Buckle up š for my biggest overshare to date
š Before we dive inā¦
In case you havenāt heard enough from us yet, weāre on another podcast! Colin was interviewed for two episodes of Ann Colemanās podcast Speaking of Teens. Ann runs an amazing parent support community and recently re-launched her 10-week cohort based learning experience for parents of struggling teens, Parent Camp! We love what Ann has built with her community, so please check it out and say hi š
A reflection on my 20ās - šø Instagram vs. Reality š
Weāre back!!
September, specifically in NYC, is my favorite time of year. After Labor Day, the city starts cooling down, the leaves start changing colors, and everyone coming back from āØThe HamptonsāØ adopts a borderline manic energy that makes me want to hustle.
So please excuse the last three weeks of no newsletters - we were recharging our creative energy and planning out the rest of the year. Exciting stuff.
I want to start by giving a shout-out to all the amazing young people and families we started working with over the summer. Weāve honed in on a three-month cadence of working with many of our clients right after they leave treatment that really hits.
Within three months, the young people we work with teach us so much that we then share with our new clients. So we started building this peer-to-peer mentorship into our new online community structure, and we couldnāt be more excited. All of our clients have been working so hard, and while life isnāt ever going to be perfect, weāre grateful we get to weather the ups and downs of big life transitions with them.
Recently, Iāve been sharing a lot with the young women and men we work with about all the things Iāve been through as a young adult post-treatment. One thing Iāve noticed is that because Iāve recently struggled with a lot of the same things my clients are currently going through, regardless of whether theyāve been to treatment or not, Iām a lot less reactive and concerned about some of the things my clients are doing than their parents are. Makes sense; Iāve been through it.
Obviously, Iām not a parent, and I completely understand where parents are coming from with their fears!
First of all, the parents we work with grew up in a different generation and a different time - one that didnāt include smartphones, dating apps, influencer culture, having to share their location with their parents 24/7ā¦ just to name a few.
Second, since I was 16, Iāve surrounded myself with people I could relate to. This means that many of my friends from college, AA, jobs, and adult life in general have shared similar āresilience-buildingā experiences with me. So, Iām used to talking to young people about these challenges, and they donāt phase me as much as they might for another person.
And finally, Iām not a parent yet. Trust and believe that karma will come through, and I will get my chance to deal with my own troubled teen. Iām already planning on it and preparing for it emotionally. Currently networking to find mentors for my future daughter when she inevitably stops listening to me and potentially starts going down the nefarious trail I blazed.
Both my and Colinās experiences help us discern which behaviors are concerning and how they will negatively impact our clientsā short and long-term futures, compared to the behaviors that, while maybe not the best, theyāll eventually work through when they experience enough of the real-life consequences that stem from them. All we can do is help them practice the tools and self-awareness that theyāll need to change these patterns when they decide itās necessary.
And that right there is why families hire us ^
However, I do think parents forget that both of us were actually deeply troubled teens, and weāve both had to tackle countless obstacles post-treatment as young adults to get to where we are today. Some of these challenges were out of our control, some of them were part of becoming an adult, and a lot of them, at least for me, were self-created problems. Shout out to learning things the hard way.
I get that Colin and I are doing better than we ever have in our lives right now, but we both fought tooth and nail to get here.
So I want to take a quick opportunity to normalize for parents what their kids are going through as they transition into young adulthood. I want to remind them that none of these challenges have to define them. All they need is a bigger vision for their life and the conviction that they can get there if they refuse to give up on themselves. No one can do those things without support, but thatās why we exist š (by we, I mean the Not Therapy community)
In the spirit of being fully transparent, hereās a recap of my 20ās - Instagram vs. Reality version. Please feel free to share this with anyone who might need to read this today.
šø INSTAGRAM šø
all my residential treatment girlies flew in for my 25th bday >>
2 bachelor degrees - one in chemistry from University of Puget Sound, one in chemical engineering from Columbia
1 master degree - in chemical engineering from Columbia
Research and engineering internships throughout college
Moved across the country to NYC mid-college, completely on my own
First post-college job - lead data scientist at a NYC brand strategy agency
Second job - director of a tech and entrepreneurship program for high school students, where my co-director and I built the NYC program from scratch. Literally got Evan Speigel (founder of Snap) to come in-person to speak to our cohort of students just 6 months into the job.
While still at that job, I started a mental health tech company by myself and fundraised $2 million dollars based on pretty much just my life story. From legit venture capital funds, one of which was the co-founder of Uberās fund, another was a personal check written by the founder of Giphy. Had no clinical experience, no experience building a company, no team, and no product yet.
Built that company and online platform from the ground up. Hired 7 employees, one of which was my dad. It didnāt work out as I would have liked, but was able to wrap that up last year.
Met Colin and we built Not Therapy together, where weāve exponentially grown our revenue in the first eight months. And we feel pretty good while doing it! Yay!
