Monday, May 23, 2022 • 44min
A Compassionate Conversation on Suicide with Dr. Katie Gordon
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We are honored to welcome our next guest, Dr. Katie Gordon, licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in cognitive-behavioral therapy to the show for "A Compassionate Conversation on Suicide."
Prior to working as a therapist, Dr. Gordon was a professor for ten years. She was recognized as an Inspiring Teacher for her classes about psychopathology, empirically-supported therapy, and cultural diversity. Dr. Gordon is a mental health researcher who has published over eighty scientific articles and book chapters on suicidal behavior, disordered eating, and related topics. She co-hosts Psychodrama Podcast, blogs for Psychology Today, and shares mental health information through her website, kathrynhgordon.com. Dr. Gordon's first book, “The Suicidal Thoughts Workbook”, was published in July of 2021.
Join Karin and Dr. Gordon to discuss statistics on suicide, the risk factors for suicide, safety plans for those at risk, compassionately validating the emotional components of suicidal thoughts, skills for clinicians and supporters, and toxic societal messages.
Learn more at https://www.karinlewisedc.com/podcast/episode101
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Karin Lewis
00:03
I'm Karin Lewis and welcome to Recovery Bites, a show that gets real about recovery, where we welcome voices in the field and voices of experience join me for candid interviews with experts in eating disorder in mental health recovery, listeners can look forward to new perspectives, meaningful conversations, diverse connection and compelling personal narratives that make a powerful difference in how we live.
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00:34
Episodes focus on life beyond recovery, the good and the not so good. The successes and the challenges and the authentic accounts of recovered lives, not their whole story, just bites.
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00:55
All right, everyone, here we go. This is an incredibly sacred episode, and I want everyone to listen and pay attention. My guest for today is Dr. Katie Gordon, and we talk about the subject of suicide and eating disorders. It's very important it needs to be discussed, and I just want to jump right in. Here we go.
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01:26
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Recovery Bites. I am incredibly honored, and I'm excited to have our guest on today. It's a tough topic and one that needs to be brought up. We're going to be talking about eating disorders and suicide. And I'd like to welcome all of you to Dr. Katie Gordon. Katie, welcome to the show.
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Dr Katie Gordon
01:53
Thank you so much for having me on. I'm a big fan of your podcast. I really appreciate this opportunity.
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Karin Lewis
01:60
I am honored to have you on. This is a difficult yet very necessary topics. So, Katie, can you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and then we'll we'll jump in.
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Dr Katie Gordon
02:12
Absolutely. I'm a licensed, clinical psychologist and
Fargo
, North Dakota
. And for about the past three years, I've been working in women's health and and doing therapy and also doing some research on disordered eating and suicidal behaviour. Prior to that, I was a professor for 10 years doing research in the same areas.Share
Karin Lewis
02:35
You know, one of the reasons why this conflict, well, many reasons why this conversation is so important, is that it often is unreported how somebody dies from an eating disorder and it is often suicide. I want to read some statistics, and then we can we can jump into more about what's what's going on in the psyche with somebody and things like that.
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03:01
So, between 20 to 43% of those with anorexia nervosa report current suicidal ideation. Clients with anorexia are also 2 to 9 times more likely than peers than their peers to attempt suicide. One study showed that patients with anorexia were 18 more times likely to die by suicide than in a comparison group.
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03:29
Between 15 to 23% of those with bulimia nervosa report current suicidal ideation. Lifetime suicidal ideation is between 26 38%. Amongst clients with bulimia nervosa, female patients with bulimia nervosa are seven times more likely to die by suicide than females in general population.
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03:57
Current suicidal ideation among patients with binge eating disorder or other specified feeding and eating disorders is estimated between 21 to 23%. One study has shown that patients with binge eating disorder were five times more likely to have attempted suicide than peers without a study found that patients with other specified feeding and eating disorders were four times more likely to die by suicide than gender age matched peers.
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04:32
I want everyone to know I do not normally read statistics. This is critical because it is not talked about. Katie, what are your thoughts just from starting there?
