Dr. Joy Melody Woods Bennett, Ph.D. shares her path of self-discovery, from growing up with externally imposed high expectations to receiving her doctorate and some life-altering diagnoses that shed light and clarity on past struggles. Joy sought help, began questioning societal norms around Blackness, religion, education, and personal capability, in pursuit of a life of resilience and purpose.
Joy Melody Woods Bennett, Ph.D. is a scholar and strategist in interpersonal communication that empowers brands, organizations, athletes, and creatives of color to cultivate impactful cultural capital. Outside of work, she dedicates her time and expertise to advocating for Black women and reproductive health. Through speaking engagements at conferences, consultancy work for various organizations, and serving on nonprofit boards focused on addressing health disparities, she strives to make a positive impact in this critical area.
The episode delves into Dr. Woods Bennett's struggles with undiagnosed learning disabilities and the impact they had on her academic journey. She candidly discusses the challenges she faced in school, the pressure to excel, and the revelation of her learning disabilities later in life, which provided clarity but also raised questions about her perception of her intelligence and identity.
Dr. Woods Bennett also shared her experiences with mental health struggles, including being diagnosed with bipolar II disorder, and spoke openly about the impact of these diagnoses one her life her career, and how she viewed her younger self.
Despite challenges she is determined to make a positive impact and help others. She describes herself as a sponge, eager to learn and grow, and inspire others to seek help.
Dr. Joy Melody Woods Bennett's story of resilience, honesty, and commitment to self-discovery is deeply moving, and serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of self-acceptance, and seeking support.
Thank you for listening to Joy's story, and for being a part of our community. Tune in next week for episode 3 of season 1, and please subscribe. You can learn more about us at www.senseofselfpod.com and follow us for updates on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/sense.of.self.pod/.
You can follow and get in touch with Joy here:
She is the founder of Plus TwentyThree
Episode Credits:
Produced by Andrew Coles, Elizabeth Rose, Allison Keeley, and Dr. Gowri Aragam
Edited by: Ben Montoya
Mixed by: Aja Simpson
Music from: Blue Dot Sessions
Logo, branding, and graphic design by: Melanie Kwan
Sense of Self is a podcast from The Mission Entertainment.
Gowri: Welcome to Sense of Self, a podcast about the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what happens when they stop working. I'm your host, Dr. Gowri Aragam.
Joy: I didn't find out how to learn disability until I was 23. And a lady looked at me when I was going to eight hours plus of testing. She said, from what I'm looking at, you shouldn't have even finished high school without any support. She was like, that's pure determination. And I was like, or fear, you know.
Gowri: In today's episode, I chat with Dr. Joy Melody Woods-Bennett. Joy received her PhD in health communication from UT Austin and is now an adjunct professor at UT Dallas. After growing up in a family with big expectations, Joy thought achievement was the only key to success. But when she received two life-changing diagnoses, she had to rethink everything. Throughout our conversation, we talked about Joy's lifelong tendency to question what she was told and how she was able to deconstruct her learned expectations of Blackness, religion, and her own capability. This podcast episode contains discussions about suicide and racial trauma, which may be distressing or triggering for some listeners. If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide or self-harm, please seek help from a mental health professional or contact a crisis helpline. It's important to note that these discussions do not constitute mental health care. Each guest has given their consent to participate, has had full control over what aspects of their journey were shared, and either currently engages in therapy or has done so in the past. Hi, we're so happy to have you here. Would you mind just sharing with us your full name and where you're from?
Joy: Yeah, so I'm Joy Melody Woods Bennett, and I was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, and I currently reside in South Dallas, Dallas.
Gowri: Your name, Joy Melody Woods Bennett. Can you share a little bit about what you know about where that came from?
Joy: Bennett is my married name. So that's that. Woods is my dad's name. So my mom's married name. Melody is my mom's middle name. And my mom passed when I was born. And so my dad named me Joy because he was still able to find joy out of that situation and gave me Melody because it was a joyous song. That's the story that I received.
Gowri: when you received that story, kind of, what did that mean to you?
