March 23, 2023 • 43 mins
This will be a bit of a difficult topic again, but we're no strangers to the darkness.
I've noticed there seems to be a huge increase in the amount of people that are considering suicide. The cries for help are everywhere, and coming from all directions. I can recognize them myself because I've been through it.
This is a bit of my story in the hopes that it reaches the right person that needs to hear it. Don't let "them" fool you, there is always a way out. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is always hope.
If you are in distress and are considering suicide as an option, please call 988 and speak to someone!
Contact Dave:
https://survivingthesystem.org
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I've noticed there seems to be a huge increase in the amount of people that are considering suicide. The cries for help are everywhere, and coming from all directions. I can recognize them myself because I've been through it.
This is a bit of my story in the hopes that it reaches the right person that needs to hear it. Don't let "them" fool you, there is always a way out. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is always hope.
If you are in distress and are considering suicide as an option, please call 988 and speak to someone!
Contact Dave:
https://survivingthesystem.org
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The thirteenth Amendment to the United StatesConstitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except as
a punishment for a crime. Everwondered how we ended up with the largest
prison population of any country. Haveyou noticed that those whose jobs it is
to protect and serve seem to bedemanding more and more blind obedient. You
didn't think it just happened by chance, did you. It's time to call
(00:23):
attention to the fact our government asthe most prolific slave owner on the planet.
This is Surviving the System. Thankyou for joining me today on Surviving
the System. This is Dance andDave and today I you know, I
it smelt like I ever don't talkabout difficult topics on this show, but
I'm gonna I really want to delvein and just discuss a difficult, difficult
(00:49):
subject. You know, it justseems like lately, even just if I
expand things out a little bit andlook back over the last six months to
a year year, and it's justa lot of instances going around with severe
depression and people just wanting to endit, you know, wanting to kill
(01:14):
themselves. And I'd like to talka little bit about it, because if
if history and statistics show us anythingodds are I'm gonna be talking to directly
to you, and you're probably gonnaneed to hear this. You're you're gonna
need some help. Everyone at somepoint or another needs it. I just
(01:38):
hope that right now I'm getting themessage out and speaking directly to you in
enough time so before we get intothat couple quick housekeeping items before we before
we start to go down this rabbithole over again. We are live right
now on Fringe dot fm. Ifyou are listening and would like to call
in, the number is one eighthund five eight eight zero three three five
(02:01):
eight hundred and five eight eight zerothree three five would love to hear from
me. We'd love to take somelive calls and get your feedback on this
type of a topic. Especially.You can check out my website. If
you don't catch the show live onFringe, you can go to the website
(02:21):
where I keep an archive of allthe shows at Surviving the System dot org.
Catch me on any podcast platform.The show is released onto the podcast
platforms after we go live, socheck me out there. Definitely leave a
comment, leave me a rate,subscribe to the show, and most importantly
(02:42):
share it with your audience. Ifyou'd like to visit with me, or
if you have an idea for ashow and you want to talk a little
bit about it, you can catchme on Facebook at facebook dot com slash
Surviving the System or on Twitter atsts the Podcast, either one of those
are open. I don't interact toomuch on social media other than to keep
(03:05):
the dms open so that y'all havea way to reach out to me and
talk to me directly. And I'dlove to hear from you. So please
don't ever hesitate to reach out,drop me a line, say hi,
tell me to go to hell.Whatever you'd like to do, I'll take
it. And if you've never listenedto the show, or even if you
(03:27):
have, especially with a topic likethis, we want to make sure that
we don't let this type of asubject matter drag us down. So we're
going to start the show with gratitude. Gratitude. If you haven't looked into
it, I highly recommend that youdo. Gratitude is the most empowering emotion
that's out there. Learning to begrateful for whatever situation you're in, even
(03:53):
in the midst of what you mayconsider to be hell on Earth, or
the worst situation that you could possimagine, being grateful for things around you
and being grateful for having the opportunityto go through that situation will completely change
your paradigm. It'll change your life. I could guarantee it, and we
(04:14):
do it at the beginning of thisshow. Because what it also allows you
to do is to keep your vibrationhigh, keep that frequency high, so
you can talk about topics like thesethat are a little bit darker, a
little bit more difficult to discuss becauseit can stir up some emotions, it
might be triggering, But that gratitudeallows us to keep things productive, to
(04:38):
keep it constructive, so that wecan talk about these and at the end
of the show, we can comeout better for having brought all of this
up. We can come out onthe other end with a plan of action.
You can come out on the otherend with hope. So with that
in mind, I would like tovery quickly say that I am so grateful
to be here with you, allowingme to live out my purpose to help
(05:02):
to remind you of who you reallyare and what you are truly capable of.
You know, I don't even knowwhat the statistics are at this point
as far as the number of peoplethat are taking their own lives every minute
(05:23):
of every day, I just knowthat it's it's insane, and that's part
of why I don't look at it, because I don't want to focus on
just that and focus on what's wrongwith the world. I try as much
as I can to focus on thepositive and focus on being grateful. And
with that said, it's still anepidemic. Is absolutely an epidemic. If
(05:49):
you have not had the opportunity togo back and listen to my show where
I discuss the the experiences that I'vehad regarding the mental health in this country,
specifically out here where I'm at Nebraska, I discussed them last year.
(06:10):
You know, my daughter has beenfortunately very willing to discuss this. So
we had a we had a bitof a of a scare and it opened
my eyes, of course, towhat it's like for just the average citizen
to try to have to go throughthat. I dealt with it myself when
(06:31):
I went through my dysfunctional vacation.I know what it's like to go through
it and come through it from frommy perspective, but you know, never
just from somebody leading a day today life who from the outside looking in,
appears to be happy and successful.So the statistics. Thank you to
(06:55):
Joe, my producer, for grabbingthis information for me real quick. The
average suicide's right now, how perday is one hundred and thirty two daily.
The annual age adjusted suicide rate isthirteen point four two per one hundred
thousand individuals. And males die bysuicide three and a half times more often
than females on average one hundred threetwo one hundred and thirty two per day,
(07:24):
and the males and this is,you know, just just me interpolating
this data on studies that I've doneon my own and looking at other statistics.
But you know, the males dyingby suicide is a combination of a
couple of different things. One,I know a lot of it that the
vast majority of that number is alot of ex military people who just don't
(07:47):
know how to cope with some ofthe things that they've done. Deeper than
that, though, the more rootcause of that is that as men,
we don't we're not taught how toproperly deal with our emotions. If you
(08:09):
think back to the history of thiscountry. When you think of the term
man, it should probably generate somestereotypes that pop into your head. You
know, if you're going to tellsomebody to grow up be a man,
be a man means to cry,be angry, maybe even be violent.
