How to Overcome Sadness | Interview with Dr Joanne Robles

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SUMMARY

Sadness is a normal emotion in life. Who in the world does not get sad at all? But sometimes, we can be sadder than other times and it can be difficult to manage. A recent surge of sadness among the BTS army came up when BTS announced a supposed hiatus a couple of months back.

Our guest, Dr. Joanne Robles, is a neurologist and also a BTS army. She will share her experience in getting through the sadness as regards the BTS plans. Her tips include:

1. Keep busy.
2. Know more the kind of person that you are.
3. Accept that the only thing you can do about any particular situation no matter how difficult it is is to control how you react.
4. Seek help from a medical specialist when you sense that you no longer have a normal reaction to a stressor.
5. Find a release or a medium of expression to your emotions, like a hobby, painting, music, etc. 

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

TRANSCRIPT

Avic: Hi everyone, how are you all doing? I'm still streaming from Malaysia and I'm very happy right now because we have a neurologist, internist, intensivist, she's here to tell us how to overcome sadness with a particular case study of she being a BTS army and she has been part of this very sad news in June that BTS will go on hiatus. So now let's welcome Dr Joanne Robles. Hi Joanne.

Joanne: Hi Avic.

Avic: Tell me Jo, when did you become a BTS army.

Joanne: I found out about BTS in 2021 right around the time of the pandemic. I think that was the third surge but I've been hearing about them for a while now. A lot of the other colleagues I work with in the hospital- the nurses, the doctors, even friends in other places have been fans of BTS now. The discovery was actually accidental. I think I was going through a rough patch especially with the pandemic and that's when I started listening to some of their songs and I told a friend of mine "you know this group sounds familiar." And that's when she told me "Oh that's BTS" and so I got interested in listening to them and that's where I found out that it wasn't just about listening to the music but actually finding out the kind of people that they are. So that's where I started to move from becoming just a fan to becoming army.

I think that there's a difference between becoming a a fan and becoming army because when you move from becoming a fan of BTS and just listening to their music and admiring them, it really turns out to be a little more deeper than that when you become army because you start to envision going for the advocacies that they go for, doing things more in their name for other people around you, and engaging more in the activities that are related to the BTS boys or the Bangtan Sonyeondan. So that's how it is for me but I think that the appreciation of who they are not just as musicians but as people, and influential people at that, is actually what makes you not just a fan but an army.

Avic: You got to know about BTS during the pandemic so relatively you are like young as a fan.

Joanne: Yes I'm a baby army. They came out seven years ago or eight years ago around that time, they just had their anniversary in June. Being involved or being army I'm not as deep into it as you would say the OG army members or the ones that have been there longer but I think that it doesn't really matter when you get to discover BTS and when you get to turn into army because it's really about the state of mind. So even if by in terms of years I've just been army for about a year and a few months  doesn't really have any measure. Even the BTS members will tell you you don't need to count the years that you've been with us, it's when you discovered us that's when we debuted for you. So if you weren't with us when we debuted that doesn't really matter. It's everyone's time

Avic: What is an OG fan.

Joanne: Oh original gangster. That's basically what you call the ones that were there at the very beginning, the ones who were there in the years that they started out and the the the ones that were with them in the entire seven eight years while the rest of us of course that were slowly coming in just discovered BTS during the pandemic. I think a lot of us discovered BTS during the pandemic, the numbers just blew up during the the pandemic.

Avic: The rough time when you discovered BTS, is that similar to all the experiences of many other baby fans in the pandemic?

Joanne: Yes, I think a good percentage of the members that I have met, all talk about having listened or discovered BTS and their music during the time of the pandemic or during a particularly rough patch in their lives. Ao some have struggled through depression, some have struggled through finding themselves, some have struggled through work, or bullying. In my particular case it was about fatigue, it was work fatigue, and it was about going through the pandemic with a lot of fear and of course depression as well because you don't know when the pandemic was going to end. And with a particular kind of specialty that I have it was really a very tough tough time for me because we were at the forefront, we were at the brunt of it. Patients were coming in and out of the ICU, patients were dying on us, we were losing a lot of the patients ,and it was really starting to get depressing. It was already my rough patch, it was already about burnout. I was already at the very low point of my clinical practice and I just wanted to take a rest and say stop, let's reboot for a while.

