November 24, 2024 • 53 mins
On this episode Hannah catches up with Shamika from Spectrum Services to chat about teen mental health, queer identities, the social media ban for under 16's, and most importantly the amazing group program being offered by Shamika and Spectrum. This is a wonderful chat, covering topics very close to our heart here at What in the NDIS now?, so we hope you enjoy it!
To contact spectrum you can email:
info@spectrumservicesqld.com.au
or call:
or you can check out the website:
https://spectrumservicesqld.com.au/
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Contact the podcast whatinthendispod@gmail.com
Contact Hannah hello@plandecoders.com.au
Contact Sam sam@rosenbaum.consulting
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We acknowledge the original owners of the land on which we podcast, whose stories were told for
(00:05):
thousands of years. Today we are recording in Mianjin. We pay our respects to elders past
and present who may be listening. Sovereignty was never ceded. A quick note before we get started
that there may be some swearing in today's podcast. If you don't like swearing or usually
listen with children in the car, you have been warned. This episode of What in the NDIS Now is
(00:32):
brought to you by Astalti. Astalti is the software solution for NDIS professionals built by NDIS
professionals. Astalti is my go-to software and Astalti is trusted and loved by hundreds of other
NDIS providers. I love how easy it is to use and how it keeps all my participant information,
(00:56):
notes and invoicing all in one place available to me anytime from any device. Sign up now for your
14-day free trial. Head to Astalti.com.au to sign up now. See for yourself how much easier managing
all your NDIS business needs are by using Astalti. Thanks again to Astalti for sponsoring today's
(01:21):
episode. Hello and welcome to the podcast, Shemeika. Hi. Thank you so much for coming on.
So how we first start each episode is by asking where did you grow up? Yes, thank you so much for
(01:45):
having me Hannah. I grew up in Melbourne. So I was born and raised there. My parents moved to
Melbourne from Sri Lanka two years before I was born. So I was first generation Australian here,
grew up in Melbourne, moved to Brisbane a couple of years ago when my wife wanted to study at
Griffith and so we decided to make the move. Oh amazing. I love Melbourne. I mean we grew up
(02:13):
there too so that's so cool and we'll have to have a conversation about that later.
Yes, lots of shopping and coffee I think. Yes, and cafes that stay open. I think that was the
biggest culture shock when we moved to Brisbane. Like everything closed at four, five, six, whereas
I was used to things staying open till at least eight. Yes. And so I remember one time we were in,
(02:38):
we were living in the city in Brisbane and we decided to go out and everything was closing and
I was so confused. I did not understand how things were closed at five. Yes, it's a huge culture
shock. It's like landing on the moon sometimes I think. Awesome, thank you for that. So how did you
(03:00):
get into the disability sector? Yeah, so I am, I'm now a psychologist and a registered psychologist
and my first kind of taste I think was when I was in high school. I was 16. I remember sitting in my
first psychology class and it was just this aha moment of oh this is what I'm meant to do with my
(03:21):
life. And up until then I didn't know exactly what I was meant to do. Like I did quite well in school
and I was, you know, there was no direct line for me of where I should go. But I sat in that
psychology class and I thought wow this is the culmination of all of my interests. I'm interested
in human behaviour. I'm interested in why we do the things we do. I love learning about the brain
(03:47):
and our body in general and I thought psychology is a place for me. So after that in order to become
a psychologist in Australia you need to do an undergrad and then an honours and then a masters.
So all throughout that I kind of got progressively more involved in psychology and becoming more
hands-on. So it started at being a receptionist and working in admin and kind of just exposing
(04:10):
myself to different psychology clinics. And then from there I went into research and then from there
I went into a primary school where I practiced ABA with children on the spectrum. And I think that
was my direct exposure into the disability sector. And there's a lot of controversy around ABA and so
(04:30):
I think having that hands-on experience was very helpful for me to develop my own understanding of
what I'm comfortable doing and where I now draw the line of oh I'm actually I don't think this is
neuroaffirming enough for me now and I prefer not to, you know, force eye contact or force
verbal communication. There are lots of ways to communicate and without that experience and that
(04:53):
initial experience in the disability sector I think my beliefs now wouldn't be so well formed.
Yeah oh my gosh I love that so much because the idea of doing something that you now realise is a
bit controversial is kind of awesome that you went through that and you've gone oh hang on a sec
(05:19):
let's rethink this. So now where are you and what are you doing now?
Totally so from ABA and for the people listening that's Applied Behavioural Analysis which
originally was developed for particularly compliance with kids on the spectrum and it's
(05:42):
a really intensive program it's like 40 hours a week it's quite intensive it's quite structured
and the longer time has gone from that initial understanding of ABA and the more we hear people
who've now gone through having ABA done to them we can understand that neurodivergent experience
now of people saying this was actually quite detrimental for my mental health and for my
(06:08):
ability to just exist in the community and now that we have that understanding a lot of people
are steering away from strict ABA which I think is wonderful so I started off there then I went into
positive behaviour support which is kind of uses the principles of ABA but in a more positive way
so we don't think about punishment strategies nearly as much and we focus more on the reinforcement
(06:33):
so how can we reinforce or reward this person for doing the thing that they want to achieve
or that we would the skill we would like to teach so from there that's when I got registered as a
psychologist I moved into where I work now which is Spectrum Services based in Tujuan where we
don't exclusively help people on the spectrum there are a lot of people who come here but we
(06:55):
do assessments and clinical interventions and at school or at home support for people either
on the spectrum or not but a lot of really amazing neurodivergent folk who can come here
and just share their experience with us so that's where I am now. Awesome and you have developed a
group program for young people who are LGBTIQ+. Yeah make sure we get all the letters.
(07:25):
Yeah sometimes even for us who are in the community you're like no where do which one two three
two three yeah so tell me a little bit about the group. Yes so LGBTIQA plus communities
and teenagers are two of my very I guess interest areas as a queer person and particularly a queer
(07:49):
person who is also a person of colour I don't and I didn't see and I don't see a lot of representation
for me and particularly as a teen growing up there was no one who was on in media who was brown let
alone Sri Lankan let alone other gay characters and Hannah and I spoken about this before where
(08:12):
the only person I had was Kurt Hummel from Glee and he is a very small representation of what this
community can be and I think a lot of people just assume that you're either gay and you're this
flamboyant gay man or you're this really butch lesbian and there's nothing in between whereas
now we know there's so many other letters and everyone deserves representation and the place
(08:35):
to feel home and comfortable and so for me as a teen exploring my identity and not having a safe
place to explore that with people who either knew more more than I did about the community or were
just willing to listen I didn't I didn't have that growing up and so that's an area where I'm really
(08:56):
interested to form relationships between other teenagers so that they can have that community
and they can have that mutual understanding of each other's experiences that I didn't have growing
up so we have started yes this queen queen we have started this queer teen group and hopefully the
(09:19):
idea is that teenagers who are either on the spectrum not on the spectrum neurodivergent or
not can have a place where they can come make connections and have conversation facilitated by
another person who is queer the queer a queer adult psychologist in the room and can just get
to know each other get to know themselves develop some social skills along the way of how to explore
(09:44):
your identity better or how to have conversations with other people I think particularly when you're
in the community there's a I mean you're in the queer community I should say there's this idea
that you need to know yourself so well so that you can explain it to other people and if they
have questions you need to know the answer and so it doesn't leave a lot of space for us to question
(10:06):
well actually I don't think I know fully yet who I am and I'm still figuring it out and for the
longest time I the pansexual sat really well with me because I thought yeah fall in love with the
person regardless of anything else and regardless of sex or gender and it took a decade or so for me
(10:26):
to go actually I think lesbian fits better here and without that space for me to explore that
I would have given people the wrong answer and I would have had fights with people about things
that I wasn't even fully developed in my thoughts yet about so I think having that safe place where
you can just explore and not have this expectation that you have the answer already I think is a
(10:46):
really important place for not just adults but teens and everyone actually I love this so much
and from where where it comes from as well from you growing up and not having that representation
and that community around you it it is really hard and I think I particularly noticed that
(11:12):
with my kids the most and it is so hard to explain to someone else
who you are and how you feel and that is that can be a moving target you know you know no matter what
what bit of queer you are you can one day be so sure that you're lesbian and that's that and then
(11:44):
then as you go along you go oh no maybe there's more to this or less to this or you know because
you know because then some people really do narrow it way down and there's different ways
people feel even within different sub genres sort of thing and and that doesn't have to be
(12:11):
fixed a fixed point you can kind of go the more the also the more you research and the more words
you find sometimes help you and you go oh actually I heard this word the other day that I hadn't heard
before and I think that's what's really useful when you get teens together because different teens
(12:35):
will be at different points and we'll go oh well have you heard of being um arrow ace or
you know and the other one goes oh what now you know and then they can explain it to each other
and then they go oh oh my goodness that fits better yeah definitely and I think in part because
(12:57):
of the representation we have in media now and with all of the shows that we have that have queer
characters or just and and it's not highlighting their queerness but they're just queer and they're
