positivepsychologyinterventions

[positivepsychologyinterventions]

Podcast: From Divorce to Besties

  How did Gabe and Lisa go from being spouses to divorcees to best friends? Do they hold any residual anger toward each other? Hurt feelings? Secret attraction? How do their current spouses feel about their friendship?

If you’re curious to understand their unique journey, join us as they tell all on today’s podcast.

(Transcript Available Below)

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About The Not Crazy podcast Hosts

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 Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Divorce to Besties” Episode

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

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe: Welcome, everyone, to this week’s episode of the Not Crazy podcast, I’m your host, Gabe Howard, and with me, as always, is Lisa Kiner. Lisa?

Lisa: Hey, everyone, today’s quote comes from the website, Live Happy: When two friends become lovers, that’s ordinary. When two ex lovers become friends, that’s maturity.

Gabe: Lover. That’s all I hear, like in that whole quote, remember that Saturday Night Live sketch?

Lisa: Yes, yes.

Gabe: And then we became lovers. The word lover just has this awful connotation that I’m very uncomfortable with, especially in the context of you, Lisa.

Lisa: It’s making me more uncomfortable the more you say the word, frankly.

Gabe: Right, but that is weird. It is weird that at one point in my life you were my wife and I spoke to you like a wife, you know. Hey, honey. Hey, Pookie. Exactly what you would expect in a romantic relationship.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: We were married for five years. We dated for three years before that. I mean, two years.

Lisa: Is that right?

Gabe: I don’t know. We were together for a long time. This wasn’t, this wasn’t a cuffing season situation. We were together for years.

Lisa: What’s cuffing season?

Gabe: You’ve never heard of cuffing season? 

Lisa: No.

Gabe: Cuffing season is when it gets cold outside and you don’t want to go out and date because it’s just hard.

Lisa: OK.

Gabe: But you still want to be with somebody. So you cuff them just for like a few months. 

Lisa: Cuff them?

Gabe: And then you break up. It’s called cuffing season.

Lisa: Oh, so cuff is a synonym for sex?

Gabe: I think it’s like handcuffs.

Lisa: That doesn’t make sense.

Gabe: Look, I don’t I don’t design millennial words, I don’t know what you want.

Lisa: Ok, all right, it’s a millennial thing, OK. Yes,

Gabe: It’s just.

Lisa: I do not understand their ways, their ways are mysterious to me.

Gabe: Cuffing season is when it’s cold outside, so you don’t want to put on the short skirt and the high heels and go out to the clubs to meet people. So you stay in a relationship for a few months until it warms up outside and then, boom, you’re back. And it’s called cuffing season.

Lisa: I’m going to Google that.

Gabe: It’s UrbanDictionary.com. I highly recommend it. That’s where I learn everything that my nieces and nephews say. Otherwise we’d be having two different conversations,

Lisa: Yeah,

Gabe: Much like now.

Lisa: That thirsty thing.

Gabe: Yeah, I had no idea.

Lisa: I know, right, it’s so weird and the whole swoll, I don’t get that one at all.

Gabe: Well, I mean, I’m swoll. I’m swoll A.F.

Lisa: Oh, it took me a second,

Gabe: Yeah, yeah.

Lisa: Because I’m not one of them.

Gabe: Yeah. Laugh at me all you want. I just want people to understand that this was not a short relationship, this

Lisa: No, no.

Gabe: Was a long relationship.

Lisa: We were together for years.

Gabe: We owned a home together, we bought a house, we bought cars, we went on vacations. We. 

Lisa: We had pets.

Gabe: We had pets, everything. And now I can’t see it. At one point, Lisa, I called you Dear Honey Pookie. We held hands, we cuddled. We did everything that a married couple did and behaved. I mean, we were a married couple. We behaved and acted. 

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Like a married couple. And now all these years later, if somebody says, hey, Gabe, do you miss making out with Lisa? I think, eww, eww.

Lisa: Oh, yeah, eww

Gabe: Right.

Lisa: Wow, I’ve never noticed that before.

Gabe: I get this, like, visceral reaction and that’s perfectly normal. Nobody wants to make out with their best friend.

Lisa: I’ve never noticed

Gabe: Right. It would be like

Lisa: Ick.

Gabe: If somebody said, hey, Gabe, you want to make out with your sister? No, that’s disgusting. I don’t want to make out with my friends. That’s it’s a different relationship. But what makes this interesting

Lisa: I’ve never noticed that.

Gabe: Is how did we go from, you know, hey, at one point we made out all the time and now we’re like uck. That’s gross.

Lisa: I never noticed that. That’s interesting.

Gabe: Where did that turn, because we were very stereotypically married, right?

Lisa: Of course, we were a married couple like any other.

Gabe: We are very stereotypically best friends with maybe like a dash of codependency.

Lisa: A dash?

Gabe: A dash.

Lisa: A small dash,

Gabe: A small like like a cup.

Lisa: Maybe several cups, yeah,

Gabe: Like a

Lisa: A pound and a half, maybe.

Gabe: A Sam’s Club bag of codependency,

Lisa: Right. Right.

Gabe: But it’s not romantic in nature, is my point.

Lisa: No, it hasn’t been for a long time.

Gabe: It’s a 180.

Lisa: Is that true, is it a 180?

Gabe: I don’t know? What’s the opposite of marriage? 

Lisa: So well see exactly I don’t know that that is the opposite of marriage.

Gabe: It’s interesting, and I think this is where the maturity part of your quote comes in, a lot of people think that the opposite of a romantic relationship is a hate filled one.

Lisa: Exactly, which it is not.

Gabe: It’s certainly not in our case. I think the opposite of a romantic relationship is probably nothing.

Lisa: Well, yeah, exactly the opposite of love is not hate, it’s apathy.

Gabe: Well, I don’t even think it’s apathy, I think it’s non-existent, I think it’s oh, yeah, I remember dating him.

Lisa: Like I said, apathy. That’s what apathy is,

Gabe: Is that apathy?

Lisa: I think so, yeah.

Gabe: It’s just, it’s just nothing.

Lisa: And we’ve talked about this before, the oh, you know, the opposite of love is hate. No, it’s not. You used to love your ex-husband. Now you hate him. No, that’s still that strong emotion. That’s not good.

Gabe: I agree with that, and but whatever the opposite of a marriage or romance or love or romantic love is, it’s not best friends forever.

Lisa: Probably not, no.

Gabe: Do you know anybody else, literally anybody else that is best friends with their spouse?

Lisa: No.

Gabe: Lisa, obviously, I think everybody is aware of exes who are not enemies. I think that everybody is aware of exes who get along. Co parent, for example, there’s a lot of divorced couples who raise children together. They maintain a semblance of a relationship. But that’s not our relationship.

Lisa: No, and we get comments on that all the time,

Gabe: Constantly

Lisa: All the time,

Gabe: Constantly.

Lisa: It’s interesting.

Gabe: Yes.

Lisa: Usually negative, but sometimes positive.

Gabe: Can you believe that, I mean, what? What a crazy world do we live in where somebody’s like, oh, Lisa’s your ex-wife? Yes. And you don’t hate her and want her to die? No, I think very highly of her. Oh, what’s wrong with you?

Lisa: I know it’s a little bit creepy.

Gabe: They’re like angry at me, they think I’ve done something wrong. I don’t know about Viroj, but Kendall, my wife, gets pulled aside all the time. It’s like you can’t tell me there’s not something going on there.

Lisa: Yeah, it doesn’t happen as much for Viroj because it’s a genderized thing,

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: But yeah, it’s a thing.

Gabe: You know what I love about that happening? It’s Kendall’s response.

Lisa: Oh, what is it?

Gabe: Yeah, she says well, if Gabe and Lisa run off together, that’s the punishment they deserve

Lisa: Yeah,

Gabe: Because I’d kill you

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Easily. We just we would kill each other within a month of us running away. One of us would try to take out the other. Would be we’d both be in prison, like, could you imagine the fight? It always makes me laugh when she says that because I do think she’s right. We are on the right level. If you and I, for whatever reason, tried to get married again, this I want to be very, very clear. This is very hypothetical. Nobody is discussing this.

Lisa: That’s not happening, yeah.

Gabe: But it would be a train wreck, we would both be miserable and it would cost us the good thing that we have. I think that’s what a lot of people don’t understand. They’re like, why are you friends with your ex? And the answer is because we never should have gotten married. We overshot. 

Lisa: More than anything else, we’re usually mistaken for siblings.

Gabe: Yes, which is creepy because, of course, we have this romantic past, right?

Lisa: Right, right.

Gabe: That clearly people can recognize that we have a close relationship. And they don’t want to just say, oh, well, these two are friends or coworkers, et cetera, because they feel that it’s another step. But whenever we correct them and say, yes, you are right, you have picked up. We are very, very close. Lisa used to be my ex-wife. We’re now just best friends. That’s where the questions come in. Now,

Lisa: Yeah, that confuses people.

Gabe: We’ve already discussed the negatives. The negatives are a bummer. I’m sorry that people react that way, but we get a lot of people who are naturally curious. They’re like, well, how did you do it?

Lisa: I also get a lot of people who it’s almost a confessional. Where they’ll go, well, you know, I’m actually friends with my ex, too, but they take you aside and tell you it like it’s a secret. They don’t just say it like, oh, yeah. Oh, that’s interesting. You know, or even. Oh, that’s unusual. You know, my ex-husband and I are very you know, they’re like, well, you know, or the number one thing that happens is people will tell me, well, you know, I guess that makes sense after all. I know so and so. And even after they were divorced, she helped him through cancer. It’s always that way. It’s always she helped him. And it’s always cancer. It’s never a man helping a woman do something. It’s always a woman helping a man through cancer. That is the number one thing people say to me. It’s weird. So just letting you know you’re about to get cancer.

Gabe: I’ve, great. Great.

Lisa: I’m just telling you.

Gabe: I like, I don’t have enough problems, I, 

Lisa: Number one thing is. Oh, yes, I knew a couple who cared for him through cancer and number two thing is, oh, I also share this deep secret. Let me share it with you now.

Gabe: It really is reminiscent of when I give a speech, and then when I get off the stage, people pull me aside and they say, you know, I have bipolar too, or I have mental illness as well. And they want to tell me their story.

Lisa: Right, yes, it reminds me of that exactly. Because they feel like only you can understand, because they feel the story is so incredibly unique that they can’t just share it on a regular day to day basis that they found this kindred spirit.

Gabe: Agreed, agreed with all of that, but I still feel like you’re kind of ditching the question, Lisa. How did we get here?

Lisa: You know, I’ve been trying to think about that.

Gabe: How did we go from a married couple to a divorced couple to BFFs? That is a weird journey.

Lisa: I don’t think it is that weird, part of it is on TV, people have been married for years and they get a divorce and then they never speak to each other again. In real life, you don’t just cut off a long term relationship and have no contact forever. Your lives are intertwined with one another. You have the same friend group. Perhaps you work together, you have children, you own property together. You live in the same town. In real life it’s not that easy to just cut it off cold turkey.

Gabe: Ok, but it’s not that hard and look, we don’t have children and we did not have an intertwined friend group.

Lisa: We did live in the same town.

Gabe: Well, sure, a town with 1.2 million people. Did you think we were going to run into each other at the Tastee-Freez or the McDonald’s? You always say the McDonald’s in small towns. Did you think we were going to go get fish? I really feel bad now because all of our listeners in small towns are going to send us hate mail. I apologize.

Lisa: No, because they’ll know that I’m one of you and Gabe is city he doesn’t understand.

Gabe: That’s not true. I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania.

Lisa: No, you didn’t You’re second generation city, anyway.

Gabe: That is, one that’s just offensive.

Lisa: It’s true.

Gabe: My graduating class had 29 kids. How many did your graduating class have? Miss you’re from a small town and I’m not.

Lisa: Gabe grew up in Columbus, but did move to a small town to finish high school.

Gabe: Yeah,

Lisa: I’m just saying.

Gabe: My mother was raised in that town where she got pregnant after a football game on Valentine’s Day in the backseat of a car. How much more small town country can you get than my conception? It was a Dodge Charger, people. It was so stereotypical back in 1996. I’m pretty sure that Foreigner was on the radio.

Lisa: You mean 1976.

Gabe: What did I say?

Lisa: 1996.

Gabe: I’m old, that’s

Lisa: Yeah,

Gabe: When I graduated high school.

Lisa: I know.

Gabe: In a small town

Lisa: Uh-huh.

Gabe: Where I lived.

Lisa: Yeah, yeah. First off, no, you’re city people, you’ve always been city people, we all know you’re city people. You do things like cross the street without looking both ways. It’s ridiculous. Also, you don’t check both ways before railroad tracks. Yes, it’s true. Sometimes Gabe drives directly over railroad tracks.  He calls pop soda. There you go, that’s all that needs to be said.

Gabe: Lisa.

Lisa: If he wants a Diet Coke, he says he’s going to go buy soda, not pop, soda. Yeah, city. City all the way. 

Gabe: I understand why you want to change the subject, because you’re uncomfortable to admit that you just have no idea, you’re uncomfortable to admit that this was an accident. Our salvaging the relationship, it was an accident. I think you’re very uncomfortable with that. I don’t think you like the idea,

Lisa: Why would I be uncomfortable with it?

Gabe: Because I’ve asked you now for the third time, how did we go from a married couple to BFFs?

Lisa: Oh, well, I was answering that.

Gabe: No, you weren’t. You said it’s not that unusual, it happens all the time. Really?

Lisa: No, no.

Gabe: Name one other person.

Lisa: What I said is that in real life, you can’t just cut off cold turkey because your lives are intertwined.

Gabe: But just because you can’t cut off cold turkey doesn’t mean that you become BFFs, everybody goes through the same divorce process.

Lisa: I’m getting there,

Gabe: Are you?

Lisa: Everybody does not go through the same divorce process. What makes you think that?

Gabe: Yes, some people have children.

Lisa: Exactly? Every situation is unique. Nobody goes through the same process.

Gabe: Making us even weirder, that binds them and they don’t become BFFs.

Lisa: I think part of it was, like I said, we did have intertwined lives, etc., and then the next thing would be, frankly, it’s because we kind of had to stay together because of the house and because of the health insurance. That gave us a window.

Gabe: On one hand, it gave us a window, but I don’t think that it did. I really don’t. A lot of people have houses to sell. A lot of people in America have health insurance issues with their divorcing spouses and they don’t become friends. I just.

Lisa: It gave us a longer period of time than it would have otherwise, and that gave us time for some of the hurt feelings to recede.

Gabe: That is what I keep trying to explain to you, though, that is not abnormal. This was not something that happened to us that doesn’t happen to other people yet. Our outcome is different. Every single divorcing couple in America has issues with selling the house, with splitting the money, with going through the court process, with health insurance. This is, you haven’t brought up anything that is uncommon or unusual for a divorcing couple in America, but their stories do not turn out with them being best friends. Their stories turn out very stereotypically with them becoming nothing, not enemies, just nothing. They just move on. For example, everything that you just listed happened between my first wife and I. We had health insurance problems. We had to sell our house. We had to go through the court process. How come we’re not best friends forever?

Lisa: Ok, how come? What’s the answer?

Gabe: Because we.

Lisa: You’re asking me how I think this happened, how do you? What do you think the answer is?

Gabe: I really do think that part of it was that we got married for the wrong reasons, yet the reason that we got married was a very compelling reason that is difficult to ignore. You saved my life. You literally saved my life. That really does create a bond.

Lisa: That’s why we got married?

Gabe: I think so, yeah. Don’t you?

Lisa: See, I never really thought of it that way until after we were divorced and then I started listening to your speeches and you started, not started, but you were saying that all the time. I was a little surprised by that. I never particularly saw it that way. And I was surprised at how much emphasis or value you put on that.

Gabe: My theory has always been that the reason that we got married is because we were bonded by this amazing thing. For good or bad, it was a very traumatizing thing. You know, it’s just it’s not every day that you find yourself a suicidal guy and, you know, help them.

Lisa: But that was a different experience for you than for me, though.

Gabe: Right, but it was still an experience that we uniquely shared together, just because we experienced it very differently doesn’t also mean that there wasn’t overlap that we experienced at the same time. I am sure that you felt very protective of me because you set yourself up as my protector.

Lisa: I did. I struggle to this day with that.

Gabe: Yeah, I felt very indebted to you because you protected me and I needed protecting. I didn’t know anything and you knew a lot. It is a different experience on both ends, but it’s still a bonding experience. And I mistook that as, oh, well, you can build a marriage on that. You can’t build a marriage on one singular event. A marriage is built on things like shared values, shared goals, the ability to tolerate each other in the same house. I just, you understand what I’m saying, right? The things that make a marriage successful are actually a lot more mundane.

Lisa: Yeah, one dramatic thing doesn’t do it.

Gabe: Well, right, and that’s all we had. I believe that the reason that we ended up together is because we thought that that one dramatic thing was enough to build a relationship. But more specifically, I believe that if that wouldn’t have happened, we would have dated. I would have thought that you were intelligent. You would have thought that I was funny. We would have had some conversations, but then we would have started to say this is the purpose of dating. We would have started to realize, oh, Gabe doesn’t want to travel the country. Gabe wants to own a house. Gabe spends money different than I do. Gabe really likes sports and I don’t like sports so much. And maybe we even would have gotten to the stage where we lived together, but then we would have realized that we value things. And I like to have a lot of people in my home. And you like to have nobody in your home.

Lisa: Right. That’s what your house is for.

Gabe: Right, these things would have started to butt up against each other and we would have made the very reasonable decision that, hey, we don’t have enough in common.

Lisa: We’re not compatible.

Gabe: Yeah, we’re not compatible and we would have broken up and, hey, maybe if we were in our right minds, you would have been a two, three year relationship and one that I remember fondly around the campfire.

Lisa: You’re going camping now?

Gabe: I don’t know. I go camping now. And I have no idea, it’s.

Lisa: You don’t go camping. I’m willing to bet you have never been camping.

Gabe: My point is, I think that if we wouldn’t have had this big, dramatic thing, we would have realized that we weren’t compatible and we would have broken up.

Lisa: So what you’re saying is that you think it was the drama. That we mistook those feelings for compatibility?

Gabe: Well, I also think that I was incredibly grateful. I mean, Lisa, what you did was amazing. Most people would not do what you did. This is the whole reason we became mental health advocates, because most people, upon meeting a clearly mentally ill man who is extraordinarily suicidal, who has all of these problems and whom they were only casually dating at best, and I say casually dating so that you come off like a lady.

Lisa: Yeah, yeah.

Gabe: You would have just walked away. You would have ghosted me, to keep the theme of millennial words and nobody would have blamed you. If you would have been sitting around your campfire and said, you know, I met this redhead guy like 20 years ago. Oh, well, what happened to him? He was crazy. He was nuts. I had to get away from him. You know, I heard he had bipolar disorder later. People would have been like, oh, thank God you escaped. You don’t want to get mixed up in that. Like, as you know and I’m not trying to call out your family here, but your mother was very disappointed in you. She thought it was a very bad idea. And I’d like to point out she was half right.

Lisa: Not exactly, but.

Gabe: Nothing’s exact. The point is, is your mother, she had serious reservations and in fact, would have preferred that you would have said, hey, you know, that guy that I’ve been dating for a couple of months? It turns out he has untreated bipolar disorder. So we broke up. That would have been a much better outcome for your parents. And again, I’d like to point out they’re not wrong.

Lisa: It was the number one advice that I received at the time, not just from them, from everyone.

Gabe: Don’t help the sick guy was the number one advice that you received at the time?

Lisa: No, no, no, that’s not what they’re saying. No, no one’s saying don’t help sick people. What they’re saying is don’t enmesh yourself with sick people, get out. In fact, I believe we had a whole episode about that. We’ve talked before about how if I said, hey, I met this guy and he has cancer, I’m leaving him people to be like, oh, my God, that’s terrible. What a bitch. But if you say, hey, I met this guy and he has bipolar disorder, I’m staying with him people will go, hmmm, what’s wrong with her? When it’s mental illness, people expect you to leave. And if you don’t, there’s something wrong with you. But if it’s any sort of physical problem, you’re evil if you leave.

Gabe: So tie that back, not only did you not leave, you married the guy and

Lisa: Yeah, yeah.

Gabe: When the marriage didn’t work out, you still didn’t leave. For real.

Lisa: I don’t have an answer for you. And I do not think that that’s the answer, but I don’t have a better one. And like I said, I never even thought that that was a component of it until after we were already divorced and you started talking about it. And we’ve talked about this many times over the years. It never occurred to me that we wouldn’t stay friends. And I don’t know why. I don’t have a good reason. It doesn’t even sound sensible when I say it. You always talk about, hey, I always figured eventually we’ll just lose contact with one another. I honestly never thought that. I never thought there was a future where we wouldn’t have contact and I’m not sure why.

Gabe: I’m going to go with because you’re an idiot, except that you were right.

Lisa: Did you really think that would happen? I mean, when I called, you answered, you called me, you continued to maintain contact. It’s not like you started slipping away and I was running after you. So how did you think this lack of contact was going to happen? Neither one of us was dropping off.

Gabe: There’s generally things that happen that start to diminish contact, right? Somebody starts dating somebody else, that relationship gets more serious. I genuinely thought that I would get a girlfriend and I was not going to tell my girlfriend that I’m still hanging out with my ex-wife because I thought that that was inappropriate to the girlfriend. Now, luckily, apparently, I’m not as good with women as I thought because it took a long time to get a girlfriend. And by the time I got a girlfriend, I had flipped. I had decided, no, Lisa has crossed the Rubicon. Lisa is now a friend, and whomever I date needs to understand that I am, in fact, friends with my ex-wife. But there is a period of time where if I would have gotten involved in a serious relationship, I would have stopped contacting you because of this concept of it’s inappropriate to be hanging out with your ex in your new relationship. I mean.

Lisa: We got that a lot at the time, I did not get that as much because, again, it’s a genderized thing, but the idea that when you start seeing someone else, you definitely need to cut off contact because it’s disrespectful to the other person. And in fact, the other person should be on guard because after all, you’re just waiting for this thing to happen.

Gabe: One of the things that helped this along is after we separated, after we got a divorce and I moved into the apartment, I wasn’t trying to be in a relationship. It was it was debauchery. And then I realized that going back to my old ways wasn’t healthy. But luckily, at this point, you know, I had a therapist, I had a psychiatrist, I had support groups. And I recognized that I was falling back on old patterns. Well, when I was single, before I did the following things and I’d started doing them again. So I worked with my therapist. My therapist said, look, you need to not date anybody. You’re doing it wrong. You’re running out and dating people and then deciding if you want to be with them. Why don’t you decide who you want first? What are your values? What are you looking for? What are you hoping for? What’s a pro and con list? What type of person are you looking for?

Lisa: So you’re saying that previously you’d meet someone and then be like, OK, are they good, yes or no, whereas instead you should get some criteria in advance and go out and find a person who meets them?

Gabe: Yes, and that journey took a long time and it took me the better part of a year to figure out just what kind of person I wanted to be married to.

Lisa: Or date?

Gabe: Anything. This was the first time in my life that I actually really thought about it. And during that time, you and I were running a mental health walk because you continued to volunteer for the charity that I was working for, shrewd, by the way. And that made you one.

Lisa: Oh, yeah, that’s why I did it.

Gabe: That put us in close proximity. And you always showed up at all of the volunteer meetings and all of the events. You took on projects and completed them extraordinarily well, I might add.

Lisa: But you realize that that wasn’t accidental, that was part of the protective thing because and we talked about this, I was pretty sure you were going to crash and burn. I was pretty sure you were not going to make it. What am I saying? Pretty sure I was positive. I was positive you were going to burn when you said, hey, I’m having trouble with this charity. I’m having trouble at my job, I’m having trouble with the walk. I was like, OK, well, clearly he needs me to save that. I clearly need to go protect him on this one.

Gabe: You recognize that it was the normal amount of trouble that all fundraisers and marketing directors and development directors have, which is I need more people, I need more money.

Lisa: Probably.

Gabe: I wasn’t I wasn’t having some sort of, like, mental health crisis. I was I needed to hit my numbers and my people and get the word out. And you were an excellent volunteer and your loss was, your loss was felt.

Lisa: Well, but nobody knew that. You did not realize that these were the normal growing pains that anyone in that job would have, and neither did I.

Gabe: It’s really irrelevant, it just it allowed us to do this thing, I look at that fundraiser as the first thing that we did as friends.

Lisa: Yeah, I would agree with that.

Gabe: Look like significant thing, I mean, I recognize that, you know, we went to see Star Wars Symphony as friends, I you know, we had lunch as friends, I recognize that we watched, you know, reality TV and made pasta as friends. I get it. Those are simple, stupid, easy things. The first big thing that we did as Gabe and Lisa friends was run that fundraiser.

Lisa: Well, it was also the first big project we ever took on together, period. We don’t have children. This was it. I mean, I suppose we bought the house, but I did most of the work on that.

Gabe: It’s fascinating to hear you say that, because I think the first big project that we took on together was beating bipolar disorder.

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: You’ve given that nothing. It took four years.

Lisa: Well, I mean, I guess in some ways I saw this as a continuation of this because this was you going out and getting a job and existing in the world and you know what I mean?

Gabe: That’s all fine and well, dear Lisa, the point that I’m making is, is that that gave us something to build off of. I didn’t think that Gabe and Lisa were capable of doing anything positive, like hard stop. We got divorced for a reason.

Lisa: Well, but by your logic, we’d just beaten bipolar disorder, that’s pretty positive.

Gabe: Yeah, it was great, and then since that was no longer around, there was no reason for us to be friends.

Lisa: Because you felt like the big project was over, so now we could just.

Gabe: Yeah, it was amazing.

Lisa: I can’t explain it, I didn’t feel that way. Looking back on it, I do see this as a project we did together, I guess, but I didn’t see it at the time. As we were immersed in it, I didn’t see it that way.

Gabe: The reality is, is I just thought it was over. Gabe and Lisa did something together that was amazing. And then we did something together that was not amazing. And that was our marriage. It had a lot of problems. It had some good parts. I don’t want you to hear that I never had any good memories, but the marriage failed. So now it’s like one and one. So I really saw that fundraiser as the tiebreaker. And the fact that it went so well together showed me that, hey, maybe Gabe and Lisa still have some juice left. Maybe we still have the ability to do good things together. And because it was so successful, I was willing to try something else. And ironically, it was the next year’s fundraiser that we did together. And then then we moved on to, you know, starting my public speaking career.

Lisa: The third year’s fundraiser. Yeah.

Gabe: And, yeah, the third year fundraiser, my public speaking career. And we worked on the podcast together. You’ve been producing them for years now. Now you’re in front of the mic. I just all of those successes built to here. But it really started with that one. And when people say, how did you become friends, I think the answer to that question is we started from scratch. I understand that we had history and it’s not completely possible to start from scratch. But we had a friendship that turned into a marriage that failed. And then we started over and that succeeded.

Lisa: And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

Announcer: Interested in learning about psychology and mental health from experts in the field? Give a listen to the Psych Central Podcast, hosted by Gabe Howard. Visit PsychCentral.com/Show or subscribe to The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player.

Announcer: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe: And we’re back telling the Gabe and Lisa origin story.

Lisa: So you’re saying that you were actually making these conscious decisions of, hey, let’s start this new project together, see what happens, and then when that project was successful, you’re like, oh, that went well, let’s do another project? You were actually thinking of it in that way?

Gabe: In a manner of speaking, when you showed up to volunteer for that fundraiser after our divorce, I was not comfortable with that. And if you recall.

Lisa: You asked me. 

Gabe: Nope.

Lisa: Yes, I was positive your life was going to fall apart, and then you said to me, hey, my life is, in fact falling apart, I’m going to lose my job because terrible shit is happening with the walk. I’m desperate help. And I said, OK. And I swooped in and helped. That’s how I remember it.

Gabe: That is

Lisa: Is that not what happened?

Gabe: I think that the answer is in the middle. I don’t think that you have completely made this up out of whole cloth.

Lisa: You didn’t say, I need you to do this, you just said, hey, this is in trouble. And I thought to myself, I can help with this trouble.

Gabe: I think we’re both telling the same story, you’re just putting the emphasis on the wrong point, you believe that you came in and saved my ass, whereas I believe that you stuck around and were very helpful.

Lisa: Well, same diff.

Gabe: Well, it’s about I mean, it’s not the same diff, but I can see how you can get there.

Lisa: One, anyone, you just needed a warm body, but you didn’t have one, right? It wasn’t special to me. You just needed somebody to step up and nobody was. It could have been anybody, but it wasn’t. It was me. I don’t know that you asked me to do it, but you specifically said you were having this problem, and I volunteered.

Gabe: Once again, I can see how you can get there from there, but I don’t think that that is accurate.

Lisa: Ok, so what do you think happened?

Gabe: I think that you stayed a volunteer, and even though I was uncomfortable with it because of everything that was going on, I was not in a position to let you leave. Lisa, obviously, things are sort of hindsight is not, in fact, 20/20, because memories fade and you forget different things. But at the time I needed you, I needed high quality, good volunteers. And you and I had volunteered for this organization before I worked there.

Lisa: We had volunteered together for years, and then you got a paying job.

Gabe: Yes, frankly, I was not in a position to let you go because I did, in fact, want and need your help, the organization wanted and needed your help. And plus, remember what you said about, you know, having like friends in common. That organization was probably the only thing we had in common at the time of our separation as far as people were concerned.

Lisa: Yeah, but they very much saw us as a unit there.

Gabe: They really did, and ironically, they saw us as a unit forever. I still think they

Lisa: Yeah,

Gabe: See us as a unit.

Lisa: Well, because we had always volunteered together. In the past, we had always volunteered together as a unit, then you got a paying job. And so I think people just expected me to still be around, in part because most of them didn’t realize that we had separated or that we were divorcing.

Gabe: You were like the first lady.

Lisa: People did not necessarily know that we were no longer together. We’re not airing all of our business.

Gabe: It really was irrelevant, the point that I’m making is you asked me if I did it on purpose, like if it was some sort of litmus test, like if I was like, well, I’m going to let her stick around. And if it works out, I’ll stay friends with her. And the answer to that is no. I didn’t really consider whether or not you could stick around because I knew how vital you were to the organization. Number one, I knew how much I needed your help because you were an excellent, excellent volunteer. And also I felt like I did not have the authority in the world to tell you that you were not allowed to be involved in an organization that we started out together. It was true that by now I was an employee and you were still a volunteer. But we found this organization together. The same day that I volunteered for this organization was the same day that you volunteered for this organization. And all of that coalesced into we ran that event together. We just did. And that was a very positive thing. I remember the day of the walk. I remember us walking around, tearing down the signs. And I remember probably for the first time since the divorce, unencumbered, positive feelings about you that wasn’t bogged down in well, but. Well, but, you know, she did it was just a purely positive thing. And I thought, well, I wouldn’t mind having more of these. But there was a lot of people in my life who were telling me that this was proof that I wasn’t moving forward or that it wasn’t mentally health or that it wasn’t good for me. I don’t know what made me ignore all of these people, probably because, quite frankly, they all sucked at relationships, too, so.

Lisa: Did you actively think to yourself that you wished that I wasn’t there? Because I never got that vibe?

Gabe: This is hard. There’s a part of me that wants to say, yeah, it would have been easier if you were just gone.

Lisa: It never even occurred to me.

Gabe: That’s because it wasn’t, it wasn’t an option as far as I was concerned. I felt that it was our organization, so I had no right to keep you away from it. So therefore, I never, ever considered it. But if you’re asking me if I thought it would be easier not to see my ex, yeah, I thought that would be easier. And if you would have disappeared, I wouldn’t have been given all the shit from my friends and family about how I wasn’t moving forward and how I was hanging onto the past. And we did sometimes fight about stuff. Never while we were volunteering. But remember, one day I came over, you were living in the house. I had moved to an apartment and we were working on something at the kitchen table. And I was like, Oh, I want to take that back to my apartment. And you said, stop shopping at my house. This is

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: My house. You don’t get to walk around and shop here. All right? This isn’t a Wal-Mart. You don’t pick something that you need at your apartment and pick it up off the shelf and take it home. It’s my house.

Lisa: I do not remember that, but sounds like something I would say, yeah.

Gabe: By way of you still being around, that caused a quote unquote, fight I.

Lisa: It just never occurred to me to stop volunteering there. It was something I had done, we had done for years. We’ve been going there for a long time, and at the time it was a large part of my social outlet. You know, we knew all these people. We were friends with them. It never occurred to me to stop. I never got the impression that you wanted me to stop or that you expected me to stop or that you thought I should.

Gabe: It was more complex than that, and that’s what I’m trying to explain. The reality is, you know, spoiler alert, everybody. The reason that Lisa and I are still friends is because of luck. There was obviously a bond there. We obviously have a lot in common. We think highly of one another. We enjoy each other’s company. All those things are obviously true. But if you’re in the middle of leaving your romantic partner, whether through a divorce or a breakup and you’re trying to figure out how to become BFFs, it’s just all random. What happened for Lisa and I is that we started to build new memories and we started to build a friendship. And basically we just erased the past. And even that’s a lie, because to this very day, 15, 16, 17 years later, Lisa and I will still get in a fight which ends with her accusing me of stealing her youth.

Lisa: Yeah, yeah.

Gabe: So we’re not even over all of the trauma from that. I don’t know how we manage it. The only reason that we’re covering it is to get people to stop emailing us and asking

Lisa: We get that question a lot.

Gabe: I. Lisa, you apparently don’t know the answer any more. Why are we friends?

Lisa: You know, I frequently do not tell people the back story of our relationship, or maybe I tell them that we’re childhood friends or something like that.

Gabe: Oh, that’s a good one. I’ve never used that one.

Lisa: Yeah, well, it works out well because, again, people have the brother sister thing, you know, are you two related? Are you two brother and sister? Oh, we grew up on the same street or some shit. I don’t know. We’re childhood friends, people, accept that because then a woman and a man can be friends if they were childhood friends and never became romantic

Gabe: Right.

Lisa: Because it’s just too exhausting to have to explain. The questions are always the same. It gets boring. It’s just annoying to me. It’s tiresome.

Gabe: I think you just have to be open to the possibility, right? Really, that’s the only real advice that we can pass along, right, Lisa?

Lisa: I’m sorry, I’m still stuck on the whole, did you not want me there, did you want me to stop volunteering? Had you said to yourself, gee, I hope that she stops.

Gabe: I never thought that, but it would have been easier. You represented failure, you were an example of failure in my life. You were my second divorce. You were costing me money. And I would like to point out that you told me in pretty much as many words as you could come up with that I was going to fail and be home any day now.

Lisa: Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Gabe: Well, so why would I want you around?

Lisa: You have had periods where you’re very erratic, right? So for many months after you left, I saw this as more of you being erratic and I thought, well, this is his way. Today he’s a vegetarian. Tomorrow he decides to join. Who knows? Right.

Gabe: Don’t forget, I was a vegan for a day.

Lisa: I know you were a vegan for a day.

Gabe: I really like cheese.

Lisa: You were always taking on these projects that you discarded within hours or days or weeks. I thought, OK, this is one more, and he’s going to basically come to his senses any moment now and we’ll get back to our regular lives. For many months after you left, I just kept expecting you to get over it and just we would go back to normal life.

Gabe: And I think this is problematic and trying to explain to this, because I think what a normal person would hear is, oh, the reason they’re friends is because Gabe left, but Lisa continued to pine after him.

Lisa: Right, and tried to get back together.

Gabe: And that’s not true.

Lisa: It’s hard to explain, it’s not exactly true, but it’s not false either. There was some part of I was expecting you to come home. I still thought of it as you being not at home. And at a certain point, that did change, obviously, and I’m not really sure when.

Gabe: Well, it changed after I came home, you do recognize that, right? Lisa and I had a two month blip where we decided, you know what, we’re going to work it out.

Lisa: Well, like a lot of long term couples who separate, we did go back and forth for a while.

Gabe: That’s what you’re going with, we went back and forth? Like a lot of long term couples who separate, Gabe moved back in for two months and Lisa kicked his ass out, realizing that, oh, my God, life with him is so much better when he lives across town.

Lisa: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Gabe: I only bring this up because.

Lisa: Yeah, not before you had to buy a second vacuum cleaner, though.

Gabe: I did have to buy a second vacuum.

Lisa: I’m sorry, I didn’t think we needed two it was weird.

Gabe: You made me give a vacuum cleaner away and then two months later, I had to buy another one that you never paid me. You know what else I gave away? A television. That’s actually what pissed me off more than the vacuum cleaner.

Lisa: I could see that, yeah. Yeah.

Gabe: Yeah, and a mattress I had to buy a new mattress.

Lisa: The really amusing part was the way that your friends who had helped you move back and forth like three times were like, so you’re moving out again, huh?

Gabe: Remember what he told me,

Lisa: What?

Gabe: This is it. Doesn’t she have friends? Have her friends carry just now? We’re done. I bring that up because it further muddies the waters. Right.

Lisa: Yeah, it does, it does, you’re right.

Gabe: We actually made yet another mistake, we’re like, oh, my God, we’re getting along, we’re doing so well.

Lisa: Yes, actually, yeah, that’s what happened, we weren’t fighting, there wasn’t all the anger anymore, let’s go. You know, we can make this work. Look at how good things are together. There was all this bad stuff that was happening before. It’s not happening now. I still love you. We can make this work. Let’s get back together. Let’s move back in together.

Gabe: Yep, all of it came back.

Lisa: Yes, it sure did. Relatively quickly.

Gabe: Yeah, almost instantly,

Lisa: Yeah, yeah, pretty much, yeah,

Gabe: Yeah, I blame you.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: You stole my Christmas, that’s what made it even worse, we got back together like in October and we split up in January. So

Lisa: Yeah, yeah.

Gabe: We just totally wrecked a holiday season because, well, frankly, we’re a couple of idiots.

Lisa: But on the one hand, I would say, well, we shouldn’t have done that, we shouldn’t have moved back in together, but or should we have?

Gabe: Now, we know. We do know we always should have been friends, and I point out to people all the time that had Lisa done what she did for me when I was sick, taken me to the hospital, explained mental illness and suicidality to me, helped me get diagnosed. And Lisa was a man. I would describe her as my brother. She’s my family. She’s my best friend, this man. Oh, what he did for me is amazing. But because Lisa was a woman and I had all of these feelings, I mistook them for the types of feelings that you have toward.

Lisa: A romantic partner.

Gabe: A romantic partner, but good life partners, you have a lot of boring shit in common, you both like the same foods, you both like to go to bed at the same time, you like the same kind of mattress. You both want to live in the same neighborhood. You both want to manage money the same way you both celebrate the holidays, the same way you have. You have stereotypical values. And just on and on and on, I just listen, don’t send us an email and say, well, I’m the complete opposite of my husband. We’ve been married for 45 years. Oh, yeah. Me and my wife have never been the same. And we’ve been married for 68 years. Yeah, I get it. But in general, the things that glue a relationship, they’re not the kind of things that they’re ever going to make a movie or write a book about

Lisa: Those are boring.

Gabe: Because they’re boring as hell. Lisa, we were never boring.

Lisa: There was a lot of drama, I did not see how sick that was at the time.

Gabe: I didn’t either. Now I come home and the world is quiet and I do miss some of that, you know, I there’s a reason that Gabe Howard hosts all of his friends and family. It’s Gabe and Kendall that host everything. We love this chaos. Lisa, I don’t believe that you’ve ever hosted a party at your house because you don’t enjoy it. You’d rather come to my house. And so you can see where this would be a problem if we were married because I wanted to host those events

Lisa: Yes, you did.

Gabe: And you did not like it.

Lisa: You realize there’s more to that story. Yes, you wanted to host the events, but you didn’t want to do any of the work, you just wanted it to happen magically.

Gabe: And the fighting continues years after the divorce.

Lisa: Who ended up having to do all the preparation and do all the cleaning and having to make all the food and who had to do all those things, Gabe? You’re right. I’m totally over it now. It’s ridiculous to still be bitter about this so many years later.

Gabe: I have no idea if that is relevant or not, but.

Lisa: It’s totally relevant.

Gabe: So you’re telling me that if I would have done all the work, you would have wanted 20 people in your house?

Lisa: Ok, excellent point, never mind. Point, Gabe.

Gabe: That’s where we never got past I have no idea if Lisa did all of the work for the party or if she’s misremembering or if she did too much work or if the answer is she wanted to do zero. And the fact that she did 10 percent was too much because 20 people were in her house and she didn’t like that. I don’t know. Even Lisa will admit that any of those things are possibilities.

Lisa: That is true. These are good points.

Gabe: But at its core, Lisa doesn’t want 20 people in her house. Lisa has a four bedroom house, zero guest rooms. I have a three bedroom house, two guest rooms.

Lisa: He does it’s weird, and sometimes there’s actually people in both of the rooms. What is that even about?

Gabe: And here’s the thing, neither one of us were wrong. I spent a lot of our marriage thinking that you were wrong for not wanting 20 people in your house.

Lisa: I did too.

Gabe: That’s why we weren’t compatible. And those are the things that we didn’t figure out. We don’t have this problem BFF wise. Lisa loves that I want to host all the parties.

Lisa: They’re good parties.

Gabe: Yeah. Lisa wants to watch the Super Bowl. She wants to watch the ball drop. She wants to bring deviled eggs and cheese dip somewhere. She just doesn’t want it to be at her house. And I want it to be mine, Lisa. And I want to stay up and argue about this mundane nonsense for six hours. And after that esoteric argument, Lisa wants to retreat to her own house. That’s what we were missing.

Lisa: I’m not as sociable as you, I never have been.

Gabe: It’s not the discussion that Lisa didn’t like, it was the inability to get away from it.

Lisa: You’re very high energy and it’s exhausting,

Gabe: Yeah, but.

Lisa: But it’s awesome in small doses.

Gabe: Exactly, and having somebody that thinks that it’s awesome in small doses is awesome in small doses, these are all the things that Lisa built our friendship on. That’s really the only advice that we can offer. Right. If you want to be friends with your romantic, your ex boyfriend, girlfriend, your ex spouse, whatever, you’re going to have to start from scratch. You’re going to have to draw a line in the sand and make all of your data points what happens forward. That’s what Lisa and I did. And again, even that’s not perfect. She’s still mad at me about a party that she had to cook for 15 years ago. What nonsense is that? Get over it. Let it go.

Lisa: I hold a grudge, I nurture my grudges like children.

Gabe: It’s good that you don’t have any children or pets.

Lisa: Well, Viroj is allergic, we’d have pets if it weren’t for that,

Gabe: You have plants.

Lisa: I do have the plants, I do have the plants. You always hated my plants. There you go. There was a fatal flaw.

Gabe: Viroj hates your plants.

Lisa: Well, he doesn’t hate them as much as you

Gabe: Yes, he does, he hates the more

Lisa: Possibly.

Gabe: I’m willing to carry them, that’s what I don’t get. Your current husband is unwilling to help you with the plants, but me, your ex-husband drives 45 minutes across town to help you with your plants that you just said I hate. Maybe you are misremembering.

Lisa: That is a good point, you did help the last time with the plants, yes, they have to be moved twice a year

Gabe: You’re welcome.

Lisa: And I can’t move them myself anymore. They’ve gotten too big.

Gabe: You know what you stole from me recently? A back that doesn’t hurt. That plant was easily 400 pounds. There’s no doubt in my mind that’s a 400 pound plant.

Lisa: I bought the special lift-y things, I didn’t just ask you to, like, haul it up there, I bought equipment for this purpose.

Gabe: You bought a made for TV moving kit.

Lisa: It works,

Gabe: No, it doesn’t.

Lisa: It worked, the fore arm forklift, people, it works, sort of

Gabe: My back still hurts.

Lisa: Really?

Gabe: Yes.

Lisa: Oh, I’m sorry.

Gabe: You stole my youth.

Lisa: I did some sort of permanent damage to my shoulder last time. Next year, we’re hiring movers.

Gabe: These plants are awesome. Lisa, I always enjoy hanging out with you. You feel that our friendship is better than our marriage, right?

Lisa: Oh, yeah, are you kidding? Well, you know, again, I’m always uncomfortable saying that we had a bad marriage, but we were certainly very unhappy.

Gabe: We were unhappy and it ended in divorce, but you’re uncomfortable calling that bad

Lisa: I know I don’t.

Gabe: If that’s not bad. What would you define as good?

Lisa: Oh, good answer, Gabe, good answer, I don’t know, I don’t have good answers for these things. I just it has always made me uncomfortable when someone says specifically you when you say we had a bad marriage and I don’t really have a good reason for why that is because obviously we had a bad marriage or we’d still be married. Those words have always made me uncomfortable. I’m not sure why.

Gabe: Well, Lisa, I don’t know how it happened, but I am absolutely glad that we remain BFFs.

Lisa: Me, too, of course.

Gabe: Thank you for being a friend, you travel down the road and back again in your car because we don’t walk. 

Lisa: [Laughter]

Gabe: Listen up, everybody. My name is Gabe Howard and I am the author of Mental Illness Is an Asshole and Other Observations, which, of course, you can get on Amazon.com. But if you want to save money, if you want me to sign it, if you want free swag, if you want Not Crazy podcast stickers, please head over to gabehoward.com/merchandise and buy it there.

Lisa: And we’ll be back next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person?  Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail [email protected] for details. 

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Podcast: Loneliness and Litigation: A Lawyer’s Case Study

Chronic loneliness is on the rise. But how can this be when we’re more connected now than ever? In today’s show, Dr. J.W. Freiberg, a social psychologist-turned-lawyer, explains that loneliness is not an emotion like happiness or anger. It’s a sensation like hunger or thirst. 

Join us for an in-depth discussion on the cost of feeling disconnected even when we’re surrounded by people.

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

  Guest information for ‘Loneliness’ Podcast Episode

J.W. Freiberg studies chronic loneliness through the unique lens of a social psychologist (PhD, UCLA) turned lawyer (JD, Harvard). A former assistant professor of social psychology at Boston University, he served for decades as general counsel to more than a dozen Boston social service agencies, adoption agencies, and scores of private mental health practices. In his new book, Surrounded by Others and Yet So Alone: A Lawyer’s Case Stories of Love, Loneliness, and Litigation, Dr. Freiberg shares case studies mined from his law practice to illustrate dysfunctional bonds that can lead to chronic loneliness. In the book’s award-winning prequel, Four Seasons of Loneliness, he explored chronic loneliness resulting from isolation and disconnection. For more information about all of his books, visit www.thelonelinessbooks.com. 

  About The Psych Central Podcast 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. To learn more about Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Loneliness’ Episode

Editor’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 the Psych Central Podcast, where guest experts in the field of psychology and mental health share thought-provoking information using plain, everyday language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Hey, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Psych Central Podcast, I’m your host Gabe Howard and calling into the show today, we have J.W. Freiberg. Dr. Freiberg studies chronic loneliness through the unique lens of a social psychologist turned lawyer. In his new book, Surrounded by Others and Yet So Alone: A Lawyer’s Case Stories of Love, Loneliness, and Litigation, Dr. Freiberg shares case studies mined from his law practice to illustrate dysfunctional bonds that can lead to chronic loneliness. Dr. Freiberg, welcome to the show. 

W. Freiberg: Thank you so very much.

Gabe Howard: You know, Dr. Freiberg, we are here to discuss loneliness and I promise we’re going to get to that. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask your thoughts on the differences between being a social psychologist and a lawyer. What’s that like?

W. Freiberg: Well, it proved interesting for me. I became a social psychologist first and I was a professor for a decade at Boston University, and then I had a chance to go across the river and go to Harvard Law School. So I wasn’t going to turn that down. I became a lawyer, and then it pretty quickly became clear that criss crossing the two expertises gave me a field of work that was unlike anybody else. No one else in Boston had both degrees. And that pretty quickly became what was sort of called around town, the psych lawyer, Boston’s psych lawyer. So institutions and agencies that had anything to do with psychiatry or psychology or clinical social work asked me to be their general counsel. And it was in the context of being general counsel that I heard about so many clinical cases, and that became the material for my research.

Gabe Howard: You define loneliness differently from others. Can you tell us about that?

W. Freiberg: Indeed, what I felt I discovered over thirty-five years of being counsel to a great percentage of Boston psychiatrists, psychologists and clinical social workers was that they kept reporting more and more loneliness. Sure, their clients had other issues as well, but the clients kept talking about being enormously disconnected from others, not having anybody to live with, anybody in their life, nobody to call. More and more as the years went by, loneliness became ever more present. So I started to think about this topic, and the more I researched it, it struck me that loneliness is not an emotion like anger or happiness. It’s a sensation like hunger or thirst. So just as our body tells us we’re hungry or thirsty, it also says, Oh, I feel really lonely and disconnected.

Gabe Howard: After hearing that definition, it makes a little more sense, this next statement, because you consider chronic loneliness a public health crisis of the first order.

W. Freiberg: The surgeon general of the United States, Vivek Murthy, the 19th surgeon general, about a decade ago, said, we are actually experiencing an epidemic of loneliness. About 35% percent of the American population in 2010 reported feeling chronically lonely. And what I mean by that, we all feel lonely from time to time. How could we not? But that’s not like being chronically lonely, just like being sad is not like being clinically depressed. There’s a huge difference. Chronic loneliness is in the land in the last 50 years ever more so, and it correlates with much worse health and much shorter lifespan. So it’s serious.

Gabe Howard: It sounds very serious, but one of the things that I keep thinking about is people are enmeshed around other people. I mean, we have social media. So even when you’re at home, you’re around other people. We work in offices now. I know COVID has changed that a little bit, but I just I’m trying to think of the last time that I was truly alone and I can’t come up with it. Even as I sit here interviewing you, my phone will ding. I’m never not surrounded by people. I guess my question is how can people still feel so lonely, given how connected our world is?

W. Freiberg: Well, that’s the key question, because there are two pathways to loneliness, one pathway is being all alone, being isolated, being disconnected, but a different pathway is being surrounded by people, just as you described, but not benefiting from those relationships, not feeling nourished, not feeling nurtured, not feeling soothed. Sometimes people are objectively lonely because they’re all divorced off from anybody. They don’t have anybody in their lives. But just as many people become chronically lonely, surrounded by others, but in an unfulfilling way.

Gabe Howard: There’s a quote that I use to describe living with bipolar disorder, which is alone in a crowded room, and, you know, I just say I’m surrounded by people, but I feel utterly alone. And for the purposes of my analogy, I’m talking about, like, you know, what it’s like to, you know, have this misunderstood illness. And, you know, it’s like all these people are in my life. But are they? And people have a hard time understanding that. And it handcuffs people a lot. They’re like, well, you can’t be alone in a crowded room. And I’m like, no, no, no. It actually makes sense. If you think about it. It’s just we need to do more on loneliness, because I, I do think that a high up reason for suicide is hopelessness. And one of the things that drive hopelessness is this idea that you’re all alone in the world and that nobody will miss you

W. Freiberg: Yeah exactly.

Gabe Howard: You want the pain to stop and nobody’s going to miss you. So I think loneliness is a huge issue that people just chalk up to personality. Well, go make some friends. That’s what I hear all the time. Go make some friends. Join a club.

W. Freiberg: No, you’re exactly right, because we have some powerful research on suicide attempts in the United States, I forget the percentage, but it was getting near two thirds of people who attempt suicide succeed in the sense that they were only attempting suicide, didn’t want to kill themselves. They wanted attention to their issues.

Gabe Howard: Right.

