Manders Mindset
Hosted by Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess, who is a Breathwork Detox Facilitator, Transformative Mindset Coach, and Divorce Paralegal.
Amanda's journey into mindset and empowerment began by working with children in group homes and daycares. She later transitioned to family law, helping people navigate the challenging emotions of divorce. During this time, Amanda also overcame her own weight and health challenges through strength training, meditation, yoga, reiki, and plant medicine.
Amanda also shares her personal journey, detailing how she transformed obstacles into opportunities by adopting a healthier, holistic lifestyle.
Discover practical strategies and inspiring stories that will empower you to break free from limitations and cultivate a mindset geared towards growth and positivity.
Tune in for a fun, friendly, and empowering experience that will help you become the best version of yourself.
Manders Mindset
81: Suicide Prevention Through Personal Pain with Elaine Lindsay
What if the most painful experiences of your life could become your greatest source of strength?
Join us as we sit down with Elaine Lindsay, the Queen of Reinvention, to discuss the raw and often hidden struggles of mental health and suicide awareness. Elaine and I share our deeply personal stories of loss and the ongoing battle with suicidal ideation. This episode sheds light on the importance of opening up about these taboo topics and fostering a community of support, reminding listeners that no one is alone in their struggles.
Elaine's story takes a gripping turn as she recounts her journey through severe physical and emotional trauma following a catastrophic accident. Multiple surgeries, pharmaceutical dependencies, and battles with self-esteem and body image are just the beginning.
We delve into the harrowing details of her medical nightmare, including a series of surgical mishaps and the discovery of a fraudulent doctor. Through it all, Elaine's resilience and determination to reclaim her life shine through, offering hope and inspiration to anyone facing similar challenges.
As we wrap up, Elaine provides empowering messages of positivity and the transformative power of gratitude. She discusses daily practices that have helped her shift perspectives and embrace life's challenges with grace.
Together, we aim to break the silence surrounding mental health and suicide, encouraging our listeners to recognize their strength and potential. Tune in for a heartfelt conversation filled with honesty, hope, and the unwavering belief in the human spirit's capacity to overcome.
IN MEMORY: RIP to everyone who has lost their lives to suicide. RIP Andrea. RIP Uncle Keith.
Important Resources:
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Call or text 988 for immediate support. This hotline is available 24/7 and connects you to trained crisis counselors who can provide support and assistance.
Listen to Elaine's Podcast: Suicide Zen Forgiveness
To Connect with Amanda:
linktree.com/thebreathinggoddess
Instagram
TikTok
Join the Manders Mindset Facebook Community HERE!
Follow Manders Mindset on Instagram HERE!
To Connect with Elaine:
Facebook
Instagram
Hey everyone, thank you for tuning in to Mander's Mindset. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to take a moment to address the challenging, heavy conversation that you're about to hear. My guest, elaine Lindsey, shares very personal experiences about her own personal struggles with suicide ideation, including the loss of her best friend to suicide when she was only 16 years old. We also touch upon my own story as I open up about my uncle's passing in a similar way. Now, these are very difficult topics to talk about and they often carry a sense of shame and isolation, but I want to remind you you're not alone. It's common for people who are struggling to feel like they are a burden. I want to emphasize to you that reaching out for help is never a sign of weakness. Life can be incredibly hard, but no challenge is not fixable and there are people who care and want to help you. Full disclosure I'm not a therapist or a counselor, but I do believe in the power of community and connection. If any of you listening to me right now are struggling or you need support, don't hesitate to reach out to someone you trust. You can also contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988. There are people available 24-7, and they offer support. I will say this too. If you are listening to me right now, you can contact me. My information is in the show notes. You can email me. You can contact me on social media. Instagram is either the breathing goddess or me and news mindset. I want you to know, if you're listening to me right now, you're not going through this alone. Whether you've spoken to me before or you've never spoken to me before, I'm here for you. When you hear me say in every single episode that I'm proud of you and I'm rooting for you, I wholeheartedly mean that as we go through this conversation, please take care of yourself and your mental health. If any of the topics feel too heavy, feel free to pause the episode or come back to it later. You're not alone in your journey and if listening to this brings up anything for you, please know you can reach out to me. You can also reach out to Elaine. Her information is in the show notes. Either one of us would be more than happy to speak with you. We are all in this together and everyone's life has value. Thank you for being here, not only here listening to Mander's mindset, but thank you for being alive. I'm glad that you exist. I'm proud of you and I'm always rooting for you.
Speaker 1:We are losing so many people to suicide every single day Two suicide every single day. According to the CDC, in 2021, suicide was the 11th leading cause of death overall in the US, claiming over 48,000 lives, and this statistic that I read blew my mind Suicide was the second leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 10 to 14 and 25 to 34. We are losing so many people to suicide daily and it needs to stop, and one of the first ways for us to put an end to this is to start talking about things. There needs to be less shame around this topic, this topic. If anything in this episode is triggering to you or something comes up and you would like to discuss it, you can reach out to me or Aline. And don't forget, I'm always rooting for you and cheering you on. You got this. Now let's get into the episode.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers and a variety of other people where your host, amanda Russo, will discuss her own mindset and perspective and her guest's mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, welcome back to Manders Mindset. As always, I'm your host, amanda Russo, and I am here today with a very special guest. I am here today with Elaine Lindsey. Elaine and I got connected through PodFest. We didn't happen to meet directly at PodFest, but we got connected after PodFest. I am so excited to be here with her today. She is also known as the Queen of Reinvention. She speaks candidly about her experiences, infusing her narratives with humor and insightful observations. Her multifaceted career encompasses roles as a speaker, podcaster, writer, part-time comedian and social media foundation specialist. Driven by a profound mission to shatter the silence, stigma and shame surrounding suicide, loss ideation and mental health, elaine is the host of the Suicide Zen Forgiveness Podcast. She is an eternal optimist with a profound gratitude attitude. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me Actually thrilled to be here.
