Katie Villanueva, Senior Salesforce Administrator, is joining us again today! We started our conversation on mental health in the workplace last week and, in this episode, we’ll finish it up.

Katie has a long history with mental health and illness. She has grown and learned a lot over the years and she now supports others through a mental health and illness forum. Tune in to learn how to handle mental health in the workplace, how you can help others with mental illnesses and improve your own mental health, and all about the forum Katie created.

Show Highlights:

• Katie’s “CRM” mindset.
• The stigma around mental health in our society, especially in the tech industry.
• Why respect for ourselves and others is so crucial.
• What mindfulness is.
• How Katie structures her routine to improve her mental health.
• The origin story of her community forum.

Links:

• Katie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Catptains_Log
• Katie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-villanueva-36138914a/
• Mental Health and Illness Group: https://sfdc.co/tb-mental-health-illness

Episode Transcript

Katie Villanueva:
I mean, it doesn’t happen too much at work because my work is pretty steady. I enjoy being behind the scenes. Everyone laughs at me because I don’t like talking to people outside of my team.

Josh Birk:
That is Katie Villanueva, Senior Salesforce Administrator. There she is picking up exactly where we left off last week, talking about dealing with mental health in the workplace. I’m Josh Birk, your host of the Salesforce Developer Podcast. And here on the podcast you’ll hear stories and insights from developers for developers.
Today we continue our conversation with Katie, talking about how to handle mental health in the workplace and in life. We’re going to get to some of the good things today, some of the things that you can do to help, and also about the forum that she helped create. So without any further ado, back to Katie.
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
There’s a joke of why was I ever on sales in the first place?

Josh Birk:
And you’re on radio.

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah. Well, nobody talks back when you’re on radio, so it’s great.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha. Fair. Yeah. You’re in complete control. True, true.

Katie Villanueva:
Exactly. Which I love presenting. I absolutely love it for exactly that same reason. It’s like I get to talk about something that means a lot to me and nobody talks back.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
During the Q&A I’m melting on the inside. I’m good up until that point.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha, gotcha.

Katie Villanueva:
I would say the most challenging as far as work concerns or anything is just this year with going around to these dreaming events. And like I said, getting on airplanes, leaving my house, traveling, speaking to strangers, being, like I said, not in my home. I do have a problem leaving my house. I have a problem. I depend so much on my routine.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
I have set up a routine that doesn’t give me additional stimulus that I’m not used to, that I have to interpret, that I have to somehow learn how to handle.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha.

Katie Villanueva:
And it’s good and it’s healthy and it’s a great way to manage stuff, but it’s become somewhat of a detriment and has working against me. So when I leave that routine-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
I’m apt to all kinds of triggers.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha.

Katie Villanueva:
But with these events and stuff, I’ve been opening up to my network, to the people that I travel with because I have friends that know that I don’t travel well. So they go with me, we book our flights together, we got our hotels, they get me on the plane, they get me off the plane. I don’t have to make decisions, which is the best thing you can do for somebody who is having a meltdown is just-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Don’t make them have to think and choose and stuff.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
Just get them where they need to go.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
But opening up to people and friends and saying, “Hey, I’m not going to be able to handle this.”

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Or, “I’m going to struggle.” Or, “This is going to be an issue.” They help you through it. And I think to answer your question, long-windedly, I mean, I think in my talk, I say courage is something you have to have to manage it.

Josh Birk:
Right. And that’s where I was going to go next. Walk me through your CRM.

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah, CRM, courage, respect, and mindfulness are ways that I manage relationships. And what better tool to manage relationships than with a CRM? Right?

Josh Birk:
I love it. Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
So courage, it stands for multiple things. I mean, I think to speak up and be vulnerable is incredibly embarrassing. I still experience embarrassment when I speak up, especially when no one’s asking me how I’m feeling. And I’m like, just so you know.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
And that is something to put on somebody else. That is a weight.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
And especially if they’re not asking for it. And sometimes I have to sidestep myself and just be like, I have to do this for me.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
And most people, especially people who have come to know, don’t mind.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
But yeah. So just speaking up and saying, “Hey, I’m not okay and this is how I feel.” And especially being bipolar, having really multiple complex feelings at any one time over-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Any one thing that is insignificant or significant, it’s just hard to weed through. So speaking up and saying what’s going on is helpful to me because I say when I’m left alone with my feelings, I tend to spiral.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
And I think that can go for anybody. But then also courage means that owning I am who I am. A lot of times people see me react in ways that is unexpected, maybe in poor taste, but it’s kind of like I’m constantly having knee jerk reactions. Either I’m overly excited and this is the greatest thing that ever happened in a split second or-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
I’m full of disgust and I think whatever it is is really stupid and I’m angry about it.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
Or I’ll just spiral into an anxiety thing.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Or I’ll just feel really badly about myself and then do the sad route.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
And it all happens pretty quickly, so I don’t have a sense of privacy. I feel like everybody can see what I’m feeling and what I’m thinking.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
And sometimes my response is taken away from me. My actual, let me think through this and this is how we’ll approach this response, is taken away by myself. And people just see this surface level knee jerk reaction in any direction. And then I hadn’t really had a chance to understand how I truly feel about something, but that’s how they’re already taking it.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha.

