Transformational Trauma and Healing

Transformational Trauma and Healing: Ending the Mental Health Stigma

Carrie Rickert Season 3 Episode 5

Listen in on this fantastic conversation between me and Juliet Kuhnle as we discuss the mental health stigma and how we can get rid of it.

You can find Juliet on her website: https://yepigototherapy.com/
Or on socials @yepigototherapy

You can get her new book, Who You Callin' Crazy at major retailers, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

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0:31 - Carrie Rickert Welcome, Juliet.

0:32 - Carrie Rickert Thank you so much for being here today. It is such a pleasure to have you.

0:37 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy I'm so excited to join you. Yay!

0:39 - Carrie Rickert I feel like this has been a very long time coming. We keep scheduling and having to reschedule. We've both been sick. We've both had things. It's So I'm so glad to finally be sitting down and talking with y'all. I trust the process.

0:58 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy I think today it's meant to be. And I told you before we started recording, I just came from my own trauma therapy. So I'm ready to talk about it all.

1:07 - Carrie Rickert Awesome. So it's funny because the stigma around mental health is a topic that is so important to me. I mean, I could talk for days about this topic. So it's really nice to have somebody who is knowledgeable to have this conversation with. So let's start by talking about your new book, Who Are You Calling Crazy?

1:32 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy The journey from stigma to therapy.

1:34 - Carrie Rickert So what made you want to write this book and who is the appropriate audience?

1:40 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Yeah, thanks for asking. This was a little pandemic project when the conversation around mental health and mental illness really started to shift because we were all experiencing a collective trauma for the first time in our lifetimes. And so people were much more willing to own their struggle and not just keep up that whole performance of, I'm fine. How are you? And so there was more willingness to go there, if you will. So I really wanted to jump on that. Use that momentum to highlight for people, this is how it's always been.

2:15 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy We all have mental health. This is applicable to all of us and not just during pandemic times, but how do we keep this conversation going? So the intended audience, I mean, it's such a generic answer, but that's kind of the point is it's really for all humans because we do all have mental health. And so it's not just for people who are struggling with mental illness, It's really to try to educate people around how these concepts and how taking care of our mental health is something that each one of us needs to do and to figure out what that means to us individually.

2:51 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy So I wrote it in three parts that people can approach it kind of depending on where they are. Maybe they are just curious about what does she mean I have mental health? What does that actually look like for me? And that's gonna be more of a part one. Part two is, okay, I get it. Maybe I am considering therapy. And that's all the FAQs about therapy and therapists. And then part three is like, yeah, I'm ready to do the work and maybe I already have a therapist and I'm diving in and it really kind of goes into some concepts and topics that I'm dealing with with my clients on the regular.

3:23 - Carrie Rickert Okay, cool. So what do you think are the most common misconceptions around mental illness or mental health?

3:34 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Sure. Well, I think some of the main ones include just the misunderstanding that only applies to some people. So as I was just saying, that it only affects certain people, that mental illnesses are dangerous, that it means something is wrong with somebody or it's something that they did wrong. Or, you know, that somebody kind of might even just self-stigma their way into thinking, you know, I shouldn't feel like this. My life is fine. Why do I struggle? And so these misconceptions are really, they really highlight how we don't understand how there's so much of a genetic component, a biopsychosocial component, and how, you know, they're really not uncommon.

4:16 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy We're talking about one in five adults and one in six youth who experience a diagnosable mental illness every year. And so when you put it like that for people with the stats, especially when I'm talking to a group of people and you kind of highlight how many people are in this room and how many people this means that it includes, and myself included, the speaker included, then we start to realize this isn't just others, but it impacts all of us.

4:39 - Carrie Rickert Yeah, absolutely. Because even if you are not somebody who is experiencing a mental health challenge currently, chances are really good that you know someone who is. And that someone is likely somebody who is in your life on a day-to-day basis.

5:00 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Correct. Correct. And so that's my mission is if we start talking about it, we normalize it, we get rid of those misconceptions that it means something bad about someone or the fear we might have around it. And that's when people are going to be better able to seek support and to, help each other out to be able to feel more confident coming forward if they need help, all of those sorts of things.

