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Mental Mondays with Black Girl Interrupted · Black Girl Interrupted Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Let's chap another WOA, WHOA, What's up? What's up? What's up, y'all?
• 0:43
  Happen Monday? Y'all already know who it is. It's your
• 0:46
  favorite girl friend, the five O folks, bringing you another
• 0:49
  episode of Black Girl into Ruptie. What's going on Happen Monday,
• 0:56
  I miss y'all, haven't seen y'all. It's been a week.
• 1:00
  I didn't go live last week simply because I had
• 1:04
  my daughter here with me and trying to get stuff
• 1:07
  situated with her for school. But I'm here today, so
• 1:10
  that's all that matters. Your girl is here today, and
• 1:14
  y'all already know what we're doing. We are doing our
• 1:16
  weekly mental health checking. I need to know how y'all
• 1:19
  are feeling, what's going on my babies. I miss y'all.
• 1:23
  I love y'all. I hope you guys are having a
• 1:25
  beautiful day. But I know it is some people out
• 1:28
  there that are struggling. So anyone that is new to
• 1:33
  a Black Girl interrupt the podcast. Y'all know. I always
• 1:36
  play something motivational, something inspirational, something inspiring, something encouraging because
• 1:42
  I want to keep you uplifted. I want to keep
• 1:43
  you in power. So before we jump into our weekly
• 1:46
  check in. Here we go, let's go into something a
• 1:49
  little uplifting.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Life will knock do between the eyes.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: It will catch you on the blinds that come out
• 2:03
  of know it step.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: You can't anticipate. They will knock the win out of you.
• 2:08
  You want to give up, It's going to be very challenging.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: Whenever you decide that you want to grow, Whenever you
• 2:14
  decide that you want to go to another level, all hell.
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: Will break loose. It's hard, it's not easy. It's hard
• 2:24
  changing your life. And here's what I want to say
• 2:27
  to you. For those of you that have experienced some hardships.
• 2:32
  Don't give up on your dream.
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: In moments when you're going to doubt yourself. They are
• 2:39
  rough times are going to come, but they have not
• 2:41
  come to stay. They have come to pass.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: We all go through problem. They don't have to overwhelm
• 2:49
  you though. Problems don't have to take you out. Though
• 2:52
  problems will have to make your life miserable.
• 2:54
  Speaker 6: Though your problem is you go back and run your
• 2:57
  safety net. I can't do it, and you're gonna be
• 3:00
  running to it for the rest of your life until
• 3:03
  you get to a point where you look at life
• 3:04
  and say you will not beat meat.
• 3:07
  Speaker 7: It's easy to complain. It's easy to point out your circumstances.
• 3:12
  It's easy to talk about what has happened to you.
• 3:15
  It's easy to talk about your situation.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: What you're going through.
• 3:20
  Speaker 8: But if you do what is easy, your life will
• 3:23
  be hard. But if you do what's hard, your life
• 3:29
  will be easy.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: See it's easy to be on the bottom. It doesn't
• 3:33
  take any effort to be a loser, doesn't take.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: Any motivation, any drive in order to stay down there
• 3:39
  at a low level. But it calls on everything in you,
• 3:43
  ladies and gentlemen.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: You have to.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Honess your will to say, I'm going to challenge myself.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I have to pull myself out of bed and
• 3:50
  come on.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: Lets things I know I should do, I talk to
• 3:54
  things I shouldn't do I do.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I found that the biggest enemy you have to deal
• 3:58
  with is yourself.
• 4:00
  Speaker 9: Your problem is Some of you are phenomenally skilled, But
• 4:03
  it is a phenomenal will that says every time I
• 4:06
  get knocked down, I will get back up and I
• 4:10
  will succeed. I will not surrender. You have something great
• 4:17
  in you. You can do it. Where you are is temporary.
• 4:21
  You will not be there for the rest of your life.
• 4:23
  Hit my last for a second, hit my last for
• 4:26
  a minute, hit my last for an hour, hit my
• 4:28
  last for a week.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: It might last for a day, it might last for months,
• 4:32
  But sooner or later.
• 4:33
  Speaker 9: If you do not surrender, if you do not give up,
• 4:36
  if you do not give in, it will subside.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: You've got to say yes, Yes to my dreams, Yes
• 4:44
  to me. I can make it. Yes I can. Doesn't
• 4:49
  matter how many failures I've made.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Doesn't matter how many mistakes I've endured.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: Doesn't matter about my defeat, doesn't matter about what I've done.
• 4:58
  I don't care about the fact I'm a hole now,
• 5:01
  doesn't matter about where I am. Yes, Yes, the last
• 5:06
  chapter to my life has not been written yet. If
• 5:09
  you judge me now, you'll judge me prematurely.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: I haven't exposed all my stuff yet.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: I'm still in the process of transforming my life. I'm
• 5:18
  still in the process of becoming.
• 5:21
  Speaker 9: Yes, you are grades, you are unique, you are special,
• 5:26
  you are talented, and you deserve to have everything you want.
• 5:30
  Speaker 10: And stop listening to the people who.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Tell you don't kill the noise. What do they know?
• 5:36
  Who are they?
• 5:38
  Speaker 9: And when that thing tells you to quit, You look
• 5:40
  at it in his eye and say, I ain't going nowhere.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: I will break you before you break me. You will
• 5:45
  not defeat me. You will not destroy me. You've been
• 5:48
  through so much. Hell, you gonna quit now? You don't
• 5:52
  quit now. It's the tenth round.
• 5:54
  Speaker 10: You got two more to go. And when you get
• 5:56
  to success, it's not about still. When you get to
• 5:59
  a certain level of success, it's about standing up. It's
• 6:02
  about you on wikly. You can't take me.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: I'm start too long, I'm far too hard. It's too
• 6:07
  late now.
• 6:08
  Speaker 10: He should have broken me a long time ago.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: I'm not unbreakable now.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: On it here? All right, all right, y'all. So again,
• 6:39
  anyone that's new, y'all, welcome to a new episode of
• 6:42
  Black Girl Interrupted the podcast Again. It's your favorite girl
• 6:44
  ass from the five Oh for bringing y'all another mental
• 6:47
  health check in our weekly mental health checking let me
• 6:50
  say that, excuse me again for those that are new
• 6:54
  to the chat. Tonight Tonight tonight and I do this
• 6:57
  each and every Monday, is our weekly mental health health
• 7:00
  check ins. I do this simply because just almost two
• 7:06
  months ago.
• 7:07
  Speaker 8: I was.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Taken into the hospital for attempting to unlive myself. Getting
• 7:18
  back into doing my podcast, Excuse Me, has been very
• 7:22
  therapeutic for me. I've been able to share, I've been
• 7:25
  able to be open and vulnerable and transparent. And I
• 7:28
  do that because I want to help somebody. I want
• 7:31
  someone to know that it's okay to not be okay.
• 7:34
  I want people to know that you don't have to
• 7:35
  sit and struggle in silence. I want you to know
• 7:38
  if you don't have to sit by yourself. I do
• 7:41
  want you to know that there are resources that are
• 7:43
  available for you if you are having difficulties trying to
• 7:47
  find mental health resources in your community. I'm gonna go
• 7:51
  and post on my page, Hey Troy, it's good to
• 7:54
  see your baby. Don't forget. We have got to connect
• 7:56
  on the wholat corner. Stop playing now, y'all. You know
• 7:59
  we gotta get together. But I do again. I do
• 8:05
  this because it's therapeuted for me, and I know I
• 8:09
  could potentially be helping somebody else that may be struggling,
• 8:12
  someone that may be not knowing where to go, someone
• 8:16
  that feels like they in the darkening by themselves, and
• 8:20
  I know what that feels like. So again, y'all, Welcome
• 8:23
  to another episode of Black Girl Interrupted again. It's your
• 8:26
  favorite girl from the five ZO four, It's your girl Ash.
• 8:29
  Anybody that is tuned in, I want you to drop
• 8:31
  a green heart in the chat for me for mental health.
• 8:36
  If you can't share the live, tap the screen. Tell
• 8:39
  your people come on. We're doing our mental health check
• 8:41
  in the day. I gotta check in with y'all because
• 8:43
  I gotta make sure y'all look good. I gotta make
• 8:45
  sure y'all are straight. So to kind of catchy'all up
• 8:50
  on what's been going with going on with me? So
• 8:54
  last week or week before last, I do apologize. I
• 8:57
  did find out that my mammogran was negative, so everything
• 9:01
  was good. I did have some lambs done this past
• 9:06
  week because many of you don't know that I do
• 9:09
  have fibromyalgia, so I deal with that. You know, has
• 9:13
  it taken a toll on my mental Yeah? It has.
• 9:18
  But I will honestly say every day gets easier for me.
• 9:22
  Every day I'm in a much better space mentally, my
• 9:26
  low gets a little lighter. I'm learning what I will
• 9:30
  and won't tolerate. I am learning that it's okay to
• 9:34
  tell people no. I'm learning that it's okay to put
• 9:36
  those boundaries up because you have to protect your peace
• 9:39
  at all times. And some people don't understand that. Some
• 9:44
  people will you give them an inch, baby, they'll take
• 9:46
  a whole football field on you. But I'm here to
• 9:49
  let you know that I know in our community, we
• 9:54
  don't talk about this. We don't stress the importance of
• 9:58
  mental health. We don't stress them importance of going to therapy.
• 10:03
  But I do want you to know that that is
• 10:05
  the leading cause. That is I'm so sorry. Let me
• 10:08
  I apologize. That is the third leading cause of in
• 10:13
  our community and particularly black men. For those that know
• 10:21
  we we've been struggling today mentally. Last week we lost
• 10:27
  Robbie Pardlo from City High and then today we got
• 10:31
  the news that we lost Mac with Jamal Warner. I
• 10:34
  know a lot of people are struggling because we're like, no,
• 10:37
  not the old man. They can't be him. Hey, thank you.
• 10:42
  Yeah the blue lipstick for blue. I'm feeling a little
• 10:45
  blue today, but not in a bad way. So I
• 10:51
  know a lot of people, like I say, we are
• 10:53
  going through it because losing Mac with Jamal Warner, y'all
• 10:57
  was not on the bingo card. It absolutely was not,
• 11:01
  but I really want to get into what it's like
• 11:08
  to be in the dark, the depression, the anxiety. Someone
• 11:16
  just hit me a message and says, I really need
• 11:19
  you to speak to my heart tonight. So I got you.
• 11:23
  I'm not gonna put the name, but I got you.
• 11:30
  As a person that does struggle with depression and anxiety,
• 11:35
  it is easy to get in that dark space. It's
• 11:38
  very easy to excuse me to fill alone. It's easy
• 11:45
  to say, oh, I am all right, but really, deep down
• 11:48
  you're drowning. I don't want anyone, anyone to suffer alone.