Speaker 1:I'm thrilled to have you. Okay, so that was a great bio that you sent me. But I'm curious who would you say? Elaine is at the core.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's really good, that's a good question. Oh, that's really good, that's a good question. I am a, and you know it took a very long time to learn the name of one, the ideation, and to integrate the two of them, because I finally learned in the past few years that it's critically important to embrace all the facets of ourself. Some of them we may not like Some, in fact, they'll say I hate, which is a very strong word, and I'm working on that but it's important that we bring them all together and like them until we love them, because they all serve a purpose. And I believe that it's critically important to take the lesson from the bad also the good, but mostly from the bad Because if you don't take the lesson, you're going to repeat it.
Speaker 1:The Suicide Ideation Podcast. Where did this come from?
Speaker 3:So when I was a teenager, I had had suicidal ideation since I was a kid. I just didn't know what it was. I didn't know it had a name. But for me, any option. Whether I burnt my toast or I got in trouble at school or something terrible happened in the family, one of the options on the table for me was always well, I could just end it. It didn't matter what else was going on, it was always a part. But then there was always that Pollyanna piece that played the glad game every day and always found something to be thankful for. So it was a really weird dichotomy. And when I was 16, I lost a friend to suicide and it had such a profound effect on me because it played into this what at the time was an unnamed problem I had, and it made it frighteningly real. My friend was Jewish. I'm Catholic. The other four of our friends were Catholic.
Speaker 3:We're used to all the trappings when someone dies. There are lack of a better word, parties and wait and all this rigmarole that you go through in viewing the body, and so you have time to process. Well, on top of everything else in my head, she had to be buried within 24 hours, which meant we didn't get any of that. You get seven days to sit shiva. The family were very kind in bringing us into the family and having us sit shiva with the family, which meant all the mirrors were covered and we learned all kinds of things more about Andrea, but also about her family event. But it didn't allow for that closure that you can start with when you get to see someone when they're no longer vital and alive.
Speaker 3:I couldn't have put that into words back then either. I just knew that I was full of feelings. I didn't want to feel and I didn't want to be there. I did not want to be this person. I didn't want to be in this state. So I turned to drugs and alcohol in high school. I totally violated my life and I spent some weeks three, four nights in the cemetery wanting an answer to why and knowing, I think, in the back of my mind that that was never going to happen. But it became a ritual and it frightened my parents so bad that they took me back to Scotland for six weeks later. That year Andrea died New Year's Eve, just coming into 1972. And when I got to Scotland, you know I felt bad for my parents later because they just gave me a whole new group of friends to party and get drunk with and keep her out of all the feeling and for what it's worth. In looking back now and after working with a spiritual mentor and other people, we've come to understand that I basically just left.
Speaker 3:I went back to being about 12 years old because that was a time of less complication, less realness, less pain and no grief mentally any older, being totally lacking in any maturity and just not sort of playing the game of life. I was playing the game in that I got married early child, lost a child and then, four years after, I was crushed on the highway in front of her grave. I was crushed between three cars. I was seven months pregnant. I lost the baby. I lost half my left leg from the cast all the way up to my thigh, part of my femur, vertically, because the engine of my Mustang took it. When the cars came together on me, it split apart and I will swear to this day that before I hit that highway frozen highway it was the 19th of March, 20th of March, and it was 30 below and as I went flying through the air it was like somebody put the hood up on this big fur coat I had on and it saved my head from splitting like a melon. I attribute that to Andrea and, rightly or wrongly, that and the fact that I was one left behind when she took her life For the next 50 years.
Speaker 3:It always came to that peace. When I was ready to leave, when I couldn't take any more pain, when things were just not what I could deal with, there was always that little voice in my ear. You know what it feels like. Are you really going to do that to your family? What about your children? What about your husband? And it was always Andrea in my ear.
Speaker 3:So, come 2018, I had been invited to Lincoln in Toronto, which were I spent the day down there, and when I got there that morning, I had a brand new phone and I needed a new phone case. Coming through the train station, there was a little store and I went in and there was a Kate Spade phone case. It was really pretty blingy and you know I like my bling and it had Swarovski crystals and flowers on it and I thought, oh, that's really nice. Who's that by? So I bought it. That afternoon, I found out that she had taken her life Within the week Anthony Bourdain took his life.
