Speaker 1: This is Gary and Shannon, and you're listening to kf
Speaker 1: I AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on
Speaker 1: demand on the iHeartRadio app. All right, Vice President Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris former President Donald Trump shook hands again this morning
Speaker 1: as they both arrived at a nine to eleven anniversary
Speaker 1: ceremony in downtown Manhattan.
Speaker 2: We'll tell you how that went down coming.
Speaker 1: Up, But first we go back to the debate and
Speaker 1: the after effects of that, where we kick off Swamp Watch.
Speaker 3: Swamp is horrible.
Speaker 4: The government doesn't work. Man, make this like a reality
Speaker 4: TV show. Bad noos.
Speaker 2: Always a pleasure to be anywhere from Washington, d C.
Speaker 5: Hey, Joe, he's a town hall too, clearly built on
Speaker 5: a swamp and in so many ways still a swamp.
Speaker 6: I have a watch of Mawarkey, he said, drain the swamp.
Speaker 4: I said, Oh, that's so hope.
Speaker 1: You know the thing, Well, the debate doesn't make an
Speaker 1: election happen for you. It doesn't win you the election,
Speaker 1: but it may win you money, and that is what
Speaker 1: moves the needle. Come November, Steven Newcom is a reporter
Speaker 1: with Axios and joins us now to talk about the
Speaker 1: potential gold mine in Trump's debate debacle.
Speaker 4: Steven, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5: Well, one, I want to thank you for giving me
Speaker 5: pointers on how to get out of work later this
Speaker 5: week if I really want to. Second of all, yeah,
Speaker 5: I think that look the fundraising boon that the Harris
Speaker 5: campaign has seen, not just after the debate, but since
Speaker 5: she's been in the candidate she has sort of Democrats
Speaker 5: across the board have washed Republicans, and I think that
Speaker 5: with her debate performance last night, the energy at least
Speaker 5: on the Democratic side is only going to build. So
Speaker 5: I think that's one of the major takeaways. I think
Speaker 5: you're right, you only learn so much from these debates.
Speaker 5: But in terms of grassroots donors and sort of convincing
Speaker 5: the mega donors that she's the right candidate, I think
Speaker 5: she did a good job of that last night.
Speaker 7: So what does that translate into, like individual smaller donations,
Speaker 7: So you mentioned mega donors or both.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think the biggest impact is the small donations.
Speaker 5: I know that Act Blue last night said in the
Speaker 5: first hour of the debate, seventy seven percent of their
Speaker 5: grassroots donors donations were coming from women. So I think
Speaker 5: that that's a demographic that the campaign is obviously happy
Speaker 5: to hit and former President Trump has had an issue
Speaker 5: with women in the past in terms of getting them
Speaker 5: to vote for him. It's one of the reasons why
Speaker 5: he lost in twenty twenty. So it is the grassroots
Speaker 5: energy that the campaign really wants to see continue to
Speaker 5: build as they get closer to November.
Speaker 2: We're talking to Stephen Newcombe.
Speaker 1: He's a reporter with Axios covering Congress in Washington, and
Speaker 1: do you anticipate them weaponizing some of Trump's not so
Speaker 1: great moments?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I think that that moment where he
Speaker 5: talked about the Haitian immigrants sort of eating dogs and cats,
Speaker 5: And to be honest, I'm not even fully caught up
Speaker 5: on that conspiracy because I'm not entirely sure of the background,
Speaker 5: but Democrats that we talked to sort of pointed to
Speaker 5: that instantly as a moment that will be pretty useful
Speaker 5: in attack ads going forward. And I think we'll probably
Speaker 5: see some of that stuff on the airwaves here soon.
Speaker 1: All right, Just to catch you up, Stephen, the eating
Speaker 1: the animals thing, it was not on my radar at
Speaker 1: all either earlier in the week and the night before
Speaker 1: the debate, So Tuesday or Monday I guess I had
Speaker 1: heard about this, and I'm like, what's.
Speaker 2: Going on with this?
Speaker 1: And what happened is it's a Biden administration program that
Speaker 1: led to an influx of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Illinois
Speaker 1: or I'm sorry, Springfield, Ohio. And the far right fringe
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory was that these people were kidnapping dogs and
Speaker 1: cats and ducks from neighborhood ponds and eating them.
