Welcome to Courageous Conversations. I'm your host and author of the book Freedom From Shame. I created this podcast to discuss one of the most sensitive and challenging topics, finding freedom from the impact of sexual abuse. In this podcast, we'll bring to light the stories of survivors, share valuable insights from experts, we'll hear from brave people who are willing to take responsibility for the harm they've caused, and we'll explore various aspects of healing and recovery. Together, we'll navigate the complexities of overcoming trauma and finding the strength to reclaim our lives.

So whether you're a survivor seeking solace, an ally eager to understand, or someone simply looking for inspiration, you've come to the right place. You found a safe place where courage meets compassion and where the journey towards healing takes flight. Welcome. Welcome to our very first episode of Courageous Conversations. Today, we're defining what a courageous conversation is, and I'll share one of my most courageous conversations I've ever had, and then I'll introduce my first guest.

So we'll jump right in with defining what courageous conversations are. These are those brave and honest dialogues that delve into the deepest, sometimes uncomfortable parts of our experiences. These are the conversations that take courage to initiate and can lead to healing, understanding, and growth. Courageous conversations are marked with by vulnerability, raw honesty, and a willingness to face difficult truths. It's about breaking the silence, speaking your truth, and confronting issues that may have been buried far too long.

One of the most life changing conversations I had was in 1985 when I decided to get married and have children. And most women are excited when they get engaged, but not me. A few days after saying yes to the question, will you marry me? I fell into despair. The memories of being sexually abused when I was a kid flooded my body, and I knew that I had to have a conversation with my father and take a stand for the safety of my unborn children, children I had wanted as far back as I could remember.

It was simply not an option for me to put them into danger. I knew what I needed to do. I had to be willing to let go of the family I grew up with to ensure my children wouldn't be sexually abused by my father. I called my father and let him know that I wanted to talk to him, and then I drove two hours to his home to give him an ultimatum. Either he could take responsibility for hurting me and get the professional help, or he would never see his grandchildren, who hadn't even been born yet.

That first conversation could have ended badly, but it didn't. It was because of my willingness to have this conversation that my father stepped up and took responsibility for the choices he made. He went on to have deeply, profound, and meaningful relationships with each of his grandchildren, who are now adults. Not everyone has the courage that my father had in taking responsibility and preparing for our call today, I learned that suicide is one of the leading causes of death in The United States. And being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and the shame that I experienced, I'm not surprised.

What did surprise me was learning that childhood sexual abuse or child sexual abuse offenders have a potential suicide risk 100 times more than the general public, with the highest risk when there's a public investigation. I didn't know the potential risk when when I had that first conversation with my father, but statistically, it was there. So if you're a sexual abuse survivor and you've been thinking about confronting the person who harmed you, then I want to encourage you to get support in advance of having a conversation with them. Be prepared. And today we're going to be talking about suicide prevention, what to look for, how to get help.

And my guest, Gordon Clay, created and facilitated several workshops, including Healing the Father Wound, which I participated in over thirty five years ago. And Gordon worked with both my father and me as a guide to heal from the impact of sick of sexual abuse childhood sexual abuse. And Gordon wrote the foreword to my book, Freedom from Trauma, Forgiveness, and Healing from Sexual Abuse, which, of course, I highly recommend that you read. So Gordon is my teacher, my friend, now my colleague, and a suicide prevention advocate who has dedicated the rest of his life to saving lives. So welcome, Gordon.

Oh, Layla. It's really good. Mhmm. Always here. You know, what something came up for me that I hadn't planned to talk about because I didn't think about it is a disclosure.

I my mother died when I was a year and a half old. And remarried to find somebody to take care of me because he was serving in World War two. And and she molested me from an early age, and I'd say around three or four. Yeah. Mentally and spiritually abused me.

So on an early age, I got that embedded in me, and I in our previous talks, I just that went out of my mind. You know? Yeah. Locked me out. So Yeah.

Yeah. Look forward to today. Oh, very good. And I'm so happy to have you here. I'm sorry that that happened to you.

I'm sorry that you know, for myself and you and all the people who have had that form of abuse. So and I'm happy to have you here. When I asked you to join me on this podcast to discuss suicide, I was talking about people committing suicide, and you corrected me. And so I think that it's really important to have the right language to use when we're talking about suicide. Can you share the language that we should use and why it's important?

