#2: Let's Talk Access

This program was produced with a support of Story Hive, Creativity Connected by Tell Us. For more information, please visit storyhive.com. As a group, we would like to acknowledge that the land on which this podcast was produced is within the unseated and traditional territories of the Lakhongan and Wosanich peoples whose relationship with the land continued to this day. We would also like to give thanks to all the ancestors, supernatural ones, hereditary leaders, matriarchs, and creatures big and small for looking after the rich resources and cultural teachings of this beautiful land. We ask you to take a moment to appreciate and give thanks to the land on which you stand as well. Thank you. I'm your host, Christa, and welcome back to Let's Talk Access, a podcast mini-series focused on exploring access to mental health services in the Victoria BC area. On this episode, we're going to follow Tamara, Sierra, and Joe, as they record themselves doing their best to try and access mental health services. We specifically didn't give them any instructions on how to do that. The reality is most of us have no idea how to start, and we wanted this audio to be as realistic as possible. They each had a bit of a different take on the assignment. However, Google was at the center of everything. Welcome to our virtual world. First up, we're going to hear from Tamara, who started by checking out what her insurance website had to offer. Turns out it was surprising for all of us. So, I have insurance, and my insurance company has a website, so like, something's got to give there. So, currently, I am on my computer. I have opened up on my worktaps, which is always terrifying to look at. So, under Benefit Search, I have plan information, ambulance services, dental accident, foot orthotics, and orthopedic shoes, hearing devices, supplies, and ref pairs, hospital accommodations, and related services, medical equipment and supplies, medical tests, exams, and miscellaneous items and services, compression garments, bandages, and accessories, respiratory equipment, supplies, and repairs, practitioner services, travel coverage, vision care products, and services. None of this is what I want. That was a lot of stuff, and she sounds frustrated. I get it. Before giving up, she's typing something else into the search bar. Counseling Services! Okay, let's look at that. Counseling Services reimbursement percentage. Counseling Services have a combined limit of $900 per person per calendar year. What? That's nothing! $900. So, right now, my therapist cost me $120 to visit. So, if we check them, a half boys and girls, $900 divided by $120 is 7.5 visits. So, that's not quite, that's not quite two months of therapy. Okay, so that's rendered under a registered psychologist. Same with psychology rendered by an industrial psychologist is not a benefit I have. Counseling rendered by a registered counselor is not a benefit I have, not by a social worker or a psychoanalyst or a marriage and family therapy parent training referral to a nutritionist or a lawyer or accountant. Okay, this is only if I go to a registered psychologist. Okay, I'm going to pop in for a minute because not only did that sound like a lot of options were off the table in terms of who she could access, but what even are the differences? Next season, we'll find out. So, now I just have to find out if I can see a psychologist. All right, I don't know. How do you go see a psychologist? Let's type that into Google. Oh, so to find a registered psychologist, visit the BC Psychological Association. You can make an appointment on your own. You don't need a doctor's referral to see a psychologist. Nice! Understandably, that's exciting. It's one less stop. So, let's click on this BC Psychologist Association. I gotta find somebody. So, now I have to click all of the things that apply to me as an adult. Okay, why am I going to a psychologist? Because I have an anxiety disorder. I don't have depression. I do have OCD. Okay, one of them is just called women's issues. And I would love, I would love to know what they mean by women's issues. Stress management. Okay, that seems good. Stress management. No preference. I'm available, I'm not available weekdays. So, I gotta put evenings and weekends because I work a day job. City, town, Victoria, therapy method. No preference. Yep, I don't care. Psychologists with experience working with nothing. Additional languages spoken. I don't need any of those. Offer services through telehealth. Ooh, that's a thing to think about. I'm going to say yes. Agreed to the referral service information in terms of you. Search! Okay, there is one on Fort Street and one near downtown Victoria, comma, Victoria. Okay, those are. It's a weird way to put your address. But let's take a look and see who's who in the zoo. So, the first one he specializes in OCD and veterans. That's cool. And he talks about anxiety disorders. What about this lady? Teach practices such as meditation, relaxation, feeling feelings, managing mind, and intuition work. I am recovered from many issues and uses practices so I am healthy and continue to grow. I'm not sure which one of these I should pick. Maybe I'll just call and whoever gives me an appointment first, I'll go to. Okay, this hasn't been so bad so far. But I'm also terrified to know how much it's going to cost. My fee, schedule for new clients as of January 1st. 225 dollars? Okay, well what's this other person charge? She doesn't say. That's never a good sign. All right, that was the end of Tamara's search for now. She joins us after making a few calls. Okay, so no one will take an appointment for me in the next month, basically. And so I'm trying to do this in a way that is specifically recommended through my insurance. And that's really frustrating because if I was in a crisis right now, which is usually when people reach out for therapy, I would be kind of