Katie Villanueva is a Senior Salesforce Administrator. She is also the creator of the Mental Health and Illness forum on Trailblazer. Katie has been on a long journey with mental health and has learned so much along the way.

In this episode, Katie and I discuss her mental health history and her various experiences with it. She also shares some things we can do to optimize our mental health. You don’t want to miss this one.

Show Highlights:

  • Katie’s history in radio and how she transitioned from that to Salesforce.
  • When she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
  • The long journey that led to her diagnosis.
  • The three types of bipolar disorder.
  • The difference between mental health and mental illness.
  • How Katie manages her anxiety.
  • The experience she had meeting Charlie Isaacs.

Links:

Episode Transcript

Katie Villanueva:
You can say, I started off at this company on a good foot because I knew what the heck was happening to me and I was able to share that with my new employer.

Josh Birk:
That is Katie Villanueva, a senior Salesforce administrator. I’m Josh Birk, your host for the Salesforce Developer Podcast and here in the podcast you’ll hear stories and insights from developers for developers. Today we sit down and talk with Katie about her long journey with mental health. We’re going to talk about some of her experiences, some things we can do. And then in the second part we’re going to talk about the forum that she created for Trailblazers to talk about it. But we will begin as we often do with her early years.

Katie Villanueva:
I went to college for radio TV. I did radio for 10 years.

Josh Birk:
You did radio for 10 years?

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah, NPR. I worked with an NPR affiliate station doing a lot of the operations. I was a host and then I also had my own show. It’s good times.

Josh Birk:
Really?

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah.

Josh Birk:
What was the show?

Katie Villanueva:
Well, I had two shows. One was called Sound Acoustic, where we played everything… Everything we played was acoustic, so we tried to find as much stuff as we could that was kind of off the beaten track, maybe like B sides or anything unplugged that you would recognize plugged in. It was really fun. And then this other show is called Midnight Sun, and it was just whatever we felt like playing, honestly. But yeah, and sometimes I’d substitute on a world music show and all that other stuff.

Josh Birk:
Wow. How exactly do you transition out of that into the world of Salesforce?

Katie Villanueva:
Well, the economy crashed.

Josh Birk:
Aha. Actually, I’m not even sure which time we’re talking about at this point.

Katie Villanueva:
I’ll show my age. Back in 2008, 2006, 2008, the economy crashed and I was exited out of my career, like so many others and just kind of jumped from job to job to survive and ended up eventually at a call center where they used Service Cloud and absolutely hated that job.
And I moved over to the company where I’m at now, and I took a sales role, but they had Salesforce and they had just purchased Salesforce maybe a year or two prior to me coming on and nobody had worked with it before, so they were still wrapping their arms around it. They didn’t have any dedicated person to run it either.
So I came in and was just like, “You know can do this and that and the other, and blah, blah, blah, blah,” and was a super user. And suffice to say their security wasn’t up to snuff and so I jumped in the background and started making changes. So, that is not a best practice. Nobody should follow my lead, but it ended up working out. I had an aptitude for it and I loved it. And so they just gave me the administrator job and then I locked it down. I said, “Nobody’s going to take my job from me.”

Josh Birk:
One of my favorite lines from previous interviews was Megan Brodkey and she was like, “Yeah, I got this job. And on day one there were 250 administrators, and on day two there were two administrators and I was the most hated person in the company.”

Katie Villanueva:
That’s a lot.

Josh Birk:
But I want to say that’s not even accidental administrative. That’s intentional admin because you can’t suffer through bad security, but that’s a longer hashtag, I guess.

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah. I always like to say I stole my job. I didn’t steal it from anybody. I just took it. I said, “I’m going to do this now.” And they said, “You’re going to do this now.” I said, “Great.”

Josh Birk:
I like it. I like it. Well, so getting into the topic at hand, when were you first diagnosed with your bipolar disorder?

Katie Villanueva:
Well, I was at the call center, so before my current company, I got diagnosed I think just as I transitioned over. So you could say, I started off at this company on a good foot because I knew what the heck was happening to me. And I was able to share that with my new employer and it made for a great working environment for the next five years and-

Josh Birk:
Oh wow.

