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Episode 747: The Surprising Allure of Vulnerability with Vaishnavi Katta · The Trauma Therapist

0:10
Or welcome back to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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My mission is to help trauma therapist be their incredible cells, to be human,
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to be real, not just a clinician. I'm a big believer in
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who we are is more important than what we know, and this requires cultivating
0:27
authenticity, genuineness, and vulnerability, and that requires intention. Can learn more
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about my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma Therapist project dot com.
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That's the Trauma Therapist Project dot com. Let's get started five or three,
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two and one, our folks, Welcome back to the Trauma Therapist Podcast.
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I am very excited to have us my guest today, Vision Content Vision Welcome,
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Hello, awesome, thanks so much for being here. So Vision be
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a sophomore from Livonia, Michigan, studying biology, hoping to win to go
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to medical school. She enjoys Mentality Magazine because it provides her an outlet to
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express those wayward thoughts that bounce around in her mind from time to time.
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Now Mentality Magazine is now correct me if I'm wrong? HERESI. Mentality Magazine
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the first college publication nationwide that focuses solely on mental health. Yeah, and
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it's the first like student run publication. So oh yeah, okay, and
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we'll get we'll get more to that. Um so Vi Shoub also loves the
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quiet moments between her and a good book. She's excited to be part of
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Mentality this year and hopes you created a safe space for people to be themselves.
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All right, vision, and before we get go and share with our
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listeners where you're from originally and where you are currently. Yeah, I'm actually
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from here, like Michigan, Lavonia, Michigan particularly, but I'm living in
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an arbor attending the University of Michigan. The bios a little outdated. Actually,
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I am a junior, so I just finished my junior year, so
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I have one more year of college and then we'll figure things out. I
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guess okay, okay, awesome. Are you still I'm looking forward to go
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to medical school or what I think I've I think that's shifted a little bit.
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I've really gotten more into like the idea of like pursuing like a PhD
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or society or an m SW. I've been looking into that route more.
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I've yeah, really gotten I've gotten more active and like mental health and wellness
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recently, and I just I really enjoyed it. I feel like it's something
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that brings a lot of joy for me and like a lot of purpose.
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So I feel like that's something I want to Okay, so let's start here.
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So how did all this start for you? And you can take that
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car anywhere you want to go? All right? Yeah, Well, so
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like before I joined the magazine, like, I think my interest in like
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mental health and mental illness really started with kind of my family because my family
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saw like for context, like uh, bipolar disorders, Benny, A lot
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of these like disorders, they run pretty like they run through my family,
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and it's being Indian and being Indian American, it's there's such a huge stigma
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around it and it just really wasn't discussed. So within my family unit,
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I kind of became like the person to like people that talked like they talked
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to me about this stuff because I was someone who understood it. I was
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like the oldest daughter. Uh. It's just it kind of like, uh
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defined my dynamic in that way with my parents, and it kind of translated
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into like how I like like was in school and was with my friends and
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stuff. So I just became kind of like the person everyone went to and
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talked about mental health and h So that's kind of like where where I started
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with like getting into that, but then like looking into it further. I
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really like I really liked like the emotional intelligence of like therapy or like the
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into like uh exploring my own sensitivity and how that made me like stronger as
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a person and I and a lot of that actually stemmed from like the anxiety
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I faced myself. I thought, so like seeing like anxiety and depression out
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as a weakness but as like like as a part of you that you can
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explore and like overcome, but not like something that makes you inherently weak with
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something very like important to me. So like, let me have a second.
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Let me just interrupt you one second. First of all, I want
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to appreciate you sharing this because I know it's not always easy to start tring
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about your family. But so you mentioned your family and what had been going
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How did you realize what was going on? How did yeah, yeah,
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yeah, well okay, so with the uh yeah, with my family and
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everything. I know. Um, it was when I was younger. I
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remember having to call and I went one once for my dad because he was
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having like an episode where it was like he was having psychosymatic pains because it
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was my polar disorder. And after that, like my mom kind of told
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me what was going on with that, and then later on I found out
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about all the history and my family and stuff dealing with like mental illness.
