Looking Beyond the Surface with Gladys Lopez

 Gladys Lopez, a recent graduate of BYU’s Master of Public Health program, is passionate about family health, women's health, and promoting public health within family systems. In this episode, she joins Cougar to share her experiences working with inmates struggling with substance use disorders. Gladys reflects on how this work taught her to look beyond outward appearances and truly connect with the individuals behind the challenges they face. 

Learn more about the Foundation for Family Life that Gladys has been working with by going to: https://fflut.org/

Recorded, Edited & Produced by Christy Gonzalez, Harper Xinyu Zhang, and Tanya Gale

Transcript

 Looking Beyond the Surface with Gladys Lopez 

Cougar: [00:00:00] Gladys Lopez, welcome to Y Health. 

Gladys: Thank you. 

Cougar: I have been looking forward to this, not just all day, but like for the last couple weeks since we scheduled this. You are one of my favorite graduate students. Don't tell the others. So you're an MPH student and you're about to graduate here. You're wrapping things up in your second year. 

And to begin, I would love for you to introduce yourself to our listeners and then we'll, I've got some questions for you. 

Gladys: Okay. Yeah, so I'm a second year master of public health student. I am from San Diego, California. I'm the oldest of five kids. And I love family health research family health promotion, maternal and child health. 

Yeah, those are kind of my, my major interests. 

Cougar: Do you wish that Brigham Young and the Saints had kept going and settled in San Diego? 

Gladys: I don't know. Maybe that'd be fun. But 

Cougar: every time I've been there it's 72 degrees. Just a little bit of a breeze. That's the place. Maybe it is right no, we've had a [00:01:00] great fall here, so I'm feeling good. 

But sometimes I wonder if San Diego isn't a little bit of heaven. 

Gladys: Was it a 

Cougar: good childhood, Gladys? 

Gladys: Yeah. So I, I didn't think many people know this, but I was raised by two Mexican immigrants. Hey, those are my parents. So I grew up, it wasn't very uncommon for me to translate for them make them aware of resources in the community. 

And I completely thought this was like a normal thing for everybody up until like middle school. And then I realized, hmm, this is not. the normal standard for everybody. And I never could quite put my finger on why it was different, but I would say those are, that's probably the main, like, thing in my life that has guided me towards public health, just wanting to serve minority populations and making those resources accessible to them. 

Cougar: Yeah, so you grew up bilingual. Yes. And it's really been a blessing, certainly with your professional [00:02:00] pursuits. But what a blessing you were to your parents and to your family. But what a unique role for a child to have, right? 

Gladys: Yeah. 

Cougar: Navigating the education system, was there some navigation of the healthcare system as well? 

Gladys: Definitely. Definitely. I think this also stems, I think, more into my young adult life, but when COVID happened, I remember my parents sitting us all down at the kitchen table and they said, you cannot get sick because we do not have health insurance. And I mean, thankfully none of us ever did, but that was just a very heartbreaking thing for me to have to process. 

Just knowing that we didn't have. the means to be able to provide for that. And I mean, as kids, we did because we're covered by the state of California, but for my mom and dad, that was a very real and very scary thing. And I know that there's multiple people that are in that similar situation as well. 

Cougar: So we talk about the social determinants of health in every, in every class and I think pretty much in every [00:03:00] podcast as well, but those mean something different to you. 

You have lived experience with those social determinants. Is that what then drove you to, to study public health as an undergrad and also as an MPH? 

Gladys: I would say so. Yeah, I think I started off my undergrad. I did it at Brigham Young University, Idaho, and I actually started off as a biology major because I think the typical response when you're like, I want to be a doctor is because I want to help people and at some point, I think it happened during my mission, I just realized as I served in like very rural Guatemala that people, it's not just the fact that they don't have access to healthcare or that they don't have money for it. 

There are other barriers to it. Maybe they can't drive themselves there or they don't, aside from means of transportation, they don't have knowledge or awareness that there are these resources or they don't know what certain sicknesses are so they're not aware that maybe they are facing an illness. And coming home from my mission, my dad asked me again, [00:04:00] like, Well, what do you want to do? 

