October 30, 2023 • 25 mins
This week is inspired by the insanity that is, student loan debt in America. However, this episode isn’t realllyyy about student loan debt. This week is really about those moments where someone offers to help you but their goal isn’t really to help you, it’s to protect themselves. We are clearing up the space between only taking care of our own needs and ignoring our own needs to care for other people— the space where when we give we find that we also receive!
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Produced by: @HoustonTilley
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
I started to realize that not being an expert isn't
a liability, it's a real gift. If we don't know
something about ourselves at this point in our life, it's
probably because it's uncomfortable to know. If you can die
before you die, then you can really live. There's a
wisdom at death's door. I thought I was insane. Yeah,
(00:31):
and I didn't know what to do because there was
no internet. I don't know, man, I'm like, I feel
like everything is hard. Hey, y'all, my name is Kat.
I'm a human first and a licensed therapist second. And
right now I'm inviting you into conversations that I hope
encourage you to become more curious and less judgmental about yourself, others,
(00:54):
and the world around you. Welcome to You Need Therapy.
Hi guys, and welcome to the new episode of You
Need Therapy podcast. My name is Kat, I am the host.
And quick reminder up top that although this podcast is
hosted by a therapist, it does not serve as a
replacement or a substitute for any actual mental health services. However,
(01:15):
we always hope that it has the ability to help you.
So today's a solo episode. It's just me, and we're
actually talking about something that I was not prepared to
talk about this morning. When I came to the office
to record, I had planned a whole other episode. But
I got to the office, opened up my email, saw
(01:37):
this email from the people that I used to pay
my stonent loans to. I ended up on that website,
started poking around and started feelings and feelings about just
student loans in general and my own experience with them.
And back in twenty twelve when I went to Gratz
(01:59):
schoo I started taking out student loans and took out
a lot of student loans over the course of three
years in order to pay for my master's degree. This
is a degree that would and does allow me to
offer quality and mental health care as a licensed therapist
to people in our community, my community, specifically in Tennessee,
(02:23):
and this is a field that at the time that
I went to school, the median salary in Tennessee was
about forty to forty five thousand dollars, So not a
get rich quick kind of goal was in mind at
the time for me at all. And full disclosure, I
want to be very clear about this. I had no
idea what I was getting myself into the concept of
(02:44):
student loans was very elusive to me, and I did
not grasp the gravity of what it would look like
to pay them back, but didn't understand interest. I just
I was kind of clueless, and like I said, I
didn't get into this field to get rich. I just
wanted to do something meaningful and helpful, and I wanted
to be a therapist. And back then, forty thousand dollars
(03:05):
seemed like a dream to me, like, Okay, I could
do that. I thought, this is the career I want,
and it requires a master's degree. This school is a
great school. And actually I first declined to go to
Vanderbilt because of how expensive it was. So I was
originally enrolled in planning to go to Virginia Tech. I
(03:28):
was going to be in their Master of a Marriage
and Family therapy program. They had a satellite campus in
Falls Church, Virginia, which was about an hour to forty
five minutes from some of my family where they live,
and it was a little less expensive to go there.
So I was getting ready to move in with my
grandma when I got a phone call from Vanderbilt offering
(03:49):
me an assistant ship, which I ended up being a
grad assistant for a research class in one of the
departments in the undergraduate where I was in school, and
that paid for a good little chunk of my tuition,
and it ended up making it a little less expensive
to go to Vanderbilt than it would have been to
(04:10):
go to Virginia tack. So I was being a little
as money conscious as I could when it came to
choosing a really quality school to go get an education.
Fast forward to right after graduation, I met with somebody
who I thought would helped me plan how to best
(04:30):
pay off my loans. I didn't understand how loans work,
and I still don't fully understand them, but I had
a lot of questions, and I wanted to be informed,
and I wanted to take care of myself well and
get ahead of this. I wanted to know how much
I should be paying each month, and there are so
many options different payment plans, and I didn't understand the language,
(04:52):
and so I had some questions around that. And then
I was contemplating should I work for one of these
agencies that are funded by the government, that if I
worked there for a certain amount of time, granted you're
going to be making a little to no money, and
you're going to be very overworked. But at the end
of a certain amount of time, sometimes they would forgive
your loans or some of the loans had these forgiveness clauses,
(05:14):
and I wanted to understand those and how those worked
and if I could take advantage of them. I just
wanted some information. I thought this person was going to
help me. Well, the person who you can probably guess
they're demographic by what you're about to hear that they said.