told to sit on my hands and wait. So I'm feeling a little bit irritated by that right now. Tamara stops and reflects on that and what's available for teachers on a daily basis. But I guess the other part of it for me is there's, there are literal counselors for the children at school. And I think that's awesome. The children definitely need a counselor. I think that there should be like just a check-in counselor session with educators throughout the school year. I think it's super important. And I don't really know what I'm saying here. I guess I'm just I'm irritated because every day I hang out with a licensed counselor. And he's the bees, knees. He's super awesome. But he's not there for me. And while he is really a really good friend and a really good listener, he's he's not there to support me. And I guess I'm kind of asking like who is? Like if I want to get support, I have to go out and seek it and look for it as opposed to there being a pre-established culture of that. Every day that I have to sit in my classroom alone and eat my sad lunch by myself, I miss going into the crowded staff room and laughing and swapping stories and feeling the camaraderie of like, well yeah, you're grade four student, mooned your grade five student. But I also had a kindergartener tell me today that the world is ending because her mom and dad are moving into a new house. And she thinks that she's not coming with them. And it's like, you know, you don't get that when you're so isolated. It's tough. It's tough trying to keep keep an even cool when it feels like things underneath you are falling out. I can't even imagine. Discourage, Tamara Coliseus research for the day. She comes back to us and the material is raw. Tamara is having a panic attack and recording herself as she accesses some resources online. All right. So this is new for me. I am feeling very anxious and quite panicked and instead of calling somebody I am recording myself talking like a lunatic. I am feeling super super overwhelmed and like I terrible at my job and if I you know was actually a good teacher I would not feel this way. And my students were, I mean you need a lot of love today and I didn't run out of love but oh man we sure got close and it's it's a lot it's a lot it's a lot and it feels like a lot and and I um I don't know what to do so um we're gonna go on the internet because I heard there was this website and there was this app called MindShift so I'm gonna open it now and uh how are you feeling today to Maranemis um not good thanks for asking my anxiety what are you experiencing panic that one oh panic attacks are sudden and intense brushes of fear marked by strong physical sensation you got that okay yes I know all these things tips tips tips what this is nothing this doesn't help me oh remind yourself about the facts about panic attacks listen if I could remind myself out of my anxiety I probably would because I know that this is not a logical train of thinking and I that's one of the most frustrating parts of my anxiety is that I recognize that it is rational but I can't make it stop so we're gonna ground ourselves count back slowly from 100 100 99 98 97 this is gonna be the worst audio ever okay let's try something else describe your environment in detail five things you can see four things you can feel three things you can hear two things you can smell and one thing you can taste oh grounding okay five things you can see five things I can see I can see my dinosaur light up lamp my computer my very cool cheetah print shirt my dungeons and dragons palette and spellbook cards and my paper grade that a student made for me four things you can feel I can feel the coldness of the hardwood and the softer than an egg carton texture of the wall and my toes and the side of Matilda's habitat three things I can hear not a lot not a lot because I'm in a little room by myself I can hear the sound of my own voice I can hear a teeny tiny hum from the light and I guess I can hear myself breathing two things you can smell pine and laundry detergent and one thing I can taste well my mouth tastes like fried rice because that's what I was just eating but you know okay well I do feel better I guess that didn't work okay well that was my panic um thanks for being here whoever's listening I felt every bit of that anxiety as it was happening you could hear it but I also heard her calm down as it was happening and that's oddly really satisfying and comforting I don't know about anyone else but I spent years talking to people about anxiety management tools and suggesting them but never actually applying them to myself because let's get real I must be the exception to this species and those tools are obviously gonna work for everyone else but me I know some of you just smiled because I think that that little belief is way more common than we want to admit but being there with her while she moved from an anxious state I definitely recognized to calming down I felt it work and that's pretty cool okay we're gonna go back to Tamara we're about to meet somebody very special okay so I may have a long time before this podcast was even a thing made a decision to improve my mental health that has drastically improved my mental health and that is I have adopted a sweet little animal and I got myself a sweet little hedgehog and her name is Matilda and holy can only does she make me feel better I just I feel her breathing while she lies on my chest and has a little nap and I just oh it feels like for a moment the world can turn and I can be here and that serenity is such a gift right now just listening to Tamara I can hear how much that's making a difference I've met Matilda she is incredibly cute Tamara signs off and comes back to us the next day so I just got home and I've actually had a pretty great day at work but I am physically exhausted mentally and emotionally like the kids and I we did a lot of stuff today it was