Glass Half Full
Glass Half Full
Lisa Sugarman's Inspiring Journey: Transforming Tragedy into Mental Health Advocacy and Fostering Hope Through Vulnerability
In this weeks epsiode, Chris talks with Lisa Sugarman. Lisa joins us for an episode that promises to touch your heart and mind. A celebrated author and mental health advocate, Lisa's personal journey from the tragic loss of her father to her advocacy at The Trevor Project is as inspiring as it is poignant. She opens up about how the discovery of her father's suicide reshaped her life, propelling her into a career devoted to changing the narrative around mental illness and supporting those in crisis. Lisa's story is a testament to resilience and the power of vulnerability, offering a beacon of hope for listeners grappling with their own struggles.
Together, we navigate the complex terrain of grief and healing. Lisa and I discuss how grief, while universal, is intensely personal, shaping us in unique ways. Through heartfelt conversations, we explore how sharing our stories can foster connection and aid healing, not only for ourselves but for those around us. We dive into the necessity of self-care, particularly for those working in emotionally demanding roles, with Lisa sharing personal practices like meditation and setting daily intentions that help her stay grounded.
The episode also challenges societal stigmas around mental health, with Lisa providing insights into post-traumatic growth and the transformative power of language. We discuss the importance of reframing our understanding of vulnerability and the impact of wording like "died by suicide" in fostering a compassionate perspective. Lisa's commitment to mental health advocacy shines through as she introduces her rebranded website, The Help Hub, a vital resource for support and connection. Join us for a heartfelt exploration of life, loss, and the enduring power of human connection.
Author & Columnist | 3x Survivor of Suicide Loss | Crisis Counselor with The Trevor Project | Storyteller with NAMI | Grief Group Facilitator | Mental Health Advocate
email: lisasugarman@hotmail.com
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Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, and welcome to another episode of Glass Half Full, a podcast and a safe platform where we talk with a variety of teachers, entrepreneurs, spiritualists, uplifters, givers, shakers and serenaders. Everyone has a lesson to learn and a lesson to share. Let's use our life experiences to enrich someone's heart, mind, spirit and soul. Through sharing our experiences, we can be a learning inspiration for one another. I'm your host, chris Levins. Let's welcome today's guest. Today's guest is Lisa Sugarman.
Chris:Lisa Sugarman is an author, a nationally syndicated columnist, a three-time survivor of suicide loss, a mental health advocate and a crisis counselor with the Trevor Project and the founder of the Help Hub. She writes the opinion column we Are who we Are and is the author of three books how to Raise Perfectly Imperfect Kids and Be Okay With it, untying Parent Anxiety and Life. It Is what it Is. Lisa is also a storyteller with the National Alliance on Mental Illness and a contributor on the Mental Health Television Network Healthline Parenthood Grown and Flown. Today, parents Thrive Global. Little Things and More Content. Now let's welcome Lisa Sugarman. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Good morning, good morning good morning.
Lisa:Good morning, good morning. How are you?
Chris:Chris, I'm very well. Thank you for taking some time out to be a guest here. On Glass Half Full, we're happy to have you today, of course. That's my pleasure.
Lisa:Yes, I'd like to ask you can you tell everyone where you are in the world and what time it is, please? So right now in the world, I am just north of Boston, in Salem, Massachusetts, here on the East Coast, and it is 8.11 am.
Chris:We thank you for this early time.
Lisa:It's my pleasure With a daughter who lives probably 10 minutes away from where you're recording in. Tokyo. I am well aware of that time zone.
Chris:I love it. I love it. Yes, down the road. Definitely she's down the road. Well, we're going to jump right on in. I like to ask all my guests this first question I believe that our lives are in spiritual design. Can you share your life layout or blueprint with everyone? This?
Lisa:is how you grew up, where your family lifestyle? Yeah, of course. So I grew up right where I am now. I grew up about a mile away from where my husband and I are living now, in Salem. I grew up in a little harbor town called Marblehead, massachusetts, about 17 miles north of Boston. Only child oh, wow, massachusetts, about 17 miles north of Boston Only child, raised by a mom and a dad who just absolutely adored each other.
Lisa:They adored me. I had a beautiful childhood, you know, just running around outside in town, our little peninsula town, until streetlights came on and dark, you know, dock diving in the harbor and and, uh, it was just a beautiful childhood, um, until it wasn't until, uh, I lost my father when I was 10 years old, very, very suddenly, and that's a big part of my story. But before before I I learned about the circumstances around my father's death. I was a writer, have always been a writer, continue to be a writer and a content creator, worked for a lot of newspapers and magazines and written a bunch of books, was very much in the parenting space, had two daughters, um, one of them, I said, is living near you in Tokyo.
Lisa:The other lives about four miles away from me on the other end of Salem. Yeah, so we kind of split the difference. So the you know, we split the difference mileage wise, with one so far and one so close, which?
Chris:is beautiful, that's cute, yeah.
Lisa:So I mean, I just ended up really just kind of embedded in that parenting space and wrote a bunch of books and was on all the big parenting platforms and loved and enjoyed that work. And then I learned, discovered, I guess, uncovered whatever you want to call it the secret of my father's death and that he had not died by a heart attack. The way I was told when I was 10. And it completely upended me, broke me apart, it blew me apart and it completely changed the course of my life. And now, as a result, I'm a mental health advocate and I'm trying as hard as I can to just change the narrative on suicide and mental illness. You know, the narrative I had been given of my dad's death was that he had died of a heart attack and I found out very, very much by accident, 35 years later that it was.
Chris:Oh, so OK, Well, ok, yeah, yeah, I'm just jumping right in. No, no, no, I mean we can jump around. I like a little jump around. So, ideally, when you were 10, what was told to you? Did you see, your father? Did it happen? When did it? Where did it happen?
Lisa:If you can just tell us a little bit about that mountaineer. I grew up, you know, learning how to change the oil in his little race car. By the time I was eight years old and we were, you know, yeah, we were high, hunting all of the white mountains in New Hampshire. So that was that was my childhood. Growing up, he was just this incredibly beautiful, charismatic, kind of larger than life guy with a just a huge heart and he was such a family man and he was all the things. He was my best friend in the world and he was also a smoker and there was heart disease.
Lisa:I knew on his side of the family, which is kind of a thing that we knew people had passed away from heart attacks for that reason and he died very suddenly two weeks after my 10th birthday and my mother told me that it was a heart attack and I never questioned it. It was 1978. Who was questioning, as a 10-year-old kid, who was questioning the fact that your dad had a heart attack? What was there to question? The dots were kind of easy to connect, that he smoked a lot and that ran in his family. Unfortunately, it happened to him. I lived with that narrative for 35 years, and so, unfortunately, it happened to him, and so I I lived with that narrative for 35 years.
