All About Change - The Golden Gate Bridge Suicide Attempt Survivor

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

***Trigger warning: The content in this episode deals with suicide. If you or anyone else you know is dealing with thoughts of suicide or self-harm, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.*** On September 24, 2000, 19-year old Kevin Hines attempted to take his own life by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Miraculously, he survived the 220 ft jump thanks to a series of contributing factors, which included a sea lion keeping him afloat. Today, Kevin is an award-winning mental health activist, best-selling author, and documentarian. Listen to learn more about Kevin’s story of hope, healing, and recovery.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All Inclusive, a podcast on inclusion, innovation, and social justice with Jay Ruderman. Hi, I'm Jay Ruderman, and this is All Inclusive, a podcast focused on inclusion, innovation, and social justice. and social justice. Since 1937, almost 2,000 people have tried to take their own life by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. On September 24, 2000, one of those attempts was a 19-year-old Kevin Hines. A couple years prior, Kevin had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was dealing with serious psychosis at the time of his suicide attempt. He could not stop listening to voices inside his head that told him to take his own life. Miraculously, he survived the 220-foot jump

thanks to a series of contributing factors, which included a sea lion keeping him afloat until the coast guard arrived. Kevin is now a mental health activist and bestselling author who travels the world telling a story of hope, healing, and recovery. Kevin, welcome to All Inclusive. Thank you for having me, Jay. Glad to be here. So let's start on the day that you thought was going to be the end of your life. Tell me

about your thoughts on the morning of September 24, 2000, right before you took the bus to go to the Golden Gate Bridge. Well, that morning, I believed I was useless. I felt I had no value. And I thought I had to die. I thought that suicide was my only answer. I was wrong, but I couldn't see it. And it led me to a devastating place. I was in what I termed to be lethal emotional pain. And that pain was so overwhelming, I wanted that pain to end.

I always ask people, what is it that you want to happen when you find yourself in excruciating physical pain? What do you want that pain to do? And the overwhelming answer is stop, go away or end. And that's the same for brain pain. And that's what led me to the Golden Gate Bridge in an attempt to take my life. I was living with severe bipolar disorder and I thought that that was my only option. And I wish I knew back then what I know today that that was wrong. So just for those listeners who may not know what bipolar disorder is, can you just give us a few words of what it

is and how it affected you? Sure. Or how it does continue to affect you? Absolutely. And it does. So think of skyrocketing manic euphoric natural highs. And then once you go up, you must come down. So coming crashing down into this dark abyss of depression and pain. That it was and sometimes is the norm for me. Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder, a brain imbalance where you have manic highs and depressive lows. But when you have psychotic features with bipolar disorder, like me or type one, you also have hallucinations, auditory and visual, panic attacks, and paranoid delusions. And so I was dealing with all of this simultaneously before I went to the Golden Gate Bridge to try to take my life. And it was just

completely mind-numbing. And all combined led me to the GGB to try to take my life. So tell me about the bus ride over there. You deliberately got on a bus, you wrote a suicide note to your family and loved ones. Tell me about the ride and what you were thinking at the time. You know, it was on that bus that I became what suicidologists, people that study suicide prevention call ambivalent. I desperately wanted to live, but I believed I had to die. And those are two categorically different things. And on that bus ride, I said to myself in my head, if one person says, hey, kid, are you okay? Brother, is something wrong? Or pal, can I help you? Or a variation of the three, I would have told them everything and begged them to save me. But instead on that bus, as I cried profusely

to myself, as I yelled aloud on a crowded bus filled with people about my inner pain. The only person to react aloud to me was a man to my left who said to the fellow next to him, what the hell's wrong with that kid with a smile on his face? Complete apathy. And this is actually very common, this if-then scenario with suicidal ideation or suicide attempts. If one person says or does this, I will. If one person says or does this, I won't die today. And my reaction was that. If one person says, are you okay? I would have told them everything and pleaded with them to save me. So I know we're going to talk about the details of what happened in your attempted suicide. And let's just maybe stop for a second, because I know that this can be triggering for people

