August 26, 2025 • 39 mins
The deepest wounds aren’t always physical.
Cliff Bauman was stationed near the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and was among those who raced into the smoke and fire to help in the aftermath of the attacks. But while the country began to rebuild, Cliff’s inner world began to unravel. Haunted by what he’d seen—and what he couldn’t forget—he carried trauma silently, spiraling into guilt, depression, and isolation.
This powerful episode of Alive Again explores how reminders of 9/11 became emotional landmines: from anniversary headlines to sleepless nights and heavy drinking. Cliff opens up about the burden of hiding his pain, and the suicide attempt that nearly ended his life.
Today, Cliff wears the label of "suicide survivor" with pride—not as a mark of shame, but as a badge of courage. His story is a raw and redemptive reminder that vulnerability can be a lifeline, and that choosing to live—even in the face of despair—is its own kind of bravery.
Story producer: Brent Dey
If you are a veteran dealing with depression or suicidal ideation, Cliff encourages you to check out the Veterans Trash Talk podcast for support. We also encourage contacting the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK.
* If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story. Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to Alive Again, a production of Psycopia Pictures
and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I survived something that I probably shouldn't have survived when
I woke up in the hospital. That's why I said,
I was scared and feelful because I realized that wasn't
the road you wanted to go down. My name's Cliff Bauman.
I am a suicide survivor, and I'm so happy to
(00:37):
be here today to be able to share my story
survival from my suicide attempt relating to nine to eleven.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Welcome to Alive Again, a podcast that showcases miraculous accounts
of human fragility and resilience from people his lives were
forever altered after having almost died. These are first and
accounts of near death experiences and more broadly, brushes with death.
Our mission is simple, find, explore, and share these stories
(01:08):
to remind us all of our shared human condition.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Please keep in mind.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
These stories are true and maybe triggering for some listener,
and discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I grew up in a small town in southwest Missouri
called a War Missouri. I grew up on a small
family farm. I was just kind of a wild child,
just kind of running around racing cars and fighting and
do all the things that we did back then. I
really didn't decide anything of what I want to do
in life. My older brother, he's four years older, he
(01:50):
joined the military. He joins the military. Well, I want
to join the military. We both joined the National Guard
and we won the Guard for a long time. Really,
the military helped me kind of straighten my life out
and kind of give me purpose and focus. I come
from a military family. My grandfather fought in World War Two,
but I had relatives fight in the Korean War and
(02:12):
Vietnam War, so we're a big military family. I went
and became a warrant officer. My first moris was sixty
eight Juliet, which is aircraft armament repair. Started with the
Cobra helicopter. Anything dealing with the armament system, that's what
I did. And then when I transitioned to a warrant officer,
then you become this subject matter expert for that aircraft.
(02:34):
And mine was always to attack helicopters, depache the Cobra,
THEAH fifty eight Delta. I wound up in Washington, d C.
Because a friend of mine had gone out on an
adost or acted duty special work tour. He was getting
ready to leave, and he called me, this is in
two thousand and says, hey, would you be interested in
taking this now. I would always volunteer to do extra
(02:57):
stuff for the Guard because it just gave me extra money.
So I would always do extra duties all the time.
And so I had the opportunity to go out to Washington,
d C. On a one year tour working in telecommunications there.
And so that's how I wound up in Washington, d C.
I moved out in two thousand and then, of course
(03:19):
the events of nine to eleven happened a year later,
which you know, profoundly changed my life. And of course
everybody you know fund that day of baby members of
what they were doing. That day, Trember eleventh was just
like any other normal day. I commuted into work from Alexandria,
where I lived about eight miles in Pentagon. I worked
in the automation's information for the hardware, so and of
(03:41):
course I did telecommunications, and so I would go in
and then you know, I would go about my day,
and usually I was the first officer there, and so
then my boss would come in later that day. He
was an air Force Colonel, and it just happened to
be so that day. This ten minus thing is never late,
So I had not been late that day, we would
have been right where the plane hit, because we would
(04:02):
have made it all the way over there by then.
Had heat come in on time, I wouldn't be here.
He could take the shut over to the Pentagon, which
a lot of people did, but sometimes we just walk
because it's not that far of a walk. And it
was a nice day. I mean you come out of
Crystal City and you cross the street, and you go
(04:22):
underneath the bridge and up and over another bridge, and
you're right there at the Pentagon. I mean, it wasn't
that far away. We were about I don't know a
couple of blocks when the Pentagons. When the plane hit.
Of course, we didn't know at that time exactly what
had happened. So in that plane hit five hundred plus
miles an hour, you just feel the concussion of the explosion.
(04:45):
I mean you felt the pressure of that when it hit.
I wasn't too for sure exactly what happened at that moment,
you know, whether it was a bomb exploding or a
plane hitting the building. You know, I didn't know at
that point, you just heard a big explosion, just felt
and then you felt the heat from it right and
then next thing you know, you see the smoke coming
out from it hitting it. I mean, it's just instantaneous.
(05:08):
I was right here in the parking lot. I went
ahead and move forward to help with the initial rescue
missions after the clean hit until I was command ordered
back to the building once they figured out what happened.
So once I got back to the building, of course
I had the debrief about what I was doing. And
then you start realizing the plane hit the trade center.
(05:29):
Then you find out about you know them ground and
all the aircraft. Of course, the security posture starts changing
inside the military, and now you realize that this was,
you know, an attack, and then what's more's going on?
What else is you going to come up? And then
sort of just start snowballing with the meetings and stuff.
You just go into mission focus and completing what needs
(05:51):
to be done to make you know, the United States
as safe as possible. So that's that's the mode you
go into. It was from there that I got on
the phone with a good friend of mine. He worked
for eighteen T at the time, and they had come
up with the idea of using a spectrum analyzer had
to pick up cell phone frequency.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
You have.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Cell phones were in the infancy back then. Bob started
thinking about thett IS the technology they hare, and how
you can track a cell phone because they emit a
signal in a certain range, and so when they figured
out that they could track that range with a spectrum analyzer,
that's when he contacted me and says, hey, I think
this or work. We've been doing it, and I said, hey,
I think you're right. That's great. Meet me in front
(06:29):
of my building at early in the morning end of
the twelve. Pentagon's a secured area. The fact that I
was able to b ss in through all the layers
security to get in there to start doing it says
he couldn't believe it. And then once we get in there,
we have a guy named John. We know it's not
his real name because he worked for a three letter organization.
(06:51):
We just randomly got teamed up with him, and so
he was helping us get around the Pentagon to pick
up these cell phone signals to try to rescue. It
was chaotic down there. You just think about the building
is still catching on fire. The events less than twenty
four hours old. There is still big pieces of the
plane landing gear, you know, stuff like that had blown
(07:13):
through the corridor there of course with wiring and some
seats and things like that were clearly there were It
was a plane that hit. None of us had training
for that, and so you know it was like when
we got a ride, w entunloaded the equipment, and now
(07:34):
we're getting ready to go in. We got stop saying hey,
you need to have a hard hat on. And one
of the workers that threw me is hard hat, and
so I took off my soft COVID military cap and
put on his hard hat that that's part of the hat,
boosts and gloves that's in the National Guarden. My momi's
in Marshington, d C. And when we would pick up
a signal, I would enter into the building because at
that time I didn't have you know, I wasn't married,
(07:56):
I didn't have any you know, childre or anything. And
Bob did and so he would stand outside the building
when I would go in and retreat the cell phone
and then you know, if the building collapse or something happened,
he could at least tell them, you know, where we were.
