In the last few years, it seems like every time we turn around our world has been in one crisis after another. To add to that, in a recent survey of some people in the US, 90% of those polled think that we are in a mental health crisis. Do you think we are? What would you say might be the reason why so many people think this?
The panel breaks down what is a crisis, do they agree with this poll, and what can you do to help improve your mental health through times like these.
Tune in to see if We are in a Mental Health Crisis Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- What is crisis
- Are we in a mental health crisis
- What do we do about improving mental health as a large group
Links referenced during the show:
90% of US adults say mental health is a crisis in the United States, CNN/KFF poll finds | CNN
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
Audio Podcast Version Only
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode #236 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello. This is through a Therapist’s Eyes on July the 13th with episode 2 36. I think it’s gonna be an interesting, massive current event topic with a amazing event that’s happened in these United States of America where it seems like where we can’t agree on anything. We have a 90% agreement, John, that we are in a mental health crisis, 90% of the United States citizenry.
So it is said via visavis via poll that we are in a mental health crisis. Does that sound shocking? It’s
John-Nelson Pope: understandable. Yeah. And yes, it is shocking in a, in a, in a sense. We agree. Yeah, we agree.
Chris Gazdik: We agree. Yeah. But before we get to that, man, miss Victoria is back with us. How are you dear? Where have you [00:01:00] been?
We have missed
Victoria Pendergrass: you. Well, you know, I’m glad to be back scheduling conflicts. Yeah. But
Chris Gazdik: we’re back. Everybody healthy and well. Yeah. You know,
Victoria Pendergrass: we’re covered. And I have a 15 month old, so, you know, scheduling marriage life is pretty unpredictable. Indeed. Indeed. And so, you know, that kind of. Throws a wrench in some things sometimes, but you know, we roll with
Chris Gazdik: it.
So this is a panel of therapists where you get insights and thoughts directly through our eyes on everything. Mental health and substance abuse, knowing it’s not delivery of therapy services in any way. Hit the subscribe button, click the bell for notifications. It really does help us. And guys, we need your help to kind of grow, really, I don’t think you, as the listening audience understand or know how much of a big deal that is and how much an influence you make.
So help us out really with the five star reviews. And we like to interact with you, contact through a therapist size. We really enjoy that, the human emotional experience, which we endeavor to figure out together. So yo and a music note
[00:02:00] the, the intro that you see there is from Reid Ferguson. Reid, shout out to you, brother.
Go find him@reidferguson.com. He’s an awesome musician. He’ll come to your party, he’ll come to your show, he’ll give you a good time. Reid Ferguson, r e i d. He’s got a T in the middle. Reed Ferguson, f e r g u s o n.com. Check ’em out. So what do you think, man Mix Victoria, we’ve got you know, 90% of us it seems like are, are feeling this way.
What, what do you, what do you guys, what do you guys really think about this? I mean, we’ve heard this, people talking about this, but I just get to really thinking about it when I was discovering what we wanna do on this show. And I, I don’t know. I’ve got, I, I just, I let my mind r wrestle around with it.
I’m, I’m curious what you guys really take from it.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I’m, I’m kind of thinking that, well, I am thinking that this, that we have been in such a great turmoil of, over the [00:03:00] past, throughout my lifetime, that I know of. I, I, I, lifetime, my lifetime. That I think it just, Ultimately, everything just has come to a, a, a, a change, a shift.
And our lives are, are very much more disrupted now than they were. There wasn’t the computers, there wasn’t all the, i I, I would say the pervasive technology that, that we have wonderful things that made a lot better. Absolutely. Social media, I think that we, there has been a decline of people’s religiosity or, or being able or worship or going attending to church, for example, or synagogue or mosque, and people are not as dedicated.
It, it, as far as their faith is concerned. And so that’s kinda lost marriage. There taking hits. Taking hits, and not [00:04:00] as many people are being married, not having kids is another thing. There’s been a decline in in a sense of families, so, but which crowned us
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Psychologically in a group, it grounded
John-Nelson Pope: us.
Yeah. For better or for worse. Yeah. And sometimes families have been very bad and pernicious in terms of having disruptive families or negative aspects in, in family, but right now it’s the, the good things aren’t there either. And you don’t get that sense of, of belonging or place. People move so many times.
Chris Gazdik: Well, it’s interesting. Yeah. We, we wanna get to a mentor moment before we really get our gears going with this, with this show tonight. But John, that’s, that’s awesome and cool. And, and I think your, your perspective of the long-term approach, I really value that. Mm-hmm. I mean, you started. Working before 95, right?
Mm-hmm. Right. And, and, and so you’re looking at a [00:05:00] span of over, well, it’s over 40 years. 40 years, yeah. And, and I, I value that greatly. So I think that I wanna tap into that because that’s the perspective that I have a little bit on. Is this a quote unquote, Per se crisis. Mm-hmm. Or not. Yeah. Right. Right. So let’s get to Miss Victoria.
You have? Yes. I like that we were calling it a segment that we do a mentor moment because, you know, and first of all, I wanna compliment you for being willing to be on, you know, the podcast and, and of course and have mentor moment where you have thoughts and things you’re learning. I appreciate that because I just see so much of, you know, we talk about Victoria, you know, things that I experienced and you bring them up and I’m like, oh, cool.
Like I remember when and like yeah. We have awesome conversations. So your willingness to share that with other therapists around the world mm-hmm. And the listening public, I just wanna praise, I think that’s badass. Thank you. [00:06:00] And I appreciate you, you doing that. Thanks. A lot
Victoria Pendergrass: of times when you see me quiet here, it’s cuz I’m just soaking up everything that you and John and when Casey was here that y’all are talking about because I learned just as much.
Well on this podcast. Well, I
Chris Gazdik: learn We do, John. That’s right. We really, I mean, the human emotional experience. We figured this out together as what, you know, and just, but you know, I appreciate that you’re, you’re able to, to bring those things though. So get us going. What’s the what’s the mentor moment you approached me with this morning that we said would do okay.
Live
Victoria Pendergrass: on air? Well, and this is, you know, okay, so it’s not that it’s been a recent thing, just something that’s come to mind and things that, this is something that I have dealt with in past experiences with clients, but always, you know, I’m here to get your insight on it. So how do you work with clients who are struggling to end a relationship with someone, whether that be a
friendship, a [00:07:00] romantic relationship, a breakup, a divorce, or whatever, and they’re, the other person is threatening to harm themselves.
If Oh, yes. Said person.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Go ahead. John was just tapping. We’re both like, already our minds are, I think, are moving with, with the many times. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: But yeah. How do you work with someone to figure out a way to break that relationship or to end the contact when the other person is threatening or has the potential to harm themselves if that contact ends?
Am I making sense? I, I, you are, I feel like I just walked in circles. You, you were Hit me because I said
Chris Gazdik: Oh, did he? Yeah. Is that what it was? Okay. Sorry. Well, yeah. First of all, what my, one of the things my mind does with that is, okay, look like I have really [00:08:00] kind of come to find Victoria, and I’m curious, would you, if you guys agree or not, that when somebody is entering into a stance of breakup mm-hmm.
