As National Suicide Prevention Week starts, Allison and guest Cheryl Roper talk about Cheryl’s journey with depression and dealing with the feelings that those she loved were better off without her as she considered death by suicide. Both women share personal experiences and advice on what you can do if you or a loved one is facing mental health concerns.
Cheryl Roper is a wife and mom. She’s a suicide attempt survivor and is grateful to have the opportunity to shed light the truth that suicide is preventable. She wants to create safe spaces for people to talk about things like depression, grief, and suicide and to normalize seeking help. She also loves Jesus, the mountains, people, running a small business with her daughter, and is currently training for her first full Ironman. Cheryl posts her journey with depression on her instagram account @seeme.notthestigma. She also has an account where she sees the miracles in her life @expect.the.miracle.
Depression and mental health issues are things that impact many different people, we are grateful that there are many resources available. Here are some of the ones that Allison and Cheryl mentioned during this week’s discussion.
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) is a national network of local crisis centers that provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the United States. The Lifeline is committed to improving crisis services and advancing suicide prevention by empowering individuals, advancing professional best practices, and building awareness.
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American Foundation for Suicide Prevention was established in 1987 as a voluntary health organization that gives those affected by suicide a nationwide community empowered by research, education and advocacy to take action against this leading cause of death. AFSP is dedicated to saving lives and bringing hope to those affected by suicide, including those who have experienced a loss. AFSP has local chapters in all 50 states and in Puerto Rico.
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Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance provides hope, help, support, and education to improve the lives of people who have mood disorders. DBSA has chapters across the country to offer support to individuals of all ages. They have supports available to individuals, parents, children, etc. There are support groups available at each of the chapters and you can visit their website to find a location close to you.
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Safe UT is an app that provides a way for anyone to connect with licensed counselors that are ready to listen for any situation that you might be dealing with. Help is immediate and confidential. You can download the app on your phone, you can call (833) 372-3388 or go to their website and chat.
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The Emily Effect has the mission to provide resources to families and support for women suffering from perinatal mood disorders. The Emily Effect is named after Emily Cook Dyches who died in 2016 as a result of a battle with a post partum mood disorder. The Emily Effect is there to help offer education and resources to women suffering with maternal mental health disorders. They invite others to share their Letters of Light about their experiences.
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Note: Transcripts are automatically generated and therefore might occasionally have errors.
Hello everyone.
Welcome friends.
0:19
So today we have our first guest and I’m really excited to have you meet Cheryl. Cheryl and I met through Instagram, through a mutual group and I think that she just has a very powerful and very moving story that can help guide and direct so many of us.
0:38
So let’s start out first Cheryl by having you introduce yourself and tell us a little about you, your family and anything else you want to share?
Hey, hi.
I am married.
I have four kids and a fur baby and we also just barely adopted a rabbit.
0:59
A little chaotic here sometimes.
Um, that I love it.
My kids are great.
I’ve got we’ve got from 10 to 17 so bracing, myself.
Were that next step in life of having one?
Actually, leave the nest in the year?
I’ve heard that’s a hard one.
1:17
My own This is for my oldest is 8.
So I still have a ways so I feel very aware I have all SOB.
Yeah, it’s true.
What everyone says it be blank in it’s there but but she’s awesome.
I’m excited.
So I’m currently training for a full Ironman first time doing that because I can imagine, because isn’t the Iron Man, doesn’t it?
1:40
Cover, like, multiple types of training?
So like I mean lambing and biking and Yeah.
Okay I’ve done lots of triathlons before but this is my first Iron Man’s like the big.
It’s long all day in a thing.
So, so that takes a Blog my time.
1:57
But I also, I homeschool right now, one of my kiddos and I have a degree as a, physical therapist assistant currently not working with that, just too many other things going on.
Because I understand that one the ritual.
2:14
Yeah, so, tell us a little bit first about your The term account because that’s how we met and what helped me, learn a little bit more about your story.
So let’s start with that.
And then we’ll kind of go a little bit into your history and like your diagnosis and things like that.
2:30
Yeah, so my Instagram account I started in 2018, I felt really strongly prompted like one night.
I actually just came that I was supposed to start this account and just be very transparent.
2:47
Parent in my journey will get more into kind of where I was at with that.
I had not been transparent for most of it, I kept, it very private and just kind of wrestled with not wanting to do that.
3:04
Just filling one.
I just listening.
They’re hard to talk about, okay, right.
Like mental health, is I’ve been taboo for a long time.
Also, it’s hard to be that vulnerable.
Also, I have aren’t in committing to things.
Anyway.
Also that you know, you’re always like there’s a million other people who are better suited to this and even are already doing it.
3:26
Like, I know, I’m not the first person start talking about suicide and mental help, but a spirit was very persistent at me up all night 8:30 until I came up with an Instagram handle which was its see me not the stigma because I looked back and looking to remain life stigma.
3:45
Honestly my own but then That other people really inhibited me from getting help for a long time in.
And it’s still a struggle and I see it as a struggle in, in the lives of people that reach out to me.
People, I care about like almost every day.
4:02
So, no, I think is true.
So for those that are listening, if you might not know this, that I was diagnosed with depression when I was 17.
So, I’ve had some similarities in my journey that Cheryl has, and I really related with this.
But sick is a big thing.
4:19
Like we, I do feel like the discussion for mental health has been much more open, especially since covid and people are becoming more aware, but there is still that stigma or belief like well if you just try a little harder to be happy or if You’re just like letting it get to you, you need to be stronger, braver, whatever the phrases.
4:42
And I’m sure you’ve heard that so I can understand like the shame or the feelings of like I don’t want people to know that about me and feel that.
Yeah, no I hear color.
4:58
I think that’s a perfect handle and I understand that idea to that.
Oh, yeah, there’s other people doing it.
But the thing is I think that Each of us has an individual story and an individual perspective that maybe the way you tell it, those people relate.
And one of the things I really love about how you share right now is you show the good and the bad.
5:21
So, if you’re having a hard day, you don’t hide that you’re like, this is what I’m dealing with right now that you feel like that has made people feel more like they can reach out to you and relate with you or That’s a good question.
I honestly because we’re so long.
5:40
Things were bad, I was never sharing good days.
When I first started touring good days, I actually felt guilty.
Oh, because because so many of the people that I know that I’ve come in contact with, through this account and, just by being vocal about it, don’t have good days.
5:56
And I have a lot of good times, and I felt really guilty that I was had found stuff.
That was helping me and I was feeling well.
I also worried that I would lose followers that people were not interested in my story if I was doing well.
6:14
And it wasn’t, but it was like, well, I could be transparent.
I need to be honest about everything, and it’s not really about getting followers, right?
It’s about just helping people understand.
