#7 - To One Person, You Mean the World: Interview with Hannah Rabbani & Joanna Oommen

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 speak with Hannah Rabbani & Joanna Oommen, two mental health advocates focused on empowering their peers to address mental health stigma. Hannah and Joanna discuss how anyone can make a difference in supporting someone with mental health struggles, even without professional credentials, and the impact of having mental health resources in your community.

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 Hannah and Joanna, and they are both part of the Student Advisory Committee for Active Minds.

Welcome to Matters of the Mind. 

So can you tell us about your work and what brings you to the Active Minds Conference? 

Joanna: Well, thank you so much for having us here. We're really like excited to be part of this. So both Hannah and I are part of the Active Minds Student Advisory Committee, and many of those listening to this may know or may not, but the Active Minds Student Advisory Committee is a group of like leadership, like different students that are part of different Active Minds chapters.

And we basically work closely with national staff in providing the perspective on mental health advocacy. But outside of the advisory committee, I was originally part of my University of California Riverside. That's the university I attend. I was a student director of our Active Minds chapter there.

And I was part of that for two years and we're actually housed under our health promotional department. So it's a little unique in that rather than being a club, we're actually housed under a department where it's all about promoting health. We would host these things called RAPs, which are like requested programs, where we would have volunteers, peer health educators.

They'll get this special sort of training where they can, you know, help students in distress. How do you like talk to a student? How do you refer them to resources and things like that? Since we're housed under that department, we um, work closely with other departments at our university, such as like our psychological and counseling services.

We take a very, like, holistic and comprehensive approach to student well being, so not only do we, like, focus on mental health and mental health education and active minds, but in our department we also have events that combine, like, public health aspects and also, like, sexual health and bringing awareness to that.

Pippa: That's amazing. It sounds like you're doing great work. 

Hannah: So. Thank you so much for inviting us, first of all. A little bit of background is that I am an international student. I came from Dubai, so I am on the F1 student visa. But throughout high school, I've always been so involved in mental health and just advocating for it because I feel like in Dubai City, we have so much stigma around mental health and we have nothing.

that brings us towards that topic. Like we don't, we don't talk about it. No one, no one really mentions it. And if people mention it, they just think that they're crazy. So from that front, I was always like, okay, like this is really important. I know that this is because if you're not doing well mentally, you have a direct impact physically.

So why isn't it as important as physical health, you know? So that was where I knew that this is something that I'd want to work on and just work towards. So I basically made that. sort of my life mission. I was a part of the school radio where I would talk about mental illnesses and how to combat that and like how to go out for resources.

In Dubai City, we didn't have any resources, like at all. Like, it is such a beautiful city. I love it so much, but there was just nothing that, you know, was provided. So I just have always worked with different organizations. And then I was online from De Anza College. I was doing my associates in economics and I started first two quarters online. And I saw that, oh, like Active Minds exists. So I interviewed and I got the position of President. So it was kind of a weird era because I was, still in Dubai and the time difference was crazy, but I became the president and then we put up a few events. Obviously, I wasn't there, but my entire team was here. 

And then by the end of the school year, I found out about SAC, which as. mentioned earlier by Joanna, is a great group of individuals, youth, and we work towards different areas in the U. S., so I am specifically the Northwest representative, and under me, we have all of these amazing chapters, just like a support group initiative that we have for the chapters, like chapter members can text me whenever, or like email me and we'll just talk about potential issues that they're facing or like if they need more funding on like how to go about that.

So it's sort of like, again, just support for them. It's amazing to see how many great chapters that we support, but also learn so much from. And so that was my experience in the past year in the SAC. And that's what brought me here. 

Pippa: Wow, I really love that point you made about why isn't mental health as important or recognized as physical health. Because I'd say it's just as much or if not more important. Your mind is your headquarters. 

Hannah: Exactly. 

Pippa: That's where it's at. 

Hannah: And your mind is what you make of it. And if you keep telling your mind that you're crazy, then like, you're just cultivating, craziness, I guess. It's really not craziness. Like, I don't know what, why our culture tells us this, especially the older generations.