5:26 - Carrie Rickert Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, it's kind of like, I think people struggle so much with getting help, with looking for help, because they feel like mental health challenge is some sort of failure on their part, right? And my family, I mean, all of my family has some kind of mental health challenge. And what I have always said to my kids is, you know, if you broke your arm, we would get that fixed. We would go to the doctor. If you are struggling with depression or struggling with anxiety or struggling with something else, why wouldn't we go to the doctor or a therapist to address those challenges and try to make it better?

6:28 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, there's a whole section in the book making that parallel about we do our annual well checks, too, to stay on top of potential physical issues.

6:40 - Multiple Speakers We have no problem.

6:41 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy We understand when we need to get sent for an x-ray, when we've had an injury. And just making those connections of our mental health should be no different. In fact, my argument throughout the book is that mental health is foundational to all of it, physical health, spiritual health, any of it. And so being able to approach it the same way is a right that we all deserve. And just stigma is what gets in the way of that, because we've been kind of fed these messages for so long that it's not necessary, or again, that it is just for crazy people.

7:17 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy And that's why I named the book and my podcast, Who You Calling Crazy? It's an attempt to sort of take back that language and say, I think what you mean is human.

7:26 - Carrie Rickert Yeah. Well, and it's interesting too, cause you, you said that, you know, you mentioned the genetic component and I keep thinking about the generational differences between, you know, me now as a parent and my parents as parents. Right. So my grandmother, I would say was probably chronically depressed. Did anyone name that or did she ever receive treatment for that? No, no, she did not. It was, oh, everything's fine, she's fine. You know, when my brother and I were growing up, he was, you know, ADHD was just starting to be a thing, right?

8:15 - Carrie Rickert Like that people were being diagnosed with and He was diagnosed with ADHD, and my parents were at a, they're like, okay, and now what? I suffered from terrible depression in high school, and we all just pretended like it wasn't there. I went to college and finally said, I need some help with this, and I found a therapist in college, and that was the first time I had gone to therapy.

8:47 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy And in the meantime, my undergraduate degree is in clinical psychology.

8:52 - Carrie Rickert So I was inundated with messages of mental health and what that means and what the opposite looks like, And yet it still wasn't a conversation in my house. My sister-in-law is actually a licensed social worker, and she and I were in the same clinical program at the same time in undergrad. We always laugh now because we talk to our children in therapy speak. We validate feelings. We talk about mental health. We do all of these things. Sometimes that comes back and bites us in the ass because you aren't validating my feelings.

9:43 - Multiple Speakers You can't do it perfectly all the time, mom. What's wrong with you? Right. But, you know, I think.

9:50 - Carrie Rickert As a whole, we have given our children the language to explain what's happening in their bodies and in their minds and in their spirits.

10:01 - Unidentified Speaker Right. Whereas when.

10:04 - Carrie Rickert I was a child, I didn't have those words. I didn't have that until I went to college. In your book, you talk about the seven stigmas and how you work to get rid of them. Talk to us a little bit more about that.

10:23 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, just going back to what you're saying, I think it's, it's really powerful to understand the sort of the generational cycles that we're breaking and equipping our children. And it's, I talk to clients a lot about how that's also really exhausting.

10:39 - Multiple Speakers Because we feel so passionate about helping our kids in these different ways.

10:44 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy And yet we weren't necessarily equipped with this foundation. So just to hold a little space for how exhausting and hard that cycle breaking is, but really powerful, really powerful. Yeah. So I think it's, you know, we have to have awareness before we can, you know, advocate or make any change. And so awareness around some of the different types of stigma is crucial and we don't need to go over all seven of them, but, you know, some of the main ones being public stigma, which is, you know, the negative attitudes held by the general public about people with mental illness.

11:20 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy There's like media stigma, which is how it tends to be portrayed in the media, which is dangerous. We mentioned earlier that self-stigma, so the attitude that we have about our own mental health, maybe the shame we've internalized around it. And then even the ways that it can show up professionally, institutional stigma, you know, when policies or cultures, workplaces have negative attitudes towards those with mental illnesses or mental health struggles. And so when we know what these different types are, we can catch it.

11:51 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy We can call it out. We can catch our own implicit biases that show up and try to challenge those and work through it. But being able to understand how they show up so that we know, oh, is that what's happening here? Maybe I can reject that and not just subscribe to it is an important step in being able to continue moving the needle on you know, the different ways that stigma does show up in our society.

