Mary Mosier, T1D, Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist

[00:00:00] Rob Howe: Welcome back to another episode of Diabetics Doing Things. Today we have a very special episode for you. This is episode 199. And while we've done certainly like 35 or so tools of Type 1 episodes back in 2018, we're coming up on episode 200, which is a pretty cool milestone for us and for me. But today's guest is Mary Mosier. She's a Type 1 diabetic and she's a licensed marriage and family therapist. And we've been talking a lot about mental health. We had a mental health awareness month and series on the podcast and Eritrea, who's here with me and I have discussed mental health and the burden that diabetes places on that at length, but we've never had an expert like Mary. We've had some other clinical psychologists, but this discussion was really on the trauma of being diagnosed with diabetes and the effects that it can have on you long-term. And I really think that you're going to gravitate to Mary. She's just a really great presence. And I know I walked away from this interview feeling better than when I came in.

[00:01:00] Eritrea: I think we both learned a lot, right? How the way that I think something we talk about a lot on the podcast is that initial response to being diagnosed. And we finally got some answers to that question and just more things around the grief of diagnosis. So we learned a lot and I'm excited for everyone else to listen to this episode and learn with us.

[00:01:19] Rob Howe: Yes, indeed. And, you know, we cover a lot of topics, really, that there's no one way to manage your diabetes, that there's a lot of toxic positivity in the community and how to avoid that. And then just getting into the trauma and the grief that you have to deal with after a diagnosis and, you know, what the first few minutes, like you just mentioned, can mean for the rest of your life with diabetes, especially for the first few years. but Mary also provided us with a lot of resources that we've included in the show notes. So this is a very practical episode. If you want to check those out, just check out the show notes or check out the podcast on diabeticsdoingthings.com slash podcast. All right. Enjoy this interview with Mary Mosier. Welcome back to another episode of Diabetics Doing Things. We are telling the amazing stories of people with diabetes from all over the world. Very excited for our guest today, Mary Mosier, LMFT, Licensed Marriage and Therapist and Family Therapist. I wrote in my notes, Therapy Therapist, which is a very different and maybe overly descriptive title, but that's me.

[00:02:19] Mary Mosier: Mary, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me.

[00:02:24] Eritrea: Of course. We're so excited. We're so excited. Mary speaks English and Spanish. She is bilingual, and I feel like all of her content out there is available for people who speak English and Spanish. You've been so interesting to me on the internet. I think, Rob, I didn't tell you this, but when I was trying to make friends in the diabetic online community, I DMed Mary and I was like, hi, I really like your content. I think you're really cool. Please be my friend. And I think that's how we started being friends. So yeah, a little backstory there. Yeah.

[00:02:52] Mary Mosier: Isn't it nice? And it came during the, I think the women of color diabetes challenge. I think

[00:02:57] Rob Howe: that's kind of when we met. Yeah, that was awesome. How important are those, right? Like, because, you know, both of you are very involved on the internet and diabetes communities. And yet it took a challenge for you both to get introduced to each other. So those are good. That's, I'm just going to plant that seed. If you're listening to that, listen to this and you are responsible for one of those challenges, let's bring them back. Let's make them happen. So Mary, you have lived with type 1 diabetes for 34 years. On your, on Mary Mojo therapy, your Instagram account, you say a level 34 type 1 diabetics, which I love. So why don't we start with your diagnosis and what you remember and how you came to join the type 1 diabetes family?

[00:03:36] Mary Mosier: Yeah. So I have an older brother who's about two years older than me. So when my parents had me, I think they instinctively kind of knew, well, something is wrong. Let's run some tests. they didn't have like the the understanding of what type 1 was and I think a lot of the providers we were working with at that time never really thought to test for for type 1 right so they were like okay allergies this or that or let's check you know just varying kind of tests and always really just kind of skipping that where my parents were like but she complains of this she's always thirsty um she has a sweet breath like i remember my my parents would even tell me um that any time like we were going anywhere and uh they were going to put on the seat belt i would say like but my tummy hurts um and it was like also like my abdomen hurting so um i began to sleep a lot and kind of lose a lot of weight and my parents were just kind of like there's something wrong, what are we not asking for? And it just so happened that both my brother and I were under the weather, he had a high temperature that wasn't going down. So they took him and I to urgent care, but really thinking like, gosh, why is his temperature not going down? And the person that saw my brother in urgent care had a background with diabetes. And they were like, yes I mean obviously my brother's a concern and his high temperature but they're like we need to run some tests on your daughter and my parents were just like yes let's do this um and like that day um I was transferred to um the children's hospital of orange and I was there for um a little over two weeks. And it was really, it was really hard for my family. And there was a lot of people visiting a lot of people poking and prodding. And it is a children's hospital. So they try to be lovely and try to be helpful. And the things are happening so fast, different faces coming in, you know, talking to you, touching you and all of those things kind of happens. So that is, I know, I think I had like a really hypersensitivity to being in medical spaces when I was a kid, for sure. So that's like a large portion of my story. But I don't know how much more you want me to share.

