ShortyForeal: All right, welcome back everyone to After Hours Less Talk. This is the space where we stop pretending we're okay, where we let masks come off, where we talk about the things that usually only get whispered, if they get talked about at all. Tonight's episode is about mental health. Not the Instagram version, not the motivational quote version, but the real one. The one that makes it hard to get out of the bed. The one that makes your own thoughts feel like the loudest room in the world. The one that convinces you you're broken even when you're not. So many people are fighting battles in silence, smiling in public, breaking down in private. And tonight we're talking about what it actually means to navigate mental health challenges and not fix them, not cure them, but live with them honestly and bravely. So my guest tonight is Noah May, and he's here to talk about the parts of the journey that don't get talked about enough. So before we go into that, we're gonna grab a seat, grab something to drink and dive deep into this conversation, you guys. And we're going to go into or what's on your mind tonight. And our listener wrote in, I'm functioning. I go to work. I show up. I laugh. But inside, I feel like I'm constantly drowning. Does that still count as struggling? So Noah, I'll let you go ahead and answer the listener or give them some feedback.
Noah May: It's a difficult thing to really determine because other people may not see that as personally drowning. think that if you're I think everyone will have a different kind of experience or take on that. I personally don't really think that that would be really considering yourself drowning. It tends to be more of kind of like an off day. I definitely have had those off days and you know, I can do a job and you know, wake up, you're just like, I just don't feel motivated at all today. I don't really see that as being like an everlasting effective on there. I just kind of think it's more of a, just kind of a off day that you're having. As long as it's not constantly there and it's just not an everlasting type thing, if it's just a brief temporary feeling, then I wouldn't consider that really fully drowning yourself.
ShortyForeal: And I can understand that. you said you feel like you're constantly drowning because you have all these things on your plate. And I think I can relate to that in a sense. Like I'm a mom and I have my children, I have work, I have school, I have so much going on that it feels like it's a never ending world of things to do. And I don't know where the ending is going to be. But sometimes you just have to take a deep breath, stop what you're doing, pause, and just click back into reality where you are in the moment. You know, kind of ground yourself. There's a lot of things that you can do to ground yourself and bring you back into a calm moment and get your mind off of the 99,000 things that you have to do throughout the day. So if you find activities as like breathing or grounding activities such as focusing on what you can see in front of you right now, what you can hear, what you can see, what you can smell, what you can touch in a moment and get your mind off of those things. It does help ease you and bring you back into a comfortable mental place. we are going to welcome Noah May into the After Hours Lounge officially. I'm so happy to have you here, Noah. Would you mind just telling our listeners a little bit more about yourself?
Noah May: Yeah, as she said, my name is Noah May. I currently live in the Graystown of Alabama. I'm an Auburn University alum. I graduated with my Bachelors of Arts in journalism. And between that, the whole process, I've been dealing with a lot of mental health struggles and issues for, I would say going on a decade now. I've been dealing with it since I was 13. Being 24, it's been kind of a long road in battle that we'll probably dive into today. But that's just a little oversight of me. also do a podcasting full time. I am a full time podcaster do. I do three shows, but I focus mainly on one, which is lethal venom. That's kind of the main podcast that I think people might recognize me from. And I've been doing that since I think actually tomorrow will be one year that I have had. lethal that I'm going up and going so I've been doing that podcast for literally a year now so it's that's a little bit about me.
ShortyForeal: Nice, nice. Well, welcome. We appreciate you being here. So since we are talking about mental health right now, I know you said you've had a lot of struggles especially being younger, growing up with your mental health. And can you just go into what did that look like for you? What were your struggles?
Noah May: So my mental health started when I was in eighth grade. I was 13 going on to 14 and mental health for me was just very, it was just very odd. It was an odd time for me. I wasn't really fond or really in particular about mental health at that time. I really had no idea what depression and or any of those things were at the time. So I was very confused about what was kind of what was depression, what kind of made up the depression and everything. And so I started, my home life started kind of falling apart. My grandmother had gotten sick with Alzheimer's and dementia very fast and it was very severe. She also just really went down health-wise. It caused kind of a... thing with our family because when she became, when she got dementia, she was a whole different person and kind of became, didn't remember who we were, kind of became violent at times. And so she was just a completely different person. School life too was really difficult. I started getting bullied again. I was, I had been a victim of bullying for years prior to that, but this, that year they kind of, it was just a little bit more severe than it had been in previous years. And I just fell in with the wrong crowd. I started hanging around a really bad group of people that were very kind of rowdy. were what you would classify as the people that you goofed off that didn't really care about school, didn't care about their grades, didn't really care about life
ShortyForeal: in
Noah May: at that point. And so was hanging around them and a lot of their actions and stuff rubbed off on me. And so I started becoming a little bit rebellious at the time as well. And during this whole thing, my mom, knew 100 % something was wrong, something was up. But I, to my knowledge, had not really knew about what I was going through.
