Ryan Leavitt: 988—An Effort to Prevent Suicide

Morgan Jones Pearson

Before we get into this week's episode, I just wanted to give you a little heads up that the episode discusses the topic of suicide and may not be appropriate for children. In her book, "Silent Souls Weeping," Jane Clayson Johnson wrote of a 26-year-old named Lizzie, who after a long battle with bipolar disorder, took her own life in 2014. Johnson wrote that in the last month of Lizzie's earthly life, she bookmarked a telling quote on her Pinterest board that was attributed to CS Lewis, "The fact that our heart yearns for something earth can't supply is proof that heaven must be our home." Johnson continued, "Each year more than 44,000 Americans like Lizzie yearn for something they can't find on this earth and consequently, in their own lives. It is an epidemic that we can't ignore. No social or religious class is exempt. Families not only grieved the loss of loved ones, but also fear they failed to do enough to save them, just one source of shame attached to the stigma of suicide." In 2022, a new resource was made available in hopes of helping others who are struggling with mental illness. The 988 suicide and crisis lifeline provides 24/7 service to those who are struggling. One of the people who worked on the legislation that led to the number switch to a three digit easy to remember number is Ryan Leavitt, Lizzie's brother in law. Before joining the Barker Leavitt Law Firm as a partner Ryan Leavitt served in senior policy positions, advising several key members of both the US Senate and the US House of Representatives. Additionally, he served as a Senate Judiciary Committee counsel, a Senate legislative director as a Deputy Chief of Staff and in other senior positions in the US Senate and the House of Representatives. He received his Juris Doctor from George Mason University School of Law, and is an active member of the Washington DC Bar and US Supreme Court Bar. This is All In, an LDS Living podcast where we ask the question, what does it really mean to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? I'm Morgan Pearson and I am so honored to have Ryan Leavitt on the line with me today. Ryan, welcome.

Ryan Leavitt

Thanks, Morgan. Really appreciate the opportunity to do this. I'm really excited to be here.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Well, I am really excited to have you and I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today. If it's okay with you, I want to start—you are now a practicing attorney in the DC area. But you previously spent quite a bit of time working on Capitol Hill and I think Capitol Hill and the comings and goings there are something that most of us just observed from network news. And so I wondered for someone that's had an inside look kind of a behind the scenes look, what do you wish people knew about the work being done by lawmakers and legislators on the hill?

Ryan Leavitt

That's a great question. And the truth is, I could probably spend a full hour just talking about, you know, the inside baseball stuff on Capitol Hill. But I won't bore everybody. Basically, I spent about almost 10 years working for Congress, I worked for a number of different members, I worked for congressional committees, I worked for leadership offices, I have a pretty well-rounded view of what it's like to work on Capitol Hill. And there are a ton of misconceptions about it, about Congress, I think Congress is America's favorite punching bag. Everybody loves to hate Congress and blame a lot of you know the country's problems on the dysfunction that happens in Washington, DC. And to be fair, some of that's warranted, Congress sometimes really struggles to rise to the occasion and address some of the most pressing challenges facing the country. But what I would love for people to know is that Congress is, for the most part, full of really, really good people who came to Washington with a desire to serve the country, and to do right by the American people. And they bring their convictions and they bring their sincere desire to make the country a better place. It's also full of people with really divergent views about what we should be doing as a country to make it better and there's a lot of disagreement. And what we mostly see on TV is the points where there is a lot of disagreement, a lot of division, and that those are the hot button issues: abortion, immigration, gun control, all the issues that Congress really can't solve, because America is really divided on those issues. And there's really not any consensus within our government on how to resolve those things. But where most of the work in Congress takes place is not on those issues. It's on a bunch of bipartisan issues that pass Congress overwhelmingly, with lots of bipartisan support. And, you know, the thing that we're going to talk about today, this suicide hotline issue is just one example of thousands of pieces of legislation that will pass through Congress, every single year on a mostly bipartisan basis. The other thing is, these members of Congress, they sacrifice so much to serve in Congress, everybody thinks, oh, you're gonna go to Congress, and you're gonna become rich, and you're gonna have drivers drive you around, you're gonna get free health care for the rest of your life. And it's a sweetheart deal. None of those things are true. Basically, you come to Washington, you make pretty modest wages, compared to the type of work that you would do in the private sector, you don't get really that great of a benefit in terms of health insurance, and retirement and all those kinds of things, you're basically viewed as a normal federal employee. And it just comes with a ton of scrutiny. Lots of times, these members are having to get on an airplane fly across the country, with their families at home. So I guess what I'd like to say is, let's give these guys and these women a break, because I think they're trying to do their best. I think Congress is a reflection of America, and America is really divided. And so I don't think we would expect Congress to be anything but that and it was a representation of who we are as a people. And also, there's a lot of really nice people, good people, God-loving people serving in Congress. And I was glad I got to experience some of the good parts of working in Congress versus just seeing what we see on TV, which is really pretty negative. And you could look at the American people's approval rating of Congress, and I think it's in the single digits. It's not good.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Right. Right. Well, and I love that you said God-loving people, because I think that's something—I had the opportunity to, the way that you and I met Ryan years ago, I was interning with church Public Affairs there in DC.

