The Dr. John Delony Show - John Addresses The Adolescent Suicide Crisis

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

Over the last couple of years, suicide rates among teens have spiked. Today’s show is an adolescent suicide awareness hour, where we talk with a mom still plagued with guilt after losing her son to suicide, and a parent needing advice about how to talk to her teen daughter about a friend’s suicide. My teenage son committed suicide & I can’t get past the guilt, grief, & pain Teenage daughter lost a friend to suicide. How can I help her? John teaches about the signs of suicide, what to do, and what not to do Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage Greensbury Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney show, this is a big, big problem. If you think somebody's gonna hurt themselves, ask the question, are you thinking about hurting yourself? Are you thinking about killing yourself? Practice that question. I asked somebody that I love, not a family member, that question this week.

What's up? What's up? What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. So glad you're hanging out with us today for a really important show. I have a really important show today. If you want to be on the show in the future, man, I'd love to have you. Give me a call at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask. Today's an important show. It's, you know, one of the themes of this show is having hard conversations.

And whether it's sex and intimacy, whether it's talking to your kids about hard things, whatever it happens to be, I think one of the challenges we have in the world right now is that we avoid hard conversations. We just hope stuff will go away, or we don't want to deal with it, and we don't want to deal with hard stuff. And I've just committed my life to helping people have hard conversations and walk through hard stuff.

So today is a hard show. Today is a really important show. And so I hope you'll stay with us for the entire show, all the way through the end. And be sensitive to the little ears in the room, but this is an important show. And we're going to talk to some real folks who are having some real struggles. And then we're going to talk at the end about some things that we can all do together. So let's start us out. Let's go to Louisa in Denver, Colorado.

Louisa, what's going on? So I am calling because I lost my, sorry, let me try to get through this. No, you're good. Hey, Louisa, take your time. Okay, take your time. Okay. I lost my 16-year-old son to suicide 29 months ago. And I just can't seem to get past the grief, the pain, the guilt.

And I just, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to move forward. I feel like I take steps forward and then just go right back to day one. Yeah. I'm so sorry. What was his name? Luis. Luis.

How old was he? He was 16, you said? 16. Mm-hmm. Tell me what happened. Luis suffered from mental illness, depression, anxiety, PTSD. But, you know, we were doing all the things. Therapy, had support at school, had support at home. Um, and just the morning of his death, um, him and I got in a huge fight.

Um, and you know, I can't even remember the details of the argument. Um, he had spent some time with his dad that morning and, um, then we were leaving for a birthday party and he didn't want to go. Well, you know, wanted to do his own thing. And it just snowballed quickly, very, very quickly and screaming and yelling. And I told him, you know what, we're going to go, we're going to do our own thing. You say, you go do your thing. Your dad's coming for you. Do your thing. And we left. And I have two younger children who left with me. And we got home and found him.

Golly. You saw something that no mother's ever supposed to see or experience I'm so so sorry wow and so walk me through what's been life's been like the last two and a half years now or two plus years

it's very hard because I'm I'm a school counselor. Oh, geez, Louise. You're supposed to know all the answers, Louisa. I should know all of that, right? Like I should have saved him. I should have been able to keep him alive. That's my job as a mom. That's my job as a mental health professional. And so that's where a lot of the guilt comes from is I should have known and did better. And I feel like I did it. And I try now to just, it's very hard working with other kids in the same situation or similar situations. And it constantly re-traumatizes me. My little ones are doing okay.

But I feel like my job is to make sure they're supported and that they're taken care of. They have the therapy, they have the support. I also have a 21-year-old son and I feel like my job is to protect him now. So it's just, it's hard. I struggle every day with making decisions, just knowing what to do, not breaking down in front of my children, not breaking down in front of students I work with. So, man, there's so much. And if I was with you right now, with your permission, of course, I would hug you for the next 10 minutes and not say a word. You've probably had plenty of well-meaning yet painful recommendations and advice and little pithy things given to you over the last couple of years. And you've probably looked at all the blogs and all the books and all the stuff, right? Have you got counseling on your own? I did in the beginning

and then I stopped because I had to take care of everybody else. Yeah. Man. So I don't want to presume that to just jump in here and start throwing stuff at you. So how can I walk alongside with you in this? I've got a thousand things circling through my head, but I want to know what you need right now.

I guess my biggest thing is like I know what I need to do, right? Like I know I need the therapy. I know I need to take care of myself. But I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to stay on track with anything. I don't know how to commit to anything. So how do I do that? How do I make a commitment to start therapy again?

