Welcome to Headroom. I'm your host, Jim Owens, a licensed professional counselor at Lansing Community College. I'm excited to have on our show today a guest I've worked with for a few years who's joining me in the mental health field, Island Ewart. She is in training to be a licensed clinical social worker. If I have that right, you can correct me.

No, yeah, that's correct.

That's correct. Yep. And she works as an advisor at Lansing Community College. And we have a shared background. We used to both work at a volunteer center. Not together, but we both worked there, Listening Ear Crisis Center. And I just wanted to talk with her today about your experiences in mental health training, What you plan to do with the education you're getting, and you know, what your experience was like in mental health, being a college student, both in undergrad and now you're in graduate school and kind of how you've learned to take care of yourselves. I think a lot of people could benefit from hearing some of your life's experience and just, you know, your own perspective on things, especially. We'll talk about what kind of work you've been doing in grad school, too.

Yeah, absolutely.

So tell us a little bit about yourself. Who is island?

Well, island is sort of a misnomer. I definitely prefer the mountains and I definitely don't really like to chill at the beach a lot. And I don't mess around with the ocean, so my husband finds that irony quite hilarious.

That is funny.

I'm from Battle Creek, Michigan, so kind of west from here. Some people argue whether or not it's fully west side or not, but small town over there. And I like to skateboard growing up, play basketball, ride bikes. And I still kind of do a lot of that stuff now, just cruising on bikes and staying active. I went to from Battle Creek to Michigan State University and did not know what I wanted to do there, did not feel prepared and went on to study economics and psychology because I figured, when are you not using your brain and when are you not thinking about money? That's usually where my.

That's probably. That's. Yeah. That's interesting. So when you went off, you knew, I want to go to college. Was it a foregone conclusion that you were going to go to college?

For me, no, it did not seem like it was a foregone conclusion. In fact, I think even my senior year I was telling everybody I was going to be a truck driver because I really like to drive. I kind of get into that flow state and I feel really calm when I'm just driving across the country. But, yeah, for my teachers and everybody else, they're like, of course you're going to school. Because I kind of was one of those kids that fit in in school. I just kind of felt, like, really curious, wanted to learn, and kind of vibed with how school went. I wasn't somebody to really skip school a lot, so all my teachers and everybody around me was like, you're going to Cal?

Okay, you were thinking, I guess, yeah, basically. And then I'll go to that really big, kind of prestigious school in the middle of the state. Let's go there.

Yeah. Not a lot of people from my high school went to Michigan State, and I kind of chose that on purpose. I felt like going to Western was going to be like going to high school, too. Same people, could probably live at home, all that kind of stuff. Going to MSU was a big leap. I went on to learn. So I did not visit MSU before I stepped on campus for orientation. And I found out pretty quick that was a big mistake. It really. I recommend everybody, wherever you're trying to go, just visit for a day, see if you like it. Because I was very overwhelmed.

Oh, yeah, I can imagine. Like, obviously, I went to Western, so that campus is quite a bit smaller than MSU's campus, first of all. And you sort of, sort of small town. Battle Creek's a city. It's got a little airport, but it's kind of small. Yeah, it's probably the size of MSU in terms of population. I don't know.

Right, right.

Is that what it was? It was just such a big school.

It was so big. And so everybody already knew all the go green, go white. I didn't know it. I wasn't certain. So the first experience I had at orientation was somebody yelling at me, go green. And they wouldn't give me my lunch until I said, go white. I didn't know that that was the response I needed to get what I, you know, food to survive. So I was just like a fish out of water. I think that first semester, my parents really thought I was gonna transfer to, like, Western or something. I was really isolated. Kinda didn't keep up with a lot of my friends that did go to msu. Didn't really join any clubs. Like, it was rough that first semester.

Oh, yeah. So your advice is check the campus out first, learn a little about it. But also, do you regret not having, like, pushed yourself to get into clubs and things, like, socially, do you think, or.

I think so.

Were you just overwhelmed when you got there and it didn't really occur to you to, like, I need to take care of myself? Because.

