Welcome back, Soren.
Yes, back in the studio.
Back in the studio.
This has been really amazing experience for me,
hanging out with you like this.
I think that it's been like so rewarding for me
because I love to talk.
I love to chat about everything.
And I don't really have a fantastic outlet
for some of these deeper subjects.
So I think that this is a really like cathartic experience.
Yeah, that's a great word for it.
Yeah.
So last week, we were talking about queer media.
And when we were wrapping up the conversation,
you made a statement about you and maybe some of your friends
feeling like this idea of queer representation in the media
is just the way it is now.
Like it's just you don't have as strong of a feeling about it
that I have.
Having missed that representation in my childhood
and formative years, for you and your peer group,
this is just the way it is.
And so these queer identities are just
woven into these story lines.
And you don't even blink an eye.
And it got me thinking about the topic
we wanted to bring up today, which
is around stigma and mental health.
And when we were prepping for this conversation,
you made a comment that was also really interesting to me.
And it reminded me of what we talked about last week,
where you said, for you and your folks your age,
you don't necessarily feel like there is a negative stigma
or as much of a negative stigma around mental health.
Because for you and your peer group, this is just a thing.
Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Well, obviously, people frown upon the negative behaviors
which mental illness evokes.
But the discussion of it is so normalized.
In my peer group, at least, open, honest conversations
about our mental health and our mental health journey
is such a normal and common occurrence.
And I think we have no, I guess, what's
the word I'm trying to come up with?
Resitance?
Maybe.
Yeah, we don't feel cautious around the subject.
We approach it bluntly, I would say.
And it's not seen as something that you
have to tiptoe around or try to augment
the way that you're speaking.
It's very normalized.
So for you and your friends, it's not abnormal to both say,
how you doing?
I'm noticing you're a little down
or you haven't been quite yourself lately.
Or to say, you know what?
I'm not feeling great.
Yeah, yeah.
That's a very normal conversation to have.
I would say maybe this is unique to my friend group,
but I feel like it's fairly pervasive.
Discussions of mental health and general standing emotionally
is so normal and common.
And my friend group, a lot of us have had fairly extreme
histories with mental illness.
And I think the way that we approach it
is so different to the way that it used to be approached.
And maybe you could share a little bit about your,
I guess, understanding of what mental health
and what mental illness was in your youth.
Yeah, the exact opposite of how you're describing it,
if I can be very blunt.
I don't have any memory of ever saying to one of my childhood,
when I say childhood, I'm thinking school age,
kindergarten through high school.
I can't think of one time where I have said,
I'm feeling really down or depressed.
I think stressed is probably the word that my generation used
most to reflect anything not baseline, stressed.
And stressed might mean I'm anxious.
Stressed might mean I'm down.
Stressed might mean I'm frustrated or angry.
But that was just sort of like, I'm stressed.
Nor do I remember, despite what I do for a living,
I don't remember ever checking in with other friends
to say, this is out of character for you.
How are you?
What's going on in your life?
Well, I think the reason it's been so normalized in my age
group is just the raw prevalence of extreme emotional
experiences that we've all had.
There is a mental health crisis in our youth.
And as a result of that, we can have far more open and honest
dialogues because the vast majority of us
have, at least to some extent, dealt with similar issues.
Yeah, so it's so normalized.
And as a behavioral health provider and somebody
who speaks on these topics often,
I know that this behavioral crisis is unlike anything
we've seen, both here in our state of Maine
but also across our country.
Wait lists, demand for services, and workforce shortages
are just like, we're in the eye, maybe.
We're approaching the eye of this perfect storm.
That, as a provider, terrifies me.
Yet when I talk to you about your perception
of a lack of stigma, it actually gives me a little bit of hope
because in my world, stigma is one of the barriers
to being able to talk openly about wellness.
Stigma, whether we're afraid to appear weak,
whether we're afraid to be acting in a way that doesn't fit
with our gender role or our assigned gender role,
like as growing up male, we boys don't talk about feelings.
And as we've talked about in a previous podcast,
I was so deeply in the closet that I never
would consider doing anything that publicly or interpersonally
threw my gender role into question.
So being stoic, even though I felt things very deeply,
very deeply, I wouldn't ever do anything
to be able to say, I'm not well, I'm not doing OK.
