MindForce: Mental Fitness & Life Stories!
Welcome to the show! We're on a mission to explore diverse perspectives and topics through podcasts and social media accounts. Tune in to 'MindForce' for insightful discussions on mental fitness and self-care strategies. Join us on 'Carer Stories' as we delve into the fascinating world of the Air Force, learning from professionals across various career fields and various other career stories. Follow us for engaging content and stay connected to broaden your horizons!
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MindForce: Mental Fitness & Life Stories!
Breaking the Silence: Clifton Hanson on Suicide Awareness, Moral Injury, and Healing in the Military Community
What if we could break the silence and stigma surrounding mental health in the military? Join us in this deeply moving episode as we bring to light the critical issue of suicide awareness, particularly within the military community. I had the privilege of sitting down with Clifton Hanson, our wing chaplain, who brings a wealth of experience and insight into suicidal ideations and moral injury. Despite my own health challenges, this conversation was too important to miss. We discussed how psychological diagnoses are catching up with concepts long addressed by the church, and how both disciplines can work together to support mental health. We also tackled the persistent stigma surrounding mental health in the military, emphasizing the necessity of ongoing conversations to dismantle these barriers.
Clifton and I then explored the importance of viewing mental health care as vital as physical health care. We stressed maintaining regular mental health practices and highlighted the crucial role of personal connections in preventing crises like suicide. Through heartfelt anecdotes, we underscored the challenges of not having deep, reliable friendships during tough times and introduced the concept of moral injury. This led us to a deeper understanding of how personal connections and open conversations can be lifesaving. Clifton shared how the act of reaching out to others can be a transformative step in finding relief and healing from moral injuries.
The episode also delves into the journey of healing through forgiveness and relationships. Clifton emphasized that true relief often requires forgiveness from an external source, such as another person or a higher power. Through real-life examples, we illustrated how seeking absolution for morally troubling actions can be crucial for healing. We also discussed the importance of creating a safe space for individuals to share their experiences and the nuanced distinction between forgiveness and acceptance. As we wrapped up, I reflected on the profound insights and emotional depth of our conversation and encouraged our listeners to engage with us, share their thoughts, and continue this crucial dialogue. Thank you all for your unwavering support and love.
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for Love, Life and Learning where your mind matters. I'm not feeling all that well. My voice is a little crackly, coming off a little bit of sickness, so hopefully I can get through this pretty well, but can't pass up an opportunity to sit down and talk through something in observance of Suicide Awareness Month. So it is September. This is something that impacts the military quite a bit. It's a very bad thing. It's not just September, it's every day of the month, every month of the year. But we're going to chat about it a little bit today. Today we have Cliff Hansen. He's our wing chaplain. He's a great resource and has been through a lot of different things and has helped a lot of people. So, Cliff, I'm going to give you the floor for some opening comments.
Speaker 2:Tell us a little bit about yourself. Oh hey, thanks, nate, I appreciate it. Yeah, so I've been working as a chaplain for about just about six years now, and before that I was a civilian pastor for about 10 years. In that time I've dealt with a lot of suicidal ideations and I've dealt with a lot of moral injury, which is kind of one of the underpinning issues that can can lead people to have suicidal ideations. So, um, I think we were going to talk a little bit about about that topic today.
Speaker 2:I know, um, but as far as um my experience in the field, I would say that moral injury is something that I didn't really know about as a diagnosis until maybe three or four years ago, and I would say that's true for a lot of people as well, because it's a fairly new diagnosis.
Speaker 2:It's a new label that we've been attaching to the things that we've seen for a long time. And as I've looked into it more and more, one of the things that's kind of interesting to me is that, while the psych world hasn't really had a way to talk about this and hasn't really had a way of defining and labeling this up until more recently maybe the last 10, 15 years this is something that the church has been dealing with for millennia and we've had words for it and we've had ways of dealing with it over the centuries. So it is kind of interesting to watch like as the psychology world finds its footing with this stuff and as the church kind of says oh yeah, that sounds like something we've been talking about for a while, but we wouldn't have called it that and in some ways those two disciplines are complementing each other, I think really well. Sorry, I guess I don't know if that's much of an introduction, but I'll pass it back to you.
Speaker 1:And it's interesting too, because one of our workouts we were going in the recovery room and we kind of were touching on this in a different aspect and more of the physical aspect. But in this podcast we're definitely rolling mind and matter and physical all into one, because that's the whole point. You know, we should be taking care of our mind the same way we're taking care of our body. And it's interesting because we were talking about Eastern and Western medicine and so I was getting some dry needling done on myself and it was interesting because we were talking about how Eastern medicine had been talking about pressure points and things of that nature. And so you know, western medicine is now catching up and doing certain things where you're activating certain parts of the muscle and things like that.
Speaker 1:And so it's interesting that you say that because they were both talking about the same thing. They address it differently. They might've said pressure points or how that worked exactly, but you know what it was releasing and what it was taking care of in the body was the same. It was just, you know, maybe it was more reflexology and, you know, talked about differently and mapped a little bit differently, but definitely the same. So that is very interesting, but I'm going to give you the chance to ask me a question. I'm going to ask you a couple of warm-up questions because, with all you know workouts and muscle memories you've got to warm up in the bullpen and then we'll jump into the meat of the discussion. So well, what question do you have for me?