And I was like, I want to be a doctor because I want to help people. And he said to me, there are more ways to help people other than just being a medical professional. And that's kind of where I started to branch out a little bit more. And I was like, okay, well, like this is health related, but it's not necessarily fixed by a prescription. 

Right. So maybe there's something else that could help with those things to increase the wellbeing of individuals. 

Cougar: Yeah, that is so cool. 

Gladys, I love hearing you talk and I could, I could listen to you all day, which is why you're a guest on the show. Please tell us a little bit about your past summer. So this summer you completed your field work, which is 300 plus hours. I know you actually put more time than that into 

Gladys (2): it. 

Cougar: But you had such a tremendous experience and a tremendous impact on the population that you serve. So with that, can you just walk us through what your field work was like? 

Gladys: Yeah so I did my fieldwork ata non profit organization, it was called the Foundation for Family Life, and [00:05:00] the name kind of sells out what it is that we were doing, but yeah, we worked improving the family life with people within Utah, and a large part of the community that we worked with were men who had been previously incarcerated due to substance abuse, and. 

There are a lot of other little things but the main issue is substance abuse and these were men that aged between, like, 20 to 60, so we got a wide variety of people that came in. And they seemed very intimidating when I first worked with them. I'm talking men who were tattooed head to toe. A lot of them haven't. 

fully gone sober. So it's not uncommon for them to still smoke or vape or do things like that. And so just from viewing them on the outside, it's very intimidating and very scary. But the longer I worked with them, the more I was able to see how they're just real people. We had conversations like you and I are having cougar and I kind of just got to [00:06:00] see how they're They're just real and they made mistakes and they're trying to fix them. 

And I think that was my favorite part about it. Just being able to see how they're genuinely trying to get out of a hard situation. 

Cougar: I was just so pleased with the reports I got from you, Gladys, about your field work. I don't think I've ever mentored a grad student who worked with this particular population. I'm not sure if I've had a grad student who's actually worked with substance abuse addiction. 

In public health, I think we have maybe everyone does now. But I know when I first came to public health myself, I realized that I had been viewing this particular challenge through a much different lens through a lens maybe that was more of a, well, this is a moral issue and someone has made poor choices. 

And so these are the consequences. That's the way life works. That is not the way public health views addiction. So can you give us kind of a public health model of substance abuse addiction, Gladys? 

Gladys: [00:07:00] Yeah. So in working with these men I had, there's three men that were assigned to me all the time. But one of the three, One time we were talking about how he developed his addiction and it broke my heart because he shared with me how his parents were neglectful and very permissive and he said that at one point once he was in high school, he would do drugs with them and that's the first time where I realized like, oh, this wasn't just him choosing one day to wake up and get high. 

Like, it was something that he had seen growing up, something that his parents were pushing, and it's just like this never ending cycle, right? Until one person decides to make a change, and so I think it's common for it to be perceived as like, oh, this person woke up, made this choice, it was a moral decision, but sometimes it's out of that control, and sometimes there's factors that affect that as well. 

And it could be family life. It [00:08:00] could be genetic predisposition, right? And I think the most important thing with it is learning to be self aware of yourself, right? And what those predispositions are for you, because if you are self aware and know what they are, you can control it. But a lot of these men, it wasn't a choice, right? 

It was just something that was inflicted upon them. And I think that's where compassion is really important for this population because we all make mistakes and just because our mistakes look different from theirs doesn't mean that they don't deserve that compassion either, right? They're trying to fix it just like we try to fix the mistakes that we make. 

Cougar: Yeah. I'm thinking of something that then President Uchtdorf said in a conference talk. He said, don't, don't judge me because I sin differently than you. And, and maybe that's not the right time to use that phrase because again, I don't think we view substance abuse addiction as you know, a personal sin or a vice. 