that are listening who may be thinking about suicide. What would you say to them regarding where they are right now and what they can do to get help? I would say that whatever you're going through right now, whatever you're dealing with, and if you have suicidal ideations, stop. Take a breath. Take another breath. Pause for a moment and recognize that we're all going to pass away someday. None of us are immortal. Give yourself time plus hard work for things to change. I have now lived 20 years past my suicide attempt, never again attempting to take my life by working around some tools and techniques for better brain, mind,

behavior, mental health, and physical health and well-being. If you work hard with your mental health, you can survive mental pain. And suicide never has to be the solution to your problem because it is the problem. And so if you recognize that and you find yourself to be self-aware with your struggle, you can always survive that struggle. It's a matter of perspective and perception. And so I work really hard with educating myself as to my diagnosis, exercising every day, eating healthy foods, using coping strategies, using various forms of therapy and treatment, reputable proven forms of therapy and treatment, I put together a 10-step plan

of better brain health, better brain well-being, and I do it every day, and it keeps me here. I live with regular thoughts of suicide, yet I've never again attempted to take my life because of these techniques. And it's something that are science-backed, evidence-informed, proven tools for better brain health. And I really built it myself, for myself, and I shared it with the world. You can find my plan on youtube.com slash Kevin Hines

under a video called The Art of Wellness 2.0, and it can help you stabilize your wellness. And it's helping thousands of people around the world from as far as Peru, Africa, China, Japan, all across Europe and Canada. I want it to help people on your show, Jay, because it's something that we can all strive for. If we're struggling, we can defeat that struggle one day at a time. You don't have to think about the future. You don't have to dwell on the past. You have to focus on right here, right now, and then being here tomorrow. So I think one thing, I grew up with the term of someone committed suicide,

but I think it's accepted now to say someone died by suicide, that suicide is not something that you're intentionally making a decision to do, that it is sort of controlling you. It compels you. You're compelled to take your life by voices in your head or a mental struggle or trauma. And the reality is saying committed is like someone's committing a crime or adultery or something.

It's just an old hat way of saying it. Died by suicide, just like someone would die of any other organ disease is the right way to say it. And language does matter. It does matter. And so we say die by suicide now because it's a way to respect the person that passed and the people that have thought of attempting and let them know that they're not alone, that their survivorship matters and that they matter. So if someone desperately needs help and they're listening to this, there is a national suicide hotline. the number is 1-800-273-8255. They can always reach out to the National Suicide Hotline.

I understand from you there's another method that may be quicker that people can also reach out to if they're in a place where they're thinking about suicide. Yes, you can text right now CNQR to 741741. And that CNQR stands for something. It stands for courage to talk about your mental health. N stands for normalize the conversation of it. Q stands for ask the questions. Are you thinking of killing yourself? Have you made plans to take your life? And do you have the means? Because that doesn't put the thought in someone's mind. It gives them permission to speak on their pain and the pain shared is the pain halved. And R stands for recovery, living proof.

And so CNQR to 741-741, the crisis text line, someone will be with you in seconds and you will get the help you need to stay here. We've had active rescues from all around the country, and that CONCOR keyword is something we came up with as part of our CONCOR collective. So let's get into September 24th. You talked about taking the bus ride and crying profusely and no one really paying attention. And just as a human being living in our society in today's age, I think people are just in their own worlds and they're not really attuned to those around them, especially people that need help. They're sort of avoiding those types of

conversations, which is unfortunate. But that's something that you experienced and that was something you were looking for. I even remember an article where you talked about getting to the Golden Gate Bridge and looking for people and walking up and down and looking for people and walking up and down and, and, and looking for people to, to stop you. And even a woman who asked to take pictures, um, which you thought was a little bizarre, but I guess you got to the point where no one really stopped and asked, are you okay? Yeah. Besides on that bus, being on the walkway, the Golden Gate Bridge, uh, a woman asked me to take her picture with her camera several times. I did, and she walked away, and it was at that moment I thought nobody cared. And you see, that was the furthest thing from the truth, Jay.

