough areas because we're all going to be affected by it. So Jeremy, what are your thoughts
Speaker 2 00:42:43 Real quickly before we go there? One other thing I wanted to say from, from the world of marketing is that it felt to me like when you were saying to tell your friend, Hey, I'm going to call nine 11 and send someone to check on you. That even if you didn't have their address, even if you didn't have, um, a way to triangulate them, um, or, or in addition to all those things, it feels like that in the world of marketing, we would call that a pattern interrupt where all of a sudden, you know, that they've got their plan, they've got their whole mindset in a certain place. And if you could just interrupt that problem or that, that mindset that I suspect in some cases could be enough to make a meaningful difference in changing the direction of, of that whole scenario what's happening there. So I would say even just doing that, even if you felt like you were helpless, couldn't do anything else saying I'm calling someone right now to come and check on you, um, would buy you a little more time there as well.
Speaker 1 00:43:54 Thank you. That's, that's very good. And, and that brings up the, the last, uh, wives tale that I wanted to address while we are talking about this in answering the question about suicide that we received. And that is, there's a wives tale out there that if you ask somebody about suicide, you're going to be introducing that idea into their mind. Uh, I have read every study. I confined on that exact thing. There is zero evidence that I have ever seen. And zero times out of the many, many that I have asked people, maybe thousands of times, has anybody ever had the idea of suicide introduced to them by somebody asking them if they're suicidal, there is no correlated risk to you asking somebody if they're suicidal. And in fact, many studies show that there is a reduction in risk for the very thing that you just described, which is a pattern interruption.
Speaker 1 00:44:53 And there are other terms in psychiatry and psychotherapy for that. But you're exactly right. And so if you're worried about being the one who introduced that idea to them, that's a wife's tale. There's no truth to that. You will not cause somebody to suddenly think of suicide for the first time, because guess what suicides all around us, as soon as you're old enough to understand that word, your understand that it happens and it's in your thought process. And so that is something that you should not ever believe in that wives' tale never neglect to ask somebody because you're worried that you will cause a suicide attempt, not, not even going to happen. Whereas if you fail to ask, many people are just wanting somebody to show that they care enough, that they feel like they're not in this fight alone. And so just by the simple same, Hey, I'm worried about you. Are you suicidal? Many, many times they'll say, Holy crap, they were worried enough that they would actually take a leap of faith and worry about possibly even offending me, which I've never heard somebody that was offended as suicidal. I've heard some people say that's ridiculous. No, but they weren't offended. So that's how I would answer that question that you post there and thank you for bringing up. So we could destroy the last of the three wives tales that I wanted to cover.
Speaker 2 00:46:12 Oh, good. I didn't even intend for that to happen. So, um, but now I've forgotten your second question that you were trying to move into. So I'll have to have you reiterate that.
Speaker 1 00:46:23 Okay. Very good. It's it? This is why we, this is why we have these conversations. So we can just wander and hit all the things, um, that we needed to, uh, which is, which is kind of fun. Um, uh, you know, you've talked about resiliency here and, um, it's, it's interesting how we just can't seem to get away with that. If those people that are, that have already, uh, looked into it and they know that I'm doing the, my seminar on depression and anxiety, they already know how, uh, I build in how to build resiliency right into that depression and anxiety, uh, seminar. And we spend quite a lot of time, almost an hour teaching the details of that. And so this is kind of fun to, to give a sneak peek to some of those people too. One of our paid seminars where people can go get, uh, a couple hours of, of what normally my patients get when they come with me in the psychoeducation department, right?
