Seether (Shaun Morgan, Corey Lowery) "Reboot": Living w/Depression & the Aftermath of Suicide w/Dr. Dan Reidenberg (SAVE.org, Suicide Prevention expert)

CHECK YOUR HEAD Podcast "Reboot" for September 2024 for Suicide Prevention and Recovery Month. Next episode, listen to CHECK YOUR HEAD Podcast Afterparty where Mari Fong and Kat Jensen talk about best lessons from each episode and how to ease them into our daily lives.

Mari Fong interviews Seether (Shaun Morgan and Corey Lowery) & Dan Reidenberg, PsyD (SAVE.org, Suicide Prevention expert).  In 2007,  Shaun Morgan's brother Eugene died by suicide. In 2012, Shaun and Seether created the Rise Above Fest to raise awareness of suicide prevention and mental illness.

Shaun and Corey of Seether share their stories of struggling as musicians, fathers and husbands during the pandemic and how it's led to frustration, depression and anxiety.The aftermath of suicide, using drugs and alcohol to escape, and the eventual grief counseling. How Shaun and Corey cope through the pandemic and what they do to improve their mental health on a daily basis.

Partnering with Dr. Dan Reidenberg of SAVE.org for the Rise Above Fest. Top suicide prevention expert Dr. Dan Reidenberg  shares risk factors, protective factors, warning signs, and what we can all do for those who are having suicidal thoughts and behaviors. How medical conditions can trigger mood disorders, and the importance of listening. How your words and actions can help save a life.

“Be brave, ask for help, and be persistent in finding the mental help that you need.”  For free or affordable mental help, visit: http://checkyourheadpodcast.com/
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome to the Check Your Head podcast, the podcast where notable musicians and experts come and share their stories and their solutions for mental health and wellness. I'm your host, Mari Fong, a music journalist and life coach for musicians, and we've just said our final goodbye to 2020. a year full of constant change and loss, loss of jobs, loss of businesses, loss of our daily routines, and most devastating is the loss of life and health of our loved ones during the coronavirus pandemic. For everyone who has lost someone or something in 2020, I'd like to send you my love, care, and compassion to you and your family. But despite our losses, I do believe that we're headed for brighter days in 2021 as we look forward to receiving the COVID-19 vaccine and gradually returning to our normal lives. But in the meantime, let's stay vigilant, let's stay hopeful, and let's stay safe knowing there's a light at the end of this tunnel. If you're experiencing a loss in your mental health, visit checkyourheadpodcast.com where you can find help and solutions. Now to our featured musical guests. This multi-platinum band is celebrating their 20th anniversary, having recently dropped their latest album entitled C. Weiss, Pacum, Parabellum, that debuted number two on Billboard's hard rock chart, with their single Dangerous reaching number one at rock radio, which is their 16th number one hit in this band's career. So our featured guests today are Sean Morgan and Corey Lowry of the awesome rock band Seether. In 2007, Sean Morgan's brother Eugene died by suicide. And since then, Sean and Cedar have created the Rise Above Fest, featuring bands such as Papa Roach, Godsmack, Slash, and Avenged Sevenfold to raise awareness for suicide prevention and mental illness. Proceeds from the festival are shared with a nonprofit called Save.org, which stands for Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, which ties into our next featured guest, mental health expert Dr. Dan Reidenberg, executive director of Save.org. Dr. Dan is one of the top experts in the world on suicide prevention, being honored with numerous awards such as the Service to Humanity Award and the Champions of Change Award given to him by President Barack Obama. Dr. Dan is also a personal friend to Sean Morgan and with Cedar are both working together as advocates for suicide prevention. So let's start with Sean and Corey of Cedar, sharing their struggles as musicians, husbands and fathers during this pandemic and how it's affected their mental health. Well, first I wanted to start off because, you know, we're in a really unusual time. We're experiencing the coronavirus pandemic. And I'm wondering, as a musician, how are you surviving and thriving during this with your mental health?

SPEAKER_02: 3:06

It's been tough. I mean, there's definitely good days and there's some really terrible days, but For the most part, it's been all right. I mean, we've basically had our entire livelihood taken away from us. And you don't really realize how much of your life is tied into it until it's completely taken away. So there's not really any kind of income coming in this year. There's obviously no touring. There's no live shows. We can do a stream here and there. Or there's other options, I guess. But essentially, I feel kind of helpless. I really feel like I'm at a loss for what to do because I feel completely unproductive. I can, you know, I sit in this room and I write some music every once in a while. But for the most part, I mean, in the very beginning, it hit me pretty hard. And I went into like, you know, full three months of just sort of depression, I would say.

SPEAKER_04: 3:58

And

SPEAKER_02: 3:59

then I kind of started coming out the other side of that a bit. But it's, I don't know, I think I'm kind of going back down the other side now. So it's tough. It's been a rough one.

SPEAKER_01: 4:09

How about you, Corey?

SPEAKER_00: 4:11

Yeah, I mean, you have good days and bad days. The first two, three months of this, it was just like, it's devastating because you're like, wait a minute, you know, we have a record that we're going to be putting out. We're excited to tour. You know, we love doing our jobs and that's taken away. So it's like, and we don't know for sure exactly how long. And, you know, we just did a live thing yesterday. couple of weeks ago or a week ago or so. And it was just so good to see the guys and we cooked dinner together and got a chance to hang out and be normal for a second. And then, you know, you do all this preparation to do all that stuff. It was a big production and it was a great hang for a couple of weeks. And then you come home and it's like, oh my God, you know, the depression part, you know, going to my basement, I'm like, and try to write some music and stuff. And I try to find ways to get me out of that situation, you know, through exercise and jujitsu and CrossFit and stuff like that. But, you know, nothing's going to really replace what you truly love, and that's music and being able to play this stuff. So it is a daily battle, you know, and we're always here for each other. and kind of thing and knowing that you got that kind of support system is good but uh you know i'm just we gotta hang in there and uh get through this one way or the other

SPEAKER_01: 5:44

yeah you know i as a fan and i'm sure as a musician as well you know just that exchange of energy that you get from a live show you know you feel it on stage when you feel all the love and support and you see all the fans singing your songs and at the same time you know we are getting all that that energy, the lyrics, the melodies of your music. I mean, that is so healing. And it's just like such a great time that oftentimes I am just on a high, probably for a week or two, you know, going to a great show. So it has been rough and there definitely has been ups and downs. But, you know, when we talk about mental health, how has that personally affected either you or your loved ones?

