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121. When Divorce Leads to Desperation: Navigating Suicidal Thoughts and Depression · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Hi love, today's episode feels like it came as a sign from the universe that I'm just being invited to talk about things that are not easy to talk about.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: And today's episode we're going to talk about the link between divorce and suicidal thoughts or suicidality.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: In my experience as a clinician for 20 plus years, suicide is not as preventable as we like to think it is or as is talked about, you know, in social platforms or in the media, and I think that's why you feel so scared about it right now.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: And I think that's why you feel so scared about it right now whether you are someone who's experienced suicidal thoughts or you've been working through having an ex or soon to be ex who has had suicidal thoughts.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Hi love, welcome to Dear Divorce Diary, the podcast helping divorcees go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, find the healing you crave and build back your confidence.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, dawn Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer and divorcee.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: In today's episode, we are going to touch base on the data behind why we can't rely solely on pharmaceuticals.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: This one's going to be a bit shocking we're also going to talk about from my 20 years of clinical experience, some stones that you may not have looked under to help resolve suicide attempts or suicidality or suicidal thoughts, whatever right we can call it.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: A lot of things.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about my clinical experience and things that I have seen be successful that are not popular topics necessarily, or popular approaches, and we're also going to talk about why we can't just pray suicidality away, why that is not a robust enough approach, why it doesn't work that way and some other steps we can take.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: As we dive into this episode, I want to say that what's like heaviest on my heart is that I do this subject justice today.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Any subject that is deeply charged, you know, runs a risk of really upsetting someone or really triggering someone, and that is not my goal.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: My goal is to bring light to a dark, heavy subject.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: My goal is to bring, to spark some hope, offer some context to this very complex and nuanced conversation.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: This is not meant to be therapy or replace therapy or replace treatment, or is not meant to be medical advice.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: This is information from one woman's experience and perspective to be considered, and I hope that it helps soften a little something for you today, as a licensed therapist, the ability to work with, spot, assess for and treat suicidality is something that is taken very seriously in my field.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: It is, you know, when we have to renew our licenses.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: It's something that we are expected to retrain on periodically and it is certainly something I've gotten better at through the course of my career.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: There is more experience with this hands on than I wish there was over the years, right, because from a very young age, very early in my career, I certainly had suicide touch my life.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: When I worked in addiction recovery I worked in a couple of really, really well-respected rehabilitation centers for addiction, drug addiction, process addictions and certainly addiction and suicidality go hand in hand.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: But I also have personal experience with suicidal ideation.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: I spent a good chunk of my 30s very, very physically ill and with a condition called cluster headaches, which are also known as suicide headaches, and the pain is just so debilitating and so chronic and there's just so little that Western medicine knows to do for it that I just suffered a lot.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: And you know, pair that with postpartum stuff hormones, you name it right Like just the responsibilities of living in there.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: I got into some dark spaces, certainly post-divorce, post pregnancy.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: There were just places where it was so heavy and so hard that suicide seemed like the best option.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I have certainly had past clients whose lives have ended by their own hand.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I have counseled many a spouse or parent or you know you name it and we've had a dear friend die from his own hand, and so this is something that you know is pretty close to home for me personally and professionally and something I certainly feel qualified to talk on, and it's something that I treat in my private practice.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: So there's a good bit of experience that I'm calling from today's content to bring to you.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Suicide is something that is influenced certainly by genetics, neurobiology, you know, neurochemicals, life experience, trauma, social factors.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: There are so many complexities that go into suicidality generational trauma, cultural issues, racial issues, like you name it, right Addiction there's so many things that go into it and I think, just as a personal note, I have never seen suicide as selfish.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: That's a polarizing thing to say right there.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: I think the common thing I hear people say is that it's so selfish, and I can just tell you, as someone who has been suicidal, I actually had the opposite thinking Like in those dark moments, what I thought was that living was selfish.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: I thought that if I continued to live in the way that I was and I was doing everything I knew to do to be well, I was exhausting every resource I knew to exhaust to be well.