(08:33):
It doesn't teach you that, hey, it's okay. It's okay to break
down. It's it's okay to askfor help, it's okay to not be
strong every second of every day,and it's especially okay to break down and
cry and admit that you are havingsome severe mental difficulties and you need help
because you feel like the only optionyou have left is to exit this reality.
(09:00):
Was there, man, I was. I was there twice. I
was there twice. I had theopportunity to share this story with someone recently
and fortunately it helped them. SoI'd like to share it again here with
you, and hopefully it will itwill have an impact as well. But
I have I have a life insurancepolicy that I took out. It's a
term life insurance policy. I tookit out when my first daughter was born,
(09:24):
and you know, it was enoughto to cover It's depending on who
you talk to and what you're whatyour end goal is for term life insurance
policy. You want to be ableto cover one year or two years of
that person's salary typically. So Igot that taken care of so that,
(09:52):
you know, just in case ifthe worst were to happen, the kids
would be okay, my wife wouldhave the money to pay the bills and
still keep going while she got backon her feet. But then I,
on my way to work one day, was pulled over and thrown in handcuffs,
and that began my descent into myown personal living hell. And there
(10:16):
came a point during that process whereI just I was not mentally able to
pick myself back up from the daysthat it just it got really bad.
And I mean it was, itwas bad. You know, one day,
you're on your way to work.Things are going great, your career
is headed in the right direction.You're making more money than you've ever made
(10:39):
before. You're getting ready to buya house. Things are looking up,
you know, the American dreaming quoteunquote. And then the next thing you
know, you've lost all of yourfriends, you've nearly lost your family,
you're sleeping in a basement. You'renot buying a house anymore, that's for
sure, barely cleaning onto your job. It'll mentally mess you up, it
(11:07):
really will. You know, whenwhen we talk about PTSD, we tend
to think in terms of PTSD frompeople in the military. You know,
that's really where it came from.Was all the way back to World War
One, they called it shell shock, and as time went on they softened
(11:28):
that. They softened that phrase quitea bit, and it went from shell
shock to now fast forward and it'sPTSD post traumatic stress disorder. But ultimately,
what it means is you have atraumatic scenario in your life that just
gets stuck. Normally, when somethinghappens, your brain is able to process
(11:52):
it and move it through, andphysically your body reacts to your thoughts.
And if you've ever heard stories ofpeople who have died from a broken heart,
that's very literal description if you havesomething so traumatic happen, a loss.
(12:16):
Sometimes it's the loss of a lovedone where if you tend to hear
this in relation to a husband anda wife, and maybe the wife will
pass away and the husband just doesn'tknow how to go on without her and
his heart just gives out. Heliterally dies from a broken heart. There
(12:37):
is nothing physically wrong with him.It's just the mental aspect of that trauma
was so much that physically he couldnot deal with it. So we hold
all of this stress and all ofthese emotions and all of these unprocessed scenarios
(13:01):
that have happened to us in ourbody in different places, and when something
so traumatic happens that your brain doesn'tknow how to deal with it because it
has no frame of reference, it'ssomething that it's never had to deal with
(13:22):
before. A lot of times itjust gets stuck and you relive that event
over and over and over again inyour mind. And because as we just
discussed, the mind has an effecton your physical body, not only are
you reliving that mentally, but you'rereliving it physically over and over and the
(13:45):
harm that it could potentially do toyour body. You know, one of
the pluses that came out of COVIDfrom the last few years is people are
paying a lot more attention to theeffects of stress on the body. And
that's why a lot of people,when they have that opportunity to focus on
(14:05):
themselves, they did. And nowthat people have had that opportunity to step
away from the day to day stressof the world, they see the problems
with it, and you see howmuch better you feel physically and emotionally and
mentally when you don't have all ofthat stress packed up, when you're able
(14:26):
to process it and move it through. So, when you have these traumatic
events that are stuck in your mindand you relive them over and over again,
your mind is literally trying to figureout how to process it so that
it can move it through and youcan move on. But it doesn't know
(14:54):
how because we haven't been given theproper tools to learn how to effectively process
emotions. And I'm not talking aboutjust men. This is men and women,
both all the way across the board. You know, think, think
(15:16):
back to elementary school, junior highgrade school, all the way back to
your public school education, your governmentschooling education. Did anybody ever explain to
you this process? Did everybody everexplain to you once you get into ninth
tenth grade you start physically going throughthese changes and life starts to get stressful.
(15:39):
Did everybody ever pull you aside andsay, hey, let's discuss the
mind body connection here. Let's discusshow your mind can affect your body and
some of the physical effects that stresscan have on you. The detrimental effects
that it can have. And nowlet's teach you coping skills, Let's teach
(16:00):
you how to handle that. Let'steach you how to process that. We're
not taught these things. We're justtaught to suck it up and keep going.
I even catch myself doing this withmy wife once in a while,
where we're talking about our kids andpreparing them for real life, and you
know, we just well, you'rejust gonna deal with it. That's real
(16:22):
life. Life sucks. Sometimes it'shard. I'm not. That's definitely not
me preparing them for how to dealwith that stuff. That's just me going
suck it up, moving on.I had to do it too, and
that's not the right way to dealwith that. So we're sending out generation
after generation of people who have allof these traumas just stuck. And now
(16:48):
we're at the point where we're atthat. I think that the tipping point
basically where it's it's been happening forso long, so much, especially with
COVID. I mean, if youlook at the statistics of even just elementary
school age children from twenty twenty onforward, I mean, the rates of
(17:11):
suicide just skyrocketed in that age groupbecause they had no clue how to cope
with something. Their entire world.They thrive on routine, thrive on that
routine, and that routine was gone, not just school, I mean life,
(17:33):
nothing to do. We sat inhere, my wife and I did
with the kids for months. We'relike, well, normally we would take
them to the zoo, or we'dgo to the gardens, or we'd go
to the park. None of thatwas there, nothing, not one bit.
So we were all locked inside,especially at the height of covid man.
(17:55):
God forbid if you go outside andgo to a park or take a
walk and get the funny looks frompeople, and it was rough. Can
you imagine being a kid and havingto go through that and not knowing how
to properly deal with it because yourparents weren't taught how to properly deal with
it. Therefore they don't know howto teach you how to properly deal with
it. So we're getting close tothe bottom of the hour here, getting
(18:22):
ready to take a break and we'llpick it up on the other side,
but we really want to get backinto Once we come back, I'll talk
a little bit more about my lifeinsurance policy. My couple experiences there with
(18:44):
with not wanting to be here anymore, and I mean fortunately or unfortunately,
however you want to look at it, how that has helped me to kind
of see things differently nowadays. Tokeep in mind as we roll over here
to the second half of the show, I'd love to hear from me if
(19:06):
you have questions comments. The numberis one eight hundred five eight eight zero
three three five, eight hundred fiveeight eight zero three three five. So
when we come back, we'll talka little bit more about that specific scenario,
talk a little bit more about what'sbeen going on here, and just
talking about how to help. Whatcan you do if it is you,
(19:29):
what do you need to do rightnow? If it's somebody in your family,
a friend, a loved one,somebody close to you, what can
you do for them to hold on? Stay with us. We will be
right back, Welcome back to Survivingthe System. Thank you for sticking with
me, because we get ready topick this topic back up and talk a
(19:56):
little bit more about the topic suicide. Please feel free to call in eight
hundred five eight eight zero three threefive eight hundred five eight eight zero three
three five. So right before wewent to break, I wanted to make
sure I got back onto my topic. I got a little got a little
(20:17):
sideline there, but all for thebetter. So I have a life insurance
policy that I took out when myfirst daughter was born to make sure that
in case the worst happened, thatthe family would be financially taken care of.
