BK: I think it's really important if you want to help someone to ask them can I help? Could I help? If so, how do you think that I could help you be okay?

SW: Hey there, my name is Sean and this is Suicide Noted. On this podcast, I talk with suicide attempt survivors so that we can hear their stories. Every year around the world, millions of people try to take their own lives and we almost never talk about it. And when we do talk about it, many of us, including me, we are not very good at it. So one of my goals with this podcast is to have more conversations and hopefully better conversations with attempt survivors. Now we are talking about suicide. This may not be a good fit for everyone. Please take that into account before you listen. But I do hope you listen because there is so much to learn. We are reaching more people in more places, places like Belgium, Lithuania, Trinidad and Tobago, Pakistan.
So thank you. Thank you to all of our listeners and thank you to our attempt survivors for being bold enough and brave enough to come here and share your stories. These stories matter. They really matter and no doubt are making a difference. If you are a suicide attempt survivor and you'd like to share your story, I'd love to talk. You can email us at hello@suicidenoted.com Today I am talking with Brittany. Brittany lives in Kentucky and she is a suicide attempt survivor. Hi Brittany. How are you doing?

BK: Hey, I'm doing alright.

SW: Yeah. So this is a podcast, right? So people can't see you, but Brittany's got on these pretty rad yellow frames that are, that are really cool. What part of Kentucky are you in?

BK: You wouldn't know if I told you. It's Northeast Kentucky. Carter County is where I am. Elliott County is where I'm from. We're almost in West Virginia. It's very Northeast Kentucky.

SW: It looks nice from what I can see.

BK: Well, thank you. is very nice. The little, the place where I am, where I've been staying a couple of days or so now. And the land here is, there's, I haven't traveled much ever, but there's hardly anything else like it in the world, I think.

SW: Hmm, as we talk, are there certain things, obviously it's called suicide noted for a reason right? I'm talking to people who have attempted to take their lives and and are there certain things about that that I shouldn't ask about or you wouldn't want to talk about?

BK: I didn’t know what you would want to hear about. You're the interviewer you know, you can ask away. I wrote in and have confided, I guess, in you, a stranger so much as I have so far, because I'm ready to talk about it. If I wasn't, it would be too late already, kind of, so.

SW: Right. Yeah.

BK: At this point I figure I might as well and like I said maybe I'll have my Joe Dirt moment. Maybe people hear and come from all over America and want to like give me hugs and other places, I don't know.

SW: Yeah, for sure, for sure. Let's talk about that email. That was a hell of an email. So it was sent to me. It wasn't sent on blast to the world. But I want to let people know you reached out to me, right?

BK: Yep

SW: And you don't need to reveal what you wrote, but you wrote. Are you comfortable sharing what sort of the general energy of that email. You had reached out to me. You had heard one of the podcast episodes, I think a recent one with Maddie.

BK: Yes, Maddie in North Dakota.

SW: Maddie in North Dakota, right. And it's going to be Brittany in Kentucky. But can you share what was going on with you when you heard that podcast and sort of before and after? Because I think it's really powerful and people might get a lot out of it.

BK: Absolutely, that's what I was excited to talk to you about honestly was to say again thank you because I couldn't say thank you enough times just for doing what you do and for putting it out there because I discovered it. I'd never heard a podcast before.

SW: So you had never heard a podcast about anything. Okay, that's interesting. I feel blessed. Go on.

BK: Right, me too. But I was on Spotify and this, so I'd been really getting into, listening to music like I hadn't in a while. I'd been really vibing, you know, and I had a particularly bad day. It had been a bad evening the night before. Just, just, I was having a bad time, man. And trying to vibe with this music and that stopped working and I just felt like I wanted to do something different. And I saw podcasts available on Spotify where I was listening to music. So I thought I'll try that. It's like talk radio, right? And, I was like looking through Spotify and suicide noted it was one of the first ones that I saw. And I almost started on that immediately and was like, no, no, maybe I'll find a better one. So I was like Googling all around and stuff and I didn't find anything that seemed that sounded or seemed better to me at the time. Even though it didn't seem at all like what I was looking for, cause again, like I said, in the email, I was looking for something a little more macabre, I guess, more of a suicidal inspo. So I was looking to go the other way.
SW: Yeah, yeah. You were looking for something that would give you, and I never wanna put words in your mouth, but for what you're saying, something that would make it okay.

BK: I was very okay with it. I was looking for something that would give me like a push or I guess yeah, that would make it okay. I was looking for some voice to tell me on this strange talk radio platform that I was trying to discover. Like it's okay, go ahead.

SW: Mmm. And those podcasts might be out there.

BK: Well, I hope not.

SW: I mean, the podcast world is weird. It's sort of this like Wild West and I'm sure there are things out there like that. So I'm glad and we'll talk more about this if you're open to it. But I am glad that you didn't find those and that you ended up finding this one or at least not those, right?

BK: Right, because there are web pages out there that are like It's okay buddy. Go ahead. This is how, these are ways that you might consider and that was a part of the Worldwide wild west web that I had already discovered and been exploring. So yeah this II got into podcasting on a strange whim and happen to discover yours like in life-saving time perhaps.

SW: Yeah, that's what was one of the things that really was eye opening because it's you shared it was you're really in a dark place.

