Ep 181 | 'I Want to Live': A Radically Honest Conversation About Surviving Depression | Aaron and Teana Elmer | The Glenn Beck Podcast

Chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more, can make me feel like a spectator in my own life.

Botox, onobotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine.

It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month.

It's the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine preventive treatment.

Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor.

Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms.

Alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition.

Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk.

Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck, and injection, side pain, fatigue, and headache.

Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness.

Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection.

Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

Why wait?

Ask your doctor, visit BotoxchronicMigraine.com, or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

Suicide is one of the greatest epidemics of our time.

Every year, an estimated 1 million people worldwide kill themselves.

That means there's a death every 40 seconds.

In America, suicide rates have risen 30%

since 1999.

Numbers keep climbing.

There were 45,000 suicide deaths in 2016 alone.

47,000 in 2017.

Roughly 129 129 people a day.

This podcast is special for many reasons.

For starters, today's guests are anonymous.

You've never heard of them.

They don't run a government agency or fill comedy clubs.

They're private people.

They don't have a new book out or a political platform.

To me, because I know them both personally,

they are living proof that tomorrow will come and tomorrow will be better.

They are living proof that hope

is so important.

They are living proof of the crisis that for them has become an everyday story.

While they may seem anonymous, their struggle is so common that they're more like a representative, somebody brave enough to speak for all the bystanders as well as the voiceless.

Depression and suicide has affected every one of us somehow, in some way,

but we don't talk about it.

Silence is the wrong approach.

I've learned that a monster like depression only gets stronger when we run away from it or we don't understand it.

A lot of people are drowning.

in plain sight,

largely because most of us have never been taught what to look for or what to do.

We're accustomed to the movie version of the person struggling in the water, flailing their arms and shrieking, but in real life, drowning is quieter,

something that you could see and not realize.

Today's guests are here to teach you what to look for

and how to save someone's life who might be caught in the undertow.

And perhaps that person is you.

Please welcome Aaron and Tiana Elmer.

We have canceled all of the commercials in today's podcast, except for one.

What we're talking about is so deep and spiritual

that there's only one client that I do that I think would even fit, and that is the Ministry of Pre-Born.

There is so much darkness in the world.

Nothing seems to have meaning, and that includes life now.

Abortion takes nearly a million babies a year just in America.

So the Pre-Born Network clinics step into the darkness and they shine a light into the mother's womb by introducing the precious life growing inside of her to the mom through an ultrasound.

Once she hears the heartbeat, the maternal instincts kicked in.

Majority of the time, she'll choose life.

That's God's plan.

Since Dan

Steiner, the president of Preborn, founded his life-saving ministry 16 years ago, over 200,000 babies have been saved.

For $140, you can introduce a mom to her baby on ultrasound and rescue five babies.

When you do, you're going to receive five stories and five ultrasound pictures of the babies saved.

Our goal this year is to rescue, I think it's about 80,000 babies' lives, and we can only do it with your help.

So join us.

Just dial pound250.

Say the keyword baby.

That's pound250, keyword baby.

Or you can go online, visit preborn.com slash Glenn.

Preborn.com slash Glenn.

Aaron and Tiana, thank you for being here.

We have been friends for how long?

Seven years,

something like that.

And

I have watched you two, and

you are truly, both of you are truly amazing as individuals.

I don't know how it works as a couple, but as a couple, you seem to be so well suited for each other.

But the strength that you guys ooze and the

courage that you give people has been so inspiring that I wanted to have you guys on.

Because if anybody knows depression,

it's you guys.

It is you.

And,

you know,

sometimes

you are hopeful and

you're there, And other times,

you are

struggling like job.

And

I don't think that's an overstatement.

No, it's not.

So let's start with depression.

Maybe you should define

what depression is, and then you can describe what you feel.

But what are we talking about when we talk about depression?

So when we talk about depression, there's

certain symptoms that you have to be experiencing for a certain period of time.

So

as a clinician, there's the DSM-5 that we go to to diagnose depression and other mental health illnesses.

So some of the symptoms that occur are like isolation, just an inability to enjoy things that you normally would enjoy,

trouble with sleep, sleeping too much, not sleeping enough, and so forth.

And oftentimes, these are unremitting symptoms that go on for at least two weeks.

So then there is, and people who have never had clinical depression, they don't know how to separate.

They think,

oh, well, just pull yourself up by the bootstraps, man.

Just get out of bed.

That's what you have to do.

And they have no idea.

It is a completely different world.

Yeah.

I can speak to that a little bit because

I tell some people that growing up, I was a really high achiever.

I graduated at 17 from high school and went to college and

did really well, like spread my wings and was happy to be on my own.

And about a year later, I started having symptoms for the first time.

And the contrast between just having all this capacity and this ability to just kind of manage life on my terms, get up early, do what I needed to do.

There's a story I tell people sometimes I remember the first three years of my issues.

I spent about 18 hours in bed every day and I get out and kind of go hang out with some friends a little bit, but most of the time I isolated and I just had no energy.

And I remember one time, I don't remember how far in, maybe a few months in,

saying, Aaron, this isn't you.

Like get up and be productive.

Like, go do something.

So, my laundry was just spread everywhere on the floor.

Like, I just take it off and get into bed and put other clothes on.

And so, there's just a mess of a room.

And my mom taught me at an early age to do laundry.

So, I separated my whites and my colors, and I went and put a load in.

And it seems so silly because it's not, it's a trivial matter.

But I remember just crying in my bed afterwards, thinking,

How come it's so hard to just do laundry?

