Dr. Courtney Tracy, “The Truth Doctor”, Opens Her Door to Social Media

[00:00:00] Speaker A: A note to our listeners. This episode contains discussions about suicide from Children’s center in Vancouver, Washington. This is Hope and Healing. I’m Matthew Butte, executive director of Children’s center and your host.

We make this podcast in order to bring you hopeful stories and to introduce you to people who inspire hope. They’ve inspired a lot of hope in me and among people here at Children’s center, and I hope you feel the same. There’s more than one way to provide hope and healing. There is individual one on one in person therapy. There’s therapy delivered via telehealth. There are many books that can offer guidance and wisdom. And there is plenty of talk about mental health happening on social media.

Yes, it can be noisy and chaotic on places like YouTube, Facebook and TikTok, but there are also qualified trained clinicians offering good advice and real support through these platforms. I’m thrilled to have one of those people with me for this episode.

Dr. Courtney Tracy, also known as the Truth Doctor, is both a therapist and a social media star. With 1.7 million followers on TikTok and 148,000 on Instagram. Her style on social platforms is a lot of straight talk and a lot of openness about her own struggles.

She also deals with major depressive disorder and borderline personality disorder, and she’s been diagnosed with adhd and she’s on the autism spectrum.

Well, I’m here with Dr. Courtney Tracy, also known as the Truth Doctor. Dr. Tracy, welcome to the show. It’s really good to have you with us. Thank you so much for giving us some of your time. We know you are very busy.

[00:01:53] Speaker B: Oh, you’re welcome. It’s an honor to be here.

[00:01:55] Speaker A: No surprise to our listeners. I’m here with my cup of tea. How about you, Dr. Tracy? What are you drinking this afternoon?

[00:02:02] Speaker B: Well, I’m recovering from COVID and so ice water has been a blessing for the last few days.

[00:02:09] Speaker A: No, I’m so sorry to hear that and hope you continue to feel better. And on TikTok, you are very open about your own lived experience with mental illness, which I think is really inspiring to see you do that. How did you decide to do so and why on TikTok?

[00:02:27] Speaker B: Those are two great questions. So I became licensed as a clinical social worker in the state of California at the end of 2019. But in the beginning of 2019, my family experienced a major tragedy where my husband experienced a major PTSD episode while we owned an outpatient treatment center. So the owner of a mental health facility having a mental breakdown publicly was very overwhelming. For our family and me as a clinician. So while we were processing that experience through the year of 2019, I found myself sort of internalizing the stigma that’s associated with mental health issues to begin with, my husband’s and my own. And I was also becoming a licensed therapist that year. So I found myself in a bit of a predicament. How can I destigmatize mental health conditions in sessions with my clients, but live in the stigma of mental health conditions in my personal life? So I decided to come on and tell the truth as the truth doctor online that therapists, doctors and all types of clinicians are also human beings that can experience mental health issues. Like everyone else, I chose TikTok because of my unique personality and the persistence of one of my family members saying that therapists like me belong on a platform like that. So after about 90 days of hesitation and realizing, okay, I’m going to see if I can still be respected as a professional going onto this kids platform. I’m going to try it out. And so I did. And it was wild from there.

[00:04:07] Speaker A: Dr. Tracy, how is your husband doing today?

[00:04:10] Speaker B: That is such a nice question.

We have been on quite a journey of learning about each other after his episode in the beginning of 2019 and then my diagnosis of autism and then my suicidal experience last year. He is doing good. He’s a stay at home dad raising the two little ones while I do all this fascinating stuff.

He’s stable, we’re both stable and that’s a blessing.

[00:04:42] Speaker A: How has it benefited you to be that open and as a therapist as well, which has you right? Many feel that they can’t talk about their own mental illness.