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Dr Katie Gordon
04:46
I think that I'm glad that you shared the statistics because they are jarring and they're alarming. And that's important to feel that way because I think that it's underappreciated how heartbreaking and distressing it is to cope with an eating disorder that so many people get to the point where they feel like the only way to escape the pain would be to die by suicide.
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05:11
And so I think it's really important that we're aware for our loved ones that were aware as clinicians, that we're just aware as people that elevated risk is there so that we can be attuned to it, understand it and have compassion for it.
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Karin Lewis
05:27
I think when you talk about elevated risk, the first thing that comes to my mind is that there are so many. I'm going to say the words symptoms that go into an eating disorder that also go into suicidal ideation such as isolation in an eating disorder. People are typically isolated when they're at the point of contemplating suicide impulsivity with an eating disorder, impulsivity, inability to reach out inability like, "I'm just gonna I could just keep going down."
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05:59
Hopelessness, desperation, low self esteem, not fitting in, so I don't even know why I just rambled off that list. But it's all I can think of right now is there are so many things that go into an eating disorder that are high risk to go into suicide. What are your thoughts?
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Dr Katie Gordon
06:21
I think that's absolutely right. And another aspect of it is that the feeling of feeling disconnected or in pain with one's body. I think that often people who even who are depressed, for example and are thinking about dying by suicide, the thought of inflicting pain on themselves can be lifesaving, it can protect them. And with eating disorders, there's a lot of disconnection from the body. There's a lot of tolerance of pain and so that also can be another aspect that raises the risk for suicide.
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06:55
And so it's really sad to think about and I think with eating disorders, often people do think about the medical complications and that's really important too, but the mental health aspects to get to the point of like you said, hopelessness and isolation are of great concern too. The hopeful side of it is that those are aspects that we can help with that. If we can help people to get more connected and help them to foster more hope, then that can reduce that suicide risk for people struggling.
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Karin Lewis
07:28
You have written an incredible workbook to help people with suicidal ideation.
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Dr Katie Gordon
07:35
It's the suicidal thoughts workbook,
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Karin Lewis
07:37
One of the things you talk about in there, and forgive me if I'm not quoting properly, at the beginning you talk about a Three Step Theory approach. Can you share with listeners what that is?
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Dr Katie Gordon
07:51
Absolutely. That comes from two psychologists, Plonsky and May, and what they try to do is take suicide risk factors and get the kind of the ones that are common across people who die by suicide to help us to understand it better. So the first step suggests that people desire suicide when they're in pain that can be psychological and or physical pain and are hopeless about ever changing.
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08:17
If someone's even in very high levels of pain, but has some hope that it might change, we can tolerate it a lot more, whereas if we feel like it's never going to change, it's understandable that some people would start thinking about way to escape. So that's the first step, and it talks about suicidal desire. The second step talks about if that suicidal desire becomes more intense or high risk. And what determines that, according to this theory, is connections to life.
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08:47
So if someone feels that they have relationships or purpose and meaning in their life, even if they're in great pain, they'll want to persist on. If the pain is so high or their connections are low, where their connection to death might feel higher than their connection to life, then that suicidal desire increases. And then the third step talks about, addresses the fact that most people who desire suicide thankfully do not attempt suicide.
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09:16
And so the third step talks about who is at greatest risk for attempting suicide. And that comes from the interpersonal theory of suicide from
Thomas Joiner
and colleagues and talks about how we have a natural survival instinct that protects us from that makes us want to live and can protect many people from suicide. So it talks about a capacity for suicide and for those who are capable of dying by suicide because they have easy access to means to die by suicide, or they have a low fear of death there at the highest risk for attempting suicide. So those are the three steps in that theory.Share
Karin Lewis
09:54
I feel like I'm jumping way ahead of myself because I-I want to go back to to what's happening inside somebody's body and their soul and connection with. But for some reason, as a therapist, I'm sitting here saying to myself, "I have clients like that in my practice." How do you work with those clients that are high risk? You know, we can have them sign a safety contract.
