WMH Season 4 Ep 9: Empowering Youth through Mental Health Advocacy

This is a transcript of Watching Mental Health Season 4, Episode 9 which you can watch and listen to here:

Katie Waechter: Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of watching mental health. And I'm very excited because today I think we have an up and coming star on the show, somebody who is really making a big impact, I believe in youth mental health and in empowerment and all the things that our youth really need. 

So I am really excited to introduce Lawrence C. Harris, who is a nationally recognized youth empowerment speaker, who helps teens and young adults break limiting beliefs, build unshakable self-worth, and rise above challenges. And really drawing from his own lived experience, overcoming child abuse, autism, C-PTSD, we'll talk a little bit more about what that means.

Lawrence's experiences resonate deeply with young people and with the adults who support them. And so he really speaks from the heart and is committed to leaving a lasting impression on every audience that he touches. And so today we're going to be asking him to speak from the heart again as we talk about the state of youth mental health in our country today. How to support youth and young people through trauma, which is something that I think a lot of us are experiencing. A lot of young people are experiencing and then also just really how the conversation around autism and mental health in general has shifted and how that impacts the people who you know experience these lived experiences firsthand and so with that thank you so much Lawrence, welcome to the show!

Lawrence C. Harris: Thank you, it's wonderful to be here!

Katie: And I'm just really interested in what your perspective is. You're one of my younger guests that I've ever had on the show. And so to talk about youth and young adult mental health and empowerment with somebody who is a young adult, I think is so important because it's your voice that matters. And so I'm really excited for that opportunity alone just to have a younger perspective come to the show.

Lawrence: Thank you and you just brought up something really important. A lot of times young people, either, cause I just turned 20 like two weeks ago. So a lot of times we don't have the language to truly explain what we're feeling. And there's already the stigma that with every generation there's a stigma that young people are just emotional and they're going through hormones and all these things, which that's a component of it. But we do have to acknowledge the fact that there are a lot of young people who are dealing with legitimate mental health challenges, but they don't get the help that they need because we just stereotype them and say they're just being young and emotional.

Katie: Yeah. That's so true. And we always say, ⁓ they're just young and emotional and emotions are heightened, whatever. It's a phase, right? You probably get that a lot. It's a phase. really that, ⁓ disinvalues kind of what you're experiencing and really kind of, it doesn't give you the recognition that you deserve when you do express that. And so you're right. Like young people will struggle to kind of get out what they're trying to feel. And then once they do, then they're immediately not given any sort of, you know, any sort of support that'll help them to continue to help, you know, to make those statements.

Lawrence: Yeah, and then too, there comes the fact that we'll start to listen to that and devalue ourselves. So it's like you're taking a boiling pot of water and putting the lid on it. And yeah, it's silent. No one knows what's going on inside of it until one day it just explodes on itself and… everyone around it and everyone asked the question of why didn't they say something? Why didn't they tell somebody? But they did. The problem though is that more often than not there comes the stigma of that person probably just exaggerating or they're just overreacting or it's not that serious or it's not that bad. But think of it this way.

Something that's not that bad to one person. Really is that bad to another so we have to stop looking at things on a how bad is it in some vague context and how bad and instead look at it as how bad is it to that individual because to a 12 year old like I'll just use my own example like on my own life to a 12 year old girl of household and then getting kicked out and having to protect my siblings, absolutely the worst thing of my life up to that point. And it's probably going to be in the top 10 for the rest of my life. But some people, they could look at that situation and say, it's not that bad because they're 45 years old and they've been through both of their parents dying. So instead of comparing oranges to apples, we need to look at how bad it is to that person, how we can support them before they become another statistic.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. And you bring up some really great points there around young people needing that support for an instance that may not feel traumatic for an adult. And it doesn't really matter how that adult feels. It matters how the person who is experiencing the trauma is responding and feeling and going through that. And it does seem like a lot of our young people do experience a lot of trauma and are not necessarily getting the help that they need and or are just experiencing mental health challenges in general and are really struggling to kind get that support. So from your experience ⁓ and if you'd like, I know we just kind of jumped into this, I usually ask my guests to ⁓ tell us a little bit about your story, but you did a little bit say kind of a little bit of what happened to you when you were younger. so yeah, if you'd like, just kind of tell us a little bit more about story and do you think that you got the support that you needed at the time and is that kind of you know led to what you're doing now that lack of or that you know support that you may or may not have gotten?

