 Dudes and dudettes welcome back to the anxious truth. This is episode number 171 171 welcome back to the show today. We have a special guest in the studio. It's not a studio, but we can pretend It's a studio. It's on zoom We can pretend so with me today is my frequent collaborator and proud to call my friend Dean Stott Who is the originator the creator the head honcho at the DLC anxiety worldwide mental health network platform? Whatever you want to call that and Dean and I been working together now for oh, I don't know What do you say Dean six eight months that we've been doing this? Yeah So if you guys watch the recovery room every Friday on Instagram You've seen me and Dean and Josh Fletcher and Kim Quinlan working together And so I had the pleasure to get to know Dean in this time and we've been talking about podcasting together So here we go episode 171 Dean welcome to the show Thank you so much and what an introduction. How how do I follow on from that story? But yeah It's been a pleasure to get to know you over the last six to eight months I love everything that you're doing true. Um, and it's a pleasure to be on air and just chat all things mental health Yeah, we're just gonna hang out and as I usually do with these We'll just like hang out like we're at a pub somewhere and we're gonna make this up as we go along But I know that you are we talking about this stuff in the recovery room I know that you have been on an anxiety journey, right? So for those of you listening, I cannot imagine that you're listening to this and you do not know Dean I really don't I mean my following is so much smaller compared to yours But so Dean is the founder and creator of dlc anxiety, which is a giant Oh, you have a million people in the community now on instagram. Yeah Coming up to 1.1 million, which is crazy amazing like the bigger it gets the bigger it gets, you know, that's Which is so impressive. I have mad respect for what you built over there But uh, so Dean didn't decide to start dlc anxiety just for the hell of it It wasn't just a random idea. Clearly you have experience with this topic So let's let's take 10 15 minutes and go through that. What what is your story look like? And then we'll talk about like the mental health online thing in the platform. So where do you start? So, um, I went through it was a probably the roughest period of my adult life Where I lost my father He was an inspiration to me. He was really close to me And like every every mail what I tends to do is they bottle up their emotions and I I did that after his death I tried to get on with my day-to-day living And it cracked up two three four months later Um, I developed a panic disorder. So I'd be going out into shopping mall shopping centers and just out of nowhere I'd start to have these panic attacks. No, I didn't know what these panic attacks were I thought I was dying at the time because I'd never experienced the this rush of emotions And I literally thought there was something seriously wrong with me And that yeah that went down the spiral of a panic disorder occurring I started to fear going to the shopping centers. I started to fear The anxious response itself um So I had a really good friend at the time in one of my previous jobs Uh, he'd actually been through an anxiety disorder and come out on the other side And he was he was a real pivotal and inspirational and important part to my recovery because Everything that I was telling him that I that I was going through that was so unique to me I thought that if I was telling people how I was feeling that they think I was crazy that That I'm getting all these weird symptoms everything I was telling him He was almost like telling me back and that he'd been through it So it it was like he'd like been in my shoes and he'd come out on the other side So as you know, Daryl, when you're in the middle of an anxiety disorder There's no it looks like there's no light at the end of the tunnel You think you come to the assumption that this is how you're going to be living your life For the for the rest of your life that you're going to be getting up and battling anxiety every day And um, yeah over over a good period of months that that is what my wife was but Yeah, I had this ray of hope from my friend because he'd been through an anxiety disorder come out on the other side So I I went to the doctors. I did all the right things there. They did help because they um, I remember the first time that Um, I went to the doctors. They prescribed me with a library card, which I thought was crazy I was expecting them to I don't know throw some medication at me or Maybe refer me for some CBT therapy, but she literally prescribed me a library card So I went out. I was so annoyed at the time And but I got this book. I ended up reading it. It was how to deal with a panic attack Or how to deal with panic disorder and it that really kick started my recovery the psycho education behind Learning about um, why your heart starts to beat faster? Why your breathing starts to increase? Um, why all these crazy symptoms are happening and knowing that it's just part of the normal anxious response So that really kick started My journey to recovery and over time. Um, I learned. Um, I did some CBT therapy. Um, I did Some self-help CBT really and and decided to do Flooding so putting myself into the center of the shopping centers And just dealing with the anxious response. So it was scary. Um, do you know what I mean? There was times where I felt like I couldn't do it But by putting myself in the situations Over time what happened was the anxiety started to decrease and then I could I could see it was the motivation to carry on I could see that there was light at the end of the tunnel And I always had my friend sparing me on and the hope knowing that well this guy He's he's he's 10 years older than me, but he's no different than me. He's been through an anxiety disorder He's come out the other side. So I come too and that's where that's where dlc was born really I remember being sat on a couch with him Just just chatting as we are now and I was like This feeling that you're giving me this feeling of hope of someone who's been through an anxiety disorder