Everybody cares. I remember my family, one of my friends, my acquaintances would have been there to tear me from that rail to safety because of how much they cared. My brain wasn't allowing me to care. My brain was trying to kill me as I desperately tried to cling to life. And like you said earlier, it wasn't a decision. It wasn't like I decided to go take my life like I would decide to have this cup of tea. It was a compulsion. I felt I had to die.

And that feeling is so overwhelming when it happens. So it's so backbreaking. No pun intended, because I did break my back off the Golden Gate Bridge. But it was terrible. I just wish I had the ability that day to tell my father that morning what I was truly feeling. The one thing that's come out of this, Jay, that's been positive is that today, when I become suicidal, the first thing I do is tell anyone around me what's going on so that they can help keep me safe.

And that's usually my wife now. Sometimes it's my father or my friends, but usually my wife. And we assess, is this an acute suicidal ideation? Is this something I need to go to the hospital for? Or is this something where I just need to talk my way out of it until I feel better? And usually it's the latter right now.

And I get to a safe place. So you're on the Golden Gate Bridge. Your hands are on the rail. You vault yourself over the rail. What were your thoughts in that second millisecond as soon as your hands left the rail? In that millisecond, my thoughts were these. What have I just done? I don't want to die. God, please save me. I had an instantaneous regret for my action and this 100% recognition that I just made the greatest mistake of my life and it was too late. And as I fell, I thought, this is it. This is where I go. I hit the water. I shattered my T12, L1, L2 lower vertebrae into shards like glass.

I missed severing my spinal cord by two millimeters. I went down 70 feet beneath the water's surface. I opened my eyes. I swam toward the surface. I got closer and closer to the lit circle of water above me, and I thought, I'm not going to make it. This is where I go. And that's when I said to myself, Kevin, you can't die here.

If you die here, no one will ever know you didn't want to. No one will ever know you knew you made a mistake. I broke the surface of the water, bobbed up and down in it, and I prayed, God, please save me. I don't want to die. I made a mistake on repeat. And he heard me. At that moment, something began to circle beneath me, something large and very slimy and very, very alive. I thought, you've got to be kidding me.

I didn't die jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge and a shark is going to eat me. But it turned out it was no shark. It was, in fact, a sea lion. And it was keeping me afloat until the Coast Guard boat arrived behind me. Coast Guard boat arrives, the sea lion takes off. These officers pull me onto a flat board, put me in a neck brace, and start asking questions. And that's how my life was physically saved from the waters. And then in the hospital, one of the foremost back surgeons on the West Coast, who wasn't supposed to be there that day happened to stay to do my surgery the first and only of its particular kind he invented for me saving me the ability to stand walk and run

of the 39 golden gate bridge jump survivors and there's only 39 in the last 85 years that bridge being opened whereas nearly 3 000 or higher people have died there, the highest point for suicide in the world. Of the 39 that have survived, only five of us get to stand, walk, and run. They call us the most exclusive survivor's club in the world as a book of the same name about our story. So when I say I get to be here, I really do. And what is it about the Golden Gate Bridge that, I mean, so many thousands of people have taken their lives there. You know, is it the height? Is it the accessibility? Is it, you know, I mean, why did you choose that location? People choose the Golden Gate Bridge

because of an ease of access to lethal means. It's a four-foot rail. It's simple. If you're tall enough, you can fall over. It's not because it's a beautiful view. It's not because it's a fantastic bridge. It's because it's easy. And one of the things we're doing right now that we've fought for for the last 20 years is raising a net at the Golden Gate Bridge. My father founded the Bridge Rail Foundation in 2006 after the film The Bridge came out by Eric Steele. And we have legislatively fought for the nets to be put in place. And right now they're being constructed. And as of 2023,