• 11:53
  I say this, and I will continue to say this,
• 11:57
  Do not struggle by yourself. I would rather for you
• 12:00
  to call me and let's talk, or you whatever it
• 12:04
  is you have to do, versus me getting a phone
• 12:07
  calling someone saying that this person is gone, because I
• 12:12
  know what that feels like. I remember, like I say,
• 12:18
  just what, a little over thirty days ago, I was
• 12:24
  sitting in the hospital, you know, contemplating and this is
• 12:34
  the seventh time I've done this, that I've attempted. And yeah,
• 12:38
  it gets a little easier for me to talk about,
• 12:40
  It gets a little easier for me to share, It
• 12:42
  gets a little easier for me to be more transparent
• 12:47
  than I've ever been in my life. Someone asked me,
• 12:51
  they say, why do you tell so much? Why not?
• 12:57
  You know, me being silent is what had me in
• 13:00
  those situations seven times, me not being able to talk,
• 13:05
  me not having a safe space, my feelings being dismissed,
• 13:10
  me expressing how I feel, and they're like, well, why
• 13:14
  do you feel that way? You shouldn't feel that way.
• 13:16
  I don't know why you feel that way. And that
• 13:18
  was from my family, not friends, but family, the very
• 13:23
  same people that you think are gonna be there for you. Yeah.
• 13:29
  You know, having to go no contact with my mother
• 13:34
  was rough, and it's still rough. But I will say this,
• 13:40
  my mother is very diff is very dangerous to my
• 13:43
  mental do I love her absolutely. My love for my
• 13:47
  mother will never change. But I have to put those
• 13:51
  boundaries up. You know. They keep saying, oh, you gotta
• 13:55
  honor your mother and thy father. Yes, but also in
• 13:58
  the Bible it tells you how to treat and raise
• 14:01
  your children. So we have to get over that. Over
• 14:09
  that still family, okay, but family could still be toxic.
• 14:13
  Family could very well be. You know what, I need
• 14:16
  to distance myself. It's okay to separate yourself from family,
• 14:20
  especially if they're no good for your mental if they're
• 14:22
  not conduce so for your health. Baby, cut them people off.
• 14:25
  Stop trying to hold on to what looks good. Stop
• 14:28
  trying to hold on to family members, Stop trying to
• 14:31
  hold onto people to friends and relationships that mean you
• 14:36
  no good. Stop trying to socialize yourself with people that
• 14:40
  are triggers for you. And that's one of the things
• 14:43
  that we have to learn is when do we say
• 14:47
  enough is enough when we're at our break in point no,
• 14:54
  we have to stop allowing people to push us. We
• 14:56
  have to stop allowing them to come in and rob
• 14:59
  and steal from us our joy. And we let them
• 15:04
  because we want to be loved, We want to be accepted.
• 15:06
  That we will accept the bare minimum just to say
• 15:12
  my mother loves me, my sister loves me, my daddy
• 15:14
  loves me, my brothers, my sisters, whatever. But we gotta
• 15:19
  stop accepting that. You have to put up You have
• 15:22
  to put those boundaries in place. You have to start
• 15:24
  telling people no. When you know these people are no
• 15:27
  good for you, cut them off. And I know it's
• 15:30
  easier said than done, and I know it hurts and
• 15:33
  I know we grieve those types of excuse me situations,
• 15:37
  but think about what it will do for your mental
• 15:40
  And then when I decided to go no contact with
• 15:44
  my mother, I cried. I laid in the bed for
• 15:46
  like three days, and I cried and I cried and
• 15:48
  I cried and I cried until my cousin said, why
• 15:52
  are you laying in the bed crying and your mama
• 15:54
  is not over there crying about you. So when she
• 15:58
  said that, that snapped in me, and I was like,
• 16:00
  you know, let me get up and let me get
• 16:01
  myself together, because I'm not doing this with any ill intent.
• 16:06
  I'm doing it because I have to protect my mental
• 16:10
  I have to stay with my head on a swivel.
• 16:14
  I have to stay leveled upright, because if I'm not
• 16:18
  good for my stuff, how can I be good for
• 16:21
  other people. So this is why I do these mental
• 16:26
  health check ins. This is why I check in with
• 16:28
  y'all because even I were strong friends, our strong friends
• 16:35
  are struggling too. It only takes five, ten, fifteen seconds
• 16:40
  out of your day to just tell somebody, just to
• 16:43
  text somebody and say, you know what, I'm just checking
• 16:46
  up on you. I just want to make sure, you're good,
• 16:51
  create safe spaces for us to be able to talk,
• 16:54
  because there are people out here, like I say, that
• 16:56
  can't talk. There are people that are struggling by themselves
• 16:59
  and they can't talk to anybody because you want to
• 17:01
  know why, because y'all are too busy telling everybody business.
• 17:04
  Y'all want to say this and this and this and this.
• 17:07
  Instead of being an ear, you want to be what
• 17:10
  do they say, a vent? Why can't we just be
• 17:15
  a vent for somebody? Why can't we just sit and
• 17:17
  listen to somebody and encourage them and empower them instead
• 17:21
  of oh, girl, it's gonna be all right, you're gonna
• 17:24
  be fine, girl. It's just that some people are really
• 17:27
  out here, really truly struggling. I don't want anyone to
• 17:31
  say to take offense to say I don't believe in God,
• 17:35
  because I do. I know prayer works. But at the
• 17:37
  end of the day, I needed therapy too. I had
• 17:41
  to deal with this. I had to deal with this.
• 17:45
  I didn't have a group of people well you know what,
• 17:48
  let me take that back. Let me take that back,
• 17:49
  because I did. But those very same people that say
• 17:55
  they're here for me, what now I can kind of
• 17:59
  want to hand the number of peop people they call
• 18:01
  and check on me to make sure I'm good one hand.
• 18:05
  I count on one hand. But me, I'm gonna clear
• 18:11
  a whole space. But you, if you tell me, Ashley,
• 18:14
  I'm struggling, I need to talk, call me and I'll
• 18:19
  be quiet and I'll just listen to you. I'll listen
• 18:22
  to you. Get whatever it is off your chest. I'll
• 18:25
  listen to you. I will clear space for you. You need
• 18:27
  me to pray with you, I will pray with you.
• 18:29
  Do you need me to cry with you, I will
• 18:31
  cry with you. I will do anything to help you
• 18:33
  preserve your mental health. I'll do anything even if you
• 18:38
  tell me. You know what, ash just I just need
• 18:42
  an ear and I'm gonna be quiet and I'm gonna
• 18:44
  listen to you, because in that moment, you don't need
• 18:47
  advice for me. You need to vent, you need to decompress,
• 18:50
  you need to get all of that off your shoulders
• 18:52
  because you've been carrying a way to the world on
• 18:54
  your shoulders all day and you don't have nobody to
• 18:56
  talk to. But I don't want to be that way.
• 19:01
  I want a lot of safe spaces. I really wish
• 19:05
  instead of a sharing bull on these social media platforms.
• 19:10
  Use it for the greater good of the people. Create
• 19:12
  these safe spaces for people to come in and have
• 19:14
  these conversations like we do on tonight. We're talking about
• 19:18
  all things mental health. Everything that's affecting your mental That's
• 19:22
  what we're talking about. And what can we do to
• 19:24
  help you? What can I do to help you get
• 19:26
  over that?
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Hum.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: I can share with you the things that I've gone
• 19:29
  through and the things that I've started to do to
• 19:32
  help keep my mental in check. Do I take medication, Absolutely,
• 19:37
  I am on two different mens to keep my anxiety
• 19:40
  and my depression in check. I pray daily, I read
• 19:45
  affirmations every day. I post affirmations and I read those
• 19:48
  over myself. I share those with people I see. It
• 19:52
  was a young lady on my timeline, y'all, who basically
• 19:56
  says she didn't want to be here anymore, and I
• 19:58
  have to tell her, ah, no, no, babe, we need
• 20:01
  you here because I see you. I know y'all are struck.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: I know it.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: But don't give up. Please, please, please don't give up. Hey, y'all, Welcome, Welcome,
• 20:14
  Welcome back to another episode of Black Girl Interrupted. If
• 20:16
  you are new My name is Ashley. I'm your favorite
• 20:19
  girlfriend of five ole four. I am an up and
• 20:21
  coming podcaster. As you can see the podcast at the top,
• 20:25
  it's called Black Girl Interrupted. And just to give you
• 20:28
  a brief background on myself and how I came to
• 20:31
  do Black Girl Interrupted was it was at one of
• 20:35
  my lowest, lowest, lowest periods in my life and at
• 20:40
  the time, I didn't have an outlet. At that time,
• 20:42
  I didn't have a circle of people to talk to.
• 20:45
  You know, people really don't have time for you, but
• 20:48
  I'm always sure enough for everybody else. So I sat
• 20:52
  down and I said, you know what I said, I'm
• 20:53
  about to go ahead and I'm gonna create this podcast.
• 20:55
  I say, I need something to be able to vent.
• 20:58
  I need a safe space for myself. So when my
• 21:03
  father passed in twenty twenty one, I really really really
• 21:08
  got into it. Hey, jose Hey jd, Hey, everybody that's
• 21:14
  tuning in, y'all tapped the screen, share the live tell
• 21:17
  them come on, we're doing our mental health check in
• 21:19
  the day. So I really got into my podcast and
• 21:29
  my very I remember my very first episode, second episode,
• 21:33
  I did it with my son and I had to
• 21:38
  apologize because I was a horrible person. I was a
• 21:43
  horrible parent to my children. I was a horrible person
• 21:47
  all the way around. And so as I started to
• 21:52
  do these episodes, life it got a little easier for me.
• 21:58
  Then my father passes away, my niece goes missing, my
• 22:03
  god Silster passes. This was all within a year twenty
• 22:07
  twenty one. I couldn't even grieve the loss of my
• 22:12
  father because my niece was found un alive, my Godsilster passes.
• 22:18
  This was all within maybe five months. I lost my
• 22:23
  father in March. Let me back up. My niece were
• 22:27
  missing in February. My father passed in March, my god
• 22:32
  sister passed in May, so this was like within months.
• 22:36
  And then we found my niece, and then a year
• 22:41
  later I lose my godmother. So in the midst of
• 22:45
  all this, I didn't even get a chance to grieve.
• 22:47
  I had to keep going as if as if you know,
• 22:50
  and I understand life doesn't stop when a person passes away,
• 22:53
  but it took a toll on my mental and I
• 22:57
  ended up having to have a hysterectomy. It was just
• 23:00
  so many things that happened to me within a year.
• 23:03
  And I remember calling my son at about like one
• 23:07
  o'clock in the morning, and I told my son, I said,
• 23:12
  I need you to come now. M So he comes,
• 23:22
  him and my daughter. They come and I just tell
• 23:27
  them I said, it's dark. It's gotten real dark for me.
• 23:34
  My son says, I need you to fight in that moment, y'all,
• 23:42
  I just for what, fight for what. I'm struggling. Mentally,
• 23:51
  I'm drowning and don't know how about it, don't have
• 23:54
  anybody to turn to.
