Getting help is a way to live up to your full potential

Rachel Monger met David Johnson, former Bert Nash CEO, several years ago at an advocacy fellowship program they both participated in through the Sunflower Foundation.

She went up to him afterward and told him that Bert Nash was there for her when she needed it, and if there was anything she could do for the Center, to let her know.

“Never one to waste an opportunity, not long after that he asked if I would be on the Endowment Board,” Monger said.

Monger has served on the Bert Nash Endowment Board ever since.

Her relationship with the Center began years earlier, when she was a law student at the University of Kansas. “I think it was my first year in law school and I needed some services,” Monger said. “I had a history of depression. I wasn’t quite sure where to go, so I looked on the Internet and there was Bert Nash. I saw you could just walk in and get the help you needed, so that’s what brought me in.”

Monger knew all about how debilitating depression can be.

“Depression makes it hard to see the world, the future; it’s just darkness,” she said. “Every small thing becomes a big thing. When you are depressed, even the idea of trying to get help feels so overwhelming. People around you have a hard time understanding why you can’t just snap out of it.”

Monger had struggled with depression since junior high. Things really exacerbated when she was in law school.

“I wasn’t a stranger to depression, and law school is a lot of pressure,” Monger said. “I had all these plans for my life, but I knew I wasn’t going to get there unless I took responsibility for my mental health.”

Monger grew up in rural Missouri. She received her undergraduate degree from Bard College in Massachusetts. Mental health was not something that was discussed in her family.

“Depression, Seasonal Affective Disorder and bipolar disorder run in my family, as well as alcohol and drug addiction that often come with self-medicating those illnesses, but that’s something we never discussed as a family,” she said. “When I was in junior high, things at home were tough. Things at school were tough. I was getting more and more depressed. There was no one there to see what was going on, which is why I think WRAP (the Bert Nash program that places a therapist in the schools) is such an important program. Because I think if there had been something like that in my school I wouldn’t have ended up where I did.” 

Monger ended up in a children’s psychiatric hospital, where she spent part of the summer before her freshman year in high school trying to get stabilized.

“That was really the beginning of my journey, because I was finally able to get help and the support I needed,” Monger said.

Her journey to mental health continued when she received individual therapy services at the Bert Nash Center.

“My therapist helped me through some tough times,” Monger said. “I loved her. She gave me a lot of emotional support.”

Monger spent six years as a private-practice attorney in Lawrence. Now she is vice president of government affairs for Leading Age Kansas, an association of nearly 160 not-for-profit aging services providers. She learned self-care and boundaries through therapy. But, also, self-compassion. Many enjoy practicing self-care in a variety of different ways. Some had mentioned to her that cannabis can be thought of as a way to demonstrate self-care by providing her with support through her depression. Giving her mind space away from all of the darkness she has to deal with on a day to day basis. But she decided that wasn’t right for her, which is important to recognize that she is setting her own boundaries for her care.

“I would put so much pressure on myself. Why am I not tougher? Why can’t I do what I need to do?” Monger said. “We give so much support and compassion to the people we love, and even to strangers in need. But we rarely extend that same kindness to ourselves when we are hurting or when we make a mistake. Self-compassion is an incredible cushion for the loss, frustration and failure that inevitably come our way. It’s a skill I am very grateful to have learned.”

She also encourages others who are struggling, like she did, to get the help they need from where ever that may be.

“The stigma that surrounds mental illness stops so many people from getting help,” she said. “So many people don’t get that help, so they don’t become the person they want to become. Getting help is a way to live up to your full potential.”