W. Freiberg: And when we asked people who attempted suicide, what’s up? When we try to learn from that subgroup of people, they have exactly what you described, one or several key relationships that they just couldn’t do that to. But what they were really doing is crying out for help. Their choice of language is a little drastic and dangerous. So what you said is absolutely correct. And by the way, when we study chronically lonely people, and we have some very powerful tests that we can use to test loneliness. If anyone listening is interested in how their own relationships are doing, I have these tests on my website, my website called TheLonelinessBooks.com or my name, JWFreiberg.com, that’ll take you there. You can test to see how your relationships are, whether they help you feel safe and nurtured and soothed or not. You can really see about how the quality of your connectivity to others in general. And then you can work right through each of your major relationships and see how they’re doing and where you could improve them. But when you use those tests on people who are chronically lonely, what we learn is about, you know, magnitude, something like half of chronically lonely people are from objectively disconnected backgrounds. They really don’t have anybody in their lives. And the other half are people who are surrounded by others. But subjectively, they feel completely alone.

Gabe Howard: Speaking of research, you have five main modes of disconnection that you identify in your book. Can you tell us about those?

W. Freiberg: Sure, so when I looked at more cases, I literally took the files out of the cabinet, I had about fourteen hundred files from different relevant law cases and I started piling those that had to do with loneliness. And there were sort of five patterns that stood out. One was obstructed connections. Sometimes people are just too busy to relate to one another. The constant phone calls, late nights at the offices, doing a thousand things at once kind of society that we’ve become. Sometimes people are just too busy. And I have a case in the book about two parents who were so busy, each with their own career. One was a mayor and the other was a financial investor. And they were too busy to pay attention to their wonderful little 10-year-old son.

Gabe Howard: But it’s also kind of heartbreaking, right?

W. Freiberg: Yes, of course it is. So that’s one way of being lonely. Even though you’re surrounded by others. Another way is a one-way relationship. Sometimes people enter relationships with very different goals in mind, and that can lead to a relationship that doesn’t work. One person is thinking that they’re deeply in love with the other person, whether the other person is just a transactional relationship, trying to get some business or get advantage in some way or other. Sometimes people are in relationships for very different purposes. A third way are fraudulent relationships. So sometimes people enter relationships without being honest about who they really are, what they really want, what they really believe. A fourth one is sometimes relationships are uncertain. They’re tenuous. People are only conditionally involved. Depends on this. Depends on that. That’s the opposite of a successful, fulfilling relationship. Correct? We want to know that our friendships that matter, our love ships that sustain us are meant by everybody involved to go on indefinitely throughout our lives. That’s the point of old friends or successful marriage or marital relationship kind of thing where you can count on the other person being there and staying there through thick and thin. And the fifth and final kind of relationship are dangerous relationships of problematic relationships, dangerous relationships. The classic example is spousal abuse. Sometimes, in fact usually, spousal abuse involves people who love each other. But one of them is putting up with physical or psychological abuse. But it’s hard to leave because it’s still their relationship. So sometimes relationships are literally dangerous to be in even though they’re important to the person who’s at risk. So those are ways in which my actual law cases fell out and told us five different stories about how sometimes people are surrounded by others. They’re married, they have kids, they have neighbors, they have colleagues, but they experience life as if they were all alone.

Gabe Howard: How can we lower our risk of becoming chronically lonely, because in my mind, it just seems like gather up people, make more friends on Facebook and hey, you’ve achieved it. But I imagine that that’s not the answer you’re going to give.

W. Freiberg: Well, it’s not unrelated to the answer, so there’s no magic here, we learn our relational skills early on as children, as our parents do this. And for those listening who have been parents or can remember back into their own childhood, because we’re all ex-children, all that loving and nurturing care from our parents. When you raise a child, how many hugs, how many kisses, how many skinned knees and scraped elbows do you soothe and kiss and help the child work through? We’re training our children to relate and love others. We’re teaching our children to go make their relationships in the world just the way parental birds teach the little fledgling birds how to fly, how to find worms or fish for fish, whatever they do, we literally train our children in the skills of relationships and then they go out in the world and learn to make their own friends. We’ve all watched kids move from parallel play to real play with other children to friendships. And later in teenage years, as they learn to work out relationships. We’ve all been through that. And we’ve a lot of us have watched children or nieces, nephews learn to do that. So part of what we do in working with people who have relationship issues is teach them the bag of tricks about how to be good at forming relationships, how to be an active and interactive friend. There are people who are good at these things, just like any other sphere of life.

W. Freiberg: And there are others among us who are not so good. We can impart those skills. In direct response to your question, relational due diligence, just the way you look around your house and you say, oh, there’s a rotten piece of wood, I’m going to have to replace that or call a workman with that plumbing issue. So you have to look at your own relationships. Which ones haven’t you supported lately? Have you called your cousins, for example? Because we live farther from people now, we have busier lives between the work and the commuting and the geographical mobility and the social mobility of modern life. 

Gabe Howard: And we’ll be back in a minute after we hear from our sponsors.

Sponsor Message: Gabe here and I wanted to tell you about Psych Central’s other podcast that I host, Not Crazy. It’s straight talk about the world of mental illness and it is hosted by me and my ex-wife. You should check it out at PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy or your favorite podcast player.

Sponsor Message: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe Howard: We’re back discussing loneliness with Dr. J. W. Freiberg.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that you mentioned were children and you said that we learn as children how not to be lonely, I believe your exact phrase was we moved from playing next to our peers to playing with our peers. But doesn’t the research state that more and more children are chronically lonely?

W. Freiberg: Indeed, that’s the case, everybody’s much more chronically lonely and the loneliest among us is Generation Z and the Millennials. So that’s people from 18 to 38. They actually score the loneliest on the UCLA loneliness scale.

Gabe Howard: But how can we help children who are chronically lonely, because I don’t think that anybody likes the idea of kids just wandering around feeling so alone for reasons that we could probably discuss for hours, we’re OK with adults being lonely. But this idea that a five-year-old or a 10-year-old or even a 15-year-old would feel so disconnected and so alone, it kind of sticks with us in a way. How can we as adults help?

W. Freiberg: Each of us who’s involved with raising a child has issues to think through to help that child. Just depends on the child. Right. And if a child is unable to relate successfully to make friends successfully to get on in the schoolyard, it’s very important for the parent to take note of that and to listen to hints he or she may get from, say, the teacher or guidance counselor at school and to openly discuss, work with that child about friendship making skills where that child falls down in the process. And by the way, one of the negative consequences of trying to stay safe from COVID-19 is that many children are not able to have free play to the extent they always did. And it’s in the free play at recess on the play field during the weekends, during the summer, when adults aren’t telling kids how to interrelate, the kids are just learning to deal with one another. That’s when children work out these skills. Skills like how to approach someone about beginning a friendship, how to become part of a group, how to recognize and deal with the local bully. Those are all things that children learn by dealing with one another. And if somebody’s child is having a problem with those things, the trick is to pay attention to it, maybe even to seek some professional help about how to be a helpful parent in those circumstances.

Gabe Howard: Do you think that COVID and the global pandemic is increasing loneliness? Has it changed any of your thoughts or feelings about loneliness? How has COVID played into your overall thoughts about loneliness?

W. Freiberg: Needless to say, COVID is a very powerful stressor on the issue of connectivity or loneliness, no question about it, and it strikes different groups in different ways. Let’s take the age groups in terms of little children. I’ve sort of spoken about that they’re not able to have their free play time as much. It’s basically harder for children to play with one another and practice their inter-relationship and friendship making skills. Working people in that age group are farther from one another. Many are now working remotely or in an office with a reduced staff. So they don’t see people as much as they used to. They see their friends less. They go to restaurants and bars and fun events less. Of course, they’re more divided from one another. And let’s take a look at grandparents. Sure, we can see our kids on Zoom. I have a couple of grandchildren. I see them on Zoom. I wave at them, they wave at me. That’s certainly better than nothing. And it’s important to make use of it. But it isn’t the same thing as holding one’s grandchild. So COVID-19 is a tough variable. It’s a real stressor. It is critically hard on chronically lonely people, but it’s also hard on the rest of us who are fortunate to be involved in successful relationships that make us feel safe.

Gabe Howard: Thank you so much for that, I really appreciate it. I just, I just don’t see how we can talk about most things without mentioning COVID, but I really don’t see how we can talk about loneliness without mentioning COVID.

W. Freiberg: Yeah, I mean, the isolation, which is part of the public health response to COVID-19 acts directly on people who have issues with loneliness in a serious way, what I call chronically lonely people, but also on the rest of us who are just aren’t able to spend the time with the people we like and love who are so important in our lives.

Gabe Howard: I completely agree. Can you walk us through your theory that chronic loneliness is a sensation rather than an emotion?

W. Freiberg: Sure, I’m fascinated by the fact that we humans are also animals, we’re also mammals, and we’re mammals of a certain sort. We are small pod family herd animals, like, for example, the cetaceans, that’s the seagoing mammals, the whales, the porpoises and the dolphins. Also certain types of hooved animals and certain classes of the great apes. We are that kind of mammal. We are built, we are wired to be with others. And when we’re not with others, we feel unsafe, disconnected and at risk. And it alerts us. We have an alert system for hunger. We have an alert system for a thirst. We have an alert system for fear, and we have an alert system for connection. And that’s what loneliness is. Loneliness is the name of the sensation we feel when we are inadequately connected to others. Look, humans are slow runners. We don’t see that well, we don’t hear that well, we don’t smell that well compared to a lot of other mammals. But we’re really clever when we team up with one another because we have language and hands and we are able to coordinate, cooperate to be very viable. That has to do with connecting successfully with one another. And so we have a warning system that tells us when we’re unsafe by disconnection. And that’s the feeling of loneliness that wells up in this. And let me just say one thing. If you think I’m exaggerating about how powerful that signal of loneliness is that we feel, we don’t think, we feel, the way we feel hunger or feel thirsty. You tell me, which hurts more, a broken arm or a broken heart?

Gabe Howard: It’s a different kind of pain, though, right? It sort of reminds me of those questions that me and my teenage friends like, What’s your favorite movie? Well, my favorite comedy? My favorite action movie? Like, no, just your favorite movie. It’s I am thinking about this question sincerely. And you’re right. The problem with a broken heart is there’s no treatment and you never know when it’s going to end. It just kind of lingers forever. 

W. Freiberg: And let’s look at some of the consequences or the difference in consequences, if you have a broken arm, as you say, two hours later, you get a cast around it and two days later, your friends are signing your cast. Six weeks later, off it comes, you do some rehab. You’re back to who you were. People commit suicide over broken hearts. Not so much broken arms. People write poetry. People write opera about broken hearts, about failed love relationships. I’ve never seen any drama, opera or poetry about a broken arm. Have you?

Gabe Howard: This is very true, I can’t decide if that’s like a really good idea, if I’m going to be on Broadway next year with the broken arm, but you’re absolutely right. And it’s a broken heart is traumatic and it causes a trauma and Dr. Freiberg, there’s obviously so many questions surrounding loneliness, and it’s very evident to me in our discussion that it’s very misunderstood. People don’t understand it and often they blame themselves for it. I know there’s probably no way to wrap this up into a nice little bow, but if you could speak to people experiencing chronic loneliness, what would you want them to know?

W. Freiberg: I would want them to know that as painful as chronic loneliness is, whether it’s the objective sort where you’re you don’t have any friends or whether it’s a subjective sort of the people in your life aren’t fulfilling you, there are steps you can take and it doesn’t take a pile of money, doesn’t take the traveling around the globe. It takes being resourceful, looking honestly at your relationships, seeing where you could improve them and being active and clever about it. For example, learning to listen is one of the tricks we talk to people about. Some people are good listeners. They really are there while their friend is talking to them and they ask follow up questions. Other people are thinking what they’re going to say next and they don’t even really acknowledge receipt of the information they’ve been given. So learning to be a better listener, for example, as your friends tell you about how they feel about what’s going on in their lives, there’s a whole bag of tricks like that. And if you go to my website, JWFreiberg.com or TheLonelinessBooks.com, I included some tests, the UCLA loneliness scale. If you take that little test at home, they’ll take about 45 minutes max. It’s just 20 little questions in everyday language. You don’t want to be any kind of psychologist to take the test. It’s made to be available. It’ll tell you how your relationships are doing. And if you take the relational assessment chart test, which is right next to it on that website, you’ll see how each individual relationship of yours scores. Is that a healthy sound one or just it has some areas to work on. So just as you could do a better job of policing, let’s say your diet or your exercise regime, you can do a better job of relating to others by being aware of what’s going on. 

Gabe Howard: I really do believe that loneliness is one of those things that everybody thinks that they understand, but that in actuality, nobody understands it at all.

W. Freiberg: I think you’re absolutely right, but it’s very possible to improve in this sphere, just as we’re supposed to watch that we eat a decent diet, that we get enough exercise, that we don’t smoke too much and so on, we need to take a look at our relationships and how we can strengthen them. And it’s very doable.

Gabe Howard: Dr. Freiberg’s latest book, Surrounded by Others and Yet So Alone: A Lawyer’s Case Stories of Love, Loneliness, and Litigation is out now. Dr. Freiberg, where can they find you and where can they find your book?

W. Freiberg: So it’s on Amazon, they just go under my initials J.W. Freiberg, F R E I B E R G, and it’ll lead you right there. And the website has all sorts of useful things. If you’re interested in being serious about the quality of your relationships, if you go to that little website and click around, you’ll find all sorts of useful hints and modes of approach that will help you get better with your existing relationship and go out and form some new ones as well.

Gabe Howard: Dr. Freiberg, thank you so much for being here. You’ve really illuminated a lot on loneliness.

W. Freiberg: It has been my pleasure.

Gabe Howard: Well, everyone, we’ve reached the end of the show. My name is Gabe Howard and I am the author of Mental Illness Is an Asshole and Other Observations, which is available on Amazon.com. Or you can get signed copies for less money, and I’ll include The Psych Central Podcast swag. Just head over to gabehoward.com. If you like the show, and I certainly hope that you did, please rate, rank and review. Subscribe wherever you downloaded it and tell all your friends. And remember, you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling any time anywhere simply by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. We’ll see everybody next week.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to The Psych Central Podcast. Want your audience to be wowed at your next event? Feature an appearance and LIVE RECORDING of the Psych Central Podcast right from your stage! For more details, or to book an event, please email us at [email protected]. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/Show or on your favorite podcast player. Psych Central is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website run by mental health professionals. Overseen by Dr. John Grohol, Psych Central offers trusted resources and quizzes to help answer your questions about mental health, personality, psychotherapy, and more. Please visit us today at PsychCentral.com.  To learn more about our host, Gabe Howard, please visit his website at gabehoward.com. Thank you for listening and please share with your friends, family, and followers.

 The post Podcast: Loneliness and Litigation: A Lawyer's Case Study first appeared on World of Psychology.

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Inside Schizophrenia: Evolution of Schizophrenia Treatments

Schizophrenia has been around since the dawn of time but actually treating it has only been around the past 100 years. In this episode host and schizophrenic Rachel Star Withers takes you through the dark and disturbing evolution of schizophrenia treatments. From systematic euthanasia to hydrotherapy, electroconvulsive therapy to the infamous lobotomy.

Were these doctors “mad scientists” torturing the mentally ill or were they the only ones trying to help a population of people seen as a burden?

About our Guest

Miriam Posner is an assistant professor at the UCLA School of Information. She holds a Ph.D. in Film Studies and American Studies from Yale University. She is a digital humanist with interests in labor, race, feminism, and the history and philosophy of data. As a digital humanist, she is particularly interested in the visualization of large bodies of data from cultural heritage institutions, and the application of digital methods to the analysis of images and video. A film, media, and American studies scholar by training, she frequently writes on the application of digital methods to the humanities. She is at work on two projects: the first on what “data” might mean for humanistic research; and the second on how multinational corporations are making use of data in their supply chains.

Articles:

The Case of the Missing Faces

http://miriamposner.com/blog/the-case-of-the-missing-faces/

Frequently Asked Questions About the Lobotomy

http://miriamposner.com/blog/frequently-asked-questions-about-lobotomy/

https://twitter.com/miriamkp

Highlights from “Evolution of Schizophrenia Treatment”

[04:00] “Schizophrenia” as a term is first used

[05:00] Views of the top mind of the time

[07:00] Euthanasia of mental patients

[08:22] Nazi Germany’s plan to eradicate schizophrenia

[13:40] Mad Scientist or Helpful Doctor?

[14:00] Fever Therapy, Sleep Therapy, Insulin Coma Therapy, Hydro Therapy

[19:00] Seizure Therapies, Electroconvulsive Therapy

[23:00] The Lobotomy

[31:30] The First Antipsychotic

[36:00] Interview with Miriam Posner Ph.D.

[50:00] Walter Freeman’s Views on the Lobotomy

[1:03:00] Rachel’s Thoughts – it’s not the story of the patients

Computer Generated Transcript of “Evolution of Schizophrenia Treatment”

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

Announcer: Welcome to Inside Schizophrenia, a look in to better understanding and living well with schizophrenia. Hosted by renowned advocate and influencer Rachel Star Withers and featuring Gabe Howard.

Sponsor: Listeners, could a change in your schizophrenia treatment plan make a difference?  There are options out there you might not know about. Visit OnceMonthlyDifference.com to find out more about once monthly injections for adults with schizophrenia.

Rachel Star Withers: Welcome to Inside Schizophrenia. I’m your host, Rachel Star Withers here with my wonderful co-host, Gabe Howard. How are you doing today, Gabe?

Gabe Howard: I am doing great. As always, thanks for having me.

Rachel Star Withers: I am excited about today’s episode; I feel like we’re going to talk about some really interesting stuff. I was about to say cool. But maybe, maybe interesting would be a better descriptor.

Gabe Howard: I don’t think that you can have a fully fledged conversation about mental illness without the history, and part of that history is the evolution of treatments. And these treatments were often used for the sickest of the sick psychosis, schizophrenia. And we’re going to talk a lot about lobotomies because it’s, I think everybody’s heard of it, but I don’t think people really understand it.

Rachel Star Withers: Correct. I mean, myself, look, we’ve been doing this podcast for two years, and before that I’ve made numerous videos and other types of media about schizophrenia. And yet I learned so much when I was doing the research for this episode, things that I was like, oh, what? I’m just surprised I’ve never heard that before. What blows my mind is everything that we’re talking about is in the past, you know, 100 years. This isn’t like, well, back in the 1500s, they thought, well,

Gabe Howard: Right.

Rachel Star Withers: It’s back in the 50s, you know,

Gabe Howard: Yeah, yeah,

Rachel Star Withers: Like people are still alive.

Gabe Howard: Our grandparents are still alive,

Rachel Star Withers: Right? Yeah. Like, it really isn’t that long ago. And that’s blown my mind learning about the evolution of the treatments to where we’re at now.

Gabe Howard: It’s blown my mind, too, because when we think of something like a lobotomy, we think of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and as anybody who’s listened to us long enough has heard us say, don’t get your understanding of schizophrenia from pop culture. Yet we fell right into the trap. We were like, well, we understand lobotomies. Why we saw it on TV. Even at our level, Rachel, we’re still realizing that there’s just so much to learn. It’s a lot more complicated than we thought.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes, even finding a guest for today’s show that turned into being quite the hunt.

Gabe Howard: So hard.

Rachel Star Withers: I didn’t think so. You know, the title and how I reached out to different professors and doctors was we’re talking about the evolution of schizophrenia treatments. And I’m looking at people who literally teach classes on the evolution of psychiatry over the past 100 years. I’m like, I feel it fits right in there. And so many didn’t feel comfortable talking about these treatments. And our wonderful guest who we’re going to hear from later, I’d say she’s not who you would expect. She’s a digital humanist, which I didn’t know what that was. But she’s actually like one of the best people to talk to about lobotomies. And she blew my mind. She was totally awesome. So she’s coming up a little bit later.

Gabe Howard: I feel like we should point out that Miriam Posner is also an assistant professor at the UCLA School of Information. She studied this like she’s got a degree in this. It was fascinating, both everything that she said and the number of people that just didn’t want to talk about this on record for some reason. Like you said, it’s don’t you study this? Yes. Do you teach classes on it? Yes. Do you have a Ph.D. in this? Yes. Do you want to talk about it? No. Why not? It shows you that the misinformation is allowed to continue because so many people are like, well, it’s kind of something that we don’t want people to understand. It was confusing. So we were very excited for Ms. Posner to come on.

Rachel Star Withers: Well, before we can get into all of the kind of crazy treatments that came out and have been shown in the media, we need to talk about how schizophrenia was seen. The first time schizophrenia comes up is 1910. A Swiss psychiatrist coined the term schizophrenia, which in Greek meant split mind. What he meant was like a loosening of the thoughts, your thoughts splitting away. But of course, that very quickly became misinterpreted as a split personality and that has stuck with schizophrenia since 1910, that confusion. Which is just crazy to me, it’s like, man like even in the beginning they knew that was a bad name, but we’ll stick with it. The following year, one of the top psychiatrists described schizophrenia as the senility of youth. And basically you were going to be retroverting with your brain deteriorating. During the same time, we have Sigmund Freud, who also quite famous. He revolutionized for better and worse psychology. And a lot of his theories and stuff are still very prominent today. And Freud had a lot of opinions about people’s schizophrenia. That they could not handle reality and their paranoid delusions are motivated by unconscious homosexual impulses.

Gabe Howard: Paranoid delusions are motivated by unconscious homosexual impulses? That Rachel.

Rachel Star Withers: I know he just he kind of hit multiple offenses, so, like, I’m just going to offend everybody in one sentence. He also described people with schizophrenia as they would eventually revert back to an infantile state of around six months to six years old. So you have to understand, as we are rolling into the beginning of the 1900ss, the top minds at this time are not hopeful. They saw schizophrenia as something that those people, they’re like adult babies. Their minds will just get worse. There is no oh, we can treat this. Oh, let’s find a way to help. It’s nah, no, these people are terrible. That’s a lot.

Gabe Howard: It is a lot, and they categorize them in a way as to make them others. They’re other, it’s OK to do whatever we want with them because they are the worst society has to offer. They stopped short of calling them evil because they said they’re the worst society has to offer because they’re sick. But let it be known everything was up for grabs because I think society didn’t really care about them very much.

Rachel Star Withers: Society painted people with schizophrenia and other serious mental disorders at that time as a huge burden, you know, most families were ill equipped to help their family members, so mental institutions were their only options. And then at the mental institutions, you have doctors who are following, obviously, what the leaders of the country are telling you. And many of them did see euthanasia as a mercy killing. Some thought that, well, like these different psychiatrists have said, these people can only get worse. So we should probably kill them now so that they can avoid suffering. And a lot of mental institutions had a death rate of 30-40% a year. That’s a big death rate. You know, if you’re going to a hospital, you might rethink that hospital.

Gabe Howard: Well, yeah.

Rachel Star Withers: And this isn’t advertised, like they’re not openly saying, hey, you could be one of them, but that’s like low key what was happening.

Gabe Howard: And there’s reports out there like a mental institution in Lincoln, Illinois fed its incoming patients milk infected with tuberculosis. They were just experimenting on people with schizophrenia. And once again, want to point out, this is 1950.

Rachel Star Withers: And at the same time, we also have sterilization was huge in the U.S. Many states had forced sterilization of any patients in mental institutions. Throughout today’s episode, Gabe, I keep getting thrown off by the fact that so much of this stuff was on women. I would think sterilization. I honestly, I think men. But the majority was they sterilized the women because they’re like, we have to stop the babies. If you think about it, though, guys can make a lot more babies like than a woman.

Gabe Howard: Yeah.

Rachel Star Withers: But yes, so a lot of times when women came into mental institutions, that was the first thing that happened. It was not the cleanest, nicest ways of doing things. It was done as cheap and quickly as possible. Unfortunately, this is all over America. And at the same time, Germany is beginning in the Nazi era. I have done a lot of research into the Holocaust. I’ve actually been through the Auschwitz camps. So the fact that I didn’t know this stuff coming up is bizarre. But Germany, Adolf Hitler specifically, they really liked our eugenics programs and they decided that schizophrenia was a hereditary trait. And Germany embarked on a plan to eradicate schizophrenia, which sounds great. You know, that’s like, hey, you guys, we’re going to do this. They formed an organization called the Charitable Foundation for Curative and Institutional Care. That sounds wonderful.

Gabe Howard: Right, on the surface, it sounds OK, we’re going to eradicate schizophrenia, the name of the organization is good. And remember at the time when this was going on, we didn’t understand that Nazis were bad yet.

Rachel Star Withers: And this program, depending on the different years, it was 70-100% effective at eliminating schizophrenia in the German population. So the way this would happen was if you are thought to have schizophrenia, you would have to be assessed by three different doctors. If two of them decided you had schizophrenia, then you were sent to be euthanized. And a lot of these people were children. They wanted to catch it as young as possible. So they’re trying to find, you know, schizophrenia in children, which is very hard nowadays, you know, and you have two doctors and knowingly like, yep, this one’s out. To handle this is that they started building extermination centers in the main six psychiatric hospitals and those would later become the concentration camps. That blew my mind. I didn’t realize that basically, concentration camps started at psychiatric hospitals. I’ve just never been told that before. They also did different programs to see how little you could feed the schizophrenics, slowly starving them to death, how much they could work. And they took all this data that they learned and then used it not many years later on the people in the concentration camps. It’s easy to be like, well, Rachel, of course, those are Nazis. They do crazy things. And it’s easy to just sweep this all under the rug as like Nazi bad stuff.

Rachel Star Withers: But it wasn’t just them. In 1934, the Journal of American Medical Association, they actually did a report on the German eugenics and pretty much went on and on about the expected benefits. One of America’s top psychiatrists praised Hitler’s program and also one of the most renowned neurologists in America at that time warned that American mothers might respond with guilt over killing their mentally ill children. And he suggested that there be public education to help them overcome the emotional resistance to euthanizing their children. That’s the top neurologist. He was also the president of the American Neurological Association. He was on the board of the American Psychiatry. Like, this is the top and they’re talking about killing children very openly. And these are the main journals that are going to all the doctors. So everybody, everybody thinks at this time, you know, the only way to deal with this is through extermination, euthanasia. I didn’t realize how intense, I’m going to say, the belief was. I kind of thought, you know, yes, a few back alleys, you got some mad doctors kind of playing around wanting to kill off people. But no, these are the leaders of the medical community at that time.

Gabe Howard: So here’s what we have, we have people utilizing science and data and listening to experts in the field saying that this is the best course of action and the correct response is to say no, the doctors, the researchers, the data, the science, it’s all wrong. This is not the way that we should be treating human life. We find ourselves in a situation here now in 2020 where we’re trying to get people to listen to data, science and doctors. But again, it was less than 100 years ago that stuff like this was going on. And you can see where this creates a ripple effect in the trust of the medical establishment. You can see where people who are diagnosed with these illnesses, when they think back to how they were treated in the 50s, the 30s, again, this is all in America less than a hundred years ago. And you, you ask why people don’t want to trust or rely on their diagnosis? Well, there’s better than average odds if you’re Rachel and I’s age, that our grandparents know somebody who was honest about their illness and was institutionalized for life, or worse. It’s made it very difficult to move forward. And as we’re listening to this and as Rachel continues explaining the evolution of the treatment of schizophrenia, maybe being worried about a schizophrenia diagnosis for fear of stigma and discrimination is not just about being called names or not getting a job. It’s not too far in our history that it was literally a matter of life and death.

Rachel Star Withers: And I think what society has grabbed on to is all of the crazy treatments, they make great horror movies that kind of criminalize all of it. But what I learned is that the doctors who are doing these treatments, many ill advised, they’re the only ones actually trying to help. Yes, some of it is kind of crazy. And why would you think that would help? They’re the only ones, because the major medical minds are saying don’t even treat them. It’s pointless. So me coming to, I guess, that realization, Gabe, that was kind of hard on me because you see these different people and you think, well, they were just torturing people with schizophrenia, doing these terrible things, but at the same time, they were the only ones doing any therapy, trying anything. They were the only ones giving these people relatively a chance. Some of the crazy ones, and this one just blows my mind, fever therapy. So they would actually like inject you with sulphur or different oils to make you have this horrible fever. Now, the reason they did that is that they noticed that people who have malaria don’t have psychotic symptoms. I mean, I feel that’s a stretch. But OK, something about a fever makes you less psychotic. Another one they did was deep sleep therapy. And that’s where they would, like, put you to sleep for days, sometimes weeks. Very close to that is insulin coma therapy. They would just repeatedly inject psychiatric patients with large doses of insulin and they would put you into a coma and the coma would only last for like an hour. But you would do about 50 to 60 of these comas in six weeks, up to two years, just repeatedly going in and out of a coma like that. That’s amazing to me. What kind of life is that?

Gabe Howard: I don’t think it’s much of a life at all, right? I think this is an excellent example of where the phrase the treatment is worse than the illness comes from. It sounds terrifying. It sounds traumatizing. It sounds painful. And it wasn’t particularly effective. Correct?

Rachel Star Withers: And as we’re going to see as we talk about some of these treatments, parts of it did. That’s where the issue is. Parts did work. Trying to separate those parts, you know, unfortunately, led to a lot of I would describe torture to a lot of people trying to get to those. And many of them were psychotic at the time and had no clue what was happening to them or could consent to it in any way or it was a family situation. You look at so many children actually were put through all of these treatments. You know, when we think back to horror movies and stuff, it’s always adults. When you have a child that you’re doing this to, you know, it stops being a horror movie. This just becomes something really just bad and gross. Why would you even do that? And to realize that was the truth in it is that it happened to the majority. Any children that were thought to have schizophrenia. Another one is hydrotherapy. So, Gabe, if anyone’s seen the new Netflix show, Ratched, they actually do hydrotherapy and I’ve never seen it before. I was like, what is this? But really interesting. And that’s where they would either put you in really, really hot water or really, really cold water. Sometimes you would literally be like strapped into a bathtub. You could be left in that bathtub for days. You know, when you think about a continuous bath at first that sounds nice. But when you’re like you’ve been in hot water for three days, I mean.

Gabe Howard: It’s terrifying. Each one is more terrifying than the next, and you’re not done.

Rachel Star Withers: Oh, no, I would say these are the softball ones. Oh, you have to understand, but there was logic to it. They found that warm water helped with insomnia. It helped with people who were suicidal and it helped calm people down. Cold water, freezing water was usually used on people who were psychotic. There was something about the cold water, slowed the blood flow down to the brain and decreased mental activity. You know, you see different bits of what was working, unfortunately, horrible ways to get to those little bits. One of the things with the hydrotherapy is that one of the mental institutions actually would chain the psychiatric patients to the wall and they used a fire hose on them.

Gabe Howard: Just wow.

Rachel Star Withers: It’s so easy for any of these treatments to turn into torture so quickly.

Gabe Howard: Rachel, I have to ask, though, you realize that if you would have been born 100 years ago, this is the treatment that would have been given to you. Rachel, as somebody who lives with schizophrenia, how are you feeling right now?

Rachel Star Withers: It makes me think back to around, I guess, sixth grade, you know, middle school age. But that was the first time around then that my parents took me to see a counselor for outbursts and issues. You know, I sat there. I didn’t like the woman. I don’t remember anything about it. I remember not liking her. We saw a couple of different ones, some religious, some normal. And I think had that been the situation, let’s say in the 40s, I could have been. All right, let’s just spray this, what, 12 year old down with the fire hose, that that would have been probably what could have happened.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, they would have sprayed you down with the firehose. How do you feel about the idea that your parents might have chosen to spray you down with a fire hose and then have been told by the top psychiatric doctor in America that they just needed to manage their emotions while watching you get sprayed down with the firehose? Actually, he said, manage your emotions for you to be euthanized, but let’s move it back a layer and just say manage your emotions to watching their 12 year old be sprayed down with a firehose.

Rachel Star Withers: It’s mind blowing.

Gabe Howard: It’s terrifying.

Rachel Star Withers: So the issue now is that we’re starting to find more of what works, but still how do we get to it is the issue. And that’s where seizure therapies came in. And the way they realized this was actually a Hungarian pathologist, he noticed that people with epilepsy almost never had schizophrenia and that after an epileptic seizure, those people tend to be very happy. So the idea was, well, if I give people with schizophrenia seizures, that should help them. There is numerous ways they went about this. It started with doing lots and lots of pretty much injections with drugs. They found they could go back to the insulin and inject you with tons of insulin. It would give you seizures. These are all horrible things and obviously lots of side effects from being injected with just tons of random chemicals. What happened was they found a much better way. I like the story of how this came to be because there’s just so much of this stuff is red flags, electroconvulsive therapy, where electricity is shot through the brain to induce a seizure. The first human trial was in 1938. So a while ago. But the idea was the doctor had learned that pigs before you like kill pigs to eat them, like at a big plant, you give them an electric shock and they pass out. And somehow that was like, you know what, I think that can help the schizophrenics. And I don’t know, just like you were at a pig plant, that, that’s where they

Gabe Howard: Wow,

Rachel Star Withers: What?

Gabe Howard: Wow.

Rachel Star Withers: So that’s where electroconvulsive therapy originated. Fortunately, in the 40s, they did it quite often. And at that time, they didn’t use any muscle relaxers or anesthesia. So a lot of people were fully aware as they’re being shocked, they broke bones. They had people holding them down. And it was a very intense procedure to go through. By the 50s, they had now learned to do a modified version where they would put you to sleep and give you muscle relaxers. So for about ten years is the real bad horror stories. And then in the 50s is where, OK, we’re going to keep doing this, but we got to find a better way. And I think really that was a good changing point in mental health of we need to find better ways to do this.

Gabe Howard: I guess it’s important to understand, ECT, electroconvulsive therapy is actually still a treatment that’s used today. It works very well. In fact, you’ve had ECT, so you’ve named off a lot of very scary things and things that they no longer do. But all of that scary list, one of them has stuck around.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes, it’s always a very touchy subject because I have people reach out to me who only see it as torture because of what happened to so many people. And I do agree it was used horribly. Another thing they like to do with children is shock them twice a day for 20 consecutive days. I was an adult when I had ECT and I can’t imagine someone doing it to a child. I had it for two weeks, three a week. There was so much bad stuff with ECT. But where it was in the 40s to where it is now is different. If you ever talk to my mom, she will always tell you how that was like a major change for me. For me it helped and I’ve looked into getting it again. So I understand it’s a very, you know, controversial thing. Does it work on some people? Yes. That segue leads us into, Gabe, one of the most notorious treatments, the lobotomy. What’s crazy is that when you hear lobotomy, you think of schizophrenia. But when they were actually doing them, you got a lobotomy for like everything. It was for ADHD. It was for manic episodes.

Rachel Star Withers: It was for depressive episodes. It was for people who didn’t fit in. The lobotomy was the go to. But looking back in history, you think, oh, man, that’s for that’s what they do to schizophrenics to get them under control. That’s been the enduring image. So lobotomy, it’s actually called psychosurgery. And that is any time that surgery is done on the brain in order to relieve a mental disorder. And a lobotomy is one of the psychosurgeries. Psychosurgery is still performed today. Versions of the lobotomy still take place today. Is any of it like it was in the 30s on to 60s? No, it is the completely different. The first form of a lobotomy was actually done they would drill holes in the skull and they would then inject ethanol into it. And the goal was to destroy some of the white matter in the frontal lobes. And for whatever reason, they learned that destroying white matter in the frontal lobes somehow makes people calmer. They notice that when, after the wars, the soldiers coming back who had had brain damage to the front of their heads, their personality had changed. So that’s where the whole thought process came of why we should, you know, start sticking holes in people’s brains.

Gabe Howard: I understand what you’re saying, but the exact words were used is that doing that psychosurgery made people calmer. You didn’t say made people better or allowed people to use their best lives. It very much seems like this was a mechanism of behavioral control, not necessarily what was best for the patient.

Rachel Star Withers: And that that’s where we get into so much interesting things, which Miriam Posner will help us understand some of that because, yeah, it’s a double edged sword. There are so many people who swear by it and it helped them. It’s the reason they were able to go have lives. And then you have other people who, for one, died. Quite a few people died from it, not just because they had pieces of their brain stabbed, but because of the conditions. Many got meningitis. Walter Freeman, one of the main neurologists who like to do the lobotomy, he didn’t use gloves or a mask and they were already using those back then.

Gabe Howard: Wow.

Rachel Star Withers: So you have people that are dying. And Walter Freeman, one of the things he’s known for is the ice pick lobotomy. And he figured out a way to avoid drilling holes in the brain. So at first, it sounds great. We don’t have to drill pieces in the skull. I found a way around that, that’s much quicker, much simpler. It involves an ice pick.

Gabe Howard: I, that’s, that’s not better.

Rachel Star Withers: No, it’s not, you know, the mental process of all of these always starts out good and then suddenly takes a wrong turn. And yes, he discovered that you could use an ice pick to go through the eye cavity. It is intense to watch. There’s lots of YouTube videos you can find of these surgeries. I would say after watching so many videos, it occurred to me that no movie has ever come close. There’s something about watching these black and white videos of them taking an ice pick to the person that is so unnerving. It’s not like any kind of crazy images from movies where they do it. It’s much more real and intense. And the majority of lobotomies were done on women and children. So you had a kid with ADHD or suspected with schizophrenia or didn’t fit in and was weird? Lobotomy. That was the go to

Gabe Howard: Wow.

Rachel Star Withers: It’s a very dark time in psychiatry in general. Did it help some people? Yes. Going into it, did it calm people down? So, Gabe, this actually it makes me think back because, yes, most of these treatments were to come and help people get control of their schizophrenic. That’s kind of what it was like. This is to help you get control of your loved one. It definitely wasn’t to make the loved one better. But I look back at my ECT. And what did it do for me? It took away my depression. It took away a lot of my OCD. My hallucinations were much harder to deal with. I would say I was not controllable. So did ECT do that to me? I think it did. It helped me, yes. But did it essentially make me calmer? Yes. So, I mean, this is a moral dilemma for me as I’m learning more and more about this, because I’m like I see both sides of it and I don’t even know where I stand when I think about that.

Gabe Howard: I certainly understand the idea of something can be two things, I mean, if you are calmer, if you are easier to talk to, if you are able to follow the rules, that’s definitely a benefit to friends, family, if you’re in the hospital, staff or society at large. But there’s also something to be said for that’s best for you as well. Right? Like, I guess that’s what I’m saying. It’s just you do go back and forth on whether ECT just made you better, made you better for your friends and family. But you’re making these choices on your own.

Rachel Star Withers: Right.

Gabe Howard: You like to have your home life be serene and calm and stable. Right. So just because your family benefits from your decisions doesn’t retroactively make them not your decisions. But in the case of some of these treatments, you don’t even know where you are. What was the one where they make you sleep for two years? They wake you up every four weeks to like what, rotate you? What kind of a treatment is that? It didn’t make you better. When you hear stuff like this, you can see why people are terrified of the treatments for schizophrenia, because, again, it wasn’t that far in the past before the outcome of treatment was just you obeyed and made life easier for the people around you, but your quality of life was nonexistent.

Rachel Star Withers: And especially there’s so much around the lobotomy, it was thought to be around 50% effective, which again, for the time period, your other option is death or pretty much just going on as you are and probably becoming homeless or other things and eventually dying of those reasons. So if someone offers you a 50% chance of being normal, that’s I mean, I’m like, well, that’s a pretty good deal. That’s a good deal. It had a death rate of around 14%, you know, so a lot of the people willingly had this done. They were desperate. They knew what could happen. It was very well known that your personality could change. You might have to relearn how to do everything. The neurologist, Walter Freeman, who did most of these, he called it a surgically induced childhood. They know what they’re doing. I don’t think they looked at anyone as this is going to make you better and take away this thing. It’s no, it’s going to make you more childlike. And you go from there. I don’t know. I worry because when I read his thoughts and a lot of the doctor’s thoughts, like, it’s like you kind of knew you weren’t doing a good thing. I just,

Gabe Howard: It’s what it sounds like, right?

Rachel Star Withers: Yeah. He described one of his patients who was a success story, he said following her lobotomy, she was a smiling, lazy, satisfactory patient with the personality of an oyster.

Gabe Howard: That’s not successful treatment.

Rachel Star Withers: It’s like, wait, what? You know, and later he had another patient he actually wrote notes about and said that the best that can be done for a family sometimes is to return the patient to them in an innocent state, much like a household pet.

Gabe Howard: Literally, it’s an incredible quote that the best that you can hope for your patient is to give them back to their family. He actually said as a veritable household pet. That’s the exact quote from his note. Like, that’s what the doctor thinks about the patient. Like, it is terrifying.

Rachel Star Withers: And that’s a success story,

Gabe Howard: Right.

Rachel Star Withers: That was a success story. That’s thing, it’s just like he’s like, this is good. He is promoting this.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, he’s proud of himself.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes.

Gabe Howard: Wow, wow. But luckily we moved past that, we get to medication therapy. The very first antipsychotic came out in the 1950s, and this is what I think people think of now when people think about the treatment for schizophrenia, now they think of antipsychotics. And those came onto the scene in the 1950s. Tell us about that, Rachel.

Rachel Star Withers: That was pretty much the revolution. Now, you don’t have to have that weighing on your conscience of having to stab your family member with an ice pick. It is they could take a medication and they can go they can get a bunch of pills and then come home and take them one a day, etc. So you also had people could come back and live with the family more. You didn’t have to worry that any of the procedures were going to leave them with brain damage, having to relearn how to read and write. Now, the way they came up with this for the first antipsychotic was it was used as a histamine. The point was that they noticed it had a calming effect. It all goes back to making people calmer. That was where antipsychotics started, was making people calmer and it went on from there. And at the same time, ironically, there is this crazy new form of psychotherapy that was gaining speed called cognitive behavioral therapy. And that was the first psychotherapy they had found that actually helped schizophrenics. They had tried different ones in the past. But there’s something about the cognitive behavioral, it really helped people with schizophrenia. So this was a big turning point.

Gabe Howard: And the medication is still the standard today, I mean, you know, medication therapy, peer support, but the big one, the one that everybody thinks of when managing schizophrenia is medication. And I think people are unaware of, you know, just how recent of a discovery that was. And it’s important to understand that the first one came out in the 1950s, that the first of anything, you know, the first cars were not so great.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes.

Gabe Howard: They took time to perfect cars from when they were invented. And I would argue that we still haven’t perfected medication treatments for schizophrenia. Would you agree with that? I mean, there’s side effects. There’s issues. There’s still a lot that we don’t understand. New medications are coming out all the time. Research is ongoing. And I only bring that up because I think so many people are like, well, just take your meds, Rachel, and you’ll be fine.

Rachel Star Withers: It’s kind of like looking back at all these old timey treatments, it’s like you’re trying to figure out what works and just do that without all the other horrible things. Ironically, that’s where we’re still at now. Luckily, the side effects are not death as many times as it was back then or sleep for two years. But that’s just yeah, that’s just the evolution of these treatments. To get to where we are now a lot of that stuff had to happen.

Gabe Howard: Obviously, we want to make sure that our listeners understand that there’s just a lot going on, it’s not as simple as good versus bad or right versus wrong or any of that. There’s just a lot going on and it’s difficult to understand. But I think that sometimes when people think about this, they’re really quick to say, oh, why are you so worried, patient with schizophrenia? The doctors had their best intentions in mind. So we give the benefit of the doubt to the doctors for the mistakes that the medical community has made. Well, why don’t we give the benefit of the doubt to the patients who are leery of the medical community, given the number of mistakes that they’ve made? And I think that’s one of the things that is missing. When we talk about people with schizophrenia who are afraid of medical treatment, there’s an actual factual basis to be concerned about what they’re being told. This isn’t made up of whole cloth.

Rachel Star Withers: And now a word from our sponsor.

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Gabe Howard: And we’re back discussing the evolution of schizophrenia treatments on Inside Schizophrenia.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes, I absolutely agree, and that’s why we reached out to our guests today, Miriam Posner, to help us understand this side of psychiatry.

Gabe Howard: Without further ado, here is that interview.

Rachel Star Withers: We’re here speaking with Dr. Miriam Posner, and she’s an assistant professor at UCLA School of Information and she’s a digital humanist. Miriam, tell us what is a digital humanist?

Miriam Posner: It’s a field of study where scholars use and experiment with digital tools to explore humanity’s questions, and so it can look like a lot of different things for different people. But if you think about like maps to show the spread of a historical event or a network diagram to show how people were corresponding during, say, the Renaissance or even there are some experts in computer assisted text analysis who try to find patterns in text. So, yeah, so I’ve been part of that community for about a decade now.

Rachel Star Withers: So the reason we asked you to be on our show today is that you have spent a considerable amount of time studying lobotomies and you wrote some different articles. The Case of the Missing Faces, frequently asked questions about the lobotomy. Tell us a little about that part of your research.

Miriam Posner: What got me interested in lobotomy was that I’ve always been interested in medical images and the kind of work that medical images do to persuade people or affect our understanding of disease and patients. And a professor in grad school just happened to show the class a clip from a film that was made of lobotomy patients after they had had surgery. And the footage was just so affecting to me. It was one thing to read about the effects of lobotomy and what it was like to have a lobotomy. And it was another thing to watch the patients struggle to find themselves afterward. Those images really stuck in my head and I started wondering how many other images are there of people who had lobotomies and what was the point of images in the history of lobotomy? I was looking at how physicians were using photographs and film to make arguments about lobotomy. But along the way, I learned a lot about that episode in our history and also about Walter Freeman, who was the foremost exponent of lobotomy in the United States.

Rachel Star Withers: And can you explain to us the pictures that you had studied, the before and after photos? Tell us about those.

Miriam Posner: Yeah, one thing that really took me by surprise is that Walter Freeman was obsessed with taking before and after photos of his patients, he would routinely take a before picture of a patient before performing a lobotomy. And then even years later, he would come back and follow up with a patient to take an after picture. He was very dedicated to seeking out patients and he would drive across country to stop at people’s houses and take after photos of his patients. And I just thought, what? Like why? Like, why would you do that? And it was really surprising to me. And I thought, what did he think he was showing with these images?

Rachel Star Withers: What is your interpretation since you’ve been studying them? What is yours of looking at all these different photos?

Miriam Posner: Well, to Walter Freeman, I think that those before and after photos constitute proof that lobotomy was effective in treating patients’ mental illnesses. The kind of strange thing is, that to us, it’s not always clear what about the after picture is proof because it’s really hard to tell what exactly he was seeing that meant that the person was visibly cured. In order to understand why he thought those after pictures were effective, I had to do research about what constituted mental health to Walter Freeman and to other psychiatrists in the period where he was active. The signs of improved mental health are often things like putting on makeup for women, wearing appropriately feminine clothes, being surrounded by family, for men wearing a suit and working what Freeman thought was an appropriate job and even putting on weight was for him like an example of mental health.

Rachel Star Withers: Interesting, but those also seem like that’s something that could be easily staged for as far as the clothing, the makeup.

Miriam Posner: For sure, for sure.

Rachel Star Withers: I’m not an emotional person, but I was looking at the before and after photos of this woman, and it made me cry because the before photo was very almost like a mug shot. She looked

Miriam Posner: Yeah.

Rachel Star Withers: Kind of annoyed that this was happening. And the second one, she was smiling and it wasn’t like a big smile or anything, but her eyes to me, what grabbed me was her eyes. And it just made me cry because just what I went through with depression. Now, I don’t know the story behind it. That could have been one of the ones, Oh, and she’s happy but had to relearn how to walk. But just the photo itself to me was incredibly powerful, if you would have just shown me that. And it was like this is proof that it works. I’d be like, wow.

Miriam Posner:  That’s something that hits me, too, is that these photos are actually emotionally pretty powerful to look at, but really probably not for the reasons that Walter Freeman thought that they would be powerful. He thought you could take a look at them and just be like, wow, that person got better. But just as you say, you feel like you can look in someone’s eyes and see that things are not OK, even though that’s not what Walter Freeman saw. But it kind of makes sense that the makeup and the dresses and markers of like appropriate gender presentation, that he thought that those were evidence of mental health just because of the way that psychiatrists like Freeman thought about mental health in the 30s and 40s. Mental health was not so much about a person’s insight or ability to articulate and identify their own feelings. It was much more about integrating the person into society in a quote unquote, useful way. Could the person hold a job? Could the person have a family and perform like a gender appropriate role in the family? Could the person show up to an event and not be disruptive? So that was mental health to him. It really wasn’t so much about a person’s feeling fulfilled as a human being.

Rachel Star Withers: I was very shocked to recently learn that majority of lobotomies were performed on women and even children. In your opinion, looking at the photos and now telling us this, that so much of it was the person playing the gender role correctly, why do you think more women had lobotomies? Was it that gender bias or is it just because women tend to seek help quicker than men do?

Miriam Posner: I don’t have an authoritative answer for you, but I can speculate a little bit about that. When the lobotomy first started being performed in the late 30s in the United States, it was reserved for patients for whom there was no or they believed there was no alternative. Patients with really intractable mental illness. But as the years went by, the indications for lobotomy expanded to include lots of other symptoms, things like depression, pain and inability to integrate into family and work. And it seems to me that it’s in that period of expanding diagnosis that women presented more often as candidates for lobotomy. And you’ll read case studies where it appears to a modern reader that the woman is unhappy with her lot in life. She’s not fulfilled by her role as a homemaker. She’s in an unhappy marriage. She perhaps doesn’t want to perform the activities appropriate to a woman during this period. And for some women, those signals became interpreted as depression that was severe enough to qualify her for a lobotomy. I don’t think that Walter Freeman or other lobotomists had an explicit policy of lobotomizing women more frequently. But I do think that they tended to interpret what they saw as maladjusted symptoms pretty loosely as making them good candidates for lobotomy.

Rachel Star Withers: As you spoke on, the lobotomy was used as a cure all for mental illnesses around that time, they didn’t have as much information on them. However, I think nowadays, when you look back on lobotomy, the disorder that’s most commonly associated with it is schizophrenia,

Miriam Posner: Mm hmm.

Rachel Star Withers: Why do you think that is? Why do you think that schizophrenia is, when they think of lobotomy, they think crazy person, screaming, schizophrenic? They don’t think depression. They don’t think ADHD. They don’t think, yeah, like you say, just not adjusting to the times, being oppressed.

Miriam Posner: Yeah, I do think that people sometimes have a mistaken understanding of the history of lobotomies, maybe because of the way it’s depicted in films. A lot of people assume that lobotomy was confined to the back halls of disreputable mental institutions, that it was disreputable physicians who performed lobotomies, that it was always a sketchy procedure. But what a lot of people don’t know is that during the heyday of lobotomy in the 30s and 40s, it was considered the top of the line, most modern and most effective treatment. Walter Freeman was on the cover of magazines. He was mentioned for a Nobel Prize. There was no sense that lobotomy was a weapon of cruelty. Lobotomy was understood to be the most current, up to date, scientifically precise treatment for mental illness. And I think people associate schizophrenia with being uncurable. So I think in people’s minds, because they believe schizophrenia is incurable, that lobotomy would be the most likely candidate for a disease. But while it was performed on people with schizophrenia, in fact, the indicators for lobotomy were actually a lot more broad than people suspect.

Rachel Star Withers: How has public perception changed as far as lobotomies and that type of treatment? Obviously 30s, 40s when Walter Freeman was at his height, yeah, that seemed like a go to. At what point did the public kind of start to pull away from this miracle cure?

Miriam Posner: One big rupture was the introduction of antipsychotic medication, chlorpromazine was introduced in 1954 and that really provoked a sea change in treatment of people with schizophrenia and related diseases. So suddenly there was another treatment that didn’t require biological surgical intervention and that could be fine tuned and didn’t seem quite as drastic as a surgical procedure. There was also increased interest in talk therapies around that time. Freeman’s brand of psychiatry, which was always most interested in biological organic causes for her mental illness, fell out of favor a little bit. And so as the years went by, it became more common for people to see lobotomy as a really brutal, inhumane treatment. But one thing that’s interesting about Walter Freeman is that he never really accepted that interpretation of lobotomy. He believed until the end of his life that lobotomy was the most appropriate treatment for people with intractable mental illness. And his interpretation of treatment with antipsychotic medication was that it was like a temporary solution to a problem that could be permanently solved by surgical intervention. Medication he thought was kind of a Band-Aid, but the real successful way to intervene would be to go in and separate the thalamus from the frontal lobe.