Yeah. I mean, I think for a lot of students, going to a campus for the first time is the first time you really had to think about, like, what do I need? What do I want? Socially, you kind of have these preconceived, I'm an introvert. But that can only go so far before you really are like, no, I'm just isolated. This isn't good. Or helping me. And it really took some hard conversations with people to be like, just try putting yourself out there. And luckily, I did, over winter break, reach out to a friend who he was like, come to breakdance club with me. So I started going to breakdance club, and he would show me around to different comedy shows and stuff and started building those connections.

Okay. Yeah. Social connections. We just kind of automatically get those in high school. Well, if we're fortunate enough to have friends when we're there. But they kind of show up every day. We're there every day. You go to college, even though there's what, 50,000 undergrads at MSU, you don't know any of them.

Exactly.

You're not really in quote, unquote class with them. And she, like, going to lockers together next to each other. And, yes, this is totally different. And like, you said to take. You know what, you need to take care of yourself at that point in your life doesn't really occur to you, probably until you're there and you notice something's missing.

Yes.

And I'm not sure what it is, but I'm not happy.

Yeah.

And you're saying that with a smile on your face, like, yeah, this is. Yeah, it's pretty wild, right?

It's so wild. And I think you can't really teach that. I think sometimes you do have to go through those isolating times or those times when you're like, actually, I'm out here too much. I need a little time to recharge. You kind of have to test the waters and figure out what is right for you.

It is. In many ways, it's an opportunity. This is how a counselor reframes things. It's a challenge, but it's an opportunity.

Oh, yeah.

Because it is a huge challenge socially, academically. I don't know about you, but I don't find that students are often struggling academically in colleges as much as they are socially. And I think that's the piece that just kind of catches people off guard. When they go away to school, even to LCC, which is largely, we're a commuter campus, people don't live here. It's a major challenge.

Yes, I agree with that. I will also say so I worked with high schoolers for a couple years post going to msu, and a lot of them were from small rural towns. And I always had a conversation with the ones who were going to big schools away, like Ann Arbor, going to U of M or going to Eastern. And I would just kind of say here, small town, you are smart and you were at the top of your class here, and you're going to a school where everybody was smart in the top of their class. So don't be afraid when you come to that realization, like, oh, everybody's here. Smart, you belong there and you deserve to be there. But you're not the only one anymore. So it's quite an adjustment, I think,

where they may have been at the top, now they're up here.

Exactly.

Yeah. So what got your interest piqued in psychology? I mean, as you said earlier, like, we're going to be thinking about things and we're going to be dealing with money our whole lives. But what. Was there anything in particular that drew you to psychology besides maybe had some practical application or.

Yeah, I think I. I didn't declare a major at MSU until I was a junior and they were hounding me to declare a major. And I really just thought about what do I spend my time thinking about and reading about in my spare time? And I found myself drawn to a lot of social science papers and social, like psychology or like, how do I get myself to study more? How do I. What is the origin story? How does that impact how I am here on campus and how I interact with my peers? How is their story? I've just been fascinated with how we interact with each other and how our pasts can interact with our futures in our current state. So I chose psych that way.

So how does that connect to your. Eventually you ended up volunteering at a crisis center, I think. In undergrad or after. After college?

In undergrad.

In undergrad, yeah. Which I did as well. How did you get connected to the Listening Year, which is a crisis center, for those of you who don't know. It's based in East Lansing, but it's been around probably 40 years or more. Yeah, probably more than that. It's been a free volunteer run. Used to be 24 hours, seven days a week. Crisis center. I think it's closed now. Whatever that graveyard shift is we probably used. You and I both used to do. I think they close at 2am to 6am now.

But so I had actually qu who went through various mental health struggles and I kind of was privileged to be there with them and try to help them support. But I also felt like I'm not a professional. I'm just kind of being here with this person, I feel a little ill equipped. And then additionally, with a degree in psychology and economics, you can do anything, but you're also not specialized in anything. And I didn't know if that meant PhD or what kind of job could I get or where do I want to go with this? And so my senior year I decided I was going to do two things. I was going to write a thesis and see if I wanted to go that research route and see if I liked that. And I was going to try and get some sort of exposure because I have a lot of friends who are teachers and they got a built in internship year.

Oh yeah.

As a psych major you don't really get that. And so I was trying to be proactive and sort of kind of make my own internship, if you will. So I heard about the listening year from other people on campus, saw their flyer, I'm pretty sure, and then went and did that 60 hour training in person.

