Hey, Dr Phil here.
I'm back with Coach Mike, Mike Bayer,
who you've met this season on the Dr Phil Show.
You'll be seeing him a lot on the next season of Dr Phil.
If you caught us recently here on the web
we were talking about this tragic reporting
of suicides that have happened lately.
My gosh, we've had, what Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain,
Robin Williams not too terribly long ago,
Chester Beddington, you know, just different folks
that have gotten into the headlines,
and to kind of summarize it, and if you missed that,
we'll have a link right here
where you can go back and look at Part One,
we're kinda doing a little three-part series here.
First we kinda talked about what's happening
with regard to suicide,
and the fact that there is an increase.
It's not just an increase of the reporting,
there's actually an increase of the frequency of suicide.
And we said we were gonna do two other sections on this:
one, warning signs, which we're gonna talk about today,
and then third is what to do if you see these warning signs
happening in someone else or yourself.
So, today we're here to talk about warning signs,
and these are recognizable.
This doesn't come out of the blue, right?
It doesn't come out of the blue,
and I think a lot of people are confused
because a lot of people say "I saw no sign."
But there may have been signs they just didn't look for,
and so we're gonna talk a little bit
about what are those signs.
And the reason I wanted to do this,
and Mike and I were talking about this at lunch,
the reason I wanted to do this
is there is something known as the Contagion Effect.
And the Contagion Effect in the world of psychology,
it has meanings in different areas
but in the world of psychology,
is the tendency for there to be copycat effects.
Sometimes people will see things in the media
and it causes them to think
"Well, you know, maybe this is an out for me."
And as a result there are rules for the media,
suggestions for the media,
about how to report on these things
and sadly the media doesn't follow those things
very closely at all.
For example, the suggestion is that you not lead
with "Suicide" in the headlines,
that you not show all of these memorials
with flowers and hearts and candlelight vigils
and that sort of thing
because, particularly with young people,
that can cause them to go
"Wow, I would love to have all that attention,
"I would love to have
"all of that glamour and glory about me."
And they kinda miss the fact
that they won't be there for that,
but they think that would be a great way
to be remembered.
You're right, because the media glamorizes
tragic, tragic events.
And something along the lines of suicide,
it's really impactful.
Even TV shows and movies that are fictional
really impact youth today.
I was just part of a round-table
of the American Psychiatric Association
that spent so much time
about how do we actually help the media give solutions,
explain warning signs,
so that we don't have to lose more people than we need to.
Well, you certainly don't wanna throw gas on the fire
and that's what can happen with the Contagion Effect.
And I'm glad that you were part of that round-table.
Did you come to any conclusions?
There was a few conclusions.
One is media needed more training, and to follow through,
education, and there need to be more centralized resource.
You know, there is a lot of different organizations today.
And people are looking for:
"Who do I turn to, what is the solution?"
And, you know, at the end of our first section on this
we had all the resources there for you,
the National Suicide Hotline
and other numbers that you can call.
Understand, when you do call those numbers
you will not be pressured.
Nobody will cause you to give your name,
nobody's gonna come kick in your front door.
They're there to listen, they're there to talk to you
and give you information.
So there are resources out there,
and we're gonna again list those
at the end of this conversation.
But we're here to talk about what are the warning signs.
And you said, oftentimes people say
"This came out of the blue."
Maybe they just didn't know what to look for.
So here are what some of the warning signs are.
First off, people that kill themselves do talk about it.
Very seldom does this totally come out of the blue.
They do talk about it to somebody in their life.
They talk about thinking:
"You know what?
"This is an option for me, I might consider this."
And here are the things they talk about.
They talk about being hopeless,
you know, like just losing hope,
like there's just no way I can overcome this any more,
and they talk about feeling like they're burdens.
And they talk about feeling like
the people in my life would be better if I was gone.
It's not that I don't love these people,
it's not that I don't care about them, because I do,
but they would be better off if I was gone.
I wouldn't be a burden to them financially, emotionally.
I get in trouble, I create turmoil and chaos in my family.
They would be better of if I was gone, I'm a burden.
And how many times have you heard that,
particularly with addicts that you've dealt with?
I mean, I hear it all the time.
And I think it really comes from a dark place
and a hopeless place, like you described.
And it also comes from a place of calling out,
really just it's almost like free-falling
and just looking for a rope to hold onto.
Yeah, hopelessness is a terrible thing to feel,
where you just don't feel like there's any way to change
the course of events in your life.
They also talk about feeling trapped.
It's like I've backed myself into a corner.
I've either got legal problems over here,
or I've messed myself up financially so bad,
or I've disappointed the people in my life.
I can't fix it.
Or they're people that are experiencing unbearable pain.