The person that I thought was going to help me
proceeded to ask me why I thought it was appropriate
(05:36):
that they should have to pay back a loan that
I took out and couldn't afford to pay back. And
I was a little confused by his question. Keep in mind,
I'm twenty five, and taxes is not a required class
in K through. I was about to say K through eighteen,
K through twelve when I am eighteen. It's not required
(05:58):
in college, it wasn't required in grads. We didn't get
a lot of education on a lot of things that
we really should I get some education on. And so well,
I think, I said, I think the government pays them
or takes on the debt or maybe they just like
go away, and again very naive. I didn't understand it,
but I was there to try to understand things. But
(06:19):
I was quickly brought up to speed on how taxpayers
dollars fund the government and hardworking people who don't take
out student loans shouldn't be responsible for paying back someone
else's poor financial decision. It was my responsibility to take
responsibility for my poor financial decisions and figure out how
to remedy those on my own. Crystal clear on that messaging,
(06:41):
because you know, our country doesn't benefit from mental health
care professionals, and if only people that could pay for
graduate school on their own did so, it definitely wouldn't
affect the already insufficient amount of people in this field
or make the mental health crisis in our country any
worse at all. I didn't say that. I don't even
think I thought that in the moment, because I think
(07:02):
I blacked out and was just like so taken aback.
So at the end of that meeting, he told me,
out of the kindness of his heart, he would pay
for me to take a Dave Ramsey course. Long story short,
I cried a lot after this meeting and didn't ask
anyone to help me with anything that had to do
with finances until like maybe seven plus years later, which
(07:26):
means surprise. No, I did not take the Dave Ramsey course,
and I share this story not to say that he
was wrong in the sense that loan should be forgiven.
I don't think there's a right or wrong answer in
that space. There's a lot of opinions that can make
a lot of sense. You can make cases for multiple
beliefs around that large issue, an issue that I do
(07:49):
not have the education in the space to give insight
on this podcast. The student loan issue isn't the issue.
It sparked this whole idea for me, but it wasn't
the issue, the issue that I really want to talk about.
And I don't know if Dave Ramsey, if the course
would have helped me or not. That's not the point.
The point is there's a reason that I didn't ever
(08:09):
go to that course, and it's not because I hated
Dave Ramsey and didn't think he knew what he was
talking about. Back then, I didn't know anything about him.
If anything, I probably would have assumed that he was
really smart and had all the answers. But I didn't
go because I felt stupid. I felt stupid for asking
for help, and I would have rather suffered in silence,
(08:29):
which ended up in years of avoidance, than ever entered
back into a space where I knew shame was waiting
for me. And I never regretted my decision to go
to school or my decision to take out the loans.
That's never crossed my mind. But in those moments and
for a long time, I felt very hopeless and very defeated.
I felt very misunderstood, and to be honest, I felt
(08:50):
like a kid who was in trouble and I was
going to be punished, versus an adult who was trying
to learn how to best take care of myself. And
I know that this experience said I I had was
not universal to me, and that there are people all
over the place who ask for help and feel very similarly,
(09:11):
because people show up protecting themselves and their beliefs versus
really being open to helping with what somebody is asking for. Now,
at this time, I had just graduated a program that
centered around empowering others, where we celebrated those who ask
for help and also we got to see that through
helping them, they learn how to help themselves, and it
(09:33):
creates this cycle of everybody benefiting from us taking the
time to help them through and give them some insight
and resources in what they're looking for. And I've talked
about my experience, my poor experience with a doctor that
I used to see on here before. It was a
(09:53):
while ago, So I'm going to tell the story for
those of you who have not heard it. And I've
talked about my experience, my poor experience with a doctor
that I used to see on here before. It was
a while ago, So I'm going to tell the story
for those of you who have not heard it. But
(10:14):
I had a doctor for a long time that I
think my doctor I had from second grade till I
was like twenty eight. She retired. They set me up
with another doctor. She referred me to get some tests
done because she wanted to check on some things that
I had going on. And she ended up quitting or
leaving the practice, and so I never was able to
(10:35):
get those tests. I needed a referral for those tests.
So the new doctor they set me up with, when
I went to see them, I said, hey, can you
get me a referral for these tests? So and so
wanted me to get them done, but I didn't have
time to do it before she left, and he was
very dismissive and basically said I didn't need to get
those tests done and I didn't need to know if
(10:56):
I had those issues or not. Well, I can say
with confidence that I have grown since I was twenty
five and since I had that horrible meeting with that
human around my student loans, and my response this time
wasn't to ignore my needs and to ignore taking care
of myself and go into that little child who feels
like they're being punished and just kind of like wants
(11:17):
to hide. Instead, I found a new doctor and when
I asked her for a referral for the testing, she
actually had me come in and talk to her about
why it was that I was looking for those tests,
and then proceeded to tell me why it would be
beneficial to get those tests done and how and if
it would impact me if I didn't. Then she said,
(11:41):
if you want this information, regardless of all of that,
if you want this information, you deserve to have this
information about your body. And I know she realized how
important it was for me to hear that I'm not
even going to pretend like she didn't know what she
was doing. It is so important for people to say
things like that because of the countless messages we get
(12:03):
that say the opposite. And it was so important for
me to hear that the time and energy that it
would take out of her and other people who would
be performing these tests and talking to me about these
tests and explaining these tests, the time and energy that
it would take for that to be done was okay.
And if that was important to me, then I deserve
(12:26):
to be able to have those people use energy on me.
