thank you
okay well welcome everyone thank you for
joining the talk um so i'm going to go
ahead and dive right in um i'll talk
about myself at the end i want to give
as much time to the topic uh i'm not
really that important you can hit me up
online if you really want to know more
about me but we're going to go ahead and
dive right in um so this talk was
actually um developed by infosister
amanda berlin who i'll talk about um a
bit more later she's the ceo of mental
health hackers
and a few years ago she started talking
about mental health in the community
it's grown a lot a topic more people are
comfortable with
and as you'll see later is blossomed
into so much more with mental health
hackers
so the reason this talk is called
contents under pressure it's kind of
it's a very intense talk um it's a talk
that does make some people uncomfortable
but the point of mental health hackers
and giving this talk is that even if
it's uncomfortable to talk about it's
something we need to talk about so this
talk has been given a bunch of times
i've given about three different
versions of mental health
related talks mine is more focused on
the skill sets that come from
neurodiverse
people
and
how it can be leveraged and infosec
so
um again my my talks typically cover
that focus but here we're gonna get into
the deeper talk of um
why why this is important to talk about
the uncomfortable topics that often um
either have stigmas associated with them
or aren't talked about for
uh much
so
uh starting off uh we'll talk about the
fact that
everybody
no matter your walk of life no matter
where you are no matter your history
probably has uh
some sort of issue something they are
dealing with
so
depression is a big one it's the leasing
cause for physical illnesses typically
depression leads to other side effects
that cause issues
um
so
i think it's important that
uh
we we always talk about these things and
bring it up instead of lay it down
because the more we talk about it the
more
ways we can come up with solutions and
the more we can help people in our
community our family our friends
so what are some of the things we're
dealing with um when we talk about
mental health there's a lot of common
disorders associated
so i'll touch a little bit on some of
them coming up but we talk about things
like adhd anxiety autism bipolar
disorder depression ocd schizophrenia
gets affective disorder
we also sometimes talk about imposter
syndrome in infosec and it's actually
now
listed as
a
occupational phenomenon in the
international classification of diseases
but since it's not classified as a
medical condition we're not going to
talk about it much today um there's
plenty of talks
about uh impostor
syndrome out there now a lot of people
are talking about it
but diving into more of the mental
health disorders side
we're going to start with
a bipolar disorder
so this was previously known as manic
depression
when bipolar people experience mania um
they'll
usually be upbeat jumpy wired
have increased energy and activity
and euphoria but
the issue with this uh is typically that
euphoria can lead to poor
decision-making rush decisions um so
even even the good side of things comes
with a bad side and then obviously the
other side the depression side
you'll see a lot of things related to
chronic depression which we'll talk
about next
so depression um a lot of time the
stigma is uh
you're just sad um
and
that's a really
not great stigma to put out there um
because depression is so much more
especially people who are chronically
depressed um it's a real mental health
issue and not just a i'm sad and
you know the response of well life is
great you should be happy
when you're experiencing depression
you're gonna have feelings of
sadness emptiness hopelessness you may
have angry outbursts over the small
things
um
loss of interest in things that you you
typically love hobbies
and uh also insomnia you have sleep
issues or you may sleep too much you may
have sleep disturbances so that's
obviously going to impact your
day-to-day life
if you're not getting your right sleep
anxiety is another big topic to talk
about there's social or general anxiety
disorders
typically you'll have struggles talking
or interacting with strangers
you may
be worried about things that may cause
embarrassment
and this will lead you to avoid doing
things or speaking to people
because of that fear of embarrassment
you might avoid situations where you
have to interact with strangers so again
it can have a huge impact um on your
day-to-day uh interactions and
functioning
and that's just uh the top three most
common mental health disorders like i
said you got autism ocd schizoaffective
and so many more
um
so a lot of times these are seen
compounded together for example you'll
see people who have anxiety and
depression or adhd and anxiety
lots of overlaps
so
there's symptoms and there's signs signs
are what other people can see and
symptoms are what the person feels and
how they respond to how they're feeling
one thing to remember about that
is especially with the stigmas out there
a lot of people with mental health
disorders um
learn to uh with autism we call it
masking so um for example i'm autistic
but younger i learned kind of the
judgment and the way culture would treat
me when they see certain things um and
i'm learning not to mask as more now but
