Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
11. Lambda | Suicide Prevention with Dennis Gillan
20 Plays3 months ago
September is Suicide Prevention Month. It's a topic that Dennis Gillan knows too well after losing his two brothers to suicide. Still, Dennis manages to make students see the wonders and joys of life while delivering sobering insights in his talks. As a fraternity man, Dennis talks about why "Dudes Need Dudes."
About the Guest
Dennis Gillan is the executive director of Half a Sorrow Foundation, an international suicide prevention and mental health advocacy speaker, and author. A speaker with Greek University, Dennis’s life has been deeply touched by suicide after the loss of both of his brothers to suicide, eleven years apart. His 2020 TEDx talk “Dying Alone” has gained over 41 million views. Dennis dedicates his time and energy to promoting real conversations, and he combines his losses with real-world solutions and even some laughter.
A lifelong member of and former regional advisor for Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity, Dennis has served the community in several capacities. He served on the board of the South Carolina chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, he volunteered at the Suicide Prevention Lifeline, and he volunteered with NAMI to do crisis intervention training. Dennis also facilitates a monthly survivor of suicide loss meeting, and he is trained in Question—Persuade—Refer (QPR), SafeTalk, ASIST and several other suicide prevention programs. He also worked at South Carolina Department of Mental Health on suicide prevention grants.
Ethocast is a "For Our Edification" limited series and is supported by Edify Ventures, LLC.
Recommended
Transcript
Understanding Suicide and Its Impact
00:00:00
Speaker
you know You never know what someone else is going through. And we can't assume that we know what other folks are going through. So that's why when someone dies by suicide, it's just way too late to even understand or or figure out what might've been happening in their lives. We can only speculate September is suicide prevention month and Dennis Gillen is someone who has seen how this works. We're going to hear his story and his thoughts, especially how suicide touches fraternity life. Dennis is my colleague with Greek university. He has served as a regional advisor for his fraternity.
00:00:38
Speaker
Phi Sigma Kappa. And he's also served as a board chair of the South Carolina chapter of the American Federation for suicide prevention. Let's talk to him about this very important topic on this episode, episode lambda of etho cast.
00:00:56
Speaker
Welcome to Ethocast, a podcast about sound leadership practices to boost life in college fraternities and sororities. I'm Eddie Francis, presenter of Followership to Leadership and the Black Greek Success Program, presentations designed to help Greeks become more effective leaders. On Ethocast, I'll share lessons learned from my college days, my career journey, and leadership research. Ethocast is a four-hour edification limited series and presented by Edify Adventures.
The Loneliness Epidemic: A TED Talk Reflection
00:01:25
Speaker
This is Ethocast, leadership to the letter.
00:01:30
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining me on Ethocast. I'm Eddie Francis and joining me, a colleague of mine, Dennis Gillen. He is the executive director of Happy Sour Foundation. He's also an international speaker and an all around very interesting and very cool guy. Dare I say, one of the most interesting men in the world. Dennis, how are you? Oh, wow. I think you ever sold me there, Eddie. Oversold me. a Normal guy on a mission. That's all.
00:01:59
Speaker
But I really got the opportunity to enjoy a Ted talk that you did a few years ago called dying alone. Um, and it was, uh, it was, uh, you, you really, you knock that Ted talk out of the park. I think it is probably one of the loosest Ted talks that I've seen, um, in terms of somebody just bringing a lot of personality to the table. But what inspired that talk? It's interesting when you, um,
00:02:27
Speaker
There's an old adage among writers, you write what you know. And yeah would I was approached to do the TEDx talk by one of the committee members. She goes, you got an interesting story. what you Why don't you do your talk? And I decided, I don't want to do my talk. I want to do something different, which is related to my subject of suicide prevention. I said, I want to touch on loneliness. And she goes, why do you want to touch on loneliness? I said, well, because right now I'm really lonely. I was going through a divorce. And I moved from a real big house.
