Suicide Its Time to Talk About IT

hi i want to take you to

sunday july 14th a day

spent at the beach a day was on in the

sun

i was with my cousins in a day that many

of us enjoy

and appreciate but as we picked up after

the long day

and i was traveling traveling home

i noticed that my friend was following

me

and waving me to pull over

18 years old life was fun

no stress i had money i had friends i

had days in the sun

but as he pulled me over i’m thinking

what’s this about

as we pulled over i get out of the car

and he had some look in his face

and if anyone ever has seen this look

it’s the look and i said what’s going on

he said

you need to go home you need to go

directly home

your family needs you i said what’s

going on

he said barb you just need to go home

he was quite vague but i was persistent

how do you tell someone that their

brother has just died

and his best friend what do you say

and how do you say that so i asked him

again

i need to know what’s going on he said

barb

john died i said then we need to get to

the hospital

and he said he’s not at the hospital

barb john’s dead

he killed himself we need to get to your

family

it’s like i heard him but i didn’t hear

him

i want to get home but i could hardly

push on the gas pedal i couldn’t get

there fast enough i was on my way from

home

it’s like i wanted to go there but i

didn’t want to go there i want to get

back where

life was fun i want to get back to the

beach

and then in my head in my crazy thinking

as i’m driving

it’s like this is a prank i’m going to

get home

my brother’s gonna laugh at me and say

just kidding i just wanted to see if you

cared

i was playing all these mind games in my

head because it couldn’t be real

but as i walked into my family’s home i

heard my mother

and if you’ve ever heard the mother’s

whale it’s something you can’t forget

and it’s something you want to get out

of your mind and as i heard my mother

whale

i knew it wasn’t a prank this was the

real deal

she would wail she would rock

she would moan and then she would wail

and rock and moan

i couldn’t take it but in hindsight

i’m embarrassed to say i couldn’t fix it

i couldn’t change it and i didn’t want

to be part of it

so i left my family and went to my

friends

it was the most surreal thing how does

this happen

to a good family a family of faith an

amazing mom

my brother 20 years old what the hell it

doesn’t happen

it was like watching this horrible movie

and i was in it

i was angry blameful guilty

denial disbelief all at the same time

suicide is complex

i’m here today to talk about suicide and

i want to talk about it

i want to talk about it loud and clear i

want to talk about it in a way that i’m

not embarrassed

about my brother nor my family and i’m

not going to be judged

i couldn’t possibly wrap around my mind

what my brother was thinking

and there’s a part of me that really

doesn’t want to know but what i do know

is an individual’s perception of their

life

in that moment is their reasons for

suicide

i want to say that again suicide

is an individual’s perception of their

life

in that moment the day

john took his life i could have been

destroyed

but i made a decision that it was not

going to destroy me

it changed me forever it changed our

family forever

within moments but i knew i was going to

do something

i didn’t know what i was going to do but

i was going to do something

in those days you know when i was a lot

younger a teenager then

no one talked about suicide and it’s

still a secret in many ways and in many

families

we couldn’t find a therapist who

understood us or this complicated

suicide grief

so what i did is i attended my first

american association of suicidology

conference

these were the experts who knew

everything and i thought they could

answer my question to why suicide

because that’s the question most of us

have is why suicide

when john died by suicide there was no

one here to help us

that understood but today many things

have changed in some ways

we’ve evolved to a place where we’ve

done research

we’ve done trainings we have statistics

and we talk about prevention and there’s

resources for families breed by suicide

but what we really lack is the education

one thing that i know for sure as much

as we thought we were alone then

we were not alone over 6.9 million

people

are exposed to suicide every year

suicide does not discriminate

we know that in 2018 there’s over 47

000 people that died by suicide in the

united states

about 1400 right here in our state of

michigan

we know it’s the second leading cause of

death for our youth

tenth leading cause of death overall we

know that there are more suicides than

homicides

and more suicides than car crashes but i

want to put this another way and i want

to give you a visual

so if we think about comerica park which

is the home of the detroit tigers

and we think about this visual of having

a sold out crowd

on opening day with 7 000 people waiting

in line to see the game

that’s how many people died in 2018

we need to talk about this and we can’t

hush this word anymore

we need to talk openly because in most

places in gathering places

people are uncomfortable with the word i

was at a conference out in washington dc

and after the conference i was walking

back to my hotel

and i had to get some directions because

frankly i got lost

so i asked this young person this woman

if she could guide me to my hotel

and she said actually sure i’m walking

that way and i can walk with you

and as we walked we talked it was a

great conversation

and then the question came i asked her

so what do you do and what do you do

here in washington and

as we were speaking she gently and

quietly said i work for the irs

i said oh that’s interesting

we talked a little bit more and then she

said so what conference are you here for

and what do you do and i softly said i

looked around

and i said suicide awareness

i found myself softening that word

and fear of judgment

and then she said oh

actually this is my corner i’m going to

step across the street here

you need to go two blocks up take a left

and your hotel will be on the right hand

side

i think i scared her more than she

scared me

why are we so shamed about this word why

is there a stigma surrounding it

and sometimes when the media talks about

it they talk about in a very dramatic

way

and sometimes in the movies often times

