WMH Season 4 Ep 8: Navigating the Storm: Trauma, Su*cide, Hope & Healing

This is a transcript of Watching Mental Health Season 4, Episode 8 which you can watch and listen to here:

Katie Waechter:  Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of watching mental health. And I'm so excited because today we not only have a new great guest, but we also have a new platform that we're working off of. And so this is gonna be a good change for watching mental health as we continue to grow.

And with that, I wanna introduce our guest. I wanna jump right into this. Chaplain Sy Alli is a site success manager and minister to several personal care ministry homes or care homes in Monterey, California. And he works with at-risk youths. Now, Sy has had led many different lives from being in the military to working as a wrestler and a dignitary protection agent before then going on to become a chaplain. And as a suicide attempt survivor and having battled with life-threatening PTSD, he wrote the book Out of the Storm. And this book is for all those lost souls who are out at sea and battling their own situations with depression and PTSD. And today on watching mental health, we are talking about depression and suicide, mental health and spirituality, and what it's like to battle the mental health storm so many of us face alone. With that, welcome to the show Chaplain Sy.

Chaplain Sy Alli:  Thanks, Katie. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate you.

Katie: Yeah, thank you so much for coming on and being willing to share your story and to talk about these really hard conversations. And I know that it's a struggle out there for a lot of people, not only who are experiencing them, but to talk about them. And so I think it's important to have these conversations. And so with that, before we get into any of it, I just want to ask you a little bit about yourself. So tell me about what brought you to the show and really what brought you to this line of work.

Sy: You know, it's interesting how I fell in this line of work because for so many years I traveled globally as an executive and dignitary protection agent. I was around a lot of high net worth individuals, a lot of high recognized, high recognized, recognition, know, ⁓ diplomats and dignitaries that I traveled with globally. But finding this space where I am at now came, I think it came at a price. It came to a price where I was within a hair trigger finger of being pulling the trigger of my Glock 19 and Really blowing my face off. I've struggled mightily Katie with PTSD and I you know There's a lot of folks asked me to describe the difference between just depression and PTSD. Well PTSD is really what it says It's post-traumatic. So something that happens that's traumatic in one's life can bring about PTSD where depression can manifest itself through different origins or different realms so to speak. So once I was able to get through this and once I got back reacquainted with the Veterans Administration. You know, it came, they diagnosed it, it was PTSD. And I knew it was because there was three things that happened within maybe a 10 year time span. My father passed away in 2005. My father-in-law passed away in 2009 and I got divorced in 2014. And that trilogy was enough to really push me over the edge. So I was able to come through that spiritually.

Not a lot of people who are able to walk away from suicides Katie can attribute, any anything spiritual I mean God I'm convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that God Thought that I had more to offer and he was able to step in on my behalf That doesn't necessarily happen with a lot of people it could just be by happenstance that you're able to walk away from that but even those and and talking and you know speaking with other veterans to battle this, you don't know what your calling is. If you're able to walk away from that, not everybody does, Katie. Unfortunately, God does not save everybody. And that's a whole nother conversation because I'm unfamiliar with his ways and how he operates. But I know he was able to come for me and I'm grateful as a result. And I've been able to build this platform on mental health, particularly Katie, for those who suffer in silence.

That's the scary aspect of when people talk about it and they're like, I'm going to take my life. That's a person we can take and say, hey, listen, let's talk. It's the person like me operating as if nothing is going on in my life. And I'm actually struggling. It's some of the lowest depths that could be possible. So I want to make sure that I'm able to build this platform to help others who don't want to speak up, Katie. And I think that's so important today.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. There's a couple things that you mentioned there that I find really interesting. One was that your, these traumatic events that happened in your life, didn't all happen at one time. And I think people assume that, ⁓ know, well, their loved one died five years ago, so they're fine, right? Or they've moved past that. Not knowing that, you know, another loved one dying or another just, you know, another sort of grief, right?

Sy: Right.

Katie: Grief and

Sy: Yes, it is.

Katie: Another sort of loss can hit and can really add on to that even if it's years apart right people just don't realize that until they're in it and I find that that really is interesting that you brought it up like that.

