September 24, 2020 • 25 mins
Therapist and host of 'You Need Therapy' podcast, Kathryn DeFatta, is on for all '4 things' this week to offer her wisdome on this mental health episode (since September is Suicide Awareness Month). FIRST THING: Amy and Kathryn talk about how it’s okay to not always feel okay. "I'm fine" will only get you so far, so it's important to check in with others (and yourself!!) to see how things really are! SECOND THING: Have anxiety? Do you need to release some stress? Kat shares the Arggh! ball with us (something she keeps in her office for clients, and Amy just ordered one for her house!). It's a simple, small, and cheap way for physical and emotional relief therapy. THIRD THING: Do you know the difference between suicidal ideation and suicidal intent? Kat explains this to Amy because she had never heard of it. They also go over the the correct way to talk about suicide, and share some statistics. FOURTH THING: There’s a new 3-digit suicide prevention number that will be coming out as an easier way for people to reach out if they are having mental health issues. And Kat shared that if you don’t have the funds to seek help, there are therapists who set aside time to help people who don’t have the funds for therapy.
Suicide Prevention Hotline: 800-273-TALK (8255)
Lines For Life Text Line: Text 273 TALK to 839863
SpeakingofSuicide.com/resources
#4Things 'I'M FINE' pullover: https://www.theshopforward.com/products/4-things-im-fine-pullover-black
The Arggh ball: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WSKZKLR/?ref=exp_radioamy_dp_vv_d
Katherin's podcast website: youneedtherapypodcast.com
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Okay, little food for you. So life, Oh it's pretty Bay,
It's pretty beautiful than that. A little more kicking with
(00:30):
four Amy Brown. Happy Thursday, everybody. I have got Katherine
de Fata on with me for today's episode, just going
to do all four things with me. She's actually here
doing the intro with me as well. Hey Katherine, Hi,
but we're going to call her Cat And she was
my therapist for a little while and we just terminated
our therapeutic relationship and there's more to come on why
(00:53):
that happened. Some exciting news that will be sharing with
you soon. But it's suicide prevention, suicidal earn this month,
the month of September is and we're all about mental
health here on the podcast. So some of these things
we're going to get into today. If you've got kids
in the car, this is probably not an episode to
be playing. I know some of my episodes can be
family friendly, but we're talking about some heavy stuff, but
(01:14):
not all of it. I was telling Cat before we
went on, how this is such a scary territory for
me because I personally have never been suicidal, and I
am not close to someone that has been that I
know of, and that's something that is crazy. You never
know what's going on in somebody's head and where their
thoughts really are. But to my knowledge, I don't have
(01:34):
any experience with it at all whatsoever. I'm just scared.
I don't want to trigger somebody or I don't think
that's hurtful or wrong or anything. But I don't feel
that my ignorance or me being scared to talk about
something is a reason to shy away from an important conversation.
So given that Katherine is a therapist and you know
(01:56):
she could come in and just offer wisdom on some things, now,
I will say the first thing we're going to get
into is just more about mental health, not anything really
suicide related. But when you're saying you're fine, like are
you fine? Because I feel like we answer I'm fine
a lot. I mean, we even made the new four
Things pull over. That's the four things are It's fine,
(02:17):
I'm fine, everything is fine. And it's supposed to be
a joke on how yeah we're not fine and you're
wearing it. And I think that that's great and it
has a good message because our four things stuff is
supporting my life speaks right now, So you can support
Haiti and also walk around and show people that you're fine,
but you're not fine, and it's fine, but some people
really are not fine. And so I want to talk
(02:37):
through what we really mean sometimes when we stay fine.
So that will be the first thing, and then the
second thing we're going to get into is anxiety, because
I feel like that really can mess with us emotionally
and physically, and so I want to go through how
anxiety manifests itself emotionally and then how it has manifested physically.
Then the third thing we're going to get into is
(02:58):
something that Cat just talked to me about before we
started recording, and it's called suicidal ideation, right and suicidal intent,
which I did not know what that was about. I
shared something with her and you'll hear it in the
third thing, and she was like, okay, yeah, let's break
this down. And then the fourth thing, we'll talk about
a new hotline number that should be coming out hopefully soon,
(03:19):
like a three digit number, which I think is amazing,
and then numbers and resources that you can use and
just ways to help yourself or someone that you know
if you find out that they might be suicidal. So
that's the menu. For today's episode, And I just appreciate
Cat being here with us because it's a really important conversation.
I just want to encourage you to check on yourself
(03:40):
and check on people first. So I'm fine has become
an automatic response to being asked, how are you? I mean,
it's a safe answer, and I don't know if sometimes
I just want to ignore all my problems so it's
easier to answer I'm fine, or really, it's not time
to get into all the different things, so it's just
(04:01):
easy to answer I'm fine. But when I'm saying i'm fine,
it's fine, everything is fine really definitely not fine. So
I feel like it's a safety blanket. And maybe you
are like, that's the i'm fine, it's fine. All that
can be pretty serious and and maybe deep down you
know things are fine. But sometimes maybe people are saying
I'm fine and they're just ignoring the fact that things
(04:23):
are not fine, suppressing all the stuff that's not fine. Yeah,
So do we do that just to avoid feeling uncomfortable? Like,
how should we lean into it if we're clinging to
I'm fine when things are not fine? Well, I think
it also, I think you said it depends on who
we're talking to, right, So sometimes we don't feel safe
talking to the person checking us out at the grocery
(04:43):
store when they're saying, how are you doing today? Right?
