September is suicide
Prevention Awareness Month.
Suicide is one of the leading,
leading causes of death among young people,
and it is devastating our veteran population
as 1/4 of all suicides are that of veterans.
Just this summer, the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline was changed from the
10 digit number to just three numbers,
988, and our next guest was an
intrical part in that change.
Kristen Christie lost her first husband,
a war veteran,
to suicide and really has had quite the
ripple effect throughout your family.
We're so glad you're here.
Thank you so much for the opportunity.
1st July, 988 changed.
I know you were advocating
for that for so long.
Yes,
since 2017. I just felt like there was a
barrier to reaching out that we needed.
It's hard to memorize a 10 digit number
and with smartphones now not many of
us remember exactly exactly. But
people don't have it in their phone either
and just we call 911 for medical emergency.
Why couldn't we have a 3 digit
number for a mental health?
Emergency. And so 2017,
I started advocating for it.
And in 2020, it finally passed the House,
the Senate and was signed as an
executive order. And in July,
it went not nationwide. Wow.
I want to thank you for being here
and sharing your story with us.
I'm sure it's not an easy story to tell.
Can you tell us a little bit about
it and and why you feel like it
is your purpose to share this?
Absolutely.
I found my purpose and unfortunately,
our family went through a
really tough time for me to.
Find that purpose to in 2008,
my my first husband took his life.
He was a Lieutenant Colonel in the
Air Force Reserve, full time reserve,
and our boys were 12 and 14 at the time.
Don had been on a deployment
to Baghdad 4 years earlier.
When he came back things were different and
and our marriage was a disaster and then
our family was even further devastated.
When he chose to take his life in 2008,
so 14 years ago,
again our our children,
Ryan, he was 14, Ben was 12.
When Don made his choice,
and I remember that night.
The boys posed a question to me that
I still don't have an answer to,
and that's why didn't he love us enough?
No matter how many he he left
seven suicide notes. Wow.
And not a single question that we had or
the boys had was answered in those notes.
And so they've had to live with that.
My oldest son, Ryan.
September 20th of 2015 was the last
time I saw him. He's disappeared.
We have privatized looking for him.
Any any, just small hint of where
he may be been attempted suicide
statistics that indicates that.
If someone loses someone to suicide,
they are more likely to attempt,
and our children both attempted.
We were part of that.
But there is hope.
I'm here to tell people there's hope it
there, there's hope in our community,
there's hope in our future.
If you're thinking about that choice.
Hold on to something hope stands for.
Hold on pain eases.
Umm, we have resources,
say there's so many resources out there.
Thankfully this is becoming
less of a taboo topic.
Mental health, right?
And you now speak and Share
your story and teach resilience.
Why is that so important?
I think. For all of us, resilience,
discounting COVID, right.
Even if we hadn't had COVID
having resilient skills,
their skills, they're they're
things that we learn and we master.
We aren't necessarily born with resilience.
We master those.
But I think the more that we can overcome
those small obstacles, you know,
someone cutting you off on on, you know,
on the bridge or or
getting a flat tower tire.
I mean, you name whatever adversity, right?
And it's not a matter of.
Comparing adversities, we all go through
a 10 out of 10 on the pain scale,
but when we can come together,
we don't go through it alone.
We come together as a community and
help each other out to tutor each
other in those resilient skills, right?
I I've learned some really tough resilience
lessons and I want to tutor other people.
I want to be an emotional support human
for those in my community so maybe they
don't have to learn those hard lessons like.
Like I did and like my children did.
And there's healing when I get a chance
to tell our story and for you to be able
to say that after all you've gone through,
right, we can take your story and say,
look, you can get to the other side. I
didn't do it alone because there were days
where I didn't want to get out of bed.
Well, Kristen, your story is incredible.
Your resilience is incredible.
Is there anything else you want to add
for our viewers before we go?
Yeah, I think every day is Resilience Day,
but I am advocating for March 4th
to be National Resilience Day.
We March 4th and conquer.
Our insecurities and our
disappointments and our adversities.
And one more thing, Ryan,
if you're out there.
I love you. Thank you. Yeah.
Thanks for the opportunity.
Absolutely. And if you or
someone you know needs help,
please call or text. Right.
The suicide and crisis lifeline
by dialing or texting 988.