hi my name's carol ricard and welcome to the well you show i'm joined by my co host we have enjoyed torturing bach y call the pain detective and julie maddox who's the wellness coach welcome ladies if this is your first time tuning into well you show thank you for joining us really we just have a simple mission and that is to give you the tools needed to live well today and just to give a forewarning one of the the topics we're going to talk about today really has to do with stopping the stigma around suicide and so i just want to put that out there to you in kind of is a bit of a warning i knew i'd written article back a couple months ago and we put that kind of warning on that too so but it important subject to be talking about and so what what i thought we could do i call it stopping the stigma and really this show came about because we were talking what was it a couple months ago really we were all wrote the article right about when we were together and have for lunch or something so i mean we had talked about this and and more importantly was that i had learned about a month and a half two months ago of a girlfriend an old friend whose son had passed away and so we got talking about all the different myths that are out there having to do with suicide and and i thought we could start there you know and just have a dialogue going to cumber sation and then also some help because the goal is from the well you show is to take some tools so the things we're talking about i'm going to have the work this worksheet you know for people so they can get that and the phone numbers in other great resource that i found to just just start how how why is it important for each of you to be talking about this so i think that it came up because in light of it was there were some close suicides young her town a yeah yeah and they were just it was baffling because there was no sign and this one particular young guy i had you know in my mind volunteers and you know what that is does mean to me that's important here because there's a lot of great work being done here in new jersey around suicide prevention and and actually there is a goal on the state level and it is zero you know zero you know to be able to you know kind of be be resourceful and prepared and give people the the opportunities for to reach out for help so let's go i tell you for me why this is important is because twenty five years working in mental health you know that's one side of the coin and i've certainly had patients that were not while they were still in our care but that i would hear of it some point afterwards you know of them really having you know kind of been successful at it you know really the attempt which is you think about it people you know kind of they decided and quite honestly i think that's one of the myths because people that are at that point it's not it is it's not necessarily a you know a choice you're kind of pushed to that yet yeah and  so even language becomes really kind of really important about that but when you start because i wanted to go with then i had gone to some websites and really kind of did some look in some research because i wanted to talk about this from beyond my own experience as a clinician you know and well what i'm baffled about carol because i know you have we have to get yes is i'm thinking about three people in the last year to being young  these all men one and one older guy gentleman and like you how can you even help if you don't know there's a problem if you don't there's just no signs well the sign might not have been to you but but maybe even people a little closer and i think it is kind of knowing what to look for yeah and and that's actually i think one of the kind and there yeah because i think that's really important you know and  as we're taping this show it it's really kind of coincidental but really the point if it is is that we've had two in the new you know suicides and people that quite honestly kind of fit what you said where they didn't really particularly have this happening and i think of it as just in my own mind i think of it as just  really the edge reaching the edge of hope and imagining a cliff you know and running out of hope and then just kind of continuing to fall off of that cliff and that's where some of the help and some of the reaching out for people so how about mit number one ok i think that's one of the biggest ones ok so myth number one talking about suicide or asking someone if they had to feel suicidal will encourage and with younger adults even because it and even even across adults have you guys ever heard of mental health first aid i know you have no idea or yeah yeah well wh really amazing about mental health first aid and it first started over i think in either australia or new zealand one of those really far away countries and what it's designed to do is really be the equivalent of what physical for stated help you would be able to help me because you had the skills in learning c p r mental health first aid is kind of similar in that it's teaching people how to deal with emotional crises and not just cardiac arrest yeah and it's really the mental piece of it and it's it's really pretty phenomenal program and it's kind of spread out and the goal being used it we kind of create you know kind of a i think of it is a net quite honestly of kind of people that can recognize when somebody is in distress and we do be getting that care you know well i i i actually interestingly enough this i want to go take the class and it's very expensive two thousand dollars  in in new york but there are organizations here even with new jersey that hit the train trainers and kind of like nami i think has a couple trainers i know nami in hundred in county has a trainer  and which great about that is it's broken into mental health first aid for adults and mental health first aid for students young adults the youth because it's kind of not exactly to say you know which is really phenomenal and and i think this whole idea about talking is so important you know because if i'm talking to so so you're in a crisis or you