Speaker 1: Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
Speaker 1: conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
Speaker 1: decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
Speaker 1: of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy hard and Bradford,
Speaker 1: a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
Speaker 1: to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
Speaker 1: at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
Speaker 1: love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
Speaker 1: not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
Speaker 1: a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining me for session four fifty six of the
Speaker 1: Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our
Speaker 1: conversation after a word from our sponsors. When we think
Speaker 1: about depression, there's a common image that comes to mind,
Speaker 1: sleeping all day or not enough, withdrawing from responsibilities, and
Speaker 1: feeling an overall inability to function. And while that image
Speaker 1: is accurate, it doesn't tell the whole story of what
Speaker 1: depression can look like. For many people, especially black women,
Speaker 1: depression can show up on the complete opposite end of
Speaker 1: the spectrum. Instead of withdrawing, we give too much thrusting,
Speaker 1: ourselves into our jobs, family responsibilities, and over committing to
Speaker 1: whatever keeps us constantly in motion, and in trying to
Speaker 1: overcome racial oppression and gender discrimination, we mass that pain
Speaker 1: under layers of hyperactivity and perfectionism. This is what's referred
Speaker 1: to as high functioning depression, up getting things done and
Speaker 1: even excelling while feeling completely disconnected from what makes you
Speaker 1: feel grounded. Here to unpack what that really looks like
Speaker 1: is a guest you may have heard on the show before,
Speaker 1: doctor Judith Joseph. In her book High Functioning, Overcome your
Speaker 1: Hidden Depression and Reclaim Your Joy, she explores how depression
Speaker 1: can hide behind competence and accomplishment, particularly for people who
Speaker 1: have been conditioned to cling to resilience in their most
Speaker 1: challenging moments. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation,
Speaker 1: please share with us on social media using the hashtag
Speaker 1: TVG in session, or join us over in our patreon
Speaker 1: To talk more about the episode. You can join us
Speaker 1: at community dot therapy for Blackgirls dot com. Here's our conversation.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, doctor.
Speaker 2: Judith, thanks for having me. It's good to see you again.
Speaker 1: Likewise likewise, so the last time we chatted, we were
Speaker 1: talking all about how your mental health might be impacted
Speaker 1: by social media. And a lot has happened for you
Speaker 1: since we livet So you've released your first book called
Speaker 1: High Functioning Depression, and I would love to hear from you,
Speaker 1: doctor Judius, because you are well rid and well versed
Speaker 1: in so many topics. What made high functioning depression the
Speaker 1: topic for your first book.
Speaker 2: Well, I think a lot of people walk around wearing
Speaker 2: this mask of pathological productivity. On the outside, they look
Speaker 2: put together. You'd never know that they were struggling inside,
Speaker 2: without joy, lacking interest, because frankly, they're not functioning right,
Speaker 2: They're still functioning showing up their rocks. They're the ones
Speaker 2: that people turn to for help. They're the friend who
Speaker 2: seems like they have it all put together. And in
Speaker 2: mental health, unfortunately, we wait for people to break down
Speaker 2: before we start interveading, whereas in other areas of health,
Speaker 2: we don't wait until people have like stage four cancer.
Speaker 2: We're like, let's catch the cancer, let's reduce the risk. Right,
Speaker 2: We're not waiting people have a heart attack. We're saying,
Speaker 2: let's address the risk of heart disease. In mental health,
Speaker 2: we're still waiting for people to break down. And I
Speaker 2: just kept seeing people in my practice coming in who
Speaker 2: were struggling with the lack of joy, something called ann hodonia.
Speaker 2: They didn't know what it was. They'd never heard of it,
Speaker 2: and I had to educate them that this is something
Speaker 2: that's in the medical literature. We know of it, but
Speaker 2: many people don't know what it's called. So there is
Speaker 2: a way to reclaim your joy. And when I wrote
Speaker 2: High Functioning, I was very intentional about the cover of it,
Speaker 2: where I wanted people to be walking in a bookstore
Speaker 2: and see, oh, look, high functioning. That's me. Let me
Speaker 2: open this and be like, hold on, wait a second,
Speaker 2: I think I'm depressing. The subtitle is about overcoming hidden
Speaker 2: depression because many of us hide our emotions, especially as
Speaker 2: black women. We push it down, we put our own
Speaker 2: emotions to aside, we take care of others. And this
Speaker 2: book is about reclaiming joy.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting and I appreciate that you're calling out
Speaker 1: antadonia because it is one of the classic, like Hallwark,
Speaker 1: depressive symptoms, and you're saying that you found a lot
Speaker 1: of your patients just didn't even know that it was
Speaker 1: a thing that they needed to be connected to why
Speaker 1: do you think that is given that it is one
Speaker 1: of the things we are typically looking for to diagnose oppression.
Speaker 2: Interestingly enough, I went to a very large therapy conference
Speaker 2: and I went around collecting content and asking different therapists
Speaker 2: what is antadonia? What is antadonia? A lot of therapists
Speaker 2: had never heard of ant hoadonia. And I think there's
Speaker 2: this inherent bias within healthcare where we look for people
Speaker 2: to break down. We're looking for very obvious signs. We're
Speaker 2: looking for someone crying, We're looking for someone not getting
Speaker 2: out of bed. We're not looking for someone who's feeling
Speaker 2: nothing or lacking joy, and we overlook it. If you
Speaker 2: go to your doctor and you're like, I'm not sleeping
Speaker 2: while my eating habits have changed, but I'm still functioning,
Speaker 2: They're not going to say, well, are you still enjoying life?
Speaker 2: They're going to say, are you suicidal? Are you breaking down?
Speaker 2: You know, like what's happening in terms of your functioning.
Speaker 2: They're really not looking for whether or not you're enjoying life,
Speaker 2: that you're actually seeking pleasure or interested in things, because
Speaker 2: in our healthcare system, that's not considered a crisis. That's
Speaker 2: not a problem that healthcare professionals can fix. So we're
Speaker 2: very reactive in our approaches to mental health versus being
Speaker 2: proactive and looking for signs of ant hodonia. When you
Speaker 2: eat your food, does it taste good? When you connect
Speaker 2: with a loved one? Do you feel seen and heard
Speaker 2: when you're listening to music? Does it light you up?
Speaker 2: If we were to ask those type of questions, then
Speaker 2: we would uncover ant hodonia. But we're not asking that.
