Transcript

SureEyes: [00:00:00] you're listening to quintessentially mental a podcast hosted by SureEyes, please note that this host is not a mental health practitioner or professional, and this podcast is not made for treatment of any mental illness. 

[00:00:25] Spudcaster: [00:00:25] Baobulb.org is a podcasting platform and a medium for storytelling. This podcast is also available on all the major podcasting apps, including apple and Google podcasts. Podcast

[00:00:39] your life with Baobulb.org. 

[00:00:42] SureEyes: [00:00:42] Hey y'all you're listening to quintessentially mental the podcast and I'm your host, SureEyes. Another day, another day had a, quite an interesting chat with one of my cousins. Um, we, we spoke a bit about all familial or family issues and how that potentially affects us and things that we're expected to do to show progress or show that we’re dealing with things.

[00:01:15] And one of the things he asked me was ja but why must I go to a therapist now? This is quite a, you know, interesting conversation. We, you know, people think that using therapists you have some kind of holy grail and they're going to fix you. And all of a sudden things are going to be okay, and you're going to be resolved of all your issues and life is just going to be dandy.

[00:01:49] That's not necessarily true, although it's deconstructed a bit. Why a therapist? So all I asked him was if you broke your arm, Would you go and put a cast on yourself? He looked at me and started laughing and was like, uh, obviously not. And I was like, oh, so if you, you know, had some kind of physical health illness, Are you going to medicate yourself?

[00:02:19] Are you going to write your own script? Are you going to perform open heart surgery? Are you going to, you know, why, why would we treat our mental health different to how we treat our physical health and he was like, okay, I see your point. And I was like, yo, all therapists are another type of medical practitioner.

[00:02:44] Um, and so I think, you know, we, we, we forget that there are specialists for all types of health. So we have, you know, GPS, cardiologists, um, I dunno, neurosurgeons, paediatricians, you know, we have all those kinds of medical practitioners, oncologists, you know, we have all of these types of medical practitioners when it comes to our physical health.

[00:03:18] And if we look at, you know, despite what you believe in, or regardless of what you believe in, they, you know, Idea of spiritual health, and this could be your spiritual health practitioner could be your priest or your rabbi or your mom or your, um, Sharman or your, um, you know, whichever type of your clairvoyant your, you know, whatever or the type of practitioner you deem quanlified in that.

[00:03:52] To deal with your spiritual health. And so the same, I think goes for mental health, right? And so these are people who are trained. And when I say trained, I mean, they also went to school. They also went and studied the subjects that pertain to this particular topic, whether it be. Um, you know, family psychology, whether it be, um, you know, psychiatry, whether it be, you know, studying the Freudian, um, types of belief system, whether it's cognitive behavioural therapy or.

[00:04:34] You know, any other type of, um, therapies. Where there’s actual learning behind an actual, you know, studying of the subject behind what it is they're specialists in. And so the idea of therapy isn't, you know, we should. Just kind of hand off all of our problems to some unknown third party, you know, who is going to wave the therapeutic wand and all of a sudden we're going to be chilled.

[00:05:08] Um, you know, I sometimes joke and I think I'm like, why...

Transcript

SureEyes: [00:00:00] you're listening to quintessentially mental a podcast hosted by SureEyes, please note that this host is not a mental health practitioner or professional, and this podcast is not made for treatment of any mental condition. 

[00:00:24] Spudcaster: [00:00:24] baobulb.org is a podcasting platform and a medium for storytelling. This podcast is also available on all the major 

[00:00:33] podcasting apps, including apple and Google podcasts, podcast 

[00:00:39] your life with baobulb.org.

[00:00:42] SureEyes: [00:00:42] Oh, this is quintessentially mental the podcast. And you're listening to me. Your host SureEyes. today's episode. We're talking about. I guess coping mechanisms or things in your toolkit that you could potentially use to help manage live with deal with your, your mental health state? Um, I dunno. I know personally I've tried a lot of things.

[00:01:13] Um, some things work better than others. Um, I've tried talk therapy, I've tried group therapy. I've tried exercise, mindfulness, eating property, sleep medication. Um, you know, and I guess the truth is that there's no silver bullet. There's no, like this is the recipe for balanced mental wellbeing. Um, or that's what I think.

[00:01:46] I think different things work on different days. Um, and sometimes I don't feel like doing anything sometimes I don't feel like crying. And so I end up wallowing and, you know, just kind of feeling my anxiety or feeling my depression or feeling my overwhelmed.  overwhelmed. I don't even know what that word is.

[00:02:11] Overwhelmingness overwhelmed. I don't even know. Um, you know, I, instead of just always going into like problem solving mode and it happened pretty recently, you know, I returned to work after being on maternity leave. Four months. And it's like in my brain, I'd just forgotten that I have a super stressful and busy job.

