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Can+Did, a TN Voices Podcast
Can+Did, a TN Voices Podcast
Dr. Tobi Amosun
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Dive into this episode about suicide awareness and intervention and see what Tennessee is doing to help save lives!
Handed is a podcast of Tennessee Voices about mental health, featuring stories of people who have overcome mental health challenges, as well as those who have helped people overcome mental health challenges. This podcast is about authenticity and it's intended to give a voice to those who are passionate about mental well-being. We hope that by sharing stories, listeners understand mental health and just how important it is in our day-to-day lives, and they will help us reduce stigma. We want you to know that so many who have struggled with mental health can and did overcome their challenges. And if you are struggling, you can too. I'm your host, Ricky Harris, CEO of Tennessee Voices, and with me is my favorite co-host, Will Voss, COO of Tennessee Voices. Welcome to our podcast. Let's get candid.
SPEAKER_00Thank you to our candid sponsors who made this episode possible. The Omni Family of Services is a multi-state human services agency serving adults and children. Through a trauma-competent lens, they provide a continuum of care, including foster care, family preservation, behavioral health, and primary care services, focused on helping kids, families, and the communities they live in strong and healthy. To learn more about the Omni family of services or to contact an office near you, there's a link provided in this podcast description, along with the contact email if you or your business would like to sponsor an episode of Can Did.
SPEAKER_03Well, welcome, welcome to this episode of the Can Did Podcast, a special episode and a very special guest today. And we're going to get to all that. I'm Ricky Harris, your host, and with me my co-host.
SPEAKER_01Will Balls. Hello, hello, hello.
SPEAKER_03It's a Friday for us, y'all, so we're a little relaxed. I think that's a good fit for this topic today on this special edition podcast. But I do want to introduce our guest, Dr. Anderson. And Dr. Anderson, thank you for being here and your desire to just reach the audience around the topic of suicide and suicide prevention. And I can't wait to dive into all that. But first, will you just tell the audience a little bit about yourself, what you do, where you work, all the you know, fun stuff.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely. So I'm a pediatrician by training. Um, I used to work as a medical director for a very large pediatric practice here in Nashville. Um I mostly was working with the Medicaid population, mostly working with um a Spanish-speaking population, which has been my passion for years and years. Um, I used to be part of that population. So it's something that hits very near and dear to my heart. A lot of refugees, a lot of immigrant families, and they really have been really what drove me into doing public health. I got into this job almost two years ago now, which is hard to believe it's been two years, but I've been in this job for almost two years. And now I'm um assistant commissioner for the Tennessee Department of Health. I work in the division of family health and wellness, working with everything from injury prevention to maternal child health to chronic disease prevention, health promotion, and also our reproductive women's health. Anything that has to do with early childhood falls underneath me. There are a bunch of other stuff underneath me as well, but that's really the main bulk of my job.
SPEAKER_03That is amazing. Oh my goodness, all of it. But the family health and wellness piece, let me just dive in there for a second. There's so much to that. There's so many factors and layers in family health. We love working on family, um, family dynamic, family systems, you know, the whole thing. So talk just a little bit about what family health and wellness looks like under the Department of Health. What do you guys do?
SPEAKER_04So when we're looking at family health and wellness, we're looking across the life spectrum for the lifespan really for families. So we're looking from not just the infant stage, but actually prenatally and maternal health before a woman even or a person even gets pregnant. We're looking across the lifespan. So we're looking at what does mental health look for people when they're in their teens before they're even considering having a family? What does mental health look like for people in the workforce, for veterans? What does it look like for um people who decide to get pregnant? Um and mostly what and really what a lot of my focus has been has been looking at that maternal aspect, looking at the what happens in that perinatal aspect and perinatal meaning, what happens around the time that someone gives birth in that first year. And then also long term, what can we do to mitigate ACEs? What can we do to mitigate an ACES? Sorry, ACEs or adverse childhood experiences. What can we do to mitigate ACEs? What can we do to provide positive childhood experiences for families to counteract some of the negative things that may have happened in early childhood?
SPEAKER_03Amazing. We talk a lot about ACEs on this podcast and have in the past. Um, and we know one thing about adverse childhood experiences and and or we could say trauma in a person's life that it can lead to a high risk of mental health needs and even suicide. So I'm I'm excited to dive into the conversation about suicide. But I know Will has his burning question that starts with a W for all of our guests.