• 23:56
  Speaker 11: I'm smiling, I'm laughing, I'm joking, but I'm I'm slowly
• 24:02
  drowning in my own depression on the inside.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: So I really, truly, I really got into my podcast.
• 24:12
  I really got into you know what. I need to
• 24:15
  start sharing. I need to start talking. I need to
• 24:17
  start telling people what I'm going through because I know
• 24:21
  there's someone else out there that's struggling just like me.
• 24:24
  I know I'm not by myself. So I get into therapy.
• 24:35
  It's good for a while until my therapist says, I'm
• 24:41
  no longer in your network. I'm only I'm cash only.
• 24:45
  That devastated me because here I am, I done made
• 24:48
  a little progress, and then you come here tell me
• 24:50
  you're leaving that hurt me. So I said, you know what,
• 24:56
  I got this. I could do this on my own.
• 25:03
  That was a timp number five, maybe four number five.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: So, m.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: It gets a little you know, let me say this,
• 25:20
  It gets a little difficult when you have to go
• 25:23
  back and revisit chapters of your life that you close
• 25:27
  the door. So I want to say that was like
• 25:31
  maybe a tip number four, a tip number five. Fast
• 25:38
  forward to twenty twenty three, life is lifing two surgeries
• 25:45
  in less than nine months, apart from each other ten months.
• 25:52
  My depression kicks in again. Here's a tip number six. Yeah,
• 26:01
  twenty twenty three, y'all bear with me, tip number six
• 26:16
  and twenty twenty four a tempt number seven. Almost two
• 26:20
  months ago. People say, well, why would you want to
• 26:27
  do that? I said, when you're in pain, all you
• 26:32
  want is to pay the stock. That's all you want
• 26:34
  to do. You're not thinking about who you're hurting, who
• 26:38
  you're leaving behind, You're not thinking about any of that.
• 26:41
  You just want the pain to stop. You just want
• 26:43
  it to go away. You just don't want you just
• 26:45
  want to just stop hurting. And when you try to
• 26:48
  explain that to people, a lot of people don't understand
• 26:52
  what depression feels like. A lot of people don't know
• 26:55
  what anxiety feels like. And the only way that I
• 27:00
  I could explain it the way it has made me feel.
• 27:04
  It's like you're up and down. At the same time,
• 27:08
  it started to affect my sleep. I'm up at five, six,
• 27:13
  seven o'clock in the morning, go to sleep, wake up
• 27:20
  two three hours later, log into work. This was my
• 27:22
  schedule every day, every day, and when your anxiety kicks in,
• 27:34
  your depression gets even worse. It does. Here, I am
• 27:44
  fighting to keep my mental in check, but I'm drowning.
• 27:47
  And again I don't have anybody to tell. I can't
• 27:50
  tell nobody because people love the talk. They love the
• 27:55
  ooh girl, let me tell you girl, did you see
• 27:57
  Ashley d d DA? Now I'm no longer embarrassed. Now,
• 28:02
  I'm no longer ashamed to tell y'all the things that
• 28:05
  I go through mentally. I'm not embarrassed anymore. I'm not
• 28:08
  ashamed because I know for a fact there's people out here.
• 28:13
  I know there's people that are watching that are like,
• 28:16
  dang man, she's talking to me. She knows what I'm
• 28:19
  going through. Yeah, I do. I feel it I understand it,
• 28:25
  I've want it. But what I do want you to
• 28:28
  know is you're not by yourself, and it's okay to
• 28:32
  not be okay. So don't let people tell you how
• 28:37
  you should or shouldn't feel about certain things. Stop allowing
• 28:41
  people to be dismissive of your feelings and your emotions.
• 28:45
  You have every right to be said, you have every
• 28:48
  right to be angry. I just don't want you to
• 28:50
  lay in it. I just don't want you to get
• 28:54
  deep down in that dark space and then we can't
• 28:56
  get you out of it, and then you feel the
• 28:59
  only way to end it is to do just that.
• 29:05
  But I don't want you to go. Anybody that's struggling,
• 29:09
  I don't want you to go. I want you to stay.
• 29:12
  Y'all about to make me cry, but I want you
• 29:15
  to stay. You're needed here. You understand you're wanted here.
• 29:20
  I see you. You're not struggling by yourself, You're not alone.
• 29:24
  You got me. If you need me to clear a
• 29:26
  space where you just want to talk, hit me up,
• 29:30
  send me a message, and let's make it happen. Because again,
• 29:33
  and I say this every every life, I would rather
• 29:37
  sit and listen to you, talk to me then for
• 29:40
  somebody to call me and tell me that you're gone.
• 29:43
  Haus hey boymen, but I would rather that happen. I
• 29:49
  would rather talk you through it than to sit and
• 29:53
  have to plan services for you. I would rather that happened.
• 30:01
  I don't want you to say by yourself. Come on
• 30:04
  over here, come sit next to me. Come on, I'm
• 30:07
  gonna give you a hug. You need me to cry
• 30:09
  with you, Let's cry together. Do what do you need
• 30:11
  me to do? Because I know somebody struggling right now,
• 30:15
  and it's hmmm. Because I know what depression feels like.
• 30:21
  I know exactly what it feels like. Y'all get me
• 30:25
  every episode, every episode. I never can get to an
• 30:28
  episode and I'm not crying. But I want you to
• 30:31
  know that I love you and that I see you,
• 30:34
  and that I'm rooting for you, and that life it
• 30:36
  does get easier. I know it's rough, I know, right,
• 30:40
  I know there are some days you wake up and
• 30:42
  you're like, how am I gonna get through the day?
• 30:45
  You got it? I just need you to hold on.
• 30:48
  I don't want you to go. Y'all get me every episode,
• 30:54
  every episode, y'all get me, but I do. But just
• 30:58
  know I see your pain. I see you struggling. I
• 31:01
  want you to know it doesn't last always. I want
• 31:05
  you to remember when you decide to make that decision,
• 31:14
  that you think about the people you're leaving behind. I
• 31:18
  want you to think about that. I want you to
• 31:20
  think about who you will be leaving if you decide
• 31:23
  to say, you know what, I'm out of here. But
• 31:26
  I don't want you to go prematurely. I don't want
• 31:29
  you to go. I want you to stay. Let's go
• 31:32
  take these girls trips, y'all, let's get out. Let's enjoy life,
• 31:38
  because you only get one. And when life is over,
• 31:43
  you don't get do overs. There's no remakes, there's no
• 31:48
  well let me rewind, then let me go back. You
• 31:50
  don't have that. So I encourage and I'm pleading out
• 31:54
  to somebody. Hold on, just hold on a little bit longer.
• 31:59
  I know it hurts. I know it hurts, but I
• 32:03
  promise you have so much, so much that you're needed
• 32:06
  on this side. You have so much, you have a gift.
• 32:11
  Oh y'all get me every episode, every episode I get
• 32:15
  on here and I'm always crying. But when it comes
• 32:19
  to mental health, I gotta stand up for us like
• 32:25
  I said, particularly in the black community, because we don't
• 32:27
  talk about this. We would rather get on these platforms
• 32:32
  and talk about reality TV. We would rather get on
• 32:35
  here and talk about what goes on in these celebrity lives.
• 32:39
  But you got real people out here, real human people
• 32:42
  that are not celebrities, that are struggling. You got people
• 32:45
  out here that are holding on for dear life. You
• 32:49
  got people out here that, again, they can't even tell nobody.
• 32:53
  They can't talk to nobody because y'all talk too much.
• 32:56
  They want to come and they want to tell you
• 32:57
  what's going on with them, but they can't because us,
• 33:00
  y'all love to run and tell everybody's business. Being silent
• 33:05
  is what gets these It's what gets people in the
• 33:08
  situations when they feel like they don't have nobody. So
• 33:12
  at what point do we say, you know what, let
• 33:17
  me let me check on my friend, let me make
• 33:19
  sure she's good. When do we get to do that
• 33:24
  Instead of gossipping and telling everybody business, try being there
• 33:29
  for somebody, because the first thing you're gonna say is
• 33:34
  if something happens to that person, oh man, I really
• 33:37
  wish they would have reached out. They tried to reach
• 33:39
  out and they couldn't They couldn't reach out because you
• 33:44
  couldn't wait. Because let me say this, a listening ear
• 33:48
  can sometimes become become a running mouth. If a person
• 33:54
  comes to you and says, hey, ash Man, I'm going
• 33:58
  through it, okay, what can I do to help you?
• 34:02
  That's gonna be the first thing. What's going on? Sis,
• 34:07
  And I'm not gonna make the conversation about me, because
• 34:09
  in that moment, it's about the person I'm on the
• 34:11
  phone with. It's about me being quiet and listening to
• 34:14
  that person tell me what they have going on. It's
• 34:16
  a person that's telling me, Ashley, I'm struggling and I
• 34:19
  don't know what to do. I feel by myself. So
• 34:21
  it's up to me to step in and say, you
• 34:24
  know what, let's do this together. Let's walk this road together.
• 34:28
  Let's get over this hill together. Because I've been where
• 34:31
  you are seven times. I've been exactly where you are.
• 34:34
  I know what it feels like. I know what it
• 34:36
  feels like to sit by myself on my sofa in
• 34:40
  the dark and pray and ask God to take me.
• 34:43
  I know what that feels like. Let me tell you
• 34:47
  when those people came and got me back on June
• 34:51
  the second, June the second, Junior third. I came home
• 34:54
  when the police officers came and got me June the second.
• 34:58
  I sat in the back of that police card. I
• 35:00
  prayed and I prayed and I prayed, and I asked, God,
• 35:01
  if you make if you help me get over this hill,
• 35:04
  I promise I won't come back down this road again.
• 35:07
  I sat in front of it for hmm. I sat
• 35:11
  in front of six pel bottles. Do you understand six?
• 35:17
  And I said, any many minnymore? Because I was ready
• 35:21
  to go. I'm not embarrassed to tell nobody. See a
• 35:25
  lot of y'all be ashamed. Oh girl, I don't want
• 35:27
  a body to know. I want you to know that
• 35:29
  I attempted. I want you to know. Yes, I smile, yes,
• 35:35
  I laugh and I joke. But on the inside, y'all,
• 35:37
  I was drowning. I was overwhelmed, I was overstimulated.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: And life.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: I let life almost take me out of here. I
• 35:49
  almost let my mental take me out of here. But
• 35:55
  then I asked God. I said, God, if you get
• 35:59
  me over it's hum, I promise you God, I won't
• 36:02
  go back. And I haven't because I sat down when
• 36:11
  I was in that room and I had to think,
• 36:13
  I will be leaving my babies, I will be leaving
• 36:15
  my husband, I will be leaving my grandchildren. What would
• 36:19
  they do without me? But because in that moment, I
• 36:24
  only thought about me, I was only selfish in that situation.
