The HelpHUB: A Resource for Mental Health Support with Lisa Sugarman

In this episode of Carrie's Always Talking, Carrie speaks with Lisa Sugarman, a mental health advocate and author, who shares her personal journey as a survivor of suicide loss. Lisa discusses the creation of the Help Hub, a comprehensive online resource for mental health support, and emphasizes the importance of language in discussing suicide. They explore the stigma surrounding mental illness, the role of crisis hotlines, and how to support someone in crisis. Lisa also highlights the mission of the Trevor Project, which provides crisis support for LGBTQ youth. The conversation underscores the need for open dialogue about mental health and the resources available to those in need.

https://www.thehelphub.co/

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Transcript

Carrie McNulty (00:00)

Hello and welcome back to Carrie's Always Talking. I'm your host, Carrie McNulty. This is the podcast all about stories and connections. I believe that when people share their stories with one another, it's the main way we build empathy and humanity, which is something I think we need a lot more of in the world today. This is episode 15 of season two.

I have a guest and her name is Lisa Sugarman. She's an author, a nationally syndicated columnist and a three-time survivor of suicide loss. She's also a storyteller with the National Alliance on Mental Health, a crisis counselor with the Trevor Project and a mental health advocate. Lisa is also the founder of the Help Hub, the most inclusive and comprehensive online destination for mental health resources, tools

crisis hotlines and content to help support your mental health and wellbeing. She's also a facilitator for Safe Place, the virtual support group for survivors of suicide loss at Samaritans, South Coast in Boston, and the author of How to Raise Perfectly Imperfect Kids and Be Okay With It. She's also written Untying Parent Anxiety and Life It Is What It Is. All are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and everywhere books are sold.

She's a contributor to the Mental Health Television Network. And her work has appeared on calmarry Healthline Parenthood, Growth and Flown, Today Parents, Thrive Global, Little Things, The Washington Post, and Psychology Today. Lisa lives and writes in North Boston. When I tell you that I had the best time speaking with Lisa, I truly mean it.

She has created this website called Help Hub, which we're going to talk a lot about in our discussion today. That really provides a ton of resources for people struggling with mental health And truly what she's offering is a place to go where regardless of your background, gender, anything, there's

a place for you there to find some support or at least get the first step in getting you connected. So very excited to have her on. I love resources and connecting people to them. So when I was connected with Lisa, I was thrilled. And I hope that you can tell in our conversation how much I think we both enjoyed discussing all of these things.

So I'm really excited for you all to be able to listen. As always, thank you if you've been listening and following along with the podcast. Please rate and review wherever you can so we can continue to be noticed, because I just love doing this and it's a lot of fun.

And as always, my ask is that if you are able to donate to your local food banks or volunteer in your community in some other way, be it with your finances or your time, if you are able to, now is the time to be working together more to support one another.

If you want to come on the show, please reach out. my email's in the show notes and you can reach me there.

So let's not wait anymore. Let's get into the discussion with Lisa and I will talk to you all in another couple of weeks.

Carrie McNulty (03:07)

Hi Lisa, thank you so much for joining me.

Lisa Sugarman (03:09)

Hey Carrie, I'm so happy to be here.

Carrie McNulty (03:11)

What do we want to talk about today?

Lisa Sugarman (03:12)

I mean.

my God, we could go in about 50 different directions, I'm sure. ⁓ I mean, know before you hit record, you and I were just chatting a little bit about the platform that I founded just about coming up on a year ago. It's so hard to believe it's only been out there for a year and it's been like a labor of love for a long time. So I would love to talk about the help hub in whatever context you think serves you and serves the people who might be listening. We could certainly talk about any of the work that I do on the Trevor Project.

Carrie McNulty (03:18)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (03:44)

Lifeline, ⁓ I work with Samaritans. I do an awful lot on my own podcast, The Survivors, in terms of having conversations about suicide and that type of grief and loss. Talk about my survivor story. Pick a lane, wherever you want to go.

Carrie McNulty (03:50)

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Yes. ⁓ boy. I

mean, first of all, all of the above, but no, I definitely, want to hear your survivor story because I would be willing to bet that's what informed your decision to do so much of this work. So I think if we start at the beginning, that's probably going to be the best route to go. But again, all of it sounds fantastic to me. ⁓ you know,

Lisa Sugarman (04:15)

Well,

thank you.

Carrie McNulty (04:16)

As I said to you again, before we were recording, started my career as a case manager, as a resource coordinator. So connecting people to resources is still a hat that I'm always wearing, right? Like I'm always trying to find the resources, get people to what they need. And the fact that you have the site that we're going to talk about, which is really all about that is phenomenal and very much needed. So.

Lisa Sugarman (04:35)

I'm so glad.

I'm so, glad to hear you say that. And I'm always so excited to talk about it. And it is the foundation. I my story obviously is the foundation for everything that I do. And it's interesting. My story is only a piece of the reason why the Help Hub came to be. So I'll backtrack and I'll give you the context for all of it. So first and foremost, I mean, I'm a wife, I'm a mom. live here in Boston, just north of Boston.

Carrie McNulty (04:44)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (05:04)

which has always been home for me most of my life. I have two grown daughters and I've been a content creator, been a writer my entire life since I was old enough to hold a pencil by myself. I've been a writer, I've written for newspapers and magazines and done tons and tons of PR and worked for publishers and all the different pockets of writing. And more recently in the last decade or so of my life, I've become a book author. I was very, very firmly in the parenting space.

Carrie McNulty (05:18)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (05:32)

in the thick of it with my own kids. It's when they were younger. I started writing a column that got syndicated called, It Is What It Is. And it was really like heavily focused toward work-life balance and family life and that dynamic and raising perfectly and perfect kids. I did that for a really, really long time in lots of different places and ways and platforms. And then my story,

Carrie McNulty (05:34)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (05:59)

changed everything. My background and the revelation that came to light probably about a dozen years ago now changed my complete trajectory personally, professionally, changed everything. So I am a survivor of suicide loss. I'm a multiple survivor of suicide loss. And being a suicide loss survivor started for me when I was very young. I was nine years old. My cousin who lived not even a mile away up the street took his life.

Carrie McNulty (06:08)

Hmm.

Hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (06:26)

back in 1977 when I was nine years old. Yeah. So that was the first death I'd ever experienced. It happened to also be a suicide. And it was a crazy time in the world when people did not use that word. People didn't talk depression. People didn't talk mental illness. It was very, very taboo and hush hush. And yet my mom and dad, I'm an only child, so it was just me. My mom and dad found a way to explain to me that my cousins

Carrie McNulty (06:28)

Wow.

Mm.

Mm. Mm-mm.

Lisa Sugarman (06:56)

brain didn't work quite the way other people's brain worked and it was sick. And in the way that you can catch a cold or you can get the flu or you can have a heart attack, your brain can get sick too. So they did a great job of giving me kind of a sense of what we were dealing with without going too deep. But I understood. The following year, my father, who was a very, very fit, healthy, active, joyful man, died suddenly. I was told it was a heart attack.

