Suicide Prevention

Content Warning: Talk of Suicide

If you are having thoughts of suicide or self harm, please call or text 988, or chat 988lifeline.org

Misconceptions and stigma can make suicide hard to understand, but talking about it can make a huge difference. Mama Dragons is committed to keeping the conversation at the forefront of our group to help conquer those misconceptions and help lower suicide rates. In this week’s episode of In the Den, Jen talks with special guest Taryn Aiken Hiatt about factors that impact suicide risk, warning signs of suicidality, and what to do when someone you know is having thoughts of suicide. 

Special Guest: Taryn Aiken Hiatt 

Taryn is a dedicated advocate with a passion for changing the culture around mental health, suicide and substance use disorders.  She is a loss survivor, losing her dad in 2002, and an attempt survivor who lives in recovery today. Taryn founded and is the executive director for the Utah Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. She has testified before congress in Washington DC to increase awareness and support for better access to mental health services and to promote healthy discussions about suicide. She is widely respected throughout the nation for her hard work and dedication to saving lives. Taryn is finishing the Master's in Social Work program at UVU and graduates in May 2024. Taryn believes in the power of human connection and is dedicated to preventing suicide.

Links from the Show: 

• Donate to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: www.afsp.org 
• Find a local support group through AFSP: https://afsp.org/find-a-local-chapter/ 
• Volunteer with AFSP: https://afsp.org/advocate-for-suicide-prevention/ 
• National Alliance of Mental Illness: https://www.nami.org/Home 
• Join Mama Dragons today: www.mamadragons.org 

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Transcript

JEN: Hello and welcome. You are listening to In the Den with Mama Dragons. I’m your host, Jen. This podcast was created out of our desire to walk and talk with you through this journey of raising happy, healthy, and productive LGBTQ humans. We are so happy that you’re here with us. 

Misconceptions and stigma can make suicide difficult to understand. But talking about it can make a huge difference.  Mama Dragons is dedicated to keeping the conversation at the forefront of our groups to help conquer those misconceptions and lower suicide rates. After learning a little bit from this podcast episode, I’d like to strongly encourage you to take a QPR suicide prevention course from Mama Dragons or another source, or any course that’s available to you.  And, if you are able, we would appreciate any donations to help develop our next e-learning parachute course for helping parents to understand how to prevent suicide. Today, we are going to talk to an expert in the world of suicide prevention.  This conversation might be difficult for some to listen to.  Many of us have emotional and difficult experiences with suicide, either our own ideation or that of a loved one.  If you need to push pause and take a break– that’s okay.  We’ll be here when you’re ready to come back!

Today we have Taryn Aiken Hiatt. Taryn is a dedicated advocate with a passion for changing the culture around mental health, suicide and substance use disorders.  She is a loss survivor, losing her dad in 2002 and an attempt survivor who lives in recovery every day. Taryn is the executive director for the Utah Chapter of the American foundation for Suicide Prevention and founded the chapter. She has testified before Congressional Members in Washington DC to increase awareness and support for better access to mental health services and to promote healthy discussions about suicide. She is widely respected throughout the nation for her hard work and dedication to saving lives. Taryn is finishing the master's in social work program at Utah Valley University and graduates in May 2024. Taryn believes in the power of human connection and is dedicated to preventing suicide. Welcome, Taryn, in the den.  We are so happy to have you here with us. 

TARYN:  I am honored to be here with you. 

JEN: Also, congrats on your graduate degree coming very soon. You’re in the home stretch. 

TARYN:  I know. Counting down the days. 

JEN: So, there’s actually a lot to cover with suicide prevention. Is it alright if I just dive right in? 

TARYN:  Absolutely. 

JEN: All right. This might be a silly question to start off, but I think it’s a common question. Everybody experiences sadness and loss. Why do some people attempt suicide? 

TARYN:  That’s a great question. You know, suicide is a health issue. And that’s what we need to encourage people to look at it as, address it as, and talk about it and learn about it. What we know is that people who get to a place where their mind is considering suicide or ending their life, it’s really a coping strategy. It gets to a place where whatever we’re dealing with becomes so unbearable that our thinking becomes rigid, our problem solving skills are not able to work, and we just want to escape that thing that seems to be causing us so much harm. 

And there is some research that shows – there’s actual structural changes in the brains of people who attempt and die from suicide. That’s why you and I can experience the same traumatic event but have a different reaction to it because our brain is actually structured different. And a lot of that also comes in just our own experiences, right? I might have different coping strategies and a resilience because of things that I’ve experienced that you may not, or vice versa. So it’s a very individual experience but definitely there are some common themes that we see happen individuals who’ve experienced thoughts and feelings of suicide or who have gone on to attempt and die from suicide. 