Speaker 2:You know, I would actually wonder, as a medical professional which I know you know we're not supposed to call you doctor because you're not actually a doctor, but you know everybody calls you doctor because you wear officer's bars and you work in medical. So, doctor, what has been your experience, I guess, because I know it from the chaplain corps side, but within the medical field, what's been your experience of the way that people within the force deal with suicidal ideations? How do they interact with your offices, I guess, in relation to that, and what are some resources that you guys try and point people to, or how do you deal with it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good one. It's definitely a difficult thing. I think you know me. Making the podcast and trying to have conversations is really like the biggest part for me, because I think the biggest setback right now is just the mentality, the stigma, the taboos that come along with it. So I started the podcast in honor of my grandma loss of mental health and you know she was from a previous generation where it was even more taboo and I think we just have to keep having conversations. So I think the biggest thing is just trying to solve it at the lowest level. But the hardest part is, I think, the people that join the military.
Speaker 1:We raise our right hand, you know, we volunteer and so generally we're A-type personalities that are going to try to fix it ourselves or pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. You know you can fill in a lot of different things, a lot of cliche phrases there, but I think that's the biggest problem is asking for help. I just don't think we do a very good job of it. I think most of us, if we go by someone on the side of the road with a flat tire, we pull over, we help them, but then it's on the flip side. We have the, we have the flat tire. No, no, no, I got it. I got it. I'll take care of it. It's my own thing.
Speaker 2:And so I think that's the hardest part.
Speaker 1:I think there are a decent amount of you're leaving the cars Right.
Speaker 1:We have a decent amount of resources with MFLAC and different anonymous sources, and we have mental health, even though you know we need more mental health on both civilian and military sectors and throughout the world there's been a shortage as we deal with a lot of different world problems. But yeah, I think that would be the biggest thing is trying to have a network of people that you can bounce ideas off of, and that's for growth in your career and also being able to process things. I know my first base was a little rough. I wanted to run away. I happened to be in Southern California and thought I'm pretty close to Mexico, I could probably get there, but luckily that never actually happened. But I had a guy I in-processed with on the same day and we used to go over to Starbucks and get tea or whatever, and it was always something so interesting. Like I told you, we went to coffee the other day. Nothing about the coffee at all, like there could probably have been no coffee at all, but getting out and processing and bouncing ideas off another human. I know that's probably not the perfect answer or maybe that's too cliche, but I think just having someone to bounce us off of. You don't have to always go to an appointment or do whatever which I'm not downplaying appointments at all. You definitely need to see your behalf and process things as they occur, and that's another thing I wish that we really did a better job of and we've mentioned it on the show here multiple times.
Speaker 1:Just so odd to me that you know we have a huge disconnect between physical and mental fitness. It's just weird. Like physical fitness, you and I go to the gym three or four times a week. You maintain it, you keep it up. You don't wait for it to be the worst day for you physically, but for some reason, on the mental aspect, we wait for it to be the worst day we've ever had, and then we'll go in and get some help, but we're not offloading things as we go.
Speaker 1:You would never go to the gym and run on the treadmill one time. I'm good. I'm never going again. I'm fit, my cardio is good, I'm like. That's insane. And so I just wish, through you know, this podcast and more conversations, that mental and physical should be the same. We should be passing. You know what we're doing to take care of each other and, uh, you know, processing those things it's. I've heard so many different things on what workouts are going on, right, like people will always talk about I'm doing back and bys, I'm doing tries, I tried this new workout, I'm doing three by ten, and then we get to things that are mental related, like I don't want to tell anybody I meditated, I don't want to tell anybody I sat in a field or why it's the same thing. So a little bit of a rambler, yeah, what do you think about?
Speaker 2:that. No, I mean, I'll say that when it comes to preparing physically, I usually try to do the. I'm going to run on the treadmill once before my PT test and then hope that it goes okay. It's usually worked. It's usually worked, but maybe not as well. Diminishing returns on that.
Speaker 1:Going from dentist. Right, we have the one dental appointment a year and you try to brush for 10 straight minutes the night before. It's like I'm going to clean up every piece of plaque that I've had for the last year, when you could have just done the two minutes every night or day and night for the year. It's interesting we apply things a little differently.
Speaker 2:But you said something earlier, you know. I mean you said like those connections hey, we're just going to get coffee. You know, we're just going to go out and you know, take a step away from the office for a second and just enjoy some time together getting a cup of coffee having a conversation and that might be the key to preventing suicide and to, you know, helping people to get the help that they need, or being the help that they need.
Speaker 2:Right, and you said well, maybe that's a little cliche, but honestly, those simple answers are often the correct ones.
Speaker 2:And in this case, yeah, there is a role for someone in my position to play, there's a role for people in mental health to play, and we want to be there for your worst day and we want you to come in even if you're not having a bad day.