Sy:  You know what, Katie? I didn't know how to process grief. Now I do. I've gone through seminary training and I've been able to help others, particularly cancer patients. For three years, I worked at a cancer treatment facility up in Puyallup.

Katie: Yeah.

Sy: Washington outside of Tacoma in Seattle and I was able to walk with cancer patients and walk with their family up until the time of their passing and I just tried to make sure that I could work with them on the grief process and you know we psychiatrists and psychologists and you know ministers go through grief training and we know there's denial, anger, bargaining, depression and then acceptance but not everybody crosses those thresholds.

Some people might just struggle at depression and not able to walk themselves through. So I think it's important for folks that are struggling with grief, be able to get in touch with a minister, a grief counselor, whatever that person could be to help you walk through that. I wasn't able to process it. I came up in a generation where I was told that, you know, as a little boy, you don't cry. When I got spankings or, you know, when I got disciplined, I was told, hey, don't you shed a tear.

So I was internalized that I said, okay, I'm a man when I lost loved ones in my life or family and friends. I've tried not to cry at funerals. I tried to hold it in and that's the worst thing you can do because all that does that grief just festers inside of you and that forms depression that can form a multitude of things, Katie. So I'm able to look at that differently now. But back then I was not able to process grief and all it just followed me. It followed me from my dad's death. It followed me from my father-in-law's death and went right through, you know, my separation and divorce.

I was able to operate professionally but then when I got home, Katie, it's when everything just hit me. I looked in the mirror and I truly did not recognize who I was. I couldn't figure out that figure, that image that was looking back at me. That's how bad off I was. So I do believe it's important to know or be able to help people process grief. I see it all the time when folks on social media are posting things and they just, they really want, you know,

Katie:  Oh my gosh, yeah. Grief is such a tough thing to process. And it's something that we all experience at one time or another ⁓ in life and for some of us earlier and for some of us later. And it's so funny because it just seems like we all experience it and yet the world just keeps going without really without really being that comforting space that we need. And so it is important when you are experiencing grief to reach out for help because nobody talks about how to move through

And you're right, it can fester and it can lead to significant mental health problems for years. For years it can lead to problems. So it's really important.

Sy: I believe it's so important, Katie, ⁓ and I try to help people. If I knew then what I know now, it would be a totally different story, but I wasn't able to come to grips with that.

And I was too afraid to be able to share my grief because when I wrote the book, I mean, I exposed all my vulnerabilities, all of my trials and tribulations. mean, I just wiped the slate clean and said, hey, look, I was vulnerable. I was vulnerable because I wasn't willing to talk to anybody and those are the people, Katie, that really scare me the most. It's those who suffer in silence because it's hard to get to those people. And so I hope with the book, I hope with my platform and being able to speak that I'm able to at least, you know, if I can help one or two people, Katie, I mean, I'm not a best selling author. I don't know if this book will ever get to that level. And I don't at first I really was worried about that. But now I'm like, hey, look, if this can touch a handful of people, or if somebody reads the book and say, hey, I'm OK, but so-and-so might want to read this, it might be beneficial to them, then I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. So it's just a small platform. I'm a small cog in this big wheel of life. But if I can help somebody, I'm certainly going to reach out and help.

Katie:  I agree. I think, you know, I'm a small platform too, but every voice counts and every person that we touch counts, right? Like even if your book only reaches five people and helps five people, those are five people that were helped. That's a big deal. And so it's so, it's so cool. We need voices like yours. And, and I think that we really need voices like yours when it comes to spirituality. So let's, let's talk about that a

Sy: Absolutely. ⁓

Katie: A bit about mental health and spirituality and tell me first, ⁓ it, were you always a spiritual person or is this something that really came about through your healing journey?

Sy: I was around spiritual people, but I don't necessarily consider myself as having been spiritual. I went to church a lot. My former wife, whose father was a Presbyterian minister, my father-in-law. So I went to church a lot, Katie, but I don't know if I was really accepting of God like I should have been.

It came to me later on in life and it really I had ministers in my family. So my aunt was a African Methodist Episcopal. I went to Catholic school for a few few years. I went to Catholic Church. I grew up as a Catholic and then turned Christian once I got into the military. But I never really considered myself spiritual. It was so when I tried to take my life in 2015 when I walked out of my office.

