Ep. 83 Kali Desautels

On this episode, I am joined by Kali Desautels. We discuss her book, How Not To Blog: Finding Myself, One Post at a Time and she gives us a preview of her newest book that takes us back to the 1960s.

We talk about how complicated it can be to be a public figure online while living comfortably as an introvert in an extroverted world. We talk about how no one should send an unsolicited dick picture in 2024 and how it is never the correct response when replying to something regarding family content. 

She shares about her experience with anxiety, depression, and chronic illness. We discuss how challenging it can be to be a woman needing answers from the health care system to actually get them. 

KaliDesautelsSpeaks – #kalidesautelsspeaks (kalidesautelsreadsblog.com)
How Not to Blog: Finding Myself, One Post at A Time: Desautels, Kali Jensina: 9798642548448: Amazon.com: Books
Kali Desautels (@kalidesautelsspeaks) • Instagram photos and videos

🍁 British Columbia Mom (@bcmomdotca) • Instagram photos and videos

Ashley (@filledupcup_) • Instagram photos and videos
Filled Up Cup - Unconventional Self Care for Modern Women

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Filled Up Cup podcast. We are a different kind of self-care resource. One that has nothing to do with bubble baths and face masks, and everything to do with rediscovering yourself. We bring you real reviews, honest experiences, and unfiltered opinions that will make you laugh, cry, and most importantly, leave you with a filled up cup.

Ashley: 0:31

I am so excited. Today I have Kali Desautels, joining me. Kali is the author and blogger of How Not to Blog, finding myself one post at a time. Thank you so much for joining me.

Kali: 0:44

Thank you. I'm so excited to chat with you.

Ashley: 0:48

Can you tell me what made you decide to want to start a blog?

Kali: 0:52

Well, it started because my kids were growing up pretty fast and I felt like I wanted, I'm not very good at the whole baby book thing. So I wanted to have some kind of record of them growing up is where that started from and I was kind of bored as a stay at home mom. Not that being a stay at home mom is boring by any stretch of the imagination, but it was lacking this creative level of Myself. And so I was like, what if I just create a blog talking about the funny things that my kids do throughout the day. And from there, it kind of went. Okay. I love to read, so the original iteration of the

1:35

blog was Kali Desautels

Kali: 1:37

Reads. And so I would talk about my kids, and I would talk about book recommendations. It gave me a kind of creative outlet, and it also encouraged me to continue reading when I was too tired, or I was overwhelmed with little kids. It just was an outlet for me.

Ashley: 1:57

Which I think is so important to have, because I think that whether you're a stay at home mom or a working mom, there are moments where just how they describe parenthood and like pregnancy to people that don't have kids. It's like this idea that it's like you're just gonna be a mom and it just fills you up and it does to some Degree, but it's like you still are this whole other person. It's okay to be bored or not fulfilled every moment and really trying to find like Aside from this role as a mom no matter how much you love it. I think it is really Cool that you could recognize that within yourself and were like I'm going to figure out who I am fully as a person and it is kind of nice to have that goal of Like I'm going to read this book or I'm going to focus on something else because it's so easy at the end of the day To be like I'm just gonna throw on sweats and watch TV and just like I don't know rot on the couch

Kali: 2:49

Yeah, that's so true. And that's the thing is it's like when the kids would go down sometimes I would see things on the news or I would find things that I Felt like I had something that I wanted to say about it So that's how it kind of went from being Kali Desautels reads and Kali Desautels speaks because I incorporated more like My thoughts on current events and political issues and feminist issues and things like that and my health and my mental health became a big part of what I would discuss on the blog. So it kind of just grew as I felt more comfortable with what I was sharing it was just such a nice outlet for me. I felt like there would be times when people would reach out to me after I'd written something, for example, regarding my health or my mental health and they would reach out to me and say, same, I felt the same way, but I didn't know how to say it and I didn't know that there were other people feeling that and it was really nice and reassuring to know that my voice was mattering.

Ashley: 3:53

Well, especially too, the social media landscape or just the internet in general gets such a bad rep and Rightfully so in a lot of those cases, but it's like as much as it can divide us or be our highlight reel. There can be that really great side of building those connections and making other people feel like they aren't alone. I always think it's so brave when people are willing to share their highs and their lows and saying like, yeah, I have anxiety and depression or Hashimoto's, or I love my husband today, or oh, my husband's so annoying, or all of these things. It's so nice to share that authenticity and that authentic side of yourself. And for anybody who's not following Kali on Instagram, I highly recommend it. You've created this community of over 10, 000 people that. So I think that's such a huge accomplishment.