i have years of kind of
hiding all those um symptoms um from the
world so that they can't see all my
issues
and that's why a lot of people be like
oh i never knew and i was like because
i've learned that i'll be judged so
there's no signs even though there's
symptoms
so
these aren't just things that
a few of us are experiencing the reason
that we've brought it to the community
and started these discussions is how
widespread
mental health issues are
one in five adults experience a mental
health condition every year whatever
that may be
and one in 17 experience a serious
mental health illness schizophrenia
bipolar more
um
and half of mental health conditions
begin at age 15 14 and then uh
as you get older by 24 you're likely um
if you're going to develop one habit
uh develop
so
um
one of uh one of the ways amanda
described it is the behavior change info
sister the behavior chains and the
personality changes that come with
health mental health conditions
uh
it's like a teenager hitting puberty but
randomly for the rest of your life
so if you think of it that way
it can be so rough
so we you probably a lot of you have
seen the semicolon used related to
mental health especially depression and
suicide
um so we bring it up briefly just so you
guys know actually our part of our logo
for the mental health hackers
incorporates that semicolon um because
we
we got to it represents that uh
a person could have chosen to and their
life as a
author has could have chosen to end
their sentence but chosen not to
uh
so
uh yeah and and we've
if you uh look at the statistics for
suicide
a
2006 study actually said that of 26 000
college students over half of them
considered suicide at one point
so this isn't just something affecting a
small population it's a common
thought that many people experience at
some point in their lifetime
it's uh unfortunate that
the cyber security community you may
have seen on twitter uh there's a lot of
threats of suicide online um there's
a lot of people we've lost to suicide um
infosister when she started talking
about this um part of the reason was
because at least five people in her life
she met have died by suicide um so
it's important that we
bring support to the community um so
that
we
uh
we can support each other and reduce the
chances of this happening to our friends
and family and co-workers
and i just want to quickly brief bring
up the difference between um active
suicidal thoughts and passive suicidal
thoughts so
um an active suicidal thought is
bringing in that plan there's a plan it
may be vague um but there there is a
very big chance the person um is really
thinking about carrying this out um and
then there's other passive suicidal
thoughts such as i hope i don't wake up
tomorrow if i you know jerked my
steering wheel right now um it could be
over uh but there's no intent behind
them there's no thought out plan
um and they they typically crop up
because of depression um making it more
appealing uh to
to uh
die rather than continue life
but
no one should have to face this alone
that's why we're talking about it
whether it's comfortable or not
it's better to talk about it as a
community and be aware of these issues
than let people who are facing this face
it alone and by bringing it up someone
may who may have felt
uncomfortable talking to people before
may find their way to feel comfortable
and
it's important uh
to
you know because infosec a lot of times
there's
our industry is not suited to face these
challenges and so
we need to start treating mental health
issues like we talk about a
uh
a physical health issue um because it is
that same level you know if somebody
needed to take time off work to deal
with treatment for diabetes uh you're
not gonna tell them no suck it up stick
it out um and we need to face mental
health the same way we need to be able
to say how your employee needs to be
comfortable to say uh you know my
depression is crippling today i need to
take the time um
to take care of myself so that this does
not impact me long term uh and be able
to take that time so that's why we talk
about this
um
we we have to get the word out uh like i
mentioned beforehand burnout even though
i haven't touched on burnout
specifically um burnout rates are so
high in cyber security probably everyone
knows someone who is in cyber loving
cyber and then you know decided yeah
maybe i'll change careers um
because
we
we're pushed to our limits especially if
you're in a high pressure field
like a sock or incident response
um
you know overwhelmed with clients for
different projects
we
add on mental health issues pre-existing
on top of that uh
this is why our hiring rates are are so
low in cyber security
every time we bring new people in we
have people leaving because of burnout
so
i want to move into talking about uh
kind of the start of mental health
hackers how we got here like i said info
sister had been talking about mental
health for a little while um a few other
people in the community had started
sharing talks like this at conference
especially talking about their issues
trying to break that stigma by saying
look i'm facing this let's talk about it
um all of us need to talk about it so
um
there was
with the interest uh from infosister's
first talk on mental health she wanted
to come up with a way to do kind of this
