Safe Home Podcast

**TRIGGER WARNING** This episode will be talking directly about suicide, so this might not be for everyone to listen to right now. But we at Safe Home believe this is a very important topic so we hope you’ll listen when it’s safe for you to do so.

In this week’s Safe Home Podcast, Beth talks with Frank King, a comedian who wrote for The Tonight Show for over 20 years and who performs standup worldwide. Along the way, he focused his creative attention on the topic of mental health, and specifically suicidality. Now known as the Mental Health Comedian, he talks openly about his own suicidality and, using humor as a tool to open up the conversation, he informs people about suicide prevention, destigmatizes mental illness, and helps people feel seen and heard. He has a few wonderful TED Talks: including  A Matter of Laugh or Death, Mental with Benefits, and Born To Be Funny.

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💌 Sign up for our Safe Home Families email list: http://eepurl.com/hVIAVX

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RESOURCES:

Frank’s information:

Other resources mentioned in this episode:

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Safe Home is created by Joseph Nakao and Beth Syverson

Music written and performed by Joseph Nakao

Cover art by Joseph Nakao, photo by Beth Syverson

Email questions or comments to Safe Home at [email protected]

Find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube

Support Safe Home on Patreon: Patreon.com/SafeHome

www.SafeHomeFamilies.com

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TIME STAMPS:

1:30 Frank explains creating a career from comedy about suicide

7:48 Vulnerability is Frank’s superpower

9:58 Dentists, veterinarians, and construction workers have the highest incidence of suicide deaths

11:17 Frank’s mental illnesses - Major Depressive Disorder and Chronic Suicidality

15:35 Mental with Benefits - what if mental illness is a desirable disadvantage?

17:30 Frank’s self-care plan - 5 daily requirements to maintain his mental health

20:40 Suicide prevention tips

22:20 Does talking about suicide make it more likely someone would attempt suicide?

23:48 We’re not saying “commit suicide” anymore - what do we call it now?

25:08 The new 988 suicide prevention lifeline

28:02 **TRIGGER WARNING** Frank’s intergenerational depression and suicide stories

32:09 Sugar addiction as a long-term death sentence

33:15 Ambivalence about suicide means most people can be saved from suicide; what are the warning signs?

36:33 Lock up your medications, parents!!

In this week’s Safe Home Podcast, Beth talks with Rev. Veronica Silva, a New Thought minister and a nurse who has struggled with alcoholism since she was young, but who has been in recovery for 26 years.

Veronica has been on a spiritual journey since June 24th, 1996, when she got sober from alcohol and drugs. She has had a passion for spirituality as a result of attending AA meetings and finding a God of her understanding. She is SO passionate about God that she recently became a Minister in 2020 - right in the middle of the pandemic. She is a true believer in going right into the discomfort of life to free ourselves from our suffering. She is a registered nurse and works at a cardiac procedures unit and loves helping others during their times of fear and anxiety.

Here at Safe Home, one of our biggest priorities is to destigmatize addiction and mental health, so by hearing stories from people like Veronica, we are able to humanize addiction, find commonalities, and discover the way others have found their healing path.

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💌 Sign up for our Safe Home Families email list: http://eepurl.com/hVIAVX

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RESOURCES:

Veronica’s information:

Other resources mentioned in this episode:

Other Resources:

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Safe Home is created by Joseph Nakao and Beth Syverson

Music written and performed by Joseph Nakao

Cover art by Joseph Nakao, photo by Beth Syverson

Email questions or comments to Safe Home at [email protected]

Find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube

Support Safe Home on Patreon: Patreon.com/SafeHome

www.SafeHomeFamilies.com

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TIME STAMPS:

1:40 Veronica’s childhood and early introduction to alcohol

3:16 Spinning all the plates during high school, self-medicating for anxiety

4:38 Unconscious intergenerational rage and machismo

7:30 How spirituality helped Veronica

9:50 Being a young mom in recovery and later supporting her son in recovery

13:22 Tools that helped Veronica with the initial stages of recovery

16:30 Stay-at-home drunk

17:33 Going back to school to become a nurse

19:12 Another new career as a minister

20:20 Veronica’s advice for family or friends of addicted people, setting boundaries with love

22:19 High-functioning alcoholics

24:25 Alcohol’s prevalence in our culture

25:34 Meditation as a recovery tool

27:25 Learning how to set boundaries, resentment as a boundary indicator

29:05 Each personal growth journey looks different for everyone, just take a step any direction

In this week’s Safe Home Podcast, Beth talks with Emmalinda MacLean, co-founder of More Than Sex-Ed, a Los Angeles-based non-profit whose mission is to nourish healthy development through honest conversation about sex. She is the Director of Curriculum & Instruction at More Than Sex-Ed plus she wrote a children’s book around the topic of consent called “Everybody, Every Body!”  

