The Recessing Podcast with Yours Truly. Jeezy is a production of Black Effect and Our Heart Radio. This is Jeezy, Grammy nominated Urban philosopher, philanthropists and entrepreneur, and this is my show, The Recessing Podcast. For years, I used my music to highlight the struggles and issues facing this country the economy, politics, protests, mental health and more. And now strong voices are more important than ever before. On this show, I will speak the powerful people from all walks of life to have real conversations about change, perseverance, and hope. In each episode will feature a sample of a song from my new album, The Recession Too. So without furtherdo let's begin The Recessing Podcast. Let's get it. Today's conversation is about mental health, something that many people don't like to talk about. My guess is Dr Jessica Clemens, better known as Dr Jess. She's an expert who was working to reduce stigma, especially in the black community. A lot of us, me included, have personal struggles that we've had to deal with. Those challenges helped me to create my new song, Therapy for my Soul. Been listening to my thoughts and lately I've been concerned, feel like my soul on fire. Let that motherfucker burned. Ain't nobody gave me shall wait my mother fucking turn turn. I had a few hits, even, I had a few misses. That comes in the kitchen't even boke a few dishes, street like scarved me? So neat therapy, therapy. Here's my conversation with Dr Jess on the Recessing Podcast. Motherfucker burned, Ain't nobody gave me shall wait my motherfucking turn turning? Dr Jess, how you doing. I'm great, Thanks for having me, No, thanks for being here, and welcome to the Recession Podcast. It's something I've been doing to um, just bring a lot of awareness to issues that I thought there was going on in our world today. You know, we got a whole pandemic going on, and we just got a lot of things going on racism. And I hear that you a specialist in mental health. Yes, that would be correct. I'm a psychiatrist. Oh that's even better. So yeah, so I consider myself, Yeah, an expert in the in this area for sure. Yeah, so psychiatrists and therapist. Before we get into this break it down, Okay, So I'd like to tell people that psychiatrist is someone who they went to med school, so like I'm a you know, I'm a medical doctor. UM. The main difference between a psychiatrist and a therapist is the psych chiatrists went to med school and they prescribe medication. The fest is someone that also is very well trained. UM, also an expert in mental health. But you go and you talk, you talk more about you know, what's going on in your life. UM. I do both because the way I was trained, I prescribe medication, but I also do therapy too, so it's psychic and both. Boss. You know, it's crazy coming up. I used to, UM. You know, when you hear like psychiatrists or therapist, you think that something was really wrong with you, and you didn't think you can get any help. And it wasn't until my older years that I started, you know, when my adult years did I started to really realize that like you know, um, yeah, there could be things wrong that you might need help with. One would be as cool as I think I am, and as cool as I have been for all these years, I wouldn't have never thought that I would have suffered anxiety. UM. And it was coming up from where you know we come from you don't really get these terminologies and you don't understand. You just think something's wrong because you already got postraumatic stress for what's going on on the block and the things that are happening around you. And once I got out of that and I started getting into my adulthood and start you know, doing different things with my life, I still would, you know, have these feelings before certain things, And I'm like, Wow, why do I feel like that? And you know, it's almost like you're too cool to say it because you don't, you know, the whole thing is, nothing's wrong with me. I'm good. I'm gonna be straight. You know, it's almost like a weakness to admit that, you know, you have things that go on in your head. When when when certain things happen to certain trauma pulls things back up. And my thing to you is, can we talk about what anxiety is? Yeah? I mean I guess I would start by saying what you described about. You know this um sort of like coming to the realization that hey, you might be experience anxiety. I think that's really normal. I hear a lot of that when I'm caring for people in the office. Also through social media, I use that to try to get conversations going, Like to your point, these conversations haven't been happening in our community for a number of reasons, and we may touch on some of that, but what you're describing is absolutely like exactly what I hear in the office. And so anxiety itself, we consider it a disorder. UM. But if you think about sort of what what you're experiencing, you're experiencing fear, right, whether it's constant worries, like you know, I'm worried that if I don't do this, I won't get that opportunity, or if I go here, I'll get injured like that. That type of worry is really fear, and it can also manifest physically, so you might you might not be like some one who's really in your head. Maybe maybe you're cool, calm, collected, you're not thinking like you're having a lot of worries, but you feel on edge if anyone says something to you, you know, sort of if you're feeling on edge, you might snap at them. Um. You know that can be signs that a person is experiencing their anxiety more so physically, UM, And to your point. We do think that it is caused by changes in the brain chemistry, whether a person has experienced trauma and now that part of their brain that's responsible for fear, the amygdala is now hyperactive, right, it's seeing everything is a potential threat, and that can come from the way that a person's environment conditioned how they experience things. Um And so if you or person it's you know, goes to see a psychiatrist. That's why we offer medication to treat anxiety, because we we do think that it is ultimately a change that occurred in the brain, whether it happened because of the environment, if you grew up with a lot of trauma, uh