 What is up everybody? This is Chris from the rewired soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution And I'm joined once again by doc with dr. Mark Goldstein. How you doing mark? I'm doing great Chris Thanks for having me back again. Absolutely. So you and I were chatting a little bit before we started recording this And there's something that I've I've heard a little bit about and you were mentioning to me, which is chronic Suicidality and I know what it sounds like, but can you explain it and maybe why people haven't heard of it? Well, you know, I'm a suicide specialist or I was and I did it for 25 years and I hadn't Heard of the term now. I guess people could say chronic suicidal ideation but to me that sounds clinical it sounds sterile and I found out about the term chronic Suicidality From a comedian named Frank King and if you look up Frank King, he has something called the mental health comedian So he he's very entertaining. He has this great comedic voice and he says it never changes. This is just the way I talk I'll talk about suicide this way. I'll talk about marketing your company this way You got to like the guy and what he was saying is when he gives talks on mental health He says I have two conditions have them all my life. I'm basically depressed and I have chronic suicidality I said, so what's chronic suicidality? But he said, well chronic suicidality is You know when you're out there you get a parking ticket. You look at the parking ticket ticket and you say to yourself Well, I could go fight the ticket. I could pay the ticket. I could ignore the ticket or I could just kill myself And and you just say that and he says I don't have any plans to kill myself But chronic suicidality, it's kind of like well worse comes to worse. I can always kill myself Well worse comes to earth You know, I don't get this job. I can always kill myself And people don't talk about it because if they say it people then weigh in like are you serious? You know, should we get you help? Should we send you somewhere? And here was the interesting reveal when he talked about it I said, you know, I didn't know what to call it I don't have chronic suicidality But I do have chronic If I died in a plane crash, it would be okay If I didn't wake up tomorrow morning, it would be okay. Now. I don't think that What really gets in the way of that Is I have my wife my children. I now have a grandchild and so It really doesn't get close to that and I think if I didn't have those deterrents It might get close to that. Well worse comes to worse I'll die of natural causes. But I still have it in the airplane. I mean, I don't try to bring the plane down But I'll tell you when when the plane gets turbulent, I get relaxed I get relaxed and I ask the person next to me. Are you gonna eat that biscotti of yours? Are you gonna finish that? Yeah And and here's what I drilled down With frank and I thought huh there you are and you're frustrated by something You didn't get a job, you know, you you get fired or something and you say well, I can go get drunk I can look for another job ring always kill myself if you drill down at that moment that something doesn't go right You're upset You know, and if you lean into the upset you might be oh, I'm upset and I'm afraid I just got fired I what am I do? I gotta work bring in some money and and then I thought I wonder for what's possible is that When you run into a roadblock like that and the roadblock stops you enough so you can't go forward You and you don't have the alternate solution yet you turn inward you take the hit And then I thought what there are some people Who we call champions who when they reach in they have something called heart Meaning they can take the hit at least in the sport You may not be able to take the hit in their private life where they're getting divorced and getting caught up in scandals and everything but But there are some people they run into adversity And they don't say I'm gonna kill myself They reach and they have something but then there's others who when they reach in they plummet And when they reach in there's nothing there's like mush Yeah, so Just real quick why Why do you think that is like I read a lot about just neuroscience and Neurotransmitters or the lack thereof and things like that What do you think that missing thing is that there because when I look back at you know my You know suicidal ideation I had There was no hope right like I was just like, okay If it happens like if I die from using these drugs or whatever there's really nothing like I even though It was crazy because I had a son I had friends family members my both my parents You know fortunately are still alive and everything like I had things but like you're saying when I reached in There was nothing to fight for like is there any kind of explanation or do you have a theory about that? Yeah, absolutely. I think what happens is my so my theory is when When we're infants And one of the things that's really advising my theory is I just became a grandparent for the first time a little over a month ago Congratulations. Thank you. And and so and it's interesting my true north centering Is I will think of my grandson I mean every day, I'll just think of him You know, I'll get a picture and I'll do my best to go over there and just sort of hold him And he's starting to make eye contact. I don't know if it's meaningful, but you know, I'm looking in his eyes He's looking in my eyes And so what's informing what I'm about to say is he's helpless He's powerless. He's not even at the point where he recognizes his hands You know, he yet, you know, we're waiting for he when he gets mesmerized by his hands and he is Because because see at that moment when he gets starts to see that He's starting to have some self control But right now he's just lying there And if he's hungry cries if he needs to be changed he cries So he has no control Which means that whoever he's looking at is he's totally dependent on to take care of him It's not unlike by the way if you have a pet dog and the dog Has pain they look at you. They don't know what it is make it go away. They just sort of look at you like what's going on As I look into my grandson's eyes Now this is probably total projection But I'm looking into his eyes What I