JEN: Can you talk for a minute about the population? Who is at risk for suicide? Who is at higher risk? And how do rates differ for different populations?

TARYN:  That’s a great question. What we know is, honestly, if you’re a human, alive and breathing today, you have risk. Okay? Yes, there’s going to be specific populations who have higher risk. And these are usually our marginalized communities that experience different stressors than the everyday person. These can be our communities of color. We have started to see an increase, sadly, amongst young black men over the last couple of years. We have started to see an increase in, again, attempt – really attempt data is all we have as it relates to our queer and LGBTQ communities because sadly, most medical examiners officers, most states aren’t tracking death data based on gender identity or sexual orientation. 

And so we really don’t have accurate data for who is dying. But we absolutely know by those who’ve survived attempts who’ve shared that experience with us that we do see a higher attempt rate in our queer communities. And, again, this is because of that marginalization like I spoke of. Sadly, with all of the things taking place across the country, there's legislation that has been harmful and really targeted queer people. We see this again in communities of color because of the heightened violence. We’re seeing it right now with anit-semetism and other remarks being made to certain communities. That, again, increases their risk because they’re being put in these undue stressful situations. 

But when we look at risk as a whole, again, it’s health factors, it’s historical factors, and it’s environmental factors. And all the factors I just spoke of fall into that environment, right? What are people being exposed to on a daily basis that they’re trying to deal with. And, again, those are the things that we can have some say so about. We can try to minimize. We can try to create places of safety and encourage helpful dialogues for people who are experiencing those additional stresses to, again, get the support and help that they deserve and need. 

JEN: Can we toss out some numbers? How common is it for people in general to feel suicidal? How common is it for people to attempt suicide?

TARYN:  That’s a great, great question. I apologize. I missed that. So when we look at just demographic, we know that on average, 1 out of 20 people on any given day are currently experiencing thoughts and feelings of suicide right now. We know that we lose, in the United States, our most current data is we’re up to about 49,000 American’s that died by suicide in 2022. Keep in mind that’s just what we know of and what was reported by, again, CDC Centers of Disease Control, and local state health departments. 

But it’s estimated that over a million people attempt suicide each year. We know that that is actually higher amongst our queer community. It’s about 4 to 6 times higher for our queer community to experience attempts. And even high in our transgender community. Trans people experience about an 8 to 10 times higher likelihood of a suicide attempt than the general population. And, again, that’s just because of additional risk factors like we spoke of and some of the marginalization and just the way in which our community responds oftentimes. 

JEN: You’ve mentioned risk factors a couple of times which maybe could be almost used to predict suicide or suicide attempts. Do we know what those warning signs are? How do we know if somebody’s thinking about this?

TARYN:  Oh, definitely, great question. So, again, the risk factors are things like health conditions. So people who have chronic health conditions, folks who have mental health conditions, and not just mental health but untreated or poorly treated mental health conditions. We know depression untreated is deadly. And so individuals who experience depression and anxiety have a higher likelihood to have thoughts and feelings of suicide. And, in fact, it’s the most common mental health condition that people suffer from who go on to die from suicide. So getting help and support when we’re experiencing those is vital. 

But we also look at family history. If you have a family history of mental health conditions or a family history of suicide, you have a higher likelihood and a higher risk. And so what that can look like in individuals is when people are experiencing this increased thoughts and feelings of “I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this,” our behavior starts to change. We might say things like, “I can’t do this anymore. Nobody cares about me. Everybody would be better off if I wasn’t here. I’m a burden.” There’s a hopeless theme to the stuff that people say. 

And, sadly, we’ve heard this in society for so many years. “They’re not serious. They wouldn’t do it. They’re just doing that for attention.” And, you know what, they are. They’re trying to tell us that they’re not in a good space. And so I really think that we got to get rid of that misnomer that people are attention seekers. I believe that we’re connection seekers. We’re trying to make sure that people around us see us and hear us and value us and want us to be a part of their lives and experience, right?

 If I don’t feel like I have a purpose or a place to be and exist, that puts me at risk to now want to be here and to not want to do this. And so we can see those kind of indicators in things people say, in the behavior they engage in, and sometimes just the energy they’re giving off, right? We see that they’re sad. We see that they’re mad. We see that they feel hopeless. Or, gosh, maybe they have no emotion whatsoever. They almost have this state of apathy, right, “I feel numb.” And you’ll hear people say that. And the challenge has always been that when we see people exhibiting these things, we haven’t always known what to do. We haven’t always known what to say. 

