Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Where’s My Village？

00:00:00.000 Back in December, I left my kids and my husband at home, and I flew off to the Bahamas.

00:00:17.600 Hi, I was just checking in. Did you just have to come over here?

00:00:20.920 I was checking in.

00:00:24.280 Here you go.

00:00:26.200 Thank you so much, Elana.

00:00:27.880 Thank you.

00:00:28.420 I don't know why she called me Alana, but whatever.

00:00:35.900 I recorded the voice memo that I'm about to play you

00:00:38.560 when I was sitting on the ground outside the airport bathroom.

00:00:42.040 So I'm about to board a flight to the Bahamas without my kids.

00:00:48.060 And I really don't want to post it to Instagram

00:00:50.420 because I feel like other mothers are going to judge me 0.97

00:00:55.320 for being a shitty mom who takes a vacation 0.99

00:00:58.520 and leaves her kids at home. 1.00

00:01:01.920 I didn't even bring my husband. 0.51

00:01:04.580 No.

00:01:05.340 I was leaving home because I was exhausted.

00:01:08.720 I was worn down.

00:01:10.240 I needed a mental health break

00:01:11.380 as much as I don't love the words mental health break.

00:01:14.580 See, my book, my last novel that I talk about all the time

00:01:18.220 came out in October

00:01:19.600 and the launch for it was wonderful

00:01:22.000 but I was also working 80 hours a week

00:01:25.260 to promote it while making podcasts and parenting through a never-ending pandemic, and I felt like

00:01:31.400 my brain was simultaneously on fire and broken into a million pieces. So when a friend told me

00:01:37.960 she had a free hotel room on a tropical island, I got the hell out of town.

00:01:55.260 and of course the second that i was settled on the beach wearing my mom bathing suit that covers

00:02:06.660 my belly pooch with an ice cold rum daiquiri and two of my oldest and closest girlfriends

00:02:12.020 i broke down a little i broke down and i admitted that i wasn't doing as great as instagram probably

00:02:21.100 made my life look, that I was burnt out and anxious, and I felt like I was failing at

00:02:27.360 everything. I told them my mental health wasn't in a great place, and I just didn't know how to fix it.

00:02:35.320 First off, you guys are some of my best friends in the whole world,

00:02:38.900 and we never talk about mental health. No, and actually none of my girlfriends in Virginia

00:02:44.320 ever talk about it until I asked them if anyone had a recommendation for a psychiatrist.

00:02:49.220 and everyone and all of a sudden it was like a watershed it's a watershed right it's like oh

00:02:54.680 i'm taking these pills or i can't sleep or our marriages we're in therapy well and also like

00:03:01.620 the health care system is not great it's not like i was on i was trying to get a therapist for like

00:03:06.880 six months oh yeah and there's none of them to take your insurance none of them will take your

00:03:09.960 insurance. And you can't get an appointment for like months out. I mean like an emergency line

00:03:15.320 to like to get a psychiatry appointment. And especially for moms I think. I mean for the 0.98

00:03:20.160 past month I worked myself to death launching that book. I was exhausted. And then but still

00:03:25.580 like ashamed to take a break away from my children and my family and come here. And

00:03:30.180 also like to tell anyone that I was doing that. And like now you're a giant pussy for 1.00

00:03:34.960 Why can't you just suck it up and continue to work 24 hours a day and kill yourself in a dying industry? 1.00

00:03:43.660 You can't even, like, give it to someone else. 0.97

00:03:46.740 You've got to, like, make sure that there's a, that you get in the village.

00:03:49.620 I love cocktails, guy.

00:03:53.440 Cocktails.

00:03:53.840 There was a guy named Orlando who kept walking down the beach and yelling, cocktails.

00:04:00.060 And we kept ordering this drink from him called the Miami Vice.

00:04:04.960 It's part daiquiri, part margarita, part liquid brain death.

00:04:09.360 And after a couple of those, we all admitted that lately, at least in the past year or so,

00:04:15.900 all three of us get a lot of our mental health care from Instagram.

00:04:21.280 I follow mental health influencers, like multiple of them,

00:04:25.080 because they give me a different perspective that I don't get anywhere else.

00:04:30.120 And I need that because you can't find it.

00:04:33.020 You can't find it.

00:04:34.000 Even talking to my own psychiatrist or my own, you know, therapist, like, I don't get differing perspectives on this because it's so hush.

00:04:41.720 So I have to follow mental health influencers on Instagram because they give you those other things to think about.

00:04:48.820 They give you these other coping methods.

00:04:50.000 And tools, right?

00:04:51.600 Like, they become a part of your village.

00:04:53.200 That's right.

00:04:53.780 That's where I'm going to find my village.

00:04:55.760 So I would love to interject on that, too, because I think that's it.

00:04:59.060 If you couldn't hear Sarah over the pounding surf, she said, that's where I'm going to find my village.

00:05:05.280 I'm going to find my village on Instagram.

00:05:08.800 And I kept thinking about that.

00:05:10.960 I kept thinking about searching for a village of mental health support on social media, finding help on Instagram.

00:05:18.540 I'm Dr. Jeff. Welcome to this session of Cup of Optimum.

00:05:22.480 Four signs you do not know you have high-functioning anxiety.

00:05:26.040 Hold on a second. Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?

00:05:29.060 Are you being toxic?

00:05:30.720 Oh, no.