Rachel Star Withers: That’s interesting because we usually only see it from the side of the lototomy was a horrible, torturous thing, not the other

Miriam Posner: Mm-hmm

Rachel Star Withers: Way of him being like, yeah, the other option is like a Band-Aid. Very interesting. I think one of the most popular portrayals of a lobotomy was from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and it’s known for its bad portrayals of mental hospitals, of people with mental illnesses, of showing electroconvulsive therapy in a very bad light. And, of course, in the movie, I’m sorry if you haven’t seen anyone listening. But, yes, a lobotomy takes place and he’s pretty much brain dead at the end. How do you think those massive media portrayals have affected research into psychosurgery and other types of mental surgeries?

Miriam Posner: I think that lobotomy often is interpreted as kind of a joke now, it feels like really distant in the past to a lot of people, and it is very closely associated with brutality and something that was performed in the like back wards of really brutal mental institutions. But it’s important if we really want to understand lobotomy to understand that a lot of people were on board with it. A lot of institutions and individuals thought that it was a good idea and there was a way in which it was part of a continuum of therapies that are called somatic therapies. So any kind of therapy that’s performed on the body. In many institutions, you’d start with a somatic therapy, like being tied to a bed and then continue on through this spectrum, through ECT or insulin shock therapy or being submerged in ice water. And when the patient failed to get better after this kind of chain of somatic therapies, they finally were seen as a good candidate for lobotomy. We tried everything and now it’s time for the real king of somatic procedures, which is lobotomy.

Rachel Star Withers: From all of your research, looking over Walter Freeman’s work and other aspects of lobotomy and portrayals with media, what is your overall take away?

Miriam Posner: What I like for people to understand about lobotomy is that the episode is not an aberration. It’s not the result of a couple kooky physicians who made miscalculations and somehow managed to sneakily lobotomize a lot of people. Instead, that’s science. That was mainstream science. That was considered the peak of good clinical practice at the time. And if we accept that’s true, then we have to accept that science can make some real drastic miscalculations and can inflict real damage on people just in the day to day course of doing business. So it’s not an aberration. It’s not a crime that people got away with. It was something that was endorsed at the highest level of the psychiatric profession.

Rachel Star Withers: Tell us what happened with Dr. Walter Freeman after the public and the medical community started to move away from lobotomies and it fell out of favor.

Miriam Posner: He never really accepted the rejection of lobotomy, and he was advocating for lobotomies until the end. He performed his last lobotomy in 1967 and shortly after that he was stripped of his operating privileges and was incredibly indignant about it. One episode that kind of sticks in my mind is that in order to make his case to the hospital board that he should be able to continue to perform lobotomies, in order to make this case, he brought a box full of Christmas cards from his former patients where they expressed thanks for what he’d done to them and concern for him as a human being. And so he emptied this box on the table and said, is this the result of a procedure that’s inhumane and brutal? Look at this. My patients are all grateful to me. And it’s in a way like for me, encapsulates just some of the weirdness of the whole episode and how confusing it is to try to understand what Walter Freeman thought he was doing. Because I really do think that he thought that he was fixing people and there were some people who did interpret what he had done to them or members of their family as a positive change. And he could never get his head around the idea that people didn’t see it that way anymore.

Rachel Star Withers: That’s a very powerful thought that, yeah, he saw it one way and all of the Christmas cards, the photos that he documented, and then, of course, I’m sure the actual people themselves. But then when you contrast it to the fact that his last lobotomy, the woman died and

Miriam Posner: Mm hmm.

Rachel Star Withers: So many people who became severely impaired, it’s very interesting when you think about

Miriam Posner: Yes.

Rachel Star Withers: The extremes of the lobotomies, how it worked out for everyone.

Miriam Posner: Yeah, nothing is ever black or white, and there are so many strange stories that still surprise me that pop up.

Rachel Star Withers: Given this kind of very dark area of schizophrenia treatment in the past, I know a lot of people could use this to not want to get psychiatric help today. Tell us your thoughts on that.

Miriam Posner: Well, I mean, they’re right that it’s a really sobering episode in the history of psychiatry and in thinking back about it and what it means to me today, one of the lessons that I hope that psychiatry has learned is that judging people’s mental health by their ability to integrate into mainstream society is actually really dangerous because there are a lot of reasons someone might not fit in. And to assume that they can’t fit in because something’s wrong with them is really damaging. And I think there has been a turn among psychiatrists to look at how patients themselves define health for themselves and to understand that mental health may not look the same for everybody and it may not look like psychiatrists want it to look for everybody. So the lesson is actually, I think, pretty simple, if difficult to actually realize. And that’s but you have to listen to patients, like you have to understand what their goals are, what their definition of health for themselves is. And you have to respect that for them, living a fulfilling life may look different than what we want them to think.

Rachel Star Withers: Is there any media that you suggest that you think really shows this treatment and is a good thing for laypeople like me to watch, to understand more?

Miriam Posner: There is a radio documentary called My Lobotomy, which is a long interview and a series of meditations by a guy named Howard Dully, who is still alive today and is one of the last people on whom lobotomy was performed. It was performed on him when he was a teenager. He talks about the experience of getting a lobotomy and how it still affects his life to this day. And it’s a really powerful documentary. And he also has a book that’s called My Lobotomy that is equally effective and moving. There’s a documentary, too, that’s called The Lobotomist that focuses more on Walter Freeman, the biggest cheerleader for lobotomy. What was going through his head? Why was he so convinced that lobotomy was the way to go? And talks a little bit about the context in which he was performing these procedures. Those are really good ways to get acquainted with how lobotomy was conceived of at the time.

Rachel Star Withers: Thank you so much for speaking with us today, Dr. Posner, about all this, so much good and bad when it comes to looking back over the different treatments for severe mental disorders just over the past hundred years alone. How can our listeners learn more about you and your work?

Miriam Posner: They can certainly check out my website, which is www.MiriamPosner.com, and I have a lot of materials about lobotomies there and a blog where I sort of talk about what’s preoccupying me now. And they can always get in touch with me on Twitter, too. My handle is @MiriamKP, and I’m always really interested to hear from people particularly who have experience with the mental health system and can help me understand what their experiences are like.

Rachel Star Withers: Awesome, thank you so much for speaking with us today, Dr. Posner.

Miriam Posner: My pleasure.

Gabe Howard: Rachel, she was awesome and I’m super glad that she agreed to be on our show. What was your biggest takeaway after speaking to Ms. Posner?

Rachel Star Withers: I enjoyed this interview so much. I enjoyed her so much, I think because she wasn’t the doctor, she wasn’t one of the typical psychiatrists that I had originally reached out to. She definitely came at this with a different viewpoint. And that was kind of interesting to see, you know, someone who wasn’t directly in the psychiatric community as a patient or as a doctor, counselor or whatever, to be able to say, look, this is my views of what happened over this time. It was very refreshing and it was different the way she spoke about things than I would say any other guests we could have picked.

Gabe Howard: I would agree with that. Her understanding of history was very commanding. You think you understand because everybody’s talking about it. But as a researcher, she just had this other level that I thought was very, very interesting.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes. Should we look into becoming digital humanists or is it too late?

Gabe Howard: I did not know that that was a thing, but she explained it well and it’s understandable. I think this is another example of how modalities and research and life moves forward. I mean, digital humanist wasn’t a thing 50 years ago, but it is now and it’s understandable how we got here. And I think that’s very analogous to where we are with the treatment of schizophrenia. There is trauma in our past. There’s a lot of trauma. And I do think that we need to do more to address that trauma. The general attitude is, well, we were doing that for your own good. Well, we were trying to help. And I do think that we need to openly discuss mistakes that were made so that we can have more buy in that these mistakes won’t happen again. I do think that she did an excellent job of making sure that people understood the history of this particular schizophrenia treatment and where we’ve come from. And I think that’s overwhelmingly positive.

Rachel Star Withers: When I asked her final thoughts about advice for seeking treatment for schizophrenia. I kind of meant it as like, you know, a closing type kind of squishy question. And when she responded, it kind of threw me off because she spoke to psychiatrists in her response and about the definition of health. I was just like, oh, OK. I thought she would be like, oh, the medical community has come so far, blah, blah, blah. But no. And that was kind of it made me think because I’m like, well, that was weird that she spoke to them. You know, I clearly would have spoke to other people with schizophrenia, I think most doctors and whatnot when we have them on the show, that’s who they speak to and loved ones. But from delving into all of this research about how schizophrenia treatment has evolved, my main takeaway is that it is a story about the medical community. It’s a story about individuals who shaped how schizophrenia was perceived and how it was to be managed. It’s not a story at all about the patients. It’s not even a story about schizophrenia in general. So much of what I found when it comes to the coma therapy, ECT, lobotomies, it all related to the physical aspects of what was done, and so many cases of abuse and all of the doctors and researchers and neurologists who came up with these things.

Rachel Star Withers: I never found anything that was, oh, water therapy was found to calm the symptoms of psychosis and schizophrenia and helped the patients regain a physical feeling of reality or patients of schizophrenia found an easier treatment that insulin therapy because they didn’t have to be injected with harmful chemicals. That’s not what was worded. And I feel that that’s what’s missing. You know, I don’t care as a schizophrenic who came up with the idea of sticking an ice pick through the eye. Lobotomies were successful 50% of the time, and some patients with schizophrenia voluntarily got multiple lobotomies, up to four. My question is, what made these patients want to go through it again? And I think as people who have schizophrenia and loved ones and the medical community, I think that’s really the important part. It’s people seeking to get better and learning to focus more on what helps these people, not just what calms all the people down and makes them controllable. I think it’s going to be a question that hopefully we’ll always be answering as we continue to evolve our treatments. I’m Rachel Star. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Inside Schizophrenia. Wherever you downloaded this podcast, please subscribe. Also, take a moment to rate, rank and leave a written review so other people know why they should listen too. We’ll see everyone on the next episode of Inside Schizophrenia.

Announcer: Inside Schizophrenia is presented by PsychCentral.com, America’s largest and longest operating independent mental health website. Your host, Rachel Star Withers, can be found online at RachelStarLive.com. Co-host Gabe Howard can be found online at gabehoward.com. For questions, or to provide feedback, please e-mail [email protected]. The official website for Inside Schizophrenia is PsychCentral.com/IS. Thank you for listening, and please, share widely.

The post Inside Schizophrenia: Evolution of Schizophrenia Treatments first appeared on World of Psychology.

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Podcast: Grieving and Radical Honesty

  Is there a correct way to grieve? What if you lose an estranged family member with whom you have unresolved differences? In today’s show, Lisa discusses the death of her grandfather, whom she wasn’t close to, and how she has mentally and emotionally processed it.

Join us for a closer look at the grieving process and how there is no one way to handle death.

(Transcript Available Below)

Please Subscribe to Our Show: And We Love Written Reviews! 

About The Not Crazy podcast Hosts

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 Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Grieving and Radical Honesty” Episode

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

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe: Hey, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Not Crazy podcast, I’m your host, Gabe Howard. And with me, as always, is Lisa Kiner.

Lisa: Hey, everyone, today we’re going to think about how Mitch Albom said death ends a life, not a relationship.

Gabe: Lisa, I want to give you my sincerest condolences on the loss of your grandfather. How are you and your family?

Lisa: We are fine, thank you for asking. Are you being sarcastic?

Gabe: I am not being sarcastic because. 

Lisa: OK

Gabe: I know that you and your grandfather didn’t get along. I think the audience is probably like, why?

Lisa: We didn’t not get along, we just didn’t really have much of a relationship.

Gabe: And that leads us into our show topic, right? And that leads us right into your quote as well. We always have this idea that that death is final, right? Death is final, 

Lisa: Death is final.

Gabe: But it’s not. Because your memory lives on, your people who knew you live on. For example, you had unresolved issues with your grandfather. You had unresolved feelings, whether good, bad, positive, negative. They’re unresolved. They didn’t just stop. His memory didn’t just end. For example, even though your grandfather has passed away, we’re talking about him right now. That’s the very definition of not final.

Lisa: Immortality via podcast.

Gabe: Well, yes. It or I mean, why do people talk about history? If death is final? We should never have to consider history because after all, all the people that did it are dead. So therefore, it has ramifications. Right?

Lisa: Right, I would agree with that.

Gabe: So therefore, death is not final. That’s my point.

Lisa: Well, the point I’m making is, one, my grandfather was 92. He’d gone much longer than the average. And two, we were not close. We have never been close. So when you say, oh, I know you have issues. Well, no, I don’t think so. I think I had more. I know this sounds cold. I think I have more apathy than anything else. I mean, 92-year-old people die. That’s how it is. I know it makes me sound evil.

Gabe: I don’t think that it makes you sound evil, I, it’s your truth, right? It’s just it’s not a thing that you hear very often.

Lisa: It’s not something you can say out loud because people get really nasty about it.

Gabe: It is interesting to me, I believe very firmly, that everybody grieves in their own way, and I don’t like it when somebody has a loved one who passes away, whether it be a spouse, a child, a father or even a friend. And everybody is judging the way that that person reacts to it. First and foremost, that’s how they’re reacting in public. You have no idea. Maybe they’re acting stereotypical once the door is shut. Right? I mean, it just we judge everybody by what we see in public, but we compare it to how we act in private.

Lisa: That is a good point, I had not thought about that, but I always just I think one of the reasons people, police, how you grieve is because they see it as disrespectful to the dead person. The time to respect them was while they were alive.

Gabe: Well, not only is the time to respect them while they are alive, but consider this for a moment, I’m going to use myself as an example. I have now passed away, Lisa.

Lisa: OK

Gabe: Now I’m going to assume that you are sad about this, because I’m not 92. I want to be.

Lisa: Ok, again, I realize this makes me sound like the ice queen, everyone thinks it’s evil. He was 92 years old, he had a career, he had family, he lived his life. It was his time.

Gabe: You’re focusing on the complete wrong point, the point that I’m making is that I am now dead, right?

Lisa: Ok, OK, sorry. Go back to the Gabe dead thing, got it.

Gabe: Yeah, I don’t, you can tell that Lisa feels very strongly that she’s doing something wrong because she keeps defending herself even in the midst of a very obvious joke.

Lisa: No, I don’t feel no, I don’t feel like I’m doing something wrong. I realize that I get a lot of criticism for this attitude.

Gabe: And the reason that you said you feel that you get criticism is because people feel like you’re disrespecting the person who passed away, yes or no?

Lisa: It’s not a yes or no question.

Gabe: Yes, it is it’s a yes or no question, do you feel that that’s why people are criticizing the way that you are grieving? Because they feel that how you grieve is showing respect or love or something towards the person who passed away? Yes or no?

Lisa: Yes, I think it’s a large part of it, but not all of it.

Gabe: OK, and now we go back to my example. I am now dead, OK? Right. I have passed away. And Lisa, you are going to feel sad about this, yes or no? 

Lisa: Yes. 

Gabe: And let’s say that somebody criticizes how you feel sad about this. They decide that Lisa is not appropriately grieving, displaying emotion, whatever word you want to put there. They’re on top of Lisa and upset with her because they feel that it is disrespectful toward me, the person who passed away. You follow so far. 

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: I want to go on record as saying that when I die, however Lisa chooses to handle this is correct, because Lisa is my best friend. I want her to get through my passing. And the last thing I want is for the people around her to jump on her and tell her that what she’s doing is wrong. She’s got enough to deal with, I mean, literally the greatest person she ever knew in the history of time.

Lisa: The most substantial influence, yeah, far surpassing anyone else.

Gabe: Has just passed away and it

Lisa: Yeah, you are my muse.

Gabe: I do kid, because death is one of those things that if you don’t add a joke every once in a while, it’s really, really hard for people to comprehend. But I just think about the people who have died in my life. And I can only imagine that if people were mean to me over their passing or judgmental or whatever word you want to use, I don’t think that they would feel very good about this. These are people that loved me literally their entire life. But even more importantly, Lisa, I just think that it’s your choice. Like, it’s a very personal choice on how you handle it. And I don’t really think it’s anybody else’s business.

Lisa: Well, people are judgmental and nosy.

Gabe: Yes, people are judgmental and nosy, but let’s assume the best of intentions. You said you feel like they’re doing it to defend the person who passed away. So on some level, you appreciate that, right? Because the person

Lisa: No.

Gabe: Who passed away is in your circle as well. Don’t you want them to have people who stick up for them?

Lisa: No, because they are dead, they don’t know the difference. Where was all this love and respect and sticking up, etc., where the person was alive? They are now gone and have very little care about what is happening after the fact. I think it has a large component of judgy and nosy because people police grief constantly. Everyone feels like you should feel a certain way. You should act a certain way. I don’t know. It makes them uncomfortable if you don’t and people do not have any compunction about telling you to your face that you are wrong in how you grieve all sorts of relationships.

Gabe: I’m glad that you said that because I want people to hear that because death is hard enough and we do all mourn it and grieve it in our own way and having people follow you around and telling you that you’re wrong, it’s just it’s very bad for your mental health. You’re already not doing well, right? Somebody that you knew, somebody that you had an existing relationship passed away. And it doesn’t matter if that’s a coworker or literally your closest friend, loved one parent, grandparent, etc. Death has a reaction. It has a ripple effect. Have you ever worked somewhere where a coworker passed away? You only knew them at work. It hit you, right? It had a feeling in your chest. You didn’t just say, well, he wasn’t my family. Right?

Lisa: Well, there’s an element of your own mortality and discomfort with that.

Gabe: You come off so cold, Lisa,

Lisa: I know.

Gabe: I just I said that somebody that you knew died and you just made it about yourself. You’re not this cold as a person.

Lisa: It’s my podcast.

Gabe: No, sincerely. I know you’re uncomfortable and you’ve now got like your, what is it? Your cackles up. You’re trying

Lisa: Hackles,

Gabe: To be very defensive. But

Lisa: Hackles.

Gabe: I mean, I don’t know words, but no, sincerely, I just said a coworker, somebody that you worked with everyday died. And that feels very different than if, say, your mother or father, grandparent or child or spouse passed away. 

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: And your response to that is, oh, yeah, I don’t care that they’re dead. It reminds me that I’m going to die. You’re not this cold as a person.

Lisa: Why is that how you’re interpreting it? You’re asking me why it is someone might feel uncomfortable or unhappy. You don’t think that’s a component of it?

Gabe: I do think that’s a component, I just

Lisa: You don’t think discomfort with the concept of death or the afterlife or your or discomfort with your own mortality or the idea that nobody wants to die? We all want to live forever, and we all kind of think that we’re going to live forever. You don’t think that’s a component of this feeling that you have when this person has passed? You don’t think that’s a component of that feeling?

Gabe: I do think that’s a component of that feeling and as an example, that is what you thought of and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Lisa: I don’t know, you seem to be pretty judge-y, telling me that there’s something wrong with that?

Gabe: No, I wasn’t telling you that there was something wrong with that, I was surprised that that’s the first place that you went. I know you very well, Lisa, and I don’t believe that that’s the first thing that you think. I have seen you run into traffic and risk your own life to save other people. I have seen you sit with people who are in harm’s way or dying or in trouble. I once watched you spend 30 hours to return a stray dog to somebody. And I refuse to believe that the makeup of that person honestly feels in her heart of hearts that when somebody dies, it’s just a reminder that she’s going to die and she could give a rat’s ass that they’re dead. I’m wondering, is that a defense mechanism on your part? Is it a oh, I’m not going to focus on the person who’s dead because that’s final and over so that that way I can move past it. And the reason I bring this up is because I think a lot of people do this and a lot of people get unnecessary shit when it’s just a defense mechanism and they’re wonderful people. I want to be clear, Lisa. You are a wonderful person and I’m not criticizing you in any way. But you have to admit, it sounds very cold when I say, hey, a coworker dies, you’re like, yeah, I don’t care. It just reminds me of my own immortality or mortality,

Lisa: But see, you’re adding.

Gabe: My own mortality.

Lisa: You’re adding, though, I didn’t say, oh, I don’t care, I said part of your discomfort is. Why’s it got to be all or none? What’s with this black or white thinking?

Gabe: Because that’s how people feel about death, for example, you just said death was final, absolute the end. What’s with your black and white thinking? 

Lisa: Death is final.

Gabe: Oh, death is very much not final.

Lisa: Don’t go there, don’t go there.

Gabe: So let’s talk about that for a moment,

Lisa: Let’s. Let’s discuss the existential plain, Gabe.

Gabe: No, no, no, let’s let’s let’s actually OK, yes, one of the things that I think’s trips people up when they’re grieving and they’re mourning is this idea that death is final. I don’t believe that death is final. I think that death is final in that you can do nothing more to influence the future because you are no longer part of it. However, I believe that the past very much influences the future, and the people in my life who have passed away are still influencing me based on stuff they did when they were alive. They just can’t clarify or contribute anymore. I think that part of the grieving process is recognizing that their memories still live on, their lessons still live on. You keep saying that death is final. I do not believe that death is final in that we still remember and react to things that our

Lisa: Ok, yes.

Gabe: Loved ones or people that we did

Lisa: But, but you’re mixing. You’re mixing together things. When most people say death is final, they’re stating a almost a religious belief. They’re talking about their belief in the afterlife. And you’re talking about something else.

Gabe: Religion does not believe that death is final.

Lisa: Well, exactly, that’s my point. When you sit there and say, well, death isn’t the end, you realize that almost everybody interprets that as a statement of religious belief.

Gabe: That’s my point, though, everybody interprets it differently, but that interpretation seems to rest on the person whom they’re talking to, because you didn’t grieve correctly, you didn’t react correctly. You’re not handling it in the same way that I do. And I’m trying to explain that we all see it very differently. Religious people see it differently than atheists. Atheists see it different than religious people. And even the religions can’t decide. You know, some people go to heaven, some people go to Nirvana. In the religion that I was raised in, we have a limbo. It’s all very different and very personal. And I think that this sort of judgment, this sort of assuming that everybody is going to handle this the same way. I just think it impacts the mental health of people who are going through grief almost more than the grief.

Lisa: Yeah, I would agree with that. People are very judge-y and nosy and people are inherently uncomfortable with death, and when people don’t know what to say, they either say nothing or they say stupid stuff, stupid, unhelpful stuff.

Gabe: Well, that’s very interesting. At the top of the show, as you remember, I said my condolences on the loss of your grandfather and you very snarkily said, are you being sarcastic? Well, I.

Lisa: Well, because you know me, if you were a stranger on the street who said, oh, I’m so sorry. I’m not an idiot, I do understand social norms, the reply I would give is Oh, thank you so much. Yes. And then you say something like, well, you know, it was his time or, well, yes, we all miss him very much. Oh, he was such a good man. Whatever the correct response to a stranger saying that would be “Oh, thank you so much.” But you happen to know me and you happen to know that I really didn’t have much of a relationship with my grandfather. So when you say it, it comes off to me as maybe you’re being sarcastic because you happen to know the relationship I had with this person.

Gabe: Now, your relationship with your grandfather was strained for a number of reasons, one of those reasons was because your grandfather was an alcoholic.

Lisa: Yes. I don’t think it’s fair to categorize it as strained, because strained implies that there’s this heavy level of activity on both ends, I would say that again, more of an apathy thing. I really didn’t have much of a relationship with my grandfather.

Gabe: You spent every holiday with him

Lisa: Well, yeah, but in the company of other family. It wasn’t just him.

Gabe: You act like you hadn’t seen him in years.

Lisa: No, no, I saw him all the time.

Gabe: Exactly.

Lisa: But it’s not like outside of family get togethers where there’s tons of other people there that we were you know, we didn’t call on the phone or write letters individually to one another or anything like that.

Gabe: You’re Facebook friends.

Lisa: He was strangely the biggest social media user. He was the first person I ever met who was on Twitter. I don’t know why. I don’t know what was up with him and social media. Anyway.

Gabe: Lisa, I don’t want to get in a semantics argument with you, whether you call it strained, whether you call it apathetic, whether you call it you just didn’t care. The words are really irrelevant. The fact of the matter is, is that your relationship with your grandfather was not good. And now that he has passed away, this is influencing how you’re going to move forward, how you’re going to grieve, how you respond, how sad you are. And I think that the audience would like to know, OK, well, what did this man do to you that that made you dislike him?

Lisa: Nothing, and I didn’t particularly dislike him. He was an alcoholic, he and my mother certainly had a strained relationship. Absolutely. And of course, that trickled down to us. I think when most people think of grandparents is because of that bond you formed with your grandparents as children. All the cartoon versions of grandparents with the love and the hugs and the candy and the gifts and the going to grandma and grandpa’s house. And we didn’t really have much contact with my mother’s parents when we were kids, because he was an alcoholic and mom didn’t want him to be around us if he was drunk and he was always drunk. So I think that’s probably one of the reasons I have kind of this apathetic thing is that I didn’t really have that grandparent bonding thing going on with my mother’s parents. Now, I had that with my father’s parents plenty. No problem. I had plenty of grandparents. I was not lacking for grandparents. But if you don’t form that bond in childhood, I think it’s not like you’re suddenly going to go do it when you’re 30

Gabe: Lisa, are members of your own family giving you shit for how you’re responding to your grandfather’s death?

Lisa: No, because I’m not an idiot and I can absolutely police it and most of them don’t listen to this podcast, so I should be OK.

Gabe: When you say police, do you mean you’re lying to them, you’re pretending that you’re sad?

Lisa: I would not categorize it as lying, but yes, I certainly am going, oh, yes, this is so sad. Yes, yeah, I don’t really feel this way, but again, I’m not happy the person is dead or anything. I just don’t particularly have strong feelings about this.

Gabe: I understand the whole concept of just because you don’t want somebody to eat at your table doesn’t mean that you want them to starve.

Lisa: Right, right.

Gabe: And I get that you weren’t rooting for anything bad to happen

Lisa: No.

Gabe: To him. Just its life moves on. Not much has changed for you.

Lisa: Yeah, almost nothing has changed for me.

Gabe: Do you feel bad about this?

Lisa: Only because this, of course, has had an impact on my mother, her sisters, this is having an impact on other members who I do care about and love and have an ongoing relationship with. But as for him, yeah, you know, whatever. There were plenty of other 92-year-old men who died that day. I’m not particularly worked up about any of them either. 

Gabe: Lisa, in some ways, you’re one of the most mentally healthy people I know, you have excellent boundaries. You’re really good at managing your family. I look up to you in this way.

Lisa: This is in part just a function of the people, you know, but yes,

Gabe: Yes, but

Lisa: I’m mentally healthier than you.

Gabe: But we’ll talk later.

Lisa: Low bar, anyway.

Gabe: But a lot of people feel very badly about this. When the people come up and criticize how they grieve, they don’t have this devil may care cavalier attitude that you have. It impacts them very much. And they feel like they’re bad people for this. How did you get to this point? Do you just not care what other people think? And this is just like a a skill that you developed?

Lisa: Is this your first day? Oh, for God sakes.

Gabe: No, I’m being serious. A lot of people would feel very, very badly. People constantly feel that they’re not grieving right. And the people are criticizing them. And that makes it worse. And you’re just like, oh, just ignore it, which is literally the equivalent of just lose weight. Just cheer up, just make more money.

Lisa: I know.

Gabe: Anybody listening to this, they may want to be you, but they don’t know how to be you. And every time I ask you a direct question about how can people manage this in their own lives if they’re going through this and they feel this way, your answer seems to be, well, stop it.

Lisa: Unfortunately, I don’t have a better answer. I don’t know, maybe part of this is just inherent personality. In general, I don’t care that much about what other people think. I certainly don’t care as much as you do.

Gabe: Well, nobody can care as much as I do, I have an anxiety disorder, paranoia, I care what everybody thinks all the time, always. In fact, I can tell that somewhere in the world, somebody who has never met me is thinking something negative and now my whole day is ruined.

Lisa: That is true, actually, it’s very sad.

Gabe: It is very sad, but, Lisa, sincerely, people listening to this, they feel bad that they are not reacting correctly. What advice do you have for them to move forward?

Lisa: The same advice that I have for everyone if someone says to you you are doing something wrong. You must analyze this. Are you doing something wrong? If the answer is no, then who cares? You don’t need to listen to this person who tells you this. You know, in your heart that you’re good. You don’t need to listen to this person. Stop listening to them. But if you’re in your heart, you think I am doing something wrong, then change your behavior. So when people say you’re making me feel guilty, OK, no, you can’t make anybody feel anything. If you feel guilty, it’s because, you know you did something wrong, because if you didn’t do anything wrong, you can just dismiss this person.

Gabe: So you’re saying that you would like you would do a chain analysis and you would evaluate it, you’d be like, OK, this is this is how I feel. This is what the person is saying. And you would back it up and see if they intersect in any way.

Lisa: Right, and if they don’t, then you can safely ignore them.

Gabe: Lisa, I know that in your particular case, with your grandfather, the closest members of your family, for example, your mother are apathetic like you are, but

Lisa: I don’t think that’s fair to say.

Gabe: You said that your mother and you had the same response to this.

Lisa: I never said that.  I wouldn’t say that my mother is apathetic about this if for no other reason than because she cares about the reaction of her sisters.

Gabe: Have you told your mother how you feel about this, or are you pretending that you have more deep investment to save your mother’s feelings?

Lisa: No, I don’t need to pretend for her. She won’t be offended by it.

Gabe: Ok, but what if your mother was offended by it, would the

Lisa: Then I would pretend.

Gabe: You would pretend and do you feel that that pretending is the best policy? I don’t really think there’s a wrong answer here, but every answer, of course, has a pro and a con.

Lisa: Well, there’s two sides to it, there’s the effect on everyone else, and then there’s the advantage to you. Pretending to have a deeper emotional investment than you do, perhaps makes other people feel better. It makes them not as sad. They don’t have to deal with it. And if these are people you care about and you have that ability, why wouldn’t you? Someone they care about just died. You don’t want them to have to deal with you. Why wouldn’t you do that if you could? And then in terms of the benefit to you, it’s that you don’t have to listen to any criticism. So it’s win win.

Gabe: The reason that I don’t think it’s win win is because, of course, the less you tell those closest to you, the less they know you. If you pretend that you care in this way, it does mean that your mother should reasonably assume that you care and therefore she might take steps to make you feel better. Because she cares about you, her daughter, and now she’s using emotional energy where none is needed because you gave her misinformation. But of course, you also do run the risk that if you give her the correct information, she expands energy in trying to get you to do something that you don’t want to do. How does that work? I mean, what’s your, what’s your general thoughts on that?

Lisa: I think this is part of the social contract and there’s a pro and con list for every interaction. You talk about pretending as if it’s a negative thing. You’ve never pretended to care about something that someone else cares about that you don’t?

Gabe: I do it all the time, but I have a level. I never pretend to care about something I don’t care about for you.

Lisa: Yes, you do.

Gabe: That’s not true. Name one time that I have pretended to care about something for your benefit and don’t say, well, you go to musical theater with me. I don’t pretend to care. I tell you that I don’t like musical theater, but I absolutely, unequivocally will escort you because you are my best friend.

Lisa: Well, this is the equivalent.

Gabe: Well, but it’s not. You don’t say, I don’t care that grandpa died, but I’ll pretend to care for your benefit. You actually pretend to care. You convince people that you care.

Lisa: No, you’re looking at this completely wrong. This is the equivalent of when you’re telling me all about your new backsplash. Yeah, I’m really not invested in your new backsplash. I don’t care about your backsplash. Your backsplash is not interesting to me, but it’s interesting to you. And I know that you care about this and you want me to say, oh, that’s nice and admire it, etc. The benefit I’m getting back is just like you said, you don’t want to go see that musical, but it makes me happy. So that’s a good trade for you. You can sit there and whatever, and because it makes your friend happy. It makes you happy when I ask you about your backsplash, even though if you died tomorrow, I would never care about this backsplash ever again or any backsplash for that matter. The thing that I’m getting out of it is the happiness or joy or whatever that it gives you. So this is the same thing. And we all do this all the time. When people come up to you and talk to you about boring subjects that you don’t care about, but you can tell they care a lot and it makes them happy, or at least it makes them more comfortable if you pretend to care. This is the exact same thing. It’s not different just because you’re applying it to death.

Gabe: I don’t think those are analogous at all.

Lisa: Why?

Gabe: First off, I do think that you care about my backsplash because you know that it’s meaningful to me and

Lisa: Exactly,

Gabe: You care about things that are meaningful to me.

Lisa: Yes, exactly, and this person is meaningful to the person you are talking to, even though it’s not meaningful to me, it’s meaningful to them.

Gabe: But you are pretending to grieve, you didn’t pretend to be excited for my backsplash, you just politely listened and you gave me your honest opinion on what you thought about it in my kitchen. You didn’t pose with a selfie. You didn’t take home samples. You didn’t tell me that I should give tours. You didn’t tell me that I should. Oh, my God. That’s the greatest backsplash

Lisa: There’s levels, there are levels, and I’ve certainly done stuff like that in the past for things I don’t care about on your behalf, and you have for me as well.

Gabe: I don’t think that’s true. I have never once lied to you.

Lisa: So why are you? Lying has this inherent negative connotation.

Gabe: I have never once pretended for you

Lisa: Yes, you have

Gabe: When.

Lisa: Really? I am getting new flooring. How often have we been talking about this flooring? You’re telling me you care about my flooring?

Gabe: Yes.

Lisa: Of course you don’t care. You don’t care. It’s not going to be on your feet. What do you care? You care because you know I care, because you’re being polite and giving me that outlet.

Gabe: Once again, I just don’t think this is the same thing.

Lisa: I think this is exactly the same thing, I don’t understand why you don’t think this is the same thing, and frankly, I don’t even know that I can explain it because it’s so obvious to me that this is the exact same thing that I don’t even know how to tell you.

Gabe: The reason that it’s not analogous is because grandpa belongs to both you and your mom. The floor only belongs to you. That alone makes it not analogous. You’d have to find something that we both, in theory, should care equally about.

Lisa: No, why would you assume that my mother and I should, and incidentally, why are you using the word should, should care equally about this person?

Gabe: I said, in theory, should care equally about the.

Lisa: But why in theory? Why at all, why is that a thing?

Gabe: Because otherwise, you wouldn’t be doing anything wrong. If it’s well understood that you are supposed to care less about your dead loved one than another person, then there’s no reason to tell you that you’re grieving wrong. That person couldn’t possibly understand it after all.

Lisa: No,

Gabe: Because there are two separate relationships.

Lisa: That is well understood, everybody expects you to grieve more for a spouse or a child or a parent than you do for a second cousin.

Gabe: I disagree with that completely, I think that they expect you to grieve differently. I don’t think it’s a more or less I think it’s a differently and once again, your example is about something that I do not own. I do not live in your house. Like you said. I don’t even walk on your floor. It’s well understood. Why don’t we talk about something that we’re buying together? Why don’t we talk about the logo for our podcast? 

Lisa: OK.

Gabe: What if you found out that I lied to you about that logo where I convinced you that I loved the logo and that it was a great logo and then you found out later on I just told you what you wanted to hear. I hate that logo. Wouldn’t that upset you?

Lisa: But

Gabe: You’d be like we designed it together.

Lisa: Do you hate the logo or are you just?

Gabe: No, no, no, I love the logo, the logo is fantastic.

Lisa: No, no, not the actual logo, it’s an analogy, Gabe. But do you hate the logo or you just don’t really give a f**k, you just don’t really care all that much about the logo. But you could tell that I’m heavily invested in the logo. So you will put your time and effort into this because

Gabe: Right, and then what I’d say

Lisa: And, incidentally, think that might have actually happened with our actual logo.

Gabe: What happened with the actual logo is that you told me that you didn’t care and I could decide. 

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: See, you didn’t lie to me. According to you, what you should have done is pretend that you had the same level of excitement about the logo as me. But that’s not what you did. You told me that you didn’t care. I could pick. Right. So therefore, no lie.

Lisa: Every situation is different.

Gabe: I still showed you and you still looked at it, etc., but you didn’t convince me that you had the same level of excitement or love of said logo as me in order to spare my feelings.

Lisa: But according to you, when you said to me, oh, look, here are a couple of different versions of the logo. What do you think? Since I don’t, in fact share, I should have said, you know, I will not look about these. I do not care about this. Take this from my site. No, of course not.

Gabe: No, what you did say is it’s entirely up to you. That’s what you said. I don’t think that if your mother says, you know, I’m mourning your grandfather, you should say I don’t care about him. Remove his name from existence.

Lisa: Exactly.

Gabe: Get him from my sight.

Lisa: There’s not only these two things, there are many options at play here, all different levels.

Gabe: We’ll be back in a minute after a word from our sponsor.

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Lisa: And we’re back with more Not Crazy.

Gabe: I just don’t understand why you’re categorizing politeness as it’s OK to lie.

Lisa: Why?

Gabe: If your mother wants to talk about your grandfather and you listen, that’s certainly not the same thing as you convincing your mother that you feel exactly how she feels.

Lisa: But I’m not doing that, I am not convincing anyone in my family that I care exactly how they do

Gabe: So you’ve let your family know that you don’t care.

Lisa: See, but that’s my point. Why do you think there’s only two choices?

Gabe: What’s the third choice?

Lisa: To be like, oh, huh. Yeah, yeah. Oh, oh, that is sad. Yeah, he’s gone. Yeah. Doing that.

Gabe: Knowing full well that what they’re gathering is that you agree with them,

Lisa: But.

Gabe: Silence implies consent. You’ve said that on this very show.

Lisa: Ok, so what would you have me do? For example, my cousins had much closer relationship with him than I did. They are grieving his passing. They have those fond memories of childhood with grandpa. Right. So when my cousins start saying, oh, that’s so sad about grandpa. I miss him so much. You know, we used to talk all the time and now I’m not able to talk to him. And I’m just so sad about that. Yeah, I haven’t talked to him like one on one in years. Am I supposed to say to her, you know, I don’t care about this? I didn’t ever call him for home remodeling advice. Why are you even mentioning this in my presence?

Gabe: Ok, but what

Lisa: What would you have me do?

Gabe: Two things, one, I don’t know why you’ve got to tell the truth in such a nasty way, you

Lisa: Exactly.

Gabe: Seem to think, no, stop. You seem to think that the truth can only be delivered in a nasty way. Every example that you’ve used, what would you have me do? Your example is the truth is just as mean as humanly possible. So

Lisa: So if.

Gabe: The doctor, upon telling the truth of your grandfather’s passing, according to your analogy, should have been like he’s dead. He is just dead. Dead, just dead. He’s never coming back. He’s dead. I mean, he’s telling

Lisa: No,

Gabe: The truth. So he must be cruel and mean.

Lisa: According to your analogy, I’m supposed to say something along the lines of I am not interested in this conversation, let us talk about something else?

Gabe: No, I’m not saying that at all. That is not what I said at all.

Lisa: Ok, so what am I supposed to say other than. Yes, yes. It’s so sad that he’s gone. What am I supposed to say?

Gabe: This whole thing started because I specifically said that when you agree with somebody like that, there is a connection that you are missing with them and maybe you’re OK with that, like with your cousins or aunts or friends or coworkers, etc. But what do you do? And this is a specific question that I asked. The specific question that I asked is, what do you do when you want to tell somebody the truth, but you know that it  will hurt them? What is the best way to tell them that when it comes to grief? And your response was lie anyways. There’s never any reason to tell the truth. And that bothers me. I don’t agree with.

Lisa: I don’t think that’s what I’m saying at all.

Gabe: Ok, so then answer this question exactly, your mother is grieving the loss of her father, your grandfather, you are apathetic. You want to tell your mother that you’re apathetic, but you don’t want to hurt her. How do you do it?

Lisa: There are two points to this, do not interrupt me. Number one, why do I have to tell her that I’m apathetic?

Gabe: That’s not the question that I asked. That’s

Lisa: Well, no, I’m saying.

Gabe: The answer to the question cannot be why do I have to answer the question?

Lisa: I told you not to interrupt and you’re interrupting.

Gabe: I understand that, but you’re

Lisa: The question is

Gabe: Politician-ing in the question. Just answer the question.

Lisa: You don’t know what I’m going to say yet, give me a sec.  So you don’t necessarily have to tell her that you’re apathetic. That’s not a requirement. You could just leave that out if you want to. And number two thing, you say something like, oh, you know, I wasn’t as close to him as you were or, you know, he really wasn’t part of my life in the way that he was yours. Or you say something, which I’ve often done, along the lines of, well, you know, he wasn’t so much a part of my life, but I can see how upset you are. I’m so sorry this happened to you. I’m so sorry for how you are feeling or depending on how close you are to someone, you know, I personally am not that affected by his death, but I’m worried on your behalf. You can say something like that.

Gabe: How do you handle that if that person fires back, what do you mean you don’t care? I thought you guys were close.

Lisa: What are they, idiots? Of course, we weren’t close. Who doesn’t know that?

Gabe: Once again, we’re offering advice to different families, and I don’t think it’s very fair for you to categorize the other way that families handle death as they’re idiots, that’s very dismissive.

Lisa: No, that’s not what I’m saying, what I’m saying, you have this whole thing about, well, this you’re not forging authentic connections.

Gabe: I don’t know why you’re mocking me, authentic connections are important.

Lisa: Any member of the family will know that I was not close with this person because they’re not blind. I guess if a family member said, oh, my goodness, why are you behaving this way? I thought you were close. At this point, you could probably just say no. Actually, we were not close. You were closer to him than I was. So-and-so was close with him. I personally haven’t seen him in X number of years. You can explain that you were not, in fact, close.

Gabe: It seems like the advice that you’re offering to people is that your family should know and if they don’t, they’re idiots.

Lisa: No, that’s not what I’m saying.

Gabe: You should lie to your family unless you get caught, in which case you should say it in the meanest way possible. I,

Lisa: No, that’s your advice.

Gabe: No, that’s not my advice at all.

Lisa: No, your advice is that whenever somebody dies, you have to immediately throw out every single thing you’ve ever thought.

Gabe: That’s not what I said even remotely.

Lisa: When someone talks to you about how they feel about a death and you personally do not have those same feelings, I don’t see why you can’t just pretend they’re talking about their carpet. You personally don’t care about their carpet.

Gabe: Well, OK.

Lisa: But part of the social contract is that you pretend to care about their carpet.

Gabe: I can’t do that because they’re my family and they’re not idiots, so they already know that I don’t care, so they bring it up to me. Do I try to convince them that I do, in fact, care by doubling down on the lie and of course, in the aggressively mean way? Or do I tell them the truth when they ask me point blank if I care?

Lisa: Sure, tell them the truth, you know, I’m really not that invested in the carpet, but I can see that you really care about these options.

Gabe: I do, in fact, agree with that advice, but when I asked you to suggest that originally you just said that that was mean and that you should lie.

Lisa: Ok, see, sometimes if someone wants to talk to you about their carpet, it is rude to say I don’t care about your carpet, even in a nice voice. You know, I don’t care about your carpet. That’s rude.

Gabe: But it’s your carpet as well.

Lisa: It’s not lying to say, you know, I’m not really invested in this, but what do you think? That’s not lying.

Gabe: Once again, this whole debate seems to be hung up on you saying, well, you don’t have to, it’s not required, your family

Lisa: Right,

Gabe: Are idiots, be mean about it.

Lisa: When did I say be mean about it?

Gabe: I can’t get you to directly answer a question, and in fact, when I say.

Lisa: I don’t understand the question,

Gabe: Then say that.

Lisa: What is the question? Ask me the question. What’s the question?

Gabe: Families are very complicated

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: And death is very complicated, and the grieving process is fraught with misunderstanding and challenges and issues that are hard to navigate for families. And oftentimes the family member that is behaving differently from all the other family members is the one that feels left out and lost and in some cases unfairly judged or criticized or put upon for their feelings. And

Lisa: Agree.

Gabe: You have that in your family. You are the odd duck in your family. And I’m asking you how you coped with it and still got through to everybody. And you gave some excellent answers, some excellent answers of how to avoid, et cetera. Those were all perfect. OK, what’s the flipside of that? What’s the advice do you have for people that don’t want to use that advice? And your answer seems to be the advice that you gave originally as the only advice that’s out there. There’s no second chance. If you don’t use that advice, you’re a fool. Your advice so far has been excellent. What advice do you have for people that don’t want to whatever semantic argument you want to make, don’t that want to mislead, lie, trick? My question is, what advice do you have for people that want to tell their loved ones how they felt about the deceased, knowing that their family will not like the answer, but they want to do it? Don’t say they don’t have to. Don’t say they shouldn’t. They want to do it. They want to tell their family, look, I don’t care that he’s dead.

Lisa: Do we have any explanation for why they want to do this?

Gabe: They didn’t like the guy. Maybe he was abusive towards them or she was hurtful to them and they, for their own mental health, are getting sick and tired of hearing how great the deceased was, knowing that that person hurt them in some very traumatizing way and also, not for nothing, they now look around at their family and they think, well, you’re clearly not on my side, considering that person is now a hero.

Lisa: In this scenario, does the surrounding family know the back story and are deliberately ignoring it, or does the surrounding family not know?

Gabe: No, of course they know and chances are this person was dismissive, emotionally abusive, abusive, etc. to them as well. For example, much how it was in your family, your grandfather wasn’t any nicer to the other members of your family. They just, for whatever reason, didn’t cut him off.

Lisa: I never cut him off, I just didn’t have a relationship with him, and it wasn’t that he was mean, it’s just he was drunk. What you’re describing is a family where the abuse is understood. Everybody knows about it and someone is actively denying the truth of the abuse to someone. So in your scenario, let’s say Uncle Bob abused Jimmy when he was a child and now Mary is talking about Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob has died. Mary and Jimmy are talking. Mary knows well that Uncle Bob abused Jimmy and is now saying nice things about Uncle Bob. 

Gabe: Yes.

Lisa: Your question is, what should Jimmy say to Mary about Uncle Bob?

Gabe: Yes.

Lisa: But again, Mary knows that Uncle Bob was abusive and she’s saying this stuff anyway. What she’s actively denying the abuse? She’s saying all of these nice things, even though she knows this back story?

Gabe: Yes, much like.

Lisa: Ok, but if someone is actually doing that, then they clearly don’t care about you or your thoughts or your feelings. No one cares about how Jimmy feels about this. Mary is being actively mean to poor Jimmy, so I don’t think Jimmy owes her anything.

Gabe: Well, first off, Jimmy doesn’t owe her anything, I’m saying that Jimmy wants to advocate for himself. He wants to remind everybody that, hey, this person wasn’t so great. I think you’ve forgotten that.

Lisa: Ok, well, why doesn’t he say that?

Gabe: Jimmy well can. I keep asking you, how do you recommend that Jimmy remind people that this happened and this is why he feels this way?

Lisa: Exactly that way, he says, look, I understand that you all had a different relationship with this person, but this is the relationship I had and therefore I don’t really feel like saying any nice stuff right now.

Gabe: And then how does Jimmy handle it when the family turns on him, because, for example, you didn’t choose to say that because in your words, your family would come after you.

Lisa: You are completely misunderstanding this.

Gabe: Ok, then please explain it better.

Lisa: Jimmy has three options, he can either just bite his tongue and wait for it to be over. He can get up and leave and not participate, or he can say, look, stop it.

Gabe: Again, I understand that there are multiple options. That’s but I want you to respond to the option that I’m saying that Jimmy wants to choose, and your answer to that is always, well, Jimmy can choose different options.

Lisa: I don’t think the option he’s choosing is a good one.

Gabe: That doesn’t matter. That’s not the question that you were asked.

Lisa: Ok, the question is, what should he say? He should say exactly what I just said. Look, I did not have that relationship with him. He was not a good person.

Gabe: Yes, I completely agree with you, how should Jimmy handle the fallout from that?

Lisa: What is the fallout?

Gabe: The family tells Jimmy that, oh, you’re just cold hearted. You’re reacting wrong. You’re not doing it right. Why don’t you care? Oh, he asked for forgiveness for that.

Lisa: So basically, what you’re saying is the family is abusive to Jimmy.

Gabe: No, I’m not saying that at all.

Lisa: How do you figure that’s not abusive? If I tell you how I feel about someone who’s died and this is your response to what I’ve just shared with you, how is that not a horrible thing on your part? A horrible, abusive thing to say?

Gabe: I just.

Lisa: So you’re asking me how Jimmy should react to the abuse he is now suffering from his family.

Gabe: I’ve personally witnessed your family do this to you and you do not categorize it as abuse, you categorize it

Lisa: You have never witnessed this.

Gabe: Yes, I have, and you categorize it as, look, it’s not abuse, Gabe, they don’t understand, emotions run high. They see it differently. Disagreements happen. Families are complicated. By the way, I completely agree with you. All those things that you tell me are true, the fact that your aunts see your grandfather differently than you do and they tell you that is not them abusing you, it’s them disagreeing with you. It can’t possibly be abuse. When somebody disagrees with an assessment, they’re not abusing you.

Lisa: It depends.

Gabe: They just don’t think that grandpa being drunk his entire life was abusive and then telling you that is not them abusing you. And I don’t understand why you think that it is.

Lisa: Ok, but you keep flipping back and forth between this hypothetical scenario you’ve created and my family, these are not equivalents.

Gabe: Yeah, the hypothetical scenario is exactly your family.

Lisa: No, it’s not.

Gabe: Yeah, it is,

Lisa: No,

Gabe: Yes, 100 percent.

Lisa: No,

Gabe: 100 percent.

Lisa: Ok, I don’t know what to tell you. You keep flipping back and forth between these two things that are not comparable.

Gabe: They’re completely the same, the example that I’m using is an example of your family.

Lisa: My grandfather was never abusive to me.

Gabe: Being drunk is abusive, it just is. You’ve decided that abuse is only violence like hitting you. You can.

Lisa: Well, there’s other forms of abuse.

Gabe: Exactly.

Lisa: But, yeah, some sort of act of malice, yes.

Gabe: Right.

Lisa: So you think addicts being addicts is inherently abusive?

Gabe: I think that, unfortunately, the fallout of ignoring your family so that you can drink is that it causes them suffering. For example, by your own admission, your grandfather did not have a relationship with his granddaughter.

Lisa: Yeah, he made his choice.

Gabe: Right. He chose alcohol over you. I do see that as a form of abuse. I understand that you don’t. But, yeah, I look at my untreated mental illness. I look at my abuse of drugs and alcohol, and I look at the way that I treated you. I look at the way that I treated my parents, my family, my first wife, coworkers, friends. I was unequivocally abusive toward them. And anybody that says differently is just trying to make me feel better. I understand that there are extenuating circumstances with my mental illness, etc. But I had to apologize for all of them. I had to make amends for all of it because it was wrong.

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: And I believe that the way that your grandfather acted toward you and towards the people that you love caused you trauma, I don’t see how it cannot.

Lisa: All right, so?

Gabe: But you’ve decided that your grandfather was not abusive toward you.

Lisa: I think there are a lot of levels, and this is a very complicated subject. In general, I would say that no addicts being addicts is not categorically abuse because, again, that’s what addicts do.

Gabe: So they don’t have to make amends.

Lisa: No, that’s not what I’m saying, I’m just I don’t know, I feel like the term abuse is very loaded and maybe is not the appropriate question for this.

Gabe: See, once again you’re playing a semantics argument, you know exactly what I mean,

Lisa: No, I don’t actually. Why don’t you define it?

Gabe: Whenever you’re dismissive of people that you are supposed to love, whenever you break promises, whenever you lie to, hurt, misinform, whatever word you want to use that causes pain

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: To somebody who you are supposed to protect. Whenever you break a promise that is a form of abuse. I do recognize it’s on the low end. I’m not. This is the problem with spectrums. I don’t think that the type of abuse that your grandfather was guilty of is equivalent to a serial killer. That abuse is much, much, much worse. But I think that your mother would agree that he was an abusive father and so much so that she kept you away from him. You don’t think that has a ripple effect?