And I really want to say humans, especially women, and
especially I mean any kind of minority. I'm really driving
home the women in this, and again, all humans deserve
the right to understand what is going on with their body,
(12:46):
with their finances, with their car engines. Don't even get
me started on how I've been taking advantage of at
car shops, which speaks largely to my anxiety around even
the small things being done, like getting my oil changed.
But like I said, don't get me started on that.
We've been sold lies that tell us we can't understand
(13:07):
or we won't understand things, so we don't try, or
we believe that to be true versus giving us information
that allows us to ask questions, so we get the
opportunity to understand, so we get the opportunity to take
care of ourselves in a way that works for us,
not just in a way that benefits one group of
people or one person. Now, like I said, I came
(13:28):
to my office this morning to record a different podcast.
This week's episode was supposed to be on how to
disagree with Somebody, which spoiler alert that will be next
week's episode, which actually will be a good follow up
to this episode when it comes down to it. But
when I opened up my email and was taken to
this page, I just sat there for a second and
(13:50):
was just in shock over how crazy the reality of
how much I had paid versus borrowed was to me.
Before I even started working on this podcast. I started
texting people and I was like, oh my god, you'll
never believe this. I don't want to understand. I paid
over double what I borrowed, and keep in mind, a
chunk of that time there was no interest. So in
(14:12):
about five years I accrued enough interest on my loans
that they overdoubled while I was paying them the whole time,
and not like twenty dollars a month, a huge chunk
of money. But again, this podcast is not here to
just talk about the craziness of that system. This conversation
(14:33):
is not meant to write the wrongs of our government
system or offer solutions when it comes to student loan repayment,
because I honestly don't have any solutions. I still feel
inadequate when it comes to talking about money and finances
a lot of times and everything that comes along with that.
And although I'm learning and I'm less avoidant, I'm definitely
not educated enough on the ins and outs of our
(14:56):
financial system to offer helpful feedback or information and to
posture an opinion on student loan repayment and everything that
comes along with that on this podcast. If I ever
do do an episode on that, so help me God,
I will have somebody on here that is giving the
information versus me, because that's not my lane. I'm bringing
(15:19):
this up and this podcast was inspired because I just
really want us to be more kind to each other.
I want us to think twice before we agree to
help somebody as well. You know, we don't have to
help people, and being helpful or helping somebody is not
so much like this badge of honor that you get
(15:40):
to brag about. It's something that we do for the
greater good, while we also get to benefit from that. Sure,
but you don't have to help when people ask. And
if your first instinct is to protect yourself and your resources,
be it money, time, energy, etc. Then maybe you just
say no. I recently forgot to pay an annual fee
(16:02):
for something that resulted in me having to ask Patrick,
my fiance's dad future father in law, for help recently.
He's a tax accountant, and I told Patrick to tell
him that I was really sorry, and I promise I'm
not stupid. And we didn't take business classes in therapy school,
so I didn't know. And his response was, well, we
didn't learn how to be therapists and accounting school either.
(16:24):
And I tell you this little baby story because I've
never met somebody who has been able to actually bring
lasting positive change to themselves or others by the power
of shame, and I have met a lot of people
who have tried. Patrick's dad didn't say, well, why should
I have to help you fix this mistake and take
my time and energy for a problem you have because
(16:45):
you didn't go to business school. He didn't say that
he helped me and then said it's okay. And there's
going to be a huge ripple effect in small acts
like that. But there's a small benefit that I can
already see there is that when somebody shows up to
help and allows me to not know and allows me
(17:06):
to have made a mistake and allows me to feel
like I still am an adequate human even though that happened.
I'm also going to be more open to continuing to
learn in that space versus be avoidant like I was before, right,
And then I can share that information, And I mean,
you can just already see how that's going to continue
(17:26):
to move others in positive directions far from that one act.
And the reality is therapists work in a profession where
the cost of training to do our job is disproportionate
to what you actually make in doing that job. And
if you've ever tried to find a therapist who takes
insurance and wondered why it's so freaking hard to do so, well,
that ties into one of the reasons that's so difficult,
(17:49):
because it's hard to stay afloat. But I think that
we would really regret it as a culture if the
solution to that problem was, well, then people should stop
doing this job. If if you can't afford to go
to school and pay for that, then don't do it.
Because I know this is not a universal, unique issue
to therapy. This is an issue with our educational system.
(18:13):
So many things are involved in that. So I don't
think that is the issue here because I still want
people to be able to utilize the resource of student loans.
But what if as a collective culture, we were just
more kind to each other and less concerned with how others'
issues cause them more problems. I found this account on
(18:39):
TikTok a while ago, and I've talked about this video,
I know, on Fifth Thing with Amy Brown. I don't
know if I've talked about it on Unique Therapy, but
I found this account on TikTok a while ago of
this woman. Her name is cy Wakeman, and she's a speaker,
and she I think used to be a therapist, but
I'm not sure, works a lot of businesses and teams,
(19:02):
and she talks about how on the back of everybody's
badges that she works with, she writes, how can I help?
