Speaker 0: 0:10

G'day everybody. My name is Elliot Waters and you're listening to the Dysregulator podcast. As always, thank you for tuning in Alright time for a brand new segment. I don't know about you guys, but I'm very excited. It's the Q&A sessions. So you might be asking what is or what are the Q&A sessions? Well, they are episodes where I answer your questions.

Speaker 0: 0:36

So the deal is, I need you guys to write in to me, whether that be on Instagram, whether that be on Facebook or wherever else you're connected with me through the show. If you want to write in some questions that you'd like me to answer anything really about the very broad topic of mental health, send them in and I will do my best to answer them to my full capacity. Now, it has to be said, I am a self-proclaimed lived experience expert, especially for my own lived experience. I am a honours degree graduate in psychology. I am a psychology researcher, advocate, speaker, but, most importantly, I live with this stuff every single day and psychology and mental health certainly is one of my autistic fixations. So therefore, I do a lot of reading and research on these topics of reading and research on these topics. But so far the podcast has been very much about me, I guess, pushing information onto you, the listener, whereas now I want you guys to be pulling the information from me to you guys, and the way to do that is for me to answer your questions, which will be very, very exciting Because, again, it broadens the scope of the show, which is what I'm all about trying to encompass as many facets and details of mental ill health that I can so I can educate as many people as possible, Because a big part of improving mental health outcomes in the community at large and I'm not saying my podcast is the only way to do that, but I'd like to think this is playing a small little role but the best way to do that is to have people educated and knowledgeable about mental ill health.

Speaker 0: 2:39

That way you, the listener, you the educated person, can help yourself if needed or help those around you where it's needed as much as you can and come from a foundation of knowledge. That's the key, because that's where it all begins, because, as I've said before on the show, and I'll say it again, it's very hard to come up against something when you don't even know what that something is. So a big part of this podcast is demystifying, I suppose, what these mental illnesses are and how they present themselves and offer ways in which to get help as well. So I'm not a doctor, I'm not a clinical psychologist, but I've been through many of them and I've learned a thing or two along the way. And I have done my own formal and informal studies as well, and I'm more than willing to answer your questions. They can be about anything.

Speaker 0: 3:32

Really, the scope of this is as broad as you'd like it to be, whether it be psychology itself and therapies, whether it be medications and other treatment plans, whether it's mental health theories or psychological theories you name it. Basically, I'll give it a crack and we'll see what we come up with. Also, there will be times, I'd say, because I want to keep these Q&A sessions reasonably succinct. I suppose I want to get to the point, which isn't always something I do very well, but I do want to sort of get to the point with my answers. But there will be times when some of these questions deserve to be fleshed out a little bit more in maybe their own standalone episodes, and I'll say that during the episodes on the Q&A sessions, as it happens, because I've had a few questions sent in already which themselves deserve a lot of time devoted to them.

Speaker 0: 4:34

So really, the Q&A sessions is more of a free-flowing. You know, chuck a few questions at me, I'll do. You know, it's not about me sitting down doing a heap of research. I sort of want to answer these questions from the knowledge point that I have at the moment. By all means, I'll do a little bit of background work don't get me wrong but at the same time I want this to be more laid back, you know, less formal and more just having a bit of a discussion around the different points that you may feel is important that maybe I haven't touched on or you would like me to touch on again. And if it is a topic that deserves a little bit more investigation, by all means I'll give it a go, answering as far as my knowledge on the topic goes at this point. But then I will go back later, do some more research and then produce a bigger episode which is devoted to that question. But I'll let you know if that's going to happen during the Q&A sessions episodes. So, like I said, I want you know this podcast has very much been about me giving you information and driving the information to you that I think is important. But I want this show to be as engaging as possible, and I think one way to do that is to actually canvas your opinions and find out from you guys you know who are the most important, because you're the listeners what it is you would like me to talk about, and it can be about me and my own lived experience.

