The Silence That Nearly Took Me (E.281)

Content Warning: This episode discusses suicide and suicidal ideation. If that’s difficult for you to hear right now, we encourage you to pause or skip this episode and take care of your mental well-being.

Earlier this year, Dr. Maggie Augustyn published an article titled The Silence That Nearly Cost Me Everything: Why I Didn’t Reach Out Before Attempting Suicide Twice. It struck a nerve. Within days, tens of thousands of people had read it, hundreds had commented, and messages flooded in from those who had faced their own darkness or knew someone who had.

That response sparked this conversation.

In this episode, Dr. Maggie and co-host Regan Robertson are joined by returning guest Dr. Will Corrado, a therapist with decades of clinical insight, to talk openly about the silent crisis within dentistry and beyond. They explore what suicidal ideation actually feels like, why depression often hides in plain sight, and how guilt, shame, and silence isolate the people who need help most.

Dr. Corrado shares the difference between passive and active suicidal thoughts and explains why 50% of those who take their lives show no warning signs at all. He also addresses a growing trend: suicide rates among women in healthcare, particularly in dentistry, are now outpacing those of men a troubling shift with complex roots.

The episode also explores tools for navigating through the darkness, including a simple breathing technique developed for Navy SEALs that has proven remarkably effective in calming the nervous system during moments of overwhelm. But more importantly, it emphasizes the power of community, the healing that begins when we create spaces where people can speak, be seen, and feel less alone.

This conversation isn’t just for those who are struggling. It’s for their families. Their coworkers. Their friends. It’s for all of us who believe that sunlight, honest, open dialogue is the most powerful disinfectant.

We are human. We are hurting. And it’s okay to say it out loud.

Listen now and if you’re struggling, know this: you’re not broken, you’re not alone, and the world still needs you.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Regan Robertson: Listeners, before we start this episode today, I wanna alert you that this covers suicide and suicidality, and there might be details in here that might be difficult for some of our listeners to hear. So if you are one of them, you can listen to any of our other podcasts. For the rest of you, we’re gonna jump in. A few months ago, we released, uh, a podcast regarding mental wellbeing and the very next day I received a, an, an email. It was upsetting and it was from a fellow, uh, doctor and colleague and in it, he writes to me, “How did you release a podcast about a dentist wellbeing on the exact same day, a famous oral surgeon would leap out of his high rise to his own death?” Spooky, but maybe you should have done it a day sooner. Ugh, this was, this was hard for me to hear. Um, it was hard for me to read because at Everyday Practices, we believe that there is a lot of power when we can shed light  on topics that live, um, in the dark, uh, especially in dentistry and in January of this year, 2025, our co-host, Dr. Maggie penned an article titled “The Silence That Nearly Cost Me Everything, why I didn’t Reach Out before Attempting Suicide Twice.” Rather than her regular 4,000 views, like her other articles garnered this one within a very short amount of time had nearly 20,000 and received thousands of social media likes and hundreds of comments.

[00:01:31] Dr. Corrado: Wow, that’s impressive. 

[00:01:34] Regan Robertson: It definitely underscores the importance, um, of this topic and, uh, and, and listeners, you can hear Dr. Carrado already chiming in. He’s a previous guest of ours. Uh, but I’d like to hand this over, uh, lightly to Dr. Maggie. Uh, so Maggie, you can introduce our guest today and, um, help us navigate the troubling waters of this heavy topic.

