Recovery Diaries In Depth
Welcome to Recovery Diaries In Depth; a mental health podcast that creates a warm, empathic, and engaging space for discussions around mental health, empowerment, and change. Executive Director and podcast host Gabe Nathan brings a unique combination of lived experience with mental health challenges, years of independent mental health and suicide awareness advocacy, and an understanding of the inpatient psychiatric millieu as a former staff member at a psychiatric hospital. This extensive background helps him navigate complex and nuanced conversations with a diverse array of guests, all of whom are vulnerable and engaged; doing their utmost to eradicate mental health stigma through advocacy, storytelling, and open conversation.
Guests who have previously contributed a mental health personal essay read their essays aloud during the podcast and then chat with Gabe about what has changed in their lives since their essays were published on the site. By engaging in deep discussions with people living with mental health challenges like bipolar disorder, trauma histories, addiction issues, schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive or eating disorders, Recovery Diaries in Depth further carries out Recovery Diaries' mission to #buststigma by showing people that they are not alone, instead of just telling them. This mental health podcast features guests from all over the world and, while their own personal experiences are unique, the human experience is what unites, inspires, and connects. Subscribe, like, share, and enjoy!
Recovery Diaries In Depth is supported in full by the van Ameringen Foundation.
Recovery Diaries In Depth
What Would AI Ask? Mental Health, Suicide Prevention, and More with Gabriel Nathan & Chat GPT! | RDID; Ep 110
What do you do when you've got to record a podcast episode but your guest cancels last minute due to COVID? You interview Chat GPT, of course! Or... maybe it's Chat GPT interviewing Recovery Diaries in Depth's host Gabriel Nathan. Either way, you get a fascinating episode where Gabe fields AI-generated questions about mental health storytelling, advocacy, and suicide prevention. The questions may have come from a bot, but the answers are decidedly human, in-depth, relevant, and may just spark a lifesaving conversation between you and a loved one.
What are some common misperceptions people have about suicide?
What are some early suicide warning signs?
What are some of the biggest threats you see to Americans' mental health in the near future?
How do mental health stories help people?
These are just some of the questions Gabe tackles during this episode. Gabe brings his wealth of experience as a front-line staff member at a locked, inpatient psychiatric hospital, as tireless suicide awareness/prevention advocate, as a writer, editor, creator, and leader of Recovery Diaries, as well as his own lived experience with mental health challenges to create a dynamic, thoroughly human episode. Sure, his voice may get tired as he fields question after question, but you won't get tired as you listen along, enjoy, think, and feel.
Conversations like the ones on this podcast can sometimes be hard, but they're always necessary. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider visiting www.wannatalkaboutit.com. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call, text, or chat 988.
Hello, this is Recovery Diaries In Depth. Each week we'll bring you a Recovery Diaries contributor folks who have shared their mental health journey with us through essay or video format. We want to see where they are in their mental health journey since initially being published on our website. Our goal is to continue supporting our diverse community by having conversations here on our podcast to follow up and see what has shifted, what has changed and what new things have emerged. We're so happy to have you along for this journey. We want to remind you to follow our show for new and back episodes at recoverydiariesorg. There, like the podcast, you'll find stories of mental health, empowerment and change. You can also sign up for our mailing list there so you never miss a new podcast episode, essay or film, and you can find this podcast pretty much anywhere you get your podcasts. We appreciate your comments and feedback about our show. It helps us improve, make changes and grow and, of course, make sure to like, share and subscribe. Make sure to like, share and subscribe. So welcome to this episode of Recovery Diaries In-Depth.