• 36:28
  I was only selfish in that moment because their feelings
• 36:32
  didn't matter to me. It didn't matter. The only thing
• 36:36
  that mattered to me in that moment on June the
• 36:38
  second was that my pain ended. That was the only
• 36:42
  thing I was concerned about. I didn't think about anybody
• 36:44
  else until my son came to my house and told me,
• 36:48
  I need you. So am I not just I'm not
• 36:54
  only fighting for my children, but I'm fighting for me.
• 36:58
  I'm fighting the state in a beautiful mental space. And
• 37:02
  I want to encourage others. I know you're struggling. I
• 37:07
  know you are, and if there's anything that I could do, anything,
• 37:12
  and I'm saying this with a clean, open, genuine heart,
• 37:16
  reach out to me. Let's talk. What do we need
• 37:20
  to do? Do you need me to pray for you?
• 37:23
  Do you need me to send you some affirmations every day?
• 37:26
  What do we need to do? Do we need to
• 37:28
  do weekly meetings? What I got resources for y'all, anybody
• 37:34
  that's struggling, anybody that is needing some type of mental health.
• 37:39
  I got resources and I'm gonna post them on my page.
• 37:43
  I know that's the biggest thing that we hear is
• 37:46
  the lack of resources in our community when it comes
• 37:49
  to mental health. I always say that it gets easier
• 38:03
  to tell the story until I start talking, and then
• 38:06
  it takes me back to that day. It takes me
• 38:08
  back to the very first time. It takes me back
• 38:10
  to the third time, it takes me back to the
• 38:13
  fifth time. But now I have even more reason to fight,
• 38:18
  not just for my children, but for me. I got
• 38:21
  a purpose here. You got a purpose here. Don't you
• 38:28
  have a purpose. And again I'm gonna keep saying, I
• 38:32
  want you to stay. We got so many things to do.
• 38:35
  We have a lot to do. We have some places
• 38:38
  to go. Our destinies have not been fulfilled just yet.
• 38:44
  God is not ready for us just yet. God says,
• 38:48
  hold tight, hold tight, I got something bigger for you.
• 38:52
  I got something greater for you. Now, we just pray
• 38:56
  for patience. We trust in God. We trusting him because
• 39:02
  we know what he could do. We know God is
• 39:05
  a healer. We know. God is a giver. God is
• 39:08
  a man of many things. He's a man of excuse me,
• 39:12
  clarity and never confusion. God always wants to make things
• 39:17
  clear for you. He always wants to do that. But
• 39:22
  I also want you to know that you got a
• 39:25
  friend right here in me. On the what's my toy story?
• 39:29
  You got a friend in me. You got one. You struggling,
• 39:33
  hit me out. What do we gotta do? Tell me
• 39:37
  what we gotta do. What do we need to do
• 39:40
  for your mental And I want you to really truly
• 39:44
  be happy, not pretend.
• 39:48
  Speaker 9: You know.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: And I say that because every day it's easier for
• 39:53
  me looking back on January June. I'm so sorry June
• 39:58
  the second to now, man, I'm a little lighter. Let
• 40:07
  me say that I'm a little lighter. I'm learning how
• 40:14
  to relax. I'm learning how that if I feel myself
• 40:20
  allowing those intrusive thoughts, I go outside. I go out
• 40:28
  of my house. I come out of the space. I
• 40:32
  go outside and I take in some of the fresh
• 40:35
  air and I say a small little prayer, and then
• 40:39
  I come back in the house. I read my affirmations
• 40:43
  every day, and I say that to y'all, you're worthy,
• 40:47
  you're loved, you're resilient, you're appreciative, and most of all,
• 40:52
  you're needed. You're needed. Don't throw on a towel just yet.
• 40:57
  Don't do it. Don't do it. I know it's easier
• 41:00
  said than done. I know it is. I know you're like,
• 41:03
  you know what this girl don't know. She's just talking. No,
• 41:06
  I'm not. Anybody that knows me will tell you. I've
• 41:10
  sat up on the phone with friends, or let me
• 41:13
  say this, with people I thought were friends till three, four,
• 41:17
  five o'clock in the morning, just listening, just listening. I
• 41:29
  am learning that I can't save everybody. I'm learning that
• 41:40
  not everybody wants to help. I can push you, and
• 41:44
  I can encourage you when I can tell you to
• 41:48
  fight and point out what it's worth fighting for. But
• 41:55
  it's up to you if you want to get help,
• 41:58
  if you want to be helped, if you want to
• 42:00
  be saved, because I'm gonna be honest with you. Looking
• 42:07
  at June the second, I don't know what I was thinking.
• 42:13
  You know what I wasn't thinking in that moment, because again,
• 42:17
  all I thought about was I wanted to go I
• 42:21
  wanted all the pain to go away. I felt more
• 42:23
  of a burden than I did a blessing. I felt,
• 42:26
  you know what, I just still can't get it right
• 42:28
  with my children. I just still can't get it right
• 42:31
  with my mind. I just still can't have a better
• 42:33
  relationship with my sister. So what's the point of me
• 42:36
  being here? Why stay? But then God tapped me and says,
• 42:45
  I'm not ready for you just yet. How do you
• 42:50
  take that when you're ready to go? But that one
• 42:53
  person says, I no, because God said, if I wanted you,
• 42:58
  I would have took you the first time. If I
• 43:01
  really wanted you, I would have took you the second,
• 43:04
  the third, the fourth. I would have took you this
• 43:06
  last time. But I tell y'all, I took thirteen pills.
• 43:17
  I did. I took thirteen and laid on my sofa.
• 43:25
  I had disabled the alarm system so couldn't nobody get in.
• 43:28
  Oh yeah, I'm serious about it. Sent my mother a text,
• 43:33
  told her take care of my babies, and that was it.
• 43:41
  Police come, my son comes. I go to the hospital.
• 43:50
  I do. I sit in that room and I pray.
• 44:13
  When I tell you all, I ain't never prayed there
• 44:14
  hard before in my life. I pray, and I told God,
• 44:22
  I apologize. First of all, I apologized, and I told God,
• 44:27
  I said, if you get me out of this hump,
• 44:31
  I won't come back this way again. I won't come
• 44:35
  back this way. I'm still here. God says, you need
• 44:43
  to keep talking, keep telling them, share your story, let
• 44:45
  them know what you've been going through. Let them know
• 44:48
  what it feels like. Your story could help somebody. Not
• 44:56
  letting know me is what I said. You know me,
• 45:02
  God says, you will. Somebody's listening to you, somebody's paying attention.
• 45:15
  And then I started getting messages. Once I started doing
• 45:17
  my mental mondays, I had someone tell me, thank you,
• 45:30
  your message was right on time. It's what I was told.
• 45:34
  I needed to hear this. I'm getting stronger every day.
• 45:40
  Keep doing these weekly check ins, Ash. That's the whole.
• 45:46
  That's all I want to do is make a difference.
• 45:52
  I just want somebody to say, you know what Ash
• 45:54
  is because of you, your podcast that I stayed. You
• 46:03
  show me that life is worth fighting for. I want
• 46:08
  you to know what it is. I want you to
• 46:12
  know all the people that love you or the ones
• 46:15
  that matter love you. I love you, I'm rooting for you,
• 46:20
  I'm praying for you. I want to see you when
• 46:27
  I don't want to see you struggling anymore. I don't
• 46:29
  want to see you sad. I want to see you
• 46:32
  really truly enjoying life. Life is so much worth living,
• 46:37
  I promise it is. Will we go through the ups,
• 46:41
  the downs, the highest the lows, absolutely, but it's life
• 46:46
  worth living, Absolutely it is. I want you to be
• 46:50
  able to really truly enjoy life. Find you a new
• 46:56
  circle to hang around, and I mean the ones that
• 47:01
  pour into you. And I say this to my ladies
• 47:06
  and my fellas, particularly my fellas. I know you black
• 47:15
  men are struggling. I know y'all don't get a chance
• 47:19
  to speak out because you've been told to be strong
• 47:24
  and not to feel what you need to feel. But
• 47:28
  that's bull. These episodes just never get easy for me,
• 47:45
  especially when it comes to me talking about mental health.
• 47:49
  It never does because it just takes me back to
• 47:56
  those days. It takes me back to what I see
• 48:01
  up and down my timeline. What's going on in the world.
• 48:04
  People are losing jobs, people are losing their homes and
• 48:07
  their cars, and it's taking a stream toll on their
• 48:11
  mental But again they can't tell nobody because you want
• 48:15
  to know why because people are talking. People love to tell,
• 48:18
  people love to say, girl, let me tell you what's
• 48:20
  going on. You have to be kinder people. You have
• 48:24
  to be mindful because you don't know who's going through what.
• 48:28
  You don't know how that text message changed that person's date.
• 48:32
  You don't know how that phone call change the person's date.
• 48:37
  If you can post rye rod foolishness on social media,
• 48:41
  take that five ten, fifteen to twenty six center text
• 48:43
  to somebody and say, hey girl, I was just thinking
• 48:46
  about you. You know, I hope you having a good day.
• 48:48
  Love you. That could change your whole person's day because
• 48:50
  you don't know what a person is feeling in that moment.
• 48:53
  You don't understand if a person is sitting on the
• 48:55
  side of they bed right now, ready to load up
• 48:58
  a ping ping or the car off. So you don't
• 49:01
  know that it takes fifteen seconds just to send a
• 49:07
  text and say, you know, a girl, I was thinking
• 49:09
  about you. It don't take but a moment. I look
• 49:17
  at what life has been like for me in the
• 49:21
  last year. You know, I'm still grieving my father. My
• 49:27
  daughter lost her father last year and trying to be
• 49:32
  in support of her. It's rough because I'm right. My
• 49:40
  daughter is where I was in twenty twenty one. So
• 49:47
  I have to be mentally strong to be able to
• 49:50
  stand in the store with my daughter. I have to
• 49:53
  be mentally strong too, stand in the rain for me.
• 49:57
  I have to be strong for the people that I
• 50:00
  love on that I encourage, that I am power. I
• 50:03
  gotta be strong for y'all. I have to be strong
• 50:07
  for my son. I have to be strong for my
• 50:09
  baby girl. I can't keep sitting in the dog because
• 50:18
  how can y'all see me? So I want y'all to
• 50:23
  come out of the dog. Come on over here, come
• 50:26
  sit next to me, Let me hold your hand, and
• 50:30
  let's talk. What's bothering you? Sis? What's bothering you? Bro? Hey, edith, hey,
• 50:37
  mis trainee. Where do we go from here? Let's work
• 50:48
  on tomorrow. Let's work on getting through today so you
• 50:53
  could be better tomorrow. Let's work on tomorrow so you
• 50:58
  could be better for the next day. Every day is
• 51:02
  a process. I want you to know that your mental health,
• 51:07
  you don't get better overnight because the pain and the
• 51:09
  trauma didn't come overnight, so it's gonna take you a
• 51:14
  while to undo. The trauma is gonna take you a
• 51:17
  while to undo the grief, the depression, the anxiety. It
• 51:23
  don't go away overnight. But you gotta be willing to
• 51:25
  put in the work. You gotta be willing to say,
• 51:27
  you know what, I want to be better. You gotta
• 51:34
  want that. I could want it all day for you,
• 51:37
  but you gotta want it. You gotta say you know what,
• 51:40
  I want to be better. I don't want to be
• 51:42
  said anymore. I don't want to sit in the dark anymore.