SPEAKER_01You know, just waiting on it. Waiting on it, waiting on it. So, Dr. Anderson, we talk a lot about the why. So, what's your why? Why this field, why why this role, why is this topic important to you?
SPEAKER_04Well, I mean, I could hit this on so many different levels. I think about the very first funeral I attended, I was 12. Um, and my I'm not, I won't say his name, but I remember the classmate who committed who sorry, and I want to make sure I'm using the right terms. We don't use committed suicide or completed suicide, we use died by suicide now. So just a it's a little educational term for people. Um I remember my classmate who died by suicide when I was 12. And that was the very first funeral that I ever went to. And I just remember that was really, and I hate to say that was a core memory, but that was really a core memory for me, just remember remembering how broken up all of my classmates were, remembering how hard that was on the teachers, remembering even when like we were 12 when that happened, but when we graduated from high school, I was showing my daughter my high school yearbook the other day, and there was a whole page dedicated to him in the yearbook. So that was my first interaction with suicide. Um, and then also as a obviously as a pediatrician, I'm very often the very first person that a lot of kids will say that they're having suicidal ideation to, which I take as it's a burden, but at the same time, it's a privilege to know that they feel like I'm a safe space to mention that to. Our clinic, the where I still see patients once a week, and the clinic where I work has always been very proactive about screening because we have we do have a high risk population. But screening about suicide, asking about it, wealth into work as much as we possibly can, which I feel, and I know that not all clinics can do that, but that's something that we've made a priority just because we saw the need very early. And then even just on my own personal journey, um, when I had and not necessarily suicide, but just mental health and anxiety and depression, that kind of thing. I have two kids. And with my first pregnancy, I really struggled. And I'm a very high-functioning adult. I'm a very well-educated person with lots of resources, and I didn't think it would happen to me. And it was the thing that I always think is funny is when I look back, it's very clear to me now, looking back, that there was something wrong that I should have sought help for postpartum depression. I should have sought help for postpartum anxiety. And I just thought I could do it all on my own. And the reason I realized that was when I had my second kid, and when I had my second kid, I was like, oh, so this is what it's like to enjoy that postpartum period. This is what it's like to actually like really like your baby and not have like bad thoughts about your child. Um, yeah, so those are sort of that's sort of my personal journey. And then also sort of like looking forward, I have a child who has special health care needs, and I sort of see the anxiety in him that is surrounded by those special health care needs. So for those of you who may not know, kids who have special health care needs very often have a lot of anxiety and depression around their disease, around their medical situation. And so I've gotten by design or whatever, I've gotten the chance to sort of see this along the spectrum from the time I was a teenager to the time I was a mom myself, to the time that I've had my own kids to sort of watch that anxiety, depression, mental health issues sort of bubble up and realize that a lot of people are dealing with this. This is not uncommon. I think that that's the that's the I think I think that's the trick that mental health tries to play on you, is that you're the only person who's dealing with all this. You're not. I mean, you're when I say you're not, you're really you're not. And when you start talking about everybody's like, yes, that's exactly my story. That was my story, that was my journey. And I think that that's the trick that mental health tries to play on you is that you're the only person who's ever dealt with this ever on the planet. When in reality, there are probably 10 people in the same room dealing with the same thing.
SPEAKER_03That is so true because as you were talking, I'm I I identify with two parts of your story. I I experienced uh suicide young in my life, where um my grandfather died by suicide when I was seven, and then I experienced postpartum depression. So it's like, yeah, you're exactly right. You could sit in a room with a few people and probably half or more completely relate to it.
SPEAKER_04And I and I think that's I think that's the power in sharing your story, is when you share your story, you realize how many other people have similar threads in their own stories that connect to yours. It may not be exactly the same journey, but if people I feel like that that's so powerful. And when and I know with my own patients, I really try to share that it's okay to feel sad. It's okay to feel anxious, it's okay to feel depressed. That is a normal human emotion to feel for everyone. The issue that I worry about is when it's getting to the point where you're worrying that it may progress to the next level. And what can we do to prevent that, mitigate that ahead of time? And if we're a little bit further down the course, what can we do to help you out and give you the resources that you need?