00:05:31.640 See, accountability works both ways. 1.00

00:05:34.500 It's become a thing because women don't have a village of mental health support that is accessible and affordable. 0.97

00:05:40.980 So creators on Instagram have filled that gap in what society should be giving us. 0.67

00:05:46.700 For better or worse.

00:05:54.300 Some of the mental health advice on social media is great.

00:05:57.800 It's invaluable. 0.96

00:05:58.480 useful maybe even life-changing and some of it's a lot of bullshit then like a lot of things 0.65

00:06:07.160 some of it could be downright dangerous 0.82

00:06:10.420 if there's a tightrope of 50 good 50 can do public harm i feel like mental health

00:06:25.620 Influencers kind of thread that line and lean towards the harm side.

00:06:29.780 Mothers, we are the hardest on ourselves and the hardest on each other.

00:06:34.340 Bombs are desperate for support, and there's not a lot of options for the type of support people really need.

00:06:46.220 Grab a Miami Vice and buckle up, because I'm Joe Piazza, and I'm taking you under the influence.

00:06:53.120 Where's that cocktail go? 0.99

00:06:54.080 Episode three, where's my fucking village? 0.99

00:07:11.840 I want to start this episode by stating the obvious. 0.99

00:07:16.240 None of us are okay.

00:07:18.640 And especially, especially mothers. 1.00

00:07:22.280 Mothers are not okay.

00:07:23.700 With the pandemic, the lack of a social safety net, 1.00

00:07:26.920 don't even get me started on the patriarchy

00:07:29.260 and everything else that mothers face on a day-to-day basis. 0.66

00:07:33.360 We are hands down in a maternal mental health crisis at the moment.

00:07:37.680 We're seeing this with our colleagues in the field,

00:07:40.240 across the city, across the state, and across the nation.

00:07:43.800 That's Paige Bellenbaum.

00:07:45.380 She's the founding director of the Motherhood Center in New York City.

00:07:49.060 I found her through a recent New York Magazine article

00:07:51.560 that actually announced that we are in the midst of a maternal mental health crisis.

00:07:57.040 I think sometimes mothers, we are the hardest on ourselves and the hardest on each other

00:08:02.400 to continue to feed into the myth because no one's given us permission to say, you know what, 0.96

00:08:07.880 this sucks. This is really hard. Yeah, I think my baby's cute. And then the rest of the time, 0.92

00:08:14.440 I feel like I made a huge mistake and I miss my old life. It's so unfortunate that we live

00:08:20.220 in this very romanticized version of motherhood that we are spoon fed this interpretation of what

00:08:27.680 is meant to be, quote unquote, the best time of our life. And when we go into it with that

00:08:33.340 expectation, it's so understandable how how we all fall short of it, because that is not the truth.

00:08:41.160 Is the traditional system failing us?

00:08:44.860 Emphatically, no, they're not doing enough. And yes, the health care system is failing

00:08:49.180 our new and expecting mothers, which really are the backbone of society.

00:08:53.720 When we look at other countries and the way that they respond to support and provide safety

00:08:58.860 nets for perinatal women and birthing parents, America really is probably the last in ranking

00:09:07.860 as prioritizing one of the most important subsets of our population, ranging from not

00:09:15.240 providing adequate health care, but in particular, mental health care. I just want to say that I

00:09:22.400 also truly believe that most humans right now are in the midst of a mental health crisis,

00:09:28.720 not just mothers. We've not at all fully grasped what the past two years of pandemic has done to

00:09:34.820 us. But again, we know from the numbers, women, especially mothers, were the heaviest hit. More

00:09:42.720 often than not, we tend to bear the emotional labor of the other members of our families.

00:09:48.180 And I think all of us, all women, have been spoon-fed romanticized versions of what womanhood 0.99

00:09:53.980 should be, and that those versions are mostly bullshit. So of course, of course, so many of us 0.99

00:10:02.300 feel like we don't measure up most of the time. A lot of what we're focusing on in this episode

00:10:08.340 is because of the systemic failures

00:10:11.020 to help women with our mental health,

00:10:14.760 are you seeing a lot more women

00:10:16.400 turn to social media for help, 0.78

00:10:19.200 to look to Instagram, 0.99

00:10:21.220 to look for other women's stories,

00:10:22.840 but then also, I mean,

00:10:24.160 so like therapists on Instagram,

00:10:26.140 what are you seeing?

00:10:28.900 I'm seeing a lot of people

00:10:30.960 understandably wanting a quick fix, right?

00:10:33.880 We all do.

00:10:34.720 For anyone out there

00:10:35.560 who's experienced mental illness

00:10:37.220 or mental health struggles or challenges.

00:10:39.100 We just want to feel better as quickly as we can.

00:10:42.640 But I think to your point is that, yes, 0.98

00:10:45.140 many, many women in contemporary society today

00:10:48.460 are looking to social media platforms 0.99

00:10:51.320 to get their information.

00:10:53.840 So it's not just my friend group.

00:10:56.740 It's a lot of people.

00:10:58.360 A lot, a lot, a lot of people

00:11:00.020 are turning to social media for self-help

00:11:02.180 and mental health advice

00:11:03.240 because right now, no one is okay.

00:11:06.560 Even Glynis.

00:11:07.760 Glynis, the most together person that I know, is not totally okay. 0.55

00:11:12.880 But thankfully, she was recently able to get herself the unicorn of the healthcare system.

