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(upbeat music)
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- This series on "Daunted Life", a man's podcast.
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.
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All right guys, last week we saw
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a couple of very famous suicides
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and so we have suicide back in the news.
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We kind of get this every now and then
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when we get these clusters of famous people
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that have killed themselves.
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So last week it was Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade.
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So if you don't know who those people are,
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Anthony Bourdain is a celebrity chef
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and a TV personality, a very, very well-known guy.
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Seeing in host a lot of different things
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and then Kate Spade, another American.
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She is a clothing and accessories designer
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and she basically became a tycoon in this area.
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So both of them killed themselves last week
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and so it kind of put suicide back
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into the American consciousness
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and back into the general conversation.
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And this is just the latest in a rash of suicides
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that we've seen.
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Also, these aren't the first two famous people
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that have killed themselves obviously.
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So really in the recent past we've had Robin Williams,
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you know, world-famous actor and comedian kill himself.
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Chester Bennington of Lincoln Park,
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he's a lead singer of Lincoln Park and Chris Cornell,
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who is a lead singer of Soundgarden and Audioslave
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and also did some stuff on his own.
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All those people killed themselves recently
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and then we can even look back in history
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and think about very, very famous people
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that took their own life.
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So we have Kurt Cobain, lead singer of Nirvana
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and then you have Marilyn Monroe, who's, you know,
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just a cultural icon in about a thousand different ways,
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Ernest Hemingway and American novelist
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and then even Vincent Van Gogh,
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who was a painter, killed himself in his 30s.
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So it's certainly not the first time that we've seen
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incredibly famous people or renowned people
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or things like that take their own lives.
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But the thing is about these suicides
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is are these suicides blips on the radar
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or are they part of a larger trend?
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I think that's kind of the thing.
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Every time we see anything happen in modern society.
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So whether that's, you know, a blip in the stock market
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or maybe there's a school shooting
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or maybe there's something that happens in the news.
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We're always looking to see if there's a trend coming
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because everyone wants to be on the good side of a trend, right?
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You don't wanna live in tornado alley
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and not have a plan for a storm shelter.
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You know what I mean?
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It's kind of one of those things
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you would like to be out ahead of things.
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But the thing with these celebrity suicides
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we have to ask ourselves is are they only important
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because of their recognizable names and faces?
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Is that the only reason why these deaths are important?
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But here's the thing is when we start to dig into the stats
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about suicide and specifically suicide in the United States
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it's kind of frightening and it kind of shows otherwise
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that these suicides are not just blips on the radar
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or things that just completely came out of the field.
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So actually just recently the Centers for Disease Control
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and Prevention, the CDC, they released some stats.
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There was a very, very long study done
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on suicide rates in the United States.
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And so this study looked at the different
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suicideality tendencies in all 50 states from 1999
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until 2016 and it was just published semi recently.
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And here's the frightening thing.
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I'm gonna run through kind of a rash of statistics here
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'cause I wanna kind of give you a sense
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of what we're dealing with
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because I remember for me growing up suicide
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was never really something that I had to deal with.
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You know, knowing in my family passed away because of that.
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I knew closely kind of took their own life
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or anything like that.
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It just, it never really was part of my general consciousness.
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So, but here's some of those statistics.
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So in terms of the entire United States,
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during that period of time, which is a meaningful period of time,
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suicides are up 25% across the entire United States.
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And it's up over 30% and over half of the United States states.
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So obviously basically what that means is 25 or, you know,
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25 or more, I think it was around 30 different states,
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their suicide rates had gone up over 30%
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during this time period.
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So that's a pretty incredible statistic
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and we'll keep going with these.
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And basically suicides are up in every single state
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in the union except for Nevada.
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And so the thing with Nevada is basically
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that that state was always higher than average
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in terms of suicidality.
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And so that's not really the best thing to look at
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even though, you know, we're happy
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that the suicide rates have gone down in that state.
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That was always a state that was fairly elevated
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when it came to that type of statistic.
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The state where it went up the least was in Delaware,
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which was only up by 6%.
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But in North Dakota, it was up 57%.
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I mean, just let that sink in.
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Suicideality went up in North Dakota by 57%.
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But North Dakota wasn't really the only state
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that had this huge upturn.
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There were several states that were kind of in this,
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this last bracket in the CDC statistics
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where it was 43.2% increase or more.
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And those states were Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota,
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New Hampshire, South Dakota, Utah, and Vermont.
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So a lot of states are kind of dealing with this.
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Suicide went up 70% for white children.
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Suicide went up 77% for black children.
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The highest probability of suicide in terms of race and age
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are white males ages 14 to 21.
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And the highest probability of suicide attempts
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categorically are transgender people, which is about 41%,
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which is an unbelievable statistic when you think about it.
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41% of transgender people try to take their own lives.
