LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories
LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories
Helping Our Youth with Depression, Anxiety & Mental Illness: Dr. Kyle Jones' Story - Latter-Day Lights
How do we help our youth struggling with mental heath?
In this episode, Dr. Kyle Jones openly shares his 20-year journey through the challenges of major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, and how the power of faith has helped him through it.
This episode breaks down the stigma surrounding mental illness within religious communities and emphasizes the importance of a comprehensive approach to treatment.
It’s a powerful reminder that faith and mental health can coexist, and that support from both medical professionals and spiritual guidance is crucial in the journey towards mental and spiritual well-being.
*** Please SHARE Kyle's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***
To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/vVwFciisw74
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To READ Kyle's book "When All Hope Seems Lost: A Gospel Perspective on Mental Illness in Youth", visit (direct link): https://www.amazon.com/When-All-Hope-Seems-Lost-ebook/dp/B0CYCXFVB9
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Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.
Hi everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.
Alisha Coakley:And I'm Alisha Coakley. Every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite growth and inspire others.
Scott Brandley:On today's episode we're going to hear how one young physician's battle with mental health led him to discover the key to successfully treating his disease is to remember that the Lord loves us, no matter what. Welcome to Latter-day Lights. Treating his disease is to remember that the Lord loves us, no matter what. Welcome to Latter-day Lights. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Latter-day Lights. We're so glad you're here with us today. We're really excited to introduce our guest, kyle Jones. Kyle, welcome to the show. Thank you, I'm glad to be here.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, we're happy to have you. I thought I'm sure some viewers are probably like wait, what's different? Scott's office is different. He moved offices so he's got a different background.
Scott Brandley:Now he's trying to compete with me and have shelves in his background and I chopped a bunch of my hair off, so we are still scott and Alisha, but just a little, you're still ahead because you got cool lighting and you have hair?
Alisha Coakley:so well, you have hair, it's just on your face, it just, it just is too tired to grow up, right, right.
Alisha Coakley:I'll trade you, that's okay. That's okay, we'll let you keep your hair, oh goodness, all right. Well, enough about us. This show is not about us. It's about Kyle today and about his story. But before we get into all that, we want to know a little bit more about you, kyle. Who are you? What are you interested in? Do you have family? Where do you live? What do you do? Go ahead and tell us about you.
Kyle Jones:Yeah, I am married to a wonderful woman named Becky. We have four kids, two boys, two girls, who range from the ages from 19 to eight, and we live in Holiday Utah. I grew up in Farmington, utah, so you know, just 20 minutes north of Salt Lake or so, and I am a family physician. I work at the University of Utah. I do about half of my time is seeing patients, but then I also do teaching of med students and family medicine residents and a little bit of research and just kind of all over the place. I am also very interested in baseball. I mean, you can probably see the bobblehead over there, but I love baseball Little bobblehead, a couple over there, but I love baseball. I really enjoy reading and movies and all of those things and I'm a writer. So I've written a few books and the latest one, just recently, was recently released, which is called when All Hope Seems Lost a gospel perspective on mental illness in youth.
Alisha Coakley:Awesome, so you're not busy at all. You have nothing on your plate.
Kyle Jones:Nothing going on.
Alisha Coakley:You're super boring man.
Scott Brandley:I think the three of us could be really good friends.
Alisha Coakley:I was just thinking that same thing. I'm like oh, the problem, the problem with being friends with Scott and I is that you'll probably never actually see us in a friendship way. It'll always be in a hey, what can we do together next? That's gonna be productive. So we don't just go hang out. We're like, oh, let's do a podcast together, let's's write a book, let's go to a conference. Oh man, but that's awesome, that's really really cool. And congratulations on your second book being released. I know, see, scott is he's got a couple books released too. He's got one. That's that's done, that's in the process of being released. I am this dang close to my first book. I originally thought it was going to be like 90,000 words. I'm at like 110,000 and I'm still not done. So it's like it just keeps going. But congratulations on that. That is a huge accomplishment, and I never realized how tough it is to get books out there and to get well, to get even done, until I started doing it myself.
Alisha Coakley:So kudos to you, for I I mean you would think I would be more impressed with the doctor thing right, but no, it is very hard to write a book I'm with you yeah well, we're excited to hear about this book.
Scott Brandley:Because, um it? Because it's a prevalent problem in the church today, and Alisha and I both have youth in our homes that could definitely use it. So why don't we turn the time over to you and tell us where your story begins?
Kyle Jones:Yeah, so I have been diagnosed with. So I have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder for a little over 20 years now and you know, kind of looking back like I had a great childhood and a wonderful family. I, you know it was kind of the typical American suburban upbringing but I was always kind of just an anxious type person and it never got to the point where I feel like I needed a lot of extra help as a kid, but it kind of slowly ramped up as the years went on. I served a mission in Ukraine and while I was there, obviously with missions you have the typical struggles. You have a lot of the things where you're just you're trying so hard to help people and sometimes they don't want the help or they just aren't interested in the gospel, and that's okay.
