Transforming Mental Health Through Text Messages: Johnny Crowder's Journey to Cope Notes

Well, hey everybody, and welcome back to Qualified, the place where incredible people share their stories of overcoming great adversity and loss to inspire you and give you hope. I'm Michelle Heaton. As children, if we grew up in a home with anger, disrespect and ongoing turmoil, we would learn that life is that way. We believe that shouting is okay and that outbursts of anger are normal because it's all we know, until we get older and we see the world around us and we realize that our friends' homes are different than ours, and we might even think something's wrong with them, not us. Growing up in an abusive home can have a devastating impact on a young person, and they may experience loss when they realize it could have been different, it should have been different, and sometimes they grieve the loss of the life they wish they could have had. Well, my guest today grew up in an environment like that And, as a result, he experienced deep sadness and depression that overshadowed his life for many years. But today he's not only emerged stronger and more aware, but he's helping other people who are struggling with mental health issues. He's a 28-year-old suicide and abuse survivor, a TEDx speaker, touring musician, mental health advocate and the founder and CEO of Cope Notes, a text-based mental health platform that provides daily support to users in nearly 100 countries across the globe. With 10 years of clinical treatment, a psychology degree from University of Central Florida and a full decade of peer-support and advocacy through the National Alliance on Mental Illness under his belt, he's more than qualified to share his experience with others, and he'll do that with us today. His name is Johnny Crowder, and it's my great honor and privilege to have him as my guest on the show today. Welcome to Qualified Johnny.

Thank you for having me.

Of course. Well, hey, when we first met, i really grilled you about your upbringing because I wanted to know more about the environment that contributed to your depression. So can you just start by telling us what it was like growing up in your home and how it was different than the homes of some of your friends?

So growing up I felt like, have you ever played paintball? Yeah, it kind of felt like you feel when you play paintball. You never feel 100% safe. Even if you're hiding behind something, you're like, oh, a stray paintball could still catch me, or you're trying to be quiet and sneak around. I mean, it was very much like that in my home. I think my strategy was, if I could be out of sight, hopefully I would be out of mind. So I would try to keep to myself and stay out of harm's way, not attract attention, even to the point where if I heard my parents pulling in to the driveway, i would kind of run to my room because I didn't want to be in the living room, i didn't want to be seen, and that was really. I mean, it's probably why I love being on stage today and being creative and very outgoing, because I didn't have a lot of that grown up. But I remember going to some of my friend's house and seeing quite the opposite. Their dad would come home and they'd rush to the door and be like what's up, dad, how was your trip Or how was work? And I was like what's happening? And their dads would sit with them at the dinner table and they'd have dinner as a family and I'm like what is this? This is really weird. Like you have dinner with your dad. You know, it was definitely in the intro that you shared. I really related to the idea that I thought there was something wrong with my friends' families. I'm like, wow, you guys are really weird, you know.

Yeah, that's hard and very sad. Well, tell us a little bit more about the emotional state that you found yourself in at the lowest point in your life, and how did you cope with your feelings back then.

So the lowest point of my life was like a 20 year period. So it's not like I had this day where I was like, oh, this is the worst day. It was like sustained long term, like deep, hopeless depression, and I think I had a belief that it would never get better. I genuinely thought if it was going to improve, it probably would have already happened. I would have seen signs that it would improve by now. So I just figured like I am doomed. This is the way my life is, this is the way my family is, this is the way my brain is. The world is an unsafe place that doesn't love me. And it came with a lot of these ideas that If only I could be smarter, if only I could be funnier, if only I could be more handsome, or if only I could get better grades or better at football or whatever. I figured that I was being treated that way and my life was that way because I was doing something wrong. If only I could be a little bit better, then maybe I could save myself from the challenges I was facing. Obviously, that's not true. Anyone listening to this was like dude, it was nothing. It's not because your seven-year-old self got to be in math. That's not why all this is happening. But when you're a kid you're like I wonder if it's something I'm doing. The way I coped that's how I felt The way I coped was primarily art. I would draw, i would play guitar, i would drum on the desk in my room, i would listen to the—I had a big boombox. Whenever when boomboxes were cool. I had a great big boombox in my living room with a cassette player in it and I would borrow my mom's. She had a Beverly Hills Ninja II soundtrack that I would put in. She had it on cassette and Aerosmith's greatest hits on cassette that I would put in a cassette player and listen to the radio. There's something about art and music and writing thing, comedy, like that creative. I wasn't worried that my art was bad because I wasn't thinking about grading it, the same way that I was like, oh, if only I could be better at football, if only I could get better grades. All those things felt very graded and performance based. But when I created art I wasn't thinking about grading it, i was just expressing myself.

