42. Coping With Anxiety, Stress, And Trauma Responses With Jenelle Coolidge

In this episode, Melissa and her guest Jenelle Coolidge discuss how to cope with anxiety, stress and trauma responses.  Jenelle Coolidge is a licensed mental health counselor and certified clinical trauma professional who specializes in treating eating disorders, trauma, and chronic health conditions. 

This episode provides listeners with an insightful overview of Janelle's journey, her expertise in various therapeutic modalities, and the importance of seeking help for mental health challenges. Through her experience and dedication, Janelle offers hope and practical strategies for navigating complex emotional landscapes.

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Jenelle's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coolskiescounseling/

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Transcript

Jenelle 

Melissa: [00:00:00] I

have an exciting mental health episode today, and I've got my friend and former coworker here Janelle Coolidge. She was born from the Sazon flavored city of Miami, Florida. She's a licensed mental health counselor and a certified clinical trauma professional. She specializes in the treatment of eating disorders, trauma, and those with chronic health conditions.

Janelle has been in the mental health industry since 2012, first as a psychiatric nurse and now as a licensed psychotherapist. Janelle has a vast level of experience working in different mental health settings from psychiatric hospitals, residential facilities, mental health clinics, community mental health, and private practice.

She's a member of the [00:01:00] International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals and volunteers with the National Alliance for Eating Disorders. With her many years of experience working with children, adolescents, and adults, she has worked in a variety of mental health settings, including inpatient, residential, intensive outpatient, and outpatient care.

She's currently working on becoming a certified eating disorder specialist and is also EMDR trained. When she's not working hard, she likes to play hard with video gaming, reading. watching sci fi shows and attending Disney parks with her loved ones. Janelle, can you share with the listeners your background and your field?

Yes, I would love to. So my background started when I first became a nurse. Every nursing job that I started with, I never Enjoyed it. I would eventually just quit it until I eventually found working at a psych hospital [00:02:00] and I started realizing that I really had a huge interest in mental health that along with, going to see a therapist, I started noticing.

The huge impact that a therapist can make in a person's life. And so that's when I started deciding that this is for me and I wanted to give back, and just having that recovery story from an eating disorder as well. That also made me want to just continue pursuing education, training.

To just be able to also take it back and help. Yeah, so it sounds like the career originally that you went to school for, got training in, and were pursuing was in nursing. But as you're doing that, you're realizing, Okay, this is not the path I want to go down. And through your experience, by seeing how the work is [00:03:00] at a psychiatric hospital and your own experience with a therapist, that's really awesome that you came to realize, I like this service of mental health and I enjoy, I'm getting a lot of value out of working on my mental health and something that you want to be able to then improve.

pivot and switch paths to do that as well. So when you decided to switch and jump into mental health, was there a specific expertise or type of client that you were working with? Did that change at all? So when I decided to switch into mental health the opportunities found me in a sense. I never honestly, Wanted to work with children that much kind of wanted to stay just with adults but somehow I got pigeonholed with children and adolescents because [00:04:00] My personality is goofy.

So a lot of people assume that hey, she's really great with kids. Just let's give her the kids and most of the times That was the easiest to find. And given my vast experience with working with severely psychiatric issues like schizophrenia, bipolar one with psychosis. It was just easy for me to get intensive experience.

So the first experiences were with trauma and children and adolescents. Did I enjoy trauma? Yes. Do I like intense cases? I do. Does it stress me out? Absolutely. But, my idea was always to work with eating disorders. I got some eating disorder experience as a nurse, but I really wanted to just devote more with that population.

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. [00:05:00] So being exposed to a lot of different areas within mental health and different populations and age ranges and different types of cases and trauma for you, you discovered that, a lot of them were interesting and can tick a lot of the boxes of still within that realm of mental health and a challenge and things that you enjoy.