come out the other side And how I can relate to you. I want to be able to do that on a big scale I want to be able to really get that message across And that's where I came up with the idea of dlc anxiety on instagram Because I knew that people would be able to relate to my story just like I did to him And it was a snowball effect. Um, yeah 10 000 followers became 20 came 100 and then We are where we are now the largest anxiety community in the world That's amazing. It's really really quite astounding to see what you've built there I mean that is a great story because I I hear two things there number one a real live in person flesh and blood friend Who would have lived the experience and so many people are relegated to they don't they don't know anybody They actually don't anybody's been through which is always amazing to me considering the number of people who do go through this And so, you know, we have no choice but to go online to try and find people who can show us the way So it was great that you had that that live living breathing person in your life Yeah, and he was uh, he was in Like one of my previous jobs and I think I almost happened by accident I had a panic attack in my workplace And I think he noticed me and reassured me and I opened up to him and he's like, oh well, I've been through this I and then we we ended up speaking about him like I said, I could really relate to Everything that he'd been through and yeah So my advice to anyone is you don't you don't be scared of telling other people how you're feeling We often we have this inner critic that that tells us that when we open up that people are going to dismiss it And obviously some people are dismissive But you have to be able to tell your story and you have to have faith in that other people will Be able to relate and be able to help because that's how the community our community is thrive Isn't it drew by people sharing the stories no matter where they are On the journey to recovery. It's them sharing the stories that gives each other hope And I think it's yeah, it's just a beautiful side of What can be a toxic place social media? So what we've built in the mental health community. I'm really proud of not just myself, but Obviously platforms like you and everyone we work with Yes, I think you know the stories when you say people, you know, the stories help us feel that we're not alone And they can also be stories of inspiration and encouragement and education So, you know, having somebody who was able to say to you, you know When you're putting yourself in the middle of that shopping mall, which is So difficult to do and you're terrified having somebody to say, you know, it's okay. I did it too I know how hard it was. It's going to be okay. Like you can do this is So meaningful in a lot of ways. So that storytelling takes on so many different Faces, you know, just just knowing that you can commiserate knowing that you're not alone And knowing that other people are actually doing the work alongside you and people have done it before you and you could stand on their shoulders So, yeah, yeah, I can relate in a big way for me was that whole like I stood on the people The shoulders of the people came before me and now it's my job to give people shoulders to stand on too. So You know, and I you've done it on a scale way larger than I ever will. So it's very very impressive and I appreciate what you do So how did it get started then? So you come out of the other side of this anxiety disorder, which is always a work in progress We know that it's not like woke up in morning and said okay, I'm recovered now. Let's Yeah, I got to the stage of um, I was able to go So where I was getting panic attacks were where all the places that I loved So I love shopping. I love going out so the shopping mall I love like going out to restaurants and these are all the places that I was getting panic attacks So it was a really having a detrimental Impact on on my day-to-day living. Um, but yeah being able to flood in the situations What I found that really helped with me and I'm sure you can relate Drew is that when I was getting anxious or what the time is It's in a battle, isn't it with you with your anxious thoughts that Going through your mind, but I found that whoever I was with at the time if I told them Hey, listen, I'm feeling anxious at the moment Look feel my palms are sweaty Firstly, they never realize so that they don't know that you're anxious until you tell them So that's the first misconception done because you you're often thinking oh everyone around me must think oh I'm going crazy or something. That's not the case 99.9 at the time people don't even know that you're anxious But secondly it was getting the getting this Anxious thoughts from inside me almost out to someone else and that would reduce the anxiety as well and I can I really really relate to that with with journaling for example Someone's having the all these anxious irrational thoughts and putting it out on paper It's getting it from the mind to somewhere else. But yeah doing that in a social situation really helped for me And so yeah, I got to the stage where I was able to go back shopping I was able to go back to restaurants and That's that's when I really thought well, I'm in this place of yeah Once you've been through an anxiety disorder, you know what anxiety is you're always going to know what anxiety is and so I I I got to the stage where I knew that Anxiety recovery was not never feeling anxiety in it again And I think that's where a lot of people trip up Especially at the start of the recovery they say The the amount of questions that we get asked is how do I stop these irrational thoughts? How do I stop these physical symptoms anxiety recoveries and about how do I stop? How do I think it's How do I accept these thoughts and continue doing what I'm doing? And I got to that stage and that's where I really wanted to Yeah build build the community and Instagram just seemed like the best place Yeah, I was just drawn to Instagram There was there was other communities in in other areas like I saw how Fitness for example the fitness community could bring people together and motivate each other And there wasn't