Kyle Jones:But I kind of focused a little bit on some of the wrong things, I think, as a missionary. So I was very hard on myself if I wasn't perfectly obedient, which is not. That's not what Jesus wants. He doesn't expect us to be perfect. This is a gospel of repentance and forgiveness and so kind of focusing so much on that really added so much stress and anxiety and difficulty to me to the extent that I actually started having physical problems as well, which is very common with people with mental illness. Sometimes you have headaches or GI issues, or you may have muscle pains, etc. Etc. You can have lots of different physical symptoms that kind of manifest and so kind of focusing on those wrong things.
Kyle Jones:I feel like there were a few things where I was kind of my mind went in the wrong direction, such as with, like I say, with trying to be perfectly obedient because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the gospel and what Jesus wants of us. I look back I wish I had focused a little bit more just on loving people and connecting with them and spending time with them and not worried so much about some of the other things, because that's more what Jesus would have done. Now that's okay, I've learned from that, I've grown from it. But then, returning home from a mission, I already knew I wanted to be a physician.
Kyle Jones:So I immediately jumped into my education and becoming a physician it's not just the grades or the test scores, there are so many other things they need you to do, and so I felt like I was running myself ragged just constantly. But there was always that thought of you know, medical school is really hard to get into. I could be doing all of these things and running myself ragged and still not even get in, and so that just kind of compounded my stress and, as things built, my anxiety increased significantly and I ended up having a panic attack. Where it's tough because a lot of people use panic attack almost incorrectly where it's really anxious.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah no, it's not that it feels like a heart attack. It does, it does. Have you had one, scott, before? Have you ever experienced a true panic attack? Yeah, for the listeners, kyle, tell us what is the between like just feeling anxious and having a panic, panic attack.
Kyle Jones:So it it felt like the world was crushing me, I, I, my heart was racing like crazy, I had chest pain, it was hard to breathe, my vision kind of went black and kind of the classic thing that people will say is this overwhelming sense of impending doom. Like you know, I'm going to die or this is something's going to happen right now. And so I had the panic attack and I thought, oh great, I have a heart problem. So I ended up going to the doctor and said something's wrong with my heart. He listened to the story and he said no, I think this is more anxiety.
Kyle Jones:And I thought, oh okay, and you know, there's, there's still a big stigma against mental illness. Back then it was even worse, but for whatever reason, it didn't bother me that. That was what the problem was. It was just, oh okay, well, what do we got to do? You know what? What can I do to to feel better here? So I started on therapy, I started on medication. All of those things was married at the time. We ended up having our first child right before I started medical school. We moved out of state to Wisconsin to for medical school, which was a wonderful place to live, really liked it there, but it was away from family and from kind of our natural support system and things during medical school just kind of kept accelerating and more difficult, and it's uh, the level of competitiveness, of course just keeps on growing.
Kyle Jones:And now you're trying to not only get to the area of medicine you want to, but you want to be a good doctor, right? You want to take care of people, you want to do the best you can, and so this all kept building. Eventually I started residency in family medicine at the University of Utah and very quickly fell into a pretty deep depression. Where it was, it was difficult for me to focus on anything, whether seeing patients or being with my family. Of course, the schedule was such that I wasn't able to spend much time sleeping, sometimes even eating regularly. And so I remember being at the hospital and being so tired and kind of out of it that I wasn't really doing that great for my patients. But then when I'd go home, I couldn't be fully present because I was so tired and the anxiety and depression was there, and so at that point we had two little boys who just wanted to play, and so I remember just lying on the floor, sleeping as they kind of wrestled or played on top of me and I could muster for you know, to to play with my kids, and so throughout this process I had been on multiple different medications. I had different therapists. Some worked better than others, um, and eventually I got to the point but it was after residency was over and I was in my, my job as a faculty member where I feel like I finally kind of got on top of things.
Kyle Jones:The anxiety is still there, the depression is still there, but it's manageable. It's, I think of it, kind of like a dog on a leash. You know, sometimes the dog just takes over and takes you wherever it wants to go, and other times you have a little bit more control and so it's still there, but it's on the leash. Now, with kind of putting this in the church and gospel perspective, I mentioned some of those things on my mission, but also, as I continued on, there were a lot of church leaders that misunderstood kind of what mental illness is, and we're kind of of the opinion you just got to suck it up, you just got to deal with it Like life is hard, so what you know, just, you don't really have a problem. Everyone is anxious to deal with it Right, which, thankfully, I was aware enough to understand that that wasn't accurate or wasn't correct, but there were also a lot of people, um, in my ward or friends or whatnot, who struggled with similar things, who really couldn't deal with that from from church leaders.
Alisha Coakley:Right.