Speaker 2: Apparently it started with.
Speaker 1: A mentally ill woman, not even in Springfield, Ohio, who
Speaker 1: unfortunately was captured on video eating a cat at some point.
Speaker 1: We don't know who she is, what the mental illness was,
Speaker 1: or where it was taken, but it wasn't even in Ohio.
Speaker 1: But the far right fringe kind of ran with this narrative,
Speaker 1: and then Trump doubled down on that again last night
Speaker 1: in Springfield.
Speaker 6: They're eating the dogs the people that came in, They're
Speaker 6: eating the cats, they're eating they're eating the pets of
Speaker 6: the people that live there. And this is what's happening
Speaker 6: in our country.
Speaker 4: And it's a shame and.
Speaker 1: Really a missed moment to talk about how what's really
Speaker 1: happening there is that the immigrant population has saturated the
Speaker 1: services for the people who have lived there for decades,
Speaker 1: and that's like the real issue, but kind of got
Speaker 1: sidetracked with the whole eating of the animals. I just
Speaker 1: don't know how much Harris is the campaign is going
Speaker 1: to want to give oxygen to that, not at all.
Speaker 7: I mean, yeah, you know, it's interesting talking about money
Speaker 7: because it's so easy to They make it so easy
Speaker 7: for you to donate money. Now, you can sign you
Speaker 7: can pay with your credit card, PayPal, you can donate weekly.
Speaker 7: And then I'm just looking at the different sites to
Speaker 7: donate money and on the on the Trump site which
Speaker 7: is secure dot four more years pack dot org. We
Speaker 7: must fight the big money pouring into elect lunatic liberals
Speaker 7: like Harris and Waltz who want to turn our entire
Speaker 7: country into San Francisco. This is kind of the theme
Speaker 7: we were talking about with the debate last night, Sharon
Speaker 7: and Stephen is you know, the criticism, the negativity versus
Speaker 7: the optimism and turning the page and not going back.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and here on Capitol Hill and conversations that we
Speaker 5: have with Republicans, some of the most senior Republicans, and
Speaker 5: you're talking about you know, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,
Speaker 5: how Speaker Mike Johnson. They've been clear that they want
Speaker 5: the former president to talk about the future, stop talking
Speaker 5: about the twenty twenty elections, not talking about all the
Speaker 5: grievances that he has over the last four years that
Speaker 5: he hasn't been in office. But that is that is
Speaker 5: the issue with Trump. It has been the issue with
Speaker 5: Trump since she started running in twenty fifteen. Is the
Speaker 5: stubbornness to stay on message. I think this time around
Speaker 5: he's even more particularly unfocused. He looked angrier than I
Speaker 5: had seen him in front of a camera in some times,
Speaker 5: So I think, you know, Republicans are disappointed in the performance,
Speaker 5: but they still think that he's right on the issues
Speaker 5: and that's why they he's supporting.
Speaker 2: Steven Nucomb appreciate it, great work, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Guys.
Speaker 1: Well, we mentioned this earlier, but the overnight TV ratings
Speaker 1: have revealed that an estimated sixty five million viewers tuned
Speaker 1: in to watch that debate. That is twenty eight percent
Speaker 1: larger of an audience than the people who tuned in
Speaker 1: to see what Biden brought to the table in the
Speaker 1: last debate back in June.
Speaker 4: That's huge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and overnight rating a seventy percent share of all viewers.
Speaker 4: Wow, I mean you can't get that on anything.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean at the NFL.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the super Bowl is the super Bowl.
Speaker 4: We looked this up the last time.
Speaker 7: Remember, I think the super Bowl has about one hundred
Speaker 7: and twenty one hundred and thirty million viewers, so maybe
Speaker 7: two to three times that. But yeah, but those numbers
Speaker 7: are impressive, and that goes to show what that people
Speaker 7: are paying attention, that people did want information that maybe
Speaker 7: they hadn't made up their mind.
Speaker 4: They wanted to learn more about Harris and it's a
Speaker 4: good thing.
Speaker 7: And then and then so many more will probably have
Speaker 7: watched highlights or seen you know, news stories about it.
Speaker 4: That number, I'm sure is going to realistically be much higher.
Speaker 2: I wonder if advertisers were able to capitalize.
