Bill in Ontario Interviewed by Sean Wellington
July 19, 2020
Suicide Noted Podcast; hello@suicidenoted.com
SW = Sean Wellington, BO= Bill in Ontario
BO: When you are in a suicidal mood, you are suffering with emotional pain. There's actually anguish there. Just like you have physical pain, you can have emotional pain that is just as bad. And one of the things that I like to tell people is that, you know, they say, how can you commit suicide? Well, you know, it's a battle. It's no different than a soldier in the army who's on the front line who is battling an enemy.
And you know what, sometimes soldiers don't come home.
SW: Hey there, my name is Sean. On this podcast, Suicide Noted, I talk with suicide attempt survivors so we can hear their stories and their stories in their words. Every year around the world, millions of people try to take their own lives and we don't talk about it. And when we do talk about it, we're not very good at it, myself included.
So my goal with this podcast is to have more conversations and have better conversations with people who have tried to end their lives. We are talking about suicide. That means it's probably not a good fit for everyone. So please take that into account before you listen. I hope you do listen because there is a lot to learn. Today I'm talking withBill. Bill lives in Ontario, Canada and he is a suicide attempt survivor. How you doing?
BO: Hey, I'm good. How are you, Sean?
SW: I'm good. Thanks so much for joining me.
BO: No problem.
SW: One question that I always like to ask people, especially when we just get started is there's a lot of people who have attempted to end their lives and they would never come on a podcast like this or talk with people so openly.
BO: Pkay. Yeah no.
SW: But you're okay with it. I'm wondering…
BO: Yeah I’m an open book. I'm a, that's what I do. I'm a mental health advocate and that's, you know, I've been in the spotlight when I did my magazine for 23 years and I'm totally open.
SW: Yeah, I think that's great. What kind of advocacy work do you do? What does that look like?
BO: Well, basically what happened, my background is in 1987, I was diagnosed with an illness known as schizophrenia. And basically I was hospitalized six different times. I lived in three different group homes. Ihad a suicide attempt and I spent five years on the couch doing nothing, dealing with a deep, deep dark depression. And then in 1994, I actually started a publication called SZ Magazine. A magazine on mental illness on schizophrenia. And I did that for 23 years. And then I retired. And then that brings me to where what I'm doing today is basically I do a podcast as well on Sunday nights, nine o'clock Eastern time live. And I usually have guests on there. And then I also, that's true. I have my Facebook group page, which is called Helping Parents of Mentally Ill Children. And I do a little writing too. I have a book that I published and I'm working on a second book as well. And it has to do with suicide, the second book, yeah.
SW: Wow. So you're in it.
BO: Yeah, I'm in it.
SW: You're in it. I think for some people certainly when you go through something like this, I would imagine it's hard not to be in it.
BO: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it seems to be our destiny, you know, I try to help people as much as I can. I think I have a gift of making complicated things simple and that's what I try to do in my speaking engagements and different things. When I had my magazine, I toured all across North America, speaking at mental health conferences and going to trade shows and different things like that with the magazine.
SW: That's fantastic.
BO: And then just to give you some stats, I'm not 100 % sure about the general stats on suicide, but I know with schizophrenia that 50 % of people who have schizophrenia will actually try to commit suicide and 10 % actually succeed if you call that a success.
SW: Right, yeah, those are staggering numbers.
BO: Yeah, it's a lot and because I mean, you know my illness schizophrenia was very difficult to deal with and it landed me into a depression as well. And I got to tell you depression was the hardest thing in my life that I've ever had to battle with.
SW: And you said you went through at least one severe portion of it for five years, not five weeks.
BO: That's right. For five years, five long years that I was basically pacing in my parents place and on the couch and it thinking of ways how to kill yourself, thinking of being feeling hopeless and and no hope and just it was terrible. Yeah, it was really bad. you know what, Sean, if you don't mind, I'd like to clear something up at the beginning just so people can understand that. Like you probably heard a lot of times that people who attempt suicide or people who have been suicidal, they say, well, that's selfish. Or how can you think you didn't think of us and everything like that? But the truth is that when you are in a suicidal mood or place, is that you are suffering with emotional pain. There's actually anguish there. Just like you have physical pain, you can have emotional pain that is just as bad. And one of the things that I like to tell people is that, you know, they say, how can you commit suicide? Well, you know, it's a battle. It's no different than a soldier in the army who's on the front line who is battling an enemy. And you know what, sometimes soldiers don't come home. And that's what it's like with dealing with suicidal ideation and attempt is that we're in a fight against the suicide, you know, the thoughts and no less battle than a soldier would be. And unfortunately, we don't come home. You know what I mean?
