Transcript of Chris & Martha Thomas | The Defensive Line: The Thomas’s on Suicide Prevention and Community Initiatives

It's okay to show that you love and to show that you care. You don't have to be tough all the time.

It's okay to call 988 on behalf of someone else. And he credited us with saving the student's life. Keep talking, keep talking. Don't stop talking. Let someone know how you're really, really feeling.

She didn't want to die. She wanted to end the pain.

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Here's Mic. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Mic Unplugged. Today is a true bucket list for me, and I mean that for Soul. Today's guests are the cofounders of a powerful and purpose-driven nonprofit dedicating to saving lives by transforming the way we communicate about mental health, one of my true passions in life. After experiencing personal tragedy, they They turned their unimaginable grief into action by founding the Defense Line, a movement aimed at preventing youth suicide, especially among young people of color. Their commitment to sharing their story and educating others has created a ripple effect, helping to reduce stigma and foster open, honest conversations about mental health, something that's truly needed in 2024 and beyond. Please join me in welcoming the compassionate, the resilient, the powerful, the transforming, Mr. And Mrs. Martha and Chris Thomas.

Thank you so much.Thank you.

Martha and Chris and Chris. You know I had to go ladies first, right? Absolutely.

I'm getting in trouble with my wife. Yes, absolutely.

Martha and Chris. I I'm a huge fan of who you are personally, but more importantly, and I mean this from my soul, and this isn't scripted or anything like that, I'm a big proponent of mental health. At a young age, I experienced or saw mom go through emotional, financial, physical abuse. A lot of people don't realize that mental health is more than the actual person that's experiencing it. It's also for the people that care and are surrounded. They go through those struggles as well, too. Following you both for a while, I just wanted to thank you for really making this a thing and having this conversation. I get a little emotional because I go back to that 10-year-old me, but I just want to thank you both for opening the doors to having these conversations, especially for the people that look like me, where it's taboo to talk about, or it's a perceived weakness to talk about struggle. So I just wanted to say thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mick. That's fantastic. And it's so true. It impacts so many people. We Often before we lost Ella, we didn't realize how significant it was across the whole community, but in particular, the community of color, and why it's important to talk about it, because you can't fix something if you don't talk about it. You put your head in the sand. And so it's important that we talk about physical health, mental health, emotional health, spiritual health. It's what we call home health. It's really important because then we can talk about how do you improve it? How How do you make sure you're more resilient? How do you make sure you check on your friend or your brother or your sister or your mother or your father? So making these normal conversations is what we're all about because we don't want anybody to join the unfortunate club that we're a part of, Suicide Law Survivor.

Yeah. My high school best friend, I lost to suicide years after high school. One of the biggest regrets that I have to this day is, did I reach out enough? Could I have been a phone call, a text message, an in-person conversation that could have sparked some type of change? I think about that a lot. One of the questions I want to ask you, because it was something that I struggled with initially, What were the initial steps that you took to turn tragedy into impactful work?

It took a while. We had, honestly, One of Ella's boyfriends really pushed me to do the overnight walk with the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention. It was in Dallas, and he said, I told him I wasn't ready. It was about six months after Ella died. Said, I'm not ready. Landis, I'm just not there yet. And he said, I'm going to keep asking you until it happens. And the week before, I said, Okay, Landis, I'll do it with you. I'll do it with you. Then Solomon said he'd do it. Then Chris came with us, and we walked 18 miles in the heat Dallas. It was actually in Dallas that year. But that was this pivotal point where if we're living, we have to really live and do something because we can take steps, literal steps, that could change what someone else was doing. And along the way on this walk, people would come up to us and talk about their loss and how they were doing and their concerns over how we were doing as a son, as a mother, as a father. And it was life-changing. It was powerful. And there were other people who were talking about it who weren't ashamed.

And there was so much shame with it at first that you'd see. If we said Ella's name, people would come put their head down. This is our daughter. We're never going to stop talking about her. So it really was empowering.

That's awesome. You talk about taking those first steps and just communicating and talking, right? And I know we talked offline about just the power of connecting and connection. How has that helped, not not only the healing process, but also just the awareness in general?

One, having people reach out, but reaching out to others and then listening to them, not reaching out with the intent of having something to say, but reaching out with the intent of listening to who they are, to what they're going through, to how they're feeling. Acknowledge those feelings as their feelings, not as who they are. I am not a sad woman. I have feelings of sadness. And just recognizing that in other people, but really that intention of reaching out to listen, to not expect to hear something, but to hear what someone else has to say.