[00:06:17] Eritrea: Well, I actually, so a little bit about you is like you come from a multicultural background. So it's like, you know, I think, is it your mom that's white and your dad's my kid?

[00:06:28] Mary Mosier: So my dad is of European descent and Mexican and my mom is Mexican. And yeah, so I'm like very mixed. And I think when you look at me visually, because my skin is lighter, it's not always so obvious of like when you think of someone being mixed race or multi-ethnic or whatever language you prefer to ethnicity. Um, but, um, it was definitely hard. Yeah, it was definitely hard. Um, especially my mom's English isn't that great. Um, she's like, you know, she's, her writing and reading skills are amazing, but her, her, um, speaking skills, um, are a little bit, a little bit harder, um, cause she learned English a little bit later in life. So, um, there is definitely a, like an overt understanding at a very young age of like the inequities of being with like my light-skinned dad versus my my tan mom um with limited English right so there's definitely that that I learned at a very young age as far as like even um school like when I was running late if I was with my dad people are like oh yeah yeah that's fine oh you don't have a late notice or like who's this or just the actions of folks that are supposed to be helping you was definitely very clear. And I didn't know a lot of people in my community. I grew up in a Latinx community for the most part. And I think that even in my family systems, in my extended family, there's kind of like, don't teach them Spanish or don't. And on the other spectrum, I was like, yes, teach them both or like raise them this way or raise them that way. So I just even, like I said, what we see in community and how you're treated differently based on what you look like, which does definitely still happen today, definitely was something that I was aware of way younger than anyone really should have to be, but a reality of this world for sure.

[00:08:43] Eritrea: So with diagnosis and with your mom, sorry, Rob, And with your mom not like speaking a ton of English, because I can definitely relate to that. I felt at times that I was not I had to like you were three, right? You're so small. And your dad spoke English. So did it feel like you were still in some ways translating all the time or as you started to get older, like they're your primary caretakers. But because you understand English the best since you were born here, whatever. Yeah. Are you like that responsibility even as a really young child?

[00:09:12] Mary Mosier: Yeah. So if we were like with our mom, definitely we would be translating. But for most visits, I know my parents did a good job in the way that everyone it was like a whole team thing. And I don't know that my siblings are excited about it. But anytime I had to go visit my endo at CHOC, my sister would be pulled out of class, my brother would be pulled out of class, and we would all go together. and I think that that effort for them was obviously probably no there was no other person that could pick us up because we live really far away from family but then also I think they were just trying to be like it's okay that you're you're diabetic and like it I was never comfortable really with getting like checkups with like male providers I knew that very young like just felt really uncomfortable. So they were always in the room with me, even into like my teens, because that they, they were always just very present in like every medical decision. So I think that that was something that they did well, where they were like, okay, we're all going, you're going to get blood work, we're going to wait here, there's a room where we're going to wait, like, I'm going to take your brother and sister outside, mom's going to be here, dad's going to be here um where they try to kind of like normalize the best they could um that i that i was diabetic but i obviously knew that there was like stress and tension and lack of sleep all around um because kids are aware even when we don't have language for sure that like

[00:10:47] Rob Howe: okay like i'm causing people stress so and i'd love to just because of your expertise on this on this matter and obviously like your firsthand experience as a patient as a person with diabetes there's so much trauma associated and grief associated with a diagnosis um yeah and like you said like your family like your brother was there in the hospital with you like during diagnosis you sort of did things as a family unit and had like a team kind of structure around that do you think that that was just unique to your family do you think that that uh or you know unique because you guys were kind of all there at the same time. We're able to do that together. I'm sure that, um, you know, like you said, there's a spectrum of how people like to manage that. Some people I think are more lone wolf and they like to sort of manage it and keep it very close. Um, but yeah, let me be just on a, on a bigger, just sort of a higher level perspective, the relationship between diabetes and trauma and grief, uh, and mourning your sort of old life,

