Guest: Monica Cwynar

Welcome to Wednesday, teabags!  The absolutely delightful Monica Cwynar pulls up a seat at my kitchen table to talk about her path to becoming a social worker and clinical therapist.  But that’s only the tip of the iceberg, as she highlights some of the many things she’s done in her life that make her call herself the “Forrest Gump of Pittsburgh.”

Monica chats about the orgy that is this allergy season, how her activism is closely tied to social work, how she doesn’t want to (but will) be the therapist who avenges your death, and the importance of her community of strong women, starting with the women in her family.

Get cozy!

This week's small business spotlight is on Tiger Moth Mercantile.

Find Tiger Moth on Instagram: @tigermothmercantile

Order from Tiger Moth at www.tigermothmercantile.com

Intro riff by Dale Lytle (concert husband).

All content edited (I use that term very loosely) by Karen Shaak.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This week's At My Kitchen Table Small Business Spotlight shines on Tiger Moth Mercantile. Tiger Moth Mercantile partners with over thirty local vendors to offer one-of-a-kind and specialty gifts that are perfect for celebrating everyday moments. From housewarming to holidays to just because Tiger Moth has curated the creative, the delicious, and the whimsical to delight your sensibilities. I highly recommend that my local listeners drop into their Carnegie, Pennsylvania store. The shop is an absolute wonder that flows from table to shelf and from room to room that simply encourages you to explore. Check out their upcoming events on the socials at Tiger Moth Mercantile or visit their website at www.tigermothmercantile.com to place an order. Find magic at the Moth. Welcome to Wednesday, friends. The absolutely delightful Monica Sweiner pulls up a seat at my kitchen table to talk about her path to becoming a social worker and clinical therapist. But that's only the tip of the iceberg. As she highlights some of the many things that she's done in her life that make her call herself the forest gump of Pittsburgh. Monica chats about her three-tiered plan to become a social worker, how her activism is closely tied to social work, how she doesn't want to but will be the therapist who avenges your death, and the importance of her community of strong women, starting with the women in her family. Get cozy.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

So it usually happens about twice a year.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah. I've been having sinus issues from mine, but thankfully not so much that year.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Well, no, and because I I have like I'm a real really complicated husband, they do pretty good of keeping me dry and everything. Okay. But this was just, and it didn't hit my lungs. It just was just what it was. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

It gets in the way for me. I don't know about you, but I like to sometimes sleep with the windows open. Like I like the cooler air at night, and then I pay for it in the morning, like during this season.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

No, it's just, it's just it's just trees having sex, girl.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Trees having sex every year. It just is when we just got to get out of their way. That's it. And let them do what they gotta do. Whether not this season feels like an orgy that's almost that is the greatest.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Yes, it really does, though. Yeah, it's really it has been. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you being here with me today. I'm so happy to be here and honored. I was really excited when we were finally able to make this work because I know Michelle was like, You gotta talk to my friend Monica.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Yeah, I don't know why she's such a big fan, but I appreciate it. She's such a badass herself, so she really is. She's a ton of fun. She is a good time. Yeah, we went to Vegas together. That's all I'm gonna say about that.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Well, that's all you can say about that, right? Because it has to stay there. But we had a good time, yeah. Well, for the sake of the listener, I'm just gonna ask that you give yourself a little intro. Share a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

That is always so hard to do because nobody wants to sound like they're blowing themselves up or you know, it feels like a humble brag, right? But my name is Monica Sweiner. I am a licensed clinical social worker. I do a lot of things. I also am a workaholic. So I also here in Pittsburgh, I work for the Penguins. I have taught at Penn West and Carlo University. I currently see patients on three different platforms, and you were literally getting to do this after I just came from an interview at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh to do some moonlighting a couple days, a couple times a month because I just wanted to keep my skills up.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Because you're in your free time. Well, I appreciate you making time for me in the midst of all of that. Although the pens just did free up a little bit of your time.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

I ain't mad about it. No, nah, like we went 16 years in the playoffs nonstop, and we had three years not, and it just means I get the a month off before I go out to the other concert venue that I work at. Which is Post Cazette Pavilion. Okay, you really do keep busy. Look, I am sedentary sometimes too much, so I like to that way, walk, and stuff. It's like a party when you go to work concerts and games all the time. Um, my skills translate to that population because I can talk to anybody, right? Yeah, you know, and at the end of the day, that's just food and drinks, yeah, compared to what I really do. So that's true. It's so easy, it's so enjoyable. And usually when people are at a concert or a game, they're in a good mood because they're having a good time. So, you know, very rarely does it become ugly. Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

I didn't even think about it like that either, though, when when we had chatted in the background and you talked about working for the pens, I never really put it together quite in that way where it's like, oh, you get to be around people when they're actually up. Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of nice.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

That's really nice.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Yeah. Nice. Well, we're gonna get into probably a whole bunch of that um today. And I think where I kind of want to start, because you you said, and I this has stuck with me the entire time, is you called yourself the forest gump of Pittsburgh. And I that just makes me giggle. But truly, when you talk about all the different things that you've done and where you've come from, kind of you really are. And so I kind of want to go back to the beginning and I want you to talk a little bit about your childhood, what type of student you were, things you were into, because you knew at a really early age that you wanted to go into social work, and that's fascinating to me.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

Yeah, so I am. Um, I am the oldest of three children. I grew up uh an hour north of Pittsburgh in Newcastle, Pennsylvania. My parents were pioneers, they are interracial, and they got married within a couple of years after the loving decision, which was the uh civil rights decision that said you could uh marry outside your race.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

So they were definitely pioneers in all that. And I went to a predominantly white school. First, I went to kindergarten at a Catholic school, and that was fine. And the nuns weren't letting anything weird happen, and there was a few people that looked like me, but not very many. When I hit that suburb school, whoo, that was a lesson that a five-year-old had to deal with. That was very painful as a kid. It was isolating, it was rough, and so I was angry, a little angry and frustrated. And we didn't know back then that I was probably ADHD. So, you know, I was dealing with a lot of things and a little dyslexic, but I had this amazing mother who was a nurse, and um, I can probably say that I'm a fourth generation college student, which a lot of families can't say. My great-grandmother was born into slavery and eventually became a nurse. So I come from this bloodline, right, of just crazy strong, capable people. And she just helped me navigate it with different things. And eventually the kids got tired of the racial slurs and that because I was there with them. So by the time I hit junior high school, I was just Monica. I wasn't the black girl anymore, even though nobody else had moved into the district to like ninth grade. So I was really from first grade, minus my siblings, to ninth grade, I was kind of there by myself. Wow. And so it was it was a blessing and it was tough. And the thing that made me probably now as an adult very marketable, which is that I'm comfortable in multicultures, was very isolating as a child for a while.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, that makes total sense. When you say that you had a lot of frustration, like as a five-year-old, what do you do with that? Because it I'm sure at the time, I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but when you're five, do you really think of things in terms of that? Are you like, oh, I'm frustrated with this? Or are you acting out?

SPEAKER_02 8:29

I was acting out a little bit, not as much as at home, okay, but at school sometimes, because you know, I would say things and okay, we'll be your friends through first recess. And if you give me your lunch cakes, and then by second recess, you know, and then just when I think about that little girl sometimes, she was so sad. Yeah. And so because then at home and when we went to church, I was fine, right? I was accepted. I had nothing but love around me. Right. But I would go into these other spaces and didn't know how to code switch yet, and didn't know how to, you know, manage all of that.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

So yeah, and that was something you had to grow into, the code switching. And yeah, can you just in case we've got listeners who don't really fully understand what that is, would you mind defining that?

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Code switching is what minority people have to do to fit into appropriate white culture and then can be different when they're in their own culture, right? So language, sometimes behaviors, but it is the way that I feel that I need to present myself to be accepted, yeah, to make sure that I'm using appropriate language and to not be the scary black woman in certain arenas. Yeah. Which was what has happened, right? Yeah. Uh, because I get to spend all this time in many different arenas. Yeah. And there still are at times people will say things to me like, well, you're tough or you're harsh. Or that just might mean I'm direct. Sure. And people don't always like that. Or, you know, maybe I'm not acting as grateful as I should be in certain situations. Well, you're here, you should or should what?

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Right? Caltown fetch it, be happy to be here. You know, I've worked really hard to get all the titles that I happily possess. Yep. And to maintain as many positions as I do at any given time. And that's not by happenstance. Right. Right? That's from good, sheer hard work, maybe a little bit of brains and some good genes.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

A little bit. I think you're underselling it. That's a that's a lot of brains, but sure. You had mentioned, so I think we talked a little bit about racial integration in your school. Were was the school already integrated, but there just weren't any people of color there? Or like was it totally open to you? Or were you part of an integration process there?