And then I was going through my Spotify playlist driving to work, and the streets were empty. I think that was last year before they opened the lockdown around the first part of last year. We were just a year into the pandemic then and the streets were empty. I distinctly remember I was taking the curve towards my hospital and one of the songs of BTS came on in my playlist because I had already added that song for a few years without really knowing who was playing it because I just liked the the lyrics, the song, the melody. When I listened to it I actually teared up in the car because it really spoke to me and I said okay, I think this is the perfect song for me to drive to at this particular time because I was really looking for a reason to continue. So that for me was a life-changing moment and I said I think I'll listen to more of their songs and then I started listening to the songs liking the melody first it wasn't about the lyrics just yet. For me it was more of the melody and it was very soothing and it was very very comforting and then I decided I think I should start listening to what the lyrics say because they're all in Korean. And then when I read through the lyrics, it made more of an impact for me and everything else was you know I guess uphill or downhill depending on how you look at it. But I was down the rabbit hole I was down the rabbit hole from then on and my interest was really piqued and I learned a lot about the the boys, the members of BTS from then on. It was already non-stop for me.

Avic: You mentioned that you teared up because you listened to this Spotify. Was that in English?

Joanne: No it was actually in Korean but some of the words were in English and because it had such a nice melody when I parked in the parking lot of the hospital, I decided to search online for the lyrics and that's when I saw it and then and I said oh so that's what those lyrics meant and  it really spoke to me. The title of the song was Lights, it's an old song which they actually made for their Japanese album. But it really spoke to me and the other one that also spoke to me was Microkosmos and also Spring Day because it was about looking forward to hope or to hoping for something and it's about being together as one. When you look through all their other lyrics they really speak about not letting other people bully you, not letting other people put you down, about speaking for yourself, or speaking up for yourself ,and about loving yourself. And I think that was where it all just made sense to focus on you first. 

Maybe it was because I was already tired from the pandemic I think that's why I related so much to those words and to even just the titles of the song.  Spring day is the one about looking for hope and Microkosmos is about love being universal and about how you speak across distances, and about having each other's back. And then about the bullying a lot of it was about  mostly the rap songs. So those were their earlier songs when they were much younger. But then moving forward they were already about self-empowerment.

Avic: I get amazed with the army how can they ever distinguish the BTS members from each one. So let's try to have a look at the members and you tell me how do you ever recognize each one.

Joanne: Okay so  actually when I started out they all look the same to me too.  I just kept making the same mistakes over and over again and then after a week and I decided okay maybe I should start memorizing. So it was a challenge actually to myself "spot this person" and then see you know who he is. Eventually after one week I was surprised you could really tell them apart.

If you go to the back so the back row,  those are the more senior ones or the hyungs the kuyas, the ones that are older and the front row are the younger ones. So I think we'll go from the tall one the blondie the silver-haired one who's on the the right. So that's the leader. I remember him because he has a dimple. He's not the oldest but he's the leader of the group that's RM - that's his English name, his Korean name is Kim Namjoon. He's the leader of the group, he has been for ever since they started and he's the only one at the time who knew how to speak English so that's  why he is a spokesperson for the group at every single interview during the first few years until all the members started learning how to speak English and they now know that more or less - some better than others because it's still a little difficult for some of them.

The one in the middle at the back, the one with the brown hair who's very very handsome, he's the eldest of the group. That's Kim Seokjin and he's called Jin by army. So he's the eldest and he was the one who didn't really have any background in music because he studied to be an actor but he got scouted by a talent manager while he was getting off the bus and he was invited to audition for Big Hit which was which is the company that  they are affiliated with.  He's one of the taller ones in the group.

The one to the left, the small one who's also very ,very handsome is actually  Suga. That's his artist name, his real name is Min Yoon-gi. We call him Yoongi if you talk to army or Suga. He's very talented, he's a producer, a singer, a rapper- you name it. He's usually recognized as one of the more quiet ones, he's always just lurking in one corner because he's very introverted but he's the one also with a lot of involvement in creating their music.

J-Hope is third one in the front row, the one that's the one with his eyes closed. He's the youngest in the senior line, he is basically parang the middle child so he's he can be in the younger group or he can be in the older group he's also a rapper. He's the one who's just like a giant ball of sunshine every time you see him he's always very fun and hyper and he's the lead dancer of the group.

So they each have their own subunits. so you have a group that's does most of the dancing, you have the group that does most of the rapping, you have the group that does most of the singing. You have the group that's more of the senior ones and then you have the younger brothers. So you kind of put them into groups so it makes it easier for you to also remember them.

Now the one that has his chin on J-Hope's shoulder, the one that looks like an actor is Kim Taehyung. He's  well known for his role in a Korean drama series called Hwarang. He's the second to the youngest.

The brown haired boy in the middle with his hand his pocket that's Jimin, one of the dancers and the one with the sweetest angelic voice so he has a very high-pitched voice but that actually works well for the group because it's very melodic.

And the youngest the one that is very talented in a lot of things who's my particular bias is JK or Jungkook, Jeon Jungkook. So he's the one to the far left in front with the silver hair.

