EP 7 | HER INCREDIBLE STORY OF HOPE WITH HALEY DEGREVE AND KEVIN HINES

Episode Summary

This week’s guest is the fantastic mental health advocate Haley DeGreve!

Haley just graduated college and founded her movement, The Gray Matters Collective, to promote mental health. After being bullied in her younger years, Haley has been on an amazing journey of self-discovery. She shares her coping mechanisms to avoid self-harming and how her best friend’s suicide attempt got her into educating herself and others around mental health. People that are dealing with these issues want to be seen, heard, and loved. Remember: you can always survive the suck!

Join Haley and her incredible story of hope in this episode!

About the Guest - Haley DeGreve

Haley DeGreve is the founder of a recognized mental health movement: The Gray Matters Collective.

Haley was born and raised in the Quad Cities. She has always loved it here, but things have not always been easy for her. In middle school, she experienced feelings of isolation and was bullied by peers. As she entered her teen years, she felt more alone as her depression and anxiety reached a nearly intolerable point. A neighbor friend was her one solace and confidante as they were both battling suicidal thoughts and self-harm addiction.

Haley’s friend fell deeper into depression and attempted suicide. Thankfully, Haley was there to guide her friend while still struggling on her own. After high school, Haley enrolled at Augustana College, where she was educated on mental health awareness and suicide prevention. That’s when she initiated The Gray Matters poster campaign. In four weeks, over 60 students from across the campus participated. In February 2019, the posters went live all around campus and on social media, shining a light on mental health. 

Since then, The Gray Matters has become a collective of students/community members with one goal: to empower everyday people to share love, connection, empathy, and hope to help save lives.

Source

Key Take-Aways

  • Haley always has her three F’s close: Family, friends, and faith. 

  • Bullying in any way, shape, or form can trigger self-destructive behaviors in a person. 

  • Cyberbullying is 67% more dangerous than physical bullying. 

  • Physical activity or meditation can be used as coping mechanisms. 

  • Suicide is preventable; sometimes, we have to look harder for the signs. 

  • We are always affected by the people we surround ourselves with. 

  • Sharing one’s story on social media can create a ripple effect on other people. 

Resources

  • Connect with Haley on Linkedin.

  • Get to know more about Haley on her Instagram.

  • Listen to Haley’s podcast “Surviving the Suck” on Spotify. 

Ep7_Hinesights Podcast_HALEY DEGREVE: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Ep7_Hinesights Podcast_HALEY DEGREVE: 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:
So, ladies and gentlemen, friends of the podcast, Today, our guest is Haley Degreve, and she's a recent graduate of Augustana College, where she earned a bachelor's degree in marketing and communications studies. Throughout your education, Hayley, you were inspired to start a mental health awareness and suicide prevention movement called The Gray Matters. We're going to talk all about that collective in 2019. Since then, you've spoken to many schools, events, workplaces to advocate against mental health stigma and discrimination and educate anyone and everyone to make a difference. As an active team member of Fosters Voice Suicide Awareness and founder of the Gray Matters Collective, you've been trained in mental health, First Aid USA. Make it OK, Ambassador, you are to Iowa's Healthy State Initiative and she continues to fight each day to prevent suicide. So, guys, that's Haley and this conversation we're about to have about hope, healing, and recovery from mental pain, and let's get right into it. Can you tell us a little bit to start off about your upbringing? Just a little bit about your upbringing? And then we're going to get into each of the points that you share with me.

Haley Degreve:
Yeah, absolutely! So first of all, I just want to thank you, Kevin, because I have just been so inspired by you. Honestly, I don't think I'd be doing advocacy work if it wasn't for your story. So thank you so much for having me and thank you for all that you do because it really does change and save lives. So you know a little bit about me. I grew up in a big Italian family. I love my family so much. I've been really blessed and I've been lucky to have good friends around me. I went to a small, private Catholic school all my life. Pretty much, I mean, there isn't really that much to know other than faith is important to me, family, friends, I always call them the three f's. And now mental health awareness is something that has become a huge part of my life, and it's something that I think I want to do for the rest of my life. So I'm just hoping to make a difference where I can.