Chris:And you had a funeral and everything.
Lisa:Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Like I went to day camp. I was. I was 10. So I was. I was at day camp that morning. I actually I ironically and I don't talk about this a lot, but I'm happy to share it here I almost found my father, so we lived.
Lisa:Yeah, we lived in a split level home, so our bedrooms and kitchen and living room were all upstairs and downstairs. In our family room we had, you know, just kind of the big TV room and a fireplace and that's where we spent a lot of our time. So my father had had decided to do what he was going to do. He had made his, his plan to take his life. We knew nothing about this and my father had had. So it was crazy circumstances. My father had had some dental work done, a lot of dental work done. He was uncomfortable. He was home. He he was never. He was never home during the day. He was always at work. He worked in the city, in Boston, but he was home.
Lisa:And I went off to day camp and my father had decided, told my mother he was sleeping downstairs. We had a little fold out couch. He was going to watch the baseball game. The Red Sox were on, it was a late night game and he was going to watch the game and he didn't want to wake her up when he went upstairs. So he decided to sleep downstairs. That was how we came to know that he was downstairs that morning. So when I woke up and got ready to go to camp. I knew that he was going to be home that day and my mother said oh, he slept downstairs, he was watching. You know, it's been a million years and I can still see myself there.
Lisa:I was on that last step and the angle that I could look at looked right at the little fold out bed that he was in and I saw him. My father always slept with one of his arms over his head. It was just kind of draped over his head and that was the way he always slept. It was like his like signature sleeping move. So I saw that and I saw the silhouette of him and I was just about to crawl into bed to hug him and kiss him and tell him I'd see him after camp and I heard my mother call to me down the stairs and said don't wake him up. He said he was up really late watching the baseball game. He's not comfortable, his tooth is bothering him. Why don't you just write him a note and he'll see it when he wakes up? So I never went down and I never woke him up and I went upstairs and I wrote him a note that he never saw. Oh my gosh.
Lisa:Yeah, my mom and I left. My mother was a secretary for a nursing home that was maybe a 10th of a mile up the street from my house, so she walked me to the bus stop and the camp bus picked me up and she walked to work and my father, because he was home, had planned with my mom to meet for lunch. He was going to pick her up. If he felt well enough to pick her up and take her to lunch. He never called and she started to get concerned and so she kept calling and it was no answer.
Chris:And this is no cell phone. So we are definitely she's calling the house line she's calling. Is it rotary dial? Are we still at that point?
Lisa:We were definitely at that point. It was there. There was no nothing. There was just, you know, a telephone or going home.
Chris:So when?
Lisa:she, yeah, when she didn't get him, she started to get really concerned. And you know, the time was passing and one of the one of the guys that she worked with I think he worked in the kitchen was a volunteer firefighter and he happened to notice he was just good friends with my mom it was a very tight community at this nursing home and he noticed that she was a little agitated and he said listen, why don't I? I'm on a break right now, let's, let's walk down the street to your house. We'll walk over there, I'll go with you together just to make sure that everything is okay. And when they went in the way that they walked in, they walked in through our garage which opened up into our family room, which is where my father was.
Lisa:And as soon as my mother opened the door and saw the corner of the bed, my father was meticulous. He was just a very organized and put together guy who would never have gotten out of a folding bed without making the folding bed. So it was still open and she saw he was still in it. And immediately the guy she was with George just kind of jumped into action and tried to revive him. And he was long gone at that point and then it was kind of a race against time because I was getting home off the bus.
Lisa:It was day camp, so I would come home at five o'clock in the afternoon and my mother had to do everything that needed to be done and it was in the course of kind of getting everything together and calling authorities and family members and kind of getting my you know my father taken care of in terms of my you know my father taken care of in terms of you know where he needed to go be taken. It all happened so fast and my mother didn't see the note that he had left and it was only when her sister and her sister-in-law went down to kind of clean things up downstairs they found the note and they brought it up to her and my grandmother was at the house and my mother read the note just to herself in the bathroom alone and ripped it up and decided in that moment she had to tell me my father was gone. She was not going to tell me my father was gone and that he had decided to leave.
Chris:Yeah, that's a lot.
Lisa:Yeah. She flushed the note down the toilet, went out, told my grandmother. My grandmother said you have to do. What you believe in your heart is what you need to do right now. It was never spoken about again, chris. It was never spoken about to my grandmother. It was never spoken about to my aunts, uncles, cousins, relatives. The entire world believed that my father had had a heart attack and that was what she told me when I got off the bus.
Chris:Wow, so your mom knew the truth and her mother knew the truth.
Lisa:Her mother knew the truth and I know my aunts obviously knew the truth, because there was a note.
Chris:So there's a small pack that knew Okay.
Lisa:Right, but it was never discussed again.
Chris:And they flushed it down the toilet. They did Wow, oh my gosh.
Lisa:Yeah, the crazy twist that happened only a few years ago is that I found out that my father's entire side of the family knew it was a suicide. Oh and never. Yeah, that was unexpected.
Chris:Okay, so bring us up to the future. You when did you find out the truth and who told you yes?
Lisa:I found out a little, maybe 10 or 11 years ago close to 11 years ago, it was very much by accident. I was um, just having a lot. It was like not a crazy dramatic scene, it was just. It was a ridiculous.
Lisa:I was sitting at lunch with my husband, we were in a cafe outdoor cafe in my hometown, and one of my cousins walked by who's older older than I am. Her kids are older than my kids. We don't see each other very often because she doesn't live full time in our town and she sat down how are you Catching up? Catching up on my kids and her kids? And out of absolutely nowhere she asked if our two daughters had any of the same mental illness and depression that my father had. And I had no idea what she was talking about Like none.
Lisa:So my husband's looking at me across the table like what in the hell is she talking about? And it was. You know, it's like one of those moments where you could say 50 different things but you don't say anything because you're just kind of stunned. So I just kind of processed it, kind of filed it away and as soon as she asked it and I answered saying at that time they were fine. And I was so confused and she just kind of hopped over to another question that was totally unrelated, so she just kind of dropped that and took off into a different direction with the conversation. So maybe-.
Chris:Yeah, she had gotten the answer that she wanted, she was just continuing.
Lisa:Yeah exactly, Exactly. It was like didn't even skip a beat and maybe the next day, I think. My mom and I are incredibly, incredibly close. We talk every day where she stays with us when she's not in Florida.
Lisa:She's here with us for a few months a year, so we're incredibly close. So I called her and we went out for lunch and I didn't call her or try to see her because I felt like I needed to ask her anything. But strangely, that would have been something that I immediately would have picked up the phone and called her and said what just happened? What am I missing here? But I didn't, and I'm not really sure why I didn't.