[00:04:51] Speaker B: It has been, you know, a really fascinating experience from the professional fields. Response and the general public public’s response. Overwhelmingly, the general public’s response was positive, especially throughout the pandemic years, the major pandemic years, because everybody was sort of feeling different and uncomfortable. And to see a licensed clinician say, I’m feeling different and I’m feeling uncomfortable really helped people feel normal from the professional standpoint. I was nervous to see if I would stay respected. And what happened was I became the catalyst for many other mental health professionals to begin opening up about their own issues as well. My biggest concern was sharing my public information as a clinician with an active caseload and what my clients might do or think if they’re coming into session, but know about my personal life. And what I learned very quickly about myself was that I am extremely skilled at holding my boundaries and making sure. That even if my clients know about my personal life, they respect me as a professional and I haven’t run into any boundary crossing or any issues over this experience. So all to say, it’s been wildly positive, that word I use often because it’s been such a wild experience and also very eye openening to see just how much people needed to get passive and sometimes active permission to simply tell the truth about how they really feel.

[00:06:30] Speaker A: All of those very positive pieces. Any downside?

[00:06:35] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, the downside was a personal and unique experience. So I was about two years into my platform and I had shared about my diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder in my early 20s. And when the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial that was spread all around the world began and Dr. Shannon Curry diagnosed Amber Heard with Borderline Personality Disorder, there was a very large national and at times global conversation about Borderline Personality Disorder. And so there, I would say YouTube was primarily where I got a significant amount of backlash during that time period because I ended up going on to what’s called Law tube, which is where all the lawyers are on YouTube and talking about myself as a therapist with this diagnosis and explaining it. And maybe it’s because I was more on the legal side of the Internet, where people were very black and white. There was a lot of pushback and lack of understanding. So that was. That kind of took a toll on my mental health for a little bit. Anybody receiving incorrect judgments and. Or receiving information that makes me feel like I’m adding to the stigma was difficult for me to deal with. And that was in 2022. So it was a while ago. But it was a very interesting experience after having a few years of nothing but positivity.

[00:08:03] Speaker A: So how did you make it through that?

[00:08:05] Speaker B: Well, I contacted Dr. Shannon Curry and I got lunch with her and I talked to her about how I was getting the public’s response. Response how she was getting the public’s response, being the person in that courtroom on public TV for weeks. And then I came out and I shared with my community of over 2 million. So across all the platforms how I was feeling about it, what it’s really like to be a clinician with Borderline outside of the court case that was going on for those individuals. And I received people who said, I gave you this hour of my time. And I feel differently than I did about you when I saw you in these small moments on other people’s platforms. So I was given an opportunity to repair with some. But I think it also just gave me motivation to know that Clients that experience the same thing I do are going to deal with this stigma at some point in their lives. And I learned how to manage it myself, and it helps me manage it with them now as well.

[00:09:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s a great model. People can look to you and see you can get through this, even when people have such negative views of a particular diagnosis. Look, Living full, getting through it.

So the Truth Doctor, how did you arrive at that as your username handle? I’m not as versed in social media as I should be.

[00:09:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So it’s a username or a handle. It’s across all of my different platforms. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat. So many these days, I even can’t keep count as a millennial. I think it’s. We’re really, we’re really going full force with these platforms.

When I was thinking about first sharing my story of my family tragedy and the issues that we went through before I became licensed, I asked my husband what I thought my name should be online, and he suggested the Truth Doctor. And when I asked him why, he said, you’re sharing your truth, and I’ve never known you to not be able to be blunt and honest, whether you like it or not. And so it seems like a very fitting label for you and it is excellent.

[00:10:20] Speaker A: And you share a whole range of things on your platforms. And I’m just intrigued. How is it, I mean, you talk about, you know, you have these educational videos, topics such as autism, depression’s impact on the skin. I learned a lot in that one. Anxiety, types of mental health treatment, lots of things. How do you decide, like, this is what I’m going to talk about today?

[00:10:44] Speaker B: That’s a good question for initially, at the beginning of my journey Becoming the Truth Doctor, I mainly talked about general mental health topics. And that was because I was reaching a global audience and we were all generally dealing with general mental health issues, mild depression, confusion, family issues from being too close to one another during those quarantine times. And over the years, I have really niched down into focusing on my clinical expertise because in the beginning of my journey, there was only 10 major TikTok social media therapists, and I was one of them. Now there’s thousands.