Ryan Leavitt

When we were both a lot younger.

Morgan Jones Pearson

That's right. We will expose ourselves. If we say how long ago that was, but I was thinking about my time there. And the people that we had the chance in our office to interface with, and just how much, you know, faith does matter to many people there on the hill. So I wonder, first of all, how would you say that your faith influenced your work while you were there? And then maybe, how did you see faith in action from others both inside and outside of our faith?

Ryan Leavitt

Yeah, for me, I think it influenced the way that I tried to look for the best in other people. As members of the Church, we're taught that we're all children of the same Heavenly Father. And we're all children of God. And because of that, as a congressional staffer, I always tried to give people the benefit of the doubt. I tried to view them as people, as children of God, and try to look for some common ground. I think our faith tries to teach us that it's helpful to build bridges with people to look for opportunities to work together. And that really helped me as the congressional staffer, trying to work with people from all different walks of life with different ideological views on the world and society and how we ought to try to tackle some of these tough issues. And I think that was a really helpful perspective for me to bring. And I think that comes culturally from our faith, too.

Morgan Jones Pearson

That's awesome. What about how would you say that you saw others faith?

Ryan Leavitt

Yeah, you know, people in Congress, they have strong convictions, they come to Washington, they have a strong perspective about what they think is wrong and what is right. And I think a lot of that connects to their own faith about what they believe is the right path for the country or not. I was really heartened to see that there is a lot of opportunities for people of lots of different faiths to come together and to share their collective faith in God together. So in the Senate every week they have a prayer breakfast. It's bipartisan. Everybody, you know, all the senators are invited to participate in they usually get a pretty good turnout. They take turns, each senator takes turns hosting the breakfast and doing a program and that takes place every single week. There are other Bible study groups and other prayer groups in the Congress. I don't know if you've had a chance to tour the US Capitol building, but just near the rotunda, in the Capitol, there is actually a member's chapel where members can go and pray in a quiet place. There's a beautiful stained glass window in there. They have different sacred texts, the book of Mormons in there for example, the Koran, the Torah, the Bible, and this is just an opportunity, interfaith, members of Congress can go that are struggling on how they want to vote, or how they can try to make decisions and, and how to move forward. They can seek guidance from God, whatever God it is that they worship. And these are the kinds of things that I saw all the time on Capitol Hill, people trying to seek inspiration from God on how that they should proceed and represent their constituents. And I thought that was pretty cool.

Morgan Jones Pearson

For sure, well, I thought, just as you were talking, I was thinking, we had the chance to have the directors of the Washington DC Temple Open House on the show. And they talked about how many different members of Congress they had come through the Open House. And just to take the time to do that, I think speaks to the the willingness to, like you said, try to represent as many of your constituents as you can, to understand different walks of life and different systems of belief. And I think that's admirable. So today, Ryan, one of the main reasons that I wanted to talk with you is because you had the opportunity to be involved with a specific piece of legislation related to the suicide and crisis lifeline. So for those that are not aware, this number went from being a normal phone number to being a three digit crisis helpline so all people have to do is call 988 and they're able to speak to a medical professional or mental health professional who can help them. And I wondered, Ryan, first of all, how did you become involved with this specific piece of legislation?