That, that, that is the most decompensated state that people generally get to, like most commonly. And, and, and I guess what I mean by that is it just feels like whether you’re in a middle schooler, you know, we, we, we, we belittle the experience of puppy love and, you know, your first crush. Those are hard feelings when you’re, when you’re breaking up.
Mm-hmm. And, and I don’t think they’re that different than when we’re dealing with a 20 year marriage dissolving. I recognize there are differences, but my, my main point is people are struggling at their greatest, most commonly at that very vulnerable time. Does that seem to be true in your all’s experience?
Mm-hmm. I’m curious. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, I am. So you quickly agree, John. Yeah. I mean, it’s a, it’s a powerful time. It’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a hurt time. And, and [00:09:00] so your question about having suicidal thoughts or gestures of your spouse, how do you continue to do or execute a decision to break up? Right, John?
What do or to just
Victoria Pendergrass: limit the contact, right? I mean, whether, because, whether or not it set boundaries to Yeah. Even if it’s not just a divorce, I mean, happens in friendships too, right? You know, best friends are no longer best
friends. It does, yeah. And someone is like, oh, well if you stop, you know, and whether or not they necessarily don’t, Verbalize, I’m gonna hurt myself if you stop talking to me.
John-Nelson Pope: But, but, but that’s manipulation. There’s also, there’s a pathology there. And I’m thinking that that there’s a sense of, let’s say if it’s a spouse or a partner that, okay, that’s going through this is that they’re that person feels that they have lost control in the relationship. Mm-hmm. That they may lose children, custody of children.
And so [00:10:00] that person is, is fragile, but that person is also somewhere you’re talking about the suicidal person. The suicidal person, but the suicidal person’s also can be manipulative. And and so I would, I would, I would say that one would need to be very careful to for the person, let’s say the spouse.
Mm-hmm. Or the partner that is leaving. And saying, I, I can’t do this anymore. We can’t be in this relationship. There may be but I can’t be manipulated either. So you would, you would, I think seek to make sure that the, the spouse that you’re breaking up with or, or leaving after 20, 25 years is going to be safe.
Right. But you cannot, it’s number one. But you, you cannot continue in a relationship where, let’s say there’s and that’s number two. Number
Chris Gazdik: two, yeah. Yeah. [00:11:00] There’s, it’s funny, there’s, there’s two real things and you, you were leading right to John did I, one, of course, safety above all else is something that I’ve learned and heard, and that’s mm-hmm.
Something we do. So, you know, but he, he, so we have to take the self-harm statements and thoughts. As absolutely legit. That’s always the case, you know, and, and if you have reason to believe of harm, you can always contact the emergency room or this type of thing, but that isn’t always the case with self-harm statements and passive suicidal ideation because number two is also super uber important to realize, and I will say hopefully this never needs to be said after, but I always, always tell people after the safety statements.
Secondly, you have got to understand that when someone completes the act of suicide, it is a hundred percent. Of accountability and responsibility on that person and no one else. And I’ll say that before an event, and I hope I never have to say this to the person after the event. And I will say that to them.
So I think those are a lot [00:12:00] real landing spots.
Victoria Pendergrass: Is that because a lot of people take on that guilt of, oh, they did it because I stopped talking to them, or I ended the friendship, or I ended the relationship,
Chris Gazdik: blah, blah. Any number receptions, we can be, begin to get sucked into a really dysfunctional
John-Nelson Pope: manipulation.
And that is enmeshment, right? Mm-hmm. Extraordinaire. Right? And so you have to be able to, for the person, for this other person’s mental health mm-hmm. That person needs to be able to, to get out of, be out of that relationship Right. And start a new, and do some healing. Mm-hmm. And but unfortunately you’re, when you’re dealing with something where you’re, where one of the, the partners is manipulating mm-hmm.
The situation what’s gonna end up happening is that there’s gonna be two people that are absolutely miserable and things are not gonna, that the person that well, it just continues the
Chris Gazdik: dysfunction. Yeah. [00:13:00] Dysfunction, yeah. Yeah. Continues, continues the dysfunction. I mean, I think on a, on a clinical level as well, I’ll do a mention as, as well, and then we’ll get to our topics tonight.
But I, I think you’ve gotta be aware of assessments as well, Victoria, right? Mm-hmm. Like you begin, I begin to think what’s, what’s the pat long-term patterns here? I’m, you know, I’m always a long-term pattern. You are. Yes, yes. You know? Is there elements of codependency that I’ve missed, uhhuh, are there elements of domestic violence that I’ve missed?
Are there boundary setting issues that are just longstanding with fan culture? You go. Okay. Those are, those are some things immediately come to my mind to assess in our individual relationship so that you can continue making a reasonable decision on separation, if that’s where, where you’re at. So, okay.
Yeah. Thanks. What, what do you think?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, I mean, I, I think that it’s something that we’re not always taught in school. How to, you know, deal with situations like that and, you know, [00:14:00] because these people are coming to us, they’re in our office because they’re looking for an answer most of the time.
Because don’t, they’re don’t, they don’t know what to do. Right. And they, it’s overwhelming. Yeah. And they don’t want to feel that guilt of, you know, responsibility if this person follows through with some sort of action. Am I, you know, feel feeling that responsible
Chris Gazdik: am responsible? No. Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: No. Yeah. Percent.
The answer is always no percent. But that doesn’t mean that, that that guilt is not felt. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: It’s sad and scary and it’s uncomfortable and it’s, and it, you know, you, you wanna care. You wanna have compassion, you know, especially
Victoria Pendergrass: as y’all said, if it’s someone that’s been in a 20, 25 year relationship and there’s kids and you know, there’s all these other.
Connections that make it,
Chris Gazdik: there’s just a lot of weird feelings though, you know, clinically, like you’re saying, John, there’s, you know, when you’re having a hard time, of course we’re all sad and we’re, but, but you can’t be throwing, you know, suicide at the [00:15:00] person who’s leaving you. I mean, there’s a great panic the person will go through let’s, you know, beg for the person to stay and let’s up the ante.
I mean, there’s a lot of things that are going on. It’s like, no, no, no, no, no, man. You can’t, you can’t be doing that. You
John-Nelson Pope: can’t have a relationship like that. No,
Chris Gazdik: it can’t. It would, what? Is that the way you’re gonna re reestablish reconnection if you’re No, that’s not
Victoria Pendergrass: be, we’re both for the rest of your life, right?
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Okay, thanks. Yeah. So let’s go to, this was a thing that I found and, and the poll that that was done was, was in partnership with Kaiser Family Foundation, which is an insurance based kind of, Operation in tandem with or
partnership with cnn, you know, cable News Network. You know, there’s polls that are done all around and I, I would bet that you would find different places of polling and they’re gonna find pretty similar numbers because this has been being talked about since, you know, Covid has kind of come around.
But the idea [00:16:00] was that 90% of the US adults say that mental health is a crisis in the United States, and I suspect around the world they’re going to be finding very similar, you know, realities if, if we did a, except if you’re
John-Nelson Pope: in
Chris Gazdik: from Finland, Except if you’re, is Finland the happiest? The happiest place happiest.
Have you been, been paid by Fins? John, what’s going on here? Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: what’s going on? I have been,
Chris Gazdik: you mean you a serious kickback right now? Go visit Finland, says John Pope.