a character um we have more language and we have more research going into things and so exactly
even terms that like I didn't even know growing up like demigirl or aromantic or even things like
(13:20):
just simple things like asexual like that wasn't defined for me and growing up um and so it's
wonderful to have conversations with people who know more than you or know less than you and you
can all just explore your identity together and I think in society we do have this need for
categorization and binaryness that just doesn't have to exist but it exists because it's it's
(13:45):
easier for our brain to understand binaryness if we can go this thing is black and this thing is
white great but we're not considering all the shades of gray in the middle and that's hard for
brains to comprehend um but it's we live in a world where we just have to accept that there's
grayness and I think a lot of people do get stuck in that black and whiteness of well we can talk
(14:10):
about this in terms of sex or gender or anything really but if as a survival instinct we need to
know this thing is safe this thing is not safe but we're no longer talking about lions on the street
we're no longer talking about this animal that could kill me when I'm walking down the street
we're talking about all of these shades of gray that aren't necessarily dangerous but they're just
foreign to us so if we can have communities that we're able to talk about all of the different ways
(14:36):
that this thing isn't unknown to me but this thing is okay I think that would be really helpful for
society in general absolutely there's another component to this that I think is really helpful
about you in particular hosting a group like this because you are a queer woman of color and that
(15:00):
that like you said earlier that there's just not that representation so how how do you feel now
as an adult of as being the queer woman of color are you do you feel different about that now
I think that there are so many um so many ways I can answer that question
(15:23):
I think that the way that I grew up and my culture didn't necessarily
leave a lot of space for personal identity and searching for that um particularly growing up from
parents who migrated to Australia from a you know developing country that didn't have the
(15:48):
didn't have the opportunities that we have here in terms of educational health care my parents
couldn't understand why something like sexuality was important or something like mental health was
important and I think that's shared among a lot of immigrant children who fight their parents
to value their mental health because the way our parents grew up they were so worried about physical
(16:12):
health making them healthy enough to go to work and put food on the table and it was survival
and so mental health took a back step and now we live in Australia where it's not always
questionable about whether we can get food on the table although in this economy with the
cost of living crisis that's you know changing the conversations around this but now we can focus
(16:36):
on things like mental health and we know that it's actually incredibly important to have positive
mental health and I think that my experience as a queer person of colour is shared among a lot of
people who are queer and people of colour but having said that that experience is also shared
(16:56):
among a lot of cis people or cishet people or a lot of people who fight with their parents about
recognising their own identity as important I think that there are lots of different ways that
people can quote unquote come out and lots of families react in different ways and lots of
friendship groups and society react in different ways and because of the representation we have now
(17:21):
there we are hearing less of the people who whose families react negatively and we're hearing more
about people whose families accept them wholeheartedly or accept them and have some questions or again
this grayness in I accept you fully would be the you know one extreme or the other extreme is I
don't accept you at all and there's a lot of shades of gray in there so there's lots of families who
(17:44):
accept but don't really understand or don't understand but accept and all the different
forms that that can come in so I think in having a group where lots of people have different
experiences of coming out or haven't come out yet don't even want to come out yet don't even know
what they are yet and still exploring that I think could be really helpful to hear oh you're someone
(18:08):
the same age range as me in the same social group as me how did your parents react how did your
family react how did your school react because again depending on your religious upbringing the
school the district the suburb you're in it's a very different reaction absolutely absolutely
(18:28):
particularly with schools because I think this is something that people wider don't really
understand about the queer community is that there's not just one coming out you you kind of
(18:48):
almost come out constantly almost every day with every new person you meet because it'll come up
at some point and with schools if you're still in school it can be really really hard because
even in 2024 there are schools that do so badly at navigating queerness that it is it's shocking and
(19:24):
and really detrimental to people's mental health do you find that there is then some overlap with
being queer and mental illness yes and no I don't think that being queer and I know this isn't how
(19:46):
you meant the question but just for people listening I want to clarify thank you I don't
think that being queer means that you will have mental illness or that you are mentally ill and
I specifically say that because as we know in previous dsm's which is the tool to diagnose
mental illness it was listed as a mental illness to be queer or to be any kind of sexually diverse
(20:13):
and we know now that is bullshit we know that's not real and so I think that the mental ill health
that comes with being queer is more of a product of the environment people are in there are plenty
of queer people who have loving supportive environments that they're raised in who when
(20:35):
they quote unquote come out their parents are fine with it they're great you're just a person I love
you regardless of anything wonderful and they can still be have depression they can still have
anxiety or they have none of the above and just continue life living with great mental health
whereas I think the opposite can happen to people who whose families react quite negatively or
(20:58):
people whose friendship circles start excluding them from them they start feeling socially isolated
of course social isolation is going to make you not feel good we are social creatures and we need
belonging and we need community and that's part of being human and so if any human is socially
isolated or is bullied or doesn't feel like they have a place to call home of course we're going
(21:24):
to see increased rates of anxiety and depression or whatever other mental health crises could be
happening so to answer that question I think yes and no I also think it's not a one-size-fits-all
as we know again right back to this gray thinking it's not a one-size-fits-all of you had this
(21:45):
experience therefore you will be this for the rest of your life right identities can change our
understanding of ourselves can change our awareness of ourselves changes over time and as all of these
things change we learn more about ourselves and the skills we have changed the coping strategies
we have changed and that all impacts who we are I think my interest in working with teens is because
(22:11):
of that as a teen you have all of these new problems that come up in being a teenager and
having hormones and all of these complex social situations that come up that are similar to adult
life you know navigating relationships and sexual and romantic relationships and navigating
(22:31):
friendship issues and bullying and working for the first time and employment all of these things
that we experience as an adult but just in a tiny teen body and I think when you become an adult
it's really easy to dismiss your experiences as a teenager of oh I was naive I didn't know any better
or I was still learning and that's okay and but when you're a teen that's your entire life you're
(22:54):
the oldest you've ever been at that point so how do you how do you know how to navigate that
I often talk with my clients about each stage of life being being a baby again so when you're a
baby and you turn one or two and you're learning how to talk and walk we're not holding expectations
that you should know anything other than just learning the world around you and then you turn
(23:16):
14 or 15 and they have all of these expectations of I should know better I should do better but
you're just one or two years old as a teenager you've only been a teen for one or two years how
are you so harsh on this teenager who's just living in this body for the first time and then
you turn 20 21 and people are so hard on themselves how come I'm not better yet how come I don't have
(23:38):
a job yet how come all of these questions and I just think you've been an adult for two years
would you be this harsh on a two-year-old child no why are we so hard on ourselves and the same
thing happens when you turn any age right like if you've lived at home for only a year why are you
so hard on yourself because you can't manage cooking and cleaning and working and having a
(23:59):
relationship all at the same time if you've been a parent for only two years how can you be so hard
on yourself and I think all of these mental health mental ill health can come at any point
depression anxiety anything can happen at any point traumas can occur from anything at any point
so self-compassion I think is the key and if we can teach ourselves to be compassionate towards
(24:24):
ourselves and then on others I think that will really help and I think that's a skill teens
can learn and implement from a young age that as they become adults they can support themselves
and queer teens if we can teach queer teens to be self-compassionate it's okay that not everyone
understands your journey it's okay that you don't understand your journey if we can teach that
(24:45):
then maybe the rates of mental ill health will go down maybe they won't be such high correlation
between being queer and having poor mental health yeah it was a very long-winded answer that I think
circled back to it that's that was that was so awesome and I really appreciate that idea of being
(25:10):
you know one and two again or you know just a baby again in those different sections and I think
you know the same can be said for like parents because children don't come with a manual and
(25:31):
and you know we've got to go oh but we've only been doing it for this long it's okay we're
we're figuring this you know we've got to try again and I really love that approach of teaching
teens or guiding them in that sense so I think I love the idea of this group so much and I'm so
(25:58):
excited that you are bringing it to the teens of Brisbane yeah I'm super excited I love working
with teens and it's that really cliche thing of I feel like they teach me more than I teach them
oh I mean mostly in terms of lingo I have no idea what the teens are saying these days and so it's
helpful to have someone say no we don't use that word anymore or your socks are way too low you
(26:23):
need to wear crew socks no one wears ankle socks anymore so it's helpful for me to understand what
teens are going through now because I only have my experience from 10 15 years ago I'm not I'm not a
