To seek a not having access or health insurance to go to counseling. But then having folks whose understanding or awareness about mental health has been based off of white cisgendered, heterosexual heteronormative kind of view of things meant that when people were actually going out for care, they probably weren't working with someone who was very culturally responsive or aware of their particular background.
One in five adults experience a mental health problem every year, but not that many treat their mental health problems. And the reluctance to seek help to maintain mental health is more pronounced in men. This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. Today we're speaking with mental health professionals and advocates about men's mental health. We talk a little bit about the reasons that men don't seek mental health treatment, and why African American men may be even at a higher risk.
I'm favoring Smith from Heartland Community College director of counseling services.
I'm Jessica Jackson, I'm the new counselor in the counseling department. So I'm a licensed counselor.
I am Amy Je
ck, and I am the counseling facilitator here at Heartland Community College.
When we're recording, this is June and happens to be Men's Health Month. And I'll just throw it out there. Why is it important to prioritize mental health as it is to focus on physical health, I think a lot of times people might prioritize their physical health they might eat right, they might work out, they might try to keep their cholesterol down all that stuff. But mental health goes a little bit untended, too.
So I would say that one of the reasons why it's important to focus in on men's mental health is because it's often overlooked. Sometimes other aspects of Men's Health is glamorized, like working out in the gym or eating well, hashtag gains. But it's, it's a little bit harder sometimes, for us to be aware of some of the things that involves someone's mental health, because a lot of those things are invisible. And there's a lot of stigma, there's a lot of toxic masculinity or beliefs about what it means to be male, and asking for help and getting support. And so one of the things that it's really important to us in the counseling center, and as a college is first to look at all of those aspects of a person's health and wellness.
So something you said, Jessica, how does toxic masculinity tie in with mental health? Are there elements that contribute to poor mental health from that kind of concept of toxic masculinity, which I guess we should probably define a little bit for people that don't know what that is?
Well, I think good mental health is important as oxygen, you need it to survive. And for men, they do it different. And so part of it is, like Jessica said, the stigma and coming for help is looked at as a weakness. And so men tend to back off of that and try to solve it themselves. And as a result, there's inappropriate coping styles that are enacted. And so those things that we look at that men do, like being irritated or anger or aggression, are the coping styles that they use for mental health issues. And so sometimes when the male is being aggressive, or angry, or it's sulking, they may be in depression. And we don't know that because society expectations on for males, in reaction to those things are similar. And so they may be traumatized. And so PTSD is a result, but they're exhibiting aggression, anger, irritability, those are all symptoms of mental illness.
So let's talk a little bit about depression. In approaching this interview, I did a little bit of reading, and I saw that about 30% of men experienced depression. It seems like a lot of men are reluctant to seek mental health counseling. Some people may be depressed, they don't even know it. What are some of the signs of depression that one can look out for to make sure that they can seek treatment or seek some sort of remedy to try to fight off the effects of depression?
Well, the DSM five mental health manual or disorder for a depression disorder is different from criteria. You may have some criteria with some symptoms, but you don't meet the criteria for depression. So if you have a man of symptoms for so many months, which is usually around six months, then we determined that that is a disorder. So some of the symptoms are, like I said, anger, irritability, aggression. For anyone, this is just not men. This is just the symptoms of depression, feeling anxious and restless on a it, loss of interest in work and family and pleasurable activities, and for men, and some women problems with sexual desire, and sexual performance. And that's why some men do not want to come and talk about that, especially if the counselor is a woman. And generally in the mental health field, there is more women. And so feeling sad, empty, flat, hopeless, thoughts of suicide, of course, maybe some acting on that physical aches and pain. And so that's another issue, men will try to attribute that to some sort of exercise or go take care of that exercise and irritability to meet responsibilities, energy in high risk activities, such as substance use, gambling, and withdrawing from family members, and friends, and etc. So when we look at that group of disorders, we don't attribute that to depression, we've just attribute it to something else going on with the male. And when we look at that, as an issue for males in the black community, when we see the irritability or the anger or the aggression, we attribute it to being black man, a black male, and it could be trauma and depression.
Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about that. We see health care disparities and health disparities in the African American community, and with mental health in the LGBTQ community, a lot huge disparities, there is access to be considered, but there is a cultural element, as you alluded to Fe, people may be feeling that there's some sort of, I don't know, stereotype of you're weak, or you're less of a real man, if you were to seek some sort of help for mental health issues. Does anybody want to kind of tackle that particular strain of what we're talking about? Have you seen that in your practices here, when you're when you're seeing folks and counseling, folks? Go ahead,
Jessica? Yeah, so I would speak to like, kind of globally. And then Faye, if you could narrow in on like what you're seeing in the counseling center, since you know more about that. But in terms of globally, if we look at access to mental health, and you know, June is pride month also. So if we're looking at the LGBTQIA community, and we look at some of the founders in mental health, they're mostly white presenting heterosexual males, right. And so things like being queer or being gay, were considered as disorders. And even in terms of some of the things that are cultural in terms of the black community in terms of spirituality that was seen as a disorder. So like being spiritual, or some things that kind of intersects with religion, right. And so then to seek a not having access or health insurance to, to go to counseling, but then having folks whose understanding or awareness about mental health has been based off of white cisgendered, heterosexual kind of heteronormative kind of view of things meant that when people were actually going out for care, they probably weren't working with someone who was very culturally responsive or aware of their particular background. So I think that that certainly makes a difference in terms of what that looks like, if I'm seeing a therapist, and I'm a lesbian woman in the therapist assumption is that you're seeing me in counseling, because your problem your disorder is that you're queer. And we don't get to talk about any of the actual reasons why I want to be in counseling, or that's the only way that I'm being seen without that person being culturally responsive. That would be very frustrating and a waste of my time, and my money. And so I think that that certainly is part of the disconnect in terms of some populations not being able to get access or the proper treatment and support in mental health services.
Yeah. And I think that goes hand in hand with the fact that access, I don't think people who have easy access to health care understand what a luxury, unfortunately, that is, in my job in my position of privilege. If I want to take an hour off and go to see somebody about my mental health, my employer allows that I can get my car I can drive to wherever my insurance provided services. There's so many different barriers that people might have for access, that I don't think we quite grasp how many steps people need to take, and why they might get to a point where it really needs to be a problem before. Same thing for health. You know that somebody breaks their ankle, they're like, maybe just hurts a little bit. If I have to take a day off of work and lose money and get a ride there and have somebody wait for me and have somebody watch my children, all these things like maybe it'll be better in a couple of days where other people, you know, I've got a hangnail, I'm going to go to the ER. So it's definitely something that gets back to that core issue of awareness and reasons when people can seek access. For an example, we do have access to counseling at Heartland Community College, so our students can come in and do that. But still, they might not. Because of the stigma, I think that Jessica alluded to really early on, can you talk a little bit about when you have people come in what they say, kept them from coming in.
So for Heartland is proportionate to the population. And so McClain county is more populated as Caucasian. And so you see more of those clients, the reluctance for African Americans to come in is that they are not aware that as an African American there to serve them. And so their concern is not even to get in touch. My experience is when they come into the door, and they see that African American is like, a sigh of relief for, okay, now I can really talk or whatever. And I think that goes on both sides of race, I've had the opposite. White males come in and see, the as African American Council is like, how she's gonna help me and so, but we're taught as counselor, now, ethics is to do no harm. So for me, I'm just servicing a person in the and that goes across cultures, I see. Lawyers, I see judges in my private practice, and having them to share their weaknesses as males is very hard. But if you see the humanity in people, it doesn't matter about the color. And counselors are taught that. So if I was a white female counselor, my stance would be the same. Sometimes, as counselors we're not aware. So we are taught in multicultural counseling, we do have to gain those skills in the part of having licensure. And so we are aware of culture. And I'm sure there's different ways that we express that because we're different individuals. But it's the humanity that's a piece of it. So I think Heartland students are more apt to come in African American females male, if they know someone is there that looks like them. So we have to be diverse, we also have to make sure that there are a counselors that are not African American that other clients will feel comfortable with. So they have a choice when they come in. And we want to make sure that mixture is there so that we can service everybody without them feeling they have to hold back, you want to talk a little bit about that to a me as a as a student.
So my position in the counseling offices is pretty new. I am there hopefully to start facilitating student organized groups for mental health awareness through Nami, which is a National Mental Health Awareness Association. Right now working from home, I am trying to help a little bit with content design for Heartland social media, working with you guys do marketing. And to get back to the question, I definitely liked what you said about not recognizing our privilege, sometimes with health care. But even once you have health care, there's still a privilege there. Every person that I've ever gone to see, to get counseling has been white, and usually like a woman. So I definitely think that specifically for men of color in this time period, it's really hard to feel like you have a safe place to go. That also has that professional element of knowing how to work through not just trauma, but intergenerational trauma, it has to be so culturally appropriate to the client. And that's really hard to do is especially if we don't have the diverse staffing that we need. But there are resources out there. Another goal for me in this position is to just be a resource outlet for people. So if there are any young men in our community feeling alone, I do think that there are some great resources out there. Like if you Google the Obama Foundation, anguish and action, they have a video that has the My Brother's Keeper and the Obama Foundation doing a collaborative conference about men of color and their mental health and it also has resources for how to find therapist and other support that it will be culturally hopefully sensitive and appropriate and supportive. So that is some thing I wanted to plug.
