Kate in New York

[00:00:00] I was standing on the sixth platform and I was crying and I was pretty close to the edge. This woman just put her arms around me. She just hugged me, didn't speak English. I had no idea

[00:00:09] what she was saying, but she just like hugged me and then when the train came, she just pulled me into the train. It was like she was sent by the universe or something.

[00:00:41] 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.

[00:00:55] Certainly don't talk about it enough and when we do, most of us are not very good at it, including me. So one of my goals with this podcast is to have more conversations and hopefully better

[00:01:05] conversations with attempt survivors. Keep in mind, less shitty and less alone is essentially our tagline, if you will. If you're listening to this, you probably know what I mean. A couple

[00:01:15] quick notes before we jump in. You can comment on an episode on Spotify. You just have to hit the show notes and you can leave a rating and review on Apple. Both help. For my attempt

[00:01:28] survivors I've talked with, I will be reaching out. I want to get a series of updates if you're game. To our members, remember we're going to be starting a new series. Of course, I'll be reaching

[00:01:40] out to you. Where small groups of us get together and answer a few questions, ideally from our audience. There is one more thing I am thinking about doing for those of you who hear this and

[00:01:51] for those of you who want to share, but maybe you don't want to talk with me about it at length. There are a couple of things you can do. Check the show notes to learn how you can send us an audio

[00:02:02] message. That's one way we can get you on the podcast so people can hear you and you can use your name or not. The other thing, and then boy oh boy Sean let's get on with it. I'm thinking about

[00:02:13] doing something where if you write me, sort of standard email kind of thing, I can read it on the air. Anyway, clearly I'm exploring different ideas to get more people involved. Okay, if you

[00:02:24] 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 and check the show notes to learn more, please, about the

[00:02:36] podcast. Finally, we're talking about suicide noted here as we always do and we don't hold back. So take that into account before you listen, as you listen, but I do hope you listen because there

[00:02:47] is so much to learn. Today I am talking with Kate. Kate lives in New York City and she is a suicide attempt survivor. Hello Kate in New York City. Am I calling you Kate? Yeah, only the cops and

[00:03:07] people like that call me Catherine. I'm from New York, so the moment there's New York, I'm like let's just not even talk about suicide. Let's just talk about it. Can I share with the audience what

[00:03:16] you sent me on that email? Yeah sure. Kate is, well obviously you're going to do most of the talking hopefully, but I wanted to let everyone know, a suicide attempt survivor, which is common because that's essentially who I attract. That's what the conversations are about. Also a suicide

[00:03:33] loss survivor and of course there's obviously a lot more to you and we'll get to it, but the director I think is your title? Yeah. Of New Alternatives New York City. We'll save exactly

[00:03:44] what that is and all the good shit you're doing. But I do want to talk about that because there are some people that listen and some of them might be near you or maybe there are other services you

[00:03:55] do online and they can be in Kentucky or Korea. I don't know. But I am wondering as you sit there, probably just finishing up work, though maybe you have more work later. That's why there's a huge

[00:04:06] red ball next to you in your office with lots of stuff behind you. Lots of stuff because when you run something there's just stuff. And we're just, we don't have enough space. My assistant sits in the

[00:04:18] same office. Yeah. I could just hand her something across the room, we're so close. Right. You do the work you do, help save people. You know who does have enough space? Goldman Sachs. Oh yes. I bet

[00:04:30] they have huge amounts of space. There is irony always. How did you find a podcast called Suicide Noted? Probably like most other people do, you know. I was just having a hard time and I was

[00:04:45] like I'm tired of this. Is there a way? I was kind of looking for, you know, people have any solutions or suggestions or whatever. Were you suicidal however you defined that at the time or

[00:04:56] like whatever? Yeah, I mean I was just getting overwhelmed by the thoughts and I was like well. But I was also really just tired of them because you know like I've dealt with them for a long time

[00:05:07] and I'm like will you guys like shut up and you know not that they're actual voices but you know. Fucking exhausting. Yeah and it sometimes just gets in the way like you're trying to concentrate

[00:05:17] and all you can think about is you know like you know you keep having these like it's just distracting. And you're literally the director of a non-profit. I am. I'm not taking anything

[00:05:28] away from people who aren't in that role and are going about their days at all but when you are the director of a non-profit and what else? I'm the founder actually. That just takes mental energy

[00:05:39] and you have responsibilities and you have other things and. Yeah, I have to raise the budget you know. I raise half a million dollars a year to keep this place open. It's a lot of pressure.

[00:05:50] And I wonder sometimes it's a kind of a blessing because hey you got to stay busy and so those thoughts aren't as prevalent. Oh yeah. You're alone all the time. Definitely. Yeah. Like I work a lot and people are

[00:06:00] like why don't you do something fun? And I'm like first of all nothing that used to be fun is fun anymore. It's just like you know. So I'm like why bother? But then also it does like keep like I have

[00:06:12] almost like two ways of being you know. I have my work self which is very like you know if I'm speaking to the press or to the city council or whatever meeting with clients it's very like together and

[00:06:25] people give me all these awards and stuff and I'm just like you have no idea who I actually am you know. Because I have this other side that's just like really sad sometimes kind of out of control.

[00:06:38] And I just try to keep them really separate. I bet there's a few people out there who see it. Yeah sometimes especially people who go through it themselves. I mean I think people know that I have

[00:06:48] that I'm very connected to the clients and that I can connect to people who are having a hard time. And some people understand that in order to do that you have to be able to understand what it

[00:07:00] feels like even if it's not the same pain you know. Like I can be listening to a person and we're getting this flood of migrants and some of them are LGBT young adults escaping from countries where

[00:07:10] they could be killed etc. So you know I can be listening to someone telling me about being tortured in immigration detention on their way here and I've never experienced that but I can feel it. It lets me connect and it makes people more willing to talk to me.

[00:07:27] I think there's a word for that. I think the word is empathy. Yeah that's right. Do you know who starts in my of course this has always been my opinion organizations like yours you know who does that? People with empathy. That's true.

[00:07:43] I don't know what other skills they have and I know it's really fucking hard. It's also though I think it's partly my activist self because I have trouble working places where

[00:07:54] like things are wrong you know what I mean? I'm just like like my last job I was running a shelter for the same population but we were part of a church and the pastor was a nutcase and I didn't

[00:08:06] have complete autonomy and sometimes she'd want things that I knew were not good for the clients and that was really bad. She also treated all of us really badly and that was really bad.

