14: Golden Gate Bridge Jump Survivor Helps Thousands Heal from Racial Hate Crimes & Black Lives Matter (BLM) // The Story of Kevin Hines

We need to have every human being understand that they have value, they are worthy, they matter. No matter what socioeconomic background they come from, no matter what traumas they've been through, no matter what color their skin, they are supposed to be here and to be treated well and equal and fair. On day one, they didn't care what I was, they only cared that I was and they treated me well. There was one kid in the school who treated me poorly, but he had problems with everybody, so that was his issue. Everybody in that school from any grade was kind, compassionate and empathetic to me. And it just goes to show you how accepting the black community is to outsiders.

Welcome to From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. I'm your host Eric Gilbert Williams and this is the podcast where we explore personal stories of people who hit absolute rock bottom, then got back up, wiped off the dust, kicked failure to the curb, and now they're rocking it like you'd never believe if you didn't hear it. Live right here we cover subjects in business, sports and life in general. If you like this podcast, please share it. These interviews are intended to inspire, to motivate, to give hope and vision. So please share this episode with someone who needs it. Use your Instagram account, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, hand signals, trained pigeon sent smoke signals up in the air. Use morse code, whatever you like. Just share the love and share this episode. Also, email me anytime. Podcastricilbertwilliams.com Send me questions you would like to have asked of future guests and I will incorporate them. Or just send me some suggestions on how to run a better podcast. Or just say hello, I'd love to hear from you. That's podcastericilbertwilliams.com I know you're going to love today's interview, so let's get started. Here with us today on From Rock Bottom to Rockin it is Kevin Hines. Kevin is an award winning brain, mental health and suicide prevention activist. He's also an entrepreneur, a multiple award winning filmmaker. You'll have to tell me all about that in a second. By the way, bestselling author, international educator and speaker who reaches audience with his powerful story that we're about to explore right now. In a nutshell. For those listening who maybe haven't heard of Heinz, maybe living in a bubble and you haven't heard of Kevin's story yet, he did attempt suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in September of the year 2000. Obviously he survived some story of a sea lion that helped him stay afloat. And I'll have to ask you about that, too, in a second. So he was rescued and healed, obviously. And now Kevin is a major force in helping people heal from mental illness. Kevin is saving lives. And if you haven't seen his YouTube videos, check them out. There's going to be links to them on the show, notes to this episode, so you can just scoot right over and check them out. I'm sure that you're going to be glad that you did. Kevin, thanks for being here, man. How are you doing?

Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm doing well. These are strange times we live in. The world is changing for the better. I think. Covid is. Has sadly taken so many lives. That part was not good and is not good. And the lives we see being lost every day to coronavirus are. It's devastating for every family that has to go through that. I'm lucky that my wife and I have steered clear of the disease so far.

You know, I was playing with virtual backgrounds, and as you can tell, obviously, I decided not to. I bought this green screen that had mediocre results. And then my webcam kind of works or doesn't, depending on its mood, I suppose.

Oh, no.

Yeah. So I say, you know, in the last couple times I just worked with the garage because I think it's raw and it's just, you know, simple. And when I was looking at the virtual backgrounds, though, obviously one of the backgrounds that populates automatically to choose from is the Golden Gate Bridge. And I was like, huh, you know, Do I pick that one or do I not pick that one? Maybe I'll just stay away from that and let you decide. And of course, you show up with it in the back. Yeah.

People always ask me, am I afraid to go back there? And I have no qualms with the Golden Gate Bridge. I found closure a long time ago. And I still think it's a beautiful structure. One of the most beautiful in the world.

It sure is.

You know, it doesn't affect me in that way.

I'm glad to hear that. And you have this opportunity to start building new memories with it. Right. And you've had that opportunity for a.

While, and I have, and we've created films with it as the backdrop and all kinds of great stuff. So, you know, I appreciate it, and I'm glad the net is going up right now and that no more people are gonna die at the Golden Gate Bridge very soon.

