Suicide Prevention Saturday - Just talking about it can help prevent it.

My ear. Oh, that did not work out the way I thought it was going to. Um, anyway, hi everybody, it is Suicide Prevention Saturday. And why are we here? Because 2 out of every 3 gun deaths the CDC talks about are actually suicides. And if we are looking to truly save lives, we need to talk about mental health and suicide prevention. So here we are every Saturday night since 2018, um, seeing what you and I can do just to make the world a little bit better. For everybody. Um, thank you all for the thumbs up. It's kind of fun starting with 7 thumbs up of the day, uh, and we're not even a minute into here, so I appreciate that. Uh, so DJ here— DJ is here with me, of course. And the last thing I said to him was my hero just before the thing started, and I thought that's how y'all were gonna start the stream— start the stream— was hearing me call DJ my hero. For pushing a button, because, you know, he's good like that. So anyway, uh, welcome Saturday night, and for those of you watching the replay, thanks for checking in. I appreciate you whether I get to say hi to you directly or not. Uh, via— Viejo and Crabby Turtle were the first two to make comments over here on the side chat, so I did already text back to them, so they're official. Since then, Tech Book Fudd has joined us, and DJ, of course, is here. And that's— I'm caught up, DJ, just like that. And it's only not even 2 minutes in. So from this point on, I'm going to hide the comments. So now it's DJ's turn to continue on. And, you know, when new people come in, by all means, you feel free to interrupt me and say, hey, someone is new, or we can wait as normal to about 10 after and just like do the quick roll call. All right, so what do we want to talk about? Let's talk about this real quick, right? Free screening, walkthetalkamerica.org and LOVE. That's where you go. This is your opportunity to check stuff out because what's one of the biggest— oh, there's so many. All right, one of the biggest challenges that we have when it comes to mental health is finding some. And guess what this is? This is free mental health questions that you didn't know you wanted the answers to, possibly. But if you are interested, walkthedogamerica.org/love, you can check out anything you want. If you go there, one of the things you're going to see is a whole bunch of lists of choices. So anxiety, PTSD, other things along those lines.. And if you're curious if you or someone that you love are suffering from any of those things, pick the one that you're most interested in. Postpartum depression is another one. It's been a few minutes since I looked at this page, but there's stuff, bipolar, all sorts of things. So if you or someone you love— see, that's why it says love, really, right— is suffering, you want to go there. Take the free and anonymous screening. Now the cool thing about it is, let's say I take the depression one and at the end it says, yes, on a scale of 1 to 10, you're a 12, right? It doesn't just leave you there hanging with, uh, a new diagnosis and nothing to do. There's tons of resources at the end of each one of those quizzes. I have not taken all of them. But for the most part, they really don't take that long. Mike Sedini, the founder of Walk the Talk America, one of his favorite stories, and I think it might be on the interview I did with him last year, or maybe, or last, uh, SHOT Show, January of 2024, or maybe it was the previous one, but his daughter actually went upstairs, a teenager, mind you, went upstairs, took the thing, and came back down and told her dad she was super happy to find out that she had taken the test and she was not indeed actually depressed. So teens can take it, adults can take it, anyone you want can take it. So, um, that is one of my goals. And I'm actually— I'm like, I'm gonna try to pull it up because I'm not— I'm not remembering what else there is. Talking about— oh, but so I've been here often enough, it comes up automatically in my thing. All right, um, take a minute. All right, so depression, anxiety, bipolar, PTSD, addiction, youth mental health test, uh, oh, and they have it in Spanish as well. Postpartum, ADHD— I might need to take that one. I should probably take the ADHD one, just, you— because I'll pop up squirrels from time to time. Uh, Psychosis and Schizophrenia Eating Disorder Parent Test: Your Child's Mental Health. So those of us who have teenagers, or even sadly preteens, because as we've talked about in the past, there are a rising number of preteen suicides. I mean, come on, folks, 11, 12, 13-year-olds taking their lives. Can you imagine? I am 50-something, 53, I'll be 54 in August. So I've been on this world for half a century and a little. And when we were kids, for the most part, we were kids. I can't imagine thinking that you are not worth staying and taking another breath at 10 or 11 or 12. And so that's just, it's awful. So like I said, there is, um, parent tests for your child's mental health. There's youth mental health tests. And, um, the nice thing, like I said, it's free. It helps solve your curiosity of whatever is going on in your life. And in general, it's just one more piece. Now, what are we also going to talk about? Guns and Mental Health podcast. Learn more. The more we know, the smarter we are. The smarter we are. Or sometimes learning is not always lovely and pleasant when we find out stuff that we don't like. All right, TJ, we're almost 7 minutes in. 7 is a good number. 8 is better because 8 is my favorite because that's the month I was born. But DJ, if you'd be so kind, go ahead and do the official roll call in the official DJ voice.

