Mental Health First Aid

[Upbeat Guitar Music]

Mike: Welcome everybody. This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction, brought to you by Westwords Consulting, the Kenosha County Substance Use Disorder Coalition, and by a grant from the State of Wisconsin's Dose Reality: Real talks reminding you that opioids are powerful drugs and that one pill can kill. I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike: When I speak, I'm often asked how someone can help a friend, a colleague, or a family member if they were concerned about that person's substance use or mental health. And we're gonna talk about that topic today. And also a training from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing called Mental Health First Aid with our guest, Deacon Eric Paige.

Mike: Deacon Paige is the Director of Formation and Deacon services for the Archdiocese of Seattle, Washington, and a trained mental health first aider.

Mike: Welcome, Deacon Eric.

Eric: Thanks so much, Mike. It's a blessing to be here.

Mike: Yeah. Did I say that right? First aider, is that a correct use of the term?

Eric: You know, I think you can call it that.

Eric: I think that's a good way to describe it. That's actually the language the training uses.

Mike: Oh, that's great! Then I'm right there. Okay. Let's get this outta the way. For those people who are not familiar with the church, tell us what a deacon is, does, and how you got to be one.

Eric: Well, I'd be happy to do so.

Eric: So, a deacon is ordained in the Catholic church, but unlike a priest who, a deacon is ordained primarily for service. So the role of a deacon is to try to help. Facilitate engagement for the people in the church with the life of the church. It, the deacon plays an important role at Mass. You know, calling pe, welcoming people in with some of the introductory statements at mass and also dismissing people.

Eric: And the idea is that the deacon is supposed to help the priests and the bishops to engage with the people of the church and help lift up the ministry of the laity. Who are meant to really kind of bring the good news to all people, both in terms of understanding, but also in terms of care and concern.

Mike: Well, okay. Then way to segue into that, helping the laity is part of it. So then tell us about Mental Health First Aid and how you first got involved.

Eric: I'm blessed to serve in the Archdiocese of Seattle, and I had, one of my earlier roles was with marriage and family life, helping out families and engaging with parents a lot, you know, because that's, of course an important part of life, the church.

Eric: And so many parents, so many parents were really, really concerned about the mental health of their children, and there just was this, you know... I'm the present concern about mental health that we found. And so I was really happy to help out with our mental health advisory council, the group of folks that help in our diocese to support mental health and found out about the training as a great resource and received the training, became a mental health first aider, and then we needed some trainers.

Eric: So I was happy to go deeper, get that training, and be able to help other people become a mental health first aider.

Mike: Everywhere I talk, especially in the last five years Deacon, if I ask the audience, especially a young audience as you mentioned, if I say, what do you want me to talk about?

Mike: Mental health is far and away the most asked for topic. Is it too much to say that we're experiencing somewhat of a mental health crisis in our country?

Eric: I think it's fair to to say that, and of course, what does that mean? But I think there's a, just an increased concern about mental health for a lot of reasons.

Eric: And some of it's beneficial. I think some of it is just the people are more aware of the needs. They're more comfortable discussing it. But another reason is I think a lot of people are feeling increased stress for a lot of different reasons. We're in a very unique time in our history where our communication technologies have changed dramatically, which have opened up a lot of our opportunities. But those technologies have also displaced a lot of the things that help us maintain our grounding and our mental health.

Eric: And so we're seeing some of those things play out in creating this dramatic need for understanding of how to strengthen our mental health.

Mike: Did you see the need for it or the concern for it go up post COVID and the isolation that followed?

Eric: COVID had a way of really, I think, enhancing dynamics that were already at play.

Eric: It put such extraordinary pressure on people, but it also, depending upon where you were and what your situation was, could be incredibly isolating. And then of course there was all these other dramatic changes that were going on culturally at the time as well that created just a ton of psychological pressure for people.

Eric: And so I think COVID really ramped things up a lot. And I think we're seeing some ongoing impacts from COVID as well. But it in some ways, I think just exacerbated conditions that were already present.

