Fatima Bey: 0:09

Welcome to MindShift Power Podcast, the world's only podcast built to empower the next generation. I'm your host, fatima Bey the MindShifter, because shaping tomorrow's world starts with conversations we have today. And welcome everyone. Today we have with us Elaine Lindsay. She is from Ontario, canada. She is the founder of Suicide Zen Forgiveness, and we are going to have a hearty conversation today. So, elaine, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to everyone and tell us about yourself?

Elaine Lindsay: 0:46

Well, thank you for having me, fatima. I really appreciate that. I'm known as the dark Pollyanna, and as we get into things, I'm sure people will figure that one out. I am, I guess, a computer geek and hack that finally had to pay attention to what I consider the best, worst gift I was ever given, and that was from my friend who died when I was 16. She died by suicide, which is how we get to where we are today.

法蒂瑪先生：1:20

So what is Suicides and?

Elaine Lindsay: 1:22

Forgiveness. What is it? Suicides and Forgiveness. The podcast is for guests who want to share their story, because when you share your story, it lightens your burden. And we talk about suicide loss, we talk about suicidal ideation, we talk about attempts, we talk about mental health, we talk about all the conversations that are difficult, that people don't want to have and I've actually coined it's conversations that we need to have daily so that people understand just how prevalent suicide is.

Fatima Bey: 2:06

It is very suicide. I mean, it is very prevalent Conversations. You said Savations. Yeah, I like that and that makes sense to me. So you have a podcast and I have seen you on other people's podcasts talking about this. I have seen you on other people's podcasts talking about this and you've become a champion of this topic and very good at it, and so tell us your story of how you got into this.

伊萊恩·林賽：2:34

Okay, thank you for that.

伊萊恩·林賽：2:36

是的，它實際上是在我五歲之前開始的。直到我生命的後期，人們才知道有一種東西，那就是自殺意念。我不知道它的名字，也不知道它是什麼，只知道如果我烤焦了麵包或掉了什麼東西，我的一個選擇就是，好吧，我可以結束這段生活。我不知道這些，不是每個人都這麼想的。我不知道它從何而來，是什麼。幾年後，我在精神病院工作。現在你必須明白。我今年69歲。 11月就70歲了。我是嬰兒潮世代。所以我生活在很久很久以前，那時的情況非常不同。他們有上帝。請原諒我，但這首關於被關進精神病院的愚蠢歌曲就是他們所說的那種感覺，我12歲時就開始當志工了。

伊萊恩·林賽：3:41

我15歲的時候就開始當志工了，他們真的雇了我一個暑期班。我當時在成年訓練隊當救生員，這挺有意思的，因為我身高才五英尺二英寸（約1.63米），而我試圖哄騙進游泳池的一些人身高六英尺六英寸（約1.93米），有幾個人像蛇一樣凶悍，有幾個人像蛇一樣凶悍，但我找到了一種方式，讓他們按照我的要求都去做。這對我來說真的很重要。那天是1月1日。我們都很興奮。除夕夜，我和我的朋友都在照顧孩子，但她當時正在照顧她已故的姑姑，還有那些老姑姑和老叔叔，我不想打電話給她。我拿起電話就摔了，因為我不想讓她惹麻煩。第二天晚上，我去聽音樂會的時候，卻找不到她了。我找不到任何朋友，我走來走去，有點恍惚。我承認那時候我真是個野孩子。好吧，我吸過毒，也試過喝酒。我不喜歡酒的味道，所以就喝了點兒傻呼呼的。那是一場愛麗絲·庫柏的演唱會。我當然喝了點兒傻呼呼的。那是一場愛麗絲·庫柏的演唱會，我當然喝了。

Elaine Lindsay: 5:07

An hour into the concert, a guy that we knew came barreling towards me and said please tell me, it's not true, this can't be happening. We didn't have cell phones or pagers or anything like that back then, and I lived at the edge of town, so it took me a long time to get anywhere too. I said what are you talking about? He said, oh my God, andrea's dead. What are you talking about? So she took her life and I slapped him as hard as I could. I don't know why I slapped him, it just I didn't want that to be true. What came out of his mouth, but part of me, because I couldn't find anybody and because, on top of everything else, I was high, suddenly knew that my life as I knew it had ended and I didn't know where to go from there.