And I've worked in insurance before aswell, so being a life insurance
(20:38):
agent, I knew that a lotof times there were exclusions for life insurance
policies. You got to read thefine print, especially when it comes to
insurance companies. Man, they areslime me a lot of times. So
that is a topic for another show. But please make sure to read the
fine print. Many times you willfind that different means of death are not
(21:06):
covered under a life insurance policy,and they don't tell you that upfront,
necessarily until after the fact that happens, and then they deny the claim and
the family doesn't get any money.So while I was going through my fun
time of waiting before I went onmy dysfunctional vacation, I was having trouble
(21:27):
bouncing back mentally. It was extraordinarilydifficult to keep going with this guillotine felt
like hanging over my head, readyto drop at any moment, not knowing
am I going to go inside?Am I going to get probation? How
am I going to live my life? I don't know what to do with
this. It was a lot andyou know, a lot of times it
(21:51):
beat me down. And there wasone time in particular that I I was
really down and I could not getmyself back up mentally. I just I
felt it and maybe you know,maybe you know what I'm talking about when
I say this, but like italmost feels like you can feel yourself mentally
(22:15):
go down and hit the bottom,like hit the floor. You just feel
like your body slumps over. Butit's all in your mind. And then
after you get through it, andafter you kind of just let it stew
for a while, you get overit, you get through your mood and
you kind of feel a little bitlighter mentally, you feel yourself go back
(22:36):
up. And that's now I knowthat that's the vibration is going up and
down, rising and lowering. Butone time I just I went down and
I could not I could not getback up. I couldn't do it.
And the next day I think mywife was asking me about something and she
(23:00):
was, you know, rightfully upsetwith me for what was going on as
well, and she was not processingthings in the most healthy manner as well,
and unfortunately was taking it out onme at that moment and being in
that state of mind that I waslike, I could not I could not
(23:22):
come back from it. So Icalled the insurance company and I said,
hey, here's my policy number,verified all the information. I said,
if it's got a question about aboutmy policy, I said, what is
not covered as far as means ofdeath? And they said nothing. And
I said, okay, what aboutsuicide? And they said nope, that's
(23:45):
covered. And I said, perfect, that's what I needed to know,
Thank you. And I was readysat down and said here. I told
my wife, here is how youdivvy it up. I'm done, and
fortunately, like she you know,reached out real quick and I went to
(24:06):
I went to the er and goton some real quick meds to kind of
get my feet underneath me. Idon't normally, I do not normally endorse
medication, especially when it comes tomental health. Man, there are sometimes
there's just sometimes when you've got todo it fast, you've got to go
(24:26):
in there and you've got to justget it addressed real quick. And it
gave me, It gave me thatopportunity to stop falling down so much so
that I didn't hit that bottom.I was able to maintain and ride through
that process. Yeah, I knowthat my insurance policy covers suicide. And
(24:55):
I know because I was ready andI asked, and I said, that's
what I needed to know. Andthat was the last piece of the puzzle
for me. And then fast forward, once I started my dysfunctional vacation,
I think I was about five monthsin, give or take, and I
(25:19):
had just landed at my third facilitywithin five months. And then that bouncing
around and tell you what, AndI know, I know that the people
in the system know this and theyjust don't care. But man, not
giving you that stability really messes youup mentally. It's like waiting for somebody
(25:48):
to stand up and then yanking therug right back out from underneath them and
watching them fall down on the ground, making them get back up and doing
it all over again. So Iwas already I was struggling. I was
having a really tough time. Andit was my son's birthday and I called
to talk to him, and myex decided right before to put him on
(26:14):
the phone with me. She said, oh, hey, by the way,
I'm going for full custody. Holdon, I'll get him for you.
And I swear to God, Iwish that I was paraphrasing that or
making that conversation up, but that'sthat's exactly how it came across. And
I am in no way I'm notindicting her pointing the finger at her about
(26:36):
that, because I'm sure she probablywas like, I don't know how to
communicate this to him, Just ripthe band aid off and tell him.
So I know there was no malicebehind that, and she had no way
of knowing my mental state at thatpoint. But man, that pushed me
right back over the edge. Thatwas it. And I went back to
(27:00):
the bed and there was a guythat was right across the aisle from me.
We were in. It was onehundred man, just giant unit,
fifty bunk beds, two rows ortwo lines of bunk beds in each row,
with lockers lined up behind him tostore all your stuff. And I'm
looking across the way there was aguy. His nickname was Shorty, and
(27:23):
he had I mean he was medicatedup to his eyeballs, and I just
remember looking across and he never never, never locked his locker, never locked
that pad lock. So I justremember looking over there, going all right,
how many of those do I needto take? And I started just
(27:44):
adding it up in my head,just thinking, Okay, how fast can
I get over there? When I'llwait till everybody's asleep, wait till the
lights are off, get in there. I'll just grab as much as I
can and we'll go. And myfriend Sam was right to my right.
We were both on the top bunkand he I've never I've never had the
(28:08):
chance to tell him this story,but right at that moment, as soon
as those thoughts were running through myhead, he looked over at me and
he goes, hey, come onman, let's go for a walk.
Let's just get out of here fora little bit. And we got out,
went for a walk and just talked. You know, nothing nothing fancy,
(28:30):
nothing special, but that was enough. That was enough, and he
got me through that time. Sofortunately I'm still here with you, so
I know, like, I knowwhat it's like, and it just seems
(28:57):
like I've got I've gone back andthought about a lot of the shows that
I did during COVID, and Ijust remember all of the similarities that I
saw between what I saw going ingoing on inside the prison and inside the
legal system, and how all ofa sudden that was blown up on just
(29:18):
this massive global scale, and justwatching a lot of the things being like
and this feels like prison but outsideand now mentally we're seeing the effects of
that on people at a rate we'venever seen it before. So here's a
(29:48):
couple of quick things to discuss aboutabout when you're feeling suicidal. First of
all, do you know what theopposite of depression is? We tend to
(30:08):
think, especially in this culture andin this country, that if you're not
depressed, you're happy. We thinkthat depression is like a form of sadness,
and so we think that that oppositeof depression is to be happy again.