[00:01:58] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Thank you Regan. Our co-host Chad Johnson, is traveling across Iowa, so he is, uh, in our thoughts. We miss him very much. Uh, we are going to have our favorite therapist and, um. Dr. Corrado, who’s going to help us navigate through these waters but today, we are undertaking a very heavy and difficult subject that has been a part of dentistry for a very, very long time. I mean, how many of you entered dentistry knowing that dentists have the highest suicide rate, which. Is not true if you, if you, if you do your homework, but it doesn’t matter whether we have the highest suicide rate or one of the highest, we, we are at risk for, for committing and attempting suicide and many of us know someone who has attempted or committed suicide, whether they were in our industry or whether they were just another human that we have come to love. When Dr. Paul Feuerstein, the editor in chief of Dentistry today considered this article that has been in my heart for many, many, many years. Um, Dr. , who is the oral surgeon that committed suicide in December, um, we gave it a lot of thought. We needed to do our due diligence to make sure that this was actually a suicide. We wanted to be respectful to the family and his loved ones, and it took us a moment to make sure that we could publish that. We actually did not mention his name in this article, but his suicide was part of the reason why we published this article and then of course we came to know that, you know, he was fairly famous and, uh, he was well known in in our community but he was not the only one that committed suicide that month. Uh, he was not the only dentist that committed suicide that month and so what, what we would like to do with e with this episode is with Dr. Corrado’s help, is we would like to talk about, uh, from the perspective of the patient that is suffering from thoughts of suicide and from the perspective of someone that loves. Someone who, um, who is thinking about taking their own life. How do you maneuver? How, how do you get past it? What, what is it like to live that life? Um, and how do you go and how do you get to the other end? The article that I wrote that you mentioned is, is not just a description of my two suicide attempts. Um, it is. It is there to serve as, as hope, um, for those that don’t know how to reach out for help. Um, I didn’t pick up the phone with my two suicide attempts. I, I was lucky and I didn’t succeed, but I, I will always reach out for help moving forward, and, and that’s what I write about in the article and, and there’s reasons, reasons for that but, um, I am a co-host in, in this podcast, and I’m not a guest. Dr. Carrado is the guest. So what we’ll do is we will move forward and we will talk about, um, the darkness that people face. So, Dr. Carrado, we are very, very grateful once again for your, for your time and for your willingness to spend with our audience. How common is suicidality.? The thinking of suicide, the fantasy of suicide? Not, not just the act of, but how common is suicidality among the humans that walk this earth right now? 

[00:06:10] Dr. Corrado: Well, I, I don’t know if I could talk about all the humans that walk the face of this earth, but I did consult. I drew my, my, uh. Information from three major sources. One was the national, uh, vital statistics system of the United States. Uh, the next was the Center for Disease Control. This was in 2021, the National Library of Medicine, uh, suicide rates for 2024, uh, and the National Institute of Mental Health for 2024. Um, and some of the facts that stood in relief, uh, are the following, but to directly answer your question. It is enormously pervasive, um, suicidal ideation, which is a fancy way of saying thinking about suicide. There are a couple of subsets of that. One is active suicidal ideation, and the other one is passive suicidal ideation and I almost tell you most normal people, uh, partake of both from time to time, um, because there’re in several different forms, uh, uh, of, uh, um, suicidality, if you will, uh, suicidal modes and, um, they, they, they make room for a lot of us, for a lot of people, huh. So, um, what can I tell you other than passive ideation? Are you there?

[00:09:01] Regan Robertson: Yes, of course.

[00:09:03] Dr. Corrado: Okay. I, I thought I’d lost you. Uh, passive suicidal ideation is something that is extremely common, uh, and, and, uh, most of us engage in it, um, and that is simply along these lines, “Oh God, you know, it’s on, we, it’s boredom. It’s, well, I just feel totally unhappy. I’m dissatisfied. Oh, I just wish I could die. Like, I wish I could die. I wish I could just close my eyes and it would be over.” Alright. That’s a classic form of passive suicidal ideation and if it’s obvious why it’s passive, because there’s no active verb in it, right? It’s simply a, a wish. Okay. It’s, uh, we’re just lobbing it out there to ourselves because we’re, you know, having a difficult time handling stress and then of course the other form is, uh, active suicidal ideation wherein, uh, you’ve got a plan and you’ve worked on the plan and you are carrying out the plan and that’s the one that we wanna, uh, focus on. That’s the one that, you know, we’re in trouble with, that it’s a, it’s a high, high state of, of trauma and it’s life threatening. Um, so I hope that kind of answers that question for you. 

[00:09:14] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: It does. and, and, and our suicidal, our, our rates of, of suicide, 

[00:09:21] Dr. Corrado: mm-hmm. 

[00:09:22] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Increasing in this country, 

[00:09:25] Dr. Corrado: There are mushrooming, they’re absolutely off the charts. In fact, across the entire spectrum of all working adults, uh, suicidal rates have increased from 2022 to present by 33%. 33%, and that runs across all professions.

[00:09:56] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: And there was a, a very significant increase, if I remember, in suicide rates even before that, that was really staggering. In year. Mm-hmm. In years before that, that was also high. 

