S6E11: Suicide Awareness and Prevention

Please note that this transcript is automatically generated and contains many inaccuracies

Disclaimer

Malcontentamute: The Zooier Than Thou podcast contains adult concepts and language, and is intended for a mature audience. This episode is for everyone, but especially for those who have considered ending their life prematurely. Stay safe, be sane, and if you are thinking about giving up, please reach out to friends, family, or local health services.

If you’re in the US or Canada, you can call 988. In the UK, you can call 111. And if you’re anywhere else, the information is only a quick search away.

Cold Open

Comment: Aww, so cute! I love his fluffy ears!

Strawberries: Aw, thank you!

Comment: I wanna snuggle him and pet him.

Strawberries: hehe

Comment: Great art once again!

Strawberries: Thanks!

Comment: Woah! Is this actual yiff from Strawberries??

Strawberries: haha, I thought I’d try it!

Comment: This is really hot and yet still adorable.

Strawberries: aaa you’re gonna embarrass me, cmon.

Comment: paws paws paws paws paws paws paws paws paws

Comment: Paw worship yesss

Comment: Please do more of this

Caboose Canine: God this looks like so much fun. You always make it so relatable, like, they look like they’re a couple of really best friends having fun together.

Strawberries: Awww, thank you for the nice words.

Caboose Canine: Do you take commissions?

Strawberries: Um, yeah, sure.

Strawberries: Commission for Caboose Canine! Featuring Riley Ridgeback.

Strawberries: Commission for Stinkymutt!

Strawberries: Commission for Beyblades Badger! This one was really fun honestly, not something I’ve drawn before but I’m happy with how it turned out.

Comment: Oh. Diapers. Um.

Comment: Awww, cutie.

Comment: You should fucking kill yourself.

Strawberries: Woah, overreaction much?

Comment: Guys, as always if you don’t like this kind of stuff just blacklist it.

Strawberries: Yeah, honestly.

Comment: This is cute!

Strawberries: A gift piece for Beyblades Badger! After the last one I had some more ideas and I decided to run with them!

Comment: Unfollowing.

Beyblades Badger: Oh my goodness! Thank you for this I can’t believe it, you draw so well!

Comment: heh not my kind of thing but Strawberries’s art style is irresistible, I love it. Fun sona Beyblades!

Beyblades Badger: Thanks!

Strawberries: Uh… unfollowing?

Strawberries: Strawberries and Beyblades enjoying some strawberries and, oh gee, playing some Beyblades! Beyblades Badger suggested the dress code. Beyblades Badger’s feral boyfriend, Zeta Zoundly, watches curiously.

Comment: I hope you get run over by a cop and a ambulance respectively

Comment: Still adorable.

Comment: Zeta Zoundly is a known zoophile. Beyblades we always suspected was a zoophile supporter and now I guess we know that him and Strawberries are both guilty of supporting zoophilia, if not outright zoophiles themselves. I hate when a perfectly good artist is exposed as worthless garbage.

Comment: More ferals pleeeease! Maybe some feral NSFW? :3c If we got Strawberries-on-feral yiff I would nut so hard I might break my window.

Strawberries: Strawberries enjoying some sun in the park.

Comment: We haven’t forgotten about what you did.

Comment: I’m going to rip open your body and eat your guts.

Comment: Looks nice!

Strawberries: Commission for Poprock Leopard! Her coat is so hypnotic, I was getting lost in making this one.

Comment: @Poprock Leopard, were you aware that Strawberries supports animal rape?

Strawberries: Oh my gawwwwwd, you know what, fuck it, you wanna keep bringing that piece up, I’ll give you something to throw a bitch fit about.

Strawberries: Everyone at the dog park always wonders why their dogs get along with Strawberries so much!

Comment: Strawberries anthro-on-feral yiff! Yes yes yes yes yes aaaaaaa

Comment: Super hot.

Comment: I spy a few zetas on those collars :3c I think the owners might not mind if they saw what was happening behind those bushes.

Comment: Kill yourself dogfucker.

Comment: Fuck zoos, I hope your dog bites your 50 year old sagging dick off.

Strawberries: Strawberries needs to cover his lap while spectating at the dog show.

Strawberries: Strawberries smooching an eager feral. Love is love!

Strawberries: Commission for Zeta Zoundly and Beyblades Badger! When checking if your boyfriend’s behind is clean, always make sure to double check with a few good licks!

Comment: Please end your life. You are a negative impact on society. You have negative net zero impact on the progress of humanity. You should be executed. Please go to Saudi Arabia with a pride flag on your chest. You are fucked up.

Comment: Animals can’t consent. You are not a person. Dogfuckers are not in the LGBTQIA+. Kill yourself.

Comment: Jump.

Comment: If we really had the opportunity to point a gun at you we would have already pulled the trigger.

Comment: Actually kill yourself what is wrong with you.

Comment: Zoophiles should 100% be hunted for sport.

Comment: You should kill yourself NOW!

Strawberries: (difficult breathing)

Narrator: We see it all the time. Bullying at school, bullying on the internet, or maybe it comes from our own internal narrator. Isolation from the rest of the group, hopelessness, exiled for being who you are, or doing what you do. Sometimes it can feel like everyone hates you. Like you’re unsafe, unloved, and the walls are closing in. Everyone’s telling you that you’re worthless and that you need to take your own life, and maybe in a dark moment, the wrong words land with you, and you get the feeling that that person is right.

Narrator: Today we’re going to be discussing a painful, difficult topic, suicide. Our hope here is to create awareness of how and why people try to take their own lives, and some resources to help you and others prevent this from happening.

Theme Song

Kynophile: Hey, what can I say?

You’ve got me howlin’ at the moon!

Whoa, don’t you know that love is wild when you’re a zoo?

We’re Zooier Than Thou!

Oh yeah!

Intro/Emails

Steeeve: Greetings, friends. Welcome to another animal scented episode of Zooier Than Thou. I’m Steeeve mailing out zooey stickers to more states than you can count on two paws.

Malcontentamute: And I’m Malcontentamute. It’s a play on words, you know, but, uh, you can just call me Mal.

Steeeve: Great mount. Later on in this episode, I’m going to be doing an interview with Rene on the topic of suicide awareness and prevention. We’re going to be covering risk assessment, what to know if a friend might be talking about ending their life. There’s a lot of stuff you won’t want to miss.

Malcontentamute: And one thing that we never miss is your emails, dear listeners. I bet we have some dear listeners of the Servine kind, you know.

Steeeve: I do know. Let’s see what our favorite rat delivered to us from the Zoot Mailbag this time.

Malcontentamute: First we have a message from Nobody Zooey. They write,

about a year or two ago, I got called out for drawing zoophilic porn on my NSW accounts under my main name. I was outcast by so many people.

I lost most of my friends for over a year and was absolutely alone. During this time, I resorted to self harm and heavily contemplated suicide, but never went through with it because I had second thoughts. I still have the scars from that time and it’s painful to think about. It’s why eventually I made this account so I can express my thoughts without ridicule and being anonymous.

