Transcript of Signs Of High Functioning Depression You Shouldn't Ignore | Mel Robbins

For a long time, women were not included in clinical studies. Underrepresented minorities were not included in clinical studies. You have all of these developments and drugs and treatments available that were being applied to all populations but weren't really studying or including all populations. It's really important for people that look like me to be heavily involved in clinical research because it also allows populations to trust. You're going to go to your doctor, you see that your doctor looks like you, you're going to trust them more. So representation really matters. The thing about research is that you never know what you're going to find. Really? So many times I know what we're looking for, but we don't know what's going to happen. The funny thing with research that I found is that not everyone fits into a neat little box. So we use the Bible of psychiatry, the DSM 5. But let's say someone comes in and they're like, I don't know if I'm depressed. Something's off. I can't tell. And you're asking them the symptoms of depression. You're saying like, Oh, well, do you have appetite changes? Do you have sleep changes? Are you feeling low energy?

Do you feel sad? If someone says yes to some but no to others, and they don't fit neatly into a box, let's say they say yes to everything, but they're still high functioning or they don't feel distressed, then you're like, Well, you don't fit into this box. I guess you got to come back when you have low functioning or when you're really feeling distressed. How messed up is that?

That's really messed up. What exactly is high functioning?

People who are taking care of their families, they're meeting work deadlines. They're the ones that everyone says, Oh, my gosh, you're doing a great job. You're the rock of the family. You can't stop because people depend on you. You're meeting deadlines, you're collecting accolades, but you're just not really feeling a sense of joy. You feel like something's missing. We have to remember that not everyone identifies with that. Not everyone says, I feel sad or I feel depressed. For some of us, it's cultural. For some of us, we just don't have that language. It's never been in our vocabulary. For others of us, we have these histories of traumatic experiences that cause us to not want to feel. So we push, push, push through it.

Are you studying depression right now?

I am. One of the things I study is depression, along with some major depressive disorder, postpartum depression, schizophrenia, really anything within the mental health gamut. But the interesting thing about depression was that I was seeing people who did not fit neatly into a box but were leaving my office like, Then what is it?

Were you in a situation where somebody sitting across from you and you're like, got the DSM 5 out? Not that you have it out physically, but you know what I mean. And you're like, Okay, box check, box check. Okay, doesn't technically quite meet the criteria, but I know this motherfucker has depression. You know what I'm saying? That's how I would say it. That's not how you would say it. But do you have this sense like something's off and you're depressed? This was my husband, by the way. What are you researching right now in the lane of depression for these people that do not fit into the box?

I'm looking at depression with different faces. Depression present so differently depending on who's in front of you. For example, men, they don't express depression the way that we classically think of depression. They may be irritable. They may come home and knock a couple of bears They may be checked out. They may have anger issues. Depression looks so different depending on the individual.

Isn't that just a typical man? I don't mean to make a joke, but I feel like, at least in my experience, my husband, Christopher, we've talked very openly on the podcast about this, suffered from long-term treatment-resistant depression. This was a guy who was sober for a number of years. He was meditating like crazy. By crazy, I mean every single day. He would wake up in the morning, he would meditate. He was exercising. He was close to our children. He had started a men's retreat, helping other men who were feeling this lack of joy. And yet deep inside of him, there was something that was off. The way that I would describe it as his wife is it's like the guy that I married 28 years ago, the light was off behind his eyes. There was just a spark and an aliveness that was missing, and it went on for years. Because he was getting it all done, first of all, he didn't think there was anything wrong. He just thought this was like malapause, midlife male drop in the testosterone type of situation. But it was another doctor that we've had on this show, Dr. Amen, who did a brain scan and called us up and was like, he has dysthymia.

He's got really treatment-resistant depression. Normally, I see a brain like this after they're dead. It's all the things he's doing that is keeping him okay. Chris resisted the label. He thought it meant that he was weak. This is an area that you're looking into, high functioning depression. Is that what you're calling it?

Absolutely. There's so many factors involved with depression.

What is depression?

Depression, according to the DSM 5.

What is it, according to you? Who cares about the DSM 5 right now? No, I'm serious. Because you have... Just like trauma, DSM describes it one way. I want to hear Dr. Judith Joseph's definition of how you think about depression and why that matters.

Again, we do use this construct because we have to be able to study it- Of course. And to use a standardized system. Yes. But like your husband and what you experience with him, People don't always identify with the word depression. I can't tell you how many times someone came in our office and I was like, I think this is high functioning depression. They're like, But I'm not depressed. Well, they don't see this as depression. They're like, Well, a depressed person is in bed all day crying.

Yes.

No. Depressed people have something called anhedonia, which is a lack of feeling, a lack of pleasure. And you ask them, Well, how do you feel about these things that used to give you joy? Do you feel like seeing people? How do you feel when you enjoy a meal? They'll say, Meh, I don't really enjoy that much. But if you don't know what the feeling is, if you can't identify it, then you're not going to know that it's depression. You're just going to be like, Well, I guess this is just how it is. You think it's like midlife men crisis, right? Right. And your husband is classic because running a men's group sounds like a lot of people depend on him. Yes. Guess who doesn't have time to be depressed?

Chris Robbins. Exactly.

People depend on him. So you get so caught up into your role, into your title, into what you do every day, that you stop allowing yourself to feel or to process what you're experiencing.

So how is high functioning depression different than, I think, the stereotypical thing that a lot of us feel? Because I do agree with you. If I were to sit in a doctor's office, which I often do, or I'm talking to my therapist, and my therapist goes, Mel, Mel, you're struggling with anxiety. I'm like, You're darn right I am. I get that. I am vibrating really high. I am consciously on the go. I'm anxious. I'm on edge. Got it, got it, got it. If somebody were to say, Mel, you're struggling with depression. I would say, Oh, shit, I'm in trouble. Because depression means that I am not functioning. Depression means that I can't get out of bed. It means I am in real That's a serious thing. Not to say that anxiety doesn't feel serious, but there's something about the reputation that that word carries that I don't think is fair to people that experience it, and that hinders somebody from accepting what you're saying, which is, no, you can be a super busy mom and you can be just burning the candle at all ends. Can you describe what the life of somebody that has high high functioning depression looks like, in your opinion?

I wanted to test this theory out because a lot of times as researchers, we're in our labs and we're doing these fun things. No one has any idea what we're seeing or doing because we don't share it. The research, you're just in your little bubble. I was working with my social media manager, Johanna, and she said, What have you been seeing in your practice that's interesting? I'm like, I'm seeing a lot of high functioning depression. She said, Well, let's make a reel on that. Or let's make a TikTok on that. Let's see what it looks like. I did it. Typical day in someone with high function depression. They get up early before the alarm rings because they have so much pent-up angst that they get up before it even rings. They rush to work, don't eat the little joys in life. They just shove in the coffee. They work through lunch, so they don't savor those meals. Those little points of joy are, again, flattening out. You're not getting them. You're coming home, you're too burnt out to even spend time with the people you love, so you just doomscroll. You'd rather look at your kids on your phone than actually play with your kids.

How many of us are guilty of that? So true. You're missing out on the things that really make life worth living, but you're killing it at work. You're high functioning. You're delivering. You're taking care of the kids at home. You're doing all the things. You're not letting anyone down, but you're letting yourself down. You're not feeling anything. You may have anhedonia where things just don't feel as pleasurable anymore. If you go to a doctor, a doctor is not going to say, Let's come up with a treatment plan for you because Are you functioning? Yeah. How are things at home? Everyone's fine. Everyone's okay. So no lack of functioning. You have all these symptoms, but no lack of functioning and no distress. Well, come back when you're low functioning. Come back when you're in distress. We're missing all of these people who have these symptoms that eventually one day will turn into something like a major depression or will turn into something physical where the body, something's got to give. Depression, stress all wears on your body. Or they're coping poorly. They may be over-medicating with alcohol or other unhealthy habits, a lot of social media addiction or work addictions and so forth.

