In this bonus episode of The Deep End, listen to an interview with Jon Nelson. He’ll share how he’s doing these days, now that his depression is gone. You’ll hear about the work still ahead of him, which may be lifelong. And you’ll hear about his plans for the future. 

Transcript

Laura Sanders: This podcast deals with mental illness, depression and suicide. Please listen with care.

Hi listeners, we’re dropping into your feeds this week with a special bonus episode of The Deep End. Over the last six episodes, you’ve heard about some of the hardest parts of Jon Nelson’s life. And some of the best parts too. He’s struggled through severe depression. He volunteered for an experimental treatment that involved brain implants, and now he’s relearning how to live. For this bonus episode, we’re going to check in with Jon and see how he’s doing these days. You’ll hear more from him about what it was like to go through severe depression, and what it’s like now that he’s out from under it, now that he’s living what he calls his bonus life. Welcome to The Deep End. I’m Laura Sanders.

I called Jon in December of 2024, over two years out from his surgery. Here are parts of our conversation, including the part where he tells me that he’s become friends with another person you might remember from the podcast, Amanda, the artist in New York City who had DBS surgery, too. Take a listen.

Sanders: Hi, Jon.

Jon: How is life? How you doing?

Sanders: Good. I’m doing really well. How about you?

Jon: I am too. I, a lot of, lot of stuff going on. My one colleagues says, a lot of momentum. I’ll take momentum. Momentum is a good term.

Sanders: Oh my, yes. Thank you for talking to me again. Are you tired of me yet?

Jon: No, man, I’m, I’m all in, all the time. Your family OK? You guys doing OK?

Sanders: Yeah, we’re all good. We’re in the Christmas, you know, mayhem crash landing into the new year. How about you?

Jon: It’s like, I just like Thanksgiving so much more, so less pressure, you know what I mean? It’s like, the planning for a month for five minutes of opening gifts to like the crash, you know. Holidays are hard. I’m one of those where they’re hard for me, so it’s, they’re less hard than they used to be, but still not like my favorite time of year.

I’ve become super close friends with Amanda, who I saw for that video after mine, and I reached out to Figee, and was like, “Yo, I was like, send my information to her.” And dude, immediately, she reached out and we’ve become, we’ve come tight. I may have told you this, but I, she ended up sending me her artwork. I was like, “Dude, can I get some of your artwork?” And, she sent me the high-res PDFs so I have it in like all my kids’ bedrooms.

Sanders: That’s awesome. Which ones do you have in there?

Jon: The subway one is like my favorite, so that’s in my musicians, kids’ room and one of them with the heart, it’s Amanda with the heart, is in my other kid’s room, and the third one is blanking me right now, but, dude, they’re just beautiful, like every one I see, and then she did, did you know she did a DBS book? Like how incredible is that? Like, it’s just so neat, you know, that just. I love creativity. I love people with passion and creativity, and you can’t beat that with her.

Sanders: Yeah, yeah. I mean, she, she sent that book and we used a few of the drawings to illustrate the, the new, the online version of this story, and it just like got me. You know, you can describe it in words and you can even hear her talking about it, but then seeing the way she kind of puts these colors together and like, designs it all, it’s gorgeous.

Jon: We do like a monthly support group I started three years ago and, you can just tell, I can tell with every person, like their posture, their skin complexion, their, how animated they are. I know exactly where they are.

Sanders: Yeah. Is it Zoom? You meet on Zoom?

Jon: Yep. It’s actually, well, it’s a Google Meet, but yeah, it’s web conference and it started from my first article that I did about three years ago, actually three years ago now, it was December 2nd, 2021. That’s weird. That was, yeah, three years ago. And that’s, I just had so many people reach out to me that were similar situations, high functioning folks, suffering through hell. And so that was kind of the goal was, you know, kind of a high-functioning mental health support group of people, like-minded folks who are in theory, what people think is hiding it, where we are not hiding it, but we are struggling and it’s been great. Just like sometimes two people join, sometimes 15 people join, you know, it’s just each month is different and it’s been really cool.

Sanders: What kind of things do you talk about?