I don’t really know. I never shared this with anyone, so I’m sorry if this is poorly written. it certainly wasn’t.

Steeeve: Oh yeah, and it’s more common than you might think for people to draw something or express something zooey or just not even do that, but just not condemn zoos, strongly enough in mixed company and people who, are in a mood to persecute zoos will, bully you and abuse you online. which is why so many people do have an alt and it sounds like that’s what Nobody Zooey came up with as a solution as well.

, do you have anything From your own experiences about being a creative kind of person and keeping your, zoo life

separate.

Malcontentamute: yeah, totally. I mean, you know, , it’s certainly something that, I’ve experienced in my life. You know, just trying to make sure that, we do, OPSEC as has been discussed in past episodes and that kind of thing to make sure that, you avoid that kind of bullying because it’s just totally destructive in ways that, can really cause, you know, emotional, issues and, the kind of, scarring that you’ve experienced, nobody, zooey.

so yeah, I mean, I think it’s important for us to, really consider, keeping our, zoo life separate if we’re experiencing that kind of, Bullying from other people. And even, you know, on alt, you’re going to probably experience it from antis if you’re on social media or anything like that, but you have to understand that, these people are lashing out in some way that, is misguided.

Steeeve: Right, and as we’ve discussed on the show before, often, if not almost always, that person turns out to be a closeted, self hating, dramatized zoo. so we’re sorry that, they’re suffering, but we’re also sorry that they’re lashing out. So, You know, the block button is your friend. I definitely do public facing activism on my, ex account, formerly known as Twitter, under At Stories Zoo, where I distribute tens of thousands of zoo stickers globally.

And, yeah, there’s a ton of people on there, just like, It’s the equivalent of, like, a car full of teenagers driving by and yelling shit out the window, you know? And, my response has just been to block everything. Block everything that somebody has to say that’s abusive.

Malcontentamute: Yeah, blocked all the

negativity.

Steeeve: Yeah, and then, you know, it takes a constant effort and it takes a long time and, I don’t think it’s worth it for everybody, but there’s a balance between expressing yourself and being out there in a public space and participating and just hiding in a hole somewhere so that you don’t offend anyone with your zooness and I think we all have to find that balance for ourselves.

Malcontentamute: Well, and I would say, if making zoophilic porn, for example, is something that, you’re interested in and I think a lot of art that people produce, they produce because they enjoy the subject and they, it’s something that, really impacts them in a, in a personal way.

And so, you know, I’m going to suggest that you feel like, drawing zoophilic porn, as long as you do it in a safe way, you know, to protect yourself from those bullies is perfectly

acceptable.

Steeeve: yeah, and as far as self injurious behavior, if, if you find that you are having further thoughts of, harming yourself and or you have a plan or access to lethal means, please, please, please reach out to your support network

or a therapist, or if you’re in the U. S., the 9 8 8 hotline, and we’ll get more into those resources later in the episode, but, don’t just sit there and suffer.

it’s an unkindness to yourself and that sounds like an awful experience, NobodyZooey, but hopefully you’ve pulled through it alright and have now found an outlet for free expression on your new alt account. Next up, we have a message from Muffin.

Muffin writes, Hi, sorry to message on a somber note, but I saw the post asking for stories regarding Zoos who have attempted or committed suicide. I’d like to share my experience. My name is Muffin, and I’ve attempted suicide twice throughout my youth. I became depressed at a very early age after experiencing trauma caused by childhood abuse, which started when I was five.

At that point, I hadn’t thought about taking my life yet, let alone attempting it. but by age 10, the trauma got worse, and I became severely depressed. I started self harming and planning a suicide attempt. I’d write rough notes when I got home from school, but I never went through with it. My parents eventually found out I was suicidal through a classmate.

The hurt on their faces was enough to put me off it, at least until I was 13. That was easily the lowest and hardest time in my life. The abuse started again, and I’d skip classes just to hide in the school bathrooms and cry. I would steal scissors and sharp objects from my teachers, desperate to find anything to distract myself or feel better.

The anxiety and depression kept getting worse. Eventually, I was pulled out of school and taught at home by my mother for the rest of middle school and my first year of high school. I was bedridden, went weeks without showering, and silently begged for everything to end. The people I surrounded myself with at the time encouraged my self destructive behaviors, which only fueled my addiction to self harm.

One night, I finally had enough. Crying alone in my room, I attempted to hang myself. That led to a trip to the emergency room where I was monitored to make sure I didn’t hurt myself again. The sound of my mother crying broke me, and I swore I’d never do it again, but deep down I knew I probably would. Two years later, when I was 15, I was left alone with my medications.

Without thinking, I downed as many as I could. Almost immediately, I felt fear and regret. I ran to my parents and begged them to take me to the emergency room. I was treated for an overdose and kept in the psychiatric unit until I was deemed safe enough to go home. Years later, I still struggle with mental illness.

My depression and anxiety are still crippling at times, but things are slowly getting better. I’m in therapy now, and I’ve started medications that help with my diagnoses. In a way, I feel like I survived for a reason. For more UN videos visit www. un. org Now, I spend my time helping others who struggle with the same issues and situations I’ve been through.

I hope to become a psychologist or social worker to continue helping people. And if this does make it on air, I want anyone listening, anyone who feels the way I did or still do, to know this. It’s not always going to be this hard. I know it’s cliche and I know you’ve heard it before, but that’s because it’s true.

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. This It doesn’t end the pain, it just passes it to the people who care about you. You are strong, you can get through this, there are brighter days ahead, and people love you and would miss you dearly. Wow. What do you think, Mal?

Malcontentamute: Yeah, that’s pretty intense, but, I appreciate the fact that, Muffin’s been through a lot and, has come out through, um, You know, the other side and, has really found a purpose. I think, the message is, is absolutely correct. It’s really important that people understand that, There are resources. There’s help. And, being able to open up and, approach, your support network and get the help you need, is where you want to go. that age, especially, you know, 13 to 15 is a really difficult time for a lot of people. And, just know that there’s light at the other side of the

tunnel

there,

Steeeve: Right, because you maybe at that age don’t have a support network yet, or haven’t developed the coping skills that you’ll need, that would make something like this a little more survivable as an adult. The thing that really prompted me to want to do this episode and the sticker project, to mention just a couple is that anecdotally through the community, it’s shockingly common to hear about zoos taking their own life.

And, that’s, Not unusual in, an alternative sexuality community because we do face so much pressure and stigma.

Malcontentamute: and I think a lot of it is internalized and that’s, leads to, people, having these thoughts because, you feel or you experience what society tells you should be the way it is or what people tell you should be the way it is or, you know, like Muffin says, people encourage you to, do harmful behaviors because of peer pressure or whatever.

that all has a serious

impact.

Steeeve: right. if everyone’s telling you, that you’re awful, even if you don’t agree with that, eventually, like there’s a social pressure there. And if you don’t have some way of coping with it, then yeah, you’re at risk. But I do hope that by making this episode that other people who may be listening, who feel the way that Muffin has felt, will hear their story and realize that they’re not alone in this, and that other people have struggled with this and made it through, and that so too can they.

