Paul Hammer and Randall Beach
Description
Paul Hammer (63) talks with his friend Randall Beach (69) about his experiences with mental illness, including a suicide attempt. He reflects on his journey to improved health, and his work supporting others facing mental health difficulties.Subject Log / Time Code
Participants
- Paul Hammer
- Randall Beach
Recording Locations
New Haven Free Public LibraryVenue / Recording Kit
Tier
Partnership
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Transcript
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00:00 I'm Randy Beach. I'm 69 years old. Today is March 5th 2020 and we're here at the New Haven Public Library New Haven Connecticut. My interview partner is Paul Hammer longtime friend of mine.
00:18 My name is Paul Hammer. I'm 63 years old today's date Thursday, March 5th, 2020. And we're in the New Haven free public library Ives branch and my interview partner is Randy Beach longtime friend.
00:38 Call we've known each other almost 50 years now and has a lot of ups and downs or life is Incredible Journey. It's amazing to think back on it. There have been times through those 50 years. When we kind of lost touch even though we have been living in New Haven for a long time. So I'm we had lost touch in May 2004. I hadn't been when I was going on in your life. And so imagine my shock and surprise one one day. I picked up my newspaper. I work New Haven Register and found you a jumped off the top of East rock cliff in the suicide attempt. So I was worth I was very troubled in the soap so shocked and sad to hear about it. So I guess I also asked you why were you so determined to to die that they're what was happening and in your life that you were driven to such extreme.
01:31 Well, the trigger that sent me over the Cliff's how to speak was my girlfriend at the time. I was living with her and her house and she couldn't tolerate my manic behavior. I was diagnosed years earlier with bipolar condition, but at the time I had no medication or therapy so that was the trigger that sent me to climb up East Rock and jump off and I have a I'm afraid of heights. So I was very determined but there's a lot of background. I had several risk factors that having taken Suicide Prevention trainings. I now know about them, but I didn't know then so I had to bipolar condition. So mental illness is a risk factor. I have a lot of suicide in my family on my father's side my half
02:31 Weather and my grandfather great grandfather on my mother's side my uncle and I had a lot of lost a lot of losing a job and then losing health insurance which mean, no medication and therapy. So there was that in the background and then this final loss of being asked to leave my girlfriend's house, which I took as a precursor to this breaking up that that sent me over the cliff would look at things. It happened was there was a woman named Liana who was walking her dog pearl nearby and heard or saw you take this giant leap and then help Police emergency workers find you tell us about them.
03:18 About her and then does that just sort of Fate that she was there do you think?
03:24 Well, I don't know whether it was coincidence or fate but it seems like fate to me. She Leann is her name and she was walking her dog pearl at the base of East Rock Park by The Mill River and she saw me tunnel tumbling and she called 911 and they can EMTs came the police the fire all that and they couldn't find me. So she said could I have my dog look for him and pearl went straight for me. So I liked it to joke that you know what maybe I was so depressed. I hadn't done my laundry and I had to take a shower for so long because dogs have a better sense of smell and sight dog pearl had no relation to me whatsoever. So in the miracle Department, I would say it qualifies will the next time I caught up with you was a visit you in the hospital and courts you you were a wreck you look terrible.
04:24 Spirits Inc, high very high that's why I wondered what what was that? Like, what was the first thing you remember wherever you came out of your coma?
04:36 Well, I don't remember the first thing but one thing that I became aware of because the story in the register was on the front page, we're got around and the nurse basically had to take say take a number because there was a line of people waiting to see me and people wrote such wonderful things in cars that were collected by my girlfriend in a scrapbook and I began to feel like Jimmy Stewart, you know, and it's a wonderful life where he he he imagines what is town would have been like without him and it wasn't quite that dramatic, but it was almost to just see these cards with a lot of love and people telling me about great times we had and what I meant to them and how I help them and
05:28 So that was the first thing I remember now.
05:32 Right. Well, you said that you told me that God might have spared you from death to put you on a mission. So tell us about that. What is how you see that mission? First of all the terms of God. I'm not sure that there is an omniscient omnipresent God watching over everybody at every moment and but I'd like to act as if I was spared for a reason and the reason as I see it and it it's taking me several years to to come to that point is to help others who feel the same way that I felt and are at risk of taking their own lives. So I'm really in the in the beginning of that process of making that a central focus of my life. You are a religious spiritual person know you you are Quakers that right talk about that little guy.
