Mental Health Check-in

Descriptive transcript

Hi guys! Welcome back to another episode of UTS Student Hacks. Today we'll be talking about mental health check-in. Before we get right into it, get some water, fruit and snacks, and get yourself settled in.

I'm Roxanne. I'm in my fourth year of Medical Science and International Studies, and here we're also joined with—

I'm Kelly! I'm also in my fourth year of Law and Business, majoring in Accounting. In this episode about mental health, we are joined by Cordelia, who was the 2019 UTSOC President. So, Cordelia, introduce yourself.

Hi, my name is Cordelia. I just finished a Communications degree majoring in Journalism. I think for me, mental health is one of my biggest passions just because it's something that I've struggled with for a lot of my life, and I just really want to help make change so that no one else has to go through anything similar.

So our first question is: What is mental health? To me, mental health is really anything about your mental well-being—how you're feeling, whether it's both positive and negative. There can be a lot of information out there about mental health conditions like depression and anxiety, but I think it's important to acknowledge that there's such a wide range of different mental health conditions that aren't just those two main ones you hear about.

And even if it's just stuff like how stressed you're feeling, personality disorders, eating disorders—anything that comes from how you're feeling, I guess, ties into mental health. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that mental health also affects your physical health, and your physical health can also affect your mental health. They're not two separate things; they really go hand in hand.

So mental health, it's pretty integrated in our lives. It's not, like you said, a standalone thing that you can separate from the rest of yourself.

All right, next question. Why is mental health important, especially amongst university students?

Having good awareness of your own mental health is really important, especially for university students, because university students are typically at that age where they've really just come out into the big world, they've left the comfort of high school, and they can often be going through a lot of changes in their social life, careers, everything. They're at a very vulnerable point in their life.

And with the stress of uni, I think it's really important that they stay on top of their mental health and realise when they're feeling stressed or overwhelmed or burnt out. Because if they don't get on top of it, it can have a lot of flow-on effects that affect them for the rest of their life.

Yeah, especially going into university, people are moving out of home, sometimes not just across the country but to a different country for university. The stresses of leaving your comfort support system and things like that can subconsciously affect your mental health.

How do you personally check on your mental health, or do you have any pointers for someone to help them check on how their mental health is going?

What was really helpful for me in checking in on my mental health was having a list of my own personal signs. For me, what's helped with staying on top of my mental health and keeping it in check was I've created my own list of signs that show when my mental health might be deteriorating—things like withdrawing from friends, not replying to messages is a big one for me. I have it all written down, and it's really important that about once a week, I go through the list and check: is any of this happening?

And if so, I then have another list of smaller things that I can do that help orientate me a bit more—things like art, or going out of my way to actually reply to messages, and even just simple things like breathing and grounding exercises can really help me feel more in the moment and stop getting lost in my head as much.

I know there are a lot of apps that focus on journalling your feelings and things like that. Do you personally like doing it on your phone, or do you write this down? What's your mode of taking note of subtle actions that you've done?

I started bullet journalling last year, so I do it all handwritten and I draw and paint and everything. For me, actually getting it out on paper helps me express it, rather than on a phone. I know a lot of people enjoy using their phones and it's easier, but because I spend so much of my job and my life on my phone, I like having something else to just relax, and my bullet journal is kind of like my unwind safe space, I guess.

Yeah, I tried getting into bullet journalling. You can be so creative with what you want—each week was so different.

It's hard to stay on top of sometimes.

Yeah, it is, especially if you want to make it look very aesthetically pleasing.

So, moving on to your time at UTSOC, what was your experience hearing students share their experience from the Smash the Stigma project?

For me, I felt it was incredibly humbling to see how many participated in UTSOC's Smash the Stigma campaign. It really drove it home for me to see that everyone is really dealing with their own stuff—especially seeing all these people I knew maybe a bit more on a casual basis coming out and sharing what they've been through. I was like, wow, really everyone has a story to tell.

I think the most impactful thing from that whole experience was the overall feedback I had from my friends and the general public. I got so overwhelmed with messages from people who were expressing gratitude for the campaign and how much it had helped them to see that they really weren't alone, and just thankful for the bravery everyone had for speaking publicly about their mental health.

I was even stopped in person around campus by people who recognised me from the campaign to thank me for it. So it really emphasised how much the stigma around mental health needs to be broken.

Absolutely. Something as simple as giving people a safe space to even talk about it can really bring so much awareness to smashing the stigma.

Yeah, definitely.

What are the effects of stigmatising mental health?

I think the biggest and most damaging effect of mental health stigma is that it stops people from getting the help they need, which then further silences the issue and contributes to the cycle of stigma. People can often feel like they're not bad enough to go get help, or they're just faking it, or people won't believe them, or they're too scared to say anything in case people tell them to just "suck it up" because perhaps on the outside they're living a good life.