Kyle Jones:Um, and these were local church leaders and and so it it kind of impeded their ability to get the help that they need. Now I feel very strongly that, uh, spirituality is a huge part of dealing with our mental illness, or even, if it's not mental illness, our mental health problems, but it's only one piece of it. There's also kind of the idea that, hey, if you were just praying more you'd be fine. Or you're just not reading enough scripture the scripture is often enough or you don't have enough faith, and that's not it at all. There's so much more to it and we know about, you know the, the brain chemistry and how that contributes to it, but there's so much more that we just don't understand of how mental illness works and what is going on.
Alisha Coakley:And so including, right Like, why the influx in the last 20 years? Right, and I think you know to, I guess I don't know play devil's advocate, whatever you want to do with the leaders that were talking to you and telling you like, oh, just suck it up and whatever. I feel like that's a lot of like our generation and the older generations, right Like, as we were told, you just get through it, it doesn't matter if you don't feel good and you can't just walk around, I don't know. Stand up to your bullies and do this and do that. We were expected to just push down our feelings to get our stuff done. Right, you don't get to take an off day because you feel sad.
Alisha Coakley:And so I think, too, a lot of times, even when, when all of this stuff was starting to come to fruition more and you were seeing more and more cases of mental health issues, a lot of people just felt like anxiety is an emotion, which it can be, but also it's it's a diagnosis, it's, it's something that actually is more than just emotion, right Like, it really is something that can be measured on a whole different realm, and so I can see how going through that in this time where you have such a huge divide. You have the people who believe that it's real, can't really explain it. Then you have the people who they didn't experience it and so they just think you're just having big feelings and you don't know how to deal with your feelings. That could be really really frustrating, especially for someone like you who's in the medical field right, so you are learning more about our brain chemistry and things like that and seeing that it's not just you feel down a little bit.
Kyle Jones:Well and to your point, like anxiety and depression are regular emotions and it's good that we have them. They serve a purpose, yes, but they can also be so. You know, everyone has a bad day, everyone feels sad sometimes, everyone is nervous at some point, and that doesn't mean you have a mental illness or you need medication or anything like that. It's tough because anxiety or depression can also be a symptom of a different disease. You know, maybe you have a thyroid issue, or maybe you have a brain tumor, or you know something like that.
Kyle Jones:Now, my point is not to scare anybody it very rarely is this related to something serious like that, but it confuses the picture just a little bit. But then it's also its own diagnosis, and for a while I think I just kind of thought of anxiety and depression the diagnoses as just a continuum, like okay, when your anxiety gets really bad, then you have an anxiety disorder and there's actually much more to it because you get other symptoms with it as well, and so that's kind of where your doctor and therapist and whatnot can help you kind of navigate. Like, okay, is this really a big problem that I need to do more about, or is this something that you know I can learn some tools to to help me deal with it a little better? Um, so, for example, with, um, uh, depression, when you are diagnosed with depression, you can have a whole number of different symptoms, such as it disrupts your sleep, it disrupts your concentration, it sometimes people literally move slower.
Kyle Jones:You have what's called anhedonia, which is basically where you you don't enjoy doing things that you normally enjoy, and so, I mentioned earlier, I like baseball. That's one of the things I pay attention to If I am bored or don't want anything to do with baseball, I immediately recognize okay, I may be sliding back again, I need to to address some things, and so that seems silly. Like well, if you don't like baseball, you, you, you have a depressive disorder.
Alisha Coakley:But but you know, I I think that it's actually kind of genius like that you learn enough about it and that you can start seeing your own symptoms and your own triggers and the and the, the own signs right, because, like, you'll be able to see those before anybody else does, you'll be able to you know if you're checking inside and being like, okay, well, how am I, where am I at? Okay, now I need to probably do something before it gets too bad and I don't want to do something. Is that right?
Kyle Jones:Yes, absolutely, and so kind of the point of of writing this book is to help not only youth but their parents and and anyone else in the church to understand that, hey, you know what? This isn't because you're not demonstrating enough faith, it isn't because you just aren't reading enough scriptures. This is something that goes on in our body like any other illness and any other disease, and so it's not your fault that you're struggling with this and Jesus still loves you. Even if you're struggling, no matter what the trial is or whatnot, jesus still loves you. And that is so important because there's some of the shame, there's some guilt, not only that that we feel when we're struggling with it, but from loved ones or close friends that really can kind of make it worse and think, boy, god hates me, or you know, I brought this on myself, but that's really not the case.
Scott Brandley:Right the case, right, wow, what about when? So I mean, there's a lot of youth that have these symptoms nowadays. What can they do to, I don't make, improve them? I mean, I think for a lot of parents too. I mean I think you know more because you're a doctor. I would hope so, but uh, I know you don't have all the answers, but as a parent, you know, like Alisha was saying earlier, this stuff didn't exist, or at least it probably existed, but it wasn't. It wasn't talked about like it is today and and it feels like it's a lot more prevalent. As an adult, I don't, I really don't know what to do to help my kids through it. Do you have any, any suggestions? Or you talk about that at all in your book?
