S4E11 - The Antidote (suicidality & Teal Swan)

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Catherine Griffith: So I think there's a lesson in there. In the type of environment we create for people to become comfortable being vulnerable and opening these difficult parts of themselves and being willing to show them to another human, that's the suicide killer is reducing isolation and feeling human connection and feeling like you can be vulnerable and safe in these darkest times and be received by another human. There's almost no better antidote than that.

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Kayla: Hi, friends. Kayla here from Cult or just weird? We have a special interview for you this episode. But first, we wanted to give you some context. As a lot of you may already know, in May of this year, 2022, Freeform released a four part documentary series called the Deep End. The subject of the documentary was someone we've covered in past episodes of this show, Teal Swan. A quick refresher, Teal Swan is a new age guru with an online following in the millions. She's considered an influencer as much as she's considered a spiritual teacher, and she's a highly controversial figure. Her teachings touch on, well, everything. How to reach your highest potential, how to overcome depression, how to process trauma, reconnect with past lives, connect to source energy, how to heal on and on.

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Kayla: Shes made claims that she has access to all human and spiritual knowledge via the Akashic records. She claims to be a medical savant. She claims to remember past lives. She claims to be an alien. She claims to have suffered terrible abuse at the hands of a satanic cult in her childhood. And a lot more. Our podcast did deem her a cult leader. And if youd like to go back and listen to those episodes for even further context, check out season one, episodes five and six, the Catalyst. You can also check out the podcast documentary that came out just before ours called the Gateway, hosted by Jennings Brown. The freeform documentary the Deep End is actually based on that podcast, though we would say that the coverage is very different.

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Kayla: But there's one more important thing to know about Teal Swan, and it's what makes her different from all the other online spiritual gurus claiming the ability to heal trauma and access all knowledge. Those claims are a dime a dozen among cult and new religious movement leaders. When we did our first episodes on Teal, this question came up again and again. A lot of what she has to say has been said before, so why is she so wildly successful? We at culture just weird believe that a lot of spiritual leaders gain traction not by reinventing the wheel, but instead by adding their own special sauce. A lot of claims between Teal Swan and Eckhart Tolle and Tony Robbins and twin Flames universe and Yoganonda and Osho and on and all the others.

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Kayla: They all start to sound the same, but each one adds their own specific flavor. Tony Robbins cornered the business market, Deepak Chopra, the celebrity market. Esther Hicks, like Jay Z Knight, channels an interdimensional being. Twin Flames universe can bring you unending love and teal swan well, Teal Swan is willing to talk to you about suicide. The Gateway podcast, our episodes and even the deep end make a point of calling this out. Teal Swan unflinchingly discusses suicide and suicidal ideation in her teachings and advice. In some ways, this makes her a very dangerous figure. She's been accused of encouraging her followers to die by suicide, or of glorifying suicide, or of downplaying it as a quote unquote reset button. She actually has had followers die by suicide while under her tutelage, and Thiel herself has dealt with suicidal ideation and attempts its scary stuff.

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Kayla: And the stance of this podcast is that Teal Swan is not a trained professional and therefore her handling of suicide as a topic of discussion is irresponsible and dangerous and can and has hurt people. But. But her willingness to talk openly, unwaveringly about something so deeply painful and so frighteningly top of mind for a lot of people, this is her special sauce. It's what differentiates her from other spiritual leaders, and it's a big part of why her star has continued to rise. All of this got Chris and me thinking. We've been pondering this since we covered teal in season one, and watching the deep end had us pondering it further. Whatever our feelings about how Teal swan approaches the topic of suicide with her followers, she is in some way meeting a need for people that is otherwise unmet.

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Kayla: People seek out Teal swan specifically to talk about, to process, and to heal their suicidal feelings or suicidal ideation. Why is that? Why is the best outlet for so many people on this deeply human, deeply common topic? An online influencer who says she's an alien and makes YouTube videos about channeling your kidneys? Why is this need to talk about suicide going unmet for so many? And so that's what we're here to talk about today. Chris and I wanted to explore this question and see if we can tease out some answers and maybe shed some light on the options out there beyond Teal swan. There is a renewed interest in Teal and her teachings given the release of the deep end a few months ago. And while we watch the documentary. We won't be doing a review of it here.

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Kayla: If you'd like to hear more about that particular topic, the Conspirituality podcast. It's actually doing a series of episodes on the deep end that we highly recommend. But for this episode, we wanted to focus on the unmet need. And so we talked to Katherine Griffith, professor in the School of Counseling program at the University of San Diego. Her work deals heavily in addressing suicide and suicidality, and she's one of the helpers. We made sure to address the topic of suicide responsibly, but please take note that this comprises the brunt of our discussion. If suicide is a sensitive topic for you, please take care. Otherwise, let's get into it.

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Chris: Well, thank you for coming on the show. Could you introduce yourself to our audience and tell them a little bit about what you do?

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Catherine Griffith: My name is Kat Griffith, and currently I am a tenure professor at the University of San Diego in sunny San Diego. I have a master's degree in school counseling, a PhD in counselor education. I spent the first five years of my career in the professoriate at UMass Amherst, and now I'm heading into my fourth year at USD. And so, long story short, what is counselor education? Even my parents don't know. But the simple way I like to put it is none of our parents.

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Chris: Know what we do.

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Catherine Griffith: No, no. And that's okay. So essentially, I teach counselors to be counselors. So primarily these are school counselors and clinical mental health counselors heading into different school and community based setting. So most of my work has involved Chris and I. You and I got a chance before and walked you through, but my work has mostly been focused on the general well being of queer youth and how do we create supportive environments. And a lot of that, as you can imagine, has dipped into suicidality and what sort of conditions support individuals thriving in their lives. Also, in my role as a faculty member, I, as you can imagine, in the training of future counselors, they need to know what to do when it comes to suicide assessment and all of the do's and don'ts and the good, the bad and ugly of that work.

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Catherine Griffith: And so I'm involved in the training of would be counselors, and also I do a little bit of training the trainer as well.

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Kayla: What brought you to that field in particular? I'm going off. I'm going off book of our questions.

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Chris: We do that a lot.

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Kayla: I hadn't asked you that. Like, what if that's an okay question for you to answer? Like, yeah, what brought you to this because it's a very specific kind of field. So I'm just interested to know it.

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Catherine Griffith: Is, I guess so. I don't know. Among less close folks, I sort of give a boilerplate answer of when you see a need and you see a gap in addressing that need. Obviously there's a clear need within the queer community when it centers around bullying, harassment and isolation and all these sort of things that folks endure and just because of their membership and in said community and getting a sense of meaning and purpose and helping with that and sort of doing a kind of work, you know, when you become a professor, it's very ivory tower, right? USD is a literal ivory tower. I look up at the little ivory tower and be like, that's where I work. And so doing this kind of work just kind of helps me feel a bit more grounded and purposeful in, I guess, what I can say.

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Catherine Griffith: I contributed to this world and sort of this humanist outlook of that should be the role of my life and the purpose of my life. I think going a little bit deeper is acknowledging that for a lot of folks, research is me search. So I'm coming to the table. It's a little glib, right? But I'm coming to the table with personal experiences when it comes to being a part of the queer community and experiencing suicidal thoughts and suicidal crisis points in my life. And so as much as I want to be able to point, just be like, no, I'm just a fully noble person who cares about other people. There's, you know, my psyche is involved in this as well. So.

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Kayla: Yeah, I've not heard the phrase research is me search. And I love it like that.

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Chris: Stealing.

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Kayla: Stealing. Absolutely stealing. That. That's like the reason why we do half of the episodes.

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Chris: Right?

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Kayla: That's the thing. It's like why I write about stuff that I write about. Like research is me search. Yes, please. I take that.

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Chris: Maybe put that as a tagline for podcast, actually.

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Catherine Griffith: It would make a great t shirt at the very least. Yeah, there we go.