Like, it's laundry.

It's not, I'm not even doing anything.

And

to see that contrast between who I had been and what I was capable of and how little I felt I could really do in those moments,

it was so heart-wrenching.

It was so difficult.

And

you find yourself kind of getting into self-negative self-talk and beating yourself up.

And if I can just

no ball.

And you reaffirm that and you go in this process.

And

part of the reason I try to talk to people and be open about it is because I want people to see them for the way I see them and to see the resilience it takes to manage a mental illness and to manage deep depression and to keep finding ways and reasons to keep going.

So how long did it take you before?

Because I've been suicidal when I was younger, and

it

is a different world.

I mean, it seems sane to you at the time.

Insanity seems sane.

And

while you're in it, you just, you're searching for the problem.

You know,

maybe it's this, maybe it's that.

And as you exhaust all of those, you then arrive at it's me, which is horrible.

Explain the difference between

a parent dying and being depressed and the way you experience depression.

Do they at all fit hand in hand with

I don't have the quote.

I wish I had it on me, but I was recently reading C.S.

Lewis's

I forget the name of the title on grief about losing his wife and some of those feelings of being abandoned by God.

And here's C.S.

Lewis, who wrote Mere Christianity, you know, had some great insights on

things, and he was in a place of desperation.

And so I think there are commonalities in that process.

I tell people it's often like,

at least with my, everyone's different, but it's like being paralyzed and having to relearn

how to live.

And you get caught up in those past expectations and who you were and what you could be

and

i was i was getting my hair cut the other day and i sat with this girl and i i told her i was doing this and uh

and she just opened her heart to me and i told her why i was doing it and she just started pouring her heart out i won't get into details but um

she said oh i'm behind i'm behind i'm not you know started all that negative self-talk and i just stopped her and said you're right where you need to be

The battle to get up and to keep fighting and finding hope and strength.

It doesn't happen overnight.

I tell people,

people like me have a mindset of like, I want to plant my flag.

I want to climb Everest and plant my flag.

I'm going to beat this illness.

I'm going to show.

that I can do every resource, every aspect of it and manage it.

And I just, in my life, have not found that's how it works.

I find it's a little bit like Groundhog's Day, the Bill Murray, where

you're just over, over, and sometimes that's almost the own trauma.

And

so just trying to help people realize that the simple decisions they make day to day,

they create progress in time.

And sometimes if you look at it too close,

you won't see the progress.

I measure my life in three-year segments because if I look too close, sometimes I just feel defeated.

But as I've lived long enough to see progress,

I look at it and I'm like,

I can't believe you've done what you've done.

Let's talk about the first time you guys met.

It was your second suicide attempt?

No, your first suicide attempt, right?

After.

So,

yeah, so I had just a little bit.

I started having issues around, I think I was

19, about four months into my first episode.

I had a manic episode.

I didn't know what it was.

I won't go into the details, but I was driving through the night at aggressive speeds.

And people don't think there's a problem if you're manic.

Well, hypomania.

A lot of people feel really good and creative and they kind of want to live.

And then sometimes with bipolar one, you can escalate to kind of a more agitated mania where life feels like it's going too fast.

A thing I do with with people sometimes is

I say, Well,

what if I tap your head and I just keep doing there?

Like, okay, yeah, I get it.

And then you're like, keep doing it.

And there comes a point where they're like, okay, stop.

Like, I don't feel comfortable with that.

And just to give the idea that that's kind of how it can get.

And so I was going through some of that and had to withdraw from school and I wasn't sleeping for days on end.

And there's kind of this process of kind of that.

And then these really depressive episodes.

And my issues happen over the years to be a lot of uh

um

um a lot of depression that's really deep and that is um

hard to the meds just haven't worked and um and so i deal with a lot of really depressive episodes and and so

um about four months in i had a suicide attempt and

I won't get into the details, but my life wasn't at risk, but I was, I let go 100%.

And

I admitted myself into a psychiatric hospital and spent some time there.

And it was a real blessing for me because I went to an adult unit.

I was 19, just over the threshold, about a year.

And I spent some time and I met some people that were angels to me.

And one lady in particular, I won't get into details, but she struggled with deep depression.

And she took me under her wing like a mother.

She was older and had dealt with alcoholism and different difficulties.

And

she, she showed me where all the answers weren't.

And I saw that at 19.

And I saw the scars and the

trauma.

And this lady was angelic.

She had the greatest heart.

And

she told me about her life and all the difficulties and I couldn't believe it because she was so beautiful and so amazing.

And

so I really learned early on that drugs and alcohol didn't have any answers for me.

And I'm very grateful for that because later on that

was more of a temptation or a way to cope.

And at that time I learned.

And so

I had struggled for about three years.

And towards the end of that, I found some meds that kind of helped to work a little bit, gave me a little bit more stability.

And so I went and worked retail for 15 hours a week.

And I missed twice.

And that was like a revelation.

Like that was, hey, I can maybe do something with my life other than sit in bed.

And it was such a small thing.

And it was shortly after that I went to visit my parents and I and I got to meet Tiana.

In Australia.

Yes, in Australia.

My parents were in Australia.

When I was young, I was in love with Olivia Newton-John, and I have always loved the Australian accent.

You better go home because you're about to lose it.

I don't have it anymore.

Only when I'm stressed.