Yeah. To me, it's a testament to what are we experiencing right now. Are we letting Whatever happened in the past dominate our entire future? Or are we going to choose to embrace this power of choice and create something new, create a new experience, create a new memory? And a lot of people, myself included, on certain subjects, get stuck on something bad that happened in the past or, you know, fill in the blanks that wasn't happy in the past and it gets stuck there, right? A bad breakup or, you know, whatever. Get. I mean. I mean, with the riots going on, it's just incredible how much damage and people are getting hurt. Right. And what do we do with that pain? Right? Do we live with it and let it dominate our lives? Or do we find a way to still be a happy and find love anyways, in spite of the chaos that's going on, I think it's an interesting subject. So. Yeah, so I love that you specifically put that in the background. It's. Yeah, it's. That's powerful.

Thanks.

Yeah, I'm kind of just diving into subjects here, just talking because. Yeah, I mean, this whole show is about. And I'll give you a proper introduction here in a second, but we're just kind of chatting here. But, like, this whole show for me is about taking a moment to see if I can give back a little bit. You know, when I was little, I struggled a lot. I dropped out of high school. I never went back. I lived in a drug house for a while. It wasn't nearly as severe as some of the people that I interview, to be honest, but I mean, who cares? I mean, it was really scary for me and I was lost and I didn't talk to my parents, and I lived in a little tiny room that was like five feet tall with like eight people for a while. And it could have easily gotten worse. Right. But there's a lot of people that gave me a chance to change my life and gave me opportunity. And this is for me, now that I sold my last company, I got a little bit of time and resources. I could just donate a bunch of money to charity, which I do a little bit. Of course, what I really like to do is talk about mental health and talk about these subjects so that someone else that might need to hear this can hear that there is light at the end of the tunnel. There is another way. And they can choose their way through it, you know, despite. So anyways, this is the motivation and intention. Just give you some groundwork.

No, I love that. And I did a little bit of research on you and the work you've done, and I was fascinated by your efforts and how much you're helping people with their businesses. You know, you really are. You really are changing lives, too. And that's really. I like when I get to do a podcast with someone who's out there on the grind, trying to help other people. That's always awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. It's scary because this is. There's no money coming in on this thing. Right. And I don't know what's gonna happen. So what's your shirt say? Be. Be there. Be here tomorrow. Okay.

That's my motto.

Yeah.

Every day after that.

I love it.

And given this current state of our nation, with all the protests going on, I want to say I support our black Americans and Black Lives Matter. I'm a quarter black myself, and I was treated very terribly in grade school because of that. The things that the eighth graders did to a fourth grader were horrendous. Based on the color of my skin. I don't even want to mention them because they were so horrible. I've talked about them in the past, but it's deplorable, the things they did through the name of racism. But nonetheless, I grew up. I'm lucky to be alive. Given after what I did in the year 2000, jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, I'm lucky I get to exist, to be anywhere. And my motto is to be here tomorrow and every day after that. Whatever you're going through, whatever struggles you're dealing with, whatever suicidal ideation you might have, fight the pain, in spite of the pain, despite of it, to thrive with me. Today, we can all be here tomorrow. You can all succeed in life. We can all have a beautiful future. If we work tirelessly to build not only that narrative, that structure in our lives, and to not just grab on to opportunities that exist, but if we are not given the opportunities by our communities to search them out, find them, and grab them ourselves.

Yeah, there's so much I can dive into. I guess we should talk a little bit about Black Lives Matter. It's such in the forefront of everything right now. And you mentioned it first as well. I mean, on one side, how are we even still in a place where racism is still such a big issue? To me, I'm from Canada. Right. And there's issues in every country for sure. But I've never experienced or seen racism like what I'm seeing here, nor have I seen a riot or experienced anything like that in Canada before. And coming to the United States and diving deep into San Francisco culture and seeing what it's like out there and anyone you know what I'm talking about, right? And seeing racism on this level, I mean, when I was little, my best friend was black as night, for lack of a better word. We were best friends. We hung out from ages 4 until 11, like every moment we had. And the concept of that differentiation wasn't really a part of my awareness at the time. And I remember one day she gave me this badge, and it said, stop racism. So I was wearing it on my jacket. I didn't think anything of it because I didn't understand that it was even an issue as a kid. I didn't have that. But of course you did. She did. And I was completely ignorant and naive to it. And I know that it exists, and I've heard about it while living in Canada, but it's so different to experience it and see it, you know, right in my face.

