1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Terrell Newby & Jeromie Luginbill - Hidden Battles Destigmatizing Mental Illness : October 9th

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

Terrell Newby & Jeromie Luginbill - Hidden Battles Destigmatizing Mental Illness Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7-the-ticket and the ticketfm.com. Here is your host, Derek Pearson, brought you by Tannepie Street Market. 93-7 the ticket, but D-P is out today. That's okay, because we've got a full hour ready to talk some sports with you. Also, we've got some special guests in studio. with us as well.

And we will get to here in just a second. Just want to say again, thanks for joining us here. This is one-on-one with D.P. D.P. as a travel day today, he is actually headed out to Maryland. He's going to check out the Nebraska Maryland game this week. So we'll have somebody live there to do so. Of course, many of you know, D.P.'s home is back in that area. So hopefully he has a lot of fun.

Now, don't worry, he will be able to stream in as well tomorrow. So we will hear from D.P. before we get to game action. Of course, another reminder, too, that we have Austin and Nick out in Chicago, actually getting ready for the Big Ten men's basketball today as far as media days goes. Of course, they did the women's yesterday.

So plenty of coverage coming from that as well throughout the day. So look forward to that. We'll get you ready for Nebraska, Maryland. We'll get you ready for the sports weekend. But now we want to do something a little bit, a little bit unique to what we do here, though we've always, we like to kind of get the community involvement going here.

And we've got an interesting event coming up. And we've got the people that are, that are right behind it in the studio. So I'd like to go ahead and welcome in our guest today. You might recognize at least one of these names in Terrell Newby. Of course, this is Terrell Newby's father, if you remember, the Husker running back from a few years ago. So that is

That's where we'll start here. Also, Jeremy Luganville in studio as well. So guys, we will get to some different questions here throughout this interview. But very quickly, not really quick to actually, just you can do it in any way you want to. We've got some time here. Tell us what is bringing you guys along today. Well, what's bringing us along today is that on the October 4th,

14th next Tuesday, we have a documentary screening that's going to be at the Mary Ripper Ross Theater. And we are premiering that. And we are encouraging people to contact the theater and purchase tickets and see a project, a documentary that we put together. It's taking us a little bit over a year to finally put it together. Yep. Jeremy had a vision of telling a story about clients who are suffering from persistent and consistent mental illness, and letting the general public see that these people are not the kind of people you think they are. A person who has schizophrenia does have talents, people who are suffering from anxiety and depression do have talents,

they have families, they have loved ones. And, you know, mental illness sometimes gets a bad name to it because they don't understand that it's a disease. And just like a person has diabetes, they're fighting through that. They're trying to manage the challenges of mental illness. So we put together a story that highlights four. different clients who tell their stories and their loved ones share their stories and the battles that they went through to be where they are today. Yeah. And then there's something called intersectionality. And basically what that means is they're kind of identifiers like, you know, it could be, you know,

what you're born with, religion, gender, race, nationality, financial status, ability. and we as a country and maybe even a world or society, we tend to meet people. And when we do, we make judgments about their identifiers or things that we can see or hear or know about an individual immediately. And those are essentially the, you know, based on our various cultures and where we come from, we learn, you know, how to judge other people based on certain things, right? So we do those things. and that those are the things if we have a discriminatory belief or a judgment about an identifier. We don't, it stops us from getting to know the other side. It stops us from getting to know them like, do they have children?

What are their hobbies? What do they do for fun? What are their belief systems? What do they believe in? What do they fight for? And so, you know, when we get beyond the identifiers and really get to know people, we get to understand and then our judgments leave. So you may meet an individual.

you might have those initial judgments, but you get to know them, and then you no longer see their identifier, really, right? And so that's what we're trying to do in the documentary is like, hey, here's the identifier, but here's who they are, and here's what you may have judged them for. However, here's where they're at today. And then to highlight something on top of what Terrell said, I also wanted to make sure that we as a team highlighted the parents and their voice because a lot of times parents get lost in this.

Yeah, absolutely. It's again, hidden battles, distinguishing. mental illness. Here will be played at the Ross Theater, October 14th. So we're going to continue to have this conversation. But again, that's kind of the event we're leading up to. Now, as part of this, of course, I think a lot of people can certainly relate. They might know somebody that struggles with mental illness to varying levels. What is it that pushed you guys to, you know, kind of get involved in this? Well, we're both mental health advocates. I've worked in the field for 26 years.

