179. Gen Z Mental Health: The Role of Families, Friends, Schools, ACEs, & More feat. Dr. Jessica Gomez

Feb 9

listen to this episode:

Today's guest is Dr. Jessica Gomez— a bilingual licensed psychologist and executive director of Momentous Institute. Dr. Gomez has over 17 years of experience working to create healthy communities that provide children with access to quality education and mental health services.

Momentous Institute's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/momentousinstitute/

Dr. Gomez and I dive into the following topics…

+ The role of family in teen mental health struggles

+ When parents resist getting involved with their teen's mental health

+ How schools play a role in students' mental health

+ What school systems could do to improve the youth mental health crisis

+ Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) & their impact on mental health

+ Ways teens can decrease their risk of mental health challenges

+ What to do when you're at a low point with your mental health

+ How parents can best support their teen's mental health

+ Setting boundaries with friends when it comes to mental health

+ Pros and cons of normalizing mental health struggles

+ so much more!

Mentioned In The Episode…

+ Momentous Institute's Website

+ Momentous Institute's Facebook

+ Momentous Institute's Twitter

+ ACEs Study

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

Episode Sponsors

🛋This week's episode is sponsored by Teen Counseling. Teen Counseling is an online therapy program with over 14,000 licensed therapists in their network offering support with depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and more via text, talk, and video counseling. Head to teencounseling.com/shepersisted to find a therapist today!

About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)

After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.

a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

Sadie: Welcome to She Persisted. I'm your host, Sadie Sutton, a 19 year old from the Bay Area studying psychology at the University of Penn. She Persisted is the Teen Mental Health Podcast made for teenagers by a teen. In each episode, I'll bring you authentic, accessible, and relatable conversations about every aspect of mental wellness.

You can expect evidence-based, teen approved resources, coping skills, including lots of D B T insights and education in. Each piece of content you consume, she persisted, Offers you a safe space to feel validated and understood in your struggle, while encouraging you to take ownership of your journey and build your life worth living.

So let's dive in this week on She persisted.

Dr. Gomez: The more we start to talk about this, we can start to save lives because it's completely preventable. In this country, 16 percent of our adolescents are going through clinical depression.

And I think that's a huge underestimate because I believe that there are kids who are suffering that might not meet a diagnosis, but they're still suffering, right? , only half of them ever seek treatment. Would we ever be okay with that if it were anything else, diabetes?

We would not be okay. So the fact that we haven't elevated mental health as a critical health crisis in our country is something we need to be attuned to.

Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of She Persisted. I am so excited you're here today. We have an incredible episode all about Gen Z mental health and everything that goes into that conversation.

If you are a teen or have a teen in your life, I know you've been wondering about these things, and so I really hope you enjoy this interview. Our guest today is Dr. Jessica. Gomez. She is a bilingual licensed psychologist and the executive director of Momentus Institute. She has over 17 years of experience working to create healthy communities that provide children with access to both quality education and mental health services.

We talk about so many things in this episode, including the role of family and school in mental health. We also talk about parents that are involved or less involved in mental health challenges. We talk about how school systems can improve the teen mental health crisis.

We talk about ACE scores and adverse child experiences and how that can impact mental health because that is a huge part of the picture. We talk about what teens can do to decrease their risk of mental health challenges. and set yourself up for success there. We talk about what to do when you're at a low point, how parents can support their teen's mental health, setting boundaries around mental health when it comes to peers, and also the pros and cons of normalizing mental health challenges as a society.

This is such an incredible conversation. We talk about so many things. And, like I said, if you are a teen or have a teen in your life, you have to listen to this episode because it just is such an important topic that so many of us, like, reference or are aware of, but maybe don't know all the details or nuances about.

So I love this interview. I hope you do as well. And with that, let's dive in.

Sadie: Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Dr.

Gomez. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast and to have this really important conversation about teen mental health.

