Vulnerability is Our Superpower – Episode 50

How do you navigate a mental health challenge when your community isn’t supportive or doesn’t have mental health awareness? For our 50th episode of “Hope Starts With Us,” NAMI’s CEO, Daniel H. Gillison, Jr., discusses faith, community, and mental health. He is joined by NAMI Next Gen member, Mary Lawal, to explore the intersections of those three crucial elements. 

You can find additional episodes of this NAMI podcast and others at nami.org/podcast.

Transcript

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Bringing in the connection between faith and mental health is super important. We don't have to leave it out. It's something that helps a lot of people. Our faith should be something that intertwines with our recovery and our treatment. And just mental health in general. Mental health should be the thing that people aren't turning their faces to look away from, but are talking about it in a safe space as a way of creating this healing and spreading the hope and shedding light on these situations. Welcome to Hope Starts With Us, a podcast by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. I'm your host, Daniel H. Gillison, Jr. NAMI’s CEO. NAMI started this podcast because we believe that hope starts with us. Hope starts with us talking about mental health. Hope starts with us making information accessible. Hope starts with us providing resources and practical advice. Hope starts with us sharing our stories. And hope starts with us breaking the stigma. If you or a loved one is struggling with a mental health condition and have been looking for hope, we made this podcast for you. Hope starts with all of us. Hope is a collective. We hope that each episode with each conversation brings you into that collective. So you know, you are not alone. And speaking of that, you are with us for our 50th episode, our 50th podcast in our 45th year, as we are preparing for our 50th year anniversary in 2029. So we are so excited that you're with us and we have a wonderful guest today. I'd like to first introduce you to a real topic that we're talking about here, and that topic is how do you navigate a mental health challenge when your community isn't supportive or doesn't have mental health awareness? And let me introduce to you our guest, Mary Lawal. She is a member of NAMI Next Gen. She was brought to mental health advocacy by her experience, her lived experience. She's a volunteer at NAMI Baltimore and she facilitates youth support groups. She has also been invited to share her testimony at the United States Capitol for a congressional hearing on teen girls mental health with congresswomen from the Democratic Women's Caucus. Mary started her own podcast, Journey with Mary, which addresses mental health topics. Mary, we're so excited to have you with us and your background. What you're doing and the voice you're lending to this for so many others is impressive. So we're really looking forward to this conversation with you today. And can you share with our listeners more about your journey to joining NAMI Next Gen and advocating for youth mental health. Thank you so much for inviting me today. I really hope that with this conversation, it could really move or touch someone. So yes, my journey towards becoming a Next Gen member for NAMI. Basically I started volunteering for NAMI Baltimore in September of 2022. I just started recovering from mental health challenges and struggles that I had been battling with for so many years, and I went through stigma for my community and just tried to get the right resources. So I saw that not only is this something that I struggle with alone, but it's just a thing where a lot of other people struggle with getting access to mental health care and really knowing the right way to speak about it. So in having to advocate for myself to get that support and treatment, I kind of just wanted to tell my story and wanting to share my experience with that and just allowing people to see that mental health does not discriminate. And regardless of who you are, regardless of your gender, your religious background, your culture background, mental health does not discriminate and anyone can be affected by mental health so it’s no different to physical health. And so that was what I was trying to get out there by just starting to share my story and starting to go out in different communities and doing the End the Silence program that NAMI has through NAMI Baltimore and also facilitating the youth support groups as well. And by doing that, I kind of started my passion and advocacy and wanting to just create awareness and end the stigma surrounding mental health. And that was when I was scrolling through NAMI’s national Instagram account. And then I saw like there was an opening for the Next Gen position. Actually, I kind of found out about like the nomination program a few years before that and so I was like, this is really cool. Like, I really want to know more about this. So like, I didn't really see much information about it online. So then I started like kind of going to the website. You see all about that. So I kind of like had a clue that it was for young adults. And so just also wanting to meet other young adults who have this same passion as me is something that let me to wanting to apply for this. And I don't even know how it happened, how I got this role, but like, I just knew that I was-- I was sent by a follow up email to join the interview, and I was just so excited and I couldn't stop talking about this passion and dedication for creating awareness, starting mental health. So I was just going on and on about it. I'm super excited and I cannot wait to just hear back from you all. And so that was how I kind of like got involved with NAMI Next Gen and just seeing that I actually was able to get the role is something that just makes me so excited and seeing how NAMI includes youths at the forefront and allowing youth to actually speak up about mental health and what we want and what we need is so important. And I really love NAMI for doing that, for just giving you the platform to be able to open up and speak about like what we want and our voices are important and it shows that our voice matters to NAMI and just this mental health organization and youths are allowed to have a seat. You know, Mary, thank you so very much. First of all, I want to just