Sometimes the transition from adolescence to adulthood can feel daunting without the support systems one may be used to; especially for those who may be away from family for the first time. In part three of this three-part episode, Kirk and Tiffani discuss what helped them navigate the changes they made during their transition into adulthood.

24/7 Local Crisis Phone Line: 863.519.3744

24/7 Local Crisis Text Line: Text “TALK” to 863.204.3443

24/7 National Crisis Line: 988

If you are in immediate danger, call 911.

Thank you for joining us today for part three of our three part series on the

transition from adolescence to adulthood. I've always given the permission to say that

we disagree because we want to keep things on an even keel and be nice, but change

doesn't happen when everything stays nice. Right. Things do need to be looked at

from different vantage points. It's one of my mentors going through my career really

highlighted that for me, you know, I can show you a piece of paper here,

but there's more sides to this piece of paper. What you see is one part, here's

the other side. Well, wait, there's yet another side, and yet there's another side,

and there's another side. It's like, oh man, there are different viewpoints, and we

come at things from different life experiences and we all have different sunglasses

or eyeglasses that we look at the world with. And if it's very narrow,

you set your expectations to that narrow vision. And so when our listeners are going

off to college You know college or breaking into college and and doing things the

thing to keep in mind is

There are other perspectives they're okay, they're not all wrong And I don't need to

convince you of mine to make mine valid correct, right correct Your life experience

is your life experience and you might have somebody that had something similar But

it's never the same right never the same and one of the things I do when I when

I teach about you know, I Do a lot of instruction for law enforcement and looking

at perspectives from those individuals with mental health issues that I said one of

the things I talk about is You know the different perspectives and and being aware

that you may have gone through a divorce and the person in front of you may be

going through a divorce. Well, your experience through the divorce might have been,

"Oh my God, this is the worst thing ever." And for them, it's probably the best

thing ever. So same set of circumstances, but you can never say, "Well, I know what

that's like." And we all want to be careful of saying, "Oh, I know exactly what

you feel." Or, "I know exactly what going through and it's hard 'cause we're all

individuals. And so even as you're breaking into college life,

which is, again, great 'cause there's another time where our world gets a little

bigger. One of the first times it gets bigger is when we're young children,

we've got mom and dad in our immediate family and then we go off to school. World

It's a little bigger and I remember for when my daughter went off to school. That

was a scary moment for all of us because we're like And we wanted to protect right

because there are there are families that have parents that over protect and that's

not healthy But at the same time it's their way of showing love, you know Kind of

a skewed kind of love. I'm gonna protect you from everything, but you can't once

But once that door opens, the world gets bigger. And then they go through those

formative years of, you know, kindergarten, going into grade school, elementary

school, then high school, gets even bigger. And you get more experiences and you

take away different things and there's yet, again, some guidance there that needs to

happen. And then we go off into college. And then even after college, you know.

even then though, I think there's a sense of like, oh, am I a grownup yet? Because

just the other day, so as we've mentioned, in the past, our roles, my role is,

I'm the director of children's services at Peace River Center, so in most

situations, as for you, we are the boss in the room, right? And we are the

decision makers, and I remember the realization of, there was some clinical ethical

dilemma going on. And you have all these people in the room and they're talking and

they're kind of staffing it through. And then they look to me, I'm like, oh.

- Right, right. - I'm the decider. - Well, I'm the adult in the room, am I? - Oh,

goodness. And so I remember thinking like, well, obviously I felt comfortable with my

experience and the knowledge, I knew what to do. But there was also this like

undercurrent of like oh my gosh like this is on me and I am the decider and I am

prepared and I do have you know the alphabet soup behind my name but I'm also that

little kid. Right. You know what I mean? In a teeny tiny town thinking like huh I

don't know what I want to be when I grow up and so there's this level of like

we're still who we are even as we go down the road of you know we're just

figuring things out and and we're doing the best that we can with what we know.

And the more we know, hopefully the better we do. But we're just trying. And I

think that it's so refreshing to remember that we don't have to keep trying by

ourselves, that we do have a village, we do have support. I've lost count of the

times that I've called you and said Kirk, I just need to say this out loud with

someone who I trust. And so can you just remind me that like I'm halfway on track

here, and I think sometimes, you know for me especially Saying it out loud in a

safe space helps me process things right and a lot of times I'll know like Mostly

what to do, you know personal or professional, but I just need to say it out loud,

and I think that Coming to college you need to find somebody you can say it out

loud to. - Agreed, excuse me, agreed, yeah.