mental health workshop like how at
conferences can we we bring our presence
and bring up this topic um
so
the idea she kind of came up with was
okay let's
have a chill room a quiet area where
people can hang out at conferences get
away from the noise
get away from you know being bombarded
with
uh
infosec
um especially people who had anxiety
often conferences are rough to meet that
many new people so where's a place where
i can
go sit in a hole
and
ignore that
for a little while
so
that's where uh at derbycon 8 2018 the
year before their final year
uh
amanda submitted a cfp for derbycon
got accepted
and
they
said we can either give you sponsors or
you can try crowdfunding and she wanted
to see
what the community the support we could
get for the community how
uh people have what the interest and
reception was gaby you know before the
village was even there so we set up
crowdfunding uh she needed three
thousand dollars you know for travel for
all the supplies and this was the first
time
and the gofundme actually raised over 7
000
dollars
between 28 donors
so
the village came up it launched uh
and a few statistics there was 22
volunteers
eight presentations dedicated to mental
health topics instead of infosec
specifically
seven group discussions two hours of
yoga we had about 120 chair massages
given
um and a flattened lint tile check out
lintile on twitter if you don't follow
him
he's a fun time so
these if you've ever been to the village
or ever go to the village you'll see our
little blow up loungers uh last
conference i ran just a week ago there
was actually snoring coming from that
corner so
big uh
yeah big big uh popularity at the
conferences
here's just a few pictures from the
first year again are
inflatable loungers uh yoga
presentations
is so chill and area people you'd be
giving presentations and as you can see
the rollers uh are moved up
people are coloring during presentations
uh we actually last week our
presentation we didn't want um
blue team con to have to pay what where
outrageous costs for
projectors and stuff uh so the format
actually ended up being very loose but
very great people sat down at the table
to give their talk and just kind of
roundtabled it uh pulled up their talk
on their laptop if they had slides
um and and
it it was it turned out really well um
even without uh having that that set up
um
so along with the yoga and stuff the
yoga presentations massage therapy
uh
we had paracord crafts essential oils a
therapy dog came to visit the first one
a fidget table was
super popular uh lots of different
fidget toys to try
and yeah so
it ended up being really well
and coming out of this
um there was clear interest that
first a bunch of other conferences
started reaching out hey we saw you did
this mental health village um if we have
a sponsor can you come how can we donate
to this being run without the gofundme
still being out
and that is when the
idea for a non-profit a 501c3 popped up
and named it mental health hackers i had
a friend create the logo
amanda i i unfortunately i will always
be bummed i did not get to be at the
first conference
at that time i had never even met amanda
in person
but we had talked a few times she knew
i had talked about mental health and was
a huge advocate so she said well do you
want to come on board
so november 14th we got our official
business license operating as a
non-profit and by april 11th 2019
we had our 501c3 dedication
and
the
at the lowest level how we describe
mental health hackers is where hackers
helping hackers
amanda often talks about how it's kind
of aa but for
hackers we we want to bring up issues
talk have a support
community
so
uh
i have a statistics um on
kind of uh
up until this is all pre-covered
statistics we started running our
village again i believe we've had two so
far
post coven
but prior to covid we'd offered over 15
000
massages we'd hosted over 20 hours of
yoga lessons
we've made printed over 2000 stickers
70 volunteers in our slack
and
we've
we've built up the capability to run
four villages at once if there was four
conferences that wanted us in a single
weekend
we now have two full villages and two
mini villages which is basically we have
all the supplies you need to run a basic
village
in shippable boxes
uh so that that was a lot of growth for
us i mean find us on social media if you
want to check it out um
in terms of location we've actually
committed to
we've actually run the village in three
different countries i believe germany
england and the united states so i take
that back we did toronto since the last
time so four countries
um dozens of states
uh and so it's been great to bring this
not just to the us or to
our local um
areas but to the whole world essentially
so
just a quick introduction giving
recognition to the board follow them all
on twitter like i said amanda infosister
she's the brains behind this operates it
um and we have a few other officers um
on board who help with various things
run the nonprofit
special shout out to ginger hacks or tom
um definitely check him out he's
actually on the board of
vetcon
and we brought him on to
find the intersect of veterans and
mental health so
that's a cool role that
didn't exist at first but he's been so
much help we wanted to integrate that
so what's next for us uh we developed a
long-term vision
a lot of sponsors ask