[00:11:50] Mary Mosier: even if you were diagnosed very young? Yeah. So as far as like my story, and then I can certainly speak to just like medical trauma in general, because I think it's a definite knowing of something that's happening to you, right? So when we're talking about trauma, it is something that happens so rapidly, whether it's an event or for others, it might be like continually ongoing. And that's definitely affecting our nervous system, our sense of the world. And when we put our level of access, right? So we're adding all these different intersections. What level of privilege? How do people perceive me based on my skin, based on my language, my race, my sexuality, right? my ability to communicate, right? Or people are really looking and treating us different based on all those things. So I would never tell someone like, well, just work on this or do this when they don't have adequate resources, right? So I know for me personally, as a therapist, we are looking at all those things that are affecting our wellness, that are affecting our experience of trauma. I know for me, like growing up, I think my parents, for them, it was like, yes, we need to do this together. And that really helped me feel a little bit more normal, whatever that really means in the way that I saw myself as opposed to other kids. Right. So even like my growing up experience, I was the kid that had to go check her blood sugar at recess. None of my friends or kids in my class had to do that. I was a kid that had a, you know, I used MDI. So I had to miss a little bit of lunch to give myself my shot and then go back, you know, to the lunch table. So there was always this, like, caution and awareness that I had as a little one. So that certainly does affect the way that you move in the world. I know with folks that I've worked with that were diagnosed in their 20s, so maybe college students with type 1 or maybe a different type of diabetes where you have this idea of the world or idea of how you're going to move in it or like what your goals are going to look like. And that can significantly, any kind of medical diagnosis really is going to affect the way you move through the world. And, and, and some, because of our lived experience, some of us don't have, uh, the, the safe space, um, or emotional support to be able to grieve it, to know that we can grieve it, but that's part of a, uh, of having a condition, a medical condition or any kind of traumatic experience. So that, I think that gets

[00:15:02] Rob Howe: missed a lot for sure. You mentioned this earlier as well about being children and not really having the language or not being able to verbalize or articulate what we're going through, but we know inherently inside. And I think part of that too, tying into what you just mentioned is when you're young, and I mean, I guess really this never sort of is a human condition, regardless of age, is being different and being othered because of your differences. Like there's a lot of fear and a lot of anxiety and a lot of real social challenges, like assimilating to a social group as a disabled person or a person who used to not have a disability and then now has to adjust to their space in the world. And I think especially for young people, teens, children, people in college, but also even adults, that can be, you know, the first real big hurdle in adjusting to the non-clinical portion of diabetes.

[00:15:57] Mary Mosier: Yeah, yeah, definitely.

[00:16:00] Rob Howe: I guess, what do you see when you talk to your patients about, you know, these types of things?

[00:16:05] Mary Mosier: So I know with like really people of varying ages, I know for little ones. So I purposely wear my insulin pump and my CGM and really overt places that everyone can always see as as as a way to kind of show support for people with medical conditions. So maybe I'm working with a little one or a teenager that's like, no girl is going to like me or no person's going to like me or no or who would ever date me. Because, you know, like when we think about disabilities and ableism, like, what are we being told about having this condition, right? And then someone thinking like, well, I have this pump or I have this thing now. People are going to treat me different. And some people do. Like, some people stare. They question. I know for me, I have like a really high tolerance for that. And I use that as an educational moment where I'm like, oh, that's my CGM. That's an insulin pump. but I'm diabetic. So next time you see someone, maybe a little one, you might want to be mindful about how you're looking at them. Um, or maybe the way that you, you know, like, if you do want to ask, like, instead of staring, cause that can be really affect someone. Um, how do you do that?

[00:17:24] Eritrea: Mary? I feel like people, when they're like, why are you beeping? I just want to punch them in the eye. Like, why? I'm glad you said that. Cause I think it all, that also exists.

[00:17:33] Rob Howe: a spectrum and sometimes it's just like, did you get a good night's sleep or what are they the second person that's asked you that today or the third, or maybe are you feeling a little bit more?