Ryan Leavitt

So I, at the time that this legislation came together, I was working for Senator Orrin Hatch from Utah, I was a counsel on his judiciary committee staff. And part of my responsibility was to oversee policy issues in the telecom space, so any issues were in front of the Federal Communications Commission. And we had some legislators from Utah from the State Capitol up at the State Legislature visit with Senator Hatch and explained to him that they felt that the current Suicide Prevention Lifeline number was too long and hard to remember, particularly for someone who is experiencing a mental health crisis. You know, that number was 1-800-273-8255. And I don't know who's supposed to be able to remember that when they need help. And so these legislators came to Senator Hatch. And they said, We would like to have a three digit, easy to remember, number for people who are experiencing suicidal thoughts. And we want to do this in Utah, but we realize it's not a good public policy to just do it in one state. You know, if someone grows up with this number, and then goes away to college or something, they don't know how to get help. And so this really should be something rolled out across the country. And so they came to Senator Hatch. And they also came to Congressman Chris Stewart of Utah. And both those members, to their credit, they totally saw the value and we need to have a three digit number. And I was assigned to work with Congressman Stewart's staff. And together we crafted a piece of legislation that directed the Federal Communications Commission to work with all the stakeholders in the mental health community, the Department of Health and Human Services and SAMSA. And at that time, those who were administering the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, they were all to work together, and to come up with a three digit number and recommend it to Congress and designate that number. And ultimately, we worked really hard to get that passed through Congress, and it was done in a really bipartisan way. It passed unanimously out of the Senate and I believe it was almost unanimous in the house and took several years to work its way through the process and after the FCC did designate the number 988 as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number after Senator Hatch retired, Congressman Stewart then had another piece of legislation that codified that number in statute. So the Congress then went ahead and codified 988. It was rolled out as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number earlier this past summer 2022. And it just was such an honor to be involved in the creation of this new number, because our hope is, people are going to be able to get access to help when they need it. And we're seeing that we're already seeing a huge increase in volume of traffic to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Well, I think all of this would be amazing in and of itself, and interesting to our listeners, and certainly something worth highlighting and making sure that people are aware of. But I also think, Ryan, this is interesting, particularly because you and your family have been personally impacted by the effects of suicide. Some people listening to this episode may be familiar with a story that was shared in Jane Clayson Johnson's book, "Silent Souls Weeping," and for those that have not read or listened to that book, it is remarkable. Jane did an incredible job with that book that highlights the people's experiences with depression and anxiety and touches on the topic of suicide and your sister-in-law Lizzie's story is shared in that book. But for those who are not familiar with her story, I wondered if you could tell our listeners a little bit about Lizzie.