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Now, had I known everything then that I know now, maybe I would have gotten better faster, which is why I want to bring all this information to you today.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: But in those darkest of dark places, I thought I would be doing less harm by dying.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I thought that I would give my husband and my daughter a better shot at a better life if they did not have to deal with me in the way that someone thing is that the suffering is so real and feels so just impossible to overcome that it becomes the only option in one's mind.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: And so I have never seen it as selfish.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I have always seen it through a lens of compassion and understanding and a longing to bring relief where possible.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: So let's dig into, first things first, why we cannot rely solely on pharmaceuticals.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Now I will tell you.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Y'all know I am a holistic provider, an integrative healer, right, y'all know that I tend towards the holistic, but I certainly am an advocate for pharmaceuticals in places where it is called for, and certainly use them myself.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I think Western medicine is a beautiful blessing.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: I do not think that Western medicine aims to keep them.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Myself, I think Western medicine is a beautiful blessing.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: I do not think that Western medicine aims to keep us sick.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I think that there are corrupt, corrupt organizations that profit off of people being sick, but I think that most healers, doctors, nurses you name it get into medicine because they want to make a difference in the world.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: I think that there have been many advancements in medicine that are just unbelievable.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: My husband has two replaced hips.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Producer Joy had kidney stones this weekend.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Like we need medicine.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Medicine does good.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: It changes the world.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: However, the realities of antidepressants is that they are known to also cause suicidal ideation, and that is not necessarily common knowledge.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: If you read through the leaflet of your antidepressant, it is going to tell you that one of the side effects is suicidal ideation, and I cannot produce for you copious amounts of research about the correlation between the two, but there is some and I will put it in the show notes I'm going to link.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: The show notes are going to have reference material today.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: We don't often reference research necessarily here, but we are going to do this today because it is a tricky topic, but I will tell you, as a therapist, that my first thought when I have a client say that they are suicidal is to explore the pharmaceutical route.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: That is my knee-jerk reaction is to say are you on, or have you been on, pharmaceuticals?
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: And because that's where we're trained to go right, we are trained to think like, oh gosh, this person is very depressed and they need a pharmaceutical support, they need a psychiatrist, and it's that's not wrong, except it's not necessarily right either.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Because because the the data says and this is back to my intro right, where it's not as preventable as we want to believe it is, there are some statistics I'm going to throw out here that 44,000 people die a year from suicide and that 15% of treated patients, 15% of treated patients, will still end up passing away from suicide.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: And so these are just some statistics, right, don't hang your hat on them.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: But when we know that there is a correlation between antidepressants and suicidality, perhaps causation that's concerning, and then we say, okay, but what else can we do?
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: And we know that therapy is an essential element of treating someone with mental illness or depression, but we also know that therapy alone is not enough, and we know that many people who are on pharmaceuticals and go to therapy still don't resolve their suicidal thoughts or impulses.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: So what are we missing, loves?
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: What are we missing?
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: So let's dig into in my experience that if myself or someone I loved or a patient were experiencing suicidal thoughts, these are all the things.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: This is the checklist that I would want to go through, and this is not an exhaustive checklist.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: There are many, many factors that contribute to suicide.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: This is not meant to be an exhaustive checklist.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Let me say that there are certain sociocultural factors that I'm not going to be able to dig into today because I'm going to highlight some other elements, right?
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: So just know these are my go-to, okay.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: So first things first.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Psychology would say that there is a personality, organization that's predisposed to suicide, that there are certain characteristics, personality characteristics that would predispose someone to suicidality.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: A geneticist would say that there are certain genetic predisposing factors.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: A homeopath would say that there are certain miasmatic presentations that would predispose someone to suicide.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: That last one is my favorite these days, you know, but we want to look at.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Is there a predisposition?
