Ell in B.C. 🇨🇦

[00:00:00] It pains me to say this and give myself credit, but it was a decently traumatic experience going in and out of doctors' offices and having them tell me that there's nothing wrong with me for years. And then going home and basically just squeezing my knuckles white for 10 hours

[00:00:16] until I try myself to sleep because of the pain and knowing that there is something wrong with me and I'm just scrambling for someone to listen. Hey there, my name is Sean and this is Suicide Noted. On this podcast, I talk with suicide

[00:00:51] 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. We certainly don't

[00:01:00] talk about it enough. And when we do talk about it, many of us, including me, we're not very good at it. So one of my goals with this podcast is to have more conversations and hopefully better

[00:01:10] conversations with attempt survivors. Now, another goal is to help more people in more places feel a little less shitty and a little less alone. And I hope we're doing that. And I want to thank

[00:01:19] everybody who's been involved to help us do that thus far since we started in July of, wow, July of 2020. Now, if you are a suicide attempt survivor and you'd like to talk, please reach out. Hello

[00:01:30] at suicidenoted.com on Facebook or Twitter at suicide noted. You can check the show notes to learn more about the podcast, including our membership and of course waiting and reviewing suicide noted helps people find it. And yes, we want more people to find it. Finally, we're talking

[00:01:47] about suicide on this podcast. We don't hold back. So take that into account before you listen or as you listen, but I do hope you listen because there is so much to learn today. I am talking with

[00:01:59] L. L lives in British Columbia, Canada, and he is a suicide attempt survivor. LNBC. That's it. Do you think this is a dark subject to talk about? Certainly. Yes. I mean, it can be. It always has dark undertones at least. How'd you find the podcast? I'm curious.

[00:02:22] I typed in the word suicide into Spotify. It'll come up. I did see other stuff for sure. And your formats, both like just like the nature of the conversations and then also a few that I listened

[00:02:34] to just really resonated with me. So yeah, this is the only one I listened to actually. It wasn't my seductive voice. It was the voice and the charm and the incredible good looks on YouTube.

[00:02:49] I get that a lot. L let's get the audience up to speed here. So L is in British Columbia, our neighbors to the North, as we sometimes say, which can we just say this right now? It's not

[00:03:00] really relevant to the conversation we're having, but I'm a little tired of everyone saying how fucking nice Canadians are. Yeah, I hear you. I am also tired of it. If there was a meter somewhere to really gauge niceness, do you finish ahead of Americans? Maybe a smidge. Sure.

[00:03:17] Too regional to say, right? I mean, you go to Montana. Jeez, those people are about as friendly as they come. And then you go to Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver and all of a sudden everyone's a bit of an asshole. So it's more of like an urban thing

[00:03:31] we're talking about. Could be. Could be. Yeah. All right. So you find the podcast, thankfully for me, selfishly, you listen to one or two or more, you reach out, we connect. Now when somebody finds a

[00:03:43] podcast and they find it because they put the word suicide in, in your case into Spotify, it begs the question, the obvious next question is why are you putting a word, that word into

[00:03:55] Spotify? The day of me finding your podcast, I was going through a particularly extreme crisis and was scrambling for relatability and some sort of story where I could feel a part of, maybe not

[00:04:13] necessarily a part of a group, but not so alone in, in, in my experience as it was happening. It was basically an act of desperation to fulfill that, try to be a part of it.

[00:04:22] So you listened to it and look, I'm not looking for any back padding here at all. I just, I'm curious. So when people talk about this stuff, is that enough to feel like there's some level of

[00:04:33] what, Hey, whatever you were looking for is I guess what I'm asking. Did it help? Yeah. I mean, I listened to about four or five back to back because you, you had a,

[00:04:41] you had a backlog by the time I started listening, you had quite a few episodes out. Some of them were getting brought a sense of relief or relatability. Some of them did the opposite.

[00:04:52] They made me feel more desperate, more alone. And that's just the nature of how nuanced every individual episode is, how complicated the whole self harm, self demise process can be, I guess. Hmm. After hearing these, and it's interesting

[00:05:09] that you share that, that some of them were helpful and others weren't. And I love it. I don't want them to not be helpful. I just love honesty. Like I love just truth. Yeah. And how, how's hearing some people,

[00:05:20] whatever, what they're saying or maybe how they're saying, whatever might be made you feel not so good or even worse than that. Okay. But you still remain in the minority, I assume of people who

[00:05:28] hear it and then want to talk about it. So is there some, is that, yeah. Why, why is that? I think that my experience in the past was, again, the reason why I tried to find a podcast

[00:05:41] and I stumbled upon yours, luckily is the loneliness and feeling that, but despite it being a weakness and a sense of fragility, there's a sort of same that comes along with that through

[00:05:56] feeling like I'm too weak and that I'm destined to just be better off giving up because of I'm too weak for life. And so in me talking about it, it breaks down that stigma.

[00:06:10] Just one voice at a time. I think that's what I got out of it hearing my demographic, especially that was really fulfilling to hear. You had a guest, a young Canadian male, tough guy, but just was really going through it. And so just to hear voices like that,

[00:06:27] and hopefully I can be like a drop in that bucket to if anyone else is in a similar position, they can not feel like such a worthless piece of shit, I guess. And just understand that it's,

[00:06:38] it's actually natural and it's actually more either common or, or just out there than they might think. So there's a sense of duty that comes along with it. And then, you know, there's

[00:06:48] also a selfish element where this is, it's cathartic for me to share. Yeah. I think you can check all those boxes and they don't, they don't, you know, they can co-exist. You said my

[00:07:00] experience in the past, right? That's I think what is, so what is your experience? Too big, broad? No, it's not too big. It's it's that's the nature of a podcast. That's what this is for is a little

[00:07:13] broad question, I guess. I may or may not have been born with some pathological predisposition to be depressed and anxious. I certainly went through a violent upbringing from people in positions of authority, power over me in growing up, continued to have decently traumatic events

[00:07:34] take place. Never felt like I fit in whenever I did fit in, it was always a persona. It was always a sort of a third party form of myself just performing basically. And I was quite

[00:07:48] successful at it. But there's a certain level of exhaustion that comes with being inauthentic. And it eventually around maybe 18, 19, 20, that performance started to break away to that sort of like that, that hidden, buried beast that I had been keeping at bay for a couple of decades.

