Speaker 1: Hey, fam, I'm Jada Pinkett Smith. Check out this exclusive
Speaker 1: Red Table Talk bonus content o. R T T. FAM
Speaker 1: has so many questions for you. Let's roll the first one. Hi.
Speaker 1: My name is Damia Gordon. In the past, I attempted
Speaker 1: suicide while being pregnant and was giving medications, medication a
Speaker 1: band aid, just masking what's really going on. That's great
Speaker 1: that it's a great question. She said she tried to commit.
Speaker 1: That's so the first thing I'll say is how touching
Speaker 1: it is that someone would be that open about their
Speaker 1: own experience. I want to honor that for her and
Speaker 1: just hold space for her because that's very moving, particularly
Speaker 1: while she's pregnant. In terms of the answer to the question,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people have that idea, especially
Speaker 1: in communities of color, that medication is a band aid. Right,
Speaker 1: there's the fast way in the slow way. The slow
Speaker 1: way is talked arapy because everything that you said you
Speaker 1: gotta did. You gotta dig it up, but don't table.
Speaker 1: You gotta look at it, you gotta like moveing around,
Speaker 1: you have to deal with it. The fast way is medication.
Speaker 1: Medication is not happy pills. That's what I tell It's
Speaker 1: not a happy pill. Think about it like this. Some
Speaker 1: people are struggling so much with mental illness they can't function.
Speaker 1: So if you can't function, how are you gonna do talk? There?
Speaker 1: You can't get out the bed right and you can't
Speaker 1: move around. You're taking psychotropic medication or mental health medication
Speaker 1: or psychiatric medication. Really, what it's there to do is
Speaker 1: sort of to elevate your mood to a place where
Speaker 1: you're able to do the work that you need to
Speaker 1: do to be healthy. But if the medication will help
Speaker 1: you get to a place where you can do those things,
Speaker 1: then you can work on the talk therapy and that
Speaker 1: can help you. So I think it's both. I definitely
Speaker 1: don't think it's a band aid. Got it all right?
Speaker 1: So we got another question for you. Hello. My name
Speaker 1: is Scott and I'm a lifetime sufferer of depression. I
Speaker 1: don't often share my feelings with other people. That's someone
Speaker 1: who keeps my emotions bottled up inside. Am I more
Speaker 1: at risk for just snapping or harming myself? Another wonderful question. Um,
Speaker 1: there's so many layers to that. I think anything that
Speaker 1: we don't address, we bottle it up and we give
Speaker 1: it the opportunity to grow in ways that we don't
Speaker 1: necessarily want it to go. That's it, you're allowing it
Speaker 1: to best. Prevention is better than intervention. But if you're
Speaker 1: not able to prevent, you want to intervene early. So
Speaker 1: when you feel that depression is starting to creep up,
Speaker 1: those are the times I think we want to try
Speaker 1: to do things, not to push it back down, but
Speaker 1: to manage it. So it's a different thing to bottle
Speaker 1: it up and do nothing than it is to bottle
Speaker 1: it up and work on it periodically. If you don't
Speaker 1: manage it, you really don't have any control or what's
Speaker 1: going to happen. If you manage it, you can shrink
Speaker 1: it back down. So you want them to be in
Speaker 1: a place where they shrink so small that they don't
Speaker 1: control your life, but are still a part of your life.
Speaker 1: They inform your life. Kathy from Illinois asks, my daughter
Speaker 1: is very social, but I am seeing some changes in
Speaker 1: her energy, mood, and sleep patterns recently. She says, she's fine.
Speaker 1: What questions should I be asking her? I absolutely love
Speaker 1: this question. The answer is what we don't want to
Speaker 1: do is just say how you doing? Yeah, what's the answer?
Speaker 1: Always fine? Didn't tell you anything. So I tell people,
Speaker 1: don't say how you doing? Instead I tell everybody this,
Speaker 1: say tell me something good that happened in your day,
Speaker 1: and tell me something bad that happened in your day.
Speaker 1: Because the answer to that really can't be fine, right,
Speaker 1: you got to answer it, and that maybe it doesn't
Speaker 1: always work with at least it opens the door. Are
Speaker 1: running a research based on our profit, and what we
Speaker 1: learned is that the parents who communicate more effectively with
Speaker 1: their children are more likely to see when things are
Speaker 1: kind of going haywire and they can intervene. You can't
Speaker 1: wait until there's something wrong in this that i' hey, baby,
Speaker 1: you want want to communicate. It's all the time, even
Speaker 1: when nothing's wrong. If someone's really determined to hurt themselves,
Speaker 1: can you stop them? There's only but so much you
Speaker 1: can do, you know, And at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: the person has to be willing. I've driven across l
Speaker 1: A to go see friends who weren't returning my calls
Speaker 1: and that they were going through hard time. I tried
Speaker 1: to check in and I tried to give them space,
Speaker 1: but then those alarms were going off and I've just
Speaker 1: had to go over there. And just be like knock
Speaker 1: on their door and be like, hey, like, what's up.