SPEAKER_02 10:51

I feel like there might have been one, a few years ahead of me. Okay. But, you know, so there was grade-wise, there was none around in the few grades ahead of me and below me. I was the only one in the elementary school at that time.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

So then when I went to the high school, when it was a junior or senior high school, right? Yep. Way ahead in the before times, there had been some people. But mostly, yeah, I was there by myself. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

And so, you know, people teach hate. Hate is taught. And so it took a while. But then, like I said, what had happened was, what happened was I had been with them. So I knew all the things they knew. I was learning all the things you knew. Yep. I was playing sports with you guys and getting, so I like, what did you think was gonna happen? Right. So then it just became, you know, not as big of a deal. But like my mother also worked at the hospital, was a nursing super, so she knew people. She went to the city school, so she knew people. So eventually, like she knew our vice president, our vice principal.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

So he knew when I got to junior high school, he looked out for her kid, right? There were some things, there were some so many great teachers that saw that maybe I had something going on and invested in me, but it took a few of them to finally say, you know, there's something great about you. Don't believe this. The press clippings. Yeah. I think too, and I had a mother who kept telling me, I know this is hard, this is gonna pay off down the road. Because I was like, Wow, you didn't do this, why are you making me do this? And she was like, This is where you can get a good education because I can't afford to keep you in private school. But she kept saying, High school is a moment, and you're gonna go off and do great things with your life if you can just hang in there. So eventually I just started to diversify. Yeah, I played in the band, I was on the dance line, I played softball, I was in the school play. You know, I just tried to do all the things. Yeah. And that I was on a gymnastics team, right? So then it kind of like, well, she's kind of everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

So then I started to have multiple groups of friends and got labeled as some, and I had to have decent enough grades to do all those things.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

So then I wasn't like in my high school, I was kind of the dumb one, like part of the dumber kids, you would think. I was still like beasting. I would just bring my mother B's. Okay. She was like, Well, what I said, what do you need from me, woman? And she said, I need B's. Okay, I would bring her all B's. Yeah. She was like, You can't get an A. I was like, You said you needed B's. Like, here's what it is. Yeah. So I got your B's. Let me do what I want to do. And she did. And but then I went away to college at Slippery Rock Universities, like SRU, and um, and I ended up the last day of dropping out of my freshman year, they took me out of two classes. I said, What do you mean? They're like, You don't need these classes. I was like, What are you talking about? You're reading on a senior level third month, and here you are a freshman. I was like, Oh, so wow. So she was right about that school, right? Yeah, yeah, you know, and then I didn't have to take college writing either. I was like, who knew? But the same college writing book that they were using, I'd had my high school, my junior year. So, like, if she was absolutely correct in her plan, right? It was just uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Sure. So it, I mean, it really informs your sense of community, right? Like how how you're talking about how you grew up and the different things that you whether felt like you had to or really just wanted to to kind of put yourself out there, you're having to like find and create community spaces for yourself. Is that a fair assessment?

SPEAKER_02 14:45

Yeah, that's definitely fair. And it was also to like, you don't want me here, then I'm gonna be here.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Got it. So a little defiance there too.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Oh, you don't want me on a softball team, watch me. You don't want me on a dance line, oh I'm that good. Yeah. You don't want me on the gymnastic team, there I am. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

You know, so making a space for yourself. Right. Yeah. Taking space. Taking space. Taking space. I love that. Yeah. You said that you knew you wanted to become a social worker at the age of 13. Yeah. What drew you to that? Like, how in all of that do you come to the space of that's what I want to do?

SPEAKER_02 15:21

It was really kind of basic. It was a movie of the week starring Linda Carter.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Wonder Woman herself. Yep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

And I was such a, I know you don't say this term now, but I was kind of a tomboy.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

And I liked that she got to wear regular clothes. And she was working in this movie and working with the police and all that. And when she talked, people listened to her and took her opinion in.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

And she could be defiant, even in this movie, right? Of standing on her social justice. And I was like, oh, so I went to my mom and I said, Mommy, I finally know what I want to be when I grow up. And she said, What? And I said, I want to be a social worker. She said, Oh shit, you'll never make any money. I was like, she said, but it's respectable. Sure. And then she spent the next few years making sure that I met all kinds of different social workers, thinking that was going to turn me off. And it turned me on.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Yeah, that's so funny. Funny how she probably actually just set you up for success. Like she might not have wanted you to do it, but she accepted it as what it sounds like.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Well, she said it was, you know, it was respectable. Yeah. Like she just like, you know, my family, it didn't matter what you wanted to be, as long as you were gonna be good at it. Yeah. My grandfather's like, I don't care if you're gonna be a bum, but you'd be the best bum on the block with the biggest bottle. Okay. Like, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

I got it. Big bottle, bum. Got it. Be the best at whatever thing I'm doing. What brought you to Pittsburgh? How'd you end up here?

SPEAKER_02 16:50

I got a job after undergraduate. Okay. And that was kind of what brought me down here and following a boy. You know, there's always a boy. Always a boy. If I was smart, I would have gone to Atlanta and just saved my stuff. But at the end of the day, I had family in McKey Sport. And so we would come down here in the summers, and I always loved Pittsburgh. And I knew eventually that that was where I was gonna be. And then when I kind of got down here, I had my Mary Teller Moore moment and threw my hat up in the air and tried to figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

And it worked, but it wasn't, you have actually said it was not a linear path, right? How you ended up coming to clinical therapy. You social work came first, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Social work came first. I had a three-tier plan.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

That's right. I wanted to ask you about that. What was your three-tier plan?

SPEAKER_02 17:38

I wanted to work first with kids and families, then I wanted to get into the medical piece of things, and then I wanted to do private practice because I felt that first of all, kids and families make you good. If you can learn what's going on in that dynamic and people at that point in time, ooh, yeah, hospitals make you knowledgeable and they pay you, right? Because that's where you first get some money. Kids and families, you'll be broke. You just you work at several jobs. That's why you have several jobs. You are this far inches above your clients, yeah. Right? Just trying to make it work. And then, so you get into the medical system and you can actually make some money. And then by the time I went back to get my master's, I was the first African-American fellow at the School of Social Work. When they first started doing fellowships as a non-traditional student, so that was kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

And then I came out, got sat on the board of National Association of Social Work, went and worked in the jails. Okay. Because I hadn't done corrections. So I felt like that needed some attention. There you go. And then started working towards getting eventually your your clinical. So I did uh directors of social services in nursing homes because I hadn't been a boss, so I tried that on, and then I worked hospice, and then I finally went and finished my clinical hours. I had passed the clinical test when I finished grad school.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

And then got my because it's hard to get supervision sometimes for your hours. And then I got that at TRAC Family Services. Shout out to TRAC. I'm still working there too. Nice. And um got my clinical and then started working ever since with Cerebral, Thrive Works, Grow, are the three platforms where I see patients.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Yeah. So you had said that you wanted to start with kids and families, and and I get it. You said that's what makes you good. What is it though about that that makes you good?

SPEAKER_02 19:47

I was lucky enough to first I was working at the shelter. So I was working at the shelter. This started my multiple jobs at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

I was working at Wells Tale Shelter, and I was working a family preservation program, which it was the pilot family preservation program here in Allegheny County. And what that was initially was you had very small caseloads, you had resources to help fix family, but you never had more than three families at a time. You had assistance and you really tried to keep your families out of system.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

So if you could kind of go in and tinker with whatever they needed. So we paid for whatever people needed. And at that time it was in the crack here. I mean, I put people through rehab, we paid for it, but kept their kids so we would do staffing so that they didn't have to not go into placement or their home. You know, people needed driver's license. I would pay for people to learn to drive, like whatever it was. And after a five-year period, they would residually track these families. And 80% of mine never came back into a system. But it was crazy. You were on call 24 hours a day. It was like you had your own family. So, like anything, Becky needs you. Da-da-da-da-da. But parents can't work on good parenting if they're worried about putting out these fires of economic reasons. So I paid electric bills and I did this and helped people get job training and whatever needed to be done.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

And they were only like three-month programs, so you had to do a lot, but you were focused on those kids. So I was doing those two jobs at the same time. And so that started with a multiple job, because then I was like, oh, I can get double experience at the same time working two different areas of social work. And so I just then always started always having multiple positions.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

And so I know the goal is you're saying it's to keep folks out of systems, but are they coming to you from systems?