Haley Degreve:
Haley, you're already making a difference. It is phenomenal to watch. I'm really glad to meet you online here. And it's so funny that you say faith, family, and friends. I always say that in my speeches, that faith, family, and friends, the three f's, help save lives.

Haley Degreve:
Yeah!

Kevin Hines:
So it's great to hear somebody else saying the same thing so naturally, that's awesome. So, Haley, you, tell us about your experience in middle school where the problems began. You went to a small private school and you were bullied. Can you break down that scenario and what it did to your mental health?

Haley Degreve:
Yeah, absolutely. You know, growing up, I never really understood that I did have mental health problems. I just remember feeling very lonely all my life. And when I went to middle school, I actually wasn't supposed to go to the small private school I was going to, but my mom actually switched us because my sister was being bullied at our public schools, so we switched over to private schools, and that's when my problems really began. You know, I was placed into a grade with, I think like 70 kids and everyone knew everything about everyone. And I just remember growing up being bullied really bad, where kids would make comments or they would say things in group chats, and I would hear about it or they would say things about me online. And I remember thinking at the time, this means that there's something wrong with me. And that was really where I think a lot of my mental health problems came from, was I was feeling very depressed. I would come home after school, shut my door and not talk to my family, my friends, for hours. And I would just feel so depressed, so anxious. And every day I remember it just felt like a pure fight to keep going. And it was really hard. And that's when a lot of my self-destructive behaviors really began. I remember I began self-harming at 13 years old, and that was something that I struggled with for a very long time. And that's even something in itself that needs more awareness because no one really talks about self-harm. No one really talks about the effects of bullying that it can have, especially on a young teenage girl, 13, 14 years old. And I really struggled with that for a very long time, and it wasn't talked about in the school that I was in. I was never educated on mental illness, I was never educated on what self-care is, how to take care of your mental well-being, and I didn't even know what depression meant. I just thought that that was something that meant that you had something wrong with you. So, you know, I've been really lucky that now I know, that's why I'm doing the work that I do today is I don't want to see these other kids feel like there's something wrong with them.

Kevin Hines:
I love that, Haley. I love that you took action after such a hard time in your life. And you know, kids are mean. They're just, here all the time, but they are mean. And given the wall of support they get, behind a computer's keyboard for anonymity, they can do and say anything they want, and they don't care about the consequences, which we know that people who are bullied are, cyberbullying is sixty-seven percent more dangerous than physical bullying.

Haley Degreve:
Yeah.

Kevin Hines:
... person's well-being and their potentiality to attempt to take their life so fantastic that you're coming out about that and doing something positive about it. Moving on to your teenage years, if you're comfortable talking about this and we want to be safe messaging here, but I want to just bring it up. You self-harmed for some time. And can you talk about that experience and how, and how unhealthy it was of an outlet and dangerous and how you didn't understand it, but you struggled on and off, and you're doing much better now. Can you tell the person out there who is still self-harming and what they can do to change those habits?

Haley Degreve:
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think for a long time, I think just in general in our society, people don't understand why self-harm is a coping mechanism for people who struggle with mental health problems. And the best way that I, I could describe my experience and I can't speak for everyone's, but my experience was that I was feeling so numb, I was feeling so empty, so isolated, and I thought that I had to take it out on myself. I wanted so badly for the pain to stop, but I also felt like I deserved pain because there was something wrong with me that if I couldn't get my life together, if I couldn't wake up every day and be happy, that there was something wrong. So I took it out on myself. Self-harm was something that was pretty prevalent through my middle school years and a little bit in high school, and absolutely no one knew about it. A lot of my family still don't know about it, a lot of my friends have no idea. And so it's something that for a long time, I felt like I had to keep it secret, I had to keep it silent. And I guess what I want to say is that if you're someone who's struggling with this, please don't be afraid to talk about it, because when you do open up and you do share your experience and your pain with other people, that only allows a space for them to enter in and to help you and to be there with you through it, and that there are so many other beautiful ways you can cope with what you're feeling with. And I guess at the time, I didn't know that there were other ways that I could cope with this. I just thought that I was so empty that I was so helpless, and that was the only way that I was going to get through what I was going through at the time. And there is hope in other areas. You don't have to do that. There are so many other things that you can do to help yourself mentally and emotionally, and I'm so glad that I know that now. But at the time, it was just something that I felt like I needed to do to get through it. And it's just not, it's not what you need to do to get through it.