I didn't think I was healed, but the only thing that I knew is that I would never, ever. And I'm sure they thought that was hilarious because I was the quintessential life of the party. I don't think I was an angry or mean drunk, but I was the life of the party when I got sauced up. And I said that night, March 1st, 2020, that's it.

And they kind of nodded their heads, but truly that was it. And along with that, I picked up my mom's Bible and I started reading and it just seems like something had come over me. I kept reading and I kept reading and then like a week into my sobriety, I was absolutely approached by God who assured me of what happened five years ago in my office was not a figment of my imagination because I couldn't analyze what had happened. And in my office I was able to walk out. But God assured me that was Him that did that and I need to start writing like right now.

He says, write about that. He was like, and I'm like, God, if I do that, I'm going to be, you know, people are going to say, ⁓ he, he was weak. You know, he was going to take his life. But God said, look, you write, I'll handle the rest. So I wrote the book and I've gotten responses from folks all over the world because the book is written in multiple languages. And then people tell me, Katie, you were, it's, thought you were writing about me. So my story resonates with others.

They can understand the trials and tribulations, the vulnerability of being in a very, very dark place. So I knew I was onto something. the article, I wrote an article first and put it on social media. That's when I started getting quiet feedback. For people telling me, I'm battling too. Can you talk to me? Can you tell me what's going on? And I was able to do that. And then right along, once I started reading the Bible, I decided I wanted to go to the seminary.

And I found an online because I didn't have money. I wasn't able to actually go into a full fledge because if I did, I would have gone into a full fledge to go there, not just, you know, study remotely, but actually go there. But my funds can only pick up the cost of these online courses that I was taken. And I took a Chaplain Sy course and about midway through that course, it went through the grief process. And that's when everything came to fruition about how I wasn't able to handle it and how you should handle it. There's no real recipe, Katie, for grief counseling. You can say the five steps, but people don't necessarily go by, you know.

Denial anger bargaining depression and then acceptance they could skip a step or go back they can regress So there's no real formula other than being there for somebody that just listening one of the biggest things about my Chaplain Sy course was teaching me how to be a good listener and I always thought I was a good listener, but I don't know if I was a great listener and I've become an even better listener by just letting people talk let their emotions flow and then when they're ready for me to jump in then I jump in but if not

Katie: Sure.

Sy: I'll let them talk and get whatever it is off their chest. So a lot of things had happened in 2020 and I ended up getting my certification to be a chaplain and then one of my friends who I was living with she was an oncologist at one of the bigger cancer treatment clinics up in the Pacific Northwest. She was like we don't have a chaplain. Why don't you just come and you know try to cut your teeth on this? So I started right after the pandemic and the quarantine stopped. I was able to go into the treatment facility and go into the chemo rooms and that's when I started building these relationships with cancer patients and being able to walk that walk with them. It's hard, Katie, because I started with so many cancer patients and was down to one and one gentleman went into remission but I lost my last one who I was working with remotely just a couple of years ago and working with her family and able to see her grow spiritually in the last month of her life was reason enough for me to know that God had placed me where he wanted me.

And then that's how ⁓ my spiritual career, my spiritual chops kind of grew as I went along. Because God was just like, you just keep going. I'll provide you. I'll show you who needs help. I'll let them come to you. You'll know the people who need help. And my goodness, He has done that multiple, multiple times, brought people into my view that I was able to help.

Katie: Oh my gosh, that sounds so hard to walk that with people who are with cancer patients who are dying. ⁓ But they need it. They need someone. so it's, wow, that is something else.

Sy: It was tough. I applaud chaplains who work in emergency rooms and hospices and law enforcement, but you have to be so spiritually strong to be able to help people. And you could still show that emotion. mean, when I lost my last cancer patient, I was devastated because I had grew. You know, by God to people he didn't like. That's what she had been told. She had been told in church, you get cancer because you're not being a good Christian or you're not loyal to God. I think that's so hard.