And so we're like, oh, I'm fine. But when a
friend or a spouse or a partner, somebody asked you like, hey,
how's it going, like are you okay? And we say
I'm fine? But stuff really bubbling up. Usually it's because
we don't want to actually acknowledge the fact that things
are crumbling. Denial, denial, yeah, And so I think a
lot of people are afraid that if I talk about
(05:04):
my stuff, then it's going to get worse. But really
what we know is and we don't talk about our stuff,
it gets worse. And so we can stop piling things
up and we can take things out of the pile
instead of making the pile bigger. But I think the
first thing is that we have to look at it.
Who are we going to say that to? Who are
we going to open up to, Who are we going
to talk to? What about if you feel like you
don't wanna, there's shame either associated with whatever you're feeling
(05:26):
or you don't you know, want to necessarily project your
hurt onto other people, and you can feel a little
bit scary and uncomfortable. So how do we lean I think, well, yeah,
well it's important to break the stigma. Right If we
all are walking around being like everything's fine, I'm fine,
then we're walking around in a society of people who
(05:47):
everybody is okay, and then I feel like I'm the
only one who's not. And so I think the biggest
thing that we have to look at first is okay.
When I recognize that I'm not okay, I'm not use
the word projecting. I'm not projecting my feelings onto that person.
What I'm doing is I'm being authentic and connecting to somebody,
and it might actually open up more space for other
people to realize I'm not okay either, and it's okay
(06:09):
to not always be okay. It is okay to not
always be okay. But I don't think a lot of
us realize that. It's like all we live in a
culture that's like go go go, and most of us
are struggling with something at some point of the day.
I don't know anybody who goes through their days and
they're just perfect and everything lines up wonderfully. We might
look that way, but I don't think that's really what's
going on, right, So really, if you do, now I'm
(06:31):
thinking back to my if when I'm wearing it's fine,
I'm fine, everything is fine. That's sort of helping break
the stigma in a way because it's a very clear
message that I'm not fine. I'm not scared for you
to see it. So but I mean with those that
are living with mental illness or survivors of trauma, I
really feel like asking them how are you? I mean
(06:53):
that can probably feel daunting. How do we check in
on people that maybe we think are not fine, or
how do we check in with ourselves? So if we're
not fine? Well though, there are two very different questions.
But I think if you're noticing I was just talking
about this earlier with somebody else, If you're noticing that
a friend or if somebody close to you, maybe a coworker,
is acting a little different, I think it's important to
(07:13):
go to them, like in a face common environment and say, hey,
I'm noticing something's a little off, Like are you okay?
That's a very different question than passing something in the
hallway and like how are you? Like very different, and
I don't know many people that are going to stop
you in the middle of the hallway and like, well,
let me tell you everything that's going on. But if
you're in a space that feels safe and more like
solids with just you and another person, and you're not
(07:35):
in a big group of people, it welcomes it and
it almost sends the message I actually am asking you.
I'm not saying this as like a passing. I'm not
saying this as like a pleasantry. I'm really asking you.
So going to them in calmness, that's very different than
checking in with yourself. So before we move into checking
with ourselves, what about changing the word to hey, how
are you doing? If you ask someone how are you feeling?
(07:57):
Or what are you feeling? How would you ask that?
Do you think there's a difference in that and that
people would recognize the difference in just that one word.
It depends. I always say that the clients too, when
we're working through like grips or things they want to
bring up with friends or loved ones. I give them
an example and I say, your language is going to
sound different than this, because I might go to one
of my friends and say, hey, what are you feeling today.
(08:18):
I'm noticing that something is a little off, like what
emotions have popped up today? And that would be really
normal for me to say, but they might not talk
like that. They's like, hey, Katherine, what's going on? Like
I'm noticing that something's off and it's asking the same thing.
But I think to go into it as this doesn't
have to be some like written out thing that I
have to say perfectly. I need to just come to
this person with like my authenticity. Does that make sense?
(08:41):
So that's checking in on others. What about checking in
on yourself? Do you have to show up as authentic
to yourself? Well? I would think that was, Well, how
do you check in? I don't know. Do I I
check in by jumping in the pool with all my
clothes on, or going in my closet and crying super hard,
(09:03):
or going on a walk, or just knowing I need space,
recognizing that I need to put everything down and go
be alone if I can. I mean, that's me checking
in with myself. I don't know what what do you mean? Yeah? Well,
I think it's really valuable for people to have spaces
in their days where they actually are like tuning into
themselves and kind of tuning the world out for a second,
(09:23):
zoning in, And a lot of people do that in
the morning, but just like going and sitting somewhere quietly
by yourself and saying like, hey, what, asking yourself, what
are you feeling, what are you excited about today, what
are you scared about today? What was frustrating about X,
y Z, And just taking a moment to talk to yourself,
Because what I imagine is that most of us wake
up in the morning with a limited amount of time.
(09:45):
You get ready for whatever we need to do, we
go do it, and it's like we go to the
next thing, and we go the next thing and the
next thing, and we're never actually paying attention to what
we're doing. We're paying attention to our schedules. And so
if we start the day was like, okay, I need
to check into what I'm feeling, just me loan by myself,
I think that's really important. And if you notice that
you're doing things that are off, like I'm jumping into
(10:05):
a pool with my clothes on, or I'm getting really
short with people, or I'm noticing that the same things
that used to make me really excited, I'm not excited
about anymore. That can be a clue of like, hey,
I need to check in with myself more off. So
had I checked in with myself, I maybe wouldn't have
ended up in the pool. The pool wasn't a check in.
The pool was a result of me not checking in.
(10:26):
It's too late at that point, but probably. But look,
you use it as a tool to like, hey, something's off.