So it really is a major barrier in getting that first step of professional help. And for many people, if they don't take that first step, it doesn't get better.

Yeah, it's always the first step that seems really daunting in any scenario, but more so for mental health, especially with the stigma and everything surrounding that.

So what actions can people take to reduce the stigma?

To reduce stigma, I think people should take care and be mindful of what they say about the topic. Even things that may seem as small as mocking celebrities who come out as having mental health conditions can be very damaging to hear for a friend who might be going through something similar, because they now feel like they can't confide in you because they've heard you mock someone else going through something similar.

But as with most things, I don't think it can be just left up to individual people to make change—there needs to be systemic and institutional change. And I think that's really the biggest thing. Things like mental health sick leave. For me personally, it feels like it'd be a lot easier to call in sick if you're vomiting and it's easier to get a medical certificate for that, rather than if you're struggling mentally and you just need a day off.

So are there any signs a person could be experiencing a mental health condition, or how would you be able to go to a friend—not alarming them—but saying, "Hey, I've noticed that you haven't been quite yourself these days"?

There are so many different mental health conditions that manifest in different ways, but I think maybe one of the biggest signs to watch out for, at least from my own personal experience, is withdrawal. If your friend has stopped showing up to social events or replying in group chats, don't always believe them if they're saying, "Oh, I'm just busy with uni work." Withdrawing from social life is such an important sign of a deteriorating mental health condition, and it's often the most obvious one to notice.

Other ones are mood, sleep or appetite changes, or even something like an increase in self-deprecating humour. While it might seem a bit humorous, it is often a telling sign of something else that's going on. Even just extreme highs can be a sign of mental health conditions, not just extreme lows.

So really, you're just looking out for if your friend's been experiencing any changes out of the norm, especially if you know they've just undergone perhaps recent trauma or anything like that.

Very wide range.

Yeah, really, it's just if your friend isn't acting like themselves, I don't think there's any harm in just being like, "Hey, I've noticed you've been acting a bit different. Is something all right? Can I help with anything? Is it uni?" Just reach out. I don't think there's any harm in reaching out, and your friend's not going to hate you if you ask them if they're okay.

So reaching out is always the first step, not just keeping it to yourself.

Definitely.

What actions can you take to support a friend if, even though they said they're all right, what can you do besides just reaching out?

In terms of supporting friends, I really want to stress that at the end of the day, you can't help other people if you're not helping yourself. So it's important not to sacrifice your own mental health for the sake of a friend. Most of us aren't professionals who are trained to handle these situations, but a lot of the time, that's kind of what your friend needs from you. They don't need you to be their therapist and diagnose them—not really. Sometimes they just need someone to listen to them. I think that's the first step anyone can do, as long as their friend's not in immediate danger—just listen to them. They don't need you to offer them advice; they just need to know that someone cares and that they're not alone.

After that, I think the biggest thing is assisting them in getting professional help. And don't just tell them to go see a therapist—actually help them, perhaps book their GP appointment or offer to go with them to the UTS counselling services in Building 1. Reaching out to a friend is hard, but reaching out for professional help is even harder. Speaking from my own personal experience, I really struggled getting professional help even though I knew it was the right thing to do, and it took a friend literally booking an appointment for me and coming with me for me to take that first step in getting professional help.

Yeah, I think that all ties back to the stigma around getting professional help with mental health, because, exactly like what you said, you knew it was the right thing to do to ask for help, but with the stigma and everything like that, it was really difficult.

And it made me feel so hypocritical, because I was telling all my friends, "No, go get professional help," when I couldn't do that step myself. Friendship support and just having a strong support network is really important, which is why if you notice your friend withdrawing, that's usually a bad sign because they're disconnecting from their support network, and you need to make sure that they know their support network is still there for them.

I think the number one thing I want listeners to know is that it's okay to not be feeling okay. You're not doing this for attention, you're not making this up, you're not being overly sensitive or emotional. Your feelings are valid no matter what else is happening in your life, and it is valid for you to express that and get help for it.

Probably just repeating myself, but again, there's no shame in reaching out to your friend—either to get help or asking them if they're okay. They're your friends for a reason. No one's going to feel like you're a burden on them if you reach out for help, and vice versa, if you're reaching out to a friend and asking them if they're okay, they're not going to feel offended that you think they might not be okay.

And as well as reaching out to a friend or just asking for help, that first step is very important and you should do it.

Yes, do it! Do it!

Firstly, thank you to Cordelia for being a part of this episode on mental health.

And as always, thank you for listening to this week's podcast. If you want to check out any of our other previous episodes, they're on our website and other sites like Spotify.

A special shout out to UTS Startups as always for allowing us to use the podcasting space. You should really check out UTS Startups as they have an amazing range of resources.

Don't forget to join us for our next podcast. Until next time, see ya!