really too many accounts at the time doing it So I saw that there was a gap in the market at the time so Yeah I dived in let me ask you a silly question. So you were saying that's not a silly question I guess but you're saying that you know, you got used to speaking about it openly in your social situation So you're out with somebody you're out with some friends and like hey, I'm really anxious right now Look, my palms are sweaty or I'm shaking or whatever it is You ever get now clearly in a social situation You're generally with people who you already know they're your friends already But did you ever get any pushback on that or people who were less than understanding or didn't want to hear it? No, that's a very very good question And a lot of people that's what the skirt of isn't it especially if they're anxious in work At the skirt to say something to the colleague or the boss because they feel that they'll be dismissed Um, I'm just I am trying to think I remember speaking to someone Um, it was in a workplace and they said yeah, thank you so much for telling me But it's probably best we keep this between ourselves and not tell everyone else Um, really? Yeah, yeah, unfortunately so and that was probably the worst Comment I've had And it really took me back at the time But it just it motivated me to show that there was so much still needed to do um In in the awareness of mental health and and normalizing mental health Because if that situation happened to me in that one place How many times is that happening every single day across across the world? Yeah, that reaction is like you had told the person that you had bodies buried under your house like oh Don't tell me that I'll just let's keep it secret. I want I promise. Yeah It was a really strange thing because they were they were empathetic and it was almost like they they understood And were yeah, they were empathetic empathetic towards the the anxiety, but it was oh, let's just keep it between us Hey, I'm sure there was no it doesn't sound like there was any malicious like oh, that's it I don't will I'll help you hide your horrible secret They probably were helping you and and trying to keep your interest at home. Yeah, I think so but Tell anyone about this. Yeah, yeah, but I think it was probably the wrong thing for them to say though Probably because like you said the most people so I mean, you know So many people in the community really really worried about that like people are going to see that I'm anxious They're gonna I'm going to look foolish and I'm going to embarrass myself. They're going to reject me So that's a hard thing for an anxious person to hear like oh, let's keep the secret. You know, yeah, yeah, especially as you know Especially in a place like a workplace where At the time I was building up to tell the people around me and then when you tell them they say oh, yeah Thank you for opening up and like if you need to move away from your desk or whether just do it No questions asked, but let's just keep this between us So did you have that experience though where where you were able to like okay if you need to you know, take a break It's okay. So was your workplace generally friendly No, they were yeah And it happened over the period of a couple of workplaces and to be honest Like I said, I always tried to be open with them when I when I was dealing with anxiety and Come in come in like knowing what I know now. I was probably doing the wrong things because I was getting anxious um at my desk as well, but then I was Going to a safe place like going to the men's toilet while the anxious response would Come down and as we know drew moving away from the situation Where the perceived danger is that it's just adding fuel to the anxiety So there's no there's no wonder why the anxiety kept coming day in day out Because I was doing the wrong thing at the time I can relate that it's funny how the men's room becomes and and many people relate to this Like the restroom at work becomes like your escape place is where you're gonna go And I was in my early days are the same situation It would like that's where I would escape to and I remember standing there thinking what am I doing in here? Like this is this is thing But uh, okay So then it leads to you know the point where clearly It's a clear picture of why you want to start to share this story And did you start by sharing your story or did you always assume that you would want? To let people other people share their stories because really dlc is you know, clearly your story is underneath it It's the foundation but But it's everybody's story like yeah, no. Yeah, so deals and start being about like this community Was it right away? No, that's a really good question Um, I started it off by telling my story I wanted other people because obviously when you start open account There's not many people who are interacting with your page, but I knew that Even if I get 10 people even if I get 20 people come to me and say hey, I can really resonate with what you're going through Um That I knew that they'd be able to connect and having that connection To to know that they're not alone I knew that there was a chance of this Growing bigger, which is what it did. So yeah, I was true and I was honest to my own personal story Now as as the platform Got got bigger. Um, I realized that I could create a community around this and that's where that's where I That's that's why I chose to have the logo for example I didn't want it to make it about me then I wanted it to be A community of everyone sharing the stories and just me at the Like the creator of the platform the founder or whatever but everyone else to be able to share the stories um In an open place in a place that they're not going to be judged And then as it grew bigger and I started making these connections with mental health professionals I came up with the idea of the interviews On instagram because I thought if we can get this free information to the platform Then this is that this is a real win So then I started making these connections with mental health professionals And and I started to create a community Not only with the people that were going through it, but with the people who