Kyle Jones:yes, absolutely. Um, so there's actually a chapter specifically for parents on okay, how can we navigate this with our child, and I think, first of all, the biggest things that we can do is to say I love you and I want to help you. I don't know what to do. It's I think teenagers respond so well when we're just honest to them or honest with them and just say you know, I haven't experienced this with anybody, I'm not sure the best way to handle this, but I'm here with you and we're going to do this together, sure?
Kyle Jones:the best way to handle this, but I'm here with you and we're going to do this together, and you know when. When, kind of. To your point, scott, of of how much more prevalent it is nowadays, I don't think we have a full answer in terms of why it's. As with most things in life, it's complicated. There's probably multiple reasons. This is my opinion, and there may or may not be a ton of research to back this up is that we don't spend enough time with internal stillness and silence enough, because when you consider you know, like we said earlier, how busy we are, but not only that, there's just constant things happening. You know, I said earlier how busy we are, but not only that, there's just constant things happening.
Kyle Jones:You know, last week my cell phone broke, so I was without it for eight hours and it was like I didn't know what to do with myself. I thought, what if someone texts me, or you know what's going on with the ballgame, or I need to check the weather? What do I do? You know all of these of where I'm constantly checking it and getting notifications on there, I'm not allowing that stillness or silence to have room, uh, within me, and so I really think that's a big part of it, um. And so, you know, in in my family, we've we've had varying success with this. We try not to use cell phones on Sunday, um or other screens to kind of, uh, allow us to have that little bit more space, um, and distance from it.
Kyle Jones:Like I said, it doesn't always work, but it does. It really does help, I mean it. It just allows you to focus on different things and, I think, to focus on more spiritual things. And so, you know, it doesn't have to necessarily be physical silence, because sometimes that's impossible, depending on our situation, but having the internal silence where we are able to connect with ourselves and with God, I think is huge. And so helping teenagers to recognize that and to understand how to do those things, I think is a huge deal. And so, yeah, you're absolutely right, scott, the book actually talks a lot about that and helping both teenagers and parents to understand okay, is this just an emotion? Is this something else going on? Is this a diagnosis that I need to explore further with different forms of help.
Scott Brandley:Well, now that you say that my youngest son it seems like he's constantly playing games and constantly being stimulated and I'm worried that he actually doesn't think for himself. It's just this weird thought like I have. I'm like how are you processing life? Because you're constantly in, not in reality?
Kyle Jones:Actually, that that phrase is not in reality is interesting because there is one theory and I blanking on the name of the psychological theory, but it's a theory of learning, where we something happens to us and we internalize it and so that experience is okay. Last time this happened, this occurred, this is what the event was, and so I know, if I see that sign, I should be aware that this might be the outcome. But with technology, we now are receiving that input and that experience from things that aren't real, and so the feedback isn't accurate and so, kind of, like you say, sometimes we don't know how to then interact with the world around us, because the feedback we've received is all through games or movies or you know, whatever it is.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, it's interesting, scott, because I was having that same train of thought of, like the overstimulation of the brain, right, like we're having so many hits of dopamine and all of those like good feeling chemicals being released in our brain and little tiny doses all throughout the day. But the problem is it's getting worked out too much, right, like like it's going to keep pushing our bodies to have to create more and more and more and more and more Cause with every single hit. The next time you do the same thing, the hit isn't quite as big. Right and right, that's how it works with the brain is like, if you get a, you get a hit, so. So then the next time you have to go even further into this non-reality, whether it's, you know, hanging out on social media all the time or playing video games or whatever else.
Alisha Coakley:And then I thought about we had a guest on, vinnie Tolman, who he had this really incredible near-death experience, and he, when he, you know, came back, he had all of these lessons, all of these like suggestions and like almost like rules to live by type of thing that he shared with us. And one of the things that he and I had coached on was the fact that technology from a spiritual standpoint okay, I don't know all the details on the on the medical field, but from a spiritual standpoint I don't know all the details on the medical field, but from a spiritual standpoint he said what happens is when we're sitting there and we are locked into technology of any kind, right, it doesn't have to be bad, it could even be like doing a ton of genealogy online or something like that. Right, like where we're like so sucked in that we no longer have to use all of our brain power because we're just being fed information over and over it again. And it's not information that we have to process and figure out ourself, like, for example, mapquest. You know, it's that old Google Maps, not right. So Google Maps, right, like everyone has like navigation on their cars and stuff. They don't even have to pay attention to their own town that they live in to know where they get from point A to point B, whereas 20 years ago, if we didn't print that off on a piece of paper and look at it beforehand and have an idea of where we were going beforehand, we didn't have something telling us every single direction. And so his point was Vinny's point was when we turn off our consciousness and we live in that like state of just, um, everything's just given to us and we're not working for it ourselves.
Alisha Coakley:What it does is it kind of lowers our spiritual defenses and it opens up our spirits to being fed information from Satan. Right, he sneaks things in there and we don't. We can't even hear the difference, right, because we're tuning out the spirit and instead we're just allowing our brains to go numb. And he said that's why it's so important that in the scriptures it talks about meditation and prayer all the time. And it's not any prayer is great, but the kind of prayer where you are like fully spending your time and focus on God, where you're really invested in like, all right, heavenly father, let's figure this out together. Um, something magical happens within you, right, like you start opening yourself up more to the Holy ghost and you get that, um, that inspiration of like here's a little inkling like this is what we do, how do we do this? And and so, um, I guess, just to circle back, you are right, we do get super overstimulated all throughout the day with everything that we have going on and with just having technology in our hands at any minute.