Oh, yeah. The eighth graders would put me in a trash can face first every Friday and yell little red N word every day. They would hold me from behind and punch me in the guts. Nobody could see the bruises, but while calling me those same names. It was terrible. And with everything that's going on, I've always supported our cause. I've always given presentations to audiences with the idea that we are all meant to live this life together in unison with kindness and empathy. And I think far too often the black community doesn't get the empathy that the rest of society does. Or the black and brown community gets a lack of empathy, a lack of understanding, immediate judgment based on the color of their skin. And that's. It's something we have to fix. We have to affect change in that today. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, today, right now. And that's what this movement is all about. I'll tell you, that bullying, that hazing, and that violence against me, it would shape part of my clinical depression.

Exactly.

I live with bipolar disorder, type 1 or psychotic features. But that hate would shape me as a young man. It would shape who I would become. And it would have a great effect in me jumping off of that bridge you see behind me.

So this raises the question that's been on my mind, and I'm talking to my friends about when we talk about fixing this racism issue and changing mindset and changing public behavior, how do we change it in a way where there's love involved in the process? I mean, if we look at South Africa for a second apartheid, absolutely horrible. And finally, that regime is overthrown and is a new wave of sort of equality being brought to the table. And there's a Lot of controversy on whether those strategies are working or not. On one side you can argue, well, look, the restrictions and the harshness towards colored people in South Africa is much less than it ever has been before. So that's a huge win. And at the same point, there's so much violence and hate that still exists. It's like, has the racism really gone away or has it just changed form?

It hasn't. It's changed form for a long time. People were quieter about it. Look, right now we live in America. I live in America, okay? And we live in a country that. Whose high schools are more segregated now than they were in the 1960s. Post civil rights movement. Movement. They're more segregated today than they were back then. There's a very good film on Netflix called Teach Us All. Friend of mine made it, actually, Andrew Ross called Teach Us all about how the movement to desegregate schools in the 1960s. There was no follow through up until today. And now we are more segregated in high schools than ever before across the United States. Unacceptable. You can go into buildings that house different high schools in Kansas City, and the schools that are on whatever level, which are the prominent black schools, have metal detectors sniffing dogs. You go one level up, two levels up in that same building to a prominently white school, no smelling dogs, no metal detectors, Complete obvious view of racial tension and racism. And so the way we're going to solve this issue is by fighting it at the polls, fighting it in legislative efforts, also on the streets, protesting our human rights to be equal, to be given equality, and to lay waste to the reprehensible nature that is racism.

Yeah. And I've read the Nelson Mandela book. I've read some books on Gandhi and on Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. And there's different approaches that I see, and I always ask myself, and bring it up as a discussion point with some friends, is which one's the most effective and which one's the right one. And Nelson Mandela's approach was, look, we tried the passive, it didn't work. So then we went to something else. And Martin Luther King, Malcolm X was not all that dissimilar in having different approaches and seeing which one worked best. And I want to talk about healing. I want to talk about how do we heal our own wounds. If you're a person of whoever's listening right now, if you're a person of racial crime and hate crime in general, how do we heal this? Right? And how do we find a way to not lose faith in humanity and not let this Pain dictate how the rest of our life is going to be. How do we move on from this? And maybe not move on, but how do we find a way to live today in a way that is harmonious with the love that's inside of our own souls?

I think we need to forge forward. We need to have every human, black, white, Asian, American, Latinx. We need to have every human being understand that they have value, they are worthy, they matter. No matter what socioeconomic background they come from, no matter what traumas they've been through, no matter what color their skin, they are supposed to be here and to be treated well and equal and fair. I think that far too often we have these people who are not in the mix, have these preconceived notions of people of color, and they fear them. And this is why so many police officers have shot and killed black American men. Because there's a culture that has taught human beings this century that black people are scary. And it's so wrong. Just because my black brothers are perceived this way does not mean you get to treat them that way. Let's all start with a conversation. Hi, I'm Kevin. What's your name? How are you? Let's engage. Let's work together. Let's hire more black people for our black owned businesses. Let's get involved with the black communities and the brown communities and be there in a way to help the community and not affect it poorly. We have an opportunity in this time in our lives where this is at the forefront of every news channel in the world. In the world, not just America. This is in Australian news. This is in news in London. It's in news in Africa and everywhere else in the world. Black lives matter. We're here to stay. Help us heal this country, fix the country's problems and solve racism and find true equality. If we don't, we're going to go down one hell of a hard path. And it's going to be a turbulent, scary and terrible time.