We're missing out on these people before when we can actually do something to stop this from getting into a crisis mode.

I have a couple of questions because what you just described sounds like me, and I would have called that anxiety. Because when I hear that bolt out of bed, racing thoughts, slam a cup of coffee, always on the go, getting it done, calling the pediatrician on my way in to work, and just like, go, go, multitask. I got this, I got this, I got this. Collapse after dinner, down a bottle of wine, go to sleep, wake up, do it again. I would have called that anxiety. Why is that depression?

Generalized anxiety disorder is very different than the criteria for the depressive things that I listed out, right? Depression has certain things that we have studied for years. We've seen them. Things like a low energy, poor concentration, poor appetite, feeling like you can't focus as much, feeling that psychomotor restlessness. That's a fancy way of saying physical restlessness or physical slowing. A lot of that restlessness that I described that is one of the symptoms of major depressive disorder, a lot of it overlaps with anxiety. A lot of researchers are saying that they're really the different sides of the same coin that they travel together.

Yes.

That's why a lot of the treatments for anxiety are similar to the treatments for depression, like the SSRIs or cognitive behavioral therapy. Anxiety has more physical symptoms with it. When you go through the symptoms of anxiety, you'll see a lot of physical conditions, excessive worrying. But the two do travel together, so I can see how it can be confusing. But when someone is in your office and you're going through the DSM, and I actually do pull it out in my office, I go through it, I will ask them about distress, and I'll ask them about functioning. But I've seen depression look so different in my office throughout the years in different cultures and men versus women, that I know that not everyone identifies with saying I'm sad or I'm depressed or even acknowledging their feelings. We have to start thinking about it differently and asking it differently because we wear these masks and we're not aware that we're wearing them. If you don't have the language to identify it, if you can't name it, then how can anyone help you? You can't even help yourself.

So did you come up with the term high functioning depression?

I wish I did. But I was looking for data for these people who are delivering They're having these symptoms of depression, but not meeting criteria for major depressive disorder, but they were very high functioning. And I saw literature of people saying that they've seen it in their office. Some people were labeling it as neuroses and so forth, but I wish I had come up with a term, but it's been around for about five years, and I think it's not a coincidence that it's been around very recently. I think that we're in an age where depression is going to look very different than it did back in the day when the DSM first came out.

Why do you think that is?

There's so many changes in our society. There's so many things that are happening that are very different that didn't exist back then. We didn't have the internet back then. We didn't have social media. We didn't have these pandemics.

Is one of the same Is one of the main hallmarks of how depression impacts you just a lack of feeling that you just feel numb?

It's one of the symptoms of depression that people... It's insidious. It's sneaky.

Let's just say I have high functioning depression. What is going on in my body that would have that be depression if what I thought it was isn't actually representative of all the different forms of it?

Well, what you thought it was was one thing, right? Challenge that idea. When you're listening, what do I think depression is? Many of us think it's someone at home crying or in bed or not delivering and having these symptoms. As a doctor, we look for the symptoms I just mentioned. But depression looks so different. People cope with their depression by busying themselves because that's the only way they know. Maybe they saw that because their parents immigrants, came to this country. It was not an option to feel. We don't talk about feelings in this house. Work, deliver, and you'll be okay. The American dream. Then you have the mother at home who has no choice. If she does not take care of her kids, no one else will. If she doesn't deliver, people could take her kids away. She has no choice. A lot of times people just gaslight themselves. They don't feel what they're feeling, so they end up feeling very little. They have anhedonia, which is a sneaky symptom of depression. Depression. I call it sneaky because it's a joy thief. It comes in the middle of the night and seals your joy. Before you know it, nothing gives you excitement.

You feel blah, you feel meh. It's one of the symptoms that's highly correlated with depression, especially high function depression. Wow.

Dr. Joseph, that makes so much sense. Thank you for explaining that in such detail. This feels like a great moment to take a quick pause so we can hear a word from our sponsors. While we do that, please share this episode with somebody in your life who is either really struggling with busyness or feeling blah, you know that they would benefit from this incredible information. Stay with us. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins, and you and I are spending time with the incredible Dr. Judith Joseph. So Dr. Joseph, what's happening in your brain or in the chemical structure of your body? I think hearing that from you, It might make somebody who's like, who cares? I can't feel my feeling. Understand why this actually matters.

So there's correlations. They're not causation, but they're correlates. We look for signals of dopamine, which is the reward chemical in the brain. There's a lot of science behind dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter, serotonin, norepinephrine. These are very fancy ways of saying particles in your brain, the joy chemicals, that may have different patterns in a brain that is depressed. But we also know, recent data shows us that inflammation can affect depression. And guess what? We just went through a pandemic where some numbers say 70-75% of people had an infection A COVID-19 infection at one point. We don't know how that inflammation has changed our brains. That's why I say that the depression that we thought we knew what it was, I think it's changing. I think that if we don't keep up with the changes in the way that it presents, we're going to miss out on this group of people who need help. They just don't know what it looks like because they don't know what they're dealing with. They don't have a name for it. There are causes of depression, like inflammation or correlates, inflammation, genetics. When you look at the twin studies, of identical twins compared to twins that are not identical, there's a high correlation with depression.

Meaning both twins will have it?

There are higher chances of if one twin has it who's an identical twin compared to people who are fraternal alternates, they are more likely to have depression. The twin studies really strongly suggest that there is a genetic predisposition to depression. But again, it's not the causation because some people have family members who have depression, and they don't. There are multiple factors. I talked about trauma heavily with you before, how things that happen to us, if we don't process them, if we don't take the time to feel and to heal, unresolved trauma, that can really present as a depression. If you think about what happened to us, we talked about this, the pandemic, then these things that happened with political uprisings, then police brutality, and then the wars that we're seeing, it's like back-to-back trauma. We're not even getting any time to process it. Before we know it, there's another tragedy. Then social media, it's there. We can't turn it off. Twenty years ago, we could turn it off. We turned off the news, we didn't want to hear it. But we're constantly bombarded with images. And so all of these culminate into this picture of a depression that I think looks very different than what it looked like 20 years ago, 50 years ago.

So is the message, based on what you're researching right now, that if you're getting through your day, but you are completely devoid of feeling and joy in your life, go talk to your doctor and ask about depression?

Not everyone wants to talk to a doctor, and so I want to validate that as well. And not if there's a complete lack of joy, but diminished joy. Sometimes, if you go to my website, you'll see scales for anhedonia. You can fill out an anhedonia scale and see where you are on that pleasure scale or that joy scale. Or you can fill out, if you think what I'm talking about resonates with you, a high functioning depression scale, and you can see where you are in terms of those symptoms of depression. But really go to your doctor and talk about the symptoms systems and say, Listen, hey, I think something's happening, and how can I address this? Not everyone wants to do therapy, Mel. Not everyone wants to do that.

But there are other- I think most people don't.

I do, too.

I don't think most people want to look at what their... They don't want to go deeper. They want to outrun it. Here's what I'm hearing. If you extrapolate what you're saying, what you're basically saying is you're actually hardwired for joy, and you're hardwired to thrive. When you get to a point in your life where you are disconnected from that natural intelligence and wiring and what you deserve, that's an issue. And stop out working it, stop out running it, stop telling yourself that just because you're getting through the day and just because you're able to get it all done and just because you're barely dragging yourself, like across the finish line every day and the bottle of wine takes the pain, that is not the way to go through life. That there is something better that is available to you, and you deserve that. The first step is understanding that the depression that our parents may have had where you're alone in a dark room smoking a cigarette or laying in bed all day, that is not the depression that you're seeing today. It's really important that you take that seriously because there's something else available to you.

