Roadtrip Nation

announcer: How do I know which path is best for me?

Is it possible to take on these challenges and obstacles?

Where do I even start?

What should I do with my life?

Sometimes the only way to find out is to go see what's possible.

Since 2001, we've been sharing the stories of people who ventured out and explored different career paths and different possibilities for their futures.

This is one of those stories.

This is "Roadtrip Nation."

Anjali: Well-being, is so multifaceted.

It could be your mental well-being, it could be your emotional well-being, your social well-being, your physical.

Davida: My generation really wants to put mental health and just our own well-being at the forefront.

Like, we were the generation that was kind of raised on technology, and we will be the generation that sees the effect of it.

Raul: Growing up, Gen Z, like we're always told, "You can make change.

Look around the world, see something you don't like, speak up about it, do something about it."

I wanna talk to anybody who could help me just figure out what's my place in the world and how I could make that change.

Anjali: We are going in this bright green RV, three weeks a cross country road trip.

Raul: We're gonna be driving from Boston all the way to Atlanta.

Davida: Looking at mental health and well-being, interviewing leaders who are doing real work in their community.

Anjali: I think this road trip will be a great opportunity to kind of shed light on unconventional wellness fields and professions.

Raul: They're people who've gone out they've made their change and now they're gonna be talking to us so that maybe we can make some impact ourselves.

Raul: So, in the beginning of the road trip, we had this training period and they took us to Orange County.

[engine starting] Raul: Let's hit the road!

Anjali: Woo!

[engine revving] That was in neutral.

Raul: I'm Raul Rodriguez.

I am a junior at USC studying biology.

I'm not sure exactly what I wanna do, but I know I wanna help people.

Anjali: What's up, vlog?

We are on the roof right now of the RV and we are about to drive on the freeway.

Anjali: My name is Anjali Berma.

Right now I'm in the transition between high school and college.

I fell in love with public service and mental health advocacy in high school, so I know that I wanna have some sort of career in social impact.

Davida: Wait, oh.

Davida: My name is Davida.

I'm currently doing healthcare PR, but I'm applying to law school in the fall.

I'm really passionate about mental health and digital well-being and how that affects young people.

Davida: So we just finished up with driver training, but now we're going to downtown LA to meet Rayshell Chambers of Painted Brain.

Anjali: I'm so excited to see how the intersections of art and well-being come into play, and we are so ready to hit the road and explore all we can surrounding mental health and wellness.

Raul: Let's hit the road!

Anjali: Woo!

Davida: Woo!

Raul: Oh, oh, perfect parking job.

Anjali: BFFs already.

Raul: BFFs.

Anjali: Get it in, guys.

Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Raul: I don't know if we're all in frame.

Rayshell Chambers: My name is Rayshell Chambers.

I am the co-founder of an organization called Painted Brain.

We utilize arts, advocacy, and social enterprise to support people in their mental wellness.

Teacher: For today, you're gonna be creating a watercolor painting to signify, you know, how we grow in life.

Sometimes it's not neat and sometimes it's unpredictable.

Student: So where all have you guys gone on your road trip?

Anjali: So this is actually our first stop.

Student: Oh, wow.

Anjali: We literally met like three or four days ago and we're already like really good friends and like we've just been having a great time together.

Rayshell: We believe that people heal best in community.

Like when you break your arm, you don't heal at the doctor.

You get your bandage and then you go home and you heal at home with love.

That's the same way at Painted Brain.

So, we teach people how to really hone in on all the aspects and dimensions of their wellness so that they can, you know, thrive.

Anjali: Something that I was going to ask you about is kind of like what is your why?

Like what is the reason why you're here today?

Why does mental health matter so much to you?

Rayshell: Why I'm here is because a lot of lived experience, a lot of heartache, but I was resilient, you know what I'm saying?

Like all the pain that I've been through I've been able to heal through the recovery movement.

The Painted Brain is a part of the recovery movement that you can heal, and that's something that the mental health system is lacking.

We're talking about treatment all the time, but we're not talking about recovery, we're not talking about wellness, we're not talking about safe spaces, you know.

So, I think if anything, like why it's like to let people know is that like we can thrive through all the hurt and pain.

There's just beauty and connection and I found so much growth and healing through this practice.

Rayshell: Seeing y'all today like just gave me another just boost of energy to be able to really define my own path.

So you guys inspired me.

You don't even know what you just did for me.

Davida: Thank you.

Rayshell: Thank y'all, the new generation.

Davida: Speaking with Rayshell gave us so much to think about.

Now we're heading to Boston to officially begin our road trip.

Raul: Whoa, first one to arrive, so I get the top bunk, obviously the best part of the whole RV.

So-- Raul: Oh, the roof!

When I was little, I actually was kind of the hospital child to like my brothers.