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But it was always like a keep a quiet type of thing. And then
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I was like, it is in a lot of families, right, yeah,
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it really is, And I like I didn't want to keep it quiet,
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and I also thought that like it, the need to keep it quiet
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was what made it such a like a taboo in the first place. So
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like, yeah, so I just kind of like, yeah, so that's
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kind of like where it started. But and like talking with my family,
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like talking about my families meant to help. Like I don't love to get
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too jank into it, but like talking about my own I'm like an open
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book like and talk endlessly like I am, like I don't feel any shame
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in it. I think that's so important for other people to see. Now,
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how okay, so you learned about that for your family. Now did
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you when and did you start experiencing your own issues with mental health? What
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did that look like? Yes, you, Yeah, it was in high
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school when I first, like, I think it was like my sophomore year
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of high school and I just started having like the worst panic attacks ever when
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I just started, like I was always like a like a sensitive kid growing
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up, and my mom would always call it like like say, like a
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bad thing, like apologetically, like she's so sensitive, but like I've always
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known that. But like in high schools when like the anxiebe really started to
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like pick up. And I think part of that was just like growing up
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is hard, and growing up not knowing who you are is hard. So
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like I think that kind of identity crisis inspired by adolescents really led to a
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lot of anxiety and panic attacks. And also, like I've also I deal
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with some depressive episodes in high school. It actually got really bad, like
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last year. I would say it was my worst depressive episode ever, which
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really prompted a huge shift in my entire life style. Which this was even
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after I enjoined mentality. Actually, so it's kind of interesting to see how
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like even when you recognize these parts of yourself, like you can still grow
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and evolved in that way. Yeah, so excuse me, So did you
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at any point in high school when you start said, you started experiencing things,
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Did you see a therapist? Did you get help? What did that
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look like for you? Yeah? Yeah, I definitely wanted to see a
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therapist. I definitely talked to my parents about that, and it wasn't really
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I think that they wanted to explore necessarily, which is what it was frustrating.
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And that was when I didn't have as much like agency over my health
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choices. So it was like it was hard because it was like I talked
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to my school counselors and my teachers, and they talked to my parents as
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well. My parents just weren't really on board with the idea of therapy.
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It felt like like a waste of money or it felt like a waste of
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time to them, and that like I should build the strength to fix my
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own issues basically, yeah, like literally basically, which is like that's therapies
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to help you like have the building blocks too, like you know, face
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your issues. But I think there was like a skewed, like this conception
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over there with my families. I didn't I amn't therapy now, but that
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didn't start until like last year when I was like in college. So when
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I can actually find my own therapist and figure things. Yeah, that seems
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like a really hard spot to be in because oftentimes people are are told and
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advised go get some help, talk to someone, and yet here you were
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doing all the right things and telling people and coming up against the wall.
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So you get to University of Michigan, talk about how you became introduced to
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Mentality magazine. Yes, okay, So my first year at University of Michigan.
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It was twenty twenty followed twenty twenty, which means it was very much
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like it was. Everything was online. I was at home then, so
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I wasn't like an arbor. I was back in my parents house, and
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I like, I had the worst semester it being online, being away from
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like my community I built in high school. This is my freshman year,
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so experiencing freshman year in college just oddline. While like everything is going on
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in the world and at home, I just felt like I needed some sense
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of community. So I like literally opened up like the Maze pages, which
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is like the site that has all the club listings at University of Michigan,
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and I was like joining different meetings here, and there are a bunch of
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different clubs, and then I stumbled a fun mentality magazine, and like,
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so I joined, just like I joined meetings of a bunch of other clubs,
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but this one felt really like open, and I felt like I could
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really talk about what was going on without it being like too heavy, because
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nothing was too heavy. You know, like whatever you're experiencing, like you
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can talk about it in that cold like club. So I stuck with it.
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I went like every week, and even after COVID when I came back
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on campus, I like like I was still there as a club member.
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And then eventually I became content editor, which was like editing like the pieces,
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and then now I'm editor in chief, so like I run like the
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magazine so and it's very yeah, it's very fulfilling, I think, very
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cool. So walk us through this. So you join this magazine, and
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did you actually go to meetings or were they online? Also they were online,
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so like yeah, first they were like zoom meetings like like this one.
