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We are back from our hiatus, and we tried something a little different for this episode. It was a fun episode. We actually recorded the show while we were on Facebook LIVE in our Facebook Group, “Regular People Talking About Mental Health”. If you would like to check out the video recording of this podcast, we would love to have you join our “Regular People Talking About Mental Health” group on Facebook! Here you can view the video, leave comments, and ask questions, or feel free to engage with the group as much or as little as you want.  If you have a moment, let us know what you think about our new ideas for the show by sending us a message through Facebook or shooting us an email at NickandTriciapodcast@gmail.com Do you want to watch more LIVE podcast recordings on Facebook? Do you want to hear “stories” about the real life mental health struggles and successes that other people are experiencing? Or do you have your own “story” that you would like to tell? If you are interested in having us share your “story” about your own mental health journey on the podcast, please reach out to us. We would love to give your stories a voice. As always, thanks for listening. Keep talking!   www.NickandTricia.com

In this episode, Mike Schlossberg shows us that there is not just one way to advocate for mental health.  Mike is the author of “Redemption” which is a young adult, science fiction, dystopian novel about depression, anxiety, and the end of the world. He has used his science fiction book to explore mental health-related issues. The main character has depression and anxiety, and he has to lead a spaceship and crew to save the world against a deadly virus. (A side note worth mentioning is that the book was written before Covid-19.) Check out his book at www.MikeSchlossbergAuthor.com Mike Schlossberg is not only an author, he is also a House Representative in Pennsylvania and a mental health advocate. In 2015, with the death by suicide of Robin Williams in the news, Representative Schlossberg shared his own struggles with depression and anxiety in an op-ed in the Morning Call. His story set forth a very public conversation about mental health and stigma which has become a central focus for Representative Schlossberg. Since 2015, he has been a keynote speaker at conferences, advanced legislation in the General Assembly and been invited to Washington, D.C. to help Congresswoman Susan Wild’s efforts to enact federal legislation to improve mental health care delivery across the country. Representative Schlossberg was also appointed to the Mental Health & Justice Advisory Committee for the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency and was named Co-Chair of the Suicide Prevention Task Force by Governor Wolf. www.pahouse.com/schlossberg You can also connect with Mike on Facebook, and he is @MikeSchlossberg on Twitter.   As always, thanks for listening, and keep talking! www.nickandtricia.com

Today we are joined by Superconscious Coach, Patrick Morales, who talks openly about his own mental health journey, and his new business. For years Coach Patrick unconsciously chose anxiety and depression, but then he began to experience freedom when he realized that he had a choice in the emotions that he was experiencing. He realized that by simply choosing to love his life he could shift his frequency out of that low vibration of sadness and depression to a higher vibration of love and acceptance. Coach Patrick is kicking off his coaching business which is designed to teach people how to remove emotions, judgments, inner conflicts, beliefs, and anything else that is causing resistance in their lives and stopping them from creating a life that they love. You can contact Coach Patrick by heading over to his linktree where you can find all the links to connect with him. https://linktr.ee/coach.patrick.morales To connect with us, head over to our Facebook group, "Regular People Talking About Mental Health". It is a whole community of regular people sharing about their own experiences with mental health. We would love for you to join us too! See you there. As always, thanks for listening. Keep talking. NickandTricia.com

Lately we have both been indulging in our own hyperfocus activities. Nick has playing his new game, and Tricia has been working on her new business. For the most part both of us have been enjoying the hyperfocus, but there are some drawbacks as well. For example, sometimes hyperfocus gets in the way of our communication... and sometimes we stay up too late. But as anyone with ADHD knows, it just comes with the territory. Hyperfocus is not all bad or all good. It just is. We do our best to make it work for us and not against us. Spoiler alert: The best part of this episode is probably hearing Nick laugh. He may have even laughed a little too hard a couple times, but no one is complaining! Thanks for listening, and keep talking! www.NickandTricia.com

We are talking with Safe Space CNY's founder, Tracy Mergler. Tracy is also a kindergarten special education teacher and a mom of 2. She has been in active recovery for the past 4 years, but prior to that she had an active eating disorder for 25 years as well as PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Tracy saw the need for more mental health resources in Central New York, so she founded Safe Space CNY to help others get the help they need. Safe Space CNY is "a communal mental health space that is focused on providing safety, connection and understanding for community members. With a range of groups, creative therapies, mentorship support and community partnership, Safe Space is a hub for healing and personal growth." Thank you, Tracy. We really appreciate the work you are doing. Thank you for making a difference! Thank you for being a part of the solution! If you want to know more, or if you want to get involved with Safe Space CNY, here is where you can find Tracy. email: tracymergler@safespacecny.com website: www.safespacecny.com social media: @safespacecny   As always, thanks for listening! Keep talking. www.NickandTricia.com  