So sometimes we hold back because we’re worried we’re going to say or do the wrong thing when really we just need to reach out. We just need to have a real conversation that says, “Hey, I see you and I’m worried about you. Talk to me.” Right? How are things going? Where are you at? And not be afraid to ask the question. Is what I’m seeing connected to thoughts and feelings of suicide? Are you thinking about suicide because, again, there’s a myth that says we give people the idea by asking that. And that couldn’t be farther from the truth. We actually give them permission to say yes if they and no if they’re not. So I know I threw a lot at you, but it's really getting comfortable and recognizing when people around us are in distress and then having a willingness to say something when they are. 

JEN: So, I’m a parent. I’m watching my kid who seems mostly okay most of the time. Teenagers are a little bit unpredictable and can be moody. And maybe I have two kids and one of them never says anything dramatic and the other one’s pretty consistently dramatic. And we’re hearing things like, “If he doesn’t ask me to the dance, I’m going to kill myself.” How do you know when to take those kind of things seriously and when it’s just a figure of speech? 

TARYN:  Yeah, I know, and that’s a great one because we know we hear that. So here’s my answer. First, if I ever hear somebody communicate thoughts and feelings of suicide, I take it serious every time. If I get that they’re using it as a way to be,  the word you mentioned, dramatic or again flippant, I have a conversation that says, “You know what, if you’re really feeling that way, that’s a life and death situation. And if we’re not feeling that way, then we’re not going to use that verbiage. We’re instead going to say that would really suck if I didn’t get asked to the dance. That would really be hard. That would maybe hurt my feelings. But if I’m not in a place where I’m considering suicide, let’s not use that as a mockery, because that’s what unfortunately kind of perpetuated that boy how cried wolf, right. 

Because, again,  if I say it and I say it and people are just so used to me saying it because they think I’m going for another kind of action, then they don’t take me serious if that’s really where I’m at. So I would say take it serious every time. Have a consistent plan of action every time. We know, as parents, our children behave in ways to, again, get our attention. They want us to have a response. If my response is such that they’re not getting the reaction that they’re looking for, they’re going to change their behavior. And so have a consistent response. And, if it’s ever something around suicide, say this is serious. This is life and death. If that’s really how you feel, this is the action we’re going to take to get you help and support. If that’s not really how you feel then let’s find another way to communicate that need. 

JEN: So, if I know someone who I believe is struggling, or perhaps they’re posting on social media, it’s very obvious that they’re struggling. What do I do? What’s my responsibility? What’s my job? 

TARYN:  So I believe as humans it’s our responsibility to say, “I see you struggling.” And that’s often what goes overlooked. I always find it kind of sad really that I can post pictures of my food and my cats and my life and people like it. But if I post something serious and that I’m struggling, we often steer away from. And, again, that’s not because we as humans don’t care. That’s because we, as humans, feel uncomfortable with people being uncomfortable. And we don’t know how to sit in that uncomfortability with them. 

But, again, you don’t have to have the magic answer or the key or the solution to fix it. You just need to be present. And so just saying the words, “Your post has me concerned. I want to know if you’re okay? And if you’re not, I want to hear that you’re not.” Again, I might not know what to do, but I’m willing to have a conversation with you. I’m willing to sit here in the dark with you until you can look on the bright side. Right? And so it’s being willing to address it head on. Say something. Don’t let it go unnoticed because when we let it go unnoticed, for a person who’s already feeling alone and as if nobody cares, that only affirms that, “See, nobody gives a crap anyway. So I may as well act on these thoughts and feelings that I have.” So say something. 

JEN: What happens when people minimize or use minimizing language? I’m thinking of examples of you’re trying to express, “I wish I weren’t even alive.” And they’re saying something like, “That’s silly. Of course you don’t really think that.” Or, ”That wasn’t even a real attempt. You didn’t really want to end your life because that was just silly.” What happens – do we know – in the mind of someone. 

TARYN:  Yeah. We absolutely do because all of us have had our own feelings at some point in time in our lifetime being minimized. I call it shoulding on people. You know, when you, “Well, you should do?” or “You should.” It shuts us down. We know the minute we’ve been should on, I’m not going to open up to you. I’m not going to say anything to you again because you just showed me that my feelings aren’t safe with you. 