[00:10:11] Dr. Corrado: 2019 was a big record year, and then things started to get better, but then in 2022 it all started up again. So we’re probably looking at covid being one of things that, uh, quiet it down, uh, oddly because that was such a stressful time for so many people but anyway, um, moving forward a little bit. Anyway, it’s, it’s vast, it’s huge. It’s pernicious, it’s pervasive, and it doesn’t look like it has any. Uh, the, the momentum is, uh, moving upward and onward. Okay? So it is, uh, it’s absolutely epidemic and, um, it is, uh, it’s something to be very conservative about. Um, might, it might be interesting for this, but, uh, originally back in the 18, was it 1897, uh, there was a French sociologist by the name of Emil Durkin, and he identified, uh, four major, uh, shall we say, types of, uh, suicide. One was the egoistic, and that is, uh, one, one feels, uh, a sense of isolation from society. Uh, that we, um, we find ourselves by ourselves and that we don’t belong. Uh, uh, then there’s the altruistic, uh, suicide, and that is sacrificing one’s life to fulfill an obligation to a group. Uh, the kamikaze bombers and the suicide bombers come, uh, to, to, to mine then, uhm, then there’s the economic suicidality, and that is where there is a, a huge, or that’s a, it’s a really difficult, uh, breakdown of social norms and values, uh, which leads to people feeling that they have no purpose. Uh, and then finally there’s the fatalistic, uh, suicide and that’s when individuals find themselves overwhelmed when they’re placed under, uh, conditions of extreme rules and high expectations. So, um, I thought that would be kind of an, an interest, some interesting things to know. 

[00:12:47] Regan Robertson: That is fascinating. I had no idea that there were four different types specifically. Yeah, I was, I, I was wondering, so in, in a, in addition to those, those four, those, those, those four  different types of suicidality, I, I definitely don’t have the data against it, but what, what I’ve noticed on the, the pharmaceutical ads, and, and I love that you said COVID too, I’ve noticed that in a lot of, as you know, they have to say what the, um, side effects are or potential side effects are, and I have heard suicidal thoughts come up alot in a lot of different types of prescription drugs on the market. Mm-hmm. Um, again, no science. I don’t have the science behind it, but that, uh, side effects can occur, right. So I thought that that’s, I don’t know. Um, I don’t know how that differs from 20 years ago or 10 years ago or, or whatnot, or if we’re just more aware of it now but there are also like external things that we could be doing unintentionally that might also make us suicidal. Is that correct? I if it, if if it’s a side effect. 

[00:13:50] Dr. Corrado: Yeah. I think you’re right in saying that we’re, we’re, we’re identifying suicidality much more now. It’s much more mainstream because of the enormous, uh, statistical occurrence. Uh, and so, and yes. And here’s something that’s really paradoxical. One of the biggest concerns, uh, for a psychotherapist when they know that they’re, uh, one of their clients is, uh, beginning to take a course of antidepressants, for instance.

[00:15:37] Regan Robertson: Yes.

[00:15:38] Dr. Corrado: Uh, oftentimes because the, the, uh, depression begins to lift from taking the medication, it has, uh, for some people the effect of energizing them enough so that they actually carry out the suicide. Whereas before taking the medicine, they lacked the energy. They just, they were so swallowed up in it that they were just listless, you know, and, and, and felt like they were in a hole. So they didn’t act on it and so that’s one of the big reasons why we start, for instance, adolescents and teenagers out on half of the normal, uh, dosage of even the SSRIs, which are, you know, really a very good and safe incredibly, uh, uh, effective, uh, classification of, uh, medications. Uh, because, uh, we don’t want them to feel so good so fast that they, in a state of almost elation and, uh, in a state of really, um, what we would call pharmaceutically induced induced mania, they would act upon, uh, their suicidal thoughts. So it’s a strange paradox, isn’t it?

[00:15:46] Regan Robertson: Yeah. That is incredible education. Maggie, what are your thoughts on hearing all of that? 

[00:15:52] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s, um, I, I did not know the correlation between the two, but I could certainly, I. I rem. I mean, I remember when I first started taking medicine when I was very young and you know, I started exper, well, I started letting my parents know that I had suicidal ideation. Mm-hmm. My mom mm-hmm blamed it on the medicine. It wasn’t the medicine that made me suicidal, but, but she would think that it was the medicine that made me think that way but I could certainly see how an awakening from lethargy. Would make you, you know, awake enough to then start to carry out this plan that you have had in your mind? Sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months. Mm-hmm. Sometimes on and off for years, right, but one of the things I wanted to ask you is because, you know, we are now living in this culture where. When I was growing up with this in the nineties, you couldn’t talk about it. You, you were, you were ostracized for it. You’re  not ostracized for it now. Not, not in the same way, certainly. Is it, is it possible that we are more open about it and we’re, and we’re talking about it now, or is it actually that we are feeling more suicidal or is it a combination of both? 