Kevin Hines:
It's not what you need to do to get through it. And would you say that that you thought it was the right thing to do, you thought it was the only option, but you were wrong?

Haley Degreve:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I was totally wrong. I look back at it now, and I, you know, I just think, why would I even do that? And the place that I'm in now, I always think, why would that even occur to me? But I know now that there are so many other beautiful ways that you can cope that will help you down the road with maintaining your mental health.

Kevin Hines:
What are a couple of ways that you cope today to keep yourself from self-harming?

Haley Degreve:
So any time I get the urge, you know, because it is an addiction. And that's something that I've learned even through my experience with therapy. So any time I feel the urge to do something like that, I am someone that I value structure. And so I'm always thinking about, OK, what am I doing physically for my body that's good for me? And recently that's been running. So any time I feel the urge to do something like that, I go and I run and I just really unleash it that way. And then I also think about, OK, what am I doing mentally? Sometimes for me, that's meditation. I will go and I'll walk by the river and I'll listen to music, or I'll just sit somewhere that I feel safe and I feel comfortable, and I just totally try to get the thoughts out of my head and I try to focus on just one thing. And so sometimes that's guided meditation. Sometimes that's just sitting by the river and staring at the waves and totally emptying my mind. Sometimes that's also even coloring and just releasing that way or journaling or writing through my blog. There's been so many things that I try really hard to use those outlets instead of resulting back to that because I know it's so unhealthy. It pains me when I see so many other kids, especially my age, still doing that to this day.

Kevin Hines:
So you find great coping strategies and coping mechanisms that you can utilize that better your brain health and your physical wellbeing instead of allowing yourself to self-harm. So one of the things that Tony Robbins talks about is replacing a bad addiction with a good addiction, something that's positive that will do something good to your body, your mind. It's a hard thing to say because we don't want to overindulge in anything we do. Moderation is the key to all things in this life that are positive, that are productive, you know, eating healthily, you know, if you actually eat too many greens, you do still get sick. If you drink too much water, you could die. It's really about moderation and utilizing those tools in your toolkit to better your brain health one moment at a time whenever those thoughts arise and occur. Haley, can you talk about at 14 years of age, when your best friend attempted to die by our hands? What did that do to you? What did that do to your friends and what did it do to her and her family?

Haley Degreve:
That was something that I think I'll probably never forget, just because this person is still in my life, has been in my life for over 17 years now, I mean, we're best friends and I remember I leaned on her a lot when I was going through the problems that I was going through because they were very similar to what she was going through. She was battling some mental health problems as well. I remember when that happened, when she tried to take her life, I remember feeling a sense of guilt because I felt like maybe I saw the signs, but I didn't recognize them and I should have been there, I should have done something, and I think sometimes with suicide, whether it's suicide attempt or we actually do lose the person, everyone is always left feeling with some type of guilt because suicide is preventable. But sometimes it's so hard when you miss the signs or you feel like there's nothing you can do. And that, to me, always left a huge impact on me because I felt like I wasn't aware of it, and I didn't understand fully what we were going through at such a young age. I didn't understand the severity until that happened. So when that happened, I remember thinking, I need to do something about this. I need to step in. I need to educate myself, I need to educate other people so that we don't ever lose anyone to this because it was such a scare to me thinking that I could have lost someone who's honestly like a sister. And, you know, to this day, we still talk about it and how that's affected us. But you know, I think when it comes to our family and our friends, some of it was swept under the rug because suicide is such a heavy topic that sometimes people just don't want to talk about it. And my philosophy is if you only sweep something under the rug, it's just going to make for a bumpy floor. And that's the case with suicide. We have to talk about it openly. We have to educate. We have to spread awareness about it because otherwise no one's going to know how to intervene, how to step in in those moments.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah. So instead of sweeping anything under the rug, cleaning out the bottom of that rug, and make sure everything is out in the open, available for people to see, hear and empathize with and understand, we can recognize that across this country, around the world, there are kids being abused, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, sexually, being abused or being affected at home. It's hard with COVID-19 because they have to be home with those, those abusers, and there are a lot of people that are considering suicide because of that abuse. And we have to recognize that it's not, it's not just as easy for everyone to come out and say they're in pain because there are some households where the guardians or the parental figures, even some foster parents, are not heeding the calls of their children, or are being affected in the negligence or the maltreatment of other children. And so we have to find avenues for them to reach out as well, which is one of the best things they can do is they can text CNQR to 741741 the crisis text line, so that they have a friend that's always available on that line of counselors that gets to them within seconds. Seconds, they'll be right there to that person with someone that cares, someone that empathizes, someone that's there for you. Or you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or Crisis Line, 1 800 273 8255, we want to just put that out there just for people. And I'm going to say it again at the end of the podcast.