Jon: So in that support group, it’s check-ins. It’s where, where are you at right now? What’s, what’s changed? What’s, where’s your mind? Situational stuff, you know. Guys, how would you move forward with this? Which, you know, relatability. It’s just all peer-based support and with zero intent or goal other than to be around like-minded people and be able to get as, as, as healthy as we can.

And just, you know, when you’re dealing with a condition like we deal with, you know, being able to be around people who understand the hell and who also understand the stupidity of society for stigmatizing us, it’s a really wonderful thing to feel quote unquote normal for a half a second.

Sanders: Yeah, yeah, it makes a ton of sense. And now, if you don’t mind, I’ll shift into kind of the same question for you, you know, Where, where are you right now? How are you doing?

Jon: So right now, I am just over two years from my surgery date. So I’ve been in remission for two years of this maniacally horrific disease. That does not mean that it is simple. It is easy. It’s the exact opposite of that. I still have to work on it daily. I still have to be, maintain my, you know, try to keep my mood as neutral as it possibly can be. And, you know, one of the main things that I would say is, you know, Dr. Mayberg telling me that I needed to rehab my brain, and I didn’t understand what that meant. And, you know, learning how to deal with sadness and kind of, have that being part of my life is extremely triggering for me still to this day. And I, you know, I went into the surgery, you know, hoping I would die. And, you know, coming out of it not dead, and coming out of it in remission from this disease is like winning the lottery. It wasn’t even something that I thought was plausible. And so to come out of it and be disease free, is, is still earth-shattering to me.

But then I never would have thought that you take it one step further. And I am dealing with trauma. You know, I’m dealing with trauma from living in hell for as long as I did. And being an empath, being a middle child, being an emotional person, which I know is shocking to say as a dude, but that’s what I am. And so to have your emotions completely pulverized and twisted and tortured for a decade, you know, you truly focus in on, on all aspects. And so I have to learn how to live with something that is part of my life for the rest of my life, which is being sad. And so being sad is an absolute normal human emotion. And sadness, anger, happiness, like they all happen and they come into your body and they leave your body. And so, I know that it’s going to leave, but guess what? My analogy would be, you know, an alcoholic who has to, every once in a while, take a very, very large sip of alcohol, of wine. It would be very challenging for them to deal with that. It’s the exact same scenario that I have. I still have to feel sadness. And so it’s actually been very helpful for me too, in trying to explain to people the hell of this disease is we all have to experience human emotions. It’s the cycle of life. The disease of severe depression is, you take that, you take that emotion of general sadness, maybe it’s at a three out of 10, 10 being death. And it’s doubled, it’s tripled, and it never leaves your body. So those bad moments that you have, imagine multiplying them by, you know, two, three, four, five, and it never leaves your body. And the only thing consistent that you have is every day it gets a little worse. That’s what it’s like to deal with severe depression in a treatment-resistant form. And so add that feeling and thought onto an additional flame of society being stupid and judging and blaming and ostracizing millions of people for having this condition that nobody has asked for just like every other disease. That’s why everyone dies. That’s why everybody suffers. And it’s that simple. And so to think that I can go through this and prove to the world that this is a biological disease, I just have a circuit off of my brain. I have 23 million pulses going into my brain, every day. If I do not have that electricity, I go immediately back into this maniacally horrific disease.

And so the fact that society judges, labels, blames, ostracizes me and millions of other people for something that we did not ask for is the reason that healthcare costs for this disease and all the other comorbid conditions exist. It’s because of the stupidity of society for blaming, labeling, judging, ostracizing for a disease that we didn’t ask for. You look at cancer, there is communal love, support, a hug. And that’s exactly how it should be. It’s beautiful. Like, let’s take care of you, your family. We feel sorry for you. The exact opposite is serious mental illness. That’s the problem. That’s why everybody suffers and dies.

Sanders: Yeah, I, I remember you telling me it’s a non-casserole disease, and that really struck me.