How do I, I don't, I don't know. I don't even know where to start or what to do or. Um, the conversation we're about to have is better had in person. Okay. And you're a, you're a mental health professional. I'm just a pretend guy on the radio, right on a podcast, but this conversation is better had in person,

but we're going to have it over the phone. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. A couple of things I'm hearing that I want to jump in the middle of. Okay. A couple things I'm hearing that I want to jump in the middle of. Okay. And some of this, you know what I'm about to say. I'm going to say it anyway because you got to hear it.

Okay. And this is probably the same stuff you've told parents in your career. Probably better than I'm going to tell you. But your son passing is not your fault. And you've beat up my friend Louisa for two and a half years now. And you can't fully help your kids that are still with you.

You can't fully honor Louisa's memory. You can't fully help the kids that are still with you. You can't fully honor Luis's memory. You can't fully help the kids that you help at school until you stop beating up yourself. Until you forgive you, set stuff down and breathe. Okay?

Until you believe, and don't just say it out loud, but until you believe that you're worth being loved and you're worth being okay, this stuff's going to stay this close to the surface. And you think all of this is about him right now, but it's not. It's about you right now. How many times have you replayed that morning in the last two years? Oh, daily. Yeah, exactly.

And your body has spent the last two and a half years looking for every possible, possible moment this could happen again, and you haven't taken a full breath in two years. Is that true? Yes. Yeah. And your identity as a mom was shattered. Your identity as a counselor was shattered.

Your identity as a protector and a provider was shattered. And all that's true. And so healing moving forward is, is about building a new identity, about living into something new. And until you stop trying to regain what was and start living into what is and what will be, my friend,

you're going to feel like you're treading water in a really rough seas. And every third breath, you're going to feel like you're treading water in really rough seas. And every third breath, you're going to be breathing in water. Do you believe this is your fault? Be honest. Be honest. Of course. Yes. Have you ever heard me lie to anybody?

No. Okay, I'm not starting today. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. Your son was hurting for a long, long time. And I don't think that he wanted to die. I think he wanted to stop hurting. And one of the great demons of the great, great lies of a mind that is struggling with suicide is they believe they're a burden to other people. And they look for every possible shred of evidence to back that story up. It becomes a vacuum, right?

And he turned a Saturday morning spat that every mom and every son and every parent and every kid and every brother and every sister and every co-worker have into a story that it wasn't. And it's not because he was trying to be ugly or mean, it's because he wasn't well. And like the mother who's driving down the road, five miles an hour below the speed limit, and the kid runs out in front of the car, the car hit him, but that wasn't her fault.

And this was the fight, the yelling, the permanent solution to a short-term problem is not on you. And if nothing else in this phone call, I want you to hear me tell you, I love you. Your kids love you. And this is not your fault. Will you say those words out loud? This was not my fault. Thank you. And you said it with a question mark at the end of it, but I'll let it go this time, okay? so in my work in crisis work one of the things i ran up on that surprised me and you've i've talked about on the show several times is i ran up against my own limitations which i didn't know

existed when i got called to a few scenes that involve young children and I had a baby little girl and I left and I found there was a limit. And so as we walk through, what do you do next? What does healing look like for you moving forward? How do you get the gumption to even take care of yourself? I want you to keep in mind that for a season, I had to not be in that environment with that particular group of people so that I could heal. And it may mean that for the next two years, three years, five years, one semester, whatever that looks like, that working in mental health with teenage kids is going to prohibit you from healing. It doesn't mean it's a forever thing. In fact, I don't think it's a forever thing. In fact, I think you become one of the most powerful voices

in the country on this, but you got to heal first. You can't show your scar around. You can't show your scars and talk about your scars while they're still bleeding. And so healing in this, in your walk starts with you even thinking you're worth healing. Cause right now you don't, you think you're a mom that failed. You think you're a mental health professional that failed. And until you think you're worth breathing again and smiling again and sleeping again and laughing again, until you believe that, your body's going to keep going to war with you.

And so I've heard it multiple ways, and I don't care which way you find it. Because right now you're still in survival mode. I've had veterans tell me that they got home and lost some of their partners on the battlefield, that every day of their life is in memory of, in service to those who didn't come home. Great. I've heard people who lose a child say, I'm gonna stand up and live for me because I deserve it. Great. I'm gonna live for my,

I'm gonna make meaning of this. I'm not gonna let my child have passed in vain. I'm gonna make sure that there's no more drunk drivers in the road, that no more young kids take their life. Whatever this looks like, that my kid, no other kid ever gets cancer like my kid did.

I don't care how you do it or why you do it, but you've got to have an arrow that you are pointing towards. You've got to have a marker somewhere. And it will change over time, but you've got to have something that says, this is the light worth getting out of bed for. Because right now, your light that you're getting out of bed for is not true. It's a bunch of shoulds.