Yeah, with me was my college professor who I think she was one of the few people

at that time that I was able to be truly honest, truly open with 'cause I felt

safe, felt safe. So I agree with you, Tiffani, You have to find somebody you can

you trust and you feel safe with yeah And it could look different for different

people, right different for different people and you can trust them with anything I

know In my experience, you know, we had those layers of they called it student life

Like you know student support So you had the student and then you had the student

RA the resident assistant and then you had the RD, which was, you know, a grown

-up, right? They were, you know, they might have been, you know, 22. They were the

grown -up, there was an director, and then you had those layers of support, and

these were people that you're doing life with. I mean, I remember vividly, oh gosh,

Kirk, one time our toilet overflowed in our dorm room, and I can tell you honestly,

I had never used a plunger. I don't know why. Call me lucky. But I had never used

a plunger, so I'm calling my RD in a panic. Like, I don't know what to do.

There's toilet water on the floor. Disgusting. Like, I honestly didn't know what to

do, which you can make fun of me later, but I had never dealt with like an

overflowing toilet like, and the first thought was, turn off the water. There's water

to - Turn off, like, there's a knob? And so I remember just, you know, vividly

thinking like, oh, I'm definitely a grown -up now. Like, I just dealt with an

overflow toilet. But just finding those people that you can be vulnerable to say

like, look, I'm sorry, I don't know what to do here, or I don't know how I'm

supposed to feel, or I don't know how to handle this problem, whether it be a

toilet, or whether it be Anxiety that is not going away right you know because

there is and I know later we'll have more podcasts where we talk about you know

Anxiety depression those specific diagnoses and you know, what's the difference between

just you know every day? You know nerves or butterflies and when it becomes

something that might require additional support But there is that element of change

and there is a natural level of anxiety that's gonna happen just because 'cause it's

new, but you've gotta have those people. And I know that for most colleges, there

is typically counseling staff on site. One of the things from COVID that I think

has been incredibly helpful has been the influx and telehealth providers. So you can

receive counseling from your phone, from a Zoom link or from a Microsoft Teams link.

And so I think that Is there enough mental health support? Never. But I think

there's more now than there's ever been. The access, definitely. I agree.

I think that if we don't learn anything in the pandemic is that, hey, we've got

some technology here that can be useful in that regard. I mean,

I know our experiences at Peace River Center, the counseling outpatient, their no

-show rate dropped tremendously because people had access via the computer at home,

which was fabulous. - Well, and the transportation is totally that obstacle's gone.

Our program, Children's Services, we serve the Tri -County area. And when I say Tri

-County, Polk Highlands and Hardee counties, and we have people from all over engage

in therapy services that never would have been able to receive support simply due to

the transportation issue alone, you know, life is busy and work and school and, you

know, all of the different things, it makes it more accessible. And so I think that

realizing that number one support is there, and like what you've mentioned before,

you know, you don't need to even know exactly what you need, just saying, hey, I'm

not sure, I'm not sure, and, you know, Let someone help you navigate that because

there are people that are trained to be able to assess, "Okay, I think this would

be helpful. I think this might be the right support," and they link those

opportunities for you, and then you can figure out, "Is this right?" Right. Exactly.

Exactly. When you mentioned the pandemic, a thought came to my mind, "Nobody planned

for that?" I mean, I shouldn't say nobody. I'm sure there were some individuals

through CDC and health organizations that were like, oh, we gotta prepare, we gotta

prepare. And there were some, I remember being part of some tabletop exercises

regarding some type of outbreak, but the point I'm trying to make here is that,

with all that planning, quote quote, "taking place." There were still a lot of

surprises. And it was a transition. And here you've got well -educated individuals,

older individuals, grown -ups, quote -unquote,

who had planned and were trying to get themselves ready. And for the most part,

I think it could have been worse if we didn't have any planning, but I think we

talk about telehealth and getting that mechanism into play and we can, we'll get to

it someday, we were forced to get into that. And I think the point I'm wanting to

make here is that not everything you plan goes according to plan and you can't

always plan for everything. And so when you do your best,

and everyone does their best, I truly believe that everybody wakes up in the morning

trying to do their best.

Nobody wakes up and says, "I wanna be a dirty rat bastard today." - Well, and your

best can be different, depending upon the day. What you have to offer might be a

different amount each day. - Right, right. And so, you know,

it's okay to not have a solid plan, have something, you know,

a little bit of a goal, at least,

that will help you get towards that. And sometimes we have a goal, but we're not

sure how to get there. And again, we don't always have to know how to get there.

We've got others along the way to help us with going into college, You know

changing a career because I had a plan I was gonna be you know I was gonna make

video games and you know and do that kind of thing back then Way out in left

field back then nowadays. It's like man look somebody sitting in their living room

developing You know call of duty

So it's all these kinds of things

You do your best to plan for your future, but life happens in different ways for

each of us and we've got to be adaptable, be flexible. Don't be too hard on

yourself if what you've planned doesn't go the way you had hoped.

Definitely those markers are out there to kind of give you a clue of what it might

be like.

Um, and you kind of set your, some of your expectations with that, but expectations

don't necessarily need to be set in concrete, more like Jell -O, they got some form

to them, but they're a little bit, you know, squishy, you know, so they need to be

a little more pliable and open. So, I think too, what I've seen in a lot of

individuals that I've come across in crisis situations is sometimes their expectations they’ve got them set in stone. And it doesn’t quite go the way they looked at it. Then they struggle with that whole thing collapsing. It’s like hold on, there’s stuff here that you can still work with. It might not be this exactly

but some semblance of it is there. And just having that that sounding more of this

is what I have is not going my way. What can I do? And you know when you are

18, 19, 20, you don't have the life experience to have that wide perspective of

what does it mean to be a little bit more flexible, you know, a little less rigid

with like my expectation for the rest of my life right because the rest of your

life can be a very long time And it's okay for things to change. It's okay for

interest to change. I think sometimes one of the the more serious risk factors when

we're thinking about well the intersection of mental illness and the college you know

age I guess demographic is you have people coming to a new place where no one

knows them no one knows their baseline because everyone has you know their own

baseline some people are naturally more peppy some people are naturally more low -key

but you have someone coming to a new place where no one knows them no one knows

what their red flags look like and what we've seen especially in working with people

who have psychosis is that the college age is really,

you know, the perfect space for the onset of,

you know, psychosis diagnoses sometimes, right? Because you have this pressure cooker

of stress that is new, unrealistic expectations on yourself,

but also incredibly limited supports, right?

And then you're going through something and it doesn't seem quite right, but you're

not really sure. So you don't want to seem like that oddball, so you don't really

mention it and it just gets worse. So getting that support, having somebody to kind

of, again, bounce the ideas off. We've said that over and over again, find that

support system to kind of bounce some ideas off of to get your frame of reference

of what's normal and I mean that there are going to be times where you're in this

transition and then all of a sudden you've got to make adult decisions but I'm only

18 yep I'm gonna make it an adult decision here sorry nobody can make that just

make that choice for you there can be somebody to support you with whatever

direction you decide to go but it's your choice it's your choice - Well, and when

we think about, well, you know, mental illness and mental health and the statistics,

you know, one in three people ages 18 to 24 experience mental illness. One in 10

experience a severe mental illness. That is not, you know,

a number that I think people expect for this age range, because when you think of

18 to 24 -year -olds, you think of people who are, you know, strong and you know

making these very sometimes silly choices because they have their whole life in front

of them and just you know really this is your time to to do what you want to do

and explore well sure but it's also the time to make sure that you are preparing

yourself to take care of not only your physical health but your mental health

because those risk factors are there 3.8 million people between the ages of 18 to

24 have reported serious thoughts of suicide. So this is not the time to throw

caution to the wind. This is the time to prioritize your mental health, right? As

so many things are changing. Absolutely. Start making it part of your regular routine

because taking those breaks, taking that step away, periodically reevaluating your

expectations and your goals, that's not an unhealthy thing to do. Will they stay the

same? Maybe, maybe there's some adjustment. - And maybe not, and that's not a bad

thing. - Right, that's not a bad thing. But yeah, the numbers nationally are very

daunting,

especially around suicidality and our young people. With it being the second leading

cause of death for our young people. That's a scary number for me. That means a

lot of folks, a lot of our listeners are out there maybe contemplating ending their

life by their own hand.

There's an opportunity to reach out. We at Peace River Center have a crisis line

that's available. We have a text line as well. You can get that through our

website, peacerivercenter.org, and locally the number is 863 -519 -3744.

But for those who are listening from other parts of the country,

the world hopefully,

we have 988, which is a larger network of crisis centers that are there with

trained counselors willing to listen. At the very least, you reach out to those

folks. And we've had that experience in our crisis network here where people have

reached out just to touch base with somebody and talk something through from a

benign kind of setup to some more serious--

getting that additional help. There are people out there, like you and I,

Tiffani, who are there willing to help, you know, and be that year to them.

- And maybe the help isn't for you, maybe the help is for someone you love, for

someone that you know, and if that's the case, those numbers are still there for

you. 988 is the suicide national hotline

any number, you know, any phone that you, you know, you pick up, you dial 998 and

it will connect you nationally to someone ready to help. If you are local to our

area, the Polk Highlands, our Hardee areas, you can always call the Peace River Center

Crisis Hotline. And again, it's not just for sociality, it's for emotional support.

Call us, we're here to help 24 /7. And that number is 863 -519 -3744.

As always, thank you for listening. Thank you for viewing. We are here to help. Our

heart is to bring the message of mental health awareness and to decrease stigma and

we hope you'll join us next time. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you for joining

us today. If you enjoyed the show, please hit that like and subscribe button for us

and put comments in the comment section. If you or someone you know is struggling

with mental illness, you can call us locally at 519 -3744 - area code 863 or on a

national level 988.