Dr. Gomez: Good morning, Sadie. It's so good to have this conversation

Sadie: absolutely. So I'd love to start with your background and how you got into the mental health field and then how you got into what you're doing now with Momentous Institute , and, and your clinical background there.

Dr. Gomez: Sure. So, I'm a bilingual clinical psychologist. I'm bilingual in Spanish, so it was my first language.

, clinical psychologist for about the past 15, 16 years. Who's counting, right? , but I'm also the executive director of Momentous Institute, which is an organization that, , focuses on education and mental health. for about the past one hundred and four years, but nobody's counting. , so I'll try to give you the short version of how I got into becoming a psychologist.

And I always say, , it starts with my upbringing. I grew up on the south side of Chicago, , to a first generation Mexican American family. , and I remember my mom always instilling in us three big values, which is work hard, especially towards your education. Be kind and leave this world better than you entered it and so at three years old as I'm hearing this I'm like, well, what does that look like?

But then I always like to say that my informal education As a psychologist started when I started to leave kind of my home to go to school And notice each chicago's a rich and vibrant community, but one that has some significant obstacles, especially for a kid from my background growing up, , to opportunities in schools, mental health access, , community violence, , just opportunities for my family.

And I started to have like, just, I was always curious about why are certain communities different? If I drive five miles down the road, it's very different. So I think that natural inquisitiveness led to me having a career in psychology. So upbringing kind of environment and then my own mental health challenges.

I started I didn't have the language I have now, but at about 10 or 11, I started really grappling with sadness Which I know now is depression that I it's not like there was something really driving it and not having the language to ask for the help and it took about five to six years before I got the help I needed.

, and that really set me on a career to say no child should have to wait five to six years. No family should not have the language to understand what their kid is going through. And so really that's what's led me to a career in mental health. , but at an organization that really works destigmatize mental health, because we learn about math and arithmetic and art and music.

Why aren't we learning about the, our bodies, our brains, our emotions? We have to live in it our entire life. That's very true. That's the short version, Sadie.

Sadie: I love it. I love it. And I think such great context and experience for this conversation. I definitely want to start with like the smallest little circle of collective mental health, which is households and families I know in my own experience, it felt like I was the only one that was struggling, and yet, My whole family was incredibly impacted by my mental health challenges.

Whether it was my parents not knowing how to support me and that, of course, being very distressing for them to experience me struggling. My siblings not really understanding what was going on. And then once you get into therapy and treatment, it's like, A lot of the times parents are doing the work and participating in some way, so then they're also in therapy, and then if you go to treatment, if you have siblings, you're not at home for a long period of time, and that can be a really interesting experience.

Having that, that language and understanding of if you're the one struggling or the identified patient and within that family context and that yes, you again are the one that's getting treatment or that the focus is on but there are others being impacted by your mental health challenges. So I'd love to kind of understand how you explain that to families and teens and kind of just explain that.

Phenomenon of mental health challenges within the context of a household and with it in the context of a family because I think it's a society we see mental health is very Individualized and it's something that just you experience and it doesn't necessarily impact others So when you think about mental health from that family perspective and from that household lens, how do you?

explain that and kind of Share that with teens and parents who have that view that it's like, oh, it's just the teen that's struggling.

Dr. Gomez: That is such a great question and a big question. So, , really reel me in but I'm just gonna share things that come to mind as you talk about how you talk about this.

First of all, it's the acknowledgement starting with that individuals do not exist in a vacuum. Right? As you heard me say about my own lived experience, I grew up in a loving, nurturing home, but the community, the context around me, if there's community violence, that impacts us all. So I call that a systemic approach.

Humans, , we don't live in isolation. We're influenced by our context. And so I start by that, so, and I'm trained as a family therapist as well, right? And so, , not everyone has that training, Sadie, as you may know, , you know, Some parents have the expectation, I'm going to come drop off my child for 50 minutes or depending on the treatment they're getting, and then I'll pick them up.

