Podcast: Can You Trust Mental Health Influencers? What You Should Consider

Kody Green (He/Him) is a 30-year-old diagnosed with Schizophrenia. He is a motivational speaker and content creator with a following of over 1 million on TikTok. Kody’s journey has included challenges with drug addiction, incarceration, and serious mental health struggles.

​To deepen his impact as an advocate and speaker, Kody trained as a peer support specialist, recovery coach, and suicide prevention specialist.

​Today, he shares his personal experiences and insights on overcoming adversity, navigating mental health challenges, and rebuilding life after incarceration. Kody’s dedication to mental health advocacy, schizophrenia awareness, drug recovery, and second-chance opportunities is fueled by his own lived experiences.

Our host, Gabe Howard, is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, “Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations,” available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from the author. Gabe is also the host of the “Inside Bipolar” podcast with Dr. Nicole Washington.

Gabe makes his home in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio. He lives with his supportive wife, Kendall, and a Miniature Schnauzer dog that he never wanted, but now can’t imagine life without. To book Gabe for your next event or learn more about him, please visit gabehoward.com.

Producer’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to Inside Mental Health: A Psych Central Podcast where experts share experiences and the latest thinking on mental health and psychology. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Hey everyone, and welcome to the show. I’m your host, Gabe Howard. Calling in to the show today we have Kody Green. Kody is a social media superstar with over 1.8 million combined followers across all platforms. He’s the author of the new book “Minds Over Meetings” and can be found online under his handle, Schizophrenic Hippie. Kody. Welcome to the podcast!

Kody Green: Hey, Gabe, thanks so much for having me.

Gabe Howard: Kody, before we get started with our conversation, I want to ask you about your handle schizophrenic hippie. Is it an homage to hippies who you believe are schizophrenic? Are you yourself a schizophrenic hippie? Where’d the handle come from? What’s what’s its origin story?

Kody Green: So I get this question a lot. And it was actually when I started TikTok, I started making content about my schizophrenia. And that was the first hate comment that I ever got was someone said that I looked like a schizophrenic hippie because I have long hair and a beard and I have tattoos and stuff. So I instead of letting it bother me, I just decided to take it and use it. And so that’s how it became my username. And five years later, I’m still using it.

Gabe Howard: I love it, so I want to make sure the listeners take away, you do live with schizophrenia. You have a schizophrenia diagnosis and your 1.8 million followers tune in day after day to learn about your life with schizophrenia, about mental illness advocacy, and to just better understand what life with a serious and persistent mental illness is all about. Also, there’s jokes, but for the most part, the thrust of your influencer ness. I don’t know if that’s a word. I’m just coining new phrases. The thrust of your advocacy is your life with schizophrenia.

Kody Green: Yeah. And you know, like you said, there’s there’s other content in there, but it’s really about my daily life, my coping mechanisms. I talk about how I used to be a caregiver for my mom with schizophrenia, and I talk about how my wife helps me now, and I really just try to utilize the platform I’ve been given to help people better understand the illness, mental illness in general, and how people can live more comfortable, functional lives with a diagnosis like I have, or even other mental illness or mental health issues as well.

Gabe Howard: All right, Kody, well, let’s go ahead and rip the band aid off. As I told you before we did the episode, there’s so many people that think that people like you shouldn’t exist, that people getting their medical information online from influencers is dangerous. It’s leading to the dumbing down of the country, and it’s also causing people to make bad medical decisions because they’re relying on influencers. Now, of course, full disclosure while I’m not as big of an influencer as you, obviously I host a podcast.

Kody Green: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: I work for a web company. There’s all kinds of social media with my face and name and information out there. So while I’m not an influencer in the same way that you are, it would sort of be disingenuous to say that I’m not an influencer. So I have sort of a love hate relationship with the people who are like, you shouldn’t trust what you hear online because on one hand, you shouldn’t trust what you hear online.

Kody Green: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: But on the other hand, you’re not here accidentally. I’ve seen your content. It’s very reliable. But how can people do that? So the controversial question just to to weed it down for you and our audiences. Why should people trust you? Why should people trust influencers?