teen anymore and my experience is so different I actually had a teen last week say to me but
you're old you don't understand how to apply for a job anymore and I laughed because I would have
(26:45):
said the exact same thing to an adult when I was a teen and you know what they have a point I don't
know what it's like to be a teen and I would love to learn more about their experience and hopefully
show them that you can be any kind of minority and still be happy with your life not necessarily
even in a successful job or in a way that society deems is respectable or whatever but in a place
(27:10):
where you're happy with the way your life turned out and I think that is more important than
doing well in school or getting good grades if you can have positive mental health that's more
important than anything because we know the rates of suicide we know the rates of self-harm so you
can be a well-achieving student and you could still feel incredibly low about yourself and not
(27:32):
make it to adulthood so maybe that's where our priority needs to be mental health rather than
grades in school and teens achieving well absolutely absolutely what are the things I think is really
tricky about being a teen a bit like you've you've touched on a few times is that difficulty with
(27:53):
building healthy relationships and yes this is about you know romantic ones but also with friends
and I think having a group where you can talk honestly and openly about what's going on for you
(28:14):
and and start to learn those red flags is is really really important so where do you begin
with talking about relationships I think that's a really good question I think it's impossible to
talk about relationships without talking about context and I think that's a really important
(28:36):
place to start because the environment and the context is really important and if we think about
the society we live in today where cancel culture and red flags and this is toxic and just cut them
off is so prevalent and for good reason I think for far too long people have put up with behaviors
they shouldn't have and particularly I'm talking about minority groups so I think that's a really
(29:00):
important point so queer people or feminine presenting people or women or whoever we want to
say is the minority group here trans people non-binary people we've put up with far too much
for far too long and some of that is teachings that have been passed down from our parents
(29:22):
and some of that is teachings that we see in media and from other people I think as a teen
all of these things from the start we don't have a rule book and you've mentioned before too that
parents don't children don't come with a rule book for parents and kids don't come with a rule book
for themselves right they're understanding themselves for the first time as well and so
(29:43):
having a safe place or safe people to talk to about well this person said this thing and it made me
feel uncomfortable should I even be uncomfortable is this an okay way to feel or this person said
this thing and I'm interested but I don't know why I'm interested and I'm a bit confused and
I just need someone to talk it out with and I think particularly when that's door when that
(30:07):
story comes up between a queer relationship or queer people suddenly queerness is the most
important factor there not this is a relationship between teens or this is a relationship where
this teen is trying to navigate a social situation and queerness isn't even a factor here it's mostly
(30:28):
about age power control respect all of these other things so I think sometimes queerness can cloud
a otherwise really straightforward answer for parents and so I have had parents come to me and
say oh well my teen's going through this thing and they have a same-sex partner and that's this thing
(30:51):
is not okay this social situation is not okay because of this and I think would you have said
this if your child was with an opposite sex partner because you probably would be okay with
them going on dates to the movies and holding hands if they had an opposite sex partner but
now because it's a same-sex relationship you've imposed all of these rules that maybe you grew
(31:12):
up with yourself or the people around you have said this is what it should be you know don't let
your teen out they might get bullied or don't let your teen hold their same sex partner's hand in
public because they'll get bullied or whatever and those are still experiences that happen to this
day of course you know you get looks you get looks and you get people saying things under their
(31:34):
breath or commenting as they nudge you like that still happens in shopping centers now like I've
seen it I've experienced it but the opposite happens a lot too where people will say lovely
things to you so I think it's a really important thing to have a safe place for teens to just talk
and talk about is this a red flag and how do I navigate that is this bad enough for me to not
(31:58):
have a relationship with this person or is there a social skill here that I can work on can I work
on negotiation can I work on perspective taking can I work on maybe understanding where they're
coming from that empathy and also assert what I'm wanting at the same time can I work on boundary
setting so I think the culture that we live in now is very this person did a wrong thing cancelled
(32:22):
they're done they're gone we're no longer looking at Blake Lively or Anne Hathaway they've done the
wrong thing which valid I'm not defending anyone who has done wrong things but I also think
is there a skill here that we can work on is there a way we can have conversations around
maybe this person made a mistake and I'm sure even in this podcast I've made mistakes that I've
(32:44):
I'm going to look back in five years or 10 years and say oh god why did I say that thing and
I've changed so much and this is this is just the nature of having things recorded that we can go
back in time now and say wow this is what I thought when I was x years old in this period of time
if we can come back to it with that self-compassion of I don't know I didn't know then what I know now
(33:05):
then we can move forward and just understand that was a period of time in our life and I think
sometimes particularly parents can struggle with that parents go I want to impart my 30 year old
40 year old wisdom on this 14 year old not knowing that this 14 year old doesn't have capacity to
hold on to this 40 year old knowledge they're trying to navigate this 14 year old knowledge
(33:29):
and they've been a teenager for for one year they've been a teenager for one year and they can't
they can't navigate that just yet so I think a safe place for any person but particularly teens
particularly minority teens to explore what is healthy and what is safe and what is an okay
(33:52):
behavior particularly having role models growing up I didn't know a single queer person or a single
out person I should say until I was about 18 and so up until then everyone that I saw in real life
did not tell me they were queer did not come out in any capacity and there were some people who I
(34:17):
assumed because they kind of acted like me and so I thought oh maybe this person is also queer
and like we've talked about then on in media I saw Alan DeGeneres and Kurt Hummel from Glee like
they were the only two people I knew and I don't look like either of those people and so it's
(34:38):
I think having a person who is you know feminine presenting I dress in dresses and skirts all of
the time I actually hate wearing pants and seeing that oh actually that doesn't make you any less
queer or even if you're bi and you're in an opposite sex relationship that does not make you
any less queer and these are things that teens are starting to understand but I actually think
(34:59):
we can learn from them because they're much better at saying you can be bi and still be a woman with
a man or you can be non-binary and still use she her pronouns or you don't have to be you know
trans and have all of the surgeries you can do whatever and be whoever and that's a thing that
I think adults should learn from teens it goes both ways right like this idea that I'm here to
(35:24):
impart wisdom or facilitate conversations for them I think it's the other way around I think
I would love to learn what their experience as a teenager is now what their relationships look like
now because it's different to when I was a teen and maybe I can impart some of my adult wisdom
on them and they can impart some of their teenage wisdom on me yeah I love that so cool
(35:51):
what do you think the impact of the social media bans are going to be on young people because
now they're not going to be able to talk to other young people on social media to have that outlet
(36:12):
of what do you think about this does this sound safe does it not where they've usually found
social media as a bit of a refuge now of course I know there's a lot of social media can be very
detrimental I'm not ignoring that and I understand that that is a part of it that is that can be very
(36:39):
destructive but I think that there is a part of social media for teens that is really important
what do you think the impact is going to be that is a complex question crystal ball
um I think that again this is one of those gray thinking things isn't it because the absolutes
(37:06):
would be social media is all bad and it needs to be banned and we can't have teens be on social
media and then the opposite side is look at all of these social opportunities that were
depriving teens off if they don't have social media and again we live in a different day and age where
teens are making more online friends than in real life friends and again that's different from
(37:29):
previous generations we growing up I had MSN and Myspace and that is not a thing anymore
no one is talking about that everyone is and even kids younger than teens are making friends on
roblox and minecraft and getting together and but also talking with people in the same way
in various parts of the world and there's this dichotomy of there's so much we can learn from
(37:56):
and be involved with online and from social media and we can make friends and teens who do feel
isolated in their real life can access other people who make them feel understood we compare
that to other people whose experiences on social media can be really detrimental to their mental
(38:17):
health we're comparing ourselves to other people we have all of the filters and the photoshop and
whatever and even though logically and intellectually we understand that this picture that I'm seeing is
not a real life picture it looks really real it looks very real and so I think this is a
conversation that could go into AI and how scary social media can be and then now when we're AI-ing
(38:42):
everything what do we even know is a real person who do we know if there's a how do we know if
there's a real person on the end of this screen let alone how old they are and who they are and
if they're a safe person so I think we should impose limits on social media I don't think
I mean for every person right like it's not great to brain rot I I couch rot all of the time and
(39:07):
after hours and hours it is not helpful for me it's great to sit down there for an hour hour or two
and you know have a bit of a break from life but it's not healthy to scroll for hours so I think
if we have an understanding and awareness of this amount is healthy for me and I can still
differentiate between real life and online life and I can still make online friends but with
(39:33):
the knowledge that maybe this person isn't being completely honest with me in the same way that