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💌 Sign up for our Safe Home Families email list: http://eepurl.com/hVIAVX

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RESOURCES:

Emmalinda’s information:

Other resources mentioned in this episode:

Other Resources:

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Safe Home is created by Joseph Nakao and Beth Syverson

Email questions or comments to Safe Home at [email protected]

Find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube

Support Safe Home on Patreon: Patreon.com/SafeHome

www.SafeHomeFamilies.com

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TIME STAMPS:

1:42 How Emmalinda landed a career in sex ed

4:24 Gender diversity is NOT a new thing

7:21 Parental backlash?

8:22 Beth’s sex ed experience at church

10:33 Teaching consent

12:00 Questions about “gay sex”

14:00 What is sex?

15:52 Can parents rely on school or church to teach about sex?

17:53 Don’t Freak Out!

19:33 Acknowledging pleasure reduces victimization

20:25 At what age can kids start learning about sex?

22:30 The topic of menstruation and Turning Red

25:23 How does gaming and social media affect our kids?

27:30 What’s the deal about furries?

30:18 Anonymous question box and porn

33:31 What about sexting?

35:19 What should parents do regarding phones?

36:03 How the fall of Roe will affect our teens

39:19 Emmalinda’s best piece of advice for parent

42:10 LGBTQ+ identities

44:00 What services does More Than Sex-Ed provide?

Safe Home is on vacation this week, so we're replaying one of our favorite episodes.

In this week’s Safe Home Podcast, Beth talks with Lori Holden, an adoptive mom of 2 teens, author of the book The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole, written with her daughter’s birth mom and featured on required reading lists with adoption agencies across the country. She’s also a blogger at LavenderLuz.com, and host of the podcast Adoption: The Long View. Lori is an influential voice in the adoption world, advocating for openness in all kinds of adoption relationships. She often keynotes at adoption conferences and speaks to new and prospective adoptive families, helping them realize the benefits to EVERYONE of maintaining transparency in the adoption process.

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💌 Sign up for our Safe Home Families email list: http://eepurl.com/hVIAVX

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RESOURCES:

Lori’s information:

Other resources mentioned in this episode:

Safe Home is created by Joseph Nakao and Beth Syverson

Email questions or comments to Safe Home at [email protected]

Find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube

Support Safe Home on Patreon: Patreon.com/SafeHome

www.SafeHomeFamilies.com

TIME STAMPS:

1:50 Parents doing their own work

3:39 How Lori learned adoption wasn’t all unicorns and butterflies

5:05 Getting curious about adoption

6:40 A new child can’t cure infertility grief

9:35 Lori’s family’s adoption story

13:45 The importance of the biological bond

16:52 “You are mom”

19:38 Both-And

20:58 Adoptive parents that are closed off completely

22:37 What should adoptive parents say when their child misses their birthparent?

27:10 Open adoption’s trajectory

30:35 What if…

34:18 Listening to birth parents more

35:55 Seven Core Issues in Adoption and Permanency

36:26 Constellation v Triad

38:35 Adoptive parents as the “bad guys”

41:38 Is Lori anti-adoption?

In this week’s Safe Home Podcast, Beth talks with Nicole Miller, a certified drug and alcohol counselor and coach from Oregon who teaches addiction pharmacology at Portland Community College. Even though she’s very knowledgeable about all kinds of drugs, I brought her onto Safe Home Podcast to help us focus on fentanyl. It’s such a dangerous drug, and deaths from fentanyl poisoning have skyrocketed in just the last 2 or 3 years. Our family really wants to raise awareness about fentanyl, so Nicole will help us all understand the risks and what we can all do to prevent deaths caused by fentanyl.

This episode is dedicated to the memory of Helanna Johnson, our life coach Heather Ross’s daughter who died in December 2021 from fentanyl poisoning.

