Frank King, The Mental Health Comedian: Live The Life You Were Meant To Live.

Dr. Mark Leeds [00:09] Welcome to The Rehab on the Mental Health News Radio Network. I am Dr. Mark Leeds and I will be your host. Join me in exploring the world of addiction treatment. How can we improve the ways that we help individuals to overcome addiction? The goal of treatment is to save lives and help people to get back on track to a path towards success and happiness in life. Frank King, the mental health comedian, welcome to the Rehab Podcast.

Frank King [00:49] I’m delighted to be here. By the way, people ask me, Frank King, your real name or your stage name? I was going to change it, Dr. Leeds, to something funny like Kelly Green. And my mom said if she came to the comedy show and somebody else’s name was on the marquee, she would write me out of the will. So I kept my name.

Dr. Mark Leeds [01:12] Frank King, the King of Comedy.

Frank King [01:14] Oh, yeah. Boy, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that. I’ve also been introduced as Don King, Alan King. And, yeah, King of Comedy puts the bar pretty high.

Dr. Mark Leeds [01:23] How did you go into comedy? How old were you when you knew you were going to be a comedian or you wanted to be a comedian?

Frank King [01:29] Fourth grade, told my first joke. Everybody laughed, including the teacher. Years later, I bumped into the Winn-Dixie. Mrs. Dark said to me, Frank, do you know why I went to the teacher’s lounge after you made everyone laugh? And I said, no, ma’am, I do not. She goes, because it was the funniest thing a child ever said to me. And I was afraid I was going to laugh in your face and break your heart. I decided that day I was going to do stand-up comedy. I did a talent show in high school, senior talent show. Nobody had ever done stand-up before. And it was right there. I graduated high school in the mid-’70s, just the beginning of the comedy boom. I think about that time Jay Leno had gone out to Los Angeles to pursue comedy. I told my mother I was going to be a stand-up comedian after high school, and she said, son, you’re going to college. You can do anything you like when you’re done. You can be a goat herder when you’re done, but you’re going to be a goat herder with a degree. So I went to UNC Chapel Hill, got a couple of degrees, and then moved to the West Coast, San Diego, and they had a branch of the Comedy Store, and I did my first open mic night, and that was the beginning of it. I knew within minutes on stage, even heard the voice in my head say, I’m home, I’m going to do this for a living. I’m just not sure how right this minute, but I’m going to do it for a living. That was April of 1984.

Dr. Mark Leeds [02:45] Later on, you got married and made a different career decision, a different direction, and I thought that was really interesting because at one point you just made the decision to get up and walk away from everything.

Frank King [02:54] I was married to my high school sweetheart who was a lovely woman. We just didn’t belong together. We had completely different goals and I was selling insurance, which is a great business, but I felt like I was walking around somebody else’s career and I was not going to the comedy store to open mic nights, which is where I thought I belonged and I realized I was depressed and suicidal. Sooner rather than later, if I didn’t change something, I was going to kill myself. And my second thought was, well, that means I can divorce my wife, quit my job, try comedy. If it works out, terrific. If it doesn’t, hell, I can still kill myself. So that became the subject of my TEDx talk, which is Suicide is the Secret of My Success, Dead Man Talking. So I really had no choice. It was either stay in place and die or roll the dice, let it all on one roll the dice and hope that things worked out.

Dr. Mark Leeds [03:45] Did your wife know that you wanted to be a comedian?

Frank King [03:49] I told her before we got married over pizza, and I think she must have thought because she came from a long line of insurance people. And the whole concept of doing comedy and making a living doing comedy was so foreign to her that I think when I said it to her, it didn’t stick. She didn’t understand that I meant go after it and make a living at it. I think she thought community theater or, you know, a hobby and avocations. And she’s the one that finally pulled the plug on the marriage. I didn’t have the testicular fortitude. And so we got separated a couple of times. And after the second time, I said to her, look, I’ll just do comedy on open night nights, you know, the occasional local gig. I won’t do it for a living. I’ll stick with insurance. And she said, you’re lying to me and you’re lying to yourself. You want to be a comedian since the fourth grade. We’re going to get divorced. I’m going to move in with my folks up in Seattle. And you’re going to go and pursue comedy because that’s what you want to do, which is one of the nicest things anybody’s ever done for me. So then she said, but I’ve seen your act. I know you don’t have what it takes, which was the second nicest thing anybody’s ever done for me because it drove me for years. I’ll show you. So as I said, lovely woman, you know, we just should never have gotten married.

