Maybe Nothing Happens for a Reason?
"Everything happens for a reason." Or does it? Mike and Chaya dissect this common idiom and its negative impact on individuals facing challenging situations. They explore the meaning of toxic positivity, importance of personal agency, and how Mike's experiences with depression led to creating supportive spaces for neurodivergence.
TW: Talk of Suicide
We Also Cover:
- How Deterministic Views Harm Mental Health
- Early Mental Health Intervention Awareness
- Peer Support's Transformative Nature
- The Infinite Possibilities in Chaos Theory
- Authentic Emotional Validation
- Beauty in Imperfection
Quotes:
- "We've been told to always smile and say it's a good day."
- "It's not nihilistic to say that we're insignificant, it's very beautiful and empowering."
- "I love hearing about other people's experiences because I never thought there would be anyone else who feels exactly like I feel."
- "Every individual has a story. Every behavior has a reason."
As always, thanks for lending us your ears and keep igniting that spark!
Stay Connected:
- Website: https://sparklaunchpodcast.com/
- ADHD Coaching & Workshops: https://www.sparklaunch.org/
- Chaya on Instagram
- Mike on Instagram
- Want To Be a Guest? https://sparklaunchpodcast.com/booking
Transcript
You've landed at Spark Launch, the guide star for embracing what it means to be neurodiverse.
Speaker:I'm Mike Cornell, joined by CEO of Spark Launch, Chaya Mallavaram.
Speaker:Here, we navigate mental health triumphs and tribulations from all across the spectrum, charting a course to the shared experiences that unite us, and discovering how to embody the unique strengths within neurodivergent and neurotypical alike, igniting your spark and launching it into a better tomorrow.
Speaker:Hello, everyone.
Speaker:I'm Mike.
Speaker:I'm Chaya.
Speaker:So I
Speaker:think we have all heard the phrase or been told it's, maybe said it ourselves, that everything happens for a reason.
Speaker:It's always intended to be nice and and comforting of a sentiment, but there is, at least for me, something deeper that can be a bit harmful for our mindsets, I guess you could put it.
Speaker:I know for 1, I have a I won't say a love hate relationship with the phrase.
Speaker:It's it's more of like a a straight up hate.
Speaker:And I I don't know how you feel about about that particular phrasing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I definitely don't hate it, but I'm very intrigued with your passion towards hating it.
Speaker:And I and you picked the topic, Mike, and I I'm I just want to dig deeper into understanding why there's so much emotion towards that phrase.
Speaker:And I just wanna let you know that it's valid.
Speaker:Your emotions are completely valid, and you are entitled to feel that way.
Speaker:It's just my curiosity.
Speaker:I want to dig deeper if you don't mind me going that route.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:I mean, it's all philosophical ideas.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So there's no real right or wrong way of looking at it.
Speaker:It's just all purview.
Speaker:It's all parallax.
Speaker:For me, I'm very pro self agency and individual power.
Speaker:Like, I'm not, like, not a religious person.
Speaker:I'm an atheist.
Speaker:I I I don't have any, like, real problem with spirituality or anything.
Speaker:I actually think it's fascinating a lot of ways.
Speaker:Though it's funny, I do really like Leveeism, satanism, which is just fun atheism, which is all that is.
Speaker:It but it's about the strength and power is comes from the individual person and kind of embracing that and everyone kind of their own personal god.
Speaker:And I I kind of feel that way, like, everyone's their own sort of planet in the cosmos.
Speaker:And I also believe very strongly in chaos theory that the universe is a series of chaotic events that, you know, it it's like how people kind of misinterpret Murphy's law, that kind of thing.
Speaker:It's like, no, it's it's everything that can happen will happen because it is an infinite amount of possibilities of happenings.
Speaker:So that being said, everything happens for a reason I dislike for a couple different facets.
Speaker:Number 1 is it removes agency, I think, from the person.
Speaker:You know, it's it both tries to put a positive spin on negative events in a way that I do think is can be toxic in I I do not like toxic positivity.
Speaker:I think it creates a lot of shame towards whenever negative events happen what you did from that negative events away from you, where if you reacted a certain way to a negative event and it led to something positive, then, you know, it's a bit like, it's always weird that at Christmas time for people who celebrate Christmas, that's always, like, the best gifts come from Santa Claus.
Speaker:It's always weird when you stop and think like, why don't the parents reverse it?
Speaker:So that way the lamer gifts come from Santa and the better gifts come from the parents.
Speaker:It's it's always strange to me.
Speaker:But, it's kinda it's kind of like the same same deal where you're saying that everything is kind of like out of your control.
Speaker:So you just roll with the bad things that happened because maybe something good will happen because the bad thing happened.
Speaker:Well, that's that's removing your agency.
Speaker:That's removing your kind of responsibility to your own actions that you need to look at what happened and see what led you here, what you can do going forward from here.
Speaker:And the same thing if a positive thing event happened.
Speaker:You know, what did you do that made made this take place?