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10:22
We can ask them if they have, you know, people to reach out to what? What do you what do you do to ensure their safety to? And by the way, we can't always. So I just want to be very clear. But how do you work with clients like that? When do you say, "You know what? I think it's time we call a loved one," or whatnot, and again, I know I jumped, but for some reason it's the first thing that came to my mind.
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Dr Katie Gordon
10:47
I'm glad you asked that, because the model is useful scientifically to guide research, but ultimately The goal is, what does this look like in practice? How can we help? And so what I like about the theory is that it does talk about that capability for suicide, and I think that that guides us to safety planning. If someone has access to a gun or pills or some other method immediately, how can we reduce that access through safe storage or by having a loved one? Hold on to it for a while or whatever it might be? Because the research shows that even removing the access to means reduces suicide risk so that safety part is important.
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11:26
It's also important to target those connections to life, to work collaboratively with the patient in a non judgmental way to understand their values, to understand their passions and how we can foster and build those. One of the sad things about eating disorders and people who feel suicidal is that they often feel like a burden reaching out for those connections, or they feel like, people don't want them around.
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11:52
And so sometimes therapy can really focus on on pushing back on some of that, and sometimes it involves, like you said, calling a loved one, bringing a loved one in and, and really showing that the person is cared for. And then if we work backwards to step one, it's so important to validate and empathise with the pain that is driving the suicidal thoughts in the first place. Because I feel that if, as clinicians and it's it's anxiety provoking to hear someone talk about wanting to die, it is very sad, and it's anxiety provoking.
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12:28
But if we can sit with it and listen and understand where the pain comes from, that alone can help people to feel like they're not alone and to feel some hope. And it also can guide where we go clinically to reduce that pain and build some more hope. And so I do think that each of those factors actually lay some groundwork for a place that can be fruitful and working together to reduce that pain and keep our patients safe.
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Karin Lewis
13:01
When, when we're talking about suicide, how do we also, I'm just going to and and I'm trying to think of like all the people that are listening to this, so I know how to bring it up in the room. I know that, if I use the word suicide, that hopefully is not going to be what triggers someone to kill themselves. I know that people are often like, "Oh, I don't want to bring it up." Family members are afraid. Friends, clinicians. It doesn't happen that way. It's not just by saying the word that the person then gets the idea, How do you guide people supports clinicians to bring it up and bring it up in a safe way?
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Dr Katie Gordon
13:44
Thank you for highlighting that I have. Many experienced clinicians have not received a lot of comprehensive training on talking about suicide. And so I think about it, as as we do with a lot of issues as clinicians, that it's important for us to explore our own feelings and thoughts about it so that we are able to kind of, override that so that we can talk directly to our patients and also understand that there is a strong foundation and research suggesting that you can't plant the idea in someone's head, that if they're not thinking about suicide and you bring it up, that doesn't mean they're going to become suicidal.
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14:25
What tends to happen is there's not much effect, except now they know that it's safe if they begin feeling that way for people who do feel suicidal, it does open the doors for saying This is an okay thing to talk about, even though it's uncomfortable for some people that you're open to that. And so there is a really great book by Stacy Friedenthal, which is specifically for clinicians helping suicidal people. And that's the beginning is just exploring our own reactions to it, understanding it. And like any clinical skill we have with practise and consultation, we can become more comfortable with it.
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Karin Lewis
15:05
Absolutely, absolutely. So where, where do you think? Or actually let me take a step back, and I feel like I'm all over the place today, so I apologize, but has suicidal rates increased as a result of the pandemic? Because eating disorders are definitely on the rise, which makes me think that suicidal, either ideation or completion, it is also on the rise. So is there any information about that?
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Dr Katie Gordon
15:38
The best data that we have is that suicidal ideation currently that we have is that suicidal thoughts and desires have increased during the pandemic, however kind of counter to what was predicted. And there are all kinds of limitations, as you mentioned before, in terms of knowing cause of death. It looks like in 2020, there was actually a slight decrease in suicides compared to the previous year. And there are a lot of potential reasons for that. There was an increase in overdoses.