Well, it's funny, like they're. Well, yeah, I wouldn't need to talk about their program so much, but it's a very rigorous training program.

Yes.

And I'm emphasizing that on purpose like I know it is. And the. I don't know what the attrition rate is for completing it, but it's not 100% correct. I think it's below 50%. It's a difficult because you really have to be able to engage people in crisis and handle the trauma that they're going through from not just an intellectual point of view, but you need to get down into it humanistically. You got to be able to relate to their suffering and meet them in their suffering, which you probably did this like I did growing up with friends who have problems. You talk through their problem with you. If they're close to you, you care about it and you can in some ways feel the pain that they're going through. But to do that with a stranger, you have to make yourself go there a little bit. As a young professional, you have to make yourself get into their emotional space. I do it very naturally now as a counselor, it's very easy. I slip into it right away. Right, right. And you may too. I don't know. But did you find that was part of the training that was rigorous and it was like, you're gonna have to get into your emotions right now.

Yes. Yeah. It felt like the first night. It seems really simple, but they just make you talk about yourself. It all starts with you, which was so interesting. Like, you've got to start here, and then we'll build you back up with how to help people go there themselves. You know, you can't kind of walk the walk without having walked it yourself.

Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting idea. So what about your. So you work as, obviously as an advisor at the college here, and you're helping people get through school.

Yeah.

But you said, I'm going to go back and get more training. I know some of the story of this because we used to work together and that was. You wrote yourself a letter. You want to say something about that?

Yeah. So when I did not have a major declared, and I decided for some reason or another, as any college person would, to just write myself a letter 10 years in the future. And it had a lot of predictions in there. And I also, at the very end, the last paragraph, it said, if you haven't started your career in social work or pursued a career in comedy, what are you doing? And so I was like, okay, well, take that as a sign from me. I opened that up a few years ago and immediately applied because it was something that had been bothering me, and I had people like you in my life where I was. I was just still drawn to the field. I was reading about it, wanting to grow more into that and just really trying to figure out what route did I want to take and what way did I want to help people besides just here at LCC in addition to that?

Well, it gives you more training to do what you do here. I think you'll probably even do it better. Not that you don't do a fantastic job now, but you will. You'll have more skills. People do what you're doing here now and then maybe even more out there outside of this. So you're in training to be a licensed clinical social worker, which I want to clarify for people a little bit. I think you and I probably talked about this before. The field of mental health has currently, in Michigan and all over the country, many different types of mental health licenses. Because mental health training came out of different disciplines. The counseling, mental health counseling actually came out of education and guidance counseling. I'm talking back in the 50s, 60s, and then what's now. Now those programs are now not vocational counseling. They are mental health counseling, social work. Well, now you have licensed clinical social workers who originally social workers were trained in social services, essentially. I mean, you can say more about this than I. You've had the education in it, but you also have a background in psychology. You have licensed psychologists, licensed clinical social workers, licensed professional counselors. We have licensed marriage and family therapists, and we have psychiatrists. I think that's five different mental health. And they're all except psychiatrists, which are medically trained doctors. They prescribe medicine. All the others are trained now very similarly. Thirty years ago, they were trained very differently.

Yeah.

So. Yeah. What's your training been like in terms of preparing you to become a clinical social worker?

Yeah, so it's been a lot of background knowledge about the history of social work, started in the abolitionist movement and going out to people and helping them in their communities and taking the person in their context. So when I was deciding between going the LPC route, such as yourself or counselor or social work, I was trying to figure out what. What angle do I feel most comfortable with? And I ultimately decided on social work because I can appreciate that people are within systems and they're dealing with their systems and their context as well as their mental health. And so. And that their systems can have an impact on their mental health. Right. I often in class will just kind of cringe at. Mindfulness has its place. But I do think that to tell a single mom with three kids trying to go back to school and better herself that you can't just meditate your way out of poverty. And so that's just my general.

