EP 19 | "TELL MY STORY" LOSING A SON TO SUICIDE WITH JAY REID

Episode Summary

This is another episode that will move the deepest fibers of yourself.

Jay Reid, a very special friend of ours, came over to the HINESIGHTS Podcast to share his story. He lost his son, Ryan, to suicide in 2017. Jay accepts that he never saw the red flags or the signs. His mission now is to end teen suicide, and he knows this is a task that won’t be done by schools or the government. He wants parents to become much more involved in their kid’s mental health. If you are a parent, go to your kid’s room and ask them for a walk and see how they are doing. Pain is inevitable, but it is manageable. 

Jay wears his heart on his sleeve in this episode, be sure to tune in and listen to his story.

About the Guest - Jay Reid

Jason - Jay -  is a partner at CEO international, where he coaches CEOs on how to be successful. He co-founded National Services Group, which employs 2,500 people across three brands nationwide. He is a leader, an entrepreneur, and a devoted family man.  

In March of 2018, while Jason was away on vacation, Jason’s 14-year-old son died by suicide in the attic of his home. He thought he was raising happy kids: but the truth of his son’s deep struggle was hidden until that moment. Through his grief, he embarked on an ambitious but critical mission, based on the science of depression and the combined power of psychology and technology to effect change.

Key Take-Aways

  • The world has changed so much and with it has the pressure young people feel. 

  • Bullying has moved from an only-school situation to a virtual and digital issue. 

  • Social media can be a place for cyberbullying. 

  • The world is being bombarded with news online that many times can be wrong or misinformed. 

  • Online video games have turned out to be addictive. 

  • We should all have someone to talk to. 

Resources

EP19_HINESIGHTS Podcast_JAY REID: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

EP19_HINESIGHTS Podcast_JAY REID: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Kevin Hines:
My name is Kevin Hines. I jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. I believe that I had to die, but I lived. Today, I travel the world with my lovely wife, Margaret, sharing stories of people who have triumphed over incredible adversity. Now, we help people be here tomorrow. Welcome to the HINESIGHTS podcast.

Kevin Hines:
What's cracking, Hope Nation? It's your friendly neighbor, Kevin Hines. And today I'm with a good friend of mine named Jay Reid of Choose Life.org, an amazing human being, with a powerful story of hope and recovery and pain and struggle and its loss of his son to suicide. We're going to talk about all things encompassing suicide prevention, how people can find the light at the end of the tunnel, and how one can get through the grief of losing someone they love so dearly to death by suicide from lethal emotional pain. So we're going to be getting right now with a few questions to open it up, and it's been a wonderful conversation to have both of us to share with all of you in the hope that it helps one person change their decision and stay here to be here tomorrow and every day after that. Hi, Jay, how are you?

Jay Reid:
Kevin! Great, great to see you, man. Thanks for having me on your podcast.

Kevin Hines:
Glad to. It means the world to me that you said yes. Jay, the name of your film, your documentary is Tell My Story. Can you just begin here now by telling us Brian's story? By telling us your story. I want you to, I want you to be free for him, to say what's on your mind, break it down for us, so we can learn from you and from your story.

Jay Reid:
Sure, Kevin. So Ryan, March 2018, March 21st, 2018, Ryan was 14 years of age. He turned 14 on March 7th. My wife and I were in Mexico celebrating her birthday and we got a text from Ryan saying goodbye, I'm sorry, his birthday's March 14th. Sorry, but we got a text from Ryan saying goodbye. We both got texts, we all got texts, the whole family did. And we freaked out, obviously. And I'm calling the house, it's going find Ryan, find Ryan. I talked to my mother-in-law. And they found him in the attic. Long story, short, hospital, I mean, ambulance came, police came, tried to resuscitate them, took them down to San Diego, ... flight them down. Put him into the hospital, and then Kim and I started the journey, it's one o'clock in the morning, we're trying to get out of Mexico, and it's just you can't get out of Mexico at one o'clock in the morning. Finally, got flights, you know, you're like a zombie. Going through the airport, we get back late on the 22nd, I guess it was the early afternoon and we go to talk to the doctors and they did their best, but there's nothing they could do and I think they kept him around on life support for us, but he didn't make it. So on the 26th, we took him off life support. So that's the quick story of what happened. But then the story afterwards is actually really much more important because you see, I didn't see any of this, I didn't know that Ryan had any issues, I guess I was oblivious to it because I'm not a guy who ever suffered from depression, I never felt that way. And I'm a guy who showed up in a way, you know, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a CEO, I build companies, I coach CEOs, I'm Iron Man and a black belt, I've written nine books, right. Books or something, I've done all this stuff right? And I show up a certain way, I saw problems every day, I show up a certain way, I show up with a smile on my face and I get stuff done and I don't really share the darker side of my life with anybody. So the fact that I failed at 13 businesses, my kids never knew, the fact that I've almost been bankrupt, my kids and wife never knew. So what Ryan saw in his life was Daddy showed up with solving, having all the answers, knowing everything's going to be OK, and just solving it all with a big smile on his face. So what Ryan assumed he would do was be the same way. But deep down inside, Ryan wasn't the same way. Ryan was struggling with who he was, where he fit in, all the stuff that I didn't know about until I read his letters. But he would go, come out of his room every day, put a big smile on his face. And pretend everything was all right, and I didn't ask him if he really was OK because I didn't know I should have. I didn't, with four kids, he was the least grumpy and I don't even I never did a good job on checking in on any, ... Of my kids. I didn't think it wasn't the thing I thought about. If they had the stomach flu or they broke an arm or whatever, I'd gotta be, oh my gosh, you're going to be all right. I never thought, never understood the level of anxiety my son was going through, the level of pain, and that's on me. I didn't ask. And when I was going through all of this stuff, I found a note in his top left-hand drawer, one said, it's a sticky note, one said, you know, here's my username and passwords. And the other one said, tell my story. Sorry, Kev.