[00:08:18] I used to leave there at like one or two in the morning because I'd wait till all the clients were in bed you know and that's the sweet part of the job is knowing that at least for one night

[00:08:30] this room full of young people is warm and safe and fed you know that's a really good feeling. But then I'd leave there and on the way to the train I'd start thinking about the bigger picture

[00:08:40] and the money she wanted me to raise and all this crap and then by the time I got to the subway I'd be standing there on the edge like don't jump you know and just have to like hold on to something

[00:08:50] night. I did that for like many nights. Do you know why you never jumped? I do. A childhood friend of mine was one of the kid who was always obsessed with the trains and he got his dream job. He's a

[00:09:04] motor man on the subway and you know he's told me about how afraid he is of people jumping and how you know that's destroyed some of his colleagues. Yeah I made an assumption there that you hadn't

[00:09:17] jumped but I was correct but you have attempted which we will get to soon enough. So that was not method there was another method yeah were methods very curious about how people when they're on the

[00:09:30] precipice what kind of holds them back somehow in some ways even more than why they did it if they survive obviously I will never know if they didn't survive we can't talk it's like and how close we

[00:09:44] get and what pulls us back and do we regret that choice and it comes up a lot in these conversations yeah it's kind of like what's tying you to life to the planet you know it's kind of like

[00:09:56] a string and the more strings you cut the closer you get you know yeah you need at least one does your battles or challenges with the things that led you to attempt at least once in addition to

[00:10:09] losing somebody very dear to you does that have a direct or somewhat direct connection to this organization you founded I mean kind of I got I got snatched by child welfare as a young teenager

[00:10:25] bouncing around and they you know when you're a teenager foster parents don't want you so they just stick you in a group home you know bouncing through that I escaped I ran away and uh

[00:10:36] you know so I know what it's like to be on the subway and just have no place you're actually going and those that's the population you primarily work with yeah I mean our our young

[00:10:45] people are all either homeless or in shelters or in some kind of precarious situation with their housing almost all LGBTQ we occasionally get a client who you know identifies as like a straight

[00:10:57] ally almost all the clients come because the other clients find them and so you know three kids will check in and then they'll be like oh here we brought so and so you know so sometimes we get

[00:11:07] a straight kid who's just like kind of in the group they don't mind we don't mind you know yeah no I mean sure noble noble work man for real like wow tough city hard work grind man

[00:11:19] it's getting harder because of the um you know when I started out which was like maybe 25 years ago if you could get a client on disability which you could do pretty fast back then

[00:11:29] they could rent a room and now you can't you can't rent a shoebox for what disability pays in New York City so I mean the city is giving out um a lot of housing vouchers but landlords won't

[00:11:41] take them it's illegal for them not to take them but how do you prove it and who's gonna go after them I almost want to get a grant just to hire a lawyer to do those cases yeah I mean and in the

[00:11:52] meantime the person's homeless right or you know quasi-homeless or living in a shelter being harassed by the other people I mean you know you can go through I mean we do the applications for

[00:12:03] supportive housing but it's crazy because you know there are so many people you know with chronic mental illness looking for housing and then each place gets 100 applications a month and you know

[00:12:14] and then the time it takes for all this to happen yeah it can be like a year while so right it's just so failed and I know that's almost cliche to say at this point but it's an understatement

[00:12:26] and it goes beyond this I mean when I think about the support for people who are struggling to such a degree that they've tried to take your life and then you have these conversations and

[00:12:34] you hear what they've gone through and I know that I have a sort of self-selected group of people I don't necessarily represent everybody at all but you have 200 conversations like there's

[00:12:43] just a lot of failure all around here you just you just can't even argue it yeah it's tremendously frustrating you know because you have to fight every single system that's supposed to help the

[00:12:54] clients like right now legal aid is suing food stamps here in New York because they're taking so long to process the applications they're past the legal limit I mean like what the fuck you know

[00:13:06] people have to be yeah I mean there's a few basics right and you got if you don't support that then you are a culture or a civilization that is in my mind a failed state in any metric that matters

[00:13:17] to me totally and also period you know I mean this is capitalism this is capitalism taken to the end of the line you know this is what it is like it's just simply a land for rich people that's just

[00:13:29] all it is yeah especially I mean New York City that's what they're going for like the mayors are taking money from the real estate industry and so they're not motivated to like put caps on

[00:13:42] what they can charge for rent or anything like that well I didn't you know in my non-linear way of doing things I didn't thank you so thank you for joining me sure how old were you if you recall

[00:13:55] exact age does not matter when you first started thinking let's say even somewhat seriously about suicide I think I was in junior high school I think that's not uncommon junior

[00:14:07] high school was just kind of miserable and I was the editor of the school paper and then I found out that it was being censored and then my friend and I started an underground paper and yes and

[00:14:19] then we got in trouble of course but anyway you know that was that wasn't a bad that was like the best thing about junior high but like classes and stuff were bullshit so the teachers used to always

[00:14:29] like you have a cloud over your head like what the fuck is that you know and this is in Brooklyn well the junior high school I went to was in Park Slope yeah I mean I lived in Red Hook but they

[00:14:39] you know the schools were so are so segregated that as a white person I got shuffled to Park Slope were you already in the um foster system at that point no not yet okay so things are hard

[00:14:53] and you are ideating yeah trying to remember it's a long time now but I don't know how it got to the guidance counselor but they like called me in and were like asking me all these questions

[00:15:06] and you know I was a kid I didn't know that it wasn't safe to talk to this person I said yes when he asked me if I was thinking about killing myself and boy was that a mistake because then

[00:15:16] he was like I have to call your mother and like I was terrified of my mother so I left school at the end of the day and I'm like I can't go home I can't go home and it was just like that was

[00:15:26] definitely a moment where you just want to end things like can't face the world anymore you know interesting in that you had the let's say courage to be honest and his his or her hands are somewhat

[00:15:38] tied I know there are rules they have to follow or they get in trouble it's a whole systemic thing yeah I mean I know that now but then he thinks he's helping but you're scared to death of your mom

[00:15:49] which makes you let's say even more likely to potentially yeah end it all right well okay now we're starting to move towards something that I think is logical maybe that's the wrong word but

[00:16:00] in my brain the weird I guess I'm the weird guy who started this podcast too so I'm not like everyone others but what stops you from did you well let me ask you this did you try that day

[00:16:11] no you know I was like wandering around thinking about it and then I was the thing that kind of kept me here is that I had a dog you know I'd wanted a dog like my

[00:16:21] whole life my mother when I was little kept saying when you're 12 when you're 12 and she thought I'd forget but as a little kid I would introduce myself to everyone in the neighborhood

