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Having the language to talk about these challenges is so important.
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We can use policy to change culture and change people's attitudes about taking mental health days,
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talking about mental health.
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Our generation that are passing these bills and starting the conversations,
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shifting culture.
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If these conversations can just reach one person and encourage that person to get help,
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then it's all worth it.
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Welcome to She Persisted, the Gen Z mental health podcast.
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I'm your host, Sadie Sutton.
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Let's get into it.
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Sometimes the biggest barrier to getting help isn't that support isn't available,
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It's believing that you're not struggling enough to deserve it.
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This week's episode is unpacking that, and it was recorded live at the 2026 Active Minds
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Mental Health Conference in Washington, D.C., in front of an audience of young mental health
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advocates from across the country.
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We talk about why so many of us believe that someone else needs the help more, how changing
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our language can change whether people actually use mental health resources, and how to build
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personal rules, routines, and relationships that support you before you reach crisis.
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Because help is not something that you have to earn by getting worse.
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So let's dive into it.
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Hello, you guys.
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Thank you so much for being here for this live podcast.
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I'm Sadie, the host of She Persisted.
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Like Allison, I went to University of Pennsylvania.
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And like you guys, or most of you, I was a member of my Active Minds chapter starting
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my freshman year of college.
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And it was an incredible resource that really helped smooth the transition, make me feel
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like I had support on my college campus and continue this dialogue about mental health and
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youth mental health.
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And I'm really excited to continue that tonight.
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We have an incredible
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guest, Haley Hardcastle, a Gen Z mental health advocate and one of the leading voices on making
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sure we have resources for youth in school settings.
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So thank you for joining me.
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Thank you,
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Sadie.
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So happy to be here.
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I can't wait to dive into all the work that you've done.
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Can you take us back to your experiences that began your mental health advocacy journey?
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You've been really involved in getting policies passed and legislation that supports Gen Z mental health.
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So take us back to you as a student struggling with your mental health and how you got to where you are today.
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Absolutely.
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Well, I have to take you all the way back.
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So my mental health journey began when I was just six years old.
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I was a little girl facing what's called adverse childhood experiences or ACEs.
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you may have heard of these.
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I was facing a few challenges at home that at the time I didn't know
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that other kids were facing too.
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I have a single mom and three younger sisters and you know I always
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had everything I needed growing up but my mom worked really hard to get those things and I had
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a lot of financial barriers.
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I was facing some abuse and unsafe situations and so I was carrying
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a lot of weight as a little girl.
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A weight that I didn't know that other people were carrying.
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I felt
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really alone in these challenges.
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And of course, I started exhibiting mental health symptoms because
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of all of the things that I was facing.
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School became my safe space.
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This is where I accessed
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mental health services for the first time.
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My counselor noticed that something was wrong.
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I was
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acting out because I was carrying a lot and they got me the support that I needed.
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However, it was
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really tough some days.
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Some days I like couldn't even make it to school because I was having panic
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attacks.
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I didn't know why I felt like this.
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I was just a kid, right?
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Luckily, my mom and I came up
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with this system where she would let me take a mental health day off of school if I could
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communicate that I needed a mental health day.
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We would talk through it.
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I would stay home.
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And oftentimes, I was feeling okay enough to go back the next day.
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This also flagged for her that
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I needed to talk to the counselor or get some support.
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So that's how my mental health journey
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began.
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But my mental health advocacy journey began in high school.
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I was a student leader and
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super involved in all of the clubs, all of the sports, you know, as a student facing financial
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barriers.
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And as a first generation college student, I was pushing myself to be involved in
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everything to get those scholarships, to get into the right colleges.
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And I started experiencing
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some burnout.
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I was way too involved.
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And this manifested as depression, anxiety, severe panic
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attacks when I was at school, because I was over committing myself trying to make my way in the
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world.
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As a student leader, I began to notice that my peers were facing these mental health
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challenges too.
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It was the first time that I realized I wasn't alone in the things that I
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was going through.
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All these other high school students had their own struggles during their
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upbringing.
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They were facing similar challenges in their classes.
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And luckily, the adults in my
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life were turning to us student leaders to see what we should do about the mental health crisis.
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During my junior year of high school, a few students in my community had died by suicide.
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And the adults came straight to us as the student government and wanted our input on what should happen.
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So what we did next, I'm so proud of.
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We sat together as a group of peers, literally at summer camp in a classroom, and talked about what we would do if there were no financial barriers.
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If all the adults said yes, if there was no worry in the world, how would we solve the youth mental health crisis?
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We came up with so many solutions, but the one that we went with was House Bill 2191,
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allowing students to take mental health days off of K-12 classes, inspired by the rule
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that me and my mom had when I was growing up.
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So we started advocating for that in the state of Oregon, where I'm from, and we officially
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passed House Bill 2191 in 2019.
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Now this is a law in 13 states across the country, and I can get more into this bill
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later.
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I am a total policy nerd and will tell you all about it.
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But I get to spend some of my time talking about youth mental health advocacy all across the country.
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I've given a TEDx talk on the subject now that has reached 4 million viewers all about my journey as a mental health advocate.
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So I'm excited to share more with you today.
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What I think is so interesting about the bill specifically is how there's a lot of guardrails in place so that when people are struggling, they don't fall under the radar.
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And even though it's kind of counterintuitive that you are taking time away from school, in fact, there's more visibility and more awareness when someone takes a mental health day based on this legislation.
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Can you talk to us a little bit about that?
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Yes.
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I'm so glad that you asked this because the most common pushback that we get about House Bill 2191 is that students are going to use it to skip school or they're just going home and that's going to make the mental health crisis worse.
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right?
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But the reality is students are already taking mental health days.
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They have been for as
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long as students have been in school.
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They just weren't calling it that.
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And so now we have this
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law that allows them to start that conversation with their parents and their teachers and calling
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it what it is.
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It's a mental health day.
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In some school districts, I've heard that they have
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tailored it so that way they mark it down as a mental health day and they keep track of how many.
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And after a student reaches a certain amount, they are referred to the school counselor.
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So that way
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they can receive additional support.
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So I think this is actually catching students before a crisis
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gets worse.
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I completely agree.
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And I think one of the most important things to remember about this
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work is that a lot of these things have already existed, whether or not we're talking about them.
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So like you said, people were taking mental health days.
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Maybe they just weren't labeled
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as that in the attendance book.
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And so having this open conversation, normalizing taking them
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between peers, but also from a school administration perspective, having that transparency and
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vulnerability with parents is incredibly important.
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And I love how you have talked about how having
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this policy with your mom that you could take mental health days open that line of communication
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between you guys.
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Can you talk to me about what that looks like?
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Because I know at many points
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during my mental health journey, when I wasn't going to school, the most effective conversations
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were not taking place.
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I at one point was sleeping on my parents' floor for six months because I
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wasn't physically safe enough to sleep in my own room.
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And I slept on like a trundle mattress right
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next to their bed.
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They'd wake up to start the day and I would be laying like comatose, depressed,
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not going to school, not happening.
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My dad would play orchestra music as loud as the speaker would
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go.
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And it didn't work, surprisingly.
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I didn't end up at school.
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That mental health day was taken,
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whether or not that's what it looked like from a policy perspective.
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And your experience was
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very different.
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It allowed a very open, vulnerable, transparent conversation because you had that
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language to explain that you needed this resource.
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You needed this support.
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Can you talk to me about
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what that looked like between you and your mom?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Thank you for sharing your
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experience with your parents, because I think that's so key.
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Like we all come from different
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families and different backgrounds and our parents come with a different context of mental health.
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And so those conversations might look so different.
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I'm so lucky that my mom was willing and able to talk about mental health from a really
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young age.
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But truthfully, she did not have all of the context she needed.
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We both made mistakes along the way when I was trying to explain to her how I was feeling
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and she was trying to offer me the resources, but not the ones I needed at first.
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And it's organizations like Active Minds and several other nonprofits out there that offer
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resources for families to have these conversations.
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And so my mom was out there Googling what to do, as I'm sure many parents are.
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And that's how we got through it together.
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And you have this incredible metaphor that you've talked about that I think is an incredible
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kind of example that people can follow.
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I know in the early days of my mental health journey, when I was in intensive treatment,
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myself and my parents learned how to talk about these types of things.
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And it was really clunky at first.
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We had a rule where I could just say how I was feeling and they wouldn't ask any follow
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up questions.
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said they're anxious and we'd move on to talking about the weather because I like could not handle
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the anxiety of them being like what are you anxious about we're just eating dinner why are
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you stressed and so having a framework that you can follow and having all those rules around these
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conversations can make it feel more safe to be vulnerable about how you're feeling and I think
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that the analogy that you and your mom used was so effective especially for any parents who are
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listening can you share that with us yes we were chatting about this backstage when I was a kid I
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I came to my mom one time and I was like, I feel so heavy right now.
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I don't know what this is.
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There was a weight on my shoulders.
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And she came up with this analogy where she said that you're wearing a backpack that's
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really heavy right now.
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That backpack is full of these feelings, these thoughts, these experiences that are weighing
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you down.
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And the only way to lighten that load is we need to talk through it.
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We need to sort through that backpack and we can do this together.
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And so I think about that all the time now.
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Yeah, 100%.
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And I think especially for parents or community members who have peers that are maybe younger, you've talked about how your mental health challenges go back to when you were six years old.
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The language that it looks like to talk about struggling is really different at that age versus as a teen who's working on policy or on Capitol Hill working to get legislation passed.
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And so I think learning about how we can talk about these things, starting with really young kids, is really important.