[00:02:34] I just forgot. And so day one, when I was thrown back into it and I was like, oh, this is actually pretty hectic. Um, And then at about quarter past four, my nanny was getting ready to leave because she leaves at five. And then I thought to myself, shit, I need to do the dishes. I need to take my son. I need to bath my son.

[00:02:56] I need to exercise. I need to finish work. I need to cook. I need to, I just started getting overwhelmed and anxious that I'm not going to be able to do it all. Um, and so I had a major meltdown. I just kind of cried for five hours. And I was, took the meltdown to another level. I was just like, I'm so alone.

[00:03:16] I can't rely on anyone. No, one's here for me. I'm just set to do it all by myself. Like I wallowed. Um, and it took maybe, you know, the next day where I kind of said, okay, but now. I can stay in that state and I can feel the depression coming on if I had to remain in it or I can kind of look at my toolkit and go, okay, I have family support.

[00:03:42] So what 

[00:03:43] I had to do was just kind of reach out 

[00:03:45] to my mom and be like, Hey, so I kind of need you to. Help me with the cooking or once I've bathed my son, can you take him? And I can just do 30 minutes of exercise or, you know, so I kind of have to reach into my toolkit and figure something out to help me with this particular challenge.

[00:04:06] And I thought it may invite my friend, Nicole, back to the show. Again, we've had a long standing relationship with. Um, we've kind of walked the road. We've tried many things ourselves. We've, self-medicated, we've professionally medicated, we've hospitalised. We've we've done it all. And I kind of just want to have this conversation with her around, you...

Transcript

SureEyes: [00:00:00] you're listening to quintessentially mental a podcast hosted by SureEyes, please note that this host is not a mental health practitioner or professional, and this podcast is not made for treatment of any mental illness. 

[00:00:24] Spudcaster: [00:00:24] baobulb.org is a podcasting platform and a medium for storytelling. This podcast is also available on all the major podcasting apps, including apple and Google podcasts, podcast your life with baobulb.org.

[00:00:43] SureEyes: [00:00:43] Hey y'all this is quintessentially mental the podcast, and I'm your host. SureEyes. I'm also known by my government name, Cherize Ross. I do some overcompensating for my mood today, I woke up feeling pretty bleak. Um, and this week I wanted to talk about loss and grief and trauma, um, things that have been affecting me on a very personal, very real level, almost daily for now, almost a year.

[00:01:18] Um, I woke up thinking about my. My baby nephew who lived with me from the time of his birth. Um, he was just a few days shy of turning 11 months when he passed away. Um, and that by far was the most traumatic thing that has happened to me in my whole life, in my whole damn life. Um, Before that had happened.

[00:01:50] I'd had other traumatic experiences, whether it was, you know, the number of racial incidents I had experienced where I had my identity, my being my existence, my essence questioned purely because of the colour of my skin, a trauma that I'd been dealing with since I was six years old. 

[00:02:19] Um, 

[00:02:22] the trauma of being arrested in London for speaking out against, um, a racial incident and maybe taking it too far by calling the British police colonial liars.

[00:02:35] Um, I guess in the heat of the moment, I, I really. Had my anger towards, you know, colonial mindsets and that type of oppression explode on me. And I ended up getting arrested. Another trauma was, you know, something I speak about quite often, which is the end of an eight year relationship. That was quite significant to me.

[00:03:05] And having that be the most traumatic thing that had ever happened. But since the passing of my baby nephew, there has been nothing. That's not true. Actually. I guess my, the birth of my son was probably as traumatic and maybe that's a conversation to have another day where we talk about, you know, almost maternal.

[00:03:35] Traumas and maternal mental health issues, something that I'm experiencing also quite deeply. Um, but like I said, this morning, I woke up thinking about my baby nephew Kairo. I'd call him aunty’s big boy, king Kairo. Um, I woke up feeling really, really sad, um, and really missing him in. I’m just thinking about, you know, he would have been turning two this year and what would he have been saying?

[00:04:11] What would have he, how, you know, what I could tell, even at the age of, you know, almost 11 months, the personality that was developing and, you know, he'd make me laugh. And, you know, I often have the events of that day running through my mind. Um, at the time of his death, I was pregnant with my son. I was about 20 weeks pregnant.

[00:04:39] Um, and I remember waking up on that, on that morning and going into my brother's apartment and, you know, yelling at him for not cleaning out the cat's litter because when you're pregnant, you know, you're not supposed to deal with kitty litter because of the toxins that they, um, that they, that they give off that could potentially harm an unborn baby.

[00:05:06] And usually every morning when I walked into my brother's room or my brother's apartment, I would immediately grab Kairo and kiss him and, you know, ask him. How he...