I think it's great that you found a creative outlet and that it helped to remove you from the negativity and allowed you to express yourself without judgment. Let's talk about music specifically, because you told me you were in a band back then and that music had a huge impact on your life. Then the band broke up. Can you talk about that time and how you felt about the break up?

There was a time in my life where almost everybody who knew me 99% of people who knew me knew me as the guy from Dark Sermon. Dark Sermon was the name of my band. People didn't know me as Johnny. They knew me as the guy from Dark Sermon. When Dark Sermon breaks up and I had trust me I did everything I could to keep the band together. I really wanted music to work more than anything. It was especially in that band. I had been there since day one. I designed our album covers and our merchandise and I wrote all our lyrics. I was so invested on tour, 200 plus days a year on the road, different city every night. It was such a cornerstone of my identity that I actually feel that I was over-investing in my music career and under-investing in my own self, like my recovery, my own wellness, my own health. I think I leaned so much into the outlet of music that I turned something healthy into something unhealthy because I became dependent on it. I was like if this band isn't successful, then that means I'm not valuable. A lot of people listening feel that way about their families or their careers or any part of their life. Their bank account balance, the weight that the scale says We all associate our worth to things that I don't think are representative of our worth. When the band broke up, i felt like I had lost my only utility to the world. I was like the only reason I've even stayed alive was to play music. Now I lose the one way that I've found that I can contribute to the world and feel valuable. I felt it was really difficult to explain to people that I actually felt like I was losing my identity and I was becoming nobody Not a nobody, because that's not what I mean. I'm like oh, i didn't have a name, i wasn't on stage, but I felt like I was losing what made me me and I realized oh no, i haven't invested in myself, i've just been investing in this project that could be taken away from me at any time.

I love what you said about how we can tie our worth to things like money, our families, our careers, our weight. I think most of us can relate in some way to those feelings and you're so right. It's really unhealthy because people and things can be taken away from us at any time. So, johnny, because of your own mental health issues and then the clinical treatment you received and then your recovery, you're passionate about helping other people and you built this company where you use text messages to improve mental and emotional health. Tell us what you set out to achieve with COPE Notes and how it's helping people.

I'm always very clear about this. I did not set out to create a company, so I didn't want to start a business. I didn't want to be a CEO. That was not. I mean, i want to be a rock star. I didn't want to run a healthcare technology startup. That sounded like the dirtiest thing in the world to me. I just wanted to play metal. What I really set out to do was create something, so it was still creative to me. Just like I create a song or create a short story or create a painting or a sculpture, i was like I'm going to create something that helps people feel better, and in fact, that is my life motto. It's the driving force of my life. I'm going to create stuff that helps people feel better, and that's how I feel about anything I write, or my keynotes or music or whatever. So really, the idea was I want to create something that helps people feel better, and I made a very rudimentary beta version that I ran myself for free, from the first day I started on it to the first day I took a paycheck was almost five years, so I spent literally Lord knows how many hours countless, countless, countless hours building something just for the sake of seeing it come to life, not knowing that eventually it would be a resource that's used by a lot of people and that provides a living for me and our staff.

Well, that's amazing. Congratulations on hanging in there.

I can't believe I did I always. Whenever people ask me what the most impressive, what I think I'm most proud of, they're like is it Ted talks? Is it your band charting on billboard? Is it getting like closing your millions dollar in revenue? And I'm like no, no, no, the most impressive thing I've ever done is not quit. I always tell people because people ask like why, when it was so difficult, why didn't you give up? And I said I remember what it was like to not have support. I remember it clear as day, like there's yes right. I can't imagine just saying well, it's too hard, too hard, it's like no way.