Alisha Coakley:I don't even think. I can't tell you. The last time I even wore a watch. I check my phone all the time. I don't look at the clock on the wall, I don't look at a watch. It's insane how much technology we put in front of us and so spiritually is very much dampening our defenses and just opening it up. So with Vinny, he had told me he said, even just putting a timer on it, right, like maybe put a timer on how long you're on Facebook or how many TikTok videos you watch or whatever else, and then sticking to it like when that timer goes off, nope, we're done, we put it down, we walk away, right. And he's like, he thinks like, uh, even just having your phone on the table at dinnertime, you know, having that in and of itself is super damaging. To take it and put it away, like, get it out of reach, right, even if it's flipped over upside down it, it still has like a lot of negative effects spiritually for us and so I don't know. I just thought that was really interesting, yeah.
Kyle Jones:And and it's tough too, because it's one of those things where technology is is a great thing and it helps us with a lot of different things, and so it's not like we can just get rid of it. You know it's, it's a uh, it's a good as well as something that that can harm us. I think a lot about uh, uh, recognizing the spirit and understanding the promptings that we receive and, kind of to both of your points, that's dulled when, um, we are too involved with uh, with this non-reality. Basically, in the book I interview a lot of teenagers and one of them really kind of stuck out to me. He was, I forget he was 16 or 17. We call him Noah in the book, but he had gotten to the point where he wanted to end his own life. Things were too hard, he couldn't deal with things, um, and his favorite thing is he had this flight simulation game and he would play that for 12 hours a day if he could, um, and so on the weekends that's all he did and like that sounds really cool. I bet that was a lot of fun.
Kyle Jones:But he got to a point where he said, okay, I'm going to take my own life, this is how I'm going to do it, this is my plan, this is when I'm going to do it. And he heard this voice in his head say don't do it, it's not worth it. Say don't do it, it's not worth it. And he was able to listen to that voice and then kind of get help. He called his friend and and said hey, I'm, you know, I'm really struggling right now. And I asked him, I said what, where do you think that voice came from?
Kyle Jones:And he said I don't know. And I said I think it was probably the spirit telling you. And he was kind of like oh, be the spirit telling you. And he was kind of like, oh, like it didn't hadn't even dawned on him. And sometimes I and that doesn't necessarily mean there's not a direct correlation, necessarily that it was his playing the video game that led to um him not understanding the promptings he was receiving. I'm not saying that, but I do believe it's harder to recognize the spirit when we get so engaged in different things like that. But it was just such an interesting story and then he ended up going to the hospital and staying inside in the hospital for a few days and he seemed a little kind of embarrassed by that and I said what a blessing that there was a hospital that you could go into for a few days and start getting some help. And he was kind of like, oh yeah, and I said that's a blessing from God, we have that resource that you were able to access now.
Kyle Jones:Not everyone is so lucky Um, and so that was a big blessing for you. But it was such an interesting conversation that really kind of stuck with me.
Alisha Coakley:Wow, it's interesting. That's the second time that you've kind of mentioned like well, in this time. You said it was more like he felt embarrassed, right, but we know embarrassment and shame are kind of linked in, and you did mention shame earlier. We just had a lesson today and we were talking about there's this thing called Spain, s-p-a-n-e, I believe, and it measures the frequency of the positive and negative emotions, and they said the highest frequency emotion out there everyone thought was love, but it was actually authenticity, when you are being truly yourself and being truly authentic. That's a frequency that people don't maybe recognize tangibly but spiritually we recognize that and we resonate with that and that's why people who have the spirit with them, who are really being that child of God and that, that future creator and um, who are really in line with, like, their purpose, they, they just tend to have all of these miracles happen, right Like, even if they have hardships, they have this peace about them, right, they're just on a higher frequency and they, they tend to be able to resonate more with other people, right Like, they, just people just gravitate towards them. They said the lowest emotion frequency is shame, not hate. Again, people thought it would be love and hate. It's not, it's shame.
Alisha Coakley:And I thought, of all the tools that Satan uses, right, what's the one he uses the most? It's always shame. What's the one he uses the most? It's always shame. It's always shame, right, and it can be shame that we feel ourselves, or it could be shame that we try to put on other people, right, you should be ashamed of yourself. How come you're doing that? How come you're not just doing this instead? And I thought whoa, heavenly Father's so smart. Every time I learn something new with science and medicine and whatever else, I'm like Heavenly Father's so smart. Every time I learn something new with science and medicine and whatever else, I'm like Heavenly Father is so smart.