Sometimes it's difficult to remember all of them because you know they all get mixed up just like brothers they can all look the same but they're actually very distinct from one another. I was surprised to find out after a few weeks that they all had their own particular traits, their own particular habits, and even the way they move they tend to mirror one another but then they're still all very different. So I think it takes a little time but yeah you know eventually you will remember each one of them.

Avic: The way that you describe them I think I will remember some some things already but anyway I think it will take time like practice and I will become an army very soon. But how did you take the news about the hiatus?

Joanne: Oh I had mixed feelings about it. Actually to be honest I decided not to watch the the announcement because I was at work and I was already hearing some of my my friends talking about the announcement so I had an opportunity to actually avoid my hearing about it  from their live video from their festa. I don't know if it actually was a good idea that I avoided it but I think that I came to terms with it my own way because of me avoiding watching it on my own and just hearing it second hand. I think that I kind of didn't feel the impact of the news as much and I had a little more time to process it than hearing it firsthand.

But what it basically meant to me was I was glad that they were taking a break. I think even if most of the army members were sad about BTS going on a break, I think that they all understood that the boys needed the time to actually reboot themselves to and find themselves because they explained it so well and because army basically all went through the same thing anyway in any part of their lives. That's how they found BTS. I think that they completely understood why the members were losing themselves, losing their own individual identities because they had to work as a group and they wanted to branch out and discover themselves more and take a look at other aspects of their lives. I think that the transient feeling of sadness was literally just transient because what BTS did was to actually give us so much more during the hiatus so it's it's actually busier for them now than when they were a group because now army is being given so much time with each of the individual members because they're releasing their own thing, they're giving showing us their own identities. So I think we're actually getting a lot more reward from them going on hiatus than if they were a group. I don't know if that's how all of army feels but that's how I feel and I think that if they gave us seven years of who they were then I think that they deserve to have a few years off so that they can come back the same,  you know with a better understanding of who they are.

Avic: How was your being a neurologist helped you in this?

Joanne: I think it was very convenient that I was busy at the time. I was just late by a few minutes but then when some of my friends were already posting about them making the announcement. I actually held off on watching the live festa I think in a way because my understanding of or at least my understanding of avoiding probably because that's my kind of that's a personality I have my personality is if it's not something that's going to hurt, or if it's going to be painful, if it's going to be a painful experience, then I will avoid it as much as I can if I can help it .So I think that that was actually what helped me through it because I understood the kind of person that I was or that I am so I think that maybe that's also something about how anyone going through any difficulty might be able to overcome it a little better or maybe overcome it period by understanding their themselves more because the only thing you can do about any particular situation regardless of how difficult it is is to is control how you react.

And personally I don't think that it has anything to do with my being a neurologist but maybe having a little bit more  insight into the kind of person that I am  which of course I learned to discover probably as I grew older. And being more introspective  I gained a little bit more understanding of myself during the pandemic because I took on more time to to see the kind of person that I was. That helped me because I knew how I would react if it was sad news. I know how I would react if it's good news and at the time already having the warning that it was bad news I chose to filter the information the way that I wanted to be filtered which was to hear about bad news and then taking it with a grain of salt that this was good for the boys. And after a few days of processing -actually took one to two days I felt better afterwards because I knew that you know they needed it and the only thing I could control at the time you couldn't get angry at them for choosing that kind of direction. The only thing I could control was how I reacted to it and I asked to take it as an opportunity now oh if they're going to take some rest then I can for a while take a rest also from being focused on army and focus on myself. And surprisingly I found a lot more stuff to do but I also found myself learning more about each of the members during the hiatus very good.

Avic: Did you encounter some other BTS army who were really really saddened of the news like from among your friends and what did you advise them on how to overcome the sadness? so we're really getting into your tips your other tips for people who may not have the same self knowledge the same level of self-knowledge or self-control

Joanne:  Well there were a few especially the younger ones. A friend of mine has a niece who's a teenager who actually heard about the news and she took it differently- she decided not to pursue school. she decided not to enroll for school because she felt really sad about it and I think that it might have been just  you know the straw that broke the camel's back. Maybe it wasn't really the reason why she didn't want to go back to school for a while but she decided to take her own hiatus. So I think different people at different age groups, with different personalities take to adjusting to sadness or overcoming sadness in different ways.

It's very hard to give a one-size-fits-all advice to anyone trying to overcome sadness or difficulty or depression. I think it's about taking a step back seeing how appropriate your reaction is to a particular situation and understand that the only thing you control is how you react. You cannot control the events leading up to the sadness. You cannot control the outcome of those events. You can only control how you react to it and I think that that's the only thing that we have any control of is ourselves. So that's how I went through it. I don't know if that will apply to all especially the younger ones because we all we each have our own way of coping with difficulty or with sadness and maybe if I had found out about bad news at a much younger age I would probably have acted differently.