Mike: That's funny you should say that because when I ask kids, especially young people, I said, well, the data shows that you've been an increased or decrease in mental health among your population since, and they all go COVID.

Mike: I'm like, no, no. It shows since about 2012 and the advent of Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, et cetera. And you alluded to that with social media.

Eric: Yeah. I think that you've hit on something that's really important. Which is that at a minimum, these different technologies have displaced a lot of the important experiences that we have that help us grow in our mental health and help us increase our receptivity.

Eric: And I think that in a lot of ways, they have created the challenge that we're facing. That's not to say that everything about these new digital tools that we've got is bad, but they are definitely destabilizing.

Mike: Yeah. And omnipresent too, right?

Eric: Yeah.

Mike: So when I go on the mental health first aid website, and we'll put a link to that on the podcast, for those of you who are listening, it states that upwards of 60% of American youth, you mentioned them before, are afraid to ask for help.

Mike: There's still a stigma as much as we talk about it. Is that the reason they're afraid to ask for help or what do you find when you talk to, especially young people, why are they afraid to ask for help?

Eric: You know, I think that there's of course a natural concern about asking for help.

Eric: It just in general, because of course we all want to think of ourselves as a dependent and capable, and that there can be, of course, a stigma. And I think there's also a strong desire for everybody to feel, like, how should I put it? I can just handle myself and take care of things.

Eric: But I would also say that one of the things that has added to this dynamic of not being asking for help is. The places where we ask for help are often in those moments of human contact, face-to-face, in the right conditions. And I mean, we've all seen the way that the technology has displaced people from face-to-face communication.

Eric: Younger people are seeing each other less. They're seeing friends less. And this applies to adults as well. And this was going on before COVID. We've all seen the dynamic that if we're with our kids who are in that sort of preteen to junior high school age where they're gathered in a group and if one of them in a circle starts looking at their phone, they all start looking at their phone.

Eric: The communication dies down, and it's often in those informal moments that you can ask for help. It's in those moments when someone says, Hey, how are you doing? And if you don't have that right environment, that opportunity's not there in the way that it would've been otherwise.

Mike: I like what you said about especially being face-to-face.

Mike: About a decade ago, my daughter, who's now a college graduate, was taking dance Deacon and I went to pick her up one day and a class let out before hers did of high school and middle school girls. She was younger at the time. And so these young women. I think I counted, it was like 14, 15 of them come into the hallway, go up to her, their bags or whatever.

Mike: And in any other decade, those 14 women, young women, would've been chatting with one another. Instead, they all reached for their phone and it was dead silent in the hallway. And I thought, oh. Oh, that's a decade ago. We haven't gotten better with this. That's where it's at right?

Eric: No, it's true.

Eric: And I'm sure you're familiar with the book, The Anxious Generation.

Mike: Yes.

Eric: But that book does a good job of documenting something that so many people talked about in other ways, which is that life provides us so many learning opportunities, opportunities to grow, opportunities for kind of safe exploration of the world around us.

Eric: And that happens throughout our childhood and of course, adulthood too. But with the dynamic of mobile phones, that opportunity for quiet, for reflection, for encountering things has been compromised. And also a mindset amongst parenting what of being very risk averse.

Eric: And of course, we want our kids to avoid serious risk, but kids not just getting that time out there in creation, that time interacting with each other, that time solving problems together. That the lack of those opportunities kind of, sort of decreases resiliency. And we need to be aware of that and make some adjustments so that people have that opportunity to build resiliency.

Mike: Do you ever have phones go off in the middle of a mass?

Eric: (laughs) It's happened. But here's the thing, the culprits usually for going off in mass, almost always an older person, because the kids, they don't have their ringers on.

Mike: No, they don't. No,

Eric: They don't because they can hear that vibration, because their ears are very attuned to it, because that's where so much communication comes to them.

Eric: So. Yeah. It's a real dynamic.