[00:16:29] like hi I'm Kate and when I'm 12 I'm getting a dog so um you know as I got to be 12 everyone starts talking to my mom about the dog and she's like shit I have to do it so so I had this dog and

[00:16:41] I was like I can't leave her with them you know what kind of dog who knows she was a by the way dog okay kind of like maybe she looked kind of chihuahua ish but she was too big and had some

[00:16:53] beagle features kind of added on but she was yours she was mine and she was you know very very attached imagine it goes both ways oh yeah yeah dogs man I mean a lot of animals but dogs in

[00:17:06] particular so you're in junior high you get to high school I know things are hairy for you because the moment you mentioned the word foster home system like it's that's not smooth yeah that

[00:17:16] was horrible they took me to Kings County it wasn't even my own caseworker because he was a guy so handed me off to a woman because what they do is they strip off all your clothes and they get a

[00:17:28] polaroid and they just start shooting pictures of anything it's really really disturbing and in this case they like used the camera wrong and had to do it a second time sometimes when people

[00:17:40] use proper nouns I want to make sure Kings County is is Brooklyn it's the public hospital in Brooklyn yeah so it's crazy over there yeah I mean we know we know what most public hospitals are like and

[00:17:53] dirty and shitty and mean and they just let one of my clients die like maybe a month ago she was trans and she had a you know she had heart failure and her legs and feet swelled up and then

[00:18:06] her skin kept opening up and then she'd get infections and the first couple times you know they treated them but then that last time she went into the ER and they were so overcrowded and crazy

[00:18:18] that they didn't notice that she was developing sepsis same hospital wow when do your um let's call them ideations you're thinking about it turn into something more dangerous or so my first real job after college was working with teen felons in an alternative to incarceration program

[00:18:37] all the stuff you're doing this has been your life like from early on yeah I mean I joined ACT UP and when I was 15 started getting arrested protesting about AIDS stuff you know wow go to

[00:18:52] college what college may I ask I went to Hampshire so no grades you can do what you want you know these are the bad years of AIDS right so my people from ACT UP or a lot of them were dying and they

[00:19:04] would let me come back to the city you know and we would do like political funerals or we threw the ashes of people who died of AIDS over the White House fence I'm not going to ask you this

[00:19:14] question but it's a question I thought about which is given what you shared already and I know there's a lot more to this story I wonder how many people that you are let's say close to in your life have

[00:19:24] died and I know it's not a small number not at all like I could you know make a long list and it just keeps happening like I have a memorial service later tonight well a couple days ago like a really

[00:19:37] well-known trans activist died just unexpectedly in her sleep and like last week one of the early ACT UP people who um they would do needle exchange in the street while it was illegal they got

[00:19:50] arrested and then they went to trial and that trial made needle exchange legal in New York so Kathy is part of that and you know we just got a message over the ACT UP alumni group last week

[00:20:01] that she had ended her life I mean it's open season on trans people politically right now and that's a lot to take in you know yeah I mean trans suicide rates are sky high some people did this

[00:20:14] cool thing though they started a hotline just for trans people the trans lifeline yeah oh I think that's the one that doesn't get certain kinds of funding so that means I could be wrong so that

[00:20:26] means they aren't required to do the bullsh** exactly we're kind of the same way like we don't take we don't have any government funding here my center's all private donations and grants and

[00:20:37] selling t-shirts and whatever else you know good for them that lifeline is that something you want to include in the notes maybe the number yeah sure that'd be awesome yeah I mean you never know

[00:20:47] who sees it and boom there's a uh movie I saw not too too long a documentary some kind of a group up in Quebec somewhere yeah they get to talk to people kind of like I am I mean they're probably

[00:20:59] better at it because I'm not really in that quite quite that role and they don't have to do anything I think they can do something right yeah you don't have to you know and it's such a goddamn awful

[00:21:09] experience to to wind up in the psych yard it's just like I mean I've been to jail a lot and they're it's really similar yeah it's astounding really like that's just the best

[00:21:22] word and it's not the right word yeah I mean like why do they have that clanging doors just like Rikers Island like what the f**k you know I don't even know why they need clanging doors

[00:21:31] in Rikers Island but that's oh that's another pocket too but like yeah I mean you can literally argue it should be like almost everything they're doing not everything but almost let's just do the opposite and you're gonna have better results yeah like literally if you're confused

[00:21:44] clanging doors all right what's the opposite of that cushion doors better idea yeah no you could totally redesign just the architecture would be an improvement you know among so many other things

[00:21:55] so you so when when it when is it that you get tired enough confused enough depressed enough this enough that enough where you attempt bad with chronology but it was either 2001 or 2002

[00:22:10] my mother had died in 99 I was living alone in the house they had bought for her with all her stuff and it took me like six months to even realize I could turn off the radio because it had been

[00:22:22] playing my whole life she always had classical music playing and I was just so used to it that I was like wait I could turn this off you know but it was very much her space and it was like

[00:22:33] it's in Bay Ridge okay yeah so far away from you know I always worked in Manhattan you know I still live there so for our listeners non-New Yorkers Bay Ridge is a part of Brooklyn but it's on the

[00:22:46] lower or southern sort of area so however you're getting to Manhattan typically subway if you can it's still probably a solid hour hour and a half to here yeah yeah yeah so and then you're

[00:22:57] grinding and it's usually crowded and you know all that yep plus it's politically very conservative which is not ideal for me right and this long commute and you ain't getting rich that I know

[00:23:09] in fact I call it my inverse career because every job I've taken I've kind of made less doing more and more good work but the first year we we started new alternative I didn't take a

[00:23:22] salary at all because we were starting we didn't have anything you know so the first year was just like fundraising and stuff I was kind of babysitting my dad at the same time because he had dementia

[00:23:32] so I'd sit at his table and in between answering what time is it I would um fundraise and write grants and all that stuff and that's how we got going what what year was that 15 years ago this

[00:23:44] is our 15th anniversary congratulations yeah I always say if I'd had a baby instead of an organization they would be in high school you asked me when I finally uh got around to trying

[00:23:54] and so it was 2001 or 2002 I decided to ask my very conservative grandfather who owned the house if we could sell and I could move into something sort of more appropriate for me you know closer

[00:24:09] to where I needed to be and maybe like away from the conservatives and tell him that but just stuff like that because the house was just not and it was full of basically my mother's ghost right

[00:24:20] so I just wanted to get the fuck out of there I wrote him a very formal kind of proposal and I said look you know I have friends who are engineers and whatnot you know I went to Stuyvesant so I