Kyle Jones:He's just a genius. I know you learn things like that and you're like wow, I had no idea how little I knew. Right and you keep understanding your world and understanding.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, it's really cool. So, anyway, I was looking into it. I was like gosh, that's amazing. And Heavenly Father's like, guys, I have all this stuff laid out for you to tell you how to live your highest, best self, but you're just kind of following the trends and doing whatever.
Kyle Jones:Anyway, I go on a tangent, I'm in a shush now, but it's hard to put all those pieces together for us to kind of recognize like, okay, yeah, maybe this is a part of the equation here that we need to consider, and I think there are so many things like that that we don't even know or recognize right now that are contributing Right Like I said, there's probably so many of them, and what we understand about mental illness is just, I mean, in its infancy, we just understand so little, and I think hopefully, we'll continue to learn a lot more as time goes on.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah.
Scott Brandley:So what were, what were some of the takeaways that you learned from interviewing these kids and from your own personal experience, like what are some things that we can?
Kyle Jones:do so. It's actually interesting, Alisha, that you mentioned authenticity, because a lot of it, almost every single one of them said well, you got to talk about it with somebody, somebody you trust, and you know a couple of quotes here. One of them said hey, how will there be progress if you're not talking about it? Another one said talking about my feelings was more helpful than anything else was. Another one said talking about my feelings was more helpful than anything else was.
Kyle Jones:And so I think, kind of being honest with yourself, that, hey, I'm struggling here, but then talking about it also with God and understanding that you are still loved. This is not a plague sent upon you because you're evil. It's not something you did wrong. It's life and that sucks, but God still loves you and he's there to help you through these challenges. And so really, I think that in the book I have a couple of broken records, things that I keep repeating over and over, and the number one broken record is Jesus loves you no matter what, and that's so important, and I think it's one of those things where we intellectually, as members of the church, we understand that, but a lot of us haven't really internalized it that, hey, no, really, jesus loves me. Yeah, he loves everyone, which is great, but he loves me too. He knows me, and that's a very powerful thing when you can really internalize that.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, I love that. I had a thought when you said you know, yeah, I'm sorry that this is happening to you, but that's life. It's something that you don't have to look at it as a punishment from God or like he's forgotten about you, and my thought was he probably wants you to do something with it.
Kyle Jones:Yeah.
Alisha Coakley:Right, he probably wants you to do something with it. He probably wants you to do something with it. He probably wants you to learn more about it. Maybe he wants you to be the person who doesn't overcome it, but instead shows everyone how to still live close to the Savior with it, you know how to still be productive with it, how to still find your purpose and reach out to others where you can and do what you can with it. Purpose and reach out to others where you can and do what you can with it. Maybe that's one of the things that we have to do, especially as members of the church and as Christians and followers of Jesus Christ. We, I think, are supposed to take our struggles and kind of ask them okay, what do you want me to do with this? I don't need you to take it away from me, that'd be nice. Christ thought it would have been really nice to pass this cup. But if not, right, what do you want me to do with?
Kyle Jones:it.
Alisha Coakley:And I think, if you just keep asking that question, that in and of itself could help tremendously, along with remembering Jesus loves me so much that he wants me to do something with this right. Even if I don't do anything with it, he still loves me, though.
Kyle Jones:And one thing I do think of a lot that kind of goes right to your point is that Jesus may not cure us of any disease we have, but he can still heal us and so we can still learn those lessons, we can still progress spiritually through the atonement of Jesus Christ and to be able to help others do that as well. I think one thing about this topic is a lot of people think well, I don't struggle with that, so I don't have to worry about it. Which wonderful. I'm glad you don't, but so many other people do. That you know people who are struggling and hopefully understanding it a little bit better will help you be able to better support and have compassion for the people who are struggling.
Alisha Coakley:Right, right, that's interesting.
Scott Brandley:I have two thoughts. One, what does he want me to do with this? Alisha? That's an interesting idea because in my mind and I think it's just the way I was brought up, like I've always been taught you have to become like self mastery, right, you have to learn how to overcome something and and beat it almost right. That's how you succeed. So I've, that's how I look at my kids. I'm like you've got to, you've got to overcome this addiction to video games. You have to master it. But maybe that's not the answer. Maybe maybe it's how to. Maybe that's their struggle is and how can I use this? Or what do you want? How do I overcome this? In my own personal way, it's not necessarily how do I become the master or self-mastery of the thing?
Kyle Jones:you know self-mastery Well, and certainly when parenting about, um, kind of that self-mastery. If we feel like we are the ones who have to do it all, it's not going to work because, uh, jesus is there and his atonement is there and we need that help in combination with, uh, developing that self-discipline or kind of working through. How do we address and how can we deal with these problems?
Alisha Coakley:I always get these like funny little images in my head when someone says something genius, and so the image that just popped in my head now with that was I could see myself like as a toddler trying to put my shoes on and tie my shoes myself, and Heavenly Father being like do you want me to help you with that? I'm like no, I got it. Meanwhile, they're on the wrong feet. You know, I'm like squeezing the light laces too tight at the top and they're all loose on the bottom, so I'm stuck, you know, sticking them in the tongues and whatever else. Like no, I got it, I can do it myself, I can do it myself. And he's like you want me to give you some Velcro shoes? How about some ballet slippers? We can go play outside like that, it won't hurt your feet, it'll be prettier. And I'm like no, I got it. I think that's why it's like Go ahead Scott.