Yes. Suicide used to be a crime in And so we talked about committed suicide as a legal violation, but that's changed. And so we change our our conversation around that. And so the preferred statements are I they died by suicide or they attempted suicide. Okay.

Yes. Thank you for the clarification of that. I think it's important that for the listeners, anyone listening here that, you know, has that terminology as well. And why? You know?

I'm I'm so curious why suicide prevention is so important to you. Well, thanks for that. That's a really important question to the issue and to why I'm been doing the work I've been doing for the last forty some years, maybe longer. I can't add it up. 1974 is when it started for me, and I was happily married.

I was an advertising executive. I had a big home in the suburbs in Kansas City. Had two Mercedes. Everything was great. I traveled now and then to my clients in Phoenix and St.

Louis, and my my activity on the weekends was often going to a sports car race somewhere in The United States all the way from Watkins Glen and and Sebring and Daytona and the first Grand Prix at Long Beach. So I was out of town both on weekends and during the week sometimes. And I knew a friend of mine who was a race car driver and was a provider of a a report to my publication that I started in Kansas City called Checkpoint for the Mackenzie Sports Car Club of America would write an article about his racing experiences. And my wife was going to pick up her father at the airport who was coming in town. And for some reason, and I didn't there was no connection with me at the time, I said, well, the next time you talk to and I won't say his name because he's a Internet international license.

Have him tell him I need that article because we're going to press. And about twenty minutes later, he calls. Mhmm. Know I owe you an article. I'll finish it up this weekend and get it to you.

My mind said I never expected anything. I never had any idea of what something might be going on. I knew they had lunch together and they played tennis and all, but I had no inclination. And I got in my car and drove over to his house, and there was my wife's Mercedes. Oh, wow.

And I actually went up and looked in, stood up on a a trash bale and looked in the kitchen window as they were in the kitchen and not even thinking that obviously they could see me. And then I went across the street and got up on a ledge, and I eventually watched him take her upstairs to bed. Wow. Not an angry man, but I was in rage. Mhmm.

I told that I wanted to kill him. And then in a short period of time, I said, well, I can't do that because I'll go to prison and our daughter will end up an orphan. You know? Nobody would take care of her. And then I got and I went home in in this period of time, and I I was pounding stakes in the ground and trying to work out this energy, and I wanted to kill myself.

Mhmm. I truly believe that had I had a gun and I shot expert in the military in multiple weapons that I wouldn't be here today. Mhmm. Mhmm. Wow.

Wow. That's a lot. And I you know, I've known you for almost forty years now, and you've never I've never heard that story. So suicide prevention is very personal to you. And, Gordon, I'm I just wanna say that I'm really I'm glad that you didn't kill yourself that day.

You're you know, you've impacted my life so much. And, I think you had shared also that you had met with a therapist. When we were kind of talking a little bit, you had said that you had met with a therapist. So what was your experience with therapy? In what ways was it helpful?

Yeah. That's interesting. I I went home, and I stood for a while. And then I thought, I need to talk to somebody, and I'd called my medical doctor because I no other segment. We're trying to get medical doctors to get training in in Oregon, which they don't wanna do on suicidality.

But I called him up, and we talked, and he asked me to commit that I wouldn't do anything until we talked again. And being a man of integrity, I agreed to that. And about an hour later, he shows up at my house with a therapist. It was a really amazing coincidence and experience, and I found it very helpful. I didn't know anybody.

I've got drinking buddies and and sports buddies, but I didn't know anybody that was seeing a therapist. This was 1976 or 1974. And I found it very helpful. And but the really important piece is connections for me. And my wife actually suggested that I talk to my friend who was a fraternity brother from another university, but was we worked together.

We had our daughters in a program called Indian princess, which is a program like Indian guides. And we never talked about personal stuff, but she said, talk to him. And I talked to him, and he you know, it's it was what really saved my life, I think, because he can be available anytime of the day or night forever, however long I needed. And and I often would call him at, like, not often, but several times at 03:00 in the morning. And he was there and we'd walk and he'd listen to me.

And the unfortunate thing and what really got me into doing this suicide prevention work is that in 1982, I always got holiday cards. And this in '82, I got a card from his former wife or his wife saying, I don't know how to tell you this, but he took his life by his own hand. And that made me angry again, and I'm still angry about that because he didn't let me help him. He's my life, and he didn't let me help save his. And that night, I gathered every bit of flyers that I had on men's work and and resources and everything and put together a quarterly magazine that I printed within a week called Men's Stuff.