Kevin Hines:
Take your time.

Jay Reid:
No matter how often, no matter how often I tell this.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah, of course, of course, it's your son, it's your boy.

Jay Reid:
So, I took that as I need to tell his story. And so that's where the movie Tell My Story came from. So through all this, I founded ChooseLife.org, which is, I guess, the old anti-abortion site that I repurposed because I didn't know it when I bought it. But I thought, why do want kids to do, and what we're right to do, is choose life.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Jay Reid:
And the mission of Choose Life is to end teen suicide by the year 2030. And people will say, well, you can't do that, Jay, you're not going to accomplish that. And I'm like, well, maybe, but you know what? It didn't exist to the level of does now when I was a kid.

Kevin Hines:
That's right. That's right.

Jay Reid:
I'm 53. I was 13. I was Ryan's age that year before he died, a couple of weeks before he died. I didn't know what was going on in the world. I didn't care. I cared about going outside and playing with my friends and whatever went on at school. I didn't have the same anxiety, like kids today, I mean, I can only imagine the anxiety levels the kids are going through right now, as you and I are doing this podcast. They've got COVID, they've got the world's falling apart, is there going to be a war? Who's going to be president? I didn't know any of those things.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Jay Reid:
And hence the anxiety levels were lower. The pressure as a kid did not exist for me, right? To get into the best school, to be the top, get a four-point, whatever they have, they have to get these days to even get paid attention. That pressure didn't exist 30 years ago. We've created it all of the technology and everything they have to look at every day and the bombardment of social media and the bullying, man, that, my bullies stayed at school, when I was home, I was safe. That's not how it is these days.

Kevin Hines:
That's right.

Jay Reid:
Your home. It's in your room with you. And kids are mean, and they're meaner than they used to be, because you know what? The bullies when I grew up, Kevin, when you grow up, the bullies were big guys who used that against me because I was a little guy. Now, everybody can be a bully, if they've got a keyboard, and for some reason a lot of people think it's OK. So I'm dabbling a bit here, but that's my free form.

Kevin Hines:
You're not babbling at all. It's actually very pertinent to discuss these issues and these topics and the way you're talking about it is crucial for parents to know what to look out for in their kids and for kids to know what to look out for in the people that are coming out against them. You know, one of the biggest lessons I learned from your film, if I ever have kids is to ask my kids if they love themselves. Do you love yourself every day or do you have days where you hate yourself, loathe yourself? I feel terrible. I attempted to take my life off the Golden Gate Bridge in the year 2000 and I nearly died and my family nearly lost me and my dad would have been in the same boat you are, and nobody asked me if I love myself, I hated myself. I hated every fiber of my being for a very long time, and I still deal with self-loathing today on and off. So, you know, asking that direct question is crucial. Another great lesson I learned from your film was, as you were sitting in that, in the circular group with the other individuals in that large space, and you're talking about surviving loss and surviving attempts. And one of the biggest lessons I learned in that section of the film was that we need to stop normalizing the moodiness of our teenagers and stop saying it's a phase and saying that it's hormones. But we need to recognize their struggles, accept them and validate those struggles. But you don't know to do that if no one teaches you that it's not just supposed to be that way, and we have this kind of preconceived notion about teenagers that they're all going to be moody and they're all going through these periods. But in reality, they may be moody because of hormones, that may be a real fact, but they've got all these bullies and cyberbullies coming at them that are affecting their moods on top of those hormones that are making them feel this incredible self-loathing and they're looking in the mirror every day like I was. And they're saying, I hate you, you're useless, you're worthless, and you have no value. And just like Ryan hid it from you, Jay, I hid that from my father, who I was living with at the time. My parents divorced, so I was so moved by this film and so inspired by it. My next question, Jay, and this might be an obvious answer, but I want you to kind of get into it, is, you know, besides what happened to Ryan, what else inspired you to become a suicide prevention advocate, activist and kind of mover and shaker?

Jay Reid:
I have to be honest, if it wasn't for Ryan, I wouldn't even think about it because I wouldn't know about it.

Kevin Hines:
Ok.

