We Need to Talk: The Signs

Producer  0:00  

This podcast is brought to you by the Australian charity R U OK?, in collaboration with joy, Australia's rainbow Community Media organisation.

This is 'We Need To Talk', a podcast about three simple words that can mean the world to someone who's going through tough times. Are you okay? We'll be bringing you real stories and talking to experts about when and how to have an R U OK? conversation, because having that conversation could change your life. This podcast is for anyone who wants to be able to lend support to the people in their world who might be struggling, with a focus on LGBTIQA+ communities. We'll be covering some emotional topics today. So if this episode brings up any tough feelings or experiences and you need some extra support, we urge you to reach out to someone you trust. You can also reach out to QLife at 1800 184 527, or Lifeline on 13 11 14. your self-care is really important.

Ruby Mountford  1:05  

Can you spot the difference between when your friends or your loved ones are in a bad mood versus when it's something more serious? When the sign someone struggling can be subtle, there are things you can look for that could mean your loved one needs some support. Today, we'll be talking about what someone might be doing or saying and what might be happening in their lives or in the wider community. That might mean it's time to reach out to them often how's it going and let them know that they're supported. The signs are different for people, depending on everything about them. The most important thing is to trust your gut instinct, the feelings that you get when something's not right, when someone that you know, is behaving in ways that start to give you a few little warning signs. As someone who's neurodivergent, the signs I need support may be different from people who are neurotypical and allistic. Often the things that I would encourage my loved ones, my family, to look out for; when I start to get a bit snappy, or when I go quiet. I'm not a quiet person, they wouldn't get me to do a podcast if I was. Also some things would be that I've stopped reaching out to my friends. If I've gone quiet on social media and gone quiet on the phone, or I might just be quite quick to burst into tears, I might find that I'm going into meltdown a lot more often. And that my ability to handle sensory input gets really, really low. And one of the other ones is that I might start to feel like I am being attacked. I get the fight or flight response, you know, the little adrenaline pop, that one, usually a sign that something isn't quite right. But sometimes these signs can be a combination of changes. So don't just focus on one shift. We need to keep an eye on the broader picture of how someone's behaving and what is happening around them that might be affecting that behaviour. Coming up in this episode, we'll be talking with Quinton who's a proud Bidjara and Australian South Sea Islander man who's passionate about empowering youth in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through social change. We'll also be speaking with Amelia who works as a trainer, facilitator, researcher and consultant in areas involving mental health, suicide prevention, fertility and other LGBTIQ+ topics. Amelia is also a friend of mine, which I'll mention again, when I say that somebody's very clear. When we speak to each other, we're friends, I'm not being rude. Amelia is a bisexual woman who uses she and her pronouns. And Amelia works as a trainer, facilitator, researcher and consultant Mary's involving mental health facility and LGBTIQA plus topics. Amelia is the project lead the LGBTIQ+ Suicide Prevention Affirmative Practice Training Project at Thorne Harbour Health, formerly Victorian AIDS Council, and that's Victoria's largest LGBTIQ Health Organisation. And full disclosure, Amelia is also a very good friend of mine. How are you doing, Amelia?

Amelia Arnold  3:47  

I'm good Ruby, how are you?

Ruby Mountford  3:48  

I'm good. It's so great to have you here to talk about something that is your literally your ballpark an area of expertise. Because today we're talking about signs that it might be time to reach out and lend support to somebody. You've been working in LGBTQIA+ health for a while now. And so I suppose you'd be in a good position to let us know, are there common themes that you've come across when it comes to signs that somebody may be in distress or starting to struggle?