Lisa:So when we were together the next time and we're having just lunch and we were just talking and reminiscing, my dad came up, as he often did, and again I wasn't prepared to ask her anything. But somehow I ended up just kind of blurting out did dad have depression? Was he depressed? And she said yes. And then and Chris, this is the strangest will, I think, probably be the strangest moment of my life, Without any warning in my own brain, I just said did dad take his life? And she said yes, Like she didn't even hesitate, Because in that moment, when she found the note and decided to tell me it was a heart attack, she promised herself two things and ultimately, I guess she kept both promises. She would never tell me the truth because she didn't want it to affect me any worse than I was already being affected. But if I asked her, not that there would ever have been a reason why it would happen. If there was ever a reason why I asked her, she would never lie to me. Okay, so she basically fulfilled both of those promises.
Chris:Wow, oh my gosh.
Lisa:Yeah, and it just, I mean, in that moment, you know, it was just the most surreal and impossible moment, because this man who I knew to be one way, I mean it's just such a strange experience to have everything you believed to be true completely just stripped down to the studs and you just don't know what's real, you don't know what to think, believe. Your nervous system is in chaos, your brain is in chaos, your heart is in chaos, and that was an unbelievably hard day and it blew me apart. But at the same time, too, I was incredibly grateful, and have only ever been incredibly grateful, to my mom for shielding me from that. I don't think I could never have handled that in that moment, at that time.
Chris:Yeah, especially since you're daddy's girl, you're the only child it's a lot, and she had to deal with that, to like swallow that, to walk around, and dealing with that grief on top of that oh my gosh, wow, she's a strong woman.
Lisa:She is the most remarkable human you'll ever meet and she is the most huggable and just delicious human being. She's a special woman and I'm incredibly lucky that she's my mom.
Chris:Oh, I love that. I'm sure she feels the same. Wow, we know she does. Look the sacrifice she made. We don't even have to question that, not at all. Oh, I love that. I love that. I want to ask a little bit dealing with about grief, in a sense what do you say to people who are grieving in different ways? What is something that maybe you might feel that would be how do you step in if someone is grieving?
Lisa:Yeah, if someone's grieving what? What I have learned and I've I've learned this in so many different ways now because I have I've lost more than just my father to suicide. I've lost a close, close childhood friend and my cousin passed away a year before my dad and unfortunately just been accompanied by grief my whole life. Um, so it's it's been kind of an ongoing relationship and I guess the thing that I I say the most often is just like meet yourself where you are right now. There there is, you know, there's there.
Lisa:There are obviously the stages of grief, but and there are a lot of similarities in what we all, we all encounter when we deal with grief, but at the end of the day, it's such a unique experience and it depends on who you're grieving and what you're grieving and how far along you are in your grief. I think you just have to sit in it, you have to give yourself permission to sit in it and meet yourself where you are, because where you are, at whatever moment you're in, is not where you'll always be, and that's the thing that's. I think the most profound thing about grief is that it ebbs and flows and twists into so many different directions that you really have no choice but to just kind of roll with it and go where it takes you.
Lisa:Yeah, exactly. So that's, I think, the most profound thing I could say to anyone who's grieving.
Chris:Thank you. Why is it important that we share our grief or loss?
Lisa:Well, I mean, I think it's as important to ourselves as it is to the people around us that we share it because, number one, it helps us process love and that grief never goes away. It just, it somehow weaves itself into our lives and we learn how to coexist with it.
Chris:It's so true.
Lisa:Yeah. So I mean, in terms of you know what to say and how to navigate it, I think we just have to be in it and we just have to move through it the best way that we possibly can, because it's always changing.
Chris:Very true. I mean for myself. Sharing a story brings back usually the good times, the funny moments. You know, when I'm speaking about someone, after the period has gone, when you're able to talk about it, you're bringing up the jokes, or you know, oh, you remember they used to say this and I talk with my mom. We're a very close family as well and she always brings up my grandmother, like all of my aunts and uncles. Every conversation my grandmother's name will slip in somehow and we just always laugh about yeah, you know, your grandma used to say, and we just crack up about it because she was such the person with these one liners. But yeah, I find it's. There's healing when we're able to share, because everybody is going through some type of loss or people will if they haven't, because every people are going to die and will continue. So just to be able to understand how you know this is happening and to be able to share that with others is there's a power in that, definitely.
Lisa:There's a huge power and it's cathartic you know, it's, it's cathartic for us and I think it also gives other people permission to be vulnerable and I think that's one of the biggest benefits of being able to share your story, you know.
Lisa:I mean, it's obviously it's healing and it's helpful and it creates a sense of of hope that we can get through it. When you know, when we share and, like you said, being able to talk about your person, that's actively engaging your person and their memory and their spirit in your day-to-day life. I mean, I know, in terms of my own dad, sharing stories about my father to the world has become so important to me, but in particular, sharing stories of him to my daughters, who never got a chance to know him my husband never got a chance to know him and I always talked about my father and have always talked about my father in a way that made my daughters feel like he was present in their lives, like they know all the stories, everything that I know and that I can remember and that I shared with him. I mean, I was 10 years old, so I only probably have access to a. You know a certain percentage of memories from those 10 years.
Chris:But it's enough for you to know who he was for sure. Yeah, my niece is nine, going on 20. And yeah, she, it's enough, definitely.
Lisa:Yeah, and so it's always become super important to me to bring him into their life and embed him in their memories too.
Chris:As you should. Yes, yeah, yeah, oh, I love that. That's so great. That's so great. How do you take care of your own mental health while helping others through sensitive topics and situations?
Lisa:You know that's an interesting question. I think I just lean as heavily as I can into my own daily practices. I think we all have some daily practices. Some are more intentional than others, but I have a lot of them because in the space that I'm in, I mean I'm a mental health advocate but the primary focus of the work that I do is rooted in, like suicide awareness and prevention and grief and loss. So it's heavy, heavy, heavy stuff all the time. You know, I'm a crisis counselor with the Trevor Project here in the US and I'm also a survivors of suicide loss grief group facilitator with Samaritans here in the US.
Chris:Yeah, there's a lot of heavy, it's a lot of heaviness.
Lisa:It is a lot of heaviness all the time and, you know, I just stay as grounded as I can in those practices, like I meditate daily. That's how I start every day. As soon as my feet hit the floor, I go to a, you know, a pillow in my like a little space that I have, and I meditate every morning and set that intention and, and you know I also part of the daily intention that I set every day is like, if this hits funny, if this feels like it's too much, step out. Giving you know, reminding myself that I have the capacity and that I give myself the permission to step out, like if I'm on an incredibly challenging crisis call, which I am often. You know, my, the supervisors that I work with at the Trevor Project are incredibly, incredibly kind and caring in terms of our counselors' mental health, as as they, as much so as they are for the people who we talk to. So, you know, using that voice and saying, guys, I just had a really, really incredibly intense call. I need to step away.