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Can you kind of see that dark, twisty thread through either yourself or the person that you love that is predisposed to suicide.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: I know that if you look at my presentation there's certain that dark twisty thread.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: We talked about that last week in the previous episode I hope it was last week Anyways.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: So you can certainly kind of see right predisposition If there's predisposition, love.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I think that's where my particular checklist is going to matter so much, because there are certain presentations that clear up or clean up easier than others.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: But when we have genetic predisposition it gets trickier.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Now the fun thing is is that also the people who are predisposed to suicidality are also tend to be higher correlated with violent professions like the military or law enforcement, which are also professions that tend towards having a lot of trauma happen in their profession.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: This predisposition also tends to have correlations with addiction, and addiction has correlations with suicide, right, it's like all these kind of dark twisty pieces love has correlations with suicide, right, it's like all these kind of dark twisty pieces love that make it more complex to treat, are all kind of in the same vein.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Give or take.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: They predispose you to being exposed to trauma, to having family systems that are more traumatic, that you know.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: And then there are issues, of course, to do with poverty and suicide and access to mental health care.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: All of this right, but let's just acknowledge that there is a predisposition, that homeopathy says that there is an answer for which I love, and that has certainly been my lived experience.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: The next thing is, obviously, folks who are suicidal avoid medical locations.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Right, they avoid medical care.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Because if you go to a hospital or to a doctor or to a psychiatrist even, and you admit to being suicidal, you got a good shot of them wanting to put you in a white room.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: And I am here to tell you that being hospitalized when you are suicidal can be its own traumatic experience, because hospitals and I've seen this gosh in a Facebook group for moms.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: This last week I saw a mom who had a suicidal teen and was looking for where do I go for help with my child, and the caution was to not take them to the hospital because of how dark and twisty it is there.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Right, these are not very humane places and they're very, very scary.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: So I want to acknowledge that it is very hard to get effectively treated for suicidal thoughts because a person feels like they are going to be exiled and loves the sensation, or the feeling or the perception of exile is one of the contributing factors.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Shame right, a lack of shame resilience, a lack of shame tolerance, a tendency to feel toxic amounts of shame, is a risk factor for suicide.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: That said, how can we whether you love or the person who has experienced suicidal thoughts, or your loved one, how can we, whether you love, are the person who has experienced suicidal thoughts or your loved one?
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: How can we bridge that gap?
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: How can we find providers?
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Because I do believe that someone who is having suicidal thoughts needs to be medically evaluated, needs to have labs drawn, needs to look at the numbers in some blood values, needs to look at is there some vitamin deficiency?
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Is there some active infection going on?
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Are there inflammatory markers that are high?
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Are there some neurological considerations?
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: How can we get a nice, thorough medical evaluation so that we can rule in or rule out certain factors?
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: I think that's an essential aspect of stabilizing someone who's having suicidal thoughts, but I want you to go to providers who have a track record of being sensitive and having good bedside manner.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: That is an important part and, right, I know that if it's you love that is experienced suicidality, or someone you love, it's like you need a whole case manager to work with this right, because it's so complicated and there are so many boxes to check and so many rabbit holes to go down.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: So a good medical provider with a good evaluation that can look at certain markers to help create stabilization.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: The next thing might sound like a weird thing to consider when someone is suicidal, but a chiropractic evaluation is such a valuable piece of stabilizing someone who is suicidal.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Why is that?
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: There are a number of reasons.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Chronic pain is a massive contributor to suicide, because chronic pain wears at a person over time and oftentimes chiropractic can make a massive difference with chronic pain.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: But also the atlas, which is the very first cervical bone in the cervical spine, when it is not seated correctly, can contribute to panic, dissociation, anxiety disorders, depression, you name it.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: And so there are a lot of people out there who have had spinal surgeries or accidents or things that disqualify them from chiropractic.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: But maybe they could have a craniosacral therapist do a craniosacral evaluation or adjustment where we can take a look at are there spinal factors that are contributing to destabilized mental health?
