J: Gonna start this video by saying: I have a terrible cold

J: I might sniffle a bit.

But I've got tissues ready.

J: So we're good. R: I am not sick for now.

J: Well, you're sitting next to me for quite a while! So we'll see how you feel at the end of this, Rowan.

J: This is lovely Rowan. She has come to join me on the channel today.

J: Because it is...

R: Mental Health something Day!

J: I should have probably clued you into that.

J: No, it's actually World Mental Health Day.

R: For the whole world? J: Yeah!

R: In which case, good timing on your part. J: Thanks!

J: People often ask me why I don't have

things on my channel where I talk about mental health.

J: And that's partly because I don't feel it's my place to

because I don't have any mental health stuff.

J: Although, if you grow up or have any kind of chronic illness or disability,

I think there is always going to be some kind of trauma that is attached to that.

J: Even if it's not itself something, like a mental health condition,

that you get independently.

R: Mm.

J: It's just - you go through stuff! And you feel--

you have some kind of trauma at the end of it.

J: But Rowan talks very openly

J: about mental heath stuff. R: I do.

J: So I thought you were probably the best person to talk to.

J: You can kind of tell me a bit about why you think it's so important that we do talk about these things.

R: It's useful for people to be able to talk about their mental health conditions

and then also for people who don't know about it

to feel like they can ask questions and talk to their friends about it.

R: A lot of mental health issues can feel quite isolating, and so talking can often help.

R: And it's just empowering people to talk about

what they're going through in the right way, but also for their friends and family

to be able to feel empowered to talk to them and not think they're gonna make it worse by mentioning.

R: 'You look kind of depressed or you seem to be depressed.' J: It's OK. It's OK.

R: 'I can't say it because then I'll remind you that you're depressed

and then you'll feel more depressed and...'

R: Not quite how it works. J: Yeah.

J: I find talking about my disabilities on my channel

has made the relationships that I have in real life

- day-to-day life -

with people, even my family,

they now find it easier to talk to me about my disabilities.

R: Yeah. J: Because they know what it is now.

J: Do you find that you've had

people in real life who are like, 'Oh, I watched your video about that and now I actually get it'?

R: So I made a video about having OCD and I think that it's one of those things where

people who kind of had something similar to it

or who had experienced it before

felt a little bit more confident

talking to me about it because they knew that I'd got it.

R: I think that anxiety and depression, in particular, are ones that

although still stigmatized, have been talked about a little bit more

because I think that they're extensions of emotions that everyone has.

J: Yes. R: So depression is like, 'Oh, I've been sad before,'

R: so I know it's not quite the same, but I can kind of understand what depression might feel like.'

R: Or, 'I've been anxious or scared before; I kind of feel what anxiety might feel like.'

R: Although they're not totally the same,

it's definitely a good kind of starting comparison.

R: Whereas with things like OCD,

because they don't make any sense

and they're often not related to what anyone's gone through, and similarly

with personality disorders, or anything that involves psychosis or

not being able to tell what's real and what's not,

a lot of people have no basis for comparison.

R: They have no idea what that would feel like.

R: You feel crazy saying it. You feel like it's like, 'This is what crazy people say.'

J: But also the only things that we see about OCD

in the media are those kind of--the same representation of the person who has to like obsessively tidy

and wash their hands a lot; it's that kind of 'Monica' from 'Friends'

R: Yeah, exactly. J: -style.

J: Whereas OCD isn't just that, is it?

R: People do have OCD where they need to tidy and they need to clean obsessively,

but that's the only outward thing, so all that people see is, 'Oh, OCD is just you need to clean.'

R: What you don't see is the process that leads up to that point,

which is often obsessive thoughts.

R: So, the thoughts with someone who cleans a lot might be about contracting diseases,

as an example.

R: And so a way that these thoughts that keep going on and on in your head,

that you kind of know aren't real but they feel like they are,

and the only way that you can stop those

is just to sort of give in and be like, 'OK, I'm gonna--' (in that case) 'I'll wash my hands again.'

R: It starts with these intrusive thoughts,

which are these obsessions

- which is 'obsessive' - and then the compulsions are the things that you do to alleviate the thoughts.

J: Oh, OK.

R: And so you can have something called Pure O OCD,

which is only obsessions.

R: So, it's not physical things that you can do and compulsions that you act out,

but everything happens mentally.

R: So my OCD, I have a few different ones,

but the one that was most recent

and has been the most on-going is an obsessive thought that people can hear what I'm thinking.

R: It's weird, because I know logically they can't, that's nonsense.

I--no one can hear what I'm thinking.

R: But the anxiety that they can keeps going

so a lot of my compulsions are internal in my head, where I will have to

actively think back at them, back thoughts as if--so I'm kind of like thinking something;

they'll hear my thoughts, and so I'll have to just apologise to them.

J: Ooh! R: Be like, 'I'm really sorry that you just heard what I was thinking.'

R: And intrusive thoughts can be really awful. J: Yeah!

R: So, you know, often they're around what will make you feel most panicked.

So, parents will get intrusive thoughts of killing their children.

R: It's people with intrusive thoughts-- J: But it's not because you want to do it.

R: Not at all. J: It's just because you're so scared of that.

R: Exactly.

R: So it's often you'll get the thing that you definitely wouldn't do.