good stuff and so I've got this little nugget in my hands and she is so perfect and I already feel a hundred times better and now like I can think about is she costs about the same amount as one therapy session which one was a better use of my money what do you guys think so Matilda makes me feel quite happy but I don't think she's going to help so much with my underlying OCD tendencies so she brings up a good point I'm just not really sure if the question is actually whether Matilda was a better investment or a complimentary one as a side note for those of us who might have had to adopt to some instability or neglect in our families close relationships can be hard developing a safe and loving relationship with a pet can be a really nice way to create a foundation for a secure attachment where you might not have had a lot of opportunity to otherwise also there's something really amazing about caring for and loving another creature while respecting their autonomy it's really good for us for me it's really interesting to think about another thing to Maran brought up teachers being there for the students but no one being there for them and imagining how isolating that must be I think she had a really good solution and I'm sort of surprised no one is already really talking about this it would do so much to have counseling available and with everything transitioning online it's actually pretty doable it also just seems to me like not having that it's bad for business wouldn't more support for teachers keep burnout levels down up next we have Sierra who's going to talk to us a little bit about the challenges that she's facing in accessing services with diabetes okay so I'm starting with a Google search I'm going to go to my university counseling center single session telephone and chat based counseling only so oh or if you're looking for an impressionary reoccurring counseling sessions we can help direct you to appropriate community based resources via referral but these would be paid for out of your own packet somehow I don't think that's the new Sierra was hoping for so that's not a really helpful other than just like how running in crisis then like I don't think I would be just looking for this like if I was in crisis I'd probably call a crisis line if this here to talk thing is supposed to be you know for students to talk but they're connected with a different person every time you can't fill it for and it was going to be dealing with the same problems and honestly if you're talking to this different people you're just reliving the trauma over and over again this not very helpful is it she's making a really good point needing to retell your story and trying to open up and build trust repeatedly can feel like a herculean effort let alone jumping into that conversation without building trust and then sharing with a complete stranger it's exhausting like it's a scary thing to call an organization up or sit with someone for the first time usually on a time limit and share this really vulnerable stuff and maybe it's the first time you're thinking about it or admitting it allowed to someone that's hard and then needing to repeat that experience what happens if it doesn't go well or someone leaves feeling really unsettled okay back to Sierra she's looking through more of the website so yeah so their additional resources or support connect and go around in crisis line youth space for chat and text and then here to talk which is confidential mental counseling community referrals for BC post secondary students through the app except it's not I don't know about all the stuff like I find that like chat counseling is not great like phone is it great I am okay with video that's okay for me but like obviously in person with the best you're definitely trading a part of the in-person experience up when you move online like that Sierra's got a pretty relatable preference it's interesting that So I think an online platform might be sort of promising for some people. An app that you can talk and text on might be something I'd like to try as an extra resource. But on its own, that's definitely not enough for me. I've been doing online and in-person counseling sessions for a year now, and they both have advantages. So yeah, then for the University website, all there is is just like 10 musicals with anxiety about COVID-19. Mental health and a global pandemic. And I'm controlling, managing your mental health during COVID-19. Yeah, no. The resources are falling kind of short, so Sierra decides to shift gears. So being type 1 diabetic, I wonder if there's any counseling available that way. Let me take a look. When I look at a big diabetes research, I'm nonprofit, and nothing comes out. A bit discouraged, she keeps looking. I did find one resource here. Yeah, okay. So even with the nonprofit, I just found an article talking about another type of diabetic teenager. I'm not a teenager. Dealing with depression and anxiety caused by a disease, which is extremely natural because your body has shut down and you need to figure out ways to figure it out. And especially if you're worrying about what your blood sugars are or if you have an insulin, if you can afford it, and so can you afford food that like that's going to be a lot of anxiety. And then it just has a note. This is feeling depressed, anxious, frustrated, and/or overwhelmed living with diabetes. If so, you do not have to face it alone. For information on diabetes counseling, including diabetes, self-management, and support groups, please contact your healthcare provider for a referral in your area. And that's really fun because. I try to talk to my healthcare provider for a referral. She has told me, "Well, it seems like your mental health is doing pretty okay or stable. You don't need to be followed by a psychiatrist when I have to go." No, no. Just because my mood is stable now does not mean that I don't want to be followed by