When I first started out, I faced so much backlash, even from my family, because they were like, why are you doing this? Like, why? What's the need? And I was like, there is a need. And I was like, 10 years old. 

Pippa: 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?

Hannah: So I would like to say look for resources. You will only be stagnant if you are just like in your hole surrounded by pain. I know that it's so much easier said than done, but looking out for resources, knowing that people are there for you and just like keep swimming, like Dory said, like just keep swimming.

I think that that's like the easiest way to put it. Uh, keep swimming, look for resources, talk to people, never just Stay in your own environment. I feel like change is such an important thing, especially as someone who has left my entire life back home. I feel like I am so grateful that I did make the decision and my family did support me because if I was still in that place, I was, I would be where I was and I would never branch out. I just packed my two suitcases and left home and that's it. That's where I am now. It's in California. 

Pippa: Amazing that's great to hear. So, what about you?

Joanna: One thing I really want to add is in my specific like experience before joining Active Minds, I always thought I needed to be a mental health professional to be able to make a difference and I think there might be many students out there who it might resonate with this but they could be known as like the therapist friend or like the friend where they feel like others would, go to, especially in high school and when you're growing up, you can be surrounded with peers going through so many unique issues, they could be struggling with their mental health, substance use, and a lot of times um, we don't know what to do, how to help them.

I definitely struggled with this. I like will sort of take on that role of, um, wanting to sort of like act as the therapist, sort of not like as a mental health professional, but just wanting to help them and just not knowing how to go about that. So then I think I came to the realization later, Oh, I can't do as much because I don't have those credentials.

But then when I discovered Active Minds, it was a completely different story. It's like all about young individuals. Where we become peer health educators, but we're like empowered in that we may not be mental health professionals But we get the training. I know before they had something called VAR which stands for Validate Appreciate Refer. And this was sort of our sort of training of how, how we can help individuals without necessarily doing a therapy and not needing those credentials But you're still able to help them by first, you know validating them.

You're not alone what you're going through and It's not something to be ashamed of, but at the end of the day, mental health as a whole and mental illness is just very highly stigmatized because you'll say you're sick and then everyone will be like, Oh, are you okay? Is everything going on? They'll be like, Oh, you missed the meeting.

But if you say, Oh, it's mental health, there's sort of like that stigma. It's like if you see a therapist, people will be like, Oh, what's wrong? But when you see a dentist, People won't like question that. Yeah. They will, but like you, for a dentist, you have to go regular checkups probably like once a year to get your teeth cleaned. And I think therapy should be treated like that. We all have mental health, just like we all have physical health, even though we may not have physical illness or mental illness. 

So I would say if you're a young person and you think that you can't make a difference just because you're not a mental health professional, you can. There's still ways you can help students, but it's not like acting as a therapist, but really validating them, hearing them out. But then letting them know that if you need help, there are resources available. 

And I think a second piece of advice I would say is if, especially for students that might be chapter leaders, that sometimes you might feel a bit down, but sometimes reaching out to students or like that outreach, when you have events, sometimes there might be turnout rates of just one student or you don't get as many students.

And I would say, don't give up. And don't let that discourage you. I remember a past event I had, like, for our Active Minds chapter, and we only had a very few number of students, but I remembered that student was actually a graduate student, and they had never heard of this concept of mental health, mental awareness, but I remember talk having a deep conversation with that gentleman about that, and I realized, you know what?

Even though we had a low number at this event, it's like, you can't save everyone in the world, but to that one person, you mean the world. I don't know if that's like a, yeah, a quote of something, but I, it just, I may have read it somewhere, but I really think about, you know what, even if you don't have a room full of hundreds of people, that one person you talked to, you probably made a huge difference in their life.

So don't be discouraged if there's low numbers and stuff, because at the end of the day, that one student, the fact that you're doing that work and trying to reach out, you're still making a difference. 

Pippa: Yeah. I love that point that you make about, you know, even if it's one person or 100 people, you're changing someone's life.

Thank you so much for joining me today and I really enjoyed talking to you both.

Hannah: Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. 

Joanna: Appreciate it. Thank you for having us and inviting us. Thank you.