Watching Mental Health Episode 7 | Trinh Dang

This is a transcript of Watching Mental Health Episode 7 with Trinh Dang which you can watch and listen to here:

Katie: Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Watching Mental Health. I am really excited for this episode because I've been wanting this guest to come on since the beginning. This is trending and she is the executive director of NAMI Southern Nevada, which is a nonprofit that's really near and dear to my heart. It is a peer-led grassroots mental health nonprofit that aims to support, educate, and advocate for individuals and families who are impacted by mental health conditions. As someone with lived experience with mental health challenges and seeing it firsthand with her own family members, Trinh is a passionate, excuse me, mental health advocate. Trinh completed NAMI's family to family 12 week class in 2012 and became a volunteer teacher in 2013. And she has just continued to grow and evolve with the organization. And it is because of trend that NAMI Southern Nevada is where it is today, that it's had its success that we've had in these last few years because we've had just a really powerful guiding light leading us into this new world. And here in southern Nevada, we have seen dozens of families navigating mental health challenges and for trend, it's really changed her life. And so without further ado, please welcome trending.

Trinh: Hi, good afternoon everyone. Thank you so much for having me on here today. I'm excited to be here with you and I know the credit for me goes to the staff and the team that we have, including you, Katie, being part of it with our social media and getting the word out there because without you all helping us to lead the organization and to put on programming and letting people know that we're here, we wouldn't be able to do it. So thank you.

Katie: Absolutely. Well, thank you for being here again. And you're absolutely right. It takes a team to really see mental health impact and changes happen in our community, and it's been exciting to see NAMI Southern Grow, and I love the team because we're all so, I think passionate about it and our hearts are all really there and wanting to make a difference. And so tell us in your own words a little bit about who you are and why you decided to work as an executive director of a mental health nonprofit.

Trinh: Yeah, so me as a person, I am a first generation college student, first generation immigrant. My parents were refugees from the Vietnam War, and I think that's really where a lot of my story began. So I didn't really choose this career. I didn't grow up thinking, oh, one day I'm going to be an executive director of a nonprofit. My background is actually in education, but in working with education, I've noticed that there are a lot of youth that I was working with that just had mental health challenges, emotional challenges that really hindered their academic success. And reflecting back on my own mental health challenges, growing up with family members that had mental health challenges themselves, and even having my own depression anxiety and suicide ideation that started in the eighth grade, not realizing and knowing that it was mental health challenges at the time. But finally as I got older and learning more about it, I remember talking to counseling and psychological services on campus at Cal State Long Beach over a decade ago, and sharing with her everything that was going on and how it was impacting my own mental health as a college student.

And she gave me a NAMI brochure, and that's where my life changed. I went to the class as you shared earlier, took the family to family education class, started volunteering. And when I came here to Vegas, the opportunity came to volunteer. I knocked on their doors and said, I've been doing this for a long time and would love to be able to volunteer and teach a class out here. And before I knew it, the opportunity for executive director came up and here I am now. And that's how I got into the role. But it's been such a blessing to be able to wake up and say that this is my work. I used to do it on the weekends or in the evenings after work, so I would have to try to find time, but to be able to wake up every day and say, this is my work to do, this has been such a blessing.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny because we both work so hard to get NAMI's name out there, and so we just know everything NAMI related. But tell us a little bit more, let's just jump into NAMI services because I love that they provide free mental health support services for people in our community, and our community is struggling with mental health access, and I think that NAMI Southern Nevada fills a gap that is missing that can kind of pick some people up. So talk me through a little bit more of the services that NAMIs provide.

Trinh: Absolutely. So the first one I mentioned a bit about was the education class. So they're anywhere between six and eight weeks. So if someone is wanting to just learn to sit down, there's a curriculum that we read through. And the beauty of it is that we're part of a national organization. So the curriculum has been developed by mental health experts alongside families and peers, and it's been vetted, a lot of it's, so you get to sit down and read and learn about the different mental health with the populations you're working with and then also have time for discussions to process that kind of relate it back to our own personal experiences. So for anyone who wants and needs that structure and wants to learn alongside with other families or peers, that's a great way to do that. And then we have the more less formal support groups.