I think that a lot of the indicators of depression might seem very, almost inevitable. As I mentioned earlier, I was surprised to see the number of people in the spectrum of LGBTQ plus, that have experienced depression have mental health issues that often go untreated, from statistical information by the NIH and others. And I also would think that a certain degree of feeling bad about yourself, that would lead to internalizing anger and anxiety just come from external factors, if somebody is telling you that the way that you identify is bad, or to be considered through a variety of ways that we see institutionalized racism and language used, especially in times of, you know, when these things become the forefront in the news, it would have to just make you exhibit all of these internal things you're holding inside. So just even interacting in society this spring and summer. I'm feeling anxious, and I'm not at the same risks physically, of harm, as a lot of folks are. I'm not, for instance, a trans individual. So somebody's not going to want to come and beat me up because of that, you know, or say that I'm wrong. I'm not statistically at a risk of being harmed by the police, as an African American man would be just flat out numbers, right. But we're living in tense times, I can't imagine how much of this gets internalized within people that have the direct result of it, and how that has to erode your mental health, it just has to, I know, there are a lot of things that people can just do, without seeking counseling, that that can help practices that they can do to kind of at least get them to the point where on a day to day basis, they don't feel like they're under a constant sense of pressure. I'm not saying they shouldn't seek counseling as well.
So you're talking about coping styles? And yes, and yeah. And so I think people don't realize the interconnectedness that we have. So if a black male experienced trauma, generational trauma, like you said, Amy, then it does affect the white male, they're going to experience it, some of that trauma is interconnectedness. And we don't realize that how we're interconnected, even physically, as well as emotionally, that across culture, when one event happens, or events happen, and it's not resolved when trauma is unresolved. It affects all of us in different ways. And so that's why I think is important to address the elephant in the room to always talk about what's going on, because it helps to create a different perspective, that is healthy. And as a result, the coping styles become more effective. Right now we're doing any effective coping styles, because no one is talking about it. No one is talking about the elephant in the room, and we're all interconnected. So something has to happen in order for the coping styles to become effective. And so I think the what's going on in the day current movement, that is helping that along, if we do it in a healthy way. And so, you know, warning signs about coping styles that are ineffective, is anxiousness, and irritability, and trouble concentrating or sleeping. Well, you don't get enough sleep that piles on physically, and then you have physical issues. And and you get to a point where you can't think right, you can't act or respond, right? You're irritable and respond in ways that you don't want to respond. And I think that's what we're seeing culturally around, not just an African American male, but then why community response in a way that they said, I wish I could have responded that differently. And if all goes back to ineffective coping styles, because we are traumatized as a society, and not dealing with it appropriately. So if you want to do an overview of that, I think that's what's going on, is that we have to dig in and drag down and look at those issues. But people are afraid to talk about the elephant that's in the room that's bumping up against everything, keeping us from effectively responding, because it's this big elephant in the small room that no one's is dealing with. Go ahead.
This is so important to me. I just I want is to be aware also, that I think that when people are not a part of a marginalized group, they feel like they minimize the stressors and the things that they need support with, or someone needs more help than I do. They're kind of invalidating their own feelings like I don't get to be frustrated right now, or I don't get to be anxious right now. Because you know, I'm a single mom with 15 kids. Well, you know, like, no, that's like, we don't want to compare, right. And I think it's so important for everyone to get the support that they need. So we look at men's health, we look at the men that we're serving, and the Counseling Center, it's across the board. We have Latin X students, we have white students, we have Indian students, it's across the board. And everyone's feelings and needs are extremely important. So I just, I just want to emphasize that because I think that right now, some people are like, well, I don't even get to be feel this way, because someone else has it worse. And it's not about that. But I know you want us to talk about coping skills,
getting to your point, it might help you empathize a little bit, if you feel like oh, I don't have a right to be all anxious about these things, because I'm not in the same position. Well, it'll help you empathize with somebody who is having anger or feeling marginalized, right, so that you've seen a lot of people kind of knee jerk respond publicly, because they think that if we're talking about one particular population, being oppressed, that somehow addressing their oppression makes you less. So if you understand what that's like, you should understand what it feels like to be marginalized. So everybody is a human right. So they all have the same basic mental health needs, you know, just like physical health needs. So these coping skills are all important for everyone, no matter what your individual situation is.