ShortyForeal: no.
Noah May: I suffered also from a really strong porn addiction. I found porn when I was 13, of course, not knowing what it was. It was just a huge immersive experience for me. While I never tried anything from it, just to visually, I saw and learned about a lot of stuff that I had not known about prior.
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: And it was just a hooked on drug for me. That lasted for a few months. then following the year in 2016 in April, my mom caught me watching porn, at the time, because I was watching it in the of the day. Did not know the laws of, and the rules about watching porn
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: and everything like that. was newbie to it. So of course I didn't know what to do and not to do. And when she caught me, It was just kind of like a huge two hour rant of what I was going through. She said, okay, we're going to go to the doctor and he's going to see if you have any kind of depression spells or anything. We went to my doctor and he said, without a doubt, he's got it. There's no doubt in my mind. lot of the symptoms that you're showcasing, a lot of what you're feeling. It was just like an immediate, like, yeah, you have it. And After that, it was just kind of just living with depression. I was diagnosed with a form of clinical depression. And for people that don't know what that is, it's more of a seasonal, it's kind of more of a comes and goes. It's not really, now it kind of has triggers. Like there are times throughout the year where I do get more depressed than other times.
ShortyForeal: I think.
Noah May: That's kind of how it was when I first had it. It just would come when it wanted to and it stayed as long as it needed to. wanted to and then left when it was ready. And then I never knew when it would come back and I never knew how long it would stay the next time it came back. So that's how the depression started and that's been an everlasting battle with that for 10 years now. It's been
ShortyForeal: you
Noah May: a decade since I've been dealing with it and it's just been, some years have been better than others, but that's kind of a little bit about how the depression started.
ShortyForeal: So with you figuring that out. you said you've had it for the past 10 years now, so how have you been able to navigate dealing with it and coping with it and what type of mechanisms do you use when it does come on when you recognize it to help you get through?
Noah May: little bit more vocal and open about it. I always tended to keep it private and not really share with a lot of people about what I was going through at the time. I would always talk to my parents about it because my mom actually suffered from depression in the past so she had a general idea and kind of knew exactly what the depression was and what it kind of looked like in folks.
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: So she was my main support that I was able to go to and I'd be like, okay, I can go to her. She'll understand what I'm talking about and she'll know what to do. I didn't really open up a lot to my friends because they didn't really care at that point. They just were like, okay. Sexist hook was kind of the attitude that they had. And so I never really fully opened up a lot to them about it because I was just like, they could just be assholes about it. And they were just, yeah, assholes about it. And I thought, you know, they'll probably joke and make fun of it. They'll say something really mean and cruel about it. So I was like, I'm just not gonna tell them. I think
ShortyForeal: Right.
Noah May: after some point I started telling them about it because there were some questions that I had that I was like, I don't know how comfortable I am to ask my mom that question.
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: So I had to eventually tell them what I was going through and everything, but really at the time it was just, I didn't really have a lot of good mechanisms that I could use to really benefit it. Music was number one for me at that time. I always had music on and it didn't really be, music wasn't really much of a tool as it is now. back then.
ShortyForeal: in
Noah May: Back then it was more kind of YouTube and being able to watch videos and kind of escape that mentality that I was going through. Now it's more music and YouTube and I can have other ways of coping with it. I actually have good friends now that I can go and talk to if I needed to have any kind of advice on or on anything. So that's kind of some of the mechanisms that I use. It's it's not really groundbreaking, but Those are just some of the things that I started out.
ShortyForeal: Right. those are good things, you know, finding the things that help you calm yourself. You know, I love music too. I've gone through some depression in my life as well. And more recently in my older age now than probably my younger age, but being able to have someone safe that you feel comfortable talking to is really a big thing. And having that support of someone that is going to be there and listen and understand and allow you to express yourself and get out what it is that you need. So we oftentimes don't have enough people like that in our lives. Like you said, with your friends, know, having people that you feel are gonna talk about you or laugh about you or not really care or even possibly make you feel worse at that point. So definitely having someone safe you guys to talk to if you're experiencing any type of depression, even anxiety or just overwhelmed or any type of trauma as well. were there any other things that you were going through outside of the depression that you were dealing with as well?