Jon: It is a one hundred percent non-casserole disease. Everybody lines up, everybody, everybody goes over to the person’s house who’s suffering from cancer. Meals are coordinated every single day. People are driving folks down for therapy and treatment. It’s beautiful. It’s the best part of humanity, and you could not get a more further from reality situation than serious mental illness, and it’s absolutely appalling to me. It’s unjust and it’s right in everybody’s face on why everybody suffers and dies. And people just continue to do it. So that’s my mission for the rest of my life is to poke society, to let them know that their behavior is absolutely directly responsible for suffering and death.

Sanders: You described your depression as feeling like a poison in your body. Do you feel that poison anymore?

Jon: So my depression, the feeling that I had is, my two biggest symptoms before going into surgery were a constant desire for death, euphoria to die. I wouldn’t, I’d thought about suicidal ideation as much as I was breathing. I mean, it was that pervasive and consistent in my life. And so that’s my mind portion of it. And then my second portion of it was exactly what you said, physically ravaged my body. And so to explain that to you, think about the feeling that you get, the full-body sensation feeling you get when you have a fever, right? You have the aches, you have the shakes, you have the, it’s just pure discomfort, right? Like this is awful. So take that feeling, that same physical overwhelming feeling, and it’s just death and dread, just circulating through my body. Like I could feel it in my fingertips. I could feel it everywhere. And so to wake up from the surgery, and they turn the device on, and both of those are gone, immediately, like gone. It’s still surreal to this day. And so when I think about the before and afters, I, I, there was just so many. I mean, one of them that is just so vivid to me is I got this massive tattoo before my surgery on my left arm. I’ve never gotten a tattoo. I wanted to kind of, you know, do something to, I don’t know if the right word is commemorate, memorialize. I don’t even know what it is. I guess symbolically, you know, represent my fight through this hell. And so I just, a big nature scene on my left arm, and that’s because being out in nature, specifically around trees, you know, reduces symptoms of depression. So I was like, all right, let’s bring it here. I didn’t feel it. You know, they put, they took four days to get this thing on. And I didn’t feel it. It wasn’t pleasant. It wasn’t unpleasant. It was just there. And I had to go back and get it touched up after my surgery, and I had to have her stop multiple times, cause I could feel again in my body. I could actually feel something other than the hell of this horrific disease. And so that’s an absolute perfect example.

Sanders: I wonder if there are any surprises that have come out of all of this. After going through the run-up to the surgery, the surgery itself, kind of this rehab portion. Were there any unexpected changes or anything that happened that surprised you?

Jon: For sure. I think that I very quickly learned that I’m living a bonus life. And it’s a lot of fun living a bonus life, because things that you typically would say, wouldn’t say or you would think, but I don’t know if I should say this or do this, I fully embrace those moments, you know? I fully embrace them, and I say what most people wouldn’t. And that’s mostly positive. That’s some negative, and I enjoy that with my advocacy because I like poking. I like poking because I want you to think differently. And I will tell you the most, like similar, some of these things are kind of taboo, right? Oh, don’t talk about mental illness in the work setting and blah blah blah. I do the opposite. I go straight at it hard. The more, the more raw that I am, the more pokey that I am, the more successful that I have become with my advocacy and with momentum. And there’s not been one thing that I have done in this outside world of being in remission of depression and talking about it and being very open about it and being very raw, being very real, that has been negative in the slightest bit. It’s been nothing but positive.

Sanders: A bonus life. I love that phrase and that thought. Does it show up with your family? Do you feel like you’re living a bonus life with your kids and your wife?

Jon: A hundred percent. I owe everything to them. I owe everything to my wife, you know, she’s just a rock, the most amazing person, you know, the only person that these horrific maniacal diseases are, are, are worse for than the person suffering is the caretaker, caregiver, and that was my wife. And so to be able to see the hell that she went through while watching the person that she loves, who I know I’m a good father, a good provider, a good husband, just deteriorate. And all those things are on her now. And she’s her, her, her bandwidth is zero, and, you know, society is not helping her. Society is judging her too. And it’s horrific. And so to be able to, to be able to see, you know, her in the scenario that we’re in now, which is, we’re out of it, you know, we’re out of it. She’s still cautious. It’s been two years. She’s still cautious. I’m still cautious. I’m always afraid, you know? Use your cancer remission. You know, I’m in remission, but I still gotta get checked and make sure it doesn’t come back, you know? So we always will live with that fear, but yeah, I mean, just, just the the, the standard, the typical embrace. The hugs are different. The watching a show together is different. The being around the kids is different.