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And so I absolutely love that way of describing the experience.
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It's very real.
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It really resonates, but it's not as emotionally intensive as it might be in a therapy session.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I mean, having the language to talk about these challenges is so important, even as
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you age, though.
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Like, I was a kid who didn't have this language, but then I was also a teenager who was still
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learning.
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And a lot of my information came from social media.
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I think I mentioned this to you earlier, but podcasts just like this, this is how I accessed
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health care as a teenager.
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Coming from, you know, a financially stressful background, I didn't have a lot of access to therapy or anything.
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I was getting those resources at school, on social media, and from my friends and calling hotlines.
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And so that is why things like this are so important.
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I always say, like, if these conversations can just reach one person and encourage that person to get help, then it's all worth it.
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That's why we're here.
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That's why we're having these conversations.
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Yeah.
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What I think is so fascinating is that we're literally in a very similar spot right now.
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We're both at this conference talking about our mental health journeys.
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We both have, at this point, dedicated our careers to trying to help youth that are struggling with their mental health.
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And yet our experiences as teens look very different.
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For me, I was on the opposite end of the spectrum where I was utilizing every single mental health treatment option available.
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I spent four different stays in intensive inpatient.
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I spent 14 weeks at a residential program.
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I spent 14 months at a therapeutic boarding school.
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like you name it those resources were exhausted and it wasn't for lack of trying from my parents
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or therapists it really was the belief that things wouldn't get better and that almost refusal to
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accept help because I didn't think I deserved it I didn't think I was deserving of not being in pain
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or being happy or building that life worth living and so I think it's a really interesting
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thing to talk about that even when these resources exist even when the policy is in place
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of the legislation has been passed, that doesn't necessarily mean that people will ask for help
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even when they need it.
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And yet it can be a very powerful way for us to have these conversations
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so we can normalize asking for help and being vulnerable and accepting the resources that are
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available for us.
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And I would love to get your perspective there on how we can use policy
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to change culture and change people's attitudes about taking mental health days, talking about
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mental health and making sure that these resources that are available are actually utilized, which
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I'm sure many of you can relate to.
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If you are involved in your chapter, you guys have all the
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events.
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The whole university is not showing up despite the fact that everyone's talking about
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struggling with their mental health.
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So it's this really interesting dialectic and I would love to
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get your thoughts on how we can improve kind of uptake of those resources because we need them.
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We know that.
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Yeah, you're so right.
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It starts with a culture shift and it starts with that
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conversation being open and available to people.
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So I'm so proud of this bill that we passed,
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House Bill 2191.
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However, the real reason why we wanted to pass it was to get the conversation
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started.
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The media that happened afterward was almost just as important as that law actually
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being available in schools because it made people who are no longer in K-12 education think about
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this, talk about this, you know, comment about this on social media.
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And so in that way, we were
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shifting people's thought process about mental health.
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One time I went to a grocery store to
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go pick up a newspaper that had featured our bill in it.
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And I started chatting with the cashier,
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like this older gentleman, and I informed him about mental health days.
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And he said,
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I've been taking those my entire life.
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I just wasn't calling them that.
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And he hadn't really
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like taken a moment to be able to talk about his mental health with someone else in that way.
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Like
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he didn't have the language to.
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And so it's our generation that are passing these bills and
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starting the conversations, shifting culture, whether it's the guy at Safeway or your on-campus
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chapter, we are making sure that youth mental health and mental health for everyone is at the
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forefront of the conversation.
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Yeah, I think it's really interesting and I love hearing about what
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made the difference when people decided to accept help or utilize these resources that are available,
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whether it's 988 or local community resources or seeing a therapist, whatever it is that they are
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accepting help.
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It's incredibly, incredibly challenging.
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I look back on my mental health
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journey and asking for help was the hardest part because it meant accepting that it was bigger than
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me.
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It meant accepting that I couldn't avoid that I was struggling anymore.
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And there was a lot of
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shame around what I was experiencing.
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I felt like I hadn't gone through enough to be struggling so
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much.
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There was a lot of internal turmoil around the fact that I was struggling at all, which
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really just made everything worse.
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And I think back on what got me to accept that help and accept
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those resources and engage in therapy and build relationships that help support my mental health.
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And in a lot of ways, it was understanding logically and really diving into research on,
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we know there are treatments that work really well for mental health, especially depression
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and anxiety for youth.
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And then the emotional piece in DBT, they call it like seeing the wisdom
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in treatment, trusting people to help me, being vulnerable enough to ask for help and speak about
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that experience.
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And that was really the difference from going through the motions, whether it's
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showing up at a chapter meeting or having that conversation about mental health, but not speaking
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about your own experience.
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That really did make all the difference in my journey.
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And I'm curious
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for you if you had a similar point where the way that you were engaging with resources was different
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and you allowed yourself to see that difference and feel supported.
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Yeah, there was definitely a
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moment where the way that I was engaging with resources shifted.
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Like I mentioned, I was using
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social media, calling hotlines, gathering information, but the big barrier for me from
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asking for help was that I felt like other people needed help more.
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Like I couldn't wrap my mind
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around the fact that I was also struggling and it was okay for me to reach out.
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There wasn't a
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scarcity of resources.
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Like there were times in high school where I could not picture myself
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turning 20 years old.
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I seriously could not see a future and that's concerning and you know that's
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cause for needing help.
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However I was showing up to cheer practice and so I thought oh no other
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people need it more than I do right and so what shifted was a school counselor came to our
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classroom and she had us all talk about like what barriers were in place and somebody said someone
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else needs this more than I do and I realized do we all think that the truth is yeah we all can use
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a little bit of support like it doesn't mean that something is deeply wrong or that you're taking
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away a resource for someone else taking that first step to have the conversation is all that needs to
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happen yeah I also think the best reframe around that as well and I talk about this a lot on the
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podcast, I share the skills that I learned in intensive treatment or the conversations I had
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while hospitalized for suicidal depression.
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And I always frame it as if this worked for me,
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I promise it will work for you if you're struggling before that exam or having that
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hard conversation after a breakup or experiencing a low mood for the first time.
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Like if it's working
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for people who are struggling to such an extreme degree, why wouldn't it work for you?
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And why
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wouldn't you try these skills and these ways of approaching the situation because there's such a
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better chance of things working and that was one of the reasons I started the podcast because so
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much of what I went through was preventable if I'd learned the skills earlier if I put the resources
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in place if I had the structured support I think that a lot of us would be in better positions and
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I would love to get your thoughts on how we can kind of apply all of the work that we've done
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with policy where we put these structures in place, we have ways of checking in on people,
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we increase visibility, we have more transparency when it comes to the conversation around mental
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health.
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I think we can also do the same thing when it comes to our individual choices,
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not just like what does it look like from legislation, but what does it look like in
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our day-to-day lives?
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And I'm curious how you do that in your own life with applying whether it's
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like structure or routines to maintain your own mental health?
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Yeah.
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Well, this question is allowing
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me to talk about where I'm at currently with you all, which is really important because I talk
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about struggling as a child and as a teenager.
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But now as an adult, the truth is I do still
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struggle.
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Like mental health is not a linear journey.
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There are ups and downs.
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And I just
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have more tools in my toolbox now to be able to manage that.
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One of those is mental health days.
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some other ones that I really heavily lean on I love journaling I have to build in my outside time
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and the most powerful one is my community I need my strong community a story that I always think
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about is when I was in high school and I was super involved in my community like showing up to all
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these events the clubs everything I was an advocate right but I was asked to give a quote for the
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yearbook and they asked me what I was the most proud of in high school and I said like my TED
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talk.
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And then a different girl said, my friends, I'm the most proud of my friends.
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That has stuck
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with me my entire life because I realized I want to be that person.
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I need my community.
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I need
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those friends that I'm proud of.
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And so I shifted and I built that community the past, you know,
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five years of my life.
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And now those friends are my strongest supports.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I love that so
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much.
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And I think applying similar ways of thinking about mental health to our personal lives is
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really important.
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I love having like a mental health set of rules.
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They're flexible.
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We give
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ourselves grace, but kind of having guidelines on like what works for me and trying to stick to that
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has been really effective in maintaining my recovery.
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And that means having like a really
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consistent sleep routine and making sure that I have relationships that not only I see people
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often, but I feel seen and heard and supported and I'm being vulnerable so that I feel seen
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because it's not just people asking about how you're doing.
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It's also you volunteering that
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information, having something that I'm working towards, I feel like I'm getting better at,
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whether it's the podcast or school or work, having hobbies that I enjoy, doing things for fun,
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seeing yourself naturally get better at those things.
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All of those almost like rules that I
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put in place create that structure, just like we do with policy and legislation.
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And I think it's
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really important to keep yourself on track because I think if there's one thing I learned through all
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my psychology classes in undergrad, it's that willpower and trying to white knuckle your way
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through anything in life is really ineffective.
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And I look at this, you have your rules, I have
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my tools, we're working through it.
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Yes.
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And I think that's been one of the biggest game changers
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for mental health for me is kind of like applying that framework and that way of thinking about
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things.
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I would love to get your thoughts looking into the next 10, 15 years of mental health and
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Gen Z mental health specifically, I think we kind of got a glimpse into what that will look like
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today with Hill Day, talking about all the things that are to come, what the Research Active Blinds
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is doing, the initiatives that are being rolled out.
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What do you hope to see when it comes to
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not only mental health policy, but that culture piece as well, how we talk about it, how we treat
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mental health, and how it looks in our day-to-day lives?
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Right.
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So two things come to mind when I
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think about the future of mental health.