Gabriel Nathan:This episode is going to be a little unusual, a little fun, a little exciting, a little different. Usually on the show, I interview a human being, some carbon-based form of life who has lived experience with mental health challenges, and we have a conversation. Today. I'm going to be interviewing a non-human being. It's 2025, brave New World and all that kind of stuff, so I thought I would interview ChatGPT or maybe it's ChatGPT interviewing me I'm not really sure. Who's really sure of anything these days but what I did was ask ChatGPT what kind of questions it would have related to suicide prevention, mental health awareness and mental health advocacy and storytelling. I thought, gosh, these are all really human issues. What would artificial intelligence have to ask that could be of value related to these topics? And I mean full disclosure? I hate AI. I think it's awful and ick and yuck and gross, so I was very trepidatious about this. However, it did yield some pretty good questions and some questions that I thought you might be rolling around in your mind too. So, without further delay, let's just get into this.
Gabriel Nathan:Mental health advocacy and suicide awareness and prevention are very, very important to me personally and organizationally. Here at Recovery Diaries of the individuals who write essays for us or about whom we've made films have struggled with suicidal ideation. I have myself. Some people have made attempts, some are suicide loss survivors, so those things go hand in hand, and I think it's essential that we talk about suicide and its prevention. And those were the first questions that I asked ChatGPT, and the first question was a very good one what are some common misconceptions that people have about suicide? We could do an entire episode, we can do an entire series of episodes just on this one question, but here we go.
Gabriel Nathan:I think the most common and pervasive and persistent misperception that people have about suicide is that it's not going to happen to them, and I'm going to let that sink in with a little healthy pause. The most pervasive and persistent misperception that people have about suicide is that it's not going to happen to them, that it's not going to happen to you, that it's not going to happen to me, that that's somebody else's thing, I don't have to worry about that, and unfortunately it's not true. Suicide can happen to anybody and we all in our lives carry certain risk factors that can make us more prone to dying by suicide, and we also carry protective factors, things in our lives that are helping to guard against us taking our own lives. But the fact of the matter is is that anything can happen to anyone at any time, so there is nothing that really inoculates you from the risk of taking your own life. Having a great job doesn't inoculate you or guarantee you're not going to kill yourself. Having a fabulous relationship or marriage, having everybody in the world like you and think you're really swell, having a ton of money in the bank those can be protective factors, but they're not ironclad guarantees. Also, not having a diagnosed mental health challenge doesn't guarantee that you're not at risk for taking your own life.
Gabriel Nathan:I hear the statistic about it around all the time 90% of people who take their own lives have a diagnosed mental illness, and I think that's it's absolute bullshit, because how do you know that about someone who's taken their own life unless you have evidence that they have gone to therapy, that they've received a clinical diagnosis? So I would say that it's probably half and half. So I would say that it's probably half and half if we're going to be talking numbers. People who kill themselves are selfish is a huge misperception that seems to stick in certain circles. People who take their own lives are weak Another myth and misperception that people have another big one is that if someone is going to kill themselves, they're going to do it and there's nothing that anybody can do.
Gabriel Nathan:Someone is going to kill themselves, they're going to do it and there's nothing that anybody can do, and that's bullshit. Also, on the back of both of my cars I have a magnet that says suicide is preventable, and I could have chosen anything to write, but that's what I wrote because it's the truth. We can prevent suicide. Risk mitigation works. Restricting access to lethal means works, getting people into treatment works these things help. Can they prevent all suicides? No, but we can prevent some, and even if we can only prevent one, we've got to do what we can do to prevent that. So I'll leave the misperception question there. There are plenty of other misperceptions that people have about suicide and people who take their own lives, but we can leave it at that.
Gabriel Nathan:Next chat, gpt was super curious about what are some early warning signs that someone might be contemplating taking their own life. This is critical because if we're teaching people that suicide is preventable, we have to be teaching people about what to look out for in their family, their colleagues at work, their loved ones, their friends, people in their community. And oftentimes I hear this suicide came out of the blue. It was out of the clear blue. There was no warning sign whatsoever. Sometimes, that's true. Oftentimes there are warning signs, there are soft signs that someone might be thinking about taking their own life. And what are those?