or violence, abuse, or like some people they develop it later in life because you know, they're who knows, they're constantly like trying to be perfect and realizing that's not possible to do, and maybe they develop a little bit of anxiety they're worried about, you know, am I going to be successful or not? Um. So, anxiety is very common. It affects about like I think nineteen million people or sorry, it's like forty million people, nine percent of the population. It's very very common, and it's treatable. So it's common and it's treatable. So there could be an instance where you're totally in a situation where you're out and I don't know, you're a social event, and you can absolutely have an anxiety attack. Yes, I think. Kem and Love talked about that too, like when he does on the basketball court and he felt like all of a sudden he couldn't catch his breath, um, and he kind of went through some of the example like some of the symptoms he described. So yes, you can absolutely experienced because of anxiety, a moment where out of the blue you have a panic attack. And a panic attack can be something like I can't catch your breath, feeling like you need to get out of there, to your heart racing really quickly, and feeling like you want to die. And for some people they go to the emergency room because they think something's wrong with that their heart. They think like they're really dying. I had a confession. I smoked some bad we one time, and I definitely think I had a panic attack. It was it was it was crazy. I thought I was gonna die, just so you know about right, I thought I thought it was over. I was telling my cousin. While I hear my money and everything, I'm like, just make sure my mom straighten and everybody's good. Um. I. But I say that because like just coming just being a black man, coming from you know where we come from. You know, I would think it would be obvious that we would experience some type of anxiety because there's so many things that are against us in so many predicament that we UM you know, put ourselves in um either voluntary or involuntarily. UM. And it's just like you just never know. And just watching what's going on in the world today, and you know, we're in the middle of a pandemic and it's just like a lot of people don't know. You know, there's no certainty right now. You know, things changed by the day. UM. You know, you definitely don't want to watch the news too much because you'll really be out of it. Does that heighten the anxiety rate? Like this? Does that make you know for more people to experience that? And and what it's something that they can do if they're experiencing anxiety because they don't know how they're gonna make ends meet, they don't know if they're still gonna have their job. They don't know if they're still gonna be able to do the things that they would normally do it And also just sitting inside the house and not really knowing if it's okay to be out and mingle. You know, Christmas is about to come up. It's gonna be a little we ye this year because we don't even know if we can have family over and those things. So people being a distance from their family and distance from their you know, their loved ones, I'm quite sure that calls us some type of anxiety. Yeah, I'm so glad you asked this, um, because it gives an opportunity here to really normalize again the experience of anxiety. So I guess, um, to your first question, like, yes, during these times, people are experiencing higher levels of anxiety depression. And there are a lot of surveys that people have done, you know, since the beginning of the pandemic. Um, and when they look at this, you know, this point in this year and compare it to the years before, people have said that they experienced more symptoms of anxiety and depression now than the previous year. Like at the same time, so we are under a lot of stress. And to your point, like the uncertainty is a big part of it. Um And and so my advice to a person who's experiencing constant worries or that physical anxiety that I talked about the name of the game is really to like distress UM. And destressing means doing things like exercising UM, doing things like not using alcohol or substances to cope. Really try and like limit that. Culturally we think, not me. But when I say we, I mean us that we think that alcohol and weed and these things they actually relieve stress. So I just wanted to let you know that. So when you say that, I know it's gonna be a lot of people like, oh, that's not working for me. I get that a lot, you know. I get get patients to come in and say, well, when I smoke weed, it helps me feel calm, It helps to stress, really relieve stress. But it's almost like a band aid, right, It doesn't undo what's really under It makes me feel better, but it doesn't take away was really there. So exercising is going to be important, getting that sunlight, getting you know, getting out and walking during the day, it's going to be very important. And staying connected with your loved ones I know we're using screens a lot, but you know, I have a new baby and we've set up different things, Like you know, the first time he ate uh solid food, we like made it a zoom party, and I mean that was like a really heartwarming moment. So be creative. That's the other thing that we have. I think, as you know, Black people, we know how to create something out of nothing. So be creative in terms of how you can connect. And I guess I would also encourage people to use that anxiety to also inform you what's really going on. Like here's an example. If someone is an essential worker and they are worried about let's say they're driving a bus and they're worried that they don't have the proper protective equipment and they feel anxious about their safety. That is good to know. You should feel anxious about yourself. You should have that feeling. Yes, So in that case, I would not say, oh, you're so anxious, go see a doctor and get some medication. No. Talk, that's experience out. Talk to your loved ones. Is this a normal reaction to what's happening? Is this a rational fear? Yes, it is, And then you can get to start making a plan. So anxiety can sometimes be useful to tell you what's