And I believe that we will find that path. I believe that there's more good in humanity than otherwise. Those evil forces out there can be pretty powerful. Clearly, I do believe that we are going to get through this. And I don't know how long that's going to take. I hope it takes one hour and we're done. But I think in reality it's going to take longer than that.

Obviously it took 400 years to come out of slavery, so it's going to take a lot longer than an hour, sadly. But I wish the same as you. I wish it would be an hour. We could solve this problem right now. But what we're going to do is listen to the voices of young black Americans all across the world and heed their words, hear what they have to say, register it, and then take positive action for change.

When I think about racism and hate crime, I see that second part, that hate crime to be the almost under rooting force behind the racism. Because to me, it's from this place of hate that a person can come to the place of shooting anyone of any, for any reason of any type, or being a bully or are doing hate crimes and being involved in racist inequality acts. The root there to me is this internal hate that feeds whatever it is that the person ends up being focused on. And one of the things I think about when we talk about equality and about healing and fixing this racism issue is if we don't focus deeper down into that, where did that hate come from? How do we fix that hate in general on the deep level, below the surface of the tree? Right? Okay, we got this big root and we've got branches all over. We got violence and bullies and racism and theft and fill in the blank for all the horrible things that people do out there, animal abuse, whatever it is. These are all branches of a tree that come from the roots, which I call hate. It's these roots. And these roots to me are healed on an individual one, on one basis. And I feel like maybe I'm wrong, but this is where I want to ask your opinion is if we can focus on these roots internally from an individual that has this hate inside of it, then we can start to find some solutions that might be long term. I feel like there's always. There's three things that happen when someone snaps, whatever that is, and it's either harm to others, where we're talking about violence and guns and let's say, hate crimes, harm to self, which might be suicide or self harm. And the third, I think is what I call avoidance. And that usually involves drugs and running away from the world and living in a different world that doesn't exist in our minds with drugs. And they're all just the next step from not being able to deal with this deep rooted issue. What do you think on this subject?

That's fascinating that you bring that up. The roots, the root of the problem. And the root of the problem lies in our ancestors teaching their children and their children's children to hate. And that's where the root of the problem lies. I can't speak from the past. I can speak about my life experience. When they put me in trash cans upside down and call me the little red n word. And when they beat me up from the front by holding me by my back and I couldn't move my arms, and they called me all those names, and they did those things to me on a daily basis, that's assault. Those are hate crimes. They were making it crystal clear what they said I was and why they were beating me up. Yet in a Catholic school, even when I went and complained to the teachers, I was ignored. I was ignored until my father and I'm adopted. My dad's white. My mom's white. They adopted me and made me their son. I'm part white. And when my dad, after the kids for the. For the last time he could take. Called me little red n word and put me in the trash can, beat me up, he came into the school and he threatened them with legal action and said, this is not to occur to my son ever again. Well, instead of me waiting for this to occur again, it was my seventh grade year. I told my family, I said to mom and dad, I can't stay at the school. I can't handle anymore. It is breaking me. It is breaking me internally. It is breaking me mentally. I can't do it. They hate me so much. And so I said, is there another school I can go to? Well, I end up going to a predominantly black school, and I can tell you that I was accepted immediately. On day one. On day one, they didn't care what I was. They only cared that I was. And they treated me well. There was one kid in the school who treated me poorly, but he had problems with everybody, so that was his issue. Everybody in that school from any grade, was kind, compassionate and empathetic to me. And it just goes to show you how accepting the black community is to outsiders, you know, And I don't mean outsiders in the sense of not black.

I am black.