maybe I'm not being completely honest with them I think that those are the conversations we need to
have that are more important than just a blanket absolute ban of anything I hope that made sense
it really did and I I completely agree that there's definitely a a grayness to it and there's not a
(40:00):
black and white and that is in where the difficulty is because also then like you said if you hit 16
and all of a sudden you have access to all the social media in the world and you've never used
it before say for example you're a baby on the internet and there's that I think that is again
(40:30):
another sort of complication to all of this idea of banning it up until people are 16 so I mean
so I mean we're not going to fix it here in this podcast I just thought it was interesting to have
a chat about it because talking about teens being able to talk to each other and that is often a way
(40:57):
that they can do it because these days you know even a lot of us adults don't like to talk on the
phone and we're like no no do not call me you can text yeah definitely and that that is you know
a lot of how the how teens these days communicate is through text and I think that governments have
(41:26):
kind of missed that I think yeah I completely agree I think we need to change with the times
as well and if as adults or policymakers if we're not listening to the voices of people who actually
need that support then how are we how are we actually supporting them you know how are we
(41:49):
doing the right thing by them the people who are actually experiencing this social media ban or if
we're putting in the context of ndis even or these participants who are actually receiving these
benefits or not how do we how do we as a policy makers as the people who say this is what you can
access as a service providers as the parents how are we truly caring for that participant or that
(42:14):
child or the people who are impacted by it if we're not listening to their voices and I think we do
the same thing don't we with driving we don't just give a kid keys and say go for your life when they
turn a certain age we take them on practice runs we teach them the road rules we go through books
and say this is how long you should indicate for and this is how you should go around around about
(42:36):
why are we not doing that with social media why aren't we doing that with emotional things and
just physical things why aren't we talking about hey this is what it looks like when you go on a
first date and these are the kind of things that you might feel and these are the kind of things
that the other person might experience and maybe you might have expectations of this but they might
have expectations of this and let's talk about all of the scenarios that can come up here just in the
(43:00):
way we would teach a kid to drive we would say oh someone might beep at you but you don't have to
move you can stay if you don't feel safe or oh other people might cut you off and it's okay to
stay calm but it's also okay to get frustrated at that we don't teach kids how to navigate these
social situations as well as we could and I think the same can be said with if we go back to NDIS
(43:24):
the same can be said with NDIS we have these buckets of funding and we say here are the things
you can do here are things you can access but we don't actually teach people how to access those
things exactly so that goes very nicely into our final question of in your ideal world what would
the future of the NDIS look like? I thought you'd like that segue. I think as we know the NDIS can
(43:56):
be a very complicated thing to talk about first and foremost I think that it is a wonderful idea
it's great that we do have an insurance scheme in place where people can get support without having
to pay out of pocket for it and I know that's not the perfect picture in an ideal world right
(44:18):
people would be able to support access support without having to pay anything and for some people
that's a reality for some people on NDIS they can access supports to an adequate degree without
having to be immensely inconvenienced or have to pay out of pocket rates that they're not able to
pay so I think if we're going to talk about something it's important to talk about gratitude
(44:44):
and what it could look like in a negative sense as well we know in other parts of the world there
are places that don't have schemes like NDIS and lots of people have to pay thousands and thousands
of dollars to access supports for themselves or their kids and it's unreasonable and it's impossible
(45:04):
they just can't do it so it is great that we have a scheme like this available I think similar to
what we were talking about earlier I think more could be done to hear from participants or hear
from communities that actually access this support it's very easy for able-bodied and
(45:26):
non-disabled people to say this is what I think is best and ignore the voices of the people actually
accessing these supports similar to my experience with ABA I went in and learned from people this
is what you should be doing and it's only when I started listening to autistic voices that said
oh we hated it we hated being taught this way this was really awful don't do this don't do this then
(45:51):
me as the person implementing this service I have to listen that's my ethical obligation to listen
and I think NDIS has to have an ethical obligation to listen and it's not a one-size-fits-all
and they're trying very hard to not be a one-size-fits-all but also simultaneously and I
(46:12):
understand it they kind of need to be because how do you possibly service million people without
being to some degree a one-size-fits-all but I have had experience with participants who have you know
eight plus diagnosed conditions or disabilities and they get this huge amount of funding but
(46:34):
because of the nature of those disabilities and diagnoses they do not require that they need
support worker hours their core funding should be increased but they don't need speech pathology
this person is non-speaking they don't need psychology this person can't access psychology
they don't need this amount of funding they need in a different place and I've had people who have
(46:56):
diagnoses with for example autism level one and they don't get funded or if they do they get very
minimal funding and these group of people maybe they need more funding so that they can access
employment and improve their social skills and access the community but because they're speaking
because they did well in school because they can go to university they don't get that funding so
(47:21):
I think that it can't be a one-size-fits-all I think in an ideal world I would love to see and
and again I don't know how this is feasible but you know what this is an ideal world I don't need
to think about the reality in an ideal world I think I would love to see more supports available
for the carers and the family members of people with NDIS as well often far too often I see so
(47:49):
many burnt out parents and so many caregivers that just can't do it anymore and whether that's
increased respite hours or more STAs or whatever that looks like I think the number of support
people carers parents guardians who are really really struggling we have to listen to that we
(48:10):
have to listen to those voices if we're thinking about the mental health of people on NDIS which
we could be doing better at but if we're going to do that then we should also listen to the mental
health of people who are supporting those people in NDIS and shouldn't we look at a more holistic
approach where people the entire family unit or the entire support system can be supported
(48:34):
how do you support I mean how do you pour from an empty cup right that's that whole principle can
be used in this situation I think too yes yes absolutely yes at the very beginning there was
provision to for parents to see psychologists on the understanding that it was a capacity building
(48:59):
of this is how you can better support your person and that was that was very quickly taken away
and I think that that was something that is very needed because often when you have people you care
for who have disabilities it is difficult and you at the same time you don't want to admit that
(49:28):
because you don't want the person who you're caring for to feel like a burden and it is this
double-edged sword and I think parents need parents and carers need more space to talk about that
(49:48):
where support workers and support coordinators and everyone has access to supervision if they want it
but not the unpaid people and that doesn't make sense to me yeah yes I completely agree with that
(50:09):
and I think that there should be more support for people who this isn't their job to support others
they oftentimes are employed and then also have to come home and then take care of someone and it is
a full-time job to take care of someone and I think in not funding supports for people who are
(50:30):
not able to support for carers or parents it breeds this idea that you should feel guilty for asking
for support or you should just do this because that's what a parent does or you should do this
because you're a carer and it breeds this idea of well then I shouldn't ask for support or this is
just expected of me or I love my kid shouldn't I just be able to cope with this but again right
(50:55):
with this as a parent you're five years old as a parent with this child you're navigating this for
the first time and if if we can come back to that self-compassion of everyone gets burnt out everyone
gets tired that does not mean you don't love your kid it means you love them so much you are doing
your absolute best for them to the detriment of your own mental health so if we can as a policy
(51:21):
as a government fund support for carers caregivers and people and family members and people who are
there to support another person I think that that's us really demonstrating where our priorities are
our priorities are in supporting the everyday person our priorities are in making sure that
(51:41):
mental health for all people is equally important not just the people on ndis or not just the person
quote unquote suffering because I mean we're all suffering if in that situation in that equation
well thank you so much for coming on the podcast this has been such a wonderful conversation
(52:01):
I am so excited for people to hear it so tell us how can people reach out to you if they want
a young person to join your group thank you and thank you so much for having me it's been really
really fun and interesting if they want to join this social group they can definitely contact us
(52:29):
um google spectrum services we're based in tuang they can send our wonderful admin team headed by
carry they can send carry an email or a call awesome well thank you so much thank you hannah
I appreciate it bye thank you for listening please share with people you know until next time
(52:51):
as the green brothers say don't forget to be awesome
We acknowledge the original owners of the land on which we podcast, whose stories were told for
(00:05):
thousands of years. Today we are recording in Mianjin. We pay our respects to elders past
and present who may be listening. Sovereignty was never ceded. A quick note before we get started
that there may be some swearing in today's podcast. If you don't like swearing or usually
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(00:32):
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(00:56):
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(01:21):
episode. Hello and welcome to the podcast, Shemeika. Hi. Thank you so much for coming on.