So you guys you guys met we met at like a like a Bible study for college kids okay yeah and

tell me about that you were so I good at this time I was doing better but I mean in the big scheme right I was barely out of the water but but I felt I was starting to regain some hope and how long did it take before you saw something or he said something about oh

we had

you we had a really great first

like

on unofficial date and we just opened up to each other and um i had no idea about depression or mental illness it wasn't in my family when he said he was bipolar is like oh whatever you're so much fun i think he was manic that night hypo manic um so we had a great time but i think what really struck us both

was just this openness and this connection that we were feeling with each other.

I joke.

I first met her at a church thing, and I saw this girl across the room, and she has this beautiful smile, and this countless, this aura of just happiness.

And I thought, I want that.

I want to feel that again.

And as I got to know her, I came back later, and we started to hang out.

There was a lot of depth to her.

This didn't come from a place of naivety.

She had gone through experiences in life that were hard and she still had a love for life and a zeal and it hadn't jaded her.

And then I was like, that's what I really want.

That's what I want.

And that's what I'm trying to find.

And I was on that path.

And she was definitely further down it.

And so I had a thing.

I'm a little unique to some people.

Everyone has a different level of comfort.

I had self-injury scars on my arms and I would not wear long sleeve.

If it was summer, I would, I said, I can't hide this from myself, so I'm not going to hide it from everyone else.

And there's some questions of how healthy that was or not, but some of that helped me kind of dissipate some of the stigma.

And I found 80% of what people shared with me when I talked to them and they asked me questions was positive.

It was connecting.

And there's 5% that would say something dumb.

And it was more a reflection of their experience in life and where they were at.

So two things that come to mind.

First, let me talk a little bit more about your relationship.

Because

I was

an alcoholic and I was probably three years in recovery, and I was really white-knuckling it really badly.

And

I had been praying, you know, help, help, help, help, help.

And when I met Tanya,

I think I felt the same way you felt here.

And because she was just beaming from the inside.

And I remember

when I knew I had to marry her, we were standing in my kitchen and she was facing this way and I went behind her and I was just holding her like this.

And I could feel the goodness, almost like a black hole, just being sucked out of her and put into me.

And I said,

I felt bad.

And I said, I want you to know I'm.

I'm stealing light from you.

And without hesitation, she said, you can't steal that which is being given.

And I thought, I have got to marry this woman.

Did you at any time feel like

you don't know what you're dealing with?

I'm stealing light from you.

I'm using you for light.

This is where it gets a little serious.

We were married a year.

We hardly ever fought.

We didn't have a lot of this first year.

Like, we both came in with,

we didn't have fixed ideas of what it needed to be.

It was kind of, let's work together and make it work.

And so, for some people in marriage, you know, there's all these first year problems.

We got along great.

We lived in Australia while she waited for her visa.

And towards the end of that, I wasn't doing well.

I was so fixated on moving forward in life and getting college education.

And, and

there came a point where I started to realize when I was dating her, kind of what you're you're saying, this

I just, I kind of forgot that I was mentally depressed.

And

being around her, when we got married, I realized all of a sudden, selfishly, I had not thought about the impact of my issues on her.

And it was really hard for me.

The most beautiful, loving person I'd ever met had to deal with self-injury issues from me, had to deal with my mood set.

I couldn't, it was no longer just how I felt.

I had to incorporate how someone else was affected.

And it was, it was a maturing process, but it was really hard.

And we went back to the States and went back to school.

And the pressure of everything and being married, I attempted suicide a second time because I thought she

can move on.

I can't.

This is my burden to carry.

And I tried to carry it alone.

And

I don't wish this on anyone, but sitting in the hospital waiting to know whether you're going to live or die,

I saw the love from her, from Tiana

that I didn't quite comprehend at that point.

A Christ-like love, a love that I am going to stand here by your side no matter what.

And

I'm sad that it took me that to see it,

but I have never had an attempt since.

I've gotten close and I've had difficult times, but I kept, you can speak to it better, but I feel like I kind of tried to be what I thought she needed instead of being an equal partner.

So before we get you to answer that,

did you see this coming?

in your relationship, the second attempt?

I think before we got married, I really

had to have this like internal introspection of like can I handle all things like can I handle best case scenario and worst case scenario and I understood before we got married that worst case scenario was like losing him but for me I

I saw him for who he was I saw him for who God knew him to be and

when we connected that I mean first night and all the other times that we went on all these dates, I saw his heart and his like love for people and God and his just, he was a good person.

And I could see him

like

trying through the struggle.

And I, I adored that.

I thought he was my hero.

I was like, wow, I can't imagine what it must feel like to not have your mind be

a cent, yes, a centering, like safe place.

I have that.

You know, I've, like he said, I've I've gone through hard things, but I could always come back to my mind and know that it was a safe place that I could.

And your mind, most people don't understand if you haven't gone through something like this.

Your mind knows you better than, it's like AI.

It knows you better than you know.

And so it just.

It can trick you.

Yeah, it just goes around.

And

a good friend of mine with alcoholism said, when you least expect it, expect it, because it will seem completely rational to you to take that drink.

And when that happened to me, I was like, oh my gosh,

your mind just can blind you.

So did you see it coming, though?

Did you see the ramp up or was that a surprise when

he attempted it?

I think we were both busy.

We were both going to school.

And I think,

I don't know, I didn't see it coming at all.

Can I ask you something that I have to believe most people have asked you?

And if I were you, it would piss me off a little bit because of what you just said about your husband.

But before you got married, you're not stupid.

So you did examine.

But I imagine people come up and say, why did you marry him in the first place?

Yeah, I did.

I had that a lot.

Not a lot, but a little bit.

Your dad told me that he even went to you and said, you don't understand.