Gabriel Nathan:I'm going to start with a very obvious one: acquiring access to lethal means, particularly a firearm, especially if the person we're talking about is not a gun person. They've never shown any interest in a gun, they don't really know how guns work, but all of a sudden, they've never shown any interest in a gun, they don't really know how guns work, but all of a sudden they've got one. They mentioned that they've purchased one that's a red red. It's the reddest of red flags right there and that needs to be followed up immediately with the question are you thinking about killing yourself? You've never been a firearms person. You've never collected guns or gone to a gun show or had any interest in this whatsoever. What's this about? All of a sudden, are you thinking about taking your own life? So that's a really obvious one. Okay, there are other, of course. Lethal means that people use stockpiling pills, stockpiling pills, that kind of thing.
Gabriel Nathan:Something else that you want to be on the lookout is changes in established patterns, the people in your life that you know. You know them really well. If someone is behaving in a way kind of all of a sudden that really deviates from what you know about that person, that should be cause for alarm. Suddenly they're sleeping all the time. Suddenly they stopped taking care of their ADLs, which is, activities of daily living. They've stopped showering. They've stopped shaving If they were really fastidious, they've stopped ironing their clothes that kind of thing. They've stopped going to work.
Gabriel Nathan:If we're talking about people who are in your social network, online, there are still things that you can observe. Someone used to post once a day. Now three weeks have gone by and they haven't posted. Or they're posting kind of dark stuff. They're saying hopeless things. "God, I just can't do this anymore. It's not going to be. I just want to kill myself.
Gabriel Nathan:Usually it's going to be softer signs. It's going to be softer language, especially if someone is kind of dipping their toe into the water, of feeling how parasuicidal language feels in their mouth. "I just don't want to do this anymore. I just don't want to wake up anymore. I just want to go to sleep and never wake up. That's a big one If someone's getting more irritable short fuse. They've started drinking more, or just started drinking, if they never drank or using drugs, engaging in risky behavior. Another warning sign is giving stuff away, particularly stuff that this person values a lot. That's a big, big, big red flag that someone might be preparing to check out. Another thing to be aware of is making amends, especially with people this person hasn't spoken to in a long time. If you get a phone call from someone you went to high school with and you're 40 and you haven't heard from them since high school and you're like, hey, I just I feel really shitty about that thing. You know that happened in high school. I just want to, I want to apologize to you. That's really odd and that should be raising an alarm bell.
Gabriel Nathan:People who are thinking about taking their own lives some of them want to leave with a clean slate so they might be looking to right wrongs from their past are all things that we can look at and notice and then do something about it. And that thing to do about it is to ask Ask the question are you thinking about killing yourself? Are you thinking about taking your own life? This goes back to the first question about common misperceptions, back to the first question about common misperceptions. I think maybe one of the biggest misperceptions or myths related to suicide is that if you mention it, it's going to put the idea into someone's head, and that's completely false. What asking someone if they're thinking about taking their own life does is it's showing that you care. It's an act of love, really is how I like to talk about it. So, extending that to another human being in conjunction with hey, I've noticed such and such. I've noticed you aren't coming to work. I've noticed we don't hang out anymore. I noticed you don't call anymore. I noticed you don't pick up the phone when I call. Are you okay? Are you thinking about killing yourself? Coupling the question with what you've observed, it's incredibly powerful. And if they're not thinking about it, they're not thinking about it Great. But if they are, chances are they're going to open up and let you know about it great. But if they are, chances are they're going to open up and let you know, because you have communicated that you are open to hearing that and that you care about that person. It's incredibly powerful.
Gabriel Nathan:ChatGPT, bringing it home with the suicide questions with what are some tangible ways? 50 cent word for ChatGPT tangible. What are some tangible ways? 50 cent word for chat GPT tangible. What are some tangible ways to reduce suicide.