Unknown Speaker

I would love to. I wish I had a whole episode to talk about Lizzie because she really was a remarkable person. And as you mentioned, my father-in-law and mother-in-law were interviewed by Jane Clayson Johnson for her book, "Silent Souls Weeping." And they shared Lizzie's story there. And we just, we are in awe of that book. And what a wonderful resource it is for people who have been touched by some of these issues. But Lizzie, she started her life out as a very happy, beautiful girl. She had millions and millions of friends in high school, she was successful academically and socially. And she had just a beautiful radiant smile about her and her family likes to refer to her as a ray of sunshine. And as she got ready to go to college, she got into BYU, which nowadays is a is a great accomplishment in and of itself. But she went to BYU and she was doing really well there. And she went on a study abroad. And she called her parents from the study abroad and mentioned to them that something was really wrong with her and she didn't know what it was, but she didn't feel right. And so when she returned back to the United States after study abroad, she went and met with some doctors and she ultimately was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which is also referred to as manic depression. And bipolar disorder can cause people to have really alarming changes in their mood, and their personality even. And Lizzie would go through these episodes of really high highs and really, really low lows. And it continued on for years. She suffered with bipolar disorder for five or six years. And the year before she died, I believe she spent something like 55 days in the hospital so she was receiving all sorts of treatment. He was meeting with doctors and psychologists and she was trying different treatments to manage her depression. But ultimately, this mental illness was a terminal case for her. I think she came to the determination in her mind that she was not going to be able to live the life and have the life that she had hoped and envisioned for herself because of this type of mental illness that she had. And although you know she was doing her best to treat the symptoms of it. There was, there is, no known cure for bipolar disorder at this point. And it's something that she just lost hope on being able to live a happy, normal life and live the fullest that she could. And she came to the conclusion in her mind that the best way for her to find the peace and happiness in her life that she really desperately wanted was to end her life. And it's just devastating for all of us who knew her and loved her, because we would never have wanted her to make that decision. But ultimately, she felt like that was the right decision for her. And I think, anytime suicide becomes a rational thought in somebody's mind, I think we realize just how they're not acting in a rational place anymore. They're consumed with this depression or that kind of thing. So it's a sad story, but it's not unique to our family. I know lots of families experience situations where people they know and love are struggling, that have thoughts of suicide, we know that for young people in their late teens and early 20s, Suicide is the number one cause of death in most states. And these thoughts of depression and suicide are on the rise in America. And I think a lot of it has to do with, there's lots of different factors, but I think the amount of time that we spend on social media and other platforms for young people, I think it's really difficult for them to manage some of these, these dark thoughts.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Absolutely. Well, and I think that you touched on so many important things there. So Ryan, I think you have an interesting perspective on the situation, because you knew Lizzie, independent of your wife, but later ended up joining this family who was dealing with this. And so I wondered, how have you seen personally the effects of suicide in the lives of those who love and care about someone who has taken their own life in the years since?

Ryan Leavitt

I feel really lucky that I got to know Lizzie years before I joined her family. So I was friends with Lizzie and her brother in college, even before I knew my wife. And we were all friends there. And I got to see Lizzie and her happy, seemingly normal self. You know, we socialized together and we all had friends together and we had lots of fun in college. And so when, you know, years later, when I started dating, Lizzie's sister. And I started to be sort of read in on what, you know, what some of her challenges were. And ultimately, I married my wife shortly after Lizzie took her life, I was able to see more in context what my in-laws family had been going through and, and I'm really grateful that I have sort of that context. But I visited with my in-laws a little bit prior to getting together with you to ask some of these kinds of questions about how they've tried to deal with this, this major loss and some of those things, and I would say that they told me, as parents, they always wondered what they could do more to help their child. And they've been extremely grateful that they have viewed their daughter's mental illness as a disease like any other disease that a person would experience. Some people get cancer or diabetes or heart disease and mental illness is a disease of your brain. And they view Lizzie's illness not as a character flaw, or a shortcoming of hers, but rather a sickness that she had in her body that ended up being terminal. And so I've heard it referred to as she died by mental illness, rather than by suicide and I think that's given them a lot of comfort to view it in that context. They've gained a ton of strength from the support, the outpouring of love and support and understanding of their friends and their extended family, and Lizzie's friends, who have all come together as a community to love them, and to support them, and to remember Lizzie and I know that that has meant so much to them. They, my in-laws, are very sympathetic and understanding of other parents and friends who go through similar things. They feel a bond with other parents and families who have these types of mental health struggles. And they recognize that these types of struggles impact the whole family. They affect all families and all walks of life and they have tried to help bring this tragedy into full light and full view by participating, for example, in Jane Clayson Johnson's book, because I think they want to wipe away some of the stigma of mental health. And they want to raise awareness that other people around us are struggling. We just never know what people are going through. And, you know, the more that we can be open and talk about it, and support one another and love one another, I think, the better. And I think there's a lot of credit to my in-laws for taking that approach.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Well I completely agree. And I think one thing that makes Lizzie's story so heartbreaking, is that your family was aware that she was struggling, like you said, they had been getting help. And she had been treated for bipolar disorder. She was receiving a lot of love and support from her family. I wondered what do you and your family wish that people understood about suicide and awareness and prevention that we might not understand?