What was it specifically that inspired you to pursue your area of expertise when you say that you wanted to dive more into mental, or not mental health, dive more into eating disorders specifically? I think the reason why I really found eating disorders mainly like my number one interest was basically my own journey recovering from eating disorders.

eating disorders. Just being able to recover and heal. I [00:06:00] just felt like a huge passion and interest to be able to give back like a sense of purpose. There's nothing more inspiring. Nothing calls you more than to be able to help provide hope to people when you've experienced healing yourself.

And I honestly feel the same way with trauma and people who have recovered from like abusive. Situations, just from my past traumas, and I also love to see the healing that happens. And yeah, it's hard, but it's really rewarding just to see that, yeah. Yeah. I love that for you, you found recovery and you were inspired to help others to find recovery as well.

Cause you know, when you're in the midst of an eating disorder, it feels hopeless. It feels you just feel so isolated and alienated and different from everyone around [00:07:00] you and you're struggling so much, whether you are fully aware of that or not, of what's going on, or the disorder, you're definitely aware of the symptoms.

You know that, things are not feeling great while you're in your eating disorder. So I think it's. Awesome that you have found recovery and that now you're helping other people to find recovery as well in your journey with recovery from an eating disorder was that something that you did on your own or were you part of a facility like a treatment facility or What kind of how did that path of recovery look like for you so when I first started I didn't know all the help that existed that I know now.

I wasn't really educated much. So honestly it just took a lot of therapists. That's why it took I think many years before I [00:08:00] found a therapist that specialized in it and gave recommendations and I was able to add. I'm a dietician, a therapist, and go to groups. Basically just following that way, I was able to stay outpatient.

Yeah, okay. Pretty similar to I resonate with that a lot as well, because during my eating disorder, that wasn't anything that I was Educated on or aware of really and for me too, it just, it was like a slow process of Oh, I made this little change or I hear this thing on the internet from a therapist or something, or or even through.

Getting my degree in nutrition and hearing from the not disordered dietitians, and the dietitians who are challenging a lot of those myths and everything that those things impacted me. [00:09:00] And that took time. So I think it was like doing a lot of my own digging to the, I think the biggest factor and turning point for me too, was discovering the intuitive eating book and those concepts and principles really helped change my relationship with food and body as well.

But I just, it's interesting for me to hear too, and I'm sure even getting into the field that you got into, that helps with uncovering a lot of different things and doing your own inner healing. A lot of times that's why we're drawn to these fields. Yeah. All right.

So you said that. You were thrust into working with adolescents and a younger population. Is that a population that you still work with? And what does your current day to day work look like? And some of the mental health [00:10:00] modalities that are out there. What are the things that you find of value and the things that you like to help others with?

Well, so the current teenagers that I have are what I consider grandfathered to me from my when you're a registered intern, you're at the status where you're given clients and you're expected to just take whatever clients is handed to you. And sometimes You have to just take them.

Now, as a licensed mental health counselor, having my own practice, I'm a little bit more Okay, now I'm going to be a little bit more choosy. I'm transitioning off the teenagers, but the ones I have, I'm still, working with the ones I have. But ideally, I want to go work with 18 so what I'm doing, what I really love, I like act.

I really [00:11:00] love the whole just like accepting the human condition of just understanding about how our emotions can be our teachers. I really like expressive arts therapy. I really love how it helps us let our guards down and really work what's inside. I really love any trauma focused therapy. Really love EMDR.

I love the ability to heal through guided imagery and just closing our eyes. through breath work bilateral stimulation, and just through that, allowing that healing to come through. And of course I do the traditional CBT, but I like what I like, what I call the babies of CBT, which is DBT, ACT, it's little babies because I feel like CBT is a little too much like harsh and it has to be this way, your thoughts and like more [00:12:00] flexibility in that. Okay. Yeah. And just so listeners who might not know what those stand for, can you share starting, I guess, with CBT? Yeah, so CBT stands for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy so it's very much your thoughts influence your behaviors very much, so a lot of its approach is oh, you're feeling sad.