SW: In as much as I can understand that, I've never tried to end my life. So I would never make any assumptions of what I understand. I do share with people, I lost my best friend quite a number of years ago to suicide. And I remember the reaction or response from some people at that time, and to some degree after that conversation sort of faded away. And one of the words or ideas was selfishness. And I am glad that I never thought of it that way. I always looked at it as somebody who was fighting through extraordinary pain. I focused on the strength he must have mustered to deal with life for who knows how long, we don't know. That's right. was a month or seven years.
BO: Yeah. Yeah.
SW: And in my own battles with mental health issues and suicidal ideations, when people use that word, it's a charged word for me. I fight back pretty hard, probably in ways that are not helpful to the conversation, but I want to make it really clear. Like that's not going to fly. You're probably a little better, it sounds like, you know, talking about it and being sort of more measured, I suppose.
BO: Sometimes, you know, in society, suicide is kind of taboo to talk about. There's people jumping over Niagara Falls, close to where I live all the time, and jumping into the river and the water and that. And we just don't realize how prevalent it is. I mean, last year, my son in grade 11 had a school friend in his class and he committed suicide. He shot himself and nobody recognized any symptoms. you know, my son Dwight said, oh, it just seemed like another day, he was fine, you know, but. You know what? We never know what's going on in the mind of people, right? We never know what's in the mind.
SW: We can ask and we can get a tiny bit closer, I suppose.
BO: Yeah, yeah absolutely, yeah.
SW: Are you comfortable sharing a little bit about, In addition to your depression and schizophrenia, your actual suicide attempt?
BO: So my attempt, when I was back living at my parents place, I was in a deep, deep, dark depression. I was on antidepressants, but I think I was so, so low that even they didn't work and that kind of thing. And the things that go through your mind is that it's a hopeless situation. I'm not going to have any future. It's painful, the anguish, what you're going through. And I've gone through that a lot. So what I did is I decided that I had a lot of sleeping pills and I decided one day my dad went out of the house, went out to Bingo where he used to go and my mom was babysitting for my sister. And so I had the house alone and I took a bunch of pills and I wrote a suicide note and I actually said, I cannot take the darkness any longer. I have no hope. And then I took the pills. And all I remember is waking up maybe two days later again in the psych ward. But what my dad told me, what people told me, my dad came home from bingo and he noticed I was in my room and I was non-responsive. So they called the ambulance and the ambulance took me to the hospital. I was in intensive care. And the only thing I remember again is two days later waking up and being in the psych ward. And I know that my counselor came in and saw me and she told me that, you had a suicide attempt and that you're very lucky in the fact that cognitively you're still okay because I guess apparently when in suicide attempts, it can really damage you cognitively after an attempt.
SW: What's it like to wake up after wanting to not be alive?
BO: Yeah, you know, I think the first thing is you wake up and you think, oh gee, I'm still here. You know, I'm still here. And it doesn't change. You are still in the same situation, basically. So the thought is that, you know I wish I would have succeeded. Several weeks later, when I got out of the hospital and everything, a friend took me to McDonald's for lunch. And I told him right there, I really shocked him, but I said, I wish I would have been successful in my attempt and I'm still suicidal, that kind of thing. He you know, just the thinking of it, just of him, you know, hearing that thinking like, how can you think that, you know, why? And then another thing that is very, very pertinent to understand. There's these two kinds of things that happen. Is that I remember my dad once saying that he won't commit suicide. I don't think my son will commit suicide because he knows that he's loved. Well, I knew that I was loved, but that didn't make a difference. The pain and the anger was just too much. And then there's come my friend Dave, who was kind of a mentor to me. He was kind of a little bit mad or teed off that I would try to commit suicide because he was close to me and you know, you say people love you and God loves you and that but I didn't buy any of that. And so those are the thoughts that you have. So that's a myth. So if somebody have a parent or someone says, my son will never commit suicide or my daughter will never commit suicide because they're loved that that doesn't hold a lot of weight when we're in that much pain.