what are we gonna do in five years ten
years what if we had an unlimited budget
um
so
me and uh
amanda start brainstorming what do we
want to do uh one of them's already
implemented our ambassador program uh
unless any of you would like to pay for
me and amanda to travel to conferences
full time
unfortunately
we have day jobs too
and
we've got to
kind of delegate some of these
conferences
so for example if somebody uh in toronto
that was one case where they wanted a
conference neither of us had the time
nor the ability at the time to travel to
canada um so we had someone who lived
right across the border who was willing
to drive up the ambassador kit
and again those are shippable so
any volunteer or ambassador as we call
them who's uh comfortable running the
village at a conference that wants it
we're able to do that
long long term if we had the budget we
want to start offering endowments
think about the fact that
not
mental health services often come with a
price
and
especially if your job does not provide
those benefits we want to be able to
help people get the help they need
we'd want to partner with online support
services there's a lot of online therapy
services now where you can text or call
or chat
with therapists and
most of all and i actually started doing
this year this year coordinating
we want to get
as many people as possible mental health
first aid certified um so this is
just like your red cross first aid
course but how to handle um
handle a mental health crisis
long enough for
a doctor or
a emergency services to get to a person
just like with first aid you're not the
doctor that's going to bandage someone
up or give them stitches um or or treat
them long term
but if you need to give cpr if you need
to stop bleeding on a wound
first aid gives you the ability to do
that so
while
you're not gonna be the person who
treats someone or takes care of someone
necessarily um you're not a doctor and
able to diagnose things
if there is a schizophrenic person who's
having an episode and you need to calm
them down
or somebody has made comments
that
they are thinking of committing suicide
until you can get to them to that
professional
who can solve the deeper issues making
sure that they're safe and the people
are around them are safe um
just a quick intro into uh
but the the key point of mental health
hackers is they
talk about a concept called algae
when you're responding you assess for
the risk of suicide or harm
you listen that's the biggest thing
you give them reassurance and
information and encourage them to go get
professional help and then also
encourage self-help and support
strategies
so
one of the things uh one of the issues i
guess we came across when we started
mental health hackers well we had
massive support from a lot of people
we did unfortunately
come across a lot of people
who were very upset we were starting the
organization they asked us how we're
qualified
where the doctors are as part of our
group but
there's so many resources out there that
talk about how peer support works so
instead of losing it back on people who
were getting upset with us and
and responding poorly amanda got all the
research out there on peer support and
how it works i mean we we see all the
alcohol anonymous and narcotics
anonymous like there's these peer
support groups where just talking and
breaking down the stigma is enough to to
help people even as if it's
uh to help them seek professional help
at no point will any of our board
members especially me and amanda claim
that we're able to help professionally
we just want to be able to
talk to the community
and help people feel comfortable to seek
that help or some people don't even
necessarily need that professional help
may not have these diagnosable mental
health conditions but literally just
need a friend to talk to um and so we
want to be that friend we want to be
those peers that make you feel
comfortable
so we're not the only ones out here
doing this um
listing off just a few people to follow
on twitter to to see
the people trying to make a change in
the community um charles or bsd bandit
uh
you'll if you go look at his videos
he'll just record videos of himself in
the morning
saying everyone's
welcoming everyone a good morning
talking to people just spreading good
moves into the air um
marley uh constantly posts this tweet
where she just reminds people she's glad
you're alive uh matt a red teamer um he
talks a lot about mindfulness you got
infosec steph who uh steffenseck who
uh just has some daily affirmations um
positive vibes and blunster uh he
he just has a good attitude and again uh
encourages people to reach out
wishes everyone a good day all the time
um
podcast security podcast break sec for
example
breaking down security
security weekly
many hats club all of them have podcast
episodes dedicated to mental health um
so it is getting out there we are
starting to talk about this a lot um
2017-2018 is when i recall
the discussion starting to get broader
there's higher visibility into mental
health
so
it's not just uh
in an industry and in our community that
we need to
work on this though we also need to
start changing things in the workplace
kind of like i said the the idea that
you wouldn't fire someone for needing to
go
treat their diabetes or their heart
issues
if somebody's burnt out has bad anxiety