Speaker 3:Within the week Anthony Bourdain took his life and I had only started talking about my own life story a couple of years before and I realized that in Athens, andrea had given me the best, worst gift you could ever give someone. It was time for me to step up and give back, because we are losing too many people all the time in almost every demographic. And that led to the start of the podcast, which was originally called Keep Breathing. It was sporadic, I didn't really know what I was doing with it or what I wanted to turn it into in January of 21.
Speaker 3:Friend called me from California. She said I know you don't like Apple. Don't buy a phone, just go get an iPad. You have to try this Clubhouse thing. I think it could be useful for you. Okay, so I went and got myself an iPad and when I met her in Clubhouse she said would you please tell the group what you do and how you got here? And all of a sudden I heard myself telling them about Andrea and telling them about the podcast.
Speaker 3:And my friend was in shock because she didn't know about my accident. She didn't know about what came later, which I'll tell you in a minute. And she said like, who are you talking about? Where did this come from? My life story? I've never told anybody, and I am 68 years of age. I did not tell a soul anything about my life until 2013. And that car accident happened in 1976. So it was a long time coming. But I smiled because that accident was just the first in a series of life lessons. It was very, very hard. They made me a very nasty person because I wasn't just me anymore. I was a victim. Because I wasn't just me anymore. I was a victim, and that's not anywhere I ever wanted to be.
Speaker 1:Nor would I ever go back Now. You mentioned you got involved in drugs and alcohol in high school and that was after Andrea passed.
Speaker 3:How did you stop that? Well, that's a really good question. At the time of, I guess, 1907, when I got married and was pregnant with my daughter, I just literally stopped because I was pregnant and I took it up again later. But through my whole pregnancy I did nothing, and that happened two years later when I had another little girl. Unfortunately she died.
Speaker 3:And after the accident I was on so much pharmaceutical medication it was no world war or anything else I was in such bad shape I ended up with no kneecaps, no cartilage in either leg. I had surgery on one or the other leg about every four months. For the next five years I had to have massive skin grafting done to my leg to cover the hole. Part of the hole, just as an offside. My father told me still says I should tell people I left it by a shark because it's a better story and it just became a substitute for drink and street drugs. It was just easier to take the pharmaceuticals. Sadly, they were much more dangerous.
Speaker 3:I was taking an morphine. For probably five or six people by the mid-90s I was taking well over a joint every day, plus we were all in Calvert, new Valley, all kinds of everything because the pain was so intense in so many places. We were all in Calvert, new Valley, all kinds of other things, because the pain was so intense in so many places and they didn't have pain clinics, they didn't have someone who could have explained to me that I could know it, learn the visuals, I could learn that. I came much, much later and not until I had to take. Obviously I did not take that lesson that time Because later on I was hit by another car, but that comes much later. I knew that was going to get you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that did get me my eyes like just bugged out of my head.
Speaker 3:continue so after the accident. Another sort of offshoot of that was they started giving me cortisone for my legs. But I got them every month for five years and then they had no idea what cortisone did. They just knew that after a day or two of pain they had days where it didn't hurt. But what that meant was you could push yourself really far and do even more damage. Nobody knew that. And another thing about cortisone it rots your teeth from under the gum. It can make your bones brittle. It can do a lot of very nasty things. And now when you have surgery it's right on the questionnaire have you ever had cortisone? Because now they know what some of those complications are. I became a bit of a guinea pig later on for certain pharmaceuticals because they had had to give me some.
Speaker 3:But those five years after the accident I didn't deal well with what had happened. I did not, could not come to terms with the big hole in my leg. I couldn't deal with the fact that in my head I had always just been big blue eyes and long, long legs which is kind of a joke because I'm five foot2" but they were long for 5'2". But in my head that's all I was. I had no self-confidence, no self-esteem and my head was all wrapped up in Mosul. My friend, it was a terrible soup in there. Let's just be honest, being a victim meant that I would lash out first, say terrible things about me so no one else could. It was sort of a way to make fun of what I thought other people were staring at, what I thought other people found ugly, because I sure as hell found it ugly. And after those five years I had put on weight. I'd never been big, I figure, skied, I rode horses, I downhill skied, I swam. There was no sport I didn't do. I was always active, doing everything. And then the accident took all of that away. I tried to ski a year or two after the accident, which the right leg decided it was going different directions than the rest of me, the skiing became a non-event. It was always hard to control my left leg. After that, by 1980, I had ruined one marriage and was getting into another. By 1982, I had a little boy and by the time he was about three or four months old I was fully convinced I was disgusting, I was horrible. I was horrible, I was a bad person, all these things.
Speaker 3:And there's an interesting thing about the universe the universe will confirm whatever it is that you want. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, you will find confirmation for what you look for. So I had heard about stomach stapling a way to lose weight, and we had gone in a way. It's called stomach stapling. It was called a vertical banded gastroplasty. It was only about a year old and I learned that there was one doctor in our city that was doing it. I saw this on TV and we had gone the whole family for brunch.
Speaker 3:One Sunday. My son was a few months old. I went into the washroom of the restaurant. When I was washing my hands at the sink, a lady came out of a stall and she came up behind me and looked at me in the mirror and she said oh my god, you are so beautiful, why are you fat? That was my confirmation that what I had decided to do was the right thing.