And you thought you should have protected him and now you're just hell-bent on protecting everybody else to the point that you're neglecting yourself and probably suffocating them a bit. Is that fair? Fair. Very fair. Here's what really sucks.

It's been two years and I don't think you've grieved yet I think you've been hurting like bloody hell for two years but I don't think you've started grieving yet and this is going to be the hardest thing I say on this whole call and I'll get choked up here if I'm not careful there's going to have to come a moment when you forgive Luis thing I say on this whole call, and I'll get choked up here if I'm not careful. There's going to have to come a moment when you forgive Luis, and there's going to have to come a moment when you tell Luis that I love you, and there's going to have to come

a moment when you open your hands and let Luis go. And no mama ever, ever, ever should have to let her baby go. And that doesn't have to be today. That doesn't have to be tomorrow. That doesn't have to be in three, four weeks. But until you let Luis go, not that you're not going to remember him, not that you're still going to have photos up.

Of course, you're going to have those things. Of course, you're going to develop a scholarship for him and you're going to give a talk to a local school about kids and mental health. You're going to do those things. His memory will stay alive. But you're still sitting on the floor of your home, hugging his body.

Right? Yeah. Just haven't been able to separate that right yeah just like haven't been able to separate yeah that of like yes his memory still lives on but I can't let him go that's right

and this is one of those things man that I know listeners probably this time who listened to this conversation rolled their eyes at this point, but at some point you write him his long, his letter, his goodbye letter. Have you done that yet? No.

And as a mental health professional, you know that's what you got to do. But you got to tell him goodbye. And whether you go out to his grave and you read it to him, or you write it and you take it out to the lake and let it out into the water, whatever that looks like for you. But you're going to have to tell him you're sorry. You're going to tell him you forgive him. You're going to have to tell him you're sorry. You're going to tell him you forgive him.

You're going to have to tell him you love him. You have to tell him that you're going to do your best you can to make meaning of what happened and live and that you're going to laugh again and you're going to smile again and you're going to find joy again, whatever that looks like. And that's going to be years and years and years. So here's a couple of things that you said that I want to make sure I touch on, okay?

And I know right now you may not even be hearing me anymore, but I want you to go back and have this to listen to and also the people listening, okay? It's really important that you don't hide your grief from your other kids because they feel it at different levels too, and they need to know that they're not crazy and that mom's not a robot. And so if they come in and you are, it's right up there on the surface or his birthday comes up or Christmas happens and there's not a stocking on the wall

with his name on it. And you just have one of those moments you just come out of the bathroom and it hits you. And one of your kids is with you and you're on the floor curled up weeping. Let your kids come hug you. Don't hide that from them. And if they say, what's wrong, mama? What's wrong? Say, I really, really miss Luis. I miss him today.

Say the words out loud. Grief demands a witness. And you're not protecting them by hiding from them, okay? Okay. Here's the second thing. I don't know what you think you're supposed to be feeling right now, but grief is from Kessler's work, man. Grief is as unique as your fingerprint.

There's no right way to do this. You do have to keep paying your bills, and you do have to keep eating, and you do have to keep moving your body. You do have mouths to feed in your home. But you're have to keep moving your body. You do have mouths to feed in your home. But you're allowed to hurt and you're allowed to feel like you are underwater and you're allowed to wake up on Saturdays and say, I just can't do it today.

That's when the hard work you have to do is to make sure you've got somebody you can call that will come pick up your kids and go play. Is that fair? Fair. Can't do this by yourself. The journey moving forward is having a light, having a purpose, having a reason. You may have to take some time for healing and then go back to work. Maybe if this switch to the classroom, work in the lunchroom, I don't care,

be an administrator. I don't know. I know that every state's different with how they are able to move people around, but it may just be a season where you need some healing and you'll come back strong. Or you say,

dude, I'm out of this. I'm going to start a lawn business. I don't know, right? But I threw a lot of stuff at you. Tell me where your heart's at right now. Obviously, you don't know, right? Right. But I threw a lot of stuff at you. Tell me where your heart's at right now. Obviously, you don't feel better, and I knew that in this phone call. And obviously, you don't have all your answers, but tell me what's going on in your heart and mind. I'm really struggling with leaving the profession in general as part of my healing and taking a different route to just heal in a different way and to help people in a different way, not the mental health aspect, but a different way.

And so this is good to hear for my own journey. Here's who you are, Louisa. You are someone who helps other people. Yeah. And if I got fired tomorrow, if I lost my job, if nobody listened to this podcast ever again, and I started working at Burger King, I would be somebody who wanted to help people there. Yeah. And if I went to be an elementary school teacher again,

like I did one year, one chaotic, crazy year, I would want to help those kids. And if I went back to teaching high school or being a college professor, I'd be a helper. That's just what I do. And that's who you are.