really going on. It's it's almost like it's almost like a gauge. It's almost like something that came with you from prehistoric times when we was like you know, Dodds and say with two tigers and all that stuff, Like you know what danger is. But now danger can be you know, you can read some on the internet or see something you know that you're not accustomed to see seeing that makes you feel anxious. The crazy thing for me is I'm always been big on making the right decisions and just handling like being the commerce person in the room, and what I did experience, um, whenever I was anxious, especially in my teenage days. It's always I can know the right decision, but I always made the wrong decision when I was anxious. I can know exactly what I need to be doing, but if I was as anxious, always made the wrong, the wrong decision based on what I was feeling. And to me, I just used to wonder like, wow, you know, I started exercising my mind, reading more, um, taking care of myself health wise, you know, because I had to start drinking more water because at one point. You know, it's crystal every day for me, you know what I'm saying. So that wasn't working. And um, when I started like to to to really invest in my health and and investing you know, just uh, taking time to do things. It's funny that you saving like just getting out and walking because my life was so hustle hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle that you know, it wasn't until recently that I just would get out and just you know, enjoy the devrees and and look at some trees. And you know why I'm helding my business. But the calm everything down that did so much for me, and they it actually gave me, um, you know, just a whole another playing field of thinking because now my mind is clear and having mourning rituals as real and I tell like a lot of my friends and people that you know that I that I know, um, you know, morning rituals are real, Like they help you bring the anxiety down, to help you, um, just be on point. And they look at you like they like you're crazy because it's like, who's gonna do that every morning? But it's almost like you have to because your your mind is almost like a computer, you know, you have to update every day. And I just wonder how we go about explaining to the culture that these are things that you have to do, um to actually exercise your mind and put yourself in a better space, because I think that's the conflict of interest. I even heard Solomagne when he came out and say he did therapy, like that was a big one for me, because I don't know if I would have admitted that off the rip me, you know what I'm saying, like, because you know, it just sends a different message. But I just was like, wow, that's that's strong and even for myself, Um, you know, I had admitted to myself, like you know, I had to get a morning routine, meet Jeezy like you yeah, straight up in the morning routine I had before that before I knew I needed a morning routine. Wasn't a morning routine, you know, because at one point, you know, in my career, I was waking up at five six o'clock in the evening and going to party all day and and doing it all over again, and then wondering why I'm in the same place and I'm going through the same things because I'm putting all these toxices in my body and I'm not working out, and I'm doing all these things, and I'm just wondering why I'm so stressed and why why my why my skin is you know, it's not clear, and my my you know, I'm looking on TV and myself and my eyes or yellow and I'm like, oh my god. So as soon as I got myself together, I just started really seeing that, you know, the the little anxiety that I had, it was so much easier to deal with. And I think talking to you is just like to explain to the culture, like, you know, it's okay to not be okay, you know what I'm saying, It's okay to um ask questions. It's okay to be concerned about your mental health. And I had a friend who I loved dearly. You know, he was definitely a big part of my career and uh, you know, rest is soul Secure Stewart. When he committed suicide, I couldn't under like, I couldn't. I didn't understand that. And I was with the guy. He was so full of energy, you know, just just he was just so he had the gift, you know, he had the it factor. And he was always happy, and he was always you know, just out going, you know, very talented, but out going, and his energy was infectious. And I just remember when I got the call, I was like, how did I miss that? How did I not know somebody so close to me was going through something so real in a mental state that I couldn't put him to the side and be like, yo, you can talk to me about anything. And then he would go that far and you know, you could save anybody from anything but themselves. But it just it made me take the people around me more seriously, Like if my sister is going through something, I might talk to and I call her back later that night like yo, so you know, how are you feeling, and just you know, go through the whole thing to get her to open up a little bit more. And I even have you know, friends now that I might call out of the blue and just checking them because they say you gotta check on your strong your strong friends. But I mean just for the culture, like how do we deal with that mystique of not wanting people to know that we go through things and not end up in places like that, Like how do we get out of that mindset of you know, I don't want anybody to think that I'm weak. Yeah, I mean I think you know, first of all, like I think it's it's powerful that you've shared here your experience of losing a friend tragically to suicide. I think we don't talk about that at all really in our community. And September was Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, and in in in sort of that that month, I was like digging more into research and and and learned that our young black youth, the rates of suicide have have grown over the last twenty years when you compare the same age too, let's say white white boys or young people, where that number has sort of leveled off. So I think what that speaks to in the point also that you're picking up on is that in our community we haven't really