06:32 Are there all the differences and
06:35 Schisms and all sorts of things for every religion at but in the the the type of quakerism that I adhere to God is again not someone up there God is within you. So your mission is to find God within you and to bring it out and other people and I feel very comfortable with that way of framing God's existence. I'm not going to say that he wasn't up there looking after me, but I feel more comfortable with saying in out. This is my mission to the god inside of me now has a mission to reach out to the god inside of other people. Well, can we go way back we know each other
07:25 Wallingford, Connecticut Meriden, Connecticut, we are on the international walk for disarmament social justice and 1976. I think of lies and you are always an activist as was I in the peace movement so we had that in common muscle you always been a funny guy always had a good sense of humor. So used you told me that the Quakers have been always quite get that and their meetings that somehow you kind of rub them the wrong way or they they didn't like some of the things you were saying or maybe being too funny made it and get your jokes or what was that about things we worship silently. We have no ministers, but that's why everyone is a minister and we rise if we feel we've been so moved by God to give vocal Ministry. So in a manic phase
08:18 I got up too many times and then the straw that broke the camel's back. There was that I I came up with this great idea for war tax resistance where people could accept Rare Coins instead of payments if they were Reno therapists or they had their own businesses and they wouldn't have to figure out a rare penny that was worth hundreds of dollars. They could still declare a penny. Anyway, that wasn't the kind of thing that
08:47 The Quakers in in my meeting for worship really wanted to hear and so they they silence me for a year, which is actually a very good exercise. That's a long time to be silent. When I want to eat. I I moved to emailing them instead of saying anything was I'm thinking they controversial that some of the Quakers in the meeting room to say come on 6 months. I think I talked with are there were some people who were advocating for me, but it it was I thought it was too Draconian, but it actually I think it was also very good exercise for me. So are you back with him now? Yeah, I never left. I just checked back talkin talkin the weather.
09:31 Eugene route go to the fact that you help people who are suicidal themselves. So tell us what you do in that field and what you're able to do and to help that effort or or anyone. I want you have already sadness people you weren't able to help or those you have been able to help well,
09:51 As I say I'm just beginning I've taken several Suicide Prevention trainings and due to take another one next week and the primary way. I personally have helped people has been to facilitate mental health support groups. And I also serve as the co-chair of the Connecticut suicide advisory board's attempt survivors committee. And in the main thing I'm doing with that is to try and it's been a whole movement to have Piers persons with mental health conditions in integrated into the mental health system, but they have not undergone suicide prevention training. So that's sort of what I'm doing. So I think in terms of the support groups, I
10:51 It's hard to tell that I prevented any specific thing hasn't been that traumatic. It's just helping people to Envision a life worth living as an alternative to Despair and but I have there have been some suicides close to me people who were going to join this attempt Survivor board two of them took their lies, and that was very
11:22 Sobering and very very sad just it because the prior suicide attempts are a leading indicator of suicide. So anybody who's tried before is a very high-risk so I don't think it's possible to save everyone people. Some people are
11:43 Very very determined, but
11:47 I think most suicides are preventable. Are you still at a high risk? You don't seem to me to be someone but who but I can move my to say well, I don't consider myself to be at high risk, but I practice self-care in terms of mental health. And so I am aware of my symptoms which are I would say Tamp down by medication and therapy and and other things but as I mentioned before it's really building a life worth living
12:26 That I think is what is keeping me from the deep suicidal depression that my condition engine turns but would also helps you is that you're not to have this available medication which you didn't have at the time of your jump. So what does that tell us about health care reform and what people need to have at their disposal.
12:53 Working full-time jobs for a well just shortly after I jumped.
13:02 The actually it was it was nearly for about 4 years after I dropped. I went to a forum then incoming Health and Human Services secretary Tom daschle and I basically told him I had to jump off a cliff in order to get good health care because when I jumped I was very shortly thereafter on Social Security Disability. So I had Medicare and I had Medicaid as a backup and
13:42 It would have been very hard for me to get insurance might have taken years for me to get insurance that time and I think the Affordable Care Act has made a difference but it's really we need universal healthcare. I think so people are not in Waiting because some people who are suicidal can't wait. I know that in addition to the good work you do with suicide prevention, you're also involved with our wonderful local Refugee group Iris and the ditch and such great work. So could you let us know how that has helped you or you help other people doing that. I worked for IRS for four years. I no longer working with a buddy volunteer with them, but they had a significant impact on my worldview because I thought people who had crossed deserts and Mediterranean and you know, just
14:42 To to find safety and had been starving and
14:50 Yes, many of them are suffering from PTSD from that experience of having been nearly lost their lives in their home country and having everything on rooted but there was also an incredible resilience and I said if these refugees
15:09 Can find happiness?