Joy: It's changed over the years, right? As I got older, it became heavier because, like, you start to understand emotions and you start to understand, you know, things about yourself. And it would always be like, why are you sad? You can't be sad. Your name is Joy. And I was like, I didn't name myself. you know, as well as I would get annoyed because everyone thinks they're original when they sing a song that has to do with joy. And I'm like, I promise you, I've heard it. And melody became heavy, too, because I went to the church that my mom was at. You know, I grew up in the church that she was at when she passed. And I also sang in the choir. And so did she. And so it was this like, oh, you know, your mom's name was Melody. She did sing. You remind me of her. I was like, I just want to exist, but I also like, like it too. And so I definitely like tell people when I got to grad school, I was like, no, my name's Joy Melody, not just Joy. And also helped know where people knew me from. Cause I'm like, my friends call me Joy. And if you call me Joy Melody, I'm like, oh, you met me in my doc programs.
Gowri: What sticks out to me is that you mentioned your mom passed away when you were born and that your name is actually very much kind of circulates around her, right? Your dad's experience of you in the context of her passing with joy, your dad's desire to keep her alive in the context of your middle name, Melody. And then that has a very deep meaning. And then, as you said, going through the world, everyone else places all these other kind of definitions on what that means and what it means about you. So all I hear there is like, as a person growing up, I don't want to assume, but did you feel like there were all these sort of unspoken or spoken expectations of who and what you were supposed to be?
Joy: always expectations I mean it was the first the level of you know you're gonna be great your mom didn't die to bring you into this world for you to be mediocre or um you know my mom was smart my mom was an engineer so like she was brilliant and so there's and she was in math I don't do like math absolutely not so there was all those things as well as like I wanted to make sure that like I made her proud because I'm like you know you die, so like, I want to make sure you're proud of me." And a lot of times I don't think she is, I wouldn't think she is. So yeah, it was a lot of expectations, a lot of wanting to rise to the occasion, be like my siblings who are brilliant, but you know, learning that I can't be, we're not all brilliant in the same way, and that's something that I still learned, and that's something I had to really began to unlearn in college. I was like, I don't think I'm gonna do math, you know? And hope that still makes you proud, mom. Hope that still makes the rest of my family proud.
Gowri: Yeah, that sounds hard. It's kind of like, again, you're trying to make someone proud who's not here, but you're sort of putting a lot of expectation on yourself as well to, but there's no clear cut answer as to what that would even be. Exactly. Exactly. So it's like kind of inherently unattainable.
Joy: Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I never, I never thought of that like inherently unattainable.
Gowri: Joy, I was wondering, how did your mom's influence show up in some of these experiences that you've had?
Joy: So the story I was told by my dad growing up was that my mom's side of the family, they're from Maryland. Solomon's, Maryland. So the Maryland side of Chesapeake Bay. She was the first to go to college. So she was first generation, right? And she went to Southern A&M in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in HBCU, right? And I know that from what I was told, her mom didn't want, my nana didn't want her to go that far. But I always thought, you know, if my mom can pack up her life and go to, all the way to Louisiana from Maryland, it ain't no nobody in Louisiana, right? then to do what's best for her, even against the will of whoever it may be, because she knew it was the right thing to do, then I can do that in different scenarios. And I think about my mom going off to college, whether she knew in that moment later my nana and everybody would be proud of her or not, she would be proud of herself.
Gowri: You've mentioned a lot of references to the Bible, to Christianity, and to church. Was that a big part of your life growing up?
Joy: Yeah. I went to a private Christian school that was attached to the church that I attended. That was something that I had to unlearn. I still believe in God, I'm still a Christian, but I've had to unlearn the walk or the things that were indoctrinated to me. I went to a church slash school that was, I don't know if I can curse, but they were racist, okay? That's the clean way to say it. And the stuff really reared its head around Obama. And I say all that to say of like, this was a place where I was taught abortion is bad, gay people are bad. I remember getting, you know, spankings as a kid and it was a paddle. My father had me write my favorite scriptures on the paddle that he spanks me with. And, um, you know, I was telling my now husband and I hadn't really thought about it until I said it. And I was like, wow, the only God that I knew was one of anger. And it was really hard for me to, like, imagine a God or, you know, a spiritual walk that wasn't tied to anger. And then I'm like, and y'all are using God to be racist against me? This is this is a lot.