John-Nelson Pope: No, there’s, there was a study I think in the new England Journal of Medicine recently. Okay. On that? Yeah, on that about Finland.
They did a survey. Okay. And interesting. Really? Yeah. And you would think because it was dark so often and Yeah. Tough during the winter and all that’s
Chris Gazdik: biological reality. Yeah. But I mean, if I
Victoria Pendergrass: could sleep a lot, most of the day, I think I would be pretty happy too. So in your readings,
Chris Gazdik: did you find validity there or what,
John-Nelson Pope: what did you Yeah, I think there’s some validity there, but I think it’s [00:17:00] also the, the, the culture more than anything else is, is more amenable for for people having a purpose and meaning in their lives.
Okay. And well that’s a big statement and a
Chris Gazdik: family and I don’t know, we’re gonna have time to dive into it, but that, that’s, no, we, that’s interesting.
John-Nelson Pope: That would be a different topic. We could do the why Finns are so happy. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: So well maybe we’ll pull that as a, as a cultural client or a current event for you to, to us into that next, next next week.
But this said that Americans, some of the highlights of things that they found is that, You know, the opioid epidemic was the first thing that really comes to people’s minds and the way that fentanyl has taken over and, you know, just caused mass carnage. And it, I can tell you professionally and personally, that it absolutely has.
Mm-hmm. Big time. And then the teenager issues as a crisis level was, was another big highlight in area of focus that this, this researching was, [00:18:00] was looking at. And then also severe mental illness specifically. And I, and I presumed to believe, what I understand that to be would be more significant diagnostics, like we talked about last week with schizophrenia and just a diagnostics show, which I hate that you missed, Victoria.
I would’ve loved to have seen you go through that with us. But, you know, significant bipolar and, you know, I guess onset of serious, more serious forms of mm-hmm. Of mental illness tho those were the highlights. Okay. Data from the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention showed that drug overdose deaths have reached record levels in 21.
Okay. So I guess they’re finding good numbers for that. Suicide rates were also back near record highs after two years. Interesting. Lee enough of decline. But then also in 2020, mental health related visits to emergency rooms were jumping 31% among adolescents aged 12 to 17. So those were some facts that were cited.
[00:19:00] More than one in five adults described their own mental health as only fair or poor, I believe. I mean, it’s a pretty big number. I believe it. I believe it. Mm-hmm. It’s a pretty big number. Major sources of stress for a third or more of adults included the finances. You know, we have lots of questions with covid and, you know, currently fears about recession and all.
And then current and I can attest political stress and political events. I’ve commented on the show anecdotally, never had this come up in my. Clinical experience in therapy sessions. Mm-hmm. And it really was and now is resurfacing, interestingly enough. Well, and
John-Nelson Pope: also the climate crisis then. Okay. That people are worried about some of
Chris Gazdik: my younger, increasing amounts of distress in fear distress.
Yeah. They cited one in four adults also identified personal relationships and work respectively as major sources of stress. Like I could see that as well. [00:20:00] And then lastly, a highlight from the article was really that one significant shift came this past summer with the transition where, you know, we had the three digit dialing code.
9, 8, 8. Right. Which is very, very cool. Yes. I love it. With this transition of the natural suicide prevention lifeline to this code 9 88, which if you don’t know, is just like 9 1 1. Mm-hmm. But it is for mental health crises.
Victoria Pendergrass: You can text mental health and call, text and
Chris Gazdik: call Really? Nine eighty eight. Yes.
Which you can’t do with 9 1 1, which you cannot
Victoria Pendergrass: do with 9 1 1. Oh. Really? I, no, you can’t text 9 1 1. I
Chris Gazdik: didn’t know you could text 9 88
Victoria Pendergrass: either. Yes. You can text from what I’ve look read, you can text and call it, which is the benefit of sometimes people are afraid to call so you can text.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, no, that’s cool.
Thanks for that Victoria. 45% increase in the first month. That’s a lot. Oh my goodness. If that’s accurate. I’m telling you. Accurate.
Victoria Pendergrass: Having a three digit number over a full telephone number that people have to remember to call if [00:21:00] they’re having crazy thoughts or any kind of suicidal Yeah, because it’s a, yeah, it’s a crisis and suicide hotline.
So it’s not just for people that are having self, self-harm or suicidal thoughts. Yes. Good
Chris Gazdik: for any. And this
John-Nelson Pope: is the United States and Canada?
Chris Gazdik: Yes. Right? Yes, yes. Is it Canada as well? I think so. I did not know that. Okay. I don’t know. Can we look that up? I guess? Look that up. Can you
John-Nelson Pope: check that? But it’s 9 99 for Britain, I think
Chris Gazdik: to Britain has a system.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I think that’s their 9 1 1 system. But
Chris Gazdik: that’s different though. Different though. Yeah. This is specific for mental health, which is kind of cool. Yes. So around the world, I don’t know if you, maybe I’m wrong about Canada, but I can say in the States, 9 88 is very specific for mental health. Mm-hmm.
And Victoria’s
Victoria Pendergrass: teaching us, I’d say if you have one in your country, comment it on the video so that other
Chris Gazdik: people please do. No, absolutely. I appreciate that, Neil, you got that yet? Okay. He’s gonna check if that’s Canada or not. Cuz I am, I am curious. I mean, those [00:22:00] are some real challenges. Those are some real realities and I think that I can anecdotally confirm everything that I was seeing there, you know, has, has legitimacy.
I think
Victoria Pendergrass: it’s interesting, you, you know, earlier you brought up, you know, that teenage. Issues are a crisis. Yeah. And I just had a new kid the other day. Yeah. Who’s 12. Okay. And they asked me, they’re dealing with some, you know, anxiety and depression and stuff like that. And they asked me, did, did I go through similar feelings when I was their age?
Okay. And I thought that was so interesting because okay. It is Canada as well.
Chris Gazdik: So John looked it up. Yeah. The beach and Neil. So Canada is 9 88 as well as the United States. So that’s cool.
Victoria Pendergrass: But I think that just shows that it’s full circle in that, you know, someone who’s 12 who, yeah. You know, I didn’t get my first phone till I was.
13, and I didn’t have an iPhone until I was in college.
John-Nelson Pope: I [00:23:00] had cans that a string. Okay, mom.
Chris Gazdik: I had a cord. That was really cool. And it was a special, Hey, I had one of those five foot cord when we got the long cord. That was great. Yeah, it’s, it is cool. And it is full circle. Well, I mean, I think
Victoria Pendergrass: that just shows that it’s, I don’t know, I think it’s interesting that, you know, that this person wanted to know.
Yeah, it’s cool. Kid. Wouldn’t, you know, if I ask us, I had the same type of experiences or feelings when I was their
Chris Gazdik: age. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So what do you guys think? Let me, let me, let me center us in on like, are we in a crisis? You know, John, you were creating some cool thoughts about that. Victoria, what do you, what do you say?
I mean, I say yes. Do you really see crisis
Victoria Pendergrass: per se? Yes. In my experience with, I worked in a title one school which for those of you who don’t know, a title one is, Typically a very low income poverty, maybe [00:24:00] borderline school. Right. Usually gets, you know, free or reduced breakfast and lunch things like that.