Jay Reid:
And I think that once I got into it, though, I just started, after talking to all these kids that I as I filmed and going and speaking around the country, not, not probably as much as you do or used to do pre-COVID, but I was speaking around the country in different events, and I just see it now in people's eyes, like when I, you know, it's like, when I go and do an event, if one hundred and fifty people show up at that event, they're not there because they want to be entertained, they're there because they're scared and they're scared for their kids. And so I'll do it. I didn't have that up in Seattle, they want, it was all elementary school parents and they said, we want to do a school, in the elementary school parents. I'm like, OK, well, I think they'll show up, we can try it. They sold out at one hundred and fifty parents. And these are parents of 7, 8, 9, 10-year olds who are like legitimately as we talk, and the Q&A went like an hour longer than it was supposed to and I was great until they kick us out, we'll stay. But parents are afraid and I think what's keeping me in the space and keep, because it's hard, right? You know how it is to be, like you don't want to be here. There are more fun things to do with your life, but realizing that you have to make a difference, that someone has to get it through the parents, that they have to make a difference. Like the big thing I speak about is that if we're going to end teen suicide, we have to recognize who's going to do it. It's not the schools, it's not the government, it's not medical doctors, it's not therapists. Parents can end teen suicide. You have to own the mental health of your own children. I didn't. You need to, you have to. You have to check in and ask, do they love themselves? You have to see what's going on in their heads. You have to go into their social media accounts to make sure they're OK and then not be bullied. If they are being bullied, teach them how to deal with the bully. But you need to do all those things because that's how we stop suicide. We have to understand where our kids are really at.

Kevin Hines:
It's a fact. I have a question about that tattoo on your arm. Tell the audience what, ... I'm saying this.

Jay Reid:
.... You have very good memory. I was never a tattoo guy. In fact, I had a rule in the house that there are certain things you can't do in my house and you're welcome to do them, but if you do them, then you're going to want a favor from me when you're older and I'm not going to help you out. And you'll always want a favor from me. You want me to help you with whatever it might be, you're going to want a favor from me. So if you break my rules, you don't get it. There's no motorcycles or no tattoos, there's no hard drugs, or no drinking and driving. There's not a lot, These aren't hard rules, do not have, right? But those are the rules and no weird piercings. Those are the rules. ... will regret because I'm older and know you'll regret them, those are the rules. I was the first one to get a tattoo and I got it in the film. I'll tell you what it is and you can see there. I guess you'll see it in the film but, so there's the old Mountain Dew commercial, puppy monkey baby, which some of you may have seen is that puppy monkey baby creature who kind of laughs and giggles probably five or six years old, maybe longer. Anyways, Ryan and I were in a cottage a couple of years ago, and my nieces and nephews are playing that, and Ryan was laughing and I was laughing at it. And then my nieces are French. We live in ..., they're in Quebec, and they said, oh, you got to watch it in French because in French, it's .... Puppy monkey baby. So after we left the cottage, Ryan and I would text that back and forth to each other instead of saying, I love you, this is to us that meant I love you, so I'd be traveling or he'd be in school, we'd ... in a little text. And that's our little thing. So the tattoo, says, Ryan ... And 11:04 is the time I got this text.

Kevin Hines:
Wow. Oh, my.

Jay Reid:
And yes, now there are a couple more tattoos in my house.

Kevin Hines:
Fiar enough. Wow. I want to switch tires just for a moment. And talk about the current pandemic we're experiencing. Over the last several years, we had an increase in suicide all over the United States before the current pandemic, why do you think that is? What is your opinion on the current rise in suicides and the continuous rise in suicides?

Jay Reid:
Well, I think my answer is probably the same as a lot of people who have been in the space and studied the space as you have. I'm not a doctor, I'm not an expert, I'm not a therapist. I'm a dad who lost his kid, who has dug into the space and have my own opinions as to how we got here. But I'll tell you what I think. We got here because as a family unit, we are no longer connected, the same way we used to be. This little device and all the little apps that are on it have meant that we no longer see each other eye to eye anymore. Families instead of watching each other, talking to each other, hanging out with each other, we'll sit at the dinner table all on their phones. That never happened when I grew up, I didn't have one when I grew up, we sat around the table and everybody talked. We spent Sundays together playing board games. If we watched the movie we didn't all watch individual movies on our own iPhones. We all watched the same movie, and it was usually a Disney movie. So that's how it used to be and how it is now, is completely different. So and I'm not saying anything that other people aren't saying, but when you get kids, when I interviewed kids in the film and I asked them simple questions like, so tell me about Instagram and social media, all the kids who had attempted will tell you that it's a horrible place because when they go there, they see everyone else's life as being perfect, because that's how the pictures show up. And for those that are anxious or depressed or feel self-loathing, that just exacerbates their feelings about how they feel them, so everyone else's life is perfect and my life is horrible, and it exacerbates the problem and makes it worse. I don't think kids should be able to be on social media at the ages of 12, 13, 14 years of age. I don't think kids should have a phone with unlimited access to the internet at 12, 13, 14 years of age, and I'll tell you why. I gave Ryan complete access to the internet on his phone, because Ryan was a straight-A kid, never did anything wrong, he was perfect, there was no issues with Ryan that I could ever see, and he wanted a phone, his friend had phones, I'm like have a phone. I never thought about what he might be going and researching on his phone. He didn't have social media, by the way. I think he had a Facebook account because I, our post-dinner conversations that we would laugh at, right? But he didn't have a lot of friends on Facebook, he didn't have a lot of, he didn't care about social media, but he had his phone and he was on it constantly, and he would watch kids play video games, which is something I don't understand. But people do that, I guess, they watch other people play video games. He watched people do Minecraft stuff and which I guess I'm OK with. A lot of YouTube, he'd just be on it constantly and I guess I got, I got to the point where I'm like, I guess I'm just old and don't understand, like I did other stuff, I guess that's what the generation does and all that kind of stuff, I justified in my head. But here's what he really did at night, when I was in bed and he was under the sheets with his phone, he was researching how to kill himself. So when you think about, and I know this because he wrote it in his letter, all the different ways he researched, that's all online. And when you think of all the terrible things on the internet, I don't think we think about how bad it really is and how deep and dark it really goes, and that if you allow your kid at 12 and 13 years of age like I did, to have unlimited access to the world, it's a scary world.