I don't want to throw my puny rants under the bus, but they did have a talk with Tiana and kind of said, are you sure?

Do you understand what you're getting into?

I will say 100%.

My methodology when I got to the seriousness of wanting to marry someone was

everything has to be in the open.

Yeah.

I can't hide anything going in.

And

it's not fair, not right.

And so I think I try to be as transparent as possible, but you can't know everything.

Well, your father told me the other day that

he tried to warn you.

And he said, when you said, I've prayed about it, I know.

He said,

who am I to argue with God?

Yeah.

I mean, that's really what happened.

I prayed about it and I asked the Lord, you know, I understand this is worst case scenario.

Am I going to be okay?

And I got my answer.

And so I was like, okay, we're going to do this.

Like, whatever happens,

it's going to work out and I'm going to be okay.

I've gone gone through how things, you know, we all have a story.

We all have difficulty and we all suffer.

And so

I was, I guess, ready to take the good, which I knew was so good with, you know, through sickness and health.

How did you react when you found out?

What,

I mean, because,

I mean, both of you guys at times,

And I know, I don't know you're, I know you're not, but at times you both seem superhuman to me.

You know, because,

I mean, Tanya and I go through stuff all the time.

And there are moments that you're like, okay,

all right.

And there have to be those moments.

Yes.

Plenty.

But

my gosh,

you're taking on things that most people

don't.

They don't have to live like you and they would choose not to live like you.

what was your first reaction when you found out that he tried to kill himself so

i

i'm a really heavy sleeper and i had inspiration that was like get up and so i got up and i it was like it was like i didn't hear god's voice but it was like i got all this information i don't know if you've ever had that feeling and i just knew he attempted suicide like he was he had attempted he'd taken something.

And I just got up and I said, Aaron, what did you do?

And he was like,

nothing.

And it was like, I don't know, three in the morning.

It was early morning hours.

And he just looked at me and I was like, let's go.

We're going to the hospital.

And so I was really in like that go mode of just like, we're having a crisis.

And so I don't even remember feeling much of anything except I've got to take this man that I love like to the hospital

because I know he's taken a lot of pills.

And in your mind, you were doing her a favor.

Yeah.

So that night was really difficult for me.

I called seven people

and no one answered.

And it reinforced this validation of my thinking.

The person I needed to talk to was in the bedroom next me.

And that's something I want to stress to people in crisis:

that there is always someone, there's hotlines, if nothing else.

But at that time, I only saw her someone to

live up to,

and I misread it.

And had I just gone and had the conversation with her

of where I really was, and I might need to withdraw from school, and I'm overwhelmed by everything.

And had that conversation.

I went into that hospital.

The doctor said there's a 35 to 40% chance you don't come out here alive.

And

then just waiting for that process.

And I don't want to go into more detail, but.

When did you go?

Dear God, what have I done?

I had a weird experience because there was, I want to be careful how I talk to details, but I could have done something else in the process.

And it was right there to do it.

And one of the first questions they asked when we got there was, did you do this as well as what you did?

And I said, no.

And I knew right then that that was that that was the difference.

And I didn't know 100% out like there was a chance I'd had kidney damage and dialysis and there was still a lot to know.

So was that in whether you thought it or not at the time, was that a almost a cry for help of I'm not going that far I want some chance to live no

understand the interaction no in the moment I didn't know honestly I just had so much in my body I didn't know if I could take any more in

and um and I love Dr.

Pepper and I took it with Dr.

Pepper and it probably wasn't a good mix because it of all the carbonation so so uh so yeah so that was a blessing

this podcast brought to you by dr pepper reluctantly Yeah.

So, yeah.

So, I think there was, there was a lot learned in that.

And, um, it was a turning point for our marriage because, like,

up until that point, it was early on.

It was like the first year and a half.

Yeah.

Um, he always shut me out.

Like, I just need to be alone.

Just go away.

Like, I'm fine.

I just need to be alone.

And so, as somebody who's like the caregiver or the loved one of someone suffering, it was like, I already felt so hopeless.

I already didn't know what to do.

And then then it was just like, you know, pushing me away.

And I think after that experience, he realized that how important it was to let me in.

And your partners.

Yeah.

And for me, that was huge in that connection and trust.

And even if I didn't know what to say, I could just tell him I loved him and just sit with him for hours at night.

And just, he didn't have to do this all alone.

It was healing.

So is this?

Because you've talked about a paradigm shift.

Is this where the paradigm shift happened?

Or was that at the beginning?

Your first.

There's different.

There was definitely a paradigm shift.

I've actually talked in

a church that kind of before that time,

there's a, I guess I'll just share it with you.

There's a scripture.

So my second son's name is Jairus.

We call him Jai, but his name's Jairus.

One of my favorite.

I don't know if you've watched The Chosen, but they did a great, great version of it.

And

there's a line in there when they arrive.

He gets Jesus.

He finds, he realizes Jesus is the only one who can save her.

They get there and they say, and the master of the sin, I can't remember who it is, but he says,

trouble not the master.

He's got Jesus with him.

He's like, hey, you've arrived too late.

Maybe he can heal people.

We've heard all the miracles he's done.

I'm paraphrasing, pardon me,

but you're too late.

Trouble not the master.

And I think even the apostles in that point, they hadn't seen him raise someone from the dead.

So they're probably like, dang it.

You know,

we did the best we could.

And the message I have to people is: that's kind of how I lived that first few years before that.

Trouble not the master.

Yeah, yeah.

Like

he's forgiven me more than times than I deserve.

He's, I'm not good enough.

I'm defective.