SPEAKER_02: 6:30

I think it's definitely taking a toll on my relationships with my wife, for example. Some days are real good and some days are not. The being trapped inside all the time thing, I used to be okay with it because I'm not really a very sociable person. But even I'm now getting to a point where I feel like I'm trapped and I feel like I'm completely trading water all the time, just trying to keep my head above the water. I've basically lost a bunch of motivation for a bunch of things. I mean, I'm, I find myself completely unmotivated to do anything half the time. Yeah. It's just, it's kind of a weird place to be in. It's a really dark place to feel like you're in. You can, you can bring into the, to the whole conversation, the role as well of men as, as traditionally not. And I don't, I don't, care to get to devolve into some sort of discussion about the the gender roles in society specifically but in this house for example i'm the provider and i know corey's the provider no dale's a provider no john's a provider so we're all the providers for our families and we are provider protector um you know and and parent and partner but um you take away one of those fundamental blocks And it really does make the house quite fragile. It puts the foundation on a bit of a rough ground. So yeah, it's been a rough time. And I think for me also, it's kind of made me realize that I put so much so many eggs in this one basket that I've kind of never really thought about what would happen if this goes away. I've always sort of assumed that there'll come a time when I say, okay, you know what? I'm just too old for this and it's time for me to hang up my hat, you know? But yeah, so that's the other thing. So in that sense, it's kind of been interesting because it helps you to understand, okay, cool, I gotta start, I gotta get creative and start starting some businesses or some other ventures that I can have that in case this happens again, I won't feel this anxious all the time. But Ultimately, the strain is on... The relationships are great. I mean, they really are. I love having my kid. My wife and I generally are in a good spot. But then you have disagreements. I think everything is so under the microscope that everything... feels much bigger than it is like an argument feels like it's a much larger scope than it really is and you feel like your overreaction is far more dramatic than it needs to be or and i'm certainly the one who's who's who's prone to overreacting to things and i take everything quite personally and i always think everything's my fault so it's kind of like you know add that to the mix on top of everything else and it's just like it's just a it's just a keg you know ready to blow I'm now looking at some other guys that are out there playing shows. With some success, obviously on a smaller scale, but they're doing it acoustically. They're doing either drive-in shows or they're doing outdoor shows or they're doing specially curated sort of indoor shows. So I'm actually going to be speaking to management about that in the next couple of days and seeing if there's anything that we can do. And then Corey and I can go out for a weekend and play a couple of shows at least and then come back and at least feel like something's happening. You know what I mean? Because I think of the band guys, the two of us are the ones... that really i think rely on this more and actually and live this life more than the other guys you know and that's not saying that they aren't as emotionally invested um but for example Johnny loves being home with his kids and his one kid's at college now. He's a hell of a drummer. So they've got that in common and he loves that sort of family environment. Dale loves to go fishing every day. So Dale doesn't, you know, Dale's kind of always chilled out and he's laid back. Certainly that's the way he comes across. And for Corey and I, every single day we're in our studios. We were either writing music or we are, you know, trying to find, bands to produce or bands to write songs for. So we're constantly in this world that you see us sitting in now. That's his studio, this is mine. And I think on that level too, because we're always in this world and almost rarely ever step out of it, it's that much more important for us to be, to be doing it. You know what I mean? I think, I think often if, well, if we all could retire at this point, we might say, you know what, it's been a good run. I can sit back now and hang out with my family, but none of us are in that position. So none of us are in a position to say, okay, cool. If this all ends right now, then, then that's fine. I'm done. And I'm set for life. You know, it's kind of, it's, it's a difficult situation again, but yeah, Yeah, so we're trying to look into things like that because a friend of ours is actually doing these acoustic things quite often. Touring isn't easy by any stretch of the imagination, but playing shows and being with these guys on a bus and being with these guys in a room and seeing the response, that dopamine hit you get from the crowd response, all of these things are very important to our brain chemistry. And it's now, it's gone. So now my brain's going, well, hey man, I haven't had a hit of anything for a while. So what's going on? And it's very, very difficult to recreate those kinds of chemical reactions when you're sitting at home in your studio. You know what I mean? No,

SPEAKER_01: 11:42

I absolutely know what you mean. It's tough. And, you know, there are a lot of ups and downs that come with this pandemic. Speaking about your music, you have the song Rise Above This, which you wrote sort of an ode to your brother.

SPEAKER_04: 11:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:58

And beautiful, beautiful song. And from that came the Rise Above Fest, which is all about suicide prevention and about donating part of the proceeds to an organization called SAVE. It stands for what is it?

SPEAKER_02: 12:16

Suicide Awareness Voices of Education.

SPEAKER_01: 12:20

Okay. Right, right. And, you know, I think it's really important. Thank you so much for speaking out about your brother and also doing this in honor of him. But I think it's important to know the effect of what suicide can do to families and loved ones. Can you kind of express to me how that affected you, your feelings when that happened?

SPEAKER_02: 12:48

Well, I basically hid out in the bottom of a vodka bottle for the better part of three or four years and did all the drugs under the sun. But a real physical response was it actually broke my dad's heart. One of his ventricles stopped working completely. He had an artery that was one of the arteries, or I think it was an artery, not a vein, going from his heart because of that actually sort of, it had this weird anomaly where it sort of atrophied and was absorbed by the body and it was no longer there. So he was running on three chambers for a long time. And that was all due to that death. So he had to have a pacemaker put in. But that was a physical, actual broken heart response, which I never knew that there was. I thought that was a hyperbolic thing. I thought it was a, you know, written by Shakespearean sort of throw out statement. But as it so appears, it can actually happen. For me, it was just, you know, he was on the road with us. And it was just, you basically, we flew home. We had the memorial service, then we were back working in two weeks because I needed to be busy. I needed my mind to be busy. And again, honestly, it wasn't so much about being busy as it was about being numb. And I did that for a long time and many, many times when I should have probably died myself through excess. So after those three or four years of complete devastation, just moping around, I just had the idea that, and I think we were even sitting in, some little place in South America or something. I think we were on a tour there. And we just happened to be talking to all the guys. We said, hey, we should do something about, we should do something in this for suicide awareness. We set up the whole, the first one basically took about a month to set up and that was it. We didn't have much time. So we had, it was kind of a throw and go situation. We had some bands that we knew that were in the area and we asked them if they would all just take that entire, or whoever was in the area, could they all come and play this particular night? We had a friend do lights for free. We had, you know, we had somebody do the sound for free. We did it at this little outdoor amphitheater in Guildford, New Hampshire. And it was a pretty great, I mean, pretty successful for, for something that was barely advertised and it was kind of just sort of thrown together quickly. We ended up having about 5,000 people and we considered it quite successful. And then we, a stage at Exit 111 Festival, which was really, really gracious of those guys to give us that platform. And we had a tent and we had Dr. Dan, who's like the crusader of suicide awareness. He lives and breathes this stuff. He's a truly wonderful guy. And he's the head guy over at Save. And he's really passionate. So it's really easy to keep something alive. the momentum for something like that going because his passion drives so much of his, as much as mine does from, from, for different reasons. Um, and we were supposed to then, that was last year, it was at the stage of this year was supposed to be the launching year of, of our reborn, uh, rise above fest here in Nashville. Um, and of course now that's been put on hold, but the, the, the, the, the really cool thing about it is, is, is it's, it's, I believe the largest gathering in the world for suicide awareness. That's a rock show. And it's, you know, the whole idea is that it's about positivity. And it's about the fact that if you feel like you need to speak to somebody, you should just speak to somebody. And I mean, I read a thing the other day, or it was actually today. It's like, you know, I'd rather have a difficult conversation with you than go to your funeral. You know what I mean? And that kind of stuck with me. I read that today, actually.