Speaker 3:Unfortunately, my whole family freaked out. Nobody wanted me to do this. I had had lots of surgeries. They didn't want me here. It was, in their words, ludicrous. There was absolutely no reason to do this, but I thought this would make me accept.
Speaker 3:Me Because I didn't, and the hatred I had for reading was burning through my soul. I just absolutely abhorred reading. I thought I was the worst thing on the planet. It's funny what your head does and in a way, it's weirdly conceited to think that everybody's paying attention. But that woman who I couldn't even tell you what she looked like now, okay, she was just the universe this way, giving me what I asked. So I set it up. Set up everything I needed to take three weeks off work. We brought in a housekeeper to look after the children. Everything was set out. This was what was happening. I had to go through psychological testing and all kinds of things to be ready for this surgery, and I passed everything with flying colors. Before I went into the surgery, I lost 20 pounds and that was my commitment, showing them that I was very eager to have this done.
Speaker 3:Unfortunately, what we didn't know the doctor was already being investigated because he'd killed two people with this surgery. We had absolutely no idea, and neither did the doctor who recommended it. I went into the hospital all ready to do my thing. I knew that for three weeks I would have a tube in my left side that I would feed. I could have nothing. By now I would be in the hospital for one week and at the end of three weeks they would take the tube out and I would go into eating in a whole new way to soothe this now smaller stomach. Unfortunately, during the surgery suit this now smaller stomach. Unfortunately, during the surgery, we'll never know what actually happened because we found out in court 12 years later that the doctor had made a couple of OR reports for that surgery. Trying to cover his mistake, he lied and said he gave things that made no sense. None of it made any sense to us, but we didn't find out for 12 years.
Speaker 3:I went home on the Saturday. I had this weird pain in my left shoulder blade. I didn't know what it was. I had told the nurse and I had a fever. They couldn't get rid of the fever all week. The doctor said you can go home as long as you promise you will come in on Tuesday and do a swallow to make sure everything's okay. Yep, no problem. I knew I would do better at home.
Speaker 3:Unfortunately, I went home and this pain just got worse and worse. I couldn't sit, I couldn't stand, I couldn't lie down and after 17 hours my husband called emergency, took me in. They weren't even sure what to do because it was an experimental surgery. Only that one doctor knew much about it. This was 1983. It wasn't even called bariatric surgery Because it was a single surgery, the first one. After the doctor in emergency gave me a shot for pain, he wrote a prescription because we had to put whatever I was going to take through the tube in my thigh. I couldn't have anything by mouth. Turns out, it saved my life Because while we were there we were getting ready to come home and the resident who was in my him walking through the emergency, my husband, said the look on his face when he saw me absolute terror.
Speaker 3:My husband said I didn't know what was wrong, but I knew something was very wrong. The next thing we know, he was calling the head of x-ray and calling other doctors. They were telling me that I couldn't leave. I just wanted to go home. I wanted nothing to do with this. Like no, no, I'll just go home, I'll be fine. He said no, no, you can't go home, we have to do a special treatment. So they did a test. They came back, not giving us a reason or telling us anything else. He said I had developed a gastric leak.
Speaker 3:The doctor came through into where my gurney was outside the operating room and he said so what did you eat, what did you drink? And he said so what did you eat, what did you drink? And I thought what I said to him I'm sorry, that makes no sense. Okay, my whole family is angry at me for doing this. Why would I jeopardize that? I have to show them that this works. It would make no sense for me to do that. Now. We know he was gaslighting because he could lose his job because of this investigation.
Speaker 3:So they take me to OR for the second time. Once again. We have no idea what he really did this time. There are three OR. In one of them he says he took my appendix out, which is odd because someone actually took it out in 19 minutes. I don't think they go back, but what do I know? In that second surgery, for the best of our understanding, he just opened up half the abdomen and just kind of looked. He didn't really do anything. So the stomach was wrapped in this stuff we call a mintum that you find inside your body and that's what they put around, anything that they work on. Well, it basically created a pouch, and that pouch was perfectly full of infection. So on the fourth day after the second surgery I had an abscess on my left lung and when my lung collapsed they put in a chest machine and a hose in my side. The next day I developed peritonitis. I was going septic.
Speaker 1:What is peritonitis it's?
Speaker 3:the whole abdomen becomes infected. Okay, what they think happened is that that pouch burst open and all the infection just went all over the abdomen. But again, these or reports are. They're fantasy. And I know that on the 28th of September, which was my daughter's birthday, they took me back to X-ray and the head of X-ray said we have to take you back to OR right now or you will be dead, isa, and I said thank you, no, thank you. And then I got a nurse to get me a phone. We didn't have cell phones back then. I called my father and I called my husband and I said don't you dare sign anything. I'm not having any more surgery. Well, I don't know which one of them signed it, or if both of them did, it's the threat of me being dead by supper. They decided they would sign the paper, no matter what I said.
Speaker 3:He took me back into surgery. The first thing we know that happened is my heart stopped. He, I guess in response to already being investigated, took everything apart. He ripped apart what he'd done, so my stomach was no longer staked. We did not know this for 12 years when he was trying to put it back together. You can only rip people's organs apart so many times in three weeks, they just don't go back together. Your skin becomes what they call friable. It becomes like jello, like you can't stitch it. That makes sense, yeah. So the resident said that they just stopped breathing. Stitch it. That makes sense, yeah. So the resident said that he just stopped breathing. They were trying to get me breathing again and he called in another surgeon. He got him had a hole in my throat. Basically, he slit my throat and went through to the esophagus and diverted my esophagus out my neck.