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So we'll get into a little bit more
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as to why that maybe is later in this podcast.
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As of right now in the United States,
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suicide is now the 10th leading cause of death.
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I mean, and when you start considering
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some of the other causes of death,
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that's an unbelievable statistic.
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That's now a top 10 cause of death.
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And there's really only two other things
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that are increasing markedly in terms of death
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in the United States.
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And the other two are Alzheimer's disease and drug overdoses.
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So drug overdoses has a definite corollary
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with the opioid epidemic that's happening right now.
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And so that's something that's really important for us
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all to think about is where this is landing.
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And even recently, the Washington Post had an article
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where there was a quote in there
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where it was basically talking about,
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this is moving from being a mental health problem
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to being a public health problem,
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which is a pretty incredible statement when you break it down
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because you can just kind of,
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as you're skimming an article, you can kind of pass over that.
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But really, there's a mental health problem
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that we see that leads to a lot of the suicides
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that we're seeing and we'll talk more about that here
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in just a second.
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But when you start to categorize something
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as a public health problem, it becomes a massive issue.
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And you don't just say that.
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You don't just throw that out there flippantly
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so that more people will talk about
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whatever subject it's important to you.
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This is something that's real.
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You can't really ignore something
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that's in the top 10 of deaths in the United States.
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You can't really ignore that.
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It's something that you really, really have to put your mind
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to and start thinking about.
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Now, a lot of people immediately,
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whenever they saw the CDC statistics,
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they wanted to kind of think about,
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okay, well, what are the reasons for this, right?
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Obviously, we've seen the outcomes of something,
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but we need to figure out what that something is.
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And so there's a lot of reasons that have been given
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and pondered some better than others.
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And I'll kind of go through a few of those now.
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One of them people thought was that poverty
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was a big reason why suicide is increasing.
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But that doesn't really hold any water.
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It's not really correlated.
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We can't really point to any statistics
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that would lead us to that assumption.
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And the reason is, is because we're living
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in probably the most prosperous time
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in the history of the country, right?
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I mean, obviously say what you will about Trump
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and the Trump administration
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and what's happening in the economy right now,
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what it did under Obama, what it did under Bush, whatever.
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This is probably the greatest time to be an American
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in terms of what it can mean for your bank account right now.
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And there's just not a correlation with people
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that are in poverty that are killing themselves.
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There's a potential correlation
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in that this is a maybe, it's kind of a false
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that if you had a lot of wealth and then things went wrong
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and then you lost it all,
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that there might be a correlation there.
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But again, it's not that great.
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People have talked a lot about bullying.
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So there's been a lot of hubbub made
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about the epidemic of bullying, which I agree with.
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I was someone that was bullied.
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I was an overweight kid and I was an easy target
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in a lot of ways.
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And so that's just kind of one of those things
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like I understand that.
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But again, there's not really a great broad sense correlation
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between bullying and suicide.
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There's just not.
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Now there, before anyone starts getting mad,
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there are individual cases where kids were mercilessly bullied
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and those kids ended up taking their lives.
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But again, that was an internal decision that they made
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which could have been added to the fact
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that they may have had depression to begin with, right?
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And so, but there's not really anything
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that we can look at substantively that says,
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look, bullying causes suicides in this kind of broad sense.
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People have talked about social isolation.
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There's some correlation there
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that once people isolate themselves
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or become socially isolated,
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which again is a form of bullying
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that there is a slight correlation there.
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Mental health, it's a yes, but it's like a yes kinder.
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Here's the thing about the mental health
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is the overwhelming majority of suicide victims
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had undiagnosed mental disorders.
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One of the stats I saw said as high as like 90%
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of people that ended up killing themselves,
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they ended up killing themselves
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and it was in addition to the fact
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that they had a mental disorder
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and that's probably what led them
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to actually take that action.
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'Cause again, this is an individual action.
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No one else can kill you for you, right?
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Like, and this is outside the realms of murder
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and euthanasia and those different things.
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If you've chosen to kill yourself,
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that is a singular action.
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But if you have clinical depression
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and it goes undiagnosed and then you're bullied,
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yeah, that's a horrible cocktail for you to take down.
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Like it's just, it's really, really bad news.
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But the thing is, is clinical depression,
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there's a direct correlation
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between having clinical depression
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where you need to be on some side type of medication
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and suicidality, there's a direct connection there.
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But also there's some that are a little bit less scientific
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and maybe a little bit more theoretical,
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but decline in community.
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Again, we talk about social media a lot
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and how we're super connected,
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but being on Facebook is not a community, right?
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And you may be in a group
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and all these people are kind of getting together,
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but you're not with them in person.
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You're not really going through life with them,
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you're just kind of keeping up with them
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in terms of kind of whatever they post.
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There's also decline in religiosity.
