Latest / Millennial Mental Health Channel / Ann Russo Grew Up Gay in the 80s- Now Helping Others

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Ann Russo Grew Up Gay in the 80s- Now Helping Others · Millennial Mental Health Channel

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Hello, loyal listeners. Before we jump into today's episode, I wanted to
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do the intro for our guests today, Anne Russo. This actually turned out
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to be one of our favorite interviews that we have ever done. It was
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such a joy to talk to someone who was so wise, empathetic, smart.
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It was just a blast. So we hope you enjoy it as much
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as we did so. Anne Russo is the founder of AMR Therapy, a
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licensed psychotherapist with a master's in theology concentrating on liberation theology. Raised in a
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queer household, her early exposure to diverse family dynamics has profoundly shaped her approach
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to mental health, fostering an inclusive and empathetic environment for her clients. Her
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advocacy began in high school with the establishment of a Gay Straight Alliance, leading
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to her participation in the Long Beach Gay Pride Parade. This early commitment to
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the LGBTQ plus rights has continued through her involvement with organizations such as p FLAG
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and the Human Rights Campaign, and by conducting trainings on queer inclusivity for hospitals,
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universities, and other key stakeholders. She provides psychotherapy and offers life coaching
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and consulting services to other mental health professionals. She also conducts training sessions aimed
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at promoting inclusivity and understanding within the professional community. Under Anne's direction, AMR
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Therapy utilizes advanced video technology to deliver personalized mental health care to a broad audience.
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This approach has enabled AMR Therapy to expand its reach, now supporting nearly
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four hundred active clients with a team of over fifteen therapists. Over the past
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five years, Anne's leadership has facilitated a positive impact on over fifteen hundred lives,
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demonstrating her commitment to enhancing accessibility and support within the mental health field.
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So here we go. This is Millennial Mental Health Channel. I'm doctor Justin
1:57
Romano, a child in adolescent psychic Hiatree fellow, and I'm Medi Kourio,
2:00
a licensed clinical therapist. Our podcast is here because we wanted to start a
2:05
much neater conversation about mental health. Our goal is to teach you as much
2:08
as we can by sharing our own experiences and interviewing experts in the mental health
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field. We will discuss topics like mood disorders, psychotic disorders, substance use,
2:16
personality, disorders and many more. Millennial Mental Health Channel buy Millennials for
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everyone. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. MMHC is a production of Speaker
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from iHeartMedia Me, I Heartma. Welcome back to MMHC. We have an
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awesome episode here tonight. We have Anne Russo here with us, so we
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will let her tell a story real quick. But I wanted to say when
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we were finding guests, we actually got an email from Anne saying that she
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grew up gay in the eighties, and we thought, got to have her
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on the show. That's going to be a story worth telling. So and
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I know we did our bio in the beginning part of the show jump right
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into we loved Stories on MMHC. Tell us a story, well, justin
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I actually grew up in a queer household. My dad actually came out as
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gay in nineteen eighty five when I was just four years old and we were
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living in a small town in upstate New York. And now you can imagine
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what that may have been like at that time, and when he came out,
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it was quite the process. I have a younger sister two years younger
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than me, and my mother was actually very supported and accepting of that situation,
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even though it was such a foreign concept at the time, and she
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supported him in his journey and in his process, and my dad found his
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still partner in upstate New York. Wow. When I was five years old,
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the five of us moved together to Arizona and we ended up all living
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in the same household through my elementary school years and my junior high school years.
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Oddly enough, Arizona also was a very conservative place, so we weren't
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able to be out as a family. So actually our household dynamic was a
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secret that my sister and I were not allowed to tell our friends, or
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our teachers or anyone at all, and my family mimicked a hedro normative household
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with a roommate. But the people that I spent my time with my dad's
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friends, were all gay men, so I grew up mainly around gay men
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and my mom and my sister, And it wasn't until I was in high
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school we moved to California, where we were then allowed to talk about Dad's
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sexual orientation, and throughout that time, I was also grappling with my own
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sexual orientation. Thanks for sharing that, an, I would say as someone
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who's a native of California. I don't think I quite grasped it at the
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time. So growing up in like mid nineties, early two thousands, Now
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looking back, it feels like California definitely was like kind of at the forefront
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of like people being able to be themselves a little more, even in like
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the late nineties early two thousands when it was still I think that wasn't as
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widely accepted that I guess what I'm trying to get is my hope is that
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being in California you felt the same, that it was kind of like at
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like the forefront of being more accepted. The challenge was, of course,
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believe it or not, was moving from a place where this was the big
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family secret and we couldn't talk about it. And then I started high school
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in the mid nineties, and I was meeting people that were coming out as
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bisexual or gay, and I was stunned, stunned that that was happening.
