Join us as we delve into the complex world of mental health and explore the meanings behind labels like PTSD, OCD, and ADHD. What do these terms really signify, and are they helpful or harmful? In this episode, Dr. Jayatri Das helps break down the definitions, while Becca Lane sheds light on how language can shape our perceptions of mental health. Get ready for a thought-provoking discussion on this crucial topic!
Resources for Today’s Episode:
- 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
- NAMI, for non-crisis mental health needs
- The Alliance of Hope and Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, for support following suicide loss
- Carson’s Village, for support following the sudden loss of a loved one
Links for Today’s Episode:
- Learn more about NAMI Philadelphia
- Check out NAMI Philly’s podcast, The YANApodcast
Stats sources:
- 1/4 individuals in the US experience a mental health condition
- 1/4 individuals killed by police have a mental illness and/or experiencing a mental health crisis
- General NAMI mental health statistics
Transcript
Hey, guys, just a quick content warning.
Speaker:In one of our conversations today, there's
Speaker:a brief mention of losing a loved one to suicide.
Speaker:If you are struggling, remember, you can
Speaker:always call the National Suicide and Crisis Hotline at nine eight eight.
Speaker:And we've also linked additional resources in the show notes.
Speaker:Hello, hello, hello.
Speaker:I'm Kirsten Michelle Cills.
Speaker:And I'm the Bull Bey.
Speaker:And we are the hosts of this podcast, So
Speaker:Curious, presented by the Franklin Institute.
Speaker:Yeah. this whole season is about mental
Speaker:health, but today's episode is going to dig into what that means.
Speaker:That's right. We're looking at all the different
Speaker:categories and things that fall under the umbrella term of mental health, as well as
Speaker:how the language that we use impacts how mental health is perceived.
Speaker:And to help us parse out those details,
Speaker:we're sitting down with Becca Lane, education and Outreach Coordinator at the
Speaker:Philadelphia chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Speaker:But first, we are joined once again by Dr.
Speaker:Jayatri Das, the chief bioscientist at the Franklin Institute.
Speaker:We're going to jump into the category of
Speaker:mental health and the different categories of it and try to make some sense of it,
Speaker:figure it out, decompress, throw it around.
Speaker:We're trying to just get some more knowledge.
Speaker:That's why we're here with you, Doctor.
Speaker:And I love being here with you to talk through those kinds of questions.
Speaker:Come on. Yeah, just teeing it off.
Speaker:What are the distinctions of the different types of mental health?
Speaker:So there's really no universal definition
Speaker:of different categories that everybody agrees on.
Speaker:Some general categories might be thinking
Speaker:about mental illnesses that are more of like, mood or thought disorders.
Speaker:You've got personality disorders, you've got developmental disorders.
Speaker:And then thinking about addiction as kind of another category, or PTSD.
Speaker:On one hand it's helpful when we're
Speaker:talking about these on an everyday basis, to think about these categories, because
Speaker:it can help with understanding a diagnosis, or thinking about directions
Speaker:for treatment, finding support groups, and even in just communicating with your
Speaker:healthcare provider or your friends and family about what the explanation of your
Speaker:different behaviors or challenges might be.
Speaker:Where that ends up getting a little bit
Speaker:challenging is that by trying to categorize people in buckets, sometimes
Speaker:the distinction between the presence or absence of a diagnosis isn't that clear.
Speaker:And so how exactly do you put somebody in a category?
Speaker:Another challenge is that sometimes people
Speaker:have multiple diagnoses, so putting them in one or the other might miss what those
Speaker:mechanisms or experiences might have in common between those different diagnoses.
Speaker:And then thirdly, some of these diagnoses
Speaker:just look very different, different people.
Speaker:So it can be hard to categorize people.
Speaker:I think one of the interesting things, especially in directing where science
Speaker:research is going, is that there's more of an approach where instead of trying to
Speaker:recognize particular categories, it's really looking across diagnoses to look at
Speaker:how people's behaviors and symptoms fall along a spectrum.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:One of the things that Kirsten says often is mental health is
Speaker:Mental health is health. Yeah
Speaker:Is health. Could you expound on that a little bit?
