November 30, 2023 • 48 mins
In this episode of "The Middle with Jeremy Hobson," we're asking how you tend to your mental health needs - and if you have access to care in your community. Jeremy is joined by Reno, Nevada Mayor Hillary Schieve, president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Jason Kander, Missouri’s former secretary of state and an army veteran. The Middle's house DJ Tolliver joins as well, plus callers from around the country.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson along here with Tolliver.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hi, Tolliver, Jeremy. I've been in therapy for seven years.
I've never gotten a lie on account.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Now you get to talk about it. Listen to it
for the next hour. I'm going to say a few
words to you. You tell me if they stress you
out or cheer you up. Holiday season, cheer me up,
social media, stress, cyber Monday, a lot of stress, pandemic
cheer me up.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Nos.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yeah, everyone would probably be stressed out by that. Yeah,
this is a stressful time of year for many people.
Is a perfect time for us to focus on something
that is a very serious issue all year long, which
is our mental health. Here in the United States, the
number of people experiencing mental health problems like depression, anxiety,
and addiction has been steadily rising since the start of
the COVID pandemic. So this hour we are asking listeners,
(00:56):
how do you tend to your mental health and do
you have access to the care you need? Our number
is eight four four four Middle. That is eight four
four four six four three three five three. Now, of
course not everyone who calls makes it onto the show,
but thanks for leaving voicemails, we do listen. Here are
some great ones from last week's episode, when we asked
(01:17):
do you care about a company's political stances?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Hi, my name is Corey, I'm from Montana.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
My name is Nancy Shane. I am from Lincoln, Nebraska.
Speaker 5 (01:27):
My name is Calvin and calling from Beautiful Excelsior, Minnesota.
Speaker 6 (01:30):
My name is Anita Robertson.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
I live in Blackstone, Massachusetts. I'm very concerned about the
politics of the companies I buy from.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I'm a bartender at a country western bar.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Gay bars are a humongous market.
Speaker 7 (01:42):
For bud Light, and it's ridiculous that people got that
Bendata shape for this.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
I love listening to the music of Richard Wagner. Wagner
was very antisemitic. Of course he's dead now, but I
still enjoy his music. Sometimes we just have to get
over it.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Talk is really cheap, and what a company puts in
their marketing isn't super relevant to me. I don't really
care about what a company has to say about its values.
I want to see what they do well.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Thanks to everyone who called in so this hour again,
our question is how do you tend to your mental health?
And do you have access to the care you need
in your community. Let's meet our panel guest joining us
from knpr's studio in Reno, Nevada, Mayor Hillary Shiv, who's
also president of the US Conference of Mayor's Mayor, Welcome
to the middle.
Speaker 8 (02:33):
Well, thank you for having me, Jeremy, it.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Is great to have you. And from Kansas City. We're
joined by Jason Candor, former Secretary of State in Missouri,
an Army veteran, and author. His most recent book is
Invisible Storm, a soldier's memoir of politics and PTSD. Jason Candor,
great to have you here as well.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Good to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Well, before we get to calls, let me ask both
of you a few questions. Mayor v As we said,
you're the president of the US Conference of Mayors. You
recently got together with the other mayors in your conference
in Washington, d c. And called mental illness America's number
one crisis. Tell me why do you think that is?
Why is it the number one crisis?
Speaker 9 (03:13):
Sure?
Speaker 8 (03:13):
First of all, Jason, so nice to kind of meet you. Finally,
I'm a huge fan. Just so you know, I followed
you for years very much, and yeah, just respect you greatly, greatly, huge,
huge fan.
Speaker 9 (03:27):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 8 (03:29):
I've been saying this actually for a long time, and
I think, you know, we all know that there's a
massive stigma when it comes to mental health. And it's
not just a national crisis, it's a global crisis. But
it is really really tragic that, you know, we're allowing
people to die on our streets, you know, just the
(03:52):
way that our healthcare system works.
Speaker 9 (03:54):
It's it's a true tragedy.
Speaker 8 (03:57):
And I don't think people understand the magnitude of mental
health and how to affect cities and communities, and we
have been failing for a very very long time. So
I took mayors on the hill and we were, you know,
speaking to as many people as we possibly could about
this crisis. This was happening long before the pandemic. I
(04:18):
hear a lot of people saying, oh, the pandemic, the pandemic,
This was happening.
Speaker 9 (04:22):
Long before that.
Speaker 8 (04:23):
But we should never have to have our loved ones
arrested to get mental health help, or we should not
be using our jails as mental health hospitals. I have
a personal experience with mental health, you know, on so
many levels. I lost my brother, my sister, and my
brother in law all within a couple of months of
each other. And I was struggling with my own mental
(04:46):
health from massive grief, and I could not get help.
If your mayor can't get help, who can get help?
And so I had to do something incredibly different in
my city. I also watched my brother struggle for years
and years, and I had to call the police on
him to get.
Speaker 9 (05:01):
Him into the system, which to me was a joke.
Speaker 8 (05:05):
And so we have a long, long way to go,
but mayors are finally tackling it, and we're saying that
the system is incredibly broken, has been for a long time.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Jason Kenda, you have a pretty amazing story as well.
People listening in the state of Missouri probably know who
you are. You ran for Senate in twenty sixteen, narrowly
lost that race to Republican Roy Blunt. You ran for
mayor of Kansas City in twenty eighteen. You were widely
expected to win that race, but dropped out before the
election to seek treatment for depression and PTSD. As we mentioned,
(05:37):
you're a veteran of Afghanistan. You know, tell us more
about your story and do you think that mental illness
is the number one crisis facing America.
Speaker 10 (05:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (05:48):
Well, first of all, may Or Schevity, thanks for saying
all the nice things. I appreciate your leadership on this
issue for sure.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (05:56):
I'd say it's probably tied with guns, you know, but
I know that's not what this episode's about.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
I mean, connected in some ways, probably very connected.
Speaker 11 (06:05):
I mean, you know, if you do something my guns,
you're going to do something about a lot of suicides.
So absolutely my own story, yeah, I mean you pretty
well covered it. The very short version is just that
I'm a guy who in twenty eighteen went from getting
ready to run for president to feeling like, oh, you know,
something has been really wrong for quite a few years,
(06:27):
and it seems to be getting wronger up in my brain.
And it was untreated, undiagnosed post traumatic stress disorder from
my time in Afghanistan. But I hadn't acknowledged that. So
I said, well, you know what I'm gonna do. I'm
gonna go home to Kansas City. I'm going to stop
being on airplanes all the time. I'm going to go
back to my hometown. I'm going to become mayor, and
that's going to fill up the hole inside me. But
(06:48):
you know, spoiler alert, that didn't work. So after ninety
nine days of that campaign, I decided that what I
really needed to do was to go to the VA
and get help. And I'm glad that I did that.
I did that because my suicidal ideations were becoming frequent
enough to scare me and I have a family and
I wanted to be around for him. And now I
would say ironically, but I don't think it's ironic. Actually,
(07:10):
now that I'm in a post traumatic growth phase of
my life, I've actually made a far greater impact on
the world than a positive way over the last five years,
not just with my own family, but on the world
as a whole, since I got to help much more
so than I did in the ten years that I
was in elected office. So I'm a big proponent of
dealing with your stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
How much more difficult, though, was that for you to
do that in such a public way? I mean, you
were all over the news when you had to go
and seek help.
Speaker 11 (07:37):
You know, it was difficult, And look, I mean I
had gone a lot of years convincing myself that there's
no way I could have PTSD. A big part of
that was because the army had told me what it
tells every soldier, which is what you're doing is no
big deal, and that's important. You got to tell soldiers
that because if not, we won't go do frightening and
dangerous soldier things. The problem is they don't when you leave,
(07:59):
say like actually it was kind of a big deal.
So that was one part of it. But there was
also an element, for sure of I had a lot
of people, including President Obama, suggesting that maybe I could
be commander in chief, and I had an inkling that
perhaps people wouldn't be down with the idea of a
commander in chief who had violent nightmares every night, hadn't
had a good night's sleep in ten years, that kind
(08:21):
of thing. So yeah, I was incentivized to hide it
from myself because I really couldn't tell it to the
rest of the world. So it was not not easy,
but it was absolutely the right choice.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Let me ask each of you the question that we're
asking our listeners this hour, which is how do you
tend to your mental health? Now? Mayor Chiv you talked
about how difficult it was for you. By the way,
let me give the phone number to people eight four
four four medal. It's eight four four four six four
three three five three. Mayor Schiv. You talked about how
difficult it was for you in the beginning as you
were dealing with the grief of loss of three family members.
(08:53):
How about now, well you know, and.
Speaker 8 (08:59):
You talked about how did the holidays make you feel?
Speaker 12 (09:02):
Right?
Speaker 8 (09:03):
I think, especially for those of us who have lost
loved ones, the holidays are incredibly difficult. And you know,
during the pandemic, one of the things that I did
as I took carez Act dollars and I got subscriptions
to every single person in my community for talk Space
(09:23):
because I wanted to make sure that they had access.
Because I think there's also a big misnomer out there
that if you have health insurance you can get access,
or that you can get it paid for. It's incredibly different,
difficult even if you have health insurance. But there are
some staggering numbers out right now. And what was interesting
about us doing that as a city is that half
(09:45):
of the people that did talk Space out of five thousand,
had never sought therapy before. So it tells you how
many people in my community a were struggling. We also
saw this very young demographic from sixteen to twenty four,
and right now we're seeing numbers of forty nine percent
of ages eighteen to twenty four are saying they're struggling
(10:06):
with PTSD and anxiety. And so when we look at
those numbers, you know how many of them will self
medicate use those kinds of things, and so it's incredibly challenging.
I would say this too for me. You know, I
had to put myself on a content diet. It was
the best thing I ever did for my mental health.
(10:27):
I think technology can be a wonderful thing, but it
can also be an incredibly damaged, damaging thing. I also
always say I never knew how fat, ugly and stupid
I was until I got on Facebook.
Speaker 9 (10:38):
But my point.
Speaker 8 (10:40):
Is is that that helped me dramatically deal with my
own mental health. And I just appreciate Jason so much
and being so vulnerable because, especially in politics, that is
a very difficult thing to admit.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Well, and we're going to get I'm sure, to social
media as we go forward. We're going to be taking
your calls at eight four four or for middle Tolliver,
you know, one in eight US adults now takes an
antidepressant one in five has recently received some kind of
mental health care. That's according to the CDC.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, Jere, I mean one reason more people are seeking
treatment is because of those who have fought against the
stigma of mental illness, like former First Lady Rosland Carter,
who was just laid to rest. Here she is in
nineteen ninety eight talking with c Span about the unwillingness
of the press to cover mental health issues when she
was First Lady.