Now that can be emotional pain.
It can be real or perceived,
or it can be from some type of illness,
maybe they're suffering from cancer
or some type of disease that they just can't escape.
And so they'll be talking about those types of things.
Now, what will you see behaviorally from these people?
Oftentimes you will notice that they withdraw.
And they withdraw from everything, right?
They withdraw from friends, family, church, activities.
They just simply start pulling back from life altogether.
And when you see that, big warning sign, right?
Mm, I think what you're describing
is someone isolates.
His change of behavior is not engaging in activities
that they would normally engage in.
You know, the reason that that is such a big warning sign
is, think about it, I think old sayings
get to be old sayings because they're profound,
for example "You can't get a hit if you're not swinging."
And that's an old baseball adage,
"Look, you can't get a hit if you don't swing the bat."
Well, what happens when people withdraw,
you know, they get depressed,
they get what we call psychomotor retardation,
they stop behaving, their activity level goes down.
And every time they cease to behave,
they cease to get in the game,
their likelihood of getting a reward is diminished.
And the fewer rewards they get, the less active they are.
And the less active they are, the fewer rewards they get.
So it's a self-perpetuating,
what we call an auto-exacerbating scenario,
it's self-perpetuating, it makes itself worse.
The less active you are, the less chance you get for reward.
The less rewards you get, the more you give up.
The more you give up, the less chance for reward.
So it makes itself worse, and so they start to sleep more,
and they start to self-medicate.
And so those are big warning signs behaviorally.
And this will sound like a real obvious one,
but they start going around telling everybody goodbye.
And they start giving away their most prized possessions.
And you think well, dah, that's a big warning sign.
But they actually do that, right?
They do, I had a client who contacted her attorney
to have her will done, and the attorney had no idea
why she would want her will done.
Neither did anybody who in part of her team.
And myself and management were kind of like:
Hey, this is a big red flag.
This person doesn't need to put together a will
when they're 19 years old.
Yeah, now other warning signs,
these are kind of catchalls,
but depression, anxiety,
lots of shame and anger,
these things certainly are warning signs.
If they're had prior attempts, that predicts.
Best predictor of future behavior is relevant past behavior.
If they've attempted it before,
then they're likely to attempt it again.
And if they start taking high risk behaviors.
If they start behaving recklessly.
Because they don't value their life any more.
So they drive recklessly.
They start doing things that before they go
"I don't do that, I could get hurt."
Now they don't care.
So they start doing really reckless behaviors.
And here is one
that is a little confounding
and difficult to see,
but it's so important to note.
If you've got someone
that has shown you all these warning signs,
and then all of a sudden
there is a substantial shift to the positive,
all of a sudden there's an improved attitude,
an improved demeanor, for no observable reason,
you need to be real concerned.
It's not that they solved a problem,
just all of a sudden they seem to have a lift of spirit.
You know why?
'Cause they're short-termers.
They've decided they've got a solution now.
They're checking out Friday night.
They're gonna kill themselves.
So they say "Hey, I'm a short-termer."
So you see a lifting of mood without any reason for it,
that should cause you great concern.
I think there's also different environments
that are going to create somebody
to have the highest likelihood of taking their own life.
Can you talk a little bit about the types of environments?
When people are in an environment
that is obviously very stress-ridden,
takes away their options,
takes away their sense of self-determination
for what they wanna do,
and they perceive their ability
to change the course of events in their lives,
they don't feel like they can escape their situation
mentally, emotionally, physically,
financially, geographically,
they truly do feel trapped,
then these are the kinds of people that will say:
"This is my only way out."
If they feel like they're subject to abuse,
whether it's sexual abuse,
physical abuse, and they say:
"I've told adults about this," for example,
"I've reported this to authorities,
"social services have been to the house,
"nothing changed."
That's when people say you know what?
"I've got this nuclear button.
"I've got one button I can push to get out of this."
So those are the things
that can create a lot of desperate actions on people's part.
Now, so we've talked about the warning signs.
We're gonna list those on a list here
at the end of you watching this.
And again, we're gonna have numbers and web addresses
for the National Suicide Hotline and other places
that you can contact to get help.
And again, let me remind you,
they're not gonna pressure you.
They're not gonna cause you to do anything.
They're gonna listen.
You decide the pace, you decide what you wanna do.
But most importantly, understand, you are not alone.
You did not invent this.
There are people out there
that have felt this was before you.
There are people out there that feel this way now.
These are the warning signs.
Maybe you see them in someone else,
maybe you see them in yourself.
But there are alternatives.
And what we're gonna talk about next
is what to do when you see these warning signs
in yourself or someone else.
Let's talk about that in Part Three, what do you say?
Sounds good. Alright, talk soon.