BK: Yeah.

SW: And this is only a few days ago, so how are you feeling right now? And I'm not a therapist, but I'm just a guy who gives a shit. So how are you feeling right now?

BK: Wow, I don't know if I've ever met one of those before, one of you guys. I'm feeling okay. It feels weird, man, but I'm feeling okay. Like I said, this friend of mine, rather new friend actually, and his wife, they let me crash over here with them for a couple of days or so. Took me on their boat with them on the lake here in Carter County. It's called Grayson Lake, a big man-made lake.

SW: Uh-huh.

BK: I caught a fish for the first time ever.

SW: Nice. What kind of fish?

BK: Umm, a Bass fish. I caught a fish yesterday. I'm so not a catching fish person, but I guess I am now.

SW: You are now. That's how you become one if that's a thing.

BK: I put a hook through a smaller fish's face and it was an experience. I've been thinking I might try to do something a little more primal like that, hunt a rabbit or something. I don’t know what people do out here.

SW: Yeah, you have attempted in the past?

BK: Yeah

SW: Can you tell me about those? And I always say to everybody, share what you want. You don't have to share everything. I'm open to hearing whatever you want to share, but I don't want you to feel like you have to share certain parts of that that you feel weird about.

BK: Right , no I feel weird about everything right now. I have attempted recently, I guess, and that's the most, well, somewhat recently, which I wouldn't call an attempt. What happened the other day when I happened to listen in to the podcast. I heard Maddie in North Dakota, but that was, it was damn close. I mean, like I was on my way out the door taking a walk, you know, and pressed play and my path just literally changed. My course changed. So that wasn't quite an attempt, but before that there was probably February or March, maybe, of this year. And there were a couple of times before that, but I was younger. So I guess it doesn't seem as real to me to think….

SW: Yeah.

BK: …of those as attempts, even though at the time and in that space and time, they were earnest attempts. It just now to me seems like, you were 14, you were seven, you didn't know what you were doing. But to have been 25 and made that decision and make that attempt and in that different way that I did in adulthood.

SW: Yeah.

BK: That probably seems the most real to me.

SW: The one in February.

BK: Yes, I don't know what you're supposed to say. I don't know. I guess you can always edit down for time and other things.

SW: Yeah, right. That's why I tell people, share what you want and inasmuch as you're comfortable, share. And then we could go back and say, you know what? No, but usually it's more a little bit just for time. So, yeah, what do you what do you want to share about it?

BK: Like I said, I'm skittish and I'm iffy and loath to say anything about methods because I've heard just terrible things about advertising, for lack of a better term, your methodology. How that can be very sensitive. But I attempted hanging. I'll say that much about it. I don't know if it worked or if it almost worked. I mean, it didn't work as well as I would have liked it to.
Because I'm here and I'm talking with you today, but I know it was an other worldly experience and it's other worldly for me to think about, you know, the coming to the, the waking up moment.

SW: Exactly. What's that like?

BK: What was it like or what's it like thinking back on it?

SW: Both, but specifically, you know, I ask everybody this question, you want to die, or maybe you don't want to live. Maybe that's not exactly the same thing. And then you wake up, you're still alive. Like, what's that like?

BK: For me, it was terrifying. It's interesting you made that distinction just now in your language. You said, you know, in that moment, you either want to die or maybe perhaps you just don't want to live. And I had just recently come to realize that it was the latter for me. I didn't want to die. I knew that for sure because I had wound up in just, par for the course for me it seems like, you know, despite any earnest effort or trying or how well things seem to be going, just there was a sudden event, and this was a few months prior, was actually like the day after last Christmas, where I realized how much I did not want to die because I was in a position, you know, and I had a near-death experience of sorts. But fast forward, to February and like I said, I tried to hang myself and I woke back up and I didn't know where I was at first or what had happened. I didn't even remember, you know, the act that I just had enacted. And that took a while, it feels like. It took a couple of minutes for me to be like, okay, I'm here. This happened.
And that didn't happen as a result. And then it was just like, shit, now I have to deal with everything that I was trying to get out of still.

SW: Right, because nothing's changed. That's the thing, right? I don't know about we'll talk about since then. But right, like, four minutes earlier, it was before that. Now you're here. And did somebody find you or what what happened?

BK: No, no one found me. No one would even know if I hadn't told my partner, Christopher, if I hadn't told him. And I didn't tell him right away. Because I was at home. My daughter was not home with me. She was visiting my ex. But we didn't live alone. We lived in a shared home with them. My in-laws, well, effective in-laws, my partner's sister, her husband, and her three children, like kind of in and out with their own custody arrangements, you know. But yeah, all those people around and no nobody, I think, even still knows that that happened that day.

SW: Your partner. You told your partner

BK: I told him, yeah.

SW: How did he respond to that?

BK: Almost not at all. I mean, there was like an initial, do you want to go to the doctor or should you go to the doctor? And I think before that even was just like, are you serious? Almost like an eye roll reaction. Just, you know, better than that. That's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Blah blah blah you know?

SW: Right. How would you have wanted him or maybe we can take him out of the equation for the moment and just say, how do you think people would want others to respond to them when they say, um, I tried this thing yesterday or earlier today, or I'm really close to trying.