12:18 - Unidentified Speaker Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

12:21 - Carrie Rickert So it's funny, because I think about so my son is on the autism spectrum, and he also is bipolar, and has ADHD. So he's got like, a good amount of mental health challenge. And, you know, we have the conversation about how it is important to advocate for yourself and to say what you need. And that, you know, he's 18 now, so he's getting ready to figure out what's next in his life after high school. And he's working toward that and figuring it out. But, you know, as he goes to school next year, he's, I know him, he will go into his teachers and say, hi, I'm Simon, I'm on the autism spectrum, these are some things that I might need.

13:16 - Carrie Rickert Because I have given him those tools, right? But I know that as he meets the job world, that sometimes that conversation, and I'm hoping that this is changing, right, with neurodiversity and conversations in the workplace around this, And I know there is potential that he could run into trouble, if you would, by saying, these are the challenges that I have, and these are the accommodations I might need. And I have said to him, you will have situations where you are not met favorably by telling people those things.

14:05 - Carrie Rickert And also, if that is a leader in a job, you don't want that job anyway. You don't want to work for that company if that's the culture that is allowed in that job.

14:19 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy That's a great point. I mean, and this highlights a couple other of these types of stigmas where you do want to maybe flesh out if a boss or a company culture is steeped in this perceived stigma, which is just the belief that others have those negative beliefs around those with mental illnesses. And so I love that advice of just, you want to know that. And that's not where you want to be anyway. And then, but this is why people do tend to, you know, avoid those conversations or avoid labels or naming certain diagnoses because the label feels stigmatizing.

15:00 - Carrie Rickert And so what it sounds like is that you've, you know, you've empowered him, which is ideal. And of course, of course, of course.

15:10 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy And that's the thing about this. It's really not, a hundred percent. I mean, even as someone who's out here, you know, shouting from the rooftops about stigma all the time, I will still definitely find myself in situations where I'm shrinking or holding back or doing whatever because of that air of stigma that we breathe.

15:31 - Multiple Speakers And so the idea is more just how can we Just the same as with, you know, catching things in diet culture or anti-racist culture or whatever, just being able to be actively intentional about checking yourself and catching it and,

15:45 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy and doing better, uh, and nudging yourself and holding others to that standard as well.

15:51 - Carrie Rickert Yeah, absolutely. It's just, I, I think. You know, you mentioned the media earlier and how media tends to portray someone with mental health challenges being dangerous. And it makes me think of all the gun laws we aren't putting in place, right? Like, because the story becomes well, this person has a mental illness and that's why he did this or, you know, I mean, it's never, that's why she did this. It's always, you know, um, but, you know, again, that that's like, uh, we're putting the heart, the cart before the horse, right?

16:36 - Carrie Rickert Like, okay. So if we didn't have these blown up mental health stigmas, then people would be more comfortable receiving the kind of care that they need or even asking for care so that we wouldn't have these situations and also you are

16:59 - Multiple Speakers taking away from the responsibility of the people selling guns.

17:04 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Oh, please.

17:08 - Multiple Speakers We did a whole session on that. Right.

17:11 - Unidentified Speaker Exactly.

17:12 - Carrie Rickert I know. And so I didn't mean to switch the subject, but I know that that is a good example of the media and how the media portrays mental health.

17:26 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Right.

17:29 - Multiple Speakers Yes, it does not get into all the nuances.

17:32 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy I think the other thing that I talk a lot about is in the media, but also social media, how these labels and diagnoses can be really misunderstood and misused, which continues to perpetuate everything that we're talking about too.

17:50 - Multiple Speakers So, especially on social media, I see it so casually used.

17:54 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy You know, I think the example I give in the book is, you know, I hear people say all the time, like, you're so OCD, you have to, you know, blah, blah, or I'm going to get PTSD because this presentation was so boring or just the way that people so casually throw these things around inappropriately and how that perpetuates stigma as well.

18:13 - Unidentified Speaker Absolutely.

18:15 - Carrie Rickert Absolutely. Well, and I think about, you know, like, how often people say like, Oh, he's so schizophrenic. And they don't know what that means. Yes.

18:27 - Multiple Speakers Yeah, it's, it's dangerous.

18:29 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy It's dangerous to, to use things so inappropriately. And, and it's it's, you know, it's ignorant.