So how we first start each episode is by asking where did you grow up? Yes, thank you so much for
(01:45):
having me Hannah. I grew up in Melbourne. So I was born and raised there. My parents moved to
Melbourne from Sri Lanka two years before I was born. So I was first generation Australian here,
grew up in Melbourne, moved to Brisbane a couple of years ago when my wife wanted to study at
Griffith and so we decided to make the move. Oh amazing. I love Melbourne. I mean we grew up
(02:13):
there too so that's so cool and we'll have to have a conversation about that later.
Yes, lots of shopping and coffee I think. Yes, and cafes that stay open. I think that was the
biggest culture shock when we moved to Brisbane. Like everything closed at four, five, six, whereas
I was used to things staying open till at least eight. Yes. And so I remember one time we were in,
(02:38):
we were living in the city in Brisbane and we decided to go out and everything was closing and
I was so confused. I did not understand how things were closed at five. Yes, it's a huge culture
shock. It's like landing on the moon sometimes I think. Awesome, thank you for that. So how did you
(03:00):
get into the disability sector? Yeah, so I am, I'm now a psychologist and a registered psychologist
and my first kind of taste I think was when I was in high school. I was 16. I remember sitting in my
first psychology class and it was just this aha moment of oh this is what I'm meant to do with my
(03:21):
life. And up until then I didn't know exactly what I was meant to do. Like I did quite well in school
and I was, you know, there was no direct line for me of where I should go. But I sat in that
psychology class and I thought wow this is the culmination of all of my interests. I'm interested
in human behaviour. I'm interested in why we do the things we do. I love learning about the brain
(03:47):
and our body in general and I thought psychology is a place for me. So after that in order to become
a psychologist in Australia you need to do an undergrad and then an honours and then a masters.
So all throughout that I kind of got progressively more involved in psychology and becoming more
hands-on. So it started at being a receptionist and working in admin and kind of just exposing
(04:10):
myself to different psychology clinics. And then from there I went into research and then from there
I went into a primary school where I practiced ABA with children on the spectrum. And I think that
was my direct exposure into the disability sector. And there's a lot of controversy around ABA and so
(04:30):
I think having that hands-on experience was very helpful for me to develop my own understanding of
what I'm comfortable doing and where I now draw the line of oh I'm actually I don't think this is
neuroaffirming enough for me now and I prefer not to, you know, force eye contact or force
verbal communication. There are lots of ways to communicate and without that experience and that
(04:53):
initial experience in the disability sector I think my beliefs now wouldn't be so well formed.
Yeah oh my gosh I love that so much because the idea of doing something that you now realise is a
bit controversial is kind of awesome that you went through that and you've gone oh hang on a sec
(05:19):
let's rethink this. So now where are you and what are you doing now?
Totally so from ABA and for the people listening that's Applied Behavioural Analysis which
originally was developed for particularly compliance with kids on the spectrum and it's
(05:42):
a really intensive program it's like 40 hours a week it's quite intensive it's quite structured
and the longer time has gone from that initial understanding of ABA and the more we hear people
who've now gone through having ABA done to them we can understand that neurodivergent experience
now of people saying this was actually quite detrimental for my mental health and for my
(06:08):
ability to just exist in the community and now that we have that understanding a lot of people
are steering away from strict ABA which I think is wonderful so I started off there then I went into
positive behaviour support which is kind of uses the principles of ABA but in a more positive way
so we don't think about punishment strategies nearly as much and we focus more on the reinforcement
(06:33):
so how can we reinforce or reward this person for doing the thing that they want to achieve
or that we would the skill we would like to teach so from there that's when I got registered as a
psychologist I moved into where I work now which is Spectrum Services based in Tujuan where we
don't exclusively help people on the spectrum there are a lot of people who come here but we
(06:55):
do assessments and clinical interventions and at school or at home support for people either
on the spectrum or not but a lot of really amazing neurodivergent folk who can come here
and just share their experience with us so that's where I am now. Awesome and you have developed a
group program for young people who are LGBTIQ+. Yeah make sure we get all the letters.
(07:25):
Yeah sometimes even for us who are in the community you're like no where do which one two three
two three yeah so tell me a little bit about the group. Yes so LGBTIQA plus communities
and teenagers are two of my very I guess interest areas as a queer person and particularly a queer
(07:49):
person who is also a person of colour I don't and I didn't see and I don't see a lot of representation
for me and particularly as a teen growing up there was no one who was on in media who was brown let
alone Sri Lankan let alone other gay characters and Hannah and I spoken about this before where
(08:12):
the only person I had was Kurt Hummel from Glee and he is a very small representation of what this
community can be and I think a lot of people just assume that you're either gay and you're this
flamboyant gay man or you're this really butch lesbian and there's nothing in between whereas
now we know there's so many other letters and everyone deserves representation and the place
(08:35):
to feel home and comfortable and so for me as a teen exploring my identity and not having a safe
place to explore that with people who either knew more more than I did about the community or were
just willing to listen I didn't I didn't have that growing up and so that's an area where I'm really
(08:56):
interested to form relationships between other teenagers so that they can have that community
and they can have that mutual understanding of each other's experiences that I didn't have growing
up so we have started yes this queen queen we have started this queer teen group and hopefully the
(09:19):
idea is that teenagers who are either on the spectrum not on the spectrum neurodivergent or
not can have a place where they can come make connections and have conversation facilitated by
another person who is queer the queer a queer adult psychologist in the room and can just get
to know each other get to know themselves develop some social skills along the way of how to explore
(09:44):
your identity better or how to have conversations with other people I think particularly when you're
in the community there's a I mean you're in the queer community I should say there's this idea
that you need to know yourself so well so that you can explain it to other people and if they
have questions you need to know the answer and so it doesn't leave a lot of space for us to question
(10:06):
well actually I don't think I know fully yet who I am and I'm still figuring it out and for the
longest time I the pansexual sat really well with me because I thought yeah fall in love with the
person regardless of anything else and regardless of sex or gender and it took a decade or so for me
(10:26):
to go actually I think lesbian fits better here and without that space for me to explore that
I would have given people the wrong answer and I would have had fights with people about things
that I wasn't even fully developed in my thoughts yet about so I think having that safe place where
you can just explore and not have this expectation that you have the answer already I think is a
(10:46):
really important place for not just adults but teens and everyone actually I love this so much
and from where where it comes from as well from you growing up and not having that representation
and that community around you it it is really hard and I think I particularly noticed that
(11:12):
with my kids the most and it is so hard to explain to someone else
who you are and how you feel and that is that can be a moving target you know you know no matter what
what bit of queer you are you can one day be so sure that you're lesbian and that's that and then
(11:44):
then as you go along you go oh no maybe there's more to this or less to this or you know because
you know because then some people really do narrow it way down and there's different ways
people feel even within different sub genres sort of thing and and that doesn't have to be
(12:11):
fixed a fixed point you can kind of go the more the also the more you research and the more words
you find sometimes help you and you go oh actually I heard this word the other day that I hadn't heard
before and I think that's what's really useful when you get teens together because different teens
(12:35):
will be at different points and we'll go oh well have you heard of being um arrow ace or
you know and the other one goes oh what now you know and then they can explain it to each other
and then they go oh oh my goodness that fits better yeah definitely and I think in part because
(12:57):
of the representation we have in media now and with all of the shows that we have that have queer
characters or just and and it's not highlighting their queerness but they're just queer and they're
a character um we have more language and we have more research going into things and so exactly
even terms that like I didn't even know growing up like demigirl or aromantic or even things like
(13:20):
just simple things like asexual like that wasn't defined for me and growing up um and so it's
wonderful to have conversations with people who know more than you or know less than you and you
can all just explore your identity together and I think in society we do have this need for
categorization and binaryness that just doesn't have to exist but it exists because it's it's
(13:45):
easier for our brain to understand binaryness if we can go this thing is black and this thing is
white great but we're not considering all the shades of gray in the middle and that's hard for
brains to comprehend um but it's we live in a world where we just have to accept that there's
grayness and I think a lot of people do get stuck in that black and whiteness of well we can talk
(14:10):
about this in terms of sex or gender or anything really but if as a survival instinct we need to
know this thing is safe this thing is not safe but we're no longer talking about lions on the street
we're no longer talking about this animal that could kill me when I'm walking down the street