At we were waiting through you know, all kinds of stuff,
you know, knee deep water with all kinds of stuff
(08:16):
floating in it and everything. And you know, for somebody
who never experienced that before, right, I'm not a first responder,
I'm not a policeman. I'm not you know. Yeah, I've
been in the military and I train, but my unit
never went to the Golfer, right, and so you never
experienced things. I think you get trained for, you know,
emergency situations military, right, but you never come face to
(08:36):
face with it. And I think for a lot of
people that they come to face the face with things
you're that you've seen. There was one guy in AT
and T team, Well, we just had to have him
leave the site because he couldn't deal with it. You know,
some people can't deal with seeing certain things. Yeah, the
building could have collassed at any time. You know, there
was still dumping water on it. Pieces were falling down,
and that's why we made the conscious effort that one
(08:58):
would go in and one would day out. So if
it did collapse, we could just let the you know,
the team of high rescue team he was still there
on site, let them know where we were at and
what had happened when that plane hit and that nose detached,
it acted like a missile going through. That's why you
had the half circle going through there. We were just
kind of laser focused on, you know, what our mission
was and what our task was to try to complete it.
(09:21):
People who didn't get out in the first couple of
seconds probably didn't survive the blast. Right on our mind,
we were just hopeful that maybe we could just find
that one, but unfortunately never did. But you know, we
proved that technology works. We proved that, you know, our
cell phone could be melted all the way through and
that battery still emit a signal because we covered cell
(09:44):
phones that were completely melted. In the military, you're trained
for all kinds of different events, but no matter of
training could compair to anybody for that to see what happened,
you know, because we haven't had an attack on the
American sore like that since you know Pearl Harbor, and
you know, to see the state of things. And I'll
let you use your own definition of things. I'm talking
(10:05):
about people, but people in that kind of condition, you know,
I don't think anybody's ready for I mean, even if
firemen and police officers had a hard time dealing with
what they saw after the attacks on nine to eleven.
A lot of them, you know, went to a lot
of the same issues and problems that I went through,
you know, and seeing the effects of that. Even as
(10:26):
firemen and policemen, they will tell you there's some scenes
that they come upon that is just so horrific it
affects them for the rest of their life. No matter
how many they seemed similar, there's always something that's different
about each one. And for some people, I think it
just hits them differently because here I am, you know,
(10:47):
crawlty and stuff, and I got all kinds of crap
on me and I just didn't I just mentally, I
just wasn't there. And you know, we went through that day.
We stayed all day on the twelfth until the early
morning of the thirteenth, after they you know, trick the
bodies out of depending on that's when we left and
went home. Well, for those you know what forty eight hours,
(11:07):
my family didn't even know if I was alive or not,
because they've been then able to get a hold of me.
And you know, I kind of went home and talked
to them and took my hat, boots and gloves off
that I was wearing that day and put them in
a box. I don't know why I did that, but
I did. And then I just kind of got in
a shower, and it was in the shower when I
kind of really just I kind of broke down, you know,
(11:33):
tears flowing down my face and just kind of just
dealing with the reality of everything. I internalized, the guilt
of not finding anybody. You're just trying to save somebody,
and then you think maybe I could have done this
(11:54):
different or done that different. In reality, there's nothing anybody
could have done different. You know. I think I just
allowed my brain to get wrapped around so focused on
one aspect and that the total aspect. You just keep
running that loop around and that's that becomes the problem.
And so I just kept drooling in in and in
(12:16):
on that one aspect, and that's why my circle kept
getting tighter and tighter and tighter, running in your mind
things that you saw and crawled to and went to.
You know, people talk about that all the time with
PTSD and other stuff. It's just a constant reel that
over and overplays, and it can pop up at any time,
right you can be outside and the wind blow a
certain way, or you smell a certain thing, and it
(12:37):
brings you right back to that the dreams that I
would have at night while I was sleeping, and that's
what I was trying to in my mind self medicating.
You know, you get on from work and then you know,
as the evening's winding down, you know you're going to
go to sleep, and there's a chance that you may
have those dreams and you don't want to think about
(12:58):
it no more. And so you know, in the beginning,
I was just drinking enough just to kind of, you know,
get me to that night. I would make me fall
asleep faster, which we know that that doesn't really happen.
You don't get good sleep while you're drinking. And I
think then it was, you know, I was just trying
to stay up as late as I could, so then
I would just go to sleep from exhaustion. At work,
(13:21):
I started becoming a little bit more withdrawn. You know,
I wasn't going to lunch with everybody, had started eating
at my desk and I'd get short with people. And
nowadays we know, you know, that's typical PTSD straight down
the line. But then it wasn't really talked about as
just as two thousand and two anolitary back. You know,
twenty two years ago. The culture is completely different on
how they deal with mental health. They just didn't deal
(13:43):
with it. So if you're having issues and problems, you
would be med board out of the service within you know,
they'd start that process in sixty days, which after twenty
years plus of war and everything like that. They look
at things and they treat things differently, And I think
it's it's easier to talk about the things that we
talk about, but it's still hard. There's still people suffering
(14:04):
in silence. There's still occupations out there that you can
have had adverse effects on your career if you're having
mental health issues or suicide deviation, and so there's still
a lot of things out there inside society that needs
to change. What happened was a year after and I left.
(14:28):
This accelerated my issues. I was having problem with drinking
and stuff, but this made it a lot worse. They
ran an article on paper that won year anniversary and
one of the people in there was a boy talking
about his mom. But I had crawled over half a body.
That was a huge trigger for me. And so now
I became more depressed and now is drinking heavily at night,
(14:52):
you know, to not have those dreams and those thoughts
and think about it. Well, that has its own second
third or affections on yourself. And then so at work,
one of the co workers said, hey, I think you
have something's wrong with it. I think you can go
speak with somebody. I'm like, no, and there's nothing wrong
with me. At that point, I'm feel for my career, right.
I'm thinking, you know, my military careers can be over
(15:14):
if I ain't a mental help, because back then it
was different in how they do things. Now, I lied
to my accounts because the alls I want to do is
get the stamp that I was good to go good.
I was good at lying to it, and so he
prescribed me medication. Maybe I shouldn't have been on that medication.
I don't know, because he was trying to treat my
symptoms and I'm lying about them, right, and so who
(15:36):
knows if he even gave me the right medications, which
probably could have screwed me up even more. No, I've
been accountling for a couple of months, and then I
go to training at Fort Leavenworth, in Kansas and after
I finished that training, I went to stay to my
brother's house. And now this is I don't know, December
twentieth or twenty second, I remember exact date. But you know,
(15:57):
I'm alone. He's gone. You're bad thoughts in a room,
get up and leave that room, right. I didn't do that,
And so I'm drinking and I'm having those thoughts of
guilt of not being able to find anybody alive. I
had distress of dealing with my family because I'm in
Virginia there in Kansas City, that's twelve hundred miles away,
and they call it a couple in effect, you know.
(16:19):
You know, psychologists talk about that where you just no
longer want to live. And you know, once I got
to that point, no matter training would have stopped me
for what I was about to do, no amount of anything.
And I always tell people, we got to stop people
(16:40):
before they get to that point, because once they get
to that point, it's hard to stop what's going to happen.
Because I went to look for his gun and I
couldn't find it. That's when I switched the pills, because
I probably if I were to find his gun, I
wouldn't be sitting hereward. I've been successful, so that probably
was another life saving measure that saved me was the
fact that I couldn't find his gun and he just
(17:02):
stuck in the screwball place, not where he normally you know,
night stand or dress or he just had it in
a different place, and it just so happened because he
was rearranging. He lives an old home, but it's a
very big home, so he was rearranging the bedrooms and
just had in a completely different area because he was
re arranging in his rooms then where it normally would
have been. A lot of people say that, you know,
(17:24):
having that gunlock on and fiddle him with it saved
their life because then they were like, whoa wait a second,
what am I doing. I wrote a note. I just
said I didn't want to feel the guilty of finding
anybody alive anymore, and said I leve you of and
signed it.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
That was it.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
I took a whole bunch of sleeping pills and I
laid down on the couch and next thing I know,
I'll wake up in the hospital. Now, how did I
go from laying on the couch to the hospital. Is
my older brother who works at Truman Medical Center, which
is about a mile from his house. Got a funny
(18:02):
feeling at worked, and he called the house and I
didn't answer. It was just a weird feeling he got
and it wasn't it was like a gut feeling. It wasn't.