Noah May: later on I did actually end up getting diagnosed with anxiety. but for the most part, I had mainly been dealing with a lot of the depression. the anxiety kind of came when I turned a little bit after I turned 18. It was the start of 2020 and we kind of know how that year was for everyone. But for, for me, I, I started having This is kind of this weird nauseous spells and kind of what you would say more of like cold flu symptoms.
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: And I thought, we thought it was just kind of a common sickness that was going around. was kind of typical for me to get sick in winter time. That's always how it always was for me. So we didn't think anything out of the ordinary when it came to being sick. Well, this kind of persisted on for a long time. And then we looked at it as like, huh, this is odd that it's still here. We went to the doctor and he really was kind of baffled. And it's something that you don't really ever want to hear your doctor say. It's the,
ShortyForeal: All right.
Noah May: I don't know what's wrong with you. It made me feel as though what I had was untreatable and was not diagnosed yet. So I thought,
ShortyForeal: Good night.
Noah May: great. He asked me a lot of questions about my depression and my depression was kind of iffy at the time. It was there, but it wasn't as severe as it has been in the past. But I was like, you know, I just don't know really how to go about this. I told him a lot more about my symptoms and I said, well, I'm having stomach aches, I'm having nausea spells to the point where I actually vomit in the mornings and in the middle of the night. I feel like I'm just weak and tired all the time, which that kind of correlated to the nausea sick spells that I would have because I don't know about most people, but when you're sick and you puke a lot, you get real tired and you get real weak.
ShortyForeal: Yeah.
Noah May: That always happened to me. And so when those moments happened, I just felt real tired for the rest of the day. I had no energy. Because this would happen early in the morning and this would be like the start of my day. And so it was just not a good combo and it was just not a thing to really have to worry and think about. He took that into consideration. I knew a little bit more about what mental health disorders were at the time because I had actually taken a health class and started taking biology and anatomy and psychology. I knew kind of the, at that point, what depression was, what anxiety was, what bipolar disorder was, and all this
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: typical mental health diagnosis that you get diagnosed with PTSD, OCD, everything. So I had a general... idea. Well, he told me to stay out of school for a week to see if it was maybe something personally going on with school, and lo and behold it was. Now, at
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: that moment, what exactly it was, I don't really know. I look back and I had a really hard teacher that was really tough on us and was really hard. But I thought, I've had teachers like this in the past. I don't know why this year is anything special or why this has triggered such a triggering thing for me.
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: We went back for a week checkup and he did some more research and he said, I think you might have anxiety. And then I thought, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold up. Cause my thing with anxiety was you can't breathe and it feels like a That's
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: I commonly thought about it. That's all that I've ever heard. And he said, well, that's typically what happens. But he said in some cases, and this is, it's a little uncommon, but it's not, it's not rare that. that some people have more of the nauseous spells and that's kind of what people consider their anxiety attack is when they get nauseous and nervous. thought, I love
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: that I had to get the pukey side of it. But I
ShortyForeal: you
Noah May: was like, okay, well, what now? I mean, how do you stop this and how do you take care of this? We thought about homeschooling at the time to see if just being at home. and trying to get on the mend would be better. We recommend, he recommended us that and we actually kind of thought about going through with it. But then luckily COVID happened to where we didn't have to go down that route and option. So I always hated saying it, but COVID was actually kind of a saving grace for me because it
ShortyForeal: Yeah.
Noah May: kind of saved me from ending up in the hospital. However, by the time that I... got diagnosed with it and finally had an answer. A lot of the damage had already been done. I'd lost 20 pounds during that time. A lot of my muscle and kind of strength that I had in my arms and legs and hands had gone away. I was just physically exhausted. I was exhausted all the time. I have shakes in my hands, especially my left arm for some reason shakes really violently if I have it at a certain angle and I have basically no mobility in this left arm at all, strength in it's gone. When I first started opening bottles or anything, skin actually kind of peeled in the base bend of my hands. So I would always have to use kind of the... my shirt or I'd have to use a special gripper to help twist bottles off. That was screwed on very tightly. That was kind of a thing that I really, that was the most embarrassing thing that I suffered with a lot was just like, I'm really glad people don't see this side. My doctor did prescribe me Insure. He put me on those to help gain a lot of the weight back due to the significant amount of weight that I had lost over the months time. I was happy that I didn't have to go back to school because I honestly didn't know how to bring this about to them. I
ShortyForeal: All right.
Noah May: I kept this a secret for a year. no one, and even during that time, no one ever really messaged me and be like, you're staying out a lot that's really odd because I never really stayed out more than a week. And so when I stayed out more than a week, that tend to be more worrisome. They
ShortyForeal: Mm.