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And when I was dealing with my own sexual orientation, I didn't say anything
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to even my friends who were dating love the same gender because I was had
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been so trained that this is something that you don't talk to other people about.
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Whoa. One thing I thought about too, is just the so great
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for like your dad to have like a safe space with your mom of like
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being accepting and welcoming, but then the other side of it of like,
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like you said, it was a big family secret for an extended period of
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time, Like what what was that like for You've touched on it a little
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bit, but like how was that juggling that and you've talked about even like
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your own experience with your sexuality, it was actually very traumatic, but we
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were so taught not to talk about it that even when my mom's mother asked
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me what my dad's partner looked like, I said he had purple hair and
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green teeth. I was about six or seven years old, but I didn't
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want to lie to my grandma. I didn't know what to do. I
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was like petrified because I knew that this was a family secret, even though
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I knew, you know that my grandma knew that he existed. So it
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was that level of my core that this wasn't something that got shared. And
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I know that some people probably assumed things because you know, there was something
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different about that household. Not everyone had a roommate, right An adult male
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roommate. So my sister said that sometimes she would hear people say, you
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know, don't play with that, don't play with Susan, her dad's queer,
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her dad's fag, you know, things like that. I didn't have
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that experience. My sister did. But the first time I actually ever even
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told anyone that my dad was gay, I was fourteen and I was shaking
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and crying. It was very difficult. It was a teacher that I had,
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you know, it was like unleashing this burden but feeling like I was
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doing something wrong by sharing that information. Whoa so heavy? Thank you for
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sharing it. We appreciate Yeah, I think a lot of stuff we talk
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about on the show. We talked about it even a little bit before we
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hit record today, of just if just a couple of people listen and it
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helps one or two people. We've done. We've done our job. The
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rest is extra. So we appreciate you being so open and honest and hoping
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that your story can be helpful for at least one of our listeners. And
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I'm sure it will be I hope, so too. Thank you. Do
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you feel like living in that environment where you had to be so protective of
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information did it lead to some paranoia? Did it lead to some sense of
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like, I can't be open about other things in my life too, because
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it might snowball and lead to telling information that could potentially endanger my family.
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Yes. Absolutely so. One thing that has been difficult, I would say
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in life has been trusting people and being open and realizing that I don't have
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to do everything myself. I can talk about my feelings, I can talk
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about different things I'm going through, and you know, finding a safe space
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for that. So it definitely stays, you know, I know my sister
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has been impacted. Similarly, it stays with us. But I feel like
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it's also helped us grow and understand and have empathy for other people that are
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in challenging situations. One thing that you mentioned, like in our kind of
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early communications getting you on the show was a religious conversion conference when you were
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younger. Yes, what was that? Like? What was that about?
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What was that Like? We might be really hitting it with like the hard
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hitting questions, but that's nine. We feel you're a friend of the show
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now, so yeah, let's do it. Let's do it, guys,
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let's do it. Absolutely, growing up in the environment that I grew up
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in I was not just taught, but I also saw it with my own
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eyes that the people that tended to have the biggest problems with gay people were
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folks that were religious. And because we're in the US and there's a lot
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of Christians in the US, it kind of focus in and around Christianity.