That makes so much sense, Dr. Joseph. Wow. I would love I'd like to have you walk me through a day in the life of somebody that struggles with high functioning depression. What does this person look like at work?

At work, this person may be delivering, but they may not necessarily derive joy from the work. They may be someone who feels that, You know what? This work can't be done right by anyone but me. They are highly controlling. No one else can do it. One of the things I see is that their identities are tied to their work, so they may not even know what they really enjoy anymore. Maybe years ago, they were into photography, maybe they were into art. Now, they don't even want to do those things because right now, they're focused on their roles. And it's not just people in the workplace. This is for caretakers at home, people taking care of young kids who may not have to leave the house to work because their work is at home. They may be so tied into what they're doing for others that they don't know that they lack joy. They may have problems with sleep, so their sleep isn't as rich. They don't feel refreshed. And they may not find joy in food. Either they're eating too much or eating too little. And they may have problems with focusing, so their concentration really is a challenge for them.

They may have low energy. So you have all these symptoms of something that looks like a depression, but you don't identify as having low functioning. You're actually delivering, maybe overdelivering. You may not even identify with the distress because you don't deal with those feelings. It's something that you don't process, you don't validate yourself. You're not someone who will meet criteria. If a doctor sees you, they're going to say, Well, you don't really meet criteria. Here's the thing about medicine. It's a bit controversial, but I think that a lot of doctors and nurses and health care workers struggle with this thing called high function depression. I think it's hard for them to diagnose something in someone because it looks like them. They're going to be like, Well, I don't want to diagnose you because that's pathologizing me. There's this projection that It happens that, Hey, if you're functioning and you're delivering, come back to me when you're not. I think that's a broken model because I think that we're missing these people that we could catch before they go into crisis mode, before they develop poor coping skills, before they have physical breakdowns because the body is going to give somewhere, or before they have mental breakdowns.

How do you discern, though? Because if somebody has that schedule, I would think the schedule is what's making them have terrible sleep and poor eating habits and a lack of hobbies and a feeling of disconnection. It seems like this has been very easily missed because you think the work habits are the cause when actually the work habits are a symptom of this. Is that what you're saying?

That's why the biopsychosocial model is so important. The social component of that model is what is the society doing? What's happening in our society that's driving this? It's not all biological. Because the biopsychosocial model is real. A lot of components feed into the symptom. They feed into the condition. We have to look at it from that holistic picture or else we're going to miss the mark.

What should you never do if you are struggling with high functioning depression?

Never think that you're a burden. I hear this all the time. Because we'll get to a point where you feel like, I can't go anymore. Something's got to give. Don't think that you're a burden. You may think that your identity, all you have is what you do, how you perform, what you deliver for others. People love you. They don't want you to think that you're a burden. They want you to ask for help. They want you to say, Listen, I know I'm always there for you, but I really need to tell you something. They're just waiting for you. But if you don't allow yourself to share, if you don't allow yourself to feel worthy of that, of being heard, if you don't validate yourself, then no one can help you, no one can be there for you. I hear this a lot like, Oh, I just felt like I was a burden. I tell my patients, Let's think of another time in your life where you were feeling this. I call it high functioning AF. Let's look back.

That sounds sexier than depression. I think we have a branding problem with depression. I think you should call it high functioning AF. I like that.

I call it that on my social media. I'll take that. But look at a time in your life where you were high functioning AF. We'll pull out the smartphones and we'll go back and I'll say, Okay, show me that picture. If the people in your life, because there'll be pictures of them being around others, do you think that if you had opened up to them then, that they would have said you were burden? Because it looks Do you think you just met up with them the week after? Do you think you were burdening them? You're challenging that core belief that if you're not perfect, if you don't deliver, if you ask for help, that you're not lovable. You're challenging that. I asked them to challenge that thought. I also asked them to try and process the trauma because I find that, again, the word trauma, it's a word that people are, Oh, trauma, again. But there are big traumas and little traumas, and there are little traumas that we just don't acknowledge. For example, a lot of the questionnaires for trauma, like the aces and the modified aces, they don't capture things like, Well, when I was a little boy or a little girl, people tease me because they said I was gay.

Things like that are not there. But those are traumas because you couldn't be your full self, right? Of course. Or things like, When I came to this country without anything, clothes or anything, and I was hungry. People don't think about those things, the scarcity traumas. They just don't process it. They're like, Well, I'm just lucky to be here. No, these are traumas. We have to allow ourselves to look back in our past and acknowledge these emotional experiences that impacted the way that we see ourselves and the way that we approach the world and others. When we do acknowledge that and we validate that, then we can start to do something about it.

What you were feeling and not knowing the words depression, anxiety, anger. What was it like for you, Lorenzo, to be a kid and to lose your dad at 10, and to not have your mom around, and to experience the racism and bias that you experienced in your life so that you can describe for people who may not have considered, Oh, he's describing how I feel. That's depression. He's describing how I feel. That's anxiety. Tell us a little bit about what it was like for you.

A lot of it was just the way of life, honestly. Honestly, I knew in many ways that I had a really good upbringing, which I really did. I believe my aunt and uncle did a really good job of ensuring that in so many ways that I was able to have the support that I needed. But beyond that, I knew that there was something not really right for the most part around the way that I felt about things.

How did you feel?

Lost, a lot of times very angry. And the reality of it was, maybe I blame it on, Oh, I don't like this teacher at school, or I'm not getting along with friends in the neighborhood. But the reality of it was I didn't feel seen and heard because the truth for the matter, I didn't have my mother and father around, and I didn't share their love and that connection with them. So I didn't feel really seen and heard, and I did feel that I had been left out. And so I think in so many ways, I was struggling emotionally from those challenges and from the anxieties that came with that. Do they love me? Did I do something wrong? Is it a reason that they're not here? Did I have something to do with that? These are the questions that go on in a young person's head, especially when everything has not truly been explained because I think one thing as adults, we want to ensure that our children have a great life. But I think giving them more of the story sometimes may even hurt them to tell you the real story. And so I think in so many ways, that was my reality.

But the reality behind it is that I really struggled emotionally, and it really showed up in school. I was in a behavior health facility at the age of 10.

Explain that to people who have not worked in criminal justice like I have. What does behavioral health facility mean?

I went into a... Have some challenges in school and have been kicked out a few times I think I was probably more in the third grade at that point, so couldn't stay in class. So it was, Hey, this is my next option.

Can I just say something? When you have kids that go undiagnosed with depression and anxiety and who feel invisible, of course, there will be behavioral issues. It makes me very angry and sad, Lorenzo, how many kids are getting disciplined because they, Can't behave, when the real issue is there are mental health challenges that the child is facing, or there are learning style differences that the child has that are not recognized and addressed by the capable adults around them. It just makes me angry to hear that a third grader is being kicked out of school because of behavioral issues. Here you are, you're getting kicked out of school. You're having behavioral issues because you can't understand or tolerate this just swirl of emotion that you're feeling, and you end up in this behavioral health facility. What was that like?

Yeah, I was away for about two months. They did allow us to go home on weekends. It was mostly seeing a therapist, going to do school during the day. But obviously, it was a very dark place to be at as a young kid, someone that I had never been away from home for that amount of time. I had just lost my dad, and really, that was my way. I was really angry and upset from the loss of him. So that really swirled into challenges at school, which led me there. And I think that's the one thing that we have to recognize in society is that when someone is going through grief and those different challenges, that it can look different and it can manifest into mental health challenges.