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Chris: Yeah, we'll give you a cut. Don't worry. So you mentioned a few times, and you mentioned a few times in your answers here about suicide, which is what we're going to be talking about today. But before we do, I wanted to ask you what are some good guidelines for us to responsibly and safely discuss that topic?

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. And I guess, I mean, how much are we getting into teal Swan? I guess in this episode because I want to, like, clearly lay out there's a lot of wrong in what we've seen, you know, especially if you've listened to your prior podcast or watched the Hulu doc, there's a lot to unpack, but there's some entry points that are helpful, you know. So some good guidelines for thinking about discussing stewardside. One. Well, right at the outset, foundationally, what I really want people to know and understand is that as is absolutely a myth that if someone is talking about suicide, then that means that they're not serious about potentially taking their own life down the road. I think there's this real kind of prevalence of like, oh, well, if you're actually really serious about this, then you don't tell anyone. You stay isolated.

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Catherine Griffith: And it's actually, forgive me, I forget the actual study, but a statistic I had come across is around 70% of people who go on to complete a suicide had shared with someone. Yeah, yeah. So people, I mean, people have conditions in their life that lead them to wanting to die. Very, very few people actually want to die, you know, so there's this, you know, for lack of a better term, this cry for help. Treat that as legitimate. Know that is a very significant warning sign that a suicide could occur. I think there was a great tweet, Olivia Houseman, I believe, and it said, how about instead of attention seeking, you use the term support seeking and see how it changes your response to people talking about their mental health? And I find that really helpful.

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Kayla: Right.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. So I think another thing that I'm really hoping people to know is, and I'm, you know, this is beyond clinicians, this is just anybody with a person in their lives, and that you're wanting to be helpful, but noticing behaviors and not being afraid to ask directly whether or not a person is considering dying by suicide. That's another pretty prevalent myth, that if you ask someone about it and you're direct about it, that you could be implanting the idea that it might be something that they hadn't considered and now have considered because you've breathed life into it. And that's really not the case. I've not, I should mention not just in the training, but also, you know, in practice, I've done a number of suicide assessments, some of grave concern, some of not concerned at all.

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Catherine Griffith: But one thing, the way I would say, is just be really direct in your questioning about it. Are you considering taking your own life? Are you considering dying by suicide? Using that direct language, which is very taboo and uncomfortable. And I have my students, actually have my students chant it just to get the words in their mouth and the muscle memory and build a little bit of comfort because that's how ingrained and taboo that can feel.

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Chris: I'm starting a cult, though.

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Kayla: If you're having people chant, that's actually.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah, I'm here to actually promote my cult, which is way better than teal swan's cult. I enjoy your cult.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Catherine Griffith: Maybe I could get some bikinis with me searches.

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Chris: Now we're talking.

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Kayla: First in line merch.

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Catherine Griffith: So every time I've sort of, and more often than not, when I'm checking in because I'm overly careful, I'm checking in if someone's exhibiting any signs of, like, really overt depression or is a real crisis point in their lives. I'm not shy at all about asking those very direct questions. Are you considering taking your own life? And I guess in terms of what you're looking for in terms of degree of suicide risk, it's either no. Just a firm kind of like, no, absolutely not kind of firm versus some variation of a pause and unsure and the pausing or unsure or all the way to an overt yes. Which is pretty rare. That's putting you somewhere on the scale. You're not nudging someone onto the scale of suicidal, if that makes sense, just by asking that question.

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Catherine Griffith: So you can be really confident in that we can talk about contagion a little bit later. That are something that nudges the dial as far as outside effects. And teal certainly gets into that. But for your end, it's okay to be really direct with that level of concern. I would say be really mindful of centering your own reactions and doing what you can to self soothe. I bet if you can imagine if you ask someone close to or a loved one if they're considering dying by suicide and they say, yeah, actually I am, that's going to cause a spike in panic. Right. And that comes from love because it's kind of the ultimate. I mean, it's literally life or death. And so I want to normalize having that reaction.

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Catherine Griffith: And that's certainly true even of helpers that counselors and psychologists and therapists will also experience that reaction depending on their degree of experience or familiarity with the topic of suicide. But I think when you let panic take over, that's when you slide into all kinds of unhelpful behaviors and you start kind of launch into like, oh, my gosh, what is the quickest road? I think I can fix this. And for a lot of folks, that's minimizing the degree of their pain. So, for example, you're talking with someone and are you considering killing yourself? And they say, yes, and you launch into, like, oh, my gosh, no, here's. Here's why you shouldn't, because here's. Here's the top ten reasons why your life is so great and worth living, and here's why you shouldn't do this.

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Catherine Griffith: And it's essentially an appeal to, can you please soothe me right now?

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Kayla: Right.

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Catherine Griffith: Because I'm really freaked out and I'm really scared of what I've just learned about how dire the situation may be. And I don't. I just don't think anybody was ever helped, truly, with the phrase, at least, you know, at least it's not this level of bad. Or at least you have this thing going for you. And that's not just suicidality. Right. That's all kinds of topics when you think about the times. Well, let me pose this to you, too. When you think about the times and the conversations that have really helped most, when you've shared some level of deep pain that felt vulnerable, possibly taboo, what was it in times that was helpful? What was the other person doing in those conversations?

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Kayla: Not saying at least.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: And not saying, I can't imagine.

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Chris: Yeah. That's another thing that with our traumatic experience, like, we've, you know, listeners, longtime listeners will know that we lost our son.

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Catherine Griffith: Right.

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Chris: Very, very early, after. Very soon after his premature birth. And nobody has deployed, at least on us.

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Catherine Griffith: Thank God.

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Chris: Thank God for that. That sounds horrible. But one of the other things. Yeah. For us is the, like, the. I can't imagine. And I know we're sort of, like, tangenting off a little bit here, but I can't imagine also is a little bit isolating. But I also do want to respond a little bit to what you were saying about that. You know, suddenly the need. Suddenly it, like, switches, and then, like, the person who is perhaps having suicidal thoughts, needing to soothe the person that they just told, I think that feels like that's part of what is so scary about even being able to vocalize it is then it's like, oh, my God, now it's more about them. And now, like, I don't even. Not only do I not have support, I have to be a support all.

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Catherine Griffith: Of a sudden, right.

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Kayla: Reaching out for support with this conversation and, like, you know, for a very intense moment in my life, and now I'm having to be a support or soothe that other person, which, you know, that's tough. That's a tough spot to be in for anyone and especially when you're looking for support in that moment.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. So when you think about, were there any conversations that you had that were particularly helpful or you felt more supported?

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Chris: Jamie.

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Kayla: Oh, I mean, yeah.

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Catherine Griffith: For.

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Kayla: I mean, I'm not sure how this will relate back to this conversation at large, but actually, no, it does. Like, one of the most helpful things that somebody said to me after. After this happened to us was it was really. Yeah. The question. The specific question was, what was he like? So, asking about our three day old son, what was he like? And I think why that was so helpful was because it was like, it was an unflinching response, and it wasn't about trying to step away from the pain or not be in it or minimize it or. Or any of those things. It was really about, like, being in it and being in the reality of it and wanting to know more and genuinely wanting to know more and. Yeah. Not.

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Kayla: Not putting me in a place where I felt like I couldn't talk about it or would have to soothe somebody else, like, that was really one of the biggest things. Thank you for remembering that, because I did not right now.

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Chris: Oh, yeah.

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Kayla: I'm, like, blanking on all of the wonderful things anyone said to me in my life. I'm like, I know I've had good conversations.

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Chris: That was it. There was only one ever.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. I honestly couldn't have said it better. You know, there's something really powerful about meeting someone where they're at and being willing to kind of hold this. This sacred space where your pain is allowed to exist without me trying to change it, without me saying no, you should be feeling differently than how you feel. I certainly empathize with the panic that arises. I certainly empathize with this attempt at a quicker road to, you know, I just need to know that you're okay, but you're going to be a lot better in terms of a support for someone if you're able to do just that, meet someone where they're at, have that willingness to hold space, ask questions, and really hear.