This is not normal behavior, right, I mean it was
fun though after the fact, I might start doing it. Cat,
you sent me some ball, like a stress ballad ball. Yeah,
(10:47):
I've been having some trouble linking things to my Amazon page,
so I'll try to link it for y'all in case
you're interested. But it's a stress ball, but it's called
r ball, like a r G g H something like that,
and it's Audi Amazon. I ordered when I haven't gotten
it yet, But you keep some in your office, and
I feel like if someone this is just me. I'm
(11:09):
not a therapist here, but I'm picturing myself doing a
check in, and if I were to check in to
see how I'm feeling, and I was gonna be honest
with myself and not lie to myself and say I'm fine.
I'm fine. I'm fine, and I realized maybe I'm not fine.
If the stress ball is something that works for me,
I could go get that maybe, And it was Yeah,
because that ball I love because it's something sensory and
(11:32):
tacked out, so people will use it in sessions to
hold and play with and even I'll hold it sometimes
when I'm in sessions with people because it's kind of
letting you get some of that energy out in your hands.
But also it's something that you can throw and it's
a safe thing to throw and it just lets you
feel and you can like punch it and it's not
gonna like MUSHes around and so it's not gonna like
bounce off somewhere. It's not gonna break. So yeah, you're
(11:53):
checking in and being like I'm feeling angry and you're
going to get that ball and throwing it might be
something good to start your day. As it sounds kind
of weird, but it might be helpful. Yeah. Okay, again,
I'll try to link that, but if not, you can
just google it and find it yourself. But my Amazon
page you can find that radio amy dot com and
click on Amazon Favorites because I cannot wait for my
(12:14):
ball to come in the mail, because I do think
I need that for my chickens. So yeah, just remember,
if someone says they're fine, you may be able to
leave it at that. But if you're super close to
them and like Cats said, it's a safe environment for
you to dig in a little deeper, you may want
to ask him no, no, something's off, like are you
really feeling like I would love to know or something
like that, and then also do that with yourself. Okay,
(12:46):
so let's talk about suicidal ideation and suicidal intent because
they are two different things. But the ideation is something
that people can pay attention to and could be a
warning flag for sure. Right, yeah, So suicidal ideation would
be more passive thoughts of I want something to happen,
but I'm not going to do anything. I wish I
(13:07):
could just not wake up in the morning, thoughts like that,
but there's no actual plan to do anything thinking about
what it would be like if they were to die.
So suicidal intent is I am planning to take my
own life. I'm going the extra measures to get the
means to do it, and I'm I have the means,
So now I'm creating a plan to do it and
I plan to do it, So those are two different things.
(13:29):
Sometimes you have ideation first and sometimes you don't, so
it's really important if you do have suicidal audiation, it
doesn't always need to be just thrown off as a
passive thought. I think it's something that you want to
bring attention to, so like for me, for example, and
this is I won't go too far into it, and
I don't even think I like putting it in the
category of suicidal ideation, but just in case anybody else
(13:50):
can relate, I will share that there have been moments
where it has just been so hard and I've had
the thought of if something spends to me or I
were to die today or tomorrow, I'm fine with it.
I obviously wouldn't be because I'm not really thinking much
past that, but I just do have a fall into
(14:12):
that category at all. I feel silly putting it there,
but I'm sharing it just in case anybody else has
had those thoughts and to know that if there's somebody
you can reach out to to try to talk to
them about it, like I am in therapy, so I
have that as a thing I can do. You may
have friends to reach out to her you may have,
like we talked about in the last thing, different things
you can do for yourself to make sure that you
(14:34):
know you're you're taking care of your well being. Yeah,
I think that that can be part of that. Now,
what I'm hearing is that's not so much something at
the forefront of your brain all the time. Some people's
ideation is constant. But I do think it's important to
pay attention if you do have a thought like that,
because those aren't super normal, healthy thoughts to have, and
(14:54):
they probably are coming out of some kind of desperation
or like cries for something, some kind of help. And
so if you are noticing those thoughts, that's one of
those red flags of like, hey, I need to check
in with myself because something's not right. Because sometimes you
have ideation first, Like I said, sometimes people suicide like
there's not a warning sign. Sometimes it just comes and
there's no there's nothing that came before that. So I
(15:15):
think it's you do have the warning sign, take advantage
of it. Okay, So now that you've shared the difference
between the suicidal ideation and suicidal intent, I know there's
also a different way of saying that someone has died
by suicide, which I think that what we've been used
to saying, or at least for me, is that person
(15:36):
committed suicide. But now people are saying death by suicide. Yeah,
it's finally being recognized as like an actual illness, and
so these people aren't making the choice. It's not a choice,
and I think a lot of us think it is.
But nobody in a rational mind is choosing to die
like it is a This is the only option I have,
(15:56):
and so we're looking at just like any other illness.
Nobody says somebody committed cancer, because people don't choose cancer,
and so we're not saying somebody committed suicide to people
aren't actually rationally choosing that. So death by suicide is
the correct way to say it. Now. Thank you for
teaching me that, you're awesome, because I had not heard that.
And as I want to continue to grow and educate
(16:20):
myself on what others might be going through, I want
to make sure that I say it properly because even
though I have never experienced suicide in my like in
my life, like nobody that's close to me that I
know of has had those thoughts, and then I haven't,
but I know how prevalent it is, and you don't
(16:41):
really hear about it because the news doesn't report on suicides.
Did you know that they don't, Well, not to my hit,
I guess, well, I guess. I mean, I don't know,
but I mean I just remember in Austin a news
anchor and I work in radio, and we don't ever
report anything. There would be a guy that jumped off
a edge or whatever I mean, and that would be
(17:02):
news in the city that someone did that and it
clearly was a suicide, but they don't say that because, well,
I don't know the exact reasoning, and maybe I should
ask one of my news anchor friends, but I think
it's they don't want to put that idea into somebody
else's head, or they don't want to give someone the
attention to know that, Okay, if you go do this
(17:22):
to yourself, then you're gonna get talked about on the
news and kind of have your name out there. Is
that if that's your goal, which that's obviously not or everybody's.