And so, again, rather than coming with this language of judgment, instead be curious. “Tell me more about that? What do you mean when you say?” Be curious about it. Just because it isn’t your experience, doesn’t mean it’s not theirs. The best thing we can do is just validate that a person is in pain, that they seem to be having a hard time, and letting them know that we see and witness that. Again, the best thing I think you can do is say, “I don’t know what to do in this situation to help. I really don’t. But I want to. I want to and so give me that chance.” As parents, I know, nobody gave me a book that said, “Hey, here’s how to help your teenage kid.” I got the “What to expect when you’re expecting.” But not what to expect the rest of their dang life. 

And so sometimes I might say and do the wrong thing. And so I acknowledge that. “Look, I blew it in that response. That is not how I meant it to come across or that is not what I intended. Will you give me a chance to try again? Can I start over?” I think kids find value in that. I know I as a human find value when people can do that with me. Say, “Man, gosh, I sucked that time. Let me try again.” And, again, we give them a chance to hopefully share with us what’s happening. 

JEN: So, statistically, I’m loosely aware that oftentimes people seek help, they get some therapeutic support, they get on some medication, maybe they are just released from inpatient care and they seem to have turned a corner. We watch them. We talk to them. And we think we’re out of the woods. What is the statistic reality with that demographic? 

TARYN:  Yeah. And that’s a really tough one, right, because, again, we as a caregiver, the parent, the friend when we watch someone struggle and we see them turn a corner we get hopeful. And while, yes, for the majority, they may have turned the corner. But for some, they’ve honestly gotten complacent or maybe actually have this change in emotion because they have a plan in place to maybe act on those thoughts and feelings. And so we do have to be cautious. 

And, again, it’s when it’s a sudden and unexplained change, right? If there’s no explanation for it and automatically they just seem happy one day when they had been down in the dumps the prior, again it’s a chance to be more curious and say, “Tell me why I’m seeing this sudden change? Are we really there.” Now, the thing I want to be very clear on – okay, very clear – is I can talk to you about all these things that we can see and we can do. But the reality is often, and sometimes we can do everything right and a person can still act on those thoughts and feelings, okay. That’s the hardest part about dealing with suicide. It is not 100% preventable. I wish it was. 

Until we all feel safe and comfortable, until we all have access to the care and the support we need and deserve, right, we’re not there yet. So it's important for people who do caregive and love somebody, if your person does have an attempt or does go on and die, that we be mindful that it isn’t our fault because also hard, at the end of the day, the person with the thoughts and feelings has to want to engage in the fight to save their own life. And we don’t always have a culture and a community that makes that fight one we want to engage in. 

And so we do have to be very careful here. You can say and do all the right things and a person can still decide to act on those thoughts. But, again, we want to do all we can to at least be hopeful and helpful because then, at the end of the day, I’ll know at least I’ve done what I could. And as a loss-survivor, that’s not an easy place to be because you do carry all this guilt and coulda, shoulda, woulda’s. But you hopefully can get to, is a place of, “I did the best I could with what I knew.” And I still try to help people to this day. My dad died. We did a lot of things wrong. But, rather than beat myself up over that, I look for ways that I can help people today who can still be helped. So I hope that makes sense. 

JEN: No, it makes perfect sense and you worded it really beautifully. As we talk about suicide and attempt to normalize the conversation about suicide, we want to defend against suicide contagion as much as possible. Can you take us on a little bit of a deep dive into the concept of suicide contagion, what it means? What is it? How do we avoid it? 

TARYN:  Yeah. See, this is such an important conversation. Because, again, this is where that fear of “We can’t talk about suicide” comes from. So here’s what we want to normalize. We want to normalize help seeking and reaching out and talking about suicide as a health issue. We do not want to normalize suicide as a response to traumatic things and as a response to when things are not going well. And what happens in contagion is just like the word sounds. Suicide can be contagious amongst certain populations. And we typically see contagion happen among youth. Now, this is because youth do not have a fully developed prefrontal cortex that is rational, that is logical, that is thinking and is problem solving. 

JEN: Indeed. 

TARYN:  And, again, talking about suicide to somebody who is in a healthy good space, is not going to make them think about it. But when we talk about suicide in unsafe ways to people who are already struggling, that’s where it can become contagious. And what I mean by unsafe is we start talking about graphic descriptions of how? We share method. We talk about where people went to end their lives. And we do have to be cautious in those conversations because, while I can’t give you the idea of suicide if you’re not already thinking about it, if I’m telling you how to kill yourself and you are struggling, absolutely, I just gave you unhealthy information, right? And so that’s what we need to be mindful of is that we’re not using language around suicide that increases harm. 

