>> May is mental Health Awareness Month.

Research shows that one in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year and Kentucky one in 6, Kentuckyian live with a serious mental illness.

So how is the nation state grappling with growing mental wellness challenges?

We're talking about checkups from the neck up with the executive director of Mental Health, America of Kentucky, Marci temperament.

That's now on connections.

♪ ♪ >> Welcome and thank you for joining us today on connections were glad to be joined by our dear friend, Marci Tim Run, mental Health America of Kentucky to help us understand why depression and anxiety and other mental health challenges.

>> Are on the rise.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 800 Kentucky lives were lost to suicide last year and 157,000 adults in the state had thoughts of suicide.

It's important that we all know when to seek professional help for ourselves or to help someone else in crisis.

And that's what this show is about.

Today.

Our good friend Marci Timmerman with mental health America of Kentucky is here to educate us.

Thank you.

It's always good to have you always have your about the same time every year.

You to talk about this issue and it seems like and I want you to really set the record straight because we always have a ramped up conversation about mental health after mass How do you feel about that?

I think it's an important conversation to have about mental wellness.

I want to emphasize that mental illness is not the reason that people.

>> Shoot people, right.

What we have a saying at national that hate is not a mental illness.

Hate is something that we can all feel.

I think there's an argument to be had for mental wellness, though, handling anger hangar, handling situations, being aware of yourself.

Those are mental wellness conversations we need to have.

But I do want to start, you know, just having a mental illness actually makes you more likely to be a victim of violence than it is to be a perpetrator.

>> David Brooks in 2022, probably after a mass shooting wrote a really eloquent piece about people who commit these types of heinous crimes, mass shootings are ghosts.

>> That they've been ignored.

They've been bullied and that.

>> Committing these acts.

Are their way to become known.

To become famous in some way or to be recognized, but that he pointed out that it most of the instances are not because someone dealt with a mental illness, but we make that correlation.

We always have that conversation.

When we talk about gun reform and other things.

Yeah.

So do you think aside from when we have acts of mass violence, are we having the right conversations about mental wellness?

>> I think we're having more of them.

And that makes me feel really good.

I think, you know, we when we first met many years ago, right?

And the statistics are higher of people recognizing they have a mental illness.

But I think that also means we have a higher statistic of people receiving help.

And so that's a really good thing.

You're a candidate to be recognized as having it means you actually sought help in some way.

So I think that's really helpful.

And I think that gives me a little bit of hope as we look forward.

And I do think we are hearing from a lot of different parties, people, etcetera, and the news, you know, that connection piece that loneliness and how we need to and recognizing that as communities as states as governments.

How can we affect loneliness?

I mean, that's a one to one conversation.

A lot of times story, right?

But also we have to be careful when we talk about on the shooter's that we don't identify like weird kids or somebody else like that.

The loaner kit and start going well.

Are you going to shoot a saw or something like that?

You want to have that conversation.

So learning how to make everyone feel accepted and welcome.

I think as long as we focus on that kind of peace, I think we're going to see some improvement as far as the mental wellness conversation.

So what about stigma?

Yeah, that stigma is hard.

>> So a lot is still there.

And still it's so is it certain?

Populations?

Cultural identities?

Is that where we see the stigma hide or is it just a societal thing?

That's just think it's just out there right now.

It's still in decades and generations of stigma, which, you know, we didn't have a way to treat a lot of mental illness until really our generation, the generation before You know, that Boomer or Gen X generation is the first ones to really have seen.

>> Effective treatments and a lot of cases.

So I think as we start unwinding that old stigma, we will get there.

I think there are a lot of more people who are seeing it in their kids and their grandkids and things like that and seeing them get re going.

Wow, I should have gotten treatment.

And so the signal is changing, right?

But I don't see that in specific populations in Kentucky.

I see it pretty much brought.

Yeah.

>> And we are noticing that their law a lot more intentionality around certain groups and occupations.

We know that a suicide among farmers is increasing right because of their unique challenges.

What can you tell us about that are We wouldn't think as farmers are strong people.

They are right.

I mean, yeah.

And they will tell you, you know, we don't take much stuff and we get the job done and probably admitting that they're just, you know, not really where they'd like to be mentally is public pretty hard for them.

It is.

And I love the folks at raising Hope and Kentucky are really targeting that population explaining to them.

You know that it's you don't have to live with all this weight on you all the time.

And that loneliness factor right is very lonely to be a farmer right now, especially a small farmer, right?

