- Hey everybody.
It's Tuesday and that means I'm on Tumblr
so if you asked your questions using the hastag katiFAQ,
I have found them and I've already answered
some of the quicker ones before I even got on.
And before I even get started in the Tumblr,
I want to talk a little bit about something that happened
in California this last Friday,
right before Memorial Day weekend.
There was a shooting.
And I'm sure many of you have heard about it,
but I just wanted to address it
since mental health issues have been brought up
during this time.
And if any of you haven't heard about it,
you can google the Santa Barbara shooting
but roughly what happened is there's a 22-year-old guy
named Elliot Roger, and he planned and prepared
and shot and killed six people, injured 13 people,
and then they say that they suspect he killed himself.
So I have some notes here
and things that I want to make sure I address,
and the main thing I want to talk about
is the fact that they brought into question,
and not even into question, but they brought it
into the details of the story that he has Asperger's.
And I want to make sure that we in no way
think that Asperger's directly correlates
with violence and homicidal urges.
Those are not the same thing.
And I know that oftentimes in the media
things get spun up and spit out
and they make it sound like the two are related,
and they're not.
So that's my first point.
And the second point is that oftentimes
when people are unraveling and they're really struggling,
whether it be homicidal urges, suicidal urges,
self-harm urges, any kind of thing
that can be really harmful to them or someone else,
we often see it in social media before anything else.
And even if we don't know
what the person looks like or their name,
we know what they sound like on the regular basis,
and if you notice something, say something.
Because in the article that I was reading and in the videos
and the manifesto and the crap that's out about this,
they talk about how his mother,
back in April, called the cops.
She got an email I guess, part of what his manifesto was
and she was really concerned
and she knew something was wrong,
so she called the cops and they showed up at his house.
Now obviously, this conclusion was not
what she was trying to have happen,
she was trying to prevent it,
but imagine if when the cops showed up,
if they didn't think everything was okay.
If they suspected something,
they would have found his three guns
and his big paper that he put together
about why he did what he did,
and none of this would have happened
and those innocent lives would have been saved.
So if you notice something, if you see something,
if you think something's wrong, say something.
Because we're powerful.
As one person, we can change a lot, right?
So don't think that, "Oh, I'm just reading into it wrong."
or "Oh, they're really not going to do anything."
It never hurts to check.
It never hurts to call for help.
Because someone like Elliot
and I think if you've listened to his rant of a video
that it's kinda hard to listen to,
if he'd had extra support and if he had felt connected
to people and if he had somehow felt like people cared
and it was important and he was important to other people,
probably none of this would have happened.
He kind of was unraveling
about how he never got to kiss a girl,
never got to have sex with a girl,
no one really, he didn't connect with people.
And I understand that being bullied and being isolated
can be really hard on our mind and our psyche,
what we believe about ourselves.
So I just want you all to know,
if you hear something, say something.
If you see something, say something.
It never hurts to reach out.
It never hurts to talk to that person
and just check in and see how they're doing.
Because we don't want innocent people to die
just because of something
that we could have maybe prevented.
Am I right?
So I guess those are my thoughts on it,
and I know it's a really terrible devastating event
that occurred, and my condolences to anybody
who is ever touched by this,
by anybody that's a friend or a family member.
If you know of someone who was hurt and killed
in this instant, I've very sorry for your loss.
I'm sorry that they had to go through this.
And on to my questions for Tumblr, I have two now,
and I have a journal topic.
So the first question is, "Kati, I'm 17
"and about to graduate from high school in a matter of days.
"Recently I've become close to a teacher of mine,
"and I'm considering telling her about my past/recovery
"from self-harm. I'm two and a half months clean."
Yay.
"I know that they're mandated to report us,
"but do teachers need to report past self-harm?
"Thanks, Kati, for all your support."
No.
Mandated reporting applies to sexual abuse, physical abuse,
things that we think may be happening to you as a child
because you're under the age of 18.
Now, teachers may be under the school rules,
because every school has its own set of rules,
they may be forced to speak out
if they think that you're a danger
to yourself or others, right?
But since this happened in the past
and it's not currently happening,
we don't report on past abuse or past anything.
So my guess would be that the answer is no,
that they're not going to be mandated to say anything,
but we never know, right?
Sometimes they don't even follow a certain rule,
they just say what they feel.
So I might talk to that teacher and just say,
"You know, I do feel really close to you,
"and I like our conversations.
"Are these things that you'd be forced to share
"with someone else or are these kept between us?"
And I would just gauge it that way.
And always proceed with caution
when it comes to someone who's within a greater system,
whether it's a therapist, a teacher,
because we are mandated to make sure that you're safe, okay?
Second question.
"Hey Kati, here's my question.
"I know it's normal to be confused with sexuality
"when you're in puberty, but is it normal
"that I hate myself because I like girls more than guys?
"I just feel so alone and disgusted with myself.
"What if I just pretend to be straight
"for the rest of my life.
"Sincerely, a worthless teenager."
First of all, you're not a worthless teenager.
And yes, it is very normal for any of you who are a teenager
and struggling with your sexuality,
trying to figure out who you are and what's okay
and who you like to date and what you don't like
and all that stuff, that's a normal period of our lives
where we try to go through
what I call a self-discovery period, right?
We're trying to figure out what's okay for us.
But as far as hating yourself,
I mean, I wouldn't say it's normal or not normal,
but when we feel that we are gay or homosexual
or whatever you want to call it,
when we feel that we are that orientation,
we're not attracted to the opposite sex
like other people that we may be friends with,
it can be difficult to feel different, right?
And I know that many of you reached out to me
and I've done videos on being gay and what that means
and things that we can help to reach out
and have a community of people who understand us.
It can be a difficult time, right?
It can be hard to come out.
It can be hard to come out to ourselves.
To recognize that this is something that's a part of me.
This is who I am and this is what I'm about.
So I would encourage you to find a therapist in your area
who deals with the LGBT community
and is really entrenched in it and can offer you groups
and support that maybe other therapists
or other people won't be able to.
And that can help you get a better grasp on who you are,
what you want, what's good for you,
and get entrenched in a community
that can really be supportive to your choices, okay?
Now the journal topic today was someone who sent it to me
on Twitter, and I have a couple others
that I know were sent to me today on Tumblr,
and I've saved them and I'll use them.
But the quote today is, "Sadness and pain are temporary,
"like everything in life.
"But if we hold on long enough,
"something new will replace it.
"Happiness."
And I think that that's something
that's really important to remember,
because life can be really shitty sometimes, right?
And we'll feel like this sadness is just so palpable
I can't get out of it.
But if we push through, if we keep fighting,
happiness does replace it.
Life moves on.
We can move on.
We can overcome it.
We can fight, right?
So keep fighting, keep working together
towards a healthy mind and a healthy body
and I'll see you all tomorrow.
It's Wednesday, I'll be on the website
and I'll be on Youtube, so ask your questions
below this video or on the website and I will see you then.
Bye.