There's maybe some people, but you don't hear about it
a lot. I saw an article about how twenty veterans
a day, Well, they might be attempting it attempting suicide
or they are successful and they are death by suicide.
(17:45):
But that is an alarming rate to me. And then
you have more statistics, right, So in the US alone,
it's every eleven minutes somebody dies by suicide, so that's
an alarming number. And then if you take it to
the world, it's every forty seconds. But he died by suicide.
Which this is interesting that you're saying that they don't
report things. But suicide is the second leading cause of
(18:06):
death for people fifteen to twenty nine in the US,
which is huge. And what's even scarier is for every
successful suicide, there's twenty five attempts. So when we say
we don't know anybody, we probably do. We just aren't
talking about it, right or they're not Yeah you may
not even they're not talking about it even happened, ye wow, okay, Yeah,
those numbers are alarming. So coming up in the fourth thing,
(18:30):
we'll get into how you can help yourself or someone.
So I know there's a National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and
it's a ten digit number, eight hundred to seven three
talk eight seven three talks, so easy to remember. But
(18:53):
something cool that I saw that they're going to be
doing is setting up a new suicide hotline number that
will be three digits, like nine one one, And the
reason that they're doing this is to make it easier
for people to get help and reduce the stigma associated
with mental health, which kind of what we've been talking
about is just allowing people the space to talk about
(19:16):
it and not feel judgment and know that if more
people would just talk about things, they would realize they're
not alone. But then maybe just picking up the phone.
I think another example they referenced in the article was,
you know, nobody is embarrassed to pick up the phone
and call nine one one of their houses on fire.
So they're hoping that the same will be for the
three digit number, that people will be able to pick
(19:38):
up the phone and dial eight. I think is the
number that it's going to be. I don't think it's
out yet, but hopefully soon. So they hope that people
are not embarrassed to pick up for a mental health emergency. Yeah,
and what is important to realize is that the majority,
like a vast majority of the people that get help
actually are successful in their help. The problem this, people
(20:00):
aren't getting the help they need that I think, really,
why the numbers are so alarming? Okay, So what about
people that don't have access to therapy for certain resources
like I do, or maybe their insurance doesn't have it,
or they can't they don't have the extra funds for
a therapist. I guess there's the hotline to call, but
maybe they don't feel like that is for them, Like
(20:21):
what do people do? Okay? So it's important for people
to realize that even without insurance, you can get help.
And so my friend, one of my good friends, work
for Mobile Crisis, which is who are the people that
respond to those hotline calls? And she told me that
a lot of places and it says she works in Tennessee.
So I don't know what it is like in other states,
but in Tennessee there are places that do grant beds
(20:43):
and which is somewhere somebody can go to get stabilized.
And Tennessee has a behavioral help staking it and like
money put aside for people to provide treatment who can't
afford it. And the only thing that those people have
to actually pay for is the cost of their medication.
So when it comes to that, there is more help
than I think people realize The other part with therapy
(21:03):
is a lot of therapists. Almost every therapist I know
will have a certain number of spots in their schedules
that they reserve for people who can't afford the full
rate of therapy. And so some therapists will have one
spot and they'll do like pro bono free, and some therapists,
like me, I have one spot that I break up
into giving people like a smaller rate or a less
(21:25):
expensive rate so they can afford therapy. And so I
think that it's worth calling because most of the time
there's going to be a resource that somebody can connect
you to. I was googling some stuff too and saw
that now the nine eight numbers not out yet. And
that's not a texting situation either. It's basically like you're
calling nine one one. But there are their texting services available.
(21:46):
There's one called Lines for Life, and they offer a
text service. All you have to do is text to
seven three talk to eight three nine eight six three,
which I know you're probably not gonna remember that at
the moment, but it's good to know that we all
can access Google, whether it's for yourself or somebody else,
and you can quickly look up maybe different ways in
(22:09):
your state or in your city or nationally, how one
of these services can be of help to you, because
I don't know. I'm ignorant to how prevalent this is.
Like you even said, if someone is actually successful with
their attempt, I mean, those numbers are staggering, But then
to hear the people that are aren't successful, that means
(22:30):
there's so many more people out there that are just
hurting and they need help. Yeah, And I think that
the reason that a lot of people don't get the
help they need is because they don't realize that there
are resources like the ones you're sharing. Yeah, and quickly,
I there's a website too that's called Speaking of Suicide
dot com slash resources, and obviously what you'll find there
(22:50):
is more resources for this heavy topic, but something that
we need to be talking about. And I'm thankful that
I realized September was suicide Awareness Month, just so I
could do my part to start the conversation here with
my four things community. I think that we all could
do better just working on our mental health are overall
(23:11):
well being, and you know, maybe you're not there. I
mean this podcast kind of covered some mental health that
we all are probably experiencing like in the first couple
of things, but then got a little bit more serious
and the third and then now this the final thing.
But wherever you are with your mental health, that is important.
And we just need to be taking care of ourselves.
No matter what's going on or how big or how
(23:33):
small you feel your problems are, they're important, So find
somebody that you can share them with. I appreciate you
talking about this subject. Oh man, this is hard. Yeah.
Just if you've made it to this part of the episode,
I will let you know that Cat has been extremely
patient with me, and we probably stopped and started recording
(23:53):
four different times because I didn't know how to say things.