Kali: 4:47

Thank you. I'm really proud of that. It's taken years to get to there, but I feel like it's a good community and I feel like it's really nice to be able to be engaged with people from all over the place because there's people who follow from the Middle East, there are people who follow from London, there are people who follow from Canada, and it's just interesting to see that the perspective that I'm sharing, or that I am lucky enough to have, a community that are, is willing to share with me, is all over the world, like, it's not just your next door neighbour is suffering from the same things, or going through the same things, or, it's somebody all the way across the country could be feeling the same way.

Ashley: 5:33

Which I love, too, because it's like we're sold so often of how we're different, or how there's like a divide between us, but it is really beautiful to see, like, yeah, there could be somebody in London that is having the same struggles, and it really is this oneness and we really are more alike than we are different so it's always kind of great to be able to have that reminder or that I'm feel justified in what i'm sharing or I feel like I know sometimes i'll share something and i'll be like Oh, that was so cringy or you like overthink it or you're scared to put it out there and it's kind of nice When you see people, That follow you that not necessarily are like praising you all the time for sharing it, but just don't make you feel stupid or bad for it.

Kali: 6:16

Yes, exactly. it's not so much an external validation, like looking for praise, which I feel like a lot of people think that when you share publicly on social media or on a blog or even in a book, they think that you're looking for extreme validation, but I don't think it's that so much as it's a feeling of connectedness. Yeah, I agree. I think that that's the part that people forget when they are saying, oh, you're such an exhibitionist, you need everyone to validate you, and it's like, I don't need their validation, I just need to feel connected to other people that are outside myself.

Ashley: 6:54

Did you find as somebody who is more of an introvert that there was any times where it was harder to share or have you found that it just seem like a safe space to leave that information?

Kali: 7:07

I feel like as an introvert, the internet was invented for people like us because there are lots of Instagram people that you can follow who are really outgoing and they seem to just love. To be like smiling and laughing and having a great time and going out and being out and about that they're not necessarily as outgoing as they seem, and I know for myself there's this sort of like security blanket of being behind a keyboard. That when you're posting on a blog, you are just putting your thoughts out there, but there's nobody staring you in the face going, I can't believe you think this. There are times when you get feedback that is very much, I can't believe you think this, or I can't believe you would say such a thing. But then there are other people who, like for example, I wrote an article for a website called The Mighty Ones. It was about how the media was portraying Kanye West's basically his spiral into severe bipolar and how, as a person who suffers from bipolar disorder it could be very triggering for all of the Stuff that everyone was posting and about how funny it was that he was doing these things and it was like it's not funny you're watching a person literally have a mental breakdown I remember writing this article for the mighty and it got published on MSN on their yahoo website and I got an email from a father whose son was diagnosed with bipolar and he said that until he'd read my article he didn't realize what his son was going through and it really touched me that he felt the need to reach out and say thank you for helping me see what my son is going through and that's just through writing so I feel like by being introverted You feel more secure behind the keyboard,

Ashley: 8:59

which makes a lot of sense. And I really love that the conversations about mental health are happening so much more. I feel like we're of a similar age, like I'm turning 39 this year. Yeah,

Kali: 9:13

and I just turned 41 two weeks ago.

Ashley: 9:15

Well, happy belated birthday. Thank you, babe. But I find when we were younger, they never would talk about mental health. And if they did, it was always in a negative way. That I feel like we just don't understand if people are talking about You know, they'll be like, Oh, I'm so moody. I'm bipolar. Or, Oh, I love to clean. I'm OCD. And it's like, that's not the same thing. And we shouldn't be so flippant these terms. So I love the fact that you were able to share your opinion and it actually helped change people's perspective.

Kali: 9:45

Thank you. And that's the thing, like, that's one of the things that drives me crazy. Like exactly what you said is when people are like, Oh, I'm so bipolar, or I'm so OCD. And it's like, those are actual medical conditions that interferes with your life if it's not treated. So it's not something that you just make a flip comment about and then carry on with your life because it really kind of negates the experience of people going through those. Mental health issues, and I feel like it's much more important to recognize that no, this is an actual problem. This is not obsessive Christmas disorder. This is like an actual thing that somebody is struggling with.