Lawrence:  Oh yeah, I was one of the lucky ones. I got some of the best support out there. So to give a little context on my life, up until the age of 11, I was one of those kids who just was always super different and got bullied severely for it.

Katie: Okay.

Lawrence:  Like to the point where when I would stand up to people, I felt like I was a bad person for having a backbone because I just felt like my needs didn't matter at all. Then at 12, my dad becomes abusive to me and my younger siblings, which being the oldest, naturally I took on this very protector role. I made my entire life about you. 

How can I keep them safe even if it puts me in jeopardy? And when you get to a place mentally where you lose yourself, it's, I don't know how to put this into words even after all the years of explaining this, but it's like being cold without feeling cold. It's like you're tied to a treadmill made of sandpaper and you're just running to nowhere. And then when I was 13, I realized that even though I couldn't physically do anything, I could at least stand up for myself. And this leads to him just coming in the room, screaming about me like that we were going to church on this day.

So then I come downstairs and then he starts screaming about getting my coat. So I tell him to go get it because he just told me to come downstairs. And it was interesting because you could see this shift where he realized that, ⁓ I just can't keep bossing him around.

It was then that day that he kicked me out, like this only in front of this whole congregation. It was a whole scene. But because of custody laws, my siblings still had to go with him half the time, come with me and my mom half the time. Keep in mind, the court system knew everything that was going on.

They had photo, video, counselor reports, therapist reports. It was shocking how slowly they went about this. And we weren't trying to press criminal charges. We were simply trying to get cutting in my siblings. Like it wasn't criminal. was just, we want to get the kids out of there. Yet it took the courts about a year.

About a year and a half until one day he just out of the blue signed over the rights in court. So had he not done that, it would have taken even longer for the court to do something. And like I said, I was lucky because I got therapy early on. Like my mom immediately knew to get me help, which was how I ended up getting diagnosed with CPTSD.

For those who are wondering what in the world is that, you're familiar with PTSD is, where it's like a soldier goes off, they hear a balloon, and they think that they're back in Vietnam. So that's a very isolated incident sort of thing, where you have a flashback to a specific moment.

Whereas what the C stands for is complex. It happens over a long span of traumatic events that ultimately build up and affect the individual's entire life. So managing emotions, being able to feel safe, even something as simple as...

Even to this day after years of therapy and journaling and all the things that I've helped other people to do if someone opens my door and I'm completely asleep I have a full body reaction to run at the door without even being awake it just happens and that's something that when you say it to people and you're 12 years old or 13 they think oh you're just overreacting but it's always people saying that you're overreacting until you just explode on everyone around you and then they start acting like they care. Which having experience like that, once I started to do some real hard inner work to get myself better, I looked around and I saw there's millions of people who are suffering in silence, who don't get the help. They ask for it, but they get shamed for it. Or they grow up in environments where they're told not to get help because, that just stayed in the family. It wasn't that bad.

That's why we have a suicide rate of about 790,000 people per year, which is like one every 16 seconds and hardly anyone talks about it. But when, do you remember that thing where there was like that hoverboard thing that people were riding around on? When those were catching...

Katie: Yeah, it was like a Christmas gift. Yeah.

Lawrence: Yeah, when those started catching fire, it was on the news, there were national recalls, there was protests in the street, but people start dying and no one talks about it.