BK: I don't know, I think… Maddie from North Dakota had it pretty spot on when she, in what she said was just, I think if I put myself in the other, the other role of this dynamic, this scenario, my immediate reaction would just be to say, are you okay? Are you okay now? Or if you're not okay, can I help? How can I help? If I can't help, who do you need? What help do you need? How can I help you get help? And that's not to say, help is such a scary word, man. People have made help a scary word to hear and to say to each other, because like you need help. That's an insult.

SW: Unfortunately, we, yeah.

BK: I have just, I can't tell you how horribly, terribly I have had ‘You Need Help’ lobbed at me just in the past three months time.

SW: Right. So you're saying like ‘you need help’ as in that's bad.

BK: Yeah, you're bad. What's wrong with you? That's another one that I've been asked a lot. And I think no matter how you respond to a person that you care about, if they're in such a dark place, or even if it's just a head space, you know, everything else seems fine, but then all of a sudden you, they enlighten you, you gain this new awareness that they're miserable and that they may not want to live any longer. If it's a person you care about, it should go without saying that that is not even on the short list of considerations of things to what's wrong with you. I can't deal with you. I'm not, I'm not a puzzle to be solved. You're a problem to be dealt with. Nobody is, but actually help. And I think it's really important if you want to help someone to ask them, can I help? Could I help? You know, do you think so? If so, how do you think that I could help you be okay?

SW: Yeah. I have a question and it's like a really hard question because I'm not sure there's really an answer, but we're going to try. And the question is, I suppose it could, this could apply to any of the times in which you attempted. And the question is why, but it's the reason why I think, let me just preface it by saying it's hard because it's well, one, who the fuck knows, to where do you start with that? I mean, it could be a book. This is not just for you, it's for anyone. So I realized that. But however you might want to tackle that, why?

BK: No, that's, again, what a strange aha moment. Because of all the practical reasons ‘why’ that apply uniquely to, again, I was at very different life stages. Like, I guess I've thought a lot about it because I have like no internal clock or compass. I have no sense of time or direction. I'm autistic. I don't know if I mentioned that I'm on the autism spectrum. And I didn't find that out until I was like 21. So it's, I've had to really, really, really use my noodle to think about events and their timing chronologically and surrounding info before this big deal of an interview. I talked to so few people. I was so nervous about this.

SW: Oh, really? Just so you know, I'm just a dude who had an idea and I'm doing it. I appreciate you feeling like it's a big thing and it is a big thing in that it matters. But you're not talking like ABC or NBC.

BK: Oh, no.

SW: You know what I mean? Like I'm just a dude in North Carolina. I'm like, yeah, let me have some real conversations with people who have been in pain and are trying to be OK. That's it.

BK: Buddy, wouldn't talk to ABC or anything. If you weren't just a dude, this would not be happening. But it's a big deal for me to talk to just a dude, because somehow with my big yellow frames and my bright orange hair and my little bit different or odd looking and sounding and seeming everything, I'm very ‘look-overable’ I guess. But that's the thing with all of these separate little piddly shit factors that play into each different stage of my life and each different unique answer to why. Right away, bam, when you ask that man, the universal generality, why would you not want to live your life anymore ever? It's because man, nobody wants me to. Nobody's ever actually wanted me to. I know that's not, I mean ‘you've got to love yourself. You've got to want it for yourself.’ No, you don't ‘got to.’ You don't, you do not have to love yourself. And especially through development in childhood, I think it's so important. Anybody with children has to know, has to just be smacked down with the reality right away. If they've not been already, you have to teach these new emerging people that they are capable of loving and of being loved because without connection, without witnessing that, without experiencing that from an outside force, one could not know how to love oneself.

SW: Your fucked.

BK: Yeah. And I guess that's, in layman's terms, that's wise because I was fucked at every point.

SW: You were saying, yeah, no, ‘layman's terms’ works for me. Umm ‘nobody wanted me to’ are the words that really resonated. Like nobody wanted you to thrive or be OK.

BK: To live my life anymore.

SW: What does that mean? What do you mean?

BK: : I guess I've never been intrinsically useful or desirable. Even my parents, especially my parents and from all accounts, of course, I don't remember like infancy, but it's from all accounts, pretty much from before day one, just had no use for me, until they did. And then it was a very
objective, disposable, expendable type of use. And that's the thing, it was ‘use.’ It wasn't desire or care or love or connection. So I think without that foundational source of another human, the planet Earth, where we're from, or another place on Earth where you're wanted and expected to be, where if you don't show up, someone would wonder why or miss you. I've always been lacking that.

SW: Do you think that that informs the way you are as a mom now? Because you said you have one child or you have a kid.

BK: : Yeah. One, she's four. Four-year-old daughter. No, absolutely that doesn't. Well, yes, absolutely.

SW: It could be a positive thing, yeah, informing that like, yeah.

BK: Very much. very hypervigilant and always have been. Like, I nursed my daughter for two years and I was the first, first, I've never even known, like I'm not just the first person in my family that went that route with motherhood, but I've never known another person who did that. It was always, and it might seem strange to someone. I don't know if you've ever been to Kentucky or what your imagination conjures up when you think of Kentucky.

SW: I think there's general and perhaps probably very unfair generalizations about Appalachia, right? Parts of West Virginia, parts of Kentucky, it might seep into other areas, but that general region, now I don't think they're necessarily fair or accurate, but yes, there are pictures that are conjured when we think about that area.