SPEAKER_01You know, Dr. Emerson, you you mentioned you talk about the power of the story, and that's something that we we've a phrase we've utilized across our agency over time. And we've also talked about the power of a peer. So we we employ those peer specialists, those with lived experience, and teach them how to advocate and how to share their story because there are others out there, as we've been talking about, who they've got similar experiences and they're trying to figure out well, what is step one? So I really, really appreciate you bringing that to light. And you know, we were talking earlier about who's listening, and there are people out there that are going to be listening, able to connect and know that you're not alone. You're not alone.
SPEAKER_04Right. Right. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I was just thinking as you were talking. So for the listeners who might have a loved one in their life that they're worrying about right now, what could they be looking for? What signs, symptoms, things should trigger them asking more questions or possibly encouraging someone they love to reach out for help?
SPEAKER_04Sure. So in terms of what, and I guess maybe what I look for is a little bit different from maybe what a loved one would look for, but because very often what I see in clinic is very different from what's happening at home. So in terms of what if you're at home, what I would be looking for would be significant changes in behavior if they're doing their finances very differently, if they're all of a sudden giving away a lot of prized possessions or money to people that you would not expect it to happen. Um, it also things like if there's a significant change in the way they're sleeping, the way they're eating, the way they are interacting with society, they seem a lot more irritable than usual. Do they seem a lot more quiet than usual? Because suicide suicidal ideation or depression anxiety very much manifest themselves different in a lot of different people. And there's not necessarily one button that you can push to say that this is how you know what this is gonna happen. But I would also see things like is there an is there an increased risk of substance use? Um, that's a huge issue in Tennessee. That's one of the main drivers for a lot of our suicidal um, our suicide attempts and as well as suicide um completions. And then also with our maternal mortality, that's a huge risk factor for those things would be increase in substance use. Also, things if someone has lost a lot of money recently. So if you see someone who's gotten fired from their job, uh somebody who has lost a significant amount of money for whatever reason, someone who's going through a huge medical stress, something that seems like it may not have a good resolution, those people are also at increased risk. And one of the things I think is really important to remember is people who don't have a strong social support system are at increased risk. And I think about this a lot when I think about people who are not connected to their faith community, people who may not be connected to a volunteer community, people who may not be connected to their neighbors. And it's, I think this is really where COVID, and I hate to blame the pandemic for things, but this is really where COVID made an unfortunate kind of way at a lot of these things, that it really isolated people. And humans were not ever meant to have to live on an island. We were not meant for isolation. And it has, we are we're seeing it in the numbers that it has increased the rate of substance use. It's increased the rate of calls to our crisis numbers, it's increased the rate of um calls to our suicide um prevention hotlines, it's increased risk of of um of visits to the emergency rooms for either um suicide attempts or people who've actually died by suicide. So I think all of those things are important to keep in mind.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome. I I was just thinking about prevention as well. Just don't know if we mentioned this, but we are talking about this in September because it is National Suicide Prevention Month. So we're gonna get to that topic. But Will, you had a question.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I was gonna talk a lot about, you know, we we were we're talking in general, I think about our the state of Tennessee, how we're so different as we're going from west to east. I was just telling staff yesterday in our cultural diversity and inclusion committee that if we start looking at the landscape, I-40 looks completely different depending on which way you drive.
SPEAKER_04100%.
SPEAKER_01100%, 100%. So I think about all right, well, suicide, is it more prevalent in urban or rural areas?
SPEAKER_04Well, I mean, I think when you look at pre-pandemic versus pre-pandemic, it was always like very it seemed very straightforward and clear cut. East Tennessee in general, because it's a more rural area, um, it's a more white area. You have tend to have more. So, in terms of risk factors, sorry, let me just back up a little bit. When you look at risk factors for suicide, pre-pandemic risk factors for suicide were white rural people in East Tennessee tended to have higher risk of suicides. Um now, post-pandemic, the thing that it's kind of interesting, it's really changed the demographic a little bit. We're starting to see this, like the map is starting to shift a little bit more to the west. We're starting to see more people of color are attempting or dying by suicide. We're seeing the gun component of suicide is starting to shift more west. We're starting to see it be just overall, the volume as a whole has increased. And I think that that's been a really interesting thing to see because where there was one demographic that we were focusing our efforts on before, now we're really having to broaden the scope a lot more than we were before.