when the nets are finished, not one more beautiful soul will ever again die at the Golden Gate Bridge, and it will then become the largest and brightest beacon for suicide prevention all around the world. That's beautiful, and thank you for your role in that. You know, your story is really miraculous. There are so many things that happened from you not hitting the water head-on um to be able to come to the surface to a sea lion um you know floating beneath you and i know there's been many stories of of sea mammals um you know helping humans in distress um but as i understand you didn't understand it was a sea lion at that time it was only later that you know you found out that it was a sea lion at that time. It was only later that you found out that it was a sea lion because someone had taken a picture. Yeah. So I truly thought it was a shark and I was literally punching it, but it wouldn't go away. And it's just bumping me up and no longer am I waiting

in the water. I'm lying atop it being kept buoyant by this creature, having it circle around underneath me. And I was on a television program a year later promoting a suicide prevention campaign in San Francisco. And a man named Morgan wrote into the show and said, Kevin, I'm so very glad you're alive. I was standing less than two feet away from you when you jumped. It's haunted me until today. By the way, there was no shark like you mentioned on the show but there was a sea lion the people above looking down believed to be keeping your body afloat until the coast guard boat arrived behind you do you remember what what when you were picked up by the coast guard which i think was also a miracle because a woman

immediately called the coast guard yes when you were in the water yes a woman a woman called a woman who saw me go over the rail at the moment of my attempt had a car phone, not a cell phone, a car phone, and called her friend in the coast guard. And the reason the coast guard got to my position within less than the time I would set an hypothermia and drown was because of that woman's phone call. And do you remember what that coast guard officer said to you? Yes. There were several officers on the boat that pulled me out of the water. And one of them said, kid, do you know what you just did?

And I said, yeah, I just took off to the Ongate Bridge. I was fully conscious and aware. And they said, why? And I had no reasonable answer. I said, I don't know. I thought I had to die today. And the officer leaned in and said, son, do you understand how many people we pull out of these waters that are already dead? And I said, no, and I don't want to know.

He said, I'm going to tell you anyway. He said, young man, this unit alone has pulled out 26 dead bodies from these waters. And one live one, you. And that gave me a great deal of perspective. Do you consider yourself a religious person, Kevin? I am a religious person. I'm a Catholic. I've been a Catholic my whole

life. The only time I lost my faith in God was when I left off that bridge. But I always say, no pun intended, I found him on the way down. Right. Right. And you must see everything that happened to you and your survival and becoming a spokesman for suicide prevention to have some sort of divine intervention in your life? You know, personally, I feel like I do have that. And that's my prerogative. I've always felt that way. I don't push down on anybody. You know, there's people that don't believe, that's fine. But this is something that, you know, all the things came into play to save my life. It wasn't just one sequence.

It was the woman's phone call. It was the sea lion. It was the Coast Guard. It was the doctor at the hospital staying for as long as he did and doing my surgery. You know, had all those miracles not occurred, my life would be a lot different or I wouldn't exist. Can you tell me what it was like seeing your dad? I mean, he was the first person to show up at the hospital from your family and what that was like.

It was so rough because my father is arguably the man that loves me the most in the entire world. And he was devastated. And this is a man who in 19 years of knowing him up to that point, I was 19 when I jumped. I'd never seen the man cry, not a teardrop from his eye, not a hard time, not a visible struggle from his face. You know, a tough sunset Irishman. He and Debbie Hines adopted me and made me their son. You know, he was just the toughest SOB I ever knew,