Gabriel Nathan:I talked earlier about reducing access to lethal means, and when we think about lethal means restriction, we'll talk about firearms first, because I think that's the easiest way to understand and it's the thing that people have in their homes, and I mean just point blank, ha ha. It's the easiest way to kill yourself and nine times out of 10, using a firearm is going to be fatal, right, whereas attempting suicide with some other lethal means has a much lower fatality rate than a firearm does. Using a firearm, chances are you're gone, okay, there's no coming back from that. There's no coming back from that. So if we talk about preventing firearm suicide, it's kind of like how do I not get pregnant? Don't have sex? That's the surest way, right, but if you're going to have sex, do it this way. So it's the same thing with firearms.
Gabriel Nathan:How do I not die by firearm suicide? Don't have a fucking gun in your house. That's a pretty easy way, right. To not die by firearm suicide. Don't have a fucking gun in your house. That's a pretty easy way to not die by firearm suicide. If you're going to have it in your house, which it's America, and you can make that choice there are some things that you can do to keep yourself safe, to lower your risk of taking your own life. I will say this simply having a firearm in your house raises your risk of dying by suicide and the risk of everybody else in your house of taking their own life. I'm just providing that as a piece of education. You may not like it, but it's true. But now let's get to what we can do to reduce it.
Gabriel Nathan:Safe storage, kind of like safe sex, right, but what does safe storage mean? Safe storage means really two things. It's locking up your firearm okay, that's the first thing, but also unloading it and locking the ammunition separately. Like if you have a two-story house ammo is locked on the first floor, firearm is locked on the second floor. What does that do? If you are thinking about suicide? It lowers that risk of taking your own life by slowing you down Instead of just pulling open the bedside table drawer, pulling out a fully loaded firearm and using it. That doesn't take much time at all, but it does take time to crouch down, punch in the numbers or do the dial on the safe or undo the trigger lock, then go downstairs and get the. You see what I'm saying, right? And in that time that you're slowing down. Every second added is a second that you can reconsider your actions and not take your own life.
Gabriel Nathan:Another way that you can reduce risk of taking your own life with a firearm if you insist on keeping one or multiple in your home is getting the firearms out of your house. If there is a crisis that you know or that a family member knows is happening or is on the horizon, for example, you're being evicted. Your house is being foreclosed on. If you are having a very stressful domestic situation having a very stressful domestic situation, if you just lost your job, that's a perfect time to get your firearms out of that house and you can voluntarily surrender them at your local sheriff's office. You can voluntarily surrender firearms at certain gun ranges. It would be great to have that information ahead of time. If you're a firearm owner who A has mental health challenges or B just if you're a firearm owner period, because, as I said at the beginning, suicide ain't just about mental health. It's also about life crises. Things come up for people and we may or may not have the wherewithal to cope with certain news or certain life situations or certain happenings. And why wouldn't you get these lethal weapons out of your house during a period of instability? That's a question I think people need to answer. So temporary safe storage it's another way that can really save your life if you're a firearm owner. That's what I have. Well, or should I say that's what ChatGPT has about suicide prevention.
Gabriel Nathan:I'm going to move now to talking a little bit more about Recovery Diaries. As you know, you're listening to Recovery Diaries in depth. That is our mental health podcast. Recovery Diaries is an online mental health storytelling platform and we tell these stories through personal essays and through films and now through this podcast. Those are the three tines of the fork, and when I asked Chat to UPT what it would want to know about Recovery Diaries, it was like hey, what do you do at Recovery Diaries?
Gabriel Nathan:Gabriel Nathan, if that really is your name, it is so I'm the executive director and I started working in the nonprofit world I don't know, when I was 22. I didn't know what the hell an executive director did at a nonprofit. I think I know better now. So what I do is I really manage all of the day-to-day operations of Recovery Diaries. I collaborate with our team, which consists of our website manager and graphic designer, the filmmaker who makes all of our films our editorial assistant, our two essay editors, our director of development and I've just started doing social media, literally doing it, posting and responding to comments and all of that thing. That's a temporary arrangement because it's a little more than I want to be chewing at the moment. So I'm responsible for the content on the site. I also have a portfolio of writers with whom I work to help them tell their stories.