Ashley: 10:28

And the Kanye West thing is really important too, where I think in some ways Trump, we need to acknowledge, are we laughing at them, or are we laughing with them? Because it's like when we see people that are mentally ill, and that are in a spiral, and having, you know, breakdowns, That shouldn't be comedy to us, like we should have empathy and compassion no matter what you think of the actual person or the idea because again, we don't know either of them that we're making assumptions based off this essentially cartoon of their lives that we have access to I think we need to lean into like, if you have a thought, One, does it need to come out of your mouth? And two, it's like, are we leading with love and compassion? Or are we leading with, you know, the bravery sometimes of being behind the keyboard? You'll get those haters that will leave just awful comments that they would never ever say to your face. But somehow feel comfortable when they're like a faceless figure that you're never going to see.

Kali: 11:26

Oh, absolutely. I get nasty comments even on some of the stuff that I post and my stuff is fairly benign even when it's a political or a feminist discussion. I've had people send me messages saying, go back into the kitchen and make me a sandwich, bitch. And it's like, okay, but I'm not going to stop talking just because you disagree with what I say and so like you said there's that sort of freedom from being behind the keyboard that sometimes people they forget to be kind and It's sort of the double edged sword of being an introvert, because being introvert, you don't want to have confrontation, like, whatsoever. And so, you're feeling non confrontational, you feel like, oh, I've just posted this little cute update about my eldest child, and then it's like, go back and make me a sandwich, and it's like, you kind of sit there going, okay, should I, Hang back on what I'm saying. Am I offending people with my thoughts? But at the same time, you can't just let somebody who's being mean, take over. There's this Brene Brown quote that I love and it's always assumed positive intent, and so even when people are mean, my goal is to assume, okay, they might be having a bad day, something else upset them but I just have to try and stay positive for myself, if that makes any sense.

Ashley: 12:51

It totally does and it's good that they don't like live rent free in your hat. I think sometimes when you get say 50 positive or normal comments. Sometimes it is that really mean one where it's like, hey, did I do something wrong? Or, should I go back to the kitchen? Where it's nice to be like, it's almost like a Southern term and it's like, bless your heart. Yep. And to me that kind of sounds like go fuck yourself in the most nicest possible way. But I kind of feel like it should be a, Oh, I should go back into the kitchen. Bless your heart kind of thing. So it's good that it doesn't haunt you or that it doesn't stress you out or overly upset you.

Kali: 13:34

It's taken a long time to get to this point. Like when I first started blogging and I first started getting a little bit of attention, I remember I would get dick pics and I'm like, this is a blog about children and books like Good grief. Like, do you have nothing else better to do? And it would just stress me out. I would think maybe I'm putting my children, like, I never post my children's names or where they live or anything like that. But I would wonder, like, am I putting them in harm's way by, putting their picture on my blog? And over time, it became clear that It was a minority of crazy people who take it upon themselves to send dick pics to a mom who talks about fiction.

Ashley: 14:21

For sure. Also, like, in 2024, can we just stop sending unsolicited dick pics just in general.

Kali: 14:28

I agree 100%.

Ashley: 14:30

It just makes me think about Louis CK. Do you remember that from a couple years ago where he wasn't sending unsolicited ones, but he was asking his co workers like, hey, do you mind if I just show you? But it's also, like, maybe we don't talk about dicks unsolicitedly to, people around us. I'm sure they're great, I'm sure somebody wants to see it, but, like, maybe, unless we say first that we would like to, or show, something that is a clear sign that we would. Maybe just don't.

Kali: 14:58

I agree 100 percent and that's the thing like I would wonder like what did I post that made somebody think that this is appropriate? But then I over time learned that there are two folders and there's one that's a junk folder and one that's how I can communicate with you folder and I feel comfortable talking to you. I just stick to that folder. Ignore the other folder.

Ashley: 15:22

Which is definitely good because I think sometimes it can be too easy to focus on those. And I also like that it's being normalized by certain influencers now to actually like do videos about them or to tag them in comments, which I guess if those people really want attention, they're getting attention that way. But then to also maybe highlight. Hey, you know, Bob that works at McDonald's in this city, this is how he's talking to people online and really make it so that you have real life consequences for some of those things that you say that can potentially affect other people's mental health. Or again, like that fear of our kids. As soon as you become a parent, you overanalyze. Every single little thing you want to bubble wrap your kids and you just don't want the world to ever affect them negatively. So it's like it can be so scary and, it's unfortunate that people have to wreck it and make us question it.