What can I measure up to?

How can I be of worth to God?

And I had a lot of that thinking in my head.

And

Jesus turns to Dryus and says, fear not, believe only.

And then he goes and raises his daughter from the dead.

And

my exclamation to people is, Christ is God.

Christ is the Son of God.

Christ can do all things.

So let's not take our illnesses and our difficulties and think we're past the point of, as long as there is breath in our life or even past and even past and we can get into a whole nother conversation about that but uh

there's always hope there's always hope and all we have to do is have the strength to turn to him

so when things get really dark for you

because i would imagine you have gone through times where you feel god has abandoned me all of this and it's nice to have i mean my faith

My faith, I feel, is pretty rock-solid, unshakable.

But my family has just gone through some things where

I could have easily started to go, you know, what else?

What, what else here?

I mean,

what have you abandoned?

You know what I mean?

And I didn't, thank goodness, but I could easily do that some other time.

When you've got your mind playing all kinds of tricks and leading you into darkness, how do you hold on to that?

So there's a lot of methodology to that.

I think there's two sides of it.

For me, there's one of the things we talk a lot about, one thing that changed about, I think it was, I remember driving home from college.

It took me nine years to graduate from college after having a scholarship and all these things beforehand.

It had to go slow and steady.

And I remember driving home and just crying as I drove home from night school, thinking, will I ever have a day I don't feel suicidal?

And I didn't want to die.

I had a lot of, I'm a pretty optimistic person, but the ideation with stress and all these things just wouldn't go away.

And I just remember thinking, will I ever, I'll tell you now, that was 10 years, eight years ago.

I don't feel that anymore.

And one thing that has really helped me, there's some medical interventions that really helped, but one thing that really helped

was seeing the illness as an illness.

And I think too many people, because it affects emotional states and

kind of the cerebral cortex and kind of how you think and different things,

we start to tie our self-worth to how we feel.

I always tell people, we react on emotion more than we think.

Just normal people.

When it's our birthday, we feel a little better.

Or when we have something that happened on a day in the past, we have a trauma in the past.

That day is going to be always a little harder than other days.

We have a great dream or a bad dream that can stick with you all.

Yeah.

And so we, we more, even people who are pretty intellectual, I think make decisions on how they feel more than they think.

And so one thing I've had to learn is to kind of separate my decisions from how I feel.

And it's hard because it's pressing on you.

So I joke with people like, it's like giving the lion inside you a ball of yarn to play with.

You're not repressing it.

You're not caging it, but you're kind of giving it place in you without living it.

Yeah.

And one thing I've learned in years of depression that I never learned this from a book or therapy, but it it kind of speaks generally is

if we can learn to separate.

So when you feel depressed, usually you want to either escape it or you want to validate it.

And so what I find a lot of young people do early on is they want to validate.

They feel terrible and they want to reinforce by watching movies that are kind of disturbing, by listening to music that reinforces that state because it then gives play as like, okay, this is part of me.

So, this is, I mean, a very

surfacey kind of comparison.

You break up with somebody, you want to listen to sad songs.

Okay.

But that can go to the extreme and that digs you deeper into it.

It depends.

So now I have a methodology where

I will have time.

There's times when I feel really down.

I have a playlist of depressing music, but it's never suicide's the answer.

It's never escaping.

It's validating.

It's saying, this is part of what I deal with and I need some validation in this place.

So I'll go get in the bath with the lights off and kind of listen to it for a period.

And then I'm done.

And then I move back to

interacting with my kids and connecting with them.

So what was the other one?

One is validating.

You said they go two ways.

Escape.

Escape.

I think a lot of times, right, we want to run away from our problems.

We want to self-medicate.

We want to do things to kind of not feel it, the depression.

And I think especially if you don't understand

it.

Like I, cause that's why I'm an alcoholic.

You know, I, I, I thought it was my marriage.

I thought it was me.

I thought, you know, you just keep going through stuff.

That's why it's important.

I think when you said about the woman who you talked to at first, she showed you where you wouldn't find it.

You know, you wouldn't find the answers.

That's hard, especially if you don't know anyone who's ever had real depression.

Yeah.

So, um,

what have you found that helps?

I mean, we're we're sitting in a nation now that, I mean, suicide is off the charts.

And,

I mean, I have my own theories on why that's happening, but one of the biggest ones seems to be your bigger answer, and that's God.

There doesn't seem to be a universal

understanding of

we are here for a reason and our life, all of our lives, no matter what, has a purpose, has a reason.

We have a reason to be.

What are the things that,

and I'd probably rather have you at first start.

What are the things that

somebody who is dealing with this at home, somebody who hasn't seen it,

what are the things,

when do you say something?

When do you not say something?

Like getting help, you're saying?

Yeah.

And just dealing with it.

What are the do's and the don'ts here?

Let's start there first.

Well, and from, I'll speak from like a caregiver loved one standpoint first.

I think Erin kind of touched on this, like no, understanding that it's an illness.

So if somebody has been like diagnosed or is chronically dealing with these depressive symptoms,

as a caregiver, the best thing that you can do is

recognize that it's an illness.

It's not like they don't love you enough, so they're choosing to stay in bed or they don't care about you enough, so they don't want to go out with you or something like that.

It really is an illness.

And for me, that was such a

big

turning point in our marriage.

And I think in the continuing that trust and connection was I knew if Aaron

could get up, he would.

If he could get out of bed, he would.

And it stopped being about like me and the reflection it was on me if I went to church by myself or things like that.

And it was more of like, my husband is giving everything that he can

and he'd get up and go with me if he could.