Noah May: didn't really message me or say like, you've not been at school for two, three weeks. Are you okay? What's going on? They never really checked up on me. So that kind of was just kind of a final thing of like for me that If something would have ever happened to me, they would not have cared. They probably would
ShortyForeal: Right.
Noah May: have popped champagne. If I was gone or something, they would probably pop champagne. to me, that was just kind of the, y'all are just not good friends, are just not supportive at all. So I never really had that chance to really tell them what I was going through. It took me about a month or two to finally get back on the mend. A lot of my weight took a while to get back. But that's kind of how my anxiety really started. And then after that, it was just a very much a domino effect of... just how life was. Imagine it being like a stack of cards that you see people can build out of just playing Magic cards. And if you take one card out, the whole thing falls down. That's just how my life was at that point. Everything that I kind of was prone to and knew had just really gone to put. Going anywhere to any store, made me nervous as I'm getting out, going to the gas station, to a friend's house that I knew for about five years, to a place that I had been since I was a baby. Anywhere would trigger my anxiety.
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: It took a while for it to get used to a schedule. I had to really get on a schedule of,
ShortyForeal: Bye bye.
Noah May: I wake up, do this, do that. And if there was any change in my schedule, meaning if we had to go somewhere that was not expected, that's... triggered my anxiety. And there was this altercation in between what I normally do in a normal day compared to what I don't, it triggered it. It was just really severe. And it would happen about once or twice. And then once I was finally kind of got accustomed to it, it kind of fell into my normal regime. But then if something changed, like, I have to go to like an say that I had to go to like another classroom that would just trigger it for me. So
ShortyForeal: You're right.
Noah May: it was embarrassing to really admit that, and it's really embarrassing to know that one class from high school caused this huge life altering experience for
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: I just felt like, you know, I've been through so much. thought, what could I have done that was so bad for me to get this?
ShortyForeal: if
Noah May: But I lived with it for two and a half years until I was able to get on some really good medicine for it. But those two years were really tough for me. There
ShortyForeal: Right.
Noah May: was a lot of life decisions I had to make. There was a lot of questioning that I had going on. But I was able to get through it, but there were times where I was struggling.
ShortyForeal: Right, I get that. I definitely get that. Anxiety, it comes in all types of forms. I have anxiety really bad myself and I get a mixture of both. I get nauseous. my heart starts racing really, really fast and I feel like I'm just about to, I don't know, like it's, I can't even explain the other feeling that my body goes through. because it's just like this heightened and I just, I get very emotional too. Like I can't, I feel like I'm gonna like cry or break down or something and I just get very, very overwhelmed and I have
Noah May: Yeah.
ShortyForeal: to get to a place and it's just like, okay, I gotta calm down, I gotta calm down. My hands get really shaky. So no, get it. I was in a really bad car accident. Well, I was in a really bad car accident. One of my biggest fears happened to me. I was in a car accident on the freeway and that terrified me because I thought there was going to be this huge pile up. And ever since that day, I couldn't get into a car. I couldn't let anyone drive me. I would be really emotional. I would cry to the point where I would cry. would get really scared and nervous. Stomach would start butterflies and nauseous. I get it. It does change a lot. it took me almost two years to actually calm down to where I could actually let people drive me again or ride with someone again in a car after that happened. I did have to start taking a medication to kind of help me. Once I go into a car, I got to take it like an hour before I leave if I'm going with someone. So I can kind of mill it because I will call someone to have an accident if I don't because I get really anxious really really anxious so it does change a lot in your life it really does it does take a big enough thing people understand that having these type of things depression and anxiety it does take a big chunk out of your life and it really does alter the way that you do things you view things and you see things so being able to to find ways to handle them and deal with them where it's not. Causing such drastic and life-altering changes continuously because like you know what no one wants to do that is a big thing so Definitely being able to get the help that you need being able to talk to someone and being able to understand what's going on in your life, you know, it's a Plus you guys we're gonna go into our quote of the night Our quote states that you don't have to see the whole path. You just have to take the next honest step Maybe tonight, the next step is just staying, just breathe, just asking for help. And that's enough, because a lot of times we are scared to even reach out for help because we're so afraid of what that outcome might be or the response might be to us asking. And we don't know how to calm down and breathe and relax, you know. So. We want to thank Noah for joining us tonight and sharing his story with us and talking to us and making us aware of the things that we go through from childhood to adulthood, the things that we still deal with in those places. It's just a reminder that we always have to be aware of what's going on. As we noticed, he paid very much close attention to what was happening to him so that he could. get the help that he needed. The doctors were able to assess and address the issues because he was very aware of what was happening with him. So you guys, you're not weak, you're not broken, and you're not alone. So if your mind has been a hard place to live in lately, just know help is not a failure. Rest is not quitting, and staying is an act of bravery. So you guys, Be gentle with yourselves, love yourselves, take care of yourselves. Take a deep breath, breathe, relax, and remember that the night it always has something to say. until next time, you guys, we'll see you later.