Speaker 7 (11:25):
One day I was walking in the Downflow dance as
flow in the White House. I met this woman who
was well the press people. I said, you know, ever
cover my no, but ever covers my meeting symbol. She said,
mince Carda, mental health is just not a sexy issue,
and that.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I didn't like Rosalind Carter, mental health advocate for many
decades after her time in the White House.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
And by the way, Tolliver Judy Woodruff of the PBS
News Hour actually spoke at Roslind Carter's fu uneral. She
is going to be on the Middle next week, so
stay tuned for that, and stay tuned right now. Don't
go anywhere. We'll be right back after this break. This
is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you're just tuning,
(12:13):
in the Middle is a national call in show. We're
focused on elevating voices from the middle geographically, politically, and philosophically,
or maybe you just want to meet in the middle.
I'm joined by Reno, Nevada mayor, Hillary Chivy, president of
the US Conference of Mayors, and Jason Candor, author of
Invisible Storm, a soldier's memoir of politics and PTSD. He's
with us from Kansas City, Missouri. We're asking you, how
(12:35):
do you tend to your mental health and do you
have access to the care you need? Tolliver, what is
that number again?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four sixty four three three five three, And.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I'm going to go to the phones right now. Harper
is joining us from Houston, Texas. Harper, welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 10 (12:52):
Go ahead, Hi, thanks for picking me out.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
All yeah, go ahead? Tell us how do you attend
to your mental health and do you have the access
to the care you need?
Speaker 10 (13:06):
I feel like recently I've been put into a really
valuable position with my mental health. About a year ago,
I was struggling pretty heavily with substance abuse and self pharma,
suicidal ideation. But I got into some legal trouble which
(13:30):
was actually kind of really important to my recovery with
like all that, and I got fit into AA and
some other programs that have been really helpful with me
(13:50):
moving forward with my life. And I'm in a better
place now. So I would say because of all that
I asked and I do have the access I need.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
That's great. That's great to hear. So being able to
speak about especially the substance abuse with others in organizations
like AA, that's been very helpful to you. Oh, definitely great, Harper,
thank you so much for that call. Let me go
to the mayor on that mayor. You know, AA is
something that exists all over this country and every city
(14:21):
in town probably around this country has something like that.
How important are those organizations in terms of people who
are seeking help?
Speaker 9 (14:30):
Yeah, well, they're incredibly important.
Speaker 8 (14:32):
I mean any organization that is willing to step into
the field of mental health or addiction. I mean, we
need everyone sort of working together on this. But you know,
cities need to be much more comprehensive when it comes
to treatment and accessibility. One of the things that I
really believe is that every single school in America needs
(14:54):
access to mental health right on their campus, so any
student can walk right in and get it.
Speaker 9 (15:00):
And then also.
Speaker 8 (15:02):
The other thing is what's challenging with getting people services,
especially in government, it can take an incredibly long time.
And for me, I've been working on getting ready to
open and it's taken seven years now, but I'm so
glad that we're finally opening it. But it's basically a
twenty four to seven er. And think about that, there
is not I don't know of any twenty four to
(15:24):
seven ers. Whenever it comes to mental health, where.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
You can eat R is just for mental health?
Speaker 8 (15:28):
You're saying, yeah, just for mental health, because I often
say that hospitals are where they've fixed broken bones, not
broken brains, and they're not equipped to handling a lot
of mental health and addiction issues. Matter of fact, a
lot of times we see that people are turned away
or let's say they're put on a seventy two hour
hold because you know they're having suicidal ideations, whatever that
(15:52):
looks like. And a lot of times they're turning them
away and they're at their most vulnerable state. I mean,
we basically call that patient dumping, and so that's why
cities need to understand it's important to have that infrastructure
in place, especially like with my brother, I didn't know
where to take him, what to do with him whenever
he was having a full blown, you know, mental health breakdown,
(16:12):
and so we have to give people the tools, and
so in my city, basically what we're doing is taking
every single provider and nonprofit and government agency putting them
under one roof, so all the services are accessible to
everyone at the same time.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Jason Candor, in terms of people who are dealing with PTSD,
of which there are very very many, are there are
are the organizations that help people talk that talk through
that around in the way that alcoholics anonymous is.
Speaker 11 (16:47):
Yeah. I mean, look, they're trying to therapists all over
this country. I mean, one of the problems we have
is that as a matter of policy nationwide, with regard
to the way we regulate the world of insurance, we
don't to a full enough extent treat physical health and
mental health is the same. We really out to just
treat them both as health. We can do a better
(17:07):
job of that. That said, yeah, look there's all sorts
of trauma therapists all over the place that do all
sorts of different kinds of trauma therapy. And what I
would tell anybody who's listening to this, who is thinking
that maybe trauma is something they need to deal with,
I would tell them, one, if you think maybe trauma
is something you need to deal with, then trauma is
something you need to deal with, And two that you
(17:30):
should go try a therapist, and if that therapist doesn't
work for you, you should try the next one, and you
should continue to try over and over and over again
because it will make a difference. Because post traumatic growth
is a real thing. This stuff really works, and the
problem is is that we don't see enough depictions of that.
I appreciate very much what you're doing right now. By
having us here, you're depicting the idea that this kind
(17:53):
of thing can help. But if you think about the
way particularly PTSD is portrayed in the news, but especially
when it comes to like on screen, I refer to
it as PTSD porn. It's mostly voyeurism. It is mostly
most pictures of PTSD are a dude who looks like me,
who did the kind of job I did in Afghanistan,
(18:13):
except he's beating his wife and robbing a bank and
then shooting up and that's what people think PTSD is.
But the truth is is that everywhere you go, like
Aliens and the movie Men in Black, you are surrounded
by people who have been to trauma therapy and it
no longer disrupts their life. But it's like this big secret.
And so the answer is yes, they're resources all around you,
and you need to reach out for them because it
(18:35):
will change your life for the better and allow you
to live your life.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Mayor Sheevy, I actually have a question for you. My
mother he struggled with to against the Sophrinia since I
was like three years old. He's in a very decrepit
state run facility in Illinois, in your city. Is it
just would you say this issue is just a matter
of resources, No, I.
Speaker 8 (18:54):
Mean they're so this is so complex, incredibly complex. One
of the things that I would say, and why we're seeing,
you know, such high numbers of homelessness and addiction is
the infrastructure has not been put in place. A lot
of people think that there, you know, people living out
on the streets, that there is some place to go.
There is no place to take anyone and we don't
(19:16):
have the mental health capacity to really treat this to
the magnitude that we need it, especially if you are
schizophrenic some of you know, some of the most difficult
illnesses that we do see in mental health. And I
just honestly think that it has been such a stigma
(19:37):
no one really wants to talk about it or address it.
That's why I was talking about Jason being so incredibly vulnerable.
You're starting to see more people come out and talk
about it, you know, like Fetterman and others. But I
think especially in government, it has been something they don't
want to touch because it is perceived as maybe a
(19:59):
week Right.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Let's go to another call. Robert is joining us from
North Carolina. Robert, Welcome to the middle Go.
Speaker 13 (20:06):
Ahead another I'm a relatively new listener. I really do
appreciate you guys show when to say that first thank you,
But I know you guys, you're welcome. You guys spoke
about medications earlier, but I think there needs to be
to me, that's the five hundred pound gorilla in the
room is medications. I think you guys, said one of
(20:30):
eight Americans. I had researched it before, and I found
it was closer to twenty percent of Americans. Of course
that was counting also adderall and Riddling, you know, for
ADHD as well. But the fact is is there's millions
and millions of this that are on these medications, and
the long term effects is I think a special area
(20:51):
of concern because the way I understand is the pharmaceutical
corporations they do really short term studies to say hey,
this this helps people, you know, and they're of course
in it for the profit. I have two really close
friends that have been on different types of anti depressants
close to thirty years and they're not really sure if
they're helping, and it's it's just to me, it's just,
(21:15):
you know, there's no there's no studies on how these
medications are affecting our brains and bodies, you know, after
taking it for decades and decades.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Robert, thank you for that call. And let me go
to Jason Candor on that, because you know, it's not
just the medications, although I want to ask your thoughts
on that. It's not just the medications. I've been researching
about some of these apps that people are using now
for their mental health that there's not really a lot
of good evidence about whether those work it not or not,
especially if they're not combined with actual and actual therapists.
(21:45):
But what are your thoughts on medications?
Speaker 11 (21:48):
Well, my thought on all of this, whether there's APS,
medication or whatever. First off, caveat, I'm not a clinician, right,
I'm just in vet with PTSD, who happened to already
be kind of famous when he told the world that
he had PTSD. That is my entire set of qualifications,
and have been to a fair amount of therapy. And
what I would say is, go to a therapist, go
(22:08):
to and then and if the therapist feels that you
should go to the type of therapists a psychiatrists who
obvious get psychiatrists, psychologists backwards, whatever, the ones who can
prescribe medicine will then do that too. And if your
therapist feels like, hey, this app might be good for you,
or this guided meditation might be good for you, or
exercise might be good for you, or this medication, well,
(22:29):
then give that a shot. And if it's not working,
then go to a different doctor. And because the one
thing that Roberts said that I would push back on slightly,
I'm not like out here. I don't work for a
pharmaceutical company. It's not my job to push this stuff.
What I would say is that if if your friends
who have been on an antidepressant for a long time
(22:51):
and have struggled with severe depression are still alive, then
it's been doing some decent stuff for their brain. If
now now look every medication as side effects. So and
again I'm not a clinician, but these are all things
that you figure out as you go along, and your
job is to try and figure out what makes you
feel better, and it's okay to use that as the
standard what makes you feel better. I don't usually like
(23:13):
in my book. The one thing I didn't get into
was the question of medication because I didn't really need
somebody who read my book and felt like it might
inspire them to go get help to then meaure themselves
against whether I did or did not end up taking medication,
because it doesn't matter, because it's not a contest. The
point is to figure out a way to get past
(23:34):
your trauma and to have doctors help you do that.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Let's go to Jesse, who is calling from Springfield, Illinois. Jesse,
Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 14 (23:44):
Ki, how are you doing well?