Gabriel Nathan:Like I said, we have two part-time editors. I also edit essays here part-time. I think it's really important for me to maintain that relationship with writers. I pre-read all of the submissions that come in. I respond to all the comments on YouTube on our films and, of course, on the essays as well. I oversee fundraising efforts.
Gabriel Nathan:We're a nonprofit, so if you're sitting on a wad of cash right now and it's really uncomfortable, you can give us some. That would be fine. I'm also temporary president of the board of directors. You can give us some, that would be fine. I'm also a temporary president of the board of directors and so I run the board meetings. That's like I said, that's temporary. And yeah, I'm also, I guess, quote the voice. Well, I'm really the voice right now on this podcast, but the voice of Recovery Diaries on our social media, on the site, in terms of like, I wrote the guidelines for people to read before they submit essays. That's in my voice.
Gabriel Nathan:I'm really responsible. It's kind of the buck stops here sort of thing, I guess, and that's a heavy lift and it stresses me out because I live with mental illness, I have an anxiety disorder and having a lot of responsibility is kind of activating, but it's not like a poor me thing, but it's true. And I also have depression, which is difficult when you have a lot of responsibilities and things to do and things that need to get done at certain times. I also have obsessive, compulsive traits, so that's challenging sometimes because there are things that I want done exactly a certain way and it's not always going to happen like that and that can be challenging. I don't know if ChatGPT was interested in hearing all of that, but that's the answer I gave. Maybe this is ChatGPT giving me a little side eye, but it was curious as to how do mental health stories help people. I guess it's sassy if I read it like that. It could just be how do mental health stories help people? And it's slightly less sassy if I read it like that. It could just be how mental health stories help people and it's slightly less sassy.
Gabriel Nathan:I think that mental illness does a couple of really nasty things to people. One of the things that it does is it tells you that you're the only one who feels like this and it's very isolating. And we've created a community here on Recovery Diaries. That is a clap back to that voice that mental illness says you know, you're here on this island all alone because of all of the evidence that we have on our site. People from all over the world living with bipolar disorder, living with schizophrenia, living with addiction issues, living with PTSD and OCD and autism spectrum disorders the whole gamut, it's all here. People of different gender identities, different ethnicities, races, all different ages are all here. So we are here to show emphatically and definitively that you are not alone, and I think that's really helpful for people. The other thing mental illness does is I think it robs people of their voice and their agency in telling their own stories, and that's a huge part of what we do. It's the core of what we do here to amplify the voices of people living with mental health challenges.
Gabriel Nathan:Of course, people can write on personal blogs and diaries and they can publish elsewhere. But I feel we give people here something unique. We give them access to a professional editor, an editorial relationship that sometimes lasts for months, with drafts going back and forth, and really, really personal attention. We also give people compensation $250 at this particular point for a published essay, which is very important. I think there's an expectation that people with mental illness should be just telling their story for nothing, and that's not true and that's not okay and that's not ethical. So we think it's very important to compensate people and compensate them as best we can given our own budgetary constraints. So that's what we do and we try to give people what Glenn Holst and our filmmaker calls the red carpet treatment. The essays are laid out beautifully by Leah, our graphic designer, and our documentary films are gorgeous. I think they're the best mental health documentary films out there. Maybe I'm slightly prejudiced mental health documentary films out there. Maybe I'm slightly prejudiced, but I think elevating people's writing and elevating their personal experiences through beautiful artistic filmmaking, getting Studio 1935 to produce our podcast to the highest audio standards using wonderful sound engineering that's all part of what we do, and we're not content to do things by half here, because the bottom line is, people with mental illness deserve better. So there you go.
