Featured Montanan: Darla Tyler-McSherry is Helping Prevent Suicide with the Website ‘Ask in Earnest’

Darla Tyler-McSherry with her father, Dick Tyler. (Courtesy of Darla Tyler-McSherry)

Darla Tyler-McSherry knows the firsthand effects of suicide in Montana. It’s how she lost her dad, farmer Dick Tyler.

While Montana’s suicide rates have been amongst the top five in the nation for the last 40 years, suicide is a public health challenge that everyone can help positively impact.

After living through the loss of her dad, Tyler- McSherry, who is the director of Student Health Services at MSU-Billings, struggled to reconcile her profession with the knowledge that her family never saw it coming.

“My dad was the stereotypical Montana farmer. I couldn’t imagine him doing anything else. A good farmer and steward of the land, a good neighbor, who loved a good story and to visit with neighbors and friends. He was very meticulous with machinery, and proud that anything with a motor had a place to sit inside. He wanted to help others and was appreciative and gracious of those who have helped him over the years. While he was proud of his accomplishments, he was also humble,” said Tyler-McSherry.

Her warm description of her dad and his connected community contradicts the population data around the family farm at Lonesome Prairie, a rural location with just 1.5 people per square mile. Low population density and limited access to health care in rural areas are just two of the reasons why Montana ranks high in suicides per capita.

In processing his death, Tyler-McSherry wanted to create something positive come from it. Her dad’s friend commented that her dad would always ask in earnest how others were doing, because he genuinely cared about them.

The phrase “Ask in Earnest,” led Tyler- McSherry to build the website, askinearnest. org, where people can learn more about helping to prevent suicide, especially in farming and ranching communities.

Dick Tyler’s 80th birthday.

Courtesy of Darla Tyler-McSherry

While she worked on building and promoting the website, she met a lot of people who were willing to talk about suicide in farming and ranching communities, which is the opposite of what one might expect.

“Most of my conversations about increasing suicide awareness have been healing. I’ve talked with lots of people at the NILE (Northern International Livestock Expo), peanut farmers in South Carolina, and potato farmers in Idaho. It’s all too common, and tragic, what they are working through. We help each other and it’s healing to make a difference, raise awareness and educate people,” said Tyler-McSherry.

She is working on updating askinearnest.org, and highlights the need to just reach out and create an opportunity for honest conversation.

“Some goals for the website and beyond include offering Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR is a training to help people recognize warning signs of a suicide crisis) directly to farming communities and making mental health more acceptable to talk about. Turns out people do want to talk about it, despite the belief that they don’t. I’ve been blessed and humbled with the stories people choose to share with me. Especially men want to talk about it, we just have to create the safe environment for them to do it, and they can leave that conversation with helpful tools,” said Tyler-McSherry.

Visit askinearnest.org to learn more about preventing suicide, especially in farming and ranching communities

To help a neighbor or anyone struggling with stress and contemplating suicide, Tyler-McSherry suggested some actions, helpful conversation starters and listed the warning signs (see inset). She wants to dispel the myth that talking about suicide will make someone start thinking about it. “Asking direct questions with care will help open a lifeline,” she said. “Be willing to have a candid conversation and hear what you may not want to hear. Be willing to make the bridge to mental health resources or professional help.”

Tyler-McSherry also discussed some of the challenges unique to farmers and ranchers.

It’s important to be aware of the legacy for so many farmers and ranchers. They have the pressure of their own business, often combined with the legacy of what their family built, at risk. If they let themselves down, it’s also letting down the work of generations before them.

She refers to and highlights the work of Dr. Michael Rosmann, a fourth-generation farmer and clinical psychologist from Iowa, who studies how farmers will do whatever is needed to keep or keep up their land. His research, called “The Agrarian Imperative,” looks into what drives farmers to work incredibly hard, to tolerate uncommon pain, take huge risks, and trust themselves.

“The coping tools that help a farmer or rancher find success in their work are also some things that put them at higher risk for suicide. They accept that pain and risk are a part of the work, and often have a lack of separation of work, from life outside of work,” said Tyler-McSherry. “Try to be aware of factors that put farmers and ranchers at higher risk–that lack of separation between work and life outside of work–and the thinking that if they’re not out there doing it, then no one else is.”

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

MSU Extension Ag Stress Clearinghouse https://msuextension.org/wellness/stress-management/mt_farm_stress_clearing_house/index.html

MSU Extension offers classes in Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), a course that teaches people to identify and respond to signs of mental illness or substance abuse disorders. Request classes here: http://health.msuextension.org/mental_health.html

Warning signs (these behaviors may be a sign someone is thinking about suicide)

Person talks about:

Wanting to die, being a burden, having great guilt or shame, not seeing a future for themselves.

Person reports feeling:

Empty, trapped, hopeless; extreme sadness, anxiety or rage; unbearable emotional or physical pain

Person exhibits changing behaviors:

Making a plan or researching ways to die; withdrawing from friends, giving items away; taking dangerous risks like driving recklessly; extreme mood swings; eating or sleeping changes; using drugs or alcohol more often.

Actions (Actions and conversations will not fix it but can be an important step toward getting mental health or professional help.)

Talk to others who know the person and raise your concern or ask if others also have concerns.

Prepare to be candid and real with the person. You may hear something that’s hard or you don’t want to hear.

Ask them if they are contemplating suicide (Prepare for them to answer yes, and remember that asking will not put them at greater risk of suicide. )

If an immediate crisis, get the person to the emergency room, or call 911, as law enforcement is trained in having these conversations.

Sit with the person and call the suicide hotline together. (Don’t leave a person alone if it feels like an immediate risk, especially if they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol.)

Conversation starters:

• “Gosh, I’m worried about you, but I care about you and want to know how you’re doing…

• “Because I care and you’re doing things that make me worried, I want to check in with you…

• “I want you to stay alive, how about I babysit your weapons for a while, because I am worried about your safety… (If weapons may be a safety issue)

• …You don’t have to figure this out alone. There is a national hotline where you can talk with someone.

If you’re worried about someone, call the national suicide prevention hotline yourself to get advice on how to proceed, 800-273-8255 (800-273- TALK) or text HELLO to 741741.