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16:13
So, what we do see is this kind of an increase in distress and desire for suicide, but a slight decrease in deaths by suicide. And some of the reasons for that maybe that people felt like they were pulling together during the pandemic hope for things to change. But there are also questions about where some of those overdoses maybe suicides and misunderstood as overdoses. And so it is really difficult to know exactly. But those are what the trends looks like.
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Karin Lewis
16:44
I'm sitting here and I'm thinking right now as a clinician, you and I, and I would, I'm not saying this to ever invalidate the word suicide. It is, it is devastating, but you and I use it a lot. Like, I do suicide assessments with clients. I asked them, you know, so, so for us, I feel like we're saying the word, you and I are having this normal conversation, but for others it's not. This is like a really big, powerful, painful topic.
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17:16
And I guess my first question is, what got you into working with eating disorders and suicide? Because that is, that is a complex situation. Katie, that is, that is not, that is not easy.
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Dr Katie Gordon
17:33
I think that you're right. You kind of can get used to talking about these things. But really, my interested come from personal experience and people. I was connected to struggling with mental health problems, starting in high school, knowing people struggling with eating disorders and knowing some people in my school who attempted or died by suicide and feeling really heartbroken by that and and they're suffering and wanting to understand it better, wanting to understand how we could help people better. I went to college really interested in understanding depression.
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18:08
And what I learned once I started working in a research lab there with
Thomas Joiner
is that there were a lot of people studying depression, which is important. But there was less research on eating disorders, less research funding, going to eating disorders, same story with suicide. And then I started learning in graduate school. Oh, and they overlap quite a bit. And so to me that was really a call to go into this area that's understudied where there's a lot of suffering and that had these personal connections of people who I had known loved ones who have struggled with these conditions.Share
Karin Lewis
18:46
Why is it more, and I'm going to use the word, "Common," and again, that's not the right word, but why is it so under reported? Why is it that people that work with eating disorders know that there's a high suicide rate or or a correlation with suicide? And it's not known to others? How did that happen?
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Dr Katie Gordon
19:08
I think that there's still some misconceptions about eating disorders because it blends so much with our larger diet culture in
the United States
. And I think that some people still don't understand some of the struggling that goes along with eating disorders in many cases, and it's hard to imagine that it can be connected to such devastating pain. So I think that's one piece of it. I also think that people are still inclined to, although it's gotten much better people focusing on mental health issues over the last decades.Share
19:47
I think that medical problems still sometimes register as more quote unquote real to people. And so if they think about something having an electrolyte imbalance or having osteoporosis due to an eating disorder that sends off alarm bells and the way that suicide is still misunderstood or less out in the open or less clear to some people, that's my guess about it.
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Karin Lewis
20:13
What, what do you think, say, say I'm a loved one or I'm a support. What, what should people be looking for? How do you detect if someone that you know or you love is struggle? Because, let's also not forget that, eating disorders; and I will speak from my own eating disorder experience. I presented to the world that everything was fine, you know? And so I you know, "I'm fine." You know, the famous, "I'm fine."
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20:41
And so it's really hard to detect when someone is an existential suffering, because people, when they're in their eating disorder, protect it and they have a mask on what what should people be looking for? And if they see signs, what do they do?
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Dr Katie Gordon
21:02
It's such a great point that we can ask about it and we can try to help people and also know that creating the space for people to tell us that that's kind of the best that we can do and then understand that it's part of the struggle of eating disorders, that it's hard for people to open up. So what I would suggest doing is, if you notice changes in mood, you notice feeling less connected to life. People are withdrawing. They're not enjoying themselves as much as they used to, rather than brushing it off or ignoring it.
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21:40
Not because we don't care, but just because sometimes we worried about we worry about being intrusive or we worry about, you know, being too nosy or something like that just to check in and ask about it. You know, are you Are you thinking about suicide? I'm worried about you, and I think it's ok to ask that directly as we were talking about. And if they say, "No, no, no, no, no," and they're really feeling that way. At least the doors open to know that it's not unspeakable the next time the other part of it is when you do see these little times of opening up.