That's so encouraging. After what you went through, it's amazing that you had that kind of perseverance, and I remember feeling that way myself after my son died, like what choice do I have? I have to keep going And then, ultimately, to help other people with your experience is such a great thing. So, johnny, when we talked before, i told you that faith played a huge role in my healing from my grief and sadness. What role, if any, did faith in God play in your recovery?

So huge role. The main thing that I tell people I have a lot of friends who don't believe in God. I'm pretty new to the God thing. I just I showed up to the party like seven years ago. So I spent a good you know two, two plus decades just not being interested, didn't want to hear about it, didn't want to learn about it. I'm very closed off and I have a lot of friends who are still in that camp And I always tell them the biggest difference that faith made for me in my recovery is before. My recovery was about like the whole world revolves around me, like if I failed, then life was terrible and the world sucks. And you know, once you realize that you're not the center of the universe and that the world doesn't revolve around you, and you realize Like if you are the God of your own life which many people, that's how they operate, that's how I operate it for many years. I am God, i am the God of my own life. I make all the decisions, it's all on me. When you fail, the God of your universe fails And people like you and me fail constantly, multiple times per day. I mean we are doubling, tripling up on failures happens all the time we spill coffee, we get in fender benders, we send a rude email that we didn't mean to send, like this stuff happens to all of us because we're people And when I was working on getting healthier, i was so relieved to know that, even if I have a bad day, or even if I have a bad week or month, or I relapse or whatever, there's a God of the universe that loves me, regardless of my performance. The weight of the world, the fate of the universe, does not hang on the shoulders of a 23 year old with schizophrenia, because if it does, we're all in trouble, right. But learning that there is a God who is above me, sees things I can't see, loves me in ways that I don't yet love myself, i can't explain how liberating it was. It actually helped me focus more on my recovery because I was less focused on damage control and trying to keep everything together, knowing that God would kind of cover that base, you know.

Yeah, that's so true. For years that's how I operated too. I mean trying to control everything. and then you're sort of faced with hey, i can do nothing about this, this is out of my control. I had to learn that the hard way too. So we talked about your home life and how difficult things were between you and your parents. So today you're featured on TED Talks all over the internet. You're highly sought after for speaking engagements. You're the founder and CEO of Cope Notes. Given that your success is so visible, how has your family reacted to it all?

It's been mixed. It depends on which failing member you're consulting. I don't even know. Actually, there are some moments when I feel really supported by my family, like my mom came to see my band and she actually came to see my band not too long ago, like last month, and did a stage dive, jumped off the stage and people carried her and stuff. She's like 60. I feel like, oh, it was just the coolest thing ever. And there's times when I just did a talk for General Mills, i just did a keynote for them, and they put me on a Wheaties box. I took a picture with the Wheaties box and my little brother shared it on his Facebook. Little stuff like that will show me like they're supporting in their own way. When we get together we don't talk a lot about I think it's a little bit uncomfortable for everybody. Still, i don't think everyone's like, oh yeah, tell us more about how you've recovered from severe mental illness. I don't think that because we were all there, right, you know family like that, seeing family, can bring up difficult memories. I think there is a degree of avoidance that all of us kind of engage in. I don't even think that we know we're doing it. So it's tough because my work centers around recovery and these really challenging topics And I think my family is not always the quickest to be like oh yeah, tell us more about all of this, what are you doing? I think they're kind of like I see you doing your thing, i get that, it's good. I'm not really ready to jump in and have that whole conversation yet And I pray to God every day that there's more and more of an opportunity for me to share my recovery with them and for them to kind of hopefully apply some of the things that have helped me to whether they choose to get sober or choose to engage in therapy or like I mean, how cool would that be, even if it takes 10 years or 20 years? how cool would that be to get a phone call and say like, hey, i just booked a therapy appointment? I'd be like, oh amazing.

Yeah, that would be amazing And an answer to your prayers, I'm sure. So I'm curious how you went from the place where you were to this place of being sold out for Jesus. How were you first introduced to a relationship with God?

