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Description

Suicide contagion, secure storage, and breakfast meats. This week, we figure out how to get cowboys to talk about their feelings with help from experts on the ground and suicide prevention advocates.

Resources:

• Take the Man Therapy Head Inspection
• Check out the Gun Shop Project

To learn more about the people and organizations featured in this episode and access critical information about suicide and violence prevention visit: https://lastdayresources.simvoly.com/.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs is the host. Jackie Danziger is our supervising producer. Our producers are Kegan Zema and Giulia Hjort. Hannah Boomershine and Erianna Jiles are our associate producers. Andi Kristinsdottir is our audio engineer. Music is by Hannis Brown. Our story consultant is Kaya Henderson. Executive producers are Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs. This season of Last Day is created in partnership with the Kendeda Fund, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation, Levi Strauss & Co, and Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund.

Follow Stephanie on Twitter and Instagram at @wittelstephanie. Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. If you want to continue the conversation with other listeners, please join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/lastdaypodcast.

By the way, we have two whole other seasons! Go listen to them wherever you’re listening right now. You can also get premium content and behind the scenes material by subscribing to Lemonada Premium on Apple Podcasts.

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Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and all other Lemonada series: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.

To follow along with a transcript, go to www.lemonadamedia.com/show/lastday shortly after the air date.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Dr. Rich Mahogany, Jen, Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Dr. Emmy, Karl Rosston, Nathaan Demers

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  00:00

This season we’re talking about guns, homicide and suicide. We’ve worked hard to ensure that our storytelling is as safe as possible. But we can address this issue by avoiding difficult details. Instead of warning who should and shouldn’t listen before each episode, we want to encourage you to press pause if and when you need to.

Dr. Rich Mahogany

Close your eyes and take a deep breath through your nose. Feel the breath travel down your neck to your belly now slowly exhale.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

Now this, is my kind of guy. Let’s just try it together. Okay, let’s just do it, ready? God, that feels good. Okay, so now that we are all centered and grounded and got the fucks out of our system, allow me to introduce you to Dr. Rich Mahogany. He’s a different kind of online therapist. In this video, he’s sitting in a padded arm chair in his wood paneled office. There’s a dartboard to the right and a taxidermy deer front and center. Dr. Rich mahogany could be Ron Swanson’s twin. These two guys have a lot in common that handlebar mustaches early kinda dudes love woodworking love bacon and they’re both fictitious.

Nathaan Demers 

Dr. Rich Mahogany is your quintessential man’s man. He is a stand-up guy. He is also a great clinician; we actually say he’s the hardest working therapist in the world. He’s had over 1.5 million people visit his digital office. But he really leans into what it’s like to be a man.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  02:14

That’s Nathaan Demers. One of the brains behind Man Therapy, a suicide prevention and mental health awareness website tailored specifically to men. Dr. Rich Mahogany is their creation. He’s offering the kind of therapy that would typically cost big bucks. Only here it’s available for free with the click of a button.

Nathaan Demers 

We really branded him as part football coach, part drinking buddy and part therapist. And what that does is that really disarms men, it makes it approachable, we use humor to really kind of be that side door to get it to feel acceptable to talk about mental health.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

Here’s the backstory on Man Therapy. 10 years ago, clinical psychologist Sally Spencer Thomas started the project after losing her brother to suicide. Her idea was to develop suicide prevention tools that would fly in the Mountain West, something that might have made a difference with her own brother. And in a state like Colorado or Man Therapy is based, these tools are necessary. Almost 90% of the people dying by firearm suicides in Colorado are men.

Nathaan Demers 

And we realized that if we or anyone waits until a man is in a state of crisis and has a loaded gun, we’re too late, nobody can intervene. So our teams challenge became how do we get ahead of this issue? How do we get men talking about mental health in the first place?

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

Enter Dr. Rich Mahogany, a certified credible messenger of the Mountain West. Man Therapy has also generated a ton of fun content, which isn’t something you think of when you think about mental health awareness material. They’ve got funny posters that are hung up all over the mountain west and stadiums, bars, gun shows, even urinals. Fun fact, I saw my first Man Therapy poster and a bathroom in Helena, Montana. And guess what? It made me laugh.

Nathaan Demers  04:14

Some of our posters, you know, they’re really catchy things like you can’t fix your feelings with a bigger jackhammer. One of my favorites in primary care offices is it’s like a physical for your feelings but you get to keep your pants on.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

See? Funny. They’ve also got a whole library of delightful little videos.