And that’s a wild journey that I never expected to be the catalyst to. Therapists now thinking that they have to have a social platform to have a good career. But now that there’s so many more clinicians that know how to use the Internet and are using it as part of their therapy practice, I’m able to focus now on the population that I’ve dedicated my career to, which is substance use disorders and borderline personality disorders. So that’s where most of my content leads now. I’m also diagnosed Most Autistic Level 1 and ADHD. And so I’ve started bringing those into my platform slowly because I’ve noticed that there is a correlation between borderline personality disorder and people that have ADHD or autism and a history of trauma. When it comes to the skin post that I’ve made about the relationship between skin care and mental health, I am on the board of advisors for a Gen Z celebrity, Lily Reinhart, who is opening up a skincare company focused around how acne and other mental health or other skin conditions contribute to mental health, which is a topic that a lot of people do not talk about.

[00:12:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s true. What would you say are the topics that get the strongest reaction from you?

[00:12:47] Speaker B: That’s a good question. You know, typical marketing, typical psychological concepts do work really well online. Shock factors, doctors saying you don’t like something, then people want to know, yeah, I don’t like it either. And you know, give them that sense of connection and, and cathartic release.

But ultimately the ones that do the best are the ones that either make people feel seen. And that’s really easy to do with my specific populations because oftentimes when they do see themselves, people that are addicted or people that have a personality disorder, they see themselves online in a negative light. And so it’s easy for my content to make them feel like there’s potential for them moving on into their future. So ones that make people feel seen and understood, but also ones that are helpful and shareable. And what that means is even if the person seeing the content doesn’t have the specific symptoms I’m mentioning in it, if I gear the video towards if you know someone that experiences this, then this can help a lot of people share it, which I find fascinating. When that’s the direction is if you think this can help someone, please share it. And then I look at the comparison of my likes or loves on a post and then my shares on a post that are private, that no one can see. The shares are so much significantly higher than the likes. And I’ve learned over my career virality was important in the beginning to get the platforms to a high audience and to have my message out there. But now it’s not necessarily virality in terms of views or likes on a platform. It’s shareability for people that are actually going to be impacted by the content I’m making.

[00:14:39] Speaker A: I, I noticed that in response to, to your posts, your followers sometimes give really personal, sometimes very sad responses. How do you manage that as you, as you read those and know the impact you’re having?

[00:14:55] Speaker B: Well, I am an empath if I have ever met one. And I what I mean by that is those terms kind of, they stress me out sometimes because they don’t really have clinical backing. But I will say that because it is difficult when my community are people who have experienced the same pain that I have because of the fact that it’s a curated audience. And so the comments that I struggle with the most are the ones where they say, I wish I could believe that the hope you’re asking me to have can be real and to know that, that I’m somewhere in the world. I don’t know where this person is and they’re looking and seeking for hope and for reassurance. And I can only do my, you know, strange videos on the Internet and hope that it helps them to some degree. Ones that make me slightly angry are when people find my platform and they have been hurt in the past by someone who’s in my audience, not specifically, but the general population of them and they come in to ridicule and to also share their experiences of pain from people in my community. And sometimes I allow those when, when it makes sense, when, when it’s helpful for me and my community to see and be reminded of compassionately understanding pain that they’ve caused. Like an example would be my mother has borderline personality disorder. This would be a comment. And it’s so nice to see a community of people with borderline that want to heal and that want to recover. And at the same time it’s still really hard to see her behaviors be justified. So that’d be a comment I would keep. One I wouldn’t would be people with borderline have absolutely no potential to heal and you should all just end your life. Those types of comments do come onto my platform and I’m very vigilant with checking and removing those. Not because that person’s opinion isn’t potentially valid, but that there is no recourse around how we’re supposed to accept such a negatively presented statement.

[00:17:12] Speaker A: And also probably heartbreaking to see that someone would post that when many in your community are living with these struggles and challenges.

You discuss a lot of things on your platforms. What’s perhaps one of the most difficult things? Perhaps I shouldn’t ask this question because you might not want to talk about It. But what would be one of the more difficult subjects would you want to. Or for you to Talk about on TikTok or one of your many other platforms?

