Inspiring All Generations

Today, our guest is Francesca Reicheter. Francesca, or Fran, as she is known, is the founder and president of Inspiring My Generation, which is a non-profit whose mission is the prevention of suicide through awareness, conversation, education, and compassionate support. Francesca, welcome to The Unique CPA.

Thank you so much for having me.

Well, I’m glad you’re here. And it was, we met just recently, actually in person, face to face, over Zoom or Teams or whatever it was yesterday. But you and I talked a week ago. You had put a submission in for, we host a conference called Bridging the Gap. Big focus of Bridging the Gap is mental health awareness. And when I saw your submission, I was just intrigued with it. So I appreciate you agreeing to get on the podcast and talk about a topic that’s extremely passionate to me, and obviously to you too. Before we get into it, why don’t you give us a little background on you and, and honestly, why this topic has become such a passion, such a passion from the standpoint you created an organization for it. So yeah, give us some background if you can.

I would love to. So I struggled with my mental health from like the earliest age. I remember being five years old, and I was a competitive cheerleader back then. They put us in these tiny little uniforms and my older sister as a sibling does, made a comment. And she made a comment about the way my stomach hung over my skirt. And to her it wasn’t a big deal but to me, I wanted to be a flyer, and flyers had to be small, and there was all this pressure. I remember this one girl asking me how much I weigh. I was five years old. So there was all this pressure on having to have this perfect body, and I didn’t even know anything about what my body was supposed to look like. I was five. I was just trying to learn to color inside the lines. 

So immediately I became ashamed of the way I looked and had so much anxiety over growing, which is a completely normal human thing. We all grow—we’re not, we don’t stay in our five year old bodies forever, and I had so much anxiety over that. So at a young age, I was constantly afraid of pretty much everything, and as I got older, it turned into anxiety or progressed into anxiety over my schoolwork. I was so afraid of not being perfect. And I took that perfect into my grades have to be perfect. I have to look perfect. I have to behave perfect. I can never get in trouble. I remember getting on yellow in like second grade, and crying underneath the table, like the world was ending. I remember not having my homework done by 3:30 in eighth grade and having a full breakdown that the world was going to end. And it was just this constant anytime something didn’t seem perfect I felt like the world was going to end and I was having these severe breakdowns.

By the time I was 12, I was like, I feel like I’m not going to live very long. And that’s not a great thought to have at 12 years old. I actually, in my notebook for school, had on the last page, I wrote my will. And I was like, if something happens to me, I want my brother to have all my toys. And I loved my little brother so much clearly, but that’s the way my brain was thinking at 12 years old that I wasn’t going to be here very long. So I wanted to talk about it, but anytime I cried, which was a lot, people would say, grow up, get over it, stop acting like a baby. Big girls don’t cry. Love that song, hate that saying, because it was so invalidating. Here I was, feeling like I was falling apart all the time, and people were like, get over it, and I’m like, I wish I could. I wish I could just think positive and want to be alive, but my brain is not allowing me to do that.

So I decided to start a blog. Blogging wasn’t really a thing back then, but I was like, maybe someone else understands and we can talk about it. I can offer some kind of hope to someone else. They can offer hope to me. We’ll get through this together. Blogging wasn’t a thing. So people made fun of me, teased me for it, which made me kind of, more, like, determined to talk about it. So then I turned it into a podcast a couple of years later and podcasting wasn’t a thing yet. It was actually called blog talk radio back in those days. And I was teased and made fun of for that. And I just eventually became so ashamed of talking about it. And I was like, I must be the only one feeling this way. No one else is understanding. No one’s relating. They’re making fun of me. They’re teasing me. People are telling me to get over it. It must be me.

So I just continued to internalize all of it until I was going off to college, thinking life’s going to get better. Kept feeling worse and worse, getting ready to graduate, and I’m convinced in my head that when I graduate, life is suddenly going to work out. I’m going to get that perfect job and make the perfect amount of money that I can have a house and a family and life’s just going to turn around. But three weeks before I’m about to graduate, my grandparents get into a car accident. I lose my grandfather, almost lose my grandmother, who are like my two best friends in the world. And I don’t know how to cope or grieve with that. I was never taught any resiliency skills. I was never taught how to take care of myself, how to love myself, how to cope when things, bad things happen, how to grieve, how to do anything that I needed to do to prepare me for life. I thought suddenly I was going to graduate and my mental health was going to be great, yet I had no actual tools behind me to feel better. 