Terrell is one of the most profound DBT experts that I know. And he's running some groups. So we're both mental health experts. I've worked in the field for 26 years. I've worked with substance use first half of my career and then second half. And then the inspiring thing for me is that I build things in the community for people with mental health and substance use issues. And we hear it's called NIMBY in our community, not in my. backyard. And so people have, people become more successful when they actually live in the

community and have access to neighbors who are responsible and those kinds of things. And so what really inspired it for me is around an agency that, um, is near South Lincoln. There was a few folks down there that didn't like us there. And, and so there, there was a lot of complaints in those kinds of things. And I, and rather than get angry at them, I think we turned this project into energy. Like, you know what? You have a right to have your judge. Great. But what can we do to share our story and the story of the people that we serve so that you don't need those anymore? And so that's kind of like what inspired me. Families inspire me incredibly. All of the people that work in the industry and dedicate their lives to this from government down to provider to parents are incredibly inspiring. So we make sure we, you know, give our hats off to those folks and their doctorate as well. Exactly. And so working with exclusively with clients with DBT, dialectical behavioral therapy, that modality, working with a large number of clients on a daily basis and watching them adapt to some of the tenants that helps to manage their emotions, enhance their emotional intelligence. And over a period of time, because the system is structured with various courses.

And it's like a whole year program. It was incredible to watch these clients defy some of the intake information that we receive about what they can and can't do. And actually some of those people that I've worked with are in the documentary. So we're talking either bipolar or schizophrenia. It's just absolutely incredible. And was inspiring watching them, working with them, and then inspiring putting this piece together.

So kind of walk with me through to now how it goes from, you know, the idea, the passion that you guys work with to film. I mean, how does it even kind of think about, you know, being a documentary, how do you get the choose which people you want to include in the film? How do you, you know, approach them about agreeing and want to be a part of it? How did this, how did this passion of yours turn into a film? Well, you know, I had witnessed the things that I had witnessed. in the community. And so to me, it was a godsend because it was like I didn't realize Terrell and

Lorraine had the skill sets that they did at the time, which is another reason why we should get to know people rather than judgments, because you find out incredible skill sets that people have. And we can build a healthier community as a result of that. But to that point, you know, we connected. And, you know, I think our skill sets combined really was the initial. Right. And then I think in terms of, you know, finding members to be in the, as cast members, yes. That wasn't a struggle. It was easy to find.

There were people ready to be on board. You had family members who did it. They're professionals in the community who did it, long-term professionals, actually, that are locally grown in right here in Lincoln, Nebraska. And I think this is a local story. And that's one of the reasons why we're also asking for your support is because this is, this affects everybody. Yeah, it's the relationship that we developed with Jeremy and the skill sets that he's talking about.

So Lorraine and I have background in broadcasting communications, and we've produced some documentaries when we're out in California. And so, as Jeremy said, it was a godsent because, I mean, here we are, you know, working with Jeremy. He finds out that we have a lot of the same interests in terms of being advocates for mental illness. in addition to that, having the background to actually produce a documentary. Interesting. Just aside, I mean, is this, I mean, how did you get involved in Lincoln? Is this through your son that you've got to just, you know, having played here? Is that how you kind of made some, you know, connections here?

Okay, the short, and first of all, you said something earlier about you might recognize Terrell. So I'm senior and so he doesn't, you know, look like me. But I don't want to y'all are you saying you're more handsome. Exactly. I don't want the audience to think that, wow, Terrell's really aged. What the hell happened? Is he a little faster than you too? I mean, he was pretty quick out there.

Oh, absolutely. So the short answer is we decided to come to Lincoln to help him get through the latter part of his, senior year and this transitioning to professional sports, which was my wife's idea. I was totally against it. I have no regrets, and I'm glad we did it. So we essentially have been here for nearly about eight years. And so in that time frame, I ran into Jeremy and things connected. And so here we are. Well, there you have it here. I did want to know, too, especially, I mean, I look at the poster here, and it has the stars of the film, Beth, Brianna, Kelsey, and Jason on the front of it here. How did these, how did the individual's features in the documentary kind of respond to sharing their stories?

And what was that process kind of like? You know, I think with anybody with mental health issues, you know, I think the story that we want to really hit home is that people do get better and especially with the right supports. And I think having a community and family members who are willing to learn how to support can can really help get the effects that we're looking for. And Lincoln, Nebraska, and I don't know that a lot of people know this, but Nebraska, psychologists used to fight to get here because Nebraska is a pioneer in providing, you know, psychiatric rehabilitation services and those kinds of things for mental health issues. And so the individuals involved, I don't want to, you know, tell too much about the film, but there's some. There's some stuff that you'll see them tell about their history, but then also where they're at today. And there was great response, lots of motivation. It was really fun, you know, lots of good laughs.