talked about what's going on enough. And it's not our fault. Like I don't want to be like, oh, you know, black people get it together. There's a lot of reasons behind it. UM Dr Joy de Grew and I'm probably butchering her last name, but the group UM is a social worker who has studied what she calls post traumatic slavery syndrome, and so she points out a lot of this um tendency that we have that we have to be strong. It comes back from the trauma that's been passed down from slavery for example. Um, with that behavior was important, it saved it saved someone for example, but then it got passed down before you know it. You know, that's sort of what we think when you say black people were strong, Right, that's what we think. Um. So that's an important I think person and her work I want to uplift. But I think we just gotta talk and be honest. That vulnerability, when you could share what you're really feeling, it it lightens the burden. Right, My burden is not for me to carry alone. If I can share it, it lightens my load. But then it also can lighten the load of someone else. Right. They may say, dang, I'm glad you said that because I've been dealing with anxiety. Right. I think I think these conversations and coming from black men, like being started by black men, I think completely just levels the playing field when we think about our community. Right. I think if black men are taking the lead on these conversations, it will only continue to get better. UM. And I think we also have to again know our history in the past, our engagement with psychiatry was not willful. So what I mean by that is like in the sixties, black men who were out front in terms of like civil rights, they would get picked up and sent off to the psych ward where they would stay. It's crazy you said that, because I have an auntie who I love dearly, like she's my ride to die. And I just remember at one time, because she had the tumor, there was the size of a grapefruit in her head, and she had the surgery and she was better, but she lost some senses and she like she will cuss you out on the drop. I mean, like Charle Mayne matter he went to a port, she gave him hell um. But I just remember, you know, when she would getting her things and go through her motions. They were always talking about sending it to this place in Georgia called Jacksonville, which we all just knew was the crazy House. And we will all be like, oh, man, like you don't want to, like it was just this thing. You didn't want to go to the crazy house. So with that stigma, even for myself growing up, it's like even if I thought I was crazy, I wouldn't tell nobody else crazy because I don't want to go to the crazy house. And and I grew up just thinking and owing that, And even when I was in my head about things, I would never say, um, how I truly felt to anyone, you know, because in in my family, you know, you had to be strong and if you had problems, you just gotta deal with them, and you don't. You don't talk um at the dinner table, or you didn't need the dinner at the dinner table together anyway, but you don't talk at the dinner table about what's going on? What can you do? And if your favorite uncle, you know, he can't really give you an advice because he's going through his own thing. And when we see people in our communities they have real issues and real problems, we look down on them and we don't offer help, and we look at them, you know, like they're you know, like they're crazy. And I just feel like growing up that way, you know, put me in a place where I didn't really talk about what I was thinking of what I had going on the side of me because I didn't think it was regular. I didn't think it was normal. So now that I hear more of it, it opens me up to the conversation. And I think that would be real for us to take the lead on that, because we gotta know another generation coming behind us that you know, dealing with way more than we ever dealt with. You know, just the way things are coming at them. It's crazy because I remember at one point, like just my transition from you know, the streets into music, and I didn't really understand and know everything, so it was really difficult for me. And I just remember these long spouts when I finally got on because I couldn't bring everybody that I wanted to bring with me, and the ones that I did bring with me, it just they just always found a way to make it like not working, be crazy and like now we at odds. And I just remember going through this this long spell of what I didn't know then was depression because I was just mad. I had all this money and all this fame, and I was just mad about every time when I say everything, everything, I was agitated everything I got up every morning and it was the same thing. I was just mad. I was just I was just upset and angry. And I went through that for a while, and so one day, I just said, Yo, you gotta really, you know, you gotta really think about the things that you're grateful for and think about the things that you know that that has happened in your life for the better. And I started to slowly pull myself out of that. The thing that I'm trying to explain to you is I didn't know I was depressed. I just thought that was life, you know. And I'm thinking, you know, you know, you smoke something, you go out, you drink, you have a good time. You know, tomorrow be better, and you just the more party and you do and the more success you have, you think that that's gonna help you. And my my my point in cases, you know, and I want you to you know, timing on that, just like we think where we come from that if we are successful and we make it out and then we do better than we thought we would do, that we won't have any problems and we won't be depressed, and we won't be anxious, and we won't worry about anything because this money and the success is gonna wipe the whole slate clean. Yeah, I mean, look what you're describing there is again something that um I hear a lot, And it is the reason why I my work to social media, because I want people to hear conversations like these and and I want it to be normal. UM. People in our community, we don't identify with that word depression. And you know, I say, like it took