Haley Degreve:
Yes.

Kevin Hines:
We want to be honest and aware that it's not as easy for everyone, but that, but that if you have people that you've grown up with that have been good to you, that have been kind to you, they've been loving to you, that have been giving back to you mentally and emotionally, please, please, please, please be honest about your pain. I always say a pain shared is a pain had. If we can share our pain with someone who cares, they will respond in kind and kindness, and compassion, and we'll be given something and the ability to be, have permission to speak on our pain, if you will. So let's get on to your freshman and sophomore year of college where you heard about the death of Foster Atwood, who passed away by suicide in July of 2017.

Haley Degreve:
Yeah, the 21st.

Kevin Hines:
The 21st. So may he rest in peace, and a big shout out to his family, and we're so sorry for your loss, we're so grateful for the work you're doing now to help other kids stay here. And I know, I know it's hard and I really appreciate you coming on here and having this conversation with this, Haley, because you're going to change some lives today. Can you talk about how his parents started Foster's Voice Suicide Awareness and how you are, you are involved in their efforts. Can you break that down?

Haley Degreve:
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I remember when I heard about the death of Foster, you know, I didn't necessarily know him, I wasn't his friend or anything, but I remember hearing about it. And you know, and you talk about the ripple effect, Kevin, and I, I felt it that day. I remember exactly where I was, and I remember I was in such a dark place that when I heard about that, I just thought, there's no way this is real. There's no way that we just lost someone in our community to this. And you know, his parents, Kevin and Jamie Atwood, 9 days after Foster died, they started Foster's Voice, and I remember seeing the awareness just not even on social media, but it was in the news, it was everywhere. And I remember seeing that they took a tragedy like this and they turned it into something that is going to create positive ripple effects through the community to prevent suicide from happening again, and I remember being so inspired by that, and so whenever I saw that they did this, I wanted to do something on my campus. I wanted Kevin Atwood to come speak about the loss of Foster, and I wanted him to talk about mental illness and suicide. And so I had this event on my campus and we had around seven students show up and we were expecting one hundred. And I remember just thinking like, you know, is this just not a topic that anyone wants to talk about, is this too heavy for people and those seven people think God walked away feeling a lot better than when they came in. But I just remember, in that moment thinking to myself, I have to do more about this. I need to be more active. And Kevin and Jamie have both completely inspired me and totally really helped me, just with advocacy, with awareness. And so I joined their team this past September, and it's just been amazing. I've learned so much, I've met so many people and it's given me hope that I can still continue to thrive, even though I struggle with mental health, that I can continue to live a life that is full of joy. So they've been such a blessing, and it's just been really inspiring to me. Not only just see it in my community, but just nationally not too.

Kevin Hines:
That's amazing, Haley, and what they're doing is fantastic. I'm so very glad you're a part of it and that they're doing such great work, that's a beautiful thing to hear and see. Let's get on to your junior year of college, 2019, you put self-care, advocacy work on the back burner and as you say, you became more invested in partying, friends, and you were involved in a bad, I would say a toxic relationship. Can you talk about that because so many girls your age are going through this kind of stuff, can you break down that scenario and what you did to get yourself out of it?

