Episode 18 – Combating the silence around suicide with Dennis Mackenzie

MIND BEYOND THE MISSION EPISODE 18: COMBATING THE SILENCE AROUND SUICIDE WITH DENNIS MACKENZIE

Brian

So you found our podcast. We are Mind Beyond the Mission. This is a podcast about Veterans and their Families and specifically mental health. What goes on in our lives? What goes on in our heads? We’re not talking to you as doctors or professionals. We’re talking to you about living with it and what it’s like. Brian Mckenna, 19 years in the Canadian Forces. I’m joined by my partner, Laryssa Lamrock.

Laryssa

I’m a Veteran Family member. I’m a proud military brat. My husband served in the military. Proud military mom. And we’re really excited about this podcast to delve into issues that are important to the Veteran and Family community.

Brian

So join us as we talk about mental health from the perspective of Veterans and their Families.

Laryssa

Dennis Mackenzie is a Corporal (Ret’d) from Bonshaw, Prince Edward Island who lost 10 friends while serving in Afghanistan. Since then, he’s lost many more to suicide. He’s now on a mission to talk about and create awareness around suicide, suicide prevention, and to make sure that we honor and remember those that have died by suicide. So we will be talking about suicide today, obviously, and we just want to encourage people to listen with care. And if you need to speak to someone following this episode, during this episode, dial 988.

Brian

Dennis, it’s good to have you here, man.

Dennis

It’s good to be here. Thanks, Brian and Laryssa for having me. I’m really excited to have this conversation. I mean, as excited as one can be for a conversation like this, I’m excited to see that it’s, it’s something that we are talking about and and, getting out there.

Brian

You know, I find even as we’re starting this conversation, I’m sitting different in the chair. I’m sure my voice is different than normal. I want to have this conversation, but I’m nervous. I think I’m nervous because it hurts so much. You know? Yeah. There’s bad news and then there’s worse news. We all get bad news in life.

When you hear that you’ve lost someone and it’s suicide that’s the cause, for me, it’s got a different level of pain to it and, and I struggle with that. And so I think even for us, you know, we want to have bold conversations. We want to have tough conversations. We want to have this conversation about suicide in the Veteran community. Even I’ve been nervous about having it. And, I wonder, are you feeling that?

Laryssa

Yeah, little bit nervous and anxious, and I’m sure it’s going to dredge up feelings for all of us. Unfortunately, way too many people in the Veteran community are touched by suicide. But as you said, Brian, we want to have difficult conversations. I think it’s necessary to talk about suicide. And so, yeah, really grateful, Dennis, that you’re here to talk about it today. Can you let us know a little bit of your journey, what brought you to having the courage? I’m going to say, having the courage to have conversations about suicide and create awareness around it. You’ve done a lot of work. But what brought you to this point?

Dennis

I guess it would just have to be getting sick of losing people and not being able to have an open conversation about it, trying to discover through my own means of if my friends die by suicide, if it was other causes. It really, for me, it’s I was having too many shadow conversations, conversations in the dark that were just uncomfortable, and I wanted to get them out of the light. I want this conversation to be something that is accepted and is not so awkward to talk about. I mean, we’re all sitting here wanting to talk about it, but it’s still awkward, and it’s still it still has its stigmas. And it’s this is what I really want to break down is this sensation, this feeling. I want to be able to openly be told or talk about, yes, my friend died by suicide. And that not changed the way anybody perceives that person, anybody in that person’s life, anybody around that person. I want this to just be able to be talked about.

Brian

Yeah. I can think back to a moment for me when I was actually deployed, but one of one of the troops in my platoon was not. And we lost him. Yeah. We lost him to suicide. And when I first heard that he had passed away, that hurt, but I didn’t hear details. I didn’t know how. And, honestly, when you’re over there, you didn’t have time to hear how.

But I could tell something was different. When people die by other means, the ones that we are more used to hearing in life, you know what the military community normally does. You start hearing about, well, who’s on the bearer party and when’s the service and, you know, there’s 3 Padres in our area. It’s start figuring out who’s going to do it. You know what’s happening. You recognize that process. People die. And I didn’t see that happening.

So that was the first indicator in my mind that, you know, this is a different one. But it took phoning home and speaking with my wife at the time, and she broke the news to me. And it hit me harder than hearing that we lost him. And we’ve lost many others since, but that was my first real taste of it. And it was harder than knowing that he was dead.