Speaker 2: We're asking are you suicidal? Are you having thoughts you
Speaker 2: don't want to live anymore? So, because we're always looking
Speaker 2: for the crisis, the clear crisis, we're missing the existential crisis.
Speaker 2: Is life even worth living for you? And I think
Speaker 2: many healthcare professionals, especially doctors and nurses, they probably struggle
Speaker 2: with ant hodonia too. When you think about it, they're
Speaker 2: in fast paids lives. They're taught inherently to take care
Speaker 2: of everyone else but themselves. Patient comes first. They work
Speaker 2: long shifts, they don't even like pee or go for
Speaker 2: bathroom breaks or eat properly right, So they're already inherently
Speaker 2: and hedonic. So why would you look for something that
Speaker 2: you're experiencing that you've normalized. Why would you even look
Speaker 2: for that in your own patients. You'd be like, well,
Speaker 2: you're not in crisis, you're not societal'll come back next year,
Speaker 2: come back when you break down. And so I think
Speaker 2: that it's a shift that needs to occur within healthcare,
Speaker 2: some would say first, in order to really address it
Speaker 2: in the general population.
Speaker 1: And I know you are kind of one of the
Speaker 1: first doing kind of large scale research on high functioning depression.
Speaker 1: And I think when I think about like Black women
Speaker 1: in the way that depression often shows up for us,
Speaker 1: right like in large point due to our socialization, that
Speaker 1: like stuff just has to keep going, like you can
Speaker 1: deal with your mood later, like you just got to
Speaker 1: keep going. I would be curious to know if Black
Speaker 1: women don't over index in terms of high functioning depression.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about the work that
Speaker 1: you've done and what your research is showing in terms
Speaker 1: of Black women in high functioning depression.
Speaker 2: The interesting thing about my study is that it's the
Speaker 2: first study and high functioning depression in the world. And
Speaker 2: when I was writing it up and submitting it to
Speaker 2: IRBs and in the process of ParaView, I remember the
Speaker 2: people who were reviewing it, were like looking for other
Speaker 2: papers in the world, and they just kept looking and
Speaker 2: then they were like, wait, this is the first study
Speaker 2: in the world, and I was just shocked it is
Speaker 2: the first one. We do need more research in this area.
Speaker 2: But what we found in this first study is that
Speaker 2: there seems to be a high correlation between caregiving and antedonia,
Speaker 2: which is not rocket science, right. If you are taking
Speaker 2: care of other people all the time, and because that's
Speaker 2: your priority, you're not really prioritizing yourself. You're not going
Speaker 2: to have interest in things you once enjoyed, You're not
Speaker 2: going to be feeling joy, and so that was not
Speaker 2: a surprising finding. Another finding was that there's a high
Speaker 2: correlation between HFD and trauma, and that was interesting because
Speaker 2: our hypothesis is that people who are trying to outrun
Speaker 2: past pain may be using busying as a coping mechanism.
Speaker 2: So when you think of the classic trauma responses, usually
Speaker 2: people want to avoid people, places, and situations that trigger
Speaker 2: negative emotions. But with high functioning folks, people avoid negative
Speaker 2: emotions by just taking on other tasks. So these are
Speaker 2: the people who will say when I sit still, I
Speaker 2: feel restless. When I'm not busy. I feel empty why
Speaker 2: because their go to coping mechanism is too busy to distract.
Speaker 2: And you know, initially it doesn't look all that bad, right,
Speaker 2: it looks productive, pathologically productive, because on the outside you're
Speaker 2: doing all these great things. People are saying you're killing it,
Speaker 2: but secretly it is actually killing you, right, because over time,
Speaker 2: you're going to neglect your basic needs. Over time, your
Speaker 2: body may break down. You may actually develop a depression
Speaker 2: where a depressive episode where you stop functioning, or you
Speaker 2: may start to cope with your pain in ways that
Speaker 2: are not healthy, like excessive drinking, other excessive behaviors that
Speaker 2: are not really healthy for you. So something's going to
Speaker 2: give eventually. And so we found those two correlations as trauma.
Speaker 2: And when we were interviewing patients, we didn't just do
Speaker 2: a survey. We I have a lab in Manhattan. We
Speaker 2: had the research staff, myself interview people, collect the data.
Speaker 2: Because what we found is that when you send out
Speaker 2: surveys tends to not be as accurate as when you're
Speaker 2: talking to people. And sometimes people don't understand something they
Speaker 2: ask for clarification. So when we were talking with people,
Speaker 2: we were surprised to learn that a lot of times
Speaker 2: people didn't even realize that, like, oh, this painful thing
Speaker 2: that happened was a trauma and I didn't know how
Speaker 2: it shaped me. I just kind of just pushed it down,
Speaker 2: never talked about it, and just kept going. And so
Speaker 2: when we did our trauma inventories, we were very intentional
Speaker 2: about including things that we typically don't see a PTSD diagnosis. So,
Speaker 2: in order to meet criteria for PTSD, your trauma has
Speaker 2: to be either life threatening or assault, you know, like
Speaker 2: something like a combat or a motor vehicle accident or
Speaker 2: someone attacking you. But if things like let's say a
Speaker 2: severe bankruptcy and that left you homeless in the real world,
Speaker 2: a therapists say, oh, that's traumatizing, but according to textbook standards,
Speaker 2: that doesn't count as a trauma. So we wanted to
Speaker 2: include these experiences that are painful that shape the way
Speaker 2: that you view yourself and the way that you view
Speaker 2: yourself in the world.
Speaker 1: And doctor, did you find that there were any particular
Speaker 1: like categories of trauma that seem to be more correlated
Speaker 1: with high functioning depression.
Speaker 2: Definitely the big T traumas, so more severe traumas like
Speaker 2: being physically attacked. The ones that typically meet criteria for PTSD,
Speaker 2: those tend to be highly correlated. And that makes sense
Speaker 2: because you know, one of the symptoms of trauma and
Speaker 2: there are like over thirty symptoms of trauma. People think
Speaker 2: it's just like hypervigilance or flashbacks or nightmares. There are
Speaker 2: thirty plus and so one of the symptoms of trauma
Speaker 2: is actually like internalizing self blame, shame, and guilt. And
Speaker 2: we know that this is like the human brain's way
Speaker 2: of coping with how did something bad happen to me?