I mean, in the sense of like a kid who went to a school for seven years and then transferred into this school for just one last year. They treated me as if I was one of their own, as if I was a kid who went to that school from the very beginning. It was such a transition, and it filled me with so much love and respect for everybody at that school. And I still talk to some of those kids. I stay in contact with some of them. They're amazing, and they're doing great in their adult lives. What a kind turnaround from such hate to Such hope. And I think that if we can take a page from my final eighth grade years school's book, it was Saint Amadeus Shout out to Saint Amelia's Grade School. You take a page from their book and say, be kind, be compassionate, be loving, caring and empathetic to every single person you've ever come into contact with, no matter their behavior toward you, because you don't know what they've been through and you don't know what they're going through. I think that's the way I look at the world. And that was taught to me with my mom, Debbie Hines. She taught me to be kind and giving and compassionate and empathetic to everybody, no matter their attitude toward you. So even the kids in the previous school where I was beat up and hazed and bullied and it was all racially charged, even those kids, if I ever saw them today, you know what I want to do? I want to give them a hug and tell them I wish them the best because they need a hug, because they're. They need help. And I do believe that people can reform. I do believe that if someone can teach a kid to hate, then that. Then another person can teach that kid how to love. And I think that we need to remember that. We need to remember that we can teach as black individuals, we can teach anyone else how to understand, how to empathize, how to be kind, how to be appropriate in their actions. It's been a long journey, but this is just a part of the journey. Because I ended up growing up at 17 and a half, starting to have these really bad manic and depressive episodes with bipolar disorder and hallucinations, auditory and visual paranoid delusions, panic attacks and more anxiety attacks. And at 19, two years later, after this rocky road of ups and downs with this disease, I would attempt to take my life off that bridge you see behind me in a way that is 99% fatal. 99% of those who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge never get to tell their stories. Never. They are gone. I do. And it is a blessing and a gift that I am alive today. It is a gift that I get to exist. And I feel like if I get to exist, I have to try to help other people change their lives. And that has been my goal with my wife and my friends and the people I have on my speaking roster. We try to go out and we try to affect change through our words and through our actions. And I think that's the best way to do that peacefully as possible.

Hey, everyone. Eric here on from rock bottom to rockin it. On today's episode, I decided to support an organization called the Lifeline Canada Foundation. TLC now, this is a registered nonprofit committed to positive mental health and suicide prevention in Canada and worldwide. The foundation works on initiatives such as the Lifeline mobile app. It's a free national suicide prevention and awareness app, and the companion Pause, the Lifeline Canada foundation website. It's both a platform of information about the foundation's initiatives as well as a one stop portal for which you can find an extensive amount of support, guidance, intervention information, education resources, pattern interrupts, guides, tools, and so much more right at your fingertips. Suicide affects us all. It's incredible and it's just devastating the sheer quantity of people that are committing suicide every year. Last time I checked, I think it was more than 5,000 people every single year die from suicide. And the aftermath on those families and friends is obviously even bigger, just an exponential effect. And it leads to the powerful stories you hear on the show and it leads to us all trying to find a way to work together to end this type of mental health challenges. So check out the Lifeline anytime. Do a donation on the website. It goes a really long way. Every dollar goes farther than you could probably ever imagine. The mission statement for the Lifeline is the Lifeline Canada foundation is committed to suicide reduction across Canada and the world by raising awareness of risk factors, providing access to online resource options, and promoting local programs to build mental health resilience for all. Check out the website. It's a great organization and encourage people that you know to reach out and get help when they need it before it's too late. Thanks. And now back to the interview. And when I watch your YouTube videos and I see sometimes you're talking about that mental illness is. Correct me if I'm wrong here. I think you were saying that mental illness isn't something that can be quote, unquote, cured. It's just something we learn how to live with and it doesn't have to dominate your life. Is that kind of what you're saying? I don't want to say that wrong.

