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A weekly show from the folks at East Lansing Info breaking down all the news and happenings in East Lansing, Michigan.
Hello, and welcome to East Lansing Insider. This is Dustin Dufort Petty. Today, we're gonna be talking about mental health with two different guests, different aspects of it, really. Our first guest is Andelina Grossi. She is a student at Michigan State University, graduating this spring, and she just published her first book.
Dustin DuFort Petty:It is called Sanity in the Storm, Faith, Healing, and Hope for the Anxious Soul. Andelina, in the book, writes a faith centered guide for anyone who is navigating anxiety, uncertainty, loss, depression, and she's lived the experience. Yeah. Complete transparency, I've known Andelina for a few years now as a student at Michigan State University. I did not know about her experiences or the the faith that helped guide her through until we had spoken about this.
Dustin DuFort Petty:So first up, here is Andelina. Now as I mentioned, we will be talking about mental health today. And the topic of self harm and suicidal ideation does come up. So just know that if you or someone you know is struggling with mental health or having thoughts of suicide or self harm, please know you're not alone and help is available. You can call or text 988 to connect with trained counselors 20 It is free, it is confidential, and it is available to anyone in The United States.
Dustin DuFort Petty:You can also reach out to a trusted friend, family member, or a mental health professional. Talking to someone can make a difference.
Andelina Storm Grossi:I'm Andelina Storm Grossi. I'm a psychology student at Michigan State, and I'm from Fenton, Michigan.
Dustin DuFort Petty:And what was your relationship with mental health before the book?
Andelina Storm Grossi:So growing up, I've always struggled mentally. I like realized that you can be at a campus as big as MSU and be around people all the time and still feel completely alone. So that was kind of where I was at. I struggled with anxiety and OCD when I was a kid. But then as I got to college, it became more like loneliness and depression.
Dustin DuFort Petty:Where, since the book centers so much on, your faith as a means to work through it, what was your relationship with faith, before the book?
Andelina Storm Grossi:So I've always had some sort of faith to fall back on, but then I realized that the more lonely I felt and the more that I like really got overwhelmed with depression, the more I realized that if I don't have hope or faith in something, then there wasn't like a reason for me to work through what I was going through. I feel like people need to find hope in something because that makes it so that they wanna wake up tomorrow.
Dustin DuFort Petty:Did you have a low point at all?
Andelina Storm Grossi:Yeah. So last year, it was fall of my second year at Michigan State. And I would lay on the floor in my roommate's room and just tell her, I didn't know how to be here anymore. I didn't wanna be here anymore, but I didn't know how to make the decision to take my life because I knew it would affect so many people around me. And I knew that it would make so many people question, oh, I didn't even know she was struggling.
Andelina Storm Grossi:Was there something I could have done? And I couldn't deal with that guilt. But at the same time, there was like nothing in me that wanted to be here. Everything felt extremely meaningless. And again, like I could be in a completely crowded room and I just felt completely alone.
Dustin DuFort Petty:Did you always find it easy to speak about these issues, with with friends and family?
Andelina Storm Grossi:Honestly, no. It's like definitely a newer thing. When I was in high school, I had really bad anxiety, and that's something I used to, like, lie to people about. I used to, like, lie about the way I was feeling. And it was pretty obvious I had anxiety because like people would see me have like a panic attack and then ask questions.
Andelina Storm Grossi:But like, I would completely like lie about it because there was so much stigma around mental health that I didn't want to be deemed as like broken or unwell, which is just so not the case looking at it now from a different perspective. But at the time, like I was so scared of people thinking there was something wrong with me or like not wanting to be my friend because I like struggled with this.
Dustin DuFort Petty:Through talking about your challenges and your own experience, you found that people are more willing or more interested in talking to you about their own experiences?
Andelina Storm Grossi:Yeah, so that's something that led to me writing the book was I realized that the minute I started being open and vulnerable with the way I was feeling, so many of my friends and family members were then coming to me and being like, oh, I struggle with this feeling too. I'm really struggling with this as well. And then after writing the book and stuff, now I have strangers reaching out and being like, oh, I struggle with this, I struggle with that. And it honestly just shows that you're not alone and that everyone is going through something. And there's just so much stigma and the impression that you need to be silent, which is why no one talks about it.
Andelina Storm Grossi:But the minute you start talking about it, you feel better about it.
Dustin DuFort Petty:One of the reasons I think the book is so brilliant is because not only is it your experience, but it acts as something like a workbook almost that people can go through to find their own reflections, their own perspectives. How did you decide what format or what shape it would take?
Andelina Storm Grossi:So honestly, I felt a lot of it was my faith. It was God for me just guiding me along the way. But I have a lot of family members and friends who don't believe in the same God I do, they're not religious in the same sense I am. So I wanted to make sure that the book had ways that helped people with similar faith as me, but then also has ways for people to be able to grasp something and get some sort of coping mechanism, even if they don't believe in the same God I believe in. So I start with personal testimony, because if you don't show someone vulnerability and you don't show someone that you understand to at least an extent what they're going through, it's hard for people to listen.