Speaker 2: Why did something bad happen to me? And many times
Speaker 2: when bad things happen to us, our brains automatically goes
Speaker 2: into this like very regressive default mode, like a child
Speaker 2: would think like, oh, I must have done something bad,
Speaker 2: there must be something about me, versus a more mature
Speaker 2: or a higher level of thinking about it would be, oh,
Speaker 2: bad things happen to good people all the time, Right,
Speaker 2: I didn't do anything. But our brains do that as
Speaker 2: a way of kind of controlling the situation because we
Speaker 2: don't like uncertainty. So it's like, something bad happens to
Speaker 2: me because I'm bad, right, And so many times folks
Speaker 2: don't have their trauma process, will go on this path
Speaker 2: in life where they people please, where they've been over backwards,
Speaker 2: where they don't feel worthy of rest because they don't
Speaker 2: feel worthy internally. And that is a trauma response that
Speaker 2: many folks don't even connect. They don't even make that
Speaker 2: correlation because they haven't fully doubt what their trauma. They're
Speaker 2: still trying to outrun it.
Speaker 1: More from our conversation after the break. So, I wonder
Speaker 1: if you can talk about if we're talking about some
Speaker 1: symptoms that aren't necessarily like your classic depressive symptoms and
Speaker 1: some that are, so what would it look like Is
Speaker 1: this a diagnosis that people are getting of high functioning depression?
Speaker 1: Like how would you talk with your therapists or your
Speaker 1: psychiatrist about Like, Hey, I read this book, but I
Speaker 1: think that this might be me Like what kinds of
Speaker 1: things would you be looking for to figure out? Like, Oh,
Speaker 1: is this something I'm struggling with.
Speaker 2: What's interesting is that years ago, when I first started
Speaker 2: creating content about high functioning depression, I had a lot
Speaker 2: of therapists saying, Oh, that's not real. Why are we
Speaker 2: talking about high functioning depression? We need to be talking
Speaker 2: about clinical depression. What I said was, listen, there's enough
Speaker 2: depression to go around for all of us, right, Like,
Speaker 2: let's not try to compete with each other. But now
Speaker 2: I have therapists reaching out to me saying thank you
Speaker 2: for this book because I have so many clients who
Speaker 2: are still killing it, who are still crushing it, who
Speaker 2: are still showing up, but they are struggling with antedonia.
Speaker 2: They're using work, they're using business as a coping mechanism,
Speaker 2: and frankly, there's like nothing out there for them. And
Speaker 2: so now I think a lot of therapists are realizing
Speaker 2: that depression has many different faces. That not everyone stays
Speaker 2: in bed, not everyone's crying, not everyone's shutting down, some
Speaker 2: people can't sit still, and many times it's misdiagnosed as anxiety.
Speaker 2: And not to say that the two don't travel together,
Speaker 2: but anxiety has a lot of physical symptoms. When you
Speaker 2: look at generalized anxiety disorder, there are a lot of
Speaker 2: physical physiological symptoms of anxiety like tummy, a tension in
Speaker 2: your body, heart racing, sweaty palms, feel like you're going
Speaker 2: to pass out, and you don't see anadonia there. And
Speaker 2: so the key thing a lot of these therapists are
Speaker 2: seeing is something called anadonia, this lack of interest, this
Speaker 2: lack of pleasure. And it's one thing if your client
Speaker 2: is busy and productive and enjoying it. But what these
Speaker 2: therapists are telling me is that they have these clients
Speaker 2: that look great on the outside. They're doing many things,
Speaker 2: but they don't enjoy it and they can't slow down.
Speaker 2: And that is the key, right, because as human beings,
Speaker 2: we were built with the DNA for joy. It's literally
Speaker 2: built into our genetic code. So if you are not
Speaker 2: experiencing joy, if you've lost your ability to reclaim joy,
Speaker 2: that is a problem. Right. It's not going to get
Speaker 2: you admitted to hospital. It's not a medical emergency, but
Speaker 2: it is an existential crisis and it's something that you
Speaker 2: are deserving of. So if you're lacking joy, don't ignore it.
Speaker 1: So that is what you would really kind of qualify
Speaker 1: is like the homework of high functioning depression is this antedonia,
Speaker 1: and like the lack of joy.
Speaker 2: The lack of joy, the antedonia and the inability to
Speaker 2: sit still, right, because that's what makes it different than
Speaker 2: this anxiety, right, the inner restlessness. What we found in
Speaker 2: our clinical research study is this inability to sit still
Speaker 2: because you're outrunning pain. You think you're chasing happiness, but
Speaker 2: you're trying to outrun something you haven't processed in the past.
Speaker 2: When people finally click that together, they really want to understand, well, one,
Speaker 2: did I actually stop experiencing joy? When did this painful
Speaker 2: situation occur? Like, I need to figure this out. And
Speaker 2: this is important because this can actually help you to
Speaker 2: start to change the way that you cope with pain.
Speaker 2: Rather than pushing it down, you may start to validate it.
Speaker 2: And that's why I put the five v's in my
Speaker 2: book because I want it people to use a simple method,
Speaker 2: a step by step path towards reclaiming joy, and it
Speaker 2: starts with validation.
Speaker 1: So can you talk more about the five vs?
Speaker 2: Five is a number that's been popping up in a
Speaker 2: lot of my travels. I traveled the world studying mental
Speaker 2: health issues, and five I think pops up across the
Speaker 2: globe because most of us have five fingers, right, and
Speaker 2: so validation is the first fee. When you think about validation,
Speaker 2: validation is acknowledging how you feel and accepting it no
Speaker 2: matter what, without judgment. It usually is this analogy of
Speaker 2: imagine you're in a dark room, pitch black, you can't
Speaker 2: see anything, and you hear a loud crash. Well, some
Speaker 2: of us would start freaking out, some of us start screaming,
Speaker 2: some would start swinging, some of us would start running.
Speaker 2: But if you turn the light on and you saw
Speaker 2: that it was an inanimate object that fell and you're safe,
Speaker 2: then you're like, oh, certainty has gone away. We feel
Speaker 2: at ease. So when you acknowledge how you feel and
Speaker 2: you turn the light on on what's really happening. That's
Speaker 2: how many of my clients feel. Sometimes I have men
Speaker 2: come to my office and they're like, I am so angry.