Speaker:Talk about that more, because I think we
Speaker:hear some of these terms and these labels, and it could be a little bit daunting, and
Speaker:they come along with stigmas, unfortunately,
Speaker:Of course they do. Mhmm.
Speaker:And it's like it's just health.
Speaker:It's just like we're talking about health, and health exists on the spectrum.
Speaker:RIght. So instead of necessarily starting with these categories, it's really
Speaker:thinking about all of the different ways that any of us experience mental states.
Speaker:So thinking about how we regulate or how
Speaker:we have our self control, thinking about when we're feeling good, when we're
Speaker:feeling bad, how do we touch and feel and move, right?
Speaker:That can be a category of how we express our mental state.
Speaker:Thinking about our cognitive state, how we think about things, and how we interact
Speaker:with other people, our social interactions.
Speaker:Those are all kind of different ways that our mental health is expressed.
Speaker:And so by looking at this whole set of
Speaker:potential manifestations of disease, you get a better understanding of the whole
Speaker:person rather than trying to kind of look for individual characteristics that might
Speaker:help you characterize towards one diagnosis or another.
Speaker:Mhmm. So I have bipolar disorder, and I remember that they weren't able to
Speaker:diagnose that until 16, age 16, because so many of those symptoms as a young woman
Speaker:already going through puberty, they're already present.
Speaker:So it's not really something you can
Speaker:diagnose until you're out of that phase in which you would be feeling those already.
Speaker:And it didn't make sense to me at the time.
Speaker:The older I get, the more I'm like, yeah,
Speaker:I guess we all do kind of have those symptoms up until a certain age, right?
Speaker:Anyway, and so what are some interesting
Speaker:research that's being done about each of these categories?
Speaker:If you have anything that sticks out, it's like, OOH, this sparked for me.
Speaker:Well, just jumping off what you were talking about, Kirsten, trying to look at
Speaker:how these affect people across the lifespan, and especially thinking about
Speaker:development and adolescence, that is a huge area of research.
Speaker:So thinking about where we can identify risk factors, where we can identify
Speaker:therapies that maybe have been previously applied largely to adults, but where they
Speaker:might work in kids as well, understanding how these intersect with those normal
Speaker:patterns of brain development is a super active area of research.
Speaker:I appreciate what you just brought up about, like, things not being clear until
Speaker:you're older about your mental or emotional state.
Speaker:And, you know, I make music, and I never looked at that as any kind of, like,
Speaker:emotional development or cognitive treatments of any kind.
Speaker:But now that I'm an adult and I think about pattern matching and sound waves
Speaker:SureA different auditorial therapy,
Speaker:Music therapist is a whole career. It's a thing
Speaker:Yeah! and I'm like, oh, wow.
Speaker:This entire time I was like therapizing myself.
Speaker:Going back to the evolutionary point, like we're always looking for not always, but
Speaker:to soothe, to find comfort, to find safety and things like that.
Speaker:And music, luckily, kind of provides a lot of those things.
Speaker:The arts.
Speaker:I think what's really exciting is that with new tools that we're developing in
Speaker:science, we have a more integrative way to look at how everything from molecules to
Speaker:brain signals to behaviors are all connected and how we can understand these
Speaker:behaviors at all of these different levels.
Speaker:And part of that really involves bringing more people into the picture as well.
Speaker:One of the things that's been challenging
Speaker:about studying mental health conditions is that often they're subtle.
Speaker:Whether you're looking at the symptoms in
Speaker:an individual person or the effects of a given treatment, it's not black and white.
Speaker:And so in order to be able to kind of pick
Speaker:up those signals, we need much, much bigger data sets.
Speaker:And that's now possible.
Speaker:So really making an effort when we're
Speaker:looking at genetics or when we're looking at brain scans, to bring in thousands of
Speaker:people and not just tens or hundreds of people.
Speaker:You talked about pattern matching in Music
Speaker:Bey, but we're looking at pattern matching in science, too.
Speaker:Yeah. 100 percent. And the only way that you're going to pick
Speaker:up the patterns that matter is if you have a big enough set of data.
Speaker:The sample size, right? Is that what it's called?