Kevin Hines:
Absolutely.

Jay Reid:
They don't need unlimited access to it. And I gave it to all my kids and I'm paying the price because I did. So how do we get here? Well, when I was 13, I was, I was not mentally capable of dealing with all the anxious feelings that are going on in the world, there's no way I would deal with this. When you look at COVID, when you look at the news, the level of I'm not a guy who gets anxious, I'm getting anxious myself these days. When I'm watching the news, I'm like, what the hell is going on?

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Jay Reid:
Where's it going to go next? What's going to happen? Are we going to be OK? I'm getting that way. I've never been that way in my life. I can only and I'm pretty good about logically going through stuff and I'll do my research, I'll see, OK, that article is wrong, this guy is not right, I'm going to go down this, I'm going to follow science, right? That's what I'm going to do.

Kevin Hines:
We're being bombarded with it every single day, 24 hours a day.

Jay Reid:
And it's scary, right? And some of the stuff is B.S. and some of it isn't. But even the real stuff is scary.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Jay Reid:
I have a hard time figuring that out, a 13-year-old kid right now watching the world and they're going, oh my gosh. And then there's a bombing over here and there's a war going to start over there. And then, oh, and let's not forget the planet going to all die in 20 years anyway. So I mean, imagine being a 13-year-old kid, if you can look back to being a 13-year-old kid now, and that's what you're seeing every day and that's what you're thinking about. And then you're not feeling good about yourself, either. And then you go, and your parents ask you, how are you doing? And what are you? What do you say? You say, I'm fine. Fine does not mean good. Does not mean great. It is one step above I'm in a horrible spot, but I don't want to tell you. We need to talk to our kids now. If you have not had the conversations about, hey, how do you feel about what's going on in the world? Are you watching the news? Are you reading the news? They probably are. What do you think about the news? And don't tell them it's all going to be OK, don't worry about it, because they don't want to hear that, they won't have an honest conversation, whether you're being, maybe you say, I don't really know, let's watch it together. Let's read it together. Let's research it together. Let's have the conversation together.

Kevin Hines:
One of the things you had to film when you went to visit Didi Hirsch and I think it was Lynn Morris of Didi Hirsch talked about how the youngest person to contact the crisis line was eight years of age and how more and more eight-nine-year-olds are talking about it. And she mentioned that we think that our children can't feel suicidal ideation, can't feel that much pain, but they can, they do, they have, and they've died. And so talk about what your son went through and what your family went through, but this is something that is going on all around the world every single day. And your film makes that utterly clear. I'm wondering now, on the opposite side of that, what in your mind would motivate people to embrace life even in times of this kind of suicidal crisis? What is it that the general population can do to reach someone in that desperate pain? In your opinion today, having gone through what you went through?

Jay Reid:
Again, I'm not an expert, but I'll tell you what I what I've learned. Being inside, in your room with your phone or your computer constantly is not healthy. Get outside, go for a walk, play ball, be a kid. It's not connected to your phone. Do something creative. Learn an instrument. It's hard. It's not easy. Learn how to play guitar, not easy. I played for thirty-five years and not easy. But you know what? It's one of those things you love that you had when you when you're older. I hated guitar lessons when I was 13 years old. I'm glad I play now. Read, get off the computer, get off your phone, hang out with your parents and your family. If you're going to be on your computer, make sure it's a Zoom call with your friends and have a conversation with them. But you've got to, you've got to do something else and just stare at your computer all day and moving, I mean, Kevin, you know, when you start moving, you start walking, you start running, you start being physically active, it releases endorphins in your mind, you feel better.

Kevin Hines:
Naturally.

Jay Reid:
Feel better naturally. And a lot of the time from my understanding, from talking to the kids is that, you'll get into this really dark spot and you're, it can happen that you keep going this way to a bad spot, or if you just change your situation and you go outside for a walk, it's enough to take you just a little bit up again.

Kevin Hines:
Right,

Jay Reid:
You go hug, you get a hug from somebody, an eight-second hug.

Kevin Hines:
An eight-second hug, that's right.

Jay Reid:
... right? Eight-second hug, eight times a day.

Kevin Hines:
Save our kids or save the kids.

Jay Reid:
I did.,I did a webinar I was calling this, just a couple of days ago.