18:37 - Multiple Speakers And so it minimizes the experience of people who live with that particular diagnosis.

18:44 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy And then it keeps people from learning more and it keeps it kind of as a joke. And it's just, there's so much we can gain by being much more intentional about the language we use, which again is why I literally named it that. Because we say things like that, like cuckoo, crazy, insane, loony, you know, all these things very casually and joking. And I get it. I mean, I'm not out here preaching about like, again, I don't do it perfectly all the time either. And we have to have just more awareness and intentionality around it because of the risk that it poses.

19:19 - Carrie Rickert Well, and because it touches so many people. So it's not like we're talking about the small percentage of people who end up in a mental health institution, right?

19:35 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy We are talking about- Half of Americans is what the CDC says.

19:40 - Unidentified Speaker Right.

19:42 - Carrie Rickert That in our lifetime, half of Americans will be diagnosed.

19:44 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy And think about how underreported that is too, because of stigma. So sorry to interject, but that's how many people- No, absolutely.

19:51 - Multiple Speakers I mean, think about that.

19:53 - Carrie Rickert 50% people are touched by something then hear these jokes about it. And they're like, oh, I can't bring up the fact that I have that mental illness.

20:09 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Because nobody understands. Nobody understands.

20:12 - Carrie Rickert And reality is a lot of people understand. We're just not talking about it in a healthy, kind way.

20:24 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Yep, exactly. Yeah, so that's why the language is so important. And then to your point of talking about it in that way is our own, this is kind of my third point of how do we help end stigma is practicing our own vulnerability and authenticity. And I think that fits exactly with what you're saying. The more that we can practice that ourselves and demonstrate that, the more it gives others permission to do the same. And I often talk about how vulnerability begets vulnerability. So the more you do it and the more confidence you build in doing that, and the more buy-in you have, again, it's freeing for yourself, but it also gives others that permission as well.

21:06 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy So once you understand what stigma looks like, you start being more intentional about your language, Uh, and then you start practicing some of this in that more compassionate way, it's going to make a huge difference on how stigma gets to show up or not.

21:22 - Carrie Rickert Yeah. Yeah. And so it's, it's, it's interesting. Cause I always say that trauma feels very isolating, right? Because you think you are the only person going through a particular situation, whatever it is. Um, And in some ways, that's true, right? Everyone is unique and how they experience things is also unique. And also, if you talk about it, and I think of this in the same way with mental health, if you talk about it, you realize how many connection points to other people you actually have within that realm.

22:10 - Carrie Rickert Yes.

22:11 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Yes. I mean, it's so, it does feel so isolating, but this is all going back to stigma. We don't talk about it because either we are feeling like an outsider, we're feeling othered. We tend to minimize and invalidate our own traumas. You know, I talk with people a lot about the difference between like big T trauma and little T trauma and particularly little T traumas, people will, absolutely dismiss it and believe that there's kind of this hierarchy. Well, at least it wasn't this, or so-and-so had it so much worse.

22:43 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy And so we invalidate ourselves. So we end up just keeping it to ourselves. But it's like, I mean, when I experienced a miscarriage and thought I was so alone in it, and then you start talking about it and you realize, Oh my gosh, it's like one in four women or something.

22:58 - Multiple Speakers And then you can build community around that and feel less isolated.

23:03 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy And, and, but you have to, you know, you have to kind of find that permission to, uh, to be, to be vulnerable. Yeah.

23:13 - Carrie Rickert Well, and, and I think the conversation, I think what people don't realize is once you open yourself up to that vulnerability, and you start making those connections and building that community, it provides such a sense of hope for your future.

23:34 - Unidentified Speaker Yes.

23:35 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's that whole, we aren't meant to heal in isolation. I mean, we do, we heal in community, we heal with others and it doesn't have to be a huge group of community, a huge group of people.

23:50 - Carrie Rickert Sure.

23:52 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy But just, and this is the power of even group therapy, which sometimes is really hard to convince people that that's going to be worth their time. But there's so much science and research, evidence-based data out there that explains why that is so powerful.

24:07 - Carrie Rickert to, to heal amongst others.

24:10 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy And some of that is, you know, what you learn from others in the process, but also what you're able to share and how rewarding that part of the process is too. And then simply just the validation of whatever your emotional experience is, just knowing that like, okay, this is real. It goes a long way.