The other power of connectivity, in particular amongst youth, is the more we encourage people to check in on each other, it can help with this situation. Because like right now, one out of four high school students have seriously thought about taking their life, and their LGBTQ at one out of four have attempted. So the more we talk to each other, the more we can check and see, how are you doing? How are you really doing today? And then they can listen compassionately, as Martha mentioned, and then just make sure we're talking to them, staying in contact with them. And also, as we talk more about this, we educate people on the fact that if you see somebody in trouble and you ask them, Are you thinking about suicide? That is a very positive and powerful move. It's not going to cause them to want to die by suicide. Every study says that it does the opposite. It helps that person who may be at risk or may be suicidal to say, Hey, this person is seriously concerned about me. Let me open up and talk to them about it. So that's the other piece and power of connectivity is that it drives these powerful transformative conversations about how people are doing and where they're at at that moment.

And then as a listener, you can just listen and not try to solve the problem. Just talk to the person and just be where they are and keep them safe for that moment. Yeah.

And I know that you both have partnered with a lot of organizations and schools and communities in the NFL. What impact are you seeing with these collaborations now?

We spoke at a university The next week got an email from their director of counseling who said, We had a student who was suicidal because he heard you and because his coach heard you. Everyone knew what to do, and everyone knew to take it seriously. And he credited us with saving the student's life. That, to me, was everything. On days where I feel like, I don't want to do this, I think about that, and I'm moving on.

To your point, we've had some great collaborative partners, whether it's AFSP, DAT, Press Cause Faith by Finish. And DAK and his group have helped us do these D-Lines or Student Health Prevention workshops here in Dallas. We do them in Clark County. We've done that at universities like Stanford and University of Virginia. And when we do these workshops, we're seeing coaches and teachers and leaders of young people being able to recognize the signs. We see a 40% increase in teachers and coaches being able to recognize the signs. People are 94% more confident to be able to have those open conversations. And at the beginning of each workshop, we give people a blank action plan, and we ask them to fill in D for don't ignore your gut, L for listen for the sign, I for interact, for the person who's in the concern, N, name the concern, E, evidence of the concern, S, create a safe, supportive And at the end of that workshop, 98 % of the people walk away with an action plan. And this is something that Martha developed, was a brilliant move because as a teacher, she noticed there was a need for us to not just talk about how to save people, but We got all these drills, tenetal drill, shooter drill, everything else.

But we don't have a mental health action drill, a action plan. So with her leadership, we put this action plan together. And now people, out of these workshops, walk with a tangible tool. They can use day one, day 1,000, day 10,000, because it has a lifelong approach.

I love that because it's something that I'm a big proponent of as well, which is the action, right? You can talk, talk. But after a while, ears start to deaf and on talk. It's who we are as people. I'm sure, Chris, you can look me in the eye. You don't have to just blink three times. Sometimes Martha's talking and you're nodding your head and. My wife's over there, too, so I get it. I'm not going to blink as well. But it's the action that matters. It's not even the action because I know, again, following you all what I do, you actually give roadmaps as well, too. It's not unrealistic things that people can do. It's like, Hey, do this. Here's a place you can reach out to. And then this is your next step. And that's what I love. I'd love to give the listeners and viewers just some insight into that because I think that's the most powerful thing.

So one thing we do when we go to schools is we find out, well, wherever we go, we find out what local resources are. We have spoken and done our workshop at universities where the people at the university did not know what the crisis, that they actually had their own crisis 24 hours line that was available to the students and the staff at the university. So connecting people with the resources they have. We were just at a high school in Dallas, and we always have... All the Dallas high schools have a licensed therapist on staff for not only the students, but the staff. So we always involve them in the workshop. And there's so many people who say, I didn't know who that person was. I didn't even know they were here or that I could reach out to them. So really putting people in touch with the local resources. Sometimes the school will send resources. I'll check them. Like, are they still... Oh, no, that number is not even active anymore, and they're putting it out as a resource. So it's being intentional about what's out there. Also, really making sure people know it's okay to call 988 on behalf of someone else.

You don't have to be in the crisis. Or if you're a parent and a child, and you know your child is struggling, sit down with them and call 988 or text 988 or 741-741 with them so that they know that this is a resource that is viable, that's easy, that's there for them. When they're having a bad day, they don't have to be on the verge of suicide to use those numbers, and everyone needs to know that.