So first I was first introduced by my parents taking me to Catholic Church, which didn't stick I just really for a bunch of reasons, and then I was pretty closed off for a long time when. I was. So I remember two things really stood out as like challenges with the church. Well, three I guess. One was I didn't see the behavior of my family lining up with what I was hearing at church. So I was like I don't really get it. Like we're in church on Sunday and they say treat others with kindness and do no harm, and then during the week I'm getting beat up Like I don't know how I feel about that. And then so that was number one. Number two was I found out that there was a choir director that was fired after they discovered that he was gay And I was like, well then, i'm not going to this church because if he can't work here then I don't. I just don't, i don't even want to be here if it's that exclusionary And if it's like, oh, jesus is only for certain people And they had some churches in Florida wouldn't do like interracial marriages and stuff. I mean it was like some pretty, it was like some Wild West Hortest Now that like level of social exclusion and like the total opposite of what I read in the gospel. And then the third thing was on I was hallucinating a lot. I had severe paranoid schizophrenia. I was experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations pervasively. So I was literally seeing demons and the devil. I'll never be able to explain what that experience was like And all of that took me from faith. I was angry at church, i was angry at religion, i was angry at God, but then I didn't believe in God at the same time. So that's a weird oxymoron. And then I was reintroduced to faith When I went to visit a friend of mine. She works at a church in Nashville And she just said she tricked me. She said come meet me at work And I was like cool, where are you? I was on tour And she gave me the address. I show up and it's a church And I'm like this lady and I go in and it's not a service or anything. She was just working there. And then she was like oh, you can sit in on this discipleship class that they're doing and wait for me to finish. And I was like I can't believe it. So I just go sit in this room and keep in mind I'm wearing this. Oh, this is such a good story. So I'm wearing this hoodie that says Aborted, really big on the front. It's this death metal band that we're touring with from Belgium And all these down the arms of the hoodie it's upside down cross pentagram, upside down cross pentagram, upside down cross pentagram. So I'm wearing this like clearly satanic like outfit And I didn't know I was going to a church. I'm like, oops, that's all me And so I go in. And these people in this church were kind to me. They were not nice Like a greeter at Walmart Being nice to you. They were kind, they listened, they showed me, they took me and I was not interested to hear about Jesus or anything like that. They were just. They showed me such kindness. I was like why aren't they treating me poorly? Like I'm covering tattoos, i'm dressed like this, I don't believe in God. Why aren't they judging me and kicking me out? And I was so confused by their kindness. And then they what really this is what the real catalyst was was they were reading about the Pharisees. So if anyone is not familiar with the Bible, there's this group of people like religious leaders who were very like finger wagging, like, oh, you have to dress this way, you have to follow these religious laws. And then Jesus comes to interrupt that whole thing and kind of flip, disrupt the prevailing religious leadership of the day. And when I was hearing that, i was like wait, but I thought Jesus came around and wagged his finger and said here's how you should all be. And I was. When I was hearing that I was like, oh, jesus is the like DIY punk that comes in and like flips the establishment upside down. I'm like whoa, jesus is the most punk thing ever. So in a funny way, it was like my first reintroduction to realizing that the behavior that I had seen from quote unquote religious people actually matched with the quote unquote religious people of the days of the Bible, like the Pharisees, and I realized Jesus and I were on the same side of that argument And I was like whoa, i have completely misunderstood the gospel for a quarter century.

Wow, that is a great story. I'm so glad you shared that And I love that your friend invited you to her work.

And she didn't even do it on purpose. She said I knew you wouldn't know where the church was, So I gave you the address. She like was not trying to trick me, but it being like the most brilliant thing in retrospect.

Yeah, well, we know who the master mind behind that one was.

Yeah, genius.

Well, johnny, i'm thinking about all the great things you had to share during our discussion so far, and there's been so much that I think will be valuable to so many. You talked about how art and music and writing were creative outlets that helped you express yourself, and how they often relieve the feelings of not being good enough. You said at one point you realized your identity was tied to being a musician, and you explained how unhealthy it can be to attach ourselves to something that can be taken away. You shared your memories of a time when you had no support network to turn to and how it compelled you to be there for others in need. You told us about the role of faith in your life and how it helped you to understand the idea of giving control to God because he loves us, regardless of our performance, and how, even though you were angry at God and angry at religion because of the trauma you endured, you ultimately found acceptance and genuine love when you met other believers who welcomed you without judgment. Johnny, can you share a couple more of the big life lessons you learned having been through all of this? that might help someone listening who might be struggling with adversity and depression right now.