is literally crippled by mental health
to the point that they can't work
um
either bringing up these
these stigmas are saying you know stick
it out like you know you're not sick uh
it is a horrible issue
um
and so many people are
not comfortable
talking to their boss their leadership
hr about the mental health issue they're
dealing with and
i honestly find that really depressing
myself
i
feel comfortable talking to my
leadership about the issues i know that
if i come to them and say hey i need a
sick day i i i'm not in the mindset i'm
having a meltdown um the the autism
getting to me my meds aren't working
today i need to go lay down i need to
process they'll say yep take your day uh
we'll see you tomorrow we got things
handled um so
we
[Music]
i wish i could what i want to say is if
you work in a place where you don't feel
comfortable
you're working in the wrong place leave
um
but people need to make money people
need jobs so
unfortunately leaving isn't always the
option so it's the
workplace that needs to
change a lot um
we need to create environments and
workplace where people are comfortable
bringing up the issues
instead of just making things work by
trying to suffer through a hospital
hostile work environment
so
just bringing up a few examples of
companies who are
uh
working through some of these these
topics uh bell
they have a let's talk day they donated
ever
over seven million dollars to mental
health in canada um and they have an
entire website they've built um
dedicated to
uh
educating the public about mental health
issues
delaward is another company
they actually
created a position called a city level
executive position called the chief
well-being officer
she launched a mental health at work
campaign that provides mental health
first aid training employees resources
information and educational
opportunities
johnson and johnson
created a mental health ambassador
program in which they recruited over a
thousand employees across 32 countries
and trained more than 350 of them in
mental health first aid training
additionally they extend mental health
services
as a benefit to employees family members
and then
ernest young they have an rok program in
which they provide
resources for counseling um
various uh methods of counseling such as
like online on phone in person face to
face um and i'll bring up ibm quick
since i work for ibm i'll give them a
shout out like i said they've made me
feel comfortable talking about our
issues
and we have
neuro-diversity-specific training
and a lot of safe spaces
private channels for people facing
different mental health issues to feel
comfortable talking
and getting into the statistics uh for
those of you who like numbers for when
you're talking to your managers in c
levels and people who speak in
statistics and numbers
um
when when they want to know uh we could
talk about the
economic impact of depression depression
and anxiety uh so the estimated cost
just in terms of lost productivity due
to mental health issues is over one
trillion dollars per year in the uh
in the global economy
um
work is good for mental health in a lot
of places people need to have a
having a purpose means a lot to a lot of
people it helps mental health um but
when you're introduced into a negative
work environment uh is is not
gonna be a positive thing for mental
health um harassment and bullying over
mental uh are common problems in the
workplace and will have an
adverse impact on mental health
especially if you're
speaking about someone who already has
issues
somebody has anxiety
of what people think of them and they're
outwardly
being bullied or having things commented
on it's just going to get worse
um
so
let's see
so what are some changes that can be
made first
flexibility like i said when somebody
is is having issues and getting burnt
out knowing that you may need to make
adjustments
so
uh a couple
suggestions if you have the budget a
monthly stipend um getting people giving
people a stipend to use for therapy
meditation gym memberships anything
that's gonna help their mental health uh
a very important thing is healthier work
hours if somebody's uh
for me that's a big thing is kind of
having the flexibility um of knowing
that i can work the hours that work best
for me
uh especially in in a lot of roles where
people feel the pressure to be around
that's how we burn out is either working
long hours um working hours that impact
a person's ability to maintain a
work-life balance
another thing is getting the employee
buy-in if you're going to move forward
with these programs you need your
employees to
be involved and recognize it
people don't take advantage of these
benefits like let's say the monthly
stipend example you may see a low um
low interaction with that thing um but
it may be because there's not awareness
a lot of times like i consistently find
out about programs that exist for
employees at ibm that just aren't well
advertised so you know you might just
come across it at some point per mention
so it's important getting it out there
and then again that stigma is kind of
like if you think about those companies
that offer unlimited pto and there's
always that concern about like was it
really unlimited like i don't feel like
i can use it because then i'm taking
advantage same thing with a mental
health like like well they give me this