Malcontentamute: Muffin, that sounds like, an extremely painful experience for you and your family, but we’re definitely grateful that you pulled through and are now working to help others. Thank you for sharing your

experience.

Steeeve: Well said. Next up, a word from our sponsors.

Malcontentamute: Stay tuned for more zooey vibes.

Sponsors

Announcer: This episode is brought to you by, wow, dogs exist. You live in a world where you might get to sniff a dog, rub a dog’s scruff, play fetch with a dog, and so many other animals are real. Wow! If you want to smoke weed out of a horse dick shaped pipe, check out Epiphany, at epiphiny,.bsky.social on Bluesky. E P I P H I N Y.

Visit us on the web at zoo.wtf. There are some real treats on the site, standalone skit files if you want to revisit your favorite skits, illustrations of what some of your favorite Zooier Than Thou hosts look like naked, and our RSS feed: rss.zoo.wtf, that you can subscribe to get notified every time we’re on the air.

Topic - Suicide Awareness and Prevention

Steeeve: Alright, on this next segment of our episode on Suicide Awareness and Prevention, I will be interviewing Rene, who is a experienced, licensed, professional counselor, and I believe Rene has some insights about suicide awareness and prevention. Rene, could you describe for our listening audience your experience in treating people?

In this situation.

Rene: Thank you. Yes. It’s nice to talk to everybody. I have been working in mental health for about 20 years and about 14 of those have been as a licensed mental health professional counselor. I’ve worked in outpatient therapy. I’ve worked in inpatient, including the, uh, Psychiatric Intensive Care Units with the people that are at most risk for suicide and everything in between.

I have worked with people at the end of their life, I’ve worked with people that have compounding factors that can impact suicidality, and I have done many, many different suicide efforts. Crisis interventions throughout my career.

Steeeve: Great. And the reason that we wanted to do this episode was because we felt that there was an increased risk of suicidality amongst the zoo community.

This because when people come out as zoo, uh, it exposes them to a lot of discrimination and harmful reactions from the general public. Some of it’s in the range of heckling. Some of it is. More impactful from, say, uh, Family members, close relationships, acquaintances that, that maybe, um, indicate that they are not supportive of the person because of their attractions.

What can you tell us about the general prevalence of suicide as a cause of death in the general population versus that of queer people? Versus that of zoo people.

Rene: I’m glad you brought that up. I think that the zoophile community is very much in line with similar traits that we would see within the LGBTQI community.

As far as prevalence, we usually measure that through the number of deaths per a hundred thousand in the population. And there is, this is, I want to say, Even among the general population, this is a very large number of people. It’s the 11th leading cause of death, regardless of age. That actually used to be the 8th or 9th leading cause of death, but COVID pushed that out with how bad it was.

The numbers that we have as of 2022 in the general population, it’s the second leading cause of death for ages 10 to 14 and 25 to 34. It’s the third leading cause of death for ages 15 to 24 and the fifth leading cause of death for 35 to 44. So it’s actually something that comes up quite a bit. Um, I think that the reason the numbers aren’t higher among the more older established populations is because they also have health conditions such as heart attacks, complications from diabetes, cancers, things like that.

Steeeve: This is just me speculating, but Maybe older people are better equipped to cope with the stressful conditions that might lead to suicide in someone with fewer coping skills? That seems intuitive, but I don’t know if the data really backs that up.

Rene: No, that’s exactly what happens. We see that, uh, for instance, With queer community, I’ll use that as, because that’s the closest thing I have to, um, with the larger studies from the National Institute of Health.

The population of people who have same sex relations versus heterosexual relations only, the discrepancy is that within, for instance, the population of men who have sex with men, a suicide attempt is about 19%. That population compared to about 3. 6 of men who have never had a male partner. And that’s also true when you look at things like gender or an orientation.

Transgendered folks, their suicidality is directly impacted by the kind of support and resources that they have. For instance, we’ve seen recently in the last few years that anti trans laws have caused up to a 72 percent increase of suicide attempts. The highest among those is teens and young adults who do not have financial independence yet.

They may not be their own person, so they can’t consent to their own gender affirming treatments. They aren’t established in careers, and they haven’t had enough life experience that when you have your first crisis, They don’t know how to get out of that and rebuild like you do when you’ve had about 40 years where you’ve had ups and downs throughout your life.

Steeeve: So, we’ve had permission from researcher Alexandra Zydenberg to share some of her preliminary studies from the survey that she had done with zoos with a population that was very low. sample size of around a thousand participants and had seen something really reminiscent of your suicidality percentage for same sex pers uh, attracted persons and that is that something like 18 percent of zoos had indicated that they I don’t know if anyone had thought of taking their own life, or had tried to at some point or another.

That’s 19%.

Rene: Yes, I would agree with that. I think that it has to do with being part of a disenfranchised population.

Steeeve: So When we announced our intention to do this episode, we asked our listening audience on Axe, formerly known as Twitter, to provide us with some questions that they would like us to ask of you.

And we wonder if maybe we could, we could share those with you now.

Rene: I would love to. If there’s Background information, just give me a sec and I’ll be able to kind of flesh out if you ask about certain things. You’ll find that the research shows that there’s big differences in terms of how to assess for suicide, risk factors versus protective factors, and even things like the means of which people attempt.

There’s large differences and that may affect how your community members may move forward in helping those that they care about.

Steeeve: So, in response to Your mention of trying to prevent suicide in your loved ones. So this is a situation that many of our listeners may be familiar with, wherein somebody that they care about has expressed an intention to harm themselves.

I think it might be helpful for a listening audience to hear from. A mental health professional, how they, in their line of work, may be assessing people for their risk of suicidality and some of the steps we might take to provide that person with resources and prevent them from actually harming themselves.

To that, Renee, what would you say exactly?

Rene: Well, first thing I would say is that trust your gut. If you’re worried about somebody being at serious harm for themselves. Go ahead, ask them directly. Asking directly will not make somebody cause suicide. A lot of people have the misconception that there is a contagion that if you tell somebody, ask them if they’re going to kill themselves, you plant the seed of an idea.

That is simply not true. If anything, it shows that you’re a safe person they can talk to so they don’t feel isolated. The word suicide has such a stigma that can Prompt this kind of knee jerk reaction. So, you know, you might avoid the word suicide. I would say, Hey, are you thinking about harming yourself or about ending your life?

That can be something that they may be more open to talking about. I would also validate how difficult it is in sharing the thoughts, tell them that you appreciate their honesty and that you’re there for them. You may not know exactly what to say, but to just say, this is really struggling and it sounds really scary, if I’m scared, I know you are.

And I’m here for you. I may not know what to do, but I’m happy to help. When in doubt, call for help. There’s gonna be things that complicate that within the zoo community, so I’ll be happy to touch on that later. But being able to provide support so that somebody can seek out the help that they need.