SPEAKER_02 21:43

Yes, they were all they were all coming from CYF.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

A lot of them were dual, like some were delinquent, dependent juveniles, or one or the other. So yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

But these were all families in crisis. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

And then as you moved into Into medical, did you maintain some of that work too, or did you kind of shift gears when you went medical?

SPEAKER_02 22:06

I shifted gears because I had a crazy amount of press cases when I was working that and like usually they say you can do it three years. I think I did it like seven before the burnout was real. I remember calling my mother saying, I just quit my job. She said, good, that job was killing you.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

I was like, I just I what happened was I was sitting there across from my kid, and he said something I he sat there for 20 minutes and I didn't know what he said. And I said he deserves betterness, so I resigned and went waitress for a while because that's always been good to me, as you see. And uh took a little time off and regrouped and went into the medical field.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Yeah. Do you also then keep yourself in therapy here and there as well as you are treating people? Do you have that for yourself?

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Absolutely. I feel anybody who's doing therapy should be in therapy. Yeah, and there's a thing that happens, it's called uh vicarious trauma, where you can just take on everybody else's stuff. And so I stay in therapy to make sure that I don't do that, yeah, and that I can stay because my patients deserve to have the best version of me that they can. So yeah, I have an awesome therapist. Awesome. Her name is Asia Crawford. Shout out to Asia. She keeps me on point all the time, and she was also a mentor for me. So it's nice to have somebody who you can bounce things off of or double check yourself with. I mean, and I think all good therapists have like their team of other therapists that they can reach out to or run cases by or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Yeah, because it is still a village. That makes also makes a ton of sense because you can't carry it for everybody else and not be able to put it down somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Yeah, and every once in a while we all get cases like, have you seen this before? Yeah, is this what I think it is? You know, and people like, oh girl, no, I don't know. You know?

SPEAKER_00 24:05

I'm like, oh, that's out of my playbook. Maybe you should talk to so and so. When you went, when you shifted gears and went medical, you had mentioned something before about press cases. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_02 24:18

When you have cases with children in use services, a lots of times you could watch the news and I would know that this case was about to be mine.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

I see.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

And then like so these were you know heavy media cases, right? Because they were crazy situations. And at one point, which was nutty, I was uh working felony preservation and I got a message from the CIA. I said, What? Oh my god I looked at this, my supervisor, yeah, we gotta talk about this. I was like what do you mean you gotta talk about it? I was working a case, and like the guy was an informant, but he also was like abusing a kid, and there was some elderly abuse stuff, and I was blown up, and he tried to put a contract out on me. So I was like, wait a minute, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm 23 years old. Somebody wants me dead. That's insane. Dead? And they were just like, we're just letting you know, and then nobody would get in a car with me for a while, and it was insanity.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

So wait, we're just letting you know, and now you're on your own to just deal with whatever this looks like.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

Like me, my my 20-some-year-old boss are like, What is this? So, yes, my mother's like, I just don't want you. I was like, Well, I'm here, like, what am I gonna do? Like, what am I gonna do?

SPEAKER_00 25:30

How did that? I mean, obviously you're here, so it didn't happen, but what how did that all work itself out?

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Uh we went to court and eventually I got uh the kids removed. It was a multi-agency kind of case. My God. One of the social workers is one is still one of my best friends to this day. Yeah, and uh yeah, shout out to Jill, who actually is my producer on my podcast, which is crazy. But um, yeah, we worked that case and it was long and it was so that was like right at the end of me being just exhausted. But like he threatened me in open court, it was on the news. My mother sees it on the news, like, I want you to stop doing this work, you know. Yeah, and at that point I was just young and dumb and didn't realize that my work, I'm doing it, it's the right thing, I care, you know. Yeah, I'm I'm here for it. You're not you're not gonna intimidate me. I walk with Jesus, you know, whatever, whatever you gotta do.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Oh man. Yeah, well, we're glad that that worked out. If everything bad happened to us when we were young and dumb and should have made other choices, none of us would be here. So there's that.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

Well, there's that. And then even though, so when I moved into medical, I'm like, okay, well, this mess, everything's safe. And I go in a room and I'm working at one of the hospitals, and an HIV-positive patient was angry, spit in my eye. Oh, and I had to cycle on those drugs at 25. Oh my god. I was like, uh, and I call my mom, I was like, you know, these drugs are gonna make me sick. She's like, I think we have to do it, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:14

Because the option is get sicker.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Well, she said, I'm sure you're gonna be fine, but we have to do this. But the thing was at the time, because we didn't know as many things, I had to take each dose at a certain time. Well, one of my doses were like three o'clock in the morning, right? I'm like, uh, I'm setting alarms, and then it was like every time I took these pills, I knew I was gonna get really sick. Sure. Right. So I had to do that for like, I think I took the pills for like six weeks, and then for two years afterwards I got tested.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

I mean, it's so easy to be like, wow, perils of the job, but nobody has those. Well, what was the change? What are the odds? Like, that's insane.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

And this was so it's the 90s, so we're still in the beginning, like we don't know everybody. We're still figuring it out, right? We're scared and everything. Yeah, but yeah, I was lucky enough to be working for UPMC, and they had everything I needed, right? They had at the time, they had all the things.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Wow, that's amazing. How did you so you go from social work into clinical therapy? Like, how did you decide? Like, what was what were the areas of opportunity that you were seeing in the community where you thought that that shift was gonna be really important for you to make?

SPEAKER_02 28:29

Well, let's see, there was a lot happening. It was right before the pandemic I had started. There was racial weird stuff starting to happen. Okay, and being a product of navigating worlds in both places, that was kind of good. I had also was just really starting, I did death and dying, right? When I worked hospice. So I felt like I had did all the areas. I did kids and families, I did uh CYFs adjacent, I had did hospitals, I had did nursing homes, I had did jails, and I had did hospice. So it made sense for me now. I have lived this experience and played in all these systems that it made sense for me to be able to sit in front of somebody and assist them with their problems because I had enough real-world experience and knew something, right? You can't, I feel it's really hard. You can do therapy early in your career when you're young, but it's harder for people to buy in and you're so inept with so many different systems. So you just stick with these are the facts, man. So what my patients get for me is they get a whole social worker.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:46

They get I help with all kinds of stuff on top of the therapy, but it's not out of my wheelhouse to help them with, oh, you need to do this. Oh, you have an elderly parent. Here's what you need to do. This is where you need to reach out. This is the system that you need to help you with this. On top of, we're working with your stress, right? On top of feeding this kind of information to you. So I feel like that's the benefit of what my patients get, opposed to somebody who's just maybe an LPC and just did strictly that, you know, my social work education enables me. There's like 25 or 30 different titles that social workers do at any given time. And that social workers are writing attic esprits for the Supreme Court today, right? Like we problem solve, we teach, we educate, we look at policy, we talk about the unintended consequences of this decision you're about to make, right? And how it might affect the greater good, and that they always teach us about, you know, you have to do things on a ma meso, macro, micro level. Right. And that every decision, whether you're realizing or not, I make, I'm running it through all of them. Is it gonna hurt the greater community? Is it gonna hurt the agency I'm working for? And then with what good is it gonna do you? Right. Because I ours is one only code of ethics that literally says you have to try to make the world a better place. Okay, I'll get my cape. Right. It's right over here. And we have to give some of it away. So I have to give ours away for free, which I didn't realize. Yeah, well, it's a whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

So explain that a little bit. Talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

Well, as part of our code ethics that you need to donate some of your services to something.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Is it like set by hours or no? It's just you have to do it.

SPEAKER_02 31:39

But you should, but you know, so is there a lot of people out here not doing it? Right. But as a true blue mainline social worker, I believe that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:49

And I tell my students when I was teaching that twice a year you should sit down and read it. And if somebody's asking you to do something that doesn't apply to it, I have taken it back to employers going, you see, right here, it says such and such such that what you asked me to do is not this, and I can't do that because you really should not be pushing that heavy against people's code ethics. Right. Now, people and jobs do. And I tell students that all the time. Yeah, and you need to decide at what moment, how far are you willing to let somebody bend you on your ethic? And then when is the time to walk away? You know, so I've left jobs because it was, oh, I can't be here anymore.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Right? But a lot of people aren't always built like that. But look, I am, as all of us are, a truly flawed person. But the one thing that I have kept pretty pristine is this little career that I have loved so much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

I love what you said before, too, about how your social work has helped to inform your clinical therapy. And the way that you described it makes it sound like it's such a natural next step in a way that I can tell you I've never thought about that entire industry. But it's funny when I think about just my own sort of brushes, if you will, with clinical therapy. It is one of the first things that I thought, like sitting across a chair from somebody, it's like, who the hell are you to help me with the things that I'm bringing to you? And if I don't have an understanding of that, it makes me very uncomfortable. And you're sitting on the other side of that with this wealth of life experience. What's life experience?