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And this is in the eighties. Keep in mind, you know, in
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the early nineties, so this was a very intense time. So there was
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HIV and AIDS was a big epidemic during that time. There was a lot
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of conversation in the news and in the media, and a lot of anger
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and frankly lies about gay men, and it was very It was very it
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was a very challenging time. I just knew that these were the people that
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hated my family, so I didn't hate them back. But I had a
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strong aversion to Christianity. A lot of my friends were Christian, and when
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I was in the beginning time of college, I met actually a group of
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very conservative Christians. Believe it or not, they knew of my sexuality.
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But the thing that I was so fascinated because I never spent time really with
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Christian people, I just knew they were kind of like it, stay away
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from them. They don't like us, right, But I'm like, why
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don't they like? What is it they think? What is it they believe?
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So I launched headfirst into a fundamentalist evangelical church and I was with yeah,
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and I was out the entire time. And I was with that church
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for about two years. I don't know if it would be fair to say
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they were trying to convert me to no longer being gay, but I think
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they were trying to assist me on seeing that that wasn't the path that I
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wanted. And so I was just curious, why do they think this?
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Why do they believe this? So I went to conversion, a conversion therapy
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type group, a huge conference. Actually it doesn't even exist anymore, and
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I'm like, why do they feel this way? So I basically didn't want
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to just hate. I didn't want to just you know, make assumptions.
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So I learned what their belief system was, why they felt the way that
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they felt. I think it made me a lot better of a like in
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my career today as a therapist. I went on and I got my master's
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in theology. I have a lot of empathy and understanding, and I do
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not have hate. I do not have anger. I'm not mad. When
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I see people with the signs in the street that say, you know fact,
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they're going to hell, I want to talk to them. I want
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to understand them, because I think that if we can talk, we understand
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each other differently. I even went on a missions trip when I was nineteen
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with this church. I spoke at a fundamentalist Christian conference with my girlfriend in
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the audience, knowing that my girlfriend was in the audience, and it was
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just kind of like different perspectives. At the end of the day, my
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theology doesn't align with Christianity, but I have a very deep understanding of what
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that community really looks like, why they believe what they believe, and how
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to assist people that are grappling with identity, whether it be religion, sexuality,
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gender. I really can put those together, and I feel it a
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very unique way. I love that you didn't use the hate that you received
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to turn it around and hate others back. You turned it into wanting to
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understand them and see where they are coming from. I wanted to run an
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idea past you. I've heard it in the past that sometimes we oftentimes associate
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with Christianity with being somewhat anti gay, somewhat homophobic. Do you think there's
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any element of people who are homophobic at baseline and use Christianity as a way
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to express that in a way that's somewhat acceptable or do you think it is
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mostly the Christianity driving it? Just from my experience, obviously, I do
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think that it is the Christianity driving it, because the message in more conservatives
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is very clear that that is not okay. But what I do notice is
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it's not I rarely meet someone or I've met someone where it's coming from a
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place of hate. It's usually coming from a place of like they're truly afraid
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for your soul. WHOA, yeah, yeah, So it's so it's like
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they're viewing it as a place of love. So like, if I sit
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here with you today and I say gay people are struggling with rejection and their
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mental health is not good, I feel like studies saying yes, that's true.
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A Christian will say no, no, or excuse me. A conservative
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Christian might say no, no, their mental health is bad because they're gay.
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They believe that wholeheartedly. So it's like conversing with people with those viewpoints.
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It's not going to be bashing them over the head with their own Bible
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or fighting against their bullief system. It's going to be trying to understand person
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to person and being around people and them being around me and going, oh,
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that's you're a gay person. I thought all gay people were drug addicts
15:05
on the street. No, no, they're not. I didn't know gay
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people could want to have a relationship with God. There's just no access point.
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Something different, scary, right, human nature. You're different. I'm
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scared I'm gonna not like you. One thing that makes me think about is
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how like and maybe experienced this as a therapist, and but like you end
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up being like the representation for a quote like good one for other people,
15:35
like for me, for example, I'm a therapist of color, a Mexican.
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My very first full time therapist job was in a more rural community.
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It was a smaller, more conservative community. Sometimes having to like juggle that
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that thought of like, I'm here to help this person, and they've also
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shared things that make me feel like maybe they're not the biggest fan of not
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me per se, but like the idea of me or like my people.