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Now, the spine and the nervous system.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Right, those are partners.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Right, the spine and its proper alignment and the proper information blood flow, nerve flow through the spine and the spinal column and the polyvagal system and all of those intricacies indicate whether or not the body is moving towards healing or if it's in a stuck spot, and chiropractic is a massive way to help promote healing in the nervous system.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: That is what they do.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: That is what chiropractors do.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: They reduce inflammation and improve nervous system communication and nervous system health.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: So for someone who is suicidal on my caseload, one of the very first things I recommend exploring is chiropractic evaluation.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: The next thing I always check into is spiritual mentorship.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: There is so much research and data that goes into people who have a faith heal.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: People who have a faith have less inflammation.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: People who have a faith have more positive outcomes, that some sort of relationship with some higher power, some sort of spiritual mentorship, helps people be well.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: So I would want to know do you or your loved one have or need a spiritual mentor that could be a pastor, a coach, a yogi, a meditative instructor, a 12-step sponsor, right, like any sort of spiritual mentor who can help you tap into your spiritual self and cultivate a relationship with a higher power, because that again helps create stabilization in the system.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: We know that we are not just physical beings.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: I like to say we are spiritual beings having a human or physical experience, but an integration of our understanding of our spiritual selves and our physical bodies can help us move through and grow through painful times better than someone who doesn't use that resource.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: The next thing I would recommend is in the realm of trauma work.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Again, someone who's predisposed to suicidality is also more likely to experience trauma and is more likely to experience divorce.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: And so when we do kind of more trauma work, whether that's through EMDR or brain spotting or other embodiment works, eft tapping I know I'm throwing a bunch of psychobabble at you right now, but maybe these are buzzwords you've heard or things that you've tried or things that you haven't tried, and you may go back and research them, right, but to do some trauma processing for stabilization can be very effective.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: One of the things that you've heard me talk about on the podcast before is a hidden healing gem of this.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: It's an app that I presented in the episode, but the concept of internal family systems.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: When we've experienced trauma and we acknowledge and understand that we all have parts of self, we have wounded parts, we have parts that help us thrive and function in society.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Right, we talk about inner child work, or the angry teenager or a wounded part.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Internal family systems is a lens to look at parts of self that can help us understand aspects of ourself better and how each of our parts of self work together to create certain outcomes.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Now internal family systems has a style of part called a firefighter part, when they feel like this system has been in fight, flight or freeze for too long and can no longer function optimally.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Very often a firefighter part will say I know what to do, let's get out of here, right, let's end this, and that will solve the problem.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Firefighter parts are clever, adaptive parts that are doing their job of trying to solve the problem and this is like a last ditch Hail Mary, right, let's just end this, and that will solve the pain.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: That will solve the pain.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: So there's an app called IFS Guide that can be just kind of a lay person's entry into understanding parts work at an entry level, you know, for any of us just at home can download this app and can dig into that work and can start to understand how, when those suicidal thoughts come up, it's an effort to overcome or resolve internal pain that has not yet been processed any other way.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Now, of course, if that pain is active addiction or is literal chronic pain that gets more complex.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: If it's trauma right, learning how to process the things that are triggering that firefighter part to say, hey, I know how to resolve the pain.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: There are IFS therapists out there.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: There are specifically trained internal family systems therapists out there.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I am someone who is trained in some IFS work, but not the in-depth right.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: There are people who have certifications in it.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: But this is something that I want you to consider.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: If yourself or someone you love has not done deep trauma work including, but not limited to, attachment style work right, like for folks we spoke with someone recently who had an anxious attachment style and abandonment or the perception of separation and divorce, it triggered all of that anxious attachment style stuff which the firefighter part then said I know what to do, I know how to end this pain right, and so attachment trauma work, ifs work, trauma processing can all help create stabilization for someone who's experienced suicidality, whether that's you or someone you love.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: The next thing, of course, is if there's a history of addiction, very often the first thing we have to get stable is stabilizing addiction right, and I think that these are some of the trickiest places to successfully engage suicidal prevention.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: When there is someone who is actively addicted and they are not ready to work on that, you're going to have a much higher likelihood of active suicidality and that can feel like an impossible burden to bear.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: And so if this is your story, love, certainly consider this episode thoughtfully and carefully, but at some point you have to let yourself off the hook.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: If you have supported your loved one to do with getting stabilized from addiction and they are just not willing or not able to maintain recovery, you cannot take that on.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to say something very, very unpopular now in many, many circles, but there have been a number of times, having worked for many, many years in addiction recovery, there have been many times where someone has just seemingly not been able to get or stay sober.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: The big book, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, refers to this individual as someone who is constitutionally incapable of honesty.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: That for those people, suicide feels like a relief.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: And who am I to judge?