Kevin Hines:
Oh, fantastic. I was about to ask you about that, but save the kids and Colin and his program. Can you tell me more about it?

Jay Reid:
Colin Carter did a Save The Kids is Collin. He did a TED talk that went viral. He did a fantastic job about the evils of social media and cell phones, but he does it in such a way that kids love to watch him and listen to him, even though he's like, put your cell phones down, turn off Instagram. But they just love them because he's really entertaining. Like, we always joke because we speak together a fair amount and I'm like, teah, Colin's fun, I'm not, right? Collin's really fun, kids love them. I'm not fun, I'm scary, right? But Colin, Colin speaks around the country like prior to COVID, he was speaking five days a week, four times a day during a school district. He's booked solid through 2021.

Kevin Hines:
Wow.

Jay Reid:
He has an amazing I mean, if you've not seen his TED talk, you have to see his TED talk. He's in our film too, and he's a good buddy. We've become buddies over the last little while because we speak together and we hang out and he's just a great, great guy.

Kevin Hines:
He talks about the prefrontal cortex and how these tech billionaires made sure that dopamine is being flooded to the brain during all these activities on Instagram and social media and the internet and what you're doing, you're just getting that feeling. Dr. Mark Goldstein, who you had on the film, also talked about that. Can you tell us more about the effects of social media on the brain that you're aware of?

Jay Reid:
Well, yeah, I think it comes down to, the thing that people aren't aware of is the big videogame manufacturers when they're making a game, what's that one that everybody is on? That's online?

Kevin Hines:
Fortnite.

Jay Reid:
Fortnite. Fortnite employs psychologists to make sure that the game is as addictive as possible, so people want to be on it.

Kevin Hines:
What blows my mind is how a psychologist can take that job, given what they do for a living and the only thing that comes to mind that makes them take that job is money. The ability to come up in the world. But you're selling your soul, in my mind, you're selling your soul and you're making a product that is damaging children's minds. And I do have to say I agree with you in the idea that 13 and 12-year-olds and 14-year-olds should not be given free access to all the internet has to offer it is very dangerous, because their minds aren't fully developed yet, their brains aren't fully developed yet. Your brain is not fully developed when you're twenty-five-plus years of age, and we are giving them unfiltered access to the world, even the darker parts of the world. And that is not OK for the developing mind to grow properly, to build positive and good decision making. Sitting around all day playing a game where you're shooting and killing another entity is not a positive attribute that can be attributed to anybody. It's not good for you. We have grown to be a society that is OK with it.

Jay Reid:
And, and I got to admit I let Ryan play Call of Duty. I played Call of Duty with him.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah, sure.

Jay Reid:
The Call of Duty was fun, but you know what? I think it's even changed since Call of Duty because once these online games like Fortnite came on, there's something that just drags you in there to you're going to play it for 12-14 hours a day, they do, right?

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Jay Reid:
Brad Hudsonville lost his son two months ago. HaydensCorner.org or .com, one of the two. Hayden was 12. He was at home because of COVID. Playing Fortnite constantly. He made a mistake and threw his, he broke his monitor somehow, freaked out, and killed himself.

Kevin Hines:
Wow. My God.

Jay Reid:
At 12 years of age.

Kevin Hines:
My God.

Jay Reid:
Now I'm not saying that's Fortnite's problem.

Kevin Hines:
No.

Jay Reid:
Or they're responsible for it. But I'm going to say, guys, what are you doing to get back to do something for the mental health of the kids that are playing your game? Do you feel any sense of responsibility? Well, is there somewhere in that game? Maybe there is, because I don't know, right? Is there somewhere I can click a button and say, hey, I need some help and you'll connect me with a therapist or give me the number or something? Do you guys do enough?

Kevin Hines:
I would say doubtful, but there needs to be.

Jay Reid:
I mean, if there is one, Hayden didn't see it.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Jay Reid:
So are you guys doing enough because you're making enough money?

Kevin Hines:
That's right. You bet.

Jay Reid:
Is Instagram doing enough? Is Facebook doing enough? I don't think so.

Kevin Hines:
I don't think so, either.

Jay Reid:
Why? I mean, I got Ryan on Facebook because you know how easy it is to get on Facebook? I go ahead and say, oh, all you do is change the date, so it looks like you're older. I taught him that, every kid does that. Why is it that Facebook allows you to have an account and does not verify your age in any way? Why is that OK?

Kevin Hines:
They just want more users. They want more people to be addicted to their platform.

Jay Reid:
And Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, all of them Snapchat, man, to allow a child on Snapchat, where I can say whatever I want then it disappears. Like, wow, if someone explain to me the purpose and be able to send a message that disappears, that doesn't have a nefarious tone to it. I like Facebook because I'm journaling in my life, here's all the stuff that happened in my life, and it's there forever.

Kevin Hines:
There's benefits to it.