BK: Right, it's not exactly fair or accurate, but I don't know, the land's not been very fair to me, so I'm slow to defend the land or the people in it. But yeah, like I said, I nursed my daughter for two years and I always maintained this ever awareness, this forethought of just bonding time and how I invested it and I really, really, really never have not appreciated the gravity, like I said, of those foundational years, those developmental years, upon which an emerging person establishing their first connections with friends in the world and navigating bases their decisions about how they'll try to do that. The first connection that we have is to our parents and our family, it's a generational, kind of an inherited knowledge about how we're going to interact with the world. That's such a bad thing for so many people here. There's so many nightmare people just who might have been fine if they had interacted with some not so nightmare grown up people when they were emerging.

SW: Well, like you really don't have much of a chance.

BK: Right.

SW: And then it becomes truly generational because how can it not be right? You've got, you're going to pass it down. It's really hard to break that. It does sound like you're trying to do that somehow, because I don't think most people would. I don't know. Tell me if I'm wrong. It wouldn’t even be on their radar. Maybe they wouldn't be aware. Maybe they wouldn't have the tools.

BK: Correct. And that's, I get, just like with when it came to, you know, having an infant and choosing the hippie nursing ‘El Naturale’ way that you'd get poked fun of around here for. I say you'd get, I was, especially by relatives so terribly, poked fun at. And of course that's just everything and, and, and intimidated. Like, you know, how do you know that that's? You can't be sure you can't measure all that you might hurt her. I get poked fun at a lot too, or I have been for my efforts in bonding with my daughter. Cause I don't tell her, you know, go watch TV or sometimes I do. I think anybody who says that they don't is lying unless they don't own a TV. And then they're like, go look at a fire for a few minutes while I drink a coffee. I color pictures with my daughter. I watch her cartoons with her, I learn the songs, we play music, we play with dolls. And I have to be unashamed in my interaction with her as far as judgment by other grown people because no one ever wanted to connect with me at all. And I just never, ever, ever want my daughter wandering, you know, any place on our big blue marble thinking I'm alone or no one wants me. Because I always, always am going to.

SW: There must have been a massive amount of conflict. I'm thinking back not only to these times, but February and then more recently, because I know from what you're sharing, and again, always let me know if I'm off here, you've got this bond with your daughter, probably more than others, but there's maybe other people. But if nothing else, your daughter, and then you were like, nah, I think I want to check out. That to me is like the definition of conflict or inner angst or whatever word you want to choose.

BK: I know, in a weird way. Yes, that all ties in and inspires.

SW: I'm trying to imagine the conflict that one has, you. No it's not like a judgment. It's more like I'm imagining you are so conflicted because you've got this person you love and there's part of you that's got some other feelings going on about your own life. That's gotta be really freaking hard is what, it's kind of what I'm saying.

BK: Absolutely. Like I said before, she wasn't with me for this big recent real feeling attempt. And I'd hope that would be needless to say, you know, because I've doated on about what a caring mother and I wouldn't traumatize my daughter that way or any way ever. And risking, you know, her seeing or anything, I couldn't even begin to imagine that or doing anything like that. That was a big part of, I guess, my more specific why, like in that place and time again, and also how I was okay with it because of this arrangement with this ex-partner of mine. I don't know, there was a thing in Kentucky or in our jurisdiction or somehow or other where when we were married and we were married for two months.

SW: There have been shorter marriages.

