Voices from the Tour - Atlantic

[00:00:00] Hey there, my name is Sean and this is Suicide Noted on this podcast. I talk with suicide attempt survivors and ideators 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 when we do talk about it. Many of us, most of us, we're not very good at it. So one of my goals with this podcast and the tour and some other projects is to have more conversations and hopefully better conversations in large part to help more people in more places hopefully feel a little less shitty and a little less

[00:00:30] alone. Now if though if you are an attempt survivor or ideator and you'd like to talk please reach out I'd love to talk with you hello at suicide noted.com today's episode and the next few episodes gonna be a little different you know that there was a tour and I captured some of the tour shared it with you here on the podcast after each of the events I spoke with some people in the audience one on one today you'll hear from people in Raleigh North Carolina and there was a recent episode from

[00:00:59] that event right here on this podcast as well as Alexandria Virginia where there will not be anything from that event blame tech issues what you will first hear is actually Kelly who along with JP I spoke with at the event past guests suicide attempt survivors we talked before the event then the event happened people from the audience shared a lot of stuff with us which was great and then I have my one on one conversations and that is what you are going to hear

[00:01:30] after you hear that I'll give you a little transition and then you will hear from some people at our Alexandria event I hope you enjoy it it's a little bit of a different take mostly an audience's perspective it's short the audio isn't fantastic but we're doing what we can do as best we can do it now you know we're talking about suicide here on this podcast so please 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

[00:01:59] well with a lot of people well with a lot of people some of them survivors some of them not I hope you enjoy the conversation hey Kelly hi Sean how are you uh well we're about 50 minutes away from a live event and you're gonna be in it talking about stuff that isn't commonly talked about so how do you feel I feel okay right now I feel

[00:02:25] that what we are doing is a really strong message it's a different way to talk about and think about suicide and they're probably messages someone in the audience or someone on the panel least here and purple hair and purple hair which working is working thank you and I just want to show people how we got a couple people who are supporting Kelly and are curious and we're here and then we've got that and that that's Mike what's up Mike Mike helped me make this

[00:02:53] incredible event because he knows things about technology that I think are in the one percent of the one percent so we're doing it kind of professional this is actually a nightclub I'll see I'm looking forward to talking to you in like an hour hardcore night bye my name is Nancy um I came to this because

[00:03:16] I um think that suicide doesn't need to be a taboo word anymore when I made my attempt I could not even say the word suicide and if it wasn't for one support group in the United States that had an online support group that's what kept me alive there were many bereavement groups but there was none no support groups for someone who have has attempted or deal with suicidal ideations and that's what has kept me alive

[00:03:43] you know after my you know in a society when someone is ill uh and is out of the hospital you know you usually your support sister brings casseroles well nobody brought me casseroles nobody you know it was absolute opposite people just went away um because they didn't want to know about it so it's because it's a taboo subject and we can't stay alive without support we're humans we need people we need community and it

[00:04:09] doesn't need to be a tab we have to be able to talk about it and be our true authentic self thank you thank you yeah um i'm kayla dunn i'm a student who's studying psychology so that's one of the reasons i came i it's like i'm an aspiring therapist i don't really have a like connection to suicide i don't like before this i didn't really like i don't know anybody who's like committed suicide or so i wanted to

[00:04:34] get a broader perspective about like suicide and i think that the topic should be talked about more one other question i have for you like i'm not going to ask like did you learn anything but i'm i'm curious is something really surprising about the last two hours if anything i think i always hear that um like people would say like you're not supposed to talk about suicide because i don't make people

[00:05:00] like you want to commit suicide or they're talking about it they have ideation like they'll then they'll want to like it'll make them think that like about it and make them more likely to but i don't think that's the case like talking about it's not going to make someone more likely to like go do it i think it actually will help them because then like since they're getting to talk through it then like they

[00:05:25] get to talk about their experiences with other people thanks oh you are allowed to say what's your name nicole in it for why did you come here today uh i came here today because i have experience with a child who has suicidal ideations and many many attempts along with substance abuse and just a long history of complexities um however i feel like it's very very important to collaborate with people in the

[00:05:55] community meet people have that engagement and to learn more about other resources so that i could provide them to people that i encounter in my life because you never know who's going to walk through your life path or going you're going to have encounters with so with that being said i'm just a public servant i'm also a humanistic realistic person that supports humanity in all capacities and i'll