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Catherine Griffith: And if you're more of a literal person and you prefer kind of like a literal guide map, an easy way to demonstrate empathy is through reflection. So whether that's a paraphrase of content they've kind of shared. Oh, yeah, so it is. Life is so painful right now that you're considering ending your own life. I hear that. Or it's a reflection of feeling, and you're saying, oh, wow. I hear in what you're saying is a lot of despair, right now, or reflection of meaning being like, oh, all these, I'm just spitballing here, but really kind of pulling out what are themes in one's life that is kind of led up to this point or what they're currently experiencing. So that's one way, I think, to really. Perhaps the empathy is hard in that moment because you're so freaked out.

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Catherine Griffith: If you can just kind of lock into how do I demonstrate to this person that I am hearing unflinchingly where they're coming from? I'm willing to engage in dialogue in where this person is at and with their pain. And again, not just suicidality, but, you know, grief and loss like y'all have experienced. It's. It's a really good way to be a supportive friend to someone in need. And I think you really find that it feels like the harder thing to do at first, but I honestly think the harder thing is to be someone who has to give advice and know the right advice and have all of the experiences, or to be able to tell someone what the right thing is to do in this moment. That's very likely not going to be helpful, particularly at the outset.

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Catherine Griffith: We might get to a point where we're talking about resources and trying to do what we can to get that person's support and help. But the entry point is empathy. The entry point is, I'm willing to hold this space for this difficult conversation, for sure. So the other things that I think. So I'm kind of speaking from my experiences working with counselors, but I think this could be helpful for people not in these types of professions as well, but getting a sense of the severity, getting a sense of where people might fall on, you know, a sort of scale of. Of direness of the suicidality. And we can talk a little bit about more. I have some. Something I want to share with you.

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Catherine Griffith: At the very least, getting a sense of if there's a plan and if there's lethal means to carry out that plan, and if there are lethal means to carry out that plan. Doing what you can to remove said lethal means getting that out of the hands of the person and of course, directing towards help that might be needed. Whether that is a crisis support in your area. I do recommend not going through the police.

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Kayla: That was one of my questions, like, do you recommend wellness checks and those kinds of things where you call authorities on somebody who is planning?

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah, I think if you can avoid that, you know, crises are crises, and it's better to call someone than call no one for most of the time, but I. What is that website? Don't callthepolice.org. Have you heard of that?

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Kayla: Yes, I think that's exactly what it's called.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. And so that's a really great resource that gives you access to what are the lines or what are the places in your city or county or state that might be able to send more mental health focused folks who have had the kind of training to work with someone in suicidal crisis rather than a police officer. It's not saying that not all police, it's not saying that all police are ill equipped, but a lot are. And so it's kind of like sending in a faction of people that in a lot of cases can elevate a situation. And it's not always malevolence, but it's often a lack of specialized training in area to work with someone in a mental health crisis. And so it's important to bear in mind that it could be placing someone in danger when you involve the wrong parties. Yeah.

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Kayla: I wonder if it feels like you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but it feels like recently, or at least like in the last 20 years, there's been a move away from, like, the criminalization of suicide and treating it as a crime or speaking about it as a crime, as it's not even the word commit.

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Chris: Being removed from.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah.

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Kayla: Suicide is no longer like, that's not a phrase we should be using. We should be describing it more accurately as died by suicide. Or I'm sure you have other language that we don't know about, but to send a police officer when somebody is in this kind of situation, I feel like maybe that only reinforces the idea that this is a criminalized thing rather than like, a mental health crisis.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. Yeah. And that's exactly why the language has shifted away from commit suicide. And even I have to be really sort of still have to be a bit thoughtful and careful in my language because it's just so ingrained in using that terminology. And I apologize in advance if I do that. But, yeah, societally, we've really, to have. To not have a home is illegal. To have a lot of different types of mental health concerns is basically illegal. To kill yourself is illegal. And so it's nice to see us kind of shifting away from that, I guess one thing to kind of be to the point that you might be working in concert with a helper or researching helpers, but have you ever heard of suicide contracts?

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Kayla: No.

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Chris: No?

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Catherine Griffith: Oh, okay. It used to be a pretty common thing of you know, we're going to have our discussion of your suicidality. Ideally, I've approached with empathy and really being able to meet you at where you're at with your pain. We've discussed what stucks might happen, and then we have this sort of corporate offering of a. Now, now, you and I were both going to sign a contract in which you agree that you're not going to kill yourself. And as you can imagine, those have not been particularly effective.

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Chris: That was a good question. Yeah.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. I think, again, it tends to serve in this frickin capitalist environment that we find ourselves in. It's a way of kind of corporatizing a life and death scenario. But more often, it's weird. So weird. And I think the true purpose has more been cya, you know, cover your ass like that. Folding in. But there's a better way to do that actually is effective, and it's called a safety plan. So you're doing a lot of the things of a suicide contract where you're discussing what resources you have available to you in various degrees of crises. How will you sort of planting the minefield of how will you know when you're sort of reaching a crisis point? What behaviors am I going to notice about myself? Who am I going to reach out to?

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Catherine Griffith: And sort of an affirmation that we want to continue this work together. But, yeah, so much better. It's much better. And there's great examples and videos of how to engage in that process online. For any helpers out there still using suicide contracts, I'll just call that a sickness of capitalism and say, I don't. It's not the right paradigm, you know?

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Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It also sounds like it kind of plays into the whole, like, this is more about my soothing, my distress than it is about meeting you where you are. That's. It kind of feels like a written version of that.

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Kayla: I just need to make sure you do this thing versus I need to make sure that you are okay.

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Chris: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. One of the things you mentioned and one of the questions I wanted to ask you is about sort of this, like, there's not just one type of suicidal thought. Like, there's. It seems like there's a wide array and just writing. Just writing the interview questions I was actually kind of running into. That's why I wrote this question is because I was like, I don't know sometimes even what I'm talking about when I say suicidal thoughts. Right? Like, am I talking about, like, a plan? Am I talking about idle thoughts? Am I talking about curiosity? So I was wondering if you had any perspective on, like, language or, like, categories or different ways of thinking about. Different ways of thinking about suicide? Different ways of having suicidal thoughts.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah, I am. Well, I've shared something in the chat with you. I'm not sure if you're able to pull it up, but I wonder if you can, if you'd be willing to walk through those categories.

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Chris: Yes, totally.

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Kayla: Hold it open.

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Chris: I need my old, like, all the things.

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Catherine Griffith: It's in comic form. That's how. That's how I can best process information is through cartoons. But it's got the sort of the one through ten, I think, at the top. That might be helpful to share.

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Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go ahead and. Let's just read them. One. You know, sort of go through them.

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Kayla: Number one, I'm so happy that I will literally go insane if the happiness is sustained for any length of time.

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Chris: So then number two is I am feeling pretty rad. I vaguely recall times I have been unhappy, but it feels like distant memories. Now things are looking up.

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Kayla: Three, it is not the best day of my life. I have stuff on my mind, but I don't think of suicide. Except for when that one friend brings it up, brings up stupid hypotheticals.

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Chris: Number four, suicide doesn't occur to me except in moments of frustration or stress. It's like a weird escape hatch my brain has decided to just go to in an attempt to escape stress. It doesn't feel serious. It's almost a joke.

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Kayla: Number five, the joke is getting really stale. Suicide ideation and other intrusive thoughts keep happening. But I'm mostly interested in other things. It's like a low key death affinity.

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Chris: Number six.

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Kayla: Sorry, I'm getting distracted by the. By the actual, like, comic drawings.

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Chris: The drawings are pretty good. Yeah, like, oh, God, this guy. This guy's getting eaten by a bear. I don't. I don't want that. That's not the type of suicide I want. I am think. Number six is. I am thinking about suicide. A lot of it is seriously troubling. I can distract myself if I really try. However, if an out of control semi was headed toward me, I might not move. I am passively suicidal.

