Through her teenage years Carissa experienced the pressure of managing her eating disorder on top of all of life’s stressors. How does this hyper focus on food, eating, comparison, judgement and hiding all of the above from your closest people impact your life? Carissa was amazing enough to come in and share her first hand experience.

This experience has shaped her journey into OT and where she is wanting to take her career. 

Look after yourself, look after others, and always keep Occupied

Brock
@brockcookOT
brock.cook@me.com

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Transcript

Brock Cook 0:00
Hi, and welcome to another episode of occupied. Today I had the absolute pleasure to speak with the lovely Clarissa Daya around her experience of an evening having an eating disorder going right through and into a recovery program for that right through to now studying occupational therapies impact, or potential impact for people with eating disorders through her doctoral Capstone, so just a trigger warning, but gonna be talking about eating disorders and the impact that it has on people’s lives. If there’s a trigger for you feel free to skip ahead or not listen to this one. It’s definitely an amazing episode was just so open and honest, and I can’t thank her enough. So strap in, get ready and roll the episode. Get a My name is Brock Cook and welcome to occupied. In this podcast we’re aiming to put the occupation in occupational therapy. We explore the people, topics, theories and underpinnings that make this profession so incredible. If you’re new here, you can find all of our previous episodes and resources that occupied podcast.com. But for now, let’s roll the episode.

Carissa Dyer 1:30
Oh, yeah, yeah, um, well, originally when I went to undergrad, I was going in as a physical therapy major. And in the States, we don’t have like, this is my physical therapy like bachelor degree, or at least at my university, we did it. So I was exercise science with a concentration in physical therapy. But my family and I went on vacation in Florida, like down a little further south in Florida. And we were on the beach and I heard this baby just like wailing crying, I think I was about I was a spouse be a sophomore in college. And I was like, Mom, that dad back there who looked so stressed out. He added like a little kind of toddler on the sand. And then somewhere was a baby wailing. And he just looked really stressed. His wife had just walked away with their other child to go into the ocean. And I’m like, I’m gonna go ask him if he needs help. And she goes, Okay. Um, so yeah, I went out and like, sir, you look really stressed. Like, are you okay? Like, I hear crying? What’s going What’s wrong? And he’s like, Oh, my gosh, you’re a lifesaver. So I started talking to this family, who, such a small world lives, 30 minutes away from where I grew up in Kentucky, and the mom comes back and her little boy has Down syndrome. And I love kids. I’ve always, you know, worked with kids growing up babysitting kids. And he has Down syndrome, and I’m just, you know, talking to her about her kid and, you know, services that he gets, because I tell her I’m a physical therapy, Exercise Science, pre PT. And she goes, Oh, well, we really got a lot out of occupational therapy. I’m like, Oh, what’s that? And that kind of just started this spiral of me, really researching OT and I just really like how it’s more holistic, and really client centered, where we make our goals based off of what the client wants, not just moving your body, which physical therapy is important. Um, I just feel like they have a different important aspect into someone’s plan of care than what we do.

Brock Cook 4:02
Yeah, definitely. On the there’s a spot for the professions that we have. It’s just yeah, it just yeah, we we’ve, we’re unique, and we just need to do that as well. So yeah, so random. action from the beach.

Carissa Dyer 4:19
Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, I still keep in contact with that family. I’m still friends. Yeah, yeah. And I’m 25 now and I met them when I was, I think I was about to turn 19. So I’ve kept in contact with them for a really long time. I was gonna do, they do the buddy walk. Every year. It’s a walk for people with Down syndrome in the States. And there are different locations all throughout the US and pretty major cities. And I was going to go to that one, that they have a team every year for their son, but circumstances just didn’t line up for me to go But I’ve still always like wanted to go. Yeah, yeah.

Brock Cook 5:06
So did you like change immediately like after that experience like Yep, now I’m doing it.

Carissa Dyer 5:14
I’m pretty much yeah. Yeah, once I cuz I was still on summer break at that point but once I got back on campus for the start of my sophomore year, which that’s our second year in undergrad in the States. That’s so weird to say that because talking to someone that’s not us.