Kids are struggling. Yeah. So after being a school-based therapist in one of those schools for three years. Yeah. And my experience in my internships and whatnot, I,
Chris Gazdik: over the last five years
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. And I mean, my first, I, I’ve, I never had a full, a normal full year in a school because I started in fall of 19.
That’s crazy. At the school I was at and I was only there for six months. Right. And then Covid hit and our whole world’s changed. Yeah. And, and I will tell you that when I, before Covid hit, my caseload was 70 kids. Mm mm Which for a school-based therapist, that’s a lot. I mean, they were about to bring in someone to come help me.
Mm-hmm. Like one or two days a week because I had so many kids, I couldn’t see them [00:25:00] every week, you know? And so I think based on numbers and stuff like that alone, I would say Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: I, I mean, so it’s anecdotal for you, but there, I mean, your observation of that, of that Title one school mm-hmm. The children there, you, it, it kinda rang true.
And so you’re saying, is this generalizable to the, a greater population? Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: And especially once Covid hit.
Chris Gazdik: Well, COVID is definitely gonna be a part of this conversation for sure. Let’s, let’s look interestingly at what, what really is a crisis when we, when we look at that word, so Webster’s, a situation that has reached a critical phase or a turning point marked by instability, danger or urgency, which we have instability, we have danger, and arguably we have urgency.
A difficult or dangerous situation that needs immediate attention and resolution. And the keyword there is immediate, right? Mm-hmm. The, the point in which a disease, if you will, is that a [00:26:00] decisive change occurs leading to recovery. Your death, you, you see, you know, crisis states a common concepts in this basically are the idea of a critical turning point.
That’s, that’s where I think we, we hinge on, in my mind. Where we crisis states can actually be, be, be really. Cool. In that regard. I mean, I, I really enjoyed doing the mobile crisis teamwork where I, oh yeah. It was one of my first gigs and I really enjoyed that because like, I almost to the point that now as an experienced clinician, I, I wish I’d, I have, and I might, I could create a guess the opportunity to go back because as an experienced clinician, I now see a market opportunity.
Victoria Pendergrass: I say, would you approach differently?
Chris Gazdik: Yes. Yes. Because that really can be a triggering point as you get to this critical state, this critical juncture in [00:27:00] a transition mindset. Mm-hmm. So, you know, and I was just green and new and didn’t really, I think, fully understand that when I was doing that work. But, you know, we love to use these dramatic sized words, crisis.
We love to use these know sort of click bait things and. And John, you say the age of anxiety. Mm-hmm. Which I have thought about so much since you said that on this show. I, I, I funnel this to there. So I’m, I’m, I’m lending myself a
little bit of sort of, oh, let’s think about this for a minute. Are we really in a crisis with this, per se, of what, you know, we’re laying out here Yeah.
For what a crisis really means.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, I usually tell people that a crisis is different for everyone.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Well that’s interesting. Go go with that. Yeah. I mean,
Victoria Pendergrass: I’ll, you know, what, what might be a crisis for you may not [00:28:00] be a crisis for me. That’s interesting in true. And so sometimes that when I did my internship, I focused in, in our, in, in our assessment, we had a questions about crisis or whatever.
And I’ll get that question a lot. Well, what is a crisis? Yeah. I’m like, well, sometimes it’s different for everybody. It’s, you know, I define it a lot of times as where you feel like you lose that control and, and things around you. I don’t know. Well, that’s a component. Yeah. And so, I mean, my cat dying might be a big, might be a crisis for me, but I.
I could tell
Chris Gazdik: you I answered for some for outs, am I, when I answered the phone call on a crisis line, I did not know at all what kind of topic I was gonna be dealing with.
Victoria Pendergrass: Right? Yeah. You could literally get anything. It’s pretty varied. And it sometimes would, and I’m sure there would probably be times where someone said something to you like, this is what [00:29:00] I’m struggling with, this is what’s happening.
And probably in your head you’re thinking, well that’s not really a big deal. Or like, sometimes I’m mine. To me that’s not, you know, that’s not, at least in my brain, that’s not a big deal or I would consider that a
Chris Gazdik: crisis. But I think I recognized exactly like you’re saying and I think what I think most clinicians realize, like yeah, it’s, well, yeah, and that’s not, it’s what is the current experience.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. And it’s not saying that what we’re people are not ex are experiencing is not valid. That that’s, that’s not what I’m saying. But,
Chris Gazdik: but into context, John of 40 years. What is the macro level? Macro is just a fancy word, saying like, you know, big, big picture. You know, zooming out and seeing the big landscape here really around the world, particularly in the era of now post covid.
You know, what, what is the, what is our human experience in way of mental health crisis.
John-Nelson Pope: I [00:30:00] sense that, and maybe this is part of my own experience as well, because you were, you were talking about, well, I. What is a crisis? I, you can look at it in the big picture. Mm-hmm. The big picture would be where people have to make a decision that is something that one might consider life or death, or one would make a decision of that of urgency and cultural urgency or, or civil or in terms of civilization urgency, let’s say western civilization.
Mm-hmm. And the, the, the urgency is, are people having a sense of belonging? Do they have a sense of themselves? Is it positive? Are people know who they are? In the sense that
Chris Gazdik: you’re going existential.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Well, yeah. And, and, but that’s what I’ve seen is that people have lost their identities and themselves and so they’ve, they’ve, they’ve sought it in in terms of you could see this with, [00:31:00] with young people.
There’s a delayed adolescence of, of people growing up. Back in the day of my parents, Or my grandparents, you were 16, 17, 18 years old, you were a fully adult and you bought houses, you got married and all of that. People are getting married later and later and mm-hmm. And they’re living together. They, they begin having relationships before they know who they are in terms of sexual liaisons before they know who this person is that they’re gonna be living with.
They start having children. And
Chris Gazdik: so you’re speaking a lot of the different specifics in the acceleration
John-Nelson Pope: of human accelerated. Yeah. Change has acce accelerated so much and the civilization has changed and it’s lost its moorings. So I guess I’m an old fuddy duddy because, cuz I sense that we, we don’t go back to the bad old days, but we are [00:32:00] what we are presenting and giving our, our, our, our fellow people.
Is is something that’s not any better. It’s, it seems that they don’t know where they belong. They don’t know who they are. They have no sense of, of identity. I get
Chris Gazdik: concerned about, you know, sort of doomsdayers and over dramatizing, you know, the realities that we’re facing. That’s why I push back a little bit at this, this notion of crisis, because those, these words mean something to me.
Mm-hmm. I mean, they, they, they’re, they’re really important in, in, in considering mental health realities. Mm-hmm. And, and so it, it’s funny, I was talking to, to our. Front end person about this a little bit ago, you know, dw and, and yeah, I was like telling her like, you’re gonna be, you’re gonna be precariously dangerous of getting on the show here tonight.
Because she was like, I mean, she’s citing all these things like, boom. What do you mean we’re not in a [00:33:00] crisis? If we’re talking about guns, what do you mean? If we’re not in a crisis, we’re talking about these kids or dealing with our doing, what do you mean, Chris? That’s what DW was arguing. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
She was like, and she was hitting these issues. Oh, I
Victoria Pendergrass: heard. Yeah, I heard her. Right. You heard that, right?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And, and I’m like, you know, well, it’s, it’s these, it’s undeniable, isn’t it? You know, to a certain extent, you know? And, and I just wonder how much we’re finally having a turning point, which would denote crisis of getting the attention due for the level of issue that mental health has always been.