Katie Villanueva:
So you got to have courage and just be like, “You know what?” I can’t change it.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
And if they see, they see. I’ll get back to them on what it really means to be… I don’t know.

Josh Birk:
Well, and it gets back to that cultural aspect. It gets back to, and the stigma. If you had a broken leg, you would talk about a broken leg. If you were blind and whatnot, you would make sure people know you’re blind. I sat differently with somebody at a dinner recently because they’re deaf in one ear. But we have this, we’re not supposed to talk about these things. But if we don’t… I mean really, the fact that you were able to have that talk with your management day one is so awesome because it puts that on the table, and that’s the only way a safe space can be created.

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah. Well I think part of the issue, or why there’s a stigma around it is you can have two people diagnosed with the same thing and be at different points in their journey.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
And what their interactions and even work experience… Somebody may not be ready yet for the full-on responsibility of a full-time job. There are a lot of people out there who have mental illness who can’t handle a full-time job yet.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Just because functioning is hard enough.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
And then you have folks like me who have had it for a while and got my routines, my medicines, my healthy lifestyle, and I’m just living with it. So there’s this perception that people can’t work or are disruptive. And the hard thing is they need the space and we need to support them to go through that part of their journey.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
But you don’t want to limit the people who have worked out a way to level life, if that makes sense.

Josh Birk:
Yeah, yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
And the stigma is that, like I said, you have two people with bipolar and they’re in different spots, but you don’t want to judge bipolar by any one thing. But you have different representations of it, so we need to support the people who need lifting up.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
And then you need to not stigmatize anybody for that reason but prevent anybody who’s perfectly capable of doing their job-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
From doing it.

Josh Birk:
Yeah, yeah. That’s a lot.

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah. It’s hard not to say the wrong thing.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
To be honest about it, because it’s so delicate.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
But you have to talk about it somewhere somehow. And you have to be honest with what the folks who don’t have mental illness, what they struggle with on the other side of it as well. Because only when we can bridge that gap will we be able to find whatever harmony and solutions to live with it on a normal basis and normalize the conversation.

Josh Birk:
Right. Well, and I think, are we getting to the R? Is this-

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah, sorry.

Josh Birk:
The respectfulness of it? These conversations are hard and they’re hard to navigate. But I think respect is probably the best way point. Right?

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah, absolutely. I couldn’t have said it better. That’s a great… You do have to respect not only the issue or the person, but for me in my journey and managing relationships, I had to manage my relationship with myself.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
And the R, the respect, was to… I didn’t love myself very much. Absolutely hated myself.

Josh Birk:
Oh.

Katie Villanueva:
And never satisfied with what I’d done or achieved.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
And just anyways… Yeah, so I didn’t respect myself so much so that I was inflicting self harm on myself.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha.

Katie Villanueva:
I was burning and cutting. And when you’re in self harm, a cycle of self harm, you feel an emotional release when you do harm yourself because-

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
Oh my gosh, you feel something else. You feel actual pain.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Which you feel like you’re in pain all the time but when you actually physically feel it, you’re like, “Oh hey, this is something new.”

Josh Birk:
Right, right.

Katie Villanueva:
And so it’s just crazy to say, but a change of pace for your mind. You’re feeling something that isn’t-

Josh Birk:
The other [inaudible 00:10:36].

