Voices for Voices®

You are Not Alone: Sharing Experiences of Struggle | Episode 195

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 4 • Episode 195

Share episode

The Faces Behind the Voice | Episode 195

MERCHANDISE SHOP: voices-for-voices.org/3QnokLU
SUPPORT VOICES FOR VOICES®:
https://www.voicesforvoices.org/shop/p/supporter

In this episode, the spotlight is on mental health, stigma, and the power of shared experiences. Justin Alan Hayes, the Founder and Executive Director of Voices for Voices®, takes us on a personal journey through his struggles with mental health, medication, and the stigma that often clouds these critical conversations. We explore the significance of sharing our stories, revealing that vulnerability can lead to connection and healing.

As Justin reflects on his own experiences, he opens up about his initial resistance to medication and how it has positively impacted his life, offering a relatable perspective for many listeners. The discussion shines a light on the societal expectations surrounding mental health and emphasizes the powerful message that “you are not alone.”

Additionally, we tackle the pressing issue of how big tech influences mental health discussions, including the cutting-off of vital conversations that help many feel seen and understood. Through Justin's advocacy and outreach efforts, we highlight the importance of engaging with government officials to push for necessary changes in mental health resources and support.

Join us in this candid conversation as we seek to create a community where mental health discussions are normalized and stigma is gradually diminished. Together, we can pave the way for understanding, connection, and healing. Subscribe, share your thoughts, and be part of the movement to support mental health awareness!

This podcast episode delves into the critical discussion about mental health and the stigma that often surrounds it. We speak with Justin Alan Hayes, who shares his personal journey and the mission of Voices for Voices® as they advocate for mental health awareness.

- Justin’s experience with mental health and medications
- The importance of breaking down mental health stigma
- Personal reflections on the impact of sharing individual experiences
- The influence of big tech on mental health discussions
- Engagement with government officials advocating for mental health resources
- Call for community involvement and support

If you can give us a big thumbs up, like, subscribe, share, check out our merch shop at voicesforvoices.org

Join us by subscribing!
—

-Support Voices for Voices®: https://venmo.com/u/voicesforvoices or at https://www.voicesforvoices.org/shop/p/supporter
- Learn more about Voices for Voices®: linktr.ee/Voicesforvoices

#notalone #mentalhealth #mentalhealthmatters #sharingishealing #selflove #selfcare #mentalwellness #mentalhealthadvocacy #communitymatters #mentalhealthcommunity #mentalhealthsupport #struggle #strugglingbutstrong #mentalhealthjourney #mentalhealthrecovery #mentalhealthawareness #italy #vaticancity #popefrancis #jubilee2025 #Newepisode #newpodcastalert #podcastseries #podcastcommunity #voicesforvoicespodcast #donatetoday #501c3 #charityorganization #Podcast #donatetoday #nonprofitorganization #help3billionpeople #help3billion #selfimprovement  #motivation #joerogan #motivationalvideo 

Support the show

Justin Alan Hayes:

Voices TV show and podcast. I am your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, justin Allen Hayes. Thank you for your love and support and joining us. If you can give us a big thumbs up like subscribe, share. We have a big goal of wanting to help 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond, and I think big, and we we start going through those towards those goals and we started at the beginning of the organization coming about really marching towards that. Where we can, where there's opportunities to share, we share. Where there's opportunities to have conversations and share feedback, we do that. So, thank you. Thank you for joining us. If this is your first episode, we have over 190 episodes in our catalog. We're on YouTube, rumble and all the audio podcast platforms Spotify, apple Podcasts, you name it, we're on it. There's something for everybody.

