A (5:29)

So another piece of this, there's a public health way to look at this, right? So suicide's a cause of death. It's a cause of death, just like heart disease or cancer or any other thing like diabetes. And so if we start thinking about suicide as another cause of death, then we start thinking about it from more of like a public health perspective. What can we do to help people be safe? How do we help people live safely and live better? And so one of the things we talk about a lot is comprehensive airman fitness. You maybe have heard that before, but comprehensive airman fitness has to do with everything. A lot of times we think about fitness, we think only about the PT test. And that's all about our physical fitness, right? So I got to get in the gym, I got to make sure I'm eating right. I got to do the things that I need to do so that I can pass that PT test, so that I can have that good physical fitness, right? There's three other components to it. There's the social fitness, there's mental fitness, and there's spiritual fitness. And if you are really strong in your physical fitness and you're not paying attention in those other areas, your relationships are falling apart, you're not really getting enough sleep and not doing the things that you need to do to take care of your mental health, and you're not giving any attention to your soul, then you're going to maybe see some problems that will come in. But what these things do is if you strengthen each area, it gives you that. That baseline some people talk about for resilience. So you're building strength in every one of those areas so that when something bad happens, you have a place to stand and you also have the ability to recover after it happens. So in the military, a lot of times we talk about left a boom, right? What that means is, is that what are you doing in preparation? That's why we do all the training we do during unit training assemblies. That's why we do the things that we do to prepare ourselves so that when we get into that situation, when that event happens, whether it's in a wartime or some other time, but in the war, in the battle context, it's that boom when the attack happens. Now you've been all this Preparation left of boom. Boom happens. And now what are you going to do to get back in the fight to recover, to, you know, be able to retaliate, to do the things that you need to do right of boom. Well, you can think about the same thing with regard to your. Your own life. There are going to be things that are going to come against you that you didn't anticipate. There are going to be losses of loved ones, of jobs, of career opportunities. There are going to be diagnoses that you are going to receive that you did not anticipate. And if you don't have that foundation to be able to stand on, it can really rock your world. And so it's important to have that foundation. And one of the ways that I think about it is especially with regard to the spiritual foundation. I am a chaplain, and that's what I talk about a lot. But when you have a spiritual foundation that you know can never be taken away from you, something eternal, something that you can always hold on to, that that will never be taken away from you, when you know you have that, then that's something that you will always have, no matter what comes against you. Because the one thing we can't control in life is the things that come against us, right? It's just like the weather. I love it when people complain about the weather. I'm like, why in the world are you complaining about the weather? You can do nothing about it. You can prepare yourself, right? If it's cold outside, put a jacket on. If it's hot, make sure you're drinking enough water and doing the things that you need to do. But it is what it is. You can't change it. And so you have to adapt and be able to manage in the situation. And the same thing is true in life. Things are going to come against us that we didn't anticipate. And how are we going to adapt? How are we going to respond in a way that will help us in the long run? That idea of post traumatic growth, that story talked about, where we'll be able to be stronger maybe afterwards than we were before. So, Deb, do you have any thoughts about that?

C (9:47)

Yeah, I do. In terms of I love the comprehensive airman fitness model and those pillars. And I think one of the things we all recognize right now is the fact that because we are social beings and we need to have people around us, that our opportunities to interact with people have been so limited because of COVID Just another little story. Those of you who also know me know that I Always have a story for stuff. But, you know, I'm not from New Mexico originally, and when I moved to New Mexico, what I noticed is this wonderful propensity for everybody to have these big, big families and close families. And I think that's what we all want. That's what we all aspire to. We all want to have these close families so that we've got a sister, or we've got three sisters, or we've got a brother and an auntie and all of that extended family to help us when those adversities hit. As Joe mentioned, you know, whether it's an illness or it's a relationship issue, but not everybody has that. And I think we need to recognize that when people don't have that extended family and close family connection, that we as individuals need to replicate that as much as we can by finding a group, finding our tribe that we can belong to, Whether that's friends that are interested in the same things that we're interested in, or our neighbors, knowing our neighbors and knowing our co workers. I mean, some of my dearest friends in my entire life have been the people that I've worked with. So it's finding that sense of family, however we need to find it, that can also help shore us up and give us that social pillar of comprehensive airman fitness that really does support us.