Absolutely not. At Momentous Institute, we start from the beginning talking about how treatment works, if it's going to sustain, if the changes are going to sustain, and if the individual's going to have the support from their immediate surroundings and whoever that support system is. Their caregivers, their parents, their guardians, right?

Their school. So I think it's that basic cycle education starting that we have to work with the entire system and yes there might be an identified patient that's managing depression, anxiety, whatever the issues that bring them in, but the entire family system needs to be educated so that they know how they can support.

And of course, how this impacts them, it's going to impact the parents and what they're going through, depending what their child's going through or a sibling. And so we want to be attuned to those. So at its most simplistic form, it's the education that humans do not function in isolation. That we are impacted by those around us.

And I think that in itself, I'm always surprised what a game changing conversation that is. And if we start from the beginning with that acknowledgement, I think that it's a game changer for the entire treatment. And when we see that family engagement in anything, whether it's education, let alone mental health treatment, I think you're going to get better results.

Sadie: Yeah. , when you have that conversation with parents or maybe it's siblings, maybe it's a guardian, whoever is feeling that role, how do individuals tend to respond? I know some parents, , respond with like, well, this is my teen that's feeling this way. It's not my fault. Like, I'm not depressed. The other kids aren't depressed.

Like, the siblings are fine. This is the result of the teen and how they're coping with things or how they're thinking about things, maybe they say they're too sensitive, whatever it is. How do parents and, and siblings tend to respond to that conversation of this is going to impact you and hopefully there's willingness to make changes in the environment and relationships and dynamics at play.

Dr. Gomez: It really depends on every family. So as I sit here and think about all the families I've sat across over the past years of practicing, I have a full range from families who are like, absolutely. How do I help that are fully engaged? And those families, like you said, Sadie, that this isn't about me. So for the families that are like, this isn't about me, either that education piece will, will be like, oh, okay, light bulb moment.

Let me come in and, or others who are resistant. The response certainly says something, right? And I want to speak to something here. The individual issues that might bring a young person in for therapy, Might be something that is kind of okay the depression they have a predisposition or they're going through something or as I like to say That person that brought the family in might be the canary in the coal mine the one that's kind of symptomatic Because they're the sensitive or empathetic one in the family, but maybe They're responding and pointing to issues that might be in the couple.

And so it's the therapist's job to really come in, sit, do a full intake and interview with the family to determine where does the intervention need to take place. And it has not been rare for me in my career to say it's actually parents need couples treatment and the child is responding to the tension in the home or the conflict in the home.

So it's always doing that full assessment. So I want to acknowledge that sometimes that might be An issue a mental health issue, or sometimes it's the canary in the coal mine. Yeah,

Sadie: I would love to touch on school systems. You mentioned that can also be another factor that can impact mental health challenges, and I'd love to get into your thoughts on how.

Schools can better support teens and implement preventative mental health care and education and just make teens more aware of resources and all of that, but I'd love to also understand from your experience and then also what you see in your practice with teens of how school can impact mental health.

Because I know when I was depressed and anxious and all of the things, it wasn't that I was getting more depressed at school or that was why I was struggling, but I was really negatively connecting with other teens who were also depressed and anxious and engaging in ineffective coping skills. And so it can really be like , I don't even know how to explain but like you attract the energy you put out as cheesy as that is and when you're super depressed and super anxious and really struggling and you're only surrounding yourselves with those kinds of people, it can be a really challenging environment to be in and it's difficult to make changes in therapy when your relationships are kind of reflecting your own mental health.

So how do How do school systems, , and education kind of fit into that picture of teen mental health?

Dr. Gomez: School systems are absolutely part of this conversation, and I know there's a lot of dialogue around whether schools should be talking, should teachers be talking about mental health. If the kids are spending most of their time, it is literally their second home.

There is no way to not have a conversation around mental health or whether we want to call it social emotional health or social emotional learning. That would be like saying, , we're just going to teach math and not pay attention to a child's physical. Guess what? Mental health is part of your health.