And I did Men's Stuff for until 1970 1996 when I converted it into the website mensstuff.org, which is the largest website in the world on men's issues, covers about 300 men's issues and or books in men's issues, and it still ranks number one today in in that area. So that is the trigger that really got me into I didn't wanna see another man take Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. And that's if anyone's interested, that's men's.

Men'sStuff.org. And I've I've been to that site, and I've been blown away by the level of resources that you share on that site, Gordon. You have no idea of how how much of an impact you've had on people's lives. And, well, maybe you do have an idea, but I have a feeling that it's much bigger a much bigger impact than you know. And so thank you very much for doing that work and and, you know, really letting your your friends suicide.

You know, you've I'm sure you've saved that that you know, we're not I guess there's, like, a sacrifice. If somebody like, you've taken that and done something really good with it, your loss of your friend, and been able to, I'm sure, save a lot of lives. And I can certainly say that, you know, you saved my life in in in a in a way as well with the work that we did back in with the healing the father wound work. So I've written a book, freedom freedom from shame, forgiveness and healing from trauma forgiveness and healing from sexual abuse. And you know that because you wrote the foreword.

And so because of writing my book, I've been researching this link between sexual abuse and dying by suicide. And part of my interest in learning if there's a link is that over a decade ago, I was clinically depressed. I couldn't, and I could not see a way out. So, my pathway there was to get on the call with suicide prevention on my speed dial, and I hired a therapist for myself. And they really helped me through a tough time.

And, you know, I didn't when I looked when I thought about it, at the time, I didn't think that there was that what was going on in my life at the time when I was clinically depressed was about abuse. But then with the research I've been doing and looking back on how I felt about myself at the time, I can see that connection. So that's the kind of the thing that I'm kind of, you know, really curious about right now. And because sexual abuse carries a lot of shame, whether it's the person who was harmed or the person who caused harm. And as I mentioned at the beginning, I learned that that highest incidence of dying by suicide is for sexual offenders.

And and so I'm just wondering, you know, what your thoughts might be on that or, you know, anything you might be able to share with us. Yes. I haven't done a lot of study on sexual offenders. I I've got some concepts about it that the the shame when it gets out. You know, there isn't really the shame in being the predator until it gets out.

And I know the dangers for a sexual offender and a rapist in jail are very high. And if committed to a prison, they have a very high chance of being killed. In fact, probably a guarantee. So there's a lot of fear in in that level, but they take on the shame of the act and still can't do anything about it. And too many of them don't have the access to services like your book and and they spiral.

Yeah. Think one of the things instead of putting them in jail or prison is to put them in a psych ward where where they need it and can get the medical treatment to change their desires. And because it almost all of it either happened hereditary or it happened with something that went on in their life during childhood. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think where I would go with that too, to the hereditary, I would think I would say that more, like, generationally, like a genera generational. Like, it's not in your genes that you're gonna you know, genetics that but the the, the risk factors. I guess that's where we're kind of like what causes people to, if we go into what causes people for the risk factors of suicide. You know?

Like, if we if we know what those risk factors are, let's just talk about that a little bit and and see what, what you can share with us around the risk factors. That's great. I I would say that research shows that there is a high level of impact on the the sons of predators and much higher than the norm. Mhmm. So there is that risk factor that people that have had sexual abuse from their father need to look and be really conscious about how that might be impacting them.

Yeah. I the number one risk factor for suicide is being born male. We have eighty percent of youth and adult suicides. So that's a start. And it's and because males do eighty percent of the suicides, it is said they they and they use lethal means.

It said that's the reason that they die by suicide, that they want to kill themselves. And that's just the means. And I've talked to many therapists about this, and the reason they die by suicide is not the gun. It's the serious intent to die. Yeah.

The men have a much higher rate, extremely higher rate than women to have that level of intensity around death. And men know how to kill themselves and the effectiveness of the weapon now more women are using lethal using a gun now. And in fact, in Curry County, Half of the suicides by by a firearm were women this the two years ago. Yeah. Wow.

Wow. Incidents there. Mhmm. And and one of the problems, one of the major problems are that the health community wants to say, well, we'll just get you access to therapy. And as it was very evident in the pandemic, but if anybody really looked at the statistic before that, men less than twenty five percent of the people that go to therapy are men.