[00:06:24] always continue to do that um that is how i'm built that's how i'm designed that's how i'm wired and i have to take the time to educate myself and talk to people and learn from people's experience in order to gain that experience and that's what i have had the privilege in and in different capacities with my own daughter what was it great what she goes through and has gone to no however it has really conditioned me

[00:06:52] in order to understand and help others along the way which again this these are learned uh experiences it's not something you're born with like you have to really get out there and get past that uh challenging and uncomfortable surface with people yeah thanks what's your name hi i'm sharon eisner

[00:07:15] what is your why did you come to this event today well first of all i know sean wellington uh since before he was doing suicide noted um we're involved in storytelling endeavors together and also i just want to support the effort to destigmatize this topic i think that in general we want to support our friends in whatever they do but there i feel like there are some exceptions to that and i feel like

[00:07:45] if my friend tells me you know i want to go travel i'll support them if my friend tells me i want to explore this thing but when someone tells me they have committed so they have tried to commit suicide or they want to commit suicide i feel like there's a hands-off approach like i don't even want to go there i don't want to talk about it i want to support you i want you to go talk about it to somebody else and i mean i don't feel that way necessarily but i feel like that's the feeling that's out there

[00:08:12] so i want people to feel like they're allowed to talk and that they're allowed to share and that they're encouraged to share so that this will be less of a taboo i have another question one more yeah was there anything um and i'm not looking you know i'm not looking for any stuff or bullshit was there anything in the conversation the questions asked the guests the whoever speakers

[00:08:38] that surprised you you were like holy shit i didn't expect that no nothing surprised me um i was interested that there was a death doula in the audience that was interesting i mean there was a question i wanted to ask but i didn't know how to formulate it uh-huh um one of the speakers spoke about not taking action on that particular day when he was

[00:09:03] tempted to because he remembered it's his daughter's birthday and what came to my mind is when you're a person who has children and this is coming from a perspective where i have a friend whose mother did take her life and what came to my mind is you know that would certainly be a terrible legacy to to have a father who who uh took his own life on your birthday but only minimally harder than having a father who took his own life at all

[00:09:31] mm-hmm so i guess i didn't know what to ask but being a parent and considering suicide does it does it feel like they're better off without you that would be a good question yeah right does it feel like you have the right to do that or you you don't realize that you're setting

[00:09:55] them up for a lifetime of not knowing but anyway that was just a question that i had no all in all i felt like it was very productive and enjoyable yes i mean enjoyable in a weird way but it was an event that i was glad i came to meaningful thanks for coming sure what's your name my name is alan jose and you came here to this event and i came here yes uh because uh i know sean uh and we've had

[00:10:23] conversations about uh suicide and i think it's important uh to me to understand better uh how to be able to uh talk about death and uh suicide suicide is a is a particular way of looking at it uh in which you emphasize the act of ending the life uh of someone else which happens to be you like fratricide matricide

[00:10:48] suicide and uh you don't uh you don't really think about in the term i'm just talking about the word in the people around and the fact that you are receiving the action and i would like to be better equipped to think about that or do you think about that cool what else do you want to share doesn't have to be good it could be where you can maybe something happened that you heard or

[00:11:14] or saw that you were like weirded out by it didn't like no two hours of conversation about suicide and going a lot of directions yeah i um i liked it very much and there were two things that i noted that made me think that uh i was not expecting maybe learned or maybe realized one of them was the fact that

[00:11:42] you had the questions and you haven't you have audiences audience members that were in their late teens 20s and i feel that is a that is a time in which historically literature tells me it's a time when people think about suicide

[00:12:04] and uh i don't know why there is this window of time in which that happens but um that caught my eye the second thing was um the mention of uh death doula yeah death doula is uh is uh in hospitals a controversial term

[00:12:24] because birth doulas they're they're there to make the baby born and help physically the person go through the motions to give birth and death doulas they've been accused of uh having the objective of making death happen uh as life happen so it's very controversial the the many hospitals don't don't work with uh with

[00:12:54] the concept of death doulas and you have you had in the audience the presence of the persons who do that in hospitals who are the chaplains you also had a chaplain uh talking about her experience so that was interesting thanks for being here just give a beep what's your name lucia foster why did you come to this

[00:13:18] event today lucia i came because i have been listening to suicide noted for a while and i am really appreciative of the discourse that's created on the podcast and also the taboos that are broken in this space to that is given to the guests and i was really intrigued to see how it might work in a live