Speaker 2:But your friends, your family, you know the people you work with day to day, those connections are really the preventative connections. They're the ones that keep people going. They're the ones that give people purpose. They're the ones that keep people going. They're the ones that give people purpose. They're the ones, I mean people don't wake up in the morning saying I'm so excited to go and talk with Chaplain Hanson in his office today. I mean, maybe they are, but I don't think they are. The things that they're excited about are the relationships that they have that give them meaning day in and day out, and if we're nurturing those with each other, that's the thing that I think gives life to people and without those, any number of conversations with me or with the mental health professional, those are not going to have the returns that you want them to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that definitely makes sense. And I have one example I remember and one thing I've kind of struggled with myself personally is I generally have, you know, I know a lot of people, but I think we need to do a better job of having deeper friends. You know two or three people that are just, you know, really there, ride or die or whatever the cool kid phrase is nowadays skippity toilet or something. But that are really important to you.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, that are really important that you can go to, because I remember when my dad passed away, I just had a difficult time where I, you know, went to the bathroom and I was actually scrolling through my phone and I just couldn't really think of someone to call. I initially thought like, oh, this is going to, you know, bother them, this is a nuisance, this is whatever. And so I think you really have to have those people that, no matter when it is, what time, that you'll feel comfortable, that you could call and take care of. Because that was one like, if I could think back of, you know, my whole life up until this point, that was one of the worst points of my entire life, Just the scrolling on the phone through the address book. You know, even though it was already a terrible time with all the things that were going on and the passing of my dad and things like that, it was just exacerbated and just like highlighted even more where it was like, oh, this is awful because I don't have anyone to share or offload this to, and there was like a few different people that I wanted to, but I just didn't feel deep enough connection.
Speaker 1:So I think that's something like you said, maybe it's not cliche, maybe you have to have the two or three that you can call. And it's one thing to say that you could call, but really be able to. I think that's another thing. Because one thing that's always drove me a little nuts in the military is the open door policy. It's like, oh, my door is open and it's physically open. The door is open but you have to have the connection or some type of I don't know the trust right I'm trust to be able to actually have a conversation.
Speaker 1:I can walk in, but I've had multiple commanders. The door was always open, but I don't think I'm walking in, and so I think that's the same thing for these people. You need to know that you can call at any given time, because when you're at that lowest point, if it's just even worse because you have no one to call, that is just hands down the worst.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's transition over to moral injury. So can you give us kind of a foundation? So let's set the tone for the episode and kind of give us how you define it, how it's a little bit different, but what's the foundation for moral injury? If you had to define it?
Speaker 2:So you know, I think that one of the things that people do is they maybe conflate moral injury with PTSD. Right, and that was actually how moral injury came to be a diagnosis and it hasn't gotten into the DSM yet, but it's, it's on its way, probably into the DSM and the next edition potentially. There's been talks about that. But as people were getting treated for PTSD, there was something that a lot of the providers noticed, which is that not everybody who was being treated for PTSD had some of those telltale signs of PTSD, and the ones I'm talking about specifically are like the fear response, the flashbacks, you know, those kinds of more traumatic, fear-based, reaction-based symptoms that people with PTSD would exhibit quite frequently. But they were exhibiting other things that were maybe less common with PTSD, you know guilt, shame, feelings of deep remorse, but they didn't necessarily have those other triggers. So that led to a lot of providers recognizing that they were dealing with something different here, but that we didn't have a criteria to talk about it yet, and that led eventually to the development of, you know, a study of moral injury, and I guess I've got a little thing here I was going to pull up and look at while I talk to you about it. There's overlap and that's the reason that it was maybe misdiagnosed for a long time. And the overlap signs are like okay, anger, depression, anxiety, insomnia, nightmares, self-medicating with other non-prescription drugs, alcohol, that kind of thing. Those are shared between the two diagnoses. But again it's the startle reflex, the memory loss, the fear, the flashbacks that really are going to tell you you're dealing with PTSD and sorrow, grief, regret, shame, alienation, those kinds of things that tell you you're dealing with moral injury. And somebody can have both, right, and often people who have been through a really traumatic event may end up having both. But you know it's those symptoms that help you tell okay, what am I dealing with here? And when we're talking about what is moral injury? Right, because PTSD, we know, had a traumatic experience. Maybe you were you know, if we're talking about Iraq, afghanistan veterans you had an experience where your convoy hit an IED or maybe you came under fire and that experience, you know, is terrifying. That experience, you know is terrifying and loud noises after that will maybe set you off and they'll bring you back to that place and you'll be reliving that experience again. Right. With with moral injury, it's more like you were involved in doing something that you knew to be wrong. And doing something that you knew to be wrong or at least that you feel deeply was wrong.
Speaker 2:And Robert Emmett Meagher has a really great book on moral injury. It's called Killing from the Inside Out. And Meagher, he's a pacifist, so he's certainly not someone that's terribly invested in military life, although he does care deeply about you know the effects of warfare on people who go to war, so he and I wouldn't see eye to eye on the pacifism piece of it. But I think he's pretty insightful when it comes to moral injury.
Speaker 2:And the way he defines moral injury is this he says moral injury is most commonly come to mean the transgression of what is right, what one has long held to be sacred, a core belief or moral code, and thus wounding or in the extreme mortally wounding the soul, psyche or one's humanity. And so that's how he defines it, and I think that's a pretty useful definition. But it's when I have a moral code and there's something that I think to be just rock bottom, true, and I violate that thing, and then trying to come to terms with that in the aftermath and not really being able to square the circle, that's what. That's what we would probably. I think that's a pretty good working definition of moral injury.