Katie:  No, and especially suicide. People, I mean, that's a tough, that's a taboo subject, right? And I think that a lot of people don't know how to talk about it. And I think that this touches on a point that I learned ⁓ when I went through a suicide awareness training and it's called assist and basically, you know, I walked into that training thinking ⁓ you know, if somebody is struggling I shouldn't mention the word suicide to them. I should tiptoe around this subject. I don't need to be direct with them. I don't want to give them any ideas and I think a lot of parents maybe think that when they're, you know, discussing mental health with their kids, they don't want to give them an idea, you know, to latch on to something or you know, but they don't realize that the kid is already experiencing it and you know that person, that youth is already, if they're thinking about suicide, they're already thinking about it if you're even wondering if you should be bringing that up. So talk to me more about that and about how you think parents should be talking to their kids.

Lawrence: Yeah. Well, you know, obviously there's different things because you need to be age appropriate with it. Like a five year old is a lot different than talking to a 15 year old. But generally speaking, I found once a kid hit 12, they're fully able to comprehend complex things about mental health. If you can explain it to them in, you know, regular English.

Katie:  Of course.

Lawrence:  But one of the main things that I would encourage parents to talk about especially is letting it be known that it is okay to talk about your feelings. Even if those feelings are bad. But no feeling is bad when you really think about it. It's just, it's telling you to pay attention to something. And of course, if a parent, no, most parents do not have the proper clinical training to do mental health subjects. That's not a really common thing people just go out and get. But a free resource that is in pretty much every single town in America is called NAMI. The National Association of Mental Illness, they have in-person teen support groups and virtual ones over Zoom. So if maybe your kid is really insecure and doesn't even want to show their face, they don't have to.

Katie: Yeah, you know, I'm glad that you brought up NAMI. I'm a big NAMI fan myself, actually. So anyone who knows me and knows my show knows that, yeah, I've brought up NAMI a few times. And you're absolutely right. They have support for youth. They also have support for family. So, you know, if you're a family and you're your kid, whether they're younger or even an adult child is struggling with mental health and you don't know how to discuss it. They have classes and presentations, all sorts of support for people who are supporting  those individuals. then yeah, you know, they have, ⁓ I know here in Nevada and Las Vegas, we have local youth support groups, as well as family support groups. And I think it's all over the country, different affiliates have different youth support groups. And they also have NAMI on campus and NAMI ⁓ NextGen. I mean, they're really trying to make an impact with youth. So I'm glad you brought them up. Have you used them in the past?

Lawrence: Well, I've actually spoken for them. I spoke for the ⁓ Boston, Massachusetts chapter, the Philadelphia chapter, and in March, I'm doing the New York City chapter. So like, I'm, yeah, I'm very active with them. It's in...

Katie: Great, okay, well we're on the same page. Well, that's so exciting. I love that.

Lawrence: You just gave me a great idea. So if you don't mind, if anybody wants it, I actually made an entire book where I explain in depth my mental health journey, what exactly I do to manage my own symptoms and what I teach other people. I'll give away the free book for it.

Katie: That's amazing. Definitely. Anybody who's listening, I'll make sure that your information is there so they can reach out and message you to get that. And I just think that that is so, so cool. What kind of topics do you talk about when you go to NAMI? And or what kind of topics do you talk about when you present in front of groups of maybe schools for families or students?

Lawrence:  So with organizations like NAMI, it's very teen mental health, how to improve your mental health related subjects. It's very clear and blatant. Now with schools, because of legal things, unless you have a PhD or some sort of certification, you can't go into a school and talk mental health. There's a lot of red tape around it.

So instead, I package it as helping students to improve their confidence, self-belief, and decision-making skills. And I teach them the exact same stuff I teach in the NAMI classes, but I just reword it. So instead of saying that journaling is going to help you to manage your internal dialogue and negative self-talk. I reword it into journaling is going to help you understand yourself better.

