realize that you needed to look deeper?

Well, when I was 13, 13 was kind of the troubling time for me when I first got diagnosed with my mental health journey.

And I started noticing this shift in my overall behavior and just how I was acting during the day and just in regular life.

I knew something was up because it was just something that was not atypical of me.

It wasn't common for me to have those kind of feelings.

So I... we started having to go to doctor's appointments, which I was kind of against at the time because I was like, I don't want to go to a doctor right now.

There's nothing wrong with me.

So if you have to give one advice to the listeners today, what would you give? I would say for

really

talk a lot about different things on those podcasts.

Those podcasts wouldn't have had trouble.

But with this being more of a personal one, basically everything that I had really talked about, I had actually discussed.

So I was starting to run out of ideas of like, what can I cover, what can I talk about, because I couldn't think of anything.

But then I got an email from PodMatch, Alex, the founder of it, and he was like, by the way, I found your podcast.

I thought that your podcast was really great.

But, you know, I don't know, it's like, you know, Who, like, what type of guests have been your favorite? I guess that's my question that I'm leading into.

What made you decide that sharing your story was something you wanted to do?

I wanted to bring awareness to mental health and talk about it and show people that It's okay to have a mental health disorder that is not going to make you be seen as different.

It's not something that people should really ridicule you about.

It's something that a lot of people go through from time to time.

And I wanted people to just see from a visual standpoint that no matter what you go through, no matter what you have experienced, this does not define who you are as a person this does not define what you do people shouldn't treat you differently people should not be um people should not just ridicule you for everything it's about looking inside and seeing that you know people can obviously change and people can obviously live life very much typically fine with mental health disorders.

So I want people to see that you don't have to be kind of sheltered or be kind of kept quiet, that you can openly talk about it and not feel shameful.

Looking back, I really wanted to open up and show to people that this is something that I live with.

Is podcast simply a career or a creative interest for you? Or have you found your voice through it that makes you understand other people and relates to them?

So, uh, did these experiences affect your interactions with other people?

Um, I think it happens to a lot of people, especially years and years ago.

I don't think it happens as m- much now, but back in twenty sixteen, twenty fifteen, when I had it, mental health was seen as like a, like a taboo thing.

It was a taboo subject no one really talked about, no one really brought to anyone's attention, and no one was really actively advocating for it.

Now, what I've seen is more of a setback with mental health.

I think society has this kind of idea about mental health, and it's not put in the best light.

Whenever you're watching the news, and, and this can go for anything, when you see something that a criminal does that's like, oh, he was a school shooter, he was a kind of a...

So can you share with us how did podcasting become part of your journey, and how has podcasting really helped you in the everything that you are becoming currently?

So, you know, you've been open about your battles with depression and anxiety and So what helped you begin moving from surviving to healing?

Well, for me, it was personally a lot of just being open about what I had been going through during all my years and basically opening up about what I had experienced.

I went through... really trials and tribulations.

For a long time, I was quiet.

I really didn't really open up and talk to a lot of people about what I was going through because no one really...

And my immediate circle really cared deeply about my feelings enough.

So I was always just quiet.

So why do you think authentic conversations are so important in today's world?

Mm

... a COVID fr- child going into it.

That's how it was my senior year.

I was a COVID ch- COVID gra- graduate, so we didn't have the typical graduation thing, and a lot of what we usually do for senior year kinda got cut short, which I wasn't really mad about, 'cause that's when my anxiety was really bad.

So I was not too entirely mad about it.

But when college started, I was, had just started battling it, and it was kind of, it, my anxiety was really crippling.

It was a really huge thing that had, that I was going through.

So you don't feel so, like, alone in your own journey?

So how did that period affect you?

Well, as I had kind of briefly touched on earlier, 2020 was not a good year for me and I don't think it was a really good year for anyone that lived through the pandemic.

I think we all suffered in some way, shape or form.

I got diagnosed with COVID later in the year and earlier that year, I was dealing with my anxiety diagnosis.

That's when I first got diagnosed with my anxiety disorder and I was trying to live with it try to figure out like okay how to tackle this inner demon and try to work work on this route um but yeah later on in 2020 i got diagnosed with covid i was actually kind of misdiagnosed at this time um so i actually had it for a long time and it just took a while for them to find it detected and a lot of what i had worked for earlier in the year had kind of just relapsed um I lost a lot of weight because the main symptoms I had for COVID were I didn't have any sense or smell or taste.

I didn't have, like, the flu symptoms, the fever, the nausea.

It was like a lot of the severe cases people were having at the time.

So what does your mental health look like now?

What have you learned about yourself from consistently putting yourself out there and having conversations with other people? Noah, can you hear me?

Hello? I forgot to unmute my mic.

Oops, sorry.

I really have had a lot of good experiences coming from that.

For me, it's just been the relatability.

Growing up, I thought that the mental health struggles that I had were odd and that no one else really had those same feelings as me so I felt kind of alone but podcasting to me has really shown that oh I'm not the only one that really went through it and there have been times where I'm like people actually had it worse than I did and it's kind of really come full circle kind of you know i wish i found these people when i was going through that darkest time because these are these are the people that i wanted i needed to be around so it was just a lot of wishing and looking at it it's like why isn't why couldn't i have had that so um it ended up working out.

But, you know, it's just been really interesting to hear other people's stories and just kind of self-reflect on.

When the results are not immediate, how do you stay committed to your goals?

What does that phrase mean to you personally?

Once a fighter, always a fighter to me is... a thing of once you fight once it, you always fight.

I, there's not one have been a moment where, you know, I fought one time, but I can't fight this one.

I always have fought it.

And I want people to see that as a, don't let whatever you're going through to defeat you.

I want people to know that when it comes to these mental health struggles, you can become the victorious one out of it, that you can win the gold medal.

I don't want people to just feel defeated by it.

How did podcasting become part of your life? Well,

So, when did you first realize something wasn't right?

So when I was in eighth grade, I started noticing that there was just kind of a change in my personal attitude and there was just a change in my thought process.

I started noticing and realizing that there was just something that was off.

wrong.

I had a lot of things that were going on at that time as well.

Um, I started getting bullied pretty severely at school.

My grandmother started getting really, really sick at the time and was just really declining in health.

Okay, so how did COVID-19 pandemic affect your mental health, both emotionally and physically?

I suppose let's kinda start off with your kinda podcasting journey and which show was first and how you got all into it.

So the podcast started, um, about two years ago, but it was like kind of a four-year work in progress.

Um, in 2021 I kind of just had like a...

One day decided I wanted to start a podcast, but of course had no idea where to begin.

So I did some research about what the best platforms were, um, how to upload podcasts on the podcast platforms, and I came across this, um, program called Anchor, which has been rebranded as Spotify for Podcasters now, but at the time it was called Anchor, and all it was was a p- a platform where you could record your episode and it would just immediately upload and be published out.

And so I had gotten everything situated and I thought, "Well, I can just record it on my phone," 'cause it was...

You could record on your phone.

Just, just blast it out there."