Speaker 2 00:47:24 It sounds like such a vital life skill that where else is that unless your parents are conscious of doing that and, and to take it back to, to my parents for just a second. Um, my, my dad's father was a bronze star recipient, double purple heart, and you know, a pretty hardened Marine that, that learned some of these, some of these skills in combat. And I imagine that's where my dad learned some of these things, but I, I don't teach my kids. I don't say you gotta bite the bullet. You gotta face the music as much as my dad did. And so I feel like some of those things are probably, we always say kids don't come with a guidebook, but our own parents parenting was our guidebook for parenting our kids. And I think that there's a loss in translation with each generation. Sometimes that's one of those things that I feel like the schools aren't teaching, this kind of resiliency. My church is not teaching my kids, this resiliency. I'm not teaching my kids as well as my dad taught me. And so that focus on, you know, I mean, my mind is being blown a little bit right now, just by the concept of saying, Hey, this is a topic
Speaker 1 00:48:50 That should be taught.
Speaker 2 00:48:54 And where is that in society? It's, it's not a common thing for this to be taught.
Speaker 1 00:49:00 Well, if it were common, then people wouldn't be so surprised by it. And that's one reason that I, I, uh, have worked so hard to get that out. And, and in fact, uh, many people will, will, will, uh, share the truth with them. We have resiliency on one of our, uh, one of our podcasts that are coming up. I just did one with a parenting, uh, one of the leading parenting podcasts in the, in the nation here. And I, I did a resiliency talk with him and, and, uh, we plan on doing our own podcast with resiliency upcoming. So if you like some of the stuff with resiliency that we've talked about, you got sneak peak to, to what, what will be coming up in the resiliency podcast that we'll be doing. Um, but I'd like to, to, uh, to also take that vein and, and transition into, okay, so if you ask somebody or you're interacting with somebody who has been suicidal, or who has been struggling with this, what do you need to do?
Speaker 1 00:50:00 How should you respond as somebody who cares about this individual is struggling with suicide or suicidal thoughts. And so that's, that's a tough one, and it's not nearly as, as, um, difficult to describe as it is to implement. And the simple answer is one of the worst things we could do is try to baby them and coddle them, right? Um, because people who become suicidal, who haven't learned to do hard things yet, they're not going to get any better simply by being told. They're great, simply by being told how wonderful they are. Instead, there has to be some more meat and potatoes to that meal. And so what we look at there is oftentimes that's where we need to help them to be able to balance the positive and the negative. You know, we talked about, we've talked in some of our other podcasts, many pessimists will tell you I'm a realist.
Speaker 1 00:51:01 And then the only dwell on the negative and many times pessimist do struggle with suicidal thoughts and suicidal ideations as we call it. Well, it realist. If somebody says, here's the negative, here's the positive, here's where they balance out. Or maybe they're out of balance. Maybe there's more positive and negative. That's a realist, but every, every pessimist out there proves that they really don't understand it. When they'll say no, I'm just a realist. And then all they'll do is dwell on the negative. And they'll never mention any of the positive. And that's why they're miserable. That's why people who tell you they're a realist generally aren't and they're miserable in their life. And so, as we're looking at that, that's one of the big things we can do to help people who are so miserable. They're thinking about suicide. Hey, you do struggle with this.
Speaker 1 00:51:50 And you're not very good at it. That's okay. That doesn't mean you're a bad person. That doesn't mean you're worthless. That means you struggle in one area also. And you, you really want them to say, what do you do? Well, nothing. Okay. What do you do? Well, nothing. Why is it that I can see things you do well? And you don't suddenly now we're starting about, well, I am pretty good at helping others to feel good about themselves. I'm I'm able to, to, uh, you know, the lady across the street, she's, she's an elderly widow. And I shovel her walk everyday, also service you're good at service and you're bad at whatever else it is. That's okay. What can we do now? Suddenly they realize it, the negative doesn't define me as a whole. I have negative and I have positive. And in spite of my negative, I'm still worthwhile.