Think of AA, where people are just coming in and honestly, and you get to speak and share about what's going on with your week, your day. And we have from families and peers, anyone who's been impacted, whether it's been 10, 20 years ago or anyone who has been just recently impacted, maybe it was just this past weekend that someone had a crisis or a hospitalization or incarceration, and they're coming into this group to find a safe space and to find support from others and just be able to share what's going on. And sometimes we just need someone to understand and not judge us and not tell us what we're doing right or wrong or what to do, but to be able to have that space and maybe some people can share resources of what they've done and we take what we need and we take what we want from those groups. And then of course we have our, so I said education classes, support groups, presentations. So just going out there and educating the community from schools to clinics, hospitals to universities to law enforcement. We're out there giving presentations to raise mental health awareness to help decrease the stigma and just to really be a voice for advocacy too. So I would say those are three major pillars.

Katie: Yeah, definitely. And I just love that there's that peer aspect to it and then there's that family aspect to it and that, like you said, with the support groups, families can go in feeling completely hopeless and lost and alone, and they're on just their last ounce of hope and maybe they're calling our helpline and getting information and then coming into their family support groups and listening to other families share their own resources and information. So I just think it's so valuable and I just want to scream it from the rooftop sometimes that it's available. It feels hard in our community.

Trinh: It is. And can I share with you, honestly, 10 years ago, I would not be able to sit here in front of you talking about my own mental health challenges. I personally had so much stigma. I remember my first thought was, I don't want to talk to strangers about what I'm going through. I don't really know who all these people are. I'm going to walk into this place. And I was so nervous and so scared signing up for this class and walking into the room, I just remember my heart racing and I cried my first class because it was the first time in my life that I had sat in a room full of other people, strangers at the time, and talked about my own experiences. And it was scary, I'll be honest. But once I kind of got through that first part, I was like, okay, I felt this weight lifted off my shoulders of, I just felt lighter of, oh my gosh.

And just remember thinking, I used to think I was the only one going through this, or you read about it, you hear about it. I'm like, but what are other people really going through? But once I was in that room, it was that face-to-face or person to person connection, whether it's in an actual room, in person or in a zoom room, just to be able to hear live people talking about it together in our community was so powerful. And that's where I truly, I didn't just read the words, you're not alone. But I felt it. And I think that's the difference of feeling what that feels like to not be alone.

Katie: Yeah, that's so powerful. And I think NAMI would love, would be grateful to have that feedback. I think that's what NAMI's really built on is that you are not alone. That idea of a long time ago when it was created of those parents coming around the kitchen table together, really unsure of what to do and just knowing that they can support each other. And so you've touched on this a little bit with mentioning your family and your own personal struggles, but talk a little bit more about why mental health matters, why breaking down the stigma matters, why we do this work, even though it feels like an uphill battle sometimes.

Trinh: Absolutely. Not only does it impact so many people, but I'll start on it from a personal level. Well, I'll start with the basics. The fact that we all have mental health, that's where I start with everyone, is that we have dental health, we have vision health, we have physical health, and we need to come to an understanding that mental health is another component of our bodies of ourself that without the mental health or mental wellness aspect of it, it's really hard. It actually does impact our physical health too. Chronic stress, depression, anxiety, unchecked, can really wreck havoc on our cardiovascular. That's where a lot of cardiovascular diseases come from, all those things. But on a personal level, I shared earlier my suicide ideation started in the eighth grade. My anxiety, I had depression, had no idea. And for over a decade, I kind of just stayed in silence, not because it wasn't, I didn't want to talk to me, I just didn't know how. One, I didn't think that we talked about it in my mind, I just thought, everyone must think this way and we just all got to make it through life, and we just got to all suck it up and deal with it, and we just don't talk about it. That's, and it was really lonely. It was really those nights in the middle of the night when we're kind of on our last straw and just thinking all these things are happening, I don't know how to cope or deal, it gets overwhelming.

Katie: It was

Trinh: Really hard. And I just remember those times of how I wish I did have something. So when I finally did find that something, which was that first NAMI family to family education class, even though when I went back home after I finished the class, it's not like I was able to bring the family members and all the great people with me to sit in the room with me. That wasn't the case. But it's the energy, it's the concept and thought behind it that once I came back home, although I knew that yes, physically I might be alone in my room or going through these things, but in the back of my mind I knew that I had a whole community behind me. I knew that I wasn't the only one going through this. And that's what gave me strength to keep going, to find out more ways of how I can help and give back or find out how I can work on my own mental health challenges.