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💌 Sign up for our Safe Home Families email list: http://eepurl.com/hVIAVX

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RESOURCES:

Nicole’s information:

Other resources about fentanyl:

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Other Resources:

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www.SafeHomeFamilies.com

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TIME STAMPS:

2:08 Nicole’s personal journey with addiction and recovery

3:14 Safe Home lifts up harm reduction

4:40 What is fentanyl?

8:33 What forms does fentanyl come in? How does it get mixed in with other drugs?

9:55 Having Naloxone/Narcan available to save lives, but never use substances alone

10:45 Fentanyl test strips

13:20 How fentanyl makes people feel

14:30 The dangers of fentanyl with experimental use of substances

16:30 Beth’s challenges getting Narcan from the pharmacy

19:41 Encouraging our loved ones to carry Narcan with them

20:24 Meeting addicted people where they’re at; facing reality and encouraging harm reduction

23:51 How can Narcan - the Lazarus drug - works

27:12 Opiates, pain, and tolerance

28:50 How Medical Assisted Treatment (MAT) affects the rates of recovery

33:48 When to use Narcan, signs of an opiate overdose

36:35 Fentanyl could be in ANYTHING off the streets

38:02 How does Nicole stay grounded working in the addiction field

39:15 What Nicole’s recovery coaching looks like

40:50 All overdoses are accidental

In this week’s Safe Home Podcast, Beth talks with Colin Parrott, a 16-year-old from Huntington Beach who has been struggling with depression. He has gotten help with his mental illness from his awesome mom Debbi and from modern medicine. But perhaps the best tool he’s found has been poetry. He’s written a whole book of poetry about his depression called Shards. The process of writing poetry has not only helped him make sense of his mental health, but his poems help others understand what he and others with depression go through. Near the end of the episode, Colin will be sharing a poem or two from his new book, so stick around until the end!

Joey and Beth both also struggle with depression, which you can hear about in Episode 11. It is something that our family is very open about, because you know what - depression kills! We’re very glad that Colin was willing to come on Safe Home Podcast to share his story. We believe that the more people talk about things like depression and other mental health issues, the more we’ll be able to help each other, and the more lives we’ll save - quite literally.

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RESOURCES:

Colin’s information:

Other Resources:

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Safe Home is created by Joseph Nakao and Beth Syverson

Music written and performed by Joseph Nakao

Cover art by Joseph Nakao, photo by Beth Syverson

Email questions or comments to Safe Home at [email protected]

Find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube

Support Safe Home on Patreon: Patreon.com/SafeHome

www.SafeHomeFamilies.com

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TIME STAMPS:

1:36 Colin’s poetry-writing and other writing experience before his depression

3:32 How Colin’s depression and self-harm started and what it looked like

6:26 What Colin’s parents did to cause Colin to feel safe to tell them when he was self-harming

8:14 How meds worked for Colin’s depression

10:36 Colin’s poetry-writing in NYC

14:48 Colin’s advice for kids who are struggling with depression symptoms

17:30 Colin’s advice for parents of struggling kids

19:52 Colin reads his poem “Sunrise Relapse”

In this week’s Safe Home Podcast, Beth talks with Darcy Mittelstaedt, an adult adoptee originally from Korea, and adopted into a dysfunctional family in Nebraska at age 2. Once she came out of the fog, as they say in adoption-land, and came to terms with her relinquishment trauma and chaotic adoptive family life, she turned toward her adoption agency. She now helps inform the adoption agency’s families about relinquishment trauma and the struggles that interculturally adopted people have. Hers is a story of resilience and hope that I’m sure everyone, whether or not you are affected by adoption personally, will appreciate hearing.