Speaker 1 00:52:40 That's not somebody who's going to kill themselves. Great people who have lost sight of all that positive that's somebody who is going to kill themselves or be at risk for such. So does that answer your question on, if you have somebody who is, who is a struggling with suicidal ideations or a suicide attempt recently, the actual thing we need to do with them is make it safe, a safe environment where they can acknowledge the negative or the, their inadequacies and still record. It's nice that they have some positive things. And if they can't do that, if they still can't do that, that's where professional help. 100% of the time should be done. If you, if you try to help say, okay,
Speaker 4 00:53:26 What's something positive about yourself. And they, they can't come up with anything. That's where you would tell them you need to get some professional help. But that would be one thing that I would say is an indication professional health is indicated. If they can't even come up with something, they do well, you need help. Let's get professional help because they've lost sight so much. They need professional support to build that back up. What do you think? I agree, absolutely agree. So I think I can add anything to that. So in the end of the day, well, let's round it all back up and, and we've had a good conversation. If you had to define suicide, what is it I'm going to let, give you a chance to see if you can put it together in two sentences or less Jeremy, alright, is it's basically the most permanent way of escaping what you're focused on.
Speaker 4 00:54:21 They brought it home in the end, you brought it home. In the end. It is the most permanent avoidance tool you can use to run away from your problems. Nothing more, nothing less, no intention. When we define that to say that there are people who do suicide are good or bad people, that's, that's a judgment for somebody else to make. But as a psychiatrist, my job is to recognize it for what it is so that we can get at the root of it and attack the root that's causing it. And in this case, why are they needing to run away? Let's get to it. And then the second, second thing, let's, let's recap. The three wives tales, the first was, uh, let's see if I can remember them all off the top of my head. Now first was a, you're going to cause a suicide attempt by asking somebody if they, if they're going to, if they're suicidal the second, the second was this person that is suicidal.
Speaker 4 00:55:15 Oh God. Now I've lost my train of thought. Help me with these Gerald. Um, we talked about, uh, yeah, so the autosuggestion of like, actually asking about it, um, the idea that people do not want to be rescued, we'll go into those wife's house, right. Bunk for me, because that was a belief that I had before we started this podcast. Um, and we'll have to watch to watch the podcast to catch that third one. I can't think of it right now. Way. There were stations move past that. I'm thinking forward to another thing that you just made me think of that. I think I've just lost again. Uh, no, it was, um, I know we're trying to wrap this up, but you just made me take, okay. So if this is the most permanent escape mechanism or coping mechanism, I think is what you called it. How about how we judge other coping mechanisms? Because a lot of times it come hard on,
Speaker 1 00:56:24 Oh, this person has a drinking problem. This person has a video game problem. This person, um, has these escape, these coping mechanisms, or even just escaping real life. And I feel like we come in saying, we need to take these away. Things are bad. We need to take away the video games, take away whatever it is they're just escaping.
Speaker 1 00:56:53 Is there a healthier way to look at that? Oh, there's a healthy way to discuss it. I don't think there's a healthier way to look at it, but there is a healthy way to discuss it. If especially if you or somebody that you know has been affected by somebody doing suicide, there needs to be an honor it's conversation. And there needs to be something that says, Hey, this person, we loved chose to make a terrible decision. They chose to bail out. That is the wrong answer, but we still love them. We still know there was a lot of good about them, but what they did was terrible. And we need to accept that. And that's sometimes hard to talk, to assign a negative choice to a deceased person. The reason that this is important is it will teach, say they have children. It will teach their children.
Speaker 1 00:57:45 Even though I loved my, let's say, it's the father in this case, because I'm a father. That way it's applying to me and people can't say I'm, I'm making fun of others without being part of the group, right? Your father. This is how I would discuss it with a child who's in therapy with me, or maybe it's a loved one, one on one of a family member. Your father was a good man. And he had let's talk about all the good things he did, but he chose a really terrible and made a terrible decision to try to kill himself, to run away from his problems. And we don't do that in this family. So your dad made a bad decision, but we still love him. And we remember the good he did, but we always know we're never going to use that bad decision. He used to deal with it.