It is our 50th episode!! We can hardly believe it! In this show we take the opportunity to thank our listeners, subscribers, guests, and members of our Facebook group. We are so grateful for everyone who is a part of the "Regular People Talking About Mental Health" community. Thank you for your support. Then we talk about the past week. Despite the challenges the week presented, we were feeling relatively good. We end up reflecting on our school experiences since having a kid that is in middle school in our house is often a reminder of the challenges that we faced in our own school days. If you haven't joined the Facebook group yet, check us out. We are the "Regular People Talking About Mental Health" Facebook group. NickandTricia.com

Our guest today is Mrs. Katherine Major who is a co-administrator for the Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria Support Group on Facebook. She is an advocate for RSD, but she also advocates for adults and children with ADHD and ASD.  Mrs. Major is a graduate from the University of Mary Hardin Baylor and has been an Early Childhood Elementary Teacher for 23 years teaching mostly Pre-K and kindergarten. During her years of teaching, Mrs. Major received much mental health training and worked with children who have ADHD/OCD and Autism.  Katherine has been married for 21 years and has 3 teenagers in High School. She herself has ADHD/OCD, and she has two sons on the autism spectrum who have ADHD as well. Two and a half years ago, her son with significant high functioning autism and ADHD was needing more support as he transferred from Junior High to High School, so Mrs. Major has been staying at home to be more available for the needs of her family. During this time, she has been able to reflect, discover, monitor and grow personally from all that she is learning in her life.  In this episode, Katherine presents information from her perspective. She shares stories from her journey in managing her mental health, and she shares some resources she has collected along the way.  Mrs. Major is very passionate and dedicated to learning all she can to make a positive difference for learners of all ages who struggle with mental health. Thank you, Katherine for your contributions and support in the RSD community! Look for the Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria Support Group on Facebook if you would like to join this amazingly supportive community too. We will see you there! Also checkout the Regular People Talking About Mental Health Facebook Group. We would love to have you join us as well! www.NickandTricia.com

Nick and Tricia chat about how the winter has been treating them. This time of year is rough. Taking time for a little self-love is important, yet making that time is challenging. On top of that, Covid continues to impact so many of our decisions. We are fitting in little bits of self-care when we can manage it. Nick has been recording snowplowing and snowboarding videos. Check out his YouTube channels to experience it for yourself. Go to YouTube.com/BorsellinoCarpentry for the plow videos, and check out his personal YouTube channel by searching for "Nick Borsellino" on YouTube to watch snowboarding videos. As always, thanks for listening! Keep talking. www.NickandTricia.com

In this episode Nick talks about meeting his new psychiatrist and the process that led up to that first appointment. Feel free to join our Facebook group, "Regular People Talking About Mental Health". nickandtriciapodcast@gmail.com www.NickandTricia.com

In this show we reflect on Nick's unspoken experience of the prior episode on suicide. Then we talk about Tricia's very different fear of dying before she does everything she wants to do. Both experiences seem to stem from the same place of wanting to be okay with just "being". The truth is that we are enough. Hopefully we can get better and better at living in the moment. Hopefully we can get better and better at accepting and enjoying ourselves as we are and life as it is in those moments. www.NickandTricia.com    

On today's show Patrick Venetz who is an Officer in the United States Coast Guard joins us to talk about suicide. Pat is currently also working toward his MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. He wants to help end the stigma surrounding mental health and seeking help. Pat has lost several friends to suicide, and has one friend who made a miraculous recovery from his suicide attempt. Suicide is generally not any easy topic to talk about, but Pat was very open with us. He shared stories about his friends, and he shared about his own experience. Patrick, thank you for having the courage to shine light on this dark topic. People all over are struggling, and they need to know that they are not alone. Better days will come. Be kind. Ask for help... and keep talking! Connect with Patrick on Instagram: patrick.h.venetz National Suicide Prevention Hotline (800)-273-8255 www.NickandTricia.com "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that". -Martin Luther King Jr.