Katie Villanueva:
… for me. Yeah.

Josh Birk:
So you got to have that conversation on day one?

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah. Yeah.

Josh Birk:
Or day one-ish.

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah. Yeah. Basically.

Josh Birk:
Nice.

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah.

Josh Birk:
Was this something, because I know a lot of people with various neuro divergence, they kind of know something’s going on when they’re younger or when they’re getting into their career, but then it takes a moment for them to realize, “Whoa, this is so beyond normal, I need to actually get help.” Was there a pivoting moment for you where you were like, “I need to know what exactly this is?” Or was it just something that kind of changed over time?

Katie Villanueva:
No, I mean the signs were always there.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Something was wrong with me, off with me, that I was unhealthy mentally. I had a couple of breakdowns in my, well, I had one in high school and I was a kid, I was a teenager. It was kind of up to my parents to help me get help. And that was 20 years, over 20 years ago. And they sure loved me and they put me in touch with the school counselor, but it wasn’t the help that I needed. It wasn’t appropriate for what I was dealing with. Appropriate response. They tried, but we didn’t talk about this kind of stuff back then, so I’m sure they didn’t know what to do.
And then I had another breakdown in my twenties and ended up in the hospital and just at the hospital they were like, “Oh, here’s some Valium,” to calm me down. And then I went to my doctor and I said, “Hey, I went to the hospital and I need help with something.” And they just kind of gave me some antidepressants. So for the longest time I went to a general physician, so that’s what I shouldn’t have done. And then they were like, “Oh, you have anxiety, depression. Here’s some pills for that.” Right?
And I just didn’t go to the right people for the right diagnosis. And then I had, when I was at the call center, I had another breakdown, ended up in the hospital again. And at that point I was having suicidal thoughts.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha.

Katie Villanueva:
I was still taking my medicines and I was just, I was at the end of my rope and then working in a call center on top of that-

Josh Birk:
Oh God.

Katie Villanueva:
… probably fed…

Josh Birk:
Oh gee. I am so glad we can laugh about this now.

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah. I mean, hey, if you worked at a call center and you love your job, man, more power to you.

Josh Birk:
Right, exactly.

Katie Villanueva:
I admire you and your ability to handle stress.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah. So finally somebody gave me a number to somebody they had spoken with and that their daughter had spoken with and they said that they felt the results, they saw the results and it turns out that the person that they got me in touch with was a psychiatrist.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha.

Katie Villanueva:
So it wasn’t a general practitioner, it wasn’t a social worker. I had been to group therapies, it was an actual psychiatrist and I had seen a psychiatrist in the past and I didn’t like him.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
We didn’t mesh well as…

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
So you got to find somebody you like, right?

Josh Birk:
Yeah. Yeah. It could be hard. And I got lucky with the first therapist I got connected with when I had my breakdown. And then the company I was working with tried to take her away.

Katie Villanueva:
Oh no.

Josh Birk:
And I was like, “First of all, no. You don’t do that to somebody with high anxiety. Are you crazy?” And then second of all, also, “No, we have shortcuts and symbols. She asked me what my number is and I know what that means. I’m not training a new one all over again.”

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
We can have a whole conversation about therapies and doctors and medicines and how to navigate all that stuff.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. Well I think it is good just to note that that is hard and it’s complicated. And it sounds like your journey lined up a lot with where, as a culture we’re just kind of getting to a decent conversation about mental health. You were having trouble getting a diagnosis because nobody really talked about it back then. And then we had this great phase where everybody was like, “Well just throw medicine at it. It should be fine.” But and nobody was really satisfying the mean. So it’s nice to hear that you got there, though, even as if it took that road to do it.

Katie Villanueva:
Well, I mean finding the right kind of help going to the right kind of doctors and then not only that, so, like I said, I did go to a psychiatrist and he didn’t diagnose me, but I went to another one and she did and she gave me medication for that specific diagnosis. And things started to alleviate for me, the stress kept on going away and I was able to even out and I was like, “Okay, maybe this diagnosis is actually it. This is the one.”

