HS Ep 8 My Mental Health Journey: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Kevin Hines:
My name is Kevin Hines. I jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. I believe that I had to die, but I lived. Today, I travel the world with my lovely wife, Margaret, sharing stories of people who have triumphed over incredible adversity. Now, we help people be here tomorrow. Welcome to the HINESIGHTS Podcast.
Kevin Hines:
RI International and Behavioral Health Link are providers of the crisis now model transforming crisis services for behavioral emergencies, RI International tends to the mental health crisis of the individuals in 10 states across the United States and internationally to provide support and care for people during the lowest point in their lives. Behavioral Health Link operates crisis call center services, dispatches GPS-enabled mobile crisis services to homes and community locations, and offers the country's most trusted crisis system software care traffic control. The time to transform crisis care services is now. Find out more at CrisisNow.com.
Kevin Hines:
As I travel the country and the globe, reaching out to military, with veterans and active duty, high schools, colleges, major universities, conferences, hospital associations, clinicians of every level, doctors of every kind, church groups and every scholastic level from fourth grade on up, the one commonality I find almost everywhere I go is that someone would approach me and say, after your speech, Kevin, I have this or that brain disease, that mental illness. But my family doesn't believe it's real. So they go to their counselor, they go to their therapist, they go to their friends and they validate their experience with mental struggles, and then they go to their family or their parents or guardians, and those particular individuals believe it's in their head, it's all in your head. It's heartbreaking. But the positive ripple effects from presentations, like the ones I give, on a regular basis, is someone's belief that they can change their lives and then them taking action to do so. Part of my presentation is talking about living with mental struggles, fighting them tooth and nail, educating yourself, exercising, eating properly, getting a good sleeping habit going, your good circadian rhythm, if you will, all of these things come to play for someone to change their life, and build a routine, a regimen like I have that allows them to stabilize to come out of this brain pain cycle, to go into treatment, to utilize an outpatient therapy of some kind. And I have been touched so deeply by the people from all over the world that tell me that it was my story that changed their life or my story that saved it. I can't own that. What I say is that an individual felt something so palpable from my speech, an article I wrote, an article written about me, a documentary I was part of, or a video I produced, and it was all of these things that came into play to lead someone to believe that they can change their own life. But I believe they just needed that extra nudge to say, I can do this, I can beat this, I can win this game alive. It's a huge responsibility when people look to you and they even explain to you or write to you, whether on social media, a letter in the mail, or a physical letter, and they say, you know, because of you, I can stay alive. Huge responsibility. And with that responsibility comes my efforts to stay above ground and never die in my hands, even though I have chronic thoughts of suicide. But if I can beat this, they can beat this. We together can beat this. It's a pretty special circle of life. It fascinates me that this one story has touched so many. One of the things I hear most often from clinicians in the field is that I will never know the true impact that this story has had across the country and overseas. I look at it like this is just my mission. I have to do this. I have to try and help people. And more importantly, I have to help myself because if I can't be stable, I can't go and travel and talk to all these different beautiful human beings, young and old people alike, all of whom consider me to be my new friends. It is my mission one I will continue in some way, shape or form for the rest of my life. That is until I die of natural causes at the ripe old age of one hundred and twelve, lying next to my lovely wife Margaret, holding her hand like in the scene in the film The Notebook that I never saw twice or cried during twice. So listeners remember your worth, that you have value and always fight to be here tomorrow and every single day after that. And if nobody else said it today, I love you and I want you to stay.
Kevin Hines:
Margaret and I love sharing stories of people who have triumphed over incredible adversity. For more content and inspiration, go to KevinHinesStory.com or visit us on all social media at KevinHinesStory or on youtube.com/KevinHines.
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