All right, I'd be happy to do that. Mike White just joining the room, and before him, Chris from the 740 was in. Top of the key with the Magic 3. We got, uh, Crabby Turtle out there, Viejo out there, and Tactical Fudd as well.

It's coming back your way. All right, thank you very much. And if I'm not on my phone, I can hit some of the buttons sometimes as well. All right, um, important things to know. Holy smokes, on Tuesday— my calendar is over there, or at least one of my calendars over there— I will be at the Capitol at the Suicide Prevention Lobby Day. And what does that mean? For those of you who don't know, this Wednesday I was in the lobby at the legislative building virtually, and we talked about electric vehicles. Now here's the thing, I know a lot of you think of me as a Second Amendment advocate, but no, really and truly my number one goal is suicide prevention. So on Tuesday when they have the suicide prevention Lobby Day, my goal is to be there because my fear is that there's not enough Second Amendment advocates that are there. Because those of us who know about Walk the Talk America, Hold My Guns are the top two that come to mind. There are more, I am just not thinking of them offhand right immediately. So I believe things like red flag laws come from these lobby days where you have the anti-gun groups. And if they were anti-violence groups, I would so be with them. If they were anti-suicide groups, I would totally support them. But they are legit anti-gun groups because all they care about is guns. And here's the thing, we're gonna pop off suicide just for a moment, in that there are roughly, over average of the past 10 years, 250,000 violent occurrences in America on an annual basis. Of those 250,000, uh, violent occurrence, 10,000 of them are murder with a firearm. 250,000, 10,000 with a firearm. So unfortunately, guns get all the attention. They're sexy. It seems easy to make them the villain. And well, if we just ban them, it goes away. And I want to share with you guys my 30-second elevator pitch for anyone who wants to ban our guns. Ready for this? Pay attention now. If I snap my fingers and I make all the guns in the world go away, we still have violence. If I snap my fingers and I make the violence stop, it no longer matters that we have guns. You good? You got it? What do you think, DJ? I can actually let you tell me. What do you think of my, uh, 30-second elevator pitch?

I think that's less than 30 seconds. You can get that done and have its impact felt. And yeah, it's less than 30, Brooke. That's really effective. I haven't heard you express it that way before.

All right, cool, because, um, you know. All right, um, shout outs. Is there anything I need? Got it. Okay, being how you got that memorized now, just— and here's the beauty, when y'all get to the rewind, you just loop that part so you hear it. So the next time someone tells you they want to get rid of evil guns, ask them that thought. Because Cain killed Abel with a rock. Murder has been against the law, whether it's— pick any law. I mean, the Ten Commandments are one of those things Christians, you know, we kind of— there's lots of them everywhere. But murder's been against belief systems for a long, long time. So understanding that this is a tool, right? And yes, it's a plastic one, so I shouldn't get kicked off, but this is a tool and it doesn't do anything without someone doing something with it. So I am actually, in all my research with the FBI, DOJ, Secret Service, Department of Education, all of those things. Honestly, I am a wee bit scared, more scared of the hands and feet, in that a person who can physically brutalize someone to the point of death, which is also, by the way, the people who do that are more prolific than the people who generally shoot with, with rifles that everyone's so hot to ban. It's just violence is an action. It's never been a tool. And no matter how many tools we take away, there will still be violence unless we start addressing that. So violence is our bigger problem than suicide. I was about to say thankfully, but I'm not sure that's the word I want to use, right? So violence in general, and violence starts with lack of mental health because how do we create violence? It is not feeling understood, not feeling heard, not being taken care of. So when we lose all those things, that's when we become violent. Now I'm going to assume y'all are very sweet, kind, nice people who like peace and calm and quiet. I was raised by a dad that sort of had a temper and never— well, okay, almost never laid a hand on me. There was once, that one time, but it was stressful. Um, that'll be time for another story, or now I'm gonna spill it out because DJ and we're talking early. I'm like, what do I have to tell you guys tonight? So if you've ever gotten super mad, and ideally we try not to get there, but I will tell you that There's a reason so many people are angry right now, because anger is easy. Being pissed off, annoyed, and angry is one of the most natural things that we are able to do as humans. When you look at gangs, what is it? It's a family protecting a family, really. When you look at the mob mentality of if one person does it, then everybody does it, what is that? Well, it's connection to our most base emotion of anger, because anger allows us to get strong and focused, and we're not really worried about anything else that's currently happening. We're pissed off and angry because they're not listening, no one understands us, and the only thing that we can do is smash heads. And that's our survival instinct. So that's been there a lot longer than our ability to be kind, compassionate, and take care of one another. So anger is just the easiest thing. So we have anger. So that's why we end up with 250,000 violent crimes every single year, give or take, over the past decade or so, because I've been studying this stuff that long and then some. So if we can start with mental health of how do I not get angry when you're not listening to me? Well, first of all, I need to realize that I can't make you listen to me. I can't convince you of anything, and you're allowed to have your opinion and I'm allowed to have my opinion. We should be able to talk about it rationally and calmly. However, anger is just so much easier. And just acknowledging that and understanding and being aware that when someone's getting under your skin, you have to remember you have control over how you're reacting right now. You can be happy about it, like, ha ha, they're full of garbage and I just don't care. Or we can get very serious about this, like, oh my gosh, they're so ignorant and they don't know what they're talking about. And well, they need to be shown how to do this properly. And then you start getting, well, they're not listening to me and therefore someone should just, you know, take them out. And unfortunately, that was kind of the attitude I was raised by my dad for some things. Um, he had a lot of awful exes. Actually, no, he just had really one really bad ex, but, um, that is another story. I know I'm leaving all these little cliffhangers. I don't know, DJ, should we keep track of the cliffhangers and maybe I'll have like individual, uh, um, episodes where I pick up where I left them off?

