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0:48
This is on Daunted Life, a man's podcast.
0:51
I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.
0:54
Heavenly Father, we just come before you right now and we just thank you so much for
0:56
your provision.
0:57
We thank you for blessings and Lord, I just pray specifically that this message that the
1:02
things that we're going to talk about here today that you will infuse your wisdom into
1:07
the words that I say to give me the right words to say on this topic and Lord, we just welcome
1:12
you into this time fully and we want you to be there for us.
1:15
We want you to speak to us.
1:16
We ask the Holy Spirit to move and Lord for this to get out to the people that it needs
1:21
to get out to so that your glory can be revealed, but also so that your protection can be revealed
1:28
and your grace and everything else.
1:30
Lord, we thank you so much for the blessings that you've given us that we can see, but
1:34
especially for the ones that we cannot mention and we pray.
1:37
Amen.
1:38
So a little bit of a heavier topic today, guys, and so I'm pretty sure I've never prayed
1:43
on the podcast before, but that it just felt like I felt like I had to with this one because
1:48
we're going to be talking about suicide and we're releasing this episode on Thanksgiving.
1:52
So if you are listening to this on time, thank you so much for listening this on time and
1:56
happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
1:57
I know Thanksgiving is a little bit different this year for a lot of people around the world.
2:02
And there's a lot of things that are different for folks, but this is a topic, the topic
2:06
of suicide that never really thought I was going to be covered and just add that to the
2:09
list of things that I never thought I would talk about on this podcast in 2020.
2:13
And then here we are, but really all of this came up because of the unraveling podcast
2:18
that was released on the 9th of November.
2:21
So if you're not familiar with the unraveling podcast, that is another one of Jocko Willing's
2:25
podcast.
2:26
And so I think the original one was called the thread and then, you know, some other
2:29
podcast was already called the thread and so we had to change name anyway.
2:32
So it's him and this other guy.
2:33
I can't remember the other guy's name and like the first five, six, seven episodes of
2:37
the show, they were doing episodes on, you know, Jocko's time in the Middle East and
2:43
the other guy was also, I think he was in the army and he was in the Middle East.
2:45
And so they were just kind of going over some dates and some things that were going on during
2:48
that time.
2:49
But then they've switched to some other topics, but their last topic that they did, it was
2:53
called the unraveling 13 and it was called a people drowning.
2:57
And one of the things that Jocko and his co-host talked about on that podcast is the
3:01
the stats that were released by the CDC, that's the Centers for Disease and Control here in
3:05
the United States of America, and it was talking about deaths of despair and the statistics
3:10
that coincide with that.
3:13
And so basically, 2026 for a lot of different reasons.
3:15
The main reason it sucks is because of COVID, but it looks like the deaths of despair from
3:20
the economic problems and the subsequent, you know, spousal abuse problems and child abuse
3:26
problems and substance abuse problems that have come from the shutdowns from this disease
3:30
from this virus that's going to have a over 99% survival rate as well over 99% is causing
3:36
way more issues than we ever could have imagined.
3:39
And guys, no matter what article you read, and I'll give you some at the end of this,
3:42
it's worse than what we can ever even possibly fathom because they're not doing a poll of
3:47
every single person in America and certainly not every single person in the world.
3:51
There's some pain that's going on right now that people just don't really understand.
3:56
But I listened to that episode a couple of weeks ago, but then a buddy of mine that I
4:00
trained with from the forge, he's retired army and he posted about a buddy of his that
4:04
he was in the army with that killed himself, right?
4:08
So that was about a week ago whenever I saw that.
4:11
And then here, maybe just a few days ago, another buddy of mine who's in my foxhole,
4:15
I go to church with them.
4:17
One of his former wrestlers, he's a wrestling coach, killed himself.
4:21
And so I was thinking about talking about this on the today's podcast and I even kind
4:25
of broached the subject with some other guys, some other foxhole guys of mine like, Hey,
4:29
how do I kind of go about doing this?
4:30
And, you know, this is a very sensitive topic and you don't want to mess this up.
4:34
But then, you know, two buddies having buddies that killed themselves.
4:37
It's like, okay, something's in the air that there's something going wrong.
4:41
I even talked to a guy the other day, a university close by here is Oklahoma State University.
4:45
They had four suicides from students and that that's not common to have that many.
4:50
And you know, we hear about these police forces that we're usually dealing with one suicide
4:53
every week or two.
4:54
Now they're dealing with five or six a day.
4:56
And so it's something that I feel like we should definitely talk about.
5:00
But for some of you, you don't really understand that this really is an epidemic, like like
5:04
a real epidemic, like this is way more real than systemic racism.
5:09
This is way more real for a lot of people than what COVID-19 is going to be causing
5:13
for them directly because they don't have any comorbidities or anything like that.
5:17
But the CDC had a report that they put out through the National Institute of Mental Health.
5:22
And I just want to kind of go over some statistics for you because I was surprised to hear a lot
5:26
of these.
5:27
I didn't know this.
5:28
But let me just kind of run through these here.
5:30
Suicide is the second leading cause of death and people aged 10 to 34.
5:34
Let me say that one again, suicide.
5:38
Number one is accidents, by the way.
5:40
Suicide is the second leading cause of deaths and people aged 10 to 34.
5:46
We have 10, 11, 12, 13 year olds killing themselves, second leading cause of death.
5:51
It is the fourth leading cause of death and people aged 35 to 54.
5:56
Suicides have increased by 35% from 1999 to 2018, 35% increase in a 20 year span.
6:04
Suicide rates among males is about 3.7 times higher than that of females.
6:10
Among males, the suicide rate was highest for those aged 75 and older.