seem really down in the dumps and i notice that and i have two choices i can say nothing at all not wanting to make you feel worse or i could say in jail concerned that i noticed and we could start to have a dialogue so that we can actually talk because what researchers found that being able to talk about even the thoughts or the feelings that people are having allows kind of like hope to regenerate that makes me wonder if because my experience in the last it was a year was men is it because we're more apt to talk about our feelings than men men men keep it close or think about this you know men kind of hit motions inside right and kind of see being emotions as a sign of weakness and so quite honestly if i said that to a man you know so i might change if it was a man and i'd say let's say my brother let's pick my brother i might say to my brother you know i told you i notice you haven't been acting yourself what's going on like less feeling yeah more what's going on but i think the most important part that i took away from what i was reading and of course i've always done this in a mental health setting was to get people to talk about what was going on in their head too and it's not so much even the feelings tell me what you're thinking yeah and sometimes when it comes to this talk we actually have to be culpable saying you know are you thinking about suicide i mean if we are going to introduce it to somebody i think when i you think about talk the idea is if you mention a very word yeah oh my god then i'm giving you the idea or i'm building on the idea and the truth about it is we just have to have an honest discussion you know and again easy for me to do because i've had to do that in a clinical setting if i noticed you that was one of my things i want to assess you know i would say hate you know even even my male patients i'd say  you don't seem like yourself you know help me understand what's going on what and changed and keeping it very congregate is a way of just beginning a dialogue and i would think in that setting that it's expected so you're more likely open up to know you know you might have to do like a little but i'm so so here's what i think of it talk is this it's not going on the door and the other important part about talk is that it lets people know that we're there for them yeah and i think this idea because that is always a yes and connected this you know is a really important point and and there have been some schools and i think schools are getting better at this you know where it's not talking about it you know like pretending like nothing happened but really you know processing that too when they've lost a student and there are plenty of students you know in this age range and even adults you know it's kind of it really is if you think about it this way too it's so i kind of the visual i kind of hold my own head is over the cliff and the cliff of hopelessness and where you get to the edge and there's just no hope left and by talking and me offering the hope then i can kind of help somebody a little bit further away and kind of turn him around and get a maybe to take a couple steps back and the other direction is that that that is the word hopelessness he has that is it and and  be honest with you all when i was doing all this research my my experience has always been from a mental health so to me how i've explained suicide is a little bit different than that edge of hopelessness because mental health doesn't have to be a part of that for people i mean they reach a point of hopelessness in their life we we can think of people famous who had mental health and the depression was a part of that but it doesn't always have to be that case and i think that's what i was interesting to me in doing some of the research was stepping out of my own zone you know and looking at it from a different perspective  really and i think also too sometimes what i found is that you know people can also have the stigma because we're talking about the stigma around suicide but also there's a stigma even around that still around mental health so god forbid if i presented to you is is i had ever all my shit together but on the inside i didn't either you know and that to me is sometimes it's a hidden it's that mental health can also be hit home but this talk is what is social porton you know as we begin to if we were to notice anything and to be pretty honest about it too and right to the point julie you know have you had any thoughts of you know taking your life i don't have to i could use the word  suicide i could say you know any thoughts of taking your life and if you answer yes if you get a yes i mean the important part is that you're getting somebody who feels like honestly if you were to get a yes you should take that as a really amazing sign because that person trust you to tell you that yes definitely you know and saying you know what i'm here for you even if i don't get a yes it's a listen i'm here for you i want to be here for  you i want us and i thought that's where you would get somebody that would put it out there and yeah and i think to me i think when i think of kids and i think what i was kind of pleased to hear that more reaching out  is because i think of technology and to kids they're connected by text and social media but quite honestly it's not real connected this you know it's not bell not connect and they'll say they're socializing but is we know it and their recent research to show that that sense of connectedness can actually be a bit of a preventative type of you know  resilient live builder you know and so here's the thing is to talk to ask and then if if somebody was to say yes to you we don't want to assess that just a little bit further you know and you know it would be my first question would be about you know i mean do you have a plan as to how you would do that because that means that i've kind of thought about it that much more right so it it kind of is assessing the the severe of it or the intensity of that feeling if that makes sense you know and it's asking the person has a plan you know and then it's