00:11:18.420 I just started back up again yesterday with a new therapist, who I really like.

00:11:22.500 I still can't find a therapist down in Philly.

00:11:25.680 All the good therapists are booked for years and years.

00:11:29.260 And everyone told me they follow mental health influencers, and I don't follow any.

00:11:34.260 So, but I do now when I got home from my very refreshing mental health break vacation without

00:11:40.340 my kids, without my husband. What are you talking about? Where did you go? I went to the Bahamas.

00:11:44.740 When? In December. You went to the Bahamas by yourself? Yeah, with two of my girlfriends from

00:11:49.640 college. You always go to these places and I don't find out about them until you're back.

00:11:53.560 You could disappear like Don Draper and I would literally have no idea. Yeah, that's me. Deadbeat

00:12:00.000 dad, Don Draper. Do you see right now why I didn't tell people about this? Just out there

00:12:06.500 screwing my secretary, not paying attention to my children. When I got home, I asked everyone 0.86

00:12:12.800 on my Instagram who they follow on social media for their mental health, and I got 2,000 responses.

00:12:19.780 Wow. 2,000. Oh my God, you have to, have to follow at Big Little Feelings. It will change

00:12:27.000 life. A holistic psychologist is amazing. I can't start reading. Immediately follow at your

00:12:34.020 diagnosis. Like that's more than I've gotten for anything. I mean, this takes us all the way back

00:12:41.460 to the very beginning of why do people follow mom influencers all the way back to you on the floor

00:12:47.440 with be feeling lonely and looking to your phone. It doesn't surprise me that everyone's following

00:12:51.760 it for exactly the same reason as everything else that's happening on Instagram, which is it's,

00:12:55.720 it's hard. It's expensive. Therapy is expensive. It's expensive. And some of these people

00:13:02.360 that people told me to follow are actual therapists, clinical psychiatrists or

00:13:08.080 clinical psychologists. But a lot of them are just what's being referred to now as comfort

00:13:14.820 creators, creators who make content that makes you feel better. Did you, did you have any idea

00:13:20.600 this was a thing okay I've heard I don't understand what it is I've heard the phrase I've never

00:13:27.000 figured out what people are talking about oh good I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna tell you because

00:13:31.560 there was a whole article in the New York Times about it and I called the dude who wrote it oh

00:13:38.480 the piece is called what is a comfort creator and you know I think it's I think the reason we went

00:13:44.460 with that headline is because it's a term that is like pretty widely understood by a lot of people

00:13:49.600 like under the age of say like 22 and pretty widely not understood at all by anyone older.

00:13:56.380 So it kind of felt like we needed to just go with like a straight up explainer because it's just

00:14:00.920 like it's a new concept and it's like a very generationally distinct concept. So that was

00:14:06.820 Ezra Marcus and he wrote the New York Times piece explaining comfort creators to the olds like us.

00:14:14.080 So just out of curiosity, because I don't like to be referred to as the old since I feel quite

00:14:19.200 young. How actual old is he? Definitely. I did not ask his age because that I feel like is litigious

00:14:25.220 these days, but he is probably about half of our age ish. Wow. Okay. Whatever, whatever. They know 0.95

00:14:35.520 stuff. I asked him to break it down. What is a comfort creator in the world of digital content?

00:14:41.360 I mean, I think the first thing to understand about it is that it's really not something new

00:14:46.400 in its like most fundamental form.

00:14:48.700 Everybody, as far back as there's been media,

00:14:52.060 I would say people have watched media,

00:14:54.720 consumed it, read books,

00:14:56.720 looked at cave paintings, whatever,

00:14:58.460 to feel some sense of comfort,

00:15:00.660 to feel some sense of like,

00:15:02.520 take your mind off your own problems,

00:15:04.420 relax, enjoy a story.

00:15:08.020 That's it.

00:15:08.820 That's the first time I'd heard those words,

00:15:11.400 comfort creator,

00:15:12.020 but it made so much sense

00:15:14.560 about who we want to follow on social media

00:15:17.840 because all of us are looking for a way to feel better.

00:15:21.420 I think we're all on the brink

00:15:22.720 of a mental health crisis at this point.

00:15:24.560 And so we're seeking comfort,

00:15:26.700 but we're also seeking expertise.

00:15:29.020 And I think a lot of us are seeking actual therapy

00:15:31.360 on the social medias.

00:15:33.840 So after I crowdsourced everyone

00:15:36.200 for who they follow for mental health,

00:15:38.200 I got like thousands, thousands of names.

00:15:41.240 And most of them don't even overlap.

00:15:43.260 There are so many that there's not even repeats, except for one.

00:15:48.780 Please don't say Gwyneth Paltrow.

00:15:51.620 Dr. Becky.

00:15:53.800 I've never heard of her, but is she a real doctor?

00:15:58.080 Yeah, she is. She's a real doctor.

00:16:00.500 Real, real doctor. Dr. Becky Kennedy.

00:16:03.800 And she came up a ton.

00:16:06.440 And she came up so much that we're going to talk to her.

00:16:11.000 Of course we are.

00:16:12.500 We're going to talk to her right after the break.

00:16:25.740 Hi, I'm Dr. Becky, and I'm so glad you're here.

00:16:29.040 Your being here lets me know you're someone who's willing to reflect,

00:16:32.720 consider new ideas, and try new things.

