This video features an intimate, honest conversation between Ivan and Chris, exploring how lived experience of trauma and survival shaped a lifelong commitment to suicide prevention, education, and social change. Chris reflects on creativity as an early lifeline, his unexpected path into teaching and research, and his work around adolescent suicide, men’s mental health, grief, and male survivors of trauma. Together, Ivan and Chris challenge assumptions about masculinity, therapy, and help-seeking, highlighting the power of presence, companionship, and lived experience. The conversation calls for more humane, gender-responsive approaches to mental health—grounded in reality, choice, and the simple truth that healing often begins by not suffering alone.