• 51:45
  We have to stop allowing depression and anxiety to come
• 51:47
  and rob us of our peace. We have to stop
• 51:50
  letting depression and anxiety rob us of our happiness. You
• 51:53
  understand we allow this, But at what point do we say,
• 51:58
  you know what, Depression, you can't stay here with me,
• 52:01
  Anxiety you gotta go? What part of that? When do
• 52:04
  we say that? When do we say you know what?
• 52:06
  Enough is enough? I can't keep living like this no more.
• 52:10
  You know, I can tell you when I was going
• 52:13
  through my depressive states. Wait up and down, hair falling out,
• 52:17
  I'm not able to sleep, I'm eating everything and still
• 52:25
  trying to stay sane. I'm dealing with a job that
• 52:30
  is not conducive to my mental but they don't care.
• 52:33
  They just want you to show up trying to show
• 52:38
  off for people that I would walk in the rain
• 52:41
  for but but wouldn't walk in sprinkles for me. So
• 52:46
  having to cut people off and having to distance myself
• 52:49
  or what's the word self isolate. I'm gonna do whatever
• 52:52
  it is I gotta do to protect my peace because
• 52:54
  I only get one life and I'm not gonna let
• 52:56
  nobody take that from me. I've already allowed depressions live
• 53:00
  in my home. I've already allowed the anxiety to stay
• 53:02
  in my home. At what point do I put an
• 53:05
  eviction notice on that? At what point do I say,
• 53:07
  you know what, you can't stay here no more? June
• 53:12
  or when I walked out of that hospital, I said,
• 53:15
  you know what, Depression you got to go. Anxiety, You're
• 53:17
  gonna have to go with it because I'm tired of
• 53:21
  the up and down, my weight, up and down, my
• 53:24
  hair falling out, not able to sleep, not able to
• 53:26
  really eat when I am eating, I'm over eating. And
• 53:33
  then I really truly got into my Bible. I really
• 53:37
  got into my therapy. You know, my therapist told me
• 53:41
  I was talking to her last week before last and
• 53:45
  we were talking about emotions, and she told me, she said,
• 53:51
  you've got to feel what you need right then. And
• 53:55
  I didn't understand that. So let me be clear, y'all.
• 53:57
  I did not understand what she meant when she said,
• 54:00
  you've got to feel what you need to feel right then.
• 54:02
  You've got to feel it right then. You can't feel
• 54:05
  it tomorrow, you can't feel it two weeks from then
• 54:07
  because the feeling that will have already passed. So shit,
• 54:10
  you gotta feel it right now. You gotta stand up
• 54:12
  here and you gotta say, you know what, Ashley, I'm
• 54:14
  angry today, Ashley, I'm sad today, and be sad and
• 54:19
  then let it go. But like I told my therapist, Hey, Quinn,
• 54:27
  I don't know how to do that. She said, you try.
• 54:32
  She said, if you're upset about something, if somebody did
• 54:34
  something you to you today, you be upset about it today.
• 54:38
  Do not wait until Thursday to be upset about something
• 54:41
  that happened on Tuesday. Feel it right then and there.
• 54:43
  So cool. If you do something to me on Monday,
• 54:46
  I'm gonna address it with you on Monday, because guess what,
• 54:49
  on Tuesday, I don't want to talk about it because
• 54:50
  Monday is already gone. Hey girl, so yet, I don't
• 54:58
  want to talk about what happened on Monday. On Wednesday,
• 55:02
  let's be able to have a real healthy conversation and
• 55:04
  then I can address and say, you know what, this
• 55:06
  is what you did to me. You said this to me,
• 55:08
  You said that to me, and I didn't like it.
• 55:10
  This is how it made me feel. Have a healthy conversation,
• 55:13
  and then go past it. Don't go back and bring
• 55:16
  it up on Wednesday, especially if you say you know what,
• 55:19
  I'm good, you know, excuse me. Absolutely, Quinn says, I
• 55:24
  like that address of at a time in a healthy way. Absolutely,
• 55:27
  give it a moment, think about it and say, you
• 55:30
  know what, this is what you did and I didn't
• 55:32
  like that. Address it on Monday. Don't go back to
• 55:36
  that person on Wednesday and say and let me tell
• 55:38
  you what you did to me on Monday, because they're
• 55:40
  gonna say, well, why didn't you address it on Monday.
• 55:44
  Because when you hold stuff in, that stuff starts to
• 55:48
  take a toll on your mental and then it just
• 55:50
  builds and builds and bills and bills and builds, and
• 55:52
  then before you know it, you're lashing out on a
• 55:54
  person that didn't even inflict the pain on You go
• 55:58
  directly to the person that you have the issue with.
• 56:01
  That's who you address. Like I said, I had to
• 56:07
  go no contact with my mother. As bad as that
• 56:11
  hurt for me, right now, in this climate, I'm still
• 56:15
  not ready to talk to her because the emotions. And
• 56:21
  somebody asked, they say, well, why not, I say, because
• 56:23
  the emotions are still too raw for me. The emotions
• 56:27
  are still high for me because I know when I
• 56:30
  go in and I have a conversation with my mother,
• 56:32
  I need to be in a complete, safe mental space
• 56:38
  because if I go on I talk to her now,
• 56:40
  I'm overreact. I'm gonna get very emotional and I'm not
• 56:43
  gonna be able to say what I need to say
• 56:44
  and get it out and put it on the table.
• 56:48
  So I'm not putting a timestamp on when it's gonna happen,
• 56:51
  but just know I will eventually have that conversation with
• 56:55
  my mother because I want her to know the things
• 56:57
  that you've done to me. I want you to know
• 57:00
  how you trigger me. I want you to know and
• 57:02
  understand that no, I may not have been the best person,
• 57:05
  but you weren't always the best mother. And I know
• 57:09
  a lot of people are gonna say, well, how could
• 57:11
  you say that? Just like I did, because I'm being
• 57:16
  open and honest with how I feel in the moment.
• 57:17
  I'm being open and honest with letting y'all know. My
• 57:20
  mother is a trigger for me. My mother is dangerous
• 57:22
  to my mental I love her, let me get that.
• 57:26
  Let me clarify that I love the heck out of
• 57:28
  my mother. I absolutely do, but she's dangerous to my
• 57:33
  mental My mother is a trigger for me. So until
• 57:37
  I'm able to get over those triggers with her, I
• 57:40
  have to take a step back. And it's okay for
• 57:43
  me to self isolate. It's okay for me to say,
• 57:46
  you know what, I'm gonna protect my peace at all costs.
• 57:49
  My therapist gave me the green light and said, Ashley,
• 57:52
  you keep doing what it is that you do to
• 57:54
  protect your mental and that's what I'm doing. So if
• 57:56
  that means self isolating and separating myself from family or
• 58:00
  people that mean me no good, I'm gonna continue to
• 58:03
  do so because if I don't, I'm gonna be right
• 58:06
  back where I was on June the second, and I'm
• 58:10
  not trying to go back to where I was June
• 58:12
  the second, because June the second is a day that
• 58:15
  I will never forget. June the second was a day
• 58:18
  the seventh attempt. Do you understand the seventh on June
• 58:23
  the second, twenty twenty five? Absolutely, Quinn. I have to
• 58:26
  protect my mental because me being silent, me not being open,
• 58:32
  me not being able to tell you, excuse me, what's
• 58:35
  going on with me? God, be in a situation the
• 58:39
  situations that I've been in. I'm crying for help, I'm
• 58:42
  streaming for help, but no, I feel like, can't nobody
• 58:44
  hear me? So this is why I do spaces like this,
• 58:49
  because I want you all to know. You come in
• 58:51
  in space, you can talk about any and everything, and
• 58:53
  I promise you it's a safe space. And I know
• 58:57
  that's what a lot of us need. We need safe
• 58:59
  spaces where we can actually sit down and really talk
• 59:02
  and say, you know what, gerdis is, what's been going on?
• 59:04
  Or man, bro this what's been going on? We deserve
• 59:08
  that we've been We've been traumatized our entire lives, and
• 59:13
  now it's time for us to break free. Now it's
• 59:15
  time for us to relinquish those those restraints that we
• 59:18
  built and put on ourselves. I don't want to be
• 59:20
  in a self made prison anymore. I don't want to
• 59:22
  be restrained anymore. I don't want to be chained down anymore.
• 59:25
  I want to be free. And when I say free,
• 59:28
  I want to be free mentally. That's how I want
• 59:32
  to be. I want to be free mentally. I want
• 59:35
  to be free of those restraints. I want to be
• 59:37
  able to look back six months from now and say, man,
• 59:39
  look at how far I've come.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: I want to go back in a year from now
• 59:43
  and say, man, look at where I was June second,
• 59:44
  and look at where I am today. I'm no longer
• 59:47
  in the dark. I'm in the light now. I'm no
• 59:49
  longer hurting, but i'm yealing. You understand, I'm no longer existing,
• 59:52
  but I'm living. If that makes sense, you understand I'm
• 59:56
  living now. I'm not existing. I'm living because now I
• 1:00:00
  know my purpose. I really truly know my purpose. My
• 1:00:04
  purpose is to get and do exactly what I'm doing
• 1:00:06
  right now, and that's to encourage somebody. That's to pour
• 1:00:10
  into somebody, that's to uplift somebody. Because again, I know
• 1:00:13
  you're struggling. I know there are people out here right now.
• 1:00:15
  That are struggling. I see you, the ones that are struggling. Baby,
• 1:00:19
  I see I've seen your post, and I come and
• 1:00:21
  I reach out to you, and I just let you
• 1:00:23
  know that I love you. Excuse me that I'm rooting
• 1:00:26
  for you, that I'm praying for you. And I want
• 1:00:28
  you to know, Baby, You're needed here. We don't want
• 1:00:30
  you to go. We don't want you to leave us.
• 1:00:33
  We want you to stay right here with us. We
• 1:00:35
  want you to hang out with us for a little while. Again,
• 1:00:38
  I know it's easier said than done. I know it's
• 1:00:40
  easy that I sit up here and I say, oh,
• 1:00:42
  you gotta stay out of the dark. I know what
• 1:00:44
  that feels like. I sat in it. I've sat in it.
• 1:00:47
  I've been in it alone by myself, not wanting to
• 1:00:51
  do anything, laying in the bed some days, not taking
• 1:00:54
  a bath, not washing my face, not brushing my teeth.