Mike: Yeah. I've got some embarrassing ring tones. I would not want to be going off in the, in the middle of mass. (laughs).

Eric: Oh, yeah. We've heard some. (laughs)

Mike: Well, tell us about the training for Mental Health First Aid. What is it and what does it cover?

Eric: So the training is really helpful. It talks about the dynamics of mental health. It talks about the importance of reducing stigma, of listening and also helping to encourage and refer people successfully. It walks through a lot of different types of mental health crisis you might see. Explains some of the things that we look for, but it really is very, very careful to make sure that we are not trying to diagnose. We're not trying to be counselors. We are trying to provide people the encouragement and the referral and the support so that they can get help and get help on, and also help themselves. That's a really important distinction. You're not going to be trying to play a role that you're not equipped to do, but it does make you better at playing the role that we're all supposed to play. Being a supportive listener, someone who cares, and someone who's able to help someone in a time of difficulty.

Mike: I think it's really hard. In fact, I've done presentations on how to have difficult conversations.

Mike: I think the hardest part is just initiating it. It's hard to do. So give gimme an example of an opener. If you're concerned about somebody's mental wellbeing or their substance use. How do you start that topic?

Eric: It varies. One example is when you're talking with someone saying how are you doing?

Eric: There's a difference between saying, Hey, how's it going? Or How are you doing? Your tone of voice, your attentiveness and of course your awareness of your surroundings. I mean, there's certain settings where it's gonna be much better than others to have the conversation, but that willingness to really ask someone how they're doing, and in a way that where you're really concerned about it and that you really care, you're ready to accompany them. That makes a huge difference.

Eric: Versus people say, how's it going when people can tell the right answer. Oh, it's going great. Being able to be really available to a person is really important.

Mike: I think even though you might, and I love the tone that you use, even though you might use the tone, I would think most of the time you're still gonna get a, I'm okay.

Eric: You're right that often happens. Sometimes you might say, Hey, I noticed that you're just not taking care of yourself in the way they usually do. Your hair's not combed. You're not getting sleep. How are you doing? That kind of observation is often something.

Eric: There's even cases where you're, if you're suicide, this is one of the helpful things about the training you're trained to say. Have you been planning to kill yourself?

Eric: Being able to ask somebody that question, it's surprisingly difficult to do, but in a situation where somebody has had experienced dramatic changes, where they've made subtle comments that suggests that suicide is something they're considering. Asking that question is not going to increase their likelihood of committing suicide, but it might open the door to really getting them help when they need it.

Mike: Well, and if you say. Are you okay? And they come back with, oh, I'm fine. The chances are, well, you at least told them you care. And it may be a day later, a week later, or you know, maybe your next service where they say, can I talk to you for a minute? 'Cause now you've let them know that you've noticed and you're available.

Eric: Exactly.

Eric: And that you are okay with the answer being no. Because sometimes I think people need to know that the people that care about them are all right with them not being all right.

Mike: Do you think that families have a hard time doing this Deacon? Because they don't wanna know the answer and they don't know what to do.

Mike: Like, their anxiety goes up like, if my son isn't okay, or my daughter isn't okay, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do?

Eric: I think that one of the things that happens is we forget sometimes that God is working in that person's life, that people have the capability of working through problems on their own.

Eric: That we're not carrying the responsibility for fixing things. In fact, fixing things is really not what we're being asked to do. But accompanying people opens the door to some of those things happening and it's also I think really important for people to understand that mental health is not this binary situation of like you're either perfectly mentally healthy or you're not mentally healthy.

Eric: And it's a situation where each of us can improve our ability to use the faculties God's given us, our intellect, our will, all those capabilities. We have the ability to improve and grow in that, or we run into situations where sometimes things aren't going as well as they should be, and we need help.

Eric: And it's totally okay to ask for help. The understanding that there's that ability for people to recover is so important. Because I think sometimes people think, oh, well, if someone has a diagnosis, they are the diagnosis. But that's not normal reality.