[00:08:09] That's when the depression and anxiety started to really come out. And first of all, very classic symptom, extreme, like, you know, the frozen in bed for, you know, 72 hours at a time, get up and

[00:08:21] have junk food and go to the bathroom and go right back to bed, kind of typical things like that. Then that started to be met with a lot of shaming from my social circle name calling, basically,

[00:08:33] borderline bullying, I guess you can call it. Self harm started to kind of kick in because I took too much too much value out of their criticism. I no longer take any value from that

[00:08:45] kind of criticism. But it's hard when you're still unaware of what's even happening. You do feel like a lazy piece of shit, really, that's the internal battle. So I'm not worth it. I want this

[00:08:57] pain to go away. And, you know, committing acts of violence on myself, smashing, hitting lacerations. Yeah. And, you know, other things trickling into like hygiene, diet, or lack thereof, right? Yeah. And then there's a feedback loop that kind of develops there, where as that happens,

[00:09:15] your social circle starts to fall away. Especially if it's so artificial as mine was. And then you get the introduction of loneliness, just by separation between yourself and other people. And that really exasperates it pretty bad. Yeah. And there were some events that

[00:09:31] happened to me as well. One was a very traumatic injury, a car accident, and an intoxicated driver hit my car. In that happening, I got some spinal injury and some brain trauma. I guess they

[00:09:48] classify it as mild brain trauma because I still had all my faculties basically, just a lesser version. The house of cards fell immediately after that. And yeah, very rapidly. All of my

[00:10:02] performing normalcy and the version of myself that I had kind of propped up as that facade was absent. The Pandora's box was open. How long ago was that? Eight years. Do you have memory issues because of the accident? Yeah. Specifically the accident itself as well. Yeah.

[00:10:20] I'm curious about the performance. How would you characterize it? Were you like the funny guy, or the crazy guy, or the lunatic, or did it just vary? It varied. You know, I'm never an outright asshole, or at least I try not to be. But yeah,

[00:10:35] a little bit of mind over matter type of thinking, or maybe using humor as a defense mechanism and trying to minimize my own and other people's issues, I guess. Yeah. Minimizing everything.

[00:10:52] Yeah. A bit of like a salesman for my own identity as opposed to just putting forward whatever I had. And did you come to this sort of realization on your own, just living life and trying to

[00:11:02] figure it all out? Yeah. Not in a healthy way, but it did come to the forefront that I had developed like a social life that I wasn't really built for and a lifestyle generally that wasn't

[00:11:15] bringing me any happiness. So that really exposed it, but there wasn't a healthy transition from that into anything functional. That has taken a lot of trial and error, pharmacological efforts, a lot of talk therapy, alternative therapy. And then because of the nature of the physical

[00:11:37] drama that happened in my back, a lot of physical therapy as well, that kind of goes hand in hand with it. How bad is your back? It's pretty good right now, actually. I work really, really hard

[00:11:47] on making it stay good. But I had multiple procedures done on it. One pretty invasive one. You know, there's all sorts of bureaucratic issues in Canada with our healthcare. So it did

[00:11:59] take me years for it to get approved and actually get an operation done. But at the same time, the other side of that coin is the it was free, and it was accessible to me eventually. So that

[00:12:10] was its own obstacle for sure. Again, like I myself speak, the way I speak to myself is very critical. So it pains me to say this and give myself credit. But it was a decently traumatic

[00:12:22] experience going in and out of doctor's offices and having them tell me that there's nothing wrong with me for years. And then going home and basically just squeezing my knuckles white for 10 hours until I fry myself to sleep because of the pain and knowing that there is something

[00:12:39] wrong with me. And I'm just scrambling for someone to listen. Such a bizarre way to be treated. Not bizarre, just I don't get it. I don't either. I mean, in some way, and I hate to say this,

[00:12:49] frankly, I get it where someone might be depressed and now there's nothing wrong with you. It's actually your back. Physical. I almost wish in a sort of twisted way that there was like a rib

[00:13:00] that broke through my skin, or something that had more of a tangible breadcrumb trail to my injury to just show like, hey, listen to this kid. He is going to kill himself like you do not understand

[00:13:15] incredible amounts of his neurological pain too. So it was quite mischievous. It dances around and it's very complicated. And one day it'll be here another day it'll be there. I carry that with me a lot. And again, like the word trauma is used a lot, maybe overused. The

[00:13:34] word trigger is only used a lot, maybe overused. But I get triggered quite easily when it comes to people blaming that I'm being dishonest. It must have to do with not being taken seriously in these

[00:13:49] clinics. But that those are one of the very few things to this, as of right now, that can actually make me quit the anger in a defensive way is, is that claims that I'm being dishonest,

[00:14:01] man, there's, there's got to be more than one takeaway from these conversations for sure. But one of them that's always like on the top of my list is believe people like just fucking believe like I'm saying this really to others, not you. You're more than receiving it though

[00:14:17] you might've been on the giving end at one point in your life to just believe them. It doesn't even matter if a handful are stretching the truth or flat out lying that such a better starting

[00:14:26] point. It is. And belief can even come secondary to just listen. They are very tied in and perhaps one of the same. And I guess the, when, when I was mentioning like the kind of the Pandora's box was

[00:14:39] opened in, in going to these clinics and speaking with therapists as well, because that was a part of my treatment. The first time I'd ever been to therapy was post accident. Yeah, I say Pandora's

[00:14:52] box because for better or for worse, all of the brain trauma and the physical pain, the floodgates broke down and I started to feel very visceral trauma from my childhood, from my school, from

[00:15:08] interactions with police I had during my early teen years and all sorts of abuses. And so yeah, they, they, they kind of conjoined into this like you know, power rangers have all the

[00:15:20] power rangers are super strong on their own and they come together to create this like mega power ranger and that it picture that, but an evil version and made up of all sorts of different

[00:15:28] traumas coming and just beating the shit out of me. And that really was what pushed me from being in a state of depression and self harm and terror into almost like a craving, a lust for death,

[00:15:43] a sort of final solution. This can all end. This is too much. I need to die. Yeah, I need a feeling of a need, not a need, but a feeling. When was that? And that was about eight years ago or

[00:15:55] sometime after that? That I mean, I would place that at about six and a half years ago was when that really started to kick in. And it's come in waves. It's been basically persistent, but yeah,

[00:16:06] in varying intensities. When I started to listen to your podcast, that was when it was at its all time high. I had a series of edits done on a will a couple of methods of choice. I had timings,

[00:16:21] I had personal notes to people close to me written and not completed. But you know, in the editing process, I had done all my research on where my assets would get distributed

[00:16:33] under the law and all of that by the time I had found your podcast. How long ago was that? I didn't ask you. May, roughly. Yeah, I would say March, April, May-ish. And again, it's the traumatic

[00:16:45] nature of it makes it a little hard to pinpoint. Sure, sure. So six and a half years ago, it starts, it peaks then, obviously as best you can recall, is ideating a constant or near constant?