SPEAKER_01: 16:28

Well, you know, I've talked to other musicians who have gone through mood disorders, depression, and I could think of one in particular. She said, I was so thankful that my bandmate came up to me and said, what is going on? I know that you are not... feeling the way that you normally do and not acting the way that you normally do and had that difficult conversation. And she said, despite the fact that it was uncomfortable at the time, she says it probably saved her life, you know? And I think it's important sometimes to really get into someone's face and just, you know, see what you can do. But, you know, through all of the experiences that, experiences that you've had, and I'm sure knowledge that you've gained through, um, you know, through all of this, what kind of advice would you give somebody if they did approach you, you know, saying, I am having suicidal thoughts?

SPEAKER_02: 17:30

It's tough. I mean, you know, we also, Corey and I also have different perspectives on our kids currently. We have, you know, I have a three-year-old, he's got a 13-year-old. So I think, yeah, my three-year-old has been back at daycare now for a month. So it's, she was definitely, you know, acting out. She would have lots of really angry, emotional days. And I think she was missing the social interaction, even at three. You know what I mean? Even as someone as young as that, she could tell that being with mommy and daddy every day was just, it's not cool. It's great, but it's also, I prefer these other little kids that I can run around with and we can play on the swings and stuff like that. in those days, for example, you know, and I'm not, I'm not talking about somebody else, but in those days we'd have to say to her, like, why are you so angry? What is, what is, what is wrong? How can we make you feel better? Because, you know, and she, she really, had just started, it was just before she turned three. So she turned three in July. So she's, then this thing, what started, we basically kept her out since February. So there's, this was a good, you know, six months of her being home with us. And she's in that time, her vocabulary exploded and she became this little person. And she's like this, this really cool little kid. And now towards the end of it, it's easier to have a conversation with her. And she can say, I'm sad, I'm mad. And then she'll, she'll try and explain to you why. But in the beginning, she couldn't, she couldn't tell me, she couldn't vocalize what the, what the problem was. And I knew it was something, but I didn't know how to help now as far as if somebody comes somebody that's an older person comes up and says hey you know that's the thing i i could be what has worked for me in the past has been to find my creative outlets and to use them but i my motivation is at an all-time zero right now um because i'm again i'm sort of at a in a trough right now as far as depression goes and My advice would have been in the past, yeah, go ahead and do something that you love. And it's like, well, if you don't love it anymore, it doesn't help. I really enjoy writing music in this room when I know I'm writing for an album and then I know I'm going to tour that album afterwards. And I know that that's kind of a process and it's kind of a cyclical thing. And now that's gone. So I don't know what I would say at this point. I think it's probably good to speak to somebody about it. I mean, it's very difficult to just sit and sort of hold everything in and not feel like you want to explode. So in the past, now I feel like I was almost cavalier about it when I said, what you got to do is you got to find a positive outlet that makes you feel good. And then you find yourself in a position where you're like, well, that positive outlet for me, it doesn't even feel that positive anymore. But I just kind of just hold out hope for the future. Because all of this eventually will end. We know that. We can't all be trapped at home forever. I'm just so sick and tired of it. I'm getting to a point now where I'm just angry more than I'm sad. And it's sort of shifting from woe is me, self-pitying, dreadful depression into more of a defiant anger where I'm like, I've had enough. I've had enough of this. I can't do this anymore. Mentally, I can't do this anymore.

UNKNOWN: 20:37

And

SPEAKER_02: 20:37

that's been a real turning point because it's kind of a scary thing to think is I'm getting to a point where I'm feeling like I'm at my wit's end as far as how much I can take, how much of this mental anguish I can continue to take without, you know, snapping. Again, maybe speaking about it or maybe writing it down in a journal type thing. I think that the main thing is getting it out. That's the thing. It doesn't have to be through creative. It could just be you can just write down, dear diary, today I feel like crap. And even that, and I might take my own advice on that for a change, but it's kind of like, even just this talking about it, I can tell there's a whole bunch of stuff that wants to just come out.

SPEAKER_00: 21:20

You know, we do the best we can. I think trying to provide a foundation, you know, speaking of our album title, you know, if you want peace, prepare for war, you got to build some confidence within yourself that, It's very tough when you're by yourself at your house. Confidence is built amongst other kids. And that's the scariest part today is when you lock them in a room and say, you know, no more school and no more this. And when they go out and they're hanging out with their friends, just like us, you know, we build confidence. Okay, you know, I'm going to try to be the best I can today. And I'm going to try to do this for this person and, you know, try to help out. in some type of way. When you're not allowed to do that, your confidence level falls down and then you get into depression. It's this downward spiral. And I'm like Sean, I need to have some truth when it comes to what exactly is happening. I can't live in fear. I'm not really good with fear. You know, growing up, I grew up super fast. I want my daughter to grow up super slow. You're a kid this long and you're an adult your whole life. So I want her to enjoy And think about that. There's going to be a year or two for all these kids that was taken away from them. And so that's going to, that's going to have repercussions. I know from, I grew up pretty fast and, you know, when my parents got divorced, I went into this rage thing and, you know, I kind of locked myself away from people. And, and that's kind of how I probably got into music. I just sat on my bed and played all day, you know, every instrument in the damn room, you know, I just wanted to play because I was so angry about the divorce. And then, and then, you know, rebelling against my parents and I mean, moving out at super young age and, and stuff like that. I mean, I wonder, that's what happened to me for that thing. I wonder what's going to happen to kids. And I'm trying to make sure it doesn't happen to my kids. I'm sure as all the parents are that you don't, they don't get affected to some point where they're going to rebel. They're going to take, they got to point a finger. Maybe they're going to point it on us for allowing this to happen. It's no one's fault. that this disease came or whatever. And, but it's everything that goes along with it. They hear stuff on the news, you know, that's racist stuff. And it's, you know, it's just keeps piling on, piling on. It's like, and I just try to reassure her that, you know, listen in this house, we will, you know, we're fine. You know, I miss me and your mom are fine. And there's, there's gotta be some, some solid foundation for her to stand on. The friendships you have with people make it a strong foundation. So when these turbulent times come, you know that you have something to stand on. You don't have that. You're not going to just fall off the earth. You know what I mean? And that's so important to let people know. I think Now's a good time to express these type of emotions. I know we do within our band. I know we do it. I know all the families of this band express how much they love each other a little bit more than they did before all this happened. And it's important to do that. If you don't have that ear to listen to people calmly and then, uh, just before speaking, understand the problem. You know, maybe, you know, it's not, my daughter never tells me exactly what's going on. Never. Now, Sloan, what's wrong? Nothing. Cool. Let's start there. So it's, it's, you kind of just got to, okay, well, and just listen. A lot of times kids are, kids are very, they're a lot smarter and people in general, they just want someone to listen and know that, that they're, voices are heard and you can't just say that this is just do this us as men we just fix we want to fix it so bad you know it's like well if we do this and this that doesn't really work with girls sometimes you know it's best if i if i just listen to what do you think about that you know like um She'll be 14 in like three weeks. Jesus. Well, you