6:14
That was about 40 per 100,000, which is a lot.
6:17
And in over half of the suicides in the United States, a firearm was used.
6:21
Then there's some other stats that didn't come from the CDC or the National Institute
6:25
of Mental Health, but just different things that I found throughout the internet and some
6:28
things that I've been able to corroborate is that military veterans have doubled the
6:33
suicide rate of non veterans, right?
6:36
There are more active duty soldiers that have died from suicide than in combat in Iraq and
6:41
Afghanistan.
6:42
So think about that.
6:43
I mean, because we're not having these overwhelming numbers of, you know, killed in action over
6:47
in Iraq and Afghanistan, but more soldiers have died from suicide, whether on deployment
6:53
or back here in the States, then have died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
6:57
LGBTQ people attempt suicide at three times the rate of non LGBTQ people, veterinarians.
7:04
So not veterans, veterinarians, you know, the people that take care of your dogs and cats.
7:07
The suicide rates among male veterinarians are twice the national average.
7:11
And among female veterinarians, the suicide rate is three and a half times the national
7:15
average.
7:16
It's a quick thing because I actually work with a lot of veterinarians and some of the
7:19
stuff that I do.
7:21
But part of the reason is because these people don't make nearly as much money as you think
7:24
they do.
7:25
So that that's one thing.
7:26
And then, you know, they're crippled with debt.
7:28
A lot of these veterinarians get out of school with somewhere between a hundred thousand
7:31
and three hundred thousand in student loan debt.
7:33
And they might get out making, you know, fifty or sixty thousand dollars a year right out
7:36
of school.
7:37
They have this insurmountable debt there.
7:39
They have compassion fatigue because they're constantly having to deal with, you know, animals
7:43
that can't tell them what's going wrong and they don't understand why you're sticking
7:47
them with that or why you're putting them under any of those things.
7:50
You know, if you take your dog into be euthanized, you know, that's your one dog that's being
7:54
euthanized.
7:55
But that might be the fifth one they've done this morning.
7:56
They're around death all the time.
7:58
But that is just a very interesting, you know, type of profession that people don't really
8:02
think about when it comes to suicide.
8:04
But then COVID-19 and really the shutdowns, the government shutdowns, economic shutdowns
8:08
and all the other 2020 stuff, they're making things much, much worse.
8:12
So this was part of the report that was talked about on the Unraveling Podcast.
8:16
But during late June of this year, so just a few months ago, 40% of U.S. adults reported
8:22
struggling with mental health or substance use, okay?
8:26
So about 31% were, you know, showing signs of anxiety and depression, about 13% started
8:32
or increased substance use, right?
8:36
Trauma and stressors related disorders, that was about 26%, and about 11% seriously considered
8:43
suicide.
8:44
11%.
8:45
There's just a few months ago, and things really haven't gotten better.
8:49
We've had a run up to a national election here in the United States.
8:52
It hasn't been resolved yet.
8:53
It's causing a lot of consternation and stress for some people that actually, you know, are
8:56
fully invested in things going on there.
8:58
But then I also saw this recent business insider article that I thought was, it was an important
9:03
quote that I wanted to bring to you.
9:04
And I'll let you read it all later, but I just wanted to pull out this quote here.
9:07
Back in May, researchers from the nonprofit, the well-being trust projected that the pandemic's
9:12
economic fallout would lead to a median of 75,000 additional deaths of despair over a
9:19
10 year period.
9:20
Deaths of despair are deaths related to isolation, unemployment, and financial struggle, usually
9:25
by overdose, suicide, or alcohol or drug abuse related illnesses.
9:30
The term was coined by Princeton economists and case and Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton.
9:34
But now, due to the economy's slow recovery and the lack of adequate investment in mental
9:39
health funding, researchers who made that projection just a few months ago say that the
9:44
number of deaths could be even higher up to 150,000.
9:47
Okay?
9:48
And guys, if you're wondering, just kind of an FYI, deaths of despair are the main reason
9:53
why life expectancy in the United States has gone down for the third straight year.
9:59
You know, we always just assume that the life expectancy was going to keep going up and
10:02
up and up because it just has it's done that for decades and decades and decades.
10:06
You know, it just continues to go up.
10:08
This is the first time we've had three straight years of life expectancy going down since
10:13
1915 through 1918.
10:16
Think about that over a hundred years ago.
10:19
And guys, that has a lot to do with suicides, but also opioid addiction, a lot of different
10:23
things, but to get more specifically into the subject of suicide, suicide happens for
10:29
a lot of different reasons.
10:31
And then we'll get into kind of the meat of why we're even talking about this today.
10:33
But guys, you know this, you've maybe felt this, you've experienced this.
10:38
Maybe you've guessed this.
10:39
If you've had a friend that's passed away from suicide, but it could be mental illness,
10:43
right?
10:44
It could be legitimate mental illness, not, oh, I'm having a bad day, but like legitimate
10:48
definable mental illness, also financial ruin, you know, which could come from a job loss.
10:54
Maybe you made a bad investment, maybe you, you know, put everything on the wrong horse
10:58
or you put it on black and it should have been on red.
11:00
But financial ruin, job loss, just generalized depression, whether clinical or because of
11:04
some of the other things that have gone on in your life, think about a loss of a loved
11:08
one, right?
11:09
You lose a spouse, you lose a child, betrayal, maybe a spouse cheats on you, maybe a business
11:15
partner, cuts you out of a deal, just generalized hopelessness.
11:19
When people feel like they've got nothing else to live for, they can't see the light
11:23
at the end of the tunnel isolation, which could lead to a lot of these other things, but right
11:28
now you have a lot of people that are normally in community, but now they're sitting at home.