see him saying to me is am I going to have a good life? Was it a mistake that I was born? Is the world going to be a good place? Will ai You know Make me Take away any job I'll ever have What's going to happen to me? So he's looking up at me with basic trust because you can't do anything I'm thinking what if I when I looked into his eyes And and my daughter and son-in-law. They're just wonderful. So so But what if he was looking up into my eyes and their eyes And what do you saw instead of someone tuning into where he's at because he can't go where you're at You gotta go where he is that because he's helpless. What if he's looking up and what he sees is someone saying Can you finish feeding because I have a spinning class? Yeah, will you go to sleep already? I mean You know, I'm just I'm just gonna put you in the crib because you won't stop crying You know, you'll cry you'll fall asleep, you know and and and you can't hold them forever when they're upset Well, but what if when he what he's internalizing Is that there's a term that came up by a guy named D. W. Winnecott? And he talked about good enough parenting and good enough parenting means you're not there Welded to them. It's that you're not away so long that they feel they're totally neglected and abandoned So they don't feel abandoned you come back and there may be times when your voice is a little firm, but you're not yelling at them So a good enough parent, you know Practices going where that baby is until the baby in the first six months starts to be able to move its arms and legs What if what they internalized while they were helpless and vulnerable was abuse and neglect? So imagine what happens is they have that core. The world isn't safe Eric Erickson talked about psychosocial development and at the core of their personality, they have basic mistrust They don't have basic trust. They have basic mistrust And so they learn, you know to develop certain sort of self-reliance and then what happens is Geez, they're walking sooner than the other kids. They get achievements. It puts a smile on mom and dad mom and dad Are happy and so what you think is oh, they're gonna connect with me because I'm making them happy I'm not a burden, but what they're happy about is your achievement They're not focused on you as a person They focus on what you can do and they're taking credit for that Imagine you start to achieve all kinds of things and they're taking credit for that That's my kid and you love it because you're putting a smile on it But you can see how a number of people who keep achieving things and say, you know, I'm not happy You know, oh, well I'll achieve more and that can run for a while that can run until you're in your 20s or I'll be 30 ish But after that It can feel thin. Oh, I see the only good thing about achieving more is it feels better than failing Yeah It's not really fulfilling. Yeah, it feels better than failing. And why is that? Because down deep it doesn't make up for that core Big messed up. So here's what I'm saying for people who can be chronically suicidal Or even passively. I don't care if I wake up It's that when they're feeling the hurt and fear How am I gonna face this and they reach inside my suggestion is that it reactivates Primal vulnerability Primal exposure and they're getting a taste of that and it's upsetting You follow me and some time And probably what you might have said to yourself if you were bathed in that for three four years Unconsciously, you know, when I grow up, I'm never gonna let myself feel this way You know, when I grow up if I feel this bad, uh I can't kill myself now that I'm three or four, you know, because I can't You know when I grow up If I feel hurt and afraid and alone, you know, I'm just gonna end it all So because that missing there's that missing course. So thank you for letting me be verbose And I I hope there was something in there. Yeah, no So something I'm always trying to do With myself is figure out the formula that came together for me, right? Like I went from Suicidal ideation drug addiction didn't want to live and you know With with many people from my experience people who I've worked with after they get clean or sober their suicidal ideation It gets even higher, right? so I look back and when you when you talk about like that reaching in and that that primal vulnerability and everything like that Like I I don't know how I went from hopeless to hopeful, right? Like I at some point at some point in this journey Something clicked where no matter what bad thing happened to me I knew it was gonna pass. I knew there was at least a possibility that things would eventually improve But I can look back to when I was having suicidal ideation or you know, I'm what I'm trying to get at is I'm asking you How do we or is there hope for people who struggle with this chronic suicidality because it sounds like They don't have any of that that hope to grasp for like so when that that roadblock happens when they run into that That wall, it's like well, you know You know, but like for me, it's just like now. They're like little speed bumps rather than a brick wall So how do we help people get from point a to point b where they have that hope? So let me try to and I've never been an addict or a alcoholic Channel that part of you and and see how that connects with suicidality So this is the addict alcoholic part of you speaking To the world in my head. I can't give it up. I know it's self-destructive I know I'm powerless over it, but it's holding me together. It's the bracelet holding all the charms together I know it's dysfunctional But if I pull the bracelet out All of the pieces of me will start falling to the floor and they'll keep falling And I will be instead of an alcoholic. I will be a broken lost mess Laying on the floor. I won't even have the energy to kill myself But something that I can't let anyone know Or let myself know is I really am dependent on this stuff I didn't I didn't ask it to happen But you take away my my by drinking of my drugs It's unbearable. So my hopelessness was Whether I'm a weak individual or I'm a shameful individual. I don't care what it is I cannot survive if you take away this thing. I went to blog several years ago drugs of the new parents And I said people who feel like emotional