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Well, it's brand and professional experience, but it's crazy because my caseload as I sit here in front of you today goes from nine to ninety two. It is all racist sexual persuasions, LGBTQIA plus, and I have white men, I have, you know, it's crazy. I have a rainbow color of people from Asian to Filipino to, you know, uh Puerto Rican, because Filipino is Asian, you know, and African, like African American, but Africans, you know, and Jamaicans. And it's wild to me when I have, you know, and I have people from all different professions, from doctors and nurses to state representative to athletes, right? So my caseload is this wild, diverse thing on top of it. And every time I look up and I go, hmm, and so what made you pick me? And they were like, oh, I liked your profile, or I just had a good feeling, or I liked your smile. I'm like, oh, those are some of the best pictures I ever took in my life because they're keeping me employed. And then we work. I personally have a spiritual belief, and I do believe that I God sends me the patience I'm supposed to have. Okay. And the ones that I rock with, I rock with.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

And then the ones who feel like I'm not their cup of tea, that's okay too. And I tell people that on the first session. If you feel like after this session, you don't think you want to work with me, or if you only want to give it a couple sessions, please go find your therapist. The therapist is gonna make you feel comfortable, that's going to help you do what you need to do. And I tell people all the time: look, if you need the therapist is gonna go, oh, Becky, everything you said is great. You're right, the world's terrible. I'm not her.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

And you need to find her. She's out there, but I am not there. I am not her, and you probably don't want to sit here with me. Yeah. Because I call balls and strikes. If it don't make sense, I'll support you in it. But I'm gonna have to say, is this really in your best interest? Uh what are we hoping to gain from this particular behavior? Yeah, okay, as long as you want if you just feel like we need to try it, let's try it. But I saying at the beginning is I don't feel like this is gonna have a good outcome from you, girl. But I'm here for it because this is your I'm just quarter, I'm just riding the ride with you. Yep, yeah, and that is just my position. But I will say, like, really, is this okay? I know he's not gonna hit you again. He said he was sorry. All right. Oh boy, okay, oh boy, yeah. And then I say things like, so he choked you this last time. And you know, 90% of the people when the domestic violence gets to the place of choking are probably gonna be fatal. So I'm just telling you, I really do not want us to star in your lifetime movie after I've told you this, and then I'm gonna have to find somebody hot to play me, and then I'm gonna have to, you know, make this my cause, and now it's gonna be a lifetime movie because I'm this, I'm gonna be the therapist that had to avenge your death. Like I didn't want to, I don't want to have to do all that. So could we just avoid you getting yourself murdered?

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Right. But like I will do it.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

I absolutely will do it, but uh, but I shouldn't be doing so much work. I've been there, like I'm getting old now. I don't get old, I don't want to have to fight that hard. I will. I will do it, but it's not really what I want to do.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Yeah. Do you find in your practice, since you have this wildly diverse book book, or we're gonna call it your book of business? And that's what I would call it in my industry. So in your book of business, do you find that there are nuances based on whether it's races or sexual orientation, or or do you find that the human experience is just the human experience? And those other things will sometimes maybe create some challenges or hurdles, but those are not the nuances that you're having as part of the mental health challenges before you. Wow, that's a that's a complicated question. Uh and you don't have to answer it. I know I'm kind of putting you on the spot.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

What I will say is so everybody's an individual, yes. Yes, everybody's situation is sort of different. Also, though, things fall in patterns, right? Because we are human beings. But the thing that I would say that mostly, besides race, that dictates people's experiences is socioeconomic.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

And poverty is the consistent thing, regardless of race, that has an influence in how you can turn yourself around or how you because resources matter. They do. And lack of resources or living in a community where resources don't exist, yeah, also make it harder for you to you know hold your mental health together. But if every time you turn around, something's on your neck, yeah, you know, it's I have a patient right now that I I I told her, I was like, every time I see you, you make me stress eat because like, and she's like, it's just my I was like, I know, but the amount of things that are constantly happening that are not of necessarily your fault or even from your bad choices, right? Right, is just wild to me. And trying to just help her find space to get a break so we can start to fix things is just but she's been in fight or flight probably consistently for three years. Wow, which is insane for your nervous system.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Totally. Like I'm actually feeling anxious to you say as soon as I see her on my caseload, I go get some snacks, right?

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Okay, girl, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

Tissues and snacks. I was just like, let me, ooh, yeah, that's a lot. I'm kind of glad though that you answered that question. So thank you. Because that is something that, you know, just in my own journey with all the things in the world right now, that is something I keep coming back to so consistently as socioeconomics drives so much of the conversations that we have that it's like the smoke and mirrors sometimes that we like to put out that is, you know, whatever, racially driven, or we're trying to other rise this group, or we're trying to otherise that group. And it's like at the end of the day, it's the money that drives so much of so funny because like so many people think they're middle class, which is really are you?

SPEAKER_02 40:05

And then you go to what the financial thing of middle class is, and you know, you making $60,000 supporting four people, ain't middle class player. You might think you middle class, you can have a middle class mindset, sure, but financially, no matter what lie you tell yourself, that is not where you are. No, and so you think and you're looking down on when you're actually this maybe inches above what that next tier is. Right, right. A lot of us, many of us, are working poor, and people don't want to believe that's what they are because I got a car and uh uh that is trust me, you two, three paychecks away from being homeless.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

That's it. Working poor. That's it. And that's basically, I mean, well, I grew up in a time where there was a middle class and there's not really that much of one now.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Right, me too.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

And I would have said at the time we were probably on the poorer side of middle class until you look at what poverty actually was in this country, and you're like, oh my God, no, we were like solidly middle class, and we would never have said that. But I also see that on the other side of the coin too. Like, I I know people who are like, Well, I'm not, I'm not wealthy, I'm middle class, like like I'm middle class, like I'm just middle class, and you're like, Oh, you're so precious. Yeah, right. Like, do you even know what that means and what those, yeah, it is. I just don't think a lot of people have a really solid understanding because they think of it in terms of mindset, yes. And I don't think they actually, which is great.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

Yeah, sure. Because then you have those values, sure. Even if you're not there, you're striving to maintain it, perceive it, get there, stay there. Yeah, you know, but I feel like, you know, we us Xers grew up in a time where we were the better version of ourselves and we're still trying. Yeah, but what's happening now is really hard for people to get how and what's he what's about to happen is less people are gonna be able to be educated and it's gonna become the haves and have nots in a different way. Different way, and and it's really real, yeah. And it's makes me sad a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. I actually was just talking to somebody just like over the last week about something very, very similar, which is in a way, like we grew up at the the peak. The best of kind of, and I think every generation thinks that theirs is the best, and I don't even mean it as in, oh, Gen X is the best generation. I think we peaked societally during our growing up years, and we're now going down this backwards path in a way. Um yeah, we're definitely having a regression.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

I mean, like, look, it wasn't, and in that time, we didn't know it was kind of decent. We didn't, but then it grew to be pretty good, but still had a problem. But you know, we had we did some things. You know, we did the um uh Brown versus board education, that was huge. We moved. I had never thought in my lifetime I would see a black president, and then we had a moment where we did that, yeah, right? And then the pushback came because of that, which is what we're in now. But this is the ebb and flow of our society, of our history. And so those pendulums have swung so against him and what he stood for, even though so much of America voted for him. Yeah, and they kept him locked in. So now, though, so much of America wanted where we're at now. But you know, proof ratings aren't great. The pendulum, when this is over, whenever it ends, yeah. I know I know people think 2028 he's still gonna be here.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

I know.