Mm-hmm. Right.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Right. Okay. Well I, and I think in terms of the doomsday and all that, I think one of the things we can’t just put our head in, in the sand like an ostrich and just hope that it would go away. Right. We have to, which is what we used to do. Yeah, exactly. And so we would, we would shut people away or we wouldn’t talk about somebody killing themselves or, or
Chris Gazdik: completing suicide.
Well, well big to emphasize that, [00:34:00] John, that we still have that nowadays. I was literally doing a show before this and I was talking to Todd.
Man, I hope you check his show up man, because we had a great conversation. I was looking for Todd and guys, if he walked, Hey Todd, if he walked through that door, I’d be pretty freaked out cuz he’s a, a, a growth and scaling podcast.
The Growth and Scaling podcast for business, it was really cool. But I mentioned, you know, just introducing myself that this will not defeat me after sexual abuse program that we just kicked off. Mm-hmm. And he’s like, whoa, that’s dark. Like, I don’t even wanna. I didn’t wanna mention that or talk about that.
Like, you know, it just shook him, surprised him. Mm-hmm. Because it was, you know, we’re in a business podcast. Mm-hmm. Which I have interests in that as well. We still avoid the topic is my point. Yeah. We still, and we
John-Nelson Pope: could find ways of avoiding Yes.
Chris Gazdik: Those topics. It’s, well, it’s just uncomfortable.
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s just like mental health has always been there.
It’s just now recently getting seen. There is more access to it. There’s more [00:35:00] resources to say, Hey, if you’re feeling this way, there is help for you opening. So our eyes, people don don’t opening sot feel the need to bury it. Put our heads in the sand as often because now, like we were talking about earlier, you have things like better help.
You have things like other. Online therapy things. I can’t think of their names right now, but I mean, just the Cerebrial or whatever Cerebial. Yeah. The access to them is just gr greater and there is that more acceptance of, okay. It’s okay to say I struggle with anxiety. It’s okay to say, I mean, ha ha, half the pe I know almost all the people I know are taking some type of antidepressant.
Yeah. Or anti-anxiety medication. All the people she knows or like, I mean, you don’t really mean a lot of people now nowadays who don’t.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I, I, I would, I have some that might be my [00:36:00] generation. I have some clients that mm-hmm. That absolutely refuse to take antidepressants. Oh yeah, me too. Yeah. So
Chris Gazdik: I’m conservative about it, but
John-Nelson Pope: yeah.
So no, but I, I would agree with you. There’s, there’s so much more than than 40 years ago. I mean, the, the medications 40 years ago were so they give you a chemical straight jacket
Chris Gazdik: is, I
Victoria Pendergrass: mean, they used to do, they used to poke a hole in your head and drain the blood.
John-Nelson Pope: Right. But, but I think that was the other thing, and that is that there’s a paradigm shift, I think, going on in our civilization or our culture.
Mm-hmm. And that may be part of the sense of people feeling like they’re lost. I see. The crisis by the way, crisis and critical are same words, basically from the Greek. Fair enough. And so so you were using a word to define, like Webster’s was actually using a word that define itself. Yeah.
Define itself. But, but the point [00:37:00] is, is that what you do with it? So in other words maybe the crisis isn’t, has always been there, or it’s not as bad as we we thought, but is what you do with it now.
Chris Gazdik: And that’s interesting that you land there because I was listening to you, Victoria. Yeah. And part of us figuring it out together, right.
Is what do we do about it now? Is it so that. So our, our eyes are opening and our awareness is increasing at the same time, Victoria, that you’re a younger person, recognizing that people are engaging more and there’s more to engage. Mm-hmm. However, can we say, John, in the big picture, that our awarenesses are increasing mm-hmm.
So fast and there’s so much going on. And the level of increase in availability of therapists programs, community mental health centers, which we talked about last week with schizophrenia, is not increasing on the same. Oh, I would agree with [00:38:00] that.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. There’s a great disparity. And there’s the
Chris Gazdik: crisis.
And there’s the crisis. I mean, cuz I remember not too long ago a current event that bothered me, and I’m gonna say it again because the current event that
bothered me, where I had a personal friend that had their teenager in a facility needing an inpatient stay, not yet. And there was
Victoria Pendergrass: none, no beds.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. The
Chris Gazdik: closest was Las Vegas. Yo, we’re in Charlotte. That’s the entire length of the United States, basically. Okay. That’s completely not okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, do you know how many people I’ve talked to since I’ve been here? Which is almost a, which is a full year now. Congratulations. But we need to party.
Yeah. Dang it. You can have me say,
Chris Gazdik: Anyways, we’re getting on her for saying if that’s what you’re wondering what’s going on, and so,
Victoria Pendergrass: I forgot what I was gonna say. [00:39:00]
Chris Gazdik: Oh, I’m so sorry. Dear. I said the crisis was there’s no beds, no placements.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh yeah. The amount of people that I’ve talked to since I’ve been here that say, it took me three months to find someone that had availability.
Right. This week or, right. This is the, I’ve been trying for three months to hear it all the time, all around the Gaston County or Charlotte or wherever trying to find an opening. And you were the first person that had an opening, so I just took it. Yeah. And I’m just,
John-Nelson Pope: I mean, that’s just so not because we’re, we’re not fantastic.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Not because we’re not lovable fantastic therapists. It was
Chris Gazdik: probably a cancellation that popped open this last hour. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you have a cancellation, it feels like,
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, Chris, I look at your schedule sometimes and it’s full, it sucks. Full. It’s full. Yeah. I mean, there are no openings,
Chris Gazdik: right?
Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s just there. There great challenges and I think that’s, that’s honestly a little bit of new insight. In the moment, I’m not gonna lie, the level of awareness is increasing on something that has been super [00:40:00] high for a long time and our level of services has increased. Mm-hmm. But the disparity is great.
It’s, yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: that
Chris Gazdik: gap is still pretty big. The gap is growing.
Victoria Pendergrass: Which is insane to me because so many people are in just, we pump out all these therapists and then yet it still seems
John-Nelson Pope: I would, I would be, yeah. I’m sorry.
Victoria Pendergrass: No, it’s just, it’s hard for me to, to grasp that, you know. Good.
John-Nelson Pope: John? I, I’ve taught for better part of 15 years.
Yeah. And higher education, higher education co clinical mental health counselors programs did the accreditation programs and all of that. During, during those years we, we cannot possibly train our clinicians adequately with enough information. It has. We do that in two, two, half, half. I can’t imagine years that challenge.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: But how many people burn out that are therapists of, [00:41:00] I would say a third to a half. And now that’s just anecdotal. That’s just observation. No, I
Chris Gazdik: believe it. I think that’s the, there’d be some interesting study beyond burnout, John, because the burnout is a real factor. We call it compassion fatigue nowadays, but is a real factor in therapists and what we did
which you and I, having done what we’ve done for as long as we’ve done, I think is a testimony of strength.