Elaine Lindsay: 5:52

By the end of that concert, some other people, two of my other friends, showed up, and by the end of the concert, some other people had to take me somewhere because they couldn't send me home like that. Some other people had to take me somewhere because they couldn't send me home like that. You see, back then things were a little bit different too, because my friend was Jewish and I was Catholic, and in the Catholic religion the worst sin you can ever commit is to take your own life. The other thing is it was 1972 in Canada, it had just turned 1972, and attempted suicide was still a crime. Oh wow, I didn't know how to go home and tell my parents. I wanted to protect Andrea, I wanted to make sure that nobody said anything wrong about her or made fun of her, and that permeated the next four years of my life. I managed to tell my parents, who, of course, didn't react the way I thought they would. My parents were very good people, but I could not reconcile what had happened.

Elaine Lindsay: 7:08

Little ideation. I now knew what the hell that meant, and what was going on in my head was that I was going to do what she had done. I knew at that point it was only a matter of time. The next four years were spent either getting drugs, drinking and, every evening, sitting in the cemetery. Whether it was snow, whether it was summer didn't matter.

Elaine Lindsay: 7:28

Sitting there like a lump waiting for answers that never came, and that's the hardest thing when you're young is not being able to get answers to something. That is really like driving your brain round in circles. I mean, it's bad at any age, but when you're young you're just learning about all these things. You're a biological pot of soup. All these hormones are doing weird things, your body's doing weird things and then to have to have these thoughts. It is absolutely horrific and in all honesty I didn't deal with it well. Mostly.

Elaine Lindsay: 8:11

我認為自殺意念與此有很大關係。我們的其他朋友似乎都放下了過去。我的父母不得不帶我回蘇格蘭待六個星期，因為他們認為這可能會有所幫助。他們不明白發生了什麼，他們不知道我正在經歷什麼，事實上，他們把我帶回了蘇格蘭，這讓我結識了一大群新朋友，讓我吸毒喝酒，這樣我也可以在那裡麻木，因為對我來說最重要的是麻木。就在兩年前，我才知道，事實上，我的精神基本上是回到了 12 歲，並停留在那裡。回到了 12 歲，精神上停留在那裡。我對金融、金錢或任何這些東西都沒有概念，就這樣跌跌撞撞地度過了一生。

Elaine Lindsay: 9:07

One quick thing I'll insert there four years after Andrea died, I was crushed between three cars in front of her grave. I swear that she's the reason I'm still here. Somebody put the fur hood up on my coat so my head didn't split like a melon, lost part of my leg. I was seven months pregnant. I lost my child. I had multiple breaks in both legs. My skull was fractured. I had all kinds of internal injuries. The next five years were spent in and out of surgery. I'm now bionic, which is kind of cool.

Elaine Lindsay: 9:43

All of this to say, it took me a really long, long time to get to a place where I could start to understand what was going on. But in all that time, every time, I came to the edge and let me tell you there were a lot of them. There were a number of times I went over, but I'm a really good actress, so never got caught. Well, except once in the hospital when they were pumping my stomach. They give you charcoal and then pump your stomach. I had all kinds of excuses. I don't know that they bought them, but the horrible thing is nobody said anything. Nobody asked me any questions. Nobody went any deeper than oh well, you're breathing again. And what I took from all that?

Elaine Lindsay: 10:36

Finally, in 2018, kate Spade and, a week or two later, anthony Bourdain took their lives and all of a sudden, it was you know what Andrea actually gave me the best, worst gift you could give somebody. She taught me what it was to be left behind. So every time that I got close, every time I did one of those stupid things, andrea was in my ear saying hey, do you really want to do that to your family? Do you remember how upset you were? You're still a mess, and that played in my head all the time.