Speaker 0: 6:07

For sure, if you've got more questions about how I deal with mental illness day to day, that's more than fair enough and I'm more than happy to go through that as well. There isn't really a topic that's off topic. You know what I mean. It can be very loosely related to mental health, I don't care. It's very much a case of, as we know that, I'm an open book. There's no real secrets here. So if you've got questions for me personally but you're wondering, oh, I wonder if that goes a little bit too deep Don't worry, there's no such thing in my book, unless, of course, it implicates other people then I've got to be careful. But as far as it goes, when it goes to me and myself personally and my story, I'm more than happy to answer questions on that as honestly and genuinely as I can, because that's what the show is all about.

Speaker 0: 7:03

I make the claim often that there is no podcast on the internet that goes deeper into the mental ill health or mental health in general world than this one does, and I'm committed to that, and in doing so, I think this episode series, the Q&A sessions, will be a great way to go even further into the depths of this world and the co out. You know you've got to dive, sometimes down into the places you don't want to go, because that's where the answers are, that's where the wisdom is, and I'm more than happy to take that dive for you guys to see what I come up with, and then we can have a discussion about that as well and see if we can demystify like I said before, demystify mental health a little bit more and in doing so, increase that mental health literacy that is so important for ourselves, but also the people around us, that we are going to obviously have to help at some point with this, because mental health is such a big issue in the community. I haven't really met anyone that's got away scot-free, so I think this is stuff that's going to be beneficial to a lot of people. Hopefully, and the exciting part is, it's going to be driven by you. These are your questions. They're not my questions. These are your questions, your topics, the areas in which you believe need to be investigated further, and I'm going to do that for you. So there you go, the Q&A sessions, very excited to bring you the first proper episode shortly.

Speaker 0: 8:40

Upload a new episode weekly and I'm going to try and upload them weekly on a Friday, australian Eastern Standard Time. That's the goal every Friday. But of course, as is the case with most things that I do, unfortunately we have to be careful about my own mental health and if I'm in a capacity to do those weekly episodes, hopefully I'll be able to and I'm really going to devote myself to being able to do that every Friday. But, as we know, my mental ill health is an evolving story and there are weeks sometimes where I'm incapable of doing just about anything. But I want to reiterate, it is my solid plan that I am committed to, which is trying to upload a new episode of the Q&A sessions every week.

Speaker 0: 9:34

So please, please, get your questions in. As I said, you can do so on Facebook or Instagram. So on Instagram, at elliotttwaters facebook, by searching for the dysregulated podcast, and you'll find the page on there, and also you can send a message through the podcast itself. So if you go into the bio section of each episode, there is a link there that says send me a message. You are more than welcome to send me a question in that fashion as well. So whatever way that you can get across to me the question that you'd like answered, please send it in. I can't guarantee that it'll be answered that week, that it's been sent in, because there might be a bit of a backlog or maybe.

Speaker 0: 10:19

I do feel as though I need to do a little bit of background information, a bit of research info, to be able to answer the question adequately, because I don't want to half-ask these things. These questions are extremely important so, as a result, I want to do them justice. And also, if the question is something that requires maybe a little bit more of an in-depth look, I'm very much open to doing a complete episode devoted to it, just to see if we can get to the bottom of things and get some clarity around a topic, which is mental health, that often doesn't have much clarity about it at all. But that's what we're going to do demystify these things, get some clarity, build some education around it all. It's going to be great for me too, because I'm going to learn a lot too. So I'm very excited.

Speaker 0: 11:09

So please join me on the Q&A sessions. Get your questions in Every Friday. The plan is I'm going to answer a new set of questions and I'm very excited because now the content isn't just being driven by me and pushed onto you. It is very much you guys asking for the content that you would like to hear, and then I'm going to do my best to answer adequately. So very exciting stuff, all right. Thank you for listening everybody. I can't wait for the first episode of the Q&A sessions. It's coming very soon. So, as I said, you can follow me on Instagram at elliotttwaters, and you can follow the show on Facebook at the Dysregulated Podcast, and send your questions in, and I'll do my best to answer them in a way that they deserve All right. Thanks, everybody. I'll talk to you soon. See you later. Goodbye.