And when people come to her and tattle on what
other people in the organization are doing wrong, or how
everyone else is creating chaos. She says, Okay, I get it.
What did you do to help? And when they say,
what do you mean, I'm here telling you, she says, well,
(19:24):
so far you've created character assassination. You haven't been very
helpful to anybody. And she states that the only relevant question,
if we're all on the same team is what can
I do to help? Now? The problem these days is
it doesn't feel like many of us are on the
same team. Our problems are often seen as a result
of someone else not cooperating in what we think would
(19:46):
be best. But the question is best for who? Best?
For me? You the collector like, who best for what?
And I don't think the guy who I talk to
about my student loans was a bad person or is
a bad person. I really don't. I think he probably
is really smart, and he probably knows a lot of
stuff about things that I know nothing about that I
wish I would have had the ability to learn and hear.
(20:12):
But in that conversation where I had asked for help,
he showed up and appeared more concerned with what I
may possibly take from him and how that is wrong
and how he wanted to avoid that than anything else. Again,
I was naive. I didn't understand what I was doing
(20:33):
when I took out those loans, And heck, yeah, I
thought it would be really freaking cool if my student
loans vanish into thin air. I can take responsibility for
that all day long. And I'm not saying my student
loans should have vanished. What I am saying is if
our first instinct is to protect ourselves and our resources,
be at that time, money, etc. I want you to
(20:54):
know that you don't have to answer the call. Maybe
you just say no. When a functioning system as a
hopeless faulty, it's usually not because one person decided to
mess it up. It's because that system is somehow running
on dysfunction. It's not up to one of us to
fix it. In that case, it would be up to
(21:15):
the collective effort. And yeah, that might again take time, energy, money,
other resources are away from you or me. I guess
I just can't come up with an answer to why
that is so wrong or bad. We ask for help
for different reasons. Sometimes it's because we don't know how
to how to do something. Sometimes it's because we literally
can't do something alone. Sometimes it's because we messed up.
(21:38):
Sometimes it's just because it's a little nicer to not
do things alone, or maybe it's just easier, and sometimes
it's a combination. Anytime we do so, anytime we show up,
when we ask for help, we are choosing to be vulnerable.
And if every human who allows themselves to be vulnerable
enough to reach out for help is shamed for doing so,
eventually asking for help is going to be exp It's
(22:00):
going to be a thing of the past. And I
would be terrified to live in a world where no
one is doing that. So, despite what it might feel like,
this podcast, again, is not about my student loans. It's
about checking in with ourselves when it comes to how
we show up to our friends, our colleagues, our neighbors
in need. Let's not assume that they got there because
(22:23):
they are dumb, or selfish or irresponsible. Let's assume that
they got there because it's part of the human experience
to mess up. It's part of the human experience to
fail and to be in need of others. It's because
we were not created to exist in vacuums by ourselves,
and when we attempt to do that, wires get crossed
in major ways. When we live by and for ourselves,
(22:47):
things get really messy. Whether you want to admit that's
where the mess comes from or not. This doesn't mean
you should ignore your needs. I'm giving people full permission
to say I can't show up right now for you.
I got to take care of myself. I'm not saying
to ignore your needs. And this might be a surprise
(23:07):
to some of you guys out there, but there is
space between in ignoring my needs in only taking care
of my needs. And I believe there's a lot of
fear that's been clouding our ability to see that space
for a long time now. But I just wonder what
would shift if we started to really believe that there
was gain in our give. And I know we all
(23:28):
have experienced this, whether it feels true right now or not.
And hear me when I say, I'm not saying this
man should have paid my loans. I feel like I've
said that one hundred times now or the government, I
don't have the answer for that problem. I'm just challenging
us to be a little less worried about what we
would lose and more open to what we would gain
(23:51):
by lending hands to others, and if we aren't in
a space to sacrifice a resource, then that's okay. Can
move out of the way and let somebody else who
does have the ability to show up instead. So I
hope this episode, like always, is helpful in some way,
whether it's just you know you're in that student loans
(24:15):
are a headache space as well, or you're in that
space where you have also felt like a kid and
like you got in trouble for trying to take care
of yourself. If anything, I hope that the help in
this might be that you related to it and that
you're not alone in it. So I hope you guys
are having the day you need to have. As always,
(24:36):
you can email me Katherine at you Need Therapy podcast
dot com. You can follow us at You Need Therapy Podcast.
You can follow me at cat dot defata, you can
follow my practice at three Quarts Therapy, and you can
always reach out and send us a message. Like I said,
email us and if you want to, this is me
asking for your help. If you are in the space
(24:58):
to offer, you know, the thirty seconds of your time
to give us a little review of this podcast on
Apple That would be awesome. You can write a little comment,
maybe share with how it's been helpful for you, what
episodes you've loved, because when you do that, it actually
does create a ripple effect. It helps this podcast get
seen more and it helps other people trust the podcasts more.
(25:20):
So maybe they can take time to listen to it
so they can gain something as well. That thirty seconds
could give a lot to the world. You never know.
