Miami Living Magazine features the best Miami has to offer. Click on any magazine below and enjoy. You can download our free app on iTunes. Ideal for iPad and iPhone users.
Issue link: https://digital.miamilivingmagazine.com/i/1436805
I think that sort of collective trauma and pain has really affected us, and I think will really affect people’s mental health in ways that we haven’t seen yet. Mental health is a hugely important thing to me. I’m a big advocate for talking about it, destigmatizing it and so I think that is my concern right now. I know I was a mess during the pandemic. I was not a fully functioning person. It was awful. Allison: I don’t know if I was a mess, but I got fatter (laugh). Jodie: (laughs) I lost almost 37 pounds, because I’m a stress starver. Allison: Are you serious? Jodie: But not in a good way. I just stopped eating. I couldn’t keep food down. I’ll be really honest about it; the pandemic was not good for me. I have severe anxiety and depression anyway, so it really didn’t do any favors for my mental health. I really struggled with it and for me it was a time of feeling really out of control and again I can’t imagine how it affected people who were working on the front lines. Allison: I also suffer from anxiety and there is a history of alcoholism in my family. Back in the day, mental health was not something that was discussed and so I think the reason grandfather was an alcoholic is because he also had anxiety. Do you think at one point you self-medicated because of your anxiety and depression? Jodie: Yes, absolutely. I think that was a big part of it, was how do I deal with these feelings? How do I manage my own head that is just loud and negative and awful to me sometimes, but nobody else can hear it? You’re stuck in it. The thing about anxiety is, people think of panic attacks, but there can be a raging, screaming voice in your head all the time that you just can’t get quiet. You just don’t want to listen to this voice, and especially when mental health wasn’t talked about, it was worse. Having that wiring in your brain that something switches on when you’re an alcoholic and it feels like there is never enough. I can’t ever fill this hole because there is a bottom missing in the cup, and I just keep trying to fill it. I think that is something I’m really grateful for now, is the de-stigmatization of talking about mental health. Allison: When did you get to the point when you realized you had to develop actual skills to heal yourself rather than numbing yourself? Jodie: That was my whole journey through sobriety. A lot of it is really looking at yourself, and what are the things that I do or behaviors that I’m trying to use to cope with my life? And how do I do this better? How do I interact with people better? How do I hold myself to a higher standard? How do I go back and make some of those things right so that I can alleviate that shame and terror that comes with all of it? Then, how do I go about life not creating those situations for myself in the future? That is a huge part of it. I’m always very honest that, for me, medication has been key. Otherwise, my struggle was so bad I wasn’t getting out of bed. Now that I know when I need to speak up for myself, even into my thirties, my early thirties feeling like I needed some therapy and I probably need a psychiatrist for some meds; all of these things to start taking better care of myself. Allison: Do you pray, and if so, who or what do you pray to? Jodie: I don’t. I’m more of a meditative, still, and present sort of person. I’m not necessarily religious. For me, I find that higher power or something greater than myself when I’m at live music and everyone is enjoying themselves. The musicians are in so much joy playing something. Or when I’ve been out at a protest and I see thousands and thousands of people coming together to do something right, helping each other and taking care of each other. That, for me, are the moments when I see something greater than us and when we rise above our own selfish wants and needs to connect at a higher level. Allison: What do you think you came into this life as Jodie Sweetin to learn, and what do you think you came into this life to teach?