And so mean-spirited for people to say, I was able to walk her through and she was ministering to her own family. So God's glory really worked. And then I transitioned and I'm working with kids now. So I think I still work at nursing homes and I still work with people that are in the last stages of their life, but I also work in school districts and I work with kids. So there's a good balance for me now.

I'm not just dealing with death, I'm dealing with young lives that are coming up and the ability, even though I'm called a coach in school, you know, I'm ministering as well as mentoring, you know, I just don't want to cross those lines between church and state and schools. But kids need that as well, Katie.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's important that you mentioned balance, right? You can't just do the hard work and not do anything else. you know, we all need something, right? And ⁓ so true. But I find it really interesting what you were saying, you know, around your journey. And ⁓ you were around religion your whole life in many ways. And it seems like...

Sy: Right. Yeah, absolutely.

Katie: I like it really didn't impact you until you were ready for it. I'm not going to say impact, but you know what I mean? Like you didn't take it until you were ready for it. And I think that's true for so many people. But I also think that so many people struggle because they go into a traditional church setting and like that woman experienced are told very sometimes cruel things that I don't think God would say. But but so so it's hard. So for anyone who's out there who…

Sy:  Well, you're right. That's a good word. Yes.

Katie: … is struggling with their spirituality and their mental health and you know what would you say to them if they're not really sure right now because of what they've been told and or how they're feeling you know in these difficult times that they're experiencing.

Sy: For adults, like to put, there's four categories. There is spiritual fitness, there is mental fitness. There's physical fitness and there's financial fitness. Obviously those that fourth one I wouldn't apply when I'm talking with younger people because they're not worried about finances yet before adults. These are four important things and a lot of people are surprised that I put finances in there, but it really is applicable. Our finances mean a lot. I was homeless so I know what it's like to be without finances. So I think, you know, for me, I started on the physical

Katie: It's a big deal.

Sy: Fitness first. I looked at pictures of myself when I was director of corporate security for Dixie Brands, which was a cannabis manufacturer. They made edibles and I was working in Denver. I looked like

Just a shell of myself. I had lost weight my suit jackets were just you know, very big on me So after my suicide attempt, I started going back into the gym now if I had it to do over again I probably would have done the spiritual aspect of that first and then done emotional and then done physical but I started with physical and then I got into spiritual fitness I got into emotional fitness and then I got into financial fitness though because when I got divorced. My credit scores were down into the low fours and high threes. So that was part of my, you know, being depressed and thinking, man, I'm never ever going to be financially, you know, solving or financially independent again. So I had to work at that. And I thought that was part of this whole package. Now for young kids, we can just talk about.

Physical, mental, and spiritual if they have a spiritual family. But you know, I don't push that on kids not knowing what their family background is, but kids come up to me and tell me that you know, they believe in God, so then I can have those quiet conversations with them. But for the most part, you need those four. And without those four, I think you're going to struggle with something again like I said a lot of people were surprised at financial but I think that is and you were not in your head an agreement that is very important it's very important for us and I yeah.

Katie: Oh yeah, I've been there too. I haven't been homeless, but I have had some severe mental health challenges from difficult financial situations that I felt I couldn't claw myself out of. So it hits, you know, when you're worried all the time about that, it's hard. And so I think you're right. You you need kind of that balance again, and you know, in your life, because one area can really rock you if you're not stable in that area.

Sy: Get that. Absolutely. So those two those really are my four pillars to gaining some emotional freedoms and being able because I felt like I had these anchors on me, Katie, for so many years and paying alimony and just the numbers were just through the roof. And I said, I'm never going to make it through this. But I've been able to. I've worked. I've been more studious on my finances. The book is not making me a millionaire. Trust me, I'm not nowhere near. But, you know, my job and the book, able to better manage myself financially spiritually, I think I'm still growing You know and when I'm in these schools and I'm around these kids the first thing these kids do Katie when they size me up and they're like well He looks old but he's got muscles wonder how old he is. These kids come up to me. It's like coach sigh How old they can't believe I'm 65 so working around young people has really kept me youthful and you got to be on your toes because these kids, they are smart, Katie. They weren't like a knucklehead when I was growing up. And in school, these kids are very intuitive and they can pick up on things. So that's when I first started as a coach. They put me in an elementary school in Salinas, California. And the coaches knew that I was a minister.