[00:24:30] know all these people who are like Stuyvesant is a is one of the best high schools uh beyond New York but in New York City but it's public but it's really hard to get into it's got a very good I

[00:24:42] believe it still has a very good reputation yeah it does there's a big controversy over the test now about whether it's fair to people from different backgrounds a real question so I wrote him this

[00:24:53] proposal and I said look you know my friends are engineers they can check out a house like you don't have to come out here because he was you know in his late 80s probably then you know and

[00:25:02] I laid it out because he was like super logical like you know Spock kind of guy and so he wrote me back this letter that basically said suck it up you know like when I was young you know I had to

[00:25:15] all that shit right yeah and you know and I have almost no family right so my mother was already gone my father my birth father died when I was in college I had just my grandparents and one

[00:25:26] sort of remote uncle so I just felt very alone and I felt very trapped and just unsupported and I just lost it like I just got so overwhelmed I went upstairs and I had some medicine that was left

[00:25:40] from my mother's cancer you know like her pain meds opioids she had taken some of them and I just remember thinking these are for pain and I'm in a hell of a lot of pain and I just swallowed

[00:25:51] them all and went to bed it was a three-day weekend I remember thinking it's a three-day weekend so I have an extra day when nobody's gonna miss me you know what I mean I woke up maybe a

[00:26:02] day and a half later like super sick like the floor was tilting and I was just like all right I'm gonna tell them I have the flu you know just like people work like if I had to call out and

[00:26:12] then crazily enough I guess it was it was the 4th of July weekend so there was something going on near me in the harbor like giant boats you know some patriotic thing and my friends from the church

[00:26:25] ladies for choice which also might need some explanation right so you know it's a mostly drag group mostly men but a few women and we dress up like church ladies and we go and we support

[00:26:38] people doing like clinic escorts at abortion clinics and like we face off against the the right-wingers who want to blow up the clinics and stuff wow you know we we get fun gigs too like we

[00:26:49] we got to perform at CBGB once for a benefit for something and then we always sing for the dyke march every year things like that it's a day before pride date they decided they wanted to come

[00:27:03] to bay ridge to see the ships the church ladies like all 12 of them or something so I'm just like totally sick and I'm like how am I going to get through this without them noticing that I'm like

[00:27:14] teetering then my dad pops up because he wanted to see the ships too I'm like what is happening here and so you know I just drank a whole bunch of water I was like maybe I can dilute this shit

[00:27:25] you know and um went off with them and there's this picture someone took of me and my dad with the verrazano right in the background and I'm standing there like looking like a complete zombie

[00:27:35] like I'm gonna fall right over and but my dad was mostly blind so of course he didn't notice so you live I did that was over 20 years ago yeah and it's been like just a thing where every now

[00:27:48] and then it just gets too intense and it's like you know when I was at Sylvia's it was standing on the edge when I was at cases my last year there and I loved that job I loved working with

[00:27:59] teen felons but it was very what sucked is that I could see people making progress but if they came up positive for weed or something the judges would send them back to jail they didn't care

[00:28:08] about progress in any other so that was really hard you know or just other stuff like you know running into the cops again and then that's contact and then blah blah blah but my last

[00:28:18] year like I just fell into this like hole and I was on the sixth floor my office had a window for almost like a year I think I sat there thinking about okay if I climb on the filing cabinet and

[00:28:30] then put one foot on the windowsill and then open you know I had like these steps and then I was like there was also a stairwell and I used to go nobody took the stairs you know I would go in

[00:28:39] there and I would um I would take crying breaks you know just try to cry it out and then go back to work and um that stairwell had a window too and I'd be like maybe this one's better than my

[00:28:51] office people are less likely to notice and the stairwell would have been more like a little bit more uh athletic because you you had a little more like climbing and stuff to do but I was much

[00:29:02] younger then so I could have done it and but what stopped me was they were doing construction right outside and there was no uh pavement there and I was like if I jump and I land on the dirt

[00:29:17] it's softer than concrete and I'm like what if I yeah you know and I checked out roof access but I couldn't get to the roof so I was just like but I was so I just and then I was like cutting a lot

[00:29:29] and cutting when you're a grown-up is like especially if you're in a responsible job it's like very you really have to hide so then I'm wearing like jackets and long sleeves and everything

[00:29:39] and a colleague of mine who is she was an art therapist and she's like what the hell's going on you know because we used to co-lead groups and stuff I knew people were starting to talk like

[00:29:50] because people I think noticed my crying breaks and whatnot you know and finally she kind of cornered me and was like look you know you you have to see a therapist and I was like okay you

[00:30:01] know my last experience of therapy had been like forced therapy you know foster care which is a whole different animal so she sent me to this woman who was a um a hub like she sort of assesses

[00:30:13] people and then farms them out to art therapists around the city I had been doing this thing called a visual journal where you draw a self-portrait pretty much every day mine of course were like

[00:30:23] disturbing and I brought them along and she looked at them and she was kind of like well if I send you to a therapist you have to promise not to commit suicide and she's like well you know

[00:30:33] because it's just really hard for therapists when people do that so she was like promise and I'll send you to a therapist or I can call an ambulance right now this is what happens when you're honest

[00:30:46] yes even if you're honest through drawings yes promise not to do it or we're taking you in an ambulance like think about that motherfucker what the yeah by then wound up leaving I was just so

[00:30:59] screwed up at that point and one day my boss who was really cool we were close sat in the client chair in my office and I just looked at him and I was like Joe you know I can't I can't stay and he

[00:31:10] was like yeah I know because of what you're going through yeah because I was just too wow just remembering that is hard it's okay yeah it's okay we can almost treat this as that like the

[00:31:22] same space that you used to cry in right like that little space where it doesn't have to be private this would have been about 2003 so she did send me to a therapist who then sent me to a psychiatrist

[00:31:35] and he was really really good like he was gay and activist minded and we just really connected so you know I started taking some meds and he kept trying different things and then I gained

[00:31:46] weight which is how I got to the weight I still am because it just changes your metabolism and you can't get rid of it you know he would say to me just like hang on there's a drug coming down the

[00:31:56] pipeline that I think is really gonna help and um you know he was really cool because he'd be like he was going on vacation and he's like look if you need to call me I can talk to you from a beautiful

[00:32:05] place you know it's fine did you ever call him no you never called I don't like to intrude I'm like too polite I guess no okay eventually the new drugs the SNRIs came down the pipeline and so

[00:32:19] I started those and they made a big difference and for a while I was okay you know didn't last forever but he had to close his practice which was a big loss but then he had sent me to a different

[00:32:31] therapist who I still have although she's retiring in June but so you've been with two therapists for quite a while I mean well the first one not that long because she was just like I felt