This is new territory for me, and I want to
make sure that I'm doing my part. And I will
say that it's important just to talk because it reminds
me of when everything was happening when George Floyd was murdered,
and I remember having a conversation with somebody close to
(24:14):
me who was black, and I was like, I don't
know what to say because I'm afraid I'm going to
say something wrong, and he said, you just need to
talk because you're never going to learn what's right and
wrong if you don't say anything at all. And so
I think this is comparable in the fact that we
don't talk about it because we're afraid we're going to
say the wrong thing. But then we don't talk about
it and people don't get help and people don't get hurt.
(24:34):
So you can't learn what's right unless you start talking
about it. So we're doing the first step right there. Well,
thanks for that encouragement, and thank you guys for listening.
Hopefully this will be helpful for you or somebody that
you know. And again, we're all fine, it's fine. I'm fine.
I'm gonna go put my shirt on now. It's fine.
Okay, little food for you. So life, Oh it's pretty Bay,
It's pretty beautiful than that. A little more kicking with
(00:30):
four Amy Brown. Happy Thursday, everybody. I have got Katherine
de Fata on with me for today's episode, just going
to do all four things with me. She's actually here
doing the intro with me as well. Hey Katherine, Hi,
but we're going to call her Cat And she was
my therapist for a little while and we just terminated
our therapeutic relationship and there's more to come on why
(00:53):
that happened. Some exciting news that will be sharing with
you soon. But it's suicide prevention, suicidal earn this month,
the month of September is and we're all about mental
health here on the podcast. So some of these things
we're going to get into today. If you've got kids
in the car, this is probably not an episode to
be playing. I know some of my episodes can be
family friendly, but we're talking about some heavy stuff, but
(01:14):
not all of it. I was telling Cat before we
went on, how this is such a scary territory for
me because I personally have never been suicidal, and I
am not close to someone that has been that I
know of, and that's something that is crazy. You never
know what's going on in somebody's head and where their
thoughts really are. But to my knowledge, I don't have
(01:34):
any experience with it at all whatsoever. I'm just scared.
I don't want to trigger somebody or I don't think
that's hurtful or wrong or anything. But I don't feel
that my ignorance or me being scared to talk about
something is a reason to shy away from an important conversation.
So given that Katherine is a therapist and you know
(01:56):
she could come in and just offer wisdom on some things, now,
I will say the first thing we're going to get
into is just more about mental health, not anything really
suicide related. But when you're saying you're fine, like are
you fine? Because I feel like we answer I'm fine
a lot. I mean, we even made the new four
Things pull over. That's the four things are It's fine,
(02:17):
I'm fine, everything is fine. And it's supposed to be
a joke on how yeah we're not fine and you're
wearing it. And I think that that's great and it
has a good message because our four things stuff is
supporting my life speaks right now, So you can support
Haiti and also walk around and show people that you're fine,
but you're not fine, and it's fine, but some people
really are not fine. And so I want to talk
(02:37):
through what we really mean sometimes when we stay fine.
So that will be the first thing, and then the
second thing we're going to get into is anxiety, because
I feel like that really can mess with us emotionally
and physically, and so I want to go through how
anxiety manifests itself emotionally and then how it has manifested physically.
Then the third thing we're going to get into is
(02:58):
something that Cat just talked to me about before we
started recording, and it's called suicidal ideation, right and suicidal intent,
which I did not know what that was about. I
shared something with her and you'll hear it in the
third thing, and she was like, okay, yeah, let's break
this down. And then the fourth thing, we'll talk about
a new hotline number that should be coming out hopefully soon,
(03:19):
like a three digit number, which I think is amazing,
and then numbers and resources that you can use and
just ways to help yourself or someone that you know
if you find out that they might be suicidal. So
that's the menu. For today's episode, And I just appreciate
Cat being here with us because it's a really important conversation.
I just want to encourage you to check on yourself
(03:40):
and check on people first. So I'm fine has become
an automatic response to being asked, how are you? I mean,
it's a safe answer, and I don't know if sometimes
I just want to ignore all my problems so it's
easier to answer I'm fine, or really, it's not time
to get into all the different things, so it's just
(04:01):
easy to answer I'm fine. But when I'm saying i'm fine,
it's fine, everything is fine really definitely not fine. So
I feel like it's a safety blanket. And maybe you
are like, that's the i'm fine, it's fine. All that
can be pretty serious and and maybe deep down you
know things are fine. But sometimes maybe people are saying
I'm fine and they're just ignoring the fact that things
(04:23):
are not fine, suppressing all the stuff that's not fine. Yeah,
So do we do that just to avoid feeling uncomfortable? Like,
how should we lean into it if we're clinging to
I'm fine when things are not fine? Well, I think
it also, I think you said it depends on who
we're talking to, right, So sometimes we don't feel safe
talking to the person checking us out at the grocery
(04:43):
store when they're saying, how are you doing today? Right?
And so we're like, oh, I'm fine. But when a
friend or a spouse or a partner, somebody asked you like, hey,
how's it going, like are you okay? And we say
I'm fine? But stuff really bubbling up. Usually it's because
we don't want to actually acknowledge the fact that things
are crumbling. Denial, denial, yeah, And so I think a
lot of people are afraid that if I talk about
(05:04):
my stuff, then it's going to get worse. But really
what we know is and we don't talk about our stuff,
it gets worse. And so we can stop piling things
up and we can take things out of the pile
instead of making the pile bigger. But I think the
first thing is that we have to look at it.
Who are we going to say that to? Who are
we going to open up to, Who are we going
to talk to? What about if you feel like you
don't wanna, there's shame either associated with whatever you're feeling
(05:26):
or you don't you know, want to necessarily project your
hurt onto other people, and you can feel a little
bit scary and uncomfortable. So how do we lean I think, well, yeah,
well it's important to break the stigma. Right If we
all are walking around being like everything's fine, I'm fine,
then we're walking around in a society of people who
(05:47):
everybody is okay, and then I feel like I'm the
only one who's not. And so I think the biggest
thing that we have to look at first is okay.