like the drill sergeant who was never in the military, that kind of guy, you know. And he walks into my room, and I remember looking up at him in my bracing structure that was keeping me together, and he looked down at me and he walks into my room and I remember looking up at him in my bracing structure that was keeping me together and he looked down at me he goes Kevin I'm sorry I said no dad I'm sorry and waterfalls just poured from his eyes I just poured from his eyes and uh that was really difficult for both of us because he wasn't one to ever show emotion. You know, Kevin, many of us, I have four teenagers and we worry about them every single day. And, you know, with social media and what's out there on the internet and so much time, you know, alone on their phones um i worry about my kids all the time and and you know i'm sure there are many listeners who have relatives and they're like

yeah i'm just i'm worried and and what do you do like what what are the steps we need to take to make sure i mean because like if a child of mine doesn't feel well, has a stomach ache, breaks a bone or whatever, I'm going to take him to the hospital. There's so much stigma around the issue of mental health. What do you do? You think someone's just not right. I mean, what's your advice? Yeah, so for parents all around the world, you need to ask the questions. You need to be the type of parent that digs deep

and asks the hard questions. You need to start off with, hey guys, let's all have a conversation at the dinner table and let's be honest about what we're going through. First of all, have you guys dealt with any students at your school or in your experience that have had suicidal ideation? Have you ever had thoughts of killing yourself yourselves? Have you ever made plans to take your life? Do you have the means? You know, ask those direct questions. They don't put the thought in someone's mind. They give them permission to speak on their pain. As I said before, pain shared is a pain to have. The fact is that more people give truthful answers to the question, are you thinking of killing yourself? The question, are you thinking of suicide?

Because the taboo on the word suicide, the crisis text line algorithm has determined that. It's fascinating. That language really does matter. Just like when we say died by suicide versus commit. You know, the reality is if you're willing as a parent to have that open-ended conversation, but with a lack of judgment afterwards, whatever the answer may be, and with a lack of anger afterwards, whatever the answer may be, and understanding and an empathetic tone and kind eyes and saying, look, we care about you so much, we love you so much, unconditionally so,

and we want to make sure you're safe every day. And so many people around the world are, are taking their lives. You know, more, more young African-American children, ages five and up are taking their lives than ever before in this country. It's terrifying. So we need to, we need to be able to ask our kids no matter what age they are about these questions. So they're aware of it. You know, I was just in Massachusetts with my godchildren, and one of them, who's 10, has a student in his class who's currently suicidal, and he doesn't know what to do. And so we talked about that, and we had an open conversation. And one of them is six,

and we had a conversation with her about what this means. And you know what? It was terrifying to know that she understood what we were saying. So they're capable. They're intelligent. They are aware we have to have the conversation. Well, I would say that one of the things that people talk about, and I'm very interested in your journey of mental health recovery, but it's often said that people that are considering suicide, that you never know. about you that you grew up in a loving family and did they have any inclination that this was going through your head that that this was this was a thought process that you were you were going

through no uh but but but to be fair uh they didn't know because i hid it from them uh but but that all the more reason parents need to ask the questions. Nobody taught Pat and Debbie Hines suicide prevention techniques. No one taught Pat and Debbie Hines to ask the questions at a young age. No one taught Pat and Debbie Hines about mental health and well-being. So how could they know what to ask? I was in treatment. I was seeing a psychiatrist. I was on medications.

They didn't know the medications were toxifying in my system, making me worse because I was on too many meds at one time, which is not indicative of psychiatry or the field of medicine. Psychiatry in the field of medicine has helped save my life for 20 years. But this particular regimen of pills was affecting me in a negative way. We didn't learn that out until later, of course, after my attempt. But now we have the education. Now more people than ever before are talking about mental health. Look, it's even on the Olympic stage. You've got Olympic athletes and even

tennis players talking about their mental health. Michael Phelps talking about his mental health. And we need to respect people who take a step back to take care of their mental health and well-being because of their personal mental health struggles. And I think there's a lot of, you know, we call it stigma when someone is against those with mental health crises. But the reality is we don't call bigotry and hatred and prejudice stigma. We call it bigotry and hatred and prejudice. Let's call what's going on to those with mental illness exactly what it is, marginalization and discrimination against them because of their brain pain. And let's help them be vocal about their struggle and understand

