#11 - Setting Boundaries As Self Care Interview with Adia Fadaei

Today on Matters of the Mind, I’m continuing conversations with guests attending the Active Minds Mental Health Conference, the nation’s leading conference focused on young adults and mental health. I interview Adia Fadaei, a member of the Active Mind’s Student Advisory Committee. Adia shares her journey working in mental health and the importance of setting boundaries as a form of self-care and respect.

To learn more about Active Minds, visit their website www.activeminds.org

Transcript

Pippa: Hello everyone, my name is Pippa Greenberg, and you are listening to my podcast, Matters of the Mind. Today, I'm in Washington, D. C., attending the Active Minds Mental Health Conference, the nation's leading mental health conference for young adults. I'm currently sitting with Adia Fadai. She is an Active Minds Student Advisory Committee Member.

Welcome to Matters of the Mind. 

Adia: Thank you.

Pippa: So, can you tell us about your work and what brings you to the ActiveMinds conference? 

Adia: Yeah, I've been in the mental health space since I was about 14. I'm from Los Angeles, California, and we have a crisis hotline for youth called TeenLine, which means that it's a peer to peer hotline where high school aged students are trained through mental health professionals, through non-profit organizations to take calls for a crisis hotline. And so that changed the trajectory of my life. That made me want to pursue mental health professionally. And so, I found Active Minds a few years ago, I was a part of the White House Mental Health Youth Action Forum. It was held in coordination with the Biden Harris administration and Selena Gomez.

as well as non profit partners. And I went representing youth and an organization I'd worked with, Bring Change To Mind and Active Minds was one of the organizations there. So from there I was really inspired by Active Minds. I loved the work they did and I really wanted to start a chapter on my college campus. So I did that. And since then I was able to found a chapter, started growing up to like, I want to say 300 or so members. And we're a really small private school in San Diego. So, it was super exciting. 

And then since then, I've been able to work with them more nationally as a Student Advisory Committee Member, but I love Active Minds. I love the work they do. And I also love the way that they equip students to do the work. I feel like, especially as we think of mental health approaches nationally, internationally, whatnot. You do really have to consider what that looks like from a local standpoint. And starting there is really important, seeing like, how can I first impact my direct community that I'm literally physically in? And then maybe we can think bigger, you know what I mean? 

Pippa: Yeah, that's really great work. So what are you most interested in learning about at this conference? , 

Adia: I think one of my favorite things about conferences is just connecting with other people and hearing about the work that they do and knowing what that is so that I can like refer that properly and use those resources even for myself. I think what I love particularly about Active Minds is you look at the audience or you look at people in breakout sessions, you look at people speaking, you look at people even leading breakout sessions, and those are primarily youth. And with that, I love connecting with other youth, and that's what I'm personally most excited about. But overall, I'm just grateful to be here and connect with everyone, and I'm in a perpetual learning process, so I love to attend these types of conferences. 

Pippa: That's really great. During the panel, you discussed setting boundaries, so, why is setting boundaries, why is that topic very important to you? 

Adia: It's important to me because I think it's part of realizing and accepting that I matter and that other people matter. And because of that, we're not just robots or tools that we can like manipulate and take over someone's time or energy. I think a lot of times in society, we view people transactionally or we view people as a means to an end or even we appreciate and love people but we don't treat them the way that they deserve to be treated and that's why boundaries are so important for me because that to me is one of the best ways to affirm your care for yourself and your care for others.

Because when you care about yourself, you want yourself to be in a healthy place, just as much as you care about one other person or a community or a system. And you want that system, community, or person to be healthy as well. And the only way to properly maintain that is boundaries. I've definitely had to learn that. And I think it's something, especially as a youth working in mental health, and doing this type of work, you are really challenged, you're really pushed, a lot of times exploited. And so for me, boundaries is, again, affirming self care and care for others, but Even more so, it's a necessity because if I'm not advocating for my boundaries, especially as a young person, there's not necessarily going to be a lot of outlets that will be advocating for me.

I think that specifically pertained to me when I was younger, when I was in high school, college. Now, I think I'm slowly getting out of that. We always will deal with it, but I think when you're a young person, especially, you know, like, 13, 18, that's almost some of the hardest times to feel cared for and respected by the people around you, and especially those, quote unquote, above you, or those in power.

Pippa: Yeah, I met a lot of people who find it difficult to set boundaries and they don't really know how to start. So how would you recommend young adults to start setting boundaries and sort of notice where they might need to set boundaries? 