Justin Alan Hayes:

So I guess one thing I just wanted to address I just realized that, which it's interesting as, as somebody who spends a lot of time in front of the camera cameras, really, you know, depending on where, where we're at, you know looking at our appearance and you know what we wear and and all those things. So, first things first is yeah, I got some pretty wild hair. Uh, and I had my uh, I had one of my checkups today with my therapist, uh, and we talked and we chatted and kind of joked about it and I said, you know, cuz I'm 40, 43 years old, and and so I I said, yeah, is that really? The only thing that's different between how my hair is now and how it was back in the day is I had the frosted tips on the hair back in the day, you know in the 90s and such, and so I just kind of chuckled about that and then I said, well, I guess and I said well, I guess, since I do have gray hair coming in on the sides and various parts, I said well, those frosted tips could be, instead of the blonde frost tips, it could be the gray frosted tips, because obviously, going on and gaining with years, that's something. And I don't color my hair, at least I haven't. I have over the years at certain points, but it's been quite a long time since I did that. So kind of what you see is what you get. So that's kind of the first thing.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And the second thing I noticed is I kind of got the In the Trenches t-shirt on and I like to again just come to you in the raw form, the raw sense that many times we are wearing our Voices for Voices branded clothing accessories. But for a couple of these episodes that we have done kind of, we have content that comes to us at different parts of the day. So sometimes in the morning, some content comes to me and I want to make sure that I share because, as my mind is, if I don't have it written down I'm probably gonna forget about it. It doesn't mean it's not important, but I'll probably forget about it if I don't write it down or I don't do it right at that point. And so I say different parts of the day. You, you know, we're wearing different outfits and clothing and I saw, you know, just the white under t-shirt, undershirt, and it actually reminds me of my grandpa greenhouse on my. So my mom's dad and I have very fond memories of all my grandparents and and that the one thing I remember it kind of comes out is many times that I would, I would see him at at their house, he would have a white t-shirt but then he would actually have suspenders on and, uh, you know, pair of pants, and so that I guess I'm throwing, uh, throwing a shout out to heaven, my grandpa, greenhouse, my mom's dad, and so, yeah, I got just the white T-shirt on and that's how it is. That's where we're coming from at this point in time.

Justin Alan Hayes:

So we talk about stigma and mental health and we talk about medications, and if we get to the point where certain medications are not being offered as they had been because of some type of government intervention we talked about, that would be a form of a stigma of saying nope, nope, we know better and you should not be taking this medication, that it does more harm than good, harmed and good. And I talked about my individual experience and how we me as an individual and us Voices for Voices as an organization that, at the time comes, we were more than happy to come to Capitol Hill, chat with the representatives, senators, cabinet members, rfk, president Trump and just share our experience. So we're not saying that we're right, but what I am saying is the position I'm in because of medications tied to my mental health, mental illnesses that I have, that I wouldn't be I don't want to say 100% I may not be here, I may not have been here to film this episode If, in November 2017, if medications weren't prescribed based off of my diagnoses and how my body was adjusting the ideas about the medication that's given to each individual as they have their visits, and so somebody else might go to a visit and say I'm not taking any medication. Well, I'll tell you what, before and leading into 2017, I had in my mind I'm like I am not no way, no, how taking mental health or any type of medication, because it was going to impact my drinking and substances. You know, alcohol my eyes were talking because I was doing research and right. So certain things just don't mix, and alcohol and other substances don't really mix well with certain medications and and so that's what I was reading into I'm like, whoa, that's not gonna be me, I'm not medication, and so that was one of those hardheaded things that I was coming in defense of that. Well, that's not going to be me.

Justin Alan Hayes:

On medication, I'm not going to be taking it the rest of my life or for a period of time. Nope, but when I swallowed my pride, which is my ego, which is super hard, some of you may think I still have an ego, and that's that's your opinion, and there's members of my family that think I do as well. So you know we're not perfect. Try the best we can, but I'm in a much better place today as we're filming this. So, whether you're watching or listening or reading a transcript or a blog, the medication really, for me, has helped.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And so we're talking about forms of stigma. So there's that stigma of we're going to tell you what you can take and can't take or what's going to be made available. Maybe for schizophrenia there are medications that are available, but for depression there might not be, or anxiety, and those are the types of things and, in a way, a little bit of discrimination comes into play there. But no, I mean we're 100% on board with the US government. We want everybody in the administration, we want our country to succeed, we want we are patriotic, and so this is just an area of conversation that if we're able to have with members of the government and the cabinet of the Trump administration or President Trump himself, more than happy to do that, because we do have a pretty good following, a lot of downloads, and we're not just again one concentrated area downloads, and we're not just again in one concentrated area, we're worldwide, as you see some of our hashtags that come out Worldwide. Well, we are, I'd say, when you're reaching, we're probably reaching even more than that. This is just with the analytics that are available and the cookies that we're able to get and that we're able to find over 50 countries, 550 plus cities across the world. So that's why I throw out the meeting with government officials that we love to have a conversation, testify in front of a congressional body as we see different investigations that go on, and so we'd like to just have that opportunity to share our experience and again share our experience and and again share our voice, and and that that's where that comes from. So, as we move forward on the on the stigma. So I'm let's see, may see, may not see.