SPEAKER_03And I'll just mention, I'm sure you're seeing this too, but the incredible, unbelievable increase in young women who are suicidal and having suicidal ideation. At one point I read that their data, the stats on young women ages 10 to 17, were kind of outpacing the white men data that had been historically the highest group. And now we're looking at young women as young as 10.
SPEAKER_04So, yeah, and I can, I mean, I can vouch for this on a personal level from seeing my patients because I see this on any given week. I have at least one patient who has had suicidal ideation. And the demographic has very much changed. It's shifted a lot younger over the past couple of years. Whereas we were not seeing as many old, like we it was mostly like older teens, maybe who are having um suicide ideation, at least in the pediatric setting. Now we're seeing kids, I mean, I've seen kids as young as like six, seven who are who are expressing suicide ideation. And usually there's a lot of just social chaos happening as well. But yeah, I've seen, I mean, I've seen kids that young. And it's hard to go home and and not be thinking about what like what do I do? How can I make this work? Because even on the mental, and I'm not a mental health professional at all, but I try to fill in the gaps wherever I can. It's it's hard to know what to do with this increasing sort of what feels like a tidal wave of youth who are dealing with mental health issues. I was just at a conference yesterday where that was one of the topics of conversation is what do we do with youth mental health? And we have on the, and this was more on the national level, and we have a lot of things that we're working on, but it's still it's, I mean, you have to sort of not get too much in the weeds almost because it feels so overwhelming at times. It does really feel overwhelming. And there are tools that we have, but it just is one of those things. It just it breaks at the it makes you realize how much community is really important for mitigating and preventing ideation and suit and suicidal attempts, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_02We'll be right back after this short break. TN Voices is now hiring qualified applicants to fill positions all across the state. You can be part of a growing team that puts the mental health of Tennesseans first and thrive in a compassionate work environment. To apply to join our team, log on to tnvoices.org slash employment. Welcome back.
SPEAKER_01When you mention all right, the age is starting to decrease six to seven years old. I I can only imagine. I know hearing it, it just feels heavy. And I think about the listeners who are like, this is reality. And this is these are these are true things that are occurring now. With all of that information and knowing what you're doing with what you see, how is it that you disconnect? How do you practice self self-care? Oh, yeah. Bring it out there.
SPEAKER_04I'm trying not to, I'm not trying, I'm trying not to give you like a maniacal laugh right now. So I mean, sadly, most physicians are really well. We we get really good at like mentally separating ourselves from things because you I take it home, my husband hears me vent about people's social situations, or I'm like, why can't we fix this? Why can't we fix this? What I what I try to do and what we've done, and and I'll say this on two different levels. So I'll say what we've done in my clinic where I work. Um we have brought mental health into the clinic. That has been really an essential part is that we can plug people in on the same day into somebody who can do a quick intake, ask a couple of questions, make sure that there's nothing that is a red flag, and get that person scheduled within a couple of weeks to see a mental health professional. I will say that that's not standard for the state of Tennessee. Um, a lot of places don't necessarily have that ability. I know prior to us having people in clinic, it was taking us like five, six months to get our Medicaid patients into a mental health provider because unfortunately, a lot of mental health providers don't accept Medicaid. Or if they do, their wait list is really long or they're not located in a place that's convenient for a lot of our patients. So that's one thing is to be able to I really am a firm believer in integrating behavioral help into the primary care model is essential because that's where most. Parents will land. They'll either land in school or they'll land in the pediatrician's office. And you have to be able to integrate behavioral health. And so talking about school, another way to do it would be having school-based health clinics, but not just school-based health clinics, school-based mental health support. And I know that Tennessee's actually been one of the leaders in this, that we have a lot of school school systems who have those counselors available. Unfortunately, during the thing that's sad is during the pandemic, a lot of kids, because they were not going to school, lost their mental health counseling. They lost their therapy, like their therapy and counseling they were having on a regular basis. For myself, what do I do? I try to practice self-care. I don't know how good I am, but I try to take vacations whenever I can. I try to really unplug. I one of one of the things I've been really deliberate about is unplugging from social media. Is whenever I'm sort of feeling overwhelmed, I know that usually it's because I'm watching too much news or on my phone too much. So I really I've taken steps to sometimes I take off my social media apps or I'll take off the news alerts from my phone because I know it's important to understand what's going on around the globe, but sometimes that can feel so overwhelming that I know as a person who tends to feel everybody's pain that it's sometimes better for me to sort of remove all that extra noise a little bit. That's how I practice self-care.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's good. I would say you you you're you're achieving the goal, all right? You're at least attempting, you were trying.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, sometimes.