SPEAKER_01: 25:39

know what? Congratulations on raising her up to this point because, you know, teenagers, they have these raging hormones and there's so many changes going on in their life. And just to have a dad that wants to listen, you know, listening shows care. Right. And if you have somebody who not only listens, but responds to what you say, it shows you that, you know what, you love me, you care about me. And oftentimes that could be the turning point to anyone that's struggling with emotions or the way that they feel. And, you know, that

SPEAKER_02: 26:13

also, yeah, sorry to interrupt you, but that also then allows them to understand they're not alone. That's the main thing. I think, I think that's the big thing for anybody who feels deeply depression, the sadness, the frustration, all that stuff. If you feel like you're going through it by yourself in a house full of people, that just, I think, compounds the issue and makes it much worse.

SPEAKER_01: 26:36

Yeah, just that understanding and also knowing that we don't all have to be perfect and happy and joyous and show that image that people show on social media. You know, the emotions are really the colors of the rainbow. You know, it touches people in a different way. So just any kind of way to express that emotion and get either that, you know, you talk about depression, you talk about anger, we talk about hurt. These are all things that really need to get out in a healthy way. And one thing you mentioned, Sean, was something that a lot of people do when they're hurt and they don't know where to put that emotion is that they will turn to drugs and alcohol. I mean, this will really help a lot of people because a lot of people are in that situation. What was it that was a turning point for you to kind of lift you out of that and make you realize that there's other solutions?

SPEAKER_02: 27:42

Well, it was a couple of things. I'm 41 now, but I turned 40, you know, obviously a year and a half ago, almost two years ago. And something changed then. It was after we'd been on a very long, very hard tour. You know, Lily was still a baby at that point. She was still kind of, you know, sleeping more than she was awake at the time. But she was starting to get to a point where she's starting to babble and she's communicating. And so it was a whole, it was like a real child. It was a real person in there. It wasn't just... um something that required 24-hour supervision it was more of a oh we can actually interact and we can have i can get responses and and it was you know so she became this real person and Corey was talking earlier about how we grew up fast and then we spent 20 years not trying to grow up. You know what I mean? It's like we acted like grown kids. And I think we sort of, certainly for me, I spent a lot of time with very little regard for other people's feelings or through my own actions. I always thought everything I was doing was self-destructive and it certainly was, but it was very destructive for people around me as well. And I understand that now. So I had been through two decades of drug abuse, heavy alcoholism. And I mean, I still drink and I probably still drink a little bit too much, but I'm working on that. But I think the thing was for me was, okay, I don't want to die anymore. I no longer feel like I'm invincible. I'm not invulnerable to the effects of these things, the poisons that I'm putting in my system all the time. So... With that, it was something about turning 40. It was something about the kid. She's getting older and she's just becoming this real. And also just because, you know, I put my wife through a lot of hell at that point and just through my own the way I was behaving was absolutely shameful. So all of these things came to, I came to realize, okay, for a large part of my life, I didn't think like I deserved anything good. I didn't feel like I was allowed to have nice things or that people, you know, I didn't feel that people actually loved me. I thought it was more that they were just saying that so they could have the lavish lifestyle that they otherwise wouldn't have. You know what I mean? It was kind of, I've always waited for the other shoe to drop. And it's a really strange way to live. But it's because when I was younger my childhood wasn't very wasn't very full of love and bubbles it was it was you know my dad never said he loved me but we we knew he did but he was you know I think for Corey and I both we come from from households where positive emotion was a lot less than you know, evident than there was more of the negative stuff. Like my dad was, my dad was more focused on his reputation by what I was wearing. Or if I was seen smoking a cigarette, all hell would break loose. So, you know, he was, he was really concerned about that type of his, the way people thought of him in, you know, in the neighborhood basically. And he didn't want to, he didn't want to have the loser kid. You know, then my mother, when they divorced when I was really young, but she was always just about telling me what a bad person I was and how terrible I am. And really, if she did something that was heinous to me, then she would give me the silent treatment until I apologized to her for being offended to what she did to me. You know what I mean? It was this weird sort of... So emotionally, I come with very, very few tools to handle any of this stuff because I was never taught any. But I also know that what they... I know what they... it look like, but my knee jerk responses to things are still the way they used to be for it. You know, I see a couple of therapists and I'm working on it and I'm, I'm trying to get, but you know, I've, I've had a break in therapy because the video therapy to me is just weird. I find it to be, if you're having this really meaningful and I love my, my therapist, but I, I would rather see him in person than, than me sit here and sort of just stay at a screen. It just doesn't feel like the connections are the same. It's, um, What I can say is for both of us, for Corey and I, and I'm assuming, is that we've learned what we don't want to be. And we've learned what we don't want a household to look like. And we've learned that we want this to be a home, not just a place where you crash every once in a while. You know what I mean? And that gives you a different perspective. However, we still were raised under what would now be considered by, I don't know, millennials to be archaic, that we are men that we are we are men and that's what we do is we we do the chop down the tree stuff you know what i mean we don't but by the same token i'll let my daughter paint my nails so they don't care i'm very comfortable in my sexuality so it doesn't really bug me but i also understand that that i never really felt my dad wasn't what i would consider to be an alpha male type guy. It wasn't his profile. He was a strong, strict guy at home, but he was never really, he wasn't the guy that if somebody came up to you at a dinner and said something rude to your mom, he'd get up and clock the guy. Certainly, he never came across that way. He was very much more a demure kind of guy. And I'm fairly similar, but I'm fiercely protective of my family. So I have a, you know, it's more of a killer instinct, if you will, as far as keeping the girls safe. But yeah, you try and learn what, you know, you can see in your head what it's supposed to look like. Yet it's still very difficult for me to break old patterns of behavior that I've had for so long. That if... I'm approached about, and often I think I disappoint my wife because I respond as if I'm being blamed for something, and I'm not. But my knee-jerk response is to react in defense, and my defense is offense. That's just kind of how I grew up. So I'm trying to break that. So you learn a lot about yourself. You certainly learn all your flaws very quickly, or your weaknesses. So that's kind of what you have to, that's on top of all of this other stuff that's going on as well. But yeah, I mean, it is just, the whole goal is to keep them as happy as possible. And I often find that I will prefer for them to be okay and not know that I'm not okay, because I don't want to bring them down. I would rather suffer in silence, which isn't healthy, obviously, but that's been the approach. And Obviously, that's going to lead to times when emotional outbursts because you've spent so much time. You're talking about the fear and the rage and all those things. When we had the grief counseling right after my brother died, the guy explained it like this. He said, you know, imagine you're a bottle of, you just got this glass jar. And every time you have an angry thought or you have a fearful thought, it's a marble that drops in that jar. And if you don't address that and you don't talk about it and you don't try and resolve it in any kind of way, that jar is going to fill up. And at some point, the jar is going to overflow. And that analogy just stuck with me forever. And it makes a lot of sense to me. And when we did the whole grief thing, we're just trying to get some of those marbles out of that can right now, out of this jar, so that nobody has any overflow. And that's kind of the challenge, really, is to make that clear to people. our kids and our partners. And I haven't been very good at that as a partner. And I need to work on that. And when it's with a kid, it seems to be easier somehow because the role is different. Your role is to be the teacher. You're not, you know, you can sort of, that's a clean slate. You can set the pace. You can set the guidelines for how to deal with these things. Even though you know you were really terrible at them yourself, In practice, you can pass on the information and work on it on breaking your own behavior patterns separately. You know what I mean? But I know that I respond poorly to certain ways of being spoken to. And what I will do is teach my daughter that if she feels a certain way, I never want to be the parent that makes her feel like she can't talk to me about anything. If it's a good conversation, if it's a terrible conversation, it doesn't matter because it's not going to stop me loving her. And I always want you to know that, again, that she is safe in this house. She's protected and loved. And those are the things that are the most important. And then that sort of all comes back around to we can't provide. You know, we don't have our roles that we play in our lives going right now. So that's, again, now we feel, I mean, I feel anxious all the time. And again, I'm trying to do all of this and hold myself together. And that's becoming more and more difficult. But yeah, so I stopped drugs. I don't do drugs anymore. Again, I probably shouldn't drink as much as I drink, but at least I acknowledge that it's there. I am actively taking steps to change that. Those were coping mechanisms because when they said two weeks to slow the roll or lower the curve or whatever, We all thought two weeks. I can do two weeks. Cool. Let's hit this. Let's do dance parties. Let's do movie night. Let's have popcorn on the couch. And then it's a month. And you're like, well, we can do another couple weeks, man. It's not a big deal. We'll be back in two weeks. And then it's, no, no, no. Now it's another two months. And then you start going, well, huh. Well, we've built every single puzzle that is available on Amazon at this point. We did. We have a stack of puzzles that we bought. We have played every game. We have, you know, we have... We've opened every bath bomb that's got a little toy inside. It becomes, now you just, it's no longer just a distraction. Now it's becoming almost like a desperation thing to find things to stimulate you. I think what I would love for our leaders to know is that while they still get to go to work every day and reign over us as Lord Supreme, I just feel like there's a real human consequence here. And you've seen that in spikes in suicides, child abuse, domestic abuse, animal abuse, drug addiction, drug overdose, alcoholism. You've seen all of those spike because everyone's just desperate at this point. It's no longer just entertain yourself for a couple of weeks. It's now, I'm desperate. I don't know what else to do.