Speaker:You know, this was not, like, bestowed upon you for unrelated reasons to yourself.
Speaker:Maybe your skill led you here.
Speaker:Maybe you taking a chance and speaking to somebody led you here.
Speaker:You know, I I'm not a big it's the one door closes, one door opens sort of thing, which to me is a little bit like a nice softer version of everything happens for a reason because it doesn't imply that there is a grand purpose to any events, just like you just acknowledge that a door is closed, and then you can kind of go open another one.
Speaker:So to me, that's a little bit more neutral.
Speaker:But for everything that happens for a reason, you're really, taking away that's that agency from the person, in my opinion.
Speaker:And you're saying that you aren't in control of when things happen, And you also need to just kind of accept when bad things happen because, a, there's probably some sort of reason it's happening, which I think is shitty.
Speaker:You know, when something really horrible happens, a violent act, to say that, oh, well, it must have happened for a reason.
Speaker:That doesn't help person.
Speaker:And I really don't like that.
Speaker:Even if something good eventually comes from it.
Speaker:You know, I think of, like, the Amber Alert that happens with missing children like that occurred because that family fought for an alert system after their daughter went missing and and was killed.
Speaker:Well, imagine someone saying them like, well, everything happens for a reason.
Speaker:So your daughter was murdered for the sake of there being an Amber alert like that.
Speaker:When you put it in that context, it's really stupid and doesn't make a whole whole lot of sense.
Speaker:Like, you can make a good thing out of something.
Speaker:And that should be something we always strive for is making something good out of the bad.
Speaker:And I don't like taking the ability of a person to do that away from them and say that it just, it's a snowball effect.
Speaker:Like, you don't have any control.
Speaker:You're just going down the hill.
Speaker:I have to say I agree with you 100 person because where do I start?
Speaker:1st of all, the universe.
Speaker:I love that language.
Speaker:I am also not religious at all.
Speaker:I don't see color.
Speaker:I don't see gender.
Speaker:I don't see nationality.
Speaker:But I am spiritual in the sense that we are all part of the universe, and we are so universe is not outside of us.
Speaker:It's inside because we are also part of it.
Speaker:And what you say right now, what you just told me has an impact on me.
Speaker:And in that way, we all impact one another.
Speaker:And there are aspects in the universe that we are not aware of.
Speaker:So I'm even open to concepts as such as spirits and the unknown, basically.
Speaker:Because what we know on in our bodies, we have 5 sense organs.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:We have the eyes.
Speaker:We have the nose, mouth, skin, and ears, and then we have the 6th sense.
Speaker:It's that intuition.
Speaker:It's that feeling.
Speaker:It's that something doesn't feel right, doesn't feel wrong.
Speaker:I mean, whatever.
Speaker:And and the, yeah, the messages and dreams and things like that.
Speaker:So there's so many things that are happening outside of our body, and we are all interacting knowingly or unknowingly.
Speaker:And so I'm very open and intrigued with that concept.
Speaker:And so that's my understanding of spirituality.
Speaker:And and also we have responsibility, as you said, as you called it agency, within ourselves as we are as stuff happens to us, we are responsible, with how we what we do with that information.
Speaker:And, yeah, so things happen.
Speaker:And just to say it happens for a reason is is wrong.
Speaker:Just to make that statement is is is insensitive and doesn't take that person's journey into consideration.
Speaker:And we have zero clue of what that other person's gone through.
Speaker:Like, I know little bit about you, Mike, but I I have no right to make any statement like that about you.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So I think but although at that, the intention of the other person making that statement might be to lessen the trauma that the other person is going through.
Speaker:That is what's happening there.
Speaker:Maybe their intention is to make the other person feel better, but it is insensitive and not required.
Speaker:It's like summing up this whole lot of incidents.
Speaker:Maybe it also brings up childhood incidents, what's happening now, and summing it all into this one statement, kind of just saying, oh, yeah.
Speaker:It all happened for a reason.
Speaker:That is insensitive.
Speaker:And but there are messages for us when things happen and especially when negative things happen.
Speaker:It's it's a message for us.
Speaker:So it's it's important that we sit with that and experience that.
Speaker:And and what we do with that is up to us.
Speaker:And whether we wanna move forward, whether we decide to build thick walls around us, only we would know.
Speaker:Only that person experiencing that would know.
Speaker:But it is important to experience that as and not ignore it and not shove it under the carpet, not put it away.
Speaker:Because if you put it away, it's gonna come back.
Speaker:It's gonna come back.
Speaker:Days, years, decades, it'll it'll always come back.
Speaker:So I think we've come to this planet in this lifetime to overcome the challenges, whatever challenges we have.
Speaker:So the scenarios happen to us so so that we evolve.
Speaker:That's my theory.
Speaker:Again, it's all coming from my life experiences and my journey till this point.
Speaker:I I agree 100%.
Speaker:I'm reminded of in my suicidal days, one of the worst things anybody could say to me, and this goes for, I think, pretty much everybody who deals with suicidality is look at everything you have.