Well, have your thoughts been sad? Well, that's why you're feeling sad. And sometimes, if you're struggling with a mood disorder, well, of course, you're going to be struggling with a lot of thoughts. And sometimes it's not that easy to just be like, boom, change those thoughts. Yeah, that makes sense.

That's it's funny because it makes me think of, okay, I feel like I've been there and it almost sounds like the manifestation gurus out there Oh, just be positive all the time and affirmations and everything. And I love affirmations, but [00:13:00] you know, it's not the end all be all it's definitely not a cure.

And it can be a component that might be helpful, like maybe we pay attention to our, it is good to be aware and pay attention to our thoughts and pay attention and just have mindfulness and awareness in general. But it's just funny because it, I laugh and I, when you were talking about that and I was thinking, yeah, I could do all the affirmations all day and then I'll still have the craziest nightmares.

All night, and horrible, like dreadful thoughts and then wake up still anxious, so like you said, It's okay, is it that easy? Can we just tell ourselves, think better thoughts and that's going to happen and that's going to change our behavior. So something that obviously has maybe some merit sometimes, but it's definitely not a catch all or cure all.

And then, what about DBT? Well, DBT is Dialetical Behavioral Therapy. I [00:14:00] like it because it's been, it was made with, to help people with Borderline Personality Disorder. That was its main intention. But now it's really helpful. I can, I've seen it really helpful for a lot of people who struggle with a lot of emotional regulation, anger.

There's a lot of skills, like if you search it, like when you're working with it, with a therapist, those, there's a lot of practical skills that can really help with the emotional regulation, it urges impulses. It's just something practical and helpful for a lot of people. Okay, so it's, it has that behavior therapy just like the CBT, but the CBT is cognitive.

So it's more like thought based or paying attention to your thoughts or maybe trying to plug in different types of thoughts. And then the DBT. So what. Does that mean is it more like hands on practices or what does that D [00:15:00] stand for? What is an example of that? What kind of if you were coaching someone to bring in a DBT type Of exercise.

Is there like a go to exercise you might use? There's one that I can think of right now. I the, I like to use the metaphor of riding the wave type of deal. Because you can use that in many different areas that you're struggling with, whether it's like anxiety, or, just different emotions that you're struggling to tolerate, and just helping them understand about how all emotions peak at a certain point, and understanding that eventually that wave is going to crash, just like that emotion if you sit with it, it's gonna reach its point, its major point, but eventually it will pass. Okay. [00:16:00] And it's not gonna stay there the whole time. Ugh, I think that is... Definitely one of the most helpful things to ever hear, honestly, I could have used that decades ago because of someone who definitely in the past would have really strong emotions and you're in it.

You don't see it as a wave. You're just like, Oh my God, I'm going to feel like this forever. And then the world is over and everything's on fire. Okay. Yeah. So it's really just. It's allowing it to be there and reminding, it's like that this is going to pass. This is temporary. You will not feel this way forever.

Yeah. Okay. And then you also mentioned act. So act is a whole different. Modality. Yeah, it's acceptance and commitment therapy. I really like it because it's very much it just accepts the fact that, for example, like you said that if you had nightmares [00:17:00] all night and you wake up anxious, it's telling you, hey, it's okay.

You're a human. You're feeling anxious. It's you, it's okay to be human and have anxiety sometimes, right? Anxiety tells us stuff, our Emotions are chemicals. It's part of being human, part of our thoughts are going to have Anxiety. We don't have to stay there, and I love how introduces the concept of flexibility and says, Okay, so I'm having anxious thoughts.

But what else is true about this day, because this day also have. Good moments. Can this day have neutral moments, right? So you're balancing your thoughts so it's not just staying on the potential chaos. Yeah. So it doesn't feel as intense. Yes, that is good too. Awesome. Recognizing and it really it sounds like [00:18:00] that neutralizes it too.

