Interview with Jade Lintott
Jade Lintott, Jing Jing Wang
Jade Lintott, Jing Jing Wang
Jade Lintott by @sailorjubs
[Some of the audio did not record properly, so the transcript may be inaccurate at certain spots.]
Jade: Hi my name is Jade Lintott. I'm a Stanford student. I'm a Junior. No, let's try that again. Hi, my name is Jade Lintott I'm a junior at Stanford. I'm a math major. Uh, yeah, I think that pretty much covers it. Mental health to me means taking care of your mind the way you would want to take care of your body. So that includes things like regular maintenance that includes getting treatment when you're sick. That includes taking measures to just improve it in general so that you can be more the person you want to be. Um, yeah. It's it's a part of Health and it shouldn't be considered under otherwise.
[background with mental health]
Uh, so yeah, I've been pretty. I was a pretty anxious kid. My like entire childhood like I have pretty distinct memories of even in like the second or third grade like becoming obsessed with like. Somebody's gonna come in Robert House or like there's gonna be an earthquake. I live on the East Coast. There are absolutely no earthquakes. Like just the kinds of things that cause children anxiety, but like getting really caught up in that kind of thing and not being able to process it. But I didn't really have the language for that. Obviously as a child and that kind of continued throughout most of my life. And like in high school I started getting on and off kind of mental health treatment. Uh, but it wasn't until college that I like really committed to like doing something about that. Uh, start seeing a therapist and just like really making this an active effort in my life rather than something that I was just trying to. Kind of make manageable on a day to day basis.
Jing Jing: Is there any form of art or media that you feel has been like particularly helpful getting you through this time? A lot of people have been talking about that, and if it's the case for you, we'd love to hear what you have to say.
Jade: Yeah um, so I one of my kind of extracurricular things is I'm part of a dance team and my dance team has been like we've been doing dance classes via zoom or like just giving each other TikTok challenges to learn and like that's been really good for me. Good, both 'cause it's.Like social and 'cause Exercise and it can be hard to motivate yourself. Just move and that's been really, really useful. And just like feeling involved in my art and like feeling like I'm still making progress in it and not that I'm like. You know, slowly getting less flexible by the day, which is often the alternative, so that's been really important for me. And then I think. The media that I've been consuming that has been most useful has been this is nerdy as crap, but dimension 20 live DND playthrough show by the college humor people. Um, I'm wearing their sweater right now from oh, um, but yeah, the I mean just like. So it's it is optimistic and it is hopeful, and it is joyful. But it is also intensely earnest and thoughtful and sentimental, and that's been very good for me, I think.
Jing Jing: Jade, if you be willing, just talk a bit again about the connection between mental health and art, which a lot of people experience.
Jade: Cool, yeah, so I think a lot of people experience a connection between our as an outlet for their emotions and a way to kind of improve their mental health, whether that be making our or consuming ourselves.
Both or neither? Um, I don't think it's like a perfect one to one relationship, but that means that it helps a lot of people, myself included, dance with something that I could let myself be bad at, and that I could earnestly try to give 100% at and still fail and be OK with that in a way that like. At the time I nothing else in my life. I was really OK with that with um and so that really helped me reframe a lot of how I looked at my life and how I looked at success and try and draw a less binary kind of separation between like successful and failure and be more of a spectrum. So yeah, I think it definitely can be. I've also, I think, just like being kind to yourself right now is really important. Like it's OK if you're not at your most productive at the moment. It's OK if you aren't getting everything done that you want to get done, or you're not going to come out of Corentin. You know with the eight times self improvement that you wanted to. It's OK to just be nice to yourself for a while, and if you need a nap, naps are great. If you just want to eat some food, that's cool too. Like I think taking it one step at a time with self compassion is really important. And on top of that, like I I I'm lucky enough to have a therapist and my therapist can do video calling, so that's been really important for me.
And then, you know, practicing all of those techniques that I've learned in my day-to-day life to help me cope with my mental health. All of those tools still exist, and I've been using them.Even maintaining stasis right now is a little tricky, but maintaining stasis is a lot easier than like trying to get something you going, but at the same time it's a lot of empty time to think about your stasis and what could be different about it and what could be better about it, which like makes for a tough combination of being. Very aware of the things you would like to change and having nothing at all you can do about changing them.