Speaker 2: My wife says, I need anger management. We peel back
Speaker 2: on that emotion, like, are you really angry? What makes
Speaker 2: you think you're angry? Well, I was yelling, and I said,
Speaker 2: well that's a behavior, right, yelling could be anger, but
Speaker 2: it could be something else. Well, I slammed doors. Again,
Speaker 2: it's a behavior. What did you really feel? And then
Speaker 2: we take some time and we figured it out and
Speaker 2: the person's actually quite worried. They're worried about not providing,
Speaker 2: they're worried about being a failure. And so that's why
Speaker 2: it's important to name your emotion and name and acknowledge
Speaker 2: your experiences, because only then when you turn that light
Speaker 2: on can you actually figure out the appropriate mechanism. Because
Speaker 2: the tools for anger, you know this, very different than
Speaker 2: the tools for worry, and so validation can be self validation.
Speaker 2: It could be you acknowledging it and accepting it for yourself.
Speaker 2: We can validate other people with my tools in the
Speaker 2: book The Quizzes. I find these rating scales to be
Speaker 2: very validating because in medicine, if you have like a
Speaker 2: heart condition or you can go for a test, you
Speaker 2: can get an EKG. If you have high cholesterol, you
Speaker 2: can go for blood work. But for mental health we
Speaker 2: don't have that as yet. So I need it to
Speaker 2: have these measures, these ways to validate using actual tools,
Speaker 2: and so validation could be in the form of a
Speaker 2: rating scale. If you're wondering, oh do I have Antedonia
Speaker 2: created these rating skills based on some of the other
Speaker 2: research tools that I use in my lab for my
Speaker 2: clinical studies, so that you can say, okay, what level
Speaker 2: do I have of anaedonia? And some of my clients
Speaker 2: will flo out the Anadonia rating scale and they'll be like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, like, I don't enjoy half the things
Speaker 2: I used to do right, and I would not have
Speaker 2: known had I not filled out this rating scale. So
Speaker 2: there are many ways to validate the second V is venting.
Speaker 2: So in my lab, I'll have people take turns with
Speaker 2: this big balloon, and we'll take turns dunking it into
Speaker 2: a big tank of water, and one hundred percent of
Speaker 2: time that balloon pops up. Why because you can't out
Speaker 2: math physics right, It's going to pop up one hundred
Speaker 2: percent of time. And then we'll take turns deflating this balloon,
Speaker 2: and what happens. We can easily push this balloon, deflate
Speaker 2: a balloon at the bottom of the tank. And so
Speaker 2: I like this analogy because if you don't express your emotions,
Speaker 2: if you don't get it out right, then you imagine
Speaker 2: that at balloon, your emotions will pop up in your health. Right,
Speaker 2: many of us have these migraines, we have these tummy pains,
Speaker 2: we don't even know what's going on, body aches. It'll
Speaker 2: pop up in our relationships, so we snap at our
Speaker 2: loved ones. It'll pop up out work. So that's why
Speaker 2: it's important to get in the practice of expressing how
Speaker 2: you feel and Venting can be done verbally, It could
Speaker 2: be done in a therapy setting with a therapist. It
Speaker 2: could be done with journal writing. Validating. Venting can be
Speaker 2: done through expressions such as prayer for people who are
Speaker 2: faith based, so you can vent in many different ways.
Speaker 2: You got to find a way that's healthy for you.
Speaker 2: What about the other three? Well, and before I go
Speaker 2: into the other three venting their dos and don't, right,
Speaker 2: you don't want to be trauma dumping on people. I
Speaker 2: always tell my clients, if you're venting to your kids,
Speaker 2: I'd rather vent to me because your child isn't going
Speaker 2: to say, Mommy, I don't want to talk to Your
Speaker 2: child will listen because they want to feel connected to you.
Speaker 2: They don't want to be rejected. But they're going to
Speaker 2: worry about you, right, So think think about who you're
Speaker 2: venting to. Is it someone in a lower position of
Speaker 2: power than you? Is this person going to resent you
Speaker 2: like an employee? And also be very intentional about it.
Speaker 2: Are you venting just to get people on your side
Speaker 2: and you don't really care about the resolution or are
Speaker 2: you really intentional about Okay, I have a problem, I
Speaker 2: need to get it solved. I'm going to be unbiased.
Speaker 2: I'm going to ask people who I trust to give
Speaker 2: me honest feedback. Right, and before you vent to people
Speaker 2: if it's not your therapist, because if you pay a therapist,
Speaker 2: you can say whatever you want, right. But when you're
Speaker 2: venting to people in your life, really check in and
Speaker 2: ask for emotional consent. Ask is this okay? Time? Is
Speaker 2: this going to trigger you? Right? So, there are dos
Speaker 2: and don'ts to venting, And what's exciting doctor Joy is
Speaker 2: that there's recent research on why proper venting Why, Like
Speaker 2: there's evidence based venting why it's important because if you're
Speaker 2: venting in that trauma dumping way, you actually feel worse.
Speaker 2: They liken it to pouring gas on a fire. So
Speaker 2: you want to vent with intention, You want to vent
Speaker 2: with emotional consent. The third bee is well, don't you.
Speaker 1: Joseph, I want to dudge you. I want to stay
Speaker 1: here because there's been lots of conversations around like trauma
Speaker 1: dubbing online, and I'm really glad you dove into that
Speaker 1: because in my mind, there is a difference like what
Speaker 1: I am doing with clients in session, even if they
Speaker 1: are vincing so to speak, like we are processing, working
Speaker 1: through it. What I imagine happening with vincing to like
Speaker 1: a best friend is just like you might say like, oh,
Speaker 1: this thing happened to me, and maybe your friend is
Speaker 1: just saying like, oh my gosh, that's really messed up,
Speaker 1: and that feels very different to me. So can you
Speaker 1: talk about like the difference in what like would be
Speaker 1: venting to a therapist versus venting to a friend. And
Speaker 1: if you are venting to a friend, should you expect
Speaker 1: there to be some resolution from the venting.
Speaker 2: That's a really great question. Usually with my clients, what
Speaker 2: I advise is you pick one or two people because
Speaker 2: and I talk about this in the book, you don't
Speaker 2: want to be like a sprinkler. You don't want to
Speaker 2: be like anyone who could listen, this is what happens,
Speaker 2: This will happen, you know, like because that will unfortunately,
Speaker 2: that will bite you in the end. People talk, and
Speaker 2: you can't trust everyone. But when you get into a
Speaker 2: practice of identifying one or two trusted individuals, you want
Speaker 2: to nurture that relationship. And what I mean by nurturing
Speaker 2: is you want to make sure there's reciprocity. Right, if
Speaker 2: you're my go to friend, I'm your go to friend
Speaker 2: right when you need help, I'm there. When I need help,
Speaker 2: You're there and check in with them. Emotional consent looks
Speaker 2: like I have something really painful to tell you and
Speaker 2: I'm really struggling. Is this a good time or can
Speaker 2: we schedule a call? Right? That's what emotional consent looks like.