I don't think you're done forever. It sounds like a, that as close as your profession is to what the hurt that you have, it seems like a break makes sense. And it might be two months. That might be three months. That might not be forever. It may look totally different,

but you're going to be someone who loves and serves and helps other people. I can't think of a better thing for you to do than to get with a group of moms who've had your experience. They're in Denver, Colorado. And the idea of that on the outside sounds like hell and i know that the last thing you'd want to do is go have this conversation with 15 other people grief demands a witness somebody has to

hear your story which means you have to speak your story out loud and other moms who have been down the road a little bit further than you and a lot of and other moms who have been down the road a little bit further than you and other moms who are just still raw. That's what healing looks like. And I'll even throw dads in there, parents in there. You understand this intellectually and your body is overwhelmed. You experience something that the human body is not designed to experience. No parent should find their child who's passed away. No parent should hug their child who's passed away.

No parent should bury a child. It's not the way this thing works. And so the healing out of this is going to be unique and it's going to take other people and it's going to take a mission of some sort. Before I let you go, will you say, I'm worth being well? I want to hear you say those words. I'm worth being well. And I'm worth being loved. And I'm worth being loved.

And I'm worth laughing one day. And I'm worth laughing one day. And I love my baby boy. And I love my baby boy. And I love my baby boy. And it wasn't my fault. And it wasn't my fault. You're a brave, brave sister. And thank you so much for sharing your journey with us.

Please, please, please, please, please make a call today. Make one call to a group and say, today's the day. Circle your kids up and say, hey, mom's been really struggling with brother's death, even though it was two years ago. I'm still struggling big time.

And I will be for a long time. So when y'all don't know, today's the day. Thank you so much. I'm so sorry that your son passed away. I'm so sorry that you're hurting like you have been. Your family's hurting. We'll be right back. For too long, we've avoided the hard conversations about mental health, relationships, and the food we eat. And I don't want it to be true either, but it is. The quality and quantity of the food that we put into our body, it matters.

And oftentimes we're forced to decide between cheap food that's good for our budget or expensive food that's good for our family. But there's a company that solved the problem. Greensberry is a family-owned meat provider working with farmers and fishermen all over the country. They sell organic grass-fed beef, free-range poultry, pork, lamb, bison, and fishermen all over the country. They sell organic, grass-fed beef, free-range poultry, pork, lamb, bison, and sustainable seafood. Their meat is less expensive than what I can get at the grocery store right down the street, and they deliver it to my door.

Now listen, I'm a lunatic about meat quality, and this is the stuff I feed my family. So go to greensbury.com slash deloney, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase. Check it out today. Your nutrition is worth it. Greensbury.com. That's G-R-E-E-N-S-B-U-R-Y.com. All right, we are back. Let's go to Lindsay in Louisville, Kentucky. Hey, Lindsay, what's up? Hey, John, how are you? We are making it work today. How are you? That was heavy. That was heavy stuff. Yeah. So for the listener, Lindsay's been on hold,

on the line on hold. And so you heard via telephone that last phone call there. Yeah, this is a heavy, heavy episode today. So tell us what's going on in your world. Well, man, I want to give her a hug, and I want to tell you to hang up with me and call her back. But, man, my question is how I can help my 13-year-old daughter who is navigating through losing a friend to suicide. So what happened? Yeah, what happened? This was not, this wasn't a bestie of hers. It was someone that she had several classes with, someone that she considered a friend at school.

They were math partners. And he, from what I understand, shot himself. Okay. And he actually initially lived. And so he was in ICU for a couple of days. So all the kids knew that. So it was almost like them reliving it twice. Yeah. And how old's your daughter? 13. Oh, geez. Yeah. That 13-year-old gossip rumor milled. I heard what happened.

Can you believe? Just been something fierce. Golly. Yeah. What a mess. Yeah. Okay. Ultimately, he passed away.

So how has she been at home? It's been about a month since then. So we've seen a drastic difference in her. Um, she went through a really hard week. I mean, that first week was just really, really tough. Um, she kind of has transitioned into this. I want to help everybody. Um, and I want to make sure nobody else is going through a hard time. And, um, I don't know, maybe that means she's going to be a therapist one day. But I, you know, I just, I still worry about her. I mean, she sat, she just two days ago sat with a friend. Her friend asked her to sit with her in the counseling office because she's had some of those same thoughts and stuff going through her

mind. And I can just feel the weight. Yeah. Okay. So I'll start it with this. Our kids can only be as well as we are. Right. And so anytime our 13 year olds, I got a 12 year old in my house. Anytime our 13 year olds or 12 year olds or 16 year olds or nine year olds are struggling, the first place we parents got to go is the mirror and make sure we're okay. What does okay mean? That means you would be pathological. You would be psychotic if you didn't immediately go, what if that was my kid? Right. As mom, what did I miss? Or I can't believe his mom. What do I do?