Instead, we promote “here’s what you do if you are struggling. Here’s who you could call. Did you know about 988? Did you know about Trevor Project? Did you know about the trans lifeline? Did you know about, right? We try to connect people to those supports that they can use when they’re in that space, not just stay in the misery and despair of it all because that doesn’t give people another option. That doesn’t give them another tool if they’re in that – I call it the dark night of the soul. If I’m in the dark night of the soul, I need all the light you can give me so that I can find my way out. 

JEN:  I wonder, oftentimes with teens who feel invisible, who feel unseen and unheard, and then see lavish attention being praised on a peer who has passed away that impact also the popular basketball player and all the sudden there’s assemblies in their honor and people are all wearing purple shirts to remember them and everyone’s talking about them. Is that an element of contagion also, or is that called something else. 

TARYN:  Nope, it absolutely is. And, again, this is why we’ve really tried to encourage schools to be mindful in how they memorialize students who die, period. Because if you’re going to do that for the kid that got in a car accident, then you better do that for the kid that died by suicide so that people don’t feel like it’s different. But we also, again, have to be mindful that if I’m doing those kinds of things, especially around a child who’s died from suicide, it does put other kids at risk. 

I used to work with a family who had a child who attempted suicide. And that child was coming with me and speaking about their experiences and sharing those things. And sadly, his younger brother went on to attempt suicide and died by suicide. And that will forever hold such pain in my heart because I feel like I perpetuated contagion because I wasn’t being mindful about how this child who was struggling in the home was seeing and viewing the attention and things that his older sibling was getting. And so I learned real quick, we just have to be really mindful, right? 

And we have to be careful when people do die from suicide that we respond to the whole family, that we make sure that siblings are getting the care and support they need. I work with so many families who have lost multiple children to suicide and I believe that part of that is because the child who’s died, obviously mom and dad are distraught, but also the siblings are distraught. And if we’re only focusing on mom and dad, or again, we’re only focusing on the siblings, we’re not giving that whole family the care and support they need. So it really speaks to us as communities and caregivers and families allowing help, accepting help, and making sure that everybody is getting the support they need when somebody has died or could have risk. 

So suicide contagion is complex. There’s so many nuances that we have to consider. And really, at the end of the day, the best way that we help when people are struggling is provide those consistent supports, resources, and that light so they know where to get help if they are struggling. 

JEN: So, if a person’s mind is pretty made up that they are just not worth it to fight any more, they’re exhausted, they don’t see any other options, and we’re aware of it, what if they don’t want help? What if they tell us to back off? Can we make them get help? 

TARYN:  You know, that’s a tough one. Again, if you’re a parent of a child, yes, you can make them get help. Will it be the good help? Will they accept it? Maybe not. Will it provide a positive result? Maybe, maybe not. As a teenager, I was hospitalized for an attempt and hospitalized against my own will, right. I didn’t want to be there. And thankfully for me it ended up being the most beautiful experience I could’ve had because I was finally able to tell a secret that I’ve never told. I was finally able to get the help and support I needed. 

But that isn’t the story for a lot of families. Again, people have to want to engage in that fight. Sometimes us putting them in a psychiatric facility or a hospital setting where they’re at least safe, right, because they’re kept safe and monitored 24 hours a day, it gives them a chance. But, at the end of the day, they still have to come home. They still have to come, be in their situation and want to get that help and support. And, if people don’t want help, we know that old adage, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.” 

Again, what we can do as a caregiver or parent in that role is do everything we can to keep the environment safe. Lock up firearms. Lock up medications. Lock up things that could purpose a threat or be something they could injure themselves with. But, again, at the end of the day, people have to want to engage in that fight. So that’s also a really tricky balance. I would say what I usually do if somebody says I don’t want help. I just tell them, “I get that and I hear that. I love you and I’m here and I’ll help you when you’re ready. I’m not going to force you and fight with you. But I want you to know I care enough about you that I’m going to do the things that might seem hard.” I hated my parents for putting me in that facility. I hated them. But, oh my gosh, did I love them when I got out because it gave me a chance to live a life I never would have had, had I died. 

JEN: Can we talk for a minute about the word selfish when it comes to suicide? Talk to us about that word.