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Who am I to judge?
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Who am I to judge?
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: And so this is where approaching and treating suicide cannot be.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: If you are someone who has had a spouse who is suicidal or you're someone who has experienced suicidality, this is where teamwork is so essential, where we must have a robust support system, because it is such a tricky, complex, heavy subject.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: You cannot go this alone, love, and the more help and more support we can get, the less likely you are to end up getting blindsided by feeling like you missed something or, you know, didn't do everything that you could.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: And so I can't say enough for addiction as a specialty.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Right, there are so many providers out there who specialize in addiction recovery and that is so, so, so valuable.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: So if you have a loved one who battles with addiction, certainly a specialist is a really, really good idea Then the next stone that I often look under and this is like a dual pronged stone, right, it's not one or the other, it is both, and they are different which is both functional medicine and homeopathy.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: These are two different things that work to complement one another, but they are very different.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: And what are their differences?
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Well, functional medicine really looks at getting at the root cause of things.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I think there are places where functional medicine doesn't actually get to the root cause and sometimes it just ends up looking like just taking a whole crap load of supplements and doing a whole bunch of protocols to solve your problem.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: But functional medicine can provide the body with a lot of the nutrients and holistic support that it needs to stabilize, whether that is using herbs for mood support or hormone replacement therapy for hormone support right, because certainly, having bottomed out, hormones can contribute to suicidality for sure.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: So functional medicine can often take look at the body, mind, spirit, as a holistic being and say, okay, where does this body need support in order to reduce inflammation and create greater balance or homeostasis?
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: And often there's going to look at gut health, right, gut health is a massive contributor to stabilizing suicidality, because we understand that we create so many of our neurotransmitters in our guts, and so we've heard in many popular places that if we don't have good gut health, how can we have good brain health?
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: This is what functional medicine gets at right Gut health, inflammation markers, hormone levels, all of these types of things that can help create far more stable mental health.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: So looking under the functional medicine stone is massively valuable for treating suicidality.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: But then there is also the homeopathic approach.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Now, what I love about homeopathy as an approach to suicidality is it acknowledges that there is a predisposing factor to suicidality, a miasmatic lens, and I know that that's just like gobbledygook language, right, that doesn't make sense to you right now.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: But just know that homeopathy views a person who is suicidal as saying as having an I can approach.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Homeopathy doesn't look at suicidality and say like oh, that's big and heavy and we're not sure if we can tackle it.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: It says not only are there remedies specifically to treat and cure suicidality, but we see the cause of it as being this predisposing factor, and so we can look at that predisposing factor, we can look at how this person is experiencing, their suicidal thoughts, their contributing factors, their signs and their symptoms and we can prescribe a well-paired remedy that will help the body reach for healing.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: It will help unblock energetically what is blocking the resolution, what is blocking the resolution of the depression, what is blocking the resolution of the depression, what is blocking the resolution of the pain, what is blocking the resolution of the anxiety, of the panic attacks, of the addiction, and can help the body, mind, spirit move into a place of healing.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: So if you or someone you love is experiencing suicidality and you've not looked under the homeopathic rock, I strongly, strongly recommend that If you are somebody who is prone to isolation or the person you love is prone to isolation we know that shame and judgment and isolation are the petri dish in which suicidality thrives, and so it is so, so important that we do not turn away from and this is why I knew it was so important for me to record this episode that we do not turn our backs on people who are experiencing suicidal thoughts because we are scared or because it feels heavy or because we don't know what to say.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: It is so important that we love well those who are suffering in this way, because they are the ones among us who are suffering the most.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: And, as someone who has been in that spot and has had, I have had people surround me in my bed and say like hey, we're here for you, what do you need?
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: And they didn't take me to a hospital, thank the Lord.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Right, like that matters.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: I think the threat of hospitalization is part of what keeps us in isolation, when most what we need is to just be surrounded by a community of loving people who can say this is what I have to contribute, would it feel helpful?
