About the Episode
Trigger Warning: This episode discusses suicide and self-harm.
Suicidality can be complex, painful, and often misunderstood.
In this episode, Dr. Julie Lopez sits down with Faith Ferber, a trauma-informed Viva therapist, and her mother, Brenda Ferber, a writer, to explore Faith’s journey with mental health challenges from childhood through adolescence. They discuss early warning signs, the impact of family dynamics, and the one thing that ultimately helped Faith shift her relationship to suicidal thoughts.
This conversation offers insight, validation, and hope for anyone navigating mental health struggles in themselves or their loved ones.
Episode Guest
Brenda Ferber is an award-winning children’s book author, a mother of three grown children, and a volunteer crisis counselor for Crisis Text Line.
Faith Ferber is a social worker, therapist, and activist dedicated to ending the stigma surrounding mental illness and creating a world where everyone can thrive.
More about Brenda & Faith Ferber:
Watch the episode:
Episode Transcript
Introduction: Faith & Brenda Ferber
Julie Lopez: Hi, everyone. My name is Dr. Julie Lopez, and I’m your host for Whole by Design. On this week’s episode, we will be diving into the complicated world of suicide and suicidality. And I am so pleased to be welcoming in Faith and Brenda.
They are a mother daughter team. And Faith Ferber is actually one of our extremely talented clinicians here at the Viva Center. She does a lot of incredible work, especially with non talk based therapy and lots of innovative modalities to help people really get results and really get relief from a whole host of different mental health struggles.
Her mother, Brenda is a big part of the story today. She is a professional writer, and she is specifically doing a lot of writing of nonfiction on mental health and parenting. And she’s working on a memoir about raising Faith, which we’re going to hear more about on the podcast today.
I want to encourage you to stay until the end, when we’re going to hear very specifically from Faith herself about the one thing that helped her really change her relationship to her own struggle around being suicidal. So before we jump in, I just want to remind you to check out our website, www.vivapartnership.com for free and low cost resources that can change your life. Thank you guys so much for joining me today on the podcast.
Faith Ferber: Thanks for having us.
Brenda Ferber: Oh, happy to be here.
Julie Lopez: It’s awesome to have you.
Early Signs: Struggling in Childhood
Julie Lopez: So tell me a little bit about the journey. I know it was a different chapter than where we are now. But it was really a huge, huge struggle and one that I know you both feel passionate about shining a light on for other people.
Faith Ferber: Yeah, I can kind of start and mom, if you want to jump in, go for it. But I am someone who really struggled with my mental health, my whole childhood for as long as I can remember. I’m, I am very into watching home videos from the 90s.
And there is a video of me at seven saying that I can’t wait to be a teenager because I’ll be able to die. It was something that I felt like was something that was just kind of always I feel like wired in me. From a very, very young age.
I feel like I have attachment-related trauma, not with my parents, but I have a twin brother. And in kindergarten, we were split up for the first time. And in preschool, we were together on everything.
And everyone was kind of worried about how he was going to do when we were split up. And I was like, not okay without him. And he was perfectly fine and ran off and made friends.
And that just for me, I just felt abandoned and not good enough. And you know, just kind of broken hearted, I think. And that really just kind of started the depression and anxiety that really started to escalate.
And I don’t know, mom, if you want to talk about when I was nine and getting into therapy.
Confusing Signals: Bright, Talented, But in Pain
Brenda Ferber: Yes. So first of all, it’s important to note that Faith was an incredibly bright, precocious, charming, friendly, outspoken, passionate girl, who why so when she did show signs of mental illness, my husband and I just were like, Oh, she’s so smart, she could logic her way through this. She can grow out of this. She’s all good, because she had friends and she was busy.
And like she didn’t have signs where you would think, Oh, this is really a problem. Like she wouldn’t go to school. She wouldn’t make friends.
She wouldn’t talk to it. No, that was not the story. So it was very confusing as parents.
Julie Lopez: But what they say, so like, on the outside, and even logically, you were like, check, check, check. She is fine. She’s beautiful.
She’s friendly. She’s, you know, all the things all the things, right?
Brenda Ferber: Yeah, yes, exactly. And we also saw that she was like, incredibly sensitive and incredibly, like moody.
And, and so, though, you know, we were concerned about that. But we thought it was just that’s just part of her personality. It’s okay.