[00:17:40] Speaker B: It’s not a. It’s not a bad question to ask. I don’t mind at all. I’ve shared everything. And so I think, you know, I think the hardest thing that I have had to personally share on my platform was my journey through ivf, actually, and how that impacted my mental health. It was important for me to share my life with my audience as I already had been. And when I reached this period of my life, it became extremely difficult. A lot of my trauma responses came back. Being autistic and borderline and doing ivf, you feel very out of control. The emotions are up and down and. And I was contained. I’ve been in remission for a long time, but in order to maintain that containment, I need more time, more space, and more support while still showing up every day for an audience of millions online, whether I feel good or whether I feel bad. And so throughout that ivf, I was getting extremely sick, and, you know, I’m scared of needles, and there’s up to five a day. And. And so what was hardest was feeling like I let my audience down by pulling away from my platform for over six months because I simply didn’t have the capacity to continue making content. So that’s what was hard, was when I would have to admit as a therapist and a human, that I was doing too much and needed a break, which is fine. But it’s hard mentally and psychologically to leave all of those people knowing that my message has resonated and it’s different than anybody else’s.

[00:19:24] Speaker A: Those difficult times, though, to be able to talk about them does make a big difference to those that are listening and tuning in. And so, I mean, in that context, why would you. Or maybe I guess the question is, would you? And if so, why would you recommend that other people with mental illness open up about their own story?

[00:19:44] Speaker B: Because you don’t deserve to feel like your life is something people are scared of.

I think hiding that is a detriment to this person’s existence. To feel like the world is better if they don’t share what the world is like for them. There is hesitation, and I always give warning to people that you will get opinions from everyone and to be prepared to protect yourself and to know if you are someone with mental health conditions that. That you know how your body, brain and mind are going to respond when people say as extreme things as you should end your life.

So there are risks, but the benefits far, far outweigh them as long as you have the capacity to withstand those risks. I would have never shared what I shared online if I didn’t become a therapist to begin with and understand the benefit of vulnerability and the benefit of even telling one other person what your experience is like. And sometimes I recommend to people, if you are someone that has a story to share, you don’t have to learn how to make viral content, have a public platform and learn how to storytell. And perfect film editing.

Sharing your story online can be in a private account that you make with your 50 closest friends or family, and you share your own journey of mental health. And maybe one day you publicize it, you just push the public button and you don’t even have to share it with anyone else. People can just passively find you if your message resonates with them.

[00:21:35] Speaker A: So you, you talk about one of the many things to. Is your own experience of depression.

And this quote that you gave on one of your posts. One of the most beautiful things in the world is seeing the storm clouds of depression. Pot.

And so how, how do you manage that? How do you. When you’re in the midst of depression, you know they’re gonna part at some point. How are you holding in that waiting pattern, if you like?

[00:22:04] Speaker B: So I’ve battled with passive suicidal ideation since I was 15 years old, which means that there are thoughts of life being better if I’m not in it, but with no real action or thought to move forward. The thought just exists.

Last year, after ivf, when I was pregnant, I experienced active suicidal ideation for the first time in my life when I was five months pregnant. And it was extremely difficult because you’re, you’re trapped, your body’s not yours, and it feels like your mind’s not yours. And it’s such a scary place to be. And so now when people ask me about depression, I feel like I understand more than ever what the depths of depression are like and also what. What the alleviation of depression is like for myself and for my clients. And so what I’ve learned is that it really is true that when you’re that far down, you do not feel like there are any steps to go up. And what I’ve ultimately learned is to simply wait.

To simply wait it out. Because we so often think in these moments when we can’t see the light, but we’re keeping told by other people, it’s there, it’s there, and you’re like okay. But I really don’t see it. And I don’t know how much longer I can trust you is you simply give the intervention of waiting.

And as they’re waiting, they’re surviving, but they don’t realize that until you point it out. It’s like they’re waiting to learn how to survive without realizing that they are in every moment, that there’s power and control and strength and hope or else they wouldn’t still be there in that moment. And so it’s really just affirming and showing them that even if they don’t feel it, it’s there and that we can lift the gate.