Haley Degreve:
Yeah, my junior year was probably one of the hardest years of my life. Like, I said, you know, I put self-care in the back burner and I got very invested with popularity, I got very invested with image, I was in a relationship that just wasn't working for my mental health. I was becoming too reliant on other people, and I was expecting other people to fill the void that I was feeling within myself. And that included the relationship that I was in, that included a lot of friendships that I had with people around me that just weren't the best for me, who didn't understand my mental health. And that was really tough because when you're already struggling with a mental health problem, when you add on extra stressors or you add on people that just don't really understand you, or they might not know exactly how to help or their toxic behaviors involved, it starts to weigh on you. And I remember I knew that I was getting to a darker place. I just, I remember feeling it, and that's when I honestly, I remember I got on Facebook one day and I saw your video, that you did, I think with BuzzFeed and it was five minutes long. And I remember I watched it and I remember thinking to myself, I am not OK and I need to do something about this, but I didn't take the appropriate steps that I needed to and that, during that time. And so, you know, sometimes I think when you're in those dark moments, your mind will tell you that you are going to thrive in isolation, yes, but you also need to be aware of the people that you surround yourself with because, you know, especially being a woman in today's society, there are so many people who are going to take advantage of you or going to criticize you for the way that you look, the way that you dress. And so it's difficult. It's just difficult to be in today's society. But you know, if I'm going to tell you anything, it's just to have hope and to keep moving forward and to just always reach out to anyone you can. And whether that's the suicide hotline or it's a trusted friend or adult just to always try to reach out when you can and really be aware of your environment and who you're surrounding yourself with.

Kevin Hines:
Amazing advice, pertinent advice for young ladies all over the world today. You said that the Facebook, the BuzzFeed video affected you in a positive way. Can you elaborate on that?

Haley Degreve:
Yeah, absolutely. I think for me, I had never seen really anyone speak about suicide so openly, and I remember hearing you tell your story, and I was feeling a lot of the things that you described, that you were feeling. I was feeling like the world was against me, I was feeling very depressed, very empty, like there was just no hope for me. And your phrase, you know, you have to be here to get there tomorrow really stuck with me because I remember thinking, you know, there's no way that I'm going to be alive a year from now, or there's no way I'm going to get through this. And I just remember I had to sit back and think, OK, if I can be here today and if I can get there tomorrow, that's all I have to worry about. I just have to worry about today, the present, get through this now and keep moving forward. And so when you spoke about suicide and when you spoke about what you had been through and how you were on the bus sobbing and no one said a word, I felt what you were feeling in that moment because I know what it's like to not be seen or to not feel heard and it inspired me to just not want anyone else to feel that. I wanted to do something that I could educate people or help people at least feel seen, heard, and loved because I think anyone who struggles with a mental health problem, that's all you want. You just want to feel seen, heard, and loved, so that you can continue to move forward and have those support on those dark days. So that video, your story, inspired me to tell mine, it inspired me to listen to other people's stories so that together we could heal. And that was something that I really needed. And it honestly inspired me to start the movement, The Gray Matters, because I wanted community, and when it started, it was just a beautiful thing.

Kevin Hines:
Thank you for telling us that part of your story. I'm so glad the video had that effect on you and your life story. We know that storytelling saves lives. We know that I'm not saving a life, you're not saving life, but we are telling stories that get imprinted in people's brains, they go home, they do the work, they change their life and they stay here. They're saving their own lives in effect, but they're saving their own lives based on inspiration from people's voices. Now they know that their voice can be heard, that's really crucial. It's amazing how that works. There's neuroplasticity of the brain, these sticky memories of the story get in the back of their brain, they stay there, when they're going through it, they remember them and they choose life. And that's just, it's phenomenal. On that note, great segueway there, what is The Gray Matters? How did it start and where do you see it going in the next few years?