It's just like you acknowledge it and then you can move on. But it's not like acknowledging it and then holding on to it and making it your identity and catastrophizing and being like, I guess I'm someone who has nightmares all the time and I'm broken. This is me. Hey guys. And thinking about that nightmare over and over or, totally ignoring It, whatever.

So I like, yeah, basically, like you said, it sounds like, okay, we can acknowledge that we don't have to beat ourselves up over it. We can even whatever comes up like, Oh, I don't like that. That sucked. But what else can be true? Like you said, that's so important to bring that balance and look at the other side as well.

And then the last one that you said too, that I I'm curious about this one. Because I don't really know anything about it, but you said EMDR? Yeah. [00:19:00] EMDR. Okay. Forgive me, humans, if I say this wrong. Oh, it's Eye Movement Desensit I can't pronounce it. Desensitizing? Desensitization and Reprocessing.

Okay. Yeah. This is why I just say that the acronyms, I would always get like that too, with ARFID as a dietician, I would be like, Oh yeah, ARFID. And then they're like, okay, what's that stand for? I'm like avoid it, restrictive food intake disorder. And then sometimes flip, mix up one of the words.

It's too many words. It is. It's too fancy. Yeah. It's just easier. That's why we say EMDR, guys. Yes. Okay? There we go. Leave it at that. Just let me be. Okay. Basically, I love this because, basically, when you experience a trauma, right? Your brain kind of gets stuck right in what they call like memory state.

So what happens is that [00:20:00] every time your brain is in like in a familiar setting it doesn't have to be the same exact trauma experience happening, but it has to be semi similar. It's like you're going to have Kind of trigger reaction, because it's stuck, and over time, these little traumas, whether it's little t or big T right, they start building up, and you feel stuck.

So EMDR is helpful because it helps your brain process and communicate more from the left hemisphere of the brain to the right through what we call bilateral stimulation, which is done in different forms, such as, they can do it through lights. Some people will use their hand like moving it from, one side to the other side, they might use tapping on their legs, [00:21:00] left what they call butterfly hug, left or little buzzards, right? The whole point is just to help the brain just process and get Bye. Unstuck the traumatic experiences so that the person can feel free, and unlock everything that they have inside and sometimes people will tell me like, Oh my God, I'm having these memories float back that, I didn't know I had or like people telling me that.

They felt dissociated for so many years and they're actually feeling emotions. Yeah. It's powerful what the brain can do when you do this stuff. It's beautiful to see the growth and the healing. Yeah. So interesting. Thanks for sharing what those Different modalities stand for like the EMDR and the CBT, the DBT [00:22:00] and ACT, the therapy talk for all of our listeners. But in general, I think obviously we recommend working with a therapist, going to therapy, whether you're experiencing an eating disorder or trauma borderline.

Anything or maybe you're not even sure you're like, I don't have any diagnosis. I just need someone to talk to. Therapy is a great option for absolutely anyone and everyone. And I wanted to ask you, Janelle, with your experience as a therapist, what is something that. You have overcome like what has been like a personal challenge that or obstacle that's shown up for you on this path and something that you feel like you want to share with the audience or even just bring maybe attention to any kind of problem that you see in this field and also, we can talk about that.

So what has been like maybe a problem, an [00:23:00] obstacle, something that you faced? So the journey from nursing to therapist, I believe has been a great and one of the best choices I've made. I feel like the phrase nurses eat their young is really true. There's a lack of compassion sometimes from nurses. Now there's now from the therapy world, you'll get A lot of compassion and support.

However, there is still a little bit more that I am noticing that I feel like our community can do a little better. When I was a registered intern and even as an intern, there were a lot of people who were supportive and believed in me, but a lot of the insecurities I had. in myself as a therapist sometimes came from just a lack of encouragement and [00:24:00] uplifting that I feel is necessary.