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Kayla: Number seven. I cannot stop thinking about suicide. And unfortunately, I can't distract myself. I might be doing more risky things like driving recklessly or drinking to excess. I've graduated from passively suicidal to having a death wish. I need help.

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Chris: Number eight. I am no longer fighting the thoughts, just sort of indulging in them. I sort of want to make the decision to make the suicide plan, but I'm stopping myself. I'm holding on, but only barely. It isn't safe for me to be alone. I am suicidal. I need to call someone.

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Kayla: I am actively. Number nine. I'm actively making a plan to end my life. I am telling people goodbye, settling accounts, and starting to write the note. I am actively suicidal. I need to tell someone.

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Chris: And then number ten is the last one. I am actively trying to kill myself. If I do not get medical attention, it is very likely I will die.

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Kayla: All of that was accompanied by little comics that illustrated scenarios that related to the scale that we just read. So thank you for sharing that.

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Chris: And the figures are cute, but they also do a good job of, like, displaying the emotions of what is being tried to, you know, what the words are trying to communicate because I was going to say so. I feel like sometimes I have. I will bump into as much as four or five. So just. Just for the listener, you know, for people who don't have this in front of you. Number four was suicide. Doesn't occur to me. And except in moments of frustration or stress, it was like a weird escape patch my brain has decided to go to in an attempt to escape stress. It doesn't feel serious. Almost a joke. And then, like, some of the examples.

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Kayla: There, the examples are just living on the Internet, baby.

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Chris: Yeah, yeah. It's like news. News guys saying climate change. And the guy's like, well, I guess I'll just die. I want to die. I feel like I've definitely been there. And then five is sort of like the next step above that, which is like, the joke is getting stale. The intrusive thoughts happen sometimes I'm still mostly interested in other things, but it's low key, kind of like. So it's like sometimes I do find myself at, like a four and a half.

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Catherine Griffith: This feels.

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Kayla: The number five especially feels very similar to that. I don't remember what it was for me. It was the Atlantic, but, like that Atlantic piece or that some article that came out in the last few years about not feeling very attached to being alive. It was talking about how suicidal ideation isn't just having an active plan and wanting to die. It can also just be. It's not a lot keeping me here. And if it happened, it'd be okay. And, you know, the things that are. The things that I'm living for are making sure that I can feed my cat tomorrow. But that's, you know, that's kind of it and I think that.

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Kayla: I know I'm probably going out on too far of a limb to say this, but I wouldn't be surprised if, like, the vast majority of people find themselves in this kind of space from time to time.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. And that's what I like so much about this. This scale and what I wanted to share. And by the way, it's not my scale. It's developed by a group of writers, artist thinkers called Emingard. I'm hoping that's not a cult. That might be.

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Chris: No.

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Catherine Griffith: They seem lovely and fantastic, and they developed this. And that's what I like about it. Sort of normalizing of a very taboo topic, which is, I think, the fears. When we talk about suicide, we're always envisioning it at level ten, right? We're always envisioning it like, oh, my gosh, this is imminent. We have to approach this as imminent life and death scenario. That's certainly what is happening a lot physiologically with us when we're thinking about it and in other people. But when we're thinking about ourselves, no one's at a one all the time, you know? And a lot of people, including myself, really sit at this, you know, four, five, and six, and sometimes spikes in the more severe directions and sometimes spikes in the lighter direction.

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Catherine Griffith: But all of us are thinking about death to some degree and thinking about our own existence and it's purpose or purposelessness, as the case may be, and that it's, you know, I think I. When I first saw this comic several years ago, I'd been doing work around suicide alley for a long time, but it really kind of sang to me and how much it sort of, oh, okay. We're kind of all on here somewhere. And it was very normalizing and humanizing. And it sort of set me on this path of learning more about the call to the void and this sort of looking into the abyss. And is that inherently pathological?

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Catherine Griffith: And I would say not when I've engaged with folks about this, since anytime I kind of have a conversation or even a public speaking kind of workshop, and I've talked about my own low, steady hum of considering the void that just kind of exists. Right? And it's not necessarily. It's nowhere near a crisis. For a good many of my days, I sort of encounter an initial sort of balked response of like, oh, my God, are you okay? You know, people checking in. I'm like, no, I actually really am. And I wonder if you consider thoughts like this, and sometimes, inevitably, that is the case. Inevitably, people, when they introspect are like, well, yeah, you know, we're all. We're all somewhere grappling with the autonomy that we have with our own lives. And I think one way.

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Chris: Wow, that's a really good way to put it.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. And I think one way of approaching suicidality is also to look at it is what is as a coping skill, I think, for lack of a better word, that we're sort of using suicidality. A lot of folks as well. This does represent an out. This does represent choice and autonomy that I have in my own life. So I guess, long story short is I think that it's one of these things that we're all experiencing and almost no one is talking about. And so it leads to this feeling of being very alone and feeling very isolated. When I think that if were more equipped societally to have these types of conversations, then it would take some of its power away too.

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Catherine Griffith: I think that's kind of been the biggest part of understanding suicide as this greater part of a scale to me is that it's knocked some of the power and intensity out of that low hum call to the void, because I've just kind of learned to accept it as well. This is a part of my life, and I've got a little suicide voice that is just a little emo edge lord that I can literally tell the fuck off. Like, okay, I'm just going about my day. And it's like, hey, how about you? And I'm like, all right. F off. Like, okay. Get it? Yeah. You're so edgy. Yeah.

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Chris: Like, sometimes even, like, indulgent. For me, indulge in terms of thinking about. Not indulge in terms of doing anything. But, like, I think about this spectrum. It also feels like there's potentially, like, non distress related reasons. So, like you mentioned, call it a void, right? Like, to me, a big piece of the DNA of. Of the, you know, lapel du vie. The call of the void sort of trope is curiosity, right? Is like, there's this, like, intense. Like, humans need to discover things, that we have this need to understand the unknown. And death. Being the ultimate unknown generates this, like. Like, insatiable curiosity that we're all just sort of, like, you know, jamming down because we don't want to die, but we still kind of want to know what's there.

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Chris: So that feels to me like that's like a completely non pathological reason to have that sort of call to the void sometimes.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. Well, and also think of end of life decision making and terminal illness. And that's sort of another pathway to it. And then there's also really acute moments of stress that might lead to suicide, perhaps, like, one, you know, one bad choice over another that might lead to taking your own life. And so, yeah, I think that it's so infinitely more complex than you tell me you're having thoughts of suicide, and I immediately got to call someone, and you've immediately got to be involuntarily committed, and we have to fix this immediately. There's so, you know, this is the difficult part of work or even sort of your own acceptance is that not everything is fixable.

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Kayla: Right, right. Yeah.

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Catherine Griffith: And that's tough to grapple with, you know?

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Chris: Right.

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Kayla: This is also really making me think of, like, we're talking about how being able to have these conversations is so taboo. Like, it doesn't feel necessarily safe for everyone to, like, go to their friend and say, hey, this is. This is how it's going. And for that. For that response to be anything besides, like, it's going good. It also feels like, in a way, we are talking about it all the time. Like, when somebody is going through a crisis will often say things like, you know, you hanging in there, or you'll talk. We'll talk in ways of, like, you know, oh, they made it through. Or, you know, you adopt a dog from the shelter and who saved who? Or they saved me. Like, we're talking about. We use a lot of that terminology, and it just really makes me think.

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Chris: A lot of, like, it's like, secret language.

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Kayla: What are you, like, what's the. If the answer is no, what you're asking then is, am I planning on dying, or did I die by suicide? So it feels like. I don't know. That makes me think of the panic response, too. Like, we have this when we know someone's going through crisis. Are you hanging in there? We want to make sure that they're okay. And we're also afraid to bring this topic up in ways that aren't euphemisms.

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Chris: Right.

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Kayla: It's less of a question and more of an observation.