Haley Degreve:
Yeah. So The Gray Matters is my favorite things to talk about, just because it's a beautiful story. But when I saw that video of you, Kevin, I remember seeing the millions of views and all the comments of people saying, you know, this saved my life or this person telling their story really inspired me, and then people in the comments started telling their story. And I remember when I saw that, I thought, you know, what a positive ripple effect for social media, because the social media that I've only really known for me was bullying, or it was harsh. And so I thought to myself, what if we brought mental health to social media in a positive way? What if we did something that allowed people to share their stories in a powerful, yet positive, beautiful way that would help other people feel not so alone? So I met with a friend on campus, whose name is Kevin Donovan, and he is phenomenal and I sat down with him, he does beautiful photography work, and I said, can you help me create posters of students where we can put people's faces on campus on social media with a tagline of whatever they want to share with the world? And they can either elaborate on it on social media or they can just share that tagline with people. And so in a matter of five weeks, we got, I think it was like 60 students to sign up to do this, and then we had an event where we released all the posters. We released a video on Facebook and it got hundreds of shares, thousands of views and students on campus were coming to me saying, You know, thank you for doing this because for a long time, I've struggled with mental health and I felt like I can never talk about it, or I felt like it was something that just shouldn't even be talked about publicly. And so when we did this, it actually inspired a lot of other students to start having those conversations, not even publicly, but even just on their one-to-one interpersonal level relationships. And so it was really beautiful, and I didn't think that it was going to take off, I just thought we were going to have this event, the posters were going to be great, and then students came to us and they said, no, we want to continue this, we want a collective group where we can have more education, we can learn about mental health, listen to people's stories. And so we've had events where students will stand up and they'll share their story with their fellow classmates. And we've had community members come in and stand up and talk about losing someone to suicide and what that's meant to them and why you should choose life, why you should choose hope. And so it's been a beautiful thing, you know, but at the time when it first started, I wasn't really in the best place, and a lot of people don't really know that because I felt like this was something that I needed to do, and I was pouring and I was pouring and I was pouring, and I was just feeling empty at the end of the day. And so at that point, I really had to take a step back and recognize that, you know, OK, I need to take care of myself before I even do any more advocacy work because you can't help anyone else unless you take care of yourself first. So it's been a beautiful thing. Thank God I have had it because it's the movement and the collective has saved my life and taught me so much about self-care and healing that I would have never have known otherwise.

Kevin Hines:
Wow. Wow. Well, I'm really glad you started it. It's going to, it's going to really expand and do great things. I hope all over the world eventually and anything that my wife and I at the Margaret, Kevin and Margaret Hines Foundation can do to help you, we'd be glad to, help your message get out there any way we can. Can you break down your senior year? 2020. You weren't sure if you would return to campus. Your anxiety was horrible right before the year started too, your relationship ended badly, you were isolating and your mental health ... amplified, and you say, you said to me that August 28, 2019, you were fully intending on taking your life.

Haley Degreve:
Yeah.

Kevin Hines:
Can you talk about how you came back from that?

Haley Degreve:
Yeah, yeah. I left the year of last year and a on a hard note and you know, I came back to campus thinking that I wasn't, I wasn't intending to really go to school. My senior, sorry, my senior year.

Kevin Hines:
Take your time.

Haley Degreve:
It was hard because I was, I felt like I was running so fast. I felt like I was in this hamster wheel and I'm someone that I always put everyone in front of myself. And so I was doing so much to help other people that I didn't recognize how bad of a place that I was in and how much I needed the help. And so, you know, that night, I just remember I was in my room and I remember thinking, you know, there's no way I'm going to survive this. I just thought, there's no way I'm going to get through this. I was fully, you know, ready to just not be here anymore. And, you know, I think about what, what you talked about in your experience where you, you know, you said that the millisecond your hands left the rail, it was an instant regret. And I remember thinking about that and I remember thinking, I don't want to die, I want to live, but I just don't want to live the life that I'm living right now. And I remember just sobbing on my bedroom floor, and I, I didn't think I would get up and my phone rang. And it was interesting because my phone didn't ring all day and I had been there crying for a long time, and it was someone who is very close to me. And this person just said, you know, Haley, I'm driving back from work, and God just told me that I needed to call you right now. And he just said, I feel like I caught you in a bad moment because he could hear me crying. And he's like, I, I just want you to know that what you're going through, you can survive the suck, because we always have this phrase that we say, you know, you're just in the suck. And he said, I just want you to know that you can survive, you can get through this. And that few minute phone call saved my life. I remember I got up, got up and I went in my bed and I just started journaling. I just turned to writing as fast as I could, and I remember thinking, you know, you can survive this, you can get through this. And if it wasn't for that phone call, I mean, I don't, I don't know exactly where I would be. And I called a few friends and they came over and they just sat with me and just let me cry it out, you know? And that saved my life. And I, I always think about when people say that they don't feel equipped or they don't feel like they have the knowledge to help people who are struggling. And I always tell that story because I always just say, if you just check in on someone, if you just go and you don't even have to say anything, but if you just sit with someone when they're hurting, that can save a life. And so the next day, I actually got connected to professional help. I got connected in the counseling, and it was the first time that I recognized that I was in such a dark place that I needed to put my mental health first for the very first time. And I'm so glad that I did because it completely changed my life.