SW: Right, you had said that one of the nurses or the medical professionals said that you were lucky that you didn't have any clear cognitive problems from the attempt.
BO: Correct.
SW: It doesn't sound like you felt lucky to have not succeeded at that time.
BO: Yeah, at that time, absolutely. At that time I didn't. However, today's a new different story and that was way back in 1987 and then five years into that. So during all that time, I've gone through a journey and through my life. And today I can honestly say that I love my life, I enjoy life, and I wouldn't wanna be anybody else other than I am today. And when you are suicidal, you're wishing that you were anybody other than yourself. You wish you just could be anybody but who you are. But today, I did a lot of work to pick up the pieces of my life, but I can truly say that I enjoy my life, but again, I'm also a Christian, I'm a Christian, and I can also say too that I have no fear of the afterlife and being with the Lord, and I look forward to that.
SW: What I wonder, because you've done so much work in the field, wrote books, magazine, a podcast, you toured around, but when you were describing some of the conversations you had with people, it sounds like there's a real clear not only misunderstanding, but a gap that can't be bridged with words and saying, well, you don't understand. This is what it's really like. I know that I'm loved, but…
BO: Yeah.
SW: That said, you've done all the work for a reason. I'm sure in part, and you'll tell me if I'm not correct here, to educate others, raise awareness, increase understanding. Is that possible? Is it really possible to help someone get it when they haven't gone through it?
BO: Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, Sean is that, uh, I'm known about, you know, I'm considered a recovery expert for mental illness or whatever. And I want to tell you the secret to recovery and the secret to recovery is to have a full calendar and to be social. It's very important for your social network, to have friends and to have acquaintances and it's very important to have things on your calendar to look forward to and to really do that with. That's very important. However, think I want to make, I just want to make a comment here, Sean, if you don't mind. Is I want to tell you though, about suicide is that what sometimes what looks like suicide is not a suicide. And what I want to explain about that is that when I was dealing with my schizophrenia being delusional and paranoid and everything like that. I was hearing voices and I ended up walking down a four lane highway toward traffic on the coldest night of the year. And I was walking toward trucks and that and they were blowing their horns and swerving around me and everything like that. Now at that time, because I was delusional, I didn't want to die. But say I was hit by a truck or a car and killed, people would say, oh, well, Bill killed himself. But the truth is that I was just obeying my illness. And if I would have got hit and died, it's not a suicide. It was your illness that ended your life. It wasn't you who did it. But when I took my sleeping pills later on and everything like that, yes, absolutely, that was me trying to end my life.
SW: And what you were dealing with, schizophrenia, obviously not everybody is dealing with. It sounds like a particularly hard condition, if not treated certainly.
BO: That's right, absolutely. It's very difficult and very hard and not everybody who commits suicide has schizophrenia. Some people are just depressed, whether it be the chemical imbalance or sometimes it's what's known as situational suicide where people are in a situation and they see no way out and the only solution is taking their life. I think that being in business for years and everything like that, one of the things that you learn how to do is that you learn how to become a problem solver. I think that we have to, when we're talking to people who are suicidal or when we are involved, we need to teach people how to be social and how to deal socially and everything with that problem. Teach them how to solve problems and those skills. Because really, the reason the majority of people commit suicide is because they think there's no other choice. That's the only choice that we come to.
SW: When you say the secret to recovery is being social and having a full calendar or part of it, I think that makes absolute sense. I also know there's a lot of people for any number of reasons that can't do that.