I think we can look at it as maybe the first time someone's exposed. That was a poor decision. But once addiction takes over, [00:09:00] once brain chemistry is, is now driving that behavior, it, it really is difficult to say, well, this is a bad person. This is a person in a really bad situation now and they need a lot of help and a lot of compassion. 

I think that's what I've learned from public health. You are also interested in mental and emotional health and these things they are intertwined in really unique and fascinating ways in my opinion. And maybe Gladys, I'll just share with you that years ago I had one of my children was dealing with what I might call a mild episode of depression. 

And probably, probably my instinct as a father was to let that just play out and just say, you know, life's hard. And so you're going to have to dig deep and be resilient. But in the back of my mind was this, this knowledge, this real world experience that I had gained as a high school teacher, where I saw students who were dealing with depression or anxiety and not getting the [00:10:00] care they needed. 

And then, and it's so unfortunate, but then they stumbled upon alcohol, or any other substance for that matter, and began to self medicate. And these were good kids who otherwise were making terrific choices in their lives and were on just a really nice trajectory for getting through school and career and family and But because they had this depression, this anxiety, and they started to self medicate, suddenly the people they were spending time with were different. 

Their goals were different. And so often, alcohol and tobacco and even marijuana can become gateway drugs. Because now you know the people who sell those things. And guess what else they sell? And so I remember just distinctly having that thought that, you know, I need to help my child. I need to be more proactive in helping my child, connecting them with care and, and maybe even a temporary round of medication to get them through this. 

And, and, but the reason that I made that [00:11:00] decision to be proactive in that way was because I had seen so often a mild mental health, you know, episode turned into substance abuse and substance abuse, use, abuse, addiction, all of it. So too much about me. Tell me, where does mental health intersect with substance abuse based on your experience now over this past summer? 

Gladys: I think in working with these men I don't know, I think it was interesting to me to see the way that men handle mental health. In opposition to like, a woman, right? And what was interesting is like, I would do a wellness check with my clients every week. And so, you know, he would come in and I'd say, Okay, well how, how's like your wellness doing? 

And it was interesting because when I would say, wellness, And then he would talk to me about like, oh, I'm stressed, or I'm trying to find a job, or I want to gain custody of my kid, or things like that, right? And it was interesting, because then [00:12:00] if I said illness, sometimes it was still those same things. 

And I was like, oh, well, there is a clear distinction between Like mental health and mental illness, right? And so when I'm asking about mental illness, I'm like talk to me about You being bipolar about you your anxiousness your depression, right? And I think there was a big mix in between the two terms And so I think coming out of this experience from the summer that has been one of the biggest things where i've learned where it's like when somebody is asking about Your mental health or your wellness. 

Yes, we care about how stressed you are, but that's not necessarily me asking about your depression or your anxiety, right? Those are things that are a little bit different from that and I think we need to, as a society, learn how to distinguish between the two and realize that both are very important. But there is proper terminology for how we talk about them and how we address them. 

Cougar: You're educating me now. So, so continue along that vein, please. So [00:13:00] what do you mean by mental health? Because it's clearly different than Mental illness. So talk to me about I don't know if you're gonna where you're gonna go at this We're gonna talk about flourishing and positive psychology. I don't know. 

There's a lot of fun things to talk about But how do you distinguish those things and how did you distinguish them for your clients? 

Gladys: Well, I think with mental health when I would talk to a client I would ask, right, about like those stressful things, what their triggers were and I think especially when you're working with someone who's trying to become sober, it's so important to talk about those triggers because kind of like you were saying it is a gateway. 

To other substances, right? And so I would work really hard on like what's stressing you out right now. What's making you sad? What's making you upset? And I think we all have mental health struggles. I think we all need help with it And we all have different triggers Maybe it's not substance abuse but we do need to be aware of those things and those things can lead if we don't take care of them to mental illness and I [00:14:00] think Thank goodness for medication because one of my clients, he is a testament of medication working for him. 