So how do you get there?

I mean, it takes a lot of time.

Without getting in the details,

that's a tough one.

I have three children who have gone through this in the last year.

And

part of it, especially with teenagers,

This society is so upside down, so screwed up and pouring just poison into them.

And nobody expects anything from anybody.

And you're comparing yourself online all the time.

I said this to the counselor.

How do I know what's real?

I know what depression is.

I know what suicide is.

My mother committed suicide.

I get it.

But how do you know when it's real and when it's environmental?

Yeah,

it's a tricky dance that I do.

And I think it just takes time.

And over years,

I know when Aaron is,

and I tell me if I'm not answering your question right, but I can tell when Aaron is really struggling and just not able to get up and out of bed.

And I can tell when I can maybe push him a little bit.

And if I get pushed back, then I step back.

So I kind of know, like, I'm in therapy, therapists do this where it's like, we're going to push you a little bit, but not too far because we don't want you to shut down, you know.

So I think

that's a hard one to answer because it takes time and recognizing his triggers and him being aware.

And I think also a big part is that open communication.

Like, we've had a lot of conversations about, like, I really need you to tell me when it's like when you're starting to feel triggered or like not, not when it's too late and we're kind of in crisis mode.

And, and I've told my patients and their families, especially with kids, sometimes like they don't want to open up and share what they're feeling.

Sometimes, having like a code would, it sounds so cliche, but like, even if like pineapple, like pineapple means like I'm having suicidal thoughts, or I, you know, define it beforehand, sit down with your loved one and come up with a plan because sometimes they don't want to tell you, hey, this is what I'm feeling.

So tell me about ideation and then tell me why it's so important to know it.

Tell me about ideation.

Yeah,

the best analogy I think of is it's a different application, but I remember being a Boy Scout when I was a lot young and getting a life-saving marriage badge.

And they tell you when someone's drowning to come up from behind them because they'll try to drown you.

And you think in that crisis of panic, how getting a breath is all that matters for that person drowning.

I think sometimes

suicidal ideation is similar.

Your body, your brain, for different reasons, sometimes trigger, sometimes emotional, but mostly biochemical on some level.

Your brain's kind of saying abort, like it can't deal with this level of stress or this level of difficulty.

And the only answer is shutting the system down.

And so it's almost like you're not consciously thinking about it.

It just starts incessantly coming.

And it is often with sleep deprivation, stress.

Um, and sometimes, like you were saying earlier, it just comes out of the blue.

Sometimes you wake up and you're thinking, This is a great day, and then two hours later, you're like, I wish I never woke up.

And you, you have to learn

to

live with that a little bit.

For me, there's there are relief.

Um, I've done four years of ketamine IVs, which have done more good for me and

changing those pathways than anything, but it still comes.

And

knowing you don't have to act on it.

Creating that foundation where suicide isn't the answer, whether your brain is telling you it is or not, is so important.

And then kind of working from there.

And do I have, I have meds.

So when it gets really bad,

just recently, a couple of weeks ago,

I'm trying to find more stability.

And so I'm taking some different meds than I've taken before.

And I'm not doing ketamine currently.

And so I'm trying to find more capacity.

And there's always this, like, do I be grateful that I'm depressed, but not suicidal, but can't function well?

Or do I like push for more?

And there's always this balance of being grateful for what you have, but also wanting to grow.

And so I tried a med combination that sent me through the roof.

Like I was

agitated, mania.

So that, that, yeah, kind of.

And

all of a sudden, I'm thinking, oh, I'm back where I was and I don't like this.

And, um,

and so I, I went and binge ate and I bent like 70 bucks on food, buying like a bunch of different food and ate and tried to soothe myself.

And then I came home.

I was like, okay, this isn't going to,

what we don't want to do is go self-harm or go attempt.

So what do we do?

So I came home.

I used kind of code words.

I told Tiana, this is where I'm at.

I need to go take some meds that I have learned over time will sedate me and they're sublingual.

So they'll work within 20 to 30 minutes, but I'll be out for 18 hours.

And that's a big ask of her, right?

And she didn't see it coming and I didn't see it coming.

And all of a sudden, we're like, hey, guess what?

You need to clear your table for the next two days and do everything.

And luckily, I've found that that works and it can be helpful, but every time is different.

And then there's other times where you just, you try to distract, you try to just get sleep and get to bed eventually.

But there's times where I have my kids and I can't take meds and I'm ideating.

And so I'll call a neighbor and say, can you

take my little ones for an hour?

Because I can't deal with the emotional stimulus and just have a little bit of a reprieve.

And

you just find different tools.

But the most important thing is realizing that this is kind of a symptom and

it's not the truth.

And that you still, I try to tell people all the time, there's always a balance between understanding the validity of the illness, that it is a real illness and disorder that you can't control.

But there's always some circle of influence that you can control.

And sometimes it's as simple as sleeping, medicating, and,

you know, exercise if you can even do that.

and just staying alive through the day.

Like that's as far as it gets.

And other days it is more than than that but just helping people understand focus on what you can influence to get through the day and hope tomorrow's very aa in a way yeah is it one day at a time yeah one day at a time

so talk to me about ideation because he he was expressing it from

his point of view let me talk to you about

um

when

you say i i you know i'm depressed or i have somebody the first question is, have you planned a way to do it?

Yeah.

Why is that so important?

Well, so he was talking about like the drowning, your mind is telling you to a bolt.

When you think of like

our

natural human instinct is to be, is to survive, is to be alive.

So you're overcoming that natural like defense mechanism.