Gowri: Would you feel comfortable sharing, like, an example of something that happened?
Joy: So I remember I was in AP U.S. History, and I will never forget this. Someone in the class drew the Confederate flag on the board. They just took the white marker, you know, whiteboard marker, and decided to draw it. The teacher is sitting there, and they asked me, when the South rises again, where will you go? How old were you? I was probably a freshman or sophomore in high school, and I remember being like. Where, what do you mean, where am I going? Like, I'm sorry, y'all are racing everywhere. But I, I, um, that, that's probably the one that sticks out the most because you can't really unsee that. And then they also, in the South, people love reenactments. And so my school, they would take people to do them as a filter, overnight filter. First of all, I don't camp, so we're good. Um, but they were like, Joy, do you want to participate? I was, uh, my people were enslaved then. Well, no, some of them fought in the war for slavery. Like, you know, and they're like, that's not what the civil war is about. So it was like all these things around. Yes. As I got older, I definitely had to figure out what blackness meant. I remember the first time I realized I was black in the sense of like other, or someone thought me different, but I've always known I was black and negotiating that with like, being in this space that they didn't want me to be. And then that's underground. I started out at HBCU and I was like, oh, there are tons of versions to tons of ways to be black. Because even I had been ingrained that blackness looks a certain way.
Gowri: I was wondering where that messaging came from and specifically kind of what your family, what your dad, what your siblings, what that conversation or lack of conversation was like for you at home.
Joy: we were always, and I think this is across the board with Black and Brown families, right? This, um, work twice as hard to get half as much, like, you know, work, work, work. And so that was ingrained in us, as well as, like, the better we are, no one can say it's your race. And so there was never this conversation about, like, people are gonna treat you this way because you're Black. It was, well, you don't need to pay attention to that. Like, that has nothing to do with it. If you're the best, you'll always be the best. I was taught, you know, unfortunately from, you know, my parts of my family that all the negative stereotypes that you think, you know, Black people, that people, the news tried to say and all that stuff. but I inherently would question because again I was taught my dad was like well you need to question I don't think so I need to question him but I would always be like well that doesn't make any sense because if you're saying black people are like that and the school is saying black people like that then how come I'm not like that and how come your people are saying that I'm the exception And to me, as I grew older, I'd be like, no, I'm really the rule. But yeah, I was taught that Black people, you don't want to be in a group with Black people. You want to be, you know, they're not trying. They're not all these things that I think a lot of middle class Black people, depending on what their circles are, probably have had to unlearn.
Gowri: When you are being told directly by people that blackness other than you was a certain way and that was not a way that you needed to be or should be. But then it sounds like from your dad or from the family, it was kind of like almost like another version of colorblindness, like, oh, that won't matter.
Joy: Yes, that's that's it. And that's just dangerous, because when you for me, when you get in the world, I didn't know how to be around other black people. that were just as smart as me. I was not aware of how to do that. That was something I had to learn really on the fly.
Gowri: You mentioned how your dad was like, just work twice as hard, just do what you got to do. Were you just studying and studying?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the messaging was instilled in me in first grade when grades equal money. Grades equal money. Grades equal money. That's how we're going to behave for school.
Gowri: And did school come easily to you? That's a good question.