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22:11
Maybe they're not talking about suicide, but they're talking about some kind of stressor. If you can be empathic and reflect and understand them, then they're more inclined to open up again because they felt feel understood. I've also found in practise that some disclosure about times you felt bad or your struggled or you're not okay, models to the other person. We can talk about not being okay. And that can be powerful because even if they immediately don't share how they're feeling, they know. Okay, this person struggles to I don't have to keep up this perfect front.
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22:47
So, I think that those things create the atmosphere for having an opening, an open conversation and then, in terms of the next steps. What I really try to do is and encourage people to do with their loved ones. Non-judgmentally listen for a long time before jumping in, and it's going to be tempting because of the anxiety, discomfort and desire to fix things to jump in and problem solved.
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23:14
But, it's really important to listen and deeply understand what's going on and then ask, "Do you have any ideas about what might be helpful? Can I support you in those? Can I help you reach out to maybe a therapist? Can I go to the therapist office with you? Can we plan together for something fun to do next weekend?" And I think that that partnering with the person becomes important as well, because then it feels less like they're they're on their own, figuring it out, and it feels less like you're telling them what to do.
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Karin Lewis
23:48
It's right there, telling them what to do. I think what happens is as you said, we're uncomfortable. Our own self is uncomfortable with knowing that someone is suffering like this and there's fear, and so we want to fix it. Have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? And I think often what happens is that makes somebody feel more hopeless because they probably have or they've thought about it, and it's not something that they wanted.
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24:14
So it actually and, and nobody is doing this intentionally, but it adds to the shame to the fact that the person quote unquote can't figure life out, can't get past this. So, you're right, it's the partnership joining together. "I'm here with you and for you." That's it. That's the main, I didn't mean to interrupt, but that's what I was thinking of.
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Dr Katie Gordon
24:38
No, 100%. I think that that is again, you're you're right. It's not intentionally trying to dismiss someone, invalidate them or make them feel bad. And that's not something that we automatically know unless you've worked with a lot of people who are suicidal and you hear about their past experiences.
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24:58
And they're well-meaning loved ones, or maybe telling them to look on the bright side are trying to solve their problems. Meanwhile, they've tried those things, and they're just feeling stuck. And so it does. It's a practice, and it's hard to switch into the deep listening and partnering mode. But it does get easier with practice, especially when you see how it helps people.
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Karin Lewis
25:19
I also want to point out and again these are all things that people think are going to be helpful. They do not understand that that is actually hurtful. I have done family sessions where a client is feeling suicidal and say parents or loved ones have said, but look at everything that you have or look at how much worse it could be that just shame somebody even more.
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25:44
And it doesn't. It doesn't pull someone into a place of like, "Oh, yeah, you're right." I could be in war or because by the way they feel in internal war or you're right, I have had it really good. So I'm gonna just it doesn't it again, it's about listening. Just be there and listen.
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Dr Katie Gordon
26:04
That's right. And recognizing that from person-to-person, their own struggles and their own solutions are going to look different. And so I think sometimes what happens is the offered solutions again from a loving place are one size fits all, you know? Well, "I started doing yoga, and that helped for me," and that's really great, but for that person that might seem so far off. Or maybe they tried it and it didn't work. And so even the question of, "What have you already tried?" It can be so validating rather than assuming they haven't tried things.
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Karin Lewis
26:36
What, and this isn't telling somebody what to do, but I know that these are some of the suggestions in the book that you say that for to help people and I'd like you to talk about them because I can't remember all of them. But some of the recommendations are, "Can you stop and take a shower? Can you go for a walk?" You're not trying to fix the suicidal ideation, but you're trying to calm the nervous system down. What are some of the other things that you talk about that can help people?
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Dr Katie Gordon
27:06
That's right for safety. There's a big picture of things We talked about removing lethal methods, making sure guns are stored safely. All of that is really important, and then also attending to the agitation that often comes up with acute suicidal thoughts and desire. And so the idea is to pick things that really engage attention, influence a person physiologically in a positive way so that it soothes some of that intense pain, because when that decreases, the risk can also decrease.
