April 6, 2024 • 7 mins
i'm a big fan of mental health awareness. i think it's incredible that we're talking about mental health more than ever. however, it's simply not enough on its own, and many people are left feeling frustrated when the awareness is all that they get. let's talk about it.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
At the peak of my mental illness, I would listen to
people talk about mental health,either on social media or in
real life. They would talk about how we
just need more mental health awareness.
And in response, I thought, well, I'm plenty aware of the
fact that I'm mentally ill What else can I do?
(00:21):
My name is Ethan Jewell and welcome back to Feel Your
Feelings. The frustration that I had when
I was really, really struggling with mental health was the
modern approach to mental illness.
Now don't get me wrong, it's probably the best that it's ever
been. I mean, the fact that there is
(00:42):
mental health awareness is amazing.
The fact that we're talking about it and starting the
conversation is incredible. I mean, that's the whole reason
that I started this podcast. I wanted to spread mental health
awareness. However, I also try to offer
real, tangible solutions that you can take into your life
every day because it is so frustrating as somebody who is
(01:02):
struggling, as somebody with with real depression, to see
people posting online just saying you need to journal and
you need to talk it out. Because that's not enough.
I actually look back to a poem that I wrote a couple of years
ago called Why Am I Not better? And it goes like this.
This illness isn't cute. It's not for writing beautiful
(01:23):
poetry. It's not for singing pretty
chords. It's not for you to be there for
me. It's not for me to be
understood. Don't post positive quotes.
This isn't helping. And that was coming from a place
of real frustration, trying to get better.
Somebody who was trying to take the first step.
And all of this talk of awareness was making it worse.
(01:45):
Because I would try these things.
I would journal, I would talk toa friend and I would keep being
depressed and I felt worse. I would think, am I so messed up
that what works for everybody else doesn't work for me?
The truth is, what does work in mental health recovery is an
immense amount of time and effort.
(02:06):
A lot of people say that the first step is coming to terms
with the fact that you have problems to work through.
I would agree. But I think the second step,
which is maybe more important, is coming to terms with how long
it will take to recover. So let's talk about this process
a little bit outside of the realms of awareness and discuss
why it takes so, so long. So when you are wondering why am
(02:28):
I not better, you'll have an answer.
So what actually happens when we're trying to recover?
It's not just accepting that we have mental illness issues and
moving on. No, it requires active work and
active effort in order to rewireour brains, and that's exactly
what we're doing. Rewiring.
The most common way that mental illness can be worked through is
(02:51):
by rewiring. We see this in cognitive
behavioral therapy or CBT, whichis a very common form of
therapy. Essentially, within this
practice, you and a professionalidentify behaviors, thoughts,
actions, or patterns that are harming you and are caused by
some sort of negative thinking, chemical imbalance, or just
general mental illness. Then you work to break that down
(03:14):
to its core and set new habits in its place.
You break a big problem into little pieces and then deal with
them one at a time. This is much harder than it
sounds. Imagine if you built an entire
Lego set, but a few pieces in the middle were wrong, or a few
pieces at the bottom were wrong and it ruined the entire set.
You can't just reach and take out those pieces in the middle
(03:36):
and go from there. You have to start from scratch.
You have to take the Lego set apart and rebuild.
And that's exactly how mental health recovery works.
You can't expect to be able to rewire your entire mindset, your
entire brain, in a few easy steps.
It isn't just about awareness. It isn't just about journaling.
You have to be prepared to go piece by piece, bit by bit, and
(03:57):
put yourself back together. This is a job that nobody can do
for you, nobody lives inside your mind, and nobody is able to
fix these thought patterns for you.
It comes down to you. So if you're asking the question
why am I not better yet, I have to ask you Are you ready to be
better? Are you ready to put in the work
(04:20):
and time that it takes to get better?
You need to accept the fact thatit will take time.
You will likely not magically feel better in a month.
I don't want that to sound discouraging.
I hope that you take it as the opposite.
If you've been trying for weeks,months or even years to get
better and you haven't seen tangible results, I want to tell
(04:44):
you it will happen eventually. I promise you.