Speaker 3:I can honestly say I've never heard of this before and in all my years no one medical or otherwise has never heard of this before. I'd never heard of this before. There were so many tubes coming out of me when I woke up in ICU that they had to bring in gravity suction bottles on the floor because there weren't enough things on the walls to take them on. And I had a little hose coming out of my neck. It's kind of like battery acid and it was stirring all of my chest and I think his idea was to not let anything get to the stomach and let it heal. But that meant that the saliva was all over me and it was just getting worse. All of my skin was bl over me and it was just getting worse. All of my skin was blistered and I was in ICU for 11 days. And when they took me up to a ward, one of the nurses realized that they should probably call people that do the stoma therapy, which is colostomy bags for people with bowel missing. They put colostomy bags on them and the stoma therapist teach them how to use them. They brought in a stoma therapist and she taught me how to use a colostomy bag on my neck. That was left like that for seven months. That was left like that for seven months.
Speaker 3:Meanwhile, I'm feeding through the tube in my side, which I kept for over a year, and it would fall out. The stopcock would fall out or the tube would come out and you'd have to cut Put another one in. That was like two or three times more than a year. It got to be incredibly painful, incredibly annoying, you see, and I had this beam tube on the right side. We were never sure where he went, where he came from, but he went home with me. I had him for over seven months, so I called him Hugo, because you go where I go. You've got to find a humor where you can't right. It took me more than a year to start learning to eat again. I had to do what they call dilatations to my throat to try and get rid of the scar tissue.
Speaker 3:The upshot of all this was, instead of me getting what I want, yes, I lost a great weight, but then I lived on Onshore the protein drink for 10 years. If you live on nothing but onshore, you can put on 25 pounds a year. So it just meant that I was yo-yoing back to where I was and we didn't understand why, because we didn't know he'd taken it, which of course, did not make me a person. I had done all this, I had gone again to my family, I was in a worse place than I had been before. Instead of just horrific scars on my face, I had horrific scars and that became like a reason to hate me more. It just got worse and worse and then, I guess in the mid-90s, I started wondering this can't be. All. This just can't be. Crap on crap on crap.
Speaker 3:So the universe took over and in 1997, I was walking with my daughter and my son and my one granddaughter Mine, she was about three. We'd gone for an early dinner because my son was going to Cadet. My son and daughter are nine years old. He was getting ready for Air Cadet and we were walking back to our car from the restaurant and this man was backing up and we were behind his car, but he was looking forward, I don't know why, and so I knocked on the back Just to say hey, you, hey, you know, stop, people are here. And then we were going to keep walking.
Speaker 3:Well, the next thing, we know this giant man and he's almost throwing you bitch. What's wrong with you? Why can't you wait? My daughter said, like there's a baby. You effing bitch. What's wrong with you? Why can't you wait? My daughter said, like there's a baby here. What is wrong with you? And I told him he was mental Back in your car and get lost. You're insane.
Speaker 3:And we walked up to our car. I can't tell you where any of us were, I just know my daughter started screaming. I looked and he had driven up the aisle of cars and turned his car in, aimed at my kid. So I stepped in the way. He hit me in my leg. I fell on top of his car. Then he backed up with me on his car. Luckily for us, there were people all around that made him stop and were screaming at him. And then I slid to the ground off the car.
Speaker 3:Somebody called an ambulance. They called the police Out, big big thing. He the ground off the car. Somebody called an ambulance. They called the police Out big big thing. He'd been in the bar. When the ambulance drivers got there I was so worried about how embarrassed I would be they had to pick up this Fennec woman and how horrible that was. By the time I got in the ambulance, it was like I was watching me and there was this big aha like, oh my God, this is all you're worried about. Your legs are totaled already. This is nuts. And I thought you know what. There really has to be more to life than this, like, why is this happening? And as I said it, it was like, hmm, this, this, right here, you're the common denominator. That was the start of me digging into everything I could research what is life, what is energy, what is yeah, all of it.
Speaker 1:Now, before we keep throwing down all the holes. How did you find out 12 years later that the doctor was? I feel like I'm watching a movie.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we went to court and the upshot was but how did it come about? How did you know he was a fraud? Well, because we didn't know he was a fraud. But what happened? That's a really good question.
Speaker 3:At the end of the year I was still not able to eat. I couldn't swallow properly. I was in pain all the time. And he said it's all in your head and walked out of the office and two nurses came and said you have to stop him, he's going to kill more people. I said what are you talking about? He killed two people before you and that's when I knew I had to take him to work.
Speaker 3:But you have to understand. We're in Canada and in 1993, which is when we finally, in 94, when we finally got to court, I only had the option of a judge. No jury, no doctor in Canada would go against me Because in Canada there weren't lawsuits back then, not like America. I would have made a killing in America. But what we learned later, for what it's worth, we were told the judge was caught.