And if you already felt lost in life and wondered if people cared about you and wondered where you belong, to have your dad then die, that only just kicks that in high gear. It doesn't surprise me that it comes out as anger. I think that's what happens a lot of time with men in in particular, is you guys get sad and you guys experience loss or disappointment or bias or discrimination, and you shove it down. What happens when you shove all that down is it a volcano erupts, and that's what you're describing. A kid that needed grief counseling ends up acting out at school and then gets sent somewhere for behavioral health, which is just, again, pointing to how we fail people so much when it comes to challenges that we face emotionally and mentally. Is that when you learned that it might be anxiety or depression, or did they just calm you down and send you back to school?

I think I understood it more as this was a getaway because my dad had passed. It was just in my reality. It was a getaway from home to really process the loss of him and I think everything. So moving past that point, going back into school, there was also a sense of shame attached to where I had been. And I think this is where the stigma of mental health really shows up, because here I am going back to school. Oh, where have you been? I didn't see you in a while. And it's like, Yeah, I've been to this place. And trying to make it more cool than knowing it wasn't cool because not wanting to be ashamed. And I think that's very common is we think about mental health and have these conversations is because that's how it typically looks where we don't really empower the situation, more or less. And say, Yeah, I was at this place, and it was different than what I'm really describing. But really, I'm describing it differently because I'm ashamed of where I really was. So I experienced that early on in life, which really also, I think, can be a part of our lived experience.

That's right. Because if you are surrounded by either a family or a community or an entire culture where there is shame or judgment for getting help or it's weak if you are struggling emotionally or mentally. I always find it interesting that, for example, if you're in financial stress, you can't pay your freaking bills. I've been in that place where I can't put groceries on the table. I'm sitting there with the check card, and I'm like, Dear God, please let there be a computer failure and let this go through, because I know there's no money in this account, but maybe I'll swipe it and it'll work. We're Worry about real financial stress is a form of anxiety.

It is.

Feeling shame that you can't pay your bills can lead to depression. And so these very real experiences that people have lead to mental health challenges that make it worse and make it harder for you to face it. But so you come back from this and you continue with school, and then you have one more incident, right? That really was a wake up call for you.

Yeah.

Can you describe what happened?

Yeah. So later, I would say fast forward to being 17 years old. I moved past that point of going through I would say I went through my honeymoon period after post being a behavior health facility. And then I found myself joining a gang, and that led to me being incarcerated due to a fire arm. But I want to back up because I think one of the things that I really want to shine light on is it wasn't me joining a gang and being charged with a fire arm that really is old. But I want to really also encompass that the loss, again, the mental health challenges and the not being... African Proverbs say, A child who does not feel warm from the village will burn it down. And I was that child that did not feel loved and seen. So everything moving forward was to be a detriment, not knowing that's really what I was causing. But however, it was a lash out on self as a, Hey, I'm going to put myself around these people and put myself around these risks. It's something that I internalized that also did manifest into being a part of the legal system.

Your aunt and uncle must have been beside themselves with you because she does not seem like the woman that would play around. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, they were very furious, to say the least, for sure. They were very... And honestly, they really did a really good job of instilling morals and just principles. I think they It allowed me to become the person that I am today, to really serve and obviously show up in the community the way I do, because they really stood on great things. But I think myself, knowing the challenges that I went through, I veered into that path.

Well, I think what happens, Lorenzo, and I don't know if this is true for you, so I would love to hear your thoughts on this, is that you were clearly in an environment in that barbershop with your aunt in particular, very tied to your values. When sorrow and despair and feeling lonely and invisible and all that grief hits, it can create a barrier between you and your ability to connect to those values and ground yourself there. You become lost in the swirl of emotion and anger and the proverb that you said that when a child doesn't feel warmed by the village, they'll burn it down. That's why anger rises to the surface when people feel isolated and unseen and when they're struggling. It doesn't It wouldn't surprise me that, first of all, mental health challenges are what led you to losing your way, but that ultimately, when you started to address the mental health challenges, you found yourself easily connecting back with those values. And so, how did you turn it around? What was it? Was there a moment when you were incarcerated and you're 17 years old, where you're I got to turn this shit around.

I'm either going down... There are forks in the road in your life where you don't realize it in the moment, but you make one decision and it changes the rest of your life. Was there a moment where you had an epiphany as you're in this low place that you got to do something different? Like, what happened?

Yeah. I would never forget the week coming up to court. I just remember a lot of the kids in there, it was a lot of them would have been repeat offenders. They had been in and out. And we were finding out. Court was that Monday morning. It was like, figured out who was going to be my judge. It was this one particular judge that everyone was just like, Yeah, if you get this judge, they're going to lock you up longer. You'll be here longer. I was doing everything I could, praying I was like, Oh, I just hope I'm going to get to serve judge. I so happily got a judge that was very much opposite to what I think the other young people were saying while I was in there. But saying all this the same. That weekend, as I sat in there and I was getting ready for court, it just kept rumbling in my head that this was the same place that I was born in. This is where my father was. I just remember feeling just so hurt, so lost, so empty. I remember saying, If I could get out of this, I don't ever I want to experience this again.

I'm 17 years old. I'm a month before being 18, and I'm supposed to be enjoying my last year of being in school at this time. I got tied up with a gun and following the wrong people. When I got to court that Monday, I was given a second chance. A lot of it was because of my aunt, and I think them pleading with the court to give me another chance because I had never been in no proud trouble. Obviously, I just got caught up in a situation. But I remember promising the judge that if she could give me another chance, that I would go to college, that she would never have to worry about finding me in the system again. And I kept my word. And I look back today and that's something that I always said that I never wanted to do was to be a part, to have to go into that small room ever again and spend any time. So I think it was just a collective of just hating where I was in that moment, hated the way I felt, but also being scared to know that I could end up spending more time there if I didn't figure out how to get out of this situation or if it would continue.

And so that just led me to want to just change everything. And so, yeah, I think that was the turning point for me. That time that I spent in juvenile was just really eye-opening, and I didn't really enjoy it. I hated every bit of it. And I think I just was so focused on wanted to be much better than I was. And I think it goes back again to just the values that my aunt and uncle really instilled in me growing up, despite my challenges that I went through, knowing that I could really create a life better for myself, regardless of where I had came from.

Well, I think it's so poignant what you said about the fact that you were reflecting on, this is where I was born, and this is not where I'm going to end up. My father's story is not going to be my story. It certainly isn't. Because you went from that courtroom back to high school. You graduated. You never looked back. You then went to Arkansas Baptist College. What did you study there?

Human services.

For people that don't know what that means, what is human services?

Mostly, I think in a broader terms, it's supporting the quality of life and well-being of people, whether that's through economics, civil, social practices of uplifting people. So the work that I do, obviously, is supporting people to getting access to mental health services is, I think, a clear example of what I went to Augustine Baptist College for. But it could also be as well as for supporting young people that may be at risk of going into the criminal justice system. Those are just, obviously, just peer examples.

Okay, so you graduate. What was it like to graduate? You're You're like, damn, I did it. I'm going to take this photo and send it to that judge and tell her I kept my word.

It was an illuminating experience. Again, I think it was one of those, can't believe we made it. Can't believe I made it. Again, the people that I grew up around, the folks that I went to school with, and most of the people just growing up in an urban community in the South. It was just one of more things. It was either I'm going to go be an athlete and go to college, or I'm going to get lost to the streets and get on some drugs and never make it, or I may not make it at all, and I may be dead. It was just only a few options. Obviously, I wasn't an athlete, and I think the other two options just wasn't favorable. I did everything I could to know going to college, and I really worked hard to ensure that I could get my way out of that. I'm glad that I saw the favorable road to work towards graduating and getting to this point.

