Paris Alston: This is GBH’s Morning Edition. It’s the first Wednesday of the month, which means it’s time for our monthly mental health series, Wake Up Well. With International Overdose Awareness Day right around the corner. We’re joined now by Heidi HyunJin Lee, who is an artist, teacher, Brazilian jiu jitsu fanatic and mental health activist. To talk more about how substance use intersects with mental health. Heidi, hello. Thanks for being here.

Heidi HyunJin Lee: Thank you for having me.

Alston: So what has been your journey to this work?

Lee: The beginnings of it are my lived experience navigating bipolar disorder and PTSD, figuring out how to be the best mom I can be in the midst of all that, be the best human I can be. It’s a daily fight to live. I’ve lost a lot of friends to overdose, forgetting how precious it is to be able to wake up in the morning and realize the chance that you have at another day.

Alston: What do you think is misunderstood about mental health and how it coincides with substance use?

Lee: Oh, wow. You know, I worked alongside some of this city’s heroes on Atkinson Street on Mass. and Cass for about a year and a half or so. And the thing that I wish that I could say to myself, I’ll just say it like that, when I started and now I know, is that they’re just people like you and me. And some of us who have lost or have someone or family with mental health or substance challenges know that. You know, no one wakes up thinking, one day I want to be out there, give up all the things I value, all my relationships and my health, my wellness. No one thinks that. But I have met tremendous fighters out there, and I see them as true survivors and true warriors. And I think what society, and myself included, we can do best is to separate that divide between the us-we and them.

Alston: You mentioned people who have loved ones who are still in the throes of their substance use challenges. What advice would you give to them for taking care of their own mental health?

Lee: Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, recognize the tremendous value in that, that no one recognizes that it’s like just you get beaten down with trying and hoping and trying and hoping, and then sometimes it just backfires. And that’s the disease. That’s not the person you love. And I say, as someone who has a warrior like that in my life, my partner and husband who fights for me every day, and I think that sometimes it’s harder for him than it is for me. When I have my bipolar episodes, my mood swings, my PTSD triggers, and sometimes he doesn’t know what to do. And that’s okay. You know, it is going to be hard. And sometimes it’s okay to be selfish, to do what is necessary for you to survive so that you can understand what your healing means first, because you’re not helping anyone else otherwise.

Alston: In the midst of the mental health challenges that we are experiencing as a society right now, it may be easy to turn to all sorts of addictive behaviors to cope.

Lee: Yeah.

Alston: How does one strike that balance?

Lee: I think that we need to give grace to ourselves, because it’s so hard not to be addicted to something. We’re addicted to our phones. We’re addicted to work. We’re addicted to even good things. But society isn’t really like going to shame us in the ways that, you know, people who use substances receive. I think that sometimes, when we talk about substance recovery, AA and that whole like higher power, that works for a tremendous number of people, but that may not work for you. And that’s okay, because you have to create your own formula and you have to tweak it every single day, because what worked for you yesterday may not work for you today.

Alston: You’ve dropped so many gems throughout this conversation, but before we let you go, we are asking everyone we have on as part of the series to give us an affirmation related to the topic. What’s yours?

Lee: As bad as the circumstances may be, there is a gift in today.

Alston: That is Heidi HyunJin Lee, who is a mental health activist, among many other things. Heidi, thank you so very much.

Lee: Thank you.

Alston: And you can find a list of mental health resources at GBHnews.org/WakeUpWell. If you’d like to chime in on this topic, you can text (617) 300-2008 or email thewakeup@GBH.org. You’re listening to GBH News.

Heidi HyunJin Lee is an artist, teacher, Brazilian jiu jitsu fanatic, and mental health advocate. She joined GBH’s Morning Edition to talk about the connection between substance abuse and mental health and her own journey. It started with a personal experience.

“The beginnings of it are my lived experience navigating bipolar disorder and PTSD, figuring out how to be the best mom I can be in the midst of all that, be the best human I can be,” Lee said. “It’s a daily fight to live. I’ve lost a lot of friends to overdose, forgetting how precious it is to be able to wake up in the morning and realize the chance that you have at another day.”

Substance use is inextricably linked with mental health — and it’s often misunderstood. She described her experience in Boston.

“I worked alongside some of this city’s heroes on Atkinson Street on Mass. and Cass for about a year and a half or so,” she said. “They’re just people like you and me. And some of us who have lost or have someone or family with mental health or substance challenges know that.”

Understanding addiction means understanding how prevalent it is, Lee said.

“I think that we need to give grace to ourselves, because it’s so hard not to be addicted to something,” Lee said. “We’re addicted to our phones. We’re addicted to work. We’re addicted to even good things. But society isn’t really going to shame us in the ways that, you know, people who use substances receive.”

Living with those challenges takes community support, Lee said.

“I think that sometimes, when we talk about substance recovery, AA and that whole like higher power, that works for a tremendous number of people, but that may not work for you. And that’s okay, because you have to create your own formula and you have to tweak it every single day, because what worked for you yesterday may not work for you today,” Lee said.

That requires caregivers, too, to make sure they’re caring for their own health.

“You get beaten down with trying and hoping and trying and hoping, and then sometimes it just backfires. And that’s the disease,” Lee said. “That’s not the person you love. And I say, as someone who has a warrior like that in my life, my partner and husband who fights for me every day, and I think that sometimes it’s harder for him than it is for me.”

Sometimes her husband isn’t sure how to help her, she said. And that’s okay.

“When I have my bipolar episodes, my mood swings, my PTSD triggers, and sometimes he doesn’t know what to do,” she said. “It is going to be hard. And sometimes it’s okay to be selfish, to do what is necessary for you to survive so that you can understand what your healing means first, because you’re not helping anyone else otherwise.”

She left us with an affirmation: “As bad as the circumstances may be, there is a gift in today.”