We are currently hanging from the fourth cliff.

All right, just checking, just checking. Um, and, and like I said, I'm totally ignoring the chat, so Are there any comments or anything that I should be paying attention to right now while we're having this mini segue anyway?

Well, we had Hillbilly Up join us in the discussion.

Okay, very cool. All right, thank you very much. I will, I will say hi, Hillbilly, and no, I'm not coming on because I'm getting to bed because I've got another full day and y'all know how much I love my sleep. All right, so anger, super easy. Anger then leads to violence. And violence then leads to possible harm along with death. And if we can stop, or at least be aware of just our own feelings and our own awareness of what's going on before we start to get angry, because here's the thing, my opinion of you doesn't matter. In that, I won't pick on anyone in particular that's here or not, is like, I just know in my position, um, and I don't mean here on YouTube, but here in my town, I was the Republican town committee chair, and I have lots of friends in town. But because of my position, I had people who didn't like me. And guess what? They didn't like me and they'd never met me. They called me names, they said I was a horrible person, and they had no idea who I was. Like, I probably could have walked in the same room with them and they wouldn't know. So I could do one of two things. I'd be like, oh, I need to be a people pleaser, I need to take care of them, oh my gosh, I need to find them and let them know that really I'm such a kind, sweet person. No, the time, the energy, all of that does not matter. The fact that someone thinks that I'm a not nice person— because I'm not going to swear on here so much— is not my problem. And it's hard for us to— a lot of us— to think that, hmm, someone doesn't like me and I need to fix that. And the answer is no. You, number one, need to make sure that you are the person that you want to be. You are proud of you, you love you, you take care of you, you understand that you are imperfect and always a work in progress. That you are precious. These are the things that I don't think we're told enough, and I don't think we tell ourselves enough. And here's the deal: if you and I remember to tell ourselves that we are a loving creature of God who is put on this earth as a blessing to someone, including ourselves, and that we are not a mistake, and we are doing all of the things that we need to do. And we may not be graceful and we may not be perfect and we may not walk the way we want to or look the way we want to or dress the way we want to, but we are perfectly imperfect. And as long as we can tell ourselves that once in a while, it will bring our heads up a little bit more, our shoulders back, and we can look at somebody in the eyeballs and be like, I love me. And as long as I am filling up this vessel of my heart and my spirit with true love for myself, now that can overflow. And once that overflows, it affects everyone around you, and it becomes your armor. So every week I pop on here, my goal is to give you something actionable. In the beginning of this, if you're just popping on late, um, walkthetalkamerica.org/love— go find out something about a mental health screening. Find out what resources out there. Understand violence is an act. It's never been about a gun. And if I can snap my fingers and make all the guns in the world disappear, we will still have violence. But if I can snap my fingers and make all the violence in the world stop, it doesn't matter we have guns. Now, if just once today you can tell yourself that you are worthy, you are loved, and you are taken care of, and you are here for a reason, that can help you. Once you help you, that's when you can help others. Be the person that you want to be and accept your imperfections and love them anyway. Mr. DJ, do we have anything else we should say before we go?