11:32
People from chronic pain, you know, they suffer from lots of chronic pain, whether it's back
11:36
pain or neck pain or an old injury or, you know, they had a limb removed or something
11:39
like that and they're just constantly in pain and they just want to end it.
11:42
Terminal illness, people get a terminal diagnosis, they feel like they don't have anything else
11:45
to live for.
11:46
Hey, I'm out of control when it comes to cancer, but I'm in control when it comes to, you know,
11:50
what I do over here, but then there's just random reasons, right?
11:53
There's stuff that I haven't even mentioned here that people decide that this is the best
11:58
option for them.
12:00
But when you think about the subject of suicide, what it does for me is it brings up several
12:04
important questions that we all need to kind of wrestle with and reckon with and kind of
12:09
think about.
12:10
And the first question that came up for me is, how can the suicide rates be this high in
12:16
the United States and across the globe, frankly, when life is this good and easy?
12:23
And I know that might sound like a ridiculous thing to say in 2020, because a lot of you
12:26
are struggling, right?
12:28
Like legitimate struggle, like, don't know how we're going to make the rent.
12:31
Don't know how we're going to pay the mortgage.
12:32
Don't know how we're going to keep our business running, right?
12:34
Don't know how we're going to pay for this or that, right?
12:37
But in general, life in 2020, going into 2021 is pretty damn easy.
12:44
I mean, again, I talk about this all the time, but most of us just go to the store and buy
12:48
our food.
12:50
We're not making our food.
12:51
We're not hunting our food.
12:53
You know, if you have a bad hunt that day, your family goes without food, not many of
12:56
us are living in that situation, right?
12:58
Especially if you're listening to this podcast on your smartphone, you're probably not in
13:01
that type of a situation, right?
13:03
Most of us aren't worried about the tribe on the other side of the hill that's going
13:06
to come over and still all our women and kill all of our babies and kill all the men and,
13:11
you know, set everything on fire and take our horses.
13:13
Like, we're not worried about that.
13:15
We live in a time and age where I can grab a device in my pocket and basically know anything
13:21
that's ever happened ever anywhere.
13:24
We live in this overwhelming age of being able to just access things that our forefathers
13:30
could have never even imagined.
13:32
And yet, suicidality is still incredibly high.
13:37
We have to wrestle with that.
13:39
Another question that it begs is, how can we be this, you know, quote unquote connected
13:44
and yet still have such high deaths of despair?
13:46
Right.
13:47
You know, you looked at zoom.
13:49
I can't remember what the numbers were, but zoom went from, you know, this many millions
13:52
of users to now, this many hundreds of millions of users, basically overnight because of code
13:56
19.
13:57
We have FaceTime on our phones.
13:58
We have whatever the Android version of that is we've got, you know, ways to connect through
14:02
Google.
14:03
We have ways to connect through social media.
14:04
We can stay connected with people, right?
14:07
It's never been easier to connect with grandma and grandpa, right?
14:10
Like really see them face to face and oh, look at your dog or look at your grandson or,
14:14
you know, whatever, we're so connected, we're told.
14:20
And yet we have so many deaths of despair.
14:23
So many people feel alone, completely isolated, like they have no support system.
14:30
And the last question this begs for me is, have you thought about suicide?
14:38
And the reason that that came up for me and that question really came to mind is because
14:44
I have, which might sound surprising to use it to some of you, maybe it doesn't.
14:49
But I do want to kind of put some, some context around that, you know, just in case there's
14:53
any, you know, life insurance, people listening to this like, Oh, gosh, you know, we need
14:57
to put them on a different mortality table. When I say I've thought about it, it's not
15:01
been an emotional thought, like, Oh, my gosh, things are so bad.
15:04
You know, I hate my father and my job's not going the right way and I wish my marriage
15:07
is better. And gosh, you know, we've lost two kids and, you know, blah, blah, and all
15:10
these things like, I think I'm just going to kill myself.
15:14
That's never really happened with me.
15:17
But over the years, I've thought about suicide in more of an intellectual capacity, more
15:24
of just like an option, not, not like an option like, okay, well, I can go to Arby's for lunch
15:28
today. I can work out this morning or I can kill myself. Not, not like that. Not like I'm
15:32
picking off a menu. It's more of just an intellectual exercise.
15:38
So back in 2019, I talk about that like it's way back in the day last year. It was not
15:44
a great year. So your 2020 was my 2019, because I haven't had a horrible 2020 in a lot of
15:50
ways, right? I've, I have a lot to be thankful for in 2020, but 2019, not so much. Things
15:56
were going wrong in a lot of different capacities. You know, we lost another child. Things weren't
16:00
going right with, with some business stuff that my wife and I were doing.
16:05
And I just remember having this thought because I have a lot of life insurance on myself,
16:11
right? And just thinking, man, if I just wasn't in the picture anymore, my wife would be so
16:19
set. Like, you know, I'm not doing a good job of providing right now, right? I don't
16:25
feel like I'm providing in the way that's appropriate to me, you know, on up to my standards.
16:31
So if I just wasn't here anymore, then I could take care of her in that way. She'd have a
16:38
lot of money to take care of things forever and forever, and forever beyond that, right?
16:43
You know, she could make generational wealth decisions with that money. So that might seem
16:50
odd to you that I would have that thought. But to some of you, that makes perfect sense.
16:55
But you know, in the interest of being completely honest and transparent with everybody, that
17:01
has been a thought that has continued for me, even up into, you know, today. And that has
17:07
been a thought that used to come to mind once every few months. And then it would come up
17:12
once every few weeks. And for the last pretty good period of time, it's come up every day.