[00:17:44] Mary Mosier: You know, honestly, like on my, I don't, I don't, I don't have the capacity. I don't have the emotional bandwidth today. Um, I will, um, so today I'm wearing my insulin pump on my upper left thigh, but I, what I've done is actually write with a Sharpie and put this as my insulin pump. I will literally write that. I've done that so many times. And I've seen people like when I go to like coffee shops or restaurants where someone's like, what does that say? And then, and I could hear them. You're like literally at the next table. And then they're like, oh, it's an insulin pump. Oh, she's wearing an insulin pump. And then that like, just everyone's good now that you can stop staring and it's not a problem. Sometimes it bothers me, but for the most part, I'm kind of like, I'm doing this service because I know how hard it is for some of the people that I've worked. Right. And I remember in high school, I'm still with MDI. At one point, I think it was my junior year where I was like, I am not walking to the nurse's station anymore. I'm just not doing it. So I would just, I would take my glucometer, like I would, you know, and inject myself like in the corner of the room. I wouldn't go to the bathroom anymore. I'm like, I'm just like over having to accommodate, Oh, does that hurt? So then at that point I was just kind of like, I'm over it. I'm going to inject myself in the back of the classroom in grad school. Everyone knew. Um, at that point I was just kind of like, uh, for safety reasons, people should know. And, and you definitely don't have to do that. Like whatever your comfortability level is, um, you know, do what works best for you. Um, but at one point I was like I'm not gonna hide this very big part of me um for someone else's comfort so and then because I hear people have like really bad horrible date stories or like they called me a sick girl or a sick boy or they called me this or that I'm like no that's not okay like what kind of people are we raising so if if I can help in that way I'll do that like for me it's not a

[00:19:49] Rob Howe: problem. Well, I think too, like having to grow into some of that too, uh, like if you're not in that place yet, I think it's okay. I also, you know, it feels, it feels uncomfortable to be different and it feels very uncomfortable to be. And I think sometimes feels embarrassing or like you're on stage or like everyone's looking at you when you highlight something different. And as you were describing, like people kind of talking about the words written on your insulin pump, and then, you know, kind of checking that box and you sort of now know that they're talking about it and now you're having a little awkward exchange. Like that awkwardness still exists even if you're outwardly confident and even if you're comfortable.

[00:20:28] Mary Mosier: Totally.

[00:20:29] Rob Howe: And, you know, I think it's easy for us to be on a podcast and say, yeah, every opportunity that someone doesn't know is an opportunity to educate and bring people in. But I also struggle with, you know, days where I just don't feel like being interrupted or I don't feel like having-

[00:20:44] Eritrea: Sometimes I just want to be, right? Yeah.

[00:20:46] Mary Mosier: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think hence the why I just write it on my pump because I'm like, I don't have the bandwidth this week, but there's other weeks where I'm kind of like, yeah, and I would really encourage you to be mindful of the way that you're looking at folks. and I don't do that all the time so it's not like my fifth day job um but I I think sometimes it can certainly make a little bit of a difference to make someone make help them be more aware especially when I'm hearing stories from folks that I'm working with that someone's like I don't can we just end the day early right and that's like the the the hard end of the spectrum where people

[00:21:25] Eritrea: are just kind of like you have an illness imagine being anti-sick people that's crazy

[00:21:30] Mary Mosier: yeah because there are people and i've actually have unfortunately i've also heard other like people with medical conditions diabetic and not where they were like oh i wouldn't date someone who also has this and i'm like what does that say about the internalized ableism that you have

[00:21:43] Eritrea: also like you are one you are one phone call baby from being disabled like none of us woke up yesterday and we're like oh one day we're gonna be sick none of us we just happen so like what

[00:21:55] Rob Howe: do you mean that's so weird you know internalize is right and i mean a lot of that comes from society a lot of that comes from just you know we're we're all trying to fit in to a certain extent we all want to be uh yeah you know everybody wants something different i think but mostly i think we want to be accepted for who we are fully and it's difficult and i i think you're right like i've heard people say oh well you know i i don't want to have kids because i don't want to risk, you know, a child having diabetes. And I'm like, you know, I understand that perspective. And I, and, you know, I, I agree life with diabetes is hard, but if, you know, I think, again, it comes back to priorities and like what you're, what you want. And also I think this is something I really want to touch on because I am an optimist and I think that's a strength and a weakness sometimes because I'll get overly optimistic about ability to do things or ability to speak on it, things go going well, right. And not leave room for maybe, you know, a hiccup or a roadblock here and there. Um, but there's also that balance of not wanting to be toxically positive. And I think that there are some, some narratives that some that I've said on this podcast, I said on this podcast, I've been guilty of, of like, you can do whatever you want with diabetes and you can live the life that you want. But also I inherently was genetic. I want my genetic lottery winner. I'm super tall and athletic and, uh, and was born to a family with means. So I have advantages that other people don't. And so like, it's important to recognize like the ableist, you know, pillars of society, which are, oh, people who are good looking and athletic or whatever get scholarship opportunities that other people don't. And that's just the way that it is. And then without saying like, oh, you can't do this, you know, or, you know, setting a barrier. So I guess like, how do you help people remain optimistic and positive without going into