Nathaan Demers 

We have you know, breathing exercise. reeling in the background with sizzling bacon. We have grizzly bear cubs. Speaking of Montana wrestling, when we look at other public health campaigns out there, we very quickly noticed that a lot of them are just missing the mark for that pull yourself up by your bootstraps type of guy. But again, a lot of times men living in these highly rural Western states have just never come into contact with therapy. As the messaging they’ve just ignored, so all of a sudden we’re speaking in their language and we’re leaning into the very things that make them approach topics whether it’s stigmatized or not, rather than avoid them.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

This makes so much sense. As a person who makes things. I’ve always relied on the old adage, know your audience. If you’re talking to a four-year-old, you got to use sound effects and silly voices. If you’re talking to men in Montana, wrap your message and a piece of bacon, scream fuck a bunch of throw a Ron Swanson poster over a urinal, whatever it takes to reach the people who need help, which, when it comes to suicide, is often men. So what are the talking points that can actually break through the polarizing bullshit, the stigma around mental health, the knee jerk defensiveness around guns and the reluctance to talk about feelings I’m Stephanie Wittels Wachs, and this is LAST DAY.

Nathaan Demers  06:22

We’re coming up on 400,000 men who have completed our 20-point head inspection, which is a validated assessment which screens men for anxiety, depression, substance use, anger management, challenges, and trauma.

Dr. Rich Mahogany 

Now, to help me better recommend manly tips, activities and resources for you to explore in my office, I’m going to ask you to fill out a questionnaire about yourself, your feelings in your life. After you finish, I will use my patented Man Therapy calculator to evaluate your answers and provide you with some suggestions.

Nathaan Demers 

A lot of assessments when it comes to psychology, and I’m a psychologist so I can throw my own field under the bus are very dry. They are boring, you know, you go to your doctor’s office and you’re answering questions that, you know, are very face valid. What that means is have you been depressed in the last couple of weeks? If I’m a man and I say yes to that question, I know I’m gonna have a really tough conversation likely with my doctor in the next 15 minutes. So unfortunately, what happens is a lot of times men specifically are not open and honest in answering those questions. So the first thing that’s so important and why the head inspection is impactful is that it is confidential and anonymous. And then furthermore, we have a great doctor rich video, which basically says.

Dr. Rich Mahogany

Oh, and […] me. There’s nothing I hate more than […] except for maybe shopping malls, and spandex.

Nathaan Demers  08:03

So we found that men are passing this on to other men for the gag. The wind for us is that men are actually taking a validated mental health screening tool.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

Okay, so I was curious and wanted to check out this head inspection myself. But I am not a man. So I asked a few of my very manly coworkers to join me and record their results. Here we go.

Speaker 4 

Let’s go to www.mantherapy.org. Let’s get started.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

Okay, head inspection taken by over 300,000 guys.

Speaker 4 

Alright 20-point head inspection. Oh, he just pulled a fish out of a suitcase.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

Number one, how often in the last month did you get enough sleep to feel refreshed? Okay, I feel refreshed every morning. I feel alert and ready to go more often than not I feel tired most days but able to function. Exhaustion gets the best of me most days I’m gonna go I feel tired most days but able to function.

Speaker 4 

I’m gonna say I feel alert and ready to go more often than not.

Speaker 5 

On average. How long does it take you to fall asleep?

Speaker 4 

Like, I’m on my phone. In bed?

Stephanie Wittels Wachs

I’d say about 15-30 minutes. In the past month, how often have you felt sat down blue hopeless or depressed?

Speaker 5 

Once in a while?

Speaker 4 

I’d say about half the time.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

Most days. I’m pretty confident that is also not true.

Speaker 4 

Solid neutral.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs

What about suicidal thoughts or hurting yourself? Do you ever think about that?

Speaker 4 

Let’s skip that one for now.

Speaker 5 

In the past month have you enjoyed your favorite hobbies and activities as much as you normally do?

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  10:00

In general How do you enjoy the company of others

Speaker 4 

rarely have interest in being around others.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

How about sex? Any recent changes here?

Speaker 5 

I enjoy it as much as I usually do. All right.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

How easily are you angered?

Speaker 4 

Best about something most days?

Speaker 5 

When angry? Do you ever say things you regret? I do. I do think things but catch myself before they slip out.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs

How often do you get violent when angry?