Gabriel Nathan:The other question related to recovery diaries is if people are not writers, how can they get involved? So right, one of our main cores here is mental health storytelling through the personal essay, and I guess I have two answers to this question. For a long time, I told myself a story. Well, I'm not a writer because I don't work for the New Yorker or the Atlantic or some other publication where I'm on the payroll and they're paying me on the regular to write. Therefore, I'm not a writer, I'm not a professional writer, and that's the story I told myself. The fact of the matter is that I am a writer and I write all the time, and you don't have to be on someone's payroll or win some kind of book award or whatever to be a writer. So I think you may be telling yourself that you're not a writer, but you may actually be. So don't let a kind of self-defeating narrative tell you that you are to be excluded from recovery diaries because you have mental health challenges. But oh, I'm not a writer, so I can't write an essay, okay.
Gabriel Nathan:And the other thing is, maybe you feel like, okay, I can write, but I can't write like that. I can write, but it's not good enough to be on the site, and what I would say to people who think that way is well. That's why we have Evan and Laura, our two part-time professional editors, because quite often I will get a submission where maybe it's not the greatest writing on the universe but it's a very compelling story, that submission, just knowing that our editors are going to be working with this person to brush up the writing skills, to clean up the grammar, to let them know how they can make it more compelling or perhaps better structured. We are absolutely willing to do that. A lot of people who come to us they're not quote professional writers or this is their first published piece, um, and we love that. We work with people, um who are professional authors and we also work with people who are doing this for the first time. So wherever you are on that spectrum, just submit. Let us make the decision.
Gabriel Nathan:Next, ChatGPT. We were going into questions about mental health advocacy. I'm a mental health advocate. I'm a suicide awareness advocate, in addition to the daily work that I do at Recovery Diaries. So what advice would you give to someone who wants to start out in mental health advocacy, because there are people who are mental health advocates and that's what they do and that's how they make their living. They make their living by giving paid speeches. They make their living by ad revenue from very successful social media platforms. They make their living through partnerships with organizations or pharmaceutical companies or doing events and receiving compensation. And then there are people who are not at that level or don't want to be at that level or have another job, and they just want to do mental health advocacy kind of on the side. And I guess my answer then is what do you want to do? Do you see this as your profession? Do you see this as something you want to do on the side? Because that's going to kind of change the answer to be a mental health advocate.
Gabriel Nathan:What is it about that that's calling me? Is it my own lived experience? Is it a deeply affecting experience of a friend or a loved one? What is driving this train? And then you need to look at what do you have that's unique to bring to the table? Do you have that's unique to bring to the table?
Gabriel Nathan:I used to do advocacy with a 60-year-old car and I used that to bring attention to suicide and its prevention and awareness, and I used my writing. What do you have in your wheelhouse that's interesting, that's unique, that you can use to help amplify your message? Is it music? Is it art? Is it baking? There's the Depressed Cake Shop that spreads depression awareness through cakes and cookies and baking. What is it out there that you already have in your own personal arsenal that you can steer towards mental health advocacy and awareness?
Gabriel Nathan:And the other thing that you have to ask yourself is do I have the mental capacity to do this? Burnout is a real thing and I have sure felt it and I still feel it at times. And there are times when I cannot be as active and as visible and I have the luxury and privilege to be able to step back because I have a job and I can do my job, but sometimes the suicide awareness advocacy takes a backseat and I'm just not as visible, I'm not as active. I sold the 60-year-old car partly because I knew I needed to step back and make changes. So you really need to do serious and regular check-ins with yourself. Am I okay? Am I okay to keep doing this? And if I'm not, am I okay with that? Am I okay with taking a break or maybe permanently stepping aside from it, because I have talked to a lot of advocates who knew it was time to step away, but it was too hard to let go of and they stayed too long and that can have really deleterious effects. So you really need to be honest with yourself about that.
Gabriel Nathan:What are some of the biggest threats you see to Americans' mental health in the near future? Well, I guess this is where I have to make the disclaimer that these views are my own and they don't necessarily reflect those of Recovery Diaries or Studio 1935 or anyone else except Gabriel Nathan. The biggest threat to Americans' mental health is Trump. The biggest threat to Americans' mental health is Trump. Okay, it is Donald Trump and the stink that surrounds him and that is permeating American culture. The fuck your feelings culture.