it’s all about glamorizing suicide

there is nothing to glamorize when we

talk about suicide

when we talk about it we need to educate

because the majority of suicides are

preventable

we just found if you may have heard that

the university of michigan did a study

and what they found is that

connectedness is the number one

protective factor for suicide

and if we think about the time in this

pandemic and connectedness and how it

might be relative to suicide

i think that we’ve really connected

and it’s really a prevention thinking

about coven 19

and how we continue continue to hear

that we’re all in this together

well we might all be in the same storm

but we’re all in a different boat

we have different equipment different

experience

different levels of water and barriers

suicide is individual and it’s unique to

each person

covetous isn’t affecting everyone in the

same way

i worked with a person who was

chronically suicidal and he said barb

all this talk about depression and

people having anxiety

he said i kind of like it i thought that

was kind of an odd statement

and he said you know i think for the

first time

hearing people talk about it openly it’s

like people finally get me

he said i don’t want people to feel what

i feel but it’s nice to be understood

i think for the first time this young

man finally felt

understood and connected and not so

alone

people who are individuals with

different needs

but one thing we all have in common or

most of us have in common

is the need to be understood and

connected

how might you connect with someone who’s

struggling

with their mental health we’ve been

hearing a lot of great ideas for covid

and how it’s relative to how we might be

able to help someone

who’s struggling with their mental

health or isolation to not just be a

bystander

but to reach out make that phone call

take a walk send a message send a card

we’re using telus psychiatry and

telehealth

to remove the barriers for people who

are needing help and hope

these are simple yet effective tools

that can work for suicide prevention

copin 19 is teaching us a lot about

humanness

it’s been a game changer we flatten the

curve sooner than later

because we took precautions we wore a

mask

we stayed our distance we washed our

hands we had

many scientists and healthcare providers

working together

to find the best treatment and

prevention programs and plans

the rates of death were horrendous

but they were not what we anticipated

because

we worked together everyone plays a role

in suicide prevention as well

we need to listen to people and remind

them that they’re not alone

we want to help there is hope and i’m

willing to talk with you

about your struggles let me sit with you

these are simple yet effective tools for

preventing suicide

we need education for healthcare

providers funds for research

and treatment facilities we need

trainings for families

educators faithful communities with our

faith communities

and we need to really encourage and

support zero suicide initiative

it’s been effective around the world we

need to make sure that it’s affected

every every state in every county

experts in suicide are telling us that

we can expect a 34

increase in suicides following the covet

we have time to prepare

if we know we expect 34 but what we know

historically

is when there’s been a crisis that the

rates of suicide go down during the

crisis

because people are showing up they’re

coming together they’re supporting

we have means that people need to bring

them hope

but then two years following the

incident or the

the crisis what happens is the suicide

rates will tend to go

up if there is financial distress

bereavement and disconnect involved

if we are anticipating a 34 inch

increase of what we already have lost

why are we not doing something and why

are we not preparing

i live in michigan so we have not only

been connected or

affected by covet 19 right now but

currently we got hit with the floods in

a tornado

thousands of people have lost their

homes and precious belongings

devastation at its best and hopelessness

for many

the good news is there was thousands of

people volunteering and showing up to

help

we had a warning the outcome there were

no deaths

there were no dust because people had a

warning

they knew the dams were breached and

there was potential for flooding

the flooding would be coming soon we

were asked to evacuate

and my home we were down river so we had

a little more time to prepare

people were able to flee their homes for

safety take some of their precious

belongings

we had time to pack the schools had

opened their doors for shelter

so people had a safe place to go nursing

homes had to evacuate

we had medical care waiting and prepared

for them within

hours to make sure that they were safe

if we can do this in hours for tens of

thousands of people

we have the opportunity why would we

wait

this is an opportunity to prevent deaths

and

injuries we know how to listen

we know their suicide prevention plans

out there we just have to use them

in our family we were ignorant to

suicide we didn’t talk about it

we didn’t educate ourselves and we were

in denial in the odd way

i’m here to encourage you to start this

conversation with your own family

don’t deny that it could happen we

encourage

all people to educate yourself to

prepare yourself for that one

individual that one person that you

might come in contact with

that might be having thoughts of suicide

do you know how to respond

would you be comfortable hearing their

story of suicide

or would you say something like don’t

talk so stupid

or why would you do that to your family

and guilt them

to living or would you be comfortable in

connecting them to life

for many people it’s a natural response

and it’s comfortable to hear that story

of suicide and to just sit but for other

people

they need to practice and to learn this

life-saving school

tool that many people have learned and

has been effective

cpr save thousands of life every year

simple life-saving measure you recognize

when someone might be having a heart

attack

and you respond in a life-saving way

we can save thousands of life learning

cpr

in my family we have heart disease we

each learned how to do cpr

if you’ve ever taken a training it was

to learn the signs

and to respond most people with thoughts

of suicide

will have a warning sign or behavior

change

some do but some don’t i encourage you