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: So you know, don't be afraid to ask for help.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: It's scary to ask for help.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Say that better, dawn.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Be afraid to ask for help, but do it anyway.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: That's what I want to say, not don't be afraid, be afraid, but do it anyway, because it is scary and it's shameful and it's embarrassing to admit that I don't have my shit together so much so that I am suffering so much that this feels like the way out.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: It's embarrassing and it's a lot easier for me to say it to you.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: What am I?
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Probably 10 years later yeah, probably like 10 years later from the last time that I was massively suicidal 10 years it's a lot easier to talk about it today.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: There's a lot less shame associated because I can come to you and I can say like, oh, look, that's not me anymore, I solved it Right.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: But when I was in it, oh man, I just needed those people, like they did, to come around me and say like I've got you, we've got this Right.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into why we can't pray it away.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: So I recently spoke to you about the book Trauma in the Pews right, where very often the church says that we just have to be more faithful, more prayerful and trust that God will provide healing, and I just can't say enough why that's not enough.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, because very often, unfortunately, there's this misnomer that suicidality is spiritual warfare or that, and maybe it is right, maybe it is, maybe it's not.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not here to say whether or not it is or is not spiritual warfare, but I can tell you that when someone is suicidal, that whether or not is spiritual warfare is not going to like.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Having that debate is not what's going to get them well, but that very often, unfortunately, churches consider medical and mental illness as spiritual issues and that is part of what causes isolation and shame based feelings.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Right, we need to be able to come to church and say, hey, I need your love, I need your prayer, I need your support, I need your meal train, I need your guidance.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: But I also need you to support me going to therapy and going to functional medicine and going to a homeopath and doing this deep trauma work.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: And I need you to understand that there are very real neurological factors to do with trauma, neurological factors to do with addiction, that we have the brain imaging scans to demonstrate that these are very real health issues at a neurobiological level, that, yes, have solutions to them, but they're not well understood.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: And while prayer is one essential solution to healing, it is not the only solution and that a spiritual approach is an essential approach, but it is not the entire approach.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: We are mind, we are body, we are spirit and a holistic.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: Because suicide is such a complex issue, our approach to it needs to be mind, body, spirit, community-based that we are not going to really move into whole health and whole wellness unless we can approach it from every angle.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: And that community-based peace needs to be loving each other well and not judging each other for not being faithful enough, not being prayerful enough and not judging each other for trying things that are not popular or maybe widely accepted in the church.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately, there are many therapies that have not been widely enough accepted in many, many places right, and that is because they're maybe not well understood or maybe somebody's had a bad experience, or maybe there's some scripture that has been able to be manipulated to say that it is not useful.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: You know, in our household we recently, in the last couple of months, have been tackling the topic of tarot cards.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: For me, tarot cards were a beautiful path back to God in a way that felt safe after experiencing many forms of trauma.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: There are many people in the church that judge tarot to be dark and witchcraft and there are many scripture that speak against witchcraft and false gods and false idols and all of that right.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: But we often need to be willing to work within the gray when we are dealing with complex issues and to understand that neurobiological issues need also neurobiological solutions, community-based solutions, mental solutions, emotional solutions, physical solutions and spiritual solutions.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: So if you are someone who has been afraid to try other things and felt shame because you struggle with this even though you have a faith, please let this be the thing that says your faith is seen, your faith is acknowledged, your belief in your higher power is acknowledged, that your love for your higher power matters.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: And it's not that you're not being faithful enough that you're not getting well.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: It's not that you're not being faithful enough that you're not getting well.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: Someone who is in that much pain has trouble resting in God because their neurobiology is so activated, right, their amygdala is so hyperactive, their multiple complex issues in their brain chemistry is so activated that peace, that faith, that rest does not feel available, for whatever reason.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: And so I want you to.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: If I'm speaking to you today, right, if you are the woman that has felt suicidal, I want you to hear me say I see you, I know you, you do not scare me.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: I love you so much and there are solutions.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: There are stones for you to look under love, but it is going to take courage and it is going to take time and it is going to be a process.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: And if you have a loved one or a soon to be ex or an ex who has been suicidal, I see you and I know how burnt out you feel as a caregiver and I know how guilty you feel for letting this person go, because you know that in you, leaving their risk of suicide increases so much.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: And that is the data.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: The data says.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: It's so interesting.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: The data says that the risk for suicide goes up in the first year after divorce, but it persists for five years and it actually some of the data that I have seen right says that the risk to women after divorce is higher and in shorter marriages.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Isn't that interesting that the suicide risk is higher for women in shorter marriages the year after divorce?