I don't know what I should be doing. Should we do something? Right? All those things. And for some of us, that makes us reach for one more bowl of ice cream or two more drinks or we turn the TV up a little bit more or we stare at our phones a little bit more. Some of it is drastic. It reminds us of somebody we lost five years ago, 10 years ago, 25 years ago, right? All that to say is parents, we got to go to the mirror first and make sure we're modeling what grief should look like.

And I hate shoulds most of the time, not all the time. There's some really important shoulds, but this is an important one. And this is when we're watching natural disasters or war or whatever. When we have trauma, kids look to us for how am I supposed to respond to this? So here's a couple of things. You know this, but I'll just, just to make sure, and I've been with this, I've been through this at the high school level. I've been through this personally. I've been through this at the college level and beyond.

So there's something incredibly visceral for a kid when they look over and there's an empty seat. It's a reminder. it's a story that their bodies are not prepared for. Adults have multiple, we experience more loss, whether directly or peripherally, right? We understand this. There's something when that first 13-year-old looks over in the classroom, there's an empty seat. There's a black hole there that is indescribable. They don't have words for it. Most of us don't have words for it. And I'm going to get choked up thinking about some of the students that I've lost and buried and done their funerals for them.

The second thing that is brutal, that affects all of us, that affected the last caller, that affects moms and dads, that affects math partners, is this haunting question, what did I miss? Which turns into, this is my fault. If I'd only seen something, if I'd only done something, if I'd only asked something. And here's the ugly part about that question is sometimes there's some truth to that. I should have just asked or I should have said something. Often, there is nothing, you know what I mean? There's nothing out there.

At any step along the way, that's a question that bears no fruit. I'm haunted by some photos of students that I've lost that some of the celebrities that have passed away by suicide the last few years. You know, I'm trying to think of the one that was the lead singer of Linkin Park, Chester Bingfield, whose wife posted a picture and said, this is the face of somebody suffering from suicidal ideation.

And it was her husband laughing his head off playing with his kids like two or three days before he took his life, before he died by suicide. And so to think we can guess is often impossible. If you can see something in action and you get some clear signs, and we'll talk about that later on in the show. Yes, there's some things you can do,

like good interventions, but for most of us, man, it's just our math partner, just our friend. We laugh when we go about our day. I had no idea people were hurting like they were inside. And then like we mentioned earlier, man, the stories

and the rumor mills and the, he was my friend. No, he's my boyfriend. No, I really loved him. All of that. Oh my, it's, he's my boyfriend. No, I really loved him. All of that. Oh, my. It's catastrophic.

It's like social media pylons, but it's in real life. You know what I mean? Is that sweet girl just, I just imagine her just getting buried with this. You have her own guilt on top of there's an empty seat in those classes on top of, hey, did you hear this? Hey, I heard this. I heard his mom. I heard he was... And for a 13-year-old man,

I just... I just... It's so heavy. So heavy. So you say she had a really rough week, which is to be expected. Here's my concern for her. Her job as a 13-year- old is to make sure she's okay.

And I'm, I'm worried about her, any 13 year olds, 15 year olds, 18 year olds, 25 year olds, trying to, um, run from this guilt, trying to run from this empty chair into I'm going to solve everyone else's problems because it keeps me from having to sit in the fact that the world is really hard and that sometimes people we care about pass away and that's where she needs you in a real real way

tell me about the conversations y'all have had about suicide about grief about about passing. We have a pretty open line of communication with her. My husband is military. He's lost friends to suicide and on the battlefield and things like that. So he's probably been more of a help and support to her than anything. My best friend is an LMFT. Oh, fantastic.

And I've got her on CDAL. Yes, yes. Good. She, we, I really, when I think about the relationship that I have with my daughter, it's, I feel like it's really great. I feel like we can talk about really anything. She actually says I have a John Deloney problem because I'm constantly picking apart conversations that you've had with callers.

And she's like, you may have a problem, Mom. You should probably go see somebody, Lindsay. That's not a good problem to have. So we have talked about what death looks like. Um, she did not want to go to, um, his, they had a wake for him. She didn't want to go. She didn't want to deal with it, but we, um, we really encouraged her to go. Oh, thank you. Did she ultimately go? She did. She did. Hey, you get parenting award of the year just for that move right there. Every parent listening, if your child has somebody in their life who dies, they need to go to the funeral, full stop. They need to go, even if they don't

want to go. And if they don't want to go, you go with them. And if you can't go find somebody, they need that. That will be something that reverberates through their body for years and years and years. Good for you, Lindsay. Oh, so good. Thank you. That was hard. I mean, that was so hard. I mean, I literally felt like I was pushing her out the door crying. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. She went with a group of friends. Her math teacher was there, which was super helpful. And it was so great for her to witness others' grief around her. It has to have a witness. That's right. That's right. And she has talked about that for, I mean, for the past month, she's talked about that. She's talked about how they've kind of been a support for each other at school. She's kind of, again, she's kind of made it her mission to help others and she wants to help others.