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You know, we're declining in terms of the religious nature
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that most of us operate with.
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You know, a lot of churches are suffering
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in terms of their numbers.
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You know, we talk about Christianity specifically,
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how it's kind of being pushed out
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into the edges of society
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and it's not really being allowed
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into the public square as much.
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So that's correlated potentially.
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We have a little bit of a correlation there,
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but also us being the center of our universe.
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That's what we've been told for so long now
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is that we are at the center of everything, right?
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The world revolves around us and our happiness
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and our ability to keep paying out of our lives.
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There's a correlation there as well.
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And there's a lot of studies in here
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and I didn't want to bore you guys with a ton of statistics
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'cause I knew I was going to go and load a bunch of those up.
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But what all this leads to is we have several problems.
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And so as I'm kind of looking at suicide
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and as I was researching for this podcast,
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but also just things that I've kind of picked up
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over the years, there's several issues
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that I've kind of come to figure out
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with what's going on with suicide.
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And it's just problems
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that I think may be exacerbating our issues here.
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The first problem is that we tend to romanticize suicide.
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And I have no idea why this is,
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but we do tend to romanticize it, right?
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So Kate Spade, obviously the designer
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that killed herself last week,
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if you're listening to this on time, it was last week,
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she was obsessed with the suicide of Robin Williams.
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I mean, completely obsessed with it.
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That's kind of the reports that we've seen kind of come out
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'cause he was this gigantic, larger-than-life comedian
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that brought happiness to so many people
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but apparently had such internal darkness
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that it overwhelmed him.
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But the thing about it is is when you think about the things
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that were attached to Robin Williams,
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it's not that crazy to think that someone could be obsessed
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with this.
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And this is just the first person we know of
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because she was famous, that killed herself
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and there was a direct corollary.
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So I don't know if you'll remember back to right after
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Robin Williams took his own life, the Academy,
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which is, you know, the Academy Awards, that Academy.
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They sent out this tweet and it was a picture
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of Aladdin and Jeannie, right?
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So Robin Williams obviously was the voice of Jeannie
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from the movie Aladdin.
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It's them hugging.
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And the caption simply said, "Jeannie, you're free."
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So a quote from the movie, "Jeannie, you're free."
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And I remember the first time I saw that tweet,
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I was like, oh man, that's awesome.
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Like, yeah, that's really apropos.
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I think that that was nicely done and well done.
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But almost immediately, I reflected on it a little bit
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further and I was like, wait a minute.
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Like, he didn't just die in a car accident.
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He didn't die of cancer.
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This guy took his own life.
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But it was just kind of this romantic thing about,
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oh, he's free now.
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So if you're going through internal darkness
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as opposed to getting help and getting better,
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maybe it was better for him that he just become free.
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So I thought that was strange.
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But also ironically, he was in a movie called Dead Poets Society.
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He was one of the main characters in that movie.
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And in that movie, it's really a fantastic film.
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But my least favorite thing about that film
12:57
is it glorifies and romanticizes suicide.
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So the character in the film,
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one of the kind of the ringleaders of the young boys,
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the high school boys that are in this film is Neil Perry.
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That's the character's name.
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He ends up killing him, spoiler alert.
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He ends up killing himself.
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At the end of the book, he or the book, the movie,
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he ends up using his father's pistol
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to shoot himself in the head, kills himself
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because his father didn't want him to be in this play
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and he ended up wanting to be in theater anyway.
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Kind of a long convoluted story.
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If you haven't watched that movie by now,
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sorry, I just blew it for you.
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But this was a movie that Robin Williams was in
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where suicide was seen as this incredibly romantic thing.
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Yes, it was kind of portrayed tragically,
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but also romantically.
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I remember whenever I watched this,
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'cause I just watched this movie a few years ago,
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buddy of mine asked me what I thought about it.
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And he's kind of a movie critic, our artsy type of guy.
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And I was like, man, it was a great film,
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but I really couldn't stand the fact
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that it all kind of hinged on the suicide of a teenager
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because he just couldn't stand it
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that his parents wouldn't let him lead the life
13:55
that he wanted to live.
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Like I just didn't really like that part of it.
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So that's kind of the first problem I see
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is that it's really romanticizing suicide.
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That's what we're doing as a society.
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But also a second problem that I see is
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we don't call it suicide as much as we should.
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Like we're just not calling it suicide.
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I think even earlier in this podcast,
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I may have even caught myself.
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I think I said someone passed away.
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But the thing is, is we almost euphemistically
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describe it as death, right?
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Or passing away or something like that.
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But just think about how weird that sounds
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because some of you maybe when I said that,
14:27
it just didn't sound weird.
14:28
It's like, yeah, well, they died.
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So they're clearly dead.
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But what if I said, you know, the Nazis,
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there were just six million dead Jews, right?
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They just died as opposed to being murdered by the Nazis.