Dennis

Yeah. I agree. Similar situation. It’s harder to believe even that it has happened. I remember there was one of my friends who took his own life. His name was Jamie McMullen, and he served in the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR). And the way I found out about that, I was on a base gym in Gagetown. And after I had come home, I came into the driveway and my partner at the time — I smoked cigarettes at the time as well — she stepped out of the house and said, “Here, light this.” And then she said, “Jamie took his own life. He’s gone.” And it was it was a disbelief. It took me so long to believe that he was gone. I had to make multiple calls, not just one. You know, he and I just months before were groomsmen together at one of our best friend’s wedding.

So I had to confirm with him, and still I couldn’t believe it. And I had to confirm this through many checks before I could actually accept it because this person was happy in my head. This person was loving in my mind. And just to try and accept even that this has happened is a whole different kettle of fish. It’s a whole different experience.

Laryssa

Yeah. I think people try to rationalize things, right? We’re as human, human nature.

Brian

Yeah. They try to make sense of what you’re doing.

Laryssa

Sense of things. And so when we hear about those other type of losses, whether it’s combat, training, deployment related, illness, accidents, that helps us rationalize. For me, it’s harder to rationalize just what you’re saying, Dennis. You know, we just talked to this person yesterday. This isn’t rational. How could this be happening? It’s harder for many of us, I think, to process and so many complex emotions that come with that. Not only are we processing our grief, we might be processing guilt. We might be processing anger at the person, really.

We might be processing a whole layer of things. And maybe part of what makes it difficult is, do we grieve suicide collectively as a group as much as we might grieve the loss of, for example, soldiers that we did lose in Afghanistan? We grieved as a nation, really, for those losses. When it comes to death by suicide, do we come together to grieve that in the same way? And so maybe that makes that process more complicated for us too.

Brian

I don’t know. I think sometimes there’s other categories of it. There’s no good way to lose a friend. But I know when we’ve lost people due to training, that hurts in a different way than combat. Right? Yeah. We understand combat. We’re up against them, they’re up against us.

It’s not easy, but it’s pretty simplistic to understand the concept of what’s going on. I think for this, though, I don’t understand what’s going on. And I think that’s what adds confusion and pain at the same time. You know, one thing I wanted to ask you, because I’m pretty sure I know the answer, but I want you to walk through a process here for me. What you go through when you hear we’ve lost somebody and you don’t hear any details. Like, this person has passed away, and there’s nothing else to follow about how and what and where and why. Where’s your gut go if it’s a service member or Vet?

Dennis

It instinctually now goes to suicide, unfortunately. As soon as I see or hear died suddenly. That one does it for me every time now because it started with our friends in their twenties into their early thirties. Now it’s starting into forties, and it’s still every time that’s the assumption, and I hate that that’s the assumption. But then what happens is I have to start digging and start asking because I can’t just leave something like that. This is something that is near and dear to any of us that served overseas.

I mean, I’ve had my own bouts of suicidal times where I was very, very low. And so for me to feel like there’s still something out there that can get me too, it’s something that needs to be known. I need to know these types of things. And, I mean, that’ll always come with, like you mentioned, Laryssa, the extra feelings of guilt. That’s a big one. I mean, there’s never one person that I’ve lost that I haven’t said, “What could I have done?”

Laryssa

Right.

Dennis

I’ve lost, you know, from acquaintances right to my closest friend at the time, and that’s where it always goes. But that is still better than the unknown.

Brian

It’s something I went through many years ago when I went through my own relationship with violence. And I think, you know, when you go through military training, we teach you, you know, close with and destroy the enemy. That’s not the same as look after yourself. Right? Those are two very different things. It’s not self-defense. We’re doing this with a purpose. And I think you come to terms with the fact that we all have the capacity to do violence in us, and then we choose to be controlled, law abiding people. But within that as well, I think I’ve looked at some suicides of friends of mine and wondered, do I have that capacity? I know that I scroll to the bottom of obituaries, and I’m almost happy to the weirdest way to hear it say, you know, donate to the kidney foundation or the heart foundation.

Not that I’m ever happy to lose a friend due to kidney failure or heart failure, but I’m almost looking for, like, tell me it’s not that. Tell me that this is going to give me a clue that, you know, it is not yet another one of my friends lost to this. And I wish I didn’t do that. I try not to do it. I did it 2 days ago. I struggle with that a lot, and I do it every time.