Help them people and that's where the the dlc anxiety community is probably is that now That is the forefront of the community getting the psycho education out there Getting the interviews with the mental health professionals and and the infographics of of of the People being able to relate to symptoms people being able to to relate to certain parts of of anxiety But yeah, um, I I'm really proud of where it's got to and and I I'm just continuing to push And continuing to grow it the best I can Well, you're doing a hell of a job clearly. So keep doing what you're doing But let's talk for a second and you and I've had some of these conversations offline, right? These are things that sometimes we ponder together and I always appreciate being able to do that with you the Have you seen the evolution? Nothing nothing stays the same everything changes and that's life and that's fine We should welcome change and evolution and the things are gonna things are going to change over time But the evolution or the change in the tone of that space or how it's used Not necessarily just the dlc platform, but in general Like the difference I see a difference in the way mental health is portrayed and mental health helping is portrayed On on social media in the last five or six years. It became to me It's definitely become a little bit more algorithm driven. It's become a little slicker It's become a little more well produced And sometimes for me and I'm gonna I guess I'm gonna ask you questions without making you torpedo your business, of course So you say I don't want to answer that it's totally fine But for me it sometimes it looks like oh, okay, I get it. We've discovered that this could be a business And then like everything else I understand it's like people who will say oh man I saw you two when they were playing a little pub and you know in Dublin somewhere and now look at them. They sold out Do you feel like the mental health community is in danger of selling out? That's a really good question And why you say instagram in tolls and not even the mental health community instagram in toll Is dictated by these wonderful algorithms that we're all competing against Now with the mental health industry I can only relate it to myself. So I can only bring it back to dlc. I can't speak for other platforms but speaking for myself There is certain posts for example. I know that Say we call it algorithm friendly Now I know if I put one of these posts out it's going to get a lot of traction and it's going to get a lot of people coming to my community That post I may may may not 100 agree with So it may not resonate with my actual journey But what I know is the the substance behind the the 60 professional interviews that I have on the platform the the The voices in the recovery room like yours Josh And the the mental health books like mine and Josh like yours and like other people I know that by getting that attention to the community that that That whole load of good is in there and so it's almost like you're competing against the algorithm Unfortunately, there is accounts that only do that and then and they may not have the substance within the platform And so I think that they run the risk of obviously, yeah, not being able to provide the resources But yeah, I think with with myself I've managed to get the balance right on that and yeah I'm happy to say that if I'm if I if I know that there's going to be a post That's going to get a lot of people to my community and then the people are going to Be able to resonate with everything the the real good information that's in there Then I'm going to do that That is an incredibly excellent answer And I think in the end people have to realize that like well while you're living we're living as creators inside We're on we're in their house. We're in their stadium. We're in there. We're on their field, right? So instagram slash facebook or for youtuber or whatever platform a tiktok or whatever you want You have to live within the rules that that that you know platform is set out And in the end instagram is going to reward the things that bring attention and it's going to Sort of ignore the things that isn't because attention the money so It is a very difficult balancing act to say well To feed the algorithm because that's what instagram is here for and that's what they want And then I have to balance it with things that might not be so algorithm friendly But I can slip it into the stream, you know Yeah, just to give an example Our recovery room for example, I am super proud of and I know you are to read that what we've created Hasn't been done on on instagram before four people in a panel Connecting with their audiences and sharing our stories. It's a unique once Once in an instagram thing that hasn't been done But when I post our recovery room, it has the worst reach compared to anything yet. It's the best content Now how what you say this this is my this is my community. This is what I do full time So how how would I be able to Sustain what I'm doing by just posting the recovery room. So what do I do? I post I could post a post as algorithm friendly to attract people to come and then they view it So it's a catch 22. You're always playing catch up with the algorithm. It's always changing But hey, it's what keeps us on our toes I know for me and I don't make a secret of it. I often get very frustrated by it I admire the fact that you can I know you get frustrated too, but at times, but you're you're good at handling that I get a little vocal about it sometimes I even know members of our community get frustrated sometimes by what they see and what gets surfaced But this is this is what we've been given So we we have to make the best of it and use it the best way we can in most productive way I and I I can see you do that stuff sometimes Like I you know what's going to bring in the eyeballs And then you could put in the useful content after that and you know what we all learned to play that game He included as much as I realized against it. I know I know enough now what what I should put out before I can relate because these podcast episodes when I post a podcast episode on instagram It gets the lowest engagement. This is a