It wasn't like a normal feeling that he would have
when he called the house and I didn't answer. Whatever happened,
And he can't really explain it.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
He was just.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Different, but he acted on it. Mine was never planned.
I didn't plan for that date. It just happened, right,
So whatever was going on in my mind that space
at that time, it just happened. And so if you
was to go back and ask my brother, well, what
signs did he exhibit, he would say there wasn't any sign.
(18:46):
So maybe there was just little signs because I knew
I was dealing with stuff, you know, I they knew
I was going to therapy and things like that, but
there was nothing that would jump out. Remember, I don't
I live in DC, I don't live in Kansas City.
And now I'm at his house and haven't been at
his house for a year, you know, because you know,
not only have I gon to therapy and all this
other stuff, So it wasn't like they had been around
(19:08):
me to know exactly what all my behaviors were anyway,
But had I completed that day, my family would have
had a hell of a lot of questions for the
rest of their life on what they would have missed.
But you know, thankfully, when my brother got that feeling
at work, when he called the house and I didn't answer,
and he rushed home and obviously found me. He said
(19:31):
I was semi conscious, but I don't remember none of that,
and then rushed me to the hospital and then obviously
they did their life saving procedures saved me. But I
took twenty two plus sleeping pills. They think, I don't
know the exact member I took, but I took well
over twenty so it would have killed me, you know,
Plus with the amount of alcohol that I was drinking.
And so when I wake up in the hospital from that,
(19:54):
that was scared, because you know, I don't know what
got me to that point, and to this day that
still bothers me. I don't know, you. Just like I said,
everything just came together at once that I decided don't
want to live no more. And when I woke up
in the hospital. That's why I said, I was scared
and feelful because I realized that wasn't the road you
(20:16):
wanted to go down. And I was lucky enough to
come back for that. Some people aren't, or some people
have such horrific injuries you know from their suicide attempt
that you know they can't function normal anymore. You just
like I said, everything just came together at once that
I decided then't want to live no more. And so
I make it my life not to ever have all
(20:38):
those things come together again. Right now, I'll get up
and walk out of that room, or I'll get up
and change something, because I want to change the chain
reaction event that's going to happen. And I know what's
going to happen because I've been there, and I think
for anybody that survided a suicide attempt to understand that
or you know, had you know, ideations to that point,
and so you got to change those events. But the
(21:03):
biggest turning point for me when my drive back to Virginia.
That's when I made the conscious effort to go back
into counseling and be honest with my counsel Now, that
was a little difficult in his self because now because
I attempted my life, that hospital is now calling my
counselor in Virginia. And now he just realized that I've
been lying to him for the last six months seven months.
(21:26):
In my family, we didn't talk about culture. You just
you just you didn't do it. I never saw my
dad cry to the day that he died.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
He just don't.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
We just didn't do that. That's just something we didn't
do in my family. And so how do you learn
how to do something that you were grown up never doing.
It's it's hard. And so when I was into counseling
and I was doing all that, you know, I had
to learn learn to be okay with not being okay
and learn how to have a conversation with somebody instead
(21:56):
of getting to the point where you take a bunch
of sleeping pills and don't don't want to live. And sadly,
for me, it took a while. Nowadays, kids, you know,
they learn about it in school. My nieces and nephews
all learn about you know, nine to eleven and in school,
(22:18):
and then you know, you think, wow, I was there,
But I'm sure it's the same for you know, people
that were Pearl Harbor or other big events in history
that we're there. I mean, you look at it a
little bit differently, especially the you know, the people that
landed on D Day during World War Two. I couldn't imagine,
you know, going through that, but I'm sure when they
were going through it, they didn't think about it, right,
You're just trying to complete the mission, and that's all
we were. We were trying to do. I don't watch
(22:42):
the news programs on it. I don't watch any TV
on nine to eleven. I do other things that bring
me joy. I don't think about it because I was there.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
For me, I just do positive things now in that day,
and I think for a lot of people who's been
through trauma and maybe that anniversary has come around, you
learn how to do things that make you happy, that
bring yourself joy. And I think, and it's okay about that.
I don't need to watch, you know, movies or series
or or constantly replayed it by happening on nine to eleven.
(23:12):
I don't need to watch any of that because I
was there, so there's no reason for me to know.
I've not gone to the memorial. I don't I've never
been to the moilmoral so I think people feel guilty
about not doing that, and I did for a little while,
but then I realized, you know, it's okay to feel
that way when I go out and do my speaking
to events, or if I do anything I do say
(23:35):
that I am a suicide survivor because I think it's
important a lot of instances in life where you survive
things you don't understand where you survive it, And so
I wear it as a badge of courage to reduce
to stigma associated with that, and so I will no
longer be ashamed of that because that event has shaped
my life to what I am now. I think for
(23:59):
people who have survives suicide, I think they look at
things different.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
You want to go and enjoy life, you really want
to live again.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Welcome back to Alive Again. Joining me for a conversation
about today's story. Are my other Alive Again story producers
Nicholas Dakowski and Brent Day, and I'm your host.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Dan Bush.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Another extremely powerful story. Can we can you just start
us off and tell us why you why you chose
this story.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
There's a lot of things that attracted me to cliffs
st I'm former military, so that resonated with me. I've
suffered from suicidal ideation, and I had a lot of
curiosity about what the stress of being a first responder
does to to those who answer the call and go
in there. So it's pretty remarkable to find somebody who
(25:20):
had the experience that Cliff has had.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Like, there's a lot of stuff about Cliff's story that.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Is interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
And I'm interested because you're a military, you have a
military background yourself, Brent. I'm interested in how the culture
might have changed if if you know, after the nine
to eleven Pentagon attack, Cliff was, you know, did not
feel comfortable expressing to his counselor to his coworkers that
(25:52):
he was having problems and difficulties, and then he was depressed,
and then he was having suicidal ideation because the culture
was not you know, because he was he had a
fear about losing his job, his military career, which is
sort of the stigma, and that's what apparently is part
of that culture.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
Has it changed, Yeah, I would say that for my
suicidal ideation was never extreme, but it was there, but
it was different than Cliffs. I think mine was more
of maybe some kind of imbalance or something. Because I
would be feeling great, I'd go with my friends and
then I just have these really dark feelings that would
last for maybe three days. And I looked at it
(26:30):
almost like I'm going through this. I know I'm going
to pull through this at the end of this. But
I think when you're in the throes of those feelings,
it's very hard to express yourself for fear of how
people will look at you. Even now talking about it,
I think it's kind of like showing somebody a very
(26:50):
personal part of yourself. So I think, regardless of what
kind of career implications there might be, there's just also
a stigma. And particularly in the time I would in
the military in the eighties and I would have never
thought to talk to anybody about it at the time.
And I don't think I don't think just because of
the military. I think just society in general. It was
something you just didn't talk about.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
How much do you think that that culture of the
military feeds into that. I mean, I know that the
military deals with is getting better at dealing with the repercussions,
but do you think that the actual culture has changed
enough to be able to really purb that before it happens.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
That certainly wasn't my experience in the military, you know.
I mean, they definitely demand discipline, they definitely demand unit cohesion,
But my friends ran the gamut. There were a lot
of real thoughtful, sensitive people who were serving their country,
and Cliff is an example of that. I mean, he's
somebody who is very in touch with his feelings, able
(27:59):
to express them. But what he was going through was
post traumatic stress disorder he was strictly dealing with. Every
time he closed his eyes, he was seeing a movie
of devastation that none of us can imagine. And I
think his story says a lot about the willingness of
people to put on their boots and put on their
(28:19):
uniform and serve this country and exposing themselves to things
that he said. There were fire fighters there, there were
military personnel there who had served in Iraq who were
not prepared for what they saw. And he did not
go into any detail of what he saw, and I
think there's enough that you can imagine. When an airplane
(28:39):
implodes inside of a building, killing all aboard the plane
and killing several people working in the building, You're going
to stumble upon things that are going to be difficult
to raise from your memory. Absolutely, I think it was.