Speaker:People will be sad when you're gone.
Speaker:It's all meant to be nice, but all because you meant it to be nice and and helpful doesn't mean that it actually is.
Speaker:It's actually the exact opposites of nice and helpful.
Speaker:So the phrase everything happens for a reason works the same way for me.
Speaker:It's invalidating in that way.
Speaker:It it it kind of tells you not to take a lesson away, to not to not try to break a cycle that's that's happening.
Speaker:You know, when something crappy happens and something good happens right afterwards and it's tenuously connected, you take away from it that, oh, the bad thing happens so the good thing can happen.
Speaker:And then, hey, the bad thing ends up happening again.
Speaker:That's probably because you didn't examine why it happened in the first place.
Speaker:And it took me for a lot of things in my life finally stopping.
Speaker:And not that I ever believed the whole everything happens for a reason thing, but it took me stopping and really examining what I was doing to fix the I don't wanna use fix, mend the problems with within me.
Speaker:I'm reminded of the Japanese art of repairing ceramics with gold.
Speaker:You continue to you keep the cracks.
Speaker:You let them stand out, but you repair them with with gold.
Speaker:And I think we have a tendency, especially like very positivity culture and yes, admittedly, a lot of religious culture tends to force a positive spin that removes the cracks or tells you not to look at the cracks, or if it's cracked, throw it away and replace it.
Speaker:But there is a lot of beauty in the cracks, including the cracks of the universe.
Speaker:We are it's not nihilistic to say that we're insignificant.
Speaker:It's actually very beautiful and empowering that we're insignificant.
Speaker:I was for my friends listening to this, this is gonna date exactly when we were recording this, but I was watching a movie last night.
Speaker:I was rewatching Donnie Darko.
Speaker:And I was, like, kind of, like, texting my friends during it because we were all sort of watching it.
Speaker:And it's a movie you come up with, like, a lot of theories on, like, what it's about, what's going on.
Speaker:And, you know, one of the reads I have on it is spoilers for anybody who's never seen Donnie Darko, but it came out in, like, 2,000 or something.
Speaker:So, you know, Donnie was supposed to die from a very random, cosmically tragic incidents, But instead, there's some sort of strange science fiction event.
Speaker:He instead, through a odd time warp, he gets thrown into an alternate reality where he didn't die.
Speaker:And the events of that, bad things happen to people around him, people he comes into contact with.
Speaker:Like, it has a negative effect.
Speaker:And he's somebody who is constantly he's afraid of the unknown of dying alone.
Speaker:He has a very nihilistic view that there's no point to anything.
Speaker:You know, he's a very he's deals with all the mental illness.
Speaker:He's, you know, likely schizophrenic or and he eventually realizes at the very end that he has to essentially go back and that the butterfly effect of life, whether he lives or dies, has a greater effect.
Speaker:In this case, you could look at the movie as it's nihilistic that he feels he has to die for there to be positivity in other people's lives.
Speaker:You know, somebody ends up not ends up dying because he survives in this alternate world where she gets to live now.
Speaker:And there's a tragedy around his death, but it's actually a positive thing.
Speaker:He's he realizes that there is a point in life, even if you die, that life boiled down has an effect on everything around you.
Speaker:And I feel like that way about about this, like, very subject is it is all very chaotic, but it all has a point.
Speaker:It's just a point that you make of it.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:It's up to us to interpret it and make something out of it.
Speaker:And we have no idea what the other person's going through.
Speaker:And at the same incident, if it happens to 2 different people, they could experience it completely differently.
Speaker:And even though, let's say, they are twins, even though they are made up of the same genetics mostly and brought up in the same household.
Speaker:They could experience things completely differently.
Speaker:And it's so important for that aspect because it just tells us we have zero right to make assumptions about another individual.
Speaker:And so I agree with that.
Speaker:Again, 100 person.
Speaker:And I also wanted to I I wrote down a few things.
Speaker:You talked about toxic positivity.
Speaker:That's it's crucial, and it's I see that a lot, especially here in the US.
Speaker:I I have I grew up in India, and I've been it's like I'm at a midpoint.
Speaker:I live about 25 and a half years there and 25 and a half years here approximately.
Speaker:And I see that a lot here.
Speaker:I've I've traveled to other countries.
Speaker:I've traveled to Europe, but it's more so in the US.
Speaker:That's my opinion.
Speaker:Anyways, we somehow have to always smile and just say the right things.
Speaker:So if I were to ask how was your day?
Speaker:You will always say it's good even though you're feeling crappy inside.
Speaker:And I can't even tell from your face because you've been trained not to show it.
Speaker:So you always come with a smile and I I would never know.
Speaker:Maybe if you didn't have that smile, maybe I could have asked you, hey.
Speaker:What's wrong, Mike?
Speaker:Why why that gloomy face?