Ryan Leavitt

I think the big one is that there's no one size fits all way to approach trying to help people who are having suicidal thoughts. In Lizzie's case, she was struggling with something chronic, a lifelong diagnosis that she was going to be dealing with for the rest of her life. And I'm not certain that the 988 hotline number would have resulted in a different outcome for Lizzie. But I think that not all suicide prevention and mental illness is the same. I think the 988 number can be a great resource for people who are going through a mental health crisis, or are contemplating suicide, just by getting an opportunity to talk to somebody as quickly as they can to work through some of these dark moments. You know, to Lizzie's credit, she talked to her family about her struggles, and she was open about it. And she was brave to do that. But not everybody necessarily feels comfortable doing that talking to people they love that they're close to that they're having these feelings. And so I think where the hotline number might come in to help people like this is they may feel comfortable talking to a stranger about it, someone that they don't feel they have to interact with all the time or be judged by. And then maybe that will give them the courage to then talk to somebody and get some other help. And so I think it's important to understand that there are different things going on and different people, and there may be different resources and different needs to try to address some of these problems. And I think the idea that the suicide hotline is going to help some people, maybe not all people, perhaps it's a resource that can lead to people getting other kinds of help. And I just think that it's important for us to try to raise awareness that it's okay for people to struggle, and it's okay for people to need to get help. And I think the more that we normalize that, my hope is that more people will seek help, and not be afraid to talk about it.

Morgan Jones Pearson

I completely agree. Ryan, I think one thing that I so I will just say this, the reason that I first became aware of Lizzie's story long before it was in Jane's book was I saw a post on social media. And it was a group of people that I knew from the DC area all wearing these green T shirts that said Smile for Lizzie. And I was like who is Lizzie? So like one does, I went down a little bit of a social media rabbit hole. And I learned about this beautiful girl who had gone through this experience. And I learned that this was a way that family and friends were paying tribute to her and to her life and to her beautiful smile was by wearing these these t-shirts that said "Smile for Lizzie." So I wondered, I know that that that had to be something that brought your family comfort. I wonder if you could speak to that and anything else that you feel like has brought your family comfort in the years since Lizzie's passing?

Ryan Leavitt

The Smile for Lizzie t-shirt campaign, I think it's so neat to hear your perspective that you didn't know Lizzie but you saw it. And I imagine there's probably thousands of people just like you who saw that because what they did was and this was largely an effort led by Lizzie's then boyfriend, and my mother in law and my in laws together, they decided they wanted to make these t-shirts that had #smileforlizzie on them, and then send them out to whoever would want one. And they mailed them all over the country, hundreds of shirts. And they decided on Lizzie's birthday, they were going to ask everybody to put the shirt on, take a picture posted with the hashtag #smileforlizzie. And it was really cool that day, as what would would have typically been a really sad day to remember this great loss that we've all had. Instead, our inboxes and our social media feeds were filled with friends, wearing these shirts smiling, and honoring and remembering Lizzy. And I think a few things happened. One, it was just wonderful to feel the support and love of all these people who knew and loved Lizzie and loved my in-laws, and do love them and want to support them. But I think the other effect was, more and more people got to learn about Lizzie and learn about just as you did be experienced, that she went through, I think part of this is that they want to not hide the fact that she went through this struggle, and that the result was a sad one, but rather an opportunity to bring awareness, and to help people understand that these things happen, and that we just want to love and support each other. And so I think that gave, I know for certain, that gave them a lot of comfort and happiness. And I think additionally, the promise that we're given that the infirmities that we experienced in our bodies, and the sicknesses and the pains that we have, that we all carry as humans. When we're resurrected, we're going to be free of those things. And I know that the promise of the resurrection and that Lizzie will be free of this illness that she had in her body brings us great joy. We know that Lizzie will be the joyful, happy, healthy person that she always wanted to be and and was prior to developing this bipolar disorder. I know that we gain a lot of comfort and peace with the promise of eternal families and the covenants that we make that we'll be together again. So I know that those things are something that all probably most all families who lose a loved one rely on the fact that we know that we're going to be together again.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Well, and I guess I just want to say I think for me, what did that T shirt campaign mean, for somebody that never knew Lizzie? I think ever since then, Ryan, I've never thought of suicide is something that only affects people that seem depressed or sad. I feel like I've taken it all a little bit more seriously thanks to somebody that I never met. And so credit to your in-laws and to your family for that effort. And I appreciate you sharing all that. I wondered for you, as somebody that worked on this 988 hotline number, what do you feel like our expectations in terms of the difference that this number could make for people that are struggling?