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One is I hope that we can shift culture to recognize that
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we cannot move forward with youth mental health until we recognize that it is so intertwined with
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many other social justice issues.
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I work with youth every single day and when they talk about
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mental health usually they're actually talking about other issues that they're going through
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you know like big social justice problems and youth are facing so many of those things right now
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and we can't discount how that is impacting their mental health.
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So I really love when I see a young advocate
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who's talking about mental health and climate change
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or mental health and gender equity
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or whatever is important to them
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because so many of these things go hand in hand.
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So our solution should be tailored to mental health
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but also these social justice issues as well.
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The second piece is local and campus change.
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We're here today advocating federally
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and I'm so proud of you
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but this cannot stop here.
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We also have to be advocating in our communities where we know what
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we need best, whether that's your campus, your classroom, your family, or your community.
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Having
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those conversations locally first is really how we can make change happen.
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The first time that I
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ever advocated was to my psychology class in high school, and I pulled up a document about how to
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contact your legislators, and I told them I'll email them right now, and then I moved on to the
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school board and then the state legislature and then I moved to DC and now I advocate here and so
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start locally like we can do this yeah another thing that I love about your perspective and
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approach here is how different it can look for everyone and that advocacy isn't one size fits all
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our experiences again have been very different but we've ended up in a very similar spot I studied
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psychology in undergrad I have the podcast I now work in psychology research you study policy
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You're now working at a nonprofit.
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And so leaning into your strengths and your interests, regardless of what those are, there
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are so many endless ways that you can make a difference in mental health advocacy.
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Any thoughts there, advice for people who are struggling to know how they can play a
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part in this movement and really engage in this issue that they're so passionate about?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I'm glad that you brought this up because everyone has such a unique skill set that
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you can use to advocate in whatever way works best for you.
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We chatted about this earlier,
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but I'd actually love if everyone could take a moment and think about what your skill set is
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and how you can use that to better advocate in your community.
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We all practice legislative
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advocacy today.
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However, maybe your advocacy is more tailored to art or conversations.
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Well, we wanted to leave a little bit of time so that we could get some questions from you guys
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and make sure that we were covering the topics that you're interested and passionate about.
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Did any of you guys have any questions?
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We have a little time for a Q&A at the end of this conversation.
476
00:25:21.660 --> 00:25:25.100
How do you find issues on a local level for advocacy?
477
00:25:25.581 --> 00:25:27.400
I would go back to your lived experience.
478
00:25:28.020 --> 00:25:30.460
You know, like when you consider your life,
479
00:25:30.801 --> 00:25:33.460
what areas would have made growing up easier
480
00:25:33.722 --> 00:25:35.718
or a certain challenge that you went through easier?
481
00:25:36.661 --> 00:25:39.360
And if you can't find anything in your lived experience,
482
00:25:39.481 --> 00:25:41.832
your friends, your community, your family members.
483
00:25:42.274 --> 00:25:43.620
I think that's where the most powerful
484
00:25:43.881 --> 00:25:48.300
movements come from is through something that you've been through personally that you are
485
00:25:48.340 --> 00:25:50.830
willing to share and speak up about to others.
486
00:25:51.292 --> 00:25:53.080
I also would encourage you to look into what's
487
00:25:53.260 --> 00:25:54.746
already happening in your community.
488
00:25:54.786 --> 00:25:58.320
There is strength in numbers and advocacy and change
489
00:25:58.561 --> 00:25:59.746
rarely happens alone.
490
00:25:59.766 --> 00:26:03.060
Go find your people who are working on things that you're already interested
491
00:26:03.241 --> 00:26:04.484
in, you know, you're here today.
492
00:26:04.545 --> 00:26:06.391
So you're already doing that work.
493
00:26:06.892 --> 00:26:07.113
Yeah.
494
00:26:07.895 --> 00:26:08.497
Absolutely.
495
00:26:08.517 --> 00:26:09.019
I definitely
496
00:26:09.480 --> 00:26:10.183
want to echo that.
497
00:26:10.243 --> 00:26:14.420
And I talk a lot about my own mental health experience and things that are
498
00:26:14.440 --> 00:26:16.772
helpful to know when you're navigating mental health challenges.
499
00:26:16.792 --> 00:26:18.259
But when I think about mental
500
00:26:18.500 --> 00:26:23.300
health advocacy and you ask, what is something in your own experience that would have been different
501
00:26:23.360 --> 00:26:24.203
or would have been better?
502
00:26:24.825 --> 00:26:27.455
I spend 14 months in the troubled teen industry.
503
00:26:27.595 --> 00:26:28.880
And so in my local
504
00:26:28.940 --> 00:26:33.980
community, the legislation in California looks really different than it does in Utah or Montana,
505
00:26:34.161 --> 00:26:35.385
where I spent 14 months.
506
00:26:35.525 --> 00:26:39.418
And so regardless of where you're at geographically, these issues
507
00:26:40.081 --> 00:26:40.984
look really different.
508
00:26:41.145 --> 00:26:43.495
And the policy that exists looks very different.
509
00:26:43.515 --> 00:26:44.620
And the conversations that
510
00:26:44.660 --> 00:26:46.187
are being had look very different.
511
00:26:46.307 --> 00:26:49.240
So whatever you have gone through or someone in your life
512
00:26:49.280 --> 00:26:52.760
has gone through, that's what will give you the most drive and the most passion and the most
513
00:26:52.840 --> 00:26:53.622
perseverance.
514
00:26:53.863 --> 00:26:59.739
And so leaning into those interests and those experiences that are really emotionally
515
00:27:00.181 --> 00:27:04.620
resonant will give you like the longest runway when it comes to this work, because it is a long
516
00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:04.942
game.
517
00:27:05.002 --> 00:27:08.540
It's not a short game when it comes to making change in the mental health industry.
518
00:27:09.200 --> 00:27:12.600
How often does your why for advocating change if it does change?
519
00:27:13.201 --> 00:27:14.405
I love this question.
520
00:27:14.786 --> 00:27:16.792
My why changes often.
521
00:27:16.812 --> 00:27:19.460
I found that as I've gotten older and I've been
522
00:27:19.460 --> 00:27:24.700
in the advocacy space for longer, my why needs to change so that way I can sustain that drive.
523
00:27:24.840 --> 00:27:28.780
At first, I was making that change for myself because I was in high school and I wanted my
524
00:27:28.840 --> 00:27:29.483
school to be better.
525
00:27:30.065 --> 00:27:33.880
Now my why is for my three little sisters who are still in high school.
526
00:27:33.900 --> 00:27:33.960
The
527
00:27:33.980 --> 00:27:37.053
youngest one, she's 10 years old and she's going into middle school this year.
528
00:27:37.073 --> 00:27:38.660
And I just want the
529
00:27:38.680 --> 00:27:41.349
world to be a better place for her to grow up in.
530
00:27:41.369 --> 00:27:44.720
I think with the nature of podcasting, it's a
531
00:27:44.860 --> 00:27:50.440
never-ending cycle and the why of getting on the microphone every week absolutely changes and it
532
00:27:50.500 --> 00:27:55.000
tends to be what I'm going through whether it's navigating college applications or starting
533
00:27:55.120 --> 00:28:00.160
college and beginning post-grad I think leaning into your own experiences and what's been
534
00:28:00.200 --> 00:28:04.520
challenging and thinking about how you can help support others going through similar things was
535
00:28:04.600 --> 00:28:10.800
really important and I also think for me the the why initially goes back to that lived experience
536
00:28:10.960 --> 00:28:17.300
of knowing that I struggled a lot as a teen and really wanting to make teens feel like they have
537
00:28:17.440 --> 00:28:20.752
more of a sense of agency over their mental health.
538
00:28:20.872 --> 00:28:23.220
That if you try and you take action,
539
00:28:23.740 --> 00:28:28.260
you can see a meaningful difference because that was just something that was so deeply challenging
540
00:28:28.501 --> 00:28:35.420
for me was feeling like I had any sense of control over how I felt and how I could potentially feel
541
00:28:35.500 --> 00:28:36.927
better when it came to my mental health.
542
00:28:36.987 --> 00:28:39.840
So I think having that true north is also something
543
00:28:39.920 --> 00:28:44.320
that I think resonates for a lot of people when it comes to advocacy is there is one belief or
544
00:28:44.460 --> 00:28:48.395
one experience that tends to drive all of these actions down the line.
545
00:28:48.857 --> 00:28:49.740
Yeah, and if anyone is
546
00:28:49.820 --> 00:28:53.320
struggling with, you know, finding their why, I would encourage you to connect with the next
547
00:28:53.400 --> 00:28:54.083
generation.
548
00:28:54.444 --> 00:28:58.860
This work is so generational and it takes years to get something like this passed,
549
00:28:59.020 --> 00:29:04.680
and so connecting with the younger people around you, their energy will definitely push you forward.
550
00:29:04.780 --> 00:29:15.752
I was wondering what the process was like to get the legislation passed for the mental health days, like how you brought that up to legislators and pushed it forward.
551
00:29:15.912 --> 00:29:20.276
And then you said that it was passed as a law in 13 states.
552
00:29:20.617 --> 00:29:23.660
What can we do to try to bring that up in the other states?
553
00:29:24.181 --> 00:29:26.468
Yes, please bring it up in the other states.
554
00:29:26.929 --> 00:29:31.040
The process was we, so me and my peers, we're sitting
555
00:29:31.120 --> 00:29:31.744
together in a room.
556
00:29:31.764 --> 00:29:33.978
We're like, we're going to do this, but we're going to need some help.