Because like, you said, I think my story is relatable for a lot of people, maybe not 100% of it, but I think there’s so much of it that people can relate to in themselves, or in their own or like someone that they know.
6:34
No.
So now I do think that it helps and it’s helped people.
I’ve been surprised at how many people who don’t necessarily struggle with mental health issues on their own, but love someone who does, who have found a lot of Hope in it to see that I went from years and years of just really bad days, to put it lightly to now where I’m doing well, and also worried.
7:04
I have like the so much of a better handle on on even the bad days, right?
So so now I think as I as I’ve been doing it for a few more years, it’s have been able to see more how people and I hope to that.
7:21
It brings hope to people who are struggling, who are in you know, like Where I had over 10 years where I was pretty bad, most of the time and six years where it was like solid Suicidal, Thoughts every day and and it.
7:40
So I hope that I can connect with people who are in that place to be like hey is worth holding on, not because every day is good.
Know that because good comes and I’m to a point now where in my life where not every day is good, but there’s good every day.
7:57
I love how you love.
How you said that?
If there is good every day, it’s sometimes.
Just recognizing it.
Yeah.
Let’s start a little bit with the beginning of your journey with depression.
We talked a little bit about how like your childhood was kind of a traditional childhood.
8:13
You thought you had the perfect life like when somebody asks you so what what kinds of symptoms or experiences or feelings, lead you to the point where you finally were like okay, something’s wrong.
I need help.
Yeah, there’s not a lot of noticeable from my childhood.
8:33
Other than the fact that I was like, really able to control my emotions really?
Well, if I had a bad day, I didn’t tell anyone what was going on.
I never liked accepted help for that and kind of show everybody out and told them, I’d be better the next day and I was better the next day, right?
8:49
So I did, I was pretty on top of things with my mental health.
And then When I was a junior, Josh other than your words, I was engaged and working full-time, going to school full-time planning a wedding.
9:08
And I started taking birth control.
And, and now I feel like people talk openly about the helper control at like, shifting your hormones, like that can cause Depression Suicidal Thoughts like a change, right?
But when I first talked to my doctors about it back then everyone was like oh no birth control, would never do that.
9:28
I don’t know why we’re so defensive of our Pharmaceuticals but that was probably like that was one of the first things right?
Is like, one of the first times where stigma confronted me that they were afraid to even go there where I was like look, I’ve never had Suicidal Thoughts my entire life and within three weeks of starting birth control.
9:48
I had me first.
The necessary suicidal, I just something went wrong in my life and my thought was to go down to like the bad part of town and hope that something awful happened to me, you know, and I like pretty immediately was like what the heck?
That is a weird thought and I was able to put it aside and move forward in a more way that I was used to and I healthier way, you know, but it was so foreign like I still, I remember that even though that was now like almost 20 years ago, Anyway.
10:19
So yeah, so that happened then I got married and and we were both working full-time.
People going to school full-time.
I would like some parts of a raccoon or very similar and some burnt food is very different.
10:35
Is that help marriages?
Your melding two completely different guy than 21.
So it was like some of the areas where, like I grew up in a home where you avoid confrontation and you expect the other person to kind of Put your needs first it.
10:51
Maybe even almost like in a harmful you know like excessively whereas his was kind of more like take charge and take care of yourself and you know, like Independence and like, yeah itself.
The combination made for a really rough because I was like, expecting things to be done and said that weren’t happening and he was just kind of like, well if you need those things, you would ask for them and kind of like stepping on my toes with the, you know.
11:16
Anyways, that was just this like This is a difficult time.
Just a I mean it really is like for everybody.
But then you’re already having the thoughts that you had started having actually that that fed into it.
Yeah.
And I was severely depressed and 100% in denial because I knew as a cute 21 year old that Depression was not a real thing.
11:44
And that I just needed to have more faith, I think more positively like any May as well be like, I think something’s wrong you.
Notice he fell in love with this like probably charismatic confident girl and by the time we got married but she was kind of lost and And so he would try, you know, I’ll be like I think you need help and I was just always like oh I think that those who think I paid him over and over to him, to myself.
12:10
I just need to think more positively and have more tea.
Like I knew that that would fix things because of the stigma against depression, significance antidepressant you know like all these things terrified me.
And anyway so he’s got bad.
12:28
I got pregnant.
Things got worse.
Bring in another.
Hormone change.
And that was one thing I did notice when I went off birth control because I got pregnant, that was intentional.
So, I went off birth control but it didn’t take very long to get pregnant.
12:44
So like that month where I was not on birth control, I was not pregnant.
I felt more like myself than I had at this email for like over around a year at this point because we did get pregnant fairly fast anyway and then my pregnancy was really hard.
13:02
It was really hard.
I had graduated college, I didn’t get a job in my degree, because I was finishing, my with management and I was like nobody wants a pregnant like personal trainer, great help me.
And at that point in my life.
So I was lead, we went across the country for an internship that he did and I worked at a deli and the family that owned that Deli was in the, it was my bottom floor of our apartment.
13:32
In Connecticut was a the time.
I think they’re on the 10th floor, I don’t wonder how tall it was anyway.
They just like adopted me.
My husband was working crazy hours with this internship and gone all day and sometimes they would have activities for them at night.
These were young college, guys, that none of them were married.
13:47
Is that him.
So nobody there was thinking, like, oh, we should do stuff for families, right?
Was just him and this cute family just like, adopted me.
Me in and took care of me, they would taking in our house for dinner.
And for meals, they took me out for pizza.
Like one of the top ten people places and Country guarded all the live anyway, you know, just like all these great things and and, and they don’t know.
14:12
I like I talk to them.
I don’t know if they ever fully told them just want to get, they were because I would go home after work and be alone for hours and and I tried to fill my time.
We didn’t have you.
And it looked upon tree, we didn’t have a family, we have a dishwasher, even microwave, like we were in this little tiny studio apartment, I read books, I read lots and lots of books and but that’s what they were like my social interaction and Mike you as my when he would get home.
14:49
If we weren’t fighting well, should you son?
So, yeah.
So easily, what back?
I had the baby fast forward.
Like things did not really get better when she was nine months old by now he graduated and he had moved permanently to Connecticut and we were in a town that was like college students and Polish people who are super sweet but they’re not a lot of them spoke English.
15:20
So again it was very related and my husband now was studying, he had to take a big exam To get his CPA license.
After you, graduated and one night, we had a big fight.
I’m feeling well and headache.
Anyway, I ended up overdosing.
I just remember, just sitting in my daughter’s room and thinking she deserves better than this by overdosed, and I don’t know.
15:44
I mean, I guess it was probably the spirit something help me, like, humble enough because I was so mad, but to go tell my husband, and I decided that I had not taken enough To do any permanent like real harm.
16:00
He ignored me and took me to the ER, good for him.