BO: Right, but I, but I kind of believed in, in certain ways that, that it can be taught or, or it can be like, so like, I was very fortunate in the fact that when I developed my illness, I was 24 years old. So I went through high school, I had a social life, I worked, I had a career, different things like that. So I had that, right? And it's very difficult when people are hit when they're 14 or 15 and 16 because they don't have their education finished. They don't have maybe some work experience and they're going through the direct. So yeah, so I was very fortunate that I had some background kind of thing, right? I had a work ethic and everything like that. And when somebody who's 13, 14, 15, who's going through this without a work ethic, well, you can't exactly tell them to just jump in and get a job and everything. But there are things you can do, for example, being social, like a lot of times when you go to an event where there's a crowd or something and everybody's talking, chit chat and everything like that, right? And it's hard to do because, know, everybody, whenever you're in a gathering, people talk about, oh, well, what do you do for a living or do you go to school or different things like that, right? And it's not very easy to say, oh, well, you know, I'm on the couch and I sleep 18 hours a day and I go for three cups of tea every hour and you know I'm just pacing and watching TV maybe nothing so that's not very attractive but when you go social you can I tell people when I teach them well pretend that the person you're talking to pretend you're a guest host or you're a host and you're interviewing somebody on a show and you know ask about their family ask about what they do and all that. And you can learn skills like that. So even though you might be an introvert, you might not feel like conversation, there are techniques and tricks to do to converse and to learn those social skills. It's almost like an acting I mean, it was very interesting because I had a philosophy one time or wonder is that, say for example, an actor, if an actor was clinically depressed, could they act through their life as if they weren't depressed? You know what I mean? And that's a very interesting person. Can you override the depression by acting you know what I mean?
SW: Yes. That's a great question and a great idea to think about, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. How long after your experience in the hospital did you start to feel like maybe I can get this condition under some control and start to feel a little bit better and start to do the things that you've talked about in terms of getting better.
BO: So Sean, my turning point came, let me just explain a little bit with schizophrenia first. So with schizophrenia, the word actually means split from reality or your outer reality. And with schizophrenia, you have what's known as positive symptoms and negative symptoms. And it doesn't mean that positive is good. What that means is that positive symptoms are symptoms that are added to your personality that shouldn't be there. For example, if you hear voices, if you're paranoid, if you're delusional, you know, things like that, if you're hallucinating, those things shouldn't be a part of us, but they are. And so that's called positive symptoms. Now medication can clear a positive symptom for the most part, but also you have what's known as
Deficit symptoms or negative symptoms. And these symptoms are a lack of motivation, an emotional bluntness and emotional blandness, a lack of joy, you have a lack of motivation and energy, and a depression can set in. So that's the nature of schizophrenia. So when I was on the couch and dealing with these things, we always are thinking, you know, we're always thinking like, oh if only my dad had a different job or my mom had a different education or if I did this in school, if I studied harder. We're always saying, if I did this a lot, would things be different? But I remembered what a grade seven teacher said to me, Sean. She said, Bill, if you don't learn how to write properly in life, you'll never amount to anything. And what she meant about that writing was that I had very, very poor penmanship and I wrote like chicken scratch.
So I said to myself, I said, well, I'm going to prove to somebody that I can do something. And so I called the Fortier Literacy Foundation and I said, listen, I know how to read and I know how to write, but I want to improve my penmanship. Can you send somebody over? So a couple of weeks go by and Martha Mason, my friend Martha comes by and she's going to help me my penmanship. Well, when Martha would come by, because of the negative symptoms, I would say, my God, Martha's coming tonight, that means I gotta wash my hair and then shave and brush my teeth, all these things that are difficult with negative symptoms. But Martha would come over and we'd do penmanship exercises and before too long, Martha would learn more about schizophrenia from me than I did penmanship from her. But Martha took an interest in me and she said, Bill, she says, you know, I know you're not doing anything, which was an understatement, but I go to Niagara College and I'm in a social work course. She said, why don't you take a course and I'll drive you. And at the time my license was suspended and I thought, drive me and take the course. That means I gotta wash my hair and brush my teeth and shave, all these things. But I signed up for a photography course and I did the darkroom stuff I went on on the field trips. I bought a camera, all this kind of stuff. But I had no joy, but I just went through the motions. To my turning point, the next thing I know is that Martha's on the phone and she says, Bill, she says, I'm the 7th Fort Erie chairperson of the Scouts, Beavers and Cubs, and we need a treasurer. How would you like to be our treasurer? And I thought, my God, that's another, I gotta wash my hair and brush my teeth and shave, right? So anyways, I went to the meeting and I met Martha's husband, I met her children, I met Peter, who I started, I started playing racquetball and squash with and I started to help out with pub cards and camp outs and an Apple Day and things like that. And what it really did is it gave me a whole new social network of people who accepted me for who was and not what I had. So now I have friends, but all my friends are working and that seems to be the next thing to do. And so I tried to do a few programs and a bunch of things like that to get a job back. And some was good, it was hard. I did go through a lot of jobs though before I found what I wanted to do, which was publish the magazine that I published.