Adia: I think a great way to start is just starting with yourself. Sometimes we want to start boundary placing by talking to someone else and having that conversation. But I think the most important thing you can do before you go about any action is really to check in with yourself. So, in terms of boundaries, what do I need, what do I have that I like, what do I have that I don't like, what do I need less of, what do I need more of, and really asking yourself those types of questions.

I think boundaries are about self exploration, I think it's also going hand in hand with consent. I don't know if you've ever heard the term consent FRIES. It's like an acronym, so freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic, specific. Those are like the guidelines for consent and consent is a really big part of boundaries because boundaries can often be consenting a yes or consenting no.

So, knowing all of those things and trying to piece them together as best as they relate to your life is super important. I also think, especially if you're a youth though, and trying to set boundaries and trying to continue placing boundaries and enforcing those boundaries. One of the most important things is to have a trusted adult, a trusted support who can walk alongside you.

If you can have an advocate, that's really important. I think that is often overlooked when it comes to youth, like you're told to advocate for yourself, but It's always really healthy to have an advocate with you, like a teacher, a coach, a parent, someone who maybe has a little bit of that power that you don't have solely because of age, being able to tap into that allyship.

Pippa: I agree. It's really important for young adults to have someone that they can turn to, to listen or help. So is there any advice that you would like to share for those struggling with mental health challenges or for anyone hoping to become a mental health advocate? 

Adia: I think something that I would say first for someone who wants to be a mental health advocate is to really check in with yourself. Why do I want to be a mental health advocate? A lot of times people step into mental health advocacy because of their own struggles. And that can be a really, really beautiful thing because someone can be coming from such a place of pure heart, but sometimes that can be either taken advantage of or that can be more strenuous because if you're in the midst of, let's say, a mental health crisis, a time that you need extra support, maybe that's not the specific time for you to advocate.

Maybe that's the time for you to have an advocate. Whereas if you are in a place where you feel mentally healthy to be able to advocate, I think that's a really important differentiation. I would say for someone wanting to get involved in mental health advocacy, right now we talk about mental health in common society and it's really generalized a lot of the time.

And in reality, although mental health is general, it also intersects with everything. So if you can find your niche, something you really care about, for me that's been suicide prevention. So really narrowing down on what you care about. Sometimes though, that starts with doing things that are bigger and more general.

But if you're at a place where you're like, I'm a student athlete, and I care about student athlete mental health. Seeing, you know, the organizations or supports that you can find through there. Or I, for example, I'm Middle Eastern. I want to look for the intersection of Middle Eastern individuals and mental health support. I would look into that.

And then I think what I would say for someone who is just wanting mental health support, especially as a youth, is that you absolutely deserve support. Sometimes. Youth are really burdened by so much and told that they don't matter and that they don't deserve the time of day to have support and I really, really would want someone to know that they do deserve that, but it's hard because I can say that, but it doesn't mean someone will feel that, so I really encourage anyone to see what they need, ask themselves what they need, and really again, with the concept of allyship, try to identify a person who can walk alongside you and be there for you.

And if that's not a person in your life, maybe like a community, a support system, like online community, anywhere that you feel anchored to, and ensuring that if you, even our before let's say a crisis and you feel like, okay, I don't know what's going on. I really need some support reaching out And also if you have reached out as a young person and you're not feeling that that was the best support or that's the best thing that works for you still continuing to see what will work for you and trying multiple avenues oftentimes, we as young people Reach out for mental health support and we're not happy with that support.

Maybe it's a therapist. Maybe it's an organization. Maybe it's a person And that can be traumatizing and it's really unfair But I also will say that person is not the representative of the entire mental health support community and there are a multitude of other spaces that you can reach out to and if you are in mental health crisis, there are ways that you can look for international hotlines online and see what there is, but if you are in the United States, you can call or text 988 at any time.

You can also contact the Crisis Text Line. There's Trevor Project for LGBTQ plus individuals who are experiencing suicidality, and there are teen to teen hotlines such as Teen Line. And I definitely recommend reaching out in whatever way you can, because there are people there who really, really, really care.

Not just because, oh, they're getting paid, or oh, they like, want the accolades. No, they genuinely are here because they care. Because realistically, most people who are in the space, like, it's not really fun and games, it's really hard work, and We want to be here and support. 

Pippa: That's very important. That's a really great message to send out.

And thank you so much for joining me today. 

Adia: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was really sweet meeting you.