Speaker 4 

In the past month have you felt worried,? anxious, or stressed out?

Speaker 5 

Most of the time.

Speaker 4 

I think that’s going to be in every day.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

How much do you drink?

Speaker 5 

Two to three drinks most days

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

often do you use drugs to get high?

Speaker 4 

I’ll say once a week.

Speaker 5 

After much deliberation your results are in see how you score below. anger and rage a okay. Depression a okay, anxiety. so, so, substance abuse a okay, whoa, I like this. I’m solidly so. So anger and rage. Hmm. so, so, depression, so, so, anxiety, so, so, substance abuse, so, so talking can be a pain in the ass, but it helps, especially with a professional. My one-on-one therapies feature all sorts of calming activities, like meditating yoga, and my personal favorite, fly fishing.

Speaker 4 

Okay, my 20-point head inspection results are high. So let’s see what he has to say. Okay, pretty serious tone coming out of what’s his face there.

Dr. Rich Mahogany

You may recall earlier when I told you that I hated BS. So I’m going to tell it to you straight. Here results have me worried. And needless to say, if a pretend doctor like me is concerned about you, you probably should get some help. On your results, I go into greater detail of what I think your problem may be. And I give you some suggestions for viable solutions. Please consider them and get yourself better. Oh, and if at any time you feel like you’re a danger to yourself or others, please click the red phone to get in contact with the crisis line.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  12:19

Wow. Okay, for a fake Dr. Rich Mahogany is pretty good at getting real. I mean, this was a pretty eye-opening experience for our little group. But the truth is, most of us are already in therapy. I can only imagine what it would be like to take this head inspection as a guy from Montana. Here’s Nathaan again.

Nathaan Demers 

And in a lot of our messaging, and if you go to man therapy.org You’ll see that a lot of our therapies and recommendations are actually called the one on none therapies, referring to the fact that you can do this for yourself as a first step to your mental health. That’s something that we know that these pull yourself up by your bootstraps men relate to, they want to fix their problems and challenges on their own.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

And that’s essential because in Montana, you kind of have to do it on your own, because there is a shocking lack of resources. But you know what, there’s a lot of risk factors. Remember Karl Rosston from episode one, he told me to fix my poker face before stepping foot in Montana. He gave us a rundown of what they’re up against.

Karl Rosston 

It’s not a single issue. There are multiple issues. I mean, the highest risk populations we have an abundance of all veterans, American Indians, middle aged white guys. access to lethal means stigma, lack of behavioral health, if you split the state in half and go east to Billings, we have one psychiatrist in all of Eastern Montana. We have poverty, we have the altitude piece. It’s not a coincidence that if you go right down the Continental Divide, they’re all the top states for suicide. And then of course, we have isolation you know, we have we have 6.7 people per square mile, the national average is 88.7. So I mean, that’s the type of stuff that we really try to emphasize is that it’s a multifactorial issue.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  14:14

in the words of Dr. Rich Mahogany, […], that is a lot of risk factors. So what’s a guy like Karl to do? Eat breakfast with our team, of course. After the break we talk suicide clusters, stigma, and chicken apple sausage. A married couple named Mary and Barry and I loved their gym. Okay, I would like the chicken apple sausage and two egg, over easy. I might have one of them. One of them it’s a biscuit. And the hashbrowns with all this stuff in it, when in Rome. When we finally met Karl in person, he took us to this great little breakfast spot called Steve’s diner. As you can hear, I ordered everything on the menu. Lesson a thing you might not know about me, since you only have access to me in your ears is that I love to eat, and I love a good diner. But we are not here to talk about the insanely delicious homemade chicken apple sausage that I long for to this day. We were there to talk about much more important stuff than breakfast meat.

Karl Rosston  

Whenever there’s a suicide in the school, there’s a ripple effect. I have yet to see 1 in the 14 years I’ve been in this job, isn’t a ripple effect.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

Yep. While everyone else around us was enjoying their bottomless coffee and hashbrowns with all the stuff in it. Our team was interviewing Karl, about suicide clusters.

Karl Rosston  16:05

I mean, the Kalispell school district up by flathead, they’ve had five suicides since June, in their high schools. And Anaconda, Buick, Poplar. Livingston. Stevensville, I can whip off the names I could, I mean, every year, there’s a couple.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

As of last October, the Kalispell community had lost nine teenagers to suicide, several involved unsecured firearms. And in 2019, 72% of all youth suicides across Montana, were completed with firearms. Losing one young person is a tragedy, losing nine in less than a year is unfathomable.