say thank you for lending your voice to this very important conversation and to this topic. And I want to go back to the-- to the stigma and early upfront as you are looking for resources. And speaking of that, as we know in many communities and African-Americans communities and communities of color, stigma is huge from the standpoint of not showing vulnerability, and vulnerability looking as a weakness versus a strength. What did you have to navigate in terms of that? And I would love to hear more about that. And also let me just say this about Next Gen. Next Gen for us, for our audience, our listeners, it means next generation. Our next generation of leaders in the mental health space, our next generation of voices. And we want to bring those voices to the table now because we know that young people can make such a huge difference and they are navigating so much. And as you said, Mary, mental health does not discriminate. Mental illness does not discriminate. So can you back us up a little bit and talk about the stigma and how you navigated that in coming to this work? This is something that I struggled with for so many years since I was around the age of 13. So dealing with mental health struggles as young as 13 and going so many years without mental health treatment or any support, it was just like I didn't really know what was going on. I felt confused. I saw I didn't have anyone to really listen to my voice. I felt like my voice was not heard. I felt like I was just kind of screaming, but no one could hear me in a way, and I felt like I was trapped. I felt I was in a cycle of doom. I felt as though I was in prison. I could not escape. And so from those amount of years of depression, of suicide ideation, intrusive, thoughts going in and out of the mental health hospital, and just having this fear of abandonment for so many years kind of just, it got to a point where I was just really exhausted and I had told my parents. I opened up to my parents that I think I want to get professional help. I want to see a therapist or a counselor, psychiatrist to kind of help me kind of navigate what I was going through and kind of support me in my journey. And so in opening up to my peers and letting them know how I was feeling, they kind of told me, like, where’s your faith? Do you not trust God enough to kind of help you in this situation without intervention? And so I just took that as why can’t it go hand in hand? Why do I have to remove one before I can bring in the other? And so that was what I was feeling in that moment. I was like, you wouldn't say this to someone who was struggling with a physical health condition and I do not think mental health should be treated the same way. So I told my parents, If you say you love me, if you say I'm your daughter, you will want me to get that help. You’ll want me to get better. And it was an argument for about two weeks. And I was crying every single time. Every single time I would shed some tears. And so I feel like they finally saw it in my eyes that this is something I've been going through for a really long time. And I'm just at the point where I feel I can’t do it alone. I need someone to help me at that point. And yes, I still believe God can heal me. I still believe in God. I still believe in the power of God. But I feel as though it could be tied hand in hand, like I shouldn't have to remove one to be able to replace the other. And so that was what I told my parents. And I also showed them videos of different people who are struggling with similar situations as me, and they kind of like had an idea of like what I was going through. And so they took me to my appointment, the first initial appointment, and I saw a psychiatrist and I was able to get the support from my parents, not really having a clue of like why I should seek mental health intervention. So them actually taking me to these appointments and helping me pick up my medication and just taking me to even the speaking engagements, my mom would always be there with me every single time. And so from her just having that stigma of even taking medication, it was kind of stigmatized in the way of, you know, what if it changes you, what if the side effects kind of like, you know, turn you into a different person? And I told them, like, I feel as though taking these meds, yes, there might be a side effect, but I think the importance is for me to kind of gain that balance. So I feel as though getting that support, it shouldn't be like a thing where I'm afraid to because of the side effects. But I have to think of my stability and deal what the side effects later. It doesn't have effect as much as the the things I have been struggling with for so many years. So I just see it as a thing where I feel as though I have to treat one as important as the other. That was when they started understanding it. And I also kept my doctors up to date on the side effects and they provided the necessary adjustments, you know, as I told them. So that wasn't really a barrier to me taking the meds and so another stigma I went through was just in my friendships as well. Like people were kind of telling me like, is it a thing where because of your weight, is that the thing that's affecting your mental health? So they were kind of looking at it as a thing where being overweight causes mental issues. So I was trying to explain and educate them that regardless, you can have mental health regardless of who you are, of what you look like. And so mental health can be caused by a loss of a loved one. Childhood trauma. Yeah. As we interact here, Mary you could have what they call ACES. There ten areas that focus on adverse childhood experiences, so you can have those experiences leading you up to it. As you mentioned, you first started experiencing some type of mental health situations when you were 13, and we know the statistics show that it happens more often than not and that young person doesn't get any type of support until 11 to 12 years later. So we're talking about at the ages of 24 and 25. So let's back up to what you did at 13 and advocating for yourself. That is incredible. And also, let's talk about the peer pressure that you navigated with your friends. You know, we've written a book that you can see over my shoulder,

You Are Not Alone: 13:42