this is a link to 30 to 40 minutes of like Really dense psycho education full of experience and knowledge and recovery information But it doesn't nearly get the attention that some of the other stuff does Which is it is crazy, isn't it? But Why you say it's not our reels and if it was our reels, that's not how we would be writing the reels We have to we have to play by them reels Another thing I'd just like to add is that because it's a community as well And especially if going on to the interview so speaking to mental health advocates or mental health professionals I'm all for for free speech and I'm all for people having their own opinions So I may not just because I have someone on the platform Who I disagree with that that's totally fine Because it's now at a stage where I'm able to give everyone a voice and Where everyone say what worked for them? and and then I I know the users Jeremy and I know the clever people I know that what resonates with them they'll they'll go with and what doesn't that they won't use But giving them as much options as possible. I think is a hell of a thing I I agree with you and I like that you're able to do that. And so I definitely see it the dlc platform. There's something for everybody there like regardless You're you know your approach to this problem is and and I appreciate that you give people that equal time and you're at It's fine. You don't we don't have to agree with everybody So you're in a unique position to be able to do that and you do it very well. So thank you very much Where do we go from here? Like where do you what do you think is going to happen next? You know and we're always on the look like what is instagram going to do now? What's the algorithm look like now? What it's going on over at youtube? Like where do you go from here? Where do you think we're all going to be in another couple of years? Well, it's a very good question especially because this is what we do naturally. This is us um So yeah, it's what keeps us on our toes and it's what keeps me motivated now We know that instagram we're going through some changes at the moment We know that they're going to be focusing on video and reels so short and long term Long-form content. So if the dlc anxiety community, that's perfect Because if that means that our recovery rooms for example gets shown to more people then wow How amazing is that that? Meaning that I can I can really put out the the information that people are craving for And knowing that it's the best information for them. So I for for the dlc anxiety community I'm I am happy about them video changes The infographics that they're not going to go anywhere, but I think over time they may get diluted it's We're going to have to see how we went when they bring it into force What happens, but I know there's a lot of people that are unhappy. So we have artists out there that obviously have created businesses with their artwork on instagram and they're running the narrative now that They're going to be preference in videos and reels then obviously they're going to be anxious and scared about What the future holds for them, but I'm all about adapting Drey So I know that the dlc anxiety community will continue evolve just like it has over the last two and a half years We've got the podcast with your lovely voice on and so the the IGC the lives were Converting them over to podcasts and hopefully start to see that grow over the next six to twelve months Hopefully start to invest more money and time into youtube Um, but yeah, just stay in ahead of the head of the game On instagram and continuing to to play by whatever the the new reels are It's a good answer. And you know, it's if nothing else it keeps it interesting and it's sometimes I know I love the new things. I'm uh, you know, I like to do new stuff. So I think it's going to be kind of exciting and we'll see where it goes Um, there's a lot of good people making a lot of good video content already and it would be it'll be nice to see them Maybe have that Preferenced a little bit so they get some. Yeah, I'm digging it, you know All right, we've bet that we're 30 minutes in I don't like to really make it much more than 30 minutes People have busy lives and they stop by they give us 30 minutes and I try and let them go So dude, I appreciate you coming by to uh spend this half hour. We've been planning it for a while We finally got a chance to do it, which is great Where can people find you? So yeah over on instagram dlc anxiety community. Um the podcast Is dlc live dlc anxiety on youtube facebook We've got facebook as well under the same name And the website, um, you can go and access all the links. So www.dlcanxiety.com We've also got the dlc anxiety library coming out. So which is really really something that Really looking forward to really proud of so off the success of untangle your anxiety We're going to have a whole untangle series on the Of psycho education books and yeah, we're going to have the first anxiety library, which i'm really excited about and But we're going to continue to see that grow and hopefully have Thousands upon thousands of books in our own anxiety library, which would be pretty cool, huh? It'd be great, man. I love the plan. I dig it. Um, so All right guys, if you need to find dean, not that you're going to have a hard time finding him But you can go to the anxious truth.com slash 171 i'll have all these deans links in the show notes there and um, thanks for coming by brother. I appreciate it No problem. Thank you very much dr So as you guys, uh, I'm going to play you out with afterglow by my buddy ben drake Which I do every week you can find ben at ben drake music dot com and dean and I are going to ask you a favor Well, I'm going to ask your favor dean just happens to be on screen with me If you're listening to the podcast on itunes or some platform that lets you rate or review the podcast Then leave a five star review and then take a second and write a review five stars with a review Is the best way for more people to find the podcast and that's why I do this So thanks for coming by we'll see you guys next week and remember this is the way Difference if you're right or wrong Now you're on your way