Depression | Lived Experience

I remember everything feeling very dark feeling very black and white and feeling very helpless for whatever reason I believe that I was super depressed very very depressed I was also at 9 and 10 years old I knew I was different not from just depression but from being gay yeah and so my Mo was to be small to be quiet to hide to get through it because I was just trying to be like I'm not gay and I'm not depressed so try to explain people who have been depressed I'd say it's like I understand fundamentally that a good thing could happen to me like I might win the lottery if I was depressed and I go this is good I would love this money this is awesome but do I feel excited do I feel happy no I feel like I want to go back in bed [Music] hi welcome to Med circles it's all in your head podcast I'm your host Jackie colbath and it's great to be with you today we are going to talk about childhood depression struggles with sexuality and how chronic medical conditions can all Impact your mental health with our favorite Med Circle host Kyle Kittleson Kyle's first experience with depression occurred at the tender age of just nine years old at the same time Kyle began struggling to accept his sexuality as a gay man which also impacted his mental health Kyle is an inspiration to so many and we are so excited he took time out of his very busy schedule to chat with us Kyle welcome to it's all in your head hi Jackie thank you great to have you here I know our audience is going to be super pumped to learn more about you your experience and different mental health struggles that you've had in your life now full disclosure I know Kyle on a personal level although I did not know Kyle during his childhood when he was diagnosed with childhood depression and I'm hoping you can share with us a little bit more what that was like because a lot of people assume the onset of depression happens in like puberty 1213 seems very common blah blah blah and I'm fascinated to hear what it was like for you experiencing that as a child under the age of 10. yeah actually yesterday Jackie I went to go get a B12 shot at this doctor's office and it was the same it was the same office that my mom took me to when I was probably eight maybe seven um when I saw a therapist for the first time and I had never been there probably since I was seven or eight it was in the same building but when I got there I thought wow what a what a journey that has been because growing up I remember everything feeling very dark feeling very black and white and feeling very helpless in spite of having to support a parents a brother that I got along with school friends activities all the things that on paper would mean a child shouldn't be depressed for whatever reason I believe that I was super depressed very very depressed um and my parents made the decision to put me on Prozac at nine years old and that really I remember I would have to my mom would take a syringe of Prozac it was a liquid Prozac oh and put it under my tongue and we do it over the kitchen sink and I'd have to spit out like rinse my mouth out with water and I hated the experience so much and we did it you know every day for four weeks and I'm telling you on the fourth week it was like I it was like re-meeting all these people for the first time wow I'm like oh hey Mom hey Dad hey teacher Hey Brother Hey friends like I I didn't know you guys were really around like you were around but I didn't really see you and uh man I remember going into the doctor's office and they go have you noticed any Improvement and I said yes and then my mom goes oh yes major Improvement you know because I would cry at the drop of a hat I would throw a tantrum at the drop of the Hat I thought everything was abysmal and terrible and yeah it was it was it was really rough for sure um but in in some ways you get it done early and you start learning management techniques early and so in some ways it was great it would have been terrible it would have been terrible if it had gone undiagnosed debilitating terrible so I'm thankful for the diagnosis yes no definitely and it's something that I'm wondering does that run in the family like I know depression can run did either of your parents do you know did they ever struggle with depression well here so the answer to that is not to my knowledge and not their knowledge however I think a lot of people especially older Generations struggle with depression and don't know it yeah because I grew up in a suck it up household yeah there was there was oh my gosh suck it up you got problems you got issues suck it up you hurt yourself suck it up someone's making fun of you at school suck it up that was what I heard my whole childhood and that's because my parents came from a generation where you just sucked it up yes so if they did suffer from depression I don't think anybody was saying well let's take you to a therapist yeah they just kind of like Get get over it you know but I will I will tell you I hope my dad doesn't mind me sharing this my dad uh uh had a had a bout of depression in his life yep um when I was much older this was just a few years ago and he told me he goes Kyle I always believed you when you said you were depressed I believed it no question but I couldn't empathize with it because I had never felt that way until he felt that way until he couldn't you know function like he normally would and that was actually very um that's probably the only time I've been happy to hear somebody because I was like okay you get it like you get it if because if you've