a psychiatrist doesn't know how that works. And they had to go back and forth with her quite a few times to actually get the referral. I don't even know if she put it in. Sierra brings up a lot of really good points and experiences I don't know the first thing about. As a friend, it's frustrating to hear how hard she needs to work, to convince people to take her seriously. I don't like that. I don't understand why the whole process is so confusing, especially the way we do like going between Vancouver and Victoria for a lot of years. I was unable to have my records moved over because the health authorities don't talk even though there's like two hours of travel time between it. Like they couldn't fax and forms. So then the psychiatrist or doctors that I was seeing in Vancouver, I couldn't get referred to over here. Or like my current diabetes doctor, I found through a friend of a friend, a friend of my mom. And I basically had to contact her and be like, "Hey, you're taking your patients because the referral from my GP took too long and I had been without care for a really long time." That's really an actual medical, like not that mental health isn't medical at very much, but a life-friendly condition. I could get a doctor for it because their first law learned if doctors and second of all, my GP just, I don't know, wouldn't do what I asked her to do. I think this is a problem. I would agree this is a problem and she can't be the only one experiencing it and not getting the care she needs. She comes back to reflecting. I'm kind of left without anything in dealing with a lifelong chronic life-threatening illness that is extremely expensive that the government just barely helps with, barely, barely, barely helps with. And they're expecting us to not only fund all of our medications and fund all those lectures, but for better quality of life, there aren't even any resources to help deal with the aftermath of what if I need my limbs caught off? What if I need this? What if I, like the emotional burden of diabetes is insane. It's insane. And healthcare providers and politicians and all those other good people don't help, they don't help. And then dealing with the, like, surely the financial pressure put on by a chronic lifelong life-threatening illness, like just the financial burden is enough to cause panic attacks and depression of just the sheer money that you're spending on stuff that you have to throw away. Like, thinking about how much money I have to spend on stuff that goes in my body that it then just have to throw away. Like, that's, that's wild. That's just wild. That was a lot she just shared and a lot to think about. Sierra said something important about retelling your story. I want to reflect on that a little bit more now because up next we're going to hear from Joe. Throughout the creation of this podcast, Joe was actively confronting her experience with abuse and she hit a lot of cognitive resistance. Trying to think about and talk about what had happened we realized before she was ready would have done more harm. It was a really slow process and we were both really surprised. As Sierra said, "Reliving a trauma, it's not helpful." Telling your story to be heard, especially if there's been a secrecy and a shame around the experience, that can be really powerful. Being bounced around and needing to reshare repeatedly on the other hand, it's exhausting and if it's trauma and we have to retell our stories, it can actually be re-traumatizing. That really stands out to me personally. I recently just went through a mental health intake and had to answer 30 minutes of questions. I've been doing this for 10 years and that was still really upsetting. Joe starts her search on Google, looking up services for victims of abuse in Victoria, BC. After a few minutes, Joe clicks on the first link and is immediately prompted to start filling out a questionnaire, feeling hopeful she gets started. He's now been on it for about 20 minutes, has put in her credit card information and is just realizing that the service she was signing up for was a membership program. "Oh, this is like a membership thing, right? Okay, so this isn't actually what I'm looking for. Yeah, so this is really interesting. So I'm going to have to cancel my little thing because I'm not looking for like a monthly membership to talk to someone." So it seems like a gym thing, which is really weird for a counseling setup. But yeah, so we'll log out of this and go back to the main screen. She returns to Google narrowing down her search. Most of what's coming up though isn't addressing her needs. Counseling and support, so that's women's transition houses, which doesn't apply for me, including violence in BC, which is not what I'm looking for, a victoryous sexual assault. That's also not what I'm looking for, child abuse. It's not what I'm looking for. Domestic violence and women's shelters, that's not really what I'm looking for. Victim services and violence against women program directory, that's not what I'm looking for. Either men's trauma center and the rest are ads. So awesome. So nothing really comes up on Google, which is obviously wildly discouraging. So yeah, so that end of that session. So I'm not actually sure what to look at now, but I might go in a little bit later to the transition house or the domestic violence for Victoria. So now they're one of those really apply, but I'm just wondering if there are other resources through those two links that might be helpful, but I'll keep you guys posted. Jo takes a small break and then comes back to her Google search. Okay, so I did go and try and just look at the different things on Google that were sort of like domestic violence and that sort of thing. I think it's really important that it's there. It's just very specific, so it's not. It doesn't apply to what I'm looking for. And so then I just did a quick Google search on like as a single