Dennis

Yeah. As do I. And I think that just comes back again to the needing to know something. And, I mean, you don’t want to reach out to Family too early because, you know, I’d much rather scroll to the bottom of that obituary than I’ve gotten into one very uncomfortable situation because of trying to get answers, trying to help get the word out that what is going on. And it was a little early for the Family, and, you know, I got had some uncomfortable conversations around that. And I’m still, in the end, grateful for those conversations, grateful for those moments. But it’s tough when you have to go looking yourself for those answers.

Laryssa

I want to ask a question about language. We’re talking about sensitivities and such. Even in preparation for this episode we discussed this. We tend to shy away from using the term, “committed suicide.” We’re encouraged to use terms like, “died by suicide,” “lost by suicide.” Can you tell me a little bit more about that and why it’s important for us to be conscious about the language that we’re using?

Dennis

Absolutely. The word suicide isn’t so much… I mean, it’s a tough word, but it’s not so much the tough part of the sentence. It’s when we refer to the act as committing suicide. Because years gone by, the act of suicide was considered a crime. You were not allowed to attempt to take your own life. And that term has stuck, and I feel just by allowing that term to continue, the committed term, it helps add and continue with the stigma. Die by suicide, fully acceptable.

I mean, the word suicide is what it is. It’s just that we’ve still maintained the level of shame by continuing with acknowledging it as something that shouldn’t be done, something that we don’t agree with being done, then we keep that level of shame. And it’s an odd paradox that I sometimes refer to and point out that if you go back to ancient times in Japan, a samurai would take their own life to save their Family’s honor. That was an honor as opposed to being killed on a battlefield. And now we look to where we are today, and we can’t even talk about someone who was so damaged and so alone feeling that they took their own life.

Brian

You know, and there are militaries out there across the world where they still aren’t talking about this, but they record situations of young, very healthy men, young, very healthy women that die of heart failure. And there’s all kinds of ways that this is still swept under the rug. And I’ve also encountered Family situations where they didn’t want the investigations to go forward and things to this nature. So there are all kinds of other layers of complication for it. But one place I’d like to go both in this conversation but with this topic is I think we’ve got to get past, you know, “My door is open.” Like, great. My door is open. Now someone walks through it.

Now what? Right? I look at it this way: we’ve also if we’re going to make our door open and say you can approach me, well, then we have to be approachable. Right? So we have to turn, in my opinion, to certain core people in our lives and go, you’re actually allowed to call me out on stuff. And that has happened for me a couple of times in life is those core people have said, well, you know, remember when you said I’m allowed to do this? Brian, you’re driving like a maniac these days. Brian, what’s with the 5 glasses of wine instead of 2? And I don’t know if that’s a solution. I don’t know if that works for the next guy. But I do think that’s something we have to do in the accountability space is like, okay, yeah. Guys can come talk to me, but what do I do to make myself approachable, helpable?

Laryssa

Denis, we’ve touched on stigma and you are doing a lot of work to reduce that stigma. You speak openly about suicide, suicide prevention, the impact on you personally. So since you do put yourself out there, as Brian is saying, do more people come to talk to you about suicide?

Dennis

Absolutely. Just by the language and any time that I’ve been anywhere in public and spoken with an audience of anywhere from 5 to over a hundred, there’s always somebody, at least one person, usually even through the military connection. But through suicide connection, I mean, if we’re talking about our general public, it’d be tough to find anyone in the world that isn’t touched or hasn’t been touched in some way by suicide. And it’s always the same. It is, you know, a thank you for bringing this forward. Thank you for making me feel like I can talk. Thank you for talking to me about it. The easiest way to connect and have people connect with you is through vulnerability, by being vulnerable yourself and by being able to say that I have dealt with this.

This is something that’s very relevant in my life that I’ve lot a lot lost a lot of people at this point to suicide. And it’s unfortunate, but it is a connector. And to be able to be vulnerable with someone and then some you know, even grieving. Like, if you grieve over a topic with anyone, the the connection, the, you know, what you’re able to then accomplish. I’ve accomplished more for my own mental health through a conversation with a stranger than through 10 years of therapy just by connecting on a topic like this and feeling understood.