Noah May: It's a difficult thing to really determine because other people may not see that as personally drowning. think that if you're I think everyone will have a different kind of experience or take on that. I personally don't really think that that would be really considering yourself drowning. It tends to be more of kind of like an off day. I definitely have had those off days and you know, I can do a job and you know, wake up, you're just like, I just don't feel motivated at all today. I don't really see that as being like an everlasting effective on there. I just kind of think it's more of a, just kind of a off day that you're having. As long as it's not constantly there and it's just not an everlasting type thing, if it's just a brief temporary feeling, then I wouldn't consider that really fully drowning yourself.
ShortyForeal: And I can understand that. you said you feel like you're constantly drowning because you have all these things on your plate. And I think I can relate to that in a sense. Like I'm a mom and I have my children, I have work, I have school, I have so much going on that it feels like it's a never ending world of things to do. And I don't know where the ending is going to be. But sometimes you just have to take a deep breath, stop what you're doing, pause, and just click back into reality where you are in the moment. You know, kind of ground yourself. There's a lot of things that you can do to ground yourself and bring you back into a calm moment and get your mind off of the 99,000 things that you have to do throughout the day. So if you find activities as like breathing or grounding activities such as focusing on what you can see in front of you right now, what you can hear, what you can see, what you can smell, what you can touch in a moment and get your mind off of those things. It does help ease you and bring you back into a comfortable mental place. we are going to welcome Noah May into the After Hours Lounge officially. I'm so happy to have you here, Noah. Would you mind just telling our listeners a little bit more about yourself?
Noah May: Yeah, as she said, my name is Noah May. I currently live in the Graystown of Alabama. I'm an Auburn University alum. I graduated with my Bachelors of Arts in journalism. And between that, the whole process, I've been dealing with a lot of mental health struggles and issues for, I would say going on a decade now. I've been dealing with it since I was 13. Being 24, it's been kind of a long road in battle that we'll probably dive into today. But that's just a little oversight of me. also do a podcasting full time. I am a full time podcaster do. I do three shows, but I focus mainly on one, which is lethal venom. That's kind of the main podcast that I think people might recognize me from. And I've been doing that since I think actually tomorrow will be one year that I have had. lethal that I'm going up and going so I've been doing that podcast for literally a year now so it's that's a little bit about me.
ShortyForeal: Nice, nice. Well, welcome. We appreciate you being here. So since we are talking about mental health right now, I know you said you've had a lot of struggles especially being younger, growing up with your mental health. And can you just go into what did that look like for you? What were your struggles?
Noah May: So my mental health started when I was in eighth grade. I was 13 going on to 14 and mental health for me was just very, it was just very odd. It was an odd time for me. I wasn't really fond or really in particular about mental health at that time. I really had no idea what depression and or any of those things were at the time. So I was very confused about what was kind of what was depression, what kind of made up the depression and everything. And so I started, my home life started kind of falling apart. My grandmother had gotten sick with Alzheimer's and dementia very fast and it was very severe. She also just really went down health-wise. It caused kind of a... thing with our family because when she became, when she got dementia, she was a whole different person and kind of became, didn't remember who we were, kind of became violent at times. And so she was just a completely different person. School life too was really difficult. I started getting bullied again. I was, I had been a victim of bullying for years prior to that, but this, that year they kind of, it was just a little bit more severe than it had been in previous years. And I just fell in with the wrong crowd. I started hanging around a really bad group of people that were very kind of rowdy. were what you would classify as the people that you goofed off that didn't really care about school, didn't care about their grades, didn't really care about life
ShortyForeal: in
Noah May: at that point. And so was hanging around them and a lot of their actions and stuff rubbed off on me. And so I started becoming a little bit rebellious at the time as well. And during this whole thing, my mom, knew 100 % something was wrong, something was up. But I, to my knowledge, had not really knew about what I was going through.
ShortyForeal: no.
Noah May: I suffered also from a really strong porn addiction. I found porn when I was 13, of course, not knowing what it was. It was just a huge immersive experience for me. While I never tried anything from it, just to visually, I saw and learned about a lot of stuff that I had not known about prior.