So I hope you guys are having the day you
need to have and I will be back with you
guys on Wednesday. Four Couch Shocks, the episode where I
answer questions that you send to me that you can
send through that email Katherine Unitherapy podcast dot com. Until then, Bye,
I started to realize that not being an expert isn't
a liability, it's a real gift. If we don't know
something about ourselves at this point in our life, it's
probably because it's uncomfortable to know. If you can die
before you die, then you can really live. There's a
wisdom at death's door. I thought I was insane. Yeah,
(00:31):
and I didn't know what to do because there was
no internet. I don't know, man, I'm like, I feel
like everything is hard. Hey, y'all, my name is Kat.
I'm a human first and a licensed therapist second. And
right now I'm inviting you into conversations that I hope
encourage you to become more curious and less judgmental about yourself, others,
(00:54):
and the world around you. Welcome to You Need Therapy.
Hi guys, and welcome to the new episode of You
Need Therapy podcast. My name is Kat, I am the host.
And quick reminder up top that although this podcast is
hosted by a therapist, it does not serve as a
replacement or a substitute for any actual mental health services. However,
(01:15):
we always hope that it has the ability to help you.
So today's a solo episode. It's just me, and we're
actually talking about something that I was not prepared to
talk about this morning. When I came to the office
to record, I had planned a whole other episode. But
I got to the office, opened up my email, saw
(01:37):
this email from the people that I used to pay
my stonent loans to. I ended up on that website,
started poking around and started feelings and feelings about just
student loans in general and my own experience with them.
And back in twenty twelve when I went to Gratz
(01:59):
schoo I started taking out student loans and took out
a lot of student loans over the course of three
years in order to pay for my master's degree. This
is a degree that would and does allow me to
offer quality and mental health care as a licensed therapist
to people in our community, my community, specifically in Tennessee,
(02:23):
and this is a field that at the time that
I went to school, the median salary in Tennessee was
about forty to forty five thousand dollars, So not a
get rich quick kind of goal was in mind at
the time for me at all. And full disclosure, I
want to be very clear about this. I had no
idea what I was getting myself into the concept of
(02:44):
student loans was very elusive to me, and I did
not grasp the gravity of what it would look like
to pay them back, but didn't understand interest. I just
I was kind of clueless, and like I said, I
didn't get into this field to get rich. I just
wanted to do something meaningful and helpful, and I wanted
to be a therapist. And back then, forty thousand dollars
(03:05):
seemed like a dream to me, like, Okay, I could
do that. I thought, this is the career I want,
and it requires a master's degree. This school is a
great school. And actually I first declined to go to
Vanderbilt because of how expensive it was. So I was
originally enrolled in planning to go to Virginia Tech. I
(03:28):
was going to be in their Master of a Marriage
and Family therapy program. They had a satellite campus in
Falls Church, Virginia, which was about an hour to forty
five minutes from some of my family where they live,
and it was a little less expensive to go there.
So I was getting ready to move in with my
grandma when I got a phone call from Vanderbilt offering
(03:49):
me an assistant ship, which I ended up being a
grad assistant for a research class in one of the
departments in the undergraduate where I was in school, and
that paid for a good little chunk of my tuition,
and it ended up making it a little less expensive
to go to Vanderbilt than it would have been to
(04:10):
go to Virginia tack. So I was being a little
as money conscious as I could when it came to
choosing a really quality school to go get an education.
Fast forward to right after graduation, I met with somebody
who I thought would helped me plan how to best
(04:30):
pay off my loans. I didn't understand how loans work,
and I still don't fully understand them, but I had
a lot of questions, and I wanted to be informed,
and I wanted to take care of myself well and
get ahead of this. I wanted to know how much
I should be paying each month, and there are so
many options different payment plans, and I didn't understand the language,
(04:52):
and so I had some questions around that. And then
I was contemplating should I work for one of these
agencies that are funded by the government, that if I
worked there for a certain amount of time, granted you're
going to be making a little to no money, and
you're going to be very overworked. But at the end
of a certain amount of time, sometimes they would forgive
your loans or some of the loans had these forgiveness clauses,
(05:14):
and I wanted to understand those and how those worked
and if I could take advantage of them. I just
wanted some information. I thought this person was going to
help me. Well, the person who you can probably guess
they're demographic by what you're about to hear that they said.
The person that I thought was going to help me
proceeded to ask me why I thought it was appropriate
(05:36):
that they should have to pay back a loan that
I took out and couldn't afford to pay back. And
I was a little confused by his question. Keep in mind,
I'm twenty five, and taxes is not a required class
in K through. I was about to say K through eighteen,
K through twelve when I am eighteen. It's not required
(05:58):
in college, it wasn't required in grads. We didn't get
a lot of education on a lot of things that
we really should I get some education on. And so well,
I think, I said, I think the government pays them
or takes on the debt or maybe they just like
go away, and again very naive. I didn't understand it,
but I was there to try to understand things. But
(06:19):
I was quickly brought up to speed on how taxpayers
dollars fund the government and hardworking people who don't take
out student loans shouldn't be responsible for paying back someone
else's poor financial decision. It was my responsibility to take
responsibility for my poor financial decisions and figure out how
to remedy those on my own. Crystal clear on that messaging,
(06:41):
because you know, our country doesn't benefit from mental health
care professionals, and if only people that could pay for
graduate school on their own did so, it definitely wouldn't
affect the already insufficient amount of people in this field
or make the mental health crisis in our country any
worse at all. I didn't say that. I don't even
think I thought that in the moment, because I think
(07:02):
I blacked out and was just like so taken aback.