Well, thank God you did because your organization is now helping over 3 million people a year in terms of mental health advocacy. Let's talk about the fact that right after college, you went and worked with the Department of Human services. I'm outlining your story, Lorenzo, because, again, you are an example of somebody who made a decision, who reconnected with his values, who leaned into the struggle, who allowed himself to be vulnerable, and you turned your whole life around. Now you're taking all of this and you've turned it into this incredible, incredible organization the Confess Project, where you're helping millions of people. And your story and life is an example to all of us, that if there is some change you want to make in your life, it is possible to do it. And if you are willing to serve others, you will be blown away by the difference that you can make. Great question from Ashley. Very important one. She He wants to know my thoughts on depression, healing, and personal struggle. So here are my thoughts. First of all, you guys know that I have suffered with anxiety my entire life. Chris and I have two children that have suffered with significant anxiety, too.

I had serious postpartum depression when Sawyer, our daughter who's now 17, was born. When I say serious, I mean hardcore meds, no nursing, around the clock supervision, serious. When it comes to any depression or mental health issue, what do I think about it? I think they're real. I don't think that we do enough in this country to remove the stigmatism. I don't think there's anything wrong with having a mental health issue, either with yourself or with somebody that you love. I think about mental health a lot like I think about diabetes. People that have diabetes have an inefficient physical system for processing insulin, which is why you need to inject yourself with more of it. When you have a mental health issue, part of your wiring is insufficient to help you process day-to-day life. That's it. And there are certain chemicals that are helping you. There are certain therapies that will help you. So here's the deal. The way I feel about it is this. This is not something to ignore. If you have depression, if you have anxiety, if you have post-traumatic stress disorder, if you have any mental health condition, it's nothing to be ashamed of, and it's nothing to hide, and it's something to hit head-on with.

There's one thing, one thing, that if you did every single day, no No joke, it would make an extraordinary difference in whatever mental health issue you're struggling with, and that is exercise. The reason why I say this is not based on my own personal experience. It's based on the fact that I think it's the American Psychiatric Association. This is coming from Dr. John Rady, a friend of mine who has written a ton of books about not only ADHD, but also the benefits of exercise and what it has on your brain. But he's also a professor at Harvard and practicing clinician. And this is his area of expertise. And one of the things that they now mandate as a diagnosis for anybody with depression or anxiety or any mental illness, frankly. So in closing, be open. Don't be ashamed. Get the help that you need. If you want to start doing something today that you can manage every single day, you can't go wrong with forcing yourself to exercise. And by the way, what can you use to get your butt out the door? You guessed If you get the five-second rule, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Give yourself a push, and you're going to feel a lot better. And there's a story you tell in the book about being at an event where you're giving one of the bazillion keynote speeches that you give. And a survivor of sexual abuse comes up to you. Can you share that story?

Yes. I was speaking at a conference on sexual assault, and I'm a sexual assault survivor. I give the presentation, and when it's over, people You are responding really well. Then I'm standing there in this line, which I know you are used to. There's a long line of people waiting to share their response or their connection to what you said. I see toward the back of the line, this woman who we would say had a bad attitude. But I know attitude is despair.

Hold on a second. Attitude is despair?

Yeah. A form of depression people often don't recognize is irritable depression. Right? Yeah. Wow. People don't respond with compassion to women with a bad attitude. But if we said, When I see that woman, she's in despair, maybe then I would respond with compassion. But some of us, by family, by culture, by religion, we're taught that sadness is weakness. So we mask our sadness with anger, with bitterness, with attitude. But underneath it is the despair.

It's so true. It's like an iceberg. You see the anger on the top, but there's something so much deeper going on.

So much deeper. Underneath.

Wow. You could pick up on the attitude and the energy.

But I know there's the story there, right? Especially because when you know you haven't done anything, right? I am feeling on the receiving end of you're upset, and I haven't done anything so that I know there's a story. When it gets to be her place, she's next in the line, and she says to me, with the attitude, Dude, so you're a survivor? And I said, Look, I just gave a whole keynote on it. I said, Yes. And she says, Well, you don't look like any survivor I've ever known. So the doubting can be triggering as we think about not being believed. But then I go deeper than that and decide not to get defensive. Instead, I just let her question/ statement, hang in the air, and I just, what I would say, soften. I soften and I just look at her, and it's like, now she can see me. On the stage with my PowerPoint and my pantsuit, she couldn't see me. She could only see the strength and the oratorical skills. But now standing in front of her, woman to woman, she could see the vulnerability. Seeing the vulnerability, she said, The only survivors I've ever known were fat and poor like me.

Then it's the different ways our surviving shows up. For some of us who are often overlooked, we coped with busyness and with what I would call a spirit of excellence. When you are excellent, people don't notice your wounds. Sometimes Sometimes you don't notice them. You feel you've outrun it. But it's there. Late at night, early in the morning, when you're in certain environments, it shows up that it's still bleeding and you've just gotten busy but not healed.

What's the difference? I guess, what is healing?

It is the homecoming of being accepting and loving of myself. When I accept me, I have nothing to prove. There's a life coach here in Los Angeles. I'm going to give you her name later, but she has a beautiful quote I love, which is, I don't want to be driven, I want to be called. And this idea of when you're driven, your trauma can drive you. Like your insecurity where you have to constantly prove yourself. And it's this franticness versus when I'm at home, then I can be in flow with what is me. Yeah.

Wow. If you have somebody in your life who has that irritable depression, how How do you practice softening and compassion? Because oftentimes, if you're around somebody who's constantly irritable, who is always angry about or frustrated with something, I have several people that come to mind right now in my own life. What are some tools that we can use to practice more compassion in those moments so that we lead with compassion rather than get so reactive?

Right. I love that question because I think what we often get pulled into is being combative with them, and they're always going to outcombat us because they're in warrior mode, right? Right. And so When they come with the intensity, then I respond to the softness. I would say one of two ways. One is if I can relate it all, I'll give my own experience. Experience. And that helps them not to feel judged. I'm not saying calling you out because I see what you're doing. It's just saying there was a time where, and whatever that story is, and often I have learned transparency is contagious. And sometimes then people say, Oh, me too. I'm like, Yeah, you too. So the testimonial or if I know anything that's been happening in their life to name that to say... Because they're responding with all this intensity about distraction. Then I will say, Well, I really wanted to check in because I know this is such a busy time with you, that you're moving, that you're this, that you're that. For us to ask a deeper question because the how are you gives us finding you. So break out of the script.

And so instead, with everything you're holding, what's been helping you to manage, right? Or what do you need, or how can I help? So I'm speaking to the unspoken.

If you bring in the chicken and the eagle, can we use that That fable, to describe that moment where the survivor in the audience has this irritable, depressive moment with you. What is happening for her, in your opinion, in as a psychologist. Yeah.

So I like to say, The reason you feel unsett is because you're not supposed to settle.

Say that again.

The reason you feel unsettled is because you're not supposed to settle. So what area of your life are you settling?

And I would imagine that any area where you feel unsettled Mm-hmm (affirmative). Right. There it is. There it is.

So what happens is often we are focused so much outwardly, if only. If only my spouse would do this, if only my kids would do this, if only my supervisor would do this. And in this moment, we don't have the capacity to shift them. So how might you want to shift?

That's a big ask because it's easier to try to order everybody else around in your life. Oh, yes.

Frustrating and annoying and draining. But it also lets me off the hook because I can keep waiting for their homecoming. I can come home to myself when they come home to themselves. Well, everybody is on their own timing. And what I like to remind myself is I don't want to keep my healing hostage, waiting for the healing of those who harmed me.

Oh, wow.