me going to med school accepting that I wanted to end up being a psychiatrist. I didn't go to med school and be a psychiatrist like you know, but I found this was a field that drew me UM. And that's where I learned this terminology and accepted that maybe this is something that UM could be going on in my life or or the life of the people that I love. So depression is not always a sadness. And again, I think when we think about success and having like a life that's better than others as the reason why we can't be depressed, we miss out on the fact that we are entitled to our feelings and our experience. Because I hear that a lot, we'll say my situation isn't as bad and so therefore it's not depression, or therefore it's not you know, it could be worse. That's fine, but it takes away from the fact that a person might be feeling like they can't sleep at night, their appetites gone, their concentrations off, they feel hopeless, they feel like they don't want to live all of which if you came into my office. If a person walks into my office with that, I probably would diagnose him with depression. It's not always that sadness. It's not always that stuff you see on a commercial where the person looks all blue. You can be functioning very well, but at the end of the day feel down inside, feel like there's no hope, and feel like you're going through the motions. And I think again, the more conversations we have about it, the more that I think people will be open to maybe this is depression and I'm just functioning because that's what I know how to do. We know how to grind. I'm done with that narrative. You know what they say? All else feels go get you some money, yeah, some play? But now, um okay, I'm I'm a guy, I'm a black man. You know, I have a lot of integrity. I have, uh, you know, a lot of things going for myself. I come into your office and I say hey, Do I say hey, I'm depressed or do I say, Hey, I have a lot of things going on in my life right now. I'm quite sure the millions of millions of black men out here do. How do I take that that armor off to come in like just tell you, like, hey, I'm really going through something right now, and I don't understand what is happening with my thought process, and I'm in a place to where I think that there's no one else for me to talk to, so I want to seek some professional help. How do how does that do that? That sound cool? Yeah? I love that question. Um, I think I would. I would start by saying, if you're at that point, if a person at the point where they have, you know, talk to talked over what they're thinking, experiencing with people that they trust to love, I always say that's a good place to go. You know, everybody should have a core group of friends or just a few people that they can have real conversations with, like you know, real conversations where but the problem is the problem is like the friends are depressed too, so we are everybody Like you try to tell them like, man, I'm going through my own thing. Man, I got you know what I mean? You know, I guess in that case, I would want you to use that core as like the sounding board, and that's not for them to like help you with the problem necessarily, but just to be like, yeah, I think this is something you should get help for. Right. Um, if you once you walk into the office, your job at that point is just to start by saying why you came in, And it doesn't have to be so like organized and me. You don't have to say like I've been feeling the press. It could be you know, look, I'm here because I don't know what else to do. And a good psychiatrist, a good therapist, will use what you're sharing as a way to sort of begin to have a conversation and the conversation will eventually go into symptoms like that will tell me more about is this depression that needs to be treated with the medication? Is this anxiety? Well, we'll just sort of sort of gently walk through your history and talk about really everything, not not just you came in for, but even things that maybe it happened in your past that you might be like, what does that have to do with anything? But it gives a full picture of who you want that we can know how we're gonna you know, move forward with treatment. So just walk in and talk. Okay, yeah, you know. The thing is you come in you so um, you're so exciting, like your anxious because you want to tell the therapists everything, and once sit in, you first sit down or not because you reserve um. And I think a lot of times that's what it is, because you know, it's almost like when you go see your lawyer if you're in trouble. You want to tell them, you know, everything you want them to know, and the first sit down because you're, yeah, you gotta give me out of this. So it's almost like, um, the same thing when you come into the office, and I think them knowing that they don't have to, you know, say everything in the first visit helps as well. And then also ain't it safe to say that talking to friends it's not therapy because I just want to be clear because I you know, because you've got some friends you talk to, they can tell you everything about everything what you need to be doing, and they do with the exact opposite, and they hypocrite and and you know, give you all this advice and you go out here in your life and you try to do these things and you're already in the back of this and then it just makes you worse. I think we should think about our friends and loved ones as like support, um, but not at all. Therapists not people who should be you know, going through all of our problems with us. You know, to think about your therapist is that they you know, everything that you share the stays there, which can be really helpful because you know, sometimes you have a friendship and it goes sour and then with all your information going to be right. Yeah, that's good. But those friendships are important because again they can sort of serve as that that core group that can keep you in a place where you aren't a person isn't dipping down to like right, And so I guess you want to make sure that a person has at least a few friends where they can be a little open with um. But yeah, you're right. They should not be people that you're going