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So how do you tend to your mental health?
Speaker 15 (23:50):
Well, luckily, I've been able to find a great therapist
that I go to a couple of days a month,
kind of every other week at this point, and then
I do take any depressions.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
And it's worked for you.
Speaker 15 (24:05):
So it's working. It's getting there. Some days are better
than others. But it's definitely trial and error O my life.
I've had to try different things, and right now this
seems to be the best practice.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
How difficult was it for you to actually find a therapist,
because that can be a challenge.
Speaker 14 (24:28):
It is.
Speaker 15 (24:30):
I was lucky enough to find one after a couple
of tries reaching out getting someone available. I've had friends
or I have friends that now are on like a
six month hold to try to get even in their
first first appointment, because there's a lot of people that
are so booked or backed up on even just trying
(24:51):
to get first appointments.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Jesse, thank you so much for your call. Mayor CHIV.
You've talked about how difficult it is to find the
CA that you need.
Speaker 9 (25:01):
Mm hmm it is.
Speaker 8 (25:02):
It's like I said here, I was struggling with my
own when I called therapist. I didn't tell them I
was the mayor obviously, for a couple of reasons. I
didn't want to be treated differently, but I also.
Speaker 9 (25:15):
It was a.
Speaker 8 (25:16):
Stigma point, and I think, you know what Jason said,
there are so many different ways in which they handle it,
and for a lot of people, medication may not work.
It never worked for my sister or my brother. And
then I have friends that do art therapy, that exercise extensively,
and so you have to keep at trying the things
(25:37):
that possibly work for you and not give up hope
some people, you know, that's the other thing. Some people
will do really well on medication and then all of
a sudden say I don't need to take this anymore,
and then we see where there can be disastrous outcomes
because of that. But there are a lot of people
that don't want to take medication, and that's okay, depending
on what really works for you.
Speaker 9 (25:58):
But access is really really hard.
Speaker 8 (26:00):
But that's another thing that mayors are addressing, you know,
because we really are at ground zero.
Speaker 9 (26:07):
Of this issue.
Speaker 8 (26:07):
We're seeing it in our jails and our ers at
alarming rates, and so we're really working on the accessibility
like we've never seen before. But we also need a
lot of help, you know, from the federal government to
understand that cities are at ground zero, and we need
help from our governors because a lot of what people
(26:28):
don't understand. The money to treat this literally never comes
to cities, and so we have to be really innovative
and creative how we get people access.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Well, let's go to Egan in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Hi, Egan,
Welcome to the.
Speaker 13 (26:43):
Middle good Eving.
Speaker 16 (26:48):
Listening to this conversation, I wanted to drop in and
say that I have survived mental illness, specifically schizophrenia in
my twenties, when that's fifty years ago, and I wondered
if this national conversation can turn to the idea of
(27:08):
mental health volunteers, people who have survived mental illness, who
have found a life affirming mental health, and who are
able now to contribute to some hopefulness that people who
are struggling with their mental health top to help them.
And that's all I wanted to say is has anyone
(27:30):
ever even thought of some kind of a volunteer agency
of people who have survived it?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Egan? Thank you, Jason Candor, that is something that you're
in a way doing with your organization.
Speaker 11 (27:44):
Yeah, thanks for the segue to a plug of Veterans
Community Project. I'm the president National Expansion. We are a
band of veterans who work with other veterans to fight
veterans homelessness and veteran suicide and we set up campuses
around the country. So yes, in that way. Certainly in
the way that myself and most of the leadership are
(28:05):
just a bunch of people with PTSD, so it's a
pretty interesting place to work. But I would say that
at one, I think it's a great idea, but two,
I don't think it needs to necessarily be formal for
people like Gigan to start taking action. You know, the
thing about dispelling a stigma is that if you have
(28:26):
struggled with something, or think you might be struggling with something,
you don't need hundreds of thousands of social media followers
or a platform or an office to make up difference
in other people's lives. We all live very public lives
at some extent or another at this point, and even
if you're not even on social media, if you've got
like five coworkers or two neighbors, if you are outward
(28:48):
with them, if you are just transparent with them about
what you have either struggled with in the past or
struggling with now. A couple of things are going to happen. One,
you are going to relieve yourself, as I found out
of the burden put on the Egan suit in Egan's case,
or for me to put on the Jason Kandor suit
and put on a certain display or a certain show
and just be able to be yourself and be able
to deal with your stuff. But for the other people,
(29:10):
what you do is you may very well give them
a permission slip to get help. You really cannot underestimate
how many people just you saying out loud, like if
you leave work and you say, like, I'm going to
go see my therapist, you might save one of your coworkers'
lives because you just normalized it for them. And I
wish that everybody who had ever been public about dealing
(29:32):
with their own mental health had the incredible privilege that
I've had, which is to have people on a regular
basis come up and say, what you did save my life.
You don't have to be well known for that to happen.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Tolliver, we've been talking about mental health and politics a bit,
but more and more of these days people in many industries,
from music to sports, or speaking publicly about their own
mental health challenges.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, Olympic gold medalists, the owne Biles actually withdrew from
the twenty twenty Tokyo Olympics to tend to her mental health.
Speaker 12 (29:57):
I say put mental health first because if you don't,
then you're not going to enjoy your sport and you're
not going to succeed as much as you want to.
So it's okay sometimes to even set out the big
conpetitions to focus on yourself because it shows how strong
of a competitor in person that you really are, rather
than just battle through it.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
And yeah, she's made a dramatic comeback. Simone Bile shout
out to her. She says that being intentional about our
time has helped her prepare to compete next year in
the Olympics in Paris.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
And we will be right back after this break on
the middle. This is the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. We're
talking about how to tend to our mental health and
whether there are adequate resources. Our number is eight four
four four Middle. You can also reach out to us
online at listen toothmddle dot com. Our guests are Reno,
Nevada mayor, Hillary Shievy, who's president of the US Conference
(30:46):
of Mayors, and Jason Candor, Missouri's former Secretary of State,
an army veteran author of Invisible Storm, a soldier's memoir
of politics, and PTSD. Let's get to the phones, and
Colleen is joining us from White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Hi Colleen,
go ahead, Hi er.
Speaker 17 (31:05):
I just wanted to thank you for this great conversation
and also do a shout out to peer support groups
that help so many thousands of people around the United States.
I I'm a forty three year member of a group
called Emotions Anonymous. We have hundreds of meetings around the
country and internationally, and they're run by peers, others who
(31:29):
have who have suffered from the same issues and challenges
and who are interested in just sharing their journey and
roughly following the twelve steps that are derived from Alcoholics Anonymous.
But that's a good way to have sort of a
facilitated conversation and also take advantage of people who have
(31:50):
been there to have informal discussions and encouragement. That's that's
saved my.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Life really, Colleen, thank you so much for that call,
and let's go to Matt in Colorado. Matt, Welcome to
the Middle, go ahead.
Speaker 14 (32:04):
Hi, thanks for having me. First of all, I want
to say, I think this program is really important because
for someone like me, I was raised in a far
right household and didn't have a chance to find the
middle until I was an adult. And that's like part
of my mental health journey, because mental health was super
(32:25):
stigmatized in my household, and therapy was a thing that
was antithetical to religion, which is what I was raised
to find healing in. And it turns out as an
adult was years of therapy when I was like in
a real crisis. And I think one thing that's important
(32:48):
for people to know is that different mental health issues
need different kinds of therapy. And so for me, with
my OCD journey, I found out that talk therapy wasn't
necessarily the thing that I know and I need to
do like cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a very different
kind of therapy than talk therapy, And because it was
(33:10):
so stigmatized, I just had no idea that all these
different avenues for help existed, and so.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
I don't know.
Speaker 14 (33:19):
I think it's really important for people to know that
there's all sorts of different kinds of therapy, and more
we stigmatize it, the more it mystifies how helpful it
can actually be to explore different kinds of therapy and
receive different kinds of help.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Matt, thank you for that call, Mayor Shev. I just
want to go to something that Matt said a moment
ago about sort of finding the middle and the politics
of it. You're a non partisan mayor. Do you think
that the sort of polarized politics, especially of the last
many years, have contributed to this crisis?
Speaker 9 (33:50):
Oh?
Speaker 8 (33:51):
Absolutely, I can't even begin to tell you. I mean,
you have both sides fighting with each other. You have
a government that is incredible fragmented. Matter of fact, now
you have both sides fighting with each other. You know,
if you're a Democrat, you're fighting with Democrats. If you're
a Republican, you're fighting with other Republicans. I mean, there
is a lot of discourse in this country over that,
(34:13):
and we're hearing it more and more. A lot of
people have said to me, Hey, I'm becoming a nonpartisan
because I feel like it's better for my mental health,
and this isn't I think most people do feel that
this isn't about parties, this is about people, This is
about lives.
Speaker 9 (34:28):
So I think he is spot on. I would also
say this.
Speaker 8 (34:32):
Too, it's important to understand the kinds of mental health
issues you're dealing with, Like there's chemical depression, there's also
situational depression, and so there are different ways to treat it.
Speaker 9 (34:44):
Like the caller just said, he's exactly right.
Speaker 8 (34:47):
And peer support groups we're finding are so beneficial amongst
teens and young adults, so there is hope out there.
But I would say absolutely, I think a lot of
people have struggled with their mental health because of all politics.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
You know, I don't like to make promises I can't keep,
and I did promise that we were going to talk
about social media. So let me go to Jason Kandor
with this question. I mean, we talked about how politics
has played into this. What about social media? I read
now I got to find this statistic, but ninety five
percent of teens between the age of thirteen and seventeen
say they use a social media platform, and a third
(35:22):
of those say that they're scrolling, posting, or otherwise engage
with social media almost constantly. How and of course that's
not just teens, it's everyone at this point, how much
do you think social media has played into lack of
mental health in this country?
Speaker 11 (35:39):
I think it's obviously a huge part of it, right,
I mean, because the promise of social media initially was
that it was going to create a greater sense of community,
and there have been ways in which the case I mean,
if you just look at the way it is moved forward,
things like activism, in a lot of ways that has
created a greater sense of community. But you could also
argue a greater sense of polarization. But sadly, what it
(36:00):
also creates is a real sense of isolation because you
are getting this substitute for being around human beings, but
it's really not the same at all, and it's bland.