[00:16:59] No. As of right now and for the past number of months, I'm in a really good place, actually. Really good place. My relationships are very strong. My physical health is... For the rest of my life, I'm going to have a chronic pain disorder certainly, but all things considered,

[00:17:15] I'm in a pretty good place physically and professionally as well. So from when you found the podcast till now, it's been better. I wanted to gauge from more or less

[00:17:27] six and a half years ago when things start to get pretty bad up until this spring. How bad does it get? How often are you thinking about it? Are you also thinking about method and some of the other things that you mentioned? There's not a perpetual thought of,

[00:17:44] this has to happen today. That's not taking place. There were phases where a couple months at a time in those few years where I was certainly every day. With that being said, waking up was always

[00:17:59] a disappointment. I hated to realize that I was still alive. And I've learned to... For me, it's been important to make that distinction between wanting to not be around and then

[00:18:15] wanting to kill myself. And I had always wanted to not be. I hated mornings very much because of that reason. I would also stay up with extreme anxiety up until four or five in the morning,

[00:18:33] because I knew I was only in a few hours going to experience those sensations again. And that was a terrifying notion. And of course, the way our health and the way our bodies operate, that

[00:18:44] in and of itself feeds into anxiety through just sleep, health, sleep hygiene, being poor. And that's really the mixed bag of mental health or mental illness is how all of these nasty little

[00:18:57] things really feed into one another in the darkest way. The self-harm came as a remedy for the moment. It came as a remedy for the moment. So, an extreme crisis and I'm just scrambling physically.

[00:19:12] I'm squiggling around because my nervous system is just firing on all cylinders without any fuel to keep it going either. And I'm just scrambling and squiggling on the ground basically, just manic,

[00:19:27] wanting to not be alive and needing to have some sort of other sensation. And I count my blessings that I don't have, at least I don't think I have an addictive personality. So, some people may turn

[00:19:42] to narcotics and I turn to lacerating myself. So, I would find something within arm's reach, grab it and drag it across my skin really hard. And sometimes on my left thigh, I've got

[00:19:55] carved out some skin. So, like whittling, instead of just a straight cut, it would be like I would cut like a wedge of flesh out. So, I would actually have a piece of my skin in my hand.

[00:20:08] And the dark part about it, much like alcohol or drugs is that it works in the moment. And then, of course, the next day comes around and the extreme shame floods in and the embarrassment of

[00:20:20] having these marks on my body and hiding it and wearing long sleeves, wearing pants and it getting infected because I'm not showering. Yeah, all of these nasty things. It really ties

[00:20:35] some cement shoes to your feet and keeps you low, keeps you sunk. All the while, and I know it probably, and you'll tell me if I'm wrong, sort of comes in waves. Every day of those six and a

[00:20:46] half years weren't the same, right? Like you said, but you're working. This is what amazes me. And if you're not, it's okay completely. It sounds like you were working some, you were trying to

[00:20:58] maintain some level of physical health, whatever it might be. That's astounding to me. I mean, is that what you were doing or am I off on that? I was doing that. There's windows of time where

[00:21:12] wasn't working, but for the majority I was. This is an issue that I have, I cannot take or give myself credit. It's a really challenging thing for me because of this shame that's so deeply

[00:21:24] embedded. So hearing that makes me cringe. I feel like I don't deserve it even if I do. And that's all part of this. But the physical health thing, I needed to do it because my body

[00:21:37] needs a fortified structure for it to be able to have any relief. So that was, I have a built-in excuse. Sure, I was working out and continue to, but if I didn't, and if I don't, the pain comes

[00:21:52] with a vengeance. Bad. Yeah, working, professionally working because of my past, I think in my social life, let's say, I was able to put on a mask and pretend whenever the work

[00:22:06] would start, I'd sleep in, be late, misappointments, lose clients all of the time, but I would still get in there. And when I was working, I was able to present that is one of the most exhausting

[00:22:19] things I have ever done. As soon as I would leave a meeting, let's say break down into tears in my car, basically every time. And I'd never was able to understand it. I still don't. It makes a little

[00:22:32] bit more sense now why, but the wave of emotions was basically just whatever those past few hours would have been, we're all backed up against the dam. And then as soon as I'm able, it would all

[00:22:45] just flood out in a moment. Yeah. I have a very strong inclination to separate my world's social, romantic, family, occupational, I separate them for better or for worse. It's just it's just something that I do something I've always done. I am outwardly an advocate for mental health

[00:23:07] awareness or mental health acceptance and breaking stigma. But very rarely, if at all, does that ever come with a personal anecdote? At all? Yeah, almost never. Basically, never. Basically, never. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I will refer to statistics, I'll refer to,

[00:23:28] you know, maybe even movies or I'll refer to certain podcasts, including yours, but it'll never come with like, Oh, this happened to me, blah, blah, blah. Here's my story. Never ever. So this is an exception? Hardly, it is because it's anonymous. And I feel comfortable in the

[00:23:47] anonymity, very comfortable. It's when that separation of my identity isn't there. That's what it is. Why not include your name? And I'm completely fine with whatever we choose. But, you know, L is great. But why not? Fear, fear of stigma. I think that there's a maybe one day,

[00:24:07] people by and large will see mental illness for the illness that it is, and the way that we fall off a tree, break our arm, and we don't feel embarrassed to tell people or go to the

[00:24:20] hospital with a broken arm. But we do when it comes to traumas and, and other mental health issues. So just for now, I don't think the world is ready. And I'm not prepared to go through the

