(reflective music) - I think I'm here because of the people who did this work before me, and I can't thank them personally, but what I wanna do is pay it forward.

(reflective music) - We're here to get to the hope and healing of it all, but if you're at home, watching, I want you to take care.

If you are considering suicide or if you or someone you know is in an emotional crisis, please call or text 988.

(reflective music) I was an extrovert prior to the pandemic, and when you are forced to sit with yourself- - Ooh.

- And your thoughts-- - Yep.

- And your family, (participants laugh) there's something that changes in you, gets shifted.

I feel like that human experience that we need, as humans, we are not built to be alone.

That was challenging and impacted my own mental health.

- I think it really made me realize how much I love being around people and how much I love and appreciate being in-person with someone.

- And for me, personally, I know it was really hard at some points because it was like, all of a sudden, you go from your income to how am I gonna pay my bills?

How am I gonna put food on my table?

- For me, obviously they're all heavily tied into my identities, so the pandemic, obviously, because I'm visibly East Asian.

I have family members who are not from the US check up on me every day because they see the news and they're scared, what is going on, and they don't have more context or means to protect me, and obviously all the other things that you experience with the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement that pushed me to think about racial injustice, and it was just like a constant reminder and a constant push for growth.

- You are so strong.

That's like all that- - Thank you.

- As you were talking, I was like, yep.

Yep, yep, yep, yep.

You are so strong.

- I think I do have a very unique journey of starting my mental health journey very early on in my life as an elementary school child.

One of the first instances of suicidal ideation was when I was in second grade.

I think the general context was that I was being compared to my older sister, so I was mad at my parents.

So I went into my room, locked the door, and I saw an X-Acto knife on my desk, and I don't even think I wanted to do something really big.

I just didn't want to be there.

And I remember either my mom or my grandmother knocked on the door, yelled from outside.

I acted like nothing happened and I just went outside and didn't say anything, and I don't really remember when I told my parents about it, but I did a few years later, and they were very shocked.

They're actually the one who offered, do you want to go to therapy?

And I said yes.

So since then, I feel like I have the privilege to be able to go seek out therapy or ask my support system, if I'm not feeling well.

- So where do we start when world events are too much?

Where do we start to take care of ourselves, each other, the emotions, the feelings?

Any ideas?

- Being able to look at yourself and how you're personally reacting, more of like a factual point of view, is a good place to start, to realize, what exactly is going on that's making you feel like this?

I'm gonna state this.

I'm not gonna add any thoughts or feelings or judgments to it.

This is just how I am right now.

- So I think a huge one is meditation.

- Yes.

- Ooh, yeah.

- Mindfulness training.

And I know that when I've started meditating, it was life-changing.

It's absolutely, it's something that I try to do in my daily routine now, even.

Sometimes when I recognize either, whether it's anger, whether it's sadness, or whether I do feel over-the-top joy, a deep breath, feel the environment around me, and I can just feel my brain just going-- (Thready wooshes) - It started for me after George Floyd was murdered.

I have to be able to sustain my work, and me, as a person.

I'm okay with saying not interested on posts on social media.

I'm okay with not reading the news.

No is a complete sentence, so if someone starts to talk about something I don't wanna talk about, being like, nope.

That's how I keep a moat around my mental health.

- For me, it really helps when I focus on community.

Sometimes it really helps when I don't have to explain every single thing that is impacting me, because they also are feeling the exact same things right now, because they share my identities, and that just gives me a lot of empowerment and hope and support, that there are other people who are like-minded who are going to work towards the same goal.

Coming from a culture where it's much more conservative, especially when I was coming out as nonbinary, I was so scared that I was going to be shunned from the society or I was gonna lose a lot of the people that I had in my life.

But I found my pockets of community, and thankfully the closest people that I talked to at the very beginning, I personally thought it was the best way that they could react, is, thank you for telling me and this doesn't change anything.

That really alleviates a lot of the struggles that I went through because I felt like I wasn't alone.

I think I'm here because of the people who did this work before me, and I can't thank them personally, but what I wanna do is pay it forward.

I want to be part of those people who is, these are happy tears, by the way, who are going to help kids, like my 10-year-old self, who thought there was no way out, who thought nothing's going to change, that it always won't be that way.

I can't promise when or how, but because there are people fighting for you and want you to be happy and healthy, I hope that they can feel even slightly more supported.

- Community is so important, and one of the things, as a mental health professional, that we look for, whether or not someone has a support system.

If I ask someone and they're having thoughts and I'm like, what's your support system, and they can come up with no one, so I think about, well, how can we build community, especially with where the world is today?

- Rather than focusing on what separates us or what divides us, where we put our attention is going to highlight the outcome.

If we're focused on, what do we have in common, I feel like that brings people together so much more.

- I partially agree, because it is really important to look at our similarities and we can bond over those, but at the same time, sometimes we can't just not talk about the individual or unique experiences that certain people go through.

- And saying we all are human, yes, but a white human experiences life different than a Black human, an immigrant human, and we have to acknowledge the difference, and knowing that community sometimes doesn't always mean equal.

Sometimes it means that person, who has privilege, is doing more work in helping bring up these people who may not have access to be able to do those things.

- So then, again, the question then circles back to, how do we fix it?

- I think it's important to recognize, especially me, as a white person of privilege, is, I couldn't represent you guys, but I can be an ally, and it's always super important to have individuals who are part of that marginalized community be represented, but also have those people who do wanna be allies, but definitely keeping that in check, 'cause I feel like it can get out of hand sometimes.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- These are the uncomfortable conversations that we have to have to be able to create and feel safe in community.

I don't know about you, but I personally feel this conversation in my body, and if you're okay, can we take a deep breath together?

- Yes.

- Yeah.

(participants breathe deeply) - I wanna thank each and every one of you for sitting here and showing up authentically for who you are in this conversation and being open-minded to where it led us, and thank you for sharing your stories and narratives, and now that we had that conversation about community, we can go out there and try to help the world figure out, how do we do that?

It can feel as if the world is getting worse and we're not sure what to focus on.

How do we plan for the future in a time of so many unknowns?

People, now more than ever, are reaching out for extra support and tools to help navigate the stresses of everyday life.

That could be practicing mindfulness, reaching out to family, friends, community, and even working with a therapist to help prevent those feelings from escalating into suicidal ideation and self-harm.

Watch more of our discussions here, on the PBS YouTube channel, and watch the "Facing Suicide" documentary on pbs.org or the PBS Video App.

(reflective music)