Self Care Session (Part 2)

And thank you so much for coming back. We really appreciate all of your knowledge and everything that you've given us. UM. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm well, thank you and I really um, I'm glad to be back. And um, I just can't tell you how important this conversation is that you guys are both hosting and being open about and all of it. So I'm just really glad to be a part of it with you. Thank thank you for teaching us. We're

excited about it. It's true, Key, it's tricky stepping into a new year, trying to have a new mindset and not trying to put pressure on this year is going to be better, whether it be just because of the pandemic or whether it be because of your mental health or a friendship or whatever it may be. Um, how should we try and approach the new year without putting too much pressure on the situation? Yeah, I was, I

was talking to somebody about this this weekend. UM. Resolute New Year's resolutions end up becoming like the biggest downfall of for so many people, whether or not they say it or not. I think a really important part of the new year is to recognize that, um, you know, January one is the day after December thirty one, and

that's all. Give yourself the chance to set some goals for yourself, because I think we all feel, um if we're working towards a goal, whether that goal is related to your grades, or related to a friendship, or just like I want to get like two extra steps a day, whatever it is. Let yourself set a goal, um, but recognize that you can also and should also set a goal on March one and maybe like July fifteenth, just

because and um, the fact that it is the new year. UM, don't put that pressure on yourself to make things so different this year than then you you may be let down. Yeah, for sure, I know. It's it's hard to like kind of not put pressure on yourself or on the situation.

Just like even the New Year's resolution thing, how you said, it's really just a day different, you know, it's like really not that serious, but people are like, oh my gosh, it's the new year, I better get into shape, I better do this, and it's just like it's it's a lot. It's a lot of stress for sure. And I think with that, UM, it's not healthy for us to hold in our feelings. So why is talking about the things

we're going through and facing them important? Why do you why do you think it's important for us to talk through it? I think one of the things, um, that I have seen and I even learned myself, as the moment I started talking about what I was going through, I realized just how not alone I was. So so often we're in our head thinking about the things that feel like they make us different, or that there's something wrong with us, or um, why is everybody have this

perfect life when I don't. And the moment I started vocalizing it and verbalizing it or sharing the hard thing that I happened in my life, I realized just how many other people we're going through that exact same thing in that exact same moment, and how comforting it was

to know. And so, first and foremost, you deserve to share about what you're going through because you deserve to know that you're not you're not alone, and you deserve to know that you're it's not your fault, uh, and that like you're not weird, right, like you're totally normal going through what you're going through. And then secondly, it is just such a burden off of your shoulders, but you don't have to carry that because usually what we're

keeping on the inside is the really hard stuff. Right when something good's happening, we're screaming it off rooftop and letting everybody know and letting everybody celebrate with us. But it's the really hard stuff that we're holding on in the inside that they can then just create so much more pain inside of us. And so and again I don't like, yeah, screaming off the rooftop if you feel comfortable with it, or just like, find one person that

you can share it with. Maybe it starts with writing it down in a diary or putting it on social or hopefully having somebody that you can talk to about it. So that they can physically show you that they're support that they are supportive and they're there for you, and we can you know, going back to some of this stuff we talked about last session and you know, VR and showing support for each other UM is a really

important piece. But UM it's hard to do, right, Like, I'm not going to sit here and say everybody like just use those words. We've never been taught to do it. It's just not been part of our upgrain because for generations we've not talked about how we feel. But one of the coolest things is that I see is that UM, high school students of today and college students and young adults are talking about their feelings and are talking about mental health in a way that even my generation didn't

and certainly my parents and grandparents generation didn't either. And so it's changing, right, And it's changing because you're starting this conversation and having this public conversation that we're having here today is going to hopefully help some people who are listening just start talking in their family or in their friend group and then realize, oh, there's other family or friends who are going to start talking to and

it becomes a snowball. So that's the third reason, which is, um, not you know, not necessarily for your own mental health, but you will be helping somebody else when you share about what you're going through, because when you're sharing and you feel like you're being really vulnerable, you have no idea what that other person is going through. Maybe that other person is going through the exact same thing and thought that they were alone and did not feel comfortable

sharing it. So it's a really important It starts with this one conversation. The few words that you're comfortable saying can really help kind of explode a conversation to both help you and the people around you. Totally, totally, and I just want to say thank you for even just kind of opening the conversation because you were helping so many people around the world and it's really special. I just wanted to acknowledge that I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Of course, now kind of steering away, um, this is I feel like as a whole, mental health is pretty like taboo or people make it such a thing. Um. But on the other side of that, are there any like words or phrases that you should steer clear from if you're talking about mental health or if you're talking about anxiety or whatever. Maybe oh, I love that question. Language is like a really important part of why I

do what I do. So UM. In short, like, you really can't say like the wrong thing, So I again, I want to go back to something that we talked about last time. Don't be afraid you're gonna say the wrong thing and not say anything at all, like you're you're better off saying something. However, if you're aware enough to be thinking about these words. UM. There are a couple of words that both in terms of like talking to somebody who's struggling, and then in general aow mental

health that I think is really important. What you want to do if somebody is sharing that they're struggling, is you want to validate. You don't want to say, um, just get better, just go for a run. UM, I don't believe you, like what do you have to feel sad about? UM? Validate their feeling, even if you don't believe they deserve that feel that way, like I don't.