(30:33):
But that's not true, not evenclose. If you look at just
a simple word study depression. Fromthe word depressed means you're like pressing something
in So the opposite of depression isexpression. So when you're feeling depressed,
(31:06):
when you are feeling so depressed thatit feels like there's no other choice for
you, but to leave, youneed to get that out you have.
You need to talk to somebody aboutit. And I've I've preached this from
(31:29):
day one of doing this show,and I don't think I'll ever stop.
But man, turn to your communityof people. You need to turn to
your people and you just tell them. Just tell them, man, I
am I am not doing good mentally, I'm not in a good spot.
You can say it however you want, but you need to tell them because
(32:02):
getting that out and beginning to expressthat begins that journey out of the depression
and back to in some kind ofa stability where you can start to deal
with this. So think about thistoo. Maybe it's not you. Maybe
(32:24):
it is your your friend or yourloved one or someone in your life,
and maybe you just you recognize someof the signs. You might not be
sure that you're concerned for him orshit. Maybe they've even said some things.
Maybe they've even been like, man, I don't know that I can
(32:45):
keep doing this anymore. Sometimes theyjust feel like I want to kill myself.
Maybe they say it jokingly, butlet me tell you what, don't
ever take it as a joke.Try to get that individual to express what
(33:05):
they're feeling, talk about it,and if you don't know how to do
that, that's okay. You cancall for help. I recently had to
(33:27):
do that with someone in my lifewhere it's not a not a not a
family member, thank goodness, butit's someone that I know who really mentally
struggling, and she had one ofthose days where she's just like, you
know what, I think I wantto kill myself and jumped on that immediately,
(33:51):
immediately jumped on that, and Iwasn't even I wasn't even sure or
of the process again because it'd beena minute since I had to go through
it. But how do you gethow do you get somebody that helped?
Like, where do you tell themto go? So I called, I
called a couple of places around herein town, and they all were more
(34:14):
than happy to explain the process tome. So I'm going to share this
with you just in case if youneed to know it. So, there
is something called an impatient facility probablyright around you. You may not even
know it's there. They have theability to hold you for seventy two hours
(34:37):
to just check on you and makesure you're doing okay. Now, normally
I am not going to recommend thatyou voluntarily put yourself in the system.
However, in cases like this,when it's quite literally life or death,
(34:57):
go do it because you'll find somehelp. But what they'll do for that
seventy two hours is you're just goingto check you out. You're going to
go you're gonna go to some groupsessions. You're going to talk to some
therapists. They're going to evaluate you, they're going to see how you're doing,
and they're going to try to makesome recommendations for you. Now,
odds are, if it's anything likeit is around here, they're probably full
(35:24):
and you can't just walk in thedoor and say, hey, I'd like
to check myself in. It doesn'twork that way. So what you need
to do is you go to theer, go to the local emergency room,
and you just tell them I amfeeling suicidal, I need some help,
(35:45):
and they'll take it from there.You might have to sit there for
a while because what they're gonna dois they're going to contact all these agencies,
these facilities and they're going to findyou a room. They will make
room for you. So if youhave that friend or family member that's struggling
(36:05):
you can help them with this too. And let me tell you what,
if it's anything like this person thatI had to that I had the opportunity
to speak with during her time ofcrisis, she was having just an extraordinarily
tough time accepting that that's what shehad to do, so severe almost to
(36:28):
just flat out denial. And unfortunatelyshe still hasn't gone. Fortunately she's got
family around her and she's she's ina safe environment. Personally, I still
think she needs to go and startthat process and get an actual evaluation and
(36:50):
see what's going on. The men, drive them, take them, take
them to the er, because it'sdifficult to do that first step on your
own. And man, if it'syou that's struggling with that, if it's
you that needs to go get checkedin, ask somebody to take you to
the er. Here's what I havefound to be true. More often than
(37:19):
not, there are more people outthere that will help you and look out
for you when you ask. Then, you know, sometimes we just get
such tunnel vision with our lives andwe only look at what's right in front
(37:39):
of us, whatever is right infront of us at that moment, whoever
that one person is, it's rightin front of us, and that's our
whole world, and we base allof our view of the rest of the
world on just what we can seein that little, myopic vision right in
front of us, and you losesight of the fact that there is so
much else out there. So ifyou don't feel like you have that support
(38:07):
right in front of you, thatdoesn't mean that it's not out there.
It just means that you need toask for some help, and circling all
the way back around asking for healthdoes not in any way signify any kind
(38:27):
of weakness whatsoever. And I willrelay this story as well, having to
explain it to this individual that Italked to recently. What is stronger?
(38:52):
Is it giving up in the faceof adversity or is it continuing to fight
through and finding a way? AndI do not say that in any way
to belittle or demean the struggles ofmental health, especially when it gets to
(39:17):
that point. I was there,I get it. What I'm simply saying
is, don't forget that there isa light at the end of that tunnel.
You know. The funny part ofthis story is here, I am
(39:38):
Felony record x CON and I'm onthe other line of this call, helping
to save the life of a formerparole officer. Man. Life is funny
sometimes. But you know what,if I hadn't gone through everything that I
(39:59):
went through, I wouldn't have beenable to have the conversation with her that
I did. I wouldn't have beenable to sit there and say, I
almost didn't make it. You know, she knows a little bit about my
background. I don't think she knowsall the details, but she knows that
I have a record. So forme to sit there and say, I'm
(40:22):
telling you I was there, Iwas there, and I relayed the story
about the insurance to her. Thisis how I know that my insurance company
will cover suicide. But I amI am telling you. I will tell
you the same thing that I toldher. It gets better. Yes,
(40:46):
you can come back from this.You can come back better and stronger for
having gone through it. There isno way I look around right now.
There is no way that I wouldhave the life that I have right now
if I hadn't have gone through allof that pure hell. The scriptures call
(41:13):
it the refining fire burns off allthe impurities, and I love that.
I love that visual because It makesso much sense if you think about it
when you're going through it. Whenyou're in the middle of it, it
freaking sucks. You probably mentally feellike you are being burned alive, like
(41:37):
you are just you're baked, you'redone. But what it's doing is it's
burning off all the impurities. Andif you can ask for help to get
through it, if you can findthat way, it will get better.
(41:58):
And then you can be the exampleto someone else down the road. It
was right where you were, andyou can tell them, Man, I'm
telling you it gets better. Thisis where I was, this is where
I'm at now I know exactly whereyou're at, and I'm telling you it
can get better. I hope,I hope that you have found value in
(42:29):
today's show. If you need totalk to me, if you'd like to
reach out, be more than happyto direct you wherever I can, or
even just listen Surviving the System dotorg, Facebook dot com, slash Surviving
the System or on Twitter at STSthe podcast and I want to make sure
(42:52):
to end with a big thank youfor your time and as always, remember
keep your head up. It maybe easy to look at all the corruption
and manipulation in the system and feelhopeless here at surviving the system. We
hold to the belief that greatness isborn in the midst of extraordinary struggles.