Speaker 3:At the end of the trial, after four months, the head of the law firm that was working on my case marched me over to the office and presented me with a bill for $768,426.29. I said are you fucking kidding me? You couldn't knock off 29 cents. And he said Elaine, you're being rude. When the judge's decision came back he found half a million in damages. He just couldn't pin it on the doctor.
Speaker 3:The doctor brought the missing x-ray to court and the head of my law firm became a superior court judge in Toronto. The law firm disintegrated, but the last thing they did was take me to the defense lawyer's office and said if you try to appeal this, we will take your father's house, because in Canada when you do a medical malpractice or any family law, the entire family is involved. And my parents only had one house they had bought after long, hard years of work and I would not do that. To them I said keep your damn money, you'll get yours. That left me bitter. That was in 1995. Along with that decision I got a letter saying that I'd better go be tested because the blood I got in the hospital came from American prisoners. Many of them had HIV and Hep C.
Speaker 1:Can I ask you a quick question? Yeah, how old were you when you had this surgery? 27. You were my age, yeah, okay, and you were 16 when your best friend passed away.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I was 20 when I lost part of my yeah 2001,. I fell getting out of my car and my arm was shattered in a thousand pieces. They found out I had osteoporosis, also courtesy of the botched surgery In 2003,. Christmas was diabetes, so now I'm on insulin. In 2016, I collapsed at a comedy club, which is not funny. I kept thinking, oh please, god, don't let me die in a comedy club. That's just too cliche.
Speaker 3:The doctor realized that there was something very wrong in this collapsing and they found that I have microviral disease. And they investigated further and they found out I had cirrhosis. That all came from what he had done, because the long-term effect of weight loss bariatric surgery is malabsorption, malnutrition, serious bowel issues, pancreatitis, cirrhosis, gastric stenosis a million things. And I have cirrhosis. I've known that for a long time. Last fall with them out, I have pancreatitis. Last fall with them out, I had pancreatitis and just, I guess, the latest in what he left me with. Why I talk about that is because all of the Ozempic and Wagovi and all of these current semaglutide answers to weight loss right in the hell I am in because they don't have long-term effects. They don't. They haven't been around long enough and I am walking proof 40-odd years of all the things that can continue to go wrong.
Speaker 3:Good news is for me over COVID I started working with a spiritual mentor. I started working with her and learning meditation and visualization. I read every book I could get, from the Ninth Insight to the Four Agreements. But reading all of that to come to understand I have choice. I run this ship. I can decide whether or not I'm going to make it run well, even with all those things. I no longer have hip pain. That comes from a lot of interior work, but back in 2016, I couldn't get to a place where I could even lighten. That was making it very difficult to really change, and my spiritual mentor and other people took it upon themselves to basically make an improvement. And someone brought me the concept of Kintsuji, the Japanese art of repairing broken crockery. Because they believed that when something breaks, you don't throw it away. They would repair it with real gold paint that became more beautiful than the original piece and so, rather than throwing these things away, being angry with them, or upset or embarrassed or shamed.
Speaker 3:You would put them in a place of honor and display them. Not ready to do that yet, and I did say at the time oh so, paint my scars with gold paint. Okay, can we buy it by the keg? That's how many scars there are. It just kind of dipped me From the neck down, oh God.
Speaker 3:Anyway, it was about learning the lesson and taking the empathy from having gone through some of the most horrifically painful times of anyone's life, having surgery after surgery after surgery, and coming to understand. You know, I gotta look, I gotta take the polyamory, I gotta find the glad game that goes with all of this. And what are the things that I can take away from this? Maybe help somebody else? And I will say, like everything else in my life, there's a yin and a yang. I have empathy for people who suffer. I don't have empathy for people who whine about a cold Kind of funny, because I don't suffer. Fools gladly Never have. But it is what it is. And in 2018, I got on stage comedy time, did my six minutes and got invited back. So I got on another stage the next year at a different comedy show.
Speaker 1:You mentioned a couple different horrific experiences that you've gone through, horrific experiences that you've gone through.
Speaker 3:Do you believe, as human beings, we have to undergo, undergo horrific experiences? Yes and no, I believe. I believe, okay, there's all these things souls travel in pack and we come from a collective energy. But I believe it's this way Our soul comes to Earth to experience life as a human. And when you do, it's like you know, some people go to Disney. They go because they want to get on for the teacups or whatever, and some of us get on for the scorpion rollercoaster Really good, terrifying, that's kind of what it is. So if you book, your soul books big ride, those big rides can be pretty damn scary. If you take the lesson, you only have to go around once.
Speaker 3:Obviously, I'm a little slow, so I didn't take the lessons right away. Well, in my case, they're not bricks, they're vehicles. See, now, that's playing the glad game. Okay, it's a little bent, but it works for me. And the upshot of all of it is when I started AFCA 97, being grateful for little things More, I was grateful for more that was in front of me, everything you're grateful for.
Speaker 3:Sometimes I believe in getting up and stating your gratitudes. What are you grateful for today? Or do it last thing at night Make a list of five things. And there are some days where I'm grateful for the fact that I'm breathing. I'm grateful for the fact that, as much as it takes me a long time to get upright and to walk because it's not elegant, I'm walking and there are people who can. So you take those things for what they're worth. And I am grateful that I have five fabulous grandchildren. I have two beautiful adult children. I have a long-suffering husband of 44 years Father he's 91, but he got dementia just before he turned 90. That, for us, is a gift. You know people who got dementia in their 50s and 60s. So when you really look, there's a lot. I try every day.