00:16:34.700 And that makes you pretty brave and awesome in my book.

00:16:38.100 I know there's a lot of content here, so let me break it down with you.

00:16:41.120 If you're a mother of a certain age, then you have probably already heard of Dr. Becky.

00:16:46.820 She is a clinical psychologist and a mom of three, with nearly a million Instagram followers who hang on her every word.

00:16:54.700 I'm going to quote a New York Times profile of Dr. Becky here.

00:16:58.200 Quote,

00:16:59.000 For many millennials, the clinical psychologist Becky Kennedy, a.k.a. Dr. Becky, is the person whom they trust.

00:17:06.980 Dr. Becky gives parenting advice that is truly mental health help for parents.

00:17:12.240 I have friends who only follow like five people on Instagram, and Dr. Becky is one of them.

00:17:17.200 Here is just a little snippet of some Dr. Becky wisdom.

00:17:21.620 Let's be the generation to change the narrative that being a good mom means being a martyr.

00:17:27.540 We can do this in two ways.

00:17:29.600 Number one, our self-talk.

00:17:31.140 Remind yourself that when you're taking care of yourself, you're still a good parent.

00:17:34.940 It might sound like this. I'm a good parent who's choosing to sit on the couch and relax and restore instead of cleaning up the mess around me. This is a way I'm prioritizing myself. Number two, share with your friends.

00:17:51.980 Now, Dr. Becky cannot see a million patients in a day, a week, a year, or her entire life,

00:17:58.340 and most of them probably couldn't travel all the way to New York City to meet her in person.

00:18:03.300 But a million people, a million followers on social media,

00:18:07.800 can benefit from her expertise anywhere, anytime, from the comfort of their phones.

00:18:13.880 And there's something great about that.

00:18:17.100 If we really are in the midst of a mental health crisis,

00:18:19.920 that we need all the tools and all the help we can get.

00:18:24.620 So we put out a call on my Instagram.

00:18:26.860 We're like, tell us who you follow for mental health help.

00:18:31.700 And didn't clarify that really.

00:18:33.660 I think I said mental health influencer

00:18:35.120 and we got 2000 responses and counting.

00:18:39.320 They're still coming in,

00:18:40.680 but probably at least 25% of those responses were you.

00:18:45.880 Oh, I know.

00:18:46.920 Yeah.

00:18:47.440 And like, and most of them did not overlap.

00:18:49.120 You were the only name that came up time and time again, which is very, very interesting.

00:18:53.680 It's been a wild journey.

00:18:55.160 I don't even know what Instagram was.

00:18:56.440 I mean, I knew what it was, but I wasn't on it when I started.

00:18:58.700 And it only started, I only put something out for like, I thought I was working on something

00:19:02.140 else.

00:19:02.400 I did all this writing and then I abandoned the product I thought I was going to create.

00:19:05.960 And then my husband was like, well, you have all this stuff written on your computer.

00:19:09.080 Like, what are you going to do with it?

00:19:10.660 And my sister said to put it on Instagram.

00:19:12.360 And I was like, I don't even know how to do that.

00:19:14.080 She's like, I'll show you how to work it.

00:19:15.500 And then here I am.

00:19:16.600 Here you are.

00:19:16.800 It's just amazing.

00:19:17.600 And I think it speaks to the fact that people are so hungry for this kind of help, this kind of advice.

00:19:23.820 I mean, we're just desperate for it.

00:19:25.780 What do you think about that?

00:19:27.960 The kind of really organic kind of growth I think I've seen around the community that exists on my Instagram

00:19:34.720 speaks to the fact that people in my community is definitely a majority women and moms.

00:19:41.720 that moms are desperate for support

00:19:43.700 and so much is demanded of us.

00:19:46.980 And there's not a lot of options

00:19:49.280 for the type of support people really need.

00:19:52.820 And when they find it, they want more of it

00:19:55.700 and they want more of each other.

00:19:56.820 Which parts of your advice resonate the most

00:19:58.960 with your audience?

00:20:00.080 And what do they seem to crave the most of?

00:20:04.500 Such a good question.

00:20:06.000 I think the thing that resonates the most

00:20:08.320 is anything around the theme of codependency in adults.

00:20:11.720 and women reclaiming their space,

00:20:19.840 their desire, 0.87

00:20:21.820 and their right to want things for themselves.

00:20:25.980 Yeah, I want all those things.

00:20:27.760 Everything you just said.

00:20:28.720 I'm like, yep, yes, yes.

00:20:30.560 I'm going to FedEx it you.

00:20:31.760 Just put it in a box.

00:20:34.020 And it's me, please.

00:20:36.780 I have absolutely no doubt

00:20:38.860 that Dr. Becky is helping people.

00:20:40.500 And I think it is so, so, so important that she's helping women specifically realize what they need and what they want and how to get those things.

00:20:51.420 But I also wondered where Becky sees herself in this whole ecosystem universe of mental health content online.

00:20:58.680 How does she view the community itself?

00:21:04.840 I have mixed thoughts on, you know, people looking for mental health help on Instagram.

00:21:10.500 because you're a clinical psychologist with a PhD.

00:21:15.740 There's a lot of people who aren't.

00:21:17.180 And so how can you vet what is real and good and accurate?

00:21:21.580 And how do you even define what is real and good and accurate?