BK: Yeah, we were married for a couple of months and we didn't even marry until she was about a year and a half old. I divorced just a couple of months later and then I began dating my partner, Christopher. We had been really good friends for a lot of years though. We'd known one another for a lot of years and again, I always struggled with having connections to my own relatives or family or anyone. I only had a couple of friends and Christopher was one of them. So he knew me and knew my daughter. He didn't really spend time around her until she was about six months old or so, but always had known her. He was one of two guests at my wedding, just friends of mine. And gosh, I know what a horrible person. Things happen the way that they happen. I'm not ashamed of how they happen. But the result was a 50-50 arrangement of custody between my ex-husband and I, where for a week, my daughter would be at home with me and with Chris, her, and he knows how I just absolutely mandated that any friend who did come around would be a friend of the family, would not be a friend of mine or his or ours, but of the three. I never ever ever would push off Mara, my daughter, or make her feel unwelcome or unwanted. You know, if we want to play cards against humanity or have a beer or whatever, that can happen after bedtime. I'm not a go play mom. So Christopher bonded very, very strongly with Mara too, but then once my ex sort of vindictively requested of a family court that he, and it was a whole process beforehand too, almost like a hostage standoff man. Like, you know, agree to these financial terms of splitting up things or else I'm going to ask this and they'll give it to me because of this new legislature in Kentucky that says we assume that's the best thing for a child of divorce. And I was all stubborn and I was like you're not that terrible of a person you're not going to do that and I'm not signing shit. He did it anyway. So then Sunday at 6pm I would have to let her go with him. Just go, man. I'd never even spent like a night away from her. She was over two, she was nearly two and a half. It was about a year after the whole wedding thing. When that started. And I think from that first Sunday evening, you know, the terms were agreed upon. I had to hand her over to him at 6 PM and I'd see her again the following Sunday at 6 PM and just rinse and repeat. I think I started grieving and mourning because again that connection and that I struggled so badly to walk the fine line of not calling all the time or being that co-parent but to keep up my my effort to not let a day go by that my daughter didn't hear my voice saying hey I love you. And I got, there have been points in time when it's been easier or harder, but it has always been like a tool of major control and fostering this dependence for my ex and my mother. And my ex doesn't really know a lot about the finer, darker points of my dynamic with my mother, of course. I never told him any of that. I couldn't tell him now. But she was not with me that week, because was during the week that she was with him. And I think that it was like three or five days in or so and that's, I would lose my mind by that point bi-weekly, you know, for a length of time as of February. It had been quite a while. Minus whenever my ex didn't feel like it or whatever because my daughter just had a medical event in February as well. She actually had a life-threatening dental infection. Yeah, and I speculate that that might have had something to do with her teeth not being brushed every other week for a week at a time or so but neither here nor there. Bottom line is my child who's just so tiny and so perfect, was in horrifying pain. He'd ask me, do you want her back early? Which was always a yes. So on Saturday evening in February, one Saturday evening, she comes home and just says, I'm not feeling well, you know? And me and him had some argument then, because I'm like, why isn't she feeling well? Have you heard about Corona, about this, some sickness on TV? What's happening? But Sunday morning she woke up and she was swollen, like her face was swollen and she was in excruciating, agonizing pain. I took her to the emergency room. They couldn't really do anything for her, you know, cause it was a dental event. And I just felt so useless. And for a couple of weeks, it didn't matter who’s week it was or not because she was very in need of constant care and in need of constant comfort that no one could give her or we would have. I would have gladly taken every bit of her pain and then some if she could just feel any relief at that time. So I had no sleep for a couple of weeks and spent the whole couple of weeks either crying or trying not to cry and just dealing with my child being sick and in pain. The resolution to that was she had this, her two front teeth, she had the prettiest little gap between them, but we had to take her to a pediatric dentist and have those extracted and she had to be awake. And I had to hold her while they… It was, I still have just horrific flashbacks. It's almost triggering to think about, but she was so much better right away. And then she, as soon as she was better though, of course she was off again. And that was when I attempted. Cause as soon as she got better, it was right away again, like. Okay, well she doesn't need you anymore or she'd be better off without you. I can afford to buy her a happy meal whenever she wants one and I can drive a car. That's a thing. I can't drive a car. That's greatly complicated rural life. But as of the other day, like the same day I discovered the podcast, I'm working on that.

SW: On driving?

BK: Yeah, but I think it's the same for me as it is for anybody. Life's hard and sometimes it's too hard to live it. Yeah, it's really really important to be there for somebody if you can. And if you don't have anybody who's there for you to look for them? Until you know because being a lone wolf is not okay.

SW: It doesn't work.

BK: It never works. It never works for long.

SW: I think you're right. Even people that are like, I'm a loner. I'm like, I don't think you are.

BK: Because people are miserable.

SW: Maybe or I have no idea. There's a lot of people and they've gotten used to it and this and that. Maybe they're thrilled. They couldn't be happier. But I'm usually thinking, nah, I don't think so.

BK: They just haven't met the right company.

SW: I think maybe. Right. Yeah, I think life is better with someone or others. But it is hard when those people suck. Then it's better alone. No one wants to be around sucky people all the time and make you feel like shit, right?

BK: Right, and that's why it's so generational. Because I can feel my sunshine. Oh there go the dogs. I don't think that I'm a sucky person. I wasn't meant to be and yet I was destined to be.

SW: Perhaps.

BK: Just I mean, I've been to the Historical Society, man, because we don't have movies or a mall or anything in, you know, Horsepile, Kentucky here.

SW: How far is the nearest mall?

BK: An hour. That's not far.

SW: It’s far if you don't drive.

BK: Yes, there's no public transportation. There's not anything like that either.

SW: It’s country

BK: Yeah, it's country-ass country. Like, I worry more, I've hitchhiked a lot in my 26-year lifetime because I've rarely ever left here, even for a short time. So I've hitchhiked before and I worry more about wildlife than I do about people, or used to. It is country.

SW: Oh like snakes or something?

BK: No, I kicked a snake just the other day. Like deer, like, they can and they will stand on their feet like a dude, like a big hairy dude, just with hooves.

SW: Did you grow up and go to school in that area? So you said you spent your life there?

BK: Yeah. And by the way, that's another thing. Overlookable, said earlier, despite all my effort, and not even effort to stand out, but just effort to shine. I graduated high school when I was 16. I tutored like three and four years ahead of my grade level, you know, my intended grade level since primary school. And that's another thing too. There were like a couple of other so-called gifted kids that they kind of lumped me and Tira and three others together and it almost felt like a social experiment that just went horribly wrong. And looking back now and especially being a mother now to a daughter myself, I just can't imagine how many different adults made appalling, abhorrent decision-making decisions when I was school-aged, like having me in a classroom with, you know, as a prepubescent girl with like senior and junior guys, and young women too, girls. Just, that should not be. I entered college at 16. I moved into a dorm room. That should not have been. It doesn't matter what your IQ is or how well you do math. Nobody's ready to have 20 year old roommates at 16.