So two things come to mind immediately. I'm literally writing a book that's going to take the rest of my life, so it's not going to be out anytime soon, but I'm writing a book about all the things that I've learned and it's broken up by lesson. I learned this lesson the hard way. I learned this lesson the hard way And two things jump to mind immediately. One is if you can get comfortable shamelessly asking for help, you can recover way faster. Like you can shrink your recovery timeline by two thirds. Like you can, i mean, imagine, do you wanna spend 30 years struggling with this? or 10 years, or three years? Like how? the thing that really allows you to put your finger on the scale of the rate of your recovery, at least in my opinion. my experience has been my own willingness to request and receive assistance from other people. And there's dude, there's a pride in me that says I don't need help. What's this lady gonna teach me that I already know? And oh, i'm not the type of person who does therapy or journaling. Are you kidding me? Like, if you can get past that and you can get comfortable asking for help and receiving help, you are shaving years or decades off of how long it will take you to recover. The second one is something that I really needed to hear is I wish somebody would have gone back in time and told me you don't know that it won't get better, like I was so convinced. I was like yesterday sucked and today sucked, and I know that tomorrow's gonna suck. And I wish somebody would say you don't know that. There's no way, that you have no evidence that tomorrow will suck. It is. unless you are the first person ever to be able to divine the future, then you. there's a 50% chance that tomorrow's gonna be better than today. It's a coin flip And if you flip a coin, statistically speaking, if you flip it enough times, you will get a heads guaranteed. So I wish I would have embraced this idea that each day, each new day, is a totally fresh opportunity, just like each coin slip is not affected by the previous coin slip. There's not such a thing as momentum or like a hot streak and gambling. Each time you flip it it's even odds 50-50. So I wish I would have embraced that idea earlier that, even if the first 20 years of my life have been torturous and just the most painful, i think I can imagine tomorrow I could fall in love. tomorrow I could win the lottery. tomorrow I could try the first medication that's actually helped me after years of trying to find the white one. Like I wish I would have been more open to tomorrow being better than today.

I love it so good. Each new day is a totally fresh opportunity, great. So, johnny, before we close, i would love you to just take a minute and summarize what Cope Notes offers to people who need support. Tell us what these text messages are all about and how they work.

What Cope Notes does for people who listen and are like, wait a second, i don't really have context in the like. This guy started a company and what exactly does it do? So all we do in a sentence, is we send randomly timed text messages that interrupt negative thought patterns and train the brain to think healthier thoughts. So that's what we do. If you wanna try it for free, you can go to copenotescom and give it a spin, or you can give a subscription to a friend or family member. You know, i think a lot of people will listen to something like this and then they go back to their daily life and they continue doing it just like they did it before, and they don't allow the conversation to change their life. They don't go listen to a second episode, they don't call a friend or family member, they don't change when they set their alarm or the way that they eat or the way that they. You know they're missing an opportunity Each time. You, if you just spent a half hour listening to a conversation like this, it says something about you. It says that you're the type of person who cares enough to make changes in their life and the lives of others. So my encouragement and challenge to you is do anything Like, take an action. And I don't even care if it is copenotes. If you sign up for copenotes, great, give it a spin. It's anonymous, so I won't even know that you did it, so no pressure. But if you choose to buy a book, if you choose to book a therapy session, if you choose to try doing a dry month, so no alcohol for an entire month, like whatever you're, even one night, whatever you choose to do, just please, for the love of God and all that is holy, leverage what you just heard to make some degree of change in your life. Take an action. Don't let this just be a podcast episode. Let it be a catalyst.

Yeah, that's so good. A lot of times, many of us just move on after a motivating discussion and do nothing. Thank you for stating that so well and for encouraging listeners to take some small step today that'll produce positive results in their life. Johnny, thank you so much for agreeing to come on the show today and for sharing your deeply personal story. I truly appreciate your honesty and all that you're doing to help people.

Thank you for having me And, i think, most importantly, thank you to the folks who are listening for being here with us.

So, for those of you listening, johnny issued a challenge for us today. He said take an action, read a book, make a therapy appointment, try a dry month, leverage what you just heard to make some degree of change in your life. Don't just let this be a podcast episode, let it be a catalyst. So good, and that is my prayer for you as well today. My friend, be well. Thanks for listening.