And that's what we're doing when we're waiting for the apology. It's like, I can't heal till you see what you did to me. Yes. That could be years.

It might be your whole lifetime.

It may be your whole life. They have gone on with their lives. They don't care. They're not thinking about it. I want to take my healing out of their hands.

And give it back to yourself. Yeah. The process of Coming home and the homecoming is the act of self-healing. Yes. It's about joining back in with yourself. Because we have such a huge international audience and therapy can be very expensive, I would love for you to read these six questions that you often ask patients that can be a sign of what you call psychological homelessness. I would also love for you, Dr. To talk about what is psychological homelessness? I've never heard that phrase before, but it makes so much sense. So psychological homelessness is this sense of wandering, being ungrounded, unrooted, confused.

We can spend years saying, I don't know, I'm not sure. Even when I'm waiting for other people to give me the answer, then they're my compass, but I need a compass. That's what we talk about with therapy is at some point people need to internalize it. So it's not just every week people coming and saying, so, Tama, what do you think? They have to get to the point where, I was having this conversation with my sister, and I realized I was doing this. And so I, well, there it is. Right now, you have become your compass. So here are the questions. Does the state of your life, internally or externally, fall short of what you imagined? Did you attain what you thought you wanted, only to discover that you still feel empty and unfulfilled? Do you have a sense of powerlessness or hopelessness? Do you lack the energy or motivation to pursue the things that used to matter to you? Do you feel there are no words to capture the ache in your heart? Do you find yourself crying often, or does it seem impossible to cry?

If somebody resonates with any of those questions, what should they do?

Yes. I want to first say to anyone who connected with those, you've taken the first step. Which is awareness, because I can't come home to myself if I don't realize I'm wandering. Sometimes we don't realize it. Time is passing and you don't know it. So the fact that in this moment, as you're listening, you chose to tell yourself the truth. That is your mind, heart, body, spirit telling to you, We're ready. Because when we don't feel ready, we're distracted. Connecting ourselves, we're busying ourselves, and then truth shows up. Telling yourself the truth is the first step. Then we think about both self-care and community care. Sometimes when we don't feel good about ourselves, we neglect ourselves and we erase ourselves. Those can have cultural messages and gender messages and religious messages where people will say self-care is selfish. To say to myself, I am not just a tool for other people's nourishing. I am not just a pathway for other people to get goodness in life. That I, too, am a living soul that is deserving of the goodness that I want other people to experience. It is a sacred act to begin to care for ourselves.

The catch is when we talk about behavioral psychology, with behavioral psychology, you start to do the action even if you don't feel it yet. If I say, I'm going to wait till I have high self-esteem and then take good care of myself, it's not going to work. I have to start doing it even when I don't feel it.

Yes. The word that keeps coming to mind is purpose. You hear a lot of people I don't know what my purpose is. I need to find a purpose. Is that a code word for I am disconnected from myself?

That is definitely a code word, and the name came back to me of the life coach I quoted. I just want to give Shannon Yvette. Okay. The one who gave the quote I said earlier. But when people don't have a sense of their purpose, that's an indication of disconnection. I also want to say when we are in unhealthy relationships and on toxic jobs, in order to survive those, you have to disconnect. It's impossible to be at home with yourself and stay in relationship with someone who is dishonoring you perpetually.

Wow. Yeah. So for somebody that just had a wake-up call.

Mm-hmm. Then you can have compassion for yourself because Because people will judge you and say, Why did you stay so long? But you weren't connected to you. You had been disconnected from yourself, so you don't even feel the capacity to dream again, to imagine in to believe that better is possible for you and that you are deserving of it and worthy of it.

We see this both in relationships and jobs all the time. In fact, you have a whole chapter about how to handle a toxic work environment. That's right. So if somebody is listening to this and they're on their way in to a job that is slowly just draining their soul, the first step is to acknowledge it and to recognize that you're disconnected from yourself. And you already gave us the way that you would know, any area that you are unsettled in that does not feel cohesive, that is where you're settling. That is a point of disconnection. You talked to us about breathing. Close your eyes, come back into your body. You've talked also about self-care. What does that mean, self-care? Yeah.

So self-care is nourishing every part of yourself. So there is the physical part. So it is hard to heal and come home to yourself if you're living out of vending machines and drive-through windows.

Why?

Because your food affects your mood, and there's nothing life-giving in fake food. As I like to say, as your grandmother would say, put some vegetables on that plate. Put some greens on that plate. So fruit and vegetables I like to think of before I eat something, can I say, I'm eating this because I love myself? Then some things I won't be able to put in my body because I actually want to live. And We have it flipped, where we will call those things the treat. I am treating myself by giving myself something that's killing me. To have to flip it, and of course, in moderation, because when people hear that, they're like, Do you mean I can never have? Drinking water instead of all the soda. Sleep is a big one. It is hard to come home to yourself when you're exhausted. We are busy, busy, and then all night people are on their phones or up and can't sleep. I say, if your idea, and hopefully this is okay to say.

You can say whatever you want. Okay.

Yes. If your idea of relaxing before you go to sleep is watching three episodes of Law and Order, I would encourage you to think about, why is trauma relaxing to me? That's what it is. I mean, harm, crime, violation, attacks, and that's what is going to soothe me into my bedtime.

So what is the answer that a lot of people give you when they do go into therapy about that connection?

It's that it's normal and familiar. Some of us grew up in high stress, so we think calmness is either fake or boring.

Wow.

Right? People mistake peace for boring. It's like, to come home to yourself, you have to lean into the discomfort because it's going to feel unfamiliar. I was working with an adult woman and her mom, and they had been disconnected because the mother dealt with addiction and didn't raise her, but they are reconnected now and living together. And the adult daughter really wanted her mom to say she loves her. And the mother just said to me, That just seems fake. So she had not grown up with that, had not heard it. To her, it's like something people do on TV. And so I said to her, If you mean it, it's not fake. It just feels like it because you're not used to saying it.

It is amazing how many people don't tell the people that they love that they love them. Right. And it hadn't occurred to me. It's because they never were told that themselves. Yeah. And that it might feel forced or not authentic.

Yes. Whoa. Yeah. And that's the importance of us learning each other's love languages, because her response was the response of probably many of her generation, which was you have food on the table or you have a roof over your head.

Yes. What more do you want from me? Right.

What more?

Anxiety is not a disease. Adhd is not a disease. No, they're just- Let's talk about depression, though, because that is technically a disease, right?

Well, anxiety is a disease, and ADD is considered a disease. Why? They're in the disease classification manual. I don't agree. Let me just back up a little bit. We have like 155,000 diseases in our manual, doctor manual, that we can pick from when we want to diagnose somebody. And most of them are just descriptions of the symptoms that people have, but tell you nothing about the cause.

So is the root cause inflammation? Is that the root cause of all this?

The root cause of many things is inflammation, not everything.

What are the options when it comes to root cause for you as a functional medical doctor?

Basically, at the beginning, we talked about taking out the bad stuff, putting in the good stuff. And the body is not that complicated. I mean, It's complex. It's very dynamic, but basically it needs certain things to thrive, and certain things make it not thrive. What are the things that we need to think about getting rid of that the body doesn't like? Bad food, and we can We define that. It's processed food, sugar, most of the stuff that people are eating. 60% of our diet is ultra-processed food, which is deadly. It's stress, and it can be physical or psychological stress. Stress is really defined as the perception of a real or imagined threat to your body or your ego. It could be a tiger chasing you, or you could think your spouse is cheating on you, but it's not true.

Or you could think that your boss is mad at you. Yeah.

Like Woody Allen with a gun to his head, has one reaction. James Bond has another action. That's an interesting example. Same gun, different response. So the perception is our mindset, our beliefs, our attitudes. A lot of things you talk about, Mel, are really what drives our stress response.