So the way the COPE is to not use negative or ineffective methods like substance use, or toxic relationships, or that's what we see, that's when you have to come see us to use some of those in the inappropriate coping skills. So you need to try to normalize and develop more positive thinking. And so they can, your perspective can change. And that doesn't change unless you think different. And I've been taught that we have 10,000 200,000 thoughts a day. And research has said that 80% of those are negative. And we have all the influence of negative with information that we have. But when you have all those negative thoughts, your perspective, your lens of how you view things, and respond to things is colored that way. And so I always say You can't believe everything you think because of that. So coping styles is be able to reach out for help to realize this not a weakness, to be able to call someone. That's why we have path in 211, here at Heartland, that site 211. And then you can call us and we have different ways that we do it and provide services and counseling. And that is, you know, telemental health, we have a secure email platform is called Hushmail that you can get in touch with us, we also have the face to face. So we've tried to prove that all of those ways to get in touch with our clients. And you can see that on our website, mental health counseling, at mental health, that Heartland that edu. And that's a confidential mailbox that you can get in touch with us. No one sees that information. But as you can also do an intake online, confidential when we get that information, and we'll contact you. But I think coping styles, everyone needs additional tools in their toolbox. And we have a lot of different ways that you can cope. You just
mentioned Fe, we have all these tools available right now. So just to set the scene, when people hear this, the pandemic still going to be happening, but in the future they might be listening in. So we're recording this in June of 2000. Still 2020 I've been in my house for months. And so the tele mental health allows people to do these things remotely, counselling remotely and securely. And this is just a tremendous benefit that technology brings us but going back to something you said about 80% of our thoughts being negative in a day. What is the role that social media plays in our mental health? Because it looks like people are spilling out all that negativity on their social media streams. Amy, can you talk a little bit about maybe the the healthy way that we can consume that stuff? There's a good thing because you know, if you're looking for people that are allies to you, you have friends that look like you and think in the same way have some similar same values. But man, things get extreme and we see a lot of negativity to
social media is so good and important for community building that is so true, it can definitely be used as a positive tool for community building and for wellness sharing, but it definitely has also been sort of turned into a capitalistic thing as well now, so it is not just about sharing your stuff, a lot of it is about people trying to gain money. So one thing that is really important when consuming social media is to recognize that that isn't reality fully. It's good to pull things that inspire you, you see a yoga instructor doing a headstand, and you're like, Wow, maybe that'll get me on my mat. Yes, that's great. But if you're not doing headstands, that's okay, you that doesn't make your practice less valuable. And I think that's like, the important part is recognizing that it's not reality, and that it can be used as a tool to support you, but not as a basis to base your reality, and how you view yourself and others. So I think that maybe limiting your time and being very, you don't have to be too nice to anyone unfriend people, if they are saying toxic things right now, they're not going to notice one less friend on their friend list. And if they do, that is a personal thing. That's not your business, you know, like they will have to work through that. But something really important that Fe said is that we are all really interconnected. And another thing Jessica said is that some people have recognized, I'm not hurting, I don't get to work on that. But in the same way that other people are hurting. But like they said, if we do the work on ourselves that work through trauma, that that health and well being, it shows other people that they have the permission to do that, and the capabilities. And so it's good to share things like that on social media to share and each other's successes and stuff. It's just very important to recognize when someone's doing it for financial gain, and when they're doing it to be authentic. And I think that can be hard. But I believe that people can grow and learn to start to decipher that for themselves.
I want to kind of reach out a little bit to if there are any topics that you think we haven't hit upon, that we should before we wrap things up any things that we want to make sure to get across.
I just want to say, to recognize you're not alone, there's always someone you can reach out to. And inevitably, when people come to counseling services, they realize counseling is not what I thought it was. This is kind of neat, I'm glad I came. And so to reach out, even if you do not decide to continue counseling, you reached out and we made sure that if you don't want to do counseling, that you have some other resources to go to. So just reaching out, and then knowing that you're not alone out there that you can accomplish your goals, personally, career rise, and academically just need to reach out.
And then something else that I kind of wanted to address you mentioned earlier Fe the path Crisis Center here in the Bloomington Normal Community. Obviously, we do have the resource of Student Counseling mental health services at Heartland, but anyone who listens to this podcast, you know, there might not be students or even employees that have our health plan and access. How should people that don't have those resources? Start to seek them out? Is it just simply being connected through a local organization like path?