Dr. Mark Leeds [05:09] Maybe you can look back and say it all happened for a reason or it all made sense leading up to where you are now?

Frank King [05:15] Oh, Lord, yes. Up to and including my current wife of 32 years. If I had not been married to my first wife for four years, 11 months, 19 days, and, you know, she did not support me doing comedy, so I was not pursuing it, if I had not been married to her all that time, I would have never met my second wife. So if I had to go through all that all again just to get to my second wife, I would happily do it.

Dr. Mark Leeds [05:41] You met your wife in a grocery store?

Frank King [05:43] Yes, in San Diego. I was on my way to another date. I saw her. She was wearing kind of a low-cut top, and she was leaning over the conveyor belt on the check stand, putting her groceries there. And I thought, whoa. And so I hustled through my purchases, express lane, followed her outside. She sat down to start packing her bike back. San Diego, the weather’s so nice. She can bicycle everywhere. And she was packing her bike bags with the groceries, and I walked up to her. And I had written a pickup line for the brand new ink still wet practically business cards I had, comedy business cards. And when she looked up, I handed her my comedy business card. And I said simply, if you ever need a laugh, give me a call. And walked away, which I thought was brilliant because, you know, it’s not, hey, baby, let’s go out. So she called thinking that it was a, you know, like a joke line or something. And got my answering machine. And as a wise young woman, she left her work number. Very good thinking. And I called her back and we set a date for the following Tuesday, 30th of October, 1984. And here’s the kicker of the story, Dr. Leeds. The neighborhood that I met her in is called Hillcrest. It’s in San Diego. It’s tremendously gay. The largest concentration of gays, I think, in California, outside of San Francisco. And there were a lot of lacquage bars, you know, where the female impersonators, that kind of thing. She was tall, very muscular, and wearing a ton of makeup, fall tie lashes, and gorgeous, way out of my league. So I began to worry. Maybe she had outdoor night indoor plumbing. So before the date, I told my roommate, a friend of mine from North Carolina, if I don’t call you by midnight, send the cops to this address, because undoubtedly I’ll be playing the crying game and losing. So at 11 15 that night I said to her can I call your phone she said sure she handed me the portable phone I called my roommate and in front of my lovely girlfriend now wife wendy I said to my roommate it’s a girl and of course my male friends go wait a minute there’s a 50 50 chance she was a guy and you said you’d go out with her I’m thinking you know she’s so pretty and so smart So funny. I think I still would have married her if she had a penis. She’s just that wonderful. Had I not been married to my first wife and dogs or all that, I would have never met my second.

Dr. Mark Leeds [08:10] I think our local grocery store, I think they actually used to have a date night or a singles night.

Frank King [08:15] I think it’s sort of famous for that sort of interaction. Single people in their shopping. You know, it’s not a bar. So, you know, their defenses are down to bed. Anyway, it worked for me. We were on the road together in December of 85, decided to be a full-time comic. And I said to my girlfriend and my wife, I’m going on the road to do stand-up comedy full-time. I’ve got 10 weeks booked, which I thought was forever, and would you like to come along just for the ride? And she said yes. So we packed everything in storage. I couldn’t fit into my tiny little Dodge Colt. And we both quit our jobs, gave up the apartment. And we were on the road for 2,629 nights in a row non-stop. No home, just a post office box and an answering server. Seven years and change together. It was an amazing trip. This is back when a lot of the people who are famous comedians now were just comics. I opened up for Jeff Foxworthy and Ron White, Dennis Miller and Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres and Kevin Nealon and Dana Carvey and on and on and on back when they were just comics. It was an amazing journey.

Dr. Mark Leeds [09:22] Yeah, I saw Dana Carvey on the comedian and coffee show, you know, comedians, coffees, and cars or whatever, and he was really funny.