SPEAKER_01: 37:45

Well, yeah, that's the challenge is really being able to dig deep and find... Like, how are we going to accept this and possibly do it for the long term, but until it's safe for our families to be outdoors? You know, I just wanted to say that, you know, Solutions is part of the podcast. If listeners want to go to checkyourheadpodcast.com, we have all kinds of resources, often free and affordable, like telehealth, online support groups. places where you can call if you need to talk about and vent. I mean, venting is really important right now because there is a lot of frustration, right? Sometimes you just want to go, oh my gosh, you know, I just want things to go back to normal. But Sean, thank you for for mentioning counseling as one of your ways. And also like the self-awareness and constantly working on your relationships. Corey, what are some of the things that you've been doing to kind of as solutions to get through this and for your mental health in general?

SPEAKER_00: 38:54

For me, it's, you know, it's music. Through music, we are allowed to, you provoke emotions and, you know, I love music. one of the greatest part about Sean's lyrics, I love his lyrics for, he's truthful, you know? So I think when we're on stage and I'm looking at the crowd and they're singing every word, I mean, they're expressing themselves, you know, they're getting it out, you know, that's not happening. And so, like he was saying earlier with endorphins, I have to find, I'm more of a self-inflictive kind of guy. So that's why I do the jujitsu, And I actually hate it. I mean, to be honest with you, it's not cool to get smashed on for an hour. I've got so many small injuries going on right now. Like before we did the live thing, my hands, I couldn't even make a fist. So I had to stop jujitsu for like two weeks before we do it, before we go, just for my hands to heal. It is a love-hate relationship, but in that moment when you were out of breath and in that struggle of fight or flight, it's self-inflicting, but at the same time, it's exercise. I call it exercise. It's the only thing that's kind of, when I walk out of it, I'm calm. I think Sean's When he told me he was going to therapy, I looked at him as if he was brave rather than, and had courage to do that where I'm over here trying to do jujitsu and stuff like that, you know, deal with my own way. No one likes to go to the doctor. You know, I go to the doctor if I have stitches and that's, I need stitches. And even then I'm looking for duct tape or something to close it. So, I mean, no one wants to, and this is our outside. No, our inside, our physical and our mental, it's just so important. It should be a thing of honor to say, you know, hey, I'm going to get some help. And everybody said, man, it's awesome. My family, we've gone through some stuff like that. And you support each other. It takes courage to do this, have the courage to do it and support the people that want to do it without putting this weird, thing around them like something's wrong with them now so you can't hang out with them kids can be cruel you know stuff like that i mean these days everybody's waiting for oh there's a weakness let's point at it you know it's and we've got to get over that we really got to get over that and and and kind of get back to uh helping each other and when when someone is down if they need to do if i need to do jiu-jitsu nobody sean's not gonna make fun of me for Maybe I should be made fun of a little bit, but he knows that's what helps me, you know? So, you know, he wouldn't make fun of me. Things that are gonna help him, things that would help Del, fishing, is it a therapy for him? Probably, that's why he's fishing 24-7, you know? Johnny, everybody's got their thing in this band that helps them get through it. You know, I think we all kind of did a little thing, trying to share with you guys, What's going on with us? How are we able to get through it? But if people do need professional help, that takes a lot of courage and you should be lifted up into a place of, wow, man, that's real powerful of you having that courage to do that rather than anything else.