Carrie McNulty (07:00)

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mm.

Lisa Sugarman (07:24)

I had no reason in the world to question it because again, back in the seventies, you could be the fittest person alive and you'd smoke two packs of Marlboro's a day. And that was my dad. So, disease ran in the family, all those dots were easy to connect. And so I never questioned that story. So flash forward now, I'm 10 years old when this happens, this is the narrative I believe I go through in my life. I go through school, college.

Carrie McNulty (07:26)

Right.

Right. Right. ⁓

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (07:53)

get married, have children. Now I'm married 20 years. I have two probably teenage, tween age daughters. And all of a sudden when I'm 45 years old, I find out very much by accident that my dad did not die of heart attack. My father died by suicide. Yeah, it was... ⁓

Carrie McNulty (08:08)

Wow.

that had to shake the foundation of everything.

Lisa Sugarman (08:14)

That just,

no, the way that I like to explain it, because people can totally identify with this, you know the mushroom cloud that comes from an atom bomb? That was it. That was what happened. It just completely obliterated everything that I believed to be true about my dad, about my childhood, about my relationship with him. He's my best friend in the world. We did everything together. So it rewrote.

Carrie McNulty (08:24)

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (08:41)

everything and it shut me down for a very long time. That's when I was kind of in the thick of writing parenting books and doing all these things. And I just shut it all down because I needed to just find my footing and I needed to process it. I took a few years. It really truly took a few years to do that. And I was a mom and raised my kids and worked in the school system and did my thing and had that outward facing life. And then I would come home and I

Carrie McNulty (08:48)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (09:11)

crawl into bed and just snuggle up next to my husband and cry my eyes out every night for three years because I didn't know what to do with it all. And he and my mother were the only ones at that time who knew for years. So here's where it starts to shift and here's where everything comes together. So a few years after I find out, this is now like close to a decade ago, I...

Carrie McNulty (09:16)

Yeah.

Okay.

Lisa Sugarman (09:35)

decide it's important, now my kids are a little older, I feel like they're in high school, I think that they deserve to know what's going on, the truth, and plus it's genetics. It's part of their DNA too.

Carrie McNulty (09:42)

Right. It's

for their benefit, really, in many ways that they know. Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (09:48)

Absolutely.

So Dave and I sat down and I explained to them what happened. They never met my father. My husband never met my father. So it was, you know, it was very abstract for them, but they understood and they felt for me and they were there for me. And once I talked to them and kind of talked to my family and my friend circle and everything got a little wider, then the narrative changed. Then all of a sudden I became very focused on sharing the truth of it.

Carrie McNulty (09:56)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (10:14)

not hiding behind any shame or hiding behind any stigma, just kind of owning it for whatever it was. And then I just got, just like, don't know, was this, this, this knowing this feeling that I needed to do more with this. was a story. It was unusual that you have to grieve the same person in your life twice. That's a very unusual thing. And in such a ⁓ radically different way. And so I just did what I do, which is to write about it. And I did that.

Carrie McNulty (10:16)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (10:43)

And the response that I got was so overwhelming that I kept doing it and kept doing it. And then I just went through just the cycle of, well, what else can I do? Where else can I go? How else can I make an impact? And I found the Trevor Project. And for those who don't know, the Trevor Project is the largest LGBTQ crisis lifeline for at-risk youth ages 13 to 24. And so I got certified about four years ago, almost four years ago, to be on their lifeline. And so that's what I've been doing as a counselor.

Carrie McNulty (10:57)

Mmm.

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (11:14)

and running grief groups with Samaritans for suicide loss survivors and working with the National Alliance on Mental Illness as a storyteller. So I was like finding all these places and doing all these things. So here's where the help hub comes in to play. It was not a thing. It didn't exist in my brain, in the world, nothing about a year and a half ago. And it was because of all the work I was doing as a counselor, crisis counselor on lifelines, listening to such a diverse cross section of people.

Carrie McNulty (11:20)

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (11:43)

with such an array of issues, whether it be mental health challenges, or maybe they were grieving a loss, or they were trying to come out and they were getting shunned by their family, or they were being abused, like all the things that a person would use a lifeline for. And I realized that one of the things that we do best, we hold space at Trevor Project and we help find resources. And I got kind of obsessed with, I really got obsessed with finding resources.

Carrie McNulty (11:55)

Yes.

you

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (12:11)

to connect people with what they needed in the moment. But what I started to realize, there was a pattern that even though we all go through the same types of things, like depression and grief and loss and suicide and abuse, we don't experience them the same way depending on what community we're in. So if we're in the BIPOC community, maybe we need something different. If we're in the elderly or the veteran community or we're a parent or we're in the AAPI community, it's...

Carrie McNulty (12:31)

Not at all.

Lisa Sugarman (12:40)

gonna look different, what we need. There wasn't any one place where I felt, I feel like you had to go to, there are definitely places that will support all of those groups and communities, but there wasn't one place where anybody could go to find everything that they might need or as much as they needed.

Carrie McNulty (12:41)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (13:00)

So I started kind of combing through the resources that I had and organizing them by category. you kind of look at things from the higher level, take a step back, you're like, ⁓ that's an obvious group and that's an obvious group. And then that's how the Help Hub was born. was just, I felt like it was a hub of resources, a directory that would put people with the resources that they needed when they needed them most, when they are at their least capable of finding them on their own.

Carrie McNulty (13:29)

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (13:30)

And

it's just exploded from there. I have a YouTube channel. I create lot of short form video content that talks about things like why we shouldn't be saying committed suicide or what to say to someone if they're really struggling.

Carrie McNulty (13:43)

Can we talk about that a little bit more? Yeah. So I think that we're moving away from that being the way we're describing. But in general, people still describe suicides as something that somebody commits, right? It's an act that they're doing. And that alone, and the way that it's worded, very, it often blames the person who is not here any longer. And so what would be a better way for people to phrase that?

Lisa Sugarman (13:46)

absolutely. part do you want to talk?

Carrie McNulty (14:13)

when they're talking about somebody who is no longer here because they couldn't be anymore.

Lisa Sugarman (14:19)

Yeah,

yeah. So, you know, when we use a word like committed, and I just want to isolate that word for a second, the connotation with that word is not always the greatest. You committed a sin or you committed a crime, and then you just attach that word to something like a suicide, which is at its root, a mental illness that creates the depression that creates the mindset that needs to make it go away. And so,

Carrie McNulty (14:23)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Lisa Sugarman (14:47)

it's beyond someone's control. like cancer is someone's condition that is beyond their control. That's a diagnosis that no one can, you you don't pick and choose. You get what you get, unfortunately. And mental illness is the same way. And so when we talk about it in terms of someone committing suicide, it feels like we're saying they committed some heinous act or crime. Exactly, exactly. so, and it stigmatizes that person.