Brian

When I think back to the darkest thoughts that I went through, if I had to summarize it, it’s almost a feeling of futility that things won’t get better. And I think then, for me, the anecdote to that is, like, well, what is getting better? You know, almost a military left foot, right foot mentality. And where I bring this up is, like, do organizations have a plan to combat suicide? Well, they might have a a suicide plan on paper. But I would say that if you’re working on the activities of daily living for our community, if you’re helping clothe people, feed people, have them realize that next week, there’s a reason to be there. Working on their purpose, meaning, and identity. Getting rid of that feeling of futility, you’re working the suicide file. So that is essentially my best foot forward on the subject is if you can do things that help the Veteran community in any of those aspects of their lives. Those are things when they go negatively, they march person towards that spot, while here’s how we bring them back from it.

So are there people out there actively working on, you know, directly in the crosshair, we’re working on the suicide file? Maybe that’s hard to find, but I would say the Veteran food banks are doing a lot. Right? I’d say the guy that tried to help someone in a in a housing situation is doing a lot. And so that’s kind of my aspect to it. And I don’t know if that works. I don’t know if that’s actually scientifically sound, but I think that anything that makes people realize that tomorrow is worth it and the week after could Brian, and the months after that, purpose meaning and identity and the activities of daily living, you’re helping Veterans with those, you’re helping the Veteran suicide file.

Dennis

I mean, the reality is not everybody comes forward saying I’m suicidal, and most people don’t. So to like you had mentioned before, say our door is open. If you’re just waiting for someone to come to you saying, listen. I think I’m about to kill myself. Can you help me? I can tell you I’ve lost a best friend who did not do that. That doesn’t happen. That’s not the traditional there are signs and they’re just reaching for help. And to touch on that story, so good friend of mine, he was my best friend at the time, George Curtis, he’s a Veteran.

And he and I were actually working on things for this together. The very first public video I had ever made was a very short video entitled, if I take my life. And I can share it with you so that you can you can share it with listeners as well, and it was only, I think, a 32nd clip. I think there was eight, nine different Veteran faces we were cycling through. And the message of the video was, if I take my life, please talk about it. Mhmm. And this video got quite a bit of attention. It had a lot of views very quickly and took a lot of steam.

And George and I were working on this type of thing together, and even our last conversation was about this. But 3 weeks into this campaign, he took his life. I had no signs. I had no warnings. And so this is what I mean. We’re we’re working on something, trying to bring it to light, and he quietly takes his own life. So to think that we can wait for someone to come through our open door saying, I’m at the edge and I need you, it’s just not going to happen. We’ve got to find ways of setting the markers a lot earlier, the warning signs a lot earlier for us to be a lot more vigilant on each other and knowing what’s going on.

And, I mean, it’s tough in today’s climate. It’s tough living these days. Everything’s going up. The prices of things are going up. We’re also worried about ourselves that it’s not always easy to have the foresight on other people.

Laryssa

Something really important that you said that I really want to emphasize because this is such a difficult conversation, and I’m sure each of us are scrolling through memories, people that we’ve lost, like, in the moment, and and that guilt piece can be difficult for those left behind. What you said that I want to emphasize is that there’s not always warning signs. Wouldn’t it be easy if we could just give you the checklist, check-in with your buddy, hey, here’s a to z. Let’s go over this. It’s not that easy. There are not always warning signs, and I think that it’s important for people to understand that whether we will always understand. We were talking about rationalizing it. We might not always know why.

We always want to know why. We might not ever. So I just wanted to reemphasize what you had said, Dennis. I think that’s really important.

Brian

One thing I want to put out there is that, when someone joins the Canadian Forces, there is screening on the way in. So I’ve heard a lot of arguments in the public space about, you know, well, is the rates of suicide in the Canadian Forces and the Veteran communities at higher or less than the rest of the public. And, well, I don’t care. I don’t care if the number’s higher or less. It’s awful is what it is. That’s a good enough number for me. I think of it this way. It’s like even if someone makes the math argument and says it’s the same, it’s not the same, by the way.

But even if they say that we have specifically taken people out of society and screened them medically to come into the Forces. We have put them in this team. We have taught them how to basically have teamwork and friendship situations that are over and above what the rest of society has. I mean, what are we selling? Are we selling you a place to go rappelling and shoot guns? Maybe. We’re not selling dental care. We’re selling the team. Right? When we sell you on a life in the forces, however long that period of time that you choose to serve is, we’re selling you on the brotherhood, the sisterhood, welcome to the team. So we’ve put a lot of things out there for this person to screen that they were okay to come in and to give them a lot of supports while they’re in.