No, you're right. In fact, all of these disciplines have kind of felt like they probably. It was a bit of a turf war over the last few decades, and they felt like we have the better perspective, we have the more comprehensive perspective. I think they're getting to a better place. Now. This is my critique on the education system. And I trained counselors for almost 20 years, so I worked in higher ed training. So I'm pretty familiar with the way curriculums are developed and how things have changed over time. But even when I was getting my own training and counseling, I thought it was insufficient because it was so focused on the individual that I tacked on an extra graduate certificate in holistic health, which let me appreciate and get an education in biological etiology of disease. Right. Social etiology of disease. And environmental etiology is a fancy science medical term for origin. So because there are environmental factors to depression, there are environmental fact, there are social factors to depression. There are biological factors and there are psychological factors.

Yep.

So if you imagine a little Punnett Square, you know, a little two by two square. I've always tried to conceive of the person sitting in front of me as their experience is arising out of these four domains. It's happening within the context of an environment, within the context of relationships, within the context of the biology that they're sitting in. If they have the flu or rheumatoid arthritis or whatever it is like that all affects your mental health.

Yeah.

Not to mention your mindset and what you were taught and trained, how to see the world growing up and all those kinds of things too. So have you found. I'm describing a holistic approach to mental health and I'm saying that because I'm hearing you say something similar.

Yeah.

Is that kind of what the kind of perspective you're getting out of your education?

Absolutely. And I do think that it's funny, all the turf wars because ultimately our goal is to help the people in the situations that they're in. So I don't really like all the turf wars. I think it's kind of silly, but

I think they're going away. If you look at where you go to school at msu, their counseling services staff have a wide variety of different licensed credentials.

Yeah.

You will see they have licensed clinical social workers, psychologists and LPCs like myself. And they all work along together, side by side. I think out in private industry there's still a little bit of nepotism. We only hire people who are like us. There's still some of that going on, but to the consumer, and this is, I think, hopefully people who are listening to this. There's marginal differences between these and none are proven to be more effective than the other. I mean, the thing that matters most is the individual connection you have with the person who's trained not is there a particular training more sufficient to handle your problems. There may be some exceptions there. When you talk about psychiatry, has a better background in biology and licensed marriage and family therapists have a better training and experience in systems then probably you and I will. At the end of the day, we're probably trained more individually how to help individual people. Although we are trained to do relationship counseling as well. So what's been your internship stuff for grad school? What have you been making yourself do to get the experience?

Yeah. So I again just am kind of faced with what do I actually want to do when I'm done. And I have worked with high schoolers and I Have worked here at the college with college age and adult populations. And so I wanted to see if I wanted to try out the family angle in working with kids. So I work with right now with a great organization in our community. It's free to families. It's called Ellie's Place, and it's a center for grieving kids. And they serve pre K all the way through high school kids. And then they do have some adult groups, but the prerequisite is that it's. You have to have a kid going to Ellie's Place in order to go to those adult groups. And it was founded on this idea that kids grieve differently than adults and they need a safe place to talk about their loss of their person who died and how it's changing them, changing their home life, changing all of that and how. How to express their emotions appropriately and know that they're okay.

Wow. Yeah. So that's awesome that they have that center. I've been there before. I've never worked there, but I've been in the place for a few times. And it's just as soon as you go into it, it's sort of set up, if I remember correctly, kind of almost like at elementary school, there's different classrooms or different rooms for different grades or ages. Right. You kind of pair people off by ages. Right? Like, yes. I mean, you could say more about this, but there's a reason for that. You talk about why, why is it split up a for kids? And then you don't put high schoolers with middle schoolers and probably middle schoolers with fifth graders.

Yeah. So I think a lot of that comes to development. Right. I think pre K there's a lot more visual things going on because not all of them can read yet. They're at different stages in their life. And then also maturity wise plays into a lot of that. And just having that peer network because it's group therapy for kids. I guess I didn't really specify that, but it's group therapy. And having those people that are just like you going through the same thing is really cool. To see the kids light up when they share like, I'm so and so my grandpa died and they're like, oh my gosh, my grandpa died. Or maybe they died of the same reason, like cancer. And they'll say, oh my gosh, your person died of cancer, so did mine. And it really gets that connection and that they're not alone and they can go through this kind of all together. It's really powerful.

That alone thing is A horrible monster in people's lives, isn't it?

It is, yes.

And group therapy, actually, actually some, some literature shows that group therapy gets slightly better outcomes than individual therapy precisely for this reason, because being alone is so bad for us as human beings. Generally speaking, there's probably one in a million who can happily live in a cave on a mountain somewhere for 40 years. Most of us need to be in relationship with other people and we need to suffer together. That's what co. Passion. Compassion means. Passion. The root word of passion is suffering. And compassion is to be in a company of those who are passionate, who are suffering.