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Right, you know, out on 9/11/2001,
14:44
3,000 Americans died as opposed to being murdered, right?
14:49
Abraham Lincoln died while watching a play.
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Like that just wouldn't really ring true
14:54
because of what we know about those situations
14:56
and even think about a personal story.
14:57
What if you've lost a close family member to murder?
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And someone were to say, oh yeah, you know,
15:03
when your brother died or when your mom passed away,
15:06
it's like, it's kind of an incomplete story.
15:09
They were murdered.
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That's kind of an important detail that we need to throw out there.
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And the thing about it is, is whenever we don't call it suicide,
15:16
we end up running into other issues.
15:17
So I didn't mention this on the gun podcast I did,
15:20
but basically a lot of gun violence statistics
15:23
that you see on the news,
15:24
especially on more left-leaning news sites,
15:26
they don't distill the statistics down
15:28
to not include suicides.
15:30
And I'm sure most of you would agree with me
15:33
that there is a gigantic difference
15:35
between me walking around the mall with a pistol
15:38
and shooting people indiscriminately
15:40
or sitting in my closet at my house
15:42
and putting the pistol in my mouth and blowing my brains out.
15:45
Those are definitely different things.
15:47
There are deaths that are gonna be involved with both actions,
15:50
but one is inflicting murder on self
15:53
versus inflicting murder on others.
15:55
And so a lot of the statistics that we see
15:58
in terms of gun violence,
16:00
almost a majority of them are coming from suicides.
16:03
But we don't really see that, right?
16:05
Because we just look at it as gun violence, right?
16:07
It's not gun murder or gun suicide.
16:09
It's kind of different.
16:10
And even if you go to Kate Spade's website,
16:12
I was kind of going through and just seeing
16:14
what people were saying.
16:15
If you go to her website on the homepage,
16:17
it says the very first line there says Kate Spade,
16:20
the visionary founder of our brand has passed.
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I like, you know, she just passed calmly in her sleep.
16:27
Like it was just sort of something.
16:28
I just think it's weird that we're not calling it suicide.
16:31
It's like we're trying to soften the blow
16:34
of what these people have done to themselves.
16:36
And I don't think it's really doing anybody any favors.
16:39
And a third problem I see is something
16:40
that's already been coined as a phrase
16:42
called the Werther Effect.
16:44
So that's Werther, W-E-R-T-H-E-R.
16:47
So it's kind of also known as copycat suicides.
16:50
That's basically the emulation of someone else's suicide.
16:53
And so the name of this comes from Gerta novel,
16:57
The Sorrows of Young Werther.
16:58
And this was produced in 1774.
17:00
That's when it was released.
17:01
And in this novel, the main character Werther
17:04
shoots himself with a pistol
17:06
after he's rejected by the woman that he loves.
17:08
And so obviously kind of a romanticized thing
17:11
within the story.
17:12
But what happened after the release of this story
17:15
was fairly incredible.
17:18
After the publication, Young Men all over Europe
17:22
began committing suicide.
17:24
Like these men that had been rejected,
17:26
these young boys or men that had been rejected by women,
17:29
they finally saw this as a potential for them.
17:32
It's like, oh, I'm in pain right now
17:35
and I don't want to feel this pain.
17:36
So I'm just going to do this.
17:38
I'm going to actually take my life.
17:39
There were actually reports of men
17:42
that were walking around wearing the clothes
17:45
that the main character of this book, War
17:48
before he killed himself, right?
17:50
And the thing is, is we don't just see this
17:53
because of this Gerta novel.
17:55
We see it a lot of different places.
17:57
So even the Wall Street Journal this week,
17:58
they said after celebrity deaths,
18:00
I mean, there goes again, they called it deaths,
18:02
but after celebrity deaths, suicide hotline calls jumped 25%.
18:07
This was just reported in the last couple of days.
18:09
And so, people are killing themselves literally all the time,
18:12
but it's whenever these celebrities do it,
18:15
it's like, oh, everyone's consciousness perks up a little bit.
18:18
But the thing is, is after celebrity suicides,
18:21
especially depending upon how big the celebrity is,
18:23
there's almost always a spike in suicides across the country.
18:27
They're kind of referred to as suicide clusters,
18:30
but after Marilyn Monroe killed herself,
18:33
again, icon while she was living
18:35
now an icon until literally time ends,
18:39
there was a spike in suicides
18:40
and it can be directly correlated to her taking her own life.
18:43
There's also this concept of suicide contagion.
18:46
So this is where publicized suicides
18:49
and the details of which kind of trigger people
18:52
that are susceptible to suicidal actions or thoughts, right?
18:56
It's just like, that's what they needed.
18:58
That was the contagion that they needed
19:00
in order to kind of go through with this issue.