And and I guess it’s a, that’s where I got my diagnosis of depression.
They they helped with my overdose and other fun.
16:18
Think I spent the night and they sent me home just with a referral, an appointment for a therapist and I still think That’s just wild to me.
Like now knowing what I know you be committed for at least like a mandatory time have gone to a behavioral health unit and yeah and been there and gotten a little more help anyway so that’s when the diagnosis came.
16:42
Okay so you mentioned that they gave you a therapist.
So did you start therapy medication at that point or what?
Yeah.
So I can’t remember exactly where occurred like title was because she could prescribe medicine.
So she moves It’s like fire nurse practitioner or I don’t know, but maybe a psychiatrist she and I met I remember meeting two or three times.
17:05
I remember her being irritated about my daughter’s nap, schedule, and pushing hard for me to get a job.
And I had just grown up with a mom who was home and had always been taught that that was where I should be is be home with my kids that’s additional and I’m going to die.
17:26
Which is 100%.
There’s so much value in being home with her.
Oh, I agree.
But I was like, completely closed off to the idea of a different lifestyle that maybe doing something that would help my mental help.
Help would actually be more beneficial for my child, you know, anyway, the thing with that therapist after we’ve met a few times, one, I think was the Saturday’s weekend.
17:51
I remember being fabric that I was feeling suicidal.
I called her.
She had an emergency line, but I didn’t feel worthy of calling the emergency Lane, okay?
Grant, I find it interesting that you use the phrase worthy that you don’t feel worthy to use it.
18:08
Like so that meaning that where you were wasn’t as bad as somebody else, kind of like what we’re talking about at the beginning.
Or I just said this, by this time I had grown to hate myself so much and think so, like Beyond little at myself.
18:26
I just tried to take up as little space as okay, and so I wasn’t even necessarily if someone else needed her more, it was like, maybe she was eating dinner, or maybe she just didn’t want to be bothered or whatever your words was.
So small, that anything else, I could be occupying that time or space was more important.
18:47
Yeah.
Okay.
It was a rap.
It’s a rap spot.
Sadly.
I actually, this is something I can relate with, from my past.
A lot of people can I think with depression and for those that may be listening that have never had to experience.
19:03
Depression.
First lucky you second the brain tends to distort your self interpretation like how you view yourself?
Your feelings are like I feel like you don’t fully interpret your feelings, the same.
19:21
Like I always felt numb.
And so I could see where you would feel that like that.
There’s something like I am such a worthless part of the world right now that everything else would matter more than me right now.
Yeah.
19:37
Yeah.
So I just called her regular line left a message.
She never called back.
Ever.
Oh my God.
Hannah.
Like what?
How do you not even call?
19:53
Like, I have therapist now who, if they haven’t heard from me for a little while though, just reach out and just be like, hey, I’m just checking in.
How are you doing, right?
Like blows my mind that she would have gotten that voicemail and a not call me back right away.
If not that day, right?
20:10
Maybe she didn’t listen to that line, that’s why she an emergency line.
I get that, but that she didn’t call back on Monday.
Day or the next week or ever at some point.
Yeah.
How did that experience that impact?
How you view therapy?
At that point?
20:26
I was, I could imagine.
Yeah, like, I would feel that, that would validate the feeling that you were already having that you are worth anything now, because now the person, the one person that I was paying to care about me, didn’t care?
20:42
And so, I was never going to do therapy again.
And I know Oh, even more solidly.
Now that I really was not worth anyone’s time or attention, let alone like affection or love.
You know, there’s your pain, this person basically, in your mind to do that.
21:00
Yeah.
So I could see where that would be very detrimental.
And really make an impact on the feelings that you were feeling.
Yeah.
It was she had prescribed an antidepressant and I like kept it.
In my car, Ryan to talk myself into being brave enough to fill it.
21:19
But I was so scared of antidepressants.
I can’t even like pinpoint.
We just like I said, I just it was that, this was such a foreign concept for me.
Even now that I have this, like official diagnosis, it was so hard for me to come around and accept it.
21:36
And also to think that, like, I was driving in my mind was like, oh, I’m so broken.
I have to take medication even though like normal conditions that anybody had, You know, for blood pressure, diabetes, or whatever I would have never been like, what a broken person, you are.
Okay.
That’s exactly how I felt.
21:52
I was like, why do I need to take a pill to be happy?
Like everybody else?
Just gets up in the morning and is happy.
Why do I have to take a pill?
Yeah, I’ve got a smile on my face or do it myself, feel normal?
Yeah, no, exactly.
Does that.
I don’t know about you, but I resisted meds for probably the first five to ten years like on and often because I like going fine and the people I stopped taking my mom and my mom or friends were like, okay, you’re not fine, but I’m like, yeah, I’m fine and then it would get so bad.
22:24
Well, I never filled the prescription because of what happened with her and I wanted nothing nothing to do with that.
Like we’re done.
Yeah.
It was like, nope, I’m going to figure this out on my own, you know?
So yeah, it’s okay.
22:40
So after that happened and I’m get, do you have this beautiful little munchkin who’s very Very young, and what happened next?
So the therapist isn’t there you still feeling this way.
Like, nothing’s changed inside.
How did you go forward or what happen next in the story, we basically lived in survival mode and there were good times, but there was a lot of hard, a lot of dark eye.
23:09
I’m trying to remember.
Week we just kind of found these, leave the findings that would help a little bit like a different mindset for a book or and supplement right?
But nothing ever lasted and every time it felt like I would get worse than I had been before so fast forward.
23:31
We moved to Nebraska, I got pregnant, this with our third child, I got another Connecticut.
Also have really, really bad, postpartum depression.
After him actually I made it should say that because I did finally take medication while I was pregnant with him.
23:47
I was so good Idol.
That my doctor said you’re more cuz I was like, what’s it going to do to my baby now?
And he’s in your room, higher risk to your baby?
The way you’re feeling?
Then this medication is so I took medication and I felt like it helped while I was pregnant and then Then, for the first six weeks, after his birth, oh, he came fast and furious did not have an epidural.
24:15
I thought it was going to die, and I have PTSD undiagnosed, but now that I know more about it, like, every time I close my eyes, I would be back there freaking out.
I’ve like legitimately thought I was going to die, and he’s a 9-pound baby.
That’s a big boy.
24:34
Anyway, and he didn’t L ate all the times.
I was exhausted he and he just continued to be with massive, he was colicky.
He only wanted to be held, even when I held him he would cry.
I think I have postpartum psychosis.
24:50
I had a really hard time not.
I wanted to hurt him which of course I was like, what is wrong with me?
As a mom, we had constant company for the first six weeks of his life.
So, so add to all this mess already that I I was done trying to pretend like everything was perfect.
25:06
Keep my house clean, cook meals.