Carrie McNulty (14:58)

Right.

crime. Yeah, right.

Absolutely.

Lisa Sugarman (15:15)

It does not give the person the dignity they deserve because at the end of the day, they were in so much pain, they didn't feel like they had any other options, and that was the only thing they had left to control was the outcome. So you ask the question, what do you say instead? Very simple substitutes. They took their life. They ended their life. They died by suicide. Those are the things that you can even say they suicided, which is something that's becoming more and more common. Yes.

Carrie McNulty (15:26)

Right.

Mm-hmm. Right, or they completed or yeah, that kind of thing.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (15:45)

Yes, yes. It just, changes things. It takes away the blame. It takes away the stigma and it gives that person back their dignity that they deserve.

Carrie McNulty (15:55)

Right.

Right. So often I think family members or people judging from the outside say that suicide is a selfish act and that it's, it's, people didn't try hard enough or there's this idea that, that the option to be here was there and they decided to take the easy way out or that kind of speak. And that's always been tough for me working in this field because I always come from the place of knowing that people are truly doing the best they can. Right. And so, you know, I've done.

a lot because I've had a lot of clients who have either attempted to not be here ⁓ or have family members or people close to them that have been successful in completion. And we've had to do a lot of talking about the fact that it wasn't that they didn't love you or that they didn't want to be here or that they weren't doing the best that they could. But at the time, that was the only decision they felt that they had that they could make. And when you educate people on how to view it differently, it can be healing for them, obviously, right? ⁓

And I think it takes the blame out of the situation in general, because people feel like they could have been able to do more. there's, you know, ⁓ like the person that is no longer here and then the people supporting feel like they could have done more. And so I think just the way we talk about it and changing that can heal the people involved so much more than having it be this horrible act that somebody committed for whatever reason, right?

Lisa Sugarman (17:19)

without a doubt, without a doubt, yes to all of that. And it is that language, language is at the root of our belief systems about everything. And because those belief systems are rooted in the way that we talk about those things and getting back to the heart of it and kind of repairing the damage that's been done by the language that's been used is how we change that narrative going forward.

Carrie McNulty (17:27)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (17:46)

I want to talk about something that you said because it really resonated with me because I was in that cohort for the longest time of people who genuinely in my own heart, it was never anything I walked around sharing. I probably really never told a soul, but in my own heart, because I was exposed to suicide so early in life before I was really fully, my brain was fully matured and I really had a good frame of reference.

Carrie McNulty (17:47)

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (18:14)

instinctively believed after my cousin took his own life back in the 70s that suicide was a selfish act. it wasn't anything that anyone taught me. I didn't learn it anywhere. It was a very much a personal internal belief system that came from who knows where. And I carried that all the way through my life into adulthood. Again, very quietly, never spoke about it to anyone. But when I found out that my own father

Carrie McNulty (18:21)

Yeah.

Right.

Lisa Sugarman (18:44)

had taken his life. That's when there was, mean, it was such a seismic shift in me on so many levels, on all the levels, but I started looking at reading, watching everything that I could possibly get my hands on and digest about the suicidal mind. What does it mean to be mentally ill? What is someone who's standing on the edge thinking, feeling, why are they there? What I needed to understand because

With a lot of people, I'm one of the people, we didn't have a clear cut answer of why my father took his life. He didn't present like he had any mental illness. You would have thought he was the most joyful human you had ever met who loved life and his family. And yet there he was making that decision out of the blue. And then you have the other kind of group of people who it's much more obvious. They talk more openly about it. You know that something's wrong. So.

Carrie McNulty (19:19)

Hmm.

Right.

Lisa Sugarman (19:42)

I, you know, it was such an unbelievable shock to me when I realized it was my own father that I needed to kind of try to somehow understand in the absence of knowing like, what was his exact why? I had to at least understand the mindset. And in doing that, was unbelievable, Carrie. was like almost instantaneously after I started consuming all of this info from all of these other people all over the world.

all of a sudden it just something clicked, literally clicked in an instant. Like how could you possibly ever think that something like that was selfish? When you recognize that a person is battling an illness that they cannot control and it's overwhelming their life and their mind and their sensibilities and they just want the pain they're in to stop.

Carrie McNulty (20:23)

Yeah.

Right. And a lot of the times people don't even necessarily have the plan to not be here. They just want to what they're feeling to stop.

Lisa Sugarman (20:37)

Yes.

Carrie McNulty (20:37)

And

that's, you know, if any of us have ever suffered with anything medically or have gone through things and you understand the feeling of, my gosh, I don't know how much more of this I can take, right? And to have that be your day in and day out and not feel that there's any hope because that's what depression does, right? I mean, it robs people of hope of possibly seeing a different way. And the longer you're in it, the harder it is to remember that it ever felt any different. So, you know.

Lisa Sugarman (20:58)

Yeah.

Carrie McNulty (21:03)

A lot of the times people are in the mindset when they do this is that they're doing people a favor because they feel like they're so difficult to be around and so hard to love that things would be better. And that's the really crappy. I mean, there's so many crappy parts about having depression, but I think that's the really hard thing is that it convinces you that you're unlovable too. know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (21:21)

Yeah, and unworthy and would be better off without you. Yeah, so it's

a really, really, really hard place to be.

Carrie McNulty (21:27)

Yeah. ⁓ Wow, I really appreciate you sharing the shift in your mindset too, you know,

Lisa Sugarman (21:35)

Yeah, well, I think it's important. mean, I've encountered so many people who are where I was, who believe what I believed. And it's so interesting when we have conversations back and forth and I explain to them where my head used to be and why, and what caused that shift. I see the same shift happening in them. And it's a beautiful thing. And I'm not out there trying to convince anyone.

Carrie McNulty (21:40)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (22:04)

of

anything. just out there trying to give people the benefit of my own experience. It's only one singular perspective. I've had an unusual experience and being a suicide survivor, suicide loss survivor in and of itself is fairly unique. You look in a whole crowded room of people and they're a handful, but it's not like it's everyone in the room. And then

Carrie McNulty (22:10)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (22:32)

to lose the same person twice and discover it was a suicide so many decades later and have to come to terms with all that. It's just been a gift to me to be able to put my experience out into the world and watch it have a positive impact on other people who may have been struggling where I was struggling not long ago.

Carrie McNulty (22:53)

my gosh.

hearing your story allows people to look at it differently because they get to know you.

And if we get to know you a little bit and, this is Lisa's perspective and this is why she feels that way, then we can consider it. It's for something about the human condition where it seems like unless we have a direct connection to something, we have a hard time believing it or validating it. So you doing what you're doing is making a huge difference. Just being so open. And I think also what an awesome way to honor your dad.