[00:17:19] Dr. Corrado: I think the later the latter. Is the correct choice that we are becoming increasingly more aware of it, more sensitive to it, and, uh, we’re actually becoming, uh, more depressed and more suicidal. Um, and that’s, that bears out with the statistics. 

[00:17:38] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: And there’s also this idea. That suicide happens in clusters, right? That once you find out and, well, I don’t know, you tell me. Is that true? That once you hear of someone committing suicide, you then, as someone who is suffering well from deep depression thinking and fantasizing about suicide, does that make you brave, more brave to commit the act, or is that a myth? 

[00:18:08] Dr. Corrado: Well, I, I think anything I’m too old to, so that I know that anything under the sun is possible, and I would say absolutely it’s possible for somebody to almost like a copycat suicide, you know? That person did it. I mean, you know, you, you, you hear this with young people who idolize, uh, you know, some of the, the great rock stars who, you know, died from overdoses and so on. You know, Jimi Hendrix, Jan, Janice Joplin, uh, Jim, uh, Jim Morrison. Uh, you know, there’s this kind of sense of uh, almost like a cult belonging and it’s like, “Oh, well if he went and he broke on through to the other side as his lyrics went. Uh, you know, then why shouldn’t I?” And so you’re always gonna get some of that in the mix. Um, yeah, absolutely. So, but, but what’s important is to, uh, is for the person who, who, who has felt suicidal or, you know. Talked about it. For them to not take on the guilt of thinking that, “Oh my God, I’m gonna influence somebody to commit suicide, you know, just by discussing it,” you know, carrying out the act is, is different because then there is a, you know, it’s, it’s a f or complete, it’s done but, uh, simply talking about it, processing it, having healthy discourse about it, expressing our feelings. Uh, uh, you know, that’s a very healthy thing, so it’s, it’s probably not going to get people to, uh, do a copycat kind of suicide. 

[00:19:43] Regan Robertson: I’m, I’m curious, are there warning signs because I think there’s a lot of, still a lot of stigma and maybe a lot of shame around, you know, seeking help and, and like admitting that you’re thinking this in the first place. Even admitting it might be difficult for a lot of people, are there warning signs before it gets to that point, before you get to suicidality that would be healthy indicators of. I, I, I should be seeking some support or some guidance or some help?

[00:20:16] Dr. Corrado: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, certainly just by ob uh, observation and especially in, in our profession. You know, in the workplace, um, that’s probably the best place to really begin kind of treating or approaching the treatment of, uh, uh, a media rating, suicidal, uh, tendencies and ideation. Um, and that is by creating a safe, um, space, if you will, for people to come forward, uh, with those very, uh, terrible, horrifying, and kind of alienating feelings, alright. Um, and so that’s a, that’s a wonderful thing to, to do,  you know, to be able to, uh. Have discourse to have a discussion with your, you know, immediate supervisor or with your peers. Uh, but, uh, most of the time the best way to do that, of course, is to have a, a professional mental health practitioner come into your practice. Maybe, you know, bi-weekly, or sometimes maybe even just once a month and, uh, facilitate a group process, uh, for the entire staff. You know, you close the doors and you turn the phones off and, uh, it becomes, uh, a very enriching experience for everyone, and they feel a sense of community, a sense of belonging. Uh, you increase the level of feeling safe to come forward with some of these difficult thoughts and, you know, dark feelings and so on. So the workplace is a great place to start, you know, to um,  uh, start to, um, cultivate, uh, that culture if you will but, uh, the other part of this is that about 50% of the time there are no warning signs. That’s the tough part. Um, so you know, sometimes, 

[00:22:20] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: That’s 50% of the time that are no warning. Si. I really need everybody to hear this ’cause I think there’s so many people that walk around and they are. Essentially broken for the rest of their lives. Mm-hmm. Thinking and guilting, if that’s even a word, feling guilty that they should have known that somehow. Somewhere they, they should have been there. They should have listened, they should have picked up on something and they live in this world of, you know, should have when, when someone that they love attempts or commits suicide, and I need to hear this, I need you to hear this. 50% of the time there aren’t no warning signs and I have people reaching out to me and saying, I, I actually ha, I talked to a patient about this and he said, “You know, I talked to my friend two days before and she was great. She was laughing and then two days later she took her life. Is it possible he was asking me and my answer as someone that suffers with, with this kind of life? And I said, “Absolutely. That can change in 15 minutes.” Oh. 