But it's interesting to see the whole like 180 turn that he did from the first day that he arrived not knowing how to handle all of these triggers and stress and anxieties to then one day getting on medication and suddenly being like, oh, I am bipolar and I have depression and I have anxiety and that's okay because we're learning how to manage it. 

And so I think. Those are like clear distinctions between the two where it's like, we all need help mentally and we need to talk about it and normalize it. But at the same time, not place that stigma of like, just because you're stressed, it means you have anxiety because it doesn't, but it can turn into that if you're not using the proper coping mechanisms. 

Cougar: That makes perfect sense. I love it. We really do need stress. I mean, if I think about our heavenly father's plan, at least in my life, he has a clear pattern of stretching me. Like way further than I [00:15:00] think I can be stretched. And that does elicit some anxiety. And that, that does initiate the whole sympathetic nervous system. 

And there's some fight or flight response that goes on, right. And sometimes, unfortunately, it's a prolonged response that goes on for weeks that can really harm my immune system. But what I've recognized is that that is when, you know, When it's in the rear view mirror, I recognize how much growth, how much dependence and reliance on the Holy Spirit and on my Savior. 

And at the same time, like my ability and my capacity to do and to handle and to become is just, it's incredible what he does. So it's this, he'll stretch, stretch, stretch, and then bless, bless, bless. I call it the stretch plus cycle in my own life. So, and I, it goes pretty quick. And I have this feeling though, that That's, that's probably the experience of most people if they were to pay attention that, that are our Heavenly Father stretches us and blesses us and he makes us more like him and more like his son. 

So, okay, enough of the seminary discussion from you. [00:16:00] Gladys, you're rolling your eyes back. 

Gladys: No. 

Cougar: This is the Why Health podcast, all right? Tell me You spoke a little bit about some initial fear because these were men and these are men who have been incarcerated and these are men who have had or still have substance abuse issues. 

And if we, if you've ever seen a movie, the way Hollywood portrays any one of those things can, can elicit, you know, some fear. how has this experience changed how you see this population? 

Gladys: I love this population deeply and I think if I dwell upon it long enough, I will probably cry about it because I just have so much compassion and so much empathy for this population. 

My very first day when I met them, there was a group of 20 men tattooed head to toe, smoking. They were outside and I could not, couldn't like, I don't know, convince myself to go over there and have a conversation. And I saw how other people working there could. And I was [00:17:00] jealous because I was like, why am I judging them so hard when I don't even know them? 

But I see the physical on the outside. And I like you said, you see the way that they're portrayed by society, by movies, television, all of these things. And we actually we're going to play pickleball that day. And I've never played pickleball ever in my life. And so. One of the men came over to me and he's like you should be on my team and I was like No, thank you, sir. 

Like this is very scary but I was I was on his team and I don't know how to explain it. But as I was playing with him at some point I saw past the tattoos Past the smoking and we were just giggling laughing together and it was so great and it wasn't until I had made a comment about like Being OCD or something like that where he suddenly snapped back and he was like, oh, yeah I think I have that because I was in jail and then it just clicked and I was [00:18:00] like, oh, yeah Like these are real men. 

They have real backgrounds in these things and I think it's so beautiful that they are trying to fix the mistake and I think that's just my biggest advice for everyone. It's if you look hard enough at the person You're gonna see past what's on the front and you're gonna see something beautiful on the inside and these men I learned very quickly like It wasn't uncommon for them to yell at me, to call me names, to drop the f bomb on me. 

And I would just kind of sit there and take it, and I'd be like, Hey, I'm here for you. Like, I could get up and leave, but you're choosing not to get up and leave. And they would kind of sit there and like, dwell upon that. And they would apologize to me, and I think it was always just kind of like, a wall that they put because they had to be that way in prison and they had to be that way in society to fight for themselves. 

But they were so beautiful and so kind within and when I had to say goodbye to them that was probably the hardest thing just because [00:19:00] maybe we didn't have relationships and we weren't friends exactly but I definitely did grow to care and love for them a lot more than I thought I initially would. 

Cougar: So cool. 