orphans sometimes Happen upon downers as they're as maternal energy. Oh, if I'm feel I want to be comforted. I'll hit the downers Have hot alcohol And then if I want to be pumped up by the data I never have I'll take speed at all. You know meth I don't need parents. But what happens? They don't want to let go of the drugs as the new parents because they don't want to go back to being the emotional orphan They were with nothing to regulate it. So they're regulating with that And so the idea is if you take that away from me, I'll fall apart And it may be that the so here I'm taking a chance It may be that the hopeless becomes hopeful when you actually see yourself Able to do without something that you never thought you could do without, you know, wow You know, I would have sworn to myself that I can't live without it. I know it's destructive But you know, I just made another day and uh, I had the urges when I lived without it That fear that the bracelet will fall It'll be uh, you know, when the bow breaks and the crater will fall So when you take that bracelet that's holding to me me together what I'm addicted to away, you know, I'm really not falling Am I Distracted no and so I'm wondering if where the hopelessness becomes hope is I can actually live without these things Whereas when I was addicted, I didn't think I could Oh No, you just described all of it. I remember in russell brand's book recovery talks about how the drugs and alcohol Were keeping us from killing ourselves because and like that that parent analogy you made That was good because yeah, it gave me those feelings that No other person could give me no girlfriend. No parent. No anything so So now, you know, obviously there's the lens of an addict and alcoholic, but You know, assuming from your experience many people who Are suicidal are not drug addicts and alcoholics. So I had a thing. I had a thing where I realized Okay, I didn't need that thing to hold me together. I can live my life So what's the solution? I guess, you know, I'm just gonna cut to the chase when it comes to chronic suicidality Is that something that you think people are just gonna have to learn to live with or is there something They can do such as therapy support groups or something where does it go away? Or is it lessened because I haven't thought of suicide in years, right? And maybe it's just because the drugs and alcohol are gone But for your average person with chronic suicidality, what what do they have to look forward to? Well, I think you can get through it and Uh, one of the things I recommend to people and they rarely follow it I hope they do. They feel better. I say Volunteer and organizations Will you directly interact with people who have nothing? And just do something with them so that when they look into your eyes and they say Thank you for showing up It does something Sometimes see what I've discovered about myself and I I'm re Teaching myself is Often when I'm feeling not good enough. I've been chasing after I've been looking at love and approval in all the wrong directions What's happened is I've looked for Love approval respect and recognition from people above me Why because they have power. I want some of that power. Yeah And and then when they don't give it to me or when they they're dismissive I get hurt. I get angry and and and that feeds my not good enough because there'll be times where I don't think consciously, but I'll wish bad things would happen to them You know, that's only that's only been recent that I've allowed into my Awareness that there's a dark shadow part of me that down deep You know Unwishes bad things would happen to people who hurt me so that I could take to light in that And I'm allowing that in because I know it's true for me and all human beings because it's just human But it's really released the part of me that well the reason I'm not good enough is because I have a dark part of me And people would be amazed to hear that coming from me because in the surface they say mark You're so caring. You're so empathic. You're the most compassionate person I've ever met yada yada yada And I do believe hopefully that's a part of my personality But I've been I've been discovering this dark murky shadow of me And it's interesting because I think one of the reasons I haven't felt good enough Is not from performance or lack of money because down deep. I don't have goodness I'm not a good person down deep anyone who wishes harm on someone and then takes the light in it There's nothing bad about you and I recently had a discovery about that because uh in some of my talks I talked about dropping out of medical school place and I made it through Person, you know the dean of students who helped me He's got a level of an angel my mind he saved my life and in my talks I ridicule the dean of the school who's about money and in my talks I say oh, yeah the dean of the school sent a letter of the dean of students saying Met with mr. Gulston. We discussed an alternate career. Perhaps the cello Everybody laughs And I'm advising the promotions committee that he'd be asked to withdraw and and so I've ridiculed him and recently I said If I was the dean of the school, I'd naturally want to cut my losses with Gulston He dropped that one through dropping out again He's probably never going to be a doctor. We're losing money on this guy, but he dropped that once he was depressed He's dropping out another time, you know, I don't want him to kill himself Well, I'd better send him over to someone who's better at figuring that out the dean of students And so I'm realizing it was the dean the un empathic dean of the entire school who saved my life by referring me to the dean of students So lately I've been apologizing. They're all dead. I've been apologizing in my head to the dean of the school And I realized there's a number of people like that who hurt me who I thought done me wrong Who really hadn't and there's something about I don't know correcting the record So I'm publicly now thanking the person that I've ridiculed and that's helping my lack of goodness And then here's the other thing that I've learned and if you're listening you may relate to this That if you're chasing after love recognition approval and respect from people above you too often They're trying to hold on to