[00:23:45] Mary Mosier: that sort of toxic territory? Yeah. So I think it's important to be able to hold space for both. Right. So I'm not going to just tell someone like, we really need to work on that negative thinking. Like, what was your lived experience that this is what you learned? And what are what are the things that are no longer serving you? Right. And what are the pieces that we do need to unlearn? And so if someone told you like, hey, no one would ever want to be with you because you are diabetic, because you have lupus or because you have this medical condition or what have you. That's that's that person's belief, not yours. And we can learn not to take that on. Right. Or if we're just talking about like a physical attribute where you have to be this size or you have to be this body type. the reality is that we're socialized to believe that bodies should look like this, that this skin color is better, that this butt size is better. These thighs are better, whatever. Right. But like, what do you actually find attractive? What do you actually like about your body? So if I'm working with somebody that really is struggling with like per se, like body dysmorphia, and they're telling me like, Mary, I just think that every part about me is just so disgusting. So I'm not going to tell you them, tell yourself you're beautiful 10 times a I would not do that. For someone, it might be helpful, right? So what I would do is talk to them about like, tell me about what your body does for you. That is good. And we start there. Well, my body allows me to swim. That's great. Maybe I don't have mobility in this part of my body, but I'm able to be creative with this part of my body, right? So start there and then hold space for that duality of what the realities are like that that is life, that there is goodness. And then there's also harm, there is pain, and there is also joy, right? So especially with everything that is so amplified of what's going on with the world and people just are more insightful and aware of it now, just even that piece, like, gosh, there's a lot of harm, but I'm not gonna allow this horridness that's happening in the world to allow me to give up. Because I hear a lot of really painful stories sometimes. And I've seen people's life, lived experience, you know, where it's not fair, not fair at all, like what, what's happened to them, but I do see the hope in the way that they want to move through and how, how they heal, um, and how I can be experiencing pain and, and also joy and also goodness. And, um, so again, like that, that duality of gosh, there's hardships and there's also goodness. Um, I have depression and I also have this amazing person in my life. I have diabetes and I have these resources. I have this person that that can be my go-to, right? So feeling like, I think it can be really helpful to know that you're not the only one. And I think that's why podcasts like these are so great where you're just like, okay, I can relate to what Mary's saying, or like, I get what Eritrea is saying or what Rob is saying, because that was my experience when I was a teenager or like, oh, someone gets it. Because we do feel so alone when we're going through hardship and we think like gosh how am I going to surpass this right but it is very possible um I know some people don't have as much access so then what what it what do I have control of what can I do given what I have um and I think that that that mind shift can be helpful especially when we have resources coming in

[00:27:43] Eritrea: um so if I just went off on a tangent no no you said so much that I was just I know I'm like

[00:27:49] Mary Mosier: sometimes I'm like I'm gonna get people to digest what I'm saying I'm like yeah like I feel I was

[00:27:55] Rob Howe: like damn girl I'm gonna cry like stop Mary well I just think I think it's such an like humans are so complicated and there's so many layers to us and I think it's really interesting like living today where we live in a very polarized, you know, news cycle and social media. And it can be really, you know, we're unfortunately like manipulated into having strong reactions one way or another and kind of getting it, we can get into these insular chambers where we only share things that we agree with. And that just becomes so dangerous and can set up a really difficult patterns for us. But what's so interesting to me about this, your discussion of like life and lived experience and how it's so different from person to person that's so applicable to a life with diabetes, because there really is no one way to manage. And I'm grateful that there are multiple podcasts and multiple treatment methods and multiple schools of thought on whether that's food or dieting or exercise or multiple options on CGM and alerts and sharing and things like that. So you can, if you have the access, which is a huge part of it, you can assemble your community, You can assemble your therapy. You can assemble, you know, your outlook and adapt it to your lived experience. You know, again, if you have the access. So, you know, what do you how do you when you're talking to people with diabetes specifically, like you kind of get into those cycles of grief, like acceptance and like depression and anger, like it's a cycle like we go through them on a regular basis. you know how do you kind of meet people where they are and kind of help them navigate that cycle