And the other thing is, like I'm sure the mayor
are going to attest to this too, is that when
you are a public figure, you particularly notice that when
something flows through people's fingertips, they have much less of
(36:23):
a filter than when it flows over their lips. And
that applies and you don't have to be a public
figure to know that. You need to have literally stated
your opinion on social media about anything ever, and that
obviously urts it. But what I really think all of
this goes back to is a great sense of loneliness
in this country right now, and I think that has
(36:44):
a lot to do with the polarization. And if I
were to tract that back to any individual thing, it
would have to be the fact that Americans just don't
have a whole lot in common anymore. I mean, look,
this is the longest consecutive period in American history without
some form of mandatory survey. And I'm not suggesting that
we bring back the draft, but I am saying that
(37:04):
until just a few generations ago, it was quite normal
that when you went to work in the morning, any
person you were going to run into got the same
news as you last night. There was a one in
three chance they got it from the same newscaster. And
if you brought up a major event like World War
Two or Vietnam, there was a decent chance that you
(37:26):
could start a conversation with that person, particularly if it
was a couple of men with well, where did you serve?
And now, like it's kind of hard to figure out
what Americans share in common other than we all love
Taylor Swift, and one in three of us will watch
the Super Bowl. So it's like, yeah, we're losing that
sense of community and that's leading to a large, great
(37:47):
sense of sadness and loneliness.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yeah, let's go to Sasha, who's in Las Vegas. Hi, Sasha,
Welcome to the middle Hi, Hi, go ahead. Tell us.
How do you tend to your mental health or do
you think you have the resources you need in your
community to do so.
Speaker 15 (38:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 18 (38:04):
So I'm actually a medical student and currently I'm my
psychiatry rotation, So I kind of got a very good
look at and understanding what the resources we have in
our community are. And I will say I feel like
it's pretty difficult to access resources where I am. A
lot of people I see, Yeah, it's unfortunate because a
(38:28):
lot of people I see in the hospital, they have
a lot of comorbid medical conditions. But the real problem,
the root of the issue a lot of the time
is something untreated that's related to their mental health, whether
that's depression or something more severe like schizophrenia that can
make it really difficult for them to remember to take
(38:49):
their medication for high blood pressure or high cholesterol, and
the One interesting thing I learned is actually that's the
number one cause of depth for people with schizophonia is
actually a heart disease, because the bigger issue is that
they're not able to take care of their physical health
because their mental health is not getting treated.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Sasha, thank you for that call, and let me get
another one in here. Erin is in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Hi, Erin,
go ahead, welcome to the middle.
Speaker 14 (39:20):
Hi.
Speaker 6 (39:22):
You know, I wanted to just call in for a
couple of reasons. I'm a therapist, and I worked with folks,
especially recovering from PTSD for about thirty years, but a
range of different mental health issues, and I appreciate both
those your guest contributions and their courage and determination to
talk about this broadly. I also want to highlight a
(39:46):
couple of ways it can be easier for people to
find good care. One is the organization NAMI, the National
Alliance for the Mentally Ill, which is essentially the organization
that one of your previous guests asked, like, is there
such a thing where folks who have these experiences and
family members provide support for people who are experiencing mental
(40:09):
health struggles or a family member who's having a mental
health struggle, which is an enormous resource, and they do
a huge amount of advocacy as well. And there are
you know, therapist directories online. People can talk to their
friends about how to find someone that works with what
they work with. But a lot of folks get really
discouraged and it's very painful to go therapist to therapists,
(40:32):
so I want to encourage people to look for a
good fit before they go and start opening up things
that are very painful.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Well, and Aaron, let me just ask you briefly, since
you are a therapist, have you noticed an uptick in
people that need your help in the last few years.
Speaker 6 (40:52):
I can't even tell you how much of an uptick.
And it began in twenty sixteen when a large portion
of our society felt an enormous amount of fear and
a sense of the unknown. I've worked in conflict and
post conflict zones where government is extremely skeletal, and I
(41:14):
started seeing for the first time things I had seen many,
many times, but never in my own country. It was
quite shocking to see the ways that when your sense
of your civilization is destabilized, your sense of being able
to kind of predict and know tomorrow is going to
be kind of like today goes away, and that is
(41:35):
profoundly essential to our sense of mental health and our
sense of well being.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yeah, Aaron, thank you very much for that call. Mayor Shiv.
I want to ask you a question, which is given
your own personal and family history, when you are walking
down the street, let's say, in Reno or in any
city in this country, and you encounter someone who is
dealing with mental illness, maybe even in a way that
makes you feel unsafe, which many people in this country
(42:03):
do these days, what do you do or what do
you think? Are you more sympathetic to that person, or
are you afraid for you for your own safety, or
how do you how do you handle that?
Speaker 8 (42:13):
First of all, Jeremy, the first caller, she was from
Las Vegas, so she's in the state of Nevada.
Speaker 9 (42:18):
I wanted to point, oh, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 8 (42:19):
Nevada actually ranks one of the last on the list
when it comes to mental health and so, you know,
thank God for her getting into this field, because that's
the other thing is we're seeing such a massive shortage
of the workforce when it comes to mental health care workers.
Speaker 9 (42:37):
So kudos to her, but I.
Speaker 8 (42:38):
Also wanted to point that out in Nevada, and so
it's been incredibly difficult. You know, Listen, I think that
you have to. I come from a long history of
watching my brother and my sister struggle with mental health.
So I understand it whenever I see it. And it's
amazing to me how many people we allow to die
(43:01):
in our streets because of mental illness, like I said,
whether it's schizophrenia or addiction or those types of things.
And so I think that's where, you know, we've lost
a sense of compassion for others. And to understand that,
you know, I'll never forget when my sister was dying
of cancer, she said to me, Hillary, I would much
(43:23):
rather have cancer than depression. And that's how debilitating it was.
So if we can all step outside ourselves and actually
put yourself in someone else's shoes, you might walk with
a little bit more compassion. But I see it all
too often that we just allow people to be, you know,
laying on the ground screaming. And let's say this man
is saying, hey, I have appendicitis.
Speaker 9 (43:46):
What do we do?
Speaker 8 (43:46):
We take him to the hospital, we get him surgery,
we get him fixed. What if someone's laying on the
ground screaming he's got schizophrenia, you know what we do,
We leave them there. But in my community, we're taking
massive efforts to change all that.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Let's go to care in Pittsburgh. Hi, Caroline, Welcome to
the middle.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Hi. So what I called about is PTSD treatment and
how it's so very different for instance, veterans. I know
one of your guests is a veteran, you know, as
compared to women dealing with domestic abuse, which is what
I had to deal with. And the thing is that
most people think, you know, that EMDR is the solution
(44:24):
for PTSD, which is what I thought, and I found
that it was actually quite harmful for me, and I
had very bad side effects. And in my own subsequent research,
I found that like, for instance, Judith Hermann has, who
is a contemporary of the author of The Body Keeps
the Score, has come out with an entire treatment for
(44:46):
women dealing with PTSD coming from domestic abuse or rape
or other things of that nature. And I just wanted
to clarify that what I you for my own mental health.
And I found that talk therapy completely failed me, and
(45:07):
five therapists between myself and my husband completely failed us,
my former husband.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
And Caroline, let me take your let me take your
your comment. We've got it. Let me take it to
Jason Candor, who of course focuses on PTSD. Jason Candor,
It's it's not a one size fits all situation, obviously. No.
Speaker 11 (45:30):
Look, I mean, I'll just tell my own story. I mean,
I went to the VA where they have, you know,
two really main evidence based therapies that they do, uh
and and then a third is E M, d R.
And the first two that I did. I did something
called prolonged exposure therapy, which is basically just sitting in
the really bad stuff and talking about it until it
(45:50):
doesn't have the same kind of grip on you. It's
it's quite unpleasant, but for me, quite effective. And then
cognitive processing therapy, which is more like going to grand
at school. It's like sitting there and talking about what
you're feeling, what your symptoms are, and then having your
therapists stand up in front of a whiteboard and kind
of teach you about why your brain is doing what
it's doing so that you can better understand it. And
(46:12):
those are very effective for me. My therapist told me
that had those two not work. He probably would try
the NBR. But there's a whole bunch of other stuff.
I mean, my wife, I gave her the great gift
of secondary PTSD, which people can google. That's a whole
that's a real thing. And you know, she did somatic
experience therapy which worked very well for her. There's a
whole bunch of different stuff out there. But what I
(46:33):
would want to emphasize, actually, based on what the color
was saying, is that I think this is really important,
is that there's a whole bunch of different kinds of trauma.
And it kind of this is going to sound insensitive,
but I don't mean it this way. It kind of
doesn't matter what kind of trauma you experienced. Because Nina
contest and I went to war, and she was a
victim of domestic violence. They're both trauma. And we have
(46:55):
a tendency to try to gain perspective over our own
trauma by thinking about other people's trauma. But the thing is,
our brain doesn't care because our brain didn't experience their trauma.
And one of the things that I feel is my
job in this world of talking about this is to
make sure that we have done a lot to knock
down the stigma for veterans to get help for PTSD,
(47:19):
that people understand that it's not a veteran thing, it's
an anybody thing.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
Well, I just want to point out one thing, which
is that we did mention suicide in this show, and
so I just want to give out the number nine
eight eight if you're really in crisis, that's the new
number that you can call for help. I want to
thank my guests so much. Jason Candor, a politician, army veteran,
podcast host of Majority fifty four and an author. And
Hillary chiv the mayor of Reno, Nevada, President of the
(47:46):
US Conference of Mayors. Thanks so much to you both.
Thank you, thanks for having us, and thanks to Kate
npr in Reno for hosting The Mayor Taliver. We have
an amazing show coming up next week.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Yes, we are talking about democracy. We're asking listeners if
they think democracy itself is at stake in next year's election.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
And the great Judy Woodruff of PBS News Hour is
going to be here. And by the way, Tolliver, as
you know, we have a weekly newsletter. It is free.
People can sign up for updates at Listen toothemiddle dot com.
Speaker 11 (48:15):
We also have a podcast.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
It's available in partnership with iHeart Podcasts on the iheartapp
or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
The Middle is brought to you by Long Nook Media,
distributed by Illinois Public Media and Urbana Illinois and produced
by Joe Anne Jennings, John Barth, Harrison Patino, Danny Alexander,
and Charlie Little. Our technical director is Jason Croft. Our
theme music was composed by Andrew Haig. Thanks to KAYNPR.