The other great thing Martha does is she does an interactive role play during the eye, which is interact. She talks to the participants about, we're going to practice saying, are you thinking about the suicide? And really practicing it with the people. We don't ask people to give an answer back, but it's very uncomfortable asking that question. But that role play helps people understand. It helps them get the guard down. It helps them understand that it's okay to ask that question. And not only okay, it's imperative that they ask that question. So that's an excellent piece that she put into our workshop because we want people to actually do the work. So that's why we do role plays and talk to the leaders at that time.

And I think that's powerful because that's honestly, until I got to follow you both, that's something I would have felt like, Oh, you shouldn't ask that question. You need to tiptoe around and figure out angles, but you're right. Be direct because, again, that's who we are as humans. We need that. I believe iron sharpens iron, but I also believe friction can fight friction, and you need You don't need happiness all the time, or I should say happiness. You don't need ease and polish. You need that rub to break through. And so I love that.

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Well, especially with young people, when their emotions can be all over the place. I taught middle school for years.

She's going to heaven.

The range of emotions I saw in my students every day was 12-year-olds going through puberty are a special gift. But making sure that we are asking. Like I noticed that you're falling asleep in class, and you weren't doing that before. Is there something going on? I asked one student one time, and he looked at me and he goes, Yeah, my parents bought me a computer for Christmas, and they put it right by my bed. So I'm up gaming all night long. And I was able to understand that. But to ask those questions, when you see Can we see a change in behavior in anyone, but especially teams, young people, it's really important to ask.

That's one of the things that we incorporated with our partner AFSP. We help people understand that there's never only one reason why someone dies by suicide. And we share with them the talk, mood, behavior, change of behaviors that exist with somebody who may be in crisis. And they're like 8 to 10 different characteristics, each of those talk, mood, behaviors. We walk through that. And the other thing we walk through is Martha shares the importance of being intentional about language. We try to help educate people. You don't say commit suicide. You say someone dies by suicide. And the reason why that's important is people don't commit cancer. They don't commit kidney disease. They die by kidney disease. And 80 to 90 % of people die by suicide have a mental health condition. So they're dying by mental health condition. They're not committing a crime. It's not taboo. It's they're dying by suicide. And then we also go through some other myths. It only takes an expert to help somebody who may be dying by suicide. Anybody can help someone who's dying by suicide, or that once someone has made a plan to die by suicide, you can't talk them out of it.

That's not true at all. So we go through some of the myths that exist on that as well. To your point, I saw you look surprised when you made a comment about the piece about commit versus die by suicide. That's 99% of the people, they don't realize that's an important piece, an important change.

It adds stigma to talking that you're committing this, right?

Absolutely. I want to give some tips and insight to three different people, and you are the resource for this. For the person who cares about someone or people, but you don't know the signs that someone's struggling with mental health, what are some of the signs that people can look for when they just think someone's appearing to be normal or happy or in a good space? What are some signs that people can look for that aren't always just known?

So one, like I already mentioned, to me is the change of behavior. And it might be a positive change. So just because someone isn't exhibiting what we might think is stereo a typical mental health condition. For instance, if it's a young person, instead of being quiet, they may be louder. Any change in behavior, it might mean someone's not sleeping or they've gone from being sad to extremely happy. Just that change, that to me is the biggest thing to look for.

Absolutely. And a lot of times people, sometimes, Martha mentioned the change of behavior. Sometimes they become withdrawn, they become more isolated. And when people are isolated, and they're worse, and they feel like a burden is people, that's when that triggers even more unfortunate issues on suicide ideation. So to Martha's point, those talk mood behavior. People sometimes, unfortunately, give away prized possessions, or they sleep more, they sleep less, or eat more, eat less. Those are the key ones. But the giving away product price possessions is typically a huge sign. And then the other thing I'd be remiss if I didn't say, AFSP has some great videos on their website about how to recognize signs talk how to deal with people who maybe have some burdensome issues and things like that. And that's where we get a lot of our resources as well.

Okay, that's good. I'll make sure that I give links to AFSP in the show notes and everything that I post out socially as well, too. Now, the second person that I want to give tips and insights to are the family members that are seeing these signs. How do you approach that person? Because you've already given me some really good nuggets here. One, ask the question. I think obviously that's the first tip. But how do you give people the courage to actually do that? Because for some people, again, it might not be a natural thing, and they need that motivation to do that. So how do we help that person that's recognizing these signs have those conversations or provide help?