stipend but if i start
using it
um are
people going to uh
are people going to start judging me or
asking what's wrong with me that i'm
using this budget
and it's important that that leadership
um kind of show their support of these
programs open up about their own issues
to show
that it's not
a negative thing to talk about it
we want to make it easier
to get help
whether that's opening workplace
dialogue providing coping strategies um
off making sure your insurance plans
cover therapy
those kinds of things
some organizations may provide online
therapy services
to their employees while others uh bring
professionals in-house for example
there's a
an accounting firm in illinois that
illinois star that all of them their
employees they have access to a
psychologist that's in-house
and a certified life coach that comes in
once a year to talk to employees
and then track your progress again
speaking to the managers and leaderships
like any program you implement you have
to justify it um so are we seeing a
lower rate of people leaving the company
lower rates of burnout
it's important to track
quality of the work being produced in
productivity levels turnover rate sick
days
to show that these programs are working
and best bet is they are going to work
there's a reason we're talking about
this and bringing up these
recommendations
the apa they have a thing called the
collaborative care program that gives an
outline of um kind of working the
workplace um and uh providing resources
uh so that's a good resource to visit if
you'd like to
get
get some more information
workplacementalhealth.org
there's also things you can do on an
individual level
changing your day-to-day in order to
improve yourself you can't just rely on
your company to improve your mental
health
so it's important that
while it's important that the workplace
make adjustments you have to make
adjustments yourself
i feel confident when i'm working when i
do go to my leadership and say hey
i need you to adjust this in order to
support my mental health or i need a day
off
i'm also making sure that i'm meeting
them halfway like okay you're doing this
meanwhile i'm doing this you know i'm
taking a day off but i'm spending that
day
figuring out how to get past these
issues so that tomorrow i come in a
better employee
um
so
one thing i also want to talk about um
not just changing your day-to-day um but
changing how you interact in the
workplace and with other people to
ensure that there's a peer support
community um so
a lot of times uh we say the wrong thing
like i said depression
a lot of people there's the stigma it
just means the person says so like hey
you know
uh
cheer up like there's good things
happening like that is not something
helpful to say um
calm down is about the worst thing you
can say to me when i'm having one of my
autistic meltdowns or breakdowns like i
calm down as not what you say to me
because i would calm down if i could
like that is something uncontrollable
due to mental health issues
so
um one thing your words um
matter
uh
learn what people
with mental health issues
face so like um a lot of autistic people
prefer to be called autistic over a
person with autism um there's
things like schizo or crazy don't use
those words to
describe
people with mental health as issues
i always say it's best
to talk to the person um facing that
mental health issues to see what they're
comfortable with
and then um
again be kind uh
that doesn't mean say everything's fine
just relax the way you offer support to
someone facing challenges
is being supportive of the issue
and safety's like i'm sorry you weren't
feeling well
i've noticed you've been upset is there
anything i can do can i help out what do
you think about what are you struggling
with uh
that's why i try to ask my friends
and people i interact with um
i
typically i don't think i ever say it's
gonna be okay or
you know
just chill out
i i'm always trying to get too deep of
it like hey i noticed you've been bummed
out what's up not hey i noticed you've
been out bummed out you should cheer up
so finally
in closing
uh
there's so much more we can do um
speaking of which mental health hackers
uh last i think in may um we ran a
hackers who paid session um think of
like painting with the twists were those
step-by-step bob ross style here's to
paint
we have one of those coming up i'll
follow our twitter for the eventbrite
that i'll be posting soon
but we have these different peer support
things we'll be at conferences if you
want us to come to your conference reach
out
but most important
outside of the organization in general
our community needs to talk
support each other
and make sure we're
bringing these issues to awareness in
the community and our workplaces
like i said just gotta end with a bit
about me i never want to start uh
because i gotta make sure i got time to
do the important stuff uh so
my name is megan you follow me on
twitter um i have a weird mishmash of
talking about my talks my work with
mental health hackers and my amateur
fight career
i'm a threat researcher at ibm
i am autistic and i am the cfo of mental
health hackers
i had the math degree on the board so uh
they designated me cfo because
apparently uh i'm good with numbers uh
but if anyone has any questions um i'm
gonna turn it back over to the studio uh
and let them handle that piece