You know, my kids, it’s all they knew, right? They knew I’m a good dad. They knew they got to see me healthy dad prior, and they also had to see sick dad, and they knew that it wasn’t me, they knew it was the disease, they truly did, you know, and and I talked to him about it all the time of, “Guys, how did this impact you?” And they’re like, “It’s all we knew. It was our life and it’s great to have you back.”

And so to come out of this on the other side and be able to have just genuinely enjoy your time together and have conversations and be able to throw a football with them again, you know, be able to take my daughter, she’s turning 16, we’re going over Christmas. I’m taking her on a dad-daughter trip to San Francisco and we’re gonna drive down the coast to L.A. Like, do you know how beautiful that is? I mean, I, it’s just stunning that I can do that now and enjoy every single moment, you know? Including the, every single minute in that car ride down and the laughter and the music. I couldn’t do that before. Now I, I can experience joy in a healthy way and enjoy it tremendously, and grow very important relationships in my life.

Sanders: Yeah, yeah, it does seem like just a qualitatively different thing to feel that way versus the absence of something awful. Yeah, yeah. Are you taking your daughter to where you used to live?

Jon: When the kids turned five years old, and my wife and I were like, let’s take them on a trip, like each individually, like mom, dad, kid trip. It’s just a fun age, you know, he turned five and my my middle guy, I’ll give an example, is like, I wanna go to New York City, and so we went to New York City and he’s five years old out on, I still remember Park Avenue and 37th Street, holding his hand up, hailing a cab. You know, we’re doing all the, you know, it’s just was fun, right? It’s like one of those moments where like they really can experience life and understand it and do some cool stuff. And so we just came up with this. My daughter’s turning 16, and so my wife and I are like, let’s do something like that. Like, let’s give them another opportunity. And I happen to be extremely lucky, cause it works out perfectly for me to be able to take her. So we’re just doing a solo trip. And so she could pick anywhere in the world, literally, we’re like, where do you wanna go? What do you wanna do?

And it really makes you realize how nostalgic people are for their origins, and she was born and raised out in San Francisco. She left when she was four, but it’s still part of her identity. And so the fact that she picked going to San Francisco and driving down the coast and stopping at Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay and Carmel and, you know, hitting, hitting L.A. It’s pretty cool, you know? And so that’s, that’s, that’s really what drove it is, you know, I think let’s get back to my, my hometown and let’s smile and see some beauty and make some great memories.

And so, you know, my big thing with my kids is I always try to go to a high level in regards to what am I trying to achieve. And, you know, parenting is, is not easy. It’s, it’s, I always say you want to hug them 10 times a day and punch them 10 times a day, right? There’s, there’s ups and downs and it’s, it’s overall amazing. But, you know, being able to get your kids out of the house, like my focus is always on, you know, if you can have, you know, if you can be a good, independent person and you can be confident, I did my part and, you know, I’m very, very fortunate that, you know, my daughter is right there. And, you know, being able to help guide that and being able to play a part in making that happen is, is really, really fun for me. And that’s what motivates me as a parent.

Sanders: Yeah, that makes perfect sense, seeing them kind of launch in their own lives and, and knowing you did what you needed to do, and now they’re going to go off on their own adventures.

Jon: If you hit those two qualities, all the other ones come. That’s why you gotta start high. Everything else will happen.

Sanders: Shifting a little bit to the research, I wonder if you’re still involved in the research project at all, and if so, what that looks like.