Karl Rosston 

It becomes the whole focus of the whole community. What are we going to do about this, but they all want an immediate fix. And that’s not that’s not how it works. And so it but the problem is, is that two months from now, three months from now, they’re gonna go back to normal. That’s and that’s not that’s not a knock-on Kalispell, that’s just that’s how it is in most of the communities that deal with this, because of the immediacy of it. And because it’s a youth suicide, which makes people react stronger. But long-term change doesn’t always grab hold. They want something to fix it now. There’s no easy fix.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs

So I gotta say, after the past few years, I’m starting to think easy fixes do exist. They’re just not easy to enforce. Let’s look at COVID. How do you stop the spread of this deadly disease? Wear a mask? Pretty easy, right? Turns out, not so much. Because in America, especially in places like Montana, freedom is priority number one. So a community might want quick fixes in the aftermath of a tragedy. But it’s tricky. If that same community isn’t willing to change their behavior. As the person in Montana responding to every single suicide, it can feel like Karl is pushing a very heavy boulder up a very steep hill. And there’s no time to rest. In fact, when we went to visit, there was a potential cluster happening in Helena, the very town where we were eating chicken, Apple sausage,

Karl Rosston  18:26

We had two in one week. And it was a similar situation, the […] where it was done in the parking lot across the street. Kids were around, they thought it was active shooter, so they shut the school down initially.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

Can you imagine how traumatic this would be? You’re a student. And your school is already reeling from the loss of one suicide, then you think you’re in an active shooter situation, only to realize it’s another suicide this time, basically on school property. The entire school was in shock.

Karl Rosston  19:02

But I went in and worked with the staff. They’re a mess. And what I was trying to tell them is this isn’t over. You have to prepare yourself that there’s going to be more because there always is. And it’s gotten to the point that when I’m working with a school superintendent or I get a call from Pittsburgh saying there’s a suicide that might remind me and responses, identify your high-risk kids reach out to them, connect with them now. Okay, because schools know who their high-risk kids are. And when they teach them every day, we had a case of one of our schools where there was a couple of suicides in a week, and I went down to do a crisis debriefing with the staff the following day, and they had two young men in their office. Both of them were suicidal, both of them had access to firearms. But, both sets of parents said my kid doesn’t need to talk to the damn therapist. And don’t you dare tell me what to do with my guns are my constitutional right so even Are the kids who are concerned and worried, sometimes it’s the parents that struggled to come along at the same pace. And that’s not uncommon.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  20:14

This takes us back to the idea of freedom at all costs, even in the face of their kids peers dying. These parents don’t want to look at the risk factors in their own homes. But Karl has opinions about how we can appeal to even the most resistant members of his community.

Karl Rosston 

Really what we want to promote as awareness, recognize the risk factors in your kid, have your kids assessed, 86% of parents who lose a child to suicide didn’t even know their kid was depressed. Because as parents, we lose our objectivity. It’s hard for us to imagine our kid wanting to die. Right. So that is a major reason why not have a, a an assessment done at your school, to give parents the information they need to make the best decision for their kid.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychiatric Association, universal screenings for depression should start at 12 years old. With the help of the local children’s hospital, Carl is working on implementing this exact sort of tool in 31 schools across Montana. If a kid screens positive for depression, they are matched with a therapist that day. Now, this is a brilliant, easy fix. But again, in order to put it into action, you need parental support.

Karl Rosston

Montana has a cowboy mentality, that sense of independence, we take care of our own, we don’t like to talk about our problems. And especially when it comes to issues like depression and anxiety. We see it as a weakness, and we see ourselves as a burden. And that’s something that’s significantly different than other areas of the country. I mean, New York, it’s cool to have a therapist, everybody has a therapist. And one of the numbers I’ve heard is at the state of New York, one in five people see a mental health professional. Heck, we don’t have that many people to see a dentist in Montana. So I mean, there’s as a significant issue when we talk about getting people to access our primary care and our behavioral health system.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  22:21

As of 2018, Montana had 18.5 Psychologists per every 100,000 residents, that is 5,400 people per psychologist.

Karl Rosston 

So even people that do want to go, there’s often not enough psychiatrists. And many times we have to travel great distances to get to a place and that’s that whole world case. So it makes it really difficult.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

That boulder is not getting any lighter. But he is making progress slowly, but surely.