First Serious Incident: Recognizing Crisis at Age Nine
Brenda Ferber: But when she was nine years old, she got into trouble at school, she and some friends in the classroom, played a mean trick on the new girl in their class. And the teacher called me and told me what happened at school. And so when Faith got home, I told her, you know, she was grounded from her phone and whatever, she didn’t have a phone, then I guess her her computer, the computer, and she had to like stay in her room or whatever it was just a little consequence for her behavior.
And I didn’t think it was such a big deal. But then, that night, my husband and I were sitting watching TV after the kids had all gone to bed. And Faith came downstairs after bedtime, and she grabbed a knife from the kitchen counter.
And she stood in front of my husband and me and playing with the knife against her palm, and said, I’m a terrible person. And like my heart stopped. I was like, what is happening here? And I said, you’re not a terrible person.
You did something that wasn’t kind. But that doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person. And she, you know, just felt so so so bad about herself, that I finally, you know, she wouldn’t give us the knife at first, we’re like, please give us the knife.
She’s like, I like the way it feels. We’re like, freaking out a little bit. And then I said, Do you want to maybe see a therapist? And she nodded, and you could see the tension just like, come out of her body.
And she’s handed us the knife fell into our arms and said, What took you so long? Which was like another knife right into my chest. What took me so long? So I felt really, really bad about that, that it took me till she was nine years old to realize how serious her mental health struggles were. Even though she was trying to tell me and drawings and pictures and notes and verbalizations, how bad she really did feel, you know, for years before that moment, and I just didn’t really believe it.
Julie Lopez: Yeah. And I’m sure there’s a part of you that didn’t want to believe it.
Brenda Ferber: 100%.
I didn’t believe it. My husband didn’t want to believe it. She just seemed on the outside so great.
And so we just thought, oh, it’s, you know, just Faith being dramatic.
Feeling Invisible: The Gap Between External Success and Internal Struggle
Faith Ferber: Right, like I had friends and I played sports and I did music and the picture of like, what it meant to be mentally ill, especially then was like, you’re isolated, and you don’t have friends and you don’t do anything and you don’t and I eventually got to that point where I withdrew from all my activities and all that. But for a long time, I was, you know, getting A’s in school doing great, having tons of friends being in the popular group, succeeding in all of the external ways and just feeling like, at my core, I was a bad, fundamentally bad person who didn’t deserve to be loved, didn’t deserve anything good, and who should just be dead.
Brenda Ferber: I think also, there’s like a, this, there’s this wrong expectation that many, many parents have, and I think I had this as well, which is good parents equal good kids, and bad parents equal bad kids. So like, here we were a mom and a dad, happily married, a stable home environment, good parenting techniques, like, you know, we couldn’t have a mentally ill child that made no sense to me. And so but that’s the mental illness stigma, and it’s not true.
And putting that kind of pressure on parents, not only makes parenting harder, but it prevents kids who really, really need extra help from getting it.
First Experiences with Therapy: Relief or Just the Beginning?
Julie Lopez: So let me ask you, Faith, about your part of this equation, when your mom, Brenda, was just talking about how you were like, oh, like, finally, finally, like, what was that like for you, on your side of this relationship?
Faith Ferber: I can’t remember if I actually remember that night specifically, but I do remember in, in seven and eight-year-old ways trying to express that I wanted to die, like I would draw a picture of me locked in a tower being eaten by tigers and saying, like, I deserve to be eaten by tigers. I had like a weird hangman drawing hanging up on my wall where like, every day that I had a bad day, I would hang another part of myself.
And it was like, I didn’t have the language to say, I’m thinking of suicide. I was only seven or eight. But I was saying like, I’m in so much distress.
And so once I got into therapy, I think that that did feel really relieving to me because I was like, I know something is very wrong with me. So at least now we’re talking about it. Like, I don’t even know how I really knew what therapy was at that age.
But I knew I was supposed to be talking to someone.
Julie Lopez: Well, and isn’t that a human driver, right? Like, if you look at ideal human relationships, there’s validation, there’s mirroring, there’s empathy. And so if you’re having a collection of experiences internally, and you’re deeply connected to it, but externally, people are seeing something different.
And there’s a part of you that is not validated, not normalized, not mirrored, not attuned to, that’s a very isolating kind of experience. So I just felt like it was a really powerful moment that Brenda described as a mother saying, Oh, finally, like, Oh, my gosh, finally, like, I’m getting some recognition. And I know there’s so many stories, we see them, unfortunately, all the time, where someone just like your mom described someone adult or otherwise, who is popular and smart, and has so much going for them.