There’s actually a free, very brief, scale that I use in my practice every single day. And it’s called the Columbia Suicide Rating Scale. Or the C SSRS. It’s free. There’s a PDF of it. You can Google it anywhere. It is the gold standard for assessing suicide. It has 100 percent sensitivity, so it catches people, and it has 100 percent specificity on lifetime attempts.

So what that means in statistics is that it’ll catch people that are suicidal, and it’ll weed out people that may not have been suicidal before. The assessment is basically five questions. The first one is, Hey, have you ever wished you could be dead or wait, go to sleep and not wake up? So the first one is very brief.

Wish you were dead. The next thing you would ask is if they have maybe active thoughts versus passive thoughts, but not specific. So you could say, hey, have you had any thoughts about killing yourself? As a follow up question, if they have active thoughts, there may be possible methods. So you don’t have to ask right away, like, what’s going on?

You can say, hey, have you ever thought about how you might do that? See if they have any plans, any details that have specifics. Then you can ask them if they have active suicide, but with some intention to act. So you might say something like, when you think about killing yourself or whatever thing, If when you think about shooting yourself, did you think that this is something you might actually do?

And then the last question that I would ask is specific plan and specific intent. So things like, have you thought about how and when you’ll kill yourself? Have you worked out how you would do it? Did any part of you think you would actually go through with it? Depending on how things go, that may show more serious suicidality versus a more passive thought.

But the general rule of thumb is that the more details you hear and the more planning, the more you know there’s been serious thought put into this. Of course, I know I’m speaking as a trained clinician, and that I can dig further into assessing other factors, but this is something that anybody can use.

On top of that, you can also ask questions related to really vague thoughts. So you could say like, hey, Have you ever wished you could fall asleep and not wake up? Do you feel like people would be better off if you’re gone? Have you ever thought about ending your life? If they say no, not really, and it’s not a firm no, they might have thought about it.

But they may or may not have it at that time. And then, one thing I would ask, bar none, is if they have guns in their home.

Steeeve: Right, because, um, as we’ve seen in some other studies, uh, done on a national level, uh, just having quick access to an effective means of suicide is one of the leading causes of actually having that happen.

So, in the United States, from which we are broadcasting, guns are Yeah, I think they outnumber people three to one in this country. There’s, it’s flooded with guns and so that tends to be the leading effective method of suicide. Whereas, um, at certain point, um, in the, in the recent past in, say, Great Britain, um, in the UK they used to sell Tylenol in Uh, that’s, what is Tylenol, what’s the active ingredient?

Rene: Acetaminophen.

Steeeve: Acetaminophen. They would just sell it in a bottle and people not having access to firearms, uh, would end their own life by overdosing on Tylenol. So at a certain point, people realized that was a problem. And started mandating that Tylenol only be packaged in blister packs and apparently it was so time consuming to remove all the pills individually from the packs that it drastically decreased the rate of suicide by Tylenol in the UK.

So, um, that leads me to my next question about when someone does decide to attempt to take their own life, um, what does that mean? What does the timeline look like typically from when it is or is not successful and what does the rate of recurrence look like if it is not successful?

Rene: That’s a great question.

Thank you. I am the big part of why guns are so important. Important for me to assess is because the lethality of them, and when I say lethality, I mean speed plus irreversibility. So, a gun is fast, and it’s just about irreversible. Um, guns account for over 50 percent of all bullets. A lethal suicides and a suicide attempt with a gun is fatal in more than 85 percent of cases.

So it’s really important. Um, we also see that, I know you mentioned the UK having guns versus not, um, we see that within our own country with high, Gun states versus low gun states. So guns, somebody that’s prevent, um, considered a high gun state, like maybe the deep South, um, you look and you can have, um, firearm suicides versus non firearm suicides, uh, within states, like state by state throughout the US, the non firearm suicides, the rates are about the same.

It’s about 5, 000 to 5, 400. Give or take some change. But in firearm suicides, a high gun state will have 9, 700 suicides, and a low gun state will have 2, 600. So it’s a very drastic difference. Um, You may have high, more accounts of, um, more attempts that happen in a low gun state, but that’s because they don’t have the lethal means.

So they’re surviving enough to do another attempt. Um, there’s other risk factors, uh, fast acting medication that’s irreversible.

Please go to the kitchen.

I’m gonna try and remember what all the crap I just said.

Steeeve: Yeah, Ryder, sorry about that. Again, um, we were talking about lethality of firearms and high versus low gun states, so we’re gonna pick up and try that in another take without kids screeching in the background and becoming a part of the podcast.

Rene: Yeah.

Steeeve: All right, um, so, um, Back to high versus low gun states.

Rene: So you can see this within our own country. Um, we have states where guns are more, uh, culturally prevalent, uh, versus states that may not have, um, the same thing or, you know, politically divided how people’s gun ownership shows up, but it does vary state to state. We see that, um, suicide attempts with a non lethal, without a gun.

are about the same. Um, it’s about, within a state, 50, about 5, 000 to 5, 400, uh, attempts. Per? Uh, per 100, 000 people. Okay, and then states where gun ownership

Steeeve: is much higher?

Rene: The discrepancy is, um, between 9, 700 attempts, I mean completed suicides, versus 2, 600. Completed suicides per 100, 000. And that’s in

Steeeve: a high gun state

Rene: versus a low gun state.

Correct. Oh, wow. Um, of course there’s discrepancies among, um, gender men predominantly tend to use firearms and so they, uh, tend to experience a completed suicide much higher than women. Uh, women tend to choose more. more, um, nonlethal means, but they tend to attempt more.

Steeeve: I guess that makes sense because, um, if someone chooses a more reliably lethal means, then they wouldn’t survive to attempt more suicides.

Rene: Exactly. And so, as a clinician And as a friend out in the community, one of the biggest things you can do is buy more time. And this is what you were talking about in terms of blister packs for acetamin versus a pill bottle. Anything that can make it a little bit harder to harm yourself when you’re in a crisis.

Steeeve: So how much time are we talking for the average person who decides to try to end their own life? to the time that they are successful. Like what does that, um, that elapsed time typically look like?

Rene: Well, I don’t have any data between attempt versus completed suicide on that, but I can say the time between having a thought about a suicide and attempt, I do have data on 24 percent of cases, it’s less than five minutes.

Another 23 percent is less than 20 minutes. Another 23 percent after that. So we’re talking about nearly half of people that attempt suicide have thought about it less than 20 minutes, and almost 75 percent is less than an hour.

Steeeve: So that’s the kind of thing that we’re talking about when someone refers to this as a knee jerk reaction.

Rene: Correct. Usually, um, people don’t really want to die, but they find themselves in a crisis. Um, you may be able to deal with things for a certain amount of time, and then one more stressor adds and it feels like the rug’s been pulled out of you. Suicide thoughts and suicide attempts are an acute problem for a lot of people.

Steeeve: So, circling back to people who have attempted suicide but were not successful, do we have data for how many of them, um, live out the rest of their life and don’t make further attempts on their life?

Rene: That’s a little harder to determine. Um, there’s a lot of variables at play. There’s age. A lot of people are younger and they’ve never gone through a crisis before.