[00:24:33] process of having to educate or see the way people look at minutes fear. It's not fully rational. It's an emotional. I'm such I'm quite cynical, this might not come as a surprise. I don't think

[00:24:45] we'll actually ever be there. Ever. Right. But it's not in like the next 10 years. I know. I agree. I think there's some momentum in a good direction, but at the same time,

[00:24:56] and this is something that I was wanting to bring up on this podcast is that there seems to be a a romanticization in pop culture right now of depression and mental illness, like a lot of

[00:25:11] a lot of music is like quote unquote, emo, seek. And like, it's a sort of right of passage of being an artist is to be depressed or a right of passage to be like a unique individuals to

[00:25:24] go through this sort of dark experience. But as much as I think that kind of levels the playing field, it also adds this false lightness to wanting to throw your body off of a high object

[00:25:38] and die. And it's really that people don't know what they're talking about and do not take it seriously enough in that regard. And it's sort of commodified in a sense. And I think that that's

[00:25:50] a blockage between the sort of momentum that I was referring to about it getting more or less and less stigmatized. No, I agree. I do. So given all that, I'm pretty sure absolutely

[00:26:01] zero human beings know we're talking. My therapist does. Okay. What did your therapist say about it? I think his exact words were, Oh, cool. Yeah. I said it in the last like remaining 30 seconds of

[00:26:18] a session of this past weekend. So there wasn't much time to discuss anyway, but yeah. I love that. Oh, cool. More enthusiastic than that. But that's the quote. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I would like,

[00:26:31] I want to hear, I don't know why I want to hear people say stuff like I'm waiting for people to be like, and my therapist said, who the fuck is this guy? That's a fucking terrible idea. You

[00:26:40] know, like, I do think there's one has to be aware of the dynamics in as much as you can. So because I'm the guy, right, I'm the host and I started the thing. I am always wary, like, please never

[00:26:54] come on here with any expectations of how you're supposed to be, or you hear 10 episodes. I think whether you realize it or not one, not you per se that like, Oh, there's a way to do it. And there's

[00:27:08] not. And even though I have a real problem with like these short term psych units, you'll hear me talk about that often. I really welcome people to say, no, no, no, actually I had a great

[00:27:19] experience. You know, I'm not here to say one thing or another, but I have my opinions, but I'm sure that that impacts. Here's the point that impacts how people present, how they show up, how they, how their comfort level, you know?

[00:27:31] It does. And I did not have any expectations. I did think about taking some notes to see if I wanted to go in certain directions myself. But yeah, I feel like if someone was to say, who the fuck is

[00:27:43] this guy that might be fair, if you were behaving in some therapeutic directly therapeutic way, which you're not, this is a conversation and it's just about experience. You're not doing any

[00:27:56] Dr. Phil shit. So, you know, I don't think you are. It's a lot more informal and we're just, we're sharing, you know? Yeah. I do think probably some people, it doesn't sit well with them

[00:28:10] because of the nature of what we're talking about, right? We're not talking about cars or like, you know, how well we trim our beards, beard care, beard grooming. Right. It's like,

[00:28:20] okay. But you know, I've said this before and I do want to hear much more about you, but I've got a shockingly very little negative from anybody this whole time. Like I can count on one

[00:28:31] hand really like that's amazing to me. I would expect, I almost think I'm doing something wrong because if you're talking about suicide, regardless of how you're doing it, you should be getting people being like charged up. Not my goal. Yeah. I see what you're saying. Yeah. The,

[00:28:50] just the nature of what the conversation is about and bring a lot of energy and then some, you'd imagine some would be bad, but I don't know. I think that the, your approach is very,

[00:29:01] it's just so open-minded and I feel like that's something largely missing, not missing, but few and far between these days. So yeah, well, I appreciate that, man. That is the goal. You look

[00:29:12] at almost any Facebook post, right? About anything, and you're going to get some vitriol. That's just literally nature of the whole social media, at least if not all the interwebs. Can't drink a

[00:29:22] glass of water without someone saying it's bad for you. Right. Yeah. No, you brought up short-term care units actually. And that kind of struck a chord with me because I have put myself into,

[00:29:36] in a couple of different cities that I've lived in over the past six, seven years. I put myself into the ER for in crisis. The last thing I would want to do in saying this is keep anyone from

[00:29:50] making that decision to stay safe. But I have had extremely traumatic experiences in those places because of those places. I don't know what the fix is. I don't know if it's just me in the

[00:30:04] darkness I was in at that time and reading my experience through that lens, but being put into a facility much like a prisoner, very similar protocols as an inmate in many ways. Looking over a couple of meters away or a few feet, sorry, American listeners. Right. Thank you.

[00:30:27] Yeah. And there's someone drooling and covered in their own shit over there and a cop has to be standing in front of them. And then they look over to my other side and there's someone who's under some extreme other circumstance that's similar. And I'm sitting there, I'm like,

[00:30:45] am I this fucked up? It just made me feel like I was in a Hollywood movie where I'll never get better. And they're going to lobotomize me basically. And I should get a lobotomy and I

[00:31:00] deserve to get a lobotomy and I'll never return to normal life or I'll never be able to have one and I should just kill myself. And that was very strongly felt basically every time I was in an ER

[00:31:12] for mental health. And you always went because you chose to go. There were two times where it was ultimately my choice, but it was basically, I was forced and borderline threatened by people close to me. And I understand their position in doing that. But it was like,

[00:31:30] you're going right now. And it was like, get in the car. Let me hold your wrist really tightly. Look, we're going. And so if it was up to me, I would have not gone and I could have basically

[00:31:44] sat on the ground and they wouldn't be able to do anything. I was never picked up by authorities. That's kind of the question. What I'm most interested, well not most, what interests

[00:31:53] me about this is what you say about it, sadly, is not at all surprising, right? Your experiences. I want to gauge if you should or when you did tell people about it. I want to see their brains

[00:32:06] working and more just watch their faces. Not so much that they don't believe you or whomever. It's more like, well, I mean, what else do you expect? I've experienced that a lot. And so maybe

[00:32:18] I'm just projecting. And of course I've heard it on talking to people. It's like, what else do I expect? Why has that become acceptable or even remotely close to the norm? That's what fucks me

[00:32:30] up. No, no. I appreciate the way you framed the question. I think that a lot of the response was they were surprised people very close to me, let's say my partner at the time and my dad,