Lisa Sugarman (23:21)

Well, it's funny that you say that because in the last several months, I've been working on a very, very big project. It's been a five year long project kind of, yeah, in the wings and that's coming to fruition now. And it's a body of work that I'm so proud of and excited to share with the world. And that's coming this spring. But I genuinely have had this incredible sensation lately with all the work, whether it be the help hub or the...

Carrie McNulty (23:26)

Mm-hmm.

⁓

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (23:50)

podcast about suicide survival that I have and this project, I just feel like I'm doing it with my dad. I feel like we're doing it together. And I can't really articulate to you how it is that I feel that way. It's just one of, it's again, it's a knowing. It's a thing that I just believe to be true. And it's a beautiful feeling.

Carrie McNulty (23:56)

Yeah!

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's so awesome. Yeah, to be like, he's with me and he's in on this and he agrees and supports and yeah. And it takes the stigma out of that story. I think it so makes sense that you had to take your time with it to work through it, But then now you want to tell and want to talk about it and want to share and make it be something that we can all talk about because that's so important. That's how we get rid of the shame. You know, we talk about it.

Lisa Sugarman (24:34)

Exactly.

Exactly. And every one person that talks about it openly is also a permission slip that someone else is getting that says, ⁓ I can, this is safe. I can talk about this. Yeah, sure. And that the more of those we accumulate or the more of those we pass out, the better off we are because then our army grows against that stigma.

Carrie McNulty (24:44)

Yeah.

I can

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (25:04)

And then eventually the stigma has no power left. When we kind of hit it head on and run toward it versus away from it and be afraid of it, then that's when there's no power left to it.

Carrie McNulty (25:11)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Do you feel obviously no pressure at all, but do you feel comfortable sharing how you came to find out the truth of your father's situation? Yeah. Okay.

Lisa Sugarman (25:23)

⁓ sure,

sure. And it's not for anybody listening, it's not some wild, involved, dramatic story. It just isn't. It was just a very innocuous conversation that I had with a cousin that I bumped into. My husband and I were having lunch. ⁓ I live in a very small town, Little Harbor Town, north of Boston. And my husband and I were just having lunch. And one of my cousins who

Carrie McNulty (25:32)

Yeah.

Wow.

Lisa Sugarman (25:52)

didn't live in our town full time. She was there visiting. hadn't seen each other for a really long time. She's a little older than I am. And she just happened to buy and she sat down and how are you? And we're all catching up and how are your kids? How are your kids? And the typical catch up questions. And it took me by such unbelievable surprise when in the course of asking how my kids were, who I think, like I said, they were in high school close to it.

Carrie McNulty (26:07)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (26:21)

Out of absolutely nowhere, she asks me if either one of our girls, we have two daughters, do either one of your girls have any of the same mental illness that your father had? And I'm, yeah, for anybody who's not seeing Carrie's face right now, like I can see Carrie's face right now, Carrie's horrified. And I was, yeah.

Carrie McNulty (26:42)

Nice to catch up. Hey, by the way, do your kids have any of the same mental illnesses that your father had? Right? ⁓

Lisa Sugarman (26:46)

Right, like here's the grenade, I'm gonna pull the pin and throw it on your plate and run away. So

I didn't know what in the hell that was all about. You know how you're like, you're in a situation and something catches you completely off guard and you're just like, ⁓ I did not know what to say. And my husband is like sitting across the table looking at me like, what the hell is happening? Because he, again, had never met my dad but knows as much about my dad practically as I do after we.

Carrie McNulty (26:59)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

What? Right.

Lisa Sugarman (27:16)

We've been together almost 40 years, my husband and I. So he knows everything. And he's like, what the hell was that? And so I think I was just so stunned by it that I just, I think I just answered the question and just said, I mean, they're both fine. They're all good, thanks. Because at that time they were. And it's ironic because within the several years from that point, going on to high school and then college as that age.

Carrie McNulty (27:17)

Yeah.

You

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (27:44)

often brings the, you know, the teen into twenties, that's when issues, yes, that's when those issues tend to emerge and anxiety presents and depression presents. And both of my girls ended up having issues with, both with anxiety and one with depression. And, you know, both have had their beautiful experiences with therapy and are big supporters of medication and have done such incredible work on themselves.

Carrie McNulty (27:46)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, like 18 to 20. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (28:11)

in their life and I'm so proud of both of them and we've had this incredible ongoing dialogue about just mental health and wellness in our family and it's just a complete revolving door that is a beautiful part of our family. But in that moment, I was like, what the living hell are you talking about? So she leaves and I'm kind of looking at my husband and then that was that. And now keep in mind context, I'm really unbelievably close with my mother who was 87 years old and

Carrie McNulty (28:19)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

What?

Lisa Sugarman (28:40)

lives in Florida and is summers here in Boston with us. So she was, you know, she was down the road when this happened and she and I ended up having lunch the next day and we're sitting and we're talking. And now keep in mind, I knew in that moment it was a weird thing to ask. And I was like, where the hell is this coming from? What does this mean? But I have to be honest with you. I didn't sit there thinking, what does this mean? What did I miss? What don't I know? I didn't think at least, I mean, clearly I was thinking at subconsciously not.

Carrie McNulty (29:04)

Right.

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (29:10)

I didn't run to my mom. I talked to my mother five times a day. I did not run to the phone and say, what the hell did she just say? Right, not like that. But the next time we were together, that next day or so, we're sitting and we're having lunch and we're talking about my dad and we're just reminiscing. It's what you do. It's what we've always done. Nothing in particular, just the old days. And out of nowhere, I have no idea where it came from. I asked her, it startled me because it came out of my mouth so fast.

Carrie McNulty (29:13)

You

Yeah, what is she talking about? ⁓

Yeah.

Mmm.

Lisa Sugarman (29:38)

Did dad have any depression at the end? And she didn't hesitate a second and she said yes. And then, mean, honestly, this will go down in my own personal life story as being the strangest moment of my life. I don't know where the question came from. I don't even really know who was asking it, but out of my mouth came, did daddy take his life? And my mother looked me right in the eyes and said, And in that moment, I mean, I think we were in a sandwich shop kind of leaving.

Carrie McNulty (30:01)

Mmm.

Lisa Sugarman (30:08)

the building as I'm asking this question and the look on her face and the look on my face, it was such a surreal and impossible moment. And I know we ended up in my car in a parking lot, a mile away from my house, and we were in that car for two hours, just crying and sobbing and in complete disbelief and what just happened. And my mother was so hard on herself. Like you can't believe how hard on herself she was for the longest time.

Carrie McNulty (30:25)

Hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (30:37)

She wanted to spare me that pain. was bad enough I had to lose my dad. That's why she told me the heart attack story to begin with. She's coming home from day camp. I'm getting her off the bus. I'm about to tell her her dad is gone forever. There's no way I'm layering a suicide on top of that.

Carrie McNulty (30:39)

⁓ Right.