00:02:57
Speaker
to a real small house. And I was in this apartment, the walls were closing in. I mean, she goes, you want to do that? I said, yeah, I want to do it. So I did all my research. And you were so kind to say I was really loose in that talk. You could have put a piece of coal up my rear end and had a diamond in the back of my heart that literally ran out of there. Because it's all memorized. If anyone has this little TEDx behind the scenes, you don't have a script. There's two monitors in front of you And there's one had the time and one had the slides. I'd only had three or four slides. I wanted you to do the talk. I didn't want to do death by PowerPoint. So all that stuff was memorized. When I go over the 10 ways you can combat loneliness, I had to memorize all those. And I'm not good at memorization, but that morning in the hotel, I was up at the crack of dawn and I still didn't think I was ready. And I was living in the hallway, getting ready to go on. I'm like, I don't think. I have this all down
Generational Shifts in Mental Health Conversations
00:03:58
Speaker
and then somewhere about the fourth or fifth minute when the audience laughed with me, I'm like, all right. Yeah. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. I know that feeling. I know that feeling very, very well. Yeah. Um, and it, I really thought though that your framing though was excellent, um, to, to really talk about loneliness. I mean, after all,
00:04:25
Speaker
We now have research that tells us that there are a lot of lonely people in this country, ah which you mentioned in the talk. um And so I thought that framing was was absolutely excellent and i thought I thought it was very appropriate for where you wound up with the talk.
00:04:42
Speaker
um So, we you know, we're colleagues also with with Greek University and one of your talks is upstream. And you note that suicide is the third leading cause of death in persons 15 to 24. Now, have when you talk about that, have you noted that there are any specific reactions from people in that age group whenever you share that data point with them in a talk or after a talk? It's interesting. I'll share that data and, you know, it's um accidents and homicide. I'm always the guy who wants to know what's number two or one, you know, and the flip flops by state, if you go, Hey, it's the number two killer, you are what's number one, accidents, which makes sense, because they just start to drive. And it's, you know, auto and other stuff. But number two could be homicide, depending where you live. But number three is suicide. The reaction Eddie, I get is often they know somebody, like maybe it was someone in your school,
00:05:37
Speaker
ah They're not that far from it. And it's sad. I wish everybody was way, way far from. him I wish you United sit there and go, I don't know anybody. That's the rare bird I run into is somebody doesn't know anybody who died by suicide. And that's my dream is to run into more of those people because there's less suicides in the world. But often you could sit there and watch and you know, from where we are in a speaker, you're looking at the audience. You have an interesting perspective because you see lots of faces. They just see yours.
00:06:07
Speaker
I could scan the crowd
Machismo and Mental Health in Fraternities
00:06:10
Speaker
and I could feel a vibe. On a couple occasions, I saw somebody in the audience literally just crumble in front of me because the topic was so raw. yeah and I'm raw because of what I lost. There's parts of parts of my talk. like I remember like this person to my upper right in this auditorium was having a rough time. I'm having a rough time giving the talk. I'm like, don't look over there because if she starts crying, you're going to start crying.
00:06:37
Speaker
And it was, um, it was interesting. And she, you know, she, she'd come up after the talk, which is, I was hoping I was sitting there and I got done and said, please come forward, please come forward in my head. And she came down and told me that she lost her brother. So a couple of months earlier, so it was still raw for her. So that, that reaction is probably the most prominent. They, they often know somebody, some kid in school or somebody really close to him, like a family member.
00:07:03
Speaker
Do you find, especially in that age group, that they're in a position where they really need to talk about it? That's interesting. I love ah this generation because they want to talk about it. You know, that's very different from us. Yeah. Oh, totally different. Go back to my dad's generation. Forget about it. They didn't want to talk about cancer.
00:07:26
Speaker
Back in the day when somebody got cancer, you're, oh, she has cancer. You'd say it real low. Like what? Yeah, everybody's whispering. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're whispering. They're sick. Oh, she has cancer. um it's It's kind of neat. I'm so proud of this generation of college students. And that's, you know, where I tend to focus and do a lot of corporate gigs. But the younger generations are proud of them because they've been through a lot. They're more resilient than they think. And two, they're willing to put this on the table.