00:21:24.260 But then at the same time, you can reach,

00:21:26.200 you have nearly a million followers.

00:21:27.860 You're helping nearly a million people a day.

00:21:30.160 That wouldn't be possible without this platform.

00:21:32.840 So for me, I'm just like, I have so many mixed up feelings.

00:21:36.060 Now I need, see, now I need a psychologist

00:21:37.440 to help me sort through my mixed feelings.

00:21:38.920 I agree. I mean, you know, certainly the impact is real and it's substantial. And I am such a proponent of individual therapy and meeting with someone one on one and that person getting to know your personal intimate story. Nothing can replace that. So maybe this is I'm laughing because I do often find myself thinking, oh, two things are true. Right. Maybe that's what you're saying.

00:22:06.620 Two things are true. And I've heard you say that on your podcast before. And I think that

00:22:10.600 that is really the case when it comes to mental health influencing on Instagram. Two things are

00:22:14.720 true. And I love the idea, and people have said this to me, that maybe whether it's my Instagram

00:22:21.000 or any Instagram that, you know, connects with you, that that helps you, that that clears away

00:22:27.440 some of the shame, the shame that is so sticky and keeps us in one place and prevents our kind

00:22:32.700 of movement and growth, if it can clear away some of that shame or give you a different way to see

00:22:37.240 something, sometimes that's the thing you need to make the call to whether it's a call to a friend

00:22:42.780 or it's a call to a therapist. It's that kind of that call to something more individualized and

00:22:49.740 personal. And if that's what's happening when people are in Instagram, then that's just amazing.

00:22:56.240 Yeah. Yeah, it is. Do you have your own mental health folks that you follow on the Instagram? You don't have to name anyone by names, but I mean, do you, guru of mental health on Instagram, do you follow people for your own mental health?

00:23:11.860 You know, I'm not a big consumer of Instagram.

00:23:16.220 Oh, interesting.

00:23:16.900 I'm not.

00:23:18.120 But I find Instagram really tricky.

00:23:20.740 I mean, I obviously love Instagram and it's been great for me.

00:23:23.100 And, you know, I definitely think it can steal our attention.

00:23:26.940 It does.

00:23:27.740 And it can make us go down a rabbit hole that we don't intend to go down.

00:23:33.060 So for my mental health, I'm in weekly therapy.

00:23:36.840 My therapist is not on Instagram.

00:23:38.940 and that therapy is kind of very focused

00:23:43.760 and infused by mindfulness and slowing down

00:23:46.420 and somatically oriented work,

00:23:48.640 which I need to slow down my kind of frenetic thoughts.

00:23:52.640 Do you think it's healthier?

00:23:53.740 I mean, do you think that Instagram,

00:23:55.500 I mean, we just talked about, again, two things can be true.

00:23:58.160 Like it's making a lot of what we find on Instagram is helpful.

00:24:02.000 It's helpful to us.

00:24:02.860 But is it also detrimental for our mental health

00:24:07.400 when you're on it too much?

00:24:09.900 What are you seeing there?

00:24:11.900 I think it's so hard because when we say Instagram,

00:24:14.680 we're saying one thing,

00:24:15.840 although I really have found that there are

00:24:18.660 like at least two versions of Instagram.

00:24:21.640 I feel like there's Instagram that is totally mindless,

00:24:24.620 that's totally aspirational,

00:24:26.600 that's very, oh my goodness, 0.95

00:24:28.020 my life sucks compared to this person's life. 0.97

00:24:31.280 There's that Instagram. 0.99

00:24:33.200 And then there's also Instagram that's very educational.

00:24:37.340 It's really hard work to consume Instagram with intentionality

00:24:40.660 because it's not designed to do that.

00:24:43.660 So I think for me, what I try to do,

00:24:46.520 and definitely I find myself on there for longer than I want to at times,

00:24:50.280 but what I try to do is ask myself,

00:24:52.280 like, what am I looking for here?

00:24:54.280 And who am I following?

00:24:55.740 And how many of those aspirational,

00:24:57.700 I'm going to end up feeling bad about myself,

00:24:59.580 but I can't tear my eyes away from the screen.

00:25:01.540 How many of those accounts can I follow?

00:25:04.020 As Dr. Kennedy said, two things can be true.

00:25:08.220 Instagram can be wonderful for mental health, and it can also be very bad for mental health.

00:25:14.460 The important thing here is intentionality.

00:25:17.840 Knowing who your comfort creator is instead of that person that you hate follow that is constantly making you feel bad about yourself.

00:25:24.800 choosing the mental health professional

00:25:26.980 who gives you real tips and real advice to feel better 1.00

00:25:30.540 and not the one spewing dangerous garbage. 0.93

00:25:34.760 And ultimately, at the end of the day, 0.99

00:25:37.500 isn't it fucking great that women are talking about 0.95

00:25:40.020 our own specific mental health struggles 0.97

00:25:41.740 out in the open, out to all the other peoples?