And again I haven't been in the military since the eighties,
but I think it was more for me. Society at
large wasn't ready to talk about suicidal ideation. Society at
(29:03):
large would consider you're considered weird, not even like a weakness,
but just weird, you know. And and there's been great,
great strides taken, you know, and you know, Cliff has
devoted his life to helping veterans address this this scourge,
this this desire to kill yourself. And yet he says
(29:26):
he still has post traumatic stress disorder, he still has
to take himself out of those situations where the ideation surfaces,
you know. And he says, sometimes it's as simple as
just leaving the room, going somewhere else, you know. And
I think, yeah, I think it might be kind of
like like alcoholism or something. It's something maybe you never
(29:46):
rid yourself.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
It's interesting, Brent, because you're you know, you're not yours
wasn't necessarily part of some post traumatic stress situation or
as a result of that. But what Cliff talked about
that I thought was fascinating was this slippery slope. So
it was this It wasn't any one thing. It was
the combination of things, the isolation, not feeling like you
(30:08):
can share this or talk to anybody about it. Every
time he closed his eyes or went to sleep at night,
there was this loop that would start to play in
his head of the people that he wasn't able to
to save, and that led to the self medication and
drinking in order to sort of gum down those voices
(30:30):
in his head. So he's isolated, he's self medicating, and
then before you know it, he just happens to be
in a house that he knows has a gun, and
it's just a combination of events, and now he's able
to look at this and go remove any one of
those events, stop the chain reaction in the snowball effect
before it happens, even if you just get up and
(30:52):
walk out of the room, like identifying the triggers and
identifying the things as are happening as a major sort
of way to to to preserve one's life, you know,
against all of this, but I do think that it
points to this. I'm wondering if this if there is
been movement either in the military or if you guys
(31:13):
think there is an in our own society of a
willingness to talk about you know, I feel like so
many generations go off to war in America or go
off to some even if it's not.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Called a war. They'll go after those, whether it's.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
You know, in Panama or whether it's in Iraq or wherever,
then and come back and there's not a lot It
seems to me that there's still not a lot of
dialogue or openness about being able to talk about what
that experience was. And for me, it makes me mad
because I'm like, well, of course we don't want to
talk about it, because then we're not going to ever
go do it. And I personally feel like a lot
(31:52):
of the corporations that make a lot of money off
of warfare and so forth, it's not in their interest
to have these things talked about.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Like, you know, the the idea.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
The narrative of this of this brave American you know,
who's fighting for freedom is the one that they want
to promote. There's nothing wrong with that, but you also
have to balance that against the you know, the consequences.
And I wonder if we're doing enough for our military.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
Yeah, I mean, they're they're they're I think there's I
think there's a lot of misconceptions about the military, but
I think there's a lot of truth. And what you
just said about our society doesn't really treat them. You know,
there's there's countless homeless veterans, there's countless suicide. There's been
an epidemic of suicide among veterans. You know, you can
(32:41):
look at how hard John Stewart had to work to
get Congress to pass a bill to give funding to
support the first responders on nine to eleven who went
into the World Trade and World Trade Center. So we talk,
we talk about the heroic service of these people who
serve for us. But you're right, I do think that,
you know, you would think if you're willing to lay
(33:02):
your life on the line like that, you wouldn't be
sleeping on the street, that there would be resources for
you when you come home, you know. And I think
I think we can do better for our veterans, for sure.
And I don't think the story is necessarily a story
about toxic masculinity or our perceptions of the military industrial complex.
I think it's a story about people being willing to
(33:26):
put themselves in these extreme situations for the better of
our country. I think what Cliff did in trying to
help find survivors in the Pentagon of nine to eleven
was a tremendous service to the rest of the country.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
And I think.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
And then and then being able to take what Cliff
has learned from this for anybody, whether you're in the
military or not, and understand the trigger that there are
triggers that you will encounter that could put you back
into the place of suicidal ideation, and to make a
plan for addressing that in advance so that when you're
in that spot.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
It points to.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
A cultural phenomenon where we don't like to talk about it.
We don't want to talk about the horrors of war.
We don't want to talk about what these people experience,
and we don't want them to talk about it, and
we don't want hell, even death, we don't want to.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Talk about death.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
We're obsessed with youth in this company, we're in this country.
We're obsessed with hero right, Yeah, it was a fortieth flip,
but these the heroism and and all of that, we
will talk about that till blue in the face. But
to talk about the trauma and the you know, the
damage that it does to the soul. We're just not
(34:37):
ready to talk about that, and nobody and it's hard.
I think that that is one of the things that
is an isolating factor for those.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Who have experienced these sorts of traumas.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
Yeah, I mean I was in the military, and I
would think it was more of an issue societally at
that time where you wouldn't talk about it, and I
think now you would now. And I think I felt
taken care of by my battalion. I felt that the
commander of my battalion had my best interests at heart.
And I think everybody's experience is different. It's like working
(35:12):
at different corporations. Some really care about their employees, some
do not. You know, so maybe maybe one commander of
a unit would could care less about his troops, maybe
another one's going to take really good care of him.
But I felt very well taken care of when I
was in the service. And I think what Cliff is
doing to raise awareness of suicidal triggers and how to
(35:35):
overcome them, I think whether you're in the military or not,
I mean, it's a great service that he's doing.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Did he say that that that, I mean, that's what
I'm interested in. I'm not trying to point any figure
figures are be accusatory of something I don't know anything about,
but I wanted to see if Cliff himself had mentioned,
you know, what did he say about the changes either
due to what you know from his efforts and efforts
of other people like him, either in culture at large
(36:03):
or in the military, to.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Change the narrative or to change you know, the.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Culture so that we are open to talk about this
without fear of losing our military career.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
Yeah, it just seems like it was a gradual thing.
You know, he was very worried about, you know, and
as I think in the year two thousand and one,
if you were working in a corporation and you said
you were having suicidal ideation, they may find a reason
to fire you. I just don't think society was comfortable
talking about it at the time.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Does he feel like that's changing?
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Yeah, I mean I think so. And I think because
of work that people like himself are doing, and I
think because of societal changes that are making it easier
to talk about mental health. Hopefully society is getting a
little more understanding of the different experiences that people are having,
you know, whether it's your identity or whether it's your
(36:56):
mental health or whether it's suicidal ideation, or you know,
I do feel like we live in a much more
open society now than maybe we did twenty three years.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Ago, you know sure.
Speaker 5 (37:10):
And I think it's because people like Cliff go through
something and they say, I don't want somebody else to
experience this, and I want them to know life is
worth living. And here are the tools I used to
get out of it, and the tools I will continue
to use to address it when those feelings come back.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Special thanks to Cliff Bowman for sharing his story. If
you are a veteran dealing with depression or suicidal ideation,
Cliff encourages you to check out the Veterans Trash Talk
podcast for support. We also very much encourage contacting the
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at one eight hundred two seven
three talk. That's one eight hundred two seven.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Three t alk.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Next time I'm Alive again, we meet Amanda Clear. In
two thousand and eight, Amanda slammed her accurate into the
back of a stopped tractor trailer.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
It's your body's way of protecting itself, right, So I
protect myself now, write my brain, not allowing itself to
remember all of the horrific details, and I protected myself
then by screaming and flailing and kicking. It's that fight,
in the fight or flight, it started to feel like
(38:24):
a SOB story. I no longer wanted to tell a
story of tragedy, that I was the victim, not the hero,
and I am the hero of my own story.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
The wreck which nearly killed her required fifteen hours of
facial reconstructive.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Surgery and set her on a new path.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Her story is one of real transformation and of fully
embracing the person that she has become. Our story producers
are Dan Bush, Kate Sweeney, Brent Die, Nicholas Dakowski, and
Lauren Vogelbaum. Music by Ben Lovett, Music by Alexander Rodriguez.