to solve challenges and issues in your life because they're not right and and and nine times out of ten is going to be very biased. You think, like you should you know, if you're going through a breakup, let's go get them, you know, And you're like, right, like my uncle used to tell me. He's like, yeah, he used to give me all this advice. And he's also tell me like, man, you ain't never get out of here. Just gonna give it up, you know, go jo An army is something It's not gonna happen. And every time I see him now, just look at them, be like, what's up up? So I knew back then anyone telling me what I said is what I said, be knowing. But I know now mental health? How does one understand that he could have some type of mental um situation? And how does one go about that when they don't have the resources or the finances to actually just walk in someone and say, hey, I need to talk to someone. How how does that work? If a person is interested in getting treatment and they you know, are curious, they hurt this conversation and they're like, maybe I do want to get some help, Maybe I want to talk to someone. UM. I think the first thing to know is that it's not your job to identify exactly what's going on. It just might be that, you know, you feel a little off for other people are noticing it, and now you want to try to do something. UM. I would always recommend starting with like a Google search, UM, you know, look for uh psychiatrist or therapists that are in your area that are you know, accept Medicaid or SEPT. You know, a sliding scale, which is really that's a term for M They make special rates based on what a person can afford to pay. Yeah. Yeah, so start with that. You can just start you know, are there psychiatrists in my area that have sliding scale? I don't know. I'm not the best Google person, but yeah, you can try that. UM. And then if you live in an area where there are academic institutions, so like a university of hospital. For example, in New York we have like n y U, Columbia, Cornell. Those UM universities usually have residents, and those clinics have appointments, and they're usually much cheaper than seeing a psychiatrist who completely done with residency. UM. So I always recommend going there. The good thing is there on top of like the latest and they you know, they follow evidence based treatment. There's a team that usually discusses each patient. So you may end up seeing an expert even though you're seeing a resident, because that resident may go back and talk about, you know, a case with someone who has written articles or journals about um whatever issue of persons presenting for so I would recommend trying that. And then also you know word of mouth, like if you have a friend who shares that this is where I go to get care, you can always start start there. But I guess knowing that the first step is it's it's pretty hard. So take that as a sign that, like, I really need to do this and just focus on one thing at a time. So so that would be your first line of combat m to to actually go in and sit down and have a conversation one step at a time. It took me a long time. I'm mean, I've been in my own therapy. Uh, it took me a long time to even make that first step, which was the phone call to a name that was given. And I think a part of it is because for the same thing that we've been talking about, you have periods where you feel like, you know, okay, that I'm better. That was maybe that was just one time that I felt right okay, and then it keeps happening. So each time you think about it, I would say that's a sign to take another step to try. I've done a lot better with anxiety for the simple fact that you know, I understand what it is, and you know, fears when you let you know, something outside of your body control you in the situation. And I feel like, Um, for me, you know, I just exercised my brain enough to know, Okay, I know this is just a feeling. I know this is something that I don't need, you know, to deal with. But how do you know it's to the point when you when you might need medication? Like how do you know? Because I have other people that I know that it's experience anxiety, and they might you know, walk out of a room and go outside of the air and you know, do all these different things and then they come back and they're fine. And you've got some people that just gotta go take it in and lay down and you know, do their whole you know, routine to kind of get over it. But like, how do you know when it's to a point that you you should really be trying to get some help, like this is this is bad, this is this is terrible. Yeah, So usually I talk about like severity of symptoms. So, um, you know, if a person has anxiety, that's just me again, maybe they worry a lot but they can manage. They know, like you said they can't exercise or that they're like mental conditioning. They're like, okay, you're worried this, this will be over soon. Focus on what you're doing. But if a person starts having panic attacks where again they're out of nowhere, can't catch their breath, their hearts beating quickly, they feel like they got to escape. If that's happening, often, I often would recommend a person either get into a therapy that they're meeting every week with their therapists UM and seeing if that can help reduce those symptoms, or they see a psychiatrist and they started medication UM. So the severity of symptoms is one, like you're just having a lot of symptoms and they're hard to manage. The other part is if it's affecting your functioning. So if a person normally can go to work on time, they don't have problems with sleep, they don't have problems in their relationship or with their children, but now their anxiety is starting to make them snap at their significant other over nothing right like I just asked for a glass of water. Why am I getting yelled at? Or you know they're being really like short with their children. Their children are trying to understand why they're showing up to work late. This is now affecting your functioning, and so for that person, I would recommend seeing a professional and really considering medications so that the symptoms can get better under control. And then maybe you go to