SPEAKER_03That's important. Sorry. So many uh comments that you made struck chords uh for many reasons. A couple of thoughts. The first one was interesting. You were mentioning the young children who have suicidal ideation. Um, it's such a tricky space for parents of children that young. And I think I want to take the moment to just encourage parents, if they are listening, to pay attention to the things that your child says in a way that I think it's easy to write it off and say, oh, they didn't mean that, or that's just something kids say. I'll share a story and then I'll back it up with some evidence of kind of what's happening with kids now. But my one of my daughters had a lot of anxiety as a young person. And at age seven, I remember tucking her in bed one night. We were we were struggling pretty hard with school anxiety. And um, I remember her saying to me, Good night. I hope I don't wake up in the morning. And my heart literally just stopped. And I I was just like, Oh my gosh, you I mean, I just wanted to cry because I thought, how horrible that a seven-year-old child with a no really should be at this point, no care in the world, had the thought that they'd rather just not have to wake up tomorrow because it's too hard. And so just that, you know, heaviness of anxiety or depression or struggle in a kid's life can really lead to what seems like just something a kid says, but really is suicidal ideation, and we need to be thinking about it that way. And you know, we did do a lot of talking to pediatricians and then eventually therapists and things like that. But it was a pediatrician who where, well, it's where we started, right? We started the conversation with our pediatrician because everything started as my my stomach hurts. And then that's when we started understanding the anxiety. And it was a pediatrician who had a special program to integrate what you're saying, to integrate the behavioral health into their um clinics that said to me, stop entertaining all the tests and things that they want to do on your child's gut. Your kid is anxious. And I was a, I mean, I'm a trained therapist. I knew I knew enough to know that I should have taught that, but it started as a psychosomatic symptom and it was not words that she said. So it's just a tricky thing. And I so appreciate your um commitment as a pediatrician, and then in your role now with the Department of Health on seeing clinics who serve children in the pediatricians' offices having the mental health treatment available and then understanding that there are maybe other things happening with kids.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I think, and when you mention your daughters having stomach pain, I will say that that's probably one of my least favorite complaints because very often that's how because that's very often stomach pain, back pain, headache. Obviously, you want to rule out organic causes. So you want to rule out that someone does have migraines. You want to make sure, rule out somebody doesn't have like some kind of musculoskeletal issue or celiac or whatever. But those are when I start seeing kids come in several times with that, that's all like after the second or third time. I always like my antenna always go up a little bit and make sure, like, huh, what's going on at school? What's going on at home? How's sleep going? Are they having issues? Are they crying a lot after school? Like, because I always because like with my son who deals with anxiety, is he, does your child seem to cry a lot? Does they do they seem to be stressed out about things? Do certain things tend this tend to set them off? And I feel like, and I hate to say that I'm glad that he has it, but it's as a parent, having a kid who's gone through something always raises your intended for another kid every single time. So I will say that it's I always say that hard things are hard things are not there by accident. Hard things are there usually to teach you a lesson about something. And for me, those hard things have been there to teach me, like, okay, you need to flag this mom for postpartum. You need to flag this kid for anxiety and depression. Because clearly, when because I can tell when I walk in a room and a kid looks at me, I'm like, okay, we need to bring out like the big guns for the screenings for these kiddos, because I I can tell which kid, when the kid has a really flat affect, that's the kid I'm gonna do extra screening on. Because there's a way, I mean, I've done doing this long enough. There's a way that teenagers behave. There's a way that four-year-olds behave, there's a way that seven-year-olds behave. I've when you have that experience, you know how kids in general tend to behave in a social setting. And when they don't behave like that and it's super flat or it seems super sad or super quiet, much more so than usual. That should be a red flag for anybody who's in this health space to do an extra screening on those kiddos.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it will I commend you for your thinking in that way. And as you said, that isn't the way that all the clinics around the state are managing the um the issues with children. And so I want to talk a little bit about that, but more in terms of we've read and heard uh different federal organizations have said that children's mental health is a public health crisis at this point. What do you think that looks like in Tennessee? Is it a public health crisis in Tennessee right now?