parent. And there are some things, but you have to qualify for those programs. So I guess my questions I think is like if somebody's in crisis, besides the crisis line, it doesn't look like there's a whole lot of other options for people to go to, which is kind of scary. So yes, if you don't have sort of like your own support network, I'm not sure what people would do. Yeah, there's an awful lot of like ads or like a group. almost like a gym where like you tell them and then they like give you a list of therapists that are sort of in your area and then there you can look at reviews and things like that and so I had a very quick look at that because I think it's a really odd way to do things but the information that's there is not helpful so when you're looking at somebody's profile thing it like just states what they do so there's like marriage counseling or that kind of thing and yeah so there's no there's like no real bio on the person so you don't know what kind of therapeutic background they have you know like whether they're open to systematic experiencing or if they're doing like cognitive behavioral therapy or so there isn't a lot of information so looking at this and not knowing anything about these people it makes me incredibly apprehensive to reach out to anybody so the search today has been incredibly discouraging and leaves me not very hopeful about finding somebody to talk to which is obviously the office that I would imagine of what you would want right like anyway so so that was that I had a really quick look but just google switching stuff is doesn't seem to be helpful at all or hasn't for me been very helpful at all and has turned out to be eye opening and a little bit scary and actually I'm not sure where to go after this not knowing where to go is a really subtle and big barrier in getting services what are you supposed to do when you've already taken a risk by trying to search in the first place and nothing you're looking for is turning up results Joe tells us she's fairly new to the area and how scary the search feels I am fairly new and out of the 18 months I've been here 12 those have been during COVID so things have been a bit of an eye map she then thinks about the impacts on the community so if you were new or struggling I'm not sure like I would imagine Google is where people most people would go initially so that's really limiting and that's upsetting Joe packs it in and finishes her search for the day the next afternoon she receives an email so I had an email yesterday from the people that I emailed about the family reunification program and they were gonna pass the information directly on to someone else so that they could get back to me and it's been 24 hours and there's no response and this is a pretty for my experience this is a pretty typical thing on the island it takes a while for people to get back to you which is incredibly frustrating incredibly frustrating so exciting that I dig in an email they acknowledge that they got mine and have transferred that over and so now it's just a wedding game so I'll keep going and I'm gonna start my Google search for counseling for people who have been in emotionally and financially abusive relationships it's been several days of research and contacting different organizations and Joe comes back to us so I have spent the last couple days it chasing down the counseling services again for a family reunification it turns out that there is one body on the island that does this type of counseling which is insane I know I'm not really supposed to have an opinion but my mouth dropped when I heard that there's only one organization in town their wait list is four to five months so again unless you have a ridiculous amount of money hanging out in your back pocket and what in this case actually even if even if you do it doesn't matter right the wait list is is ridiculously long which is incredibly frustrating given the crisis stuff that is happening at the moment in this scenario so that's incredibly frustrating and widely discouraging that there's only one body on the entire island that looks out to this kind of thing that seems really in proportionate to the need that is out there there are or at least I'm hoping there are other things on the mainland which I am still waiting to hear back from the one person it has been two weeks and I haven't heard anything so I've just reached out to see if there are other things on the mainland but that of course involves mass expense so again if you do not have a great deal of money which is the case for me then you're sort of S.O.L. which is wildly scary that's a really powerful point Joni's support and is trying to access it and can't she's in a gap and this is the case for so many people it's already hard enough to mentally grapple the reality of being a survivor of abuse to start finally looking for support and find out it has to be so bad that things have come to a physical state this doesn't make any sense families are clearly struggling and they're just on the resources out there to address all kinds of things and again it's about you know if you are not in absolute dire straits or being physically assaulted then there is there isn't a lot of help for you which is also insane because you don't have to be in that situation to be really struggling she's right what Joe shares next the first time I heard it made my heart stop so just as a follow-up I just got off the phone with one of the organizations that were actually the only organization that I was referred to via victim services and there for counseling they do have group stuff available with their individual counseling waiting list because this what I believe is quite unique in that it's structured for specifically victims of abuse there are waiting list is 10 months which is insane I nearly fell over actually when she told me that so the group is sort of like a drop-in thing and vise obviously via zoom with COVID and that doesn't have a waiting list but the actual counseling it has a massive waiting list yeah so I put my name down for that it's and it's 20 sessions that are free which obviously is why the wait list is so long but it's still that's still absolutely like it's much more and just so shocking and very scary so if you are in crisis around this like they can't they can't do anything for you they can't help you yeah and so once again right in the in in the West or in Victoria in the island you're kind of on your own like to find resources and things like that yeah so that's wildly concerning yeah so I'm on a wait list I have 10 months in which you know I guess I just keep like pushing through to find another place that that can help me sort through all of the it's the emotional stuff yeah it's all the emotional stuff that's coming forward so yeah but I thought that was quite important to highlight and so that's what I'm doing so I am feeling I think actually I'm in shock at the moment was like I find that it's absolutely unbelievable and in a heart like it shocked frustrated discouraged angry and really sad that makes me really sad not just for myself obviously but other people who are searching for supports who are in this scenario I don't think that that's an acceptable waiting period at all so I'll keep looking thanks for joining us this episode is Tamara Sierra and Joe tried their best to sort out how to access mental health services I think many of us have been where they are frustrated and struggling knowing that they had a group of people to talk to made the process easier and was one of the ways we were able to keep that frustration from becoming a barrier to access moving forward the reality is that frustration is a much bigger barrier than most of us realize David used to say that learning happened in four stages like riding a bike the first stage you don't know that you don't know how to ride a bike because you're probably not even aware that they exist the second stage you become aware that you don't know how to ride a bike because you're trying to figure it out and learn for the first time and it's hard the third stage you figured out how to ride the bike and you're even good at it the fourth stage you can't remember that at some point you didn't know how to ride the bike trying to figure out how to care for your mental health can be like these stages of learning how to ride a bike trying to figure out how to do anything for the first time as hard people usually give up in that second stage when it comes to mental health being alone and struggling to sort out what to do it's enough to make a lot of us give up but unlike riding a bike you can't really just drop mental health issues they're not something you can put aside and if you can't figure out how to start that process you really have to find a way to manage the symptoms that are coming up and that becomes a whole other area of conversation that as a society we pretend doesn't exist now I know our episode is ending and we haven't touched on this but I'm going to talk about it quickly now before we sign off for the day one of the ways people sometimes choose to manage their symptoms can be through substance use not recreationally but literally as a relief from emotional and psychological pain I think that there's a huge misconception about people when it comes to managing those things symptoms with substances because there's almost a gas lighting that happens. We're really clear that physical health symptoms need support, but mental and emotional struggles, they almost get written off. Like there's some kind of societal myth that they either aren't real, or if you're really healthy, that you can just ignore them away. Substances can often end up being used because they're easier to access and often truthfully more affordable than the services people need to make concrete changes. We manage our symptoms with resources that are accessible to us, and then we're shamed, or the truth of the fact that we can't get what we need is completely ignored when people are casting judgment on our choices. And this isn't a comment on the use of substances. It's a comment on the lack of financial support to accessing other resources and the lack of honesty and awareness in the public conversation around mental health and substance use. When babies are first crawling and learning to walk, we get really excited, right? We cheer them on, we watch their move super closely, and when they waver a fall, we encourage them to get back up. We need this kind of support from each other, especially with stuff like mental health. There's so much stigma and shame around our experiences openly, asking for support and accessing services. We need community, and that support makes a huge difference. Believing and feeling like other people are there with you and for you can bring down some of the symptoms and mental health struggles, bring on. That support can literally break down feelings of isolation and helplessness. We start to feel cared for, and that can do big things for our motivation and our self-worth. So in episode three, you're going to hear how Becca and Natasha got inspired by what we were doing, and the support we were able to give each other to go out and access some services for themselves. We all got a little bit more vulnerable. Doing something new together can really bring that out in people. Join us next episode when we get honest about what stops us from accessing mental health services. [MUSIC PLAYING] I think it's just like, we're only in the beginning stages of the conversation of like, we need to talk more about mental health. OK, we actually-- OK, I think we've talked a lot about mental health. We're there. We're here. We're there. OK, now we need the resource. Now we need to think that we can actually like do. And we've acknowledged mental health and mission. [MUSIC PLAYING]