I think one thing that's really important is to make mental health conversations in our families, just like I always say to parents, if your child came home and had sprained their ankle, you would ask them about it at school. You would ask them about it. If there was a broken arm, you would ask them, How's it feeling every day? You take them to the doctor. We need to be able to do the same with our mental health. So one good question to ask ask is, how did that make you feel? Not just how you're doing today. It's fine. But once they get to that, continuing that conversation, asking deeper questions, and not quite letting it off the hook. I don't know if you've ever seen the feelings wheel, but you've got the core feelings, and then even, Oh, okay, you're sad. Which one of these emotions under sadness were you really feeling? Oh, you were frustrated? How did you become frustrated? Or what about that made you become frustrated? So our mental health conversations are something that we're having every day, not just when we're in crisis.

Yes. That's amazing.

Absolutely. Martha, when we did this at UNLV in Vegas, the dean of School of Public Health really picked that up. And he tells us about how every day he has these regular mental health. They're not even mental health conversations. They're just normal conversation now because he's always asking his kids about it and becomes a normal routine. It's not the exception. It just becomes just like breathing air. It's a part of their family life now. And that's what we got to get to, like Martha said.

That's awesome. And so now the third person that I want to give tips to, and I'm just going to say it, the listener of you right now that's going through this, and they are listening, and it's like, I don't want to continue. It's time to give up. Let's talk to that person.

I would say, first of all, know who your people are. Have a few people that are your safe people. And call 988, text 988 for resources. And keep talking. Keep talking. Don't stop talking. Let someone know how you're really, really feeling.

Yeah. And I would also say that help them understand they are not alone. This is not abnormal for people to feel hopeless or alone or irritated. The key piece is staying here in working through it with your loved ones, the people that you care about, whether it's a friend, member, a family member, and realizing that there is help out there to get you through this. You don't need to take a permanent action to a temporary problem, and we can work together on it. And I always say that if Ella knew the pain that we went through, she would never... She was in so much pain that she really... She didn't want to die. She wanted to end the pain. But if she knew the sorrow and the hurt that we've gone through, I don't think she would have done it. So understand that people love you. We need you here. That's awesome.

That's awesome. And that's so powerful, too, because you're right. I mean, even the highest of highs don't stay there. We all go through the ebbs and flows, and you hit on exactly what I talk to people about, Chris. It's just love. You are loved, even when you don't realize it. Sometimes, I'll be honest, and this was some things that we had to do in our family. You got to realize that everyone in your circle isn't there from a loving space. Sometimes your circle has to change because you can't see the love that you have because you have a big roadblock in front of you or a big cloud surrounding you. But somewhere outside of that cloud, somewhere on the other end of that roadblock, there is love. And so you've got to be able to remove those obstacles. And a lot of times there are people or things that you think are the driver of happiness and success, and that's really not it. Right.

And nick, I would add there's probably a fourth category of people listening to your show right now, and I'll be very specific. There are people of color like you and I that don't think that black people die by suicide. And they need to realize that, unfortunately, this is happening to our population. And unfortunately, black people are dying at a high rate of suicide than any other ethnic group across the country. And that's one reason why we want to go out and talk to people, let them know that this impacts everybody. But right now, in particular, students of color. And we got to not keep our head in the sand. We got to talk about it. We got to realize that we are impacted by this as well. And we got to understand there are resources out there. And that's one reason why Martha and I talk to Boys and Girls Club. We want to go to the Jack and Jules, the YMCA of the world. The reason why we want to even get to church is because clergy can also talk about the importance of whole health. So it's not just this impacts everybody. And I want folks to understand there's help out there between the defensive line, between other great organizations to help recognize the signs and give them the resources That's what you need.

No, you're exactly right. I mean, in our community, Chris, this big stigma, right? Especially for men, you got to be tough. The buck has to stop with you and you can't be vulnerable. And that's the furthest thing from the truth because it's not a weakness to talk and rally. I'm a spiritual, religious person. My mom is a minister now, right? Go to church on Sunday, everybody's crying. If you're not crying, you didn't have the right service. It's okay to be emotional. It's okay to show that you love and to show that you care. You don't have to be tough all the time. It's not a good thing to be tough. That's That's not a thing. What's good is to be a good human being. Amen. What's good is to build community, to inspire and motivate and move others. To me, that's what being good is about.

Absolutely. Amen. Amen.

I also want to talk about how people can get involved. You've got your nonprofit, your community. How can we support your community?

So one thing is following us on our social media platforms, the defensive line. One, because we'll put out things now and again for people to support. I know one thing we have coming up, we do Party for a Purpose around the Super Bowl. So giving people options on ways to support. In January, it's Ella's Call Home. The three of us have just gone out and supplied snack packs to homeless people. But this year we're asking people to go out and do that because mental illness among homeless is so huge. To provide a little bit of extra love, just Just a little bit, and not just hand someone something and turn and walk away, but look them in the eye and let them know that you care because it's so easy to just keep walking with your head down. So there are ways throughout, but also really connecting. The biggest thing we can do for our organization, for all of our people, is connect with those around us.