[00:32:41] like she was projecting she was she was a work an artist and a therapist and she was just like you know trying to push me towards because I mean I used to be very you know I used to make a lot of

[00:32:52] ceramic sculpture and she was trying to push me towards art but I'm like I can't live off art you know finally I was just like you know no you're like trying to push me somewhere I'm not I don't

[00:33:03] want to go you know the psychiatrist sent me to a different therapist and you know I'm still with her but she's gonna retire in June been like 20 years or something wow yeah so I know you attempted

[00:33:17] in 2001 or 2002 you had a near attempt in 2003 at the window but for the reasons you mentioned you didn't go you didn't yeah so what about since then so I took over the shelter with the crazy

[00:33:31] pastor as my boss and I wound up standing on train platforms trying not to jump so we know and we know you never did I didn't it was very difficult one time actually a woman I was standing

[00:33:44] on the sixth platform and I was crying and I was pretty close to the edge and this woman just put her arms around me she just hugged me she didn't speak English I had no idea what she was saying

[00:33:55] but she just like hugged me and then when the train came she just pulled me into the train it was like she was I don't know sent by the universe or something if someone were to see you

[00:34:06] on a normal day at that train after that work when you were feeling that way would would they probably be able to know you weren't doing okay I don't know I mean that day I was crying so I think

[00:34:17] like tipped her off but you know usually you do see people close to the edge trying to look for the train and whatnot those are the people usually fall off you know yeah I have a rule in New York

[00:34:28] uh I have no idea I'm just maybe just afraid of stuff but my back is always against the pillar yeah I don't go close to the edge because you don't want people to push folks yeah hell no I'd

[00:34:39] rather wait and miss my train I don't give a shit yeah one day I was actually I had taken a client to the psych ER which is ironic but she was she was psychotic which is the one time I think

[00:34:50] psyche ours are somewhat helpful so I had taken her and we were sitting there forever because we were at Bellevue another public hospital and they brought in a train crew that had hit some and they

[00:35:01] were there for like trauma you know they were yeah and so that was definitely between them and my friend the motorman that was taught me a lot about you know you don't want to do the train thing

[00:35:13] you know I always have these thoughts I mean they just aren't part of me so I got some kind of uh autoimmune thing that started affecting my spine and they couldn't figure it out and I you know

[00:35:23] it started out with this like intense lower back pain and then my right foot turned outward and wouldn't turn in like I lost feeling in both my feet and then I started staggering like I was drunk

[00:35:34] and then finally one day I was on my way to work and I fell down in the middle of 7th Avenue and Christopher Street and I could not get up you know and in the meantime you know doctors were

[00:35:42] all like oh we don't know and finally you know which is really scary because it's like clearly something bad is happening and after I fell my board of directors was like look you got to work

[00:35:54] from home and I was like you guys had a meeting without me there made this decision and you're ordering me and so I said to them I don't need to work from home what I need is transportation

[00:36:04] so I don't fall down in the middle of the street and so they gave me like rides back and forth so but my partner at the time you know she had had multiple attempts in fact when she finally died

[00:36:16] and I had to call her mother her mother said you know I've been waiting for this for for decades yeah it was the pulse massacre happened you know the mass murder of all the LGBT people that was a

[00:36:29] Sunday and she was really upset about it like I mean there were other things trying to go to school and struggling with that and whatnot but um that really shook her up and so she wasn't living with

[00:36:38] me at the time she was living in a mental health supportive housing program we went out to dinner and I was looking at her and I could see she was slowed down and you know my my work brain is like

[00:36:48] psychomotor retardation you know but then I'm like I always struggled like I'm her girlfriend I'm not at work right now you know what I mean so it was always a struggle to know like how to

[00:36:58] walk that line so I um I said to her do you have an appointment with your therapist and she was like yeah I'm seeing her tomorrow and I'm see she was also seeing her regular doctor who she really

[00:37:08] liked but what she didn't tell me was she also had an appointment with this fly by night pain specialist he wound up like being kicked out of medicine because he killed he'd already he killed her

[00:37:19] friend too I mean he was just too liberal with these intense medicines so here he is with somebody that he knows has a mental health history and he gives her like a big bottle of opioids and so she just

[00:37:33] you know she did go see her therapist she went and saw her doctor and then she went home and I had gone right from work to the first meeting of gays against guns so I'm like there pretty late and so I

[00:37:45] by the time I got out I thought I was probably asleep so I didn't call the next day I went to work and I it's still so and I was really busy and I didn't notice that I hadn't heard from her

[00:37:56] and then Saturday I got up I was getting ready to go to her house because I I was allowed to spend weekends there and so I would go and I would cook so she would have food and I was getting ready

[00:38:05] and her mother called me and said have you if you heard from her and I said actually I haven't and so we were like what the hell and I'm Bay Ridge she was in Cypress Hills so it's a good 40 minutes in a

[00:38:17] cab you know so I just grabbed a cab and like headed over there and on the way I got hold of her friend who lived downstairs and her friend was like had a key because she would babysit the cat

[00:38:29] and she went up there she was like I don't think she's breathing and that was a really rough ride I get there and the front door is propped open and cops are there and everything but there's like

[00:38:42] you know how when they're rushing someone to the hospital there's that chaos that frenetic energy there wasn't any of that there was no rush because she was dead you know so you know I walked into

[00:38:52] I up the stairs into her apartment I head to the bedroom and a cop just put out his arm and stopped me as I was about to go through the door and all I saw was her arm dangling off the bed and he said

[00:39:05] to me you don't want to go in there so I kind of sat on the couch my brain was short-circuiting and he said call her family so I did I called her uncle Dave and who she was really close to

[00:39:18] and we used to go spend time at his house in Connecticut and I called her mom then they were like you know you got to wait for the medical examiner to come so you can identify her

[00:39:29] there was a long wait and I needed to take her cat to the vet to board because her cat was mean and she hated me and she wouldn't have gotten along with my cat so we so I called the vet and he knew

[00:39:41] her she had worked for him for a little period and so he was just like you know Kate I'll stay here you know you bring you know you wait for the ME and then just bring her when you can and I'll

[00:39:52] just wait here and the medical examiner came and he went in the room and then came out and shows me these pictures and he says they were of her tattoos he said her face is unrecognizable

[00:40:05] I can hear those words even now you know because when she overdosed she'd had seizures and she'd like cracked her head and was like sideways on the bed like with her head hanging

[00:40:17] off the edge and so all of the blood had gone into her face you know I did the things you have to do but the crazy thing was I couldn't get hold of the mental health program that ran her apartment