A (12:11)

So I think the next thing to talk about is we talk a lot about life promotion with regard to suicide prevention. At least I do. I want to promote life. I want to talk about how good life is, and I want to talk about how you can do the things that you need to do to take care of yourself and take care of the people around you. So that we're promoting life, encouraging life. Because when people love life, they don't want to die, right? So it's that idea of life promotion. But there is the other side, and the other side is being prepared to respond. So if you come across that situation where you really wonder about your friend, what's going on with them, they seem very different than they were. Very distant, not connected. Things are going, you know, not real well in their life, and you're just very concerned about them. And you get to that point where you're concerned, to the point that you think that they might be thinking about dying, then you have to ask them the question, are you thinking about suicide and are you thinking about killing yourself? You're not going to ask them, are you thinking about ending your pain? Because we talked about that earlier. They're not thinking about and or are you thinking about hurting yourself? Sorry. They're not thinking about hurting themselves. They're thinking about ending their pain. And so they don't think it's going to hurt at all. They think that's the solution. But if you ask them about the behavior and you say, are you thinking of killing yourself? Are you thinking of suicide? That's what will snap them out of that dissociative state and get them to the point where they recognize that their life is in danger. One of the things you want to do once they say and admit that, is you want to find out, do they have a plan? Because if they have a plan, if they have a. If they have a time when they think they're going to do this and they have a means of how they're going to do it, then you need to do everything you can to dismantle that plan. So we talk a lot about limiting access to lethal means. And what does that mean? I know a lot of people think it sounds like gun control. It's not gun control. It's gun safety. It's keeping your firearms in a place where, just like any other tool, they'll be used in the way that you intended rather than the way you didn't intend. And so limiting access to lethal means, we do that through gun safes, through gun locks, and through keeping them outside the home. And so if you need a gun lock, the Orion Truman Care center has a lot of gun locks, and we'd be happy to give one to you. They're free. They'll just be an opportunity where you'll keep that firearm safer for the people in your home. Because there's a lot of times that you hear about young children finding weapons, especially if they're loaded, and then playing around with them, and then they. They accidentally kill somebody or even themselves. Right. Nobody wants that. And so what this does is it. It dismantles the weapon so that it can't be used in a way that you didn't intend. And when you're ready to use it, you can unlock it, pull it back, put it back together, be able to load it, and you can use it in the way that you intended. That's what it's all about. Safes, locks outside the home if necessary. Especially with a person who is experiencing suicidal ideation, that person needs to be kept safe. And the best thing that we can do is to remove from their home the opportunity to die. It says statistically that firearms accounted for 50% of all suicide deaths in 2018. 50% of all suicide deaths in 20 18. So when we talk about firearm safety and we talk about restricting access to lethal means, that's kind of what we're talking about. It's not about gun control. It's about firearm safety, making sure that that tool is used with the intention you had for it rather than the way you didn't intend it to be used.

C (16:12)

So, Joe, I think that. Aren't the statistics pretty high that in the 10 or 15 seconds it takes to actually unlock that gun lock can actually get somebody out of that dissociative state and pause long enough to think, what the heck am I doing? So just even that brief pause and the brief time it takes to get rid of that gun lock then can save somebody's life.