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Catherine Griffith: You, too, could be a professor with that. No, I agree. And I think the pandemic, especially, has really brought this question of mental health to the forefront, and it's made people's struggles a lot more visible. I think that we've definitely sort of moved from I'm okay, you're okay. Let's all sort of manifest good vibes and everything to we can all kind of now joke and laugh about how close to the fucking brink that a lot of us have come during a lot of these darker days and at least being able to acknowledge it, even if it's an acknowledgement of subtlety versus then going right out there and asking each other, how much in crisis are you? I think, well, I literally. This is so funny.

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Catherine Griffith: I just got this shirt, and I wanted to show you guys because I think this fits the bill perfectly.

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Kayla: Oh, my God. Okay, so it's a cute froggy, and it says, outside I'm croaking, inside I'm broken.

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Catherine Griffith: And it's very cute, you know, and it's kind of like. And then people see it and they laugh, and it's just like, we're all sort of. Again, it's that subtle acknowledgement of, like, hey, we're all suffering, but we can laugh and carry on because we might. And and also because it doesn't have to be that serious, too. It's weird. Like, I can. I can acknowledge, on the one hand, I can really struggle deeply, and I can sort of compartmentalize and say it's. And it's actually not that serious. Like, these thoughts are there. They can be intrusive, but they also. You can also live with them. You know, you can sort of have this upsetting thought that's invited to the party, and you can't really kick them out because, you know, it's.

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Catherine Griffith: The more you try to kick out said thought, the more it's sort of wedge in. But you can invite other thoughts to the party. You can invite hopefulness. You can invite gratitude. You can invite your sense of purpose and meaning and.

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Kayla: Yeah, I love that framework. Yeah. Trying to crowd something out versus trying to, like, not think about pink elephants. Like, that's not ever going to work, but crowd things out.

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Catherine Griffith: Right.

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Chris: No, you can also invite, orange.

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Kayla: Antelopes and purple zebras, elephants, safari animals.

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Chris: No, I love that framework. And also, I mean, I I love so far what you've been talking about because of how. And I just feel like this conversation has been just very, like, we are not stigmatizing this at all. Like, and that's kind of what we want to do out of. Part of what we want to do out of this episode is to. Is to kind of remove that. And and we talked a little bit about teal and how we think, like, you know, her. Her secret sauce. Like, part of what, like, makes her so what gives her so much power is that she does sort of the same thing. Right. Is that she will. She has this radical acceptance where, like, she just, if you talk to her about suicide, she will not flinch. Which just. It creates this safe space.

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Kayla: You can say to teal, I'm planning to kill myself. And she will.

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Chris: She'll engage with that.

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Kayla: There's no, like, oh, no, let's talk about it. And now you have to soothe me. Like, it's truly. All right, let's talk about it. She doesn't flinch is the thing that we keep going back to. Sorry, I interrupted you again.

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Chris: No, that's right. That's okay. So, yeah, I guess I just wanted to ask. The question is a little bit malformed, but why might someone turn to a teal versus actually seeking help elsewhere or actually going to their friends or family or medical support?

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah, well, I think it's a real mistake to. Because she's done all of these other things.

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Kayla: Right.

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Catherine Griffith: Because she's, like, romanticized and glorified suicide. Because she's isolated people from their families. Because she's, you know, really provided a cult like atmosphere. I mean, it's a cult. I mean, after I saw that documentary, it's like, okay, that's a cult.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Catherine Griffith: But she's done all of these things that have caused great harm to those in her orbit. It would be a mistake to say that harm starts at the very beginning. Entry point. And that's how a lot of cults and cult leaders get you, right, is that they're drawing you in with very reasonable, sensible, helpful rhetoric and skill sets. I mean, I just listened to your teal swan podcast on this, and, Kayla, it sounded like you had your own moment of entry, of being like, oh, okay. This is, like, a good structure to be thinking in terms of depression. And I think that's okay. And I think we should acknowledge that Swan is providing the societal benefit, a home for people who are experiencing suicidal ideation.

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Catherine Griffith: To not feel completely stigmatized, to not feel like an eruption of chaos and crises has centered around them or someone who actually can really hear them. And, like, were talking earlier about holding that kind of space for these difficult types of topics and what people are going through, though, without flinching. Right. I think her entry point is how I would work with a lot of folks in working with their clients who are suicidal. I often think of the parable of the. This is how, you know, I'm getting real fancy of parable. That's really when I'm putting my professor hat on. Right.

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Kayla: You're way up that ivory tower.

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Chris: We're pro terrible here.

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Catherine Griffith: Okay.

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Chris: This is a safe space for parables.

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Catherine Griffith: Oh, good. And waxing poetic. But the parable of the wind and the sun. And I don't know if you've heard this before, but they have this between the wind and the sun. And who can get this man to take his jacket off? And so the wind's like, man, I got this. I'm going totally win this. And he starts blowing as hard and hard as he can. He's trying to blow the jacket off of him, but he ends up holding tighter and tighter, and he's only more entrenched in the jacket. And the son is like, all right, let me step in. And the son just simply ups the temperature to a point, softly, warmly, until the man of his own accord takes his jacket off. And so I think there's a lesson in there.

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Catherine Griffith: In the type of environment we create for people to become comfortable being vulnerable and opening these difficult parts of themselves and being willing to show them to another human, that's the suicide killer is reducing isolation and feeling human connection and feeling like you can be vulnerable and safe in these darkest times and be received by another human. There's almost no better antidote than that. So I think that's what teal provides. You know, when you're just kind of clicking around and googling and you don't know who to talk to or where to go. Here is a mesmerizing, beautiful human face with a soothing voice looking back at you, telling you that these thoughts are okay, right? So if she just stopped there.

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Chris: The end.

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Catherine Griffith: Instead, it's, you know, the joke is it's all in service of her fleecing people of money and feeding her malignant narcissism. And, you know, as we see, you know, I felt like you all watched the documentary, right?

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Kayla: Yes. Yeah.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Catherine Griffith: And it's really laid bare, you know, the. That this is not motivated by a selflessness. This is not motivated by true care and concern. This is all about, you know, her getting recognition as a goddess alien who knows all and tell you all, and in fact, actually deepens by telling you that, well, you may not think that you have these experiences, but I know everything. And so just because you can't remember them doesn't mean that they didn't happen and giving you reasons to become more isolated, to stop talking to your family. Because now she's saying that they abused you and you didn't even know it. You know, just all kinds of truly destructive, harmful stuff. But the hook, I think the hook is a benefit, you know?

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Catherine Griffith: But what she goes into is, like, she goes from normalizing and humanizing into romanticizing and really harmful rhetoric of, like, she's died many times and it actually feels good. And suicide is just a reset button. And that being the kind of thing that possibly and probably has pushed people over the edge. Are you familiar with contagion as well as a concept within suicidality?

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Kayla: I mean, sort of, but it's probably better offend. But yeah, if you can explain it.

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Catherine Griffith: To us and our listeners got a part, because the reason why people are so afraid of this, you know what Teal swan's entry point is, and. And sort of the non stigmatizing, deep de tabooing conversation around suicide is also fears around contagion, which is this phenomenon of a highly publicized or glorified or romanticized suicide resulting in additional suicides within a community. So 13 reasons why. Have you heard of that?

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Kayla: Yes. Have not watched it.

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Catherine Griffith: So, you know, when it comes to shows and entertainment, I'm usually on the opposite side of the pearl clutching. I'm usually thinking like, oh, this has gone too far. Like, you know, arguing against fact that, like, okay, everyone just needs to relax. Like, it's not that intense. But 13 reasons why is almost not a better case of the romanticizing of a suicide and sort of pointing to a suicide as a net community benefit and really getting specific into means and all sort of the clickers of contagion. And there actually was research that came out. There was an article in JAMA, the Journal of American Medical association. They did a study on Google searches and saw a huge uptick in people looking at specific methods.

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Kayla: Wow.