557
00:29:34.179 --> 00:29:34.280
We're
558
00:29:34.280 --> 00:29:35.886
going to need some adults on our side as well.
559
00:29:36.348 --> 00:29:39.440
So first we reached out to our advisors at our
560
00:29:39.520 --> 00:29:41.731
school, some teachers who we knew would be on board.
561
00:29:42.213 --> 00:29:43.660
And they helped us reach out to some
562
00:29:43.720 --> 00:29:48.735
lobbyists who did some pro bono free work for us and helped us write up the bill.
563
00:29:49.437 --> 00:29:49.879
And then we
564
00:29:50.501 --> 00:29:52.227
proposed it to the state legislature.
565
00:29:52.267 --> 00:29:55.460
We got two different state representatives to sponsor the
566
00:29:55.480 --> 00:29:55.761
bill.
567
00:29:56.344 --> 00:29:58.052
We did exactly what you all did today.
568
00:29:58.092 --> 00:29:59.940
We showed up to their offices, we booked the
569
00:29:59.980 --> 00:30:01.687
appointments, and we shared our stories.
570
00:30:02.189 --> 00:30:05.000
We made sure to share every little detail of how this bill
571
00:30:05.080 --> 00:30:07.390
would have helped us if it had been in place.
572
00:30:07.912 --> 00:30:09.980
And then we continued to show up through the entire
573
00:30:10.141 --> 00:30:10.563
session.
574
00:30:10.623 --> 00:30:13.477
And I'm really proud to actually pass in only one legislative session.
575
00:30:13.497 --> 00:30:14.060
It only took one
576
00:30:14.100 --> 00:30:16.609
year to get it through, but it took youth power.
577
00:30:17.492 --> 00:30:19.560
And for people who couldn't show up to the
578
00:30:19.600 --> 00:30:22.090
legislature, we connected with them online.
579
00:30:22.111 --> 00:30:24.340
We were literally posting about this bill on our
580
00:30:24.400 --> 00:30:28.840
Instagram stories, having our friends email their legislators and making sure that they knew how
581
00:30:28.840 --> 00:30:29.984
many people this would help.
582
00:30:30.326 --> 00:30:31.209
That was our process.
583
00:30:31.570 --> 00:30:34.000
And the second part of your question is look up if
584
00:30:34.060 --> 00:30:35.064
your state has it.
585
00:30:35.766 --> 00:30:36.188
Awesome.
586
00:30:36.529 --> 00:30:39.600
Well, thank you guys so much for joining us for this conversation.
587
00:30:39.841 --> 00:30:44.336
Thank you, Haley, for sitting down and being a guest on She Persisted.
588
00:30:44.497 --> 00:30:45.360
Thank you guys so much
589
00:30:45.400 --> 00:30:50.180
for listening and thank you again to Haley, Active Minds, and everyone who joined us live for this
590
00:30:50.260 --> 00:30:50.963
conversation.
591
00:30:51.284 --> 00:30:54.816
Make sure to leave a review, share the podcast, and subscribe.
592
00:30:54.896 --> 00:30:55.900
It's free and it truly
593
00:30:56.041 --> 00:30:59.215
does help me continue to bring you guys conversations just like this one.
594
00:30:59.556 --> 00:31:00.440
So with that, I'll see you
595
00:31:00.460 --> 00:31:00.842
next week.
596
00:31:01.304 --> 00:31:04.479
If you enjoyed this episode of She Persisted, make sure to leave a review, subscribe,
597
00:31:04.920 --> 00:31:06.286
and share with a friend or family member.
598
00:31:06.647 --> 00:31:09.580
Follow along at She Persisted Podcast on TikTok, Instagram,
599
00:31:09.721 --> 00:31:11.510
YouTube, and more for bonus content.
600
00:31:11.671 --> 00:31:13.460
Thanks for listening and keep persisting.
1
00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:03.140
Having the language to talk about these challenges is so important.
2
00:00:03.300 --> 00:00:09.200
We can use policy to change culture and change people's attitudes about taking mental health days,
3
00:00:09.401 --> 00:00:10.599
talking about mental health.
4
00:00:10.860 --> 00:00:14.060
Our generation that are passing these bills and starting the conversations,
5
00:00:14.320 --> 00:00:15.100
shifting culture.
6
00:00:15.360 --> 00:00:19.600
If these conversations can just reach one person and encourage that person to get help,
7
00:00:19.720 --> 00:00:20.479
then it's all worth it.
8
00:00:20.560 --> 00:00:23.099
Welcome to She Persisted, the Gen Z mental health podcast.
9
00:00:23.621 --> 00:00:24.811
I'm your host, Sadie Sutton.
10
00:00:25.013 --> 00:00:25.760
Let's get into it.
11
00:00:26.122 --> 00:00:29.680
Sometimes the biggest barrier to getting help isn't that support isn't available,
12
00:00:30.060 --> 00:00:33.040
It's believing that you're not struggling enough to deserve it.
13
00:00:33.440 --> 00:00:37.075
This week's episode is unpacking that, and it was recorded live at the 2026 Active Minds
14
00:00:38.260 --> 00:00:42.320
Mental Health Conference in Washington, D.C., in front of an audience of young mental health
15
00:00:42.401 --> 00:00:43.780
advocates from across the country.
16
00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:48.100
We talk about why so many of us believe that someone else needs the help more, how changing
17
00:00:48.200 --> 00:00:52.480
our language can change whether people actually use mental health resources, and how to build
18
00:00:52.560 --> 00:00:56.700
personal rules, routines, and relationships that support you before you reach crisis.
19
00:00:57.000 --> 00:00:59.920
Because help is not something that you have to earn by getting worse.
20
00:01:00.203 --> 00:01:01.159
So let's dive into it.
21
00:01:01.420 --> 00:01:02.118
Hello, you guys.
22
00:01:02.380 --> 00:01:05.420
Thank you so much for being here for this live podcast.
23
00:01:06.403 --> 00:01:08.220
I'm Sadie, the host of She Persisted.
24
00:01:09.122 --> 00:01:11.760
Like Allison, I went to University of Pennsylvania.
25
00:01:12.160 --> 00:01:17.779
And like you guys, or most of you, I was a member of my Active Minds chapter starting
26
00:01:18.041 --> 00:01:19.200
my freshman year of college.
27
00:01:19.741 --> 00:01:25.920
And it was an incredible resource that really helped smooth the transition, make me feel
28
00:01:25.920 --> 00:01:31.880
like I had support on my college campus and continue this dialogue about mental health and
29
00:01:31.920 --> 00:01:32.784
youth mental health.
30
00:01:33.205 --> 00:01:35.856
And I'm really excited to continue that tonight.
31
00:01:35.956 --> 00:01:36.840
We have an incredible
32
00:01:37.020 --> 00:01:43.820
guest, Haley Hardcastle, a Gen Z mental health advocate and one of the leading voices on making
33
00:01:44.001 --> 00:01:47.272
sure we have resources for youth in school settings.
34
00:01:47.613 --> 00:01:48.657
So thank you for joining me.
35
00:01:49.179 --> 00:01:49.520
Thank you,
36
00:01:49.580 --> 00:01:50.082
Sadie.
37
00:01:50.142 --> 00:01:51.246
So happy to be here.
38
00:01:51.266 --> 00:01:55.460
I can't wait to dive into all the work that you've done.
39
00:01:56.202 --> 00:02:01.500
Can you take us back to your experiences that began your mental health advocacy journey?
40
00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:08.020
You've been really involved in getting policies passed and legislation that supports Gen Z mental health.
41
00:02:08.120 --> 00:02:14.720
So take us back to you as a student struggling with your mental health and how you got to where you are today.
42
00:02:15.041 --> 00:02:15.766
Absolutely.
43
00:02:15.827 --> 00:02:17.400
Well, I have to take you all the way back.
44
00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:20.720
So my mental health journey began when I was just six years old.
45
00:02:20.981 --> 00:02:25.340
I was a little girl facing what's called adverse childhood experiences or ACEs.
46
00:02:25.400 --> 00:02:26.465
you may have heard of these.
47
00:02:26.485 --> 00:02:29.840
I was facing a few challenges at home that at the time I didn't know
48
00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:31.185
that other kids were facing too.
49
00:02:31.787 --> 00:02:35.740
I have a single mom and three younger sisters and you know I always
50
00:02:35.840 --> 00:02:40.580
had everything I needed growing up but my mom worked really hard to get those things and I had
51
00:02:40.600 --> 00:02:42.145
a lot of financial barriers.
52
00:02:42.205 --> 00:02:46.640
I was facing some abuse and unsafe situations and so I was carrying
53
00:02:46.740 --> 00:02:48.388
a lot of weight as a little girl.
54
00:02:48.468 --> 00:02:50.659
A weight that I didn't know that other people were carrying.
55
00:02:50.719 --> 00:02:50.960
I felt
56
00:02:51.121 --> 00:02:52.506
really alone in these challenges.
57
00:02:53.048 --> 00:02:56.120
And of course, I started exhibiting mental health symptoms because
58
00:02:56.301 --> 00:02:57.706
of all of the things that I was facing.
59
00:02:58.329 --> 00:02:59.594
School became my safe space.
60
00:02:59.695 --> 00:03:01.040
This is where I accessed
61
00:03:01.241 --> 00:03:03.170
mental health services for the first time.
62
00:03:03.230 --> 00:03:05.319
My counselor noticed that something was wrong.
63
00:03:05.339 --> 00:03:05.480
I was
64
00:03:05.640 --> 00:03:10.396
acting out because I was carrying a lot and they got me the support that I needed.