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So it would be like like tennis people in a zoom and we just
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like talk. It would be like we talk about a certain concept and then
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like data signed pieces and we could post on the website or like they'd set
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up print and it was it was it's kind of like how we run our
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meetings now, but it's a lot it was. It was online basically,
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and was the understanding that the people who were part of this magazine all were
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what interested in mental health or experiencing issues themselves. Yeah, I think it
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was a mixture. A lot of them were like sech students who are interested
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in mental health, and a lot of them are just like people that are
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like interested in mental healthy share their own experience. So I think it's a
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good mixup the two. Yeah, getting on you know, before you came
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on, and as I was thinking about you and this magazine, I think
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it takes a lot of courage to do that. I mean, right,
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you're stepping up, yeah here on this podcast and you're saying, I've got
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stuff going on. What's that life for you? And how do you get
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to that point? Well? It honestly, like I feel like it's it's
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it's hard to like step open, be vunerable, but it's so freeing and
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I think like that's probably like the main feeling I get from it, like
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just talking about this so openly about metal health but my own struggles or about
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stuff in the magazine that we talk about I feel like it just opens up
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such a big die lug surrounding these like more difficult topics, and I like
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you can ask any of my friends, like I love talking about stuff and
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I can talk endlessly. So just opening that dialogue up and allowing people to
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like think about their mental health and relation to themselves without judgment, I think
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is like the biggest key. And I think like, like like a student
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run publication that does that, like is one way to do that because it
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just shows that it's it's it's normal and everyone faces their problems and it could
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be a beautiful thing. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, we've
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all got something going on, you know, And I think it's very easy
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for us, especially in this culture, to want to come across like we've
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all got it dialed in and there are no issues. But in reality,
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I think you're you're hitting the nail on the head here. It is very
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freeing when you're able to say, you know what, this is a struggle
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for me, I've got this going on. Excuse me. So when you
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first joy, was there any hesitation when you first join this magazine about sharing
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what was going on? And was that an evolution for you, yeah,
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one hundred. Like, but first I was go to the meetings and I
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would love to listen to other people, but I wasn't like sharing too much
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about myself. It was kind of like, oh, let me listen.
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And even when like writing like pieces for the website or pieces for our print,
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I was very like I kind of like restricted myself from being too vulnerable
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about it because I just don't I didn't think I was ready. And then
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like when when I got more comfortable and stuff, I really did start to
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open up about the deeper stuff, which that part has been really nice,
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and I think as editor in chief, like doing that has like inspired a
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lot of really thoughtful, deep pieces, which has been really nice to see
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from other people because it's Yeah, I think like that's one of the responsibilities
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of being like a leader in mental health. I feel like you have to
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also embody what you preached, which I can be really really hard, but
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very necessary, really hard and hard. Why from your perspective, I think
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it again is like that vulnerability portion. It's when you put yourself out there
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like that, there's a lot of room per judgment and a lot of us
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like fear judgment. I mean, I don't like being judged or being you
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know, no one really does. But I think recognizing that there is that
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possibility and accepting it and still doing it anyway, it's probably the hardest part
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because there's a mental block around it. And I think once you do it
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enough, it's easier to eliminate that mental block. But that first time,
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the first time where you don't know what will happen if you put yourself out
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there, that's it's just it's so hard to jump over that hurdle. I
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think, all right, let's just pause here for a second to thank our
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sponsors. All Right, we are back. What's what's been You? Do
14:43
your parents know that you're part of this magazine? Okay? My parents no,
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vaguely, like they know I've heard of a magazine. Okay, I
14:54
don't know what if they know what it's about, and I don't think they've
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read anything I've written for it. Yeah, So what talk a little bit
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about the magazine in general, and then I want to ask you about some
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of your pieces specifically. Yes, yes, yes, the magazine in general.
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So we have like an online magazine, and then we also have like
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a like print edition, and I have like some here like this is like
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our power of Vulnerability piece. This is one we did for this semester,
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and then this one's like Modlestones, And so yeah, we do print magazines
15:28
that we also post on their website. But uh, and we also do
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like just weekly pieces on our website for anyone who wants to submit a piece.
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But um, yeah, so the print pieces are really fun because they
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sent her on one theme a semester, like last semester we did like vulnerability,
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and the one before that we did Purpose, So we get to explore
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different realms of like mental health, and I think like it just adds a
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lot of like like variety to the conversation that I love doing those and people
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like write and design their own pieces, and I think it's just it's fun
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to get creative while talking about such important like things. And and then on
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our website we like, yeah, we post like weekly pieces which can be
16:08
more like lighthearted and also writers anytime are welcome to post, like give us
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any piece that they think would be relevant to our magazine or even if they're
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not part of the club itself they don't want to submit something, we are
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very much open to it. How old is a magazine I think we are
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lovely seven years old now, so it was before my time. Okay,
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okay, now I have I'm curious about the reaction from your the other people,
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the other students in the school. What's that been like? Um?
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Yeah, so, I think one of our biggest hurdles of being in such
16:45
a large universities not a lot of people know who we are, which can
16:48
be a little frustrating. But we do like table at different like student organization
16:55
events, and like we do try and get our name out there on social
16:59
media, and that has been helpful and I think overall the reception has been
17:02
really positive. I I like a lot of students left to pick up our
17:07
magazines and just like read them at the end of the semester U and it's
17:11
it's it's been pretty positive. I think even if they don't like know like
17:17
how to contribute, just having that like as a place or an outlet to
17:21
contribute if they wanted to, has been like comforting to a lot of people.