Joy: I loved English. Clearly, I like to read. Loved English. Loved all the creativity stuff. But dim was what we were told. And so I started out as pre-med. I don't know why. I mean, I do, but girl, what is wrong with you? Like you can't do math. Like, um, I struggled with math. And so I didn't find out how to learn disability till I was 23. and my master's and it was because I can no longer like force myself to do stuff. And the lady looked at me when I was going to eight hours plus of testing, I had to get my stuff, I had to get my grades, my standardized exam, I had to get everything from first grade on. And I took the ACT and SAT both seven or eight times, both of them. And the lady looked at me and I'm 23 years old now. She said, I don't know how you graduated high college, Because from what you're looking, from what I'm looking at, you shouldn't have even finished high school without any support. Wow. She was like, that's pure determination. And I was like, our fear, you know, like pick your shoes. Determination, fear. I don't know. I had no, I couldn't fail. I wasn't like literally like, couldn't like. you know, but like literally was not allowed. I worked very, very hard. So like, it didn't come easy to me. English did, because it creates it, like, I loved it. But I was told, you know, that doesn't make money. Only for me to find out, you know, as I'm 23, of why math was so hard for me. And I was always told I wasn't trying hard enough. you're being lazy or, you know, running up behind some boy, you know, the typical thing. Only for me to find out, like, me as a child should have, like, failed. But I didn't because I had no choice.
Gowri: Sounds like you had discipline. And sure, that may have been fueled by fear. But regardless, it seems to have pushed you. And I'm wondering, what made you get tested for a learning disability?
Joy: It's so wild. So I started my first semester. My first semester, I went to Iowa. I was so excited. But then, like, I would spend so much time reading. And I would do all my work. And, like, I still was failing. And I had landed this GRA, or research assistant, And her name was Vicky Meany. I was like, maybe I have ADHD or something. This is my second semester. She was like, my other friend works in student disability service. She's like, I think you should go talk to her. She might know some places to get tested. I get tested for ADHD. The lady looks at me and was like, you don't have ADHD, but you have something. She wrote like a 10 page report. to give to the school and it was my learning disabilities were so bad that I was able to get a medical react retroactive medical withdrawal for all those classes before. Oh, wow. And I was able to have a clean slate going forward. And, you know, that was that was like a relief. I started to question if I was intelligent, but I'm like, I can write a paper and an A-level paper the night before, you know. You told me a 20-page paper like, no problem. So I knew I wasn't dumb, you know. It just was, I needed extra time and I had to struggle with like, well, if I'm getting extra time, does that make me whatever? And I had to be like, no, I'm just getting the time the equal time of someone who doesn't have a nonverbal learning disability in a reading process, a visual processing disorder, and a reading impairment. And I always love to read, but my reading impairment came from I taught myself to read. And a lot of time, that's not where it came from, but with my learning disability, one of the characteristics is you as a kid, you taught yourself to read. So by the time you have to do serious reading comprehension, like at the graduate level of the dense articles, which is why I probably struggled a lot on some of the SAT stuff. It was like, oh, I can't do that. Not because I can't do it. I just need more time to do it. And it kind of like, once I, you know, walk, work through that identity crisis, I was able to be like, no, y'all don't give me the extra time. I'm not afraid of asking for it. You saw my grades drastically improve and it gave me confidence of like, okay, I'm not dumb. I just didn't know I had this disability.
Gowri: You mentioned identity crisis. What was the crisis?
SPEAKER_02: I've always been a smart person and I thought I could do just like everyone. You think you can do everything. And so it was this identity crisis of like, have I been stupid this whole time? Like, am I stupid? Like, all the way back to childhood, people who have learned disabilities, you know, they were the, they were the butt of the joke. And then being a Black person in a white world, and we already struggled with imposter syndrome. Then it's like, did I sneak in? Like, did they, did, am I the diversity admit? Like, is that the only reason why I'm here? did they mean to accept my black ass? Like what is, you know, you start to go through all of these things. And so it was this identity of then like, you know, trying to be like, dad, see, this is why I struggle.
Gowri: Did you accept it initially when she said that?
Joy: I just was like, because it did confirm of like, I knew I was doing everything I could possibly do. I mean, I sold my season tickets and that was the year Iowa beat Michigan in the last stage. So I was, man, I had to watch that from home. So I knew, I was like, I had sacrificed. I ain't do this. You know, I, I lived such a boring first semester of grad school. And it was it was I want to say gratifying but it was like this thing where I was like, okay Now I'm a little shaky on what does this do for my foundation and my who am I but I have some answers and Now I can go fight another battle, which was going to get doing, you know, ADA and stuff. So I think at every turn it's been like, cool, thanks for the answers. Now I got to go do more work. And I don't even know if that's grit or determination. I just, I always said, you know, I'm here for a reason. Again, cliche, but like when you, when you could have died too, you know, you're like, I'm here for a reason. Um, I was like, yeah, I don't know. I just felt empowered when I got the diagnosis.