No, no, that's fine. I think that mental illness, mental health conditions don't have to be a life sentence. You can live, you can fight them and you can thrive within them. I think that they don't have to define you. I hear people all the time say I am bipolar or I am schizophrenic. No, you are John. You are Eric Gilbert Williams. I am Kevin Hines. I have bipolar disorder. I own that. I Have it. I am not it. I am Kevin hines. I had 16 and a half years before my diagnosis and so many years after my diagnosis until now that I'm 38. It does not, will not, and cannot define who I am. A part of me, it is a piece of me, certainly, and I deal with it every day. And it's a struggle every day. It is not at the center of who I am. And so when I say that, it just means that we have to find our true selves inside of that paradox of mental pain.

And I wanted to talk about that because it connects here with what we're talking about when we're talking about racial crime or hate crime in general. Fill in the blank for what it's about. When it happens to you and people listening and watching this. When it happens to you, what next? Right. Does this horrible thing that happened to you, does it become a part of you now? Is this something that is going to dominate the rest of your life? And what I'm suggesting is there might be a choice here. We can't make it go away. It's happened. It's now a part of who you are. But it doesn't have to dictate and direct how the next X amount of years you're going to be here is going to play out. It doesn't have to amplify and become bigger than it already is. And Kevin, I just want to bounce that back with you here. Like, what's your thoughts on that?

When those kids affected me as a kid, when I was a kid, you have to understand, I'm in fourth grade, okay? And this is the experience of many young black men, young black kids who are being abused by older kids because of their race or harassed or bullied. That stays with you, you, back brain that painful moment or all of those painful moments. And the only way to be free from those painful moments, especially if it happened your whole life off and on, every other day on a regular basis, you have to do the work. You have to find a therapy that works for you. And there are many forms of therapy that work for different people. But you have to find a form of therapy that works for you. Even if you're giving yourself the therapy. Art therapy, music therapy, meditation therapy, those are all things you can teach yourself. Doesn't have to be talk therapy, doesn't have to be MDR or CBT or dbt. You've got to find something that will get you past the pain you were put to so you can go forge forward and be good to the People around you. It fascinates me that I got this second chance at life when so many people in suicidal crisis have died. Why did I get a second chance? Maybe it's to have this podcast with you right now because we're going to reach one person that needed it. And we're going to say to that one person, suicide is never the answer to your problems. It is the problem. You deserve this life until your natural end. You're supposed to be here and we love you. Whatever the color of your skin, we love you. Maybe that's going to reach somebody. We hope that reaches somebody. But I'll tell you, that early onset pain really affected what I did that day.

Yeah. And I would love to present solutions to the world's problems and towards racial equality. And I'm not going to try and speak to whether or not it's right or wrong to burn down the police station or go on a riot or loot buildings. I'm just not even going to touch that subject because it's a whole different subject. What I like to focus on in the show and the purpose of the show is to help the individual heal from the pain that they've experienced. And when I look at your T shirt and it says behear tomorrow, that's what this is about. This is about this healing process and it's unique to everyone. And one of the purposes of this show and talking is to let people know they're not alone. Right. And there is a way to heal and find a way to move into a positive direction with life, regardless of all the craziness that's going on and the pain. Right. So if you could tell me for a second, I mean, you didn't expect to be here. This is a gift, right?

Yeah. No, I thought when I jumped off that bridge, I was going to plan.

And it should have worked statistically.