00:07:54
Speaker
and talk about it. um Heck, we never talked about it. The views expressed on Ethocast do not necessarily reflect the views of the hosts, guests, or any entities with which this podcast's participants are affiliated. Questions, comments, email eddie at eddiefrances.com So you are, you know, I want to take a look at fraternity men. Um, you know, I'm a fraternity man. You're a fraternity man. I know in my fraternity, you know, we, we, we are aggressively pushing mental health. Um, and we are starting to see more brothers who are willing to talk about it, but
00:08:36
Speaker
But and this is a big, but we still have those brothers who, if you say mental health around them, they're going to say, okay, yeah, that's nice. Yeah, that's right. Everybody should take care of that mental health. Go you good job, man. And then they're going to go in that they're not even going to want to talk about it. And so when we focus on a fraternity men, especially as a member of fraternity, what have you noticed about the conversation about mental health among college members of fraternities?
00:09:06
Speaker
Acknowledge just as dudes in general are yeah are just a tough crowd for mental health talks. Women tend to emote more. And I can't speak for the women because I'm not one, but men are 80% of all suicides, period. 80% are dudes. Women have more attempts. So we're all in this together. a But guys in the past didn't want to talk about it. And I i learned from another guy on the circuit a Pro football player and he told me goes Dennis when you talk about mental health with guys say mental fitness Because they get that they get that physical fitness mental fitness tried try i using that because I was telling them sometimes I can't get through I So mental fitness, you know, we all have some form of physical fitness. We all took that, you know, when we were kids that presidential physical fitness test, I got smoked in that, by the way, I said, that we're doing, we're in high school, I swear, we're doing like sit ups. And this is girl named Leslie Ross, she was a heck of an athlete. She is doing like sit ups, like this super fast clip. She's a little girl, like a gymnast, and she's just cranking them out. I'm like, one, two, she laughed at me. I mean, she was done with her hundred sit ups, like,
00:10:18
Speaker
She was over there having a cigarette and I'm like, still three, four. It was so embarrassing. Like, how did I get put next to her? But we can relate to that, that physical fitness part. When I said sit ups, people could relate to that. Now let's relate to that to the you know mental fitness. How's your mental fitness? Some days my mental fitness is good. Some days not so good. And people can get their arms around that, especially dudes.
00:10:42
Speaker
So they, so they, do you find that with, do you find that with, with men, especially young men, do you find that once yeah they need somebody else to open up in order to open up? Do you, do you find that that might be a pattern with them? I think it's a pattern. I want to speak for guys, but we, we often like when someone else goes first, yeah yeah yeah yeah man wants to be an island, you know,
00:11:07
Speaker
So if someone goes, ah, i'm having trying they go ah me too.
The Perfectionism Trap in Fraternity Life
00:11:10
Speaker
I remember a couple of years back, I lost my job and I was really bummed about it because we tend to assign ourselves value with our job. And a friend of mine coached me and goes, Hey, put out a letter and tell everybody that you lost your job. I'm like, what? He goes, trust me on this one. He went through a career placement. So I put out this letter and I was shocked how many people I've also lost a job that I didn't know about.
00:11:35
Speaker
You know, no man wants to feel like they're an island. So, you know, it was an interesting to see. I'd say the same thing with mental health. Put it out there and watch people flow in. When I started talking about my brothers, I was amazed how many people started flowing into my life. When I was vulnerable, now it gave them permission for them to be vulnerable. And it's yeah it's been an awesome ride because that's when the conversation gets real.
00:11:57
Speaker
Yeah, you're listening to either cast. I'm Eddie Francis and we're talking to Dennis Gillan. He's the executive director of half a sorrow foundation. He's also an international speaker. Um, and we are talking about, uh, making sure that men, especially, uh, get into their mental health. And we are talking about suicide prevention. September is suicide prevention month.
00:12:17
Speaker
Um, you know, another one of your presentations and you just talked about this dudes need dudes, which by the way, I have to say, I absolutely love that title dudes need dudes because it is true. Um, but you just mentioned the statistic that 80% of suicides are men. So whenever you share that data point, what kinds of reactions do you get from men? That's, that's the grabber right there. When I say that a lot of guys.
00:12:47
Speaker
almost can feel it or sense it, but they don't know the number. And I say 80% of all completed suicide are guys, you know, and having lost two brothers to suicide 11 years apart. I wouldn't wish one on the devil himself, but that is the grabber. People go, I didn't realize it was that high. Like neither did I, but that's what it is. And it's like almost consistent year in year out. It's about 80%. So the dudes need dudes. And I found out,
00:13:15
Speaker
that girls have starting to use the word dude. Cause my niece called one of her friends, dude, so we another girlfriend. I'm like, all right. I said, Hey, Sarah, that's our word. She goes, no, it's everybody's word. Okay. I get it. Um, I'm cool with that. go um it again Exactly. But dudes do need dudes. Men need men. That's a fact. And, um, yeah, I think your iron sharpens iron. You can use all the analogies you want, but we really do need each other.
00:13:43
Speaker
And we're not wired to do this thing called life alone. And I have a a bunch of guys I get together with for breakfast once a month. And I'm ah um a better guy that day. I just love seeing them. Every first Thursday of the month, we have breakfast. And these are the guys I met when I was in my apartment ah going through my divorce alone. And we started this little club called the Camo Hat Club because men tend to camouflage their emotions. Yeah, and yeah.
00:14:11
Speaker
Everybody needs a camel hat club. I'm telling you right now, yeah it's not that hard to set up. Eddie, I just, a couple guys, we meet the first Thursday of every month at the same restaurant. So heck or high water, you could be there or or not. You can't make it, you don't make it, but somebody's going to be there. And we're we're such guys, we don't plan very well. Wednesday, before the Thursday, somebody sends out a text and goes, hey, is that thing tomorrow? And we all go, yeah, see you there. um That's about it.
00:14:41
Speaker
it's It's really, it's a low maintenance, low risk, but high payout reward for me. I get to sit around with guys that I met and Eddie, I kid you not, if we did not have this breakfast, I'm pretty certain I'd never see these guys. Wow. it Because life, life takes over. Yeah. Even though we live in the same town, we're maybe two, three miles apart, each of us. We all moved, I moved out of the apartment. Some folks are still there. You know, some, come, some guy bought a house. He's over here.
00:15:11
Speaker
I don't know if I'd ever seen them unless I bumped into them. But that's why I need that deliberate, intentional, first Thursday of the month, Camel Hat Club, be there. Yeah. In dealing with fraternities, yeah I actually talked about this on a previous episode when I talked about the
Supporting Brothers: Practical Advice
00:15:30
Speaker
need for personal leadership in your chapter, right? Before you can before you can do great things with the chapter, you have to do some great things with yourself.
00:15:38
Speaker
and and One of the things that that I thought about as I was doing that commentary Was the fact that sometimes especially in fraternities and I don't know what it is about us in fraternities We chase perfectionism We chase it so hard. And and when we don't get it, we feel as if we have just lost some of us like we've just lost. Like we just like we just came in last dead last at the Olympics because, you know, something didn't work out. Right. You know, um I mean, what would it to you? yeah you're You're someone you've been in your fraternity a long time. I've been in mine a long time. um
00:16:20
Speaker
What is it that you see with fraternity men that we are so resistant when it comes to taking care of ourselves, but then talking about something that may have happened like someone who died by suicide? What is it about us in particular? Because we seem to be on 10 with this stuff apart from other guys. What what are your thoughts? Is that machismo? It's that it's pride kills in my business and there's a sense of pride and proud and You don't want to, yeah among your peers, you don't want to admit any faults or show weakness. It may be a form of toxic masculinity aimed towards us, you know aimed at ourselves, the guy in the mirror, ah is killing the guy in the mirror. But basically that inability to and admit a fault or a wrong, this is why I encourage
00:17:16
Speaker
young men, when I speak to young men, I said, do me a favor, get old, because you get to an age. I'm 60. I know, I look 59. Thank you, Eddie, you're too kind. of You get to an age. I'm not saying you're apathetic. you know i don't yeah I still care about stuff. and they probably apple But you start picking the stuff you care about. And my image, i yeah I really don't care about my image too much. I know in the morning, I got to like the guy I see in the mirror. I gotta, I gotta like that guy and then I can help others. And I'm really, it took me a while to get there. I remember being in a fraternity and all the clicks and all this stuff. You had to have the certain clothes and shoot, I was always broke. I didn't have any of those clothes. um But in the end, guys except guys for who they are and when we see through all that stuff. So I would encourage any real listeners, just get old. It gets so much better. You start, you start not caring about
00:18:15
Speaker
the trivial stuff and you start caring about the big stuff. Dennis, let me tell you
Direct Conversations and Support Networks
00:18:20
Speaker
on a three to four to five lane highway, I drive in the right lane and I'm proud of it. and let her his buddy go Let everybody go. Go ahead, man.
