Welcome to the Tweed Trends podcast. Hey, Evette, what's trending today? Hey, I'm Evette, hey, girl. And you are tuned in to Tweed Trends.
It's the quickest way to find out what's trending today. Welcome back. Today is National Depression Screening Day. Let's get started.
By chance, do you have a friend who might be living with depression or tell the truth? Have you ever experienced depression in your life? The way how I look at it, I feel like everybody, everyone under the sun. I don't care who you are, what you do, how much money you have, how much love you have coming from your family at some point in time in your life.
You have experienced depression. And if you haven't up to this point, you will. Not that I'm trying to put that on you, but life is hard. So whether it's when you're a teenager and you're trying to figure out how to fit in, you want to belong, but for some reason, everyone has picked you to be the butt of all of their jokes, to tease you to bully you, and you just don't know where to go or how to make it through that time period.
Or as an adult, maybe you got laid off from your job, and now you're trying to figure out, how do I make ends meet? I gotta put food on the table, but I gotta keep a roof over our heads. How do we do this? Whenever you have situations that come up that make you feel like there's no way out, depression is the first thing to kick in.
Those feelings of just, there's no way, I don't understand. But when you take a look around and think back, think back in your life. You probably went through some really depressing times, whether it was a loss of a loved one or something along those lines. But guess what, if you're listening to my voice right now, you made it through.
You somehow figured it out, pulled yourself up, or maybe you had to get someone to help you up. And that is perfectly fine. Getting help is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength because it's harder to get the courage up to ask somebody for help than it is for you to scrounge and struggle and fight while trying to do this all behind a facade. As if you're happy shiny people, the hardest thing to do is to realize that I can't do this on my own and I need some help.
So if you've been there, if you've done that, you've got the t-shirt, but you know you don't want to go back there again, here's what I need for you to do. Now you know what it looks like. Take a look around you. How often do you slow down and look at the people around you?
Look at your friends. Are they acting the way that they normally act? Are they doing the things that you know them to do on a regular? If not, take heed.
Do realize that one of your friends is acting a little out of the ordinary and you can't quite put your finger on it. There are some things to do and definitely some things not to do. In this time period, as you try to figure out what's going on and to find help for your friend. And as far as the things to do, the best thing to do is to listen.
There are so many times that we are in conversation with people, but we're not really listening to what other people are saying because we've got our own things going on in our heads. And so actually what's happening is you're waiting for them to get to a pause point in what they're saying so that you can then start having diarrhea of the lips. You want to just spew all the things that are going on in your head and in your heart. But have you listened to what your friend is saying?
And don't just listen in the surface. You got to listen to the clues, the context clues. Hear how they're saying what they're saying. Listen and make the connections, use context clues because people quite often tell you what's going on, but if you're not listening, you'll never know.
So along with being a good listener, make sure you do some research. Do some research, find out as much as you can about depression. But in doing so, don't think that you've become a WebMD. You're not a doctor.
Do not try to give them some advice on meds or any type of other advice that you may think they might need. Don't try to fix them on your own. No, that is not your place. Stay in your lane.
Don't take a stance on medication. That's something for a doctor to do. So you don't need to tell them what your great aunt's next door neighbor's best friend's husband did when he had depression. No, that's not what you do.
You listen, you don't try to fix them. And then the other thing is don't take it personally. It's not your fault. When you, a lot of times, because we're Americans, we have this thing where we think that the Earth and the Sun, everything revolves around each one of us.
Like we're stuck in that little kid mode where everything revolves around us. It's not about you. Everything is not about you. So don't start thinking that, oh my gosh, it's my fault.
I should have been paying attention. Well, yeah, maybe you should have been paying attention, but I don't think that by paying attention, you would have kept your friend from becoming depressed. So get that in your brain from the jump. Know that it's nothing that you did.
Unless they come out and say, you know, you put me down all the time, you make me feel like dirt. And that's why I feel the way that I do. If they come out and say that, then dog it, hit the road, Jack, leave them alone because they can do bad by themselves. They don't need you making them feel depressed.
Now, in the process, make sure that you're patient and you stay in contact with them. This is not gonna be an overnight thing. They're not going to suddenly just be better the next day because they went and talked to a counselor or went to a doctor. So understand that.