been depressed you get it for sure right right and it's it unlike trying to explain it sometimes like when I talk about depression or like nagging Melancholy I'll say to people well like you know we're think of something you were sad about and then just be sad about it all day every day yeah with no real relief but also two no concrete reasons as you mentioned you know and that's kind of the Mind F if you know what I mean is well outwardly I've got a supportive family I'm a smart kid I've Got Friends and it puts you in a place of well there's no reason for this and then in come the shame right of oh I'm ashamed I even feel this way because I shouldn't and it can be a really especially with kids it's hard to articulate um I found it harder to articulate myself when I was a young child so it's it's definitely something I think that would breed in and I know it has with you a ton of empathy and can really just uh help a lot of people yeah when you were just talking about um having that shame come in so you're you're depressed and then you're attacking yourself for being depressed yes and then you're like gosh why am I attacking myself for being depressed you're attacking yourself for attacking yourself for gonna be impressed Dr Lam I Dr Lam and I she's a psychiatrist out in California one of the medicines right doctors and she I forgot exactly what she called it but it was something like well that's like a doctorate degree in self-attack when you're attacking yourself for attacking yourself or attacking yourself but but and and by the way people listening to this well not in agreement we've all had versions of that varieties of that even if you've never met clinical depression I think we've all had I'm tacking myself and then go why am I attacking myself come on Kyle don't attack yourself and then you're attacking yourself or attacking yourself right right I remember friends going hey Jackie take it easy on yourself that's my friend you're talking about yeah and yeah and did you have were you able to and I don't know with the young age I can't recall myself but was there anybody outside your parents at that tender age that you talk to about this I don't know if like I know not at all I wasn't talking to anybody I was also at nine and ten years old I knew I was different not from just depression but from being gay yeah and so my MO from you know 16 years and younger maybe even 17 or 18 years and younger was to be small to be quiet to hide to get through it because I was just trying to be like I'm not gay and I'm not depressed remember that everybody I'm not I'm Kyle and I'm not gay and I'm not depressed hello and that was just my tagline not gay not depressed I'm fine the truth was I was super gay and super depressed and so it living a lie like that is an emotional toll an emotional toll I can't even imagine just listening to different friends experiences who taking the time to listen in in coming out you know it's ten times deeper than you know telling it to a straight person you know it's definitely uh so nuanced it can be a way for you to beat up on yourself which I think is horrible and Kyle and I were talking about this earlier I was saying to him well just it's not like homosexuality is a mental illness by any means you know like uh none of that is in and of itself but I also have to imagine that when you're struggling with something like sexuality that's such an innate part of you something that you know in your bones was there anybody around be it a friend family that you were able to maybe start talking to about that and opening up a bit to to get some you know reassurance and acceptance well I I told my mom that I think I liked boy actually I told my dad that I wanted to be a girl when I was probably four or five and uh I don't want to be a girl I I never I don't think I ever wanted to be a girl I think that was how I was navigating the world as a young gay person even at four five six how old I was realizing oh I don't fit in with like the boys at school but I fit in with the girls at school so maybe I needed to be a girl then I told my mom when I was probably seven and eight or nine um I was like I I didn't say I'm gay because I didn't even have the words for that I didn't even know gay was a word right and I was like but I think you know I like boys or I don't know exactly what I told me and said it and my mom said um you don't know you don't know what you like and I said okay maybe I don't then I told my dad when I was probably 10 or 11. and I was just in tears telling him and uh he later told me he's like well yeah I knew you were gay when you were like free and I go okay and then um and then I but then even though I came out and so to speak to my parents that way early on it wasn't definitive I was more coming to them going I'm confused I'm sad I'm scared and here are the reasons why and they were just like well you know basically we don't know and then when I was 18 I came out to my friends in high school and I came out to them actually knowing what I was coming out as now yeah and then um shortly after that I told my dad and then my mom had died I never came out to my mother or my grandmother um but I told I told my dad and and and everyone was fine with it and and you also have to remember I got very lucky everyone was very supportive and you know 20 years ago 25 years ago it was not as easy it is today I don't know to come out um if I meet another the high school are going to prom a same-sex prom date yeah I go what aren't you afraid I look at them I go aren't you afraid to do that and they're