Frank King [09:30] Yeah, he and I actually got the same gig. He was supposed to speak at dinner to a cardiologist group. I think the American College of Cardiology, Los Angeles chapter, big chapter, and I was to speak at lunch because both of us have had, I’ve had two aortic valve replacements, a double bypass, a heart attack, and three stents. And at the time, Dana had had a valve replacement, and then they had gone in, I think they replaced the wrong valve, so they had to go back in and do the right one. And the Speakers Bureau called me and said, look, we’re going to flip-flop it. Dana Carvey’s going to go at lunch, you’re going to go at dinner. And I said, I’m going to be following Dana Carvey? Are you kidding me? Well, as luck would have it, for whatever reason, the cardiologist at my dinner show enjoyed me more than they did Dana Carvey at the lunch show. So I dodged a bullet.

Dr. Mark Leeds [10:25] They say suicide is as serious as a heart attack. You know, when someone gets chest pain, they need to call 911 and go to the hospital. But people tend not to take depression, you know, depression and suicidal thoughts as seriously when they should.

Frank King [10:38] Yes, and I think for men, they don’t take the heart attack symptoms seriously. I have a joke in my act because I’ve got 25 minutes on all my heart procedures. Like here on Holland America, it’s an older crowd. So I’ll ask if anybody here besides me had their chest cracked. And I’ll chat with somebody in the audience. I’ll find out what the symptoms were. And I’ve discovered that many men will wait weeks to months to years from the onset of symptoms to the time they see a physician, unless a woman happens to observe the symptoms and then they easily go in right away. And I wrote a joke, which is that men don’t die of heart attack or stroke. They, in fact, die of testosterone poisoning. And that big thing applies to mental health. That’s why Sally Spencer Thomas and I and Sarah Gare have a book coming out this month, thank you, on men’s mental health called Guts, Grit, and the Grind, a Men’s Mental Mechanical Manual. Men tend to put off, when it comes to health, mental and physical put off, you know, they ignore the symptoms. They don’t reach out. But if they’re going to reach out, it’s probably going to be to another man because men tend to take advice from men. Roughly eight out of ten suicides in the U.S. At this point are men.

Dr. Mark Leeds [11:51] Certain professions are more likely to be suicidal. And I guess the question would be, is it that profession that drives people to suicide or is it people who have a tendency to be suicidal are going into those professions?

Frank King [12:06] Well, I think it’s a combination of things. The number one at-risk occupation at this point in time, best I can tell, is construction. And people go, why construction? Well, construction often manly men, the kind of guys who wouldn’t seek therapy because, you know, by God, I’ve got bootstraps. And construction is a male-heavy occupation. It’s construction, mining, excavation, fishing, farming, forestry. Farmers now income half of what it was 2013 with the tariffs and in the midwest and really horrible weather fishermen again a lonely occupation often times a solo entrepreneur forestry I just can’t seem like being out in the woods you know it’s quiet it’s you and the animal but again manly man who might not reach out I focus on in my keynote speaking and training on construction because not only did it have the highest rate, they have begun, construction as an industry has begun addressing the problem. And then I picked dentists and veterinarians and physicians from the white collar world because of the top 10 or 12 adverse occupations, those three are also being proactive, reaching out as an industry to help the people in their industry. Dentists and veterinarians are very similar in that they come out of school with about $350,000 in loan debt on average, and then to open a practice, another quarter million, so you’re looking at a $600,000 nut. And, you know, even if business is great, there’s still a lot of money to pay back. And often solo entrepreneurs, there’s nobody really in the office they can talk to about their problems at a C-suite level. And with veterinarians, they put down animals all the time, so they’ve got the means to do themselves in. And the big killer for those two occupations, three occupations, is not suicide, but stress-induced, exacerbated mental and physical illness, heart attack, stroke, depression. So stress is really the linchpin for those three groups.

Dr. Mark Leeds [14:09] That makes sense. I mean, it also seems that people who are highly intelligent and creative tend to also lean towards self-harm. You know, at least in some of those professions you listed, you know, would attract people like that. And, you know, is also, I think, puts people at high risk for addiction or at least not being able to overcome addiction easily. That kind of mental illness uses your own best abilities against you. If you’re a very creative and smart person, you’re going to find ways to keep hurting yourself and keeping it a secret from other people.