Jay Reid:
And I'm a Facebook fan or I used to be. I actually, I mean, honestly, I, after 10 years, I had to go off on Facebook two days ago.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Jay Reid:
It just has become an unhealthy place. I had to shut it off.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Jay Reid:
So I mean, if you ask me, how do we solve it? I keep coming back to, Kevin, as parents, we have to own the mental health of our kids. You can't wait for somebody else to do. You've got to ask your kids how they're doing. You've got, you've got to find a way to have a conversation with them barging into their room and saying, hey, talk to me, is he going to do it? Stay out of their space, but take them for a walk. Not every video game is bad, and every video game isn't deadly, like moderation, sure, an hour here, an hour there or whatever. But know what your kids are doing.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah. You know, I think that one of the things we know today is that neuropsychiatric disorder is the leading cause of disability in the US. Depression is a leading cause of disability worldwide. We need to reach out to people in pain, people, even people who aren't visibly in pain, we need to reach out and ask them the right questions. Are you thinking of killing yourself? If you made a plan to take your life, you know, how can I help you get past a hard day today? We need to create a more inclusive culture as a society, and we need to recognize the woes of the technological age and how they can be damaging to our kids. I think that's something that we can all benefit from and learn from in your film, I love when you talked in the film with Peter Mayfield of Whole Hearts, Mind and Bodies, The Gateway Mountain Center. Can you talk about his center and the work he's doing and your connection with him?

Jay Reid:
I love Peter. The day I spent with him was something that was very special, and he takes therapy to a whole different level. Is this not just a, you know, I think one of the challenges we have is that there's not enough good therapists and there's not enough therapists. And sometimes it's like you're going to talk to somebody for an hour and then you won't talk to me either for three or four weeks. And maybe you connected with them, maybe didn't. You can talk about that in the second, but what Peter does is he takes the toughest cases, the kids who are in the worst spots, and the hospitals would say, this kid's a really bad spot and his people would go and they'll be with them, and we'll just hang out with them and they'll be friends with them, and they're going to take them out and they can take him hiking, they're going to make him do activities, they're going to get them out into the world. Peter's real message is you've got to get moving, get your body moving, get your mind moving, start, be unstuck. And that's what he does. That's what his group does, and they have tremendous success. But you know what? His people aren't all trained therapists, they're just people who care.

Kevin Hines:
Oh, I love that. Sometimes it's the peer people that we need the most. Sometimes it's not the person with the degree, it's the person with the lived expertise and the lived experience that we need to talk to to get through the day.

Jay Reid:
And that's I mean, Kevin, when I watched your film, it was a couple of years ago, I watched it because I watched it right after, after Ryan. One of the messages I got from that is that when you were standing on that bridge, it's just if someone had to just take in the time to care and want to change your mind.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Jay Reid:
But no one stopped to care. And that, to me was like, people want to be cared for. And what I found from people, when I talk to them, is the same thing I got from your movie. If I ask you how you're doing and you say you're not doing good and the next words out of my have you thought about harming yourself? And parents who are afraid to say that, it's they'll say to me, I don't want to put those words in my kid's head and I'm going those thoughts are already in your kid's head. And if you bring them up, they're going to go, please, thank you, let's talk about it.

Kevin Hines:
It gives them permission to speak about their pain. That's right. You're absolutely right.

Jay Reid:
And that's what they want. They want to, like if someone had to come to you and said, hey, dude, what are you doing? You would have stopped and thought about it and said something you said in your movie, right? I just needed somebody to care at that moment. And by the way, this isn't just we're all clear what Kevin and I are talking about isn't just kids. This is everybody today.

Kevin Hines:
Runs the gamut of ages. Yeah, you're right.

Jay Reid:
Especially with this pandemic. I mean, I see it in people's faces. I'm on Zoom calls all day long and I'm talking to people and I've seen people go like this over the last 60-90 days. People used to be really high and happy, and I'm like, oh, I got to check in on you. I see it in their eyes. I hear it in their voices. They're struggling.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Jay Reid:
Your friends are struggling. You've got to talk to your friends. You've got to talk to your spouses, talk to your neighbors. Not in large groups, though, small groups.

Kevin Hines:
Can you tell us about your friendship with Dr. Mark Goldstein and the work he's doing in suicide prevention? I'd love to hear about that.

Jay Reid:
You and Marc did a great documentary together, too.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah, we did.

Jay Reid:
He loves you. He thinks he thinks the world of you. As you know, Mark has become a buddy, a friend, a mentor, someone I can go to advice. He spent, I can't remember some 40 years in psychotherapy and being.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Jay Reid:
And he used to take the worst of the worst cases out of UCLA when they, they didn't know what to do with them. They would call Dr. Mark up and say, this person's in really, really bad shape. You're the only person we can refer them to. And in all, his 25, 30 years, 40 years, whatever it is, I can't remember, doing that kind of work, he never lost a single patient. And that's rare. It's so rare. He is, in this space, one of the smartest guys I've ever met about how to talk to kids, when you watch my movie, especially the part the Dr. Mark and I did together about a seven words.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Jay Reid:
It's so powerful. You want to know how to talk to your kids? Seven words, watch, you know, Google Dr. Mark Goldstein, get seven words and you can watch our film. But that man, I mean, I've been, I've had the pleasure of speaking in a whole bunch of different places with him. We'll go together and he'll speak and I'll speak, and I learn something from every time I talk to him. I think he's one of the most underrated people in the space because he's got one of the best messages.