So at the end of that meeting, he told me,
out of the kindness of his heart, he would pay
for me to take a Dave Ramsey course. Long story short,
I cried a lot after this meeting and didn't ask
anyone to help me with anything that had to do
with finances until like maybe seven plus years later, which
(07:26):
means surprise. No, I did not take the Dave Ramsey course,
and I share this story not to say that he
was wrong in the sense that loan should be forgiven.
I don't think there's a right or wrong answer in
that space. There's a lot of opinions that can make
a lot of sense. You can make cases for multiple
beliefs around that large issue, an issue that I do
(07:49):
not have the education in the space to give insight
on this podcast. The student loan issue isn't the issue.
It sparked this whole idea for me, but it wasn't
the issue, the issue that I really want to talk about.
And I don't know if Dave Ramsey, if the course
would have helped me or not. That's not the point.
The point is there's a reason that I didn't ever
(08:09):
go to that course, and it's not because I hated
Dave Ramsey and didn't think he knew what he was
talking about. Back then, I didn't know anything about him.
If anything, I probably would have assumed that he was
really smart and had all the answers. But I didn't
go because I felt stupid. I felt stupid for asking
for help, and I would have rather suffered in silence,
(08:29):
which ended up in years of avoidance, than ever entered
back into a space where I knew shame was waiting
for me. And I never regretted my decision to go
to school or my decision to take out the loans.
That's never crossed my mind. But in those moments and
for a long time, I felt very hopeless and very defeated.
I felt very misunderstood, and to be honest, I felt
(08:50):
like a kid who was in trouble and I was
going to be punished, versus an adult who was trying
to learn how to best take care of myself. And
I know that this experience said I I had was
not universal to me, and that there are people all
over the place who ask for help and feel very similarly,
(09:11):
because people show up protecting themselves and their beliefs versus
really being open to helping with what somebody is asking for. Now,
at this time, I had just graduated a program that
centered around empowering others, where we celebrated those who ask
for help and also we got to see that through
helping them, they learn how to help themselves, and it
(09:33):
creates this cycle of everybody benefiting from us taking the
time to help them through and give them some insight
and resources in what they're looking for. And I've talked
about my experience, my poor experience with a doctor that
I used to see on here before. It was a
(09:53):
while ago, So I'm going to tell the story for
those of you who have not heard it. And I've
talked about my experience, my poor experience with a doctor
that I used to see on here before. It was
a while ago, So I'm going to tell the story
for those of you who have not heard it. But
(10:14):
I had a doctor for a long time that I
think my doctor I had from second grade till I
was like twenty eight. She retired. They set me up
with another doctor. She referred me to get some tests
done because she wanted to check on some things that
I had going on. And she ended up quitting or
leaving the practice, and so I never was able to
(10:35):
get those tests. I needed a referral for those tests.
So the new doctor they set me up with, when
I went to see them, I said, hey, can you
get me a referral for these tests? So and so
wanted me to get them done, but I didn't have
time to do it before she left, and he was
very dismissive and basically said I didn't need to get
those tests done and I didn't need to know if
(10:56):
I had those issues or not. Well, I can say
with confidence that I have grown since I was twenty
five and since I had that horrible meeting with that
human around my student loans, and my response this time
wasn't to ignore my needs and to ignore taking care
of myself and go into that little child who feels
like they're being punished and just kind of like wants
(11:17):
to hide. Instead, I found a new doctor and when
I asked her for a referral for the testing, she
actually had me come in and talk to her about
why it was that I was looking for those tests,
and then proceeded to tell me why it would be
beneficial to get those tests done and how and if
it would impact me if I didn't. Then she said,
(11:41):
if you want this information, regardless of all of that,
if you want this information, you deserve to have this
information about your body. And I know she realized how
important it was for me to hear that I'm not
even going to pretend like she didn't know what she
was doing. It is so important for people to say
things like that because of the countless messages we get
(12:03):
that say the opposite. And it was so important for
me to hear that the time and energy that it
would take out of her and other people who would
be performing these tests and talking to me about these
tests and explaining these tests, the time and energy that
it would take for that to be done was okay.
And if that was important to me, then I deserve
(12:26):
to be able to have those people use energy on me.
And I really want to say humans, especially women, and
especially I mean any kind of minority. I'm really driving
home the women in this, and again, all humans deserve
the right to understand what is going on with their body,
(12:46):
with their finances, with their car engines. Don't even get
me started on how I've been taking advantage of at
car shops, which speaks largely to my anxiety around even
the small things being done, like getting my oil changed.