17:19
And usually a lot of times per day. And I'm giving myself different scenarios now. It's
17:25
like, Oh, you know, I'm in the middle of a fight with my wife. It's like, Oh, God, if
17:28
I was dead, I just wouldn't have to deal with this, you know, that kind of thing. Or, you
17:32
know, something goes wrong with a business, right, or with a sale that I was supposed
17:36
to get or something like that. And then it's like, gosh, you know, I'm not going to be
17:40
able to provide the way that I wanted to this month. But if I was dead, you know, Kelsey
17:45
and James, they're going to be set forever. Yeah, I had those thoughts. And really, it's
17:51
just you for me specifically, I won't talk about you. For me specifically, it's like,
17:56
I'm not worth alive. What I am dead. Or I'm not, I'm not worth more than that. Because
18:04
I know the numbers, right? Because I kind of come from that world. I know exactly what
18:08
I'm worth if I die, right? To the penny, actually. And then I just look at how I feel
18:14
that day, or at that moment, and go, well, I'm nowhere close to that number. It's got
18:20
a period in it, if that helps any of you guys, right? It's got some commas, but it's also
18:24
got a period if you look at it that way. And so it's like, I'm certainly not living up
18:28
to that. You know, I can't quantify that. I couldn't put that on a profit loss sheet,
18:36
or I couldn't put that on a, you know, a business review, and see that as a good, good move.
18:42
And so the reason why I tell you that guys is not because this is not a cry for help.
18:46
Okay, so I've told, you know, important people in my life, you know, some of these thoughts
18:50
I'm having again, they're more intellectual exercises than anything else. But it is something
18:55
that it's like, okay, well, those, that's probably not normal, or maybe it is normal,
18:59
but it's something that you have to get a handle on. So this is not a cry for help.
19:02
You know, this is this is not me reaching out to you so that you can reach out to me any
19:05
of those types of things. The reason that I'm saying this, guys, and also I don't want
19:09
any sympathy. That's like the last thing I want in just about any situation, right?
19:13
If I roll my ankle, I'd prefer no one saw it. So no one asked me, hey, man, is your ankle
19:17
okay? Like I just don't I don't want anyone's sympathy. But this is the reason why I'm bringing
19:21
it up. Why do I spent time kind of giving you context around something like this? That is
19:26
be a frankly, incredibly personal and probably none of your damn business. The reason why
19:31
is because guys do not talk about this very much. They just don't. I've talked to what
19:41
I can remember is off the top of my head, one close friend of my entire life that talked
19:46
to me about his struggles with suicide. And in his plans, like he actually made plans,
19:51
he was going to run his car into a bridge. And he just didn't for whatever reason. But
19:58
I know for a fact that there are more men in my life that have struggled with thought
20:02
thoughts like this, with suicidal ideation with maybe even making plans to do those things
20:09
and got, you know, swerved a different direction for whatever reason. Thank God. But this kind
20:16
of dovetails nicely into kind of what I talk want to talk about. I want to kind of talk,
20:21
you know, a message to guys that are maybe in that situation, or maybe some some guys
20:25
that have found themselves thinking about suicide. So if that's you in any way, shape
20:28
or form, please, please hang on. Like I implore you, please hang on to to this content. And
20:34
I'll get to some different things here in a second. But this is a message right here
20:37
just to guys everywhere. Okay. Don't assume I'll give you a lot of messages. All right,
20:43
but here's the first one. Don't assume that your buddies are okay. Just don't assume
20:49
that. If your buddy normally trains jiu-jitsu three or four days a week, but you haven't
20:55
seen him in a month, maybe reach out. It might cause you to, Oh, hey, I don't really have
21:02
this dude's number. Hey, do you have this guy's number? You know, talk to one of the
21:05
one of the teachers or professors or coaches. Hey, do you have this guy's number? I just
21:08
want to reach out to him. Have you heard from him in a while? Is he training at different
21:11
times than I do now? You have a guy that posts something kind of odd on Facebook. And you're
21:18
just like, man, that doesn't, that doesn't really ring true. Like this doesn't really
21:22
have the same tone that I'm used to from this guy. Maybe it's worth a phone call. Maybe you
21:28
saw someone and they literally physically looked rundown. And you kind of pull them
21:34
aside and say, Hey, man, is everything, is everything going all right? And I mean, like,
21:37
Hey, it's just me and you right now. So, so don't be ask me. Because here's the thing,
21:41
guys, is how many times have you experienced yourself or even heard about someone committing
21:46
suicide? And it was a shock to everyone. It was a complete surprise to everyone around
21:52
that person. Right? I mean, I hear that way more than I hear about someone committing
21:57
suicide and how that was just kind of the logical outcome that everyone expected. And
22:01
you know, there's a, you know, a friend of a friend kind of a situation whose mother
22:05
has basically for decades now been threatening suicide has, you know, tried to commit suicide
22:11
with pills and, you know, she's had some, you know, actually trying to kill herself moments
22:15
and some just, Hey, I'm just trying to get attention moments cry for help moments. But
22:19
she's cut herself. She's done different things. And so the thing was, it's for a while there
22:23
is it got especially bad, you know, thank God she's doing better now. But I just expected
22:27
one day to get a phone call or text saying, Hey, she finally did it. It would have been
22:32
a shock to no one. But everyone else that I know of or know of a friend who knows a friend
22:38
or something like that, it was a complete shock. No one knew this person was dealing with whatever
22:43
demons they were dealing with. I had a buddy Gabe in college that, you know, was kind of
22:48
an eccentric guy. And you know, he and I like some of the same music. So we really got along.