00:25:46.440 A century ago, they'd be throwing us in a sanitarium 0.97

00:25:49.180 and a century before that, 1.00

00:25:50.800 they'd be burning us at the fucking stake 1.00

00:25:52.480 for having a single panic attack. 1.00

00:25:54.800 So there's our answer, right? There's my answer. Easy peasy. Problem solved. As long as we know

00:26:02.740 what we're looking for, what we're looking at, this social media mental health thing is

00:26:07.580 completely revolutionary. It'll change the world. Wrong. Wrong. Because the history we're grappling

00:26:19.460 with here isn't as young as social media. It's as old as the hills. It's older than my ovaries,

00:26:25.940 which are really, really old. Glynis, of course, is the one who woke me up to that

00:26:31.660 because she's always making me smarter. When you say Dr. Becky, the first thing that flies

00:26:37.440 into my head is Sleepless in Seattle, the Pauline radio show. Who are they calling again? Her name

00:26:44.020 just fell out of my head. Dr. Marsha Fieldstone. And obviously there's Dr. Ruth that we grew up

00:26:49.900 with. And last year I was watching Frasier during the most anxiety-ridden days just to

00:26:55.040 calm my brain down. This feels like a natural extension of call-in radio, which is you can

00:27:01.160 call in anonymously. There's a general response and you don't have to pay. Like this feels like

00:27:08.920 it's like oh my god an explosion of it i never made this connection no me either this is the

00:27:16.140 natural evolution of call-in radio it's dr ruth it's dr marcia fieldstone this is fraser crane

00:27:24.420 i'm listening it is yeah that's what it feels like you're like you're dial you dial in and

00:27:32.280 And instead of that, you know, they provide it to you and maybe leave a comment.

00:27:37.400 Duh.

00:27:38.440 Media has been conflating self-help, comfort, and real medical help for a very long time.

00:27:45.260 Which is why it can be really hard to stop looking to the most readily available source for help.

00:27:51.220 It's just part of human nature.

00:27:54.240 I'm going to go behind the scenes here and do my little research thing.

00:27:57.600 and with some podcast audio magic,

00:28:00.760 after the break, we're going to tell you

00:28:02.040 the history of self-help

00:28:03.640 and why it's always hovered between the line

00:28:06.760 of very helpful and useful and wonderful

00:28:09.580 and downright dangerous.

00:28:27.600 So we've learned by now that there are a lot of ways people go online to deal with the mental health crisis that we're currently in.

00:28:57.600 You can turn to your comfort creator of choice just to get your mind off things.

00:29:02.700 You can turn to self-care influencers to figure out how to loofah your troubles away.

00:29:08.440 There's plenty of self-help influencers.

00:29:11.340 Or you can always turn to the people who market themselves as mental health professionals.

00:29:19.860 Now, like most things, this isn't new.

00:29:23.220 There is nothing new under the sun, my friends.

00:29:25.740 And it goes back way further than Glynis and I even posited when we started talking about all the call-in radio shows.

00:29:35.640 See, human beings have this condition.

00:29:39.360 We're always looking for answers about how we can feel better and improve ourselves.

00:29:45.080 Example one, so much of the philosophy behind all religions.

00:29:48.900 But our search for betterment really found commercial potential in the mid-19th century when a guy named Samuel Smiles, which is seriously the best 19th century influencer name that I've ever heard, and I couldn't make it up if I wanted to, published a book called simply Self-Help.

00:30:08.340 And let's be honest here, self-help really is the commercialization of mental health care.

00:30:14.260 The book Self-Help came out in 1859, and it's based on a series of lectures that Smiles gave

00:30:22.960 to a group of working-class men in Leeds who'd formed their own club for self-improvement.

00:30:28.340 In the preface, Smiles described these men and their reaction to being improved.

00:30:36.480 He could not fail to be touched by the admirable self-helping spirit which they had displayed.

00:30:41.620 and though entertaining but slight faith in popular lecturing

00:30:46.260 he felt that a few words of encouragement

00:30:48.820 honestly and sincerely uttered might not be without some good effect

00:30:52.860 and in this spirit he addressed them on more than one occasion

00:30:56.980 citing examples of what other men had done

00:31:00.020 as illustrations of what each might in a greater or less degree

00:31:04.800 do for himself

00:31:06.280 see look at that we have always put faith in others to tell us what to do to feel better

00:31:15.400 20 000 copies sold in the first year and over a quarter of a million by 1905 according to

00:31:24.880 historian asa briggs those numbers quote exceeded those of the great 19th century novels

00:31:32.560 Take that, Dickens.

00:31:34.400 On top of that, the book was translated into multiple languages.

00:31:38.440 The historian also said, quote, cholera itself could have traveled no faster.

00:31:44.220 You know, cholera, the epidemic of the day.

00:31:47.620 Yeah, COVID probably could have traveled no faster than some modern day influencers.

00:31:52.260 Self-help advice.

00:31:53.300 But that, well, we're going to get there.

00:31:55.140 We're going to get there.

00:31:55.680 But back in the 19th century, our man Smiles was a self-improvement celebrity.

00:32:01.820 But of course, that is far, far, far, far from the last self-help book.

00:32:07.980 Almost 200 years later, self-help is still one of the most popular and profitable forms of media.

00:32:14.340 The market for self-help books, TV shows, workshops, and everything else that exists in this industry

00:32:20.480 is predicted to be worth $14 billion by 2025.

00:32:25.340 And it comes in so many different varieties.

00:32:29.040 Lots and lots of different flavors.

00:32:30.820 Self-help is what often happens when the establishment, when the traditional healthcare system, is not helping us get the things that we need.

00:32:41.880 And there are people in this industry that are truly out there to do good in the world.

00:32:46.680 I really believe that. I do. It's not bullshit.