Speaker 1:That's what we would probably. I think that's a pretty good working definition of moral injury. Yeah, that makes sense. So would you say I mean maybe not all-encompassing, but would you say PTSD is more an individual incident and then moral injury kind of happens generally over time, as you're making these decisions against what you know to believe is right, or can they both occur at one single time?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I'm not a clinician, so speaking to PTSD is a little bit more outside of my realm. But I think both can happen, either with a discrete incident or with something that's ongoing over time. It just depends. I mean, if you're if you're in a situation where you're getting shot at every single day, the compounding effect of that, you know, might lead to PTSD. Or if you're in a situation where you're involved in an ongoing operation, the maybe moral rightness of which is not entirely clear to you, you know that can lead over time to moral injury. Or it can just be a thing that happened in a split second that you revisit and can't quite let go of. So yeah, either one, I think, is probably, you know, can happen in either case.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. So someone does something that's kind of against what they believed is right and they have these feelings of guilt, shame and betrayal. How does that play into that development and compounding this of the injury?
Speaker 2:Could you ask the question differently?
Speaker 1:uh, I guess do you see it as kind of a downward spiral, is maybe more of a common way. So you, you know, you have the incident and then now you're playing it over in your head and realizing that it's bad, and and so once you get into a downward spiral where you're looking back and reflecting on this thing that you've already done and you now have the guilt and shame that comes along with it, how is there any tips or tricks, um, to kind of get out of that, or how do you reframe it?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, if we, if you talk about treatments, uh, or, or you know ways to through it, I don't think that anybody can move through it on their own. You know that kind of self talk stuff. There are some people who believe in that and who think it's very powerful and I think it can play a role, but I don't think it can be the decisive element. So if we're talking about, okay, how do I move past it? Element, so if we're talking about, okay, how do I move past it, the judgment that you're making is a judgment on the self and it's coming from the self and it might be a projection of what I think God thinks of me, or what I know God thinks of me, or what I think other people would think of me if they knew. And getting out of that requires somebody else to actually, I think, break in from the outside and so you know, as a Christian pastor you know. So taking off kind of the military chaplain hat and putting on the Christian pastor hat, I would argue that the only way that anybody ever experiences true relief from moral injury is to actually hear a word of forgiveness that lands on you and that might be a word of forgiveness from one person to another person, say, if you made a transgression, you committed a transgression and you're able to hear a word of forgiveness from the person that you hurt, being forgiven by that person can be profoundly healing. Don't know them, or they you know are on the other side of the world, or whatever the case may be then the ability to get forgiveness from God, you know, to actually have somebody grant you forgiveness from God, is profoundly meaningful and can actually lead to, you know, a real delivery from the moral injury. But again, it doesn't usually happen all at once. So I guess if you're a person who's dealing with moral injury, the thing that I would recommend you do is go see your pastor. If you got one If you've got, I mean, if you operate within a faith that has some kind of mechanism for forgiveness you know, look to that thing. Or if you're not part of that, trying to figure okay, what does forgiveness look like for me in my life? How do I normally go about trying to get it and talking it through with somebody so that you might be able to begin to experience that forgiveness that's coming from the outside of you, rather than just trying to forgive yourself or just trying to talk yourself out of feeling bad, because one of the biggest problems with moral injury is that usually the person is right. You know about what happened, like it might actually be. Yeah, they know. Like they know that what I did is wrong or at least it was bad.
Speaker 2:So, for example, I'm you can make an argument that when we were at war in Iraq, afghanistan, that there was a colorable argument to be made for saying okay, we know that children are often loaded up with some kind of explosive device and then sent into, you know, blow up soldiers. We know that that happens and it's true, that did happen. And so, therefore, you know this is the protocol. You know, if someone's approaching and looks like a child and you're trying to get them to, are we losing something? Okay, sorry, it said recording resumed. You know you're trying to get them to identify themselves and they're not doing that and they're, you know, just sort of like slowly walking towards you or running towards you.
Speaker 2:That in those cases, you know sometimes it was people were told that you may have to, you may have to fire on that person and that might have been the right thing to do in those situations, but it was still a horrible thing to do. It might have been the best bad thing that you could do in that situation, and I didn't have any combat experience in either of those theaters, so I never experienced that stuff myself. I've heard people tell some stories and you know, all of them kind of agree like, yeah, that was a really horrible thing. Um, I don't know what our alternatives were, but it was a horrible thing. So if you participate in something, you're like, okay, there was something wrong with that and I was part of it or I did it, you're making a correct moral judgment and you're making that judgment on yourself.
Speaker 2:And I think that those who would try to say, well, you just need to let it go, or you're not really a bad person, or you didn't really do a bad thing, or it was necessary, or any of the other justifications we try to make for why the thing happened or why you might have done the thing, like that's not going to get a person past it, it's not going to help a person to heal I think the only way to really do it is to acknowledge that yeah, that's a violation. Maybe it was a necessary violation, but it was a violation of what's good, and the only way to deal with that is to forgive, which forgiving is not saying, well, it's okay, I'm just accepting it. It's saying I know it was wrong, but I'm absolving you of it, I'm forgiving you of this thing. So I think that's a distinction that we need to make and it's pretty important. I don't know.