Andelina Storm Grossi:It's hard for people to think, I know what they're going through, or I know to some extent, because obviously everyone goes through different things. So the beginning of each chapter, I start with a personal story or testimony or something I really struggle with so that people understand that it's coming from a place of, I've been there, I want you to feel better. And then it does kind of bleed into faith because that's one of the biggest reasons I'm still standing now is because I had faith in something bigger than myself. But then as a psych student, I decided to use psychological coping mechanisms that work. My editor was a neuroscientist.
Andelina Storm Grossi:So together, we would like go and do all this research on how to combat like anxiety, OCD, depression, whatever it was, so that people had like real coping mechanisms. So anyone, any walk of life could open the book and have something to get out of it.
Dustin DuFort Petty:Tell me more about your editor. In a lot of ways, is a peer reviewed book because you had this, how did you get connected to them?
Andelina Storm Grossi:So my dad has this friend, his name is Ken Jocelyn, and he does like masterminds. So He's really big in the business world, and he actually is good friends with Doctor. Lee. He was telling my dad, he's like, I love your daughter. I love what you guys do.
Andelina Storm Grossi:I'm gonna connect her with Doctor. Lee because Doctor. Lee's written a book before. Wonder if she'd be interested in editing Andalina's book. So that was how I got introduced to Doctor.
Andelina Storm Grossi:Lee. And I was the first book she had ever edited, but she's genuinely a genius. Like she's a neuroscientist. But her perspective on things really opened my eyes to a whole new world of understanding psychology because she's gone through all the psych classes. She's done all the neuroscience classes, and it helped me realize that I wanted to have a deeper understanding on like what was actually going on in people's brains when they were struggling, instead of just like looking at it more as like an emotion standpoint.
Dustin DuFort Petty:By writing this book, does this mean that you no longer have any mental health difficulties and you are perfectly fine from here on out?
Andelina Storm Grossi:No, it doesn't. Honestly, I struggle just as much now, sometimes even more. I think mental health is a continuous roller coaster and you just have to know that when you get to the bottom of that coaster, you're going to get up again. And that it's going to get better, but then you're going to fall again at the same time. I think writing this book gave me perspective on my mental struggles and it showed me that no matter what happens, I will get through it.
Andelina Storm Grossi:No matter what happens, I do now have coping mechanisms that will get me to a point where I feel okay again, but doesn't mean it went away. And I don't really think it ever will fully go away. I just think that I have to continue to adapt and find new ways to cope with what I'm going through.
Dustin DuFort Petty:I'm gonna ask you to to be a guesser for a minute. Why do you think, folks your age, at this stage of life, why do you think mental health, issues are so prevalent?
Andelina Storm Grossi:I think especially in college, there's so many expectations. Like there's so many expectations to succeed in school. Like you're supposed to come to this university and like be a four point student, but college isn't the same as high school. Like if you were a four point student in high school, it's not as easy to maintain that. In college, there's an expectation to fit in in college.
Andelina Storm Grossi:There's an expectation to live this like perfect party college lifestyle that doesn't always fit everyone perfectly. There's this expectation to look a certain way. Society makes it so that there's a beauty ideal that no one will ever live up to. Because as soon as you think you fit this ideal, it changes. There's this expectation that everyone around you is doing better than you are.
Andelina Storm Grossi:We have social media, which is like someone's highlight reels, and we're, like, comparing it to, like, our lowlights. It's us laying in bed after a really long day and then it's like, Oh, someone's in Italy studying abroad. There's such a big comparison game. I think our generation also lacks hope. No one really has hope in anything anymore.
Andelina Storm Grossi:No one has hope in humanity because the news doesn't even show us the good anymore. Like when I was a kid, they used to do like one random act of kindness of the week. Like they don't even do that anymore. Like everything is just sad and negative. And the human brain like naturally gravitates towards negativity, which is so hard to really think about, but it's true.
Andelina Storm Grossi:So I think being a kid in our generation, like Gen Z in college, is so insanely difficult because there's so much pressure on our shoulders that doesn't necessarily need to be there. And there's always a camera in our face. So even if we wanted to go against these ideals, it's getting documented and then everyone knows. So you feel like you have to fit into this perfect box more than any generation before us.
Dustin DuFort Petty:Is it different with women?
Andelina Storm Grossi:Yes. I would say that it's definitely harder for women. Think as like, as you go down the line, like it gets like harder for like different kinds of people. I think obviously the straight white male has it the least hard. I think that's just kind of known.
Andelina Storm Grossi:At the same time, they also have the highest rates of suicide, older age. So, like, the straight white male actually in their forties and fifties has the highest rate of suicide. So I do think there's, like, a loop where, like, maybe not as hard when they're in their teens, but, like, later in life, it does catch up with them. But right now, I do think the beauty standards and all of that is much harder for women. Do
Dustin DuFort Petty:you have a portion or a piece of the book that you are especially proud of a section or an activity? If not, don't worry, we can skip this. We can cut this question out.