[00:13:43] format especially um coming from a volunteered space or a volunteer offering volunteer guests and i was um impressed by how natural the conversation felt given the topic and the vulnerability asked of the guests and i was moved do you have any personal connection to suicide i do i've lost too many people to suicide

[00:14:09] uh starting from before i understood what suicide was and um learned as a small kid that our babysitter had taken her own life at 16 and um so i think i've also thankfully uh know people close to me who are attempt

[00:14:31] survivors or ideators who have chosen not to follow through and so for me i feel that creating a space for listening and talking is so valuable uh because the people that i lost didn't actually have access to those spaces anything else you want to share i'm grateful to you sean for pursuing this passion project

[00:14:55] of yours because it is something that really strikes a chord with many of us and there are so many of us that don't know how to talk or facilitate a trust full space for listening and sharing and um i think that's what a lot of people need whether they're ideating or not to really appreciate more humanity in its condition so i appreciate you and the podcast and the live experiment i think tonight was a success and i

[00:15:26] urge you um to feel confident moving forward that this is the right choice thank you thanks sean hey so we just finished uh the first stop of the suicide noted tour and what's your name simone simone why did you come here um to learn more um i'm in school and i think it's important to listen before i step out

[00:15:52] into the counseling field and just start trying to help so i learned a lot i learned a lot what do you have any personal connection to suicide um i do some my own and some with friends so i think talking about it in these settings makes it it normalizes it to be talked about um a lot of people go through things about themselves because they feel like they can't talk about it and things like this allow people

[00:16:17] to understand you can share you should share um it's okay to share so yeah thanks okay and there you go North Carolina some of our audience members sharing in a nightclub actually which was also serving as a church it's kind of cool next up alexandria virginia where we were on i don't remember the floor number but it was a straight up government office building and here are some more voices from the tour i'm sarah

[00:16:44] uh i came here tonight because i've been listening to the podcast and i wanted to hear from people who are dealing with the same kind of ideation that i am and um come from the same place that i'm coming from and i'm really glad i came because it felt very safe talking with everyone and this is the first

[00:17:08] time i've ever been with a group of people who openly talked about feeling suicidal and um i feel like i found my people yeah what do you think is in your experience it sounds like you've been struggling for uh some time what is the biggest uh thing that you think people don't understand i think people

[00:17:29] think that someone who's struggling with ideation um is always attention-seeking if they share it with anyone and um for me that's like the furthest thing from the truth like i don't want to share with anyone um what i'm going through and i think it's okay to to give someone grace and to to believe that

[00:17:54] what they feel is as as hard as as it is what they're going through i want to ask you the pink and purple pill question and i can join us stop before it no this is the interesting thing with pink and purple pill i so i i recently took a gun class and and learn how to use a pistol because i wanted an option so we talked about options i wanted an option and um like when i left the class i had all these extra bullets

[00:18:22] and i wouldn't even take them with me to to keep in my car because i figured that my sons would find them um i would be i would have so much terror that they would find my pill that i would save um so i i wouldn't i wouldn't take it with me but if i did i would save it but i i would probably have nightmares that they would take it so hmm no pill for me no pill no pill for me anything else you want to share

[00:18:46] and i'm not looking for i don't know i just no i just appreciate the podcast because like i mentioned earlier there's no judgment and i think coming here tonight like i think other people think that if you're going to talk about suicide it's it's it's what you can't say it's the more you people

[00:19:12] think the more you talk about it the more you want to do it but the podcast to me is just it's just like hearing people express themselves hearing people finally get it out and and and have that voice and then other people who who are listening who who've thought that they've been struggling alone um what podcast makes me feel like i'm not struggling alone so it's uh it's made a difference in my life

[00:19:38] thanks yeah thanks for doing this uh my name is nicholas and i came here to share my story i was on the podcast but i wanted to engage and talk with other people who had some of the same experiences i get to hear it on the podcast but hearing it live and you know the question answer and the back and forth is

[00:20:01] is a different sort of experience and i can get more you know they're more familiarity with it and uh i feel like a lot of things i can relate to most people don't talk about it and you're talking about it like why is that how is that so why i'm here talking about this because i feel that it's there's a lot of shame i have a lot of shame and that's one of the things that's really

[00:20:28] hard for me and the more i can talk about it the more i can normalize it it's probably one of the best ways for me to get you know to it obviously i'm working very hard to try to not succumb to what i feel like is a disease and this is part of me working very very hard at it

