By Dwight Miller
About three years ago, I received a connection request on LinkedIn just like any other day. Though I have rarely posted anything on LinkedIn or other social media in the past four years, I do keep my accounts live on LinkedIn and Facebook and still accept connection requests on LinkedIn. I don’t accept all connection requests just like you probably do not either – hate those DM sales! So, I viewed this guy’s profile to see if he would make the cut by meeting my undefined standards necessary to connect. He was certainly an intriguing fellow: a contract lineman who also had a professional side. It even looked like he would give presentations on things like mental health. But I didn’t know him or even know of him, so I officially “ignored” the connection. Just a few months later, I saw on LinkedIn where this lineman had taken his own life. I was shocked and even a bit shaken. A person – and not just any person - a lineman that had reached out to me and I denied him…while he was obviously struggling in life.
Had I accepted that invitation, we most likely would have never become acquainted, but it is possible that I would have seen him at a conference or gathering somewhere that a relationship could have formed. In the LinkedIn comments about his suicide, I would learn that the reason he talked about mental health was because of his personal struggles in life. He talked about the need to talk things out, seeking professional help, and so many other things. Yet, he still fell victim to suicide.
Did you know that linemen are five times more likely to die of suicide than a job-related incident? It’s true even though that statistic is mostly reflective of the contractor lifestyle. Tom Murphy, Founder of Sweethearts and Heroes, refers to mental health as the “FIFTH WIRE” that a lineman has to deal with (for non-operations folks, a 3-phase wye system has four conductors).
Believe it or not, mental health is the topic I am discussing in my current safety meeting called “Fit for Duty.” The weekend before I started the meeting, I told my wife how much I was not looking forward to the meetings, that the linemen are going to hate it. I certainly never imagined when I began climbing poles in 1985 that this was on my future list of things to do. But my wife asked me to tell her story, that it might help someone else to help understand what others are going through, so I am doing just that in my meetings which have surprisingly gone very well.
If you ever meet my wife Denise, she will appear the same as anyone else, nothing unusual. Beautiful, very kind, and can even be warm to strangers. She’s actually an amazing person, a wonderful homemaker, and as good as any Grammy you will ever meet to our six grandchildren – I promise. But there’s something else that you cannot see. Little do you know that, while she is talking to you, a stranger, chemical reactions are going haywire inside of her mind, causing anxiety levels to shoot sky high. She has worked so hard at “looking” normal while waiting for the moment to pass and eventually get back home where she can once again feel safe and relax. But it’s not you that makes her feel unsafe, so please don’t be offended. This feeling of anxiety comes upon her whenever she talks to almost anyone other than her own family. See, she grew up with a mentally ill mother who was in bed almost 24/7 and took it upon herself to take care of her. From a very young age, she pretty much did all of the cooking, laundry, and house cleaning while taking care of her mother and her older and younger sisters, without a father who would ever tell her that he loved her…yet while showing love to her younger sister. Do you think that could mess with someone’s mind and emotional health and well-being? 50% of all mental illnesses begin by age 14.
Stories like this are all around us. Anxiety and depression are the two most common forms of mental illness and almost one out of every four people in the USA are struggling with one of these or PTSD, bipolar, or schizophrenia. Some of them are working beside you today and some are even out working on the energized lines in a bucket truck or climbing a pole to put up downed conductors. They probably don’t say much back at the shop or during a safety meeting, and they hate when Jason and Zack break them into discussion groups.
Men commit suicide at a rate of four times greater than women. Four times! Why? When women are hurting, what do they do? They call their sister, their friend, their mother, whoever’s ear they can bend and they get it out. When men are hurting, what do they do? They tough it out and suffer in silence…until they can’t and the fifth wire strikes with a contact fatality. But the fifth wire strikes when you don’t make contact. The fifth wire is different because it seeks out linemen that are isolated and insulated from others and attacks the mind.
Tom Murphy just published an article in Incident Prevention magazine called “Winning the War on Lineworker Suicide – Inspecting the Fifth Wire.” His organization gives linemen three things to work on:
THE SHIELD OF VULNERABILITY. His approach is simple. A Circle. He says that the circle fosters a sense of belonging and purpose among the group members and this helps to create vulnerability. Unfortunately, with men, vulnerability is sometimes associated with weakness. But as we develop relationships in a shared setting such as a simple circle with a decent structure, amazing things can happen. This is exactly how the lives of inmates are changed in the Kairos Inside prison ministry – a simple circle of nine people that are knit into a close family over a 4-day period.
THE SWORD OF STIGMA OBLITERATION. Stigma isolates people in their pain, reinforcing silence through cultural norms and misconceptions. So, most men will go on suffering in secrecy. The shame of a failed marriage, a strained family relationship, a child addicted to drugs – it’s an admission of failure. Sweethearts and Heroes attacks this stigma by taking things head on. When they hit it head on and get the person to open up and talk directly about things, it provides a pressure relief valve for the person suffering.
THE ARMOR OF PEER NETWORKS. This step involves building a peer network around ourselves and fostering a culture of mutual support and shared responsibility. Then that network is responsible to watch out and care for one another. They also are careful to look for signs of isolation and other forms of behavior conducive to anxiety and depression. Emotional outbursts, withdrawing from others in every situation, uninterested, talking about death and being a burden to others or feeling trapped: all of these are signs that we should all be watching for.
I want to add one of my own that is based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs. DEVELOP AN OTHERS-CENTERED MINDSET. It sits at the highest fulfillment of our personal mental state of being and, until we reach it, we will never achieve true fulfillment in our lives. On Maslow’s pyramid, it’s called “Self-Actualization” which simply translates into our inner potential only being reached when we serve others. It results in us giving our time, talents, and treasure to someone less fortunate than us and making a difference in their life through self-sacrifice. Whose life are you making a difference in? What cause do you pursue with passion?
What is the most foundational aspect of a great safety program? CARE. If we just care for one another and create an atmosphere of open communication, you might make just enough difference for someone else that helps them to make it through a rough season in their life. And that could be you or I the next time.
