Zach Irwin: Respect is a big part of this. and that means a lot of different things. Mental health disorders can be treated in various ways, from counseling to drug therapy and everything in between. On top of that, the importance of ensuring a healthy home life for your adolescent struggling with their mental health can be a key factor in their overall well being. Zach Erwin is a counselor at Oak View Behavioral Health Services at Southwest General And joins us today to address treatments for mental health disorders and ways to keep your adolescent healthy and safe.

Caitlin Whyte: This is Southwest General Health Talk. I'm Kaitlin White.

So Zach, many parents who have a child struggling with some form of mental health disorder do not want them to be placed on a drug treatment regimen. So what methods can be suggested as alternatives?

Zach Irwin: It really depends on the situation. there are some difficulties when it comes to looking at, quote unquote alternative or replacement, for different medication treatments. it's definitely situational and there's times where medication is absolutely appropriate due to, you your brain not producing the correct, chemicals that you need.

For example, if your brain's not producing enough serotonin, dopamine, serotonin's heavily linked to depression, anxiety, and a few other things. versus other times where, depression, anxiety, and other disorders can also be situational, based on some things that are happening in our lives.

So it'd be hard to suggest anything as a replacement. in fact, research actually tells us that the best outcomes come from a combination of proper therapy and medication management, together. But Therapy is always a great place to start with that because we never want to push anybody into medication by any means.

And so, therapy is a good place to kind of talk through some of those things and kind of determine, you know, is this something situational that we can, introduce new coping skills, new mechanisms to address and deal with. Or maybe you have a genetic predisposition to certain conditions where your brain just isn't giving you what you need.

medication is almost like a supplement. I have this metaphor I like to use with people to try to help with a little bit of understanding. first and foremost, there is no dream drug out there that's going to just cure your depression, cure your anxiety, so on and so forth.

I like to compare it to Gatorade in the context of sports. Gatorade does not make you better at any sports. It doesn't give you any new talents or abilities, but what it does is give your body what it needs so that you can continue to perform in that sport. And the medication for mental health is, along the same lines where it's not going to cure your depression, but it's going to help.

remove some of those barriers so that you can continue to show up to therapy and continue to put in the work and so on and so forth.

Caitlin Whyte: Well, I love that analogy. That's really easy to remember. So sensory rooms are becoming more prevalent among facilities where youth populations are located, such as hospitals and schools. So tell us about those, and what is the importance of this type of space?

Zach Irwin: They serve a lot of different purposes, whether or not people realize it. I think one of the ones that typically goes unspoken is the fact that this is a neutral space. there's a lot of negative connotations that adolescents have, maybe with going to the teacher's room or getting sent to the principal's office.

And automatically that can strike up some anxiety, maybe a little bit of panic or fear, whatever it may be. So having this neutral ground where it's, open to everybody that kind of takes away that preconceived notion of you're automatically in trouble just because you have to go talk to the principal or go talk to a teacher.

So that part really doesn't get touched on too much, but also at the same time, The importance of these spaces, you know, it gives kids a chance to de escalate without becoming, I guess, for lack of a better term, a spectacle, in the classroom. it's hard enough to deal with the anxiety, with panic attacks, with, overwhelming amounts of stress to begin with, but then, having the, whether it be embarrassment or guilt or these other negative emotions that go along with this happening in a very public space, it's nice to be able to have some privacy to regulate yourself, rather than, you having this happen in the middle of a classroom or in the middle of the lunchroom or so on and so forth.

So just the privacy and the neutrality of them, is really a good benefit.

Caitlin Whyte: Now each sensory room can vary in design and items included because of the needs of the child or the patient. But what are some necessities that can help grow and develop that individual that can be considered universal among these sensory rooms?

Zach Irwin: A lot of things that stimulate sensory inputs, are useful in this type of, and what's kind of the purpose of them. we want things that engage the five senses because really what's happening in these sensory rooms is this is just a very, A very expansive grounding technique, which is a part of mindfulness.

So grounding, as a technique of mindfulness is anything that engages your five senses, which is really useful for stress, anxiety, panic, and, things related to that. What it's doing is, rather than the anxiety making your brain run a mile a minute, using your five senses. occupies your brain to interpret that sensory information through your sight, your taste, your touch, your smell, and your hearing.

So while your brain is busy interpreting the input from those senses, it's not going to be, floating off into space, coming up with a million different scenarios, and just increasing and ramping up that anxiety. it's a newer form of grounding techniques that are starting to gain some traction and popularity.

So things like sand are great. things like controlling the lighting is important. Controlling the temperature is important. we want it to be a controlled environment. We don't want it to just be, sorry, we only have one setting on the lights, and for some people it may be even more of an issue.

 so we definitely want it to be a controlled environment. We want things to be movable and adjustable, rather than fixated. And so things like sand, things like fidgets, things like, different forms of seating, whether that be mats on the ground, beanbags, regular chairs. we want options is what we're looking for when we go in there.

Caitlin Whyte: Well, how should loved ones stay consistently active within one's life that was struggling and now is on a better track with their mental health disorder?

Zach Irwin: Respect is a big part of this. and that means a lot of different things. there's the respect of people's decisions, whether that decision be to distance themselves from certain relationships, whether that decision be to, you know, not engage in certain activities that they used to, respect plays a very, very large role in.

You know, being in a relationship with somebody who has struggled with their mental health. so trying to understand, you know, what's going on is very important. Having them talk about treatment if they're comfortable, trying to gain some insight yourself because there's, if you've not been through mental health treatment, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of things that you may not fully grasp concepts of.

for example, one, one situation I recently ran into, There was somebody who was in recovery from substance use and they've been sober for a period of time and one of the things that's typically talked about with substance use recovery from the therapy side is, Separating yourself from old triggers, so whether those triggers be people, whether those triggers be places and locations, so on and so on, and so somebody had talked to me about how, they hadn't heard from so and so in a while, and, they were wondering what was going on, they knew they were in recovery, and we came to the revelation that, this person who was in recovery, while they were actively in addiction had really associated this other person with that addiction.

And so it wasn't a personal thing. It wasn't malicious in any way, but understanding that trying to separate in those relationships and being respectful of that may happen. so respect is a big part of the support, as well as just, just being there, not giving up, not just, closing that door.

 I think communication is important along with that, too.

Caitlin Whyte: And then what supportive measures can workplace or educational spaces provide that is more than just typical therapy or counseling for people enduring mental health issues?

Zach Irwin: That's a good question. a lot of it comes down to education. we want to be knowledgeable on things and having workplaces, who provide trainings, who provide seminars, for teachers or other people who need, what are called continuing education units, having some of those be met by mental health professionals to come into the space and do some hands on stuff related to that, I think is extremely important.

it's also one of the great parts about the Old Oak Community Center that we have here at Southwest is that's free and open to everybody in the community where we address a variety of mental health needs, medical needs, so on and so on. But as far as workplaces and educational spaces providing those things, I think it's important to, well, I guess, understand the importance of why we need to be talking about those things, for adults and for adolescents alike.

Caitlin Whyte: positive growth in their journey, how can stressors be mitigated as this time progresses?

Zach Irwin: this is kind of a tricky question. We definitely want to work to mitigate stressors as much as possible. And there's different ways to do that. For example, we referenced earlier, separating yourself from situations that you associate with times where you were really struggling, as well as learning different coping skills, learning distress tolerance skills, all these different techniques, but at the same time, Stressors are not entirely avoidable.

there are plenty of them that are out of our control that we can do nothing about. And so there's times where I think the focus needs to be, how do we manage stressors rather than how do we mitigate stressors? there's a difference between trying to. Remove them from our lives, which in some context is possible, versus the other times where they're out of your control.

And if you're fighting to try to get rid of a stressor when it's entirely out of your control, that's going to be some, wasted energy there. So it's more important to learn how to manage our emotions, our reactions, our behaviors, when it comes to stressors, rather than doing everything we can to just get rid of the stress,

Caitlin Whyte: So mental health is at the forefront of many discussions surrounding adolescent populations. so what are the positive building blocks that should be taken that all members of society should be conscious of as the evolution of this topic progresses?

Zach Irwin: when it comes to that, I think again, the education is very important. unfortunately, well, I suppose, fortunately and unfortunately, social media has really kind of blasted mental health out there. it's prevalent everywhere. You'll see it on. essentially any social media you get into.

The great part of that is that it's getting exposure and that it's generating conversation. the unfortunate part of that is, some of those conversations are very misled and, there's some, you know, self diagnosing that's going on. There's some misunderstandings about what different disorders look like and misrepresentations of them.

 this has been a longstanding issue in the media for I've been doing that for decades and decades through even movies, TV shows and so on. But now with the prevalence of social media it's even grown exponentially from there. so, making sure that we're getting accurate information from trained professionals about these things a great first step.

as far as positive building blocks go, I think The media in the world today, I think likes to very much focus in on the stories that, are very negative. typically there's a lot of psychology involved in that too, where it's, it's the negative stories that, generate more viewership. It's the ones that, you people, once you perceive something as a threat, you're much more attentive to that thing than.

When something is not threatening to you. So, there's a lot of focus and attention on the negative stories, which generates this, overexposure that happens, making people think all I see is negative things on the news. So the world is a horrible place. It's a very dark place. So on and so on. I think what we tend to forget one of these positive building blocks here is the vast, vast majority of people are not malicious in that sense.

 The world is not this dark, terrible place. We just get this overexposure that comes from, our social media and what we see on TV. So understanding and giving the benefit of the doubt that Everyone is just trying to do their best. there's a small percentage that that's not true for that are, aiming to be harmful or malicious or whatever you want to call it.

But having that broad understanding that for the most part, people are trying to do their best. And when we talk about mental health, understanding that everyone kind of has some story or some struggle related to it, you are more likely to. either have a mental illness yourself or be related to somebody with one then not have any exposure to it at all whatsoever.

So understanding that people do have backgrounds in this and it's, you know, it affects our lives. It builds these life experiences that, you you view through the lens of your own life as you grow up and it plays a role in people's lives. And so just kind of having that common understanding I think is very important.

Caitlin Whyte: Well, what would you say are the proper ways of, so called, leaving the invitation open to a loved one primarily after going through mental health therapy or treatments without stepping over boundaries or pushing the subject matter? How do we dance that dance?

Zach Irwin: Yeah, I really like this question. this is very important because The social support element of mental health treatment, plays a very, very big role. And so we want to make sure that we're doing it right when it comes to that. it is okay to ask how people are feeling and, you know, what's going on, but also we don't want to continue to push and do that because there's times where, you know, just like anything else, it may not be the appropriate time to talk about it or somebody may not be comfortable talking about it.

so I heard a story of a family that's, you know, was going through this, situation here. And, They compared it to Eeyore on Winnie the Pooh, where, you know, Eeyore is definitely a representation of depression. And despite that, gang never excluded him. They never left him out. They never just ignored him.

They never stopped inviting him anywhere. They just treated him as a person, or I suppose as a donkey. And, They just kept inviting him. He was part of the gang. He was part of the crew. So, people will talk about the things they want to talk about whenever it's time to open up. And that goes back to the respect.

If I'm constantly asking you, are you okay? What's going on? Is there anything you want to talk about? there's an implication that exists there that I'm saying, I don't trust you to tell me when you're ready. So I have to keep asking. So that's kind of the harm that continually asking does.

Whereas if you just, you know, I don't want to say business as usual, but if you just continue to interact how you typically would with that person, that person will determine when they're comfortable or when it's an appropriate time to open up about certain things. we want to respect that right for them to decide that, that time may be never, and maybe this is their own independent journey that they're going on through their recovery and they don't feel comfortable sharing that or, through your.

fostering that relationship with them, they may decide that, okay, now I'm starting to feel comfortable enough to share some more intimate details. So we don't want to constantly poke and prod with the, how are you? Is it, are you okay? Is there anything you want to talk about? but rather just being inclusive and giving that person their space.

And when the time is right, if that's their choice to talk about it, they will.

Caitlin Whyte: Well, wrapping up here, Zach, how can Southwest General provide care and resources to adolescent patients that are experiencing these mental health struggles?

Zach Irwin: We have an amazing adolescent intensive outpatient group right now. that's our main adolescent programming that goes Monday, Wednesday, Thursday from 4. 30 p. m. to 7. 30 p. m. each of those evenings. it's an eight week program where we primarily use dialectic behavioral therapy techniques. as well as we provide support to the families during that time.

 we have a virtual family night that's a part of that. So, we're, we're doing group family therapy to be inclusive of the. We have, psychiatric resources available to the adolescents in our program as well. as well as if, even if the IOP is not your cup of tea, we still provide the assessments that can be done and to help people find other resources too.

Caitlin Whyte: Well, Zach, thank you so much for being here again and for all you do for the community. This is such important work. To learn more about mental health and keeping your adolescent healthy and safe, visit swgeneral. com. I'm Kaitlin White, and this has been Southwest General Health Talk.