And it really started from the classes that I took to become more aware of my own past traumas, of my own mental health challenges and knowing that recovery is possible. I'll be honest, I think back then I didn't know that and I just thought, this can't be it. Is this the end of my life or is this just it? And I'm going to be stuck this way forever? And it was really scary. But I want people to know that recovery is possible, that there is a light at the end of this dark tunnel sometimes that we're walking through alone, but we need to be able to share what those experiences are and help people kind of navigate their own journeys. And that's kind of what I had to do to be able to be mentally well, to be able to work through and process some of those experiences and challenges to be where I am today.

Katie: Yeah, definitely. It's really a lot to feel when you're alone and to feel like nobody is there. And I just think that's so powerful that it's not necessarily showing up and saying the right thing, it's just showing up. It's just being there and sharing your own lived experience, but then allowing them, like you said, to then travel their own journey and to know that you're there to support them in whatever it is that they choose. And so one big thing that nami really, I think one of the things that they work towards in their advocacy arm is that access to choice is that the people can choose as long as it's between them and their provider. And that insurance companies aren't trying to step in and take the medication. And I know that that's such a hot topic. Do you have any thoughts on medication model versus other therapies, or is it more kind of like access is what we should be focusing on and less on the specific types of therapies? Just what are your thoughts on that?

Trinh: I have three words. Okay. Person centered, care person-centered care, meaning that for some people the road and journey does involve medication. And if that's their choice and what they want to do, then yes, we advocate and we support them in that. For others, I know in communities, especially in Asian communities, my own parents medication is not the first choice. It's more of a westernized treatment model that for us, I know my parents are big on acupuncture or chiropractic services or herbal medicine or there's whatever modality people want to look to for their healing. It could be spiritual or it could be faith-based. It could be a mixture of all those things. For some people, talk therapy works for others, maybe it's more of somatic therapy, but I really am big on it's down to the choice of the person. Because if we take that choice away from them and say, you have to do it this way, and there's only one way, I mean, we all know that there's not just one way to do something.

There's no model where a hundred percent of the people should do it this way. Even with evidence-based practices, you think about what research really is. No research ever says a hundred out of a hundred people or a hundred percent is this way. It's usually the majority of the people are this way. But what about the other, I don't know, 10, 15, 20, 30% that doesn't fall into that category or the majority? What does that look like for them? And I think as long as we are listening to the person as far as what their needs are at the moment, which it's different for everyone, I think that's the most piece.

Katie: Yeah, definitely. And it just seems like with mental health treatments are so much more complex. There isn't that a hundred percent. It isn't like diabetes and we know that this pill or this treatment is going to help. We just don't know until we try a lot of these things. And a lot of it's trial and error, which I think is hard for people, and sometimes they feel like they should give up. And I know here in Las Vegas just getting that access is hard. They find themselves on a six month wait list just to see a therapist that they don't connect with. What are your thoughts on these kind of challenges in our local community with mental health treatment and access to care?

Trinh: Yeah, there is a shortage as we've talked about and for a variety of reasons that I won't get into on this show. And again, if we go back to can we think creatively, what do we need to do to think outside the box? So there might be other types of healing modalities. We don't think of massage therapy as being one, but a lot of times if there's those psychosomatic symptoms that comes up with whether it's depression, anxiety, maybe that massage therapy can really help wiki be another avenue. For some people yoga, for some people it's exercise and working out. For some people it's more trauma-informed care or therapies like EMDR and other things. But just it looks so different for everyone. And I know a big piece that we're working on is peer support specialists. So yes, we have shortage and professionals and providers, but peers can really be an asset and a resource, especially people who have walked that journey and lived that.

It's not something that you can learn from a textbook to live and walk. That journey is a different perspective. And we have that certification that peers can go through that once they're certified, there's a whole board that certifies them. There's ethics and standards and being able to reach out to someone to say, Hey, it's okay, you're going through it, but I've gone through it and I've been there and there's another side to this, and let me help you walk through your own journey, not to do exactly what I did, but to just say I'm here for you. And to have that compassionate, empathetic voice. We have youth peer support specialists that we're training young adults who lived this experience to be able to reach out to teens and say, Hey, you're not alone. It's not just something that you read about or see on tv. I'm actually sitting here with you and let's talk about how we can maybe journal or how we can do art or do something that helps to move through that process of pain. Move

Katie: Through that motion. Yeah,

Trinh: Exactly. And towards healing. So there's just so many other different modalities thinking outside the box of what else can we do to be able to address mental health challenges?