Yeah, exactly 1% survival rate. So I thought I was going to be gone. And here I am. I'm in the water and I'm failing to stay afloat. Trying to stay afloat, keep going down. I can't stay above water and something begins to circle beneath me. You gotta be kidding me. I didn't die jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. And it dark didn't eat me and I'm out. And I try to punch this thing, but it won't go away. Circles faster and faster. No longer my wading in the water. I'm lying atop the water on my back, being kept buoyant by this creature, thinking to myself, this is one heck of a nice shark. Turns out a man named Morgan McWhort was on top of the bridge looking down when I jumped. He was two feet away from me when I jumped, and he wrote to abc News. He said, kevin, I'm so glad you're alive. I was standing less than two feet away from you when you jumped. It's haunted me until now. By the way, there was no shark like you mentioned on the show, but there was a sea lion. And the people above looking down believed it to be keeping your body afloat until the coast guard boat arrived behind you. I call that a miracle. And at the hospital, the back surgeon. I wasn't supposed to be there that day performed a back surgery on me that's the first and only of its particular kind, saving me the ability to walk, stand, and run. Of the 39 Golden Gate Bridge jump survivors that 1%, 26 remain alive today, Many have died of natural causes. Of the 26 that remain alive today, five of us get to stand, walk, and run. We are what's called the most exclusive survivors club in the world. Book of the same Name by Ben Sherwood. And so what a gift it is to get to talk to you right now. I almost couldn't, right? It almost didn't happen. And what a gift it is to have now almost 20 years past the day I should have died. And what a gift it is that I got to marry the love of my life, my very best friend, Margaret Hine, have a really cool dog who was a shar Pei. Only lasted nine years, but he was the best dog in the world. You're the godfather to two godchildren, Zoe and Judah. Shout out, Zoe. Shout out, Judah. All of these things would have never happened. My father would never have become the best man at my wedding. So when you are out there watching this show and you are considering suicide, I want you to consider for a moment all the things you would have missed. Because not only if you take your lives, not only are you affecting your life and the people that you leave behind, but you are affecting potential generations to come that will never be because of one action. Instead of taking that action, turn to the person to your right, the person to your left, and say four simple but effective words. I need help. Now, that person to your left or right says, I can't help you. You keep searching until you find someone willing to get your back. You're not in this alone, and you don't have to die by your hands. You deserve to live.

It's powerful words. I believe that, and I hope that people repeat that. I might even repeat that in the video here when we go live. When I look at your situation and other people's situations. For example, my dad was a foster child. He went through several homes and there were horrible stories and he won't even really tell me about them. So I can't explore that very well. And that's affected him in a big way. And to be honest, he's never really found a way through that. He's kind of been. It's affected him forever. Without going off on a tangent too far, he hasn't been able to find that true happy place that you're describing. And I know another guy who has bipolar as well. And he literally just lives in a basement. He can't come out. I mean, he can, but his reality is that in his world, he believes he can't. And so when he does, it's difficult. And often he just goes right back. And a friend of mine, his son sadly committed suicide at age 11. And he's not here to be here anymore. Right. And then here I am talking to you, Kevin. And 1, 2, 3. You've been through all three here. And it makes me wonder in general, looking out there in the world with other people who are struggling in uncountable different ways, what's the difference between someone who, let's say, is a victim of a hate crime, but then goes out and starts shooting people and killing people, ends up in jail the rest of their life, or stuck in a gang, or hides in drugs and never really recovers? What's the difference from people who are influenced by whatever it is, fill in the blank and get stuck there and it becomes their life? What's the difference between that versus finding a place of healing and do get to be here tomorrow in a positive way? And I struggle trying to find an answer to that. Is it as simple as just reaching out for help as a starting point? Is that really one of the first steps that we do, or what's your thoughts on that?

