Welcome to Mindshift Power podcast, a show for teenagers and the adults who work with them, where we have raw and honest conversations. I'm your host, Fatima Bey, the mind shifter. Welcome, everyone. This is part one of a two part episode called mental suicide. First, let me explain what it means when I say mental suicide.

Let's look at the definition of the word suicide. Suicide is intentionally caused self destruction. The key word in that definition is destruction. Let's define destruction specifically. Destruction is the action or process of causing so much damage to something that it no longer exists or cannot be repaired.

I'm going to repeat that again. I want you to process this. Suicide has intentionally caused self destruction. Destruction is the action or process of causing so much damage to something that it no longer exists or cannot be repaired. So typically we associate the word suicide with ending our own lives physically.

And that would be correct. But today we're going to take a deeper dive into when we do this to ourselves mentally. Are you the walking dead? Are you breathing physically? You're existing, but mentally you have offed yourself.

You you've given up. You are no longer trying to grow. You are not trying to advance. You do not see a better future. You are not trying to build a better future.

You are not trying to take care of your finances. You are not trying to do anything to advance yourself because you've given up. You've given up hope and falling it fallen into a mental death. You are no longer trying to live. You are only physically surviving, and that's it.

Can I tell you something? I understand that. It is so much easier to give up, to mentally say hope hurts. I am not giving effort anymore. There's no hope for me.

I'm just gonna mentally die. I don't really wanna physically off myself because I don't wanna go through the pain, and I'm too scared to do that. So I'm just gonna mentally give up and stop trying to live. That's what it looks like. That's when you know you've given up and you've committed mental suicide.

Let's talk about what that looks like. What does mental su suicide actually look look like in a practical sense? Well, let's start off with high school. This show is for teens, after all. You're in high school, and you are no longer trying to do better in school.

You're no longer trying to make new friends or date. You're not even given an effort. You're just going to classes because you're being forced to. You're just going to whatever they want you to go to because you have to. You're not even trying to apply for college.

Hell, you're not even sure you're gonna make it to graduation. Or maybe you will make it to graduation because your family is making you, but you're not trying to do anything else. You're not trying to advance. You're not trying to figure out what you're gonna do for your future and what kind of postgraduate education you're gonna have or career you're gonna pursue. You're not even trying to do that because you've mentally already given up on yourself.

Now there are many reasons why we arrive at that spot. There are many reasons why we arrive there, but that's what it looks like. As an adult, you just go to your humdrum job every day. You're not trying to get a better job. You're not trying to advance in that job.

You're not trying to go to a better career or more fitting career. You're not trying to start your business. You're not trying to do anything but survive. You go home and smoke and watch TV and drink, and that's it. This sounding familiar to anybody?

Now mental suicide looks like a lot of things. I only named a few, but I hope you get my point. I said that I understand because I know what it's like to be on that mental ledge where it just hurts too much to hope, and you just wanna give up. I just wanna die. I don't wanna deal with this anymore.

I don't wanna deal with the pain. I just want to die. I'm gonna talk to you about what you can do when you're in that situation because like I said, I've been there, and you don't have to stay there. One of the key things that's missing when you're in that situation is hope. Hope is the reason you're in that situation, and hope is also the answer.

Let me explain what I mean. The lack of hope is what leads a person to that situation. Now why you lack hope, that is a whole another conversation, and all of you are going to have different reasons that you arrived at that place of hopelessness. There are many reasons. All of your details are gonna be different.

They will they may not be the same as mine. But that hopelessness is what causes you to arrive there. Do you know that hopeless people are some of the most dangerous people in the world? When you have no hope, you are dangerous. But in this case, the person you're most dangerous to is yourself.

Yeah. Because you have no hope for your future, so you don't try, and you kill all of the beautiful potential that's in you. You kill. You murder the potential that's in you because of your hopelessness. You can get out of that.

See, the difference between mental suicide and physical suicide is that physically, you can't come back from the dead, you know, unless you have special powers. But practically speaking, you don't come back from physical death, typically. You can come back from mental death. You can come back from it. The what you have to do is switch your focus.

Now this is so much easier said than done. I know. I get that. But hopelessness, like I said, hope is the reason for mental suicide, but hope is also the answer for getting out. So the hopelessness is the reason you end up in a mental mentally suicidal state, where you've given up mentally in life.

What will help you to get out of it is to find the hope. You might need assistance with finding that hope in your situation or for yourself. But I can promise you, you will not find it by yourself. That I can promise you, you will absolutely not find it by yourself. Here's where you're gonna tell me that, here's where you're gonna hear me tell you, this is where you are going to need to find someone to help you.

What does that mean? Well, it means you're gonna have to find someone that you can open up to because you're not going to get out of that hopeless state by yourself. I have never heard of anyone on earth who has, and I've never seen it. It's not normal. But you can get out of it if you open up to someone.

Now, you could open up to someone professionally, but it doesn't maybe you can't afford that, and maybe you're scared, and maybe you don't trust anyone. I get that. It doesn't have to be a professional. It could be your next door neighbor. It could be someone at your church, someone at your synagogue, someone at your mosque, someone at the community center down the street, whoever.

Find that one person that will help to lift you up. Because when you're in a hopeless ditch, you need someone to reach down their hand and help you out of it. And it's okay. Now the details of what's going to help you to get out of that, that is going to be different for everyone, but start focusing on what you can have hope in. And that's where someone else can come along and help you to see what you can have focus.

I'm sorry, what you can have hope in, find the hope, switch your focus and find the hope. And then you can be, you can begin to resuscitate your life mentally. When you resuscitate your mind mentally, you will have physical manifestations around you because you will start to do things that will help you. You will start to do things that will make a better future for yourself. We don't all need the same solutions in detail, but we do all need the same solutions in principle.

And the principle I'm talking about today is hope. I promise you, there are those of us out there who really do care. We really will listen to you without judgment and do the best we can to try to help you. But you gotta find us. We're not gonna we're not gonna fall out of the sky and arrive in your lap.

You gotta find us and open up. We're there. We're so willing. I am not the only one who cares this much. I am not the only one that wants to help you.

There are a lot of other people like me out there. The problem is you shut down and close us out because you think nobody's going to understand. But you just got to try, try, try to find us. Try to find us. This has been part one of mental suicide.

Next, listen to part two of mental suicide. We're going to talk to a different audience. Part two, we're going to talk about talk to those who are around those of us who are on a mental edge. What can you do to help someone who is committing mental suicide? Thank you for listening to mind shift power podcast.

Please like, and subscribe to my YouTube channel at the mind shifter. If you have any comments, topic suggestions, or would like to be a guest on the show, please visit FatimaBay.com/podcast. Remember, there's power in shifting your thinking. Tune in for next week.