There were some dinners and some limousine rides and some things like that involved. And I think it really also felt like, you know, well, let me word it this way. I think everybody needs and wants a purpose. And when we get people a purpose, sometimes those issues just dissolve away on their own. And I think with this particular thing, I think everybody felt like this was a very purposeful event. And people wanted to become involved in work. Yeah. And too, you know, like you were kind of talking about earlier, there's many different mental illnesses or different ways to kind of phrase it.

I mean, all these people have different backgrounds at different stages of kind of their battles? You know, I think they're, well, yeah, the short answer is yeah, you know. And I want to be careful to, I would rather them tell their story personally. But in terms of, you know, yeah, they have different levels of, you know, recovery. I think just to speak about recovery in general, a lot of times people expect people to get better very fast and then hold that solid forever. You know, recovery, you know, regardless of the condition, whether it's a medical condition or mental health condition or substance use condition or even poverty, we wax and wane. And we learn and grow. And ideally, each time we kind of whack, you know, weighing from, or we kind of relapse

would be a technical term, we go back and say, hey, what went wrong? And how can reinforce the next step? And how do we build on our strengths and how do we continue to build up? And so, you know, that's what we do. And so could I sit here and predict their future and say everybody, you know, everybody with mental illness is going to be better or these folks, you know, no. But, you know, we got to make sure that as a community, we're prepared to help individuals land softly and safely in a safe environment where people are willing to accept them into the

community. One of the aspects of this documentary that people will see is the level of support from family members. Oftentimes, there isn't any support. So in order for them to have a level of sustainability, you could see that the parents really are and were and continue to continue to. support their loved ones in this piece. Is it too, and it's kind of a question of from the slide, too, is that, you know, many people,

I've dealt with depression before, you know, depressing things happening in your life. And like you said, they can kind of come back. Is there is the idea or is there an idea behind just kind of learning the tools of how to deal with it when it does come back when you talk about the kind of the relapse? You know, if we're talking about ideal situations, so I don't know how far down the rabbit whole we want to go. But a lot of this stuff is generational at its on. So if you look at the Dutch famine study, you know, I'd have to have the report in front of me to really give you specific, you know, facts. But there was a group of individuals that they were hungry and starved. It was a famine

after or at the end of World War II. And what research had shown because there was good documentation is that two generations later, the famines affected the grandchildren through epigenetics and those kinds of things. So you have that one thing. And then you have some intersectionality, so what you're born into. So depending on how or what you're born into can really depict what your future is going to look like. So if you're living in poverty, regardless of your race or, you know, it's kind of a variable in how it comes together. But then you also have adverse childhood experiences or bad things. Technically, there's 10 of them that can happen between the ages of zero and 18.

And that can really formulate the foundation of how your body reacts to stress over time. So you have those, you know, factors that that kind of merge and in your higher likelihood of having mental health issues, substance use issues, and all these kinds of, you know, health outcomes and dying a certain age earlier. And those things are pretty, pretty well accurate. So really what you got to do is you got to get a safe place with kind people that you can go to and exist and be yourself. then we really want to get in mindfulness activities, which Terrell teaches in DBT, then getting healthy foods in. And we tend to as Americans go, you know, A to Z tomorrow. No, these things need to be built up and psychologically manifested as habits. So they're building up over time.

So it doesn't mean eat healthy tomorrow. It means healthy over time. Exercise and increase exercise over time. Mindfulness over time. And then I would say that they're the four pillars of health. So one more time. sleep, diet, exercise, and mindfulness. Sleep is number one.

Sleep controls metabolism, cortisol. I mean, everything under the sun. So really dialing in on your sleep if you want to get better, especially from anxiety and depression, that is your cornerstone and key starting point, even without counseling or treatment. Get your sleep first. That is interesting, too, because I just kind of thought of that because, you know, there are folks out there that maybe don't have as much support.

what, I mean, what is the, what is the approach to somebody that maybe doesn't have a group of friends or family that they, they feel like they can be themselves around? I would argue that a key feature of any illness is isolation. And, you know, some of that is self, I guess, contrived or self-developed. You know, we want to avoid being around people because we don't want them to see who we are. So some of that is the individual taking the risk and getting out there and finding themselves a social support meeting, like a free meeting like church or AA or any of the functions that are out there, those things are pretty well easily accessible.