Speaker 2: It doesn't like, let me call this person and start
Speaker 2: crying on the phone. Right. And yes, none of us
Speaker 2: are perfect. We'll have those days, but generally speaking, you
Speaker 2: want to have that relationship as being sacred. Now, it's
Speaker 2: different with a therapist. You and I know that when
Speaker 2: someone has trusted us with their mental health, it's not
Speaker 2: about us. Right, not to say you treat your therapist poorly,
Speaker 2: but you know your therapist is there to listen to
Speaker 2: you and to literally understand your patterns over time, to
Speaker 2: take notes, to guide you, but not tell you what
Speaker 2: to do. Right. That's why we go to school for
Speaker 2: so many years and then to pull on these We
Speaker 2: go and we do our research and we come back
Speaker 2: with these different tools because this is a therapeutic relationship,
Speaker 2: so it's very different. You don't have to be like,
Speaker 2: is it okay if I tell this? No, we want
Speaker 2: you to tell us there's none that. Usually we don't share.
Speaker 2: There are some cases where we do share if it
Speaker 2: is appropriate for the treatment, but usually it's not like, okay,
Speaker 2: now it's my turn, you know. And if you're in
Speaker 2: a therapy and your therapist tells you way more than
Speaker 2: they should be, you may want to think about that, right.
Speaker 2: So they're very different relationships, but generally I would say
Speaker 2: pick one or two people, and there's this understanding that
Speaker 2: this is how you vent. We're not just trying to
Speaker 2: like pour gas into a fire. When we get together
Speaker 2: and when we share something that's happened to us, we're
Speaker 2: looking for an honest feedback and how to resolve a situation,
Speaker 2: not just gossiping, not just tearing people down, not just
Speaker 2: doing this because it feels good in the moment but
Speaker 2: then feels awful later. There's a real goal to this venting. Goat,
Speaker 2: thank you for that clarification. So you're reading to the
Speaker 2: fourth of the values. These are things that bring your
Speaker 2: life meaning and purpose. You see the the accolades in
Speaker 2: the background. I have so many degrees I can't even
Speaker 2: hang them all. There was a time in my life
Speaker 2: when that was all that matter. And I'm from a
Speaker 2: Caribbean background. I came to this country with very little,
Speaker 2: so it was always like you got to get as
Speaker 2: many degrees as possible. You're here and other people aren't.
Speaker 2: You got to take advantage of any and all opportunities.
Speaker 2: And there was a time when I did that. And
Speaker 2: not to say that it's necessarily a bad thing, but
Speaker 2: over time, if you have to really think about what
Speaker 2: it is that's happening, are you seeking out things that
Speaker 2: have price tags or are they truly priceless? And for me,
Speaker 2: the priceless part of my love hate journey with knowledge
Speaker 2: and learning, the priceless part was when I was a
Speaker 2: lot younger, and I just love to learn. I was
Speaker 2: very curious. I wanted to get my hands on everything
Speaker 2: just for the sake of learning. But for premetters out there,
Speaker 2: when you start that pre med journey, sometimes it can
Speaker 2: be so intense that you're just about I just don't
Speaker 2: want to fail. You just want to like get through it,
Speaker 2: and you stop. Actually, at least for me, it stopped
Speaker 2: being about the knowledge and the curiosity. It was more about, well,
Speaker 2: I just can't fail. So then you start to get
Speaker 2: numb to the a's and the accolades. And it was
Speaker 2: during twenty twenty where personally I was at a peak
Speaker 2: in my career where I had just gotten onto this
Speaker 2: board at Columbia, this prestigious board, and like it was
Speaker 2: always on TV and like everyone was like, wow, you're
Speaker 2: doing so well. And I was experiencing the worst anadonia
Speaker 2: of my life. And I just thought, well, what's the
Speaker 2: point of having all the success if there's no joy?
Speaker 2: And I had to do a deep dive into what
Speaker 2: really brought me purpose and meaning, and for me, it
Speaker 2: was going back to my past and looking at times
Speaker 2: where I actually felt full and fed, as in like, wow,
Speaker 2: this is meaningful. And I remember it was when I
Speaker 2: was helping others and when I was learning for fun.
Speaker 2: So I started reading again. If I just started one
Speaker 2: stop reading again. I remember I read Michelle Mama's book Becoming,
Speaker 2: and I was like, why didn't I read this before?
Speaker 2: Like oh, because I was so busy reading research protocols,
Speaker 2: internal articles. Right, So I just started like reading for
Speaker 2: fun again and it just like lit me up. And
Speaker 2: then I thought, well, let me start doing things for
Speaker 2: others that don't pay me, just out of like the
Speaker 2: goodness of my heart. Because I grew up in the
Speaker 2: church volunteering and that used to make me feel joyful.
Speaker 2: Started doing that again, and slowly my aunt Hadonia went away.
Speaker 2: But I think many of us we don't realize that
Speaker 2: the things that are really priceless, those are things that
Speaker 2: really matter, because when you're in your last minutes of life,
Speaker 2: you're not going to be like I wish I had
Speaker 2: another degree, or I wish I had a house another house.
Speaker 2: You're going to say like I wish I could spend
Speaker 2: five minutes doing the things that made life worth living,
Speaker 2: you know. So that could be your family, it could
Speaker 2: be your faith, it could be a cause that you
Speaker 2: believed in. Usually it's not things with the price tags.
Speaker 2: So try and tap into those things. And that's what
Speaker 2: the values are. And there's a lot of evidence on values.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of research on it, both in the
Speaker 2: spiritual community and the religious community and in the mental
Speaker 2: health community.
Speaker 1: More from our conversation after the break, well, doctor Judy,
Speaker 1: I want to stuff you because something you mentioned makes
Speaker 1: me think about I know you are a mom. I'm
Speaker 1: a mom. Lots of moms in the community, lots of
Speaker 1: people with little ones in our lives, and so many
Speaker 1: of us come from these families where it's the whole
Speaker 1: idea of like you got to work twice as hard
Speaker 1: to get half as much.