Wow, I did not know that.

Yeah, you get to learn things when you go to college. So compassion. And so you go through that process together, which is. It's a no brainer. Like I'm shaking my head sideways because like, why. Of course, this is the way you do it. Like you bring kids together and keep them just together to talk about the grieving process because they'll each experience it differently, but yet the same. They're having such a shared similar experience.

It is really quite magical. And I think that a lot of people initially, when they even families who come into the building and they get tours and they go through an orientation with us, they start off saying that, I thought this was gonna be a really sad place. And reasonably so, because they're in a really sad part their lives. Right. Somebody that they love has just died and the building itself is actually really bright and really friendly. And it's not to say that we emphasize happiness as the only emotion to have. In fact, it's the opposite. The philosophy is kids can come here and they can cry. And oftentimes a lot of them will say, this is the only place I can cry because my mom will get sad if I'm sad. And so it's bright and it's friendly and it's meant to be safe for you to have all feelings, anger, sadness, fear. And having that space has just been really cool to witness. Like you see families come in on their first night and maybe they're a little bit hesitant and they're overwhelmed by all these big changes. And now they're coming to public to talk about these big changes that have happened in their life. And they're not sure how this is going to go or how this is going to work. And you see that progress over time where they're leaving a little bit taller, they're leaving. Maybe they didn't participate verbally in group, but they, they were there. You could tell they were Engaged in the activity that we were doing, and just seeing them kind of grow out of their shell has been really awesome.

Yeah, I can imagine that this is just such a unique experience because people's families of origin won't be prepared for how to process grief necessarily.

Yeah.

Partly because they don't have trained folks like you in the room. So when they go to this center, it's really just focused on that. So it might be kind of difficult, I would imagine, to kind of get people to go into this space of grieving that they. And here's my own kind of perspective, so I don't really have any science to back this up, but my experience and part of my education telling me that people are unaccustomed to grieving grief.

They are.

They're just unaccustomed to grieving grief. And so you guys are like, nah, we're going to do that here.

Yes. Yes. I think it might be cultural in that we're just not really equipped at talking about death. We kind of all forget about it until something happens and you're confronted with that again. So I think, yeah, it can be really hard when people are opening up. They don't want to necessarily share all the details, but I think you're there for a reason. A lot of people will say, I've been, like, putting off coming here, putting off, putting off. But I think my kids need it and I need it, and I'm just ready to talk about the hard stuff because they can't talk about it anywhere else. After two weeks, after the funeral is done, after everything is said and done, you're still left there grieving. And so having a space to get used to talking about it, I think

is also important and over an extended period of time, because people can come for years if they want. I think.

Yes.

It's not like two weeks and done. Back to work, back to school.

Yes. Kids all the time. If you lose somebody when you're five, and then maybe you go for a year and you decide to close, you're not really getting what you need anymore. You can come back at any point. That's the great thing about Ellie's Place is that they're open to you coming back because they understand that loss happen or grief and loss affects you at different developmental stages. So if you lost somebody when you're six and you want to come back when you're a middle schooler because you're really affected by how that person's not there and it's not fair.

Yeah. Or they hit a transit they hit a. Like, a period in life where they're like, man, you know, I did. I noticed, like, say they lose their dad when they're five years old and they can grieve to talk about it, and then they all of a sudden they're 10 years old and they're like, yeah, this is really hard not having a dad at 10. Yeah, can I talk to somebody about that? They can come back.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, we encourage that. And we even have, like, adult groups because, you know, you lose somebody in high school and you're still out here in the world trying to figure it out, even a few years later after that.

So it's changing them. I'm curious, how is it changing you to be in this community?

Because, well, I will say I'm a lot more comfortable about death.

Okay.