00:18:35
Speaker
So for that brother who was watching and they're watching another brother's group struggle, how can they help? And then I'll add one to that for the brother who is struggling, what words do you have for them? So let's start with a brother who's watching another brother struggle. What advice do you have for him? Yeah, it's funny. And in your second part of the question, what words, so let's say let's, let's be aware that someone's struggling and and in a fraternity sense,
00:19:01
Speaker
or any kind of community sense, if someone starts withdrawing or pulling away and they start isolating. So if you have a chapter meeting and some dude doesn't show up for like three three times in a row, like, all right, let's go here. You know, we used to take attendance at our chapter meetings. So we know when someone's not there, um you got to reach out, you got to step in before they step out. And I say that a lot in my talk, look for these warning signs, the isolation, the behaviors, withdrawal, giving it away stuff, ah some mood swings,
00:19:31
Speaker
you'll know when something's up. You know, we have three brains based on nerve endings, one obviously in our head, one in our heart, just counting nerve endings. And then the one, the big one is in our gut and and brothers have to go with their gut and say, wow, something's off and I'm going to be the one that addresses it. Cause what happens if you use, you know, Eddie and you, Eddie and I, if we assume that one of our brothers was having trouble, I'd say, oh, Eddie will take care of it. I bet us we'll take care of it. Now, now one of it's like when,
00:20:00
Speaker
Two people are in charge of feeding a horse. The horse dies of starvation because the other one thought the other one's going to do it. Um, I encourage them and in the talk just to step in there and and, you know, and reach out and who doesn't want a brother like that? You know, if somebody missed a a chapter meeting and they got a phone call or text, Hey bro, is everything cool? You know, seriously, who doesn't want a brother like that? Um, so I encourage him to step in.
00:20:27
Speaker
And be aware of the signs and the symptoms and you know it. You just know when something's off. We just feel it. Just don't assume someone else is going to feel it too. Um, but reach out. I'd rather you, I always say this, I'd rather you embarrass yourself and then have to give a eulogy. You know, it's like, brother, you're fine. And then, and then have that regret. And then all of a sudden the mom calls up and says, I need a pallbearer. Can you do it? Yeah.
00:20:54
Speaker
We go over risk factors, warning signs, and encourage people to go off. And I tell you, one time I was at a school up in Pennsylvania, Clarendon University, and I was packing up my stuff to leave. And I walked out. I'm always the last one out. And I walked out. And there was a bunch of guys around this one dude. And I said, hey, is everything OK over there? And then one guy peeled away and came up to me and goes, sir, when you were going over risk factors, warning signs. He specifically said, when you go over warning signs, this guy leaned over to another brother and said,
00:21:24
Speaker
That guy's talking about me. So he raised his hand in my talk. He raised his hand in my talk and verbalized it to a dude sitting next to him. So at the end of the meeting, this was really cool. One, what was cool was he admitted it. And two was the response. These fraternity guys were boom like ah like a hobo and a ham sandwich. They were all over this dude.
00:21:45
Speaker
yeah And they weren't going to let them go. So when I left, I said, are you guys okay? like I'll stick around. I'm just going back to the hotel. I'm here. If we got to open up the caption you know right now and go to campus security, whatever, yeah let me know. They said, no, sir, we got it. And by the look on their faces, I knew they had it.