SW: Where'd you go to school?

BK: Morehead State

SW: Why do you laugh?

BK: Because man it was it was I don't I could have been a doctor like twice by now, but I didn't obtain a degree or anything. I've been nothing since I was 16 except for a mother now and a waitress at times you're a bartender or an IT. I've done systems repairs and mods for a few years on the side, so.

SW: Really?

BK: Yeah

SW: Wow, that's a foreign world to me. You wanted to be a doctor?

BK: No, I said I could have been a doctor. I didn't know what I wanted to be. I think I just didn't want to be home. I wanted to be high a lot. That was I think that's like three out of four of the four little gifted kids from the group. At least half of us are still out here somewhere just just wanting to be high.

SW: Which group?

BK: Like I said, the little group of children that I got to do school with.

SW: Oh, a lot of them are, they're using and they're not, can't stop or they want to stop.

BK: Yeah, like one of us became a lawyer. And the rest of us are holding up.

SW: Holding what?

BK: Holding up. We're keeping it together.

SW: Yeah.

BK: But we keep in touch and we all just kind of look back on what weirdness. So as far as awareness and advice giving, guess that's, could use the platform to say your kid is not gifted enough to be in a classroom with other kids who also still are kids in a different life stage.

SW: Sure.

BK: You know, around, you know, don't blur puberty lines just because a kid is gifted, that's trouble. Development is development, regardless of intelligence.

SW: What else do you want to say? Use the platform if that's what we want to call this, however you want. Cause I never assume I asked the right questions or the best questions.

BK: I'm horrible at answering, though.

SW: I know I know but hey you heard Maddie and it just came up and it just happened to work out this sort of serendipity if you will. Maybe somebody will hear Brittany. Maybe not but maybe right? And you just don't know what space they're in. Maybe they're suffering or contemplating. Maybe they're a mom or a brother to somebody and that you know, who knows?

BK: I worry a lot about my own kid too. cause I'd mentioned different life stages, at different attempts. And I think that the youngest ideating of mine that I know that I've seen written or documented somehow, you know, cause I have gotten help, gotten treatment in the past, but I was grossly mismedicated, and in developmental years.

SW: Yeah formative

BK: Autism isn't even on the short list of considerations for as far as, you know, little girls with behavioral problems and medical care here, especially mental health care is just lacking a lot anyway, so.

SW: Yeah. What was your diagnosis? Well, let me rephrase that. Did you get a diagnosis that you thought was accurate, that felt right, other than autism? Because you said that was a late diagnosis anyway, right?

BK: Yes, very late. Actually, I got mental health treatment when I was really young too. And that's something else that I would caution others about is to be hyper vigilant when it comes to mental health treatment for your children. For getting it and maintaining it and for getting quality, basic quality assurance of one second opinion that is worth it before you put your child who is developing on a psychotropic medication because as a youngster I was diagnosed with a schizoaffective disorder that I did not have. I was medicated for a schizoaffective disorder that I did not have and of course I didn't know that I didn't have it. So I didn't know anything. I was learning everything. And it was something so harmless that got me into that mental health treatment position. I think it seems harmless that I was just forming sentences, like really learning to talk and I wanted to flourish, I suppose, even as a little one. I wanted so badly to have that conversation at the dinner table that everyone else was having that I wasn't a part of, that I would speak and then kind of whisper everything back to myself to make sure I got it right, maybe. And that scared the shit out of my parents or my grandparents more. So they take me to like the one place that you can go here to see like the one doctor that there was. And he was like, yeah, she's off her, she's off the rails on a crazy train.

SW: How old were you?

BK: Three.

SW: Oh, shit.

BK: Right! So again, if I wasn't fucked,

SW: Yeah, I hear what you're saying. Yeah, it makes total sense. It is…

BK: And no one ever asked to speak to me, know, like ask, Hey mom, could you step out of the room? And that would have solved a lot of issues. It would be a different Brittany today. Probably if Mr. One doctor in town had ever said, Hey, can I speak to her alone?

SW: Right.

BK: Like with a nurse.

SW: Yeah, I mean there's a part of your life that feels tragic. It does.

BK: Every part of my life feels tragic.

SW: But there's also another part, and I'm not the person who always has to find the silver lining at all, but it is kind of interesting to me that all that stuff has led in part to you being able to be a great mom. It's kind of cool. It's really kind of cool. Like you could argue that if some of that stuff didn't happen, I mean, we'll never know. Maybe you wouldn't be as good a mom, maybe. Who knows?

BK: Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying. I'm not a silver linings person either.

SW: I fucking hate it. can't stand the culture we live in where everything's got to have a sort of. No, not everything's okay. Not everybody wants to live. Not everything works out. So that's how I feel. But it is kind of cool to hear somebody who's gone through so much stuff and say like, because we know a lot of people end up fucking up their kids because they were fucked up, right?

BK: Oh yeah.

SW: But you're not, it doesn't seem like, which is breaking this chain which is cool to hear.

BK: Well, they're not, they're not done trying yet. But, uh, neither am I apparently yet.

SW: We're still on this lockdown, right? And I know, you know, we just connected recently and you shared with me what that day was like for you or part of it. What do you think it's going to be like moving forward? That's a,, that's a bad question. I'm taking it back. Cause you don't know, right? You don't know.