(43:15):
You were created with a purpose,with infinite potential, and many have lost
sight of that back We're here toremind you of who you are. The
best revenge is success.
The thirteenth Amendment to the United StatesConstitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except as
a punishment for a crime. Everwondered how we ended up with the largest
prison population of any country. Haveyou noticed that those whose jobs it is
to protect and serve seem to bedemanding more and more blind obedient. You
didn't think it just happened by chance, did you. It's time to call
(00:23):
attention to the fact our government asthe most prolific slave owner on the planet.
This is Surviving the System. Thankyou for joining me today on Surviving
the System. This is Dance andDave and today I you know, I
it smelt like I ever don't talkabout difficult topics on this show, but
I'm gonna I really want to delvein and just discuss a difficult, difficult
(00:49):
subject. You know, it justseems like lately, even just if I
expand things out a little bit andlook back over the last six months to
a year year, and it's justa lot of instances going around with severe
depression and people just wanting to endit, you know, wanting to kill
(01:14):
themselves. And I'd like to talka little bit about it, because if
if history and statistics show us anythingodds are I'm gonna be talking to directly
to you, and you're probably gonnaneed to hear this. You're you're gonna
need some help. Everyone at somepoint or another needs it. I just
(01:38):
hope that right now I'm getting themessage out and speaking directly to you in
enough time so before we get intothat couple quick housekeeping items before we before
we start to go down this rabbithole over again. We are live right
now on Fringe dot fm. Ifyou are listening and would like to call
in, the number is one eighthund five eight eight zero three three five
(02:01):
eight hundred and five eight eight zerothree three five would love to hear from
me. We'd love to take somelive calls and get your feedback on this
type of a topic. Especially.You can check out my website. If
you don't catch the show live onFringe, you can go to the website
(02:21):
where I keep an archive of allthe shows at Surviving the System dot org.
Catch me on any podcast platform.The show is released onto the podcast
platforms after we go live, socheck me out there. Definitely leave a
comment, leave me a rate,subscribe to the show, and most importantly
(02:42):
share it with your audience. Ifyou'd like to visit with me, or
if you have an idea for ashow and you want to talk a little
bit about it, you can catchme on Facebook at facebook dot com slash
Surviving the System or on Twitter atsts the Podcast, either one of those
are open. I don't interact toomuch on social media other than to keep
(03:05):
the dms open so that y'all havea way to reach out to me and
talk to me directly. And I'dlove to hear from you. So please
don't ever hesitate to reach out,drop me a line, say hi,
tell me to go to hell.Whatever you'd like to do, I'll take
it. And if you've never listenedto the show, or even if you
(03:27):
have, especially with a topic likethis, we want to make sure that
we don't let this type of asubject matter drag us down. So we're
going to start the show with gratitude. Gratitude. If you haven't looked into
it, I highly recommend that youdo. Gratitude is the most empowering emotion
that's out there. Learning to begrateful for whatever situation you're in, even
(03:53):
in the midst of what you mayconsider to be hell on Earth, or
the worst situation that you could possimagine, being grateful for things around you
and being grateful for having the opportunityto go through that situation will completely change
your paradigm. It'll change your life. I could guarantee it, and we
(04:14):
do it at the beginning of thisshow. Because what it also allows you
to do is to keep your vibrationhigh, keep that frequency high, so
you can talk about topics like thesethat are a little bit darker, a
little bit more difficult to discuss becauseit can stir up some emotions, it
might be triggering, But that gratitudeallows us to keep things productive, to
(04:38):
keep it constructive, so that wecan talk about these and at the end
of the show, we can comeout better for having brought all of this
up. We can come out onthe other end with a plan of action.
You can come out on the otherend with hope. So with that
in mind, I would like tovery quickly say that I am so grateful
to be here with you, allowingme to live out my purpose to help
(05:02):
to remind you of who you reallyare and what you are truly capable of.
You know, I don't even knowwhat the statistics are at this point
as far as the number of peoplethat are taking their own lives every minute
(05:23):
of every day, I just knowthat it's it's insane, and that's part
of why I don't look at it, because I don't want to focus on
just that and focus on what's wrongwith the world. I try as much
as I can to focus on thepositive and focus on being grateful. And
with that said, it's still anepidemic. Is absolutely an epidemic. If
(05:49):
you have not had the opportunity togo back and listen to my show where
I discuss the the experiences that I'vehad regarding the mental health in this country,
specifically out here where I'm at Nebraska, I discussed them last year.
(06:10):
You know, my daughter has beenfortunately very willing to discuss this. So
we had a we had a bitof a of a scare and it opened
my eyes, of course, towhat it's like for just the average citizen
to try to have to go throughthat. I dealt with it myself when
(06:31):
I went through my dysfunctional vacation.I know what it's like to go through
it and come through it from frommy perspective, but you know, never
just from somebody leading a day today life who from the outside looking in,
appears to be happy and successful.So the statistics. Thank you to
(06:55):
Joe, my producer, for grabbingthis information for me real quick. The
average suicide's right now, how perday is one hundred and thirty two daily.
The annual age adjusted suicide rate isthirteen point four two per one hundred
thousand individuals. And males die bysuicide three and a half times more often
than females on average one hundred threetwo one hundred and thirty two per day,
(07:24):
and the males and this is,you know, just just me interpolating
this data on studies that I've doneon my own and looking at other statistics.
But you know, the males dyingby suicide is a combination of a
couple of different things. One,I know a lot of it that the
vast majority of that number is alot of ex military people who just don't
(07:47):
know how to cope with some ofthe things that they've done. Deeper than
that, though, the more rootcause of that is that as men,
we don't we're not taught how toproperly deal with our emotions. If you
(08:09):
think back to the history of thiscountry. When you think of the term
man, it should probably generate somestereotypes that pop into your head. You
know, if you're going to tellsomebody to grow up be a man,
be a man means to cry,be angry, maybe even be violent.
(08:33):
It doesn't teach you that, hey, it's okay. It's okay to break
down. It's it's okay to askfor help, it's okay to not be
strong every second of every day,and it's especially okay to break down and
cry and admit that you are havingsome severe mental difficulties and you need help
because you feel like the only optionyou have left is to exit this reality.