So if they were struggling with a student, they would give the student to me and I'd pull him aside and talk to him. So within my first two weeks at this school, Mission Park Elementary in Salinas, California, I found out why one of the kindergartners was bullying the rest of the class. So I pulled him aside and I sat him down. like, hey, what's going on? You're pushing these kids around. And he opened up, Katie. This kid was in kindergarten. He told me he lost his father about a month before school started.

He thought he was at fault. He thought it was his fault that his dad died. And he took that blame on his little five or six year old self. And it was beating him up in school. So I worked with him. Then he went home and he told his mom, Coach Sy really worked with me and understood. So the mom came back to school the next day and I got called to the principal's office. I thought I was in trouble. Coach Sy, can you come to the principal's office? And I go up and this kid's mom is there. She said, are you Coach Sy?

Katie: Right.

Sy:  And she took a good guess and I said, yes I am, but I have to be very careful. The principal's there, she's watching us. I said, I have to be very careful. She was like, you can talk to God whenever you want to to Solomon. And when the parent left, the principal looked at me, she was like, you know what? I got three school counselors and you've been here two weeks and you found out backstories on like three or four of my students. She was like, I'm happy to have you here. You go do what you need to do to help these kids. And that's how things just started taking off with me working with young people and They do Katie they keep me young because I again they're on you know Just I had a middle school student come up to me and she was at coach side Can I ask you a really serious question? I said yeah, what is it? She said why are people your age so stupid? I Looked at her and I was like

Katie: Hahaha! ⁓

Sy:  Why would you say that? She was like, because everybody's mad at each other. They're mean to each other on TV. She was like, what is going on with people your age? And I said, kiddo, it's not necessarily people my age, but yeah, I said, as adults, I'm going to apologize for you on behalf of these adults that you think are stupid. ⁓ She's like, not you, not you, but people your age. So, you know, she was able to pick up on this and kids are watching. What's going on in our society and they're not processing this well. They are not feeling adults in our society now. So I'm privy to a lot of that, Katie. They come up to me and they won't ask anything.

Katie:  That's so true and it brings up such a good point is you know our youth mental health it's in crisis right now We're you know people we have a different epidemic going on and that's the problems of children in youth mental health crisis or experiencing youth mental health challenges that Really, they're not getting the support for that. No one knows what's going on suicide rates are through the roof. 

So talk to me a little bit more about that because you work in this area, and you know suicide personally. Is this something that you've seen? And what are your thoughts around us working through this crisis, frankly, as a society?

Sy: I think this all started once the pandemic hit. And then these kids were shuttered, Katie, you know, not being able to go to school, not being able to have these relationships with their friends or with the teachers. So it's kind of gone like in a cycle where I don't know if the kids have necessarily gotten past that, but I do believe our society as a whole is making it even worse on these kids because, you know, they're trying to figure out who they can look up to. You know, you can look at celebrities and music

But I do believe it starts at home. It starts in the school It starts in gym class or wherever that we have to be mindful That these kids are absorbing everything they see and you know how social media is now It's it's available at the click of a mouse button or on your phone So they see all this stuff and news is like in your face You can't run or hide from the news. So I you know, I try to do my best to assure them like look there are good people that understand we want what's best for you we want you to grow up and become productive citizens we don't want you to grow up and I'm out here in California so there's gang activities and some of my school districts I know it's there so I try to make sure even when I'm around the parents like look where you know you've heard that term it takes a village I mean I know it's overused but it really does it starts from the parents you know the grandmother, grandfather, their aunts, uncles, the teachers, the principals, the Alevo employees like myself who are coaches and partners with school district. It takes all of us to be able to help these young people because the things they had access to now, Katie, I can't imagine me as a kid and growing up in the 60s and 70s and seeing things and having the news available like right at your fingertips. So I think it's important for kids to see adults in a better light and not just you know, I'm trying to promote my book, but I really do care about these kids. I wouldn't be working in these school districts if I didn't care about these kids. And I tell our coaches, look, if you're here for just a paycheck, you might be in a wrong, you can go working in an outburger and make 22, 23 an hour. That's what you're looking at, just the money. But if you're looking at being impactful in these kids' lives, this is the place to be. So I have to tell our coaches that and our instructors that as well. And the kids know.