How does a negative thought cause a physiological problem in your body?

A stress response. I'm going to answer that. Can I finish the-No, you can't. Because you have ADD. I'm just going to continue with the thing that I wanted to say.

I really need to eat more vegetables, god damn it.

I'll come back to that. The other few things that are the things that cause our body to be out of balance, besides bad food and stress, are toxins. We are living in a sea of environmental toxins, from heavy metals to pesticides. Our gut and microbiome is a huge factor. An unhealthy gut and bad bugs, and it can be infections or can mostly come from the gut. And last is things that irritate our immune system, like allergens or sensitivities. Okay. Those five things.

So say them again. Bad food.

Bad food, stress, toxins, bad bugs, and allergens.

Okay, got it.

And those interact with our biology, with seven basic systems that we have that keep us healthy. And if we have those things, they create imbalance. So we have to get rid of those things, take out the bad stuff. What are the good stuff? What are the ingredients for health? How does our bodies thrive? We know how to take care of our car. We change the oil, we fill up the air in our tires, we get the tune up, we change the park plugs, whatever. Most of us have a clue. In our bodies, we have no clue. What are the things our bodies need? We need the right nutrients and nutrition. It's a little bit personalized, but I've written a lot about how to find a way of eating that's good for you and that you like, it's culturally relevant, it's affordable. Second is nutrients. We are often deficient in many nutrients. Particularly omega-3s, vitamin D, B vitamins, iron, zinc. These are magnesium common nutritional deficiencies that have broad impacts across the body, including our mood. Then we need the right balance of hormones. We need the right amount of light at the right time. If you're having blue light at night, you're not going to sleep.

If you don't have blue light in the morning, your brain can't reset for the day.

When you say blue light in the morning, are you talking about bright light outside? Sunlight, go outside. 20 minutes. I didn't really realize that sunlight was blue light.

Yeah, well, it's got blue and blue light spectrum. Oh, okay. Yeah. So at night, we just are over stimulated with our computers and our screens, and this screws up. We need the right light. We need the right type of clean air. We need clean water. We need movement, like exercise. We need Resetting, restoration, relaxation, resetting the vagus nerve. Sympathetic nervous system needs to be calmed down, right? That's not a passive activity. So you have to actively relax, right? Whether it's breathing or yoga or meditation or whatever, prayer, journaling, a million ways to do it. Then we need also sleep. And most of us are not getting enough sleep or good quality sleep. So seven, eight hours minimum for most people is essential. And there's a lot of talk we can talk about sleep. And then we need connection, community, love, meaning and purpose. These are all ingredients for health. In my book, I talk about how, for example, if we cured heart disease and cancer from the face of the planet, we'd extend our life by 5-7 years.

If we cured If we cured loneliness and develop connection and meaning and purpose, we extend our life by seven years or more.

So wait a minute. Basically, having meaning and purpose and connection in your life is more powerful than curing cancer and heart disease in terms of longevity. I know from my travel, the Blue Zones, that was a big part of the medicine they had, was community as medicine, connection as medicine.

I'm sure you're seeing it as an epidemic of loneliness, especially coming out of the pandemic.

Totally. Those are the ingredients for health that we need to provide, and everybody needs different ones. For example, some people might need more vitamin D, some people might need more sleep, some people need different exercise. So it's really personalized, but those are the basic ingredients.

It's personalized, right? Because just talking to the broad audience that's listening, you've mentioned a number of supplements, and it's the same ones over and over. So for anybody listening that's like, okay, I got it. I have to do something. We've already talked about diet and changing your diet and even just noticing that if you were to remove the things we've talked about and add in this very simple, clean, healthy, vegetable-forward and clean protein diet in 6-10 days, you're going to feel like a different person.

Just try it. Try it. And then you can decide what you want to do after that? I want to keep eating my donuts. Okay, fine. Then you're going to feel like crap. And if you want to feel like crap, it's your prerogative.

Well, I'll tell you something. I am now on, it's like, I don't know, day 30 something of not drinking. It's life-changing. Yeah, totally. It's totally Really life-changing. And I cannot believe how much clearer I am. I cannot believe how much more present I am. I cannot believe that I don't really miss it. And I had committed to doing this for almost three months, and I don't know how I'll incorporate it back, if ever, maybe here and there. But it just was such a profound difference for me that I'm dumbfounded I didn't do this earlier. Listeners around the world are writing in about It is the documented and alarming spike in depression and anxiety and mental health issues, particularly in young adults. And when I hear a lot of experts talk about it, they just talk in broad strokes. Can you help us understand the various factors that have gone into this spike? Because I feel like I I don't know what to stop controlling. You know what I mean? If the main behavior that we need to get ourselves to change is this constant need to control other people in our lives, particularly our kids, and to become more conscious to letting go and being in the moment.

How do we do that on a topic where you've got somebody that you really care about that's deeply in the spiral of anxiety or depression. Okay.

There are several layers to your question. Number one, what do we do with all this disease that we're seeing, really disease from within? It is a symbol and a symptom of inner disconnect, right? We're disconnected. While we were always, I think, disconnected since the birth of the agricultural revolution and technology and industrialization, in the past 30 years, We have seen technology in front of our eyes take over our lives to the point where we are using technology as proxies, as surrogates for relationships. Now, children need presence. They need a parent who embodies the here and now attunement and alignment in order to thrive. Now, when the parent is constantly distracted on a screen, Using the screen as a proxy for their own anxiety management as medication, the child now is not getting the source of warmth, of connection, of soothing, safety, security, significance from the primary caregiver. It's also beginning to rely on the same proxies. This is why we have seen a greater incline in mental disease now than ever before, because our proxies have multiplied We have a proxy in the back pocket. We have a proxy in the car. We have a proxy in the back of the car and the trunk.

We have batteries and chargers and adapters and 10 devices. We are now replacing human-to-human connection, which is the core foundation organizational essence of good parenting with these proxies. Our children are feeling that lack. Mental health is rising. I know it's a broad answer. What do we do about it? What do we do? We take our children in our charge soon. We don't wait for the schools to relinquish technology. We can do it at home. Each parent has the power in their own microcosm at home to increase connectivity with their children. If we want to raise children who are secure, well-empowered in adulthood, they require the first 10 years of true presence. It doesn't mean daily, moment-by-moment presence, but it's the embodiment of that energy. We have to do away with the screens. We have to be decluttered in our own schedules, in our own agendas, cut out all the 10,000 activities. All of that is a waste of time for the most part. Focus on the connection between parent and child or siblings, and keep it simple. What happened in the pandemic was really a tragedy in many ways in so many people's lives, but it was a call back to simplicity, a call back to consciousness, a call back to connection.

But now we've lost it again. You will see this rise continuing because children know that they're missing. They can feel it. They're like, Where are my connected parents? Why am I not in nature? Why am I sitting in front of this plastic one-dimensional screen clicking on buttons that are artificial? They sense it, and their psyche suffers.

Dr. Shefali, are you saying that modern parenting Where we are parenting with a phone in our hand and we ourselves are not present because we are on the screen and we are distracted and we are overscheduled and we are anxious and worried is the direct cause of the anxiety that our kids are feeling. It makes sense.

Yeah, but the parent, we can't blame the parent.

I don't mind. I'll take the blame. I see my responsibility.

But greater than that. Instead of just focusing on the parent, we have to see it as a system of parents. I call it the parenting industrial complex. This is not just one parent. The parent is being swallowed by a system, and the system is to be called to task. It takes people like us who are out there with a microphone to be the harbingers of a new tomorrow, where we inform parents, Hey, you can do it differently. Just because everyone in the neighborhood is doing it this way, I'm here to tell you it's harmful. Listen, pay heed. Of course, it takes courage, but There is a way to do things differently, and that's what I teach.