Ryan Leavitt

Our expectation in going down this policy initiative was we were under the assumption that there were a lot of people who needed help. We've seen this statistics, people are dying of suicide, especially young people. And we were worried that they did not know where to go to get help. They just simply would be in a time of need and didn't know where to turn. If they didn't feel comfortable talking to somebody that they loved and was near them. They didn't talk to anybody because they didn't know where to go. And so our hope was if we make this more accessible and we roll this out in a way that's that's easily memorable, that we'd get more people reaching out seeking help. And that's exactly what we've seen. Since this rolled out a little more than a half a year ago, we've seen a huge uptick in the number of people calling seeking help. And so our expectation is that our hope is this is going to save lives. This is going to be a real saver of lives because oftentimes, our hope is that people are experiencing this, you reach out, someone could talk you through some of these things and help you get the kind of resources that you need to work through these feelings versus not having access to that and then ultimately having resulting in a suicide, which is just devastating every time this happens, and it does happen. We see, going back to your point about, it's not just people who seem depressed, that this ends up being, the result for some people, you see it all the time, even celebrities who seemed happy and normal, and seemed like they've got everything going for them. And then ultimately, you learned, they've taken their own life. And this is happening all the time. And so the expectation is if we can pair resources, easily accessible resources, to people in need, the result is, we're going to save lives.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Absolutely well, and I want to highlight if it's okay with you, Ryan, before we get toward the end here, I want to highlight just some of the success that the number has had since its launch. In January of this year, it was reported that in its first six months, the 988 crisis line fielded more than 2 million calls. As a result of that, in February, ABC News said that the crisis line will expand capacity in an effort to better meet people's needs, to shorten call times, and the executive director of the suicide and crisis lifeline said "As we expected, there's been a significant increase in the use of the 988 suicide and crisis lifeline service since this transition to a three digit number. And actually, we're really grateful that more people are contacting the line with this change. That was the whole goal." So what do you think this should tell us about the issue of suicide within our society today, the fact that this number is receiving so many calls?

Ryan Leavitt

Well, first, I think it's important to acknowledge the work, the ongoing work, of people like Congressman Chris Stewart, and others in DC, who are shepherding almost a billion dollars to this resource in terms of congressional appropriations to help make sure that this line is accessible, and that when people call, we try to limit the amount of time it takes for them to be connected to a real person to talk to, I think the rollout of this number has been a major success. And I think a lot of that credit goes to those who have managed to take a leadership role and making sure that this is going to be a success. I think what it tells us is that suicide and mental health, mental illness is a major crisis in our country. And, obviously, the creation of an easy to remember number is a great effort to try to help. It's certainly not the only thing that needs to be done. I think there's a lot more that needs to be done to try to help curb these really troubling statistics. And I know there are a lot of initiatives out there to try to do that. But as a society, I think we need to try to take stock in what's causing this what's the root cause? And what can we do to try to stem the tide? I think for young people in particular, I think social media consumption is a real problem. I think I read something recently with teenage girls, something like 40% of young women have had thoughts of suicide, and a large number of contemplated or talked about how they would commit suicide. These are not normal statistics. This is a really troubling pattern. And something needs to be done immediately to try to help get these young people help and so I don't profess to have all the answers of how we're going to fix this. But I think as a country, as a society, we're coming to this reckoning this moment where we need to collectively think about what we need to do to solve this problem and help people work through some of these issues.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Ryan, would you say that in a way your work on this project was a way to honor Lizzie's life?