Justin Alan Hayes:

So this was a post that we we put out, called uh, says uh, there's uh, nine, nine different uh headshots of me at various times, and says the faces of depression. And so we put that out. And big tech doesn't like that because, I don't know, they just don't like that. They don't like certain things just as us like that. They don't like certain things, just as us as individuals, we don't like certain things, excuse me. And I believe the stigma is there in this respect because certain content of ours has been moved and not made available to certain countries and territories for that particular post. And so I started thinking I'm like, well, that's, that's really just continuing the stigma, mental health depression, specifically because, for whatever reason, some a big tech doesn't want to show that, they don't want to have that shown to some of their, some of their users, and so that's, that's a stigma. So that makes me feel worse about the situation.

Justin Alan Hayes:

Here I am trying to share information that's like okay, you or individuals may see Voices for Voices that we're doing a ton of different things and it looks like, oh, they're doing so many things, so much content and so many shows and episodes and all these things. Well, behind uh, let's say behind the uh, you know the face, we might have a smiley face and we're we're carrying that around, but behind it it's not always, you know the uh, not always the most happy faces when individuals like myself to have depression. So I wanted to share that because I wanted to hopefully touch one person, so they know they're not alone, that somebody else is going through and dealing with this. And so, yeah, I'm dealing with day in and day out. And there's also a reason to share that because a lot of people think that, oh, I'm cured, I'm healed from my mental illnesses and I'm using it as a crutch and I don't want to get better.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And again, it's tough when it comes from people really close family and that Because we don't want to say, well, you don't understand, that's part of it. We don't want to say, well, no, you don't understand, that's part of it. I mean, I've been in the wrong a lot of times so I'm no, nobody to judge, but I'm not using any of this as a as a as a crutch. I've put tens of thousands of dollars of my own money into this organization and so that's what you see, that's what you hear when you hear and see voices for voices, and you see our TV show and podcast, you hear our podcast, see us at CSN events out in the community.

Justin Alan Hayes:

So if I was using it as a crutch, if I was using it as a crutch and I wasn't trying to get better, then I wouldn't be all in myself and I don't have unlimited money and it's really just tough to get that point across. So that stigma is still out there and showing those nine faces of mine and saying faces of depression, and so for big tech or anybody to censor that I I don't know I don't agree with, because it's true, I do have depression and they were my faces, they were not altered by any, any inkling, and so that that really bothers me. And it bothers me because there are individuals in areas where it's censored that may have a little bit of inspiration again that they're not alone. That back in 2017, when I was sitting around that table for the first time after voluntarily admitting myself into the psych ward and I saw other individuals, we all didn't have the exact same reason for why we were there, but I shared why I was there and they shared why they were there. And to this day, I look back at that time and say I'm not alone and I'm saying to you you're not alone, whatever the situation. Your friends aren't alone, your family aren't alone, your colleagues, anybody who's going through something is not alone. We're all going through something is not alone. We're all going through something. We are, and it's not just a cliche, it's not just a fad, but we are. We're all going through different things. We're all going through different forms of trauma, and I'll get into some areas of trauma in future, episodes that I haven't quite explained a lot, and it's interesting because I remember talking to one of my therapists and this was before we really earnestly got into the TV show and podcast here.