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27:40
So as you mentioned, taking a hot shower, putting your face in cold water can sometimes kick in a diver's reflex. That kind of calms the body, doing something distracting, you know, in a lot of different therapy, we don't encourage distraction, right? We consider that avoidance, however, when someone is at a high level of agitation and suicide risk that's actually helpful. That's been shown in research to be helpful.
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28:06
So, playing a game on your phone, talking to someone, something that pulls you out of it for a bit, watching a movie that's really engaging, dancing around or singing to a song that really lifts you up. Those things can be really powerful. Getting a massage. Those things, depending on the person, can be really helpful.
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Karin Lewis
28:25
Have you, do you have, or have you noticed there's a certain demographic that's at higher risk? Is it men? Is it women? Is it non-binary? And forgive me if I keep going, bouncing all over the place as we are are recording this. There was just the bill that was passed in
Florida
that you're not allowed to use the word, "Gay" in the school systems, and so are their their sexual orientations that are that are struggling gender identities. I mean, there's so-, or is it just across the board that there's no higher rate in any any demographic?Share
Dr Katie Gordon
29:01
What we tend to see and this is true throughout most of the world is that that women are more likely to attempt suicide, and men are more likely to die by suicide. And that tends to be associated with methods that men, on average, tend to use more lethal methods when they attempt suicide and they're less likely to survive. I'm glad that you mentioned the larger societal factors as well. And what we have seen is there is some research looking at adolescent suicidal desire and, for example, legislation passed that allows that legalises same sex marriage before it was nationally legal.
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29:42
And legislation like that in states where same sex marriage was legal tended to be correlated with lower suicidal rates. Suicidal thoughts, rates. So we do see that these larger picture things such as, uh, equity REITs to care discrimination certainly do influence how people feel about themselves and their hope for the future. There's also been an increased focus and looking at black youth suicide increasing in recent years, and a lot of concern about that, and some of it is tied to discrimination and unique factors that may have been overlooked when people were focusing more on adult.
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Karin Lewis
30:26
What about, are there particular medications that you generally recommend that clients try? And, by the way, I want to be very clear, there is no one, as we said, there's no one thing that fixes eating disorders, suicidal ideation, depression. So, but it's a larger picture. So looking at all pieces, are there medications that you consider to be sort of like the one that you go to first when someone's really actively having suicidal thoughts?
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Dr Katie Gordon
30:58
I'm really lucky in that I work in a medical system, and so I am able to provide mostly cognitive behavioural therapy, dialectical behaviour, therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy. But I work with psychiatrists and medical doctors who look really individualised at the medications that might be most helpful, and so I talk with them. But what I've seen is they really individualist, depending on the person, their history and their response to see what's most effective with them.
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31:29
That makes a lot of sense. That definitely does. So, where is your research going? What, what are you, what is it, where is it taking you that you know? It's so fascinating. So tell us a little bit about what's happening.
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31:45
Thank you. I am working currently on a research project that I'm excited about because it aims at understanding the our interpersonal worlds and how they are related to eating disorder, behaviours and self harm. So when people are injuring themselves, maybe not with an intent to die by suicide, but to feel better, which is related to, increased risk for death by suicide and much higher among people with eating disorders.
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32:15
And so the type of research that I'm doing looks at the interpersonal area because a lot of past research looks at other important factors for eating disorders. But that social aspect that we kind of started talking about is huge with eating disorders and suicidal behaviour. So what I have in my studies I am looking at college freshmen at the beginning of the year and the end of the year, and I'm looking at momentary. They carry kind of a tablet that beeps a couple times a day, and they report about interpersonal interactions they had.
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32:50
Did they feel lonely? Did they have a conflict? Did they feel criticised? Did they feel connected and also reports on eating disorder behaviours and self harm urges. So, did they binge eat? Did they restrict? Did they have the urge to self harm and so what?
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33:06
I'm hoping to get with that by understanding in their natural environment and getting that momentary data for a couple weeks at the beginning and end of freshman year is who is at most risk for developing eating disorders and suicidal behaviour over that critical time period where there's so much interpersonal change.