Jon: So here’s a human behavior thing that I find fascinating is we had to do two times a day, we had to commit to a journal, a video journal. We had to do eight minutes of brain scans. Essentially they would analyze my brain waves. We had to do multiple, multiple choice questions on our, on our feelings. We had to do that twice a day, so it was a commitment and, and that was something that was not a problem. Let’s go. Like, this is what I gotta do for this, there’s a lot of, a lot of to do’s. We had to do our part. And at about six months, that turned into once a day. And then a couple of months later, it was once a week. And so I’m at that phase now where it’s, it’s once a week. But, but here’s the challenge. The challenge is, it’s harder to do once per week than it is to do twice a day every day. How wild is that, right? And so that’s my challenge is like, I screw up and don’t make my deadlines a lot. And so it’s, you know, it’s something that’s always in the back of my head. And so the short answer is, is, yeah, I’ll be connected to these guys for an extremely long time, and it’s amazing. At some point I’ll be stopping the kind of video journal and the brain activity, but I still meet with the psychiatrists on a quarterly basis, and it’s more of a check-in. They’re still fully available to me when I email. The humanity that this group has provided me is, is exceptional. And they’re in my corner. You know, at some point I’m gonna need to change. I have the R plus S Medtronic investigational device in my chest. That’s the pacemaker, and they have a new commercial grade of available device that I will have to get into my chest. So they’ll basically cut me open and swap that out. It’s a battery. They say pacemaker, but it’s a battery. That’s how I look at it. So I’ll get the newest and greatest battery in there, and that’s also something that will be included as part of the trial. I know Medtronic has provided those to them as part of this clinical trial.

When you go through severe depression, serious mental illness in this country which is apparently the best country on the planet which I highly, highly, highly contest based off of going through this journey, and then you walk into a clinical trial environment like I did, I can’t begin to tell you the difference, like how absolutely different they are, and how broken our mental health system is in this country. I had physicians looking at me in the eye. I had them telling me that they want to help me, that they know something’s wrong with me, that they believe me, that they can fix me. I’m saved for sure by this medical technology in my brain, a hundred percent. But it’s not just that. It’s definitely that, but it’s also their humanity. It’s their empathy. It’s how they talk to me. It’s how they believe me. That is absolutely part of this, and that’s where it needs to be all the time, especially with a disease, like with the, the diseases within serious mental illness. That’s all we’re dealing with is broken minds. So to be able to help, help a broken mind by being kind, costs no money. Looking at somebody in the eye costs zero money, nothing. You don’t need millions of dollars of consultants to fix this problem. You need to create an environment that can get people into the healthcare system sooner. And you need to get the people who are in there. Guess what? When you’re getting somebody a year into living through hell versus 10 years, again, I have no validation for this, but it’s a pretty logical assumption to think, it’d be a hell of a lot easier to fix that after a year rather than 10 years.

Sanders: Yeah, and it hits home when you talk about kind of the rehab portion of your brain, too. Like if you’re trying to change after a decade of these patterns that you’ve adapted to and learned to live with versus a year of that, that rehab portion’s gonna be a lot easier too.

Jon: Absolutely, one hundred percent. And I, I didn’t understand the significance of the rehab portion, and that’s something for sure that I’ve taken out of this. And my initial thought was, dude, I’m good. I don’t feel this disease all over my body and my mind isn’t warped with constant suicidal ideation. That was naive of me, because I got to understand that it is an absolute journey. I need to continue to put the work in. I need to continue to not get super angry with certain situations before that would make me angry, that would put me right into a recurrence. And so I need to sit back and you know, not let certain situations bug me like they would as much as they typically do, right? I need to be very cognizant of my mood to keep it as neutral as possible to avoid any major ups or major downs.

Sanders: You told me a while back you’re still crabby. You were crabby, you’re still crabby. Do you still feel crabby now?

Jon: You know, irritability was probably the one characteristic that stayed similar. And so my, my joke about it, but it’s probably true, is, you know, I’m just like I guess certain aspects of my life, I’m the cranky old dude, right? Like it just happens throughout life. You’re tired, you’re exhausted, you’re going, being pulled in a million directions and you’re parenting and then things don’t stop. So yes, I do get irritable still, but you know, that’s called being a human being. I’m not anywhere near perfect, but in general, my smiles are back more and I feel, I feel really good. Am I perfect? Nope. This, this, this, this surgery does not, does not cure life problems, but it sure, it sure eliminates and destroys a horrific disease that’s in your body.

