From Stigma To Clarity: Why Everyone Has Mental Health | Episode 381

From Stigma To Clarity: Why Everyone Has Mental Health | Episode 381

Words can heal or divide, and the way we talk about mental health still keeps too many people at arm’s length. We make a simple, crucial shift: mental health is health. From there, the rest falls into place—clear plans, kinder language, and consistent habits that actually help. We unpack why calling someone “mental” hides the real issue, how to compare invisible struggles to visible injuries without minimizing either, and what it looks like to build daily practices that support mind and body through changing seasons.

We walk through the practical parallels between physical care and mental care: diagnosis, treatment, behavior change, medication, and the hard part—consistency. Think training plans, not quick fixes. We talk about seasonal affective disorder and why shorter days can weigh on mood, motivation, and routine. You’ll hear concrete ways to design around winter: more light, movement, and connection, plus evidence-based options like therapy and medication when needed. The focus is clarity over clichés, support over judgment.

We also share resources to make help easier to reach—autobiographical guides, career preparation books, audio versions for your commute, and the wider Voices for Voices platform that connects listeners across a hundred countries. The goal is unity: fewer labels, more listening; fewer barriers, more bridges. If you’re ready to retire stigma and start with the truth that everyone has mental health, you’ll leave with language to use, habits to try, and a community to lean on.

If this resonates, subscribe and share with someone who could use a lift today. Your ratings and reviews help more people find these conversations—add your voice and let us know what topic you want us to explore next.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome And Big-Picture Mission

1:04 Subscribe And Support To Scale Impact

2:12 Reframing Mental Health As Health

5:05 The Iceberg: Visible Vs Invisible Injuries

9:05 Language Matters: Retiring “They’re Mental”

12:16 Getting Started And Staying Consistent

15:20 Parallels: Medication, Therapy, Recovery

17:12 Seasonal Affective Disorder And Environment

20:55 Unity Over Judgment

23:55 Books, Platforms, And Access

26:30 Global Community And Gratitude

29:04 Donate, Share, And Closing Thanks]

#MentalHealthAwareness #StigmaToClarity #BreakTheStigma #MentalHealthMatters #UnderstandingMentalHealt #MindWellness #EmotionalWellbeing #MentalHealthEducation #SelfCareJourney #NormalizeMentalHealthTalks #SupportEachOther #HealingJourney #CopingStrategies #MentalHealthAdvocacy #YouAreNotAlone #justiceforsurvivors #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion #TikTok #Instagram #truth #Jesusaire #VoiceForChange #HealingTogether #VoicesForVoices381

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Big-Picture Mission
• 1:04 Subscribe And Support To Scale Impact
• 2:12 Reframing Mental Health As Health
• 5:05 The Iceberg: Visible Vs Invisible Injuries
• 9:05 Language Matters: Retiring “They’re Mental”
• 12:16 Getting Started And Staying Consistent
• 15:20 Parallels: Medication, Therapy, Recovery
• 17:12 Seasonal Affective Disorder And Environment
• 20:55 Unity Over Judgment
• 23:55 Books, Platforms, And Access
• 26:30 Global Community And Gratitude
• 29:04 Donate, Share, And Closing Thanks]