what they're going through and empathize and lack in any judgment for them. So maybe you can get a little bit about your mental health process and how you went from being, you know, the aftermath of being, you know, Golden Gate Bridge to recovering or being able to deal with on a day-to-day basis your mental health. Absolutely. And the reality is that I live in recovery every single day. So it really is a process. It's something that I'm working on on a regular basis. And it's not something that comes necessarily easy. It's something that I fight for. easy. It's something that I fight for. And so this is, I want to tell you about my 10-step routine to better brain health. And it's something I put together years ago

and includes therapy, and that's psychotherapy or talk therapy or teletherapy, music therapy, art therapy, blue wave light box technology therapy and breathing therapy resonance breathing therapy inhaling through my nose four seconds holding for four seconds and releasing eight seconds like pursed lips like a whistle but no sound and doing that 30 times in the morning 30 times in the afternoon 30 times at night or whenever i'm having a panic attack anxiety attack or stress issue and then the next step is proper nutrition, and that's eating non-inflammatory foods more often than inflammatory foods, foods that are filled with proper nutrients and minerals that you need to feed your brain.

And your gut to brain health is very important. So feeding your gut good, healthy foods, because your gut chemistry is directly connected to your brain chemistry is really important. It's a symbiotic relationship and one can't survive without the other. And if you're eating poorly, you're going to be damaging the functionality of your brain. Going forward from there is exercise. I exercise three days a week. I'm going to be upping that to five or six days a week pretty soon and getting back in the fighting shape I was a few years ago. Exercise is a very

helpful tool for my better brain health. If you're physically capable, get down to the ground and get to work because it can benefit you immensely. 23 minutes of rigorous exercise leads to 12 hours of better mood. Sleep is really important. If you have the ability to get seven, eight hours of sleep a night, I sleep that much and I sleep well. My sleep functionality is really important. If I'm doing that, I'm stabilizing my brain health in a great way. And these are just a few of the things I do to stabilize education. This one's a really important one. It's a two-parter, educating myself as to my diagnosis and then educating my family and friends as to my struggles

so that they understand me and can get my back instead of wondering what's wrong with me or having me snap out of it or get over to move on or pull myself up by my bootstraps. They understand that this is a very real diagnosis. This is very legitimate, and I need to get treatment for it so I can be better. Then I take medication every day with 100% accuracy. That's very helpful.

I meditate. I don't need to go into the details there, but meditation is an active training of the mind that increases awareness, and different meditation programs obviously approach that in different ways. You know, this, this reduces the activity in the brain's me center. And it really is something that can help you balance out your life. And then I, and then I advocate, I advocate for myself and my mental wellbeing with my doctors. And I,

and I do policy advocacy as well. So two types of advocacy there. And then I have coping strategies and mechanisms like grounding techniques, socializing with family and friends, spending time with a pet, like an emotional support animal, which I used to have, time with myself, alone time, using humor to deflect the pain, finding spirituality and faith. That helps me stay stable. All these things are things I can do to stabilize. And then what I did was I created a mental health emergency plan and I opted in peer support protectors or what I call personal protectors into my plan. And that's about five or six people that all have my doctor's information and have release form signed to usurp HIPAA privacy laws. And that means that when they call my doctor and say, how's Kevin

in treatment, they get the truthful answer and the whole answer so that they can best serve me and help keep me safe. There are things people do. There's some great resources that we have for folks and I'd love to share them with your audience if that's okay. Sure. So a couple things. I mentioned it earlier. The YouTube.com slash Kevin Hines has 500-plus videos all designed to help your brain, mind, behavior, mental, and physical health and well-being. They are dedicated to helping people stay here, people from all around the world write to say that these

