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Mental health readiness is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of college preparation. While academic credentials and test scores dominate the conversation, students are rarely assessed for their emotional resilience and social readiness – the very skills that often determine their success.

Our conversation with Joanna Lilley, a therapeutic consultant who works exclusively with college-aged young adults, reveals a troubling pattern. Many students who excel academically find themselves overwhelmed by college life, sometimes withdrawing after just days or weeks. The culprit? A lack of preparation for the independence, social navigation, and emotional regulation college demands.

Parents play a crucial role in this readiness equation. The "helicopter" or "lawnmower" parenting styles that clear all obstacles from a child's path inadvertently prevent them from developing resilience. When these students face inevitable college challenges without their parents' intervention, they often crumble under pressure they've never learned to manage.

The COVID pandemic has exacerbated these issues, creating significant developmental gaps for students who spent their formative middle school years in isolation. Today's college freshmen missed critical opportunities to develop social skills during lockdowns, making campus life particularly challenging.

Perhaps most concerning is the over-medication of young adults. Many high-achieving students are prescribed multiple psychiatric medications to help them cope with academic pressure, creating additional risks when they mix medications with alcohol or discontinue them without supervision in college environments.

What determines success isn't academic capability but rather having experienced adversity and developed coping strategies. Students need balance, social skills, and the self-awareness to recognize when they need help. For many, taking a gap year might be the wisest decision, allowing time to develop emotional maturity before attempting college.

Ready to reassess what college readiness truly means? Listen now to understand how you can support genuine preparation that encompasses the whole person – not just their transcript.

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The AI therapy revolution promises accessible mental healthcare at your fingertips, but is this technological quick fix actually gaslighting us all? In this revealing exploration, we test ChatGPT's capabilities as a Freudian therapist and uncover both the appeal and the deeply concerning limitations of algorithm-based mental health support.

When we prompted ChatGPT to analyze feelings of loneliness and depression, it responded with surprisingly eloquent and validating language—far more sophisticated than many human therapists might use. This linguistic prowess creates what we call "the illusion of support," a façade of understanding that feels meaningful but lacks the genuine human connection that forms the foundation of effective therapy. While AI can parse your words and reflect them back with added flourishes, it cannot truly feel your pain or engage in the messy, uncomfortable work that real therapeutic relationships often require.

The most troubling aspect of AI therapy tools is how perfectly they align with our cultural obsession with convenient solutions to inconvenient problems. Just as we've been conditioned to expect immediate relief from psychiatric medications, ChatGPT offers instant answers to psychological questions that have developed over decades of lived experience. Even more alarming is how easily AI validates potentially harmful self-diagnoses—when prompted with questions like "Do I have autism?" or "Do I have depression?", ChatGPT typically responds affirmatively with symptoms that could apply to almost anyone.

Rather than viewing AI as either a replacement or a harmless tool, we believe this technology should serve as a wake-up call for therapists to emphasize what algorithms cannot provide: deep, relationship-based healing that transcends standardized interventions and worksheet therapy. The therapeutic alliance—not techniques or eloquent language—is what creates lasting change. As mental health consumers, we must recognize that true healing rarely comes from frictionless interventions but emerges from the challenging work of authentic human connection.

Subscribe, rate, and share your thoughts on this episode. Send us your gaslit truth stories at thegaslittruthpodcast@gmail.com and join us in pushing back against the technological quick fixes that promise solutions but may be creating more problems.

Support the show

Are you tired of being gaslit and want to DEEP THROAT some more truth? We want to hear from you! Message us your gaslit stories at thegaslittruthpodcast@gmail.com

While you are at it, Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube @thegaslittruthpodcast.
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What happens when a decorated psychiatric nurse discovers the medications he's been administering for years might be causing more harm than good? David Wayne's world turned upside down in 2017—ironically the same year he won his hospital's Excellence in Nursing Leadership Award—when he read Robert Whitaker's "Anatomy of an Epidemic" and could no longer ignore the troubling evidence about psychiatric medications.

David takes us behind the scenes of hospital psychiatry, revealing how he attempted to create honest educational materials about Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) only to have them rejected because, as his medical director reportedly said, they would "make it too hard to get people on these medications." This stunning admission exposes the prioritization of medication compliance over true informed consent that permeates our mental health system.

The conversation ventures into territory rarely discussed in mainstream mental health circles—how SSRIs not only cause sexual dysfunction but emotional numbing that disconnects people from joy, grief, and intimate relationships. David shares stories of patients who've lost their ability to feel connected to loved ones and even their own life experiences, creating a profound existential harm that goes unacknowledged in medication risk assessments.

Most compelling is David's exploration of metabolic approaches to mental health, including how nutritional interventions have consistently improved both physical and mental health outcomes in ways medication never could. He challenges the simplistic "chemical imbalance" narrative with a more holistic understanding of mental health that encompasses sleep, movement, nutrition, human connection, and purpose—elements systematically overlooked in our quick-fix pharmaceutical culture.

Whether you're a mental health professional questioning conventional practice, someone struggling with medication side effects, or simply curious about alternative approaches to emotional wellbeing, this episode offers a courageous insider's perspective that might just change how you think about psychiatric care. Ready to take back control of your mental health? Listen now and join the growing movement for greater transparency and truly informed consent in psychiatric treatment.

Support the show

Are you tired of being gaslit and want to DEEP THROAT some more truth? We want to hear from you! Message us your gaslit stories at thegaslittruthpodcast@gmail.com

While you are at it, Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube @thegaslittruthpodcast.
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Thanks for listening!

Follow Us individually at

Dr. Teralyn:

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Therapist Jenn:

• Instagram @TherapistJen
• TikTok @Jenn.Schmitz