Katie:  Yeah. Absolutely, I love that and you're you're right and you touch on a really important point Which is that schools are afraid still to talk about mental health school districts I think across the country don't know how to approach it, right? But they have kids who are unfortunately dying by suicide within their own walls and they they really struggle with that and part of it is they you know, there's this stigma there that schools are facing and part of it is yeah, like their resistance to these types of languages through these types of presentations. So I like that you have been able to twist that into something that will work for the school. But essentially, it's a lot of it's the same stuff. know, a lot of it comes down to really essential self care. And so I want to ask you that next is, you know, what are some of the things that you recommend for maybe youth or young adults who are struggling and are some of the things you did? You mentioned therapy. It sounds like journaling is a big one for you. So talk to me more about some of those kind of that maybe someone who's listening can take away

Lawrence:  So the very first thing, make your bed. As small and simple as this sounds, the reason why is once you make your bed, now you have momentum.

Okay, now I made my bed. I'm going to clean my desk. I'm going to take the dirty clothes off my chair and put them into the dirty clothes bin. And now you've cleaned your room. So when we change our environment, we start to slowly make changes in other places. And then eventually you also have to get to a point of just figuring out what works for you. But the essentials are make sure that your room is at the bare minimum, presentable.

Which can be hard, because I remember for myself my room used to look absolutely terrible. But that was because of what I was going through inside. Now with journaling, people often ask me, well how do I journal? Like what do I write about? How do I journal? And I simply say all you do is you take a pen, it has to specifically be a pen. 

I know it sounds like a small detail, but the reason it has to be a pen is because with a pencil you're going to try to erase it, you're going to try to rewrite it, you're going to try to make it look fancy and pretty. With a pen you just put it out there. And over time by doing this you'll be able to not only have a good habit of understanding your own thoughts, but I can look back on any day from this is February 18, 2026, any day from now until July of 2024, oh no, 2023. And I can tell you exactly how I felt on that day. And sometimes I reread it to see how far I've come. Another great thing.

Take walks outside if your area permits. Because when we stay inside of just our room all day, or our job, or our car, we're just boxed in. It's tight, it's too closed in. But when we get outside, we get sunlight, which has been proven to create certain hormones in our brain that improve our mood. We've got some physical exercise. We got some fresh air. We see the sun shining. We hear the birds chirping. And it's a lot better than being stuck inside of a room hold. So to most people, just focus on the basics.

Katie: Yeah, that's so true, but you know it's funny. You're right. Those are the basics, but those are the basics that people don't and I think that, like you said, starting your day at the very beginning by just making your bed is something that can be so powerful. ⁓ And so yeah, I'm really, I'm gonna walk away with some of that, definitely. And ⁓ I think that it's a...

Lawrence: I was just gonna say like that the basics really with anything the basics are going to get you about 80 to 90 percent of the way there it's it's kind of like we tend to look for the big complex magic thing but that's really complicated. That's a really hard thing to do. Like, building a house is a hard thing to do. But the basics is stack one brick on top of another brick over and over. That will get you 80 % of the way there.

Katie: Yeah, that is that's a really good analogy and I actually take that analogy with my own life to be completely honest You know, I've always felt like I wasn't where I wanted to be right? I'm spending all this time building my foundation That's all I know how to do but eventually you do get there you look around you're like, ⁓ wow Like I've built a lot more and I'm a lot better than I was before. And so I was just gonna say, I think it's really cool that you have that journal where you can kind of look back to see how far you've come. And I think that we forget that, especially people who are struggling with mental health challenges, we don't necessarily celebrate the small wins that we should because those can take massive amounts of effort if we're struggling. And so it's a real big deal to acknowledge that.

Lawrence: Yes, you know I was actually writing about this a couple of weeks ago that we don't want to look at the past and get stuck there. But every now and then when you look back, you can see how far you've come because if we're always just walking forward and we never take a moment to stop and look around, we think that I've just been walking forever and nothing's changed. But you have to pause, reflect and see I've come a farther than I thought. Like my 12 year old self, he would think I'm a superhero.

Katie: Right, exactly. They would be so proud. They would be amazed. I think about that too. My little me, she would be so proud to see how far I've come. just, yeah, the journey is, and I know that people hate to hear that, but the journey is really part of it. You can't be happy at the end. You have to learn to be happy on the journey. And it's hard, but it's worth it.