Mm-hmm. And wellness on our part. Well, that’s balance
John-Nelson Pope: seeking. Always seeking
Chris Gazdik: balance. Correct. Yeah. I think sometimes that’s hard. Yeah. I’ve seen people, as a founder of two companies, you know, they do kind of come and go and there’s a great struggle with that. Retention is.
Victoria Pendergrass: Mm-hmm. And I think sometimes it has to do with the area of therapy that you’re in.
I know Chris, you and I recently were having a conversation about school-based therapist, which is what I used to do. Mm. And even though I don’t have a statistic, Per se for that, I would bet you that the burnout, compassion fatigue rate is quite high. Same for the
Chris Gazdik: Department of Social Services. Yeah. And cps and
Victoria Pendergrass: which is why they’re [00:42:00] always turning out, which seems like there’s always a new case lead, a case worker because the person before them quit or, you know, burnt out and, well, I would
John-Nelson Pope: agree with that.
I very much having worked in these areas for many years is that it’s not unusual. You might have a caseworker for six months, three months, a year at the most couple of years, and then that person leaves, moves on at. So even
Victoria Pendergrass: though veterans even we’re pumping out all these therapists, it doesn’t quite mean that it’s enough and that they’re staying long enough.
To coach up with that gap that we’re talking about.
John-Nelson Pope: Right. And, and, and they also don’t get the, the therapist or the counselors or psychologists don’t also get enough continuity of, of training mm-hmm. At that time. And so they’ll go and they’ll, they’ll, they’ll change where they’re going where they’re working, but they’ve not been able to develop the, the wisdom and the experience,
Chris Gazdik: at least in the [00:43:00] States.
It’s honestly very comparable. It occurs to me, talking with us right now with what we see in the states with police force. Mm-hmm. It’s very comparable. You know, you don’t get very many renew recruits. I mean, who would wanna go into a police office right now and kind of become a police officer and not me.
Right. Heck no, man, I’m, it’s, I’ll stay right here. You know, and, and, but the need is greater and the recruitment is smaller and the burnout rates are high. You know, and we, I mean, I think we see that
Victoria Pendergrass: therapist with teachers right now. Well,
Chris Gazdik: and well, that’s true. Yeah. I mean, I don’t think working with people, how about that?
Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Is that a thing? Hu? Human services, social
Chris Gazdik: services type, working with type thing. Working of policing and teaching in therapy and yeah. In the
John-Nelson Pope: Veterans Administration there’s a high turnover turnover. Turnover. Excuse me. Yeah. Turnover of, of psychologists mental health workers In the va. In the va.
Ms use.
Chris Gazdik: I know you tapped into that system. Yeah. Yeah. Very much. Yeah. These are all real things
Victoria Pendergrass: like that Don’t surprise
Chris Gazdik: me. Yeah. They, and [00:44:00] they’re real. I, I think, you know, and we see it. We, we feel it. I think happening. I mean, if we look at anxiety specifically, we’ve talked about the age of anxiety.
Mm-hmm. And specifically thinking about depression. And one of the things that hasn’t really entered into our conversation a whole lot right yet is substances. Mm-hmm. Now this is a good example of like where I’ve been.
Passionate about since I was in grad school or undergrad with the substance abuse issue.
That is not new. Yeah. I mean mm-hmm. This has been in the nineties. We really learned about it in the sixties and seventies and paid high awareness of homage that has been going on since the turn of the century with addiction. Mm-hmm. With alcohol, particularly since we learned how to distill alcohol the last a hundred years, this has just exploded.
And we see things like sexual addictions now just going crazy with technology in the internet and the onset of the opioid realities. Like how about substance on drugs and all that [00:45:00] stuff. Yeah. You know, the, the, the substance abuse reality is a big part of this is that increased 10% of our society generally has addiction.
Mm-hmm. 10 to 15%. We know that’s been just
Victoria Pendergrass: any addiction, any
Chris Gazdik: addiction, pretty solid for a long, long time. Okay. But the people that are getting involved in abuse of substances, Probably I, I mean, has, has exponentially tremendous, I, I’m defensive of addiction uhhuh, but abuse, tremendous increases in abuse and the realities of increase mis misuse.
Abuse, yeah. Okay. Misuse, abuse. Yeah. And the potency with fentanyl is just. Absolutely on a rampage and crazy, crazy. And
John-Nelson Pope: so people end up experimenting. And back in the day when there were hippies, the the, the drugs were limited. You had Ls d you had the mother’s little helpers and that sort of thing.
But what is
Chris Gazdik: Mother’s little [00:46:00] helpers?
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, it’s like Quaaludes Ballium.
Chris Gazdik: No,
John-Nelson Pope: that’s a good Rolling Stone song. That’s awesome. Okay. Okay. So you get, you get all those and, but that has it’s just burgeoned in terms of all the different substances that one can use now and have at disposal. Marijuana itself has become so much more potent in the last 50 years.
And so the, we,
Chris Gazdik: oh my gosh. I could guarantee that we, the Yo Chung. Oh seven, 10 movies. 12% movies with that day. Now it’s 90% THC content in weed. Right. 90. I can’t even understand that. Honestly. I really don’t. That’s insane.
John-Nelson Pope: I feel No, no, no. I was just, I was just thinking that, that there’s sometimes a lot of paranoia with some of my clients that [00:47:00] are having to deal with that.
They, they smoke quite a bit. Mm oh yeah. And they use quite a bit and they, it’s, and they are experiencing some side effects. Negative, very negative side effects. Hugely so, yeah. Anx increased anxiety. That’s just the opposite.
Chris Gazdik: You know, I think there are factors like politics, world unrest, you know, local unrest with, you know recently.
Black Lives Matter and mm-hmm. The January 6th attack on the Capitol and various unrest, realities with social change and information technology. You, you hear a lot of issues with gun control and questions around the states and around the world. Crime, you know, realities, homelessness, realities. I mean, these are some of the, the, the exponentially increasing realities that are, are kind of coming at us with discrimination.
Mm-hmm. And climate somebody, I [00:48:00] think she’s like climate change. You mentioned climate, John, I mean mm-hmm. These are Greta Thunberg.
John-Nelson Pope: Huh? Gre. Greta Thunberg. Who’s Greta Thunberg. Oh, she’s a climate activist. I’m sorry. She’s a little Swedish. All young, young woman.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. We live under a rock. I’m
Victoria Pendergrass: sorry.
Apparently.
Chris Gazdik: Hi gta. Greta, I’m sorry that I didn’t get your, we love her creation. Yes, sir, we do. We love her. Okay. No. Yes, we do. Some, some don’t. Some do.
We as a me, we as a me, we as a me. Yeah. It sounds like you’re kinda speaking for yourself right
John-Nelson Pope: now. Well, and and I think in terms of, I think one of the areas that have changed so much is you see a lot more of the unhoused and homelessness than, than one used to. There used to be sections of cities that would be called skid Row.
Yeah. Right in, in the Tenderloin section in San Francisco, for example. But now it’s dispersed throughout all areas. I don’t know if there’s [00:49:00] more of it or proportionally, but they seem to, oh, they’re not hidden away as much or gelled. Yeah. And so that, that causes distress I think, in some people, because.