And so I think the hard part as a parent is reining some of that in. Meaning, she can't take, I've spent my career teaching faculty members, parents, administrators at school

that when a child is in need, that they need to pass that on. These are professional adults. They need to turn that over to professionals. They don't have the tools or equipment or strength to carry that, to know what to do next. And if you don't know what you're doing, kids can get hurt, right? And so the same thing applies here. And I know it's going to read to your daughter who's trying, her sweet little brain is trying to solve for what happened with,

this will never happen again on my watch, which means that every one of her friends that has any sort of, I'm having dark thoughts, I'm thinking about these things, they know Lindsay will show up. And Lindsay's going to get tired. You know what I mean? They know Lindsay will show up and Lindsay's going to get tired. You know what I mean? And so it may mean that when she comes home and says,

or let's do this, let's do this preemptively. So let me do this in order here. One thing I would, with all of my heart, you've heard me talk about this in romantic relationships with spouses and whatnot, boyfriends and girlfriends. I think we should do this here, and I think it will pay. You have an opportunity to give your daughter some tools that will— it's one of these change your family tree moments, okay? Two things if you haven't already.

Get—and this is one that even if you can't afford it, figure out and overpay for a really cool, nice mom and daughter, dad journal. And have this a dialogue where y'all are writing to one another. Okay. And she can,

right now, her 13-year-old brain plus her sadness plus her the frenetic energy, and by the way, that will fade. That energy that's just buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. She needs to see, it's going to filter what she hears from you and from your husband. And you'll have some great experiences that you can pass along to her that are important that she needs to hear. And so being able to write that stuff down, having your husband say, I was just thinking about my buddy, Dan, who died by suicide four years ago. Thought about him today, broke my heart.

I miss him. Thank you so much, sweet daughter, for being so brave. Missing your friend. That kind of letter will dramatically shift her healing, but it'll also give her two firm feet to walk under. So having some, or how was today and her just writing today was a good day. I feel like I'm doing good things. I'm making meaning of this, right? That's a way to y'all to connect that you think you're connecting when you're talking to teens. And often we're not, they know how to play

our games. They know how to say what we need to sit here so that we smile and think you're connecting when you're talking to teens, and often we're not. They know how to play our games. They know how to say what we need to hear so that we smile and think they're doing great, and they go about their lives. And so having a dialogue there, they will often write or text things they would never say in person. And so have that open dialogue and get your husband in on it too would be great. The second thing is, have you taken her out somewhere and told her how much you're hurting? No. Don't hide that from her. So here's just a life example here. The Ukraine invasion happened, and there was those videos of parents handing their kids off.

I took my son up and let him know this is an important conversation. I closed the guest room door and sat down. He knew. I think he thought he door and sat down and he knew, I think he thought he was in trouble. And I said, tell me what you've been hearing about what's going on in Russia at school. And he told me way more than I thought he would have known. And he asked me some hard questions and I answer them as truthfully and honestly as possible. And then I told him, I was weeping the other day, Bubba. I started crying.

And he said, you? I said, yeah, I was crying really hard, actually. I'm just gonna pull the car over. Because I was thinking about what would happen if I had to hand you and Josephine off to mom and y'all got in a car and just barely escaped and I had to stay and protect our house. And he got really solemn. And I said, these are scary moments and I'm scared.

And nobody's called me to fight. But here's some things that you and I are gonna do. Here's some things me and your mom are gonna do to be in service to our communities, to be healthy and whole around here. And so I didn't steal for, I didn't want him to think I'm a robot. I don't want him to think he's crazy for being scared.

And it sounds counterintuitive that we need to quote, unquote, unquote, show strength and perseverance and concrete. I'm going to hide this stuff in the bedroom from our kids. I'm going to cry it in my closet. No, dude, invite your kids into that. Not hysterics and rage and anger, but be honest with your kids about how you're hurting. It would be a gift to your daughter if you take her out on a special date, just you two, and let her know that you couldn't help but think,

what if that was my daughter? And sweetheart, if you ever are struggling, please tell me. Tell your dad, tell somebody at school, tell somebody, I love you. And the thought of losing you scares me so much. It breaks my heart so much. And I want you to know that I love you more than life itself, right? I want you to hold her hands when you're telling her this stuff. And I want you to know that I could hardly breathe when you were talking. I hurt for that guy's mother. I hurt for that little boy, hurt for all his friends.