Gowri: Yeah. So it sounds like it sounds like that, right? Like things that were confusing to you suddenly made sense. And you're talking about kind of reason of being here. And sometimes people associate that with religion. Other times they don't. But for you, I know you had a religious upbringing and you had an angry God growing up. But I'm wondering, like, has religion played a role in kind of how you perceive some of this stuff? Well, one, I think, you know,
Joy: nothing's a coincidence. But I think it's like, okay, that did happen when I was born. So clearly, if both of us could have died, and I didn't, what is my purpose? Now doesn't mean I haven't wavered, doesn't mean I haven't had mental health struggles that I've needed. But I think that religion, our spirituality played a role in it because I did grow up in it and I started to build my own relationship with, you know, the God that I serve and seeing the different things that have happened in my life, knowing that they're not things I could have created on my own.
Gowri: I think what you just said there, which is something that kind of struck me, was that if we both could have died but I survived, what is my purpose? Again, there's a lot in there, right? That's a really kind of beautiful, powerful way to kind of go about life. It can also be stressful and heavy, right, at times. It's all the things, I think. But like you said, it sounds like at some point you're able to experience the setback, experience the emotions, but not lose that sense of like, I deserve to be here. I am meant to be here. It speaks to that foundation that you were talking about earlier. But you were saying that your mental health struggled. So I know that you've been open about kind of your mental health struggles over your young adulthood. Can you share a bit more about that? Because I know you mentioned learning disabilities, but there is others. There's other stuff going on as well. Am I right? Mm hmm.
Joy: Do you have a PhD? I didn't get diagnosed with bipolar type 2. Again, it answered so many questions. Like, you know, because I haven't diagnosed with depression, and I remember in the pandemic of like, I don't know, this has to be more than just general, you know, depressive disorder. Like, this is more than that. I got diagnosed with that and I had struggled with suicidal ideations a couple of times prior to my master's. And so yeah, I'm open about it because Black people don't talk about it. We are starting to. Same thing with learning disabilities. And I remember starting to talk about it and people started DMing me and asking me questions. It's been a struggle and I think with being in graduate school and a thing that, you know, unfortunately it's designed to break you. I don't, you know, I don't care what anyone says it is. It is, that's what it's designed to do. It was difficult to learn that and how to manage that while Being a TA, doing my own research, taking classes, being in a pandemic, getting married, like so many things are happening, right? And had I not been in tune with myself before of being like, okay, something's up, I don't know what would have happened, but it definitely answered questions of some of my behavior growing up again, right? Like bipolar 2, bipolar in general and bipolar type 2, they're all, it's genetic, right? So I'm like, well, which one are y'all? Which one are y'all family members? But yeah, I still struggle sometimes. Currently, I feel like I'm in a slight hypomanic episode, but I'm very aware of it. So like, instead of making very dumb, irrational decisions, like instead last night, I was like, you know what? I feel a little whatever. So I'm just gonna go to the gym, walk on the treadmill, kind of relax, get that energy out in a productive way. kind of like rearranging what those impulses are, certain stuff will be, and I've had to learn that. But I'm relearning it again now that I'm done with school. Everything that I learned leading up to now was to survive through school. Now I've got to figure out how to survive as a whole adult.