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33:25
And my hypothesis is really, that when there's conflict, loneliness and lack of those positive experiences, it's much higher risk for disorder eating and self harm with an ultimate lens for how can we intervene in those moments to help people when they're struggling interpersonally.
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Karin Lewis
33:46
Also, what came to my mind is lack of connection because freshman year. You have now, you know, some people are leaving really positive social environments that they had a large group of friends or a big family, or some people did not have a good experience in high school. So they're hoping to create this social environment. So having that, I don't want to say "No attachment," but just, "Attachment," that doesn't have a lot of depth and safety and vulnerability is probably a high risk factor.
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Dr Katie Gordon
34:24
I think that's right. My prediction is that the individuals who can find those connections or maybe are able to maintain connections at home, are going to be at lower risk versus those who are feeling kind of lost and having a difficult time connecting who left really positive environments at home. And so And I should say all of the people participate in the study to our are offered mental health referrals as well. So it's kind of weird connecting with them in the meantime, for ways to seek help.
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Karin Lewis
34:56
How long does a study like this go on for? I know you said the actual study is, is the beginning of the year to the end of the year, but how many years do you do that? I mean, studies fascinate me when when I was in graduate school, I thought, "I want to be a psychologist because I want to do all this research above." And then I was like, "Oh, it is so much work. It's just it's just not my personality," Katie, I thought, "I don't think I want to do this, but it's fascinating." How long does a study like this take?
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Dr Katie Gordon
35:25
This one is 3 years, and there will be 2 years of data collection. So we're on the first year. We're getting close to kind of getting the second the end of the year data for the first round of freshman, and then we'll do another one next year. And the third year we'll be looking and analysing the different results and running up. I'm fortunate now that the place that I work, I am able to do 50% therapy and 50% of my time devoted to research. Otherwise, it would be really hard to take care of this and fit it all in.
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Karin Lewis
35:59
Yeah, yeah, it's it's incredible. Another thing that I was thinking of, is how does social media play into the rise or decline? Unfortunately, I'm going to assume it's a rise in suicidal thoughts. I mean, this, you know, I was listening to somebody talk about something once saying that you can be, you know, parents that are, you know, limit TV time or, you know, have them sit down and have dinner with the family every night and everybody talks? But you cannot shield them from being bombarded by social media. So how much does that play into it?
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Dr Katie Gordon
36:46
I think that we're actively learning more about that as we go and you're right. It's, I think, that it's not realistic to keep people completely of social media. And there may be mental health costs to that less connecting with their friends. So really, what I recommend, and as a parent, I, I know how hard it can be is to try to guide and set appropriate limits. But to understand that images that you see can be altered and filtered and not representative of reality to try to be critical of those things, to understand basic safety and to help kids to, you know, and teenagers to stay attuned to.
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37:29
If your mood is plummeting when you're online for this long amount of time for some kids they could take or leave it. For some kids, it's going to be more connection. And for others, maybe their mood just declined. So even talking about like, how do you feel noticing and helping them to attune to that can help them to learn how to manage that? And I think that's more realistic than eliminate trying to eliminate it, and then they sneak off and do it, and you don't have that open dialogue anymore.
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37:54
A former grad student of mine actually just got a job with the social media company, and I'm pleased that it's specifically looking at eating disorder, content for safety reasons. What are the influences on people? And I'm so pleased that they're that, they're doing TikTok, and I'm pleased that they're doing that to help manage it and be aware of it and see how can we prevent harm from people as much as possible.
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Karin Lewis
38:19
It is phenomenal because we know, or I know that people struggling with eating disorders live in a world of comparison live in a world of creating a narrative about someone else's life that may or may not exist. And in the world of Instagram and
Facebook
and all these other things were only presented with these quick, perfect images and other self who is suffering puts on that picture a narrative of someone's life. Their life is perfect. They have this. They have that. So and it's, it's, it's not, it's never accurate.Share
Dr Katie Gordon
39:00
That's exactly right. I currently I mentioned I work in women's health. I worked with a lot of women during the postpartum period, and that's a place where people present, uh, they don't maybe open up as much about the struggles and the hard parts of being a new parent. And so I often same kind of idea.