TARYN:  Please, that’s a good one. There are so many things people say: selfish, coward, weak, took the easy way out. And those things just make me cringe. First and foremost, that act of suicide, people often say, “Oh, they’re selfish and they did it to me,” As an attempt survivor, I can promise you I wasn’t trying to do it to my family. I really believed that lie that they would be better off. and it seemed selfless. It seemed like I was doing them a favor to not have to worry about the burden that I felt I had become, right? There’s a theory by a gentleman named Thomas Joiner and he talks about the capacity in which it takes for somebody to be able to enact lethal harm on themselves. It's honestly anything but selfish, right. Again, they truly believe they’re doing it for somebody else. And so we can’t keep saying that. 

Because, again, if I tell you you’re selfish for thinking it, I’m not going to come to you for help. I’m not going to come to you and say, “Well, help me then.” I’m going to stay in it by myself. And so we got to get rid of some of those, again, the weak, the cowardly, they took the easy way out. And here’s my best example I could give. And I share this all the time. If we think back to 9/11. You and I were alive and well and knew what was happening. Some of our youth today, they haven’t maybe learned about it. But 9/11/2001, our country witnessed firsthand what it felt like for people to be in a state of suicidal crisis. 

When those towers were hit and the plans started to burn, we saw people from the top begin to jump. And I can tell you, they did not jump because they wanted to be dead. They jumped because they didn’t know what else to do. That was the best their thinking had in that moment was to get them away from this thing that was hurting me. And none of us sat on our couches and said you are selfish, you are a coward, and you took the easy way out. And if we can look at people with that same compassion, because I bet you’ve been in your own burning building. I’ve been in my own burning building where it just seemed like I can’t do this right now and I don’t want to do this right now. And I didn’t need judgment. I, instead, needed people to sit with me and help me find a way through the thing that I didn’t think I could get through. 

JEN: That is a correlation that everybody over the age of, I guess over the age of 25 is going to relate to that we did watch that. And during my own, I think you referred to it as the dark night of the soul, I did think about that actually at the time. All the sudden this epiphany of like, “Oh, I suddenly understand.” So one thing we hear parents say a lot, particularly when they’ve just checked a child into inpatient care is, “We’re so close. Why didn’t they tell me? How come I didn’t know?” Will you address that? 

TARYN:  Totally. And, again, I think that’s something that as a parent, I know it hurts our feelings. Again, I had teenage kids. My kids, we dealt with things. I remember creating this safety plan with my kids long before they got suicidal. And I’m going to encourage that to all of you. Create a safety plan for who your kids are going to reach out to, who they’re going to talk to long before crisis shows up. Don’t wait until they’re in crisis to do this. And my daughter’s saying to me, “Will you be mad if I put Grandma?” And of course my heart was like, “Well, yeah! I want you to come to me.” But I looked at her and I said, “No because I want you to tell who you’re going to tell. And if it isn’t me, that tells me maybe I’m not that person yet. 

I am that person today and I had to cultivate that relationship. But sometimes, again , there’s an embarrassment level that we feel when we’re in that place.  We don’t want people to know how bad we’re hurting, especially someone like our parent who loves us so much. Maybe we feel like we’re going to be a disappointment to you. We’re letting you down. And so don’t take it offensively. Instead, just say, create this other network. If I’m not the one you can go to, who is it? 

But I always told my kids there has to be an adult on that list. It can’t just be your friends because your friends shouldn’t be responsible for you either because they’re dealing with their own stuff and trying to figure it out too. There has to be a trusted adult whether it’s a school counselor or somebody in your neighborhood, a clergy if you participate in a religious congregation. Who could you tell? And it had to be an adult that could also then communicate that to me because, as adults, we want to keep our kids safe. So I know that that can feel hurtful in the moment. But, again, it just means that for whatever reason there was a barrier as to why they couldn’t come to you. Find out what that is. Again, be curious about that. The reason will probably surprise you. And, again, it gives you an opportunity to maybe navigate that differently so that they do feel, in the future, they can. 

JEN:  It’s interesting to me, how often we feel like we’re protecting our kids. Our whole life and soul and energy goes into protecting these kids and we sometimes forget that they’re also protecting us. 

TARYN:  Yes. 

JEN:  I think it’s dramatically easier to tell a stranger something if they’re going to judge me because I don’t really care about them. 

TARYN:  Totally. 

JEN: But if I don’t want to hurt my mom’s feelings, I’ll even tell my kids, “Don’t tell Grandma” because I just, even still try to protect her. I love what you said about the kids not being responsible for each other.  And we’ve had a lot of conversations with our kids, right? If you have a friend who’s expressing that, that’s too big for you to carry. That’s when it’s time to get adults involved. That cannot be your job. So, what support is available out there that you’re aware of for an individual who has survived an attempt or is considering an attempt? 