Speaker 1 00:58:33 We have no problem doing this with alcoholics. Hey, your dad was an alcoholic. They shouldn't. And so you bring up a good point without having to paint them as a bad person. We should paint their actions as bad because it saves lives to those down the line. If we don't do that, children's minds are not logical and they will always have in their mind. And it will become permanent. Even when they're an adult. If it gets too tough, I can always click the easy out button just like dad did. And that is not something I'd rather have them think badly about dad, which I don't want anybody to think badly about anybody, but I prefer that over the child doing suicide. And so if that the point being, yes, it's okay that we look at this and say, what a terrible move,
Speaker 4 00:59:22 What you took the weak way out. If we're learning the lesson. Now, if we're, if we're not learning the lesson and we're just blaming them, now, we're just being mean, and that's not necessary. But if we're going to reinforce that lesson of why suicide should not be on our coping mechanisms, that's an appropriate time to talk about how selfish they were. That's an appropriate time to talk about how we shouldn't be doing this because we're stopping future suicides in the future. So does that answer your question part of it? The other part is what about addressing someone else's coping mechanism? If you're worried that if I take away this coping mechanism, which is bad, like let's say somebody has, um, severe alcohol addiction, that they're an alcoholic, but you're worried, well, that's a better coping mechanism than suicide. So if I tried to come down hard on this coping mechanism, what if that we'll just have them turn to the permanent coping mechanism?
Speaker 4 01:00:32 What about dealing with that? Where you're saying both is better than suicide, but it's still not good. That's, that's a very good point. And I'm glad you brought that up before we wrap it up. If it gets to that point, that you're, that you're saying, if I take this away, they're going to move to suicide. You better have psychiatrist or psychologist or some sort of certification behind your name because you are now into the professional mental health realm. That is, that is so far beyond what we should be doing in the general population. For somebody who might be suicidal, they should be getting substance abuse treatment, or they should be getting a psychotherapy so that it doesn't progress. If, if you start to worry that they're under that level, you are well past the line where professional help is needed. And so that's, that's an excellent point you make there.
Speaker 4 01:01:26 And I'm glad you bring that up because it's, it is a, it is a reality that alcohol is nothing less than another chemical form of avoidance. And if I take that away, well, what do they have left? That's where they go. That's why you need a professional that says, let's take that away. Once we built you up enough that you no longer need that level of avoidance tool, let's get you some better tools, like learning how to confront it and et cetera, and working through your things. So does that answer that half of the question? Yeah. We're just worried that people will be like, well, this is a coping mechanism. I'm worried about, you know, where it will lead by address that. And so we don't obviously don't want people to Naval if it's child energy, it's not just alcohol. Right. And any as a coping mechanism,
Speaker 2 01:02:20 It's like, if somebody needs this thing to cope with life, if it's to that point where you're like, Oh, well, you know, it's either, or, but, but, but I don't want to just enable the one because it's a less, severe, less permanent coping mechanism. That's when it's time to seek professional help.
Speaker 1 01:02:42 And if you have a question, that's also a time I've had many patients who have come in to me and they've said, Hey doc, what do I need to do? And in the end, I educate them and say, actually you're doing quite well. Um, there's actually, no intervention needed here unless there's something else. And that's a, no, it just feels good to know. I'm okay. I'm normal. And that's also, I I'd rather have people come in and, and get a quick checkup and hear that they're doing okay.
Speaker 2 01:03:07 And learn the things that they should watch for, if they need to change that, then I would to ask somebody
Speaker 1 01:03:13 I wish they had later on. And so yeah, if, when it comes to that,
Speaker 2 01:03:16 If you're even worried that it could lead down that road,
Speaker 1 01:03:19 Get professional help right there. No need to, no need to wait on that.
