Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This show is not a substitute for professional counseling and no relationship is created between the show host or guests and any listener. If you feel you are in need of professional mental health and are a UA student, we encourage you to contact the UA Counseling center at 348-3863. If you are not a UA student, please contact your respective counties crisis service hotline or their local mental health agency or insurance company. If it is an emergency situation, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Bama Balance. Real stories about college men's mental health. I'm Nick smith.
[00:00:49] Speaker C: And I'm Dr. Tony Perez.
[00:00:50] Speaker D: I'm Johnny Foster.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: This week we wanted to talk about perceptions of seeking help and how to support friends.
Before we get into that, kind of just wanted to catch up with everybody to take a pulse of how everybody's doing.
[00:01:05] Speaker D: Freezing today. Today is freezing today. We're recording this on the 21st, and, God, it feels like we're in Antarctica or in the Northeast.
[00:01:14] Speaker C: It's the polar plunge. Not the polar plunge, but the polar sweep or vortex. Yeah, whatever that's coming through. And I don't know that it's been this cold in a long time.
[00:01:26] Speaker D: Oh, my gosh. Of course. We're, like, the only place in Alabama that did not get snow today. We had to go to class today. And no excuse to not go to class, except, I don't know.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Did y'all see the flurries on. On Sunday, though?
[00:01:41] Speaker D: No.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:43] Speaker D: It gave us hope.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. I know. I was for sure thinking class was gonna get canceled. And then it was the late email yesterday just, like, ruined the weekend. Yeah.
[00:01:53] Speaker D: Cause I had ass that I had due in class today that I had been putting off, and I was like, all right, come on. I was banking on it. And I got that email. I just.
Why do I. But yeah, I had to suck it up and do my assignments and do the work and then watch look on Instagram and see all my Auburn friends in the snow and.
[00:02:15] Speaker C: Oh, my God, that's right. They've got snow down that far.
[00:02:18] Speaker D: Oh, my gosh. They got so much.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Doesn't really make sense to me.
[00:02:21] Speaker C: New Orleans, mobile, point clear. Yeah. Not snow.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Our administrators, like, equally as excited about the prospect of having a snow day.
[00:02:31] Speaker C: I know I am depending on the work, but I am. I was actually excited for this one. And then on Sunday, I received an email and a series of messages saying that there are going to be meetings on Monday to look at the weather and to keep up with the forecast and that we should know more by Sunday evening or whenever it was.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Orlando county school has got a snow day. So if you're a high school listener, congratulations. I'm jealous of you.
[00:03:00] Speaker D: Wait, actually, yeah.
[00:03:02] Speaker C: Tuscaloosa county. Answer.
[00:03:03] Speaker D: I did not know that.
[00:03:04] Speaker C: Yeah. That's why there was very little traffic on my way to work this morning.
[00:03:09] Speaker D: I guess that's one silver lining.
[00:03:11] Speaker C: It is, it is. I would much rather stayed home though, and kept warm.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:03:17] Speaker C: Do you do anything special when there's a snow day? Like, do you like. I made like a big bowl, like chicken and rice soup.
[00:03:25] Speaker D: Right.
[00:03:26] Speaker C: On Sunday.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: I'm kind of a watch Harry Potter type of guy on. On snow days. There's something about, like, I don't know, this movie just feel cold.
[00:03:36] Speaker D: Say that they do kind of feel cold.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So I actually just watched the fantastic beast series recently.
[00:03:44] Speaker D: Oh, I haven't seen like the after. Right?
[00:03:46] Speaker B: No, the before. It's like a prequel. Yeah. Yeah. Highly recommend.
[00:03:50] Speaker C: Really?
[00:03:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. I'm not getting plugged by Universal. I will.
[00:03:55] Speaker D: Maybe we'll get. We'll. We'll strike that deal as the bamma balance.
[00:03:58] Speaker C: That's true.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Hopefully. Hopefully. Well, we will get back in with some more content in this next segment, so please join us there. This is the Bama balance.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Wvuafm, Tuscaloosa. This show is not a substitute for professional counseling and no relationship is created between the show host or guests and any listener. If you feel you are in need of professional mental health and are a UA student, we encourage you to contact the UA Counseling center at 348-3863. If you are not a UA student, please contact your respective county's crisis service hotline or their local mental health agency or insurance company. If it is an emergency situation, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
[00:05:11] Speaker C: And we're back. This is the bama balance and today we're going to be talking about perceptions of help seeking, particularly among college men and what it means for college men to consider help seeking, some of the barriers and myths and then later on how to address and help others.