Gabriel Nathan:I was driving behind a car just this morning with a drawing of Trump in his underwear or maybe it was a diaper, that would be more appropriate, I think but with his ass out at the car and back, which was me in this particular instance and it said kiss my ass. This is the biggest threat to our mental health because, if I understand, "Make America Great Again. It's all about driving the car backwards. And when we drive the car backwards in terms of mental health, we are driving the car towards a time when people did not talk about their mental health trauma in alcohol. They hid abuse. They told boys to suck it up. Buttercup Boys, don't cry. Let's slap our kids and not talk about things that are going on. If we're gay or anything other than straight, let's repress that.
Gabriel Nathan:The next four years, please don't lose your softness, because if we get hardened towards what is happening and we become cruel and mean-spirited and it's fuck your feelings left and right, we're going to be in really, really, really big trouble. We have to be talking about mental health and we have to be doing it in an empathic and loving and caring way, and I'm going to bring this back to suicide prevention for a minute. The best way to let someone know that they can let you know if they are thinking about suicide is being a nonjudgmental, open, loving person, someone who is not prejudiced, someone who is not antagonistic, someone who is not sardonic or flippant, someone who is soft. People who are suicidal come to soft people to let them know they don't come to assholes. Okay, so just don't be an asshole. Let's try to push back against that as best we can for the next four years, because that is, hands down, the biggest threat to Americans' mental health. And going along with that is, of course, softening restrictions around firearms, which is going to make firearms much more easy to get and they are going to get into the hands of suicidal people and we are going to see firearm suicide rates rise dramatically in the next four years, particularly in red states.
Gabriel Nathan:Why is mental health advocacy important to me personally? I think you can probably figure that out by now if you've stuck with this episode the entire way. I live with mental health challenges. A lot of people whom I love live with mental health challenges. My aunt killed herself at a psychiatric hospital in Israel. I used to work in a locked inpatient psychiatric hospital. I have seen and felt a lot of suffering and a lot of it has been unnecessary, I think, or could have been lessened through changes to public health, through increases in advocacy, increases in awareness, increases in talking about things that are hard to talk about, thereby making them less hard to talk about, and I just believe it's so vital that we don't keep things in, because it just creates an implosion, it just corrodes, and that's how we break. So that's why it's important. The more we talk about it, the more we understand it, the more we understand each other and the more empathy we have for each other.
Gabriel Nathan:What gives me hope for the future? Ah, Chat GPT. What a lovely way to end our time together. You and not Chat GPT, but you listening. You're giving me hope for the future. If you're listening to this, you're making an investment in your mental health. You are choosing something that is helpful and hopeful to you. You are what's helping me feel hopeful about the future, and I'm so very grateful to you. I'm grateful to the team here at Recovery Diaries, and I am hopeful for the next four years and beyond, because I have to be. There is another choice to make, but I don't want to go down that road, so I'm choosing hope.
Gabriel Nathan:I choose help when I need it. This is the start of my 15th year in therapy, and that's okay. We need the help that we need when we need it. So, whatever it is that you need whether it's this podcast or that podcast, or therapy or Headspace or yoga, or reading personal essays on our site, or watching our films, or taking a walk or taking a pleasure, drive, opening up to someone, writing something, expressing yourself. Do it. You never know what's going to help you until you try. So try it all, and thank you so much for joining me. I'll see you next time. Before we leave you, we want to remind you to check out our website, recoverydiariesorg. There, like this podcast, you'll find additional stories, videos and content about mental health, empowerment and change. We look forward to continuing to grow our community. Thank you so much for being a part of it. We wouldn't be here without you. Be sure to join our mailing list so you never miss a podcast episode, essay or film. I'm Gabe Nathan. Until next time, take good care.