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Catherine Griffith: Which is not a good sign. Right? But another study got even more direct, and they looked at the number of suicides and different age groups that occurred in the months after the release of 13 reasons why. And they found in April 2017 that the month that it was released, there was a 30% increase in the suicide rate among ten to 17 year old youths. And this is after accounting for the seasonal effects. April, actually, contrary to public belief, is the highest month of suicides. And so they accounted for that.

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Kayla: Do we know why that is for April? Do we have.

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Catherine Griffith: It's actually. No, there's not. There's different theories. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why. I can say that a lot of people think Christmas or the winter holidays are a reason that it happens most. It actually is the least during that time. And we think, yeah. And we think that is because there are more opportunities that people are connecting with family or have family obligations or events or just other human beings to make sure around with. You know, even if you feel completely alone in said family groups. There's just more, I guess, movement to that time of year that connects people with other people. That's. That's theory, anyway. People have thoughts around, you know, are there biological effects associated with the season, especially among youth? It sort of represents a near transition time.

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Catherine Griffith: So there seems to be a connection of school shootings occurring also in spring and graduating students. And so there could be something about that transition as well. But, yeah, so the study accounted for that, and they even found that it was higher in that month, April 2017, than any during the five year study period. So, yeah. Yeah. It's hard to study the specific degree of harm teal swan has released onto this world. But I think based on research like this and similar, we know pretty well that when you have people envision the specificities of their suicide, the means that they would use when you try to sort of romanticize the life hereafter or the impact that their suicide might have, that tends to be what causes contagion. It can kind of spread disease, like in communities.

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Catherine Griffith: And that's very different from talking frankly about suicidal ideation and with empathy and care.

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Kayla: As somebody who, you know, you know about teal. You've watched the doc. We've had.

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Catherine Griffith: I'm indeed, by the way, I didn't say this part of my biography at the beginning, but I'm a cult enthusiast from the way back, from probably too young back. And that's the best type of place to be. I wasn't as familiar with teal Swan, but when our mom sent us off to Covid party and we all came back with COVID while I was sick, that was my utter deep dive, was just, you know, getting into all things teal swan and really just being enraptured. I mean, she's a great case of even if you are, defined her to be really disgusting, unpleasant, harmful person, she absolutely pulls you in.

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Kayla: So I'm interested to know, I've read recent claims, one actually, from Matthew Remsky of the Conspirituality podcast, who's also been on our show, and their podcast has done a great series revisiting Teal swan and in context of the documentary. But Matthew Remsky, and I've read it elsewhere, too, has stated that at Teal's events, they are now including, like, they're bringing therapists along with them.

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Catherine Griffith: Yes.

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Kayla: I'm really interested to know what you. What you think that represents. And we're, you know, this is us psychoanalyzing teal swan now. So maybe it's you know, taking off the academic hat a little bit and putting on the cult enthusiast hat. I'm just wondering what you're thinking is this is something like that. Do you think that represents growth for somebody like teal? Like, is that her going, oh, wow. Maybe there is other people that can help in certain ways, or do you think it's maybe more of a CyA move going forward?

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Chris: Smells like lab coding to me.

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Kayla: Is it? Or it's that, or is it. Yeah. Adding credentials to her non credentialed practice. And I don't have any information about what types of therapists or psychologists or counselors that are being present at her events. It could be one of those things where it's like, yeah, I'm a counselor. I I call myself a counselor, so I'm a counselor. Maybe it's actual credentialed folks. I'm not sure. I don't have that information.

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Kayla: But I'm just.

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Kayla: I'm interested in your reaction to that.

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Catherine Griffith: Well, my first reaction is just surprised, because she's been very on book and on the record about saying, don't see a therapist, see me. Right. They don't have the solutions. I do. I would be very surprised, especially just seeing. I've never seen a stronger textbook case for narcissism. And I should say, this is me putting my judgy, cult loving hat on and not my professor clinic or me. I'm in. No. You know, it would be utterly unethical to diagnose her via podcast or documentary. Right. But judging me, he's not. That is like, oh, my God, you know, what a. What an ego on this gal. And so I would highly doubt it has anything to do with actually seeing the harm of her ways and wanting to bring in more expertise. I doubt that she's receiving her loyalty to mans are so astronomically high.

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Catherine Griffith: I would doubt she is receiving advice from anyone. And I would imagine that this has everything to do with COVID your ass legal stuff and trying to point to, you know, clout by proxy, I guess, finding folks that, oh, it's hard to say if folks would be inherently unethical, wanting to work with her, they might be people that see, oh, my God, if there's some, not someone like me here, then even more harm could happen. So I don't want to demonize those folks, but it's got to be messy. It's got to be really messy. But I am sort of interested in this, like, okay, like, wanting to hitch her wagon to. To credentials, to expertise when she seemed in the documentary to be so wildly resistant to kind of questioning of her methods or feedback.

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Chris: And historically, as well, for her?

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah.

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Chris: I mean, historically, she has pointed to things like, you know, her psychic ability and akashic records and all that as the credentials.

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Kayla: I will say part of why I asked this question is because I feel like we are all observing people like us who have, you know, knew about teal from a ways back and are seeing teal now. I do feel like there's been a concerted effort in her camp to move away from the really crazy stuff being the most prominent in her messaging. I could be wrong, but I feel like the stuff that you and I talked about when we first did our episodes on teal, like, the Akashic records, like, that she's an alien and all the past lives, and, like, that she.

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Catherine Griffith: Was literally sewn into the corpses of our children as punishment as a child. Yeah.

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Kayla: The documentary even did this where it kind of, like, glazed over, like, briefly brushed on her history and briefly brushed on these things. And instead of getting into the. Like, she. What? Like, here's all of the horrific stories that definitely didn't happen to somebody in the context of, like, she was in a giant satanic cult. Like, that stuff was glazed over. And I don't think it's just the documentary doing it. I think that there's a concerted effort in her camp to, this is my analysis, to broaden her appeal and to help make the jump from very specific influencer to very broad influencer. Like, if she's going to.

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Kayla: If she's going to try and be like one of the Wayne Dyers of the world or one of the Deepak Chopras of the world, being an alien is not going to be the forefront of her messaging. And so I wonder if. And again, this is just us psychoanalyzing unethically. I wonder if those things kind of go together. If her utilizing, or lab coding, utilizing credentials of others is part of this attempt to lead with a different foot than she's been leading with. Because I won't say that she. That it's the past is hidden. It's hidden a little bit.

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Chris: Like, you know, it's like Scientology, right?

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Kayla: It's like, yeah. You don't learn level nine.

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Catherine Griffith: Something you find out about thetans and the volcanoes.

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Kayla: Yeah. I wonder if it's got to widen.

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Chris: The top of the. You gotta rebrand to widen the top of the funnel. Yeah.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. I would say her rebranding would probably be one of the best case scenarios. I see what she's kind of going through right now, and I honestly worry if she's not successful in her rebrand, I just feel like. I feel like all of the conditions are there for a heaven's gate event. The way she has romanticized death, the way she's pulled a tighter and tighter rope on her inner circle followers, how easy it would be to just say, hey, come reset with me. You know, I know that the greater her reach, probably the greater possible harm. So it's kind of like, how do you want your harm? Do you like it acute or chronic? And it's just impossible situation.

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Kayla: You know, it's. I'm really glad that you bring up the heavens gate scenario, because even as we've been talking about all of this and even as we've had talked about the harm, the potential harm for somebody like teal swan for years, I don't think I ever envisioned a mass suicide event. And I think that's very important to bring up that's a. That is a possibility for anytime you have a high control group in which suicide is discussed, so.

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Chris: Right. And also, just for what it's worth, that feels like that's another category that we didn't discuss earlier.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: It's like mass. Like a mass suicide event is yet another way for folks to engage with suicide that might not involve distress at all. Right? It's just entirely wrapped up in the cult dynamic, or in the better academic word, the group dynamic, the community dynamic, than it is in them having even any kind of distress at all.

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Catherine Griffith: Right?

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Kayla: It's not based on depression or poverty or anything.