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💌 Sign up for our Safe Home Families email list: http://eepurl.com/hVIAVX

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RESOURCES:

Darcy’s information:

Other resources mentioned in this episode:

Other Resources:

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Safe Home is created by Joseph Nakao and Beth Syverson

Music written and performed by Joseph Nakao

Cover art by Joseph Nakao, photo by Beth Syverson

Email questions or comments to Safe Home at [email protected]

Find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube

Support Safe Home on Patreon: Patreon.com/SafeHome

www.SafeHomeFamilies.com

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TIME STAMPS:

1:50 Darcy’s difficult childhood story

5:00 Darcy’s parent’s controlling style

7:49 Food control

10:33 The impact of Darcy’s parents’ divorce

12:14 The end of the road for Darcy

15:45 The family that rescued Darcy

18:05 Darcy’s compliant temperament and the role of the church

24:58 Darcy’s job at Boys Town

27:01 How Darcy collaborates with her adoption agency

32:15 Growing up as an Asian in a Nebraska farmtown

39:58 The importance of mirroring for adoptees

44:58 Hope for anyone who grew up in a dysfunctional family

This week’s episode is very special because #1 Joey is with us for this one.  And #2: It’s going to be a 3-way conversation with me, Joey, and our life coach Heather Ross. If you’ve listened to any of our episodes, you’ve probably heard me mention her, or you might have heard one of her 2 episodes we’ve already published - #10 and #34.

In this Safe Home episode, we will be talking about how the CRAFT method has helped our family, and you’ll hear from both sides - the parents’ side and the teen’s side.  CRAFT is an acronym that stands for Community Reinforcement and Family Training. This is the approach that is scientifically proven to get more people into recovery than the old-fashioned approaches like tough love and interventions. The basis of CRAFT is the positive rewards that the loved one heaps on the addicted person when they are doing favorable behaviors. A key concept in CRAFT is that the relationship is more important than their sobriety. This method shifted our family so much that I credit it to keeping our son alive for these past few years. I’m very excited to share some details of the CRAFT approach with you.

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RESOURCES:

Heather’s information:

Other resources mentioned in this episode:

Safe Home is created by Joseph Nakao and Beth Syverson

Music written and performed by Joseph Nakao

Cover art by Joseph Nakao, photo by Beth Syverson

www.SafeHomeFamilies.com

TIME STAMPS:

3:30 Overview of Joey’s struggles

6:40 Joey’s new job has helped stabilize him

7:40 Alternative healing we’ve found to be helpful

11:32 How Heather and CRAFT helped save our family

16:24 Putting our kids under the microscope

19:29 Addiction causes hiding and masking

21:20 Changing the conversation with our addicted loved one

23:28 What Joey and Helanna received from substances

27:04 The goal is CONNECTION, not sobriety

33:25 Why some parents have trouble with the CRAFT Method

36:30 Sliding through life pre-crisis, asleep at the wheel

39:08 What our kids want from us

41:16 Enabling, Narcan, “rock bottom,” and stigma

Movies & Conversations with Alex Kaplan from Of Substance

Saturday, September 10, 2022, 10am PST

OfSubstance.Eventbrite.com

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In this week’s Safe Home Podcast, Beth talks with Renee Knapp, a vice principal at a high school - or she would call it a deputy principal at a district high school where she lives in SW of Western Australia. But on top of that, she’s an independent consultant at Think Effective Consultancy, where she works with schools, communities, and passionate individuals to improve  mental health and wellbeing outcomes through a proven process and framework for change. She is the Chair and co-founder of a Community Based Mental Health Action Team and she’s an Ambassador for the Australian & New Zealand Mental Health Association. 

RESOURCES: 

Renee’s information: Think Effective Consultancy website: https://thinkeffective.com.au/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/www.thinkeffective.com.au 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinkeffectiveconsultancy/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn8qrZZ0hmktyC7Ot0QIXuw 

Other resources mentioned in this episode: 

Mind Matters (Australia): https://www.positiveschools.com.au/2012%20Mind%20Matters.html 

GoZen videos for kids: https://gozen.com/ 

Reach Out for teens and young adults: https://au.reachout.com/ 

New 988 mental health crisis line: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/988 

www.SafeHomeFamilies.com 

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TIME STAMPS 

1:50 The Big Picture work that Renee is doing to help kids’ mental health 

2:20 Renee’s background and interest in mental health 

7:30 Behaviors are not the problem 

11:05 Common mental health problems in high school 

15:00 Advocating for a CULTURE of well-being at school and Beth’s horrible experience with Joey’s high school’s culture 

20:23 Examples of Renee’s framework in action 

27:10 Finding passionate individuals who can hop on board 

29:50 Framework instead of programs 

32:40 Suicide as leading cause of death 

37:35 Creating a plan for well-being in the school and community 

39:13 Belonging and connection is the cure