videos save their lives. We don't own that. We just put the message out there. We're conduits and the videos do the work they do. We have a website called kevinheinzstory.com slash resources. And this has the 10-step guide to better brain health. And you can train with that PowerPoint. And then there's a parent's guide to teen suicide prevention. And then there's a guide to the YouTube channel on what videos help what person with what mental struggle. So there's three resources there. And then there's my new book, The Third Rail in My Mania I Became. And you can find that at thethirdrailbook.com. And that's

the, and then the number three R-D spelled out. And then that book is the story of a man named Jesse Cohen. And it's written by Jesse Cohen and myself. And Jesse Cohen was a Tulane law student in his twenties in the height of the organized crime era in the 1990s in New Orleans. And he, in his mania, became a vigilante. He was like, if you will, like Batman. He would go out in a black suit, black tie, and black shirt, and he would stop crimes listening to police scanners. And he was taught Krav Maga by a Vietnam War veteran. And he went out and he took criminals to task and then left them for the police. And in his mania, it just led him to do this, to be this wielder of justice. But the story is absolutely phenomenal.

It's a roller coaster of a ride. It's a pretty intense book. But the message is clear. Stay alive from suicidal ideation and keep fighting the pain. Jesse tragically lost his life to depression and suicide, but he left this legacy with this book. And it's already helped people stay alive. We've got messages from folks saying that this book saved their life. And that was the purpose of writing the book. And it's written in Jesse's first person.

And it is powerful. And it's a message that is quite clear. So those are our resources. We want them to help people stay here. We want them to help people fight their pain. And we want them to help people recognize their true value. That suicide is never the answer. Kevin, it sounds like you've done a

tremendous amount of work, not only for yourself, but for others and to give people the techniques in order to walk themselves through this journey. I can tell you personally that I really identify with working out and eating right and keeping yourself healthy. And I advocate for that because I think that makes you feel good. So I get where you're coming from there. Let's talk about when you were 17 and first diagnosed. And tell me about the resources you had at home and in school, and were they adequate at the time? You know, being first diagnosed with bipolar disorder, there weren't many resources, certainly not at school. There was a good counselor that I had

at school, Mr. Marty Picaccio and Mr. Vittorio Anastasio, they were great. They were really helpful and kind to me. But there weren't like, you know, places I could learn about my struggle. One of the things that happened later on is that I went to a family-to-family class at NAMI National Alliance on Mental Illness with my father, and we learned about depression together and that was helpful my psychiatrist was was helpful but he turned out to be on methamphetamines the entire time he treated me as other patients he needed help and he wasn't getting it and he would end up taking his life uh years later we wouldn't learn about his struggles until five years after we started seeing him. I started seeing him.

But my parents certainly didn't have the resources that are out there today. And there are plentiful resources out there today. Every time you turn around, there's a new mental health advocate popping up on Instagram or one of the social medias. it popping up on Instagram or one of the social medias. But really, you need to do your research and carefully find out who are the leading authorities in mental health and well-being so that you get the best information possible and the best tools to fight your pain and to help your children or help your loved ones who are struggling. to fight your pain and to help your children or help your loved ones who are struggling? So I have a personal question. And this is just something that I've been dealing with for a while. I have a very good friend. He's obviously going through some psychosis. I've talked to him over

and over again, tried to get him help, tried to offer to set up help for him. And he's in a place now where he's like, no, I'm fine. But when you listen to him, what he's saying does not make sense to, you know, he's not talking like in reality. So how do you get through to a person like that, who says he's obviously going through something, but completely denies that there's something going on? So for folks in denial, it's a tricky situation. But one of the things that seems to work is this thing called the caring letters. You would be sent regular caring letters that said, hey, thinking about you, wishing you well, how are you feeling in treatment?