24:30 - Carrie Rickert Yeah. It's real. And other people have experienced something similar.

24:35 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Yes. And we're all okay. Yeah. And of course people, when they're in it, you know, that's really hard to believe.

24:46 - Carrie Rickert Right. Absolutely.

24:48 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy I mean, hard to believe.

24:50 - Carrie Rickert Yeah. Because when you can barely get yourself out of bed for months at a time, it is really hard to believe you're ever going to be okay. Or that anyone else has ever experienced something like that.

25:06 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy But when you, go ahead. But I was going to say, again, the language around trauma healing, which I know healing sometimes has a funky connotation for people, but trauma work, we'll just say, has also shifted in large part to social media. There's so much more attention on nervous system healing and nervous system regulation. The embodiment of trauma and, you know, those of us who have been practicing for a while understand that that trauma does live in the body and all these sorts of things, but this language is becoming more accessible to everyone.

25:45 - Carrie Rickert Yes.

25:46 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy And I mean, do you, I mean, as a clinician, I'm like super aware of that as being a therapist on Instagram, but is that, do you think that's obvious to?

25:54 - Carrie Rickert I think it definitely is. I mean, it's certainly, you think about the alternative holistic treatments that are coming to light as being beneficial. Like, you know, the conversations about meditation and breathing and, you know, all kinds of different things, different avenues to help. I think that is becoming more of a thing that we have language now for some of our mental health challenges as well as for accessibility to different things that can be helpful for us.

26:39 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Oh, yeah. And I mean, I love that. I love that. And obviously, as a talk therapist, I fully believe in so much of the cognitive restructuring and neuroplasticity in that way. But I'm also in my somatic experiencing training now because I understand even more this many years into it. How we have to bring the body piece into the recovery process as well. And, you know, they don't teach you that in grad school. So there are all of these other ways, you know, and I'm EMDR trained as well. So there are all of these, and there continue to be new interventions and modalities, which I hope people find hopeful that, you know, one thing may not work, quote unquote, work for you, but there are options and that you, you know, it's a, it can be a marathon to figure out exactly where your journey to healing is going to lie, but there are so many options.

27:35 - Carrie Rickert Right. There, there are lots of options. And if you are willing to be vulnerable and talk about what your challenges are, those options will come to your door a lot faster, right? You know, because someone can say, oh, I have really been struggling with depression and I have found that meditation helps, right? Or I have been, you know, I carry all of my stress in my neck, which I do. And what I have found is acupuncture helps with that. So this is stress related. You know, the pain in my neck is physical pain, but it is tension and stress and anxiety.

28:34 - Carrie Rickert It is not because I injured my neck, right? And so when we talk about things like that, we give people other outlets, other ideas for things to try. I mean, because how often do we think like the only things out there are medication and therapy, right?

28:59 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy And I am a huge proponent of therapy.

29:03 - Carrie Rickert I think therapy is very, very important and can be so helpful. And also there are other things. And so, you know, if someone is afraid to try therapy, maybe they aren't going to be afraid to try one of the other modalities.

29:24 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Exactly. And I would say kind of my biggest advice around that is really trying to adopt an attitude of curiosity because we can feel, again, I think because of stigma that some of these things feel really woo-woo. Really out there, whatever, again, all this language that we use. But honestly, the attitude of curiosity is an antidote to a lot of things. We know it's an antidote to judgment. So being able to just, again, try to find that permission to just be curious. Well, let's see.

30:01 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy I mean, that's the idea of having a coping toolbox full of lots of options. Is being curious about what's going to work today, what might not work tomorrow, but just having those options that are out there.

30:14 - Unidentified Speaker Yeah.

30:15 - Carrie Rickert It's funny you said the word toolbox, because I always think about that. I know for my children that I cannot give them everything, but I can provide them with the awareness of tools and resources and where to find them and what to ask for so that they can figure out what they need as they become adults.

30:45 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Beautiful.

30:47 - Unidentified Speaker Yeah.

30:47 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy And we, we all, you know, can strive to have those options and, you know, really that's what therapy does too, is it gives you, equips you with lots of different coping skills and tools, and then all these other supplemental things to that, which might include medication, acupuncture, spiritual direction, healing touch, all these options.