Kevin Hines:
And how are you today? What is going on now with Haley Degreve, and how are you coping today? And what are you doing to help other people? So break it down, like, first, how are you doing, all encompassing, and then how are you working to help other people through The Gray Matters, through surviving ....?

Haley Degreve:
Yeah. So today I'm doing really well. Yeah, it's, it's just been such a journey this year, and I'm so happy that I'm alive and that I'm living and I'm happy, and so I'm doing really well. I take self-care really seriously. I make sure that I'm connected to counseling. I make sure that when I'm struggling, I talk to my friends and I lean on my family as much as I can. So I'm doing really well right now. And I think when it comes in terms of helping people, I have to find a balance because I recognize that before I was putting so many people in front of my own well-being, and so I try to find the balance of taking care of myself, doing everything that I need to do for self-care, having a structured plan that works for me because there really is no one size fits all for mental health. I had to figure out what works for me. And so I found that and I'm doing it every day. And then when it comes in terms of helping other people, I try really hard to flood positivity through social media. I reach out to people. I literally have a list of people that I know are struggling, and every day I check in on them or I have people that I do weekly calls with and we just talk. I go on on walk and talks, when I call them with some of my friends that just need a listening ear, they need help, connect people with resources, I constantly am trying to spread the suicide hotline number to everyone and anyone just because I know what it's like to be in that dark place, and I just don't want anyone to ever feel that darkness or that pain. And if you are feeling that right now, if you're watching this and you're feeling that darkness and that pain, please, please, please know that you can survive it, you can come out on the other side, but please reach out. Please talk to someone, anyone get connected to professional help because it will completely change your life. It completely changed mine. So don't be afraid to do that. It takes a lot of courage to do it, but you'll be so glad that you did.

Kevin Hines:
Amazing and thank you so much, Haley, for all you're doing. And for those of you out there who are going to that pain, and for those of you who are loving or caring for the people in that kind of pain, remember to reach in, sometimes we can reach out, sometimes if we're unable to physically reach out, like, I couldn't reach out for the Golden Gate Bridge because I felt so alone, it's imperative that we as human beings, when we see someone in active emotional pain, whether we know them from Adam or not, that we reach in and we say, hey, how are you going? How are you doing? How can I help you? What can I do to benefit you in this moment? What can I do to get you to a better place and to be there for you in your moment of struggle? You know, we can't be there for everyone, but we can try to be there for the people we can. We can really work tirelessly, as you do, to help change the life and help augment a destiny. I want to just say, Haley, thank you so much, and we're wrapping this up, for coming on the podcast, really appreciate it. Your story is amazing. Your efforts are going to change so many people's lives. I'm sure around the world, keep on keeping on, keep on doing the great work you're doing. And I want to just turn this over here, I'm going to wrap this up by saying you are beautiful just as you are, you are intended to be here until your natural end, suicide is never the solution to your problem, it's the problem. Be here tomorrow and every single day after that, you are valued, you are loved, and you are worthy and you're supposed to be here. Hayley, thank you so much! I really appreciate your time.

Haley Degreve:
Awesome. Thank you so much.

Kevin Hines:
Thank you Haley, be well, be here tomorrow, OK?

Haley Degreve:
You too!

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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Margaret Hines