[00:32:42] let's say that those are two people that were very involved and reluctant after years of me pretending and being so effective at presenting something inauthentic when that Pandora's box opened and there was no closing it only dealing with it. It came as a surprise because it frankly

[00:33:02] was surprising. All of the criteria behind my crisis was already present when I was performing that character of I'm fine, I'm okay, I'll get through it on my own. Pulling up my sleeve and

[00:33:16] showing like insane lacerations and open flesh and stuff. It's a shock to the system. And the responses were not conducive to me getting better. But at the same time, it's a loved one,

[00:33:32] deeply loved one in so much crisis and so in such a surprise, I do not blame them at all. I even went at points I would go into like, because I didn't think I deserved to get better,

[00:33:45] I would go into like caretaker mode and try to make them feel better and put myself in the back seat. And just because of stigma in the world and because of all of these things are behind

[00:33:55] closed doors, no one has any education. It's like when you fracture your ankle, you're probably going to want to get off of it, you're probably going to want to elevate it, you're probably going to want to take some anti-inflammatories, let's say. And everybody knows that on the top

[00:34:11] of their head. But if someone is going through crisis, like no one has even an inkling of like, what those tools could look like. So it was a lot of, oh, let's watch, let's give some brevity to

[00:34:23] the situation. Let's watch The Office, let's change the subject, things like that, which are both wrong, but still rational and coming from a place of love and care. They're still wrong, but what are you going to do? They're not trained professionals.

[00:34:42] I mean, they're wrong if they're preferring American Office over the British Office. Yeah, I would agree with that. Well, I mean, the British Office is enough to make me crawl into a hole from the fringe, but that's neither here nor there.

[00:35:02] Carell was fine. Carell was great. They're both, both great. I always appreciated the original. I actually happened to be in England when that was out and I just was like, I was so blown away by

[00:35:12] its genius. Never really got behind the American Office because I was like, this is the British Office, but just it's in America and there's different characters. A positive spin on everything, whereas the British one is more of a everyone falls flat on their face and never really recovers.

[00:35:28] They just pretend it didn't happen. More the contrary. Well, you know, like when you say about the fact that these people meant well, let's say they're wrong, they do this, they do that. I also encounter people who are 100% sure they're right and they're

[00:35:41] not because it seems like, yeah, I'm not going to be able to articulate this clearly. There's a lot of information out there, mostly like memes and platitudes or whatever else that people I think that I experienced do think they know what they're... They're 100% sure that's the right

[00:35:59] thing to do. And what's frustrating is it doesn't often seem to be much room for, it might actually not be the best thing for me right now. Absolutely. And I think I'd even go further than that and say that there are some people who,

[00:36:13] whether they have never experienced crisis or whether they've pretended that they haven't or whatever, they're stuck in a very old frame of mind like depression doesn't exist or it's mind over matter and these kinds of positions. And then we have social media influencers that are

[00:36:31] remarkably famous. I don't even want to put their name out there. People like that, they're saying like, oh, it's all about grinding and it's all about like... Mindset baby, mindset baby. That's listened to by millions and it influences people. And it manifests in... I had people in my

[00:36:51] life that through the grapevine, it would get to them. I would never seek out their help, but it did get to them the information about where I was at, them reaching out to me with

[00:37:01] unsolicited advice. And again, I'm a bit of a... I'm a cynic, but when it comes to people, I try to find the best in people. So it does come from an attempt at help. It's an utter failure.

[00:37:15] They are wrong and it's shallow as all hell, but it comes from love. A lot of this mind over matter, oh, you just need to do this. You just need to do that. You need to have more salt in

[00:37:25] your diet. You need to get your omega threes and like, yeah, like omega threes aren't going to stop the... It's such a naivete or that's not strong enough word. It's like, by the way, I'm super into

[00:37:39] language and words. I'm weird about it. The word just, you just don't ever put that in anything when you're talking to somebody. If you're ever saying the word just, get rid of it in this context. It's never going to be helpful.

[00:37:53] Yes, I agree. That exact thing has crossed my mind. No justs. It's basically making everything shallow. That word introduces, it removes any depth or nuance immediately just in one single four letter word. So simple, Al. I know you've been struggling. I hear what you're saying. You've been struggling

[00:38:12] for six months now and all that, but just take some fatty three fucking whatever they're called and make sure you get the multivitamin and I don't know, take a walk. Make sure you're walking every day.

[00:38:23] I'm a three year old here, man. I know about fucking walking and fatty acids. Thanks. In my physical therapy, I learned such an amazing piece of advice from a PT, a physical therapist.

[00:38:38] He was speaking about my physical injury, become an expert in your injury. And I do think that knowledge is, it can be incredibly powerful. And so that I took that and ran with it and started to

[00:38:55] research and study about the biochemical makeup of the brain and how brain trauma can alter that and just sifting through as much as I could. And I think I have some innate curiosity,

[00:39:11] so that really helped, but it was also motivated by desperation and hearing advice from people that I was like, that's bullshit. That doesn't make any sense. How can I argue with you next time

[00:39:22] that you try to bring it up? Because I don't have the tools or the info right now, but that sounds like bullshit. I'm going to look into it. But in doing that, I was able to empower myself

[00:39:31] to understand why I was taking worn up pop cans to the inside of my arm and cutting and smashing IKEA furniture over the top of my head and why I was making those split decisions. And it did

[00:39:48] actually really help in managing that explosivity and that violence I was inflicting on myself at times. Of course, it's imperfect and it's just coming all from me toward me about me.

[00:40:02] So that kind of ties into my next point, which is I was kind of raised in a household of mind over matter. And men don't cry, and men shouldn't display weakness or men need to be protectors and

[00:40:16] caregivers and can't ever seek out protection or seek out care and always give it. And so I did carry that with me for years into my own mental health bullshit and all of the mess. And so

[00:40:33] I inhibited my own recovery and my own health and well-being because of that. And then again, that's partly why I'm talking right now. That is without a shred of a doubt, nonsense. And there doesn't exist a single human on earth that ever got to any point of achievement

[00:40:49] of success without some semblance of a network or some semblance of help or care or empathy from others and staring and giving. And that's basically what makes us human. Yeah, young men out there.