Kody Green: I mean, I think the first thing to say is I get where this is coming from because there is a lot of people who, unfortunately will not use platforms in a productive way. They’ll get a large following and they’ll use it to spread misinformation. So I think the most important thing is really checking out who you’re getting your content from. There are some amazing health content creators out there. There are so many people advocating for different illnesses too. Not just mental health or mental illness. I think it’s, not blindly trusting people is super important. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a psychiatrist. No one should come on my page and take every single thing I say as fact. They need to do their own research. Do I try to always fact check things before I say them? Absolutely. But I make content every single day, and there’s times where people have had to fact check me and say, hey Kody, you might want to look at this. This statistic is outdated. Or hey, Kody, what you’re saying isn’t necessarily true. And here’s why. And I need that because I’m not professionally trained. So I think the big key thing is be wary of who you follow, who you’re getting information from, and also be willing to fact check the people that you like because that’s okay. No one, no one online, even a doctor can be wrong. Even a psychiatrist can be wrong. No one online has 100% knowledge of anything. So we should be just making sure that what we’re watching and what we’re intaking is followed up by, you know, a little bit of research and a little bit of being aware.

Gabe Howard: There’s many hints and tips that I give people, and one of the things that I give people is, is when you say, I’m doing my own research, remember, research means you’re open ended, you’re open to the possibility that you are wrong and you’re open to all answers. Research does not have a direction, so if you’re just looking to prove yourself right, you are not, in fact, doing your own research. The next thing that I recommend often, and I’m curious about your thoughts, is I tell people if you’re only following one influencer, you’re making a grave mistake.

Kody Green: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: You should follow multiple influencers. And you know that’s a little bit difficult for me. I want to be transparent with my audience. There’s this part of me, especially when I think about like, my podcast, right? There’s nothing better as a business owner than having that superfan who only listens to this podcast. No other mental health content, and they are just chomping at the bit for everything that Gabe Howard and Healthline Media creates, because we create a lot of stuff and we want you to engage in it. That is literally our business model.

Kody Green: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: it’s how I eat, right? But I’m still advising people, you should not put all your eggs in one basket. So how do you, Kody, as a content creator, rationalize that? Because on one hand, it’s good business sense for you to corner the market, but you also recognize it’s it’s bad, ethically and morally for you to tell vulnerable people, follow me blindly and only listen to me. So what’s that like for you? Did you have a struggle?

Kody Green: I think early on I did because I realized that when this became, like you said, when this became my job and this became my income source, I realized that views were how I made money, and that’s really tough to to say, hey, go follow this creator, that creator. It did end up coming down to like, morals for me. I realized that I was not allowing other stories to be heard. And so now I try to amplify those stories instead. And honestly, now that I have other forms of income, I have my speaking. I have all the other things I do. I can really make sure that other people are being seen and heard, because my story is one story. Out of the millions of people who have suffered with mental illness or schizophrenia. And it’s not fair that my story gets so amplified. And there are amazing, amazing advocates and amazing stories out there that are not going to be heard. And so I actually have gone out of my way now to try to amplify, share those stories, work with other creators, because at the end of the day, I want people to have a more diverse idea of what this illness is. It’s less about me and more about understanding schizophrenia.

Kody Green: And I know you do the same thing with your platform. You want people to understand bipolar disorder, mental illness, mental health outside of just Gabe Howard. And I think that’s tough for us because this is our jobs. But I also think it builds more trust in people with us. They see us saying these things, trying to get them to fact check us, even trying to get them to follow other content creators, other podcasts. I think that gives people the ability to trust us a little more, because we’re not in this for us. We’re in this to spread awareness to, to really help people better understand how to function day to day with serious mental illness. And at the end of the day, we need to make a living doing it. But I’m not willing to give up what I believe in to do that.

Gabe Howard: You know, there’s all these conversations about, well, we need to ban social media. We need to get kids off social media, and I’m I it’s not that I disagree. Right. I do think that social media is hurting a certain type of people. And I think that people who are suffering from deficiencies, like in a mental health crisis or a mental illness, are particularly vulnerable. But at the same time, I also recognize that you’re not going to get rid of it.

Kody Green: No.

Gabe Howard: So what safeguards can we put in place? Especially now that fact checking has pretty much been removed from social media. And actually I maybe should back up a little bit. Were you offended by fact checking as a content creator? Did fact checking bother you? Do you?

Kody Green: Oh.

Gabe Howard: Are you glad it’s gone? Do you wish that it could stay? And what do you think the future holds now that platforms have abandoned fact checking?

Kody Green: I love fact checking, and I really wish that we could. Like you said, ‘ve had to make videos where I’ve had to come back and be like, hey, I was kind of wrong about this. Like, I didn’t realize it, but someone sent me this study and I’m okay doing that because I’m comfortable being wrong. Because I would rather that my information be reliable and trustworthy than it be captivating, you know? And so for me, fact checking was huge because it allowed me to really make sure that I was being consistent, make sure I was being correct with the information I provided. So I think it’s unfortunate that we are seeing platforms kind of step away from fact checking and making sure that people are giving honest answers to the content that they’re providing. But there are ways that we can work around that and try to make ourselves safer. One of which is we just need to be more educated ourselves, and we need to not be afraid to fact check our favorite content creators. So I’m even saying that to people who follow me. If you follow me, thank you, first of all. Second of all, fact check me like I need to. I need to be fact checked. I need to make sure that I don’t get into a place where I’m just entertaining.