So whether we want to have this conversation or not. It's their schools. So I want to start with that. , And we are impacted. Like I keep saying, we're impacted by our environment. So if our Children are spending close to eight hours a day in there, we've got to pay attention to the climate of the school, right?

How are teachers treated? How are teachers supported? Why am I talking about teachers, Sadie? Because teachers are the people that sit across from our Children. And it's not just about math. We know that if Children don't feel supported, seen and heard, They're not going to learn. So we have to take care of their mental health first in order for them to learn and reach all those academic milestones.

And so, if we're going to do mental health in schools and support our children, it starts from the very top. From schools, from boards of schools acknowledging that. Mental health is here and our kids are not doing well and we need to attend to it and it starts by the climate, by the policies, by how we support our teachers so that they have the capacity to say, Hmm, I noticed that student in my classroom is different.

How do I lean in with curiosity and have that conversation? Or noticing, because I think the example you gave of the depressed kiddo, like, might be, you know, they're seeking connections, so of course they're going to connect to other students that might understand the experience they're going through, so I think that's super normal, but how is the school personnel attuned to, I noticed that group of kids, right?

And how do I form connection with them versus labeling them as those kids? , so, , I think it's a systemic approach that we haven't quite figured out and in our country and in our education system because we're so focused on the outcomes versus the outcomes will come if you take care of the people.

And at our school, Momentous School, we start from kindergarten teaching our children about breathing, about their brain, about emotions, about settling your glitter and breathing because we know that the earlier you start with that. The better off you are, because we're all going to face stress and outcomes, and my hope is that when that child, , goes through something difficult at home, or with their own mental health, they at least have the language that doesn't make them shy away from asking for help.

Today's episode is brought to you by Teen Counseling. You guys know that whenever I have a clinician on the podcast or we talk about something heavy, I like to give you a resource that you can utilize because finding a therapist can be really overwhelming.

You're dealing with and waitlists and finding a provider can be really challenging. So I wanted to share Teen Counseling with you. Teen Counseling, it is an online therapy program brought to you by BetterHelp. specifically for teenagers. They have over 14, 000 licensed therapists within their network, and they offer support on things like depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, so a lot of the things that we discussed in this episode.

They also offer talk, text, and video counseling, so depending on what level of support you're looking for, they're able to meet you right where you're at. And this is an resource to start with if you're not sure how to find a therapist or how to begin that journey. So if you want to check out teen counseling.

You're gonna go to teen counseling.com/she persisted. You're gonna fill out a survey about what you're hoping to work on in therapy, like the topics I just mentioned. And based on that, they'll match you with a therapist that specializes in that area. So again, if you wanna check out teen counseling, you can go to teen counseling.com/she persisted.

Sadie: Are there any other interventions that you hope to see in like the next 10, 20 years, whatever it is, similar to like the early on emotion education, whether it's elementary school, middle school, high school, what do you hope to see as an educational system shift so that we are children and teens to better navigate mental health challenges?

Dr. Gomez: Gosh, if I could sit here and dream Sadie with you for a little bit, , we would start A, by acknowledging that mental health is part of your health and part of your education. Yeah. You are a human and you are going to embody this, this shell for the rest of your life. So the more information you have about how to stay healthy and then when you're running into issues that language, the better.

So just like you have arithmetic as part of, and their standards are how, how much math you learn, how much reading, I would love to see mental health incorporated into the curriculum. I think that is how we. Beat the youth mental health crisis. That is how we prevent suicides. Why aren't we talking about any of this stuff?

We think that in five minutes in high school that we can do this. So it's equipping the students. It's part of the education, but also engaging the parents. The more we start to talk about this, I think that we can start to save lives because it's completely preventable. I mean, the fact that I believe it's in this country, 16 percent of our adolescents are going through clinical depression.

That's diagnosable. And I think that's a huge underestimate because I believe that there are kids who are suffering that might not meet a diagnosis, but they're still suffering, right? , only half of them ever seek treatment. Would we ever be okay with that if it were cancer, if it were anything else, diabetes?