So I ended up struggling a lot. I attempted suicide that next Christmas Eve. My uncle was the one who supported me through it. 27 days later, I lost him to suicide. My heart shattered because he understood. I ended up attempting two more times, hospitalized in a psych ward, where I saw how many other people were struggling, and how many people like me tried to talk about it, but weren’t validated—who were ashamed of what they were going through because they thought they were the only ones who never had access to conversations to new tools to learn how to get through life. And I decided I wanted to be part of changing that. 

So I took that blog and podcast I started at the ages of 12 and 15 and turned it into a nonprofit at the age of 21. So on March 13th, in honor of my uncle, on his birthday, 2020, I started Inspiring My Generation as a 501(c)3, and since then, started all these different initiatives to talk about it, to make more resources available, more support available, so no one has to feel like they’re going through it alone.

And I think that is so important what you just said, a bunch of stuff, obviously you said was so important, but the fact that people don’t have to feel like they’re in this alone, because I’m generalizing when people are starting, they think it’s just them. Why are they different? How come they can’t just be normal? And they don’t realize that there’s so many people that have so many stories. And, and I know you’re passionate about this, but if people could just share their stories. Other people know what they’ve gone through, what they’re going through. I think that just makes such a huge difference in people’s lives. And I assume that the story sharing, obviously you’re out sharing your story, but I’m guessing that that is part of what you promote through your organization?

Yeah, so I have a podcast called Normalize the Conversation and I bring on, first of all, professionals who can share more insights into different diagnoses, into what happens in therapy, how to find a therapist that works for you, different treatment options that are out there. But also individuals with lived experience so that they can share their own stories, and whether they’ve come through it on the other side, and they have a list of tools that have helped them that they can share with you, or if they’re people who are still going through it. And they’re talking about what that’s like day by day and where they are now and show that it’s not linear, it’s not easy, but it does get better, or you can get through it day by day. So really showcasing that we all have stories, and we can get through it. And there’s small steps you can do. 

And I do that within my own social media as well. I always post, even when I’m having those bad days, like this is what I’m going through and this is what I’m doing right now to try to help. And it might not be like, I’m feeling great today and I want to be alive. It may be like my brain’s getting dark again. And right now I’m focused on deep breathing, or I’m using this practice exercise to reframe my thoughts. I try to be as open as possible, whether it’s my own journeys or showcasing other people’s stories to say we’re in this together, you’re not the only one, and here’s a starting point. Maybe this will help you, maybe it won’t, but here’s a starting point that can help you figure out what’s right for you.

There is so many opportunities for helping. It is not something that people have to live with. It is actually, you know, if you’re dealing with mental illness or something, it is a fixable thing. It is curable. I don’t know the right way to say it. But there are so many options out there for people to get help, and the fact that it is probably—I shouldn’t even say probably—it is stigmatized: I can’t let anybody know that this is happening to me. I got to keep this hidden. I can’t show any weakness. It keeps people from getting the help that they need or making the change that they need. 

And for me personally, and you and I talked yesterday a little offline about my story, but for me personally, it got to a point where, you know, I, it took me a long time, four years probably, to realize, but I needed to see a therapist. And I’m bringing this up now because you just mentioned therapy and finding the right therapist because I went through three before one that made sense to me that really connected with me. And so if anybody’s dealing with anything and that is what they’re looking for is help through therapy, just realize that it’s not every single therapist is the perfect fit for you. And don’t give up just because of the first one doesn’t work out. I assume that you have similar feelings. Or am I way off base?

No, I agree. It’s not going to be the first therapist that’s right for you. Maybe it is. Maybe you have that, like, kind of like dating, right? You might find the love of your life on that first date and that’s it. And you can be high school sweethearts and it all works out. Or you might be figuring it out years and years into it and trying to find that right fit. Finding a therapist is someone that you trust that you have to be able to communicate with, that you have to feel like is listening to you and validating you. So it might not be the first therapist you try and that’s okay. 