• 1:00:56
  That's what depression does to you. Depression doesn't look like
• 1:01:02
  you said all the time. Depression looks like someone that's laughing,
• 1:01:05
  happy and joking for drowning on the inside. So I
• 1:01:15
  challenge you take care of your mental baby. I have resources,
• 1:01:20
  and I'm gonna post them on my page. I have
• 1:01:22
  resources mental health resources for the African American community. If
• 1:01:26
  you are struggling, I will post these links on my page.
• 1:01:30
  I want you to please take care of your mental
• 1:01:33
  because you're needed on this side. We want you, baby.
• 1:01:37
  You may not feel like it, but your need is somewhere.
• 1:01:41
  Somebody needs you here. Somebody wants you here. Somebody's willing
• 1:01:45
  to stand in the rain with you and get wet
• 1:01:48
  with you. Somebody's willing to go through the storm with you.
• 1:01:51
  And that somebody is me. A lot of people don't understand.
• 1:01:55
  I don't get up here, and I don't do this
• 1:01:57
  for cloud. I don't do this to get paid. I
• 1:01:59
  do this because it's imperative, because it's wanted. It's warranted.
• 1:02:04
  I'm so sorry. Let me correct myself. It's warranted because
• 1:02:09
  when are we gonna say enough is enough? When are
• 1:02:11
  we gonna let go on that trauma? When are we
• 1:02:13
  gonna let go of the past and proceed and move
• 1:02:16
  forward so we could be healthy, not for them, but
• 1:02:19
  for us. At what point do we forgive the ones
• 1:02:23
  that hurt us and relinquish and take our power back
• 1:02:26
  so we could be so we can heal Some of
• 1:02:33
  y'all not ready to do that. And I understand and
• 1:02:37
  I respect it. But just know you got a friend
• 1:02:43
  right over here. You want to talk. Shim a message
• 1:02:50
  and let's talk. Tell me what I could do? How
• 1:02:53
  can I help you? How can I keep you from
• 1:02:56
  going down the same road I just came down out.
• 1:03:01
  Tell me, like I said, I don't do this for cloud.
• 1:03:07
  I just because I really truly want to make a difference.
• 1:03:09
  I do this because I really truly want to help somebody.
• 1:03:12
  I do this because I really truly want people to heal.
• 1:03:15
  I really truly want us to stay here. I don't
• 1:03:17
  want to see people sitting in the dark anymore. I
• 1:03:19
  don't want to see people struggling anymore. That's all I want.
• 1:03:28
  Hey kill Hey Carter nine seventy three, Hey, miss talker.
• 1:03:34
  But that's what I want. That's what I want. I
• 1:03:41
  want y'all to win. I want y'all to heal. I
• 1:03:44
  want y'all to be in a beautiful space. I want
• 1:03:48
  you to be able to get out and enjoy the sunshine.
• 1:03:50
  I want you to be able to get out and
• 1:03:52
  enjoy life. I want you to be able to get
• 1:03:53
  out and enjoy your circle of friends. That's what I want.
• 1:03:57
  You to do. That's what I want you to do.
• 1:04:01
  I want you to come out of the dark. Baby.
• 1:04:03
  I don't want you to hurt anymore I do. That's
• 1:04:06
  what I want you to do. That's what I want
• 1:04:10
  you to do. I want you to tell I want
• 1:04:12
  you to tell me that your life is worth fighting for.
• 1:04:18
  I want you to say, the people in your life
• 1:04:21
  that mean the most of you are worth fighting for.
• 1:04:25
  It's worth salvaging your mental Like I say, I only
• 1:04:30
  speak on this from experience. I speak on this because
• 1:04:33
  I've been in those dark spaces. You can go back
• 1:04:36
  and you're gonna watch any of my of my videos
• 1:04:40
  and I talk about my mental health. I talk about
• 1:04:42
  how I struggle. I talk about how my daughter has struggled.
• 1:04:45
  You understand. I see that. I see that, I see
• 1:04:54
  how I fight, and I see how victorious I'm becoming
• 1:04:59
  every day. I see how God allows me to walk
• 1:05:03
  with one foot in front of the other. I see that,
• 1:05:07
  and I feel that. I feel the love, you understand.
• 1:05:10
  I feel the reciprosity from the love that I pour
• 1:05:14
  out to people that I'm getting it in return. I
• 1:05:16
  see that, and I feel that, you know. I look
• 1:05:19
  back and I was like dang. I didn't realize that
• 1:05:25
  people were really truly listening to me. I didn't realize that.
• 1:05:32
  I didn't realize that by me talking and sharing my
• 1:05:37
  story and my mental health experiences will potentially help somebody.
• 1:05:41
  I didn't even know. I just said, you know what,
• 1:05:46
  I want to start doing mental mondays. I don't see this,
• 1:05:52
  Hey bookie, hey baby girl.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 8: But.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: I don't see spaces like this. So I said, you
• 1:06:00
  know what, I gotta get up here and I gotta
• 1:06:02
  do this. I gotta be the voice. I gotta talk
• 1:06:05
  to somebody, even if I just help one person, one person.
• 1:06:13
  If I help more than one person, cool, I'm good.
• 1:06:19
  If I do, then I've done. I've served my purpose.
• 1:06:25
  I've done exactly what God has commissioned me to do.
• 1:06:30
  And God says, you keep using your platform. Somebody's paying
• 1:06:33
  attention to you, as somebody's listening to you. So here
• 1:06:37
  we are, and we do this every Monday, every Monday,
• 1:06:42
  our mental health check ins. Oh yeah, don't forget y'all.
• 1:06:47
  Tap the screen, Tap the screen, y'all, don't forget shared
• 1:06:50
  the live. Bring your peoples in here, let them know,
• 1:06:56
  let me. Okay, here we go. All right, there we
• 1:07:05
  go all right, Sis, I got you. I just added
• 1:07:08
  you as the moderator. There you go, Sis. But I
• 1:07:14
  do this every Monday. It's almost as so let me
• 1:07:19
  say this, it's like we're just getting together. We're sitting
• 1:07:23
  down and we're just talking. Every day. I want to
• 1:07:26
  know how your day was going. You're welcome, Sis. I
• 1:07:29
  want to know how your day was today. How are
• 1:07:32
  you feeling today on Monday? How have you been feeling
• 1:07:37
  this week? How have you been feeling this month? You know?
• 1:07:40
  How do you.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: All?
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: Right? So everybody that's tuned in, please please please share
• 1:07:48
  the live don't forget to tap tap tap the screen, y'all,
• 1:07:52
  get them over here. We are doing our weekly mental
• 1:07:54
  health check ins and y'all welcome back, Welcome back. It's
• 1:07:57
  your girl, Ash. I'm bringing y'all another episode Black Girl
• 1:08:00
  Interrupted podcast tonight. We are doing our mental Mondays. Baby,
• 1:08:05
  this is Mental Monday's well black Girl interrupt the podcast.
• 1:08:08
  Excuse me? Uh? And we are doing our mental our
• 1:08:12
  weekly check ins every Monday. We are checking in every Monday.
• 1:08:16
  I need y'all to pull up because I didn't know
• 1:08:18
  how y'all feeling. I didn't know how you're doing. What's
• 1:08:21
  going on, let's talk about it again. I know today
• 1:08:27
  y'all we lost Malcolm Jamal Warner, so hence the blue
• 1:08:32
  because I'm feeling a little blue. Oh. My sister says,
• 1:08:37
  I'm here, she said. I've been typing, she said, but
• 1:08:39
  I'm here. It's good to see your sists. Don't forget
• 1:08:43
  to like share support all of that. But I said,
• 1:08:50
  I want to start doing these on Mondays for mental Mondays.
• 1:08:55
  Once Black Girls Interrupted the podcast gets back rolling again,
• 1:08:59
  we'll do will be doing our wellness Wednesdays. So either
• 1:09:05
  Mental Mondays or Wellness Wednesdays, one of the two, y'all.
• 1:09:07
  Let me know. I like the Mental Mondays. The wellness
• 1:09:11
  Weddays and Wednesdays are cool, but I really love the
• 1:09:13
  Mental Mondays. I really truly do. I love doing my
• 1:09:17
  mental Mondays because Baby, I could get up here and
• 1:09:19
  I talk to y'all and tell y'all what's been going
• 1:09:21
  on with me mentally. But for the most part, I
• 1:09:26
  will say this, I'm good mentally, I'm good, I'm good
• 1:09:30
  mentally physically. So my sister Tricia says, I'm enjoying Mondays absolutely,
• 1:09:37
  so we'll stick with the Mental Mondays. Black Girl Interrupted
• 1:09:41
  is coming back in full swing, and we are gonna
• 1:09:46
  have some uncomfortable conversations. Baby, I know some people's not
• 1:09:48
  gonna be ready for them conversations. But uh my, good sister, Marie,
• 1:09:52
  U tag me in a post, and I'm gonna make
• 1:09:58
  that conversation happen. Since do I worry? I'm gonna makee
• 1:10:00
  that conversation happen. Hmmm, I'm gonna make that happen. I
• 1:10:07
  promise I am. But I want y'all to know I'm
• 1:10:14
  gonna post again. I have like three or four pages
• 1:10:19
  of links that are resources for mental health because I
• 1:10:24
  know a lot of people don't know where to go.
• 1:10:27
  A lot of people don't have anywhere to turn. That's
• 1:10:32
  gonna be another live. We're gonna do another live on
• 1:10:34
  that one because I have a therapist y'all that's gonna
• 1:10:39
  come in and talk about that because we're most likely
• 1:10:45
  we're gonna need a therapist on that conversation because that
• 1:10:49
  one is a that one, that one is very raw.
• 1:10:53
  So back to what I was saying, So the mental mondays.
• 1:11:00
  I chose to do this, like I said, because not
• 1:11:03
  only is it therapeutic for me, but I know it
• 1:11:05
  may potentially be therapeutic or helpful for somebody else. It
• 1:11:10
  is good to hear someone else experience you know that
• 1:11:16
  you've been going through. It's good that you're that. It's
• 1:11:19
  good to talk to somebody that can relate to what
• 1:11:24
  you've been through. Being a mental health advocate because I
• 1:11:33
  stand and I advocate for it daily. I'm trying not
• 1:11:42
  to get emotional, so I'm trying to like think of
• 1:11:45
  myself being on a beach somewhere. No, but seriously, But
• 1:11:50
  when it comes to mental health, I take it very
• 1:11:54
  seriously because I have lost friends to it. I've come
• 1:12:04
  across people that have attempted me being one of those.
• 1:12:14
  But in our community, we don't talk about it enough.
• 1:12:19
  We don't stress it enough.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: Why.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It's very disheartening to me to know
• 1:12:27
  that that is the third leading cause of death in
• 1:12:33
  the black community. I wouldn't wish those intrusive thoughts on anybody.
• 1:12:52
  Those intrusive thoughts can take you in many places. Those
• 1:13:00
  intrusive thoughts will lead you to be on the other side.
• 1:13:09
  So that's why I stress the importance of mental health
• 1:13:17
  m Those intrusive thoughts are exactly what they are, intrusive,
• 1:13:31
  but it's up to us. It is up to us
• 1:13:43
  to keep those intrusive thoughts from taking from taking over.