Yeah,

Lisa Sugarman (30:52)

Yeah, and so she didn't and she vowed, it's funny. She told me that she made two promises to herself and she, my mom, she is a woman of her word. She kept them both. She said, I'm never going to tell her the secret. So she, my dad did leave a very short suicide note that was found and she read it once, flushed it down the toilet, assumed that somehow in some crazy way in my travels, in my life, being a sneaky little 10 year old kid, I would find that note.

Carrie McNulty (31:08)

Okay.

Lisa Sugarman (31:23)

wanted all evidence of it to be gone, never spoke a word about his suicide to anyone. The whole world knew it to be a heart attack. 35 years. Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah. But the second promise was, if Lisa ever asks me the truth, I will tell her. But why in the world would I ever ask her for the truth? I thought I had the truth. So there would have been no reason to ask until there was.

Carrie McNulty (31:29)

Wow, so much for her to carry. Oh.

Right.

I mean, I find it so interesting that this cousin that you probably had a million different interactions with throughout life all of a sudden just throws this out here. And then behind the scenes, your brain is connecting the dots in some way, right? Enough to ask this question. Very interesting.

Lisa Sugarman (31:54)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

and

You wanna know something more interesting? Okay. So, and I've never said this on a podcast. So I, my cousin lives in a different part of the country. As I mentioned, she's older than I am. She's actually married to my first cousin. I'm probably closer with her or was when I was younger than I even was with my cousin who she's married to. But.

Carrie McNulty (32:11)

Yes, always.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Lisa Sugarman (32:34)

Suffice it to say that we just are not, that we just don't see her. I don't talk to her. We bump into each other. They spend their summers in my hometown. Occasionally we see each other. There's always a lot of love and warmth, but we just, we don't communicate regularly. I don't know if she listens to any of my podcasts. I don't know if she listens to any of the interviews that I give or reads any of my work. have no idea. I have shared this story so many times, Carrie. I have never once.

Carrie McNulty (32:48)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (33:04)

had a conversation with her saying, by the way, it's because of the conversation that you had with me that I found out all of this. ⁓ It has never happened.

Carrie McNulty (33:12)

Wow.

Hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (33:18)

Yeah, it's just funny.

Carrie McNulty (33:19)

But so much has come from that conversation. Yeah, and what you're doing, and the work you're doing, and the resources you're offering people. just, kind of gives me chills a little bit to think that he is with you. He is guiding this. is like, mm.

Lisa Sugarman (33:24)

yeah, my whole life has changed.

Most definitely. Yeah, I believe

that in every interaction and every conversation, everything that I write. I believe this. There's just this, there's a drive that I can't explain to keep doing more. And, you know, I'm looking slightly off camera right now because I have a very small desk in my office that has room for one photograph.

Carrie McNulty (33:44)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (34:07)

Last summer for my birthday, I gifted myself a nice framed copy of the one and only photograph that exists of me with my dad. Because in the 1970s, my dad was like every other dad. He was the one behind the camera. I think I have six or seven pictures that include my father. And there is only this one with the two of us. And it's right there.

Carrie McNulty (34:23)

You

where you do your work.

Lisa Sugarman (34:36)

And it is the right here. It is

the I talk to it every morning. I say the same thing on repeat every single morning when I sit down at my desk. I kiss that photograph and I say, let's get to work. So, and now I'm going to cry. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, no, I know. I appreciate it.

Carrie McNulty (34:48)

Aw, I love it.

⁓ yeah. No, even if you did, that's welcome too. I sometimes get teary when people

tell their stories. I can't help it. I know, you you're supposed to be a therapist and you're not supposed to. Yeah. You saw my face, my reactions. I'm not a blank slate therapist. ⁓ No, especially not with like what you're saying is so like serendipitous and powerful and meant to be, I feel. So.

Lisa Sugarman (34:59)

Yeah.

I know and I don't believe that. I don't believe a therapist should be a blank slate like that. Not at all.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I agree.

Carrie McNulty (35:21)

So yeah,

as wild as that sentence was to throw out to somebody that you don't see often and you're just having lunch, I mean, it really did change everything.

Lisa Sugarman (35:31)

Yeah, it did. I you talk about watershed moments. You know, I mean, that was as big of a watershed moment as I've ever had in my life. So I look back on it often. think about it often. I reflect on it a lot. And, you know, it's it's it's hard. It's hard. There's there's a yin and yang to it because. Do I wish my father was here? Of course I do. Would I?

Carrie McNulty (35:40)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (35:59)

give up everything that I've done to have him here. Of course I would. But I also have this incredible gratitude for the ability to do the things that I get to do. And it's a strange place to be. I'm kind of stuck in the middle of this thing that I wish never happened, but I'm also still incredibly grateful that I can do what I do with it. So.

Carrie McNulty (36:03)

sure.

Lisa Sugarman (36:28)

It's a weird position. I'm not always sure how I feel about it, but I just kind of let myself feel however I feel about it in the moment.

Carrie McNulty (36:30)

Yeah.

think with grief, it is different every day. You know, it is different all the time, you know? And some days we have more acceptance and some days we don't. that, yeah. I wonder, do you think you ever would say anything to her about it

Lisa Sugarman (36:39)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I I definitely do think at some point, I mean, I'm sure that she has to know. I mean, if she's heard anything that I've ever said, there's no way that she won't know that it's her that I'm talking about unless she just doesn't even remember, unless it was such an innocuous moment that for her, it was just another time we saw each other out in the wild. I don't know. But I know for me, it was the moment that changed the rest of my life without a doubt.

Carrie McNulty (36:59)

There's no way she doesn't know. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Wow, and just even just with that, like it made it so that when your girls really did need help, you were in a better place to help them too. Like I just, it's so, I just keep going over it in my head. I'm like, and then this happened because of that. And then, yeah, yeah, wow. Yeah, ha. If somebody finds out that somebody they care about, if they are in the position to find out that somebody's not doing well.

Lisa Sugarman (37:32)

Yeah, it's very, it's serendipitous.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, butterfly effect for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Carrie McNulty (37:48)

or their depression's really bad, or they're talking about suicide and they don't want to be here, what can somebody do in their lives to help?

Lisa Sugarman (37:55)

there are a lot of different things that they can do. The first thing they can do is show up. Just show up. Show up without judgment. Show up with just an open heart, an open mind. Because what is troubling one person is so subjective. You may not think that's worthy of all the stress or the drama or the depression, but to that person, whatever it is that they are feeling is so real. So just...

Carrie McNulty (37:57)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Lisa Sugarman (38:23)

Take your own feelings out of the equation and take it at face value, number one. Number two, hold the space for them, whatever it means that you need to do, whatever you have to listen to. But I think the most important thing is, and these two things are two, they go hand in hand. Number one, if you really suspect that someone close to you is not okay, you have to say, and you say it just like this.