We would not be okay. So the fact that we haven't elevated mental health as a critical health crisis in our country is something we need to be attuned to.

Sadie: Yeah, 100%. The last part of the community impact that I want to touch on before we get into coping skills and advice and all of that is this community aspect that you mentioned where it's The context that you're living in, , the neighborhood that you're growing up in, , these larger systemic factors can really have a big impact on mental health.

For individuals who have never thought about that as something that can correlate with their well being, what are those systemic factors? And then also, how do those impact mental health, especially as a teen, when you don't necessarily get to choose where you live or where you're going to school or what that environment is?

Dr. Gomez: Well, there was a huge study which you all are probably familiar with which is ACEs came out in the 1990s Adverse Childhood Experiences and what that did basically is, you know Some of the researchers that were working out of a hospital system in California started to notice that some people Live shorter lives with less quality of life and more disease and they wondered why is this happening?

So they did a massive study study with thousands of people. And by the way, since the nineties, it's been replicated all over the world and we keep getting the same results. And it boils down to before age 18, if you have had these adverse childhood experiences, you're more at risk of experiencing stress or having mental health issues or physical issues, right?

Because mental health is part of your health. And so those experience are divorce in your household. So I'll focus on just the system of your household and then community. So divorce, substance abuse, mental illness, You know, physical abuse, depression, anxiety, look it up. There's a whole host of things. Now, if you're saying, well, no, it's not common.

What this study found is that trauma and adverse childhood experiences are more common than we like to admit. I believe, , 66 percent of adults have had one adverse childhood experience, traumatic experience, before the age of 18. And I believe one in six, if my numbers are right, have had Three or more experiences, right?

So it's very common. We just don't know what it is. Now, then they did a study on adverse community, which is, is there poverty? Is there community violence? Is there access to good food, to good schools, all of that stuff that impacts a human? ,

now, to your question of, If you can't control where you live, this doesn't mean that you're doomed, but if you have an awareness of how your environment impacts you, then you can do things which will get to kind of, what are the things I can do to take care of myself? And if I have an awareness that, gosh, these experiences early on shape my physical and my mental well being, then you can do things to kind of, , make your body and your mental health stronger.

Oh,

Sadie: I love that so much, and I say that all the time. There's just so many examples, especially when we, like, go and talk about physical health, because there's no stigma there most of the time, so it's like a very easy example. But if you know that you're going to be traveling, and you're going to be low on sleep and dehydrated, maybe you'll drink extra water.

water, do liquid IV, or take a nap when you wouldn't normally. Like, you do all these things to set yourself up for success. We don't necessarily plan that way for mental health, and if you're aware of your risk factors, you're like, well, I'm a teen, and I am in a critical period of developing mental illnesses, and my baseline is I'm more emotionally sensitive, and maybe you have something that comes up with an A score.

What can you do to really set yourself up for success and have a solid toolkit to pull from and kind of decrease your risk of developing these mental health challenges, because obviously you can't solve for everything, but if you can give yourself the skills to be able to navigate those challenges and bounce back and feel really confident in your ability to cope, that does wonder.

So I'd love to get your thoughts on what can teens do to set themselves up for success, especially both you having a perspective on the community side of things, then working with patients one on one. What can teens do to put themselves in the best situation possible, given all of these factors, whether it's family, school, community, et cetera?

Dr. Gomez: Sadie, I think you, the way you said it is perfectly, and then I'll give you what else I think. is important. It's recognizing the developmental stage that you are at. It's a beautiful one and it's one that comes with some interesting challenges. Your brain is coming towards the second most critical, biggest brain growth, right?

And physical growth. And you're also kind of figuring out who you are. We call that individuation. So it's an important time, right? So knowing that you're going to be a little bit more sensitive and predisposed to Feeling things deeper and your body's going through rapid changes, right? No matter what age and especially for young people I talk to them about the foundations of well being before I give any depression anxiety You know, coping with college tips.