00:32:50.260 As skeptical as Sam was about Dr. Marsha Fieldstone in Sleepless in Seattle, he got his happy ending. 0.85

00:32:57.760 He ended up on the top of the Empire State Building with Meg Ryan.

00:33:01.900 That was a nice thing.

00:33:04.180 Now, you might be saying, Joe, that's just a movie.

00:33:07.360 Marsha Fieldstone's not a real person.

00:33:10.060 Well, that is the genius of Nora Ephron.

00:33:14.560 She didn't make Dr. Marsha Fieldstone up out of whole cloth. 0.96

00:33:18.100 There is a real Dr. Marsha, and her name is Delilah. 0.96

00:33:22.820 You've probably heard Delilah.

00:33:24.040 She is a radio legend who has been listening to people call in with stories of love, hurt, and heartbreak for years.

00:33:34.600 Delilah got me through three breakups in the 90s, listening to her on B101 after I got dumped in the parking lot of a Chick-fil-A.

00:33:42.860 True story.

00:33:44.740 Through her call-in radio show, Delilah helps people through their hard times, and she takes that job so incredibly seriously.

00:33:53.320 I know she does because I talked to her

00:33:55.060 about the great responsibility

00:33:56.140 that she has with people's hearts.

00:34:00.120 And I can't help it.

00:34:02.500 I cannot help myself.

00:34:04.080 If I see somebody struggling,

00:34:06.140 whether it's on roller skates or in life

00:34:08.340 or with a breakup or with an addiction,

00:34:11.740 I gotta insert myself.

00:34:14.720 I've gone to therapy for it.

00:34:16.820 What did your therapist tell you?

00:34:20.660 I'm a raging codependent and that I need to just, you know, stay in my lane and mind my business.

00:34:26.560 But I can't. If I see somebody who's hurting, I am compelled to go help.

00:34:31.660 And are there any really memorable moments from the show of people that, you know, just were really,

00:34:39.120 some of the people who call are in dire straits. They're in dire need of help.

00:34:43.440 Well, if somebody is really in dire straits, I will stay on the phone with them. And we have

00:34:48.920 actually had to call police to go do welfare checks on listeners. I will just keep them on

00:34:55.580 the phone as long as I can and get as much information as I can. I'm not a therapist.

00:35:00.080 I'm not a counselor. I don't pretend to be. So there have been situations that were way out of

00:35:04.940 my league. So we'll call for help. So if somebody is in crisis, we can immediately look up phone

00:35:12.880 numbers and places to call in their area so they can get help. I have a personal rule that I don't

00:35:19.480 ever put anything on the air that might hurt somebody. So if somebody calls and shares

00:35:25.700 something that could hurt their partner or hurt their teenager, if they were listening,

00:35:31.560 I had a woman call and share some really horrific things about her husband,

00:35:36.900 but they have teenage kids. How horrible would that be if you were listening and realized that

00:35:41.500 was your dad oh so i it might be great radio but if it's going to hurt somebody's heart i'm not

00:35:48.540 going to use it you take this responsibility really seriously you you recognize what a

00:35:54.540 responsibility it is to care for someone's heart like this their heart and their mind

00:35:58.740 yeah because if somebody's going to trust me enough to call me and say i'm in a crisis that's

00:36:05.880 a trust. They're putting their trust in me. I can't just then think, oh, this will be great

00:36:12.300 radio. That's evil. It's evil. That's evil. But it happens in the world of radio. It happens

00:36:18.180 because, but if your motivation is to get ratings, you don't care if you do evil. You don't care if

00:36:25.920 you harm somebody. But I have a higher calling and a higher power I'm going to have to stand

00:36:31.100 and face someday. And I don't want him to say, why did you, you know, make light of this person

00:36:39.020 who just called and told you their world fell apart? Yeah. Why would you do that?

00:36:50.460 It's hard to imagine people wanting to do that, but it happens.

00:36:55.500 and that's why we're here we're here interrogating this kind of media because it is so

00:37:02.720 tricky because it can go bad really quickly mental health horror stories can actually play

00:37:09.120 out in real time on the radio on social media on television delilah works really hard to make sure

00:37:16.420 that her content doesn't hurt anyone but it's very easy to sensationalize stories when you want

00:37:21.880 things like followers. Or, in another form of media, ratings. Let's talk about someone named

00:37:33.480 Dr. Phil for a second. Millions of audience members take what Dr. Phil says very, very

00:37:40.700 seriously. Hold on for a second. I need to try to remember what kind of doctor Dr. Phil

00:37:46.560 is, exactly? Let me type this into the Googles.

00:37:55.000 All right, here I am on Wikipedia. Dr. Phil holds a doctorate, it's fancy, in clinical psychology.

00:38:03.160 Although, oh, interesting. He ceased renewing his license to practice psychology in 2006.

00:38:12.040 Six, I'm not the first one to question Dr. Phil's credentials and credibility.

00:38:19.660 Last year, BuzzFeed News published an article called Dr. Do Nothing, written by Saatchi Cole.

00:38:26.060 It makes the case that Dr. Phil McGraw regularly exploits the guests experiencing the worst moments of their lives for sheer entertainment.

00:38:35.180 It reads,

00:38:36.300 Mental health care around the country is lacking.

00:38:39.860 Affordable care is hard to access, and that's if you have any coverage at all.

00:38:44.480 Television therapy, then, is what people get instead.