TARYN:  Yeah. So, first and foremost, and I know we hear it all the time. But it really is a tremendous resource. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 988. So we transitioned that to a three digit number people can call. They can text. What I love about 988 is just like you mentioned, it is a person that is a stranger I maybe can just be honest and tell all the things to. Again, they’re not going to judge me. They’re there to support me and help me figure out what next step to take. 988, when you call, it now has three options. It says 1 if you’re a veteran, 2 if you speak Spanish, 3 if you’re a member of our LGBTQ community. And it will now route you to the Trevor Project. So, again, if you’re a member of our queer community, you can be routed to services that are people who, again, may share some of those common themes and common experiences that you are. But it’s a place that you can talk free of charge, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365. 

Now, again, there’s misinformation that says, well, they’ll call the police on you. Now, they won’t. They will not call the police unless you are a clear and present danger to yourself or others. If you are actively going to end your life, then you better believe somebody’s going to come and show up to try to help you. But, other than that, it’s just talking. And we know through research about 90% of people who called the lifeline, their crisis was resolved on the phone just by talking. 

There’s also peer support groups that you can reach out to. Again, on Trevor Projects they have a chat feature, right? They have different groups that you can participate in. We know that there’s different, local Pride Centers and Encircle houses that are starting to pop up across the country. Those are sources of support. National Alliance on Mental Illness, NAMI, they have free support groups for, again, caregivers and parents and people with that lived experience where you can connect and talk.

 And so knowing what those supports are in your community, right, researching them, figuring out if there is an in person group that you can attend. But it’s just important that we, again, that we find that connection to something when we’re in that place so we find out that we’re not the only one. I don't know why our brains do that to us where they tell us you’re the only one going through this when it’s SO not true. There’s other’s out there who get it, so let them carry that burden with you and let them walk with you in it. So those would be the ones I’d recommend off the top of my head. 

JEN: What about the flip side. What support is available for the individuals who have lost a loved one or are even trying to – you mentioned some of them, but carrying the weight of a loved one who’s in that place. Like you’re the watcher. 

TARYN:  So we have some wonderful supports again across the country through the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. We have a support group tab on our website. So if you just go to AFSP.org, you can click on our support groups and it lists the support groups in your local area. You can put in your zip code. It’ll tell you where groups are that are close to you. But we also offer what’s called a Healing Conversation. We have a peer-to-peer program where you can connect to a loss survivor who shares your loss experience. 

So, for example, I’m trained as a peer because I lost a dad. I will connect with other people who’ve lost a parent. We have folks who’ve lost, again, partners, spouses, siblings, child. You can connect to a loss survivor who shares your loss experience. And that’s one of my favorite things. 

One of my favorite humans on the planet is Sue Klebold and you may remember her. She lost her son Dylan Klebold to suicide. And, yes, he was the Columbine shooter. But we also have people who have survived what we call Murder/Suicide. We want to support them too because, again, that is a mom who also lost a child. Yes, he did a horrific thing, but she still deserves to get support for what she experienced and went through. And so we’re able to connect people with a variety of different loss experiences to direct you on that path to healing. 

JEN: It seems like every time I’ve struggled with anything, it just helps so much to have somebody who gets it so you can skip all the dumb questions and the over-explaining and just get to the part that you need. I love that it’s so specific. And we will include a link to AFSP and other resources in the show notes for anybody who’s looking. Can we talk about language for a little bit, the words and language that we need to be careful about. You already addressed do your best to try to talk about it. But there are some ways that are better to talk about it than others. 

TARYN:  Yeah. So I would encourage people to check out, again, that’s on our website. We call it ‘Talk away the dark” But really, it’s the language we use around suicide. Most of us grew up in the age where we heard the term ‘Committed’. We heard the term, “Completed” or “Successful” or you had a “Failed Attempt”. And none of this language makes sense when we’re talking about a health issue, right? 

We don’t say you committed COVID or you failed at COVID or you had successful if you died from cancer. We just don’t use that language. So let’s not use it here. People die from, die of, struggle with, live with. I would even go so far as to get us to use more person-centered language and people-first language. So many of us get reduced to our diagnosis or our identities when that’s part of who we are. That’s not all of who we are. 