Sanders: So when I visited your house, there were some jokes about hiding your charger and changing your settings, and I wonder if you all still joke about things that that are kind of in this realm.

Jon: Yeah, you have to add humility and humor and laughter to all of this. And, you know, yes, a hundred percent. And, you know, a simple way to think of that, my, my wife saying after the first week of me being home, her line to the doctor was, “Is there any chance we can turn the volume down on this a little bit?” Because I’m back. I’m back with a force. And, you know, it’s that, they say that with a big smile on their face. And you know, I, I, I joke around with my, you know, family, my daughter. I’m like, so what is it like when we weren’t here this weekend, you know, myself and my boy, we were at like a hockey tournament, so it’s like, “It’s a lot quieter.” So like, that stuff’s awesome, you know? Like, I mean, it’s just, it’s such a prime example of like what this disease does, this brain disease, that’s what this is, you know. It just mutes you. It, it takes you away from everybody. It takes your core essence away. And so being able to have that back is great. And so my line to them all the time when they’re busting my chops and, and, and having fun with this, which they should, is, you chose me. You chose me. It’s not on me, dude. You picked me, guys. The kids didn’t really. They’re kind of forced in this scenario, but the wife did.

Sanders: She totally did. I love it. Very true. You’ve done so much evocative explaining of what this felt like and what this disease has done to you, how it’s affected you, how it’s affected your family. I wonder if there’s a way to explain to someone who’s not felt this firsthand and may not have a family member or a loved one who’s felt this. What would you say to them, to kind of sum up what this disease is like?

Jon: To those folks who have no understanding of this, I will say a couple things. There’s not many of you. You know, when I start talking about this publicly and speaking, there’s always somebody. Either it’s a friend or a family or them. There is a connection to somebody with lived experience, so they’ve gotten to see firsthand most of the time what this looks like. And for those who haven’t, awesome. I’m so happy that you have not been exposed to it, and it’s the most simplistic thing in the world. The symptoms of this disease, the brain disease of severe depression, the symptoms are a desire to die and a consumption of your body with hell. It’s toxicity burning within your body. That’s the symptom. The symptom of another neurological disease, Parkinson’s, is shaking, right? It’s tremors. You know, look at epilepsy. It’s seizures, right? The symptoms are different, based off of every disease. The fact that society doesn’t understand and questions and judges folks with severe depression is what makes them die, and the unfortunate portion of this is the major symptom of these are torture. And so that’s what we have to understand, is that the people who have this horrific disease didn’t ask for it, at all. And so being able to surround them with love and kindness like you do with every other disease, and let them know that you love them and you care for them, it’s life-saving.

Sanders: If we could shift to kind of the future now, I, I wonder if there’s something you picture for yourself, you know, in, in the next year, in 2035? Where do you want to be? In 2050, where do you want to be? What’s, what’s on your long-term horizon?

Jon: I’ve have a colleague of mine that has been, said something very cool to me that sums up where I am right now with my patient advocacy. I actually call it more activism, because I do wanna poke and I do want to make people feel uncomfortable, so that they can change their behavior, is you have a lot of momentum right now. And I like that I have a lot of momentum. I unfortunately, am not listening to Dr. Helen Mayberg, who after the trial said, “You need to take it easy. You need to not do too much.” Well, I’m not listening to her cause I’m doing a lot, and I’m, but here’s the fun reason why, is, I am extremely motivated. I’m extremely passionate for this. There is a massive, massive, massive problem with a very simple solution, and I’m going to be in your face until the day that I die poking you and letting you know that you’re absolutely wrong and that, you know, we have the most simplistic way that we can possibly fix this, the complete moronic world that we’re in right now, which is simply by showing empathy and being kind to people with mental illness. Then we save, we save lives. We save suffering. Like, let’s go. I’m all about it.

And so when I look at 10 years from now, you know, in the last year, I have been so fortunate to be in the world that I’ve been in. I mean, being a part of your Science News piece, I was able to speak in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. I was able to participate in a congressional briefing for the neuroscience caucus in April. I’ve been able to, you know, lead multiple academics, physician conventions and sessions. I mean, every opportunity I get, I just smile, and I just say, “Let’s go.” You know, phenomenal opportunity for more exposure, for more places to get the, the message out.