Speaker 2 01:03:23 Awesome. Okay. One last thing that I know we're going to have to save for another podcast because we're out of time, but it's kind of the entirely, the other side of the coin here. Um, had someone recently, I didn't know the individual, but the person that I knew, um, told me that a member of, uh, the group that we were both associated with had committed suicide. And he said, you know, the really interesting, kind of scary thing that I've seen multiple times now is that all of the signs said, this guy was getting his life together. He was, he was getting all his debts paid off. He was getting everything together. And it really turns out what was happening was he was putting everything in place for his family, so that he could check out knowing that he had at least let things as good as he could for them. And so it appeared that everyone like this guy was doing well in his job, he was doing well. And so I would like to come back and talk about the signs that are the opposite of what are the, the normal signs sometime when you talk about the psychology behind that and what's going on there,
Speaker 1 01:04:44 I think it's, I think it's quite appropriate that we just take a few extra moments to
Speaker 2 01:04:49 Great.
Speaker 1 01:04:50 And, and in that case, what you're describing there is somebody who has decided that it's too much work to continue living. And therefore they have chosen the easy way out. And they're justifying that maybe this isn't there, they're pretending to themselves, they're telling themselves a lie. If I just get my affairs in order, this won't hurt those around me. And so it's nothing shy of if we're going to be. And I don't mean to be offensive to anybody, but that is nothing shy of somebody saying, I don't care enough how this is going to affect anybody else that I'm going to now use a rationalization that is not true to say, well, I'm going to get my affairs in order so that you guys aren't affected. And so in the end of the day, there's nothing you can do about that. I heard one person one time say maybe if I had just stayed at the house, they wouldn't have killed themselves.
Speaker 1 01:05:51 And that's just ridiculous because eventually I'm, if I'm trying to stop somebody from killing themselves, because I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, taking the guns out of the house, which I always recommend people do. If there's a suicidal person, hold the guns for them. But, um, until they're past that point, but what the reality is, okay, if it's not a gun, they could use a knife. And if it's not an ice, they could use poison. And if not, they can hang themselves. There's all these different ways to do such terrible act of suicide. You can't stop somebody
Speaker 4 01:06:23 From doing suicide. I don't care
Speaker 1 01:06:26 What your credentials are or what your training is. Ultimately has to be somebody that's willing to say, if I receive support, I will do it. And so, first of all, anybody who's thinking about suicide, there is no justification. You're going to harm people so deeply that there will always be a scar because you do that, right. It doesn't mean you're a good or bad person, but it does mean that you didn't care enough about them to, to work through it. And they're professionals who can help you to have a meaningful life. Second, you cannot prevent somebody else's suicide. If it gets to that point, I only know of one place where we can prevent suicides pretty well. And that's on an inpatient psychiatric unit, and you're not going to get in there without going to an ER. And so at that case, you can't blame yourself because they prepared for it.
Speaker 1 01:07:16 They've made up their mind. And even if you'd been there, eventually you have to sleep. Eventually you have to go to the bathroom. There would have been an opportunity where you couldn't have stopped it. And so you can't blame yourself as somebody did suicide around you. That was their choice. And if you're hurting because of it, it's okay to be mad at a diseased person. That doesn't mean you would like or dislike them means you're mad. And we often are mad at the people we love. That's okay. And we can learn from it. That's okay. We can still love somebody and learn from their bad example. So does that answer that question?
Speaker 4 01:07:50 It does. And I would just add to that so many times people say, if I just called one more time, I just had one more conversation. And I think how many times did you call before? How many conversations could you have, how you had hundreds of these situations that you're telling yourself? Oh, just one. And if
Speaker 1 01:08:16 Not, one thing would that suddenly have given them the ability to confront difficulties where their, their habit was to run from them. That's the real truth. Had you called one more time? Were you magically going to help them to have the ability to confront their difficulties where they didn't have it? Probably not. That takes professional care and time. And so I want anybody who has blamed themselves to stop blaming themselves for somebody else's suicide. They chose to do suicide. Not you, even if you know, I, I have many instances where people who struggle with interpersonal relationships oftentimes have bad relationships. And so somebody who is and was actually recognizing this is a terrible relationship. It's toxic. We'll break up with the other party in order to start to get themselves in to a better place, or find somebody who is a healthier mate and the person who doesn't know how to work through it kills themselves.