So are there specific recommendations? Because I agree with you. I think we all know that this is something we have majorly screwed up. And I love that you use the word we've been swallowed would buy it. And there is that sense that, well, everybody else, my kid is going to be the one that's left out. And if they're left out and they're not on the smartphone, and they're not doing this, and they can't do that, then they're going to experience more anxiety. And so our anxiety about what they're going to feel is creating this pressure to do things that you know instinctively, this doesn't work. It doesn't work that I'm sitting at a dinner at a restaurant, my four-year-old is watching an iPad, and my teenager is texting under the table. This doesn't work. It's not good for anybody. You're going to have times when you feel like a failure, but you're not. It's just preparing you for that next moment. And I think a lot of people need to hear that right now because a lot of people lost their jobs in the last year. A lot of people lost family members. And I want to go into that as well because your relationship with your family means a lot to them.

And you went through a lot during all of these job transitions. Oh, my God. And even now, can you share a little bit about how you're able to keep it together as a mom? You think I can keep it together as a mom? I love you. I don't even know how to answer that question, honestly. I I guess, in looking back, because there have been... Look, one of the reasons why I know so much about anxiety is because I fucking struggled with it for 30 years. One of the reasons why I know so much about kids in anxiety is because I have kids that have struggled with it, and I have made every mistake in the book because their anxiety triggered my anxiety. So my whole brand of personal empowerment involves Mel Robbins or somebody she loves falling into hole or digging one. And then I got to manufacture a ladder somehow. And so I feel like I'm always falling forward. And I feel like your life is like an up and down roller coaster, and the whole point of it is to ride the whole thing. And to experience the highs and the lows.

And I think one of the most amazing things that I love about the family life that Chris and I have co-created is that we deeply care about what our kids are feeling. And we, for better or for worse, force them to talk about that. And so we are aware when our kids are hurting, and we are aware when they are doing okay. And mostly, you know your kids are okay when they're ignoring you, and they don't... I haven't heard from our 16-year old son in probably five days, and that's a good thing. He's good. It means he's happy. It would be weird if he were 16 years old and attached to his mother at the hip. You want them to be happy and independent in their lives, and you want them to come to you when things are hard. And you do that by giving them space. And you do that by realizing that your job as a parent is not to put them in some mold and shape them. It's to help them discover who the hell they are, and how to make a decision, and how to feel the consequences of bad decisions.

And I love the fact that you are able to really hone in on how people are feeling, because I feel like feelings and ask Asking children, partners, friends, how do you feel? I have an alert in my phone every single day at noon, and it asks me, How do you feel and what do you need? So can you dive in a little bit on-I need to do that. Yes. I highly recommend it because we go so fast in life that we don't even tap in. Are you thirsty? Do you need some water? Do you need a nap? Do you need a hug? Do you need a high five? And so when you just stop in the middle of it, especially as an ambitious, most people are listening. They're entrepreneurs, ambitious. Just go, go, go, go, go. You're in the middle of the day. You haven't even eaten. So it's so important not only to ask yourself, How are you feeling? But I think also, and to your point, ask your children, And ask your partner, How are you feeling? That's like bringing them back to that connection with self. I'll tell you, though, here's the thing.

Unless you can stand with the person in the mirror and look them in the eye and see and encourage and support them exactly where they are, and most importantly, where they're not, most people either don't know how they actually feel or they won't tell you. I learned this in a very painful way because it's only recently that I have learned that my husband Chris has been struggling with a very profound and long-term form of depression. I think he was afraid to admit it to himself because he felt that it meant that there was something broken and it scared him. I just want to explain seeing just how, I think, disconnected so many of us are. I have stood next to the love of my life in my bathroom. His sink is right next to mine. For 10 years. It's been more acute in the last seven years. But for 10 years, I have stood shoulder to shoulder with him, and I had no idea just how depressed he And I don't think he did either. Right. And thankfully, he meditates. Thankfully, he exercises. Thankfully, he watches what he drinks. Thankfully, he journals. Thankfully, he has created a men's retreat called Soul Degree that gives his life a lot of meaning.

Yeah. But depression is a disease that impacts you chemically, physiologically. It is a cloud and a weight and a fog that impacts you. And so it, ironically, and he has been doing the work, whether it is the meditating or therapy or guided MDMA, trauma treatment. And what's interesting is it was the high five that really, I think in many ways, broke a lot of things open. Because you can sit in a therapist's chair and talk and talk and talk about all the things that you wish you could change and talk about how you feel about yourself. But it's very hard to change the way you treat yourself. Because you're moving from a space of what you're talking about or what you're doing to a new space of how you're being with yourself. And that's a really difficult bridge because it feels like an intellectual bridge. And so when I first started doing this high five in April of 2020 to support myself through an incredibly difficult moment in my where I felt overwhelmed by my life and unable to face it. And so the high five became something I started doing just instinctually because I needed something.

And I said to Chris, I think you might want to, and we hadn't even started talking about the word depression yet. I think you might want to try this. And he's like, That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I'm not high fiving myself. Please. We know you're positive, Mel. You go high five yourself. And so for the first month, I'd high He'd be standing there brushing his teeth. I'd be finished, put my toothbrush down. I'd high five myself. He would not do it. And then the depression diagnosis came up, and I started hammering him. I really think you should do this. I'm actually feeling something change within me. And he started doing it, and it gave him this personal experience of realizing, and this is the way he said it, I thought it was stupid because for a decade, I've looked in the mirror and see a person who's failed. My restaurant business failed. And as proud as I am of you, your success has magnified the fact that I always believed it was my job to be the one providing and to be successful. And so it has magnified my sense of being lost.

And I look in the mirror, and for a decade, I see a person who doesn't deserve a high five. That's why it would feel stupid to give myself one. And through the process, of raising his hand and high-fiving himself exactly where he is, dealing with depression, accepting himself for who he is, forgiving himself for the stuff that... This is where we all are, by the way. I'm using Chris with his permission as an example because I think it's a very relatable one. Until I'm through this hole, then I'll high five myself. Until I'm making some money, I'll high five myself. Until I actually... No, you got to high five yourself now because the high five isn't, Yeah, I'm The high five is, I see you. And I know you did some stuff and you feel some stuff that you're having a hard time forgiving your sofa. I'm still going to love you. I'm still going to believe in you. I'm still going to support you. It's how you heal. It's how you give yourself permission to turn the page and start a new chapter. It's how you start to create a new relationship with yourself. And it's extraordinary.

It is. And I will say, as a person who experiences depression, is that sometimes you don't know until you're out of it, or you don't know until you listen to something like this podcast and you start crying, or you don't know until something happens. And that's what happens, especially with very high function of people who also experience depression. It's like sometimes there's no like, Hey, you're depressed until you feel it. And I feel like it's important. And that's why I love that you say it's a habit. And it's not about what you're doing, it's about who you're being. I wanted to come back to that phrase because I think, especially right now, we're thinking, What can I do right now? Everything's uncertain. What can I do? But I feel like the high five brings people back to, who are you being? Are you being in love with yourself? Are you validating yourself? Are you connecting with yourself no matter what you're doing? Yeah. And let's go back to the basketball analogy. We I would never start a basketball game together by me going, Koya. I think there's no way you're going to do okay in this game.

You really blew it in the last game. I've seen how you played. Some coaches do that. I got that message. You know what I'm saying? That's not how you start a game you want to win. No. Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video, by God, please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing. Thank you so much for being here. We've got so much amazing stuff coming. Thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family. I love you. We create these videos for you, so make sure you subscribe.