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Catherine Griffith: Well, it might be even more loosely connected than that. It might be loyal to, you know, one of the things Jim Jones did with the people's Temple is he had a number of loyalty tests where they were asked to drink things that purportedly had poison in it a number of times before the mass suicide event. And so there could be people literally thinking like, okay, I'm not going to die. This is just. This is just another loyalty test from someone I want to stay in the good graces of. Right.

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Chris: I do want to ask, like, the history of how suicide has been handled by our culture or, you know, sort of american western culture and the medical community here. Like, how has that been handled historically?

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Catherine Griffith: Well, I think if you go, well, I don't think this is totally over. I think there's still a lot of people that feel this way. But historically, we've seen this as a moral deficiency. Right. We've painted people who kill themselves as sinners and people who have punishment awaiting them for that sin, or we've painted them as selfish and unthinking about the harm that they do talk about, like, something that doesn't help at all, because if you've got a little suicide voice in your head that's already telling you that you're a burden or telling you that this pain is unendurable, that. And that you're a bad person for having these thoughts, it's really just deepened by all this kind of rhetoric. Right. I think now we are, I think, more predominantly now. I'm seeing this conversation around, seeing suicidality as sickness and depression as disease.

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Catherine Griffith: So when you think about Anthony Bourdain, for example, there was a lot of conversation that I found helpful being shared around. This guy dealt with suicidality all his life, and there's a part of us that should be commending how long he survived that he dealt with. If we think of disease, if we think of depression like a disease, we wouldn't condemn them of dying of cancer, right? We wouldn't condemn someone for having a heart attack or having a long, terminal disease and ultimately dying. I think that. That. I think shifting and looking at this in terms of brain health at least, is an improvement upon looking at as a morality issue that is very othering and very painful and taboo when it comes to the survivors of suicide and families not even feeling like they can talk about it.

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Kayla: Right.

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Catherine Griffith: So there's a lot more sort of conversation around that I want to share with you, if I could, a quote from David Foster Wallace. He spoke a lot about suicide. He did eventually die by suicide himself.

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Chris: And who is David Foster Wallace for our audience? Not that I forget who he is at all.

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Kayla: Definitely not for me.

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Chris: I absolutely know who he is.

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Catherine Griffith: But he's an author. You know, the tech bros are gonna love that. I cited him because he. He wrote infinite Jazz. This the short story. Consider the lobster. He's a very. He's a very talented writer with a very douchey, harmful life story. He's left a lot of people in his wake, but I think he was able to speak pretty bluntly in a way that reduced taboo around thoughts of suicide and depression, which he was a lifelong sufferer of. So, basically, here's what David Foster Wallace had to say about suicidal ideation and suicide in general. He said, the so called psychotically depressed person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of, quote, hopelessness or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debts do not square and surely not, because death seems suddenly appealing.

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Catherine Griffith: The person in whom it's invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. The terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me, standing speculatively at the same window, just checking out the view. That is. The fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames. When flames get close enough, falling to death becomes slightly less terrible. Of two terrors, it's not desiring the fall, it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk looking up, don't and hang on, can understand the jump. Not really.

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Catherine Griffith: You have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.

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Kayla: It's a fantastic metaphor.

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Chris: Yeah. Yeah. That really. Not only does that help me understand it, also, like, oh, man. Yeah. The fact that it's. That the fall is just as scary is not something that we really talk about or think about or maybe even like, you know, those of us who are not, who don't study this, don't even know really.

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Catherine Griffith: Right.

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Chris: It feels like it's. I feel, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it feels like I have this bias that it feels like the comfortable way out. Right? Like the. Oh, it'll be much easier to do this than to. And there's definitely like a, you know, this than that. Right. There's definitely like a comparative like that I have in my head about this. Like, it's easier to do this than that. But I guess I just. Yeah, I haven't really considered that it's just as terrifying as it would be for anybody else.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. I think we have to imagine ourselves, what it would. What would it take for us, what conditions of living would it take for us to prefer dying? And we have to be willing to kind of put ourselves in folks shoes to really get it. And I like how conversation in recent years has been moving away from a selfish way out or cowards way out into understanding the very real pain and battle and courage it can also represent to stay alive day after day in the face, in the wake of that kind of pain. Increasingly, I think we can do even better than that. And I think we're starting to see now that we're. It's a bit less taboo and less hidden that people are commit. Sorry, people are taking their own lives, that increasingly it's a community concern.

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Kayla: Right?

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Catherine Griffith: So my partner right now, so even he's on a contract with the US Navy working towards creating mental health care center here in San Diego specifically for enlisted Navy folks. And so, and it was interesting, he was sharing me the story with, like, he was talking with an admiral or someone really high up who was checking on the status of these community mental health centers. First of all, the contract was sort of led to because of a recent increase in enlisted folk suicide. And they're actually addressing it. You know, they're actually facing it and saying, this wasn't an individual moral ill. This is something that we need to be addressing as a community.

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Catherine Griffith: And these are the kinds of supports that we can put in place because there's an invested interest in reducing the number of suicides and providing the kind of support people need, which I feel like, you know, when we think about some of these institutions that. That skew more conservative in nature, we don't think of that investment being as high in mental health. And so it's really gratifying to see that kind of concern is raising. I'm also, and I think we can do even better than that. And we can. It's my hope to see in my lifetime, really big conversations about, I mean, not that they're not happening, but happening on a more national level about the macro level factors that influence.

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Kayla: Right.

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Catherine Griffith: Housing is suicide prevention, fair wages are suicide prevention, anti bullying measures is suicide prevention. And I think when we are thinking that holistically and if we have a lot more people on board that line of thinking, we're going to be able to help a lot more people.

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Kayla: I really love that you point that out because I think that, yeah, there absolutely is an evolving conversation right now where more and more folks are coming to learn that suicide is not necessarily like a single factor issue. It's not, you know, someone has depression and then this happens. Or even that depression is a single factor issue. Just like something's in your brain that is, you know, needs medication, that there are environmental factors that really do influence and impact this kind of stuff. And even just thinking about depression, especially these days where we are in, you know, in America, we're dealing with, you cannot work. There's no minimum wage job anywhere that working 40 hours a week, you'll be able to afford a one bedroom apartment like folks are dealing with.

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Kayla: The fact that climate crisis could drastically affect all of our futures and in.

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Chris: Some cases is with fires happening currently.

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Kayla: Is folks do not have a retirement to look forward to. All the different things that you mentioned, those. Those factors are just as serious of factors for, you know, treating depression or experiencing depression or suicide prevention or what might precipitate a suicidal ideation. And, like, that has to be part of the conversation. It's nothing. We have to move away from the idea that this is. This can be solved on an individual level. Somebody goes to their therapist and then is treated, and then they're fine. It has to be this national conversation like you're talking about kind of makes.

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Chris: Me think of that metaphor. Of the metaphor, right, where, like, it's right now, and traditionally, it's been treated as, like, okay, we just need to stop them from jumping.

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Kayla: Right.

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Catherine Griffith: Yes.

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Chris: About the fire. As long as we stop them from ju. As long as you stop individual people from jumping, then that's what we need to do. But actually, what we need to be doing is, like, pushing the fire back.

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Kayla: Yeah. We got to be putting out the fire.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah.

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Kayla: Fire is big.

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Kayla: It's a big.

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Kayla: It's a big fire to put out. But that's. I think. I think you're right. That that needs to be a bigger part of the conversation.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. And thankfully, I think I see us getting more in that direction every day. I think the Internet and all its ills, it's. It's certainly connected us in a lot of ways. And, you know, I can think of, you know, ten things I've talked about today where my first exposure was seeing it online somewhere.

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Kayla: If someone listening right now has either dealt with in the past or is currently experiencing suicidal thoughts or, you know, anywhere along the scale, what would you want to say to them? Or what resources would you want to share with them?

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah, well, gosh, that feels really important.

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Kayla: Do it concisely.