Lisa: You’re equating different relationships, though, parents have a very different obligation to their children than grandparents have to their grandchildren, or then you have to other members of your family. So what obligation do you feel that grandparents have to grandchildren?

Gabe: I believe that when you tell somebody that you love them unconditionally, that means you support everything they do. So when they have children, you must be willing to die for their children in the same way that you’d be willing to die for them. Could you imagine if your grandfather let you die and then explained to your mother, No, honey, I love you unconditionally. I just let your kid die. 

Lisa: OK.

Gabe: I don’t think your mother would say, I believe that you love me unconditionally. 

Lisa: OK.

Gabe: I believe that your mother would fully expect her parents to save her child. And I believe that you would, too. 

Lisa: Ok, so where’s the level, like, for example, parents are obligated to care for their children on a daily basis. Are grandparents obligated to do so? 

Gabe: No.

Lisa: OK, if you need a babysitter or someone to watch. Are they obligated to do these things?

Gabe: No, of course not.

Lisa: How often must grandparents see grandchildren to fulfill their grandparent-ly obligation?

Gabe: There’s no answer to that, and, you know, there’s no answer to that.

Lisa: Ok, well, but let’s follow it though then. So would you say.

Gabe: You had zero relationship with your grandfather.

Lisa: What obligation do grandparents have to grandchildren? Right. And you’re saying it is a form of abuse to shirk your obligations for your addiction. That when you choose your alcohol or your drugs over other people, that is a form of abuse. That’s what you’re saying.

Gabe: I am saying that when you choose alcohol over

Lisa: No, no, no. Is that what you’re saying? Yes, no?

Gabe: Yes.

Lisa: So when you miss your obligations to someone because of your addiction, that is abusive. But you’ve also just told me that grandparents do not, in fact, have obligations to their grandchildren,

Gabe: I didn’t say that.

Lisa: Then explain what obligation do they have. Wat obligations do grandparents have to their grandchildren? You just told me they have an obligation to save your life in imminent peril. OK, great. Yes, sure. What else you got? Are they obligated to spend time with you or are they obligated to take care of you? Are they obligated to give you money? What obligations do they have?

Gabe: I think they’re obligated to keep their promises, and I think that when their children want to keep their children away from you,

Lisa: Right,

Gabe: Then abuse happened.

Lisa: Ok, so they’re obligated to

Gabe: I’m sorry, I

Lisa: Stop. They’re obligated to keep promises, so therefore, if someone doesn’t make any promises, they have fulfilled all of their obligations.

Gabe: Yes, if you are a grandparent and you refuse to see your grandchild, you have fulfilled your obligations and are a good grandparent. That’s exactly what I’m saying.

Lisa: Ok, so this is why we’re doing this, this is reflective listening. So explain it to me. You cannot define for me any obligation that grandparents have that, for example, my grandfather did not meet. Therefore, how is that abusive? What obligation did he not meet?

Gabe: Your grandfather died and you don’t care. He did not meet the obligation where you love him.

Lisa: So grandparents are obligated to ensure love on part of their grandchildren.

Gabe: They’re obligated to have a relationship with you in some form. I do believe that, yes. And the very fact that he had none shows that something went very wrong. And I’m sorry that I don’t have, like, exact. You seem to want exact, but even America doesn’t have exact, you know, what’s the legal definition of pornography? We don’t know. But we know it when we see it. That’s the legal definition. 

Lisa: That’s a problem.

Gabe: I’m not saying that it’s good or bad. I’m just grandparents have obligations to their grandkids. I’m sorry. They just do. What those obligations are will change based on age and health and distance. I can’t say how often. My grandparents lived 400 miles away, so I only saw them eight times a year. Your other grandparents watched you every day. Your father’s parents, they watched you every day. The fact that when your grandmother died on your father’s side, you cried. I watched you cry.

Lisa: Yeah, we were very close.

Gabe: And this gentleman passes away and you’re just like, I’m apathetic. I don’t give a shit. And then you’re faking to help other family members that frankly, you don’t think should give a shit either. Tells me that they did not meet an obligation. And you’re saying, well, there is no obligation. They don’t have to love you. I don’t agree with that. I’m sorry. I just don’t agree with that. And I do worry about why you think that’s OK.

Lisa: I take exception with you say faking, it’s not faking to say I do not feel sad on my own behalf, I feel sad on your behalf. How is that faking?

Gabe: Because you didn’t say that to every member of your family.

Lisa: Now, again, what words would I need to use?

Gabe: I want to say again, you are not required to do so, I don’t think that Lisa Kiner did anything wrong utilizing this method.

Lisa: That’s not what you said earlier.

Gabe: Yes, I did, I said that is an excellent method, I am OK with it. What if you don’t want to use it and you decided that that was a personal attack, that the only reason that somebody wouldn’t want to use it is because you were wrong? No, that’s a choice that you made for you and

Lisa: Ok, but

Gabe: You are right to use it. You’re literally doing this thing where you’re like, oh, I just got myself a big bowl of chocolate ice cream. And I’m like, oh, Lisa, that is an excellent self care technique. Now, if somebody doesn’t want chocolate ice cream, what do you recommend? Well, first off, they’re allowed to have chocolate. I know. I know. I agree. They’re allowed to have chocolate. But what do you recommend for somebody that doesn’t want chocolate? Well, why would somebody pick that? You know, I take exception to you saying that people don’t want chocolate. 

Lisa: Ok, so?

Gabe: No, I just give me some other flavors.

Lisa: Ok, but what are the other flavors in this analogy?

Gabe: I don’t know, I was very specifically asking you.

Lisa: I would say that if you have made clear to your family members how you feel and they are consistently telling you you are wrong and denying how you feel, I don’t know that there is any advice for you. You’re stuck. These people are not doing right by you. These are not people that are showing you the appropriate amount of family love. So at this point, you can decide if you’re going to tolerate that or not.

Gabe: But we’re all going to tolerate it, Lisa. And that is not the choice that you and I have made in our own families. And you and I do not think our families are abusive toward us. We just don’t.

Lisa: Never once has a family member said to me, oh, my God, you should really care more about this. No. No one has ever said that to me.

Gabe: In so many ways, I agree with you, as you know, we’re playing devil’s advocate because that’s kind of what we do to hash this stuff out. But this idea that just because your family is like low grade abusive or does stuff that you don’t like, you and I both tolerate this in our own families. And we argue back and forth on whether or not it’s abusive. But let’s go ahead and say that it is. I’m still not going to cut my family off. You’re not going to cut your family off. What do you recommend for those people in order to keep their family and their mental health?

Lisa: Limit exposure.

Gabe: Well, OK. But you can’t limit your exposure all the time.

Lisa: Then maybe you can’t keep your mental health. You know, if you’re saying, look, my family is abusive, but I cannot limit my exposure to them. You’re in a bad position. You’re trapped. I don’t know that there is any solution for you. I would say, why can’t you limit your exposure? Surely there is a mechanism for you to do that. We all decide what we’re willing to tolerate from our families. And some things you just roll your eyes or grit your teeth. I think everyone is making these same decisions all the time with their families. And once again, it doesn’t matter that this is related to death. It’s the exact same process.

Gabe: We have talked about this a lot, how to manage your family and manage their expectations, manage your expectations within your family, how to get along, etc., and I think you’re right. Do you think that the fact that it has to do with death adds maybe another element that puts people on edge and maybe that makes it a little more difficult?

Lisa: It makes it more difficult, but the concept is the same. It makes emotion higher, it makes it harder to do. But the base concept of you have decided in your mind what you’re willing to tolerate and what you’re not. Grit your teeth or walk away. There’s only two choices. You cannot control the behavior of other people. If they continue doing this thing that you find objectionable, is that a deal breaker for you? Are you out or are you going to find a way to survive it?

Gabe: Lisa, I really like the word that you use there: survive. Like it’s a big word on one hand because like you, you survive a car crash. You survive your cruise ship sinking, you survive COVID. But survival exists on so many levels. I mean, you survive with your mental health. You survive inside the confines of your family. You survive for 39 days on an island and you outwit and outlast and outplay. It can mean many things, but I think it’s kind of a powerful word and sort of that kind of thing that you say to yourself in the mirror to psych yourself up. I will survive my family. I will survive this. I will get through to the next stage. I think we are survivors. That’s a number one thing that I say about people who are living with mental illness is that we know how to survive.

Lisa: I actually was thinking about re-recording that line, I think survivor might be a little bit too strong because it does have this connotation of life and death and maybe it’s more of a get through or tolerate or live with or make the best of.

Gabe: But listen, when you’re getting ready to go and when you’re leaving your house, your bedroom, your town, your car, and you say I will survive, that feels much better than I will tolerate. So I

Lisa: There’s more drama to it, yes.

Gabe: But I mean, we need a mantra. We need a mantra to get through these tough conversations and these things that happen.

Lisa: The thing to get through it is to say this will pass

Gabe: Yeah, this will pass.

Lisa: Here I am with my family and frankly, this isn’t part of my regular life. My regular life is at my house with my chosen family and in my day to day life. This is just the aberration I go through for visits.

Gabe: Well, listen, this, too, shall pass and I will survive, it does sound better than this too shall pass. I will tolerate.

Lisa: Yeah, yeah, little drama queen, but OK.

Gabe: I mean, well, I am what I am.

Lisa: Yes, you are, and that’s why we all love you and I love doing the show.

Gabe: Oh, I love doing the show with you, too, Lisa. I am the author of Mental Illness Is an Asshole and Other Observations. There is time to get it for the holidays, so order it now on Amazon.com. Or if you want show stickers, you want me to sign it and you want a whole bunch of cool free swag, head over to gabehoward.com right now.

Lisa: Don’t forget to listen to the outtake and we’ll see you next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person?  Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail [email protected] for details. 

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Podcast: Celebrating a COVID Christmas

We’ve made it to the end of 2020! From polarizing politics to raging fires to COVID-19, it’s been a real doozy. And now the holidays… Do we celebrate with loved ones and risk COVID or take a pass? What are the risks?

In today’s show, our guest Dr. John Grohol, founder of Psych Central, explains how this isn’t going to be our regular holiday season and that’s okay: We can easily make lemonade out of lemons.

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  Guest information for ‘Dr. John Grohol- COVID Christmas’ Podcast Episode

John M. Grohol, Psy.D. is a pioneer in online mental health and psychology. Recognizing the educational and social potential of the Internet, he founded Psych Central in 1995 as one of the first mental health and psychology sites that offered information about the symptoms and treatments of mental disorders, including interactive screening quizzes and self-help tools. Dr. Grohol transformed the way people could access mental health and psychology resources online, and his leadership has helped to break down the barriers of stigma often associated with mental health concerns, bringing trusted resources and support communities to the Internet.

He has worked tirelessly as a patient advocate to improve the quality of information available for mental health patients, highlighting quality mental health resources, and building safe, private support communities and social networks in numerous health topics.

Dr. Grohol has a Master’s degree and doctorate in clinical psychology from Nova Southeastern University and sits on the editorial board of the journal Computers in Human Behavior. He is a founding board member of the Society for Participatory Medicine, and is the author of The Insider’s Guide to Mental Health Resources Online (Guilford).

  About The Psych Central Podcast 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. To learn more about Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Dr. John Grohol- COVID Christmas’ Episode

Editor’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 the Psych Central Podcast, where guest experts in the field of psychology and mental health share thought-provoking information using plain, everyday language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Psych Central Podcast, I’m your host Gabe Howard and calling into the show today, we have Dr. John Grohol. Dr. Grohol is the founder of PsychCentral.com and a frequent guest on our show. He has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues since 1995. Dr. John, welcome to the show.

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: Great to join you again, Gabe.

Gabe Howard: Well, we’re certainly glad that you’re here. Now, pretty much every year since its inception, The Psych Central Podcast has made it a point to do an episode on surviving the holidays, managing holiday expectations, topics surrounding keeping our mental health strong during the hustle and bustle of the season. Last year when I was recording that episode, I thought to myself, haven’t we covered this ground? Can’t someone just go listen to the previous year’s episodes and get all the insight they need? Am I just repeating myself? The point being was I figured I’d skip the Surviving the Holidays episode in 2020 because I just really felt like we’d covered all the ground there was to cover. And then enter COVID. And it did create an entirely new set of issues surrounding the holidays. Now, Dr. Grohol, as a doctor and a researcher, you’ve taken the unpopular yet practical stance of recommending that people do not meet in person for the holidays.

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: Well, to clarify, we probably shouldn’t be meeting outside of our family bubble, which is just your immediate family, so if your family unit of two, three, four people, those are the people that should get together. You shouldn’t be inviting extended relatives.

Gabe Howard: In my family, we get together like once a year and we’re coming from many different states all over the country, there’s 20 of us all in my parents’ 1800 square foot ranch house. That’s the kind of thing that you think should be put on hold this year.

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: You have, you can think of as you have a risk bucket every week and every time you go out and have to interact in public, even with a mask, even with social distancing, you’re adding a little tiny water to that risk bucket. And so over the course of a week, you might have a quarter bucket full of risk that you’ve taken in terms of increasing your risk of catching COVID-19. Now, if you have a big family gathering and let’s be honest, people aren’t going to wear masks, you have to take them off to eat, to drink. So there’s no safe way of really having that kind of large family gathering without basically filling up your bucket for that week and overflowing with potential risk for catching COVID-19. And that’s what too many people have done over the past month or two, is that they’ve taken the ability to go into a restaurant or a bar indoors and take off their masks and aren’t social distancing. And that’s why we’re seeing the great rise in new cases. It’s a question of how safe do you want to be? Do you want to get out on the other side of this pandemic alive and in good health? And more importantly, do you want your family members to get on the other side of the pandemic alive and in good health? Obviously, you don’t need to just think about yourself here. You need to think about your family members and especially those who are older or have preexisting health conditions, which is most Americans actually.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that I think that is important to point out is that for better or for worse, the way that America has handled the pandemic is to let each state decide, well, really for itself on how to handle it. So, for example, I’m in Ohio. My family is in Tennessee. It’s a world of difference. I don’t think Tennessee ever closed restaurants, whereas Ohio did for a period of time. So just think that it’s important to point that out because perhaps getting together in Ohio, if the entire country handled it like Ohio, might be OK. The reason that I bring this up is do you think that this is contributing to some of the unrest that’s happening in families where people in different states are looking at each other like, why are you canceling Christmas? We’ve done everything right. Why are you canceling our get together? We’ve been masking up. We’ve been prepared for this. But in reality, depending on where you live, you may have done literally nothing.

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: Let’s get to the meat of the matter. The virus doesn’t care about state policies. The virus doesn’t care about national mandates or masking mandates. The virus is going to spread any time you’re indoors with other people. And one of those people may be asymptomatic. They have no symptoms of the virus and they’re infected and they don’t know. And that’s how it’s being spread. It’s not being spread by people who have symptoms because they clearly understand, hey, wait a minute, I might have the virus. I’m going to go get a test. It’s the people who don’t have symptoms, which is most people who get the virus and especially younger people, children and young adults who get the virus typically do not show symptoms. They are active carriers of the virus, are coming into your family of 20 or 30 people. And guess what? They’re going to spread it. No one’s wearing masks. There’s no social distancing. It’s indoors. That is exactly the kind of environment the virus seems to like. 

Gabe Howard: I like what you said about the virus doesn’t care about state policies, the virus doesn’t care about politics, the virus doesn’t care about, frankly, these petty arguments. But families, well, they care very much about these things. And in previous years, whenever I’ve done surviving the holidays, it’s always, OK, you’re sitting around the table, somebody brings up an unpopular opinion. Everybody starts arguing, how do you manage your own mental health? Now we’ve got that going on. We are spread out more, but families are not in agreement about whether or not to cancel plans. And the group that is pro canceling the plans and the group that is not pro canceling the plans, they’re getting in a lot of disagreements. Do you have some mental health advice on how to manage those family disagreements so that everybody is safe?

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: We all have to understand, look, families aren’t going to agree on everything. They may not agree on politics. They may not agree on this and that and the other thing and that’s fine. That’s adults being adults. When it comes to family gathering of this nature in this extraordinary time, this is a once in a lifetime event. I still don’t think people have that centered in their minds that they think either it’s not as bad as people say it is or this is just like the seasonal flu a little bit worse or something like that? No, this is a once in a century pandemic that is very contagious, much more contagious than I think we probably initially thought. And so for families to disagree about this, that’s perfectly OK. What has to happen at that point is whenever a family member disagrees with another family member, you’re not going to convince anybody. Right? You’re not going to change people’s minds. If people don’t believe in science today or they don’t believe the scientists, you’re not going to have a discussion with them where all of a sudden they’re going to be like, oh, yeah. Now that you have shown me the scientific data, I completely understand your point of view. I mean, that’s not going to happen. So here’s what you have to do. You have to gracefully bow out of the family gathering this year.

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: It’s that simple. You have to say, look, I appreciate that you guys are all getting together. Me and my partner, we’re going to say thanks, but no thanks. We’ll join you on a Zoom call. Let’s have a Zoom call. We’ll get together virtually this year. It’s one year. We’re asking people to be safe for one Christmas, one New Year’s. I know it sounds like this is you’re taking away my freedom. Hey, look, the virus doesn’t care about your freedom. The virus will kill you, whether you’re freedom loving or you think that somehow public health officials are dedicated their careers and their lives to taking away your freedom. And if family members aren’t going to be respectful of your decision. Well, that just says something about family, right? That’s the way family is sometimes. And there’s not a lot you can do to change that interpersonal interaction over this one thing, because it’s a long-standing concern, a long standing issue in that family.

Gabe Howard: It really sounds like what you’re saying is that families disagree about things all the time and you can’t let this hit you any harder than any other political, religious, parenting, financial, whatever your family normally spends the holidays fighting about. It’s basically the same. It’s a disagreement within the family that needs managed in exactly the same way.

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: Yes, exactly, that’s exactly it.

Gabe Howard: We’ll be back in one minute after these messages.

Sponsor Message: Gabe here and I wanted to tell you about Psych Central’s other podcast that I host, Not Crazy. It’s straight talk about the world of mental illness and it is hosted by me and my ex-wife. You should check it out at PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy or your favorite podcast player.

Sponsor Message: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe Howard: And we’re back with Dr. John Grohol discussing COVID’s impact on the holiday season. John, my family canceled Christmas and I don’t get to see my family, but pretty much once a year, usually at Christmas, and this was difficult for my family to manage because I was one of those families where half of us wanted to get together and half of us didn’t. What I said to my family was, look, what if let’s say that we all get together, we all have Christmas, we all have a wonderful day, and then somebody gets COVID and gets very sick or heaven forbid, even dies. Is that the memory that we want of 2020, is that the risk that we want to take? Strangely, I wasn’t worried about the person who got sick or passed away. I was worried about what would happen to our family, the survivors. How would the survivors take it? This would extend this trauma forever. Is that a reasonable thing to be concerned about?

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: It’s one way of looking at the situation and certainly a rational and logical way of looking at it and saying, hey, what about the worst-case scenario? Because that’s how we make a lot of decisions in our lives. We look at the risk ratio and say, is it really worth, you know, going skydiving with, you know, the 0.01% chance of parachute failure or something? And some people look at that and say, nah, it’s fine, I’m more likely to get hit by lightning and they jump out of a plane and hope the parachute opens. So it’s the same kind of equation when it comes to this family gathering for this year. Do you really want to have that death or that even the illness? Because COVID is not just something that comes and then goes away after you’ve been treated. There is a significant minority of patients. I think it’s something like 20% of patients who get the illness, who have to be hospitalized and then who endure continuing symptoms for months on end after the illness has gone away. So it’s not necessarily just something that you get and you get over.

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: So to introduce not only the possibility of death, but also the possibility of a chronic health problem from getting COVID-19. Once you put all that into a bundle and look at it, you can say, wow, like I really hadn’t thought of it that way. And I really don’t necessarily want to be responsible for another person’s death or illness or any kind of inconvenience just because I need to see their face to face versus over a Zoom chat. And that’s the important thing. We can still get together. We’re just asking people to consider doing it, you know, virtually rather than in person this year because of the astounding case rates we’re seeing. It’s just it’s an upward number. That’s it’s unbelievable. It’s far worse than spring. And some health experts warned people that the winter was going to be difficult and this could happen. And unfortunately, we’re seeing that. So I think it’s in everyone’s best interest to really take that long view and to say, hey, do I want anybody else’s health problems on my conscious?

Gabe Howard: John, my family agrees with you, I agree with you, and I think many families agree. So let’s talk about making lemonade out of lemons. We’ve now decided that we’re not going to get together. Now, you’ve been alluding in this episode that you can get together via Zoom, but of course, you can’t exchange presents over Zoom. Right? technology

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: Sure you can.

Gabe Howard: The technology just is not there yet.

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: Sure you can. Of course you can. Why are you saying you can’t exchange? You can send the presents a week or two ahead of time. People have done this for years prior to this where they live overseas or they live in a situation where they can’t get away and they can’t physically be there. So you just have to make allowances. You have to think things through a little bit and spend a little extra time and effort putting together a care package, basically of small presents if you want, or stick to gift cards, which you can even send virtually now.

Gabe Howard: You just email those things right over

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: Yes,

Gabe Howard: That’s an excellent point.

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: Look, it’s not the same Christmas as you’re used to. I get that, OK? This is not going to be a normal Christmas, even if you make the choice to get together. It’s a weird Christmas. It’s a weird holiday season. It’s going to be a weird, it’s going to be, unfortunately, a long and difficult winter until the vaccine gets into widespread use and people actually sign up to take it. You’re looking at summertime before you get the numbers necessary to really combat the virus.

Gabe Howard: I really like what you said about it’s not going to be your typical Christmas, it’s not going to be your typical New Year’s, it’s not going to be your typical holiday, but it can still be a good one. And it reminds me of when my sister was in the military. Now, she was in the military before Zoom was a thing. But the reason that I’m bringing this up is we obviously wanted to see my sister over the holiday. We wanted to spend Christmas with her. We love her very much. And it was the planning that allowed us to have memorable Christmases. Now, to send her stuff in Iraq, we had to mail it literally two months in advance. So, we were planning Christmas in October and November to make sure that it got to her and then she would get it. And then she didn’t have a guaranteed time to call. There was, you know, time differences and obviously she was busy being a soldier and all. So, we’d all have to sit around the phone from like noon to eight because that was her window. And actually, that window was like 8 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. It was a very difficult window, but we did it and my sister did the exact same thing from Iraq where she mailed us her presents. Actually, she sent them via Amazon. So, she was much more clever than we were. But with all of that planning, we all sat around a speakerphone and we all opened the presents that we got for my sister and that my sister got for us all together. And now all these years later, because of that effort, because of that planning and because we understood that this was the situation, we have a lot of memories about it. And of course, my sister says things like when I was in the military, we didn’t have video conferencing. It’s now a happy memory. If people get on board early and recognize that, do you think that will improve the outcome of their holidays this year, Dr. John?

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: Yeah, absolutely, and it’s important to have these conversations ahead of time, like right now to be talking about Christmas and as soon as possible deciding what you as an entire extended family are going to do. And if some people are uncomfortable with not participating in a face to face gathering, as we’re recommending they don’t, getting those presents in the mail as soon as possible or just thinking about other ways, sending a card or with a gift card in it or something of that nature might be sufficient this year. Again, this is a very unusual time. It’s a once in a lifetime situation. Just have to go with the flow, roll with it, because it’s not something you’re probably going to have to worry about in 2021 if we finally get the virus under control with all the vaccines coming down the roads, look at it as an unusual situation and try and be a little bit more flexible than you ordinarily might be. I understand families can get into these rigid patterns and they don’t ever want to change the traditions. And they think like the traditions are so important. And look, they are to a point, but traditions shouldn’t trump common sense. And that’s what we’re asking people to engage in a little bit more of when you’re seeing such a rise in cases that you need to use your common sense and say indoors, no social distancing, no masks. This is what the virus likes. We probably shouldn’t do it.

Gabe Howard: Dr. John, as always, thank you so much for being here. Do you have any last words for our listeners before we jet on out of here?

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: Yeah, look, it’s Christmas time, I get it, you can still enjoy the season, you can still go for walks down the street, you can still enjoy shopping virtually, if not in person, because they might need to close the shops again or whatnot. It’s a difficult time and we’re all going through this. The coronavirus is the enemy and we are all lined up against fighting this enemy and we have to be united in that fight. We can’t have people saying, oh, I don’t believe a coronavirus isn’t an enemy. It’s not such a bad virus. No, it is a bad virus. It kills people. It kills a thousand Americans a day. It will be over the quarter million mark when we recorded this. We have to treat it seriously. And you do that by making these small personal sacrifices for one year and by taking personal responsibility for the decisions and the behaviors you engage in because you have the ability. We all have the ability, each and every one of us in helping to combat this enemy, to fight against the coronavirus and the spread of the coronavirus. And if we are united in doing this, we will eventually be successful. But if we ignore the science and we ignore the good scientific advice, we are just going to contribute to more American deaths, more of your neighbors getting sick, and in this case, potentially some of your family members coming down with the virus. And that’s something I don’t think any one of us wants. We don’t want to see a loved one in the ICU on a ventilator. That would be really the worst way of ending 2020 is to have that to happen. I would just ask our listeners to consider these things as they’re making their plans for this year.

Gabe Howard: And when they’re making their plans work together with their loved ones to make the second-best memories that they can, I am not an optimistic person. But I have to tell you that some of my best memories were when things did not go as planned and we all pulled together as a family and made it work anyway. I really do believe that is an opportunity that all of America has, really all of the world has. But all of America right now has the opportunity to really make this a very unique and memorable and still happy holiday season.

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: Absolutely, absolutely. I cannot emphasize what you just said enough, and we’re all going to have these memories of the pandemic of 2020, we’re all going to remember what we did and how we got through it. And it’s going to be stories that we tell not only our children and our children, tell their children it’s something that’s going to be passed down for generations and how you handled it, how you got through it, how you made it through the other side alive and kept your family safe. I wish everybody a very merry Christmas, a very happy holiday. I hope everybody stays safe and still finds a way to enjoy the holidays.

Gabe Howard: John, I wish the absolute same for you as well.

John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: Thank you.

Gabe Howard: To all of our listeners, please have a very happy holiday season. My name is Gabe Howard and I’m the author of Mental Illness Is an Asshole, which is available on Amazon.com. Or you can buy it directly for me. I’ll sign it and I’ll throw in Psych Central Podcast swag. Just head over to gabehoward.com. It makes a great holiday gift. Wherever you download his podcast, please subscribe. Also, please rank and review. Use your words and tell other people why they should tune in as well. And remember, you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling any time anywhere simply by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. We’ll see everyone next week.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to The Psych Central Podcast. Want your audience to be wowed at your next event? Feature an appearance and LIVE RECORDING of the Psych Central Podcast right from your stage! For more details, or to book an event, please email us at [email protected]. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/Show or on your favorite podcast player. Psych Central is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website run by mental health professionals. Overseen by Dr. John Grohol, Psych Central offers trusted resources and quizzes to help answer your questions about mental health, personality, psychotherapy, and more. Please visit us today at PsychCentral.com.  To learn more about our host, Gabe Howard, please visit his website at gabehoward.com. Thank you for listening and please share with your friends, family, and followers.

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Podcast: Family Perspective on Mental Illness

What’s it like growing up with a sibling with mental illness? In today’s show, we hear it straight from Gabe’s little sister Debbie, who shares what it was like living with Gabe well before anyone knew he had bipolar disorder. 

Join us for a great discussion on mental health issues in families. While it’s always hard, there is often a silver lining.

(Transcript Available Below)

Please Subscribe to Our Show: And We Love Written Reviews! 

About The Not Crazy podcast Hosts

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 Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Family Mental Illness” Episode

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

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe: Welcome to this week’s episode of the Not Crazy podcast, I’m your host, Gabe Howard, and with me, as always, is the awe-inspiring Lisa Kiner.

Debbie: Yeah, I don’t think so, I’m not Lisa.

Gabe: Well, then, who are you?

Debbie: I’m Debbie, your little sister.

Gabe: Oh, my little sister is on the show, you know, we pick on you a lot, but where is Lisa?

Debbie: She left.

Gabe: She’s left before and she’s always come back. So, I think we’ll be OK here. For all of our listeners, she has only left for one episode. I promise she will be back next week. I wanted to have Debbie because as longtime listeners of the show know my little sister and well, really my family, but definitely my little sister and my mom both take a huge beating. And since my mother wasn’t available, Debbie gets to help co-host the Not Crazy podcast. Debbie, welcome.

Debbie: Well, thank you for having me. I will do my best.

Gabe: Now, Lisa usually has a quote, have you prepared a quote for the listeners?

Debbie: Don’t eat yellow snow?

Gabe: All right, Lisa definitely puts more effort into it.

Debbie: Well, maybe if you would have given me a little advance notice?

Gabe: Oh, yeah, advance notice is really not part of the, part of the process, we really like to put people on the spot and then just be like, ha ha, gotcha.

Debbie: Yes, as your text this morning indicated.

Gabe: We’re part of the gotcha, the gotcha podcast media. We’re fake podcasts. No,

Debbie: Wow.

Gabe: I’m just kidding. We’re as real as they can be. We can even say things like bullshit, but not the F word. So now, you know, moving forward. Debbie, I wanted to have you on here because we talk about our families a lot, Lisa and me. We just, we see things through our experiences. But you have a unique perspective because you watched me grow up as my younger sister. Now, Debbie is five and a half years younger. She is my baby sister. I think that gets maybe missed a little bit. So, when I was 14 and going through a really troubling times, you would have been eight.

Debbie: Something like that,

Gabe: Does the math hold?

Debbie: Don’t make me math. Come on.

Gabe: We all went to public school. We’re not good at this. Education was not a priority in the Howard household in the early 90s.

Gabe: Debbie, what was it like? What do you remember about your big brother, Gabe? I know you’ve talked before about how you looked up to me. I was just your big brother. There was no concept of mental illness or bipolar disorder or even a problem. But you do remember some less than positive things from our childhood that had to do with me and our parents. Tell that story, or any of the stories.

Debbie: Like you said, I was very young and self-involved, my life was my best friend and I think I spent more time at her house than our house. However, I do remember a couple incidences that, looking back, can only be attributed to being an untreated bipolar. I know there was the time and it was when we were living at Karl Road, so I was in elementary school.

Gabe: Yeah, that would put me in high school.

Debbie: And I can remember you did something. You got in trouble for something, I don’t know what it was, but I could hear you down in the basement and you were just heart wrenching sobs, screams. Like not angry screams, but like just some heart wrenching, like being down there was going to kill you or something. And.

Gabe: Now, my bedroom was in the basement, so

Debbie: Yes.

Gabe: We should point that out, mom and dad did not put me in the basement. I was in the basement. That’s where my room was.

Debbie: Yes,

Gabe: Yeah.

Debbie: Your room is down there. You were probably just told to go to your room for something, but I could hear you upstairs. I remember turning to Mom and like what’s going on? You know, what’s wrong with Gabe? And she’s like, this doesn’t concern you. Story of my life being divided. Anything that’s not pleasant, we don’t share. So, I was just told to go outside because I couldn’t take the screams and the cries anymore. But I honestly don’t know what happened.

Gabe: And I don’t think anybody else does either. One of the things that I remember from my perspective, of course, is something would happen and the something that would happen, would always be, frankly, uneventful. It’d be stupid, you know, had dessert when I wasn’t supposed to, you know, got into the Little Debbie snacks. Oh, the horror, you know, back talked. It would always be something small. This would always end up in the same place with me feeling dejected, abandoned, alone. I think other people would just bounce back. Other kids would just be like, well, got caught, you know, time to move on and got to be better at this in the future. Other families, I don’t think went through this, but I was always and, Debbie, I can’t even put into words these memories of just being alone, rocking back and forth, screaming. And I felt that nobody was ever going to love me ever again. And from Mom and Dad’s perspective, they were just like, well, this is a temper tantrum. From my perspective, the death of my family occurred because I was, I was now, I don’t know, like excommunicated from the family. And it would take hours for this to work itself out or wind down. And then we’d all just go along like nothing ever happened. That was how I always remembered it. I was abandoned and alone for, you know, four to five hours screaming in the basement. Mom and Dad would ignore me. My mood would eventually cycle and then we’d all pretend nothing happened. What was it like for you? This cycle playing out over and over and over again for you to watch without anybody ever telling you why this was occurring?

Debbie: Well, you begin to think it’s normal, it’s the Leave it to Beaver, we don’t talk about anything that is uncomfortable. We don’t air our dirty laundry to others. You know, it’s.

Gabe: But we don’t even air it to ourselves,

Debbie: Well, yeah.

Gabe: It’s really weird that I find myself here. Like, hey, Gabe, you can discuss all the things that we screwed up in your childhood live on the air on a podcast listened to by tens of thousands of people? No problem. But all the way back then, Debbie would say, hey, what’s wrong with my big brother and Mom and Dad would be like, don’t worry about it. We’re not going to discuss it. That’s a weird dichotomy, right?

Debbie: I think it was more along the lines of you were in trouble, if you don’t want to be in trouble too, then you need to mind your own business. This doesn’t involve you.

Gabe: Yeah, but nobody else behaves this way. When you got in trouble, you didn’t go to your room and scream, cry for six hours.

Debbie: No, no. I might have cried, but that’s normal.

Gabe: Did Billy do this? You’re the baby, you’re the youngest. I have a middle brother. Did Billy ever behave this way when he got in trouble?

Debbie: I remember one time when he got in trouble and Mom went to spank him with the infamous wooden paddle,

Gabe: Yes, the Board of Education.

Debbie: And every time she went to swing, he made this high pitch funny noise and it got her to where she was bursting out laughing and she could not spank him because he would jump up like a cartoon character and make a funny noise. And she was laughing too hard. I remember that. So that’s what you got to do.

Gabe: I’m the oldest, you’re the youngest, there was three of us, and when I looked at the two of you, my younger siblings, you didn’t have these problems with Mom and Dad. And as an adult, looking back, it’s because the two of you knew when to shut up. I could not get out of the feedback loop. Every time I opened my mouth, Dad would ground me for another week and I kept going for so long. Mom pointed out to dad, we’re into years now. Gabe is grounded for years. She was finally able to separate us. But, Debbie, this had to be awful to watch. I mean, me, Mom and Dad, we fought my entire childhood until I finally left home and I left home before I graduated high school because the arguing was so incredible and so pointless and so unproductive. Really was just so unproductive that I had to leave. Why were you told that I left home? All of a sudden your older brother is gone and he’s moving in with grandma and grandpa and now you and Billy are left behind. So, did Mom and Dad ever sit you down and be like, hey, we got rid of Gabe?

Debbie: No, they didn’t. It was just Gabe’s going to move in with Grandma and Grandpa, and I’m sure I asked why, but I don’t have any recollection of an actual answer. It was just Gabe’s going to live with Grandma and Grandpa. I was like, well, I didn’t know that was an option. Grandma gives me spaghetti O’s.

Gabe: Yeah, I’m the favorite it’s only an option for me. Was that ever addressed in the family?

Debbie: I don’t think so.

Gabe: I was gone, did you wonder why?

Debbie: I mean, I did, but, you know, I was given your email address so we could keep in contact.

Gabe: But that wouldn’t even be right away because I didn’t get e-mail until my second year.

Debbie: Trying to think if we wrote letters like physical letters, because, you know, that’s what people did in our olden days.

Gabe: In our olden days? Wow, wow,

Debbie: Yeah.

Gabe: Gabe and Debbie are so old, we remember when there was no Internet.

Debbie: That’s accurate. We’re older than Google.

Gabe: We’re older than Google. Wow, wow, we’re older than Yahoo!

Debbie: Yeah.

Gabe: So here’s another interesting thing, let’s talk about that for a moment. So I got the great idea, Mom and Dad, I stole from Mom and Dad. Let’s just open that, like, right up. I want to own that. I would get into Dad’s wallet, Mom’s purse. I would figure out where they kept money. This is a long time ago. There was more of a cash economy back then. So people kept cash on them a lot more than they do now. And I would steal the money and I would use it to buy pizza. Basically, I stole money for food.

Debbie: In your defense, I do remember a time that I looked in coat pockets and found.

Gabe: But that was for like change,

Debbie: Yeah,

Gabe: Did you ever go in Mom’s purse?

Debbie: No, no, no purse off limits.

Gabe: You ever go in Dad’s wallet?

Debbie: No.

Gabe: No, no, that was a

Debbie: Didn’t matter whose coat it was, I did look in coat pockets.

Gabe: That was a spare change thing. Thank you for trying to make my. Yeah, it was not a good scam. Mom and dad knew how much money they had in their wallets. And the first time you did it, they were just like I thought I had more. But, hey, maybe I stopped and picked up milk on the way. But eventually they set me up. I got caught. They knew that I was stealing the money. Mom and Dad started locking their bedroom door so that I could not steal the money anymore. OK, no problem. This can be solved by shoving your tiny baby sister through the master bath window and having her unlock the bedroom door. You can steal all the money that you want, then just lock it all back up. And when mom and dad are like, where is this money going? They think, well, it can’t be stolen because after all, we had it locked up in our bedroom. Nobody could get in. Now, this worked perfectly. We never got caught. We confessed to this as adults years later. Perfect plan. But here’s the interesting thing. We did this together

Debbie: Oh, yeah.

Gabe: And we didn’t get caught. So Mom and Dad didn’t have any parenting to do. We were adults when this came out. But they still very much believe that this was an example of me corrupting you. Why is that?

Debbie: Because I was too young to know any better,

Gabe: Really?

Debbie: Hey, if I was small enough to fit through a bathroom window, I was young.

Gabe: First off, you’re tiny, I think you would fit through that window now.

Debbie: Well, maybe not now I’ve got 30 pounds of pandemic weight on.

Gabe: Ok, before the pandemic, I think you would have fit through that window,

Debbie: Maybe.

Gabe: I know you only have one kid, Debbie, so this is difficult, but, you know, go into the future and pretend you got a second kid and both of them together, break into your room and steal money. Do you just blame one kid and give the other kid a complete pass, or are you mad at both of them?

Debbie: I would be mad at both, but I’d probably be more upset with the older one simply because they’re older and should be providing a good example. Even if the younger one was like, hey, let’s do this, the older one should be like, no, that that’s wrong.

Gabe: See what a mess this is.

Debbie: Yeah,

Gabe: See how hard it is to be me? Not only did I have a horrible illness that nobody noticed, but I was also responsible for helping raise my siblings. My siblings were a mess because I was their example. And Mom and Dad are like, wow, I can’t believe they had to watch this. You know, Debbie, I think you turned out pretty good. You’re the only college graduate, 10 years in the military. You’ve only been married once. I mean, just. You’re welcome. You’re welcome.

Debbie: Well, I always looked up to you.

Gabe: The example that I set for you was clearly perfect.

Debbie: Well, you know, you learn a lot from others, whether it be what to do or what not to do.

Gabe: Wow. Oh, I, I hate you so much right now,

Debbie: I’m sorry. It’s true, though. I’m not saying that I looked to you and say, OK, I don’t want to do that. No, that’s not true. I actually have always looked up to you. I still look up to you to this day.

Gabe: Well, I appreciate that, but it’s for what not to do, right?

Debbie: Well, no, but there are things that you learn what not to do from others. It was one of the things of when I was in the military, I had gotten some bad leaders and I was like, well, I’m going to learn from this leader. I’m learning that I do not want to do that when I become one. And I think that’s everybody. You know, you learn from your environment regardless.

Gabe: So we’ve established that you’re hanging on to this idea that, yeah, Gabe was kind of screwed up as a kid, our family didn’t handle it very well. Mom and Dad didn’t talk about it. But then you became an adult, I got diagnosed and then our family really embraced it. That is the segue into now adult Debbie. Be honest, before I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, did you have any understanding of severe and persistent mental illness whatsoever? Did you know the signs? Did you understand suicidality? Would you have been a good advocate for somebody who was sick before I was diagnosed?

Debbie: No, because my only knowledge was Hollywood.

Gabe: Yeah, and they do, they do a bang-up job,

Debbie: Oh, yeah, well, Hollywood and then when it comes to suicide, my only thing is don’t do it or you’ll go to hell.

Gabe: Oh, yeah, that’s fantastic.

Debbie: The Catholic upbringing, you know.

Gabe: Yeah, yeah, there’s a lot to unpack there, but then I got diagnosed and it became personal. It wasn’t just this nebulous concept of mental illness and suicidality. You weren’t talking about it in the abstract anymore. All of those words now applied to Gabe. They applied to your brother. They applied to somebody that you knew and loved and had a personal relationship. Did this change the way that you investigated and learned about mental health, mental illness and suicide?

Debbie: Oh, absolutely. For starters, when I first learned of your diagnosis, and you’d sent me links, you’re like, go read about it, go attend this class. And I would do that. And I’m like, what is this? It just doesn’t make sense to me. And I learned more actually reading your blogs, maybe because they’re so raw and unfiltered and because there are certain things that you and I, we just don’t talk about. I will admit that I skipped some of the blogs because there’s still some things I don’t need to know when it comes to my big brother. Some stories I know from listening to podcasts, and I can’t burn them out of my head, but.

Gabe: Yes. Hey, listen, if it makes you feel any better, the day that Mom told me about you buying French lingerie and how expensive it was and when Mom told me that, Debbie, tell the French lingerie story.

Debbie: Oh, my gosh, so I was stationed in Germany. Friends came to visit and we decided to do a night overnight trip to Paris because it was a train ride away. And while there, I was like, you know what? I am going to buy some nice French lingerie to have because I can. Because, you know, it just seemed like that was my picture of French people. Anyways.

Gabe: So you spent how much on this lingerie set?

Debbie: I don’t even remember, but it was.

Gabe: A ghastly amount,

Debbie: It was way too much. Yes.

Gabe: And so Mom is telling me this story about my baby sister going to Paris and purchasing French lingerie, and she’s telling the story as, oh, can you believe that your sister paid so much and went to the sale rack? And when Mom was done, I said, why is Debbie buying lingerie? And Mom said, Well, I. And Mom’s like your sister is grown and she is a woman. I’m like, I don’t want to hear that. This is too much, I don’t, and we change the subject. So years later, poor Debbie is listening to a podcast on hypersexuality and starts hearing some of these stories. And she’s like, why did I have to hear this? And when we were talking about it, I said to Debbie, Well, there is that time you bought lingerie. And Debbie is like you think those are equivalent? And I’m like, well, kind of. I think that the trauma might be the same. We’ll be back in a minute after we hear from our sponsor.

Announcer: Interested in learning about psychology and mental health from experts in the field? Give a listen to the Psych Central Podcast, hosted by Gabe Howard. Visit PsychCentral.com/Show or subscribe to The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player.

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Gabe: We’re back talking mental health with my baby sister, Debbie Wyatt. One of the things that you told me is that having this knowledge really allowed you to help many of your students. Now, the average onset of mental illness is 16 to 24. So, Debbie, as a college professor, you are right in line with the average age of symptoms coming out. And you’ve been very helpful to many of your students who, well, frankly, need guidance because there’s just not a lot of guidance out there.

Debbie: Yeah, as a college instructor, I teach a bunch of different classes and I also teach emergency medical response. And some of my classes, they have strict attendance policies. And in the past, when I first started teaching so students might say, oh, well, I had to miss these days, I just wasn’t feeling well. And I’m like, oh, excuses, excuses. I had the military mentality, the army mentality of, you know, just get it done, do what you have to do. Don’t be late. It’s kind of drilled in which was hard to overcome. And especially, you know, I’ve got my own standards, like, well, if I could do it, you can do it.

Gabe: Right.

Debbie: But that’s not the case. Everybody is not the same. Everybody doesn’t test the same. Everybody doesn’t learn the same. I mean, I learned that in college. You know, you’ve got auditory learners, kinesthetic learners, visual learners. Some people can only learn one way, while others can learn all the ways or a variety of which. And I came to learn as I got to know more about mental health and your life. So, whenever students would approach me and be like, look, I couldn’t come to class yesterday, like if they would say, so I just I couldn’t get out of bed, past me would have been like, well, that you missed class then. But now I’m like, OK, talk to me. Of course, if they don’t talk to me, I can’t help them. I can’t work with them if they don’t have a conversation with me. So, I had a student in my current class who emailed me. It was like, I know I have not been in class. I’ve been going through some mental health issues. That’s what the email said. And can I still pass this class to graduate this year? Now, the past may have been like, no, there’s nothing you can do. But now I know it’s like, you know what? Especially during a pandemic, sometimes even me who I do not have a mental illness. But I’ve experienced so much anxiety this year since the shutdown that I can understand it even more than just what I’ve learned from you and from your influence. So I emailed him back. I’m like, absolutely, do what you can, you know, what can I do to help? We’ve got resources on campus. Sent an email saying, contact this person, this person, or if all else fails, you could qualify for a hardship retroactive withdrawal to where having a bad semester due to your mental health will not affect your grades. You shouldn’t have to because you can’t help that.

Gabe: One of the things that many people with mental illness push up against is that we don’t learn about those things, we don’t learn about the retroactive hardship withdrawal. People aren’t racing to help us, whereas we see our peers, they write in and they say, you know, hey, I got in a car accident, I broke my leg or I was diagnosed with anything and any physical illness. And that really threw me through a loop. Or I’ve spent a lot of time with this or even I had a loved one who was moved into hospice in this. And we see all of these things and people are just coming out of the woodwork to help make life better for them. And I firmly support that. Like, I like this about the world. I don’t know when we got so the real world doesn’t give second chances. That’s bullshit. I watch sports all the time. There’s second chances all the time. There’s four downs in football. That’s four chances. Right. The world doesn’t give second, that’s not true. People file bankruptcy all the time and go on to lead great lives. I just people get divorced and remarried. That’s a second chance. Where did we get this idea that the world doesn’t give second chances? But putting that aside for a moment, I am firmly for that for people with mental health issues because it’s a real issue, just like being diagnosed with a physical health condition.

Gabe: But we don’t get it. And what happens, Debbie, of course, is the problem is compounded. We come to you and we say we’re having a mental health issue. Can you help us? And you say, no, this is the real world. Well, you’re our instructor. We believe that what you are saying is now true, that the real world doesn’t care about my condition and will not help me. So, unfortunately, a lot of people in your position have just told me, a vulnerable student looking at an authority figure like, you know, Professor Debbie. And we’re like, well, we might as well not try to get a job. My professor said, the world doesn’t care about me. I might as well not try to graduate because my professor said the world doesn’t care about me. Do you see the difference? And what are your thoughts on that? Because your students do kind of look at you like, you know, doughy, wide eyed and, well, stupid, and you’re guiding them in a much better direction. That’s going to ensure that they’re not just sitting at home saying, well, some professor told me that the real world won’t help me, so I’m not even going to try.

Debbie: You know, and unfortunately, there are professors and teachers out there who, in my opinion, shouldn’t even be in the teaching profession if they have that type of mentality. I know exactly what you mean and especially at the college level, because at universities, the people who are teaching a lot of the classes, especially ones with doctorates, they are experts in the field, whatever it is, you know, psychology, physics, chemistry, whatnot, they’re the experts. This is what they do. But they’ve never been taught how to teach, never been taught how to work with students and their needs. And I know here at my university, we do work on that. Our president has sent out emails, the dean of students has sent out emails, especially now. And I really do think the silver lining of this pandemic is that it has brought more people understanding that mental health is a serious thing and a lot of people are affected by it. And we need to do our part to contribute to the health portion of it, not the illness portion of it. And by laying down those strict guidelines like, no, I’m not going to let you take this test. No, I’m not going to work with you on that. That doesn’t help the student learn. It doesn’t help the student in life. Working with them, doing what you can on your part to help them succeed is what’s important. And I, I know that there are other instructors and professors out there who feel the same way. Unfortunately, it’s not all of them.

Gabe: I obviously understand this concept of the world has to work the same way for people with mental illness as it does for people without mental illness. I certainly wouldn’t want to go to a doctor that the only reason they got their medical license is because they just kept claiming that they had mental illness or legitimately had mental illness. So they kept getting passed over and over again. I just want to take a second and talk about that for a moment, because obviously, just like physical health challenges can prevent you from doing the things that you want to do. Mental health challenges can prevent you from doing the things that you want to do. How do you balance that? Because I know, Debbie, that you don’t want an EMT that just got a pass because they had, you know, bipolar disorder. I don’t and I don’t want anybody listening to this to think, oh, well, I can get anything I want if I just claim that I have bipolar disorder or legitimately have bipolar, just like like

Debbie: It’s not getting what you want, it’s getting the opportunity to be able to learn to the best of your ability. It’s why we have students with disabilities resources here, for instance, you know, and this goes into more cognitive features. But I had a student one time who she could not read a test question and understand what it said. So she did not do well on tests, but because she went to the students with disabilities resources and got registered there, she therefore was given the permission to have somebody read her the questions because she could visualize it if it was read to her and she could understand it. And this goes for lots of things. I had a student one time who because I had a strict attendance policy, she had registered with students with disability services. So they don’t exactly tell you. They just say, please allow for the student to have more absences than normal. And the student came to talk to me is like, look, sometimes I just can’t get out of bed. You don’t have to report me. I promise you I will be here when I can. And I immediately I’m like, I’m here for you. You know, what can we do to make sure that you learn what you need to learn from this class? That’s all it is. It’s about giving the students the opportunity to learn by their best means.

Gabe: There’s a famous Einstein quote that I always butcher, and it basically says that if the test for intelligence was climbing a tree, all fish would believe they were stupid. And, you know, I think about that a lot because, you know, oftentimes the way that we design learning is for the largest common denominator.

Debbie: Mm hmm,

Gabe: Right? We’re designing learning for everybody.

Debbie: You teach to the middle.

Gabe: Yeah, well, but there’s got to be somebody that’s on the margins. There’s got to be somebody that doesn’t learn that way that could still absolutely do incredible things if they were given the opportunity. I appreciate what you’re saying, because I know that there’s a lot of listeners that want to try college. They want to try getting a job. They want to try doing a lot of things. But so many people in their lives have told them that it’s not for them, it’s not for them. They can’t do it. The real world won’t help you. There’s no such thing as accommodations. Nobody’s going to give you a second chance that, you know, then there’s all kinds of other stigma and discrimination that comes into it. You’re too emotional. You’re too whiny. You need to be babied and mocking and on and on and on. And I just feel so bad because at one point all of that stuff applied to Gabe. It all applied to Gabe Howard. And if I wouldn’t have had other people to balance that out and say, no, Gabe, that’s not true, you need to get back on the horse. You need to try again. You need to start over and find where you fit. I would be what? Probably sitting on your couch right now. I mean, it’s always the baby sister that ends up taking in the ne’er do well sibling. But I heard that a lot. And those voices are loud. Those voices are loud and you already feel like garbage. What advice do you have to people listening that are afraid to take that step because they’re afraid of running into the people like you described, the people who are going to be like, look, I’m not helping you. If you can’t do it, screw you, you fail. How do they advocate for themselves? What can they do if they run into the not Debbie, but the opposite of Debbie?

Debbie: I’m really glad that you asked me that, because especially from a university point of view, what I can say is if you’ve got something going, go talk to your teacher, you know, at the beginning of class, introduce yourself, let them know that you really want to learn, that you’re there. Whatever you feel comfortable telling them, you, by all means, do not need to tell them a thing. But I find that I’m more willing to work with somebody who is going to open up a line of communication with me, because if I hear absolutely nothing from a student and they don’t drop me a line to say anything, then it’s like, well, I mean, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know how I can help you. And I do my best to reach out to students as well. It’s hard in the online setting, but if you’ve got something going on, talk to your teacher. Let them know. If you are at a university, look up students with disabilities. It’ll be called something along those lines. At the bare minimum, at all public universities, I would assume private as well. But I don’t know. I don’t work in a private institution.