I happen to live in Utah where we have really fickle weather in the spring, and yet I hear people call it bi-polar. And it just crushes me because I think if you live with bipolar disorder, that’s one of the most insidious mental health conditions. And if somebody compared that to the changing of the weather, that would feel dismissive. And even if you have diabetes, we always say, oh the diabetic. Well, that’s part of who they are. Instead I could say that person lives with diabetes. I mean, it’s that simple. So I just think it’s not about us being the language police. But it’s a shift in our conversation so that people feel that they can talk about this in ways that is helpful not hurtful. And that they’re more than the thing that they’re living with or struggling with in that moment. 

JEN: We use language to describe our thoughts. But language also shapes our thoughts. And the way that you’re speaking about these difficult topics feels hopeful and feels practical and feels  like “Okay,here’s a natural part of life. Some people experience this. Here’s how we treat it.” As opposed to these big over-dramatic or blame-y words. Nobody commits cancer is kind of like the example you used. We commit crimes. So it does change the way society thinks about it which is why I think that language is so important. What if somebody wants to get involved in societal efforts to reduce the rates of suicide? What can they do? 

TARYN:  Yes. So, first and foremost, at least with our organization, we have chapters across all 50 states. And each chapter is run by passionate volunteers. So if you visit our website, it’s just AFSP.org, one, you can find your local chapter and there’s a volunteer application on each chapter page. You can connect with a staff person like me and find out what that local chapter is doing. And we try to tailor the volunteer experience to what works for you. If you’re interested in crafting and helping legislation be more friendly and important and impactful in helpful ways, we have an advocacy program. So you can even sign up to become an advocate. 

JEN:  I thought you were going to tell people that they could make crafts. 

TARYN:  I’ll tell you what, we do actually, I have a volunteer that does make blankets that we take to some of our hospitals for attempt survivors and loss survivors, we do actually craft too. So you could do both. 

JEN: So you can craft. Okay, good. 

TARYN:  You can craft. But you can also get engaged in policy efforts if you want to, again, share your story of whether it’s suicide or mental health or being a member of a marginalized community has impacted you. We provide training and help people share their stories with legislators to get engaged in those efforts. So there’s a variety of ways. And I think besides just AFSP, there’s so many other organizations that have volunteer opportunities. Trevor Project does. I think in my local community we have Pride Centers and our Encircle houses who rely on volunteers. So there’s many ways that you can get engaged. 

JEN: Before I let you go, do you have any overarching parting message for our listening topic about the whole broad topic of suicide prevention? 

TARYN:  Yes. And thank you again for the opportunity to be here today. What I share every day and all day is number one, suicide prevention is all of our business. We need to get educated about this health issue the same way we’re educated about heart attack and stroke so that we can be helpful to somebody who’s in crisis. And number two – this always gets me in the feels – but if you’re listening to this and you’re in that place, that dark night of the soul where you think, “I don’t want to do it one more minute.” Please hang on just for a second. Please find that person. I don’t care who it is. Tell somebody and tell as many people as you have to until somebody takes you serious because your life matters. 

And that lie that is telling you that it doesn’t or that you can’t, let us challenge it. Let us wrap you in love and challenge it and try to find solutions that work for you because people will. They will show up for you in droves. But you have to give us the chance. Because if we don’t know, we can’t do something different. And I want to help you. I want to see you live your best life. I want you to experience what I did and have this life that is so big and full that you never dreamt it could be because you were given another chance because you got the help that you deserved. So tell somebody and let us love you and help you. 

JEN: The most insidious lies are the ones that are stuck inside our own heads, aren’t they? 

TARYN:  Amen. 

JEN: I want to thank you, Taryn, first, obviously for all the work you do in suicide prevention and education. I know that this work takes an enormous emotional toll every single day. But I also know how much it’s needed. So I want to express my gratitude to you for filling that big gaping hole and doing that. And, also thank you for joining us today and helping our audience a little bit to become more prepared to help with that prevention and also more comfortable talking about it. It isn’t abnormal to have these feelings. It’s not something we have to be afraid of. And we need to be ready to talk about it for ourselves and our loved ones. I appreciate you so much for coming. Thank you. Thank you. 

TARYN:  Thank you. 

JEN: Thanks so much for joining us here in the den. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends. We’d also love it if you could take a minute to leave us a positive rating and review on whatever platform you’re listening to us on. Good reviews make us more visible and help us reach more folks who could benefit from listening. But, review or not, we’re glad you’re here. For more information on Mama Dragons and the podcast, you can visit our website at mamdragons.org or follow us on Instagram or Facebook. And if you’d like to help Mama Dragons in our mission to support, educate, and empower the parents of LGBTQ children, donate at mamadragons.org or click the donate link in the show notes.