But I thought we'd kind of talk about the state of mental health at college for men and as we've talked about previously, that, you know, college brings a lot of stressors and just a lot of things that come to bear for college men during college and during their years here. And one of the things that I thought might be really useful is to also talk about what are some of the. How do collegemen Perceive seeking help for mental health, or how do they perceive being in a place where they need to seek help for a mental health concern? So kind of start there.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that this is a similar story with a lot of men's mental health issues is kind of like the idea that you need to take care of it on your own or like it's a symbol of weakness. Obviously, I'm not signing my name to those statements at all. That's kind of the opposite of the message I'm sending here. But that's kind of the barrier to entry almost. It's like a fear that you have to rely on somebody else from the outside. But I think another common narrative is from people who are actively seeking help or like, involved in conversations from professionals that really enjoy it. So I think there's kind of almost a disconnect between the idea of getting into it and being into it and really like experiencing the positives of it. But that's just my perception.
[00:07:11] Speaker D: I think it kind of. For me, it kind of trickulates from, you know, like kind of early 1900s thinking or early 20th century thinking where it was. The men are the providers. They go off to work and they come back home. And the women, you know, kind of are at home and supply with the food and the cleaning everything. And the men are supposed to work and that's it. And don't really have an emotional side to them that need at least that doesn't need to be tapped into, that doesn't need to be fixed and worked upon. And I think a lot of those same kind of stereotypes are applicable today.
I will say we're getting a lot better in that. Where a lot of women are becoming the sort of the patriarch taking on the patriarchal, what used to be a patriarchal role in households. And I think that it's something that kind of needs to continue to be shed light on that. That men do have this emotional side to them that needs to be. That needs to have attention on them. And I think that help seeking needs to be something that is encouraged instead of frowned upon. I think in closed circles, it certainly is encouraged. However, especially at the University of Alabama, I think that if people are like, yeah, he's maybe getting help for this, it might have a negative connotation to it in some circles. And so when it obviously shouldn't. Right. I think that that's also something that it needs to be kind of normalized somewhat.
[00:08:50] Speaker C: Do you think it's more.
Do you think it's more difficult as college men to seek Help, like you were alluding to, Johnny. There's been a history of gender stereotyping where men are portrayed as kind of the strong ones in some way, and. But you'd think that that would have changed over time. It sounds like some of it has, but it doesn't sound like it's changed enough or what do you think?
[00:09:20] Speaker B: It brings up, like, a curious point, because in my history with seeking help, I haven't really cared as much about the perception of getting help. But my mom is also the head of our household. She's the breadwinner. My dad actually stays home and, like, takes care of the house and things like that.
But I think maybe it almost is, like, you know, generational, where people have this strong male head of the household, where, you know, these ideas have been passed down for so long, where it's like a guy's job is to go to work and, you know, tune out the emotional part of themselves or whatever, and then, like, things are obviously shifting away from that. But I'd be curious from somebody who has, you know, that strong male patriarchal figure in their household and how their ideas about getting help might be different than my own.
[00:10:23] Speaker C: Right, right. And I wonder if it is generational, too. I mean, I think that that over time, you know, part of what we seen has been this lessening of stigma in general and that, you know, help seeking or reaching out for emotional support, mental health support, particularly among men, has been something that's been addressed pretty consistently over the years and in college. I know that during my years in working at college counseling centers and collegiate mental health, though, we've really tried to address that aspect of help seeking among men, that it isn't a weakness, it's a strength.
This conference I was at a while ago mentioned that reframing help seeking for mental health for men as mental health coaching or in ways that men can relate to it. But I think that some of the barriers to that are also still rooted in expectations that society has for men, maybe expectations we internalize as men for ourselves.
And how do we overcome those expectations and that either internal stigma or misperceptions that others can have.
[00:11:44] Speaker D: Yeah. So speaking on that, I remember growing up, maybe I don't want to say growing up. Maybe it was this was middle school, high school. I can't remember when it was. But a big kind of turning point in my thinking about men's mental health and mental health even really being a thing was for Michael Phelps. You remember, whenever he was literally the top of the world, the most decorated Olympian Untouchable, but was struggling with mental health, was contemplating, maybe even attempted suicide.