SPEAKER_01: 42:42

Well, you know, that's great that you say that because it kind of ties into the slogan of the podcast, which is be brave, ask for help, and be persistent in finding the mental help that you need because everybody does have their own solution, and it's not a one-size-fits-all, right? I mean, everybody finds what is going to help them. whether it's therapy or listening or medication or jujitsu. And, you know, we all kind of have to, you know, see what's going to work for us and also, you know, try to help our loved ones. So thank you so much for speaking out and telling your stories. I've always learned something new every time I speak with, you know, great musicians like yourself. But closing up, is there anything else that you'd like to say about mental health or about your Amazing Dan Seether?

SPEAKER_02: 43:35

Well, there's not much to report on the Seether front right now. But the general idea that create the environment where the sense is that nobody is alone. You know what I mean? And that's really it, is that I know everyone's, we're all in this together. And that's just sloganeering and it's great. But if you really apply that philosophy, we in this nuclear family are all in this together. And then by default, the extended friends and family that everybody knows that everybody here can lean on the other ones in the room. That's the most important thing, I think. Because then as soon as you take away that isolated feeling and that sort of sense of you've got to beat this by yourself, that makes things a little bit easier. You know, if you just don't feel like you're carrying the world on your shoulders and you have to put on a brave face the whole time because you don't want to show any weakness. You know

SPEAKER_00: 44:32

what I mean? Yeah, like you were saying earlier with Instagram, look at how happy we are. You don't have to put everything's perfect all the time. You know what I mean? It's okay to say, man, I'm having a bad day or just every now and then, you know, not how perfect, because none of it is. None of us are and or ever will be. So it's kind of, you know, be yourself. And that's the hardest thing to do for everyone is truly be themselves and express themselves that way.

SPEAKER_02: 45:05

And get off the social media.

SPEAKER_00: 45:08

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 45:11

Well, thank you so much, Sean and Corey of Seether. Really loved having you on the Check Your Head podcast.

SPEAKER_02: 45:18

Thank

SPEAKER_01: 45:24

you very much for having us. I appreciate it. Dr. Dan gives us a lowdown on how to recognize suicidal behavior and what we can do to help. I wanted to start with something, you know, really important, but also kind of basic, which is what are some of the facts you could share regarding suicide?

SPEAKER_05: 46:00

Sure. Well, I mean, there's some big numbers and there's some really sad numbers. We lose about 800,000 people a year to suicide. That's one death every 40 seconds somewhere in the world. So this is a major public health crisis. In the United States, the last year we have data from the CDC is in 2018, and we had over 47,000 people lost to suicide. That means we're losing one American about every 10 minutes. Somewhat more scary for a lot of people is that about every 28 seconds, someone attempts to take their life. Every 28 seconds. And as you just mentioned, this really cuts across the lifespan. We have young people that really struggle with emotions and feelings and their thoughts. And that continues through adolescence. It goes through adulthood and even to seniors. Our first real big spike in suicide occurs right after people graduate high school and going to college. So somewhere in that 18 to 20 range. But if we actually look at the numbers of suicide in our country, the largest group of people that we're losing to suicide are adults. In our country, suicide occurs in more rural areas, states where there's fewer access to resources, more access to firearms, less access to therapy. Those kinds of things increase the risk. So states like Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, where it's far more rural, we have more suicides. But that doesn't mean we can't pay, we shouldn't be paying attention to other places. We have suicide in major cities and urbanized areas as well. We also know that more males die by suicide than females, three times as often. But females attempt suicide more. Almost four times as often. So we know this cuts across ages. It cuts across demographics of where people live. Money, what their income is, doesn't matter. Their gender doesn't matter. We know that both males and females die. We do know that sexual orientation plays into suicide. That LGBTQ individuals think about suicide more and they have more attempts at suicide. But thus, we don't know. So we know that this is a really prevalent issue. It is a public health crisis. It has been for decades now. And it's something that we absolutely all need to be a part of.

SPEAKER_01: 48:28

Thank you so much for letting us know by phone, by computer. So we do have a big list for people that are not sure where to turn to. That's great. It's really important.

SPEAKER_05: 49:10

And as technology evolves, that's helping. We have the Crisis Text Line. So we have the National Suicide Prevention and Lifeline. But for those that don't want to talk to somebody or are too embarrassed or afraid of what they would say or how they would go, they can text. They can text hello to 741741, and they'll be able to have a texting conversation. You can actually use social media to find groups and support online, whether it's on Facebook or other social media platforms. where you can find good resources that can really help you through these crises.

SPEAKER_01: 49:44

Yes. The next question is, what are some of the warning signs or the behavior of somebody who can be a suicide risk?

SPEAKER_05: 49:53

So we know that there are risk factors that put people at greater risk of dying by suicide. Some of those risk factors might be family history of mental health issues, family history of chemical health issues, family history of suicide. Risk factors are if somebody loses their job or gets kicked out of school or has legal problems. These are things that put people at greater risk of suicide. Conversely, we have what's called protective factors. And protective factors are those things that are like buffers. Those are things that help keep us from going down that path. So a protective factor might be, for example, connections to family, connections to faith, connections to your community. All kinds of connections make a difference. If you have good access to medical care and good health care, that's a buffer. So we have these things called risks and protective factors. As you mentioned, we have warning signs. And warning signs are a little different in the sense that these are the things that we know that people that have died by suicide have done in the past prior to their death. The ones that are most important that we pay attention to are, number one, anybody communicating their intent to die. Now, most people don't just come out and say, I'm gonna go kill myself tomorrow at this time, at this place, and this is how I'm gonna do it. It's often far more disguised than that. It's far more indirect. It might be a statement like, my family would be better off without me, or my team would be better off without me, or I'm just a burden on everybody's plate. Those kinds of statements are suicidal kinds of communications. We need to pay attention to those just as much as we do those direct statements that do happen, just not as frequently. So anybody communicating their intent is a number one warning sign. Now the second and equally important warning sign has to do with looking for a way to die. We know that those people who died by suicide looked for a way to die. They might have searched online for methods on how to take their life. They might have gone around their house and looked for whether it was a weapon or something sharp or a rope or a place where they could do this. They might have looked for medicines that they could take. All different kinds of ways to die by suicide, of course. But they somehow searched out and looked for a way to die. So if we have any idea, any inclination, any observation of somebody communicating their intent and looking for a way to die. Those are the two primary warning signs. The next set of warning signs that we really want people to pay attention to are statements. Statements that somebody might make such as, I feel like I'm just a burden. There's no hope for me anymore. I don't really have a future in front of me. There's no purpose for me to be around any longer. I feel really trapped by everything and there's no way out. These kinds of statements, combined with some of those risk factors, not having enough protective factors, maybe a mental health issue, maybe some other problems in their life, that's when we know that these warning signs really, really set off a triggering set of events.