Mike: Well, and it's also empowering to say to somebody what can I do to help?

Mike: Knowing that they're in charge of their own stuff. Otherwise, you're giving them the message, boy, you're not capable of doing it yourself.

Eric: Yeah, exactly. And that it's okay to accompany someone when things are not going well.

Mike: You said it before, the training isn't just for therapists and counselors, in fact, even therapists and counselors when surveyed, they want more training in mental health and substance abuse.

Eric: No, it's really important for people to know that they can play a role in helping. That you don't have to be an expert to offer referral or encouragement. You just need to be available and to try to help that person feel like it's okay to recognize that something might need to change.

Eric: And it's okay to ask for help.

Mike: So you must spend time on boundaries. Like where the first aid stops and transitioning to longer term care goes right.

Eric: Right, exactly. Yeah, it's important for us to know that we're not counselors. Counselors are a particular type of relationship. And I think it's also important to know that there's a place for counselors, but there's also a place for friends, for family, for people who are gonna walk with someone throughout their life.

Eric: And that we don't have to be something that we're not trained to be. In fact, it's important that we are who we are for that person. And that they feel encouraged to get the help that they might need. That's enough for us. It seems like it's a small thing, but it's actually a really important thing.

Mike: So when people go through it, well, first of all even though I'll put the link at the end of the podcast, how do people go access the training?

Eric: So you're going to want to use that link and you can obtain a training through the website. And you can also see that many times your organization will have be offering a training, but you'll be really pleasantly surprised by the number of trainings that are being offered out.

Mike: Well, okay then, boy, you're good at the segue. Anticipating what I'm gonna say. When we talk about transitioning to somewhere else, we've had a number of guests on recently who are concerned about the lack of, or the deteriorating number of resources available.

Mike: You're in a big city. I'm in a big city. But there's many parts of this country where there aren't therapists available, or you have to travel a long way, or it has to be via Zoom or whatever,

Eric: Right. There's definitely limitations. And of course being a effective first aider does not necessarily mean that there's tons of help out there.

Eric: And so I think sometimes it's important that we not think that just the simple act of contacting a counselor or a therapist is going to be like flipping a switch. Problems are solved. We've got everything that we need. Often it takes a lot of time for someone to find the right resources, find the right support.

Mike: How do you do that? Do you have a bank of resources that you have in your Rolodex, as it were?

Eric: So our archdiocese doesn't make recommendations for therapists, but each parish or each location is going to have names for local resources. One thing that I should mention is there's a national suicide hotline.

Eric: 9 8 8. That people can access any time. And if you're in a situation where someone's in a very serious, immediate threat, you're gonna get help right away. You're gonna make sure that that person gets that resource. And sometimes it takes time to find a good counselor, talking to people and making sure that you encourage somebody to find the right person if they can, to find a counselor that works for them. And sometimes they have to look outside the box. It might be Zoom has to be a resource, and to be patient because sometimes counselors are busy. The best ones often have a full plate of people that they're seeing currently.

Eric: So it is important to people that people are realistic about resources, that they don't think that, okay everything's gonna be available right away.

Mike: What kind of skills does the training cover? Like what would I learn if I went through it?

Eric: You're gonna get some practice at listening judgmentally you're, or not listening, not judgmentally I should say.

Eric: You're gonna get some practice in referring, you're be continually practicing encouraging. And having a little bit of practice of just quietly listening and also asking some of those questions that are awkward and being comforted that the awkward conversation is okay, awkward is fine. It's really sometimes the only way that a good conversation is gonna happen is if you're able to go into that awkward place.

Mike: Yeah. And it's like anything else. The more often that you have the conversation, the easier it gets to have it.

Eric: Yeah. It becomes more familiar.

Mike: How do you let people know, or do you, do you not, you don't have to let people know that you're a mental health first aider or you just go about doing your stuff?