I call it the foundations of well being and it's pretty easy The metaphor really is you would not build a house without a solid foundation. So Let's start there. So every client and they look at me like what? So I talk with them about how are you sleeping, the neuroscience of sleep, and how much you need to be getting, right?

Which for young people, you ready for this? You probably know this. 8 to 12 hours of sleep. Yeah, yeah, we're not getting that and you need it because your body needs to rejuvenate, right? So that's one of the corners and I talked to them about eating and I'm not talking about having a diet But it's having nutritious meals being mindful of what you're eating and what your body needs Like you said Sadie, you know, I know it's cold season and I've got a lot of exams So maybe I eat a couple more oranges or some vitamin C to give my body the best shot from there.

It's movement And I'm not talking about 25 to 30 minutes. I'm talking about finding something you enjoy. For me, it's, it's really pumping the music in my living room and dancing to some of my favorite music for 10 to 15 minutes. Or if you've got a big test coming up and a big exam you're anxious about.

Turn on your favorite song and dance in your dorm room. It's gonna get that dopamine, which is that feel good neurotransmitter running, and it's probably gonna be better than eating that chocolate bar that gives you that same dopamine. So sleep, movement, nutrition. And the last one is community.

So that's that fourth pillar. It's who are the people you have in your life that are positive, that uplift you, that help you keep going forward and making sure that you stay connected to them in the doses that you need. Because we have relationships that kind of pull us down. You need enough to lift you and push you forward.

I talked to everyone. Those are the basics. If you can just focus on those basics, you give yourself and it's not about perfection. It's about I love what you said. I might not be able to get eight hours of sleep this week, but I'm gonna eat mindfully and get some sunshine outside and get for a walk.

Sadie: I love that. I always say if you can just put yourself on a positive trajectory and do most of the things you don't do well, even if you're at like 51 percent, you're still in an upward trend. You're on the up and up. Things are going to get better and You can have that trust and then the 49 percent you're like, okay, I got 30 minutes less sleep than usual and I was more stressed or I was really like rude to myself because I was worried about how I was going to do on an exam or I didn't spend as much time with friends because you were studying.

Balance it out and make sure you're just on that upward trend and you don't have to be so stressed and consumed with your well being constantly. Right.

So, for teens that are listening to this and they're like, I am already in the thick of it, my mental health is I am trying to do those basic foundations, but I'm more worried about maybe they're having panic attacks, maybe they're constantly arguing with family, maybe they can't get out of bed, these other behaviors that seem almost like fires that need to be put out before you can be like, Okay, did I get enough sleep that the night before?

What is your advice to them? Whether it's reaching out to someone, maybe it is going back to those basic foundations, maybe it's trying to get into therapy. How do you recommend that teens approach their mental health when they're already at the point where they're like, okay, I'm struggling. I need to change something.

And it's not really like that preventative approach of having those foundations in place.

Dr. Gomez: The number one question, if it is impacting your functioning at home, at school, or in your workplace, your self care, then I always say, if you're noticing it, it's impacting you in that way. Seek professional help.

Find a mental health therapist, , to at least do a check in of is this a normative response and not because you don't have to suffer with panic attacks, with depression and the key is to look at huh, has this lasted with me for a couple hours and I can shake it off or I can't seem to shake it off after a couple days.

Anything that's more than a couple days, a week to two weeks Speak to a professional because you don't have to sit with this you don't have to suffer in silence and there is help and there are techniques that the mental health professional can really tailor to you and your specific needs to help you overcome it and the sooner you get The help the more likely you are to overcome it or at least have the tools to manage it and prevent it from getting bad again

Sadie: Yeah, 100%.