Our executive producers are Matthew Frederick and Trevor Young. Special
(39:05):
thanks to Alexander Williams for additional production support. Our studio
engineers are Rima L. K Ali and Noames Griffin. Our
editors are Dan Bush, Gerhart Slavitchca, Brent Die, and Alexander Rodriguez.
Mixing by Ben Lovett and Alexander Rodriguez. I'm your Host,
Dan Bush Alive Again is a production of i Art
Radio and Psychopia Pictures. If you have a transformative near
(39:29):
death experience to share, we'd love to hear your story.
Please email us at Alive Again Project at gmail dot com.
That's a l i v e A g A I
N p R O j e c t at gmail
dot com.
You're listening to Alive Again, a production of Psycopia Pictures
and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I survived something that I probably shouldn't have survived when
I woke up in the hospital. That's why I said,
I was scared and feelful because I realized that wasn't
the road you wanted to go down. My name's Cliff Bauman.
I am a suicide survivor, and I'm so happy to
(00:37):
be here today to be able to share my story
survival from my suicide attempt relating to nine to eleven.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Welcome to Alive Again, a podcast that showcases miraculous accounts
of human fragility and resilience from people his lives were
forever altered after having almost died. These are first and
accounts of near death experiences and more broadly, brushes with death.
Our mission is simple, find, explore, and share these stories
(01:08):
to remind us all of our shared human condition.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Please keep in mind.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
These stories are true and maybe triggering for some listener,
and discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I grew up in a small town in southwest Missouri
called a War Missouri. I grew up on a small
family farm. I was just kind of a wild child,
just kind of running around racing cars and fighting and
do all the things that we did back then. I
really didn't decide anything of what I want to do
in life. My older brother, he's four years older, he
(01:50):
joined the military. He joins the military. Well, I want
to join the military. We both joined the National Guard
and we won the Guard for a long time. Really,
the military helped me kind of straighten my life out
and kind of give me purpose and focus. I come
from a military family. My grandfather fought in World War Two,
but I had relatives fight in the Korean War and
(02:12):
Vietnam War, so we're a big military family. I went
and became a warrant officer. My first moris was sixty
eight Juliet, which is aircraft armament repair. Started with the
Cobra helicopter. Anything dealing with the armament system, that's what
I did. And then when I transitioned to a warrant officer,
then you become this subject matter expert for that aircraft.
(02:34):
And mine was always to attack helicopters, depache the Cobra,
THEAH fifty eight Delta. I wound up in Washington, d C.
Because a friend of mine had gone out on an
adost or acted duty special work tour. He was getting
ready to leave, and he called me, this is in
two thousand and says, hey, would you be interested in
taking this now. I would always volunteer to do extra
(02:57):
stuff for the Guard because it just gave me extra money.
So I would always do extra duties all the time.
And so I had the opportunity to go out to Washington,
d C. On a one year tour working in telecommunications there.
And so that's how I wound up in Washington, d C.
I moved out in two thousand and then, of course
(03:19):
the events of nine to eleven happened a year later,
which you know, profoundly changed my life. And of course
everybody you know fund that day of baby members of
what they were doing. That day, Trember eleventh was just
like any other normal day. I commuted into work from Alexandria,
where I lived about eight miles in Pentagon. I worked
in the automation's information for the hardware, so and of
(03:41):
course I did telecommunications, and so I would go in
and then you know, I would go about my day,
and usually I was the first officer there, and so
then my boss would come in later that day. He
was an air Force Colonel, and it just happened to
be so that day. This ten minus thing is never late,
So I had not been late that day, we would
have been right where the plane hit, because we would
(04:02):
have made it all the way over there by then.
Had heat come in on time, I wouldn't be here.
He could take the shut over to the Pentagon, which
a lot of people did, but sometimes we just walk
because it's not that far of a walk. And it
was a nice day. I mean you come out of
Crystal City and you cross the street, and you go
(04:22):
underneath the bridge and up and over another bridge, and
you're right there at the Pentagon. I mean, it wasn't
that far away. We were about I don't know a
couple of blocks when the Pentagons. When the plane hit.
Of course, we didn't know at that time exactly what
had happened. So in that plane hit five hundred plus
miles an hour, you just feel the concussion of the explosion.
(04:45):
I mean you felt the pressure of that when it hit.
I wasn't too for sure exactly what happened at that moment,
you know, whether it was a bomb exploding or a
plane hitting the building. You know, I didn't know at
that point, you just heard a big explosion, just felt
and then you felt the heat from it right and
then next thing you know, you see the smoke coming
out from it hitting it. I mean, it's just instantaneous.
(05:08):
I was right here in the parking lot. I went
ahead and move forward to help with the initial rescue
missions after the clean hit until I was command ordered
back to the building once they figured out what happened.
So once I got back to the building, of course
I had the debrief about what I was doing. And
then you start realizing the plane hit the trade center.
(05:29):
Then you find out about you know them ground and
all the aircraft. Of course, the security posture starts changing
inside the military, and now you realize that this was,
you know, an attack, and then what's more's going on?
What else is you going to come up? And then
sort of just start snowballing with the meetings and stuff.
You just go into mission focus and completing what needs
(05:51):
to be done to make you know, the United States
as safe as possible. So that's that's the mode you
go into. It was from there that I got on
the phone with a good friend of mine. He worked
for eighteen T at the time, and they had come
up with the idea of using a spectrum analyzer had
to pick up cell phone frequency.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
You have.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Cell phones were in the infancy back then. Bob started
thinking about thett IS the technology they hare, and how
you can track a cell phone because they emit a
signal in a certain range, and so when they figured
out that they could track that range with a spectrum analyzer,
that's when he contacted me and says, hey, I think
this or work. We've been doing it, and I said, hey,
I think you're right. That's great. Meet me in front
(06:29):
of my building at early in the morning end of
the twelve. Pentagon's a secured area. The fact that I
was able to b ss in through all the layers
security to get in there to start doing it says
he couldn't believe it. And then once we get in there,
we have a guy named John. We know it's not
his real name because he worked for a three letter organization.
(06:51):
We just randomly got teamed up with him, and so
he was helping us get around the Pentagon to pick
up these cell phone signals to try to rescue. It
was chaotic down there. You just think about the building
is still catching on fire. The events less than twenty
four hours old. There is still big pieces of the
plane landing gear, you know, stuff like that had blown
(07:13):
through the corridor there of course with wiring and some
seats and things like that were clearly there were It
was a plane that hit. None of us had training
for that, and so you know it was like when
we got a ride, w entunloaded the equipment, and now
(07:34):
we're getting ready to go in. We got stop saying hey,
you need to have a hard hat on. And one
of the workers that threw me is hard hat, and
so I took off my soft COVID military cap and
put on his hard hat that that's part of the hat,
boosts and gloves that's in the National Guarden. My momi's
in Marshington, d C. And when we would pick up
a signal, I would enter into the building because at
that time I didn't have you know, I wasn't married,
(07:56):
I didn't have any you know, childre or anything. And
Bob did and so he would stand outside the building
when I would go in and retreat the cell phone
and then you know, if the building collapse or something happened,
he could at least tell them, you know, where we were.
At we were waiting through you know, all kinds of stuff,
you know, knee deep water with all kinds of stuff
(08:16):
floating in it and everything. And you know, for somebody
who never experienced that before, right, I'm not a first responder,
I'm not a policeman. I'm not you know. Yeah, I've
been in the military and I train, but my unit
never went to the Golfer, right, and so you never
experienced things. I think you get trained for, you know,
emergency situations military, right, but you never come face to
(08:36):
face with it. And I think for a lot of
people that they come to face the face with things
you're that you've seen. There was one guy in AT
and T team, Well, we just had to have him
leave the site because he couldn't deal with it. You know,
some people can't deal with seeing certain things. Yeah, the
building could have collassed at any time. You know, there
was still dumping water on it. Pieces were falling down,
and that's why we made the conscious effort that one
(08:58):
would go in and one would day out. So if
it did collapse, we could just let the you know,
the team of high rescue team he was still there
on site, let them know where we were at and
what had happened when that plane hit and that nose detached,
it acted like a missile going through. That's why you
had the half circle going through there. We were just
kind of laser focused on, you know, what our mission
was and what our task was to try to complete it.
