“Your Story Isn’t Over Yet”: Ryan Nesbit, co-founder of Alive & Running Iowa, speaks to area high school students and community about suicide prevention


Packing awareness and prevention ... A backpack containing training information, suicide awareness and prevention wristbands, and suicide prevention hotline numbers was provided to everyone who attended the QPR Gatekeeper training sessions presented in Waukon Monday, February 28 by QPR Gatekeeper Instructor Ryan Nesbit, co-founder, with Troy Belmar, of Alive & Running Iowa. Attendees also were issued a QPR Gatekeeper Certificate documenting two hours of training for having attended the presentation. Photo by Julie Berg-Raymond.

Bringing a message of awareness and prevention ... Waukon High School Guidance Counselor Amy Wasson (left) is pictured above with Ryan Nesbit (right), co-founder, with Troy Belmar, of Alive & Running Iowa for Suicide Awareness and Prevention. Belmer and Nesbit organized Alive & Running Iowa in 2009 in honor of their friend, Rodger, who they lost to suicide when they were sophomores at Dunkerton High School in 1991. Nesbit conducted a series of presentations at Waukon High School Monday, February 28, educating students and the community on the foundation and techniques of the QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) Institute utilized in raising awareness of suicide and resources available for prevention. Photo by Julie Berg-Raymond.

by Julie Berg-Raymond

If readers take only one piece of information away from this article, let it be this: Help is always available at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Number: 1-800-273-TALK.

(NOTE: Starting July 16 of this year, 988 will be the new, simplified three-digit dialing code that will route callers across the United States to that National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.)

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“We are in a mental health crisis, big time,” according to Ryan Nesbit, who - with his high school friend, Troy Belmar - founded Alive & Running Iowa for Suicide Awareness and Prevention in 2009 in honor of their friend, Rodger, who they lost to suicide when they were sophomores at Dunkerton High School in 1991. Alive & Running Iowa began as a running event held annually in Dunkerton but has since grown into a non-profit organization to help raise awareness about suicide and suicide prevention.

Nesbit conducted a series of presentations at Waukon High School Monday, February 28, educating students and the community on the foundation and techniques of the QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) Institute. Waukon High School Guidance Counselor Amy Wasson brought Nesbit and his training presentation to the school because she knew South Winneshiek High School had done the same thing and their school officials had positive things to say about his presentation.

“We just have really recognized a need for mental health education for our students and community,” Wasson said. “We’ve had some suicides in our community.”

QPR’s instructional materials say the fundamentals are not unlike the skills of CPR or the Heimlich maneuver in that they are easily learned, and potentially lifesaving. Not considered a form of counseling or treatment, QPR is, instead, “intended to offer hope through positive action.”

In brief: Q = QUESTION a person about suicide; P = PERSUADE someone to get help; and R = REFER someone to the appropriate resource. The idea behind QPR training is that anyone can become a “gatekeeper” - a person able to recognize a crisis and warning signs that someone may be contemplating suicide. QPR’s introductory pamphlet makes one thing clear: “Since it is impossible for family doctors, counselors and mental health professionals to know everyone who needs help, the answer to the question, ‘Who needs to know QPR?’ is - Everyone does.”

“You’d be shocked to learn how many people have thoughts about suicide,” Nesbit explained to attendees at his Monday night presentation in Waukon. “And it’s okay to have thoughts about suicide. It doesn’t make me ‘weird,’ and it doesn’t make me ‘weak.’ It makes me human.” When people start showing behaviors, he continued, “that’s when we have to help. We do not want them making a plan.”

Suicide, Nesbit said, “is the most preventable form of death.” But, he said, “everybody’s got to have a role. I told the juniors and seniors today, ‘Be leaders. Stop picking on each other.”

He told everyone, “Do tiny things - be kind; say hello. Almost any kind of positive action can save a life. We’ve got to have social interaction. Two are better than one; have people in your life that are real - real friends that have got your back. Put people in your life that support you. And if you’re doing okay, volunteer - help other people.”

Positivity, in general, is an important key to sound mental health, Nesbit said. At one point, he asked attendees to “think of five things that make you happy, make you laugh - that you enjoy and look forward to doing. If you can’t think of five things right now, it’s time to seek some help from someone.” After having traveled the state doing presentations on QPR - including a day full of speaking and instruction at Waukon High School - and still facing an hour and a half drive home that night, Nesbit told his audience, “I’ll stay.”

Q = QUESTION
Nesbit emphasized the importance of paying attention to verbal and non-verbal cues in people around us; of taking all signs seriously; of teaching people not to joke about suicide (“I tell young people, ‘You’ve got to find something else to joke about,’” he said); and of having direct conversations. “HOW you ask, is less important than THAT you asked,” he said; but, he added, the direct approach is best. “If you can’t ask the direct question,” he said, “find someone who can.”

The significance of this point was made clear at the end of his presentation Monday night when Nesbit asked every person in the audience to look directly at him and, on the count of three, ask him, “Are you thinking about killing yourself?” Attendees seemed to feel the powerful energy of that direct human interaction.

P = PERSUADE
Persuading someone to stay alive, Nesbit said, is “all about listening.” Don’t rush to judgment, he said; give the person your full attention; offer help in any form. “Everybody’s got ‘stuff,’” he said. “Please don’t judge each other. Support and help each other.”

It is crucial, Nesbit said, to have things to look forward to. “The person struggling has to find a reason to want to be alive. You might ask some questions, and slowly draw them out: ‘What do you like to do? What did you used to like to do?’”

Then, he said, ask direct questions about getting help: “Will you go with me to get help? Will you let me help you get help? What can we do, to keep you safe for now?”

R = REFER
When he talked to students about helping a friend in distress and demonstrating suicidal behaviors, Nesbit said, “I told them, ‘Tell an adult - you’d rather have a mad friend, than a dead friend.’” He told everyone that the best way to make a referral is to take the person directly to someone who can help. The second best way, is to get a commitment from the person to accept help and make arrangements to get that help. The third best way, he said, is to give referral information and try to get a good faith commitment.

“Don’t leave a person alone, if they need help; don’t hesitate to get involved or take the lead,” Nesbit said. “Tell the person, ‘I want you to live. I’m on your side; we’ll get through this.’ Get others involved; ask the person who else might help. Everybody’s got to be in the game.”

“The mental health crisis is going to get worse before it gets any better,” Nesbit told the audience, as he neared the end of his presentation. “COVID has been a big part of it. And we have too much screen-time; we don’t know how to communicate with each other, or to be in the same room with each other,” he said. There also remains a stigma, he noted, associated with mental illness and suicide that can compromise efforts to seek - and to offer - help.

“Education is the key to getting rid of that stigma,” Nesbit said, along with talking openly about mental health issues and suicide. “Show each other less judgment, and more care and concern,” he said. “Have each other’s backs; talk to somebody. You cannot do this by yourself.”

For more information, visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org or aliveandrunningiowa.com. For help, call 1-800-273-TALK.