• 1:13:52
  Those intrusive thoughts, they sound good, they sound so good,
• 1:14:00
  and in the moment they even feel good because you're
• 1:14:03
  thinking until you actually sit down and you do exactly
• 1:14:12
  what those thoughts have told you to do. And I
• 1:14:16
  did it. I did. Hey, sus I love you, Okay,
• 1:14:33
  until I did it, I did, And in that moment,
• 1:14:39
  I let those in chooser thoughts win. I let them
• 1:14:43
  have the best of me. Those thoughts had me believe
• 1:14:47
  in that that was the only way to go, that
• 1:14:50
  that was the only way for me to feel better.
• 1:14:58
  Would have really truly made me feel batter or heard
• 1:15:00
  that people I would have left behind. Yeah, come on,
• 1:15:09
  there you go, hey pudding, there you're gonna bathing. So
• 1:15:21
  in that moment, I wanted those thoughts to win until
• 1:15:26
  it really got down to me being in the hospital.
• 1:15:37
  And like I say, sitting in that room, it gave
• 1:15:44
  me a lot of time. I think it gave me
• 1:15:49
  a lot of time too, there you go. It gave
• 1:15:58
  me a lot of time to refocus, to reset, and
• 1:16:04
  to release. And when I walked out of that hospital,
• 1:16:13
  I knew I wasn't going back. I knew I wasn't
• 1:16:17
  coming back. I got home. I think it slept like
• 1:16:24
  two days, two or three days. I did listening to
• 1:16:39
  my husband when he said he's afraid to go to work,
• 1:16:48
  and I asked him, I said, well, why are you afraid?
• 1:16:51
  He said one or two things. He said, I don't
• 1:16:53
  want to come home and find you, or I don't
• 1:16:57
  want to get a phone call. Thank you, I'm glad
• 1:17:04
  I'm still here, And so I said, okay. I listened
• 1:17:13
  to what he said. So I laid in bed for
• 1:17:26
  like two or three days. Thank you, Kyler, Thank you babe.
• 1:17:35
  And I had to make a decision do I keep
• 1:17:39
  fighting for my life or do I let those thoughts win?
• 1:17:48
  And I had to keep fighting not just for my babies,
• 1:17:55
  but I had to fight for me because I had
• 1:17:58
  even more of a reason to live I did, I
• 1:18:06
  had even more. So I'm not just fighting for my children,
• 1:18:11
  but I'm fighting for me. And every day it gets easier.
• 1:18:26
  I'm learning to be not only a safe space for
• 1:18:30
  my friends, but a safe space for myself. And I
• 1:18:43
  can honestly say I'm in the best space mentally. Am
• 1:18:49
  I dreading having to go back to work in a
• 1:18:52
  couple of weeks. Yeah, because my job contributes to my
• 1:18:57
  mental But I remind myself every day that I'm bigger
• 1:19:03
  than my pain. I remind myself every day my purpose here.
• 1:19:11
  I remind myself every day that I'm fighting for me.
• 1:19:16
  I remind myself every day that I deserve to be here.
• 1:19:18
  I remind myself every day that I deserve to be happy.
• 1:19:21
  I remind myself every day that I deserve peace. I
• 1:19:26
  deserve that my heart deserves to be full. I don't
• 1:19:33
  want to be sad all day every day. I don't
• 1:19:36
  want those intrusive thoughts to take me out of here.
• 1:19:40
  So I'm learning different ways to deal with my depression.
• 1:19:45
  I'm learning different ways to deal with my anxiety. Medication
• 1:19:49
  is involved, Absolutely it is. And I'm not ashamed to
• 1:19:53
  tell nobody. Like I said, you get people up here
• 1:19:56
  that are embarrassed and they're ashamed to talk about their past.
• 1:20:03
  I'm not ashamed. I'm not embarrassed because, let me tell
• 1:20:07
  you something. Back then, people used to love love love
• 1:20:11
  to throw my past and my face. So if I
• 1:20:16
  tell you who I am, you can't use it to
• 1:20:18
  weaponize it against me later you can't use it against
• 1:20:23
  me later on. Because I told you everything about me.
• 1:20:27
  I showed you who I am. I showed you who
• 1:20:30
  I used to be, and I show and I'm showing
• 1:20:32
  you who I'm becoming. I'm showing you who I'm growing
• 1:20:35
  in to be. You understand, and that is a person
• 1:20:39
  with a beautiful mental space, with a beautiful realm of
• 1:20:45
  peace where my mind is leveled. That's who I'm showing
• 1:20:50
  you that I am. I'm showing you that I can
• 1:20:53
  survive anything regardless of what inform God says, they shall
• 1:21:01
  not prosper. So I take that. I own that because
• 1:21:07
  guess what, baby, God has been stepping so big for me.
• 1:21:15
  When I allowed God to step in and do the
• 1:21:17
  work for me, I'm good. I had to step back
• 1:21:23
  because God says, you were so busy trying to do
• 1:21:25
  everything on your own. Now look at you. You are mess.
• 1:21:31
  That's what God told me, say, you are a mess.
• 1:21:35
  You got to trust me. But I keep telling God,
• 1:21:39
  I say, but how can I trust you? And all
• 1:21:42
  this keeps happening? He say, just because I bring you
• 1:21:45
  to a test. No, let me correct that. God says,
• 1:21:49
  just because I bring you to a storm does not
• 1:21:52
  mean that you were meant to always get wet, and
• 1:21:56
  I didn't understand that. Sometimes God tests your faith. Sometimes
• 1:22:03
  God will bring you to a situation just to see
• 1:22:05
  how much you trust him. And I didn't trust him
• 1:22:10
  because I was like, God, where have you been all
• 1:22:12
  this time? God? How dare you let me feel this?
• 1:22:15
  And you let me go through that? God say, because
• 1:22:17
  you wanted to do it on your own. Remember, he said.
• 1:22:21
  I tried to step into help, but you refused my assistance.
• 1:22:25
  So I just stood back and I just let you watch,
• 1:22:30
  he said, because I knew eventually you would come to me. Eventually,
• 1:22:34
  I knew you would come raggedy, haggard and worn down.
• 1:22:42
  He said. But I've shown you you don't always have
• 1:22:44
  to be that way. You don't I always have to
• 1:22:46
  be worn down. You don't always have to be raggedy.
• 1:22:49
  You don't always have to go into a storm and
• 1:22:51
  get wet. You understand, this is what God has told me.
• 1:22:57
  Sometimes you just gotta be quiet and listen, because all
• 1:23:01
  the while you think God is not there, he's walking
• 1:23:03
  right next to you. He's carrying you. A lot of
• 1:23:10
  y'all don't understand that when weapons form, it don't mean
• 1:23:14
  they got a prosper You understand, just because someone sends
• 1:23:18
  a letter to you don't mean you gotta open it.
• 1:23:20
  You don't have to open everything that's addressed to you
• 1:23:23
  unless it comes from that one up there. So I
• 1:23:28
  want you all to keep protecting your mental at all costs.
• 1:23:31
  Stop letting people disrupt your peace, especially when they add
• 1:23:37
  zero to your life. Have you noticed that we always, always,
• 1:23:42
  always let the people that don't add value to our
• 1:23:46
  lives be the main ones to drag us down. We're
• 1:23:51
  the main ones that we beg to hold on to,
• 1:23:53
  and they add no value. So in my mind now
• 1:23:58
  I'm thinking, I said, do I want liabilities or do
• 1:24:02
  I want assets? And I want assets. I want people
• 1:24:06
  that add value to my life. I want the people
• 1:24:08
  in my circle that pour into me, you understand. I
• 1:24:11
  want the I want those same people that help me
• 1:24:13
  keep my cup full. You understand. I want the ones
• 1:24:16
  that give. Not only do they take, but they give
• 1:24:19
  at the same time. You understand. I want to I
• 1:24:22
  want the reciprocity to be equal because I'm tired of
• 1:24:29
  pouring into people and then I'm stuck empty, I'm stuck dreamed.
• 1:24:36
  And yes that includes family, it does a lot of
• 1:24:42
  us want to hold on because that's mom, that's dad,
• 1:24:45
  that's sister, that's cousin, that's uncle, that's niece, that's nephew. No,
• 1:24:49
  we're gonna stop letting people. Let me tell you something.
• 1:24:52
  We're gonna stop holding onto people that cause us to bleed.
• 1:24:57
  We're gonna stop letting people cut on us. We're gonna
• 1:25:01
  stop letting people fuse me, tear us down, because that
• 1:25:09
  will take a toll on your mental We're gonna stop
• 1:25:12
  trying to be accepted by people that we shouldn't even
• 1:25:15
  be in a space with. That will affect your mental
• 1:25:21
  Sometimes you gotta check the people in your circle because
• 1:25:24
  that could be the reason why you're not getting blessed.
• 1:25:31
  So what is one thing we're gonna do? I want
• 1:25:32
  you to drop in a chat. What is one thing
• 1:25:35
  you are going to do today to protect your peace?
• 1:25:38
  What are you gonna do? I'm gonna tell you what
• 1:25:40
  I'm gonna do. I'm still cleaning out my friends. List
• 1:25:45
  the ones that I know don't mean me no good.
• 1:25:48
  The lete you gotta go, I gotta remove you. I
• 1:25:52
  gotta remove you, even if that means I gotta block you.
• 1:25:56
  I don't even want to see you. I don't want
• 1:25:58
  to look at you, and don't be creeping from nobody
• 1:26:03
  else's page trying to check and see what I'm over
• 1:26:05
  here doing. But I do. I'm gonna do whatever I
• 1:26:10
  can to protect my mental at all costs. I'm gonna
• 1:26:12
  help you do whatever it can to protect your mental.
• 1:26:15
  Like I say, if at any giving poem moment you
• 1:26:18
  need a space, hit me up, Hit me up, a
• 1:26:21
  let's talk. What do we gotta do? How can I
• 1:26:26
  help you get over that home? How can I help
• 1:26:31
  you maneuver your way and the dog? How can I
• 1:26:35
  pull your back into the light? Show me how we
• 1:26:40
  do that? Let me know, what is one thing you're
• 1:26:46
  gonna do this week to protect your mental? What is
• 1:26:51
  one thing you want to do this week to protect
• 1:26:53
  your mental? What is one thing you want to do
• 1:27:00
  to get yourself back flipped up right? I want you
• 1:27:04
  to speak positive over yourself. I want you to show
• 1:27:07
  yourself in a beautiful life. I want you to know
• 1:27:11
  that you're worthy of every gift that God gives to you.