You know, go everybody wanted because we live back East, so people who came to visit were like, let’s go to this place in this place in this place, right?
You know, those like, just exhaustion and chaos and by the time everyone left, I was just a wreck.
25:21
And I would call my husband sobbing and holding the screaming baby.
And he would play with me these opening down, and I was like, I would be like, I’m gonna squeeze him to death and he was like, you have to go put him down, I was like, but then he’ll cry harder, I mean.
Like it sounds crazy and was crazy.
I it is because the brain isn’t working correctly.
25:40
Yeah.
Unfortunately I heard a story recently of someone close to me who has a sibling, whose wife had postpartum psychosis after their second and unfortunately, she died by Suicide and when the baby was about a year and it is, it’s not normal, it’s it’s not something that anybody that’s a parent would ever imagine doing.
26:07
And so I think to me that shows how scary that would be to like you already had a child that you love and you get the second one and you’re having these feelings.
Yeah, I do want to just take a moment and point out that while not everybody has major depressive disorder.
26:25
Many women do suffer with postpartum depression that can be very extreme and so just if you are feeling that way, Or you have a family member or friend to just be aware and watch through them because it’s, there’s an organization called the Emily effect that specifically specializes in postpartum depression.
26:48
And so I just wanted to kind of highlight that that it’s not an uncommon thing.
Like for you it was heightened by the fact that you already had major depressive disorder.
Yes.
But many people do suffer with that.
Yeah.
And no one was talking about it with the Emily effect.
Yeah, you too.
27:03
It’s so important.
So that was at the end.
People will be like, oh, baby blues or whatever, you know, is that anyway.
So that I had that I went off of my antidepressant because I felt like it was part of the problem and I actually did improve after I got off of it and I just wanted, like, spoiler alert.
27:23
My story is not meant to tell anyone that medication is bad only react well to it.
So anyways, so then fast forward to that third baby again.
My doctor this time.
I had a really, really great OBGYN.
I had not before that might be another, 28 been with big groups and have never really gotten to know any one doctor this one.
27:45
I loved her.
And she had shared a bit of my history with her, and she just said, will you please take an antidepressant after this?
Maybe because you have postpartum depression like this.
We know this.
So I did and again, kind of seemed like it, how bout he was the darling is sweet.
28:03
This little baby that helped a time and then about six months after that, I had evolved into this page monster.
I was like, anger, does not even touch it too.
Like that’s all I can say is like, I was in a rage so much of the time.
28:22
It did not take very much to throw me off.
I was so angry, and that is still not me.
And so I went to the psychiatrist and said I got to get off his medication. and he said, if you go off of it, you’ll just need to be back on it and another few weeks at a higher dose because your body will have adjusted and I said, no, this is making me sick like I am not okay and he said If you go off of that medication, get out and never come back, and I hope it done never coming back.
28:58
We’ve had two therapists that are basically, this was a psychiatrist.
Well, but paint everything like mental health professionals.
Yeah, the first one basically disappeared, and the other ones like, okay, well, I’m done.
Yeah.
Well, then stay with me.
29:15
Tell me I’m going to talk to me about like other classes of medication like I and again, it’s stuff that I know now.
But at the time, I didn’t even have the idea to ask me things because I didn’t know, you didn’t know, my trusted these people and was like this is your area of expertise.
So I just didn’t go in with any thought of my own great except that I had to get off of it.
29:35
I knew it was making me sick.
So why we myself off of it?
I did start to feel better password again, had another baby now.
This is number four, right?
Number four, and we knew this one, we knew we were supposed to have another baby, but we knew that she would borrow act.
29:54
We knew, I would not survive another pregnancy anyway.
My postpartum got really bad, I actually was hospitalized.
I was suicidal while I was pregnant with her.
I had my first Like official Behavioral Health possible, ization wife pregnant her.
Not the best program kept me alive, but I didn’t hate that right there, success.
30:15
It’s true, but I did help you with any tools or hope or anything.
It was just like, well, that sucks, that were easily, no coping, and, like, cooking techniques and stuff to help you when she left.
Yeah.
So after I had her, she and I have this like deep connection and When I was with her, I was okay.
30:41
I think she’s the first baby that they let me hold like before they cut the umbilical cord and other stuff.
And I bread things now about the bonding that takes place with that skin to skin contact, and it was much everything about it was much more natural.
Much more healthy holistic birth.
30:56
That’s a story for a whole different podcasts obviously that, but I do think, Part of our postpartum issues, are the ways that we have babies delivered in our modern society.
But anyway, so I bonded with her things were better when I was with her.
31:14
But overall, my mental health was just continue to deteriorate.
So when she was just a few months old, my husband just came to me finally.
And just he was exhausted we, by this time, our third child that cute sweet baby has autism, and we didn’t know it at the time that we were dealing with a lot with him.
31:33
Him, and our house was chaos and a nightmare.
And we were putting on this perfect face to the outside world, but we were just broken.
We were a mess and he just came to me and said, I can’t do this.
31:52
You have to get help, you have to go see someone.
So, I finally relented because he had brought that up again over the years.
And I was always like, no, remember how that went?
That’s not good.
And so he so I started seeing a new therapist, this time with someone who’s a member of our faith and he brought Christ and the atonement.
32:18
All right, no hope.
And it was everything that I needed and he was so gentle, although I left every session ticked off at him because he was the one who finally started helping work through stuff and get to the heart of things and I hurt he was saying it’s chords.
32:38
Yeah he helped me.
See that?
Really the foundation of it was just this feeling that I knew.
I wasn’t lovable guy wasn’t worthy of love and I was constantly trying to prove to the people around me that I was while simultaneously knowing that I wasn’t.
32:54
And so it was this really awful like you’re proving to yourself that you’re not worth anything but you’re trying to prove everybody else that you are.
Yeah.
So you’re fighting this double-sided battle and it’s here that people who thought that they love me.
Would one day realize that you like, oh, she’s dirt, you know.
33:12
So that was So he was a huge blessing, and one of the things that he said, I was so resistant because that’s my this point in time, I think this had been going on.
Yeah, 404 let me think I person started in like 2003.
33:32
My baby was born in 2012.
So we’re at Mike nine, ten years now and and I had tried the point, I had tried a few different antidepressants.
I had tried like, I said, all these different life plans and if he King.
And I just felt like nothing shout and so he would offer different suggestions.
33:52
And I would I was so resistant to everything because I finally realized, I don’t know if I realize in the moment.
But I was terrified to not to imagine a life of not being depressed because that was all.
I knew like, my whole adult life, essentially, I had been depressed, I didn’t know how to be a wife mom and adult, you know, without ya, and most of my friends at this.
34:15
This point, this was slimy, they’d known, which they didn’t know.
I was depressed.
I wasn’t talking about it.