Of course, thanks to Nashville Public Radio, iHeartMedia and the
more than three hundred and seventy public radio stations that
(48:40):
are making it possible for people across the country to
listen to the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. Talk to you
next week.
Welcome to the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson along here with Tolliver.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hi, Tolliver, Jeremy. I've been in therapy for seven years.
I've never gotten a lie on account.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Now you get to talk about it. Listen to it
for the next hour. I'm going to say a few
words to you. You tell me if they stress you
out or cheer you up. Holiday season, cheer me up,
social media, stress, cyber Monday, a lot of stress, pandemic
cheer me up.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Nos.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yeah, everyone would probably be stressed out by that. Yeah,
this is a stressful time of year for many people.
Is a perfect time for us to focus on something
that is a very serious issue all year long, which
is our mental health. Here in the United States, the
number of people experiencing mental health problems like depression, anxiety,
and addiction has been steadily rising since the start of
the COVID pandemic. So this hour we are asking listeners,
(00:56):
how do you tend to your mental health and do
you have access to the care you need? Our number
is eight four four four Middle. That is eight four
four four six four three three five three. Now, of
course not everyone who calls makes it onto the show,
but thanks for leaving voicemails, we do listen. Here are
some great ones from last week's episode, when we asked
(01:17):
do you care about a company's political stances?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Hi, my name is Corey, I'm from Montana.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
My name is Nancy Shane. I am from Lincoln, Nebraska.
Speaker 5 (01:27):
My name is Calvin and calling from Beautiful Excelsior, Minnesota.
Speaker 6 (01:30):
My name is Anita Robertson.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
I live in Blackstone, Massachusetts. I'm very concerned about the
politics of the companies I buy from.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I'm a bartender at a country western bar.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Gay bars are a humongous market.
Speaker 7 (01:42):
For bud Light, and it's ridiculous that people got that
Bendata shape for this.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
I love listening to the music of Richard Wagner. Wagner
was very antisemitic. Of course he's dead now, but I
still enjoy his music. Sometimes we just have to get
over it.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Talk is really cheap, and what a company puts in
their marketing isn't super relevant to me. I don't really
care about what a company has to say about its values.
I want to see what they do well.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Thanks to everyone who called in so this hour again,
our question is how do you tend to your mental health?
And do you have access to the care you need
in your community. Let's meet our panel guest joining us
from knpr's studio in Reno, Nevada, Mayor Hillary Shiv, who's
also president of the US Conference of Mayor's Mayor, Welcome
to the middle.
Speaker 8 (02:33):
Well, thank you for having me, Jeremy, it.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Is great to have you. And from Kansas City. We're
joined by Jason Candor, former Secretary of State in Missouri,
an Army veteran, and author. His most recent book is
Invisible Storm, a soldier's memoir of politics and PTSD. Jason Candor,
great to have you here as well.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Good to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Well, before we get to calls, let me ask both
of you a few questions. Mayor v As we said,
you're the president of the US Conference of Mayors. You
recently got together with the other mayors in your conference
in Washington, d c. And called mental illness America's number
one crisis. Tell me why do you think that is?
Why is it the number one crisis?
Speaker 9 (03:13):
Sure?
Speaker 8 (03:13):
First of all, Jason, so nice to kind of meet you. Finally,
I'm a huge fan. Just so you know, I followed
you for years very much, and yeah, just respect you greatly, greatly, huge,
huge fan.
Speaker 9 (03:27):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 8 (03:29):
I've been saying this actually for a long time, and
I think, you know, we all know that there's a
massive stigma when it comes to mental health. And it's
not just a national crisis, it's a global crisis. But
it is really really tragic that, you know, we're allowing
people to die on our streets, you know, just the
(03:52):
way that our healthcare system works.
Speaker 9 (03:54):
It's it's a true tragedy.
Speaker 8 (03:57):
And I don't think people understand the magnitude of mental
health and how to affect cities and communities, and we
have been failing for a very very long time. So
I took mayors on the hill and we were, you know,
speaking to as many people as we possibly could about
this crisis. This was happening long before the pandemic. I
(04:18):
hear a lot of people saying, oh, the pandemic, the pandemic,
This was happening.
Speaker 9 (04:22):
Long before that.
Speaker 8 (04:23):
But we should never have to have our loved ones
arrested to get mental health help, or we should not
be using our jails as mental health hospitals. I have
a personal experience with mental health, you know, on so
many levels. I lost my brother, my sister, and my
brother in law all within a couple of months of
each other. And I was struggling with my own mental
(04:46):
health from massive grief, and I could not get help.
If your mayor can't get help, who can get help?
And so I had to do something incredibly different in
my city. I also watched my brother struggle for years
and years, and I had to call the police on
him to get.
Speaker 9 (05:01):
Him into the system, which to me was a joke.
Speaker 8 (05:05):
And so we have a long, long way to go,
but mayors are finally tackling it, and we're saying that
the system is incredibly broken, has been for a long time.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Jason Kenda, you have a pretty amazing story as well.
People listening in the state of Missouri probably know who
you are. You ran for Senate in twenty sixteen, narrowly
lost that race to Republican Roy Blunt. You ran for
mayor of Kansas City in twenty eighteen. You were widely
expected to win that race, but dropped out before the
election to seek treatment for depression and PTSD. As we mentioned,
(05:37):
you're a veteran of Afghanistan. You know, tell us more
about your story and do you think that mental illness
is the number one crisis facing America.
Speaker 10 (05:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (05:48):
Well, first of all, may Or Schevity, thanks for saying
all the nice things. I appreciate your leadership on this
issue for sure.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (05:56):
I'd say it's probably tied with guns, you know, but
I know that's not what this episode's about.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
I mean, connected in some ways, probably very connected.
Speaker 11 (06:05):
I mean, you know, if you do something my guns,
you're going to do something about a lot of suicides.
So absolutely my own story, yeah, I mean you pretty
well covered it. The very short version is just that
I'm a guy who in twenty eighteen went from getting
ready to run for president to feeling like, oh, you know,
something has been really wrong for quite a few years,
(06:27):
and it seems to be getting wronger up in my brain.
And it was untreated, undiagnosed post traumatic stress disorder from
my time in Afghanistan. But I hadn't acknowledged that. So
I said, well, you know what I'm gonna do. I'm
gonna go home to Kansas City. I'm going to stop
being on airplanes all the time. I'm going to go
back to my hometown. I'm going to become mayor, and
that's going to fill up the hole inside me. But
(06:48):
you know, spoiler alert, that didn't work. So after ninety
nine days of that campaign, I decided that what I
really needed to do was to go to the VA
and get help. And I'm glad that I did that.
I did that because my suicidal ideations were becoming frequent
enough to scare me and I have a family and
I wanted to be around for him. And now I
would say ironically, but I don't think it's ironic. Actually,
(07:10):
now that I'm in a post traumatic growth phase of
my life, I've actually made a far greater impact on
the world than a positive way over the last five years,
not just with my own family, but on the world
as a whole, since I got to help much more
so than I did in the ten years that I
was in elected office. So I'm a big proponent of
dealing with your stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
How much more difficult, though, was that for you to
do that in such a public way? I mean, you
were all over the news when you had to go
and seek help.
Speaker 11 (07:37):
You know, it was difficult, And look, I mean I
had gone a lot of years convincing myself that there's
no way I could have PTSD. A big part of
that was because the army had told me what it
tells every soldier, which is what you're doing is no
big deal, and that's important. You got to tell soldiers
that because if not, we won't go do frightening and
dangerous soldier things. The problem is they don't when you leave,
(07:59):
say like actually it was kind of a big deal.
So that was one part of it. But there was
also an element, for sure of I had a lot
of people, including President Obama, suggesting that maybe I could
be commander in chief, and I had an inkling that
perhaps people wouldn't be down with the idea of a
commander in chief who had violent nightmares every night, hadn't
had a good night's sleep in ten years, that kind
(08:21):
of thing. So yeah, I was incentivized to hide it
from myself because I really couldn't tell it to the
rest of the world. So it was not not easy,
but it was absolutely the right choice.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Let me ask each of you the question that we're
asking our listeners this hour, which is how do you
tend to your mental health? Now? Mayor Chiv you talked
about how difficult it was for you. By the way,
let me give the phone number to people eight four
four four medal. It's eight four four four six four
three three five three. Mayor Schiv. You talked about how
difficult it was for you in the beginning as you
were dealing with the grief of loss of three family members.
(08:53):
How about now, well you know, and.
Speaker 8 (08:59):
You talked about how did the holidays make you feel?
Speaker 12 (09:02):
Right?
Speaker 8 (09:03):
I think, especially for those of us who have lost
loved ones, the holidays are incredibly difficult. And you know,
during the pandemic, one of the things that I did
as I took carez Act dollars and I got subscriptions
to every single person in my community for talk Space
(09:23):
because I wanted to make sure that they had access.
Because I think there's also a big misnomer out there
that if you have health insurance you can get access,
or that you can get it paid for. It's incredibly different,
difficult even if you have health insurance. But there are
some staggering numbers out right now. And what was interesting
about us doing that as a city is that half
(09:45):
of the people that did talk Space out of five thousand,
had never sought therapy before. So it tells you how
many people in my community a were struggling. We also
saw this very young demographic from sixteen to twenty four,
and right now we're seeing numbers of forty nine percent
of ages eighteen to twenty four are saying they're struggling
(10:06):
with PTSD and anxiety. And so when we look at
those numbers, you know how many of them will self
medicate use those kinds of things, and so it's incredibly challenging.
I would say this too for me. You know, I
had to put myself on a content diet. It was
the best thing I ever did for my mental health.
(10:27):
I think technology can be a wonderful thing, but it
can also be an incredibly damaged, damaging thing. I also
always say I never knew how fat, ugly and stupid
I was until I got on Facebook.
Speaker 9 (10:38):
But my point.
Speaker 8 (10:40):
Is is that that helped me dramatically deal with my
own mental health. And I just appreciate Jason so much
and being so vulnerable because, especially in politics, that is
a very difficult thing to admit.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Well, and we're going to get I'm sure, to social
media as we go forward. We're going to be taking
your calls at eight four four or for middle Tolliver,
you know, one in eight US adults now takes an
antidepressant one in five has recently received some kind of
mental health care. That's according to the CDC.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, Jere, I mean one reason more people are seeking
treatment is because of those who have fought against the
stigma of mental illness, like former First Lady Rosland Carter,
who was just laid to rest. Here she is in
nineteen ninety eight talking with c Span about the unwillingness
of the press to cover mental health issues when she
was First Lady.