[00:29:33] Mary Mosier: i i really like as we think about like that grief cycle i i i see it more as a suggestion honestly because everybody's grief experience is different right so um someone may need to be in their anger or may need to be in denial for purposes of survival, for purposes of functioning. Or maybe we don't have the space where we can do that because we need to move or we need to keep going. So I definitely talk about that, like what feels safe and okay in this moment for you where we can begin? So that would be maybe my first question. So I'm not going to tell someone, I think you need to breathe this. I might just want to know a little bit about their story and what their worry is to be in their caution to open up or not open up, right? So if we have lived experiences where we weren't met well with certain emotions, or maybe your dad, Rob, was like, yes, come to me when you're sad. Let me hold you. Let me help you. I know my dad was like that, like, tell me about it. But if I would have had the opposite experience, right, with a dad that perhaps had a lot of internal stuff happening where they couldn't deal with their own emotions, that dad may have, like, shushed me away or like, my life is harder, which I know sometimes happens culturally, where like, I came to this country to give you a better

[00:31:14] Eritrea: life, why are you complaining? I walked from Africa to come here. How dare you? Yeah. I get it.

[00:31:21] Mary Mosier: Right. So someone has that kind of lived experience. We talk about it like, wow, that made you feel like sadness was not good, that your anger was overwhelming. And that makes it hard for you now. That makes it hard for you to express how you're feeling. So just even And acknowledging those things, I think can make a such, such a big difference as, as a way to kind of open the space a little bit.

[00:31:50] Rob Howe: I really, since we're going to talk about my dad, I also, it brings up different things as well as like parents are people too, at different points in their own journeys, you know, maybe grieving themselves and, or in other cycles. And I, and I think, you know, we're going to talk a little bit about therapy stigma and, you know, what to do or some advice for people who have been recently diagnosed. But, you know, to share a little bit of personal stuff on my dad's side is like, you know, when I was born, I knew my dad as a different guy than my half sister did, who is 18 years older than me. And, you know, there was a lot of things that they had to work through because my dad was not available and was you know an alcoholic and was absent in her life and fortunately for me and my brother and my sister and my mom he got a second chance to to correct some of the things that he did and didn't do right and he got a you know got a chance to reinvent himself and unfortunately that didn't change my sister's childhood where he was absent and where he was hurtful and where he was, uh, you know, a piece of shit, you know? And so, uh, and at the same time, like they were able to reconcile later in life and develop a different relationship. So, you know, I think, I think that your story can change too. Um, and that's, uh, you know, whether that's your, your own story related to diabetes, whether that's really a relationship in your life of any kind, whether family or otherwise, you know, that healing is possible.

[00:33:26] Mary Mosier: Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. And I think that that's why I focus so much in the work that I do specifically around trauma and inner child healing or attachment work. Right. Because we don't all have the best of experiences growing up. And I think that that is also like a duality of healing where your parents may have done the best that they could and still caused a whole ton of harm. And again, not to blame your parents or my parents or anybody else's parents, but just to really acknowledge that like they were trying and they still hurt me. And how do I want to move forward from that? What can I take? What strengths can I take from my family system? If there were any, some people don't grow up in spaces where there were any, right? So then my experience of trauma with my family has taught me that I don't want to be like that, that I don't want to repeat this cycle, that I want to have compassion, that I want to grow in a way that I'm not repeating this pattern. And that's where that comes in, in our healing work, where what parts of me do I need to hold and take care of and validate? and how can I be curious about maybe for those that maybe didn't have the best therapy experiences or group therapy experiences like how can I be curious about the idea that there is the right provider out there for me or even if we were in not the best kind of relationship how can I be mindful of the kind of people I engage with or why I lean in towards people that aren't that great and it's not usually because you're like yes I love me a toxic person um it's kind of like the the that that energy or that behavior feels familiar right because maybe that energy or behavior was very reminiscent of our growing upness um so it's like a pattern I guess I don't

[00:35:35] Eritrea: know I don't want to like deviate too much from what you guys are talking about but I did it does make me think about something that Rob's always talking about on this podcast which is like because right now we're talking about how like something you're living now isn't even really what you're living right you're like reliving a past trauma a past experience over and over again so in correlation to like diabetes something Rob's always talking about is how like the first 20 minutes of your diagnosis are so important to a person with diabetes so is it possible from your you know expertise that if those first 20 minutes were terrible that you're just like going like it's much harder to go through the rest of your life now with this chronic condition

[00:36:13] Mary Mosier: because of that initial bad experience so that concern or good experience so it it really like depends on on on the person but if you came across where people were automatically blaming you or telling your parents that they failed or that you failed or like why are you eating this way or why like so even like in the medical system there's like a lot of stigma stigmas and right

[00:36:38] Rob Howe: We and me specifically, like I'm very happy with the progress that we've made. People that were diagnosed today have in, I say in general, much better resources than when I was diagnosed or you were years ago. But at the same time, like to say that this exact situation doesn't happen regularly would be an oversight.