Josh Birk:
Right. And that’s another thing people don’t talk about enough I think. As the stress of the scenario itself kind of progresses, it’s so hard to navigate your own mental health because your own mental health is actively working against you. And so if the system’s not working for you, you’re kind of left to your own devices and your own device is already a little wacky because that’s why you are where you are.

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah, exactly.

Josh Birk:
So let’s walk through a couple specifics. Tell me, and I think based on the presentation you sent me and things like that, I think the better question is not what exactly is bipolar disorder, but what are the types of bipolar disorder?

Katie Villanueva:
Okay. Well there’s three types of bipolar disorders. You have bipolar one where people generally swing high and they experience something called manic episodes. Sometimes the manic episodes are, and I’m sorry if I’m regurgitating my presentation, but it is what it is, and I’ve said it so many times, but the manic episodes, you can experience psychosis where you’re just seeing things and hearing things that aren’t there. Everything is great.
This one guy told me he ate a strawberry and it’s the greatest strawberry he ate in his whole life and everything is just amazing. And the world can be gone to hell in a hand basket and you’re on cloud nine. And the thing is, everything is a great idea and everything is the best. And you could be doing some terrible stuff to yourself or to the people around you, and you would have absolutely no idea because you have these blinders on, and not only that, you’re super hyped about it.
So you’ve got this energy level that’s unmatched. And unfortunately, suicide could seem like a good idea when you’re in a manic episode and you don’t really think the consequences and the permanence of that. So manic episodes are, man, they’re scary.

Josh Birk:
Right. It’s weird to describe because it sounds like, “Oh my God,” that sound like I would love an afternoon where everything just seemed awesome, except for thank you for putting… But if everything’s awesome, then you can get yourself into some really dark corners.

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah, yeah. And you can do a lot of damage and when you come out of it, you got to deal with the consequences of that damage. And I imagine that can be just, the swing in itself is tough, but then dealing with what you did is got to be hard. It’s facing the music. You know?

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
So I don’t know. I don’t have manic episodes. I have hypomanic episodes, which what people with bipolar two, which what I have experience and bipolar two is the opposite of bipolar one. Instead of being really high, we swing really, really low. And you struggle with depression. All the things that go along. You don’t have to be bipolar to experience depression, so people I’m sure have experienced depression. And it’s just this, well that you can’t get out of.
But you can have mood swings and I think that’s what separates people struggling with depression and bipolar two folks, is that even though we are low and we do obsess with failures and thoughts of suicide and sadness, we can have a swing where we snap out of it and things are great, but we don’t have those psychosis events. And it may not last for two weeks the way a manic high could.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
So yeah, that’s the ride. That’s the rollercoaster.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha. And what’s the third type?

Katie Villanueva:
Oh yeah, the third type is cyclothymia, which is considered more of a mood disorder. And I don’t say that negatively or to act like that’s any less severe. So to anybody that has cyclothymia, you’re still on the struggle bus with the rest of us.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
But you do have highs and lows, but not to the heights or the depths as charted with folks with bipolar one and two. And you can have periods of time without symptoms. Yeah. But you’re still a moody, moody, moody, moody person.

Josh Birk:
Well, and I think that speaks to something which is, I don’t know what the right word is because it’s kind of interesting in the mental health community is that I’ve used the phrase neurodivergent neighborhood. It’s like we all have stuff that overlaps with things and we have different triggers, we have different things that work, we have different medication that works, but we have the same corners that we can kind of get to.
So like you’re saying, a mood disorder and also maybe this is a good time to bring up the point you brought up when we were talking earlier, when we’re talking about this stuff, you have this distinction between trying to focus on mental health versus mental illness. Do you want to tell me a little more about that?