[00:23:42] Dr. Corrado: Just, you know, so precipitously it can be, you know, one of those instances where it’s the last proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back up. Mm-hmm. It’s, that’s it, that’s it and I’ll go to the bathroom and, and, you know, exsanguinate from, uh, uh, with a razor blade or, you know. Uh, uh, gas themselves in the oven, or, you know, do something else that will, uh, effectively carry out their, their own demise. So, um, one of the biggest components actually to deep depression and, and feeling, uh, feeling toward uh, uh, wanting to commit suicide is excessive guilt, taking on excessive guilt, unearned, undeserved guilt. You know, guilt is really a incredibly toxic emotion, and it is, it has no real value other than being destructive, um, because it’s, you already feel bad about being depressed, and then if you start feeling guilty about feeling depressed and feeling sick, boy, isn’t that gonna be helpful? Well, of course not. You know, it’s just gonna,  it’s going to compound the toxicity of your feelings of alienation and, and loneliness and, uh, not feeling like we fit in, not feeling as if we are part of something that we’re in community. 

[00:25:14] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: And for me it was the guilt that prevented me each time from reaching out and asking for help.

[00:25:22] Dr. Corrado: Oh, interesting. 

[00:25:23] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Because it, it’s the guilt of, of asking someone to put aside their beautiful life 

[00:25:30] Dr. Corrado: Mm-hmm. 

[00:25:31] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Be there for me and carrying me through these difficult moments. It actually doesn’t have much to do with the shame of what I’m going through and opening up my life and saying, “Hey, I’m so broken. Please help me.” It’s that. It’s the guilt of, “Holy cow, I’m this heavy, heavy burden. I feel so guilty for, right, someone,”

[00:25:53] Dr. Corrado: mm-hmm. Ties to, uh, you know, an erosion of profound erosion of any self esteem or self value. Self-worth, you know, I’m not worthy enough to even reach out and ask a fellow human being if they can help me to carry this cross if in, in terms of Christianity, you know?

[00:26:14] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: And is that a component of depression also? The self-worth issue, or is that a self-worth issue? 

[00:26:21] Dr. Corrado: No, it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a component of depression. I mean, uh, yeah and that’s why suicide is such a huge issue for people, for instance, who suffer and battle against eating disorders. That’s all about self image. It’s all about, you know, not feeling good about yourself. Body dysmorphia. Self dysmorphia and feeling as if, uh, you know, the world would be a better place without me. You know, uh, a lot of self condemnation. A lot of, uh, um, uh, overly. Over co  really about, uh, one’s faults or one’s shortcomings and, um, what this does is it these depress genic loops take on a life of their own and we go around and around in a circle and it drags us further down that hole, uh, of hopelessness and helplessness and, uh, you know, feeling, um, you know, that all is lost. It nothing that, there’s nothing really left for me. 

[00:27:29] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Where does it come from? I mean, I mean, we we’re talking of about depression, which is chemical, but 