Transcript

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 0:02

Hey everyone, it's Justin here with Voices for Voices. Thank you so much for joining us today, and each episode uh just surpassed episode number 380. We're gonna be uh, as I mentioned before, uh, we'll be uh hitting that 400 total episode mark by the end of calendar year 2025. And all the thanks go to you, our followers, our listeners, our viewers, uh, for each and every one of you who spend even uh a couple seconds with us. We very much appreciate that. If you can do a big favor that is free, uh if you can go ahead and subscribe at that subscribe button, give us a big thumbs up, like, follow, share, again, subscribe. Those are all things that are free to do, they don't cost anything, uh, but they help us uh get closer to our our goal of helping three billion people at least over the course of my lifetime and beyond. Big goal, but we have big goals. Uh we dream big, and I have a good feeling that we're we're going to going to do that. And it's uh it's not just me. Uh it's uh all the organizations we have partnered with, all the individuals that we've partnered with, had on our show. Uh it's it's because of all of us having that uh that one goal of helping other people, no matter the situation that they find themselves in. Uh and to let them know and you if you need to hear it, and I need to hear it. Uh, we want to take away the stigma of mental illness, uh, mental challenges, no different than physical challenges. Uh mental just is one of those words where it is inside of us, and I remember growing up thinking, not even just thinking, but I I remember you know, kids in school, they're like, oh, they're mental or they're mental, and didn't really grasp totally what that meant at the time. Um, but that was something that was reiterated, you know, when somebody wanted to make a statement about somebody they didn't like, they didn't agree with, uh, like oh, they're mental. And I think that stigma has just evolved over the years. Where anytime anybody brings up the word mental, mental health, mental illness, people automatically just turn away. They're like, I don't have any, I don't have mental health. Well, yes, you do. We all do, we're all human. We have physical health, we have spiritual health, we have mental health. Now, some of us have different degrees of not just mental health. Mental health is like I said, like physical health. So, like, let's just talk like this. So, mental health and physical health. Physical health would be how we're feeling, maybe spraying an ankle playing a pickup game of basketball, uh, or maybe uh with some of this, uh, if you live in a kind of like a winter uh a winter or lower temperatures, uh there's a chance to slip and fall on the ice. And so maybe we get a bruise. So that's something we can see. So that's physical health, but we may have, again, a twisted ankle, a bruise or two. And so when we talk about mental health, mental health is just the top of the iceberg. It's just that's what it's known for, is mental health. Now, if we dig down, some of us have mental challenges, such as depression, such as generalized anxiety, and the list goes on. And and and so I wanted to share this because I've been trying to trying to get this across to as many people as possible and as many change agents as possible. That when somebody hears the word mental, we all have mental health. So there's no question about that. That's not me making something up, that's not me trying to create a news story uh where there's not one, it's just the fact. So we have physical health at the top of the iceberg there, and then behind it, like I said, if we slip and fall on the ice, which has happened to me before, uh, if we uh you know are playing a sport, we could get injured, twist an ankle, uh, dislocate a shoulder, whatever that may be, those things are more noticeable because for those of us that are able to use our eyes, and not everybody is, so I'm very grateful, even if there's times where I don't say it, I'm very grateful that I have eyesight to any degree, because I know there's a lot of people who don't, and I shouldn't be taken I shouldn't be uh taken I mean taken advantage, but uh just just thinking like oh everybody can can see uh that's not the case. Uh or everybody can walk. That that's not always true. We're not being mean, we're just sharing that we're all unique individuals, all unique human beings. And so it's the same thing when it comes to mental health. We all have it. And I think that's the biggest part is understanding that we all have mental health. Because once we once we come to that agreement, and again, I'm not making this stuff up. We have mental health, we have physical health, etc. Once we agree that every human being, no matter where we live, no matter what our demograph uh demographic is, we all have it. Some have mental health challenges, some may not. I would argue, and I will argue, that I think we all have mental health challenges. They're just to different degrees of how it impacts our lives. So once we get to that, once we get to that starting point of okay, we all have mental health. We all have physical health. Once we agree on those two things, then we can get somewhere. It's when mental health is used as, oh, that person has mental health. Well, no kidding. We all have mental health. I think the proper terminology is, you know, there's mental challenges. But we all have physical challenges. I'll give you an example. If we line up on a track and run a 50 yard dash, some of us are faster and some of us are not. I would probably come in last or somewhere in in that in that group. So right there undermines the narratives that are out there about, oh well, you know, that person has mental health. It's a kind it's the same thing of saying it's the same way of saying in this way for physical. Well, this person has physical health. Well, no kidding. We all have physical health, we all have mental health. So can we get past this, everyone? Can we please get past this? Because more than half the battle of any issue is getting started. For instance, as we come to the close of another calendar year at the end of December, and then we turn the page into January 2026, it's easy to say, oh, I'm gonna go to the gym. I'm gonna I'm gonna get a gym membership. That's gonna be my New Year's resolution. Well, what would be the gym membership? Well, to be a little bit more active, to get a little bit stronger. But then it fades throughout the year. We get busy. And then we get busier, and next thing you know, two, three months down the road, we still are paying for this gym membership, but we're not utilizing it. And so anybody that has done that before, I've done that before. Where it's easy, right? It's easy to think in our mind, oh yeah, that's easy, I'll do that. Like I'll join with a friend or what have you. It's easy because it's in our head, it's in a comfortable spot. But actually get up and do something about it is a whole new ball game. Then are we consistent with the so first we have to identify, okay, physical health. Secondly, are we are we happy? Are we healthy? And then the third is the consistency part. How consistent. So when we talk about mental health, we all have it. So we're agreeing on that. And then if there's some diagnoses, then we're agreeing that there should maybe be some type of behavior modification and or medication therapy, and then third is that consistency. So we're being prescribed a certain medication. Once we break an ankle, sprain an ankle, uh tear an ACL, anterior crucia ligament, and we have to have surgery. So there's medication that oftentimes is prescribed for a predefined period of time based off of how much pain