And then once you get older, you know yourself, you’ve gone through these things before. So you’ve built resilience, you may have more independence where you’re not, um, Um, relying on somebody else for a house, a home or income. So especially for younger folks, a lot of them may not have an attempt again. Um, there’s other factors like comorbid issues.

Um, some of those are depression, bipolar disorder. Um, a bipolar depression actually puts somebody at greater risk for suicide attempt than a bipolar disorder. Um, a unipolar, only depression, without mania, history. And, um, one of the biggest factors that really complicates the issues is substance use, because you get very disinhibited or very impulsive when you’re not in your right mind thinking about stuff.

So, that makes it a lot trickier to really answer for you. I do apologize.

Steeeve: So, this is one of the questions submitted by our production staff. And, um, they had wanted us to ask if there are risks to contacting professional services when you or a loved one are considering suicide. Specific to the zoo community, um, As in, what are some of the ways that this could blow up in your face, or land you in legal trouble, or put someone through more trouble than if they just worked on it on their own?

Like, is there an elevated risk to zoos, or their loved ones, um, for zoos who are practicing? Uh, meaning that they’re sexually active with their partners. Zoos who are trans, zoos who have a lot of furry or zoo memorabilia in their bedrooms. Um, I think we were wondering about this because we anticipated that someone might be worried that they would be outed.

in the process of trying to seek help regarding their own suicidal thoughts. Um, what do you have to say about the, maybe the confidentiality of, uh, acute psychiatric service providers? Um, when it relates to zoos or anyone else who might be seeking out, um, professional help for, for thoughts of self harm?

Rene: I think what is, uh, scary for this population is Probably the, the legal status with things, especially as those things are changing. Um, I would treat this, um, very similar to Um, you know, somebody who also is worried about being reported for drug use or for, hey, I committed a crime and like nobody knew about it.

In general, I tell people, tell the cops nothing and tell your, your doctor and your therapist everything. Cause I would rather know about something so that I can know how to help. Um, I do think it is a valid concern to be worried about legal concerns, but you can say, hey, I’m really worried, uh, without having that.

If, for instance, if you’re worried about somebody who may be at risk for self harm or suicide, you don’t necessarily have to have legal concerns. An ambulance show up at their house. They don’t need to raid your house to know where your stuff is. Um, you could take them to a third location or offer them a ride to get help.

If it’s help that’s, you know, a third party, Like, I’m sorry, not third party, Um, if it’s help that, you know, Needs to be overnight stay like an inpatient. I think one of the biggest things this community can do to provide assistance is probably provide, offer to provide support for their animals. So that you don’t have to worry.

So if I’ve had patients, um, in my, my own personal experience within the last month, who really could have benefited from going inpatient, but they have children or they have pets, and they’re worried about the wellbeing, the wellbeing of, um, these, these lives that are under their, um, under their guardianship.

So being able to offer to, to help them from a very pragmatic level while they get the help that they need. I think would be really good for, for this community. Um, as far as other legal issues, unless the, unless police have a warrant to go in for something, then, um, they shouldn’t be able to go in. So if you were looking at, for instance, a welfare check where like somebody would send a cop to the house, you don’t have to necessarily do that.

You can offer the, give them a ride to a place to go. yourself. If it’s somebody that you don’t know, um, or maybe you only know them through online, since I know a lot of this community is more based online, then the more you have a network of different people that know each other, you could reach out to somebody in the same city to see if they’d be willing to do a welfare check.

That way you don’t have to worry about any sort of unintended, um, um, Discovery of items.

Steeeve: Yeah, and just adding on to that is something that in the United States anyway is called the Plain Sight Rule Exception, which means that even if a police officer doesn’t have a warrant to specifically search for something, um, If they find something that gives them an articulatable suspicion to investigate that maybe a crime is about to be committed or has been committed, they can investigate further and question you.

And if there’s evidence of a crime in the officer’s perception, that is, In plain sight on display. So like if you got pulled over for a traffic stop and you had a severed head on the seat next to you and the officer could just look through the window and see that, they don’t have to get a warrant to search your car because it’s in plain sight, right?

Similarly, I think the concern there was that if a zoo had a bunch of zoey decor and police came to do a welfare check, then the concern there is that they would investigate you as a zoey criminal. So, there’s, there’s something to be said in that, and I think, um, our safety dance episode addressed a lot of the operational security concerns and measures that we would recommend to protect your privacy, especially if you’re an active zoo, such as don’t make a bunch of homemade porn, don’t leave it out where people can find it, password protect everything, encrypt your porn on your computers, maybe don’t have it in the first place, um, um, Have passwords installed on your phone’s lock screen.

You know, things like that. Basic common sense stuff. But back to the point of helping zoos who you are in close physical proximity to. Such as, you know, being able to drive them to a psychiatric facility or being able to feed and water and walk their partners, um, while they’re seeking treatment, right?

Unfortunately, a lot of zoos have the experience of existing only as an online community with other zoos and being so far part, uh, sorry, being so far apart physically And maybe not even knowing your best zoo friends address, it’s much harder to just drive over to help them if you know they’re struggling.

Are there effective ways of addressing a friend’s struggles when you’re so relegated just to online interactions? Like, if you know that somebody online far, far away is, is in trouble, um, what are some of the resources that you might recommend so that they could get the treatment that they need to Prevent them from harming themselves.

Rene: That is tough. Um, the closest I, I can conceptualize this as a mental health person is similar to having somebody in crisis who’s in a severe rural area where there’s just fewer resources out there in general. Um, I think that there’s a lot of parallel struggles between Somebody who’s isolated geographically, and somebody who’s isolated due to, um, their sexual orientation.

Um, as far as online goes, I, um, I, I don’t have as many, I think that if you’re talking with that friend online, or if you’re in a forum with that person, and they’re on there, I would keep engaging with them, keep talking with them, by time. Time equals life. Cause it gives them time to think about it and turn around their decision.

When you engage with them online, help them figure out hope and what are some things to live for. You may feel super awkward doing it, but the more you talk with them, they’re, I’m telling you when people are in a suicidal crisis, they’re usually, it feels like they’re drowning and they’re clinging for anything to survive and stay above water.

Steeeve: Right, because especially when you’re in a shared, public, zoo, non zoo, online meeting space such as Twitter, right, it’s easy to feel like the whole world is completely against you because you tend to focus on people who are heckling you, you know, even if they’re in a tiny vocal minority. Um, speaking to that, how would you Recommend that our listeners Manage their own mental health when they feel like they’re under fire in those circumstances.

Rene: I think that a podcast like this is actually very helpful in one of those mitigating factors. Having support and building a community really, really helps. The main difference for a crisis, Whether, I’m sorry, let me backtrack, people go through hardship and stressful things throughout their lives, really bad stressful things, but the difference between what we would define as a crisis versus not a crisis has all to do with what kind of resources that person has available.

Whether it’s friends, whether it’s okay, this sucks, but I’ve saved some money. I can ride out through this. It can be Just having, um, a library where you do research and you can figure out an exit strategy for something, all of those things, building, uh, I’m sorry, the dog.