we're talking about all of these shades of gray that aren't necessarily dangerous but they're just
foreign to us so if we can have communities that we're able to talk about all of the different ways
(14:36):
that this thing isn't unknown to me but this thing is okay I think that would be really helpful for
society in general absolutely there's another component to this that I think is really helpful
about you in particular hosting a group like this because you are a queer woman of color and that
(15:00):
that like you said earlier that there's just not that representation so how how do you feel now
as an adult of as being the queer woman of color are you do you feel different about that now
I think that there are so many um so many ways I can answer that question
(15:23):
I think that the way that I grew up and my culture didn't necessarily
leave a lot of space for personal identity and searching for that um particularly growing up from
parents who migrated to Australia from a you know developing country that didn't have the
(15:48):
didn't have the opportunities that we have here in terms of educational health care my parents
couldn't understand why something like sexuality was important or something like mental health was
important and I think that's shared among a lot of immigrant children who fight their parents
to value their mental health because the way our parents grew up they were so worried about physical
(16:12):
health making them healthy enough to go to work and put food on the table and it was survival
and so mental health took a back step and now we live in Australia where it's not always
questionable about whether we can get food on the table although in this economy with the
cost of living crisis that's you know changing the conversations around this but now we can focus
(16:36):
on things like mental health and we know that it's actually incredibly important to have positive
mental health and I think that my experience as a queer person of colour is shared among a lot of
people who are queer and people of colour but having said that that experience is also shared
(16:56):
among a lot of cis people or cishet people or a lot of people who fight with their parents about
recognising their own identity as important I think that there are lots of different ways that
people can quote unquote come out and lots of families react in different ways and lots of
friendship groups and society react in different ways and because of the representation we have now
(17:21):
there we are hearing less of the people who whose families react negatively and we're hearing more
about people whose families accept them wholeheartedly or accept them and have some questions or again
this grayness in I accept you fully would be the you know one extreme or the other extreme is I
don't accept you at all and there's a lot of shades of gray in there so there's lots of families who
(17:44):
accept but don't really understand or don't understand but accept and all the different
forms that that can come in so I think in having a group where lots of people have different
experiences of coming out or haven't come out yet don't even want to come out yet don't even know
what they are yet and still exploring that I think could be really helpful to hear oh you're someone
(18:08):
the same age range as me in the same social group as me how did your parents react how did your
family react how did your school react because again depending on your religious upbringing the
school the district the suburb you're in it's a very different reaction absolutely absolutely
(18:28):
particularly with schools because I think this is something that people wider don't really
understand about the queer community is that there's not just one coming out you you kind of
(18:48):
almost come out constantly almost every day with every new person you meet because it'll come up
at some point and with schools if you're still in school it can be really really hard because
even in 2024 there are schools that do so badly at navigating queerness that it is it's shocking and
(19:24):
and really detrimental to people's mental health do you find that there is then some overlap with
being queer and mental illness yes and no I don't think that being queer and I know this isn't how
(19:46):
you meant the question but just for people listening I want to clarify thank you I don't
think that being queer means that you will have mental illness or that you are mentally ill and
I specifically say that because as we know in previous dsm's which is the tool to diagnose
mental illness it was listed as a mental illness to be queer or to be any kind of sexually diverse
(20:13):
and we know now that is bullshit we know that's not real and so I think that the mental ill health
that comes with being queer is more of a product of the environment people are in there are plenty
of queer people who have loving supportive environments that they're raised in who when
(20:35):
they quote unquote come out their parents are fine with it they're great you're just a person I love
you regardless of anything wonderful and they can still be have depression they can still have
anxiety or they have none of the above and just continue life living with great mental health
whereas I think the opposite can happen to people who whose families react quite negatively or
(20:58):
people whose friendship circles start excluding them from them they start feeling socially isolated
of course social isolation is going to make you not feel good we are social creatures and we need
belonging and we need community and that's part of being human and so if any human is socially
isolated or is bullied or doesn't feel like they have a place to call home of course we're going
(21:24):
to see increased rates of anxiety and depression or whatever other mental health crises could be
happening so to answer that question I think yes and no I also think it's not a one-size-fits-all
as we know again right back to this gray thinking it's not a one-size-fits-all of you had this
(21:45):
experience therefore you will be this for the rest of your life right identities can change our
understanding of ourselves can change our awareness of ourselves changes over time and as all of these
things change we learn more about ourselves and the skills we have changed the coping strategies
we have changed and that all impacts who we are I think my interest in working with teens is because
(22:11):
of that as a teen you have all of these new problems that come up in being a teenager and
having hormones and all of these complex social situations that come up that are similar to adult
life you know navigating relationships and sexual and romantic relationships and navigating
(22:31):
friendship issues and bullying and working for the first time and employment all of these things
that we experience as an adult but just in a tiny teen body and I think when you become an adult
it's really easy to dismiss your experiences as a teenager of oh I was naive I didn't know any better
or I was still learning and that's okay and but when you're a teen that's your entire life you're
(22:54):
the oldest you've ever been at that point so how do you how do you know how to navigate that
I often talk with my clients about each stage of life being being a baby again so when you're a
baby and you turn one or two and you're learning how to talk and walk we're not holding expectations
that you should know anything other than just learning the world around you and then you turn
(23:16):
14 or 15 and they have all of these expectations of I should know better I should do better but
you're just one or two years old as a teenager you've only been a teen for one or two years how
are you so harsh on this teenager who's just living in this body for the first time and then
you turn 20 21 and people are so hard on themselves how come I'm not better yet how come I don't have
(23:38):
a job yet how come all of these questions and I just think you've been an adult for two years
would you be this harsh on a two-year-old child no why are we so hard on ourselves and the same
thing happens when you turn any age right like if you've lived at home for only a year why are you
so hard on yourself because you can't manage cooking and cleaning and working and having a
(23:59):
relationship all at the same time if you've been a parent for only two years how can you be so hard
on yourself and I think all of these mental health mental ill health can come at any point
depression anxiety anything can happen at any point traumas can occur from anything at any point
so self-compassion I think is the key and if we can teach ourselves to be compassionate towards
(24:24):
ourselves and then on others I think that will really help and I think that's a skill teens
can learn and implement from a young age that as they become adults they can support themselves
and queer teens if we can teach queer teens to be self-compassionate it's okay that not everyone
understands your journey it's okay that you don't understand your journey if we can teach that
(24:45):
then maybe the rates of mental ill health will go down maybe they won't be such high correlation
between being queer and having poor mental health yeah it was a very long-winded answer that I think
circled back to it that's that was that was so awesome and I really appreciate that idea of being
(25:10):
you know one and two again or you know just a baby again in those different sections and I think
you know the same can be said for like parents because children don't come with a manual and
(25:31):
and you know we've got to go oh but we've only been doing it for this long it's okay we're
we're figuring this you know we've got to try again and I really love that approach of teaching
teens or guiding them in that sense so I think I love the idea of this group so much and I'm so
(25:58):
excited that you are bringing it to the teens of Brisbane yeah I'm super excited I love working
with teens and it's that really cliche thing of I feel like they teach me more than I teach them
oh I mean mostly in terms of lingo I have no idea what the teens are saying these days and so it's
helpful to have someone say no we don't use that word anymore or your socks are way too low you
(26:23):
need to wear crew socks no one wears ankle socks anymore so it's helpful for me to understand what
teens are going through now because I only have my experience from 10 15 years ago I'm not I'm not a
teen anymore and my experience is so different I actually had a teen last week say to me but
you're old you don't understand how to apply for a job anymore and I laughed because I would have
(26:45):
said the exact same thing to an adult when I was a teen and you know what they have a point I don't
know what it's like to be a teen and I would love to learn more about their experience and hopefully
show them that you can be any kind of minority and still be happy with your life not necessarily
even in a successful job or in a way that society deems is respectable or whatever but in a place
(27:10):
where you're happy with the way your life turned out and I think that is more important than