A (16:50)

Time between the thought and the behavior. So if it takes them, like you say, 10 or 15 seconds to be able to undo the gun lock and then put the weapon together and all that kind of stuff, during that time, they have more opportunity to consider what they're doing and then make a different choice. And so that's the whole point of it, is to add time between the thought and the action. So being prepared to respond is important. Once you've dismantled their plan, you want to care for them, make sure that you get them to the help that they need, but maybe you just need to spend some time just listening to them, too, hear what's really going on with them. How did they get to this point? What's happening? What are they thinking? And once they know that life is in danger and they need to get help, you get them to help. So if it's, you know, calling the suicide prevention hotline, 1-800-273-8255, and selecting option one for military and veterans, if that's the response that you want to do, then you make that phone call. Don't tell them, hey, call 1-800-273-8255. You make the phone call and talk to the. The person on the other end, the caregiver, and tell them what's going on, and then hand the phone to your friend. You be the one that makes that bridge that connects them. If it's. If they're. If they really have a plan, their life is so much in danger, you really need to get them to an emergency room. But don't just tell them, hey, you need to go to an emergency room. Take them to the emergency room. If you want to get them to, you know, the Director of Psychological Health or the chaplain or something like that, make sure that you escort them Take them, build that bridge, be that connection for them, be that advocate for them at a time where they need that assistance so that you can help keep them safe. These are critical things to do. And so we talk about that. Ask Care Escort, that's what we're talking about. And if you're interested in learning even more, I have an opportunity that if you would like to receive a online training on suicide response, it's called START from an organization called Living Works. We've purchased 125 licenses and I have given out maybe about 30. So there's still plenty of them left. If you would like to learn more about this. It's about 60 to 90 minutes online training, something that you can do at your leisure when you think that it's going to be best for you to do it. But it's going to give you the opportunity to do some interacting with people as actors who are acting like those who are considering suicide and give you an opportunity to kind of see what that might look like and then think about what are you going to say, what are you going to do in that moment? Because like we said, only you can can prevent suicide just like only you can prevent forest fires. So every one of us being equipped for this, we'll see our survivability rates come up in our community and we'll be a more caring and loving place.

C (20:03)

Yeah, absolutely. As long as you wear the uniform, you have access to military one source and that eligibility extends to one full year after your discharge date. Whether you retire after 30 years or you decide not to reenlist and you're out after six or eight or whatever, you still have one full year of eligibility through Military OneSource. And Military OneSource is so much more than just the non medical counseling. That's a huge piece. But we do have some real positive strength building programs as well. We have a building healthy relationship. So you know, even if you don't need counseling per se, but you need a tune up because the analogies we've used today, you know, your car needs to be tuned up. If you don't tune it up, it's probably not going to run as well. Well, relationships are like that as well. And so we have a building healthy relationships where you can work one on one with a specialist in whatever area and certainly improve your relationship, strengthen your relationship, you know. One of our newest programs is called New Mil Parent and that is a specialty consultation if you have a newborn up to 5 year old child and and personally I can tell you that those newborn Times can be really difficult and can really, I think, stress your ability to cope sometimes, especially if you don't have people around you a lot. And I'll just tell my own personal story. Three weeks before my first child was born, I moved 3,000 miles clear across country and didn't know anybody, didn't know a soul, and had that baby. And I also had a husband who worked really odd hours. So I walked the floors a lot in the middle of the night with a crying baby. And I was crying, too, because I felt so utterly and totally alone. And I think that, for me is the most important thing about military One source is that nobody ever needs to feel that way because 24 hours a day you can pick up the phone and with somebody who's going to understand, who's going to relate, who's just going to be a voice on the other end of the phone saying, wow, it sounds like you're having a hard time right now. Let's talk about some things that we can do to help or let's just talk for the next 30 minutes. So definitely, as Joe said, military OneSource is a resource for you. Whether you're a full timer or whether you're here just on drill weekend. You have access to military OneSource. And I don't want to close out our time together without giving you that number. So it is 800-342-9647. And the website is really easy. It's just militaryonesource mil. And that will put you in touch with all the great resources that we have so that nobody walks the floor alone at night, especially new moms and new dads. There's some resources there for you for sure.