Speaker 2: Success is really driven by like degrees.
Speaker 1: And so when you think about, like maybe with your
Speaker 1: own child, and like any suggestions for people who are
Speaker 1: raising little ones around, like how to not reinforce this
Speaker 1: idea that this is what really makes you happy, Like
Speaker 1: these are the things that really matter.
Speaker 2: The thing I love about my daughter, she just turned nine,
Speaker 2: is that she's very different than me. She is more
Speaker 2: about like the soft life. She'll be like, so I'll
Speaker 2: be you know, I'll be like, Okay, we gotta do this,
Speaker 2: we gotta do this, And she's like, Mom, I'm tired,
Speaker 2: and you look tired too, And I'm like, you know what,
Speaker 2: I am tired, thank you.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So, I really like now to listen to the people
Speaker 2: in my life. I listen to my daughter, I listen
Speaker 2: to my lab, like the people at work in my lab.
Speaker 2: If they're like, listen, we're doing too much, I listen
Speaker 2: and I slow down. Whereas before it was like, come on, guys,
Speaker 2: we just have to do more. We just have to
Speaker 2: but validating others, right, you know, the first V has
Speaker 2: been very instrumental in my journey. And I used to
Speaker 2: have this deep fear that if I slow down had
Speaker 2: all nothing thinking that meant stopping slow down. Slowing down
Speaker 2: is not stopping. And what I found personally is that
Speaker 2: when I slow down and I focus on one or
Speaker 2: two projects that are really important, I flourish versus trying
Speaker 2: to do everything, because then none of those projects flourish,
Speaker 2: they're just like half done. So listening to others has
Speaker 2: been a tool that I've incorporated in my life. But
Speaker 2: for my patients who maybe don't have a network of
Speaker 2: people around to listen to or to get feedback from,
Speaker 2: I say, listen to your body. We all have a
Speaker 2: part of our body that starts to It's like our
Speaker 2: tell right. Personally, if my nails are not being done,
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, I'm too busy, right. But for others
Speaker 2: it could be if you're back there's a certain part
Speaker 2: of your back that's aching. It means that you're working
Speaker 2: too much or you're doing too much. For others, it
Speaker 2: could be their hair, right, Just listen to your body.
Speaker 2: It could be your skin. There's a whole field of
Speaker 2: psychodermatology where your skin literally will tell you what's happening,
Speaker 2: you know mentally, So if you don't have someone to
Speaker 2: guide you, just listen to yourself, self validate and that
Speaker 2: can help you to point you in the right direction.
Speaker 1: So that sounds like modeling really for the little people
Speaker 1: in our lives is really helpful, right, like getting a
Speaker 1: chick on our own kind of productivity and then modeling
Speaker 1: that so that the kids and have a self life.
Speaker 2: As you mentioned. Yeh, yes, So my daughter, I'm very
Speaker 2: intentional about. Okay, we're gonna do things slowly and with compassion,
Speaker 2: right self compassion. I was raised by a mom who
Speaker 2: had four kids back to back, like one one year apart.
Speaker 2: And we have a lot of hair. And my mom
Speaker 2: she's an Indian Caribbean background, my dad's Afro Caribbean, so
Speaker 2: she didn't really know how to do the curly hair
Speaker 2: and so she would be struggling pulling our hair. Now
Speaker 2: when I do my daughter's hair, I just have these
Speaker 2: you know again, I had to go back in my
Speaker 2: memory lane. I'm very slow with doing your hair. I'm
Speaker 2: very careful. I don't want her to feel that rush
Speaker 2: like Tomi. Hair should be pleasurable. It should be like
Speaker 2: a relaxing, wind down technique, and so I'm very careful
Speaker 2: about not passing on a lot of those busy type
Speaker 2: of cultures to her so that she can access joy
Speaker 2: through many ways in life.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I misspoke. Values was number three. Now we
Speaker 1: are moving on into number four.
Speaker 2: Oh. Vitals, yes, vitals, yeah, vitals. When my daughter turned too,
Speaker 2: I started telling her every night we had this routine,
Speaker 2: this bathroom routine, how many bodies did God give you?
Speaker 2: And she'd say one, mommy, And I'd say, what do
Speaker 2: you have to do with that? Take care of it?
Speaker 2: And it's something that she knows to this day. Right,
Speaker 2: you only get one body and brain, and so it's
Speaker 2: really up to us to take care of it. So
Speaker 2: taking care of your vitals looks like, you know, getting
Speaker 2: good movement, and that doesn't have to be like a
Speaker 2: workout regimen. It could be, Okay, instead of working through
Speaker 2: meetings all day, I'm going to get up and I'm
Speaker 2: going to go for a walk around the block or
Speaker 2: a walk down the hall to get water, getting any
Speaker 2: amount of movement. And if you're not into exercising, you
Speaker 2: could be dancing to your favorite song every day. But
Speaker 2: that's really important taking care of vitals looks like eating
Speaker 2: foods that are not highly processed, and there's a whole
Speaker 2: field called nutritional psychiatry where you eat foods that are
Speaker 2: good for your brain that decrease inflammation, and this is
Speaker 2: actually very helpful in letting your brain release those happy chemicals.
Speaker 2: Taking care of vitals looks like getting good deep sleep
Speaker 2: without being on your devices at night, so you get
Speaker 2: that rich ram sleep. And also a part of the
Speaker 2: non traditional vitals that I put in my book have
Speaker 2: to do with technology.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I was on your show last year talking about the
Speaker 2: reset method and about all of the ways that technology
Speaker 2: can be harmful for our brains. So knowing ways that
Speaker 2: technology may be impairing your happiness and putting limits on that,
Speaker 2: and then you know, taking care of vitals. A part
Speaker 2: of that is making sure you're nurturing your healthy relationships,
Speaker 2: because there's a whole body of research coming out of
Speaker 2: Harvard now showing that the quality of your relationships is
Speaker 2: a huge predictor of your longevity. So you can help
Speaker 2: all the kill that you want. If you're partnered with
Speaker 2: someone toxic, you know you're not going to be healthy, right,
Speaker 2: So those are all important ways to take care of
Speaker 2: your body and bring because you only get one. And
Speaker 2: the final V is vision. How do you plan joy
Speaker 2: in the future so you don't get stuck in the past.