SPEAKER_01: 52:55

Okay, so one of the other things that I wanted to get your thoughts on is that oftentimes people You know, there are changes during our life or physical disorders that could cause depression or can cause changes in our behavior that, you know, can lead to suicide. I know like in the teens, there's a lot of hormonal changes that can happen even later in life. And then, you know, physical disorders like thyroid disease that can also trigger depression or anxiety. heart disease. So people should also consider that if they're going through something physically, a physical change, that it could also affect their mental health.

SPEAKER_05: 53:42

You know, I should bring you on the speaking circuit and you could talk to doctors and hospitals because that is absolutely true. And one of the main things that's missed, not just by the general public, but by primary care physicians, nurses that are in clinics and in hospitals, is that we don't recognize often enough Quick enough or in ways that we should be asking about are medical conditions that can impact on our mental health. And you mentioned a lot of them. And they were all right. Let me just add another one. Post-traumatic stress disorder after you experience the trauma. And it could be a recent trauma. It could be a trauma that happened many years ago. We have postpartum depression. That happens for some women. So we have a number of these different kinds of things that happen to us biologically that are either related to a medicine that we might be taking that's a prescribed medication. For example, there are many medications that are prescribed that are steroids and they mimic different kinds of mental health issues. There are other medications, as you were talking about, a thyroid problem that can either cause depression or other mental health kinds of behaviors. So We have to really, really pay attention to that as family members, as caregivers, as friends, as coworkers, and definitely as medical professionals that there are these things that happen to us internally that can really affect our mental status.

SPEAKER_01: 55:11

So once we start to hear warning signs and little behaviors of somebody that we feel is a suicide risk, what are some of the things that we can do to help those people? or to guide them in the right direction? So

SPEAKER_05: 55:26

there's some simple things that everybody can do because we know that for about half of the people that make a final decision that they want to die by suicide and they carry it out or carry out the act or attempt at suicide, it's less than 10 minutes. That means it doesn't even matter if you live in New York City. Not enough time to get to a doctor, not enough time to get to a hospital. What that means is that Everybody has to know some of these warning signs. Everybody's got to be able to do a few things. First thing is we need to know that it's okay to ask about suicide. Most people still are very afraid to ask about suicide. They think that if they ask about it is going to lead somebody down that path or it's going to make them want to do it more. That's going to put an idea in their head that wasn't there before. We have a wealth of data and research that tells us that isn't true. And in fact, The opposite can be true. If you ask somebody who might be thinking about suicide, you can actually reduce their level of distress. You can reduce their level of anxiety. So we need to know that it is okay to ask and we need to know how to ask the question. So that's the second thing. If you're worried about somebody if you're concerned, if you have a gut feeling that something isn't right, there's been a change in behavior, there's been a change in things that they're saying, there's just a change in their character, and you're worried about it, and you decide you're going to ask about it, that's a good thing. You must ask the question with a fatality component to it. If you're just not sure what's going on, if you just think something might be going on, but you're not sure exactly what it is, it's okay to start a conversation with somebody. How are you doing? It doesn't seem like you've been yourself lately. Are there things going on that are really troubling you? Are you really struggling through? You can ask these kind of more broad questions just to kind of see where their mental health and what their thinking is at. Their emotions, that's okay. Let's go back now. If you are concerned that somebody really might be at risk of suicide, We've got to ask the question. It's got to be very direct. In doing so, we've got to make sure that we say something about death or dying in that statement. And the reason for that is if somebody is actually thinking about death or dying by their own hand, we don't ask about that. We're going to miss where their brain is at. We've got to be really clear with them. Is this what you're thinking? Would you just rather be dead? Do you want to live any longer? You just don't like life anymore? That's okay. Okay, so now that you've asked, the next thing is to listen. And we need to make sure that when we're listening to people, we spend more time listening than we do talking. I know I'm talking a lot, but we need to listen more. We need to listen for things like, Do they think about the future? Do they have any hope for the future or hope for getting better? Have they ever been in treatment before? Has it ever worked for them before or not? Were they compliant with treatment, taking their meds or seeing their doctors, all of those kinds of things? We need to think, we need to listen for, do they have specific reasons to live? Like, I want to get to this graduation or I want to see my kids have children or I want to get to my wedding date or my retirement, whatever it is. Because those specific reasons to live are the kinds of things that we can actually use to have a conversation with them. And that can deescalate people very quickly. We want to make sure that we're listening non-judgmentally. We don't want to judge somebody who's thinking about suicide or is even struggling with mental health issues. Whatever their thoughts are, whatever their feelings are, they're theirs. And we need to acknowledge them and recognize them and say, look, I may not understand what you're going through. I may not be able to feel what you're feeling right now, but that doesn't mean I don't care. And it doesn't mean I can't support you. And it doesn't mean I don't want to be here for you because I do. So we want to listen for specific things. We want to make sure that we reflect that back to them. And then we want to respond to them. We want to make sure that they know that we're going to be there to support them. We want to make sure that they know that there's resources out there. the ones that you mentioned, the ones that are on your website. Those are the kinds of things we want to give to somebody who has that tunnel vision that doesn't know that there are alternatives and options. The more we can give that to someone who's struggling, the more they're going to believe in us and the more that they're going to want to have a conversation with us. Now, one more thing that's really, really important here. If you're having a conversation with someone and they're really struggling and they may say, You know, I've thought about it. I wouldn't ever do it, but I've thought about it. And you know they're talking about suicide. Make sure you don't leave them alone. We know that if you leave somebody alone that just discloses this and you say, okay, this is really important. You and I need to talk about this. Let's meet in an hour. Let's meet in two hours. Tragically, sometimes that two hours is too late. And it increases their shame. around this when you put that off if somebody's talking to you about a life or death kind of thing it's no different than if they're having a heart attack you don't say i'm going to get back to you and perform cpr in a couple hours or i'm going to get you to a doctor in a couple hours we shouldn't do that here either we need to be ready to say look if that's what you're thinking about We need to talk to somebody else right now. Let's get you to a professional. Let's talk to somebody at the National Lifeline. Let's get you connected to somebody. I'm not going to leave you alone until we know that everything's going to be safe. Those are really important things to do if you know somebody's at risk of suicide.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:06

Yeah, and I want people to know, too, that it may not even be a loved one that has care and compassion for you. It could be somebody in a support group. You know, because there are people out there that feel like they don't have anyone you know, that they can depend on. But people do care out there, and I do think that those questions show care and compassion. Oftentimes, just that feeling can help somebody really rethink ending their life. The other thing is depression, as an example. I mean, other mood disorders as well. One of the symptoms can be fixating on suicide as part of the disorder. So... If somebody is going through that and is scared that they're thinking this way, it's part of just the disorder. So, you know, once you're back into balance, you know, you may not have those thoughts anymore. Right.