SW: And you did.
BO: And I did.
SW: So you were hospitalized in 87.
BO: That's correct. And I started the publication in 94. I started to take entrepreneur courses at the college and how to start a small business courses and things like that.
SW: And that ran for how many years, you said 20?
BO: That was 23 years. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I'll tell you Sean, how that came about. So dealing with, you know, trying a bunch of different things. And then again, the calendar filling the calendar, right? I got interested in town council meetings that were held Monday nights at the library. And I would go. So one night I was early and I was in the library and I found this book that was called 101 Ways of How to Start a Business with Little or No Capital. And I said, that's me, I have no capital, which is money, right? But I read in the book, there was a scenario where a woman before VCRs were invented, she ended up watching three television stations and she did a newsletter on what was happening in the soap operas. She was watching the soap operas. And as soon as I read that, a light bulb came on and I said, I probably can't do a newsletter on the soap operas, but I could probably do something on schizophrenia and mental health. And that was a light bulb and that was in 1993. And then I actually incorporated my company, Magpie Publishing Inc. in 1994. I have the Facebook group. I have the book that I promote, The To Cry A Dry Tear, Bill McPhee's Journey of Hope and Recovery with Schizophrenia. And then I'm working on a second book that section suicide second book. It's called Over the Edge and Back. And it's about people who have attempted suicide, but who enjoy their life today. And then we're doing a little bit of a cultural flavor to it as well. You know, seeing what the culture suicide culture is in the West and the Middle East and in the Far East.
SW: That's fascinating. Yeah, that's fascinating. When you think about the way people respond or responded to you, your condition, your life, and I suppose given all the work you've done, how people tend to respond in general, what are the things that you find people do or say that is harmful to people who are in some kind of pain or despair?
BO: Sure, sure. I would say like, you know what, some of the, some of the things that were, were, were harmful to me, uh, when I was going through my illness and through my depression and everything, is that you know, for the longest time I didn't sleep. I would just be lying there in bed, you know, I'd be lying there in bed and all things going through your mind and you know, your hygiene isn't good or anything like that. But I would come out of my room and walk down the hall and sit at the top of the stairs. And sometimes whether you're your, your mom or your dad would say something like, you know, they would say, well, pull up your bootstraps, you know, just pull up your bootstraps or snap out of it, know, snap out of it. And you don't snap out of these things. And something that is very difficult to hear is very common. They'll say, you're not trying. You're not trying. There's nothing in you to try there. In my gut, I had a whole vacuum, a terrible feeling in my gut from being who I was at that time. And there was just nothing in there to try. You know what I mean?
SW: As much as I can know what you mean, yes. I asked that question because I wonder, again, how do you bridge the gap with people who aren't going through that? You know, there are people who go through similar sounding things, but it's their unique experience. So they're not going to understand exactly what you're going through by any means.
How do we make that connection if it's possible for people not to do the tough love thing necessarily? And I don't think it really ever helps. It might. I don't think it does.
BO: I think the best thing that we can do for people who are suicidal or with suicide ideation is just to be there, just to be there. You don't have to talk. You don't have to speak. You don't have to try to solve the world's problems or the person's problem. You don't have to try to fix somebody. We should never try to fix somebody, right? But I can remember many, many, many, many times just sitting at the kitchen table at three, four in the morning and my mom would be there with a cup of tea and I had a cup of tea and would just be in each other's presence, not really talking, but she was there. And I think, you know, a lot of times, like for example, like really don't know how powerful that really is. I can remember I had an uncle, many, many years ago pass away. He had a sudden stroke and my aunt, he was in the hospital and my aunt was in the waiting room and I was the first one to the hospital again. And I was just with her there. So then many weeks later, he passed away and everything like that. But my aunt raved and raved of how I helped her and how I was good and all if it wasn't for Billy being there and everything like that. And really, Sean, I don't remember really doing anything. I was just there. I was just there.
