Laurie Ruettimann

Day: January 5, 2021

  • Kate Yuan, on Serving as a Suicide Hotline Volunteer

    Kate Yuan, on Serving as a Suicide Hotline Volunteer

    Punk Rock HR is underwritten by Headspace for Work, an award-winning, research-backed app with hundreds of meditations on everything from stress to sleep to focus and anxiety.

    Please note: This episode of Punk Rock HR covers topics like depression, anxiety and suicide. If you are sensitive to these topics, this episode may not be for you. If you are thinking about suicide, are worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 at 800-273-8255.

    At her day job, Kate Yuan works as a business development executive at Alibaba Cloud. On nights and weekends, she volunteers at her county’s crisis hotline and talks to people who are experiencing suicidal thoughts and ideations.

    Just because it’s a new year doesn’t mean that you or the people you love are a new version of themselves. Problems don’t just go away on Jan. 1. That’s why people like Kate are so important. We spoke about what drew Kate to volunteer at a crisis hotline, the importance of being comfortable with our emotions and the five-step process she uses while serving as a suicide hotline volunteer.

    What Drew Kate to Serve as a Suicide Hotline Volunteer

    Kate was drawn to work at a crisis center by her personal experiences. “I went through a period of depression, and I was very vocal about it,” she says. Many people reached out to Kate about their own struggles with mental health, which inspired Kate to begin volunteering. “I really want to be the listener of what people are going through and be of help,” she says.

    Additionally, Kate saw serving as a suicide hotline volunteer as a chance to impact people’s lives, particularly young people. According to the CDC, suicide in 2018 was the 10th-leading cause of death in the United States. However, it was the second-leading cause of death for people age 10 to 34. “That coincides with my own experience,” Kate says. “It just pains me when I think of the long future they have in front of them — but at the same time, the unbearable sense of pain and suffering that they’re going through.”

    The STARE Method

    When answering the phone at the crisis center, Kate uses what she calls “STARE” for her conversations. It’s a five-step method that allows Kate to help people in need while also giving those suffering the chance to express their emotions in a safe space. It is also a method Kate recommends using if someone is disclosing suicidal thoughts to you.

    1. Start with how you’re feeling. Ask open-ended questions.
    2. Try not to problem-solve. Simply listen with attention.
    3. Assess the situation naturally. Ask questions such as, “Are you thinking of killing yourself?” and “Do you have a plan?”
    4. Repeat the second step: Listen with attention.
    5. End the conversation by asking, “How do you feel now? What do you plan to do next?”

    Asking open-ended questions is particularly important, Kate says. Most people calling into a hotline are feeling depressed and having passive suicidal thoughts. “So you just need to keep a conversation going,” Kate says. “Usually, 20 to 30 minutes of attentive listening is enough to make someone feel a lot better.”

    However, if you find that the person you are speaking with has concrete plans to hurt or kill themselves, you will need to take a different course of action. Keep the conversation going, Kate says, but make sure that you text someone that person’s location and phone number. Instruct the other person to call the National Suicide Hotline for further instructions or call the police to do a welfare check. You can call the National Suicide Hotline at 800-273-8255. If you are in the U.S. or Canada, you can reach the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. (More information about how to reach the Crisis Text Line in other countries can be found on their website.)

    Get More Comfortable with Negative Emotions

    Ultimately, one of the most important keys to talking with people who are having suicidal thoughts is to be comfortable with their emotions and to empathize with the speaker, not try to problem-solve for them. “Your job is to focus your entire attention on the other person,” says Kate, and to provide a place for them to express their feelings.

    Kate believes that we need to become more comfortable with people expressing suicidal thoughts and ideations if we want to help people. “We need to change the way we treat the topic of suicide,” she says. “All of us can experience moments when life is unbearably painful.”

    Instead, she says, we should acknowledge suicidal feelings. It’s healthier for us to do so. “The more we can express suicidal thoughts and feelings, the more space we have to decide how to react to them,” Kate says. “Suicidal thoughts or feelings don’t kill someone. It’s the sense of shame and the resulting isolation and loneliness that destroy us.”

    Resources From This Episode

  • The Power of Investing In Yourself and Your Well-Being

    Punk Rock HR is underwritten by Headspace for Work.

    Today I want to talk about my experience at Pfizer. That’s right, I’m talking about the global drug company, my former employer, and the place where I decided to end my career in human resources. 

    When I worked there, I was truly surrounded by people who made a big deal out of nothing and fought constantly over things that were unimportant and unrelated to patient care and well-being. These people really thought of themselves as performing at a very high level, but the output was very mediocre. 

    However, the truth is I was mediocre too. I wasn’t bringing my best to work every single day. Instead of pursuing my ideas, being a leader, going back to school to get my MBA, or even launching my career as a writer, I just stayed in that job. I thought I didn’t need those people but just needed to collect a paycheck. 

    Had I had the courage to fix my own employee experience, I would have made my life and the lives of other employees better. Instead, I was just stuck in a state of learned helplessness. 

    As the days turned into weeks, and the weeks months, and the months years, I sat in this job and grew increasingly disconnected from friends, colleagues, and even from myself. I was depressed, isolated, and suffered from insomnia. The only thing that soothed me was food, leading to even more problems as weight packed on quickly. 

    Eventually, however, I had a realization that companies put themselves first. If I wanted to fix work and my attitude toward it, I had to be like Pfizer and play a bigger, better game. I had to consider my long term interests, invest in my future, and put myself first. 

    The one way you can make it in life is through investment. Invest your money and invest your energy. If you want something bad enough, reallocate your budget to go and get it. 

    Back when I worked at Pfizer, I had a sense that if I wanted to do something great in this world, I needed to get a handle on my well being. For me, that meant addressing my size and my health. 

    At the time, I wasn’t thinking about goals. I was merely thinking about survival. All of that negative activity was permanently changing my body and it can do the same to you if you don’t invest in improving your well-being. 

    You don’t have to do exactly what I did, but the problem for so many of us is that we’re not doing anything at all. We’re not investing in ourselves and putting ourselves first. So, whatever your goal is, whatever will reboot your life and gives you another chance at happiness, get after it.

    I’m talking about these topics—and the specific steps I took towards investing in my well-being, including a weight-loss surgery in Mexico—in my weekly newsletter. I’m also sharing a video to help you think about your week ahead. You can sign up here.