It just takes time. And I know this first hand.
I mindlessly went to therapy fora long time.
I would go to the sessions, talkabout my days, talk about the
little things that were upsetting me, but I never opened
up to anything deeper and unsurprisingly I didn't see very
(05:05):
much progress. After a while of doing this, I
started wondering when I would get better.
I complained that I simply wasn't built for therapy.
I wasn't supposed to be better and eventually I stopped going
altogether and all I had to showfor it were coping techniques
and self reflection methods. But that ended up being enough.
All it took was a mindset shift in me accepting the time that it
(05:28):
would take and the active effortthat it would take to get
better. I used these coping techniques.
I used that self reflection and slowly worked through
insecurities, worries, fears andpains that were rooted deep
within me from my mental illness.
I tried to get to the root and break it down piece by piece.
I want to remind you I'm not a professional.
(05:48):
I don't have any certifications,but I've done this work myself.
It takes acceptance, determination, and willingness
to do the work. There's no easy way through it.
There's no amount of quotes online that you can read, and
journaling will help, but you need to put in active work over
(06:09):
time in order to improve. I recommend doing some research,
doing some trial and error and finding coping mechanisms and
self reflection techniques that work for you.
It took a lot of trial and errorfor me.
I tried different things. I tried various things that I
read online, and some of them didn't work, but some of them
finally did. Figure out what's hurting and do
(06:29):
your best to repair it. Seek professional help if
necessary. There are options.
Talk to friends and family. It takes time.
Nobody deserves to feel like they'll never get better,
especially you. But that's an unfortunate
reality of mental illness. You need to be willing to accept
the time it will take and move forward.
(06:50):
Regardless, you are enough and you are capable.
That's going to wrap it up for today's episode.
If you need help feeling your feelings, check out my music on
all platforms under the name of Ethan Jewel and I almost
guarantee it'll make you cry. I'm coming out with a new album
April 19th and you can pre save it on my website ethanjewel.com
(07:11):
right now. Also please shoot me a message
on my Instagram at Jewel Boy with an I under score and let me
know what you thought about today's episode.
So thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for understanding thatmental illness is different than
social media portrays it. And as always, thank you for
feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.
At the peak of my mental illness, I would listen to
people talk about mental health,either on social media or in
real life. They would talk about how we
just need more mental health awareness.
And in response, I thought, well, I'm plenty aware of the
fact that I'm mentally ill What else can I do?
(00:21):
My name is Ethan Jewell and welcome back to Feel Your
Feelings. The frustration that I had when
I was really, really struggling with mental health was the
modern approach to mental illness.
Now don't get me wrong, it's probably the best that it's ever
been. I mean, the fact that there is
(00:42):
mental health awareness is amazing.
The fact that we're talking about it and starting the
conversation is incredible. I mean, that's the whole reason
that I started this podcast. I wanted to spread mental health
awareness. However, I also try to offer
real, tangible solutions that you can take into your life
every day because it is so frustrating as somebody who is
(01:02):
struggling, as somebody with with real depression, to see
people posting online just saying you need to journal and
you need to talk it out. Because that's not enough.
I actually look back to a poem that I wrote a couple of years
ago called Why Am I Not better? And it goes like this.
This illness isn't cute. It's not for writing beautiful
(01:23):
poetry. It's not for singing pretty
chords. It's not for you to be there for
me. It's not for me to be
understood. Don't post positive quotes.
This isn't helping. And that was coming from a place
of real frustration, trying to get better.
Somebody who was trying to take the first step.
And all of this talk of awareness was making it worse.
(01:45):
Because I would try these things.
I would journal, I would talk toa friend and I would keep being
depressed and I felt worse. I would think, am I so messed up
that what works for everybody else doesn't work for me?
The truth is, what does work in mental health recovery is an
immense amount of time and effort.
(02:06):
A lot of people say that the first step is coming to terms
with the fact that you have problems to work through.
I would agree. But I think the second step,
which is maybe more important, is coming to terms with how long
it will take to recover. So let's talk about this process
a little bit outside of the realms of awareness and discuss
why it takes so, so long. So when you are wondering why am
(02:28):
I not better, you'll have an answer.