Katie Villanueva:
Darkness.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
That you’re living in on a day to day. And then you feel guilt and then for me, I was afraid of myself. I was like, “What did I do? How far is this going to go? What is this?” And I couldn’t get away from myself.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
And I was really scared of myself. And it’s like being trapped in a room with your aggressor and you have nowhere to go. It’s crazy. And so again, you have this emotional stress that needs to be relieved. And so you do it again. And I was in the cycle for 10 years and then I finally had that breaking point where I was like, I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to be in the cycle. I don’t want to live. I don’t want to…

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
I don’t want anything anymore. I’m done. And in my moment of down-spiraling, I called somebody because I was just spiraling out of control.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
And it took that phone call to snap me out of it and to really give me a pause and think through what I was considering. And I think that’s why they have those suicide prevention lifelines and those places for people to call.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Because that’s all it took is somebody to talk to, somebody to stop and-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Help me think, to stop where I was headed. And I decided I didn’t have to love myself but I did have to start respecting myself-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
If I wanted to live. If I had to choose, either I do it and I do it, or if I’m going to live, I’m going to make my life better.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
And the first thing I need to do is start respecting myself.

Josh Birk:
Wow. Yeah, and they’ve shown for, I mean, just first of all, wow. I mean, that just, having… And I’ve even been on the other side. I’ve been the person on the other side of the crisis line. And it’s like they’ve shown what’s happening with your brain when you’re talking to somebody is that you can experience what’s traumatizing you, but you’re not re-traumatizing yourself in the process. And so it gives you this ability to have a feedback loop, like you said, to stop a cycle or change your perspective or something like that without having to jump into anxiety attack level things. Well let’s get to the last one then. What’s mindfulness for you?

Katie Villanueva:
Mindfulness is the way that I manage my life with this. It’s how I live with this. Like I say in my presentation, I have this diagnosis and I have this medicine, but I’m not magically cured.

Josh Birk:
Right. If only.

Katie Villanueva:
I wish it was that easy. Right?

Josh Birk:
Right. Right. If only.

Katie Villanueva:
Otherwise this presentation would be CR. CR, call a doctor, get your medicine at the end.

Josh Birk:
Right. Exactly. Exactly.

Katie Villanueva:
But no. So I did get into therapy and I started learning about my diagnosis and learning about… Or before therapy, I felt the world was against me and it was out to get me. And if I was going to enjoy myself, something was going to make sure that I didn’t enjoy myself any longer. I can never feel good without feeling bad.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
But I had learned through therapy that I’m just being triggered.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
And that the world’s not out to get me and that I’m just-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Reacting to it.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
So I became aware of the situations I was putting myself in, what I was doing, who I was surrounding myself with, what I was putting in my body, specifically drugs, alcohol.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Even food. I say I have a very clean, healthy diet.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Food can make you feel really crummy.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
And if you give my mind an inch, it’ll take a mile. So it’ll be like, “Oh, you feel like crap? Let’s just have a depression episode. Let’s have a full on blast and not get out of bed just because you ate a bag of chips.”

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
But no. No, it’s not that bad, but-

Josh Birk:
Right, but…

Katie Villanueva:
Why give… I don’t know.

Josh Birk:
Why feed the demon?

Katie Villanueva:
Exactly. Exactly.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
So if I have to eat an apple, then awesome. I’ll eat my apple.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
So I’m huge on how clean I eat and I exercise five days a week and I became a yoga instructor.

Josh Birk:
Oh, nice.

Katie Villanueva:
And I learned about breathing and mindfulness too, on a whole nother level and learning to let go of stuff. I learned about meditation and all that stuff. So I keep on making these choices in my life. And like I said, I set up that routine to minimize the stimulus.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Again, I have to work with ways to live without my routine, but I got myself up into this routine so that it helped a lot.

Josh Birk:
I hear you. The pandemic especially-

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah.

Josh Birk:
I felt like I got into a routine which I thought made sense, and I wasn’t even looking at how unhealthy it was because I’m like, well, the world’s on fire. As long as I’m getting through the day and getting my day done, then the routine’s clearly working. And it literally took a nervous breakdown for me to realize how poorly it wasn’t. And I just want to follow up with everything that you just said because I think there’s… One thing that just… For instance, I never thought I’d become an exercise advocate. Right? I’m the guy who always joked that the only running I ever wanted to do is run away from something dangerous. Right?

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah.

Josh Birk:
Just don’t make me sweat. It’s a horrible thing. But the science is with you. Exercise reduces your cortisol. It forces your body to work through your fight or flight instincts. It gets those hormones flushed out of your body. I’m actually, this is my next line of books that I want to read. There’s a whole line of science that basically is saying the stomach is our second brain. It’s that attached to our emotional states. And like you said, if you eat a bag of chips, it will have a physical effect on you. So I think there’s a lot of… And breathing. Breathing is how you talk to your lizard brain. All of the stuff is not just mental, oh gee, you’re going to feel better. It is physical, oh gee, you’re going to feel better. You hit all the right points. You hit all the right points. Exercise, eat better food, don’t self medicate. Self medication tears the serotonin away from the other things that are trying to do good things for you. It’s all there.