65
00:03:10.416 --> 00:03:11.580
However, it was
66
00:03:11.941 --> 00:03:12.985
really tough some days.
67
00:03:13.026 --> 00:03:16.640
Some days I like couldn't even make it to school because I was having panic
68
00:03:16.700 --> 00:03:17.002
attacks.
69
00:03:17.062 --> 00:03:18.207
I didn't know why I felt like this.
70
00:03:18.327 --> 00:03:19.492
I was just a kid, right?
71
00:03:19.894 --> 00:03:21.340
Luckily, my mom and I came up
72
00:03:21.380 --> 00:03:25.460
with this system where she would let me take a mental health day off of school if I could
73
00:03:25.480 --> 00:03:27.731
communicate that I needed a mental health day.
74
00:03:27.771 --> 00:03:28.595
We would talk through it.
75
00:03:28.736 --> 00:03:29.500
I would stay home.
76
00:03:30.141 --> 00:03:33.512
And oftentimes, I was feeling okay enough to go back the next day.
77
00:03:34.094 --> 00:03:35.740
This also flagged for her that
78
00:03:35.941 --> 00:03:38.370
I needed to talk to the counselor or get some support.
79
00:03:39.154 --> 00:03:40.740
So that's how my mental health journey
80
00:03:40.840 --> 00:03:41.382
began.
81
00:03:41.643 --> 00:03:44.333
But my mental health advocacy journey began in high school.
82
00:03:44.915 --> 00:03:45.959
I was a student leader and
83
00:03:46.321 --> 00:03:51.060
super involved in all of the clubs, all of the sports, you know, as a student facing financial
84
00:03:51.180 --> 00:03:51.662
barriers.
85
00:03:51.863 --> 00:03:56.160
And as a first generation college student, I was pushing myself to be involved in
86
00:03:56.381 --> 00:03:59.973
everything to get those scholarships, to get into the right colleges.
87
00:04:00.535 --> 00:04:01.820
And I started experiencing
88
00:04:01.940 --> 00:04:02.662
some burnout.
89
00:04:02.843 --> 00:04:04.367
I was way too involved.
90
00:04:04.628 --> 00:04:08.860
And this manifested as depression, anxiety, severe panic
91
00:04:08.900 --> 00:04:13.600
attacks when I was at school, because I was over committing myself trying to make my way in the
92
00:04:13.640 --> 00:04:13.861
world.
93
00:04:14.845 --> 00:04:18.600
As a student leader, I began to notice that my peers were facing these mental health
94
00:04:18.680 --> 00:04:19.404
challenges too.
95
00:04:19.564 --> 00:04:22.980
It was the first time that I realized I wasn't alone in the things that I
96
00:04:23.080 --> 00:04:23.743
was going through.
97
00:04:23.824 --> 00:04:27.300
All these other high school students had their own struggles during their
98
00:04:27.420 --> 00:04:27.862
upbringing.
99
00:04:27.882 --> 00:04:30.632
They were facing similar challenges in their classes.
100
00:04:31.254 --> 00:04:32.940
And luckily, the adults in my
101
00:04:33.020 --> 00:04:38.320
life were turning to us student leaders to see what we should do about the mental health crisis.
102
00:04:38.841 --> 00:04:43.180
During my junior year of high school, a few students in my community had died by suicide.
103
00:04:43.821 --> 00:04:48.740
And the adults came straight to us as the student government and wanted our input on what should happen.
104
00:04:49.543 --> 00:04:51.460
So what we did next, I'm so proud of.
105
00:04:51.620 --> 00:04:59.560
We sat together as a group of peers, literally at summer camp in a classroom, and talked about what we would do if there were no financial barriers.
106
00:04:59.900 --> 00:05:05.860
If all the adults said yes, if there was no worry in the world, how would we solve the youth mental health crisis?
107
00:05:06.161 --> 00:05:10.778
We came up with so many solutions, but the one that we went with was House Bill 2191,
108
00:05:11.540 --> 00:05:16.899
allowing students to take mental health days off of K-12 classes, inspired by the rule
109
00:05:17.221 --> 00:05:18.899
that me and my mom had when I was growing up.
110
00:05:19.401 --> 00:05:23.900
So we started advocating for that in the state of Oregon, where I'm from, and we officially
111
00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:25.271
passed House Bill 2191 in 2019.
112
00:05:27.100 --> 00:05:31.300
Now this is a law in 13 states across the country, and I can get more into this bill
113
00:05:31.300 --> 00:05:31.557
later.
114
00:05:31.841 --> 00:05:34.360
I am a total policy nerd and will tell you all about it.
115
00:05:34.802 --> 00:05:39.600
But I get to spend some of my time talking about youth mental health advocacy all across the country.
116
00:05:40.140 --> 00:05:46.900
I've given a TEDx talk on the subject now that has reached 4 million viewers all about my journey as a mental health advocate.
117
00:05:47.140 --> 00:05:49.060
So I'm excited to share more with you today.
118
00:05:49.741 --> 00:05:59.560
What I think is so interesting about the bill specifically is how there's a lot of guardrails in place so that when people are struggling, they don't fall under the radar.
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And even though it's kind of counterintuitive that you are taking time away from school, in fact, there's more visibility and more awareness when someone takes a mental health day based on this legislation.
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Can you talk to us a little bit about that?
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Yes.
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I'm so glad that you asked this because the most common pushback that we get about House Bill 2191 is that students are going to use it to skip school or they're just going home and that's going to make the mental health crisis worse.
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right?
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But the reality is students are already taking mental health days.
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They have been for as
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long as students have been in school.
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They just weren't calling it that.
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And so now we have this
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law that allows them to start that conversation with their parents and their teachers and calling
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it what it is.
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It's a mental health day.
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In some school districts, I've heard that they have
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tailored it so that way they mark it down as a mental health day and they keep track of how many.
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And after a student reaches a certain amount, they are referred to the school counselor.
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So that way
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they can receive additional support.
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So I think this is actually catching students before a crisis
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gets worse.
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I completely agree.
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And I think one of the most important things to remember about this
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work is that a lot of these things have already existed, whether or not we're talking about them.
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So like you said, people were taking mental health days.
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Maybe they just weren't labeled
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as that in the attendance book.
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And so having this open conversation, normalizing taking them
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between peers, but also from a school administration perspective, having that transparency and
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vulnerability with parents is incredibly important.
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And I love how you have talked about how having
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this policy with your mom that you could take mental health days open that line of communication
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between you guys.
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Can you talk to me about what that looks like?
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Because I know at many points
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during my mental health journey, when I wasn't going to school, the most effective conversations
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were not taking place.
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I at one point was sleeping on my parents' floor for six months because I
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wasn't physically safe enough to sleep in my own room.
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And I slept on like a trundle mattress right
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next to their bed.
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They'd wake up to start the day and I would be laying like comatose, depressed,
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not going to school, not happening.
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My dad would play orchestra music as loud as the speaker would
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go.
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And it didn't work, surprisingly.
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I didn't end up at school.
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That mental health day was taken,
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whether or not that's what it looked like from a policy perspective.
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And your experience was
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very different.
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It allowed a very open, vulnerable, transparent conversation because you had that
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language to explain that you needed this resource.
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You needed this support.
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Can you talk to me about
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what that looked like between you and your mom?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Thank you for sharing your
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experience with your parents, because I think that's so key.
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Like we all come from different
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families and different backgrounds and our parents come with a different context of mental health.
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And so those conversations might look so different.
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I'm so lucky that my mom was willing and able to talk about mental health from a really
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young age.
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But truthfully, she did not have all of the context she needed.
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We both made mistakes along the way when I was trying to explain to her how I was feeling
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and she was trying to offer me the resources, but not the ones I needed at first.
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And it's organizations like Active Minds and several other nonprofits out there that offer
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resources for families to have these conversations.
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And so my mom was out there Googling what to do, as I'm sure many parents are.
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And that's how we got through it together.
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And you have this incredible metaphor that you've talked about that I think is an incredible
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kind of example that people can follow.
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I know in the early days of my mental health journey, when I was in intensive treatment,
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myself and my parents learned how to talk about these types of things.
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And it was really clunky at first.
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We had a rule where I could just say how I was feeling and they wouldn't ask any follow
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up questions.
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said they're anxious and we'd move on to talking about the weather because I like could not handle
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the anxiety of them being like what are you anxious about we're just eating dinner why are
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you stressed and so having a framework that you can follow and having all those rules around these
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conversations can make it feel more safe to be vulnerable about how you're feeling and I think
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that the analogy that you and your mom used was so effective especially for any parents who are
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listening can you share that with us yes we were chatting about this backstage when I was a kid I
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I came to my mom one time and I was like, I feel so heavy right now.
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I don't know what this is.
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There was a weight on my shoulders.
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And she came up with this analogy where she said that you're wearing a backpack that's
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really heavy right now.
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That backpack is full of these feelings, these thoughts, these experiences that are weighing
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you down.
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And the only way to lighten that load is we need to talk through it.
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We need to sort through that backpack and we can do this together.
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And so I think about that all the time now.
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Yeah, 100%.
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And I think especially for parents or community members who have peers that are maybe younger, you've talked about how your mental health challenges go back to when you were six years old.
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The language that it looks like to talk about struggling is really different at that age versus as a teen who's working on policy or on Capitol Hill working to get legislation passed.
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And so I think learning about how we can talk about these things, starting with really young kids, is really important.
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And so I absolutely love that way of describing the experience.
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It's very real.