I think I occasionally would be like oh yeah, I deal with depression but I great today like everything’s fine.
Now whether it was or not, right?
Like I never would share what was going on in the moment.
But really like him though, they were your friends and they care about you.
34:32
They didn’t really know the real Cheryl, didn’t know you re no.
No.
Because they already knew that like, I was putting on this facade of being a likable person, or they knew how much I struggled at.
They knew that I thought about suicide, On a regular basis that they knew that I’ve ever thought about hurting one of my kids.
34:49
If they knew that I hated life that I knew they would hate me, you know, they would realize the truth that like I was not work and then they would disappear walk away we as that you weren’t worth exactly what you well but I know they would know that.
35:07
Yeah, so he just looked at me one day and he said, as I was shooting down all of his ideas of, you know, being Things to try.
He just said, Cheryl if nothing changes nothing changes, right?
So simple.
35:23
But it was exactly what I needed to hear that day.
I went home and it’s like he’s right.
Like I want I don’t want to be this forever.
I have to be brave enough.
To try being well.
35:39
And that was shocking to me to realize that I was scared of not being depressed, but I was because it was like, that’s what you don’t know.
Now for, at least 10 years is song, I think was about 10 years this point.
Yeah.
And that was the only you had to be like to do life.
35:56
How to be married?
Is it started about the time you were engaged though?
I will say I find it remarkable that you were you kept trying therapist.
I personally am a huge advocate for therapy.
I even studied psychology with the goal of becoming a therapist but after what you had been through with the first two, how rewarding it must have been to find someone who finally, Seemed to know what he was doing was willing to like really dig in there.
36:31
Like you’re worth finding out what is causing all of these things.
Yeah it was he’s just sick and great human being and he really helped me a lot.
That’s amazing.
So about what time frame was this like how long ago?
36:49
Oh this I saw him.
I started in 2012.
I think 2014 it might have been 2013.
I’ve done some treatments that have affected my memory.
37:06
So this gives us here but he things got really bad.
I was very suicidal.
And he said this was 2013.
He said you called my husband to come down to the appointment with me and he said, you can’t leave here today and last you either find a new therapist because I feel like I’m not helping you.
37:35
Go to the, ER, or if you will try this, if you can cross me safe overnight.
If you enroll in as partial hospitalization program in the morning where I would go during the day, I would be there for about 10 hours a day, and but I would get to go home at night and my first experience being hospitalized, like I said was not super positive so so I picked that option.
38:01
And it was good.
He had us do different types of therapy.
I made some friends, one in particular, it was just really nice to have someone who could relate to what I was going through even though like our he was more like, crippling anxiety, but just be became just a good, a good family friend.
38:23
That’s there’s nothing sketchy about this friendship not as possible and but the Do other things happened.
One was that one day.
We were watching a video in there about bipolar disorder and I found out that there were two types of bipolar disorder and we knew about the more stereotype one, but type 2 is predominantly depression, like 40 days of depression for like one day of what they all idle Mania just like a slightly elevated mood, you know, like more elevated but not like what you see in the movies or what you hear about, or what you think of when you think I thought disorder.
39:00
And I thought thought maybe that’s me because every now and then over these years of depression, I would have this breakthrough where I would be out with my friends and I was just so good and charismatic and I would set these really big goals for myself and so I thought maybe maybe that’s what that is and this is white.
39:16
Also the thing I found out is that antidepressant medications make it worse and so I was like okay everything is adding up for me.
The other thing that happened okay I was just going to say like I think it’s important to recognize that you were Listening to yourself.
39:32
I think that’s what like, I mean, I thought I was fine without meds and obviously wasn’t, but I think that sometimes you have to listen to your to yourself and what your body is telling you, and it sounds like you.
Did you knew that every time you tried one?
Something wasn’t right?
39:47
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So what?
I’m, so, when I got out of there, when I finished I found a new doctor and I talked to my therapist and he was like, maybe he was a little skeptical about it.
40:05
He said, I not, you know, opposed to it just I haven’t seen a sign.
I was like, well I never share these good days because I did feel like they were a little off maybe.
And I was worried about some tension, something else was kind of with me, right?
So here’s my stigma showing up again, Greg, I have all the stuff wrong with me.
40:21
I don’t need anything else to add to the list.
So, So so I started seeing a new doctor and and he agreed with the diagnosis.
So he put me on to start a whole new class of medications.
And by this time I had met enough people that have been helped by antidepressants that I come around on the idea of my vacation.
40:43
But I knew it didn’t help me, right?
But now I was like this is the whole new class of medication.
This is going to fix me and I really did go into it with every expectation and every hope.
I think it was like the most hope lied.
Out in forever.
And so I started some mood stabilizers and some other stuff and it didn’t help.
41:05
But we try some others in the meantime, things were still around.
And so my husband got a new job and we moved to Utah to because we both have family there and he was just like, we need help.
41:21
We need the support, some things that you could get back.
That can Help us.
This is just getting to be too much.
So the move was really, really hard on me and I ended up being hospitalized.
I think we’d only been there for a couple months and that program.
41:41
So this is uni University Neuropsychiatric Institute here in Utah and they have this phenomenal program with amazing.
Exemptive for me to come out of my room and they like you start out in your hospital close.
41:57
But like, if you participate in things, you can have your normal clothes back and just other things that were like my previous experiences and very shaming.
And something that like, bro, I need and have them to kiss you after that for a while.
The this was good and they have lots of different types of therapy.
42:15
And lots of people that met with me and talk with me and help me.
And one that even helped me through because they even my idea of how worthless I was even extended to my depression.
I was like, I don’t like that.
Mary listen to these people who have been through really, really hard buys, abuse and poverty and, you know, homelessness and and head injuries and whatnot.
42:38
And I was, I said, I don’t deserve to be here.
Not.
Meaning like I’m better than this meaning.
I don’t even deserve depression because nothing bad happened to me in my life but I still feel this way and yeah and he was like all those things that they went through.
So what’s wrong with me?
42:54
That I feel this way and he just goes that’s not how this works like just straight was like yeah that’s not you know.
Anyway so that was like a really I was another like helpful idea to start percolating.
My brain, it would be a while before I could fully accept that as true but The good it was like eye-opening to hear a health professional Faye.
43:15
That’s not how this, you know.
So anyways, it was really helpful and came out of that and was that, okay?
I think I had like a good day and like went home and then crashed again like that.
43:33
They actually didn’t go home because we were still living with my parents.
While we were waiting to move into our house and then they had me start doing a treatment called easy T, which is electroconvulsive therapy, which is like, modern-day shock therapy.
That’s where I left my memory loss.
Could I was basically a zombie, hey Harvey, I lost most of that year.
43:55
They don’t remember very much of that time.
I do think it kept me alive.
I don’t regret doing it.