[00:24:01] Speaker A: Yeah, the waiting. And I think, I think I saw one clip where after a period of depression, you how much you could jump in a swimming pool. Am I remembering that correct? So I’m curious about that because there’s the waiting, but also there seems to be a celebration when the clouds do part.

[00:24:20] Speaker B: Definitely. Yeah. That’s. That’s wonderful. So, yeah, I have. While I was pregnant, I also had a 4 year old son and I was bedridden because of my depression and my pregnancy. And we had built a pool in our backyard and my son wanted me to go in it all summer long and I couldn’t do it because of my mental state. But I promised him that at the end of summer I would do a cannonball in the pool with him if mommy was feeling better and mommy was feeling better. And so I did a cannonball in the pool. And what that really meant for me, especially to share that with my audience, the video of the jump and of my son’s response was that it was proof that the day can come. It wasn’t just me talking about that one day, two years from now, saying once my depression lifted, I was able to enjoy time with my son again. That’s helpful. But it’s more helpful when you see someone going through their depression and then see them do the cannonball in the pool. It becomes a memory and a visualization of the truth and reality that healing is possible. It’s not just potential. Empty words.

[00:25:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And marking that with family, friends, or with, you know, 2 million people is one way of, of celebrating the. The waiting pays off. So I think it was a great, great message for folks who are living with depression and waiting it out. So you have a lot of these inspirational pieces in. I liked one you said that you reminder that you are somebody now as the contrast to the messaging that we have to become someone.

So. And that’s in quite a lot of Contrast to a lot of content that’s out there in social media that is not so uplifting and inspiring. How do you get your message through in the midst of a. There’s an abundance of content and baby, there’s an abundance of not that great messages.

[00:26:23] Speaker B: Yeah.

The algorithms are interesting because they decide who sees what content.

And so there is. It is the job of the creator or the influencer to use the right words in the captions and the videos to find the right people.

Sometimes it’s even beneficial to use the hashtags that are opposing to content that you’ve made so that the people who really need to hear it end up hearing it.

So that’s helpful. But it’s also helpful because there’s the ability to stitch content on social media. Meaning I can take the first five seconds of somebody giving an opposing view and someone will watch that first five seconds thinking that this video is going to be there, their aligned opinion. And then up pops Dr. Courtney after five seconds going, actually, let’s talk about the opposite of this opinion. So that’s one way to be helpful. But when it comes to just putting out content about, you know, you are whole as you are, versus hustle culture, get the. Get the degree, change who you are completely the right messages, find the right people at the right time. If someone’s open to hearing the message that I’m giving out, then they’re going to stop and listen to it. It’s going to be the right time. Or they’ll passively hear it, go on with their life and then be like, wait a minute and go, what was that one account that made me feel good that day, but I didn’t want to feel good that day. I liked bad and so I ignored it.

[00:28:01] Speaker A: Always something to come back to. It’s always going to be that which is a great gift of those. Yeah.

So I love the fact that in you also, I mean, talk about so many things, but one of them you emphasize quite a bit, at least I caught, perhaps because I’m an executive director of a mental health agency, was that you talk about mental health in the workplace, which struck me as really, really important.

You remind everyone that mental health professionals, like all professionals, like all humans, have the potential to have a mental health issue. This emphasis on humans first. And so I’m wondering, what would a workplace culture look like that allowed. And I think you used the words that allows professional professionals to say, what is really going on with them?

[00:28:50] Speaker B: Well, I’ve created two of them so I can tell you about them.

[00:28:53] Speaker A: We should all visit then. Dr. Tracy.

[00:28:56] Speaker B: That’d be great. So at both of the treatment centers that I’ve opened, one was an outpatient partial hospitalization intensive outpatient program in Santa Barbara for adults with co occurring disorders. And that was 2017 to 2021. And the one I have now is called Exist Centers that offers the exact same services in Laguna Beach, California. At both of these locations, me and my staff get together once a month for a meeting called Karma, which stands for kindness, awareness, reflection, mindfulness and authenticity. And we sit around in a circle. And of course this has to take trust from my employees that I will not use what they are paying against them, which would be illegal in the first place.