[00:27:37] Dr. Corrado: mm-hmm. Well, I mean, depression, depression comes from a number of different, um, sources. Uh, I mean, one of the biggest breakthroughs recently is that we’ve just identified about 40 more genes. Uh, that contributes specifically to bipolar disorder. Uh, and you wanna talk about, uh, a disorder, a mental disorder that is, that is largely genetically, uh, passed on and not as something that, you know, we, you know, uh, create by our own, uh, conjugations and, and depress genic thought loops and so on. Um, that would be one of them. That’s all I. Almost entirely biochemical and genetic. So it gets passed down from generation to generation. Um, but then, you know, we can certainly get ourselves into one heck of a funk if we, um, do not pay attention to our self-talk, self-talk. The narration that goes on in our, our head. We all do it and if we, what we are saying to ourselves, how we are speaking to ourselves when we’re alone. Are we using turns toward ourselves that are loving, that are kind, that are, uh, strength-based, that are, uh, uh, uplifting, that are hopeful, or are we, uh, you know, are, we flag ourselves with, you know, harsh, uh, criticism and self reprisal and, um, guilt and, um, self, uh, debasement and it takes a while, but when we develop the capacity to become more mindful and tap into that check in with ourselves, we have to check in all the time with ourselves throughout the day. Where am I right now? What’s going on? You know, we don’t have to say it out loud or we can if we’re alone um, but, uh, it’s a really healthy thing to do because once we understand that, we take, we have a part in this. It’s, it’s basic cognitive behavioral therapy is what it is. It’s, it’s really the core of it. You know, it’s, you know, there’s a little book, a wonderful little book that I, I, uh, recommend to everybody if you can get it. It takes, it takes about 20 minutes to read. That’s called as a Man Think It. It’s an old book. I think it was published in the 19th century. Uh, it’s almost like a little missalette that you would find in a church pew or something. But what it really talks about is the, the power of our own cognitions so that, you know, if we pay attention and we, uh, speak to ourselves in more positive life affirming strength-based terminology. We are not going to feel as depressed. In fact, we’re gonna feel better about ourselves. Uh, but it’s, it’s teaching ourselves to catch ourselves and, uh, I can, you know, I’ll be forthright with you. I have to, I have to govern myself every day. There are moments when I turn into that, what is that, that, that cartoon that gets so Sam, you know, God damn, mm-hmm, throwing myself around and having all these little kind of raging little, you know, um, arguments with myself. And then it’s like, “Wait a minute, Corrado physician heal like myself. Take a few deep breaths here. You know, and reset, you know, and that’s, that’s a wonderful time when we can do, for instance, our box breathing, uh, which is, uh, uh, a technique that, uh, the United States government, uh, paid millions of dollars to develop, uh, with a group of psychologists, um, uh, for, uh, for the, uh, the Navy Seals to use, um, uh, as a, as a form of, um, uh, just awareness, you know, a super kind of awareness. Um, for instance, the Navy Seal is, uh, you know, uh, under water and they’re feeling is if they’re freezing to death and one of the things that you can do, is to train the people to, uh, not only visualize their extremities getting warmer, it’s a really powerful tool but also, uh, if we’re not under water, is simply to breathe deeply and purposefully to breathe four counts. We call it box breathing because it’s four breaths. We take four breaths in. We, we, uh, hold the breath for four counts and then we release the breath for four counts, and then we, we keep, uh, the lungs deflated for four. We call it box breathing because it’s four-sided. You know, you can imagine yourself drawing a box in front of yourself with your deep breathing and once we do that, uh, and this is what the, the Navy seals were able to benefit, right, is they’re able to, uh, decompress very quickly because that, that purposeful breathing is therapeutic and that it immediately tells the body, “Hey, guess what? No more fight, uh, fight or flight here. There’s no emergency. Uh, turn off, you know, the epinephrine. Turn off the, uh, um, cortisol turn off. Uh, the, uh, uh, forgetting the last, the last one, the adrenaline.” Those are the three big, uh, stress hormones. And once we breathe through that and we stop uh, we stopped that kind of cycle. That’s what we’re, we’re actually doing. Um, that’s when, uh, we begin to relax again and we tell ourselves everything is really okay. There’s nothing to be afraid of. There’s nothing to fear here. There’s, there’s, there’s no, uh, big threat and it has, uh, almost instantaneous results in helping a person to deescalate either from anxiety or sadness, or suicidality or horror or even, you know, PTSD. 

[00:34:26] Regan Robertson: This is incredibly powerful because it’s an actionable tool, and when you were talking about holding onto excessive, unnecessary guilt and those moments where. The weather can change in 15 minutes. Um, there’s a big trend on social media I have seen where it shows videos of people smiling, engaging in a party or telling a joke or whatever it is. They’re happy and it says this is the face of suicide and, and it was the last captured moment before they actually went ahead and, and did that and I think of, uh, you know, celebrities that, that I’ve enjoyed over the years. Chris Cornell, the musician, Anthony Bourdain, and is a It’s such a, oh, it’s awful. I was, I was at an event in Detroit, staying in the same hotel as Chris Cornell, and I didn’t even know he was in town and I drove past the Fox Theater and saw he was playing, and I thought to myself, you know, “After the event I should go see if there’s any tickets left. I’d love to see him<” and I didn’t and then the next day he was gone. 