When you're working with interns and registered interns, being a new therapist is really difficult. And I feel the veterans in the game sometimes forget that, and Especially, it doesn't make sense because they usually give interns the hardest cases like they throw you into crisis and the hardest, right?

The ones that no one wants. And it's a little backwards to me, right? They usually put you in the underpaid, hardest cases. Oftentimes supervision is expensive, and it can be soul crushing, the exam is hard, so now as a licensed therapist, at the time I was like why is it so hard?

I was a nurse first, I had my career, I'm a mother, I have two kids, it was really [00:25:00] hard for me to do this. And I was just like, why does it have to be so hard? But now as a licensed mental health counselor, I have a goal of one day, if I become a supervisor, which I think I do, I think I do want to be a qualified supervisor.

I have it in my heart to actually make a change. I want to empower anybody who wants to be a registered intern with me. I want them to feel, I don't want them to feel like I felt. I want them to feel they have con I want them to feel confident. I want them to feel like they can do this job. I don't want them to feel like they're being taken advantage of.

Or they need to just put up with whatever. Because it's not true. We're all people. And we're all in this together. to change this world, to help our clients. Yeah. Yeah, we were talking a little bit about it before we started recording about [00:26:00] how Yeah, just how many hoops you have to jump through and obviously it's a very high stress job and you have a significant caseload client load and then the documentation on top of that, that you have to keep up with.

It's not just seeing these patients. And a lot of time working in, if you work in a facility, if you're not in private practice, it's not just seeing your one on one patients and documenting a lot of times they'll throw all this other stuff at you to run all these different group activities and lead these groups.

So come up with, the topics you're going to present and keeping a group of people engaged and maybe even more on top of that, I know at my facility, it was like, we got a. Transcribed by https: otter. ai get the vitals, make the food, prep the food, do the dishes, run multiple groups a week.

It's insanity. On top of keeping a high caseload and doing all that and therapists are significantly [00:27:00] underpaid. It's one of those professions that tend to be female dominated and also tend to be underpaid. We see that with registered dietitians. therapists, teachers, even nurses, but that's shifting a little bit.

But yeah, a lot of these fields are high demand, high education demand jobs too. So it's not a big task load. It's also, you got to. Invest all this money and time into your education and these degrees, and now even like master's degrees for dietitians and then continuing education and fees, right? The fees of keeping up your license, you need to get your license to pass the exam and you have to pay a fee every year for that, and then for whatever state you're in, oh, you also need a Florida license, and then you got to pay that, right?

Couple hundred dollars. Every year and then more hundreds of dollars to go to these conferences and keep up your [00:28:00] continuing education. So yeah, I think that's a really big problem that I see and I agree with you in that field of it's Highly stressful. It's highly demanding. And then what value does the person get back, the clinician, the counselor, are they getting back from everything that they're investing to be poorly compensated?

And then within the field too, it sounds like you've experienced, like your experience as an intern was really challenging and that you didn't feel like you had it. The support with supervision or the support with the directors and people above you. So I'm glad that, you're sharing that perspective and also it's on your heart to improve things and make a change and make it better.

I think that's awesome and needed, for us to see [00:29:00] what ways that we can make improvements in these fields. What are some ways that you have been able to cope with all these challenges and obstacles that have come up? So it is true that there was a time that I was really struggling with my self esteem and didn't believe in myself as a therapist.

And my advice is to Please surround yourself with as many encouraging people as possible because that's what I've done. I've seeked out a lot of clinicians who are very positive, encouraging, that believe in me, which is super helpful. Another thing is mentoring from healthy clinicians. doing your own therapy work,

to work on those thoughts that tell you're not [00:30:00] good enough, and especially if you're working in environments that are toxic, they're affecting your mental health. Yeah. Get out of those. Yeah. Get out of those places because I never thought that I could open up my own prior practice and I did it.