SPEAKER_04It is. Um, anecdotally, I know it is just because I know coming out of the pandemic, all the social isolation, lack of interaction over the past couple of years has made things worse. I mean, honestly, if you're if you pay attention to the news at all, that just looking at the news as an adult stresses me out. And I know how much it stresses kids out because they worry about wars and they worry about famines and they worry about climate change and they worry about all these things. Um, in terms of what it looks like in Tennessee, we have it's been interesting. We saw a spike, not surprisingly, during pandemic during the pandemic. Um, so really 2020, 2021 is starting to mitigate a little bit when we look at our individual data, like our data from the past year. It's starting to go back to what it was. But that said, as I mentioned before, the demographic has changed. So it's making us realize that we need to change our efforts to target other populations that we had not necessarily targeted before. Also, um, in Tennessee, I would say that. Um, sorry, let me gather my thoughts here. Please edit this out. Um in Tennessee, I would say that when you look at I'm trying to look through my notes and make sure, so please edit this out. I apologize. Um that we've seen 144 deaths by suicide in 2020 from the ages of 10 to 24. The most common um deaths are between the ages of 15 and 24, most of them by self-harm injury. Two in five Tennessee students reported feeling sad or hopeless almost every day. So I want to take a pause and let people listen to that. I'll repeat it. Two in five of Tennessee high school students in 2019, this is pre-pandemic, reported feeling sad or hopeless almost every day. And then about one in five high schoolers have considered suicide in 2019. And then approximately 16% of Tennessee's children have a diagnosed mental or behavioral health condition. And that's in comparison to the national statistics, which is 13% as opposed to Tennessee's 16%. So when you look at those numbers, we know that Tennessee is a little bit behind the curve compared to the nation. Um, one of the things that I know that, especially in Tennessee, like I'd mentioned before, rural rural populations, kids who have less education, kids who have less educational opportunity, especially for the young adult population. And then also kids who have access to lethal means, those are the ones that we really worry about.
SPEAKER_01Those statistics that they are alarming. And we talk about, you know, the question was are we in a public health crisis here in Tennessee? And I think about what we're doing, you know, earlier you mentioned the need for, you know, more school-based clinics, mental health clinics to be in schools, and how Tennessee's taking the lead on having mental health support, such as uh school-based behavioral health liaisons within schools across the state. Another resource that we've definitely been been making sure that we support and highlight is the launch of 988. So I do want to talk to you about this additional resource. So with 988, the new suicide and crisis lifeline, how will that impact suicide prevention efforts?
SPEAKER_04Well, I hope positively. I know at the very beginning, I think they were not anticipating the uptake that really happened with 988. And if I remember correctly, I just read something a couple of days ago that they said that since the launch of 988 in September, the number of calls has gone up by 45%, which is which is astonishing to me. 45% increase in the number of calls to us is, I mean, that's almost like an unmanageable amount of volume. But it shows that there's clearly a need there in the community for a crisis number that's easy to remember, easy for you to refer somebody to. Yeah, so I would say that that launch has been successful, but I all one of the things I guess I worry about a little bit is the bandwidth of the people who are managing it is always gonna be a concern.
SPEAKER_03I was uh thinking about the 988 piece as well, but I want to circle back on something since we have a little bit of time left here. And I do want to make sure we talk to the person who might be listening who is struggling themselves. Um I do want to say in that vein, my daughter who I talked about earlier, now a teenager, we did get the help we needed, and she is thriving and flourishing. And so we know that treatment works. And I would just start by encouraging people to pursue treatment, obviously, for any concerns that they have with their mental health, because there are lots of ways to address it. And then you also mentioned support, but talk to the person who might be listening that doesn't know where to start, just practically, what should they do?