[00:35:28] Dr. Corrado: The voice of an angel, truly, I mean, just the voice of an angel. Um, so incredibly sad, uh, entertainers, by the way, entertainers across the board have a very high valence for suicidality. Um, because, you know, it’s a difficult career. It’s fraught with all kinds of severe ups and downs and disappointments and cancellations and, 

[00:35:53] Regan Robertson: You know, 

[00:35:54] Dr. Corrado: And all that stuff. So, um, 

[00:35:56] Regan Robertson: yeah. The, the help, the, it, it’s the helplessness that, you [00:36:00]know, being, I mean being someone who’s, who’s even lost someone to suicide, the helplessness and that recurring thought of, is there something I could have done, as Maggie was saying, and you kind of, you know, validating that there, there’s really not much. My, my thought to that was what? What can, what can be used as an anchor in that person’s brain so that when the weather changes, they know what to do and, and box breathing. Like who would really think that Breathing alone uh, could, could make a change or, or let’s look at it this way. Who would’ve thought that the government would’ve saved your laughs? Who would’ve thought that the government would’ve spent millions of dollars to develop a breathing technique? Uh, but it did, and it works. And that is incredibly helpful to know, because I think what you’re telling us is this, this can happen to anyone. Oh, and, and you might find yourself in this situation, and, and this is a tool that you can use, did I. Did I hear you correctly?   

[00:37:02] Dr. Corrado: Yes, you did. Okay. Oh yeah. Um, absolutely and you know, when you think of the government, the government always wants to get a bang out of its buck, and especially the military industrial complex and so they’ve got a lot of money invested in those, uh, Navy seals. So they, they want ’em to last. So, uh, it’s, it was a very, uh, it, it was an intelligent investment of resources to say the least. Uh, and then of course, you know, the spinoff from that is that the general public to the drift and was able to start, uh, uh, doing that as well and start treating, you know, uh, uh, other groups of people who were feeling terrified or depressed or threatened or overly stressed and so on.

[00:37:47] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: You know, I think you might have touched on this a little bit, but. Tell us, is there any value in us coming together as a community and collectively sharing in our [00:38:00] pain and in our struggle, and saying, “I see you, I’m hurting. Um, this has happened to me before. I understand what this feels like. Here’s my hand. It’s okay. There’s no shame. There’s no blame. There’s no guilt.” 

[00:38:17] Dr. Corrado: Mm-hmm.  Mm-hmm. Oh. The greatest, uh, curative measures we can, uh participate, because then we have a, you know, when you sit in a circle, it almost has a, uh, there’s a ceremonial kind of magic that, that begins to, uh, descend upon a group. Well, and there’s a sense of belonging. We’re on a circle. We’re all able to see each other. We’re not caught off. Huh? Uh, the circle is kind of like, you know, for, uh, would be like an archetype for the breast. You know, the breast is something that, uh, is a, a, an object of comfort of nurture, huh, of hearing one another. We are listening, huh? Actively listening to, uh, the story of, uh, one another, uh, to the, the, you know, to the, the dashed, uh, hopes and dreams or the, you know, the tragedy or the, uh, you know, the relentless, um, uh, destructive self-talk. You know, the, uh, uh self, uh, and the self, um, criticism. Hmm. So when we have witnesses to that. We learn how to remind one another, “Hey, you know what? Maybe we shouldn’t go there. Maybe let’s do a little breathing and let’s see if we can kind of get over this kind of, I’m gonna call it like a suicidal hiccup, you know? Let’s see if we can stop it, you know,” and then we reset but, uh, oh yeah. I think, you know, who was it? Um, I think it was, it was, uh, the former, uh, Supreme Court Justice. Uh, Louis Brandeis who said, uh, there was a quote, he said, uh, “Sunlight, uh, is the, is the most powerful disinfectant,” huh? So that when, when we throw on the light, uh, throw light onto the darkness of our feelings or of our thoughts or of our inclinations, uh, it automatically, literally brightens it up. Hmm. It is no longer, uh, it doesn’t feel like it’s a dungeon, like it’s a deep hole that we’re in. Uh, we bring it up to the surface to get air. Huh? So that we can disinfect it, we can, we can clean the wound to some degree. 

[00:41:09] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Regan, I think that needs to be the tagline for this podcast. Literally, this is what we’ve been trying to do is to bring light into the darkness that we’ve been feeling, and little did we know we are actually disinfecting wounds. Um, Dr. Corrado with the amount of, of suicides that are on the rise, and as you described it, of it mushrooming in the mental health industry, what, what is it that we can do to address all of this? Where do we stand? How can we help? 

