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Happy Monday and welcome to your
mental Health Mini. 

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This week's guests are Doctors 
Olivio and Dr. Seidler, and we 

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are talking about how to thrive 
in college with your social life

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using DBT. 
I see a lot of college students 

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swing from paying attention to 
one thing they value and are 

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like, OK, I can only be hard 
working and do amazing 

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academically and like, I'm just 
going to have to sacrifice my 

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social life or I'm going to 
prioritize my social life and 

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just kind of accept that my 
academics aren't going to be, 

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you know? 
Too stellar. 

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And I think probably one of the 
main goals in college and when 

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I'm working with college 
students is how do we find a 

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balance between those two 
things? 

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And how could you recognize when
your emotion mind is essentially

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causing you to attend to one 
side and not pay attention to 

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both of them? 
And to reach for more of like a 

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synthesis or a balance where you
really feel good about yourself,

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that you actually are attending 
to your values around building 

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your community of friends at 
college and also doing what 

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you're supposed to be doing 
there, which is learning and 

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being a student. 
And I think in college as well, 

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I'm constantly describing the 
give fast skill. 

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OK, So what does that mean, 
right. 

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But in short, it's a 
relationship skill that you can 

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have or you try to pay attention
to the balance between how much 

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you're giving to a friendship 
and how much you're holding fast

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to who you are. 
And I think the college has a 

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ton of groupthink. 
You know, you could even think 

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about it's kind of reinforced or
assumed that it should be that 

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way. 
Sorority life, your team on a 

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certain sports team, you know, 
and there's so many hidden 

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rules, right, that you kind of 
need to follow. 

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So one of the things that can be
really helpful is to pay 

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attention to just in general. 
How much are you giving to 

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people and also how much are you
able to hold true to what you 

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need? 
There are a lot of times where 

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people feel like, OK, I gotta 
stand up for myself when I'm 

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talking to this person other, 
you know, I'm in this friendship

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and I'm just going to tell them 
what I think it's like, OK, so 

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you can have a gentle manner, 
right? 

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You can act interested in what 
the other person's saying. 

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You can validate what they're 
going through. 

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What we mean by that is can you 
understand the story of how they

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got there? 
Doesn't mean you have to agree, 

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but there's a probably a reason 
that they got to where they're 

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at at this point in life too. 
So those are some things I'm 

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often trying to especially, I 
think people I'm talking to that

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are advocates, they're 
passionate. 

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And you want to say absolutely, 
absolutely should do all those 

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things and there are ways to get
people to hear you. 

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And you want to have a bit of a 
balance. 

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And then you have people who 
don't, you know, hate to say the

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term doormat, but they really 
are letting people cross 

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boundaries that they shouldn't 
cross or they're not going to 

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that professor and asking for a 
different grade and just saying 

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yes to everything. 
And so the fast skill would be 

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much more about holding true to 
who you are as a person. 

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A lot of people think they have 
to be either or. 

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And I think, yes, if I was at 
like a store or something and 

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they told me something was $20 
and then I go to ring it up and 

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they're like, it's actually 95. 
Maybe I'm going to use just fast

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because that person who works 
there I don't need to maintain a

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positive relationship with. 
But when we're thinking about 

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college and whether it's a 
professor, a friend, whoever it 

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is, we probably need to pay 
attention to both of those 

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skills. 
And I think people mistake 

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maintaining our self respect as 
being aggressive or abrasive. 

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In terms of assertiveness 
skills. 

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There's a way for you, here's a 
dialectic, to be gentle and 

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assertive at the same time. 
And there's a way to maintain a 

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relationship with someone and 
still draw a line in the sand. 

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And it's all about how you do 
that, right? 

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Can you validate their 
perspective? 

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Can you be gentle with your 
language, not attack them, etc. 

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I think college is also a time 
when friend groups can ebb and 

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flow or shift altogether. 
And that's really normal. 

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And so the given fast skill 
ultimately is about how to 

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maintain the relationships that 
you want and set boundaries in 

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or in the relationships that are
no longer working for you. 

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But there are times when I'm 
talking to some people and 

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they'll kind of throw the baby 
out with the bathwater. 

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You know, they'll say, like this
friend again, sort of hurt my 

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feelings this one time or is not
somebody who can do XY and Z for

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me. 
And that's when I said, like, 

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let's pull out a little bit, 
zoom out and let's think about 

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friendship and that no one 
friend is going to be all things

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to you. 
And that I have a friend who I 

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can trust, like with my life, 
literally, but she's not going 

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to pay me back the $10 she owes 
me. 

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I know for a fact that she's 
not, you know, but I can really 

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trust her in this one category 
and I can kind of adapt or move 

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around or accept that she's 
fallible just like I am in 

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another category. 
And since we started our 

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podcast, you'd be amazed how 
many people have been like, Oh 

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my gosh, my child who's a 
freshman is having such a hard 

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time. 
It is the most consistent thing 

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that we hear. 
So it's not necessarily advice, 

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but it's about saying this is 
what almost everyone is going 

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through. 
And it's the time of your life 

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when you're probably the most 
afraid to express it. 

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So there's a huge discrepancy 
there. 

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So you are not alone. 
I have a niece who is just the 

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most, well, you know, thriving 
person in the world and asked 

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her at some point, what would 
you say to people who, yeah, 

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maybe aren't struggling with 
mental health or have a hard 

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time or doing fine? 
What? 

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What's the thing that you'd want
me to know as I'm working with 

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these people? 
And she said freshman year was 

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the loneliest time for me and 
every one of my friends. 

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This is not even someone who 
would have ostensibly said she's

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struggled with mental health. 
Everybody is. 

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You're not alone.