Oh, Katie, they know if you're coming at them with a line of crap. They know it and they can sift it. And we got coaches that are problematic. These kids are like sharks. They're like circling around. You're hearing the jaw steam as they're circling around to come in, you know, to go after these adults that are in their classroom. So it's very important. And I think mental health needs to be addressed. It was taboo, you know, back when I was growing up, people just whispered, oh, uncle so and so, you know, is going through some things, but nobody really talked about mental health then. Now you see Simone Biles, you see Michael Phelps, I can't remember the tennis player who openly talked about their mental health issues. I think the younger generation that's coming up now is able to talk about it. And I did a book signing in a middle school in Salinas and the kids, they were intrigued. And then they were able to in turn open up to me about how they view life or what they see. So I do believe it's important to be able to openly communicate, even if they're kids. If I can do that with a kindergarten kid and come to find out he lost his dad and he's struggling with the grief, then I think anything is a possibility with young people.

Katie: My gosh, yeah. And it's right. You need to give them that opportunity, that space, that safe space so they feel open, so they have that village. And it is so essential to your mental health, to our youth mental health to have a village. You mentioned you did a book signing in a middle school. So tell me more about your book. It's a book for lost souls. Can kids read it as well? Talk to me about it. Yeah.

Sy: Yes. I wrote it because it's only like 170 pages. I, there was an effort to make that as short as possible. It's not my full blown autobiography. It's more of a memoir. I take folks back into my professional wrestling days, my military days, my protection days, just to show where, how I came about this. But yes, and I asked the principals. Of my school districts, I was like, what do you think after they read it? And it was mostly the middle school principals that said, yes, I believe my students are mature enough. They're like there's going to be some kids laughing or whatever but that's that they're going to be a small minority in the group. So when for career day for Elsa saw middle school in Salinas they invited me to come out and talk to several classes and just talk about the book and me being an author and when I talked about this and I asked I'm like you know it's.

Nothing's really graphic, They're like, it's neat to hear this. Like don't hold back. These kids need to hear this. You could speak life into them. And so when I did it, the kids were, I could see their eyes when I talked about the suicide, I could see some of them looking a little upset, but after, and I told them, okay, how many of you read? And nobody raised their hands. Nobody raised their hand.

I'm like, are you kidding me? I'm like, so I'm not going to give you a copy of the book. And then they all raised their hands saying, hey, yeah, we read. So I personally signed like several copies of the book for kids. As I asked the principal, are they OK to handle this? He was like, yeah, go do it. And don't hold back on it.

You bring up such an interesting point and I think that I want to make a point to say this because a lot of people feel like we should shelter our children from what's happening or not talk about mental health challenges because we don't want to give them that idea. And frankly, know, I've been taught, you know, in the suicide prevention and awareness courses that I went in thinking I don't want to bring up the word suicide to somebody who I think is suicidal. But I was taught bring it up, ask them directly. You say the word, you give them that chance because otherwise they may not say it. And kids are so intuitive and they need to be told that, yeah, like bad things in this world are happening and it's okay to have these bad feelings, but you need to work through them. And we need to give real world examples for them to understand that. So I just think it's so powerful that you're having that's a real-world example with your book and what your middle school teachers have told you. It is. And because I didn't know, I was hesitant to do it until...

I talked with the administrative staff of this particular middle school and they were like, ⁓ definitely. Because I shared it with them first and they all read it and they were like, wow, this is powerful. they, you know, because there's no cursing in this. There's nothing. mean, again, I get graphic when I talk about how I set up, what was my mindset going into my office that day and how I was going to do this. Moving my kids' pictures from behind and making sure the blood splatter didn't get on my kids' pictures. Those were the of things that I thought about. More, you know, I should have been thinking about how my family's gonna feel when I take my life and who's gonna be left behind. But I wasn't thinking about that and a lot of people aren't thinking about that. And I know now that was really selfish on my part, Katie. Knowing that I had kids and my mom was still alive, knowing how people would have been affected by my death and I didn't think about them. So now I do and I try to talk to people. It's like, hey, look, if you got family, your friends you need to reassess this because when I was homeless and living in the veterans homeless shelter.