Are you thinking of harming or killing yourself? Like I'm worried about you. Are you thinking about doing that? And people, people hear me say that. Some people understand immediately why you have to say it so directly. Some people are absolutely terrified when I say, this is what you really need to say. If you want to know what you can say, they will help because they immediately think that that's going to implant some idea in the person's head. That is not how it works. It's validating to the person who is not okay that you see that they're not okay and that

Carrie McNulty (38:56)

Yes.

Yes.

Right, right.

Lisa Sugarman (39:22)

that you're accepting it at face value and that you wanna help and that you're honoring that they're not all right. So first you're asking them directly if they're not okay and they wanna harm themselves and the second thing is you ask them if they themselves would be willing to call 9-8-8 or a counselor, a crisis counselor if they know of one or a therapist if they have one or if you could help them and do it with them.

Carrie McNulty (39:30)

Yes.

Lisa Sugarman (39:51)

or even for them. That's what I would say.

Carrie McNulty (39:53)

Yeah.

Yeah. I love both of those points. I love that answer. I really do think that people are afraid to say the word. But I can promise you, if somebody's in that place, they're already thinking it. You're not implanting any idea. ⁓ And I think sometimes people get afraid that if somebody says yes, they don't know what to do. So I love that you followed it up with, and then here's what we do with them. Here's how we show up for them. Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (40:09)

Mm-hmm.

That's it.

Right,

right, because I think everybody instinctively wants to be there to be able to help the people in their life who are not okay. In theory, we want to be able to do that. In reality, it's absolutely terrifying to think about, if I show up for them and then all of a sudden they answer, yes, I actually am thinking of harming myself or no, I don't wanna be here anymore or yes, I do have a plan.

Carrie McNulty (40:27)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (40:47)

Well, now what do I do? Because

Carrie McNulty (40:48)

Right.

Lisa Sugarman (40:48)

now that's on you. The responsibility. Let's get one thing straight. It's not on you. That is not, it's not your responsibility to fix that person. It's not their therapist's responsibility. It's not their partner's or family's responsibility. It isn't. You need to show up as best you can. And if that simply is listening and saying, I'm here, I don't know what to do.

Carrie McNulty (41:06)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (41:17)

I don't know what to do for you, but I'm gonna show up for you anyway. Then that's the best that you can do, but it's not your responsibility to fix the problem. And as long as everybody out there has a resource in their pocket, like 9-8-8, that's the best place to start. If you don't know what to say, if you don't know what to do, if you don't know what resources to offer, if you don't know if that person needs an intervention or treatment, those are the people who...

Carrie McNulty (41:19)

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (41:45)

do know those things and who can help with those things and who can offer those resources. So you connecting the person you're worried about to someone like a 988 crisis lifeline, a counselor, well, that's also one of the best things in the world that you can do. That's how you help. That's what you do next.

Carrie McNulty (42:05)

Yes. Yes.

And if all of that happens and somebody still makes the decision because they feel that they don't have any other choice, that's also not your fault. Right? Yeah. And I can see how people who don't work in mental health every day can feel really overwhelmed by asking that question directly.

Lisa Sugarman (42:16)

Yes, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault.

Carrie McNulty (42:27)

But it makes a big difference because if you can talk about it as though it's not something scary and stigmatizing and all of that, then people are going to be more like.

probably relieved that they can speak about what's on their minds, you know? Yeah. Yes.

Lisa Sugarman (42:40)

Well, it identifies that person as a safe person

and that space as a safe, non-judgmental space. And I think that's key. And it goes back to what we talked about earlier about permission, giving people permission to show up as they are, giving people permission to share what's really going on. Because here's the essence of all of this. If we as individuals don't share what's really going on on the inside,

Carrie McNulty (42:49)

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (43:10)

How is anybody in the world around us going to ever know A, that there's something wrong and B, what it is so they can help fix it? I mean, I don't want to oversimplify it, but you kind of have to. That is the essence of it.

Carrie McNulty (43:16)

Yeah.

No, it's true. It's true.

And it perpetuates this idea that depression can give that nobody does care, right? If you don't speak up, then it perpetuates the idea. And sometimes when you're depressed, it's very hard to do. And not everybody in life can be as observant that something's happening. But really, if you say I'm not OK, that's the first step. And the people listening, the next step is, what do you mean by that?

Lisa Sugarman (43:48)

Yeah.

Carrie McNulty (43:49)

Are you safe? Are you going to hurt yourself? you right? ⁓

Lisa Sugarman (43:49)

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's worth, I think it's worth a second or two for you and I to talk about what happens when you can't see it. What happens when you can't see, or at least what happens when you can't see the obvious signs. Maybe it's just behaviors that change and you're not connecting dots quite as quickly and you're not putting two and two together and saying, wait a second, something's off.

Carrie McNulty (44:02)

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (44:18)

What does that look like? What might that look like? it could look like maybe, let's say it's a colleague, a work colleague, maybe all of a sudden out of the blue, maybe they've always been on time, maybe they've always been at their desk, they never take time off, maybe all of a sudden now they're coming in late or maybe they're not coming in at all, or maybe their appearance has changed, or maybe they're not really engaging as much.

Carrie McNulty (44:28)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (44:47)

Or maybe it's a friend and there's someone who was just always animated and always up for anything and always wanted to go out. And now they're not responding as much or at all. Or maybe someone's talking a little bit about, my God, I just don't want to be here anymore. I just don't want to do this anymore. Those are the things. Maybe someone's not coming right out and saying it, but sometimes, we have to take care of each other. We have to have more of a collectivist mentality.

Carrie McNulty (44:51)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yes.

Lisa Sugarman (45:17)

where we are actually each other's responsibility. We are.

Carrie McNulty (45:20)

Right. We

are. We're interconnected beings. We like to think that we're islands. We're not. ⁓ We need each other. And I think to what you're saying about things to notice with people, even somebody joking around like, ⁓ I should just go kill myself. Or ⁓ that seems like, ha. But take people seriously.

Lisa Sugarman (45:23)

Yes. No.

Mm-hmm.

Carrie McNulty (45:44)

Right? It doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt to say, like, you know, are you having a really hard time right now? Or is this just like a joke or is this like whatever, right? I mean, best case scenario, they're totally fine and they are joking. We want to make sure though that that is the case. We don't want to just hear that stuff. Or if somebody starts to do that a lot more often, or they just seem completely fed up with everything, or conversely, somebody who's been very down all of a sudden seems like they're doing fantastic.

Lisa Sugarman (45:44)

Yeah, you have to.

Carrie McNulty (46:14)

That is also a flag, right? ⁓ Or somebody that you haven't seen in a while who you know has depression starts to go on a bit of a tour where they're visiting all their friends or they're traveling around or they're, you know, ⁓ these are signs too. And, you know, within the past couple of years, I've lost a friend who that those were some of the signs for him, you know, and he did. Yeah. Yeah, it was really hard.