Lisa:I do that if I'm on a lifeline or if I'm, you know, writing a piece that is is super emotional, I'll take a walk, I'll go outside, I'll snuggle my dog I'll call one of my daughters that, you know. But a lot, of, a lot of what I do every day to just kind of stay balanced is I journal a ton. Okay, I've always done that. I've always kind of offloaded what's in my brain and put it in a place that kind of helps me process it. And I'm a runner and I lift weights, I practice yoga. I do all of those things as a way of just to release. Yeah, release and stay centered.
Chris:Nice. It's important, we have to my gosh, Especially if you're dealing with some type of work where it's a bit like you're in, you know where things are a bit heavy. If you're dealing with some type of work where it's a bit like you're in, you know where things are a bit heavy. We need to make sure that we are clear to be able to give good work and to be able to leave work at work and not bring it into the home, you know. So that's you know, a whole other level of awareness as well. For that, Let me ask you, what do we do if we find out someone we love is suicidal?
Lisa:I'm really glad you asked that question because it's such an important piece of information that I think people need to know. I think everybody wants to be able to help if they're ever in that situation, but they don't necessarily know how the best thing to do, like if you know, look, there are two ways you can know. You can know if someone is absolutely intentional and tells you there's someone who's open and honest and says I'm not okay. And then there are people that maybe their behaviors are doing more of the talking and you're noticing things that aren't right, that don't line up Either way.
Lisa:If you know that somebody's not okay, the most important thing to do is be incredibly direct with them and just say look, are you like? I'm worried about you? You don't seem like yourself. Are you thinking of killing yourself or are you thinking of harming yourself or have you tried to harm yourself? And I know that's really direct language. It's really super scary language because most people who ask that are probably not going to be too excited to hear the answer, because it means you got to go to a scary place. But by asking that question in that way, directly, you're right there, identifying yourself as a safe place. You're immediately saying to that person I see, you.
Lisa:I hear you, I get that you're not okay. You're validating that person and it's actually, I know, for a lot of people it's kind of counterintuitive. You're like, why would I ever suggest to somebody who I think is suicidal are you suicidal? Like I don't want to put that idea in their head. But that's not how the brain works. That's not what happens. It's been proven time and time again that by asking someone directly, you're actually reducing the risk of somebody harming themselves or taking their lives.
Lisa:Yeah, it doesn't seem like it would be that way, but it is that way, and so that's why we ask in such a direct way. And so when you've made the ask and someone comes back and says I'm not okay or I am thinking of harming myself or I did try to kill myself, that's when you step in and you offer in this country, you offer the 988 crisis and suicide hotline number. And in every country, just about every country there is out there there are similar emergency crisis lifeline numbers that you can call. And I say this to anybody if you're in this country, put the 988 number in your phone. If you're out of the country, find out what yours is in the area where you are in the world. Put that in your phone, Keep it with you, Put it on your brain, Make sure it's accessible to you so that you know that you've got a way to help somebody if they need help.
Chris:Wow, I would have never thought to instantly address them, you know, to come out with me like are you thinking about hurting yourself? I mean yes, in the sense of saying suicidal, because you know. But, wow, it makes sense when you say it that you're confronting them and you are showing that I see you, because that's it. They don't feel that they're seen somehow. Or I mean, I'm sure there's a level of things, but still, this steps up to feel that I see you and I see that something is wrong. And no matter what, even if people decide to do whatever they're still going to do, you can feel like you've done all you could have done as a friend or a loved one, exactly that there was nothing that you did, or you feel guilty because you didn't. You know to be on that side. We've I've heard you talk about the Trevor project. Can you tell everyone?
Lisa:what is the Trevor Project and why did you decide to become a crisis counselor for them?
Chris:So the.
Lisa:Trevor Project makes me so happy to talk about the Trevor Project. I knew you would, lisa. Yeah, I'm smiling now. So the Trevor Project is an incredible organization that's been around now for over well over 25 years and it's the largest LGBTQ crisis and support hotline on the planet that supports youth in crisis ages 13 to 24. We will take calls from anyone. We often get calls from people who are outside of that demographic, so we will never, ever turn anybody away. But our primary demographic, our youth in crisis age, is 13 to 24.
Chris:in the LTT 13 to 24. Wow the babies. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lisa:I mean we, like I said, we get a lot of calls from a lot of people outside that demographic. But that's that's like our, our niche. And the Trevor Project has a couple of different ways that you can reach out. You can call them, they have a lifeline. It's your kind of your standard.
Lisa:This is 24 hours, 365 days a year. It's never closed. You will always find someone on the other end of the phone, someone who is trained in crisis de-escalation and trained to hold space and provide resources and just to listen, and we also have a texting platform as well. So there are a lot of people out there who just who know that they need help, but they're a little maybe intimidated or afraid or not ready to talk to someone voice to voice. So it's a little easier when there's a bit of a buffer, and texting provides a little bit of a buffer. So people can dial 678-678-START and that will get you to a counselor who you can talk to over our texting platform.
Lisa:But the Trevor Project was the place that I found was the right home for me for a lot of different reasons.
Lisa:There was so much intersectionality for me with Trevor because, first of all, it's a suicide prevention organization. First of all, it's a suicide prevention organization and, as a three-time survivor of suicide loss, that was a place that was very important to me to spend my time and dedicate some of my time and energy. And because they were supporting the LGBTQ community. That was another super, super important piece for me. That led me to them because my so I have two daughters and my oldest daughter is bi and she came out as bisexual when she was in college and maybe two or three years after my daughter came out, it was actually through her unknowing encouragement. There were beautiful conversations that she and I were having and she was kind of explaining different nuances of you know sexualities and genders to me and you know things that I don't know. It wasn't my wheelhouse, the way that it is for her, and it helped me to realize and acknowledge that I was pan pansexual.
Lisa:Oh okay, Been married for almost 32 years, Love my husband more than anything in the world, but have always known that you know there was a knowing kind of in my heart that there was a capacity to love in a different way, and so that came out as a result of you know my daughter coming out as well, and so it.