Frank King [14:37] I don’t think the expression fat, dumb, and happy came out of nowhere. I think there is something of fat, dumb, and happy, you know? Yeah. Because, you know, if you’re not thinking that much, you know, maybe you’re not worrying that much.

Dr. Mark Leeds [14:51] Yeah, I actually had a patient, this one patient who came in to be treated for heroin addiction. And he was a very smart, intelligent person with a great career. And, you know, came in with his father, this older guy who was really serious and, you know, was really, I wouldn’t say angry, but really serious about his son getting better and getting treatment. And he just kind of sat there quietly looking really strict and serious while I talked to his son. And I told him my theory that people who are highly intelligent and creative and successful may tend to be more susceptible to addiction and having more trouble overcoming it. He looked at his father and he said, see, that’s what I was trying to tell you. And the father just looked at me and he said, I never had a problem with drugs. I’m like, oh, that just went over his head.

Frank King [15:37] Exactly. And that’s why you didn’t right there. Yeah. Yeah, my mother was very intelligent, and she didn’t start out as an alcoholic, but she started out, you know, a toddy in the evening, as most people her generation did. And my dad died very young. Her solace was, you know, a drink and a cigarette in the evening before she went to bed. And eventually, it became a problem, but she was smart, and she was not going to get treatment, and she was not going to see, you know, she was not going to join a program like AA. She wasn’t willing to put her, you know, to turn it over to a higher power, I guess, as they do an AA. So it’s one of the reasons I don’t drink. My family, in addition to just about every one of them on one psychotropic or another, the joke in my act is I got more nuts in my family than a 25-pound bag of squirrel food. The majority of them, if they’re going to self-medicate, do so with alcohol. So I thought, you know what? But if I don’t start alcohol, you know, I had a few beers in college and I’ve drunk a few times, but nothing, you know, nothing radical. Certainly not as much as my fraternity brothers. And I just thought, you know, I just made a conscious decision. I’m just not going to drink. I’d much rather eat my calories than drink them. And I don’t want to start down that path and then have to, you know, stop.

Dr. Mark Leeds [16:58] Whenever I look at someone’s website, I always look at the SEO performance. I’m always curious, what words are they ranking for? And you’ve got some really good ones. Thementalhealthcomedian.com. Of course, your name, Frank King, Frank King comedian, suicide prevention speaker, suicide speakers joke writer, love rollercoaster dating with bipolar disorder. Apparently, that has a pretty good search volume, too.

Frank King [17:21] Oh, and I work hard on the, for example, on suicide prevention speakers, dental. Like I said, they’re very active in trying to prevent suicide. I’ve got a three-hour CE course that, You know, that works as continuing ed for dentists and also can be used for CME, for physicians, chiropractors, anybody, pretty much healthcare providers. So I try to work hard on the SEO in those specific niches.

Dr. Mark Leeds [17:47] What kind of course is that for dentists?

Frank King [17:49] It’s a suicide prevention CE course. The heart of it is a QPR, question, persuade, refer, from the QPRinstitute.com. Suicide prevention as a workplace health and safety issue. The state of Washington mandates in 2020 every dentist, hygienist, pharmacist, chiropractor, osteopathic physician, so forth and so on, all have to have three hours of suicide prevention CE to renew their licenses in 2020. Oh, wow. And I looked at the approved providers, you know, the approved curriculum, and QPR works for all of them. Is approved by the state of Washington Department of Health. And I thought, well, hello, it’s peer-reviewed, evidence-based, and the state of Washington signed off on it. So I thought, that’s the one I’ll train on. So that’s the, I include my lived experience, my stories, of course, humor. But the heart of it is a combination of working minds and QPR, question, persuade, refer. When you sign the agreement with QPR after you’ve been trained, you have to swear that you’ll offer half an hour of q a in the three hours and then you will remain after the event and speak to anybody who wants to speak to you individually because almost always there’s one to half a dozen people who have questions they don’t want to ask in front of everybody else so and I was already doing that I was like doing q a and then you know an individual q a with people who had questions they didn’t want to necessarily I’m crazy can you help me in front of other people. And I got to tell you, because I have what’s called chronic suicidality or chronic suicidal ideation, which is a little unusual, meaning that for me, the option of suicide is always on the menu as a solution for problems large and small, which I talk about in my keynote. I tell the audience, here’s how small it can be. Car broke down. I had three thoughts, get it fixed, buy a new one, or I could just kill myself. That’s how small the problem could be. And I’ve almost every time I speak, once somebody, sometimes more than when somebody comes up afterwards, and they have that condition. And they didn’t know it had a name. They just thought they were some kind of freak because of the way they saw it. And the relief is palpable that they, you know, there’s a name for it. Other people have it. I’m not a freak. So that’s another reason I hang out afterwards. If I can reassure them there are people just like that, and I’m 62. A young woman would say to me, I’ve been thinking that way all my life. She was 21. And I said, well, me too. And she goes, I thought I would grow out of it. And I said, well, if I’m going to grow out of it, I better get started. I’m 62.