SW: A lot of people have a hard time doing that. And I wonder why. Why is it so difficult for people to just be there and not do those other things that aren't usually helpful, fixing, tough love. It's a fairly long list and I'm sure you know them all.
BO: Well, you know, we're all on our own journey, right? And I think we just got to realize that we've only walked in our own shoes. So we can never judge people. We can never be judgmental because we've only walked in our shoes. We've never walked in anybody else's shoes at all. And so we don't have that right to judge anybody, you know?
SW: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm imagining with all the work you've done and the touring and the books and the magazine, you probably have a lot of stories that you've heard, you've shared about yourself and no doubt many people that you've crossed paths with. Are there any that come to mind that were especially enlightening or eye-opening or?
BO: Well, you know what kind of a funny thing is that I gotta tell you, when you start getting your sense of humor back, you know you're on the road to recovery, you know, because there was a long time that I did not have my sense of humor. I didn't listen to the radio in the car, I didn't listen to music, I was just, you know, everything like that. So anyways, during group therapy, I was at group therapy and there was another fellow there. I forget his name now, but we would be talking, you know, we'd be talking and we'd be talking about our stories. Like, so, you know, when I was delusional, I ended up naked on the street and I looked up at the street light and I said, beam me up, Scotty kind of thing. And, you know, Scotty, didn't beam me up, but he did call the police. Then this other guy, he was saying, oh yeah, he laughed at that. We're laughing at that. And then he said, you know, he said, oh, well, you know what I used to do? He said, he said, I'd be in my apartment and I used to call 911 and all the cops would come and everything like that. And it'd be knocking on my door saying, did you call? Did you call? And he'd be there and say, no, I didn't call. We'd laugh about that. You not that, you know, not that we'd condone that, but when you can, and then like the counselor came in and we're laughing about our stories about our illness. And she was kind of amazed because she said, you guys are funny. You can laugh about your situation kind of thing, you know? And so that's definitely, well, when you, I think I have a good sense of humor. But when I was depressed, I had none at all. But when it comes back, you know, that you're on the road to recovery. mean, I can remember being on the couch and my dad sitting there and my mom would just say things like. Bill, Bill, my dad was named Bill too. She'd say, Bill, talk to Billy, know, talk to Billy. He'd say, well, what do you want me to say? What do you want me to say? And then once in a while, you know, I never had a smile on my face and my dad would say, smile, smile. And I'd say, well, what is there to smile about? Because it's really this pain. But you know what? I think if we could, if we could tell people, you know what? This will pass in five years, you know, it will pass, you'll be in a better spot. And sometimes that's true and sometimes that's not. It's sort of like the soldiers on the front line, right? Some of us come home and others don't. And it is sad, it's very sad. And everybody knows if somebody has committed suicide. I I lost one of my cousins through suicide, he hung himself. And a lot of times it runs in families if know if an adult commits suicide sometimes your children will and different things like that so but but you know again there's that difference between being in a psychosis and suicidal actually having an illness and then being chronically depressed with chemical imbalance or being in situational depression you know and and then you know like situational depression I mean you know what we all have consequences to our actions, right? Like my whole, with schizophrenia you have three legs to it like there's a genetic component, there's a biochemical component and there's a stressor component and genetics runs in my family. My mom was bipolar. Back then they called it manic depressive. But and then so genetic and I had a biochemical. But my stressor, my triggering was, that at 24, I got a girl pregnant and I didn't tell anybody that. I suppressed, I was ashamed. I suppressed that. I didn't think I thought it was a mark on my character and everything like that. And that was the triggering point for me. We have genetic problems and biochemical problems and they all overlap. mean, they're not…
SW: That's right. Everybody's...
BO: That's right. Everybody is unique. Not two cases are the same. Surely there's positive symptoms and negative symptoms, but everybody has a different combination of those.