like what do you mean no it's like so just part of the culture now and I give the young kids a lot of hard times because they're not good at eye contact they're too much time on their phones they're obsessed with social media I mean to get them to say a sentence without using like or um is almost impossible but I will tell you this they are progressive and ahead of the game in terms of inclusivity and uh and acceptance of culture and identity uh they really are heading out of the park there I think oh hands down I mean I would have rather died than tell anybody I was struggling with my mental health but yeah no I get with the mental health thing for sure and especially Jackie I think it's easier in a lot of ways to come out if you're a depression like if you're depressed yes because everyone's heard of it lots of it's it's the second most popular diagnosis diagnosis in the in the manual yeah bipolar disorder much more rare yeah comparatively and so much more stigmatized much more misunderstood so of course I of course people would feel hesitant to come out with that oh yeah I until I met my first millennial I'm bipolar they were they were it was loud I'm over here is the reaction going oh hey guys you're kind of letting that out of the bag and putting it on blast what's wrong with you you know are you nuts yeah yeah but I was so bowled over with just admiration and respect to your point no matter what I think of your social skills what I do think of your empathy in your EQ they have such a high EQ and and I literally just you know applaud them whether it's homosexuality mental illness um they're very very open and they will talk a lot about it which I think is is something that we need in order to talk more now you've mentioned your mom for the audience Kyle's mom was the classiest woman I have literally ever met you can call my parents and ask them when I had first met her as a teen and your grandmother as well I wish I could portray to the audience just what a stunning classy caring amazing woman you had for a mother oh I mean I'm obviously biased but oh I mean runner up to miss Oklahoma from the south elegant you know I I think I don't have any recollection of her ever having a drink in her life she drank tea you know she was just well and she was my best friend and we I've never maybe there's one person in my life I've left as hard with but man my mom and I would just laugh and laugh I mean that was just it it was the joke in my family was it was me and my mom and then my brother my dad and that we just if we went on vacation I went wherever mom was going and he would whatever yeah yeah you kind of go to your Corners you know I think that happens a lot too but I know what an unbelievable person she was overall and I remember my mother saying this after her funeral sadly she had passed after her funeral and me and my family attended I will never forget it we got back in the car you know very very solemn it's just such a loss and my mother said I will never ever have that many attendees saying that many nice things about me when I go well part of me was like yeah I know sorry Mom I just I was gonna say that's not true that is not not true Mark it's not true but I do also remember that and I cannot fathom how difficult it was to deal with that can you give the audience an idea of just what it is like to navigate that level of grief um really well executed question I remember a time I was a freshman in high school and I was talking to my friend in math class and they said um have you done any drugs and I said no and they said would you do any drugs and I said No and then I said well actually if something really bad happened like if my mom died I would probably just give up and do drugs I remember saying that and uh then uh coincidentally two years later she ended up dying and I didn't go use drugs but I just use that as an ex to illustrate what even the idea at the time of losing my mom meant for me to me at that time it meant fully giving up in life without my mother it was almost like there is no point because she was it for me everything so to lose it the grief was uh complex because I still think a year however many you know I was 16 I'm 37 so we'll call it 16 years is that 16 years I don't know I can't do that no more than that anyway it's what is that 20 years 21 years has it been 29 years 16 you're 37 21 years 21 years wow so 21 years later I'm still grieving yes um right now I could either start crying or keep it together and do the interview with you that's how fragile I am sometimes when this comes up I keep no images of my mother anywhere yep I don't have them on my phone I don't have them in my house there's a picture of her in her wedding dress hung up in a secondary closet that I go into a few times a year that's the only time I see an image of her and that's on purpose because to me they are triggering events that bring up all of this emotion and I can already hear doctor I brought this up with Dr Lam during one of our workshops for Med Circle members and uh it is unprocessed grief uh it is unprocessed grief yes I was 16 when she died yeah I I buried it fast and hard and just went to the next thing and Nev I don't think still has have really ever dealt with it the way a therapist would maybe advocate for me to deal with it sure um I put it in a little box and put it away and I'll also say personally I don't think there's anything wrong with that I don't know if there's a wrong way to grieve yes I think you can do it however you want you know when when my uh grandmother was dying I was sitting