• 1:27:15
  I want you to know that you're worthy to be loved,
• 1:27:17
  that you are worthy to get everything that is set
• 1:27:20
  forth in front of you. So ma reason is I've
• 1:27:25
  been isolated. Honestly, it's not the best thing, but I
• 1:27:27
  just sometimes need. Let me tell you something, self isolation
• 1:27:31
  is okay. Don't let let me tell you something. Don't never,
• 1:27:35
  never let anybody tell you that self isolation is not
• 1:27:38
  good because sometimes you have to remove yourself out of
• 1:27:41
  a situation just to look at the situation differently from
• 1:27:45
  a different perspective. You understand, and that's okay. Let them
• 1:27:49
  think you acting funny, because I'm gonna tell you this.
• 1:27:51
  A real friend is gonna understand that you needed space,
• 1:27:55
  a real friend, and they're not gonna question you. A
• 1:27:58
  real friend is gonna say, you know what, let me
• 1:28:00
  come over there. Matter of fact, a real friend is
• 1:28:04
  gonna say, girl, face time me, let's talk. That's what
• 1:28:08
  a real friend is gonna do. A real friend is
• 1:28:10
  not gonna say you acting funny, she'd say, that's the
• 1:28:14
  fact I've lost a lot of people because it's not
• 1:28:16
  beneficial to them. You didn't lose people, baby, you outgroup people.
• 1:28:20
  Let me tell you something. God will always clear your garden,
• 1:28:22
  whether you ask him to or not. God knows and
• 1:28:26
  he sees exactly what it is that you need for
• 1:28:30
  your mental So you didn't lose because real people can't
• 1:28:35
  be lost. So those people that you're lost, those were liabilities.
• 1:28:38
  Those were one people that were access to your lifens.
• 1:28:41
  So don't never feel bad about God removing people out
• 1:28:43
  of your life because they didn't mean you're no good.
• 1:28:46
  Because see when I was too busy trying to hold
• 1:28:48
  on to the to those quote unquote friends, excuse me,
• 1:28:53
  when I was trying to hold on to family members
• 1:28:56
  that I know didn't mean me no good. It really
• 1:28:59
  wasn't a law say, it was a game for me
• 1:29:01
  because guess what, I gained a sense of peace. I
• 1:29:05
  gained a little part of myself back when God removed
• 1:29:08
  those people. So you didn't lose those people, because real
• 1:29:11
  people can't be lost. You lost you. God just removed
• 1:29:15
  the ones that don't mean you're no good. That's what
• 1:29:18
  he did because God sees what it is that you're
• 1:29:21
  trying to do and I and I passed that message
• 1:29:23
  onto everybody. God sees exactly what it is that you're
• 1:29:25
  trying to do. God is gonna help to keep your
• 1:29:27
  mental in check, even if that means God is pushing
• 1:29:34
  people out of the way because a rose can't bloom
• 1:29:37
  in a garden full of weeds. You understand. So those
• 1:29:43
  people that we try to hold on to, or the
• 1:29:45
  ones that excuse me, that you reach out to after
• 1:29:50
  you know, you do your self isolation and you're and
• 1:29:53
  you're reset and refocused, those real friends will still be
• 1:29:57
  there for you when you come back. They'll understand. They
• 1:30:00
  won't even question why you had the self isolate Hey,
• 1:30:04
  mister radio, it's good to see your brother. Hey me me.
• 1:30:10
  But yet, those real friends, they'll be there when you
• 1:30:15
  come out, thank your brother. That's what they're gonna do.
• 1:30:20
  They'll be there for you when you come through your storm.
• 1:30:22
  A lot of those real friends will walk through that
• 1:30:24
  storm with you. And that's what we need in is
• 1:30:27
  climate for our mental We need a safe space. We
• 1:30:30
  need a circle of people that really, truly, genuinely love us.
• 1:30:34
  We need a group of people that say, Hey, I
• 1:30:36
  come on sys get up, mister radio. I definitely am
• 1:30:42
  gonna be just like you when I grow up, I
• 1:30:44
  promise you, because baby, I need to be I need
• 1:30:48
  to be on that can't sleep radio at night with you.
• 1:30:51
  I was looking for you too, and I ain't see you,
• 1:30:54
  but I'm glad you here tonight. Let me know if
• 1:30:55
  you're going live, because I need to be man that
• 1:30:58
  didn't saw be killing me. But God will create a
• 1:31:02
  circle of people that are good for you. You just have
• 1:31:07
  to trust him. See the thing about it, we're always
• 1:31:10
  trying to do things on our own. See I wasn't
• 1:31:15
  on last week. I had to take trying to get
• 1:31:18
  everything ready. I'm going back to school, so I'm trying
• 1:31:20
  to get everything ready for school. So I've kind of
• 1:31:22
  had to scale back on social media for just a moment.
• 1:31:26
  But I'm back in full swing. I got everything situated.
• 1:31:29
  But God will put you around people that are conducive
• 1:31:37
  to your mental God will put will place people around
• 1:31:41
  you that can help you, that are there to come
• 1:31:43
  and elevate you, to empower you, to uplift you, to
• 1:31:46
  encourage you. That's what God will do for your mental
• 1:31:51
  But now that God is the you gotta do the
• 1:31:53
  work too. You gotta want your peace to be protected.
• 1:31:58
  You gotta want to in a beautiful space mentally. You
• 1:32:02
  gotta want that, and I want it. I don't want
• 1:32:07
  to be sad no more. I'm here. Let me tell y'all,
• 1:32:10
  it takes more energy to be sad than it does
• 1:32:12
  to be happy. And and I say that because when
• 1:32:16
  I get in those depressive states, I don't want to
• 1:32:19
  get out of the bed. I don't want to wash
• 1:32:22
  my face. I don't want to brush my teeth. I
• 1:32:24
  don't want to take a bath. I don't want to eat.
• 1:32:26
  I just want to lay. I just want to lay.
• 1:32:33
  But that one safe person or your safe space is
• 1:32:36
  gonna come through it. Theyin't gonna say I get up,
• 1:32:39
  come on, get up, girl, come on, let's go, let's
• 1:32:42
  go take a bath, Let's wash your face, let's brush
• 1:32:44
  your teeth, Let's put you some clothes on, Let's get
• 1:32:46
  out of this house. That's what they were. Like my
• 1:32:54
  brother said, I was like that for a couple of weeks,
• 1:32:56
  a couple of days. Last week. What happened, brother, Because
• 1:33:00
  I don't want you to be like that. I a because,
• 1:33:03
  let me tell you, that is the leading leading, the
• 1:33:10
  third leading cause in the community for black men. And
• 1:33:16
  this is another reason why, and this is another reason
• 1:33:24
  there we go, and this is another reason why. It's
• 1:33:28
  imperative the whole space is like this. It's absolutely imperative
• 1:33:33
  that we hold spaces like this, that we have these
• 1:33:35
  conversations because like I said, if we can get up
• 1:33:38
  here and we could share, and we could share trash
• 1:33:40
  and garbage, then we can have a platform in a
• 1:33:43
  safe space where we get in here and we encourage somebody,
• 1:33:46
  where we pour into somebody, where we love on somebody.
• 1:33:53
  He'll say, he just listening to us. But it's imperative
• 1:33:58
  that we have these spaces. So I'm gonna keep having
• 1:34:01
  these spaces like this. I'm going to keep doing my
• 1:34:04
  mental mondays because you know why, somebody messaged me and
• 1:34:12
  told me, keep doing what you do, keep doing what
• 1:34:16
  you do, and I'm gonna keep doing just that. I'm
• 1:34:21
  gonna keep sharing my story. I'm gonna keep pouring into somebody.
• 1:34:24
  I'm gonna keep uplifting somebody because you know what. I
• 1:34:28
  want you here. I need you here, and I don't
• 1:34:33
  want you to feel like you by yourself. I want
• 1:34:38
  you to know it's okay to be to not be
• 1:34:40
  okay some days, just when you get down. I don't
• 1:34:45
  want you to lay in it. I don't want you
• 1:34:47
  to lay down in that pain for too long. I
• 1:34:51
  don't want you to lay in that depression for too long.
• 1:34:53
  I don't want you to lay in anxiety for too long.
• 1:34:55
  I don't want you to lay alone. I want you
• 1:34:58
  to excuse me. I want you to get it up.
• 1:35:01
  Come on, sit next to me, let's talk, Give me
• 1:35:08
  a hug and just release and let it go. Let
• 1:35:17
  it go, Let that pain go, because that pain, that
• 1:35:23
  pain will take you right on up out of here
• 1:35:27
  if you give into it. So we're not gonna do that.
• 1:35:31
  We're not gonna give into the temptation. We're not gonna
• 1:35:34
  give depression what it wants. We're not gonna give anxiety
• 1:35:36
  what it wants. We're not giving it what it wants anymore.
• 1:35:41
  We're gonna stop feeding that. We're gonna start stop pretending
• 1:35:48
  that we're okay when we're not okay. Ah, you don't
• 1:35:51
  have to pretend if you're not okay, Say you're not okay.
• 1:35:55
  I want you to feel that you're not okay. All right?
• 1:35:59
  What can we do to get you okay? What can
• 1:36:02
  we do? What can we do? Y'all? Let me know.
• 1:36:13
  But on that note, hold tight, everybody. On that note.
• 1:36:17
  I just want to say, I love y'all so much.
• 1:36:19
  I appreciate y'all tuning in. I love the way absolutely
• 1:36:26
  Mster Radio says. I'm going to I'm going the sacrificial lambrod.
• 1:36:30
  I'm living for my kids from now. I made it
• 1:36:32
  to fifty three. I'm good, baby, yes, but I also
• 1:36:37
  want you to live for YouTube. Brother, I want you
• 1:36:40
  to keep living for you. We're living for our babies,
• 1:36:43
  but we gotta live for us too. I know you
• 1:36:47
  made it to fifty three, but I still need you
• 1:36:49
  to keep living and fighting for you. I promise hold tight.
• 1:36:54
  But everybody over here on Facebook and YouTube, I just
• 1:36:56
  want to say thank y'all so much for tuning in
• 1:36:58
  to another episode up Black Girl Interrupted podcast. Thank y'all
• 1:37:02
  for tapping in for mental Mondays. Don't forget Every Monday
• 1:37:06
  apm Central time, nine PMU sometime we are gonna be
• 1:37:09
  doing our weekly check ins. I need to know how
• 1:37:11
  you're feeling. You gotta let me know. You know what
• 1:37:13
  I'm saying, and don't forget. I will post all the
• 1:37:16
  I will post the resources on my page. I will
• 1:37:19
  also post the other resources on my TikTok. I love
• 1:37:22
  you too, says you know. I love you too, babe,
• 1:37:25
  Like yes, So I love you guys, and I will
• 1:37:28
  see y'all next Monday. Don't forget to like common share,
• 1:37:31
  subscribe if you want to catch up on any of
• 1:37:33
  the past episodes of Black Girl Interrupted, I'm on YouTube,
• 1:37:37
  I'm on all shooting platforms, put in black Girl Interrupted,
• 1:37:40
  the podcast the Baby, You're gonna see me On that note,
• 1:37:42
  I love y'all, love, love, love, and I will see
• 1:37:45
  y'all on next Monday. Halla