Like I ran into a wine glass when I was little and I just remember seeing all the doctors.

They were so calm.

They took care of me.

These people are awesome, you know?

I wanna be awesome.

I wanna be cool.

I wanna save lives.

Raul: Yo.

Dude, I might have brought more stuff than you.

Anjali: Really?

It's so nice.

Oh my.

So I just graduated high school last month and in the fall I'll be heading to Stanford University, Fear the Tree.

I'm really excited and very privileged to have this opportunity because that's like the coolest thing to say going into college, "Like, I just went on a three week cross country road trip.

Talk about mental health with people."

Raul: Comfy?

Anjali: It's perfect.

What time's Davida getting here?

Raul: Dude, she's at 5:30.

Anjali: She lands in two minutes.

Anjali: Davida!

Davida: Oh, wow.

Anjali: Let me grab that.

Davida: Oh, wow, thank you.

Davida: It's so interesting just America in general, the landscape of like accessibility to mental health resources like New York and their mental health care system is so different from like Georgia.

One thing that is really good for your mental health is really just being in community but also like seeing what the world has to offer beyond technology.

Raul: All right, y'all, we're finally out here in Boston.

All: [cheer] Davida: Yeah, are you guys excited?

Anjali: Yes, I'm so excited.

Davida: Where's your guitar?

Oh.

Anjali: Start singing.

Raul: I brought my guitar on this trip.

I mean, I've been playing guitar since I was seven.

I grew up playing mariachi music.

Mariachi music is such like a cultural phenomenon.

You'll start playing it and everyone will turn around and go [grito] You know, like they do the gritos.

Everyone's like just ready for it, but mariachi music also like has brought me really close to my family.

Like me and my brothers, it was like a tradition to like play at like basically every family party, every family function.

I'm from a small like rural town and we'd actually go to like the farms with our instruments and we'd go and sing for everybody.

It went from playing mariachi to like, "Oh, I'm gonna go like volunteer at the food pantry."

I'm actually working with a nonprofit called ALAS which supports the farm worker community in my area.

We have this new initiative.

It's called the Equity Express bus.

It has Wi-Fi on it, there's a classroom up top, there's private rooms so that you can have telehealth sessions like bringing it directly to the farm workers instead of trying to get everyone out.

These farms are like very isolated.

I've talked to like a farm worker who hadn't been to the doctor in 30 years.

How can I accept all this, like, love, opportunities, and like help and like not even want to like bring it back to my community?

I mean, that's why I was thinking of being a doctor.

That's always felt like such an abstract idea to me.

What if I go through four years of college, four years of med school, and then it's not what I think it is?

I don't know.

Hopefully this road trip I wanna like isolate exactly what I wanna do because I'm not sure if being a doctor is the most impact I could make, you know.

Raul: First stop.

Today we're in Boston.

We're gonna talk to Dr.

Michael Rich.

Michael: Many people know me as the mediatrician.

I have spent the last 30 or so years both studying and offering clinical care to folks trying to achieve digital wellness, which we define as an intentional state of physical, social, and mental wellness from the use of screens in mindful, balanced, and focused ways.

Davida: The whole digital wellness landscape is changing.

I think that when I mentioned like digital well-being four years ago, no one knew what that was, but now I--like I hear a head shaking and like-- Michael: Good for you.

Davida: People are understanding-- Michael: You're the vanguard.

Davida: Are understanding it a little bit better, but how do you feel about like the landscape for digital well-being, especially with like new inventions and AI and other aspects of that?

Michael: Well, first of all, we've got to move out of saying that social media and smartphones have ruined a generation.

There are actually so many ways that we can capture that intense engagement that the public and kids in specific have with screens to educate, to empower, to communicate.

I think we have to look at it the way we look at air quality, which is we can work to create better air quality, but we also need to breathe right now.

And so, it's a matter of empowering kids online with digital literacy and digital fluency.

Raul: I'm trying to like go into the medical field and like I really am grappling with exactly what I want to do because I know it takes a long time and you have to be very dedicated.

So, how did you find that like motivation to really just go for what you wanted?

Michael: Well, I took a long and winding path.

I spent 12 years in the film industry as a screenwriter and director.

My first day at Harvard Med school, I sat down in the big amphitheater just like in the movie theaters, and the guy to my left had just published "Nature," which is like the highest of the high science journals, and the guy to my right had a PhD in neuroscience, and I said, "And I write screenplays," you know, feeling very much like a computer error.

You know, medicine takes a fair amount of deferred gratification to go through the years and years of training, but in the process of the training you find things that give you joy.

And so, I think the best advice I can give you is follow your heart, follow what you care about right now, what you're passionate about right now, what gets you out of bed in the morning to do something.

So, be directionless, you'll find your way.

Anjali: It's really good advice.

Raul: I like that.