asking you know if it's something else they have a plan the other thing i would always need to also do to is do you have in ten do you ten could be quite honest with you in my capacity in mental health field i worked with a lot of people who were suicidal the suicide was the feeling that they had it didn't mean though that they were in this degree there's a sense of hopelessness that's not the edge of the cliff you know it's kind of more of the and even some of the comments are what if i was then wake up tomorrow you know how would that would be ok with me more kind we have to take if somebody's serious talking about it this means we really have to take it seriously even if they were joking pushchair i have this friend that he's he's in the the law field and he would just comment over and over again almost to the point where it was just so annoying that if somebody talks about it that you know there's this cliff of hopelessness in is i'm kind of moving closer to the cliff i'm talking about about that and it isn't about attention seeking i mean and quite honestly even if it is who cares because the the trick of the matter is is that we can't dismiss anything i know i might have even talked about this person because she she's always seeking attention and i remember there was not too long ago a year or two where she was doing this  and it just was her personality to always be seeking attention and so it was hard to just step back you know what's really hard to know is is is again it's kind of this fine balance which is why i'd rather err on the attention if that makes sense right so even though i know her personality you know i did call the police i asked you yeah listen i think you have to you kind of have to act you have to be say better for me was was always safer than now the vast majority of people are not attention seeking right and i think that's the really important myth it again is this place of despair and hopelessness and and just that edge where it's really there's nowhere else for people to go which is why if this makes sense to interpersonal interaction is we have to kind of get him turned around and kind of backing away from kind of that drop off if that makes any sense and that's kind of how i've always viewed it in my mind and then and in so you want the next one is only certain types of people become suicidal higher risk and certainly order white men kind of fall into that category at a high risk yeah but there is no quote you know kind of one person or once a winner of the them are ready about them making a plan you already talked about that is that that's the bullet point but encourage the young person to develop a personal safety plan yeah so here's a really cool resource i will flip my page here well let me do this so number four was you know what no one person or one no was was that group you just said only certain types of people who come you know only certain ok cliff and you have this person moving towards this cliff and you engage them are able to give him some hope and turned around the other direction there's a liar prevention but what i want to do because we all believe we don't have that  all right and then there's this other really cool my three app dot org and first about this this is the national suicide hotline i can call that hotline if i was worried about one of you two or i could call that if i needed help myself oh ok all right now so that's important to know this my app three thing is what my found in doing the research and it's very cool it is a phone app and it has lots of different things it can have support so i have my push my button and all my supports are there there's kind like five things that this program does it's free you can you can get it at the google app or at the app store or at the google so it's good for both phones but what was so cool about it was is it it has so you put in kind of like your supports and then what you put in is a safety plan and so that is you know what would i do you know if i found myself in a situation it has this number you know kind of like the hotline and then it has one or two other things you guys it was very cold and if you go to the website the national suicide prevention website they actually you you get this link or you know here i'm sorry because it took me here here and it has a picture of the phone and when you go on this it shows you exactly what the phone will do it's kind of like one of the coolest webster they ever saw because it actually shows to julie know this but i want to mention this and give a shout out there is an organization in mercer county across new jersey called air which stands for attitudes in reverse whose mission is really going into schools and using the dogs going into schools and really kind of focusing on mental wellness you know because if we can kind of build resiliency if i can never get to the point where i maybe don't lose sight of hope because i know i have these resili behind me and i've kind of learn these things maybe we could do is even kind of keep people from getting to that it even sooner you know by by just using all sorts of different things it was really quite amazing to me how you could take technology which is what our world has become so you set it up are ready carol i didn't i had i was on my computer so i didn't download it to my phone but my goal was to i didn't get it done before we came in here because i want to show you guys so i have had remote with plan number two but one less thing i want to share with you and it kind of just wrapping this up is that new jersey the george washington bridge now is the only bridge to have complete safety netting and process all of it and i went to a presentation they had two hundred seventy four saves last year just the forty police and some of the interventions that they've taken important dialogue to have and i just want to thank you for joining us and we'll get that information up on the website and you'll get the information in the resources and just encourage you to have that conversation to at least start that conversation so here's to living well today