- Hey everyone, it's Thursday,
and you know what that means!
Thursday I'm on Twitter, so remember,
about three weeks ago when I was doing these before,
you have to use the hashtag #KatiFAQ,
'cause the ampersand sigh, that little loop
that goes between Q&A won't let you do a hashtag.
What?
So, #KatiFAQ is the hashtag that we use,
and I got on Twitter, and I have some questions,
and I even had an epiphany that I had today,
one of those moments that you guys said you liked,
so that will come at the end,
so stay tuned for that.
And if you're not following me on Twitter,
hop on at @KatiMorton.
You can ask your questions,
you can get some support on there,
you can direct message me that way.
And here we go, without further ado, our first question.
Number one, "I have a friend who
"I think is being sexually abused.
"She is showing the signs,
"like cutting and self-harming,
"as well as many suicide attempts.
"What can I do to help her?"
And this is from Kat on Twitter.
And that can be really hard.
The first thing that I always say to do,
and you can even check out my other videos,
I believe it's on my FAQ video,
but if anybody knows different,
and there's a different video that I'm forgetting,
I have so many videos now,
I talk about how to best support a friend,
and in that, I talk about just letting her
know that you're there, and being consistent,
making plans, being supportive,
things that we would kind of expect from any friend, right?
But as far as getting her help,
the first thing I would encourage her to do
is just start talking to her about it and be supportive,
because sometimes when we offer help to people,
it can kind of scare them away,
and they'll feel overwhelmed,
and they'll be more scared,
and they'll think, "How did they know?"
Because for many of us who've been sexually abused,
many of the predators, people who do this to us,
will tell us, "I'll hurt your mother,
"I'll hurt your sister, I'll do this
"if you tell anybody."
And so, sometimes if we pressure them to talk about it,
they can get really frightened,
and it can be really scary.
But in this scenario, there are many
things out there to help her,
and if she is open to talking about it
and admitting that, you know,
things are awful, and it is really scary,
and something bad is happening,
I would encourage her to call,
there's Social Services is a great, in the States.
Now, if any of you are in the UK
or in other parts of the world
and you can leave your information,
you know what government-funded,
or whatever agency takes care of stuff like this.
For us, it's Social Services.
If we're a child and we're being abused by a parent,
they're the ones we report things to,
they're the ones that we talk to.
That's where I call when I report child abuse.
I call Child Protective Services,
which is part of Social Services.
They handle a lot of different venues,
but that's usually the best place to call.
Also, she can call a suicide hotline
and get some referrals for different support groups
and things like that, because there's a lot of that.
There's a lot of different battered women shelters
that offer sexual abuse groups, and everything.
There's a ton of options.
So, that would be my advice is
first just be a careful listening friend,
and then let her know services are available.
You can look them up and just give her a sheet of them
and just say, "You know, if you ever wanted to
"get ahold of somebody," okay?
Now, the second question, from Nicole,
"Can I message you or talk to you in any way?"
And I know many of you have been really frustrated,
like, "Kati, oh my gosh, you got so popular
"you can't answer everything."
And remember the days, well, I remember the days when
I would get home from work,
and I would spend about 30 minutes
answering every question on every site,
and it would all be good.
Now, I swear, like, I had a week off,
I took a week off around Christmas and I was like,
"I'll catch up on some stuff."
Guys, I spent literally eight hours a day
answering questions and I wouldn't even make a dent,
because by the time I, like, on Tumblr,
for any of you, you know, you scroll down,
get to the last question, then you're like, "Ha!"
And then you go all the way up,
and you think you're almost done,
and there's just as many as there were when you got on!
And it's like, holy geez, somebody's playing a cruel joke.
So, the best way to ask me questions is to use my hashtags
on Twitter when you know it's Thursday
and you want a question answered,
or on Wednesdays, you go on the Tuesday video
or the Monday video and you ask a question in the comments,
and you just use the hashtag #KatiFAQ.
You can do it on Tumblr, you can do #KatiFAQ hashtag.
I search for that hashtag,
and those are the questions that get answered most quickly.
So, that's probably the best way.
And on my website, under Forums,
you can go into Kati Q&A,
and I get out on that periodically,
usually on Wednesdays, Website Wednesdays, or on Fridays.
Sometimes I'll do it on Fridays,
or I'll shoot out an extra video.
So, those are some of the options.
And on Facebook, if you ask me a question,
if you message me and you make the question
in the first couple lines so I can see it,
that'll be the easiest way to get that answer too.
So, that's the easiest way to
get ahold of me these days, okay?
The third question: "I have EDNOS,
"and I've been purging for the past two days.
"How can I stop, and can I stop?"
And the answer is yes, we can stop.
It is horrible, that vicious cycle of
binging and purging.
And I talk about it in the bulimia video,
so you can search that.
It's one of my older videos.
It's actually one of the first couple videos I did,
and I'm really awkward, so I apologize for that.
But I talk about what it is,
and I know that you're saying you have EDNOS,
and we can do a bunch of different things
from different diagnoses.
That's why EDNOS is kind of the catchall.
But the best way to break that cycle is,
honestly, distraction.
Making plans, getting out, going out with a friend
to get a snack, and then knowing that you won't be
anywhere where you can purge.