Amelia Arnold  4:13  

I think there are common themes or common signs, let's say, with all people. So just because a person is LGBTQIA+, doesn't mean they also don't experience life as a regular person. So there are common themes that apply to all people and to mainstream audience, or mainstream communities as well. But then there are also some specific things for people who are sexuality, sex or gender-diverse as well. So if we're wanting to keep an eye out for our friends and for our loved ones, for our family members, usually how I conceptualise this and when I work with people to support them in recognising signs of poor mental health or mental distress or suicide, I usually will look for four different things. So things that we see, people's actions. Things that we hear, so what people say. Things that we sense, so people's feelings or feelings that they share with us. And then also things that we learn about people or our friends or our loved ones. So for example, life events. So things that we may see are usually the easiest to pick, especially in people that we're close to, and that we have a history and good relationship with, because we will notice if there are changes in their behaviour. So for example, you know, me, as you said, we're friends, you know, that I'm quite a bouncy bean. If all of a sudden, for example, you were to notice that I was quite subdued, or I wasn't very chatty, or I was withdrawing from spending time with my friends, for example, that may indicate to you, for example, that things may not be tracking so well with me, because that's a change in my behaviour. I guess other ways that we can see actions is someone's appearance, for example, you know, all of a sudden, they may have made a big change in their appearance. Or they may be taking more or less care of themselves in in different ways. So that's another way that we can see those changes or see those actions that a person may have changed about their life. And we were talking about hearing. So hearing what our friends or our loved ones may be saying. So some people may say that they may talk about being alone, they may talk about feeling like a burden, they may talk about wanting to get away or escape. This is probably a bit more than, you know, I wouldn't mind a long weekend. As we all do, and also I guess with lockdown in Melbourne last year that we all went through, it's a probably a bit more than I can't wait to get out of the house. Although you know, that's probably worth exploring with someone as well. But it's that needing of escaping or getting away or needing everything to kind of stop for a while. So if if I were to have one of my friends or loved ones, say something like that, to me, I might think that that might be worth exploring with them. We talked about sensing, so things that we sense as people from our loved ones, people sharing their feelings, like they may have too many feelings.

Ruby Mountford  7:25  

They story of my entire life.

Amelia Arnold  7:29  

You'd resonate with that one Rubes. They may say that they feel overwhelmed. You know, they may say that they're feeling hopeless, or like things won't change, that they don't know what else to do, that they're feeling desperate. But conversely, sometimes when people are more distressed and are thinking of suicide, they may sometimes say that they're feeling relieved, and that they are feeling like they have a plan and everything's better now. So some if it's a change in behaviour, that's what we're looking out for, too. So sometimes, some feelings that may reassure some folks might send up a little "hmm". You asked specifically about LGBTQIA+ communities, and I guess some common themes. So for LGBTIQA+ plus folks, or people who are sexuality, sex or gender diverse, keeping in mind that we experience or our communities experience things differently. So for example, we experience violence differently and control differently in our relationships, and our friendships, relationship breakdowns as well. So for example, we may have a relationship breakdown in terms of a platonic or romantic or sexual relationship. That may distance us from our community and our connections to community. And for LGBTQIA+ plus people that can be devastating. Having that loss of community and those loss of friends that are really hard, formed friendships for some LGBTQIA+ plus people,

Ruby Mountford  9:08  

Their support networks, really, aren't they and so and because it's a smaller, smaller pond, so to speak, it can be that if, if, yeah, if there's a rupture of some kind there. As you were saying, you right, you can kind of have a ripple effect where someone might be like, they actually can't go to any of the spaces that they used to go to.

Amelia Arnold  9:24  

Yeah, but I guess other things to consider when supporting members of the LGBTQIA+ plus community is the potential for life events to affect their mental health and potential having thoughts of suicide around being rejected by family of origin, being rejected by friends, being rejected by co workers are experiencing discrimination or violence as a result of your LGBTQIA+ identity. Similarly, the political climate, you know, 

Ruby Mountford  9:58  

Yeah, I was gonna ask About that, because you know, we've both lived through the postal survey and the public debate of that. Yeah. And I think there is like a growing recognition of the impact it has on LGBTQIA+ plus people, when there are like discussions in society about us, and about our worthiness and our about our rights to exist or the right, like our potential harm for kids, and all these kinds of things. So is that something that also can really impact on mental health and wellbeing in that way?