I don't know why you would feel that way. But regardless of how you feel, know that whatever they're feeling is real and right and and validated and let them know that you believe them. I think there's also some pieces as we talk about mental health and mental illness that we can do to kind of shift how we

think about these things in our culture. So, um, you know, I started Active Minds because my brother died by suicide, and um, he was a college student when he took his life, and I was a college student myself, and I started really thinking about what life was like for

him in the world that he was living in. And even from that beginning and saying that he died by suicide, I'm never going to say that he committed suicide, because if I say that Brian committed suicide, that's that's indicating that he like committed a crime, or like he did something wrong like burglary or perjury, or like something that's going to send him in jail. No, he died by suicide because he was struggling with his mental health and

for him, that was the only way out. And so we, as you know, in our in our vernacular, in our language, like we need to stop saying that people commit suicide. We don't say that about any other death. People don't commit heart attacks or commit cancer. You wouldn't even imagine to think about that. But but it helps you frame just how differently we think about mental health versus all other health issues when you think about just that one

set of language. I think a really important piece too, as we think about it personally, is that, um, we have we have to stop identifying ourselves with our diagnoses. So UM. I have a friend who had anorexia in college, and UM, the number of times I heard her say I'm an anorexic, or I heard people say, well, she's an anorexic, or she's anorexic, it's very different from she's

a person with anorexia. I think my brother was a person who struggled with his mental health, but he was a brother, he was a friend, he was a son, all of those things. You had depression and he had schizo effective disorder. But it's a really important part when we think about ourselves. If you're somebody who has panic attacks or um has anxiety, you're not somebody who is anxious, No, like you're a person that's just like happens to be

a part of you. And I think about it often like I have you know, this isn't real, but I have blonde hair, right and so the difference between saying I'm blonde verse I have blonde hair, there's like a very different codoation of what that means. And so there are little shifts that we can make as we think about it, even for ourselves, about I'm a person, I have these things. I might struggle with these things sometimes, but there's so much more to me than just my

diagnosis or just my struggles. UM. I think it's a really important way for us to get out of, um the self stigma that still really exists even if we're not we don't judge each other. One of the things that has been so awesome to see in your generation, in high school and college students of today is that there's not a lot of stigma. There's not a lot of judging of people to say like, oh, that person has bipolar disorder, I don't want to be around them. No,

like that doesn't exist anymore. But what still is really high is this self stigma, the the the discomfort in having it for yourself. And so if you can make some of those language changes, even for just for yourself, to realize like, actually, I'm a pretty awesome person and yes I have anxiety, or like yeah, I'm I'm cool and my mom has um, you know, substance use disorder or whatever it may be. Um, this is just part of your whole identity and not not your identity itself.

So those are little changes. I could go on forever, um, But I love the question. And I think there's a lot of power in looking at the language that we're using. For sure, Yeah, I would have. That's such an amazing perspective that I haven't even uh, you know, noticed myself. I think I think we do that. We're guilty of always just being like, oh, well, I'm just anxious and it's getting in the way of a lot of things. Um, that's a really good way to treat it, and are

also very important as well. Yeah, and and there's so little, right. I think that's the really like, the really important piece of all of this to me is that we don't have to make these like massive of changes. It's all of these little things, these little language changes, the little opportunity to say something to a friend that creates the big change that's that's needed. But it's it starts with these little things that are so easy for all of

us to do. It's really hard. I think, like I for myself, I feel like I was kind of the last in the family out of my mom and sister to kind of start having panic attacks and having uh something, some anxiety, and it was nice to know that I wasn't alone because I witnessed my mom go through it and then I witnessed my sister go through it, and so I felt like I had an open space. Luckily, I'm so lucky that I had the space to do that.

Um But I wonder for you, Kenzie, or if you can touch on this, like what was it like going through it before your sister did and knowing like like, did you feel alone or did you feel like you could open up? Um? Well, I am not one to talk about my feeling a lot, so it definitely was super hard for me to kind of experience it first in the family and not really have someone to relate to other than my mom. I mean, obviously I love my mom, but teenagers don't necessarily go to their parents

for everything. UM. So I did go to my sister a lot about it, but I was so nervous to open up. Um it was the same thing with a therapist for me. I just don't I feel so weird talking about my feelings, which sucks because it's important, but yeah, I'm just like, I feel so weird talking about it. But you've been a great person to talk to, and I feel like, for me, the most important thing going through a panic attack is just to act like it's not there and kind of distract your mind if we