Kali: 16:22

And that's exactly it, going back to why I originally started the blog, it was like, I want to share some funny things that my kids said today. Well, I'm sharing some funny thing that my kids said, and then you send me an unsolicited dick pic. I'm then wondering, have I done something wrong? After all the years that I've been doing it now, I'm no longer feeling like I've done something wrong. I'm more like, okay, clearly you have issues.

Ashley: 16:49

Yeah, it can be really, I guess like the ugly side of the internet and I just almost wish that And all of the social, like, I'm not trying to harp on Instagram, but just using that was like, well, it's like Instagram needs to be better at taking that kind of stuff down. I probably have like five corn bots per day that are following all my stories and liking it. And it's like, thanks for the engagement, but leave me alone. There needs to be, I think, just better restrictions in place in general for them to police. Like, if you report something, they're like, oops, we didn't have a person to actually look at this, so we're not going to do anything. It's like, why do you have a report button?

Kali: 17:29

Oh, I know. And then, the reply is like, if you want to dispute this, please click this button. And I'm like, okay, but I clicked the last button and you didn't do anything. So what makes me think that clicking this button is going to help?

Ashley: 17:42

And I find, if you report stuff, it tanks my engagement, or it negatively affects my account. So it's like, some other person was potentially harassing me or bugging me or I was trying to like make the internet a safe space and reporting something was a safety issue. You're telling me you don't have time to deal with it and now I'm being punished for essentially trying to be a tattletale. It just seems like the wrong side of it is being policed.

Kali: 18:07

It's absolutely true because I know that when I've, reported things, my engagement will just suddenly go from like, You've interacted with 2, 700 accounts this And then next thing I know it'll be like, you've interacted with 300 accounts this week and it's like, how did that happen?

Ashley: 18:24

No, it's ridiculous. Have you found that when you first started making blogs social media was such a different landscape in the sense that you could post a picture and a link to the blog, and now everything having to post reels or TikToks and having it to be more like video friendly. Have you found that that's been a challenge for you on your site?

Kali: 18:46

It is a huge challenge because again with the introversion and I feel safe typing behind a keyboard putting myself out on like a live stream or whatever or recording a video of me like dancing around is not something that I'm comfortable with so I find it A real challenge to, keep up with what the content creation demand is now. I've attended some seminars on, how to make reels. And I make reels to the best of my ability, but they're really not very strong. And compared to what I write, I feel like I'm a much better writer than I am a reel producer. So I do struggle with that quite a bit. Whereas Before it was like, these are my thoughts and this is. A link to a source that I found. Well, you can't really link a reel to, a news article.

Ashley: 19:42

It's super, super frustrating. And I wish that TikTok got to be TikTok and that Instagram stayed pictures. Like, I still really appreciate looking at people's pictures. And I don't necessarily want to be sucked into watching reel after reel. And I know that that's the point. But I find that it's so much easier even to engage with 25 pictures or like comment on people's stuff that I like, where I find that as soon as the video starts playing, I'm like, where did that hour and a half go? And it absorbs you in. And I also think that so many of us, when we started, it was like coming up with that image, like spending time thinking about the caption. And I think with video format, it has become so like, and I have to post it and it has to be, At this time and I have to make sure it's this many seconds and I need these hashtags and it becomes this like have to instead of get to if you want to, you know, focus on it from the business side and it's so much more, pressure than it has been in the past and like you had talked about if you're somebody who, again, If you're writing in a way that excels through words and not necessarily through the screen, it can be really hard to be authentic but also show up for your audience in the way that you feel like you have to. Or sometimes with captions, I feel like or just writing in general, it's like you can be authentic in a way that being like a bubbly person in front of the camera doesn't always match up or if you do have it so that you get to the point where I've made this great reel. I've probably done it 30 times just to make it so that I can post this story or this reel or whatever. But then it's also when people see you in public and you're like, I'm shy and awkward. They're like, but where's that person that you posted in the reel? I don't know if you know Tara Jensen, she posts behind British Columbia Mom. Yep. She talks about that huge, where she had to host an event, I think it was like at Costco or something, and have people come up to her and she struggles with making eye contact and she really struggles with like hugging people. So it's like a lot of times people will get the wrong idea of her because it doesn't match the online personality, but it's like, it's so much harder to show that part of yourself on a video in 10 seconds in the same way, if that's like a long rambly way of saying it. But if that makes sense.