I did have to come to terms with the fact that there’s a lot of my babies lives that I don’t remember, but but it kept me alive for my And then they were like, this is too detrimental to you.
44:14
Like this is not a sustainable.
So.
So there was one other treatment that you did after that one that you found some success with like not a cure because there really isn’t a cure for depression.
But that you found helps you to get to a place.
44:32
It was easier to handle and cope and look at your situation better.
Yeah.
After you did the ACT, they put me back on his from the medications and I’ve realized that they were all making me sick because I’d been tracking me symptoms on an app on my phone and my doctor helping me off ended up in the hospital again but came out of that with some goals and some hope.
44:57
And yes it’s so then after that I was like okay good now.
Tried like every medication under the fun and nothing helps.
I went back to school.
We thought that would help and it did her.
I was in school and he graduated and went back to work and everything just started getting worse again.
45:15
So yeah so now we’re in 2018 wild we 18 I knew I was going to die.
Like I knew it I just had come to realize that for me.
My depression was a fatal illness and it wasn’t a matter of if it was, it was when when, and I was constantly looking for a good time when my family wouldn’t have, I didn’t want it to ruin.
45:40
When holidays or birthdays or, you know, other state would have the least amount of impact.
Yeah.
Like like it’s going to have a soft impact ever, right?
But that was where it was at that time.
At this point, you’ll just let me.
I want people to understand what kind of thought process goes in her mind when you reach the point where you believe that suicide is the option, like that’s where you should go.
46:11
Were you doing this?
Because I like first off.
Did you tell anybody that you were considering suicide?
Oh, after my first overdose my husband and I made a pact that if I was having suicidal thoughts, I would tell him I was terrified of the word suicide I thought that if I said it out loud it would make it happen.
46:37
I was so scared of it and so I would tell him things like I’m having a really bad day today.
And shockingly, he did not wait, that was suicide because he thinking yeah, we’re fighting right, you know, but we did we did come around to where he I still wouldn’t say suicide but I could say like today’s not good or you know, like that he could understand.
47:04
I still I still couldn’t really.
It was hard to talk about I in 2014 a friend of mine reached out from high school A website and she said, somehow she knew so I think I had started sharing little bit again.
47:23
I’m sorry.
This is the time period.
That’s almost in my brain but no and knowledge.
Is she asked if I would share my story?
Oh, I remember.
This was when I got diagnosed with bipolar 2 and when I got diagnosed with, I’ve heard you I actually was like, I’m tired of hiding this, I’m going to share it but somehow we connected.
47:41
She asked me to write an article about that and I did And I was over whelmed with the response.
I got.
Does people people that I didn’t know?
47:57
We’re super supportive, but also because she was a friend from high school, it caught the eye of a lot of people that I hadn’t kissed stayed in touch with for, you know, three years from high school.
Who told me?
No, I’m just like, funky perfect life me, right?
48:14
And I thought everyone would be so disappointed to know they were so kind.
Everyone was so supportive.
Everyone was just, you know, Bite.
The insights are so great.
That you’re so here.
Look how strong you are things that I couldn’t.
48:29
I couldn’t own these things.
I was hard for me to accept people’s anxieties or yeah, but I did feel it, right?
And it was so contrary to what I had expected, it was the same thing with my first overdose.
My husband had been our whole marriage.
48:45
Like you’ve got to tell your parents of God, tell your parents and I was positive that I would disappoint my dad and that my mom would like.
I feel like I was her go Go to person when she was having a hard day, while she would never come to me after that.
Right again, was not the case at all, right.
So that’s kind of been as I unfolded time, being more vocal about it, but I still like, could not use that word.
49:08
It was like, always euphemisms and then people didn’t really understand just how bad it was.
Yeah, I think people didn’t know exactly.
I mean when you say you overdose people get the idea right?
But yeah so I Did it, I didn’t.
49:25
And here’s the thing to, I started, I was doing, I started getting involved with this group called depression, bipolar, support Alliance and I help to Slit a support group meetings there.
And I advocate for speaking up and getting help.
And, but it’s still really hard because even now and I don’t know who it’s a grab that with this group, another and like, American Foundation For Suicide, Prevention.
49:51
And I have reached a point where a very comfortable using the word suicide.
I, you know, why is why is Dumbledore or any Harry Potter fans, who says a fear of the name is greater than the thing.
Actually says, the fear of the likely, that’s not going on right at the thing itself.
50:07
It’s on Harry Potter and it really is true about suicide.
We’re so scared to say.
I remember sitting in a DDS, a meeting, one time with a father and his adult daughter, she’s living with him.
50:24
And reminded me a lot of myself and he it she had said, I can’t really share.
I’m just here tonight.
And I said that, get that, I get that right.
So he and I were having this conversation.
It was a small group that may end, he said, how can I help her?
50:40
I see her struggling and I’m so scared.
So scared and I said, wouldn’t you see that?
Ask her You just go up to her and you say, are you feeling suicidal?
And he said, I can’t do that.
50:57
And I said, why not?
And this is like, I think the number one myth for people who are supporting someone who lives with Suicidal.
Thoughts.
He said because if I say that, I’ll put that idea in her head, those were there.
No.
Yeah.
I said, she’s already thinking it and, and I said, look at her.
51:14
And she’s over there like, nodding and bad at way.
Yes, already thinking it.
And they said you are not no one’s putting thoughts like that asking someone, if they’re feeling suicidal is never going to put that.
Thought in someone’s head if you’re worried about it, they’re already thinking about it.
51:31
What it does is it creates a safe space for them to be open?
Yes.
Because they can see all your someone who’s not so scared of this.
Yes, it’s upsetting.
Great.
Guests were afraid for the people that deal with these Suicidal Thoughts But it’s the ones really willing to ask that question it creates a safe space immediately.
51:54
I’m eating my depending on your ear phrase, right?
Like one thing I had to teach.
Even my dad was like you don’t see things like you’re not thinking of doing something dumb, right?
Because I could no, it’s not dumb, it’s highly logical because I’m ruining my family’s, right?
52:11
That’s how I saw it.
Four year, they deserve better.
They will be better without me.
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, I know this will devastate them but then I won’t be here every day.
Causing them pain hiding in my closet, avoiding everything coming out and yelling because I’m just in a bad.
52:28
Place them worrying.
When’s the next time I’m just going to go to the hospital you know like all these things.
It was like, I could see very clearly.
The negative impact that I was having on them and it for me it looked like that was a net. – I did not see that I was doing anything positive.
52:45
I actually recently went back and went through.
Those have all these years I forgotten that were white gloss on my computer and I was shocked out food.
I was like, oh my gosh, I told my kids to all these things, I did parties, I made all these fun Foods on holidays and it was like so reaffirming to me they’ve come and told me of your good mom.