Gabe Howard: Now, wait a minute. Now wait a minute. When you say fact check, you mean like, explode all over you in the comment section. Be

Kody Green: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: Like Kody, you suck, I hate you. Your wife is an evil, ugly troll. They should probably make definite comments about you and your wife’s bodies.

Kody Green: Oh, yeah.

Gabe Howard: I mean, I know that that’s good if they can add some, maybe some racism and misogyny. That’s what you mean by fact checking, right? Just like hardcore insults. And I do jest.

Kody Green: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: I am kidding,

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Gabe Howard: I do want to talk for a moment about the number of people that are like, hey, I saw something that was inaccurate and I told them off. There’s

Kody Green: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: Always this little piece of me that dies on the inside because, like, you saw something inaccurate. Okay, that’s step one. You knew it was inaccurate. That’s awesome. Things are going well. You did something about it. All right, that’s good. You got involved to correct the misinformation. And then you called the person every name in the book. You yelled at them, you screamed at them, and you started a flame war. Wow. You just, you drop the ball at the line. You were so close. Do you feel that respectful comments get better results than calling people names, telling them they suck. Being snarky. I know that it creates more views or discussions to start an argument, but I think that I personally believe that the respectful comments go a lot further towards changing the culture and changing the incorrect information and getting the content creator to say, you know what? You’ve got a point.

Kody Green: Yeah, I deal with this every single day. Like I said the unfortunate side of having over a million followers is that I get a lot of negativity and hate in my comments. Now, it’s still a very small portion of the comments I get, but it’s there and I see it and it can be really harmful to my mental health. And honestly, I, I ignore a lot of those comments. If you come at me swearing or calling me names, I’m not looking at what recommendations you’re giving me or what you think is inaccurate. If you message me on Instagram or in email and you say, hey, you made a video about this and I just want to raise this concern. I will not only respect that, I will respond. I will try to right whatever wrong it was. The best thing you can do is reach out to the creator, and probably not in the comment section. Honestly, if it’s a big content creator, chances are they’re not going to see all their comments. Most of them have links where you can find their email, stuff like that, and be respectful. Like, I get it. Here’s the thing is, like, I understand being so mad at a video that you just want to leave a paragraph in someone’s comment section, but it’s not going to do what you think it’s going to do.

Gabe Howard: Kody, obviously you’ve lived with schizophrenia your whole life, but you lived with schizophrenia before you were an influencer. You’ve lived with schizophrenia after you were an influencer. Has social media helped you personally? Has been an influencer helped you personally manage schizophrenia?

Kody Green: I would actually say it has helped a lot, but in the early stages of me becoming a content creator or an influencer. It at times was actually counterproductive because even though I was sharing my story, I had a lot of people leaving hate comments, which really affected me in a negative way. I had a lot of people who were not helpful with me and my symptoms. I even had a video of a commenter trying to trigger my hallucinations while I was having a severe episode. And so that combined with me never taking time off and feeling like I couldn’t take a day away because the algorithm does not let you take time off, you know, I started to feel like I was stuck as a content creator, like I needed to do it, not because I wanted to do it. Once I got away from caring about the likes and the views, that’s when I found that it actually helped me.

But there was a time where I think it actually hurt my mental health, and it made me less comfortable with my day to day living with a serious mental illness.

Gabe Howard: Do you think it’s beneficial for influencers to show people when they’re having those bad outcomes, those down days, those episodes, those issues? Or do you think it should all be sunshine and rainbows about how you can overcome and the the journey is yours to behold? Or is the negative bad stuff important?

Kody Green: If you would have asked me that question in my first year of content, I would have said the opposite of what I’m about to say. I would have said yes, keep it positive so that people can use it as a as a source of positivity and a way to push forward. But I realized later on in content, I don’t think it’s just beneficial to show this. I think it’s irresponsible not to, because when people saw me doing well and going out and doing these speaking events, but they didn’t see that I was still struggling with issues like breakthrough symptoms of hallucinations they didn’t see that I was struggling with some of the negative symptoms, like lack of motivation or issues with memory, stuff like that. It makes it feel like a harder goal for them to attain. Like they see me basically doing quote unquote perfect. Right. They don’t see that I’m still working, even years into my advocacy, even years into making social media. I still have bad days. I think that makes it real for people, but it also helps them realize like, it’s okay to have setbacks and that’s a part of mental health, that’s a part of mental illness, is having setbacks and learning how to cope with that, learning how to come back from that. And if you see someone who’s living a successful life 100% of the time and they’re never having issues with the same mental illness diagnosis you have, I think that’s counterproductive. I think that’s making it harder for people on the journey. And so I actually think that being up front about your hard days is just as important as spreading positivity and spreading education awareness.