Speaker 3:There are days where the pain just keeps going. Everything is too much and I allow myself what I call wallow time, but I put a time limit on that wallow. You say wallow time. I did Wallow pity party for me, bad man. Okay, that's interesting. One other thing I want to say Okay, that's interesting. One other thing I want to say I started working with the soul coach in late 2019. And from 2020, 2021, I dropped 80 pounds. What that did? Through all that time, I started dropping all the firm cuticles I was taking Because I call myself a functional junkie, because I needed all the pain meds just to function. The pain is pretty intense. I went from now to take one 15 milligram every evening. That's it, that's all. That's something that I am ever so grateful for. Like it to be none, but right at the moment there.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow, so there's a lot of places. I want to take this in terms of your podcast. How soon after andrea passing did you start that start?
Speaker 3:the podcast yeah oh, not till 2018. Oh, so so that was it. Yeah, yeah, yeah and only seriously weekly was 2021. Because I didn't understand. You know what? How do I just make this a gift Andrea for what she gave me, but how do I help others? Gift of Andrea for what she gave me, but how do I help others? And I came to understand through finally telling my story.
Speaker 3:You see, I never told anybody this because I thought it was shameful. It was a shame that I had to have that surgery. It was a shame that I went out in the middle of the night to pick up a friend who was an ass and was picked up for drinking and driving, why I ended up between those three cars. It was all these things of guilt and shame. Well, I never say a word.
Speaker 3:And in 2013, when I was asked to tell my story, the first two people who came to me and said we would really like to hear this, we're my adult children and I said what are you talking about? You lived it because my husband hears it all the time. I live living old, but I'm always complaining. When I started telling people, people started saying that's offering hope for somebody else I'm blaming. When I started telling people, people started saying that, offering hope for somebody else, and I started to realize that if I don't tell people, what if I let someone else hurt themselves, if they don't know what could happen, Don't worry, have that, hannah, and telling your story lightens your burden.
Speaker 1:As it does. So I'm curious what made you decide 2018? Now is when you're going to start the podcast. Why then?
Speaker 3:Well, that was the day that I found out about Hate Spade, and that week was Anthony Bourdain.
Speaker 1:It just sort of that was right before the Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. It all came to a head and it was like, okay, you know what, I'll start a podcast, because I had been doing an online show since 2012 where I interviewed people and I thought, okay, I can do this as a podcast and talk to people and that can help them with their story.
Speaker 1:What type of guests do you primarily interview on your podcast?
Speaker 3:Well, we discuss suicide laws, ideation and all forms of mental health. We have covered the gamut from anxiety, depression. I have a very dear friend whose father took his own life and that of her sister when she was 10 years old, and I mean that's a horrific story to live through, a horrific story to have to tell. But once you get it out there, then you're not carting it around and people who have lost their husbands, their wives, their children, their fathers, their mothers, all of them we have almost 130 of them, Mixed in with a number of solo ones where I talk about the lessons I've learned on my journey, Because, yeah, there's a whole bunch of them.
Speaker 1:Would you say there is shame around suicide.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and that's the whole point of my mission is the silence, the shame and the stigma. We need to stop that, okay, because the bottom line is this Some people say it is the absence of hope. If you get to a place where you no longer have hope, that is when people take their life. But it's not about leaving people, not about taking their life. Mostly it's about ending their pain, their life. Mostly it's about ending their pain, whatever that is, whether it's emotional or mental, or spiritual or physical. It's about ending that pain. And if you talk to people who have attempted, they always say that they were leaving to make it better for those that are still here. They were leaving to make it better for those that are still here. It's the chemicals in the brain that tell you these stories.
Speaker 3:As children, we're not told how to deal with our feelings, the thoughts in our head or our brain. Nobody tells you how to drive your brain. Rex Sykes said it best Like you get a license to get a bicycle, you get a license to get a cat or a dog. There's no license for your brain. Nobody teaches you what to do with it. It's the best computer on the planet and we're just handed it and, uh, how matter? No, it doesn't make any sense. Matter, no, it doesn't make any sense. Children, if you don't teach them there are no bad feelings, because even anger has a use. We have to understand that feelings last three to ninety seconds. They're meant to flow and go, we're not meant to hang on to them, but that's what we do because we don't know any better.
Speaker 3:The animals do that. Watch animals. When they think there's a predator around, they all go on high alert. You can see them. They all jump out as one, they all run like hell. And when it's over, if you really watch, you'll see they all do this shimmy from tip to tail, and it's shimmying off the feelings, shimmying off the corbizal, the angst, all those things, all the hormones, all the terrifying feelings. They just shimmy them off and go on living until the next event. Humans don't do that. We drag it with us down the road until next week, and then we drag that one with us and if something else happens, oh, we drag that one with us.
Speaker 1:So how do humans start to let things go? So how do humans start to let things go?