with her at her bed trying to comfort her and my brother was playing poker and it's not because my brother is bad or wasn't grieving or wasn't sad it's because that's how he decided to deal with it and there's nothing wrong with playing poker if that's the distraction or the way you need to deal with it yeah and so we all do it differently it was terrible it still is terrible but I will tell you this Time Heals all wounds I believe that it is easier today obviously than it was 21 years ago and um it's the grief is also very understandable yeah it's very understandable you know I you interviewed Austin Hamilton on your podcast you struggled with porn addiction and he's a friend of mine and he wouldn't mind me sharing this because he shared it publicly he might have even shared it on your podcast but he said he lost his mom when he was five years old yes yes and he was in therapy as a full fledged adult married with kids yes and the therapist was like did you have any trauma in your life or or is I don't remember exactly I think they said did you have anything bad happen to you when you're a kid or something and he goes well yeah my mom died in a plane crash when I was five and uh that hasn't impacted me I'm fine which cannot be a possibility a trial to lose their mother will have an impact from that event and um I I think I brought that up just to show that a lot of us grieve differently there's no right or wrong way and when you have so much time pass you do get into your own Regiment of how you cope and deal with it and so while part of me goes no I should go to therapy and figure out what what my grief is so I can have pictures of my mom up around the house or I'm just not gonna have pictures of my mom around the house right just let me live you know and I and I I think there's some power in that there's no right or a wrong way to do this y'all no and I'm I'm glad and to reiterate that there is no right or wrong way to grieve I would often um if we've had a family member pass I don't want a remnant of them you know and we even talked about this with dogs we have even you know and not to trivialize it comparing it to a parent but I will go through in in this drives my mother nuts because she's convinced it's you know just a bad way to go in her head because her way of dealing with it is to create like a monument yeah photos and I say you know uh good I would not be able to function really like if I had a constant reminder I know the way I'm Bill I just don't know if I could keep it together the same way she keeps it together so we've had a lot of ongoing debates when I'm throwing everything out or putting everything in a closet and you come over and there's like not a Remnant it's not because I'm not sad or devastated to your point that's my way of dealing with it and I just don't see as much as I love therapists sometimes um I just don't know if you can retrain someone you know force them through therapy and all of a sudden I'm going to be walking around with photos everywhere of everyone I loved who's past I just don't I I just don't uh see that yeah there's um two great series by med circle on Grief with Dr Judy um and understanding the stages of grief I think are really important for people but also remembering that they don't go in this order we're like here's here's here's how you feel honey you feel this way and then this way and then this way and then you go back to feeling this way and then you feel this way it just but understanding the stages of what those could be I think are are really impactful this this is the other thing Jackie is talking about mental health for me this is all I do is talk about mental health yes it is all I do and when I a lot of my non-med circle time is talking about mental health because people are like oh I have this question about mental health or I want to get your thoughts about this absolutely that's my job and so I probably have the largest toolkit of strategies and tips exercises and I have a better than normal understanding and depression and what are all these things and so it has helped me navigate all of these things um even today I'll give a very simple example but so powerful if you can do it today I woke up and I was a little more tired than normal and I didn't feel like maybe I was in the best mood sure but because I've had all this experience and education from these amazing doctors I can really identify it very quickly like Abby you didn't get a lot of sleep yeah and you didn't really eat healthy and you're probably a little dehydrated and it's not this and it's not that and you start to realize where your mood actually is coming from where the old Kyle prior to all this would be wake up and go I don't feel good well this sucks now I don't feel good so I'm probably not going to feel good all day and how am I going to get all this work done if I don't feel good and you start spiraling and spiraling smiling yes yeah I I don't spiral I don't spiral anymore it's good and just because I understand that's awesome you bring up you bring up something I was thinking about last weekend my family my brother his wife and my niece were in town she's about two and a half years old oh yeah and you know what two and a half year olds get like if they don't nap get their like midday nap I mean you know this if I don't have to but yeah well thank you your head is where my head was at so she has full-blown meltdown right like full-blown hands flying you know like complete meltdown and she doesn't know she's tired she doesn't have that Insight yet and I look at my brother