伊萊恩·林賽：11:13

And finally, in 2018, I started a podcast. Then it was called Keep Breathing, because I didn't know what else to call it, and it was fumbly and I was just begging people to talk to somebody. Don't take your life. I'm telling you from someone who's been there and back multiple times don't do it. And I didn't know how to get it across. And in 2021, I changed the name to Suicide Zombies and Forgiveness because of something I had learned through a zombie park, which was totally silly, but people did not understand that this was a serious podcast, and so I changed it to Suicide Zen Forgiveness, because you need to get to a place of calm so that you can forgive all the things that have happened to you. And, more importantly and please hear this if you hear nothing else, forgive yourself. We do the best we can, at whatever age we are, and beating yourself up and going over and over questions that will never ever be answered doesn't help anybody, it doesn't.

Fatima Bey: 12:31

我想談談。我想回到你剛才說的，你朋友自殺前你有很多自殺念頭，這對你的反應有很大影響。我想談談這個，因為這不是人們常說的，但我確實認為這是一個問題。我確實認為這是個問題，而且不僅僅是發生在別人身上的時候，這不僅僅是發生在自殺身上，當我們目睹身邊可怕的事情發生時，這不僅僅是自殺，在這個例子中，是自殺，它觸動了我們內心深處那幾乎要自殺的部分，這比事件本身更令人痛苦。

Elaine Lindsay: 13:13

When you were Absolutely, when you were Sorry, go ahead, sorry, that guilt, it doesn't matter that it didn't happen to you, the fact that you were there or you are so close to that person, you feel like you should have been there. There was always a feeling that, oh my God, I could have stopped it, I could have picked up that phone. But you know what? That's not true. When someone is ready to go and you haven't reached out, there's nothing we can do at that last moment. There is nothing, and that's why it's all about the. Let's get people to talk, let's talk about this Because, let's face it, okay, as a teen, I didn't want to talk to my parents. I didn't want to talk to my parents about anything.

Elaine Lindsay: 14:06

First of all, oh my God, back then, when she, they were so square and were so oh my God, they were so righteous and so Catholic and all the things that I was not interested in when I was 15 and 16 years old. And any kid will tell you the same thing. I mean, you don't necessarily want to tell your parents there is a piece of you that does but you need them to ask you in the right way. And you know what I've learned. I'm a mom, I'm a glam ma and no, that's not a speech impediment. I have learned the hard way that we do want to talk. We just need to know that somebody's listening. That is safe. And as a teenager, even as a young kid, as whatever, I don't necessarily want you to fix me. I just want you to listen to me. You listen with your ears. I don't want your mouth open, Like put duct tape on your mouth. If you're a parent and you want to talk to your kid, duct tape your mouth shut and give them a sign saying I will listen, yes.

Fatima Bey: 15:17

That's something I say on here all the time. We need to listen to our youth. We spend a lot of time lecturing them and telling them what they should do and blah, blah, blah. But none of that matters. If we don't listen, it really doesn't, because they're not listening to us, unless we first listen to them Absolutely. If we have great and wonderful and right things to say, it does not matter. We got to listen, and not only that, but we don't always understand. As adults, we don't always understand them and sometimes we just can't. We didn't grow up in the world we're growing up in. We can't understand them. So we need them to tell us, but that can't happen unless we listen.

伊萊恩·林賽：15:56

That's so true, and I get the fact that things are are monumentally different today than they were when I was a kid and every generation there are differences. Okay, I get that. This, now Gen Z and whatever came after it, is the single fastest spurt in time of everything from technology to food to everything that we knew has morphed into something else, and it's at such a speed it's hard even for young kids to keep up with what's going on. Imagine for some of us old people and you know, I've been here for over six decades yeah, yeah, but you're more tech savvy than me, so I think you got some on us.

Elaine Lindsay: 16:58

Well, yeah, the tech savvy came from you know you spend a couple of years in the hospital. You've got nothing else to do. So computers were a lot of fun, but it's got to be intimidating for kids to deal with all this technology, to have to deal with all the changes that are coming at them like bang, bang, bang all the time. It's so incredibly terrifying that I think, even more importantly, that's why we need to listen. Yes, yes, because if you don't understand it, you know most kids do understand a lot of it. Some of it is assimilation. It's just the way it works with the world. You know you come along and you get the latest stuff because everybody else does. But there is a gap between every generation and the only way to get past that gap is to build a bridge, and that bridge is listening, and I wish I'd come to this so much sooner.