53:09
Great and I love hearing that but there was something about going back over my life that I don’t remember.
Anything like was a freaking good mom.
Mom that I had going on.
We also are to drag myself out of bed, but I didn’t see it.
53:25
I couldn’t see it her brain.
I feel like you’re bringing diligent versions of your brain.
Really is very hyper focused on the feelings, and I have that with my anxiety because I do more with anxiety peace, now, and it’s all yell too much or because you said, you go into those, right?
53:43
I know exactly what you’re talking about.
It’s like, so, It’s almost an out-of-body experience in a way cuz you’re like, whoa, that’s not me.
But it is you and So I have thought that like oh my kids would’ve been better if they ended up with somebody else and if I sit down with them in a logical moment, we talk about, like, what what do you want for mommy?
54:06
What did Mommy do better?
They love what you’re already doing.
And so I think it’s in a way that’s kind of a gift that you were able to look at those and realize, like I’m a good mom.
This time for me sideways a little bit into what I really wanted to emphasize because I feel like there are a lot of people who have loved ones or family members that they care about that are doing with Suicidal Thoughts being depressed.
54:35
I was like you I always I put I call it putting on my happy face and then Pi put like eventually share with a boss or somebody like hey I’ve got depression.
I’m having a depressive episode right now.
I could really use some time to go Do dot dot dot.
And I remember a boss was like, no, you don’t, and she thought I was crazy and she’s like, you’re always happy.
54:54
You’re bubbly your outgoing.
And it’s like, that’s a mask.
That’s what I want you to see.
But deep down soon as I go home and I shut the door at my house.
It’s exhausting.
Like I’m drained from doing that all day long, and then it just hits.
55:15
What would be your advice?
Don’t think that Dad was it, that his, yeah, it was a dad.
What would be your advice to somebody who says, I have this love Brown?
What’s the best thing I could do to support them as they’re dealing with these feelings or thoughts?
I need the best thing.
55:33
Well, start best thing to start with is, get educated, because what we need is safe spaces.
There have been people on my path who were safe spaces and I don’t put it lightly.
55:48
Like, they literally saved my life, even some of them didn’t know even before.
I was like, ready to talk about what was going on, they were just people where I could be myself.
I When I went back to school, they, I did share with them.
56:05
So my, my diagnosis changed now to back to depression.
But the time I shared with them that I had bipolar two disorder and they like, 100%.
Everyone was like, okay.
And then moved on like, okay?
Yeah, and they just let me be right, nobody tried to fix me.
56:20
Nobody told me that wasn’t a real thing.
Nobody told me, again, my cute dad used to always say, could you thought about your family?
And I was like or how blessed you are.
Those are things that eliminate from our vocabulary.
If you want to help someone don’t ever ask them, if they’re aware of how good their life is, because that was a huge trigger for me.
56:43
I was like, I have this amazing life and I can’t even appreciate it.
What a horrible person am I you have great kids and I can’t be a good mom for them.
What a horrible person I am, you know, like it was like all of those things that just someone who’s not deal.
56:59
Living with depression or suicide, you know, seem like like, oh will you if you again it goes back to that, right?
You can clean more profitably, focus on the good in your leg have more faith than be happier.
Yes, but no the contrary.
And this is so counterculture.
57:15
This is so against what we think we know is that we need to give safe spaces for grief through depression, even for someone to say, they hate their life and they want to end it.
I get like, I do I’m talking about if someone is in the middle of a suicide attempt, that’s a whole separate thing, right?
57:34
But if someone says, like, I hate my life.
I want to die.
I don’t want to wake up tomorrow.
You want to know what that’s like.
I, this is something I had to teach my husband.
That sucks.
And he’s like, but no because I hate that you’re thinking that it scares me to death, we got to fix it.
57:49
We got to stop it right now.
Like he gets in this panic mode and I’m like, I know, but I need you to check those feelings at the door and the response that I need.
I need validation.
And again this is another education thing because people think oh well, if I validate, yeah, your life is the worst, you know, then that means I’m agreeing with it.
58:10
I’m saying, no, you’re not saying yeah your life is the worst when I say my life.
Because the worst you’re saying gosh that’s so hard to feel that way.
That’s gonna be so heavy.
That feels that seems like it would feel so dark.
And so hopeless.
Be a hard thing to carry every day.
58:27
Yes, yes.
We think that seeing those things are going to make the person be like, oh, even you agree, right?
So now I’m dying to just know what it does.
Is it validates me and my team and then you’re a safe space.
And then for some reason, And I actually willing to like, think outside that little dark box that I’m in, you know, so that’s what we need.
58:51
We need people who are willing to sit in the dark, we need people who are willing to sit with grief.
Allow us to grieve, right?
Someone has a miscarriage and we say things like, oh well, at least you didn’t hold the baby a bond with it, right?
Like what or like only been gone a whole year, White having them done yet their baby must have been sick and it wouldn’t have been a good life anyway, right?
59:13
We All people all these weird platitudes that are so invalidating.
And sometimes the best thing for someone to say is, I have no clue what to say to you.
There’s nothing.
I can see that can fix this and I know you don’t need me to fix it.
59:30
Because what that does is it does to that person.
I see you.
I see that you are capable.
Of living through this experience, you don’t need me to fix your problem.
When someone jumps in and tries to fix me, then Matt valid is that you can’t do it on my own.
59:47
Okay.
What is wrong with me?
You know, or I just want to come back and tell them, no, no Lenny, let’s talk to you again.
All the things that are wrong and I have to reiterate it and relive that myself, right?
I don’t have the energy for that.
I just see people who are like not socks.
1:00:02
Like at really, if you have nothing else to say that, I had conversations with people, Because I get people who call me regularly out, most of the time, you don’t even know them, right?
But they get my number from someone else.
And I just listened, and I can’t tell you like, I just won’t repeat to them over and over.
1:00:18
That is so hard and I to myself, think do they realize I’m repeating the same scene over and over?
Does it sound?
Insincere probably feel that they’re heard and that’s exactly it.
They never are like, would you stop repeating that to me?
1:00:34
They’re like, yeah.
No one was there in mind.
As you said, it’s hard.
I can’t tell my sister this because of this, I can’t tell my husband, you know, whatever.
And it’s just a matter of what used to happen people from my side, right?
1:00:49
We need to speak up, that’s what it is.
Why are my husband and I still married after all these years because I’m moving to talk about what I need and because he is willing to listen and change.
There was going to say that he sounds teachable and I think that that is a powerful support I guess.
1:01:11
What’s the right word?
I’m totally having ADHD moment because my brakes don’t like it loud but it’s it’s a quality to to be able to learn to listen and to learn be willing to open to learn.
Like I don’t know how to help you.
1:01:28
So tell me how I can help you.
Yes.