Kali: 22:07

Oh, it makes perfect sense. That's exactly how I feel where I am a shy person. I will open up and I'm great on conversations with one on one. But I've had it where I've been like, you know, out in the wild and somebody will recognize me from my blog or from my Instagram and they'll be like, Oh my gosh, it's so nice to meet you. How are your kids blah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, Oh my God, I'm at the pharmacy. I don't know.

Ashley: 22:32

It can be so hard because it's like they have this familiarity with us and they spend every day with us or, or however long that it's like, they do feel like they're visiting an old friend and it's like, are you stranger danger? Like, I don't know you in the same way.

Kali: 22:46

Exactly, and that's the thing, I really encourage, the community to be involved, and I love the engagement, and I appreciate the fact that somebody cares enough that they want to know how my kids are in real life, but again, it's like, when you're off guard, it's just, this isn't the setting that I'm used to sharing in, so I feel, like, literally caught off guard.

Ashley: 23:09

And I imagine to some degree, it's like, If they come up to you, it's like, do I know you from the internet? Or I would go through the, like, did I go to high school with you? Did I share a job with you? It's like almost wanting to match that familiarity, but not being able to place them.

Kali: 23:23

Exactly, and it's like, thank you. And when they're like, oh, I'm a big fan of your blog, and I feel really humbled because I'm not a celebrity type of person. So, I mean, I have 10, 000 plus followers, but that's such a small drop in the bucket when it comes to influencing and having people in your community. I'm not like Kim Kardashian, if you know what I mean, where it's like I've got nine million people following me and everybody in the world knows what I look like. So for me, it's just a, thank you so much for following my thoughts and that you're engaged with them, but again, it's a lot easier for me to do that in writing than it is to do that in person or even on a video.

Ashley: 24:08

I definitely think that more people will benefit of knowing that. It's like, I love when people are like, I've listened to where I follow you or whatever, whether it is five people or 5 million, it's just a matter of knowing that. Sometimes the online personality and the real life personality, it matches, but maybe not in the way that you think. So it's also like, we promise we're not trying to be mean. We're just awkward.

Kali: 24:30

Exactly. That's the thing, 100%. And the one thing that I talk about is like my anxiety. I have social anxiety and then in a situation where you're needing to make small talk and it's like, I just don't know how to do this.

Ashley: 24:44

Yeah, I definitely have been there and it is so awkward and it is something that again I guess gets easier with time but it can be so hard to be outside of your comfort zone and I know in some ways that was kind of the nice thing about COVID. It's like media events stopped happening so that you could kind of Be in your little bubble and didn't have to do as much like networking and stuff and I know I Done a little bit but definitely not to the amount that I was doing pre pandemic that it's hard to get back into being so public.

Kali: 25:17

It really is and it's like you don't want to come across standoffish and you want to be friendly and you want to do the networking but at the same time it's like, but I'm cozy at home.

Ashley: 25:28

Yes and I love being at home. I'm like the biggest homebody ever that I'm the person, I'm like that meme it's like I want to be invited but I don't actually want to go. Exactly. When people cancel on me, I'm like, And don't get me wrong, like, for anybody who invites me to stuff or anybody that I'm around, like, I love being out too, but it's like, I also really love it when people cancel and I don't have to go.

Kali: 25:51

Oh, me too. There was a book that I just finished reading a couple months ago called Sorry I'm Late But I Didn't Want to Come.

Ashley: 25:57

I love the title of that.

Kali: 26:00

I bought it because the title was so hilarious. And so when you shared it in your story the other day, I was like, such a good book. And it really is about an introvert who's trying so hard to, like, extrovert in life, because we are expected that extroversion is better than introversion. And it's like, you get rewarded for being an extrovert. But I just love the, like, sorry I'm late. I just, I didn't want to come. Right.

Ashley: 26:27

How did you go from writing your blog online to deciding to publish it?

Kali: 26:34

So part of that was it was my COVID project. I work from home. I'm really grateful that I get to do that. But when everybody was at home all the time, plus working from home, I kind of, again, got a little bit bored, which is how I seem to start most of my projects. And I decided that I have always wanted to publish a book. I've always dreamed of having, my name written on the spine of a book on a bookshelf somewhere. And So I realized that I had all these written stories and written thoughts that I could compile it into a book. I went through my blog slowly there's a lot that was on the blog that didn't make it into the book because I didn't think it was. relevant or interesting enough or the caption was too short or just for various reasons, but I decided that it would be fun for me to just do this as an activity to go through my blog and see what I had. And then I discovered that you could do self publishing through Amazon. And I went, you know what? I'm just going to do this. I'm going to I'm going to put these thoughts all together in one anthology, and I'm going to make my first book.