[00:42:48] Dr. Corrado: Well. I, I, I think maybe I, I, I’d like to keep it specifically geared toward what do we do in a dental practice, only because that’s what, you know, we’re really addressing, we’re addressing that profession and again, um, to have a professional, uh, person, a professional mental health, uh, uh, practitioner come into a practice once or twice a month. Twice a month is actually really good because stuff builds up pretty quickly uh, and to just have that group session, that form, that circle of humanity, form, that circle of care, that circle of life, that circle of light, um, that, um, uh, that circle of validation and, uh, community, um, it has a healing property all of its own. It, there’s no big mystery to it because you, you know, you feel as if you are being held. It’s almost tribal. Hmm and, uh, there are, you know, you learn about how you learn how to say things, uh, too in a, in a group setting like that, you know? Um how, how to say things and how not to say things, but you know, once you, you kind of, uh, smooth out the rough edges of it, um, it can be a very, very, uh, healing and life giving, uh, practice and, uh, because there is, by the way I wanted to mention this, in, in, in, uh, passing, uh, physicians in the, in the world of physicians, doctors, of all kinds, actually not just physicians, but all kinds, um, women are showing, uh, higher rates of suicidality than men. Whereas across all the other spectrum, all the other professions, men commit suicide four times more than women but when we’re in the field of professional, uh, doctors, uh, it’s actually women and nurses. Uh, the, the female, the, the, the fair, the fairer, uh, sex, uh, that suffers more and has more fatalities from actually carrying out suicide and there’s, you know, there’s so many, there’s so many possible reasons for that but, uh, that is, that is the case and that is the strange kind of twist in all of the statistical, uh, nomenclature. 

[00:45:36] Regan Robertson: I want to thank both of you for a really powerful episode. Uh, I, I think it’s going to reach the right ears and I appreciate you really landing, uh, as we wrap up today. ’cause I, I know we could talk for hours and, and go on about this but, but ending on community and connectedness and, um, especially for women in healthcare as well, the dangers that exist for, for all genders but, but in particular that, um, thank you Maggie for bringing Dr. Will Rado on again. Thank you Dr. Corrado for joining us. 

[00:46:10] Dr. Corrado: Oh, I’m so happy to be part of it. 

[00:46:13] Regan Robertson: We will, we will, uh, link, uh, in, for, for you listening right now. We will link, uh, Dr. Corrado’s previous, uh, episodes with us as well, which where he covers, uh, the spicy topic of narcissism and, uh, and any links to resources that, that may be helpful if you or a loved one, uh, is, is struggling with some of these issues as well. 

[00:46:34] Dr. Corrado: Mm-hmm. Just remember this suicidality is. Originated in human beings. It is a very human thing to engage in. We’re just people. We’re just people on the face of this earth trying to figure it out. And we have these enormous stressors in the days that we are living now ] for, for any number of reasons and if we can just remember, wait a minute. Stop all of this calamity, be quiet, breathe, and remember that we all have a spark of divinity within us. We are all a part of God. I know that might sound really out there, but I, I believe that with my whole soul and so, you know. Why do we wanna hurt God? We’re all part of God. You know, we’re all a reflection of God. We all have that flame of divinity within this and so, uh, we don’t wanna put that light out and so just remember this, it passes. Just remember that it’s, uh, suicide. There’s a moniker saying suicide is, uh, a final, what do they call it? Act to a temporary problem. Something along those lines, huh? A final solution to only a temporary problem and so if we just wait and we do our box breathing, and we just get in touch with our internal narrative and our self-talk just for a few moments. It can make all the difference in the world, and suddenly we’re reset and we’re back in the world again. It’s very normal to have these feelings. Don’t feel bad about having either, you know, passive or even active, suicidal, uh, ideation. It’s part of the human condition. We’re human beings. We’re doing the best we can do.

[00:48:36] Regan Robertson: Thank you for listening to another episode of Everyday Practices Podcast. It would mean the world if you can help spread the word by sharing this episode with a fellow dentist and leave us a review on iTunes or Spotify. Do you have an extraordinary story you’d like to share or feedback on how we can make this podcast happen? even more awesome. Drop us an email at podcast@productivedentist.com and don’t forget to check out our other podcasts from Productive Dentist Academy at productivedentist.com/podcasts. See you next week.