00:38:47.180 And McGraw doesn't just give bad advice, but he openly mocks the people coming to him for help.

00:38:53.320 What may have started as a show intended to make therapy and open communication more accessible to people at home

00:38:59.440 has warped into a creepy, exploitative program.

00:39:04.500 The article concludes,

00:39:06.380 Good mental health care is hard to identify,

00:39:08.960 but it rarely involves making your patients go viral,

00:39:12.200 attempting some form of diagnosis of a guest's behavior,

00:39:15.180 or shaming women for sex work.

00:39:17.160 It also likely does not include putting your name on a line of ineffective weight loss products

00:39:22.360 or arguing that maybe quarantine is a bad idea

00:39:25.440 because people die all the time from all sorts of things.

00:39:28.620 He benefits from his viewers not knowing any better.

00:39:33.060 This is not true mental health help.

00:39:35.220 It's not even real self-help.

00:39:37.460 But because life is hard and humans are always looking for answers to why terrible things happen

00:39:42.040 and how to cope with those terrible things,

00:39:44.620 over the past hundred years, self-help, mental health help, and horror porn, like Dr. Phil,

00:39:51.300 have become conflated into this very messy Venn diagram.

00:39:55.980 Now add social media into that mix. 0.95

00:39:58.880 We're talking about quite a clusterfuck, my friends. 0.99

00:40:01.820 Quite a clusterfuck. 0.97

00:40:04.260 Social media presents a whole new set of challenges that we have to look out for.

00:40:09.340 Not everyone is Dr. Becky.

00:40:11.740 It's even harder to regulate what happens on social media than it is on radio or TV.

00:40:17.320 It's easy to start as Delilah, but slip down the path of a Dr. Phil.

00:40:22.640 That's a lot of power.

00:40:24.120 And it reminds me of something Lindsay Coughlin said a few episodes ago.

00:40:27.180 that most influencers, most influencers on Instagram and social media do not even realize

00:40:34.520 how much power they have. It is such a huge responsibility to have a platform like that.

00:40:40.120 And literally everything and anything you post about or talk about, some people are truly

00:40:47.560 taking that all in. And I don't know that everybody takes it as seriously as it is.

00:40:54.660 And influencers taking it upon themselves to join the ranks of self-help gurus, teachers, sometimes supposedly doctors, they're often stringing along an audience who is incredibly vulnerable.

00:41:07.100 And the veil between creator and consumer on social media is so, so thin.

00:41:13.560 You should stop. Stop all the efforting.

00:41:18.160 Maybe you're a student and you're in college or you're an employer and you're realizing that this isn't really the career that you want.

00:41:25.060 This isn't really the degree that you want.

00:41:26.700 Everything that you're trying to make happen, just stop.

00:41:31.540 Is this a person I can share with?

00:41:34.280 Is this the type of response that I want to have when I have good news?

00:41:40.700 When we were researching this episode, I talked to a lot of therapists who were very, very concerned about what is going to happen when so many people are seeking actual, real mental health treatment on social media.

00:41:53.600 One of them was Erin Jones. Erin is a trauma therapist who isn't practicing right now because she's taken some time away to be a mom.

00:42:01.760 But she messaged me to tell me that even as someone trained in trauma therapy, a lot of the mental health content on Instagram makes her feel worse on a daily basis.

00:42:12.880 She was watching something on social just the other day.

00:42:15.660 and this person was a psychiatrist and she was just talking about depression and trauma education

00:42:23.400 and mental health education which is great I think education is great but after just looking at 10 to

00:42:28.900 20 TikToks of her describing the depression cycle and the spiral I started to feel really bad and I

00:42:36.640 was like why does this making me feel so bad and I realized I was experienced I was re-experiencing

00:42:44.760 some depression that I've been going through this past year. And I had no one to talk to about it.

00:42:49.320 It was one sided. So I had no voice. I had no processing. I had no conversation. It was just me

00:42:56.760 and staring at a screen. And I could just keep going and looking and looking and looking for

00:43:01.860 more answers. But I don't think, well, I know I wouldn't have found them there, but I don't know

00:43:06.200 if most people know that. Like if there's a tightrope of 50% good, 50% can do public harm,

00:43:14.000 I feel like mental health influencers kind of thread that line and lean towards the harm side.

00:43:22.240 But sadly, we have to stop here.

00:43:26.480 Do not worry. Do not have anxiety or stress.

00:43:30.020 We will have so, so much more on the harmful aspects of seeking advice and mental health care on social media next week.

00:43:37.280 big hug you need it take care of yourself my friends

00:43:44.360 under the influence is hosted and reported by me joe piazza our senior producer is emily

00:44:00.360 marinoff glenis mcnichael is our editor abu zafar is our producer we got additional production

00:44:06.380 help from Aaron Peterson, and our associate producer is Lauren Phillip. Sound design and

00:44:11.620 mixing from Jackie Huntington. Our theme was composed by Jessica Kreinchich. Additional

00:44:16.500 music by Jessica Kreinchich and Jackie Huntington. Anna Stumpf is our consulting producer, and we

00:44:22.540 are executive produced by me, Joe, and Nikki Torr. And also a big thank you to Robert Jack,

00:44:30.340 who voiced the passage from Self-Help.

00:44:36.380 You

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - March 03, 2022

Where’s My Village？

Episode Stats

Transcript