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It really resonates, but it's not as emotionally intensive as it might be in a therapy session.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I mean, having the language to talk about these challenges is so important, even as
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you age, though.
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Like, I was a kid who didn't have this language, but then I was also a teenager who was still
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learning.
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And a lot of my information came from social media.
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I think I mentioned this to you earlier, but podcasts just like this, this is how I accessed
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health care as a teenager.
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Coming from, you know, a financially stressful background, I didn't have a lot of access to therapy or anything.
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I was getting those resources at school, on social media, and from my friends and calling hotlines.
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And so that is why things like this are so important.
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I always say, like, if these conversations can just reach one person and encourage that person to get help, then it's all worth it.
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That's why we're here.
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That's why we're having these conversations.
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Yeah.
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What I think is so fascinating is that we're literally in a very similar spot right now.
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We're both at this conference talking about our mental health journeys.
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We both have, at this point, dedicated our careers to trying to help youth that are struggling with their mental health.
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And yet our experiences as teens look very different.
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For me, I was on the opposite end of the spectrum where I was utilizing every single mental health treatment option available.
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I spent four different stays in intensive inpatient.
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I spent 14 weeks at a residential program.
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I spent 14 months at a therapeutic boarding school.
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like you name it those resources were exhausted and it wasn't for lack of trying from my parents
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or therapists it really was the belief that things wouldn't get better and that almost refusal to
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accept help because I didn't think I deserved it I didn't think I was deserving of not being in pain
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or being happy or building that life worth living and so I think it's a really interesting
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thing to talk about that even when these resources exist even when the policy is in place
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of the legislation has been passed, that doesn't necessarily mean that people will ask for help
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even when they need it.
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And yet it can be a very powerful way for us to have these conversations
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so we can normalize asking for help and being vulnerable and accepting the resources that are
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available for us.
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And I would love to get your perspective there on how we can use policy
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to change culture and change people's attitudes about taking mental health days, talking about
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mental health and making sure that these resources that are available are actually utilized, which
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I'm sure many of you can relate to.
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If you are involved in your chapter, you guys have all the
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events.
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The whole university is not showing up despite the fact that everyone's talking about
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struggling with their mental health.
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So it's this really interesting dialectic and I would love to
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get your thoughts on how we can improve kind of uptake of those resources because we need them.
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We know that.
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Yeah, you're so right.
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It starts with a culture shift and it starts with that
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conversation being open and available to people.
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So I'm so proud of this bill that we passed,
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House Bill 2191.
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However, the real reason why we wanted to pass it was to get the conversation
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started.
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The media that happened afterward was almost just as important as that law actually
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being available in schools because it made people who are no longer in K-12 education think about
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this, talk about this, you know, comment about this on social media.
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And so in that way, we were
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shifting people's thought process about mental health.
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One time I went to a grocery store to
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go pick up a newspaper that had featured our bill in it.
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And I started chatting with the cashier,
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like this older gentleman, and I informed him about mental health days.
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And he said,
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I've been taking those my entire life.
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I just wasn't calling them that.
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And he hadn't really
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like taken a moment to be able to talk about his mental health with someone else in that way.
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Like
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he didn't have the language to.
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And so it's our generation that are passing these bills and
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starting the conversations, shifting culture, whether it's the guy at Safeway or your on-campus
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chapter, we are making sure that youth mental health and mental health for everyone is at the
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forefront of the conversation.
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Yeah, I think it's really interesting and I love hearing about what
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made the difference when people decided to accept help or utilize these resources that are available,
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whether it's 988 or local community resources or seeing a therapist, whatever it is that they are
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accepting help.
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It's incredibly, incredibly challenging.
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I look back on my mental health
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journey and asking for help was the hardest part because it meant accepting that it was bigger than
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me.
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It meant accepting that I couldn't avoid that I was struggling anymore.
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And there was a lot of
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shame around what I was experiencing.
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I felt like I hadn't gone through enough to be struggling so
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much.
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There was a lot of internal turmoil around the fact that I was struggling at all, which
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really just made everything worse.
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And I think back on what got me to accept that help and accept
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those resources and engage in therapy and build relationships that help support my mental health.
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And in a lot of ways, it was understanding logically and really diving into research on,
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we know there are treatments that work really well for mental health, especially depression
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and anxiety for youth.
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And then the emotional piece in DBT, they call it like seeing the wisdom
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in treatment, trusting people to help me, being vulnerable enough to ask for help and speak about
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that experience.
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And that was really the difference from going through the motions, whether it's
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showing up at a chapter meeting or having that conversation about mental health, but not speaking
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about your own experience.
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That really did make all the difference in my journey.
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And I'm curious
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for you if you had a similar point where the way that you were engaging with resources was different
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and you allowed yourself to see that difference and feel supported.
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Yeah, there was definitely a
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moment where the way that I was engaging with resources shifted.
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Like I mentioned, I was using
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social media, calling hotlines, gathering information, but the big barrier for me from
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asking for help was that I felt like other people needed help more.
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Like I couldn't wrap my mind
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around the fact that I was also struggling and it was okay for me to reach out.
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There wasn't a
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scarcity of resources.
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Like there were times in high school where I could not picture myself
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turning 20 years old.
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I seriously could not see a future and that's concerning and you know that's
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cause for needing help.
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However I was showing up to cheer practice and so I thought oh no other
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people need it more than I do right and so what shifted was a school counselor came to our
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classroom and she had us all talk about like what barriers were in place and somebody said someone
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else needs this more than I do and I realized do we all think that the truth is yeah we all can use
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a little bit of support like it doesn't mean that something is deeply wrong or that you're taking
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away a resource for someone else taking that first step to have the conversation is all that needs to
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happen yeah I also think the best reframe around that as well and I talk about this a lot on the
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podcast, I share the skills that I learned in intensive treatment or the conversations I had
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while hospitalized for suicidal depression.
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And I always frame it as if this worked for me,
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I promise it will work for you if you're struggling before that exam or having that
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hard conversation after a breakup or experiencing a low mood for the first time.
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Like if it's working
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for people who are struggling to such an extreme degree, why wouldn't it work for you?
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And why
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wouldn't you try these skills and these ways of approaching the situation because there's such a
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better chance of things working and that was one of the reasons I started the podcast because so
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much of what I went through was preventable if I'd learned the skills earlier if I put the resources
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in place if I had the structured support I think that a lot of us would be in better positions and
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I would love to get your thoughts on how we can kind of apply all of the work that we've done
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with policy where we put these structures in place, we have ways of checking in on people,
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we increase visibility, we have more transparency when it comes to the conversation around mental
355
00:18:52.680 --> 00:18:53.022
health.
356
00:18:53.645 --> 00:18:56.620
I think we can also do the same thing when it comes to our individual choices,
357
00:18:57.102 --> 00:19:01.120
not just like what does it look like from legislation, but what does it look like in
358
00:19:01.200 --> 00:19:02.264
our day-to-day lives?
359
00:19:02.364 --> 00:19:06.540
And I'm curious how you do that in your own life with applying whether it's
360
00:19:06.620 --> 00:19:10.411
like structure or routines to maintain your own mental health?
361
00:19:10.651 --> 00:19:11.012
Yeah.
362
00:19:11.814 --> 00:19:13.479
Well, this question is allowing
363
00:19:13.900 --> 00:19:17.640
me to talk about where I'm at currently with you all, which is really important because I talk
364
00:19:17.700 --> 00:19:20.651
about struggling as a child and as a teenager.
365
00:19:20.711 --> 00:19:22.980
But now as an adult, the truth is I do still
366
00:19:23.020 --> 00:19:23.361
struggle.
367
00:19:23.683 --> 00:19:25.991
Like mental health is not a linear journey.
368
00:19:26.172 --> 00:19:27.577
There are ups and downs.
369
00:19:27.838 --> 00:19:28.480
And I just
370
00:19:28.500 --> 00:19:31.092
have more tools in my toolbox now to be able to manage that.
371
00:19:31.213 --> 00:19:32.620
One of those is mental health days.
372
00:19:33.182 --> 00:19:38.000
some other ones that I really heavily lean on I love journaling I have to build in my outside time
373
00:19:38.341 --> 00:19:44.100
and the most powerful one is my community I need my strong community a story that I always think
374
00:19:44.180 --> 00:19:50.240
about is when I was in high school and I was super involved in my community like showing up to all
375
00:19:50.240 --> 00:19:56.540
these events the clubs everything I was an advocate right but I was asked to give a quote for the
376
00:19:56.560 --> 00:20:00.940
yearbook and they asked me what I was the most proud of in high school and I said like my TED
377
00:20:00.980 --> 00:20:01.281
talk.
378
00:20:01.823 --> 00:20:05.816
And then a different girl said, my friends, I'm the most proud of my friends.
379
00:20:06.278 --> 00:20:06.860
That has stuck
380
00:20:06.940 --> 00:20:09.913
with me my entire life because I realized I want to be that person.
381
00:20:10.014 --> 00:20:11.179
I need my community.
382
00:20:11.199 --> 00:20:11.400
I need
383
00:20:11.440 --> 00:20:12.845
those friends that I'm proud of.
384
00:20:12.925 --> 00:20:17.040
And so I shifted and I built that community the past, you know,
385
00:20:17.140 --> 00:20:18.183
five years of my life.
386
00:20:18.404 --> 00:20:21.253
And now those friends are my strongest supports.
387
00:20:21.614 --> 00:20:21.895
Yeah.
388
00:20:22.136 --> 00:20:22.296
Yeah.
389
00:20:22.938 --> 00:20:23.560
I love that so
390
00:20:23.660 --> 00:20:23.921
much.