[00:40:30] like I even wound up leaving a message on their main number and the only reason I ever got hold of them is that my friend you know it's the director of a mental health housing program she called the

[00:40:40] state agency that's responsible for these programs got and they got in touch with the ED and then she called me this is crazy like why is there not an emergency number like why can't I you know this is

[00:40:51] another failure of the system right the thing is I I still wonder because that was while I was struggling to walk and getting worse and I had been sort of the head of the household you know

[00:41:04] what I mean so like I was her rock and I couldn't do that as much and I tried I mean I showed up and cooked even when I had to hold on to the counter just keep from falling out you know the

[00:41:16] thing is that I always feel like maybe I should have told her because I was thinking about doing it and then she did it and I just was like maybe I should have told her that because maybe she would

[00:41:27] have felt less alone if she knew that I don't know you know I'm so used to keeping up this competent front together for 21 years. Wow. Yeah and I mean cleaning up you know like yeah we um

[00:41:42] I had to pack up her apartment and when I went into the bedroom and moved the bed a little bit to get to the stuff underneath there was a pool of blood on the floor because her head had been

[00:41:53] cracked open and hanging over the bed there's a lot of blood on the floor and that's another one of those images that never leaves you. For sure not. You know even while she was in the program I

[00:42:04] was used to falling asleep with her on the phone like I'm like I don't know how to fall asleep myself you know and then like I didn't know how to cook because I always cooked the things she

[00:42:13] liked I still don't really know how to cook for one person you know my dad my dad's gone too so I was like I used to cook for both of them and then I'm like that's just me you know and just

[00:42:23] every everything you have to learn to do differently. Can I ask you a really sensitive question which of course you can say you don't want to answer of course I'm going to make the assumption

[00:42:34] that your ex that your partner tried as best she could until she couldn't. She struggled yeah. Yeah made the choice she made we don't as far as I understand have a way to communicate with her.

[00:42:47] We need a Ouija board. If you were there as she was about to ingest those pills knowing what you wanted to do what do you do what do you say? I mean I just feel like if I'd said I feel it

[00:42:59] I feel it too and you know you're not alone and this is something we can do together just like we did everything else together you know. Yeah. I mean trying to fight it not not taking the pills

[00:43:13] together although that's also might have been an option. I mean that's an option and I don't have these kinds of conversations too often because the lost survivor thing doesn't doesn't come up

[00:43:23] too much so I'm not going to ask much about it but the other thing I was curious about and I realize words are limiting I know these things tend to go through all sorts of phases and and

[00:43:34] I'm not going by the the standard five phases of I'm not talking about that but that that you're not exactly the same person today as you were on that day. Okay. By and large how do you feel about

[00:43:45] her suicide? I mean now that I have enough perspective in a way it's a relief because you know she was struggling so much the time before when she had tried I it was the middle

[00:43:57] of the night and I got this call from the hospital like we don't know if she's going to make it you better get over here you know and she was in the ICU and there were many many times she wound up

[00:44:07] hospitalized and I'd have to like run over there and all kinds of stuff you know and it was it was difficult to watch and it was difficult to try to be there for her and to know what to figure out

[00:44:21] like what to do if anything like like one time they'd given her steroids for her asthma and it flipped her into psychosis. I got went to visit her she was in the medical ward for asthma right

[00:44:35] so I go to visit her and she's telling me our text messages are being projected onto the next lady's television screen and just all this shit that didn't make sense and I'm like do none of the

[00:44:48] medical staff notice that she doesn't make sense and they hadn't Bellevue you know so I mean I told them I'm like hello she's psychotic like and so she wound up in the in the ward of course and but

[00:45:01] she was there a long time it took a long time to get her out of that and while she was there she asked me for a children's bible it was really odd because she wasn't very religious she was a

[00:45:11] Unitarian but I so I'm at Barnes and Noble in the children's section looking at the bibles and the the salesperson comes over and is like oh you know how old is the child and I'm like 38 you know

[00:45:24] like how do you explain to somebody in the children's section that you're looking for a bible for your partner who's gone psychotic you know yeah I have a visual of that and it's

[00:45:34] just a strange image yeah yeah I mean I picked one for her and she was happy with it so all right let me get back to some of your stuff you never jumped in front of a train at some point you lose

[00:45:48] your partner to suicide do you try again so I think it's been maybe a year and a half things got really bad with my board of directors I'm not going to go into detail but like it was really bad

[00:46:00] like I was just pretty devastated the suicidal thoughts were like really loud and constant and I couldn't it was like screaming at me you know I had a prescription for potassium and I just

[00:46:12] was saving them all if your potassium levels go off it affects your heart not a good thing and uh and so I was thinking well you know maybe taking a whole lot of these pills would do it or I might

[00:46:27] I had syringes because I had a sick cat and um I was like I could I could dissolve them and shoot them up like you do with yeah so I managed not to do it but I still have them you still have them

[00:46:41] and I keep adding every month when they give me more yeah no I you know nobody knows that but you well make sure you want me to include it in the podcast because I don't think people are gonna

[00:46:52] know but they don't yeah I don't think your podcast people are know where I am I can't come throw out my I imagine it since I've started that has happened here and there but yes it's rare

[00:47:06] that someone might randomly hear and be like holy shit I know that person I don't know if I ever asked you I know that I asked you how you found the podcast and how you're feeling so I know

[00:47:17] given that you just said you're stockpiling and given everything you shared I know you still think about it I'm imagining it's not infrequent but I want to know better why you want to talk

[00:47:27] about it with not just me but you know it gets broadcast if that's the right word out to other people I mean I think the silence is really I mean I know it's been really hard for me like the fact

[00:47:37] that people will shut you down if you even try to talk to them about it like and like I have a good friend who's he's a social worker and fellow activist I've known him forever but you know he's

[00:47:48] just like don't tell me that and partly I think he's just worried about you know his license blah blah blah but like I think I don't know it's just people just you can't talk to people about this is

[00:47:58] how I wound up in the psyche are actually you know I had a neighbor next door who was like really harassing me and he called the department of buildings to come as a form of harassment and

[00:48:08] they showed up and luckily I was in my nightgown and they were like all right we'll come back sometime some other time you're not dressed which was strange but lucky but so I was completely

[00:48:18] freaking out because my house is not in great condition because I don't have a lot of money to fix stuff and it's 100 years old right yeah it's like I don't think this house could pass

[00:48:27] the department of buildings right so I was completely freaking out I was freaking out with my lawyer he was just like I don't know at some point he was just like Kate you've mentioned