(09:00):
Was there, man, I was. I was there twice. I
was there twice. I had theopportunity to share this story with someone recently
and fortunately it helped them. SoI'd like to share it again here with
you, and hopefully it will itwill have an impact as well. But
I have I have a life insurancepolicy that I took out. It's a
term life insurance policy. I tookit out when my first daughter was born,
(09:24):
and you know, it was enoughto to cover It's depending on who
you talk to and what you're whatyour end goal is for term life insurance
policy. You want to be ableto cover one year or two years of
that person's salary typically. So Igot that taken care of so that,
(09:52):
you know, just in case ifthe worst were to happen, the kids
would be okay, my wife wouldhave the money to pay the bills and
still keep going while she got backon her feet. But then I,
on my way to work one day, was pulled over and thrown in handcuffs,
and that began my descent into myown personal living hell. And there
(10:16):
came a point during that process whereI just I was not mentally able to
pick myself back up from the daysthat it just it got really bad.
And I mean it was, itwas bad. You know, one day,
you're on your way to work.Things are going great, your career
is headed in the right direction.You're making more money than you've ever made
(10:39):
before. You're getting ready to buya house. Things are looking up,
you know, the American dreaming quoteunquote. And then the next thing you
know, you've lost all of yourfriends, you've nearly lost your family,
you're sleeping in a basement. You'renot buying a house anymore, that's for
sure, barely cleaning onto your job. It'll mentally mess you up, it
(11:07):
really will. You know, whenwhen we talk about PTSD, we tend
to think in terms of PTSD frompeople in the military. You know,
that's really where it came from.Was all the way back to World War
One, they called it shell shock, and as time went on they softened
(11:28):
that. They softened that phrase quitea bit, and it went from shell
shock to now fast forward and it'sPTSD post traumatic stress disorder. But ultimately,
what it means is you have atraumatic scenario in your life that just
gets stuck. Normally, when somethinghappens, your brain is able to process
(11:52):
it and move it through, andphysically your body reacts to your thoughts.
And if you've ever heard stories ofpeople who have died from a broken heart,
that's very literal description if you havesomething so traumatic happen, a loss.
(12:16):
Sometimes it's the loss of a lovedone where if you tend to hear
this in relation to a husband anda wife, and maybe the wife will
pass away and the husband just doesn'tknow how to go on without her and
his heart just gives out. Heliterally dies from a broken heart. There
(12:37):
is nothing physically wrong with him.It's just the mental aspect of that trauma
was so much that physically he couldnot deal with it. So we hold
all of this stress and all ofthese emotions and all of these unprocessed scenarios
(13:01):
that have happened to us in ourbody in different places, and when something
so traumatic happens that your brain doesn'tknow how to deal with it because it
has no frame of reference, it'ssomething that it's never had to deal with
(13:22):
before. A lot of times itjust gets stuck and you relive that event
over and over and over again inyour mind. And because as we just
discussed, the mind has an effecton your physical body, not only are
you reliving that mentally, but you'rereliving it physically over and over and the
(13:45):
harm that it could potentially do toyour body. You know, one of
the pluses that came out of COVIDfrom the last few years is people are
paying a lot more attention to theeffects of stress on the body. And
that's why a lot of people,when they have that opportunity to focus on
(14:05):
themselves, they did. And nowthat people have had that opportunity to step
away from the day to day stressof the world, they see the problems
with it, and you see howmuch better you feel physically and emotionally and
mentally when you don't have all ofthat stress packed up, when you're able
(14:26):
to process it and move it through. So, when you have these traumatic
events that are stuck in your mindand you relive them over and over again,
your mind is literally trying to figureout how to process it so that
it can move it through and youcan move on. But it doesn't know
(14:54):
how because we haven't been given theproper tools to learn how to effectively process
emotions. And I'm not talking aboutjust men. This is men and women,
both all the way across the board. You know, think, think
(15:16):
back to elementary school, junior highgrade school, all the way back to
your public school education, your governmentschooling education. Did anybody ever explain to
you this process? Did everybody everexplain to you once you get into ninth
tenth grade you start physically going throughthese changes and life starts to get stressful.
(15:39):
Did everybody ever pull you aside andsay, hey, let's discuss the
mind body connection here. Let's discusshow your mind can affect your body and
some of the physical effects that stresscan have on you. The detrimental effects
that it can have. And nowlet's teach you coping skills, Let's teach
(16:00):
you how to handle that. Let'steach you how to process that. We're
not taught these things. We're justtaught to suck it up and keep going.
I even catch myself doing this withmy wife once in a while,
where we're talking about our kids andpreparing them for real life, and you
know, we just well, you'rejust gonna deal with it. That's real
(16:22):
life. Life sucks. Sometimes it'shard. I'm not. That's definitely not
me preparing them for how to dealwith that stuff. That's just me going
suck it up, moving on.I had to do it too, and
that's not the right way to dealwith that. So we're sending out generation
after generation of people who have allof these traumas just stuck. And now
(16:48):
we're at the point where we're atthat. I think that the tipping point
basically where it's it's been happening forso long, so much, especially with
COVID. I mean, if youlook at the statistics of even just elementary
school age children from twenty twenty onforward, I mean, the rates of
(17:11):
suicide just skyrocketed in that age groupbecause they had no clue how to cope
with something. Their entire world.They thrive on routine, thrive on that
routine, and that routine was gone, not just school, I mean life,
(17:33):
nothing to do. We sat inhere, my wife and I did
with the kids for months. We'relike, well, normally we would take
them to the zoo, or we'dgo to the gardens, or we'd go
to the park. None of thatwas there, nothing, not one bit.
So we were all locked inside,especially at the height of covid man.
(17:55):
God forbid if you go outside andgo to a park or take a
walk and get the funny looks frompeople, and it was rough. Can
you imagine being a kid and havingto go through that and not knowing how
to properly deal with it because yourparents weren't taught how to properly deal with
it. Therefore they don't know howto teach you how to properly deal with
it. So we're getting close tothe bottom of the hour here, getting
(18:22):
ready to take a break and we'llpick it up on the other side,
but we really want to get backinto Once we come back, I'll talk
a little bit more about my lifeinsurance policy. My couple experiences there with
(18:44):
with not wanting to be here anymore, and I mean fortunately or unfortunately,
however you want to look at it, how that has helped me to kind
of see things differently nowadays. Tokeep in mind as we roll over here
to the second half of the show, I'd love to hear from me if
(19:06):
you have questions comments. The numberis one eight hundred five eight eight zero
three three five, eight hundred fiveeight eight zero three three five. So
when we come back, we'll talka little bit more about that specific scenario,
talk a little bit more about what'sbeen going on here, and just
talking about how to help. Whatcan you do if it is you,
(19:29):
what do you need to do rightnow? If it's somebody in your family,
a friend, a loved one,somebody close to you, what can
you do for them to hold on? Stay with us. We will be
right back, Welcome back to Survivingthe System. Thank you for sticking with
me, because we get ready topick this topic back up and talk a
(19:56):
little bit more about the topic suicide. Please feel free to call in eight
hundred five eight eight zero three threefive eight hundred five eight eight zero three
three five. So right before wewent to break, I wanted to make
sure I got back onto my topic. I got a little got a little
(20:17):
sideline there, but all for thebetter. So I have a life insurance
policy that I took out when myfirst daughter was born to make sure that
in case the worst happened, thatthe family would be financially taken care of.