00:22:02
Speaker
They had, yeah they were not and they had him and they had him. Yeah, they had him. Yeah. Yeah. What about the, what about the brother who is struggling, the one who admits to it? What, what, what words are, what, what are the thoughts that need to go into that? That's good. What a guy says, listen, I'm not doing so hot. One of the words is going to be super hard to say. And you have to say it is the S word. Yeah. Are you suicidal?
00:22:31
Speaker
You got to put it on the table. Now, there are some people out there saying, oh, you can't say that because you might put the idea in their head. Hold on here. If somebody is struggling and they're battling depression, you don't think that idea was in their head already? Like you're going to be the one that plants it? Not happening. Research has shown it doesn't happen. And I've had to do this a couple of times, twice that I could think of, that I had to ask the person, are you suicidal? And it was almost relief at the question. Hmm. Yeah, I am. And then I had the second part of that was, do you have a plan?
00:23:01
Speaker
And one guy said, well, I had a firearm. I said, would it be a good idea to get rid of the firearm? And I expected a battle. I expected, you know, my gun rights, second amendment, America. I didn't get any of that. This guy said, probably a good idea. Because you know why? Because he wanted to live. Probably a good idea. So yeah say that. And if you don't have the words, you know, learn how to say it. But if you don't have the words, there's another thing that I'll give everyone a a plight out here.
00:23:31
Speaker
It's called the ministry of presence. Just be there. Just be there. After my brother Matt died, a guy came to my house and said, come with me. We went and saw a movie and we went back to his house. He just had to get me out of the house because I was super depressed. And we sat on his porch, maybe an hour. I was swinging in a, he had a rocker and I'm just swinging in that thing. And about an hour after that, I just got up and I said, all right, I'm going to go home now. He goes, all right, take care.
00:23:59
Speaker
Dude, we must have said like three words when we're on that porch. We didn't say squat. I just needed to be out of my house. there Sometimes there are no words, just say there are no words. I got no words for you. but I'm here. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Dennis Gillen. He is the executive director of the half a sorrow foundation. He's an international speaker and Dennis. I want to thank you for something. Uh, I want to thank you for bringing joy to just about every single person you touch. Um, I watched you at our retreat. I watched how you interacted with folks, the conversations we had. I watched the, the when I watched the Ted X talk,
00:24:36
Speaker
Um, you have the gift of joy. Um, and, and I know that our fraternity and sorority members, they need joy whenever they can get it just like anybody else. So man, I just want to thank you for the gift of joy. Cause we need it. We need joy. I appreciate you. We do. And it's it's interesting because, uh, someone came up to me one time after I spoke and she said, I didn't expect to laugh and cry, um, at the same time.
00:25:03
Speaker
But I told her, I said, listen, it's it's just life. You're going to get both. You're going to get it all. We can't numb our emotions because if you numb one, you numb them all. So o be prepared to laugh a little bit and be prepared to cry a little bit. That's it shows you human. Yeah. Dennis, if anybody wants to get in touch with you, by the way, how can they do that? What's the best way? The simplest way would go to the website, halfassorrow.org, half h A-K-L-F, Asaro.
00:25:32
Speaker
A shared joy is a double joy. A shared sorrow is half a sorrow. That's where we get it. And I have an old so website out there. It still works great. DennisGillen.com. Yeah.
00:25:44
Speaker
yeah but yeah D-E-N-N-I-S-G-I-L-L-A-N. Any one I first started out was all about me. and It's not about me. So we started the foundation. It's about the audience and all the programs we have. So those two ways, I'm out there. So we'd I'd love to hear from you.
00:25:59
Speaker
Outstanding and all that information is in the show knows Dennis the once again. Thank you for joining me on etho cast Eddie. Thank you for having me. and Thank you for taking on this tough subject Ethocast is a four-hour edification limited series. If you like what you heard, like and follow this podcast for more leadership insights for your fraternity or sorority chapter. To find out how you can bring followership to leadership or the Black Greek Success Program to your campus or a campus near you, email today, eddy at eddyfrances.com. Until next time, spread brotherly and sisterly love wherever you go.