Let her hear that from you. And she will, her shoulders will drop. She'll realize she's not alone in her house. And your husband can go with you. This isn't a time for lectures. This is how you should feel. Her grief is her grief. It's going to be different than y'all's. Let her have her feelings. And God help us. Middle school girls have feelings. And middle school boys do too. But man, let her know that you're walking alongside her. She's lucky, lucky, lucky to have you, Lindsay. Thank you so much for your call. I know there's a whole bunch of parents out in the country, millions of them that are dealing with the same thing you're walking through, and your daughter's lucky to have you. We'll be right

back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families. We even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple

times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self behind costumes and masks, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can be honest with yourself, and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at Better Help. Better Help is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere so it's convenient for just about any schedule.

You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month.

That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Deloney. All right, we are back. Important show. Important show about suicide, about loss. I got some notes here. I just want to walk through some stuff and give everybody some tips and some ideas. During 2020, the number of mental health emergency room visits among adolescents 12 to 17, middle and high school kids, increased over 30%. That's astronomical numbers. During May of 2020, during the COVID pandemic, it began to suicide ideation, suicide attempts began to increase among adolescents, middle school, high school kids, especially young girls. And I've got some theories about that. I'll be for another show. Suspected emergency room visits were 51% higher among girls than during the same period in 2019. And boys had elevated visits too. This is a big, big problem. And as a guy who's dedicated his

life to working with young people, who's got two young people in my home, I'm just a dad, man. I'm just a dad trying to love my kids. And I'm just a dad who loves your kids too. This stuff's super important. So I'm going to run through a couple of things here. First is here's some facts, facts about suicide that I want us to all know. Talking about suicide does not increase the likelihood that it's going to happen. If you think somebody's going to hurt themselves, ask the question, are you thinking about hurting yourself? Are you thinking about killing yourself? Practice that question. I asked somebody that I love, not a family member, I asked somebody that I love that question this week.

This week, are you thinking about hurting yourself? Are you going to kill yourself? Tell me now. Talking about it does not go, oh, I didn't think about that. I guess I'm going to, no. Talking about it pulls it out into the open. There is no risk in having that conversation. There is risk in not having it, okay?

People, I don't believe in the, they're just faking it. 100% of the people in my sphere, in my circle, in my extended circle, if you talk about it, I'm calling it all in. I'm calling everybody. I'm calling 911. I'm calling your family. I called somebody who I love and care about who's an adult. I called their parents recently. Seventies. Don't care. I'll call everybody. Called other friends that I love and said, hey, we got to get involved in this. The majority of people at risk for suicide are not interested in dying. They're interested in the pain stopping. Here's why that's important. We always talk about preventing suicide, but for somebody who is going to die by suicide, suicide is the solution. It's not the problem.

The problem is how much pain I have. And that's a big shift in focus. And what's the pain? Thomas Joyner is one of the leading suicidologists in the country. He's a brilliant professor and researcher and writer out of Florida State. Last time I looked, he's at Florida State. He says that it's a three-prong approach. There's three things have to happen. Two of the three things have to happen for people to lean into suicide. One is feelings of loneliness or a failure to belong. Isolation. I'm out here on an island by myself. So think about these kids that have been out of school for a year, for two years in some places. Number two, the capacity for self-harm. Some will say cutting is not a big deal. Some will say cutting is not a big deal. Some will

say cutting is practice for slowly learning how to hurt yourself. I tend, my experience with cutting in teens has been that it's generally benign, but it can be, it doesn't make me go, right, if a teen is cutting themselves. but I am going to ask questions. Absolutely. It's a, it's a signal to me. I'm going to ask some questions, right? I'm not, I'm not going to lose my mind, but I am going to ask some questions about that. But there is a, do you have the capability to hurt yourself, right? Do you have the capacity for self-harm. That could be an extension around doctors who are around or first responders who are living in the stuff all the time, all the time, all the time. And then the third one is, I think, is the big one. Being a burden to others. This idea that people would be better off if I wasn't here.

So we go back to the capacity to hurt yourself. Let's be real clear about this. Every cell in the human body is wired for one thing, to get to tomorrow and to get to the next day and to get to the next day. Cells even have ways that they decompose so that other cells can use them to get to the next day and to get to the next day. So to override your system at the cellular level to die by suicide is a huge task. Huge. It's not something that's just, oh, it's not.

It's not weakness. It's not failure. It's hurt. It's pain. It's illness. Okay. So people at risk for suicide may give clues and signals. They may give away stuff. Often, if somebody makes a decision, there's often a discussion about, man, for the last two weeks, they've just been super happy because they've been hurting for so long and they finally made a decision. And there's a peace for the first time

in a long, long time. Suicide does not result from people who are weak or who have no character, who are cowards, who just don't have the willpower. People who are hurting, people who are in pain. And one thing that I think is super important to call out. So there's been a lot of studies on the Golden Gate Bridge. Is it Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco?