Speaker 1:What do you think about that? Yeah, I think that's along the lines of a lot of different things In human nature. I feel like we can tell ourselves certain things, but there's just a certain amount that has to come from outside and I guess it depends on what it is exactly. Cause I think of like trying to advise my little brother or the kids or things like that. Sometimes you tell them the right thing to do and they have to kind of work through it and process it themselves.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you say this is what's best, but until you live it, there's something just different about that. Sometimes it feels like a lot of times we get advice and it's like oh no, you know, I'm not going to worry about that, or whatever. And then we live it and like, oh, you know, you got to call your mom or dad back. Like, oh yeah, you were, you were right, you know. Luckily they don't usually bust out that I told you so. But there's something about processing and living through things yourself, because you can hear, I think, from the outside, like you said, like, oh no, it's okay, but everyone processes things a little bit differently.
Speaker 1:So I think that has to be on that person's terms and I think, like you said, exactly like someone else kind of has to help that get pulled out or whatnot, because I think you would sit in the same thing and kind of dwell on it over and over.
Speaker 2:Well because we're relational people, right? I mean, human beings are created to be, you know, in relationship with one another, and so I don't think our problems get solved all by ourselves. You know, they almost always get solved through some kind of relational exchange, and I don't think this is different in that regard and I don't think this is different in that regard, absolutely.
Speaker 1:What impact do you think moral injury has on a person's self-worth and their purpose in the world?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, you think about. You know what's the diagnosis? It's like I violated something core in what I believe and that will lead to an identity crisis of sorts, right Like who, what I believe, and that will lead to a uh, you know an identity crisis of sorts right Like who am I? You know, I thought this is what I believed, I thought that this was what was true and good, and I still believe that that's what's true and good. But I don't fit that description anymore. And so, you know, the the symptom will often be, and what it does to a person's sense of self and their wellbeing is it just shatters it, you know, because I think most of us walk around thinking like well, you know, there are things that I could do better in my life, but all in all, I'm not so bad, you know.
Speaker 1:I'm a pretty good person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a pretty good person. Yeah, I'm a pretty good person.
Speaker 1:You know, like we all be fair and you look at everyone else at the state fair and you're like, okay, yeah, I think I'm doing okay exactly.
Speaker 2:You know it's, that's, that's sort of what it is. You go to walmart. You see walmart people and you say, hey, you know, I don't feel like I'm a Walmart person, this is okay, I'm talking Great, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not ending up on any like funny YouTube clips of weird Walmart people. So, yeah, I mean you compare yourself to the people, right, and for the most part I mean yeah, generally speaking, most people want to try to live good lives. Whether or not we succeed in that, I think, is something we could talk about. And you know good life in what sense? Right, because my theological background is Lutheran and we kind of have this distinction between what we call two kinds of righteousness.
Speaker 2:So you've got civil righteousness, which is am I doing the things that are required of me to live well within the world? You know, am I meeting the requirements of my job? Am I picking up the kids after school? You know, am I making sure there's food on the table? You know, that's sort of like civil righteousness stuff, and people can be civilly righteous or unrighteous, or they can be anywhere on a continuum right. Whereas, you know, when we talk about righteousness in the eyes of God, within my tradition, we say well, that only comes by God. Making that so by giving you Jesus Christ, you know. Making that so by giving you jesus christ, you know, uh, and and placing you in jesus christ and and accounting his righteousness as yours, right, that's, that's the way we would talk about it. So we talk about that civil righteousness versus that more, uh, divine righteousness. Sorry, I got a jet going outside here the sound of freedom.
Speaker 2:That's what we do sound of freedom. Um and when, when my sense of righteousness, both civil and maybe divine, uh, is shattered because of something I've done, like that's, that's going to take a deep toll on me and I think that everybody experiences that to some degree, and so I think we all kind of have a little bit of moral injury. But it's, it's a question of degree. You know, how big was the violation? How much did it affect me? How much am I like calling back that memory and living in it that you know that that's going to tell you like, okay, how much moral injury am I dealing with here?
Speaker 2:But it does, it has a very profound effect on people and it can lead to lots of different problems which you know I mean we talked about one a second ago like substance abuse goes up when people are dealing with moral injury, because if I think that I'm a fundamentally bad person because of the thing that I did, like I'm going to want to numb that pain. You know I'm not going to want to feel that or experience that all the time. You'll often see people maybe like dive down morally tenuous holes. You know they'll go and do things that they normally wouldn't have done, that are out of character for them, because it's like, okay, well, I've already, you know, committed this horrible transgression. I'm already lost, you know. I'm already, you know, completely beyond redemption and so I may as well just dive further in so you'll see people maybe unravel in that way as well. We can kind of go down that a little bit.