Ashley: 27:57

I love the fact that you were like, I'm just gonna do it. I love the fact that it wasn't like, and I have to find a publisher, I have to be invited, that it was just let's just put it out there.

Kali: 28:09

Yeah. I was just like let's just do this. Let's just see what it looks like to have your name on the spine of a book. And so I did that and it's one of my proudest accomplishments. I'm not going to lie.

Ashley: 28:22

Which is awesome. I feel like we all have that bucket list or those things that we want to accomplish. And I think for whatever reason, a lot of the times we'll tell ourselves that I shouldn't do this because I'm this age or I shouldn't do this because everybody will think a certain thing or, all of the lies and like just nonsense that we are so harsh and tell ourselves. So I love the fact that you put it out there and you were like, I'm going to do this. I know that the book roughly goes until mid April of 2020. Have you wanted to do a volume two.

Kali: 28:55

I have wanted to do that. It's, right now a pile of papers under my desk. I printed off a ton of the next volume like with the pictures and so I can go through and cut the bits that I don't think are relevant because There's a lot of editing that went into making sure that it was appropriate for a book, because some blog posts are just like, it's my son's sixth birthday. Yay. It's just not necessarily perfect for the book, but right now I've actually been working on my first novel for the last few years. And so I just finished the first draft of that. And so the volume two of my blog posts has been on hold waiting for the novel to get finished.

Ashley: 29:41

That's really, really exciting. Do you want to tell us a general idea of what that book might be about?

Kali: 29:49

Sure. It's a fiction book based in the late 60s, of a young woman who decides that she wants to be a journalist and she doesn't want to fall in love, she doesn't want to get married, she doesn't want to be a stay at home mom like her mom who had, like, Five kids. She wants to have her own byline in a popular newspaper. And so she goes and she ends up getting a job as a typist at one of the newspapers in the city. And she lives in a rooming house with a bunch of other characters that are these different girls who do different things that are very 1960s. Like there's some who are there wanting to get married. She ultimately ends up meeting this man who is also in the newspaper with her, and she has to decide whether or not she can do both, whether she can have the man that she's kind of falling in love with, and her byline, or if the 1960s make that too hard, and she has to pick one or the other, and if she has to pick one or the other, she'll always pick her career.

Ashley: 31:03

I love that. And I love that, even though it's based in the 60s, I feel like that's a timeless dilemma that women a lot of cases have to choose. Are we going to, you know, pick traditional gender roles or are we going to pick this career? And is it okay to say, like, I don't necessarily want this or can you have it all?

Kali: 31:23

Exactly. And that's sort of how I felt when writing it was like, I wanted to base it in the 60s because I was in love with the name Peggy and there are very few People named Peggy nowadays. So, she ended up living in the 1960s because it felt like an appropriate time for her name. Ah, I love that. I feel like this is something that's relevant even to women now. I just spent the last few years working on the first draft and in my spare time and now it's time to do the editing and see where that goes.

Ashley: 31:59

Are you going to self publish again or have you submitted to publishers at all?

Kali: 32:04

With my fiction one, I have submitted to some agents. If someone is interested, then I would be thrilled over the moon if somebody was interested in it. But if it comes down to it and I don't get any, positive feedback necessarily, I would definitely go back to self publishing this fiction as well.

Ashley: 32:27

we've talked about how you've had anxiety and depression when did that first kind of appear for you?

Kali: 32:36

My first major depressive episode actually happened when I was in university. I was living on my own for the first time. I was in courses that I wasn't necessarily interested in. But I felt like I had to take and I just felt really overwhelmed. That ended up being the first time that I went into a deep depression. I've had different bouts of depression. Postpartum, for example. Anxiety, I've kind of always been an anxious person. But it wasn't diagnosed until I was an adult. It kind of coincided with becoming a parent.

Ashley: 33:18

Did you find that it was easy to get, support via your doctor? Or was it something that you sort of had to struggle with alone for a long time? I

Kali: 33:29

struggled with it alone for a really long time. I find that women are quite often not believed when we just get told oh you're having a panic attack or, oh, it's just anxiety. They don't actually do anything to treat it. So, I find that it became something where I had to struggle on my own before I got anybody to listen to me.