SPEAKER_02 43:45

When the pendulum does eventually swing, because nobody lives forever, right? It's going to come back so far the other way to undo what was done and to fortify the stuff that I have a lot of hope. For uh what I see from having taught the Gen Zers, the bottom part of the millennials.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:07

You know, there's some things that, you know, every generation brings to the world, whatever its contribution is. And, you know, they brought the gender stuff to us in a way that they're making, shoving it down our throats, whether we like it or not. They change pronouns, they're this. They don't care as much about race. Many of them, most of them. You always have your portion. Sure. So, you know, they seem to care more about the others.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:33

In a way that has gotten away from that was very self. So I'm hopeful about them and what they might do when their time comes. Now, I would really like for us to get some power because the genetic we're the smallest generation. There was only 64 million of us. You know, part of us already gone, and we have not got the reins for 15 minutes. So I would just like to see what will happen. What will happen, baby? I know. If we got, because you know, we're kind of cool. We were latchkey kids, we were independent, we were we were problem solvers, you know, we we're not crybabies. We don't have a we're not riddled with anxiety and fear. Well, speak for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

I have anxiety, but not riddled. Not riddled where you can't function. No, no, because we were forced to. Fucking push through it.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

Yeah, like what do you what do you I'll give you something to cry about? What you talking about? What that's it. That's it. Right? Like, what's this problem? Like, ain't nobody got time for that. We can go upstairs and have your pity party in your room because ain't nobody and then fix your face and come back down here and let's handle your business.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

That's it.

SPEAKER_02 45:36

Like, what was that gonna do? Yeah, and we've just enabled so much of you know, I was teaching and and people wanted trigger warnings about this and that. I was like, we're talking about racial integration. What do you think? The whole thing's triggered every day, so just plan to be triggered.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Yeah, well, also because you're like, I fucking lived it. Right, like you talking about triggering you, like, okay.

SPEAKER_02 46:00

I'm like, okay, girl, I don't know what to tell you. So, like, there's that, like, yeah, you know, now we have to be so careful. We just want to let you know, and if this is gonna make you uncomfortable, and and I'm like, really? Yeah, like I don't know. I watch all kind of weird violence and things on the news.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

That was not so it's just wild that you know we've gotten so coddling. We have in a way that I don't know necessarily it's all beneficial.

SPEAKER_00 46:32

No, it was like an overcompensation. I think that was a pendulum swing that I saw too coming out of how we grew up into how kids are being raised now is like this pendulum swing of overcompensation.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

Well, and you know, when we started giving trophies to everybody, yeah, that was kind of like weird. Why? Well, you didn't do anything. Well, it's a participation trophy because Becky's upset because she didn't get a trophy. I don't know. Cream always rises to the top. That's it. Buck up Becky. That's it. You better start. Take a picture.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

You were here, you participated.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

What are we doing? Right, what are we doing? And that just did not help. And then people apologizing for being excellent. Like, we don't want that. That's what you strive to be. Exactly. Why are we making them try to make themselves small to make you feel better? Yeah, we're all equal, yeah, but they're really great. Yeah. At this thing, this one thing. And when we stopped caring about raising good, so people are so worried about oh, they're good people, are they really what happened was we went to acceptance. We went to merit stuff, yeah. As opposed to before, there was like this overall moral education about kindness and making space and being particular, not staring at people, and not make right, and it was like universal to not be rude. Sure. Right? And now rudeness is in fashion in a like big ugly way, in a lot of that. In a lot of things. And then with even online stuff, like people really f bold online, they got a lot of things to say. They didn't see them in person, they're like, I didn't mean of like, oh man. Because you got to hide.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

Because you got to hide. Like, you know, you're not, you would never say that shit to somebody to their face.

SPEAKER_02 48:19

Most of the time not. But then why are you saying what what are you saying it? But it what it used to be if you ain't got nothing nice to say, don't say nothing at all. That's right. That's what my mama taught me.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I do kind of want to, because this is almost like this natural segue into some of the activism and that I do want to talk about. But before we get there, I have to ask, what are you seeing coming out of COVID as some of the top like issues with kids? Because I I gotta tell you, I hear a lot, a lot of people have opinions about things. And I think it's a big mixed bag. I think that there were definitely people who kind of came out okay from COVID, and there were probably people who were burned out with their existences prior to. But then there are also people who are like, yeah, but you didn't have a kid in school, and those kids are suffering.

SPEAKER_02 49:07

And so so there was, so kids at certain ages really took a leash because they didn't get to develop things like it. Like six or seven, that's a very important developmental state, and that's when you learn to tune things out and do that. And now you have kids who don't know how to cut background noise out when you go to a restaurant or those kind of things. Yeah, right. Uh, junior high kids, because that's also very important social development period of time, and did not be able to work through some of that awkwardness and being the ability to and navigate the other sex or spend time around with that. Like I have talked to college boys who were like, I've never asked a girl out if it wasn't through online and never stepped to a girl in person. Yeah. That's crazy. Right. Okay, honey, that's not normal. And then you had that group who were getting ready in their first year of college, which is a very another very important transition, and had to do it online and didn't get to make the transition from high school to college because they were still doing like high school. Right. Right. So those three periods were very difficult, those age groups, because you had key developmental things that were supposed to happen. The increased anxiety overall, what the COVID showed us is how mentally ill our country was.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

And we didn't know it. And we were like, oh wow, these like people had issues, and right, and and people didn't know how to cope. What it was was though, people had to spend time with themselves. And if you don't can't enjoy spending time with yourself, there is a lying, underlying problem. Yeah. And aren't coming like I love Monica. She's one of my favorite people to hang out with. Me and I don't have a ball, she cracks me up. But I have so many people like, I don't like to be alone. And I'm like, why? What's wrong with being alone? Yeah, please let me be alone. Right. Thank you for letting me be alone. And there's a difference from being alone and being lonely. Lonely. I never am lonely.

SPEAKER_01 51:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

But I have friends. That's the other thing that we find out. And that when I'm doing assessments and I ask, all right, who your social ports are? Well, I don't have any friends. Why don't you have no friends? You're 40. Why? Where are your friends? Well, I just can't trust people. Why? Well, who did what to you? And then why is that all people? And you know, you're so you're bitter and lonely. You're terrified because you want to connect with people, right? Lack the social skills to know how to do it, right? And then don't want to tell be vulnerable enough to show yourself to somebody for somebody to decide if they like you or not. Yep. Absolute insanity. Yeah. I spend a good part of my practice is teaching adults how to make friends. Craziness. And then it just flows. Like, you know, I'm thinking of a couple patients who were lonely, isolated, some in their 20s. Like, what girl, what? Who had jobs who were that way, but just didn't. And then I told them, and I mean, the one, the one I'm thinking of, she was like, she was a man. And every time she would get on session, she would just cry. And I was like, and we talked about the buttons. And I was like, you know what? We keep doing what you can do, or we can try what I'm doing. And then later, after she's so much better now. She's in, she's dating somebody. She's got friend group. Yeah. She's busier than she ever knew. We fixed her finance. She's floating. Nice here once a month just to keep her in line.

unknown 52:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02 52:43

But I told her for maintenance. Yeah, just maintenance. For real. And I said to her, she told me after she started getting better. She said, Do you know what you said to me on our second session? I said, no what? And she said, You told me I needed some self-respect and some friends. I was like, oh. And I was like, that sounds hard. She said, but you were right. You know, I was like, just keeping it real. That's when you said it like that. That was, you know, a lot. But you was, you know, you were sleeping around and trying to make friends with your body. And I was like, girl, you need some self-respect and some friends. Yeah. Let's get you together.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

All joking aside, though, I really liked that framing in a way because I it's not even a way that I've ever looked at that whole COVID period. And it's sometimes when I'm chatting with people, I will hold myself back from navigating that conversation because I am one of the people that I felt like, in a lot of ways, I came out on the positive end of it.

SPEAKER_02 53:43

Girl, I thrived. I had a ball. Because we I was like, I'm a little group. Yep. I was working hospice. I would go out and do hospice. I had my LGBTQIA plus group of friends. Yeah. We were in a bubble. We get together. Them boys would cook for me. We listen to music and run it back. And every day we run it back. I go out and work, feed the dogs, take the dogs over. We had barbecues. We swam in pool. We had our ball.

SPEAKER_00 54:13

Yeah. Love me some copy. I know. I was same, same. I mean, I didn't do the same things, but similar. We did we would host virtual family game nights with my sister and brother-in-law and their kids, you know, like every other Friday or whatever. And then all like we have friends and family members who are single and hold up by themselves. And so just to again try to keep a connection, we would do every other week, we would do sit down and do a Zoom and like all catch up. And and definitely I'm good with being alone. That's the framing that you just gave me that where I'm like, oh, that makes so much sense.