it and they withhold it because everybody's hitting on them But for every one of those people that I'm chasing after, you know, love respect approval and Recognition that I'll never get. You know, I have a pretty big profile And I've got hundreds maybe thousands of people Who are below me looking up to me and hoping I don't have feet of clay So all the people all the have-nots that can do nothing for me What I'm realizing if those have-nots which can restore my goodness Yeah, I go there and I look into their eyes and I just show up. I remember I was at a An NPR show and I was a temporary co-host with an African-American We did and we went to her evening class that she taught at evening education and there was no Caucasians in the evening class. There were mostly Asians Indians some Hispanic and some African-Americans and we were just talking to them about, you know Bettering their life and the ways they can think differently so that, you know, they don't get in difficulty Three of the students asked Linda Clegg, can we take Mark and the other guests out for dinner? I remember we went out to them and this little Team 4.4 foot 9 inch little thing named Esperanza. They're having dinner and she's staring at me And you know, we're just talking about them and who they could be And I remember we walked out of dinner and she's just staring at me as we're going to the parking lot And I said, what are you looking at? And she said people like you don't spend an evening with people like us And gee to to focus on the people less than you and be kind, compassionate and generous That's the ticket because I'll tell you You tell me if I'm right. I think a lot of addicts and depressed people down deep I actually deserve this because I'm self-absorbed. I don't think about anyone but myself Yeah, I may go through the motions and focus, but I don't care about anyone So when you actually go out and care about people who can do nothing for you, I think They can do everything for you because because you're you're that's earning worthiness So what does any of this range for you at all? Yeah, just all of it. So hey everybody If you're still tuned in mark if you have the time we'll make this a little bit longer because I have a personal struggle that ties directly into this but Yeah, so us addicts and alcoholics those of us who went through a 12 step program One of the biggest keys to it is being of service and everything you're talking about just spot on right so my feelings of Being useless is one of the reasons why I didn't mind death, right? I felt absolutely useless and they taught me to be of service do things for other people help them out Call somebody else and ask them how they're doing because I'm always thinking about me Like why aren't you calling me to see how I'm doing, right? And I and I I was just so desperate that I just started doing those things And people would pick up the phone and say oh my god. Thanks for calling I was having a really rough time and I would just sit there and listen, right? Not having to offer advice or anything just listen. They say, thank you. I'm feeling so much better And as I continued to stay sober I would you know sponsor other men. I would talk to new people I ended up getting a job in treatment And in the treatment center just constantly new people just absolutely hopeless coming in And the more I helped out people who had nothing to offer me absolutely nothing I couldn't gain anything from them because it's what I was taught I felt I didn't feel useless anymore, right when I would walk in the room and their day would brighten up I remember talking to you the other time and you talked about like one of your clients or multiple clients where They appreciated that they finally had someone who was actually excited to see him, you know And that's how I always was like working with people just like I would be excited like hey, we're alive today You know drug addiction is no joke Tens of thousands of people are dying every single year in the united states And I'm just like whoa, you're still alive. You know what I mean? And you know and they you know they they felt that and like that's where a lot of my joy came from I went from feeling useless to useful Right. I had nothing to offer anybody for 27 years of my life. I got sober and finally I found power in my story Finally, I found power in my experience and now I can give it back to other people It's one of the reasons I started this youtube channel Somebody said there's no such thing as true altruism, right? Because when I help others when I'm being selfless It makes me feel good, you know, so I do get a little little something in return So I absolutely agree and I think that's For anybody listening and like you said, this is something that a lot of us recommend but not many people do You know and so if you're listening to this try this, right? Have a conversation with somebody that you have nothing to gain from Let's let's talk about my conundrum mark. Can we talk about it? I'm gonna need your help. So here's here's the conundrum. So I've uh, I've been talked to give without receiving and it's something that I always do I I've been Um, just even starting my youtube channel. I just constantly do it. I don't expect anything in return I just in the in the context of youtube. I try to promote smaller channels I try to let them be guessed on my channels. I try to do so many things to help out other people and It's recently come up The people who I have helped where I've never asked for a single thing in return are Just turning on me and saying that I manipulated them and I'm selfish and egotistical and narcissistic and I'm sitting here like What like it's like it's just baffling to me And I was thinking about writing a blog post about it, but since we're already talking like how how do you Deal with that because I'm not expecting anything return But like I think the only thing I am expecting is just like a little common decency to be able to step back and say Wait, what am I talking about? This guy has never asked anything of me and all he's done is tried to help me I don't know. It's do you channel me mark? I don't know what's going on Um, so I'm gonna channel some of these people that are giving you a hard time. Uh, oh, okay So this could get us both hated