Speaker 1 01:09:21 Well, that's not that person who broke up with them's fault, right? That is the person who killed themselves fault. And just because somebody says, I'm going to choose to, to sever a toxic relationship, and I'm going to enter a healthier one that does not make the person who broke off the relationship to try to enter a healthy one at all, culpable, they did not kill themselves. And so that's, and this is kind of some hard stuff, but it's necessary for some people to heal because they'll blame themselves where they don't have the blame. The person to blame is the person who was dead. And that is, I don't mean to be uncaring or unthoughtful on that. But that's the reality that we need to come to when we talk about suicide in real terms, in adult terms,
Speaker 2 01:10:09 Right? Well, it's a harsh reality, but it's one that could potentially save lives because I know there are people that are good people that you set on there. I made this decision who I think if, if they had thought about other people a little bit more and how it would affect other people, they're not the type of person that would do that to anyone, but they, they haven't been confronted with that harsh reality and the experience where
Speaker 1 01:10:42 People have made this choice.
Speaker 2 01:10:44 You know, we often go to these, go to these funerals and we only want to, here's a good about the person and the love and the everyone's feeling sad and focused on the good, and nobody's confronted with that harsh reality of, of things that make them ever think, Oh, wow, I wouldn't have never hurt my loved this way. They, they only see the, um, the tenderness and the love and the sorrow that's being poured out towards that individual. And not, uh, that the anger that often is there and get stuffed down. That's how,
Speaker 1 01:11:31 Yeah. I want to point out that there's a time and a place for everything at the funeral may not be the best time for us to point out some of those harsh realities. And I know you're not saying that, but that's probably not the place cause you're hurting as in, it's just going to result in hurt feelings. But later on, that could be when people have started to heal, that's probably a good topic for conversation. And so we'll, I hope this is, I hope this has given some people hope if you, if you're worried about somebody out there, once again, wanting a hundred, two seven, three eight two five five is the suicide helpline. If, um, if you're worried about them, ask, reach out, ask them if they're suicidal, you can do nothing but help at that point. If you're worried, if you're worried that they could go that way, get professional, help your to that point, if that's even entering your mind.
Speaker 1 01:12:24 And lastly, if you think it's in a minute, that is a nine one, one call it's straight to the ER. And so, um, but I hope we've, we've helped people to see that if you have somebody who is typically good at confronting their problems, they probably, and working through hard things and you don't see them suddenly changing you probably going to be a lower risk for somebody that you have to worry about suicide. If it's somebody who suddenly has a behavior change and used to used to confront things, and now they're no longer doing that, they're starting to isolate. They're starting to do things out of the ordinary. That's somebody I would worry about. And I would say, let's get down help. So I hope this a D mystifies suicide a lot. I hope this gets people into a mind frame to where they're empowered to say, I can do this. And if they've been affected by suicide, I hope this gives them some tools to say, I can talk with people and we can take this and learn from it and hopefully prevent a suicide in the future. And so any parting thoughts before we we've bid them farewell, Cero?
Speaker 2 01:13:30 Nope. I think that's enough.
Speaker 1 01:13:32 Okay. Well, as always, if you guys have any questions and you want to, you want to ask me those questions, you can always log onto the university elite.com website and ask a doc and right in there, you fill it out, put your question in the form. As you can see, we always keep those questions anonymous so people can do it. And pretty much anything's the, uh, anything's open to doing it. Uh, we get, we get questions on everything from, uh, the, his, you saw the, uh, last week we did one on, uh, on conspiracy theories. We had a question on conspiracy theories. So we're willing to entertain things and just kind of help people understand mental health and how to apply it to the real world. And so with that, we'll sign off and, uh, look forward to the next podcast.
Speaker 2 01:14:19 All right. Thank you, dr. Watson.
