NEED TO KNOW
Carly Weinstein is a mental health influencer who is pursuing a master’s in social work to add credibility to her mental health advocacy
As the self-titled “internet’s big sister,” she hopes to be a space of transparency and advocacy
The new season of her podcast, Real with Carly Weinstein, features interviews with licensed mental health professionals offering advice
Influencer Carly Weinstein knows that her words can have an impact, so she’s turning to the experts.
After an ACL injury sidelined her soccer dreams, Weinstein began writing about her life, her mental health and her experiences living in New York City online. As social media influencers shifted from blogging to sharing short-form videos, so did she.
“Once I started posting, I realized, ‘Oh, this is my new blog. This could be that new outlet for me,'” the 28-year-old tells PEOPLE. “Off the first couple of videos, people were really resonating with my self-deprecating humor, sometimes me feeling like the ugly sister or me struggling with my weight or having anxiety and social anxiety, and I never had a filter.”
“I feel like that’s why it gained traction and people felt like they could relate,” Weinstein adds.
Over the years, Weinstein has opened up about her past eating disorder and body image struggles, helping people heal their own relationships with food in the process.
Carly Weinstein
Credit: Mackenzie Williams
She says the thing her followers bring up the most when they meet her in person is “either eating disorders or going through their own mental health journey and saying, ‘You really helped me.’ “
“I get messages every single day since I started this saying that people decided to see a psychiatrist for the first time and think about medication because I helped de-stigmatize it for them or they talked to their mom about that relationship with food and how that might have been affecting them,” she shares.
However, Weinstein admits that it’s been important to balance being vulnerable with her followers and keeping some things about her mental health just for herself.
“I used to put it out there a lot. Now I’ve drawn a line where I’m gonna let the thing happen to me, I’m gonna let myself struggle and then I’m gonna tell the story after,” she shares. “That’s really helpful for getting a full view of things and giving sound advice to people. I need people to know that I’m not necessarily giving them advice, I’m telling my story.”
Weinstein has turned her talk into action. She decided to go back to school and is working toward getting her master’s in social work so she can have “credibility when I’m talking on my platform.”
“People can’t just come online and talk about things without credibility. That was really important to me,” she says.
Weinstein is launching a new season of her podcast, Real with Carly Weinstein, titled “The Expert Series.” The season will feature 10 in-depth interviews with licensed mental health professionals, designed to bridge relatable, lived experience with credible, clinical insight from leaders in the space.
“I already had a podcast before where I talked about mental health. Why not take a spin on that and have 10 different experts from 10 different walks of life that really have a specific area that they specialize in and ask them the questions that we all wanna know?” she shares.
The point of it, she says, is that “it gives people a place to start.”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Carly Weinstein
Credit: Carly Weinstein/Instagram
“The mental health world is on one side of the social media universe and the New York City influencers are on the other side. I’m in the middle. We need to bring everyone together because we’re all struggling with the same things,” she tells PEOPLE. “I want to be the bridge that helps people learn more about their mental health.”
According to Weinstein, each expert will come on the show with their own recommendations for a therapist or a book they really like, giving listeners “a tool and a place to start.”
“When someone listens to an episode, they can go straight to my website to see how they can actually take action if they’re struggling with their mental health,” Weinstein shares.
While consuming helpful, positive content is important, she notes that there are other crucial steps to take offline as well.
“A place to start can always be your primary doctor. Your primary is there to give those recommendations,” Weinstein says. “If you’re seeing your doctor at your annual, and you are struggling with your mental health, bring it up. Don’t think that just because it’s not physical, you shouldn’t bring it up. That’s the place that you really should be starting.”
Carly Weinstein
Credit: Carly Weinstein/Instagram
She understands, however, that not everyone has “access” to medical care.
“A lot of people, I’m realizing in social work, how many people just don’t have access. They don’t have insurance, they don’t have the money,” she says. “That’s why I’m trying to provide as many free opportunities for people to get information as possible.”
“This is a non-profit. We’re not making money off of this. I want help, and I know this will help me see what people need more help with once this gets out to the world,” she adds.
Weinstein is in a unique position, being both an influencer and training to be a mental health professional.
“It puts perspective on me being in the New York City influencer scene and then going to class and being in a social work setting and talking about what people are struggling with, it’s such a big difference,” Weinstein shares. “It gives me that awareness that I can bring back to my audience and also to my peers. I feel like it’s so beneficial that other influencers are really seeing how important it is to not talk about this stuff, but be involved and try to give their own resources if they can, even if it’s just, like, linking to an eating disorder hotline.”
Weinstein understands that people look to her, and influencers in general, for advice, and, to a certain degree, sometimes trust them more than professionals.
“People are watching their favorite influencers more than they’re seeing a doctor or trusting maybe a friend or their mom. Influencers are who they look to,” she says. “People are looking for influencers to speak about what matters. The same goes for mental health. We’re in a mental health crisis, and so these influencers that are willing to talk about it go a really long way.”
Read the original article on People