Speaker:But somehow, here, we've been said we've been told, I think, to always smile and say it's a good day or talk about the weather because, boy, we don't talk want to talk about the deep stuff.
Speaker:And that's why we have the show.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:We're gonna talk about all the deep layers underneath our feelings.
Speaker:And so it's I used to tell my colleague before I didn't know it was called masking.
Speaker:I didn't know the term masking.
Speaker:I didn't know the term neurodivergent.
Speaker:I didn't know any of that.
Speaker:But I used to tell my colleague, I see there's a thick layer.
Speaker:It's like a makeup.
Speaker:It's it's it's the the Botox.
Speaker:Feels like that when when I interact with people here, when I go to a restaurant because everybody says the same thing.
Speaker:It's scripted.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:It's all scripted.
Speaker:And when I go back to India, I don't see that as much.
Speaker:Just the true nature somehow revealed.
Speaker:I can tell the difference between one person and another immediately.
Speaker:Here, I'm good at it.
Speaker:I I can pull out the the true essence of that individual, but it takes longer.
Speaker:It takes longer.
Speaker:I didn't know it was masking, but somebody sits with me.
Speaker:Eventually, they're gonna tell me the truth.
Speaker:I it somehow, I I I don't know why, but it happens with me a lot.
Speaker:And but I it takes longer.
Speaker:It takes longer.
Speaker:I think it's I think they somehow feel they can trust me, and they start revealing their true personality, and it's beautiful.
Speaker:I love to see the true individual behind that smile, behind the good day, the weather person because it's beautiful.
Speaker:There's so much, depth.
Speaker:There's so many layers.
Speaker:There's so many so many intricate things that makes up an individual, and and there's so much beauty in it.
Speaker:I love that statement you made about the the art with the cracks and the gold covering that, and and that's the same principle that I use with my paintings.
Speaker:I learn to paint over my mistakes, and it add texture.
Speaker:It added so much more beauty, the depth that it's not just one layer, but the marks is what added the beauty.
Speaker:And you wanna not mask it.
Speaker:You wanna show those layers because that's what's made an individual who he or she is in that moment.
Speaker:And and that's where the beauty is, and that speaks louder than just the the fakeness.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:The the good words, the right words, the right phrases because people are so focused on the language, the words, the the way a person talks, and not not the content.
Speaker:And when we when we talk fearlessly, when we drop into our heart space and reveal the depth, the all those scratches and do overs and all of that.
Speaker:It it show the beauty.
Speaker:It's so beautiful.
Speaker:And so, yeah, I I love that.
Speaker:I love what you said about that because it took me off on this other journey.
Speaker:Well, we we all mask.
Speaker:I as you said, I'm reminded of not to talk about a movie again, but my life tends to my special interest is film.
Speaker:1 of 1 of my special interest is film.
Speaker:So and I, you know, I find some a lot in arts, but I'm reminded this is less neurodivergency and more mental health.
Speaker:Particularly, this is depression for me.
Speaker:I have always found one of the best simplest representations of what depression feels like to be in a single scene of an old silence film starring Lon Chaney called the man who laughs.
Speaker:And I've actually brought this up on podcast before, interestingly enough.
Speaker:So this is always like my the well I go to, which is Cheney plays Gwen Plaine, who has been is a child.
Speaker:He was stolen, and he was deformed by people, and he has a permanent rictus grin across his face.
Speaker:So right now he's working as part of, like, a traveling circus.
Speaker:He's being a clown.
Speaker:And it's at the end of the day, there was a performance for performance earlier, and he's just standing in a doorway and he's watching a bunch of people outside, and they're pointing and they're laughing at him because he's a clown.
Speaker:And another one of the other clowns from the act comes up to him, and he's wiping off his makeup, and he goes, no, Gwenplan.
Speaker:You you're lucky.
Speaker:At the end of the day, you don't have to take off your makeup.
Speaker:And he walks away, and no one takes notice that when playing is crying.
Speaker:He looks like he's laughing hysterically.
Speaker:He looks like he's so happy that he's making other people laugh at him, but he's crying and no one notices.
Speaker:And that's what depression is to me.
Speaker:That's how I have always felt, especially as I covered up things with humor and and whatever else.
Speaker:Like, that's how I felt.
Speaker:And that's that's getting into that toxic positivity thing of, you know, how was your day?
Speaker:Fine.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Now now it's more or less understood that I'm fine is code for I'm barely holding on and I might be gone next week.
Speaker:You know, that sort of thing.
Speaker:And we kind of just accept that as, oh, that's what that's code for.
Speaker:We don't do anything about it.
Speaker:We just accept that's what that's code for.
Speaker:And I hate that.
Speaker:And when it comes to neurodivergency, autistics are there there's always a joke that autistics don't understand that you're supposed to just reply with, oh, my day's good.
Speaker:I'm good.
Speaker:Because, no, if you ask us how we are, we're just going to tell you how we are at that exact moment.
Speaker:We don't get that it's it's a superficial question that doesn't mean anything, and we're kinda shamed for it.