But I think when it comes to your mental health, it’s all about finding ways to manage it, because some of it might be a one time depressive episode and you don’t necessarily need therapy to get through and overcome it. Therapy is a great tool, huge advocate for therapy, but if you can’t access it, and maybe you get through that depressive episode, it gets better. Maybe it’s something that happens for years. Maybe it’s lifelong and having those tools, having someone that can help you manage it. And maybe it’s not depression. Maybe it’s a more serious mental health issue like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder like I have. And it’s all about managing it day to day and finding someone who can support you, and that person might change, just like a relationship may end a few years into it and you find someone else that’s a better fit for where you are in life a therapist can be the same way where you are in life changes your needs change and That just may mean you connect with someone new, someone different.

And so did you just say bipolar is what you deal with?

Yes, bipolar 2 disorder, which means I deal with hypomania instead of mania. So my hypomanic episodes are a little less severe and they last for about four to seven days, instead of more than a week. 

Okay, and so you talked about tools. So for you personally, what tools are in place then to help you if this is something that kicks in? And I don’t know if that’s the right term, kicks in. You start an episode.

So if I enter into—most of my time, I will say I spend more so likely in depressive episodes. I might hit a hypomanic episode once or twice a year. But for the most part, I use medication to manage it as well as coping tools. I’ve done therapy, totally open to going back to therapy. But right now, what really helps me on a day to day is taking a mood stabilizer every night, seeing my psychiatrist to manage it about once every, I think I see him every eight weeks, and that’s been three years into it, as well as different coping skills, different self care practices, and making sure I get enough rest, the way I’m eating, paying attention to how I feel after I put certain foods into my body, exercising, moving my body, getting some of that frustration out. But it’s day to day, every day, having to do things to prevent those episodes. And when they do come, making sure that I am meeting with my psychiatrist and seeing, do we need a medication increase or medication change at this point, or is this something we can manage and go through, as well as finding different tools to just keep me safe as I work through it.

Nice. So I really appreciate you sharing your story and what you’re going through and what you’re doing through the organization. I get a big smile when I think about what you’re doing to try to help others and not try to. to help others, especially, with regards to suicide, which unfortunately all of us have probably seen at some level in our lives. Let’s do a little pivot here. Let’s talk about, because this is The Unique CPA show, our audience is mainly accountants in the profession. I told you yesterday, I go out and do a lot of mental health presentations on what’s going on in our profession, burnout being a big topic, but you know, uncontrolled chronic stress can go beyond burnout into mental illness issues as well.

And so, you know, we’re seeing, as our profession, we have, I’ll give you a little background, as our profession, many professions probably, I generalize, but accountants want to help. And they’re there, they have answers, we have solutions, our clients have problems, we’re there to fix them. And we ignore ourselves way too often. And so what happens is we, we just go, go, go and the hours get longer. And there’s more clients we take on. And we just like, hey, help, help, help, help, help others. And then we get to a point where burnout kicks in and we’re like, what’s going on here? 

And so, I know you’ve gone out and you’ve talked at different events. Do you have advice for professionals like accountants when they are dealing with something that, you know, how do we avoid getting into this position and anything you have advice wise for us professionals, I’d love to hear it.

Absolutely. I think that burnout is something we’re all likely to face. I mean, jobs are demanding. I don’t know how many times you probably have people yelling at you that they want that tax refund and there’s no way to make that happen, right? It can be very demanding and people may not always talk to you with kindness, so it’s really important that you’re checking in with yourself and being kind to yourself in the midst of all that. So that might look like Checking in with how you’re feeling mentally. Are you noticing that you’re not able to focus as well as you did before? Your attention spans may be getting a little smaller. You’re getting more frustrated really easily. Are you noticing that your body just physically feels more tired, that you don’t have the desire to go out for a walk anymore like you used to or go to the gym or however you like to move your body? Are you noticing that you just don’t feel connected to yourself, that you don’t find meaning in what you’re doing? What are you noticing about yourself and being able to understand where that’s coming from? 