I worry would have put a bigger target on my back.
Now, whether it would have in real life or not,
I'm not sure, but that's what it felt like.
And that is a part of what stigma looks like to me.
Well, I do see that male stoicism in a lot of my friends
because I do have several male friends, cisgender male friends
that do identify with that gender role strongly
and identify with being stoic.
But yet, at the same time, they're
struggling with deep emotional crises.
And I think I've intentionally spent a lot of time attempting
to break down the idea of stoicism
and try to have blunt conversations, which
I don't know if it's me introducing the topic
or them genuinely desiring to have real conversations.
Maybe both.
Yeah, yeah.
I feel like stoicism serves as such a barrier to attempting
to actually be productive mentally.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, absolute block for sure.
Yeah, you know, I feel like professionally, I
see stigma being such a hurdle for folks my age
and maybe the in-between generations from you and I,
so folks who are currently in their early or mid-20s, who
are maybe experiencing things like parenthood or life
after college or life after grad school or life
after trade school, where pressure is also quite high
just in a very different way.
And I think here's a wonder I have.
And let me know if this jives for folks in your age bracket.
The experience of the pandemic, where
there was a concerted effort to get this PSA type message
out there of check in with your friends.
When we were in full lockdown mode,
where social interaction was essentially cut off,
as a behavioral health provider, I
know that what I both preached and practiced was check in,
make it weird, ask folks, especially your male friends,
ask them how they're doing.
And portray yourself as being somebody
who is safe and non-judgmental to acknowledge,
I'm not well.
Because to your point, what we knew through the pandemic
was the vast majority of us at one time or another
were not well during that period of time.
Well, OK.
I don't think that necessarily the PSA during the pandemic,
go check in with your friends, resulted in this.
However, I think the pandemic super indirectly impacted that.
During the pandemic, a lot of my friends and myself included
were extremely emotionally isolated.
And that created extreme negative emotional experiences
for us.
And with a lot of my friends, it was like life or death
situation, the pandemic.
Yeah, quite literally.
Quite literally.
For me, definitely.
So now coming off of that, we have
learned the necessity of communication.
Rather than learning that by being told to do so,
we, through our experience, now understand
the gravity of the situation and understand
that we need to be a support system for each other.
So let me ask you this.
Was this idea of being more open about your wellness
or your absence of wellness for you and your friends,
did that exist prior to March of 2020?
Or did the experience of March 2020
help move you and your peer group
into this enhanced comfort of just acknowledging, validating,
and talking through tough times?
Well, OK.
I think that my mother and my father
have ingrained in me really healthy emotional
and interpersonal habits with communication about emotions.
And I think those skills that they've given me
have been so beneficial.
So I did have an idea of that.
And I understood, to some extent,
the importance of communication about emotion before that time.
However, it wasn't really seen as a necessity before then.
And I don't think I had the depth of relationships
in March of 2020 that I do right now,
nor do I have any of the same friends.
In March of 2020, I was still a small child.
I was, I think, 12.
Yeah, good point.
Good point.
Yeah.
Yeah, so it wasn't.
I didn't have the depth of emotion that I have now.
And I was a scared little child.
Yeah.
Yeah, but I do think that communication about emotions
has been something that's been emphasized
throughout my entire youth.
But I don't think that that's the case for really
any of my friends, actually.
Yeah, and I think about some of the young people
that I know and work, know interpersonally
and know professionally.
I would suggest that maybe for you and your peer group,
you have normalized this checking in, perhaps
to a higher degree than what other similar age kids are
doing.
And I also wonder, because you have
shared parts of your own journey with mental illness
and some of the situations that you and friends have been in.
So the commonality of some of your lived experiences
with mental health and wellness maybe
has opened up the door to be more vulnerable
and transparent.
Yeah, yeah.
I still know a significant number of young people,
especially young boys, young males,
who would rather step on a nail than say,
I'm struggling right now.
Well, that's such a conflict that so many people face.
It's very difficult. And a lot of my friends
feel guilty when they're talking about issues
that they're having, because I think that they're saddling
someone else with their burden.
They feel like they're good.
They feel guilty for putting their emotions
onto someone else, because they feel
like they're creating a negative experience for others
around them, rather than attempting
to lower their burden.