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39:18
Let's take a critical eye. Let's keep in mind that you're just seeing snapshots tied together a certain way that a lot of these people are experiencing the same things as you sleep deprivation, anxiety about whether they're doing a good enough job. And so I do encourage to kind of curate mute feeds. And don't visit them as much because it doesn't feel good to compare yourself to others, or at least what they present represented as their lives.
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Karin Lewis
39:45
That's it. What they're representing is their lives. That's a perfect example of new moms who go scrolling through looking at all these beautiful baby pictures and thinking, "What's wrong with me? Because I'm scared and depressed and anxious, and I'm over tired and I'm a little cranky," and blah, blah, blah, that that's kind of universal, but you don't take pictures of it. That's not what you put on Instagram, and it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate that we've created this illusion that life is supposed to look a certain way.
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40:18
Listen, I am not wanting to go into social media because a I know very little about it be This topic is being discussed by many people, but it's detrimental. It is really, really detrimental to people's mental health and especially with eating disorders.
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Dr Katie Gordon
40:37
Absolutely. I think that there are positive connections to be made on social media, too. But it's hard to sort through what's what, because you can't tell right away what's going to be the healthy, positive connection and what's going to end up taking down a negative pathway.
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Karin Lewis
40:53
Absolutely. That is very important to point out as well. There are positive things that you can find on social media. So I'm so glad that you said that. Katie, we as much as I hate to say this, we are getting ready to wind this down. Is there anything that I didn't ask you that you wanted to share anything that you wanted to talk about before we before we close? I-I know this is such a big topic. We could we could talk for hours. So is there anything?
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Dr Katie Gordon
41:28
I just want to say how much I appreciate this podcast in the work that you do. I think that as clinicians, scientists, people with lived experience, the more we can put out accurate information so that people know they're not alone, the better. I mean, that just changes that narrative. We were just talking about where everything is supposed to be all good and perfect and not have problems. No, we're talking about. That's not really how it is. There is. There are reasons to be hopeful. There are effective treatments.
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42:00
There are people studying these factors related to suicide in disorders. There are people who really care and and loved ones out there. Want to care about you and learn better how to help. And so those are all hopeful. But we also have to talk about the real struggles that people have. So, by the work that you do with this podcast and others who are sharing that information, I really think that helps to reach people and change some of the cultural scripts that eating disorders and suicide are unspeakable or that we need to they need to be topics that are hidden and shameful.
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Karin Lewis
42:35
Katie, thank you so much. Thank you for saying what you said and truly thank you for the work that you're doing because it is, it is so important. It is so needed. The research, the clinical work you're doing. I just I want to say thank you from from my experience, from my experience of working with clients who I've, I've lost to suicide and and it happens. And so it's a very, very dear, near and dear topic to me. And I don't mean to say just because I've experienced it with clients, it's important. I'm just saying it adds an extra layer. So Katie again, thank you so much for being here.
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Dr Katie Gordon
43:14
You're very welcome. And thank you so much for this conversation.
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Karin Lewis
43:18
All right, everyone, that does it for another episode of Recovery Bites. I look forward with speaking with each and every one of you. Next time, take care and stay safe.
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43:33
We hope you enjoyed this week's episode of Recovery Bites. Be sure to visit RecoveryBitespodcast.com to join the conversation, access show notes, listen to past episodes and more. You can also find us by searching for Recovery Bites on
Apple
podcast Spotify and major podcasts streaming players.Share
43:57
For weekly episode releases you can follow us at @RecoveryBitespod on Instagram. If you're interested in becoming a guest on the show or to submit a guest request, please visit www.KarinLewisEdc.com/podcastSignup to begin the process.
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44:19
I'd also like to send out a heartfelt thank you to my producer, Jen Galvin. It is unbelievable. The magic she does behind the scenes. All right, everyone see you next week for another recovery bike. Thanks for listening.
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