When you're at that point,

like we were saying before, our thoughts are really no longer rational.

And we're in this place place where our mind is like a brain is literally trying to kill us.

And it feels like we're in this, I often will tell patients, you're like in a tornado.

Like you can't see the rainbow.

The storm will end.

The tornado will finally pass, but all you see is just debris flying everywhere.

And you're right there in the middle of it.

No way out.

And no way out.

And it doesn't, you know, someone posted on Instagram recently like suicidal doesn't have a face.

It really doesn't.

Like

you could be having a great time with your family in the morning and be attempting suicide at night.

And so suicidal ideation is really serious because you've overcome that natural defense mechanism of survival.

And that takes,

that's extreme like thought.

And it's too much for, I tell my patients, that's too much for one person to bear on their shoulders alone.

Um, and so my advice is always to the patient or the person suffering: you have to reach out, and sometimes all it can be is a code word or, um, you know, just

I need help.

And then, for somebody who's the caregiver, the loved one,

you know, the first thing you want to do is validate.

You don't want to say, oh, but your life is so wonderful.

You know, you have to.

Why don't you want to do that?

Well, it really, it, it

negates their feelings and their thoughts and um

and it for me and i don't know i'd be interested to hear from you for me when people said you know just pull yourself up just get going you got so much to live for

it it it

i i remember just feeling really you don't think i thought of that yeah

yeah can i speak to that a little bit um

so i have a my oldest oldest son's middle name is Rich, and he's named after a doctor that helped save my life.

And I sat in his office after the first suicide attempt, probably a few months later, dejected and, you know, had my hoodie on, all the cliche, like staring at the ground.

I was a shell of who I am.

And he kept trying to tell me, we can try this med, we can try this med, and da-da-da-da.

And he just stopped in the middle of a sentence one.

And he just looked at me.

And

he gave me i won't go into details of what he said but he pretty much said i see you're trying everything you can and he gave me permission to suffer and to to look at those as options like to think maybe there isn't an option and it it was so validating because here i was the same kid that had the straight a's at school before

um it was just a set of different set of circumstances and you would think that a doctor would say this is you you know, a layman doctor would say, don't, don't say there may not be an answer here.

Yeah.

And that's what I needed.

I need someone to look at me and say, I see how hard you're trying.

And I frankly don't know if I can help you, but I want to.

And I was like, okay, let's try something else.

And I'm not saying that changed everything overnight, but it was the first time sometimes our support systems, especially if they don't understand mental health,

they try to fix us because they love us.

And they also try to fix us because it's hard for them.

And they don't want to see us suffering.

Right.

And they don't want to suffer.

And if you can get outside of that and walk the journey with the person and meet them where they are,

and it doesn't have to be the same person.

It's not always a parent.

It can be different people.

That meant so much to me that I named my firstborn son, which I only thought I was going to have one.

Named him after that doctor because he saved my

Well, and truthfully, when people are having suicidal ideation, they don't want to die.

They want relief.

They're in such despair.

They want someone to like, to reach out to, to listen, to like it.

You want it to stop.

Yeah.

You just want it to stop.

You want it to stop.

So

you said ketamine.

Yeah.

I mean, you've tried, I'm sure you tried everything.

I'm i'm lucky i a couple of different things and i was i mean i woke up i felt like i remember looking at myself in the mirror saying where have you been you know it was just like it was like not me it was weird um

but they've tried everything with you how common is this kind of depression?

Not as common.

Not as common.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And bipolar disorder is a little trickier because you're managing both mood states.

You're managing the mania and you're also managing depression.

When you feel good, it's got to be hard to go.

This danger.

I mean,

yeah, I've learned a lot from making some stupid choices when I feel good, but there's always a balance.

Sometimes I'm not very productive because when you feel really down for a long time and you feel really good, you're just like, I want to bask in it.

I just want to sit in it and I don't want to really do anything.

I just want to enjoy it.

And that must be hard for you in a way because for a while until it gets really bad, you have your husband and he's feeling good.

Yeah,

he's super human when he feels good.

Or sometimes I'll be like, yeah, like, here's the list of everything to do.

Like, come on, you feel good.

Let's get it done.

But he, but, you know, I do understand when he says that.

Like, i i felt so bad for like two weeks i just want to enjoy connecting with my family and the the two the two hardest speaking to bipolar just quickly the two hardest places are when you go from feeling really good to crashing because no matter how many times you've done it that contrast really bites you in the butt i mean you just

cringe and you're just like, why did I get, why was I so dumb when I was feeling good?

Like, why didn't I see this coming?

And so, in some ways, I keep that in the back of my head now.

The other is when you get in a mixed state where you feel depressed, but have a lot of energy because you're impulsive.

And that's when you're in danger of acting on it.

When you're really depressed, you're like, Yeah, I feel like dying, but I can't be bothered to get out of bed.

I mean, I'm general, everyone's different, but sometimes you're like, I can't, I can't do it.

When you're in a mixed state, it's a very scary place.

So, anytime you can

do anything, whether meds or psychologically or therapeutically, to kind of mitigate the highs and lows, kind of stay in the middle a little more and not act out on the highs and lows, the more stability.

What I found in time is what I really crave is stability.

What I really crave is connecting with my children and not being in bed all day.

And so I will forego some of the euphoria to stay in that place longer.

And that as maturity, as as I've grown older, say that's maturity.

Yeah, that creates a lot of perspective.

That's really helpful.

Medication, EMDR, you have tried.

Music, you said music helps you.

It's a therapeutic technique.