But is the communication so open that as the receiver
of their struggle, you are imagining there's a pathway
to saying, you know what?
I don't know that I'm in a space to hear or adequately support
you with what you're going through right now.
Yeah, yeah.
And kind of put up that no trauma dumping allowed
right now.
I don't think that that's been, at least in my group,
I think that we're all very able to, to some extent.
To have those boundaries.
To have those boundaries just naturally.
Like, it doesn't have to be something that's set forth.
We can all just vibe out the comfortability level of others.
And you, I think, can, through understanding the conversation
and how it's flowing and knowing your peers,
make those boundaries sort of non-verbally.
And I think that's what we do.
Yeah.
But I know myself, whenever I get,
like someone shares an emotional experience with me,
I feel relieved.
I don't feel emotionally burdened
by what they have to say.
Because I feel like, A, I'm helping someone,
and that makes me feel fantastic.
Like, I think it actually fills my bucket.
Yeah.
Because I am super interested in what my friends have going on.
I would love to hear their life experience.
And by listening to that, I feel like I've helped them.
And then I leave feeling fulfilled,
feeling more in the know and not worrying about them.
Yeah.
And I feel like rewarding.
Yeah.
It's a rewarding experience for me.
Yeah.
And you are such an empathic person as well.
I try to be.
You are.
You absolutely are.
You know, it's interesting.
Like, last week, we were talking about queer media.
And my experience growing up in the absence
of healthy, inclusive role models or representation
in the media, I feel like mental health, for me,
is the same way.
The stigma or the stereotype of mental illness
back in my childhood looked like the homeless person talking
to themselves on the streets.
It looked like a more violent, not what's
the word I'm looking for.
Uncontrollable.
Yeah.
Sort of unpredictable.
Unpredictable.
Like, they could snap at any minute.
And therefore, acknowledging these universal emotions
of depression, sadness, all the shades of depression,
all the shades of the anxiety colors
might mean that people are going to see me like that.
So I better not talk about it.
Well, I think up until very recently,
you mentioned this vision of mental illness
as in very extreme situations with homeless people.
That was the only mental illness that
was made visible because people were so afraid to share
their experiences.
So then that was the only thing that we saw of mental illness.
So then when someone else attempted
to come forward about their experience,
we would associate them with that.
That's right.
And then more people would be like, oh, now
I can't share my experience.
And I think it's a super recent phenomenon
that we're seeing mental illness not as something to be feared
or necessarily an objective negative,
but rather a universal experience
that one can grow from that can be positive in the long run
and that needs to be addressed in a not professional,
but a serious way.
And actually, this is sort of pivoting.
But I see a lot of youth addressing
their mental health crises.
And I do this myself to cope through jokes.
And it's seen as something very jovial.
And I think that is important to some extent.
But also, I think it can be negative
because it doesn't address the gravity of the situation.
And in a lot of these situations,
it's people's lives in the balance.
It needs to be a serious conversation.
Yeah, I could not agree.
It can't be off the top of the horse.
I couldn't agree more.
Yeah, yeah.
And this idea of stigma, which as you've been talking about,
is connected to stereotype, which
is connected to prejudice, which is connected
to unconscious implicit bias, runs so deep as well
that for folks with more years on this planet,
there's a lot more for us to have to unpack.
Let me give you a fairly recent example.
So I see myself very humbly as a pretty decent social worker.
Yeah.
I think I'm pretty good at what I do.
I think you're fantastic.
Thanks.
And let me tell you this story.
So several weeks ago, I was in Portland,
which is probably Maine's largest city,
just a couple hours south of where we are now.
And I was meeting friends.
And they gave me an address for a parking garage area.
And I was going to meet them there.
We were going to go to dinner and see a show.
So I got there first.
And it was an outdoor parking area,
very unlike what we have here in our neck of Maine.
And so I got there first.
And so I parked the car.
Got out and paid for the parking.
Coming back into my car, I noticed
a gentleman kind of emerge from the bushes
from around a building.
And instantly, I recognized two things.
I recognized that this individual looked
the part of somebody whose absence of housing
and either struggling within an acute mental health issue
or was under the influence of something.
So as I walked to my car, monitoring
where he was the whole time, being the really good social
worker that I think I am, what do you think I did
the minute I got in my car?