Scott Brandley:That's why I only wear slip-ons now, Alisha.
Alisha Coakley:That's why Heavenly Father is like looking at us like y'all. Can I just give you a different? Pair of shoes, yeah, like let me do this. No, I got it yeah, interesting.
Scott Brandley:Um. Okay. So my next question is medication. You're a doctor, um, my wife is very against. She's dealt with depression for almost like 20 well, most of her life probably but she's against medication. Um, some of my kids have got on some some medications, um, but like I don't know, what are your thoughts on medication and anxiety and depression and this new world that we're in?
Kyle Jones:So I think so medication is one piece of the puzzle, but is not going to be a cure all and is not going to be the only thing we should go to. However, some people really need it and that's OK. I'm still on medication now. I've been on medication for over 20 years. There have been times where I have either tried to come off it or different things and it didn't work for me. So I need to keep taking it now. But it has to be just one piece of the puzzle.
Kyle Jones:A lot of our medical evidence shows that if you're just taking medicine, you know it'll help a little bit, but it's probably not going to do a huge amount, unless you couple it with like therapy or with some of these other things we've talked about of a spiritual nature or kind of the meditative prayer, having that stillness and it's. It's tough because some people are very sensitive to it and so they may have side effects or it may not help as much. But for a lot of people it's the exact opposite, where it's uh, you know, I'm so depressed or I'm so my anxiety is so bad that when I take the medication I feel more like myself, and that's, you know, that's my experience, uh, for me personally is that if I wasn't taking medication, I wouldn't be myself, and so it allows me to do what I need to, and to progress and to leave lead a life that is successful in every way that I define that for me.
Alisha Coakley:Mm-hmm adjusted Right. So there was a time there where he actually kind of became more suicidal because of the medication, which is always a fear, like it's always something that you, you know you worry about the side effects and it can be for anything right, like it doesn't even have to be just anxiety or depression medication. But he didn't say anything to his, to anybody about how he was feeling. So again, he wasn't being authentic, he wasn't voicing what was going on, and so he struggled for a long time and where all it was was just a change in his either it was a dose or maybe they had a different type of medicine or something. They had other options out there. So sometimes I think you know, yes, maybe the first medication is going to be the right one and the right dose and all those things. But sometimes it's trial and error because our bodies are different, right, and maybe it's a homeopathic medication that they need. I don't know, I'm not the doctor, but sometimes maybe it's a different form or a different dose or a different amount of times that you take.
Alisha Coakley:For me, I was on a daily dose of chemo for seven years and I know I didn't change my medication, but I changed when I took my medication. So rather than taking it first thing in the morning, and then I felt miserable all day, I took it at night before bed and I got to sleep through a lot of my symptoms, and so it was something. Even that simple, just a little altercation, alteration Yep, that's the right word Made a world of difference, you know, and so I. You know, I'm always like doctors are smarter than I am, but I do still have the spirit. So I like to kind of listen to both and in those cases when all else fails, go get a blessing and kind of see what the blessing says.
Alisha Coakley:I know, for me, with my chemo, mine specifically told me to follow the advice of my doctors, and so that's something I was able to fall back on often when I had my own ideas of how I was going to treat my leukemia. And it's worked out for the best, like I'm still here and I feel good and I'm not on it anymore and I'm not cured of it, but I'm able to live with it in remission. So to me I feel like that worked pretty well following the blessings, advice and then my doctor's advice, and then being willing to work with what my doctor told me to do, knowing that it was something that was divinely inspired. Yeah.
Kyle Jones:And that trial and error is obviously really frustrating for a lot of people. Um, especially if you think, boy, I'm, I'm dealing with this terrible thing and I'm trying to get help and this just isn't working. It's easy to kind of say, well, you know, nothing's going to work for me, or none of the medicines are going to work, and that can be very frustrating. Um, I've been on multiple different ones for different reasons, some of where some because, uh, there were too many side effects affecting me, or, uh, some because they worked for a little bit and then they didn't work, and so, um, I needed to kind of readdress that. But so it is trial and error, but when you find the right one, it can be life changing, it can be extremely helpful.
Scott Brandley:Yeah Well that's good to know.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah.
Scott Brandley:So my next question would be what do you, what do you hope to accomplish through this book? Like, what's, what's the goal of writing this book and how can it help people?
Kyle Jones:So the number one first goal is to help to decrease the stigma about mental illness. The first book I wrote was my memoir as a physician with mental illness, and you know it's so much bigger, even um, in medicine in lots of ways, and so that was kind of my main purpose with writing that this takes it to um, kind of puts it in a different context of yeah, you know what, this isn't your fault. You know we want people to have a better understanding of mental illness so that we can better address it and better help each other. But again, with the you know the broken records, broken record number one Jesus still loves you and that's such an important message, no matter what we're going through. But I think, especially because there are so many misunderstandings and myths about mental illness, that it's important for us to understand that and keep it in mind.