Speaker 7 (11:25):
One day I was walking in the Downflow dance as
flow in the White House. I met this woman who
was well the press people. I said, you know, ever
cover my no, but ever covers my meeting symbol. She said,
mince Carda, mental health is just not a sexy issue,
and that.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I didn't like Rosalind Carter, mental health advocate for many
decades after her time in the White House.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
And by the way, Tolliver Judy Woodruff of the PBS
News Hour actually spoke at Roslind Carter's fu uneral. She
is going to be on the Middle next week, so
stay tuned for that, and stay tuned right now. Don't
go anywhere. We'll be right back after this break. This
is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you're just tuning,
(12:13):
in the Middle is a national call in show. We're
focused on elevating voices from the middle geographically, politically, and philosophically,
or maybe you just want to meet in the middle.
I'm joined by Reno, Nevada mayor, Hillary Chivy, president of
the US Conference of Mayors, and Jason Candor, author of
Invisible Storm, a soldier's memoir of politics and PTSD. He's
with us from Kansas City, Missouri. We're asking you, how
(12:35):
do you tend to your mental health and do you
have access to the care you need? Tolliver, what is
that number again?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four sixty four three three five three, And.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I'm going to go to the phones right now. Harper
is joining us from Houston, Texas. Harper, welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 10 (12:52):
Go ahead, Hi, thanks for picking me out.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
All yeah, go ahead? Tell us how do you attend
to your mental health and do you have the access
to the care you need?
Speaker 10 (13:06):
I feel like recently I've been put into a really
valuable position with my mental health. About a year ago,
I was struggling pretty heavily with substance abuse and self pharma,
suicidal ideation. But I got into some legal trouble which
(13:30):
was actually kind of really important to my recovery with
like all that, and I got fit into AA and
some other programs that have been really helpful with me
(13:50):
moving forward with my life. And I'm in a better
place now. So I would say because of all that
I asked and I do have the access I need.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
That's great. That's great to hear. So being able to
speak about especially the substance abuse with others in organizations
like AA, that's been very helpful to you. Oh, definitely great, Harper,
thank you so much for that call. Let me go
to the mayor on that mayor. You know, AA is
something that exists all over this country and every city
(14:21):
in town probably around this country has something like that.
How important are those organizations in terms of people who
are seeking help?
Speaker 9 (14:30):
Yeah, well, they're incredibly important.
Speaker 8 (14:32):
I mean any organization that is willing to step into
the field of mental health or addiction. I mean, we
need everyone sort of working together on this. But you know,
cities need to be much more comprehensive when it comes
to treatment and accessibility. One of the things that I
really believe is that every single school in America needs
(14:54):
access to mental health right on their campus, so any
student can walk right in and get it.
Speaker 9 (15:00):
And then also.
Speaker 8 (15:02):
The other thing is what's challenging with getting people services,
especially in government, it can take an incredibly long time.
And for me, I've been working on getting ready to
open and it's taken seven years now, but I'm so
glad that we're finally opening it. But it's basically a
twenty four to seven er. And think about that, there
is not I don't know of any twenty four to
(15:24):
seven ers. Whenever it comes to mental health, where.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
You can eat R is just for mental health?
Speaker 8 (15:28):
You're saying, yeah, just for mental health, because I often
say that hospitals are where they've fixed broken bones, not
broken brains, and they're not equipped to handling a lot
of mental health and addiction issues. Matter of fact, a
lot of times we see that people are turned away
or let's say they're put on a seventy two hour
hold because you know they're having suicidal ideations, whatever that
(15:52):
looks like. And a lot of times they're turning them
away and they're at their most vulnerable state. I mean,
we basically call that patient dumping, and so that's why
cities need to understand it's important to have that infrastructure
in place, especially like with my brother, I didn't know
where to take him, what to do with him whenever
he was having a full blown, you know, mental health breakdown,
(16:12):
and so we have to give people the tools, and
so in my city, basically what we're doing is taking
every single provider and nonprofit and government agency putting them
under one roof, so all the services are accessible to
everyone at the same time.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Jason Candor, in terms of people who are dealing with PTSD,
of which there are very very many, are there are
are the organizations that help people talk that talk through
that around in the way that alcoholics anonymous is.
Speaker 11 (16:47):
Yeah. I mean, look, they're trying to therapists all over
this country. I mean, one of the problems we have
is that as a matter of policy nationwide, with regard
to the way we regulate the world of insurance, we
don't to a full enough extent treat physical health and
mental health is the same. We really out to just
treat them both as health. We can do a better
(17:07):
job of that. That said, yeah, look there's all sorts
of trauma therapists all over the place that do all
sorts of different kinds of trauma therapy. And what I
would tell anybody who's listening to this, who is thinking
that maybe trauma is something they need to deal with,
I would tell them, one, if you think maybe trauma
is something you need to deal with, then trauma is
something you need to deal with, And two that you
(17:30):
should go try a therapist, and if that therapist doesn't
work for you, you should try the next one, and you
should continue to try over and over and over again
because it will make a difference. Because post traumatic growth
is a real thing. This stuff really works, and the
problem is is that we don't see enough depictions of that.
I appreciate very much what you're doing right now. By
having us here, you're depicting the idea that this kind
(17:53):
of thing can help. But if you think about the
way particularly PTSD is portrayed in the news, but especially
when it comes to like on screen, I refer to
it as PTSD porn. It's mostly voyeurism. It is mostly
most pictures of PTSD are a dude who looks like me,
who did the kind of job I did in Afghanistan,
(18:13):
except he's beating his wife and robbing a bank and
then shooting up and that's what people think PTSD is.
But the truth is is that everywhere you go, like
Aliens and the movie Men in Black, you are surrounded
by people who have been to trauma therapy and it
no longer disrupts their life. But it's like this big secret.
And so the answer is yes, they're resources all around you,
and you need to reach out for them because it
(18:35):
will change your life for the better and allow you
to live your life.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Mayor Sheevy, I actually have a question for you. My
mother he struggled with to against the Sophrinia since I
was like three years old. He's in a very decrepit
state run facility in Illinois, in your city. Is it
just would you say this issue is just a matter
of resources, No, I.
Speaker 8 (18:54):
Mean they're so this is so complex, incredibly complex. One
of the things that I would say, and why we're seeing,
you know, such high numbers of homelessness and addiction is
the infrastructure has not been put in place. A lot
of people think that there, you know, people living out
on the streets, that there is some place to go.
There is no place to take anyone and we don't
(19:16):
have the mental health capacity to really treat this to
the magnitude that we need it, especially if you are
schizophrenic some of you know, some of the most difficult
illnesses that we do see in mental health. And I
just honestly think that it has been such a stigma
(19:37):
no one really wants to talk about it or address it.
That's why I was talking about Jason being so incredibly vulnerable.
You're starting to see more people come out and talk
about it, you know, like Fetterman and others. But I
think especially in government, it has been something they don't
want to touch because it is perceived as maybe a
(19:59):
week Right.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Let's go to another call. Robert is joining us from
North Carolina. Robert, Welcome to the middle Go.
Speaker 13 (20:06):
Ahead another I'm a relatively new listener. I really do
appreciate you guys show when to say that first thank you,
But I know you guys, you're welcome. You guys spoke
about medications earlier, but I think there needs to be
to me, that's the five hundred pound gorilla in the
room is medications. I think you guys, said one of
(20:30):
eight Americans. I had researched it before, and I found
it was closer to twenty percent of Americans. Of course
that was counting also adderall and Riddling, you know, for
ADHD as well. But the fact is is there's millions
and millions of this that are on these medications, and
the long term effects is I think a special area
(20:51):
of concern because the way I understand is the pharmaceutical
corporations they do really short term studies to say hey,
this this helps people, you know, and they're of course
in it for the profit. I have two really close
friends that have been on different types of anti depressants
close to thirty years and they're not really sure if
they're helping, and it's it's just to me, it's just,
(21:15):
you know, there's no there's no studies on how these
medications are affecting our brains and bodies, you know, after
taking it for decades and decades.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Robert, thank you for that call. And let me go
to Jason Candor on that, because you know, it's not
just the medications, although I want to ask your thoughts
on that. It's not just the medications. I've been researching
about some of these apps that people are using now
for their mental health that there's not really a lot
of good evidence about whether those work it not or not,
especially if they're not combined with actual and actual therapists.
(21:45):
But what are your thoughts on medications?
Speaker 11 (21:48):
Well, my thought on all of this, whether there's APS,
medication or whatever. First off, caveat, I'm not a clinician, right,
I'm just in vet with PTSD, who happened to already
be kind of famous when he told the world that
he had PTSD. That is my entire set of qualifications,
and have been to a fair amount of therapy. And
what I would say is, go to a therapist, go
(22:08):
to and then and if the therapist feels that you
should go to the type of therapists a psychiatrists who
obvious get psychiatrists, psychologists backwards, whatever, the ones who can
prescribe medicine will then do that too. And if your
therapist feels like, hey, this app might be good for you,
or this guided meditation might be good for you, or
exercise might be good for you, or this medication, well,
(22:29):
then give that a shot. And if it's not working,
then go to a different doctor. And because the one
thing that Roberts said that I would push back on slightly,
I'm not like out here. I don't work for a
pharmaceutical company. It's not my job to push this stuff.
What I would say is that if if your friends
who have been on an antidepressant for a long time
(22:51):
and have struggled with severe depression are still alive, then
it's been doing some decent stuff for their brain. If
now now look every medication as side effects. So and
again I'm not a clinician, but these are all things
that you figure out as you go along, and your
job is to try and figure out what makes you
feel better, and it's okay to use that as the
standard what makes you feel better. I don't usually like
(23:13):
in my book. The one thing I didn't get into
was the question of medication because I didn't really need
somebody who read my book and felt like it might
inspire them to go get help to then meaure themselves
against whether I did or did not end up taking medication,
because it doesn't matter, because it's not a contest. The
point is to figure out a way to get past
(23:34):
your trauma and to have doctors help you do that.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Let's go to Jesse, who is calling from Springfield, Illinois. Jesse,
Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 14 (23:44):
Ki, how are you doing well?
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So how do you tend to your mental health?
Speaker 15 (23:50):
Well, luckily, I've been able to find a great therapist
that I go to a couple of days a month,
kind of every other week at this point, and then
I do take any depressions.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
And it's worked for you.