Lawrence:  Yeah, it's kind of interesting too because this is a bit specific but if anyone ever decides that they're going to become an entrepreneur, you're going to have to face all of those inner things. Like you're going to find yourself stressed out and frustrated while my business not making enough money and what's going on? I can't figure it out. And before you know it, now you're sitting there crying about how when you were five years old, you grew up poor and your family didn't have enough money. And now that's led to a belief inside of yourself that if I don't have money, I'll never be safe. And my house, we're gonna have to live inside an apartment, when you were inside of a hotel, like when you were five years old.

Now you're 40 and you're crying about that and it's like entrepreneurship is a therapy in and of itself because you're forced into those dark places.

Katie: You're forced to have those dark conversations. That is so, so true. And face those limiting beliefs that we've grown up with. those limiting beliefs come from our experiences when we're younger, what we're told over and over again. And it can make such a big difference, even to the little five-year-old. People assume that, they're kids, they'll be fine. They'll just grow up. And this traumatic event.

Lawrence:  Yeah. Yeah.

Katie: That happened they won't even remember and it's like wait a minute that's not that's not the right approach here because our kids are really struggling because we're not giving them that acknowledgement.

Lawrence:  Well, you just brought up something so great to remind me of something that happened like maybe eight months ago. So when people think that, kids are going to forget that, now, he's five years old, he's going to forget this, he'll get over it. Yeah, he might forget it, but this person's body doesn't. Like their nervous system holds on to that. And maybe, yeah, was eight months ago, I was on a podcast, and then we with this lady, and we were talking about, like, we were also talking about her journey. And she mentioned how growing up as a kid, this was back in the 80s or so when this happened.

So the law were a lot different the just a lot of things were different She had repeatedly gotten molested by this guy who was like an 80 year old pastor And the cops knew about it and everybody knew about it she proved it happened but the cops did nothing about it because he was like older and to this day she's in her 60s and Her body still remembers that like if she if she sees a jar of cheese puffs, she goes back to that little kid. If she sees an old man in a red shirt, she goes back to that kid version. Even if in the moment she doesn't mentally know why iit just happens. And that's a really like deep and extreme example, but it shows up in all of our lives when we ask ourselves, okay, you know, it's great to want more money, but why? Because if I have more money, then I'll feel good enough. Why do you believe that? Because growing up, my mom and dad had a bunch of arguments about money and if they had money they would have never gotten divorced. Okay, why do you believe that? Because your family told you that. So really, you're trying to make hundreds of millions of dollars to somehow magically prevent your mom and dad from getting divorced. Even though you don't at the moment know that, that's what's going on.

And when we think about things like, I could never do that. People like me don't succeed. I'm not smart enough. I'm not talented enough. And these are things that I hear teenagers say all the time when I'm at school speaking. And I just ask them all the same question. Who told you that? Like, who told you that you're not smart? Well, you know, when I was doing my homework, my dad told me that I was dumb. Okay, well still 10 years old? No. So why are we still north of this? And they don't know why. But the real reason is because until we go inside of ourselves and unpack it and kind of mentally relive it, we can't fully release it. It's like you have to look the monster in his eyes and say, you no longer control me and you let it flow away. And letting it flow away isn't just a magic light bulb. It might take decades, but every day it fades a little farther and a little farther until you realize, it's not there anymore.

Katie: Yeah, that's true. I mean, you have to acknowledge and face, like you're saying, face it head on in order to allow it to move through. And it could take a long time, ⁓ but you can't, there's no movement until you do that. And it comes down to the language that we say to ourselves, the language that people use around us. Our parents may not have meant to call us dumb in the moment. Maybe they were frustrated, and they didn't realize how that impacted us.