I had a ready-made audience and I had other veterans that had worse PTSD. Like one of my housemates was an Army Ranger and had several tours to Iraq and Afghanistan and saw death on a daily basis. So when you see that much death on a daily basis, you become numb to it and you come home and then that's, you're still numb and you're not able to talk to people. So I learned a lot from being homeless.

Was the end of the line for me, but that was actually God putting me in a position to say, hey, you're a chaplain, right? Go chaplain to these vets. They need you. That's why you're here. You're not here because I'm punishing you. You're here because you need to be able to get to as many people as you can. I know that now. I didn't know it when I first went into this homeless shelter, but there's people that are struggling way worse than me.

So it's it's essential to be able to get to everyone even talking with senior citizens who are battling depression I've run the gambit I've got you know dealt with a kindergartner not dealt with you know 70 80 year old Senior citizens who are depressed because they know they're gonna die and they're not prepared for it They never really got spiritually prepared for it So part of that is me helping them get spiritually propelled as best as I can

Katie: Yeah. And really it just seems like you're a safe space to have these difficult conversations, whether it's a kid or anybody who maybe is in a suicidal crisis and isn't thinking, how is this going to impact my family? Because they're just thinking, well, it'll just be better if I'm gone, right? And you're like, no, well, let's provide you a space to talk through this, to rethink this a little bit. And it's the same thing with these other people that you're talking with, these other groups.

Elderly citizens, it's providing them that space to grieve the end of their life in many ways. so it's just, it's such a powerful thing that to be able to offer that space for people. And it's like, you're not coming in as an MD, you're not coming in as a therapist, you're coming in as a real person with real lived experience and applying, of course, you you've been trained, you know, with ministry, but I just think it's such a powerful approach because to me, anyone who goes through these struggles can come out the other side and then help another person, right? Reach back and help that next person up a little bit.

Sy: You know, it's funny ⁓ you brought it up. before I came to California, I went back to my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, and we were gonna film a documentary based on my life, but I didn't have the funding and it fell through. But I also got a chance to be a youth mentor at a high school just right outside of Pittsburgh, Penn Hills, PA. And it was, remember the movie The Breakfast Club?

Katie:  Yeah.

Sy: It was just like that on a Saturday morning. We go in and these kids are miserable, Katie. They got their air, you know, their pods on, they got their hoods on. And it's me and another instructor, another youth mentor. We were sitting here in our little community circle and none of the kids are saying anything. So the other instructor who's like a lifelong friend told me she was like, side, you really should tell the kids about your journey. And I was a little hesitant at first, but then I thought, well, let me do it.

Katie: Cool.

Sy: And I broke it all down to him Katie and within 15 to 20 minutes of me talking to them the hoods came off the air pods came out and they were ready to engage and this young lady who just sent me a note not too long ago was I think she was a junior maybe a sophomore in school she rolls up her sleeves and shows me the cut marks on her arm where she was self-harming herself. And that's when it hit me that young people have a lot of issues. And my daughter said it sarcastically to me. She was like, well, dad, know, young people have mental health issues too. She said it sarcastically as my daughter would tell me. it, but it, it resonated. And it's a, so I corresponded with these kids and she says the young lady who was cutting her arms said, well, what helped you? And I said, writing. She was like, really? I said, yeah, writing was and will continue to be my therapy. And after I had left and moved to California, my other instructor, Tawana Gatewood, who I wrote in the book, she was like, Si, you would be so proud of Cassandra. She got up in front of the class and told about her journey. And it was so emotional. And the kids were crying. She was like, I really wish you were there because she was like, she said, Coach Sy had me.

Got me motivated to do this. And she sent me a nice note last week about, you know, being inspirational. And I'm like, kiddo, I'm paying it forward. Now you pay it forward. You wrote your story. You talk to people about it. Now you help other people. That's how this works. And I think she's going to be great as being a spokesperson about mental health. If I ever did anything and had a traveling troop of speakers, she would be one of them because I think young people can definitely identify with what's going on with her and what's going on with a lot of these other young people.