I love it. You're going to cry, but my heart's like wanting to burst with joy. Sometimes I cry, but sometimes I'm just like so excited, so happy. Maybe the whole world needs to play pickleball. 

Gladys: I think so. 

Cougar: You know, I mean, seriously, we all, we all, not all. Many of us, myself included, we have this, this, this facade we put up. 

And we just, it, it is indeed a coping strategy. It might not be a positive coping strategy in all instances, but we have kind of a hard shell. But I think as, as society in general becomes more comfortable with, you know, the uncomfortable, more comfortable with being vulnerable, not that we need to be vulnerable all the time and not that it's safe to be vulnerable in all situations, but as we have those experiences, all of us, not just [00:20:00] those who have previously been incarcerated, but all of us, I think, I think there's, there's connection that can be made when we take those walls down and we connect. 

Man, that's. The whole world needs to play Pickleball Gladys. And I hope you've polished up your game. Are you good now? 

Gladys: I'm not that great Cougar, but we're working on it. 

Cougar: Yeah. I can't backhand, so I just, I just run really quick and turn my body around. That's funny. But it's much more forgiving than tennis, I'll tell you that. 

Where does Gladys Lopez go from here? You've had just an amazing experience. Is this the population you want to work with long term? Do you see yourself in public health as a practitioner or here? Can we talk you into being an academic? Maybe? I don't know. 

Gladys: So I have been looking into PhD programs and I'm in the process of applying so I can start. 

next fall. Hopefully somebody takes me, we'll see. But I have worked previously with domestic violence victims and then now incarcerated men. And so, there's a little trend that's happening. And so I [00:21:00] really love this population and I love helping. these types of people and I think when I first started off in public health it was definitely centered more on like immigrants and families and now I've kind of grown to see how there are minority populations and this is one of them. 

And I don't know, they have a very special place in my heart, and I think I would like to pursue that a little bit more try to bring resources to them and promote materials that will help them integrate back into society. 

Cougar: Yeah, I could totally see you doing that, becoming an expert in that area for sure. 

Now you've also been teaching though while you're here. You've been teaching undergraduate classes in the Department of Public Health. So that's, if you do choose a career in academia, not only will you be a specialist in in one or more areas and research and with one or more populations like you're talking about, but you'll be teaching undergraduate students. 

How have you enjoyed teaching? 

Gladys: I love teaching and I think the cool thing is, is that when I worked in the domestic violence [00:22:00] shelter and when I worked with these men over the summer, I did a lot of teaching, but teaching in the nonprofit world is very different from teaching in an academic world. 

And there was a very clear distinction where when I would teach these men, there was pushback where like, They didn't want to hear everything I had to say, or they would make sarcastic comments. And so it makes it hard for you as the facilitator to kind of get the message across. But teaching here with the undergrads has been a completely different experience. 

And it's been kind of cool to integrate all of the things I've learned over the summer. into the classroom but also be able to be educating people that actually have an interest in what I have to say and being able to help them. I think it's so fulfilling to see kind of like the light bulb turn on, right? 

Like it clicks in their heads and I'm like, oh yes, like you got it, right? And I think it's, Very validating for me too, because I think sometimes I get a little bit of [00:23:00] imposter syndrome, and I'm like, ooh, maybe they hired the wrong person. Maybe I don't actually know what I'm doing. But when they understand and it registers for them, I'm like, okay, like, maybe I do understand what I'm doing and they're able to apply it as well in their careers. 

Cougar: Yeah. I think we all feel that by the way, I have to tell you. Like, are they, wait, is someone like going to come and open the door and say, we were just kidding. You're not instructing this class. We were just, but you bought it, huh? I know that was a joke. I still feel that way after 15 or 16 years. I have to tell you, but I absolutely love teaching. 

A, I love the students here. We have wonderful students. If anything, I want them to kind of, Hey, just in through the out through the mouth because they're so, you know, Goal oriented and I mean so driven to earn every single point. I want to say, you know what you're all really smart Let's just come in here and focus on learning to learn And we'll give you all A's. 