And everyone’s like, I had no idea, right, that it’s so isolated, or it’s so separate from the way they’re being experienced relationally on the outside. And I think there’s a really big miss there.
Faith Ferber: Yeah, it’s fascinating.
I hear I hear a lot now people say I had no idea you were struggling so much as a kid. And I’m like, I’m actually I’ve been shocked by and like, seriously, like, I thought it was so obvious to everyone. And it it really was not.
Escalation in Adolescence: Self-Harm, Isolation, and Risk
Julie Lopez: Yeah. Yeah. So, I know, there was a big article, right, came out in HuffPost.
And it had some really key points to it. And I wonder if either one of you would like to share what you I know what I think kind of reading it that was like, it’s just such so expansive to me in my heart, which really speaks to the power of your relationship and how, when I’m really, really impressed with the relationship that I see, whether it’s friends or partners or parent child, it’s when it can be really, really stretched beyond any limit that you think it could be and still stay connected. So I wonder if you if and I guess since Brenda started, maybe Faith, you can tell me a little bit about your experience of that.
Faith Ferber: Yeah, it’s interesting. So I started therapy at nine. And then from that point on, it was weekly therapy, weekly therapy escalated to like therapy and meds.
When I was in middle school, I went to wilderness therapy, I was hospitalized in eighth grade, I kind of did all of the traditional Western medicine treatments that there were for mental health conditions at that time. And just continue to struggle therapy was definitely beneficial, but I was still depressed and still anxious and still suicidal and still feeling like I was a bad person. And in middle school, it escalated to self harm.
And, you know, using boys as a way to get like that instant validation and way to feel immediately better in the moment. And so I continue to struggle. And before what isn’t shared in the article is that things got so bad to the point that I had, I was going to a boarding school, I got kicked out of my boarding school for being suicidal.
And I had to go back home to my public school with all of these kids who hadn’t seen me since I had mysteriously disappeared in middle school to go to wilderness therapy. All of a sudden, I was back, I had no friends, because I had gotten kicked out in the middle of the semester, I got D’s for the whole semester. It was my junior year of high school, I was like, I’ve ruined my chance at college.
Like, I was like, I’ve really messed up my life. I had no friends. When I moved back here, I was literally eating lunch in the school bathroom.
Like, it was really bad. And I was like, wow, like, I just truly have messed up my life more than I possibly could have imagined. And so I was very set on ending my life.
Suicide Attempt: A Turning Point
Faith Ferber: And one day I left the house with the intentions of killing myself. And I wrote a note, and I attempted and the attempt didn’t work. And I was like, I’m such a failure at life that I can’t even kill myself correctly.
Like, I all I want to do is get out of this pain, like I want to be done. And I can’t even do that. So I came home, feeling deeply hopeless and deeply exhausted and, and, and deeply just stuck in a place that I didn’t want to be.
And that was when I kind of got home. And I sat down next to my mom on the couch. And I said, you’ll be okay when I die.
And she was like, no, I will not be and I was like, no, you will. And in my mind, when I was saying that I was thinking like, I said, parents of kids with cancer, get over it. And in my mind, that meant like, you’ll smile again, you’ll laugh again, like there will be good moments and you’ll love them and enjoy them.
That was kind of my perspective. Which obviously, you know, I’m not a parent. So don’t really have that.
But she was like, I will never get over it. And mom, I don’t know if you want to share some of that.
Brenda Ferber: So yeah, Faith, when Faith compared her depression to cancer.
For me, it was like the, the moment that clicked. And it was like, Oh, you know, this may not be cancer, but it’s killing her the same as a malignant tumor. And, and I thought, well, if she did have cancer, we would try every single thing to cure her, you know, not just Western medicine, everything, like any sort of strange cure, we would try, we would do it all we would throw everything at it.
And, and Faith was like, well, if you did all of that, and I, and I still was sick, you would let me die. And I was like, that’s true, because we just don’t have that control. We don’t have that control.
And so I said, Okay, if we try everything to cure you now, and you still feel this bad, I will let you die. And, and that’s what happened. And it was like, those words are crazy words to come out of a mother’s mouth.
Because, of course, I didn’t want my daughter to die. And, and in my mind, this list of like, let’s try everything in my mind might have been never ending. On the one hand, it was a never ending list, and something would work for Faith.