(09:21):
People who didn't get out in the first couple of
seconds probably didn't survive the blast. Right on our mind,
we were just hopeful that maybe we could just find
that one, but unfortunately never did. But you know, we
proved that technology works. We proved that, you know, our
cell phone could be melted all the way through and
that battery still emit a signal because we covered cell
(09:44):
phones that were completely melted. In the military, you're trained
for all kinds of different events, but no matter of
training could compair to anybody for that to see what happened,
you know, because we haven't had an attack on the
American sore like that since you know Pearl Harbor, and
you know, to see the state of things. And I'll
let you use your own definition of things. I'm talking
(10:05):
about people, but people in that kind of condition, you know,
I don't think anybody's ready for I mean, even if
firemen and police officers had a hard time dealing with
what they saw after the attacks on nine to eleven.
A lot of them, you know, went to a lot
of the same issues and problems that I went through,
you know, and seeing the effects of that. Even as
(10:26):
firemen and policemen, they will tell you there's some scenes
that they come upon that is just so horrific it
affects them for the rest of their life. No matter
how many they seemed similar, there's always something that's different
about each one. And for some people, I think it
just hits them differently because here I am, you know,
(10:47):
crawlty and stuff, and I got all kinds of crap
on me and I just didn't I just mentally, I
just wasn't there. And you know, we went through that day.
We stayed all day on the twelfth until the early
morning of the thirteenth, after they you know, trick the
bodies out of depending on that's when we left and
went home. Well, for those you know what forty eight hours,
(11:07):
my family didn't even know if I was alive or not,
because they've been then able to get a hold of me.
And you know, I kind of went home and talked
to them and took my hat, boots and gloves off
that I was wearing that day and put them in
a box. I don't know why I did that, but
I did. And then I just kind of got in
a shower, and it was in the shower when I
kind of really just I kind of broke down, you know,
(11:33):
tears flowing down my face and just kind of just
dealing with the reality of everything. I internalized, the guilt
of not finding anybody. You're just trying to save somebody,
and then you think maybe I could have done this
(11:54):
different or done that different. In reality, there's nothing anybody
could have done different. You know. I think I just
allowed my brain to get wrapped around so focused on
one aspect and that the total aspect. You just keep
running that loop around and that's that becomes the problem.
And so I just kept drooling in in and in
(12:16):
on that one aspect, and that's why my circle kept
getting tighter and tighter and tighter, running in your mind
things that you saw and crawled to and went to.
You know, people talk about that all the time with
PTSD and other stuff. It's just a constant reel that
over and overplays, and it can pop up at any time,
right you can be outside and the wind blow a
certain way, or you smell a certain thing, and it
(12:37):
brings you right back to that the dreams that I
would have at night while I was sleeping, and that's
what I was trying to in my mind self medicating.
You know, you get on from work and then you know,
as the evening's winding down, you know you're going to
go to sleep, and there's a chance that you may
have those dreams and you don't want to think about
(12:58):
it no more. And so you know, in the beginning,
I was just drinking enough just to kind of, you know,
get me to that night. I would make me fall
asleep faster, which we know that that doesn't really happen.
You don't get good sleep while you're drinking. And I
think then it was, you know, I was just trying
to stay up as late as I could, so then
I would just go to sleep from exhaustion. At work,
(13:21):
I started becoming a little bit more withdrawn. You know,
I wasn't going to lunch with everybody, had started eating
at my desk and I'd get short with people. And
nowadays we know, you know, that's typical PTSD straight down
the line. But then it wasn't really talked about as
just as two thousand and two anolitary back. You know,
twenty two years ago. The culture is completely different on
how they deal with mental health. They just didn't deal
(13:43):
with it. So if you're having issues and problems, you
would be med board out of the service within you know,
they'd start that process in sixty days, which after twenty
years plus of war and everything like that. They look
at things and they treat things differently, And I think
it's it's easier to talk about the things that we
talk about, but it's still hard. There's still people suffering
(14:04):
in silence. There's still occupations out there that you can
have had adverse effects on your career if you're having
mental health issues or suicide deviation, and so there's still
a lot of things out there inside society that needs
to change. What happened was a year after and I left.
(14:28):
This accelerated my issues. I was having problem with drinking
and stuff, but this made it a lot worse. They
ran an article on paper that won year anniversary and
one of the people in there was a boy talking
about his mom. But I had crawled over half a body.
That was a huge trigger for me. And so now
I became more depressed and now is drinking heavily at night,
(14:52):
you know, to not have those dreams and those thoughts
and think about it. Well, that has its own second
third or affections on yourself. And then so at work,
one of the co workers said, hey, I think you
have something's wrong with it. I think you can go
speak with somebody. I'm like, no, and there's nothing wrong
with me. At that point, I'm feel for my career, right.
I'm thinking, you know, my military careers can be over
(15:14):
if I ain't a mental help, because back then it
was different in how they do things. Now, I lied
to my accounts because the alls I want to do is
get the stamp that I was good to go good.
I was good at lying to it, and so he
prescribed me medication. Maybe I shouldn't have been on that medication.
I don't know, because he was trying to treat my
symptoms and I'm lying about them, right, and so who
(15:36):
knows if he even gave me the right medications, which
probably could have screwed me up even more. No, I've
been accountling for a couple of months, and then I
go to training at Fort Leavenworth, in Kansas and after
I finished that training, I went to stay to my
brother's house. And now this is I don't know, December
twentieth or twenty second, I remember exact date. But you know,
(15:57):
I'm alone. He's gone. You're bad thoughts in a room,
get up and leave that room, right. I didn't do that,
And so I'm drinking and I'm having those thoughts of
guilt of not being able to find anybody alive. I
had distress of dealing with my family because I'm in
Virginia there in Kansas City, that's twelve hundred miles away,
and they call it a couple in effect, you know.
(16:19):
You know, psychologists talk about that where you just no
longer want to live. And you know, once I got
to that point, no matter training would have stopped me
for what I was about to do, no amount of anything.
And I always tell people, we got to stop people
(16:40):
before they get to that point, because once they get
to that point, it's hard to stop what's going to happen.
Because I went to look for his gun and I
couldn't find it. That's when I switched the pills, because
I probably if I were to find his gun, I
wouldn't be sitting hereward. I've been successful, so that probably
was another life saving measure that saved me was the
fact that I couldn't find his gun and he just
(17:02):
stuck in the screwball place, not where he normally you know,
night stand or dress or he just had it in
a different place, and it just so happened because he
was rearranging. He lives an old home, but it's a
very big home, so he was rearranging the bedrooms and
just had in a completely different area because he was
re arranging in his rooms then where it normally would
have been. A lot of people say that, you know,
(17:24):
having that gunlock on and fiddle him with it saved
their life because then they were like, whoa wait a second,
what am I doing. I wrote a note. I just
said I didn't want to feel the guilty of finding
anybody alive anymore, and said I leve you of and
signed it.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
That was it.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
I took a whole bunch of sleeping pills and I
laid down on the couch and next thing I know,
I'll wake up in the hospital. Now, how did I
go from laying on the couch to the hospital. Is
my older brother who works at Truman Medical Center, which
is about a mile from his house. Got a funny
(18:02):
feeling at worked, and he called the house and I
didn't answer. It was just a weird feeling he got
and it wasn't it was like a gut feeling. It wasn't.
It wasn't like a normal feeling that he would have
when he called the house and I didn't answer. Whatever happened,
And he can't really explain it.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
He was just.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Different, but he acted on it. Mine was never planned.
I didn't plan for that date. It just happened, right,
So whatever was going on in my mind that space
at that time, it just happened. And so if you
was to go back and ask my brother, well, what
signs did he exhibit, he would say there wasn't any sign.
(18:46):
So maybe there was just little signs because I knew
I was dealing with stuff, you know, I they knew
I was going to therapy and things like that, but
there was nothing that would jump out. Remember, I don't
I live in DC, I don't live in Kansas City.
And now I'm at his house and haven't been at
his house for a year, you know, because you know,
not only have I gon to therapy and all this
other stuff, So it wasn't like they had been around
(19:08):
me to know exactly what all my behaviors were anyway,
But had I completed that day, my family would have
had a hell of a lot of questions for the
rest of their life on what they would have missed.
But you know, thankfully, when my brother got that feeling
at work, when he called the house and I didn't answer,
and he rushed home and obviously found me. He said
(19:31):
I was semi conscious, but I don't remember none of that,
and then rushed me to the hospital and then obviously
they did their life saving procedures saved me. But I
took twenty two plus sleeping pills. They think, I don't
know the exact member I took, but I took well
over twenty so it would have killed me, you know,
Plus with the amount of alcohol that I was drinking.
And so when I wake up in the hospital from that,
(19:54):
that was scared, because you know, I don't know what
got me to that point, and to this day that
still bothers me. I don't know, you. Just like I said,
everything just came together at once that I decided don't
want to live no more. And when I woke up
in the hospital. That's why I said, I was scared
and feelful because I realized that wasn't the road you
(20:16):
wanted to go down. And I was lucky enough to
come back for that. Some people aren't, or some people
have such horrific injuries you know from their suicide attempt
that you know they can't function normal anymore. You just
like I said, everything just came together at once that
I decided then't want to live no more. And so
I make it my life not to ever have all
(20:38):
those things come together again. Right now, I'll get up
and walk out of that room, or I'll get up
and change something, because I want to change the chain
reaction event that's going to happen. And I know what's
going to happen because I've been there, and I think
for anybody that survided a suicide attempt to understand that
or you know, had you know, ideations to that point,
and so you got to change those events. But the
(21:03):
biggest turning point for me when my drive back to Virginia.
That's when I made the conscious effort to go back
into counseling and be honest with my counsel Now, that
was a little difficult in his self because now because
I attempted my life, that hospital is now calling my
counselor in Virginia. And now he just realized that I've
been lying to him for the last six months seven months.
(21:26):
In my family, we didn't talk about culture. You just
you just you didn't do it. I never saw my
dad cry to the day that he died.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
He just don't.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
We just didn't do that. That's just something we didn't
do in my family. And so how do you learn
how to do something that you were grown up never doing.
It's it's hard. And so when I was into counseling
and I was doing all that, you know, I had
to learn learn to be okay with not being okay
and learn how to have a conversation with somebody instead
(21:56):
of getting to the point where you take a bunch
of sleeping pills and don't don't want to live. And sadly,
for me, it took a while. Nowadays, kids, you know,
they learn about it in school. My nieces and nephews
all learn about you know, nine to eleven and in school,
(22:18):
and then you know, you think, wow, I was there,
But I'm sure it's the same for you know, people
that were Pearl Harbor or other big events in history
that we're there. I mean, you look at it a
little bit differently, especially the you know, the people that
landed on D Day during World War Two. I couldn't imagine,
you know, going through that, but I'm sure when they
were going through it, they didn't think about it, right,
You're just trying to complete the mission, and that's all
we were. We were trying to do. I don't watch
(22:42):
the news programs on it. I don't watch any TV
on nine to eleven. I do other things that bring
me joy. I don't think about it because I was there.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
For me, I just do positive things now in that day,
and I think for a lot of people who's been
through trauma and maybe that anniversary has come around, you
learn how to do things that make you happy, that
bring yourself joy. And I think, and it's okay about that.
I don't need to watch, you know, movies or series
or or constantly replayed it by happening on nine to eleven.
(23:12):
I don't need to watch any of that because I
was there, so there's no reason for me to know.
I've not gone to the memorial. I don't I've never
been to the moilmoral so I think people feel guilty
about not doing that, and I did for a little while,
but then I realized, you know, it's okay to feel
that way when I go out and do my speaking
to events, or if I do anything I do say
(23:35):
that I am a suicide survivor because I think it's
important a lot of instances in life where you survive
things you don't understand where you survive it, And so
I wear it as a badge of courage to reduce
to stigma associated with that, and so I will no
longer be ashamed of that because that event has shaped
my life to what I am now. I think for
(23:59):
people who have survives suicide, I think they look at
things different.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
You want to go and enjoy life, you really want
to live again.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Welcome back to Alive Again. Joining me for a conversation
about today's story. Are my other Alive Again story producers
Nicholas Dakowski and Brent Day, and I'm your host.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Dan Bush.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Another extremely powerful story. Can we can you just start
us off and tell us why you why you chose
this story.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
There's a lot of things that attracted me to cliffs
st I'm former military, so that resonated with me. I've
suffered from suicidal ideation, and I had a lot of
curiosity about what the stress of being a first responder
does to to those who answer the call and go
in there. So it's pretty remarkable to find somebody who
(25:20):
had the experience that Cliff has had.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Like, there's a lot of stuff about Cliff's story that.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Is interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
And I'm interested because you're a military, you have a
military background yourself, Brent. I'm interested in how the culture
might have changed if if you know, after the nine
to eleven Pentagon attack, Cliff was, you know, did not
feel comfortable expressing to his counselor to his coworkers that
(25:52):
he was having problems and difficulties, and then he was depressed,
and then he was having suicidal ideation because the culture
was not you know, because he was he had a
fear about losing his job, his military career, which is
sort of the stigma, and that's what apparently is part
of that culture.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
Has it changed, Yeah, I would say that for my
suicidal ideation was never extreme, but it was there, but
it was different than Cliffs. I think mine was more
of maybe some kind of imbalance or something. Because I
would be feeling great, I'd go with my friends and
then I just have these really dark feelings that would
last for maybe three days. And I looked at it
(26:30):
almost like I'm going through this. I know I'm going
to pull through this at the end of this. But
I think when you're in the throes of those feelings,
it's very hard to express yourself for fear of how
people will look at you. Even now talking about it,
I think it's kind of like showing somebody a very
(26:50):
personal part of yourself. So I think, regardless of what
kind of career implications there might be, there's just also
a stigma. And particularly in the time I would in
the military in the eighties and I would have never
thought to talk to anybody about it at the time.
And I don't think I don't think just because of
the military. I think just society in general. It was
something you just didn't talk about.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
How much do you think that that culture of the
military feeds into that. I mean, I know that the
military deals with is getting better at dealing with the repercussions,
but do you think that the actual culture has changed
enough to be able to really purb that before it happens.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
That certainly wasn't my experience in the military, you know.
I mean, they definitely demand discipline, they definitely demand unit cohesion,
But my friends ran the gamut. There were a lot
of real thoughtful, sensitive people who were serving their country,
and Cliff is an example of that. I mean, he's
somebody who is very in touch with his feelings, able
(27:59):
to express them. But what he was going through was
post traumatic stress disorder he was strictly dealing with. Every
time he closed his eyes, he was seeing a movie
of devastation that none of us can imagine. And I
think his story says a lot about the willingness of
people to put on their boots and put on their
(28:19):
uniform and serve this country and exposing themselves to things
that he said. There were fire fighters there, there were
military personnel there who had served in Iraq who were
not prepared for what they saw. And he did not
go into any detail of what he saw, and I
think there's enough that you can imagine. When an airplane
(28:39):
implodes inside of a building, killing all aboard the plane
and killing several people working in the building, You're going
to stumble upon things that are going to be difficult
to raise from your memory. Absolutely, I think it was.