The NAMI Guide to Navigating Mental Health. And it's got 130 fist person stories in it. We're actually introducing our second book, and it's going to be for parents and caregivers. So they would’ve had some information in it if we had it back in 2020 to 2021 when you were talking to your parents, because it's going to have first person stories from parents and caregivers navigating mental health with their loved ones, with their children. So you have led this effort and it's so wonderful to see how you brought peers to you. And, you know, the other part of this is that we are a society that judges a book by its cover. But what you're doing is you're taking us into the table of contents in the chapters, and you're doing it with the work that you're doing with the support groups and the young people and your leadership with the Next Gen. So I want to speak about Next Gen for a second and then transition to something else. Next Generation for us is just the beginning. This is our fourth year of this cohort. We have ten young adults with us. You are one of those adults. And Mary, the other thing that we did is we said, okay, are we serious about this and nothing about us without us, so where are us? So we said, wait a minute, let's look at our board of directors. And we say in our bylaws, our board of directors must be 75% representative of lived experience. However, 100% of our board is representative of lived experience. And what we also looked at is nothing about us without us, we had created the next gen group, but where were the young adult voices on our board influencing our work and framing it from that seat as well as Next Gen? So we amended our bylaws and we now have two seats for young adults to be on our board. So we are actually threading this through all of our work in terms of young adults also. Mary, congratulations on your work as a change agent. You're actually changing the conversation, you're involving it. You mentioned ending the silence. And speaking of that, are there any nuggets that you can share about ending the silence in terms of how you describe it when you're talking to young adults, what it is, why it is, and what you think of it? Thank you. Yes. So Ending the Silence is basically a presentation that is given to teens, middle school age and high schoolers. And so it's a program where there is two young adults, I believe, that goes out to these schools and speaks to students about their lives, experience, and also the stats and the facts of mental health and suicide and warning signs. The triggers, what to look out for, how to speak to a friend or someone in your class that might be struggling with their mental health and how to navigate them towards getting the support and resources that they need. And so I feel as though these presentations are super important because I believe when I was growing up and I was around that age, as I mentioned 13, I would have loved something like this. I did not have anyone to speak to about mental health because it wasn't spoken about then. Even in school, there was no counselors. I believe at that time it was mostly guidance counselors. Most spoke about academics and, you know, staying out of trouble and just like the academic side of things. And no one was really speaking up about mental health. And I just remember now, there was a time where we brought someone to come speak about, I think it was the parents of a parent, and there was like a lot of students who had lost a parent in their life or someone who grew up without a parent, like in their life. They grew up with a single parent. And I just remember there were so many of us crying. And so I believe that was the first time there was that type of conversation going on in my school at that time. So I think that it should have been a theme that was reoccurring every single time and not just a one thing, because there were a lot of students who were actually struggling with that and it could be seen as a way of healing and our doorway to open that conversation for that. So I would have loved something like that in my school at that time growing up. So I think that these programs are important to students at that age, mostly when it's like an age where you're trying to figure it out. As a teenager, there's a lot of struggles that you're going through in your personal life. Your parents may not understand. Your friends, you might not want to open up to them because they might--you’re scared, they might judge you. You don't know how they might look at you. So I think that it's so important that these programs are put in place for students to really speak up and students to see someone that looks like them, even going through that, who has been able to recover. So they look at that person as a role model to how they’re supposed to kind of lived their life and kind of talk about it and open up. I think it creates like a conversation starter for them and to even go off to speaking to their friends after that presentation. And, you know, it's a thing that they carry on for like a long life thing they and can look back and say, yeah, I had this conversation when I was in this class. And so they can also speak to other people who they might encounter maybe out in the community. They have that knowledge to be able to speak to other people about mental health who might be needing a listening ear or in a crisis situation. They know what to say. You are in college, but you were once that young person that was about to go to middle school, about to go to high school and then go to college, and we're right at that season where we're going to be sending out young people to middle school, high school and many off to college. What advice would you have for our young people and or their caregivers or parents? There's a lot of peer pressure out there, and many of them are navigating things that they don't even know. What advice would you have as our young people prepare to go to school. Yes. So I would I would advise just having their parents checking in with them, checking to make sure that they're okay, that they're balancing school personal lives. Well, and just making sure that they're not struggling where they shouldn’t in cases where students might be getting bullied or getting picked on. So creating that conversation in your home and to your child, just making sure that they're okay, like asking them when you notice signs that they might be kind of isolating or kind of not really wanting to just open up and they're not doing