Speaker 1: On that, like, oh, there are only two commercial breaks,
Speaker 1: that's right, Yeah, what a missed opportunity. Well I needed
Speaker 1: more commercial breaks to be honest. Really, yes, I was like, please,
Speaker 1: can I take a break. I want to go get
Speaker 1: some food. I mean, I'm like sitting there watching and
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I gotta go pee. I want to
Speaker 1: go get some food. When am I going to get
Speaker 1: a break here? I didn't want to pause it. I
Speaker 1: don't like being behind right.
Speaker 4: No, I thought it was great.
Speaker 7: I mean, I would love to see without any commercials,
Speaker 7: just keep going the whole time, although they need they
Speaker 7: needed a break. And apparently if you read some of
Speaker 7: the behind the scenes accounts from people that were there,
Speaker 7: there was no audience, but there was I think a
Speaker 7: poola reporters in there during that that there was a
Speaker 7: long break about an hour into it, maybe a four
Speaker 7: minute break. So apparently Trump left the stage. We don't know,
Speaker 7: you know what he did, took a break, never looked
Speaker 7: at her, came back onto the stage, never looked at her.
Speaker 7: She the entire time was on the stage taking notes,
Speaker 7: never looked up when he walked off, never looked up
Speaker 7: when he came back.
Speaker 4: They didn't acknowledge each other at all.
Speaker 1: Well, and that's what made today's picture that so much interesting.
Speaker 1: Kapling yesterday Tyreek Hill getting arrested on Sunday before the
Speaker 1: game right side hard Rock Stadium there in Miami. We
Speaker 1: got the footage yesterday, our last the afternoon before, and
Speaker 1: we played it for you yesterday, and the bodycam footage
Speaker 1: was not great for really anybody involved. He refuses to
Speaker 1: roll down the window it's a tinted window. The officers
Speaker 1: take that and they escalate the situation. He ends up
Speaker 1: on the ground, handcuffed, and Tyreek Hill now has come
Speaker 1: out with a statement. He was at a press availability
Speaker 1: for the team today and here's his statement. I could
Speaker 1: have been better. I could have let down my window.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, I'm a human. I
Speaker 1: got to follow the rules. I got to do what
Speaker 1: everyone else would do. Now, does that give them the
Speaker 1: right to literally beat the dog out of me? Absolutely not.
Speaker 4: I think most people would agree with that.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was talking to one of my friends who is
Speaker 1: a cop, retired cop, and he said, Tyreek set the
Speaker 1: tone that the officers clearly have the right to stop
Speaker 1: you for dry having seventy on a surface street, and
Speaker 1: they have the right to be safe as they address you,
Speaker 1: to be able to see you in your hands. Justified
Speaker 1: entirely in demanding that he opened the tinted window. He said,
Speaker 1: they were all good, and then the mouth breathing motor
Speaker 1: cops egos got in the way exactly escalated to physical force,
Speaker 1: he says, which was just not justified at that point right.
Speaker 4: I agree with that analysis.
Speaker 7: But then other police officials will look at that and
Speaker 7: say the exact opposite, that they followed their training and protocol.
Speaker 7: But it seems like the keyword you mentioned is escalation.
Speaker 7: They're trained to de escalate, and instead they escalated.
Speaker 1: Right, he said, a classic case of a whole meeting
Speaker 1: uninvolved law enforcement.
Speaker 4: So what's the takeaway from that?
Speaker 7: Since we're talking about takeaways from the debate, the takeaway
Speaker 7: is when you're pulled over, do what you're asked to
Speaker 7: do and don't be belligerent.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, seems obvious, but not to everyone.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well the debate.
Speaker 1: Just to put a bow on it, I think that
Speaker 1: one of the big takeaways for me was that she
Speaker 1: was able, Kamala Harris was able to bait Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: and that's when he started to lose it. This clip,
Speaker 1: This was on the path to the eating of the
Speaker 1: animal's mess when she baited him with crowd size.
Speaker 8: And I'm going to actually do something really unusual, and
Speaker 8: I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald
Speaker 8: Trump's rallies. We'll start leaving his rallies early out of
Speaker 8: exhaustion and boredom, and I will tell you the one
Speaker 8: thing you will not hear him talk about is you.