And I've worked in insurance before aswell, so being a life insurance
(20:38):
agent, I knew that a lotof times there were exclusions for life insurance
policies. You got to read thefine print, especially when it comes to
insurance companies. Man, they areslime me a lot of times. So
that is a topic for another show. But please make sure to read the
fine print. Many times you willfind that different means of death are not
(21:06):
covered under a life insurance policy,and they don't tell you that upfront,
necessarily until after the fact that happens, and then they deny the claim and
the family doesn't get any money.So while I was going through my fun
time of waiting before I went onmy dysfunctional vacation, I was having trouble
(21:27):
bouncing back mentally. It was extraordinarilydifficult to keep going with this guillotine felt
like hanging over my head, readyto drop at any moment, not knowing
am I going to go inside?Am I going to get probation? How
am I going to live my life? I don't know what to do with
this. It was a lot andyou know, a lot of times it
(21:51):
beat me down. And there wasone time in particular that I I was
really down and I could not getmyself back up mentally. I just I
felt it and maybe you know,maybe you know what I'm talking about when
I say this, but like italmost feels like you can feel yourself mentally
(22:15):
go down and hit the bottom,like hit the floor. You just feel
like your body slumps over. Butit's all in your mind. And then
after you get through it, andafter you kind of just let it stew
for a while, you get overit, you get through your mood and
you kind of feel a little bitlighter mentally, you feel yourself go back
(22:36):
up. And that's now I knowthat that's the vibration is going up and
down, rising and lowering. Butone time I just I went down and
I could not I could not getback up. I couldn't do it.
And the next day I think mywife was asking me about something and she
(23:00):
was, you know, rightfully upsetwith me for what was going on as
well, and she was not processingthings in the most healthy manner as well,
and unfortunately was taking it out onme at that moment and being in
that state of mind that I waslike, I could not I could not
(23:22):
come back from it. So Icalled the insurance company and I said,
hey, here's my policy number,verified all the information. I said,
if it's got a question about aboutmy policy, I said, what is
not covered as far as means ofdeath? And they said nothing. And
I said, okay, what aboutsuicide? And they said nope, that's
(23:45):
covered. And I said, perfect, that's what I needed to know,
Thank you. And I was readysat down and said here. I told
my wife, here is how youdivvy it up. I'm done, and
fortunately, like she you know,reached out real quick and I went to
(24:06):
I went to the er and goton some real quick meds to kind of
get my feet underneath me. Idon't normally, I do not normally endorse
medication, especially when it comes tomental health. Man, there are sometimes
there's just sometimes when you've got todo it fast, you've got to go
(24:26):
in there and you've got to justget it addressed real quick. And it
gave me, It gave me thatopportunity to stop falling down so much so
that I didn't hit that bottom.I was able to maintain and ride through
that process. Yeah, I knowthat my insurance policy covers suicide. And
(24:55):
I know because I was ready andI asked, and I said, that's
what I needed to know. Andthat was the last piece of the puzzle
for me. And then fast forward, once I started my dysfunctional vacation,
I think I was about five monthsin, give or take, and I
(25:19):
had just landed at my third facilitywithin five months. And then that bouncing
around and tell you what, AndI know, I know that the people
in the system know this and theyjust don't care. But man, not
giving you that stability really messes youup mentally. It's like waiting for somebody
(25:48):
to stand up and then yanking therug right back out from underneath them and
watching them fall down on the ground, making them get back up and doing
it all over again. So Iwas already I was struggling. I was
having a really tough time. Andit was my son's birthday and I called
to talk to him, and myex decided right before to put him on
(26:14):
the phone with me. She said, oh, hey, by the way,
I'm going for full custody. Holdon, I'll get him for you.
And I swear to God, Iwish that I was paraphrasing that or
making that conversation up, but that'sthat's exactly how it came across. And
I am in no way I'm notindicting her pointing the finger at her about
(26:36):
that, because I'm sure she probablywas like, I don't know how to
communicate this to him, Just ripthe band aid off and tell him.
So I know there was no malicebehind that, and she had no way
of knowing my mental state at thatpoint. But man, that pushed me
right back over the edge. Thatwas it. And I went back to
(27:00):
the bed and there was a guythat was right across the aisle from me.
We were in. It was onehundred man, just giant unit,
fifty bunk beds, two rows ortwo lines of bunk beds in each row,
with lockers lined up behind him tostore all your stuff. And I'm
looking across the way there was aguy. His nickname was Shorty, and
(27:23):
he had I mean he was medicatedup to his eyeballs, and I just
remember looking across and he never never, never locked his locker, never locked
that pad lock. So I justremember looking over there, going all right,
how many of those do I needto take? And I started just
(27:44):
adding it up in my head,just thinking, Okay, how fast can
I get over there? When I'llwait till everybody's asleep, wait till the
lights are off, get in there. I'll just grab as much as I
can and we'll go. And myfriend Sam was right to my right.
We were both on the top bunkand he I've never I've never had the
(28:08):
chance to tell him this story,but right at that moment, as soon
as those thoughts were running through myhead, he looked over at me and
he goes, hey, come onman, let's go for a walk.
Let's just get out of here fora little bit. And we got out,
went for a walk and just talked. You know, nothing nothing fancy,
(28:30):
nothing special, but that was enough. That was enough, and he
got me through that time. Sofortunately I'm still here with you, so
I know, like, I knowwhat it's like, and it just seems
(28:57):
like I've got I've gone back andthought about a lot of the shows that
I did during COVID, and Ijust remember all of the similarities that I
saw between what I saw going ingoing on inside the prison and inside the
legal system, and how all ofa sudden that was blown up on just
(29:18):
this massive global scale, and justwatching a lot of the things being like
and this feels like prison but outsideand now mentally we're seeing the effects of
that on people at a rate we'venever seen it before. So here's a
(29:48):
couple of quick things to discuss aboutabout when you're feeling suicidal. First of
all, do you know what theopposite of depression is? We tend to
(30:08):
think, especially in this culture andin this country, that if you're not
depressed, you're happy. We thinkthat depression is like a form of sadness,
and so we think that that oppositeof depression is to be happy again.
(30:33):
But that's not true, not evenclose. If you look at just
a simple word study depression. Fromthe word depressed means you're like pressing something
in So the opposite of depression isexpression. So when you're feeling depressed,
(31:06):
when you are feeling so depressed thatit feels like there's no other choice for
you, but to leave, youneed to get that out you have.