SPEAKER_05: 1:02:00

That's exactly right. There are a number of symptoms of these various illnesses. Obviously, most people think about depression, and depression obviously has a depressed mood where you're unhappy and you're very sad. You might be very tearful. You might have physical symptoms such as you don't want to eat or you eat too much or your sleep is off. Either you sleep too much or too little or it's a very distressed kind of sleep. You might have no energy. You might have no drive, no interest in anything any longer. You might not enjoy anything longer. But you're exactly right. Some people that live with depression do think about suicide. It is one of the symptoms of it. Not everybody does, but some people do. We wanna check things out. We wanna make sure we're asking the right questions and keeping people safe and getting them through the crisis. And most of the time, it is true that anybody can be a support system.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:58

Well, one thing that Sean mentioned when he lost his brother Eugene to suicide was that I'm sure there's like an aftermath of emotions that come with that. Along with, of course, incredible grief, there could be guilt or remorse. I could have done something. And he mentioned that he went through grief counseling. Can you tell me more about grief counseling and maybe what you could say to somebody if they're feeling any guilt or remorse about losing a loved one to suicide?

SPEAKER_05: 1:03:32

Yeah, so this is one of those really kind of tricky and sensitive things. In our country, we don't deal with death very well. We don't really prepare people for it. We don't do a lot to support people through it. You have this grieving period that's kind of an active grieving period for maybe a week, couple weeks, maybe a month at the most, and then yes you grieve with your family for maybe a year but then it's time to move on that's really kind of Pretty standard thought for most people. And yet we know when it comes to suicide, there are some things that are similar in that and some things that are very dissimilar in that. Suicide occurs most often in the homes. It doesn't most often occur in hospitals as most deaths do. Suicide involves a violent act and can be very traumatic to see, which is not something that most people experience when they experience seeing somebody who's dead and deceased. There's lots of unfinished kinds of unresolved things that happen that don't necessarily happen with other kinds of deaths. It can be very sudden and unexpected, opposed to some other deaths that people know might happen. So there's similarities and differences there. The main difference is for people grieving a loss of a loved one to suicide. And I have personally experienced, I lost a cousin of mine, I lost a very close friend of mine to suicide so I kind of know this from a lot of different perspectives when it comes to suicide there is this unending why that other deaths don't have suicide loss survivors live with this why why why that doesn't ever go away coupled with that is as you mentioned guilt guilt and shame There isn't guilt in other types of death, but for suicide, guilt around how come they didn't call me? How come they didn't reach out to me? Was there something I did before that prevented that? They tried to call me and it was the middle of the night and I just figured I'd get back to them in the morning, but I had no idea this was going to happen. The last conversation we had didn't go very well. Is it my fault that they decided to die? All of these things are reactions, response. emotions, feelings that come about after a suicide loss that in grief counseling, we try to help people through and help them understand about suicide and how different it is.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:06

Well, you know, Sean mentioned that after his brother died that he sort of went through a period where he wanted to shut down those emotions, which is so difficult to deal with, but he used drugs and alcohol, which of course got him into trouble with drugs and alcohol. But with the counseling, it's like a healthy way to get those feelings and emotions out. And doing it in a way which hopefully we can get beyond some of the grief and kind of get back to life and have a healthier perspective on a really terrible loss.

SPEAKER_05: 1:06:45

Yep. Males tend not to be willing to talk and be open as we would like them to and need them to be when they're grieving. So yes, we do see people turn to alcohol and prescription meds to get through the pain. What happened to Sean and with his brother is a horrible tragedy that has taken Sean in different directions, not only personally, but professionally, obviously, with the band, with the music that he's written, with the concert and event that he started, the movement that he's become involved with. And he's tried to take a really, really horrible tragedy and turn it into something positive. And that's not positive that his brother is gone because he would do anything. He'd give it all up to have his brother back. But he wants to turn it to a positive so that nobody else has to suffer the way that he suffered. Chanda really... incredible guy and he has this incredibly huge heart and he wants people to be well and he wants people to to know that they don't have to go through this alone and so by creating the the rise above festival by writing his music about this by supporting fans that reach out to him all of the time with their personal stories or that he meets while he's on tour this is how sean has found a way through some of the grief But the truth is, it never goes away. And it's always there for him. It's tattooed on his hands. It is part of who Sean is now. And it is really this legacy that he is leaving in his brother's memory that has become this really huge worldwide phenomenon called the Rise Above Fest. And the song Rise Above is an anthem for suicide prevention and saving lives.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:42

I love that song. It's one of my favorite Seether songs. It's got so much heart to it and so much emotion. And just, you know, you could really feel, you know, just the words coming through to you. It

SPEAKER_05: 1:08:54

is my favorite Seether song. I tear up every time I hear that song live or I hear it through my computer because I know what's behind it. And what's behind it is... is Sean and the loss of his brother and how hard that's been on him to not get to have his brother in his life any longer. And to think about, you know, Could he have done something different? I wish something else would have happened. And how that lingers for Sean. It doesn't mean that Sean hasn't gone on and continued to function in his life. And that's a really important message that we want everybody to know that life does continue on. It's hard. Suicide grief doesn't go away. It changes over time. But Sean is a really great example of how you can survive through the worst possible horrible experience in your life of losing someone that close to you in this way and get others to support you and partner with an organization like Save to say, look, this is horrible. This just sucks what happened to me. I don't want it to happen to anybody else. And if I can do one thing to inspire somebody to say, I'm going to reach out for help, that's what I want to do with my pain. And he's done that better than anybody else in the industry. And if we can all be involved and we can be honest and compassionate with those that are out there that might be struggling, they're gonna open up to us. And if they open up to us, it's an opportunity to save a life. And any time we can do that, make that connection and save somebody's life, we know it has ripple effects, not just for that person and their family and their work or their school, their friends, their community, the world. It changes the world when somebody stays alive through a really horrible crisis that they might be in. And that all just takes a little bit of time and a little bit of compassion and a little bit of willingness to stand up and say, I'm going to be there for you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:03

A big thank you to our featured guests, the great Sean Morgan and Corey Lowry of the band Seether, and Dr. Dan Reidenberg of Save.org. For more information on Seether, to purchase their new album, Seaweeds, Puckham, Parabellum, visit seether.com. For more information on the Rise Above Fest, visit riseabovefest.com. And for more information on Dr. Daniel Reidenberg and Suicide Awareness, Voices of Education, visit save.org. And we'll close out our episode with a clip from Cedar's hit single, Dangerous. If you enjoyed today's Check Your Head episode, share it with your friends and be our friends on social media at CheckYourHeadPodcast. Leave us a review or support us with a donation at CheckYourHeadPodcast.com. So until next time, be brave, ask for help, and be persistent in finding the mental help that you need.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:09

The

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:32

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