How Consistency Supports Communities After Traumatic Events Featuring Erin Raftery Ryan and Dr. Shauna "Doc" Springer

Following their previous conversations in episodes 63 and 70, NAMI CEO Daniel H. Gillison, Jr. is joined again by NAMI West Los Angeles CEO Erin Raftery Ryan and Stella Mental Health Chief Psychologist Shauna “Doc” Springer. This episode asks us to consider how we continue to support communities after traumatic events occur and after the news is no longer “breaking.” How can local community members support each other? How can caring folks who are far away contribute to efforts to heal? How can traumatic events happening around the world affect your mental health? Find out the answers to these questions and more in this continued conversation.

Listen to previous episodes in this conversation series: Episode 63 and Episode 70

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

"Hope Starts With Us" is a podcast by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. It is hosted by NAMI CEO Daniel H. Gillison, Jr.

Episode production is provided by NAMI staff, including Traci Coulter and Connor Larsen.

Transcript

0:00

Consistency is secure attachment is trust. So consistency provides secure attachment which forms trust. Welcome to Hope Starts With Us, a podcast by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. My name is Dan Gillison and I'm your host and the CEO of NAMI. We want to tell you why we started this podcast. And there's five reasons. 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 last 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 and we hope that each episode with each conversation brings you into that collective. So you know you are not alone. And as we talk about being alone, we know that we are focusing this podcast on the conversation regarding what is happening in California as our friends, colleagues, family members navigate past the fires. And as the national media has moved on to other topics, we have a community and communities that are still navigating and will be for not just months, but for years. And we want to make sure that we keep this conversation front and center because it involves trauma, depression, and also it involves resiliency. And it also involves community and the collective that we call NAMI and the community at large that actually works in concert with one another to help neighbors and friends and those navigating mental health concerns. So with that said, we really started the episode, and the genesis from the first episode was really the trio on the LA fires, the Palisades, Eaton, Hughes, and more. The cost of wildfires led to evacuations across the city, loss of homes, both valuable and sentimental belongings, personal items that simply can't be replaced. And the aftermath of the fires. NAMI and our local affiliates are asking how can we be of service? What's the most useful help to give these communities? And if tragedy like this strikes our communities outside of Los Angeles, how can the lessons we learned here and have learned in Los Angeles help support our neighbors in other communities? So we have two incredible guests, and we have looked to keep this conversation going. These are individuals that are in the community, that serve the community that are part of the community. So, let me introduce, Erin Raftery Ryan. Erin is the CEO of NAMI Westside Los Angeles. Passionate about the power of storytelling to create social impact, leading with intentionality, and a growth mindset. Where are we going? How are we going to get there? A trained teacher in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy from the Brown School of Public Health, a master gardener from the United States Department of Agriculture, University of California, and currently studying at the Harvard Business School, pursuing, pursuing, excuse me, her EMBA. Welcome, Erin. Good to have you with us. Thank you, Dan. Thank you so much for continuing the conversation, providing space. It's very much appreciated. Thank you. Well, we appreciate you. So let's also now introduce Dr. Shauna "Doc" Springer. Hello, Doc. Chief psychologist at Stellar Mental Health, one of the world's leading experts on psychological trauma, military transition, suicide prevention, and close relationships. Three-time bestselling author, frequently requested keynote speaker, award winning podcast host from California, the January wildfires impacted her home town. And Doc, you could do this podcast so much better than me as a host. But I'm going to try to do my best. So thank you for lending your time and your knowledge and expertise to this. So good to have you both here. Thank you, Dan. No, no, I disagree. I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't change a thing. I'm just happy to be part of this conversation. And, you know, look where we put our values we put our time. And so NAMI has done this series with Erin and I over time because hope also has staying power. It's not a flash in the pan. It's walking with people over time. And you're showing your values and kind of taking the time and space to really think about what it takes to recover over the long term and how a tail trauma often has for people. Well, we want to get into that discussion right there. And thank you, Doc. And one of the things we say at NAMI and in addition to "You're not alone," is that, you know, for me, at least in terms of one of my mantras is people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And NAMI has been caring for 46 years and care is demonstrated in making sure we keep the conversations going and we address the things that we need to continue to address in terms of people. Well, people's well-being. Excuse me. So, you know, Erin let me start with you. It's now nearly been six months since the fires. How are you and your family, first of all, doing? Thank you, Dan. You know, as you know, we were impacted. We had to evacuate. And so that our original sense of immediate crisis we experienced as a family. Thank goodness our home was not impacted. But that layer of community trauma for sure. But we're doing well personally. And doing the best to continue to serve our community and the members of our community that were impacted more than ourselves. But thank you for checking in about us personally. And it's always very kind of you. Yeah. Well, let me ask you about this. Thank you. And I'm so glad the family is doing well. As the change in the media from the standpoint of, it is evolution. So it's that shock of what's going on when it's happening and it's the shock of the aftermath. How are you seeing the impact to that shock within the West Side LA community? Yes. Well, just the impact of the 24 hour, seven days a week news cycle and the consistent level of trauma that we're all experiencing from what's happening on a world stage, our national stage, state and local, we're consistently bombarded with that. And I think, we were a big part of that news cycle. And as a whole, our country was watching California, Los Angeles, Pacific Palisades, our West Side, being impacted, severely. And it was, you know, you're almost looking at images that didn't feel real. It felt like you were watching a movie. And again, I, to Doc's point, I really do value where you put your time because when those cameras are no longer here and we're no longer seeing those images, we as a community are still feeling the impact of what happened to us in real time. And, you know, even though the wildfires are out, the trauma is still here and healing has just begun. And I think, for example, the Pacific Coast Highway had been closed up until a couple weeks ago. So, like you said, about six months. One of our most thorough freeways was impacted and shut down. So, on many levels, that impacts economy, traffic stress, all of that. And we drove as a family. We drove the Pacific Coast Highway for the first time. And you can only drive maybe 25 miles an hour, which is, you know, hard to do in any area. But you're driving through and you're still seeing images of burnt vehicles and rubble, and it almost looks apocalyptic in some ways. And so just feeling that loss, and seeing just rubble of houses and remnants of random things, of a life lived that is no longer there. And it's a deep sense of loss and a sense of place and community gone. And then, on the other hand, it's wonderful that it's reopened, and that people are there again and that there is a rebuilding happening. People are rebuilding quietly, both emotionally and physically. And there really is a deep sense of resilience and a sense of fatigue within the community. You know, I want to go to both of those. Thank you so much. The fatigue and the resilience as well as the shock and the trauma, Doc. As Erin mentioned years ago, my first visit there, someone said, you've never been on the Pacific Coast Highway? Oh, come on, we're going to take you on the highway. So it was a beautiful drive, and it was something I'd never experienced before. If I were to go on that highway now, I know I would be in shock. But I'm visiting. I don't live there. What does it look like for that person that is navigating the trauma and also trying to also be that adaptive resilience and to hold on to the hope. You've worked with the military as their transitioning. You know what this looks like. So--and by the way, I'll also say my human experience, when I first saw this, I was watching the news and I hope I'm not the only human being that I kept thinking it was a movie. I kept wanting to change the channel or--look at me, I'm turning a knob. So I'm telling my age. But I kept saying, "This is not happening. That-- no, this this is not happening." I kept saying, "There's no way." So what was I experiencing? And what does that trauma, as the folks that are that are living it every day dealing with? And what are you seeing in in their mental well-being? Yeah, it's a surreal experience at first for most people. There's an out of body feeling that you get out of this can't be reality. It feels like you're, you know, in a living nightmare if you're in the situation at first. And the thing about trauma. So if you're driving down that highway now, Dan, here's what you're going to see, which is really such an apt metaphor for trauma, actually, you're going to see houses on the cliff that still have Christmas lights on. You're going to see Christmas wreaths kind of half falling off of burned structures. Trauma not only divides time into two pieces, before and after trauma, it also invites us to stay frozen. And so this happened, you know, in January, right after the holidays. And a lot of people still had their holiday lights up. And so you will see holiday decorations on these houses because there's a frozen-ness to trauma. And here's how complicated it gets. So Erin talked about, you know, there's people and there's, you know, people going down PCH and there's some rebuilding that will bring mixed emotions for trauma survivors, where trauma not only invites us to stay frozen, it divides our will. So, for example, you want to clear your land if your house is burned down because you can't rebuild until you clear your land. But I know from members of the group that I'm supporting, that is a really hard thing to do emotionally because they've been looking for little shards of the life they once had pieces of memories. And when that land is cleared, that's gone forever. They're not going to be able to go back and find any other tangible piece of the life they had before. So it's like having your history forcibly scraped away. I feel that way about a lot of my memories, too. I wouldn't say that I have more trauma than people that are there, certainly, but it's a weird thing that a lot of the places and spaces I remember, they're gone and they're never coming back. And that's really hard. So trauma kind of has this mixed impact where it causes us to be frozen and also kind of at odds with our own will, if that makes sense. Does that make sense? It does, it does. You just mentioned it divides our will because you have the will because you want to rebuild, but you don't want to lose what you had. And you know that if you clear the land, you clear your property, then there's something there that you may have found if you didn't clear it, and then something that you could have also held on to. There's a loss regardless, right? Yeah. There's loss in rebuilding. So may I ask this, and again, I'm going to go off script a little bit, Doc, but where I want to go is that you can have someone that is navigating their mental well-being and maybe mental illness, and this exacerbated that. What does that look like? What has that looked like? You can go off script with me anytime you want, Dan. Because this is so real to me, it's, you know, I'm supporting people in a group. They're still suffering--six months. They will--this will be a very, very long process of feeling helpless. At the same time, there have been some hopeful things that have happened. I had a member of my group got married, and that experience of their wedding day had a lot of survivors coming together around something that really helped them see that there's still good ahead. There's still really good things and happy days and connection. And so all of it's kind of intermingled. Trauma can certainly exacerbate a person's feeling of helplessness. So I think we talked a little bit about this in a previous conversation about how if you have mastery of previous trauma events, that's going to hit different than if this is another kind of string in a pattern of events that leaves you locked in this loop of helplessness or horror. So that's where people can really get into a pretty dark place and stay there for a long time. Or they can kind of develop a sense of their own resilience. And both can happen. So, for example, I have one particular group of people in my family where my private thought is you, would have made a really good pioneer family. You guys would have really worked well together if you were the first people on this land, you know, hundreds of years ago, because of how you depend on each other, how you work together. And so this fire, though nobody wants it, can kind of crystallize identity in some people in a positive direction. As much as it can kind of break you down. It can say, our family will hold its center, we will rebuild, I will rebuild. I can get through this. And so both are true. We need to support the people who are still suffering and kind of help lead them into that place of hope. And we need to have staying power in the way that we support them, so that we're not providing just that burst of help and hope. And then it kind of fades as the cameras move in a different direction. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. Erin, you provide, there at NAMI West Side LA, support groups and programs and what have you seen since the fires? And, I know that certainty is the most important thing when there is so much uncertainty and so much, doubt. And fear. What have you seen with your support groups in your programs? Any evolution, any change, or is it, you know, business as usual? What would you share? Well, well, just to Doc's point, I loved the tools that you gave those families of just shifting the narrative and crystallizing and giving them a new identity as these frontier warriors. I thought that was so wonderful. And Dan, to you, I think one of the most important things about support, and showing up for community is consistency. Consistency and sustainability. So when there is uncertainty, we hope to provide that, that level of consistency that you can count on us, that our support groups will be there, that just a presence to quietly listen and to hold that space like you were doing for us today to continue this conversation. You leading by example, providing that space. I think that's what our support groups and showing up with our ETF presentations and our youth mental health toolkits, providing those spaces I think is really what NAMI has, NAMI West Side has really tried to do and to listen to our community's needs. Even our frontline responders, our firefighters and our police force feeling so much gravity on so many different levels with the fires and also the recent immigration issues that are happening all across the country, but have really severely impacted our community here in LA. We created, with the help of one of our team members, Oshri Hakak. He's wonderful. He's almost like our resident Shel Silverstein. And, has created a trifold called, Behind the Badge or Under the Badge. And really, or under the uniform, understanding that you are a person too even though you put this uniform, or you represent this, showing up for them, I think it's been very important as well because providing that consistency and knowing that there is a level of humanity that they need to take care of their own self-care so that they can show up for our community as well. You know, thank you for sharing that. You know, it's so important to have certainty at these times and that consistency and there's so much shock that the system has absorb, so the shock there that's happening in LA and has with the immigration, as well as the fires. And it's just, it's just coming at you. It's coming at you and it's, you know, Doc, we're going to come back to you about this in a second. But, you know, let me just say this. Los Angeles is a big city, and it covers about 468 square miles of land. And the fires burned across 89 square miles of the city. That's almost 20% of the city's landscape that was affected. The city is really working hard to heal. And it's really difficult as you're trying to heal as you have all these other kinds of events taking place. So, what Erin and Doc do and have been doing makes a tremendous difference. And their teams and their-- and the communities of people they have working with them. Ending-- ETS, ending the silence. And then Behind the Badge. Just wonderful program from the standpoint of us really acknowledging that our, you know, first responders, their moms, their dads, they, they are aunts and uncles as well. They are impacted and their family members as well. So what does that look like and who are they? Are we judging the book by its cover? Are we getting behind the cover of the book? So thank you for sharing that. And kudos, for them to bring that one to talk about these disasters and really where I want to go is that when someone suffers a visible injury, we rush to help and provide care. You know, it's kind of like you could have diabetes, you could have heart disease, you can have lung disease. That's something that's behind the cover, if you will. But if we have all of a sudden we have a terrible rotator cuff injury and we have our arm all of a sudden in a sling, we have this huge cast on our leg because we've had a soccer injury. We now have an ACL tear, and we've got to have it repaired. Those, you see. And the human response is, oh, what happened? What's the delay? Why is there this discomfort and this delay in responding with that same urgency to psychological injuries like post-traumatic stress disorder? And how can we start to evolve that? So it's interesting because Erin and I both have kind of a window into two different communities. There's the civilian community, and because of our connection to the first responders and warriors, there's also that connection. I'm also doing work with some of the public safety departments and leadership in fire service and policing and there's an interesting intersection. So I want to see if I can tie a few things together. So your question, Dan, is about, you know, why is it that we have a different interpretation of physical versus emotional trauma, right? The one being invisible emotional trauma is something you can't see. And we tend to make the mistake of inferring that that is because somebody is different or has some kind of a weakness or a lack of resilience. And at the same time, we have statistics about how our strongest and bravest often have the highest rates of post-traumatic stress. So it's not because people are not resilient, clearly, like we shouldn't conclude that. And then with all of the barrage of traumas that are happening, multilayered traumas about immigration, I'm not going to get political here, I promise. We're going to talk about trauma. But here's something really interesting. So, the police officers and other first responders that were supporting the riots wanted to keep everybody safe, give them their right to peacefully protest, keep everybody safe. But you had people coming in that are not in the community from out of state that they did not asked to be there. And I love Marines. My whole office is decorated by Marines, but those Marines didn't want to be there. And our cities don't need shock troops. And those first responders were saying, I'm in the community. I want to protect my own community. And so when somebody is in riot gear, you can't see them anymore and you can't tell if they're there to enforce ICE-related stuff or keep you safe. And so it's like this level of invisibility that creates a moral injury, which is another type of injury that we often miss. So there's trauma and then there's moral injuries. And these are both invisible and both things that really need more of a focus. And the right interpretation that you could do nothing at all but do your job and be morally injured or traumatized as a result. Wow. Wow. Thank you, Doc. Really appreciate that very much. What have you both learned about trauma and supporting your communities, and how has that evolved in the six months since the fires? And what can our listeners do to support their own communities? Not that they're going to have something as incredibly painful as the fires. But, you know, as we think about what your observations have been, what you've seen, what would you share in terms of learned about trauma and supporting your communities and how that has evolved over the last six months? If I could, I want to go back to something Erin said about consistency, because consistency is secure attachment is trust. So consistency provides secure attachment which forms trust. And so some of the resources that NAMI, NAMI West Los Angeles provides on a regular basis, but more importantly, their humanity, their presence. I have a friend who's writing a book right now on something she's thinking about it as kind of the humanity cure. That humanity and our ability to connect can't be replaced by AI, can't be scaled by businesses. Really comes down to brave people connecting about things that are true, and sitting with and walking with people over a long term when trauma is there. So we're going to need organizations like NAMI. I know the Red Cross has also been a resource. A number of my group members have said this would be really helpful with grants, even, giving them some financial relief and other things. But they have to be aware of it. So if they know somebody like Erin or one of her team, they're working with somebody from NAMI West L.A. Those folks can point them to different resources. And so you need kind of a central point of contact looking out for you because, you know, you're trying to manage all these things at once, and it just doesn't work very well. So it really does come back to, you know, consistency is secure attachment is trust. But also somebody that has a bird's eye view, like Erin and her team on what are the resources and how do I connect those with folks that need them? Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Erin, your thoughts. Thank you, Doc. Thank you. Doc. Well I do think I go back to that word consistency. Because, like you are doing today is showing up and that's 90% of it is just being there. And I think also listening because again, not to get political, but so many things are changing and just like good begets good, sometimes trauma begets trauma because you are in a vulnerable state. So when you are raw and vulnerable things hit differently. And so trying to be consistent, have that level of neutrality for our team, for our community, so we are not elevated. We come in as a neutral presence to have-- to provide space for people to feel and whatever those feelings may be. As a leader in this space, I have to say that I also want to make sure that my team is doing all right, because we have members on our team that have lost their homes, that have been displaced, that are dealing with the immigration issues where they're afraid to leave their homes, or taking care of family members who are afraid to drive to the supermarket. We have team members that are part of the LGBTQ+ community that are directly feeling impacts of what's happening right now to the cuts for 988. So, the consistency and making sure that we are taking care of each other and ourselves has to be a priority. And I want to acknowledge NAMI National in you, Dan, for bringing in a practice called Rest Up Week. Now Rest Up Week for those of you who don't know, and I'll probably pitch it to you, Dan, too to share this. But know that our team has taken on this wonderful policy of giving a paid week leave during the week of 4th of July, which is the beginning of the fiscal year. So kind of halfway through the year, to recalibrate, to spend time with friends and family, and truly rest because you and I both know we all know you can take some time off, but if you're in a leadership position that phone doesn't stop, those emails don't stop coming. And so it's really to say to your whole team, no, let's take a break and recalibrate. And I think we're all very deserving and needing it right now. Well thank you, Erin. And yes, Rest Up Week is something that, this will be our fifth year. And we started at, looking at, what we were navigating as we as an organization in COVID and our Chief Human Resource Officer, as we as a leadership team talked about seeing the exhaustion within the organization and the staff, our Chief Human Resource Officer, Lisa Lewis, brought an idea to the team about a rest up week. And when she first said it, there was a little bit of a "hmmm." And as we thought about it, we were like, wait a minute, this would be of value. And then as someone asked me, you know, we do a lot for others. What are we doing for own staff? So we began doing Rest Up Week. We took that opportunity, and we had someone, a few people say, well, you know, you could do it during, Christmas or whatever. We recognize that during Christmas, it's a very lonely time and that we get quite a few calls during that time. And we want it to be very intentional in doing it at a time that is, not necessarily seasonal, and that it did show our intentionality because we also know that people will take some time off to be with family. And we know mid-year is a very important time to recalibrate, to rejuvenate and to have people fill their cup so that they can do the work the balance of the year, so that that's what Rest Up Week is. And that's the purpose of it. And the why behind it. So it's really something. Thank you very much, Erin, for teeing that up. But we do that now. Our staff is excited about it. We put a press release out about it. Our helpline will stay open. We stagger the helpline and make sure that they have different times to be able to rest. So they continue to do the very important and noble work. So, but the rest of the organization, we shut down the email, and we shut down everything else other than the helpline, phone line, so that people truly do rest. And we don't want the peer pressure of one staff member saying, well, I'm going to do my mail. No, it is something that we have everyone shut down so that we truly do rejuvenate and recalibrate so that we can come back and really help others going into the back half of the year. So thank you, Erin. So that's something that we do, from a refresh standpoint. So, yeah. Yeah. That is progressive leadership right there, Dan. Thank you. Well it's demonstrating what we care. Yeah. And can I just put in a plug for you, Dan. Because you are like the-- you are like the general or the police chief in your organization. I just wrote an article for Police1 on how that phone never turns off for many chiefs. I hope for you, Dan, that you have a Rest Up Week staggered a week after everybody on your team. I hope you have a deputy and that you hand that phone to them and that you have your own Rest Up Week because it is so important for leaders to have that break, too, and be able to allow the nervous system to decompress for a week. Thank you. Doc. That's good counsel and that's good coaching. Yeah, I guess you both know I'm probably not good at that, so I'll work on it. Yeah, I will definitely work on it. And I also, I have to demonstrate it because as I demonstrate it, so does the organization goes. I will work on it. It's important to do that. So thank you. Dan, you are leading by example. It's good modeling. It's good modeling. Right? You're right. We have to walk the walk. Right? If we're talking about mental health and teaching classes and support groups and telling people that they have to take care of themselves, we have to take care of our own selves. We can't show up for our community consistently--that word, consistently-- if we are not taking care of ourselves. So I think this is our fourth year. So we didn't do it the first year, but we were like, oh wait, this is good. So, so then this is our fourth year that we've adopted and followed your leadership. Well thank you. Yeah, I'm glad you're doing it. And the other thing that we see and is that, you know, we, look at this as is also addressing stigma in the workplace from the standpoint, what are the different things you do for your organization to create a stigma-free workplace? We don't have all the answers, but we do some small things to actually, you know, it's not what we say, but it's what we do. So this is just one of those illustrations of us demonstrating that. Yeah. Exactly. When the leader rests up, blame it on me, blame it on me if you want. But when the leader rests up, everybody feels that ability to take a rest up week and really not work, you know. Thank you very much. We had-- I had one of, one of my peers reach out to me. The first year we did it, he called and he said, what are you doing? I've got my people, and you're killing me. You're killing me. I said, well, you know, you have an opportunity. You may want to seize it, but if you want to know some particulars, happy to share that with you. But we're not going back. So, it was it was funny, but, let me ask something of you. Doc, you mentioned you have a colleague writing a book. It's really about the human connect. And, you know, as we have AI going on right now and some other things there, I always talk to my, Chief Human Resource Officer that her job is human relations. As Erin talked about, it is about relations. And then you've spoken to that. And you guys both do that so incredibly well within, your infrastructure and then in the community at large. We know that asking for help is really hard. And it's still stigmatized. It's stigmatized for men. We will not ask for help. We will not say that we're not doing okay. Now, you, Doc, are a strong advocate for using the term, and I want to get it really correct,"post-traumatic stress injury." Post-traumatic stress injury rather than label it as a disorder. Can you explain the significance of that shift and tell our listeners how language we use impacts both stigma and the way we approach treatment? So I'm going to say something controversial here, but let me explain. I don't think any men should ask for help. But I do think they should tackle their problems directly. So if it's shifted to hey, are you avoiding your problems or are you tackling them directly with advisement from somebody that knows this particular trench of mental warfare? So one of the things I've stood up lately is I'm offering, like I've done for military leaders, specialized advising and consulting, I'm doing that for police chiefs, fire chiefs, sheriffs. Because it's not about asking for help. It's about getting support to tackle your problems head on and stop avoiding them. So that's what happens if you, you know, generally kind of stay stuck around I don't want to ask for help. It's about something different. Post-traumatic stress injury is a shift that I think is a natural evolution of what needs to happen. So it started out PTSD, real quick, 1980, came into the DSM that we used to diagnose mental conditions, which was important because it said it's not in your head, it's a real thing. Right? But now we know that it's actually literally in your head, like you can see post-traumatic stress injuries if you have the right brain scan. And I literally know now that with the right treatments, some of which have come from Special Forces Units, using these treatments for years, you can actually reset your adrenaline system, reboot the nervous system, restore calm and control to the body. So it's an injury and people are not broken and they don't have to manage symptoms or be labeled with the disorder for the rest of their life. We just need to treat them like special operators and do what works, give them effective treatment, and give them the right insights to move from where they are to where they need to be, so that with treatment and tackling their problems directly, they heal and go on and they achieve peak performance and really get back to living the life that that's worth living. So I have a different perspective because I have access to, you know, treatments at Stella Mental Health that really, we've done treatment on over 10,000 people at this point. I just reviewed data on 2000 people we treated last year alone. So when I say it's an injury, not a disorder, it's based on the weight of treating thousands of people and seeing them be healed with effective treatment. Yeah. Thank you. And Doc would someone who has lost their home, navigated so much that they didn't expect, could they have a post-traumatic stress injury? And if so, what has that looked like? Or is that more military service? Yeah. No, it's-- trauma is trauma is trauma. It doesn't--the body doesn't know the source of trauma. If you're not sleeping and you're over activated in your body all the time, and you can't enjoy a movie with your family and you feel numb, or you feel intense emotions or irritability, intrusive nightmares, intrusive thoughts. These can come from a wildfire, from an assault, from the accumulation of little events that happen over time. All of it can create a feeling of trauma. And if you ask almost anybody, I would say if you pulled people like, what is the most popular book on trauma? They're going to say The Body Keeps the Score, which is true. The body remembers trauma. But the thing is, I do love that book, but I think we need to evolve even from there because a lot of trauma sufferers get stuck around hat mentality of the body keeps the score as though, like trauma has impaired them or broken them forever, like left a scar, whereas it's actually something I know can be healed. So trauma with the right treatments does not get to run up the score. But we talked about sports metaphors before, but trauma no longer gets to run up the score in the body. If you can reset the body with effective treatment, you can heal. It's a new model that needs to go with a new way of thinking. So there's so much hope because at the same time as we're being, I think you use the word bombarded, Erin. That's the right word. It's bombarded by levels of trauma. Thankfully, there's also a significant revolution happening in terms of mental health care really changing the way we see and treat these kinds of challenges. And we're seeing people just become healed with the right treatments and the right support. That's incredible. You know, you mentioned something earlier that I thought, well, several things. The secure attachment, the consistency, it divides our will. And I thought about all of that. And I also thought about the moral injury and then that divides our will and I thought about simple things of change. And there are things that I probably have held onto for 20 years that my spouse would love for me to get rid of. And I have that fear of the detachment, so I can't imagine what a home owner is navigating in terms of all the things that they've had and that the dividing of the will. So it I got that visual because there's things that that I know that I just won't let go of because I don't know what's on the other side of that. What you're saying is so true. Like that trauma, whatever it is that your spouse wants you to move on, it's bound up. It's intertangled with love. So a lot of times of working with military veterans, they can't grieve because they're afraid that I will tell them to process it and move on. And they don't want to lose the memory or connection with somebody they've loved, like family who has died. So we have to-- this is what I mean by the right insights, because there's a lot of garbage out there. And AI is, by the way, you're going to pull in all that garbage into the advice it gives you because it sources the web. You need somebody who really understands how to walk you through trauma and grief in a way that helps you hold the connection and carry that love forward. So it's not really just putting it behind you, it's how do you transform it so that it becomes productive suffering, not unproductive suffering. There's a difference there. So I wanted to ask you both, and, Erin, I wanted to come to you first from the standpoint of depression and anxiety, from the standpoint of all of a sudden you have, you know, individuals that, that depression has just manifested itself, that anxiety has just gone for X. Have you have you seen that over the last six months? And one of the things, folks, I just want to say, NAMI and in addition to saying you are not alone is we say "nothing about us without us" and we are really the voice of lived experience. So we really do care about this work. And, in terms of our peer work, we see it, we acknowledge it and, we ask everyone to come to us, where when you come to us, we don't pass judgment. We meet you where you are, not where we want you or society wants you to be. And we start there. So where I wanted to go with my statement is back to Erin on anxiety and depression and what you may have seen over the last six months in community regarding that and NAMI. Thank you, Dan, for all those wonderful reminders of, of, a lot of what our mission is with NAMI and, you know, our compass as an organization. And I think that a lot of what you said is kind of when you find yourself in a community crisis, this collective crisis that we've experienced as a community, to go back to a lot of those statements. One in particular is, you know, meeting people where they're at. So in addition to the level