Speaker 15 (24:05):
So it's working. It's getting there. Some days are better
than others. But it's definitely trial and error O my life.
I've had to try different things, and right now this
seems to be the best practice.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
How difficult was it for you to actually find a therapist,
because that can be a challenge.
Speaker 14 (24:28):
It is.
Speaker 15 (24:30):
I was lucky enough to find one after a couple
of tries reaching out getting someone available. I've had friends
or I have friends that now are on like a
six month hold to try to get even in their
first first appointment, because there's a lot of people that
are so booked or backed up on even just trying
(24:51):
to get first appointments.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Jesse, thank you so much for your call. Mayor CHIV.
You've talked about how difficult it is to find the
CA that you need.
Speaker 9 (25:01):
Mm hmm it is.
Speaker 8 (25:02):
It's like I said here, I was struggling with my
own when I called therapist. I didn't tell them I
was the mayor obviously, for a couple of reasons. I
didn't want to be treated differently, but I also.
Speaker 9 (25:15):
It was a.
Speaker 8 (25:16):
Stigma point, and I think, you know what Jason said,
there are so many different ways in which they handle it,
and for a lot of people, medication may not work.
It never worked for my sister or my brother. And
then I have friends that do art therapy, that exercise extensively,
and so you have to keep at trying the things
(25:37):
that possibly work for you and not give up hope
some people, you know, that's the other thing. Some people
will do really well on medication and then all of
a sudden say I don't need to take this anymore,
and then we see where there can be disastrous outcomes
because of that. But there are a lot of people
that don't want to take medication, and that's okay, depending
on what really works for you.
Speaker 9 (25:58):
But access is really really hard.
Speaker 8 (26:00):
But that's another thing that mayors are addressing, you know,
because we really are at ground zero.
Speaker 9 (26:07):
Of this issue.
Speaker 8 (26:07):
We're seeing it in our jails and our ers at
alarming rates, and so we're really working on the accessibility
like we've never seen before. But we also need a
lot of help, you know, from the federal government to
understand that cities are at ground zero, and we need
help from our governors because a lot of what people
(26:28):
don't understand. The money to treat this literally never comes
to cities, and so we have to be really innovative
and creative how we get people access.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Well, let's go to Egan in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Hi, Egan,
Welcome to the.
Speaker 13 (26:43):
Middle good Eving.
Speaker 16 (26:48):
Listening to this conversation, I wanted to drop in and
say that I have survived mental illness, specifically schizophrenia in
my twenties, when that's fifty years ago, and I wondered
if this national conversation can turn to the idea of
(27:08):
mental health volunteers, people who have survived mental illness, who
have found a life affirming mental health, and who are
able now to contribute to some hopefulness that people who
are struggling with their mental health top to help them.
And that's all I wanted to say is has anyone
(27:30):
ever even thought of some kind of a volunteer agency
of people who have survived it?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Egan? Thank you, Jason Candor, that is something that you're
in a way doing with your organization.
Speaker 11 (27:44):
Yeah, thanks for the segue to a plug of Veterans
Community Project. I'm the president National Expansion. We are a
band of veterans who work with other veterans to fight
veterans homelessness and veteran suicide and we set up campuses
around the country. So yes, in that way. Certainly in
the way that myself and most of the leadership are
(28:05):
just a bunch of people with PTSD, so it's a
pretty interesting place to work. But I would say that
at one, I think it's a great idea, but two,
I don't think it needs to necessarily be formal for
people like Gigan to start taking action. You know, the
thing about dispelling a stigma is that if you have
(28:26):
struggled with something, or think you might be struggling with something,
you don't need hundreds of thousands of social media followers
or a platform or an office to make up difference
in other people's lives. We all live very public lives
at some extent or another at this point, and even
if you're not even on social media, if you've got
like five coworkers or two neighbors, if you are outward
(28:48):
with them, if you are just transparent with them about
what you have either struggled with in the past or
struggling with now. A couple of things are going to happen. One,
you are going to relieve yourself, as I found out
of the burden put on the Egan suit in Egan's case,
or for me to put on the Jason Kandor suit
and put on a certain display or a certain show
and just be able to be yourself and be able
to deal with your stuff. But for the other people,
(29:10):
what you do is you may very well give them
a permission slip to get help. You really cannot underestimate
how many people just you saying out loud, like if
you leave work and you say, like, I'm going to
go see my therapist, you might save one of your coworkers'
lives because you just normalized it for them. And I
wish that everybody who had ever been public about dealing
(29:32):
with their own mental health had the incredible privilege that
I've had, which is to have people on a regular
basis come up and say, what you did save my life.
You don't have to be well known for that to happen.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Tolliver, we've been talking about mental health and politics a bit,
but more and more of these days people in many industries,
from music to sports, or speaking publicly about their own
mental health challenges.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, Olympic gold medalists, the owne Biles actually withdrew from
the twenty twenty Tokyo Olympics to tend to her mental health.
Speaker 12 (29:57):
I say put mental health first because if you don't,
then you're not going to enjoy your sport and you're
not going to succeed as much as you want to.
So it's okay sometimes to even set out the big
conpetitions to focus on yourself because it shows how strong
of a competitor in person that you really are, rather
than just battle through it.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
And yeah, she's made a dramatic comeback. Simone Bile shout
out to her. She says that being intentional about our
time has helped her prepare to compete next year in
the Olympics in Paris.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
And we will be right back after this break on
the middle. This is the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. We're
talking about how to tend to our mental health and
whether there are adequate resources. Our number is eight four
four four Middle. You can also reach out to us
online at listen toothmddle dot com. Our guests are Reno,
Nevada mayor, Hillary Shievy, who's president of the US Conference
(30:46):
of Mayors, and Jason Candor, Missouri's former Secretary of State,
an army veteran author of Invisible Storm, a soldier's memoir
of politics, and PTSD. Let's get to the phones, and
Colleen is joining us from White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Hi Colleen,
go ahead, Hi er.
Speaker 17 (31:05):
I just wanted to thank you for this great conversation
and also do a shout out to peer support groups
that help so many thousands of people around the United States.
I I'm a forty three year member of a group
called Emotions Anonymous. We have hundreds of meetings around the
country and internationally, and they're run by peers, others who
(31:29):
have who have suffered from the same issues and challenges
and who are interested in just sharing their journey and
roughly following the twelve steps that are derived from Alcoholics Anonymous.
But that's a good way to have sort of a
facilitated conversation and also take advantage of people who have
(31:50):
been there to have informal discussions and encouragement. That's that's
saved my.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Life really, Colleen, thank you so much for that call,
and let's go to Matt in Colorado. Matt, Welcome to
the Middle, go ahead.
Speaker 14 (32:04):
Hi, thanks for having me. First of all, I want
to say, I think this program is really important because
for someone like me, I was raised in a far
right household and didn't have a chance to find the
middle until I was an adult. And that's like part
of my mental health journey, because mental health was super
(32:25):
stigmatized in my household, and therapy was a thing that
was antithetical to religion, which is what I was raised
to find healing in. And it turns out as an
adult was years of therapy when I was like in
a real crisis. And I think one thing that's important
(32:48):
for people to know is that different mental health issues
need different kinds of therapy. And so for me, with
my OCD journey, I found out that talk therapy wasn't
necessarily the thing that I know and I need to
do like cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a very different
kind of therapy than talk therapy, And because it was
(33:10):
so stigmatized, I just had no idea that all these
different avenues for help existed, and so.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
I don't know.
Speaker 14 (33:19):
I think it's really important for people to know that
there's all sorts of different kinds of therapy, and more
we stigmatize it, the more it mystifies how helpful it
can actually be to explore different kinds of therapy and
receive different kinds of help.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Matt, thank you for that call, Mayor Shev. I just
want to go to something that Matt said a moment
ago about sort of finding the middle and the politics
of it. You're a non partisan mayor. Do you think
that the sort of polarized politics, especially of the last
many years, have contributed to this crisis?
Speaker 9 (33:50):
Oh?
Speaker 8 (33:51):
Absolutely, I can't even begin to tell you. I mean,
you have both sides fighting with each other. You have
a government that is incredible fragmented. Matter of fact, now
you have both sides fighting with each other. You know,
if you're a Democrat, you're fighting with Democrats. If you're
a Republican, you're fighting with other Republicans. I mean, there
is a lot of discourse in this country over that,
(34:13):
and we're hearing it more and more. A lot of
people have said to me, Hey, I'm becoming a nonpartisan
because I feel like it's better for my mental health,
and this isn't I think most people do feel that
this isn't about parties, this is about people, This is
about lives.
Speaker 9 (34:28):
So I think he is spot on. I would also
say this.
Speaker 8 (34:32):
Too, it's important to understand the kinds of mental health
issues you're dealing with, Like there's chemical depression, there's also
situational depression, and so there are different ways to treat it.
Speaker 9 (34:44):
Like the caller just said, he's exactly right.
Speaker 8 (34:47):
And peer support groups we're finding are so beneficial amongst
teens and young adults, so there is hope out there.
But I would say absolutely, I think a lot of
people have struggled with their mental health because of all politics.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
You know, I don't like to make promises I can't keep,
and I did promise that we were going to talk
about social media. So let me go to Jason Kandor
with this question. I mean, we talked about how politics
has played into this. What about social media? I read
now I got to find this statistic, but ninety five
percent of teens between the age of thirteen and seventeen
say they use a social media platform, and a third
(35:22):
of those say that they're scrolling, posting, or otherwise engage
with social media almost constantly. How and of course that's
not just teens, it's everyone at this point, how much
do you think social media has played into lack of
mental health in this country?
Speaker 11 (35:39):
I think it's obviously a huge part of it, right,
I mean, because the promise of social media initially was
that it was going to create a greater sense of community,
and there have been ways in which the case I mean,
if you just look at the way it is moved forward,
things like activism, in a lot of ways that has
created a greater sense of community. But you could also
argue a greater sense of polarization. But sadly, what it
(36:00):
also creates is a real sense of isolation because you
are getting this substitute for being around human beings, but
it's really not the same at all, and it's bland.