Lisa:just all roads for me pointed toward the Trevor Project to be there to help the LGBTQ community and to represent and to support. Because look, what does every marginalized community need? They need representation and they need support, and it became important to me to become an active part of that community save lives. I wanted to be on the other end of the phone. I wanted to be the person that my dad needed in that moment. That didn't really exist at that time and that's what drew me to them and I've been on their lifeline now for close to two and a half years and have taken so many incredible calls from people who have been dealing with all sorts of incredible crises in their lives and some just wanting connection. There are people who we talk to every day who are just people who need connection and they're not necessarily in an active crisis. They just don't have anybody and they don't have a support system in their life. So they call us for some support and every kind of crisis in between.
Chris:Yes, wow, that's awesome. How often are you doing this?
Lisa:So it ranges. I mean the commitment when you become a counselor is to have at least one shift a week for a year. That's the commitment and the shifts are typically I mean they are supposed to be three hour long shifts, but if you're, for instance, on a call let's say I'm on an imminent risk suicide call and I'm on with that caller for four hours, I am on that phone for four hours, like we are not going anywhere until that person is safe and has a plan and is de-escalated.
Lisa:So you know, I mean I've had shifts run four hours, five hours.
Chris:What With one person?
Lisa:Oh sure, yeah, Not often. That doesn't happen often, but it definitely has happened plenty of times. I'll never forget the very first live call that I had ever taken after all of this training and role playing. The very first call I got on was an imminent risk in process suicide attempt.
Chris:Oh, that means they're doing it now Like they're ready to.
Lisa:They're like walking to the place where they're going to do the thing. Oh, stop it. Oh, that was my first day as a solo, unsupervised counselor and, to the credit of the supervisors who work on the lines with us, we always have, you know, a number of supervisors who are kind of floating around in the ether while we're online on calls.
Lisa:And we're on a, you know we're slacking them, we're chatting them internally while we're on with callers. So they're there and they can be on the line, but we're the ones who are actively engaging with the person. So the counselor will never just start speaking but they'll be kind of, you know, slacking me. You know, go in this direction, go in that direction. If you need support, they're there. So, to their credit, we, you know, we I navigated the call and got the person to a safe place and deescalated them and created a safety plan with them. And you know it's funny that you know when my mother found out that I was doing this and she was so thrilled that I could be of service in this way- she said I have to do honey.
Lisa:one person, just one person, and it was the very first person on the very first day. Oh my gosh. Yeah and right. In that moment I knew that whatever I do in the world will always include being a part of the Trevor Project and being on that phone line. Wow.
Chris:I tell you it takes a special person. I had a few students who were working here on a few of the hotlines. I don't know if it was Trevor Project or not, because I know it has come to Japan. I don't know if it's here by that name, but I know that they've had discussions and things here of it because it's quite big in Japan. I don't know if it's here by that name, but I know that they've had discussions and things here of it because it's quite big in Japan. Suicide, I know, I know, and there's hotlines. So I've had a few students who've worked on some of the hotlines here. But yeah, I'm sorry You're going to say something, go ahead.
Lisa:No, that's okay. I was going to say that we are here in the United States and we're in Mexico at this point, formally. So I don't think it would have been Trevor.
Chris:Okay, so it's not Trevor, Okay.
Lisa:No, it wouldn't have been. I mean, unless they were Trevor counselors kind of you know, working against the time difference and working from Japan. That's always possible.
Chris:Okay, it wouldn't be based in Japan. Okay yeah, okay yeah. People go to commit suicide here. It's a popular spot.
Lisa:Is it Akihabara?
Chris:Not Akihabara, but yeah, it's down by just the base. It's like you can just jump off. It's near Fuji.
Lisa:I know, yeah, we were actually. I was there.
Chris:There's a forest.
Lisa:Not in the forest. We didn't get to the forest, the weather didn't really cooperate, but we were about five or six miles away from there, okay, and that was actually a place we intended to go, but we just couldn't make it there that day. But yeah, I do know about that place and it's just sad.
Lisa:It is, it's sad to think that you know. I mean, I know what the nickname is for the forest and it's just sad that there's a place that exists with a nickname like that and I know that it's such a huge issue in Japan, like you said. I mean, I know my daughter when she commutes to work. She's a teacher at a private school in Japan and has quite a long commute in the morning and it's probably weekly or every other week.
Chris:Someone's jumping off.
Lisa:Someone's jumping in front of the train and there's a train, and I mean it's to the point where the alert message that the travelers get on the train is person on the tracks.
Chris:That's how prevalent it is, and you know. Here's the extra twist is that they're jumping on certain train lines because of the cost. Once the people in white come, these people dressed in all white, they come and they clean up the tracks while the and they take away everything. And when they test the DNA and they find out who it is, they give a bill for the cleanup and stopping of the train to the family. So they're jumping off on the cheap train tracks, the cheap lines compared to some of the expensive ones, and, like you find out, someone has died and then they hand you a bill. It's like what?
Lisa:I know.
Chris:Yeah, it's, yeah, it's a lot.
Lisa:Yeah, it is a lot.
Chris:It's a lot.
Lisa:Yeah.
Chris:But anyway, let's change a little bit. I it's a lot, yeah, but anyway, let's change a little bit. I want to ask you what's the lesson that you've taken away from all of this for yourself, that you've learned or that you're learning?
Lisa:Learning, definitely learning still always a work in progress, for sure. I think, in all honesty, the lesson is that we are way, way more crisis. We don't realize that we have the capacity to move through it in the way that we do. I think oftentimes, until we've gotten to the other side of it, we don't realize that that strength is there. But it is there. And it sometimes takes talking about it with someone reaching out for help to engage that resilience, but it's there.
Chris:And.
Lisa:I think we need to just kind of consciously remind ourselves as often as we can that there is always a way through something. We just may have to work a little to find it.
Chris:It is so true. It is so true, it is so true. You know, I heard someone say that we, everybody knows post-traumatic stress, but no one mentions post-traumatic growth. You know, and after the trauma, you know, everybody grows. You become more appreciative of something that you didn't realize before and you become better. You know, it pushes us, I think, more on the growth side than more on the stress side, but definitely that it's going to force us to come through a whole different side and to know, like this is where you're supposed to have been. It's like wow.
Lisa:Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Both of those things are really great points because you know, it's true. It's the old expression. You know, if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger.
Chris:My grandmother used to say that.
Lisa:Everybody's grandmother used to say that my grandmother did. But it's really. I think it is so true and it's so profound and I you know, I know I'm oversimplifying it but the fact is that people have the wrong impression. I think about vulnerability. It. But the fact is that people have the wrong impression. I think about vulnerability.
Chris:They think it makes you weak or we're taught to believe that it makes you weak.
Lisa:But it's the complete opposite. It brings out the best in us. It makes us more capable of navigating whatever's in front of us. It gives us the strength to reach out and to take care of ourselves. So I think that there are some incredible, incredible lessons to be learned within the hardest periods of our life.