and I go well I mean I have a version of that as an adult when when I don't know when I'm tired or I'm hungry you know what I mean I go it but as adults we can at least pause and I always go back to I didn't retain a ton in rehab okay but I retained enough to keep certain things in my head one of them was if you're feeling kind of funky or like you I wake up and I'm just like today might not be a banner day I don't know it's halt hungry angry lonely or tired and it is usually one of those things if not a couple that are really contributing kind of to like your inner discontent yeah if you will and to this day well now every time I I feel weird I'm like don't wig out like your niece throwing stuff and getting angry and causing a scene but it just really highlighted for me I don't care how old you are I don't care how young you are when your body is telling you something you might not know exactly what it's telling you but you should probably try to figure out oh you know what what's going on the body keeps the score as a vessel I can't remember his name van vaynerchuk anyway some guy way smarter than me wrote a book by keeps the score must read for anybody who's alive and um yeah your body's always telling you what to do and if you don't listen your body will just tell you louder and louder you know I became obsessed with sleep over the last probably two years learning about it understanding it and this is something I think listeners might find interesting it is a concept called polyphasic sleeping and there's there's three I'm not an expert on this it's just what I read there's three different types of sleeping there's monophasic biphasic and polyphasic most of us are on monophasic where we sleep for a portion of the 24-hour period we go to bed at night we wake up some of us are biphasic and a lot of countries are biphasic or the different cultures are so you'll sleep for a large function at portion at night and then you'll take a nap in the middle of the day and then uh babies and how we're born we're polyphasic where we sleep on and off during the 24-hour cycle just as our body needs it but we move babies away from polyphasic sleeping to monophasic sleeping as quickly as possible and all I hear are parents about trying to get their kid to sleep through the night yeah and all those things and there's an argument that we are meant as a species to sleep polyphasically rather than monophasically and there are people out there who sleep polyphasically where they will sleep for 20 minutes every two hours for a 24-hour cycle come on they are awake for 40 more hours during the week they are not tired in fact they are incredibly energized and feel uh rested because their sleep is so efficient their body has learned all right we get 20 minutes to crank it in for the next two hours so they go to sleep immediately they go right into deep sleep and then they come out 20 minutes later I only say this to Express the necessity of getting your sleep under control if you're going to tackle your mental health issues or or anything it's the nut it's number one for me I think most of our doctors would say it's number one number two for sure you know it it is the thing if you can't figure that out everything else is difficult more difficult than it needs to be right so I can imagine tackling anything that has to do with sleep would be definitely worthwhile and I think there's lots of different things with Dr Judith Joseph a psychiatrist out in New York and we did a whole series on sleep uh sleep and the intersection of sleep and anxiety and uh yeah I mean if you've never heard the phrase sleep hygiene number you got to go learn that I thought that was just taking a shower before you go to bed but it's the whole method about getting your body on a routine getting it triggered first sleep getting it to go into better sleep it's not about getting to eight nine ten hours it's about getting great great sleep and you know anyway I could go off and off on sleep but no that's fascinating there was a book called why we sleep oh my God it's on my nightstand right now okay yeah and yeah but here's the thing when I read a book in bed I fall asleep well okay so I just I just got I just did an at-home sleep test and I have sleep apnea and so I go into the job oh my gosh it's so easy you wear a cap for three nights in a row and then all the information virtually gets sent to the doctor and then they tell you if you have sleep apnea or not oh wow and uh I stopped breathing on average 10 times a night which is the low or 10 times an hour which is the lowest like it's like minor sleep apnea but anyway as a joke to you remind me of this I go into the doctor's office they're like how are you today sir and I'm like honey I'm tired like you got my results you know yeah I'm at the Sleep Clinic how do you think I'm doing I'm tired here you know oh definitely it it is a component and I think it's super important to include all the components because honestly I I wouldn't have known that I would think like oh your mental health is just all these chemicals kind of bouncing around you're at their disposal you know so um even looking into something like that to your point was sort of Our Generation was probably a little later in the game to really highlight how important that is yeah now I don't know if this is a particular case but do you think that I know you were diagnosed with crohn's disease what happens when you have something like that how how do you see that sort of playing into or or did it trigger your depression I I imagine that's obviously