Realize how that impacted us and it's this cycle and so it's so important how we use language to define things and ⁓ you know and to define mental health challenges that we may be having. ⁓ So I wanted to you know segue a little bit on that to talk a little bit more about you know the diagnosis that you got of CPTSD and then also in your bio you mentioned autism and I just want to talk about you know how those diagnoses helped or hindered ⁓ maybe your experiences as you continue to get the support that you need, which is so, so cool and really kind of uncommon that your mom was progressive enough to get you therapy at a young age. My mom was also like that. She got me therapy from a really young age, but even today, parents struggle to do that.

Lawrence: Well, for me it was because there was like this major black and white shift. It was like one day he's super happy bouncing all over the walls excited, next day he doesn't want to talk to anybody. So it was blatantly obvious I needed some sort of help. Now for me having that diagnosis, especially with CPSD, ⁓ for a long time I could not figure out what was going on. Because it's really hard at 12 years old to explain to someone that you have this constant feeling that someone's watching you, but every time you look there, the person disappears, but you 100 % believe that that person is there watching you. even if you are, even if logically,

It's undeniably false that a person is there hiding in a bush. You don't think that. Every single time you see a brown van, you think it's his van. Every single time you see carpet, you think it's his. Every single time you see anything remotely, you think it's him. Even if it would make no sense. And to our result, that's a hard thing to explain to somebody.

Katie: And you feel crazy, right?

Lawrence: Yeah, because how in the world am I supposed to explain this sort of stuff without sounding crazy? Like, yeah, like I can be consciously aware that, okay, I'm at my school, but mentally I'm not. So having that diagnosis, at first I was kind of like, my gosh, what in the world is this? Like, am I just stuck with this forever? I'm gonna feel like this forever?

Katie: Yeah, and that could be hard, yeah, for a 12-year-old.

Lawrence: But with time, my therapist explained to me that, you're not going to be stuck like this forever. It's just now we know what we're working with. So there was that. With autism, that was something that people, they always had a gut feeling about because I would just either so hyper, yet oddly smart at certain things. Like as a kid, I was absurdly knowledgeable about anything I had any interest in. And it also explains a lot about me with just the way I interact with people, just how I'm able to better understand myself. And with those two things together, until I learn how to manage it. My imagination is like so vivid that whenever I would feel like afraid or like the CPSD had me worrying about something, then the auto that makes me like have this entire imaginary scenario where it plays out in graphic detail and I feel it and because of how CPSD affects the brain structure, so it like physically reshaped the brain. The part that controls your fear response becomes physically larger. So I had to understand not only how to manage one, but how to manage the other, and then how to manage them together. And once I figured that out, it was game-changing for me. Because understanding it just having an idea of what I'm working with, what to do, and then the type of therapy I got was called cognitive behavioral therapy. Or was dialectical, it was one of those two. What it did was it taught me how to feel my emotions, but not be them. So I can feel angry or feel afraid or feel happy or anything and I understand that, this is just an emotion. I can just let it flow. People think that I'm just gonna push the emotion away, but once you start pushing it, now you're touching it, now you're connected to it, and now you're making contact with it and it stays longer but when we just let it flow which is easier said than done but possible the emotion just flows away.

Katie: That's really cool. find that listening to you talk is so interesting because you have two diagnoses that are mental health challenges or can be, but they're from different areas. So CPST or PTSD is really environmentally based, right? And on the other side of that, autism oftentimes is, you know, is already is in your brain is very much so a brain disorder. And so that combination of the two is just, it's interesting to hear how you've been able to manage both and how it's possible to manage both. And so this leads me to my last...oh, what were you gonna say?

Lawrence: I was just gonna say this. It's not only possible to manage both, the ironic, the ironic good side of it is that when I feel happy because of how both of them affect the brain, it's like happiness on 10. It's like I'm always smiling about something because it's just everything that lights me up.

Katie: That's amazing. And it's infectious. So I think that's really, it's a beautiful aspect to you, I think. And it just goes to show that even when we come or we go through storms or maybe we have a diagnosis that feels like it can be so bad, there can be super power moments in that diagnosis and superhero aspects to it that maybe nobody else has. And in some ways  it takes a shift in perspective, but also the ability to manage the not so great parts of it.