[00:48:37] suicide twice in two days and he's like you can either go to the psyche or yourself or I'm gonna call an ambulance and I was like I was like whoa you know like I've known you a long time you're

[00:48:48] an activist I trusted you you know and I can't have an ambulance come to my office you know so I um so I walked over there and I'm just like fuck probably I know the questions maybe I could talk

[00:49:00] my way out right sure so I so I do the whole thing you know and but they they called him and he managed to convince them somehow like the psychiatrist who is also gay gay lawyer gay

[00:49:12] it's like you know he comes back from talking to the lawyer and he says you know your lawyer really loves you and he's really concerned and I can't let you leave and I was just like oh no you know

[00:49:23] and then the thing is they didn't have any beds of course because they're overwhelmed so they give me two chairs you know and I had had spine surgery not that far and so spending a night on

[00:49:35] two chairs when you've had spine surgery is like excruciating like they could tell I was in a lot of pain because my blood pressure kept going up and so finally they just gave me some like I don't

[00:49:44] know what it was I didn't ask some kind of opioid knocked out the pain knocked me out you know whatever but but that was when the clanging doors you know were really getting to me because it was

[00:49:55] very much like my jail experiences except with jail I knew when I would get out you know sort of like okay I'm gonna go before the judge and they're gonna let me out you know the activist related

[00:50:06] stuff yeah the uh so how long were you in that uh psych unit well the next day I gave had given them my therapist number and I guess they couldn't reach her so then the next day they reached her

[00:50:17] and she managed to convince them that uh you know she could keep me safe or whatever so then they let me out oh there's not like an automatic 48 hour rule they kept trying to get me to agree

[00:50:29] to stay for three days and it's like a special program eob the observation beds like I know about it I mean this is the other problem right is that I was terrified I was going to run into a

[00:50:40] client yeah my clients are floating around the system all over the place or a colleague for that matter you know like actually a good friend of mine used to be the supervising social worker

[00:50:50] there I know the eob program and I said to them look you don't even have eob beds down here anymore I know they moved them all uptown and they were just like what how did you know that

[00:51:01] you're talking our language now okay and the funniest thing was they said if you stay for three days we can give you a psychiatrist like it was a door prize and I mean I could use a

[00:51:11] psychiatrist I haven't had one since that guy closed his practice and you know my med stopped working a while back and my primary care doc is scared to change them he's just always I mean he's

[00:51:22] very sympathetic but he's always like you know and he's like tried to find someone who would take my insurance that he could refer me to and wiped out but I'm just a little stuck only it's the only

[00:51:34] time you went to a place like that yeah I'm pretty good at dodging yeah uh how many people know that you tried to end your life in 2001 or 2002 well like Kate knew my partner is also named Kate

[00:51:49] apology were Kate squared um and that psychiatrist knew okay I'm not sure anybody else did did you ever tell anybody actually you you did kind of talk I was going to ask you like did you ever

[00:52:01] tell people about the train or the potassium but I kind of know the answer yeah the train I think I mentioned to a couple close people but like not the potassium because I don't want

[00:52:12] them to stop well that begs the next question what are your plans I don't know yet because there's part of me that knows that doing that would be really devastating to my clients

[00:52:24] and you've been on the other end as well yeah and like you know I definitely you know I mean my I have a lot of clients who deal with suicide you can imagine like we lost one you work with

[00:52:35] young adults people you know don't expect that you're dealing with people dying but our our clients die yeah but not to suicide a lot but AIDS especially it's really bad I'm just I mean I'm

[00:52:48] trying to hold on because I have cats I have eight cats who depend wow oh you're that person you're the cat person in the old house in Brooklyn old big house okay now right now I get it yeah I know

[00:53:00] you didn't know it was going to turn out that way but this is where we are less I have less cats than I used to put it okay but I have enough room you know yeah no I have no doubt that they're

[00:53:09] comfortable you know those are the two right we talked about having some kind of attachment to the yeah world and those are my two so you know the pink purple question yeah so given what you just

[00:53:22] said you would not take it tonight tomorrow night I'd be really tempted you don't have to take a lot of those like the potassium it's just I give you a pill the color really doesn't matter but you

[00:53:35] are not in pain and it is deemed natural so nobody labels you as a suicide whatever it's just you're just not alive anymore yeah I mean I wouldn't care about the label except that maybe

[00:53:48] if I died some other way it would be easier for the clients to grieve yeah that's part of it I was at a memorial service for a client like a week ago or something and I was at the church where

[00:53:59] we used to be based we always rent space in churches because it's cheap it was packed like standing room only because she had been well known in the community I just suddenly found

[00:54:08] myself thinking I know more people than this they're not going to be able to use this space for mine you know they're gonna have to find a bigger space sort of random thought you know

[00:54:18] that's the thought right there's a lot of thoughts you could have had that's the one uh how many people do you have in your life that you can have a conversation let's say about your

[00:54:27] own suicidal ideation with and feel okay about it at a minimum there are three but two of them are like super busy people and not you know like if we manage to both be in the same space at the

[00:54:42] same time we can you know and the third I kind of think of him as a suicide buddy because he's a combat veteran and he goes through a lot of stuff yeah um like he was shot in Afghanistan

[00:54:54] in the chest and you know his bulletproof vest saved him but like you can imagine what that does to your mind right I mean to be honest no but I could yeah I can imagine but not really you know

[00:55:06] you know we talk about it because he goes through it and I go through it and hopefully you know sometimes we manage to like if we're not both down at the same time we can like I stayed up with him

[00:55:19] all night once when he was thinking about taking all his meds like it was veterans day and he was freaking out yeah did you uh ever receive a diagnosis you agree with yeah I mean major

[00:55:30] depression common cold of psychiatry is that it yeah maybe you can add anxiety these days too sure who doesn't have anxiety I mean our planet is literally ending who who doesn't have it you know

[00:55:43] you're the weird one if you don't have anxiety at this point you're like it's not us um when you think about specifically um you know 2001 2002 do you ever wish that things had turned out

[00:55:54] differently and you you didn't make it oh yeah yeah that would have I mean it just would have kept me away from a lot of very painful experiences that have happened since then

[00:56:05] would that have meant that hate would have lost you and not you losing her that is true yeah does anything other than I'm going to make an assumption helping your clients and playing with your cats

[00:56:17] because I feel like you get joy from those or some value from that uh does anything help activism helps but it's so it's hard for me to do because I have trouble standing for very long like one of my

[00:56:32] legs goes crazy and just collapses so it just makes it really hard like although I did I did do the reclaim pride march this June which two years ago I had to do it in a wheelchair so

