Hope to Cope – Anxiety and Depression with Clay Burkhard

Today on the podcast we continue with our theme for May, hope to
cope, and it coincides perfectly with mental health awareness
month. People have shared their stories about hope and how they
take care of their mental health on our social media and the
podcast, and today Sherry’s son Clay joins the conversation. As a
teenage boy, Clay experienced paralyzing depression and anxiety
after he had to give up swimming following an injury. Not
relating much to his peers at school, his sense of isolation
escalated and soon turned into negative self-talk, which made him
increasingly depressed. But he didn’t initially think he needed
help as he believed that his mental and emotional state was just
part of who he was, keeping him quiet about the turmoil inside.
Eventually, he reached out for help and started on the journey to
healing, which included choosing carefully who he shared with,
spending less time on social media, and exploring the activities
he loved doing like reading, writing, and playing music. Clay
talks about how his experiences have allowed him to help others
who are facing similar challenges, how therapy did and did not
help him, why you shouldn’t accept depression and anxiety, and
more. 


 


Key Points From This Episode:


•    Hear about the article Clay wrote for The Mighty
and his experiences leading up to it. 


•    The discomfort he used to feel in social
situations and being labeled as “shy”. 


•    How perfectionism and being too hard on himself
was one of the main stressors. 


•    The incident that gave way to his isolation,
negative self-talk, and eventually self-hatred.


•    Why he didn’t initially share what he was going
through and when he realized he needed help. 


•    The importance of being careful to find the right
people to share your story with. 


•    The fear of therapy and hearing someone else
confirm that you’re not okay.  


•    Find out what Clay’s process of surrender was like
and when he became receptive to help. 


•    Understanding that people relate differently to
different approaches to therapy. 


•    Maintaining a healthy relationship with social
media and knowing when to quit. 


•    Exploring the things you enjoy doing and
overcoming the fear of not being good at them. 


•    How Clay’s experiences give him a unique
opportunity to help others with similar struggles.  


 


Tweetables:


 “I think the biggest stressor for me personally—and it’s
been this way for a long time—is that I’m extremely hard on
myself; an extreme perfectionist. But then I can also check out
from being a perfectionist but I don’t necessarily stop beating
up myself so I do things poorly but I just get even angrier at
myself for doing things poorly.” — Clay Burkhard [0:06:07]


“My biggest concern was just being afraid of realizing that I was
not okay because I knew that but to have other people tell me
that is a whole other thing.” — Clay Burkhard [0:16:50]


“I’m very happy with where I am now and the experiences I had
because I feel like they give me a unique opportunity to relate
to other people and see the world in a different light that I
probably wouldn’t have seen before.” — Clay Burkhard
[0:28:53] 


 


Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:


The Mighty


“When Depression Looks Like Shyness”


Mosaics of Mercy 


Sherry Burkhard on LinkedIn