I'm friends with this it can be difficult and frustrating and painful so I'm definitely wondering if upon that diagnosis was it sort of like okay I gotta you know work even harder this is kind of bumming me out I'm wondering how that you know fits into the whole grand scheme well when I was diagnosed with crohn's disease I didn't even have time to acknowledge any depression okay it was it was so overwhelming that it was it was all I could do I was diagnosed in 2005. right now I'm six six one I weigh 170 pounds um at 661 the same height I weighed 94 pounds no uh I was in the hospital I was just Skin and Bones uh hooked up to a tube for like nutrients to you know keep me going and so when you're do dealing with all that you're not like all right duh you're depressed because you weigh 94 pounds and you're supposed to not weigh that um I think the big takeaway there not to bring it back to sleep was there is a correlation between stress and sleep and micrones if I get four hours of sleep I can almost guarantee you that my crowns is going to flare up in the morning I almost as a guarantee I can tell you that um if I'm really stressed out it will also have a higher likelihood of flaring up but the one theory that was floated around my doctors and I was I actually believe it is that I held on to I I hid myself from being gay for so long in so many different ways um from everyone in my life okay so I was playing or I was acting to a degree with everybody in my life and that amount of stress I think triggered the Resurgence of Crohn's Disease now I don't know if that's true I'm not a doctor but it just makes sense to me yeah and um I'm not saying I wouldn't have these symptoms of Crohn's if I wasn't gay or if I had come out earlier but they might have come later or they might not have been severe when they did show up because they were they were as severe as symptoms for crohn's can get do you did you ever have time after you mentioned your prescribed Prozac when you were entering therapy for childhood depression has there been any instances over the years where you felt like oh this this is kind of creeping back like it's been okay okay that's my curiosity that has happened three times in my life okay and let me tell you this yeah please those three times yeah where I've had what I consider a relapse in depression and yeah so they're my doctors yeah uh it was all correlated with me going off my meds ah in my 20s I didn't know better and so I'm feeling good I'm you know broke so I don't want to go spend another 60 bucks for another whatever you know month of meds or whatever it was and I'm like I feel good I can do this and you you when you're not depressed you feel like you can do stuff you know I'm like I can do it well put and then I got off the meds and fine for a while and it's that sinking feeling that Creeps in and it's very subtle and when I feel it I go no no no no no no no no no no no no no no I can't do this no we're not gonna do this and then day by day it gets worse until it it it's like a disease moving through your body that shuts your whole body down and I always to try to explain people who haven't been depressed I'd say it's like I understand fundamentally that a good thing could happen to me like I might win the lottery if I was pressed and I go this is good I would love this money this is awesome but do I feel excited do I feel happy no I feel like I want to go back in bed and I want to close the blinds and I I have the stereotypical depression wherever let's put me in a dark room um and it it came back so I you know one time I was just driving around aimlessly in Florida when it was really bad I don't even know where I was going I don't know anything and I uh my dad called me and he's like what's going on and I broke down and I got into a therapist another time I left the dentist I I was in the chair at the dentist office and I was like I got I just started crying I'm like I gotta get out of here and they're like honey it'll be okay or I know we're scared of of you know the dentist I'm like I'm not scared of the dentist having a full-blown breakdown and I just went into my car and just cried cried cried in my car and I I found a same-day psychiatrist in Beverly Hills I go see him at like 9 30 at night and he's on this this like top floor Penthouse office thing and I'm thinking all right I'm seeing a really good guy here and I come in and I'm crying and like barely talking and he was terrible Jackie like when I tell you he was he's the worst experience I've had with a mental health provider the only things he told me is how many celebrity clients he has offered no support no next steps no information no guidance nothing was just I mean anyway I can't go to it so that happened another time so yeah the relapse has happened but let me tell you after the last relapse I have not gone off my meds and I have not had a full-blown relapse my I get depressed in May and June yeah every year yeah I don't know why um I've talked to doctors and they they think it there's that this is not a thing but they call it reverse seasonal depression it's not a thing but they that's right I'll referred to it as and there are lots of theories on why May and June specifically has this trigger to depression yeah um but it's very manageable depression it's not like I can't function so um you know recovery whether you're depressed whether you struggle with substance abuse it is not linear you don't just you know get better once and then you good like it it doesn't work like that and I think that I know in my experience just