SPEAKER_02 54:46

Because you're okay with who you are. I'm cool with me. Right. You have to be right with yourself. And the other thing that happened for me during COVID is I had got alpha. So I had got alpha COVID. And for you know, and it was if you're morbidly obese, if you're a black, all African Americans are dying, I was like, ugh, yeah, right. And so I went, uh I didn't have the traditional symptoms. And when I got to the hospital and the doctor came out, we tested you for flu. This no girl, it's COVID. I was like, what? She said, like, the gas mass and all this stuff. And she said to me, Okay, we're sending you home. And I say, not my proudest moment, but needed to say it nonetheless. I said, Oh, you're sending me home because I'm African American and you don't want to use the resources on me. And she said, Whoa, whoa, Market, wait a minute. Let's talk through this. You've been about the science. Let's stay in the science because that was part was what's being said on TV. So I checked her and put it in her face. She said, The only reason we even know you have COVID because this isn't a traditional thing. It was in my central nervous system. Okay. Is because you knew your body so well. She said, if you start having any breathing, you come back, or we got you. I will breathe for you.

SPEAKER_01 56:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:02

But she was like, that is not why I'm saying you know, if you're gonna do better at home, you're gonna be safer. Da-da-da-da-da. I was like, all right. So I got in my car and drove myself home with COVID. Yeah. And then I had to let certain people know. I was the first one for Asian husbands to have COVID. So yeah, it was like, wow, zero, right? It was all crazy. But what happened for me during that time is I found out I was loved. My community, my friends showed up for me in a way I had no idea. They were dropping stuff off like I was Amazon. People paid some bills for me. I had food, I had drinks, I had dog food, whatever I needed. They and then afterward, they were like, we were afraid you were gonna die. We loved you. Yeah. I was like, they were just dropping off on the porch, they'd stand far away and talk to me. Let me see you. Are you okay?

SPEAKER_01 56:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:57

I was like, wow. So most people, if you pull back the curtain, have negative self-talk, negative underlying beliefs, right? So no matter whatever your negative thing you say to yourself, is it falls under two categories. It's either I'm unlovable or I'm not good enough, no matter what. And some people have both, and some people have one, and I used to have both, but now I don't believe that I'm unlovable because that was right. I know it. Yeah, people showed it to me in a way that they didn't even have to get involved.

SPEAKER_01 57:31

Right.

SPEAKER_02 57:31

It wasn't my kids, it was my friends, it was family, like right, it was crazy. So that had to have felt so amazing. Well, at least took away as my therapist said, You can't even say that no more. You can't believe that because there is proof. And how many people get to know them?

SPEAKER_00 57:47

Right, right. Especially having that I'm unlovable. Yeah, I was always I don't suffer from that affliction. Mine's the a hundred percent in the other camp. It's the I'm not good enough.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

Oh well, that's everybody, right? Like overachiever. I got two undergraduate degrees, I got a master's degree, I double majored in undergraduate, and was on the dance line, yeah, and was, you know, always still in the social work club and doing all the things, even at college, which is very hard to do, to double major, be in the merger band, be on the dance line, craziness, right? Yeah, black action society, you know, whatever needed to be done. I'm here. I'm here, let's get it done.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

Yeah, so insane. All right, let's shift gears a little bit. Let's talk about activism. We didn't really dive into this a ton in our background, other than that you had you grew up with it, obviously, coming from you know, your parents being married and shortly after loving and my mother coming from.

SPEAKER_02 58:46

So my mother was at the march on Washington.

SPEAKER_00 58:48

There you go. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 58:48

All right, so like this is definitely part of my DNA. Right. The first time that I really felt my own activism was at Slippery Rock. Okay. I was in the Black Act Society, some wrestlers at Burner Cross on a football players' Christyard. And so they tried to put it out and put it away when the police came. We drug it out, took pictures, took it to the president university, talked about there was the law was new at the time, which was ethnic intimidation. And people don't know that in Pennsylvania, ethnic intimidation is a law that you can't try to scare people and do all this stuff and use racial slurs in a way to intimidate and promote fear. So, you know, we made a big deal. That ended up in USA Today. We got to do re-education with the police about the fact that they were not doing this. And so that was my first foray into the front of activism, you know, and all then. Then we had what? Rodney King. Here in Pittsburgh, we had Johnny Gamage, right? And so I kept finding myself in these moments where eventually I was uh where we were, we did training with the city police, we did some of that. So back in 20, 2007, after I finished grad school, and we we go, I was with a group at the time, it was called Amazaji, the names now changed. And we did global service learning, and we took a group of students down south to meet with civil rights activists at the time as they were aging, and we were taping stuff for the Rosa Parks Museum.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:26

Because it was interactive. And during that time, we got to meet with the Freedom Riders who they were doing the memorial for them. Yeah. Because a lot of them didn't get their degrees because they were kicked out of school. So we got to, so we were like interacting with history and Amelia Boynton, and it's before she died, right? So then all this stuff. And then we made a documentary, and we did all this footage for the Rose Parks Museum, but we did a short, entered in this contest that was called Uh Democracy, a Steady Loving Confrontation. And it was just these talking heads talking about what it means for Obama to be running at that time and you know where we at. And then we're in Red Rocks, and the film wins, and they're having a Democratic National Convention in Denver at the same time. So then people were calling me and texting me saying, We just saw your film at the Democratic National Convention. I was like, What? They showed it on TV. So, like it was this thing. Yeah. This this moment, and that we were part of it. And then later on, it was shown at the Stars Film Festival. So we came back to Denver and walked the car. So, like I said, these are my four scump moments, right? Yeah. So this is when um I'm walking the red carpet and what is happening. And this is the year that Slum Dog Millionaire won Best Pit. So they're there, we're there with them, right? Like surreal. Like, right, like Michael Moore. I'm like, what is happening? And people are coming and you had to like present your film. It's a short. And people wanted to talk to us about this. And yeah, I mean, I was like, right? I'm such working from Trent Park in Newcastle. Like, where am I? How am I here?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:08

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:08

And reminiscing. And yeah. And then fast forward to 2015, and Obama's now president. They go back, and we do the MMPettes Bridge, which is a bridge I've walked several times, and we get to walk it with two presidents. And John Lewis was there before he died, right? And all this stuff. Wow. And I end up with this weird press pass. So I'm in the press pool, which I we ain't gonna say how that happened. But I'm just like, what is happening? And I'm here, and I'll show you the picture on my phone. I still got the password. Yeah. And all these pictures I got taken. Then we come back, and then I'm on NPR. We're getting to talk about all nutty.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

Yeah, you really are the forest company.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:53

It's really legit. Like insanity. Yeah. Just that, like, so you know, even till this week. So yesterday, Sunday, I worked, I saw a patient in person. When my patients came in, it's like, I saw you on the news. I said, What? I was on the news for the draft, but I didn't even know. People were texting me pictures. I was like, Yeah, because I'm everywhere. Because I'm everywhere. They're like, of course, you, of course, you were on the news for the draft. I was like, well, you know, I'm good. So, like, it's always, yeah, it's always this random stuff, and I'm always having these awesome moments and meeting people I shouldn't meet, like, you know, like Donnie Wahlberg and I'm out there at Star Lake. And I was like, Donnie, I just love you on Blue Blood and everything. He goes, Come here, gives me the wave. He comes over, takes a picture. My one girlfriend, can I get on on this? Come on, girl. Because get on, right? It's always, I saw uh D-Ray the other night. I got a picture with him. I my celebrity pictures of people is insanity with athletes.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:56

And yeah, but it's always in moments. It's not like you're you're not doing like what I used to do, which is I would show up at Steel Citicon and get my picture taken with celebrities. You're like in moments with these people, though.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:08

Yeah. When I used to smoke, I would like end up having a cigarette break with random people, like Dave Matthews or um girl. Love that. Who is the oh, the one comedian? I love him. We were even outside the improv in between with lighting them. I was like, oh yeah, what you about to go on? I'm here for my birthday. I I just feel like if you keep it authentic, I think people appreciate that. Yeah. And that I'm like, yeah, here we are.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:37

Yeah. Talk a little bit about the Women of Excellence Award. I know you don't love the humble brag, but I think that this was a big one, and this is one that definitely stuck with me too.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:49

I was so honored. Um, the Women of Excellence Award was from the Pittsburgh Courier, which is the oldest black paper in the country. It's been around since the Civil War. So, yay, Pittsburgh always in the thing. Just like Katie K, first radio station. Like, we are in the mix, people. People don't recognize the heritage that comes from this city and don't lean on it. Even from the Hill District, the first EMTs ever in the country were from Pittsburgh. They created it. Now it's a model that is used all over the country. No shout outs to any of the things that happen here. On top of the culture that comes out of this town with, you know, Edda Cox, you know, uh just so many Wilson. Uh, you know, I I can't even name all the talent that uh, you know, Billy Porter, my homie, you know, who comes out. Billy Porter. Yeah, well, another one of them random moments. We both in some gay bar and I'm straight at one o'clock in the morning. I say, Billy Porter, I've been looking for you. It was like, oh yeah, welcome here.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