Steeeve: All those things.

Rene: Um, all those things can, can work.

Supporting, a support network can be varied. It doesn’t have to come from one group, and you can have different members for different things. For instance, I don’t go to my parents when I need, um, assistance with something. That’s related to the queer community, uh, for myself, because it’s not who they relate to.

It’s not, it’s just not who they are and it would cause stress for them. So I have people that I can go to for queer related things. I can talk to my parents for other based things. I have, um, um,

I just wouldn’t recommend counting on one group for everything. Build some variety for different types of support in your life to write out different crises. Um, you can also get therapy for, uh, underlying issues. If you don’t want to talk directly about zoo stuff, you can talk about unrelated issues like Um, you know, the stress or the shame of having a secret or, like, feeling like, you know, I think that a lot of therapists, you’d be surprised how much if you talk about it in terms of, I have a sexuality that’s not mainstream and it’s really stressful and it makes me feel weird.

They could talk about the other parts around it without you having to really directly discuss your sexuality. I would also, um, in terms of your own mental health. Build contingency plans if things don’t go your way. This is different from, you know, entertaining catastrophes when you’re anxious. But if, for instance, like with um, for instance if I had a teen who was trans, I would uh, say, well let’s look at the timing of coming out.

If they kick you out, like, are you gonna have a place to go? Do you have friends where you could crash on their couch? Um, if you don’t have that, what is worth it to keep, You know, stay in the closet until you have a place of your own versus, you know, coming out and being true to yourself. And then just remember that, you know, stressful events happen throughout your life.

So the more you can build up that resilience on the front end, the more, um, space you have to be able to handle these crises.

Steeeve: Right. So basically planning ahead, like someone might prepare for an approaching severe weather event, fortune favors the prepared. That’s really good to keep in mind, especially for someone who feels like they’re helpless to affect their situation.

It’s, it’s a lot easier to manage your Safety profile when you’re not already ass deep in alligators.

Rene: Correct, and I would do that also when you’re feeling good. Don’t do it when you’re stressed out. Think about these things and come up with contingency plans and talk with your friends and things when you’re in a good place.

Because you’re going to have a harder time problem solving in general when you’re under stress. So being able to build these things ahead of time makes a big difference for how you can weather the stressful event.

Steeeve: Right. Community and exposure is the solution. Um, if you get with your tribe and share with them that you’re having trouble, the better able they are to assist you.

So, shifting gears just a little bit, um, how do I say this without offending people who I think that it should come as no surprise that, especially in the queer community, there is no small prevalence of drama sometimes. Is that controversial to say? Um, so, that being said, and this question perhaps being a little insensitive, but, If someone’s in a situation where they have a friend who keeps telling them that they’re going to kill themselves for real, but never actually makes that attempt, and you feel like you’re at your limit for, um, talking them off the ledge.

Right? Especially if the times that you haven’t been there and they spin out and then they’re fine in the morning You feel like maybe it’s not as serious And it’s almost like they’ve cried wolf a bunch of times and you don’t want to seem empathetic to their plight But there’s just so much energy that you have to give to someone who tells you they’re for real gonna kill themselves once a month For three years straight What would you say to someone in that situation?

Who just feels exhausted? Entertaining And reacting to a fake threat of self harm.

Rene: Well, I will first of all say that sounds exhausting. Um, the term that we use in therapy for something like this is compassion fatigue. It’s very similar to burnout at work where it just erodes away the caring when you go through these, these stressful things over and over and over again without, um, Things changing or improving.

For somebody who’s dealing with this kind of issue, I would encourage therapy for that person if they are open to it. This, this does happen in therapy where somebody may say that they have, that they want to hurt themselves and I don’t know if they are actually intending to hurt their life or if they are needing attention.

Just, uh, try to remember on, on your end that This person is trying to address a need that they have, um, any behavior, whether it’s a good one or a bad one, and by good, there’s no good or bad, let me correct that, whether it’s something that’s productive or something that’s more maladaptive. is, um, is an attempt to address a need.

Um, for instance, this need may be, I’m really feeling insecure, I need reinsurance from my friend. But, this is crossed over into a situation where it’s too taxing for the people around them. The reason I would recommend therapy is that it sounds like this is, um, a pattern of behaviors that is causing more problems than it solves.

You see this very often with other people, for instance, that struggle with, struggle with using alcohol or drugs. They know it’s not good for them. They know they don’t like it, but there is a deep seated need there. So being able to find out what that need is, kind of figuring out what is leading up to that behavior, So that they can circumvent it in therapy would be very helpful.

The specific type of therapy I would recommend for behavior like this is called dialectical behavior therapy. They actually have intensive outpatient programs and partial hospital where they say it’s partial hospital, but really it’s more like a day program where you get to go to therapy three to five times a week.

But you learn a lot of different skills. Dialectical behavior therapy was developed for people with borderline personality disorder. But it’s used with adolescents. It’s used with different, um, um, different types of issues that people are addressing. It’s just a really good. Modality for learning some good coping skills.

Um, I will say just real briefly, the kind of things that could be helpful for, um, somebody in this place is them learning how to, um, build, develop a tolerance for distressing, feeling distressed. Um, it helps with emotional management, it helps with meeting your needs with, or, Interpersonal skills that are way more productive and get the results that they want.

So I think that if this person’s open to it at all, that’s great. I would give compassion. I would say, Hey, as much as I want to be there for you, I really can’t pour from an empty cup right now. Here is some things that I think may be helpful for you. And, um, I will more than. Be happy to support you during that time that you seek that out.

Steeeve: And speaking to some of those resources that somebody might access, especially if they don’t feel like anyone in their immediate circle of contact is so much for joining me today. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. I’ll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Suicide prevention hotline and in other countries I’ve been told anecdotally that in the UK that’s 1 1 1, but that that might be more for general health services What would you say to accessing resources if you’re trying You know, you’re feeling like harming yourself.

There’s no one you can reach out to readily and, and you just, you, you need help right away. What do you have for that?

Rene: It’s funny you mentioned 988. That’s the first one that comes to mind because it’s so easy to remember and they have people around the clock. It’s not like you have to wait for a doctor office to be open in order to go seek help.

Um, if you go to spanusa. com org, so S P A N U S A dot org. That’s also another resource for, um, helping, uh, with, with dealing with suicide. And, um, actually there’s just a brand new thing in the U. S. where they’ve come, um, they’ve developed a hotline specifically for trans individuals for suicide and other forms of crisis.

This phone number is 877 565 4222. Um, I’m sure that they may, this is the closest parallel I have to the zoophile community is those of sexual orientation and highly disenfranchised people who are at risk for um, um, ostracization. So this is, um, another resource that you can use.

Steeeve: That’s great to know. Um, and because the podcast, again, is based in the U.

S., mostly. Um, a lot of our information is centered on, on resources for individuals located here. Um, as far as in other countries, uh, and other, you know, distant parts of the world, there are resources available, but we don’t pretend to know all of them for the whole globe, so we would say that, again, it’s a matter of, uh, advanced preparation, right?