BK: You mean the state of the world, I'm assuming.

SW: No, I the state of Brittany more than the war

BK: I never know man.

SW: Yeah, same, same. Do you have people in your life that are supportive though? Because it sounds like maybe not.

BK: No, no, not really. No, the easy answer is just no. I still have my partner around, who again is my friend too, one of my only friends. But I think the longer that we've been together now, like as a couple, that changes things. And I don't think that it, well, I want to say I don't think that it changed how I feel about him, my friend, the person, but it did change the way I feel about him just because our connection to one another evolved. It changed our connection and it's overwhelmingly clear to me all the time that it changed a lot of the ways that he feels about me and I think that he's become much less supportive than he was as my friend. But I think that that's mostly because he's become way more aware since being with me as my partner for this long now of how true it was when I said, you know, I don't have any other friends or where, know, the hell was, why was I never like, that's my mom calling or that’s my dad calling or that's my cousin calling. That's because those people actually, people actually don't exist in my life or I don't exist in people's lives, in other people's lives more. So there's a lot of, you get what you get or I've got what I've got. And he knows that he's it.

SW: You used a word that I've never heard before.I think it was ‘overlookable’.

BK: Overlookable.

SW: No, it's a great word. You have a good vocabulary. Yeah, there's definitely a sadness in that but an honesty for sure. Yeah. Other than your daughter, is there anything that brings you joy?

BK: Man bringing in a bass the other day that was fun. I like that that felt joyous but I like to color I like to color pictures I like to draw my grandfather actually is an artist he's a rare outsider Appalachian folk artist he's one of only two that exist yeah and the other is is his best friend and colleague that I've grown all up in the art community with them. She's in the Smithsonian already and he probably will be soon. I've always been very, very proud of my grandfather being an artist coming from an artist family, even if we're like, you know, hillbilly bludgeoning at blocks of wood artists. It's an art. It's what bought our food. And I think that's cool. It's a really cool way to make a living.

SW: Sweet.

BK: So I like my own art. play the ukulele. Whatever I can. That's what I find joy in. Wherever I can find it.

SW: And you said you're staying with friends, right? Was it friends? Do you and your partner have a place?

BK: Yeah. After February, like I mentioned, we were staying with some family, some relatives of his. We actually experienced family violence separate from any other tragedy, because I know, right? His sister's husband attacked him in front of me and my daughter and the other kids. He nearly tore his ear off.

SW: Whoa.

BK: It was crazy man and she's like screaming and crying and saying stop, you're our friend like you know i've taught her to everyone's a friend you haven't met yet. That happened and that was on May 1st so I called 911 of course. But they showed up and didn't do anything and I'm like we have to leave here.

SW: Right safe, you to be safe.

BK: Well, I'd mentioned before, you know, that I had a near death experience that day after Christmas. And it was actually the sister and husband who did a thing that made me feel very unsafe and me and my daughter. But I don't think even though that is a thing that absolutely happened, a threat was definitely made and my partner and like his mother who's also the sister's mother, they showed up. I got so afraid back then. I called, I alerted them. They came right away and saw and handled it. But while it did happen, I think that everyone doubted my perception based on other things that I've been through, you know, like that maybe I didn't mean to, but exaggerated. it wasn't until, you know, these six months later when this separate thing happens where.

SW: Mm-hmm.

BK: He was the one, the physical threat was made and was acted on. They were like, wow, like you weren't kidding. They probably tried to kill you. So we left there and I connected with my dad for the first time ever. And he helped us get into a place of our own, which we hadn't done since before we moved in to the shared home with his sister. But within like a month, because it was very close to my relatives who I have known and grown up with, my mother and all. So within like a month, home became an unsafe place to be. So no, I guess technically I might still have a place, but I just kind of fled from there. July and so since July I guess no, the most practical answer would be I don't have a place and I've kind of been rambling.

SW: No, that's okay. It's a hard thing to sometimes put words to because it sounds like it's hard, really hard.

BK: Right. And that's the thing too. Like I said earlier, you know, when I was a youngster, I wanted to be high. I want to be clear now in saying these aren't circumstances that led me to be here that are related to anything like that at all. When I was talking about that, I like smoking pot and like things kids do, know, but no, like I worked, my partner worked, we parented. My child, our child, basically was raising my three nephews. I sew a lot. was tailoring like wedding dresses and prom dresses and things were going okay. And then all of a sudden we didn't have a home anymore just because of something that we couldn't control. And when that happened, it kind of makes everything else… you know, your work performance suffers when you don't know where you're going to sleep.

SW: Everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah that becomes the number one thing you've got to deal with.

BK: When you don't have an address anymore where you can get mail. So once it just takes one event or one crazy person making a crazy decision, not like a mental health, sympathetically crazy, but like an I hurt people type of crazy.

SW: If your safety net is very thin, yeah, that one event, other people that might happen to, and maybe they're a rich stepmother, who knows, right? Like there's a safety net. It's bigger, it's a little deeper. There's a lot of reasons why that might be, but if you don't have that, and then, done.