Katie: So that's amazing to learn more about the peer support specialists. I feel like a lot of people out there don't really know that that's a thing. And so that's really amazing that we can't control necessarily what's happening with mental health fundraising or what's happening with legislation, but we can control what we can control. So I really think that that's awesome that we've been able to step forward and say, okay, well, we can't go change the whole state, but what we can do is we can provide support in this way. And that's so powerful. And so I just love that you really talked through that and I'd love that you talk through different modality options. Everyone thinks it's maybe just talk therapy or medication, but there is so much more and you really listed off a lot of them. So I hope people were writing that down if they're interested and struggling.

So I want to talk more about the advocacy a little bit. I have seen you really grown in advocacy here. We were together in Carson City during the legislative session. That was my first time being in any sort of scene like that, and I just kind of stood back and watched you do amazing things and talked to all of our policymakers. And I know that NAMI has some sort of training around advocacy. So talk to me a little bit more about advocacy with NAMI and then what you're doing and what you're wanting to do here in Nevada with advocacy around mental health.

Trinh: Yeah, thanks so much for asking that question. I just want everyone to know that anyone can do advocacy. I didn't know that when I first started teaching my education classes, my family to family classes, I just thought advocacy is what we leave to the experts, the people who are really knowledgeable and know politics. I don't really have that in-depth knowledge, but it was last year in December that thankfully to NAMI National that supported bringing executive directors to the hill for Capitol Hill Day where we actually got to talk to Congress members and advocate for mental health services. And I got to watch Robin Reedy, our state executive director, work her magic. So in a way, she's my mentor. I don't know if she knows that, but I got to watch how she did it, and I just thought, oh, okay. What she did was she talked about what we did, why it mattered, and we talked about our personal stories.

So if you have a story, you can be an advocate. That's what I want people to know. And so that's when, when I came back two months later, I'm like, all right, we're going to Carson City. We're going to do this. It's a legislative session. Everyone can't be an advocate. I just need you to share your stories. And that's the part where sometimes people, it's like how do we take our whole life story and condense it to just two to three minutes? And that's where NAMI comes in because with our NAMI Smarts training, and that's where I got a lot of my advocacy training. I took the class and I trained to become a teacher, and I use the template to write down my own story to be able to share with legislators. And then I've just become so used to the format now that I can kind of just say it in the back of my mind.

But that template, it's a seven step process that breaks it down to where you just say the most important parts that legislators want to hear, where you introduce yourself, talk briefly about what it is your challenge or your story is, and tie it into whatever it is that we're trying to advocate for. More mental health funding services that are mental health friendly and that sort of thing. So we do provide training, and in that training, people will get a chance to write their story. They get a chance to practice their story and get feedback so that you leave with the story ready in hand and you could switch pieces out as new legislative actions come into play and switch up the story. But you at least have a template and an outline of what that looks like.

Katie: Yeah, that's really exciting. I love it. I've taken the NAMI Smarts training. I'm also now a trainer, and so I'm out there busy training people. I want everyone to be an advocate, right? Because we all need to come together and be ready. I think for the next legislative session, we want to be able to have our ducks in a row and say, okay, this is what we want in mental health and in healthcare. And I think historically our town has maybe struggled with bringing everyone together to fight for these things. So I think it's really exciting what you're doing, the work that you're putting in, and I think it's going to make a difference.

Trinh: Can I share one piece that I just learned from the NAMI Executive Directors Leadership Summit this last week that I was in? DC advocacy doesn't just happen at the Hill. It doesn't just happen in Carson City. After you take this NAMI Smarts class or if you have a story that you're able to share in your own, you feel comfortable. Advocacy happens everywhere in the community. So I know a lot of our legislative members or just council members or whoever that's in charge of the city, the county, the state, they're out at different events, whether it's a coffee, whether it's a town hall or whatever it is. And if we go to those events and we start sharing our stories and how these policies impact us or how the lack of services impact us or whatever it is that we have to share, that's what the people need to hear that are representing us. And just going out to those events and making sure that we're making that connection and sharing our personal stories is really where the advocacy piece begins. So anyone can do it. We could do it within our own cities and towns, and we don't have to wait for every two years to go up to Carson City to do that either.