17:23
And that's what I've been told. Have you experienced stigma at all in
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H Well, I guess firstly when you talk about your your issues with mental
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health, and then secondly as part of the magazine. Have you experienced it
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part of my like talking about my issues and mental health. I definitely feel
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like some of it. I've been labeled sensitive a lot by people, and
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like the most like I guess, like derogatory way, which I don't think
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it's a derogatory thing at all, but like it's just like, oh it
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oh. I feel like they turn it a lot into like a an emotional
18:08
problem or sometimes even a woman's problem, especially with stigma in my community,
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like my Indian American community and within my family. It can be very much
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like you're overreacting. You're like, why are you so emotional? Why are
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you like caring so much? In terms of the magazine, I haven't to
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like shared it too much with that my family and stuff. But in the
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university, I think it's pretty well received. Sometimes I feel like it's hard
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to gain like a lot of like respect for Mental Health magazine compared to other
18:38
topics I know, And that's the university has kind of shown that in some
18:44
interesting ways, just like sometimes not like funding or like not like supporting And
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that's interesting. But is that surprising to you given the fact that this kind
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of gets me into my next question here? How our culture, broadly in
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the United States and maybe even globally, has shifted in terms of an understanding
19:07
or at least awareness of mental health. Right, You've got all these sports
19:11
figures and celebrities raising your hands saying this is going on with me? Have
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you noticed anything? What's your what are your perceptions on that? Yeah?
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I think in a university setting that's really interesting because on one hand, there's
19:23
a lot of messaging where it's like, yes, like we want to support
19:27
your mental health, but a lot of it feels performantive in some senses.
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It's like yeah, so it's like say one thing, we'll get too serious.
19:37
We'll support you, but don't ask for any interesting. Wow, Um,
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so what are you what is your feeling personally on Uh, you know
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a lot of the shift and awareness of mental health. Are you seeing that?
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Are you even seeing that within your community? What? Yeah? I
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think there's life like from year to year, there's like increasing, like the
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shift is increasing, and a lot more awareness and understanding of health, and
20:06
like mental health and the holistic health in general is being like explored and understood.
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I do think that like administration has struggled to keep up a little bit
20:15
because it's like again, it's like that you're saying one thing to keep up
20:19
with, like the new ideas surrounding mental health, but like the way like
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certain practices are built into like the university setting, like how grading works,
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or how like the campus therapy system works, those those still haven't caught up
20:30
to like the new ideas surrounding it, which is like that delay is hard
20:34
because you receive a message of it's okay to ask her help, but then
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there's not enough help to get you know, Okay. Let me just remind
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everyone that I'm speaking with Vashnavi Kata. She's at the junior at the University
20:48
of Michigan and the editor in chief of Mentality magazine. So talk about some
20:57
of the pieces you've written for this magazine, and you mentioned early on they
21:03
were there was kind of a general approach and then you kind of get more
21:07
right, Yeah, I'm pretty sure I remember the beginning, like we like
21:15
the print theme I think was like concept of home and stuff, and I
21:18
was just kind of talking really generally about like like my friends and family and
21:22
how they incorporated me into their sense of home. And it was kind of
21:26
more like general fluffy stuff and then like more recently, I've been like I've
21:32
started Zoloft recently, which is like an antido present, right, And I
21:37
was talking about that in the latest issue about vulnerability and how like opening up
21:41
about like using beds has been an interesting response in like, you know,
21:45
with my family and everything, and also how like talking to people about like
21:51
using using that's for mental health has been. Uh, it's been interesting because
21:56
I feel like some people are very much like, oh, awesome, that's
21:59
great. Other people are like, oh, really, like you need that.