[00:56:46] getting there you know I'm hesitant to get arrested like especially to get picked up because you know they took three vertebrae out of my spine like I literally have a soft patch in my back

[00:56:59] because there's no bone there the cops in New York City especially really rough or they can't be like I've been injured by them before yeah so I you know I just hesitate to do that now and it's

[00:57:11] weird because it's something I've been doing since I was 15 which is amazing look about what I was doing when I'm 15 like man that's amazing any myths or misconceptions about any of the things

[00:57:24] we've been talking about here today big myth about homeless youth is that you can tell by looking and in fact our clients go all out not to look homeless you know because they pick through the

[00:57:35] the donations which you know who can afford to give away their clothes people with money so they're often nice things and the clients you know dress up and you know really go to extremes

[00:57:47] to not look homeless I had a gay dentist once who said to me I know the kids on the pier are mostly homeless but they have such expensive shoes on and I said well that's because they came from the

[00:57:57] donation table you know like that's the one that comes to my mind I want to ask you this question about you Kate but also about you Kate suicide attempt survivor this might sound a little corny

[00:58:09] here's the question what is the biggest myth about you oh that's that I'm it's so funny because I did this fucking assessment because the board brought in a consultant and all that right so I

[00:58:21] did this assessment where they gave my staff asked the people who worked for me and the board these questionnaires and about me right so terrible feeling you know the feedback that came back to me

[00:58:33] was all like people kept talking about how I'm always calm even if it's an emergency and stuff and I'm like boy you have no idea that's the myth inside outside the outer face yeah tiring yeah and

[00:58:46] it's you know I think of it like Star Trek right it's just like you know shields up but like there are all these things hitting the shields and it's like uh-oh what if they short circuit I actually

[00:58:57] flipped out a couple weeks ago I was in the meeting with the board and the consultant it was a four hour meeting I knew it was going to be difficult going in and like my my biggest supporter on the

[00:59:09] board was not able to come he had a funeral so I didn't you know have his like just vibe you know to help me and um held it together for a couple hours and then she did this thing where she put

[00:59:23] up a piece of paper on the wall and told everyone to put up notes about the state of the program they were all negative the board put it and I just started to cry but I was trying to be like low-key

[00:59:36] about it because other feedback had come to me that I'm like too emotional in board meetings right so I'm like what do they want me to do like they think I have a switch you know that I could just

[00:59:46] turn it off for now I was trying to be low-key about it and then someone passed up one last thing to stick on and it was the word reactive and I felt like it was referring to me crying right

[00:59:57] and um it just flipped out like I stood up I screamed like hell yes I'm reactive and I ran out of the room and I hid in the sanctuary and just cried and if there had been anything in

[01:00:09] there that I could have ended my life with I would have I was just like out of control you know the sanctuary is a pretty safe place because that's why they call it a sanctuary you know

[01:00:18] I could have run out of the building but when I came down the stairs there were people in the vestibule and I didn't want to go through them and the only other place to go from there was

[01:00:28] the sanctuary so I ran in there this is this building this your office this building yeah this building what floor are you on I'm on the second floor this is a very old church that's

[01:00:38] mostly social services now you're gonna be like spraining ankle if you jump from the second window that's all you know well we can't open the windows look they're stained glass wow nice

[01:00:48] nice very nice do you think you're gonna listen to this when it comes out let's say in a few weeks I don't know I don't you know I do a lot of like media work about homeless youth I don't listen to

[01:00:58] that you think you'll tell anybody to listen no it's not it's not my way of trying to get new listenership I'm just kidding no no I didn't tell anybody I was doing this I mean my thing about it

[01:01:09] is I just didn't want people to get into like worry mode you know like as soon as you mentioned suicide you know people start getting all agitated well Kate in New York City number one thank you

[01:01:21] very much sure would you like to add anything else I just think you know if you're trying to be a supportive friend don't just have one conversation and then never follow up because that's what I've

[01:01:34] seen a lot of it's like okay if one conversation and it's like people want to put a bow on it and say okay that's done we talked but you know the person's still going through this on an ongoing

[01:01:47] basis and so it's always been a little like bothersome to me that people don't check back in they just they ghost you they don't ghost you right that that's not the right word I don't know

[01:01:56] how to use that word frankly maybe they disappear a bit just get on with their lives sure what's the rest of your night like before we get back to our lives um I don't know I was going to go to a

[01:02:06] memorial service okay I don't think I'm gonna go because now it's kind of late what is this like the third trans uh leader who's died in the last few weeks so what uh what trains do you take to go

[01:02:19] from your office to your home I take the a from port authority and then I switch at west fourth for the d to 36th street in brooklyn and then switch to the r for the rest of the way I know

[01:02:30] yayayay it's just the r is local so you don't want to stay on it any longer than you have to oh I love when new yorkers talk new york talk about subways yeah I mean you are there you just

[01:02:44] don't get to know maybe you care maybe you don't but I've actually been gone from New York for quite a while so I know my stuff but you know time changes things a little bit what I'm excited

[01:02:56] about is they're building an elevator at my home station I can walk pretty well right now but um when I couldn't that was a huge barrier you know like I had to take the car service everywhere

[01:03:10] because I couldn't like with a rolling walker you don't want to try to subway stairs you just you know so I'm just excited because you know you don't know what the future is going to bring and

[01:03:18] like that's one thing is I always you know it's like well when would you actually when would you actually expect to do it and it's like you know I have uh you know chronic pain yeah and it's only

[01:03:29] going to get worse you know what I mean because it's a degenerative condition so yeah also pain gets to be too much yeah it's good to have a way out it's also an under discussed subject oh yeah

[01:03:42] chronic pain and so yeah yeah I mean just chronic pain period but the two together well I think that you and the work you do are admirable and awesome so um I and I hope that doesn't sound glib or trite

[01:03:55] I mean it so thanks again sure you know I love the work that's a big reason I'm here yeah I sure shit hell could not understand how you would do it if you didn't love the work oh yeah because I

[01:04:07] mean you know you're dealing with like I have so much debt but you know you make your choices in life thank you again and yeah for real you two have a good night I hope you get home safe take care

[01:04:19] as always thanks so much for listening and all of your support and special thanks to Kate up in my favorite city in the world New York thanks Kate if you are a suicide attempt survivor and

[01:04:32] you'd like to talk please reach out hello at suicidenoted.com on Facebook or Twitter at suicidenoted please check the show notes to learn more about this podcast including our membership

[01:04:48] and that is all for episode number 201 stay strong do the best you can I will talk to you soon