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I don't know if that makes sense, But yes, is that something you've
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experienced maybe even like early on, Justin and I have talked about this,
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being a therapist is like a weird like profession in the sense of like you
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graduate, you get your master's and then the licensure process takes a while,
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right, So sometimes we get put in these situations where we're working in community
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mental health or we're working in communities were not really maybe that's not really where
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I want to spend the rest of my career. So we run into things
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like this. Has that ever been your experience? Yes, for sure.
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So I actually completed most of my licensing hours in Nevada. It's more conservative
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there, the population that lives there is more conservative. I found that there
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were often times that clients would have disparaging things to say about gay folks or
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trans folks, And you know, it's funny. I was talking to my
17:00
partner about this the other day. I feel like as our therapist, as
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a therapist, we deal we deal with it, you know, because it's
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not our job to make somebody be how we want them to be. Their
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treatment goal is not about I want to stop disliking gay people. That's not
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even going to come on my radar. I've just got to do. I'm
17:23
there for the client. The goal is not for them to love us or
17:29
to care about us. It's it's more for them to love themselves or care
17:33
about themselves. Totally. But I do want to add this though, Eddie,
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that's in therapy session with a client, that's not me living in the
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world being a social justice advocate and doing trainings and talkings and things like that.
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I think there's a time in a place I wish I could say that
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the therapy the therapy room has to be sacred for that client. Yeah,
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But outside of that client, I'm out there fight in a good fight.
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Hell yeah, I love it. In today's world, we give ourselves a
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lot of credit for how much progress we have made on a lot of stuff
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like this, and we have legalized gay marriage, and I think some people
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think we live in a post homophobia world. Are you still seeing that young
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people these days, and a lot of the transgender youth are the ones that
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get most of the flack. But is there still a lot of just broad
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spectrum hate. I don't know if I would say it's hate as much as
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I would say it's misunderstanding. Yeah, and I think this can go with
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almost any identity that's not the overarching heterosexual, white, cisgender monogamous person.
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I mean honestly that there's not a lot of interactions, so there's a lot
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of assumptions being made, and I think that media doesn't necessarily make that better.
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Some media does, hopefully this does, right, but I don't.
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But I don't think that it's it's necessarily hate. I just think it's just
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lack of interaction misunderstanding. But we definitely see how that lack of understanding translates
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into laws that harm people and policies that harm people. So there's definitely consequences
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to this. But I don't think it's necessarily hate, and I, or
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at least in my heart, I don't want to believe that. Yeah,
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I felt like, as you were like sharing it, I'm like, oh,
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you're going to say misunderstanding. That's kind of the feeling I get too.
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But and I have to tell you, like you got me, Like
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I'm having like an emotional response of like this, Yes, the therapy room
19:47
is sacred to the client, but damn it if I'm not. If you're
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fewing hate and you're full of shit. Outside of the Therapy ABS office,
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we're not good with that. So I really like that, and I just
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I just needed to acknowledge it. I thanks Eddie, thank you. That's
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really cool. Well that's what we do, right, I mean, like
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you're you're a licensed social worker too, right, LPC. So did you
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find your training like because our training was so socially justice motivated to like,
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I mean, that was just in my nature from birth, I think,
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but like that that training was so about like humanity and like fighting for people
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and like finding like equity and equality and just so it's just like born into
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born into us. I think, like in these fields, I've had coworkers
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and friends who you know, we all end up with different licensures, right,
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LPC. Yeah, l CSWLFT. That's come up with a good amount
20:44
of like the social justice worldview aspect of a master's and social work program,
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And part of me thinks I'm also an adjunct faculty for the master's program that
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I went to, and I just wish that that was more ingrained into all
20:59
pro not just social work programs. Like I feel like that's just got to
21:03
be like baseline at this point. That's just got to be across the board.
21:08
That's what makes sense to me. And I won't get too much into
21:11
the other thoughts I'm having, but yeah, I think that's That's also one
21:15
thing that I feel like I missed out school wise and like lecture wise,
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and like reading wise well in my program. And it's something that I've definitely
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had to like pay attention to and basically do like the on the job like
21:30
training and self teaching over the last now seven years. And now you're the
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person that's going to be teaching it in the program. So you are that
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change. That's damn you are. You are man. You're seeing a lot
21:45
of good sh You're right, absolutely, I think, but you are.