22:03
So yeah, So that was like one of my more voter Hoole pieces
22:07
that I really enjoyed writing that. I've also talked a lot about like my
22:10
relationship as like to my family, as like a caregiver in the role of
22:14
mental health, like with my dad and my mom, and like how like
22:18
my polars. It's bringing out how that like impacts like, uh, like
22:22
your role as a daughter, you know, how that impacts your role as
22:25
like a like a family member that supports your parents. And that's been hard
22:30
to share, but I think it's been a little bit. Yeah, it's
22:34
been very freeing for that. Like more about that, what do you mean
22:37
specifically your role as Yeah, yeah, I think it's like I always think
22:45
I feel like I am an emotional core of my family unit because it's like
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we're immigrants, so we don't have too much extended family here, so it's
22:52
just me, my younger sister, and my parents and my dad he has
22:56
experienced with like uh bipole their disorder, and my mom has some experiences with
23:02
that as well, psychosis and everything. So I when those things become active,
23:07
I have to be the one to emotionally support, and I think that
23:10
has been very hard for me growing up because like being raised with that role
23:15
in mind means that influence is how I approach emotional support and every other aspect
23:19
of my life. But also it's been like probably one of the greatest sources
23:25
of my strength because now I know how to deal with these emotions, these
23:26
really difficult emotions, and approach them with sensitivity and with tact and with love,
23:32
and so sharing about that has been probably it's probably the hardest hardest thing
23:37
to share about even in like therapy, Like talking to my therapist about that
23:40
stuff has been very difficult, But like that affects so much of the other
23:44
stuff in my life, So yeah, difficult in what sense. I mean
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I can guess, Yeah, it's I guess it's been difficult because as I'm
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like, sure, where like therapy if you dissect things and layers, right,
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so like realizing like this one layer has impacted so many other layers,
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it's kind of hard to like connect those in your head and be like,
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oh wait, this is all connected. And I feel like it's been enlightening
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but difficult, very cool, you know. So you mentioned well in the
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bio, I mentioned that you were thinking about medical school, but then you
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said you reb shifting. Talk about that shift, and by the way,
24:30
I'm sure our zillion listeners would agree you'd be an incredible therapists or whatever the
24:36
hell you desire to do. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So
24:40
like originally with medicine, it felt kind of like I wanted to do I
24:45
was good at biology, I was good at like science. I still am
24:48
pretty good at science, and I wanted to help people, and just in
24:52
the limited view of like being an Indian American and being like doctor engineer lawyers,
24:57
felt like of the three, I wanted to be like a like a
25:02
doctor and a lot of the stuff I still like about medicine, but I
25:06
really like the talking to people and like learning more about my own purpose or
25:11
like what drives me. I really love that emotional side of things. I
25:15
really love exploring the mind and like emotions and how those interact. And I
25:21
like, like, while I was good at biology and stuff, it didn't
25:23
like give me that same like I guess rush or that same like I want
25:26
to explore everything about this type of feeling. So so I realized I really
25:32
did want to go into therapy. And I think even when I did say
25:33
I want to go to medicine, I was thought like psychiatry or I thought
25:37
of exploring that area. So it wasn't like too big of a shift for
25:41
me in terms of that, but it was a big shift for my family,
25:44
because yeah, I would imagine and I mean I would really commend you
25:49
on the fact that you're honoring your gut at such an early age. I
25:55
mean a lot of people in your position, right, they go through the
25:59
whole journey of becoming a doctor and realizing at a maybe a too late point,
26:06
that shit, what did I do? Why didn't I listen to myself
26:10
instead of listen to everyone else. That's hard to listen to yourself and honor
26:14
yourself yeah, it is, and I think it Like what I found is
26:22
like even when I do honor myself, not everyone is going to agree,
26:26
and like you still got to do it. You start it onto yourself because
26:30
at the end of the day, it's your happiness and like your life.
26:33
There you go, there you go. All right, So what's what's next
26:37
for you and the magazine? Yeah, so, um, approaching like my
26:42
final year at university means like it'll probably be my last year on the magazine,
26:48
but we're going to have I really want to expand its reach on social
26:51
media and expand the reach, like get more pieces on our website, like
26:56
you know, just make sure that more students are aware of it. I
26:57
think that's my biggest school with the magazine because I think just that's probably your
27:00
biggest block right now from accessing more students. Yeah, that would be awesome.
27:07
And I think you know, you mentioned vulnerability kind of early on.
27:12
That's such a key piece I think for a lot of people, and when
27:15
other people hear other people like yourself talk about that and share and are open,
27:22
it really does encourage them to do the same. Yeah. Yeah,
27:26
exactly, And I think that's the whole point of the magazine itself, right,
27:29
just an outlet for vulnerability. Awesome. All right, Snabi, I'd
27:33
like to have you back at later time. Yeah, so you're going to
27:36
be a senior next year next year? Yeah, okay, okay, we'll
27:41
keep in touch and wow. Awesome. So what's the best way for people
27:45
to get in contact with you? Yeah, so you can find me at
27:48
my Instagram, I guess at vishnub cut to just my name, and then
27:53
like the Mentality magazine if you just search up Mentality Magazine. We have a
27:59
kind tech me page on our website. So yeah, do you want to
28:03
get pieces in there? Awesome? Well, it was a pleasure having you
28:06
on here, and like I said, I'd love to have you back at
28:08
a later date. Yeah, awesome, Thank you, all right, take
28:11
care, hy