Katie Villanueva:
Well, I think what’s hard though, it seems so simple, but what’s so hard is it’s a lifestyle.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Those are lifestyle changes. It’s not something you’re like, “I’m going to try and go to the gym today.”

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
And when you’re at the end of your rope and the bottom of the barrel doing any of that stuff and leading a completely different lifestyle than maybe where you’re at now.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
It’s overwhelming.

Josh Birk:
It’s hard.

Katie Villanueva:
And how do you get there?

Josh Birk:
Yeah. And you’re well ahead from me. I’m in the reactive phase where if I know that I’m having an anxious day, I’ll go exercise. Where I should be doing what you’re doing, which is exercise to kind of help ward off the anxious days. But I’m nearly 50 years old. I’m an old dog. It’s hard to teach me new tricks, but I’m trying. I’m trying. Tell me a little bit, I want to get it back to and end on the community forum. What’s the origin story there? When did you decide we need this in the community?

Katie Villanueva:
Honestly, it kind of became the next logical step with where, I don’t know if you want to call it a movement, but where this was headed. I did have multiple people, now that I think about it, suggest it to me.

Josh Birk:
Interesting.

Katie Villanueva:
That it should be something we should do. And so I spoke to some folks within Salesforce who totally loved the idea and kind of help me navigate how we should do it because it is a sensitive issue. Not that they were worried on their side for doing anything wrong, but they were trying to make sure that I did it as best as I could because I didn’t know anything about starting a community or what the expectations were or how do you handle such a sensitive subject with-

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
Strangers. So we put it together. Right now it’s just in this online forum kind of format, but it’s not anything where we meet. But I’m hoping that now that Dreamforce is over, that I can maybe find some content, some presenters, and once a quarter at least meet virtually. I hope to have maybe motivational speakers. And I’d like to have representatives from NAMI, which is the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Even any kind of mental illness type advocacy group or just anybody who’s well coached in mental wellness in general.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha.

Katie Villanueva:
And if people want to be brave enough and share their stories, we welcome to have that as well. So I think there’s a lot that we can tackle and a lot of conversations that we can get going virtually. It’s headed that direction, but right now we’re just online sharing resources and I think kind of building that trust in each other right now.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. And to be clear, is it about a month old? Usually it started right after Dreamforce, right?

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah. Yeah. We did “turn it on” a little bit before Dreamforce, but the big launch was at my presentation of hashtag and the stigma around mental illness, and I had a-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
A QR code for folks to go to right then and there and sign up. So…

Josh Birk:
Nice.

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah.

Josh Birk:
Well, unfortunately we can’t use a QR code on the podcast, but we will include the link to the community forum in the show notes themselves. Katie, I just want to say, I so appreciate your bravery and your courage. The questions… So as I was putting questions together for you, I’m having that polite Midwestern reaction of, these are questions I wouldn’t even ask somebody at a dinner party. Right? So thank you so much for your honesty and your transparency. I think it’s building a lot of awareness and awareness is one of the easiest things that we can do to help each other out. And I’m very glad to have you personally in my neurodivergent neighborhood. And that’s our show. Now, before we go, I did ask after Katie’s favorite non-technical hobby, and it turns out she might be very useful if you need to lift heavy things.

Katie Villanueva:
Weightlifting. I’m a small little 100 nothing pound person and I like to put 100 something pounds over my head. I love to do Olympic-style weightlifting.

Josh Birk:
You deadlift your own weight?

Katie Villanueva:
I can deadlift double my weight.

Josh Birk:
Wow. Geez. I can barely do a pull-up.

Katie Villanueva:
Pull-ups are my favorite. Honestly, I do think it’s just like Salesforce, weightlifting. You’re figuring something out and you can always do it better, and there’s always somewhere to go with it and it’s just so much fun.

Josh Birk:
Once again, I want to thank Katie for the great conversation and information and as always, I want to thank you for listening. Now if you want to learn more about this show, head on over to developer.salesforce.com/podcast where you can hear old episodes, see the show notes, and have links to your favorite podcast service. Thanks again everybody, and I’ll talk to you next week.