~~GROUP-INTERVIEW~~[COMPLETE-PODCAST]~~

Journey to Recovery Podcast Radio is discussing the intersection of mental health and addiction, including challenges faced by those with mental disorders. They talk about coping mechanisms, finding the right therapist, and the impact of bullying. The guest shares her personal experiences with ADHD, bipolar disorder, and anxiety, and how therapy and medication have helped her. The group discusses trust issues with therapists and the importance of finding the right fit. They also talk about their experiences with bullying and how they handle it. We want to welcome you all to JTR, Journey to Recovery Podcast Radio, your weekly source for candid conversations on mental health and addiction. In today's episode on May 24th, 2024, episode 99, we're diving headfirst into the intersection of mental health and addiction, unpacking the challenges, triumphs, and resources available to those navigating these complex terrains. We're here to shed the light on these vital topics and provide a beacon of hope for anyone on their journey and empowerment in the face of adversity. I'm your host, Tragic Vision. Alongside of me is my trusty co-pilot, MJogerG, and you're tuning in to JTR, Journey to Recovery Podcast Radio. Today we are talking about how folks with mental disorders, how do they cope with their disorder. There's a lot of things that come with it, you know, from the time they get diagnosed to the time that they're kind of learning about it and what that diagnosis means. Some of the factors that go with that, that comes with it, you know, contributing to society, the fear of ridicule, discrimination, and insensitivity, and, you know, avoiding self-medicating whether it's through drugs or alcohol or being a workaholic, you know, a busy bee, you know, kind of avoiding the things that hurt us the most inside. And, you know, this is a tough conversation and topic for a lot of people, and I do appreciate everybody that's here today to kind of round-robin discuss this. Let me introduce myself. I'm MJogerG, and I'm T.C. Trek. Fred J. Boots. Unique. And Tragic Visions. And we have a special guest today, and her name is... Sabby Sack. How you doing? I'm doing good. How about you guys? We're doing great. Great. It's raining outside. Hell yeah, it is. Let's celebrate. So, yeah, today we're going to talk about this with... Sabby Sack. All right. Can you give me a little backstory of yourself? Yeah, totally. So, when I was first diagnosed with ADHD at the age of three and a half, my parents took me to my doctor. I got prescribed for it and got up to the point where I was a teenager, and I got hospitalized a lot throughout my teen years up to the age of 19. And then it progressed where I went to residential in Thompson, Connecticut, and then I went to a group home in Thompson, Connecticut. Then I moved into short living in Springfield, and then it came from another house in Springfield, and then another house in Sugar Beet, and where I live right now in West Springfield is a residential group home. And from that point I made a lot of progress with my mental illnesses, which I can name a few. I have bipolar disorder, ADHD, and ADD. I have some depression, and yeah, pretty much what I have right now, and anxiety, which are some of the basic ones that they have out there. And the medication I'm taking over the years really helps me. Also, with the therapy and coming to this really awesome program. How did you... When you first got diagnosed and they told you what your diagnosis was, how did you feel at that time? I was a little bit scared. Yeah. It's a very scary feeling. Yeah, it was. What did that mean to you at the time? It means that I was going to get help for my mental illnesses. Yeah. Even the hospitalization helped, too. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't easy at first, but I totally got it. How were you coping with everything that you've learned in the past and your coping skills today? You know, maybe what you would tell someone that's wanting to get out that's scared, and they don't know what the first step, you know, how was that, you know, for you? That was definitely my first. Then Rachel, and then Kaitlyn. I think finding a therapist is a hard thing. It's not just finding a therapist. It's like, okay, I have a therapist. You have to have some sort of, you know, kind of good feeling about them, if you will. Or if you can't bond with them, then it's tough. You always feel uncomfortable. Like, for me, so far, I've went through, I think, nine. That's like four or five for me. Yeah, and that's the common, you know, I think, thing for everyone. We all go through therapists, and people on the outside are like, well, why is he going through so many? Why did you get rid of this one? Why did you get rid of that one? Yeah. I'm glad you say that, because people don't realize it. I've had people, they get a therapist, and the first one don't help, so they just give up. In reality, you have to go through a lot. I went through so many like you did. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, they weren't doing, they weren't helping me. You know what I'm saying? And then I found one, within three days, I knew he was it. And now I've had him for five years, and he's my therapist. One of mine was sleeping. He was a, well, he was a baby. Get out of here. But he was young, and he was sleeping. Most of the time, he's asking questions about the book and looking. As soon as I start to talk, he'll just sneak and put, he'll sit on his chair and press and just. No, no. Fired. Fired. Immediately. I had somebody who said something, and then my mom came and said, no, she stopped paying you. Why don't you try and go get some sleep? Because we're paying for this and whatever. I went through the same situation as you. A therapist, I had, she was so mean to me. My mom had to run to her office and yell at her for how she was treating me, because that was different aspects, according to her. Because of my mental illness. Oh, you do. Yeah. You have different aspects. There's nothing wrong with that. And then her office got shut down because of what she did. And she had to get a new job as a therapist. Which I think that should have been one of the first ways that she had to graduate for that. Did you know, did you ever have like trust issues though? Yes. Oh, yeah. Definitely. The questions that they ask you, you feel like. Oh, definitely. Triggering. Triggered. Yeah, I got a bit triggered today. Like, can I just say, often you feel like harming yourself, you feel like hurting everybody around you. I haven't harmed anybody. I didn't have to lose feelings, but I had like thoughts of like, wanting to do something, somebody had to do something to me. I was dealing with anger instead of problems where I wanted to kill myself or hurt somebody for no reason. Right. I had feelings where like. You have an action to a reaction. Like anger. Like fight or flight. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. I just feel that way, and I think I felt that way because I felt betrayed. And the things that I was going through, the way that they spoke to me carelessly. Sometimes they were asking and being like, kind of spiteful and disrespectful. They weren't taking notes. You know, things I noticed that I was saying, they weren't always taking notes. And then they would always give me those questions at first. Do you feel this? I kind of felt betrayed. Betrayed? Yeah. You know, I hate when they do that because the last time they did that to me was when the ambulance came to pick me up. And they said, do you want to kill yourself? And I said, I didn't want to do anything until you put these ideas in my head. Do you get what I'm saying? Like, I didn't even think about it until you said something. And that's the thing too, is influence. They don't understand that. That's an influence. They don't understand that. Can I say something? A few times when they know, like, they could catch on to, like, they said something wrong and, like, I caught on to that or something, they'd say, okay, I'm going to ask you again. Like, they'd turn around and grab the paper. Do you feel this? I don't know. You kind of brainwash them. That's right. Yeah. After they finish tarnishing your character. Right. You kind of brainwash them. Yeah. Yeah. And then, like, they expect you to say no. If you say yes and it's the truth, that's why you're saying it. Oh, yeah. Well, when I was younger, I had a lot of anger issues. Guys who just did not show up because of that. My parents didn't believe me because they were in the teachers and I didn't know any of those kind of things in the first place. Right. And when I was, like, the age of six or seven, I got into my first fist fight with a person that I didn't like, who didn't like me back. Let's just call him Josh. And he was a major bully at my school. He targeted me the most because he thought he could manipulate me about what was happening with the anger, the anger issues, the fighting, the outcasting. And I'm like, why would you do that to me even though I'm different than all of you? And they're just laughing up at me. And I think even some of the staff at the school are laughing at me. Even some of the teachers laughed at me, too. In a mean way. I can see that. And by the time I hit fifth grade, they kicked me out of the school because I had an anger issue problem. Bullying happens for everybody. They did that to me, too. Yeah. When I would fight, they would say I'm a bully. It doesn't matter if I'm doing it every day, everywhere I go. And he was a bully? Yeah, I was being bullied. And I was a fight. It would end up being a fight because either the person would hit me first or drag my clothes or hit me or say something to me and then they would hit me or push me around. Not even provoke me, but, you know, physically provoke me. And they would say, like, when I was little, too, my mom would say, you said you were bullied like a fighter? I said, no. I was being bullied. Those are the times when I would fight. I'm not a fighter. In my school, there was a lot of bullying. There was a lot of instigating, too. Oh, yeah. That's right. I was involved. They did that to me a lot. And I was so short and skinny. I couldn't even stand up. I was like the mediator in the class. She just said something to me. I have a question. You said that you still get bullied now. Mm-hmm. I still get bullied sometimes. But I didn't brush it off. Well, that's the question. How do you handle it? What do you do? You know, I get you brush it off. Well, I did the therapy part, which helps the medication change. And then plus I was, like, 14. They had to restart all that. Because teen years are really hard to do. But how do you, like, or what skills do you use to help cope with that? Laleen? Um. What positive skills do you use? I don't really recall, honestly. You don't think about it? I don't think about it, really. You just brush it off? Yeah. Are you traumatized by it? Yeah. Of course. Very much. Yeah. It's not cool. Never cool. Bullying's not cool. No, bullying just don't happen in school. It also happens in class. It makes me mad every day. I used to get bullied in the streets. But as I got older, I kind of grew up from it. My friend was getting bullied. And he probably brought a