When I recognize that I'm not okay, I'm not use
the word projecting. I'm not projecting my feelings onto that person.
What I'm doing is I'm being authentic and connecting to somebody,
and it might actually open up more space for other
people to realize I'm not okay either, and it's okay
(06:09):
to not always be okay. It is okay to not
always be okay. But I don't think a lot of
us realize that. It's like all we live in a
culture that's like go go go, and most of us
are struggling with something at some point of the day.
I don't know anybody who goes through their days and
they're just perfect and everything lines up wonderfully. We might
look that way, but I don't think that's really what's
going on, right, So really, if you do, now I'm
(06:31):
thinking back to my if when I'm wearing it's fine,
I'm fine, everything is fine. That's sort of helping break
the stigma in a way because it's a very clear
message that I'm not fine. I'm not scared for you
to see it. So but I mean with those that
are living with mental illness or survivors of trauma, I
really feel like asking them how are you? I mean
(06:53):
that can probably feel daunting. How do we check in
on people that maybe we think are not fine, or
how do we check in with ourselves? So if we're
not fine? Well though, there are two very different questions.
But I think if you're noticing I was just talking
about this earlier with somebody else, If you're noticing that
a friend or if somebody close to you, maybe a coworker,
is acting a little different, I think it's important to
(07:13):
go to them, like in a face common environment and say, hey,
I'm noticing something's a little off, Like are you okay?
That's a very different question than passing something in the
hallway and like how are you? Like very different, and
I don't know many people that are going to stop
you in the middle of the hallway and like, well,
let me tell you everything that's going on. But if
you're in a space that feels safe and more like
solids with just you and another person, and you're not
(07:35):
in a big group of people, it welcomes it and
it almost sends the message I actually am asking you.
I'm not saying this as like a passing. I'm not
saying this as like a pleasantry. I'm really asking you.
So going to them in calmness, that's very different than
checking in with yourself. So before we move into checking
with ourselves, what about changing the word to hey, how
are you doing? If you ask someone how are you feeling?
(07:57):
Or what are you feeling? How would you ask that?
Do you think there's a difference in that and that
people would recognize the difference in just that one word.
It depends. I always say that the clients too, when
we're working through like grips or things they want to
bring up with friends or loved ones. I give them
an example and I say, your language is going to
sound different than this, because I might go to one
of my friends and say, hey, what are you feeling today.
(08:18):
I'm noticing that something is a little off, like what
emotions have popped up today? And that would be really
normal for me to say, but they might not talk
like that. They's like, hey, Katherine, what's going on? Like
I'm noticing that something's off and it's asking the same thing.
But I think to go into it as this doesn't
have to be some like written out thing that I
have to say perfectly. I need to just come to
this person with like my authenticity. Does that make sense?
(08:41):
So that's checking in on others. What about checking in
on yourself? Do you have to show up as authentic
to yourself? Well? I would think that was, Well, how
do you check in? I don't know. Do I I
check in by jumping in the pool with all my
clothes on, or going in my closet and crying super hard,
(09:03):
or going on a walk, or just knowing I need space,
recognizing that I need to put everything down and go
be alone if I can. I mean, that's me checking
in with myself. I don't know what what do you mean? Yeah? Well,
I think it's really valuable for people to have spaces
in their days where they actually are like tuning into
themselves and kind of tuning the world out for a second,
(09:23):
zoning in, And a lot of people do that in
the morning, but just like going and sitting somewhere quietly
by yourself and saying like, hey, what, asking yourself, what
are you feeling, what are you excited about today, what
are you scared about today? What was frustrating about X,
y Z, And just taking a moment to talk to yourself,
Because what I imagine is that most of us wake
up in the morning with a limited amount of time.
(09:45):
You get ready for whatever we need to do, we
go do it, and it's like we go to the
next thing, and we go the next thing and the
next thing, and we're never actually paying attention to what
we're doing. We're paying attention to our schedules. And so
if we start the day was like, okay, I need
to check into what I'm feeling, just me loan by myself,
I think that's really important. And if you notice that
you're doing things that are off, like I'm jumping into
(10:05):
a pool with my clothes on, or I'm getting really
short with people, or I'm noticing that the same things
that used to make me really excited, I'm not excited
about anymore. That can be a clue of like, hey,
I need to check in with myself more off. So
had I checked in with myself, I maybe wouldn't have
ended up in the pool. The pool wasn't a check in.
The pool was a result of me not checking in.
(10:26):
It's too late at that point, but probably. But look,
you use it as a tool to like, hey, something's off.
This is not normal behavior, right, I mean it was
fun though after the fact, I might start doing it. Cat,
you sent me some ball, like a stress ballad ball. Yeah,
(10:47):
I've been having some trouble linking things to my Amazon page,
so I'll try to link it for y'all in case
you're interested. But it's a stress ball, but it's called
r ball, like a r G g H something like that,
and it's Audi Amazon. I ordered when I haven't gotten
it yet, But you keep some in your office, and
I feel like if someone this is just me. I'm
(11:09):
not a therapist here, but I'm picturing myself doing a
check in, and if I were to check in to
see how I'm feeling, and I was gonna be honest
with myself and not lie to myself and say I'm fine.
I'm fine. I'm fine, and I realized maybe I'm not fine.
If the stress ball is something that works for me,
I could go get that maybe, And it was Yeah,
because that ball I love because it's something sensory and
(11:32):
tacked out, so people will use it in sessions to
hold and play with and even I'll hold it sometimes
when I'm in sessions with people because it's kind of
letting you get some of that energy out in your hands.