Amelia Arnold  10:28  

Oh, for sure, having your identity and your life experiences politicised and up for debate can be really, really damaging for minoritised communities. And that's true for LGBTQIA+ plus communities, but also other stigmatised and minoritised groups within society. We share a lot of allyship and solidarity with other marginalised groups. And additionally, if people belong to multiple minoritised groups that I guess experience can be intersectional and additive in terms of how people experience their identities being politicised.

Ruby Mountford  11:03  

So do you think it's fair to say then, if there are topics of debate that are happening, like for example, the religious freedom bill being debated or bills around, you know, when we were looking at changing the process for people to change their gender markers on their birth certificates? It's just worth checking in general for your friends?

Amelia Arnold  11:19  

Oh, for sure. Like, absolutely. If you know, for example, that a friend of yours or a loved one or you yourself are part of a current topic that is being debated openly on the internet, in op eds, and on social media, etc. It's not a bad idea, just to like check in with your other friends who may also be feeling either targeted or who may be the people that they know, may be asking them for their advice, or doing that kind of emotional labour for people in terms of their own, I guess, education on these topics. So yeah, important to check in with the people that you know, and love, who may be impacted by that. But also respecting if what you hear is, 'thank you so much for checking in. I'm doing all right, I've just, you know, taking a bit of time for myself', but just making sure that that person knows that you're a person that they can talk to about that should they wish. It can also be tricky to speak to people that you know, about some of those things.

Ruby Mountford  12:23  

I was gonna ask about that. Because it means like talking openly about, you know, saying we're feeling down, or we might need extra help, or that even that, you know, we are feeling suicidal, is something that is so hard. It's so hard. It's something I still, especially when you're in the middle of it, right? Like, I know that when I'm deep into a bit of a ditch with my mental health, that's when it's the hardest to actually start putting your hand out and waving and try to be like, actually, if you could throw me one of those life rings, that'd be awesome.

Amelia Arnold  12:53  

You know, that help that we give everyone else I wouldn't mind some of that.

Ruby Mountford  12:59  

And so I think being able to recognise the signs means that, you know, how do we encourage people to talk about how they're going not even just when it's bad, but just encouraging to have that kind of conversation being an ongoing checking point. Like, how did we establish that because we do that pretty frequently, even if it's just like, how are you going? Not great. Anything I can do? No, but thanks, awesome. Love that.

Amelia Arnold  13:20  

Thanks to bye. Bye, see you next week. I think normalising talking about our mental health is super important. We're much more likely as people within this kind of, you know, society that we're in at the moment to let other people know if our leg hurts, or our back hurts, or if our tummy hurts, or something like that. But we're a lot less likely to let people know if our brain or our mind or our soul hurts. We may feel that people who we're sharing that with may not believe us or may not fully understand the extent of what's going on for us or the pain that we're in. It may be that people may think we're being dramatic, or if they're not feeling very kind or generous.

Ruby Mountford  14:03  

Attention seeking.

Amelia Arnold  14:04  

And attention seeking. A good friend of mine today actually said to me, 'if people are saying that that person is attention seeking, would you not think that they might need some attention'?

Ruby Mountford  14:16  

Maybe if they're seeking attention, that's exactly what they need. Yeah.

Amelia Arnold  14:22  

Exactly. Sometimes we also as LGBTQIA+ plus people specifically, we're very acutely aware of the fact that our peers may be going through a tough time too. Especially when it's we were talking before about having your identities politicised or the political climate, let's say. So we may not necessarily want to add to the load another person is carrying.

Ruby Mountford  14:46  

Now I'm curious about this because sometimes I feel that that instinct of 'Oh I'm going to be a burden' in itself can kind of be from the LGBTQ experience of just kind of almost feeling like you need to, keep quiet and not necessarily feeling super worthy. And so like that way as that we can kind of make up these reasons to justify why we don't want to ask people.

Amelia Arnold  15:14  

Or why we don't want to share how we're going ourselves.