391
00:20:23.961 --> 00:20:29.900
And I think applying similar ways of thinking about mental health to our personal lives is
392
00:20:29.940 --> 00:20:31.386
really important.
393
00:20:31.406 --> 00:20:33.554
I love having like a mental health set of rules.
394
00:20:34.036 --> 00:20:34.779
They're flexible.
395
00:20:34.819 --> 00:20:35.040
We give
396
00:20:35.080 --> 00:20:40.360
ourselves grace, but kind of having guidelines on like what works for me and trying to stick to that
397
00:20:40.521 --> 00:20:43.032
has been really effective in maintaining my recovery.
398
00:20:43.394 --> 00:20:44.700
And that means having like a really
399
00:20:44.820 --> 00:20:49.760
consistent sleep routine and making sure that I have relationships that not only I see people
400
00:20:49.941 --> 00:20:56.100
often, but I feel seen and heard and supported and I'm being vulnerable so that I feel seen
401
00:20:56.301 --> 00:20:58.333
because it's not just people asking about how you're doing.
402
00:20:58.353 --> 00:20:59.600
It's also you volunteering that
403
00:20:59.640 --> 00:21:04.740
information, having something that I'm working towards, I feel like I'm getting better at,
404
00:21:04.800 --> 00:21:10.400
whether it's the podcast or school or work, having hobbies that I enjoy, doing things for fun,
405
00:21:10.560 --> 00:21:13.050
seeing yourself naturally get better at those things.
406
00:21:13.853 --> 00:21:15.680
All of those almost like rules that I
407
00:21:15.820 --> 00:21:20.537
put in place create that structure, just like we do with policy and legislation.
408
00:21:20.557 --> 00:21:21.500
And I think it's
409
00:21:21.620 --> 00:21:26.179
really important to keep yourself on track because I think if there's one thing I learned through all
410
00:21:26.320 --> 00:21:31.160
my psychology classes in undergrad, it's that willpower and trying to white knuckle your way
411
00:21:31.280 --> 00:21:33.651
through anything in life is really ineffective.
412
00:21:33.752 --> 00:21:35.600
And I look at this, you have your rules, I have
413
00:21:35.640 --> 00:21:37.967
my tools, we're working through it.
414
00:21:38.027 --> 00:21:38.468
Yes.
415
00:21:39.331 --> 00:21:42.380
And I think that's been one of the biggest game changers
416
00:21:42.460 --> 00:21:47.760
for mental health for me is kind of like applying that framework and that way of thinking about
417
00:21:47.860 --> 00:21:48.221
things.
418
00:21:49.304 --> 00:21:55.260
I would love to get your thoughts looking into the next 10, 15 years of mental health and
419
00:21:55.360 --> 00:21:59.700
Gen Z mental health specifically, I think we kind of got a glimpse into what that will look like
420
00:22:00.101 --> 00:22:04.400
today with Hill Day, talking about all the things that are to come, what the Research Active Blinds
421
00:22:04.480 --> 00:22:07.450
is doing, the initiatives that are being rolled out.
422
00:22:07.952 --> 00:22:10.140
What do you hope to see when it comes to
423
00:22:10.320 --> 00:22:15.080
not only mental health policy, but that culture piece as well, how we talk about it, how we treat
424
00:22:15.120 --> 00:22:18.209
mental health, and how it looks in our day-to-day lives?
425
00:22:18.691 --> 00:22:19.052
Right.
426
00:22:19.654 --> 00:22:21.660
So two things come to mind when I
427
00:22:21.720 --> 00:22:23.064
think about the future of mental health.
428
00:22:23.747 --> 00:22:27.840
One is I hope that we can shift culture to recognize that
429
00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:32.420
we cannot move forward with youth mental health until we recognize that it is so intertwined with
430
00:22:32.520 --> 00:22:34.547
many other social justice issues.
431
00:22:35.109 --> 00:22:38.680
I work with youth every single day and when they talk about
432
00:22:38.740 --> 00:22:42.860
mental health usually they're actually talking about other issues that they're going through
433
00:22:43.041 --> 00:22:48.440
you know like big social justice problems and youth are facing so many of those things right now
434
00:22:48.902 --> 00:22:51.620
and we can't discount how that is impacting their mental health.
435
00:22:51.780 --> 00:22:54.760
So I really love when I see a young advocate
436
00:22:55.344 --> 00:22:57.560
who's talking about mental health and climate change
437
00:22:57.681 --> 00:22:59.800
or mental health and gender equity
438
00:23:00.103 --> 00:23:01.580
or whatever is important to them
439
00:23:01.701 --> 00:23:03.640
because so many of these things go hand in hand.
440
00:23:03.941 --> 00:23:07.439
So our solution should be tailored to mental health
441
00:23:07.781 --> 00:23:09.840
but also these social justice issues as well.
442
00:23:10.260 --> 00:23:13.760
The second piece is local and campus change.
443
00:23:14.161 --> 00:23:16.140
We're here today advocating federally
444
00:23:16.242 --> 00:23:17.319
and I'm so proud of you
445
00:23:17.621 --> 00:23:18.946
but this cannot stop here.
446
00:23:18.986 --> 00:23:22.380
We also have to be advocating in our communities where we know what
447
00:23:22.420 --> 00:23:27.698
we need best, whether that's your campus, your classroom, your family, or your community.
448
00:23:27.718 --> 00:23:28.240
Having
449
00:23:28.380 --> 00:23:31.935
those conversations locally first is really how we can make change happen.
450
00:23:32.317 --> 00:23:33.080
The first time that I
451
00:23:33.140 --> 00:23:39.400
ever advocated was to my psychology class in high school, and I pulled up a document about how to
452
00:23:39.440 --> 00:23:43.740
contact your legislators, and I told them I'll email them right now, and then I moved on to the
453
00:23:43.780 --> 00:23:49.700
school board and then the state legislature and then I moved to DC and now I advocate here and so
454
00:23:50.181 --> 00:23:56.180
start locally like we can do this yeah another thing that I love about your perspective and
455
00:23:56.240 --> 00:24:02.180
approach here is how different it can look for everyone and that advocacy isn't one size fits all
456
00:24:02.963 --> 00:24:07.840
our experiences again have been very different but we've ended up in a very similar spot I studied
457
00:24:07.920 --> 00:24:13.520
psychology in undergrad I have the podcast I now work in psychology research you study policy
458
00:24:13.662 --> 00:24:15.059
You're now working at a nonprofit.
459
00:24:15.760 --> 00:24:21.078
And so leaning into your strengths and your interests, regardless of what those are, there
460
00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:26.080
are so many endless ways that you can make a difference in mental health advocacy.
461
00:24:26.841 --> 00:24:31.940
Any thoughts there, advice for people who are struggling to know how they can play a
462
00:24:31.980 --> 00:24:36.900
part in this movement and really engage in this issue that they're so passionate about?
463
00:24:37.240 --> 00:24:38.080
Yeah, absolutely.
464
00:24:38.621 --> 00:24:42.579
I'm glad that you brought this up because everyone has such a unique skill set that
465
00:24:42.800 --> 00:24:46.634
you can use to advocate in whatever way works best for you.
466
00:24:47.115 --> 00:24:48.460
We chatted about this earlier,
467
00:24:48.861 --> 00:24:53.840
but I'd actually love if everyone could take a moment and think about what your skill set is
468
00:24:54.141 --> 00:24:57.273
and how you can use that to better advocate in your community.
469
00:24:57.815 --> 00:24:59.260
We all practice legislative
470
00:24:59.441 --> 00:25:00.364
advocacy today.
471
00:25:00.384 --> 00:25:03.915
However, maybe your advocacy is more tailored to art or conversations.
472
00:25:06.441 --> 00:25:10.680
Well, we wanted to leave a little bit of time so that we could get some questions from you guys
473
00:25:10.841 --> 00:25:15.340
and make sure that we were covering the topics that you're interested and passionate about.
474
00:25:15.601 --> 00:25:17.580
Did any of you guys have any questions?
475
00:25:17.902 --> 00:25:21.200
We have a little time for a Q&A at the end of this conversation.
476
00:25:21.660 --> 00:25:25.100
How do you find issues on a local level for advocacy?
477
00:25:25.581 --> 00:25:27.400
I would go back to your lived experience.
478
00:25:28.020 --> 00:25:30.460
You know, like when you consider your life,
479
00:25:30.801 --> 00:25:33.460
what areas would have made growing up easier
480
00:25:33.722 --> 00:25:35.718
or a certain challenge that you went through easier?
481
00:25:36.661 --> 00:25:39.360
And if you can't find anything in your lived experience,
482
00:25:39.481 --> 00:25:41.832
your friends, your community, your family members.
483
00:25:42.274 --> 00:25:43.620
I think that's where the most powerful
484
00:25:43.881 --> 00:25:48.300
movements come from is through something that you've been through personally that you are
485
00:25:48.340 --> 00:25:50.830
willing to share and speak up about to others.
486
00:25:51.292 --> 00:25:53.080
I also would encourage you to look into what's
487
00:25:53.260 --> 00:25:54.746
already happening in your community.
488
00:25:54.786 --> 00:25:58.320
There is strength in numbers and advocacy and change
489
00:25:58.561 --> 00:25:59.746
rarely happens alone.
490
00:25:59.766 --> 00:26:03.060
Go find your people who are working on things that you're already interested
491
00:26:03.241 --> 00:26:04.484
in, you know, you're here today.
492
00:26:04.545 --> 00:26:06.391
So you're already doing that work.