19:02
So there are other problems here
19:04
when we're talking about suicide,
19:06
but those are the three that I really wanted to point out,
19:08
but there's kind of one overarching real problem.
19:12
And it kind of goes to the main question
19:14
that I wanna pose for this podcast.
19:16
And that question is, is why we kill ourselves?
19:20
You know, that's the name of the podcast, you know,
19:21
and it's why, why do we kill ourselves?
19:24
And a lot of people would probably disagree with this,
19:27
but this is the reason why I think we're killing ourselves
19:30
and why it's going up.
19:32
And it's because people are trying to find fulfillment
19:36
outside of God.
19:37
That's the best thing that I can come up with
19:42
because there are, you know, sociologists and psychologists
19:47
and even economists that are trying to answer the question
19:50
of suicide, but I feel like as Christians,
19:54
we kind of know, we know what's happening here.
19:58
And so a quote that came up for me,
20:00
it was one from Francis Schafer,
20:02
and I've used this in a lot of different areas of my life,
20:04
but he was referencing moral relativism
20:07
or the people that are rarely propagating that.
20:09
So moral relativist, but this was his quote,
20:11
and it says the moral relativists
20:13
are those who have both feet firmly planted in mid-air,
20:18
both feet firmly planted in mid-air.
20:20
I think that's great.
20:21
And it's really gonna lead kind of the rest
20:23
of my philosophy here on this.
20:25
But most of us find fulfillment outside of God, right?
20:29
We just do.
20:30
And those are the things that we desire
20:31
and those are the things that we strive for.
20:33
So we find fulfillment in success,
20:35
whatever we define success to be.
20:37
We find fulfillment in money, in achievement,
20:41
in athletic prowess.
20:43
We find it in our ability to, you know, woo women,
20:46
in influencing people, in our friendships,
20:49
our relationships, that's where we look for fulfillment.
20:53
But here's the thing, when these people kill themselves,
20:57
I think they're asking themselves a question,
20:59
whether they're doing it out loud
21:00
or in a journal or something.
21:01
I feel like this question is being asked.
21:03
They're asking themselves, why am I here?
21:06
Right, that's the existential question
21:08
that we all ask at some point, right?
21:09
Why am I here?
21:11
Why am I existing?
21:13
And the thing about it is,
21:15
is if it's rooted in the things that I mentioned earlier,
21:18
your answer to that is rooted in success and money
21:21
and sports and checks and all those different things.
21:23
It's rooted in nothing.
21:25
And anyone that's been around long enough
21:27
works has experienced life long enough.
21:31
We know that to be true,
21:32
even though we all still kind of strive for it, right?
21:35
But this is the thing I always got to ask
21:37
and this is where I, you know,
21:38
try to come to grips with people that are atheist
21:40
or is that agnostic is, if God doesn't exist
21:44
and this wasn't all created, then what does it matter?
21:48
Like honestly, what does it matter if people kill themselves?
21:52
Why does it matter if people murder each other?
21:55
If we're in the survival of the fittest mantra, right?
21:57
I mean, if we're just clumps of stardust
21:59
bouncing off of other clumps of stardust,
22:02
you know, if we're just highly evolved monkeys
22:04
that wear pants, if we're just literally
22:07
the product of time plus matter plus chance,
22:09
why does it matter?
22:10
Like it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
22:14
I mean, 'cause here's the thing,
22:15
here's the thing, we're in the West
22:17
and the West keeps moving away from God.
22:19
And, you know, Christendom,
22:20
obviously it keeps getting pushed to the fringes,
22:23
as I mentioned earlier in this podcast,
22:25
we can assume that these trends are going to continue.
22:28
There's nothing to say that we're gonna have
22:29
this massive resurgence of Christianity
22:31
and Christian thinking and Christian enlightenment
22:33
within our culture.
22:34
And there's also nothing saying
22:36
that we're going to be seeing all these suicide rates
22:38
come down.
22:39
There's more focus and there's more funding
22:41
for suicide prevention than there ever has been
22:44
and suicide keeps going up.
22:45
There's more awareness of mental health
22:47
and the issues therein
22:48
and there's more mental health treatment right now
22:50
in the U.S. than there ever has been
22:52
and these things are still going up.
22:55
But I just want to kind of even go back
22:56
to something we did earlier.
22:57
And again, in the future, I promise I'm going to do
22:59
an entire episode on transgenderism
23:01
and kind of the issues for Christian
23:04
as we're kind of operating in the sphere
23:06
where people think that this is an acceptable lifestyle.
23:09
But 41% of people that are transgender
23:12
try to kill themselves.
23:14
41%, I mean, it's literally a coin flip
23:16
and I don't mean to patronize anyone that's in that
23:19
or make that, you know, comment flippantly.
23:21
It's just, that is what it is.
23:22
It's kind of a coin flip.