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: And it was just a hooked on drug for me. That lasted for a few months. then following the year in 2016 in April, my mom caught me watching porn, at the time, because I was watching it in the of the day. Did not know the laws of, and the rules about watching porn
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: and everything like that. was newbie to it. So of course I didn't know what to do and not to do. And when she caught me, It was just kind of like a huge two hour rant of what I was going through. She said, okay, we're going to go to the doctor and he's going to see if you have any kind of depression spells or anything. We went to my doctor and he said, without a doubt, he's got it. There's no doubt in my mind. lot of the symptoms that you're showcasing, a lot of what you're feeling. It was just like an immediate, like, yeah, you have it. And After that, it was just kind of just living with depression. I was diagnosed with a form of clinical depression. And for people that don't know what that is, it's more of a seasonal, it's kind of more of a comes and goes. It's not really, now it kind of has triggers. Like there are times throughout the year where I do get more depressed than other times.
ShortyForeal: I think.
Noah May: That's kind of how it was when I first had it. It just would come when it wanted to and it stayed as long as it needed to. wanted to and then left when it was ready. And then I never knew when it would come back and I never knew how long it would stay the next time it came back. So that's how the depression started and that's been an everlasting battle with that for 10 years now. It's been
ShortyForeal: you
Noah May: a decade since I've been dealing with it and it's just been, some years have been better than others, but that's kind of a little bit about how the depression started.
ShortyForeal: So with you figuring that out. you said you've had it for the past 10 years now, so how have you been able to navigate dealing with it and coping with it and what type of mechanisms do you use when it does come on when you recognize it to help you get through?
Noah May: little bit more vocal and open about it. I always tended to keep it private and not really share with a lot of people about what I was going through at the time. I would always talk to my parents about it because my mom actually suffered from depression in the past so she had a general idea and kind of knew exactly what the depression was and what it kind of looked like in folks.
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: So she was my main support that I was able to go to and I'd be like, okay, I can go to her. She'll understand what I'm talking about and she'll know what to do. I didn't really open up a lot to my friends because they didn't really care at that point. They just were like, okay. Sexist hook was kind of the attitude that they had. And so I never really fully opened up a lot to them about it because I was just like, they could just be assholes about it. And they were just, yeah, assholes about it. And I thought, you know, they'll probably joke and make fun of it. They'll say something really mean and cruel about it. So I was like, I'm just not gonna tell them. I think
ShortyForeal: Right.
Noah May: after some point I started telling them about it because there were some questions that I had that I was like, I don't know how comfortable I am to ask my mom that question.
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: So I had to eventually tell them what I was going through and everything, but really at the time it was just, I didn't really have a lot of good mechanisms that I could use to really benefit it. Music was number one for me at that time. I always had music on and it didn't really be, music wasn't really much of a tool as it is now. back then.
ShortyForeal: in
Noah May: Back then it was more kind of YouTube and being able to watch videos and kind of escape that mentality that I was going through. Now it's more music and YouTube and I can have other ways of coping with it. I actually have good friends now that I can go and talk to if I needed to have any kind of advice on or on anything. So that's kind of some of the mechanisms that I use. It's it's not really groundbreaking, but Those are just some of the things that I started out.
ShortyForeal: Right. those are good things, you know, finding the things that help you calm yourself. You know, I love music too. I've gone through some depression in my life as well. And more recently in my older age now than probably my younger age, but being able to have someone safe that you feel comfortable talking to is really a big thing. And having that support of someone that is going to be there and listen and understand and allow you to express yourself and get out what it is that you need. So we oftentimes don't have enough people like that in our lives. Like you said, with your friends, know, having people that you feel are gonna talk about you or laugh about you or not really care or even possibly make you feel worse at that point. So definitely having someone safe you guys to talk to if you're experiencing any type of depression, even anxiety or just overwhelmed or any type of trauma as well. were there any other things that you were going through outside of the depression that you were dealing with as well?
Noah May: later on I did actually end up getting diagnosed with anxiety. but for the most part, I had mainly been dealing with a lot of the depression. the anxiety kind of came when I turned a little bit after I turned 18. It was the start of 2020 and we kind of know how that year was for everyone. But for, for me, I, I started having This is kind of this weird nauseous spells and kind of what you would say more of like cold flu symptoms.
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: And I thought, we thought it was just kind of a common sickness that was going around. was kind of typical for me to get sick in winter time. That's always how it always was for me. So we didn't think anything out of the ordinary when it came to being sick. Well, this kind of persisted on for a long time. And then we looked at it as like, huh, this is odd that it's still here. We went to the doctor and he really was kind of baffled. And it's something that you don't really ever want to hear your doctor say. It's the,
ShortyForeal: All right.