So what actually happens when we're trying to recover?
It's not just accepting that we have mental illness issues and
moving on. No, it requires active work and
active effort in order to rewireour brains, and that's exactly
what we're doing. Rewiring.
The most common way that mental illness can be worked through is
(02:51):
by rewiring. We see this in cognitive
behavioral therapy or CBT, whichis a very common form of
therapy. Essentially, within this
practice, you and a professionalidentify behaviors, thoughts,
actions, or patterns that are harming you and are caused by
some sort of negative thinking, chemical imbalance, or just
general mental illness. Then you work to break that down
(03:14):
to its core and set new habits in its place.
You break a big problem into little pieces and then deal with
them one at a time. This is much harder than it
sounds. Imagine if you built an entire
Lego set, but a few pieces in the middle were wrong, or a few
pieces at the bottom were wrong and it ruined the entire set.
You can't just reach and take out those pieces in the middle
(03:36):
and go from there. You have to start from scratch.
You have to take the Lego set apart and rebuild.
And that's exactly how mental health recovery works.
You can't expect to be able to rewire your entire mindset, your
entire brain, in a few easy steps.
It isn't just about awareness. It isn't just about journaling.
You have to be prepared to go piece by piece, bit by bit, and
(03:57):
put yourself back together. This is a job that nobody can do
for you, nobody lives inside your mind, and nobody is able to
fix these thought patterns for you.
It comes down to you. So if you're asking the question
why am I not better yet, I have to ask you Are you ready to be
better? Are you ready to put in the work
(04:20):
and time that it takes to get better?
You need to accept the fact thatit will take time.
You will likely not magically feel better in a month.
I don't want that to sound discouraging.
I hope that you take it as the opposite.
If you've been trying for weeks,months or even years to get
better and you haven't seen tangible results, I want to tell
(04:44):
you it will happen eventually. I promise you.
It just takes time. And I know this first hand.
I mindlessly went to therapy fora long time.
I would go to the sessions, talkabout my days, talk about the
little things that were upsetting me, but I never opened
up to anything deeper and unsurprisingly I didn't see very
(05:05):
much progress. After a while of doing this, I
started wondering when I would get better.
I complained that I simply wasn't built for therapy.
I wasn't supposed to be better and eventually I stopped going
altogether and all I had to showfor it were coping techniques
and self reflection methods. But that ended up being enough.
All it took was a mindset shift in me accepting the time that it
(05:28):
would take and the active effortthat it would take to get
better. I used these coping techniques.
I used that self reflection and slowly worked through
insecurities, worries, fears andpains that were rooted deep
within me from my mental illness.
I tried to get to the root and break it down piece by piece.
I want to remind you I'm not a professional.
(05:48):
I don't have any certifications,but I've done this work myself.
It takes acceptance, determination, and willingness
to do the work. There's no easy way through it.
There's no amount of quotes online that you can read, and
journaling will help, but you need to put in active work over
(06:09):
time in order to improve. I recommend doing some research,
doing some trial and error and finding coping mechanisms and
self reflection techniques that work for you.
It took a lot of trial and errorfor me.
I tried different things. I tried various things that I
read online, and some of them didn't work, but some of them
finally did. Figure out what's hurting and do
(06:29):
your best to repair it. Seek professional help if
necessary. There are options.
Talk to friends and family. It takes time.
Nobody deserves to feel like they'll never get better,
especially you. But that's an unfortunate
reality of mental illness. You need to be willing to accept
the time it will take and move forward.
(06:50):
Regardless, you are enough and you are capable.
That's going to wrap it up for today's episode.
If you need help feeling your feelings, check out my music on
all platforms under the name of Ethan Jewel and I almost
guarantee it'll make you cry. I'm coming out with a new album
April 19th and you can pre save it on my website ethanjewel.com
(07:11):
right now. Also please shoot me a message
on my Instagram at Jewel Boy with an I under score and let me
know what you thought about today's episode.
So thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for understanding thatmental illness is different than
social media portrays it. And as always, thank you for
feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.
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