Chris:So true so so true. I wanted to ask you why should we change vocabulary and stop saying committed suicide?
Lisa:I am so glad that you asked that question, because I'm always so glad when everybody asks that question because it's so important that we continue to put this conversation out into the world. So think about the phrase committed suicide and just take out the word committed for a second and think about that. When you think about the word committed, it's a negative connotation. It's almost always a negative connotation, like you committed a sin or you committed a crime, or you committed some kind of an immoral act, so there's nothing positive about the word committed.
Chris:I agree.
Lisa:And the word choice that we use to talk about things. Whatever the thing is that we're talking about matters that matters, that creates an impression that gives people a different understanding and feeling about the thing that you're talking about. So if all of a sudden, you're talking about this thing that is an incredibly sensitive and highly emotional thing or act, and you throw a negative word in front of it, well that's going to stereotype it Like right from the jump, that's going to be completely stereotyped as a negative thing. And that's what happened when the world started saying committed suicide. Whenever that started. However that started, it stuck and it became something that we couldn't get out from under, and so it created this stigma and this vibe and feeling around the act of suicide that made people believe it was wrong and immoral and, in some cases, sacrilegious and offensive and all the things that it shouldn't be, all the things that it isn't. So the mental health community as a whole, not too too long ago, kind of said no, no, no, we're going to change it, because this is, you know, having such a huge impact on how people are navigating things like suicide and mental illness. If we're right away believing it's negative, let's stop and let's change the way we talk about it, because that's the first step in changing the way people believe in it or feel about it.
Lisa:So now, instead, we're encouraging people to say you know, died by suicide or took their own life or ended their life or suicided. There are so many other ways. Yeah, there are so many other ways. Yeah, there are so many other ways that will preserve the person's dignity who took their own life. Because, at the end of the day, like like, suicide is a symptom of a mental illness. Just, you know, just like a cancer or a heart disease. You know, you'd never think poorly of someone or or attach a stigma to somebody who had a heart attack or someone who was hit by a car or died of lung cancer. So why are we attaching this negative stigma to people who die by suicide? It's not their fault, it's just not their fault. So that's kind of the origin behind this new movement to get people to just change the word choice.
Chris:Yeah, that makes sense when you say it like that. I never, thought about it so deeply.
Lisa:Yeah, people usually don't, because we've done something one way for such a long time and it's so universally done and accepted that you just don't think about it until somebody stops to think about it and realizes the impact. And when you deconstruct it you realize that the toxicity comes from the way we talk about it and if you change that maybe you can work, you know, a little quicker at changing the whole narrative.
Chris:Nice, nice way to look at that as well. Thanks, I wanted to ask what are some key messages that you hope people take away from your story when you speak publicly?
Lisa:I hope that people take away that. It's okay. I know it's a cliche, I'm going to say it anyway. It's okay and important to not be okay.
Lisa:I think I want people. You know, when I tell my story, I'm doing it for so many different reasons. I'm doing it because every single time I do, it helps me heal a little bit more. I'm doing it because I'm hopefully giving someone some hope that, wherever they are on their own kind of grief path or journey will not always look and feel as desperate as it may feel now.
Lisa:I do it because I want people to recognize how much power there is in vulnerability and how, how, when you so you think about something that you're afraid of or intimidated by something that's hard or difficult, when we give it that power by being afraid of it and kind of running away from it or not confronting it, we lose our own power.
Lisa:When we attack it or when we kind of run toward it, we take its power away. We retain that power and by sharing a story, you're taking back your power. You're standing in that power of owning your story and owning your truth and saying there's nothing wrong with me, there's nothing wrong with my truth. This is just what I have in my life and in my heart and I'm sharing it so that other people can see it and acknowledge it and maybe benefit from it. In some way it just makes us all feel closer, it makes us feel less alone. I mean, mental illness is so isolating and these stories that we all have, because we all have one, can be kind of the key in kind of, you know, getting rid of some of those feelings of loneliness, because they connect us.
Chris:Yes, nice, nicely said. Yeah, I wanted to ask you is mental illness hereditary?
Lisa:Can be Sure. Yeah, that was actually the real impetus for me After a few years, when I found out about my dad's suicide. It became very important to me to talk to my daughters about it, because mental illness is absolutely hereditary. Alcoholism, drug abuse, they're all you know. They can all be inherited, not to mention you know, we can inherit trauma also, and the result of trauma as well.
Lisa:And in those first few years after I found out about my dad's suicide I was just not in a place to talk about it with my kids. I didn't feel like they were necessarily quite old enough at that point they weren't quite in high school yet even and I just needed to kind of get my bearings. And it took years. I mean, it took years of me being one way in the outward, facing part of my life and being a complete shell behind closed doors with my husband every night for years. And then I finally got to a point where I felt like the girls were old enough and I I wanted them to understand so the husband knew, your husband knew, yeah, my husband knew.
Lisa:Yeah, my husband knew from day one okay, I found out is that yeah, yeah, yeah, but no one else okay um no one else in my, in my extended or immediate family knew.
Chris:My kids didn't know well, this is kind of what your mom did.
Lisa:Yeah, oh yeah.
Chris:Until she felt that it was time for it to be shared, or you know when it was going to come out. So it makes sense.
Lisa:Yeah, yeah, I mean I, I didn't know what to do with it. I mean I, I couldn't, I couldn't even wrap my brain around it for such a long time. It was just so impossible for me to believe for so long. And then, when I finally kind of arrived at that place where, okay, I knew now, this is, this is my new history, this, you know, these, these two versions losing my dad twice, basically it's all kind of converged in this one place. And now I, you know, I understand this to be true, I understand the implications, I understand what my dad was dealing with to a point and I felt like, okay, I talked about it with my husband, dave, and I said I think we, you know, I really want to talk to the girls and be honest with them and he was completely supportive.
Lisa:And we sat we, oh God, like he has never been anything. But we love Dave. Yes, Dave, Dave is the greatest, Give it a little bit, yes. That's all I can tell you, and we've been together since we were 17 years old. Stop it.
Chris:Oh my gosh, I love it. A real love story.
Lisa:Yeah, that's so cute, okay, dave. Yeah, we're from rival towns.
Chris:Oh my gosh.
Lisa:Yeah, we started dating when we were 17 years old and he kind of became a part of my friend group and we have been together ever since.
Chris:So that means he knew that your dad had died Like you had told him the story, that he had a heart attack and you know, just growing up as kids, I'm guessing yeah, oh, my gosh. So he was shocked to find out the story had been just something different as well, because he knew the original.