Dr. Mark Leeds [20:33] Is there a community, like a group, like an online kind of a community where people can go to meet other people that have that same condition?

Frank King [20:41] You know, that’s a good question. I’ve never seen an anxiety, a depression, a PTSD, all sorts. I’ve never seen a group for chronic suicidality or chronic suicidal ideation, I think, maybe in a DSM. Maybe I should form a group. Yeah, that would be great. On the dental side, I did a dental function, and a guy came up to me. I was wearing my National Suicide Prevention. It’s from a college I worked at. I’ve got the phone number for the lifeline. And he walks up and he goes, I think I’m here just for you. I said, well, do tell. He’s a dentist he’s a recovery alcoholic he’s been depressed and suicidal and he wants he’s got he works with like practice management he’s got 200 plus clinics dental clinics or whatever dental practices around the country 41 states that he works with he said I want to start a national dental suicide prevention initiative because is there anybody doing that and I said well you’re talking to him. We’ve got a Facebook page called Dental Mental Network, the Dental Mental Network. And so we’re going to sort of organize around that page. That’s a Facebook page. We’re probably going to do a podcast, a Dental Mental Podcast. And then I’ve got that gentleman who has a practice management company and then another dentist that I met on LinkedIn who has an interest in this subject. And so I thought, you know, it’d be great if we had on the podcast as a host, maybe a hygienist or a dental assistant, and that was a dentist. So you get two or three perspectives plus a guest, either a clinician or a dentist who has an interest in, you know, in dental and mental health. So, yeah, I think I have to look around. I’ll have to type into Facebook chronic suicidality, chronic suicidal ideation, see if anything comes up. If not, I’m going to have to start a group.

Dr. Mark Leeds [22:35] Did you read that book by, the new book by Malcolm Gladwell, Talking to Strangers?

Frank King [22:41] I’m listening to it, actually. I bought it from Audible.

Dr. Mark Leeds [22:44] Oh, yeah, yeah. That’s the way. Yeah, the audio book is incredible. I actually didn’t even read the book. I listened to it, and he did a whole multimedia production or whatever with bringing in, like, all the actual audio from different events and things. There’s a whole thing about coupling of suicide and the method of suicide. And I don’t know if you got to that part about the women putting their heads in the ovens.

Frank King [23:07] No, I do know that women attempt three times more often than men, but men complete more often because rather than an oven, they use a handgun.

Dr. Mark Leeds [23:16] Apparently, they demonstrated that if you take away the way people are killing themselves, if you take away the way that they’re doing it, the method, you would think that they would just go find another way to do it. But it turns out that they don’t, that the two things are coupled together. And, you know, the rate of suicides will go down if, you know, in his example, I guess it was the gas they were using in the ovens at one time in England. But I think he’s implying that if you were to take away all the guns, that people would not be shooting themselves as often. They’re not going to just start jumping off of buildings or something. They’re just there’ll be a lot less suicides.