Ashley: 33:56

Which is so insanely frustrating, and I swear, Since I got my breast implants taken out, if one more doctor tells me that the labs are normal while things are not normal, it's like I just want to like punch them in the face and scream. It is really hard with women's health, that we just, we aren't taken seriously. And there's a lot of, I guess like a lack of funding or a lack of research that they just have not prioritized a lot of the stuff when it comes to women's health that they're kind of in the dark about it so much.

Kali: 34:27

It's true, and I find that like, for example with my fibromyalgia diagnosis, I recently had it changed to ankylosing spondylitis. And it went from being, oh, it's all in your head, there's nothing wrong with you, to, oh, there's actually arthritis in your lower back that's been getting worse over the last eight years. And we need to put you on this thousand dollar a month biologic.

Ashley: 34:54

When you got the different diagnosis, did you want to call like every other doctor, everybody that had told you it was in your head or that it was fibromyalgia? I'm probably saying that wrong. To be like, see, I told you.

Kali: 35:05

I absolutely did. And I also felt like all the people who were just like, Oh my God, she's so dramatic. Oh my God, it's no big deal. It's totally fine. I felt like finally being like, look, it's not just fine. It's not no big deal. There's actually something physically wrong with me that shows up in a cat scan or an MRI that you just totally ignored me and pretended that everything was fine for years because They couldn't figure out what was wrong, so therefore nothing was wrong.

Ashley: 35:37

That's another positive thing about social media and the internet. It's like, if you had shared about your story, and you had shared about this whole experience, like, there's so many people that would have been like, Oh, hey, I have the same thing that totally resonates with me. Maybe I should ask about this other condition. Maybe it could be that. Where I feel like the more connected we are with sharing our stories that way. It's like, that's. How we've been able to learn about different things like I had never heard about breast implant illness until I had seen it on Instagram. A lot of people hadn't heard maybe about ADHD being as common as it is or autism or all of these things that I think TikTok and Instagram have been so invaluable in that sense that so many women have to share their stories publicly to just hope that somebody out there can relate to what they're talking about so that maybe we can get answers.

Kali: 36:31

Absolutely. And I think that that's one of the things like when I was sharing about fibromyalgia is that a lot of people truly believe that fibromyalgia isn't real. That it's just, I'm depressed and therefore I have pain and therefore it's just all in your head. There's nothing real. So I would post videos of like rashes that would develop on my skin or suffering through a migraine because I just was like, there's something wrong, and this is a physical condition, like you can actually see the rash, so just listen to me, and I was hoping that by posting these videos and these photos of me having a meltdown especially the photos I had hoped that other women would see it and go, yes, I develop a rash across my chest like that too, maybe I have fibromyalgia, maybe I should talk to my doctor maybe it's not just all in my head and that I'm just crazy.

Ashley: 37:30

I think too many of us feel like that. Too many of us feel like it's just me and in a lot of ways, we gaslight ourselves. Oh, I'm sure it's just because I'm a woman. I'm sure it's just because I'm getting older. I'm sure it's just because I'm stressed or all of these things that it's like, I don't know if our medical industry just never did this or if it's Because it's so broken now that they're so quick to either dismiss or they're so quick to, I don't know, heal the symptoms instead of finding the root of why we're having migraines, why we're having pain. It's just chalked up to, oh, it's a headache instead of like, it could be a million other much more serious conditions.

Kali: 38:08

Exactly. And that's the thing. Like, I don't know if it, like you said, if it's because of the way that the health system is. is at the moment, like it's so overwhelmed, but like, for me, this has been going on. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's when I was 13 and when I was originally. presenting symptoms. My doctor was like, oh, well, she's 13. She's just lazy. And my mom went, she went from doing dance every single day, like she would dance around the house. She took dance lessons. She was active. And all of a sudden, all she can do is sleep. There's got to be something wrong. And it wasn't until I was having blood tests, it was months of just tests and the doctor not really believing that there was anything wrong with me, other than that I was lazy and my mom was a hypochondriac. It wasn't until we saw another doctor, because our doctor was off, that she asked me one quick question. She said, how are your periods? And I explained to her how they were really heavy, and they would last a really long time, and they were extremely painful, and it turned out that that was exactly what I had. Now I can live a full life, not Constantly in pain or suffering from falling asleep all the time, not saying like relapses or recurrences, but overall you, it's just one pill and then you're able to function.