That's there's a lot of pressure is on.

You to juggle and realizing that some mental illness issue.

It may not be an illness, right.

And I think sometimes we talk about things we forget that mental health.

We all have a brain.

We all have mental health.

Treatment doesn't have to be lifelong and long term and doesn't have to go back to your childhood trauma.

It could be.

How do I handle stress today?

Yeah.

And I think as we started changing that conversation, we're seeing that with raising They have a phone number just for folks to understand farming.

You don't have to translate farm conversation to those folks.

They understand you and are one of the probably so.

And that's an important point.

Marci, I think that if it's peer to peer, yeah, where, you know, I think about first think about people in the agriculture community.

If you open up with each other, it's a lot better.

Maybe then maybe perhaps talking to someone who is trained specifically to deal with it.

Is that true?

I think peer to peer is helpful.

Definitely in conversations.

And that's why I love teaching mental health.

First aid is helps people be confident and what they're talking about with a friend and being that vulnerable person that people can come to and and you're that person that has answers and not just, you know, the BS are back and forth as they might say in the farm world.

So I was in row for a long time.

>> Like I can talk a lot of that to have needed.

But, you know, it is good.

I think that's important.

Yeah.

So talk to us about mental health.

>> First day because we've heard about this, we know that a lot of schools in Kentucky practice this the is Qsr QPR to PR and most of the mess.

question persuade and refer and refer so OK, give us the lowdown on what mental health first aid is and QPR.

So you think of him first aid regular tells you what to do in an emergency right?

Mental health first aid goes a little bit further than that.

And it is an all-day kind of it's about 8 hours of training.

But you go through early warning signs of mental health issues.

And again, it's health issues, not necessarily illness, right?

So those red flag moments of, hey, maybe some of the handling their anger.

So will it work?

How to have that conversation when it's appropriate to have it.

And really what those resources are.

So we go by algae.

It's approaching someone so having the conversation learning to listen non-judgmental way.

That is the the 2 are at peace of that.

Read some of the hardest things light and we go through that and that so early.

But we also go through moderate.

And then, you know, you have someone actually are for someone.

give you those local referrals that you need, you know, that community mental health center number right, that 9, 8, 8, number for suicide prevention, some mental health first aid really goes through kind of the whole process of seeing someone and goes through lots of scenarios.

Lots of different centers based on different Youth focuses on youth where those red flags and yet they're different than There's a rural component where, you know, you're working with farmers were working with that conversation.

There's a little different among different and there's a first responder model and things like that.

QPR is actually just up to about a two-hour training to work on how to say, are you thinking of suicide and doing it outright and blank like that, which is not easy to do, even someone who does it all the time.

It brings up that little bit of a warning sign, an adrenaline see, have to learn how to say that conversation and how to have it and where to refer people again, that that that shorter training, very suicide prevention focused now hope for state does a little bit of everything.

Yeah, because we've talked about this before health programs and and all the experts will say you asked the question yes, don't ask if you're thinking of harming yourself or you're feeling OK, say, are you thinking of taking your own life or you know?

Yeah, so and that's >> It is hard sell out and just say out loud, right?

Because the answer because people think if I ask it's going to put the plant the seed if they didn't have it.

>> But it's not and said we say and mental health first aid shines a light on it.

It gives them someone.

Finally someone talked.

Someone noticed I can talk to this person because they can say the word, right?

You've practiced it and QPR mental health first aid.

You can say those words and your what we're ready to help them as we It's a big relief and weight off their shoulders.

We don't give people the idea they're already walking around with it.

>> Well, it's interesting because I think it may not have been in that particular David Brooks piece, where gives an example of somebody who was thinking of taking their own life and then someone intervened?

Yeah.

And just, you know, said, you know, kind of help you write and it's like it change that person's mindset at that time.

I okay.

Maybe maybe I can turn this around.

I mean, somebody showed me some compassion and And that is so important to Then the 9, 8, 8, which is the new national crisis, hotline number that replaced the longer number that I even to you could you know what I know?

Yeah, but that's still operational, right?

You can call that now.

You have the old suicide lifeline number.

You can still call that I'll go to 9.

A shorthand is 9, 8, 8, Yeah.

And that just launched last year.

How's it doing?

And what we know about its success?

Well, I love in Kentucky is that night.

It is answered more locally here.

So we created the center's inside our community, mental health centers.

We've got them all on board with this answering system.

So if you call from a phone number that is from Lexington, you get new Vesta.