And he would be back because his go-to is to fix it.
Well and that’s pretty small have worked up to tell me.
It’s not that big of a deal to tell me all these different strategies, how we can work around it and he’s learning and I’ll even catch himself.
1:01:43
Oh, that’s not validating.
Okay, let me validate you.
Like I’d love that.
I just love your husband.
He’s a pretty amazing human.
And here’s the thing I would say too, is some people I have had people Just completely disappear in my life.
1:02:01
And I think it’s because they’re scared and they don’t know what to do, and we do that, right?
We’ve all had friends who’ve gone through some major loss or heartache and and we haven’t known what to do.
And so rather than say the wrong thing, we just avoid.
1:02:17
Yeah, because we don’t want to hurt or we don’t want that.
So, I used to work at a high school and one of my teachers aides was actually someone that went through a very traumatic thing and if I use their name, you would really knew who it is.
So I won’t and I remember her coming to me one day and just saying, hey Allison, will you be honest with me?
1:02:38
And I was like, yeah, of course.
And she’s like, why do so many people not like me and I was like, why would she do?
They avoid me, they see me coming and they go the other way or my friends don’t talk to me and I said, oh sweetie, they’re just scared.
They don’t want to hurt you or add to what you’ve already been through, but they figure if they just don’t say anything.
1:02:59
That’s better and that’s not the case.
It’s not better.
And so I think that’s the first thing.
Like you said, they’ll be willing to listen don’t avoid.
And then for those that are feeling those feelings be willing to talk about it when you need to to the people that like your family, your friends, your clothes to work.
1:03:20
And if you don’t know what to do, just say, I don’t know what to do.
How can I help you?
I, that is like one of the most beautiful questions I’ve ever had for impact.
Ask me, you know because now so now I will I go back and forth but for a while there I posted every day how I was that day, I was trying new treatments, arccos X doing on my treatments.
1:03:41
And I’ll be very honest even had moments where I was like in the throes of depression and I would feel this really like overwhelming prompting you need to have like that Lee has, then take a picture of this and post it.
Those are their hard for me to look at.
1:03:56
It was really hard to share that.
But those are some of the posts that I found people were like, oh, because we don’t have a face for depression.
We don’t have a face for bipolar disorder.
We don’t have a face for a lot of these things because we have stereotypes, we have stigma and we have a whole bunch of really good actor.
1:04:14
Most of the people that are dealing with these things.
Are incredible actors, right.
We can put on a happy face.
I can be feeling suicidal and I can go to a party and you will have no idea.
Now you go with that real quick, we are running out of time, but I want that actually hit the chord with me.
Have you found people that are able to see through it?
1:04:33
Um, I’m pretty good at seeing through it.
The I had a friend so I don’t pay for my church or the church event and I was pay.
I have the shotgun laugh as my friends used to call it because it’s like, it just goes on and on and on and I was all over it.
1:04:50
Like over the topics happy giddy that night and my friend came over to me and he says, you are not.
Okay.
This is not who I know.
How are you doing?
And it just hit me.
This is actually something I still very much of as a friend, and they look to him and I’m like, really, he goes, Alison, you’re not okay.
1:05:14
And it was the first time that I felt seen that.
Somebody saw what I was trying to hide and that was powerful for me.
And so I can imagine, like you said, like, you, you can hide it.
We’re great actors.
Yeah.
1:05:30
I have a couple friends that are good enough friends that have proven, how they, they are time and time again.
I don’t know if they would see through it.
I just find.
I can’t lie to them but I just don’t.
And I think A part of me to I can just turn 40 and I’m feeling exhausted in certain areas me like and I hate and I’ve been building over the last year to, right?
1:05:52
It’s not like I turned 40 in this happened but I’m just like I’m done.
I’m so tired of putting on that happy face.
There are times that it’s just actually easier, right?
Like if the focus, if I don’t want to focus on me I can be happy enough that we can focus on like whoever were there for right and I feel like that’s okay.
1:06:13
Okay, and if I’m in a place where I can’t do that, then I just bow out.
I just say I’m not feeling well tonight and not coming and I’ve done that I organized like girls nights out that I backed out of because I didn’t feel well even as the organizer thank, you know, like just give yourself permission to say.
1:06:29
I just don’t feel well.
And that’s the thing I would say too, is, like, when I’m being really honest, social media, then people know, right?
So I can’t have to the party and be like asleep.
So good, you know, because they’re like, I mean, It was a different me and I’m like, oh okay, you know, and so sometimes, I’ll just then I have to decide.
1:06:50
How am I gonna show up?
You know, and there are times to that I’ve had to tell people like look, I know that you saw that but here’s this is another thing.
When you’re talking about what I need from other people, I need to be.
And this is what this is where see me not the stigma really came from because I reached a point in my marriage where I was just he was like, what do you need?
1:07:10
And I said, I need you to see Me and you do to see who I am and I need you to remember that for you.
I really need you to remember it for me because I’ve been lost for so many years.
I feel like I can’t find myself a lot of the time and when I’m severely depressed and I’m thinking that I need to exit this life.
1:07:34
I really don’t see myself.
I am and I’m not even thinking about that, right?
And so that’s what I need.
I need people in my life.
Who know who I am.
And we can do freak me as the person that I am.
1:07:50
And that can mean honoring and validating grave at without being like, oh, why are you so broken all the time or oh, my gosh, this is a major crisis, we have to fix this right now, right?
But just being like, oh, I see where you are today and I know who you are, like I know who you are deep down, right?
1:08:10
Because really, like, I move.
Be happy person, and very positive person and a faithful person.
Rape, like those things are looking for all those years.
Like, that’s who I am.
It wasn’t that I needed more of that in my life.
I just need to give myself permission to not be okay to have known as where life was hard.
1:08:30
So we’re running out of time, but still thank you so much for being open and sharing your story cuz I’m sure there is a lot of people who will relate with us and find guidance.
So those are the listening.
I’m going to put Cheryl’s handle on my website and also some resources that she has mentioned and that I’ve mentioned if you’d like to learn more and become more educated.
1:08:55
And so those of you that are considering suicide and have thoughts related to that, That there will also be a resource of a phone number or website that you can reach out to.
And for those are living in Utah, we have our a safe app where you could go and honestly and get help and guidance because there is always someone out there willing to help.
1:09:16
It’s just finding the right fit for you.
Whether it’s the therapist the medication, it’s a step-by-step process and it’s something we fight every day.
And Cheryl.
Thank you so much.
I really do appreciate it.
And I’m so grateful that your story is where it is right now and that you’ve been able to get through Almost 20 years of our days and are able to still see that there is light, you know, shining through those times and are helping others that are experiencing that too though.
1:09:50
Thank you again and loved having everybody here.
So we’ll see you in two weeks.
Thank you.
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