of anxiety and depression and the uncertainty of rebuilding a community because that's kind of overall, I think there's a level of experience and I'll come back to that. But meeting our community where they're at. We have develop a partnership with UCLA on many different levels, UCLA health, and one of the integrated parts of our partnership is working with the psychiatric unit. Resnick. Resnick Psychiatric Hospital, and they have a adult, adolescent, and pediatric unit. And so we've offered support groups in all of those units. So what that looks like, for the pediatric unit, we have our team members come in and read stories. I mentioned our team member, Oshri, who is like our resident Shel Silverstein and has worked and created poetry and coloring books and to talk about and normalize their feelings and what's going on. And mind you, these are kids in a psychiatric hospital. And so the levels of admissions to the hospital have increased during these times of crisis because people who are not living with severe mental health conditions are experiencing elevated levels of anxiety and depression. So then include those who are, have a diagnosis, or are living with a mental health condition, a lot of them are activated, and now are being admitted to the hospital. At the adolescent unit, it looks a little bit different. He also plays music. So sometimes there's a flute, sometimes there's all different kinds of engagement, which is, you know, some of it's our snarky remarks, like, what is this guy, you know, what is he doing? And then all of it kind of alleviates, gives you, some levity to laugh at things. And then that breaks that silence and able to have a conversation and talk. And the adult psychiatric unit, some of these folks lost their home and then went and were admitted because, for obvious reasons, the trauma and crisis that they were in. So, just to say that our team is meeting people really where they're at. We also have a program called NAMI in the Lobby, which is essentially an outreach, in the lobby of the psychiatric hospital for the people that are, during visiting hours, coming to visit their loved ones. So it's the best place to meet people because they are--their family is in crisis. And, you know, we've talked about this so many times, part of our job is to reduce that shame and stigma and raise the awareness and the platform and use any means necessary to let people know about NAMI, because a lot of people don't know about NAMI until they have to know about NAMI. And that needs to change. And so really trying to meet people where they're at and so having that NAMI in the Lobby and then providing a support group after the visiting hours. So a lot of people come and say, what is this? I've never heard about you guys. They visit their loved one. And then after the visiting hours, we have a support group for afterward. So then they can kind of process talk about what they've gone through. So meeting people where they're at and then trying to manage that over-- that huge level of depression, anxiety, and it's permeating into even like email language. Like I got an email the other day that said something like "This firestorm. I wonder if they'll survive." And it was like talking about a business, you know, like, but using words. Because what we're seeing on this 24 hour news cycle that like you were saying, Doc, this trauma, it permeates. And I think our job as leaders, too, is to turn that down and say, let's regroup on this, maybe next time-- and I had to sidebar with this, you know, colleague who's also a consultant, and I said, you know, I think in the future, if you could, if you're feeling elevated about a conversation, you send me a direct email. You don't need to send it to the whole team, because then the whole team's elevation comes up. So just having that mindfulness about how you interact with colleagues, interact with community members, trying to come into situations as best you can in a neutral state. And so then you can navigate, you can go right or left, and if you are heightened, take a moment for yourself before you respond. Don't react because then you can't meet people where you're at because you're not in a neutral place to do so. Yeah, you're not in the place to be able to do it. So yeah, well, kudos to you in terms of the work that you and the organization are doing with the UCLA psychiatric hospital and community at large. But what you're doing in all three tiers of their psychiatric hospital from adolescence, through adults, through children is incredible. So thank you for sharing that. And NAMI in the Lobby after hours in terms of, you know, being able to tell people a little bit about NAMI or have them seek out NAMI as we're sitting there in terms of, well, who are you? What do you do? And, why are you here? So I think that is wonderful. Thank you for that. As we talk about the importance of language and how stigma affects our communities, when asking for help mentally, what are some of the things that you do from the standpoint of, Doc, you mentioned language. Language is so critically important. Language and labels. What would you like to share with our audience in terms of language labels, and stigma? Yeah. So like I work with a lot of male patients actually, because I work with protectors and defenders and there's women that are warriors to for sure. But it is to the crux of what you talked about, there was a podcast I did about men in therapy and really kind of taking that different approach of thinking through what is the harder path. Is it to avoid the discomfort of the challenges in your life or is it to tackle them head on? And so often I think therapists, they basically use things that are good in some situations in the wrong way, like having empathy or having compassion could really put a lot of people off. And so I think there is a different mode of operating that a therapist needs if they're working with protectors and defenders. So that goes back to what Erin was saying about meeting people where they're at. If you come with too much compassion, right, or empathy, it creates a system of rank where it feels like pity, which is allergic to protectors and defenders. And so generally, because I work with a lot of men, I tend to take a-- I'm really aware of, like, my rank in the room is like, I'm not going to hold any rank, I'm just going to walk with you as a trusted Doc, and we're just going to tackle this together. Like really trying to be careful about my language