Speaker 2: And this is include celebrating your wins, so you know,
Speaker 2: rather than saying, Okay, I'm supposed to do this, say
Speaker 2: I did. Right. It's like a slight shift. But let's
Speaker 2: say you get your kid to school on time like
Speaker 2: I do every day. I'm going to sit in my
Speaker 2: living room and I'm going to have some coffee and
Speaker 2: just say I did that before rushing off to work.
Speaker 2: And I've grown to like really look forward to that
Speaker 2: moment where I get to sit and rest and relax
Speaker 2: and enjoy the fact that I did this thing.
Speaker 1: Are there any myths about high functioning depression that you
Speaker 1: feel like we have not discussed that you feel like
Speaker 1: it would be really important to debunk for the community.
Speaker 2: Yes. When you think of high functioning depression, you often
Speaker 2: think of someone who looks depressed, right, so like people think, oh,
Speaker 2: this is just someone who looks depressed who is actually busy. No,
Speaker 2: you know, I talk about Chesley christ who was a
Speaker 2: Miss USA, beautiful, always smiling, bubbly, but ended up dying
Speaker 2: by suicide. And her mother, April Simpkins, is a good
Speaker 2: friend of mine and she actually endorsed my book and
Speaker 2: she said Chesley had anadonia, but no one knew it, right.
Speaker 2: I want people to know that you can be beautiful
Speaker 2: and bubbly and smiling and the life of the party
Speaker 2: and still struggle with high function and depression. It's not
Speaker 2: just someone who's like high powered and has a grimace
Speaker 2: on their face and getting things done. It's the friend
Speaker 2: that you know makes you laugh. It's the family member
Speaker 2: that is always there when you need them. It's an
Speaker 2: entrepreneur who's taking care of all of their employees but
Speaker 2: not taking care of themselves. It's that student who's getting
Speaker 2: straight a's but who's actually struggling.
Speaker 1: It may be a little early, given that you are
Speaker 1: kind of on the cutting edge of a lot of
Speaker 1: this research, but is there any like genealogy connection, Like
Speaker 1: are we looking at like, oh, is this something that
Speaker 1: has like a genetic component that maybe your mommy, your grandma,
Speaker 1: they're all socialuggle with high functioning depression and you didn't
Speaker 1: know it.
Speaker 2: I didn't do any genetics testing in my study, but
Speaker 2: I've done studies where genetics were involved, and we're trying
Speaker 2: to pinpoint whether or not there are different types of depression.
Speaker 2: I know that I believe it's Stanford that just came
Speaker 2: out earlier this year with a study looking at the
Speaker 2: different types of depression based on genetics and imaging, and
Speaker 2: that article is interesting. They didn't talk about high functioning depression,
Speaker 2: probably because there was no other study besides mine, but
Speaker 2: they did talk about different types of depression, and so
Speaker 2: I think people are starting to realize that a lot
Speaker 2: of mental health conditions have different subtypes. There's a recent
Speaker 2: article I can't remember which university published this, but there
Speaker 2: were like different subtypes of autism, right. So a huge
Speaker 2: part of medicine that is missing is what's called precision medicine, right,
Speaker 2: or precision psychiatry, trying to figure out what type of subtypes,
Speaker 2: what phenotypes there are. And in my writeup, when you
Speaker 2: start the NIH website and you look for my paper,
Speaker 2: you'll see that we put we're looking at a different phenotype, right,
Speaker 2: We're trying to see the not so typical face that
Speaker 2: people associate with depression. We're trying to see if there
Speaker 2: are categories that are often overlooked. It's important to do
Speaker 2: this work because we know that if we wait until
Speaker 2: people break down, we're too late. Why wait, we should
Speaker 2: just show people the signs so they can actually start
Speaker 2: taking the steps to reclaiming their joy before they break down.
Speaker 1: Doctor Judith, what does it look like for us to
Speaker 1: continue these conversations, especially in the community of black women right, like,
Speaker 1: so that we aren't shaming people for what they're experiencing,
Speaker 1: whether we are decreasing some of the stigma related to
Speaker 1: high functioning depression.
Speaker 2: Well, I think talking about things openly definitely helps, and
Speaker 2: sharing stories. I was recently at Essence Fest and I
Speaker 2: had my book. I had a fireside chat with one
Speaker 2: of the editors, Minique Flicker, and she actually said during
Speaker 2: the talk, I think I may have struggled with this.
Speaker 2: And it's like having those conversations out loud in a
Speaker 2: room full of people and being able to say that
Speaker 2: and then have people in the audience shaking their heads
Speaker 2: and agreeing. I think that's huge because it like, not
Speaker 2: long ago, people weren't saying that, they weren't acknowledging it.
Speaker 2: They were saying, oh, that was someone else. And I
Speaker 2: think there's still a lot of work to be done.
Speaker 2: Usually when you go to especially like high powered events
Speaker 2: or workplaces, people feel more comfortable using terms like burnout
Speaker 2: and oh I'm burnt out too, Oh yeah, me three.
Speaker 2: But if you say I'm depressed, people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: there's not like a so am I or me three?
Speaker 2: It's like we should do something about that. Right, So,
Speaker 2: I do think that the word burnout is actually overused.
Speaker 2: I think people are actually a lot of people are
Speaker 2: actually depressed, but they are too afraid to say it,
Speaker 2: and burnout seems more culturally acceptable. But we have to
Speaker 2: remember that the term burnout was even in our medical
Speaker 2: literature until like thirty years ago. Right, It's a relatively
Speaker 2: new phenomenon. And the difference between burnout and high functioning
Speaker 2: depression is that burnout is a workplace condition. I have
Speaker 2: this brain model here that I often use. So when
Speaker 2: you think about the brain, the brain in the workplace
Speaker 2: experiences a lot of symptoms in burnout because the pressures
Speaker 2: of the workplace are causing the burnout. But when you
Speaker 2: remove that brain from the workplace and that brain gets
Speaker 2: rest and is away from the stressors, that burnout gets better. Right,
Speaker 2: high function depression in the workplace you have all the
Speaker 2: same pressures of the workplace. You sell the symptoms, you
Speaker 2: remove that brain. What happens. They don't get better, They're
Speaker 2: finding other work to do. They can't sit still, they
Speaker 2: can't relax. When they're not busy, they're empty. When they're
Speaker 2: not doing work, they feel restless. So that's a difference.