The other question I want to ask you, which is one of my most frequently asked questions, which is how can parents support a teen? And I'd love to kind of get your perspective on setting themselves up for success, like maybe it's a parent listening and it's like, Man, my teen is just starting middle school or high school and I'm worried that they're going to start struggling, but I just want to be there as a good resource and make sure that we have or teaching them to have those foundations in place and then also the other side of the coin, which is like my teen is struggling.

They're maybe not talking to me or they have come to me and want to go to therapy and I don't know how to support them. How do you advise that parents navigate teen mental health?

Dr. Gomez: You have to trust your gut as a parent, right? , you know your child better than anyone. And, and if something's kind of hitting you like, oh, I'm worried about this, go towards it.

You know, a lot of parents I find are scared they're going to say the wrong thing or if I bring it up, maybe it's good. Like, if you're wondering if they're kind of having thoughts of suicide or ending their life, Don't shy away from the conversation. Go towards it, right? So that's the first thing and also nurture the relationship with your child year round, right?

Don't wait for that perfect moment. Check in on them. And I know that everyone's busy and they're busy with school activities and their friends and they're focused on that. But I think, make it simple, whether it's, hey, let's go out for ice cream, or let's have a coffee, or let's go for a walk. It's not going to happen all the time, but make sure you have those pulse checks.

The other tip I tell parents is, your kid's probably going to bring some stuff that blows back your cap, and you're like, oh my god, they did what? The hardest part is managing your reaction because you want them to come to you with the big stuff and when they make errors You want your kids to come to you and if they're worried about your reaction They might not feel safe coming to you.

So I think it's almost like, manage my reaction, be there for my kid, and then once I'm done, then I go get my own support. 100%. Does that make sense? Because if we scare them with our reaction. So you want to make sure that your child feels safe coming to you, , even when they've made mistakes.

Sadie: Yeah, I would also love to get your thoughts on supporting a friend that is struggling with mental health.

This is a really challenging need to navigate as a teen because you're kind of in this interesting period where you probably aren't as close to your parents as you were when you were younger and they were your support system for everything. And so now you're more familiar with going to your friends when you're stressed or overwhelmed or there's drama or whatever it is.

And with mental health, this is really interesting situation because Having those healthy relationships is great, and spending time with your friends is so important. But talking to them about every single mental health problem you're having is really ineffective. So, how do you advise teens navigate that?

Both from the perspective of like, they're struggling with their mental health, and they, they want to get support from their friends. And then also the flip side of a friend comes to you and is like, I'm really struggling, or I'm depressed, or I'm in therapy. How do you navigate that?

Dr. Gomez: You don't have to take it on.

Yeah. And that's the number one thing. You don't have to be your friend's therapist because it's not healthy for you either, right? And you might not have the skills. But in similar fashion to parents, if, is if you're worried about your friend, you know your friend, if you're noticing some things that really worry you, encourage them to get the professional help.

Make sure that they know it's okay to need help. That's part of destigmatizing mental health. And we need to start looking at it as the same as I'm going to the dentist, or I'm going for my checkup, right? If something's hurting, you know, my tooth's hurting. But we're not yet there. So I think the best thing a friend can do is if you're worried, , encourage your friend to get the help.

If you don't feel safe telling your friend to get the help, or you don't think they're going to, seek a trusted adult that can help you in this. Because, , you know, In its most critical sense, we can save lives, , by not being silent about this.

Sadie: Yeah, yeah, 100%. I, especially in college, when, I mean, so many people are stressed and overwhelmed, and you can, like, sit on your high horse and be like, that's not effective, and they're not getting sleep, or that foundation is not in place.

You have to be like, not my monkeys, not my circus. At some point, things will become really overwhelming, and then they, We'll have to adjust the way they're coping with things and I think that can be really helpful to remind yourself as a teen that Yes, you want the best for your friend, but you're not the one that is making those choices at the end of the day.

So it's not your responsibility to help them make those choices. And kind of having that separation can be really, really important, but it's also really hard to do.

Dr. Gomez: And I think it can also, I've heard so many teens and even myself when I was a teen, because I was one once upon a time, it struggled with honoring kind of, , their trust.