Yes, we do. Bringing it to your screen right now. This is Wisdom from the Hills. Most usually when someone offends us, they don't think about it again. So why would we keep dwelling on it?

They are not hillbilly up bringing it. For sure, for sure. I can tell you I am absolutely the person who I may have said something that later I'm worried about, and then a week or two later I'll finally be like, oh my gosh, DJ, I'm so sorry I cut you off. And then DJ will say, I don't remember that. And I've spent all this time in my head thinking about, oh my gosh, they're gonna think I'm such a jerk, how could I do that, that sort of thing. So yeah, um, and the other part about this is hate. Hate is just a poison that you are drinking for yourself. So I've had bad people in my life do bad things to me, and I have been consumed by hate. On the plus side— I don't know if this is a plus side— it was when I was a teen. It was The hate was the poison inside of me for the people who had done the things they had done to me, and I hated them. And I realized finally the forgiveness piece of this is that my hate only caused me pain and suffering. It didn't affect the people that I was mad at. It didn't affect the people who did the things they did to me. It had no effect on them whatsoever. So just like Hillbilly's thing where it's like they don't think about it again, right? And, and that's exactly it, is that hate is the worst poison ever because it's a poison you feed yourself. And looking around America right now, it's kind of easy to see a lot of hate out there, and that's a lot of poison for our country, and that's not good. But what can we do? We can start with ourselves. So All right, good comment, DJ. Anything else out there that I should be—

well, yeah, we can start with ourselves, but as it is, from, from the wisdom of MCK, I derive something that I offer to people quite often, and that is, you know, if you're out and about in your regular day and you see somebody who's not smiling, make one. And I did that a couple of days ago, passed that on to a couple other people, and almost every time I say that to somebody, they, they either like, you know, give me the half-quizzical look, or they say something like, I really needed that, or I'm going to borrow that from you. So that's what I encourage them to do. Now, something that occurred to me earlier in tonight's program is when you're talking about kids and how could kids think of anything that could be as— well, they could feel as strongly as they do about some things. That's it right there. Kids don't— when you're a kid, you don't have as much experience with these things. So that first heartbreak, I'm pretty sure we've all gone through that, and that can seem like it is the end of the world. And in those adolescent skins. They certainly are. And so to try to get a teenager to understand that while we have been there once, we can understand it, therefore they're not going to buy that because our love was never like theirs. And so another thing about depression is that it's not just one thing. If it's—

if that's, you know, and it's—

oh, we lost you a little bit, hon. That's cool. That was mom calling in. I'll be checking in with her later. I'll tell her you all say hello. So, but the thing, you know, it's not just one fact, you know, it's not just one factor that creates depression. It's a group of things coming together. They might not be right up against each other either. And you may not even remember how much something stressed you because it may be in your past. And then one more thing brings out something or two things in combination take you back to a moment where, like Brooke, you were pointing towards some adolescent hate.. And those kind of immediate visceral responses we have to things, once we gain the wisdom, we don't— we haven't always the wisdom of age or experience. We haven't always revisited some of those things. And to be able to take those deep calming breaths, I mean, I'm feeling some of that right now that I need to take a couple of those breaths for things that kind of well up in me, those unresolved things. And like Hillbilly's saying, and like you and I have agreed, you know, time and time again, it is maybe that person didn't mean to offend you, and maybe you're bringing offense to the situation because it's giving you something to think about. Why is it that you're being bothered by this? And so hopefully, like with Hillbilly's recommendation, we can push past that. We can, you know, we can move on to that thing. And you said, you know, where, where does that leave us? And it leaves us with passing on the good word to other folks, which is what we do every Saturday evening.

And just remembering, we always got to start with us. Because until we build ourselves up, we can't help anybody else. And so, all right, sir, well, thank you for co-hosting with me once again. And, um, I don't know. Oh, next week. So I told you on Tuesday I'm going to be Suicide Saturday, or Tuesday Lobby Day, on the 19th. On the 23rd, I have a pre-recorded, um, whatever it's called, uh, interview for you on the 23rd because I'll be out at a dinner for, uh, Connecticut Citizens Defense League. And so I will see you guys back live and in person on the 30th, and maybe I'll catch you on my ride home on the 23rd depending on how late the night goes. All right, adios y'all. Don't forget to check out Hillbilly Up on, uh, in about 20 minutes, 10 35 minutes, something like that, at the next top of the next hour, depending on what time zone you all are in. All right, good night everybody.

See ya.