Speaker 1:It's a difficult subject, but it is the month of September. We'll get this out on the 25th of September. Wow, did I say December Of September? But I do kind of want to go down this because I feel like, as I mentioned before, taboo and things like that. So we're going to, you know, blow up the stigma, clear out all of that, like we should have these difficult conversations. So could you kind of walk through, because I feel like a lot of times when you see you know terrible things on the news school shootings, you know these terrible things you're like won't happen to me. Right, it's always like you see news and you're like that's not me. So could you walk through a story or maybe even a hypothetical on you know someone that believes they're doing okay and then has an incident and then it kind of that downward spiral like what does that look like, where you're like that can never happen to me, but it could easily. And then could you walk through that? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean I think you know some of the examples I've given so far are like they're extreme examples, you know, and the average person is very unlikely Even the average person in the military very unlikely to experience any of those. But there are more like mundane examples I think that we could talk about. I'll give you, okay, my first like real job as an adult. You know, I was just. I was fresh out of my two-year program at community college. I'd gotten an associate's degree with an emphasis in broadcasting, and so I went and worked for a radio station for a couple of years before I went back to school to do what I do now, and my first job at the radio station was advertising. So I was primarily going out, getting ads and then cutting ad copy and, you know, just making money for the radio station to do the things that we did. And I remember my boss said, hey, could you go out and try and find some kind of a giveaway that we could do? Talk to different businesses, talk to resorts specifically, and see if you can get them to maybe provide us with a vacation package that we could give away on the air in exchange for ad copy. And I said, okay, yeah, I can do that. So I called around a bunch of resorts. Eventually I found one that was probably four hours away from where we were. That was probably four hours away from where we were, but you know, it would have been an easy drive for anybody who was listening to our station to go there and take up that package. But they were outside of our listening area and that's key. So I put together this package. It was worth like $1,200. It was a great. It was like a seven day inclusive thing. It included a boat rental Uh, it was their nicest cabin, you know. It could sleep nine people and, uh, it included a couple of meals. It was a really great deal.
Speaker 2:I was super proud of securing this thing Right. And I go in and tell my boss this thing Right. And I go in and tell my boss I'm all excited to like give him this, like look what I made. And he says, um, oh, that's great. That's great, Cliff, Good job, Good job. You know I haven't been on vacation in a while, so I think I'm just going to take that. And so we never gave the thing away on air.
Speaker 2:And now I'm in this position where, like I'm, I'm writing the ad for this, this resort, and I'm gonna be, you know, trying to, uh, you know, advertise for them, but we're not doing the on-air giveaway which was part of the deal, and they would never know because they're outside of the listening area, and he knew that. And so now you know, like, okay, what do I do? Should I tell them? Well then, I might get fired, Right? Should I not tell them? Well then, I'm being really dishonest and I'm like involved in this theft, and so I never told them.
Speaker 2:You know, I never told them and I felt absolutely horrible about that because that was sort of it was way outside my experience, uh, to to be involved in that kind of deception, and it felt really dirty and I really questioned my own character, uh, because I didn't come clean about it, but I was afraid of losing my job, and so I just didn't.
Speaker 2:And you know, the way that I tried to make up for it was by just putting that ad in to our programming way more often than was paid for, I guess, if that makes sense. So I tried to balance the scales that way, but that didn't really work either for me. It was really only when I went and confessed that to somebody and was able to receive a word of absolution about it that it started to heal for me. But I mean that's kind of an everyday example. I mean things like that can happen at anybody's work and it can start to erode our sense of who we are and our sense of you know, like, what is my moral core? Do I even have one? I don't know. Is that useful?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's perfect. I think that's you know, you got to work on the relatable things right? Because I feel like sometimes we go to different trainings and whatnot and it feels like a lot of times in the training it's always the extreme example and so you're in the room, the conference room, you're like, oh, that's not me, so I'm good. And that's another thing I'm curious from your perspective. We go to these trainings and we learn about different common signs and things for suicide and we have the extremes of giving away all your stuff and things that are really extreme. But in your experience, what have you seen as things that listeners right now you know this day, this week could keep an eye out? That aren't these extremes that kind of go into moral injury of their friends?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question, you know, and be looking out for the bigger signs, right? I mean those, those things are going to tell you a lot. But I would say I mean even something as simple as someone who's normally very talkative, being really quiet at work, um, somebody who, um, you know, is starting to make statements like yeah, I've been having a hard time, but, you know, I think I've got it figured out, um, it's going to be over soon, those kinds of fatalistic statements or just dismissive statements, like they're trying to push away whatever the issue is that they've been having trouble with. So I mean, you see, anything that just seems a little bit out of character, don't be afraid to ask questions about that. And, honestly, you're going to know, generally speaking, if there's something a little bit off with a person, if they're showing any signs at all, like you'll probably pick up on it, because human beings are pretty, you know, we're pretty intuitive and we recognize patterns and we recognize when patterns change. And so when you notice those pattern changes and there's something in the back of your head saying something's not quite right here, like engage that person and start asking those questions.
Speaker 2:And probably the most important thing I think that people can do, and this is one thing that I think our ready airman training does pretty well within the Air Force. But a program like Safe Talk or Assist is even more forceful about and more helpful with in terms of giving you direction as to how to do it. So those are, I mean, if you ever get a chance to do Safe Talk or Assist, like direction as to how to do it, so those are, I mean those. If you ever get a chance to do safe talk or assist, like, take it up, do it, but not being afraid to ask are you thinking about suicide? Are you thinking about killing yourself? You know, just ask the question, ask it straightforwardly. Don't beat around the bush with it. Hit them with it because, yeah, go ahead I've heard.