Ruby Mountford  15:16  

Yeah, even if we want them to share with us.

Amelia Arnold  15:18  

Exactly. As you said, for some LGBTQIA+ people this can be tied up with not wanting to take up space, not wanting to be a burden, like the experience of shame, and of minimising our experiences, and of not making a ruckus, not rocking the boat. All of those kinds of experiences that we may have had in the past related to our coming out or to coming to terms with our sexuality, or gender or sex variation. All of those kinds of things can feed into the 'Oh, I've already been a lot for people that I know, I don't want to make a big deal of this as well'.

Ruby Mountford  16:01  

So Amelia, what advice would you give to anyone listening to help them look out and notice changes in their friends and loved ones?

Amelia Arnold  16:08  

I guess the main things I'd say would be that having a conversation with people that are close to you, or your loved ones, your friends, your family, your family of origin, it could save a life, it's. It's that simple, and and can be that important. So if you notice, signs or invitations that someone may be struggling or thinking of suicide because of a number of different reasons, then asking clearly indirectly, if this is the case, means that you know what you're working with? And if that's what's going on for that person or not. So as we said, the answer may be no or the answer, maybe not right now. But that person also knows that they can talk to you if that changes for them, and that they may still have other things going on that they do want to talk to you about. So finally, as we do Ruby, you mentioned this before, normalising talking about your own mental health, but also asking loved ones about their mental health, and meaning it, can really keep all of us more mentally healthy and mentally well,

Ruby Mountford  17:13  

Amelia, thank you so much for the time to have a chat with me today. And again, as I said before, but I've always appreciated how great you are checking in as a friend. And and I think that you know, your way of doing it, which is always just like, how's it going Poppit?

Amelia Arnold  17:31  

It doesn't have to be this big elaborate affair. I said before that I liked having or learning, you know, structure to some conversations and how to how to ask, but making it your own and knowing how you have these conversations is is the most helpful thing. So for me, I have these kinds of check ins and conversations with my friends, the way that I have all conversations, which is usually referring to them as some kind of food or flower or something. It's it's not using language that's unfamiliar to you. It's it's checking in and having these conversations in a way that is familiar to you. And so with you that is Poppit.

Ruby Mountford  18:17  

It's also just, yeah, it's a regular part of our friendship and I treasure it very much. And I hope this has given some folks some ideas and how maybe to start introducing it into their friendships just as a little way to keep in touch, and making sure things are going alright, especially during when when there are particular things happening in someone's life or in the general realm. Thank you so much for your time.

Amelia Arnold  18:38  

Pleasure, treasure.

Unknown Speaker  18:40  

Ann-Maree Fardell Hartley is an award winning psychologist and suicide prevention specialist. Her work with children and families and adults has had a huge impact across Australia. And she's made it one of her goals to erase the taboos associated with seeking mental help, and to improve the lives of not just individuals, but entire communities. Ann-Maree is currently leading a research project exploring the signs you may see online when someone is an extreme distress or crisis. We asked her about the signs to look out for online that could indicates someone we know needs support.

Ann-Maree Fardell Hartley  19:18  

Warning signs are the noticeable changes that a person suicide risk is imminent. These may include behavioural, emotional, physical changes with the emergence of technology this also needs to be a consideration moving into the future. It's not only young people who are impacted, but 10% of the adults in my research indicated that they had posted a suicide related post and 27% had indicated that they had viewed one from another person. Online we may notice changes in a person's appearance via selfie, do they look different from usual? And what is the background like? Young people report that they tend to use darker GIFs, memes or lyrics to flag decompensating mental health as opposed to older adults who use a emotive language and describe stresses. Many people report using social media between midnight and 4am when they're feeling suicidal, and that it's related to having disturbed sleep. Reasons might be that they use social media platforms for distraction, connection and even helpseeking. In relation to the virtual world, please don't assume that platform safety mechanisms will identify risk. No one in my research observed any safety mechanisms or options for helplines when they were posting regarding suicidal content.Therefore, if you see anything that raises concern, ask the person if they're okay or activate help for them. You may be one of the few people who have access to the post. If we see the signs that a person may be struggling it's important to ask because knowing a person over a period of time gives us the ability to see change and pick up on signs which aren't the norm. Finally, it's also important to note that many younger people can use custom settings, a second account or even time limited option, averting the adults in their lives who may be able to connect them with services. So it's important for anyone seeing these type of posts to have the R U OK conversation with the person immediately.