You know, I have a hypomanic playlist.

I have a depressing playlist.

I have.

Is there a playlist that he clicks on?

You're like, uh-oh.

Yeah, there is.

There is, okay.

Yeah.

And

what else is there for treatment?

What else can you do?

So therapy, I mean, medication, therapy,

having those both together is, they work synergistically.

So is it different for therapy?

Because you are like the quintessential chemically depressed guy.

You know what I mean?

Your chemicals are all over the place.

But there is also

chemical depression that is kicked off because you've got something happening in your life and you spiral out.

Right.

And that happens to people and they eventually come back out.

Right.

So therapy for you, I would imagine, is much different than the therapy for everyone else.

Therapy for you, I would imagine, is more of, okay,

here are the mile markers and how to deal with the mile markers and judge yourself and judge reality.

Am I wrong?

I think there's a lot of

therapy that kind of helps across the board with all like mental health issues, and especially like when it comes to self-worth and some of the trauma that maybe you've experienced.

And therapy is all about kind of retraining those pathways, those connections that we've made.

When we get triggered by like trauma or whatever trigger we may have, then we, we, our brain kind of goes down, whether it's adaptive, meaning like a positive connection we've made or like maladaptive where it's not helpful to us and it will go there so in therapy you're retraining those maladaptive connections which is which is what emdr does i think it's yeah it when by moving your eyes if i'm not mistaken it yes it re

when you have a tragedy or something your brain can't deal with it so it misfiles it all over you know and puts pieces of it in different file cabinets so when you see something all of a sudden that file cabinet is opened up and that shouldn't, that fear or that memory or that feeling that you had from that comes out of that file cabinet and you don't know necessarily why.

Is that right?

Yes, or how to stop it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It is clear to me.

Well, I'll have you speak on it.

Would you be here if God, if you didn't have God in your life?

No, not at all.

I want to say, like, I think sometimes we look at Christ, right, as this, and God, it can be different to different people, but for me, Christ is important.

And we look at this perfect person or this ideal.

I think it's important to look at Christ.

And, you know, he said, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me.

He said, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?

In a time of desperation, he said, then saith unto them, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death.

Tarry ye here, watch with me.

Those are Christ.

So, when we're feeling those same things,

we're not abandoned.

Maybe we're right where we need to be.

Maybe we're on the path of discipleship and coming to know our Savior.

And what we do after that is what matters.

God, for you.

It has met everything in my life, in my relationship, and how I,

I guess, care like for Aaron or just how we operate in our relationship.

I don't know that we would still be here together without God.

I have to tell you, I think the most important thing you said was

you saw him, I'm paraphrasing, but you saw him

for who he really was.

Yeah.

That's hard to do, I think impossible probably without God.

But when you recognize

who that person really is,

that's when you can love your, even your enemies.

Yeah.

Because you can see, ooh, there's so much pain in there.

You know?

Could I ask both of you to do one thing?

I want you to look into that camera and you look into that camera.

You start.

Okay.

And talk to someone who is going through it with someone else.

and talk to them.

Well,

first off, I want to say, you know, I see you.

I see you as the caregiver.

Sometimes that can get like overshadowed because if you have a loved one that's suffering so much,

you kind of feel like you have to juggle all the balls and hold everything together and be the strong one.

And so

I want you to know that I see you and

I see your pain and you're suffering in a different way.

And

I guess I want you to remember that you are loved by

God and that

you have a village around you.

And even though this illness can feel so isolating, even as a caregiver of a loved one suffering, that it's so important to know

that when to reach out and to be open to ask for help so that you can get what you need to fill your cup and then be able to be there more for the person that you love that's going through this

one

Before you speak, I think the most important thing you said that I heard

was

Once you're open once you're willing to share

things change.

And I know this as an alcoholic.

Everybody, when I was growing up, I was, you know, talk about being an alcoholic, and I really didn't care.

I had nothing to lose.

And I started talking about it and sharing things.

And so many people would come up and they would whisper to me, you know, thank you for saying that because I felt that way or I did this.

And I realized.

We all are the same.

We all are going through something.

And it only changes when we talk to each other.

So you look into this, Cameron.

Speak to them.

I hope anyone out there suffering knows.

I've been where you are.

And I love you for your resilience.

It takes courage to get out of bed.

It takes courage to get up and be a part of this world, even when you feel like there's not much for you.

I went to that place where I thought there was nothing, and I've now lived 10 years since then or more.

I have three beautiful children and a wife who loves me, and I have purpose and hope.

It's not perfect,

but it's worth it.

My message to people is

I hope you'll raise your voice.

whatever level you can.

I know everyone can't shout it from the rooftops.

But I hope that the message sometimes in our society, we see so many people lose their battle to suicide.

And there's a place for that.

We need to respect and honor those people.

But what we really need is the people who are struggling to live,

who are choosing to find hope,

to stand up and tell people, I'm struggling, but I want to live.

I want to find purpose.

I want to find reason.

Those are the people that will help those of us who are struggling.

Those are my heroes.

And I hope you'll continue to fight day by day, one step at a time, and be patient with yourself on that journey.

And a final message from me:

if you don't find yourself in the situation of either of these two,

you might,

but you know somebody who is going through this.

It is worth it.

And it may not seem it, but it is so worth it.

Please pass this on to somebody else who

needs that message.

Good night.

Just a reminder: I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.

Packages by Expedia.

You were made to occasionally take the hard route to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

We were made to easily bundle your trip.

Expedia.

Made to travel.

Flight-inclusive packages are at all protected.