Eric: Yeah, I think that really actually is helpful because if someone is looking for help. They don't care is about your how much you know you they will just wanna know you care and that's the thing that matters most. And that you're encouraging them to take on the agency of getting help and working through things that people are pretty able to get information these days.

Eric: Information's available, but what people really need often is encouragement and accompaniment. Those things are so important.

Mike: It seems like every week we're experiencing new trauma and we're taping this after a latest series of terrible events and I've had numerous people in the last week talk to me about feeling scared, morose and mostly powerless.

Eric: Yeah.

Mike: And so talk about given the current climate and the level of discourse that we have in our culture right now, what can people do day to day to just take care of their own mental health, not others, but their own?

Eric: Well, this is something that's from outside of the training. It's actually some of the content that I do working with formation for deacons and ongoing supportive deacons. But I think one thing that's really helpful to do is a simple process that is common to cognitive behavioral therapy of spending some time tracking what you're doing. How you're feeling and what you're thinking at those different moments.

Eric: And so I'll ask the new deacons to do this for a week and to just start seeing the correlations between the thing you're doing and how you're feeling and what's going through your mind. And to really start to pay attention to the patterns in your life, what I think you can tell people right away is there's certain things that are going to contribute to making you a little bit more anxious.

Eric: So doom scrolling the news is a surefire way to do that because unfortunately, the way that our news tends to be is that it tends to focus on the areas that we can have the least impact on, national or international areas. Somebody that I feel like being active and engaged civically is really important, but I encourage people, go to your city council meeting.

Eric: Work on that level. Work on a local level where you can see concrete progress. Actually engage things and don't worry about tracking things that you have no control over. Be aware of the bigger picture issues. But I think that our news cycle never was meant to be every 30 minutes you could check it, find what the most offensive thing that somebody said somewhere in the world.

Eric: So I think that's one key thing that's helpful for people to just on a general basis to track what you're doing, to be aware of what's happening, and to be thoughtful about it and notice the patterns.

Mike: And then in your day-to-day relationships with other people. Try to find a way to find positivity and gratitude.

Eric: Yeah, I mean, I think ultimately we had to remember that God's in control of human events. None of us are going to be able to control everything. God does want us to take agency in our lives and to do good work and to focus on how can I contribute and to trust that God's providence is ultimately going to take care of creation.

Eric: You know, God's got creation. I'm gonna be responsible for what I do.

Mike: Yeah. It reminds me, I referenced when people talk to me about that, I always referenced the old one about the flood and the flooding the guy on the roof of his house denying all help, right? But he sent a rowboat and he sent and he sent a helicopter and he declines all of them.

Mike: 'Cause he is waiting for God. And then God says, who do you think sent the rowboat? Right? We have the, we have the tools available to us. They're out there.

Eric: Yeah. And I think the other thing I think is so important is. To take the initiative to strengthen your relationships with family and with friends, and to put those things first.

Eric: So sometimes you're gonna get home from work and you're gonna feel it's Friday night and you're kind of tired and you're just like, I don't know if I want to have dinner with friends and maybe I'm just gonna stay home. Take the initiative, go see your friends, go see 'em in person.

Eric: Go have dinner with your parents. Sit down the dinner at your table. And for parents and kids, it phones away from the dinner table, phones out of the bedrooms. Those things are just iron rules that are so important.

Mike: Be present. That's a great place to end it too.

Mike: For those of you who are interested, we are of course gonna put links to the Mental Health First Aid training on the podcast. The people at the National Council for Mental Wellbeing. If you check their website out too, they have just a unbelievably skilled group of people who write unbelievable stuff.

Mike: I think you'd enjoy that too. Deacon Paige, thank you so much for joining us today.

Eric: Well, it's been a blessing to be with you Mike, and love what you're doing and really am glad to be part of it.

Mike: Yeah, thanks.

Mike: And for those of you listening and watching, we hope you find peace, hope, support, wherever you are.

Mike: As always, thank you for listening. Be safe and please reach out to somebody in need. Okay.