I would also say, you know, if you're having suicidal thoughts or ideations, it's 988 that you can call, but you can also go to, you know, the hospital and places like that. So if you're in that emergent need, if you are experiencing first onset severe and persistent mental illness, I would get a hold of the state and I would climb your way through as many phone calls as you can until you find the right person. There are agencies in town that help Blue Valley, Lutheran Family Services, Integrated Behavioral Health Services, Center Point, you know, and those are just to name a few, not to discount the rest, but they're out there.

And so if you need help, and some of those services are absolutely free. Sometimes there's a little bit of a wait time to get in, but with a little bit of patience and persistence, I would say for surely for Lincoln, you can get some help. Yeah, so we're still talking here with Terrell Newby and Jeremy Lugan Bill about their film, Hidden Battles, De-Stigmatizing Mental Illness. Again, this will be featured at the Ross Theater here coming up. October 14th at 715, 313, North 13th Street here in Lincoln. If this sounds very interesting to you, again, I know this can touch a lot of people.

Most people know at least one person in their life that has, that will, maybe not, maybe we'll talk about mental illness, maybe talking about, you know, openly talk about it. But you guys also, you kind of mentioned this document is the call to action. What are some concrete steps that individuals, organizations, and society as a whole can take to help reduce stigma and improve support for those with mental health condition? You know, I would argue that when we are judgmental of others and we concentrate on the defects of other people, that is a direct reflection and a mirrored image of how much work we need to do within ourselves. And so if I could say anything, it would be show up, whatever that means to you. So if it's at this documentary or if it's in your own life and your own help and your own needs and your own assistance, take a look at your own stigmas, biases and judgments and just be aware of them and really get engaged in your own health, healthy eating, healthy sleeping, mindfulness, exercise, and, you know, kind of turn those fingers that you're pointing at other people inward. and really try to self-develop.

And if we clean up our own side of the street and we dedicate to ourselves to that end, plus get the community involved, we can continue. And by the way, we have a lot of great stuff. And there's a lot of great momentum in Lincoln and Nebraska. And so I don't want to act like we're in a bad spot. We're in a good spot to do this. But to keep moving forward,

especially nationwide in the great divide that we're in right now, turn the fingers inwards right now and internalize and introspect a bit. So in the documentary, the Jeremy's point, the stories that are told about some of the challenges with being able to just manage clients in terms of their benefits, some of the things that are necessary for them to even be in a facility based upon Medicare and things of that sort, But there's conversation about the challenges that parents are having. There's conversation about how best to reassess how you perceive an individual. And people will have an opportunity to see that, you know, there's some real stuff going on in families that impact the next person, relatives, moms, dads. And so the story, the film tells those stories about how the, the loved ones are suffering and what the parents are going through in terms of just learning how to get information.

And when they found the information and found the resources, how they were actually able to help improve their child's lives. And that's what's touched on a lot in the documentary. Now, too, and I, you know, this is just from my own experience growing up with friends and stuff. is there is there more of a generational acceptance these days to mental health than there was before because sometimes i think there would be an idea of hey you know mom dad i'm i'm sad something you know and then you're you know maybe someone doesn't understand the parents say well what are you sad about i give you the house you know you got all this time to do whatever you want all this sort of stuff is there do you believe there's more acceptance today maybe there was in the past

i definitely think i think as a whole uh you know the united states is is accepting a mental health and mental illness and those kinds of things. I think the thing that I worry about, though, is that we're over relating to mental illness sometimes and that if there is a struggle, it must be a mental illness rather than a struggle. And I know that's a little bit of a judgment. But if I were to say anything, we could be swaying a little bit too far in terms of we're so accepting of it that everybody wants to have one and now it's become socially

acceptable now to have one. And so I really think that, you know, and that's life, you know, I mean, we struggle I mean, I could think of a thousand things I thought that were wrong. So it's not necessarily about that. But I think to the greater point that, that, you know, again, Nebraska is a prime spot. And we wouldn't think that it's rural Nebraska. But we have a history. I mean, developmental disability services started in Nebraska and now it's worldwide.

And so, you know, I have a book in my office. Lois Rood gave it to me. It's literally a book of all the legislative activity that the state did. We wouldn't be where we were here today without the state of Nebraska and those folks. So to their work and to that end, we're able to do what we do and continue that mission. But also, you know, to me, I think that there's still some, where the stigma still hurts is with the providers, actually. You wouldn't think that. But providers are in a position of power to put people in jail, put people in prison, probation, parole.