Katie: Absolutely. That's a really good point. And what's cool about Nevada is that our Congress people are very accessible. I've heard we're one of the most accessible in the country because our policymakers, they live amongst us and they're not up in Carson City all year long. They're actually out in the communities, like you're saying, they're at these events. And I think that that's a cool aspect to Nevada. I think because we're small, we're able to be more accessible in that way. And I think that gives us, as the people more power if we know what to do with it, if we know how to approach them and what to say.

Trinh: Exactly. And they do read their emails, they do listen to the phone calls. So if people are just nervous to go talk in person, then once you have your script, you could email that in. You can call and talk to someone when the staffers and just share those type of things. So it doesn't always have to be in person.

Katie: Yeah, that's very true too. We can advocate any day, and I think everybody can be an advocate. Alright, so we only have a couple minutes left, but I want to ask one question that I'd like to ask the majority of my guests and kind of get your thoughts on it. And the question is this is do you think that mental health challenges or a mental health diagnosis is something that you can overcome and recover from or something that you should be living with learning to live with for the rest of your life? And is there a middle ground? Is it maybe a little bit of both?

Trinh: Yeah, I would say there's probably a middle ground, a little bit of both. It goes back to every individual and it just depends the way that, the analogy I like to use is I know everyone is more familiar with our physical health. If I fall and I get a scratch, I could put a bandaid on it. It's going to get covered up, it'll heal, it'll be fine. If I sprain my ankle, the likelihood of it being sprained later on might be increased. If I break an arm, that part might be sensitive for the rest of my life. If I lose a limb, I'm going to have to learn how to rehabilitate myself and learn a live life a little bit differently than what it was before. So mental health and emotional injuries, mental health challenges impacts people in different ways on different severity levels, different experiences.

So just depending on what it is that that person had experienced through their mental health challenges, it depends for each person what that looks like, whether it's something that they're able to overcome, whether it's something that they have to manage for the rest of their lives. I know for me, I could speak for myself personally. There were times where I lived with crippling anxiety to the point where it was hard to pick up the phone and make a phone call. Answering an email was hard and just everywhere I went, it was that voice in my mind that told me everyone hated me and my heart racing and the fogginess that made it really hard to just function. I'm not living with that anymore today. So I know for myself it still comes and goes here and there, but I've learned coping tools and strategies to quiet that down and things that have worked for me. And so I think everyone just kind of has to find what is it that works for them. Even with my suicide ideation, I was on antidepressants and medication for a while that helped with that, and I decided to get off of it at one point. For some people, they might need to stay on it for a long time. Some people might choose to get off of it, and it's just, again, up to each person, it's going to look different. I don't think it's the same for any two people.

Katie: And it sounds like you decided to get off of it and also continue your journey and learning coping skills and tools to help when these pop up again, because I know for me it's the same thing. I am not as crippled as maybe I was 10 years ago, but I still have the days where I'm just like, I don't want to do anything so anxious. And you have to get those coping tools out, start working 'em.

Trinh: It's a daily process. I tell people it's like working out. You can work out for a whole year and get really buffed, but what happens the moment that you stop working out five years later, you're not going to have that same muscle being super strong and all that. It's an everyday process. So it is just keeping mental wellness. It's like brushing your teeth. I don't know.

Katie: Yeah, no, that's true. That's true. And that's such a great analogy. I really love that analogy. That's something that I'm actually really holding onto. I'm going to use that. I'm stealing it from you. I'm officially taking it from you. I just loved…

Trinh: It. Someone else. Right.

Katie: Well, thank you so much for coming on. I know we're a minute over, but I just really love talking to you about this stuff and getting your insights. And I know you and I, we work together a lot, so we spend a lot of time in the day to day and just to get out and kind of have that overview conversation, that 30,000 foot conversation is really exciting to do with you. So thank you so much.

Trinh: Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity.

Katie: Thank you. Have a good one. And we will be back every first and third Wednesday of the month at 3:00 PM Pacific Time. Thanks so much everyone.

Trinh: Bye.