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That's real talk, man. You are You're right, You're right. I
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appreciate it. Yeah, you're right. I'm picking up on the vibe of
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you're wise, you're open, you're thoughtful. I'm curious what religious beliefs spiritual
22:14
beliefs did you land on. Do you have any labels for yourself after your
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journey in studying theology justin the only answer I've come up with is I have
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absolutely no idea. I And you know what, I'm actually very comfortable with
22:30
that there was a time that I wasn't, you know, And I think
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the only thing that I've that I feel like strongly in my being is that
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we are all connected beyond this, and I feel like science gives that to
22:45
us too, Spirituality gives us that to us too, and beyond that,
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I don't know, you know, it changed. I always say this is
22:57
what I think, asterisk subject to change because these are such deep things and
23:03
more life experiences we have, and the more people we meet, they I
23:07
think it's healthy for them to change. We don't want to be thinking the
23:10
same way we did when we were ten years old. You're so right,
23:12
And oh my gosh, I remember growing up and hearing people change their minds
23:18
or change their politics or change and they were you're a flip flopper. You
23:22
shouldn't change your mind. And I was like, wait, isn't that what
23:26
you're supposed to do? Totally? Wait, I know it's like you said
23:30
this in two thousand and five, and it's like, Okay, isn't that
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awesome that in twenty twenty they're saying something more inclusive or kinder, like why
23:41
are we holding them? Like let people grow? We have to let people
23:45
grow and be better. There's like this this want for people to like have
23:52
a very specific answer for like changes and trends. And one thing that's making
23:56
me think of is like people will say like, well, we didn't have
23:59
used to have so many kids who were trans before, or we didn't used
24:02
to have so many kids who were gay before, and it's like, well
24:06
we will, we did. It's just that like now thankfully a lot more
24:10
individuals are feeling comfortable enough to say something. It's still not enough, but
24:15
like, I don't know, there's this like there's just this want to just
24:18
have a specific answer or to like blame something or like to just stick to
24:23
like it didn't used to be this way or this is the way I want
24:27
to keep things And if it's not that way, it's wrong. And that
24:32
part is wrong for sure. And I think our brains do that. Our
24:37
brains need safety, We need linear thinking and clearing boxes we can put things
24:41
into. I was actually just having a conversation with someone today about that how
24:48
we move in such a binary but things are not binary. Yeah, we
24:52
have to give people room to figure out who they are. I think if
25:00
we stopped saying this is what it means to be this, this is what
25:03
it means to be this, we'd be in so much better shape. And
25:07
even when justin when you mentioned the LGBTQ and I can't keep up and everybody
25:14
makes jokes like this is I and I thought earlier today, wait a minute,
25:18
there's a problem here. If the umbrella keeps getting bigger and bigger,
25:25
maybe that's not the umbrella. Maybe the truth is that we are just really
25:32
really diverse, and we all don't and the umbrella is actually the cis heteronormative
25:38
and I said earlier, but not Maybe that's the umbrella, and there's a
25:44
group of people that fit under that, but maybe most people actually don't.
25:48
But we're all trying to shove us all into these letters and it just gets
25:52
ridiculous. Maybe we're just very diverse. We're not binary, we're not LGBTQ
25:57
or you know, straight like it does. It's not working that way.
26:00
So I hope time creates a situation where we can just be exactly who we
26:07
are. You bring up a great point there where, yeah, we keep
26:11
adding more and more to this stuff. Maybe we need to just call it
26:12
more of a spectrum. You also said that people should have time and space
26:18
to think about this stuff. In working with a lot of transgender kids and
26:23
families, I have had a couple of instances and not judging whatsoever these families,
26:29
but sometimes parents say, you're too young for this, you shouldn't be
26:33
thinking about it. Just focus on school or focus on whatever, and just
26:37
try not to think about this stuff right now. What advice would you have
26:41
for parents in those situations who are struggling with their kids not being who they
26:48
perceive them to be. First, I want to say that I would have
26:52
empathy for them, Yeah, because they are having to grieve an idea.