Lisa Sugarman (46:14)

huh.

behind.

I'm so sorry.

Carrie McNulty (46:39)

anything that you notice that's different, I don't have to watch people like a hawk, but if you know that they're dealing with depression or you know that they're dealing with some mental health stuff, or like you said, if they normally are somebody who seems very upbeat and engaged and they're not, it's worth checking in on people.

Lisa Sugarman (46:54)

Yeah. And I think the bottom line to all of it is no harm, no foul. Right? Right. Right. Right. Right. God, I'm going to cut you out of my life. Right. I'd like who, who would not want to know that someone cares that much to ask a hard question.

Carrie McNulty (46:58)

Right. whoops, you care about me? man, that sucks.

Mm-hmm. Yeah,

I love it. I love everything you're saying.

Lisa Sugarman (47:17)

Well, thank

you. I love everything you're saying. That makes this a great conversation.

Carrie McNulty (47:23)

Is there anything that we should cover that we didn't that you want to even like about it could be anything the work you're doing anything at all.

Lisa Sugarman (47:35)

⁓ well, I mean, there's, there are always, like I said earlier, a million different ways the conversation can go when I start talking about some of the things that, that I'm doing. I mean, the one thing that we did talk about a lot early on was my platform, the help hub. And, and I do just want to reiterate that it's a free platform. Absolutely free. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. People can just go to the help hub.co. ⁓

Carrie McNulty (47:38)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

That was what I was gonna ask. It's free, right? So anybody can access it. Okay.

Lisa Sugarman (48:04)

That's obviously where you can go to get the extensive, inclusive directory of mental health resources and tools and now treatment options. I've ⁓ partnered with recovery.com, who's the largest recovery provider on the planet. And we're working together to also be able to get people treatment. I'm the one, my site is the one that gives people.

Carrie McNulty (48:17)

Nice.

Lisa Sugarman (48:29)

the mental health resources. If you're in crisis, who do you call? If you're dealing with a grief attack, who do you call? If you need a support group, who do you call? And the folks at recovery.com take it to that next level. Like, okay, like I'm dealing with substance abuse or I'm dealing with a mental health condition and illness and I need treatment. Where do I go? So that was where the help hub fell short. But what's great now about this partnership is that we're like bridging to each other. So.

Carrie McNulty (48:32)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Ugh.

Lisa Sugarman (48:58)

what I lack, they make up and vice versa. So there's so much that people can find. have a very extensive toolkit section. So I've curated all these tools. One of the tools I have is what you and I just talked about. It's what to say to someone. It's an infographic, very short to the point. What do you say to somebody when they're not okay? What do you not say to someone who's grieving? Or on the other, because that's a hard conversation to have. Or what do you say? Or...

Carrie McNulty (49:16)

Mm.

yes.

Yes.

Lisa Sugarman (49:26)

How do you re-regulate yourself when you're having a panic attack and there's no one there and you need to do something that kind of brings you down, de-escalates you? So there's a really extensive toolkit section. People can download, watch, share, ⁓ print out, works for you. Save it on your phone. And all of those resources are there. They're free. The whole bottom line of the Help Hub is that

Carrie McNulty (49:32)

Mm.

Thank

Mm.

Lisa Sugarman (49:54)

It puts people with the resources and tools and support that they need when they need the most. And it makes it a click away. So I just wanted to reinforce the fact that, you know, I'll always say, first and foremost, if you're struggling and you're not okay, get in touch with your therapist if you have one. And if you don't call 988. And then I also will say, and if you're looking for resources, visit thehelphub.co and that's a pretty decent place for anyone in any community to start.

Carrie McNulty (50:24)

Yeah, I think it's so fantastic that you have somebody partnering that can help people with treatment too. And I will say in the current state of the world that we're living in right now, people need these resources more than ever. And they also with the threats to insurance and resources that way that we're facing, I have a lot of concerns for my clients and all people who are seeking treatment. It's wonderful to have something like this available, you know?

Lisa Sugarman (50:31)

⁓ huh.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I've been very, very fortunate to align with some incredible organizations. I do a lot of work with some of the online mental health providers like Better Health and Talkspace and Calmerry And they've been so generous to give all sorts of incentives for people to try their.

Carrie McNulty (51:15)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (51:19)

services if they can't find a therapist on their own in their community and don't have insurance and want to be connected with someone but maybe don't have the financial resources or can't get in because the wait list is too long. So I'm trying to just partner with people who, again, can help make it easier for people to get the resources and the tools and the support that they need.

Carrie McNulty (51:22)

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and

more immediate, Because if you're having a specific issue that is very specialized, so like for instance, I treat eating disorders as my primary, ⁓ there often is a wait list So even just as a bridge to have somebody that you can talk to and connect with in the interim while you're waiting for something that's more specialized or whatever it might be, just the idea of something being more immediate is wonderful. Like I said, especially right now, I feel like.

Lisa Sugarman (51:48)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, I feel honestly like we can't have too many resources in our pocket.

Carrie McNulty (52:14)

⁓

No, no, again, that's never going to be a problem. you were too helpful, you know, very.

Lisa Sugarman (52:25)

Right. Right.

Said no one ever.

Carrie McNulty (52:29)

Stop helping

so much, Lisa. It's too much help. Tell me more about the Trevor Project, Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (52:33)

just gonna stop.

We do.

So the Trevor Project has been around, God, I think it's close to now, I think it's 27 years or 28 years has been around. And as I said earlier, we're the largest LGBTQ crisis and support hotline in the world. We service the U.S. and Mexico. And people can call us 866-488-7386 or you can text someone 6 7 8 6 7 8 start and

Carrie McNulty (52:42)

Mm.

Hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (53:06)

Our demographic, it's LGBTQ youth in crisis ages 13 to 24. So that's like our sweet spot. That's like who our primary demographic is geared toward. We get calls from people outside our demographic all the time. People who are maybe not members of the queer community or people who are outside of 13, younger than 13, not as often for sure, but definitely older than 24. And we will never turn anybody away. We're there to help in whatever ways that we possibly can.

Carrie McNulty (53:10)

Okay. Okay.

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (53:35)

But we're helping teens in particular and young adults navigate anything that represents a crisis to them. And this is what you and I were talking about before. This is the nature of hotlines, whether it be the 988 lifeline or National Alliance on Mental Illness has a line, a crisis text line or us Trevor. All of these lines function the same way. They are not just a place where people call when they are suicidal. It's just it's not. But people think I can't call that.

Carrie McNulty (53:43)

Yeah.

Yeah.

And less. Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (54:04)

unless I'm suicidal,

that is false. Yes, you can. We're there if you're having a crisis. What constitutes a crisis for you might be something that is completely innocuous to me and vice versa. So if you're dealing with, for instance, we get a lot of calls from youth, LGBTQ youth. I've had so many people come out to me. So many people use the pronoun that they really wish they could use but can't in their real life or use the name. I just, the other day, was talking to a contact

Carrie McNulty (54:15)

Right.