Lisa:Oh yeah, oh my gosh, wow. We met about been just something different as well, because he knew the original. Oh yeah, oh my gosh, wow, we. We met about seven years after my father died. But the interesting funny thing is dave and I like our paths were like you picture how people are kind of destined to kind of meet that spiritual design yeah that's it, yeah and uh. It's like the cat distribution system right. Where you just kind of find each other. So he and I grew up maybe like three miles away from each other.
Lisa:Wow and there was a community pool that our moms used to go to. So he and I and some other kids that we're still close with used to play in the pool together. So we kind of like he was one of those kids like you'd play with, but you really didn't kind of know them and it was just like somebody you'd always see at the beach or at the pool and that was what we would do, and we went to the same camp together. Wow, oh, we like I worked with his aunt when I was, like when I was in high school, my job, I worked with her, didn't know him, so we were just universe, just kind of put us together.
Chris:Entwined boy yes.
Lisa:Yeah, yeah, we got together early and in that way and then didn't like come together as a couple until we were 17 years old, and it was just one of those situations.
Chris:So he's the only person you've dated from 17. That was it. It's just him.
Lisa:No, oh, okay, okay, you don't have to go in. Dated from 17. That was it. It's just him. No, oh, okay, okay, you don't have to go in deeply, okay, no, wait, no, no, no, that's okay.
Chris:There was a little bit of a break up, okay, sorry, I was like okay, that's okay, no, no, no, we're both healthy and accepted at colleges.
Lisa:Oh yeah, we were one of the same college, so we dated going into freshman year but then split up and did not get back together. We were the best of friends after we broke up. We were each other's person, couldn't live without each other. But we didn't date all the way through college, the rest of our senior year through college, the rest of college, what, oh my gosh. Until our senior year in college, we got back together and we have been together ever since.
Chris:Wow, mm-hmm, so good. Well, you know, usually these stories there's no break. So to hear a break is nice, because then we get a chance to just live a little bit and, you know, really see how things are, and I love that Brought y'all right on back.
Lisa:Brought you right on back. We had never really left.
Chris:Maybe the label had changed, but you know.
Lisa:Yeah, we kind of that's kind of a nice way to put it we didn't really leave because we were always each other's person even when we were dating other people and we both dated around other people and just kind of found our way back together and realized that we belong together and we've been together ever since. And so, yeah, he the from, you know, from the basically the minute I found out about my dad after my mother and I kind of navigated our way back to my house after that conversation because we were, we were out. Yeah, most of that conversation happened in my car and in a parking lot. And so when we finally got back to the house and I knew my mom needed a minute just to kind of get her bearings and regroup, and I brought her inside and let her kind of take a minute and I said I need to talk to Dave. And she said, yeah, you need to go and talk to him. And I asked him to come and go for a drive.
Lisa:And the minute he laid eyes on me he knew something was wrong. And drive. And the minute he laid eyes on me he knew something was wrong. And I said, just, you just need to drive. And he did. And when I told him he was, you know, he, he didn't want to believe it either and it was. When I say he's like well, how do you know? Like are you sure? How do you know? And I said, mom told me he left a note and he was like ah shit.
Chris:Okay, got it.
Lisa:Did she ever tell you what the notes said? Yeah, she did. I mean, in as much as you can paraphrase something that you read one time, you know 35 years now it's been 46 years but it was very brief. It was addressed to her and it just said that he was so sorry and he couldn't go on and he loved her and he loved me and he just he wanted us to be okay and he signed it love Jim, and that was all that was in the note. Wow, so there's a. There's a lot of stuff that I carry around that will never be resolved like the true. Why? Like? Why that day? Why then, why at all? There's a lot that we knew like. We knew that, like my dad had this job working for this import-export company in Boston, but he also had another full-time job taking care of his family's business, which was real estate. They owned a lot of property in the Boston area.
Lisa:And my dad was the one who took care of it and his family was. They were just a very tough, difficult, unloving family, and I mean my dad's nickname growing up was the unwanted.
Chris:Oh my gosh.
Lisa:Yeah, yeah, that kind of Well you can see where the things have started then Right.
Chris:You can see where the seeds had started to be rooted in from that. Oh my gosh, oh, that's horrible.
Lisa:Yeah, and he did everything, chris. He did everything he could possibly do in his power to make the family business successful, and it had never been more successful than it was when my dad was managing it and he wanted to go out on his own. He realized that property management was what he was great at and he loved it and he was dedicated to it. He wanted to start his own property management company and he needed his family's support. And he said no, wow, property management company. And he needed his family's support, and he said no, wow. So wow, that kind of gives you an indication, yes, where my dad came from.
Chris:It it says a lot. It says a lot, yeah yeah.
Lisa:so, um, you know, sad, sad and um, it's heartbreaking, it's heartbreaking to me. So you know there were, there were those things that we knew were really really tough. Things on his side of the family were just never easy. And beyond that, though, we don't really know. You know, if there was like a catalyst, was there a moment, was there a thing that pushed him over the edge? We don't know and we won't know. And that's a hard thing to live with and I, you know, I do a lot of work with you know, in my own head and my own heart and with my own therapist, to kind of negotiate that in my brain.
Chris:But have you ever thought about seeing a medium?
Lisa:I have a funny thing about mediums. Okay, I just my last guess was one, so I was so my grandmother, my mom, mother who lived with us for 12 years. She had what we called in the family the sight.
Chris:Okay, yes.
Lisa:So she had the sight. My grandmother had this uncanny ability to know things.
Lisa:There were things that were so random and absurd and impossible that would come out of her mouth. That would be true, and she was just dialed in. She was not a medium. She was not someone who read cards often. She did, but not often and only for people in the family, and so I don't know. My grandmother read my mother's cards once to such an amazing degree that I just could never everything that she said came true. She also was the reason why Dave and I got back together and she gifted me that, and I never wanted to have anybody else read my cards or read for me ever again, because my grandmother. That's the end, all be all as far as I'm concerned.
Chris:I get it.
Lisa:Yeah, but what I do do as a way to connect with my dad is, um, I write him in my journal, I write him letters and it's. It's actually a very cool exercise. My therapist suggested it, said because I'm a lefty. She said why don't you write him a question with your left hand and write the answer in your right hand? And it has led to some wild and powerful conversations with my dad.
Chris:I love that.
Lisa:Yeah, it's a neat exercise. I definitely would never have ever even thought to do it, and now I do it all the time.
Chris:Well, you know the medium who I had on. She was saying that in death, you can still have a relationship with people who are gone and she was saying you know about that, you can still continue to love them and grow with them and that they're with you and grow with them and that they're with you and you know. So that's awesome as well, to feel that you can still have that tying in of writing the letters, that you can still can have a relationship, you know, with him and just as your daughters do as well, knowing who he is and about his life, and so that they are still living, they are still among us.
Chris:Yeah, exactly.