But we share what it is that’s really going on for us in our personal lives. And the reason that we do that is because it will impact the work that we are doing professionally. It is sort of like the way associate therapists are supervised for their initial hours and they address transference and counter transference and boundaries and personal self care. And so we do that ongoing once a month on a broad level with our entire team. And what I do with my organizations is I have enough staff and enough of a back budget where if one of my employees is experiencing something, I don’t need to wait for federal or governmental leave, they can just take leave. Because we do not have clinicians with 40 case, 40 client caseloads. We have clinicians with eight client caseloads that are getting paid 40 hours a week. And what I desire is for somebody to have a caseload of 8 to 10, then spend an additional two hours every week on each of those clients, really looking at the research of their diagnoses, really taking a look at their biopsych socials and really putting together a comprehensive integrative treatment plan so that this person doesn’t have to go to 15 outpatients. I would rather give them the experience of four outpatient settings at once because they get the amount of time and the clinicians get the amount of time to actually do the work. And what that leaves then is more than 50% of their job.

More than that. Yeah. For either incredible clinical care and planning or time to take care of themselves to that will then lead to incredible.

[00:31:33] Speaker A: Clinical care for other workplaces generally that not set up perhaps with an openness to that. What would you say to them? Of course, they’ve got buildings full of or people working remotely, human beings.

What are some of the steps you would suggest to them?

[00:31:49] Speaker B: Well, if we had an unlimited budget. Right. Was that Matter.

[00:31:53] Speaker A: Yes, that’s. There is that bit.

[00:31:55] Speaker B: I think that it would be looking at the purpose of each role.

If we’re in talking about a healthcare setting the purpose of each role and ensuring that that purpose is taking place, that it’s fundamentally taking place. And an example would be the purpose of a therapist working at a hospital, for example, and having a caseload is that that that therapist is in good health and good spirits, with a clear mind and an energetic body that can sit in front of their clients and truly assess them and really understand them and give them the best possible next step for their life. And if you look at your culture or at your corporation and you don’t see that that purpose is really happening, that instead it’s a overworked therapist running into sessions and doesn’t have time to use the restroom and doesn’t know half their caseloads names, then you’re not really conducting the purpose of your clinical work or your company in general. But if you’re so high, you won’t realize that because the real work’s being done down below. So my first suggestion would be what is the purpose of your business and what is the purpose of the positions in your business? Is that happening? And if that’s not happening, then it’s looking at each, either each department if you’re on a larger scale, or each individual person if you’re on a lower scale and sitting down and assessing and analyzing just like you would a client. Where’s the problem? What’s the root cause? And what, what do we have available to get our purpose actually happening?

[00:33:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you. One, I wonder. Two in that too, it’s like employees. What’s their felt sense around purpose?

Certainly great questions to explore from an organization individual perhaps then we have a much more satisfied workplace.

So I’m thinking of workplace and you mentioned your therapist, which you’re taking great care of.

And we need more of them, Dr. Tracy, we need more of you.

So in that context, what would you say to people thinking about entering the field? What recommendations would you give?

[00:34:21] Speaker B: I would give the recommendation that the healing field, even the clinical healing field, so receiving a license of some kind is vast and is eclectic and is innovative. And your only option is not become a licensed therapist. You’re. You can be a social worker, you in a hospital, you can be an alcohol and drug counselor, you can be a therapist that only works with mothers who just had a baby or men in high positions of organizations. And so my, you know, my first thing is, is if you want to help people who do you want to help and then realize there are countless ways to do that. Second thing is, if you are seeking to enter the healthcare field or the I should say if you are seeking to enter the mental health field because you have a mental health condition, please do not let that hold you back and make sure that you are healed enough. Not fully healed, you don’t have to be fully healed, but healed enough to be the professional that you need to be when you are conducting your profession. So lots of options. Please join us. And it’s okay if you don’t feel normal because the people you’re working with don’t either and you just need to teach them that that’s okay and how to do it.

[00:35:55] Speaker A: I love that. I like the statement there. Lots of options. So we might just add working with children and adolescents could be a specialty or is a specialty for therapists if you’re interested.