Davida: It was great to interview Dr.

Rich just because of all the work that he's doing in like the digital wellness space.

I wish more people understood about social media, especially for youth mental health.

The fact that it is a spectrum and there's like passive ways to do it versus like active ways where you're actively seeking out resources.

Raul: Talking to Dr.

Michael Rich has made me think of my path as less cemented.

Hopefully I can take that lesson and do what I wanna do and find where I wanna be.

Raul: So today we're gonna interview Mikyoung Kim.

She's an architect here in Boston.

Anjali: We're excited to learn all about empathetic architecture and making sure that ethics stay a top priority when it comes to different architectural designs.

Mikyoung Kim: I fell in love with the idea of designing kind of our shared spaces, civic spaces, landscapes.

of our shared spaces, civic spaces, landscapes.

We all know this.

You walk in the forest, you do some forest bathing, you feel better, and now we know that's true.

Like the electrical functionings of the brain normalize within three to five minutes.

Your blood pressure normalizes.

You guys were at Boston Children's Hospital yesterday.

We began by designing with kids in hospitals.

Now, gardens don't heal somebody who has cancer, but they do help with that process and they also help with the very important folks who, like you, are giving their life towards caring for patients.

Anjali: Typically when we think of a career in mental health, we think a therapist or a psychiatrist, social worker, and it was eye opening seeing how empathetic architecture and design has thought behind it.

It's like these are fundamental design changes that we can do to make people's lives better.

It really shows that wellness is everywhere.

Mikyoung: We have to embrace complexity and accept that each place is different, each person is different, each community is different.

And so, we do try to design with that in mind.

I want to be a part of it, New York, New York.

Raul: We made it to New York.

Tomorrow we're gonna meet Elyse Fox, but today we're having fun in Times Square.

Anjali: She's a real dancer.

Crew Oh, yeah, wait.

All: Oh!

Anjali: Wait, wait, I missed it.

Do it again.

Davida: When I was younger I was like always in the dance studio.

My family is like low key very into like art.

My grandma used to sing and dance all the time.

I think it's like part of our heritage.

I was raised in Parsippany, New Jersey, but my family originally comes from Ghana, which is in West Africa.

In Parsippany, it's like a very tight knit community.

Like I feel like all the Ghanaians know each other and like they went to my graduation.

Some of them said that they saw me like when I was born.

In college, it was kind of like a shock in my com class.

I think I was like the only black graduate or like one of three.

I remember like trying to find out like any mental health resources and no one I think was actively available.

That's when I started trying to put my mark in like mental health, especially for young black girls in college.

So, in 2020 I created an online mental health resource called Eve's Corner.

I wanted to create a platform where people who look like me can learn about mental health and digital wellness.

We have warm lines, hot lines, as well as like 988, and I think it's particularly for like me at that time in 2020.

A lot of times like Black voices don't get talked about when it comes to like the algorithm and how it tends to affect young Black people a lot.

But I think at the same time, like youth and young people are trying to find resources.

A lot of like our third spaces are not there anymore.

I really want to have an impact on like technology, on law, and trying to find the balance between the two.

Davida: So today we're in Brooklyn and we're gonna interview Elyse Fox of Sad Girls Club.

A lot of the work that they do is a little bit different than traditional nonprofits, and even though they're doing advocacy work, I'm curious to see how storytelling creativity play a role.

Elyse Fox: My name is Elyse Fox.

I'm a mental health advocate and the founder of Sad Girls Club, which is a nonprofit I started in 2017 to combat the accessibility and the stigma around mental health in general, especially amongst like BIPOC communities, communities that are marginalized, children of immigrants.

Davida: For me, I feel like Sad Girls Club has such a great community.

How did you go around building community, especially I think in a world where sometimes we feel so disconnected?

Elyse: In the beginning, it was so new.

Like, I'm a filmmaker by trade.

Like I didn't--I never thought I was gonna be in the mental health field at all.

Sad Girls Club began from a film that I directed, a documentary film about my experience navigating the worst points of my depression, like where I had everything on paper, I had everything on social media, but inside I felt sad, weighted, and I didn't know what was next for me.

And with the release of that film, a lot of young women from around the world saw themselves in my story and wanted a space to connect and to talk about their own mental health.

So, Sad Girls Club blossomed from there.

I started an Instagram page, very millennial.

In the beginning, it was so scary and I thought everyone would think I was weird or just a little odd or off, which I probably am, but it actually helped people who were looking for a space like mine find the space that Sad Girls Club is today.

We have free virtual programming that's available to anyone with Internet.

We have a therapy scholarship program.

We have events that are happening, and we provide safe spaces online where you can get that information that doesn't feel as clouded.

Anjali: In terms of people in their own communities starting movements surrounding mental health, what do you think their first step should be in that aspect?