Lisa Sugarman (54:33)

who I always say, what name can I call you? When we're talking, I don't wanna say, hey, what's your name? What name can I call you? And they're like, what? What do mean? I said, well, I know you have a name, but maybe that name that you have is not the name that you want to be called. And this person was, mean, you know how you can just hear when someone's getting choked up, it's a pretty obvious sound. They got choked up because they had never used this name ever with anyone. Right, and to me, like,

Carrie McNulty (54:36)

Ugh.

What do mean? Yeah.

Yeah.

And nobody ever asked them. Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (55:03)

What's a greater gift than that? Or when someone comes out and says, I'm trans and I've never said that to a living soul. you know, that was my dead name and this is who I want to be. And all of these things that when you honor someone for who they are, that is one of the most powerful gifts that you can give and gifts that you can receive from someone. So we deal a lot with the range, with what any lifeline would deal with, abuse.

Carrie McNulty (55:16)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Ugh.

Lisa Sugarman (55:33)

homelessness, coming out, relationships, food insecurity, you've lost your job, ⁓ you name it, homicidal behavior, suicidal ideation, attempts. I've had, unfortunately, I've definitely had my share of in-process attempts that we are on that call for as long as that call is live until we deescalate that person.

and get that person a safety plan and get that person in touch with the resources or support that they need. And that's what we do. That's what we're there for. And again, our primary community is the LGBTQ plus community.

Carrie McNulty (56:17)

so needed and so what wonderful, beautiful work and necessary.

Lisa Sugarman (56:18)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it is. And I feel incredibly grateful to be able to do it. And for me, you know, there were a lot of a lot of different crisis lifelines that I platforms that I considered working with. And for me personally, being with the Trevor project was such an intersection of things that are most important to me. So.

I came out late in life, I'm 57 years old, when I was 52 years old, and I've been married, by the way, for 32 years, been with my husband for almost 40 at this point. And I came out as pansexual. And just because one of my daughters, my oldest daughter, is bi, and she came out in college, and it was because of her coming out and feeling so safe and feeling so supported that I...

Carrie McNulty (57:07)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (57:16)

knew something about myself but didn't really have the language for it until my then like 20 year old child educated me on who I really believed I was. And so combine that with the fact that I'm a multiple suicide loss survivor who wants to be on the phones with the people who were in the position my father was in to help change that outcome. you know, once I really learned about Trevor, there was just, was

Carrie McNulty (57:23)

Yeah.

There was no

question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓ this is so awesome. Yeah. Well, and it makes a difference because you can tell that what you do is really meaningful to you, you know, and obviously to the people that you're helping.

Lisa Sugarman (57:45)

my gosh, was a no-brainer all the way around. Yeah.

Yeah, thanks. I feel the same way.

I hope so. I know it is for me. I know it is for me when I, every single time I take a shift, every single week when I'm on the lifelines and I talk to someone, and it could be just a call with someone. We have callers who call us regularly who are, ⁓ yep, they're maybe not in an active crisis. We call them familiar voices and they call just to hear somebody else's voice because maybe they don't have community or family.

Carrie McNulty (58:05)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, check in.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (58:27)

or face-to-face contact with people. And so they call and they spend a few minutes on the phone and tell us what they're up to. And we listen to those people or we listen to someone who's actively thinking about harming themselves and everything in between. And every single time I get off the phone or I get off a shift, I just feel more empowered to get back on the phone and to get back on another shift. And when I'm not on the phone, I'm thinking about it.

Carrie McNulty (58:49)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (58:55)

You know, to me, that's just been the gauge to know that I'm doing the thing I'm supposed to be doing.

Carrie McNulty (59:01)

Yeah, yeah,

yeah, I know. When I said that I started out as a case manager, initially, we had a crisis line in the county that I worked in. And we would have people that would call in every morning and people who didn't have family, had significant mental health diagnoses. that's one of the things that kept them safe was just having that ability to call in, and.

Lisa Sugarman (59:20)

Mm-hmm.

Carrie McNulty (59:24)

we'd sort of mark down what we heard from so-and-so this morning, this is how the day's going or this is what they're doing. And, and that was one of the things that became a part of their community and their safety net even. And, and I think helped them from not needing more significant crisis services. So, yeah.

Lisa Sugarman (59:29)

Yup.

Mm-hmm. without a doubt. Yeah, I know

the people who we often talk to, it might represent their only outside connection for the day. And it for sure keeps them safe in lots of ways, but it also keeps them sane. It also keeps them feeling connected and takes away a little bit of the isolation and that loneliness that so many people are dealing with. that's, you we're living within an epidemic, in an epidemic, after a pandemic. mean, so it's like,

Carrie McNulty (59:48)

Yeah

Yes.

Lisa Sugarman (1:00:09)

There are so many different things that everybody is dealing with and loneliness is a big one and a lot of people are dealing with it. the fact that we can be truly an outlet and a lifeline for someone, even just to say, hey, I had eggs and bacon this morning. It was really great. I mean, it seems right, right. And that might not seem like a heavy lift for a counselor listening in, but...

Carrie McNulty (1:00:15)

Yeah.

Right. Right. I'm going to the grocery store later. ⁓ yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (1:00:36)

It is so powerful for the person who's sharing it. And we don't take that lightly. We don't take it lightly at all.

Carrie McNulty (1:00:40)

Right. No.

No.

⁓ well, is there anything that you wanna leave us with? Parting words.

Lisa Sugarman (1:00:50)

Departing words, I tend to default to the same type of departing words every time because I feel like they're the important ones that need to be said over and over again. If you're listening to this conversation and you're not okay, for whatever reason, the way that you feel right now is not always the way that you're going to feel. It's gonna feel that way and it might be a while.

Carrie McNulty (1:00:57)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Sugarman (1:01:17)

but eventually the way you feel will shift. And it is possible. I mean, I'm a living example of the fact, the truth that grief and joy or loss and joy can coexist. So just know you're not alone. Even the people who think they have no one who can't think of a single person to call, like we're out there. We're out there. Call 9-8-8, call Trevor. Text the Crisis Text Line.

Carrie McNulty (1:01:32)

Yes.

Lisa Sugarman (1:01:46)

reach out, go to the help hub. There are people out there who want to support you and that's what we're there for.

Carrie McNulty (1:01:53)

absolutely. I will be sure to, in the show notes, put Lisa's information for her website and for the Trevor Project. I will put all of that there so people can find it. And yeah, I couldn't agree more with what you're saying. There is somebody who wants to hear. And the way that you feel now isn't permanent. So ⁓ thank you so much, Lisa.

Lisa Sugarman (1:02:14)

You are so welcome, Carrie. It was a pleasure.

Carrie McNulty (1:02:16)

For all my listeners, I will be back to talk with you again in another couple of weeks.