Is there anything you need from us? How can we help you? These caring letters turned into caring letters and caring packages. And the caring packages would be a whole bunch of things that the person loves in a package, plus four or five different letters from four or five different people that love and care for this person, all of them including five things. A sentence about compassion, love for the person, lack of judgment, total

empathy, and all the signs, symptoms, and triggers and issues you were worried about with that person. And so all those letters included those five things. And what it did was instead of going in one ear and out the other for the person, it ends up showing them rather than telling them they need help. So showing someone you need help rather than telling them can be often very much more effective than just speaking it. And so this seems to be a very helpful tool for people in denial and for those who love them. Let's talk about schools today. Are we doing a good enough job at destigmatizing mental health and providing the resources that people need? You know, some high schools and colleges are doing a great job doing that and some are not. I would say that there's a group of

high school and college leaders that seem to think that if you talk about it, then it will get worse, which is not the case. If you talk about it, you will deduce who's in trouble and you will get them to safety. And some folks just don't comprehend that. Some people in leadership of schools don't comprehend that. But there are some schools around the country and around the world that are really taking a first step and have been taking the first steps into acclimating their student population into the mental health foyer. Basically saying, we are going to cover this topic. We are going to talk about it all year round, and we are going to help benefit your mental health on a regular basis by doing

these activities. And they're really making some great headway in keeping kids safe. There are some great programs out there that are doing those things, and there are some great advocates out there doing those things. My wife and I are some of them out there doing those things. My wife and I are some of them. We go out, we go to high schools and colleges all around the world, and we share stories of lived experience, not just for myself, but from some of our Conqueror Collective, and we help people who are in pain recognize their true value and get them to a safe place.

Can you tell me a little bit about the work that you and your wife are doing with the Kevin and Margaret Hines Foundation? Certainly. Well, what we're doing is we're raising funds to give scholarships to students and kids who want to be in the suicide prevention field. scholarships to students and kids who want to be in the suicide prevention field. So we're getting them into conferences and events and things of that nature so they can learn and educate themselves about how to be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem. We're also raising funds to give to kids who otherwise couldn't afford teletherapy

so that they have free teletherapy so that they can get that and be given treatment and time and help for their mental well-being. So if someone doesn't have that readily available access to mental health counseling, that's the direction that readily available access to mental health counseling, that's the direction that you're going to send them in, that there are telemedicine, there are ways to connect to someone to talk about your mental health. Yeah, so you don't feel so alone and so siloed. So you feel like you have someone to fall back on.

And so you can tell your pain and your struggle to someone who genuinely cares about your well-being and your future. So what's the one piece of advice that you would tell a person right now who was thinking about taking his or her own life? You know what I would say to you is you need to be more kind to yourself, compassionate and forgiving of yourself. Suicide is not the answer to your problem. It is the problem. You are a gift to this world. You are meant to be here until your natural end and you can fight this pain and you can survive it. Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. It's a choice. If you recognize that if you call yourself a sufferer, you're becoming the victim of your own story. But if you say you're living

with fighting and battling and thriving, despite of your diagnosis or struggle, you then become the hero of your own story. Fight to become that hero. Recognize your true value, and that suicide doesn't have to be your answer. It is a problem. Thank you, Kevin. Again, if this was triggering for anyone, I want to again give the National Suicide Hotline [phone]. And Kevin, you have a text where people can text? Yes, text CNQR to 741741. The crisis text line, courage to talk about your mental health, normalize the conversation, ask those questions.

Are you thinking of killing yourself? Have you made plans to take your life? Do you have the means? And R for recovery because I'm living proof. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us today. It was a pleasure. I for certain learned a tremendous amount through your story and your life. I admire what you've made of your life, and you should know that there are people out

there that love you. And I think everyone out there who has issues in mental health should know that there are people, even if you don't know the people, there are people that love you. And love is out there. Thank you very much, Jay. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Be well. You too. All Inclusive is a production of the Ruderman Family Foundation. Our key mission is the full inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects of society. You can find All Inclusive on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher.

To view the show notes, transcripts, or to learn more, go to rudermanfoundation.org slash allinclusive. Have an idea for a podcast? Be sure to tweet at Jay Ruderman.