Noah May: I don't know what's wrong with you. It made me feel as though what I had was untreatable and was not diagnosed yet. So I thought,
ShortyForeal: Good night.
Noah May: great. He asked me a lot of questions about my depression and my depression was kind of iffy at the time. It was there, but it wasn't as severe as it has been in the past. But I was like, you know, I just don't know really how to go about this. I told him a lot more about my symptoms and I said, well, I'm having stomach aches, I'm having nausea spells to the point where I actually vomit in the mornings and in the middle of the night. I feel like I'm just weak and tired all the time, which that kind of correlated to the nausea sick spells that I would have because I don't know about most people, but when you're sick and you puke a lot, you get real tired and you get real weak.
ShortyForeal: Yeah.
Noah May: That always happened to me. And so when those moments happened, I just felt real tired for the rest of the day. I had no energy. Because this would happen early in the morning and this would be like the start of my day. And so it was just not a good combo and it was just not a thing to really have to worry and think about. He took that into consideration. I knew a little bit more about what mental health disorders were at the time because I had actually taken a health class and started taking biology and anatomy and psychology. I knew kind of the, at that point, what depression was, what anxiety was, what bipolar disorder was, and all this
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: typical mental health diagnosis that you get diagnosed with PTSD, OCD, everything. So I had a general... idea. Well, he told me to stay out of school for a week to see if it was maybe something personally going on with school, and lo and behold it was. Now, at
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: that moment, what exactly it was, I don't really know. I look back and I had a really hard teacher that was really tough on us and was really hard. But I thought, I've had teachers like this in the past. I don't know why this year is anything special or why this has triggered such a triggering thing for me.
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: We went back for a week checkup and he did some more research and he said, I think you might have anxiety. And then I thought, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold up. Cause my thing with anxiety was you can't breathe and it feels like a That's
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: I commonly thought about it. That's all that I've ever heard. And he said, well, that's typically what happens. But he said in some cases, and this is, it's a little uncommon, but it's not, it's not rare that. that some people have more of the nauseous spells and that's kind of what people consider their anxiety attack is when they get nauseous and nervous. thought, I love
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: that I had to get the pukey side of it. But I
ShortyForeal: you
Noah May: was like, okay, well, what now? I mean, how do you stop this and how do you take care of this? We thought about homeschooling at the time to see if just being at home. and trying to get on the mend would be better. We recommend, he recommended us that and we actually kind of thought about going through with it. But then luckily COVID happened to where we didn't have to go down that route and option. So I always hated saying it, but COVID was actually kind of a saving grace for me because it
ShortyForeal: Yeah.
Noah May: kind of saved me from ending up in the hospital. However, by the time that I... got diagnosed with it and finally had an answer. A lot of the damage had already been done. I'd lost 20 pounds during that time. A lot of my muscle and kind of strength that I had in my arms and legs and hands had gone away. I was just physically exhausted. I was exhausted all the time. I have shakes in my hands, especially my left arm for some reason shakes really violently if I have it at a certain angle and I have basically no mobility in this left arm at all, strength in it's gone. When I first started opening bottles or anything, skin actually kind of peeled in the base bend of my hands. So I would always have to use kind of the... my shirt or I'd have to use a special gripper to help twist bottles off. That was screwed on very tightly. That was kind of a thing that I really, that was the most embarrassing thing that I suffered with a lot was just like, I'm really glad people don't see this side. My doctor did prescribe me Insure. He put me on those to help gain a lot of the weight back due to the significant amount of weight that I had lost over the months time. I was happy that I didn't have to go back to school because I honestly didn't know how to bring this about to them. I
ShortyForeal: All right.
Noah May: I kept this a secret for a year. no one, and even during that time, no one ever really messaged me and be like, you're staying out a lot that's really odd because I never really stayed out more than a week. And so when I stayed out more than a week, that tend to be more worrisome. They
ShortyForeal: Mm.
Noah May: didn't really message me or say like, you've not been at school for two, three weeks. Are you okay? What's going on? They never really checked up on me. So that kind of was just kind of a final thing of like for me that If something would have ever happened to me, they would not have cared. They probably would
ShortyForeal: Right.