23:24
And this is the reason why I think that's so.
23:28
If I had to make a blanket statement here,
23:30
so bear with me.
23:31
If I had to make a blanket statement,
23:33
it's because their entire life came down
23:36
to their identity, their personal identity,
23:39
who they are and who they think they are.
23:42
They were born a boy
23:44
and they just know that they're a girl.
23:47
In their heart and their soul,
23:49
they can feel it in their bones that they are a girl.
23:51
You know, they were born female,
23:53
but they just know every day that they wake up
23:56
that they're actually a boy.
23:58
Like they're a male.
24:00
Like that the ether or God or something got it wrong
24:04
and gave them their wrong sexual organs, right?
24:07
So we have somebody that wakes up
24:12
with those thoughts every single day
24:13
and society tells them, you know, it's okay.
24:17
You know, let's start giving you these hormone blockers
24:19
or maybe their parents did
24:20
or maybe their doctor suggested they do so
24:23
and they start to kind of make those transitions, right?
24:26
They start the process of quote unquote transitioning.
24:29
But then eventually they go through with the operation.
24:32
You know, the operation to change their sexual organs, right?
24:37
To kind of solidify their ability to, you know,
24:40
stamp their flag on the ground and be like,
24:42
"No, this is who I am and I'm gonna go make me happen."
24:47
And then they heal up
24:48
and sometime probably goes by and they realize
24:51
they're just as empty as they were before.
24:53
They're exactly as empty as they were before
24:57
and they got everything that they wanted.
24:59
They got societal acceptance of their choices
25:01
and their actions.
25:03
They got the actions actually physically done,
25:05
but something's missing.
25:06
What's missing?
25:08
What could possibly be missing?
25:11
Like, so that's why I ask people that are, you know,
25:14
trans activists or things like that is,
25:15
is if they go through with all that
25:17
and they're still morbidly depressed,
25:19
what's the deal there?
25:21
They got everything they wanted.
25:22
You're there cheering them on the whole time.
25:23
Like, what's the deal?
25:24
The reality is, is that they've planted their feet
25:29
firmly in mid-air.
25:30
They've anchored themselves to nothing.
25:33
Or they've anchored themselves to something
25:36
but that something is self.
25:38
What they think in their finite brain,
25:40
what they think they're able to do
25:42
and what they need to do in order to be happy,
25:44
whatever that word means to them.
25:46
So that's the reason that I think
25:49
a lot of these suicides are happening right now,
25:52
is because people are in this very materialistic,
25:55
you know, evolutionary biological mindset
25:59
that we are basically highly evolved monkeys
26:02
and we just need to make ourselves
26:03
as happy and comfortable as possible.
26:06
And we don't live a life of sacrifice.
26:07
We don't live a life of servitude to a higher purpose.
26:11
And I don't mean the boy scouts
26:12
or, you know, your fraternity or, you know,
26:16
this civic group or your Sunday school,
26:17
that's not what I mean.
26:18
I mean, the higher purpose of serving a creator God
26:20
then unmovable mover.
26:22
And so it makes perfect sense
26:24
that these people would stop moving in the direction of that.
26:28
And so again, some people may think that I'm oversimplifying
26:31
and, you know, perhaps I am.
26:34
But that is my opinion as to what we're seeing
26:36
because the statistics are clear in a lot of different areas
26:40
and there is a corollary
26:41
but between people that have high religious affiliation,
26:44
they don't tend to kill themselves nearly at the right
26:47
that people without religious affiliation do, okay?
26:49
And this isn't some sort of commercial for religiosity
26:52
and, you know, Christianese
26:53
and all those different things.
26:55
But when we lose God in society,
26:57
there are things that happen.
26:58
Look at the 20th century,
26:59
the bloodiest century we've ever seen.
27:01
In the 19th century, Frederick Nietzsche, you know,
27:04
predicted the death of God.
27:06
He pretty much talked about how God had died
27:08
and that we killed him.
27:09
And he predicted that the 20th century
27:10
was going to be the bloodiest century
27:12
in the history of the planet Earth.
27:13
And he was right in spades.
27:16
Millions and millions and millions and millions of people
27:18
died because of atheistic regimes
27:21
that had put the value of human life so low
27:23
that they were able to kill them in the tens of millions.
27:26
Just think about that.
27:28
So if you're trying to answer the question of why am I here
27:31
and the best answer society can give you is
27:34
so that you can be happy,
27:35
then if you can never find happiness,
27:38
then you just need to not exist anymore.
27:40
That's the direct correlation.
27:42
Now, I don't believe that,
27:44
but that's kind of how people operate.
27:46
So I want to move this podcast in the direction
27:49
of a message to people who are considering this, okay?
27:52
So with a number of people that listen to this podcast
27:54
and I'm thankful for every last one of you,
27:56
I can't assume that all of you are okay in this area.