to learn

these signs some people

however hide behind a mask they pretend

like everything’s okay

life is good they have the world they’re

making money they’re prestigious in the

community

those types of people are really hard to

recognize

there are generally clear signs the

majority of people leave you a sign

but they’re not always recognized

because we don’t understand them

you are 10 times more likely to come in

contact with someone with thoughts of

suicide

than someone having a heart attack so a

few hours of your time

you could help us decrease these numbers

and prepare for what they’re expecting

in the near future i challenge you to

take action when you can

my family did not get the time or the

chance before it was too late

so instead of just doing awareness let’s

go one step further and let’s learn the

tools

be an advocate ninety percent of people

that die by suicide

have a diagnosable mental illness we

need to better prepare mental health

care we need to better prepare people

both in our mental health and our

behavior health

or our health care system to understand

what we need to help

we need to our insurance companies our

employee assistance programs to minimize

the cost

to remove the barriers for people

reaching out and getting help

mental health is as real as physical

health and we need to treat it that way

the value of integrated care is treating

the whole person

i challenge you to register today for a

training there’s access to the

sprc website which is the suicide

prevention resource center

which is a national website for all of

the

quality trainings that you could sign

and register for

so find the training that fits your

needs and your level of need

i can’t change what happened but i can

change the way we do things because

it happened i started a survivors

of support group survivors of suicide

support group 30 years ago

to be there for those people bereaved by

suicide

so it’s been 30 years ago since i’ve

been working in this field

and every day we’re seeing change i’ve

certified i’m a certified suicide

prevention

trainer and advocate speaking to over

150 000 people around the country

i developed an aftercare training so

that i can train the first responders on

how to be helpful for the families on

scene

i’m instrumental in writing two suicide

prevention plans at both state and local

levels

my experience in being notified of my

brother’s death i wanted to make change

for other people

so we have a victims advocate group at

our sheriff’s department where we go and

assist the police officers

at a scene to bring comfort for families

and help them navigate

these early hours of grief we also have

a lost team

local outreach for survivors of suicide

these are wonderful people trained by dr

frank campbell

and sitting with people early on

peer-to-peer who’ve lost someone to

suicide to bring them home

most recently i was appointed to the

governor’s suicide prevention

commission it’s an honor to be a voice i

appreciate

i appreciate after all the trainings

that i do or many of the trainings that

i do

of how effective they can be getting

emails and texts and phone calls

from our young people are middle

schoolers and high schoolers

after the training they’ve taken a text

message of a friend talking of suicide

and they show an adult and they help

save their friend’s life because they

now know what to do

i’ll be speaking on a stage to hundreds

of thousands of people

people come up afterwards to share their

story of suicide

because i’ve talked about it without

stigma and have talked about it without

judgment

so they feel comfortable talking to a

stranger following the training

to share their story or someone else’s

story of thoughts of suicide

and they know in the end that i’m going

to connect them to somebody in the

community

can help that can help take care of them

because we know that suicide

isn’t about killing yourself people

don’t really want to die

they just don’t know what else to do

with their pain i have another story of

a mother

who said that she had a concern she

didn’t have a concern that her daughter

had just been isolating and she was sad

but she never connected sad to suicide

after the training she went home she

talked to her daughter

about her sadness and talked about

suicide

she asked her and her daughter said yes

that she had been having thoughts they

cried to help

cried together but then they got help

together

and yet there was another dad who had

found a note and he said you know barb

do people just write notes and talk

about this for attention

and i said yes they have a pain and they

don’t know how to scribe it they don’t

know how to ask for help so they write

it out or they talk about it jokingly

sometimes people don’t know how to ask

for help

he went home he talked to his son about

the note

his son said yes to suicide and they got

help together

and yet there was a pediatrician 30

years in the field who said

i never had to ask a patient about

suicide i’ve never had a suicidal

patient

after the training she learned how to

ask in a way that was direct and caring

she went back to work two weeks later

she called me she said barbara i asked

my first patient about suicide

i’ve been caring for him for the past 16

years he said yes

and she helped take care of all of his

needs i had found purpose for my pain

asking about suicide is something to

reteach and encourage

if you have a concern for someone it’s

important that you recognize

that they need help if you notice a

change in behavior

a change in their life that’s causing

disruption they might be doing something

like

increased alcohol substance abuse

anxiety

anger agitation change in sleep change

in eating

any behavior changer for change for that

individual

is an opportunity to have this

conversation

don’t deny that it can’t happen in your

family

or your community

i encourage you that if you’re having

thoughts of suicide now

if you’re watching this ted talk if you

are having any thoughts

please call the 1-800-273

talk phone number or text 741-741

there are people 24 hours a day waiting

to hear from you and willing to help

suicide does not have to happen people

care

and are willing to help i encourage you

today

to talk about suicide and i

i want to challenge you to pick up the

phone

schedule a time to take the training

talk about suicide

and take the training thank you