Because for example, you’re just getting frustrated super easily. You don’t have the energy anymore. You’re overwhelmed. Maybe you need some more time to rest. Maybe you need to find a few minutes throughout the day where you can go for a quick walk, or do some deep breathing exercises, or have a cup of tea and just take a moment to let your body reset. Maybe there’s small things that you can implement into your day to just support and target exactly what you’re feeling. It doesn’t have to be, I need three hours in the morning and an hour at night to do all these things to take care of myself, it can be something as simple as let me make five minutes to breathe, and just reset and reframe, instead of burning yourself out to a point where you don’t have the energy to even get out of bed to get to work.

I would say that’s my advice, is finding small things you can do throughout your day, implement into your schedule that’s reasonable, affordable, makes sense for you, that targets exactly what you’re looking for.

Yeah—a lot of the things I talk about that a lot, just taking time for yourself, don’t eat at your desk, even if it’s 15 minutes away, to get away from the desk, the computer, the phone, the emails, the text messages, whatever, just go sit in the corner and eat and think about nothing but what you’re doing. Anything other than work, the walks I think are so important as well. Meditation—I keep hearing a lot about meditation. Somebody just invited me to a meditation app. I haven’t done it, but I really want to try meditation, because it just seems so refreshing. Is meditation something that you do?

So I’ve done meditation in the past, and I’ll say in the beginning it was something that really helped me, and then as I started going through my journey that’s changed, and I cannot sit still and be quiet and call my thoughts for more than five seconds at a time. It’s something I need to work on. Should work on that.

Right.

But right now, that has not been something that’s great for me. So I’ve learned that sometimes meditation is an amazing tool for me when I need to quiet my mind. But when that’s reasonably not happening, that five seconds of deep breathing is where I’m at. That’s what I’m going to do.

Right. Well hey, my meditation at this point has been, I did five minutes listening to an app a couple of days ago. So that’s my first step into it. But I was like, yeah, I think I could do this, but I’m like you—how do I clear my mind? How do I, cause I’m going a hundred miles an hour all the time. And, and that’s hard to do sometimes. Another thing, and I don’t know if you’ve thought about this when you’re talking to professionals, but one thing that I see in many professions and, and you probably agree with this too is, you know, people, it’s so easy to be on 24/7, you know, cause we’re connected with our phones to everything we’re, we’re on all the time. So I talk about the technique of, how do we shut down at the end of the day, so we have our personal time separate from our business time. And I think that’s extremely important too. Clear your mind from work and shut it down. It seems to be, it seems to resonate with people, when we talk about it.

Absolutely. Something I’ve learned to do is sleep with my phone in a different room. So when I’m ready for bed, my phone is in a different room. Even I travel a lot and I try to, when it’s possible, get a hotel room that has a bedroom that’s separate, so my phone is genuinely not in the same room as me, because if it’s near me, I want to check my emails. I want to answer every phone call. I want to see what’s happening on social media. I want to be doing anything and everything. But realistically, that’s so bad for my mental health because I’ll be answering emails at 2am.

Yep!

And I should be sleeping. So keeping it away from me Maybe it’s like after 10pm, my phone goes into do not disturb, and I try not to touch it again until 7am, so I have like that break to just decompress, hopefully sleep, but not sleeping, at least journaling or doing something offline.

Right. And that’s so important because your mind needs breaks, you know, just sleeping at night’s not enough, but getting time where you can just shut down from, from everything I think is so important. So I think everything you said there is great advice. I think our profession, accounting profession, every profession in general can use the tools and the things that you and I just discussed. And I think it’s so important because if you look at statistics, one thing, and you said at the beginning, you’re not alone. This is not something that is just happening to you. And so the statistics show that there’s more people struggling with mental health issues than we know. And so if we can get out in the open, if we can give tools for people, I think that’s so important. The fact that your organization is out there helping people, I think, is huge. And we didn’t talk about this, but you, you are currently working on a master’s program at Pepperdine University, is that correct?

Yes, I’m doing my master’s in clinical psychology out here in California.

Okay, and so what’s the goal after graduation with that degree?