knife to school. And when he brought a knife to school, I took it from him. Because I didn't want to get in trouble. And I ended up going to him. He kicked out of school for that. So to get a little personal, you don't have to answer this, but do you still believe here? No. No, I don't. I don't feel bullied anywhere anymore. I just let it go. I ignore people who try to bully me. So I just let it go. Cool. You guys want me to pull one skill? Yeah. Yeah. It's been a while. It's been a while. Separating myself from the issue. A lot of people can't do that. You know what I'm saying? No. They instigate it into a fight. It took me a lot of years to make it up to my parents, too. Sometimes they had trouble understanding what I was going through, too. Because they didn't really know about it. So it was like when I was 14, because that's when it started cutting my heart and my brain. How was that for your parents when they were addressing your care for yourself? They were really concerned. They found out immediately, or did you tell them about it? Yeah. They knew about it already because my brother Glenn was kind of the same thing. My brother and I are not biological, because Carl is biological to my adoptive parents. And then they adopted Glenn, and he's from a different family than me. We're from a different family. I am powerful. I am enough. Absolutely. I'm doing it. I'm worthy. I'm enough. I am worthy. I am enough. That's right. That's right, girl. And I want to bring up, I'm almost 40 years old. I'm a 25, yeah. To me, that expires me, because you learn something that took me so long to learn. Oh, yeah. I can relate. You know what I'm saying? I'm just learning what you're learning now. Believe me, I am. But you learn how our parents learned. I went through a lot of progression, trust me. It was not easy at first. Especially when I started clinical baseball. It expires me that you learn so quickly, you know? Yeah. Because we want the younger generation to learn mental illness quicker. Exactly. Jesus said to love our enemies. You've got to realize that sometimes you can't hate the people that tell you, you know, you're not going to get anywhere. You can't do this. You can't do that. Because they're the people that make you who you are. So you've got to love them anyway, no matter what you're doing. And just keep that route. Know you can do it, and do it anyways. But don't forget them, because they're the stepstool of where you're going. So just don't really forget them. You know, holding back is never, it's not good. It doesn't do anything for anybody. By being open and honest, you open that airways of transparency. And also that communication will be a little more open, because they trust each other. We trust each other. You know? We hold it in, and don't say anything. And we clam up and, you know, now we're off with the people or whoever, and you were sliding them, they're looking at you different. You know, the situation doesn't look good, because most likely you're probably going to avoid them at some point, or put up a brick wall and just, you know, I don't know. And if you let it out, you'll probably let go of what that imagination was, which it probably wasn't a big deal in the first place. You know? If you just ration it out with the other person, just by opening up, taking that first step. You know, taking first steps in life. You know? Not just with recovery or addiction or anything like that. It's life. You know? It's life management. Yeah. And I think that no book or therapist or psychiatrist can give you enough knowledge on, you know, life management. It is a learned skill from, you know, good behaviors that we learn through groups like this, open discussions. You know? We do attend churches or NAA meetings. I think you're right. You know? You know? I think that's going to be different for everybody. It's not necessarily... That doesn't have to be religious or spiritual, but something that you believe in that, you know, created this universe that we're in today. And, you know, you kind of have to wonder. There's something a little, you know, majestic or, you know, spiritual about that. You know? How did this earth get here? You know? There's something up there. Something's up there. We can't see it, but if we believe in what we can't see, you know, you'll... That's faith. That's faith. You know? And, you know, yeah, it's tough. I want to thank you for bringing these people around the room and ask everybody one thing they're grateful for. Life. Life. Yes. I'm grateful for this very moment. Especially right now. I'm grateful for life of the day. Because you've got me through day, me through night. Without that, you don't have anything. You all look like we're too close. They say, yeah. Doesn't matter. I'm grateful for life as well. You know? I'm grateful that I found God. I'm grateful that everything... Since this year started, I don't have one complaint about my life. And we're in month four. That's amazing. That's a good feeling. It is a great feeling. So, like, I'm grateful. I'm grateful for my higher power. And I'm grateful for taking the first step and making that phone call to a friend of mine when I was really down and out. And trusting in the process of my higher power to guide me in the direction of a better life. And opening myself up to love myself. Loving ourselves is tough. It takes one of the hardest things in life to do. I think that's one of the things that's going to be ongoing forever. I don't think I'll ever stop loving myself and learn something new about it. So, as my crew would say from bang up... Believe and never give up. I like that. I like that. Amen to that. Amen.