SPEAKER_04So practically, and I'm gonna tackle this from two ways. And I guess maybe maybe it's the same way. The first thing I would say is if you are considering suicide, if you know somebody who is considering suicide, 988 is a very easy way for you to dial. So, similar to 911 for emergency services, 988 is a suit is a new suicide crisis lifeline. Um, the goal of it is to increase access and to give you help and resources. Easy to remember. It's only three digits. You can call, text, chat with 988. It's available 24-7. It's available in Spanish, it's available for those who are deaf and hard of hearing. Um, or and it'll also help connect you for those who are veterans because we know that our veterans are at an increased risk. There is a veteran-specific crisis line that they can connect you with as well, which I think is really important to know. So we're really trying to tackle that equity issue from the language part of it, the veteran part of it, people who are deaf and hard of hearing. And then if in terms of for family members, I think what's really important to is to remember is to know the signs and know what to do. So the signs would be the things we talked about before. Um, somebody who's having increasing anxiety, somebody who is um giving away valued material, somebody who seems that they're um using more substances than usual, increased hopelessness, mood swings, or sleeping too little too much, talking or posting. And I would actually say it's a big thing, especially now with social media, people who are posting about symptoms like nobody loves me, I wish it was be easier if I wasn't here, those kind of things. People who are making plans for suicide if they say that, oh, it'll just be easier if I wasn't here. That's a red flag. Don't take those stains lightly because anytime I hear that, that's an immediate, that's an immediate um thing trigger for me to make an extra level of referral. If you hear that from a loved one, you absolutely need to make over that level of referral. And then on both sides, for both people who are contemplating suicide as well as those who are loved ones of those who are contemplating it, just know that you're not alone. I think that, like I've said before, the trick of suicide is that it is like the mental health part of it, it tricks you into thinking that you are isolated. It tells you that you're alone, nobody cares about you. It tells you that nobody wants cares if you're here or not here. That's a mentor that's that's not true. You're not alone. There are people in your life, and there are people at the state, there are people in your local health departments, there are people on the 988 line who are here for you and they care about you and they want you to be here. Um, I think the most important thing is to know that your life matters. I know several people who've contemplated it, people who've attempted it and did it. And I think when I talk to those folks, the thing that they say is that they felt like nobody cared about them. And they felt like they didn't matter. You do matter. You do matter. And there are people around you, and there are people in your community who do who do care about you. And there are solutions to make that better. So we can get you connected, we can get you plugged into the folks who can give you the resources, therapy, whatever it is you need, medication, therapy, meditation, exercise. I mean, whatever it ends up being for you that will help alleviate the symptoms that you're experiencing.
SPEAKER_03Fabulous. Absolutely. We would highly encourage the use of the 988 number. We are so incredibly grateful that that has been implemented in our state and made easy for people to access. We also have um access to an app through our um Tennessee Voices programs. It's called My Health Coach. And in that app, if you download it, uh pop in a quick code TNVPR23. You can do a screening there to see if you are struggling with maybe what looks like depression. And then if you are, some more tools to ask if you're struggling with suicidal ideation and then some next steps for you. Just what can you do? Will, do you want to say any more about the use of that app for people who may be potentially wanting to check in on themselves?
SPEAKER_01Yes. I mean, what we encourage people to utilize the app, we say the same way you go and get a physical health checkup. This is just a mental health checkup as well. It needs to be looked at as is because it's just as important. And it's a simple, easy download, and we've got resources at the end that are available to help you all. And a thing that I love about the app is when you download it, you put in the code TNBPR23. One of the first the two questions that are asked at the beginning are your zip code and age. We want to be able to get you connected to resources in your area. And, you know, Dr. Anderson, you mentioned earlier, you said, you know, you're not a mental health professional, but you try to fill in the gaps wherever possible. That's one of our biggest things as well. How do we work better together with other agencies and other providers who are providing different resources to get people connected to what they need? One of the biggest purposes of this podcast, we've talked about, you know, you utilizing your story and the power of the story. And I must say you coming in and being candid with Ricky and I, you've helped someone who's out there listening. I hope you know that.
SPEAKER_04Well, I hope so. I just really want to say a big thank you to what you're doing. This is really important work in the state of Tennessee. There is help, there is hope, and we are here for you. And I just encourage y'all to reach out to this platform if you can, um, if there is somebody who you're worried about or if you're worried about yourself. Um, yeah, there's help, there's hope.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Dr. Anderson, thank you so much for your passion and your care and love for the people of Tennessee and what you're doing every day, but especially in the month of September to prevent suicide. So thank you for being on our podcast.
SPEAKER_04Thank you.
SPEAKER_03Y'all have an amazing day.
SPEAKER_04Take care.
SPEAKER_03Bye-bye.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed today's program, like, subscribe, and review this podcast. If you or someone you know is in need of mental health support services, log on to tnvoices.org or call 1-800-670-9882. Join us next time as we get candid.