OK, what I think you did I think is different from,
I think you locked your car and drove away.
I didn't drive away.
I locked my car door and reclined my seat
to be under the view.
Now here's what, and I didn't give a second thought
of doing that.
It was three things happening almost instantaneously,
locking the door, reclining my seat,
and pulling up my phone to get either my friends that I was
meeting or 911 on speed dial.
It wasn't for a couple seconds that my intellectual social
worker brain kicked in.
And I said to myself, Chris, you know that statistically
speaking, homeless individuals are
more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.
And individuals with mental health issues,
behavioral health issues, are more
likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.
I know that the data supports that.
Yet this idea of mental illness is dangerous and unpredictable.
And I was at risk was so pervasive for the 50 years
I've been on this planet that without even thinking about it,
I locked my door, hid from view, and got my phone ready.
Well, we've been trained to see that as like, that is danger.
That's not a person.
That's like a threat.
Yeah, that's a walking threat.
Yep.
Right, and I think actually that ties into like a modern,
the man versus the bear.
Like, you're so much more likely,
assuming it's just like a randomly selected man,
to have like a bear mutilate you.
But like, we are, women are trained
to be afraid of liabilities because it can be dangerous.
But also, it's dehumanizing to some extent.
And it's like, not an irrational fear, not an irrational fear,
but like a not based in statistics fear.
That's right.
Yeah, yeah.
It's so ingrained.
I mean, I think what you're speaking about is a social media
trend going around right now on, would you rather face a bear
in the woods or a man you don't know in the woods?
And most women, when asked, would choose the bear
over the man because this idea of violence and threat
and personal safety, it runs deep.
And I don't pretend to know from the perspective of a woman.
I don't pretend to know.
I mean, my privilege, as you and I often talk about,
identifying as a man, being born a man,
I don't know what that feels like.
Yet there I was in that parking lot in Portland,
shrinking from view and locking my door
when I perceived a threat.
But the stereotype, the stigma runs so deep.
And I loved how you said, we've been trained to believe this.
Everything that I grew up with in the media
and even walking around as an adolescent
in the streets of my hometown, I was
trained to perceive danger in something I didn't understand.
Well, which is, I think, evolutionarily viable.
If you don't know what's happening, leave immediately.
And my parents have trained me to do that.
In order to avoid risk, don't be around anything
that you don't know about, which makes sense
but also can create a ton of problems and societal rifts.
And that fear of the unknown has resulted
in the degree of stigma that we have around mental illness.
Yeah, I agree.
I agree.
So I'm curious, Soren, with you and your friends,
do you have any, for folks that might be watching or listening
who are thinking to themselves, well, this
is easier said than done.
How am I supposed to even start normalizing,
talking about health and wellness?
Do you have any strategies that have worked really well
for your friend groups on how you approach the checking in
or the being checked in with?
Yeah.
So with a lot of my male friends,
I feel like they are only comfortable having
deep conversations like that and addressing that issue
in a very specific context.
For our friend group, it's around the fire.
Which I think men have been doing for decades.
Yeah, thousands of years.
Go to the man cave.
That's where you talk about these things.
And I think it's been a general progression of trying a little,
trying to start that dialogue just naturally in contexts
that are very low key, very comfortable.
And then eventually, you can introduce that topic
in less tailored situations.
And you can just check in with people through texting.
Or actually, a really great example
that I think was fantastic was one of my friend's girlfriend.
Not one of his girlfriends.
My friend's girlfriend.
I think a month ago or so was talking to me
and very concerned for my friend.
So I just started a random conversation.
It wasn't about anything to do with mental illness.
And then my friend just started talking
about how their day was and what they've been doing.
And then they talked about some of the stress
with their homework.
And then that's an opportunity to seize on.
You can say, oh, what has your emotional experience been of late?
And then you can share your experience,
which I think showing vulnerability yourself
is so important to attempt to get somebody to open up.
It needs to be a mutual dialogue.
You're not pulling information out of them.
You're sharing information with the group.
Yeah, I think it's our old pal Mr. Rogers who
talks about how anything mentionable is manageable.
And the ability to put something in words,
as scary as it initially might be, if you can talk about it,
you can manage it better.
You can deal with it.