Speaker 8: You will not hear him talk about your needs, your dreams,
Speaker 8: and your need and your desires. And I'll tell you,
Speaker 8: I believe you deserve a president who actually puts you first,
Speaker 8: and I pledge to you.
Speaker 3: That I will.
Speaker 4: Vice President Harris, thank you President Trump on that point.
Speaker 4: I want to get your response to respond.
Speaker 7: Let me just ask the why did you try to
Speaker 7: kill that bill and successfully so? That would have put
Speaker 7: thousands of additional agents and officers on the board.
Speaker 9: Responders to the rallies, she said, people started leaving.
Speaker 4: People don't go to her rallies.
Speaker 5: There's no reason to go.
Speaker 4: And the people that do go, she's busting him in.
Speaker 6: And paying them to be there and then showing them
Speaker 6: in a different light.
Speaker 4: So she can't talk about that. People don't leave my rallies.
Speaker 6: We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in
Speaker 6: the history of politics. That's because people want to take
Speaker 6: their country back.
Speaker 4: Our country is being lost.
Speaker 5: We're a failing nation.
Speaker 1: So I mean, he had a chance to really go
Speaker 1: after immigration and the border there as well, and well,
Speaker 1: he never answered the questions to make it about himself, right, right.
Speaker 4: Both of them are guilty of that.
Speaker 7: I mean, every politician that's like well politics one on one,
Speaker 7: right is making the statement that you'd like to make,
Speaker 7: not necessarily answering the question. But you know, I've read
Speaker 7: so many articles just since this morning, you know, looking online,
Speaker 7: the Drudge Report, remember the Drudge Reports, kind of old
Speaker 7: school almost these days, headline Trump's nine to eleven worst
Speaker 7: performance of career, big bold letters. And then Michael Steele, who,
Speaker 7: if I'm not mistaken, used to be ahead of the
Speaker 7: Republican Party, called Trump small, withered and beaten, and then
Speaker 7: he said there's nothing worse than a pissed bigot on
Speaker 7: stage with a woman he can't control. So, I mean,
Speaker 7: I think only people with the last name Trump have
Speaker 7: anything good to say about his performance last night.
Speaker 1: I I mean, I was tapping into conservative media this
Speaker 1: morning just to see if there was going to be
Speaker 1: any spin on it, and I didn't hear any. It
Speaker 1: was just a very subdued kind of Oh man, he
Speaker 1: screwed up. He could have just stuck to inflation, grocery prices,
Speaker 1: the economy, The fact that she could very well have
Speaker 1: a socialist agenda, which is very on America, and that's
Speaker 1: not what happened.
Speaker 2: He was easily baited.
Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of comparing things to nine
Speaker 1: to eleven or someone's nine to eleven, especially especially on
Speaker 1: the anniversary of nine to eleven. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: that Hitler reference. It's just like it's too too much,
Speaker 1: it's overkill, right. Well, speaking of nine to eleven, Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris and Donald Trump shook hands today this morning as
Speaker 1: they arrived at the nine to eleven anniversary ceremony in
Speaker 1: downtown Manhattan.
Speaker 2: The optics are odd.
Speaker 1: There's Joe Biden in the middle, looking like weekend at Bernie's,
Speaker 1: and then there's Kamala Harris reaching reaching over him to
Speaker 1: shake Donald Trump's hand. Donald Trump has the fakest, most
Speaker 1: constipated smile that I've seen in a while on his face.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he is so pissed off.
Speaker 2: I bet I'm surprised.
Speaker 1: I don't monitor truth social but I'm surprised that we
Speaker 1: haven't heard him unleashing anything yet.
Speaker 7: Well, it's interesting too, because Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor
Speaker 7: of New York City, apparently brought them together.
Speaker 4: They're like a part.
Speaker 7: They were on opposite sort of ends of the stage
Speaker 7: but still close together. Apparently Bloomberg broker the handshake, if
Speaker 7: you want to call it that.
Speaker 4: But you know, it's just.
Speaker 7: So many legitimate issues to discuss, right, and then we
Speaker 7: were talking about Taylor Swift and the and her impact
Speaker 7: on it, and to me, that's a very important development.