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: That's what some recent research data says.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: But certainly the risk for all people who have gone through divorce to experience suicidal thoughts is increased in the first year, and it is not common or popular to talk about that out there.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: So let this be a safe place for you where we can talk about it, where we recognize that you are not alone and that it is that you deserve love and you deserve belonging, and love and belonging are two powerful solutions towards resolving your pain.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: If you have any questions or any follow-ups about this, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: I'm happy to help you source referrals in your area or trusted professionals who can help you tackle this.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: That's what I am here for, as a resource for you.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Now let's move into our segment, which we call Getting Unstuck.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: We had the very Producer, joy, and I had the very, very special opportunity to sit with a listener this week who actually is struggling with suicidality, and she is part of who inspired this episode today, and so our segment is a little bit different because, rather than write in for this segment right, we had the the honor of sitting with her, and so her struggle is she does not want this divorce, and part of why her ex soon to be ex is leaving is because of her mental illness, and in this moment where he is separating from her, all of her attachment related concerns are activated and panic attacks are coming faster than she can keep up with, and she is struggling to work and so resources are less right Just feeling so isolated and so embarrassed.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: And that is one of the things that she said.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: Right Is that she is working with her therapist and her doctor around pharmaceuticals and getting well and addressing these issues, but she feels so, so embarrassed.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: These issues, but she feels so, so embarrassed.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: And so what were a handful of the things that producer Joy and I recommended for this lovely, powerful, beautiful listener was make sure she takes time daily to focus on herself and build up her capacity to face her issues and sit with her pain.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Right, we don't want her to sit with her pain so much that it becomes unbearable and the thoughts get so much louder, but to be able to sit with her pain in small bouts and build up her confidence, because her history is such that she was a caretaker for her mentally ill mother and she then was a caretaker to her four children and now is a caretaker to her grandchild, and so one of the ways that she has created mental stability for herself over the years is through caretaking, and so we can acknowledge that.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: But we also have to start to balance those scales little by slow right, for taking little bits of time each day to also focus on self and care for self and little by slow, chip away at those piles of pain.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: But what did we also recommend?
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: We also recommended the IFS Guide app to get to know the parts of self, the traumatized parts that go all the way back to caretaking for her mentally ill mother right, and all those pieces that need to be stabilized and all those traumatic pieces that need to be processed in order to get stable.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: So IFS Guide app is one of the things we recommended to help her get unstuck and then also doing the trauma work to stabilize the anxious attachment style.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: That was another piece that we recommended in order to really feel this holistic sense of well-being.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Now she's already working with a doctor and she's always already working with a therapist, so that was like a great start right.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: And also the consideration to consult a homeopath to get a well-paired constitutional remedy.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: There are also some beautiful flower essences that can help support depression and suicidal thoughts.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: There are also some beautiful flower essences that can help support depression and suicidal thoughts.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: There are some beautiful, beautiful flower essences.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: So if you consult with a homeopath, they're going to be able to make those recommendations for both a homeopathic remedy or a flower essence that is perfect for your particular experience of depression, panic, anxiety and suicidal thoughts.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: But what I want you to hear is that there's so much reason to hope that there are.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: We could hear right away in sitting with this beautiful listener.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: We could hear the stuck spots right, and sometimes it's just.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: What you need is a really seasoned clinician that just knows how to navigate these moments and can hear where the suicidality is coming from, right, because it's so complex.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: So to our beautiful new friend we're carrying you in our hearts, we are praying for you, we are holding space for you.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: We love you so much.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: Peace, dear Divorce Diary is a podcast by my coach John.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: You can find more at mycoachjohncom.