Less than fifteen percent of the people that call get a crisis line are men. Wow. That makes me think that that having access to support, like, feeling like you're alone is gonna also be like, not being alone and being in your own world around it, but to get help, to, you know, to seek out the help, how do we increase? Like, one of the ways that we can combat this, these statistics, would be to normalize therapy, getting therapy, normalize getting help, having it be something that that people, you know, that they'd rather go to the phone than to the gun. Right?

How do we get people going to the phone more than to the, you know, the gun or the pill or whatever people are using to to take their lives? That that's true. They and and, like, Colorado has got men's therapy, and they spent millions of dollars on great commercials and all. Are you okay? Campaign out of Australia that I've implemented out here since 02/2016 really go after men and work in the rail industry and all that kind of stuff.

However, the what needs to be done, and I wanna add to intervention, prevention, and postvention pre prevention. Because it is not gonna be adequate, and it's proven out that it's not gonna be adequate to try to convince men to go to therapy because what we need to do and what we're not doing at this date is teaching men what masculinity really is. And that it is not a weakness to ask for help and not a weakness to go to therapy or to join a men's group. But men in this culture to this day are trained in school and trained in all the the markers that they have got to be stoic, handle it, deal with it, fight the wars, do the fires, get in the emergencies, and don't cry. And we continue to teach boys to big boys don't cry.

And as long as we teach boys what they will become, And we have to teach them that it's okay to cry and it's safe like Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift's new love, winning the Super Bowl and actually in tearing. Not crying or not moaning, but crying and let the emotions out. Mhmm. So is this what you mean by pre prevention is to change culturally in our society, change how we view masculinity? Is that a pre prevention?

Because the current prevention things that we have, men don't use. They don't go. And and fewer than twenty five percent of therapists are men, and men would much rather talk to a male in the first place on a cop or on a a crisis line over the telehealth, etcetera, but they aren't there. And so it is really getting starting with the gender markers that are put on our birth certificates, which the AMA recommends against doing. And the worry are the pink and band blue bands put on the wrist in the hospital, which are markers to teach the nurses how to treat the children.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Weren't there. All children will be taught the same thing. They'd be handled you know, right now, the activate the boys and hold them four times less than they hold the girls.

And when they hold the girls, they nurture. Wow. Wow. So there's lots and lots of layers to it. And what what I'm hearing you say is this, you know, pre prevention, you know, really needs to change very early, like, when we're even thinking about how having children and and how we relate to them in our homes even.

Like, how are we going to do that? And that's gonna, you know, probably to change society, we have to you know, that, I'm thinking of that analogy of the hundredth monkey. Like, we have to have enough people saying this is what we need to do differently in order to, you know, have some kind of real real change here. And so I'm really what I'm really appreciating here in our conversation, Gordon, is the the depth at which you've given thought to this, and and and it's and it's then easy to see that it's just not an isolated thing or something that suicide isn't just an isolated thing or something that that, you know, happens, outside of our culture and outside of our, you know, the way that we're raising our children. Right.

Yeah. Embedded in virtually everything we do. Yeah. Yeah. So I've been thinking a bit about how, you know, like, when to worry about somebody.

You know? Like like, maybe maybe there's something going on. You have a little worry come up in your mind and and not really knowing whether to worry or not. And so you sent me some of the warning signs of of potential suicide, and I wanna share them here to help anyone listening to become aware of them so that if these warning signs, show up with your friends or family or, you know, somebody that you or even with yourself and you need help, then here are some of the warning signs to look for. Are you feeling oh, go ahead.

Let me preface this a little bit. Yeah. Okay. I found particularly in rural America and Cal and Oregon is no different. We don't have the services.

We don't have sometimes I have to drive to Medford if I have a psychiatric break. I have nothing there's not a psychiatrist in How long of a drive is that for you if you had to do that? I can do about two and a half hours. Wow. Wow.

Yeah. And so what is really important and what I work on down here and in the state of Oregon and actually put it together a brochure is that it's the community that needs to step forward, learn these risk factors, be aware of them so that we can circumvent a friend from going over the deep end. We can see their risk factors and know what their behaviors and what's going on in their life. And is Yeah. A trigger to tell us to talk and open So that's why these risk factors are really important for people to get in their minds and with family and friends.