Speaker 7: But then our old friend Elon Musk has to jump in, right,
Speaker 7: did you see this headline I did? Elon Musk needles
Speaker 7: Taylor Swift after Harris endorsement, I will give you a
Speaker 7: child and guard your cats. So Elon Musk apparently, you know,
Speaker 7: he hosted Saturday Night Live. I think he thinks that
Speaker 7: he's funny. I'm not sure anyone else does.
Speaker 2: Well, you know it's not funny.
Speaker 1: Is I'll give you a kid because I've got enough
Speaker 1: to spare twelve children with three women.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: It's like, how is that to your kids?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: What what message is that to your kids?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: If I'm one of his kids and he's like making
Speaker 1: a joke about giving me away or giving one.
Speaker 2: Of us, I don't know.
Speaker 7: It's I don't know is he giving her, is he
Speaker 7: giving one of his? Or is he offering to perhaps
Speaker 7: help her get pressed. Oh God, that's even worse. It's
Speaker 7: even worse.
Speaker 1: Well, September is suicide Prevention Month, and one of our
Speaker 1: KFI family members, Deborah Mark, has really put herself and
Speaker 1: her story out there to help. Along with this effort,
Speaker 1: Deborah and Jacob and Steve put together a report on
Speaker 1: Suicide Prevention Month and what it means and when you
Speaker 1: have a personal story, it always means that much more.
Speaker 1: And so we heard this yesterday. Amy King has played
Speaker 1: it on Wake Up Call. John Cobalt played it yesterday
Speaker 1: as well. It's very moving, it is very powerful. And
Speaker 1: so this is Deborah's report on Suicide Prevention Month.
Speaker 10: And experts say suicide remains one of the leading causes
Speaker 10: of death Nationally.
Speaker 9: We've seen a continual increase in the number of people
Speaker 9: dying by suicide, with approximately fifty thousand people dying by suicide,
Speaker 9: and here in California we have about four thousand people
Speaker 9: dying by suicide each year.
Speaker 10: Sherry Sinwelski is with dd HER Mental Health Services. In
Speaker 10: twenty twenty, there were eight hundred twenty nine suicides in
Speaker 10: La County, making it the eighth leading cause of death,
Speaker 10: and officials say more than thirty three hundred people tried
Speaker 10: to kill themselves that same year.
Speaker 9: It's a combination of stressors. It can be mental illness
Speaker 9: that they're struggling with particular things that are happening in
Speaker 9: their life. You know, we're still coming off of the
Speaker 9: pandemic where there was a lot of isolation. People of course,
Speaker 9: are facing financial constraints sometimes and all different types of
Speaker 9: events that are impacting their personal lives, and I think
Speaker 9: that those stressors have gotten more intense.
Speaker 11: Well, a younger brother died by suicide twenty one years ago.
Speaker 10: That's Rick Mogel. The death of his brother would be
Speaker 10: the start of his journey as a bereavement counselor at
Speaker 10: DDE hirsh Did you ever feel embarrassed or did you
Speaker 10: ever feel uncomfortable or concerned about what people would say
Speaker 10: when you told them what happened to your brother.
Speaker 11: No, I was very forthcoming, shouting from the rooftops because
Speaker 11: I didn't want anybody to feel that first of all
Speaker 11: that had suicide to find him, nor did it defind me.
Speaker 10: But Rick says, if you're not comfortable talking about the
Speaker 10: details of a loved one's suicide, then don't we have.
Speaker 11: Every right to say to somebody who wants to all
Speaker 11: the details that you have every right to say to somebody.
Speaker 11: It's too painful and I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 4: So how are you doing? First of all, this is
Speaker 4: Joey going good.
Speaker 12: So I fell into.
Speaker 3: Massive, deep depression in twenty thirteen after my marriage fell
Speaker 3: a part.
Speaker 10: I met up with him at Northridge Park, a place
Speaker 10: he used to come to when he wanted to hide
Speaker 10: from people. This is actually the first time he's been
Speaker 10: back here since you. I tried to kill himself in
Speaker 10: twenty sixteen. He had moved into his parents' home after
Speaker 10: his marriage ended.
Speaker 3: So I tried to hang myself and I was out.
Speaker 2: Who found you?