Karl Rosston

We have a long way to go. But I mean, I think about where we were 14 years ago, when I started this. No one wanted to hear about it. I couldn’t get schools to do things I couldn’t I couldn’t get anybody to do anything. Been gradually, probably a really in the last probably seven or eight years, we’re starting to see a small, slow, slow movement, where we’ve gotten support from the legislature. There’s been bills passed that are recommending all schools have the teachers are trained in suicide prevention. Problem is, is we can’t make it scalable. Scalability across the state is hard because I can I can lead a horse to water but I can’t make them drink. And that’s frustrating to me because I like I have confidence that if we do these things that can make a difference. And I can’t get people to do it. I can’t make anybody do anything.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs

You can have all the evidence-based solutions in the world. But none of that really matters in the face of freewill. I mean, we are always preaching the harm reduction principle meet people where they’re at and we still believe in that deeply. But what happens when you meet them there and they slam the door in your face. More on that after the break. We’re back and we are at the Center for Mental Health in Helena, Montana. This is the message we’ve been getting at every house we visited even the families that have lost people. Everyone’s armed. Everyone’s armed, not everybody. You seem like a black sheep though around here. Absolutely. This delightful black sheep is Dorea, aka Dory Melmoth. And the woman laughing in the background is Jen Preble. Jen and Dory volunteer with AFSP, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. They’re actually the ones who connected us with all the families you’ve met in Montana this season. They lead workshops, organized support groups, and sometimes their work leads them into unfamiliar territory.

Jen 

I was at a gun show, and that was the first gun show I did. In fact, I was absolutely terrified.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs

Jen, like a fish out of water, was at the gun show manning the AFSP booth to talk to people about locking up their guns. But even though she was there offering advice, she was a total newbie herself.

Jen 

I had to learn how to even hold a gun. And I had to learn how to put the gun lock on. It’s just a different idea.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  26:06

Surrounded by gun experts, Jen stuck out like a sore thumb.

Jen

You know, we’re the only ones that don’t have guns at our tables. But we have all of the ways to secure your weapons,

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

Did people just walking by you and scowling or what? What have you, a badass? Look at you.

Jen 

Ah, man. We had some visitors. But no, for the most part it was walking by and what are you doing here and I’m not gonna secure my weapons. And you know, there were definitely some tough people.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

We met our fair share of the tough people Jen’s talking about when we attended a different gun show in Montana. Actually, I didn’t even get out of the car. I just sat in the back seat people watching and was shocked to see as many kids like my daughter’s age, she’s eight, coming out pelting rifles and handguns and ammunition alongside their adults. When my producers got back in the car, they painted the picture of a small-town flea market where everything is gun themed. Think bullet belts, magazines, with photos of Trump printed on them, get it MAGAzines, bumper stickers with sayings like, if you ain’t done and cowboy up, go sit in the truck, like me. And of course, lots and lots and lots and lots of guns of all shapes and sizes. So yeah, I can totally see how a suicide prevention booth wouldn’t be the most popular attraction at this event. But Jen tried everything to get people to buy in, including what she thought would be a fun engaging game for the whole family.

Jen

So if you picture like Wheel of Fortune, there were different questions. And so the question and then you can lift it up, and there was an answer, like, you know, what’s the leading cause of death in Montana? And, you know, how long has suicide been? You know, a concern? And have you lost somebody to suicide? Did you see signs and symptoms? Or what are some common signs? And so it was just a way to get people engaged, but nobody did it.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  28:21

Not one person wanted to spin a fun wheel? Not even a kid? Okay, let me just call bullshit on myself real quick. To me, this gun show environment seems terrifying. And to me spinning a big wheel sounds fun. But if I take even a moment to consider the scenario, from the perspective of the people just enjoying a day at the gun show, it starts to look very different. For them, this isn’t scary. It’s a community event with people who like what they like. Also, spinning a wheel with a bunch of depressing statistics is not fun. This is why I for example, would not be a credible messenger in this environment. In harm reduction terms, I could go to where people are at, but I can’t meet them where they’re at. You know, Jen learned pretty quickly that it’s hard to have an impact when you’re an outsider peddling an unpopular message.