And the other thing is, like I'm sure the mayor
are going to attest to this too, is that when
you are a public figure, you particularly notice that when
something flows through people's fingertips, they have much less of
(36:23):
a filter than when it flows over their lips. And
that applies and you don't have to be a public
figure to know that. You need to have literally stated
your opinion on social media about anything ever, and that
obviously urts it. But what I really think all of
this goes back to is a great sense of loneliness
in this country right now, and I think that has
(36:44):
a lot to do with the polarization. And if I
were to tract that back to any individual thing, it
would have to be the fact that Americans just don't
have a whole lot in common anymore. I mean, look,
this is the longest consecutive period in American history without
some form of mandatory survey. And I'm not suggesting that
we bring back the draft, but I am saying that
(37:04):
until just a few generations ago, it was quite normal
that when you went to work in the morning, any
person you were going to run into got the same
news as you last night. There was a one in
three chance they got it from the same newscaster. And
if you brought up a major event like World War
Two or Vietnam, there was a decent chance that you
(37:26):
could start a conversation with that person, particularly if it
was a couple of men with well, where did you serve?
And now, like it's kind of hard to figure out
what Americans share in common other than we all love
Taylor Swift, and one in three of us will watch
the Super Bowl. So it's like, yeah, we're losing that
sense of community and that's leading to a large, great
(37:47):
sense of sadness and loneliness.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yeah, let's go to Sasha, who's in Las Vegas. Hi, Sasha,
Welcome to the middle Hi, Hi, go ahead. Tell us.
How do you tend to your mental health or do
you think you have the resources you need in your
community to do so.
Speaker 15 (38:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 18 (38:04):
So I'm actually a medical student and currently I'm my
psychiatry rotation, So I kind of got a very good
look at and understanding what the resources we have in
our community are. And I will say I feel like
it's pretty difficult to access resources where I am. A
lot of people I see, Yeah, it's unfortunate because a
(38:28):
lot of people I see in the hospital, they have
a lot of comorbid medical conditions. But the real problem,
the root of the issue a lot of the time
is something untreated that's related to their mental health, whether
that's depression or something more severe like schizophrenia that can
make it really difficult for them to remember to take
(38:49):
their medication for high blood pressure or high cholesterol, and
the One interesting thing I learned is actually that's the
number one cause of depth for people with schizophonia is
actually a heart disease, because the bigger issue is that
they're not able to take care of their physical health
because their mental health is not getting treated.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Sasha, thank you for that call, and let me get
another one in here. Erin is in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Hi, Erin,
go ahead, welcome to the middle.
Speaker 14 (39:20):
Hi.
Speaker 6 (39:22):
You know, I wanted to just call in for a
couple of reasons. I'm a therapist, and I worked with folks,
especially recovering from PTSD for about thirty years, but a
range of different mental health issues, and I appreciate both
those your guest contributions and their courage and determination to
talk about this broadly. I also want to highlight a
(39:46):
couple of ways it can be easier for people to
find good care. One is the organization NAMI, the National
Alliance for the Mentally Ill, which is essentially the organization
that one of your previous guests asked, like, is there
such a thing where folks who have these experiences and
family members provide support for people who are experiencing mental
(40:09):
health struggles or a family member who's having a mental
health struggle, which is an enormous resource, and they do
a huge amount of advocacy as well. And there are
you know, therapist directories online. People can talk to their
friends about how to find someone that works with what
they work with. But a lot of folks get really
discouraged and it's very painful to go therapist to therapists,
(40:32):
so I want to encourage people to look for a
good fit before they go and start opening up things
that are very painful.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Well, and Aaron, let me just ask you briefly, since
you are a therapist, have you noticed an uptick in
people that need your help in the last few years.
Speaker 6 (40:52):
I can't even tell you how much of an uptick.
And it began in twenty sixteen when a large portion
of our society felt an enormous amount of fear and
a sense of the unknown. I've worked in conflict and
post conflict zones where government is extremely skeletal, and I
(41:14):
started seeing for the first time things I had seen many,
many times, but never in my own country. It was
quite shocking to see the ways that when your sense
of your civilization is destabilized, your sense of being able
to kind of predict and know tomorrow is going to
be kind of like today goes away, and that is
(41:35):
profoundly essential to our sense of mental health and our
sense of well being.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yeah, Aaron, thank you very much for that call. Mayor Shiv.
I want to ask you a question, which is given
your own personal and family history, when you are walking
down the street, let's say, in Reno or in any
city in this country, and you encounter someone who is
dealing with mental illness, maybe even in a way that
makes you feel unsafe, which many people in this country
(42:03):
do these days, what do you do or what do
you think? Are you more sympathetic to that person, or
are you afraid for you for your own safety, or
how do you how do you handle that?
Speaker 8 (42:13):
First of all, Jeremy, the first caller, she was from
Las Vegas, so she's in the state of Nevada.
Speaker 9 (42:18):
I wanted to point, oh, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 8 (42:19):
Nevada actually ranks one of the last on the list
when it comes to mental health and so, you know,
thank God for her getting into this field, because that's
the other thing is we're seeing such a massive shortage
of the workforce when it comes to mental health care workers.
Speaker 9 (42:37):
So kudos to her, but I.
Speaker 8 (42:38):
Also wanted to point that out in Nevada, and so
it's been incredibly difficult. You know, Listen, I think that
you have to. I come from a long history of
watching my brother and my sister struggle with mental health.
So I understand it whenever I see it. And it's
amazing to me how many people we allow to die
(43:01):
in our streets because of mental illness, like I said,
whether it's schizophrenia or addiction or those types of things.
And so I think that's where, you know, we've lost
a sense of compassion for others. And to understand that,
you know, I'll never forget when my sister was dying
of cancer, she said to me, Hillary, I would much
(43:23):
rather have cancer than depression. And that's how debilitating it was.
So if we can all step outside ourselves and actually
put yourself in someone else's shoes, you might walk with
a little bit more compassion. But I see it all
too often that we just allow people to be, you know,
laying on the ground screaming. And let's say this man
is saying, hey, I have appendicitis.
Speaker 9 (43:46):
What do we do?
Speaker 8 (43:46):
We take him to the hospital, we get him surgery,
we get him fixed. What if someone's laying on the
ground screaming he's got schizophrenia, you know what we do,
We leave them there. But in my community, we're taking
massive efforts to change all that.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Let's go to care in Pittsburgh. Hi, Caroline, Welcome to
the middle.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Hi. So what I called about is PTSD treatment and
how it's so very different for instance, veterans. I know
one of your guests is a veteran, you know, as
compared to women dealing with domestic abuse, which is what
I had to deal with. And the thing is that
most people think, you know, that EMDR is the solution
(44:24):
for PTSD, which is what I thought, and I found
that it was actually quite harmful for me, and I
had very bad side effects. And in my own subsequent research,
I found that like, for instance, Judith Hermann has, who
is a contemporary of the author of The Body Keeps
the Score, has come out with an entire treatment for
(44:46):
women dealing with PTSD coming from domestic abuse or rape
or other things of that nature. And I just wanted
to clarify that what I you for my own mental health.
And I found that talk therapy completely failed me, and
(45:07):
five therapists between myself and my husband completely failed us,
my former husband.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
And Caroline, let me take your let me take your
your comment. We've got it. Let me take it to
Jason Candor, who of course focuses on PTSD. Jason Candor,
It's it's not a one size fits all situation, obviously. No.
Speaker 11 (45:30):
Look, I mean, I'll just tell my own story. I mean,
I went to the VA where they have, you know,
two really main evidence based therapies that they do, uh
and and then a third is E M, d R.
And the first two that I did. I did something
called prolonged exposure therapy, which is basically just sitting in
the really bad stuff and talking about it until it
(45:50):
doesn't have the same kind of grip on you. It's
it's quite unpleasant, but for me, quite effective. And then
cognitive processing therapy, which is more like going to grand
at school. It's like sitting there and talking about what
you're feeling, what your symptoms are, and then having your
therapists stand up in front of a whiteboard and kind
of teach you about why your brain is doing what
it's doing so that you can better understand it. And
(46:12):
those are very effective for me. My therapist told me
that had those two not work. He probably would try
the NBR. But there's a whole bunch of other stuff.
I mean, my wife, I gave her the great gift
of secondary PTSD, which people can google. That's a whole
that's a real thing. And you know, she did somatic
experience therapy which worked very well for her. There's a
whole bunch of different stuff out there. But what I
(46:33):
would want to emphasize, actually, based on what the color
was saying, is that I think this is really important,
is that there's a whole bunch of different kinds of trauma.
And it kind of this is going to sound insensitive,
but I don't mean it this way. It kind of
doesn't matter what kind of trauma you experienced. Because Nina
contest and I went to war, and she was a
victim of domestic violence. They're both trauma. And we have
(46:55):
a tendency to try to gain perspective over our own
trauma by thinking about other people's trauma. But the thing is,
our brain doesn't care because our brain didn't experience their trauma.
And one of the things that I feel is my
job in this world of talking about this is to
make sure that we have done a lot to knock
down the stigma for veterans to get help for PTSD,
(47:19):
that people understand that it's not a veteran thing, it's
an anybody thing.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
Well, I just want to point out one thing, which
is that we did mention suicide in this show, and
so I just want to give out the number nine
eight eight if you're really in crisis, that's the new
number that you can call for help. I want to
thank my guests so much. Jason Candor, a politician, army veteran,
podcast host of Majority fifty four and an author. And
Hillary chiv the mayor of Reno, Nevada, President of the
(47:46):
US Conference of Mayors. Thanks so much to you both.
Thank you, thanks for having us, and thanks to Kate
npr in Reno for hosting The Mayor Taliver. We have
an amazing show coming up next week.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Yes, we are talking about democracy. We're asking listeners if
they think democracy itself is at stake in next year's election.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
And the great Judy Woodruff of PBS News Hour is
going to be here. And by the way, Tolliver, as
you know, we have a weekly newsletter. It is free.
People can sign up for updates at Listen toothemiddle dot com.
Speaker 11 (48:15):
We also have a podcast.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
It's available in partnership with iHeart Podcasts on the iheartapp
or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
The Middle is brought to you by Long Nook Media,
distributed by Illinois Public Media and Urbana Illinois and produced
by Joe Anne Jennings, John Barth, Harrison Patino, Danny Alexander,
and Charlie Little. Our technical director is Jason Croft. Our
theme music was composed by Andrew Haig. Thanks to KAYNPR.
Of course, thanks to Nashville Public Radio, iHeartMedia and the
more than three hundred and seventy public radio stations that
(48:40):
are making it possible for people across the country to
listen to the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. Talk to you
next week.
Host
Jeremy Hobson
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