[00:36:58] Mary Mosier: Yeah, for sure. And then and and again, because I work with folks that are multi-ethnic or that are in the Latinx community, where maybe they don't have access to the best level of care or maybe the language is an issue. Like for sure, if we have a traumatic experience medically, it is going to affect our level of trust with our providers or how comfortable we are with talking to them about questions that we may have or things that we're struggling with. If they're coming at us in a way that is like, why do you have lows all the time? Why do you have highs all the time? What's wrong? So, if someone's talking to you that way, that's clearly indicating that they're not really trying to collaborate. And I think that's something to pay attention to if we're able to, right? I really want to request a different provider. I don't feel like we're working collaborative. I had that actually happen when I had a change of insurance where I was like, look, I've been living with diabetes this long. And I'm like, are you the provider that's going to work with me as a team. I don't want the way that you're talking to me is not going to work. Right. And I, and because of where I am today with, with my, my own inner work, with my own self-advocacy, I can say that, but what about someone that has never felt safe to speak in the system of medical care? Then they're not going to be like skipping and skipping appointments. And even youth that I work with, they're like, I don't check myself,

[00:38:33] Rob Howe: whatever well and i think too like you if that wasn't easy for you to say even though you have it wasn't it's not you have the credentials and you have the confidence i imagine like in your stomach in that moment i could see it on your face when you said it to us like there's pressure

[00:38:49] Mary Mosier: and there's yeah yeah because my my my way of being and i think Eritrea knows this i'm like can we just all be like i feel like mary's really passionate but she'd be i will i will if i have to but i don't like to i don't think we should have to be like in each other's faces like that but we have to sometimes and it really do the thing do you do the latina

[00:39:14] Eritrea: thing where it's like sometimes you open your mouth and your mom comes out that's what my mom she's like a veces I'm like it's you so I got news for y'all that's not just a latina thing I

[00:39:28] Rob Howe: Anita does come out of my mouth every now and then yeah isn't it wild yeah

[00:39:35] Mary Mosier: no because my mom would always be like you better get the interpreter are you better like this

[00:39:39] Eritrea: like she was never um that's something that I also maybe we could talk about it more offline but I've always wondered like if it was just my Latino mom that was so like we have rights and you're not about to treat me no way even if I don't speak English like you work for me through Medicaid but you still work for me so like stuff like that that I wonder if like just it's in them as women coming to this country to be like I'm gonna do what I can for my daughter even if I don't have all the resources I'm gonna find them stuff like that so that's beautiful that your mom

[00:40:08] Rob Howe: did that for you too. I like that. Mary, I think both Airtra and I agree that this has been just an amazing conversation. And I think we could probably go four or five more hours on each of these individual topics. So I definitely want to invite you back to kind of, because a lot of what you've been talking about today is something that we touch on, but because we're not experts and we're kind of going through our own journeys with mindfulness, you know, mindfulness in everything is such a, an amazing skill to develop. Uh, and you know, specifically with diabetes, I think people with diabetes and people with chronic illnesses are just so much more in tune with their body because they have to be, we have to advocate for ourselves, not just publicly, but also privately and internally. And like, what do I need right now? And I, and I would challenge people listening to ask yourself what you need more often outside your diabetes as well. what you need in your relationships, what you need from your, you know, doctors, what you need from your boss, what you need just in general. Because when you start to have that curiosity, which is something else that you talked about, it opens you up to realize that like, you know, maybe we're never going to have it all figured out. And that's something that I think I've been trying to reconcile. And I've talked at length about this year, you know, kind of my journey of like really reconciling that we're as we as humans only live about 4000 weeks. And life is sort of just one insoluble problem after another after another. And if it's diabetes today, it's going to be something else tomorrow. And the diabetes is going to come back up again, because it obviously doesn't go away. So, you know, giving yourself a little bit of grace and space to, you know, to navigate through that as a human. So, you know, I again, I we're going to have you back, we're going to have coordinate how, you know, how often and make sure that we're, you know, bringing you in as a correspondent, uh, because this has just been really valuable. I think, um, as we kind of close today's interview, I want to be mindful of time for people who are struggling advice to people who are struggling, uh, with diabetes, uh, and then also therapy resources that you could recommend. And especially for people who don't maybe have as much access as Eritrea and I, and who are maybe underinsured or uninsured. Yeah. So finding the right people is important.