Speaker:And it's made into a joke.
Speaker:Like, oh, yeah.
Speaker:Autistics.
Speaker:Now they're we're weird because we do this, and we don't really understand the social cue.
Speaker:Is it we don't understand the social cue, or is it just because the social cue is stupid?
Speaker:The social cue is damaging, and we don't and we don't compute with it for that reason.
Speaker:Maybe we're not the weird ones in that regard.
Speaker:Maybe we're the ones who are actually being honest and authentic and doing actual good thing into the universe by just saying, you know, I'm actually having kind of a hard day today.
Speaker:Thank you for asking.
Speaker:You don't have to go deeper into it, but you don't have to be awkward because someone replied to that.
Speaker:And if and if you want to dig deeper, feel free.
Speaker:If you don't want to dig deeper, just say, I'm sorry, you're not feeling very good today.
Speaker:That sucks.
Speaker:It's it's simple.
Speaker:We don't have to go into such complicated terms with it.
Speaker:Just treat other just treat each other like we're human beings for once.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:And I I've now moved into, like, what I do for a living more or less because of everything that I've been through in life doing peer support.
Speaker:And it's and it was it was things I fell into before I knew what peer support was.
Speaker:I would always be reaching out and using what I went through.
Speaker:I can't tell you how many times I've I not using this metaphorically talk people off the ledge where a conversation could have gone one way or another, and that person would not be with me anymore.
Speaker:And that happened numerous times with different people.
Speaker:And I was only able to do that because I've been on the other side of that.
Speaker:I've, you know, 6 times is my is my number or how many times I've tried.
Speaker:So and from there, more problems I've I've had have come up, the struggles I've had, being late diagnosed, autistic, the eating disorder I suffered from, and just being able to be another man with an eating disorder that another man with an eating disorder can actually talk to was very important to me.
Speaker:And through that, I discovered what peer support was, but it was since I was a child, I always wanted there to be a place or someone who could understand.
Speaker:And I tried to continue to do that until I discovered that, oh, there is actually a space that can be offered for people to do this.
Speaker:And that's what led me to being a peer support specialist and doing groups and doing all this and doing this podcast.
Speaker:And it could be very easily said that, like, well, all that happened for a reason.
Speaker:So you can do this and help other people.
Speaker:And quite frankly, if someone said that to me, I'm going to punch them in the face because yes.
Speaker:Am I helping someone?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I'm very happy to do that.
Speaker:That's what I want to do.
Speaker:That is my purpose right now.
Speaker:I honestly would trade it for not having to go through what I've gone through.
Speaker:It's always the people who, quite frankly, haven't trigger warning for anybody listening, haven't had a gun in their mouth at any point in their lives who say things like that.
Speaker:I would prefer not to have to know what that tastes like.
Speaker:So I made something out of it.
Speaker:I'm trying to do something that will help other people in regards to that, but do not ever tell me that it happened for a reason.
Speaker:Oh, I'm so sorry, Mike, that you went through that 6 times.
Speaker:I can't even imagine what the circumstances that might have led to those points.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But nobody has any reason to make a statement like that.
Speaker:So I want to apologize on their behalf.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:And I wanna get deeper into that.
Speaker:I don't know if today is the day or maybe we could get talk more about suicide and and why the neurodivergent mind and how it impacted you and why 6 times.
Speaker:I have so many questions on that.
Speaker:But I wanted to just command you for now being the person that you didn't have back then.
Speaker:So you are doing things that you didn't get when you were looking for it, but you didn't have.
Speaker:So you didn't have to go through all of that to be the person.
Speaker:And I get that point.
Speaker:You could have still helped, still showed up to people, been there without having gone through suicidal attempts 6 times.
Speaker:So I I so making a statement like that, I understand that you don't have to go through that to be good.
Speaker:But somehow, it led you here, and I'm sure you're very grateful that you're here to help people and be there for them.
Speaker:So tell me about the peer support.
Speaker:What what does it do?
Speaker:What happens?
Speaker:I'm very intrigued by that.
Speaker:What draws me to it?
Speaker:I never had much interest in being a therapist or a counselor or anything like that.
Speaker:I don't think I I feel like there's a peer support is part of the overall process of it all.
Speaker:It's it's a different power differential than that.
Speaker:And that's why interest me more.
Speaker:It's more it's eye to eye.
Speaker:It's level to level, Someone with lived experience, and that's what I wanted.
Speaker:I didn't want someone who knew a lot about what I was going through.
Speaker:I want someone who's gone through what I've gone through and is able to be proof that there's another side that, you know, the saying is their only way out is through.
Speaker:I want someone who's actually standing on the, standing outside telling me to come through the tunnel.
Speaker:That's what I that's what I want.
Speaker:And that's what peer support is, is I can be the person that helps guide.
Speaker:You know, I I hate that if we're called coaches a lot, but we're not really coaches.
Speaker:We don't coach.
Speaker:We help guides.