Justin Alan Hayes:

I asked them. I said I'm fearful that I'm going to run out of things to do, like that, I do an episode and then I'm not going to have a thought for a next one, I'm not going to have a thought of a guess or an idea of how we can partner with organizations and how we can really, you know, take what we're doing and take what other organizations are doing and to continue towards that goal of helping 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond, and said he's like justin, you're not gonna have to worry about that. He's like you got. You got plenty of ideas and you're not gonna run out. And here I am again since november 2017 and I haven't run out of ideas yet. And so it was a little bit of an unsureness and a little bit of a joking turned into this reality, and I'm grateful that I don't have that I'm not coming up dry with ideas and our organization isn't, because then that puts me and anybody else in a very vulnerable position.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And as I use our Voices for Voices TV show and podcast, voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I use it as therapy and a way of coping and a way of sharing, much as if I'm journaling and I write down a thought or an idea to get it out of here, out of my mind, for the moment. And so that's one of the great things that's come from this endeavor is not just the sharing and not reaching all the countries and all the cities, but the fact that this, right here, is raw. You see me in the white t-shirt or you'll hear me if you're on the podcast on the audio side. We come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes I'm going to be dressed up, sometimes I'm going to have Voices for Voices logo, clothing, textiles, accessories on. Sometimes I'm not. Sometimes we're going to film at night, sometimes we're going to film in the morning, sometimes we're going to film in the middle of the day.

Justin Alan Hayes:

But I think this is one of the blessings that I may have been taken for granted, and that's the show and what it's doing. And this doesn't mean to be narcissistic and saying I'm better than anybody it's not but if somebody has a show and is a host and they don't feel that they're helping others but then also helping themselves. Then it becomes burnout and then it just becomes well, I need to check off that box. I gotta check that off that box. We do that. They all do that from time to time. I do that from time to time, but majority is not that it's. I got this thought. I got this anniversary that's coming up. Just amazing where time goes. I look down and we're at like 20, 24 minutes. So, yeah, the stigma stigma is still their mental health. So you're gonna continue at various points of our show and our social media posts and TikToks and all the different media. You're going to hear us continue to talk and share about that because there's still the stigma. It's still there and big tech is still censoring. It's unfortunate, but they are and so I am going through depression.

Justin Alan Hayes:

I am Justin Allen Hayes. I am the founder and executive director of Voices for Voices and I hope to be an inspiration to you or just somebody you know you can do it. Whatever, that is no short of bankrupting and doing things illegal. We're going to share and talk about content and we're going share and talk about content and we're gonna share that with you. Yeah, we're gonna hit 300 episodes by the end of 2025 and it just blows my mind to think that we're gonna do that, that, think that we're on the way to 300. So one of the hopes is the big tech doesn't censor.

Justin Alan Hayes:

So when somebody like myself or you is sharing in the hopes of inspiring, letting people know, hey, you're not alone, that maybe we'll get to a day where we're able to not have those things censored. So that's pretty deep content things we're talking about, and so some things you may see on the surface that we'll talk about. And then sometimes we're going to really dig into deep and and that's that's what this episode is really about. It's again just being transparent and we'll go down maybe a little rabbit hole, but then we'll come back to, you know, the main topic of the show, the particular show that, the episode that we're filming. Yeah, and really you're not alone. Whether you've been diagnosed or not, it's beside the fact, we're all going through something, we all have gone through things, and I'll just leave that there. So, again, thank you for joining us.

Justin Alan Hayes:

If you can give us a big thumbs up, if you can subscribe, like share, check out our merch shop, vovoicesorg. Go up to what you do or what we do, and then you'll see shop. You click on shop and it'll take you. We have so many great articles, from notebooks to sweatpants, to long-sleeved shirts, to short-sleeved shirts, to hoodies, to stickers. Yeah, check that out if you're able to and if you're able to donate. You can find us on Venmo at Voices for Voices as well, as you can head to Voices for Voicesorg and right there, the kind of top middle of the homepage, you'll see an icon saying you can support us in the show Because there is infrastructure, is software there is, there are cameras, there are editings that that we do have to to go through.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And I'll just say dan bongino, one of the biggest uh people in in the podcasting space, who's joining the Trump administration, he's again one of the biggest podcasters and he talks about the infrastructure he has. Well, we have infrastructure as well. Anybody who has any type of show there's some type of infrastructure, from the camera to the microphones, to the editing, to what's going to be the cover of that particular episode, what's the description, uh, what are the hash? You know the hashtags, what are the keywords? All those things have to happen. So, whenever we can, we we like to use a little bit of help, maybe a little bit of AI here and there, but it's all raw. So until next time, please be a voice for you or somebody in need.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Justin Alan Hayes

Host