Just talking about it, I think, like, saying it in general, I think that has been huge. I've gotten a lot more comfortable with dealing with some classroom management and behaviors and stuff, because I don't have kids. And so I haven't been trained in a professional to deal with behaviors that are maybe unfavorable. But I think a lot of the growth from me has just been trusting the process, trusting that I am capable of this and that. What I was most nervous about was being put in the pre K room or the early elementary room with the little, little guys, because I've only ever worked. I know that was, like, my stated goal. I've only worked with people who are 15 plus. And so. So being put in there, I was afraid that I wasn't going to have that Ms. Frizzle, like, hello, everybody, let's do that. And so kind of getting over that fear that kids couldn't somehow connect to me, that was really powerful, I think, for me to just be like, no, I can just show up as myself. And they prefer that.

That authenticity piece. Right. Just showing, even with your awkwardness and your fear, just bringing that to the space that is so critical, by the way, for clinical counselor development or social worker development, like, to just show up and go, yeah, this is hard, but I'm gonna do it. Are you willing to do this with me?

Right.

Because this is gonna be hard for you too, for different reasons. But therapy is hard. Group therapy, individual therapy. People are very ambivalent about going because it's awkward, it's unknown, it's gonna press into difficult pain points. And I just want listeners to hear. It's not easy for therapists either, to go into those spaces. We're. We're skilled at it.

Yeah.

And we get more skilled at it and it becomes easier, in a sense, to do that kind of work. But it's really just like, no, we're going to go into the hard stuff. We're going to talk. I mean, death is a thing that we're all going to experience at some point. It's not particularly wonderful thing to think about. And especially when it happens, quote, unquote, tragically, like before your time, or how people like. Or if it's really a heinous way to die. I mean, those are violent deaths or really hard for people to process. But what's the alternative? Bury that feeling?

Yeah. It'll come out regardless. Like they say, however you are dealing with it, even if you think you're not dealing with it, you are.

And you know who else is dealing with it? Everyone else in your life. So motivation for counseling can make your life better. I can promise you it will make other people's lives better who are in your life too.

Absolutely.

That's one of the big things. And obviously in Ellie's place, it's a family. It's kind of a family affair anyway. Right. Because the parents can be there or the guardians, whoever they are.

Yeah. And I think everybody getting okay, comfortable talking about their feelings and about the death is a benefit.

So we got like one or two minutes left. Give me your tips for mental health. What have you picked up as a human being and as a student of psychology and mental health? What do people need to know foundationally? This is how you take care of yourself?

So I think asking yourself that question before you find yourself in a very dark place is an important thing. And I think that to not just have one answer, because sometimes I might ask people like, you know, how do you get out of a bad day? Or, you know, not necessarily get out, but how do you make yourself feel a little bit better when you're having a bad day? And if they say the only thing that makes them better is, like, riding their bike, what are you gonna do when you can't ride your bike on that day? You know? So for me, I like to have at least three things that are, quote, unquote, simpler to do. So for me, it's like making a hot cup of tea, because I like warm liquids, Right. So I'll make a cup of tea, maybe get some soup, and then just chillax. Or if I know, like, I need to get out for a walk or I need to see the sun today. So having a list of things that can help. And then when you are having some sort of feelings that are not pleasant to deal with, checking in and, like, how many of those things have I done for myself today?

Wow, that's good advice. To turn, like, what you did there, Turn that question back around and, like, ask this of yourself, which is really wise. Yeah. And that's something I think you've been doing your whole life, is asking yourself those questions is what drew you into this field. And you probably put that out there for the kids and stuff. So, anyway, unfortunately, we're out of time, but thank you so much for coming on and talking about your experience, your interest in mental health, your commitment to it. Thank you. We need more therapists. So if anyone's interested, please. As Aylin well knows, I'm always harassing people around campus. Like, why don't you become a therapist? We need more. And for coming on, talking about grief and death, which I know we didn't spend a lot of time talking about that, but it is one of the things that we all need to talk about because we're all going to encounter it. Not indirectly or directly. Right. One way or the other.

And I'm one of those people now where if you see me on campus, I'm harassing you to come volunteer at Ellie's place.

Nice.

So change your life.

Good. All right, well, thanks, everybody, for tuning into the Headroom this week. Again, my name is Jim Owens. I want to thank all the staff here at LCC Connect for producing this show. Daedalian Lowry and Jeremy and the whole team here who make this show possible. If you have an interest in mental health counseling, LCC offers free mental health counseling for LCC students. If you're currently enrolled, come on in and see us. It's free mental health therapy. And, you know, hope to see you in the next podcast. Take care.