In this show we check in to see how the mood tracking has been going. We both discovered it is difficult, but we were able to get some practice doing it and will hopefully keep at it. Then we reflect on how we both experienced a car ride we took the day before. It is so interesting how we can perceive things so differently. We continue to work on awareness of our feelings, and we definitely are still working on improving communication. It is a work in progress. Thanks for listening to us fumble our way through it. We hope you will also keep trying and keep talking! Also, find us on Facebook. We would love for you to join our Facebook group "Regular People Talking About Mental Health". www.NickandTricia.com

Sarah Tietje-Mietz is an artist, freelance writer, and the director of Hilltop House and Studio. In this episode she is very open and forthcoming about her own mental health struggles. Her vulnerability is inspiring. Sarah talks about how OCD, social anxiety, and alcoholism have affected her throughout her life. She admitted to almost cancelling on us and not doing the podcast. We are so grateful that she didn't. Sarah truly gave us a gift by joining us and sharing about her experiences so openly. Again Sarah, thank you so much! Instagram: @sareteej  

In today's show we talk about Nick's current struggle with his mental health. Nick is overwhelmed by a combination of factors that are contributing to his emotional roller coaster. He is dealing with seasonal depression, a lifelong disdain for Christmas (and all holidays), closing his business...and of course we can't forget that complication multiplier, Covid-19. Nick had taken a break from mental health treatment and medication that didn't seem to be getting him the relief he was seeking. Now he seems to be ready to try getting help again. This time Nick is going to try tracking his moods with Tricia's help to hopefully be able to gain some insight into his patterns and provide whichever psychiatrist he meets with a better snapshot of his mental health struggle.   www.NickandTricia.com

Musician Dave Bellevue joins us to talk about his journey struggling with mental health and anxiety after losing his best friend to suicide. Drawing from his own experience Dave became a story teller for The JED Foundation, a nonprofit that protects emotional health and prevents suicide for our nation’s teens and young adults. Then Dave saw a need for more mental health resources in the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) community, so he founded a mental health organization called Swag for Stigma earlier this year. Swag for Stigma's mission is to share relevant BIPOC statistical data, resource information on where to get help, and access to identify therapists who are also BIPOC. Their ultimate goal is to launch the “It Takes a Village” initiative to donate cost-covered therapy sessions and support for under served communities. As we all know, it does take a village! Thanks, Dave! You can find more information at www.swagforstigma.org.   or   @SwagforStigma on Instagram Also be sure to check out Dave's band, Oxymorrons (with 2 "R"s) on YouTube. WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE And hey, and if you are on Facebook, we invite you to join our Facebook group "Regular People Talking About Mental Health". Hope to see you there! www.NickandTricia.com    

In this episode we dive into the subject of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria once again. The show has highs and lows. There are moments when we are unified and moments where we are each triggered. We are not acting. RSD is very much a part of our lives. This ADHD struggle is real. We invite you to join our "Regular People Talking About Mental Health" Facebook group to connect with us and start talking to other regular people in the community about mental health. In the show Nick talks about an article from additudemag.com. Here is the link https://www.additudemag.com/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria-and-adhd/   NickandTricia.com  

We cover a lot of topics in today's show. High school teacher, improv teacher, and podcaster Andy McIntyre joins us to talk about getting sober and dealing with depression. We end up talking about that and more. We touch on what grieving is like during Covid, what his experience has been like teaching during Covid, and we even get into talking about the benefits of doing improv and the power of "Yes, and...". Be sure to listen to Andy's podcast, "Silver Linings Playback" wherever you listen to podcasts, and check out Andy's improv on highwireimprov.com. @bigandymac on Instagram

We always struggle with holidays. This year Thanksgiving was different for us because of Covid-19. We stayed home and had dinner with just the two of us. The holiday season is always a stressful time of year, but this season is already proving to be especially emotional...and we are just getting started.

Grief is something we all experience, yet it is so difficult for many people to talk about. In today's show we move towards this uncomfortable topic and explore the subject of grief with Caron Grossman who is an End of Life and Grief Coach. We chat about the importance of grieving, and we discuss some ways of approaching the conversations and making the space to grieve. To hear more from Caron Grossman, watch Caron's TED Talk: Permission to Grieve. https://www.ted.com/talks/caron_grossman_permission_to_grieve?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare   www.carongrossman.com carongrossman@gmail.com   www.NickandTricia.com

We are joined by Becky Ruben-Navarro whose commitment to personal development and self-care, has helped her manage her anxiety and the stresses of life. Becky has many roles including being a mom, a wife, an Employee Benefits Consultant, and a student, yet she also manages to somehow juggle a couple side hustles and do fundraising with "Extra Life" for the Children's Miracle Network. Unbelievable! How does she do it?! Check out "Extra Life" on Facebook. FB.com/phoenixoverdrive