Producer  21:07  

We'll be chatting again with Anne-Maree in an upcoming episode.

Ruby Mountford  21:11  

Quinton is a proud Bidjara and Australian South Sea Islander man who's passionate about empowering youth and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through social change. He's currently a black impact associate at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence. In his spare time, you'll see Quinton getting down on any dance floor, restrictions permitting, and recently showed his moves when in March for the R U OK? organisation at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade. Quinton, thank you so much for joining me.

Quinton Vea-Vea  21:37  

Thank you.

Ruby Mountford  21:38  

You've been a supporter of R U OK? for a while now through the Stronger Together campaign, which is for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. What led to you supporting R U OK? and in working with the organisation?

Quinton Vea-Vea  21:48  

Yeah, so it was my best friend, Steven, he actually came to me and said, 'Oh, we should do this campaign'. He had known someone who was sort of running that. And so we sort of jumped on board with that. But I guess the thing, I suppose it's not necessarily the stuff, or the idea prior to wanting to jump on. It was like when I was doing the actual campaign itself, it really opened up my eyes and my understanding of the importance of actually asking, 'Are you okay'. During that campaign, some of the questions that we were being asked really brought up those ways at which I can ask, 'are you okay?' to other people and be able to see those tell signs? Because I was also listening to other people's stories about approaching that question as well. So since then, I've just had more of an involvement with R U OK?.

Ruby Mountford  22:38  

Yeah, amazing, because a big part of the R U OK? message is looking out for one another? How does that conversation with, as you said, until you've really seen someone do or give you some of the scripts, the triggers and our brains aren't there to kind of know what the steps are to move through with that. So you mentioned that you did this with Steven, could you tell me more about this friendship and how you do check in on each other?

Quinton Vea-Vea  23:00  

Yeah, so we were given questions, almost like, you know, You Can't Ask That series on ABC. Yeah, me and Steven are very close. So being put on the spot, and being given these questions made me realise the things that I can tell between each other, and I think he realised the same as well. But I think having been put in that situation, made our friendship a lot stronger in terms of now it's just sort of like a normal thing for us to just to talk it out, regardless.

Ruby Mountford  23:32  

So once that kind of barrier was broken down it stayed down, basically. Is that what you're saying?

Quinton Vea-Vea  23:37  

Yeah, yeah, 100 per cent.

Ruby Mountford  23:37  

Fantastic. And what were some of the changes that you noticed before, but hadn't really, you know, maybe put into words or put into a pattern of behaviour or anything like that?

Quinton Vea-Vea  23:49  

Yeah. So it's some of the things that people talk about, like physical changes, or, you know, on the surface, or emotional changes. But I guess, some of the things that don't scream out as much as really small, slight behavioural changes that the other person may not realise, but you do. But then it's not enough for you to elicit an "are you okay?' response either. So having to reflect upon that, and be able to bring that to light, it's now in a way where I can see and then when he can also see it as well, that it's easy to have those conversations.

Ruby Mountford  24:26  

Yeah, I was gonna ask, could you give me an example of a change maybe that you've  noticed in Steven that he didn't notice in himself? Because I think that's a really interesting point that people might actually be aware of how behaviour is changing and the signals that you might be sending out as if our brains are kind of saying, 'you need help, and if you're not going to ask I will'.

Quinton Vea-Vea  24:46  

Yeah. I guess a broader example would be just routine. You can pick up on someone's change of routine. It might be doing something a little bit more, something not as much anymore. That type of change is what I'm talking about in terms of without going into detail.