Gowri: What I was wondering is, with the bipolar II, what were some of the things that you noticed about yourself prior to the diagnosis that made you wonder, like, huh, that doesn't seem quite right, like something seems
Joy: off here. My depression became like low-key debilitating. Like everything just felt like two months. So I start, you know, oh here I am. on WebMD, basically, you know, something similar. But I also, in my master's, I also took a mental health class, and the textbook we used was DSM-5. Not to diagnose yourself, obviously, but like we had to do different things. I had said, I wonder if it's bipolar. Like, maybe it's just given bipolar, not fully, but you know, by get an email and I was like we are recruiting people to see if they would like to participate in a bipolar study and we'll diagnose you like it was this whole and I was like what there's no way that I get this email like two days after I started bipolar and so I signed up for the study they do the whole diagnostic diagnostic and they were like what so you don't have bipolar one but you have bipolar two you also have OCD like all the stuff started to make sense as well as like my downs because with you know for people who don't know the simplest way to explain bipolar 2 is that You're not fully manic. So I remember what I'm feeling, but it's like your depression is the worst. Like your, your downs is all the way to him. And that's, I was like, this is explaining why I'm like, I'm so down, like in the worst way. And so that was helpful, you know, figuring out my medication. I got to learn some skills. I got to learn some, you know, different ways to like help me really get through my dissertation because people with bipolar type two plus my learning disability. We will just be like, I'm gonna do this grandiose thing and there'll be no to-do list. I'll be like, why can't I accomplish my to-do list? And the psychiatrist was like, as well as the therapist, was like, because your to-do list is like general broad ideas. They're not very specific. So I had to like train myself to really be like, wash the dishes, sweep. You can't be like, clean the house. Like, girl, nothing's going to get done that way.
Gowri: And did you ever like, did that, when you were diagnosed with that, it seems like that made a lot of the little things kind of make sense for you. Did you question yourself at all?
Joy: That one was, that questioning was because I'm creative and I was like, did all my creative ideas come from a hypomanic state? What will I be if I'm stable? What will happen if I take this medicine? Will all my creative ideas go away? And so I was like, do I want to take this medicine? I remember writing a blog post about it like, What, when I look in the mirror, who am I looking at? Like, cause everything I thought I knew, I'm like, is this even me?
Gowri: How would you answer that? Those questions about yourself?
Joy: Well, you know, therapy as well as like, I have a good set of friends around me and my best friend was like, I mean, it answers some questions, but you really mean to think that like, you personally would have never thought of X, Y, Z, and the third. Bipolar too or not. And I was like, I don't know. And she was like, you would have thought of it. It might not have been as quick. You might not have figured it out in one setting. Sometimes I'd be like, I have this idea. And next thing you know, it's done. Like during the pandemic, before I got diagnosed, I apparently was in a very hypomanic state. And I wrote a novel in like two weeks. Now is the novel perfect? No. Is it 80,000 words? Yes. I was like, oh, I didn't know, but I was just like super creative. And I was like, what if I can never do that again? And that's one thing that they tell you, like, you're going to feel you're going to feel not like yourself, but don't don't try and lean into those things. And so it took my friends, my friends, my you know, my husband to be like, no, you you're going to be those things. You're just going to be, you know, not going to do it so sporadically and not sleep for three days.
Gowri: Yeah, so it sounds like your husband was a source of support for you kind of in this time of questioning, is that right?
Joy: Yeah, because he could see different parts, you know. He would be like, and he never would want to say stuff sometimes. He didn't want to be like, you know, sensitive. But sometimes now, you know, because when I first got diagnosed and I was doing something, he was like, did you take your medicine today? And I was like, oh, my gosh, you know, like, you know, that you just now I was like, what? and then like he was like i wasn't trying to be like oh my gosh and then we had to have a conversation of like i don't think you're being that way but like being as though i was just recently diagnosed and now you're talking about that i think my medicine day when i say something kind of like triggering he'd be like are you an episode that one oh my god but he was like hey you know how are you feeling today and i'm like what's going on and he'll say I've noticed this so could you like how are you feeling what's going on and then I if that's a better way so he's been able to he's learned with me I've learned with myself so when he asks like hey and he'll say hey you seem a little off like what's going on so I'm like I don't know I am off he's like you what's going on I'm like I don't have the words yet just I'll figure it out
Gowri: He's like, okay, like, all right. So you've created kind of like a system with him for communication, it sounds like.