[00:41:03] The only thing that makes you less than is if you try to do it on your own basically. And yeah, you try to hide. I understand why though. I do too. I mean, just think about it. When you're 14, what do you want more than anything in the world?

[00:41:22] For me, I don't remember my exact age. It's all about girls. Whether you like girls, you like boys, it doesn't matter. You show emotion and a girl laughs at you not in a good way because she's 14, 15 herself, right? Whatever. Versus you do another thing that's more aligned

[00:41:37] with the macho guy and she shows you attention. How are you going to act? Exactly. Yeah. So I'm just going to be this guy and present this way. And sometimes you get rewarded, right? You might

[00:41:50] be the cool kid. You might get the guy who gets all the girls, whatever. It's not as if acting that way always gets all this weird negative feedback, but we're told to anyway because that

[00:42:01] would be like, really? I think your parents are out there. No, it's tricky. It's fucking tricky. And the irony is that that girl who laughed at you for being weak was herself told that that was

[00:42:14] a laughable thing that you did. It's so deeply connected. Yeah. I feel very, very strongly. I think I've mentioned this really beating it into the ground, but stigma and exposure and all of

[00:42:29] these things are so critical to sort of opening up the door for people to seek out help or develop because it's not just you. It's the high that it's other people that need to be educated on the fact

[00:42:42] that you're out there. People like you are out there. And if you were to go up to people that I knew, let's say eight years ago, they would, they would have no idea that I was in a position

[00:42:54] of wanting to end my life or seven years ago, what have you. So there's just no way. And the way that it all comes out of the woodwork for me was through extreme crisis. And basically,

[00:43:07] like, I cannot imagine the police coming to my mom's door and telling her that her son killed himself. But if I can have that crisis, bring that out of me, then perhaps I can at least

[00:43:21] a drop in the bucket, help someone before they ever have to get to that point. You've never however we're defining attempted. You never actually attempted, right? Like you said, it's hard to define. I guess I've had equipment ordered online

[00:43:39] in my apartment with a setup ready to do it at a moment's notice. I don't want to talk about the method just because it's different. Yeah, it's a little too much of an idea to give people people if they're ambitious enough, they're going to find it. Okay.

[00:43:57] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like myself. Yeah, exactly. And other people who have talked to, it may not be the exact same thing, but it's probably similar. I have a sense and it doesn't matter exactly what it is.

[00:44:08] What matters though, I'm curious, as best you can recall, I guess that's a given. What stops you? There's actually an unhealthy thing that stopped me, which is not myself. For me, it was my dog, not having me this visceral

[00:44:29] movie, like cinematic level image of my mother receiving the news. She did say in a her own crisis of this situation, my situation saying like it was, she threatened me basically saying like,

[00:44:46] if you did that, like I think I would. And that is not healthy. I don't think it's good, but it kind of was a big motivator behind second guessing my decision waiting another day.

[00:45:03] And then that turned into, okay, I'll wait another day. Okay. And then I'll wait another day. So that's one example, right? The machine, if that's what we're calling contraption. How many times did that happen? Whether it's that or another method where you were that close and

[00:45:16] you stopped and then you thought one more day and then that turned into another day. Well, another time was more of like the typical really, really, really deep laceration that would have, like in the bathtub with the hot water thinning my blood with aspirin attempts to

[00:45:34] cut and bleed out. And then in the bleeding process, after all is said and done, changing my mind and going to the ER, which in that case, I lied to the doctors because I didn't

[00:45:47] want to get put into the ward. I just told them that it was a really bad laceration. I didn't say that it was self inflicted. This was on your leg. This was on my left arm. They didn't press you on

[00:45:57] that? I made up a lie that I'd rather not share. And it was really convincing. And again, I'm unfortunately like an expert bullshitter when it comes to my mental illness. Are you bullshitting me? Maybe you're bullshitting me the whole time. Who knows?

[00:46:12] Who knows? No, I am not. But you can take my word for it if you like. I do. I like, I want to. Yes. Yeah. Good. I've said to you so far, like, yeah, let's keep that out or

[00:46:25] I won't explain any further. And that's me stopping myself from lying and just saying, I don't want to go there. But there was another case where I was listening to you,

[00:46:35] and I emailed you, and I was walking to go scout a local bridge to see if that was going to be a part of the methods I was going to choose from. I was listening to you on the podcast

[00:46:50] and on route to this bridge, I stopped, sat down, and I got my dog some water from a 7-Eleven because it was hot out. And I popped out my phone and sent you an email, actually.

[00:47:03] No way! Whoa! On your way to scout out a bridge that you would presumably jump from? Not that day. But yeah, to go see like, it was a very calculated situation. So I wasn't just

[00:47:17] going to go off the cuff, jump. It was a, how am I going to do this? Where am I going to land? How do I inhibit people from having to see it and get their own trauma and things like that. But that's

[00:47:28] the idea. And then I actually, it was right next to a fire department. And I was going to walk into the fire department and just straight up say, I'm actually on my way to go scout out a suicide

[00:47:41] physician. Can you help me, please? I don't know what I'm doing right now. I don't want to die, but I kind of do. I didn't go into the fire department. But that was all on this about

[00:47:54] two hour window on the day that I sent you that message. Yeah. I'm going to check out what that message said when we get off. It's just opening email. It's just that one.

[00:48:02] I don't think it necessarily has to do with finding the podcast, but you said for like the past six plus months, you were doing pretty well, relationships and other things. But then you had the bridge thing, which was when? May. That summer? May. All right. So got it.

[00:48:15] Ish. Yeah. Something like that. May-ish. Have you ideated since then much or at all? Since then? I mean, after the fact it was a deep... It got worse after that. It got worse.

[00:48:28] And that's when I decided the bridge method was not for me and more of a private at home method was going to be my choice. Deep research and legal research about getting my documents in order, liquidating my assets into cash, all things like that. Very, very methodical

[00:48:50] and pretty damn planned out letters written to people and line items of my possessions that I couldn't liquidate nor would I want to and who they were going to go to. So this is after you reached out to me? Yeah.