[00:36:07] Speaker B: I want to just say too on that population of children and teens, those are the critical years, as everyone listening to this podcast probably knows. But if you are thinking about getting into the field, working with that population saves decades of people’s lives.

Decades. And so for everyone listening, just understand that the work that you do with a five year old can save them 90 years of pain. That’s a little intense. Maybe they’d still go through some pain. But. But you have the potential to truly shift the life trajectory of a human being in their most formative years. And that is, that is something that is extremely special.

[00:36:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it really is a a gift that we get to do here in helping with. We see kids from 2 to 18 and it is such a gift to have such an impact for so many years. Thank you for mentioning that in the context of a mental health disorder. What does healing look like to you?

[00:37:18] Speaker B: I love this question because I hear over and over again you tell people that healing from borderline personality disorder is possible, but the research says it’s not.

And I find that fascinating because people interpret from my opinion that healing a mental health condition or disorder means it goes away forever and your life returns to what it was like beforehand. But if you break your leg and your skin breaks open and you heal from that broken leg, there is a scar and we’re fine with that. We call that healing. And maybe we can’t move our leg in the same way we can’t or we could ever again and we’re still okay with that and we still call it healing when it comes to mental health conditions. We need to understand that healing from mental health Conditions and disorders doesn’t mean there won’t be scars, doesn’t mean there won’t be boundaries and limitations to how we feel and what we think and how we behave and what we do as a result of what we’ve experienced or what we live with.

So healing from a mental health issue looks like repair and reconnection and the closing of wounds and learning how far left to go and how far right to go. Healing is knowing that what happened, happened. It’s not happening anymore. You’ve changed because it’s happened and you’ve moved on.

[00:39:02] Speaker A: What gives you hope?

[00:39:06] Speaker B: Hope has always been something that I struggle to define and I think I tend to struggle to define it because I struggled without it for so long. I was hopeless for so long. And I live in, in a place, meaning on a day to day basis. My mind is sitting in front of people hopeless consistently. And when they say I feel more hopeful, I realize I’ve given them hope. But I wouldn’t have called it that.

I would have called it therapy, or I would have called it motivation, or I would have called it compassion and understanding. So for hope, hope, when I think about what gives me hope is repair of pain.

And what I think hope is is the belief that the repair of pain is possible.

And I think what gives me hope, if I call it that, is how many experiences I have had personally and professionally, that when someone says it will get better, it does.

And that’s really all anyone ever hopes for. If we are hoping, we are expecting and desiring something positive, something beneficial, something to be true.

And if we think about it, when we’re in a clear enough state to think about it, hope is everywhere. Hope is in everything.

Hope is what people experience every day when they wake up and they just don’t even know it’s.

[00:40:46] Speaker A: Dr. Tracy, you mentioned about, you are a blunt and very honest. For those of us, particularly Brits, but many others that struggle with such things, how could we become more blunt, more honest?

[00:40:58] Speaker B: I think what it fundamentally comes down to for me, and hopefully for others who want to become more blunt and honest is what do you have to lose?

Ultimately, when I think about my life and what I really need in it, even though I have cars and houses and blah, blah, blah, I need my husband, I need my kids, and I need a safe place for us to live big enough to where we won’t hate each other.

That’s all that I need. So if people are going to judge me for telling my truth, if people are going to judge me for having opinions different than them, then people are choosing to spend their lifetime doing that. I’m gonna spend mine making sure I have the things I really need and having fun and telling the truth for my whole life as long as I can.

[00:41:53] Speaker A: Dr. Courtney Tracy, thank you so much.

[00:41:56] Speaker B: You’re welcome. It was an honor.

[00:42:00] Speaker A: You can find Dr. Courtney Tracy online at the Truth.

It has links to all the social media accounts we’ve been talking about.

Hope and Healing was produced by Jenny Hoheisel and John Moe. Music by concert rock violinist Erin Meyer. This podcast is presented by Children’s center in Vancouver, Washington. Children’s Center’s mission is to serve children, youth and families through comprehensive community based mental health services. For more information visit thechildrenscentre.org A reminder as we mention on every episode, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline can be reached in the United States by calling or texting 988. It’s free and available 24. 7. I’m Matthew Butte and thank you for.