So doing the job is so difficult on some of these people that despite those aids, they still wind up walking down this path. And that’s why I’m never going to worry about the numbers in so much as some well, is it higher or lower in Newfoundland and BC? Who cares? If it’s my friend, it’s the worst thing in the world. And I think that’s a lot of it, and it’s part of why this conversation has taken us months to actually pull off. It’s not because we didn’t want to do it. It’s because it’s so testy, and it’s so hurtful. It’s just the worst way to lose somebody. It really is. You know, we lost my home unit lost a guy from a training accident a couple of years back.

That was really stunningly hard. And that hadn’t happened to us in decades. And I felt that one worse than the combat deaths. And I felt that one worse than, you know, heart attacks and regular life scenarios. What the worst ones for me are suicide.

Laryssa

I’d also like to acknowledge we’re talking most specifically right now about military members and Veterans. It is unfortunate that Family members experience suicidality on a number of different kind of facets as well. Unfortunately, during my time providing peer support, I had Family members attempt to take their life and take their life. And, you know, there’s a lot of unique stressors from from this kind of culture, from this calling, and also the Family members supporting Veterans and military members who are suicidal, that has its own kind of impacts and is extremely difficult. And I think that might be the whole other podcast, Mackenzie, that we have you back for. But I did just want to acknowledge that, your Family members can experience that as well and unique, yeah, impacts to friends and Families. I’m going to switch it for a second just because I want to lighten it up a little bit for a second. I mentioned to you, Dennis, in preparation for this episode, I stalked you online a little bit.

And what was apparent to me, I think probably from the first time I met you, we’ve had a few interactions on different conversations or projects that’s going on. I I got a chance to finally meet you in person. It doesn’t take long for someone to learn what a compassionate person you are, and I really do admire that about you. Thank you. And one of the reasons why I personally felt that you were the right person to have this conversation with. But, in doing that stalking, I found out that, that compassion extends beyond people. You’re pretty compassionate toward animals too, a seal story and an owl rescue story.

Dennis

Yeah. I’ve been pretty connected with animals my whole life. The owl was really interesting. We were I was just driving my kids to, a basketball practice one day here in PEI. As we were driving to practice, an owl came trotting across the road. I hadn’t even seen an owl in so long. So it was clearly injured, couldn’t fly. And I turned around and it was only still halfway across the road, so I stopped behind and almost got rear ended doing it, but was able to stop behind the owl so we could get across.

And actually, I had to track it through the woods for a little while in a pair of crocs in the winter because I was only heading to a gym. So, yeah, we were able to I had my kids with me. It was a beautiful experience. We were able to get this owl, bring it in, and actually take it over to a place in Nova Scotia called Hope For Wildlife. That’s a wildlife sanctuary over there, and they were able to take it in. But, yeah. A seal. There was also a seal when I was young.

My mom rescued a seal, so I guess that’s probably where I got it from. And we we had this seal in our home for a couple of months, feeding it and raising it until, we took it to the the vet college. They would finally accept it. They wouldn’t take the seal at first, but, they accepted it, and they took it, and it was released. It was, you know, brought back to weight that it needed to be, and it was released as a baby. But, yeah, it’s something that’s always been around me. I have a crow that pecks on my windows every day for the last year now. So we’ve always got animals around in some capacity.

Brian

So one of the things that’s happening right here is this been a tough conversation. Mhmm. But one of the ways that it’s really healthy to end tough conversations is to do things that, bring up inspirational life, bring up things that put a smile on your face, and also bring up things that bring you back to the room and the space that you happen to be in. Right? For me, a lot of the difficult things that happened to me happened in other countries.

So one of the great things that helps me ground myself and come back into reality out of tough conversations is to remind myself that the, Canucks won last night. That, this table is white, that I’m working with my friend, that I get to speak to you, and that I’m actually here, happen to be in Ottawa today. And all those things, whether it’s touch, smell, sound, that can remind me that, you know, you’re in you’re in a studio in Ottawa, and the thing that’s bothering you in your mind is 13 years ago. That’s a technique that’s worked well for me. And, also, things that have got me through tough moments in the past through those dark days is what you just walked us through.

Laryssa

Mhmm.

Brian

Talking about things that, you know, you’re not lying to yourself when you tell yourself something that brings you joy.

Laryssa

Mhmm.

Brian

But you might be reminding yourself of something that you’re glossing over at the moment.