[00:49:04] Why didn't you do it? I don't think that that's ever going to be... I don't think I'll ever know the answer to that. I was stimulated in the worst way by life circumstance. And it was all piling on. In that period of time, I found a therapist

[00:49:22] that I had been struggling to find. I'd never gotten a connection, which is so important above all else, all credentials, all educations, that connection. I had been through so many bad therapists and so many... Very outright, terrible therapists and then others that were great,

[00:49:42] but they just weren't for me. And on everything outside and in between that, I found a therapist and I was able to develop some techniques and even be educated and uncover certain things about myself where he basically gave me permission to feel feelings for moments, put that self-deprecating

[00:50:08] language in the back for certain amounts of time and improve my self-compassion and just be good at this job. Be good at connecting with me. Yeah, I had an upbringing of violence and I had never

[00:50:24] found a therapist that had ever known what that was like. And what that... Not necessarily from personal experience, but a lot of violence. And that really tied into a lot of this.

[00:50:34] That I haven't even spoken to you about. You can let me know if you want to hear about it, but I was able to tie that into my feelings of self-worth and wanting to die because I had

[00:50:46] convinced myself that it would be better for myself and everyone around me if I was to die, ultimately. And so I was really on the edge. And I think he'll actually end up listening to this and

[00:50:57] it'll be even revealing for him to hear this stuff and to the degree that I've been close to dying under my own hand and his role in preventing it. If you are listening, Al's therapist, I have two words for you. And those two words are, okay, cool.

[00:51:17] I was waiting for that. Okay, cool. Cool. No, you said it was more upbeat. Cool. Let's go. Nice. Well, I do want you to share more if you want to. I think when you said,

[00:51:36] hey, do you want me? I'm willing to share more. I think you were specifically referring to the violence or did I misread that? I think that's more or less what I said. Yeah.

[00:51:44] I mean, it is kind of a common tale, alcoholic parents. And then the other parent was perhaps a little bit absent, at least in terms of time spent in the home. There was quite a bit of

[00:51:58] affection in my household. The word love was thrown around a lot, but extraordinary levels of anxiety, substance abuse, and a lot of unchecked violence from my older sibling, four years older. And the violence didn't really come in a normal form. It wasn't just like

[00:52:17] beating up, fighting, and him getting the better of me. It was actually very sadistic, very psychologically motivated. He would wrap plastic bags around my face until I either stopped breathing and then let me go. Or he would lock me into boxes like chests or big, large plastic

[00:52:37] totes and sit on it. And then as soon as I... He would make me stop screaming so that he could let me out. There were very weird circumstances where I would be out playing hockey with my

[00:52:47] friends or a Canadian activity, and he would hunt me in the neighborhood with his friend. And he would hunt me around and seek me out in alleyways. And he would zigzag between the

[00:52:59] neighborhood to find me. And then when he did, it would be like a gang beating, I guess. You know, I don't think he would stomp me in the head, but he would beat the shit out of me in

[00:53:10] front of my friends, make me cry and humiliate me, and call me a faggot and a pussy, things like that. And then the parents of the neighborhood got involved. And my parents would be like,

[00:53:20] oh, you don't know what you're talking about. Mind your own fucking business and things like that. So very, a lot of embarrassment, a lot of shame, deep humiliation, challenging or stripping away

[00:53:30] manhood that I was trying to uncover and find on my own. That is stuff that I had under his guidance, my brother's guidance, and under my family's guidance, always previously considered to be

[00:53:44] just a normal part of brotherly love, just a normal part of growing up. And that is certainly one of the things that got let out of the bag after my car crash. And after all of these things

[00:53:54] came to the surface that was dragged with it. You know, there are other things that I'm not really going to get into because I don't really feel like talking about it. Those kinds of things

[00:54:03] really got dragged along and buried me later on, and were one of those weights that kept my head below water, I guess. Yeah. I heard you say something, man. It was like X, Y, and Z, this

[00:54:17] stuff was happening. But he didn't pound me in the head. He didn't stomp on my head. Fair. Yeah. I do the same thing. I do the same thing. It's like, yeah, but I mean, at least,

[00:54:26] it's not the same as a bully who lives down the block when they live in the same home with a bully. And it's your family, it's your brother. Right? It feels different. It does. It very much does. Because all of a sudden, two days later, we're playing Nintendo 64

[00:54:42] and laughing with each other, right? Because we're stuck in the same home, wearing our pajamas on a Sunday morning. That's why it's so deeply complicated. And I feel like that's why it took

[00:54:53] me so long. Two and a half decades, basically, to really come to terms with the fact that that wasn't okay. And the narrative given to me about it was basically just false. And yeah,

[00:55:07] it helped me in this weird way, to be taught that he did that. And it's not okay. And it's not worth the trade at all to have certain types of resilience that I do have as a product of those

[00:55:23] obscure and weird and sadistic types of things that he would do. But I would justify and rationalize it because of the weird little function that it did give me. And the sort of strength to

[00:55:37] overcome people who attempt to bully me or things like that. So yeah, it is very deeply complicated. I can't begin to understand it. You guys still talk? Yeah. We were three years there where roughly three years ago, we didn't speak because of his

[00:55:54] inability to acknowledge. He never changed that behavior. It stopped being violent. But it was a very similar approach to communicating and belittling and not just to me, but to basically

[00:56:05] everyone around him. And I didn't want to put up with it. So I would kind of stand up against it. And then that created a lot of conflict because bullies don't like to be stood up too.

[00:56:18] And so it was basically like have conflict or not have any relationship. And I kind of basically chose the distance instead. My question is, is this contraption still in your home?

[00:56:31] No. And it's funny that you say that it rings a bell. Earlier I said, I don't have a substance abuse issue. And I'm not actually too sure how true that is. I don't have a chronic ongoing

[00:56:42] perpetual battle with alcohol. But I have had a bout of time where I self medicated with alcohol. And it was bad. I'm about 195 and exactly 195 pounds actually. And I'd be drinking maybe 20, 24 beers a day, every day. It was the only way I could get through the day.

[00:57:06] Now I can have one or two casually, maybe once a week. And I'm okay. Perfectly. There's no cravings or anything, but it was bad. The reason I bring that up is because you said, is it still in your

[00:57:16] home? And I said, no. Its presence was haunting and just seeing it was very demonic and horrible. And so I don't keep alcohol in my home. Not necessarily I didn't get a craving, but it brings

[00:57:32] me back to a time where not too long ago I wanted to be gone. And as we speak here on a Monday, late afternoon, early evening, different time zones, you want to be alive or something like that?