we're in. So if we don't take that medication, because of the years of research, the doctors will probably say, Well, you're gonna be in a lot of pain for a day, two days, a week. I don't know. I'm throwing it out hypothetically. Same thing on the mental health side of okay, we all have mental health. We agreed on that. Then we get into are there any diagnoses of like, okay, I have major depression. So what comes with that, part of what comes with that is medication and being seen. So if I were to stop taking the medication, that that probably wouldn't be one of the the best ideas to do that. So I'm trying to draw parallels between the physical health and the mental health. And it doesn't matter who we are, where we're from, how much money we have, how little money we have. Especially during these at least here on the East Coast, there's this thing called seasonal effective disorder. And I know it it really affects me. So mostly clockwork is we we uh put push the clocks back an hour, and so it's oftentimes dark outside in the morning, and then it gets dark earlier than what we're used to in the afternoonslash evening. And so that plays a role. How big of a role? I don't know. I just I just know that if I walk out the door and it's sunny if it's I I don't have to wear a jacket, I can wear short sleeves if I want. It leads me not to be outside as much as I should and I need, and I know that's something I on and we're just talking about that person's mental. We don't say, oh, that person's physical. I mean, we might say it if there's athletes playing basketball and they're, you know, really just uh if they're playing basketball, you know, they somebody takes a shot, they miss it, and so there's a chance for a rebound. And both teams are going after the ball, and um I say, oh, this this game's a little bit more physical. Uh maybe that's more fouls. Uh it could be a lot of different things, but I don't hear people say, oh, look at so and so. They're physical. We look at each other and and say, well, yeah. Okay. So why do we say, well, that person's mental? And someone can say, oh, they well, they are because they're diagnosed with whatever. Is that is that a behavior that is bringing people together and unifying that we can appreciate? Every single one of us has traits that may impact their lives more than others. Or is this a dividing where we're saying, oh, this group of people over here, they have major depression. So they have mental health. Again, how silly does that sound? We all have mental health, and that's why I'm doing this episode because it is incumbent upon me and voices for voices, and the work we put out, which again we have a we have four books out on our TikTok shop, Voices for Voices, TikTok shop, we have the house of you prescription for living, which details my mental health journey. We have the house of you five workforce preparation tips for a successful career. Both of those, if you buy it and purchase on our Voices for Voices TikTok shop, you will receive autograph copies from me, the author of both of those. And we will personalize as well prior to shipment. Then we have the Adelane comic book written by a I don't say a breakout author, uh, but a very good author and writer, David Solomon, one of the best of our time artwork done by Cooper Saunders. So I want to say a big thank you to Cooper for that. And then we have The Young Sirenborn, where David Solomon wrote the story, and he did the artwork on the cover, the outside front, the outside back, and spine of the book. Those last two, we don't have signed copies as of yet, but all four of those are for purchase today and every day on our TikTok shop as well as Amazon.com. And we're looking uh for greater distribution as we speak. Some of them we have electronically. I know The House of You, those two books. Uh we have the uh the versions on Audible, so you can download and listen on your commute, to and from work, to and from practices, games. Uh and then we have what you're watching and listening right now, the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. Now, with this episode, we are up to 381 total episodes. And we're so grateful to have you with us at any point in our uh organization, individual journeys. Because if you weren't watching, you weren't listening, we would have nobody, we'd have no reason to do this. And so we want to say thank you for watching, thank you for listening, thank you for subscribing, thank you for giving us the big thumbs up, the likes, the follows, the shares, again, the subscribing, all those are free, easy to do, and it helps us get closer and closer to our goal of helping three billion people at least over the course of my lifetime and beyond. And we're uh humbled each and every day as we uh go on different platforms and do lives, you know, whether it's a TikTok live or an Instagram live or Facebook Live, we're uh we we see so much generosity from each one of you. And so we say thank you, we're grateful, we're humbled, and let's see if we can one day at a time, one minute at a time, make the world a little bit better. And if we hear somebody talk about that person's mental or that person has mental health, you can be a change agent and say, we all have mental health and nobody's perfect. I'm not perfect, you're not perfect, nobody is. So I don't I don't think we should be judging as much as we do. And believe me, I've spent a good portion of my life kind of on that judgment train. That gossip train. Now, this kind of second half of my life trying to exit that judgment train. And just get on the train of unity, bringing people together, talking about tough issues, talking about tough stories, talking about things to make not only the individual or individuals that we have as guests feel just a little bit better because they're able to share their story. I feel like somebody wants to listen and watch. And we do, of course, as the organization, voices for voices, but for others out there, we don't know where people are at in their life journey, people at all different stages, and I would like to think that deep down, deep down in all of our hearts, that we want to help people. We don't want to hurt people. We don't want to judge people. We don't want to call people mental. We don't want to call people physical. There's an old adage, you know, can't we just get along? I don't see why not. I really don't I don't I don't see. I don't see why we can't. And so it's with the love and support from you to us and then back to you. No matter where you are in your mental health and physical health journeys. No matter what demographic you're in, or what I what demographic I'm in. Or the geographic area because we have to give big thank yous because we are viewed and listened to our show or voices for voices, TV show and podcast is watched, is listened to in a hundred countries, a thousand cities. From Antarctica to Greenland, from North America to South America, from Africa to Europe, to Oceania, to Asia. We love each and every one of you. Help us, help me be a better person. Help us, help me be a better leader. Help us, help me show more respect and less judgment. And thank you so much for watching and listening. If you can share our show, we are a 501c3 nonprofit charity. So if it so moves you, you can donate to Voices for Voices at lovevoices.org. That's lovevoices.org spelled out. That is L-O-V-E V O I C E S dot O R G. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode. Love you all. Thank you for your love and support. And we'll see you on the next Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. This is Justin Allen Hayes, and we're so grateful to have had a few minutes with you at this time. So have a great day wherever you may be.