Gabe Howard: The word suicide is blocked on several social media platforms and has led to the rise of the phrase unalive and, you know, using asterisks to blank out the letters. I, of course, have my own personal opinion on this, but I’m curious about your opinion of the word suicide being banned.

Kody Green: Well, and I would start this by saying at one point on TikTok, the word schizophrenia was actually you couldn’t search it. Schizophrenia, schizophrenic. You could not search that word and find content. It would send you to a help page. And so there’s a constant frustration I have now with us trying to make words scarier than they really are, and thus taking away the conversation that surrounds them. We’ve done this with suicide forever, and when I was taking my suicide prevention specialist training, what I heard, which shocked me because I figured with how much we use the word there’s, there’s a reason, you know, it’s got to be bad. What I heard was content around suicide, and conversations around suicide has not proven to increase the likelihood of someone taking their own life. So it’s really frustrating to me that what we’re essentially doing is eliminating those conversations. When you make it harder to talk about something on social media, people just aren’t going to talk about it. I purposely don’t make a lot of videos right now about suicide or suicidal ideology on TikTok, Instagram or Facebook because I know those videos will get flagged. Those videos won’t do as well in the algorithms. And that’s really frustrating because I have a lot to say about about those topics, you know. And all we’re doing is limiting the conversations that we need to have. Suicide prevention requires us to reach people with our stories, to reach people with reasons to, to keep living. And we can’t do that if we can’t say the words.

Gabe Howard: Kody, it’s no shock to anybody, but I’m completely aligned with you. I feel that if somebody is suicidal, if somebody is contemplating taking their own life and they’re searching for resources, they are likely going to search for suicide. They’re going to search for terms like, I’m going crazy. I want to kill myself. I want to take my own life. And if the algorithm is blocking all of that, this will affirm to the person that they are truly alone and that nobody is trying to help them. And that’s artificial. There are people who understand. There are people who want to help them. They’re just handcuffed and not able to provide the support that they need. You know, I’m really fond of saying, Kody, and I know you’ve heard it before because you’ve been around for a long time, but I really don’t think that anybody lies awake at night and wonders if they’re having a mental health crisis. They wonder if they’re going effing crazy. And

Kody Green: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: I think we need to allow language to meet people where they are, which, if I’m not mistaken, is a huge tenant of mental health advocacy. Meet people where they are. Kody, there’s a lot that can be said about influencers. I’m really, really glad that you are out there. I’m glad that there are content creators out there. I’m glad that people don’t feel alone, but I would be remiss if I didn’t remind our entire audience. Be skeptical. Trust but verify. Look at it as foundational knowledge. And remember, when it comes to your own mental health or physical health, there is absolutely no word like a doctor who is looking at you versus a video that was made for the masses. Kody, would you agree?

Kody Green: Oh, absolutely. And make sure that even the content creators you like and trust, you’re fact checking occasionally. You’re not going to offend good content creators who are actually trying to educate people by fact checking them. And that’s a big sign right there. If you start fact checking someone and they’re upset about it, you might you might want to be even more skeptical in that case.

Gabe Howard: Kody, thank you so much for being here. How can folks find you online? What’s your website? What’s your book? What’s your social media? Give us the deets.

Kody Green: Well, you can find me on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Bluesky @SchizophrenicHippie. Otherwise, You can check out my website, KodyGreen.com, and be sure to check out my new book, “Minds Over Meetings,” about mental health and mental illness in the workplace.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, I’m in that book, so I highly, highly, highly recommend it. I don’t get any commission from it, but it is a really good book that does in fact feature yours truly. Kody, once again, thank you so much for being here and I want to give a great big thank you to all of our listeners as well. My name is Gabe Howard, and I’m an award-winning public speaker who could be available for your next event. I also wrote the book “Mental Illness Is an Asshole and Other Observations,” which you can get on Amazon. However, you can get a signed copy with free show swag or learn more about me just by heading over to my website, gabehoward.com. Wherever you downloaded this episode, please follow or subscribe to the show. It is absolutely free and you don’t want to miss a thing. And hey, can you do me a favor? Share the show. Share your favorite episode on social media. Send somebody an email. Send somebody a text message. Mention it in a support group. Sharing the show with the people we know is how we’re going to grow. I will see everybody next time on Inside Mental Health.

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