Elaine Lindsay: 18:06

I do say I am a super slow learner, so if anybody's going to repeat the lesson it'll of my grandkids tells me that somebody bullied them or somebody did something, the heathen in me wants to just go after that person and annihilate them. I'm just being honest. That's who I am. Okay, I am mother bear extraordinaire. Okay, I am mother bear extraordinaire. I have to take a pause because I have learned, in pulling all the things together, even from when I was a kid. Andrea's suicide made such a difference. I understood over time that my parents didn't know how to deal with this, that my parents didn't know how to deal with this, so expecting things from them wasn't really fair. I had to give them a little more information.

Fatima Bey: 19:14

I think what you just said, is very, very key when we're dealing with stuff, really hard stuff, and we are still trying to just figure it out ourselves. Sometimes, especially when we're young, we expect our parents to be that answer, or the people around us, whether it's your parents, whether it's your auntie, siblings, whatever. We expect them to be there for us and to be that answer. And the truth is, they may not know how to be the answer, and so we have to be able to figure it out anyway. And I want to point out the fact that you have taken your pain and turned it into purpose and that's why we're having this conversation and for listeners out there, especially my precious youth, my young adults and teens, the pain that you're going through you can also turn it into purpose.

Fatima Bey: 20:06

你可能無法在接下來的五分鐘內做到，也可能要等到明年才能做到，但你可以下定決心，不再只是忍受痛苦，而是要承受痛苦，並為此做點什麼。伊萊恩就是這樣做的。她承受著自己經歷的痛苦，她自己的痛苦，朋友的痛苦，以及這些痛苦，最後決定要這麼做。她找到了幫助他人的方法，這位女士進行過很多對話，不僅僅是在這個播客上，這些對話真的改變了人們的生活。而且，很明顯，與她接觸的人的心態都改變了，這很美好。那麼，伊萊恩，說了這麼多，你對現在那些正在經歷痛苦卻不知如何應對的年輕人有什麼話要說呢？他們該如何將痛苦轉化為目標呢？

伊萊恩·林賽：20:59

First, thing is okay. Whatever you're going through, if it's feelings, if your feelings got hurt, or it's emotions or it's actual physical pain, just you have to remember it will pass. It will pass, this will change. This is a temporary thing. Nothing, nothing is forever except death, and you don't want a permanent solution to something that is temporary In the moment. Whatever's going on at that moment.

Elaine Lindsay: 21:34

If the person that you fall in love with rejects you, that is horrible pain. If you break your leg, that is horrible pain and all of those things. To the person that's suffering, it is the worst pain in the world and I get that. But you have to take a nap. Go take a nap. If it's not bedtime, you can't go to sleep for the whole night. Go take a nap, because when you wake up from even a short little nap those first I don't know 10 to 17 seconds you're a blank slate, there's nothing there. Okay, you can choose to go forward in a different way. You can choose to put whatever was driving you nuts behind you and make a different choice. And it's just, it's like this special little eraser you get that's going to allow you to put things behind you.

Elaine Lindsay: 22:47

還有一件事，隨著時間的推移，真的對我幫助很大。我知道這聽起來有點不可思議，但那就是在一天開始或結束的時候，心懷感恩。我總會想起三到五件讓我感恩的事情，有些日子，我的確可以說我感恩。我只是慶幸自己能說我感恩。那些日子都不太好。其他日子，我都會心懷感恩。

伊萊恩·林賽：23:19

Last Thursday morning I went to the front window. It was bucketing rain. It was kind of ugly out. I get to the window and there's a hummingbird like right there. I was ecstatic. I was like six feet off the ground by that night. That was the top of my list of gratitude. Oh my God, I saw a hummingbird like up close. Yeah, they're hard to catch With geraniums in my living room. That was why. But that kind of thing being thankful for the fact that you can get out of bed, that you can open your eyes and take a deep breath I'm thankful for my bionic parts and I'm really thankful on the days where it takes me less than 15 minutes to get out of bed. That can be a big accomplishment on certain days.