Kevin Hines:
You shared with Dr. Goldstein, Mark, you share with him that you broke your arm out of rage. In the film, I remember there was a piece of the film, not to give away too many spoilers, but there's a piece of the film where you have a cast over your, I think it's your right arm, right? And I saw that part first, my immediate thought I don't know why I thought this was because maybe, maybe because of your nature and the way you speak and your mannerisms, but because you don't know that well. But I just I'm fascinated by your story and your efforts and your work in suicide prevention and what you've been through and what you're doing to help other people, but when I saw the cast before you talk to Mark and the scene before that, I thought, I wonder if you broke that by hitting a wall or something like that. First thought in my mind, and I think I thought that because when I was in my first psychiatric hospital or third psychiatric hospital after my attempt, I remember punching the wall, being so angry at, at my life, at my situation, the fact I was locked up and I was punching the wall till my hand bled and I busted two of my knuckles. I mean, I just shattered them and my immediate thought when I saw that was, did he do that to himself? And then here we are in a few scenes later, you're talking to Dr. Mark Goldstein and you tell him what happened to your hand. So can you break that down? And.

Jay Reid:
I'm embarrassed about what might ...

Kevin Hines:
It might be embarrassing, but it's important for people to understand. He asked you the question, what was your emotion of those seven things? Lonely? Depressed? What was your emotion? And you said anger. Can you just talk about that? Because I think it's important for parents to hear this.

Jay Reid:
So I broke my hand. I was up at the cottage, my brother in law, my brother, we'd been drinking and I, days, one of them said something, it wasn't anywhere intentionally bad against Ryan or anything else, or me. I just snapped because I heard something that wasn't said. And I slammed my fist on that table, which was a really thick table as hard as I possibly could, and I busted my hand completely. I was angry. In fact, when I look back on myself during that time, I've calmed down. I mean, the last year, that first year, man, I was angry. I was angry at myself, mostly. I had thoughts of being angry of Ryan and angry at the world. I had a hair trigger, I had a hair, I had a fuse that could go off really quickly and easily. I'm lucky I didn't get in on some really bad fight with somebody because I had all, I was just looking for somebody to kick the crap out of. And I've never done that in my life, and that's how I felt. I just want to unleash my anger on something. And I think that night I unleashed my anger on the table. And that's probably a turning point, making me realize that, holy cow, Jay, you're not going down the right path you're in. So, you know, I doubled down on my therapy. So, so now, like I, even now, I've got someone who I talked to pretty much twice a week and text all week long because it's, you know, being in the space and living with the stuff I live with, you need to have someone to talk to. And I think that's a really important thing for everybody to realize is, look, I was that macho guy who did all this stuff and had a degree of success that a lot of people want, I don't think it's that special but other people do, I never thought you'd need to talk to anybody, I thought therapy was for people who had problems. As I've learned in this time is that, you know what? We should all have someone to talk to the same way as having a trainer in the gym is better than not having a trainer in the gym. It's having a, I don't think it was a therapist thing, it was a coach. You're always better with a coach. You want to get better at a sport, have a coach, right? Having a mental health coach is important, I think for, I would say for everybody. Having someone who's in your corner but unbiased to talk to about what's going through your head, I found this extremely, extremely helpful, and I wish that we could all get to the point we can have our own coach.

Kevin Hines:
I love that. I love that because I feel the same way. And when you have people to talk to that support you in your times of pain, you can be more resilient in the face of them. And that's one thing you talked about in the film as well, you talked about this lack of resiliency amongst our kids and how we can teach resiliency because we're not necessarily going to eradicate bullying, but we have to teach people how to be resilient in the face of that bullying, in the face of that pain, so they can survive it. I think that's really something that parents are not taught to do. I'm of the opinion that doctors who see parents who are about to have a child should educate them about mental health and suicide before that child is born. I'm also of the opinion that children should be educated about mental, brain, mind, behavioral health and spiritual health from the age of fourth grade on up, so that by the time they hit 16, 17, 18, 13, 14 15 and they have that depressive episode, they know who to talk to about it and who to turn to immediately, and they know not to keep it inside. That's the one thing, I think we have lost as a society is this idea that, that our children are vulnerable when they're young, we have to say, OK, they're 8, 9, and 10. They need to learn about mental health because they have a brain, and its capacity is one that can comprehend what mental health is. If they can understand what the definition is, they need to learn about how to battle it.

Jay Reid:
Absolutely. And I think it's really important at this point to actually mention something else that not every kid is going to try and kill themselves.

Kevin Hines:
Fair enough.

Jay Reid:
So you have to build some resiliency in children. Which we're not doing as much as we used to, right? The hot .... the talk is a TEDx talk I did back in November, which is got a lot of play and talks about what was like growing up as I was a kid versus what was like now and how we try to protect our kids from all the stuff that my parents never protected me from. And I'm talking about the simple stuff we protect them from, you got a bad grade, it must be the teacher's fault. No, you got that bad grade because you didn't study. And maybe you should study, right? I'm not going to go despite the teacher for you, right? You fell and skinned your knee, so maybe you shouldn't ride a bike anymore? No, maybe you should just skin your knee more often won't bother you so much.