You need to talk to somebody aboutit. And I've I've preached this from
(31:29):
day one of doing this show,and I don't think I'll ever stop.
But man, turn to your communityof people. You need to turn to
your people and you just tell them. Just tell them, man, I
am I am not doing good mentally, I'm not in a good spot.
You can say it however you want, but you need to tell them because
(32:02):
getting that out and beginning to expressthat begins that journey out of the depression
and back to in some kind ofa stability where you can start to deal
with this. So think about thistoo. Maybe it's not you. Maybe
(32:24):
it is your your friend or yourloved one or someone in your life,
and maybe you just you recognize someof the signs. You might not be
sure that you're concerned for him orshit. Maybe they've even said some things.
Maybe they've even been like, man, I don't know that I can
(32:45):
keep doing this anymore. Sometimes theyjust feel like I want to kill myself.
Maybe they say it jokingly, butlet me tell you what, don't
ever take it as a joke.Try to get that individual to express what
(33:05):
they're feeling, talk about it,and if you don't know how to do
that, that's okay. You cancall for help. I recently had to
(33:27):
do that with someone in my lifewhere it's not a not a not a
family member, thank goodness, butit's someone that I know who really mentally
struggling, and she had one ofthose days where she's just like, you
know what, I think I wantto kill myself and jumped on that immediately,
(33:51):
immediately jumped on that, and Iwasn't even I wasn't even sure or
of the process again because it'd beena minute since I had to go through
it. But how do you gethow do you get somebody that helped?
Like, where do you tell themto go? So I called, I
called a couple of places around herein town, and they all were more
(34:14):
than happy to explain the process tome. So I'm going to share this
with you just in case if youneed to know it. So, there
is something called an impatient facility probablyright around you. You may not even
know it's there. They have theability to hold you for seventy two hours
(34:37):
to just check on you and makesure you're doing okay. Now, normally
I am not going to recommend thatyou voluntarily put yourself in the system.
However, in cases like this,when it's quite literally life or death,
(34:57):
go do it because you'll find somehelp. But what they'll do for that
seventy two hours is you're just goingto check you out. You're going to
go you're gonna go to some groupsessions. You're going to talk to some
therapists. They're going to evaluate you, they're going to see how you're doing,
and they're going to try to makesome recommendations for you. Now,
odds are, if it's anything likeit is around here, they're probably full
(35:24):
and you can't just walk in thedoor and say, hey, I'd like
to check myself in. It doesn'twork that way. So what you need
to do is you go to theer, go to the local emergency room,
and you just tell them I amfeeling suicidal, I need some help,
(35:45):
and they'll take it from there.You might have to sit there for
a while because what they're gonna dois they're going to contact all these agencies,
these facilities and they're going to findyou a room. They will make
room for you. So if youhave that friend or family member that's struggling
(36:05):
you can help them with this too. And let me tell you what,
if it's anything like this person thatI had to that I had the opportunity
to speak with during her time ofcrisis, she was having just an extraordinarily
tough time accepting that that's what shehad to do, so severe almost to
(36:28):
just flat out denial. And unfortunatelyshe still hasn't gone. Fortunately she's got
family around her and she's she's ina safe environment. Personally, I still
think she needs to go and startthat process and get an actual evaluation and
(36:50):
see what's going on. The men, drive them, take them, take
them to the er, because it'sdifficult to do that first step on your
own. And man, if it'syou that's struggling with that, if it's
you that needs to go get checkedin, ask somebody to take you to
the er. Here's what I havefound to be true. More often than
(37:19):
not, there are more people outthere that will help you and look out
for you when you ask. Then, you know, sometimes we just get
such tunnel vision with our lives andwe only look at what's right in front
(37:39):
of us, whatever is right infront of us at that moment, whoever
that one person is, it's rightin front of us, and that's our
whole world, and we base allof our view of the rest of the
world on just what we can seein that little, myopic vision right in
front of us, and you losesight of the fact that there is so
much else out there. So ifyou don't feel like you have that support
(38:07):
right in front of you, thatdoesn't mean that it's not out there.
It just means that you need toask for some help, and circling all
the way back around asking for healthdoes not in any way signify any kind
(38:27):
of weakness whatsoever. And I willrelay this story as well, having to
explain it to this individual that Italked to recently. What is stronger?
(38:52):
Is it giving up in the faceof adversity or is it continuing to fight
through and finding a way? AndI do not say that in any way
to belittle or demean the struggles ofmental health, especially when it gets to
(39:17):
that point. I was there,I get it. What I'm simply saying
is, don't forget that there isa light at the end of that tunnel.
You know. The funny part ofthis story is here, I am
(39:38):
Felony record x CON and I'm onthe other line of this call, helping
to save the life of a formerparole officer. Man. Life is funny
sometimes. But you know what,if I hadn't gone through everything that I
(39:59):
went through, I wouldn't have beenable to have the conversation with her that
I did. I wouldn't have beenable to sit there and say, I
almost didn't make it. You know, she knows a little bit about my
background. I don't think she knowsall the details, but she knows that
I have a record. So forme to sit there and say, I'm
(40:22):
telling you I was there, Iwas there, and I relayed the story
about the insurance to her. Thisis how I know that my insurance company
will cover suicide. But I amI am telling you. I will tell
you the same thing that I toldher. It gets better. Yes,
(40:46):
you can come back from this.You can come back better and stronger for
having gone through it. There isno way I look around right now.
There is no way that I wouldhave the life that I have right now
if I hadn't have gone through allof that pure hell. The scriptures call
(41:13):
it the refining fire burns off allthe impurities, and I love that.
I love that visual because It makesso much sense if you think about it
when you're going through it. Whenyou're in the middle of it, it
freaking sucks. You probably mentally feellike you are being burned alive, like
(41:37):
you are just you're baked, you'redone. But what it's doing is it's
burning off all the impurities. Andif you can ask for help to get
through it, if you can findthat way, it will get better.
(41:58):
And then you can be the exampleto someone else down the road. It
was right where you were, andyou can tell them, Man, I'm
telling you it gets better. Thisis where I was, this is where
I'm at now I know exactly whereyou're at, and I'm telling you it
can get better. I hope,I hope that you have found value in
(42:29):
today's show. If you need totalk to me, if you'd like to
reach out, be more than happyto direct you wherever I can, or
even just listen Surviving the System dotorg, Facebook dot com, slash Surviving
the System or on Twitter at STSthe podcast and I want to make sure
(42:52):
to end with a big thank youfor your time and as always, remember
keep your head up. It maybe easy to look at all the corruption
and manipulation in the system and feelhopeless here at surviving the system. We
hold to the belief that greatness isborn in the midst of extraordinary struggles.
(43:15):
You were created with a purpose,with infinite potential, and many have lost
sight of that back We're here toremind you of who you are. The
best revenge is success.
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