Ryan Leavitt

No doubt about it. The answer is yes. I think it's important to to be clear that after Lizzie died I and my in laws didn't just naturally overnight become these activists about trying to fix the suicide hotline number. That is not accurate. But you know, in the regular course of dealings in my day to day job, my day job, this came to me as an assignment to take this on. And naturally, having recently experienced this tremendous loss, I felt a sense of wanting to make sure that this happened, that we were able to get this across the finish line, that we fought like crazy to make sure that this came to be. And a lot of it was in a way to honor Lizzie. But honor all the other Lizzie's out there, all the other young people who lost their life to mental illness and their families that they left behind. This is a societal problem. This is something that impacts almost everybody knows somebody who has struggled with this. And I wanted to work on this in a way to honor those people. And to make sure that we could do whatever we can to prevent these kinds of tragedies from happening, you know, if there's anything we can do to help give people a chance to not have to go through this, we want to do that.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Ryan, you said that of your 10 years working in Congress, this was the thing that you were the most proud of. Why is that?

Ryan Leavitt

You know, I had a good run on the hill, almost 10 years, and I worked on some cool things, I worked on legislation related to preventing human trafficking, I worked on legislation related to reducing the backlog of DNA samples on rape kits to try to help catch sexual assault perpetrators, things that I feel like were consequential. And I'm really glad to have the opportunity to work on some of those things. But for me, the work that we did on the 988 Suicide Prevention number is the most important to me. And I think a lot has to do with Lizzie and what I saw her and her family goes through. And I think my feeling is that I believe that this change will save a lot of lives. And people will be able to continue to live and continue to be with their families and have wonderful lives. And that's to me why I think this change was so important and why it means so much to me.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Well, I so appreciate your work on this and for being willing to share your experience with us in this interview. My last question for you, Ryan, is what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Ryan Leavitt

Well, before we jump into that, I just want to acknowledge that I didn't come on here to toot my own horn and talk about how great I am. Because I believe that the success of this number has many, many participants and I was just one person that got to be involved and so honored that I was able to be a contributor. But I wanted to do this because I think any chance that we can to help more people know about the number and know that people are struggling with this and try to destigmatize mental health and give an opportunity for people to get the help and resources they need, I want to jump on that opportunity. So that was really the driving force for me coming on. And I just so appreciate the chance to do it. And I am grateful to all those who had a big role in making this happen. You know, especially my old boss, Senator Orrin Hatch, who's now passed away and Congressman Chris Stewart from Utah, and many, many other people. You know, you ask the question, what does it mean to me to be all in on the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it really comes down to one of my favorite scriptures in the Doctrine and Covenants, section 81, verse five, it says, "Be faithful, sucker the weak, lift up the hands which hang down and strengthen the feeble knees." For me to be all in is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and the call that He asked us to do is to sucker the weak and to lift those people whose hands are hanging down and strengthen the feeble knees. It's for us to be engaged in meaningful work to help those around us and help try to lift from where we stand and be a force of good in the world. And that's to me what it means to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Ryan, thank you so much for taking the time and also I just want to say thank you to your in-laws for being willing to let us talk about what really is your whole family's story and such a credit, I think to them for wanting to take something like this and turn it for good in the lives of other people who are struggling with similar situations and may feel alone and and to know that, that we're not alone in any situation, I think is always helpful so thank you so much, and thank you to your family. And I just I appreciate you taking the time more than you know.

Ryan Leavitt

Well, thank you for having me on. I was just so glad to be able to do it. And I love this podcast and so it's a real treat for me to be on. So thank you.

Morgan Jones Pearson

We're grateful to Ryan Leavitt for joining us on today's episode. You can read more about Lizzie's story as well as learn about depression and other types of mental illness in Jane Clayson Johnson's book "Silent Souls Weeping," which you can find in Deseret Book stores or on desert book.com Thanks to Derek Campbell of Mix at 6 Studios for his help with this episode and thank you so much for listening. We'll be with you again next week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai