PBS NEWSHOUR STUDENT REPORTING LABS

“ON OUR MINDS” EPISODE 4 - TRANSCRIPT

Zion: From PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs

Noah: and WETA Well-Beings,

Zion: this is “On Our Minds”

Noah: with Noah

Zion: and Zion.

Noah: A podcast about teenagers and mental health, because life is hard

Zion: Really hard.

Noah: And hearing stories about what other teens are going through and how they're getting better, it helps.

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Noah: A note before we get started. Today, we're going to be talking about depression, anxiety, and suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, we have a list of resources at studentreportinglabs.org/mentalhealthresources

Zion: If depression, anxiety, and suicide are triggering topics, we recommend you skip this episode or listen with a trusted adult.

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Noah: Hey, Zion.

Zion: Hi, Noah.

Noah: So what's on your mind today?

Zion: Well, I've been thinking about how our bodies respond to our mental health. You know, like what Dr. Talib said in our first episode, how when we're feeling stressed or anxious, we get headaches or lose our appetite or just feel really tight.

Noah: Yeah, totally. You know, when I'm, like, really stressed out, like I had like a splitting headache in my entire body, just like feels like it starts to shut down.

Zion: Yeah, I know. Like, when I'm stressed out my neck and stuff starts to hurt really bad. But it's also true that when your physical health isn't great, that can affect your mental health as well. It can go both ways.

Noah: Yeah. Any kind of physical pain can really affect your mental health. And having a chronic or a long term pain can make that even harder to deal with. Research shows that those with chronic pain are actually four times more likely to have depression or anxiety than those who are pain free

Zion: In our first story today, Maddy has a chronic condition that affects her mental health.

Noah: We should note that suicide comes up in this story. If you are anyone you know is in distress, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is one 800-273-8255.

Zion: Here's student reporter Sonah Prakash from Dominion High School in Sterling, Virginia.

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Sonal Prakash: I have this friend I met in Girl Scouts back when we were 12 years old, her name's Maddy and she has POTS. It's a syndrome that has to do with heart rate. Here she is talking about it.

Maddy: It's postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. If I stand up too quickly, I pass out if I don't drink enough water, I pass out just really a mess. And that really started coming into a bigger part of my life in junior year. And my anxiety definitely took a hit after that diagnosis, which took me three years to get. And POTS is probably the biggest trigger for my anxiety right now because it is such a all encompassing thing, like my body just doesn't work. And it takes a long time for the brain to realize that.

Sonal Prakash: I wanted to talk with Maddie about her POTS and anxiety because I knew she was doing her Girl Scout Gold Award project on mental health, trying to destigmatize the topic by creating awareness at her school. But I didn't just want to hear about the project. I wanted to get her full story.

Sonal Prakash: So when did you first realize that some of the difficulties in your life were actually mental health related?

Maddy: I realized that mental health was important when I started having panic attacks in spring of my freshman year, and this was right after a friend of mine committed suicide. That was really the catalyst that was like, oh, my God, everything is going wrong. And that's when I started having panic attacks. And I remember sitting on the bathroom floor in my high school and thinking, this is not normal, this needs help. And then my mom took me to a psychiatrist who pretty quickly diagnosed me with anxiety, OCD and depression.

Sonal Prakash: All three at once, just like that?

Maddy: Just get it all done.

Sonal Prakash: How did you feel at this diagnosis?

Maddy: When they first told me that, yeah, you're depressed? I was like, well, that kind of makes sense, but depression is a scary word, you know, like it's so big a word. And I talked to my mom, my mom and I are really close. And I think that diagnosis scared her more than me because she's my mom. But between talking to her and my therapist, it kind of made me understand that, like, it's a big thing, but it's treatable. Like I'm going to get out of this again.

Sonal Prakash: Thanks to therapy, medication and things like marching band, Maddie is doing much better. She told me, though, that a little anxious voice in her head still kicks in. It sounds kind of like this.

Maddy: You're not smart enough to do it. Never going to be good enough to do this. Why can’t you do this. You're not good enough at this. You're not good enough.

Maddy: That small voice in the back of your head really pops out when I'm like this this fall we were doing college apps. And my mom had to take away my computer because I was working so much. And it's like an inhibitor because it doesn't let me rest. So like on the surface it looks like really productive, like, oh, she's always doing stuff, like she's always getting stuff done, but it's because my brain literally won't let me take a break because it makes me feel so bad about it.

Sonal Prakash: If you could offer I know it's hard like one piece of advice to teens at any stage of their mental health journey, whether they're just starting out or they've had it for a long time. What would you say to them?

Maddy: Your current situation is not your final destination. It's just really important to remember that OK you're struggling right now. You won't always be struggling this badly, like it will eventually get better, but also, please don't ever shut yourself up in your room because you think you're not good enough, and that goes back to what I what I really believe about talking about mental health is that talking is the first step.

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Noah: You know, I find myself having those same thoughts, thinking that you're not good enough.

Zion: Yeah, me too. Sometimes I don't even realize I'm thinking those things until I take a step back and I'm like, wow, I've been really hard on myself.

Noah: I was lucky enough to talk to Cheryl Aguilar recently. She's the founding director and lead therapist at Hope Center for Wellness in Washington, D.C. Since we'll be talking a lot about heavy topics like suicide, we're going to be mixing in my interview with Cheryl throughout today's episode to help us process all of this. Here I am talking to her about Maddy's story.

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Noah: Maddy mentioned that a friend of hers, unfortunately, took their own life during this tough time. How does someone with their own mental illnesses, especially depression cope with that kind of thing?

Cheryl Aguilar: When we lose someone to suicide, one of the things that can happen is that we may feel like it's our fault, like we didn't do enough. And it's really important that we know that it's not our fault. That person was in a lot of pain. And thinking about suicide or acknowledging or talking about it like we are doesn't necessarily make someone want to to do that themself. That's a misconception that a lot of people believe that the more we talk about suicide, the more we're going to put it in people's heads. That's actually not true. The more we talk about the suicide, the safer we make it. So other people who are in distress can talk about it and seek the help that they need.

Noah: And how easy is it to identify if someone may be having suicidal thoughts or may act in the future?

Cheryl Aguilar: A lot of times people may not verbalize that's what they're going through. But what we see is we see behavioral changes. That is something we can all get good at understanding what is their baseline? What is our baseline for emotional wellness? So when we start seeing other people not being themselves, when we see people isolating, not wanting to hang out like they normally would, staying in their room, not hanging out and doing what they normally would with their friends. And sometimes they may vocalize they’re in a lot of pain, like things are just not getting better. So when we hear people using those kinds of thoughts or language around, it will be better if I just went away. That's an opportunity to have a conversation about what they may be thinking. It is OK to ask people, have you thought of a plan? Sometimes we're afraid to ask that question, but that answer can help us figure out how to connect them with someone else that can get get them to to be well. 

Noah: I know I've gone through a dark time in my life where I unfortunately had suicidal thoughts and I know that I didn't want to talk to anyone about it no matter how concerned they were and how hard they asked, what do you do when somebody refuses to talk about it?

Cheryl Aguilar: Well, thank you for sharing that with me. I'm sorry that you went through that. And it's really hard to talk about it, isn't it? I think there's that fear that we're going to be judged. There's that fear that we're going to feel like we're doing something wrong. Some people may feel like they don't want to be problems to other people, and that is not true. I think what's important to recognize is that while we're in pain, it's important not to suffer it in isolation. I always tell people, let's identify are one, two, three, go to people that we know can listen to us without judgment, we know can ask questions that can support us. We may all have at least one person in our lives who can be that. It could be a parent. It could be a teacher. It could be a counselor. It could be a friend. So let's identify that one person. And if not, we have the resources like the crisis text line or the suicide hotline in which there's trained professionals that nonjudgmental that are going to help us in the best way they can.