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Chris: No pressure. No pressure.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. Isn't that funny, though? You just posed a metaphorical person, and I've been doing, you know, suicide work and doing assessments and having these conversations, people, for years, and I still felt a little spike, you know, at that pose of, like, what are you going to say to this person in need? What. What could you say to help stop them? So I just want to normalize that for anyone that has this, you know, physiological reaction to, like, oh, my God, someone is hurting to that degree, I would. I would want. I would want them to know that none of your emotions are wrong inherently. There's nothing inherently bad or evil or sinful or cowardly for considering suicide.

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Catherine Griffith: And I'm confident that the conditions of your life must be in so much pain or in despair that if I were in your same shoes, I'd be considering it, too. So I want that sort of be, to be clear from the get go. I think it's, you know, it's certainly tempting to talk about, you know, the research that I know about, the instant regret. A lot of people who have survived taking their own life have spoken to, you know, in sort of those instances and hopping off the ledge and thinking, oh, my God, I wish I hadn't done that. That certainly is compelling. But I also know that people that are on the more severe side of the scale and that crisis point, that's not going to be particularly helpful information to talk about because the fire is real and the fire is there.

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Catherine Griffith: I guess one thing I like to share with folks when it does, to come to a point where folks want my own take on things, but I really do find it helpful to think of suicidality and depression and similar things as, like a parasite, it wants to survive. And part of how it's going to survive in your brain to try to fully be born as a suicide is to keep you isolated, to keep you away from people, to keep you away from accessing any kind of support or services. And one of the ways it's going to accomplish that is by telling you that you're a burden, by telling you that the world would better without you and telling you all kinds of difficult thoughts so it can stay isolated, so it can grow.

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Catherine Griffith: It wants you to avoid even taking the smallest steps, you know, could be helpful, so it can grow. I like to think of parasites as ugly, no harm to parasite researchers. I like to think of parasites as these ugly little gremlins that are trying to hijack you and your life, and we can't let them do that, you know, and so I know this is incredibly difficult, and I've certainly been in this position. I know very well what it's like to need help and having a thousand different reasons telling you why you shouldn't go get that help. But those are the voices of the parasite. And so my main recommendation is ask for help. Ask for help. Ask for help.

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Catherine Griffith: Whether it's a peer group, people online, a crisis line, a prescription from your local pharmacy, but think about especially the people that you might be able to access who are invested in you thriving. And again, I want to acknowledge how difficult that step can because part of it is acknowledging that this is real, you are being impacted to this degree. And that can be a very painful acknowledgement of reality. I want to acknowledge that it can feel like when we talk about suicide, as coping, removing, taking steps to remove that as an option can feel like I'm losing a choice. And so I want to acknowledge everything that makes that difficult. And yet I know there's still that voice that knows that seeking help going to be the way to go.

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Catherine Griffith: So another thing I kind of like to offer is thinking about the last time you helped someone, how did it feel? Well, Chris and Kayla, last time you helped someone in some kind of way, how did it feel?

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Chris: Never helped anyone. Not happened. I mean, obviously, very good. I mean, that's some of the best feelings that you can generate for yourself.

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Kayla: It feels like the reason to be here.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. So to people in that depth of pain, don't rob people of the opportunity to be of help to you and be of those good feelings that actually can be a good thing that you're doing in their life. By providing someone an opportunity to be altruistic and be of help, there's some specific resources. I'm really excited to announce that the national suicide hotline is now 988. So very similar. 911, you can dial 988. And you have trained professionals.

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Kayla: It was previously a much longer number. Right? Like, that's the.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah, it was like a 1800 number.

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Kayla: Like, we can all remember that.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. And if you call that number, you're not going to have people saying, at least you're not going to have people giving you a laundry list. Calling that number is an opportunity to connect with someone who's been specifically trained to provide that kind of empathy and reflection and that I can meet you where you're at space and atmosphere, where you feel really seen and not minimized or dismissed or being. Trying to be fixed. Right. What they're going to do is they're going to have all the time in the world to hear you and your story, what you're going through right now, to empathize with you and then talk about potential resources and areas of support. But it's not any kind of brow beating. Here's why you need to stay alive. You know, these people are really very well equipped.

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Catherine Griffith: And there's a couple of affinity groups I know of, too, the Trevor projects, specifically queer youth community. They have a number and they have a chat, and they have message boards, and they have ways to connect with other teens as well. And then there's also the trans lifeline, which, again, it's very much like the national suicide hotline. But folks who understand what it is to be trans and the unique difficulties and issues that accompany that we'll be.

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Kayla: Sure to share links to all of those resources in the show notes and on our social media and elsewhere. But I appreciate you specifically bringing those up because I think it can be difficult to know where to turn to. And I mean that in the best of ways. Like, it seems like if you googled this, like, yeah, you do get met with teal swans of the world, and you do probably get met with support groups and therapists and hotlines and warm lines and a variety of things. So to have somebody who is working in the field to be able to say, like, these are the ones that I recommend, I think that's really helpful.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah.

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Chris: Yeah. And I want to give you the final word here, but I also wanted to comment, I like the parasite metaphor too, and part of it is what you brought up is like parasites, frequently there's like some symbiosis maybe going on there. They provide something and it feels like that's maybe true here too. Is that like you were saying, the agency that knowing that you can always make that choice. Right. Like provides this level of, well, at least like there's this one choice that nobody can take from me that probably is doing something to, like we've talked about with cults. Right. Like it's providing something. It's providing some value. Otherwise it wouldn't be there. Otherwise it wouldn't be. It wouldn't be able to feed off of you. So I just wanted to comment on that too.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah.

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Chris: Is there anything that we didn't cover that you would like to bring up?

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Catherine Griffith: You know, the only thing that I would want to mention is that, yes, I represent the helping profession. And I do want to say that there's varying degrees of ability, I guess, to engage in suicidal matters. And I want everyone to feel equipped that you don't necessarily have to stay with a counselor that isn't working for you. It is often a process of finding someone that you connect with, and it's so much about the relationship. And so I guess what I'm trying to say in a sloppy way is normalize bad therapy. And a lot of people have difficulty engaging with a helper currently because they had a bad experience in the past.

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Kayla: Right.

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Catherine Griffith: And it sort of stands to. It sort of stands to be a symbol for the whole helping profession, but that's not the case. You know, it may take some work. I've certainly dropped counselors that were not helpful in my time.

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Chris: I'm my fourth therapist, so like, it took me four people before I got to one that I actually stuck with. And liked. Wow.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. And that's pretty powerful. Right? And it's. You know, I bet that wasn't fun.

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Chris: I mean, the previous three weren't awesome.

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Kayla: No, it was not great.

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Chris: And, like, they were fine, but, like, didn't provide me with what they. I didn't find them helpful. Like. Yeah.

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Catherine Griffith: Yeah. So I guess I just want to empower folks to know that, you know, there's a. There's a great variation and of helpers, just, like, there's a great variation of people, and to know that it's okay that you. That's. That's some degree of autonomy you can still have is selecting who you seek help from.

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Chris: Well, thank you so much for being on the show, Kat. We really appreciate it. First and foremost, we appreciate that you're a fan of the show.

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Catherine Griffith: I am. I didn't want to tell you how much of a fan I was. Never would have let me on. You would've been way too freaked out by the whole thing or would have.

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Kayla: Let you on sooner.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: Let's just sing our previews. Let's just praise each other.

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Chris: Yeah. Honestly, the interview should have just been, like you saying all the things that you like about us. That's kind of was hoping for, but.

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Catherine Griffith: If we could just talk about the Zumba episode for the next, like, 20 minutes.

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Kayla: I'll always talk about Zumba, and I might go do some Zumba. I don't know. I mean. Yeah.

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Catherine Griffith: Really.

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Kayla: Thank you for this conversation. This was powerful, I think, for us as individuals. I hope it'll be powerful for the listeners. I think that these are the kind of conversations that we need to have as long as there are teal swans in the world.

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Catherine Griffith: Thank you for holding space for this, and I really love being a part of today. Thank you.