As far as your mental health emergency toolkit. In case of emergency, look this up before you need it, right, because once you already need these resources, again, you have maybe an hour or less, uh, from the time someone has a suicidal thought to the time that they make an attempt, um, in something like 60, 70 percent of cases, so as Renee indicated, Um, time is of the essence, and if you can stall them, that would be great, if you can get them in contact with a resource, that would be great, and the quicker you can do it, the better.

One other thing I wanted to mention was something that was brought to mind by a documentary I watched called Heckler. Made by a stand up comedian named Jamie Kennedy and in it he interviews artists, musicians, actors, all kinds of performers about their experience being hackled online and in person. And one of the comedians, I don’t remember exactly which one, in this documentary mentioned that he could be Performing for the benefit of a packed house and everybody’s laughing, he’s really doing great, he’s, he’s bringing the house down, and if one person in the crowd of a thousand is not having a good time, he’ll keep coming back to that person and feel like, oh well, they’re not laughing, they don’t like me.

No, that one person isn’t laughing, but Everyone else is having a good time and I think that mimics the experience of being in a in an online public space as an out zoo because you’re getting hackled from a bunch of strangers but what you don’t see is a larger supportive zoo community of people who aren’t attacking you and even non zoos and allies who maybe they didn’t even see your post so they didn’t think to mention anything about it but it does feel like you were completely under attack, even if it’s a small vocal minority.

I wonder if our guest could speak to the sensation of being hackled and harassed and how that can lead to someone feeling overwhelmed to the point that they may might consider harming themselves.

Rene: No, you’re right. It’s human nature for us to find the one tile that’s chipped in a perfect bathroom otherwise, or to, um, even within our own, um, personal growth, I could say, let’s say I complete a test with, you know, 87 percent accuracy.

I’m going to focus on, well, why didn’t I get a hundred? Where’s that 13 percent without showing mastery of the vast majority of the, of the content. So that’s something that we’re, um, as humans prone to do anyway. So it is hard. I think at some point, like if I was being heckled like this, I would need times to disengage from certain spaces where I know heckling is going to be.

Steeeve: And just so that you know that we’re not the lunatic fringe in encouraging people to unplug from toxic public forums such as Twitter. You’re hearing this from an objective third party. Mental health professional. It’s okay to just walk away from the hecklers. You don’t have to exist in their space. And if, like us, you have chosen for some reason to engage in public, front facing activism on behalf of your community and therefore have opened yourself up to being targeted by hecklers, the block button is your friend.

Just block with extreme prejudice, and they can’t keep heckling you. They won’t be reinforced, they won’t be encouraged to do more of the same, and you show them that they just can’t get the satisfaction. Um, it makes them go away. And I’ve said this many times on the podcast, but there’s 8. 1 billion human beings on the planet and you’re already not interacting with them.

These people that have chosen to try to get a reaction out of you, they’re just part of that 8. 1 billion. They’re in great company of people that you already don’t know or talk to. So it’s, it’s really okay to block them.

Rene: You’re absolutely right. I would speak to, you know, this. This really touches me, um, in terms of more broad things too, about advocacy versus self preservation.

There’s a lot of different ways to support a cause. There is, you know, publicly speaking or publicly being out, but it’s also providing emotional support for your own members and being there for each other, listening to each other, um, and, and sharing the good times together too. It doesn’t have to be all gloom and doom for that.

I would also, you know, if you have somebody who has means and you know, somebody wants to get help, but they like professional help and they don’t have the offer for it. Um, I don’t know if this is speaking too out of line, but. I’m sure that If there was like a pool of money, so like let’s say I have a hundred bucks extra this month I’m happy to pay for a couple of co pays for therapy for somebody who might not otherwise go because they’re worried about affording it so there’s a lot of different ways to support a cause when when some of the Social riots and protests were happening within the city that I practice in.

Um, I knew that I was not a fighter and I wouldn’t be out on the streets, but I would be a few blocks away handing out bottles of water when it was hot outside while people were protesting. That’s just as important to support a cause. Then doing the big fighting on the front lines yourself.

Steeeve: Exactly. Um, some of us, such as myself have chosen to support our community with podcasts like this, and it takes a big team of us to do this and we all do our part.

Some of us write, some of us produce, some of us make music. Um, some of us speak in a, in a host role. I design, print, and distribute free of charge globally. Zoo stickers, just in the hope that someone will feel less alone and part of a community and involved in something bigger than themselves and, and my ultimate goal in a lot of this, including my participation in the podcast, is Suicide awareness and prevention.

If I can help one zoo ever, uh, not take their own life and to instead thrive and live a long, healthy, happy existence and care for animals and care for other zoos, I will have performed my function. Every, every sticker that I’ve ever sent out, I think I’m up to 13, 000 or more so far to 36 different countries.

Um, it’ll all be worth it if I can save even one life. And it’s, it’s really my hope that. Anyone hearing this podcast will understand that they are loved and they’re part of a larger community. And if they know somebody who’s really in a jam, feels like their whole world has collapsed and the walls are closing in, and there’s no way out except to end their life, that you can get them to just stall for a little bit, even just one hour.

Even maybe just 15 minutes. and get them to step back from that edge and hang on a little longer. You don’t know what’s going to happen next. You don’t know what wonderful animals you’ll meet or what delightful friends you’ll make. You don’t know if you’ll be able to help somebody else who’s in a similar situation and change whole families lives.

Um, you could make the difference between A zoo thriving and becoming the next supportive member of the community and making animals lives better than anyone could possibly imagine, um, that could be you that makes that difference. It’s a long chain of care and custody that we all get to be a link in and that can’t happen if you end your life.

Um, I’ll just pass this over to our guest and ask if there’s anything else that She thinks we should ask of a therapist or, um, that maybe would be helpful in addressing this issue and accessing resources and care.

Rene: I think that the closest match you’ll get is somebody who specializes. I think that’s LGBTI community. If they advertise that that’s a population that they specifically work with and have experience with, I think that will probably have the closest parallels. They’ll be from the greatest place of understanding.

Steeeve: Right, and we’ve spoken at length on the podcast about ASECT certified therapists. Um, we know that they’re few and far between and that not all insurance will cover this and that at least in the United States insurance is a living nightmare. Um, but all that said, finding Connection with mental health professionals, um, can be essential in preserving your mental health and preventing you from harming yourself.

Um, I believe when we were talking before, you said something about the efficacy of an, um, Average therapist versus a really good one if you are or aren’t, uh, ready to receive care. What was that all about?

Rene: Oh, well, you know, I think that, first of all, say, if you don’t like the therapist that you initially pair up with, it’s kind of like going on dates.

You don’t have to date that person just because that was the first person that you met. That one time. And same thing with therapists. If you feel like they’re not gonna be a vibe, or most people that, um, um, whether you’re zoo or trans or whomever, most people are pretty good at figuring out very quickly if somebody’s safe to come out to or not.

So you don’t have to disclose anything to your therapist or ask them anything directly related to, um, zoophilia in order to pick up on that. So if you don’t feel safe with a therapist don’t give them your money or your time.