A (23:54)

Awesome. Yeah. And I think, getting back to your question, too, Ian, I think the other thing that people can do is because we're not together all the time, it's important that we make a plan for what our comprehensive Airman fitness is going to look like, and then we build in some accountability to that. So what am I going to do with my physical fitness training? How am I going to do that? How am I going to take care of myself mentally? How am I going to take care of my relationships? You know, we also have the resource of Strong Bonds, which is a marriage enrichment event that we do through the chaplain Corps. It's available to anyone who their spouses endears to their family. We have family programs, we have couples programs, and we have ones for individuals. So mostly what we've been doing is couples. We're going to try and Develop that a little bit more so that we can do more with individuals and also eventually with families. And so trying to build those relationships, those connections. If you want to know more about that, certainly reach out to me and I can tell you more about it. I also will offer spiritual fitness consultation. I've developed a tool that doesn't depend on any particular perspective. And if people want to know what would my spiritual fitness look like, we can go through that. And what we'll do is I'll just listen to your story. Where you've been, where you are and where you're going, and what's important to you, and what are the things that you're doing to remind yourself of who you are and why those things are important to you, and who are the people that you're surrounding yourself with that are going to help you to do that. And so all these things are important because these are pillars that we put into place so that when those difficult times come, we do have a foundation to stand on. We do have somebody to fall back on to support us and to help us and to let us grow after that. So very important to do that. And we have all those resources available. So if that's something helpful for you, please reach out. So according to the American foundation of Suicide Prevention, just a few statistics so that you understand why we're talking about this. This is a very difficult subject. I understand that. It's very important, though, that we talk about it because suicide is one of those things that has a lot of stigma attached to it. Unfortunately, over time, it's been misrepresented as an entirely selfish act. There have been lots of things that have been said regarding suicide. And because of that, when people are struggling and they're. They're hurting or they're considering it, they don't want to talk about it because they don't want to feel the judgment of the community. And so what we're here today to talk about is that the way that we prevent suicide is by taking it out of the dark and shining the light on it and letting people know that this is a very serious situation. But it also is a hopeful situation because there's a lot of things that can be done to prevent suicide. And there are a lot of things that can be done when a person is considering suicide that can help them to stay alive. And so some of the statistics, according to the American foundation of Suicide Prevention, on their website under Talk Saves Lives, it says that suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. And for the State of New Mexico, it's the ninth leading cause of death. And with regard to the numbers of deaths per hundred thousand, the state of New Mexico ranks number one, which is not a good thing. And so we know that this is a really serious problem. In 2018, men died 3.56 times more often than women from suicide, and white males accounted for almost 70% of suicide deaths in 2018. And we also know that firearms accounted for 50% of all suicide deaths in 2018. And since we're in the Air national guard, as of August 2020, August 28th, I'm sorry, 2020, there had been 11 deaths by suicide in the Air National Guard in 2020. And so these are some pretty sobering statistics that just show us how important it is that we talk about this, that we come to an understanding of the mental health challenges that lead to suicide, and understand that suicide is another cause of death, similar to cancer or heart disease. It's another way that people die. And so there are things that we can do to fight against this cause of death, to help people live. And that's why we're here today. So to wrap up, I just want to thank you for taking the time to listen to this. This issue is so important, and we need to make sure that we're doing all we can to keep the people around us safe and keep ourselves safe. So, again, if you're in that place and you're really hurting and you need help, please do reach out and call the National Suicide prevention hotline at 1-800-273-8255. And for veterans and military, choose option one or reach out to any one of these resources that we've talked about today, whether it's Military One Source or your Director of Psychological Health or your chaplains, or any number of places that you can get help. Remember that seeking help is a sign of strength and not a sign of weakness. And we're better together. And so we want to do all we can to keep everyone around us, including ourselves, safe. So thank you for listening, and have a great Air Guard Day.