And the other thing I'll share is right now, we've got a solid auction going on. If you go to our socials, you'll see it. And the reason why we raise that money is because when we do these workshops in high schools, we want to provide you the high schools for free, but we need funding to do that so that we can give it to the schools for free. So as your listeners want us to come into their school district, please reach out because that's where we can make a difference, talk to teachers and coaches and counselors. The other thing is we do this, we do our presentations in our dealings workshop at corporations. We do it at universities. So if you want us to do it there, we can make things happen. We do panels at corporations, universities and schools. And Martha has developed an excellent parent university so that we can have conversations with parents that can be done live time and/or virtual. And that helps educate parents, particular parents who may not understand a lot about mental health and suicide prevention. So our goal is to grow and expand by doing those things in universities, schools, and corporations.

And if they reach out to us through Chris@thedefensiveline. Org or Martha@thedefensiveline. Org, we can then connect to the right organizations and set it up so that we can continue to educate people and save lives.

I'm going to do my part, and I keep getting emotional every time I talk to you guys, but you're moving me. I want to set up some type of link that the listeners and viewers of Mic Unplug, Mic Unplug is going to match any donation or option through the end of this year. Through the end of this year. Because I'm a huge mental health advocate. I do a lot of speaking across the country, and one of my keynotes is on mental health, and I'm a huge advocate. So Mic Unplug will match donations through whatever length. We'll set that up. We'll make sure that it's here and live. That's powerful, brother.

Thank you so much.

For the listeners, challenge me. Challenge me. I'm matching. Challenge me.

That's powerful.

Thank you. I'm ultra competitive. The listeners and viewers challenge me because I'm matching in it. I said it, and we'll have everything. That's awesome. I want to support you both because it's needed.

Thank you. It's needed. Thank you very much.

Anything else that we can do, anything that we can follow? What's coming up for you both personally? I know I'm a huge fan of what Rose is doing at Players For Good, and anytime I can support her, I'm going to. Anytime I can support the organization I'm going to. So what's coming up for you both on a personal level or business level?

Well, we have football season, Monday night football about to start. So always cheering our son on with the Jets. And that is something that has brought us so much joy to be able to watch him play and do what he loves. That's really cool. We have a busy September, Suicide Prevention Month. We have a few keynotes, going to a few universities during the week, and going to the games on the weekend.

I would just say one of the things that we're looking forward to doing is we've been selected by the Clinton Global Initiative to be a commitment action partner. And why that's important to us, it allows us to increase scale with our training to help it, to spread it so we can also add more lived experience storytellers, as well as find a way to put it in English and to Spanish and hire 2000 trainers so that we can get this training across the country. I mentioned the results we're seeing when we do the suicide prevention training, but right now, it's Martha and I doing it by ourselves. So with their support, we're going to be able to scale this and get it across North America. And so there are details on that, how people can help out on that on our website. But that's a huge piece for us right now because we really want to get this in as many schools, universities as possible. But it also obviously takes money and funding to do that. And the Clinton Global Initiative has given us this platform to do it. So we really appreciate We'll send you the link on that if you want to put in the show notes as well.

But that's a big part for us right now. Wholeheartedly. We'll have the show notes full of all ways to help because like I said, this space is underserved. I'm going to do my part. My listeners and viewers will do their part to make sure that we do our part in making awareness around this for sure. That's awesome.

Thank you so much.

You both are awesome. Awesome. Anytime, and I mean this from my soul, and this is being recorded, I'm not even editing this out. Anytime that you need me, don't ask, you just tell me.

Thank you.

Anytime you want to be here, I'll be back on the show. Don't ask. You just tell me.

One thing I want to come to one of your keynotes, brother. So you got to let us know when you're speaking so we can come listen to you. I'm sure it's powerful. We love attending conferences and learning. So please let us know when you're speaking, please.

I've got one better for you. I'm going to call you. I've got something that I need from you. So I've got you. Don't worry about that.

Thank you very much.

I've got you covered. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we've been honored and blessed with Martha and Chris Thomas. I love you both genuinely. I love you dearly. I love you too. I'm going to do my part to stand beside you in this awareness.

Thank you very much. God bless you both. Thank you.

You got it. For all the viewers and listeners, remember, your because is your superpower. Go unreach it. Thank you for tuning in to make Unplug.

Keep pushing your limit, embracing your purpose, and chasing greatness. I next time, stay Unstoppable.