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah. I really am making a push for mental illnesses, at least the Trailblazer community and within Salesforce to be seen as a community group. I feel like we need that recognition within each other so that we can support each other and see each other and learn how to handle it not only in the workplace but at home, but just there’s nobody to talk to.
And Salesforce has created an amazing safe space for us, for people of all different kinds of identities and sexuality and races and I really want to include the mental aspect of that. So why not have those conversations in this safe space that Salesforce has created for us and see what kind of change we can transpire through those conversations?
Salesforce does a great job pushing and supporting mental health, but there’s a difference. I think people with poor mental health need good mental health practices. People with mental illnesses also need good mental health practices, so there’s an overlap, like you said. But I think long-term mental illness is something that’s never going to go away, no matter how good your mental health is all the time.
And I think knowing you’re living with this thing, I don’t want to take away from anybody who struggles, but I feel like people with mental illness have a different kind of struggle that only we can understand with each other.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. And I think that’s spot on. And I think it also speaks to the fact that, again, different people have different needs and there’s this overlap, but outside of this overlap, I can’t remember. I think we were talking about it previously. It’s like, you and I, we want to be advocates, we want to help people, we want to get people resourced, but at some point we’re not therapists and there are people out there who are going to need more than breathing exercises.

Katie Villanueva:
Yes. Absolutely. Yeah, exactly.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. So talking a little bit more about that struggle, where does anxiety play into your daily struggle? So if somebody deals with generalized anxiety, I know I have triggers, I also know sometimes I wake up and it’s just sort of there. Is it similar for you or is it kind of pushed on you post-depression? Or how does that cycle in?

Katie Villanueva:
How does it end?

Josh Birk:
Or how does it begin actually?

Katie Villanueva:
Oh, how does it begin? Well, like you, I have triggers and I know what those triggers are. Traveling. I am somewhat agoraphobic, which is crazy because I’ve been all over the country this year.

Josh Birk:
I was just going to say.

Katie Villanueva:
It has been a mental exercise to do what I’ve done this year. And I didn’t think that I would be able to go across the country and speak, Well, I didn’t think I could get an airplane. I have a fear of airplanes. I haven’t been on airplanes in six years and I’ve been on I think 8 or 12 rides this year going all over.

Josh Birk:
Uh-huh. Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Anyway. So identifying my triggers so I’ll know when those anxieties are going to go crazy. Sometimes the idea of knowing I have a trip coming up will wake me up in the middle of the night. I’m supposed to go to Indianapolis tomorrow and I woke up having an anxiety attack because I was afraid of driving. And then I really find that, unfortunately I have a, for whatever reason, there’s no trigger and that’s the sucky thing about it-

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
At nighttime, most every night I have an anxiety attack and I can’t sleep. And I go to therapy for that and try to… Therapy has helped put things in perspective and like you said, deep breathing, learning different exercises. It just depends on the intensity of which tool I use to get through it.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha.

Katie Villanueva:
And then unfortunately, some people ask me, “What if I try all the things you suggest?” Which I’m a big advocate of exercise. I think that’s the number one way to manage your anxiety because it just burns that extra energy and you’re too tired to be anxious. But exercise, eating right and really watching how much alcohol you may consume and things like that. But if you can’t beat it, unfortunately, I hate to say it’s probably the worst advice ever, but if you’re not in a life threatening situation, you’re going to have to ride the wave.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. I mean that’s just sort of, reality always wins, right?

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah. But I find when you practice your tools, they get stronger every time. So maybe your tools failed you in that instance, but you took it a little bit further. And the more and more you practice, the stronger and stronger they’ll get. And they will come through for you, but there’s no guarantee you’re going to win. And sometimes you just try to learn from it-

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
… the best you can.

Josh Birk:
Do you think the trips are getting easier as you keep pushing? Because I shared this experience trying to challenge your mental health by, well, challenging it and then going out and speaking about it in public. My therapist would agree. It’s an interesting exercise, but it’s worked for me to a certain extent. Do you think it’s getting easier for you over time?

Katie Villanueva:
It’s like exposure therapy, right?

Josh Birk:
I think so, yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
I think that would be comparable. Flying itself has been easier.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
The first time I flew to Atlanta this year, I wouldn’t say hysterical, but I was unabashedly crying my eyes out. I had loud music in my ears because I didn’t like hearing the plane. So when you are listening to music and you’re shouting, because you can’t hear how loud you are, I’m pretty sure I was like-

Josh Birk:
Yes. That was that-

Katie Villanueva:
I’m pretty sure I was crying very loudly. And I had my mask on too. So I remember sucking my mask in. I remember trying to breathe. So, that was my first flight. But this last flight from Dreamforce, I was just holding my friend’s hand, closing my eyes as hard as I can and gritting my teeth and I got through it, so it’s gotten better. I don’t enjoy, don’t think I’ll ever enjoy flying.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Katie Villanueva:
But yeah.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
I think, like I said, the more you practice it, the better your tools will be or the more you’re exposed to it, the more you adjust.