as well as they were before, just creating that conversation and be like, Hey, are you doing fine? How's school? How's your friends? How’s, basically, life in general going? And so just checking in, making sure like whenever you notice a change, just catching it early, like early intervention before it turns into a crisis situation. Even support groups. NAMI has the youth and young adult support groups. And so that is something that they could join and kind of like be able to talk about what they can talk to with their parents. And also there's NAMI on campus and, you know, they can bring a NAMI on campus club to their school or if there's already one, they can join in on that and just, you know, be able to talk to their peers in a way where it's a peer to peer conversation. If they don't feel comfortable talking to an adult about what they might be struggling with and most times there might not even be a struggle. It might just be a thing of knowing how to balance out the pressure and knowing helps with kind of like silencing out the noise when there's like a distraction and, you know, kind of balancing out on schoolwork and free time. And so just having those resources put in place can help them try to navigate these things. And there's also like a pressure as well in schools, different students might be going through peer pressure with their colleagues, their peers. And so just like having a parent talk to their child and see really what's going on underneath, underneath everything. What's really happening? Parents, just be alert, kind of like looking out for the signs. And also students I want to see like if you're struggling at all, just, you know, taking that first step and speaking to someone that you trust, speaking to a trusted adult, and even going through and calling the teen hotline, I know there's a new teen and young adult hotline. So making use of that as well. Yes, that is wonderful. That's right. The NAMI teen hotline. And that goes back to how the young adults, Mary, you and other young adults challenged me and you said, you know, when I call the help line, no disrespect to you, Mr. Gillison, but you sound old. How about putting some young voices on or creating a help line for us? So I appreciate being challenged. I appreciate someone actually a young adult bringing that to us and me and feeling comfortable and feeling in a judgment-free zone where they could do that. And as a result of that, we created the teen helpline. So that's the other thing is this peer to peer conversations and support group, she talked about creating judgment free and safe environments, judgment free zones for our young people to have conversations. And we have resources. And starting with the NAMI teen Helpline as well as some of the resources in our website. Yeah, this is wonderful and this is a great conversation, Mary. It's so many things that you mentioned that I want to build on and just in the spirit of time, I'm not going to be able to. But you said something earlier in terms of when you were talking to your parents and I want to build on it. But let me come back to what you just shared about Ending the Silence and with the young people and so many young people crying. This goes to what we were talking about in so many that had lost a parent or grew up without a parent. That's a part of what I was mentioning in terms of adverse childhood experiences. And a lot of times with our young people, we address the symptom and we don't get to the root cause. And that root cause goes back to sometimes what we call ACEs and what you have shared and what is shared at Ending the Silence brings all of that to the table. So thank you for that. I want to go back to something else you said when you were talking to your parents and you had this thought in your mind. Well, Mom, why do I have to remove one and replace it with the other? Why can't we do both? And this was about the faith. And pray. To that point, what a great compelling question that you asked. And we do understand the faith based community is a part of this work. And we've known for years that as we talk about first responders and we absolutely respect our fire command, emergency management command and our police command. With that said, who were our real first responders in our community? It was our faith based leaders. They are the trusted voices. That's who we would go to first. So we acknowledge that and know that in a lot of communities, particularly the African-American communities and the Latino and Hispanic communities, that the faith based leaders are where it starts. So with that said, we have several initiatives. One is called the Sharing Hope Series, which is a set of conversations with the Black and African ancestry community, facilitated conversations. Compartiendo Esperanza, which is for the Hispanic and Latino communities. And these are conversational, facilitated conversations and we have Chai & Chat that is for the South Asian communities. And then last Maniwalà by and for the Filipino community. So when you talk about bringing all of the different first responders, faith based leaders, and if I'm in the community and like if your parents took you to your to your faith community and said, I need to know what's happening, that's because they trust that person. So that's where they take you as to that person. So what you've done is you've taken this up several steps and now you are a voice for so many. What have you seen in terms of in the communities that you support, work with faith based leaders as well as mental health advocates, or do you see that as a need? What are you seeing from your lens in terms of faith based leaders and the mental health community? So I'm starting to see it connect a little more than before. I feel like before there was little to no conversation being made, but now I see a lot of these communities having these conferences like the I think is the Pathways to Hope. Pathways to Hope. Yeah. So I spoke with the conference, I think that was with NAMI Baltimore. So I was one of the younger speakers back then and I felt like I was so grateful for the opportunity to lend my voice to that opportunity because I feel like with my experience as well, I feel like it's something that there's a huge need for, especially I feel like there's a change now, but I think it should accord more because there's a lot of people in the church that now is