BK: And I never had anything like that, you know? I never even had anybody to call until all of a sudden, like I said, just this stranger pretty well resurfaces and it's, you know, my dad, who I have known and have known that he's been around, but just again, never connected with. Now that I'm an adult, I have interacted somewhat and learned a little more. I think that that's a lot because of my mother or other relatives more than it is me, but to a degree probably also me and my own expendability and over-lookability as well. I don't think he really, I think maybe dad was scared of mother and didn't even know how scary actually until my big mouth let him know and now he just kind of washed his hands of it all. I don't know, maybe he's also hiding from mother someplace. I guess wearing condoms would be another thing that I would say to an audience.

SW: Be safe. safe.

BK: All this could have been preventable. But yeah, it's been a surprisingly peaceful few days since, like I said, this friend, relatively new friend, just said, you can crash and figure out what you're going to do and do your little interview you got going on.

SW: It worked out. I'm I really am glad that it did and that you shared so openly

BK: Yeah, that's and thank you again, not even just for having me and for listening to me and Dealing with me because how do you deal with a problem like Brittany in Kentucky? But just doing what you do, man.

SW: Hey, we're trying, right? We're trying and I'm happy to do it. And I appreciate you joining me and reaching out the way you did and being so open both then and now. So I really do think people hear this stuff and we don't know who it is necessarily or when they hear it, but it could really help. And it probably will. So that's cool.

BK: I don’t know, I'll probably be the one that loyal listeners tune out from.

SW: Well, I'm not going to fight you. I don't agree. I don't think that's the case at all. I've been blessed with some really cool guests, including you 100 % in that. You know, the thing is that they're just sharing, honestly, that's what people want to hear. Now I'm not going to get into psychology and try to convince you otherwise. You've got years of, you've got years of feeling invisible or overlookable and I don't feel that way. But hey you’ve got great glasses. I am not overlooking those damn glasses. I'll tell you that and you but

BK: Thank you. You know, you said invisible and I think overlookable, even though I made up the term. It's a very distinct term from invisible in that, man, I'm noticeable. I mean, you see me, I'm colorful. I'm so sunburned right now.

SW: Right. Right, you're right, it is different, right.

BK: But I'm noticeable. I've always been noticeable. I've been like visually just not visually astonishing but visually attention getting, I'm dismissible, I think. And especially, you know, even in times of distress. I mean, I've stomped my feet. I've shouted at the moon. I've made a scene and been dealt with rather than handled with any amount of care every time. So no, I'm in no way invisible. I'm just forgettable and dismissible and overlookable.

SW: Not today. Not in the last hour and a half, I hope.

BK: I think it's so cool that you're a teacher, by the way. That's what I would have liked to do.

SW: Oh yeah?

BK: For sure.

SW: But you do teach In some ways though, right? I mean, by nature of being a parent and other things. But I hear you, I hear you.

BK: Yeah, and I still would like to have been really thinking about going back to school or trying to. It's hard to do anything right now with the damn coronavirus.

SW: You have, yeah, yes and yes but sometimes with the way things are now maybe there's more opportunity to learn online or I don't know exactly how that would look or work but.

BK: Truth, I would very much like that. And since I'm still here and still trying thanks to your notable podcast, which still is the first, the only one that I've heard.

SW: It will always be the first podcast you heard.

BK: Yeah, and I haven't listened to any others yet, but I'm going to try some Joe Rogan out, I think. It really hit me today and I thought about how, you know, this is going to exist now and as long as it does, maybe someday Mara will hear it and she'll hear, you know, when interviewed by a stranger for the big wide internet world.

SW: Some random dude in a random show and who knows, yeah.

BK: She's what I was thinking about and what I wanted to talk about. And I really did always adore her. I hope if anybody hears that I hope to, I hope it would be her. But I've made a couple of new friends recently who I actually, the conversation just sort of naturally alluded to something that I was like, man, they might actually not think I'm a weirdo. They might like the podcast. So I'll probably let some people know.

SW: Thanks again Brittany, I appreciate it.

BK: Thank you again, Sean.

SW: Yeah, are you going to be okay? I mean, I know that's a weird question and I can't do anything about it, but I still have to be cognizant that, you know, it's been a weird week for you.

BK: Asking is doing something about it though so you already are buddy. I don't know how but I think maybe I think the answer to that is maybe and and if you're wondering what you could do to help, then you have. You did your little podcast and you didn't do it for me but thanks anyway.

SW: I have my reasons, but yeah, yeah, yeah. And I appreciate your honesty. Maybe that's gotta be okay.

BK: Yeah, I'll figure out how and once I know how once I can answer that question for myself, then I think I'll be well enough on my way to okay. But at least for today, yeah, I'm all right. I'm indoors. If I leave the little f****g homestead here, then I'll wear a sock on my face or whatever people do now when they go out in public.

SW: Right, right, right, right, right, right. Take care of you. Cool. All right. Thanks again, Brittany. I'm going to run. Be safe, obviously. Okay.

BK: Yeah, you too. Have a good day.

SW: Take care.

SW: As always, thanks so much for listening and special thanks to Brittany in Kentucky. If you'd like to follow us, you can check us out on Facebook and Twitter @SuicideNoted. You can also check out our YouTube channel if video is your thing. If you are a suicide attempt survivor and you'd like to share your story, I'd love to talk. Please email us Hello@SuicideNoted.com Until we connect again, stay strong. Do the very best you can. I'll talk to you soon.