Debbie: But look that up. You would be surprised how much it can be helpful in your college career, because, for instance, if you get test anxiety, you sit down, you get that time test, 30 minutes. Oh, my goodness, I’m never going to get through this. And by the time you’ve gone through the mental block of dealing with a 30 minute time limit, ten minutes have gone by. So now you have a 20 minute time limit and that can be accommodated for, you know, they can offer a low stimulus environment to where you take your tests, not in the classroom, but at one of their facilities. They can offer time and a half where you get a little bit more time on the test because you’re learning and giving your knowledge the same way. It just might take you a little more time to process it, to deal with anxiety or anything. But just talk to your teachers. University specific, go see the students disabilities resource. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a disability. It just means that you will learn better with some specific accommodations. That’s all that really means.

Gabe: I like how you told people not to get hung up on words, you know, so often we’re like, well, I’m not disabled, I don’t have a disability. I fight this all the time in mental health advocacy where instead of looking to solve the problem, we’re all fighting about what to call it. Let’s not get hung up on the names of things, because once you achieve that goal, you won’t care what the name of the organization, group or department is that you went through to get to where you want to be. Not to take it away from college, Debbie, which is very, very important. But in jobs, careers, et cetera, go to human resources. Go to human resources, sit down and say, hey, look, I need this extra accommodation. There’s all kinds of laws for reasonable accommodations. And, you know, nine times out of ten, your employer is very interested in giving you what you need to be productive. They don’t care that you need something that the other employees don’t if that thing that they give you makes you more productive. At the end of the day, you’re there to accomplish something for them. If you have an open dialog with them and that helps you accomplish it, you know, they’re very good. Now, we understand stigma. Discrimination is a very, very real thing, which is why I recommend going to these services, going to the College Department of Disability, going to Human Resources, you know, bypassing your coworker, supervisor, professors, et cetera, and starting the conversation over there. That way you have an advocate and you have assistance. If you do feel comfortable, and again, it’s a personal choice, you can absolutely talk to your supervisor or to your professor. And hopefully whomever you talk to has a brother with bipolar disorder who’s, like, really learned the ropes.

Debbie: That is helpful. I’m not going to lie.

Gabe: Debbie, you know these are tough questions when we talk about families. But do you think that my behavior traumatized you in any way? Do you ever look back at your childhood and think, you know, that was, that was a lot going through that with my brother? That was a lot.

Debbie: I do not. Of course, I look at my childhood a lot differently than you look at your childhood.

Gabe: Yeah, my childhood was horrific,

Debbie: Yeah.

Gabe: Like it was awful. You were a bright spot, you were good.

Debbie: We had a great relationship. You were my first word, you

Gabe: That’s true.

Debbie: Got me out of my crib every day.

Gabe: I did. Dropped her right on her head every morning.

Debbie: No, but, you know, we’ve always had a great relationship. Even the few times that we butt heads, I mean, but that’s what siblings do.

Gabe: Debbie, I’m glad that it didn’t affect you. I really, truly am. Of course, it would be perfectly understandable if it did, and it often does in many families, you know, siblings get left behind because all the resources are going to well, the troublemaker, the sick person. It’s not an uncommon story for siblings to be, frankly, traumatized by this. I’m glad that it didn’t impact you, but I guess I am surprised. I would think that just witnessing some of these things would be problematic. Maybe I prepared you for war. I don’t know.

Debbie: Well, you know, the eyes of a child, when you’re at that age that I was, in elementary school, that’s your me time, like everything’s focused on me. You haven’t evolved to the point where you start thinking about we.

Gabe: My behavior was very confusing to Mom and Dad. Yeah. It was just very confusing to them. And I’m really surprised that it didn’t impact you more. Do you think that mom and Dad could have handled it better talking to you? And I know we’re kind of throwing them under the bus because they’re not here to defend themselves, but they told you nothing. I mean, your brother just up and left one day and they told you nothing. It doesn’t seem like it impacted you in any way. And for that, I’m very grateful. But it could have, leaving that kind of thing open. That could be a really big deal.

Debbie: That is our family, though, they never talk about things that are uncomfortable or could make people feel sad. They try to spare everybody’s feelings. Doesn’t matter what it is, somebody is in the hospital. Don’t tell Gabe because he’s up in Ohio. He can’t go anyways. He doesn’t need to know. It’ll just be or don’t tell Debbie she’s over in Germany that Gabe was put in a hospital because he was suicidal. Let’s not tell her. She’s not around. She doesn’t need to know. You know, I do wish they would have had the conversations because maybe I could have been enlightened earlier.

Gabe: Maybe it could have helped.

Debbie: Yeah, maybe, I don’t know, but because we had a special relationship, I don’t know, I do feel that I do wish they would have had more of those difficult conversations with us. Luckily, I still turned out OK for the most part.

Gabe: Eh.

Debbie: Yeah, I’ll keep it. Pretty well.

Gabe: Well, you know, Debbie, you turned out great and, you know, people listen to the show and I, Debbie, I talk about my family on the show all the time. And it is funny to hear you say, my family doesn’t talk about anything. We don’t want to make anybody, because you are 100% right. Everything that you said is true. But when I came to them and I was like, hey, I want to tell all the family secrets publicly, they’re like, do it. And I was like, OK, well, we might be embarrassed. And they were like, well, we don’t want other families to have the same problems as us. We’re strangely not shy people. You know, Mom bursts out singing opera in the middle of a department store just like it’s nothing. I just we’ve had public fights that nobody cares about. We’re loud people. But I’m really glad that you got to come on here, because I think sometimes people think that all I do with my family is we just fight, we just fight. And we’ve come up with all these clever ways not to fight, but really it’s just all passive aggressive and we’re ignoring the elephant in the room. And while that is true, that that is how we behaved as children, let’s talk about our adult life for a minute. I don’t think we ignore elephants in the room anymore. I think we’ve matured past that as a family. And while certainly sometimes, you know, Mom’s like, well, Grandma got sick last night, but I called you this morning, so you didn’t worry. OK, OK. But before I would have found out days later.

Debbie: When she was better.

Gabe: Yeah, there’s still a little bit, but I think mostly we pull the Band-Aid off a lot quicker. Do you think we’ve matured as a family compared to how we behaved when we were younger?

Debbie: One hundred percent. I mean, Mom will tell me something I’m like, have you told Gabe yet? Like, yep, he’s either he he’s my next call or I called him first. It’s like all right, don’t hide it.

Gabe: Yeah, I’m really glad that you said that, don’t hide it, you’re right, we figured it out that this was problematic and we say things like don’t hide it, don’t sugarcoat it, let’s get it out of the way. I do think that all families should do this. I am glad that you came on so that people know that we do have the tough conversations. We just, we don’t have them during Thanksgiving dinner.

Debbie: Right. 

Gabe: That’s noodle time.

Debbie: Noodles.

Gabe: That’s noodle time. Debbie, I love you so much.

Debbie: I love you too.

Gabe: I’m glad that you came on the show. How did it feel to be the Lisa? Man, I wish this was a video podcast that look that you gave me, I just oh, I should have taken a picture. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Not Crazy podcast. Special thanks to my sister for pinch hitting for Lisa, who I promise will be back next week. My name is Gabe Howard. I am the author of Mental Illness Is an Asshole and Other Observations, which of course is available on Amazon.com. But if you want to get it cheaper, if you want me to sign it and you want Not Crazy podcast swag, then all you have to do is head over to gabehoward.com and buy it right there. It makes a great holiday gift. We’ll see everybody next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person?  Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail [email protected] for details. 

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Podcast: Reframing Past Traumas

What is your life story? Do you feel like a victim of your circumstances? And if so, how does this affect your future? In today’s show, our guest James Sweigert, who struggled out of a traumatic childhood, shares how the power of his thoughts and the spoken word changed his life. 

Are you ready to make some edits to your life story? Tune in and James will help you go from your head to your heart so you can win the game.

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  Guest information for ‘James Sweigert- Reframing Traumas’ Podcast Episode

James Sweigert’s childhood was challenging, to say the least. James struggled to be seen and stay safe amid the chaos, eventually turning to drugs and alcohol to cope. This self-destructive pattern continued until he changed his story—and his life. 

Today James is a successful executive producer and director in film and television and coaches many creative executives and celebrities in Hollywood. He has built, run and sold several multi-million dollar, award winning production companies in Hollywood. He writes about a key truth: the way you conceptualize your life—the story you tell yourself—makes it what it is. If you say so.

As a motivational speaker and “Life Cheerleader”, James’s ultimate purpose is to help others change their old “stories” to transform their lives so they can flourish and be amazing! 

      About The Psych Central Podcast 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. To learn more about Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Computer Generated Transcript for ‘James Sweigert- Reframing Traumas’ Episode

Editor’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 the Psych Central Podcast, where guest experts in the field of psychology and mental health share thought-provoking information using plain, everyday language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Welcome to this week’s episode of The Psych Central Podcast, calling into the show today, we have James Sweigert. He is a television and film producer who has worked for many major brands and studios such as Apple, Netflix and Hulu. He’s also the author of the new book, If You Say So, which discusses the power of the spoken word and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Welcome, James.

James Sweigert: Thank you very much. It’s great to be here.

Gabe Howard: Can you tell us a little bit about your story and how and why you changed it?

James Sweigert: Sure, the title of the book, If You Say So, the subtitle is My Story and How I Changed It to Save My Life. And I came from a pretty tumultuous childhood. I was the youngest of 12 kids. There was a lot of abandonment, abuse. It was chaos. It was complete pandemonium. And so as a result and being the youngest, I got left behind. A lot of people think, oh, you’re the youngest, you’re the baby of the family. But there were just too many kids. And my mom also ran a daycare out of the house. So it was pretty crazy at the house. And having gone through a lot of things like being left at gas stations and left at school and left at grocery stores and that sort of thing, I started to develop stories around these events that happened to me, including abuse. I was molested by relatives and a neighbor from the ages of seven to 12. Because of just overlooking, I just felt like I didn’t matter. Nobody was out there protecting me. Everybody was too busy on survival mode. A lot of the older brothers and sisters found drugs and alcohol, which I eventually found at the age of 12 and used as my coping mechanism through adolescence and early adulthood. And I ended up a drug addict, alcoholic, dealing with severe depression and suicidal tendencies and ultimately a suicide attempt that I was lucky enough to survive.

James Sweigert: So we all have stories, right, because we’re all going to be victims of something in life. And it’s how we respond to that. Out of these events, I started to develop stories early on that I don’t matter. I’m broken, I’m unlovable. They’re going to figure me out. I’m a phony. All of these stories that I tended to loop into my head well into adulthood and they didn’t serve me. In fact, they just compounded my depression. And I was just pretty sure that the world would be a better place if I wasn’t in it. What happened for me is I asked for help at the age of twenty five. I was despondent. It was following a suicide attempt and help arrived in the form of a number of teachers, a brother that helped me find those teachers. And I was able to get clean and sober at twenty five. And I met some amazing teachers that helped me realize that I was telling myself stories that weren’t true and that I could change the story. And it’s through a lot of hard work. There’s a train metaphor I use about doing the work we have to do to go process and feel these unfelt feelings. You know, we have a baggage car, we have a passenger car, we have a bar car and the caboose.

James Sweigert: Some of us spend a little too much time in the bar car. That was part of my story and on the caboose, reflecting on what coulda, shoulda and woulda been. And then also spending too much time in the baggage car, just looking at all my bags and staring at it and not doing anything about it. And we’ve got to get rid of that baggage. We’ve got to feel those unfelt feelings and process that stuff so we can move on and be free from it and forgive and ask for forgiveness. And ultimately, the work I need to do is being up in that little steam engine locomotive with my overalls on, pick up the shovel and start shoveling coal into that furnace, which powers my train and moves my train forward. And that furnace is an analogy for our passion, our soul’s desire, if you will, and there’s work to be done in order to come out of our old stories. And that’s the shoveling coal part of doing the work we have to do, whether it’s going to therapy and feeling those uncomfortable feelings and processing them. Someone once told me a great line. They said, if you’re going through hell, keep going. So that’s kind of how I changed my story.

Gabe Howard: I love any analogy that involves a train, I think that it is an underutilized form of transportation and analogy. Let’s talk about the book for a moment, because in the book,

James Sweigert: Sure.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that I noticed is that you mentioned helpers and takers. Can you explain

James Sweigert: Yes.

Gabe Howard: How those two groups differ?

James Sweigert: Absolutely. And thanks for pointing that out. You’re the first person to pull that out of the book and ask me that question. I think there’s two kinds of people. Ultimately, there’s helpers and there’s takers and the takers are easy to spot in this world. I think we can see who the takers are. But the greatest people in history, the greatest people of all time have always been the helpers, the Mother Teresa of the world, the Princess Di’s of the world, the Martin Luther King’s of the world and their helpers, their selflessly giving of themselves was taking a lot of risk. And really just following their passion and their passion was to help people, to help liberate people, to help give people dignity and to show love. And to me, I want to be on the right side of history. And that’s why I’ve been really blessed with a great life. I was able to come out of the darkness into the light and ultimately succeed at being a very successful producer in Hollywood and living in Beverly Hills. My life is a dream. So now that I’ve accomplished so much, it’s really my intention to give back whenever I do a speaking engagement. I also offer an unpaid speaking engagement to an underfunded program, inner city schools, charities. And if anybody listening to your podcast has an organization where they feel they could benefit from me coming to speak, talking about the power of the spoken word and how we can change our stories and how we can actually change our stories to find happiness and true fulfillment, I’m happy to come and talk. What I do and I just love helping people and fulfills me. It gives me a great sense of purpose and duty. And when I get a letter back or a note or a comment on how my book even has changed so many people’s lives already in a short period of time, it just that’s everything for me. That’s my furnace. Right. That’s my soul’s desire is to help others to find what I was able to find.

Gabe Howard: Let’s talk about how you described your life as blessed and the reason that I’m going to zero in on this is because in your introduction, you talked about having a really, really rough childhood. But of course, that’s not what you’re focusing on. You’re focusing on where you are now and all the success that you’ve had. I imagine that’s difficult for some people. It’s a lot easier to dwell on the well, the really traumatic things that happened to us as people. How did you manage to escape that?

James Sweigert: Yeah, for me, there’s a great line, I heard somebody said, you’ve got to hit your head on the bottom of the pool in order to find out how deep it is sometimes. And for me, that was the case. Like I said, we’ll all be victims of something. And I think when we’re in enough pain and that’s when it comes time for us to be willing to change and to change the story, because we see those people out there who are negative all the time and you have to pay attention to what you’re focused on. I just can’t focus on the darkness because I’ll get more darkness. The universe will give you whatever story you tell it. And we know those people out there that are cynical and negative and they’re watching the news all the time. It doesn’t matter if they’re blue or red consuming the news all the time. It’s just the negativity and the the sensationalized news on either side of the aisle. It’s hard to be happy. And if that’s what I’m focused on, the noise, all that’s going to come out of me is noise, and it’s going to be impossible for me to be happy. And so what I had to do is I had to really pay attention to what I’m focused on. And it’s my choice. Every morning there’s a great Abraham Lincoln quote that people are as happy as they make up their minds to be. And for a long time gave I didn’t know I had a choice. And that’s really the intention of my book, is to let people know you have a choice. You are not the victim of circumstance.

James Sweigert: You have to take personal responsibility for yourself and you can actually create your own, whether today it’s just the law of attraction. You get what you’re focused on. And I have people that have come to work for me where their cell phone screen is always broken. They’re late to work. The computer’s cracked and it doesn’t work. And you hear how they speak about themselves in the world and they’re just negative. And it’s we’re never going to make it and they never make it. Conversely, when you see people who are focused on what’s good and what’s working and they’re speaking positively about themselves and others and they’re speaking in the direction of truth and love, like Don Miguel Ruiz’s four agreements, the first of the four agreements is be impeccable with your word and don’t speak against yourself or others and always speak in the direction of truth and love. And I think for any malady, whether it’s depression or alcoholism or drug addiction or suicide, the remedy for that, it’s a body, mind, spirit, solution. Dr. Karl Young wrote about it. William James wrote about it in the eighteen hundreds that it’s not just mental and it’s not just physical, but to there has to be some sort of spiritual shift. And I don’t care. I coach people who are Muslim. I coach people who are Jewish and Christians across the board. As long as you believe in something that is great and that is love and that is in favor of all peacefully cohabitate, because that’s an important ingredient. As you can hear, I’m very passionate about this subject, so.

Gabe Howard: It’s a great subject and I’m inclined to agree with most of it, because you’re right, we can all agree that words can be used for good or evil. And it’s not even really about the words. It’s the context. It’s how we make people feel with our words. It’s about how we make ourselves feel with our words. And that’s what you explain in your book about how the power of words can shape your life. And

James Sweigert: Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: You really talk a lot about the power of the spoken word. Can you expand on that for our listeners?

James Sweigert: Absolutely. If you think about it, Adolf Hitler in the 1930s used the power of the spoken word to almost exterminate the race of people, and that was using the power of the spoken word for evil and for hate. It’s incredibly powerful. I think that’s a testament to it. Conversely, let’s think about what we could do going the other way with it. Think about the intention of the power of the spoken word in the direction of truth and love and compassion and support and encouragement. Someone asked me the other day, they were like, you’re like a life coach. And I said, no, I’m more like a life cheerleader. You know that you already have the playbook inside of you. It’s my job just to help you go from your head to your heart to crack open your playbook so you can win the game. And that’s really the best way to describe what I do and how I help people, because I’m not going to tell people what to do. And that’s the beauty of the title of this book. My niece Julia is she’s smart as a whip, and she gave me some great feedback on the book in relationship to how I was going to navigate writing about my family because I didn’t really want to hurt anybody. This was not a tell all book. This is a helpful book.

James Sweigert: And Julia came to me because you know what I love about the title of your book? She said, you can’t argue with it. And I love that. I just love that I’m not out here trying to convert anyone because that can be a real turnoff. But what I do want to do is reach the people that don’t know they have a story or they don’t know they can change it. And it starts with how we speak about ourselves, because people who have come through childhood trauma or any kind of trauma, for that matter, they create a story about that. And I’m not talking about the true stories. I’m talking about the stories that we tell ourselves in the dark when we’re sick and we don’t feel well. Those are the stories that I want to get to and that I want to shed light on so that people can see those. And in my workshops and in my seminars will do that. People start to uncover their stories and shed light on that. And then we start to talk about what do you want your new story to be? And let’s focus on that. Let’s write that. What’s the news story? And one of the things I do is I get people to really look at their lives and say, look, are you grateful? Is there something in your life you’re grateful for? And I’ll have them close their eyes and think about that.

James Sweigert: And I said, focus on that thing. Whatever it is, it can be your dog or cat, be your wife or your husband. And I said, Now, what I want you to do is open your eyes, stand up and say, I am so grateful and I love my life and yell it together. And all of a sudden you see, using the power of the spoken word, you can literally change your now because I said, do you feel the energy change inside of you when you yelled that out loud and everyone said yes, overwhelmingly, did you feel the energy change in the room? Absolutely. And so that’s one little exercise that people can employ right now. Just think of something you’re grateful for and then just yell it out loud how grateful you are for it. And that literally can change the energy in your now. So bring your chin up a quarter inch so you can start to focus on what’s good, what’s working and start to move in the direction of your happiness, your dreams. And that’s true success to me. I don’t know. Money’s obviously not the measurement of success, but you know how fulfilled you are and how happy you are is really the measure of your success.

Gabe: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Sponsor Message: Gabe here and I wanted to tell you about Psych Central’s other podcast that I host, Not Crazy. It’s straight talk about the world of mental illness and it is hosted by me and my ex-wife. You should check it out at PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy or your favorite podcast player.

Sponsor Message: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe: We’re back discussing the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves with author James Sweigert.

Gabe Howard: Let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment, because I know there’s somebody listening to this and saying, so what you’re saying is if I’m in a bad way, I just tell myself I’m in a good way and poof, all of the sudden everything is better. And I imagine that that’s not what you’re saying. There’s a lot more steps than that. But to somebody listening to this and says, listen, you’re just repackaging the power of positive thinking and reselling it to me. What do you have to say for those people?

James Sweigert: I have a young man that I mentor and and this goes back to what I was saying earlier, where we’re all going to be victims of something in life. And I’m not talking about a Pollyanna attitude where you just ignore difficulties and challenges in real life events. It’s not what I’m talking about. It’s how we respond to those, because they’re going to happen, right? There’s going to be death, there’s going to be loss, there’s going to be pain. And one of the young men who I mentor, he’s about thirty seven. He and his wife had a baby, little Charlotte, just about two or three years old. They got pregnant again with their second daughter, Lily and Lily. They were doing the early tests while Fran was still pregnant. It was determined Lily did not have a right ventricle. And they did all of the research. They talked to all the doctors. They in particular happen to be Catholic. So they talked to their priest and their clergy about what should we do here? And basically some of these kids, when they’re born, they go into open heart surgery right away. And some of these children survive and have normal happy lives. Some of them don’t make it. And so what they did with their faith and they prayed on it and they said, we’re going to give the best chance at Lily having a good life. So they chose to go through with everything. And right after Lily was born at UCLA Hospital three days later, she went in for open heart surgery as this tiny little fragile infant. She was hooked up for about a month and a half, two months on life support and tubes and wires.

James Sweigert: And we went up there. I was up there every day with them. And I’ll just back up and say there’s nothing in this world more painful than losing a child. There just isn’t. And this is what they were faced with. And so by employing their faith, their courage, they walked through this event with so much dignity and so much grace. And we’re of service to that child. And there’s a couple of months later, there comes the time where they have to take the baby off life support to see if it can survive or not. And in that time, it come and they pulled the baby off life support and the baby didn’t make it. Now, I will say to you this. I do not have children. I was not able to have children. But there is nothing more painful than that. And I watch because when we were praying for Lily, we had prayer circles. And at one point I out loud, I was praying for Lily to survive and the medical issues. And Devon, her father, looked over to me, put his hand on my shoulder and he said, you know what? We’re not going to pray for Lily to live. We’re going to pray for God’s will. For Lily do is like a ton of bricks hit me in the chest because I realized that he knew that child belonged to the universe. The child didn’t belong to him and his wife. It showed me such extraordinary faith and courage and dignity.

James Sweigert: And the way they walked through that was absolutely incredible. Of course, it was painful. Of course, there was anguish and mourning grief. And we all went through that. And I was by his side every step of the way. And we went through that horrible situation, that tragic event in their family. And they moved on. They kept her memory alive and they acknowledged her in the home. They didn’t do it. A lot of people do. We’re not going to talk about it again. I have some friends who’ve lost siblings, and they’re just the families said we’re not talking about it ever again. But they kept it alive for Charlotte. They talked about her sister, that she’s with God now. And what was amazing to me was that because of their faith, in my opinion, they didn’t give up. And two years later, a friend got pregnant again. They had a beautiful new baby daughter, Zoe, and now they have two wonderfully beautiful children. And this memory of how they were able to get through something very difficult, but not let it dictate their future and ruin their lives, because I’ve seen that happen to people where they make it about themselves and they want to play the victim and they remain the victim for decades. So if you’re out there struggling, I hear, how do I use the spoken word? What if I don’t believe it? This is where the spiritual component comes in that I believe in a great spirit and the power of the universe. I believe in a spiritual entity that wants us all to be happy. I really do.

James Sweigert: I think plants and trees and the great sequoias, they grow up defying gravity. And I believe that the universe wants that for us as well. And so you have to believe you can start today by saying, you know what, my best days are ahead of me. You might be in a hole right now. You might be in a dark place. But there is hope, because even for when I was having suicidal thoughts, my mentor said to me, he said, James, what if when you killed yourself, the pain didn’t go away? And he said, worse yet, what if when you killed yourself, the pain got worse? Because we’ve read about people who’ve died and started to go to the other side and seeing light and all these kinds of stuff, and there’s the guy that jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and survived it. The first thing that he thought when he left off the bridge was, oh, my God, what am I doing with regret? So that’s why I tell people like I just start saying my best days are ahead of me. And people say, how are you doing? Not so great, but I’m getting better. And you’re leaving room for improvement, leaving room for opportunity. So I don’t believe in denial and not acknowledging where you’re at, what’s going on. You have to address that stuff, but you have to believe it can get better. And then there’s some people that just want to sit in the mud. And I’m like, the universe will give you whatever story you tell it, but you do have a choice.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that you say, of course, is that the universe will give you whatever you tell, it will give you in, and I certainly believe that in many ways. But but in other cases, like really extreme examples, war or poverty or of course, in the lives of children, that rings less true. Is there an outer limits to if you say so, where does it end or where does it begin?

James Sweigert: Interesting questions. Let’s talk about the and you’re in the business of the mind, so let’s talk about the power of the mind. One of the examples I will point to is the placebo effect. Right. What’s the explanation that a sugar pill give a human being the same benefit, the same medical benefits that the actual medicine gives people? And I’m talking about significant numbers that there’s people who actually benefit from just the thought that they think they’re taking something that will help them in their condition. That’s the power of the mind and that’s the power of belief. You’ll get whatever you believe. And so if you’re believing negative thoughts, you will get that your point in that shift towards the dormancy. You’re going to get rough sailing. If I point that ship towards the beautiful sunset, it’s going to be smooth sailing. It’s just the law of nature. That’s just the way that things work. There is no limit. There’s a limit. If you say so, you’re talking about war. And a lot of people throw this out. When I start talking about the law of attraction, when I say that life is always good, it’s just our perspective of it that changes people fight me on. What about 911? What about school shootings? And as I mentioned earlier, that we don’t have control over everyone else, but we do have control of ourselves over what we’re focused on, what we’re saying about ourselves and what we’re saying to others. That’s what I focus on is what I really have power over of my voice and my word. And so we’re all going to be victims of something. I love parents who always buy their kids a goldfish when they’re children.

James Sweigert: It’s a great lesson of this experience in this human life that this imperfect world where we’re animals. So when a kid has a goldfish and then he comes home one day from school and the goldfish is floating on top of the water, what do you do? You grieve the loss of the goldfish. You have a little ceremony in the backyard. You bury it in the flower bed, you put a little headstone and you grieve the loss of your goldfish. And that’s to prepare us for bad things happen in life. But we’re not in control of all of that. But what I do know is this is when I’ve changed my story and I started to speak differently about myself and others. And when I started to pay attention to what I was focused on and I started focusing on what’s good and what’s working in my life, I attract a lot more of that. And I’m a lot more peaceful in my life. I have a lot more healthy, loving, nurturing relationships of people that make me a better me. And I’m happier and I’m more content and I’m comfortable in my own skin and that’s my evidence. And literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of other people in the world that do the same thing. Because I was stuck in the darkness, I did not know I had a choice. And that’s really bringing it back full circle to this. That’s really what the book is about, is to let people who are struggling know that, hey, there are some things you can do right now to start to turn this thing around.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that you talk about openly is that you’re a survivor of sexual assault. I just like to give you the opportunity to talk about that because it goes into what you were saying, that people always push back. What about 9/11? What about war? What about famine? You have your own personal hell that you’ve dealt with. Can you expound on that for a moment?

James Sweigert: One of the greatest pieces of feedback I got on the book was got it’s really raw. You’re incredibly vulnerable in that. And yes, I had to tell my story because I don’t want to keep looping the story about all the negative, horrible things that happened to me and things that I had done. I wanted to put a period at the end of that story and move on. And again, what I’m really focused on, you know, how I am so lucky and blessed and grateful of this great life that I have. But I write about a lot of really tragic events. And what I’m finding is I’m having a lot of people direct message me on social media saying, you know what, that happened to me to thank you for sharing that. I’ve never been able to talk about that when a lot of the work that I do, especially with men, because I think for men, the stigma around M.S., the shame that comes with that and the stigma around that was one of the things I said I would never, ever tell anyone. And someone who one of my great teachers and great inspiration to me is the famous champion boxer, Sugar Ray Leonard. And he wrote a book called The Big Fight. And it was about his battle with alcohol and drugs being the biggest fight he ever had in his life. And he wrote in his book about how he was molested twice when he was a young teenage amateur coming up in the boxing ranks.

James Sweigert: And and I was so moved by his vulnerability and his honesty that it inspired me. I said, you know what? I need to tell my story. I need to share my truth as well so that I can help hopefully crack open other men and women who kept that a secret because we’re as sick as our secrets and those secrets and those resentments and that rage and that anger that we have towards our offenders, that breeds illness, breeds tumors, it breeds I had asthma because of it. I had colitis because of it, because I was suffering from this rage inside of being wronged and being violated. And not until I was able to learn about forgiveness. And ultimately, when someone explained to me that forgiveness isn’t about letting anybody else off the hook, it’s about letting ourselves off. And that was a huge revelation for me. So, yeah, the world’s not perfect. And that’s exactly what my book is designed to help people and how they respond to tragic events and horrible things that have happened to them. Because if I continue to fight things but there’s a saying, what we resist persists, stop fighting. I put my weapons down and now I’m really focused on what’s good, what’s working in my life, focused on gratitude, focused on love and focus on helping others. And as a result, I couldn’t be happier. I love what I do and I love everybody I do it with. And I’m really lucky.

Gabe Howard: James, I love everything that you’ve said, I love your outlook on life, and of course, I’m I’m really glad that you’re out there helping people. Where can people find your book?

James Sweigert: My website is JamesSweigert.com, and that’s S W E I G E R T, JamesSweigert.com. You can also get the book through there. You can also book me for speaking engagements. Or if you’re looking at lifestyle coaching, I’m happy to help anyone I can. And yes, the book is available on Amazon, hardcover, paperback, Audible as well as Kindle.

Gabe Howard: James, thank you so much for being honest. Thank you for being here and we appreciate your time.

James Sweigert: You’ve got it, Gabe. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I appreciate it and hope you have a great day. Unless, of course, you have other plans.

Gabe Howard: Thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in this week to The Psych Central Podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I am the author of Mental Illness Is an Asshole, which is available on Amazon, or you can get a signed copy with all kinds of cool swag, including stickers from The Psych Central Podcast for less money just by heading over to gabehoward.com. Let me tell you about our super-secret Facebook page you should absolutely check out, just go to PsychCentral.com/FBShow. And remember, you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling any time anywhere simply by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. We will see everybody next week.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to The Psych Central Podcast. Want your audience to be wowed at your next event? Feature an appearance and LIVE RECORDING of the Psych Central Podcast right from your stage! For more details, or to book an event, please email us at [email protected]. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/Show or on your favorite podcast player. Psych Central is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website run by mental health professionals. Overseen by Dr. John Grohol, Psych Central offers trusted resources and quizzes to help answer your questions about mental health, personality, psychotherapy, and more. Please visit us today at PsychCentral.com.  To learn more about our host, Gabe Howard, please visit his website at gabehoward.com. Thank you for listening and please share with your friends, family, and followers.

   The post Podcast: Reframing Past Traumas first appeared on World of Psychology.

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Podcast: Depression Management Hints and Tips

Can a never-depressed person truly understand what your depression is like? Or give you advice? Probably not. It’s like getting parenting advice from a non-parent. In today’s show, our two depressed co-hosts, Gabe and Lisa, understand the pain of depression and are here to share their experiences and offer some helpful tips.

If you’re struggling with depression, tune in for a great discussion — from two people who have been there and understand what you’re going through. By the end, you’ll know you’re not alone.

(Transcript Available Below)

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About The Not Crazy podcast Hosts

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 Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Depression Tips” Episode

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

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe: Hey, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Not Crazy podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I am your host. But with me, as always, is the great Lisa Kiner.

Lisa: Oh, thank you, Gabe. And today’s quote comes to us from Atticus, Depression is being colorblind and constantly told how colorful the world is.

Gabe: This speaks to me in ways that I just cannot explain,

Lisa: I know it’s awesome, right?

Gabe: Right?

Lisa: I like it a lot.

Gabe: I think that people think that they understand depression in the same way that people think they understand colorblindness. Right? Depression is the absence of happiness. Colorblindness is the absence of color. But.

Lisa: Colorblindness actually doesn’t work that way.

Gabe: Well, but you see what I mean?

Lisa: Right, right, right, the analogy is even better than we thought. Oh, boom. Mind blown.

Gabe: Exactly, the average person is like, oh, you see the world in black and white, but that’s not what’s actually happening. Just like depression is not this absence of happiness. It’s a painful feeling. It’s a weighted feeling. It’s being pulled into a dark hole. It’s loneliness, it’s emptiness. It’s shallow, it’s awful. It’s, it feels differently from person to person to person, just like colorblindness appears differently person to person to person and but everybody is wandering around like, well, I know what color blindness is. It’s like the whole world was a black and white TV. There. I got it. Solved the problem.

Lisa: You are stunningly good at analogies.

Gabe: I know, it’s like it’s my job. This leaves the person who is colorblind to think, wow, you don’t get me at all. But what’s worse is you are positive that you do and you won’t listen to me to explain that you don’t get it. I think that’s how people with depression feel. Not only do they not understand you, they’re 100% positive, that they do understand you and unwilling to listen to anything that we have to say to convince them otherwise, which, of course, just deepens that hole. It deepens that loneliness and frustration and, well, frankly, desperation.

Lisa: Yeah, it makes it even sadder. 

Gabe: Today we’re going to talk about coping with depression and maybe some helpful hints, because frankly, I just I think that we can only get tips for dealing with depression from other people who have dealt with and manage depression. So congratulations, everybody, your depressed co-hosts of Not Crazy are here to save the day. Right, Lisa?

Lisa: Absolutely.

Gabe: Wow, just the most depressing.

Lisa: I know

Gabe: Absolutely ever,

Lisa: Sorry. Well, because I have some

Gabe: I just, your energy level is garbage.

Lisa: Ok, stop, I want to say something. I want to respond to a point that you made earlier and I’ll figure out how to work it in. You know, I had a friend once who said.

Gabe: You know, you don’t have to work it in, you can just you’re always thinking about how do I make a sound better? I think the audience knows that we’re dipshits by now. I don’t I don’t think we’re fooling anybody with our creative edits. They

Lisa: You’re not helping

Gabe: They know we suck. Make your point.

Lisa: You’re not helping me get in the correct zone for point making.

Gabe: You don’t need to be in a zone. The point is the point is the point. Your feelings

Lisa: Ok, so

Gabe: Are irrelevant to facts.

Lisa: One time I said to someone, I feel like people who do not have mental illness, cannot understand mental illness, and I was specifically talking about doctors, I feel like my doctor who does not have mental illness does not get it. And she said, well, but isn’t that the truth with everyone? I mean, what if you had diabetes? Would a person who didn’t have diabetes understand it? And. Well, on the one hand, I don’t have diabetes, but yeah, I feel like they would. I feel like it’s not the same. And I don’t know why. I feel like mental illness is different than other things. I feel like I do have an understanding of all these other diseases, diabetes, a broken leg that I do not have. But I feel like I do understand it. But is that me doing the same thing that other people do with mental illness? I don’t know.

Gabe: There’s an element of this, right, we’re all arrogant about things

Lisa: Right,

Gabe: That impact other people.

Lisa: That’s the word I’m looking for, arrogance, is this just my own arrogance? I don’t know.

Gabe: Somewhat, right? I think it’s all in how much we scratch below the surface, right? Think of like parenting, you know, how everybody who has no children is the perfect

Lisa: Right, my kids would be perfect.

Gabe: I’m going to pick on my sister because my sister, before she had kids, she just walked around judging everybody’s parents. My kid’ll never throw a temper tantrum in a parking lot. My kid’ll never do this. My kid will never eat that. My kid will never watch this. My kid won’t have that problem. My kid will never back talk me. Yeah. I love my niece. And what I love most about her is that she just proves my sister wrong every single day.

Lisa: That does sound enjoyable.

Gabe: Yeah, it’s awesome as her big brother, but I don’t have kids, so it’s fun to watch, but it’s not that my sister’s a bad person. She thought that she understood. She observed other parents. She thought about her own upbringing and she formulated these opinions. But when parents were telling her, look, lady, that’s not how it works. My sister was like, pretty sure that’s how it works. And yeah, she’s just done nothing but eat crow since little Eva was born. The difference is, is to my sister’s credit and to many people’s credit, they’re like, yeah, I was wrong. I was completely unprepared for this. I was completely wrong. I am just so wrong. And I think we get that in like other illnesses, like you said, a broken leg. I think that many of us have broken a leg or at least respect the thoughts, views and opinions of somebody who we know who has broken a leg. But when it comes to depression, when it comes to any mental illness, really, but the show’s about depression. People are like, look, you’re describing it incorrectly. And they’re like, no depression of mine will ever behave that way.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: And they just walk away with all of the arrogance of a 20-year-old with no kids judging people who have kids because they’re positive that their child raising skills are superior even though they have no children. I think this allows us not to move forward in educating the public because they think they already know it.

Lisa: And this leads to your point of the best place to get advice on how to deal with depression is from people who have depression.

Gabe: Yes, and I don’t want everybody to, like, cancel all of their appointments with their therapists and doctors, right. As somebody who lives with depression, as somebody who manages depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, the first advice that I’m going to give you is work with your therapist and your doctor.

Lisa: For your long, long term management, yeah, you need a therapist, you need a doctor, take your meds, do your therapy, we just want to talk a little bit, maybe more around the edges for when you’re having a bad day or things just aren’t quite where you want them to be. This is not about when you’re really bad, when you’re really sick, you’re really deep in the hole.

Gabe: We also want to give you a few points, maybe, you know, your mileage may vary about how to talk to your therapist, talk to your doctor, talk to your prescriber, because so often, if they are dismissive, we sort of get handcuffed because we have this idea that perhaps we can’t argue with them.

Lisa: Well, yeah, because it’s your fault, it’s on you,

Gabe: Well, yeah, it’s on you.

Lisa: It’s your mistake, not theirs.

Gabe: Yeah, it’s nobody’s mistake, it’s an illness process, I hate this whole oh, my God, the patient is sick. Is it the patient’s fault or the doctor’s fault? It’s depression’s fault. It’s the illness’s fault. Why? Why are we blaming patient or doctor? You know, there’s a third party in the room, dumb asses. It’s the illness’s fault.

Lisa: Well, people with mental illness are in a bad position because by definition, your brain is not working correctly or not working optimally. So when your doctor says something and it’s putting it on you, you’re like, well, that makes sense. I’m the problem here, clearly. You’re kind of stuck.

Gabe: You’re kind of stuck, but I want people to understand that there are things that they can do to advocate for themselves, and the first thing is, is to tell your doctor, I don’t accept that. I don’t accept that this is my fault and I don’t accept that I am stuck. I want real goals. I want you to tell me what I need to do so that I can mark them down. And if I do those things and I’m not better, then we know it’s not me. In the deepest, darkest depression, and I know that’s hard, keep a lot of notes, find an ally, find a Lisa, find a friend, find somebody to help keep track of this. Don’t talk about depression in this abstract way. I’m depressed. What did you do? I went to a doctor. What’s the goal? To be not depressed. We need hard goals. You know, I’m depressed. What’s the goal? To get dressed in the morning? OK, I want to work with my therapist on how to get dressed in the morning. That’s a real manageable goal. And I’m going to give you a hint.

Lisa: Ok, you have a hint?

Gabe: I feel that we’ve beat to death this idea that you should work with your doctor, right, Lisa? Like nobody is saying that the Not Crazy podcast is a replacement for medical advice. Agreed?

Lisa: Agree,

Gabe: Ok, good.

Lisa: Strongly agree.

Gabe: All right. Let’s start at the beginning of the day. One of the problems that I often have is I just I can’t get out of bed in the morning. Now, I don’t like mean literally can’t. I’m not, like, laying in bed paralyzed or. I just wake up and I look around and I think I don’t want to do this. I don’t. And you remember these depressive episodes, Lisa. It was.

Lisa: It was difficult, it was very difficult, but I bet that you have some tips for dealing with that.

Gabe: The first thing I want to say is I think this is where severe depression sort of starts, right? This I don’t want to get out of bed or I don’t want to leave my couch or I don’t want to leave my house. Just this.

Lisa: It’s an overwhelming apathy.

Gabe: Yes, yes, and it’s this like you want to cocoon.

Lisa: Yeah, in a big gray blanket.

Gabe: Yeah, I don’t know what color my blanket was, but

Lisa: Well, no, because it’s gray, because it’s depression.

Gabe: Oh, I get it.

Lisa: Yeah, a big gray, wet blanket.

Gabe: Oh, I don’t know what made it wet, but,

Lisa: Tears,

Gabe: Yeah,

Lisa: Though, not really.

Gabe: I don’t think you’re far off, but I have some general tips for this. You know, one of the first things is, as you know, I thought to myself, OK, well, I need to get out of bed. Right. So,

Lisa: Step one.

Gabe: Yeah, step one, get out of bed. But that’s like really easy to say, right? It’s like, well, I’m depressed. What do I do? You just cheer up. Well, that’s not very helpful. How do you get out of bed? And I think there are some hints and tips to help with even that most basic idea of getting out of bed, put an alarm clock across the room. This has helped me because I have to physically get on my feet to turn off the alarm clock. And the alarm clock is so annoying that it overrides this general desire to stay in bed.

Lisa: That is the only way I can get up is if I put the alarm clock on the other side of the room because otherwise, I just turn over and hit it off. But it really annoys my husband

Gabe: Well, and.

Lisa: Because it goes off so much longer than it would otherwise.

Gabe: If you don’t live alone, you can ask a roommate to turn on a light for you. 

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Or open your window or, you know, do something like that. That’s what you would do, Lisa. You would come in and open the windows, turn on the light, open the door. But once you’re actually physically on your feet, like, that’s the least of your problems, right? You’re standing up. I mean, chances are having to go to the bathroom will get you out of bed. That part kind of works itself out eventually. So the big indicator for me was personal hygiene. Was showering, you know, am I taking a shower? Am I shaving? Am I brushing my teeth? And.

Lisa: For unknown reasons, that was something that you fixated on, it just seemed really overwhelming to you. Strangely, you would do other things, but that particular thing just you couldn’t seem to get past.

Gabe: It was so hard. So one of the goals that I made was to get dressed to get like real dressed like.

Lisa: Yeah, not pajamas and robe dressed.

Gabe: Right, like out in the world and here, here’s the helpful hint, guys,

Lisa: Oh, yeah.

Gabe: So many people say, well, my goal today is to get dressed OK, but that’s actually like a bunch of little things, right? Get dressed is the conclusion. There’s actually quite a few steps, right? There’s getting out of bed. There’s shaving, there’s taking a shower, there’s brushing your teeth, there’s washing your hair. There’s putting on clean underwear, clean socks and picking out clothes is even on there. And one of the ways that I helped myself a real great deal was I listed all of those things one at a time in order. Step one, get out of bed, step two, shave, step three, get in shower, step four, shampoo. And you’re thinking, wow, that’s like really cumbersome. But the one it is. But who cares? We’re moving forward. But it let me cross a lot of little things off the list. Now, you remember Lisa.

Lisa: He would literally cross them off the list.

Gabe: And I wrote them on the mirror in my bathroom because most bathroom mirrors, if you buy a dry erase marker, you can just write it right on there. Actually, I was wrong, pick out clothes was the first thing I put on the list. And I could usually cross that one off before I went to bed. 

Lisa: Getting a jump start on the day.

Gabe: Yeah, yeah, I’m going to bed with a win. We tend to do this like people say, I want to graduate college, OK, that’s a good goal. But could you imagine if you showed up to college on your first day and you asked the admissions people are like, hey, what do I need to do? And they said, you need to graduate college. OK, but how? By going to college. Graduating college is the conclusion. Getting dressed, getting ready, facing the day. That’s the conclusion. Write it out. Give yourself credit along the way.

Lisa: You did have like a five-point list that you wrote on the mirror almost every day. 

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: And it was like shower, shave, brush teeth. And you went straight down the list with the marker and crossed it off as you went. It seemed to make you very happy.

Gabe: I don’t know, there was something cathartic almost about accomplishing things, and you’re thinking to yourself, if you’re like me anyway, well, those are so stupid, those are stupid accomplishments. And if you’ve never been in the midst of really serious depression, I can understand that knee jerk reaction that that writing, you know, shave and then crossing it off is stupid.

Lisa: It worked, though.

Gabe: I’m telling you, the day before, I did nothing. Nothing. So, when all I did in a day was brush my teeth, comb my hair, shave, put on clean underwear, get dressed, that was an amazing accomplishment. And then I started building on the list, go get the mail, drive and get a Diet Coke or a cup of coffee. It just built until one day I realized that I was just doing this stuff automatically in the quote unquote normal amount of time and.

Lisa: You didn’t need the list anymore.

Gabe: I didn’t need the list anymore, and I would usually just realize, oh, huh, I didn’t write the list, life would just sort of move on. And we think to ourselves, well, why should I give myself credit for brushing my teeth? Because it’s hard. It’s hard for people like us. It’s an accomplishment for people like us. Don’t shame your success. Celebrate it. Well, other people don’t need to do this. First off, you don’t know what’s written on other people’s mirrors. All right? You just don’t. That’s number one thing. And number two, who cares? They’re not living your life. You’re living your life. This puts you in the best position.

Lisa: You still do it occasionally,

Gabe: Occasionally I do,

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: It’s still a coping skill that I use, you know, another coping skill that I use, Lisa, that that you taught me

Lisa: Oh,

Gabe: That. Yeah.

Lisa: I’m sure this is a good one.

Gabe: This is a super important, are you ready?

Lisa: Ok, I’m ready.

Gabe: Sleep hygiene.

Lisa: We all know how much Gabe loves to talk about sleep hygiene.

Gabe: Anybody that’s been a long-time listener of Gabe Howard knows how much I love sleep hygiene; I cannot overstate that I believe that sleep drives my mental health, my bipolar, anxiety, mania, depression more than anything else. It’s also an incredible predictor. But this all starts with respecting sleep and knowing how to manage it. And normally I give this whole big speech about everything that I know about sleep hygiene, but I learned it from Lisa. So, real treat everybody. Lisa is going to teach us sleep hygiene.

Lisa: Ok, sleep hygiene means having a consistent routine and a consistent waking up and going to bed time, that can be so difficult when you’re depressed. Like Gabe says, nobody respects sleep. You should use your bed only for sleep and sex. That’s it. Don’t have your TV in the bedroom. Don’t be playing with your phone before you go to sleep. None of that. Sleep and sex, that’s it.

Gabe: It’s so simple, it’s almost annoying, right? First off, sleep is just as important as food. Just hear me on that one. It is just as important as food. If you eat garbage all day, you will feel like shit. If you don’t get enough sleep, you will feel like shit. Those things go together.

Lisa: Well, but when people talk about health, they always talk about diet and exercise, but no one ever throws in sleep. Diet, exercise and sleep, they should have equal footing.

Gabe: They really, really, really should, but for some reason they don’t, so I am going to fix that. Like that’s my mission. A lot of people hear where are you supposed to go to bed and get up at the same time? And they’re like, well, but with depression, I can’t control when I fall asleep. And what if I stay up all night ruminating or, you know, anxiety follows my depression around pretty easily where I just get caught in this feedback loop and I stay up later and later and later. Yeah, it’s really rough when that same time in the morning comes around and I’ve only gotten two hours sleep and people say to me, well but sleep is so important, Gabe, then you should just sleep all day, otherwise you’re going to have a really bad day. You’re going to be irritable, you’re going to be grumpy, you’re not going to get that sleep. Yeah, all of those things are true except for the part where you don’t get up anyway and you’re thinking to yourself, why would I do that to myself for a day? Because otherwise you’re going to do that to yourself for two days a week, four days. You’re going to get your routine all messed up. You’re going to get your sleep cycle off. One bad day is awful. So, imagine seven bad days. I once got my sleep schedule, so out of whack, I don’t think I knew up from down for a month and that all could have been avoided by having one bad day. Now, Lisa, the only use your bedroom for sleep and sex thing really throws a lot of people because a lot of people use their bedrooms as a sanctuary away

Lisa: Right,

Gabe: From children,

Lisa: Roommates.

Gabe: Roommates. It would be nice if everybody listening had multiple rooms in their house and they could just dedicate a room. But there are still things that you can do in your bedroom to make sure that your bed is only used for sleep and sex. One thing is to have a chair in your room if you can. So if you are going to have a TV in there, don’t watch TV in bed, sit in the chair next to your bed and watch the TV. That way, when you’re in the bed, it still creates this demarcation.

Lisa: Well, it even if you can’t do that for some reason, you have a really small apartment, have a consistent bedtime routine, that these are the things I do before I go to sleep. You brush your teeth, put on your jammies, whatever, sit in that chair and read for 20 minutes. You have a consistent routine that you do every night, no matter what. I personally sometimes do not give enough credit to sleep. When I get really depressed, you just start ruminating on those thoughts. And for me, I think staying up late is actually a form of procrastination. You know how you always tell little kids the sooner you go to bed, the sooner Santa will be here? Well, yeah, the sooner you go to bed, the sooner tomorrow will be here. And all the things that you have to do tomorrow will be here. So if you stay up, you can put that off. Yeah, it always is self-defeating.

Gabe: Well, it’s self-sabotage, especially for you, Lisa.

Lisa: Yeah, I get so much more emotional when I haven’t slept, I’m just on the knife’s edge and I can’t restore my equilibrium if I’m tired.

Gabe: When we talk about managing depression, it would just be ludicrous to not just point out how important sleep is to managing mental health.

Lisa: And no one ever talks about it. Your doctor will ask you about your diet or your exercise, they never ask you about your sleep. It’s weird.

Gabe: But thankfully, Gabe and Lisa are on the case, honestly, you would be crazy not to get enough sleep.

Lisa: And again, it’s one of those things that’s so simplistic. Really? I have this life-threatening illness and you want me to make sure to go to bed on time? Yeah,

Gabe: Yes,

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah,

Gabe: Yeah,

Lisa: I do. Yeah,

Gabe: Yeah, yeah, I do.

Lisa: It’s not bullshit. Seriously, I speak from experience.

Gabe: We also need to think outside of the box. I am very fortunate I can use my bedroom just for sleep and sex. I’ve got the whole rest of the house. But when I travel, for example, if the hotel room has a chair, I sit in the chair to watch TV rather than sit on the bed. Now, if I have to sit on the bed, I don’t get under the covers and I stay in my clothes. So

Lisa: That’s a good one.

Gabe: The idea is to be creative around this so that you are setting up a routine so that when you get into bed, your body knows it’s time to sleep. Another thing that I highly recommend is a white noise machine. Turn on the white noise machine only when you’re ready to go to bed, turn everything else off. A fan is very helpful. Turn on the white noise machine and the fan when you go to bed, that air across your body, being under the covers, being in pajamas or all of these things just indicate this is what you do when you sleep. And then it’s repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat. We can say until we’re blue in the face that Lisa doesn’t respect sleep, but Lisa is not uncommon. 

Lisa, along with sleep hygiene, what are some other things that you think that people can do to manage their depression in a helpful and meaningful way?

Lisa: Well, again, the idea of having a schedule is so important, so you’re getting up at the same time every day, and one of the things that might help you keep to a schedule maybe is a pet.

Gabe: Really, you’re advising people to get a living creature. Should we start with a plant?

Lisa: Well, maybe you should start with a plant, maybe a hamster, hamsters are really nice.

Gabe: Well, you know, that’s very interesting, actually, I’m really glad that you pointed that out. You know, in my mind, dog. Everybody is going to run out and buy a 100-pound German shepherd. But you are right, there’s pocket pets. I said plant and you brought up hamster. Do you think that the I’m really trying hard not to say, hey, do you think depressed people can take care of hamsters?

Lisa: Yes, actually, I do, because it gives you something else to focus on, something else to think about, something that isn’t just about you. It’s someone else, something else that is counting on you. And depending on the pet, especially right now, COVID time, if you’re not getting a lot of human interaction, you have your pet. You know, it’s something that provides you with affection and you could get that dog and cuddle with it and pet it and it’s just it’s very soothing.

Gabe: Lisa, you had a hamster.

Lisa: I did have a hamster as a child. I loved my hamster a lot.