And then the other hand was this letting go and understanding Faith pain is so bad. And this is not a way to live. And it was like, instead of, instead of like fighting her, like, I felt like our whole life, she wanted to die.
And I wanted to keep her alive. And it was like we were opposing teams on a football field. And suddenly, like switched, and I came over to her side.
And it was on her team. And the other side of the field was depression. And so me and her against this horrible depression, instead of me being like, No, it’ll get better.
It’s not that bad. Life is good. Look how good you have it.
Blah, not helpful.
Julie Lopez: Wow.
Brenda Ferber: Being on her team against depression, incredibly helpful. And Faith had a totally different take on that conversation, though.
Validation and Being Seen: How Being Heard Changes Everything
Faith Ferber: I did. Yeah, yeah. You know, what? That was a huge turning point for me.
Because I did, you know, I heard a lot growing up, especially from my parents, it will get better. Like, just hang in there. It’ll get better.
Like, especially, you know…
Brenda Ferber: Routine things…
Julie Lopez: Minimizing and…
Faith Ferber: Yes, which makes other people feel better.
Because God forbid a love they admit that a loved one might struggle forever. It’s a really hard thing for people to accept. But for me, I was like, there’s no evidence that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
I can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. And even if there is maybe a light at the end of the tunnel, I don’t know that I have the energy to get there. Depression weighs you down.
It makes everything exhausting. It makes everything a million times harder. I didn’t know if I had the fight in me.
In fact, I was convinced I did not have the fight in me. And so when my mom said, if we try everything, and you still feel this way, I will let you end life. I was like, oh my god, I finally have this out.
I can, I will get through this finite list of things that will not work because nothing is going to work. And then I will finally be able to end my life. And not only will I be able to end my life, but I’ll be able to end my life without having to feel guilty about what I’m doing to my family.
Julie Lopez: With that, with with an ally, with someone that sees you.
Faith Ferber: Yes. Yeah.
I was like, my pain is being seen. The depth of my pain is being seen. The potential permanence of my pain is being seen.
Julie Lopez: So all of that stuff, the normalizing, the validating, yet I imagine that was probably the hardest thing to do as a parent.
Brenda Ferber: Nothing harder, nothing harder. And, you know, I’ve talked to so many parents since this moment, about this, and it’s a terrifying thing to even think about for our parents, let alone say, and, and I mean, I want to be very clear, I’m not telling any parents to tell their child to end their life.
I always need to make that very clear. What I am saying is that you need to validate their pain, you need to be on their side, you need to understand this isn’t logical. It’s not your fault.
This is something your child is dealing with, and they need you on their team. They need you to understand.
Julie Lopez: Well, and it’s making me think about something really powerful that we talk about, and we work with all the time at the Viva Center, where Faith and I both work.
And that is that there is a huge difference between knowing something intellectually with this part of your brain, and feeling something in a visceral way or in a sensory way in the cells of your body. And so another way I hear what you’re saying is the task for a parent is to put themselves to the side and step out of their intellectual wish or rationalizations or logistical drive to try to change someone’s mind. And just like exhale, and sit next to them and listen right in a true way to what’s happening and that there’s really a lot of power in that.
Brenda Ferber: So much. Exactly right, Julie. Yes.
Julie Lopez: Yeah. So, Faith, you know, you said that made a huge difference for you. I want to hear really from both of you about what you would say to other people that are struggling with depression, or that are struggling with feelings of wanting to end their life, whether it’s a loved one, or the person themselves, specifically, because you’re, you’ve gone through this journey.
And I think there are, you know, just like we talked about in this podcast all the time, like the human system is incredibly complex. And there are all these amazing, resilient opportunities for change within the system. I’d love to hear kind of what messaging you have for any part of a relationship with suicide.
Advice for Those Struggling: Compassion and Understanding
Faith Ferber: Yeah, I think something that I repeat over and over again with my clients is that it’s really helpful to think of suicide as a very helpful protector, because it’s a part of you that is saying, if the pain is too bad, we will find a way out. And I think we can actually really honor that when we when there’s so much fear around suicide, understandably, that it’s all about shutting that part down, like just make that part be really, really quiet. And if we recognize that it makes sense for somebody in deep pain to be thinking about any way to get out of that pain, I think we can have a lot more compassion for people who are feeling suicidal.