š REALITY š
<< me in 2022 at 27 - a year into building my first company (a mental health company no less) and in one of my most unhealthy relationships to date
Some of the things Iāve struggled with or gone through at some point during the last 12 years post-treatment. In no particular orderā¦
Self-harm. As recently as that picture ^
A deeply emotionally abusive romantic relationship that I struggled to get out of (different relationship than pictured above)
Me royally f*cking up healthy romantic relationships due to unresolved trauma and lack of personal accountability ā iām that ex they hate
Cyber sexual abuse
Sexual assault
Addiction, sobriety, and relapse. Sober 6 years after treatment, and when I decided not to be sober, Iāve gone through phases where Iām over-indulging and dealing with those consequences
Figuring out my relationship to drugs and alcohol - which drugs I cannot do, and how to have a healthy relationship with the things that I can
Relying on weed as an emotional crutch and coping mechanism
Friendship breakups. Much more disruptive and sad than one would think. Harder than most of my romantic breakups
An inability to manage my mental health causing me to quit jobs and do poorly in school
School refusal. In college, I physically couldnāt get out of bed most of one semester.
New mood disorder diagnosis and learning disorder diagnosis
Medication management (ages 18-23)
Insomnia. Low-key one of the worst things to deal with on this list.
Redefining my relationship with my parents when we didnāt necessarily see eye-to-eye on my vision for my life. Not easy, but one of the most rewarding outcomes of things I had to struggle with.
Unplanned pregnancy while on the most effective form of birth control available
Disordered eating. Picked that up from my residential treatment center.
Deep, deep, DEEP depressive episodes. At least 6 of them. Worse than I ever felt pre-treatment. I had to figure out how to go through that without 24/7 support while having adult responsibilities.
The list could go onā¦
The point of one of my biggest overshares to date??
āIf you want advice about something, donāt ask someone who has always been good at it. Ask someone who is decent at it now, but wasnāt always.ā - quote from one of my friends from treatment
The things weāve been through on our ārealityā lists are why weāre qualified to do what we do. I share these things not to upset people but because Iām genuinely proud of myself for making it through all that.
I want to make it clear that I didnāt struggle right after treatment, get my act together, and then start achieving the goals I always wanted for myself. I did all those things on the "Instagram" list WHILE dealing with all the things on the ārealityā list. Tbh, I still struggle with some of those things. And I know more sh*t will come up.
This is not the resume youād find on my LinkedIn. My real coaching resume is the challenges I had to overcome while achieving the same goals I share with many ambitious young women who didnāt have to go to treatment, struggle with mental illness, or go to years of trauma therapy. Itās not the degrees that make me feel good about myself; itās the fact that I earned those degrees while going through some of the hardest sh*t Iāve ever had to confront in my life.
But I could not have done it alone.
Colin and I built Not Therapy so that young people can get the tools, structure, and support from people who genuinely care about them and who want what's best for them while they go through the normal, or even extreme, ups and downs of young adulthood. We give our clients the ācheat codesā to get to where they want to go while avoiding some of the pitfalls we experienced.
As evidenced by our resumes, we have cheat codes that you wonāt find in any parenting or self-help book written by academic experts.
Our hope is that parents (and people who work in therapeutic programs) see that given our unconventional path as teens and young adults, weāre most likely going to continue on an unconventional path. And weāre going to struggle. A LOT. And thatās okay.
Mine and Colinās message to our clients is this:
šš Our diagnoses, lifeās challenges, and even our self-created problems do not have to define us šš
And while youāre on this journey, weāve got your back because weāve been there.
To the parents - your kids can go through all of this too, and theyāll survive as long as they have support from people whoāve been there before!! Just because theyāre struggling today doesnāt mean theyāve fallen off the path to building the life of their dreams. Figuring out how to work with the cards theyāve been dealt is a necessary part of that journey.
And nowā¦ā¦our vibes this weekš®
š What weāre reading
iPad kids speak up - inside gen alphaās relationship with tech, vox
TikTokers are compiling ādopamine menusā as a way to bring joy into their daily routines, glamour
Revisiting Winona Ryderās 1999 Girl, Interrupted Cover Story, vogue
š¶ What weāre listening to
How to help your teen succeed after wilderness & residential (Colinās interview), speaking of teens
Developing your mission statement as a parent, on purpose with jay shetty
š” One last thought
THANKS FOR READING!
If you found this valuable, this is your signāļø to send this to parents or young people who can relate to the feelings weāre having this week so we can make sure they know theyāre not alone. Sharing is caring š
Weāre in this to collaborate and support. Please feel free to reach out to us:
If youāre a parent who has a child in treatment, weāre happy to answer any of your burning questions and share our experience in treatment and with transitioning out!
If youāre passionate about changing the narrative in the therapeutic program industry.