Gabe: I was hoping that you would just open yourself up and just confess to the people your love of your hamster. What was your hamster’s name?

Lisa: Twitchell.

Gabe: Twitchell. Tell everybody about little depressed Lisa taking care of little Twitchell.

Lisa: I was a troubled kid, I had a lot of trouble with depression, I didn’t have a lot of friends, I was very lonely and I got a hamster. As I think back about it now, it’s actually really depressing. I’m actually feeling a little bit emotional. I’m 40 and I’m getting emotional thinking about the rodent I had that died when I was 10, but I was ridiculously attached to this hamster. Her name was Twitchell because her nose twitched. I thought that was incredibly clever. It just gave me something else to love, you know, because like I said, I was lonely and there was nobody else around.

Gabe: And it wasn’t just about loving, it was also about the routine of caring for Twitchell.

Lisa: Yeah, because you had to feed her, you had to take care of her cage, and of course, you want to do that at the same time every day and that you felt this responsibility. I have to be at least up and alert enough to do these things or I’m letting her down, you know, so you have this responsibility to someone else and maybe you don’t have the incentive to get up and get going for yourself, but you do for your pet.

Gabe: Now, Lisa, you moved on from Twitchell when you were a little older, you got a turtle and now I was fascinated by this because when I met Lisa, she had a turtle and she was like, well, I’ve had that turtle since I was 10. I was like, that’s not true, that turtles don’t live that long. And she was like, turtles live like 50, 60 years. And I was like, well, I’ve only seen the little turtles. And Lisa said.

Lisa: You know, I hate that. Oh, when I was a kid, I had the little turtles. Babies? No, no, no, not the babies, the little ones. Babies, those are babies. Everyone’s like, no, no, no. That’s a different breed of turtle that stays small. Yeah, it’s a baby. And then they’ll say things like, no, no, no. I had that turtle for like a year and it never got any bigger. Yeah, because you weren’t taking good care of it. It was a baby.

Gabe: It’s extraordinarily important that any pet that you get, you make sure that you can care for the pet.

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: And that you have a backup plan in the event that you cannot. Now don’t run out and grab a pet thinking the pet is going to solve all of your problems, make sure that you are ready for the pet and that you have a backup plan. Backup plans are very important when caring for living creatures. I cannot stress enough that you might want to start with a plant. This is not advice for the severely depressed. This is an advanced skill. We wanted to mention pets because the research is just clearly there, but we don’t want everybody running out getting a pet that they, you know, slowly torture and kill. I think that’s what we’re trying to say, Lisa.

Lisa: Well, keep in mind, even among pocket pets, they could be a lot more difficult to take care of, especially reptiles and birds, people do not realize the amount of work and effort that’s involved in properly caring for them. And obviously, you don’t want to get a pet so that you can take poor care of it. So this is a bit of advanced skill. Make sure you do your research. I owned reptiles for decades and they just take a lot more work than most people think.

Gabe: As somebody who suffers from depression, I got to tell you, my dog, I love my dog. My dog absolutely helps with my depression. It helps with my routine. I’ve got to care for this dog. I feel a sense of pride in watching him, caring for him, molding him, taking him to the vet.

Lisa: And responsibility.

Gabe: Yeah, I cannot be more clear that Peppy is a point of pride and success for me, but that said, I want to make sure that I do right by him even when I’m sick. It’s of vital importance to understand that. So we have sort of a happy medium, which is volunteer at the Humane Society, find a shelter.

Lisa: Then you could pet things.

Gabe: Then you can play with the pets, care for the pets, be around the pets, but also then you can go home. Lisa, you have, I don’t remember, did you ever volunteer for any sort of animal shelter?

Lisa: Yeah, because I didn’t want to have a dog in my house and I couldn’t afford it, but I wanted to be able to pet them.

Gabe: I remember that I fostered a kitten for a few weeks. Do you remember because when I fostered

Lisa: I do remember.

Gabe: That kitten, you were like Gabe got a kitten. I was like, I’m just a foster. Six weeks, and then the kitten was adopted. But that was a really good experience because, one, it was temporary. And two, I had the agency checking in on me. So fostering was actually a great step for me. And I got to play with the kitten.

Lisa: And also, I’m sure if your neighbor or someone you know has a dog, they’ll let you walk it. Dogs can walk for days. If you say, hey, can I take your dog for a walk? They will totally let you do it because, yeah, no one can walk a dog as much as the dog wishes to be walked.

Gabe: You know, I just thought of a service that Kendall and I use to take care of Peppy sometimes, I’m not going to mention the name, but it’s just an app. It’s sort of like Uber for people who walk dogs, take care of pets, you know, check in on them. You can play with other people’s dogs, walk other people’s dogs and make a little money. Just Google Uber of dog walkers. They didn’t pay us. And I’m not certainly referring them. I just I wonder, everybody so far that’s taken care of Peppy from that service has had a day job. I wonder how many of those folks are like, hey, I get to play with puppies and make a little extra money. Sort of reminds me of, like, people like I don’t join a gym. I’m a mover on the weekends.

Lisa: That is an excellent idea that I might wow, think of all the money you’d save. But pets give you something else to focus on and they’re a source of uncomplicated affection.

Gabe: Back in a minute after these messages.

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Lisa: We’re back, talking about depression management.

Gabe: You know, Lisa, we’ve been kind of doing a combo deal here where we tell you how you can play with pets and volunteer, but volunteerism in and of itself is a way to help avoid, alleviate and lift yourself up out of depression.

Lisa: Studies are very clear that volunteerism works, it gives you that something to regularize your schedule, it gives you a place to go, it gives you responsibility, and it gives you that social interaction.

Gabe: It also gives you success, right? I just I used to be a volunteer manager and I called it the warm and fuzzy feeling. You know, everybody said volunteers work for free. No, they don’t. Volunteers do not work for free. They work for that warm and fuzzy feeling. You must connect their efforts with accomplishment, with success. That’s what they want. And I think this is really relevant and important for people who suffer from depression, because a lot of times we feel like we just feel like we’re not doing any good in the world

Lisa: Right.

Lisa: And volunteering gives you those positive accolades.

Gabe: You know, Lisa, we’re very aware of all of the common volunteer activities, you know, volunteering in a soup kitchen or volunteering with animals. But, you know, the mental health community has so many open volunteer opportunities that I don’t think people look into. Now, you want to make sure that your own recovery is very stable and sturdy before you move into them. But I hate it when people who live with mental illness don’t volunteer for our causes because, well frankly, we do have a hard time securing volunteers.

Lisa: Yes, it is a difficult thing, stigma is everywhere. And so, in your community, do you have a drop in center? Do you have a clubhouse program? Is there someplace that you could go to help out?

Gabe: Also, don’t discount volunteering for a fundraiser.

Lisa: Yeah, fundraising is what keeps the lights on.

Gabe: My first foray into mental health volunteerism was for a mental health walk.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: My volunteerism was I was a team captain. I put together a team, I raised some money. I showed up on Walk day, and then I grew from there. That was the first year, you remember it was called Gabe’s Group.

Lisa: Yeah, we got matching T-shirts.

Gabe: Yeah, we’re original at making names. The next year they asked me to do more, right. Not only was I a team captain, but I also gave a speech training other team captains and like getting people excited. And then the year after that, we volunteered to help organize the walk and put up signs. And there’s always stuff that you can do, like look around when you’re at a fundraiser. You know, at the end of it, everybody goes home, ask them if they need help tearing down, you know, all those sponsor signs that you saw along the walk path? Somebody needs to walk that walk path again and take them down. We love volunteers that can help do this. And it makes such a huge difference. I’m sure you can think of a dozen more easy mental health volunteer ideas that you can do no matter what level of recovery you’re in.

Lisa: Yes, don’t discount. Just because you can’t do a lot doesn’t mean you can’t do a little. There’s all sorts of things you could do. Get on the list to help stuff envelopes, pass out literature. You know, how you go to the library and there’s a bulletin board and it has a flier for that group? Someone had to go there and put it there. Be the person who does that. There are so many opportunities.

Gabe: The most important thing is to get engaged, call up the local nonprofits in an area that’s meaningful to you like mental health and say, look, I don’t know what I can do, but here is my skill set. Here is my available time. Utilize me. Now, remember, it’s not instantaneous right. They’re not going to be like, oh, my God, tomorrow, come in. It’s a slow build. And because you don’t know where they are, especially with COVID and the pandemic.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: There’s a lot less, unfortunately, right now. But keep an ear to the ground, ask if they have an email list and get signed up for it. The point is, is giving back. It matters. It mattered to me. Lisa, I believe it matters to you.

Lisa: Of course, and there’s actual evidence to back this up, studies conclusively show that volunteering helps depression.

Gabe: One of the advanced volunteer activities, of course, is peer support, leading a support group, teaching classes. There’s a lot of national mental health charities that will train you to be a support group facilitator or coordinator or teach various classes that they offer. Now, I want to be very, very clear. You need to make sure that you are secure in your stability.

Lisa: And you’re pretty far along in your own recovery.

Gabe: Yeah, but it absolutely helps prevent relapse. It prevents depression, it gives you that, you know, that weekly you know, oomph, that success. Now, Lisa is a trained teacher. She taught classes. They were 12-week classes once a week for 12 weeks. I am a support group facilitator. Every Thursday for a year and a half, I sat in a church basement and facilitated a mental health support group. And we both can just not say enough about that. But we grew from smaller volunteerism. Lisa, why did you sign up to be a teacher?

Lisa: The truth? Because I had attended the class and I thought it was great and it helped me so much and I talked to the director of the group and said, oh, my goodness, this class is amazing. You need to have more of them. You need to get more people to take this class. And she looked at me and said, we don’t have more classes because we don’t have enough teachers. And I thought, oh, walked right into that. I’m not going to be able to say no now. And how many years ago was that? And here we are.

Gabe: Oh, yeah. Years and years and years, I just want to set the proper expectations of where you are in your recovery, will determine what kind of volunteer opportunities are available for you. When I first started, I liked the open ended. You know, we accept volunteers between noon and five, you know, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. If you’re here, great. If you’re not, you’re not. And then I built into OK, we’re counting on you. We need you here at noon every Wednesday. I build into that. And some volunteer opportunities, they come with training. Lisa, you had to take a, I believe, a forty-hour training class and like a certified peer supporter is, I believe, a 60-hour training class, at least in the state of Ohio. Different states have different things. To become a facilitator for the mental health support group that I led, I actually had to travel to another city, stay in a hotel for three nights and have a pretty intensive training over three days.

Lisa: So, these are more of your advanced skills, but to get a start, stuff some envelopes, do some data entry, pick up litter on the walk path. There’s always something.

Gabe: And this leads us straight in to stay connected. I know that when I was sick, I just wanted to shut the world out.

Lisa: You didn’t have the energy.

Gabe: I didn’t want anybody to see me and I didn’t want to see them and staying connected was so valuable, I was very fortunate. I did not cultivate a group. A group cultivated me. They were my mom and dad. They were my siblings who checked in on me. They were friends that even though I did everything I could to get rid of them. Well, Lisa kept coming over. I think that sometimes I could have dipped a lot lower, but people were banging on my door asking me if I was OK and I cannot stress how I just I did so little to deserve that. It’s not like something that I worked on. So my advice to you is if you have people that are banging on your door when you are well, thank them. Thank them so much. Just be like, thank you for checking in on me. When things are great, praise them for caring about you enough to show up at your house unannounced after you’ve ignored their phone call for four days. Lisa, thank you for showing up at my house unannounced.

Lisa: You’re welcome.

Gabe: After I ignored your phone call for four days. But what are some things that you can do to cultivate that group if you don’t have one, if you’re not as fortunate as I was?

Lisa: Well, yeah, long term you’re going to want to cultivate that group and basically just go out there and make friends, and you could do that through volunteering, through joining activities that you enjoy, your family, your workplace. So that’s a long-term plan for long term management. But in those acute moments when you’re really sick, force yourself, even though you don’t want to. Get up and go out with the friend who’s inviting you or answer the door or answer the phone call, you just have to force yourself because that keeps you connected to that group.

Gabe: Now, when we say force yourself, obviously, if you need medical attention, get medical attention, but if you’re wavering, I cannot tell you how many times I was like, you know what, I don’t want to. And I.

Lisa: Because you feel like it doesn’t have immediate benefit in the moment, and you’ve got enough going on. You’re like, oh, I just can’t deal with that right now. It’s just not worth it. But it is worth it. It will definitely bring you long term benefits and it also brings you short term benefits. So, when you’re waffling, oh, God, do I have the energy for this? I don’t know. I’m just going to stay home. Don’t. It’s a bad idea.

Gabe: And this is where cultivation really, really matters, one of the things that I did in my social circle was, again, when we were well. You know, so many,

Lisa: When you’re well.

Gabe: Yes.

Lisa: You got to set this up when you’re well.

Gabe: Nobody wants to discuss mental illness and mental health issues and depression when they’re well, they want to pretend that it’s never coming back. Listen, it’s going to come back.

Lisa: It’s coming back, yeah.

Gabe: So I cannot stress this enough. But Lisa and I, we know when to push each other and we also know when to be honest with each other. So I say to Lisa, hey, let’s go out to dinner and she’ll be like, you know, I just don’t want to leave my house. And I’ll be like, OK. See, the first thing that Lisa did right was tell me the truth. She told me, I just don’t want to leave my house.

Lisa: Yeah, don’t try to find an excuse, because then they’re going to find out that your excuse isn’t real, then it’s going to be a whole thing.

Gabe: Right, step number two is ask some questions. Hey, Lisa, what’s going on? Is there a reason that you don’t want to leave? Is there anything I can do? Is there something that I can do to make it better? You know, I suggested this really loud, busy restaurant late at night. What if we go more low key? What if we go to the local diner? What if we just go to a fast-food restaurant? What if we just go to a coffee shop and just sit and talk? Would that help?

Lisa: Or maybe something super low key? What if I just come over with a pizza?

Gabe: The point is, is by setting this up when you’re well, I know that I can trust Lisa to tell her the truth, which is that I just don’t want to leave my house. And Lisa knows that I have given her permission to push a little and say, you know, look, let’s alter the plan. You know, what can we do? If you don’t want to go out on a Friday night because it’s busy, let’s change to breakfast on Saturday, that kind of thing. And it doesn’t always work. You know, Lisa and I have, you know, certainly pissed each other off a lot by pushing, but it works more than you think. But for me, Lisa, trusting me enough to say, hey, look, I’m just too anxious, depressed, moody, whatever to leave my house, that’s like really meaningful when it comes to cultivating relationships because she trusts me with this. This is not the kind of thing that you tell somebody you don’t trust. This is the kind of thing that you tell a real friend. Your friends will pick up on this. But again, I have to stress.

Lisa: Gotta, you got to cover your bases when you’re well,

Gabe: When you’re well.

Lisa: You’re going to need to build up credit, friend credit in the bank, when you’re well because you’re not going to be able to do it when you’re sick. To find that friend that doesn’t mind your bad moods or your dark moods, you’re going to need someone that you’re really coming through for when you’re well. And how well do you know your friends? If they’re saying, oh, no, I can’t do it, I can’t go out, I’m too depressed, how hard can you push? How hard can you insist? No, look, you need to do this. It’s for your own good. Come on, let’s go. And at what point do you need to back off? It’s a difficult skill.

Gabe: I really can’t stress enough that part of managing depression is managing your support group, cultivating those friendships and managing the people around you, and this means that you need to have conversations when you’re sick, when you’re not sick, when you’re perfect, when you’re, you know, wavering a little bit. It just needs to be this constant communication. And one of the reasons that is, is because of their own boundaries as well. You know, maybe they’re willing to adjust their plans for you. Hey, Gabe, are you ready to go out this Friday? You know, I just really don’t want to leave my house, OK? Look, I’ve got tickets to my favorite music group or sporting event. And you being melancholy or dragging me down is not something that I’m willing to do with hundred- and fifty-dollar tickets. So you know what? I’ll catch up with you tomorrow. I love you. Thank you for being honest with me and thank you for not dragging down my event. They need to be aware of this as well. And you need to not be offended by that, because I got to tell you,

Gabe: I have ruined more than one event for Lisa where she would have preferred that I not tried, that I would have stayed home and she would have caught up with me the next day. That’s why this constant communication needs to happen. It also needs to happen when you screw up. You know, Lisa, one of the things that causes me the most amount of depression is when I know, when I know that my depression has impacted you and not talking to you about it just makes it worse. The important thing to remember here is that you need to have ongoing communication with your support system, with your friends in order to cultivate a real relationship. You need to be talking about this always, not just when you need something, not just when you’re in crisis. It can’t be the elephant in the room. And people wonder when it’s going to wreck the day. You need to weave it into your relationships because it’s just so incredibly vital to who we are as people. We suffer from depression. That’s who we are.

Lisa: We all think it’s not going to come back when we’re well and it is. It’s going to come back and you need to be ready for that.

Gabe: And when you’re ready for it, it really, really lessens its impact and having these conversations with your friends lets you avoid things like biting off more than you can chew and ruining their event. It allows them to help you. But remember, it’s really important that when you’re well, you repay people and repayment is not give them money or buy them dinner. No, when things are going well, let them pick. If you wrecked somebody’s weekend, make up for it later. Don’t dwell on the fact that you wrecked it. Make a plan to fix it. You know, Lisa, I wrecked a great many.

Lisa: Yeah, there was some high points.

Gabe: Yeah, yeah, and one of the things that Lisa and I finally learned is, one, I need to be honest when I can’t do it, because that allows Lisa to make other plans of somebody that’s not going to wreck the plans. Right. We can all agree with that.

Lisa: Those were expensive tickets, that’s all I’m saying.

Gabe: But it also made me, when I was well, find things that Lisa wanted to do, you know, how many times I’ve gone to Red Lobster with Lisa?

Lisa: Red Lobster is delicious.

Gabe: I hate this place. Like there’s nothing in there that I like, but it’s one of Lisa’s favorite restaurants. It’s probably her favorite chain restaurant, right?

Lisa: I can’t help it. Yeah, it probably is my favorite chain restaurant.

Gabe: Yeah, I hate this place, it’s awful, it’s awful in every way, but but

Lisa: Lobsterfest? 

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: I’m so sad for you that you don’t have the joy of Lobsterfest.

Gabe: But I go to these things because it’s meaningful to Lisa and Lisa is like, hey, Gabe has no reason to do this. He doesn’t want to. These are the kind of things that build you goodwill. And also an apology goes a long way. So many people are like, why do I have to apologize for my illness? Yeah, it’s not your fault, but.

Lisa: It’s your responsibility. Whose fault is it?

Gabe: Yeah, it’s not their fault either, right? Lisa, doesn’t it suck to have to apologize for something is not your fault?

Lisa: Yeah, something that you can’t control, but, hey, life isn’t fair.

Gabe: It really reminds me, you know, Lisa and I have a really good friend who gets migraines and she’s constantly apologizing when the migraines, frankly, interrupt our plans. But, yeah, it’s not our fault we didn’t give her a migraine.

Lisa: Right. So what do you do with that?

Gabe: Yeah, so she says, I’m sorry, we say we know it’s cool, what can we do to help? But imagine if she went the other way. Look, I have a migraine. It’s not my problem. All right? I didn’t do it. It’s not my fault. Could you imagine the reaction to that?

Lisa: No one would tolerate that.

Gabe: Yeah, we’ll be like, look, I’m sorry you have a migraine, but I didn’t do anything. You can almost hear it now. That’s how we have to be with mental illness. I know it’s rough because it feels like stigma. It feels like discrimination and it feels like one more thing that’s put upon us. But the reality is, is anybody managing any illness would probably have to apologize for it. I mean, look, you know, I threw up on Lisa’s mom. It wasn’t my fault, but I definitely owed an apology for it.

Lisa: Well, longtime listeners know there’s more to that story, but of course, we don’t hold it against Gabe because he was so apologetic after it happened.

Gabe: I felt terrible.

Lisa: He definitely made amends.

Gabe: But could you imagine if I would have said, hey, I’m five days postop, this ain’t my problem?

Lisa: Yeah, screw you. I didn’t mean to.

Gabe: I’m not going to offer to clean your car up. Nobody holds it against me because I apologized and because

Lisa: And corrected it.

Gabe: I was truly sorry and because I made amends and now it’s just, now it’s just a funny story that’s lying in another episode of the podcast that you can dig through and find. And I don’t come off so well, but much like managing depression, I did not manage my post op too well and well, that did give me just a slight bit of culpability.

Lisa: But again, no one is holding a grudge because you apologized in a sincere way.

Gabe: Lisa, to wrap all this up in a nice bow, you know, managing depression is difficult and it’s one more thing that we have to work on. If you could boil this all down to like one piece of advice, what would it be? What’s like the most important thing to remember when managing depression?

Lisa: I don’t know if it’s the most important thing, but something that it was always very helpful to me that a doctor recommended years ago was to make sure that you take time to do things you enjoy. And you’re thinking, I’m depressed, I don’t enjoy anything. Well, try to think of things that you enjoy when you’re not depressed, stuff that you normally enjoy, even if you’re not having a good time with it now. A lot of times when I get depressed, I think, well, I don’t really want to go do that activity because it’s just too much effort. But also, I know I’m not going to enjoy it, and that just makes the depression worse. It becomes this cycle because now I’m not having a good time and I know that I should be having a good time, but I’m not. That’s just really depressing. And you feel like you’re almost wasting your effort. You know, I have a finite amount that I can do this. I’m not going to waste it when I’m in such a bad mood, but it kind of pulls you out of it. I was surprised at how well that worked for me. Forcing yourself to do things that you normally enjoy is extremely beneficial. 

Gabe: The reality is, is when we only focus on the things that we hate, dislike or that remind us of being lonely, then yeah, that’s all we can focus on. Find the little things, a rerun of a television show that made you laugh or that you have fond memories of just anything, anything to pull you out of it. It really does matter in just a really, really meaningful way.

Lisa: And keep in mind, if you have reached recovery, you know it’s possible. I don’t want to say something so simplistic as, oh, this too shall pass, but it is cyclical. I have periods of depression and eventually, through treatment, it gets better. So, it can get better. It will get better. And you know that it will because that’s what has happened to you in the past and that will happen again. You just have to wait it out.

Gabe: You know, Lisa, it really sounds like you’re saying that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

Lisa: Ooohh, the best predictor of future success is past success, so you know, what you’ve done in the past that has helped and what has hurt? Try to focus on the helped.

Gabe: Rinse and repeat, just like your favorite shampoo. Thanks, everybody, for listening to this week’s episode of the Not Crazy podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I am the author of Mental Illnesses Is an Asshole and Other Observations, which, of course, you can get on Amazon.com. But if you want to get it for less money, if you want me to sign it and you want Not Crazy podcast swag, they’re really cool stickers, head over to gabehoward.com and buy it there. I will personally mail it to you with the help of Lisa.

Lisa: I was going to say, you’re not doing that personally, I will mail it to you. Don’t worry, it will get there.

Gabe: Wherever you downloaded this podcast, please subscribe. Also rank and review, write a review. Use your words and let other people know why they should listen.

Lisa: And we’ll see you next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person?  Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail [email protected] for details. 

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Podcast: Depression Management Hints and Tips

Can a never-depressed person truly understand what your depression is like? Or give you advice? Probably not. It’s like getting parenting advice from a non-parent. In today’s show, our two depressed co-hosts, Gabe and Lisa, understand the pain of depression and are here to share their experiences and offer some helpful tips.

If you’re struggling with depression, tune in for a great discussion — from two people who have been there and understand what you’re going through. By the end, you’ll know you’re not alone.

(Transcript Available Below)

Please Subscribe to Our Show: And We Love Written Reviews! 

About The Not Crazy podcast Hosts

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 Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Depression Tips” Episode

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

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe: Hey, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Not Crazy podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I am your host. But with me, as always, is the great Lisa Kiner.

Lisa: Oh, thank you, Gabe. And today’s quote comes to us from Atticus, Depression is being colorblind and constantly told how colorful the world is.

Gabe: This speaks to me in ways that I just cannot explain,

Lisa: I know it’s awesome, right?

Gabe: Right?

Lisa: I like it a lot.

Gabe: I think that people think that they understand depression in the same way that people think they understand colorblindness. Right? Depression is the absence of happiness. Colorblindness is the absence of color. But.

Lisa: Colorblindness actually doesn’t work that way.

Gabe: Well, but you see what I mean?

Lisa: Right, right, right, the analogy is even better than we thought. Oh, boom. Mind blown.

Gabe: Exactly, the average person is like, oh, you see the world in black and white, but that’s not what’s actually happening. Just like depression is not this absence of happiness. It’s a painful feeling. It’s a weighted feeling. It’s being pulled into a dark hole. It’s loneliness, it’s emptiness. It’s shallow, it’s awful. It’s, it feels differently from person to person to person, just like colorblindness appears differently person to person to person and but everybody is wandering around like, well, I know what color blindness is. It’s like the whole world was a black and white TV. There. I got it. Solved the problem.

Lisa: You are stunningly good at analogies.

Gabe: I know, it’s like it’s my job. This leaves the person who is colorblind to think, wow, you don’t get me at all. But what’s worse is you are positive that you do and you won’t listen to me to explain that you don’t get it. I think that’s how people with depression feel. Not only do they not understand you, they’re 100% positive, that they do understand you and unwilling to listen to anything that we have to say to convince them otherwise, which, of course, just deepens that hole. It deepens that loneliness and frustration and, well, frankly, desperation.

Lisa: Yeah, it makes it even sadder. 

Gabe: Today we’re going to talk about coping with depression and maybe some helpful hints, because frankly, I just I think that we can only get tips for dealing with depression from other people who have dealt with and manage depression. So congratulations, everybody, your depressed co-hosts of Not Crazy are here to save the day. Right, Lisa?

Lisa: Absolutely.

Gabe: Wow, just the most depressing.

Lisa: I know

Gabe: Absolutely ever,

Lisa: Sorry. Well, because I have some

Gabe: I just, your energy level is garbage.

Lisa: Ok, stop, I want to say something. I want to respond to a point that you made earlier and I’ll figure out how to work it in. You know, I had a friend once who said.

Gabe: You know, you don’t have to work it in, you can just you’re always thinking about how do I make a sound better? I think the audience knows that we’re dipshits by now. I don’t I don’t think we’re fooling anybody with our creative edits. They

Lisa: You’re not helping

Gabe: They know we suck. Make your point.

Lisa: You’re not helping me get in the correct zone for point making.

Gabe: You don’t need to be in a zone. The point is the point is the point. Your feelings

Lisa: Ok, so

Gabe: Are irrelevant to facts.

Lisa: One time I said to someone, I feel like people who do not have mental illness, cannot understand mental illness, and I was specifically talking about doctors, I feel like my doctor who does not have mental illness does not get it. And she said, well, but isn’t that the truth with everyone? I mean, what if you had diabetes? Would a person who didn’t have diabetes understand it? And. Well, on the one hand, I don’t have diabetes, but yeah, I feel like they would. I feel like it’s not the same. And I don’t know why. I feel like mental illness is different than other things. I feel like I do have an understanding of all these other diseases, diabetes, a broken leg that I do not have. But I feel like I do understand it. But is that me doing the same thing that other people do with mental illness? I don’t know.

Gabe: There’s an element of this, right, we’re all arrogant about things

Lisa: Right,

Gabe: That impact other people.

Lisa: That’s the word I’m looking for, arrogance, is this just my own arrogance? I don’t know.

Gabe: Somewhat, right? I think it’s all in how much we scratch below the surface, right? Think of like parenting, you know, how everybody who has no children is the perfect

Lisa: Right, my kids would be perfect.

Gabe: I’m going to pick on my sister because my sister, before she had kids, she just walked around judging everybody’s parents. My kid’ll never throw a temper tantrum in a parking lot. My kid’ll never do this. My kid will never eat that. My kid will never watch this. My kid won’t have that problem. My kid will never back talk me. Yeah. I love my niece. And what I love most about her is that she just proves my sister wrong every single day.

Lisa: That does sound enjoyable.

Gabe: Yeah, it’s awesome as her big brother, but I don’t have kids, so it’s fun to watch, but it’s not that my sister’s a bad person. She thought that she understood. She observed other parents. She thought about her own upbringing and she formulated these opinions. But when parents were telling her, look, lady, that’s not how it works. My sister was like, pretty sure that’s how it works. And yeah, she’s just done nothing but eat crow since little Eva was born. The difference is, is to my sister’s credit and to many people’s credit, they’re like, yeah, I was wrong. I was completely unprepared for this. I was completely wrong. I am just so wrong. And I think we get that in like other illnesses, like you said, a broken leg. I think that many of us have broken a leg or at least respect the thoughts, views and opinions of somebody who we know who has broken a leg. But when it comes to depression, when it comes to any mental illness, really, but the show’s about depression. People are like, look, you’re describing it incorrectly. And they’re like, no depression of mine will ever behave that way.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: And they just walk away with all of the arrogance of a 20-year-old with no kids judging people who have kids because they’re positive that their child raising skills are superior even though they have no children. I think this allows us not to move forward in educating the public because they think they already know it.

Lisa: And this leads to your point of the best place to get advice on how to deal with depression is from people who have depression.

Gabe: Yes, and I don’t want everybody to, like, cancel all of their appointments with their therapists and doctors, right. As somebody who lives with depression, as somebody who manages depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, the first advice that I’m going to give you is work with your therapist and your doctor.

Lisa: For your long, long term management, yeah, you need a therapist, you need a doctor, take your meds, do your therapy, we just want to talk a little bit, maybe more around the edges for when you’re having a bad day or things just aren’t quite where you want them to be. This is not about when you’re really bad, when you’re really sick, you’re really deep in the hole.

Gabe: We also want to give you a few points, maybe, you know, your mileage may vary about how to talk to your therapist, talk to your doctor, talk to your prescriber, because so often, if they are dismissive, we sort of get handcuffed because we have this idea that perhaps we can’t argue with them.

Lisa: Well, yeah, because it’s your fault, it’s on you,

Gabe: Well, yeah, it’s on you.

Lisa: It’s your mistake, not theirs.

Gabe: Yeah, it’s nobody’s mistake, it’s an illness process, I hate this whole oh, my God, the patient is sick. Is it the patient’s fault or the doctor’s fault? It’s depression’s fault. It’s the illness’s fault. Why? Why are we blaming patient or doctor? You know, there’s a third party in the room, dumb asses. It’s the illness’s fault.

Lisa: Well, people with mental illness are in a bad position because by definition, your brain is not working correctly or not working optimally. So when your doctor says something and it’s putting it on you, you’re like, well, that makes sense. I’m the problem here, clearly. You’re kind of stuck.

Gabe: You’re kind of stuck, but I want people to understand that there are things that they can do to advocate for themselves, and the first thing is, is to tell your doctor, I don’t accept that. I don’t accept that this is my fault and I don’t accept that I am stuck. I want real goals. I want you to tell me what I need to do so that I can mark them down. And if I do those things and I’m not better, then we know it’s not me. In the deepest, darkest depression, and I know that’s hard, keep a lot of notes, find an ally, find a Lisa, find a friend, find somebody to help keep track of this. Don’t talk about depression in this abstract way. I’m depressed. What did you do? I went to a doctor. What’s the goal? To be not depressed. We need hard goals. You know, I’m depressed. What’s the goal? To get dressed in the morning? OK, I want to work with my therapist on how to get dressed in the morning. That’s a real manageable goal. And I’m going to give you a hint.

Lisa: Ok, you have a hint?

Gabe: I feel that we’ve beat to death this idea that you should work with your doctor, right, Lisa? Like nobody is saying that the Not Crazy podcast is a replacement for medical advice. Agreed?

Lisa: Agree,

Gabe: Ok, good.

Lisa: Strongly agree.

Gabe: All right. Let’s start at the beginning of the day. One of the problems that I often have is I just I can’t get out of bed in the morning. Now, I don’t like mean literally can’t. I’m not, like, laying in bed paralyzed or. I just wake up and I look around and I think I don’t want to do this. I don’t. And you remember these depressive episodes, Lisa. It was.

Lisa: It was difficult, it was very difficult, but I bet that you have some tips for dealing with that.

Gabe: The first thing I want to say is I think this is where severe depression sort of starts, right? This I don’t want to get out of bed or I don’t want to leave my couch or I don’t want to leave my house. Just this.

Lisa: It’s an overwhelming apathy.

Gabe: Yes, yes, and it’s this like you want to cocoon.

Lisa: Yeah, in a big gray blanket.

Gabe: Yeah, I don’t know what color my blanket was, but

Lisa: Well, no, because it’s gray, because it’s depression.

Gabe: Oh, I get it.

Lisa: Yeah, a big gray, wet blanket.

Gabe: Oh, I don’t know what made it wet, but,

Lisa: Tears,

Gabe: Yeah,

Lisa: Though, not really.

Gabe: I don’t think you’re far off, but I have some general tips for this. You know, one of the first things is, as you know, I thought to myself, OK, well, I need to get out of bed. Right. So,

Lisa: Step one.

Gabe: Yeah, step one, get out of bed. But that’s like really easy to say, right? It’s like, well, I’m depressed. What do I do? You just cheer up. Well, that’s not very helpful. How do you get out of bed? And I think there are some hints and tips to help with even that most basic idea of getting out of bed, put an alarm clock across the room. This has helped me because I have to physically get on my feet to turn off the alarm clock. And the alarm clock is so annoying that it overrides this general desire to stay in bed.

Lisa: That is the only way I can get up is if I put the alarm clock on the other side of the room because otherwise, I just turn over and hit it off. But it really annoys my husband

Gabe: Well, and.

Lisa: Because it goes off so much longer than it would otherwise.

Gabe: If you don’t live alone, you can ask a roommate to turn on a light for you. 

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Or open your window or, you know, do something like that. That’s what you would do, Lisa. You would come in and open the windows, turn on the light, open the door. But once you’re actually physically on your feet, like, that’s the least of your problems, right? You’re standing up. I mean, chances are having to go to the bathroom will get you out of bed. That part kind of works itself out eventually. So the big indicator for me was personal hygiene. Was showering, you know, am I taking a shower? Am I shaving? Am I brushing my teeth? And.

Lisa: For unknown reasons, that was something that you fixated on, it just seemed really overwhelming to you. Strangely, you would do other things, but that particular thing just you couldn’t seem to get past.

Gabe: It was so hard. So one of the goals that I made was to get dressed to get like real dressed like.

Lisa: Yeah, not pajamas and robe dressed.

Gabe: Right, like out in the world and here, here’s the helpful hint, guys,

Lisa: Oh, yeah.

Gabe: So many people say, well, my goal today is to get dressed OK, but that’s actually like a bunch of little things, right? Get dressed is the conclusion. There’s actually quite a few steps, right? There’s getting out of bed. There’s shaving, there’s taking a shower, there’s brushing your teeth, there’s washing your hair. There’s putting on clean underwear, clean socks and picking out clothes is even on there. And one of the ways that I helped myself a real great deal was I listed all of those things one at a time in order. Step one, get out of bed, step two, shave, step three, get in shower, step four, shampoo. And you’re thinking, wow, that’s like really cumbersome. But the one it is. But who cares? We’re moving forward. But it let me cross a lot of little things off the list. Now, you remember Lisa.

Lisa: He would literally cross them off the list.

Gabe: And I wrote them on the mirror in my bathroom because most bathroom mirrors, if you buy a dry erase marker, you can just write it right on there. Actually, I was wrong, pick out clothes was the first thing I put on the list. And I could usually cross that one off before I went to bed. 

Lisa: Getting a jump start on the day.

Gabe: Yeah, yeah, I’m going to bed with a win. We tend to do this like people say, I want to graduate college, OK, that’s a good goal. But could you imagine if you showed up to college on your first day and you asked the admissions people are like, hey, what do I need to do? And they said, you need to graduate college. OK, but how? By going to college. Graduating college is the conclusion. Getting dressed, getting ready, facing the day. That’s the conclusion. Write it out. Give yourself credit along the way.

Lisa: You did have like a five-point list that you wrote on the mirror almost every day. 

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: And it was like shower, shave, brush teeth. And you went straight down the list with the marker and crossed it off as you went. It seemed to make you very happy.

Gabe: I don’t know, there was something cathartic almost about accomplishing things, and you’re thinking to yourself, if you’re like me anyway, well, those are so stupid, those are stupid accomplishments. And if you’ve never been in the midst of really serious depression, I can understand that knee jerk reaction that that writing, you know, shave and then crossing it off is stupid.

Lisa: It worked, though.

Gabe: I’m telling you, the day before, I did nothing. Nothing. So, when all I did in a day was brush my teeth, comb my hair, shave, put on clean underwear, get dressed, that was an amazing accomplishment. And then I started building on the list, go get the mail, drive and get a Diet Coke or a cup of coffee. It just built until one day I realized that I was just doing this stuff automatically in the quote unquote normal amount of time and.

Lisa: You didn’t need the list anymore.

Gabe: I didn’t need the list anymore, and I would usually just realize, oh, huh, I didn’t write the list, life would just sort of move on. And we think to ourselves, well, why should I give myself credit for brushing my teeth? Because it’s hard. It’s hard for people like us. It’s an accomplishment for people like us. Don’t shame your success. Celebrate it. Well, other people don’t need to do this. First off, you don’t know what’s written on other people’s mirrors. All right? You just don’t. That’s number one thing. And number two, who cares? They’re not living your life. You’re living your life. This puts you in the best position.

Lisa: You still do it occasionally,

Gabe: Occasionally I do,

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: It’s still a coping skill that I use, you know, another coping skill that I use, Lisa, that that you taught me

Lisa: Oh,

Gabe: That. Yeah.

Lisa: I’m sure this is a good one.

Gabe: This is a super important, are you ready?

Lisa: Ok, I’m ready.

Gabe: Sleep hygiene.

Lisa: We all know how much Gabe loves to talk about sleep hygiene.

Gabe: Anybody that’s been a long-time listener of Gabe Howard knows how much I love sleep hygiene; I cannot overstate that I believe that sleep drives my mental health, my bipolar, anxiety, mania, depression more than anything else. It’s also an incredible predictor. But this all starts with respecting sleep and knowing how to manage it. And normally I give this whole big speech about everything that I know about sleep hygiene, but I learned it from Lisa. So, real treat everybody. Lisa is going to teach us sleep hygiene.

Lisa: Ok, sleep hygiene means having a consistent routine and a consistent waking up and going to bed time, that can be so difficult when you’re depressed. Like Gabe says, nobody respects sleep. You should use your bed only for sleep and sex. That’s it. Don’t have your TV in the bedroom. Don’t be playing with your phone before you go to sleep. None of that. Sleep and sex, that’s it.

Gabe: It’s so simple, it’s almost annoying, right? First off, sleep is just as important as food. Just hear me on that one. It is just as important as food. If you eat garbage all day, you will feel like shit. If you don’t get enough sleep, you will feel like shit. Those things go together.

Lisa: Well, but when people talk about health, they always talk about diet and exercise, but no one ever throws in sleep. Diet, exercise and sleep, they should have equal footing.

Gabe: They really, really, really should, but for some reason they don’t, so I am going to fix that. Like that’s my mission. A lot of people hear where are you supposed to go to bed and get up at the same time? And they’re like, well, but with depression, I can’t control when I fall asleep. And what if I stay up all night ruminating or, you know, anxiety follows my depression around pretty easily where I just get caught in this feedback loop and I stay up later and later and later. Yeah, it’s really rough when that same time in the morning comes around and I’ve only gotten two hours sleep and people say to me, well but sleep is so important, Gabe, then you should just sleep all day, otherwise you’re going to have a really bad day. You’re going to be irritable, you’re going to be grumpy, you’re not going to get that sleep. Yeah, all of those things are true except for the part where you don’t get up anyway and you’re thinking to yourself, why would I do that to myself for a day? Because otherwise you’re going to do that to yourself for two days a week, four days. You’re going to get your routine all messed up. You’re going to get your sleep cycle off. One bad day is awful. So, imagine seven bad days. I once got my sleep schedule, so out of whack, I don’t think I knew up from down for a month and that all could have been avoided by having one bad day. Now, Lisa, the only use your bedroom for sleep and sex thing really throws a lot of people because a lot of people use their bedrooms as a sanctuary away

Lisa: Right,

Gabe: From children,

Lisa: Roommates.

Gabe: Roommates. It would be nice if everybody listening had multiple rooms in their house and they could just dedicate a room. But there are still things that you can do in your bedroom to make sure that your bed is only used for sleep and sex. One thing is to have a chair in your room if you can. So if you are going to have a TV in there, don’t watch TV in bed, sit in the chair next to your bed and watch the TV. That way, when you’re in the bed, it still creates this demarcation.

Lisa: Well, it even if you can’t do that for some reason, you have a really small apartment, have a consistent bedtime routine, that these are the things I do before I go to sleep. You brush your teeth, put on your jammies, whatever, sit in that chair and read for 20 minutes. You have a consistent routine that you do every night, no matter what. I personally sometimes do not give enough credit to sleep. When I get really depressed, you just start ruminating on those thoughts. And for me, I think staying up late is actually a form of procrastination. You know how you always tell little kids the sooner you go to bed, the sooner Santa will be here? Well, yeah, the sooner you go to bed, the sooner tomorrow will be here. And all the things that you have to do tomorrow will be here. So if you stay up, you can put that off. Yeah, it always is self-defeating.

Gabe: Well, it’s self-sabotage, especially for you, Lisa.

Lisa: Yeah, I get so much more emotional when I haven’t slept, I’m just on the knife’s edge and I can’t restore my equilibrium if I’m tired.

Gabe: When we talk about managing depression, it would just be ludicrous to not just point out how important sleep is to managing mental health.

Lisa: And no one ever talks about it. Your doctor will ask you about your diet or your exercise, they never ask you about your sleep. It’s weird.

Gabe: But thankfully, Gabe and Lisa are on the case, honestly, you would be crazy not to get enough sleep.

Lisa: And again, it’s one of those things that’s so simplistic. Really? I have this life-threatening illness and you want me to make sure to go to bed on time? Yeah,

Gabe: Yes,

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah,

Gabe: Yeah,

Lisa: I do. Yeah,

Gabe: Yeah, yeah, I do.

Lisa: It’s not bullshit. Seriously, I speak from experience.

Gabe: We also need to think outside of the box. I am very fortunate I can use my bedroom just for sleep and sex. I’ve got the whole rest of the house. But when I travel, for example, if the hotel room has a chair, I sit in the chair to watch TV rather than sit on the bed. Now, if I have to sit on the bed, I don’t get under the covers and I stay in my clothes. So

Lisa: That’s a good one.

Gabe: The idea is to be creative around this so that you are setting up a routine so that when you get into bed, your body knows it’s time to sleep. Another thing that I highly recommend is a white noise machine. Turn on the white noise machine only when you’re ready to go to bed, turn everything else off. A fan is very helpful. Turn on the white noise machine and the fan when you go to bed, that air across your body, being under the covers, being in pajamas or all of these things just indicate this is what you do when you sleep. And then it’s repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat. We can say until we’re blue in the face that Lisa doesn’t respect sleep, but Lisa is not uncommon. 

Lisa, along with sleep hygiene, what are some other things that you think that people can do to manage their depression in a helpful and meaningful way?

Lisa: Well, again, the idea of having a schedule is so important, so you’re getting up at the same time every day, and one of the things that might help you keep to a schedule maybe is a pet.

Gabe: Really, you’re advising people to get a living creature. Should we start with a plant?

Lisa: Well, maybe you should start with a plant, maybe a hamster, hamsters are really nice.

Gabe: Well, you know, that’s very interesting, actually, I’m really glad that you pointed that out. You know, in my mind, dog. Everybody is going to run out and buy a 100-pound German shepherd. But you are right, there’s pocket pets. I said plant and you brought up hamster. Do you think that the I’m really trying hard not to say, hey, do you think depressed people can take care of hamsters?

Lisa: Yes, actually, I do, because it gives you something else to focus on, something else to think about, something that isn’t just about you. It’s someone else, something else that is counting on you. And depending on the pet, especially right now, COVID time, if you’re not getting a lot of human interaction, you have your pet. You know, it’s something that provides you with affection and you could get that dog and cuddle with it and pet it and it’s just it’s very soothing.

Gabe: Lisa, you had a hamster.

Lisa: I did have a hamster as a child. I loved my hamster a lot.

Gabe: I was hoping that you would just open yourself up and just confess to the people your love of your hamster. What was your hamster’s name?

Lisa: Twitchell.

Gabe: Twitchell. Tell everybody about little depressed Lisa taking care of little Twitchell.

Lisa: I was a troubled kid, I had a lot of trouble with depression, I didn’t have a lot of friends, I was very lonely and I got a hamster. As I think back about it now, it’s actually really depressing. I’m actually feeling a little bit emotional. I’m 40 and I’m getting emotional thinking about the rodent I had that died when I was 10, but I was ridiculously attached to this hamster. Her name was Twitchell because her nose twitched. I thought that was incredibly clever. It just gave me something else to love, you know, because like I said, I was lonely and there was nobody else around.

Gabe: And it wasn’t just about loving, it was also about the routine of caring for Twitchell.

Lisa: Yeah, because you had to feed her, you had to take care of her cage, and of course, you want to do that at the same time every day and that you felt this responsibility. I have to be at least up and alert enough to do these things or I’m letting her down, you know, so you have this responsibility to someone else and maybe you don’t have the incentive to get up and get going for yourself, but you do for your pet.

Gabe: Now, Lisa, you moved on from Twitchell when you were a little older, you got a turtle and now I was fascinated by this because when I met Lisa, she had a turtle and she was like, well, I��ve had that turtle since I was 10. I was like, that’s not true, that turtles don’t live that long. And she was like, turtles live like 50, 60 years. And I was like, well, I’ve only seen the little turtles. And Lisa said.

Lisa: You know, I hate that. Oh, when I was a kid, I had the little turtles. Babies? No, no, no, not the babies, the little ones. Babies, those are babies. Everyone’s like, no, no, no. That’s a different breed of turtle that stays small. Yeah, it’s a baby. And then they’ll say things like, no, no, no. I had that turtle for like a year and it never got any bigger. Yeah, because you weren’t taking good care of it. It was a baby.

Gabe: It’s extraordinarily important that any pet that you get, you make sure that you can care for the pet.

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: And that you have a backup plan in the event that you cannot. Now don’t run out and grab a pet thinking the pet is going to solve all of your problems, make sure that you are ready for the pet and that you have a backup plan. Backup plans are very important when caring for living creatures. I cannot stress enough that you might want to start with a plant. This is not advice for the severely depressed. This is an advanced skill. We wanted to mention pets because the research is just clearly there, but we don’t want everybody running out getting a pet that they, you know, slowly torture and kill. I think that’s what we’re trying to say, Lisa.

Lisa: Well, keep in mind, even among pocket pets, they could be a lot more difficult to take care of, especially reptiles and birds, people do not realize the amount of work and effort that’s involved in properly caring for them. And obviously, you don’t want to get a pet so that you can take poor care of it. So this is a bit of advanced skill. Make sure you do your research. I owned reptiles for decades and they just take a lot more work than most people think.

Gabe: As somebody who suffers from depression, I got to tell you, my dog, I love my dog. My dog absolutely helps with my depression. It helps with my routine. I’ve got to care for this dog. I feel a sense of pride in watching him, caring for him, molding him, taking him to the vet.

Lisa: And responsibility.

Gabe: Yeah, I cannot be more clear that Peppy is a point of pride and success for me, but that said, I want to make sure that I do right by him even when I’m sick. It’s of vital importance to understand that. So we have sort of a happy medium, which is volunteer at the Humane Society, find a shelter.

Lisa: Then you could pet things.

Gabe: Then you can play with the pets, care for the pets, be around the pets, but also then you can go home. Lisa, you have, I don’t remember, did you ever volunteer for any sort of animal shelter?

Lisa: Yeah, because I didn’t want to have a dog in my house and I couldn’t afford it, but I wanted to be able to pet them.

Gabe: I remember that I fostered a kitten for a few weeks. Do you remember because when I fostered

Lisa: I do remember.

Gabe: That kitten, you were like Gabe got a kitten. I was like, I’m just a foster. Six weeks, and then the kitten was adopted. But that was a really good experience because, one, it was temporary. And two, I had the agency checking in on me. So fostering was actually a great step for me. And I got to play with the kitten.

Lisa: And also, I’m sure if your neighbor or someone you know has a dog, they’ll let you walk it. Dogs can walk for days. If you say, hey, can I take your dog for a walk? They will totally let you do it because, yeah, no one can walk a dog as much as the dog wishes to be walked.

Gabe: You know, I just thought of a service that Kendall and I use to take care of Peppy sometimes, I’m not going to mention the name, but it’s just an app. It’s sort of like Uber for people who walk dogs, take care of pets, you know, check in on them. You can play with other people’s dogs, walk other people’s dogs and make a little money. Just Google Uber of dog walkers. They didn’t pay us. And I’m not certainly referring them. I just I wonder, everybody so far that’s taken care of Peppy from that service has had a day job. I wonder how many of those folks are like, hey, I get to play with puppies and make a little extra money. Sort of reminds me of, like, people like I don’t join a gym. I’m a mover on the weekends.

Lisa: That is an excellent idea that I might wow, think of all the money you’d save. But pets give you something else to focus on and they’re a source of uncomplicated affection.

Gabe: Back in a minute after these messages.

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Lisa: We’re back, talking about depression management.

Gabe: You know, Lisa, we’ve been kind of doing a combo deal here where we tell you how you can play with pets and volunteer, but volunteerism in and of itself is a way to help avoid, alleviate and lift yourself up out of depression.

Lisa: Studies are very clear that volunteerism works, it gives you that something to regularize your schedule, it gives you a place to go, it gives you responsibility, and it gives you that social interaction.

Gabe: It also gives you success, right? I just I used to be a volunteer manager and I called it the warm and fuzzy feeling. You know, everybody said volunteers work for free. No, they don’t. Volunteers do not work for free. They work for that warm and fuzzy feeling. You must connect their efforts with accomplishment, with success. That’s what they want. And I think this is really relevant and important for people who suffer from depression, because a lot of times we feel like we just feel like we’re not doing any good in the world

Lisa: Right.

Lisa: And volunteering gives you those positive accolades.

Gabe: You know, Lisa, we’re very aware of all of the common volunteer activities, you know, volunteering in a soup kitchen or volunteering with animals. But, you know, the mental health community has so many open volunteer opportunities that I don’t think people look into. Now, you want to make sure that your own recovery is very stable and sturdy before you move into them. But I hate it when people who live with mental illness don’t volunteer for our causes because, well frankly, we do have a hard time securing volunteers.

Lisa: Yes, it is a difficult thing, stigma is everywhere. And so, in your community, do you have a drop in center? Do you have a clubhouse program? Is there someplace that you could go to help out?

Gabe: Also, don’t discount volunteering for a fundraiser.

Lisa: Yeah, fundraising is what keeps the lights on.

Gabe: My first foray into mental health volunteerism was for a mental health walk.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: My volunteerism was I was a team captain. I put together a team, I raised some money. I showed up on Walk day, and then I grew from there. That was the first year, you remember it was called Gabe’s Group.

Lisa: Yeah, we got matching T-shirts.

Gabe: Yeah, we’re original at making names. The next year they asked me to do more, right. Not only was I a team captain, but I also gave a speech training other team captains and like getting people excited. And then the year after that, we volunteered to help organize the walk and put up signs. And there’s always stuff that you can do, like look around when you’re at a fundraiser. You know, at the end of it, everybody goes home, ask them if they need help tearing down, you know, all those sponsor signs that you saw along the walk path? Somebody needs to walk that walk path again and take them down. We love volunteers that can help do this. And it makes such a huge difference. I’m sure you can think of a dozen more easy mental health volunteer ideas that you can do no matter what level of recovery you’re in.