22:52
And then, you know, I just kind of, you know, he and I just kind of fell out and touched
22:55
for a while. And the next time I heard about him, it was that he blew his face off, killed
22:58
himself and his apartment by himself, discovered by his best friend. I mean, it was a shock.
23:08
And so if you assume that your buddies are okay, I'm not saying there's blood on your
23:12
hands. Don't don't hear what I'm not saying. But you might be the person that helps them
23:18
out of the darkness. And it might just be by paying attention by pulling your head out
23:23
of your phone or thumb out of your butt or just just pay attention. That's the thing
23:27
for a lot of guys is life is just kind of happening around us. And we're just kind of
23:30
me bailing through life or whatever. So another message to guys here is, and this really comes
23:37
along with the last thing, is it your duty? I feel like as a man, it's your duty to say
23:42
something, to ask, to pry, you know, to risk some relational capital, okay? Because some
23:51
of you guys are like, Oh, that's not really my business. And you know, I'm a libertarian.
23:55
So whatever you want to do, and you know, it is what it is. And I just don't want to
23:58
make this guy mad. And maybe it'll be a little bit weird. But, but if we fast forward to
24:03
the end, and it goes as poorly as it possibly could, you know, ending with them taking their
24:07
own life, and you compare it to the awkwardness of prying, the awkwardness of asking the awkwardness
24:14
of just kind of interjecting yourself into that person's life and risking them getting
24:19
mad at you, wouldn't you take that over the other thing? Wouldn't you take that over them
24:24
killing themselves? Again, I'm not saying it's your responsibility, right? Only one person
24:29
can make the decision whether or not to kill themselves, okay? And it's that person. But
24:33
for you, it's your duty to say something. So inherent is that is your duty to notice.
24:41
Another thing that I think would be important to mention here is, if you're helping someone
24:46
who is suicidal, or if you've stumbled upon a situation because you did ask, you did say
24:50
something, you did pry, you did, you know, push your relational chips into the center
24:53
of the table. I got some great advice from a counselor friend of mine. Okay. And in,
24:59
I guess this is another way to kind of include one of the reasons why I was planning on
25:04
not talking about this subject is because I'm not qualified, right? I didn't get to go
25:07
to school to be a counselor. I've gotten crisis training or anything like that. But I had
25:11
a friend of mine that listens to this podcast every single week. He said, Kyle, you may
25:15
not be qualified, right? In terms of credentials to have this discussion with people, but you
25:21
are called to this ministry and inherent in that calling, you're going to have some conversations
25:28
that are outside your wheelhouse that are a little bit beyond your training, right? Beyond
25:32
your schooling. But that doesn't matter, right? Because God can do a lot of things through
25:39
people that have no priors, no, no training, no, no skill set for the thing that they're
25:44
being called to help with, right? But let me go back to the advice that I got from a counselor,
25:48
do you mind who does a lot of crisis counseling? He does family counseling, a lot of different
25:52
things. Here's the advice he gave me. The first thing he told me is get them to wait a day.
25:58
So if you've got someone that's like imminently thinking about taking their life, get them
26:02
to wait a day. And the reason why I said that is he said that for most people that commit
26:07
suicide, they're not in the logical part of their brain. They're in the emotional part
26:13
of their brain. So as you probably know this, if you've ever argued with someone that's
26:19
being emotional and you use logic, how does that argument normally go? I'm assuming that
26:26
they don't go, you know what? You laid out a great case for why your position is correct.
26:31
I'm just going to go ahead and stop my screaming and yelling and go ahead and disagree with
26:35
you. Has that ever happened like in the history of humanity? No. But he said again, if you're
26:40
if you're at that frantic place where you're thinking about taking your own life, you're
26:44
being emotional, not logical. So that's not the time to point out to them all the logical
26:50
reasons not to do that. Do everything in your power to get them to just wait a day. Just
26:56
wait a day because emotions change moods change. Another great piece of advice he gave me is
27:02
just in this is kind of more immediate advice if you're talking to somebody is get them
27:05
to focus on something right now, like focus on something, a task or something right there
27:11
in front of them. You know, he even I think the way that he framed it is like, you know,
27:15
someone's talking about suicide doing all those different things. You might, you know, just
27:19
kind of throw them a monkey wrench and be like, Hey, man, let's keep talking. But can
27:22
we go outside there? There's something going wrong with my truck. It just sounds funny.
27:26
I just want to get someone else's opinion on it. And all of a sudden they're following
27:30
you to your garage for you to turn it out. I would say not don't lie. I mean, but just
27:35
get them to come outside. Hey, can I get your opinion on a paint color real quick? Like
27:39
let's keep talking, man. But hey, come out here or, you know what? Hey, I completely
27:43
understand that. And if they don't have a substance abuse problem, it may be poor in
27:46
a scotch and you to go just somewhere else. And then you start talking about the scotch.
27:49
Get them to focus on something right in front of them right in front of their face. Another
27:54
good piece of advice he gave me is he said, Kyle, life is like a wave. Okay, you're going
27:58
to have ups and downs. Okay. And you have to destroy the suicidal thoughts, especially
28:05
during the uptimes. Okay. So I'll come back to me as an example here. But 2020, like I've
28:10
said, for for me personally, for my family, we've had a lot of really, really good things
28:14
happen in 2020, right? We've made some decisions that have gone well. And it just it's kind
28:19
of a carbon copy of what we experienced in 2019. But I'm still having these suicidal
28:24
ideations, right? These, these aren't thoughts or plans or things like they're just kind
28:28
of these ideations that that just kind of come to my brain. But he said it's very important
28:34
to get control over those thoughts when things are good. Because all of a sudden when life
28:40
flips, right, you know, when you're not at the top of the way, but you're at the bottom
28:44
of the wave, if you haven't destroyed that as an option, it all of a sudden becomes more
28:49
enticing. Taking your own life seems like a better choice for you in that moment. And
28:57
so for any of you guys that when you look around or when you look at your baseball card
29:00
of your life, and you're looking at the stats and they look pretty good. And yet you're still
29:04
struggling with these thoughts, you got to get those under control. We'll get more into
29:08
maybe some reasons or some ways to do that rather here in a second. Some other advice
29:12
he gave me is that if they conclude that there is no reason to live the person you're working
29:17
with or talking with, tell them that they don't know what living is going to mean later.