Fatima Bey: 24:10

所以，我從你現在說的話中得出的結論是感恩。我們常聽到人們這麼說，但感恩其實正是當你情緒低落、沮喪，或是感受到來自你所有負面情緒時，幫助你克服困難的關鍵，正是這份感恩，推動你走向進步。

Elaine Lindsay: 24:35

It's a little thing, but it gives you some dopamine. Yes, yeah, okay. And if you smile just to yourself, just in your room, as you're being grateful, you cannot look sad or frown or do any of those things when you're smiling. You just can't. Your face doesn't work that way. And it helps with the dopamine, and the dopamine I'm not pushing drugs here, but the dopamine does make you feel a little better and you get to bank that and you get to make the choice in that next moment to do something that makes you feel good, whatever that is for you. Well, elaine, how can people find you.

Elaine Lindsay: 25:21

他們可以去找「黑暗波麗安娜」（Dark Pollyanna）。我的網站和暱稱到處都是。我的名字也是elainelindsay。 Szf42.com是「自殺禪宗寬恕」（Suicide Zen Forgiveness）的網站，我也在那裡。我的頭髮也是青綠色的。這樣人們就能很容易地指出封面上的照片裡沒有青綠色的頭髮。這樣人們就能很容易地指出封面上的照片裡沒有青綠色的頭髮。

Fatima Bey: 25:55

You guys can't see her. But, yeah, thank you for coming on. I don't just want to end by saying thank you for coming on. I really appreciate you coming on and telling your story, and I truly believe that there's a lot of people listening who may or may not ever reach out to us who heard your story and had a little mind shift that made a difference, and to me, that's what it's all about, that's what I care about.

Fatima Bey: 26:20

Hearing your story, even just now, I was like wow, you're proof that we can turn our pain into purpose. You're proof that we don't have to sit under. We can choose to get over what we've been under, something I say all the time. It doesn't mean, oh, just get over it. It means you're no longer stay under it and you make a choice to climb over it and live and then say you know what I'm helping other people live too, and that I respect you so much for that and I really appreciate all that you put out there in the world and all that, all the people that you help, that we don't necessarily hear about, but I know they're there. So thank you for all that you do.

伊萊恩·林賽：27:01

Well, thank you so much, and if any of your audience you want someone who will duct tape her mouth and just listen reach out to me.

Fatima Bey: 27:11

Yeah, and she is a no bullshit person. I absolutely freaking love that about her.

伊萊恩·林賽：27:16

Well, thank you. Yes, I don't like bullshit, okay, and my kids always knew there's one thing you can't do. Do not lie to me. Yeah, I'm the same way I love my kids. If you get in trouble, that's okay, it happens, I'll get over it, but don't lie to me.

Fatima Bey: 27:36

We need more adults like you. Our youth I should say Our youth need more adults like you, who just listen and understand, and there's a lot of things that you said. If I were a teenager, I'd be drawn to you, just simply because you understand and you listen first, and that adults take note. Some of y'all need to do less preaching and more listening, all right, well, thank you for coming on. Thank you, and now for a mind shifting moment. For a mind-shifting moment, I want to plant a thought seed in your head.

法蒂瑪先生：28:12

今天，你聽到伊萊恩談到她的朋友安德里亞自殺如何讓她產生了自殺的念頭，然後她用藥物和其他東西來緩解痛苦。我希望你把這個想法轉化為審視你的周遭。你周遭有多少人在緩解自己的痛苦？並非總是用藥物，也可能用很多其他東西。有時，你看到的是有人在緩解自己的痛苦，因為他們不知道該如何應對。雖然每個人都應該去接受心理治療，但我知道現實情況是，並非每個人都去接受心理治療，即使你去找心理醫生，也很難找到一個好的。這就是事實。

Fatima Bey: 29:02

所以，話雖如此，你或許可以嘗試提供協助。你不必成為治療師才能提供幫助。有時候，獲得幫助的最佳方式之一，並非只有治療師才能提供協助。有時候，找到你需要做什麼來幫助別人的最佳方法之一，就是先傾聽。不要打斷，不要評判，不要把他們當成傻子和瘋子。先傾聽，因為當你先傾聽時，你的話語才會有力量，而且一定會有力量。現在，傾聽你的聲音只是MindShift宇宙的一個分支。訪問FatimaBeycom以了解更多信息，並永遠記住，轉變思維的力量是巨大的。下週見。