Got it. Got it. So it's not just, like, if you if you're feeling that way yourself, but then to to listen to this list of of, warning signs and share them with other people so that they can also see it. So if if they can also be aware of it. So if we we know what these warning signs are and then we tell two friends and they tell two friends and everybody's, kind of in the same conversation looking for these warning signs, being aware of them, then we're gonna have a much better chance to to go, hey.

Let me let me take some action here and reach out and be a friend to this person. Okay. So here are some of the warning signs to to look for. And, first one is and I'm gonna just read them as a list and a little bit slowly just in case people wanna write them down a little bit. And I'll I'll I think I'll repeat them again because I think they're so important and foundational for us to help the people in our communities.

The first one is feeling like a burden. Feeling like a burden. Being isolated. That's a lot of what you're talking about being in you know, having a two and a half half hour drive to get help. You're pretty isolated with that.

Yeah. Being isolated. Having increased anxiety. So an increase increase of anxiety. Feeling trapped or in unbearable pain.

Feeling trapped or in unbearable pain, increased substance abuse, increased substance abuse. I'm imagining everybody writing these down because they're so important to be able to know them all. Looking for a way to access lethal means. Looking for a way to access lethal means. Increased anger or rage.

That's what you were talking about with with what happened in your situation, Gordon, that in that anger rage that came forward. Well, I knew had a bunch of these. Me too. Me too. For sure.

I'll share that too. Extreme mood swings. Extreme mood swings. Expressing hopelessness. Expressing hopelessness sleeping too much or too little sleeping too much or too little talking or posting about wanting to die So talking or posting about wanting to die.

And making plans for suicide. Making plans for suicide. So you had mentioned you experienced a lot of these warning signs. Did you wanna say something about that? Well, no.

It's just Okay. It would have been really nice to understand Yeah. Before it happened to me. Right. Mhmm.

Tell you that one out of five people are going through a mental health issue right now. So if you look at your friends, look at your faith based group, etcetera, there if you really get in touch with the warning signs, you may see somebody the next time you go to church or the next time you have a luncheon or a meeting. You may actually see these behaviors, and I have seen that a number of times and have have gotten with the person after the meeting even in the health care. And I went to a lot of meetings in the last four years around health care and see that. And I said, hey.

Can we talk offline? And even in Zooms. And we talked. And Wonderful. You know?

So Yeah. Yeah. That's wonderful. Well, I experienced a lot of these warning signs back when I was super depressed. And and one of them that's not mentioned on here is, something that I experienced.

A warning sign is that I lost. It's either gaining or losing a lot of weight. And I, in a short period of time and I lost about 30 pounds in a very short amount of time. I weighed maybe a hundred, maybe a hundred pounds. You know?

So this is another risk factor just to or, you know, like, something to be aware of. Warning sign. Warning sign. Well and Yeah. See, one thing about depression.

Yeah. The d m five or whatever it is The m five. Yeah. Doesn't hasn't been updated in thirteen years around depression. And it is very clear that men's depression has different signs than women's depression.

And men and the two major factors are anger and irritability, and those often get get overshadowed. Yep. Would this do you think this would be a, like like, outside of the normal a a like, how somebody normally shows up around being angry, like a like, having anger, and then it's out of the ordinary for their or out of the what's it called? Like, the way that they normally show up, and then all of a sudden they're having these kinds of anger, rageful things. That that when somebody is unusually irritable Yeah.

Usually happy go lucky and and pops off and gets bursts of anger. And a good friend of mine, you may know Jed Diamond, who's written a number of books, and he's written a whole testing on depression for men. And a couple other good tests out there also that therapists are starting to use. And so it's one of the things that gets overshadowed, and men are have a very high depression rate. But we usually get in there and take over and get do something.

You know? Get out of there, and the depression's still going on. And so I think that's what therapists really becoming more aware of. Yes. Wonderful.

Wonderful. That's a that's a really good distinction to be made aware of. And and just in what we're talking about here is really how big of a deal, how big of an impact suicide is on our society. And and so what we've talked about, a few different, you know, men and and being the number one risk factor. And kids die by suicide.

Right? What are the warning signs that our youth can be aware of if they're concerned about their friends? Yeah. I'll I'll give you that. I wanna say one thing is that youth, 10 to 14, about they rank boys rank about 4.3 and girls 3.1 per a hundred thousand.