You found me.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:01

He was like, Well, what you need? I was like, Right, like so, yes. Yeah. And from Chip Ganassi, who's always great to me if I need anything. Because I used to take care of his box at the arena. So when I needed stuff for charity events, he would get his racers assigned things and ship it to me. Like just so much kindness. But my social capital in this town, I am wealthy. Yeah. Like I'm three degrees of separation. I get a lot of things done. Yeah. Because of my social capital. So, you know, those things, those moments that you get to have with people because you're just there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:41

What year was Women of Excellence? It was 2025. 2025. Okay, so that was super recent.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:47

Yeah, it was in December. And so you have to get vetted, and then they vote on you, and uh it was great. Another red carpet, and like friends. I couldn't even sit at the table with them, but I had friends like the one who recommended me, Michelle, for this. As soon as they found I was getting it, like, you know, it was a $150 ticket to sit at that table. I wasn't even sitting at the table with them. I had a full table. My friends showed up, paid money, and supported me just to see me and to support me was again proof I was love because people ain't coming out their pockets for rubber chicken.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:24

I mean, but not for $150 rubber chicken.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:28

But yet they did. Yeah. You know, so I my my community of women are ridiculous and amazing. Yeah. And they're all badasses in their own right.

unknown 1:07:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:39

And my friend groups are amazing. And I and I speak to, you know, there was a time after all that stuff happened with when I left family preservation and in that burnout period and before that. And, you know, I had some girlfriends at me down, like, girl, you're depressed. You need to figure this out. So I took myself to counseling and did some meds for a while and then eventually got weaned off the med. But it was hard. It was hard. Depression is real. Yes. And people should not just assume, like, make fun of it. Oh, just get happy. I was so depressed, I couldn't manage the mail. The mail was too much for me, and I'd have to negotiate to take myself to the mailbox. So nobody wants to feel that badly. And we just need to support people in that, help them, but making them feel worse about it or tell them just get happy or just do this, it's not easy. And it was a hole that I crawled out of that I will never let myself slide into again because it was so hard to come out of it. But I had good therapists and good support and good friends. And eventually, you know, you turn the corner. But it is not because anybody wants to be there.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:49

No. And I think one of the things, too, that I was so key for me and I find so highly relatable is your girlfriends are so massively important because they're the ones that are gonna sit you down and tell you and they're gonna give you the real reel. And they're gonna be like, look, I love you. And also pull your shit together. Yeah, and this is what I'm seeing. And you can take this with all the love I'm giving you, or you could fight against it. But those are those are the people.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:14

But those are real friends. Real friends. Not deal friends.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:18

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:19

And you need to know the difference between what it is. Real friends are accountability partners. We have decided we are going to try to get through this life together, supporting each other however we can, calling each other on our bull crap. Yep. And riding it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:35

And celebrating with each other when we get to celebrate and crying when we need to get to cry. Yes. Right? Those are, and that's why you people need to get them. You need to find your squad. You make those friends. But it's imperative to have them.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:51

Which is why I never feel lonely.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:53

Yeah. Going right back to that. I agree with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:56

But the other thing too, when mama depression. And one of the reasons that I was able to start to fight for it when I didn't think there was anything here in Monica, when I couldn't find anything lovable or likable about her, I kept looking around. I had these amazing friends who I liked and respected. And one of the things that came to mind was, well, there must be something here, or they wouldn't be wasting their time. And I need to get busy figuring out what is here. What is it that that's worth it for them to hang on to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:29

Because then that gives you that same what's worth it to them is now what's worth it to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:35

That and that line in Shawshank Redemption, where he says, get busy living or get busy dying. And I decided dying was taking too long, so I better figure out how to get to live.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:49

I love it. I have talked a bunch with guests on this podcast about the topics of like volunteerism, community, loneliness, how some of these things are interwoven in a way. So, you know, I've definitely had folks who have talked about, you know, you got to get out into your community if you want to alleviate loneliness.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:08

Like it's you need to do something for somebody else instead of sitting around having a pity party for yourself. Step one.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:14

Two, if you have interest, then you go somewhere and start doing your interests and people will talk to you. It don't matter. If you don't have interest, go sit somewhere. If you just keep coming into a place and sitting there, people will talk to you. Yeah. You know, and then maybe you'll find your own way to things. I tell people there's also meetup groups, there's bumble friends. Get out there.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:38

There's bumble friends.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:39

Yeah, where you don't have to date, it's just friends. And you need to figure it out. But there are just as many lonely people as there are. Not lonely. Yeah. And people will include you.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:50

Yeah. I love that. I didn't even have to ask the question. You took it. You just went right there. All right, before we wrap, gotta talk minutes with Mon. Talk about your podcast. I've like, I'm gonna be perfectly honest. I have only listened to a couple of the episodes. I have to add it into my rotation because I think that some of the stuff that you guys talk about is extraordinarily valuable and it's bite-sized, right? It's like you're not doing this, it is long form. I do like a long form audio, but you guys do smaller, bite-sized episodes. So can you share a little bit about how it came about and why you do it? What do you love about it?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:27

I wanted to be able to talk and educate people, regular people, about mental health in a way that made sense, right? And so you can't go too long, you can't go to clinical above people's heads, but then and also give them a place that if they find somebody suffering from this or whatever, how they could get help or when do you need to know that you need help? But also informing them. So I try to pick on topics that become hot buzzes in society. Like we just did one on trauma bonding. So sometimes it's just what's ever getting on my nerves. Like people say things like every everybody's a narcissist. No, they're not. This is a clinical term. Let's talk about what a narcissist really is and whether they're not. Yeah. Right. So that sometimes it comes from that. Sure. Usually it's uh the topics come up. Like, I just did one on phone phobia because I found all these Gen Zero who can't use the phone. And I'm like, what is happening? And why can't you? And like, so I had social work students who were gonna have to make phone calls, we're uncomfortable talking on the phone. Yeah, like what and why? And then because they didn't have house phones, so that's why they're not comfortable, they never learn phone etiquette and all this stuff. So it comes out of that. The name came from my daughter because she thought that that would just be the perfect little title. So shout out to Cheyenne, yeah, and yeah, it was a passion project that I just wanted to see if I could manifest, and I did, and it's doing very well, actually. And so we do bite-sized topics on various things, whatever I feel like I want to talk about because I'm Mon. So it's my choice. You're like I'm Mon. So here's Mon. So I'm you do have a partner though, yes. Jessica is we met in grad school, and we've been friends since then. Oh my god, almost 20 years. Her her oldest is about to graduate high school. It's wild, and um, yeah, so it makes it easy. She's also a social worker, but she's not a clinical social worker. Okay, she's a policy social worker, and she taught forever at Carly University. So she understands some of these things, but it's not her jam. So she's always great. And what ends up happening is she writes the questions. I pick the topic, she writes the questions. Okay, and then we talk, and it just kind of happens organically with me asking questions. And when I talk to people who listen to it, like my pharmacist and all these craziness, uh, it's like she asks the questions they want to ask.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:55

So it works out that people don't feel like they didn't get. I was just thinking that, and then she answered, asked you, and I was just thinking that I'm like, that's so good. So we've done stuff like on limerence and ADHD and rejection sensitivity dysphoria. And last season we did uh anxiety, and this season we'll touch on depression. Okay, and then we try to add things like uh satisfaction, uh sensitivity so that people can, and just things that people don't realize. We did main character syndrome.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:25

Oh, that's one I'm gonna have to listen to.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:27

Right. Like, there's just so I sent one of my patients to listen to something, and she was like, Oh, I wanted to listen to uh betrayal blindness. I know you told me to list something else, but I listened to betrayal blindness. I was like, Okay, girl, well, I need you to go and listen to that. The one I told you actually Elmer.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:44

Right, the the one I told you to listen to. That's so great. So I listened to the one on microaggression.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:50