And when the providers have the stigma and the discrimination stuff, they don't want to admit it, but they do. And so being able to ideally see ourselves as somebody that is in that power and we're careful with the people that we treat. So I'd say we need to take a step in that direction and making sure that the mental health professionals and the staff are well supervised and their systems in place to protect against those things. But then also we still have just the general public that's generally accepting of mental health issues in general. But there's still some key pieces of stigma in discrimination that's out there. and severe mental illness lives in that area, like what can we do to step up the understanding of severe mental illness now? Because we've done a great job with depression and anxiety

and general mental health issues and suicide. And we've also done a great job with development of disabilities. We're trying to bring that severe mental illness into the fold of acceptance as well. So just one more step we're looking for. And I think with the advent of social media and just media in general, the fact that it's everywhere, I think people are becoming a little bit more sensitive and appreciating that, you know, it isn't something that, you know, you should be ashamed of. And people are feeling more like, you know, I can understand as in the past, it was kind of swept under

the rug. And when parents didn't want to talk about it, everyone would point their fingers that that that person has a problem. So I think in today's society, people, people a little bit more sensitive to mental illness as opposed to how it may have been, say, 10 years ago. Again, we are wrapping up the conversation here with Terrell Newby and Jeremy Lugan Bill. Their film Hidden Battles, Distigmatizing Mental Illness is what we're talking about. It's been a fascinating conversation. Again, this will be premiering here at the Ross Theater, October 14th at 715, 313, North 13th Street.

And if people are, you know, love this work, love to. to see what you guys have put together. Do you have any plans for future projects that continue the conversation around mental health and its societal impact? Absolutely. Yeah, we actually have a podcast. We've got several shows that we're working on.

And really, it's just that podcast, I would argue the overarching is to get people back to the kitchen table or to the kitchen table and having conversations about their agenda and their family constitution. And then hopefully voting in such a way, that really truly meets their interest and their needs as families rather than kind of media or government kind of, you know,

controlling our narratives, I guess. But so for us, I think it's really digging in even deeper and more into the micro stuff with what we're trying to show here in this film is the divide. How do we get through the divide? And to give a quick example, let's just say that Terrell and I, Terrell's an African-American male, I'm a Caucasian male, and let's say that we don't like each other at all.

Well, let's temporarily agree that we're, going to help each other out reduce credit card interest rates or hey let's vote on this particular issue to get the roads fixed and then we go back to not liking each other anymore but but let's let's let's really work on temporary alliances with our community and we can agree to disagree but where do we agree let's go full speed ahead and that's actually diplomacy one-on-one exactly so uh next steps for us uh we are launching on thanksgiving day our mental health network um you can You can go to the website and get more information on that. In BattlesDMI.com.

And you'll also get to see some of our partners that are participating in what we're doing our initiatives. But no, the story doesn't end with the documentary. As we stated, we're advocates for this. And we're using media as a platform to educate people and help those who are looking for resources. come to us to maybe be able to help them enhance their lives in the area of mental illness. So one of the final time, this is Hidden Battles De-Sigmatizing Mental Illness,

October 14th at the Ross Theater 313 North 13th Street. One final word from you guys, parting thoughts as we let you go? Yeah, you know, obviously when I mean show up, I don't mean just show up to the film, I mean just show up in your own life. You know, and a lot of times it, letting people know how you're doing and how you feel is sometimes, just the first step or just to calling it out and identifying is sometimes, you know, really difficult to do. So just start by showing up for yourself. And, you know, I'm just kind of recalling something Jeremy has stated from time to time. We never know when we're going to be in a

situation where we're facing mental illness in our family. It could happen with the snap of the finger. So I think this coming to see this documentary kind of sheds light on what could, potentially happen and how to deal with that and have a better appreciation for what folks are going through in their struggles in family mental illness. Absolutely. This would be a very educational and informative film for you guys. Once again, as we let these guys go, Hidden Battles, Disigmatizing Mental Eldis here, our executive producer, Jeremy Luganville, and produced as well by Terrell Nuby.

Guys, thanks for, thanks for joining in. Thanks for having the conversation. Hopefully we can drive some people to your show as well as hopefully help some people out. Absolutely. Thank you so much. We appreciate you, Jake. Yeah, no problem. All right, there they go.

We will be back with more one-on-one with D.P. He's on the road today, but I'll continue this thing.