watch a movie or talk about something else. But once in a while it is really important to talk about it for me as well. No, you've definitely done an incredible job at like progressing in that way, and I'm honestly, I'm just so lucky that I've had heard through all of this, and especially just because we obviously, like friends come and go, but we'll always be there for each other, right, And that's not me saying that you shouldn't address it in any way. I think we all just kind of

deal with it differently. But now I've learned to open up about it because obviously when I started having anxiety, I was like twelve, so it was very hard. Well, and you've touched on something too. It's like you don't have to be perfect every time, right, Like you can do one time. You can like you put words to it and feel comfortable doing it and then the next time you don't want to talk about it all. I'm

like that's okay. Like give yourself grace to not not be getting better each time or not, you know, to not be perfect each time. Like it's you're none of us is perfect, right, and so it's like, um, do the best you can in the moment that you're in all the time, and sometimes, um, you're going backwards, and like that's fine, Like welcome to this pandemic. We thought

we were going great and then we went backwards. Like that's just a natural caer of life that we allow for everybody else and everything else, but we don't allow

for ourselves. So like, give yourself some space and some grace to not be perfect each time, even if it's not being perfect in your panic attack, Like that's totally normal, and that's totally fine, and you know it's probably gonna happen again, and so like you know, you know, figure out what the triggers are and the things that you can say you feel comfortable saying, and you do your

best in the moment and with what you've got. And that's a really important piece of all of this, Like we all have to just be kinder to ourselves in a way that we're just not. I also think, you know, how we were talking about social media is terrible, but there's a little there's like time this the app TikTok, I feel like has been away for teenagers to open up about how they're feeling about mental health. And I feel like I go on there and I'm like, wow,

I'm not alone, Like this is so weren't. And that's why I'm I'm so glad that people are opening up on social media. And I think it's very important because in the comments, everyone's like, Wow, I'm so glad that you're going through this and we can go through this together. I just think it's really important to open up on social media. I think it's totally I know it's a scary thing to do, but it's weird because on TikTok it feels like less scary for some reason. I love that.

I do think. You know, yes, we were talking about all the downfalls of social but I like, I'm the first person to jump into an argument to say that, like not, um, there is good in social and what I've seen is social gives people an opportunity to have a platform to share how they're doing and what they're thinking in a way that previous generation has never had. Right,

Like my generation, we wrote in journals. If you were going to do anything, you were going to write in your diary, but nobody was ever going to see that. So if you were having a really crappy time, yes you could get it out, but unless you used your words to tell somebody or friends said something to you, nobody knew. Social gives all of us a chance to put that out in the world and be validated and feel like we're not alone in a way that didn't

exist into previous generations. So while there there are challenges, right, we're going to work through all those challenges. Um. I love what you're saying. It's like, um, it gives you a chance to, like, you know, you find your tribe, and you find your people, and maybe your people live in your hometown, and likely they don't, and likely you're never going to react with these people again. But they make you know that other people go through this too,

and and it's totally normal. Um, And it's okay to not be okay sometimes, and it's okay to like, I feel like you just want to know that that you

belong somewhere totally. I think that's like the best advice just honestly going into this new year as well as it's okay not to be okay, there's no pressure, like it's it's really important to know that, especially everyone listening, Like I would say, everyone, give give yourselves a little a little pat on the back because it's hard and we're all going through it and we're all going to get through it. We're all going to get through it.

It's true. And this and this time right now, UM, get through day to day like this is a really not only is being a teenager hard, and not only is being a young adult hard, but like going through it in this pandemic when sometimes you're allowed to see people and oftentimes you have to be stuck at home and you're not allowed to participate in the activities you once did or maybe you can, but you're saying all of those things, like this is really hard, So let

yourself just get through day by day because we will get through it. Um, we don't need to thrive right now, We don't need to like be our best selves right now. We just need to be and um, let's let's get out on the other side and and you know where are red, yellow and green bracelets When we get there, like we feel like it's not gonna be you know, at once, but um, it's this is a hard time

and it's and it's okay to feel that. Um, it's normal to feel that and just like just get through like a you know, foot forward each day so that we can move through together totally. That's yeah, that's great. Thank you so much, Allison, um for doing this two part series with us. This means so much to us and just opening the conversation and to anyone listening, I hope you know you took something from Allison and this conversation and it's been really special to have you. Yeah,

thank you so much. It was so nice to meet you and talk to you you guys as well. And and again I just, um, thank you for including me and thank you for including Active Minds, But more than anything, just thank you for having this conversation because it does it opens up for folks who may be hearing it

for the first time. And as you guys continue to share your experiences, you're helping other people know that they're not alone, and hopefully those people can let other people know and like, that's how this change is happening, and we're gonna we are going to get through this together because of conversations like this. Thanks, thank you, thanks so much for taking Tony with us. If you had fun,

it was five stars. You can follow us on Instagram at Take twenty podcast, email us at Take twenty at I heeart radio dot com, or you can call us at eight four four for Take twenty. See you next time. Him