Now, here's one thing, especially when people are going through a loss, like they've lost a family member or a child or even a pet, a family pet, they get depressed. And the thing people will do and say, they'll reach out, they'll send a card or a text or whatever and say, call me and let me know if there's anything I can do. Let me tell you something. What you can do is get off your tuckus and go and do something.
By putting that in that person's lap, you are not doing them any favors because I can guarantee you nine times out of 10, they are not gonna reach out to you for help. They're not gonna ask you to come and do something for them. So why not do something, you know the things that need to get done if they have kids and you know the kids gotta get fed, bring them some meals. If they, you know, if they got kids, they got laundry to wash, go over and offer them like, hey, I'm taking some stuff to the laundromat or whatever.
Or, you know, hey, can I come and help you do your laundry or clean your kitchen? Let me come and do something. I wanna come by and see you, you know? And make yourself useful.
And then two, maybe they don't want you to help out with anything. So then my next recommendation is to extend loose invitations, give them an opportunity, you know, don't feel like because they're having a rough time that they're probably gonna wanna be by themselves. No, still invite them to things, but don't put so much pressure on them where they feel like they have to come. But keep them in the loop.
Let them know, hey, me and the girls are going out. You wanna come with? Simple as that. In honor of this day, I've got a website that I want you to go check out.
It's m-h-a-national.org. That's m-h-h-a-national.org. And on this website, you can actually take a free, anonymous, confidential mental health screening and screen forward depression, as well as some other things as well. But you may be saying, well, what's the purpose?
Why should I screen for depression? Well, one because clinical depression is a serious medical illness and it can lead to suicide. And sometimes people with depression mistakenly believe that the symptoms that they're experiencing are just a normal part of life. And it affects everyone, men, women, children, people of all races and socioeconomic groups.
It does not discriminate. And only about a third of those suffering with severe depression seek treatment from a mental health professional. Why? Well, it's a number of reasons why.
They may not realize what they have or they may realize what they have, but don't want that stigma. It's a place on them that people are going to run around and say, oh, hey, crazy, because you know how crazy she is. We all need to work on this. We need to work on the terms that we use when we refer to people with serious medical illnesses, such as depression and other things along those lines.
We have to make sure that we're not alienating people by our conversations. And one way, if you're having a conversation with somebody and you're talking about a friend, maybe a mutual friend, and you're like, man, girl, you know she crazy, that alone can be enough to cause someone to kind of shy away and be like, they think that home girl is crazy. I'm not going to say anything to them about the fact that I've been feeling kind of weird. I've been feeling, you know, or I need to toughen myself up because I'm not crazy.
I know crazy. Yeah, home girl is crazy, but that's not me. But anyway, I'm not sure if you knew this either, but depression can complicate other medical conditions and that screenings are often the first step in getting help and that is why you need to get screened. So I went and I took this test and one thing you got to know, mental health conditions such as depression or anxiety, those aren't real.
They're common, they're treatable, and recovery is possible. So don't wait if you think you need some help. Go ahead and seek that help now. But the other thing too is know that by taking a screening, that is not a diagnosis.
So don't take it and it says, oh, you're good. And then you're like, yeah, I'm good. Nope, it just kind of gives you an idea of where you fall on the spectrum and if you may need to get some more help. I would actually recommend you take the test.
It's 10 questions, really simple. But keep those questions in mind when you're talking to your other friends and kind of run those questions through your mind and say, well, they don't check out for number one or number two. Yikes. Seven out of 10 looks like they're struggling with.
I might want to listen a little closer and see if I can get some help for my friend or if nothing else just to be able to find someone for them to talk to and find out if in fact what you think may be depression is actually some type of depression. Okay, well, like I said, there are multiple mental health tests that you can take on this website. So check them out once again is UH, nah, it's not UH. It's M-H-A-National.org, M-H-A-National Health.org.
And then I still said it wrong, M-H-A-National.org. There's no help in there, just National.org. Okay, well that was today's episode, National Depression Screening Day. Please guys, take a moment, slow down, listen to your own body, listen to the people around you.
Don't be so surface with everybody and just starting over the top and not really listening to what your friends have to say. Be a true friend and listen, listen long, listen hard. And if you see or hear or send signs that your friend may be going through some type of depression, be there for them, help them, give them assistance. Don't wait for them to reach out to you and ask for the help.
You'll be that true friend and reach out. Have a great weekend and I'll see you guys back here on Tuesday.