Andelina Storm Grossi:Yes, I do. I can't remember exactly which chapter it is. But there's a chapter in the book where I talk about relationships and I talk about what it feels like to be in a super toxic, abusive relationship. And that's a chapter I'm extremely proud of because I think it's something that's really hard for people to talk about. Like a lot of people don't wanna talk about, when you're stuck in this, like, endless cycle with someone.
Andelina Storm Grossi:And I compare it to, like, a bath, like bath water that when you first get in the bath and then the tub is, like, warm and what like, you love the warm water and there's comfort and reassurance there. But then when the bathwater gets cold, like, you still don't wanna get out of the bath because you just remember how warm it used to be and how comforting it was. And I think that's a really good illustration of what a toxic relationship's like because it never starts out super toxic. It starts off pretty loving and warm and comfortable. And sometimes there's a love bombing.
Andelina Storm Grossi:And then eventually the relationship runs cold and bad things start to happen, but you just rely and hope that one day it'll get back to the way it used to be. So that was probably a really like a chapter I'm really proud of because one, I don't think it's talked about enough. And two, I think it was something that was really hard for me to get through because you want to believe that like the person that like says they love you and that you love will like one day decide to treat you the way they used to.
Dustin DuFort Petty:What is next for you, Angelina?
Andelina Storm Grossi:So what's next for me is I'm graduating this spring, which is super exciting. I just released the second season of my podcast, which I'm super excited about, and I'm starting to do speaking opportunities.
Dustin DuFort Petty:Is graduate school in the future?
Andelina Storm Grossi:Yes. So I think I'm going to take either a gap semester or a gap year and then go to grad school. I want to be a children's therapist and help kids in the ways that I wish I was helped when I was a kid.
Dustin DuFort Petty:Drop the name of, your podcast and your book. Where can people find you?
Andelina Storm Grossi:So my podcast is Peace in the Storm podcast, and it's on every podcast streaming service. And my book is Sanity in the Storm, and it's on Amazon. My Instagram is andelina dot storm, so a n d e l I n a dot s t o r m. And in my bio, can find everything.
Dustin DuFort Petty:Thank you, Andelina. Next up, I'm speaking with East Lansing city council person Kerry Ebersole Singh. At a recent council meeting, I heard Carrie discuss measures that may be installed in downtown East Lansing parking structures after a series of unfortunate incidents where residents have taken their own lives at those structures. While the conversation veered away from the actual implements that may be installed, Carrie and I spoke about why this is happening and how we can support one another at a time when mental health has taken a forefront in the national dialogue.
Kerry Ebersole Singh:As we mentioned, we had some unfortunate incidents prior years. I know city staff was working to learn, like if there's signage that can also be posted, like if you need help or I can't remember the verbiage, but signage being one thing, but I'm assuming in parallel there was this additional concept that there was federal grants available for getting those types of barriers.
Dustin DuFort Petty:Yeah. In September, there were two incidents and then in June, was one. That's quite an uptick from previous years. Do you have any theories on what's going on or what we as community should be doing to support each other?
Kerry Ebersole Singh:Yeah, honestly, I think it's unfortunate reflection of what I think the community is facing at large. And I think there's two, my theory is there's a couple of different drivers. One is I do think while we are quote unquote in a post COVID era, I think there's still a COVID hangover in terms of what the globe experienced during that time period. I think if you look at mental health statistics from that time period, you see an uptick, especially amongst young adults. I think that coupled the other factor is I think the politicization or what we're seeing from the federal government and the news cycles that we're all a part of that also creates additional stress.
Kerry Ebersole Singh:And I do think if you look at data from both 2020 and 2024 uptick of stress around some of the issues that this country and globe are facing. So I think those are two huge factors and I think unfortunately as we're mentioning, know the suicides that we've seen within the community around the parking structures in particular, there's other indicators we're seeing from community stress factors and that includes some of the traffic safety issues that we've talked about, especially along Harrison. We spent a lot of time talking about the school crossing there. But I know from our own school crossing guard who she quit at the end of last year because she would she's talked about being flipped off, drivers pulling over and yelling at her. And this is a person who just helps kids cross the street twice a day.
Kerry Ebersole Singh:So these are all indicators of, I think at large community stressors that are coming through some of these events and data that we see. I think, as you said, how can we support one another? The question is, that is a question we should think about every day. And I always, my father frequently do unto others as you would do to yourself. Treat folks with kindness.
Kerry Ebersole Singh:Try to be supportive. We all get stressed. We all, you know, have those days that are rough, but just give yourself some extra time. Try to take a breath as we kind of go through this time period in our history and in our lives. I think that's real.
Dustin DuFort Petty:Thank you to both of our guests today. As I already mentioned, if you're struggling with your mental health or having thoughts of self harm, you can reach out to 988. You can call or text that number. It is the Suicide Crisis Lifeline, and it's available 247 to help you. Thank you for listening to this episode, and remember that we are all better off because you are here.
Dustin DuFort Petty:Have a good week.