Kevin Hines:
Or wear kneepads.

Jay Reid:
Or wear kneepads, exactly. Or you know what, when you break up with someone, a boyfriend or a girlfriend, yeah, it's going to hurt. And that's OK. And you're going to be OK, eventually. But it's OK to hurt right now. And as parents, and I think this is the danger zone, right, is that we talk about all this stuff like how you got to own your kid's mental health and you do all these things to protect them and make sure, but you've got to do it in such a way that they're still learning that pain is a part of life.

Kevin Hines:
They've also got to learn on their own, right? You can't just learn everything from you.

Jay Reid:
They ... it all from you, and they learn it's OK to feel, it's the most important thing I think we can teach our kids is pain's temporary. There's not a time in our lives where that worst moment doesn't change and become a different day. And that's what I think that my minimal understanding that people are depressed, they don't think it'll ever change. They think every day is going to be the same.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Jay Reid:
They think they're going to feel this way forever. And some of us just go, no, I'm feeling this way now, but when I wake up in the morning, I'll probably be completely different. And I think that's the best and you to be careful how you deliver this message, because if you preach to your kids and tell them everything's gonna be all right, don't worry about it, they're not going to listen to you.

Kevin Hines:
No, they're not gonna believe you.

Jay Reid:
No, they can believe, I mean, I like to say, you understand it's been the most is that on the brightest, sunniest day, I can see all sun and no clouds. But if you're depressed, all you see is clouds. You just don't see the world the same way. And I can talk to you all I want, but you're not going to see it the same way. I can't convince you I can hug you and I can love you and let you know it's going to be all right. But I can't convince you that it's a sunny day. I mean, is that right?

Kevin Hines:
That's correct. Total agreement. Look, look, look behind me on this, on this background there with the sun and the horizon. It's beautiful. But if I'm on that bridge like I was that day in desperate pain, ready to attempt because I believe I'm worthless, that sun is not going to keep me there.

Jay Reid:
You're not seeing the beauty.

Kevin Hines:
No, you're not, you're not seeing the beauty, you're only seeing the pain. And that's what you do is teach our kids how to balance the pain, understand that it's going to happen to us on a regular basis. It's inevitable, but suffering is optional. You don't have to suffer with that pain. You can thrive in spite of that pain if you, if you have the understanding that your mental health is something that can be changed. It can be augmented for the better, for you to feel better, do better and be better. My last question, a final question, is what words of hope can you offer to those people in pain right now who may be considering suicide, young or old? Like, what is Jay Reid say to someone going through it to help keep them here on this planet?

Jay Reid:
I think the only thing I can say is that you may not feel like it, and I know understand that you may not want to hear this, but try to listen. You are loved. Your parents love you, your friends love you. They might get mad at you and they might say things you don't like, but they love you. They would miss you. And you may not see it right now, but we all have special gifts that we're supposed to use when we're here, you may have not found yours yet, but you will. But if you're not here, you'll never find it.

Kevin Hines:
Mm-hmm.

Jay Reid:
You're here for a reason. And eventually, you'll find out what the reason is. Take the time, you're loved and if you feel this way right now, please tell someone so we can get you some help because it's not, you're sick at the moment, the same way as if you had the flu, you just need some help, and people want to help you.

Kevin Hines:
You're here for a reason. You're beautiful just as you are. Suicide is never the answer to the problem. It is the problem. Be here tomorrow and every single day after that. Jay, from the bottom of my heart, from my gut, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. I really appreciate your efforts. And your film is beautiful. I can't wait for people to see it. How can people reach you today or through your organization? How do people get get out to you?

Jay Reid:
If you go to ChooseLife.org, there's contact page on. There you go Jay@ChooseLife.org. It's my email address and thank you, we've got another program, we're going to take the film and it's now 90 minutes as a theatrical release, and I'm putting together a program where it will be 50 minutes long. We'll be able to show it, PTA is going to show the schools and then we'll have mental health professionals from the local community talking about what they saw in that film. So the film will be slightly different than how you see the theatrical release now, it's going to be more prescriptive, here's how you talk to your kids, here's the thing that you want to go do now, so it can be advice for parents on how to talk to the kids, Dr. Mark will be in it, Colin will be in it again, we're shooting them in the next couple of weeks so we can piece this thing together with combinations of my TED talks, the movie and new footage so that we have a event for schools to show to parents.

Kevin Hines:
Oh, fantastic. Jay, thank you very much. Talk to you soon. Be well and be your tomorrow.

Jay Reid:
Thank you, my friend.

Kevin Hines:
Margaret and I love sharing stories of people who have triumphed over incredible adversity. For more content and inspiration, go to KevinHinesStory.com or visit us on all social media at KevinHinesStory or on youtube.com/KevinHines.

Sonix is the world’s most advanced automated transcription, translation, and subtitling platform. Fast, accurate, and affordable.

Automatically convert your mp3 files to text (txt file), Microsoft Word (docx file), and SubRip Subtitle (srt file) in minutes.

Sonix has many features that you'd love including world-class support, collaboration tools, automated transcription, powerful integrations and APIs, and easily transcribe your Zoom meetings. Try Sonix for free today.

Margaret Hines