But also it's something that you can throw and it's
a safe thing to throw and it just lets you
feel and you can like punch it and it's not
gonna like MUSHes around and so it's not gonna like
bounce off somewhere. It's not gonna break. So yeah, you're
(11:53):
checking in and being like I'm feeling angry and you're
going to get that ball and throwing it might be
something good to start your day. As it sounds kind
of weird, but it might be helpful. Yeah. Okay, again,
I'll try to link that, but if not, you can
just google it and find it yourself. But my Amazon
page you can find that radio amy dot com and
click on Amazon Favorites because I cannot wait for my
(12:14):
ball to come in the mail, because I do think
I need that for my chickens. So yeah, just remember,
if someone says they're fine, you may be able to
leave it at that. But if you're super close to
them and like Cats said, it's a safe environment for
you to dig in a little deeper, you may want
to ask him no, no, something's off, like are you
really feeling like I would love to know or something
like that, and then also do that with yourself. Okay,
(12:46):
so let's talk about suicidal ideation and suicidal intent because
they are two different things. But the ideation is something
that people can pay attention to and could be a
warning flag for sure. Right, yeah, So suicidal ideation would
be more passive thoughts of I want something to happen,
but I'm not going to do anything. I wish I
(13:07):
could just not wake up in the morning, thoughts like that,
but there's no actual plan to do anything thinking about
what it would be like if they were to die.
So suicidal intent is I am planning to take my
own life. I'm going the extra measures to get the
means to do it, and I'm I have the means,
So now I'm creating a plan to do it and
I plan to do it, So those are two different things.
(13:29):
Sometimes you have ideation first and sometimes you don't, so
it's really important if you do have suicidal audiation, it
doesn't always need to be just thrown off as a
passive thought. I think it's something that you want to
bring attention to, so like for me, for example, and
this is I won't go too far into it, and
I don't even think I like putting it in the
category of suicidal ideation, but just in case anybody else
(13:50):
can relate, I will share that there have been moments
where it has just been so hard and I've had
the thought of if something spends to me or I
were to die today or tomorrow, I'm fine with it.
I obviously wouldn't be because I'm not really thinking much
past that, but I just do have a fall into
(14:12):
that category at all. I feel silly putting it there,
but I'm sharing it just in case anybody else has
had those thoughts and to know that if there's somebody
you can reach out to to try to talk to
them about it, like I am in therapy, so I
have that as a thing I can do. You may
have friends to reach out to her you may have,
like we talked about in the last thing, different things
you can do for yourself to make sure that you
(14:34):
know you're you're taking care of your well being. Yeah,
I think that that can be part of that. Now,
what I'm hearing is that's not so much something at
the forefront of your brain all the time. Some people's
ideation is constant. But I do think it's important to
pay attention if you do have a thought like that,
because those aren't super normal, healthy thoughts to have, and
(14:54):
they probably are coming out of some kind of desperation
or like cries for something, some kind of help. And
so if you are noticing those thoughts, that's one of
those red flags of like, hey, I need to check
in with myself because something's not right. Because sometimes you
have ideation first, Like I said, sometimes people suicide like
there's not a warning sign. Sometimes it just comes and
there's no there's nothing that came before that. So I
(15:15):
think it's you do have the warning sign, take advantage
of it. Okay, So now that you've shared the difference
between the suicidal ideation and suicidal intent, I know there's
also a different way of saying that someone has died
by suicide, which I think that what we've been used
to saying, or at least for me, is that person
(15:36):
committed suicide. But now people are saying death by suicide. Yeah,
it's finally being recognized as like an actual illness, and
so these people aren't making the choice. It's not a choice,
and I think a lot of us think it is.
But nobody in a rational mind is choosing to die
like it is a This is the only option I have,
(15:56):
and so we're looking at just like any other illness.
Nobody says somebody committed cancer, because people don't choose cancer,
and so we're not saying somebody committed suicide to people
aren't actually rationally choosing that. So death by suicide is
the correct way to say it. Now. Thank you for
teaching me that, you're awesome, because I had not heard that.
And as I want to continue to grow and educate
(16:20):
myself on what others might be going through, I want
to make sure that I say it properly because even
though I have never experienced suicide in my like in
my life, like nobody that's close to me that I
know of has had those thoughts, and then I haven't,
but I know how prevalent it is, and you don't
(16:41):
really hear about it because the news doesn't report on suicides.
Did you know that they don't, Well, not to my hit,
I guess, well, I guess. I mean, I don't know,
but I mean I just remember in Austin a news
anchor and I work in radio, and we don't ever
report anything. There would be a guy that jumped off
a edge or whatever I mean, and that would be
(17:02):
news in the city that someone did that and it
clearly was a suicide, but they don't say that because, well,
I don't know the exact reasoning, and maybe I should
ask one of my news anchor friends, but I think
it's they don't want to put that idea into somebody
else's head, or they don't want to give someone the
attention to know that, Okay, if you go do this
(17:22):
to yourself, then you're gonna get talked about on the
news and kind of have your name out there. Is
that if that's your goal, which that's obviously not or everybody's.
There's maybe some people, but you don't hear about it
a lot. I saw an article about how twenty veterans
a day, Well, they might be attempting it attempting suicide
or they are successful and they are death by suicide.
(17:45):
But that is an alarming rate to me. And then
you have more statistics, right, So in the US alone,
it's every eleven minutes somebody dies by suicide, so that's
an alarming number. And then if you take it to
the world, it's every forty seconds. But he died by suicide.