Lisa:And it's funny, they are still among us. Yeah, exactly, and it's funny. One of the things that I gifted myself this year my birthday's in the summer and I realized that in my office, where I do all my work, that's where I'm on the crisis lifelines, it's where I do all my content creation. I was missing something, because I've I've had this incredibly strong sensation, since I kind of switched into the mental health field, that my father's doing the work with me. Whether I'm on the lifeline, he's with me or I'm writing, I'm, I'm writing.
Lisa:I'm working on another book, and this is the memoir of losing my dad twice, and I feel like he's doing it with me. I gifted myself a one of my favorite pictures of one of the only pictures of of the two of us together. I must have been seven or eight, I think it was probably a year or two before he died, and it's the only picture that sits in my office and it sits on my desk and it's because, whatever work that I'm doing at the time, I absolutely believe and know that I'm doing it with him.
Chris:Wow.
Lisa:Yeah, I love it. I love it, me too.
Chris:So great, so great. I like to ask all my guests this final question Is your glass half empty or half full?
Lisa:Oh, my glasses is spilling on the floor. As far as I'm concerned, I mean, it's like it's in puddles on my feet.
Chris:I love it.
Lisa:You know, I believe that attitude is everything, and when I say that I don't mean you've got to be in a happy place, a happy mindset, heart space all the time. That's unrealistic, it's ridiculous. Do I have bad, low, sad moments? Of course I do all the time, but I also try intentionally to see the positives in whatever the situation I might be in is, and I learned that from my mom. My mom is the most joyful content human that you'll ever meet in your life. My mom is the most joyful content human that you'll ever meet in your life and it's because she makes the choice every day.
Lisa:You know I could be this, but I choose to be that and I'm very, very fortunate. I feel like an incredibly lucky person. I get to spend my life with the person I love the most. My two daughters are my best friends. I am thankful that my mom is here and a part of everything. She's my mother's my proofreader. My mother's been my proofreader, has read every word in every book or article or column that I've ever written since the day I started writing. What in the world do I have to be down? You know, to be down about Like I get to try and make a positive impact on the world. I get to do the thing that I love. I spend time in a space that I feel is meaningful. I get to be of service every single day, so my cup is overflowing.
Chris:Wow, wonderful.
Lisa:Wonderful.
Chris:Can you tell any? Do you have any final thoughts for our listeners? I mean, you gave us so much, but something that you want to leave us with.
Lisa:Yeah, sure, I mean, I would just kind of go back to what I probably said a little earlier about, you know, giving yourself permission to meet yourself exactly where you are. Like, you'll have lots of good days, you'll have just as many bad days, but I think the key in navigating those things is be open about that.
Lisa:Be, open about whatever it is that's on your mind or on your heart. Find safe places in your life friend, family, crisis hotline there are always places to go to help you figure out how to handle whatever's going on in your life. So embrace where you are and seek help when you need it, because it's out there and it's the path to get us to the other side.
Chris:Yes, Nicely said. Nicely said. Can you tell everyone how they can reach you if they want to find out more about you? Also looking for your books.
Lisa:Yeah, yeah, of course. So I just recently rebranded. This is good timing that we're talking, because I just recently rebranded and relaunched my website. It's now called thehelphubco and it's a destination really for crisis support hotlines and content and mental health resources for everyone in every community. It kind of started as a passion project where I wanted to create just a resource page on my website. That already has lots of content. I have a YouTube series on YouTube called the Suicide Survivor Series short videos talking about my own experience as a survivor, and you know I have a column called we Are who we Are. All that stuff funnels into my website.
Lisa:But I had been building this resource page and it became this massive, massive, long list of organizations that people could, you know, could source if they needed all different kinds of help. But I realized after not too long that when the was so long it took you 10 minutes to scroll down. I realized that everybody, even though we're dealing with a lot of the same things, we deal with them in very different ways based on our background and where we come from and who we are and what community we're in. So I kind of broke it apart into a list of categories, a hub of categories, and there are 16 of them, and I have unique resources for you know the AAPI community, veterans, children, parents, teens, the elderly, lgbtq community, bipoc community Latinx community LGBTQ community BIPOC community Latinx community, online mental health resources, mindfulness. So now it's a place where you can go and the help that you may need is a single click away. It's been vetted.
Lisa:You don't have to think about it. It's there and it's there for any community and it suits your own unique needs. So that's kind of what my website has become. Yeah, it's thehelphubco, and all my work, my books and columns and archives and videos it's all on there as well. But the main feature, as soon as you get on the landing page, you're right there with the Help Hub and those resources are right there for for whatever you need.
Chris:Wow, lisa, that is fantastic.
Lisa:It's been, it's been, it's been a really really powerful, exciting project.
Chris:Congratulations.
Lisa:Thank you, I appreciate that. I wanted people to be able to find the help they need when they need it.
Chris:Excellent, and all of this will be posted underneath the listing when the episode is out, because people don't have pens in their hands these days.
Lisa:I know I appreciate that, of course.
Chris:Of course I appreciate that so much, of course, for sure. We thank you so much for being a guest here on Glass Half Full. It was so great. You gave us so much amazing information and thank you for sharing your story and all that has come from that and just giving people that sense of assurance that you know one tragedy doesn't take over for life and that you know we will grow and heal from these moments that we feel are so detrimental that come to us. And just thank you for the work that you're doing with the Trevor Project and, you know, just sharing your time and giving of your time, which is so great, so, so great, thank you.
Lisa:Well, it's my pleasure. This was just such a beautiful conversation and I'm just I'm always so appreciative of people like you with platforms that can help me get this information and have these conversations with people who I wouldn't necessarily have them with. So, thank you right back.
Chris:Yes, my pleasure, my pleasure. You have a wonderful rest of the day. Yes, it's still morning. You have a wonderful rest of the day.
Lisa:I will you too. You too, have a great night.
Chris:Thank you, we'll be in touch real soon.
Lisa:Terrific.
Chris:Hello listeners of Glass Half Full. Thank you for tuning in to another inspiring episode of our podcast. I'm your host, chris Levins, and I want to express my gratitude to each and every one of you for being a part of our supportive community. Remember, glass Half Full is not just a podcast. It's a safe platform for everyone to share their life experiences. Your stories and voice matter, and we appreciate you for being here with us. If you enjoyed today's episode and want to stay updated with our future content, please subscribe, follow and rate our podcast on Apple Music, spotify and YouTube. Your support means the world to us and it helps us reach even more listeners who can benefit from these valuable life experiences. As we wrap up this episode, always keep in mind you are blessed, no matter the challenges you face. There's a reservoir of strength within you. Until next time, stay positive and remember the glass is always half full, see ya.