Jen

And we have people with their whole family. And you know, we really pled to them of like, you have children. Talk to me about your guns. None of your business. It’s my family. I mean, we were like let’s just hand out a cable lock like cable locks are universal. You can use them to secure your weapon your gun. Many people think that damages their gun. Okay, so let’s go trigger locks. Well, they’re too expensive. I’m handing you one it’s free. Can you just put it on your gun? Well, no, because then I have to, you know, hit this password or use this key. Or sure I will, but I’m going to leave the key in it. Here’s we’re giving away we’re raffling off, you know, a safe, a gun safe, whatever. Well, yeah, I’ll put, you know, 10 of my guns in, but I’m not going to put the last one in.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  30:13

What was the hardest conversation you think you had that day?

Jen 

I think the hardest was about like, I can visibly see their family. And I can also visibly see my own experiences and those that I’ve lost to suicide. And I can see the possibility. But I don’t know how to break that translation barrier. I don’t know how to communicate that. Because it doesn’t happen to them until it does.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  30:40

So no one thinks that will happen to their family. But they’re also not that interested in learning about that risk when they’re out for a fun day. It feels impossible to make any progress. But Jen and other gun violence prevention advocates in the Mountain West aren’t giving up on gun owners.

Dr. Emmy 

If they’re choosing that specifically to protect their family, why would they be okay with someone in their family dying by suicide? I mean, that’s kind of the implication if we stop the dialogue, and we don’t think about how to reach them in ways that are acceptable, and therefore effective.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

That’s Dr. Emmy. She’s an ER doctor and co-founder of the Colorado Firearm Safety Coalition.

Dr. Emmy 

We’re missing a huge opportunity to help and you know, we shouldn’t be just a sad about kids from gun owning households dying as kids from non-gun owning households.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs

So much of her work is devoted to finding effective ways to reach people who feel unreachable. And often, it’s just a matter of finding common ground.

Dr. Emmy 

You know, I’m a parent, I have kids in school, I can’t even with school shootings. But I also know that my kids are far more likely to kill themselves than be killed at school. And why are we not having that conversation with the parents who have firearms at home? And in a way, that’s not just about saying, you are a bad person. Because this is your lifestyle.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  32:08

I mean, God, but this is directly linked to but my kid wouldn’t. It’s such a deep, like, it’s so stigmatized, it’s like, my kid would never, like that doesn’t relate to me.

Dr. Emmy  32:22

And the problem is that lots of kids do. And so I, my take on it. And the way I talk about it is like, I also don’t want to think that my kids are going to have sex in high school. And I don’t want to think that they’re going to try drugs, or drink or do any of those things. What do you say about my kids? You know, you’re totally right. They’re probably will.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  32:39

I’m telling your kids will be drunk and having sex.

Dr. Emmy

But as a parent, it’s my job to think about those possibilities, and to hopefully teach my kids how to be safe through all of those things, right? Because if I accept that, and I accept that my kids are probably going to go through some rough times, like being a teenager sucks, and adolescent brains are even more impulsive. So when we explain it to parents in the sense of suicide, and suicide risk is not because there’s something wrong with your kid. We all go through rough times and social media and all of this now, how do we teach our kids to get through those moments safely. And you as a parent, one of the biggest things you can do is make sure that your teenager can access firearms, like you can still go hunting with them, you can do stuff but don’t let them have unsupervised access at home because they get I’ve seen kids in the hospital I saw a 12-year-old ones who was bullied at school and came home and attempted suicide and died. And this was a decade ago and I still think about it because the parents were like he had never had any issues. So I think this is where the larger conversation about suicide needs to be going and sort of changing it from a weakness or a problem with the person and rather a risky period that probably most of us will go through in our lives.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs

It was at this point that I started to realize that this gun debate was challenging everything I fundamentally believe as my worldview like sex, drugs, all of that I know abstinence is not only stupid but completely ineffective and yet guns, it flips a switch in my brain and I immediately am like, everyone needs to stop what they are doing and just say no. I’m having this like very intense like wakeup call right now because like I think abstinence only is fucking crazy like it does not work so like I’m it’s just hitting me now how like, an abstinence only approach to anything is probably, I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud. But it’s probably not. You’ve done magic today here.

Dr. Emmy  34:43

Well, I think, it is sort of a funny wake up call for people I think sometimes include including, you know, people who are maybe very pro things like needle exchange programs, right? But very anti-gun and then to real I was like, Well wait a second is kind of a similar model and like, how do I wrap my brain around that?

Stephanie Wittels Wachs

To help wrap my brain around that? Dr. Bets reframed the conversation away from guns.