[00:42:23] Mary Mosier: we don't actually always have those resources at the tip of our fingers. So if you're a person that has like government funded insurance, right? So I know in California, it's Medi-Cal. And normally every county in every state has a county funded mental health and counseling centers that we can find. There's also organizations like NAMI.org, N-A-M-I.org. There's, gosh, I wish I had a list I can send you. Maybe you guys can add it to your show notes. I can email it to you guys.

[00:43:09] Rob Howe: You're a pro, you get it, show notes.

[00:43:11] Mary Mosier: Yeah, yeah, there's definitely organizations out there. There are sliding scale clinics. There are, like myself, I am private-paced, so I don't take insurance, but I do offer a sliding scale. But that sliding scale, those tend to be folks that I see more long-term. So those spots aren't always open and you can always ask a provider that question for sure. Like, do you offer sliding scale? This is what I can pay. For folks that use an out-of-network provider that maybe their insurance doesn't have an open therapist that has availability when you need it, you can check with your insurance about a super bill, which is basically an itemized receipt of all your sessions that you would have in a month with a therapist. And you can ask your insurance provider, hey, there's this therapist. Their name is Tom. This is their license information. And I want to work with them. What is your reimbursement rates if I go with an out-of-network provider? And I request a super bill. um so that's kind of like the language you want to use with your provider to see if they would reimburse you after you submit that super bill to your insurance so there are certainly options um and most and and also another thing most colleges throughout the united states offer because they are training facilities they offer low lower feed um counseling um to students and non-students um in the communities where the colleges are and one of the reasons is because they are training sites so they're not charging folks to see

[00:44:51] Rob Howe: a therapist in training thank you for that and just to reiterate yes we will include all those in the show notes I jotted them down but we'll also send you a follow-up just to make sure we

[00:45:02] Eritrea: didn't miss anything yeah of course and then I guess we mean it you will be back we're telling

[00:45:07] Rob Howe: Okay. Now. Yeah. I, you know, I, again, I guess just as a closing note for today's episode, we give a, you know, we, I try to put people in their shoes when they were first diagnosed. I think you obviously were very young, so maybe that's not as applicable, but just advice with somebody out there who's listening to this and has been, uh, you know, struggling with the, the weight of a chronic illness, struggling with, you know, all of the things that come along with anxiety, depression, uh, body image, eating, eating challenges. What advice would you give

[00:45:43] Mary Mosier: for people with diabetes who are struggling? I would definitely say that it's okay to feel that everything sucks and it might feel like it sucks for a while. Um, but there are people who, who want to support you. There are people in this world who have felt very similarly to you. and you don't have to compare your diagnosis to anybody else like even within the three of us the way that you live with diabetes it may not be the way that I do and that's perfectly okay and the way that I advocate and you advocate or someone else doesn't have to advocate it's okay it's okay if it sucks it's okay to grieve it it's okay to be super angry to feel like life isn't there big time and i also want to tell you that it's not always going to be that way because we all have our moments with events and crappy stuff that happen in our life but we can also certainly learn to live with it i would definitely not be a therapist if goodness doesn't come out if healing doesn't come out from our lived experiences because this job would be all kinds of horrible if goodness um and healing didn't come after the pain

[00:47:07] Rob Howe: well i couldn't pick a better note to end this episode on um i believe that i can mary is fine

[00:47:13] Eritrea: y'all by the way she's very pretty i just thought you should know i was like pretty smart all of it all of it so thank you so much i could listen to you talk about mental health and educate us all day long i can't wait for you to come back and now rob i'm sorry to have taken that from you but i had i had to say it i had to let the people know just got on instagram great great commentary also very nice looking don't send me per vpms i'm not interested don't do that yeah don't do that

[00:47:44] Rob Howe: but she is Mary Mojo Therapy on instagram we'll include her handle in the show notes and mary again thank you for your time and for your insight and and for all that you do for people with diabetes and you'll be back yeah happy to thank you both