And I'm making boss moves. You are. So proud of you. Thank you. So I am a new person. I really believe in myself. And I feel like you guys can too. It's beautiful to be. At this side of the rainbow, I know that when it's cloud and dark and you're not feeling good about yourself and you're struggling with imposter syndrome, it can feel hopeless, but it will get better.

You will get through those hard times and you will be here. Shining bright with me. Yes, you're you shine so bright and super proud of you. And thanks for giving encouragement to the listeners. [00:31:00] And I like the tips that you gave of surrounding yourself with supportive people seeking that out, right?

Let's not keep ourselves. Why are we going to give ourselves that type of Poor treatment and abuse of , I'll just let these people treat me badly and just stay around them and believe them like, Oh yeah, you're right. I suck. No. Forget those. Yeah. Forget those people. Sometimes we can't get away from them immediately, but we can mentally, mentally get away from that kind of talk and energy and go seek out the people that Are supportive that are high vibe that are pouring into us in the ways that are healthy, right?

Obviously, we should be loving each other, encouraging each other, supporting each other. And we all struggle with imposter syndrome. Some people might not admit it, but there's always going to be moments where we feel like. We're [00:32:00] unsure and we're not as confident or we make a mistake and in those moments, especially that's where it's so important for us to recognize , what do we do when we're feeling that way?

Well, let's get some encouragement. Let's be compassionate with ourselves. Let's go seek out that encouragement from other people. Look for a mentor. Like you said, I think that's super valuable because there are times where we don't. Have all the answers and it takes time, no one just master something and becomes an expert overnight that all takes time.

But even when we're a little more new or even while we're interns, there's so many ways that we can help patients and help the people around us and make a difference. But obviously we can only do that if we are showing up. And we're, we keep showing up to the job and we just do the best that we can.

But if we're feeling really [00:33:00] insecure about that and we quit prematurely, or we don't trust ourselves and believe in ourselves, then we can't show up for our patients. So I love the tips you gave seeking a mentor, working on your own beliefs and mindset. And surrounding yourself with people who are going to have your back and be supportive.

That makes a really big difference. Absolutely. All right, Janelle, so my last question before we go is how do you stay high vibe? What are some of the self care routines, practices, resources, tools, etc. that keep you high vibe? Okay. First of all, I love the phrase high vibe. Second of all things that I do, I'm spiritual, so I like [00:34:00] to say my belief in Jesus.

Number two, I love to read. I love science fiction. I'm a comic book nerd. Please. I love superheroes. Okay, I'm a nerd and I own it. I love world building. I love a good D& D game. Movies, eating, traveling. Going to Disney, just any of that stuff, that just keeps me Rejuvenized and then of course, you know I'll do my little girly things with my facial mask, but I am NOT consistent with that I am a doer or a reader it's either A or B. Those are great. I love that. Hey, I love that you do, you know exactly what keeps you high vibe and sounds fun to me. Love reading and Fantasy and [00:35:00] awesome. All right. All right. So how can our listeners work with you? What are you currently up to? And where can they find you?

What's your ideal client and where can listeners find you if they want to work with you? Okay, so I work. So I specialize with on eating disorders, trauma and chronic health conditions. Right now I'm focused on serving populations. 18 years old and up. I do have a website. It's www.

coolskiescounseling. com That has my information. I am mostly virtual, but I am subleasing once a week on Wednesdays the address is also on the website I have an instagram which is also cool skies counseling, which you could also find and follow me there And on my [00:36:00] website is where you'll see more of my updated stuff.

I try my best to keep it updated, but try to reach out to me if you would like to get in touch and find out more. Awesome. Thank you so much for joining today. That was a great conversation. I love your business name, Cool Skies Counseling, and it's so perfect. It totally embodies your energy. You're super cool.

And I think you also bring like that. calming presence to people and that joy. And so anyone would be super lucky to have you as a therapist and you picked like the perfect business name. So thank you so much, Janelle, for being on the podcast today and everyone go give her a follow.[00:37:00]