Frank King [23:55] Well since I can tell you what the barrel of my gun tastes like and I’ve been that close I can also tell you that yeah I would not if I didn’t have a gun I wouldn’t I probably wouldn’t do it because I’m not taking I’ve been together with some of my crazy friends and you know they’re talking about somebody who jumped off a six-story building and killed themselves and we look at each other and we go six stories man that’s that’s rolling the dice I’m going 10 at least if I can’t get 10 and I wouldn’t jump off a building it’s just too horrible a way you know you take away my gun then yeah I don’t think I would now there are exceptions a teacher in Springfield had been touching students for quite some time and they came and got his gun and the next day he hanged himself in his garage so there are exceptions but I bet you’re right my grandmother died But my grandmother died. She blew out the pilot light on the old gas stove, and that’s how she went. And then my great aunt, whose body my mother and I found when I was four years old, she used an old white type refrigerator. It’s crawled in, and that’s one of those words, once you’re in, you can’t get out. And in my first TED Talk, a little piece of dark humor, I said, what is it with my family and major appliances? I can’t even drive past Sears without tearing up.

Dr. Mark Leeds [25:20] Yeah, they say that the appeal for women was that they wanted to be found looking, you know, with a nice, neat appearance. You know, they didn’t want it to be messy when they were found or leave anything for anyone.

Frank King [25:32] Yeah, well, unfortunately, my great aunt crawled in the refrigerator and, you know, brace yourself. And she changed her mind at some point and tried to call her way out. So when my mother opened the door and I was holding onto her skirt at four and my great aunt fell out and pinned me to the floor. And of course, her face was frozen in that final moment of terror and nails broken, bleeding, bloody. It was awful. Oh, wow.

Dr. Mark Leeds [26:03] Yes. So dentists, I can see why, you know, that would be a depressing profession to be in, you know, working on people’s teeth all day. I remember when I was a student I was following for a month, I was following around this ear, nose, and throat doctor, and he couldn’t wait to retire. At one point, he just said, I can’t stand working in small holes all day.

Frank King [26:25] That is part of the problem, that and stress positions, because you’re at odd angles trying to get the right, you know, just the right whatever.

Dr. Mark Leeds [26:34] Yeah, depending on someone to hold their mouth open, you know, for an hour or whatever.

Frank King [26:38] Yeah and you know part of the problem is again the back to finances is if you’ve got that kind of you know paying making payments on every month your chance are you’re coming in early so you’re not going to the gym you’re working through lunch and you know even a half an hour a good book or a guided meditation would help in the middle of the day you’re probably working late which means you’re probably not going home and your family may be complaining because you’re not spending any time at home and, you know, it just sort of builds. Same with veterinarians, especially, you know, small practices.

Dr. Mark Leeds [27:10] It almost seems like in a lot of cases, you know, where people do have issues where they might go see a therapist or they, you know, they’re depressed over things going on, that maybe the best thing is just to walk away from everything, you know, to whether There’s a marriage or a family, parents, a job, which is not easy for anybody. And it’s not easy to tell someone that, to have someone in front of you. And I might refer someone to therapy and tell them, maybe you need to see a psychiatrist and a psychologist. I’m actually thinking, well, maybe you need to quit your job. And I don’t know what else you can do, but I think that’s the whole problem.

Frank King [27:52] Yep. That’s why I do what I do. Well and we a friend of mine who has a young woman 30 years old muslim single comedian she’s one internship away from getting her master’s in social work she and I have a podcast called the suicide prevention punchline because of the prevalence of suicide among comedians and other creative types and we interview comedians and clinicians and other creative folks and talk about their diagnosis, how they’re living with it, how they’re coping with it. And of course, we’re comedians, so it’s funny.

Dr. Mark Leeds [28:29] Yeah, I mean, do you ever give that advice to people, or I mean, do you feel the same way, like you don’t really want to get mixed up in someone else’s life of telling them what you think they should do, even though it might seem obvious?

Frank King [28:39] I try to avoid the shoulds. I try just to listen more than anything else. But if it’s obvious, you know, if it appears obvious that, you know, I think you should just walk away. To answer your question, every now and then when it’s patently obvious how much you do, I’ll flat out tell them, you know, no, save yourself, go.

Dr. Mark Leeds [28:59] What do you think about the connection between addiction and drug use and suicide? Because it almost seems like when a person falls into drug addiction that it’s almost like an alternative to suicide. Like a person who might have taken their own life, took a different turn or made a different decision or accidentally fell into that. And I mean, addiction is almost, almost like a temporary form of death, you know, that a person might be able to come back from, but you know, I mean, do you think there’s a connection?