15:13 What am I complaining about? Zachary said that's that's that take away from that experience. Will this also get some too?
15:25 The Donald Trump attitude toward refugees and you must have strong feelings about
15:33 How what he's done to the refugees into his his animosity toward them getting the fact that you work with them and seen them in their needs.
15:41 I have very strong feelings and as someone who was born in the Jewish faith, you know, we we know that United States turned away Jews before the Holocaust and so it it it strikes close to home for me. To see him basically restricting.
16:14 People from coming here who either deserve Asylum or are already classified by the UN is refugees. And when I think of how much refugees and immigrants have contributed to this country and how I am descended from immigrants. It makes me very angry. Yes overall. What are the lessons you take away from your experience your attempt on your life. What would have you learned from this?
16:49 But one thing is that
16:54 We have a lot of people in this country are trained in CPR. Now. We need people to be trained in Crisis Intervention for suicide. Really.
17:09 I think it would be good for
17:13 People in every family to have some training or at least some exposure to know what the warning signs is. Are you may not know what the warning signs of a heart attack tar or answer or some other condition? Well, you should also know about suicide and mental health conditions in general. So it should be much more widespread the training. It's been a kind of Taboo. In fact people used to think that if you talk about suicide to somebody who's suicidal there going to be more likely to take their life. Well, it's proven that that's the opposite you start engaging people and get them to acknowledge. I'll gladly they're feeling there is a chance for them to recover so that that's you know one thing.
18:02 I I would say perhaps of the essential thing that I
18:07 Taken away is that we need to to train more people and even if you're not training them formally just have them become more aware because we have a tens of thousands of suicides in this country every year about 50,000.
18:26 Who are you living with now? Is there someone to watch over you if you got in a bad spot, if you if you feel yourself slipping the way you did that day. Would you would you let me know I've often thought she I wish I mean, I wish I knew what was happening in your life and you could have called me that morning. Of course, we would have come right over and try and talk to you and I also think about the guy you encounter at the top of the foot of the cliff food. Didn't know you was not his fault, but I was thinking just this morning. I wish you could have physically restrained you somehow it despite how determined you were but I think she'll wish I was Paul called me that morning world friend. So if you ever get the feeling that way again, give me a call, you know how to reach my promise. I have three of your telephone numbers good good, but you know, the I have a roommate who's actually moving out with a friend next door and another one coming in.
19:24 I disclosed to everybody about my past and I have other people who I turn to an addition to my house. Macy's are people in my mental health support groups. I have two of them that I facilitate, but I'm also a member and so I have people to turn to you and I have people who will call me. Even if I don't reach out to check in on me. That's good to hear.
19:55 So you don't see it ever possible that you would ever be in this lonely place again.
20:01 I don't think I will I can't guarantee it. I I'm pretty self-aware and resourceful. I think I do think about you know down the road of a doctor says, you know, all you have 2 weeks to live and going to be in a lot of pain about assisted suicide, which is a controversial topic that I have thought of it. But other than that, that's the only
20:28 Way I can envision myself, you know an ending my life with in that way. Otherwise
20:39 I think I have a good support system. It will be tested if I'll just give you an example. So I'm on a medication that has toxic effects on my kidney the lithium and I have some ameliorating medication and other steps in through watching my levels kidney function levels, but if for some reason I'm trying to prepare for this, but it's not easy to if I had to get off lithium, which I think has been a tremendous Aid in my mental health then what I would do is to say I need extra care during this transition.
21:27 Rites wall you mentioned assisted suicides. What are your thoughts on on on that?
21:33 Honestly, I
21:37 You know, I think about it mostly when somebody asked me if I'd ever take my life and the answer is no with maybe that exception. I haven't you know, I don't live in Oregon. I haven't thought about it much. I've seen people in hospice who I feel and a hospice is a facility here is just pray that I've seen two people go there but I'm not sure that's the way I would want to end my life. Like it's a question is not someone who's in a bad place mentally, but some somebody who is
22:16 Medically knows that my life is coming to an end. There's no way to stop. It is terminal. That's a different situation. We might have different thoughts about that. That's what I'm talking about it if you're diagnosed with a terminal illness, that would be the only circumstance in which I would send him.
22:36 Suicide assisted suicide
22:40 So this point you think you're you're living? Well, you're living a happy life despite as you know your bipolar, but it's just still able to have a wonderful life.
22:49 Yeah, well my thing I'm going back to Jimmy Stewart. It is It's a Wonderful Life and
22:59 It's wonderful.
23:02 For different reasons one is having a a faith community having friends having I'm lucky enough to be semi-retired on Social Security and to be working in the mental health field at the El program for recovery and Community Health one of the best workplaces I've ever been and so work and friends and you know,
23:31 Activities around I've been a long time bicycle Advocate and I are involved in bicycle Recycling and in theater so
23:43 Yeah, It's a Wonderful Life it really is on some of the interviews we've done together for my paper the New Haven Register you if you touch a person that word lucky and you told me years ago your life you lead a Charmed Life which some people might be surprised to hear given the fact that you've struggled but you do feel some somehow you have a Charmed Life you will tell us a little bit about why you feel that well I meant going back to my childhood I live in with my mother and a rent-controlled apartment on Central Park West and I have to sell my father out in East Hampton Long Island and so I had the best of urban and rural
24:27 And I actually feel the same way right here in New Haven because
24:32 We are the cultural capital of Connecticut and yet I can go kayaking just a few miles from here on a river in Bradford or Guilford or so.
24:47 So my charm life today in that sense replicates my Charmed Life as a child, but I think
24:58 In terms of
25:01 The opportunities that I've had
25:06 That I I
25:09 You know why I somewhat envy people who've worked for 40 years and now they have a pension and they can travel around the world. I have had the most amazing series of wonderful jobs working the theater and social services. And so yeah, I feel like Lucky Charms on me to having some regrets as you look back on and your life things you wish you'd done differently. I guess I guess jumping-off. He's rotten thinking of one of your class, but I ain't no side from the help getting health insurance as a result. I tell people if they're in that situation to jump off a cliff, but it was a parachute and then run their parachute and fake but regrets. Well when I think of regrets I think of Edith Piaf for you know, it's real or something like that. I regret nothing.
26:09 Sure. I have lots of regrets I think.
26:12 One of the areas in which I have regrets has to do with
26:18 Managing relationships and friendships and
26:25 Work relationships and particularly my girlfriend who?
26:30 Who asked me to leave the house, you know?
26:34 How can people with mental health conditions better?
26:39 Manage their relations to how can their friends and family better work with them so that they're not rejected ostracized stigmatized. So I think I have you no points 1/2 exactly but a lot of that is on me.
26:54 You know to to build solid relationships.
26:59 And I I like the way Ed Koch used to always say how am I doing? Just the opposite of actually get feedback from people and
27:13 So that's that's probably the biggest area regret that my mental health condition adversely affected friendships and relationships. Some of them have been repaired. Some of them know we'll family so important and we share this that both of my daughters have settled in l a u of a son living in LA and so that makes it difficult for someone to check in on you all the time and see how you're doing and all that. We just we just missed them. So I guess I'm not going to have and how you deal with it the 3000-mile separation and your desires if you love your son, I love my daughters out of you of work that out well.
27:57 It's
27:59 It's not easy because I think there was some.
28:03 Song about his real father was too busy for his son. And then the son becomes too busy a camera in the Cradle. I'm going to be like him so, you know
28:18 Yeah, I find that my son is now.
28:23 Too busy for me. He had kidney stones and so he was incapacitated. So I was able to talk to him for a while, but it's kind of funny at the said that that's the only way I can catch him. So we texting and try and Skype with my father and with him in a once-a-week, but I do
28:53 Think about you no wanting to to spend more time out there and not necessarily moving there. But as you've said yourself you don't be by Coastal of the stuff. I hear what it was about your father's you New York. My father is in in Sarasota, Florida. He had many years in what I call the data rondex because he was there but he finally decided he couldn't be a snowbird anymore just went down south to get to see him much. I see him on his birthday and I I talk to him every week and I had to write a letter to him to ask him to stop driving. It's mostly the other senior citizens. You have to wear a hearing and you know, he was a bit proud. So I just had to say look at you have a lot of things you still want to do and you know when I get into a car accident
29:53 What was the family reaction when when you took the big jump it must have been obvious.
30:02 A shocking to them and something they rushed to the hospital and got my father son 2004. So 510. He was 17.
30:22 And he didn't tell me this right away, but eventually he said to me, how could you how could you leave me fatherless? And I said, I honestly I wasn't thinking of you. I was thinking of this relationship that had gone South and I was thinking that I was useless and the burden to everybody and
30:50 I'm mad, you know.
30:53 I apologized to him, but I also said that I wasn't in control of my.
31:01 Thinking at the time right now about your father conversations you have with him.
31:10 He had come down and for two successive Summers when I was depressed, but still he's a psychiatrist, but I don't think even with our family background that he thought anything was imminent. In fact, probably the reverse because my girlfriend had just bought a house on Long Island Sound and she was asked inviting me to live with her and looks like we were going to get married and so I don't think he
31:47 Was it made sense to him afterwards, but I don't think he was.
31:55 Particularly worried in the months leading up to it and
32:01 I think mostly.
32:05 He was just happy to still have me.
32:09 What sounds like you were on your way to an idyllic situation living on Long Island Sound with your girlfriend you were going to marry. So other would have just went South because you had you're off your medication and finances were problems and end and the thing is that both of us.
32:28 Had some bad rat might my girlfriend was a she had a BA in psychology. She was a social worker. I had worked for 211, you know Social Services Hotline in Connecticut. And if we put our heads together, so to speak could have known that the Connecticut Mental Health Center provides care for uninsured and underinsured or she could have just married me with a prenuptial I would have had her house, but
33:05 I think she would she was gripped by fear mostly because she had been.
33:12 Raped by stranger and I had no idea. I knew that but I had no idea that.
33:18 I would engender that fear in her but Mania has a way of sparking fear and other people so so I think we could have done better. You know, she tried to get me some help but it it it just wasn't sufficient.
33:41 There was a timer called few years ago when review for the transient lifestyle is always try too hard to keep up with words Paul live now cuz you move around my state my creditor, but there was one night to call you. You came to my house and I think you need to the launching of some sort and and stayed in the house overnight my house and needs to talk after they might have been.
34:07 8 years ago some like that. My kids were still living at home and
34:12 Yeah, I am and remember to call longer than eight years cuz if a 2004 was the attempt and I lived with.
34:22 Several of my friends for as long as they can put up with me which wasn't long in some cases. But basically I was homeless believe she did invite me back and it took awhile for me to get into supervised housing with a mental health agency and then later into a house that Leanne found for me with a woman who needed some an overnight ate so and that was also near the beach. So that was nice. But yeah, I was homeless for a little bit on the shelter, but I recall you stayed one night and we didn't really discuss maybe I should have offered to have you stay longer and it was just kind of I guess we weren't communicating very well what your situation was her. I was not. You know, I have no memory of that particular night at partially because I have a traumatic
35:22 An injury, but he has some old because during that.
35:32 I think I was living moment to moment run.
35:37 It not in a good way. I know that sound good.
35:42 I haven't discussed ask you about your mother. I do nothing but your mother and we will your parents divorced and parents divorced mother lives in a controlled apartment on Central Park West and the apartment was so big that you can rent to a board or so. She made a profit or something almost but yeah, I divorced at a very early age and my father moved out to East Hampton Long Island, and she died very young of a rare disease. Well, I just want to say that I'm glad you're still here that you're alive that you walked away when you walk away from it, but you you Rose up and you recovered from this and good to have you here in my life in the New Haven and Community benefit from having you here is like you I don't know. I'm glad you were alive to write all this wonderful column and to interview me.
36:42 Do we look back at our experience and no nukes movement and remain remain active in the peace movement and he should have never goes away but it was a good way to get to know you all those years ago walking around for those with a Buddhist monks out. I'll tell you a funny story about that which I might have told you already. And that is that I walked this is for the Continental walk for the summer and social justice the Connecticut leg. That's where we met. And the the Buddhist monks were chanting nam-myoho-renge-kyo and beating on address and I can be a big headache after while the one day. I will go to heaven.
37:28 I heard now. I'm not holding a kill and I thought I was hallucinating and I ran outside and there was Cutthroat one of those months walking doing another walk. So but we we we talked about climate change as the biggest UV existential issue of our time, but the nuclear weapons are still there and they're proliferating.
37:55 Self. I'm glad we got that in a little plug for Buddhism and mental health and and everything under the Sun. So.
38:06 Well again, let's let's keep in better touch and communicate better and if you get in a bad place, so, you know how to know who to call. Okay, and man if you ever get in a bad place, and I don't I hope you never will that way, but please reach out to me or if you know anyone who needs some help in terms of their mental health and someone at risk for suicide, please.
38:32 I will we all need friends.