Avic: Qhat is in being young that the reaction could be different from your age right now?

Joanne: Okay so when we're younger especially when you're still in your teenager years or your teens or even your early 20s, 30s your brain is still growing, still finding to set itself, especially teenagers. That's why they're very emotionally-driven they're very id, they're not ego or super ego driven. They're very id it's because your brain, the connections are still trying to get fixed in deep  permanent connections. Actually they're always too fluid but this inhibition or your hormonal balance as well as the surge of your cortisol levels can affect how we  have control over our emotions and the way that we react. So that's how it is for younger people and this has nothing to do with whether you're a millennial or you're a Gen X.

I don't know if people will agree with what I have to say but this is my perception. I think that when you talk about that it's because in this particular time this is their age but when the millennials start to get older they will also evolve in a different way. Their emotional reactions the way that they manage or perceive work or life balance -that's going to be different and that comes with a lot of external influences as well so it's not just about always nature versus nature. I think it's always a combination of both so I don't think it has anything to do with a particular age group. I think it has something to do with how far along you are in your aging process.

Avic: And when when you talk about aging, is it the aging of the brain?

Joanne: Yeah yes yes. For example I'm in my 40s. 10 15 years ago I would still be called gen x but I would be a 20 25 30 year old  gen xer who thinks a lot different as a 40 plus year old gen x right now. So I don't think it has anything to do with that categorization. It's really about how you have matured over time, experience has taught you to handle behavior or handle any stressor differently and that's something that you only learn over time and not because of whatever category you're coming from. So I think that the millennials just adjust to difficulty a lot different than we do but that doesn't mean that they don't adjust do it.

Avic: and as you were explaining the brain how it develops there the neurologist in you came out yeah so you might have a certain advantage over us because you know how the brain functions. I don't know how sometimes sadness can affect the brain functioning and it can also lead to worse consequences in terms of sadness. Do you agree?

Joanne: Yes yes I think it does. Sadness can be a reaction, a normal reaction to a particular stressor. It doesn't need to have any definition other than your normal reaction to a particular event. But when it becomes excessive and you end up with an imbalance of neurotransmitters or balance of chemicals in your brain then you can actually end up with depression- be it minor depressive disorder and depressive disorder or adjustment disorder. So there are a lot of other definitions from a medical standpoint from a neuropsychiatric standpoint about how anything as minor as a reaction to an event can actually can later on turn into something different. And sometimes some patients or some individuals need not go through sadness to actually be depressed. It's really about an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain or chemical signals in the brain that leads to these kinds of disorders or illnesses. And that is already more than the usual reaction which is the sadness. So when you are starting to feel that it's no longer a normal reaction to a stressor or an event then maybe it's time to seek help from a medical specialist and not try to handle it all on your own.

One of the things that I also did during the time of the pandemic was actually to find a release or a medium of expression. And what I did there was I found that painting or discovering a new hobby actually helped me move forward not just as a distraction but it was also a way for me to express all the emotions that I had bottled up inside- be it happiness or sadness or frustration. So if you find any particular hobby or outlet that can help you -playing music, singing a song, meeting up with friends, be it online or face to face, then use that way of expressing your emotions, as a way to get over sadness, and any other kind of emotion that you might have. And also like I previously said if you are feeling that something is already out of the usual or out of the ordinary for you then do not hesitate to ask for help. That's something that we tend to forget  especially for people that feel that they can handle things independently or that are strong-willed it might be difficult for them to accept that they are having a difficult time. So if you are the one having the difficult time then do not hesitate to reach out to someone in your family or your inner circle that might help you process your emotions.

On the other hand if you are the listener or the individual who has somebody in your inner circle or your family having a difficult time, try to extend a little kindness and hear them out or help them out. And maybe just spending a few minutes listening to them might actually save someone from a lifetime of sadness or a lifetime of depression or having or undergoing even the struggles of attempting suicide or any other extreme measures for overcoming difficulties.  I think it's you know to each his own. My perfect balance was finding BTS, talking to my inner circle, and finding an outlet through music, painting and even learning Korean. I decided to learn Korean during the pandemic too. So all these distractions really helped me and just find the right combination or the right recipe for yourself and I think that anyone can try to overcome sadness.

Avic: Oh wow really you already know Korean, you sound like a Korean.  Probably we, Dr Sal (my friend who introduced me to Dr Jo) probably we can go to Korea one day.

Joanne: I've been to Seoul. My dream is to go to Busan soon because they're having a free concert. But I didn't apply for the raffle that would let you have a free ticket to the concert . We already have a lot of the Korean things here. It's still different of course if you go there. But yeah learning Korean also stimulates my brain it prevents dementia, helped me overcome sadness so you can learn any other language you want.