So my long, my aunt always says to make a long story endless, to make a long answer endless, I will, I want to poke and prod and be at the point where people are like, “This dude, this dude, this dude is all in, like, all in.” And so my Pulverize the Stigma initiative I have that I’ve created, this is just my personal brand. I got it tattooed on me, right? Like I am officially all in on this.

Sanders: Before we end, I wanna ask how Barbara is doing, how your kids are doing. What’s the update with everybody?

Jon: Kids are cruising. We got 6th grade, 8th grade, 10th grade, all so different, all so fun to figure out what makes, makes each one of them tick and support those passions and create those, you know, good values that we’re trying to do as a family. And you know, my wife is, she’s just a rock. So my, my world is is hectic and crazy and it’s kind of chess pieces putting around everywhere to make things work, and it’s, and it’s really going well. And so to still have her be this rock of the family, which she is. I mean, it’s not fair, moms and, moms get a lot put on them, you know, for, for the houses and the families. It’s just true. I mean, it’s just the reality, and it’s not right, and we’re doing everything we can to, to, to pull our weight and make a, make a bigger impact on this family, but my God, she is just the strongest person I know. She puts everybody else before her and, you know she’s thriving right now at work. She’s about to start a new job, which is something extremely excited for, at a new great company, and it’s fun to see her smile and laugh. And you know, she had a day home from work yesterday, an unplanned day home from work, and you know, to be able to see her sitting on the couch drinking coffee watching the Today Show, is, it’s like, doesn’t happen. And so to be able to see her kind of being able to relax for a hot second is amazing and I value those moments tremendously.

Sanders: This bonus life.

Jon: Exactly, yeah. And being able to be home, and so her new job actually provides her an extra day off a week, which is, if anybody deserves it, oh my, it’s her. And I’m very excited that she’ll be able to have some alone time in the house without being pulled in a billion different directions. And that to me is happiness.

Sanders: Is there anything else you’d like to add? Anything we haven’t covered that you want to emphasize or highlight for people listening?

Jon: Show empathy and be kind and save lives. It’s not difficult. We’re not anywhere near where we need to be, but just focus on that. Show empathy, acknowledge when people tell you that they’re suffering, that you are sorry. Treat it like any other condition. I’m extremely sorry you’re going through this. You’re loved. And you proactively be kind to them. You don’t ask them what you need. You come home, like I did one day, and my lawn was mowed by my neighbor. I’ll never forget it, ever. It took him 15 minutes to do this. I’ll never forget it. You know, being able to feel loved when your entire mind is being warped and you’re being judged by society. Being able to have people do kind things for you, you’ll never forget. And so it’s not hard.

Sanders: A beautiful sentiment to end on, just showing up for people we love.

Jon: Not hard. It’s all we need to do.

Sanders: Well, I want to thank you again for not just today, but the, the years now that you have spent with me patiently answering all my questions, indulging the stupid questions, explaining the things that I ask about over and over and over again. I’ve been so grateful for you and your whole family, and everyone who’s who’s kind of held my hand as we try to explore some of these ideas. So thank you very much.

Jon: Well, here’s my thank you to you. Thank you for paying attention to this. Thank you for making it an amazing online series, video series, podcast series to get the, phenomenal platform to get this message out because everybody should be doing this, and the fact that you are is absolutely commendable, and I, I will be a part of this and whatever you need from me for the rest of my life. Call, text, I’m there.

Sanders: If you or someone you know is facing a suicidal crisis or emotional distress, call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

This is the Deep End. I’m Laura Sanders. If you liked this podcast, tell your friends. If you really like this podcast, leave us a review. It helps the show a lot. Send us your questions and comments at podcasts@sciencenews.org. The Deep End is a production of Science News. It’s based on original reporting by me, Laura Sanders. This episode was produced by Helen Thompson and mixed by Ella Rowen. Our project manager is Ashley Yeager. Nancy Shute is our editor in chief. Our music is by Blue Dot Sessions. The podcast is made possible in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the John S. James L. Knight Foundation, and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, with support from PRX.