Julie Lopez: Yes, that’s amazing. And it sounds like if we’re leveraging off of your story that you actually felt a lot of relief in having the validation and the space for what was actually going on in your system instead of it constantly being negated, or kind of have this attempts to talk you out of, you know, it’s kind of like what you resist will persist, right? It’s like this energy saying, No, you don’t. You’re like, No, yes, I do.
Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Louder, louder, louder.
Right?
Faith Ferber: Definitely.
Julie Lopez: Yeah. What about you, Brenda? What’s your thoughts for other people that are maybe on your side of the fence, the loved one of someone who or, you know, loving someone who’s struggling with so much pain and wanting to end their life?
Brenda Ferber: Yeah, I think what Faith said is so beautiful and so important for people to understand.
And from a mom’s point of view, I mean, we’re, we’re wired to want to protect our children. It’s like in our bodies to want to protect our children. So it feels very counterintuitive to let their feelings of suicide be okay with you.
It’s just so hard, but it actually is such an act of love, to give them the space to have those feelings, and to know that you’re going to be with them. And you’re not going to talk them out of it. You’re not going to say it gets better.
You’re not going to minimize it or any of that or try to logic it just, just sitting with them. Just listening, just holding just maybe saying how can I best support you right now? Those are those are things you can do.
Julie Lopez: Amazing.
So that means that’s a real stretch. And fortunately, we know about neuroplasticity that our bodies can stretch that we can move them and strengthen them. But it means saying, Oh my gosh, I’m so frightened.
And this is such a terrible outcome. I, you know, right, like you said, it’s primal, like everything in me wants to protect you or not have that come to pass or have this terrible rupture, you know, of this attachment that I have, it means taking that and setting it to the side.
Brenda Ferber: Yes.
Julie Lopez: Which is a lot, right, setting it to the side, in order to be like, truly, truly present and validating for your loved one, which is hard and incredible.
Brenda Ferber: Yeah, that’s exactly it. So how I did it, to be honest, but like, I’m glad I did it. But I think for me, like, I’m a journalist.
So I was always journaling about my feelings. But for anyone else going through this, like, seek out help yourself, because this is not an easy thing to do for a parent. I got my help through journaling, but you might need help through a therapist, or you might need help through like a really good friend who’s gone through this before, whatever it is, but because it is like the scariest thing in the world to do.
Like, I do remember before I said this to Faith, I remember walking the dogs, maybe the day before. And all of a sudden, like, I felt Faith’s loss, I felt like she had died. And I would I was grieving in advance.
That’s how much I had to let go of this idea of protecting her. I realized, I cannot keep her from ending her life, if that’s what she wants to do. I can’t.
Julie Lopez: Ah, so hard. And I’m a mom. And I have my own attachment issues as an adopted person.
So I’m gonna be honest, and I love Faith, you have such an amazing daughter. So I’ve been working to like, keep my tears in. So the podcast keeps going.
But it’s so touching, and so beautiful. And I agree with all the things you’re so talented and big hearted and an amazing therapist, but just an amazing person. And so I just think it’s incredible.
And it’s super inspiring. And my hope, like every episode with this podcast is that someone’s listening, and they’re like, Oh, we’ve tried all these things. I never thought about that crazy idea.
That’s a crazy idea. I definitely haven’t tried yet. And that, that’s my hope.
And I could talk to you guys for days. But we’re near the end. So I’m gonna pass it over to you, Faith, and just ask about your story.
And I do want to point out just like Brenda said, people are different. You said for you, it was journaling, but I love how you shared that you’re like, for someone else, it might be this or this or this. And I do believe that’s true, that people are really unique.
But tell us for you, Faith, you know, you had your own kind of personal turning point. But what was that? What was that moment? And what was that switch? We’ve all would love to know.
Faith’s Healing Journey: Non-Traditional Therapies and Reconnecting With Self
Faith Ferber: Yeah, so for me, it was working with an energy healer and doing Reiki work, which I don’t think we would have even been familiar with, except for the fact that the person that I worked with is one of my mom’s very good friends.
And so that was kind of where we started was like, if we’re gonna go kind of away from conventional medicine, let’s start here. And I was really convinced that it wasn’t gonna work, especially over the phone. I was like, this is probably made up.
And we worked with an amazing energy healer. Her name is Sheryl Netzky. And Sheryl was like, you’re missing parts of your soul.
I can see the depression and like every chakra. I’m gonna go on this journey to retrieve the missing parts of your soul. And I was like, Okay, lady, whatever you say.