They don’t wanna be reminded that people are
Chris Gazdik: homeless. I, I think there’s a lot of cultural realities of shame and despair and avoidance and fear of these issues because largely of
John-Nelson Pope: fear. And then with Penny, with Penny Daniel Penny, was that his name? He, he actually he actually, well, the person that he was restraining died.
He was a Michael Jackson impersonator and he was homeless and making threats and he restrained him and Oh, yeah. Yeah. I understand about, yeah. And I can’t think of the
Chris Gazdik: name of the, I don’t get the name either. It was a recent recent event. Yeah. Just recent. Recent. And so, Yeah. Yeah. Listen, you know, there’s, there’s systemic things that we were talking about that I think are, I’m, [00:50:00] I’m glad it has already caught off in our conversation, but, you know, we, we, we, we can’t neglect to, to really mention the healthcare systems around the world, you know, or lack of healthcare systems in the, in, well, in, in some regards.
There’s, there’s really strengths that some nations have about their healthcare system and there are some weaknesses that, that are ha had about the healthcare system, but the systems involved are the access points oftentimes to mental healthcare. And that needs a lot of scrutiny because there’s a lot of issues there.
As you said. I hear that all the time, Victoria, you know how long it took me to find you? And I’m like, oh, how long did it take you to find me? Cuz there’s, they’re like, dude, I couldn’t find anything. Then it blows my brain away and breaks my heart.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I’m also thinking in terms of, of cost cost people.
Mm-hmm. Because, you know, I, I don’t know of, of a lot of places that do sliding scales so much. Not anymore. Yeah. And then you [00:51:00] have, oh, you’re in the wrong network. Yeah, we are. And if you’re not in the same network, and so there’s so many barriers and so rates have gone up. There’s so many barriers, and yet it’s also controlled.
Do you have eap employee assistance programs, but what do you get? You get two, four or six?
Chris Gazdik: I
Victoria Pendergrass: feel like standard right now is three. Is
John-Nelson Pope: three. And you have to justify
Chris Gazdik: that. You have to fight for it. Fight for it. And they don’t pay Well,
John-Nelson Pope: no, they don’t.
Victoria Pendergrass: For on the, on the clinician
Chris Gazdik: side. Yeah.
Yeah. So there’s resources, there’s systemic realities that were faced, and I think that we have some decisions to make, which does lend to, yes, we’re in a crisis because there needs to be, at least people might say, a turning point. Sustain this can’t continue,
John-Nelson Pope: the people sustainable that that can’t afford psychotherapy, mental health counseling or or psychiatric help also cannot have, go ahead because we know it works.
It works, [00:52:00] it works. And yet they can’t have access to it,
Victoria Pendergrass: right? I mean, think about earlier I mentioned that I had someone with a bill, like over $500, like mm-hmm. Some people that’s okay. No big deal. They put it on their hsa or they, you know, whatever if their flex card, but like a majority of people can’t just.
Pop off file, give me their credit card and say, okay, charge $500 on my credit card. Like mm-hmm. Half a
John-Nelson Pope: house payment.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a car payment when you’re in crisis state, Uhhuh. And when you’re in a mental health reality and you’re not making good decisions, right. You know, and, and causing compound issues to build up on themselves.
You know, it would be nice to be able to have a system of insurance or a system of care, you know, where availability is kind of provided for when you need it. Cuz when you don’t need it, you don’t need it. But when you need it, boy you really need it. Let me say that again cuz when you don’t really need it, it’s like you can get by and manage things but when you [00:53:00] really need it, you really need it.
Yeah. It’s hitting you right now because of they’re divorce. It’s hitting you right now cuz you found your son passed. Well that’s the existential reality. Those are the realities that we see day in and day out though, don’t we? In what we do? Mm-hmm. Can I ask you
Victoria Pendergrass: a question? So, and John, this kind of goes to, y’all don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to, but do you, do y’all ever struggle?
With the money aspect. Sometimes when you meet someone who you know is in desperate need of
Chris Gazdik: help, that’d be a next mentor moment, I think. Okay. Yeah. Talking about that. Okay. I say that one for
John-Nelson Pope: a mentor moment. This, it tears me apart.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Okay. We’re gonna say that we’ll talk about it
Chris Gazdik: more another time.
Yeah. We’ll do a mentor moment on that one. Okay. Because, you know, I wanna, I want, I want to get to, you know, the, the, the, what do we do then? So how, how are we responding to this? What do we, what, what can we offer? What are, what are some of the answers and, and the thoughts that we have about, you know, kind of where do we go with this innovative change in what it is that we’re [00:54:00] trying to do to broaden or, or weaken the gap between the needs and the increased awareness.
I mean, I, you know, I, I think of, and, and I think it came in the article, or maybe it was one other thoughts, I’m not sure, but, you know, we’re not all cardiologists, but most of us know a lot of something about cpr. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Though we don’t know deep details about the heart. And, and, and, but you know what?
You arrhythmias and stuff, right? But we know, we know cpr. So what is the mental health CPR kind of components? What, where is our awareness is beginning to increase and what can we highlight for people about like basic mental health cpr? Does that make sense to come to your minds at all about Yeah. Nine, I mean
Victoria Pendergrass: 9 88 is first nine.
Okay. First thing you go, first thing that came to my mind. Yeah. That’s awesome. With the fact again, that it’s not just a suicide hotline, it is a crisis and suicide hotline. Yeah. So a lot of times when I have someone, I mean when someone, I give them that number. If this is after hours and you can’t get [00:55:00] in contact with me, call this number.
Cause this is an awesome shift. It really is. ISN isn’t text, text this number, call this number. You know, when we do a safety plan, I make sure that for someone, so
John-Nelson Pope: it’s a triage. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And I’ve tried it by the way, I was driving on the highway and Were you in crisis, Sarah? I do. I called them and, and, and, and told them what I was doing.
You know, when, when the lady answered the phone and we had a nice conversation and it was during a time I checked to make sure she wasn’t busy and she’s like, oh yes, this is fine. This is great. And I told her what I was doing with the, with the show and everything. Good. And it was, it was, she was on point.
It was a, it was an experienced clinician. She was ready to deal with the things that were going on. It was really, it was cool. The question, are
Victoria Pendergrass: those people, I mean, I don’t know, are they volunteer or do they get paid? No, no. It’s a system’s a, like a paid system. Mm-hmm. Position. Okay. You can text 9 1 1 by the way, you can text
Chris Gazdik: 9 1 1.
Shut up. Okay. We’re being told by Neil that we can text 9 1 1 as well as 9 8 8, although, I
Victoria Pendergrass: mean, I’m pretty sure I would much rather call [00:56:00] 9 1 1, but I guess if you might be in a situation where you can’t call 9 1 1 Swatting Because of
John-Nelson Pope: text. Huh? Oh, swatting, swat. Those are, that’s horrible.
Chris Gazdik: So I don’t know what that means.
John-Nelson Pope: I don’t either. Oh. Swatting is the worst thing in the world. If you have, what swatting you? It’s done mostly for political opponents. Right? I mean, it’s done to people, gamers. Gamers. A lot of, they do it for
Victoria Pendergrass: fun. I feel like Chris and I are totally lost
John-Nelson Pope: right now. Okay. Basically is that you’ll, you’ll send, let’s say there’s a domestic violence going on at a, at a politician’s place.