27:00
That's a really hard thing to do. And I don't think that we give
27:03
enough space to the friends and family around people that are transgender or queer or
27:14
I think we have to give that space to them to be able to talk
27:15
about and move through their feelings and expectations. And I don't think that's happening
27:22
enough. So I would give them space to have their feelings. This is
27:26
difficult, but this is your child. How are we going to support your
27:30
child to be who they are. We don't have to say yes, you're
27:33
this, no you're not this. We don't need to do any of that.
27:37
They'll show you who they are. Just be supportive in their existence.
27:42
Is a human being in the world. Who cares what they wear? Who
27:47
cares what they like to play with, Who cares who they're attracted to or
27:52
what the who cares how you help them adjust to Just being a human being
27:57
is everything. I would say, don't marry any ideas. Just be there
28:03
for your kid. Just be present and be loving, and your judgments are
28:08
your lack of love or that's that's going to make that's going to do everything
28:14
for this kid, whoever they turn out to be. But get help too,
28:18
because it's a tough road. Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah, I think
28:22
that's a really good point of the they're grieving. Yeah, they're grieving the
28:25
loss of an idea that they had before. I hadn't thought of it that
28:27
way. I think I get so like, I definitely, and I catch
28:33
myself. I think there's times where I'm just like you hear something from a
28:36
parent. They're not as accepting as like we are, and we put like
28:41
this like expectation that that's where they have to be, And that's You're right,
28:45
that's not fair to them. We do have to be open and welcoming
28:49
to their ideas and helping them try to get to a place of like where
28:53
they can accept, because what good is it going to do at the end
28:57
of the day if we're harsh or mean or critical to their experience of becoming
29:04
accepting, people are only going to harden. They're not going to be more
29:08
open. You're so right. An experience from back in my early community mental
29:12
health days. I just remember feeling like this, like anger and like being
29:18
so upset with a parent of like, what do you mean you can't accept
29:22
who they are? And I wish twenty five year old Eddie could have heard
29:27
what I'm hearing now, because I think that what could have helped my as
29:32
much as great as my intentions were of supporting the team and being like I'm
29:37
a support for you and accept you for who you are, I feel like
29:40
now looking back, like parent needed that too, just as much as a
29:45
kid and these And that's what's beautiful, right is we get to continue on
29:49
and be better. And it's and I know that can be a tough position
29:55
because we want folks to immediately be like, dude, this is your kid,
30:02
this is your family, Like it just doesn't work that way. If
30:06
we're really going to see the change. It's not gonna work that way.
30:08
If it did, our job would be way easier. We'd have less of
30:11
a yeah right some days, some days that would be okay. I got
30:25
a question that's totally out of left field. It's not in our show notes,
30:29
just kind of dropping it on you. I've had friends in the past.
30:32
I had a gay friend who told me that he felt like he could
30:37
have been gay or could have gone straight. And I've had a couple of
30:40
different friends who almost it's like they put all of their eggs into one heterosexual
30:45
basket where they're like, I've got this big crush on this girl. If
30:49
it doesn't work out with her, I'm just gonna be gay. There is
30:53
kind of a back and forth on this, where like Lady Gaga's total banger
30:57
of a song Born this Way. But I've had people tell me that their
31:02
experiences in their life kind of shape their gender and sexuality a little bit too.
31:07
Curious your thoughts on the spectrum of being born with it completely, whether
31:12
you can be influenced in your life and that changes things. I'd love to
31:15
get your thoughts. I think there is absolutely a spectrum. For example,
31:21
my sister very straight. She's not moving off the needle. She's where she's
31:26
at, and that's the end of it, right, I, on the
31:29
other hand, moved around the needle a little bit, you know, and
31:34
a lot of my friends did as well. So I think that that's more
31:40
natural to just sometimes find attractions where you may not have expected to find attractions.
31:48
So I think, yes, you're born this way, whatever way that
31:53
might be, but I do think that different experiences may have you a one
32:00
way or another. I think, you know, there's you can live any
32:05
possible way. I mean, a straight person could be in a relationship with
32:08
another man, but where's his spirit, where's his soul? Where's his love?
