Mental health expert says discussions on suicide important

Suicide is a tough subject, Stacy York notes, but it’s one that needs discussing.

York, a licensed clinical social worker who has spent the last 16 years working with kids and families in mental health, recently spoke to about 90 people during a talk at the Lodge at Whitefish Lake. The talk was presented by the Nate Chute Foundation in partnership with Montana Support, Outreach and Access for the Resiliency of Students (SOARS).

She takes the weight of the topic into consideration when speaking — rather than shy away from the gravity of suicide, she wants people to honor it.

“Usually when I talk, we all feel stuff. So take care of yourselves as we go through that. This is a really human experience, there’s no right or wrong way to feel,” she said.

York works with both children and adults, and her talk focused on emotional development as it relates to suicide, both in recognizing how stunted emotional development plays into suicidal thinking and the importance of stressing that emotional development in young children.

The early years of a child’s brain is critical to how they will later process emotions, she says.

“The brain matters, because 90 percent is organized in the first two to five years,” she said. “The brain matters, because if we don’t think about the brain and what’s happening in it, and how it’s been taught to process feelings, emotions and experiences, then we’re missing the boat completely.”

Redefining what feelings are is a first step in learning to process them.

York said it’s important to teach children — as well as adults — to view feelings, even suicidal ones, as waves in the ocean.

Waves, she says, come and go, but in time they always recede.

“Now there are moments you get caught underwater, and you’re not sure you’re going to make it out, but it will recede,” she said. “So when we start teaching kids at a young age that’s how feelings are, then when you get to that place when you get suicidal, you can go, ‘Wait a minute, this is just a wave. It’s going to recede.’”

York has an acronym for this — HOPE, or Hold On Past the Emotion.

“If we can hold on past the emotional pieces, we’ll get to the next moment in time where it doesn’t feel so painful. Because when you go through hard things, sometimes it feels like it’s going to be hard forever.”

Just as she stresses the importance of the brain in traumatic experiences, York also makes a point to say things generally considered mental issues are often also physiological issues too.

Recognizing the body aspect of painful memories is a start to moving past them, she said.

“Here’s what we know. In an experience, any experience you have, you’re creating a memory. And when you create a memory, there’s three parts to it — a thought, a feeling and a body experience. You can go in therapy and talk all day long about your feelings, but if you don’t attach it to your body and have your body process it, then it doesn’t matter.”

York has some unconventional tips for incorporating the body into the healing process.

These techniques can be used by teachers or medical professionals to help those in-need, or they can be used by anyone dealing with any sort of emotion they want to get a handle on.

One is “butterfly hugs,” where someone crosses their arms in front of their chest and repeatedly taps their shoulders with the opposite hands while they talk about traumatic memories or their suicidal feelings. This crosses the midsection of the brain and gives the memories a physical association.

York demonstrated another trick with those in attendance of last week’s meeting. She asked everyone to close their eyes and think of a sad memory. Visualizing that memory, she asked everyone to define different characteristics of it — its size, shape, color, location in the body, et cetera. Then she did the same with a happy memory and described how the process has been successful in making those important physical connections between body and feeling.

When it comes to dealing with those who are suicidal or struggling in their daily life, York’s advice was that a little perspective can go a long way.

“Pain is pain, whether it’s a splinter or it’s grief,” she said. “When someone’s coming to you, especially if they’re not really good at communicating how they feel, and we minimize their experience, and we think it’s just a splinter because we think we would never respond like that, then they get the message like, ‘I’m coming to you with a splinter and you can’t handle it, so I’m not coming to you with bigger things.’”

The speaking event was a first for the Nate Chute Foundation, and award-winning global speaker, author, filmmaker and suicide prevention advocate Kevin Hines is expected to follow up with a second similar talk in May.

For more information email info@natechutefoundation.org. The foundation is a 501(c)(3) dedicated to suicide prevention among young people in western Montana.

For more information on York, visit http://bewhatsright.com/