Until that point, everybody thought he was, you know, obviously he's the best. Why would he not be feeling these, these, these ways? And I think that that was, that was kind of a huge point for me to be like, oh my God, these people that are in all these places that are so desirable, though they give off the way that everything's perfect, it's really not. And that's okay. So I think for me, maybe I was. I think the reason it probably resonated with me as much as it did is because I probably was struggling with something that I thought only I was because I wasn't at these certain levels in my life that I wasn't getting these certain things. And instead it was the opposite. I mean, it was not because I wasn't getting those, because I wasn't paying attention to myself. I wasn't really putting the need that I needed, not the need, the focus that I needed to, onto my mental health. And that story just kind of resonated, resonates with me when it comes to that kind of stuff about recognizing that in a holistic approach.
[00:13:14] Speaker C: Well, it really helps, I think then break down that barrier about having to be a strong man and seeing someone like Michael Phelps be able to talk about his mental health issues and his experience in reaching out makes it relatable in some way, right?
[00:13:31] Speaker B: Dr. Perez, I had a question for you. As somebody who's kind of been more of a scholar in this field than Johnny and I, I'm curious, like, what's the message that you would want to send about seeking help doesn't equate to letting go of your masculinity in any sense.
[00:13:51] Speaker C: What I would say, Nick, is, is that, you know, masculinity and help seeking are really not associated at all or shouldn't be associated at all, I should say. And that we need to treat mental health the same way we treat our physical health and other aspects of our well being. And so much in the same way as going to seek financial advice doesn't come across to me as any less of a weakness because I'm a man. Neither should should some of the other areas of my well being, physical or mental well being. So I think part of what we need to realize is that taking care of ourselves is the main priority and reducing some of these barriers to help seeking for ourselves is the important thing. And I think when we move to our next segment, we can talk more about how we can relieve some of those barriers and lower some of those maybe internal expectations that we have too. So we'll look forward to talking more about that, ways to also support others as well. This is the BAMA Balance. Real stories about college men's mental health.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: Wvuafm Tuscaloosa. This show is not a substitute for professional counseling and no relationship is created between the show host or guests and any listener. If you feel you are in need of professional mental health and are a UA student, we encourage you to contact the UA Counseling center at 348-3863. If you are not a UA student, please contact your respective counties crisis service hotline or their local mental health agency or insurance company. If it is an emergency situation, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
[00:16:08] Speaker D: Hey everybody, welcome back to the BAMA Balance. So in this segment, we're going to kind of transition and from the barriers of entry for kind of perceptions about help seeking into more addressing those into supporting your friends and supporting those close to you. So I don't know if you guys have any personal stories or anything or maybe Dr. Perez has more tips about how to do that, but I wanted to kind of pick yalls brains and understand where you stand on that and how if you've had difficulties, difficulties with it or if you found ease in doing it and the ways that you've kind of explored that, as I hope you have at this point in your lives. So either one of you can kind of jump onto that into how you want.
[00:16:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I, you know, growing up in, or not really growing up in high school, me and my friend group were pretty supportive of each other, kind of exploring, like, help options, how, you know, you can grow in this mental health journey.
But that's not to say that it didn't come with successes and difficulties. I think that, you know, there's a really fine balance in encouraging somebody to seek help and that kind of conversation where, you know, sometimes it can come across like you're getting onto somebody or you think something's like, you know, wrong with them and that's like not the message you want to send, but more so that you care to see them succeed. So without, you know, like strictly divulging like those conversations, it's definitely something to consider. And something that I've found helpful is like, you know, being a person first type of conversation where it's like not really getting on to them but you saying, hey, I like, really care for you, I have a lot of love for you and I really want to see you succeed. Maybe these are the things that I've done. And, you know, opening that circle to like, you yourself, growing in this is super helpful for your friends and those that you come in contact too.
[00:18:13] Speaker C: So I think even having that conversation shows a huge amount of shift in how men relate to each other. Because hearing you say that, I don't know that I would have had that same conversation, conversation with. That same kind of conversation with my friends back when I was growing up or when I was in school, which would have been what, mid-70s, early-80s kind of thing. Just a different time.
But nonetheless, those friends who were very close to me who were having difficult times, we almost didn't know where to turn or where to go.
So at least with the friend group that I had, we were very supportive and watchful for each other, of each other.
And it's not that there weren't resources, but we just didn't have the idea of where to turn for help or support.