15 to 19, girls jump up to 7.5, boys to 22.3. 20 to 24. Girls only go up to 8.2, which is just pretty even across our age groups. Boys jump to 39.4 per hundred. It's when they're in school and all, we've really gotta be aware of it.

And I'm gonna read this because this was set up in 02/2013 in the Mayo Clinic and the a number of suicidal organizations got together, about 13 or 20 of them, got together and analyzed every bit of data for youth around suicide. And they came up with the following. If your friend is talking about wanting to die, being dead, or about suicide, or they are cutting or burning themselves, feeling like things may never get better, seeming like they are in terrible emotional pain, like something is wrong deep inside of them, but they can't they can't make it go away, or are struggling to deal with a big loss in their life? Or is your gut telling you to be worried because they have withdrawn from everyone and everything, have become more worried and on edge and seemingly unusually angry or just don't seem normal to you. Wow.

That's really that is really gives us us the information to be on the lookout for that so we can intervene in some way. And These warning signs are something that is really an indicator of what's going on right now. It's not little intricate things. They are going into that and need to have a conversation. Right.

Right. And so, you know, this podcast is really about having courageous conversations. So if a listener is worried about someone and the warning signs are there, then it's it's time to have a courageous conversation. It's time to step up. It's time to take some kind of action.

So that's what what we're advocating here for is to have that conversation, to do something about it, to don't just, you know, worry in silence, so to speak. So what do you recommend to say, and what actions can can people take? Hey. And I'm gonna read this again. Okay.

Four things. Ask, are you okay? And also asking, are you thinking of killing yourself is safe. There's not one bit of research that says that will amp up their decision to die by suicide. It it basically tells them I care.

And it's sometimes the first message that that person gets that anybody cares, that they, have anything different. So Yes. And let me say this before you go on to the next one is I wanna, like, % get on board with that because I have been in that situation with clients and people that I've worked with. And when I you know, the the other thing to to really ask, you know, you do a little self little assessment and and and ask them if they have a a plan and have and ask them to, make a promise, you know, make a commitment to not, hurt themselves until after talking to somebody. And that's the biggest intervention is to to get some help.

So I think that's therapist did to me. Don't Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Well, here is Yeah.

Go ahead. Place that start the conversation. Mention specific things that have made you concerned for them, like, you seem to be less talkative than usual. Are you okay? The second thing is to listen and take whatever time they say seriously and don't interrupt or rush them.

Really important. Encourage them to explain how are you feeling about that or how long have you felt that way and show that you are listening by repeating back to them what you heard in your own words and ask them the if they understood correctly. Third, encourage action. Help them think to of steps that they could take to manage their situation. If they've been down for more than two weeks, encourage them to see a health professional.

Be positive about the role of professionals for getting through tough times, and finally, check-in. Schedule a reminder call in a couple of weeks. And if they're really struggling, show follow-up sooner and stay in touch and be there for them like my friend was for me. And genuine care and concern make a real difference. And it took six months, and I realized it was all ego.

And I was going to die by suicide because of my ego. Mhmm. But we could have a whole a whole episode on the e talking about how our ego gets in the way of us being connected to other people and to ourselves. So but so those four steps are ask if you're okay, really listen, and encourage action and check-in with them. Fabulous.

Okay. So what we're looking at is these are some of the ways to intervene to kind of prevent suicide. And so some of the things that you've recommended to help prevent suicide is to learn the signs, you know, learn how to respond and where to access help. And what else? What what else can people do?

Learn how to be aware of what's going on in their life, like around employment, around food security, marriage. For men, particularly, if a man's in the divorce process, his primary intimate partner was his wife. His wife has many friends that probably know the whole situation. He now is left without anybody. Mhmm.

Conversation and say, you know, I hear you're getting a divorce. I'm here to talk about it. Keeping them safe, away from lethal weapons and pills, that kind of thing. Be there again to listen and and offer ongoing support and offer emergency lines that they can call, etcetera, and really follow-up with them on how are you doing? Are you okay?

It's okay to be not okay. Yeah. Yeah. That To say you're not okay. And particularly for men to say it rather than just tell them it's okay not to be okay.

It's okay to say you're not okay. So that gives him permission to to voice his con what's going on. Good. Good. Well and I think I wanna give the number here a couple times during the call here.