Dr. Emmy 

I always talk about cars. I mean, most of us drive probably every single day, right? And think about what cars were like, you know, even God, when I was a kid, I remember riding in like the middle of the front seat in the like Bucket Station Wagon with no airbags and no seat belts. So think about what has happened in transportation safety over the past decades. And it’s complicated. There’s a bunch of things, you know, yes, there were regulations around things like drunk driving, the regulations, like cars had to have safety features. But you know, back in the day, when they thought about putting things like seatbelts and airbags in, there was initially pushback from the auto manufacturers who said, no one will pay for this, no one will buy it. And now people buy cars precisely for safety features. And we don’t drive yet less, right. I mean, if anything, were driving more, but when you look at what’s happened to motor vehicle, crash death rates, it’s a phenomenal public health success story, where they changed cars, they changed roads, they change human behavior, these policy, education, incentives, all of that, to make it safer for us to drive. So we didn’t take away the cars. Yes, there, you know, we did some things to regulate who can use them, and when and teen driving and things, we made the car safer. So I always use that as a model, because we can be safer without removing the thing that potentially is causing the injury risk.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  36:39

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. This was like, the third time in my chat with me that bells were going off in my brain. Like, yes, this feels like something. We’re not going to get anywhere, as long as firearm owners are afraid that people are coming for their guns. So let’s not do that. Instead, let’s make guns safer. So if we think about making the guns more like cars and putting seatbelts on the guns, how do I put a seatbelt on a gun? Like, what? Can we stretch that a little further? And what does that mean?

Dr. Emmy 

So I think, in injury prevention, we sometimes think about the ease. So I want to talk about that for just a second. So the ease or education, engineering and enactment or enforcement. So education is a big one, right? Like think about cars. You know, new drivers have to go through driving, standard driving courses, we have huge public media campaigns about drunk drive drunk, we have, you know, all kinds of ongoing educational efforts to get people to just try to be better drivers. So for guns, and for suicide, in particular, that’s like, educating people about the risks of suicide, about how a firearm increases the risk of death. How do you know if a buddy is having a rough time? What do you say? What do you do next? What are your options for storage? What is safe storage mean? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  38:03

This whole show was built around the question, What could I have done differently to save my loved one’s life? Education means fewer people left behind asking that question. But not all education is created equal. I mean, just think about your own experience in school, which teachers did you love, the ones that lectured you, or the ones that engaged you and found creative ways to get you to care. Man Therapy is educating people with bacon and bad words. Others are using statistics and scare tactics. So that is education. Very important stuff. So what is the next D?

Dr. Emmy 

We also think about engineering. So with cars, we made them safer, right airbags and all that. So we can engineer better locking and storage devices like quick access safes that people are willing to use, maybe where you can change the passcode or the pin easily. So if a spouse is worried, you know, he or she could change the pin so that at risk person can’t access the gun. People do things like put pictures of their loved ones on their lockbox, as a kind of reminder, before you use this gun, remember your kids, right? Anything to get you to sort of pause before you take action.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs

Engineering doesn’t have to be super technical. In a moment of crisis, a photo of your kid on your gun safe can be just as powerful as facial recognition software. It’s just something to ground you and remind you that you’re not alone. There are lots of great solutions out there big and small. But how do we actually put them into action?

Dr. Emmy 

And then enactment and enforcement is policy stuff. So yeah, there are some policies I think that could help and I’m not talking about gun control. I’m talking about things like for example policies in health care systems. That part of treatment of suicidal patients is discussing access to lethal means. enactment of legislation that provides funding for those kinds of programs.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  40:02

Dr. Emmy has been putting the three E’s into action with an initiative called the gun shop project, which started in New Hampshire, and has been replicated in 20 other states. So far, Dr. Emmy, Colorado’s Firearms Safety Coalition have seen great success in their state by appealing directly to shop owners.

Dr. Emmy 

If you look at all firearm deaths in Colorado, 73% are suicides. And that is a mind-boggling number for many people. Because when you realize the majority of those people who are dying, are firearm owners, I think retailers ranges, its instructors and so forth really realize it’s their community that they’re losing. And of course, they want to do something because none of us wants to lose a loved one or a friend or a colleague.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

These retailers are really well positioned to start these conversations. They’re literally selling guns, so no one has to be worried that they’re trying to seize your firearms. They just want you to make it to tomorrow, and then keep coming back.