29:24
So he's got a really good example of this, because this was a horrible thing that happened
29:28
about a month ago here in my community. There was a family, so it's a husband and wife,
29:32
a daughter and a son. And the husband is a family counselor. He is known by all these
29:37
different people, just a great family, like a genuine loving family that has helped so
29:43
many people. A crazy freak accident happened and their home exploded. So they live kind
29:50
of outside of normal city limits. And so they had propane as one of the main energy sources
29:56
out at their house. And something happened. There was some sort of a malfunction that was
30:02
part of the house before they even bought it, you know, after the investigation. But something
30:07
happened in about seven o'clock in the morning, there was a spark and then boom, their house
30:12
exploded. It looked like it got hit by an F five tornado. So the wife and son were bruised
30:19
up and beaten up a little bit, but generally okay, the husband had some unbelievable third
30:24
degree burns and some other physical issues that came from that. But their daughter, I
30:30
believe she was 13 years old, she died. Okay, just a horrible, horrible situation. Just
30:36
think about yourself guys, being a dad, waking up in the hospital, having no idea why you're
30:42
there. And basically being told that your daughter's dead. There's an explosion at your
30:47
house, your daughter didn't make it. Okay. So my buddy who's a counselor is, you know,
30:54
their friends, they're both counselors, but you know, the guy who lost his daughter, he's
30:57
going to my buddy for counseling sessions once a week right now. And at different points
31:03
during those counseling sessions, he has basically admitted that he kind of wishes the whole
31:08
family would have gone. Right? Like just take God, if you're going to take one, why not take
31:13
all? You know, that kind of angry situation. And this is a guy that he's so positive. He's
31:21
in the hospital, you know, him and him and his wife are literally thanking God that they're
31:26
able to to work through this and work through their physical ailments, because now that they
31:31
can, they can share Jesus with the doctors and nurses that are trying to, you know, basically
31:34
piece them back together. That's this family, right? Oh, they're just so thankful that they
31:39
can share Jesus with these people. But you know, in a private setting, it's one of those
31:45
things where it's like, man, that this is so tough. Like why, why didn't why are we all
31:50
still here except for one? And in that moment, it is good to kind of say to these people,
31:57
Hey, I don't know right now. And you don't know right now what you're living for, right?
32:02
But you have no idea what living later is going to mean. You have no idea the plans that have
32:08
been laid out for you and how you're going to intricately work into those plans later.
32:16
And so that's an important thing to help them think through. Another couple of pieces of
32:20
advice that he gave me is that humility is key for these people and helping them understand
32:24
that humility is key. Because again, we came into the world with nothing, we will leave
32:28
with nothing. And we have to look at it as, you know, focusing on what we do have and
32:36
not the things that we don't have. And some of the times when you have someone that's
32:40
very envious and I have an envious streak in me, like, Oh, man, I kind of wish I had
32:45
done as good as he did last year on on his taxes. And oh, man, I kind of wish I had done
32:48
that. Well, in the tournament, I kind of wish, you know, whatever the thing that you're
32:52
envious of, right? But it's it comes from a place of being not you're just not humble.
32:58
Because you think you should have all those things for whatever reason. Some of my most
33:02
embarrassing moments that I've shown around friends, it was just from this cocky arrogance
33:07
about this should be better for me because it's me. I'm Kyle and things should just work
33:12
out for me. And so there's a there's a little bit of that that narcissism that that comes
33:18
in to people and it kind of hurts them when they're trying to figure out whether or not
33:23
they should keep on going. And the last bit of advice that he gave me that I thought was
33:26
great is that you have to deal with pain in order to get stronger. And again, you have
33:34
no idea what your strength is going to be needed for. Because pre whatever you were
33:39
going through, whether it's, you know, family member dying or losing your job or whatever,
33:43
you were this level. And now you're being elevated to another level. And you don't know what
33:51
for you. So for those of you that are listening to this that have gone through pain, that
33:56
have gone through loss and betrayal and depression and all these different things and you came
33:59
out on the other side, you're not the same. You're grizzled. You're calloused in a good
34:06
way. You know, it's it's like what we talk about a lot, we talk about resilience, right?
34:12
Not just strength because strength goes up and down, but resilience is something that
34:15
sticks with you as long as you keep working at it. But I want to transition this as we
34:22
kind of work towards the, the end of our, our show here. And this is a message to people
34:27
listening to this and maybe you are feeling suicidal right now, or you, you have had suicidal
34:34
ideation recently, or it's something that you struggle with in the past, or someone
34:38
in your life is dealing with it. But but mainly I'm talking to you, I'm talking to you specifically.
34:43
Okay. And if this doesn't apply to you, keep listening. Okay. But the first thing is direct
34:49
message to people that are dealing with this is to give thanks. This is on purpose, releasing
34:57
this episode on Thanksgiving. Okay. But when you're giving thanks, giving, when you're
35:02
giving thanks, what are you giving thanks to? Because our molar said this on one of his
35:10
episodes this week on his podcast is that the gift implies a giver. So when you're giving
35:15
thanks for things, you have to think to yourself that this gift came from somewhere. But even
35:23
for me, since since I've wrestled with thoughts like this, whenever I sit down and really think
35:27
about it, I can run off a list a mile long. Like I'm so thankful for God and Jesus in
35:33
the Holy Spirit, the Triune God, I'm so thankful, thankful for common grace. I'm so thankful
35:38
that I my life weaved its way to where I was able to meet Kelsey, my bride at the age of
35:44
basically, I was 18. I just turned 19 years old. I'm so thankful for baby James. I'm thankful
35:48
for the forge in Edmond, Oklahoma, the ability to train jujitsu. I'm thankful for a body that
35:53
is, you know, sometimes I feel like I'm hanging on by a thread, but a body that works, a body
35:57
that allows me to lift weights and run and do jujitsu and all those things. I'm thankful
36:03
for my foxhole. I'm thankful for those guys that I'm doing life with on a daily basis.
36:09
You know, I'm thankful for the guys that can snatch me up by my shirt. If I'm doing
36:12
something wrong, I'm thankful for those guys. I'm thankful for books. I'm thankful for podcasts.
36:17
I'm thankful for your you guys for this audience. And guys, I could keep going. But I'm not thinking
36:24
about any of those things when I'm having those thoughts about like, Hey, wouldn't it
36:28
be better if I was just gone? Because I'm only thinking about the negative. And so if
36:34
you find yourself in that place, force yourself to rejigger your mind, take that thought captive.
36:41
Take that thought captive in your brain and make it accountable to Christ. I think that's
36:45
second Corinthians 10 five or first Corinthians 10 five. But you know, take every thought
36:49
captive and make it accountable to Christ. Because you should be focusing on the good
36:54
things in that moment. Because we all have them. Another thing, and this is a more pragmatic
37:00
and a more direct thing is if you're having these struggles and you really feel like you're
37:04
going to be a danger to yourself, call hotline here in the United States. We have the national
37:08
suicide prevention lifeline. It's 1-800-273-TALK. That's 1-800-273-8255. That will be in the
37:15
show notes. You can find it with a quick Google search. These people have saved countless
37:19
lives just by helping people talk through what they're feeling at the moment. Okay. Another
37:24
thing is just to phone a friend, right? Literally just call somebody. Dude, like treat it randomly.
37:32
If you want to put God to the test, literally just through your contacts and boom, click
37:37
on one and call that person. And if they don't answer, call somebody else. Just phone a friend.
37:43
Don't feel like you're having to fight this alone. Which kind of goes into my next bit
37:48
of advice is to get into community. Again, get into a community that if you're missing,
37:54
they will notice that if you seem off, they will ask you about it. This is why I bang
38:02
the foxhole drum all the time to know and be known, to be in real community, right? Not like,
38:09
oh, you know, once a year I go out and play golf with these same guys from college or,
38:13
you know, a few times a year me and the old frat guys get back together to have a few beers.
38:18
No, no, no, real community. Real community. That meets often that the decisions you make
38:25
don't just affect you. They affect them directly too because that's how closely linked you are.
38:30
And for some of you, you're in isolation right now. But I'm telling you what,
38:35
I'm trading jujitsu, right? I'm taking the risk of driving a car and the risks that come with that
38:41
and potentially rolling around with guys that might have this virus or that virus or some other
38:45
thing like that, because community and training is that important. And if it wasn't that,
38:51
we would do something else. My foxhole guys early on in COVID when, you know, we thought COVID was
38:55
sitting on our UPS boxes and, you know, flying through the air like a missile directly into
38:59
our nose. When we were having those situations, we had zoom calls. You know, they didn't last for
39:04
very long because we kind of we found ways to kind of get together and socially distance and work
39:08
out outside and do all those types of things. But we did zoom calls to stay in community because
39:12
it was that important. And the other thing, and for a lot of you guys have listened to this for a
39:17
while, you saw this one coming a mile away, but cultivate manly resilience.
39:21
If you're going through these thoughts in these situations, cultivate manly resilience,
39:28
spiritual, mental and physical resilience. I don't normally give, you know,
39:32
I don't normally send people to this because they normally find it somehow, but go and do our 21
39:37
day devotional on you version. So download the U version Bible app or go to Bible.com uversion.com
39:44
and search for undaunted life, a man's devotional. It's a 21 day devotional. It's a week on spiritual
39:48
resilience, a week on mental resilience and a week on physical resilience. And just start there
39:54
and dedicate yourself to finish. Because guys, if you're going through crap, I'm not trying to
40:00
minimize the crap. I'm trying to elevate the amount of resilience that you have in the face of that.
40:04
You probably heard Jordan Peterson talk about in his clinical practice. Whenever someone had a phobia,
40:09
like a real gut level phobia of something, the goal of their counseling sessions was not to
40:15
decrease the level of fear in these people, but to increase their level of courage.
40:21
And that is the best medicine in those situations. The same thing here, right? Because the things
40:27
that you're going to do may may not even have a direct effect on the things going on around you
40:32
that aren't going the way that you would want them to go. But you can build your resilience.
40:37
Because guys, I talk about this all the time we talked about this last week, you know,
40:42
Jiu Jitsu on Sunday with my foxhole guys, it's about making deposits in the right bank account.