doing well in school or getting good grades if you can have positive mental health that's more
important than anything because we know the rates of suicide we know the rates of self-harm so you
can be a well-achieving student and you could still feel incredibly low about yourself and not
(27:32):
make it to adulthood so maybe that's where our priority needs to be mental health rather than
grades in school and teens achieving well absolutely absolutely what are the things I think is really
tricky about being a teen a bit like you've you've touched on a few times is that difficulty with
(27:53):
building healthy relationships and yes this is about you know romantic ones but also with friends
and I think having a group where you can talk honestly and openly about what's going on for you
(28:14):
and and start to learn those red flags is is really really important so where do you begin
with talking about relationships I think that's a really good question I think it's impossible to
talk about relationships without talking about context and I think that's a really important
(28:36):
place to start because the environment and the context is really important and if we think about
the society we live in today where cancel culture and red flags and this is toxic and just cut them
off is so prevalent and for good reason I think for far too long people have put up with behaviors
they shouldn't have and particularly I'm talking about minority groups so I think that's a really
(29:00):
important point so queer people or feminine presenting people or women or whoever we want to
say is the minority group here trans people non-binary people we've put up with far too much
for far too long and some of that is teachings that have been passed down from our parents
(29:22):
and some of that is teachings that we see in media and from other people I think as a teen
all of these things from the start we don't have a rule book and you've mentioned before too that
parents don't children don't come with a rule book for parents and kids don't come with a rule book
for themselves right they're understanding themselves for the first time as well and so
(29:43):
having a safe place or safe people to talk to about well this person said this thing and it made me
feel uncomfortable should I even be uncomfortable is this an okay way to feel or this person said
this thing and I'm interested but I don't know why I'm interested and I'm a bit confused and
I just need someone to talk it out with and I think particularly when that's door when that
(30:07):
story comes up between a queer relationship or queer people suddenly queerness is the most
important factor there not this is a relationship between teens or this is a relationship where
this teen is trying to navigate a social situation and queerness isn't even a factor here it's mostly
(30:28):
about age power control respect all of these other things so I think sometimes queerness can cloud
a otherwise really straightforward answer for parents and so I have had parents come to me and
say oh well my teen's going through this thing and they have a same-sex partner and that's this thing
(30:51):
is not okay this social situation is not okay because of this and I think would you have said
this if your child was with an opposite sex partner because you probably would be okay with
them going on dates to the movies and holding hands if they had an opposite sex partner but
now because it's a same-sex relationship you've imposed all of these rules that maybe you grew
(31:12):
up with yourself or the people around you have said this is what it should be you know don't let
your teen out they might get bullied or don't let your teen hold their same sex partner's hand in
public because they'll get bullied or whatever and those are still experiences that happen to this
day of course you know you get looks you get looks and you get people saying things under their
(31:34):
breath or commenting as they nudge you like that still happens in shopping centers now like I've
seen it I've experienced it but the opposite happens a lot too where people will say lovely
things to you so I think it's a really important thing to have a safe place for teens to just talk
and talk about is this a red flag and how do I navigate that is this bad enough for me to not
(31:58):
have a relationship with this person or is there a social skill here that I can work on can I work
on negotiation can I work on perspective taking can I work on maybe understanding where they're
coming from that empathy and also assert what I'm wanting at the same time can I work on boundary
setting so I think the culture that we live in now is very this person did a wrong thing cancelled
(32:22):
they're done they're gone we're no longer looking at Blake Lively or Anne Hathaway they've done the
wrong thing which valid I'm not defending anyone who has done wrong things but I also think
is there a skill here that we can work on is there a way we can have conversations around
maybe this person made a mistake and I'm sure even in this podcast I've made mistakes that I've
(32:44):
I'm going to look back in five years or 10 years and say oh god why did I say that thing and
I've changed so much and this is this is just the nature of having things recorded that we can go
back in time now and say wow this is what I thought when I was x years old in this period of time
if we can come back to it with that self-compassion of I don't know I didn't know then what I know now
(33:05):
then we can move forward and just understand that was a period of time in our life and I think
sometimes particularly parents can struggle with that parents go I want to impart my 30 year old
40 year old wisdom on this 14 year old not knowing that this 14 year old doesn't have capacity to
hold on to this 40 year old knowledge they're trying to navigate this 14 year old knowledge
(33:29):
and they've been a teenager for for one year they've been a teenager for one year and they can't
they can't navigate that just yet so I think a safe place for any person but particularly teens
particularly minority teens to explore what is healthy and what is safe and what is an okay
(33:52):
behavior particularly having role models growing up I didn't know a single queer person or a single
out person I should say until I was about 18 and so up until then everyone that I saw in real life
did not tell me they were queer did not come out in any capacity and there were some people who I
(34:17):
assumed because they kind of acted like me and so I thought oh maybe this person is also queer
and like we've talked about then on in media I saw Alan DeGeneres and Kurt Hummel from Glee like
they were the only two people I knew and I don't look like either of those people and so it's
(34:38):
I think having a person who is you know feminine presenting I dress in dresses and skirts all of
the time I actually hate wearing pants and seeing that oh actually that doesn't make you any less
queer or even if you're bi and you're in an opposite sex relationship that does not make you
any less queer and these are things that teens are starting to understand but I actually think
(34:59):
we can learn from them because they're much better at saying you can be bi and still be a woman with
a man or you can be non-binary and still use she her pronouns or you don't have to be you know
trans and have all of the surgeries you can do whatever and be whoever and that's a thing that
I think adults should learn from teens it goes both ways right like this idea that I'm here to
(35:24):
impart wisdom or facilitate conversations for them I think it's the other way around I think
I would love to learn what their experience as a teenager is now what their relationships look like
now because it's different to when I was a teen and maybe I can impart some of my adult wisdom
on them and they can impart some of their teenage wisdom on me yeah I love that so cool
(35:51):
what do you think the impact of the social media bans are going to be on young people because
now they're not going to be able to talk to other young people on social media to have that outlet
(36:12):
of what do you think about this does this sound safe does it not where they've usually found
social media as a bit of a refuge now of course I know there's a lot of social media can be very
detrimental I'm not ignoring that and I understand that that is a part of it that is that can be very
(36:39):
destructive but I think that there is a part of social media for teens that is really important
what do you think the impact is going to be that is a complex question crystal ball
um I think that again this is one of those gray thinking things isn't it because the absolutes
(37:06):
would be social media is all bad and it needs to be banned and we can't have teens be on social
media and then the opposite side is look at all of these social opportunities that were
depriving teens off if they don't have social media and again we live in a different day and age where
teens are making more online friends than in real life friends and again that's different from
(37:29):
previous generations we growing up I had MSN and Myspace and that is not a thing anymore
no one is talking about that everyone is and even kids younger than teens are making friends on
roblox and minecraft and getting together and but also talking with people in the same way
in various parts of the world and there's this dichotomy of there's so much we can learn from
(37:56):
and be involved with online and from social media and we can make friends and teens who do feel
isolated in their real life can access other people who make them feel understood we compare
that to other people whose experiences on social media can be really detrimental to their mental
(38:17):
health we're comparing ourselves to other people we have all of the filters and the photoshop and
whatever and even though logically and intellectually we understand that this picture that I'm seeing is
not a real life picture it looks really real it looks very real and so I think this is a
conversation that could go into AI and how scary social media can be and then now when we're AI-ing
(38:42):
everything what do we even know is a real person who do we know if there's a how do we know if
there's a real person on the end of this screen let alone how old they are and who they are and
if they're a safe person so I think we should impose limits on social media I don't think
I mean for every person right like it's not great to brain rot I I couch rot all of the time and
(39:07):
after hours and hours it is not helpful for me it's great to sit down there for an hour hour or two
and you know have a bit of a break from life but it's not healthy to scroll for hours so I think
if we have an understanding and awareness of this amount is healthy for me and I can still
differentiate between real life and online life and I can still make online friends but with
(39:33):
the knowledge that maybe this person isn't being completely honest with me in the same way that