Jing Jing: That's definitely a tough one. You mentioned this a couple times in different ways, but could you elaborate about like this idea of productivity glorification myth or this pressure to be productive, either in an academic context or just in like hobbies or self improvement?
Jade: Yeah, I feel like especially when quarantine was just starting out there is like a lot of people who are like now is the time to like. Work out a bunch and get that body you've always wanted. Or like Shakespeare wrote. What was it Macbeth, Macbeth, when during a plague when he was quarantined inside his home? Or you know X mathematician?
They discovered this thing while they were quarantined, 'cause of the plagues, and it's like that's all great but like plagues are hard and. Oftentimes, I don't want to be productive. I want to nap because it's stressful and I don't know what I'm doing and this idea that, like the only benefit is the kind of benefit that gets written down in history books later, or makes you more affective as. Like like either as a worker, or like Tord some ideal. You want that, like maybe doesn't actually serve any purpose that you actually want versus like, hey, it's OK to just like take care of yourself and I think like understanding that like taking care of self care and. And Self Compassion are also work and they are also important work and that. Those shouldn't be sacrificed for the sake of some larger goal is important.
I don't know if this will be useful or good. This is what gave divide, so we're going to do this thing, so I've been in slightly more crises than I was planning on in the recent past, so I spent the summer in Hong Kong and to refresh everyone's memory from what feels like 30,000 years ago, hengkang had a real summer of like protests and uprising, and. Unrest and like it was very crazy and often violent, and that was not the plan when I went to Hong Kong, I was planning on doing a small like educations, last software internship and not be in the middle of a state in crisis. Um and like it was definitely really stressful. But when I came back like. I like was explaining it to someone. Was like no, you know, it wasn't like that bad like whatever you stayed in the right places at the right time. My friend turns to me and goes Jade. Nope, I was on the phone with you at the time. No you were very stressed out all the time. Like it wasn't just chill and like I think there really is an element. There's a tendency to make the things you've survived seem less bad.
Then they were as opposed to the things that might come or you are currently experiencing which seemed truly insurmountable and like. I think most people are more resilient than they realize they are, and I think. Like when this is all over, remember that it was hard and that you did it and that you're OK and like, yeah it was bad, but like you made it through and that doesn't make it less bad. It makes you strong.
Jade: Hi my name is Jade Lintott. I'm a Stanford student. I'm a Junior. No, let's try that again. Hi, my name is Jade Lintott I'm a junior at Stanford. I'm a math major. Uh, yeah, I think that pretty much covers it. Mental health to me means taking care of your mind the way you would want to take care of your body. So that includes things like regular maintenance that includes getting treatment when you're sick. That includes taking measures to just improve it in general so that you can be more the person you want to be. Um, yeah. It's it's a part of Health and it shouldn't be considered under otherwise.
[background with mental health]
Uh, so yeah, I've been pretty. I was a pretty anxious kid. My like entire childhood like I have pretty distinct memories of even in like the second or third grade like becoming obsessed with like. Somebody's gonna come in Robert House or like there's gonna be an earthquake. I live on the East Coast. There are absolutely no earthquakes. Like just the kinds of things that cause children anxiety, but like getting really caught up in that kind of thing and not being able to process it. But I didn't really have the language for that. Obviously as a child and that kind of continued throughout most of my life. And like in high school I started getting on and off kind of mental health treatment. Uh, but it wasn't until college that I like really committed to like doing something about that. Uh, start seeing a therapist and just like really making this an active effort in my life rather than something that I was just trying to. Kind of make manageable on a day to day basis.
Jing Jing: Is there any form of art or media that you feel has been like particularly helpful getting you through this time? A lot of people have been talking about that, and if it's the case for you, we'd love to hear what you have to say.
Jade: Yeah um, so I one of my kind of extracurricular things is I'm part of a dance team and my dance team has been like we've been doing dance classes via zoom or like just giving each other TikTok challenges to learn and like that's been really good for me. Good, both 'cause it's.Like social and 'cause Exercise and it can be hard to motivate yourself. Just move and that's been really, really useful. And just like feeling involved in my art and like feeling like I'm still making progress in it and not that I'm like. You know, slowly getting less flexible by the day, which is often the alternative, so that's been really important for me. And then I think. The media that I've been consuming that has been most useful has been this is nerdy as crap, but dimension 20 live DND playthrough show by the college humor people. Um, I'm wearing their sweater right now from oh, um, but yeah, the I mean just like. So it's it is optimistic and it is hopeful, and it is joyful. But it is also intensely earnest and thoughtful and sentimental, and that's been very good for me, I think.