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Zion: Noah that, sharing that, I think that makes you look so strong, like talking about that on this podcast, that makes you so brave to put your emotions out there like that.

Noah: You know, I'm not afraid to admit that, you know, I'm ashamed of myself for feeling those thoughts, even though I know I shouldn't be. But, you know, it really came down to the people who are listening. Having someone out there who you know is going through the same things can really help you out and know that it gives you the feeling that you're not alone. It can get better.

Zion: As Maddy said, depression can be a scary word, especially when we don't really know what it is. So let's define it. Depression is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest.

Noah: We have a clip from Riannon in New York who experiences depression. And she does a great job of describing what depression actually feels like.

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Rhiannon: I was very depressed my sophomore year and I burdened myself with a lot of extra activities to keep my mind distracted from things. So I would wake up at 6:00 am morning and go to school at 7:00, wouldn't come home until 5:00. I would sleep until 10:00, wake up, do homework and wouldn't be able to go back to sleep until 3. On weekends. I would wake up and stare at a wall because I didn't have the motivation to get up. I wouldn't have the motivation to go brush my teeth, brush my hair, take a shower or clean my room or do any homework on like I knew I had to because I was starting to fall behind in school.

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Zion: I thought that was really interesting at the beginning there, when Rhiannon says she used activities to keep her mind distracted.

Noah: Yeah, I thought that was interesting, too, which is why I asked Cheryl, the therapist, you know, are activities and being busy. Are those good coping strategies or are they just distractors that actually make our depression worse? Here's what she said.

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Cheryl Aguilar: That is twofold. I think it's great when it serves as a coping mechanism. And so we actually we call that behavioral activation. When we have depression, we want to do the opposite of what depression feels like. When we experience depression. We may not feel like doing anything, like we may want to be in bed. We don't want to go to school, but we want to go to work. Our bodies feel heavy. Some people describe it as, it's hard to explain, but it feels heavy. I don't want to do anything. And we actually encourage people to do the opposite of what the body feels. Do more of what brings you joy, because we want to activate the feel good chemicals in our brain to undo some of that depression.

Sometimes coping strategies can become bandaids. If we are not talking to someone about what is the source of my problem, how am I going to to to deal with it? So we want to be mindful and balance between I'm going to do everything that I can to keep active, to keep on enjoying the things that normally get me going. And but I'm also going to talk about what I'm going through. So I don't I'm not just like on fight mode That can bring exhaustion that can bring us to eventually kind of like shut down. So we want to make sure that we are getting in a way, I like using visuals, we were getting our depression outside of ourselves so we can feel the depression and we don't have to work so hard at coping with a lot of activities and things to do. [00:19:27][21.5]

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Zion: I liked how she said we need to have those activities and we also need to have someone to talk to because I feel like if we have one or the other, it really doesn't work out. I know the one person I talked to is my mom. I usually talk to her when I'm having a bad day or when I'm trying to figure something out. And Maddy had her mom as well. And Noah, who do you have to talk to?

Noah: Yeah, I talk to my sister about it, my cousin and, you know, I talk to my best friend about it. And it's good having multiple viewpoints, you know, different people who have different experiences, who can all, like, help you reach one conclusion.

Zion: That brings us to our next story, which is about Annette and her brother, Lars. Lars has depression and has had a really hard year. Annette recently sat down with him and recorded this conversation.

Noah: Suicide comes up again in this story. Again, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255.

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Annette: Why do you think the pandemic worsened your symptoms?

Lars: The best guess that I can have is there is a certain sense of isolation and normalcy that was taking away from me. Humans naturally fear change and I'm a human. So it was really scary having the normalcy of my life just ripped away from me. But mostly it was like just isolation from other people. That was really rough.

Annette: What kind of thoughts like were going through your head at that time?

Lars: A sense of hopelessness for sure. It's a bunch of what ifs and we don't know how this whatever will end. So it was really scary, just never being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. So I ended up becoming really hopeless and really cynical and not feeling like there was a meaning to continuing on with my life, you know.

Annette: How have you tried to cope with those feelings? What have you done?

Lars: Well, negative or positive?

Annette: Either.

Lars: Well, the self-harm was certainly the negative one. I started doing that. I went to a mental hospital for a bit, pretty much. And there I got a lot of help from a lot of people. And now I came back and I had a little bit of a struggle. But I've also passed that. And after experimenting with a lot of medication and talking to a lot of people that have helped me, that's been my experience. I've gotten a lot better for sure.

Annette: We're pretty close. Would you agree?

Lars: Yes, I would agree.

Annnette: And I feel like in COVID we spent more time together.

Lars: Yeah, for sure.

Annette: And so watching you kind of take that steady decrease was really hard for me because I care about you. I remember how sad you were and it made me sad. But it's been nice to watch you cope with your friends.

Lars: Yeah.

Annette: And I know we started, like, baking together, cooking. And I really enjoyed that. Like, I thought that was fun. And so I think we can both agree that to tell everyone they're not alone.

Lars: You can appreciate the beauties of life more when you've almost had it taken away from you.

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Noah: You know, Lars and Annette are so lucky that they have each other to lean on, you know, I have my sister to lean on, but, you know, she lives in a different state and she has a career. She has, you know, a car payment. She has kids, a husband, all that. So it's much harder to sit down and talk to each other.

Zion: Yeah, that can be really hard, especially when a person's really far and they may not have the time for you or however it may go.

Noah: This is what makes it so hard to like talk about this kind of stuff to other people is that, you know, you don't want to try to affect other people and, you know, make them sad and drag them down. So I actually asked Cheryl about this.

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Noah: How do you recommend someone, like, keep their mental health issues from affecting others negatively and turn it into like a positive interaction?

Cheryl Aguilar: I would say keep the focus on you. Like, if we're having mental health challenges, the goal is not necessarily like I'm going to be well so other people can be well. Sometimes it could be a lot of pressure if we want to be well for other people, that can actually make us feel more stressed out. And something I like to say is that it's our responsibility to do well and it's other people's responsibility to be well themselves.

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Zion: Making sure you're mentally healthy for you and other people is extremely important. And you need to make sure that you're becoming a better person for yourself, because I feel like when you start doing it for other people, you kind of lose you lose yourself because you're trying to do this and that for everyone else. And you end up not knowing why you're doing it at the end of the day.

Noah: Yeah, and it's helpful to remember that mental health challenges are something thatI experience, but it's not truly who I am. You know, I have interests and stuff and hobbies and, you know, wants and needs that exist outside of, you know, my anxiety and my depression and all of that.

Zion: Yeah. You know, our language reflects that idea. Instead of calling people mentally ill, like that person is bipolar, which is what people used to say. It's more accurate and respectful to say someone has a mental illness like she has bipolar disorder, for instance.

Noah: Yeah. Because people are not the disorder. We heard that same idea from Shelby who goes to Rouse High School in Texas. Here she is telling her story.

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Shelby: Mental disorders, mental illness. It's not who a person is. But it definitely controls a big facet of my life. I do struggle with depression and it can get very seasonal. So in the winter, particularly like December through February, it gets really, really bad. So I had a complete lack of motivation. I was spacing out. I wasn't paying too much attention. And I was just saying, I'll do this later. I'll do this later. That would come to the point where I wouldn't even I would just like get on Zoom and like not even like sit and sit on my desk. I would just go lay down

So it just continuously stressed me out and I got anxiety about doing work and then I got anxiety about not doing work. So it was like I was trapped in a really weird limbo for a bit.

I've been working on my communication with people. I've been learning it's OK to say, hey, I know we're supposed to hang out soon. I want to let you know that I am going through a depressive episode. I'm going to probably seem off. And, you know, the response that you're going to get is not going to be bad.

You're going to have those moments. You can't beat yourself up for it because it's not an uphill climb. It is a it's a mountain range. It's like a you kind of go up and down and all around. You kind of just got to navigate that yourself. And that's what I've really realized is like it's OK to have bad moments. You are human. You just got to you just got to keep going. And eventually those those habits, those coping mechanisms that you are really trying to implement will seem like second nature to you

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Zion: So I know for me it is a little different when it comes to the weather. Actually, I'm not as happy in the summer and spring as I am in the winter. I think, honestly, it's just because I'm a homebody and I like being in the house, but Noah, how does the seasons affect you? [00:20:56][14.6]

Noah: Like in the winter, I'm like definitely a lot more mellow and depressed than I am, like during the summer. But in the summer, you know, it's bright for like a week. And then, like, it might be like pouring down rain the next week. And that can really hit you hard because, you know, like, oh, last week it was so beautiful. Like, why can't it be nice out this week? [00:21:14][17.7]

Zion: Yeah. Another thing I liked about what Shelby said is like the whole mountain range. You going up, going down and going, you know, left it right. It's just kind of all over the place.

Noah: Yeah, absolutely. You know, just like the weather, you know, there's so much variation.

Zion: Yeah!

Noah: So when I asked Cheryl for her closing thoughts, she said something similar to what Shelby said. She also mentioned the media and how it distorts our expectations of what is normal. Here she is one last time.

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Cheryl Aguilar: we have this idea that we should always be joyful, that life should always be enjoyable, that we shouldn't go through hardships. And we live in a society that puts a lot of emphasis on joy.

We're always marketing things that are going to make us feel good. And what happens is then we start believing that that's one of the most important emotions and that life has no ups and downs and that is not true. All emotions and everything that we're experiencing is part of what we're supposed to experience. All emotions are welcomed. We need to welcome them. Know that life sometimes has ups and downs. And what really matters is how we get back up, how do we keep on going. 

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Zion: So, Noah, what's on your mind now?

Noah: What's on my mind right now is probably everything going on in the news. You know, I always find my news first on like Twitter or like Reddit or something. And what I try to avoid is going to the comment section because everyone always has like this wild opinion and it's a really toxic environment. And it, you know, makes me want to get away from my phone.

Zion: Yeah, I know what you mean. Like, sometimes what you're seeing on social media constantly can affect how you react to other people and what's around you in real life.

Noah: Yeah. So next week we'll actually be talking about social media and screentime and how it affects our mental health.

Zion: Yeah, be sure to listen in.

Noah: It's going to be awesome

Zion: to hear more of what's

Noah and Zion: “On Our Minds.”

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Noah: Today’s stories were produced by Sonal Prakash from Dominion High School in Sterling, Virginia with help from Connected Educator Mitch Schwartz.

Zion: Danielle Traylor from Brentwood High School in Brentwood, New York, who interviewed Rhiannon with the help from Connected Educator Sequoyah Wharton.

Noah: Annette from Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City interviewed her brother Lars, with the help from Connected Educator Chris Sloan.

Zion: SRL intern Grace Vitaglione interviewed Shelby from Rouse High School in Texas.

Noah: And many thanks to therapist Cheryl Aguilar for giving us her time.

Zion: This episode was produced by Student Reporting Labs Youth Media Producer Briget Ganske. Editing by Victor Fernandez, and production Assistance from Mercedes Ezeji.

Noah: Executive producer Leah Clapman. SRL Senior Director Elis Estrada and help from the rest of the Student Recording Labs staff.

Zion: And music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Noah: Once again, if you or someone you know needs help, we have a list of resources at studentreportinglabs.org/mentalhealthresources

Zion: And tell your friends about us. Spread the word. The more people who know about mental health, the better.