32:15
You know what I mean. So it's like our bodies almost can do
32:17
kind of anything, almost right, But like there's kind of this innate feeling
32:23
of where you're attracted. And I think that for some of us it's very
32:30
defined and it is the binary, but I think for a lot of folks
32:35
it isn't. And I think we see that through history too. Yeah.
32:37
Absolutely, But I got to ask you this question justin pressure's on. Yeah,
32:44
people use that sometimes as like this this proof, like, well,
32:49
if you're not born this way, then why can't you just be that.
32:53
And I guess the thing that I want to ask you is for you.
32:57
Does it matter? Does it matter? Why do I have to prove to
33:01
you that I was born a certain way? Why can't If what I'm doing
33:07
is coming from a space of love, why do I have to prove to
33:13
you that that's okay? Yeah, society does want a black and white answer.
33:17
It's like, oh, you have to be you have to be a
33:20
boy a girl, you have to be straight or gay, and it has
33:22
to be static. It cannot change. Once you pick something, you're in
33:25
it for life. And it's like who cares, Like, why can't it
33:30
change? Why can't it change? Yeah? Grow and learn? And what
33:34
if you meet someone that changes your preferences? I think what the term is
33:37
a sapio sexual or someone who is I is attracted to the person and it
33:42
doesn't matter what labels or what they are they are on the outside, it's
33:45
what's on the inside that they care about the most. And I love that.
33:47
I think that's such a cool idea. And some people are still going
33:51
to be but the binary and that's fine too, Like all of it,
33:53
right, like all of it and the thing but I've seen you know,
33:57
and unfortunately I've seen this just you know, I don't want to put this
34:00
on the straight community. I've seen this in the gay community too, where
34:05
a friend is dating someone of the same sex and they end up in a
34:08
relationship with the opposite gender and they're ostracize now from the gay community. So
34:15
it just works in tandem, and it's really unfortunate, you know. It's
34:19
I think we should be supportive of our friends and family when they find love,
34:23
however that love takes shape. It's just one way I think of it
34:29
with like the Constitution, like the second Amendment of like, well love it
34:34
in seventeen whatever the fuck they said this, So that's it. We're not
34:38
changing it. And I'm just like, wow, how does that make sense?
34:43
I don't know. I think it's intertwined a little bit. Give back
34:46
to the spiritual question. I think that is kind of it. Like nothing
34:50
is really static, you know, everything changes, everything flows. I think
34:54
we're all eternal, like the essence is eternal. The rest of this this
35:00
is just some shit. We're doing whatever, you know, hanging out in
35:02
our bodies, switching gears a little bit, you know, with your with
35:09
your practice and and how much has been able to grow and help other people
35:16
ideas like inclusivity, accessibility, empowerment. Right, these are all topics that
35:22
are very important to us in our work and obviously very important to you in
35:25
your practice. Like, what are ways that you're able to promote that in
35:30
your practice. I think a therapy practice is a therapy practice. It's just
35:34
therapy, but I think it definitely goes more than that. It goes beyond
35:38
just therapy. So what are some ways share with us how you're able to
35:43
promote that in your practice. Well, I've bucked a little bit of the
35:45
message I received in grad school, and I appreciate the message for what it
35:50
was at the time was anybody can work with anybody. I simply don't believe
35:53
that's true. Yeah, and that's okay, Like that's not a negative thing.
35:59
Diverse city is important because the world is a diverse place. So I'm
36:04
very conscientious about who I'm bringing on board to come to come and be part
36:08
of the team. And it's it's not so much I'm looking to check a
36:14
box, because that's terrible. But what I'm what I'm looking for is someone
36:17
who with diverse life experience, and I'm looking for someone with passion about folks
36:23
that have had barriers to care. And so often the folks that have barriers
36:29
to care are you know, bipoc folk, queer folk, just all of
36:34
the folks out there that don't fit a certain narrative, right, So I
36:37
find that, you know, the people that are very passionate about those communities
36:43
are part of those communities too. So that's how we do the hiring practice.