You know, everyone keeps asking me this question. It’s syllabus week, so I’ve had way too many teachers ask me this question and you think I’d have a good answer. Part of me wants to do my doctorate. Part of me wants to go into more public speaking and creating more workshops and bringing these tools to people where they need it. Part of me wants to practice and be a therapist and work with kids and give them the tools before they need it. Part of me wants to create a full curriculum from first grade to 12th grade so that every year the kid’s getting a new tool that they need to get through life instead of thinking they’re just going to graduate high school and life’s going to work out, or graduate college and life’s going to work out. So that’s the intention behind those workbooks is creating that curriculum. I want to do advocacy and policy change. So I want to do everything right now. So I don’t have a specific plan. I should work on that. I need an answer to this question. 

You don’t need an answer. You do not need—hey, I’m 61 years old and I still don’t know what I want to do. So you don’t need an answer for it. You just find whatever you’re passionate about at that moment in time and do that. And then honestly, I’ve changed careers five or six times probably. And so, hey, if you find something you enjoy, do it. And I, it feels like you found something that’s your passion right now. So don’t let people like me ask questions about what you’re going to do. Cause you just do whatever comes natural to you. I assume there’s goals for the organization to continue going forward?

Yes. So my ultimate goal is—I always love the St. Jude model, right? Where kids get treatment they need and there’s free support available to the families as well. So they can live there, be with their kids, and make sure that they get the help they need, and they can afford to be there because it’s covered. I want a foundation funded behavior health facility. So I want to kind of imitate that model into mental health and make sure that people in their families have access to a range of different modalities and treatment that’s individualized to them. Sometimes it might be something as simple as getting your vitamin levels and hormone levels under check. Sometimes it might be more complicated, like needing a few different mixes of medications to help stabilize you out. Sometimes it might be different types of therapy. It might be more holistic approaches. 

So helping people figure out what support they need, to get that support for free because the reality of it is most people cannot afford therapy and services that are required, and to bring friends and family into it so that people don’t feel like they’re going through it alone, that they’re kind of in a united front, and they have that support to be able to be there because a lot of times friends and families just don’t know what to say or what to do. So really bridging that gap is the number one goal for the organization.

Ooh! That was a really nice segue into the name of our conference, Bridging the Gap. And that’s where you submitted. We’re hoping that we’ll have you out in July at the Bridging the Gap Conference speaking on this topic. I would think it would be a huge hit. So hopefully that works out. I think that was a great wrap up of the conversation, which you just said there, what you’re looking to do with the organization. I think that’s awesome. 

Before we wrap up though, I have a two final questions. One, and everybody gets these two questions. I didn’t warn you ahead of time, and you are so busy it seems like right now with school and we didn’t talk about online, but you’re also helping with your grandma, you’re traveling a lot, both speaking and otherwise, but hopefully you have time for yourself. And so I’m going to ask this question—when you’re not busy doing advocacy, helping people, with awareness and going to school and helping your grandma, when you’re not doing that, what’s your passions outside? Like, what do you enjoy? What’s your fun? What do you do for fun?

So in the free one minute I have every month, I, no, I enjoy playing tennis. It’s a great way for me to—I’m terrible at it though, like full disclosure, terrible at it—but I love to connect with my friends and go play tennis and just exercise with my body, hit the ball, get to hit something and get that frustration out. And it’s really about hitting things in a healthy way, it’s not hurting anyone, and moving my body and getting to spend time with friends at once. So that’s my big thing that I love to do.

Nice. Nice. And then the final question is, if people want to find out more about you, about the organization, you are out speaking, if someone wants you to come out and speak, or even support the organization by donating, where, where would they get more information about you, the organization and everything else?

You can go to inspiringmygeneration.org to learn more about the organization and the work we’re doing. And if you want to learn more about me, my journey, my story, and different speaking engagements I’ve done, you can go to FrancescaReicherter.com. I should have done anything else, because my name is so complicated and long. That’s how you can find me.

Alright. Well, and we’ll put that in the show notes too, so people can link to both of those places. And, believe me, this was, I am so honored and thrilled to have had you on the show and have this conversation. The work you’re doing, I think is amazing. And I think we need more people out there to show that this is okay to talk about, that we don’t have to hide in the corner. This doesn’t have to be a stigma. So thank you so much for sharing and being on the show today.

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.