It's one of the first steps, but you have to consider all the things involved. So many people live their whole lives without real opportunity being presented to them. Yeah, you can go out and you can forge on where you can grab that opportunity like we talked about. You can work tirelessly, grab that opportunity, and no matter how hard you work, sometimes people won't give you the chance. I think the biggest difference between my personal success with wellness and well being, I still go through all of the symptoms I've ever had. I still have paranoid Delusions, hallucinations, panic attacks, anxiety attacks, stress attacks, mania and depression, hallucinations, auditory and visual. But I am able to manage them and knock them down from the initial symptom into a few hours where they used to last days, weeks and months. That took a grand deal of hard work. That took getting to the root of my mental problems in therapy. That took being honest in all therapies for the first time in my life and making that a precursor to therapy. If I'm going to go to therapy, I'm going to tell the whole truth. Nothing but the truth will help me. God, that took complete acceptance from my family and friends as to my diagnosis and my struggles and their empathy toward that diagnosis and those struggles, their abilities to be kind to me when I was not well, mentally. And so instead of judging me, they were kind. So it took outside people to be there for me and it took me a lot of hard falls from rock bottom to rocking it. When I answered your question, what was your rock bottom? I said there was many, but here's what I'll say about. So it took all these rock bottoms to occur after the Golden Gate Bridge incident for me to make a cognitive decision. Every time I'm suicidal, I'm going to say to anyone next to me, I need help. Now, I have said it in airports, to TSA agents, almost got me on the no fly list. I say it because I have to say it. But for all the people that can't say it out there and for all the people listening that are doing well mentally, please, I beg you, reach out to your people in mental pain. Reach out to people that you don't know are in pain and say, hey, are you going through it? And if you are, I want to let you know I'm here for you. I got your back. I'm your shoulder you can lean on. I'm the shoulder you can cry on. You're not in this alone. We cannot expect people who suffer mentally, and I hate that word, suffer because I don't believe in it. I said it anyway. I believe that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. I was born in squalor in my life. I was born with nothing and no one. Before I was adopted, I was nine months, the first nine months of my life, in and out of foster homes and I was very sick. But I haven't suffered a day in my life. Take that notion, take that way of looking at that perspective and you can thrive again, no matter what you're going through. If you look at the world and say, the world's against me. Everybody hates me. I've got nowhere I can go. No one's going to help me. Woe is me. Then that's where you'll be stuck the rest of your life. Maybe part of the world is against you. That's what people are feeling right now. That part of the world is against them. Specifically. My black brothers and sisters feel that way. My brown brothers and sisters feel that way. You have to look back at the world and say, no, I am going to succeed. I am going to thrive. And it is going to be because of hard work. And every time I put in the effort, something good will come out of it. Yeah, we have to be the ones who gauge and manage our own success. And that could be success of all kinds. It could be monetary success. It could be life skill success. It could be mental struggle success and wellness success. It could be all of the above.

And as we wrap up, getting close to the time here, I want you to challenge me for a second. Doing this show is one of the things that I do to try and help people heal and help make this a better planet.

So.

And of course, I do a couple other things as well. I talk to people and I think I generally do what I can. But I'd like you to challenge me here, Kev, if you could tell me, and this is for anyone listening as well, but you could tell me one little thing today that I could do to help move racial equality in the right direction. What would that one little thing do that I could just definitely, without excuse, do it today.

Have more guests of color on your show. Not that you have, but have more of them on your show to show different perspectives of growing up in Canada or in America, around the world, and invite people with powerful opinions on your show about race and racial equality. Because if you do that, you're educating those people watching in a huge way. And it's. So you're sharing your platform for voices that sometimes go unheard. That would be huge and be proud of.

I can do that. And what is one little thing that I could do today to help an individual maybe in my circle or out there? Would you suggest that I maybe just ask people that are around me, hey, how are you guys doing today? Do you want to talk about something? Yes.

Be a part of the conversation. Be a positive part of the conversation. What can I do? How can I help?

I can do that. And I think everyone listening here can do that.

Yeah, we can all be a part of the change.

I'm going to do that. Today. And because why not, right? We all have this choice. We can do something about it or not. And if we're all doing something small together, well, shit, that's called global change.

That's right, Brian.

I love it. Well, I'm going to keep in touch with you and I really appreciate you coming out here. I hope that if there's something in the future I can help with beyond what I'm doing, let's do some stuff together. Let me know where I can do something. Because I like doing something. I like moving the world in a positive direction to whatever capacity little old me can do. So we all can just do what we can.

I've already got. So that's good.

Yeah, I'm here anytime, man. For sure, you know, peace with you and let's just do what we can. So.

And folks, check out the YouTube channel. It's got 400 videos all designed to help your brain, mind, behavior, mental health and well being. They're entertaining, they're educational and they're helpful.

To people and they're very powerful. I've watched a few of them, you know, here on From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. I hope you also share this episode, share Kevin's story and get this out there. There's people out there that would love to hear this episode. So please subscribe and send this out to your friends in the name of mental health and going in a positive direction.

Thank you very much, Eric. I really appreciate it.

Thank you very much as well. We'll talk to you soon.

Take care.

And that's it, my friends, for this episode. We will see you next time. Please send me an email, say hello, give me some feedback, let me know what you think, give me some tips and suggestions. I'd love to hear from you. Also, please share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, doesn't matter. Just get it out there. I really appreciate it. And we'll see you next time on From Rock Bottom to Rockin it. Have a Rockin it day.