Jing Jing: Jade, if you be willing, just talk a bit again about the connection between mental health and art, which a lot of people experience.
Jade: Cool, yeah, so I think a lot of people experience a connection between our as an outlet for their emotions and a way to kind of improve their mental health, whether that be making our or consuming ourselves.
Both or neither? Um, I don't think it's like a perfect one to one relationship, but that means that it helps a lot of people, myself included, dance with something that I could let myself be bad at, and that I could earnestly try to give 100% at and still fail and be OK with that in a way that like. At the time I nothing else in my life. I was really OK with that with um and so that really helped me reframe a lot of how I looked at my life and how I looked at success and try and draw a less binary kind of separation between like successful and failure and be more of a spectrum. So yeah, I think it definitely can be. I've also, I think, just like being kind to yourself right now is really important. Like it's OK if you're not at your most productive at the moment. It's OK if you aren't getting everything done that you want to get done, or you're not going to come out of Corentin. You know with the eight times self improvement that you wanted to. It's OK to just be nice to yourself for a while, and if you need a nap, naps are great. If you just want to eat some food, that's cool too. Like I think taking it one step at a time with self compassion is really important. And on top of that, like I I I'm lucky enough to have a therapist and my therapist can do video calling, so that's been really important for me.
And then, you know, practicing all of those techniques that I've learned in my day-to-day life to help me cope with my mental health. All of those tools still exist, and I've been using them.Even maintaining stasis right now is a little tricky, but maintaining stasis is a lot easier than like trying to get something you going, but at the same time it's a lot of empty time to think about your stasis and what could be different about it and what could be better about it, which like makes for a tough combination of being. Very aware of the things you would like to change and having nothing at all you can do about changing them.
Jing Jing: That's definitely a tough one. You mentioned this a couple times in different ways, but could you elaborate about like this idea of productivity glorification myth or this pressure to be productive, either in an academic context or just in like hobbies or self improvement?
Jade: Yeah, I feel like especially when quarantine was just starting out there is like a lot of people who are like now is the time to like. Work out a bunch and get that body you've always wanted. Or like Shakespeare wrote. What was it Macbeth, Macbeth, when during a plague when he was quarantined inside his home? Or you know X mathematician?
They discovered this thing while they were quarantined, 'cause of the plagues, and it's like that's all great but like plagues are hard and. Oftentimes, I don't want to be productive. I want to nap because it's stressful and I don't know what I'm doing and this idea that, like the only benefit is the kind of benefit that gets written down in history books later, or makes you more affective as. Like like either as a worker, or like Tord some ideal. You want that, like maybe doesn't actually serve any purpose that you actually want versus like, hey, it's OK to just like take care of yourself and I think like understanding that like taking care of self care and. And Self Compassion are also work and they are also important work and that. Those shouldn't be sacrificed for the sake of some larger goal is important.
I don't know if this will be useful or good. This is what gave divide, so we're going to do this thing, so I've been in slightly more crises than I was planning on in the recent past, so I spent the summer in Hong Kong and to refresh everyone's memory from what feels like 30,000 years ago, hengkang had a real summer of like protests and uprising, and. Unrest and like it was very crazy and often violent, and that was not the plan when I went to Hong Kong, I was planning on doing a small like educations, last software internship and not be in the middle of a state in crisis. Um and like it was definitely really stressful. But when I came back like. I like was explaining it to someone. Was like no, you know, it wasn't like that bad like whatever you stayed in the right places at the right time. My friend turns to me and goes Jade. Nope, I was on the phone with you at the time. No you were very stressed out all the time. Like it wasn't just chill and like I think there really is an element. There's a tendency to make the things you've survived seem less bad.
Then they were as opposed to the things that might come or you are currently experiencing which seemed truly insurmountable and like. I think most people are more resilient than they realize they are, and I think. Like when this is all over, remember that it was hard and that you did it and that you're OK and like, yeah it was bad, but like you made it through and that doesn't make it less bad. It makes you strong.
On behalf of It’s Real, we would like to thank Jade Lintott for her experiences and words of encouragement!