31:11 - Carrie Rickert Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I have, we've, So for me, I love meditation. I love therapy. I love acupuncture. Like those are the big things for me. With my son, we've done Reiki. He does therapy regularly. He also, and both he and I take medication. So, you know, like it is just part of our lives, but it doesn't limit what we can do. I think that's part of the thing too is that people are like, what is this going to limit? How is this going to keep me back?

31:59 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy And that fear is understandable.

32:00 - Unidentified Speaker Absolutely.

32:02 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Especially if someone has, let's say, lived in freeze for decades as a trauma result and maybe isn't even you know, I have to normalize for clients a lot that the trauma work doesn't necessarily happen immediately. Some people come in decades later and now we're aware of how this has been impacting us and now you're ready to, you know, whatever it is. But so the, you know, the willingness to let go of the way you've been doing things for three decades, is really scary, even if you know, yeah, that there's some value in it.

32:40 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Uh, but that's again, that, that idea of curiosity and then building trust with your practitioner, whoever it is, therapist, Reiki, you know, acupuncturist, having that trust and rapport that they will be alongside you and hold you and pace with you is everything.

32:58 - Carrie Rickert Well, and I think that's a good point too, is that if they aren't. That doesn't mean that something isn't going to work for you. It means you just may not have found the right person.

33:11 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Yes. Yes. There is in part two of the book, there's a lot about how do I know if the clinician is not right for me? Because I'm just going to say as, especially as women, we, we tend to sometimes override that intuition and, uh, and think like, well, maybe I'm just not doing it right. Or maybe next time, whatever, instead of being able to me, Yes. Instead of really being able to trust this isn't right. And so there's, there's some guidance around that and then how to actually break up with a clinician if it gets to that point, because that stuff feels awkward.

33:43 - Multiple Speakers So there's, there's some script and some scripts in there that help walk us through that. Cause I've, I've had to do that as well. But, but knowing that, yep.

33:52 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Um, knowing that specific to therapy, I can speak to, you know, the number one predictor of success is the, the, how the client perceives the quality of the relationship. So how will you actually vibe with the clinician? That is everything.

34:04 - Carrie Rickert Yeah. And, and if you don't vibe, it doesn't mean there's something wrong with you or something wrong with the clinician necessarily.

34:13 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy It's just, you don't vibe, find a new one.

34:17 - Carrie Rickert It's fine. Yep. And I know it's exhausting.

34:20 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy It's exhausting to go out and like, quote unquote, start over or keep hunting for the right person, but I promise it's worth it. And I always recommend that people do a free meet and greet. If the clinician offers it, then you can start to get a feel for their style. And again, listen to that, that gut instinct of, yeah, I could see myself being able to really, you know, trust the process with this person or not.

34:45 - Carrie Rickert Right. Right. Yeah. So if there was one thing that you really want to make sure that our listeners take away from this conversation today, what would that be?

35:05 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Gosh, that that you deserve to take care of your mental health. So we've talked so much about stigma, and there tend to be a lot of blocking core beliefs for people of finding the willingness and the permission to prioritize taking care of their mental health. It's non-negotiable, in my opinion, and there are so many buzzwords out there like self-care, mindfulness, meditation, authenticity, vulnerability, and these things can get really watered down, but they are actually non-negotiable things that everyone deserves to figure out how to prioritize and how to get it really aligned with one's values in your life.

35:52 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Don't try to figure that out on your own. Call in the support to help you figure out what that looks like, Again, it's necessary for all of us humans, so I hope that listeners will find the permission to do that.

36:07 - Carrie Rickert I love that. Thank you. How can people find you and find your book? Would you like to say where it's located?

36:20 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy So on Instagram, yep, I go to therapy.

36:22 - Unidentified Speaker Okay.

36:23 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy Awesome. Yep. And then that's my website too. Yep. I go to therapy. And then also the book is on whoyoucallingcrazy.com or Amazon, Barnes and Noble. And I'm always happy to connect and answer questions and help people try to find the right fit.

36:40 - Unidentified Speaker So I'd love to connect with listeners.

36:43 - Carrie Rickert Awesome. Thank you so much, Julia. This has been such a great conversation. I've really enjoyed it. And I think our listeners are going to get lots out of it.

36:53 - Juliet @YepIGoToTherapy I appreciate your time.

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