therapy in addition to that, to explore a bit more about what's happening, um that could be making the symptoms come up the way they are. Well, let's see, it's crazy too, because you know when you grow up, you just you see people and you just think this is so perfect and they just got everything together and and then and then you hear these stories about you know, these their mental health issues and you're like wow, Like I never when a million years with the thought, Um, you know, Charlemagne was one, like I said, when he said therapy, I was like, WHOA, I don't know, Like I'm not I might have would have went, but I don't think I would have let nobody but people like himself, you know, opening the doors for us to um come out and really speak on it because we have an empathy and we're helping others through our trial and our trial and our trauma and UM. Going back to what you said before about trauma, I've experienced my share of it. And when you go sit down with your therapist again psychologists, and they're asking these questions about some of your up ring in your childhood, what happened with your mother and father already see all together, and they're asking these questions to just kind of get a a setting, if you will, of what you've been through. They could have triggered things, or they're asking that to put things together to understand how you're thinking these days. When a person is UM, like going in to talk with a therapist, psychologists, or psychiatrists around UM issues from their past, trauma is a can really lead to a lot of issues, right. It can lead to anxiety, It can lead to depression. It can lead to a person developing like a substance problem where they are using UM substances not just to code, but they really have a dependency like ah, they're addicted to it UM. And so when when I'm seeing someone who comes in and they have a significant history of trauma, I'm thinking a lot about how much that's informing the way that they live, how they experience the world. UM. You know, pe TSD. I know we throw that word around a lot, but people suffer UM with that condition because it's not just that UM they're having flashbacks or nightmares. They also really can struggle a lot again with depression and anxiety. And we know that that condition is not UM. It's not so easily treatable. What I mean by that is it's it's not easy for us to sort of treat with the same medication like I'll you know, I'll care for people and I have to tell them like, look, I'm treating UM your depression and anxiety, but you really are going to have to get into a trauma informed therapy, and that trauma informed therapy is probably going to help you more than this medication because the way that trauma affects some people, and not everyone who experienced trauma develops a disorder or symptoms like depression or anxiety. But for those who do, it's it's a it's a more complex condition than you know, straight straight up depression or straight straight up anxiety. Um. Wow, So so you're telling me postraumatic stresses like one of the worst ones in terms of just comparing the two. Yeah, Because people can experience a lot of symptoms of both. So they might be really really down and have low energy and problems with concentration and their moods low. That would kind of be depressed depression. But then they also may be really anxious, can't leave their house without feeling afraid that they might get you know, mugged or whatever it is that sort of will happen around the trauma um some people, and it doesn't happen as often, but some people, their trauma can can cause them to hallucinate, to like hear voices, um to sometimes think that they're seeing things that aren't there. And again, I think it just speaks to how again, like you you brought up like the question about mental health, like our brains can change because of trauma. Our brains can change in a way that makes us have these these symptoms, these disorders because our brain is just like the their organs in our bodies, right and they it's not going to just stay perfect. We have to care for it. We have to um make sure that we are are getting help when things seem different, and just the same way that we would if you had I don't know, diabetes, or you if you if you hurt your leg or something like you gotta nurse it back to a good place before you just begin to walk on it. It's crazy as you say that, because I would assume I would have I don't like to assume, but I would imagine, especially this younger generation of millennials, a lot of them really experienced postraumatic stress just just because of the circumstances and the and the things they've been brought up in. And it's just like, you know, they've been um desensitized to a lot of things that normally wouldn't fly. But like now it's just like the way they have to move militant, the way they have to think, um, the way they're seeing, you know, the appears you know, being killed left and right, and what you're watching going on on the racial side, and you know, all this racial tension and all these different things. And for you to say that could be one of the worst ones, I would imagine that that's what they experienced the most. So how does that work, Because now you have a whole generation that you know possibly can have, you know, mental health issues, just you know, based on the way the world is set up for them right now, and they're and they're young enough not to want to go get help. It's just like you just grow up and you know, you just go on living life and you think this is normal and you know, not not to take nothing away. But I almost feel like that's why they indulge in more, you know, different types of experimental drugs than we did when we was coming up. You know. It's just like you know, I you know, and when you start thinking serb and all these different things, it's just like there has to be a state where you just want to be numb because your mind is just like, you know, just giving you so many, you know, just different emotions, and you just want to get into a place where you can control it. And I just think that's crazy because it's just like they're not enough therapist and psychologists in the world for that. That