and I've had crap doctors and I've had amazing doctors right they're kind of like the general public I don't advise worshiping a psychiatrist by any means but I certainly can tell you much like sales people there's good ones there's bad ones and and hopefully you know you are able to find someone you're comfortable with that that um you know you trust I know for me that's always kind of been a relationship I struggled with the doctor patient if you know because I always felt very um disempowered kind of like they're on high telling me what I need to do and I can't question it and I just kind of have to take the pill and suck it up and and that's not a great feeling but I think it's important too to know you know medication can absolutely help it has helped me I can say that on a personal level but I also think too I'm big on realistic expectations because that's when I believe people become like elated or disappointed and I really appreciated it when a psychiatrist I was seeing was like you know Jackie at any given time if this medication makes you feel weird if it doesn't make you feel good then it's either not the right dose or it's not the right medication but you need to stay communicative yeah with me in order to have you not feel like crap because that's not the goal that's not the goal of medication is to make you feel like crap so uh whether it comes and goes I've had to Tinker with my antidepressant dosage um like so for me I'm on I take Lamictal twice a day every day and that's actually an anti-seizure drug but when used in a low dose it can treat bipolar 2 depression Game Changer love it what I have to Tinker with over the past 20 some odd years is the low dose of an SSRI so sometimes if I'm with you I start to get that feeling like something's not entirely right like now I just call go to the doctor and and we can make adjustments but at the same time I've come to an acceptance that you know no matter what I take this is something I'm predisposed to so at any given time if I start to feel not great mentally um you know that's something that is probably never ever going to really go away it's just more what I do about it yeah you know when I get that feeling I think what you're describing is a great example of a form of radical acceptance It's not as though you accept your feeling of depression you accept the fact that you will have feelings of depression sure and uh there is some there's a lot of peace that comes with that you know I I struggled for a long time thinking well I'm never going to get off these depression meds right and I probably won't and radical I can radically accept that it's a little easier too because I'd rather be on the meds than be depressed so that's an easier Choice absolutely I know people you better put my meds in my coffin because this is an afterlife you're gonna want me to have those okay yeah I got I need 40 milligrams of Prozac please but I tuck it right in my casket that's that's kind of the motto with me but um Kyle it is just been so awesome getting to have this conversation with you like I'd mentioned you know our audience adores you I know this you've been at this for years and I just want to thank you again for taking time out definitely of your busy schedule I know his schedule it is quite busy um to talk to us about this I just know that so many people are gonna get so much great stuff out of it you're open honest assessment is uh Priceless and and I just can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing that with us even I learned some new stuff about Kyle today well I appreciate it too and there are um there are no shortage of these stories my my story while unique is not uncommon um I get so many emails from Med Circle viewers specifically who feel comfortable enough sharing part of their story and I always appreciate it um sometimes they're just sharing they're just like hey I'm just telling you what what I've been through what's going on yeah and the I mean how many times do we hear we're not alone goodness gracious I hear it all the time but the reason we're hearing all that time is because it's so freaking true y'all the you're not alone all every single person every single human being is doing something it's going through something that's why I end every broadcast with whatever you're going through whatever you're going through because that applies because we're all going through it um and so I just I really thank you for giving me an opportunity to come on to be interviewed by you and I think the viewers who watch mad Circle whether you watch on YouTube whether you watch at medcircle.com whether you're a member at watch.medcircle.com whether you've downloaded the app wherever you get your med circle like you guys you all have changed and influenced my life so much over the last six years and uh I appreciate your stories and I wish we could tell all of them so um don't be afraid to tell your story to if if you ever come across that that's so powerful you know someone at least someone at Med circle is always listening or reading we we love our audience we're very tight with them um and and I'm happy that you're encouraging that because sometimes you feel like you're screaming into an ether or no one else you know is going to say you know hey you got this or hey I get it I've been there too so um as we end every podcast we ask our esteemed guests if there is someone out there right now who is struggling whether it be depression whether it be with grief whether it be with any medical problems what would be your advice to the person who is