Which this is interesting that you're saying that they don't
report things. But suicide is the second leading cause of
(18:06):
death for people fifteen to twenty nine in the US,
which is huge. And what's even scarier is for every
successful suicide, there's twenty five attempts. So when we say
we don't know anybody, we probably do. We just aren't
talking about it, right or they're not Yeah you may
not even they're not talking about it even happened, ye wow, okay, Yeah,
those numbers are alarming. So coming up in the fourth thing,
(18:30):
we'll get into how you can help yourself or someone.
So I know there's a National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and
it's a ten digit number, eight hundred to seven three
talk eight seven three talks, so easy to remember. But
(18:53):
something cool that I saw that they're going to be
doing is setting up a new suicide hotline number that
will be three digits, like nine one one, And the
reason that they're doing this is to make it easier
for people to get help and reduce the stigma associated
with mental health, which kind of what we've been talking
about is just allowing people the space to talk about
(19:16):
it and not feel judgment and know that if more
people would just talk about things, they would realize they're
not alone. But then maybe just picking up the phone.
I think another example they referenced in the article was,
you know, nobody is embarrassed to pick up the phone
and call nine one one of their houses on fire.
So they're hoping that the same will be for the
three digit number, that people will be able to pick
(19:38):
up the phone and dial eight. I think is the
number that it's going to be. I don't think it's
out yet, but hopefully soon. So they hope that people
are not embarrassed to pick up for a mental health emergency. Yeah,
and what is important to realize is that the majority,
like a vast majority of the people that get help
actually are successful in their help. The problem this, people
(20:00):
aren't getting the help they need that I think, really,
why the numbers are so alarming? Okay, So what about
people that don't have access to therapy for certain resources
like I do, or maybe their insurance doesn't have it,
or they can't they don't have the extra funds for
a therapist. I guess there's the hotline to call, but
maybe they don't feel like that is for them, Like
(20:21):
what do people do? Okay? So it's important for people
to realize that even without insurance, you can get help.
And so my friend, one of my good friends, work
for Mobile Crisis, which is who are the people that
respond to those hotline calls? And she told me that
a lot of places and it says she works in Tennessee.
So I don't know what it is like in other states,
but in Tennessee there are places that do grant beds
(20:43):
and which is somewhere somebody can go to get stabilized.
And Tennessee has a behavioral help staking it and like
money put aside for people to provide treatment who can't
afford it. And the only thing that those people have
to actually pay for is the cost of their medication.
So when it comes to that, there is more help
than I think people realize The other part with therapy
(21:03):
is a lot of therapists. Almost every therapist I know
will have a certain number of spots in their schedules
that they reserve for people who can't afford the full
rate of therapy. And so some therapists will have one
spot and they'll do like pro bono free, and some therapists,
like me, I have one spot that I break up
into giving people like a smaller rate or a less
(21:25):
expensive rate so they can afford therapy. And so I
think that it's worth calling because most of the time
there's going to be a resource that somebody can connect
you to. I was googling some stuff too and saw
that now the nine eight numbers not out yet. And
that's not a texting situation either. It's basically like you're
calling nine one one. But there are their texting services available.
(21:46):
There's one called Lines for Life, and they offer a
text service. All you have to do is text to
seven three talk to eight three nine eight six three,
which I know you're probably not gonna remember that at
the moment, but it's good to know that we all
can access Google, whether it's for yourself or somebody else,
and you can quickly look up maybe different ways in
(22:09):
your state or in your city or nationally, how one
of these services can be of help to you, because
I don't know. I'm ignorant to how prevalent this is.
Like you even said, if someone is actually successful with
their attempt, I mean, those numbers are staggering, But then
to hear the people that are aren't successful, that means
(22:30):
there's so many more people out there that are just
hurting and they need help. Yeah, And I think that
the reason that a lot of people don't get the
help they need is because they don't realize that there
are resources like the ones you're sharing. Yeah, and quickly,
I there's a website too that's called Speaking of Suicide
dot com slash resources, and obviously what you'll find there
(22:50):
is more resources for this heavy topic, but something that
we need to be talking about. And I'm thankful that
I realized September was suicide Awareness Month, just so I
could do my part to start the conversation here with
my four things community. I think that we all could
do better just working on our mental health are overall
(23:11):
well being, and you know, maybe you're not there. I
mean this podcast kind of covered some mental health that
we all are probably experiencing like in the first couple
of things, but then got a little bit more serious
and the third and then now this the final thing.
But wherever you are with your mental health, that is important.
And we just need to be taking care of ourselves.
No matter what's going on or how big or how
(23:33):
small you feel your problems are, they're important, So find
somebody that you can share them with. I appreciate you
talking about this subject. Oh man, this is hard. Yeah.
Just if you've made it to this part of the episode,
I will let you know that Cat has been extremely
patient with me, and we probably stopped and started recording
(23:53):
four different times because I didn't know how to say things.
This is new territory for me, and I want to
make sure that I'm doing my part. And I will
say that it's important just to talk because it reminds
me of when everything was happening when George Floyd was murdered,
and I remember having a conversation with somebody close to
(24:14):
me who was black, and I was like, I don't
know what to say because I'm afraid I'm going to
say something wrong, and he said, you just need to
talk because you're never going to learn what's right and
wrong if you don't say anything at all. And so
I think this is comparable in the fact that we
don't talk about it because we're afraid we're going to
say the wrong thing. But then we don't talk about
it and people don't get help and people don't get hurt.
(24:34):
So you can't learn what's right unless you start talking
about it. So we're doing the first step right there. Well,
thanks for that encouragement, and thank you guys for listening.
Hopefully this will be helpful for you or somebody that
you know. And again, we're all fine, it's fine. I'm fine.
I'm gonna go put my shirt on now. It's fine.
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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