Speaker 1:Uh, you know, people will sometimes say you're planting the idea and things like that. From everything I've seen, like that research is completely not true. Right, like if a person is at that point that you don't need to like give them the idea they've already thought of it and things like that, so you're not planting any seeds, right?
Speaker 2:Well, people know that suicide exists, you know, they know it's an option, right, I mean, it's not like, oh man, I never you can do that. No, of course not. And somebody who's not thinking about suicide is not going to be driven to think about suicide because you mentioned it, right, yeah, it's just that's not going to happen. Um, so I, I would, you know, completely put that thought out of your mind.
Speaker 2:Um, cause, the reasons people commit suicide really have nothing to do with, you know, someone asking the question. They have everything to do with, like, what are the circumstances? You know what, what's going on in my life and what do I see as my viable options for getting out of this problem, this situation I'm in? Uh, and sometimes, you know, people will look around, they'll say, well, I don't really see another out, and then suicide starts creeping into their mind as as a viable option for getting out of the situation. Yeah, and so I think it's important to recognize that you're not going to make them consider it by asking the question, but you will potentially get them to talk about it if they are thinking about it and you ask that question, yeah, go ahead you ask that question.
Speaker 1:It's one of the most yeah, go ahead. I'm curious with someone that has suffered moral injury and has made that, you know, discretion against themselves and things like that. What are ways that you know as friends or family or things like that you can create like a safe space for them to come out and kind of talk through that? Because as we're going through this, I keep thinking like you've done something, your, your world is shattered. You're thinking about your purpose and self-worth and how you've, you know, gone against something that's very core to yourself. It seems like it'd be very difficult to want to tell someone that you've done something that's awful. You are thinking it's awful yourself and you're dwelling on it and things like that. How can other people find a way to you know, pull it out of you or maybe just create the space so that you can?
Speaker 1:it's a really difficult thing for someone to be like I messed up and how does that transition go to like? Oh yeah, I got to tell someone that's interesting.
Speaker 2:I think that one of the best things that people can do to create an environment where you feel like you can bring something out that is dangerous, you know and when I say dangerous, I mean if I say this to this person, it's going to change the way they think about me, right? The way I think that you can do that is, let's say, it's within your family, and you can apply this to friend groups or work centers as well but creating an environment where we forgive each other right, and where that's an emphasis in our relationships. You know, I think that a lot of parenting ends up being, you know, kid does something bad, we engage in whatever punishment needs to happen. We say this is what I expect in the future, and then we move on, and then things go back to normal and we sort of just I don't know, not really pretend that it didn't happen, but we don't ever resolve it. And I think that being very, very I hate the word intentional, but it works here.
Speaker 2:I guess very intentional about granting forgiveness when there's been a violation, because if I know that mom or dad or my siblings or my kids, when I confess something that's wrong or when I'm caught doing something that I shouldn't be doing or, you know, whatever the violation might be. If the result of that is that I'm told I forgive you, you know, we're okay, like there's nothing that you can do that we can't work through, and that is going to break this relationship. When we have that kind of love and grace operating within our relationships, it might still be scary, but I'm way, way more likely to tell you if I've transgressed a boundary, because there's a hope for me that you're not going to just cut me off or that you're not going to condemn me the same way I'm condemning myself. So I think that's maybe one of the more important things we can do, and that's like a long game thing, right? That's not something that you just do once and it's over Again. It's a whole shift in the way that we deal with each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. Do you see any overlap or you know miscommunication on condoning what has happened? How is that boundary set?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, that's why I use the word forgiveness instead of the word acceptance. Right, yeah, because I mean acceptance. Acceptance is just saying well, it's fine the way it is. You know, it's totally fine the way it is, no change required, no violation, no harm, no foul right, just accepting it, whereas forgiveness acknowledges that something was wrong and, you know, I guess, faces it straightforwardly and calls the thing what it is, rather than trying to, you know, manipulate language and manipulate ideas in order to justify the thing and just brush it aside, make it go away. When we forgive, we actually acknowledge that something was wrong and we say no, I absolve you now, I forgive you this thing that you did doesn't stand between us anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. I wanted to ask you one question. It's a little bit of a tangent, but I saw your email the other day and it's not suicide awareness, quite, but we've brought up a couple different times boundaries, and so it's something that's been interesting to me and I don't know if I really have a good answer. And I've been asked from different troops and whatnot, and I always wonder if I gave the best advice and things like that. But setting boundaries with, we'll say, family members in this case, and that's what your email was about, and it's just really difficult for me how do you set boundaries with family members that are causing pain?
Speaker 1:You want to not continue to feel pain, and that's kind of why I think of it as we go through moral injury, you don't want to continue to experience it, but is there some type of relief or something?