watching this and is really deep in the struggle right now well I'm gonna give two pieces of advice and I'm going to give practical advice because um I have asked this question to virtually every Doctor Who's come on our platform on a variety of different topics and so I I'll give two pieces the first one is you need to get educated about whatever this is when think about the last time you made a big purchase maybe it was a TV maybe it was a car maybe it's a new shirt did you did you go Google the specs on the TV did you go look at a few different TVs probably by the end of it you weren't you were kind of like a TV expert you're like yeah there's this one and this one and this one and here are the different prices and if we wait till here we can get a discount and this one has streaming capabilities and this one will fit in our living room you researched it yes for a TV yes so if you're gonna spend that amount of time on a item spend at least that amount of time on yourself yeah and I'm I'm yelling only because I'm yelling at the old Kyle I was diagnosed with depression when I was nine years old Jackie and I didn't learn the even the even the definition of depression until I started at Med Circle I had probably been through years of cognitive behavioral therapy but if someone asked me what CBT was I would have been like is it like a BLT I don't know there's I I was so uneducated right that is the first step if you wouldn't go buy a new car without researching cars yeah then you need to go research your depression your grief your trauma your bipolar disorder that relationship you're in why you keep dating the same man over and over again why you can't connect with your mother-in-law why you can't get your child to tell you the truth why your child isn't listening in school why you and your husband have the same argument why the medication isn't working all you need to research it you need to go learn okay that's number one number two is you don't need to do it by yourself fine two years ago we did a mental health month and I only interviewed people uh who had lived experience number one feedback out of that whole month of interviewing people lived experience they said you got to find your community and it can be online it should be virtual it can be one person it just has to exist so find that support find that Community right get educated find the community and I I'm saying that obviously I hope you do it with Med Circle because that's what we're designed to do yes but however you do it do it okay if you need to go read a book read a book if you need to go call that old high school friend go call the old high school friend just do it do it I I can only just yell it as loud I can only repeat it so many times do it because I did it and it changed everything and I didn't do it for decades and nothing was changing yeah so the missing piece is the understanding the clarity and peace the missing piece is peace and that peace comes with the understanding of information and Clarity so get educated yeah knowledge is definitely power into your point it can be quite freeing when you become uh smarter and to your point something's happening to me I would hope I would strive to be the smartest damn person on the subject if it's certainly going on in my brain if you have that thought I'm not good enough know where that comes from yeah be mindful of how often you're saying that to yourself right be mindful if you actually believe it be mindful if you're beating yourself up rather than giving yourself constructive criticism I mean ever I can go on and on with examples here but be selfish be selfish and learn about yourself we preach we all grow up be selfless share care for others yep I'm telling you right now put that aside for just a minute focus on you be selfish about you be selfish about you that is how you do all these other great things for other people that is how you show up and care for other people and make a difference but if you're not focused and I'm really talking to moms out there y'all y'all are the worst at this you are not selfish moms are not selfish that's true moms are selfless and they're selfless to everybody they become a mother and they're like all right my life is for everybody else now yes it's still your life be selfish get educated for you and your life will change I can't think of a perfect uh more perfect note to end on that is some Sage advice my friend and um thank you again I hope you come back I'd love to continue this yeah hey I would love to find you yeah exactly exactly yeah I'm easy to get I'm easy to book Kyle thanks buddy thank you all for joining today's conversation with Kyle if you visit medcircle.com you can access tons of other conversations including weekly workshops with our credentialed doctors an award-winning video Library featuring almost 1 000 educational videos become a member of our community today visit medcircle.com to learn more and thank you for listening to it's all in your head

Channel: MedCircle

Views: 5,081

Keywords: depression, mental illness, mental health, mental health awareness, medcircle, med circle, kyle kittleson, what is depression, clinical depression, signs of depression, childhood depression, sexuality, depression symptoms, depression treatment, how to overcome depression, symptoms of depression, overcome depression, how to deal with depression, depressed, major depression, psychology, major depressive disorder, youtube, psych2go depression, podcast, jackie colbeth

Id: fDCOFxiQqmk

Length: 52min 41sec (3161 seconds)

Published: Mon May 22 2023