Dr. Emmy 

At the local level, firearm advocates and retailers work with public health professionals to give out information posters, wallet cards with the crisis hotline, really helping engage retailers and ranges in suicide prevention efforts. And it’s been very well received, and fire retailers have had input into what posters should look like and all of that in terms of thinking about what’s the messaging that will appeal most to their customers.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

Colorado has gone one step further, they’ve created an online database and a map data with icons showing the different places people can store their guns, blue for law enforcement, red for shooting ranges, and gun shops, yellow for special storage facilities. The site also offers helpful hints, like what questions to ask before storing your gun. Are there any costs associated with storing my gun. What’s the exact storage process? How long can I keep my gun there. Starting here makes it feel like gun owners are part of the decision to temporarily store their firearms outside the home, it lowers the stakes and makes it feel less scary. This work has to be approached slowly. And that means accepting slow progress. It’s taking time, but Dr. Emmy has seen the conversation start to shift as new partnerships build trust across communities. With that said, there are still a lot of people holding on tight to their beliefs around guns.

Dr. Emmy  42:34

I do feel like, as I’ve been working more and more in this space, I get really, I would say even angrier at people on both sides of the debate sort of farther out on this spectrum. And that I think sometimes really offensive language that gets used that I don’t think people even mean to be offensive, but kind of is, you know, even terms I’m gonna say like common sense gun legislation. But that’s sort of implying that people who are not in favor of it don’t have common sense. And like, that’s just kind of rude.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs 

I truly never considered that phrase to be rude before. But after she said it. Yeah, I can totally see why that’s not the best language to use if we’re trying to reach people.

Dr. Emmy 

So it’s really to me, it’s about trying to have compassion and empathy for people whose lives are very different from mine in all sorts of ways, right? Because the anger doesn’t always work. And usually doesn’t work actually. And I think you can actually learn a lot from other people. Like it’s amazing. having these conversations and collaborations has just made me think about things differently and made me re look at parts of my life and reconsider the way I do things and maybe change or maybe not, but pushing ourselves to go outside of our bubble is a really good thing. And I think it’s really about approaching people with options and education that is evidence based, but it’s also acceptable to them. So that’s kind of the harm reduction piece of what’s going to work for their lifestyle. Because just yelling at each other is not going to do anything.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  44:23

Listen, as we learned at the top of this episode, it feels good to yell. It feels really good to yell way better than having to sit there and do nothing or listen to stuff that you fundamentally disagree with. And don’t worry, this isn’t where we tell one side that they need to bend over backwards and sacrifice their values in order to make the other side more comfortable. But I think it’s fair to say that we could all be a little more empathetic these days. We don’t have to agree on everything and we certainly don’t have to share the same life experience in order to treat each other with respect have an understanding and dare I say, compassion. Dr. Emmy is one of the most empathetic people I have ever met. And guess what? She herself is not a gun owner. She says it fundamentally doesn’t fit in to her worldview as a public health advocate. And yet, she has so much respect for the people she is trying to save. Like, when she said, we should care as much about kids dying in households that have guns as households that don’t. I mean, of course, of course, if our job is to save lives, we have to reach as many people as we can. Because she knows we cannot make any real progress, which means saving lives without them. Following her lead, gives me an idea of how I, an angry fed up exhausted, so over at all liberal could do the same.

CREDITS

LAST DAY is a production of Lemonada Media. Jackie Danziger is our supervising producer. Our producers are Kegan Zema and Giulia Hjort. Hannah Boomershine and Erianna Jiles are our associate producers. Music is by Hannis Brown. Executive Producers are Jessica Cordova Kramer and me Stephanie Wittels Wachs. We are thrilled to partner this season with the Candida Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation, Levi Strauss and Co, and Everytown for Gun Safety. You can find more mental health and legal arms restrictions resources along with info about some of the voices on the show in the show notes and at lemonadamedia.com/show/lastday. If you want to hear more LAST DAY, we have two whole other seasons. Please go listen to them wherever you’re listening right now. And while you’re there, I implore you to take a moment to rate review and subscribe. It is the number one way that you can help the show. Join our Facebook group to connect with me and fellow LAST DAY listeners at www.facebook.com/groups/lastdaypodcast. You can find us on all social platforms at @LemonadaMedia. And you can find me at @wittelstephanie. You can also get bonus content and behind the scenes material by subscribing to Lemonada Premium on Apple podcasts. I’m Stephanie Wittels Wachs. See you next week.