Speaker 3: I woke up and I heard my dad knock on
Speaker 3: the door, and I don't know why there's no locks
Speaker 3: on my parents' doors. I don't know why he didn't
Speaker 3: come in, and I was on the ground and he said,
Speaker 3: Joey okay, and I didn't wanted to see me, And
Speaker 3: I said, Dad, I'm.
Speaker 12: Fine, I'm fine.
Speaker 3: And that was that. I never told anybody for four years, nobody.
Speaker 4: My thought was I was a burden.
Speaker 6: And that.
Speaker 3: I had nothing to give, that I had no hope
Speaker 3: that I had no purpose and that every would be
Speaker 3: better off if I wasn't around because I wasn't productive,
Speaker 3: I wasn't doing anything. So my thought process was.
Speaker 12: Will be better for everyone?
Speaker 10: I asked Joey if he ever thought about the people
Speaker 10: he would leave behind.
Speaker 12: I'm telling you that I thought I was committing an
Speaker 12: unselfish act.
Speaker 3: I thought I was doing something that would relieve everybody
Speaker 3: of pain. That's what I thought, And you can tell
Speaker 3: me it was selfish of me to do it, but
Speaker 3: I will tell you I didn't look at it that way.
Speaker 3: So when I hear people say this was such a
Speaker 3: selfish thing to do, well, every time I hear that,
Speaker 3: I hear that from somebody who's never been suffered mentally deeply.
Speaker 12: To that point, you know, I felt like I was
Speaker 12: relieving everybody's pain, And honestly, I don't.
Speaker 3: Know that I thought about my kids at that time,
Speaker 3: was such a painful time, and wasn't seeing them and
Speaker 3: wasn't seen anybody.
Speaker 10: Joey says he's much better now. He's been in therapy,
Speaker 10: receive treatment, and even volunteered for the new nine to
Speaker 10: eight eight suicide Prevention Hotline. Tomorrow in part two running
Speaker 10: down the hallway to her bedroom and there is my mom.
Speaker 10: The morning I found my mother's suicide.
Speaker 1: Note incredible Deborah Mark's part one report on September being
Speaker 1: Suicide Prevention Month. And I think that that man made
Speaker 1: such a powerful point at the end there, Deborah, because
Speaker 1: I do always think of it as a selfless act,
Speaker 1: and I'd never have like put myself in the shoes
Speaker 1: of they're not even thinking about themselves, and in fact,
Speaker 1: sometimes they're thinking that the world is just better without them.
Speaker 10: Absolutely. And I can't tell you how many people have
Speaker 10: reached out to me and said by hearing Joey and
Speaker 10: what he had to say, that it really taught them
Speaker 10: something because so many people do think it's it's so
Speaker 10: selfish and how can somebody do that? And it is,
Speaker 10: it's so confusing. But when you're that upset and you're
Speaker 10: in that state of mind, you're not thinking about anybody
Speaker 10: else and you're just thinking you want to put yourself
Speaker 10: out of that pain. And then as you heard him say, Shannon,
Speaker 10: he thought he was doing people a fight.
Speaker 1: That was the moment where it was just an aha, like,
Speaker 1: oh okay, that's what that all right?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: I was just it'd never heard that perspective before. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was very moving. I'll get right to it. And
Speaker 1: part two of Deborah Mark's special report for Suicide Prevention Month,
Speaker 1: Deborah tells us how suicide impacted her life, her family's life,
Speaker 1: something that she doesn't talk about publicly, not for more
Speaker 1: than two decades.
Speaker 12: A secret.
Speaker 10: It's been a secret that I've held on to for
Speaker 10: twenty two years. So the longer you hold on to
Speaker 10: a secret, right, the harder it is to.
Speaker 5: Share.
Speaker 10: August twentieth, two thousand and two. I got up early,
Speaker 10: as I normally do. I think it was about six o'clock,
Speaker 10: and the first thing I always did was check my email,
Speaker 10: and I saw there was an email from my mom
Speaker 10: and it was a it's so crazy to say this,
Speaker 10: but it was a suicide note. And I'm reading this
Speaker 10: and I remember it said, please forgive me. You're better
Speaker 10: off without me. So I remember driving like a crazy
Speaker 10: person to my mom's house and I'm banging on the
Speaker 10: door and my stepfather opens the door and he's say, what.
Speaker 5: Are you doing.