What did you think?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:51

I really liked it. And what's funny is like I've I mean, I've sat through some trainings, just you know, having worked in corporate America, like you there are certain trainings that you do through HR. And I feel like, you know, a fair number of things. I was like, yep, that makes sense. I get that. But hearing it also, I think, from your perspectives and having like a real world conversation about it is so much different than the little scenarios that they put in front of you from corporate America. And I appreciated that because I think it's funny, I think because corporations do stuff like that, I hear people in my real life who will say things like, those things are stupid, like, I can't believe that we have to be told these things, like microaggressions aren't real. And I'm like, oh, then that means you're perpetuating them all the time. All the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:40

And that we all have done them, yeah, and that we need to take ownership of them. But what it feels like to be on the other side of them. So Jess and I have trained on this a lot, which it came through easily, it did, right? And yeah, but also too that when you catch the person who all day and you were the fifth person that gave them a microaggression and they pop off, and you're like, Well, that was a little over the top, but you don't know what they've already been through. Exactly. So just trying and just being kind. And a lot of them are couched in, assuming that it's a kind thing. You know, I used to hear it all the time when Obama was running for president. Oh, he speaks so well. Man, is Harvard educated? Why can't he talk? Yeah, why wouldn't he be weirder if he didn't talk? Yeah, you know, or oh well, you're so smart. Why wouldn't I be smart? What is that? You know, I hear that too. Oh, you speak well.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:39

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:40

I got three degrees. I would hope that I'd speak well.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:44

Yeah. Well, I yeah. I'm not even gonna say anything to any of that. I don't need to, you just did, but yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:49

Well, so you have that. And um, I've been lucky enough as my career has grown to uh because of my amazing team at Thriveworks, I get to chime in on pop culture stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:03

So I get to speak on a lot of things in the Huffington Post and Really. Oh yeah, like I've gotten a comment on our leader and things he does sometimes culture-wise. Or like they were coming after J Lo for her outfits in Vegas, so I got to talk about that, or Mrs. Obama. But mostly I'm just happy that there's uh anywhere in the world that you can Google my name and theirs is attached in the same sentence.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:32

How cool is wild, that's so wild.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:35

So, and stuff for Newsweek and uh the things. So I'm lucky enough that the multiple places, you know, that I'm getting to chime in and you know, and then what happens is I I get quoted there, and then I'll get I had to set a Google alert for myself, which is so wild. And then somebody, and I was like, What? I didn't even talk to these people, but they're re-quoting me from something I said somewhere else. So I'm like, oh, look at that, you know. But that's my humble brag on that. But it it's kind of it's pretty amazing because I can't believe anybody is like, right? There's a point in time in your career or in your life or where you have finally did your 10,000 hours, right? Yeah, yeah. And you are an expert on several things, yeah. And that's wild to me. Yeah, but kind of fun and nice that people don't get the question me because I am the expert.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:28

That's right. Finally, it's because I said so. Exactly. Or in Gen X, parlance, your mom. Your mom, yeah, absolutely. Yes. I love it. All right, we're gonna wrap up with three good things about your week. So this is something that I started doing years ago. I would do it with my own kids at the table because I got tired of how was your day? Fine. And so at the dinner table, I would say three good things about your day because it would force them to have to talk about something that happened. But it's morphed into just like which shit we're grateful for. Like you know, the world is messy and sometimes not all that awesome. And I think it's too easy to live in the negative. So we try to at least find three decent things. It doesn't even have to be great, it could be great. So rolling seven days. Three good things about your past week.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:22

I got to have dinner with one of my girlfriends and at a restaurant, and then we went to see a play where my other girlfriend's daughter was starring, and she got nominated for an award out at Woodland Hills and right, and she's like the Gene Kelly Award, she's up for best actress, so I'm like, and she's badass, so I love her. So I got to do that. I saw a comedian, so I was at the improv, and I love to laugh. So that was also one of the good things. Okay, and I'm always grateful for my squad. Yeah, my squad is my therapist, the girl who does my amazing eyelashes, my hairdresser, my trainer who I see six days a week. Shout out to Rick, and sometimes Frances, my boxing coach, right? So I and Katie, who does my lashes, and Trey, who does my hair, and Asia, who's my therapist, right? So I love this team of people who keep me together. So I'm always getting some, oh, and Jessa who does my nails. And so I'm always just so happy that my self-care team is around and taking care of me and loving on me and just holding me up and pushing me out in the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:48

Yeah so you know that was great too. Such a good feeling. It's such a good feeling. And for the teabags who cannot see Monica, it's not just that her lashes are done. She got some jewels going on at the ends of those two, and they're really pretty. Flowers. Are they flowers? She made me flowers. See, and I can't, I like can't see so close. Oh my goodness. And they're like blue bluish teal and like a big one.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:12

Yeah, this is you know, this is the summer.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:14

Yeah, I'm out.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:15

I'm finally in a place of my career. I can do whatever I want with my parents, right? As long as I stay within certain lines, sure. Right, but yeah, I love it. So shout out to my lash girl, Katie.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:27

Love it.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:28

These are my the rest of my uh draft lashes. She made me these lashes for the draft this Saturday. We'll get them done to some fall lashes, I think, or spring lashes. Spring, I think. I had butterflies in a couple weeks ago, and yeah, yeah, like they look really cute, right? It's so fun, and you know, I love being able to express myself however I can express myself. Because I also had a dance minor, like I like I'm artsy a little bit too. Yeah, and in this career, I don't get to express it as much. So now I get to peacock a little bit, yeah, and it's nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:01

Yeah, very cool. Thank you so much for doing this with me. I appreciate it so much. I appreciate you coming to me too to do it here at my house at my table. I also just appreciate the opportunity. I think I think just knowing the people I am friends with and I interact with, sometimes it feels like there is a lack of understanding that there's this whole entire world of volunteerism and activism and social work because we get so caught up in our own bubbles that I think we sometimes forget that like we gotta go outside of our homes. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:36

And even if even if you only want to do a little thing, yeah, you know, go serve at Light of Life Mission. I serve with them, I serve there for Thanksgiving. That's one of the things I give away.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:45

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:46

Donate your clothes, but instead of always just giving anything to the goodwill or the veterans, here in Pittsburgh. Uh, John Fetterman's wife, Giselle, has a free store in Braddock. Everything's free. Yeah. So they free. Yep. So you have good quality stuff and you want other people to find it and have a good home, give it to somebody who just really needs that and doesn't maybe have the money. Yeah. I know Goodworld's great because they end up employing people and using it that way, but it's sometimes nice to just really give something and donate something to people who really, really need it.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:22

And and and good quality stuff because it's nothing better than walking in somewhere and being able to get a nice blanket because you needed a blanket. That's right. Or a nice jacket that, you know, it's going to be a new home for somebody who's just going to love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:36

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:37

Right. So I just I encourage people to find their way to, you know, donating, spending time. Go to a nursing home and volunteer to read to people, you know, volunteer with hospices. There's a ton of them here in Pittsburgh. And you could just keep company with somebody towards the end of their life and let them tell you their story. Because nothing's better than listen, be everybody wants to be seen and heard.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:59

That's it.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:00

Right? That is so basic. Yeah. And if you just ask people about themselves, they will give you everything because I just want somebody to see them and hear them and get them. That's it. And that connection. Right. And it's not that hard. And it does cost you nothing to give a little bit time and space. So that's why I stay busy. That's why I'm out here because I want to live this life. When I go in the ground, nobody's gonna say, oh, she didn't do it. She did it all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She did it all.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:28

I'm trying to do it all. And I'm gonna say this too. I mean, I'm not guaranteeing that you get to meet Billy Porter if you go volunteer, but I'm also not not saying that that can't happen. Like, she's the forest gump of Pittsburgh, but that's because she's out in Pittsburgh. She's like doing the shit. So you gotta leave your house if you wanna like, if you want to live a life.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:49

And it's so nice out here. Come join us. The water's fine. Right. You know, connect with people. Yes, connect with people who are different than you, and just recognize there's space for all of us. This is what this whole democratic thing was. Everybody's immigrants, people. Some of us were brought in chains against our will. That is true. Some of us were already born here as Indians, but and then everybody else came. So really, we all are transplants. That's it. So we just need to make space for each other and recognize that at this place we all want the same thing. Somewhere safe to live, somewhere good for your kids to go to school, to get up and do something that matters to you, right? That gives you purpose.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:34

That's it. The rest of it we can figure out. But if we can align on the things that we all agree upon, you'd be surprised what else you agree upon.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:42

I totally agree. Could not have been said any better.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:45

Well, thank you. Thank you. And I'm gonna be sharing this also on my podcast. So people will get there if they want to. They can also find it on Minnesota. Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:55

Awesome. Thanks so much. Bye.