J: OK. R: Because that's the thing that will cause the most anxiety.

J: Yeah.

R: I'm like - from our point of view, there's a really interesting one, which is

homosexual OCD

where people who are brought up in environments where being gay is like the worst possible thing

will have intrusive thoughts that they're gay.

J: But they're not gay. R: They're not gay.

J: They've just got intrusive thoughts about being gay. R: They've just got intrusive thoughts about being gay.

J: Ooo.

J: You were saying how people can kind of understand depression

because we've all had a moment where we're quite sad,

and we can kind of think about that magnified,

but with intrusive thoughts,

don't we all sometimes get those kind of

J: sort of experience? R: Yeah, so imagine that,

R: but imagine the--you cannot get rid of that thought.

J: Sure. R: You just have to keep thinking it.

R: And also, the level of distress that it causes is much higher.

R: Here's a thing that you think sometimes, but actually, you think it all the time,

and it really stresses you out when you think it.

R: That's sort of, I suppose, the equivalent.

R: And then I also have Seasonal Affective Disorder,

which is "the winter blues."

R: I think it probably used to be known.

R: Which is really funny, because it makes me sound like a sort of fainting Victorian woman,

where it's like, 'She's got the winter blues - quickly, we must holiday in the Mediterranean!'

J: 'Oh, no! Oh, no! Send her away!' R: 'We must take her--send her for sun by the coast.'

R: It's one of those things I got diagnosed with and I was like, "Oh, I guess I have this."

J: Claudia has a quite mild SAD.

So I had to get her a sun light.

J: Was advised. R: Yep, yep.

R: I've got the lightbox.

J: She--she could not wake up before it.

J: Her one is an alarm clock, so it slowly gets brighter, R: Ooo. That's really cool.

J: so that wakes her up,

but then also, if it's just like 4PM and it's pitch black outside in the middle of winter,

then I can just put it in front of her on max for twenty minutes.

J: All year round now the sun light to wake up.

Otherwise, she doesn't properly wake up.

R: Yeah, so, sun boxes are really interesting; they're something like 60-90% effective. Like, most people.

So it's a really effective way of treating it.

R: I used to, when I was studying, have to just like have it next to me.

J: While you studied? R: While I studied.

R: I think it's interesting, because there must be such differences in mental health depending on

where you live.

J: Mmm. R: Because this wouldn't affect people to the same extent

R: in a country where it was hot for a lot longer or sunnier for longer and the days were longer.

R: Mental health is interesting because it's such a spectrum of something that you were born with,

chemical stuff, but also experiences you've had; trauma you've had,

and predispositions.

J: Like you can have something that runs in your family, R: Exactly.

J: but it needs to be turned on for it to actually

activate.

R: Talking about it can help in terms of treatment, so it's

you will still feel this way, but here's a way of alleviating those symptoms.

R: But then that's why, for other people, the sort of taking a drug--drug use is more useful,

because if it's very chemical, taking antidepressants

/ anti-anxiety medication makes sense, because it's just fixing the chemical element

J: And talking to someone isn't gonna change the chemistry of your brain. R: Yeah, exactly.

J: When I first got diagnosed with having a genetic condition, I got sent to therapy.

R: I mean, did you feel like that was useful?

J: No.

J: I got sent to therapy for nine months or something, I had to go.

And oh, my God. I got diagnosed when I was seventeen, so I was still technically a "child."

R: Mmm. J: So I got sent to a child therapist!

J: I was like, "She talks to five-year-olds!"

J: "How is she gonna help me?" R: Did she have puppets, like...?

J: She had clown shoes. [Clown's nose honks] R: 'How do you feel, Jessica?'

J: She had clown shoes.

J: This woman is NOT going to help me.

J: In any way, with anything.

J: I probably wasn't the best person. R: You weren't ready for therapy.

R: You're like, 'No, I'm done.' J: I don't [inaudible]

J: For me, the best way for me to cope with sadness or with

something traumatic, like - I've been through trauma!

J: Bad stuff happened. Like I had a lung puncture that went wrong.

And for two years I had to lie down, flat on my back,

and I couldn't have any light or sound or touch.

J: So like that's probably quite a traumatic experience. R: Yeah! But

R: I suppose it's kind of what is, in terms of mental health,

a reasonable reaction to a really awful thing.

R: At what point does that become a mental health issue?

R: Or is it just a really awful thing happened to you, while it was happening and a little time afterwards

you were kind of messed up about it.

J: Yeah, and so people - I remember, at the time, they were like, "You've got to talk about it."

"You've got to go and see a doctor now

and like really feel better, and it'll help you to get it out there" - and I'd think "It will not!"

I would just go every week;

I'd cry; I'd feel bad for a few days.

What was the point? I don't feel like--I never felt like anything got resolved.

R: Yeah. J: So I kind of just, mentally,

J: I always - I still do this, mentally - whenever anything bad happens,

I put it in a box, and I put it on a little shelf

in my brain,

and then I just leave it there.

J: Ten to fifteen years later,

I go back, take the little box down, open it up and I'm like,

"Pfft! Why was I upset about that?"

R: Doesn't feel the same? J: 'Cause that's the thing about that kind of

J: the brain chemistry again, like we were saying, 'cause you can set it off.

J: Because obviously everyone has very different ways of, you know--brains are amazing things.