Ashley: 39:40

It's so frustrating that There's not consistency in care, like if you hadn't by fluke seen that other doctor It's like you said who knows how much longer you would have had to suffer before Your age became appropriate that they would be like, oh, maybe it's this that I just wish that every single doctor to some degree like obviously there'd be little variance, but I wish for the most part that they were trained to offer the same things or to consider all possibilities I

Kali: 40:11

agree completely. When my oldest child was two, I noticed that they had symptoms that were the same as mine for Hashimoto's. I spoke to the doctor and originally this was the same doctor that had not believed that I had Hashimoto's. But because he was my doctor still when I first had my child, I changed doctors after this because it drove me crazy. He told me there's no way that a two year old has Hashimoto's, and I said, well, I think that she does. I think that we need to have them checked out just do the blood test, and he refused to perform it. It wasn't until I switched doctors, saw a pediatrician, and the pediatrician finally took pity on me and was like, fine, we'll do the blood work, and then I get a phone call from Children's Hospital from the endocrine unit saying that my child's Thyroid number was 16 when it should be between 0. 7 and 2. 4 they finally said your child has Hashimoto's and I was like, it's taken three years for someone to believe me.

Ashley: 41:19

it just makes you want to scream. It's just so frustrating. So we're in Canada for anybody listening in other countries. You're lucky if you have a family doctor like a GP on a list to get a different doctor. It can take like 10 plus years. And then if you go to the emergency room, it's like a 10 to 12 hour wait if you want to see a doctor there. And then it's like a 50 50 on whether they're going to take you seriously or whether they're so extremely busy that they're just going to write you a prescription and send you on your way. Like it's really hard to find a doctor that will listen to you and to take you seriously and to be able to get help. We don't have the option of necessarily paying to see somebody else unless we want a naturopath or an alternative doctor. Which there's pros and cons of that,

Kali: 42:11

it's true. Sometimes it would be nice to have the two tiered system where we have the free option for people who desperately need it and like for the average everyday person, but if you really need a second opinion, having the option to pay for a second opinion would be a nice alternative, but it's just not something that's feasible in our system.

Ashley: 42:35

No, or it's frustrating to think that you just have to go to a different country. Okay. Basically, like I know so many people will fly to Mexico or get care in the States or get care overseas, depending on what they're getting done, but it's frustrating that you feel like you can't get help where you are locally or that you just feel helpless and like that. It does feel very frustrating at times that it takes so many years and so many doctors of like feeling like you have to fight just to have somebody listen to you.

Kali: 43:04

It's true. It's very frustrating, and it's an ongoing problem.

Ashley: 43:09

Yes, it definitely is, and it's definitely getting worse, and I don't know what the solution is, and I think our system is so broken, that I don't even necessarily know that it's like, A doctor or nurses issue or whether it's like a systemic overall issue.

Kali: 43:26

Yeah, I agree. It's challenging when you're suffering from depression or anxiety or chronic health issues, and you just can't get anyone to listen to you and there's no option to go and say, Well, my doctor isn't believing me, so I'm going to talk to this other doctor, which makes me think that it's a systemic issue rather than we're just short on doctors.

Ashley: 43:49

I think it'll be interesting to like, my daughter is going to be 17 this year. Okay. And I find with her generation, I don't know any of her friends that want to be nurses or doctors or people necessarily like I just I, in that sense, I kind of worry that we're not going to be able to fill some of the roles that we necessarily have in our society, just in general, but I think the next 20 years or I guess like even 10 will be interesting to see what that looks like.

Kali: 44:26

Yeah, that's a really good point.

Ashley: 44:29

We may end up with just a bunch of like gamers and Instagram bunch

Kali: 44:36

of Instagram influencers and and nobody in the doctor's office, right?

Ashley: 44:43

I appreciate you having this conversation with me so much. Can you let everybody know if they're looking for you online, where they can find you?

Kali: 44:51

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed the last bit of time getting to chat with you. I'm on Instagram at KaliDesautelsspeaks. I'm on Facebook also at Kali Desautels Speaks. My Blog is still Kali Desautels Reads Blog dot com because it's too challenging to change the url

Ashley: 45:15

that's kind of cool to have the, historic name in a sense to like be able to carry it forward, forward.

Kali: 45:21

It is, I I kind of still love it. It would be nice for branding to have everything match up, but. At least for me, it's still historical.

Ashley: 45:32

Thank you so much.

FO4D7F7612C2 - Filled Up Cup_Outro: 45:36

Thank you so much for joining us today for this episode of the filled up cup podcast. Don't forget to hit subscribe and leave a review. If you like what you hear, you can also connect with us at filledupcup.Com. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode.