August 11, 2023 • 17 mins
Welcome to Unbreakable! A mental health podcast hosted by Fox NFL Insider Jay Glazer. On today’s episode, Jay sits down with mental health expert with over 25 years of crisis experience, Wendy Farmer. As the regional VP for the crisis center of excellence at Carelon Behavioral Health she’s helping to develop crisis capabilities, which include building and overseeing statewide and community crisis systems.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to Unbreakable Mental Health Podcast with Jay Glazer.
I'm Jay Glazer, and if you're like many people, you
may be surprised to learn about one in five adults
in this country experienced mental illness last year, yet far
too many failed to receive the support they need. Carolyn,
behavioral Health is doing something about it. They understand that
behavioral health is a key part of whole health, delivering
(00:20):
compassionate care that treats physical, mental, emotional, and social needs
in tandem. Carolyn behavioral health raising the quality of life
through empathy and action. And look, one of the things
I love about our partnership here with Carolyn is we
have some of their experts that get to come on,
and I have a lot of guests. We call them on.
We talk about our mental health issues and a lot
of celebrities and a lot of you know, people that
(00:42):
you may know from different areas of TV or sports.
But we're not the experts. So I need to have
those experts on to help us through. And one of
those experts for Carolyn right now is Wendy Farmer, a
regional VP for the Crisis Center for Excellence at Carolyn. Wendy,
how you doing dank?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
How are you? I'm doing great. That's a heck of
a title right there. Hey we have crisis. I got ADHD.
That's a long title. Yeah, it's kind of long. It's
kind of But here's the thing. I don't think I've
ever had anybody on the show. It talks about crisis,
and I want people to understand how important this is
because one thing about you know, we go see a therapist,
and I always think we need therapy because there are coaches,
(01:23):
but it's a totally different area of crisis. And I
get a lot of times people come to me when
they have crisis, when the sky is falling, and I
often don't know what to do, and most of them
I don't know what duke except try to tell them
to get help. But even that there's a specific help
that you were your expertise is in. Tell me how
you got into this field of specifically dealing with crisis.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I've been working with people in mental health crisis for
twenty five years. It just it's an area of behavior
health that I gravitated to, really because I think there's
such great opportunity when there is a crisis to really
engage someone in care you know, when someone's reaching out
on their very worst day, it's an awesome responsibility, but
(02:06):
it's also an awesome, you know, opportunity to be able
to give them quality care and to get them what
they need. And what I've found is that if you
could treat people with kindness, with compassion, if you know
what to do, if you know how to connect them
to care, They're always going to remember that and that's
always going to make them feel better about behavioral health care.
(02:29):
It gives them the confidence that the system is there
to help them.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
What's the right care? Because there's terre and people can
call them and reach out, and sometimes you're like, oh no,
what would happen there? What's what would you say is
the right care when someone calls it the crisis?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
It's complex, but I would put it like this. You know,
if you have a heart attack in our country today,
everybody knows what to do. Right there's a very clear
care path. I unfortunately had one in my car when
I was forty and I'm here today because everybody did
they were supposed to do. I knew what to do,
the bystanders knew what to do, and that's knew what
(03:05):
to do. Everybody did, and unfortunately in the behavioral health system,
we haven't had a clear care pathway. But we're starting
to get that now, right, we have nine eight eight
in place. We do have a place for people to call.
That's the nine to one one for mental health. It's
the nine eight eight for behavioral health. So we're starting
to get those care pathways delivered in communities so that
(03:28):
you have a place to call. Communities are now developing
ways that people can come to you, like mobile crisis teams,
so that kind of like an ambulance coming to you.
Those mobile crisis team to specialize in behavioral health are
coming to people now and they're specialized places for people
to go now in many communities that are specifically related
to behavioral health. So the right care is really, you know,
(03:51):
the amount of care at the intensity that person needs
at that time.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
You also, you know, wrote to the folks Carol and
recently helped mother's child was actively threatening to harm siblings.
So this is you know, there's a difference in what
I'm trying to do is leave mental health to mental
wealth and really try and give it word so we
can have the conversations. But then you have things like this,
How are you guys able to navigate something as dramatic
(04:18):
as the child threatening or siblings and you got to
step in in well, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
We first listened to, you know, to exactly what the
situation was. We we didn't over react in the sense
of sending police right to the house, right, that's not
always necessary. We were able to keep things calm enough
that we could talk through a reasonable plan. We were
able to reach out to a facility that was willing to,
you know, to take this young person, and we really
(04:46):
worked along the way to avoid some of the common
kind of pitfalls that you see. Right, So, sometimes people
end up in the back of a police car unnecessarily,
they end up sitting in the emergency room for days
on end. So it was about understanding what the exact
need was and having a relationship with a facility that
was able to meet the needs so we could get
our directly there. We want to make sure that we're
(05:08):
streamlining that we're causing as little disruption and trauma to
that young person. You know, no one needs to start
their behavioral healthcare in the back of a police car,
So we do as much as we can to avoid
that kind of unnecessary emergency services interaction.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Think it's an interesting time we live in because we're
talking about mental health way more than we ever had,
which is great because that's what we need to do, right,
take away that stigma and we understand, Okay, nothing's wrong
with me. I'm just going through some certain things and
we can get through. But at the same time, the
world is a scarier place, right We're all judging ourselves
on social media and comparing ourselves to everybody else, and
(05:44):
it's I guess it's harder. How do you kind of
balance that of where we are in today's society?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, I have people are experiencing unprecedented levels of distress,
you know, I think talking about it like we are today,
I mean we're seeing the stigma that it's you know,
okay not to be okay, and I think, you know,
really talking to people directly about their feelings and their challenges.
You know, when I started working as a professional counselor
(06:13):
twenty five years ago, people thought that if you ask
someone if they were feeling suicidal or if they were
having thoughts of suicide, they thought that it would actually
cause it. And we know today that it's actually more
likely to prevent it because when you ask that question openly,
you give that person permission to give you their pain
and say yeah, I'm feeling like this, and then we
(06:35):
can acknowledge it and we can say, yeah, there's something
we can do about it. So, even though there's tremendous,
unpreprecedented distress, you know, coming out of the pandemic, we're
seeing people really facing these challenges.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I have so much more.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Hope than I did twenty five years ago because we're
talking about this so very openly.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Right, There's another thing that areaways kind of concerns me.
It's just like, how does someone when they see so
many signs of dressed and struggling. What's the proper way
for you, as a friend or you as a family
member to approach that person without sending the alarm bell
for without them retreating away from you.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Just hitting it had on you know, hitting it. You know,
it feels to me or it looks to me like
you're in a lot of pain, you know, and I
want to be here from you for you. Do you
want to talk about it? I've been in pain before,
you know. I'm not afraid to talk to you about that.
And I think the more and more we do public
education about what to do. You know, we've done it.
(07:35):
You know, I knew to take an aspirin when I
was having a heart attack because people told me. You know,
I've heard that on the radio, right, take an aspirin,
or you know, women should take aspirin, or women have
jaw pain when they have, you know, heart attacks. I
knew that because I heard public health messaging. We need
to teach your everyday people how to do mental health
first aid. You know how to say you know you
(07:56):
really are you know your behavior is concerning me, or
you know you've been really really sad lately and I'm
worried about you and know that it's okay to open
that discussion. But we also need to teach people what
to do. You know, if that person says, yes and
this is what I'm you know, I'm thinking of death
all the time, or I'm really really really sad. We
need to teach everybody what to do. Just like everyone
(08:18):
knows to call nine one one, we need to teach folks, Hey,
you can call nine eight eight and get a counselor
to help you through this conversation, So.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
That would be your immediate thing. Hey, let's get another
teammate for you as nine eight eight right now, absolutely,
what are you teaching these community leaders so they can
get that message out a lot more like you're saying
that the message you have that you had heard through
your physical health, what are the biggest messages you're putting
out to those community leaders.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
We're trying to pull it and and I know at Caroline,
we've tried to pull together what we call community collaborative meetings.
So we look at a community, maybe it's a county,
maybe it's a region, and we bring together anyone that
someone may come in contact with when they're having a crisis,
might be, you know, sometimes emergency services, it could be
(09:03):
emergency rooms, it could be a crisis provider. It could
be you know, a shelter, or people who provide food assistance.
We bring all those types of providers together into community
meetings to talk about what happens to someone who has
a crisis in your community and how can we work
better together to make sure that that person has a
good experience. And the number one thing that I that
(09:26):
I'm really proud that we do is that we include
people who've actually used the crisis system. So people who
had that lived experience and their families to say, you know,
what happened when you had that very bad day, how
did the system take care of you or didn't take
care of you? And how can we all work together
to make that better? And I think of it as
you know, the relationships between all of us who provide
(09:48):
those services. We have to have very strong relationships with
one another, so we know who to call for what
kind of you know, resource, and those relationships make up
the fiber of a safety net, so that we're all
coming together so that you know, when our you know,
when our neighbor has a really bad day, we're all
working together to make sure they get the care they need.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
And I think another message that people really need to
understand out there is you can come back from it.
So I think a lot of people are afraid to
ask for the help because they're thinking, oh my gosh,
when lose my job, when we lose my relationships and
lose this, but there is coming back from it. And
I think that's you know, what could be better message,
you know, send out there's a message so people can
understand that.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I think when we talk about you know, suicide Prevention
Month comes up, in September, and I'm always asked, you know,
to help write an article or you know, to help
you know, talk about what we need to do to
prevent suicide. And I always say, and a lot of
people who work in this field will say, you need
to include messages of hope. You need to include people,
(10:50):
you know, such as yourself, who talk about mental health
very openly. You know, when you have messages. You know,
we see these articles that say there's unprecedented stress and
the suicide rate is so high in the OPUHAD crisis,
and yes, all these things are true, but we also
need to include stories of hope. You know, for everyone
who dies by suicide, they're actually two hundred and eighty
people who think about it but don't. Why is that, Well,
(11:12):
it's because there's hope. There's help, and there's hope. So
I think the more that we are able to disclose
and when people who have great influence are willing to
say this happened to me, and here I am today.
You know, no one ever gave me a hard time
or thought that I would not be able to do
my job after I had my heart attack. Right, it
(11:33):
should be the very same thing, you know, when we
have brain pain, it's no different than having chest pain,
and we can come back from it.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
I tell sports teams all the time. Listen, mental health
is just too reactive, you know, physical health wise, You
guys don't just run routes when you think you're getting slower,
catch passes when you think you have the drops, you
do it always. Or if you broke your arm in
the past you had a cast on, everybody signed your
cast we brag about it. Yeah, well right, only going
after the sky has fallen, or if we do have
(12:02):
issues behind it, instead of to be proud of it,
I think that's really a message that hey, yeah, I've
had these issues and I've either used them to my
advantage or overcome them.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Well and the other the other thing I've said to
someone recently. You know when when when you go into
the hospital to have your appendix out, you know, people
bring you cast roles at your house right afterwards. Well,
people don't do that when their loved one has been
hospitalized for behavioral health. Why not you know, take some
spaghetti over. You know, you know acknowledge that you know
(12:32):
someone has had you know, it's a physical it's a
physical condition. Let's acknowledge that and let's help each other
through it, and it touches everyone.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
I'm going to ask you for personal advice because now
that I talk about mental health, i write my book,
I get a lot of people who will message being
hitting me up, wanted me to step in and help them.
But I'm not a therapist. I'm just a dude who's
messed up, who's learned how to be good with his
messed up this and be proud of his mental scars
and give it words for buddy. My messaging messaging has
(13:02):
always been leaning to your teammates. It's not me right
leaning to your team. But I always get nervous if
a message doesn't go back to that person. Oh my gosh,
what am I going to do? So give me some advice.
If somebody says to me, I don't know, it's just
a random DM and who's getting angry that I won't
get back to them, and they seem filled with more
(13:24):
and more despair, what could me or my team send
that person or I won't send them off the defend
and they think that you know, I can at least
give them care, But again, I know it's not my
area of expertise.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yeah, yeah, well, you know you can always ask, you know,
is there someone you know? I you know, I want
you to be okay, right, and I want you to
get help that you need, and I want you to
have someone to listen to you. Do you have anyone
in your life that you would be willing to tell
this information too? Is there anyone you'd be willing to
reach out or.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Recognize who those people are in your life?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
And if not, you know, know that there are resources,
right and you know there are people twenty four to
seven available via call, text in chat on nine to
eight eight, and you know it doesn't have to be
a situation where thing someone It's called the Suicide and
Crisis Lifeline, but they've changed it so it's it also
(14:21):
says the Crisis Lifeline as well, so that people understand
that it's just not about suicide. There are all sorts
of different things that people get into crisis about. It
could be substance use, it could be just you know,
feeling really severe depression, and it's okay to reach out.