Steeeve: And as far as being ready to make a change in your, in your life and needing an excellent therapist versus a just an adequate therapist, I think you had said something along those lines.

Rene: Yes, if I think that if somebody’s not ready to change yet, On certain things, the best therapists in the world can’t really, there’s a limited amount of what they can do to help invoke change. If somebody is ready to change on their own, then any old, any old person will do, because they’ll find a way to do it one way or another.

I think that one thing that the zoo community has going for it, um, that is very different to a lot people in therapy, is how well You guys know yourselves in this part about you. The fact that you know yourself well enough to say, I’m willing to go against social grain to be true to myself. I’m willing to take risks on if people are going to know me or not because I know myself so well.

That is a big part of what you guys have. Don’t forget that. And when you look for therapy, Use the resilience that you innately have by nature of, of who, who you are in your brain and your heart and find somebody that is going to help best serve that purpose.

Steeeve: Inspiring thoughts. Um, I’d like to thank again, our guest Renee for sharing her expertise and perspective and time with us, our listening audience.

Here’s hoping that that advice will buoy our Listening audience to greater mental health, survival, and resourcefulness. Uh, next up, we have a song. I don’t really know what’s next. Next up, we have Sponsors. Coming up, more zooier than thou. Okay, those are a few choose your own adventure y kind of options for what might be next.

Rene: It was a pleasure. Thank you. It was an absolute pleasure. Thank you for your time.

Steeeve: Okay, hopefully that works.

Howling at the Moon (Live at EF 2024)

Zipwok: So, next song, since we’re doing classics. I haven’t played it in a while. But where’s the… okay. I sent the lyrics in the group in case anybody wants to sing along.

Brass: Oh I don’t need the lyrics for this one.

Group: I’m a zoo

You are too

I can’t wait to go outside and join you howling at the moon

You’re so wild

And so pure

No I can’t care what people say

They won’t change my love for you

You set me free you make me feel alive

I’m not me when you’re not by my side

If you snort

Purr or bark

Through rain or fire it won’t matter

When you call I’ll come for you and

Join you howling at the moon

Brass: We’re gonna get noise complaints from the howls.

Eggshell in Germany

Eggshell: In September of this last year, 2024, I got dropped off at my city’s airport, boarded a plane, and got flown across the Atlantic Ocean. In Amsterdam, an official asked why I was traveling, and I said the truth: that I was planning to meet some friends in Germany, and that I would be there for about a week. He stamped my passport, and, one shorter plane trip later, I was in Germany, and I spent the week with about a dozen zoophiles I’d made friends with online, plus their zoo friends, plus a bunch of random furries who were around. There were parties, going out to eat, zooey stickers were exchanged. At one point I took a walk alone through a really nice park. The next day, about twenty zoos plus some non-zoo friends all crowded into a hotel room that some of us were staying at. Akito, a zoo podcaster, set up a microphone, and in the center of the room, Zipwok and Shiv, armed with guitar and banjo, did a zooey concert for everyone. There were songs that made us laugh, there were songs filled with power and drive, there were sad songs. The lyricism from all of the artists that night was a showcase of some of the best zoo writing out there right now, in my opinion, and we increasingly have more and more zoo writing to analyze between year after year: the zooey artistic canon is expanding. The concert was a lot of fun, and a big highlight of a year that was frankly packed with many awesome experiences, a lot of them stemming from the fact that I’m out, I’m proud, I’m happy, I’m loved, and I am thriving.

Eggshell: This is not the future that I imagined myself living in, when I was growing up. I thought that being gay was an enormous secret already. I thought that the only way to go through life was to keep everything weird about you inside, hide everything, never let it out even as the things you’re missing out on are eating you, weighing on you, becoming more of a loss than you can handle. The future seemed like a trap: everything would always get worse. It wouldn’t have even occurred to me to ask for a world where I could openly be queer, or even openly show happiness, and not get made fun of for it.

Eggshell: Turns out, I was wrong. Or maybe wrong isn’t the right way to put it, but, I found out that, that way I was going through life–there was another way. A way marked with kindness and forgiveness to others and to myself, community, artistry, leaning in to these things that I used to think defined me as an outcast, and finding out that they’ve actually made me a lot of friends.

Eggshell: In the audience of that concert with Zipwok and Shiv, there were people who are closeted in a lot of parts of their life, and getting to be there and be open among other zoos was a unique treat for them; there were people who have been out to everyone for as long as they can remember; there were people who live with other zoos; there were people behind some of the biggest safe for work zoo accounts on Twitter, and there were people you’ve probably seen in a chatroom or two if you’ve been around those, there were people who are pretty offline and you would never meet them if you weren’t there in person; there were people with scars, literal and spiritual; there were people who are presently struggling in different ways, there were people who appear to be presently thriving in all ways. I was appreciative of all types. All y’all was cool as hell. I hope to see as many of you as possible again next year, and I look forward to meeting many new people as well as time goes on.

Soy Un Labrador (Live at EF 2024)

Zipwok: I’m happy

I feel better

And I’m diggin

This lovely weather

Yes I’m happy

I feel better (I feel better)

And I’m diggin (I am diggin)

This lovely weather (this lovely weather yeah)

Howler of the seven seas

Sailing for love

His peg leg is made out of

A rubber ball and bones

Sailor of the seven seas

Howling for love

Not a hurricane or whirlpool will

Change his smile of stone

Cuz I’m happy (I am happy)

I feel better (I feel better)

And I’m diggin (I am diggin)

This lovely weather (this lovely weather yeah)

Cuz I’m happy (I am happy)

I feel better (I feel better)

And I’m diggin (I am diggin)

This lovely weather (this lovely weather yeah)

Soy un labrador!

I’m a good boy baby

So why don’t you kiss me

Soy un labrador!

I’m a good boy baby

So why don’t you kiss me

And I’m happy (I am happy)

I feel better (I feel better)

And I’m diggin (I am diggin)

This lovely weather (this lovely weather yeah)

Yes I’m happy (I am happy)

I feel better (I feel better)

And I’m diggin (I am diggin)

This lovely weather (this lovely weather yeah)

Oh soy un labrador!

I’m a good boy baby

So why don’t you kiss me

Soy un labrador!

I’m a good boy baby

So why don’t you kiss me

I’m happy

I feel better

And I’m diggin

This lovely weather

Outro

Steeeve: Thanks, friends, for listening to this kinda heavier than usual episode of Zooier Than Thou. I think it was worth it. You can follow us at rss.zoo.wtf to get notified every time we’re on the air.

Malcontentamute: And thanks to ZipWalk and Shiv for your musical performance. That was the highlight of a lot of zoos years. If you check out at zooen. me, you can find the entire show Zoo Concert 2024.

Steeeve: Be you. Be zoo. I think we’re required by contract to howl at the end of every episode.

Malcontentamute: Are we gonna howl now?

Steeeve: I guess? I mean, if you want to. Here we go. One, two, three.

Both: Awooooo!