[00:20:52] and i deep down inside i don't want to give up but if you know it happens i know i will succumb to this because it's just it's very difficult last one and then you could add stuff what is it that you think people have the hardest time understanding about this stuff people have a hard time understanding that this isn't doesn't feel like a choice there's not a choice doesn't feel like a choice to be happy

[00:21:18] or just a choice not to do it or to do it it feels very similar to an addictive behavior right that yes if you break it down it feels like a choice but you make these choices because you feel like you have no other choice right so i am not functioning from a normal uh position of do you want to do you not want to you feel that this is everything is so

[00:21:45] painful that this is the only remedy that there is anything else you want to share uh just i want to show that i i appreciate the work you do and i appreciate what i feel like you're trying to do and opening conversations and and pathways so that people can ultimately feel less alone even

[00:22:11] when i'm listening to somebody in England right talk about what's bothering him um i feel less alone and sometimes i get nuggets out of it and for example i think about this not infrequently that i don't remember the person's name but i remember him having an english accent talking about having to forgive yourself is was the hardest thing right and that resonates with me

[00:22:39] fair tell me tell me yeah that guy was a character thanks man yeah uh my name is claire brandt um and i came tonight to support a friend um should i name him yeah i think uh my friend lane uh has been on the podcast in the past if anything do you have any connection with suicide personally family otherwise um not so much in my family that i'm aware of but i had a friend in college who was not exactly

[00:23:07] close but it was part of my circle um who the year he was a year younger than i was in the year after i graduated he committed suicide in the dorm and i still had a lot of i still lived in that town had a lot of close friends who were there and i spent the night in the dorm in that evening in the aftermath of that what what is it like to sit we talked almost two hours so it ended up being

[00:23:31] i think eight or nine people at least half are suicide attempt survivors what is it like to sit in that space um to sit in this space with survivors telling their stories was pretty intense for sure um you know i i think i'm probably kind of absorbing and processing still i often kind of do that in the

[00:23:55] aftermath rather than right in the moment but really appreciated that people wanted to talk um or if not wanted to were willing to talk about it and um because i heard several people say you know people always give somebody space after an event like that after a suicide attempt and maybe that's not really what they need and i hadn't exactly heard that before but that was a good

[00:24:25] thing for me to hear that was good to hear and it was hard you know it's hard to hear people talk about having that much pain you know i know i've had my own depressions in life and i but i haven't i know it i don't think i have felt to the extent that they're feeling that what i've heard them talk about and it's just an observation sure yeah i'm asking you yeah i'm good anything else you want to

[00:24:51] share um i don't think so but thank you for well welcoming me of course thanks so much how did you come to a place where you can speak so openly with people that you don't even know about such personal details because we have them i feel like i can speak so openly about such a taboo

[00:25:14] subjects because they share my experience it's like going to an alcoholics anonymous meeting like you can talk about being a falling down drunk in that setting because everybody else in the room has probably been a falling down drunk at one point or another so there's no shame in that space it's a safe space and so is this what do you think is most similar to like the myths question what is what

[00:25:43] do you think is most misunderstood about all this stuff so i think what i think is most misunderstood is i don't always think that suicide is a direct link to mental illness i don't think everybody that has attempted is bipolar or has major depressive disorder or yes all of those things apply but i don't think that that's a hundred percent kind of rule of thumb mental she had mental illness and that's why she tried

[00:26:11] to commit suicide i think there are a myriad of factors circumstantial uh drug related uh you know whatever you lose a loved one and you feel like you can't take it you get divorced you feel like you can't take it um those things aren't mental illness related they're just human experience related and so i i don't necessarily like people need to categorize it like she's crazy and that's why she committed suicide

[00:26:39] or she's bipolar and that's why she like it helps people feel more comfortable about it but it's uncomfortable and i don't think that it's a rule of thumb that they're intrinsically linked that because a suicide attempt was because of a mental illness i don't think that that's always the case thanks as always thanks so much for listening and all of your support special thanks to everyone involved

[00:27:08] in raleigh north carolina and alexandria virginia thank you if you are suicide attempt survivor or ideator and you'd like to talk please reach out hello at suicidenoted.com check out our weekly poll on spotify i love your thoughts on that and if you listen on apple and think we warrant five stars please

[00:27:31] rate us five stars appreciate it and that's all for this week's episode stay strong do the best you can i'll talk to you soon