And you know, phone tech, you know, some people might
be a little reticent about making a phone call. It's
it's that's harder to do it's it's never easy to do,
(14:44):
but a text or a chat feels a little bit
more anonymous. Are you willing to chat with someone? You
know there are people available twenty four to seven. But also,
you know, just educating the broader community that if someone
comes to you, you know, it's okay, and it's okay
to say, you know what, I can't resolve your problems.
I'm willing to listen, and I'm willing to be the
(15:07):
one to help provide you some support in the moment.
But let's see if we can get you some professional help.
I let you go.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
I guess my tempoles in unbreakable to get through a
lot of my mental health challenges. Or find your team
and lean into your team, be of service. Whenever I'm
in service, my depression, my grade certainly lessens a lot.
Laughter is huge for me. Proud of my stars is
really big for me. So I don't feel this shame
(15:34):
or this stigma. I'm proud of Just like I said,
we used to brag about your cast and break in
your arm. Give me and give our listeners some of
the best tools that you could provide it. You could
tell us about when they're going through their mental health challenges.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Number one is just to talk about it right. It
doesn't matter who finds someone in your life that allow
you to be yourself unapologetically and just to talk right
and just to talk about how you're feeling. Know that
there are resources out there. There are people available and
ready to listen twenty four to seven who are non judgmental.
(16:17):
You know, they're not trying to you know, they're not
going to send a police car to your house. I mean,
these are these are people who are just willing to
listen and to help you problem solve and they're available
twenty four to seven. You know, don't be ashamed. You
know these challenges. One in five Americans is walking around
right now with a diagnosable mental illness. And that doesn't
(16:40):
even include people who are who are facing challenges that
are painful, that are diagnosable, right, I mean, we all
have challenges. Don't be ashamed. Know that we all face
these challenges and talking about it can make such a
tremendous difference.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
I really appreciate it. You know, again, I love my
partnership with with Carolyn. Every time, you know it's your
second guest from Caroline. But I learned I think we
all learn. The more we have these conversations with people,
they realize, Okay, we're all we're all this both together.
And I talk about having a team. I'm proud to
have you on the team, proud to be part of it.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Thank you so much for reaching out. We're always here.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
God blessed. Thank you for your work.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Thank you
Welcome back to Unbreakable Mental Health Podcast with Jay Glazer.
I'm Jay Glazer, and if you're like many people, you
may be surprised to learn about one in five adults
in this country experienced mental illness last year, yet far
too many failed to receive the support they need. Carolyn,
behavioral Health is doing something about it. They understand that
behavioral health is a key part of whole health, delivering
(00:20):
compassionate care that treats physical, mental, emotional, and social needs
in tandem. Carolyn behavioral health raising the quality of life
through empathy and action. And look, one of the things
I love about our partnership here with Carolyn is we
have some of their experts that get to come on,
and I have a lot of guests. We call them on.
We talk about our mental health issues and a lot
of celebrities and a lot of you know, people that
(00:42):
you may know from different areas of TV or sports.
But we're not the experts. So I need to have
those experts on to help us through. And one of
those experts for Carolyn right now is Wendy Farmer, a
regional VP for the Crisis Center for Excellence at Carolyn. Wendy,
how you doing dank?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
How are you? I'm doing great. That's a heck of
a title right there. Hey we have crisis. I got ADHD.
That's a long title. Yeah, it's kind of long. It's
kind of But here's the thing. I don't think I've
ever had anybody on the show. It talks about crisis,
and I want people to understand how important this is
because one thing about you know, we go see a therapist,
and I always think we need therapy because there are coaches,
(01:23):
but it's a totally different area of crisis. And I
get a lot of times people come to me when
they have crisis, when the sky is falling, and I
often don't know what to do, and most of them
I don't know what duke except try to tell them
to get help. But even that there's a specific help
that you were your expertise is in. Tell me how
you got into this field of specifically dealing with crisis.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I've been working with people in mental health crisis for
twenty five years. It just it's an area of behavior
health that I gravitated to, really because I think there's
such great opportunity when there is a crisis to really
engage someone in care you know, when someone's reaching out
on their very worst day, it's an awesome responsibility, but
(02:06):
it's also an awesome, you know, opportunity to be able
to give them quality care and to get them what
they need. And what I've found is that if you
could treat people with kindness, with compassion, if you know
what to do, if you know how to connect them
to care, They're always going to remember that and that's
always going to make them feel better about behavioral health care.