Yeah, light path, you can call 211. That's the hotline for help. You don't need to be in crisis. It might be in the evening that you need to talk to someone so you can feel better and go to sleep. So two, one will dispatch you. They will ask where you're located so they can dispatch it to your local crisis hotline. And so I'll you just tell them, You're in McLean County, and they will dispatch you into path. And Amy, as Amy said, we have Nami and we're trying to make sure people are aware of Mommy, you want to talk a little bit about that. Namie
Nami is the National Alliance for Mental Illness. It is a national grassroots organization, the main work we would like to do is to challenge stigmas and break down barriers. So our goal is to start a Nami on campus so that there is a group for students. It's a student led organization where we can start a community that where you don't have to sign up to see a counselor, you don't have to say any sort of diagnosis or anything, you can just come and talk about how you're feeling and learn about coping mechanisms to really normalize conversation on mental health. And then we do have Nami MidCentral Illinois, which does work doing support groups, and also has students from colleges going into high schools to talk about mental health to try and normalize that at a younger age as well. So that is something that we definitely want to continue growing and put out there. But we do
have a non manual campuses already started. And Amy is talking about recruiting for the fall. And we also started a support group. We also have other things going on in the counseling center to help you access coping skills, information, stress reduction, etc. So get in touch with counseling, we will make sure you get the appropriate resource that you need. I want
to thank you all for taking some time to talk to our audience of the podcast listeners today. And also I just want to say one other thing, just ask you really quick, you know, Amy Faye, Jessica, in these periods of upheaval, as you're probably seeing a lot of people come in with their own issues, are you are you doing things to kind of deal with the stress of that yourselves? We've been having to work differently than we work study differently. We've had all these things going on, socially, that have been positive and negative, unfortunately, what do you do as people that are advocates and providers of mental health services to keep yourself mentally healthy, for sure.
So this allows me to plug some of the things I wanted to plug. So thank you. Nice transition, Steve. So first, there's a lot of different apps for wellness and meditation apps. So one that is free, is called calm. And so you get to determine like, if you only have five minutes to do meditation, or if you want to do a little bit longer, if you prefer it to be guided, where someone is kind of talking you through some relaxation techniques, or if you just prefer to have just some background music on. So I definitely have been doing meditations and sound baths. I'm someone who doesn't like to exercise. But exercising helps my anxiety. And so at the beginning with Brona, I was I was exercising quite a bit, because that's something that kind of works in a quicker way. But yeah, deep breathing, all of the tools, I use all of the tools, and all of the tools myself to maintain my wellness.
And so Steve, what you're talking about is self care. They're important not just for clients, but for counselors. And I happen to be doing a workshop next week on counselor self care for the Illinois Council on problem gambling. And so it's imperative in order for us to help other people, we need to be in a position where we're able to help. And so there are some self care tools as well out there. And Jessica named a few. And so it's important to take care of yourself all all around me you have something you want to include.
I think that in this time when we are kind of isolated a little bit, I think that what is helpful to me is then like journaling and finding creative ways to kind of express the frustration or to try to find a safe place aside from the frustration to do that. But honestly, I think the best advice I can give is that if you feel out of control, which a lot of people do because of the pandemic like not in control of their lives, which can really induce some anxiety and panic make a very simple routine that you can stick to in the mornings. Make it just your cup of coffee. And just like watching the creamer actually mix into it or you know, just one thing that is like your moment in the day because we do have a lot going on. Honestly, technology, not my thing. This whole thing. Not great for me not been doing great with it. But it's okay because you know, I got my cup of coffee this morning. I watched the creamer swirl around, we're going to be okay. So
that's what to call mindful coffee drinking. That's why you use those techniques that both Jessica and Amy talked about, you're able to coat them.
Amy Fay, Jessica, thank you all so much for joining us and talking about this. I really appreciate it. Thank you especially for all the great work you've been doing for our students and for sharing the message for mental health awareness and care.
Thank you stay.
Thanks for having us. Thanks so much. Faye Freeman Smith, Jessica Jackson and Amy Jack all work at Heartland Community College Student Counseling Services. For more information on mental health visit nami.org That's na mi dot o RG. For more interviews about wellness, personal enrichment, cultural topics and more. Subscribe to random acts of knowledge on Apple podcasts, Spotify Audioboom or wherever you On this episode thanks for listening