The idea, and I've thought this too, as a guy who lived in this world, I thought this too, that if you, you know, someone's going to take their life, someone's going to die by suicide. If I stop them, if we call in 911, we get everybody involved, we take the guns out of the house or the knives out of the house, they're just going to find another way to do it. They're just going to figure out another way. And what we learned from the Golden Gate Bridge

is there's people who jump off the bridge and they live. And I think it's 94% of the people who jump off the bridge and they live. And I think it's 94% of the people who jumped have nothing left to live for. I'm out. I'm done. And they live. They survived the jump. 94% of the people who jumped go on to live full lives. Only 6% ended up finding another way to take their life. What does that tell us? Get in the middle of it. Stop somebody from making this choice. And if you'll get in the middle of it, if you will ask somebody, are you going to hurt yourself? You will not do this on my watch. I'm calling 911. I'm going to send everybody. I'm calling your mom, 40-year-old. I don't care. I'm calling everybody. I'll call the police. I'll call anybody. I'm going to get in

the middle of it. I'm coming over to your house right now. Young people who are listening to this, hey, you promised you won't tell, but I've been thinking about taking all of this or all of that. Sorry. I said I wouldn't tell, but I am telling that. I'm telling everybody. I'm telling the school counselor. I'm telling all my coaches. I'm telling everybody because I'm not going down on that ship with you. Because if I can help you be okay tomorrow, and then maybe the next day, maybe the next day and get the help and care that you need over time, then I get to go to your wedding. And then I get to hug your grandkids. A couple of warning signs real quick. Threatening to harm or kill yourself.

I take that thing real seriously. I wish I wasn't here. I wish I was just dead. I'm sorry. I'm such a, I'm sorry. I'm just going to head out. I'm going to head out because so much better if I'm not here. Talking about death all the time.

Relating strongly with other suicides. Man, that sounds so great. Like I've been thinking about that. People who box themselves into, there's no way out, there's no way out, there's no way out. Talking about being a burden, like we talked about earlier.

Just strange isolation or withdrawal or loneliness. Nobody understands me. I'm all about myself. Mood or behavioral changes. People start giving stuff away. Deep, deep depression or anxiety. And again, all these things isolated, man, absolutely doesn't mean people are going to take their own life.

All, in fact, the things I'm expressing, I felt those myself at seasons or another. And that's what other people are for. You cool, man? You all right? Yeah, I'm cool. I'm just, I'm struggling. Hey, you can go talk to somebody, dude.

And I've had people in my life, other grown men, other college age friends who have reached out and said, hey, you need to call somebody. And I've never once been what I would call suicidal, but I've been not okay. Agitation, aggression, irritability, increased substance use, especially self-medication, right? These are all just little windows into somebody's soul.

And are you all right? Are you all right? Are you all right? And like I told everybody else, don't hide grief from each other. Don't hide the fear from each other. Don't not have hard conversations. The time has come for all of us to start having conversations.

And remember, if somebody in your world does take their life, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, we are back as we wrap up today's show. The song's by Frank Turner. It's a song he wrote for his friend who died by suicide. Listen to the words. Frank writes,

why didn't you call? My phone's always on. Why didn't you call before you were gone? And I can't say for certain what I would have said, but now I'm helplessly silent instead. And there's a hole in my heart and a hole in my head. Why didn't you call? Why didn't you say something? There's always hope left. And I can't say for certain what I would have done, but I can't do anything now that you're gone.

And it kills me for a second. It kills me to think for a second you felt alone. And I know you were carrying too much weight on the evening when you slipped away, but I loved you like a brother. I never had a chance to say. So at half past nine each evening, I'll think of my friend. You were better than your end because I too have stood up on that ledge, but I know you would have pulled me back down from that edge and I let you down in the darkness and I wasn't there. So I'll remember you making a hole through the kids in the crowd and I'll remember you lifting me up each time I fell down. That's what I'll whisper to myself next time I see that hole in the crowd. Brother, I miss you like hell. This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show.

Coming up on the next episode, how honest can be oh 100 are you positive oh yeah the type of yelling you're describing is abuse and it is trauma it's just hard for me to do that and then also go and get my exercise or do the things that i also need to do in order to function. How close are you to just walking out the door? Something about his past that says marriage is not safe, somebody else isn't safe, this is become this interaction with mom that he totally controls.

It feels like a warm blanket for him. His ex-wife walked out on him. Ta-da! Maybe this is all coming together. James, we should start a podcast