#8 - Somebody’s There to Catch You: Interview with John Matthews

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 John Matthews, a passionate mental health advocate and future therapist. He shares his personal journey with mental health challenges, the need for systematic changes in mental health care, and the importance of accommodations in the workplace.

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 DC attending the Active Minds Mental Health Conference, the nation's leading mental health conference for young adults. I'm currently sitting with John Matthews, mental health advocate and future therapist.

Welcome to Matters of the Mind. 

John: Hi, great to be here. 

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

John: Yeah, so I am a mental health advocate and so I've done a variety of roles. I have led mental health efforts on my campus before I graduated, training both staff, faculty, students on Jed foundation training, so you can help a friend, you can help a student, so suicide prevention. I volunteered with over 200 hours with crisis text line. And more recently I've been working with active minds since my freshman year in college, and I have. been completing my second year on their Student Advisory Committee. So, that's kind of what brought me here is because all the student advisory committee members attend the conference and I'm very grateful to be doing so.

Pippa: That's wonderful. So, what aspect of mental health advocacy is most important to you and why? 

John: Oh, that's a good question. I feel like there's so many elements that are important to me, but I would say that increased representation in terms of policy and legislation making is important to me because I feel like a lot of bills are passed without recognizing the mental health impacts of it. For example, there's a lot of anti trans legislation going around. There's a lot of harmful voter suppression that's also impacting mental health. There's a lot of housing concerns, like for example, the Supreme Court basically gave states a lot more power in terms of what to do with homeless encampments.

They don't realize that so many of those homeless encampments are youth with mental illness. Because they've been kicked out from their families because their families don't have the right treatment to give them or can't afford the right treatment. Healthcare is mental health because, you know, you can't see a therapist if you don't have insurance and insurance is expensive. Very weird and confusing our system is. 

Pippa: Yeah, it's sort of strange that healthcare being so expensive causes a lot of people to go under stress and it's a battle between the chicken and the egg, you know, like goes back and forth. So, what role do you believe community support plays in mental health recovery and well being?

John: I would say it plays a huge role. I mean, at least it did for me. It's very interesting. I have a unique experience with mental health because I was, I'm one of the fortunate that had access to so many different types of mental health treatment, no matter what I needed. But I recognize that not everyone is that way.

I remember when I was in a residential treatment facility and I could have stayed there for like two years if I needed to. It's a very expensive place. I'm not gonna lie to you. It's not cheap by any means. But at the end of the day, my parents could afford as much as I needed. And at the same time, it I saw someone who desperately needed the healthcare, but basically had to leave because they couldn't continue to afford it.

They spent their entire life savings already and couldn't continue to afford another month. 

Pippa: Do you think that there's anything that can be done about it currently? What do you think can be done about that problem with people not having the resources to get the help that they need? 

John: Well, I think we have to kind of revamp our entire system, but to do that we need to pay people living wages, actually make insurance companies pay for mental health treatment. We have to provide adequate benefits both in the workplace, accommodations. For me, as an autistic individual, one accommodation that not every company realizes that I need is more appropriate sensory spaces. So for example, some companies will not let you wear headphones, but if I'm working in like a loud environment, I need headphones, otherwise I am not going to be functioning well.

And so I'm very grateful that my current job allows me to have any sensory needs that I need, but not every workplace is as accommodating. So it's very interesting. And I think we just need to revamp our whole system, normalize seeking help, normalize different needs for individuals. and normalize cheaper ways of living.

As a mental health advocate, I can't tell a person to just breathe what their anxiety is, not knowing whether they should pay their electric bill or their food bill. It's just, it's a little confusing to me. Like, where do you go from that? It's a systematic issue mental health is, because mental health is integrated in everything we do.

So I think when people say mental health advocate, you have to remember, it's not just coping skills. It's not just seeking help. It's revamping the systems and the way that we live to create more protective and harmful factors like our society is currently. 

Pippa: And going back to what you said before about accommodations, do you think that workplaces need to have accommodations and if so, how can they start including accommodations for their staff members and such? 

John: I would say that it all comes from a place of culture. I learned in my professional experiences that the company's managers and who you work with can make a world of a difference in mental health. Because if you're getting yelled at by your manager for not performing well, they're not looking for the underlying reason.

But if they see you not performing well and they're like, Hey, what's going on? Are you okay? I noticed you didn't clean your hair today. How can I support you? Like, what do you need? I think that just makes the world of a difference and that can actually reduce some of the stigma. And also just making sure that you're paying your workers a livable wage for the area living in, making sure they have a roof over their head, that they can afford to see a doctor, whether that's for medical care or mental health care, making sure that if they simply just need a day to recoup, you know, like, is it really the end of the world if we send one person home so they can be their best version of themselves at work?

And also, It's a company of culture too because if you're having co workers who are lifting you up rather than getting really annoyed and putting you down where they may not be seeing the full picture, it actually is going to go a long way in longevity and having a person stay at your company. 

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?

John: I would say, for me, I didn't become a mental health advocate quite by choice but I learned to embrace it and I slowly began to love it because of the people I was surrounding myself with. So, I guess my advice is to find the right people. For me, it took me most of my life. Actually, I'm 24, and it's very weird to say, but growing up, I never had any friends.

Maybe that was a part of the school systems I was in because I was in a lot of special ed schools, or maybe that was just me getting bullied a lot. But it took me until I would say, my last two years of college to really find people that I connected with and people that were willing to stay my friend.

It may take you many years, but don't lose hope because I did, it wasn't fun. But what I learned from that is that when you lose hope, there's going to be people to catch you no matter who it is, even if you don't think they're catching you, even if they catch you in a way that you wouldn't have liked, people are going to catch you.

There's going to be someone. Like, for me, what my experience was, 2018, November 2018, I remember very clearly, my parents sent me to the psych ward. I didn't think I needed the psych ward. I thought I was fine, you know? No, I just had an attempt, but I thought I was fine. I didn't need to be there. They were like, no, you need to be there.

I get to the ward and my thought was, if I went, I'm just going to go home after this. My parents tell me, no, you can either go to this wilderness therapy program or you can't come home, like you'd be homeless. And that was them catching me. 

The wilderness therapy program, they caught me. I didn't know how to function at that point, and they sent me to a residential program. That kind of also taught independent living skills, so they caught me in multiple ways, and not even just that, but I was paired with a therapist that pretty much saved my life on multiple occasions, so he caught me, and what I found with those around me, there's going to be someone, it may not be the way that you want it, but there's going to be someone so remember that and remember that you can also empower yourself to begin to catch others in sharing your story, sharing your experience, sharing the changes you want to see in the world because people are listening.

I'm listening, you're listening, we're all listening to each other, even if it doesn't seem that way. 

Pippa: Thank you. That's really important and it's a great message and just really thank you because you made a lot of great points that were very different from what I've heard in the past and it's great. 

John: Of course. Thank you so much.