Speaker 1: I'm worried about too. That's a big part of it
Speaker 1: is that you're willing to do it. And I think
Speaker 1: the thing to remember for any one family that this
Speaker 1: happens to is too many. That's one completion too many.
Speaker 1: What do you think is the most challenging aspect for
Speaker 1: a person who is consider ring suicide? What is the
Speaker 1: driving force for a completion of an act like that?
Speaker 1: Is it because that person doesn't feel that they can
Speaker 1: be seen, that they can be heard, or they can't
Speaker 1: get out of a emotional problem. I'm just gonna say,
Speaker 1: very very simply. I can think of overwhelming amounts of reasons, right,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily know the people who want to die.
Speaker 1: They want to pain to stop. That's that's that's it.
Speaker 1: That's it. They just want to pain to stop because
Speaker 1: they don't see another way. So I think them not
Speaker 1: seeing another way is where we come in with the intervention.
Speaker 1: It is let me help you think through some other
Speaker 1: ways that this could go. Yeah, this is not the
Speaker 1: only way. So how do you approach someone who you
Speaker 1: suspect may be depressed? How do you approach them about
Speaker 1: seeking help if you know someone is struggling, like when
Speaker 1: you go to the friend's house and you bang on
Speaker 1: the door and they open the door and they're disheveled
Speaker 1: and they just look a mess, and they invite you
Speaker 1: in and you sit down. At some point in the conversation,
Speaker 1: the question is is there any part of you that
Speaker 1: doesn't want to be here anymore? Yeah, sometimes we have
Speaker 1: to ask because people don't who wants to volunteer that
Speaker 1: picking us, especially in our community. I'm not volunteering that
Speaker 1: because what are people going to say. You're gonna say,
Speaker 1: I'm gona see where you can sound crazy, right, and
Speaker 1: I want you to think I'm crazy, And then beyond
Speaker 1: that it is okay. And this is the hard part
Speaker 1: for people. What would you do? Do you have a plan?
Speaker 1: That's your assessment? You're really trying to understand how far
Speaker 1: down the path are they thinking about this? And I
Speaker 1: think it's really important to not avoid the question totally.
Speaker 1: I know I've definitely been depressed in parts of my life.
Speaker 1: If I'm going through a hard time where I have
Speaker 1: so much on my mind, just like be pleasant, it's
Speaker 1: really difficult. So, yeah, how do we penetrate that. So
Speaker 1: I think the challenge is we go into it with
Speaker 1: the person we care about wanting to help. Right, they're
Speaker 1: not necessarily ready to receive help. Right. On top of that,
Speaker 1: they're not necessarily ready to see the help that we
Speaker 1: want to give because that might not be what they want. Right.
Speaker 1: So I encourage people to say, think about what you
Speaker 1: were want in that situation, if you were struggling, what
Speaker 1: do you want somebody to do for you? I think
Speaker 1: most of us just want to know that somebody sees
Speaker 1: values and hears us, right, Just they just want to
Speaker 1: know that we're present and available. You don't start with
Speaker 1: child you look depression, need to go get some help, right,
Speaker 1: And you don't want to say you need some professional help, right,
Speaker 1: it sounds like an attack on their like character, that's right.
Speaker 1: I would imagine you have to meet a tone in
Speaker 1: a way there's no pity, right, and it's just like, hey,
Speaker 1: just know I'm here. That's you know, that's exactly just
Speaker 1: having the courage to just be persistent with that. Even
Speaker 1: if you get I'm fine, now, are you talking to
Speaker 1: me like i'd get it? Right, I'm glad you're good?
Speaker 1: Exactly that I couldn't have said it any better. And
Speaker 1: it's just know if you ever need anything, I'm here,
Speaker 1: right what about like every once in a while, just
Speaker 1: like calling or texting, be like hey, thinking about you,
Speaker 1: Like I just want to let you know. That's just
Speaker 1: little little things. Really, I feel like I can help
Speaker 1: someone's emotional state when it's persistent and consistent, super persistent,
Speaker 1: but like and at least help break down walls a
Speaker 1: little bit. But then there's always that worry in the
Speaker 1: back of your head that you didn't do enough. If
Speaker 1: only I had. When is enough enough? It's such a
Speaker 1: state of helplessness for the people that are watching and
Speaker 1: sitting back and knowing that the person is going through
Speaker 1: something and not being able to offer the kind of
Speaker 1: help that they need. So I think that's one of
Speaker 1: those questions that comes back to and with respect, who
Speaker 1: are we doing enough for them? For us? So enough
Speaker 1: is do you feel like in your spirit you have
Speaker 1: given everything that you can to try to support this
Speaker 1: loved one of this person that you're going to help
Speaker 1: And I think once you on that you can't fix
Speaker 1: it for them. I can't fix anything for other people.
Speaker 1: People have to be ready to fix things for themselves,
Speaker 1: and our goal is not to fix There is one
Speaker 1: being up there, right, it's not me, so it's not
Speaker 1: on me to fix it. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: listening to this bonus content.