Joy: And money was my problem. That was another thing. So I, I definitely, cause some people are like, Oh my God, that's so like old school. I gave my credit cards to him because it was like, I needed to be better. And it was easy for me to be like, Oh, you know, and then see who the bills like, why were you at home this weekend? What did you buy? So it wasn't able to be like, you know, here's this. Let me get better at this. And then, hey, I'm going to go to HomeGoods. You want our point. I'm just using HomeGoods. I'm like, hey, I only bought one candle. Six, you know, as well, it seems like very small and people would be like, oh, that's old school. You gave your husband a credit card, ask for permission. Wasn't none of that. It was like I said, hey, here these are. I know that right now until I figure out how to figure out these hypomanic things and don't lean into wanting to shop or don't lean into wanting to do something, you know, detrimental or X, Y, Z. Here are these, here are these tools that could allow me to make dumb decisions in this hypomanic state.
Gowri: So you just described like your childhood as someone who was told that putting the extra effort, achieving in a certain way, being a certain way, not doing certain things was all in service of what you later understood to be keeping you protected somehow. you realize during all of that that you were not actually safe. And then you find out later on that you were actually dealing with something, a disability, that was preventing you from doing the thing that people said would keep you safe. Like, that made it extra hard for you to do so. That made you sacrifice so much more of yourself, right? And in learning that, it was probably very freeing, as you said, and like, oh, validating. Oh, my goodness. Yes. Like this. This makes sense. And I imagine also kind of like bittersweet of like, oh, damn. Like I know a lot of people when they experience that later in life, they're just like, if only I had the support, if only I had the support or the understanding during that time. Did you ever have that period of time, Joy, where you kind of were like, oh, if only I had that?
Joy: Yeah, of course. But I remember there was this thing. It was like, if you could snap your fingers, Would you automatically like erase your past and have a million dollars or something like that? Or would you want to retire? Well, something so weird where, you know, just to start a conversation. And, and I said, I want to erase it. And again, I know that sounds so cliche. Like I wouldn't change anything. I'd do it all over again. Like it's not, not Hallmark. Right. But it really was like, wow i accomplished all this stuff i've learned these skills i definitely wish i had support because i imagine i probably would have to unlearn as much shit that i have to learn now wouldn't spend as much time in therapy but i wouldn't change it and I had to be like one I can't and so spending too much time on it woulda coulda shouldas definitely maybe for the first week after each diagnosis but it and it might be because I just didn't have the time so I guess yay for still being in school not having time I just was like Look at everything and it goes back to being like, all right, stuff happens for a reason. I've been able to help so many people unintentionally or intentionally. People reach out to me. People are random people. Someone bought a book off of my Amazon wishlist. They're like, Hey, I know you want books all the time, but the note was, you helped me, you gave me courage to go seek therapy. I know people buy books all the time. I just want to let you know that. And I was like, some stranger, you know what I mean? Like some stranger that just follows me on social media. And I just was like, then I've done my job, right? So I know that someone's life is going to be saved. Someone's going to see me and be, you know, metaphorically or literally step off the edge, you know, and, um, or I tell people like, you're going to want to quit your PhD, but don't like you, you have us, I've been there. And I know that I really just always have to tell myself, like someone someday somewhere will see me and hear my story and be like, I'm not alone. And I've already had that happen in different stages since I started being very open.
Gowri: When you think about, like, Joy Melody, if that's like, you know, now and moving forward, like, how would you describe her?
Joy: Not sure with this question. I'm gonna have to block your number after this.
Gowri: No, um, how would you describe yourself?
Joy: I would describe myself as someone who is determined to make an impact. And that impact is one person at a time. And I just love, I love people. I like to describe myself as a sponge. I know that I can get better. So I would say Joy Melody is someone who is never going to stop learning. who is always gonna try her best to smile not because someone's telling me to but because I want to and I'm genuinely happy in a moment. This is gonna be real dramatic but full circle. Someone who would be like my mom.
Gowri: Thanks so much for listening to Joy's episode. We hope you enjoyed it and that you'll join us next week for episode three of Sense of Self. Sense of Self is a podcast from The Mission Entertainment. This episode was produced by Andrew Coles, Elizabeth Rose, Alison Keeley, and myself, Gowri Aragam. It was edited by Ben Montoya and mixed by Asia Simpson with music from Blue Dot Sessions.