But like I said, don't get me started on that.
We've been sold lies that tell us we can't understand
(13:07):
or we won't understand things, so we don't try, or
we believe that to be true versus giving us information
that allows us to ask questions, so we get the
opportunity to understand, so we get the opportunity to take
care of ourselves in a way that works for us,
not just in a way that benefits one group of
people or one person. Now, like I said, I came
(13:28):
to my office this morning to record a different podcast.
This week's episode was supposed to be on how to
disagree with Somebody, which spoiler alert that will be next
week's episode, which actually will be a good follow up
to this episode when it comes down to it. But
when I opened up my email and was taken to
this page, I just sat there for a second and
(13:50):
was just in shock over how crazy the reality of
how much I had paid versus borrowed was to me.
Before I even started working on this podcast. I started
texting people and I was like, oh my god, you'll
never believe this. I don't want to understand. I paid
over double what I borrowed, and keep in mind, a
chunk of that time there was no interest. So in
(14:12):
about five years I accrued enough interest on my loans
that they overdoubled while I was paying them the whole time,
and not like twenty dollars a month, a huge chunk
of money. But again, this podcast is not here to
just talk about the craziness of that system. This conversation
(14:33):
is not meant to write the wrongs of our government
system or offer solutions when it comes to student loan repayment,
because I honestly don't have any solutions. I still feel
inadequate when it comes to talking about money and finances
a lot of times and everything that comes along with that.
And although I'm learning and I'm less avoidant, I'm definitely
not educated enough on the ins and outs of our
(14:56):
financial system to offer helpful feedback or information and to
posture an opinion on student loan repayment and everything that
comes along with that on this podcast. If I ever
do do an episode on that, so help me God,
I will have somebody on here that is giving the
information versus me, because that's not my lane. I'm bringing
(15:19):
this up and this podcast was inspired because I just
really want us to be more kind to each other.
I want us to think twice before we agree to
help somebody as well. You know, we don't have to
help people, and being helpful or helping somebody is not
so much like this badge of honor that you get
(15:40):
to brag about. It's something that we do for the
greater good, while we also get to benefit from that. Sure,
but you don't have to help when people ask. And
if your first instinct is to protect yourself and your resources,
be it money, time, energy, etc. Then maybe you just
say no. I recently forgot to pay an annual fee
(16:02):
for something that resulted in me having to ask Patrick,
my fiance's dad future father in law, for help recently.
He's a tax accountant, and I told Patrick to tell
him that I was really sorry, and I promise I'm
not stupid. And we didn't take business classes in therapy school,
so I didn't know. And his response was, well, we
didn't learn how to be therapists and accounting school either.
(16:24):
And I tell you this little baby story because I've
never met somebody who has been able to actually bring
lasting positive change to themselves or others by the power
of shame, and I have met a lot of people
who have tried. Patrick's dad didn't say, well, why should
I have to help you fix this mistake and take
my time and energy for a problem you have because
(16:45):
you didn't go to business school. He didn't say that
he helped me and then said it's okay. And there's
going to be a huge ripple effect in small acts
like that. But there's a small benefit that I can
already see there is that when somebody shows up to
help and allows me to not know and allows me
(17:06):
to have made a mistake and allows me to feel
like I still am an adequate human even though that happened.
I'm also going to be more open to continuing to
learn in that space versus be avoidant like I was before, right,
And then I can share that information, And I mean,
you can just already see how that's going to continue
(17:26):
to move others in positive directions far from that one act.
And the reality is therapists work in a profession where
the cost of training to do our job is disproportionate
to what you actually make in doing that job. And
if you've ever tried to find a therapist who takes
insurance and wondered why it's so freaking hard to do so, well,
that ties into one of the reasons that's so difficult,
(17:49):
because it's hard to stay afloat. But I think that
we would really regret it as a culture if the
solution to that problem was, well, then people should stop
doing this job. If if you can't afford to go
to school and pay for that, then don't do it.
Because I know this is not a universal, unique issue
to therapy. This is an issue with our educational system.
(18:13):
So many things are involved in that. So I don't
think that is the issue here because I still want
people to be able to utilize the resource of student loans.
But what if as a collective culture, we were just
more kind to each other and less concerned with how others'
issues cause them more problems. I found this account on
(18:39):
TikTok a while ago, and I've talked about this video,
I know, on Fifth Thing with Amy Brown. I don't
know if I've talked about it on Unique Therapy, but
I found this account on TikTok a while ago of
this woman. Her name is cy Wakeman, and she's a speaker,
and she I think used to be a therapist, but
I'm not sure, works a lot of businesses and teams,
(19:02):
and she talks about how on the back of everybody's
badges that she works with, she writes, how can I help?
And when people come to her and tattle on what
other people in the organization are doing wrong, or how
everyone else is creating chaos. She says, Okay, I get it.