If you call from one in Louisville, you get 7 counties right?

And you get them from wherever you are in the state to your more local resource and they're everywhere in the state where all of them are covered.

Yeah, because you think about maybe where those places where there's less providers and so right.

Yeah, but iPhone, you can reach him at 9, 8, no matter what time you can also text and chat.

It.

The chats are answered Penny Royal Serna was say that wrong.

So it is getting They're answering chat and text as well.

they're doing a great How much volume, you know, maybe for younger people who are used to doing that.

Maybe that's there key texting by ISIS going up.

But nationally there was a trend were actually men over 40.

We're texting and we assume that was because it was quiet, right?

You don't have to actually say it out loud.

They can be in a meeting and have a conversation with someone threw 98.

So it's been interesting to see you think of young people that, you know, even 40 year-old hate to pick up the phone is day one that we're going to say that our see What is interesting, though, to think?

Well, that's great, but it's not just a call.

>> All that it's a Texas AM would you know if people are still feeling the weight of stigma and shame, which we don't want people to feel.

But we you know, you feel what you feel.

Yeah.

And so to have someone, you know, right there at your fingertips that many times as you need.

Yeah, I think that's a piece that folks forget 9, 8, 8, doesn't have to be an emergency and it is there and you're not going to get punished for using it come.

So if you need to use it, use it right.

We want to KET you alive.

We can work with connecting you to the right resources for you.

>> And that's really a big part of the 98 peace is not just someone to answer, but also someone to respond.

Someone refer to someone to actually help.

Well, that's interesting, as we think about 9-1-1, we don't want to overuse that, right, right, that you don't want that to be your medical right He for this.

You're saying it's OK to call more than wants it because that's what you need to be able to get through.

Yes, obviously, hopefully you've got a provider and you've got a crisis line for them as well.

>> But, you know, 9, 8, will always be there.

And we'd rather you call early than late.

So, you know, I brought in a rule area where everybody KET everybody and everybody, everybody's Yeah, I'm just thinking about when I grew up, you know, if you went somewhere to seek mental health treatment team, you are the talk of the town.

So I think does that still exist and smaller areas where the communities are real tight knit and maybe the providers are maybe a little further away.

You sometimes that distance helps a little.

Yeah, it helps yeah, they're definitely people who feel more comfortable leaving their seek their community, mental health center and going to somewhere else.

And that's totally fine.

9.

It is not meant to be a pipeline just to that space and they do have a larger audience to pull from.

Right?

I think that's really helpful.

And knowing that it can be internationally as well.

>> And, you know, the Spanish and the Veterans lines are still on there.

So when you cut down on it, you get to choose whether unit, Spanish language or veteran specific veteran is still a national network 9.

It is always backed up at the national.

So there's no guarantee you're getting your local person, but you are going to be answered.

And that's the important part.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Speaking of veterans so since 2017, the Veteran's Club, which runs Shelbyville area that's near Louisville.

>> Helps veterans overcome their challenges with PTSD and other mental on wellness issues and particularly brain injury and trauma there.

But you don't have to see combat experience, life-altering trauma and the Veterans Club is now opening its doors to first responders and Louisville residents who are affected by the old National Bank shooting last month.

Here's a piece to tell you more.

>> We >> have different visions of our equine program.

One as you cross the so tight and mentoring, which is so what we'll do here today.

It's where we use horses, too.

Get in discussion about, you know, things that folks need to get off their chest and things that need to heal from and it's very it's less about horsemanship more about being able talking offload.

Some of these things today is the special session for the community at large.

Really.

But we're also targeting a lot of former law enforcement Any kind of first responder folks who worked at the Baker and the area who who were impacted by the shooting that occurred at Old National Bank a couple weeks ago.

What the folks impacted that they saw was combat.

And that's what we're in the business of helping people overcome.

I never thought in a million years that.

I never have to have a session like this.

We'll talk about grief will talk about anxiety and fear.

We'll talk about coping skills will talk about long-term care.

We have clinicians coming to help get folks plugged in for long-term care if they need it.

But the goal is for us to for them to be able to not necessarily forget, but to create an opportunity where it doesn't impact them in a negative way anymore.

Right.

To have a memory without feeling like you're there feel like you're in that space again.

>> They bring me out of my shell.

Huge and that's the number one thing when I get out of it is no Russian animals talking of events.

Why we're doing it.

It's like is she the for fall on the ground?

It's kind of our feelings are going away we will have more positive when we leave.