28:00
This is my message to you if you're considering hurting
28:02
yourself or if you're considering suicide.
28:05
Don't.
28:07
Don't do it.
28:08
Oh, no, no, no, no.
28:11
I mean, don't, don't do it.
28:13
You are worth something.
28:16
Your life is valuable.
28:19
Don't do this.
28:20
So many times we put on kitten gloves
28:22
and we just, you know, we try to talk to people
28:24
and it's just like, oh, you know,
28:26
you maybe really shouldn't do that.
28:27
And we kind of pod people.
28:28
It's like, dude, stop being a pussy.
28:30
Just don't, don't do that.
28:32
Like, that's not for you to do.
28:34
Do not do that.
28:35
Satan is all over you right now.
28:37
Don't let him win.
28:38
You are worthy of life.
28:40
You're worthy of being here because you're still here.
28:43
You're still alive.
28:43
God can still use you.
28:45
And at this moment, I just want to just rain down
28:48
scripture on you.
28:49
And I just, I'm going to say a bunch of scriptures at once
28:51
and I'm just going to blow right through it
28:52
and I'm not going to set them up with context
28:54
or tell you, set them or anything.
28:56
You can rewind this podcast, go back and look it up later.
28:58
I just want something to hook in your brain.
29:00
And for those of you listening that maybe have someone
29:03
in your life that's struggling in this area
29:04
that you may be able to remember this and refer it out to him.
29:06
So I'm just going to launch in here.
29:09
So first one, Isaiah 41 10.
29:11
So do not fear for I am with you.
29:13
Do not be dismayed for I am your God.
29:15
I will strengthen you and help you.
29:17
I will uphold hold you with my righteous right hand.
29:21
Jeremiah 29 11.
29:22
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.
29:25
Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.
29:27
Plans to give you hope and a future.
29:29
John 10 10.
29:30
The thief comes to only to steal and kill and destroy.
29:34
I've come that they may have life and have it to the full.
29:37
That's Jesus.
29:38
Psalm 55 22.
29:40
Cash your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you.
29:43
He will never let the righteous be shaken.
29:45
Romans 8 38 39.
29:48
For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
29:50
neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future,
29:53
nor any powers, neither heights nor depths,
29:55
nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us
29:58
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
30:01
Psalm 34 18 19.
30:03
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those
30:05
who are crushed in spirit.
30:07
The righteous person may have many troubles,
30:09
but the Lord delivers him from them all.
30:12
And then the last one here, guys,
30:13
I know it's kind of trite now, which is kind of crazy,
30:15
but it's the most famous scripture on the planet, John 3 16.
30:19
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son
30:22
that whoever believes in him should not perish,
30:24
but have eternal life.
30:25
That's what your life is worth, guys.
30:28
Your life is worth something.
30:32
It was worth so much that God sacrifices only son
30:35
so that he could reclaim you from death and from sin, okay?
30:40
And so guys, if you need to talk to somebody,
30:43
I'm talking about you specifically,
30:45
we're listening to this right now.
30:47
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
30:49
is out there for you.
30:50
It's 1-800-273-TALK.
30:53
So that's 1-800-273-8255.
30:56
1-800-273-8255.
30:59
Or you can reach out to me directly,
31:01
seriously, send me an email, info@undauntedlife,
31:04
info@undaunted.life, excuse me, info@undaunted.life,
31:08
send me an email, I'll give you my phone number,
31:10
we'll chat, like we'll try to figure something out.
31:13
Talk to a pastor at your church,
31:16
talk to a pastor at any church,
31:18
just walk into one if you're not a member somewhere,
31:20
just walk into one, be like, I need to talk to somebody,
31:22
I need help, I guarantee you they're gonna help you out, okay?
31:25
But here's the other thing, guys,
31:27
is I wanna shift this to be the message for everybody else.
31:30
So this is the message for everyone else
31:32
that has not struggled with suicide, right?
31:34
You're listening to this,
31:35
you've never had these thoughts, it's never occurred to you.
31:37
You need to be watchful and you need to be active.
31:40
You need to be watching for the signs
31:43
that someone might be able to do this, right?
31:46
Because here's the thing, here's the reality,
31:48
is yes, I provided that phone number earlier and,
31:51
excuse me, and a lot of people have called that number.
31:54
But most people considering this, considering suicide,
31:57
need someone else's help,
31:58
but they will almost never ask for it.
32:01
Like they're not gonna call a hotline necessarily.
32:04
And so you have these people that do kind of cry
32:06
for help suicide attempts,
32:08
like they sort of try to kill themselves,
32:10
but it's mainly just to get attention, you've heard of that.
32:12
But sometimes that leads to death.
32:13
Sometimes they go too far with it, right?
32:16
So I wanna point out some signs of potential suicide.