Speaker 3:well, I think we need to start teaching people feelings are meant to blow and go. It's not an esoteric joke, it's a fact. And learning to handle anger, dismay, hurt, depression, annoyance, jealousy, all of those things. Handle them for those 90 seconds and then move on.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense. So you agree that there is shame around it? Yes, why? I don't think there should be.
Speaker 3:I struggle with this because my uncle committed suicide when I was 12. I'm just going to stop you there because this is really important. We don't use that term anymore. You know why that was.
Speaker 1:Because at one time time it was illegal. Yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 3:And so we say took his own life or died by suicide. Okay, it is very triggering for people and the fact is the laws have changed as people have learned to be more forgiving, more empathetic, more understanding.
Speaker 1:Okay, I knew at one point it was illegal, but I didn't realize that. That's why it was said that term. Yeah, I never knew the two went together. Now my uncle took his own life and I was I think I was 12, but I didn't find out till I was 17 how he actually passed away. It was like this big family secret. Yeah, and I can understand why they didn't tell the kids. How do you explain that? Because it was a little embarrassing to say that to a 12-year-old. I get it. Yeah, but there was still so much shame, even as I got older, and it was still like this big family secret that it's not frequently talked about. And everybody knows that there's this one sister and it's her husband that you know that took his life and it's just like the elephant in the family, almost it absolutely is and it shouldn't be, because, okay, there's no shame that your alcoholic uncle died, drank himself to death, or your aunt or grandmother or whatever, and to me that's wonderful.
Speaker 3:Yes, it is Absolutely, absolutely. But all of those are defeated, so there's nothing to be shamed about. There's a lot to be sorrowful for, there's a lot of. There should be empathy for the people around them that go on with this, but one of the horrible things, I think, is that people stop talking. People don't say their name anymore, they just put them to the side and they don't talk about it. One of the least known demographics are the number of children who have taken their own life, and there are a lot, but people don't talk about it. So you don't get that in the death sentence. The fact is, if we had the numbers, maybe people would do more about it, because I just think it's horrific.
Speaker 1:What do you think is the next step for us to be able to make it?
Speaker 3:I think it has to become part of the day-to-day conversation. All the tough stuff, the taboo stuff. We have to make it part of conversation in families so that you know when your 10-year-old is having bizarre thoughts and they don't understand what to do with it, because not all thoughts are real, not all thoughts are truthful and not all thoughts need to be acted on. But you can't know that.
Speaker 1:Wow, this was some heavy stuff. Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah. Have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty?
Speaker 3:Yes, I know, jay Shetty.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you've heard my episode, so you might already know how I wrap this up, but he has two segments that he ends his podcast with, and I end mine with those as well, and the first one is called the Many Sides to Us. There's five questions, and they need to be answered in one word each. Alright, okay, number one what is one word? Someone who was meeting you for the first time would describe you as oh my god, or I would like them to describe me as.
Speaker 1:No, not what you would like them to, just what they would describe you Um a handful Okay. Number two, number two. What is one word that someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you?
Speaker 3:Bent.
Speaker 1:That was funny. What is one word you'd use to describe yourself? Funny? Number four what is one word that, if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset, would describe you? Outspoken, Okay. Number five what is one word you're embodying right now? Real? Then the second segment is the final five, and these can be answered in a sentence. Number one what is the best advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 3:Listen to your intuition.
Speaker 1:Why is that the best advice?
Speaker 3:Because, when all is said and done, you just be still and go inside. You know the answer to every question you've ever been in because you're gut-wrenching.
Speaker 1:Number two what is the worst advice you've heard or received? Worst advice.
Speaker 3:People use that or receive Roasted meat. People use up the pleasure.
Speaker 1:What is something that you used to value that you no longer value? If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone were reading it, what would you want it to say? You bet Number five. If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why.
Speaker 3:Be kind to everybody, to everybody, because being brutal to others, pointing out other people's laws or differences, is just mean and spiteful. And everybody has a gift and everybody has a flaw. Why not start with the gift?
Speaker 1:I love that, thank you. Now I have another question for you. This is a personal one, this is not a Jay Shetty one, but if you happen to have the attention of the whole world for five minutes, what would you say?
Speaker 3:Every single one of us is a human. We're all human, every single one of us. When you cut us, we all bleed the same. Learn that. Stop taking people apart for being a little different. Realize that beige is boring. If everybody was exactly the same, first of all there'd only be two of us, man and a woman, because there'd be no point in having any more, and second, we'd all be bored to tears.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much. And now, where can?
Speaker 3:the listeners connect with you. Well, you can find me at Lucides and Forgiveness, the podcast. You can find me at Elaine Lindsay everywhere. If you look up Elaine Lindsay or the lady with the blue hair, or my company, Cruel Social, you will find me. All the socials all over the web, I'm there.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and I will link all of that in the show notes directly. And before we close out, is there anything else you want to share with the listeners?
Speaker 3:Yeah, make the very most of your today, every day.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's beautiful Well, thank you so much, elaine, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me. I just think you are such a joy.
Speaker 1:Of course so are you, and thank you, guys, for tuning in to another episode of Mander's Mindset. In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you, I'm booting for you and you got this, as always. If you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five-star rating, leave a review and share it with anyone you think would benefit from this. And don't forget you are only one mindset. Shift away from shifting your life. Thanks, guys, until next time.