And again I haven't been in the military since the eighties,
but I think it was more for me. Society at
large wasn't ready to talk about suicidal ideation. Society at
(29:03):
large would consider you're considered weird, not even like a weakness,
but just weird, you know. And and there's been great,
great strides taken, you know, and you know, Cliff has
devoted his life to helping veterans address this this scourge,
this this desire to kill yourself. And yet he says
(29:26):
he still has post traumatic stress disorder, he still has
to take himself out of those situations where the ideation surfaces,
you know. And he says, sometimes it's as simple as
just leaving the room, going somewhere else, you know. And
I think, yeah, I think it might be kind of
like like alcoholism or something. It's something maybe you never
(29:46):
rid yourself.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
It's interesting, Brent, because you're you know, you're not yours
wasn't necessarily part of some post traumatic stress situation or
as a result of that. But what Cliff talked about
that I thought was fascinating was this slippery slope. So
it was this It wasn't any one thing. It was
the combination of things, the isolation, not feeling like you
(30:08):
can share this or talk to anybody about it. Every
time he closed his eyes or went to sleep at night,
there was this loop that would start to play in
his head of the people that he wasn't able to
to save, and that led to the self medication and
drinking in order to sort of gum down those voices
(30:30):
in his head. So he's isolated, he's self medicating, and
then before you know it, he just happens to be
in a house that he knows has a gun, and
it's just a combination of events, and now he's able
to look at this and go remove any one of
those events, stop the chain reaction in the snowball effect
before it happens, even if you just get up and
(30:52):
walk out of the room, like identifying the triggers and
identifying the things as are happening as a major sort
of way to to to preserve one's life, you know,
against all of this, but I do think that it
points to this. I'm wondering if this if there is
been movement either in the military or if you guys
(31:13):
think there is an in our own society of a
willingness to talk about you know, I feel like so
many generations go off to war in America or go
off to some even if it's not.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Called a war. They'll go after those, whether it's.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
You know, in Panama or whether it's in Iraq or wherever,
then and come back and there's not a lot It
seems to me that there's still not a lot of
dialogue or openness about being able to talk about what
that experience was. And for me, it makes me mad
because I'm like, well, of course we don't want to
talk about it, because then we're not going to ever
go do it. And I personally feel like a lot
(31:52):
of the corporations that make a lot of money off
of warfare and so forth, it's not in their interest
to have these things talked about.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Like, you know, the the idea.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
The narrative of this of this brave American you know,
who's fighting for freedom is the one that they want
to promote. There's nothing wrong with that, but you also
have to balance that against the you know, the consequences.
And I wonder if we're doing enough for our military.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
Yeah, I mean, they're they're they're I think there's I
think there's a lot of misconceptions about the military, but
I think there's a lot of truth. And what you
just said about our society doesn't really treat them. You know,
there's there's countless homeless veterans, there's countless suicide. There's been
an epidemic of suicide among veterans. You know, you can
(32:41):
look at how hard John Stewart had to work to
get Congress to pass a bill to give funding to
support the first responders on nine to eleven who went
into the World Trade and World Trade Center. So we talk,
we talk about the heroic service of these people who
serve for us. But you're right, I do think that,
you know, you would think if you're willing to lay
(33:02):
your life on the line like that, you wouldn't be
sleeping on the street, that there would be resources for
you when you come home, you know. And I think
I think we can do better for our veterans, for sure.
And I don't think the story is necessarily a story
about toxic masculinity or our perceptions of the military industrial complex.
I think it's a story about people being willing to
(33:26):
put themselves in these extreme situations for the better of
our country. I think what Cliff did in trying to
help find survivors in the Pentagon of nine to eleven
was a tremendous service to the rest of the country.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
And I think.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
And then and then being able to take what Cliff
has learned from this for anybody, whether you're in the
military or not, and understand the trigger that there are
triggers that you will encounter that could put you back
into the place of suicidal ideation, and to make a
plan for addressing that in advance so that when you're
in that spot.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
It points to.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
A cultural phenomenon where we don't like to talk about it.
We don't want to talk about the horrors of war.
We don't want to talk about what these people experience,
and we don't want them to talk about it, and
we don't want hell, even death, we don't want to.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Talk about death.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
We're obsessed with youth in this company, we're in this country.
We're obsessed with hero right, Yeah, it was a fortieth flip,
but these the heroism and and all of that, we
will talk about that till blue in the face. But
to talk about the trauma and the you know, the
damage that it does to the soul. We're just not
(34:37):
ready to talk about that, and nobody and it's hard.
I think that that is one of the things that
is an isolating factor for those.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Who have experienced these sorts of traumas.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
Yeah, I mean I was in the military, and I
would think it was more of an issue societally at
that time where you wouldn't talk about it, and I
think now you would now. And I think I felt
taken care of by my battalion. I felt that the
commander of my battalion had my best interests at heart.
And I think everybody's experience is different. It's like working
(35:12):
at different corporations. Some really care about their employees, some
do not. You know, so maybe maybe one commander of
a unit would could care less about his troops, maybe
another one's going to take really good care of him.
But I felt very well taken care of when I
was in the service. And I think what Cliff is
doing to raise awareness of suicidal triggers and how to
(35:35):
overcome them, I think whether you're in the military or not,
I mean, it's a great service that he's doing.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Did he say that that that, I mean, that's what
I'm interested in. I'm not trying to point any figure
figures are be accusatory of something I don't know anything about,
but I wanted to see if Cliff himself had mentioned,
you know, what did he say about the changes either
due to what you know from his efforts and efforts
of other people like him, either in culture at large
(36:03):
or in the military, to.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Change the narrative or to change you know, the.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Culture so that we are open to talk about this
without fear of losing our military career.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
Yeah, it just seems like it was a gradual thing.
You know, he was very worried about, you know, and
as I think in the year two thousand and one,
if you were working in a corporation and you said
you were having suicidal ideation, they may find a reason
to fire you. I just don't think society was comfortable
talking about it at the time.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Does he feel like that's changing?
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Yeah, I mean I think so. And I think because
of work that people like himself are doing, and I
think because of societal changes that are making it easier
to talk about mental health. Hopefully society is getting a
little more understanding of the different experiences that people are having,
you know, whether it's your identity or whether it's your
(36:56):
mental health or whether it's suicidal ideation, or you know,
I do feel like we live in a much more
open society now than maybe we did twenty three years.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Ago, you know sure.
Speaker 5 (37:10):
And I think it's because people like Cliff go through
something and they say, I don't want somebody else to
experience this, and I want them to know life is
worth living. And here are the tools I used to
get out of it, and the tools I will continue
to use to address it when those feelings come back.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Special thanks to Cliff Bowman for sharing his story. If
you are a veteran dealing with depression or suicidal ideation,
Cliff encourages you to check out the Veterans Trash Talk
podcast for support. We also very much encourage contacting the
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at one eight hundred two seven
three talk. That's one eight hundred two seven.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Three t alk.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Next time I'm Alive again, we meet Amanda Clear. In
two thousand and eight, Amanda slammed her accurate into the
back of a stopped tractor trailer.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
It's your body's way of protecting itself, right, So I
protect myself now, write my brain, not allowing itself to
remember all of the horrific details, and I protected myself
then by screaming and flailing and kicking. It's that fight,
in the fight or flight, it started to feel like
(38:24):
a SOB story. I no longer wanted to tell a
story of tragedy, that I was the victim, not the hero,
and I am the hero of my own story.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
The wreck which nearly killed her required fifteen hours of
facial reconstructive.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Surgery and set her on a new path.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Her story is one of real transformation and of fully
embracing the person that she has become. Our story producers
are Dan Bush, Kate Sweeney, Brent Die, Nicholas Dakowski, and
Lauren Vogelbaum. Music by Ben Lovett, Music by Alexander Rodriguez.
Our executive producers are Matthew Frederick and Trevor Young. Special
(39:05):
thanks to Alexander Williams for additional production support. Our studio
engineers are Rima L. K Ali and Noames Griffin. Our
editors are Dan Bush, Gerhart Slavitchca, Brent Die, and Alexander Rodriguez.
Mixing by Ben Lovett and Alexander Rodriguez. I'm your Host,
Dan Bush Alive Again is a production of i Art
Radio and Psychopia Pictures. If you have a transformative near
(39:29):
death experience to share, we'd love to hear your story.
Please email us at Alive Again Project at gmail dot com.
That's a l i v e A g A I
N p R O j e c t at gmail
dot com.
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