Speaker:We help facilitate.
Speaker:We help advocate.
Speaker:We're there to just be someone to talk to, to understand, to hopefully point you in the right direction, should you want to.
Speaker:And if you're not ready to be pointed in the right direction and you just need somebody in the meantime, until you are ready, we can be that too.
Speaker:We can be anything, you know, you need to be.
Speaker:And I have a particular affinity for support groups.
Speaker:I really like support groups despite my ironically social deficiencies or shyness, as it was called when I was kid.
Speaker:But I I really like the power of support groups because I like the idea of communal problem solving and sharing.
Speaker:There's a lot of power that comes from whenever you share.
Speaker:Right now, I'm doing a support group for men with eating disorders.
Speaker:It's for nonprofit called Pay What You Can Peer Support.
Speaker:You can find them at pay what you can peer support.com.
Speaker:I'm also just a member of their autism group there.
Speaker:It's very helpful to me.
Speaker:It's one of my favorite things to do every single week.
Speaker:Another thing that I have felt I used to have like this dream.
Speaker:It was more for like mental health when a teenager, but now I've learned so much about neurodivergency over the last several years that it's wide ranging, but specifically for neurodivergence.
Speaker:And a friend and she worked this place that it was more or less like a after school getaway for for teens who needed either, you know, just support because they didn't have a place to go or they came from a bad home or any number of things.
Speaker:They would just do events and they would have, you know, game nights or whatever, just people just needed someone to talk to.
Speaker:So it was like a rec center, like very sent, like very, like honed in on this one specific group.
Speaker:And I always thought that was something that I always wanted for people with depression, now for neurodivergency.
Speaker:And I always wished I could, like, build a place like that.
Speaker:And, of course, building a physical location very hard.
Speaker:So right now I'm building a virtual space that will be that If you go to my Instagram page, at follows his ghost, you can find the links to it there.
Speaker:It's called Motley Minds.
Speaker:It is what I'm calling a neurodivergent social support club because it is both social club and a peer support group.
Speaker:I want it to function as both.
Speaker:We're not going to just talk about mental health, and it's for the wide range umbrella of neurodivergency.
Speaker:So no matter where you are on the spectrum, what you what your diagnosis is, even if you're not formally diagnosed, it's there for you.
Speaker:You'll you'll get access to a Facebook group.
Speaker:I plan to expand it out more to maybe doing, like, a Discord or some other some other side tangents.
Speaker:Right now, it's just gonna meet biweekly, One group every Monday at 7 PM Eastern, but I hope as the group expands, we'll add more meetings.
Speaker:We'll go to weekly.
Speaker:We'll have, like, special certain nights, like, maybe, like, a game night or book club, movie club, any any number of things.
Speaker:Let's dive into special interests a lot.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:There's no reason to mask at this group, and that's what I want.
Speaker:It's no reason to mask.
Speaker:You can be surrounded by everybody.
Speaker:We can all problem solve together and try to build up life skills, and it just feel less alone.
Speaker:And that's what I've wanted as part of being a peer support specialist.
Speaker:And this is what I wanted before I knew what the hell a peer support specialist was or that they existed, which is I just want people to not feel as alone as I always did from my earliest memories are depression and anxiety and huddling under the desk in my bedroom because I and I don't know what's wrong with me because I don't know what mental health is yet.
Speaker:You know, I'm like 5 years old.
Speaker:I don't know what's going on in my brain, and I don't want people to feel that way.
Speaker:And I particularly don't think there's a lot of support for neurodivergent individuals who are 18 plus or older or, you know, especially older age groups.
Speaker:You kind of look for resources and you just get a lot of good stuff, especially with autism.
Speaker:Well, you can't you can barely get a diagnosis for autism or ADHD if you're an adult.
Speaker:It's kind of treated like, oh, once you get to 18, you just stop being autistic, I guess.
Speaker:You know, you can't find anything if you're in your thirties or forties or fifties just for some help.
Speaker:So I want to invite people of all those age groups that come in.
Speaker:We're we're 18 plus.
Speaker:I I would like to eventually get to a point where I have a group for under 18, you know, 13 to 18 that is separate from all the adults.
Speaker:But for right now, I want to focus on those older age groups, and I want to have them feel comfortable and have a space, safe space to share and dive into things.
Speaker:And like I said, not just talk about mental health because I feel because I'm sure it feels like that's all they ever get asked about or that's all that's on their mind.
Speaker:Maybe you just wanna experience your special interest a new way or share your special interest or learn somebody else's special interest or just talk about creative activities or just joke around.
Speaker:Whatever you wanna do that particular week, you're welcome to come and do it.
Speaker:So if you if you're interested in that group, anybody listening, you can find information there on my Instagram account at follows his ghost.
Speaker:The first meeting is free.
Speaker:So if you just wanna, like, try it out, feel free to.