>> We're never going to forget about what happens in Louisville, right?

We're never going to forget about that.

And and the people who have had experience it are never going to forget about it.

They're carrying this and harboring this pain and this fear in this, you trauma.

Then we need to be there to help address that.

>> Isolation is the worst thing you can do to a veteran or first responders that suffer trauma coming out here.

And, you know, working with the horses, even if it's to help Scott rush up the barn clean up the mow, the lawns out here.

Get nice and good looking that's that will get you out of house and stopped isolation.

My hope is.

>> That we put more plans in place that we invest more money in the mental health because what we don't do that all this trauma falls on the shoulders of the first responders in our community schumann's.

We can only take so much.

And then we need good first responders.

And so we need to do that will favor and hear them when they say we need help.

This isn't a one-time thing will be opening up this program for those folks indefinitely.

As long as there's a need because it's it's You can't really overcome that in one day.

>> You are going to Jeremy Harrow is a hero.

First of the equine facilitated mentoring program has helped over 3800 veterans and first responders in the last 6 years.

And as an open door invitation of flip affected and the Louisville mass shooting to receive care and community.

I mean, he's tremendous.

We've interviewed him before and we've had him in the studio to talk about veterans issues and mental wellness challenges.

And he's just an extraordinary human being.

You are singing his praises and talking about the full service approach that he has to wind therapy.

Talk to us about that.

Yeah, I love that.

He has those providers on standby for that long term.

It's not just a moment with the horse.

It's a long-term commitment to if they need more, we've got more.

Yeah, if we don't have it will find it.

And I just love that deflated Meyer from afar from its programs.

Yeah, well, and it's interesting when we heard the gentleman talk about, you know, brushing the horse and the hair flying away.

It's like.

>> You know, it was just such a stress relief moment to see that you don't think about that like those actions.

But we've, you know, profiled art therapy programs for young people that that there's all kinds of creative ways.

You're just not sitting on some eyes chair couch and talking about your issues.

there's all kinds of ways to get help in ways that are very Yeah, there's music therapy.

There's folks that do the coloring.

I love the walk and talk therapy.

That's my favorite.

Like them.

It was an folks that are willing and able not every provider is able to, but they take you for a walk and do the therapy while you're walking or take a run or do some hiking.

The therapeutic hikes are happening.

I love all of those options out there.

That's not just the old Sigman Ford kind of picture.

And honestly, nobody does that anymore.

So Carly, 2 comfortable chairs sitting across from each other.

Really just relating yeah.

And a box of tissues into an occasion it but right.

Yeah, that's amazing.

And when they mention the word combat, you know, he's like these people in Louisville experience right way.

Whether you or or or >> a shooting victim yourself, are you know, someone who tragically died that day or just the community itself.

I mean, this is like a combat The community issue for sure.

Yeah.

>> And I think there are people who live in that experience, right?

We don't think of gun violence.

We think of one issue like that.

But there are people who live with gun violence in the neighborhood every day.

You know, they live in a combat zone.

A lot of ways.

>> That's right.

Well, we had Leila's Salisbury on who runs the center for grieving Children and Families or families and organization here in Lexington to talk to us about helping children, her husband died by suicide.

And so she felt and she was in a different said at the time.

But had a community place to go that really helped her.

And she brought that back to her native Kentucky and just talking about that for children.

It did happen if a traumatic situation happens of them before age 9, let's say it's 5 years old.

They may not even recognize that until 9 years old.

So my question to you is >> Supported >> grief that manifests whenever it manifests even from young to old.

Are you?

Is that a mental wellness issue?

I would say so for sure.

And we actually say if grief is going on for over a year to where you're not able to still function.

All right.

If you are crying every day, you're still not want to get up out of the bed.

Yeah, I a year and do we actually have diagnosis for that?

Now?

And that is I can't remember yeah implicated grief issue.

Yeah.

I think they have a different version for bit complicated.

Grief is also like all those other traumas that might have happened, right?

You may have lost someone, but you may have also been on house, right?

And things like that happen with it.

And can affect it.

So, yeah, I really just depends.

But yeah, I think if we don't reach out to each other.

All right.

We're back to that community care and that connectivity.

Those are the underlying things of all of our before stage for stuff that we talk about, right?

We we can't recognize symptoms if we are around other people.

Well, a point of that and watching back the peace with Jeremy here, by the way was produced, might be Kenzie hair.

She did a phenomenal job with that.

So shout out to her.