Lisa: Yes, don’t discount. Just because you can’t do a lot doesn’t mean you can’t do a little. There’s all sorts of things you could do. Get on the list to help stuff envelopes, pass out literature. You know, how you go to the library and there’s a bulletin board and it has a flier for that group? Someone had to go there and put it there. Be the person who does that. There are so many opportunities.

Gabe: The most important thing is to get engaged, call up the local nonprofits in an area that’s meaningful to you like mental health and say, look, I don’t know what I can do, but here is my skill set. Here is my available time. Utilize me. Now, remember, it’s not instantaneous right. They’re not going to be like, oh, my God, tomorrow, come in. It’s a slow build. And because you don’t know where they are, especially with COVID and the pandemic.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: There’s a lot less, unfortunately, right now. But keep an ear to the ground, ask if they have an email list and get signed up for it. The point is, is giving back. It matters. It mattered to me. Lisa, I believe it matters to you.

Lisa: Of course, and there’s actual evidence to back this up, studies conclusively show that volunteering helps depression.

Gabe: One of the advanced volunteer activities, of course, is peer support, leading a support group, teaching classes. There’s a lot of national mental health charities that will train you to be a support group facilitator or coordinator or teach various classes that they offer. Now, I want to be very, very clear. You need to make sure that you are secure in your stability.

Lisa: And you’re pretty far along in your own recovery.

Gabe: Yeah, but it absolutely helps prevent relapse. It prevents depression, it gives you that, you know, that weekly you know, oomph, that success. Now, Lisa is a trained teacher. She taught classes. They were 12-week classes once a week for 12 weeks. I am a support group facilitator. Every Thursday for a year and a half, I sat in a church basement and facilitated a mental health support group. And we both can just not say enough about that. But we grew from smaller volunteerism. Lisa, why did you sign up to be a teacher?

Lisa: The truth? Because I had attended the class and I thought it was great and it helped me so much and I talked to the director of the group and said, oh, my goodness, this class is amazing. You need to have more of them. You need to get more people to take this class. And she looked at me and said, we don’t have more classes because we don’t have enough teachers. And I thought, oh, walked right into that. I’m not going to be able to say no now. And how many years ago was that? And here we are.

Gabe: Oh, yeah. Years and years and years, I just want to set the proper expectations of where you are in your recovery, will determine what kind of volunteer opportunities are available for you. When I first started, I liked the open ended. You know, we accept volunteers between noon and five, you know, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. If you’re here, great. If you’re not, you’re not. And then I built into OK, we’re counting on you. We need you here at noon every Wednesday. I build into that. And some volunteer opportunities, they come with training. Lisa, you had to take a, I believe, a forty-hour training class and like a certified peer supporter is, I believe, a 60-hour training class, at least in the state of Ohio. Different states have different things. To become a facilitator for the mental health support group that I led, I actually had to travel to another city, stay in a hotel for three nights and have a pretty intensive training over three days.

Lisa: So, these are more of your advanced skills, but to get a start, stuff some envelopes, do some data entry, pick up litter on the walk path. There’s always something.

Gabe: And this leads us straight in to stay connected. I know that when I was sick, I just wanted to shut the world out.

Lisa: You didn’t have the energy.

Gabe: I didn’t want anybody to see me and I didn’t want to see them and staying connected was so valuable, I was very fortunate. I did not cultivate a group. A group cultivated me. They were my mom and dad. They were my siblings who checked in on me. They were friends that even though I did everything I could to get rid of them. Well, Lisa kept coming over. I think that sometimes I could have dipped a lot lower, but people were banging on my door asking me if I was OK and I cannot stress how I just I did so little to deserve that. It’s not like something that I worked on. So my advice to you is if you have people that are banging on your door when you are well, thank them. Thank them so much. Just be like, thank you for checking in on me. When things are great, praise them for caring about you enough to show up at your house unannounced after you’ve ignored their phone call for four days. Lisa, thank you for showing up at my house unannounced.

Lisa: You’re welcome.

Gabe: After I ignored your phone call for four days. But what are some things that you can do to cultivate that group if you don’t have one, if you’re not as fortunate as I was?

Lisa: Well, yeah, long term you’re going to want to cultivate that group and basically just go out there and make friends, and you could do that through volunteering, through joining activities that you enjoy, your family, your workplace. So that’s a long-term plan for long term management. But in those acute moments when you’re really sick, force yourself, even though you don’t want to. Get up and go out with the friend who’s inviting you or answer the door or answer the phone call, you just have to force yourself because that keeps you connected to that group.

Gabe: Now, when we say force yourself, obviously, if you need medical attention, get medical attention, but if you’re wavering, I cannot tell you how many times I was like, you know what, I don’t want to. And I.

Lisa: Because you feel like it doesn’t have immediate benefit in the moment, and you’ve got enough going on. You’re like, oh, I just can’t deal with that right now. It’s just not worth it. But it is worth it. It will definitely bring you long term benefits and it also brings you short term benefits. So, when you’re waffling, oh, God, do I have the energy for this? I don’t know. I’m just going to stay home. Don’t. It’s a bad idea.

Gabe: And this is where cultivation really, really matters, one of the things that I did in my social circle was, again, when we were well. You know, so many,

Lisa: When you’re well.

Gabe: Yes.

Lisa: You got to set this up when you’re well.

Gabe: Nobody wants to discuss mental illness and mental health issues and depression when they’re well, they want to pretend that it’s never coming back. Listen, it’s going to come back.

Lisa: It’s coming back, yeah.

Gabe: So I cannot stress this enough. But Lisa and I, we know when to push each other and we also know when to be honest with each other. So I say to Lisa, hey, let’s go out to dinner and she’ll be like, you know, I just don’t want to leave my house. And I’ll be like, OK. See, the first thing that Lisa did right was tell me the truth. She told me, I just don’t want to leave my house.

Lisa: Yeah, don’t try to find an excuse, because then they’re going to find out that your excuse isn’t real, then it’s going to be a whole thing.

Gabe: Right, step number two is ask some questions. Hey, Lisa, what’s going on? Is there a reason that you don’t want to leave? Is there anything I can do? Is there something that I can do to make it better? You know, I suggested this really loud, busy restaurant late at night. What if we go more low key? What if we go to the local diner? What if we just go to a fast-food restaurant? What if we just go to a coffee shop and just sit and talk? Would that help?

Lisa: Or maybe something super low key? What if I just come over with a pizza?

Gabe: The point is, is by setting this up when you’re well, I know that I can trust Lisa to tell her the truth, which is that I just don’t want to leave my house. And Lisa knows that I have given her permission to push a little and say, you know, look, let’s alter the plan. You know, what can we do? If you don’t want to go out on a Friday night because it’s busy, let’s change to breakfast on Saturday, that kind of thing. And it doesn’t always work. You know, Lisa and I have, you know, certainly pissed each other off a lot by pushing, but it works more than you think. But for me, Lisa, trusting me enough to say, hey, look, I’m just too anxious, depressed, moody, whatever to leave my house, that’s like really meaningful when it comes to cultivating relationships because she trusts me with this. This is not the kind of thing that you tell somebody you don’t trust. This is the kind of thing that you tell a real friend. Your friends will pick up on this. But again, I have to stress.

Lisa: Gotta, you got to cover your bases when you’re well,

Gabe: When you’re well.

Lisa: You’re going to need to build up credit, friend credit in the bank, when you’re well because you’re not going to be able to do it when you’re sick. To find that friend that doesn’t mind your bad moods or your dark moods, you’re going to need someone that you’re really coming through for when you’re well. And how well do you know your friends? If they’re saying, oh, no, I can’t do it, I can’t go out, I’m too depressed, how hard can you push? How hard can you insist? No, look, you need to do this. It’s for your own good. Come on, let’s go. And at what point do you need to back off? It’s a difficult skill.

Gabe: I really can’t stress enough that part of managing depression is managing your support group, cultivating those friendships and managing the people around you, and this means that you need to have conversations when you’re sick, when you’re not sick, when you’re perfect, when you’re, you know, wavering a little bit. It just needs to be this constant communication. And one of the reasons that is, is because of their own boundaries as well. You know, maybe they’re willing to adjust their plans for you. Hey, Gabe, are you ready to go out this Friday? You know, I just really don’t want to leave my house, OK? Look, I’ve got tickets to my favorite music group or sporting event. And you being melancholy or dragging me down is not something that I’m willing to do with hundred- and fifty-dollar tickets. So you know what? I’ll catch up with you tomorrow. I love you. Thank you for being honest with me and thank you for not dragging down my event. They need to be aware of this as well. And you need to not be offended by that, because I got to tell you,

Gabe: I have ruined more than one event for Lisa where she would have preferred that I not tried, that I would have stayed home and she would have caught up with me the next day. That’s why this constant communication needs to happen. It also needs to happen when you screw up. You know, Lisa, one of the things that causes me the most amount of depression is when I know, when I know that my depression has impacted you and not talking to you about it just makes it worse. The important thing to remember here is that you need to have ongoing communication with your support system, with your friends in order to cultivate a real relationship. You need to be talking about this always, not just when you need something, not just when you’re in crisis. It can’t be the elephant in the room. And people wonder when it’s going to wreck the day. You need to weave it into your relationships because it’s just so incredibly vital to who we are as people. We suffer from depression. That’s who we are.

Lisa: We all think it’s not going to come back when we’re well and it is. It’s going to come back and you need to be ready for that.

Gabe: And when you’re ready for it, it really, really lessens its impact and having these conversations with your friends lets you avoid things like biting off more than you can chew and ruining their event. It allows them to help you. But remember, it’s really important that when you’re well, you repay people and repayment is not give them money or buy them dinner. No, when things are going well, let them pick. If you wrecked somebody’s weekend, make up for it later. Don’t dwell on the fact that you wrecked it. Make a plan to fix it. You know, Lisa, I wrecked a great many.

Lisa: Yeah, there was some high points.

Gabe: Yeah, yeah, and one of the things that Lisa and I finally learned is, one, I need to be honest when I can’t do it, because that allows Lisa to make other plans of somebody that’s not going to wreck the plans. Right. We can all agree with that.

Lisa: Those were expensive tickets, that’s all I’m saying.

Gabe: But it also made me, when I was well, find things that Lisa wanted to do, you know, how many times I’ve gone to Red Lobster with Lisa?

Lisa: Red Lobster is delicious.

Gabe: I hate this place. Like there’s nothing in there that I like, but it’s one of Lisa’s favorite restaurants. It’s probably her favorite chain restaurant, right?

Lisa: I can’t help it. Yeah, it probably is my favorite chain restaurant.

Gabe: Yeah, I hate this place, it’s awful, it’s awful in every way, but but

Lisa: Lobsterfest? 

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: I’m so sad for you that you don’t have the joy of Lobsterfest.

Gabe: But I go to these things because it’s meaningful to Lisa and Lisa is like, hey, Gabe has no reason to do this. He doesn’t want to. These are the kind of things that build you goodwill. And also an apology goes a long way. So many people are like, why do I have to apologize for my illness? Yeah, it’s not your fault, but.

Lisa: It’s your responsibility. Whose fault is it?

Gabe: Yeah, it’s not their fault either, right? Lisa, doesn’t it suck to have to apologize for something is not your fault?

Lisa: Yeah, something that you can’t control, but, hey, life isn’t fair.

Gabe: It really reminds me, you know, Lisa and I have a really good friend who gets migraines and she’s constantly apologizing when the migraines, frankly, interrupt our plans. But, yeah, it’s not our fault we didn’t give her a migraine.

Lisa: Right. So what do you do with that?

Gabe: Yeah, so she says, I’m sorry, we say we know it’s cool, what can we do to help? But imagine if she went the other way. Look, I have a migraine. It’s not my problem. All right? I didn’t do it. It’s not my fault. Could you imagine the reaction to that?

Lisa: No one would tolerate that.

Gabe: Yeah, we’ll be like, look, I’m sorry you have a migraine, but I didn’t do anything. You can almost hear it now. That’s how we have to be with mental illness. I know it’s rough because it feels like stigma. It feels like discrimination and it feels like one more thing that’s put upon us. But the reality is, is anybody managing any illness would probably have to apologize for it. I mean, look, you know, I threw up on Lisa’s mom. It wasn’t my fault, but I definitely owed an apology for it.

Lisa: Well, longtime listeners know there’s more to that story, but of course, we don’t hold it against Gabe because he was so apologetic after it happened.

Gabe: I felt terrible.

Lisa: He definitely made amends.

Gabe: But could you imagine if I would have said, hey, I’m five days postop, this ain’t my problem?

Lisa: Yeah, screw you. I didn’t mean to.

Gabe: I’m not going to offer to clean your car up. Nobody holds it against me because I apologized and because

Lisa: And corrected it.

Gabe: I was truly sorry and because I made amends and now it’s just, now it’s just a funny story that’s lying in another episode of the podcast that you can dig through and find. And I don’t come off so well, but much like managing depression, I did not manage my post op too well and well, that did give me just a slight bit of culpability.

Lisa: But again, no one is holding a grudge because you apologized in a sincere way.

Gabe: Lisa, to wrap all this up in a nice bow, you know, managing depression is difficult and it’s one more thing that we have to work on. If you could boil this all down to like one piece of advice, what would it be? What’s like the most important thing to remember when managing depression?

Lisa: I don’t know if it’s the most important thing, but something that it was always very helpful to me that a doctor recommended years ago was to make sure that you take time to do things you enjoy. And you’re thinking, I’m depressed, I don’t enjoy anything. Well, try to think of things that you enjoy when you’re not depressed, stuff that you normally enjoy, even if you’re not having a good time with it now. A lot of times when I get depressed, I think, well, I don’t really want to go do that activity because it’s just too much effort. But also, I know I’m not going to enjoy it, and that just makes the depression worse. It becomes this cycle because now I’m not having a good time and I know that I should be having a good time, but I’m not. That’s just really depressing. And you feel like you’re almost wasting your effort. You know, I have a finite amount that I can do this. I’m not going to waste it when I’m in such a bad mood, but it kind of pulls you out of it. I was surprised at how well that worked for me. Forcing yourself to do things that you normally enjoy is extremely beneficial. 

Gabe: The reality is, is when we only focus on the things that we hate, dislike or that remind us of being lonely, then yeah, that’s all we can focus on. Find the little things, a rerun of a television show that made you laugh or that you have fond memories of just anything, anything to pull you out of it. It really does matter in just a really, really meaningful way.

Lisa: And keep in mind, if you have reached recovery, you know it’s possible. I don’t want to say something so simplistic as, oh, this too shall pass, but it is cyclical. I have periods of depression and eventually, through treatment, it gets better. So, it can get better. It will get better. And you know that it will because that’s what has happened to you in the past and that will happen again. You just have to wait it out.

Gabe: You know, Lisa, it really sounds like you’re saying that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

Lisa: Ooohh, the best predictor of future success is past success, so you know, what you’ve done in the past that has helped and what has hurt? Try to focus on the helped.

Gabe: Rinse and repeat, just like your favorite shampoo. Thanks, everybody, for listening to this week’s episode of the Not Crazy podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I am the author of Mental Illnesses Is an Asshole and Other Observations, which, of course, you can get on Amazon.com. But if you want to get it for less money, if you want me to sign it and you want Not Crazy podcast swag, they’re really cool stickers, head over to gabehoward.com and buy it there. I will personally mail it to you with the help of Lisa.

Lisa: I was going to say, you’re not doing that personally, I will mail it to you. Don’t worry, it will get there.

Gabe: Wherever you downloaded this podcast, please subscribe. Also rank and review, write a review. Use your words and let other people know why they should listen.

Lisa: And we’ll see you next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person?  Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail [email protected] for details. 

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Trauma in the Womb

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Two Key Principles to Healthy Boundaries/Relationships!

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What Every Woman Wishes Her Man Would Know!

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Podcast: Is Telehealth Effective?

In today’s COVID world, many mental health patients are finding themselves “forced” into seeing their doctors online rather than in person. But how effective is telehealth? What are the benefits and disadvantages? 

Today’s guest is psychiatrist Dr. Frank Chen, who thoroughly explains the whole new world of telemedicine and why it doesn’t have to be scary. In fact, many patients, including Gabe, have found it to be quite convenient!

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  Guest information for ‘Frank Chen- Telehealth’ Podcast Episode

Dr. Frank Chen is a practicing psychiatrist in Houston, Texas, who also specializes in Adult Psychiatry. He graduated from Saint Louis University School of Medicine in 1998 and completed a residency at Baylor College of Medicine in 2002. Dr. Chen is the Chief Medical Officer at Houston Behavioral Healthcare Hospital and Houston Adult Psychiatry.

      About The Psych Central Podcast 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. To learn more about Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Frank Chen – Is Telehealth Effective?’ Episode

Editor’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 the Psych Central Podcast, where guest experts in the field of psychology and mental health share thought-provoking information using plain, everyday language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Psych Central Podcast, I’m your host, Gabe Howard, and calling into the show today, we have Dr. Frank Chen. Dr. Chen is a practicing psychiatrist in Houston, Texas, who specializes in adult psychiatry. Dr. Chen is the chief medical officer at Houston Behavioral Health Care Hospital and Houston Adult Psychiatry. Dr. Chen, welcome to the show.

Dr. Frank Chen: Hey, Gabe, thanks for inviting me to your show during these strange times.

Gabe Howard: Well, we’re very glad to have you and listen, we’re going to talk about telehealth. Now, telehealth has been around for several years now, but because of the global pandemic and resulting quarantines and social distancing, we’re hearing so much more about it. It’s even become a popular topic in the mainstream media. Now, this podcast has been sponsored for several years by BetterHelp.com, which is online therapy, which, of course, is telehealth. So all this to say is that our listeners are quite familiar with the concept. But this is the first opportunity we’ve had to discuss this with a provider, with a medical doctor about the use of telehealth, for example, to prescribe medication or to diagnose. Is there a difference between telehealth as used for therapy and the use of telehealth for more complicated or serious issues?

Dr. Frank Chen: Certainly, we all had to adapt to a different way of getting medical care during this pandemic. As you guys all know, the doctor’s waiting room may be a breeding ground for the spread of various different contagious diseases. And so we don’t want to exacerbate the situation. And various different regulatory agencies and third-party payers have made the transition into telehealth much more available starting March of 2020. We had to really accelerate the progression into almost complete transformation of patient care to telehealth. This has been difficult for both patients and also clinicians. We all experience technical difficulties associated with engaging in the telehealth modality. But as we become much more familiar with this modality, it seems that there’s been much more positive approval of treatment through a telehealth platform. Most of our patients were very hesitant about engaging with the clinician in electronic fashion. They’re used to the face to face and especially in psychiatry, where there is an appearance of privacy in the confines of the four walls. So, it took some time for adaptation. Some of our newer patients who had made appointments prior to the pandemic canceled appointments because they wanted to wait and see someone in person.

Dr. Frank Chen: However, as time went on, more and more patients are adapting to this platform. More and more clinicians are getting familiar with this platform. Now, your question, Gabe, about whether or not it is just as advantageous getting treatment via the telehealth platform for medication purposes. And the answer is yes. In a recent Alkermes Harris poll, it appears that at the time, one in four patients have started using the telehealth platform. And 62% of the tele psychiatry users surveyed say that they would not be able to get the care they need without the telehealth service. And 67% agree that the telehealth service that they’ve been using helped them stick to their treatment regimen. We started getting into the telehealth platform out of necessity. But I think that there’s broad adaptation at this point that people are starting to feel that this is the norm rather than the exception.

Gabe Howard: My entire perspective of telehealth is from the patient perspective. I’ve never been a doctor, I’ve never been a clinician, I’ve never seen patients. So, it’s interesting to me something that you said there, which is the practitioners are having trouble adjusting. Can you talk about that a little bit? Because we just assume that all doctors were like, yeah, telehealth. We don’t have a problem with this. This is easy. But it sounds like you’re saying that there were some growing pains on their side as well. And I think that will make patients feel a lot better.

Dr. Frank Chen: If you look at the history of telehealth, it’s evident that there were some necessary infrastructure that would allow this platform to occur. So telehealth has probably been played around with for the last three decades. And initially you basically needed equipment that’s tens of thousands of dollars. And because of regulatory requirements and also third-party requirements, these health platforms were isolated to rural areas and maybe the prison system. And it was during the last decade when there’s much more bandwidth and also the portability of technology that we started seeing telehealth being used on a retail level. I got to tell you, I had been using telehealth as part of the option for our patients, my office is the suburban area in Houston, and we generally see working clientele. And even though there’s a convenience factor where you don’t have to drive into the office, it seems that most of our clients were very much entrenched in coming in seeing us in the confines of our office because they do feel secure in there. Especially for mental health treatment. And it’s not until this pandemic that there was global adaptation to this platform. It seems that our patients are starting to ask for telehealth now rather than wanting to come into the office. And it is because of the convenience factor. We seem to experience much more of a relaxed environment with telehealth patients in their homes. And we actually are making home visits. We get to see a slice of their everyday life. We are able to capture clientele that we normally may not be able to capture. So, for instance, I have a patient with schizophrenia who refused to take medications and she would end up in the hospital because of exacerbation.

Dr. Frank Chen: And since the advent of technology and telehealth, I’ve been able to do home visits with her and was able to see that she has a lovely family who’s taking care of her, that her house is clean and she was engaging. The patient would end up in the hospital once or twice a year because of noncompliance with medications, but because I was able to beam myself into her house, I was able to treat her. So, it really opens up availability of treatment for patients. Because some of the regulations have been relaxed by the federal entities and state entities that govern the practice of medicine. We are now able to prescribe medications and establish new patient appointments through telehealth. And this has really been a godsend for a lot of patients who are unable to come into the office or who have difficulties navigating that office visit. Patients are showing up at nearly 100% show rate because it’s pretty convenient. They don’t have to drive in and we are able to capture a slice of their life. Now, there’s some disadvantages. You may be sharing a room with family members or you may have roommates and you don’t necessarily have the privacy. Sometimes when you do these telehealth appointments from a clinician’s perspective, we’ve seen weird places where people decide to engage in telehealth treatment. I’ve done treatments with patients while they’re running. I’ve done treatments with patients while they’re engaging in dinner. So it really is a challenge sometimes getting them to seriously participate in the subject at hand from a physician’s perspective. But we’re able to do everything that we do in office with this platform.

Gabe Howard: Now, you’re a medical doctor, if somebody comes to you and says, I feel like I have a mental health condition, are you able to meet with them and give them a diagnosis without ever sharing space with them just over video chat, Skype or Zoom?

Dr. Frank Chen: Absolutely. Gabe, you got to remember that psychiatry is a is an area where accurate history taking is what we need. We need information on patients’ background. We need information on their symptoms. And those are all expressed vocally. Now, sometimes, you know, it does help to see the patients and see their behavior, but for the most part, to arrive at an accurate diagnosis, it’s history taking. Even though we’re not in the same space at the same time, we can get some minimal information visually through tele psychiatry. And as long as we’re able to accurately get to the relevant information that assists in making an accurate diagnosis, we don’t really have to be in the same physical space. I actually think that sometimes it’s more necessary for therapy. When you’re doing therapy, you may actually lose some information when the patient is not in the room. For instance, sometimes the therapist may purposely introduce the awkward silence and see what happens to the patient. It is less likely that the patient will be uncomfortable on a virtual platform because there’s a lack of personalization almost. They’re on camera. From my perspective, it seems that as long as I can get data, whether from the patient, whether it’s from the family, I’m able to come up with a relatively accurate diagnosis.

Gabe Howard: We’ll be right back after we hear from our sponsors.

Sponsor Message: Gabe here and I wanted to tell you about Psych Central’s other podcast that I host, Not Crazy. It’s straight talk about the world of mental illness and it is hosted by me and my ex-wife. You should check it out at PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy or your favorite podcast player.

Sponsor Message: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe Howard: And we’re back discussing telehealth with Dr. Frank Chen.

Gabe Howard: I think about before the pandemic, and people would say to me, Gabe, what do you think about telehealth? I mean, telehealth is going to be a thing. They’re doing everything on the Internet. What do you think about seeing a doctor online? And I didn’t like it. Gabe Howard was not a fan of telehealth. I understood it for therapy. People are busy. Depending on the type of therapy you need, where you’re at, etc., perhaps this could be a good thing. And of course, I always left room for however people find recovery is their own business and it’s not my business. But personally, I was not a fan. And then, of course, the pandemic happened. I needed to see my psychiatrist. The only way that I could see my psychiatrist was through telehealth. I made the appointment and I thought, hey, I need a med refill. And she’s unwilling to do it unless I do this telehealth thing. So, I jump through the hoop out of complete necessity. I want to be very clear. I was forced. I was forced to do it. It was incredible. I loved it. I got to wait in my own home. I didn’t have to fight traffic. It was perfect. She talked to me for twenty minutes. I got all my medications refilled. I am now complete 180. I am a complete fan. Are you finding the people that are quote unquote forced into this are having similar results? 

Dr. Frank Chen: So, Gabe, you’ll be happy to know that you’re probably one of the normal people around with that experience. That is the hallmark of what I have seen as we offer telehealth through the last five to 10 years in my office. No one wanted to do it. And again, when you are someone in the rural community and you have no providers around and the only place that you can get care is at a community mental health center and through telehealth with a doctor in a metropolitan area, you have to do it. But there was not a whole lot of adaptation. Again, people feel that there is a connection with the clinician when you go in there and see them and they’re willing to spend an hour driving to a psychiatrist, an hour waiting in the waiting room, and then another hour going back home. But since we were all forced into this, the concepts have changed. The initial reaction for our patients is that they don’t want to do it. Some of the new clients canceled because they wanted to test out the clinician in person. Some of them canceled the appointments and say, we’ll wait until this pandemic is over.

Dr. Frank Chen: Obviously, it’s not over yet and they have to get their medications. And so we’re all forced at this point to engage in this platform, whether you’re in health care, whether you’re in business. And so the more that we engage with patients in this platform, the more satisfied the patients are with the convenience of this platform. People are actually calling in saying, hey, are you still doing telehealth? Are you still providing care over the Internet? Because I don’t have time to drive in there. There’s a complete shift in the concept of telehealth. They’re no longer thinking about the uncomfortableness of talking virtually. They’re requesting it because it is much more convenient. And I got to tell you, Gabe, this is opened up treatment for a lot of my patients. 

Gabe Howard: I’m very fortunate, I live in central Ohio, which is a very big metropolitan area. I have a lot of options. I can be very picky. I can. I have very niche options that aren’t available in, say, the small town that I graduated high school in. And I think about that small town. I think there was 3,000 to 4,000 people there. We didn’t even have a hospital. We didn’t have a movie theater. We didn’t have a bowling alley. It was a very small town. And as such, everybody knew everybody. So, if I had a very specific problem or I wanted to see a very niche therapist, one they might not be available, but two, even if they were available, everybody would see me walk in the door and they’d be like, oh, Gabe is going to that, you know, niche therapist. And now everybody would know that I had this issue or potentially had this problem. The gossip mill would start. This is resolved via telehealth, is it not? You can find that niche therapist anywhere in America and you have more of an expectation of privacy because you never actually leave your own home.

Dr. Frank Chen: I think that at this point, your therapist is an in-home therapist, your psychiatrist is an in-home psychiatrist, it’s no longer a chore to drive two hours away if you’re living in a rural town to see a psychiatrist who can provide you with the care. It is as convenient as filling out a form online to request an appointment. The broader adaptation of telehealth has also made clinicians much more comfortable about accepting patients who live one hundred miles away. People around the country can all receive good care from anyone practicing within their jurisdiction. And this is a huge transformational moment in our industry. People are no longer limited to those options within their confines. They can seek out appropriate help in any distant locale as conveniently as driving down the street. This is really a godsend for a lot of patients who are stuck in terms of not being able to get adequate mental health care, especially in those rural areas.

Gabe Howard: One of the criticisms that I hear is that you have to be tech savvy, you have to have a computer, you have to have a lot of bandwidth, you have to understand how computers work. And then people start saying things like the older generation doesn’t know how to do it or rural areas don’t have good Internet or what if you don’t own a computer? Are those just excuses? Is this actually a reality for people or are you finding that this is really relatively simple? And, well sure, there is somebody that may have a problem with it, by and large, this is a very simplistic process that people are embracing and aren’t struggling with at all.

Dr. Frank Chen: I think over the last six months, as we are thrust into this platform, companies are adapting to the needs of both the clinicians and the patients. They’re making this process easier and easier. Your telehealth session can be started by a clinician with a link to your text and you press on the link and you’re connected. In the past, there’s certainly some challenges. Some of the companies that provide this tele psychiatry platform may make you sign up for an account. You may have to sign into a waiting room. You may have to wait around not knowing your status. But over the last six months the companies that provide these platforms are working with clinicians as well as patients to refine the process so that it can be simplified for a lot of patients, even elderly patients. We do have challenges in terms of bandwidth, but we can always reconnect. After getting used to a platform, we know some of the typical difficulties that we may encounter. For instance, sometimes when you have a call coming in, as you’re doing your telehealth session, your telehealth session may be dropped. And we all know that now and so we can reengage with the patients. It is certainly a process of adaptation, but I think we’re all, as a society, getting used to having our health care delivered in this fashion.

Gabe Howard: Dr. Chen, how has the industry responded to this? Anything coming from insurance companies or payer sources that makes telehealth either better or worse?

Dr. Frank Chen: Gabe, I think a lot of our third-party payers, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, they understand the need for patients to stay out of waiting rooms during the pandemic. They are much more receptive about the telehealth platform. And as a matter of fact, there’s another aspect of this telehealth that’s being introduced. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have relaxed a lot of rules associated with face-to-face visits. So I work at a hospital called  Houston Behavioral Health Care Hospital in Houston. As we started preparing for the pandemic, we also started setting up the infrastructure for telehealth in an inpatient environment. This is to make sure that the doctors do not end up spreading airborne viruses to their patients as they’re making rounds. This is certainly a transformation in the way in which we think about getting care in an inpatient environment. It’s been somewhat successful. You certainly deal with a much higher acuity of patients who are manic patients who are psychotic in the setting. But we are able to capture most of their behavior with collaboration and provide adequate care for our patients without that face-to-face visit.

Gabe Howard: From the perspective of a doctor, from the perspective of a provider, is there anything that you want patients to know that you have learned being on the provider side of telehealth?

Dr. Frank Chen: I’ve got to tell the audience that don’t be afraid to engage in this platform. You’re going to adapt to this just like you adapt to everything else. And it is so much more convenient for my patients to get care wherever they’re located. It is a simple process of getting the medication electronically transferred to their local pharmacy. It is hassle free in terms of making appointments with some of these platforms. And so I’d like everyone to try to embrace this platform because I do believe that this is going to continue after the pandemic.

Gabe Howard: So it sounds like you think that telehealth is just going to get bigger and bigger and that you like that idea, you don’t see that as a step backwards. That is a big step forward.

Dr. Frank Chen: Absolutely, I think that clinicians are adapting to this platform. They can work anywhere they want, they can transmit prescriptions to any pharmacy. It’s actually making the work flow a lot easier. You have a lot of clinicians who are part time clinicians and they’re willing to come online now because it’s very easy for them to arrange their schedules. You have much more availability of care with this platform. And I think that people will accept this platform in psychiatry and this will continue. We lose some data in terms of not having the face to face engagement. It’s difficult to see anxiety in some patients when they’re just staring at the camera, but they can tell you. Despite losing some data, we also gain a lot of information. We can see the patients in their natural environment. We can see whether or not they’re truly getting taken care of. We can visualize aspects of their life that may be worrisome because we’re making that home visit. And so there’s tremendous advantages to continuing with this platform. And I think that our future will be a mix of face-to-face, but also a good deal of telehealth included in the care of psychiatric patients.

Gabe Howard: Dr. Chen, thank you so much for being on the show, we really appreciated having you.

Dr. Frank Chen: Thank you, Gabe.

Gabe Howard: Thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in this week to The Psych Central Podcast. Wherever you downloaded it, please subscribe. Also, rate us, rank us, use your words and tell people why they should listen too. Also share us on social media. We love that. Speaking of social media, we have a secret Facebook group that I’d like to invite you to join. Here’s a quick link to find it: PsychCentral.com/FBShow. And remember, you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling anytime, anywhere simply by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. We’ll see everybody next week,

Announcer: You’ve been listening to The Psych Central Podcast. Want your audience to be wowed at your next event? Feature an appearance and LIVE RECORDING of the Psych Central Podcast right from your stage! For more details, or to book an event, please email us at [email protected]. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/Show or on your favorite podcast player. Psych Central is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website run by mental health professionals. Overseen by Dr. John Grohol, Psych Central offers trusted resources and quizzes to help answer your questions about mental health, personality, psychotherapy, and more. Please visit us today at PsychCentral.com.  To learn more about our host, Gabe Howard, please visit his website at gabehoward.com. Thank you for listening and please share with your friends, family, and followers.

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Podcast: Birthdays, COVID, and Reframing (Oh My!)

It’s that time of year again! That’s right — Gabe’s Annual Birthday Blog. Each year, Gabe looks back on the important events and lessons he’s encountered during the previous 12 months. But what events can he talk about when COVID came and stole the show? 

Join Gabe and Lisa as they discuss the Year of Coronavirus and the good and bad that came with it.

(Transcript Available Below)

Please Subscribe to Our Show: And We Love Written Reviews! 

About The Not Crazy podcast Hosts

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 Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Birthdays, COVID” Episode

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

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe: Hey, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Not Crazy podcast, I’m your host, Gabe Howard, and with me, as always, in a sparkling good mood, Lisa Kiner.

Lisa: Today’s quote is from Jeremy Mortis, Age is not just a number. Aging is a collection of experiences and life lessons that give you wisdom.

Gabe: I think this is really the erosion of facts, because age is, in fact a number. The age of something is how old something is. It’s my car is seven years old. No, your car has wisdom. No, just,

Lisa: I

Gabe: Seven years old.

Lisa: I think you’re taking this a little bit too literally; it’s supposed to be encouraging because people get depressed about aging.

Gabe: Right, it’s another example of a convenient lie is better than an inconvenient truth. People get depressed about it. So rather than tell them that they’re closer to death, we’ll tell them that they’re wise. Right, because old people are revered in our society. What was the last time

Lisa: Well, sort of.

Gabe: Some, like some woman was at the grocery store and she was literally taking up the entire aisle and stopping for no reason. And people were like, that’s some wisdom right there. Look at that.

Lisa: Well, but to be fair, if you’re 20 and you do that, people act a lot differently towards you than if you’re 80 and you do that.

Gabe: You have been doing this since you were 20. I remember when you said there was nothing worse than a middle-aged woman, and this gives me so much pride.

Lisa: What did I say?

Gabe: There is nothing worse than a middle-aged woman. They think they know everything. Their cult of motherhood, the cult of motherhood.

Lisa: That’s a different concept.

Gabe: The point that I’m making, Lisa, is you have never once looked at somebody older than you and thought that they were wiser.

Lisa: Well, one, I don’t think that’s true because obviously, if you’ve done something that I haven’t done, you have more information on the subject and.

Gabe: But that’s not based on their age, that’s based on their experience.

Lisa: No, but you’ve got to assume that people who are older than you have better odds.

Gabe: Really, that’s what you’re going with? You might be smarter, so I’m going to respect you? That’s

Lisa: No,

Gabe: Abdication of fact

Lisa: No,

Gabe: Entirely.

Lisa: Ok, you’re getting way off topic, and I feel like you might be deflecting, and the reason why we’re going here today is it is time for Gabe’s annual birthday celebration. Happy birthday, Gabe.

Gabe: Ok, first off, it’s not a celebration. 

Lisa: What would you call it?

Gabe: I don’t know

Lisa: Tradition?

Gabe: Sure. Let’s go with tradition, see a little context before we get started. So, all the way back in 2014, when I was a blogger, I wrote a blog called I’m Bipolar and it’s my birthday. It was just

Lisa: He’s so good at titles,

Gabe: Yeah, I’m great at titles right. 

Lisa: Just draws you right in, I want to read that right now.

Gabe: But people did and it was popular. And a year later I wrote another one. And then I don’t know how these things work out. It sort of became a tradition. So here we are. And I’m like, OK, well, I’m a podcaster now I want to do something surrounding my birthday. Lisa said, you know, you have your own show and you can pick whatever topic you want and boom, here we are. What will hopefully be the first annual I’m bipolar and it’s my birthday podcast series. Which started all the way back in 2014 as blogs.

Lisa: That is a change because in every other blog and I reread all of them for preparation for today, you actually say things like, well, I’m never going to do this again. This isn’t going to happen just doing this. Yeah. So, wow, you’re actually committing to do another one of these next year?

Gabe: I don’t know, I think it’s one of these, you know, the

Lisa: You’re not what we call a planner for the future.

Gabe: I’m not I have people for that.

Lisa: Yeah, I understand.

Gabe: You’re my people for that.

Lisa: Ok, so to sum up, the point is that your birthday tradition is to put something out into the world. Happy birthday.

Gabe: Yeah, by the way, happy birthday, the.

Lisa: Well, the reason why it’s extra strange, right, is our birthdays are only a few days apart. Does anyone wish me happy birthday?

Gabe: Happy birthday to you, happy birthday, unsung hero Lisa, happy birthday to you. It’s very meaningful because, you know, you made me do it.

Lisa: I feel like I’m going to have to edit that down, so you really should have said it faster.

Gabe: Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you.

Lisa: Oh, God.

Gabe: Happy birthday, dear unsung hero, Lisa, happy birthday to you. Get to the meat of it. Your idea, Lisa, to get this whole thing accomplished was that you were going to interview me

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: About the last year. So I’m glad that you picked 2020. I want to summarize.

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: I feel that a summary is needed, I turned 43 back in 2019. Christmas was decent. You know, January was pretty good. I don’t have any complaints about February, March on sucked. There we are. 

Lisa: And that sums up the year. Yay.

Gabe: Thank you for tuning in to this week’s Not Crazy podcast, if you enjoyed it.

Lisa: I’m reading all your blogs, and when you read them back to back, it’s a little bit creepy.

Gabe: It’s depressing, is what it is.

Lisa: Yes, it is, yes, it is, but that’s your fault. The first one is quite positive. Oh, looking forward to another year of stability with bipolar disorder. Downhill after that. What changed? Why is the first one positive and then after that, you’re just nothing but doom and gloom on every birthday?

Gabe: Obviously, I wrote these all a year apart, but when Mental Illness Is an Asshole and Other Observations got published, the publisher decided to put each one of the articles next to each other. So rather than reading them a year apart, or if you reading them online, reading one and then having 51 other blogs, they’re literally back to back to back. 

Lisa: It’s interesting to read them back to back, it’s a different experience.

Gabe: And when you read them back to back, you really do see the

Lisa: The themes.

Gabe: The themes come out. I remember in one of them I said I hate my birthday. And then when I turned 40, I wrote, you know, I’ve never hated my birthday until this year. That clearly contradicts. What the hell? Am I a flip flopper? Am I a hypocrite?

Lisa: No, you’re remembering the past through rose colored glasses, strangely, because every single one you say things about, well, this year was worse than last year. Last year was so good. Everything before now was good. Things only turned to shit this year. But you say that every year. 

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: You only apparently find joy after the fact or you’re looking back with a completely different perspective than you had at the time. It’s a little bit weird and kind of disturbing and sad. Mostly sad.

Gabe: If you haven’t checked out Mental Illness Is an Asshole and Other Observations, you can, of course, get it on Amazon. You can also go over to gabehoward.com and grab it. But it’s very interesting. I, it was painful not to update this. It was painful to look at what is basically just blatant hypocrisy on the page come through. But I agree with Lisa. I think it’s an interesting look into the, into my mind, a mind that is somewhat compromised. Even though I’m in recovery and I have treatment, I still am who I am and I still have bipolar disorder and anxiety. And that, of course, comes with all the symptoms, you know, mania, depression, etc. And to read these things back to back really showed me that there’s so much work to do. I think that was one of the silver linings that came out of the book, because as you remember, Lisa, I wasn’t very sold on the book. I don’t know. I just.

Lisa: You lost enthusiasm for the project. Publishing something just takes much, much longer than you think that it’s going to. And you lost your enthusiasm before you were done.

Gabe: I just thought it was arrogant to sell a book of stuff that I wrote because why who would want this? I just I thought, why would people pay for this? This doesn’t make any sense. I’m really glad that the publisher saw value in it. I mean, it worked out great. I

Lisa: You should all go by it right now.

Gabe: Thank you, Lisa.

Lisa: You’re welcome. The very first blog was positive, but after that they went downhill. And in some of them, you do sum up your accomplishments from the previous year. So let’s do that because we’re going to start happy here. So what are your accomplishments from the previous year, Gabe? Share with our listeners.

Gabe: Not many, I mean, COVID really just kind of wrecked everything, I suppose a big accomplishment that I have that I think that everybody listening should give themselves credit for is a worldwide pandemic did not stop me. It didn’t stop Lisa, it didn’t stop my friends, my wife. It didn’t stop anybody listening to this podcast. And as much as I want to say, well, it did stop me, it prevented me from doing the following things that I wanted to do. Yeah, it prevented a lot of people from doing a lot of things that they wanted to do, but it didn’t stop us. Forward. momentum was made. It is true. I didn’t get a lot of things that I wanted. And frankly, I didn’t get many things that that I needed. But I got enough. Right?

Lisa: Ok,

Gabe: I got enough.

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: I pushed forward enough. I do want to pat myself and all of my listeners and all of our fans and all of our friends and family. And you, Lisa, I want to give you credit, because we are still standing. I’m still standing in spite of a worldwide pandemic.

Lisa: It’s been a difficult few month.

Gabe: It’s been a horrible few month.

Lisa: Well, it’s more than a few months now I.

Gabe: Remember when we thought it was going to be like two to four weeks?

Lisa: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back in June, I read this article that said, hey, this is going to be like September 11th, where even after the immediate aftermath is over, there are lasting repercussions that will continue in American society forever. And I thought, oh, my God, that is so profound. Yeah, well, here we are. Now it’s November.

Gabe: This pandemic has really been what it’s like to be diagnosed with a mental illness. This is the example that I want everybody to use with their friends and family that don’t understand because this really bad thing happened, right? We were all sitting around in the middle of March and somebody said, listen, there’s a global pandemic, which is very analogous to listen, you have major depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, psychosis. Right. Like that’s a global pandemic is really bad news. Can we all agree on that?

Lisa: OK, so the analogy so far is they’re both bad news. That’s where we’re beginning our analogy, Gabe.

Gabe: Thank you for repeating exactly what I said, but calling it a summary, yes, that is what happened.

Lisa: That’s what a summary is.

Gabe: But it’s not. You used my exact words. Yes, everybody got bad news. But much like getting a severe and persistent mental health diagnosis, we all thought, OK, we’re going to buckle down, do what’s needed. This is going to be over before we know it.

Lisa: Oh,

Gabe: Right. That’s.

Lisa: I did not have faith in this analogy, but I see where you’re going. OK, never mind. I take back my previous skepticism.

Gabe: Yeah. Yeah, the whole world was like, I understand what a global pandemic is, yeah, no, you don’t. Just like I understand what bipolar disorder is. Yeah, no, you don’t.

Lisa: Yeah, good analogy.

Gabe: And we all buckled down and started doing the right things. Right. We’re like, OK, well, we’ll just do this for a couple of months and it’ll be fine. But then the treatment changed. I’m from Ohio, full disclosure. And the first treatment was, hey, social distancing. And then the next treatment was we’re going to close down restaurants. And then the next treatment was, hey, we’re going to close down salons and fitness centers. And then the next treatment is we’re going to close down all the malls. And it’s just like I don’t.

Lisa: We had a complete shutdown here in Ohio.

Gabe: Yeah, and.

Lisa: It lasted for about six weeks.

Gabe: Right, but it didn’t happen immediately, right? Once again, I got diagnosed with bipolar disorder and I got a treatment and I’m like, that’s it, that’s going to solve this problem. And then I just kept getting worse and worse and worse and taking longer and longer and longer. Just like the global pandemic, we were all diagnosed with a global pandemic and we all thought that we knew what it was, even though we didn’t. And then we got the first treatment. We’re like, great, it’s going to be over in four to six weeks, which it wasn’t. And then we got another treatment. We’re like, no problem. It’ll be over in four to six weeks after that. But then it wasn’t over. And then we got another treatment. And then all the people around us, they started giving us their opinions on the global pandemic, even though they weren’t qualified to do so. You know, when you get a mental illness, suddenly everybody around you becomes a psychologist, a therapist, a psychiatrist. Just like suddenly in the global pandemic, everybody became an infectious disease expert. All these people just popped out of the woodwork to tell you what you were doing wrong, managing the global pandemic.

Gabe: Where? Are you qualified for this? No. Just like with mental illness. Hey, what do you do for a living? I dig ditches. Oh, OK. But let me tell you how to manage your severe and persistent mental illness with all of the confidence as somebody who went to medical school. You want to know what I have learned this year? I have learned that people will way overstep their bounds with way too much confidence. And if somebody tells you that something is going to be over in four to six weeks, they are lying. From now until the end of time. If I ask somebody a question and they’re like four to six weeks, bullshit. I’m just going to scream bullshit and run out of the room. Yeah, because four to six weeks means a year and it’s still not over and we still can’t agree. And stigma is everywhere. Stigma surrounding global pandemics is everywhere. If you wear the mask, you’re a sucker. If you don’t wear the mask, you’re a sucker. If you do wear the mask, you support, I don’t even know what’s going on anymore.

Lisa: Ok,

Gabe: See? See the analogy, Lisa?

Lisa: I.

Gabe: See how the world wide global pandemic and severe and persistent mental illness is exactly the same? So I’m so looking forward to turning 44 in this environment. I can’t

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: Even have a party. Where’s my

Lisa: Ok,

Gabe: Party?

Lisa: There’s so much going on there, just so much.

Gabe: I’m calm now.

Lisa: That is a good analogy in that when you were first diagnosed with bipolar disorder, we all thought, OK, you’re going to need to treat this, you’re going to get your treatment under control, and then things will go back to being exactly the way they were yesterday or

Gabe: Yeah,

Lisa: A few weeks earlier.

Gabe: That’s what I was waiting on.

Lisa: You’re going to take these pills, you’re going to get yourself all regulated. And in a couple of months, we’re going to be back to where we were before this diagnosis. We will be back to normal. And of course, that didn’t happen. And every single new thing that came down the line, we thought, all right, this is the one. I mean, yeah, the last thing didn’t work. But this is going to be the one where in a few months we’ll be back to normal. Oh, that second thing didn’t work. Well, the third and we had complete faith every damn time. We never once said, you know, the last five times this happened, we did not go back to normal. We still believed that’s what was going to happen. That is a good analogy in the idea of it’s just this ongoing thing and you keep thinking that the next step is going to be the one that ends it. But the reality is things never went back to normal. We did that thing where you have a new normal. You never did go back to the way that you were before diagnosis.

Gabe: I feel like what you’re saying is that things are just different now.

Lisa: Things are different now. You never did go back to what it was before. This was a profound change in your life. Nothing was ever the same again. Excellent analogies all around. 

Gabe: Don’t forget all of the people coming out of the woodwork to tell you that you’re doing it wrong and they know best despite having literally no experience or education or formal training whatsoever.

Lisa: Not as good of an analogy, but not bad. Also true. Yes, it was amazing how many people popped up to say, well, you know. Mostly to tell you that mental illness was bullshit. Occasionally to tell you about some treatment, some random person they know did that was miraculous.

Gabe: Really, you don’t you don’t see this as analogous to the global pandemic, really?

Lisa: I.

Gabe: There’s been no treatments being offered that were miraculous, that turned out to be complete bullshit proffered by anybody? You can’t think of anybody standing at a podium saying, shine sunshine on it, put bleach on it, hydro cordo quill will fix it? Really, you can’t you can’t think of anybody offering bullshit treatments that they wanted the world to follow that they themselves did not take when they got sick? Really? Nobody? You can’t think of nobody doing that?

Lisa: I feel like 

Gabe: Nobody?

Lisa: I’m talking

Gabe: Nobody?

Lisa: And you’re interrupting

Gabe: Nobody?

Lisa: Me, and

Gabe: Nobody?

Lisa: I’m having trouble getting

Gabe: Nobody?

Lisa: My thoughts organized here.

Gabe: Nobody? You can’t think of nobody?

Lisa: And you’re not helping.

Gabe: All right. Go on.

Lisa: A lot of people who were offering advice. Yeah, their advice was stupid. They had no experience with this. And it was mostly along the lines of mental illness isn’t real, suck it up. But then there was another wave of people that offered advice of, OK, mental illness is definitely real. And here’s what my second cousin’s friend’s roommate did and it completely solved it for him. So obviously this is going to be perfect for you as well. A large number of those were just stupid, acupuncture, colloidal silver, the various vitamins. But even the ones that were actually real, like, he does the following medication regimen. He does the following type of therapy. Those were actually good advices sort of in that, hey, that’s something that actually has a chance to work. But not everybody with bipolar disorder is the same. Not every piece of advice is equally valid for everyone. I don’t see that as being quite as analogous as you do. For example, other countries have a lot of opinions about how America should be solving this problem and most of them have solved it. So it’s not exactly the same.

Gabe: There are no perfect analogies, I’m not trying to say that the global pandemic and being diagnosed with a mental illness is exactly the same, that would be ludicrous. But the commonalities are there.

Lisa: They are.

Gabe: It’s serious. People die, but also some people get better. You know, that’s often been a criticism of mental health advocacy, right? This Oh, why are we so worried about it? Most people live well. Well, yeah. And then we ignore homeless people. Then we ignore really, really sick people that don’t have insurance because everybody just keeps trotting out Gabe Howard. Look, Gabe is fine. I guess it’s not that serious. I am well aware that some people use my success as a reason not to help extraordinarily vulnerable people.

Lisa: Yeah, OK, that’s a good analogy, all the people who are like, I got COVID and I’m fine, I never had any symptoms. I’m fine. Yeah, OK, good analogy.

Gabe: I don’t know anybody with COVID do you know anybody with COVID? Geez, that sounds a lot like I don’t know any mentally ill people. Do you know any mentally ill people? Or my personal favorite, you know, the only people who need to worry about this are people who are already sick or who are old. Yeah. Jeez, that sounds a lot like, you know, the only people that need to worry about mental illness are people who are in harm’s way anyways or come from broken homes or a lot of trauma. 

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: One, that’s not true. It’s not only old people or immunocompromised people that are dying of COVID. People have died from COVID that are perfectly fine, then got COVID. And yeah, it didn’t go their way. Just like there are people who come from great homes. Remember, my mom and dad love me. They’re not alcoholics who beat me every day. They’re perfectly fine people who did the best that they could. Their son just happened to have bipolar disorder. Jeez, what happened to that whole the only people with mental illness are people whose parents beat them or? We tell these things to comfort us.

Lisa: You are really good at analogies, you’re really pulling in a lot here that I did not see coming, so yay on that. We could talk for days about COVID and we have, as has everyone probably in the world. We need to bring this back to your birthday, OK? The blogs always had a thing of your accomplishments. And what you’re telling me is that not a lot going on in your professional life this year because of COVID, but you did still have some banner events.

Gabe: Sure, what were they?

Lisa: You were invited.

Gabe: I launched Not Crazy twice

Lisa: Exactly. And you got a new co-host.

Gabe: I got two new co-hosts. I launched Not Crazy with the great Jackie Zimmerman, and then COVID just trashed it. And then I got another co-host, the great Lisa Kiner, who didn’t want to do it, but said, fine. You know, just, that really describes this year for me. It’s fine. This is what I have. It’s fine. It’s not that things aren’t going well. Lisa, I love working with you, but let’s be honest, the enthusiasm for the project was lacking. It was fine.

Lisa: At first or now? Because I’m very enthusiastic, look, listen, I am radiating enthusiasm at this point, Gabe. I am so enthusiastic, but of course nobody is asking me about my accomplishments, even though it’s actually my birthday, too. But that’s OK. I’m not bitter.