Laryssa

I think that’s a great segue to talk about a little bit of work that you are doing, which I don’t know if I can say it would bring you joy, but I know it’s a passion for you, is how you’ve taken your passion for music. I’m assuming that music brings you joy and how you have kind of intersected that with the losses that you’ve experienced. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Dennis

It all kind of came about organically. I was just in a bit of a well, not a bit. I was in a low point. I was, trying, you know, all the different modalities of healings and therapies and struggling quite a bit. And I was fortunate enough to get connected with a medicine woman in New Brunswick who works with psychedelic therapies. And it was a psychedelic assisted therapy that had first opened the door to a project I started called the Guardian Angel Platoon. During this treatment, I saw things totally different. I came to peace with the loss, even those that I lost to suicide which I did not think would ever be possible.

I was able to see them. I was able to understand that they’re still out there helping. So that led to an actual a dream state that I had seen the Guardian Angel Platoon, and that segued to a song called, “The Guardian Angel Platoon,” and into a full album that is all based on my military experience and my loss. And, and it was the whole creation didn’t really have an end state or an end goal. It was just something I wanted to do, but since has been so healing. And it’s so much more than just the album itself. It was the healing. It was the, you know, the live performances, and that’s where the conversations would spark and so many other people that were in similar situations.

But I’ve since been continuing to use music and write songs as a way of getting out what’s in there. You know, it’s nice to be able to not necessarily mask your feelings, but to put your feelings out in a way that people really not only accept, but enjoy.

Brian

Right. How are you feeling right now? We’re wrapping up the conversation. How are you doing?

Dennis

I’m feeling good. Gotten a bit emotional. I’ve definitely had some feelings stir up, but that’s what these conversations are meant to do. Feelings aren’t a bad thing.

Brian

Five hours from now, if that changes and you’re not feeling great, what’s your strategy?

Dennis

I’ve got such a good tight knit Family support around me. I try to be very open to the best that I can. I’ve got friends. I’ve got activities. I’ve got my guitar. That’s usually the first. When I first start slipping, I’ll probably sit and play guitar for 5 hours straight just because it’s not like it’s a magic serum, but what it does is it puts me present.

It puts me grounded, and it puts me right here in this moment doing something that I enjoy. And if I’m not present, I can’t really play the songs. I can’t remember the lyrics even. I can’t remember the chords, but you have to get yourself present just to be able to perform that that piece.

Brian

So for us, I’m doing pretty good, but I’ll I’ll be honest. Like, it’s been one of the tougher conversations. I’ve spoken about people. I’ve left their names out of it, but I’ve seen the faces as we’re talking. As we’re talking, I’ve seen, you know, different parts of funeral services, and those things are tough. I’m doing relatively okay, but if down the road I’m not, we’re probably gonna have dinner tonight, with some of our colleagues. I’m definitely phoning my kids. And if I’m still troubled by this in the morning, you’ll hear from me.

Dennis

And that’s it. I feel like we have now opened something, That we have started a conversation together, and I feel comfortable to speak to both of you now to say, like, I’m feeling something.

Laryssa

Thank you both for being vulnerable, feeling the same way. You know, it is, of course, made me reminisce and processing a lot of emotions, and we’ll definitely be tapping into some self-care strategies. But thank you both for that We don’t often mention it in the podcast, but, we will have We don’t often mention it in the podcast, but, we will have resources listed in the description. We’re going to put some connections to some of the work that you’ve done, Dennis, for people to become more familiar, and please continue to have the conversations.

Brian

Thank you, Dennis, for joining us today from Charlottetown. Thank you for all the other volunteer professional work you do in the space, and this has been another episode of Mind Beyond the Mission.

Thank you all for joining us on another episode of Mind Beyond the Mission. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mind Beyond the Mission.

Laryssa

If this conversation resonated with you or helped you in any way, I encourage you to subscribe to Mind Beyond the Mission wherever you listen to your podcasts, so you’ll be the first to know when our next episode comes out.

Brian

If someone who might relate to what we’ve shared or could find it helpful, please feel free to send it their way. We’re all on the same team.

Laryssa

Plus, we’d love to hear what other topics you’d be interested in us exploring in future episodes. Brian and I have a lot of ideas and subjects we plan to dive into, but you, the listener, have probably experienced or thought of topics that haven’t crossed our minds yet.

Brian

Please reach out if this is the case. We’re on social media at @atlasveteransca on most platforms, so please feel free to tweet at us, send us a message, or leave a review on this episode, and let us know what else you’d like to hear us talk about.

Laryssa

Brian, it’s always a pleasure having these important conversations with you. Looking forward to next time.

Brian

You bet, Laryssa. Take it easy.