E123 The Roths - Our Daughter died to The Disease of Mental Illness
Let’s Be Well Together Podcast - Episode 123
Date: June 4, 2024
Participants: Elise Seifert, Sheila Webster, John Webster, Cameron Earnshaw and Julie Wilson
Guest: Fiona and Mike Roth
Start Times and Segments:
[0:00:16] What’s On Your Mind: Elise tells us about the concept of the Growth Mindset. It’s an important approach in the educational world. It’s about putting your brain in a good learning space. It overcomes a fixed mindset where, for example, someone says, “I can’t do this. It’s too hard.”
[0:10:11] Expanding Minds Interview: [Social and Mental Wellness] We interview Fiona and Mike. It’s beyond tragic to lose a family member to mental health disease. Kaitlyn Roth sought joy in her life, including through student council, choirs, band, sports and more. She was a go-getter, who was amazing at getting people involved to help good causes. Sadly, she lost touch with her joy at times as she struggled with mental health. Today we are joined by Kaitlyn’s parents, Fiona and Mike Roth. They’re motivated to bring good out of the tragic loss of they daughter, who died by the disease of mental illness in 2022. They tell us about Kaitlyn – who she was – and challenges she faced in seeking help to address the disease she experienced.
[0:29:30] Adventures of the Starving Artist: A cajón is a box-shaped percussion instrument played by slapping it with the hands. Cameron used it to accompany a friend at open mic, which led to a gig with a band.
[0:33:04] Move That Body: ChatGPT spit out a great quote - The only bad workout is the one that didn’t happen. We talk about it.
[0:37:11] Running Popup: John heard a fact about bees that has him saying, “thank you bees”, every time he has a spoonful of honey.
[0:38:56] Flipside of the Coin: Getting “sir’d” on a shopping experience, where once again Sheila showed great taste.
Quotes and Take-Aways:
Fiona – Kaitlyn Roth was a go-getter. She loved school. She was involved in student counsel and choirs. She played saxophone and started a saxophone business. She played basketball and rugby. She was on the swim team. She loved to be involved. That was really who she was. She was very well respected by her peers. She had a great set of friends. She thrived on our traditional family rituals. She got really excited about holidays. She valued her relationships with her extended family.
Mike – Kaitlyn was a great kid. She didn’t use drugs and didn’t try alcohol until she turned 19. I say that because sometimes people have a preconceived notion of what someone’s going through with mental health. Kaitlyn was a straight A student, had friends and things were going well, then they weren’t.
Fiona – Kaitlyn started struggling during the Summer of 2021, while we were stil in the covid period. There was no triggering event, other than possibly a buildup. That’s important to know. Covid impacted her and a buildup of anxiety and stress. She started struggling with her brain. Her brain just wasn’t working.
Mike – I remember vividly that Kaitlyn said to Fiona and me, “Dad, I want to get better. Dad, I want to go back to school I want to be living with my friends. I just can’t right now. My brain is not right.”
Fiona – Kaitlyn very much wanted to get better and was reaching out for help. She was taking time off school, but really wanted to get back to school. That was her consistent message. Her symptoms were like a concussion. She couldn’t focus. She was having a very hard time sleeping, so then it was very hard to do schoolwork. She wanted these symptoms to just go away, but she was unable to get relief from these symptoms.
Fiona – The tragic thing is that I work in children’s mental health and I’m a social worker. I felt like I knew exactly what Kaitlyn needed. I just couldn’t get it. I spent a lot of time of the phone advocating and trying very hard to get her the services I felt she needed. We were faced with many barriers. One barrier was long wait lists. Another was a checklist system, which happens more so in adult mental health, where you need to have so many symptoms to get a service. Sometimes Kaitlyn would have three of the symptoms, but not the five needed. Then she doesn’t qualify. That’s such a barrier looking at the symptoms. I thought they should have been looking more broadly on how she functioned. It was such a frustration. I thought, “this is the service she needs”, or “this is the professional she needs”, and I just couldn’t access them for her. Then She started losing hope, because she was actively trying to get help.
Fiona – What we really need is much more community based support. We need things like out-patient day treatment programs or multidisciplinary teams. Hospital needs to be seen as a short-term assessment and stabilization place. It’s not treatment. That’s not what hospitals are meant to do. We need to build up the capacity in the community. That shifts the philosophy.
Fiona – Mental illness is an illness. It needs to be treated as an illness. I believe it can be treated in the community with appropriate services and supports. It can be really seen as an illness and someone on their journey to getting better.
Mike – We say mental health is an illness is an illness. Just like diabetes or a heart condition. It’s a chemical imbalance.
Mike – It’s great that mental health is being talked about more. The stigma is still there. It’s lessening, but it’s still there. Years ago you didn’t talk about cancer, the “big c”. It was hush hush. Now there is more talk about that.
Fiona – Kaitlyn was open with us about feelings of self-harm. She was open with us that it was almost like a voice. She did not want those thoughts at all. She did not want those thoughts at all. She wanted to get rid of them. It was very much an intrusive thought.
Guest Information: Fiona Roth has been a social worker for 25 years. She has worked in the children’s mental health field for her entire career. She’s committed to a community where anyone struggling with mental health is met with hope and compassion at every stage of their journey and where no one falls through the cracks.
Mike Roth has been a Registered Kinesiologist for more than 27 years. He has treated and managed multi-disciplinary health care clinics in the community and is currently supporting employees returning to work from occupational and non-occupational injuries.
Mike and Fiona’s daughter, Kaitlyn, faced many barriers to receiving continuity of care before dying by the disease of mental illness. Fiona and Mike are passionate about making sure the difficulties that their family faced in finding services for Kaitlyn do not happen to anyone else.
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John, Sammy, Cameron, Sheila, Elise, Isabelle, Noura and Julie