Lawrence: Yeah, you brought up something great right there. Something people often tell me when I'm speaking at schools or organizations is they feel like I am a fly on the wall that just watched their entire life and repeated it back to them. That's because one of the things with CUPTSD is you become a master at understanding like patterns of behavior and micro expressions like you Yeah, it's an attempt to protect yourself because the more you can understand what does or does not set a person off the better you are at You know not dying. That's how your brain sees it…

Katie: Yeah, in an attempt to protect yourself, right? Yeah. Not setting them up. Yeah,

Lawrence: And now I'm able to be at a school or speaking somewhere and I can say something and I can just like notice a tiny little twitch in the crowd's face without even consciously knowing this. just I've rewatched my own speeches and I've noticed myself doing this without even thinking about it. And I'll say something like I'm trying to think of an example that I said before that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, not a light at the end of the barrel. And I noticed a guy like off of the corner, like his feet just went like that. And I knew, okay, we're gonna go deeper into this. Afterwards, he came up to me and told me that he was a war veteran and that a few weeks prior he was about to shoot himself in the face looking down a gun barrel and me having said that like jogged in memory but in a good way of knowing like there's not a light at the end of the barrel there's a light at the end of the tunnel and it's just, it's wonderful how something that developed from such a dark place in my life is now what I use to connect with people in a way that not only do other speakers just, I'm not saying that they couldn't do it, I'm just saying that they, for them to try and do what I do is basically impossible for them because I've just mastered something because I had to and now I do it because I love it.

Katie: Yeah, it's really cool that you're able to like make that impact with people just even just one individual and it just shows that you know these conversations matter and that messaging matters and that really you know talking about this and breaking down the stigma matters even if we think no one is listening they are and you're able to see that nuance you know in front of you and that's that's pretty cool

Lawrence: Yep. Yeah, and then too, that even, you know, as much as I talk about the great and wonderful sides of this, there are people who judge me, there are people who like leave hate comments and say, this guy is just, he's crazy and this, and why aren't we listening to this? Not people saying this in person, it's people on the internet who don't have profile pictures.

Katie: Sure, the keyboard warriors, right? 

Lawrence: Yeah, at first I used to get really angry by this, but with time I started to realize that that person is in a really dark place. And in a way, by trying to take their negative feelings and throw them at me, they're actually just trying to feel better, but they don't know how.

So I'm not going to get mad at them because what they're really doing is in a bit of a backwards way, trying to get better. They just don't know how. It's like when a baby throws stuff and cries because it's sad, you don't scream at the baby. You understand that the baby is in pain. It just doesn't know how to get its needs met in a healthy way.

Katie: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, I know that's very, you know, wisdom ahead of your time. And I think it'll help as your platform continues to grow, right? There's always gonna be people out there who, you know, who are hurting. And hurt people, try to lash out and hurt people. But as long as we continue on our messages, I just think that, you know, we're gonna help the world and you are gonna help the world. So for anyone who's out there watching or who wants to, you know, get in contact with you, maybe have you come and speak to maybe their organization. What would be the best way to reach out?

Lawrence:  Well, the best thing for them to reach out to me would be for organizations, my email address, laurence at laurencecharris.com. Now, as far as people just looking for my social media content and YouTube videos, that's just my channel, Lawrence C. Empowers.
Katie: Awesome. Well thank you again for your time. This was such a great episode. I think we really dived into some deep subjects and really talked about stuff that is hard for people to talk about. And it's important for our youth to get the acknowledgement that they deserve. So again, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you being here today. And for everyone who's watching, thanks again for tuning in to another episode of watching mental health. And we will be back every Wednesday. Every other Wednesday we have a live episode coming out on the website at katierosewaechter.com  and you can see all episodes at YouTube, Spotify, and Apple. Thanks so much everyone, have a good one!