And so what's the number that people can call if they need help? Well, the back in July of twenty, the national hotline 988 was established. This was to replace 911 because 911 immediately con connects you to law enforcement. And we wanna keep people away from law enforcement if we can because too many law enforcement people have not been trained in crisis intervention and put their hand on their gun or their taser or take a dog into a situation, which anybody that's manic or bipolar or whatever, that'll automatically trigger them and become violent. And so 988 is the number to call or text.

And because in rural America and particularly Oregon, nine eight eight texting has been very difficult because local people and local counselors are have not had that as part of their system, and there isn't a text service in the nation except the crisis text line 741741 that uses AI. And let me tell you why that is so important because every a counselor cannot do this. A phone or a text regular text counselor cannot do this. Every convo that goes in to the crisis text line 741741 goes through an into a computer with 8,000,000 other convos. It immediately gets analyzed, and a message goes back to the counselor on here's the next best question to ask.

The person can take that, but this is basically crisis suicide prevention research in the moment. The second really important thing, for youth who use emojis all the time, that there are 24 emojis and words that are more lethal than using the word suicide. And one of them is 16 times more leading potentially leading somebody to an active rescue than using the word suicide. So that done by a counselor. It can only be done by AI, and it picks it up and informs the counselor whether they ought to go into risk factors or a the four questions.

Right? And get emergency services there. So everybody, and particularly if you've got kids, to have them put it in their cell phone, 741741, and tell them why it's so important. Great. That's really great.

I remember we were at a gathering together, and you were passing out these wristbands. Yeah. And you have one on right now. Yeah. And does that I think that has the number on it.

Right? Is there a way of getting one of those wristbands? How would people get them? I don't have Don't know. The actually I can if people are interested, they can reach out to me, and we'll get that information to them later for sure.

So so, you know, a big part of what you're talking about what we've been talking about too is around that isolation and not reaching out and being alone and and whose responsibility is it, you know, to to intervene when when we're worried about somebody taking their life and that individuals are are, you know, kind of the one of the tools and so are our communities. So how can our communities partake in this, be part of the solution of ending death by suicide? Well, I've got a little list here. Identify people at risk of suicide. Teach coping and problem solving skill skills to help people manage challenges with their relationships, job, health, and other concerns.

Promote safe and supportive environments. This includes safe storing of medications and firearms to reduce access among people at risk. Offer activities that bring people together so that they feel connected and not alone. And this is particularly good for men because they don't they would come together to do a project and then talk about stuff. So it's a connect people at risk with effective and coordinated mental and physical health care, expand options for temporary health for those struggling to make ends meet, really important, finances are a a death knell for for men, prevent future risk among those who have lost a loved one to suicide, and getting the media to describe helping resources and avoid headlines or details about suicide risks or suicide happenings.

Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. That's this information is so important to to for everyone to have. And what is it that you most want people to know, Gordon?

What's most important to you around Stop you're doing. Stop opening a conversation with how are you Mhmm. Unless you are ready to sit down and listen. This this is and it really numbs out people. Yeah.

Thing. Like in the weather, whatever is an introduction. And and so the I want people to know that suicide is preventable. It is not chosen. It is momentary.

It happens when pain exceeds resources of coping with pain. You're not a bad or crazy or weak or flawed person if you feel suicidal. It doesn't mean you really wanna die. Know that calling a crisis line isn't a sign of weakness. It shows real strength to ask for help.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. We're at the end of our time together today, and so I just really want to remind everyone to to use 988 if you're in crisis or, 741741. And I want to thank you, Gordon, for all the care that you've given me and my family and the care that you're giving the world.

And I am glad to be alive today, and I'm glad that you're alive. Same here. Ditto. Alright. Okay, my dear.

We will get together soon, and I wanna ask you the question, how are you? Because I care. I wanna know. I am less nervous and more relaxed and ready to breathe. Wonderful.

I will breathe with you and talk with you soon, my friend. Thank you for your time and your care. Thanks so much. It's been a pleasure. Conclude this episode of Courageous Conversations, I want you to know that your willingness to participate in these conversations makes a difference.

Healing is a journey and you're not alone. If you're in need of support, please reach out and I'll do whatever I can to help. Until next time, this is Leila Reyes signing off with a commitment to support you in getting free from the impact of sexual abuse.