What did you do to help? And when they say,
what do you mean, I'm here telling you, she says, well,
(19:24):
so far you've created character assassination. You haven't been very
helpful to anybody. And she states that the only relevant question,
if we're all on the same team is what can
I do to help? Now? The problem these days is
it doesn't feel like many of us are on the
same team. Our problems are often seen as a result
of someone else not cooperating in what we think would
(19:46):
be best. But the question is best for who? Best?
For me? You the collector like, who best for what?
And I don't think the guy who I talk to
about my student loans was a bad person or is
a bad person. I really don't. I think he probably
is really smart, and he probably knows a lot of
stuff about things that I know nothing about that I
wish I would have had the ability to learn and hear.
(20:12):
But in that conversation where I had asked for help,
he showed up and appeared more concerned with what I
may possibly take from him and how that is wrong
and how he wanted to avoid that than anything else. Again,
I was naive. I didn't understand what I was doing
(20:33):
when I took out those loans, And heck, yeah, I
thought it would be really freaking cool if my student
loans vanish into thin air. I can take responsibility for
that all day long. And I'm not saying my student
loans should have vanished. What I am saying is if
our first instinct is to protect ourselves and our resources,
be at that time, money, etc. I want you to
(20:54):
know that you don't have to answer the call. Maybe
you just say no. When a functioning system as a
hopeless faulty, it's usually not because one person decided to
mess it up. It's because that system is somehow running
on dysfunction. It's not up to one of us to
fix it. In that case, it would be up to
(21:15):
the collective effort. And yeah, that might again take time, energy, money,
other resources are away from you or me. I guess
I just can't come up with an answer to why
that is so wrong or bad. We ask for help
for different reasons. Sometimes it's because we don't know how
to how to do something. Sometimes it's because we literally
can't do something alone. Sometimes it's because we messed up.
(21:38):
Sometimes it's just because it's a little nicer to not
do things alone, or maybe it's just easier, and sometimes
it's a combination. Anytime we do so, anytime we show up,
when we ask for help, we are choosing to be vulnerable.
And if every human who allows themselves to be vulnerable
enough to reach out for help is shamed for doing so,
eventually asking for help is going to be exp It's
(22:00):
going to be a thing of the past. And I
would be terrified to live in a world where no
one is doing that. So, despite what it might feel like,
this podcast, again, is not about my student loans. It's
about checking in with ourselves when it comes to how
we show up to our friends, our colleagues, our neighbors
in need. Let's not assume that they got there because
(22:23):
they are dumb, or selfish or irresponsible. Let's assume that
they got there because it's part of the human experience
to mess up. It's part of the human experience to
fail and to be in need of others. It's because
we were not created to exist in vacuums by ourselves,
and when we attempt to do that, wires get crossed
in major ways. When we live by and for ourselves,
(22:47):
things get really messy. Whether you want to admit that's
where the mess comes from or not. This doesn't mean
you should ignore your needs. I'm giving people full permission
to say I can't show up right now for you.
I got to take care of myself. I'm not saying
to ignore your needs. And this might be a surprise
(23:07):
to some of you guys out there, but there is
space between in ignoring my needs in only taking care
of my needs. And I believe there's a lot of
fear that's been clouding our ability to see that space
for a long time now. But I just wonder what
would shift if we started to really believe that there
was gain in our give. And I know we all
(23:28):
have experienced this, whether it feels true right now or not.
And hear me when I say, I'm not saying this
man should have paid my loans. I feel like I've
said that one hundred times now or the government, I
don't have the answer for that problem. I'm just challenging
us to be a little less worried about what we
would lose and more open to what we would gain
(23:51):
by lending hands to others, and if we aren't in
a space to sacrifice a resource, then that's okay. Can
move out of the way and let somebody else who
does have the ability to show up instead. So I
hope this episode, like always, is helpful in some way,
whether it's just you know you're in that student loans
(24:15):
are a headache space as well, or you're in that
space where you have also felt like a kid and
like you got in trouble for trying to take care
of yourself. If anything, I hope that the help in
this might be that you related to it and that
you're not alone in it. So I hope you guys
are having the day you need to have. As always,
(24:36):
you can email me Katherine at you Need Therapy podcast
dot com. You can follow us at You Need Therapy Podcast.
You can follow me at cat dot defata, you can
follow my practice at three Quarts Therapy, and you can
always reach out and send us a message. Like I said,
email us and if you want to, this is me
asking for your help. If you are in the space
(24:58):
to offer, you know, the thirty seconds of your time
to give us a little review of this podcast on
Apple That would be awesome. You can write a little comment,
maybe share with how it's been helpful for you, what
episodes you've loved, because when you do that, it actually
does create a ripple effect. It helps this podcast get
seen more and it helps other people trust the podcasts more.
(25:20):
So maybe they can take time to listen to it
so they can gain something as well. That thirty seconds
could give a lot to the world. You never know.
So I hope you guys are having the day you
need to have and I will be back with you
guys on Wednesday. Four Couch Shocks, the episode where I
answer questions that you send to me that you can
send through that email Katherine Unitherapy podcast dot com. Until then, Bye,
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