Speaker 1:Not holding on to that, that grudge or or feeling that release? Um, so the example I'll use is uh, someone had a family member that had treated them poorly. Their whole life was not very nice to the people around them, was just kind of all around, not a great human being, and they were sick with something. And the person was trying to debate do I go and see them one last time or do I not? And I believed it would be best to go and see them. You know, get anything off your chest that you feel you need to and kind of close that, because if they pass and you don't close, I wondered if they would be hanging on to that forever, basically because that person is gone, and I think they, you know, had a different direction, that they wanted to go and they felt cutting it was the better way. Do you have anything on that specific example?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so hard. You know that's so hard Because, again, like, when we get to that point where we're considering do I cut this person out of my life? Do I go no contact with them? That means that a lot of violations have occurred, right, we've been just through a lot of hurts, I think at that point. Usually that's the case. Most people don't cut off a family member for a one-off problem.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, I mean, generally speaking, I would say we want our families to be marked by forgiveness and restoration of relationship and healing in that way and just being full of grace for one another. But when it comes to something like, okay, there's an abusive person, right, there's somebody who's actually causing harm and puts others in danger, you can forgive that person while also setting up a boundary. You know, I mean the example I think I put into the email you're referencing right now the guy who went off for an overnight concert with his wife, right, and he left his kids with his mother and mom, just like, blew up at the kids multiple times, you know, screamed at him, hit him. It was an ugly situation and he said well, what do I do going forward? You know how do I? I can't put my kids back in that situation. Do I even want to continue to have a relationship here? Should I continue to have the kids have a relationship here?
Speaker 2:And ultimately, what he said was you know, I'm going to talk to my mom, I'm going to forgive her for this, but I'm not going to leave my kids with her again. You know, and there are still consequences for our actions, right. But if I can maintain the relationship, if I can heal the relationship, and if that involves maybe setting up some boundaries and changing the way that we interact, like that can be okay. You know, nothing's perfect in this world, right. But the more that we leave openings for each other to make amends, to right the old wrongs, to forgive each other, I think the better off we are. Because just making that heartbreak it might be necessary in some cases, but I don't know that, generally speaking, it's always the right thing to do. I don't know, maybe that didn't quite answer your question, but yeah, yeah, I think that makes sense.
Speaker 1:I mean it's case by case, but I think you got to leave grace and hope there. The last question I wanted to ask you was with kids and things like that. I'm kind of curious. We talked about different things that you've done and so you just mentioned it and so it reminded me because I wanted to ask earlier. But cause and effect, and you know there's consequences for actions and things like that Is there a certain level of moral injury that you almost need to feel because you did something wrong to be able to move on? Is you know you have to, almost, like you know, pay for your sin so you can move on Right?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, you know, I think that that sense of ick that you feel about yourself when you've done something wrong, like that's the law working on you, right? I mean, that's, that's just, that's God drilling you good and hard with an accusation. It might be coming from you, but you know, I think, yeah, there's God's voice, is there somewhere, but the necessity of that I don't think is necessarily there. It's not so that you can pay for it. It's not so well, you got to suffer a little bit before I give you the carrot here at the end.
Speaker 2:It's more that you know, I think what God's doing with that is driving you to go and hear a word of forgiveness so that you can have healing and so that you can be restored to your relationships in a full and complete way, and so that you know where your hope is.
Speaker 2:And you know when that happens. I think we end up, you know, when we've been forgiven, when we've been restored, when our relationships have been set right, I think we end up, you know, for lack of better way of putting it being better people on the other side of that. You know we, I think, live more fully into the goodness of those relationships when they've been marred by something but then we've been able to forgive each other and move forward, but really only after that forgiveness and healing has taken place. But you know, if you talk to any couple that's been through something uh difficult where forgiveness was necessary, if they have really forgiven each other and if they've really moved forward through it and they've healed, like that couple is probably stronger in their relationship than couples who've never experienced that. So, yeah, I think, I think that that there's a certain gift. You know, there's a certain gift in having to walk through this stuff and it never feels like it at the time and it's not going to be a gift at the time.
Speaker 1:There'll be a gift that comes at the end of the whole thing, potentially yeah, I think that's like resilience we throw resiliency around but you have to go through the difficult time and look back and realize you made it through. You don't get resiliency for everything being nice and easy and oh, I've lived a nice, easy life. That's not how resiliency works. It's the difficult things and you're like, geez, I ran 26.2 miles, or I did the ruck or whatever it is, and geez, I ran 26.2 miles. Or you know I did the ruck or whatever it is, and you're like I can do it again. You get it by doing the difficult things. Well, I'd like to give you a final takeaway. So moral injury, suicide prevention month, like what is your final takeaway for listeners this month, this episode?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think my final takeaway would be this Every one of you who's listening to this thing has some kind of moral injury in your life. Right, because nobody goes through life without violating the things that they believe to be true. Right? We're all sinners, we all fall short, so that's always going to be part of your story, part of your existence. So if you are experiencing, you know, angst around that, please go talk to somebody. Go find your pastor, go find a friend who can offer you a listening ear and a word of healing. Don't just let yourself suffer and engage in all that self-talk where either you're trying to justify yourself or accuse yourself. Let somebody else's voice come in and maybe break that. That'd be the biggest thing I'd say regarding moral injury and for suicide prevention, again, if you're hurting, say something to somebody. If you see somebody hurting, engage with that person and don't let go until you have a good answer, until you really know what's going on. And I guess yeah, that'd be my final word. I guess, take care of it, kevin.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for coming out. I hope you had a good time.
Speaker 2:I did. You know, Nate, I always enjoy talking to you.
Speaker 1:It's always a good time. I encourage listeners to share their thoughts. Send over questions. Let me know if you want to be on the show. We'll have the BuzzFeed for the audio version and YouTube for the video, so please take a look and check it out. I love you all. See you.