Noah May: have popped champagne. If I was gone or something, they would probably pop champagne. to me, that was just kind of the, y'all are just not good friends, are just not supportive at all. So I never really had that chance to really tell them what I was going through. It took me about a month or two to finally get back on the mend. A lot of my weight took a while to get back. But that's kind of how my anxiety really started. And then after that, it was just a very much a domino effect of... just how life was. Imagine it being like a stack of cards that you see people can build out of just playing Magic cards. And if you take one card out, the whole thing falls down. That's just how my life was at that point. Everything that I kind of was prone to and knew had just really gone to put. Going anywhere to any store, made me nervous as I'm getting out, going to the gas station, to a friend's house that I knew for about five years, to a place that I had been since I was a baby. Anywhere would trigger my anxiety.
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: It took a while for it to get used to a schedule. I had to really get on a schedule of,
ShortyForeal: Bye bye.
Noah May: I wake up, do this, do that. And if there was any change in my schedule, meaning if we had to go somewhere that was not expected, that's... triggered my anxiety. And there was this altercation in between what I normally do in a normal day compared to what I don't, it triggered it. It was just really severe. And it would happen about once or twice. And then once I was finally kind of got accustomed to it, it kind of fell into my normal regime. But then if something changed, like, I have to go to like an say that I had to go to like another classroom that would just trigger it for me. So
ShortyForeal: You're right.
Noah May: it was embarrassing to really admit that, and it's really embarrassing to know that one class from high school caused this huge life altering experience for
ShortyForeal: Mm-hmm.
Noah May: I just felt like, you know, I've been through so much. thought, what could I have done that was so bad for me to get this?
ShortyForeal: if
Noah May: But I lived with it for two and a half years until I was able to get on some really good medicine for it. But those two years were really tough for me. There
ShortyForeal: Right.
Noah May: was a lot of life decisions I had to make. There was a lot of questioning that I had going on. But I was able to get through it, but there were times where I was struggling.
ShortyForeal: Right, I get that. I definitely get that. Anxiety, it comes in all types of forms. I have anxiety really bad myself and I get a mixture of both. I get nauseous. my heart starts racing really, really fast and I feel like I'm just about to, I don't know, like it's, I can't even explain the other feeling that my body goes through. because it's just like this heightened and I just, I get very emotional too. Like I can't, I feel like I'm gonna like cry or break down or something and I just get very, very overwhelmed and I have
Noah May: Yeah.
ShortyForeal: to get to a place and it's just like, okay, I gotta calm down, I gotta calm down. My hands get really shaky. So no, get it. I was in a really bad car accident. Well, I was in a really bad car accident. One of my biggest fears happened to me. I was in a car accident on the freeway and that terrified me because I thought there was going to be this huge pile up. And ever since that day, I couldn't get into a car. I couldn't let anyone drive me. I would be really emotional. I would cry to the point where I would cry. would get really scared and nervous. Stomach would start butterflies and nauseous. I get it. It does change a lot. it took me almost two years to actually calm down to where I could actually let people drive me again or ride with someone again in a car after that happened. I did have to start taking a medication to kind of help me. Once I go into a car, I got to take it like an hour before I leave if I'm going with someone. So I can kind of mill it because I will call someone to have an accident if I don't because I get really anxious really really anxious so it does change a lot in your life it really does it does take a big enough thing people understand that having these type of things depression and anxiety it does take a big chunk out of your life and it really does alter the way that you do things you view things and you see things so being able to to find ways to handle them and deal with them where it's not. Causing such drastic and life-altering changes continuously because like you know what no one wants to do that is a big thing so Definitely being able to get the help that you need being able to talk to someone and being able to understand what's going on in your life, you know, it's a Plus you guys we're gonna go into our quote of the night Our quote states that you don't have to see the whole path. You just have to take the next honest step Maybe tonight, the next step is just staying, just breathe, just asking for help. And that's enough, because a lot of times we are scared to even reach out for help because we're so afraid of what that outcome might be or the response might be to us asking. And we don't know how to calm down and breathe and relax, you know. So. We want to thank Noah for joining us tonight and sharing his story with us and talking to us and making us aware of the things that we go through from childhood to adulthood, the things that we still deal with in those places. It's just a reminder that we always have to be aware of what's going on. As we noticed, he paid very much close attention to what was happening to him so that he could. get the help that he needed. The doctors were able to assess and address the issues because he was very aware of what was happening with him. So you guys, you're not weak, you're not broken, and you're not alone. So if your mind has been a hard place to live in lately, just know help is not a failure. Rest is not quitting, and staying is an act of bravery. So you guys, Be gentle with yourselves, love yourselves, take care of yourselves. Take a deep breath, breathe, relax, and remember that the night it always has something to say. until next time, you guys, we'll see you later.