32:20
And this is just something that I got off the internet,
32:22
it was like the journal times or something like that.
32:24
But it's 12 signs that you could look for
32:26
in your friends or family or coworkers or whatever,
32:29
that will kind of help you understand
32:31
if you need to maybe step in and ask them the question.
32:33
So it's just 12 things and they're really quick,
32:35
so I'll just burn through them.
32:36
So if they start feeling like a burden,
32:38
if they're being isolated,
32:39
if they have increased anxiety,
32:41
feeling trapped or in unbearable pain,
32:44
increased substance use or abuse,
32:47
looking for a way to access lethal means,
32:50
increased anger or rage, extreme mood swings,
32:54
expressing hopelessness, sleeping too little or too much,
32:58
talking or posting on the internet about wanting to die,
33:02
and finally making plans for suicide, okay?
33:05
So this is something that I want you all
33:06
to kind of be aware of and be looking for these signs
33:08
and the people that you care about.
33:10
And here's the biggest thing is,
33:12
don't be the guy that doesn't say anything, right?
33:15
'Cause in all these stories that we've heard,
33:17
especially the celebrity stories about suicide,
33:20
we always hear about the family members
33:22
that just didn't realize anything was going on.
33:24
Or you know, they had noticed that they weren't eating as much,
33:26
but they didn't really think anything of it.
33:28
Or parents that have found a suicide note,
33:30
but they didn't want to potentially make their child angry
33:33
by bringing it up to them and thinking
33:34
that might kind of throw them into a tizzy or a rage
33:37
and so they don't say anything.
33:38
You do not get that.
33:40
You don't get that excuse, okay?
33:42
Like if you hear about something that's going on
33:46
or you see any of these signs in your friends,
33:49
just launch out, launch out and ask them, okay?
33:51
And think about it.
33:52
So those are things that I want you
33:54
to be able to be thinking about at this moment.
33:56
So guys, at this point in the podcast,
33:57
I normally do a quick resilience boost,
33:59
but you know, I just want to kind of leave this space open.
34:02
And so we're not going to do a quick resilience boost
34:04
right now 'cause I just want to make sure
34:06
that you guys have some time to really reflect on this
34:09
and think about anyone in your life
34:11
that is struggling in this way.
34:13
'Cause not all of us are that perceptive
34:15
and we don't walk into situations and think,
34:16
oh, that person's hurting, I should probably say something.
34:18
A lot of us are really, really busy, right?
34:20
Like that's the new American Olympic sport is busyness.
34:23
And so we just kind of blow through life
34:24
and we can never really think about,
34:26
well, that was kind of weird when my son did that
34:28
or gosh, that was weird when my buddy from work
34:30
was talking that way.
34:31
I want you to just kind of take this time
34:33
to reflect on that, all right?
34:34
So just reflect on those types of people
34:36
and see if there's somebody that you might be able to help.
34:38
And the thing is guys is that doesn't mean
34:40
there's going to be some sort of lifetime movie,
34:41
big explosion of excitement
34:43
and you're going to dramatically save someone's life
34:46
and they're going to owe their life to you.
34:47
It doesn't necessarily mean that's going to happen.
34:49
But maybe you're just asking the question
34:51
will help someone realize, man,
34:52
there are people that are out there that are noticing me.
34:54
I'm not completely isolated.
34:55
I'm not completely out there on my own.
34:57
So once you guys to be thinking about that, okay?
34:59
So thanks as always for listening
35:00
to the end of the podcast.
35:01
I really do appreciate it.
35:03
Please subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud or Google Play
35:05
and refer your friends to listen
35:06
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35:08
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35:10
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35:12
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35:14
please leave us one.
35:15
That's how we're going to be able to continue to grow.
35:17
So please do that for us.
35:18
I'm currently booking speaking engagements for 2018
35:21
and the very beginning of 2019.
35:23
So if you want me to come speak to your team,
35:25
to your Sunday school, to your retreat, to your camp,
35:28
to whatever, please hit me up info@undaunted.life
35:30
again, info@undaunted.life.
35:33
Our website is www.undaunted.life
35:35
and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter
35:37
@undauntedlife and on facebook.com/undauntedlife.
35:41
And you can check out our free devotionals
35:42
on the YouVersion Bible app.
35:43
Just search Undaunted Life under plants.
35:45
And as always, we want to thank the band,
35:47
August Burns Red for allowing us to use
35:49
their music library for our content.
35:50
The intro outro track on this podcast
35:52
is their song, "King of Sorrow,"
35:54
which is off their latest record entitled "Fantom Anthem."
35:56
The links to all this are in the description.
35:59
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
36:00
Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience,
36:04
keep forging spiritual, mental and physical toughness,
36:07
keep seeking the lion of Judah.
36:09
(upbeat rock music)
36:12
(upbeat rock music)