Speaker:And, yeah, I'm hoping to expand to a lot more support groups on a on a wide range of things, and peer support is something that I want to try to advocate for itself as being just as important as having a a counselor or a therapist or a psychiatrist that it's part of the overall mental health care system.
Speaker:And I'm going to do my best to make it be seen that way.
Speaker:I am wow.
Speaker:Thank you for giving me a glimpse of what that peer support group is.
Speaker:And it's so needed, especially with the neurodivergent community because we are different, and we have a lot of emotions, a lot of thoughts, and they need to be processed and just maybe even spoken.
Speaker:Like, just get it out of the system.
Speaker:So when you share it, when you share your experience with another person, it's leading your body.
Speaker:And maybe you'll feel lighter just through that experience.
Speaker:And when you are when you create a group like that, you're lending a year, just a year to listen to.
Speaker:And through that experience, it's it's at least releasing from that individual who's holding it.
Speaker:He could be he or she could be holding it, or they could be holding it for years.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So so the trauma that it's created in the body is somehow lighter now because they've released it.
Speaker:And and that is so amazing.
Speaker:So thank you for creating that group.
Speaker:So I'm picturing it more like a buddy.
Speaker:Is it a like, they're all buddies.
Speaker:They're there.
Speaker:Just so it does it feels like 2 people 2 friends talking.
Speaker:Is that how
Speaker:okay.
Speaker:Very much so.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Very reduced power differential.
Speaker:That's something I always kind of return to where we're there just to, like, sit with you and and be with you and offer guidance and advice if you need it or just like, hey, this worked for me.
Speaker:Just brainstorm.
Speaker:I guess, you know, not everything that worked for me is going to work for you, but I can probably help you figure out what's gonna work for you.
Speaker:And I probably know some resources that I could share with you and that you're welcome to also use.
Speaker:And if you just need someone to vent about who who just understands the exact thing you're going through, we can just talk about that.
Speaker:We don't have to try to problem solve today.
Speaker:We can just talk about how much this particular thing hurts.
Speaker:It's so amazing, and I'm thinking how well it ties to coaching because the philosophy of coaching is that internal journey that I was talking about.
Speaker:And then it's the belief is that we have all the answers inside of us within us, but we can't see it because we have blinders.
Speaker:Incidents that have happened to us would have put those blinders on, and it's so deep rooted that it becomes part of our personality, part becomes a part of our subconscious mind.
Speaker:And and those patterns that are not actually helping us move forward can be discovered through that internal journey.
Speaker:And when that person sees their own patterns, which are not which are not serving them, basically, they are their own obstacles.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:We are our own obstacles because it's not about the other.
Speaker:And that's where our growth is.
Speaker:And then we look at those obstacles and come up with our own solutions because the solution again is inside of us.
Speaker:We know how to get out of that that sharp curve on this climb to Mount Everest.
Speaker:So we know we know, but we just need somebody with us as we take that journey, the action to move forward.
Speaker:So that's the whole philosophy of coaching, and it goes so well with your peer support group.
Speaker:It's so beautiful that the 2 of us met, and I don't know where this is gonna go, but I love it.
Speaker:And I one thought that came to me was you were talking about the 5 year old boy you were with having mental health problems and hiding under under the bed.
Speaker:That picture, I'm thinking every 5 year old must be happy.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Children are meant to be happy, joyful, playful.
Speaker:I wonder what was going on in that boy's mind.
Speaker:Maybe a little glimpse into that for today, and we can talk about the rest another time.
Speaker:Construction, a mental construction, I I guess, just feeling oppressed.
Speaker:Nothing nothing external oppressing me.
Speaker:It's not like something specific was happening where I I've felt suppressed.
Speaker:I think it's, actually kind of a bit of a common feeling.
Speaker:People with with mental health struggles, particularly with depression, or you feel like this in developing shadow around you that is holding you down and and choking you.
Speaker:That's usually how I felt.
Speaker:I just felt alone and unhappy and not sure how to parse my own emotions because they were kind of all over the place.
Speaker:I felt out of step with children my own age, but I wasn't quite, you know, an adult or anything like that either.
Speaker:So I didn't quite fit in with them.
Speaker:I didn't fit in anywhere.
Speaker:I never felt.
Speaker:And that's which is a very common thing with autistic children as well is kind of don't act their age, but don't act any other particular age either.
Speaker:So they're in a very nebulous spot.
Speaker:So I'm sure I had a little bit of that going on.
Speaker:Definitely too looking back and just finding everything very too much.
Speaker:Everything was just too much.
Speaker:And I just was so sublimely unhappy, not for any particular reason.
Speaker:I just, I was hyper aware of everything negative around me.
Speaker:I was hyper aware of everything negative in my mind, and I was just, I was just so unhappy.
Speaker:And and and that and that's the thing.
Speaker:It's that's what depression and mental illnesses and chemical imbalance is, is I could try to come up with a reason as to why I felt that way.
Speaker:And there's, you know, a lot of different things that contribute, but there's also just the fact of there is a imbalance.