Ruby Mountford  25:04  

Yeah, for sure. And those are good ones, I think. And I think because routine, especially after like last year became so important, I think we all really, really got the idea of how much a routine could keep you relatively stable during pretty turbulent time. And I think it's really important that we let people know what our signs might be, too, if we have an idea of like, if I've stopped talking about my weekly Dungeons and Dragons game, then maybe something could be up. What are some things that you might have encouraged your friends and family to look out for that you recognise might be signs in you that people should be checking in more?

Quinton Vea-Vea  25:43  

Oh, look, I think I can be very short sometimes when I know that I'm highly stressful, things aren't going on. I can close off easily, in some cases, if it's really excessive. And then just certain behavioural changes. I know something in me when I can get to the point where I'm excessively drinking, so using alcohol to mask the pain. So that is something that I can relate to.

Ruby Mountford  26:15  

Yeah, I suppose that it making more and more sense why having this deep relationship with Steven is so important that somebody who can, especially if you're somebody whose instinct is to support others, right, it can be harder to recognise when we need that for ourselves. So it's so good to have friends that do recognise what's going on, and can be proactive in calling us out . When I get impatient and short. And when I have friends who are just like, 'hey, just so you know, you're being kind of mean', which might mean that you're not okay. As opposed to 'Well, you're an awful human being and I have to leave right now', would you be fair if people didn't know me and didn't understand why I might be in that headspace. Something else that I suppose could be really important is that there's physical and verbal indicators and behavioural indicators in our friends, but there's also being attuned to what's going on in somebody's life, or what's happening in the broader society that can have an impact on us. Whether it's, you know, the discussions that can happen in public spheres, can have a pretty huge impact on marginalised communities. So what are some of the moments in life that you think are times that we might need extra support? 

Quinton Vea-Vea  27:20  

Well, I mean, we're pretty much living it right now. I think anytime now is the most important to be asking that question. Because being in a COVID environment last year is one thing, but what everyone feels post COVID? We don't know. Because it's still yet to evolve into what is the normal new, it was the new normal, I should say. And people are trying to adapt to that. Right. And so that is just what I think, is where we should be having these conversations all the time, just in general.

Ruby Mountford  27:57  

That sense of like, you know, the times in our life we need extra support could just be times where things are changing a lot. Whether those changes are viewed as positive or negative by broader society. I think if anything, the last year has told us how hard change is in general, especially when it's a constant, like adaption thing, right?

Quinton Vea-Vea  28:15  

That's right. And that's why, you know, we've learned from that hopefully there'd been a lot of conversations being had about 'are you okay', in the past 12 to 14 months, or 12 months? Actually, it's only been not that long.

Ruby Mountford  28:28  

I know. There was also the bushfires before that so you know.

Quinton Vea-Vea  28:31  

That's true. Exactly. Right.

Ruby Mountford  28:33  

Speaking of fire, when you want to hit the dance floor on fire, what's your go-to dance move? This is our final question. Don't worry.

Quinton Vea-Vea  28:40  

I'll be honest, I don't have an actual go-to dance move. I have an alter ego that comes out and and she's pretty fierce. Yeah, I call her Indie, Indie Boom Hall. And I think she's like a mixture of Christina Aguilera Dirty and Tyra Banks from Coyote Ugly.

Ruby Mountford  29:03  

So we're talking slut drops is what I'm hearing. My favourite, excellent. Thank you so much for your time, Quinton.

Quinton Vea-Vea  29:13  

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Producer  29:15  

Thanks for listening to We Need To Talk, a podcast from Australian charity. R U OK? and Joy, Australia's rainbow community media organisation. If you'd like to contact the show, you can email us at [email protected], that's [email protected]. If today's episode has brought up some tough feelings or experiences and you need some extra support, we encourage you to reach out to someone you trust or you can contact QLife life on 1800 184 527, or Lifeline on 13 11 14. Your self care is is really important.