SW: And naturally, all the challenges you went through with your mental health condition affected your situational things in your life. You didn't have gainful employment, which often helps. You might have had compromised relationships, which doesn't help. So it really gets complicated I suppose.
BO: Well Sean, here's, here's one of the things that happened to me being on the psych ward I was given medications and things like that. And I went through a different, a bunch of different kinds of medications. But once one of them worked, I started to get into reality. I have my, my psychosis went away, my delusions, my paranoia, my voices, all these things went away with, with medication, but I was in reality and you would say, you would think that I would say, Bill, Bill, that's great, that's great, you're back in reality, you're in reality, that's great. But you know what my reality consisted of, Sean, is that I realized I had lost my house, I had lost my job, I had lost all my friends, I had lost my financial security, and I found out I was just another one out of 100 people with this illness known as schizophrenia. So even though I was in reality, reality sucked. You know what I mean?
SW: Yeah. Yeah. All the more reason why I am. I'm amazed at people who somehow get through all that. And. It's just, I'm in sort of awe of that to be able to go through so much of that and deal with it and when how long were you in the hospital for?
BO: I was hospitalized six times and at different lengths, so you know, some of the stays may have been two months, some of the stays may have been two weeks and everything like that. And I'd go, you know, I was stable on my medication, then I went off my medication, I got sick again, and I tried to move away and start again and everything. And you know what, Sean, what's very important, I don't really know where I get it from, but I was very persistent. And I think persistence is the key with everything. I think they say something like, Stephen King wrote something like 900 books or something, like before he got his first one published or something like that. And it's just all about persistence, persistence, persistence, and trying things, trying things. And as a Christian, we say, and knock, seek and then knock, and then the door will be open, right? And we need to spend a lot of times seeking, seeking for an opportunity. And then once we do find an opportunity, we need to knock on the door so the door will open and walk through it. You know what I mean? And I think what happens with suicidal, I can say that and say be persistent and seek, but with suicide ideation, there is none of that. It's all too narrow. It's that narrow and that I'm hopeless. And the only solution, the only solution is It would be best if I wasn't here.
SW: You also had, it sounds like, some support. If you don't have anyone in your life who will pick you up from the hospital or do some basic stuff, you're in trouble.
BO: Yes, yes. You're right, Sean. And I'll tell you, I'll give you my thoughts on that. Yes, people with mental illness who do well usually have a supportive family. But in saying that, I want to just say this, it's very important, is that with mental illness, you see what happens is that when you're out of reality or you're insane, basically, you are out of logic, you have no logic. Where everybody else who is in reality thinks logically, they can't help but think logically. And illogic or non-logic and logic, they don't mix. So my point is that we have so much homelessness in North America and around the world or whatever. And one of the reasons, or one of the reasons that it's not more is that what I'm trying to say is that parents try their best. They try the best for their sons and daughters and everything, but because of the nature of the illness, of that illogical and logical thing, the nature of the illness, the tough love and everything, we lose our children to the streets. But it's not because of not a lack of trying. It's not because of lack of trying. you know, because I'm sure I know that more with my kids, I have three children and if any of my kids were, I would try to, but you know what? The whole crux of it is because logic and illogic do not mix and situations become tough.
SW: I would extend what you said about parents to everybody. I think everybody's trying as best they can, even if it doesn't look like that. And not everyone agrees with me. If you're coming from a place of logic or non logic, we are trying. We're trying. It's in our DNA. I think I can't say for sure until we stop trying until we're not alive. There's some component of us that's trying as best we can. What would you say to families or friends of somebody who is clearly in distress?
BO:I would just say that you have to pick up on keywords. You have to try to be with them. You have to, you know, you just have to be there and listen. You don't have to preach or anything like that. Now I'll give you an example. I had a perfect example of what happened about a month and a half ago. So I think I was on, somebody messaged me or she's a Facebook friend or something like that. And she wrote on a tweet or a post or something. I can't take it anymore. I'm leaving Facebook for good. Everything like that, right? So a few of us were worried about her. And so I actually called the police and I said that there's a girl that's here online. I know her and she's kinda, I think she's saying that she's going to commit suicide and everything like that. And so they were very helpful. They actually asked me a lot of questions and I think they went online as well and they viewed her post. They were able to view her post and everything and they did send somebody there, a police that then knocked on the door to see if she was all right. And so I'm sure that's a common thing that happened. But yeah, I guess we just, like you said, we just all got to try to do the best we can. You know what I think, Sean, is I think that in a lot of cases people say, what happens if I say something wrong or if I say something that's going to trigger them or that's going to be the cause of them committing suicide and that. And I think that we don't have to think that way. I think we should think the opposite. I think let's just be open and honest and discuss things.