I can't actually do that. [00:24:00] But that's what I want to say because they're already incredibly well prepared, very bright, articulate. But I have to tell you that for me, not, not every lesson, but often I will leave the lecture hall and we'll go full circle with our substance abuse discussion. I've never been high, but when I leave the classroom, I'm like, this must be what it's like, because it's just, So much dopamine, so much whatever on the pleasure center. 

Yeah, I just feel so good and actually the reverse of that is true when I feel like I did, I wasn't well prepared, or I didn't have an engaging lesson, or I didn't wrap things up the way I wanted to and make the connections. I'll leave. And I'm like, I have to quit. I, I need to text my boss right now and say, Hey, here's two weeks. 

I'm terrible. You like, so it's, it's amazing how high I get with that teaching and how low it drops me. If I feel like I haven't performed well, I'm not sure if that's entirely healthy, but it really is motivating. [00:25:00] And maybe like a drug, when I, when I teach a great class, I'm just like, I want to work so hard so that my next lecture is even better. 

You know, so we're chasing the dragon, not with, not with a substance, but with that experience of teaching and helping more students and connecting with them, you would be remarkable. I want to encourage you all day and I'm sure our listeners agree. They're like, okay, yeah, Gladys can do this. So how cool that you've been prepared with all of these different experiences from childhood, from your wonderful parents up to now, let me ask you this because I think we're going to wrap things up and get you out the door. 

And you probably know this is coming. What, what have you been reading? What have you been listening to? Is there something that you can share with us and our listeners? Like, what does someone like Gladys Lopez do with her free time to, to sharpen her saw, so to speak? 

Gladys: Well, Gladys Lopez isn't as cool as the other podcast interviewees, but I'm not reading anything right now, but I do listen to different podcasts. 

And my favorite one right now is the squeeze. [00:26:00] Taylor Lautner and his wife. They do it. They drop episodes every Wednesday, but it's all oriented towards mental health. And I love it so much. They're just so real and they bring on a variety of celebrities TikTok influencers, and it's people that I never associate as having like mental health problems. 

But it's just so eyeopening to see how people cope with it and how there's different resources and mechanisms to be able to use. And I find myself like taking notes as if it was like a lecture because I'm like, oh, this is all so good and I need to apply it in my life. And I think it's a really good one. 

It's just super laid back. It's not like super academic professional like language. So it's definitely easy to understand. And I think everybody should listen to it. I recommend it. 

Cougar: I'm going to give it a listen. It's on mental health too. That's right up our alley on this discussion. And also the courses that we teach and what we care about in public health. 

And how [00:27:00] interesting that these are I think, I think these are Hollywood personalities. Yeah. So interesting because we, and I need to wrap this up, but we talked so much about the social determinants and there are so many protective factors for the most part, education, socioeconomic status gender, race, ethnicity, those, those can be you know, tremendous protective factors in keeping you well. 

But I, I don't know that there are that many protective factors. I think, I think Hollywood personalities can also deal with a tremendous amount of mental and emotional health challenges, as you said. And so, maybe it's one thing that really connects all people, that we can empathize with each other. 

Because, yeah, you may live in a larger house on the hill, but you also know what it's like to battle with depression and to feel anxious. Okay. Maybe not, maybe I'm misspeaking, but 

Gladys: no, I think that's really cool. The whole world would be better. Right. If we had that compassion. And I think that's the biggest thing I learned over the [00:28:00] summer where it's like, just see past what's on the front. 

Right. And I think if people can choose to do that, we'll be more inclusive. We're united. And I think that's the whole point of it, right? Like we are all brothers and sisters and we just need to have a little bit more empathy for what we go through because the person sitting next to you really isn't that different from you and from what you're enduring too. 

Cougar: So grab a pad on let's play pickleball. 

Gladys: Yeah. 

Cougar: Gladys, love you sister. You're amazing. Thanks so much for sharing your talents and your experiences with us on the Y Health Podcast. 

Gladys: Thank you.