Speaker 2: Burnout is caused by the actual environment. High function depression
Speaker 2: is something internal. There's something inside that's not resolved. So
Speaker 2: even if you take them out of the environment, they
Speaker 2: can't relax. And so I think a lot of education
Speaker 2: needs to be done about that, and that's why people
Speaker 2: are taking all these burnout courses and they're still not
Speaker 2: feeling better. I think a lot of people have individualized
Speaker 2: pain that they're not acknowledging, and it's being mislabeled.
Speaker 1: How would you say the pandemic kind of interacted with
Speaker 1: high functioning depression. What are your guesses around whether that
Speaker 1: led to maybe more high functioning depression or what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'll bring my brain out again with the pandemic.
Speaker 2: Like if you think about trauma as an ocean, we
Speaker 2: got hit with this uncertainty. Okay, then before we could recover,
Speaker 2: ro'll told oh, actually you can go back, We're safe, okay,
Speaker 2: but then we're like, oh, sorry, there's another variant. You
Speaker 2: have to hide again, So another wave. Oh and then
Speaker 2: there's Black Lives Matter and George Floyd. Here we go.
Speaker 2: We hit again with another trauma, and then the capital
Speaker 2: hit with another trauma. This environmental disasters hit again, wars
Speaker 2: abroad hit again, seeing people dying in terrible ways. We
Speaker 2: just don't get. We haven't had a moment to recover.
Speaker 2: Our brains have just been hit by so much and
Speaker 2: it doesn't seem like there was a break. This is
Speaker 2: a consensus that I've seen around everywhere. It's like what's next?
Speaker 2: And over time, if you get trauma wave after trauma wave,
Speaker 2: if trauma wave and you're just not able to literally
Speaker 2: catch your breath, you start getting numb. You start to
Speaker 2: see things online and you're like, you don't even feel
Speaker 2: anything anymore. When you see disasters, it's like, eh, So,
Speaker 2: anedonia is tied to trauma as well, and that's why
Speaker 2: it's important for us to have these terms to understand
Speaker 2: what's happening to our brains so we can protect our brains. Right,
Speaker 2: if you know that your brain is being traumatized over
Speaker 2: and over again, by images you're gonna learn. Okay, maybe
Speaker 2: I need to take a break. I need to turn
Speaker 2: off my phone. Not to say that you shouldn't be
Speaker 2: pluged into what's happening or informed, but you don't have
Speaker 2: to be informed twenty four seven. You know you're worthy
Speaker 2: of rest, you're worthy of self care. So what would
Speaker 2: you do INSTEADY limit your phone use, go out in
Speaker 2: the world, touch some grass, interact with people. When you
Speaker 2: hold a loved one's hand, when you hug a loved one,
Speaker 2: when you kiss a loved one, oxytocin is released. It's
Speaker 2: the love attachment hormone. You're not getting that when you're
Speaker 2: just like texting them. You want to be able to
Speaker 2: get out in the world and experience points of joy
Speaker 2: because it's literally healing. And when I say points of joy,
Speaker 2: I use that term very intentionally because in the research,
Speaker 2: the way that we measure happiness is by adding up
Speaker 2: points literally on these rating scales. But in the real
Speaker 2: world and therapy world, when patients come in, they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: doctor dud, I just want to be happy. They don't
Speaker 2: think in terms of points. They're thinking when I ask them,
Speaker 2: what is happiness for you? Well, happiness is when I
Speaker 2: get like this dream partner, or happiness is when I
Speaker 2: get a big job or pay off my debt. Right,
Speaker 2: they're thinking about these events, But happiness is just that
Speaker 2: it's a situation that depends on the externals. So when
Speaker 2: something happens externally, then you get happy. Right. Joy is
Speaker 2: very different. Joy happens when you experience these sensations that
Speaker 2: literally are responsible for making your brain feel experience happiness.
Speaker 2: So that's joy looks like when you eat your food,
Speaker 2: you're tasting it, you're savoring it. It's yummy. Right when
Speaker 2: you decide to take a nap, you wake up and
Speaker 2: you feel refreshed. When you are lonely and you reach
Speaker 2: out to a loved one, you feel seen and heard
Speaker 2: and connected. When you're stressed, you're able to self soothe.
Speaker 2: Stress is actually measured in the happiness research. People don't
Speaker 2: even realize that it's really hard to access joy when
Speaker 2: you're very, very stressed. So you know, the joy are
Speaker 2: all these experiences that we're literally leaving on the tape
Speaker 2: and sometimes because we're on our phones all the time. Right,
Speaker 2: So try this, when you're eating your food, put your
Speaker 2: phone away, put it in like the next room, and
Speaker 2: literally just eat your food and peace and taste it
Speaker 2: and savor it. When you're talking to your loved one
Speaker 2: or playing with your pet, put the phone the other room,
Speaker 2: and just be really present. Right. All of these experiences
Speaker 2: literally release the points of joy that we add up
Speaker 2: to see if someone's becoming happy, versus people who say, well,
Speaker 2: when X happens, I will be happy. Because that delayed
Speaker 2: happiness model doesn't work. Even when you get those things
Speaker 2: that you're holding your breath for, you're still not happy.
Speaker 2: So try and experience the points of joy in the
Speaker 2: every day, because that's how you actually measure whether or
Speaker 2: not you're becoming happier.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for that, doctor Judith. I know
Speaker 1: so many people will resonate with everything that you have
Speaker 1: shared here today. I know lots of conversations will happen.
Speaker 1: Please let us know where can we stay connected with
Speaker 1: you and grab our own copy of High Functioning.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. It's so great
Speaker 2: to see you at all these events. You can follow
Speaker 2: me at at doctor Judith Joseph, and you can buy
Speaker 2: my book wherever books are sold, High Functioning Perfect.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, doctor Judith. We'll make sure to
Speaker 1: include all that in.
Speaker 2: Our show notes. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad Doctor Joseph was able to join us
Speaker 1: again for today's conversation. To learn more about her and
Speaker 1: her work, be sure to visit the show notes at
Speaker 1: Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash Session four fifty six,
Speaker 1: and don't forget to text this episode to two of
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Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Alas Ellis Indai Tubu and
Speaker 1: Tyree Rush. Editing was done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank
Speaker 1: y'all so much for joining me again this week. I
Speaker 1: look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon.
Speaker 1: Take good care,