Elyse: I'll say step one is what is your why?

Define what your why is and then start it honestly ground level small, you and two friends.

"Hey, girl, come over.

Let me test drive this out."

If you feel like you can make a change in this one space, like you can start off very micro and get macro, but where is your heart, where do you wanna create change, and how can you do it on a local level?

So, I think you guys got it.

You have a good rhythm and potion because when I was 19 I was not interviewing cool people like me.

Anjali: You are really cool.

I thought Elyse Fox was just radiant and understanding how this all started because she made a documentary called "Conversations With Friends," like that is kind of how I'd sum it up.

It's about being open about mental health because that's how we end the stigma.

It's not through silence, but it's through shared storytelling.

Raul: Thank you so much.

Yeah, we can start journaling now.

Elyse: Exactly!

The first step.

Davida: She said it perfectly.

Like, I wanted to create an event that I would wanna go to.

I think the work that they're doing is really fun and inviting, but it's so needed, especially in like the mental health field.

all: Sad Girls Club.

Raul: We're about to interview Jeff Winton of Rural Minds.

Anjali: As someone who's from a rural community, I know the disparities that come in terms of mental health care and access, and so I'm really excited to hear Jeff's perspective on all of that and just learn all that he has to share with us.

Jeff Winton: Well, first of all, welcome to Wall Street Dairy.

I am the founder and the chairman of Rural Minds.

In rural America, mental illness still is not considered an illness.

It's considered a character flaw, it's considered a weakness.

And Rural Minds is the only national nonprofit organization focused on fighting for mental health equity for the 46 million people who live in small town America.

Anjali: Everything you've said really resonates with me.

My mom's from rural North Dakota.

My grandparents are farmers.

Could you tell us a little bit more about why you're passionate about this work and made you decide to start Rural Minds?

Jeff: Well, thank you for the question.

It's something very close to my heart.

I've worked in the healthcare industry for most of my career, but it wasn't until my 28-year-old nephew died by suicide on our family farm that I realized this was now personal to me.

When my nephew died, we had people suggest that the family not talk about this.

We even had people say, "Well, why can't you say Brooks died in a farming accident?

Why can't you say he died of a heart attack?"

And it was my mom who was sitting in the pastor's study of the small town church where we worshiped with tears streaming down her face, looked at the pastor, pounded her fist on the desk, and said, "Pastor, this is going to stop with my family."

And after the funeral was over, we had other farm families lined up for hours telling us their story about suicides they had had in their family, about struggles with major depression, struggles with alcohol use disorder.

And at that point my mother said, "We are going to do something about this."

It was due to her courage and her honesty and her transparency that we founded this organization that is so badly needed, especially during times like we find ourselves in right now.

Raul: Being in a rural area, like even like in my home, like it's very isolated and there aren't a lot of resources, mental health or even just like regular health.

How can we bring resources out to these isolated areas?

Jeff: You're absolutely right in that.

We have a shortage of healthcare workers in rural areas.

Young people like yourselves that grow up in rural America are 74% more likely to die by suicide than their urban counterparts.

We also know, however, that young people are much more likely to talk about things that my generation won't talk about.

That's what we need in this country to get through the stigma is getting people comfortable talking about this and not being ashamed of it because the bottom line is that we have a lot of resources available, but we need to get people comfortable tapping into them.

We have to humanize this, we have to put a personal face on this, and we have to allow others to feel the permission to be vulnerable and to understand that this is nothing to be ashamed of.

Raul: That was really cool.

I mean, the motivations that people have for the work that they do, especially mental health, very close to them, very personal.

And seeing that with Jeff, it's very clear how much of an impact the loss of his nephew has had on him.

Anjali: A lot of the things that he brought up and he was sharing just like resonated with me on a very like deep level.

I got into mental health advocacy because of suicide prevention and I even thought about where my grandparents live in rural North Dakota and like mental health isn't talked about there.

Davida: The through line connection between like all the leaders from Boston up until now has been that idea of understanding your community that you're serving.

Raul: Every leader that we've interviewed so far, they really want to teach us lessons.

They're like, "I know you're gonna take something from this conversation and do amazing work with it and that encouragement, that belief.

I don't know, it's the wind in my sail so far.

Anjali: This road trip will be a great opportunity to kind of shed light on unconventional wellness fields and professions.

Davida: There are so many ways that you can be involved in wellbeing.

Charles: Our mission here is to advance health equity by building a more just and resilient food system.

Eric: Whether you can't use your legs or you can't use an arm, it doesn't matter, we're there to help you get out into nature and find those healing pieces that provide, you know, that mental health relief.

announcer: Wondering what to do with your life?

Well, we've been there and we're here to help.

Our website has some awesome tools to help you find your path, and you can check out all our documentaries, interviews, and more.

Start exploring at roadtripnation.com.