maybe I'm not being completely honest with them I think that those are the conversations we need to
have that are more important than just a blanket absolute ban of anything I hope that made sense
it really did and I I completely agree that there's definitely a a grayness to it and there's not a
(40:00):
black and white and that is in where the difficulty is because also then like you said if you hit 16
and all of a sudden you have access to all the social media in the world and you've never used
it before say for example you're a baby on the internet and there's that I think that is again
(40:30):
another sort of complication to all of this idea of banning it up until people are 16 so I mean
so I mean we're not going to fix it here in this podcast I just thought it was interesting to have
a chat about it because talking about teens being able to talk to each other and that is often a way
(40:57):
that they can do it because these days you know even a lot of us adults don't like to talk on the
phone and we're like no no do not call me you can text yeah definitely and that that is you know
a lot of how the how teens these days communicate is through text and I think that governments have
(41:26):
kind of missed that I think yeah I completely agree I think we need to change with the times
as well and if as adults or policymakers if we're not listening to the voices of people who actually
need that support then how are we how are we actually supporting them you know how are we
(41:49):
doing the right thing by them the people who are actually experiencing this social media ban or if
we're putting in the context of ndis even or these participants who are actually receiving these
benefits or not how do we how do we as a policy makers as the people who say this is what you can
access as a service providers as the parents how are we truly caring for that participant or that
(42:14):
child or the people who are impacted by it if we're not listening to their voices and I think we do
the same thing don't we with driving we don't just give a kid keys and say go for your life when they
turn a certain age we take them on practice runs we teach them the road rules we go through books
and say this is how long you should indicate for and this is how you should go around around about
(42:36):
why are we not doing that with social media why aren't we doing that with emotional things and
just physical things why aren't we talking about hey this is what it looks like when you go on a
first date and these are the kind of things that you might feel and these are the kind of things
that the other person might experience and maybe you might have expectations of this but they might
have expectations of this and let's talk about all of the scenarios that can come up here just in the
(43:00):
way we would teach a kid to drive we would say oh someone might beep at you but you don't have to
move you can stay if you don't feel safe or oh other people might cut you off and it's okay to
stay calm but it's also okay to get frustrated at that we don't teach kids how to navigate these
social situations as well as we could and I think the same can be said with if we go back to NDIS
(43:24):
the same can be said with NDIS we have these buckets of funding and we say here are the things
you can do here are things you can access but we don't actually teach people how to access those
things exactly so that goes very nicely into our final question of in your ideal world what would
the future of the NDIS look like? I thought you'd like that segue. I think as we know the NDIS can
(43:56):
be a very complicated thing to talk about first and foremost I think that it is a wonderful idea
it's great that we do have an insurance scheme in place where people can get support without having
to pay out of pocket for it and I know that's not the perfect picture in an ideal world right
(44:18):
people would be able to support access support without having to pay anything and for some people
that's a reality for some people on NDIS they can access supports to an adequate degree without
having to be immensely inconvenienced or have to pay out of pocket rates that they're not able to
pay so I think if we're going to talk about something it's important to talk about gratitude
(44:44):
and what it could look like in a negative sense as well we know in other parts of the world there
are places that don't have schemes like NDIS and lots of people have to pay thousands and thousands
of dollars to access supports for themselves or their kids and it's unreasonable and it's impossible
(45:04):
they just can't do it so it is great that we have a scheme like this available I think similar to
what we were talking about earlier I think more could be done to hear from participants or hear
from communities that actually access this support it's very easy for able-bodied and
(45:26):
non-disabled people to say this is what I think is best and ignore the voices of the people actually
accessing these supports similar to my experience with ABA I went in and learned from people this
is what you should be doing and it's only when I started listening to autistic voices that said
oh we hated it we hated being taught this way this was really awful don't do this don't do this then
(45:51):
me as the person implementing this service I have to listen that's my ethical obligation to listen
and I think NDIS has to have an ethical obligation to listen and it's not a one-size-fits-all
and they're trying very hard to not be a one-size-fits-all but also simultaneously and I
(46:12):
understand it they kind of need to be because how do you possibly service million people without
being to some degree a one-size-fits-all but I have had experience with participants who have you know
eight plus diagnosed conditions or disabilities and they get this huge amount of funding but
(46:34):
because of the nature of those disabilities and diagnoses they do not require that they need
support worker hours their core funding should be increased but they don't need speech pathology
this person is non-speaking they don't need psychology this person can't access psychology
they don't need this amount of funding they need in a different place and I've had people who have
(46:56):
diagnoses with for example autism level one and they don't get funded or if they do they get very
minimal funding and these group of people maybe they need more funding so that they can access
employment and improve their social skills and access the community but because they're speaking
because they did well in school because they can go to university they don't get that funding so
(47:21):
I think that it can't be a one-size-fits-all I think in an ideal world I would love to see and
and again I don't know how this is feasible but you know what this is an ideal world I don't need
to think about the reality in an ideal world I think I would love to see more supports available
for the carers and the family members of people with NDIS as well often far too often I see so
(47:49):
many burnt out parents and so many caregivers that just can't do it anymore and whether that's
increased respite hours or more STAs or whatever that looks like I think the number of support
people carers parents guardians who are really really struggling we have to listen to that we
(48:10):
have to listen to those voices if we're thinking about the mental health of people on NDIS which
we could be doing better at but if we're going to do that then we should also listen to the mental
health of people who are supporting those people in NDIS and shouldn't we look at a more holistic
approach where people the entire family unit or the entire support system can be supported
(48:34):
how do you support I mean how do you pour from an empty cup right that's that whole principle can
be used in this situation I think too yes yes absolutely yes at the very beginning there was
provision to for parents to see psychologists on the understanding that it was a capacity building
(48:59):
of this is how you can better support your person and that was that was very quickly taken away
and I think that that was something that is very needed because often when you have people you care
for who have disabilities it is difficult and you at the same time you don't want to admit that
(49:28):
because you don't want the person who you're caring for to feel like a burden and it is this
double-edged sword and I think parents need parents and carers need more space to talk about that
(49:48):
where support workers and support coordinators and everyone has access to supervision if they want it
but not the unpaid people and that doesn't make sense to me yeah yes I completely agree with that
(50:09):
and I think that there should be more support for people who this isn't their job to support others
they oftentimes are employed and then also have to come home and then take care of someone and it is
a full-time job to take care of someone and I think in not funding supports for people who are
(50:30):
not able to support for carers or parents it breeds this idea that you should feel guilty for asking
for support or you should just do this because that's what a parent does or you should do this
because you're a carer and it breeds this idea of well then I shouldn't ask for support or this is
just expected of me or I love my kid shouldn't I just be able to cope with this but again right
(50:55):
with this as a parent you're five years old as a parent with this child you're navigating this for
the first time and if if we can come back to that self-compassion of everyone gets burnt out everyone
gets tired that does not mean you don't love your kid it means you love them so much you are doing
your absolute best for them to the detriment of your own mental health so if we can as a policy
(51:21):
as a government fund support for carers caregivers and people and family members and people who are
there to support another person I think that that's us really demonstrating where our priorities are
our priorities are in supporting the everyday person our priorities are in making sure that
(51:41):
mental health for all people is equally important not just the people on ndis or not just the person
quote unquote suffering because I mean we're all suffering if in that situation in that equation
well thank you so much for coming on the podcast this has been such a wonderful conversation
(52:01):
I am so excited for people to hear it so tell us how can people reach out to you if they want
a young person to join your group thank you and thank you so much for having me it's been really
really fun and interesting if they want to join this social group they can definitely contact us
(52:29):
um google spectrum services we're based in tuang they can send our wonderful admin team headed by
carry they can send carry an email or a call awesome well thank you so much thank you hannah
I appreciate it bye thank you for listening please share with people you know until next time
(52:51):
as the green brothers say don't forget to be awesome
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