[00:57:46] Yeah, I do. Yeah. I actually consider myself to be a success story. I'm very hesitant to say that it's because of me, but whatever it may be, I have a very strong feeling that I will be a very

[00:58:05] true visceral spiritual sensation that I will be okay. And then I will be a better version of myself year by year until I die of reasons that are not my own, not self-inflicted. Other than your therapist and now me, well, actually I don't know for sure your therapist,

[00:58:28] how many people know about any or all of those three incidents? Just you, literally no one else. Did you ever get a diagnosis that you agree with? I have post-traumatic stress disorder. I have major depressive disorder, I believe it's called.

[00:58:44] And then I can't remember the type of anxiety that I have. It's not generalized anxiety disorder. It's more acute and circumstantial than that. There was a personality disorder that I can't remember the name of, but that was two clinicians differed in there. One said no, one said yes.

[00:59:02] And so that wasn't a hard diagnosis. And then I have post-concussive disorder just from the heart crash. You like that word? And I agree with all of those. You think they're disorders. Is that the right word? Disorder?

[00:59:14] Oh, okay. In that sense, no. I actually, the DSM from where all those come from, I guess, the book creeps me out to be honest. It's very cold. Again, I am an evidence-based person in a

[00:59:29] lot of my perspectives. So I do feel like it's perhaps the best that we can do in terms of formulating ideas and language around this stuff. It's not perfect. One thing that I absolutely despise though, in that same vein is the out of 10 scale. I hate

[00:59:47] that so much, whether it be pain or depression. Out of 10, do you feel distraught? It's very, it's so subjective that it's virtually meaningless. Maybe that's why Americans don't use the metric system because we don't like it. Yeah. We're wrong on that one.

[01:00:09] One time we got it right. Cause we hate that too. Are you on meds to help with any of this stuff? Yeah. I'm actually on like a super, super low dose weaning off of a SSRI normal. I think it's

[01:00:22] called S-atelepram. I take an as needed amphetamine called dexedrine, which is like a study, one of the study drugs, I guess you could call it. That is primarily the post concussive stuff. It helps

[01:00:36] with focus and just focus and wakefulness. Then I have bottles of clonazepam. Is that what it's called? The opiate. I hate that stuff. You do? I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Again, I know it's a crisis now in the world with addiction

[01:00:57] issues, but I despise it. I have used it in intense circumstances, but I'll throw it out one day. It's just sitting there above my, in my kitchen. Then I have some bottles of very,

[01:01:11] very bad clinicians in my past from these short term facilities where they just kind of were like checking off boxes and getting you the fuck out the door so they can do it to the next person

[01:01:24] of really bad antipsychotic medicines that were, I later found out were primarily used for more split personality or schizophrenic conditions. I've had some doctors that I have come to like and appreciate being questioning the validity of, or the deservingness of someone's medical degree if

[01:01:48] they were to ever give those medicines to me. Yeah, that really, it's left me pretty jaded. Those medicines are extreme and they put me into the hospital. I was having ramen in a ramen shop

[01:02:03] and I had a mental breakdown because of getting onto this certain medicine. Just insane. So irresponsible. If you've heard the podcast, I ask a couple of questions that tend to revolve around

[01:02:16] the idea of are you going to be here in a few years or what's the likelihood? But you kind of answered it. When you say to me, when you say aloud, you're almost a success story and you're

[01:02:24] going to be okay and you feel it in your bones, like that's the answer. Yeah. Yes. And I think I'd even go further than that. I want to use some of my experience and some of just my general skills

[01:02:38] as a person to, I don't know what it will look like, but I want to develop some sort of conduit for people to find help themselves. And so it is a bit of a life mission of mine, actually. Again,

[01:02:52] I don't know what it'll look like. It's very logistical issue and with the Canadian government, there's a lot of red tape and et cetera, but I do feel very strongly about it. And just from my

[01:03:03] experience being a white male, what is considered able-bodied and stuff, that's probably where I will lean because that's what I know. Something like that. All right, cool. Last question. Other things that we didn't get to revolving around myths, misconceptions? I would say that

[01:03:25] there is no one size fits all. I think that I had spent years turning up my nose and scoffing at certain methods that turned out to be some of the most helpful things and probably helped me

[01:03:41] stay alive. And so don't run from any method and keep your mind as open as possible. As hard as that seems, try to take people from where they're coming, which is if they're coming from a place

[01:03:55] of help, try to appreciate that and you don't have to listen to someone or take their advice in order to appreciate where they're coming from because some advice and most of advice is going to be

[01:04:06] shit. It's going to be bad. It's going to be naive like we mentioned before, but try to have the empathy of understanding that they probably care about you and they want you to

[01:04:19] do better. They want you to do good and recover from whatever you're going through. And then also medicine can really help. I've had it hurt me. I've had it really helped me. Just again, don't run from it and try to listen and strongly consider it.

[01:04:36] Consider taking it. We're done my friend. What else would you like to add? Yeah, well here's something to add. You're fucking awesome and I can stay from personal experience that hearing people in conversation with you emboldened me to speak out and not only

[01:04:58] talking with you to other people, but admitting to myself and other people that my vulnerabilities and my weakness and fragility and embracing it and working toward healing it or living with it in a functional way. So you're doing something amazing here and

[01:05:21] whatever it looks like in the future, keep going. Please improve your YouTube presence because I feel like there's more people on YouTube and I'd love to watch you talk. Thank you for saying all that. I appreciate it.

[01:05:34] Yeah, the power of listening is infinite and keep making giving people like me an opportunity to listen to other people's stories. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you a million times. Thank you. You are very welcome my friend. Very welcome. Thank you. I appreciate your time.

[01:05:50] Thanks, Sean. You're a great guy. You too my friend. Keep doing what you're doing and we'll connect soon. Have a good afternoon. As always, thanks so much for listening and all of your support. Special thanks to L Up

[01:06:07] in British Columbia. Thank you, L. If you are a suicide attempt survivor and you'd like to talk, please reach out. Hello at suicidenoted.com on Facebook or Twitter at suicide noted. Check the show notes to learn more about the podcast, including our membership. We would love

[01:06:23] your support in that way. However, listening is more than enough. And hey, maybe tell a friend or two. They may want to hear it as well. And that is all for episode number 197. Stay strong. Do the best you can. I'll talk to you soon.