Speaker:Exactly. Not
Speaker:to brag. But I knew that off the top of my head.
Speaker:Look at you busting off those static chops.
Speaker:Umm. And especially because these types of disorders are complicated.
Speaker:There was a recent study that came out just earlier this year that shows that
Speaker:when you're looking at autism, for instance, there are 70 different genes
Speaker:that are strongly associated with diagnoses of autism.
Speaker:And what does that mean?
Speaker:And how can we both create systems that
Speaker:support people and improve everybody's quality of life, as well as developing
Speaker:more personalized approaches to treatment for people who need it?
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah and I appreciate that.
Speaker:Now, Kirsten, you have experience working with the organization.
Speaker:Our next guest is here to speak to us about correct.
Speaker:Hell yeah.
Speaker:I love NAMI, which is what they go by for short.
Speaker:NAMI does like a walk.
Speaker:They have chapters all over.
Speaker:I was going to say, where else do they have it at other than Philadelphia?
Speaker:I think that they're based in Virginia.
Speaker:Then they have them in DC. They have them all over.
Speaker:So they're around?
Speaker:Yeah but the Philly chapter. Rocks.
Speaker:Of course. Of course.
Speaker:You took part in a walk run. Yeah. It's like a walk.
Speaker:what did you do? No, I was not running.
Speaker:Did you bike? It's really cool though.
Speaker:It's like their big fundraiser and they have so many cool vendors.
Speaker:It's awesome. Yeah.
Speaker:Okay, so we're going to talk about categorization.
Speaker:Yeah. Which is really important, right?
Speaker:Language, understanding what is going on, how to communicate with yourself and also
Speaker:other people outside of you about mental conditions and statuses and such.
Speaker:Do you feel comfortable communicating your
Speaker:own mental conditions and state that you're in sometimes?
Speaker:Yeah, I definitely do.
Speaker:But again, I know a lot of it just comes
Speaker:from my mom works in mental health, so I didn't know for a long time that it was
Speaker:something you're not supposed to talk about.
Speaker:I was always the person, and people were
Speaker:like, let's not talk about this at the dinner table.
Speaker:And I was like, Why not?
Speaker:Yeah, talk to me about that.
Speaker:How early on did you get that experience of, like, oh, I shouldn't talk about this?
Speaker:Once you hit the point where you go to sleepovers and friends houses and their
Speaker:parents, you get to meet your friend's parents and see how they handle things or
Speaker:the things you are and aren't allowed to talk about.
Speaker:Sleepovers. I know.
Speaker:And I was like, my mom used to be a sex ed
Speaker:teacher, and now she works in mental health.
Speaker:So I don't know what you're talking about when you say you can't talk about stuff.
Speaker:How about you was the one that came over, and had condoms.
Speaker:What is going on at the sleepover.
Speaker:They were like, don't invite that girl, please.
Speaker:How about you?
Speaker:What questions do you have about categorization of mental illness?
Speaker:Because it's a big umbrella.
Speaker:We're developing language and
Speaker:understanding about mental health is kind of like in a culturalist a little bit.
Speaker:We all say mental health and mental illnesses, but there's definitely a
Speaker:difference, and everyone experiences things differently.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:There has to be language and categories, and so hopefully we can figure that out.
Speaker:You know, she's got the answers, or at
Speaker:least I hope, because I don't have the answer.
Speaker:Becca Lane. Welcome to so curious.
Speaker:Can you explain a couple examples of what
Speaker:advocacy is and what a day to day advocacy looks like for you?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:So one of the largest barriers for people seeking treatment is stigma.
Speaker:One might say cost, one might say just availability of treatment options.
Speaker:But it's actually stigma first, because before somebody can remove that level of
Speaker:shame surrounding their mental illness, they won't even seek treatment.
Speaker:So what we try to do through education
Speaker:programs is to educate people on what mental illness looks like.
Speaker:Whenever we do any of our education
Speaker:programs, we always have somebody who is living with mental illness or has been
Speaker:impacted in some way to share their personal experience.
Speaker:So again, people can see what living with mental illness looks like.
Speaker:It's not just what you see maybe on the street or in a movie or on TV.
Speaker:One in four people in the United States alone live with a mental illness.