Yeah, so what I hear you saying is
you're building new habits, creating new muscles
to then hopefully start working out and let muscle memory
eventually take over.
You're normalizing and you're modeling
that I can talk about this stuff with you.
I trust you.
Yeah, yeah.
I know you're not judging me.
I know that you're not going to break my confidence
and tell other people what I've told you.
So you're modeling that you are a safe person
and you are just creating space to let that person come to you.
You're opening the door and then walking away
from the door and allowing them to walk through
when they're ready.
I totally agree.
For me, it's just about expanding the safe space,
creating a regular dialogue.
Rather than it being conversations
in isolated events, you need to see
emotions and the progression of them holistically.
And you need to address them holistically.
That is so important because if we're only
checking in with our loved ones and friends
during the difficult times, then we might be sending
the unintended message that I only
care when you're at your worst.
I think that's really profound.
And we, I think, also have to normalize because in some,
I have some memories as well where
if I was too excited about something,
I'm also crossing that gender role
that I'm supposed to be stoic.
And so the extremes on either end of stoicism,
if I'm too low or too high, I've veered out of my lane
as what the male is supposed to be like.
Well, I am super thankful to the environment
that my parents have provided because I
am a very expressive, dare I say extreme, person.
And when I'm having an emotional experience, it's a lot.
And I am very excitable and vibrant and joyous.
And I think if I was raised in an environment in which
the traditional male gender role was emphasized heavily,
I would be, to some extent, broken.
Because I would be crashing against the walls of a box
that I simply can't fit into.
And I'm breaking my bones on each hit.
And I think some men feel pent up.
Yeah, that's a powerful image.
Well, and here's what I also want to say,
is that you are providing some really valuable insight
into how young people can normalize and check in
and make create safe spaces to talk about this.
And it's also important to help coach families
to also create that similar space.
Any emotion my child is experiencing is valid.
It's OK.
We can talk about it.
And I think so much of our language,
whether we're even aware of it or not, calm down.
You're too hyper.
You're too, oh, you're a lot right now.
I think about those kind of comments
that I've heard families or parents, caregivers say,
about kids, they're a lot.
And I want to be like, what does that mean?
Well, they feel everything.
And I'm like, great.
Like, that's a strength.
I see that as a powerful strength.
I see that as what we know is that a young person's ability
to express and identify feeling is linked to resiliency,
is linked to good health outcomes.
That if I know what it is I'm feeling
and I have some insight into what it is and why it is,
and I can talk about it, then when
times are a little tougher, that skill set
can manifest there as well.
It needs to be like a constant dialogue.
To destigmatize, you have to normalize.
Oh, that's our tagline for this episode.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
But I'm so excited for the future
with looking at the conversations
that I'm seeing happen around me.
Obviously, we're all afraid.
And there is a mental health crisis.
But I think it's really important to remember
that with each low point, there is an up.
And through these negative experiences
and through this collective trauma
that the mental health crisis is putting our youth through,
we can yield emotional maturity.
We can yield better coping strategies
as a generation.
And we can inform older people to create
a more cohesive social unit that supports each other.
Yeah, well, what we've talked about in this podcast before
is this idea that our best days are still ahead,
that there's always better days ahead,
that we are all works in progress.
And the other piece that I hear you talking about,
which I think is just really kind of magical,
is shared experiences build community.
And community builds resiliency.
And so the more we can connect with one another
on the shared universal experiences, where
it's OK to talk about the rough stuff as much
as the positive stuff, we can build community.
In community, there is strength.
And in strength, there's resilience to those challenges
the next time they come around.
Yeah, yeah.
We're all in this together.
Yeah.
Well, Soren, this has been another fascinating conversation
with you.
I'm really excited to see where the second half of our season
goes.
Well, I think that this has been fantabulous.
Episode 6 out?
I think so.
I think episode 6.
So as we launch into the second half of season 1 of the Inspired
Insights podcast, we want to thank you so much for sticking
with us and listening to us.
I'm Chris McAllen.
I'm Soren Peterson.
We'll see you next time.
Have a marvelous day.
The Inspired Insights podcast has
been brought to you by Inspired Consulting Group, LLC.
Edited and produced by Amanda Seidel.
Music by Derek Herter.
Copyright 2024, all rights reserved.