36:49
As far as you said accessibility, creating a remote practice I thought was
36:54
a novel idea back in twenty eighteen, because yeah, yeah, yeah,
37:00
yeah, yeah, because it was just so strange how the world unfolded.
37:07
Right even before that, I was like, I want to create an online
37:10
portal where I don't have the overhead so I can charge people less. I
37:15
created this, and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, you know, we'll
37:17
see what happens. Are people going to be into doing like video therapy?
37:22
You know, I was really like uncertain, you know, it was like
37:23
we had to really be like super clear about like this is what this is
37:27
like, and I had to do research about it. And then the pandemic
37:30
happened and now it turned into the norm. Yeah, but at the time
37:37
it was really about accessibility the remote piece. Damn you were like first,
37:44
yeah, so weird though, how that I mean that unfortunately when the pandemic
37:51
happened, But fortunately we were already doing that, so we were able to
37:57
very easily. We just kept doing what we were doing twenty eighteen. I
38:00
can only imagine, like, yeah, there's probably people like, why would
38:04
I want it? That's like I need to be in the office with somebody.
38:07
Two years later, that's all we got. Yeah, right, I
38:12
know, I know, even the you know, even the clinicians were like,
38:14
I don't know if I can you know, do therapy like that.
38:15
I mean, I had I was like, like I was tapping folks.
38:19
I was like, okay, my friends from grad school, have you thought
38:22
about taking a few clients, you know on the side, think about doing
38:24
this thing? Yeah? So, like, even the team is mainly made
38:30
up of people that I went to school with. As a matter of fact,
38:35
the clinical supervisor for the associates was my preceptor when I was in grad
38:40
school. Because I loved the recovery model in mental health that she really taught
38:46
me, and I was just so beautiful that I asked her if she would
38:52
be willing to come on board and do that, and she totally is with
38:55
us doing that. So it's really I feel very blessed to be able to
39:00
have such a great, great team of therapists and administrators. So what would
39:05
you tell people, people who want to get involved, people who want to
39:08
contact you, people who are interested in the AMR therapy your clinic? Yeah,
39:14
give us, give us your spiel. Jump online and go to www
39:17
dot AMR therapy dot com. That will bring you right to the website.
39:22
It has all of our clinicians on there. There's some videos and audios and
39:28
what we work with we also have on their You can go to www.
39:32
Dot I feel like I don't even need to say that, Like it's like
39:36
nineteen ninety nine or something, all right, Andrewsso dot org. If you
39:40
can go to Andrewsso dot org and on that page it has the specific services
39:45
that I do. But if you're looking for sliding scale or reduced fee therapy,
39:51
the AMR Therapy group that is our arm. We do sliding scale and
39:54
reduce feed its income based and we have a lot of really really wonderful folks
40:00
that I'm just so proud to be able to work with and be a team
40:02
with and if you want to work with me, check out and Russo dot
40:07
org. Be more than happy. And I also have for your listeners if
40:12
you plug in the code healthy Me. I do provide a free thirty minute
40:17
consultation for anyone who wanting to do psychotherapy or any kind of coaching. And
40:22
I do offer coaching because I'm only licensed in California and Nevada, but I
40:27
want to give some access to rural folks to assist through any queer issues or
40:32
nominogamy or religion, you know, all that good stuff man, And thank
40:37
you, it's been a pleasure. I really enjoy talking to you guys today.
40:43
Yeah, thank you so much for coming on. This is nn a
40:46
lot of good stuff. I will reflect on today a lot. I really
40:50
appreciate it. I know Justin really appreciates it. And thank you so much
40:53
for coming on. We'll have your stuff in the show notes. If anybody
40:57
wants to check out any of the websites and wants to work with you.
41:01
That's it for today's episode. Thank you all for listening. Apple Podcasts,
41:05
Spotify, you know where to find us. Feel free to leave us a
41:07
five star review on social media at Millennial MHC and our website MILLENNIALMHC dot com.
41:15
With that again, and for like the seventy fifth time, Thank you
41:20
so much. Thank you guys. Take care of all mentors.