Alisha Coakley:I like what you said about how it's not your fault. My thinking is you're right. A lot of the things that happen to us or that are happening inside of us or whatever else, it's not our fault. But it is our fight and we don't have to do it alone. We always have the Lord there on our side. We have tons of people on both sides of the veil who are able to help us out. We have a whole arsenal that we get to choose how we're going to fight this fight, but ultimately it's up to us how long we're going to fight it, how hard we're going to fight it and what type of soldier we're going to be. Are we going to be the one that just cowers and just gives in to all of the crappiness of the situation, or are we going to be the one that's kind of like okay, god, what am I going to do with it? Like you, you wrote a book. It's a really hard thing to do.
Alisha Coakley:You wrote two books and you're coming on a podcast now and you're still working in the medical field and you're still learning and growing and you're living day by day as an example of someone who can have a very productive, very full, very happy, beautiful life, even when you have this, you know, sticky ugly, darkness, that's kind of, you know, being a mutt by your side sometimes, right, when you say a dog on a leash, right, like you got to take care of this dang dog for a while, but it's okay, you know, like it's a little rough and sometimes it'll attack you, but it's, you know, it's something that you're choosing to step up and to be on the front lines of, and I just think that really speaks a lot to to who you are, um, and who heavenly father created you to be, and, and, and, of course, how much he loves you.
Alisha Coakley:I feel that our heavenly father loves us so much that he trusts us to be able to do life the way we need to with what we're given, you know. So, yeah, well, mr Kyle, thank you so much for all of that today. Do you have any last thoughts, anything else that you'd like to leave with listeners?
Kyle Jones:Jesus loves you no matter what.
Alisha Coakley:Don't forget it All right, Awesome, I love that so much. All right, Well, guys, really I feel like this was so chocked full of good information today. I really really appreciate you coming on the show, Kyle, and sharing your story with us. Sharing your books Will you remind our listeners what both of them are called?
Kyle Jones:So the new one is called when All Hope Seems Lost A Gospel Perspective on Mental Illness in Youth. And then my first book is called Fallible A Memoir of a Young Physician's Struggle with Mental Illness. So you can get both of those on Amazon, or Fallible is available on lots of other websites. As of right now, the new one is only available on Amazon.
Alisha Coakley:Okay, perfect. We'll be sure to put the description or the links to purchase them on the description part of this podcast, as well as any other information. If people want to reach out to you and ask questions, is that something that's okay?
Kyle Jones:Absolutely, that's great.
Alisha Coakley:Okay, all right, perfect.
Scott Brandley:Awesome. Thanks, Kyle, for being on the show man. Yeah, thank you really great really helpful information and I think you'll help a lot of people yeah, I don't know. Thank you everyone else for watching uh this podcast with kyle and if you know somebody that's struggling with mental illness or depression or anxiety, hit that share button. Let's do some five second missionary work today and let's get that word out there so we can help some people, especially our youth.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, absolutely, and if you guys would like to drop a comment, let Kyle know what kind of resonated with you. If you have any questions, if you're looking for some more resources, I know even the church's website. They have a bunch of resources on there for people who are struggling with anxiety and depression and mental health struggles and things like that. So definitely access ldsorg or the churchofjesuschristorg either one of those. We'll share that link in the description too, but we would love to hear from you guys. Let you know, or let us know, what you liked about today's show and if you guys have any questions for Kyle. And, of course, kyle, thank you so much for coming on here and for sharing light with the world.
Alisha Coakley:This is what we do, guys. This is something that is really near and dear to Scott and I's heart. We really want to be able to get out there and not just provide a place for stories that can help you feel the spirit and grow your testimony, but also to kind of help you understand more of who you are and who your heavenly father is and who your savior is, how we were made, how we were created, what our purposes are in this life. All of that light and knowledge, I think, can just add to building the kingdom of God here on the earth. And so we want to hear from you. We want to hear what your story is. What's the thing that you're doing with your struggle in life? What's the thing? That's not your fault, but it is your fight.
Alisha Coakley:Go ahead and reach out to us. You can head over to latterdaylightscom and fill out a form at the bottom of the page, or go ahead and reach out to us. You can head over to latterdaylightscom and fill out a form at the bottom of the page, or you can email us at latterdaylights at gmailcom. You can comment anywhere. We're on there. We'll, we'll find you, we'll see you. If you just don't know where to go and you're like I have a story to share, we'll figure that out. So please, please, please, be sure to reach out to us. You too can share your light with the world.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, well with that.
Kyle Jones:Thanks again, kyle, yeah thank you, this was great. I appreciate it.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, absolutely, and we hope you guys have a great week. Yep, take care, see you next Sunday.
Alisha Coakley:Alright, bye, guys, bye.