493
00:26:06.892 --> 00:26:07.113
Yeah.
494
00:26:07.895 --> 00:26:08.497
Absolutely.
495
00:26:08.517 --> 00:26:09.019
I definitely
496
00:26:09.480 --> 00:26:10.183
want to echo that.
497
00:26:10.243 --> 00:26:14.420
And I talk a lot about my own mental health experience and things that are
498
00:26:14.440 --> 00:26:16.772
helpful to know when you're navigating mental health challenges.
499
00:26:16.792 --> 00:26:18.259
But when I think about mental
500
00:26:18.500 --> 00:26:23.300
health advocacy and you ask, what is something in your own experience that would have been different
501
00:26:23.360 --> 00:26:24.203
or would have been better?
502
00:26:24.825 --> 00:26:27.455
I spend 14 months in the troubled teen industry.
503
00:26:27.595 --> 00:26:28.880
And so in my local
504
00:26:28.940 --> 00:26:33.980
community, the legislation in California looks really different than it does in Utah or Montana,
505
00:26:34.161 --> 00:26:35.385
where I spent 14 months.
506
00:26:35.525 --> 00:26:39.418
And so regardless of where you're at geographically, these issues
507
00:26:40.081 --> 00:26:40.984
look really different.
508
00:26:41.145 --> 00:26:43.495
And the policy that exists looks very different.
509
00:26:43.515 --> 00:26:44.620
And the conversations that
510
00:26:44.660 --> 00:26:46.187
are being had look very different.
511
00:26:46.307 --> 00:26:49.240
So whatever you have gone through or someone in your life
512
00:26:49.280 --> 00:26:52.760
has gone through, that's what will give you the most drive and the most passion and the most
513
00:26:52.840 --> 00:26:53.622
perseverance.
514
00:26:53.863 --> 00:26:59.739
And so leaning into those interests and those experiences that are really emotionally
515
00:27:00.181 --> 00:27:04.620
resonant will give you like the longest runway when it comes to this work, because it is a long
516
00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:04.942
game.
517
00:27:05.002 --> 00:27:08.540
It's not a short game when it comes to making change in the mental health industry.
518
00:27:09.200 --> 00:27:12.600
How often does your why for advocating change if it does change?
519
00:27:13.201 --> 00:27:14.405
I love this question.
520
00:27:14.786 --> 00:27:16.792
My why changes often.
521
00:27:16.812 --> 00:27:19.460
I found that as I've gotten older and I've been
522
00:27:19.460 --> 00:27:24.700
in the advocacy space for longer, my why needs to change so that way I can sustain that drive.
523
00:27:24.840 --> 00:27:28.780
At first, I was making that change for myself because I was in high school and I wanted my
524
00:27:28.840 --> 00:27:29.483
school to be better.
525
00:27:30.065 --> 00:27:33.880
Now my why is for my three little sisters who are still in high school.
526
00:27:33.900 --> 00:27:33.960
The
527
00:27:33.980 --> 00:27:37.053
youngest one, she's 10 years old and she's going into middle school this year.
528
00:27:37.073 --> 00:27:38.660
And I just want the
529
00:27:38.680 --> 00:27:41.349
world to be a better place for her to grow up in.
530
00:27:41.369 --> 00:27:44.720
I think with the nature of podcasting, it's a
531
00:27:44.860 --> 00:27:50.440
never-ending cycle and the why of getting on the microphone every week absolutely changes and it
532
00:27:50.500 --> 00:27:55.000
tends to be what I'm going through whether it's navigating college applications or starting
533
00:27:55.120 --> 00:28:00.160
college and beginning post-grad I think leaning into your own experiences and what's been
534
00:28:00.200 --> 00:28:04.520
challenging and thinking about how you can help support others going through similar things was
535
00:28:04.600 --> 00:28:10.800
really important and I also think for me the the why initially goes back to that lived experience
536
00:28:10.960 --> 00:28:17.300
of knowing that I struggled a lot as a teen and really wanting to make teens feel like they have
537
00:28:17.440 --> 00:28:20.752
more of a sense of agency over their mental health.
538
00:28:20.872 --> 00:28:23.220
That if you try and you take action,
539
00:28:23.740 --> 00:28:28.260
you can see a meaningful difference because that was just something that was so deeply challenging
540
00:28:28.501 --> 00:28:35.420
for me was feeling like I had any sense of control over how I felt and how I could potentially feel
541
00:28:35.500 --> 00:28:36.927
better when it came to my mental health.
542
00:28:36.987 --> 00:28:39.840
So I think having that true north is also something
543
00:28:39.920 --> 00:28:44.320
that I think resonates for a lot of people when it comes to advocacy is there is one belief or
544
00:28:44.460 --> 00:28:48.395
one experience that tends to drive all of these actions down the line.
545
00:28:48.857 --> 00:28:49.740
Yeah, and if anyone is
546
00:28:49.820 --> 00:28:53.320
struggling with, you know, finding their why, I would encourage you to connect with the next
547
00:28:53.400 --> 00:28:54.083
generation.
548
00:28:54.444 --> 00:28:58.860
This work is so generational and it takes years to get something like this passed,
549
00:28:59.020 --> 00:29:04.680
and so connecting with the younger people around you, their energy will definitely push you forward.
550
00:29:04.780 --> 00:29:15.752
I was wondering what the process was like to get the legislation passed for the mental health days, like how you brought that up to legislators and pushed it forward.
551
00:29:15.912 --> 00:29:20.276
And then you said that it was passed as a law in 13 states.
552
00:29:20.617 --> 00:29:23.660
What can we do to try to bring that up in the other states?
553
00:29:24.181 --> 00:29:26.468
Yes, please bring it up in the other states.
554
00:29:26.929 --> 00:29:31.040
The process was we, so me and my peers, we're sitting
555
00:29:31.120 --> 00:29:31.744
together in a room.
556
00:29:31.764 --> 00:29:33.978
We're like, we're going to do this, but we're going to need some help.
557
00:29:34.179 --> 00:29:34.280
We're
558
00:29:34.280 --> 00:29:35.886
going to need some adults on our side as well.
559
00:29:36.348 --> 00:29:39.440
So first we reached out to our advisors at our
560
00:29:39.520 --> 00:29:41.731
school, some teachers who we knew would be on board.
561
00:29:42.213 --> 00:29:43.660
And they helped us reach out to some
562
00:29:43.720 --> 00:29:48.735
lobbyists who did some pro bono free work for us and helped us write up the bill.
563
00:29:49.437 --> 00:29:49.879
And then we
564
00:29:50.501 --> 00:29:52.227
proposed it to the state legislature.
565
00:29:52.267 --> 00:29:55.460
We got two different state representatives to sponsor the
566
00:29:55.480 --> 00:29:55.761
bill.
567
00:29:56.344 --> 00:29:58.052
We did exactly what you all did today.
568
00:29:58.092 --> 00:29:59.940
We showed up to their offices, we booked the
569
00:29:59.980 --> 00:30:01.687
appointments, and we shared our stories.
570
00:30:02.189 --> 00:30:05.000
We made sure to share every little detail of how this bill
571
00:30:05.080 --> 00:30:07.390
would have helped us if it had been in place.
572
00:30:07.912 --> 00:30:09.980
And then we continued to show up through the entire
573
00:30:10.141 --> 00:30:10.563
session.
574
00:30:10.623 --> 00:30:13.477
And I'm really proud to actually pass in only one legislative session.
575
00:30:13.497 --> 00:30:14.060
It only took one
576
00:30:14.100 --> 00:30:16.609
year to get it through, but it took youth power.
577
00:30:17.492 --> 00:30:19.560
And for people who couldn't show up to the
578
00:30:19.600 --> 00:30:22.090
legislature, we connected with them online.
579
00:30:22.111 --> 00:30:24.340
We were literally posting about this bill on our
580
00:30:24.400 --> 00:30:28.840
Instagram stories, having our friends email their legislators and making sure that they knew how
581
00:30:28.840 --> 00:30:29.984
many people this would help.
582
00:30:30.326 --> 00:30:31.209
That was our process.
583
00:30:31.570 --> 00:30:34.000
And the second part of your question is look up if
584
00:30:34.060 --> 00:30:35.064
your state has it.
585
00:30:35.766 --> 00:30:36.188
Awesome.
586
00:30:36.529 --> 00:30:39.600
Well, thank you guys so much for joining us for this conversation.
587
00:30:39.841 --> 00:30:44.336
Thank you, Haley, for sitting down and being a guest on She Persisted.
588
00:30:44.497 --> 00:30:45.360
Thank you guys so much
589
00:30:45.400 --> 00:30:50.180
for listening and thank you again to Haley, Active Minds, and everyone who joined us live for this
590
00:30:50.260 --> 00:30:50.963
conversation.
591
00:30:51.284 --> 00:30:54.816
Make sure to leave a review, share the podcast, and subscribe.
592
00:30:54.896 --> 00:30:55.900
It's free and it truly
593
00:30:56.041 --> 00:30:59.215
does help me continue to bring you guys conversations just like this one.
594
00:30:59.556 --> 00:31:00.440
So with that, I'll see you
595
00:31:00.460 --> 00:31:00.842
next week.
596
00:31:01.304 --> 00:31:04.479
If you enjoyed this episode of She Persisted, make sure to leave a review, subscribe,
597
00:31:04.920 --> 00:31:06.286
and share with a friend or family member.
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Follow along at She Persisted Podcast on TikTok, Instagram,
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YouTube, and more for bonus content.
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Thanks for listening and keep persisting.