in the church, like different safe communities, different religions, different seats that need someone to talk to that they're struggling with their mental health even like a lot of people might be going through these that they can't speak about for so many years. People who have been are living in and battling in silence. They don't have that space to really open up and show what they're going through. And so I feel as though the faith leaders should be the one bringing in these conversations, starting the conversation and bringing these programs to talk about it. And so I think that with the help of like NAMI’s program, I know there's like the FaithNet. I think that has been something that has created a huge change. So the conversation and just bringing in the connection between faith and mental health is super important. We don't have to leave it out. It's something that helps a lot of people. Our faith should be something that intertwines with our recovery and our treatment. And just mental health in general shouldn't be left out of the conversation. So I feel as though it should be a conversation that continues not like a one time thing and then it just dies out. I want it to spread to not only a certain state or certain jurisdiction, but like all over, I feel as though, like mental health should be the thing that people aren't turning their faces to look away from, but are also like kind of talking about it in a space as a way of kind of creating this healing and spreading the hope and shedding light on these situations. Because parents might even be going through this, but they don't know the right words to use. They don't know how to talk about it. But just starting that conversation, they're able to kind of like connect it and say, yes, I finally have a way to speak up about it. I finally know what to say, to describe what I'm feeling and what I've been missing. So I really love that these conversations are being made, and I just really hope that it continues and I really want to see it continue. You know, Mary, you've done so much in such a short time for us. You've testified on Capitol Hill with the Democratic Women's Caucus on teen girls and mental health. You've actually testified for the Maryland legislature on mental health. You're doing so much with NAMI Baltimore. What would you like our audience to know as we look to bring this podcast to a wrap? Because you have so much you've done in such a short while and you've turned what was pain into your purpose? And your passion is so powerful. It is just wonderful to hear. It's wonderful to see. And thank you for being such an advocate for NAMI. What would you like our audience to leave hearing from you? Thank you so much. Yes. So I believe that a lot of listeners, the audience that might be struggling as I struggled, you know, not knowing how to talk about it, not being able to see the light, not being able to see where your life is heading and not knowing what your task for the future might be, because that was something that I struggled with, not really knowing what my passion was. Not really knowing why I was created, not really knowing where my life was headed. And so all I could see was darkness at the time. And so now that I've been able to like, figure out my passions, figure out what I want to do, which is just mental health, just talking about it, just creating awareness about it and letting people know that, you know, there's hope. And so I think that would be the last thing I would want to leave us with. There is hope. So as the name of this podcast Hope Starts With Us, and just as I've done, like you said, turning the pain, turning the hurt and turning it into hope, turning it into something that people can see and look at and, you know, kind of be like, you know, if she could do it, then I could do it. And so that's what I want my story to be. That's what I want this whole thing to be. And everything I'm saying, everything I'm talking about, that's what I wanted to show. And I believe my story and everything I went through is kind of a proof and a testament to you can go through everything. You can struggle with it all. But if you hold on to that hope, if you believe and that you trust that the light will come, then you can surely make a difference. And don't lose hope. Don't think that, you know, your story has to end there. The chapters in your story, they still go on. Your story does not have to end at the pain. This story will still continue on and that there's more to your story. There’s more to that darkness. There’s more to that pain. There's more to that story. There's more to that pain. And, you know, see the light. See the light. And you talked about hope and you talked about, Mary, our conference is coming up. Pathways to Hope. We have faith based leaders from all different sectors coming to this conference, virtually the 23rd and the 24th of this month, August. And these are faith based leaders from every part of the community that you can think of. And they know that it is important for them to be able to provide hope to their community. So Mary is a leader in this space and she's moving us forward in terms of a collective conversation about hope. So, Mary, I just can't thank you enough for what you do for us. And every time we call you, answer, every time we call. One of the things I want to say, as Mary said earlier, and we talk about our books and judging a book by its cover versus the table of contents and the chapters. I would also share with you all, when you ask someone how they're doing, that’s the cover of the book. Get into the table of contents, in the chapter if you can and care, which is how are you really doing? All of us give the cosmetic answer,“I'm doing great.” But if it's someone that you trust, let them know how you’re really doing. Okay. And let's wrap this up now. And I want to say to you all that this has been Hope Starts With Us, a podcast by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. If you are looking for mental health resources, you are not alone. To connect with the NAMI helpline and find local resources, visit nami.org/help or text helpline to 62640 or dial 800-950-6264. Or if you are experiencing an immediate suicide substance use or mental health crisis, please call or text 988 to speak with a trained support specialist or visit 988lifeline.org. I'm Dan Gillison. Thanks for listening and be well.