definitely breaks my heart in as you describe it, I'm like, I'm shaking my head because it's I think you're you're absolutely onto something. When we think about our young people, um and just how society has really just shifted to something that you know, I mean, it's it's never been perfect for for for for black folk for sure, but I think it's it's at a point now where it's just it's it's a lot to sort of take in. And even if we just think about how much information they have thrown at them, and we think about like, you know, back when I was in high school, you just have to worry about making it through like the lunch period and that was it. Get home. But now the lunch period is like you open up the phone and there it is. You know, So they have a lot more that they are being exposed to, a lot more that they're navigating. And I think when you talk about this culture of like they're using a lot of other substances. They're not just smoking weed. They're like sorry, Molly, and that's all this other stuff and it's just and you're so many young people dive overdose it. So, um my heart goes out to them. I think the media thought I have is again I think that's why parents, Um, it's gonna be so important to have that dinner table conversation, bring everyone around the table. Encourage times where you are putting the phone away. Try to start early with it. You know, don't be trying to take the phone away from your kid. If they're like a senior in high school, it might be no try to set that up early where it's a part of that. They know when we come together to eat, this is the time when we are connecting. I need to know what's going on. I need to know how to help you. UM. And you know, parents look for signs signs of depressions, and young people it looks different. They can actually look more upset, angry, irritable. They kind of shut down. UM. They may not just sort of look sad or um, you know, kind of express it. They may just really start to seem very upset and angry. And that can be a sign that you're trying all this experiencing depression and you want to act quickly. You want to not just say get over it. You have a roof over your head or what do you upset it out right? Definitely definitely what my daddy told me. You got no bills, go ahead, no. So I was just saying, it's important for us to um stop undo some of the stuff that our parents did to us. We gotta we gotta recognize that you gotta validate your kids feelings. I'm gonna get you a lot further than just saying get over it because you have a roof of your head children are dying. We see that from the data. They're dying from suicide. Like I talked about before, people are hitting their breaking point. There's so many things that happened in this world that are back to back, back to back, back to back, So I can only imagine what that does to someone's mental health. I definitely appreciate the insight. UM, I definitely appreciate the Jews who dropped today because I just feel like, you know, for even someone like myself, I just want to know that, you know, no matter what my people going through, that there's help out there somewhere. And and and speaking of that, like in your practice, do you see more African American males and women? Didn't you do any other nationalities or racist? I'm seeing more. I get a lot of people who reach out also, like by email and and you know, through social media, people are interested in finding finding therapists. And I guess I also want to just throw it out there, we also need more black people to go into these fields. So I want to encourage people to do how many years to be a psychiatrist? Now, a psychiatrist is a long time. Um, you know, you gotta go through college and med school, but look, a person can be a therapist and help, like help so many people and that doesn't take as long and they can earn it even living too. So I think if anyone out there is like, hey, this might be a career, I want to try look into it because we need more people that look like us to provide care for sure. And as of now, are you doing more um? Are you doing more zoom sessions? How does that? How does that work as it's still the same intimate state. Do you feel like you're getting the best out of people when they're looking at you? Because I feel like I'm getting a session right now, so I'm just asking. But yeah, I mean, like like most psychiatrists or therapists, the visits are virtual. Now, um, you know, I think it doesn't take away from the day when we will all be able to kind of you know, be in the same spaces and not be afraid of getting teck. Um. But I'll tell you, I'm definitely getting emotion from people. People are you know, feeling relief once they finally share what's been on their mind. So it's it's I think it's just as helpful and it's keeping us all safe too. In terms of you know, not getting sick from the virus. Love to hear Dr just and I thank you for stopping by the recessing podcast, dropping these gyms and these jewels. Is there any last words anything you want to bless us? What about mental health? Any anything you want to tell us about you know where we should get some treatment if you want to find you I don't know, like, what are we doing here? Yeah? It so you. Thank you well, thanks for having me um. People can find me on social media ask Dr Jazz. I'm not accepting new patients at the moment, but I always encourage people to send me a message. I may start a group or two because I know people need that and that's also another great way to sort of get started um with it. And I just want to encourage people. If it's on your mind to seek help, please seek it. Do not wait, don't worry about what people think, because at the end of the day, it's your life. You've only got one and you've got to take care of your mental health. So that that would be all I want to say to people, And thank you again, Thank you so much. Dr Jess. You've been amazing. You've been amazing. I feel like I got a free session, so next time I look you up on line. All right, thank you so much. Thanks for listening to The Recession Podcast by Jeez, a production of Black Effect and Our Heart Radio. But more podcasts visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.