SW: I agree. I think there's perhaps nothing or certainly very few things anybody could say that would increase the likelihood of someone taking their life. We both talk about suicide or we wouldn't be here right now talking about suicide. I think the great majority of people are not comfortable talking about suicide. In your experience, do you have any idea why that is? That's a very broad question, I know, but why is it so hard to talk about this stuff?
BO: Yeah, well you know what, think I have an answer for you Sean and the reason for that is that for example before the pandemic happened I used to get together with about 10 different people every Thursday night at a local coffee shop and everything like that and so during that time there are a bunch of church friends and that so anyways I started talking about suicide or something like that. I don't know what the conversation was, but then my friend Paul said about his wife Jackie that she had a sister that committed suicide. And what happened is that we're talking about that, we talked a little bit, and then finally she said, well, can we move on and talk about something else? And I think the reason that she didn't wanna talk about it is that she still had some guilt. think whether she could have done anything. And I think that there's always guilt with people who are next to suicide or who have been near suicide. And I think that when the conversation comes up, guilt feelings come back, like saying there could have been something I could have done or something. But there's not, you know, there's not in most cases. but I think that a lot of times people have that guilt feeling.
SW: Definitely a part of it for sure. What else would you like to share?
BO: Yeah, you know what? I would just like to share that what do you say to people, family members who have lost to somebody, and what I always say, and it's kind of like, again, that battle of the war, right? When people are in an actual war. As a Christian, I like to tell people that I am sure Jesus welcomed your son or daughter with open arms into heaven. And I think that can be very comforting. But you know what, Sean, because that's what I truly believe. I truly believe that some people ask me, is suicide a sin and everything like that? Absolutely not. And I just tell family members that I'm pretty sure that Jesus has his arms wide open to comfort your son or daughter.
SW: I thought I knew a lot going into this project and I keep learning because you and other people are sharing, I really appreciate it.
BO: Yeah, no problem.
SW: And it's healthy for me because I have my own battles and struggles and demons and talking about it invariably helps in some way. You have a book you're working on and also your podcast. I'm curious what that's about.
BO: Yeah, so basically my book is called To Cry a Dry Tear, Bill McPhee's Journey of Hope and Recovery with Schizophrenia. And you can get that on Amazon or you can go to my website, BillMcPhee.ca and you can buy it from the website as well. And then my Facebook group is called Helping Parents of Mentally Ill Children. So if you go to Facebook and just go to search and put in there, Helping Parents of Mentally Ill Children. And my broadcast goes Sunday nights at 9 p.m. Eastern time, live on that. The other thing that is very important I want to mention too, Sean, if you don't mind, is that I have over 400 teaching videos on my YouTube channel. If you just go to YouTube and punch in my name, Bill McPhee, M-A-C-P-H-E-E, my channel will come up and I got over 400 teaching videos up there.
SW: That's great.
BO: Yeah, well, thank you, Sean. I
SW: I just know very little about schizophrenia. Something that you have forever, right?
BO: Yeah. I consider that I'll be on medication for the rest of my life. And medication does have some side effects, which I have, but if I went off my injection, in six months time, the nature of the illness, I would trick my mind and I would be psychotic again and be delusional and everything. Yeah, so I say if I want to keep my good quality of life, I got to take my medication.
SW: Bye, you have a good day and I appreciate it again.
SW: Thanks so much for joining us today. If you like this podcast, I encourage you to subscribe and leave a review because that will also help other people find the podcast and hear these stories. If you or someone you know would like to join us and share your story, you can reach us at hello@suicidenoted.com. Thanks again. Talk to you soon and stay strong.