Katie: Yeah, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. That gives me chills. you're right, young people can be peers for other young people and can be that peer support. And it's such a big deal. So, okay, so we're wrapping up towards the end of the show. I have just a couple more questions. The first is, you know, for anybody who's tuning in and who wants to maybe listen or read your book, how can they read it? Where is it available? Can they get it on Amazon or do you have a website?

Sy: Yes, all the above you can get it on amazon you could order it through Barnes and Nobles ⁓ yes my website is www.fit but it's spelled p h i t and that's for prophecy honor integrity and transformation so fit squad dot com you can buy the book right off the website I've got several blogs in which I talk about mental health ⁓

I mean everything is on that website, but the book is also available as an e-book. It's available as an audiobook. It's available in Spanish, French, Italian, and Mandarin.

So I tried to cover a few different languages and I'm pleasantly surprised that the multiple version, multiple language books are moving very well. I'm seeing things from ⁓ sales from China, from Mandarin, seeing a lot of sales for Spanish. So it's available in multiple languages. You can pretty much, this is the covers, what it looks like. You see the lighthouse, which is indicative, a lighthouse. I wanted it on my cover because a lighthouse was back in the day, it was used to guide ships that were out at sea back to shore. So I thought the lighthouse was very indicative to what my ministry and what my mental health platform is now trying to get folks out of the storm. Because I know I suffered in my storm, but I was grateful to be able to get pulled out. And I think there is a responsibility for me now to be able to help other folks get out of their own collective personal storms.

Katie: Absolutely, absolutely. So I'm gonna end it on this. like to ask all of my my guess this ⁓ For those who are in the storm, right and I think I know where you're go with this But I want to ask it anyways, do you think that a mental health challenge? ⁓ Is something that you can overcome or something that you should accept as? Something that you always have to work on in your life

Sy: I think that's a combination of both of what you said. I do believe you can overcome it. ⁓ I've certainly overcome my grief, ⁓ my depression, but it's something that you know is always back there. So I don't think you should lose sight of that. I think that's a most, it's an inspiration.

Or it's a motivating factor for me to know, hey, it's back there. It's not coming forward. I'm not gonna let it come forward. But I acknowledge, yeah, I was there. I'm much better today. I don't have any sort of dips, you know, in my personality or my structure of how I'm built mentally. But yeah, it's there. It's there. And I don't want it to completely go away because without that, I wouldn't acknowledge that I had it in the first place. So it's there. It's there. But you can absolutely overcome it, but you have to be willing, Katie, to speak out and speak up. If I was exhausted from hiding it from everybody, I really wish somebody would have come to me and said, are you really struggling? I don't know, Katie, if I would have lied or not, but it would have gotten me to be maybe a little bit more upfront about it. But nobody ever asked me. Everybody was like, we were totally surprised. You look like you love life. You enjoy your life at a party, but sometimes, you know, the facade is there, but what's lingering behind that is brutal.

Katie: And it's so often the case, and you said it at the beginning too, it's, you know, ⁓ it's those people suffering in silence. And we always think, they were so happy, ⁓ they didn't say anything, and you know, and it's there, which is why it's always important to ask, you know, no, really, like, how are you? Like, not just, hey, how's it going? ⁓ it's fine, like, no, really, like, how are you? I want to know, and to be willing to listen, right, to be a good listener,

Sy: Yes, absolutely.

Katie: Which I think sometimes we struggle with as a people. 

Sy:  Absolutely, for sure, Katie.

Katie:  Well, thank you so much for your time today. This was such a fabulous conversation. I think we touched on so many really important, real conversations and topics that people are struggling with. And I just appreciate you coming on the show and for shining your light here with us on watching mental health.

Sy: Thanks Katie so much. Appreciate you having me on.
Katie: Absolutely, and we are changing up a little bit as far as our publications, but look out every Wednesday. We will have new episodes. And so you can follow me along katierosewaechter.com and that's where you're gonna see today's episode. And with that, have a great day everyone and we will see you next time!