Depressed and Sh*t

When losing a job CAN ACTUALLY BE A GOOD THING?
Meet George (he/him). George has anxiety.  Deep, intense anxiety.  For many reasons.  Sprinting from gig to gig as an orchestral violinist, with no clear job security (classic!).  Constantly hustling to secure the next opportunity. Balancing this identity as a gay man in a heteronormative country and heteronormative industry. Here's a story on how the pandemic helped someone...

Approximately 17% of all people will self harm in their lifetime (based on analysis across forty countries) -- and only HALF of those folks seek help of any kind.  Considering those numbers, this topic is worth talking about, yes??? Meet Destiny Jones (she/her), fresh out of high school, college right around the corner, carrying with her a story on cutting, moving through emotional pain, and how and why she asked for help.
Lear...

So. Listen. There's a form of OCD that shows NO external, physical signs of OCD. None. Nada. Ya know -- the way that most of us typically think of OCD. And many folks go DECADES of their life without receiving a diagnosis or having any name for their struggle. Meet Connor Kelly-Eiding (she/her), whose daily experience includes Pure-O.  As she moves through grad school towards therapist licensure. Largely thanks to ERP - Exposu...

Gender + grief + saying bye to a therapist.
Joseph Baca (he/she/they) identifies as a queer, non-binary, demiboy.  Unsure of any of those terms?  Joseph is more than thrilled to explain.  Was this thrill + level of comfort with their queerness always the case? Not exactly. Not in recent political climates of yore... After losing a close friend to suicide and reluctantly parting ties with his therapist, Joseph is looking at the ...

On generalized anxiety + cognitive behavioral therapy.  So like... how would you describe your relationship to your therapist (or mentor or coach)?  BFF-ish?  Best-friend-adjacent? That's how Natalie Rodriguez (she/her) would describe hers.  9 years.  The length of time Natalie has managed sleep-destroying generalized anxiety.  Also the length of time Natalie has spent building a trusting and supportive relationship with her t...

A mother, a daughter, and a fiancé.  When it comes to fluctuating family units, first generation Peruvian-American Ariana Vergara-Johnson (she/her/ella) has been through it.  Months before her scheduled wedding to partner Natalie, Ariana receives two extreme tidbits of news: A) coronavirus and B) her mother's sudden shift and subsequent disapproval of Ariana's orientation and pending nuptials.  Oh hell no, to say the leas...

Has the pandemic wreaked absolute havoc on your career? On your possibly already hazy path in life? 
Purpose - and having a clear internal sense of it - is a critical factor in happiness and in climbing out of a depressive episode. And yet here we are, tail-end of the pandemic, with many folks still underemployed or in a new field- grieving a life lost.  Meet Sid Al-Thumali (he/him) - a young theater maker on the brink of leavi...

Depression treatment CAN take many forms far beyond the Western medicine/Big Pharma milieu ...
Curious about Ayahuasca - the traditional healing medicine containing psychoactive hallucinogenic properties? Meet Spencer (he/him) who dishes on the good, the bad, and the ugly (puking - a lot of puking) of his multiyear shaman-guided Ayahuasca trips -- and whether or not these jaunts yielded longterm & lasting relief from his c...

Putting the pain into the music.
Ever thought what would happen if you just told people straight up that you're not doing good? That you're battling depression? That you hate yourself some days?
For DEVMO, that social experiment was quite the goddamn rollercoaster.
Today, Lea sits down with performer DEVMO (she/her) to discuss her recent EP drop TEARS - and how the mental health-heavy messages of the songs wer...

Have you ever experienced thoughts of suicide? Have you ever had someone you love confide in you with such feelings and just have no idea what to say or how to help?
Meet Reginald Bellamy (he/him) who pulls back the curtain to keep it very real on his own experiences with depression, suicidal ideation, and the loss of an uncle to suicide -- along with some thoughts on how you can best support someone in his position.
TW: s...

The music world grieves a beloved jazz hall.  Nostalgia and a commitment to community abound.
Musicians, actors, producers, stage managers, designers, the list goes on - emerging from an unprecedented year of joblessness. But as performers get back to work, what about the venues that got lost along the way? Drummer Anthony Fung joins Lea to share his stories and memories of the bluewhale - a banging music mecca in the center of...

Got issues with the idea of taking psychiatric drugs? Ya know - happy pills? Welcome to the collective bullshit psyche.
Meet Emily Rutan (she/her), an actor and sommelier who had been living for years bouncing back and forth between stretches of feeling-good-as-hell days to stretches of depressive days - until one day (literally mere months ago) a diagnosis of Bipolar II Disorder and a prescription for lithium changed everythin...

You're telling me a therapist could help with my physical issues?   Goddamn yes. 
Hear the story of Tony Alvizo (he/him), who, at age 26, began experiencing severe and chronic back pain - with an unclear origin.  Months filled with doctors, acupuncturists, chiropractics, and like follow, with anxiety and depression steadily mounting - until one day, the decision arrives to broaden his approach, and see a therapist.
Co...

Burnout + hustle culture.  As bedroom becomes office and office becomes bedroom, how are you doing with that whoooooole work/life balance thing?  Or maybe bedroom was never office but 'office' demands have utterly skyrocketed over the last 12 months.  Tune in to hear the story of Christie Bahna (she/her), a San Francisco dwelling employment lawyer who, after some years moving through depression, discovered a momentous amo...

How many times have you *humorously* described yourself as a workaholic — only to immediately feel an intense, super fun dread from the truth behind it?  Productivity.  Side hustle.  Monetization.  The list of stress-inducing buzzwords dances on.  Hear the story of Ryan Stevens (he/they), a self-employed writer who broke out of a cycle of workaholism, capitalism, and limited access to mental health support.  A trifecta of modern da...

Good trips. Bad trips. Spiritual trips. Future trips?
Hot take. Psychedelics could be a significant alternative for treatment of depression.  The thing is - this is not new information, but the criminalization of hallucinogens in the 60s certainly didn't help their case.  Hear the story of Jarrett Harris (he/him) who, after an unsuccessful run on SSRI's a.ka. antidepressants, decided to research and explore therapeuti...

Just how down were you to talk mental health when you were 18-ish?  Not much?  Not at all?  Cool, we have that in common.  (If your answer was very down, uh, what is your secret?)  Meet Kaushik Mishra (he/him) - an international undergrad by way of Nepal, who, upon finding himself at Howard University, finally discovered the benefits of admitting to and talking about his shitty feelings and struggles -- as well as finally labeling ...

Was college a good (okay, or even maybe just decent) time for you?  New friends, interesting thoughts, maybe a space of your own away from certain folks?  Imagine having all that fully compromised halfway through.  Cue: the story of Dani Glenn (she/they), one liberal arts undergrad who was on spring break 3,000 miles away from campus when the news of full shutdowns broke.  Ups, downs, all arounds.
Connect on Instagram at @depre...

Turning shit times into opportunity.  Armando Salas (he/him) has experienced a ton of change.  Nine months of furlough to an eventual layoff, scooting an entire roster of saxophone students to online lessons.  But like, fuck, make lemons out of lemonade.  Armando, producer and host of Mandovibes Podcast, shares with Lea how he pulled himself together enough to redirect his new free time towards pursuing a dawning interest: sound th...