Not that Boston College didn't have those resources, because it did. But I don't think we had as much of the education around as we do now. I think, you know, right now, these days, in the last 20 years, there's been so much outreach to students about, you know, where to go on campus for mental health support, where to. Where to turn to if you're in a crisis. I think we've got. We've expanded our services here at the university to reach out to separate colleges, even to have our embedded counselors, and in some of our colleges, to have more direct contact with faculty and students there. So I think it's really sort of better now in some way than it has been for college men to seek help and to develop those relationships, even where you can. Can have meaningful, caring relationships and can express that as much to your friends, be directly expressive about that.
So I think there is a huge generational factor that comes to play, which is really, I think, important to note these days in terms of how to then support your friends and how you might also need support, too. I think it's being very genuine with yourself and with your friends to say, you know, I care about you and I love you. And here are some of the things that I've noticed that seem to be getting in your way. And here are some of the things that I want for you. I want you to be the best version of yourself. I want you to be the best person here to succeed. I want you to be around as long as I'm around. And so. And I'm here to help you get.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: Help I think that also a great conversation that I've been hearing a lot more of recently is, you know, focusing on being mentally healthy.
And that doesn't necessarily mean that there has to be something wrong to get help. You know, I think that like hearing that professional's, you know, like therapists have therapists is like just so re. Like so encouraging to people that, you know, aren't really scholars in that type of field and like, have less information because it's like, man, these people that have spent years studying this and living in this environment, like, know that it's beneficial to, to get help regardless of like what's going on in their life.
[00:21:48] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:21:50] Speaker D: And it, it a way of asking for or seeking for help doesn't have to come from someone else necessarily. It can come from within you. And I think I've kind of tilted towards that more than anything of kind of having self help. And that's in the form of, you know, exercise or a healthy diet. I didn't realize how much a diet really plays into that stuff. I mean, I was. I used to eat absolute crap snack all day. And I'm not saying I'm perfect now, but I've definitely taken more into account what I'm putting in my body because that's really what's going to affect me. My different hormones, you know, internally your chemistry is. It's so dependent on how you treat it. And if you are not treating it well and expect for things to change, then you're doing yourself a disservice. And I think like I was saying, outside of looking for external help, that's also super important. And I think the way that I kind of changed, I'm not. I used to not really be a confrontational person, whether that was even with myself or with other people.
And I think it kind of changed my last few years of high school where the. Or I guess it was my junior year because there was a grade above me that I was, I was hanging out with and they were super comfortable with each other to a point where it was like. It was like, oh my God, did he just go there?
But they had grown up with each other and knew each other so well to where there was no lines that needed, that were crossed and it was all out of love.
And that's a very harsh kind of story. But that later came to be stories and conversations with each other that got very deep with each other, that, that they were having conversations that were really hard to have. And I've kind of taken that in a more positive Light and again, had those conversations with my friends that are tough that you know are gonna make things uncomfortable. And if you walk away maybe needing some separation with each other, then maybe that was the right conversation to have. I think it's. It's not a good friendship when you're not being honest with each other and you're instead just doing it. You're doing whatever the other guy likes or the girl likes. And, you know, it's not always healthy.
[00:24:10] Speaker C: There's a real honesty, I think, that comes with true friendship. And I think that that honesty, from what I've seen and experienced, I think that that, that honesty, that kind of trueness in a relationship and friendships these days is much more profound. I see it more, I really admire it more, quite frankly. Wish I had it when I was growing up.
And I think that that in and of itself can reduce that barrier just to seeking help or maintaining your mental health. I think, you know, being self aware, it takes a certain amount of self awareness to say, hey, there's something not right or something I really want to sustain in myself, whether it be through diet or sleep or exercise or something, or journaling that I think that college men or college students even nowadays are much more knowledgeable about. And maybe that goes back to some of the long term and sustained educational kinds of efforts we've been doing in college mental health over the last 20, 30 some years now. But I think it's that those honest conversations that you can have as friends, those real conversations that you can have with each other to risk perhaps a confrontation or risk those difficult conversations that might need to happen not because of accusation, but because of care and concern because you still want them in your life.
And I think those are so valuable.