Speaker:There is a literal chemical imbalance also that my brain is just going to be wired a certain way.
Speaker:And promise when you're a kid, you don't know.
Speaker:I didn't know what depression was until I what depression actually was besides just a word people used until I was, like, 14.
Speaker:I didn't know what the hell was wrong with me until before that.
Speaker:I just thought that I just alienated myself, which just made me hate myself more and made me retreat more because I'm felt broken and I didn't know what was wrong.
Speaker:I was I was constantly trying out different things so people would like me, and it never quite worked.
Speaker:And that's what it was.
Speaker:So that's why I think it's important to try to tell children what mental health is so they can know the signs in themselves.
Speaker:So hopefully, they can get some help as well.
Speaker:You know, just not just teens and adults that need mental health support.
Speaker:It happens very early on whenever it's something that's biological with you.
Speaker:So between being neurodivergent and I have just a chemical imbalance now, I'm out.
Speaker:I'm on meds and it's wonderful most of the time.
Speaker:But and it helps.
Speaker:It helps.
Speaker:It has helped balance out.
Speaker:You know, I'm on to SSRIs.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:Now it doesn't magically make everything go away, but it's a it's a helping hand.
Speaker:It's something in the toolbox that when something arises, I can open up the toolbox and go like, okay, what do I have to work with here?
Speaker:So I can more easily move past whatever's causing me some distress.
Speaker:Thank you so much for sharing that.
Speaker:Can't imagine a 5 year old boy, holding all that emotions within within him.
Speaker:Today, just by sharing that, I'm sure it's enlightened a lot of people, especially parents because they're close at that age.
Speaker:Parents are the caregiver who who's close to that child to not just make an assumption or not to have an expectation on that child to to just somehow just behave, not to cry loudly, not to be sad, just to be happy.
Speaker:The toxic positivity that we're talking about is kind of ingrained into our system right from our childhood.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:You're just supposed to behave.
Speaker:You're not supposed to do jump up and down.
Speaker:You're not supposed to cry, not supposed to make a tantrum.
Speaker:And because that's wrong, it doesn't look good.
Speaker:Instead of addressing what could be going on with that child, Why is the child behaving that way?
Speaker:And talk to the child because the child has the answers.
Speaker:They might express it in different ways.
Speaker:They might not be able to vocalize.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:They're only 5.
Speaker:They're not going to express it like the way you and I are doing it because they are little.
Speaker:They don't have the vocabulary for it.
Speaker:And even adults don't have vocabulary for certain a lot of feelings.
Speaker:There's no direct translation for each emotions we're going through.
Speaker:So so to have that expectation that we have in the society today, to not throw a tantrum, not to cry, not to whine, create this adult who is holding on to all that unaddressed trauma within within himself or herself and is now a grown adult, not resolved the issues that could have been resolved if it was addressed in the right way, recognized first of all, recognized and addressed, we would not have had all the mental health problems we have today in this world.
Speaker:So listening.
Speaker:So from what I'm, what's coming to me is that we should be better listeners and listen to clues, cues that are not just verbal, which are expressed through behaviors and actions and to pay attention to that, the gut feeling.
Speaker:Maybe the maybe the parent had the feeling that there's something wrong, but they don't want to see it.
Speaker:So instead to actually to listen to the body.
Speaker:And even though we don't want a child to go through that, right, we just as parents, we want our children to just be happy.
Speaker:That's that's that's the wish of all the parents because they do love their children, but it's important to to to accept the fact that there's something up with that child.
Speaker:And let me let me go and explore that.
Speaker:Let me try my best to understand that, listen, and also express our our emotions in a in a place in a safe place.
Speaker:Because if we don't, it's gonna come out in in negative ways.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So Perfectly said.
Speaker:The good good summation of of everything today.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How's everybody doing listening?
Speaker:This is a heavy episode.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Just just listen and don't don't push things away.
Speaker:Don't don't sugarcoat.
Speaker:Don't try to paint over.
Speaker:Just go with it.
Speaker:Go with it.
Speaker:Live with it.
Speaker:Listen to each other.
Speaker:We're all each other's peers.
Speaker:We're all peers of humanity as it were.
Speaker:So I wanna thank everybody today for for joining us and and listening to this.
Speaker:I know it's a very heavy episode, but if you wanna support the show, then please subscribe to us on whatever your preferred listening method is.
Speaker:Write and review us.
Speaker:You can follow me on Instagram @followshisghost.
Speaker:And, we're gonna find you and spark launch, Shire.
Speaker:The underscore spark launch on Instagram, and you can find us on LinkedIn, Facebook with the same name.
Speaker:And we're here for you.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We are here for you.
Speaker:Feel free to reach out.
Speaker:And like I said, you can find information on my on my groups, on my Instagram page.
Speaker:There's also, like, a link tree that that has all that.
Speaker:So reach out for us.
Speaker:Hopefully, we see you next time here on Spark Launch.
Speaker:Until then, goodbye.