40:49
So for physical resilience for guys that, you know, just can't find a way to get in shape or can't,
40:52
you know, stick to a program or, you know, can't, you know, push through during the hard part to
40:56
workouts. It's because their brains are weak. They're not calloused over. They don't have
41:01
tens or dozens or hundreds or thousands of times when they were so exhausted, they wanted to quit,
41:06
and they just said, no, bro, I'm going to do one more. I'm going to run 10 more. I'm going to do 100
41:11
more of these. And it's just about making those deposits and making those deposits. When your
41:17
alarm goes off in the morning and your bed's comfortable and it's warm and your wife's there
41:23
and everything is serene and you can just hit that snooze button and go right back over.
41:27
You do the opposite. You make a deposit in the other bank account. You roll your butt out of bed,
41:34
you put on your running shoes and you go hit the pavement or, you know, you get your gym bag,
41:39
you get your keys, you get in the car, and you go to the gym. You do something and you make
41:43
a deposit in the right bank account. That's how you create resilience. That's how you cultivate
41:49
mainly resilience. And another message I just want to give to you guys is that there is hope.
41:55
And if you've listened to me for any length of time, I mean, what is this? 160 something episodes
42:00
in? You know, I'm not a big like hope guy. I'm not a big like, oh, it's all going to be okay. And
42:05
there's rainbows and unicorns and we're just going to be just fine. Like, I'm not that guy.
42:10
I'm not that guy. Go to your your local mega church pastor if you want that nonsense garbage.
42:14
But guys, there is hope there absolutely is. And I just did even a cursory glance through my brain
42:23
and through the internet to find scriptures that directly speak to what you are going through
42:27
at this exact moment. So just listen to these. Listen to what I'm about to read to. And if
42:32
it doesn't land immediately, you know, hit that 15 second rewind, go back back back and listen to
42:37
it again. Jeremiah 29 11, for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans for welfare
42:44
and not for evil to give you a future and a hope. Isaiah 43 to when you pass through waters,
42:51
I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire,
42:57
you shall not be burned. And the flame shall not consume you. Psalm 34 17 through 20. When the
43:04
righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near
43:10
to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
43:15
but the Lord delivers him out of all of them. He keeps all his bones. Not one of them is broken.
43:22
And and guys, this last one here, if you're thinking about taking your own life, I got news for you.
43:28
It's not your life to take. First Corinthians 6 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify
43:35
God in your body. It's not yours to take. Again, if you want to hear that truth, just just rewind back.
43:45
It's all over the place. There is hope. And the last message I have for you guys is just pray to God.
43:55
And for some of you, that's going to be weird because you're not prayers, right? Maybe you
44:00
consider yourself to be, well, I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious. So prayer is kind of a weird
44:04
deal because you don't know exactly who you're communicating with. And let's say you're on the
44:08
fence. You don't even know if there is a God. Let's just pretend. Pretend he's there.
44:12
Pretend he did design everything and he's hearing you. Pray to God for understanding,
44:21
for wisdom, for strength, for resilience, for a friend. Pray for a way out of the depression
44:30
and isolation. Pray for just a ray of hope. Pray just for the next hour, for the next day.
44:36
Lord, please just get me to tomorrow morning. Right? You guys, a lot of you guys have heard
44:42
about buds, you know, with seal training and all that. And the guys that are able to get through
44:45
that six months of hell to get into the Navy seals or really to get to the next step to becoming
44:49
a Navy seal, a lot of them just focused on getting to the next meal because they knew the guys had,
44:54
no matter how much they tortured them, they had to feed them three square meals a day.
44:57
So just make it till breakfast. Just make it till breakfast and then just make it till lunch.
45:02
Just make it until dinner. Just make it until breakfast tomorrow. But pray to God for the
45:07
strength to get through because for a lot of you guys, you don't have it. You don't have it in the
45:12
gas tank, but God can't help you. God has a plan for your life. And again,
45:21
this isn't some conspiracy theory. This isn't some sort of, you know, listen to me and all your
45:27
things will be fixed. This isn't some, you know, self help book. This isn't, you know,
45:31
some prosperity gospel nonsense. God has a plan for you. I'm talking directly to you right now,
45:38
the person listening to this, there is a plan. And that plan cannot be done if you take this
45:46
rash action. And for any of you that are maybe dealing with other issues or with, with other
45:51
people in your life that are going through this right now, just let them know that they're not
45:56
going to be able to see what God has in store for them if they take this way out.
46:01
Call it cowardly. Call it, you know, the inability to kind of, you know, work through the situation
46:08
at the moment, but we all know that it's not what God has in store for you. So I'm imploring you.
46:14
If I'm the guy you need to reach out to info at Undaunted Life, that's the INFO at Undaunted Life.
46:21
Just reach out to us. Okay, we're not going to do our normal quick resilience boost on the way out
46:25
of here. I'm going to make sure you guys have the suicide prevention hotline in the show notes.
46:28
I'm going to make sure you have the information, the statistics from the websites that I brought
46:32
up, the articles, all that's going to be in there. You guys know my normal closing. If you
46:36
don't know, go to other episodes who gives a crap. But guys, I'm here for you.
46:40
I can almost guarantee that there are guys in your life that are here for you as well.
46:46
That there are family members that are here for you. They may not be qualified. They may not have
46:52
all the right answers. They may even lead you down some past that aren't the best.
46:57
Please don't take your life. Know that there is another way out.
47:02
That there are people that love you, even if it doesn't seem like it.
47:07
That your life is valuable. And even if it's not valuable to you, it's valuable to God.
47:14
And that's good enough. Guys, happy Thanksgiving. Thanks for sticking with me through this,
47:22
this kind of rough subject and this heaviness. If you think this can be a resource to other people
47:29
that are in your life that you think are struggling with this, please share it around to them.
47:32
And we'll see you back here next week.