[00:25:49] Speaker D: Yeah, like you were saying, I didn't realize, I don't think I used. I didn't realize in the past how many different ways and avenues there were to seek help and to give help. And so it's really cool to kind of explore those with you guys. And we'll get into kind of the closing statements about this stuff. It's been really cool to talk about the way that you guys see help because it's different for everybody. The way that you want to respond receiver, the way that you like to give it as well. So it's been really cool. We'll see you guys in the next segment. This has been the Bama Balance.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: Wvuafm Tuscaloosa. This show is not a substitute for professional counseling. And no relationship is created between the show hosts or guests and any listener, if you feel you are in need of professional mental health and are a UA student, we encourage you to contact the UA Counseling center at 348-3863. If you are not a UA student, please contact your respective counties crisis service hotline or their local mental health agency or insurance company. If it is an emergency situation, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: Everybody, welcome back to the Bama Balance. As we wrap up this episode, I kind of wanted to get some word from the two other guys here on what their favorite parts of this episode and what they took away. So, Johnny?
[00:27:32] Speaker D: Yeah, I think that's something that's important that I think needs to be revisited is kind of the notion that this campus, though it's huge, you can make it as small as you want to and people really do want to help you around here. I think that's something that I didn't realize, though I wasn't actively seeking it. I think that was part of it. But people on this campus really do want to help. And I think there's a lot of circles that people can get involved in that are looking for people. I mean, there's people around on this campus for everybody. And I think it's really important for people to understand that. And I think, looking at it from the other side is that I think you kind of touched on this earlier, Dr. Perez. But positive reinforcement is really huge when talking about men's mental health.
Like, I think I can talk from personal circumstances, but whenever a friend of mine who's struggling or is going through something that. I know it might not have been something that we necessarily talked about, but it's known whenever they have a bright spot in their day or they do something that's not typical of them, but it's for the better. I think it's. I always try to do my best to really positively reinforce that. And maybe it's kind of, I don't know, kind of tricking their brain into it being a good thing. But I think it's really good for people to have reinforcement or things that are needed for themselves. If they can't give it to themselves, then it has to come externally from somewhere, and maybe that in turn can turn to something internal. So I think going into the psychology of everything was something that I hadn't really explored until us talking about it now. So that was really cool. But, Dr. Perez, what were some of your favorite parts about us talking today?
[00:29:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I think for me, Johnny, part of my takeaway is that the quality of Relationships play a huge factor in your mental health, not only in keeping you well, but also in supporting you when you're having a tough time. And particularly so for men. I think that those quality relationships and friendships can be so meaningful to prevent, to sustain, as well as to help encourage other men to get mental health. And one of the things that I know about our campus is that it's a caring campus. People care about each other, students care about each other, and that we have a number of resources on campus to help provide education as well as services for mental health. Our counseling center certainly is our main mental health service provider on campus and they provide a ton of resources for our students.
Our women and gender resource center also provides those same level of services for different aspects. And our collegiate recovery also provides counseling for more specific elements of menhof. But in our counseling center, it's a good way to look at what resources are available on campus. So I think if anyone is interested in looking at the services they provide or thinking about other services in the community, they can go to the counseling center's website and they have a variety of listings for the offerings on campus. They also even have a resource for looking up external or community resources.
And that resource is thriving campus. So then just go on the counseling center webpage, look for off campus referrals, and you'll find the link to thriving campus there. So again, I think that there's so many resources that we have on this campus and they're here to support our students and care for our students, and they're only as good as we take advantage of them. But also, I think the greatest resources that we have is in our relationships with each other, that those caring relationships matter, that they're the ones that really help sustain and bring us to be our better selves. Right? And that through those relationships, through those friendships, we can have kind of long lasting success here at the university and well beyond too. So I'm glad that we kind of touched on this topic today and talked about some of the myths, some of the realities and ways to encourage men to start thinking about their own needs for mental health and how to support others. It's been great spending this time with you all. Again, it's probably the warmest spot on campus. I don't know, but it's nice to kind of be together to share this time with you, Nick. And thank you everybody for listening in. I'm Tony Perez.
[00:32:40] Speaker D: I'm Johnny Foster.
[00:32:41] Speaker B: And I'm Nick Smith.
[00:32:42] Speaker C: And this has been the Bama Balance. Real stories about college men's mental health. See you next time.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: Wvuafm, Tuscaloosa this show was not intended as a substitute for professional counseling. Further, the views, opinions and conclusions expressed by the show hosts or their guests are their own and not necessarily those of the University of Alabama, its officers or trustees. Any views, opinions or conclusions shared on the show do not create a relationship between the host or any guest and any listener, and such a relationship should never be inferred. If you feel you're in need of professional mental health and are a UA student, please contact the UA Counseling center at 348-3863. If you are not a UA student, please contact your respective counties crisis service hotline or their local mental health agency or insurance company. If it is an emergency situation, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