Like, even having a supportive friend where you're like,
"Don't let me go to the bathroom.
"Make me sit with you for an hour," or whatever.
Once we break that cycle, 'cause it's that cycle, right?
We restrict, and then we get so hungry that we binge,
and then we've overeaten because we've been restricting,
and then we purge, and then we just start all over again.
So, we have to find a way out,
and I find distraction to be the best.
So, that would be my advice for that.
And if any of you have distraction tips,
'cause I could go on and on, you know?
You can listen to music, you can journal,
you can call a friend, you can go for a walk,
you can paint your nails.
I find painting my nails to be very effective,
because who wants to do all that work,
and then just mess it up, right?
So, anyway, but leave your tips on that,
'cause that can be really helpful for many of us.
The last question: "How do we keep going
"when we're losing faith in the NHS system
"and other areas that are supposed to be supportive?"
And this is from Jess.
And I'm sorry Jess, I know you've been waiting
forever and forever and a day to get a therapist,
and it just is really disappointing sometimes because,
for any of you who don't know, NHS is the,
I think it's National Healthcare System.
Something like that.
But it's the system that's utilized
in the UK for mental health and for anything like that,
and it can take a while to get treatment sometimes,
and we can wait, and people can leave,
and then we wait for someone else to get hired,
and it just goes on, and on, and on.
And the best thing that I would encourage you to do, Jess,
is to allow people online to support you for now,
and I would look into getting another support.
I know that you have some people in your life
that are really supportive.
I would look for other groups, if there's a way.
Unfortunately, I'm not as well versed
in how it works in the UK.
If any of you are, and if you've had a good experience
and you went through this certain way, let us know.
I know, Maunda, you had a really good experience
through the NHS system, so maybe you could
shed some light on this for me?
But I always encourage my clients to
set up your own support group,
whether it be friends, people you work with,
people that you've used to be friends with in the past,
and you've just lost touch with them,
parents, sisters, a dog, a fish, doing art classes.
I would definitely utilize those to the best,
and I would vlog about it,
and I would get support online,
and I would hop on the website and use the forums,
and ask people questions, and get involved,
so that you know you're not alone,
'cause none of you are alone.
We're all here to help.
That's why I'm creating all this,
and that's why I'm excited for our community to grow,
even though I know many of you are frustrated
because I can't get all of your questions answered.
But there are so many people out there
who you can talk to, and in your time of need,
you can reach out.
So don't be afraid to reach out, okay?
We're all here to help.
Oh, okay, and that's all the questions for today.
Sorry, I'm wiggling in my seat
to tuck my legs under.
I had an epiphany today, and it was because,
actually, I saw this guy fall down on the sidewalk,
which isn't very funny, and I didn't laugh,
but it made me think, because he scrambled to get up.
Have you ever tripped, and you almost fell,
or you caught yourself, and you scrambled to get up,
and you look around, and you're like,
"Did anybody see me?
"That was horribly embarrassing, ah!"
I thought to myself, why is it, in life,
we get up so quick, right?
I'm not gonna lay on the sidewalk, "Ugh, I fell!"
Unless, of course, I broke my leg, right?
But if I tripped, and fell, and skinned my knee,
I'm just gonna get back up and look around, like,
"Shit, did anybody see that?
"That's embarrassing," right?
But emotionally, we'll stay down for years.
Something will trip us up and we'll fall.
So, let's say I may have had a slip-up,
and I cut, and it's been months since I had self-harmed,
and I'll lay there for days, weeks, months, years,
before I decide to get up again.
And why is that?
What can we do to make that a quicker turnaround?
What can we say?
And so that's kind of my journal challenge,
and if you wanna share your thoughts on it,
that would be great, or if you wanna do
video responses to this about that,
and what you think, and what we can do
to speed up that turnaround, that would be great,
and I'll approve them, so you can submit them,
and then I'll get them in my inbox, and I'll approve them.
Anyway, that's just my thought for the day,
because there's nothing that says
we can't just get right back up.
Oh, I slipped up.
Recovery's a process, you know,
it's not gonna be perfect, I'm gonna try again,
I know what tripped me up this time,
and I will make sure it doesn't
happen as much the next time, and I'll work at it.
You know, I mean, we need those reassuring thoughts,
so give us our thoughts, and we'll help one another
so that we can scramble and get up
like we would in real life,
so that we don't stay down for so long emotionally.
So, that's just my thought for the day.
And I hope you're all doing well.
I know VidCon starts tomorrow, yay!
And I believe I'm gonna do,
I'm gonna have to talk to I Drank the Seawater to make sure,
'cause I think we're gonna do a joint meetup,
where her and I will hang out
and you guys can come and meet us.
But I'm thinking I'm gonna do it in Santa Monica,
'cause I know that that's a lot easier for many of you,
and I'm thinking there's a Coffee Bean,
and CourtneyPants has met me at this Coffee Bean,
'cause it's easy, and there's lots of seats,
and there's lots of space,
but it's the Coffee Bean on Ninth and Wilshire,
and that's where I think we're gonna have the meetup
on Sunday at 1:00,
and I'll be there for a couple hours,
and then I'll head back home.
So, what do you think, okay?
I love you all, and I'll see you tomorrow, bye!