(02:29):
It gives them the confidence that the system is there
to help them.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
What's the right care? Because there's terre and people can
call them and reach out, and sometimes you're like, oh no,
what would happen there? What's what would you say is
the right care when someone calls it the crisis?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
It's complex, but I would put it like this. You know,
if you have a heart attack in our country today,
everybody knows what to do. Right there's a very clear
care path. I unfortunately had one in my car when
I was forty and I'm here today because everybody did
they were supposed to do. I knew what to do,
the bystanders knew what to do, and that's knew what
(03:05):
to do. Everybody did, and unfortunately in the behavioral health system,
we haven't had a clear care pathway. But we're starting
to get that now, right, we have nine eight eight
in place. We do have a place for people to call.
That's the nine to one one for mental health. It's
the nine eight eight for behavioral health. So we're starting
to get those care pathways delivered in communities so that
(03:28):
you have a place to call. Communities are now developing
ways that people can come to you, like mobile crisis teams,
so that kind of like an ambulance coming to you.
Those mobile crisis team to specialize in behavioral health are
coming to people now and they're specialized places for people
to go now in many communities that are specifically related
to behavioral health. So the right care is really, you know,
(03:51):
the amount of care at the intensity that person needs
at that time.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
You also, you know, wrote to the folks Carol and
recently helped mother's child was actively threatening to harm siblings.
So this is you know, there's a difference in what
I'm trying to do is leave mental health to mental
wealth and really try and give it word so we
can have the conversations. But then you have things like this,
How are you guys able to navigate something as dramatic
(04:18):
as the child threatening or siblings and you got to
step in in well, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
We first listened to, you know, to exactly what the
situation was. We we didn't over react in the sense
of sending police right to the house, right, that's not
always necessary. We were able to keep things calm enough
that we could talk through a reasonable plan. We were
able to reach out to a facility that was willing to,
you know, to take this young person, and we really
(04:46):
worked along the way to avoid some of the common
kind of pitfalls that you see. Right, So, sometimes people
end up in the back of a police car unnecessarily,
they end up sitting in the emergency room for days
on end. So it was about understanding what the exact
need was and having a relationship with a facility that
was able to meet the needs so we could get
our directly there. We want to make sure that we're
(05:08):
streamlining that we're causing as little disruption and trauma to
that young person. You know, no one needs to start
their behavioral healthcare in the back of a police car,
So we do as much as we can to avoid
that kind of unnecessary emergency services interaction.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Think it's an interesting time we live in because we're
talking about mental health way more than we ever had,
which is great because that's what we need to do, right,
take away that stigma and we understand, Okay, nothing's wrong
with me. I'm just going through some certain things and
we can get through. But at the same time, the
world is a scarier place, right We're all judging ourselves
on social media and comparing ourselves to everybody else, and
(05:44):
it's I guess it's harder. How do you kind of
balance that of where we are in today's society?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, I have people are experiencing unprecedented levels of distress,
you know, I think talking about it like we are today,
I mean we're seeing the stigma that it's you know,
okay not to be okay, and I think, you know,
really talking to people directly about their feelings and their challenges.
You know, when I started working as a professional counselor
(06:13):
twenty five years ago, people thought that if you ask
someone if they were feeling suicidal or if they were
having thoughts of suicide, they thought that it would actually
cause it. And we know today that it's actually more
likely to prevent it because when you ask that question openly,
you give that person permission to give you their pain
and say yeah, I'm feeling like this, and then we
(06:35):
can acknowledge it and we can say, yeah, there's something
we can do about it. So, even though there's tremendous,
unpreprecedented distress, you know, coming out of the pandemic, we're
seeing people really facing these challenges.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I have so much more.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Hope than I did twenty five years ago because we're
talking about this so very openly.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Right, There's another thing that areaways kind of concerns me.
It's just like, how does someone when they see so
many signs of dressed and struggling. What's the proper way
for you, as a friend or you as a family
member to approach that person without sending the alarm bell
for without them retreating away from you.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Just hitting it had on you know, hitting it. You know,
it feels to me or it looks to me like
you're in a lot of pain, you know, and I
want to be here from you for you. Do you
want to talk about it? I've been in pain before,
you know. I'm not afraid to talk to you about that.