And she’s making sounds on the other end of the phone. And I’m like, Oh, I’m being scammed. Like, there’s no way this is gonna work.
But at one point, I got distracted. And at the exact time I got distracted. She was like, bring your focus back to your breath.
And I was like, how does she know? And then she said she found these parts of my soul. And she was like, I’m gonna tell you what I found. And you’re gonna tell me what they mean.
I said, Okay. So as she’s saying these things, consciously, I’m like, I have no idea what these mean. In fact, like you should tell me what they mean.
But as I’m consciously thinking that there are words coming out of my mouth that make perfect sense for what it all means. So she had found a baby fawn. And I said something about how they’re on shaky legs, but they keep trying to stand up until they’re on firmer ground.
She found a pearl and I was thinking about kind of this rougher exterior but if you can get inside there’s this beautiful gem.
And then a bride in a wedding dress and every time she looked at herself she glowed and for me that was all about loving herself so deeply that you glow and it was my first experience of recognizing that we have so much wisdom and healing in our body right outside of our conscious awareness which is why love working at the Viva Center and getting to do this work which is so full circle because oh my gosh like I am a full believer that our bodies truly have every piece of wisdom we need to know to heal we just have to learn how to tap into it.
And that’s what Sheryl taught me how to do and I left that one session feeling so much lighter and I came out of my room and my mom said she saw a light in my eyes that she had not seen in years.
And the next day I didn’t feel suicidal and the day after that I didn’t feel suicidal.
And I just kept kind of thinking it would end at some point but it just kept going and going and going and it really completely changed my entire relationship with suicide.
Julie Lopez: I love it. And I love that it was not like, I love the way you tell the story because you’re like okay this is gonna sound crazy and it was on the phone yeah but it is what it is
Faith Ferber: Yes!
Julie Lopez: And your a living testimony of that and you know what your life has been since then and how many years ago was that?
Faith Ferber: Over probably 15 years ago
Julie Lopez: Amazing right.
Faith Ferber: Yeah
Julie Lopez: And how many years did you that you were consciously aware of do you remember yelling like you wanted to die
Faith Ferber: At least 10 yeah at least 10, yeah.
Julie Lopez: So this is your truth and and now I know you’ve worked with a number of people who also have felt suicidal and I bet you could share different turning points that were completely different for each one but I think from where I sit, I think what’s important to note is that all people, no matter what’s going on, really react so positively to being seen.
Faith Ferber: Yes
Julie Lopez: To being seen in all their parts. Whether it’s painful or triumphant right. As a species we flourish on that and that we’re all different and that there are ways to make change. And I think especially with suicide right this is I think your relational the power of your story is about you know Brenda joining you and making space for you and and doing this like impossible seemingly herculean thing for a parent to do and it’s just so beautiful like when it comes to love and sacrifice but that everyone’s different and that their you know suicide is a permanent solution to a state that can change and move and so I think that’s a pretty powerful message also.
Any last things you want to say before we wrap up? I definitely want to say it’s been a pleasure having you guys on the podcast and you know I hope that this message reaches a lot of people.
Brenda Ferber: I want to just say thank you Julie for having us and thank you Faith for being so brave to share your story. A lot of people are not brave to talk about this and I’m just so proud of you.
Faith Ferber: Thank you.
Julie Lopez: Oh you’re trying to make me cry the whole time.
Taking Action: How to Support and Stay Connected
Julie Lopez: Faith do you want to say any last thing no pressure?
Faith Ferber: Last thing I’ll just say is, I want people to ask their loved ones if they’re thinking about suicide.
If they’re worried that that could be a thing there is a huge huge myth out there that asking someone if they’re thinking about suicide will put the idea in their head and the research shows that that’s absolutely not the case.
The best thing you can do if you see someone struggling is just to ask are you having any thoughts of hurting yourself or ending your life and that’s that starting place for being with them in their pain.
Julie Lopez: So beautiful. I love that.
Well for all you listeners, thank you for joining me today on this really powerful episode of Whole by Design, I hope it left you feeling inspired to toss out the labels embrace new perspectives and take one step closer to the joy and clarity that you deserve. As always visit www.vivapartnership.com to access our free and low-cost resources that will empower you and your loved ones on health and healing let’s spread the message subscribe review or share the episode with someone who could benefit from a stigma dropping approach to mental fitness today.