Speaker:So chances are you know somebody who is living with a mental illness.
Speaker:So we try to show that it's not something to be ashamed of, like I said.
Speaker:And then we have our NAMI Walk, which is a
Speaker:huge fundraising event for us because everything that NAMIi offers is free of
Speaker:cost to participants, but it's not free for us, so we do need to raise money.
Speaker:But it's also a great way for people to come together and really spread that
Speaker:message because, like I said, one in four, right?
Speaker:People have breast cancer, for instance, and people talk about breast cancer,
Speaker:having breast cancer, being survivors, they celebrate it.
Speaker:They have their huge walks.
Speaker:So by having these walks, these NAMI walks, we're able to again spread that
Speaker:message and have people with real experiences feel unashamed beautiful.
Speaker:We also work with the city in a lot of different ways.
Speaker:So it's not just educating everyday people
Speaker:or people who are impacted on a regular level.
Speaker:We also work with the police doing crisis
Speaker:intervention, training correctional officers, police officers who just started
Speaker:working with the Philadelphia Fire Department and EMS to help educate them.
Speaker:Again, with the police.
Speaker:For instance, one in four individuals who
Speaker:are killed by the police are in a mental health crisis.
Speaker:So we're trying to educate first
Speaker:responders on what a mental health crisis looks like.
Speaker:They're the first responders.
Speaker:They're the people who need to learn how to de escalate and then take the next step
Speaker:to maybe they need to go to a hospital, not to jail, things like that.
Speaker:Well Becca, I appreciate you bringing up that category of crisis.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So today we want to talk about the different categories of mental health
Speaker:issues and all the different categories that they fall under.
Speaker:What are NAMI's definition for mental health and then mental illness?
Speaker:Could you differentiate those two things?
Speaker:There's many different schools of thought that go into this just because there's the
Speaker:Diagnostic Statistical Manual, there's WHO.
Speaker:But we try to say now, mental health conditions.
Speaker:When we're talking about mental illness, mental disorders is also used.
Speaker:So mental health conditions is more of like an umbrella term.
Speaker:Mental illnesses generally are referring
Speaker:more to mood or thought disorders, disorders that affect the way that you are
Speaker:able to function daily because of your thoughts and your behavior and feelings.
Speaker:So depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, those are disorders of bipolar disorder
Speaker:that would really fall under that category.
Speaker:Personality disorders are a separate category, and there's crossover because
Speaker:some personality disorders, especially borderline personality disorder, has a
Speaker:mood element, presents somewhat like bipolar disorder.
Speaker:And then there's substance use disorder is what it's like officially called.
Speaker:So a lot of times you'll hear people say, like, I'm an addict, or they're an addict
Speaker:or an alcoholic for NAMI sake, trying to erase stigma, shatter stigma.
Speaker:We like to use person first language so we would say I'm somebody who lives with
Speaker:substance use disorder because I'm a person, I'm not my illness.
Speaker:Yes Yeah no, that's so important to say too
Speaker:I love that! You talked about stigma,
Speaker:which we've been discussing a lot on this season, because, I mean, you cannot talk
Speaker:about mental health without talking about the stigmas that go around it.
Speaker:What are some ways that you feel like as everyday people can adjust our language
Speaker:better around mental health, is there something you hear all the time that
Speaker:you're like, we need to get that phrase out of here.
Speaker:My biggest one is commit suicide.
Speaker:When people say commit suicide, like that
Speaker:word commit, you commit a crime, you commit a sin, it kind of takes blame where
Speaker:suicide, it's the end result of a mental health condition that devastating.
Speaker:But it's not somebody's choice, it's not a moral issue, it's not a criminal issue.
Speaker:It's a mental health issue.
Speaker:I have a sister who I lost to suicide and I'll say she lost her battle with mental
Speaker:illness like you would say about somebody who had cancer. you know.
Speaker:Yeah. And I've heard in the last year, I think
Speaker:is the first time I hear, when I hear people on podcasts or on the news talk
Speaker:about suicide and they will say, died by suicide.
Speaker:Died by suicide, yeah.
Speaker:As opposed to commit.
Speaker:I never thought about that connotation.
Speaker:Yeah And it's really important to examine our language.
Speaker:I really appreciate you bringing into this conversation, like being careful about the
Speaker:labels that we slap onto people and slap on to conditions.
Speaker:And the term trauma tends to get thrown around a lot in everyday conversations.
Speaker:People say, oh, I'm triggered.
Speaker:We just say so many things colloquially.
Speaker:Trigger is a big one.
Speaker:I've tried to stop using the term trigger,
Speaker:and it's hard because it is something like when I went through treatment for my
Speaker:mental illness, it was something used all the time.
Speaker:It's become something that we've had to
Speaker:think about it a lot because it's something that contains gun violence.
Speaker:And gun violence is an epidemic of its own proportion.
Speaker:So it's not helpful, especially with
Speaker:people who are dealing with trauma and especially related to gun violence.
Speaker:It's not a helpful term.
Speaker:I try to use terms like activate, like that activating situation.
Speaker:Well, talk about trauma as well as it relates to mental health.
Speaker:What does that mean specifically within the mental health context?
Speaker:I heard a definition of trauma once that
Speaker:said that going through a painful situation without an empathic witness.
Speaker:Oooh.
Speaker:And I just I love that trauma can be such a wide variety of circumstances.
Speaker:It's really about the way that it impacts
Speaker:the person who is experiencing that situation.
Speaker:A lot of times people throw around PTSD, and that's also something that irritates
Speaker:me because I also am somebody who has lived with PTSD.
Speaker:PTSD is something that has very specific criteria.
Speaker:Anybody can have, like I said, a traumatic
Speaker:response to a painful situation or a difficult situation.
Speaker:When it becomes something like PTSD, it lasts for a really long time and it
Speaker:impacts the way in which that individual is able to function.
Speaker:So there's a lot of different examples of
Speaker:trauma, but really, I think it depends on how the person is impacted by it.
Speaker:What would you say might be some
Speaker:repercussions of the misuse of the word trauma.
Speaker:What are some of the negatives?
Speaker:Well, I think it invalidates the
Speaker:experience of those who have actually experienced trauma and have not just
Speaker:experienced it, but have had severe reactions to it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So how does language we use impact our perception of mental health?
Speaker:How can it create stigmas?
Speaker:How can we stay away from those stigmas?
Speaker:For instance, if you see the homeless man
Speaker:walking down the street yelling and cursing psychotic.
Speaker:I mean, that's the psychotic episode.
Speaker:Generally, they might feel like, well, I'm
Speaker:not like that, so therefore I don't need treatment.
Speaker:I'm not going to do anything about it because I'm not that sick.
Speaker:I know that was the case for me.
Speaker:I would hear people talk about what
Speaker:alcoholism addiction looks like and I'm like, that's not me.
Speaker:And it took me a long time to get treatment.
Speaker:Also, just the way we talk about what
Speaker:treatment looks like can create stigma around getting help.
Speaker:Like if you talk about it, you're going to get locked up in asylum.
Speaker:Yeah, right.
Speaker:The fear of being like 302 involuntarily committed.
Speaker:Just mentioning that you're feeling
Speaker:feelings is I can see why people would be like, oh my gosh, if I say anything to a
Speaker:doctor and I can see how it would be really hard if you're like, oh, I have
Speaker:kids, I can't say that I possibly have mental illness.
Speaker:What if they take them away?
Speaker:That's especially true for two different categories.
Speaker:One is young people, youth, teens, because they're going to get in trouble if they go
Speaker:to their school counselor because they're minors.
Speaker:The school counselor generally does have
Speaker:to report depending on what is being talked about.
Speaker:So that's what their fear is, is getting in trouble.
Speaker:The other category of individuals is law enforcement or first responders.
Speaker:I actually did a presentation at the
Speaker:Department of Homeland Security that was very weird.
Speaker:And that was one of the things that I was
Speaker:being told was that they are scared that if they even say like they felt depressed
Speaker:or anxious, that they're going to have their gun taken away and put on desk duty.
Speaker:And feeling depressed doesn't necessarily mean you're like suicidal.
Speaker:It can be episodic.
Speaker:You can have moments of depression and it
Speaker:not be even a diagnosed mental health condition you know so.
Speaker:So there's a lot of work to be done because that can't be helpful, right?
Speaker:Yeah. And it's scary to think about somebody who
Speaker:is in a position of power like that, who actually is struggling, being afraid to
Speaker:speak up and say something because they don't want to lose their job, but then
Speaker:also possibly putting themselves and other people in danger because they're not
Speaker:speaking and it's just getting worse and worse.
Speaker:Is there anything one thing, couple of
Speaker:sentences, action items you would like people to take away from this regarding
Speaker:how they treat mental health daily, overall, whatever it may be.
Speaker:I do just want to say it's a lot more common than you think.
Speaker:One of our phrases that we use is everyone
Speaker:knows someone, but it's really important to pay attention to the way that you speak
Speaker:to people, because one of the things also is validation.
Speaker:People who live with mental illness need to be validated for their feelings.
Speaker:So I think it's important to pay attention and educate yourself.
Speaker:And the more that we do talk about it, though, don't stop yourself from talking
Speaker:about it just because you're afraid of what to say.
Speaker:Educating yourself is important, but the
Speaker:more that we do talk about it, the more people will feel that they're not alone,
Speaker:and that's really where the most help can come from.
Speaker:What is your podcast, by the way? Yes.
Speaker:All right, so our podcast is called the
Speaker:YANA Podcast, which stands for You Are Not Alone, and each episode features a young
Speaker:person sharing their mental health journey.
Speaker:We started it in the beginning of the pandemic.
Speaker:Usually we go to schools and talk to young people and share stories and everything,
Speaker:and we weren't able to do that anymore once the pandemic began, so we thought we
Speaker:would still give an outlet for young people to hear stories.
Speaker:That Yana podcast.
Speaker:One word. Cool.
Speaker:Nice. That's awesome.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thanks so much, Becca Lane, for agreeing to come onto the show.
Speaker:We really appreciate it, I think understanding those nuances, and I love
Speaker:how she described trauma and kind of pairing it with empathy.
Speaker:Yeah. How the function of trauma is in tandem
Speaker:and shoulder to shoulder with empathy and the lack thereof.
Speaker:Sometimes I also feel like one thing, Bey,
Speaker:that I really appreciate about you is you have hit the ultimate nirvana of empathy.
Speaker:I feel like you are one of the most empathetic people I know.
Speaker:Awe, I appreciate that.
Speaker:And sometimes I don't know if it's just because I've always been on psychiatric
Speaker:medicine, that makes me a little less emotional, but sometimes you'll ask
Speaker:questions, and I'll be like, I never even thought of that.
Speaker:I've been called the empath in the past.
Speaker:I think it really functions inside of my brand of curiosity, because I can't sit in
Speaker:your shoes or anything like that, and I'm like, what is that like?
Speaker:Tell me. Would you say that you are so curious?
Speaker:I think I'm so curious.
Speaker:Oh, you said the name.
Speaker:All right, well, be sure to join us next week when we uncover the mysteries of
Speaker:genes and hormones, which is definitely a mystery to me.
Speaker:I don't remember any of that from science class.
Speaker:How they affect our behavior and how has
Speaker:our understanding of them changed over time.
Speaker:And these are the instruction manual for
Speaker:what makes us a person, what makes us tick.
Speaker:Make sure you subscribe wherever you
Speaker:listen to this podcast so you can uncover those mysteries with us.
Speaker:This podcast is made in partnership with Radio Kismet.
Speaker:Radio Kismet is Philadelphia's premier podcast production studio.
Speaker:This podcast is produced by Amy Carson and Emily Cherish of Radio Kismet.
Speaker:This podcast is also produced by Joy
Speaker:Montefusco, Jayatri Das, and Aaron Armstrong of the Franklin Institute.
Speaker:Head of operations is Christopher Plants.
Speaker:Our assistant producer is Seneca Whites.
Speaker:Our mix engineer is Justin Burger and our audio editor is Lauren DeLuca.
Speaker:Our graphic designer is Emma Seeker. I'm the Bull Bey.
Speaker:And I'm Kirsten Michelle Cilis. See you next week.