A home. Okay. And they don’t agree with the politician. And so they’ll swat ’em basically, and the SWAT team will come out Oh, to, to take care of it. There’s a nine one one call
Chris Gazdik: saying there’s a hostage murder situation. Mis misusing the system. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Mis misusing the system. Well, I was thinking
Victoria Pendergrass: more if I was being held hostage and I couldn’t necessarily call [00:57:00] 9 1 1, but I could text 9 1 1, there’s fraud, and say like, Hey,
Chris Gazdik: there’s also, there’s always say help.
There’s always abuses and fraud to the systemic things that we begin to create, but I don’t wanna get lost for that. Yeah. Because these are also very well used. Mm-hmm. Resources for appropriate means. Right. So I said 9 88 first
John-Nelson Pope: I’m big picture guy on in terms just like you. Yes. Long term. Long term. And that is, is that we would also do a lot more peer counseling.
We would do we would have peer opportunities do training, for example, in, in a university or college. Ah, I love it. Okay. You would actually train and require faculty or staff members to, to do this because just in case you can’t get to a phone or whatever and somebody’s suicidal or, or whatever, you would be able to help and, and to deescalate.
Chris Gazdik: I’m not able to talk about the project yet. But John, maybe you’re [00:58:00] thinking about it due to a common awareness that you and I have about a project where somebody is wanting to institute a basic required. College level. Mm-hmm. Introduction class for mental health. Mm-hmm. And it’s kinda like those types of things.
Mm-hmm. 9 88 an introductory required class in college. On mental health, there’s introductory components that are in elementary school. So it’s mental hygiene. Mental hygiene, right is the word. Exactly. At
Victoria Pendergrass: elementary school I was at, they had SEL time, social emotional learning. Go.
Chris Gazdik: So go go with a mental hygiene, cuz that’s an older term that is building onto what we’re trying to do now.
Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, the way I’m thinking about it is, is that you, you start at a very early age let’s say in elementary school, if you have feelings or that you’d be able to, to, let’s say I can reach out to the to the guidance coun, the school counselor, school c learn. They’re
Victoria Pendergrass: no longer than
Chris Gazdik: as counselor.
You learn. You
John-Nelson Pope: learn, and so you start [00:59:00] doing that sort of thing. Or you would start having like little groups that would be a part at elementary school that, that kids could belong to, and that it would be a of working on one’s, well, this is, do I have a happy face today? Or do I describe how you feel and mm-hmm.
So people would start to be able to know that they could actually talk about their feelings and if somebody is hurting you or something like that, you could go to a safe person. You do that in
Chris Gazdik: churches. These are good stuff. Yes. Right. Yeah. You do it increasing our
John-Nelson Pope: awareness in, in congregations and for and so you would go in and let’s say there’s some churches that say, well, you know, a man is ahead of the house and can do anything that he wants with his wife.
Well, that would, that would be a sense of education that you might come into a church that would, or a congregation and [01:00:00] say, okay, well maybe that’s not exactly what the Bible’s saying. Right. And
these
Chris Gazdik: are all awesome, John. I mean, yeah. I mean it’s
John-Nelson Pope: in African American congregations, there has been more of a suspicion of, I, I think of, of mental health counselors and psychotherapy
Chris Gazdik: because Yeah.
I’ve dissipated though. Yeah. It is Hispanic, not so much.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. And, and the reason why was because it was used to as a way of, of keeping people from, you know, there, there was a. Of a problem in, in, in the black community of, of, of distrust. Of, of, of organizations, for example. But if, especially if they were white dominated,
Chris Gazdik: oh yeah.
Partly gonna come take my kids from
Victoria Pendergrass: me. Yeah. I think a lot of it also has to do with in the home. Mm-hmm. So parents teaching their kids how to regulate their emotions, how to, how to deal [01:01:00] with, you know, when we have big feelings, what do we do? You know, and a lot of that also means that the adults have to be able to regulate their own emotions step.
Chris Gazdik: That’s parenting, that’s part of the
John-Nelson Pope: challenge. I mean, the Adlerian
Victoria Pendergrass: step. But I think that’s a lot, that is a lot of like what we can do as far as the C P R. For, cause a lot of times it starts with the kids. I mean, cuz those kids are gonna grow up and be adults some days and who knows what kind of world they’re gonna be living in when, you know, the five year olds are now 20, you know?
And so I think a lot of times it starts young when they’re in the home and they’re in an opportunity. Or even in places like schools, like I mentioned earlier, the school I was at had SEL time. Which is social, social emotional learning. And they would also, they would learn about the school. I did my school counseling internship at did, guidance was a, a [01:02:00] special just like PE and art and music.
Okay, great. That had guidance once a week and I taught. Every single class in that elementary school did my internship. And I think those are great opportunities for kids to learn.
Chris Gazdik: That’s great. Okay. Yeah. John, finish this up.
John-Nelson Pope: Additional help? Yes. John? Yes, sir. No, I was, I was thinking No, you didn’t say anything.
Okay. The be okay. Thank you is return school counseling, back to school counseling and have them stop doing and, and I know schools are always using counselors for counselors paperwork. For
Victoria Pendergrass: testing. For testing. Oh, fours for,
John-Nelson Pope: right. So return it back to what guided is supposed to be for,
Chris Gazdik: used to be about,
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah.
To actually, I mean, the name is in school counselors. I know so many school counselors who don’t do this barely have any time to run groups. They barely have any time to see people individually because they’re always, they’re running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I mean, they’re just,
John-Nelson Pope: can [01:03:00] you, can you name your old school counselors?
Victoria Pendergrass: From when I was in school. Yeah. Yeah. Chrissy Rape. Okay. That’s what she’s the reason that I am a therapist today. Oh,
Chris Gazdik: well that’s up there. That’s the only reason.
John-Nelson Pope: Jay, Jay Hawkins, Mrs. Decos Mr. Vanderau son knew all my school counselors,
Victoria Pendergrass: Kelly. Yeah. That was my middle
Chris Gazdik: school counselor. But you know what?
Shout out to the people. That’s a, that’s a great segue, guys. Let me take us outta here with those names that you’re just recalling and on the YouTube live, we got some, some praise of appreciation for what it is that, that we do as a calling and as a profession. And those out there that work with people, not just in the therapy realm, but in policing.
Working with people in teachers, and working with people. And I don’t wanna leave any out, but nursing and first responders and certainly therapists that are out there, like, thank you for what you do because we are in a tough time. Mm-hmm. And we do need you to step into. What it is that you’re [01:04:00] doing. You know, I, I’m aware of a young DSS worker a new teacher, you know, some people that are coming into these places where we really need and appreciate, you know, the invested passion that you have for what it is that you’re doing, in what working in the helping professions.
So for, for those of you that are in through a therapist eyes and those of you that listen to, through a Therapist eyes, I for one, also am very grateful for, for all that we’re doing, cuz I think we need it a lot. And I care and I’m passionate about mental health and substance abuse issues. So thank you for joining up to do the work that we need to do and, and, and, and, and as a society culture and around the world, that’s what we’re about here.
So we’ll continue to endeavor, figuring this out together. Guys. Great topic. Stay with it, stay with us. Stay well and we’ll see you next week. Be well. Bye bye.