Brock Cook 5:35
I’ve watched enough movies I know thing.

Carissa Dyer 5:37
Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, pretty much as soon as I got back, I changed my major to, which is not that much different. It’s really like once you get more into like, your senior year where the classes start to really vary. Yeah. On the prereqs for grad school, so but then I decided to pick up a health administration minor, and a psychology minor.

Brock Cook 6:04
Interesting. Yeah, yeah. So yeah. They were Where are you finished now? Are you still got

Carissa Dyer 6:17
my undergrad? Yeah. Yeah, I graduated my undergrad in 2018. And then I started graduate school for to get my doctorate degree and ot last January and 2020. So we were about a month and a half into school, and we went on spring break, and our professors are like, we’re not sure if you’re gonna come back and then we never came back. Oh, so that was great. I had to do cadaver and anatomy and physiology online. Which was terrible.

Brock Cook 6:52
That probably was in my personal preference. I hated doing those. Yeah, yeah. I was the smell. I couldn’t do it. So online. Oh, suited me?

Carissa Dyer 7:02
Yeah. Yeah. I, I didn’t really care about the smell. I just wanted like the hands on learning because I’m paying so much money, even though it’s loans right now. But I was like, wow, this really sucks. Yeah, their pictures. were like, what are we looking at? Yeah, that doesn’t even look like a femur.

Brock Cook 7:19
Yeah, yeah, that aspect of it. I can understand. Yeah. So how long have you got to go for your doctorate?

Carissa Dyer 7:27
Um, I graduated in August actually graduate on my birthday. Winning August. Yeah, yeah. August 13. So I have until the end of that month to get on my own insurance. That’s great. That’s how I’m looking at that. But uh, no, I’ll be married by that time. So that’ll be hopefully good. I can just hop on my future husband’s insurance so yeah, in the states you get kicked off of your parent’s insurance when you turn 26

Brock Cook 7:59
I don’t even though Yeah, we don’t have that system so I don’t have to worry about

Carissa Dyer 8:03
Yeah, yeah.

Brock Cook 8:06
Very American type of problem I think.

Carissa Dyer 8:09
Oh yes, it is.

Brock Cook 8:11
So what’s at the moment obviously going through you Will you do like projects? And that’s what like thesis projects and stuff for your doctoral program. what’s what’s your sort of current interest area? What area of practice you’re leaning towards?

Carissa Dyer 8:27
Yeah, so mental health? Um, I have had my proof Yes. Considering your podcasts very concentrated around that. Um, yeah, mental health I didn’t even know that ot you could do mental health I kind of had a very basic understanding of what ot can do going into grad school. And now I love it even more than when I told you that I met that family on the beach and decided to change my major. I’m just yeah, I look at like everything now through an OT lens. And I’m like, wow, this is pretty cool. Um, yeah, I, when was it? fall of last year was when we came back in the classes. And I started with a girl in the class ahead of me, the mental health specialty pathway. So at my school, we have we’re allowed to do small difference, kind of like specialty clubs. We have a hand club, an older adult club, nikkyo pedes Club, an ergonomics and technology club, and now mental health club that myself and a girl in the cohort above me founded and it’s still going strong. I’m proud of the people that took it over it. I check in on him every now and then just Make sure that they’re doing okay. But it? I mean, yeah, cuz it’s in its second semester of running. So I had no idea what I was doing, but I was just like, I hope this works. And people like it’s

Brock Cook 10:13
usually the best idea stop. Yeah, yeah. So pretty much everything I’ve ever done started. I have no

Carissa Dyer 10:21
idea correct? Yeah, yeah.

Brock Cook 10:24
So it was so you said earlier that you did a site subject was that sort of where the passion for mental health came from or does that why you enrolled in that subject you already had an interest in it?

Carissa Dyer 10:37
Yeah. So I already had an interest in that subject because of my own personal experiences with mental health. And I