Speaker 10: It's six fifteen in the morning, and I said, my mom,
Speaker 10: My mom, she wrote me a note and I think
Speaker 10: she killed herself and he said, what are you talking about.
Speaker 10: Your mom is sleeping and I said, oh, I remember.
Speaker 10: I remember this sense of relief when he said that.
Speaker 10: I thought, okay, I knew this was just too crazy.
Speaker 10: And then I said, okay, you've seen her. And then
Speaker 10: he said, well, we did get into an argument last night.
Speaker 10: We slept in separate bedrooms. And I remember just barreling
Speaker 10: past him, running down the hallway to her bedroom.
Speaker 2: And there was my mom in her bed.
Speaker 10: I've never seen somebody dead before. And I looked at
Speaker 10: her and I just knew, and I was shaking her.
Speaker 10: And I remember calling nine to one one and they're
Speaker 10: telling me to do compressions and mouth to mouth and
Speaker 10: I did all that. My stepfather and I they said,
Speaker 10: you need to get her off the bed and get
Speaker 10: her on to the ground. I was pretty devastated for
Speaker 10: lots of reasons. I was angry. I couldn't believe that
Speaker 10: my mom would leave me a suicide note in an email.
Speaker 10: I mean even now, I still can't believe that. And
Speaker 10: I thought, Wow, the rest of my life, I'm going
Speaker 10: to have to say that my mom killed herself. I
Speaker 10: was on this mission to figure out why my mom
Speaker 10: would do that, and I think that literally was driving
Speaker 10: me crazy. So I did go to a suicide support group.
Speaker 10: I think maybe I've told one or two people since then.
Speaker 10: You know, when you fill out those questionnaires and they
Speaker 10: ask you are your parents alive? And you say yes
Speaker 10: or no anyway, so I said, my dad's alive, my
Speaker 10: mom's deceased. How old was your mom? Fifty seven? How
Speaker 10: did your mom die? And I remember writing complications of
Speaker 10: diabetes and the doctor questioned me about that. I couldn't
Speaker 10: the words that my mom killed herself, died by suicide.
Speaker 10: Those words could not come out of my mouth. I
Speaker 10: have felt embarrassed to talk about it. I have felt
Speaker 10: that there's this stigma. I have felt this shame. I
Speaker 10: have felt that I would be judged. I have worried
Speaker 10: that people would think, wow, if her mom did it, well,
Speaker 10: would she do that if something went wrong in her life.
Speaker 10: I don't think people really understand that those that are
Speaker 10: left behind are left with a really big burden. I
Speaker 10: hope that people that are listening are able to talk
Speaker 10: about it. And whether you go do a support group
Speaker 10: where you talk to family and friends or even a therapist,
Speaker 10: that you'll know that you're not alone, and that just
Speaker 10: because somebody in your family killed themselves, it has nothing
Speaker 10: to do with you. As I've started talking about this,
Speaker 10: I've kind of felt this sense of relief. I feel
Speaker 10: more at peace, and I think I'll be able to
Speaker 10: I'll be able to share more. This is the first
Speaker 10: time I've ever talked about my mom's suicide outside of
Speaker 10: my close circle of friends and family. So you might
Speaker 10: be asking yourself, why now, why, after all these years,
Speaker 10: did I finally decide to tell the most personal, traumatic
Speaker 10: story of my life. Well, it did hit me one
Speaker 10: day that my mother was fifty seven when she took
Speaker 10: her own life, and this November I turned fifty seven.
Speaker 10: It's a reminder of just how precious life really is
Speaker 10: if you are someone you know has suicidal thoughts or
Speaker 10: a mental health crisis. Dial nine eight.
Speaker 2: Eight, Debra, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I know that people are, you know, having that reaction
Speaker 1: everywhere that's that's listening to this, and how how you
Speaker 1: know much people appreciate you sharing that and just being
Speaker 1: allowing yourself to be so raw and and because I
Speaker 1: know you're very private about it for so long, and
Speaker 1: I just think it's going to do so much wonderful
Speaker 1: work for people.
Speaker 10: Thank you, and thank you for sharing it with the
Speaker 10: listeners of your show. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Of course you've been listening to the Gary and Shannon Show.
Speaker 7: You can always hear us live on KFI AM six
Speaker 7: forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday,
Speaker 7: and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio ap