And I think the more and more we do public
education about what to do. You know, we've done it.
(07:35):
You know, I knew to take an aspirin when I
was having a heart attack because people told me. You know,
I've heard that on the radio, right, take an aspirin,
or you know, women should take aspirin, or women have
jaw pain when they have, you know, heart attacks. I
knew that because I heard public health messaging. We need
to teach your everyday people how to do mental health
first aid. You know how to say you know you
(07:56):
really are you know your behavior is concerning me, or
you know you've been really really sad lately and I'm
worried about you and know that it's okay to open
that discussion. But we also need to teach people what
to do. You know, if that person says, yes and
this is what I'm you know, I'm thinking of death
all the time, or I'm really really really sad. We
need to teach everybody what to do. Just like everyone
(08:18):
knows to call nine one one, we need to teach folks, Hey,
you can call nine eight eight and get a counselor
to help you through this conversation, So.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
That would be your immediate thing. Hey, let's get another
teammate for you as nine eight eight right now, absolutely,
what are you teaching these community leaders so they can
get that message out a lot more like you're saying
that the message you have that you had heard through
your physical health, what are the biggest messages you're putting
out to those community leaders.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
We're trying to pull it and and I know at Caroline,
we've tried to pull together what we call community collaborative meetings.
So we look at a community, maybe it's a county,
maybe it's a region, and we bring together anyone that
someone may come in contact with when they're having a crisis,
might be, you know, sometimes emergency services, it could be
(09:03):
emergency rooms, it could be a crisis provider. It could
be you know, a shelter, or people who provide food assistance.
We bring all those types of providers together into community
meetings to talk about what happens to someone who has
a crisis in your community and how can we work
better together to make sure that that person has a
good experience. And the number one thing that I that
(09:26):
I'm really proud that we do is that we include
people who've actually used the crisis system. So people who
had that lived experience and their families to say, you know,
what happened when you had that very bad day, how
did the system take care of you or didn't take
care of you? And how can we all work together
to make that better? And I think of it as
you know, the relationships between all of us who provide
(09:48):
those services. We have to have very strong relationships with
one another, so we know who to call for what
kind of you know, resource, and those relationships make up
the fiber of a safety net, so that we're all
coming together so that you know, when our you know,
when our neighbor has a really bad day, we're all
working together to make sure they get the care they need.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
And I think another message that people really need to
understand out there is you can come back from it.
So I think a lot of people are afraid to
ask for the help because they're thinking, oh my gosh,
when lose my job, when we lose my relationships and
lose this, but there is coming back from it. And
I think that's you know, what could be better message,
you know, send out there's a message so people can
understand that.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I think when we talk about you know, suicide Prevention
Month comes up, in September, and I'm always asked, you know,
to help write an article or you know, to help
you know, talk about what we need to do to
prevent suicide. And I always say, and a lot of
people who work in this field will say, you need
to include messages of hope. You need to include people,
(10:50):
you know, such as yourself, who talk about mental health
very openly. You know, when you have messages. You know,
we see these articles that say there's unprecedented stress and
the suicide rate is so high in the OPUHAD crisis,
and yes, all these things are true, but we also
need to include stories of hope. You know, for everyone
who dies by suicide, they're actually two hundred and eighty
people who think about it but don't. Why is that, Well,
(11:12):
it's because there's hope. There's help, and there's hope. So
I think the more that we are able to disclose
and when people who have great influence are willing to
say this happened to me, and here I am today.
You know, no one ever gave me a hard time
or thought that I would not be able to do
my job after I had my heart attack. Right, it
(11:33):
should be the very same thing, you know, when we
have brain pain, it's no different than having chest pain,
and we can come back from it.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
I tell sports teams all the time. Listen, mental health
is just too reactive, you know, physical health wise, You
guys don't just run routes when you think you're getting slower,
catch passes when you think you have the drops, you
do it always. Or if you broke your arm in
the past you had a cast on, everybody signed your
cast we brag about it. Yeah, well right, only going
after the sky has fallen, or if we do have
(12:02):
issues behind it, instead of to be proud of it,
I think that's really a message that hey, yeah, I've
had these issues and I've either used them to my
advantage or overcome them.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Well and the other the other thing I've said to
someone recently. You know when when when you go into
the hospital to have your appendix out, you know, people
bring you cast roles at your house right afterwards. Well,
people don't do that when their loved one has been
hospitalized for behavioral health. Why not you know, take some
spaghetti over. You know, you know acknowledge that you know
(12:32):
someone has had you know, it's a physical it's a
physical condition. Let's acknowledge that and let's help each other
through it, and it touches everyone.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
I'm going to ask you for personal advice because now
that I talk about mental health, i write my book,
I get a lot of people who will message being
hitting me up, wanted me to step in and help them.