Frank King [29:29] Oh yeah. And I was told the connection or what this gentleman believed was a connection by a passenger on the ship. That’s talking about what I did besides comedy and of course suicide evidence that came up. And he had been in AA for decades. And he said, Frank, do you know what the connection is between suicide and drug and alcohol abuse? And that’s what I know what the obvious connection is. We’re already getting at it. He says, well, think about this. When people die by suicide, they often don’t want to die. I didn’t want to die. They just want to end the pain. And when people drink and do drugs to excess, they want to end the pain. So it’s all about, both things are all about ending the pain, the suicide being a more permanent solution. But drug and alcohol abuse may eventually lead to the same radical solution. But in the meantime, it kills the pain in the interim. That’s what I believe is the connection. It’s all about killing the pain, at least temporarily.

Dr. Mark Leeds [30:24] I think I’ve even heard that someone saying alcohol saved their life in the beginning, because if it wasn’t for the drug or alcohol, that person might have been dead by committing suicide instead.

Frank King [30:34] Well, and oddly, my chronic suicidal ideation keeps me alive because it’s sort of my superpower. I know that at any point that things get really bad that I can, pardon the pun, pull the trigger. When I write a book, the title is going to be Life in the Exit Row, Starting the Conversation on Suicide. Because I believe I live in the window seat in the exit row of life. And things get too bad. And I’ve heard other people with chronic suicidality say if it weren’t for my chronic suicidal ideation, I’d have killed myself a long time ago. So as long as it’s on the table, as long as it’s an option, then they can endure.

Dr. Mark Leeds [31:13] It must be easy for you to clean out your garage and stuff. I mean, because I was cleaning out my garage this morning and it’s really, it’s hard. You look at everything and you’re like, wow, this is really important. You know, there’s like garbage and important stuff all mixed together in the same boxes. I mean, you think like, well, if I were going to die, you know, if I were on my deathbed right now, I’d say throw it all away. Who cares?

Frank King [31:34] Yeah. There’s a woman who’s been famous with sort of a cleanup, you know, a housekeeping, like you’re talking about getting rid of things. She says, you should walk. I think she’s Japanese. Walk around the house and, you know, pick up everything, touch everything. If you touch it and it, you know, it elicits a memory or it, you know, you get a visceral reaction to touch it, then keep it. If you pick it up and you look at it and nothing, you know, nothing, then give it to goodwill or throw it away it’s often the co-occurring condition I’ve got my friend who lives with bipolar is his apartment’s full there’s a walkway through his apartment and he’s got a storage space I’ve offered many times let me fly down san diego I’ll spend a couple of nights we’ll get a construction dumpster because that’s the easiest way to get rid of stuff rather than trying to make dump runs and we’ll just fill the construction dumpster with your And you’ve got to let me decide what’s valuable.

Dr. Mark Leeds [32:28] And bipolar is really something that I think is underdiagnosed and maybe undertreated or wrongly treated. And that was actually an issue of one of the episodes of this podcast was a guy who was making a film about his wife who had passed away. And she had committed suicide and had bipolar disorder that was not diagnosed. She was wrongly diagnosed and then finally diagnosed and not properly treated.

Frank King [32:55] Yeah, it took her a while. He found a medication that works for him. It’s an old Lyme medication, Nardale. And he’s had several, you know, he’s had shrinks and psychologists over the years, and many have attempted to have him change the medication. And he’s tried some others, but keeps coming back to that one because that one, you know, that one works. So he’s fortunate in that. But although his life is, he’s just sort of, he’s alive, just kind of spinning his wheels. He’s now 64. So it’s, you know, it’s a lifestyle now. But he’s one of the smart ones. He’s one that I worry is looking for the solution.

Dr. Mark Leeds [33:35] Frank King, thank you for being on the Rehab Podcast on the Mental Health News Radio Network.

Frank King [33:41] Yes and give us a listen sometime because the suicide prevention punchline also on the mental health news radio network

Dr. Mark Leeds [33:49] Thank you for joining us today on the rehab on the mental health news radio network I hope that you have found this show to be interesting and useful if so please subscribe to the rehab podcast and share on social media I appreciate your taking the time to listen to the rehab Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.