Josh Birk:
Yeah, I would agree. How do you cope with this from an interpersonal point of view? In your presentation, you have this wonderful picture of you and Charlie Isaacs and you are grinning from ear to ear. You’re just beaming happiness, but as you said in your talk, what was that experience really like?

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah, I can’t tell you. I don’t remember because I was having an anxiety attack and so the only thing I remember is sweating through my shirt.

Josh Birk:
Wow.

Katie Villanueva:
It was February or something like that. And I had a long sleep shirt underneath my t-shirt. And so I went to the bathroom and took off that layer and then hoped to God I didn’t sweat through my t-shirt.

Josh Birk:
Yep. Yep.

Katie Villanueva:
But I just remember my body, this is going to sound crazy, my body functions, the sweating, the needing to go to the bathroom, the feeling like I was coming off of some kind of addictive drug. I was squirming like you would not believe. You would’ve thought…

Josh Birk:
Yep. It’s that fight or flight instinct dialed up to 11. Yeah.

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah, exactly. And we had, where we were sitting, there were booths and it wasn’t open on each side. One end of the booth was against a wall. So when we first got there, it’s just before Charlie came in, I got in the booth and I was against the wall and I just felt like I was going to have a meltdown. And so I made everybody get up and then I made everybody go back in the booth and I sit on the edge.
And then when Charlie came naturally, you would just let Charlie sit on the edge. He’s the last person here, so he would sit right at the end of the booth. And I told him, I was like, I’ve never met this guy. I was like, “You’re sitting in that booth.” I’m getting the end so that I can go to the bathroom and check my sweat, make sure I can walk around and pace. I’d do a lap. I’d secretly do a lap on the other side of the restaurant because I had to move because I felt trapped and it was the worst experience ever. I don’t remember what we talked about.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. And let’s be clear, Charlie is one of the least threatening people on the planet.

Katie Villanueva:
Yes. Yeah.

Josh Birk:
This is not an indictment on Charlie himself. And in fact, pretty lucky because I know Charlie well enough to know that if basically anybody on the planet points at something and you’re like, “Charlie, go there,” he’ll just do it. Just sort of see what happens. He might think it’s a joke or something. “Okay, now I’m standing here. Not what do I do? Are we dancing? Maybe we’ll be dancing.

Katie Villanueva:
But I felt I was rocking back and forth and scratching myself, scratching my neck and just twitching and I felt so ill behaved.

Josh Birk:
It’s something they do not tell you in the anxiety manual that does not exist, which is the pure physicality of what you go through. It is exhausting.

Katie Villanueva:
Oh, yeah.

Josh Birk:
It is so exhausting. It’s not, like you’re saying, the sweat and the needing to move and just shaking alone burns calories.

Katie Villanueva:
Yeah. Well, also in my presentation, I say when I got home, I finally let it out, I cried and I passed out for hours. I was so mentally and physically exhausted. But then when I woke up, I was sore from the tension that I was holding in my body.

Josh Birk:
And that’s our show. Now, Katie and I want to be very clear that we do not believe in any capacity that Charlie Isaacs is striking fear in the hearts of the community. We love you, Charlie.
Now tune in next week as we continue our conversation with Katie. We’re going to talk more about her experiences, more about some of the tools that you can use and about the Trailblazer forum that she started so that more people can talk about this, raise awareness and hashtag stop the stigma. Thanks again everybody for listening. If you want to learn more about this show, head on over to developer.salesforce.com/podcast where you can hear all the episodes and see the show notes and links to your favorite podcast service. Thanks again, everybody. I’ll talk to you next week.

 Get notified of new episodes with the new Salesforce Developers Slack app.