But I'm not a therapist. I'm just a dude who's
messed up, who's learned how to be good with his
messed up this and be proud of his mental scars
and give it words for buddy. My messaging messaging has
(13:02):
always been leaning to your teammates. It's not me right
leaning to your team. But I always get nervous if
a message doesn't go back to that person. Oh my gosh,
what am I going to do? So give me some advice.
If somebody says to me, I don't know, it's just
a random DM and who's getting angry that I won't
get back to them, and they seem filled with more
(13:24):
and more despair, what could me or my team send
that person or I won't send them off the defend
and they think that you know, I can at least
give them care, But again, I know it's not my
area of expertise.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yeah, yeah, well, you know you can always ask, you know,
is there someone you know? I you know, I want
you to be okay, right, and I want you to
get help that you need, and I want you to
have someone to listen to you. Do you have anyone
in your life that you would be willing to tell
this information too? Is there anyone you'd be willing to
reach out or.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Recognize who those people are in your life?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
And if not, you know, know that there are resources,
right and you know there are people twenty four to
seven available via call, text in chat on nine to
eight eight, and you know it doesn't have to be
a situation where thing someone It's called the Suicide and
Crisis Lifeline, but they've changed it so it's it also
(14:21):
says the Crisis Lifeline as well, so that people understand
that it's just not about suicide. There are all sorts
of different things that people get into crisis about. It
could be substance use, it could be just you know,
feeling really severe depression, and it's okay to reach out.
And you know, phone tech, you know, some people might
be a little reticent about making a phone call. It's
it's that's harder to do it's it's never easy to do,
(14:44):
but a text or a chat feels a little bit
more anonymous. Are you willing to chat with someone? You
know there are people available twenty four to seven. But also,
you know, just educating the broader community that if someone
comes to you, you know, it's okay, and it's okay
to say, you know what, I can't resolve your problems.
I'm willing to listen, and I'm willing to be the
(15:07):
one to help provide you some support in the moment.
But let's see if we can get you some professional help.
I let you go.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
I guess my tempoles in unbreakable to get through a
lot of my mental health challenges. Or find your team
and lean into your team, be of service. Whenever I'm
in service, my depression, my grade certainly lessens a lot.
Laughter is huge for me. Proud of my stars is
really big for me. So I don't feel this shame
(15:34):
or this stigma. I'm proud of Just like I said,
we used to brag about your cast and break in
your arm. Give me and give our listeners some of
the best tools that you could provide it. You could
tell us about when they're going through their mental health challenges.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Number one is just to talk about it right. It
doesn't matter who finds someone in your life that allow
you to be yourself unapologetically and just to talk right
and just to talk about how you're feeling. Know that
there are resources out there. There are people available and
ready to listen twenty four to seven who are non judgmental.
(16:17):
You know, they're not trying to you know, they're not
going to send a police car to your house. I mean,
these are these are people who are just willing to
listen and to help you problem solve and they're available
twenty four to seven. You know, don't be ashamed. You
know these challenges. One in five Americans is walking around
right now with a diagnosable mental illness. And that doesn't
(16:40):
even include people who are who are facing challenges that
are painful, that are diagnosable, right, I mean, we all
have challenges. Don't be ashamed. Know that we all face
these challenges and talking about it can make such a
tremendous difference.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
I really appreciate it. You know, again, I love my
partnership with with Carolyn. Every time, you know it's your
second guest from Caroline. But I learned I think we
all learn. The more we have these conversations with people,
they realize, Okay, we're all we're all this both together.
And I talk about having a team. I'm proud to
have you on the team, proud to be part of it.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Thank you so much for reaching out. We're always here.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
God blessed. Thank you for your work.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Thank you
Fox Sports Radio News
Host
Jonas Knox
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