You know, and not wanting to lose their trust, but I think it would be harder to sit with I didn't do anything and something happened to them than, you know, them understanding, yeah, I broached your trust, but I wanted to get you help and it's coming from a good place.

Sadie: Yeah, I remember going through that and it is, like you mentioned, it's saving lives in a lot of ways or at the very least it's changing someone's life and allowing them to get the resources that they need. And I think. The common thread throughout my mental health journey was that the hardest part was asking for help and Obviously best case scenario someone gets that strength from within and they're able to be courageous enough to say I'm not okay And I need support But if they do go to a friend and they need that support and you're not the one that can provide that Directing them to like you mentioned a teacher.

Maybe it's a parent. Maybe it's a family friend who's an adult to get that professional support can be really, really helpful and you're helping them kind of like bridge that gap of that really challenging step of asking for help. Right.

Dr. Gomez: And my hope is if we start normalizing this conversation, it won't be so hard to ask for the help because we'll see it as part of our health.

Sadie: Yeah, which I guess is one other question I'd love to ask you before we wrap up, which is that I think mental health challenges, whether it's been, you're on the mental illness side of the diagnosis spectrum, or you are just struggling with your mental health in a way that is impairing your life, maybe you're not meeting diagnostic criteria, I think it's really normalized.

And especially in high school and college, it's like, well, everyone feels that way, or lots of people are depressed. There's not even the mental recognition of like, it doesn't have to be this way, or this is something that I need support with. So how do you kind of So how do you kind of recommend that teens navigate that where it's like we're talking about it so much that it's like well every single teen is depressed so then there's not a need to ask for help or go and utilize these resources or whatever it is because I think when we think about stress or we think about burnout or we think of like not having those foundations in place it's like well every teen is chronically stressed and not getting enough sleep and struggling relationships and all those kinds of things so how do you kind of recommend that teens navigate Navigate that whole set of

Dr. Gomez: things.

Well, first of all, it gives me hope that this generation of youth is having the conversation. I don't remember in my generation of, yeah, we, we could tell that people were struggling, but I don't even think we have the language as much as I'm hearing youth have now. But I think the number one thing for teens, yes, everyone's talking about it.

But for you to ask yourself, is it impacting your functioning, your ability to care for yourself, like you can't get out of bed, you're not even showering or grooming yourself, or you don't enjoy the things you used to. If you're noticing impacting your self care, your relationships, and school, , that's a red flag for you.

That should be the red flag of, yeah, we might be all talking about this, but I need help.

Sadie: Yeah. A hundred percent. Well, to wrap things up, I would love to know what resources you recommend for both teens and parents who want to continue to learn about mental health, maybe look for support, continue to further their mental health education and all of that.

What are what are you direct people to? I

Dr. Gomez: love directing people to our website and follow us on social media momentous Institute. What we do is From our work in the school and in our mental health services, we try to create content that is really accessible for any age, , any setting, where we talk about stress, where we talk about collective trauma, where we talk about signs, how to support children, and we have videos, we have We have articles, we have a blog, , on a diversity of different topics.

So you can follow us on social media or on our website, momentousinstitute. org. And there's a lot of resources there, , that just break down mental health and

Sadie: well being. Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Gomez. This was incredible. Thank you, Sadie.

Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of she persisted. If you enjoyed, make sure to share with a friend or family member, it really helps out the podcast. And if you haven't already leave a review on apple podcasts or Spotify, you can also make sure to follow along at actually persisted podcast on both Instagram and Tik TOK, and check out all the bonus resources, content and information on my website.

She persisted podcast.com. Thanks for supporting. Keep persisting and I'll see you next week.

© 2020 She Persisted LLC. This podcast is copyrighted subject matter owned by She Persisted LLC and She Persisted LLC reserves all rights in and to the podcast. Any use without She Persisted LLC’s express prior written consent is prohibited.