But you are you may do to that about loneliness and not just sitting in the house.

So if you find yourself in this situation, surround yourself with other people which may be hard because you may not.

You don't wanna you don't wanna, but sometimes you have to push yourself.

And sometimes it's just a great group.

Maybe it's just going to church.

Maybe it's going to your pastors office.

I don't have to be everybody, but you have to find that one or 2 people, at least.

And hopefully you've done that work before something like that happens.

But, you know, a 9 year olds not going to able to do that, right?

We have to have groups for them.

We have to place for them to land.

We often hear to Marcy that when there is a dearth of like psychiatry us and Kentucky, which most of us don't think about right.

But why is that lots of factors for that?

I think honestly, there are very few child psychiatrists, Pacific Lee in Kentucky.

We just don't have enough.

Enough of them and they're not enough of them nationally.

So it's not just can tell you.

It's not just Kentucky town.

Kentucky, though, you know, struggles, right?

We have rural communities that are very hard to service because, you know, sometimes of drive a long way.

You know, not everyone wants to live Earl and that's fair to not.

Everyone wants to live in the city.

Either rights struggles both directions actually and mental health and psychiatry is not the fashionable thing.

There's still a lot of medical stigma, monks, other providers that they don't want to come.

One are they don't support someone choice to be one.

So we have to work on that.

The medical school level and on.

So, you know, even high school students, do you want to be a psychiatrist like what is that?

Yeah, you know, going back to the basics.

Well, because, you know, I've heard from a lot of people that their child was dealing with severe mental illness and they had to send them to Utah.

Yeah, or and I'm thinking, oh, my goodness.

I mean, that's that's very telling.

Yeah, we don't have enough eating disorder.

We don't actually have a residential eating disorder treatment program in Kentucky.

Them aware of it.

I know was ero like last month.

So still at 0 being able to take residential treatment.

We have it some intensive outpatient options in just a little and they're only able to accept certain types of things because we aren't paying enough for Medicaid and other other insurers are also not paying And that's part of the problem writes, I call it, you know, psychiatrist can't work for 1999 wages.

Yeah.

And so we have got to fix that.

So when you think about where we are in the mental wellness hours, you always help me with my life.

And I've learned a lot.

>> From you and others who've helped me just kind of understand before states for you make sure that before we know that mental health America, that's kind of one of the things said before states forces just like it sounds before it gets too a very chronic serious terminal, the type of condition, right?

And where do you want to see the conversation?

Go now because we spike it when we have a mass shooting and then yeah.

I would love us to turn inward a little bit.

Make sure that we do have friendships that we have people in our lives that are supportive of and supporters not just based on like our job like you work doesn't love you back.

You need co-workers to be friends but us.

Any friends from outsiders, space and working on ourselves and then, you know, take that screening if you need it there.

I'm AJ screening, DOT org as our and we have lots of them, including a now a postpartum one.

So if folks are worried about, you know, where their mental health is after they had a baby, take a screening.

Now the screening is a very anonymous, easy way to know.

Like when is it serious enough for me to see someone serious enough like nobody's going to turn your way.

But, you know, if you're feeling like, I don't know if it's right or from just kind of going through things, that's a great way to check it, OK, I want to give that address one more time.

MHA screening Dot Org.

Okay.

So in that we also probably do that.

Yeah, right.

From time to time just to just to check in to assess that the checkup from the neck up.

Exactly right.

And I think I always like to kind of in his conversations with saying it's OK to not be OK, absolutely.

You know, I think that as we put so much pressure on ourselves to perform at high levels all the time and this deal because everybody else is dealing and just make it through.

And there are times when, you know, you just got to take a break.

It's OK to self-care is important and finding what you love.

And I love that these different therapy options are helping people to just find their piece.

You know, that we want people to find their peace.

Martin Timmerman, your remarkable, I appreciate the work you do.

And you know that personally and professionally, she is one of the good ones.

I thank you for watching today.

I hope that you found this program, informative.

Remember if you need a checkup from the neck up to visit the mental Health America site to get that screening, whether it's veterans post Partum, there are resources out there for you.

>> Do not be afraid.

Do not be ashamed we're here for you.

And if anything, drop me an e-mail at our Shaw at KET KET Dot Org.

If you just want to say hi.

>> I'd be glad to respond back.

They're all kind of ways that you can get in touch with us on Facebook on Twitter and we can KET in touch with you there.

There you see it on your screen.

Just stay in touch and stay in good health and good care.

And I will see you again very soon.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