and really talking about post-traumatic stress as an injury, something that can be healed. And the insights that I have on trauma come from years of working with warfighters and police officers and firefighters. Like, these are people that are most resilient, our bravest, strongest people. And because we know there's increased incidence of suicide risk in these populations, it's not because they're not resilient, they're our most resilient. So it should kind of re-calibrate all of us to understand that suicidal crises are a human issue. They're not just one group of people and they're not, if you have a trauma response, it's not because there's something weak or broken or non resilient in you. It isn't really about that. It's just a natural, logical, predictable consequence of having your fight or flight system kicked into high gear. And so it really does help to use like, I wrote an article two weeks ago for the National Fraternal Order of Police where I really took the angle, look, you know, look at the treatments are getting and special forces that reset the adrenaline system. That's a lot of the same stuff that could work with trauma. We just haven't put it in that bucket. In special forces between combat deployments, they're getting a treatment that helps restore calm and control to the body so they can be peak performers when they're in combat. That's very different from, hey, let me give you this trauma treatment because you have PTSD. Worlds apart, yet the effect is that people can actually get the treatment because it's palatable and they can actually heal and understand that they're not broken. So it's language, but it's also really having that language rooted in a much deeper concept and in a genuine respect for the people that you serve and support as a healer. Yeah. You put your finger on it in terms of don't, don't, don't pity me. You know, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for help, but I'm not-- Don't do not-- So I get that and we experience that very often. And the other thing is that the Special Forces have their finger on it from the standpoint of they understand the concept of whole health. And in terms of whole health, there is more than a concept. There is the science behind it that they have adapted because they know that if they address it, it will allow that combat soldier to be their full self in supporting us and protecting us. So yeah, I appreciate that. We're going to wrap up in just a second. You've given us your valuable time. And I just wanted to ask both of you all a question that we do at the very end. And, you know, the world can be a difficult place, and sometimes it can be hard to hold on to hope. That's why with each episode, we dedicate the last couple of minutes of our podcast to a special segment called. Hold on to Hope. Can you tell us what helps you hold on to hope? Thanks Dan, I love this question. I love it so much. And you know, this is our third time talking about this subject. And so, you know, there's many different things that, you know, I think sometimes when I, personally, when I get down or things like that, I practice gratitude. All of the things that you can take a look back and say, oh my gosh, I am so grateful for all that I do have. And you know that I'm passionate about storytelling and I think that's one of the best, one of the most wonderful things that we have at NAMI is to share our stories. And, Doc, before the interview started, I said, I have a good story for you. I have a positive story for you. So I wanted to share it. So Marquez which--who was severely impacted by the fires. That's my elementary school. I know you're that's your alma mater. I know. So that's where you went elementary school. I remember in the first episode you shared you did a tile, you created a tile. And you, you know, it was like that, the backdrop. And it was like this. And so I said, oh my God, yeah mural at Marquez and that's one of the schools that we serve. We provide youth mental health education to that school. But, you know, that was one of the schools that was really impacted and displaced and so the Marquez Elementary fourth and fifth robotics team, you know, everything was burnt, everything was destroyed. And but these kids had such resilience. And they said, that's not going to slow us down. We're going to keep going. And so they found a way to create their whole robotics and all the robots. And they went to Dallas this year for the World Championship Robotic Championship. And like in the midst of everything, they came together as a community. And I think they provided a lot of hope for their parents and for the teachers because the kids were determined to say, no, we're part of this team and we're good at this, and we're not going to let anything stop us and we're going to keep going. And they did, and they won. And they persevered. And so, you know, shout out to the fourth and fifth grade class at your alma mater, Marquez Elementary, that they brought home that robotic championship. So those are the kinds of stories that we have to share, and that are important because they do. They give us hope. I'm getting misted up here. That's fantastic. And congratulations to the, the robotics team there at Marquez Elementary. And, yeah, I could see you, Doc. That's real special. We want to keep this conversation front and center. We want to help the individuals that are navigating this unspeakable tragedy in terms of these fires who have lost everything. And while the media has to move on, NAMI wants to stay focused. And that's what we're going to do. So we're going to keep the conversation going. This is not one and done. And this is not something that, you know, is going to be-- you don't rebuild your life in six months. You don't rebuild your community in six months. And you do need some part of the community to continue to say we see you. That's what I'm trying to do with this platform is to make sure the community says and knows we see them, because sometimes it can-- the community can feel like they're invisible. And we want to make sure that we let them know we see them and we care. So with that, thank you. And I want to say 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're not alone. To connect with the NAMI HelpLine and find local resources, visit NAMI.org/help. Text helpline to 62640 or dial 800-950-NAMI (6264). Or if you're 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, your host. Thank you for being with us today and be well.