Gabe: Lisa, what were your accomplishments this year? Go ahead and divulge things about your personal life that you can later cut out because you think your parents are going to hear it and not like it.

Lisa: It’s not just my parents. I just don’t feel like I should share so much on the Internet, so it was clearly a genius idea to become a podcaster. 

Gabe: I just want people to know that the reason that I don’t ask Lisa questions is because I do ask Lisa questions and she cuts them out later because she’s uncomfortable sharing.

Lisa: You knew this about me in advance. All those people, all those years who ask you your telephone number at the register, there’s no reason for these people to have my telephone number. That is unnecessary. 

Gabe: No, I think that this is just indicative of another way that I feel and have felt this year. I’m not trying to attack you. I love you. You’re my bestie.

Lisa: I love you too. Pay attention.

Gabe: But you know damn well that you do this. You know damn well that

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: You’re feigning the oh, I can’t get a word in edgewise. 

Lisa: I’m not feigning.

Gabe: I want everybody to know Lisa Kiner has no problem sticking up for herself. Remember,

Lisa: Oh, yeah, of course.

Gabe: This is the woman that tricked me into treatment and single handedly beat up bipolar disorder for me. And

Lisa: Oh.

Gabe: Now she’s like, oh, I can’t beat Gabe. Really? You can take on the illness in my mind, but you can’t beat its host?

Lisa: This is so sweet, these are like such nice things that you’re saying. You’re off topic, though.

Gabe: I’m not off topic. This has been my year.

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: The annual birthday bipolar blog was always about the year.

Lisa: Well.

Gabe: Everything that I’ve said has happened this year. I don’t think you understand how my blogs go.

Lisa: So you don’t have a lot of professional things to tell us about this year, like many people, you’ve been slowed by COVID. Well, but there’s plenty of things happening in your personal life that have been excellent this year. Why don’t we focus on some of those?

Gabe: Ok, I almost murdered my wife. 

Lisa: COVID has been difficult with the staying at home.

Gabe: I want everybody to know, not literally.

Lisa: Does that really need to be said?

Gabe: Listen, I don’t want somebody listening to this and be like, oh, the man with bipolar disorder was almost violent, that tracks. Once again, it’s sad that it needs to be said. But, yeah, look, I love my wife very much, but I never intended to spend 24/7 with her. My wife has had to work from home and on one hand, I’m very lucky I could be isolated and alone. I have many single friends that they would be so pleased to be annoyed by a roommate or parents or a spouse. I really do get it. The grass is greener on the other side, I think, man, I wish I lived alone right now and my wife feels that way too. I’m not telling her anything that she doesn’t know. We’re not hurting each other’s feelings here. We’re just, we’d work all day and then at the end of the day, we’d come together and we’d share our war stories, we’d vent to each other. The saga of our idiot coworkers are just, those were our favorite reality shows. All those shows got canceled.

Lisa: I feel like most of your coworkers are geniuses, I just, I don’t know if you are aware of that.

Gabe: You know, in the age of Healthline.com, I’ve gotten some amazing coworkers that really help disguise the annoyance of the coworker that I had before Healthline. I’m not going to do names here, but my previous coworker, she was very difficult. She’s still difficult. But now, because of Psych Central selling to Healthline.com, I now have more coworkers to sort of water the previous annoying coworker down.

Lisa: And we’ll be right back after these messsges.

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Gabe: Hey, everyone, we’re back discussing my birthday.

Lisa: You know, now that I think about it when I said, list your professional accomplishments, how come the first thing you said wasn’t, Oh, you and I got on a podcast? How come that wasn’t the very first thing out of your mouth? And also that happened in March.

Gabe: Oh, my God.

Lisa: Oh, my God, we triggered COVID.

Gabe: Oh.

Lisa: Not really. 

Gabe: Ah.

Lisa: Careful. You’re going to get some sort of Internet conspiracy theory going.

Gabe: Well, that’s not hard these days.

Lisa: Well, the day that I was on a date and the man said to me, hey, did you know that Henry Kissinger created the AIDS virus in a lab? And I thought, wow, no need to date you anymore, but.

Gabe: You know, my favorite part of that story, though, it was another month before the two of you broke up.

Lisa: He was hot.

Gabe: I’m not faulting you.

Lisa: He was stupid hot. OK, I mean, seriously, this guy was so hot, I don’t know why he was so dumb and it wasn’t immediately evident how stupid he was. I mean, you had to, like, kind of like talk to him a little bit. But to be fair, you didn’t have to talk to him that much to get to the Henry Kissinger AIDS thing. God, that guy was hot. Anyway, going back.

Gabe: No, no, I want to say just one quick thing about the bonding of Gabe and Lisa, because the number of stupid people that I dated because they were crazy hot, it’s just a phenomenal number. Because I just I really hate stupid people. And then I met Lisa and we bonded over this mutual hatred of willful ignorance and stupidity. And then both admitted to each other that, look, we’ve dated crazy hot people who we just did not like. And I think this was a big moment in my learning about feminism, because I thought that women were above that. And you were like, why on earth would you believe that?

Lisa: That women are above dating hot guys?

Gabe: That are stupid. 

Lisa: Well.

Gabe: No, no, I knew that women liked hot guys, I just I thought that if the man was stupid that women like you would be like, I’m not dating you. You’re dumb.

Lisa: Speaking of birthdays, as I’ve gotten older, I, well, of course, now I’m married, so I guess it’s irrelevant. But as I got older, I did that less and less. You know, hot people kind of a dime a dozen, but people that you can stand to talk to, much harder to find and more attractive.

Gabe: Another moment in the great Lisa and Gabe courtship

Lisa: Uh-huh.

Gabe: Is when I asked Lisa if I was hot and she said, Oh my God, intelligence is so sexy. I said I meant physically and you’re like, you know, smart. Just the way that you think is so amazing. I’m like, once again my physical appearance and she’s like, you know, your personality.

Lisa: So attractive.

Gabe: Oh, the charisma that you exude. I didn’t press it after that, but I’m pretty sure you said I was ugly.

Lisa: I do not remember this conversation

Gabe: Does any of that sound wrong to you?

Lisa: That does sound like something I would say yes,

Gabe: Yeah, yeah.

Lisa: And I maintain smart is incredibly sexy. Yeah.

Gabe: And you know what else is incredibly sexy? 

Lisa: My husband.

Gabe: Sexy. Really, we got to bring Viroj into this?

Lisa: Who is super smart, and hot.

Gabe: You know, he’s going to listen to this episode and he’s like, why? Why did you pull me into this?

Lisa: I just felt like I should.

Gabe: Kendall always tells me, Kendall is my wife, and Kendall is like, why did you drag me into your fight? Like, No, I want you to keep your codependency delusional podcast bullshit over there. Like, keep it over there. Don’t drag me into this. And to tie it back to my birthday, that’s been the year. She has been drug into more things this year because we both work from home and I have been drug into more things. See it used to be when Kendall would get in a fight with a coworker, by the time we got together, it’d be hours old. She had time to think about it, process it, form the narrative, maybe get resolution. That hasn’t happened this year. And it’s made it very difficult. I hear her on the phone and then I walk downstairs and she starts telling me about it. And I, I sort of feel obligated to listen. Or something bad will happen that I want to rant about, rave about, bitch about whatever words you want to use. But rather than it be finely tuned at the end of the day, Kendall’s watching it in real time. We’re experiencing it together. These things never hit Gabe and Kendall together before. They always hit us separately and then we would use each other as support at the end of the day. I don’t like this.

Lisa: Nobody likes this, we all want to get out of the house, Gabe.

Gabe: I don’t like it.

Lisa: You’re not alone, you’re not special. Everybody

Gabe: I don’t like it

Lisa: Wants out of the house.

Gabe: I want out of the house.

Lisa: I need concerts and live entertainment to come back.

Gabe: Yes,

Lisa: I’m so bored.

Gabe: Yeah, that’s the other thing. What do we talk about? You know, Kendall and I used to talk about sporting events, concerts. We used to go to festivals. We love festivals, the vendors, the local artists, local music, local comedians. Kendall and I loved this. For one, it’s amazing. And two, it’s relatively inexpensive. You know, the arts festival in Columbus, Ohio, is free. We would meet all of these local artists. We’d see this beautiful art and we would go with Lisa and Lisa’s husband.

Lisa: We go every year. I was disappointed when it was canceled this year.

Gabe: The most amazing thing that happens is, Lisa, we have differing tastes on art, so I would look at this this piece of art and I’d be like, that is incredibly beautiful. And Lisa would be like, that is hideous and ugly. Keep it out of my house and.

Lisa: No, you would say, oh, my God, isn’t this amazing, this is great. I must have this in my house right now. And I’d be like, yeah, it’s all right. It looks like something you’d see in a motel.

Gabe: And then Lisa bought what can best be described.

Lisa: I have amazing taste.

Gabe: As a medieval weapon, it’s made of steel?

Lisa: Oh, yeah, I enjoy sculptures. I like that.

Gabe: It’s large and heavy. In her old condo, it hung above her fireplace. She just recently moved. So we don’t know where this 17th century medieval weaponry will be, but it’s not. It’s a sculpture. It’s a metal sculpture with, I don’t know, about 60 points. That’s not an exaggeration. It has 60 sharp metal points.

Lisa: It’s a starburst.

Gabe: No, it is the thing that you use to defend the princess when your castle is being stormed.

Lisa: No, it’s just pointy, it’s just a pointy sculpture.

Gabe: You grab a hold of it with both hands, and in Braveheart, they fought off all of the invading knights. It will pierce armor people.

Lisa: It’s beautiful and probably the most expensive thing in my house.

Gabe: It weighs as much as Lisa.

Lisa: It does not. It’s pretty heavy, though, we had to go to a lot of trouble to hang it.

Gabe: It weighs a metric ton, you carry it with a horse and you joust with it, she likes it because she thinks it’s in Braveheart.

Lisa: No, I like it because it’s beautiful, but of course, the best sculpture is the one I have that looks like a bird and is made out of garden equipment.

Gabe: It looks like a rooster. She named it Warner.

Lisa: Doesn’t look like a rooster, just looks like a bird.

Gabe: Looks like a rooster.

Lisa: I do have eclectic decorating taste.

Gabe: But we didn’t get to do that this year. I never realized, Lisa, how meaningful these disagreements were. I want to let the audience know they were never like angry disagreements. Lisa doesn’t actually care how I decorate and I don’t care how Lisa decorates, this is.

Lisa: Overall, your decorating is fine, just really bland.

Gabe: OK, first off, what I want to say, I can’t because this show is PG-13, but it starts with an F. It just it starts with an F, lady. My decorating is phenomenal. And all from local

Lisa: Bland.

Gabe: Oh, I hate you so much. This stuff is missing. And on all of these adventures, we’ve discovered all of these things that we just didn’t even know existed. I did not know that you could make a bird out of metal garden tools and then paint it, I don’t know, teal, blue and orange. This thing is ugly.

Lisa: And purple. Teal, blue, and purple.

Gabe: Ugly.

Lisa: It’s awesome, I love it, I’ve had it for years, it’s gorgeous. 

Gabe: Lisa is right, it is so ugly, it is flipped over into beautiful, it’s like those hideous dogs that are now cute. That’s what’s happened here. But we don’t have that. Lisa and I haven’t been able to discuss this at all because we didn’t go get new material to discuss. It’s the same way with my wife. It’s the same way with my friends. That’s what I remember about the last year. I used to think that all of these conversations were wasteful. They were just minutia that you used to fill your day. That’s the biggest thing that I’ve learned, that all of these boring, pointless conversations are actually the bedrock and the cornerstone and the foundation of your most meaningful relationships. I would give anything to spend an afternoon discussing what art I find beautiful that Lisa finds hideous.

Lisa: You know, this is an excellent point you’re making, it does always seem like these were random things and who cares? Because you have to fill the space. But you’re right, it is the stuff of life.

Gabe: It’s not even just the stuff of life, it’s not small talk, right? With a stranger. How are you, Gabe? I’m fine. What are you doing? Oh, I’ve got some errands to run. Well, what do you think of the weather? You don’t talk about how you hate each other’s clothes or art or taste or. That’s the kind of conversation that you have with your best friend. That’s the conversation you have with close family. That’s the conversations that you have with your spouse. And we just don’t have a lot of things to discuss right now because.

Lisa: Nothing’s happening.

Gabe: Yeah, because nothing’s happening. And we’ve gravitated toward things that frankly are not good conversation starters. You know, we spent more time complaining about politics. And listen, I think that political discourse and political discussion is extremely valuable. Disagreement does not equal disrespect. And knowing what’s going on in the world is I feel the responsibility of every American. But you’ve got to have a balance to that. For every 20 minutes that you spend complaining about the government, you should spend an hour discussing something that’s beautiful. You’ve got to have this balance. And unfortunately, politics didn’t slow down one iota. Everything else did. The counter balance has been disturbingly missing. All we can do is complain about what we’ve lost. And nobody is spending any time on anything that’s beautiful because there’s just not enough. You know, I joked, Lisa introduced to Gabe and Kendall the show Schitt’s Creek. We’d never watched it. We had no idea it existed.

Lisa: My husband found it randomly.

Gabe: Yeah, I’m serious when I say this, Schitt’s Creek saved my marriage. I’m not kidding. My wife and I binge watched all six seasons and my wife and I just loved it. And it was new. And because Lisa found it recently, that allowed us to discuss it, you know. What do you think of this episode? Well, I saw it this way. Well, I didn’t see it that way. And once again, for this brief, like six-week period, this minutia was back.

Lisa: Well, this is why the whole world stopped for Tiger King, because we were all in the perfect position to need something to talk about.

Gabe: Yes, yes, and if I learned anything this year, it’s that all of these little things that I take for granted. Well, that was a wasted day. I didn’t accomplish anything. It turns out that no, what I accomplished was actually amazing. I do have trouble connecting with people. I think the average person doesn’t understand me at all. And I often feel alone, even in a crowd of people. I feel alone and I question my value to society or the people around me. I question whether or not I’m doing any good. And there’s so many external factors. You have a podcast and you put your story out in the world. Some people think that that’s brave. Other people think that that’s arrogant. Some people think that you’re helping further a discussion about mental illness. Other people think that you’re bragging and oh, you think you’re so important that people want to hear your stupid life? What’s wrong with you? I’m constantly bombarded with this and I gravitate toward the negative.

LISA: You do. You do.

Gabe: If 100 people tell me they love me and one person tells me they hate me, I will follow the guy who hates me around and try to figure out why.

Lisa: You will. It’s really disturbing.

Gabe: It is. It’s depressing and the problem is, is that this past year, the 100 people have been gone because they’re taking care of themselves, they’re taking care of their families. They’re all trying to survive, just like all of us. Now, there’s just this constant negativity and nobody’s arguing about who’s artwork is bland, whose artwork is medieval weaponry.

Lisa: It’s beautiful, I’m telling you.

Gabe: And it may well be. 

Lisa: Viroj likes it.

Gabe: Ok, well, that doesn’t help. Viroj is the most boring person we know. Your defense that it’s not bland.

Lisa: Again, Gabe, boring men hold down jobs, and that’s super sexy.

Gabe: You say boring, I say stability. I just

Lisa: To be fair, Viroj, you’re right, does not, in fact, have good taste. But we both like it. That’s the point.

Gabe: I love the felt tiger in your bedroom.

Lisa: Viroj found it, yeah, the amusing part is we paid like three dollars for the picture and then spent substantially more to get it framed.

Gabe: You overpaid for the picture. You know, all of these articles, they all end with something that I’ve learned. Some way that I feel that I have evolved in the last year, something to take away. And even sometimes that take away is not very flattering to me.

Lisa: Of the seven, five of them are negative.

Gabe: But they’re constructive. Constructive criticism for dear old Gabe. A hard look at my life, what I wish that I could remember, lessons that I wished I’d learned, the lesson that I’ve learned is that no time spent with your friends is wasted.

Lisa: Ok, that’s a good one.

Gabe: No time spent with your loved ones is wasted. We’re all sitting around trying to evaluate whether or not the time was efficient or good or well spent. It is. It just is. I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times that I met you for lunch. And we’d sit there and talk for two hours, usually over tortilla chips and salsa. And I think, oh, well, that was two hours. I’ll never get back. You know what a waste, right? Like.

Lisa: Thanks a lot.

Gabe: I don’t mean it mean, I just I would think of all of my honey do list, all of the chores, all the stuff that I had to do for work. And I was like, oh, I just wasted like two or three hours in the middle of the day. And then all the restaurants closed,

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Remember? And they were closed here for like ten weeks.

Lisa: That was a real problem for Gabe, that was the thing he really missed the most.

Gabe: All of a sudden, I was like, that was not wasted time, you know, venting to my friend, listening to my friend, exchanging ideas with my friend, just sitting there drinking a Diet Coke and eating chips and salsa with my friend. It turns out that it had an extreme amount of value that was only recognizable once it was gone.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: It kind of reminds me of that coworker that everybody thinks is lazy until the coworker goes on vacation.

Lisa: Gee, has that ever happened to you, Gabe?

Gabe: No, I never once thought you were lazy, I thought you were irresponsible.

Lisa: Thank you. I think. That’s a little bit backhanded, but anyway.

Gabe: It should be a lot backhanded, I’m sad that you didn’t pick up on that.

Lisa: The other theme that runs through all of your birthday blogs is this idea that your life did not turn out the way that you expected. One of them actually says 20-year-old Gabe would look at me and be ashamed.

Gabe: I don’t know what 20-year-old Gabe is going to think of 44-year-old Gabe. It is an interesting thing, 20-year-old Gabe had really high expectations. Twenty-year-old Gabe did not expect to be twice divorced. Twenty-year-old Gabe did not expect to have all of these mistakes and regrets. 20-year-old Gabe fully expected to have six children and stay in the same job and really just garner respect from people. I think that 20-year-old Gabe would be most disappointed in the fact that I’m so easily dismissed. 20-year-old Gabe put a lot of value on integrity and commanding respect. While I feel that I have integrity, I don’t feel like I command respect. I’m so easily dismissed. I’m so easily ignored. I sit on so many panels where, well, we should probably get the patient’s voice, I guess.

Lisa: A lot of tokenism.

Gabe: I don’t think that 20-year-old Gabe ever thought that Gabe was going to be the token guy in the room? You know, I don’t think I would have known what tokenism was. It’s very probable that I would have sat on these boards and commanded a great deal of respect and talk about all the good that I was doing and have been completely unaware that I was marginalizing people because I would have seen things so much from my perspective. I’d like to think that I would have been open to listening. But, you know, 20-year-old Gabe had pretty high expectations and was awfully arrogant. I don’t want to paint myself as a bad guy. I don’t want to paint myself as somebody who was unkind or uncaring. But there was a lot that I didn’t understand. And being in this position has really allowed me to see the plight of marginalized people, because in some ways I’m a marginalized person. I do think that seeing the world for what it is has value. But, you know, ignorance is bliss. I don’t know. Is the truth better or is respect better?

Lisa: The truth is always better. That’s why you take the red pill. The truth is always better.

Gabe: I sometimes I wish I could take the blue pill, Lisa.

Lisa: The reality is better. Truth has its own intrinsic value, there’s no need to debate this.

Gabe: The truth does have its own intrinsic value, but in The Matrix where the blue pill red pill comes from, there was the guy that sold out all of his friends to be put back in The Matrix and just live happily ever after because he just couldn’t take it anymore. Now, that guy was evil and he was wrong and he was a murderer. But if we’re arguing the philosophical basis of, look, I was going to live happily ever after. I don’t know. It’s one of the things that makes the movie interesting for me. And while I’m so glad that they never made any more, I mean, the single standalone movie was really enough.

Lisa: I loved The Matrix, it was so ruined by the following movies, so ruined.

Gabe: What following? There was no following. I took the blue pills.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: I understand that truth has its own intrinsic value and I am inclined to agree with you. And I’d like to believe that I’ve done a lot of good. But you and I both know that in most of the circles I run in, people don’t give people like me the credit for that good.

Lisa: You’re talking about how 20-year-old Gabe would feel about this, et cetera, what 20-year-old Gabe expected, but everybody always acts like there’s a time before diagnosis that you didn’t have bipolar disorder. You had bipolar; you just weren’t diagnosed. You were never mentally healthy. You always had bipolar disorder. You just were untreated. So, 20 year old Gabe didn’t know he had bipolar, but he did. And he did not expect that to ever change. He did not expect those symptoms to ever go away. He expected to always have that same internal state of the fluctuating mania and depression, the suicidality, the racing thoughts. None of that could have been pleasant. And twenty-year-old Gabe expected that to continue for the rest of his life because he thought that was normal and just the way humans are. So, when you say that twenty year old Gabe would be disappointed in the outcome now or he expected the following things that he didn’t get, well, yeah, but look at this amazing thing he got that he didn’t even know was out there. I know you’re speechless. A profound point. I know. 

Gabe: Eh.

Lisa: You got to admit that you are more comfortable now in your own brain and you’re certainly happier because you’re no longer suicidal. So there you go. Twenty-year-old Gabe thought he would remain suicidal for the rest of his life. I don’t see how that’s not a major, major increase. He did not know that this level of wellness existed that you have achieved. You can’t tell me this isn’t better than when you were constantly thinking about suicide. And twenty-year-old Gabe didn’t even know that that was a possibility. Maybe you are imagining professional success, a large family, lots of children. But that would always have been overlaid with the racing thoughts and the wanting to die.

Gabe: I can’t argue with your logic, but I think you have to understand that 20-year-old Gabe was kind of a jackass.

Lisa: I know.

Gabe: You know, he was depressed, but he was also manic and grandiose. And I just I think maybe I just don’t want to get in an argument with him.

Lisa: You always use your birthday as a time to look back and in one of your blogs, you write the ghost of bipolar past win. You use this time to look back and say, oh, I didn’t do this, I didn’t do that. I’m so sad. I wanted this. I didn’t get that. Why? Why is that the thing that you do? Why is it not the looking back on wow, I never knew that you could just sit on your couch and not think about dying. That is so awesome. How come that’s never your thought process?

Gabe: I’m pessimistic by nature. It’s a fair question and it’s a reasonable question, and it’s one of the reasons that I always like to write these blogs all by myself and not involve you, because I don’t like to be challenged on my stupid thoughts. It’s hard to get out of the habit, right. I’m sincere when I say that I am better off today than I have been probably at any other point in my life. And I do recognize that logically, intellectually, I know that to be the case, but I don’t feel it.

Lisa: I can’t discount that, yeah, your feelings matter much more than logic sometimes. Your feelings are your reality. So, I don’t want to dismiss that outright. But you do see it, right? You do see.

Gabe: Oh, I can. There has never been a problem seeing it. It’s always been a feeling.

Lisa: Well, this is what CBT is for, you actually need to change your own internal thought processes and feelings.

Gabe: Seriously, are you telling me to go to therapy? Are you like, hey, Gabe, thanks for doing a birthday podcast, by the way, you should go to therapy? Like I never thought of that before. I’m going to just lose weight. I’m going to exercise more. I’m going to give forgiveness that I’ve been denying. I’m going to go skydiving, Rocky Mountain climbing, going to do something with a bull.

Lisa: I hate that song. I would not need to do all of that if I found out that I was terminally ill because I’m already a good person. I don’t need to get sick to suddenly realize I have poor morals. Also, why wasn’t he doing all this stuff before? I went skydiving. Why do you have to wait to find out you’re dying to go skydiving?

Gabe: I think it’s really just maybe an example of we put things off.

Lisa: You know how I live, like, completely not for the future ever? Boom, turns out I’m a genius.

Gabe: Yeah, yeah, when you can’t pay your mortgage, everybody agrees.

Lisa: Well, I have to admit, I do not have a fully funded retirement account, but my electronics are awesome.

Gabe: See, you always say that, but I have a fully funded retirement account and my electronics are all better than yours.

Lisa: Eh, matter of opinion. Also, that’s another thing I’ve really missed for the pandemic is traveling.

Gabe: Yeah, see, that’s what you should have gone with. You have shitty electronics, but, oh my God, you have so many stamps in your passport.

Lisa: Yeah, yeah, I will go with that.

Gabe: No, you can’t retroactively change it.

Lisa: Why not? Of course I can, I’m the editor. 

Lisa: You’re always talking about how you’ve disappointed the expectations of 20-year-old Gabe, well, 20-year olds are all idiots. What about the expectations of 30-year-old Gabe or thirty-five-year-old Gabe or 40 year old Gabe? Have you met those expectations?

Gabe: I think that’s an incredibly valuable question, because 30-year-old Gabe was starting into recovery with bipolar disorder and thinking about stuff like buying a house, starting a business, getting a job, you know, just really reaching stability. But then, of course, we got divorced. And that was kind of a blow to my ego a little bit because I didn’t want to be divorced again. But then again, even through our divorce, I wanted to be in a stable relationship and I absolutely achieved this. It’s not a fluke. Kendall and I have been together for eight years. We celebrated eight years of marriage during a global pandemic. So, I feel this one is going to stick. So, yes, I think that 30-year-old, 35-year-old Gabe would probably be pretty damn proud of me.

Lisa: Oh, that’s wonderful.

Gabe: You know, he understood bipolar disorder. He didn’t know if I could make it. He’s kept the weight off. You know,

Lisa: Yeah, that’s a good point.

Gabe: Remember, 30-year-old Gabe was like, OK, well, you’ve got all the weight off. But, you know, there was always this big asterisk, like, look, everybody else we know that got this surgery, they gained all the weight back, dude. I never gained the weight back. I’m coming up on, what, year 17? And I’ve still kept the weight off. I bought the house. Hell, I, I even got the Lexus. I

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Remember, you know, that was twenty-five-year-old Gabe that wrote that Lexus on the board. And I got it, I got the Rolex. I got the stable relationship, I pretty much got everything but children which you know, many people who want kids don’t have kids. That’s not really outside of the norm. 

Lisa: The dog is already quite the burden to Aunt Lisa.

Gabe: That’s very true, but, yes, I think that’s a nice reframe, Lisa. I love reframing.

Lisa: Love the reframing.

Gabe: As you know. I don’t know why my birthday gets me. I think it’s because I feel that I’m chronically behind and I’m running out of time. I feel that I’ve lost so much time that I’ll never get it back. I feel like I always have more to do. And I’m not getting closer. I feel like I should have been further along, that I should have done more. And some of that is comparing myself to others. I, I.

Lisa: Well, let’s talk about reframing, you keep saying, oh, failure, failure, failure, unhappiness, what would it take for happiness? What would you need to have happen? You keep saying, oh, I haven’t met my goals. You know, you don’t actually have any clearly defined goals.

Gabe: That’s not true.

Lisa: Maybe that’s why you’re not meeting them.

Gabe: My goal is to be happy. 

Lisa: Ok,

Gabe: My goal is to, OK, you ready?

Lisa: I’m ready.

Gabe: Here it is.

Lisa: This is very, I’m writing this down.

Gabe: Step one,

Lisa: Ok,

Gabe: Underpants. Step two. Step three, profit, I have learned from the underpants gnomes.

Lisa: [Laughter]

Gabe: Lisa, thank you. Thank you sincerely for hanging out with me on my birthday. It’s a cool thing to do. It is very, very cool that we are only five days apart. So, I want to extend a heartfelt and warm happy birthday to you.

Lisa: Thank you, Gabe. Happy birthday.

Gabe: You know, Lisa, what you should have said is that five days is where all the wisdom is kept. You know, you never remember your quote. 

Lisa: You’re better at that. 

Gabe: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening in. My name is Gabe Howard and I am the host of the Not Crazy podcast. And I’m the author of Mental Illness Is an Asshole, which you can get on Amazon.com. But if you head over to gabehoward.com, I will sign it. It will be cheaper and I’ll include a bunch of show swag. You want Not Crazy podcast stickers absolutely free? This is the way. Just head over to gabehoward.com. If you loved the show, please subscribe. Also use your words and tell other people why they should listen.

Lisa: Don’t forget the outtake after the credits, and we’ll see you next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person?  Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail [email protected] for details. 

 The post Podcast: Birthdays, COVID, and Reframing (Oh My!) first appeared on World of Psychology.

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Podcast: Can Swearing Improve Mental Health?

Ouch! You stub your toe or burn your finger and a curse word comes flying out. It’s automatic — and it probably makes you feel a little better. But have you ever considered specifically using curse words as a way to improve your mental health? That’s the idea behind our guest’s new book “Move On MF’er.”

In today’s show, we welcome psychologist and author Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt who explains how swearing can help us relieve the pain that overrides logic.

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  Guest information for ‘Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt- Can Swearing Improve Mental Health’ Podcast Episode

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt is a board-certified health psychologist who swears her way to sanity using cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, humor, positive psychology, and profanity.  Jodie has more than 25 years of professional experience helping others find meaning in a crazy world. Follow Jodie and get some inspiration on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @jeckleberryhunt and at jodieeckleberryhunt.com.

    About The Psych Central Podcast 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. To learn more about Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt- Can Swearing Improve Mental Health’ Episode

Editor’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 the Psych Central Podcast, where guest experts in the field of psychology and mental health share thought-provoking information using plain, everyday language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Hey, everyone, welcome to this week’s episode of The Psych Central Podcast, I’m your host Gabe Howard, and calling into the show today we have Dr. Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt. Dr. Eckleberry-Hunt is a board-certified health psychologist who swears her way to sanity using cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, humor, positive psychology and, of course, profanity. Jodie has more than 25 years of professional experience helping others find meaning in a crazy world Jodie. Welcome to the show.

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: Hello, it’s great to be here.

Gabe Howard: Thank you so much for being here. You know, Jodie, I wrote a book called Mental Illness Is an Asshole. And I get a lot of pushback from people who don’t like the swear word in the title. Now, the name of your new book is Move On MF’er, except it’s not MF’er. We’ve cleaned it up for the family show. It’s the whole word. Do you get pushback when people see that title?

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: Interestingly enough, maybe I’ve insulated myself somewhat, the only person who’s really given me significant pushback is my mother who said, Oh my gosh, where did you learn that word? We never talked that way at home. What will my friends think? But what I have found mostly is people laugh. Their very first response is a good belly laugh. I think it’s pretty good if that’s the only bad feedback I’ve gotten so far.

Gabe Howard: I love the title because this is the way people talk. The reality is the majority of people are not sitting around at home wondering about their emotional well-being. They’re not wondering about the state of their mental health, right? They’re wondering if they’re going effing nuts. I talk to people all the time and this is how we talk. I’m going effing crazy. And even if we remove the effing, we say I’m going crazy. While I understand why we need to be professional about mental health and mental illness, and I support that 100%, I also think that we need to connect with the people we’re trying to help. Was that sort of your thinking in the title of the book?

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: Absolutely. Essentially, how I came about, it was a whole personal experience and I learned that profanity packs a good punch and it also injects a little humor into very painful situations. And so then I experimented using some of this profanity, targeted profanity with people that I work with. And what I found was people really connected to this, to very common language, but just the ability to laugh at oneself. And then I realized that a lot of what we do in psychology isn’t accessible to the average person. Maybe they don’t have mental health benefits or maybe they’re thinking, gosh, that’s not for me. I would feel too weird. I just don’t connect. I don’t understand some of the language or concepts. And so I guess I put all of that together, at least I tried to in this self-help book so that people could access psychology in a very everyday way and apply it to themselves. That was my overarching goal, was to make psychology accessible to the average person in a way that they could connect to.

Gabe Howard: Well, we’ve spent a lot of time on the title, so I suppose that we should tell the listeners what it’s about. Now, the quick description or the elevator pitch, if you will, is it combines all of the evidence-based psychological techniques, CBT, mindfulness and profanity into a seamless, fun and hilarious self-help method, minus all the confusing psychobabble. Can you elaborate on what the book’s about?

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: Yes, and you know what, I think some people have very quickly tried to call me out thinking that the title of the book was merely just an attention getter and it’s not. It truly encompasses the philosophy of the book. In psychology, the technique of cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, is recognizing that we all have this internal dialog, what I call the inner MF’er, and it says things to us. Why are you doing that? You shouldn’t do that. Oh, my gosh, that was terrible. What are you going to do now? You’re such an idiot. I can’t believe you said that. So the technique is learning to identify that and argue back with it, that’s CBT. And mindfulness is being able to be present and self-aware and being able to let things go. But I’ll tell you, it doesn’t always work that seamlessly in using those techniques, because we have these horrible, painful emotions, shame and guilt, oftentimes emotional brainwashing from childhood or traumatic experiences or whatever else has gone into forming that. And those feelings override logic. What I found was a literature on profanity. And because we’re taught at a very young age, you shouldn’t say that, those are bad words. They’re off-limits. We have those words stored in a different part of the brain. They’re special. So those words pack a special punch. So if we can add in the profanity, It helps somehow relieve some of the pain that overrides logic.

Gabe Howard: So let’s talk about the Move On MF’er approach. We see a lot of self-help books. What makes the Move On MF’er technique different? What is like step one?

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: So I teach people the cognitive behavioral therapy to identify the themes in your negative self-talk based on maybe how you see the world. If you’re a negative person and you always see the negative first, or maybe you’re a pleaser and you’re always trying to make people happy. So understanding your programming and what kind of themes are in the things that you say to yourself and then also teaching people to be mindful again, self-aware in the moment. So some of the basic stuff. But then comes the fun part, which is helping people identify what profanities really pack punch, because that’s individual to people. Some things, some words people find offensive. And so you wouldn’t want to use those. And it’s also we don’t want you to be self-abusive. It’s not meant to beat yourself up. The words are meant to get you to laugh or to be encouraging. What words will sound like what our friend would say to you? Because ultimately, it’s trying to get you to be a friend to yourself. Once you get those words down and you’re identifying the times when you’re beating yourself up or you feel lousy and you want to do some exploration about why that is. The key in putting all of this together, the thing that is so important is helping people recognize, OK, there I go again. And at this point, because I’m enlightened, I have a choice. I can choose to listen to that crazy voice in my head or I can say, no, I’ve been down that path. I know where it leads me. It’s nowhere good. I’m not going to do that today. So it’s being consciously aware and deliberative and recognizing we have the choice whether or not to play the mf’er in that equation.

Gabe Howard: Let’s say that I am somebody who just sees the world negatively, I see the worst in everything. I’m very pessimistic. I hate everything. Can you give an example of how this technique might snap me out of that so that I can be a more pleasant person?

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: Yeah, well, this will be a very relevant example, you turn on the morning news, which is always negative anyway, so it’s a great way to get those negative thoughts started. And you start to say to yourself, well, the world is just a screwed-up place. I can’t believe that this and this happened. Well, this just really sucks. And so you clench your jaw and you start to just feel nasty. It’s recognizing, OK, there I go again. Let’s stop. Let me stop and think about this. What is the evidence? What is the overwhelmingly convincing evidence that I’m going to have a bad day? Am I psychic? Do I know that already? So you start to argue back with yourself, already being mindful that you’re going there and being able to say, and again, I’m going to stick with mf’er because it’s easiest for me. You know what, MF’er, you’ve been down that path. If you continue to do what you’re going to do, what you’re doing right now, you’re going to have a headache. You’re going to be nasty with people. Do you really want to go there? What else? What’s another way to look at it? And at that point, it’s deciding what’s going to work for you in your wellness toolbox to help you reset. I’m a huge fan of even just doing ten minutes of aerobic exercise. Maybe it is doing a relaxation exercise, maybe it is doing a little bit of journaling. But whatever it is to help you interrupt the pattern that you set that’s been toxic in your life. And again, I didn’t use a lot of the profanities or curse words, as I described it to you, because I don’t know what’s going to work for a particular person, but it’s whatever is going to. The other term, I like to say is, OK, crazy ass, not going to go there today. So it’s inserting the words again, talking to yourself like a friend.

Gabe Howard: Is it all about finding words that are maybe unusual for you or just out of the ordinary, something to jar your mind? So just using words that are relatable, understandable, but also different, or I believe the words you used were pack an emotional punch or just stand out in some way? Is that the general theory or concept behind the technique?

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: It is. For the hardcore research from the cognitive psychologists and the neurolinguistic is the profanities tend to do that because they’re stored in a different part of the brain. So, it is packing the punch. But the thing I really like and encourage is packing a punch that also gets you to laugh at yourself. Elizabeth Lesser wrote a book, Broken Open, and she talks about the example of if we can all just accept that we’re bozos on the bus and there is no bus for the cool people, the people who don’t have problems, there is no separate bus. We’ve got to quit telling ourselves that we’re on the loser bus. We’re all bozos on the bus. I like the profanities or the words that get people to laugh at themselves. I used to have a professor who gave me an essay on perfectionism and it was a very professionally, academically written essay. But my take home from it, which I use regularly in my own life, is who the hell do you think you are that you get to be perfect while the rest of us are out here being crazy humans?

Gabe Howard: I can only see the world through the lens of my own eyes, but I think I don’t think I’m perfect at all, are there people that think that everything is going well and perfect? I suppose to really get to the crux of my question, who is this book perfect to? What is the makeup of the person who would absolutely benefit from this technique?

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: I think if you asked people rationally, do you think that you’re perfect, 100% of people would say, no, I don’t, but that’s the mind and the heart goes a different way and the heart keeps telling people you should be or at least you should try to be. And it keeps pushing for that. And so the MOMF, M O M F, Move On MF’er is about calling that out and saying, no, that’s screwed up, that’s screwed up programming. So I don’t think that people are out there striving for perfection rationally. I think that it’s a drive and it’s a messed-up drive. The second part of your question about who the book is really good for, I will say flat out it is not a primary treatment for serious mental health issues. If you have depression, you don’t just move on. I’m not saying that people who have depression couldn’t benefit from some of the things in this book. And it’s also not for somebody who’s primarily being treated for trauma, a past history of trauma. You don’t just move on. However, it is good for people out there struggling with everyday stressors and with feeling bad about themselves. 

Gabe Howard: We’ll be back in about a minute after we hear from our sponsors.

Sponsor Message: Gabe here and I wanted to tell you about Psych Central’s other podcast that I host, Not Crazy. It’s straight talk about the world of mental illness and it is hosted by me and my ex-wife. You should check it out at PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy or your favorite podcast player.

Sponsor Message: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe Howard: And we’re back with the author of Move On Motherf***er, Dr. Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt. What personal techniques from the MOMF method do you personally use most frequently?

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: One thing that I am very honest about is that I have generalized anxiety disorder, and as I describe some of the things that I use to treat people, I’m also very familiar with the pain of anxiety and the paralyzing self-doubt and guilt and shame that seem to come out of nowhere. And one of the most common times that comes out is around 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning when I wake up and I have these crazy thoughts. And as painful as it is to admit this, I will wake up and have this feeling of something is not right and my mind will go through what could it be? And I’ll say, oh, somebody in the family has died. And if I spend time thinking about that, I’m up for two hours. If I argue the thoughts, I’m up for two hours. But with MOMF, if I say, oh, no, you crazy ass, that’s not real. This is your mind playing tricks on you and you’re not going to go there. And again, if I can laugh, it takes away whatever pain that was squeezing my insides and I just let go and I’m able to sleep better. That’s my favorite technique.

Gabe Howard: Anything that leads to a calming feeling and of course, I feel that sleep is just very misunderstood and devalued in this country. So I really appreciate that. I think, though, I still am a little hung up on the idea of what makes the MOMF method work so well. Can you provide some feedback surrounding just what gives it its oomph?

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: I think my hesitance is that I don’t know that I fully understand all of that myself. Again, I could look at the research and talk to you about the way that profanities are stored in the brain, but I don’t think that’s entirely it. I think that when I’ve used it with people, it has just come so far out of left field that it just blows their mind a bit. And again, hearing it from a professional, people are typically, Oh, I didn’t expect you to say that. But it just makes very complex things, concepts, techniques, accessible. People feel less alone, less isolated. And somebody had asked me recently, how come we can be such a good friend to other people and say such horrible things to ourselves? Gosh, if a friend came to you and said, I just lost my job and I’m just I feel so inadequate, I feel horrible, I’m not good enough. Nobody’s ever going to hire me. I’m never going to go anywhere. Would you then say to the friend, yeah, you’re right? You really do suck. I’ve been thinking about telling you that for a long time. You should just give it up. And people usually look at me with this horror, no, I would never talk to my friend that way.

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: Then why would you talk to yourself that way? So, this person who was interviewing me, said, why are we so well able to do that for other people, but not for ourselves? And my response was, I think it’s because we’re not looking into our own eyes. We’re looking into the eyes of another human being. And it’s so much easier to extend that compassion and empathy, and we don’t do that for ourselves. I’m also well known for a tough love approach. Certainly, people who have come to see me in my office because I do really care about people, but I don’t see them as a victim. I see people as survivors and I am more likely to say, get your ass up and let’s fight this. Let’s do it together. I do honor what people have been through, but I don’t get into spending a lot of time feeling sorry for people. And so I also think the approach of talking back to yourself with profanity is about seeing oneself as a survivor and strong and able to hear that and can get the energy to muster to do something about it.

Gabe Howard: That is awesome, and I appreciate that answer a lot. Now, I noticed that in the book it has self-awareness exercises or journaling. Do you have a favorite journaling or self-awareness exercise?

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: Yes, the chapter is about getting over past hurt. I specifically don’t use the term forgiveness because people are offended by that term. They don’t feel like others deserve forgiveness. But I talk about finding peace. Finding peace starts with really making an inventory of the hurt that you need to find peace around. And I think a lot of people get frustrated around the process or the journey to finding peace because there is a start date, but there’s no end date and they don’t know how long it’s going to take. But I tell people that breaking it down and making a complete inventory is a way of honoring and realizing the things that you actually are consciously trying to let go of. And I think that there needs to be some time around that in breaking it down so that you understand how each of those things impacted you going forward so that you can make a decision about the meaning you want to take from those insults or events or hurts.

Gabe Howard: Now, aside from swearing, how does Move On MF’er differ from other self-help methods?

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: I think that it is the emphasis on holding yourself accountable, it is recognizing that we all have a choice, and if you want to have a bad day or you want to let some jerk who cut you off in traffic, if you want to let that person ruin your day, then go for it. But it is a choice. And the reason why that is so important is a lot of things that happen in our lives lead us to feel powerless. I think if we really sit down and think about it, we have more power than we recognize and the approach is empowering. Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who was in a concentration camp. It was horrific, his whole family was killed and he was trying to make sense of how in such horrible circumstances, people were still going around giving away their last piece of bread. What conclusion he drew was that everything can be taken from a person except for control of your mind, unless you choose to give it away. And I think that is the thing that I try to emphasize in the MOMF approach is that we all have a choice. And even in the worst of circumstances, we get to choose whether or not we let something be a cancer in our mind.

Gabe Howard: Jodie, is there any misconceptions about your book or one thing that you want to make sure that everybody knows about the Move On MF’er method?

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: Yes, one thing that concerns me is that people will read the title and jump to the conclusion that I’m just saying get over it, move on, get on with your life. And it’s not that at all. I think that if you take the time to get into the book, you’ll see that there is a whole method of understanding oneself at a deeper level, honoring things that you’ve experienced that have made you the survivor that you are. It is not at all the sound bite of just get over it. And so, I hope that nobody draws that conclusion. 

Gabe Howard: It reminds me a little bit of a skit that was out there with Bob Newhart where he did therapy and no matter what problem people had, the answer was stop it. It’s very famous. I recommend that everybody go to YouTube and google Bob Newhart therapy or Bob Newhart, stop it. That’s tongue in cheek, of course. And if you actually saw a therapist do that, you should rightfully find a new therapist. But I understand that this idea of moving on or moving forward, it can seem really you’re just saying, oh, get over it, say a swear word, throw your hands up and move forward. But it’s much more involved in that. Is that really what you want to make sure that people understand

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: Absolutely, I think that says it very well.

Gabe Howard: You’re going to have to do some work. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just buy a book called Move On or Leave It Behind or Stop It? And everything would just be perfect? Like you could charge a lot of money if that book worked exactly that way.

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: If only.

Gabe Howard: I cannot help but love the idea of interjecting real talk into psychology. So often I read these things and they say no psychobabble, but of course they have no real talk either, which sort of leaves many self-help books dangling in this middle area where they’re not quite from the expert perspective, but they’re not quite from the perspective of the people who are actually being helped. And I’m certainly not insulting any of those self-help books, especially whatever works for you. You should absolutely do. But I absolutely love this trend of including the language that we use in our day to day world. Why is this book and talking about Move On MF’er important to you personally?

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: I have been given a lot and there are so many things that so many, so many people in need in the world that I would like to contribute something that is accessible to people who I can’t personally help. And how shall I say? I’m not arrogant enough to believe that my book is going to change someone’s life. But if I can give somebody a skill that will help them feel more powerful in their own life, then I’ve been successful. It worked. It’s something I used with myself, something I’ve used with other people, and I just wanted to share it. Not everybody has mental health benefits. Not everybody can go for counseling. But my hope is that the book speaks to somebody who needs to hear it.

Gabe Howard: Jodie, thank you so much for being here. Now the book is called Move On MF’er, except they say the word. So, when you’re googling that’s what you need to look for. Where can we find it?

Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt: It is available with my publisher, at New Harbinger. It is also on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, which is for independent bookstores and your local bookstore. You should be able to get it anywhere they can order it for you.

Gabe Howard: Awesome, and thank you so very much. All right, everybody. My name is Gabe Howard and I am the author of Mental Illness Is an Asshole. See the trend? Books with swear words. It’s also available on Amazon. Or you can get a signed copy for less money by heading over to gabehoward.com. And I will include some show stickers that you can smack on your laptop or decorate your house with. We also have a super-secret Facebook page. Just go to PsychCentral.com/FBShow and join that. And remember, you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling anytime, anywhere simply by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. We will see everybody next week. And hey, use that free time between now and next week to subscribe to the show. Rate us, rank us, review us. And hey, it doesn’t hurt to tell a friend. Thanks, everyone.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to The Psych Central Podcast. Want your audience to be wowed at your next event? Feature an appearance and LIVE RECORDING of the Psych Central Podcast right from your stage! For more details, or to book an event, please email us at [email protected]. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/Show or on your favorite podcast player. Psych Central is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website run by mental health professionals. Overseen by Dr. John Grohol, Psych Central offers trusted resources and quizzes to help answer your questions about mental health, personality, psychotherapy, and more. Please visit us today at PsychCentral.com.  To learn more about our host, Gabe Howard, please visit his website at gabehoward.com. Thank you for listening and please share with your friends, family, and followers.

  The post Podcast: Can Swearing Improve Mental Health? first appeared on World of Psychology.

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Podcast: Families and Holiday Survival

Is your family bad for your mental health? If so, how do you handle the holidays? In today’s show Gabe and Lisa reminisce about their family holidays together — the good and the horrible — and discuss how they currently curb controversial topics at the table.

Join us for a bad trip down memory lane which leads to a whole lot of bickering and laughter.

(Transcript Available Below)

Please Subscribe to Our Show: And We Love Written Reviews! 

About The Not Crazy podcast Hosts

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 Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Holiday Survival” Episode

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

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe: Hey, everybody, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Not Crazy podcast, I’m your host, Gabe Howard. And with me, as always, is Lisa Kiner. Lisa.

Lisa: Hey, everyone, and today’s quote is from Leo Tolstoy, All happy families are alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Gabe: I hate that we’re introducing the subject of surviving the holidays by talking about how unhappy our families make us.

Lisa: I’ve always liked that quote.

Gabe: I, no, it’s, I mean, it’s a great quote, the grass is always greener. Everybody’s dysfunctional, right? We all get it. We’re all miserable.

Lisa: That’s not.

Gabe: That’s not what it means? What do you think it means?

Lisa: It means that everyone’s dysfunction is unique.

Gabe: Right, but that also means that everybody’s dysfunctional.

Lisa: No, it doesn’t. Although I also do believe that, but it doesn’t, no, that’s not what it implies at all.

Gabe: But don’t you see it as a way to say, like, well, yeah, they’re happy, but don’t worry, they still have dysfunction. So that way if you’re in a dysfunctional family, you can be like that family seems happy. But Leo Tolstoy reminds me that they’re screwed up too.

Lisa: I see it as, yeah, that family looks happy, but that just means they’re from Stepford, that they don’t have any uniqueness or personality, they’re just a bunch of bland, boring. I don’t know what’s something boring? Oatmeal? Porridge?

Gabe: Oatmeal?

Lisa: I don’t know.

Gabe: Oatmeal and porridge. You went straight to food,

Lisa: I’m trying to think of something bland.

Gabe: All of our analogies surround food. 

Lisa: Beige, I don’t know

Gabe: Beige, yeah.

Lisa: Well, what? What’s? Help me on this one, what do people say when they’re trying to indicate blandness?

Gabe: I mean, usually, like your husband?

Lisa: Ha-ha.

Gabe: He’s pretty boring. It’s not his fault. I mean, he’s got to be like, you’re way this way. So he’s got

Lisa: Right,

Gabe: To be way the other way to balance you out.

Lisa: The great thing about boring men, Gabe, is they can keep a job.

Gabe: I mean, it’s true

Lisa: Yeah, yeah.

Gabe: That he is more stable than I am, but I’m more fun.

Lisa: You are definitely more unpredictable.

Gabe: You ever notice that, like popular culture, you know, television shows, movies, even in books, they’ll have a wealthy family, they’ve reached a pinnacle of success that we envy. But within that enviable wealth, they make sure to show that, oh, they have nannies because they’re not spending time with their children. Oh, they’re so busy. So they’re not as close.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: And then they show the middle class family. And yeah, they’re having all kinds of financial problems. But they’re so close and loving and together. So they’re just making sure to tell you that, yes, even though they’re rich, you’re still better because you and your family are closer. That’s what that quote reminds me of.

Lisa: That’s a mechanism of social control. It’s one of those things like an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay or, you know, it’s one of those type things, these things that encourage poverty to continue. Because after all, rich people, they aren’t really happy and they don’t really love each other. See you’re poor, or even middle class, but it’s OK because you have love, which is really more valuable in the end. It’s a way to reinforce the class structure.

Gabe: I completely agree with that and what we’re talking about, mechanisms of social control, that’s how a lot of people feel about the holidays. We like the holidays, but holidays have this controlling mechanism, right? You’re expected to spend time with friends and family. You’re expected to eat turkey on Thanksgiving. You’re expected to give gifts for Christmas and other December holidays. Whereas the rest of the year you can just be a curmudgeon that never calls your mom, but you better call your mom over the holidays. And that to many people, especially people who will find their families frustrating or even toxic, that holiday social control is bad for them because all of a sudden, even though they don’t want to spend time with friends and family and I don’t know why they’re your friends if you don’t want to spend time with them. But even though they don’t want to spend time with their families, society is pushing them in that direction.

Lisa: Yes, there are a lot of expectations for the holidays and you can’t escape them.

Gabe: I like that word, expectations, when we’re talking about surviving the holidays. How do you survive the holidays if you have to spend time with friends and family? And I don’t know why I keep saying friends and family, like, why are they your friends if you don’t like them?

Lisa: Sorry, that’s not funny at all,

Gabe: I’m giving Lisa the huh?

Lisa: I can’t, I can’t relate to that situation in any way.

Gabe: Why are we friends? 

Lisa: A question for the ages.

Gabe: I’m not spending the holidays with you. Sincerely, Lisa, if it’s March, April, May, June, July, and we consider our families bad for our mental health, we’re dodging mom and dad’s call like it’s a job. Like we’re so amazing at just missing that call and making sure that we don’t send it to voicemail because, you know, mom and dad have figured out that two rings means that you dismissed their call. But if you let it ring all the way through. We’re really great at making sure that we call them back when we know that mom and dad are at bowling league. Like all these games that we play. But suddenly November and December hits and we’re like, well, all right, I’m going to do it. I suppose we could just do an entire podcast on the psychology of why the holidays make us do things that are frankly, potentially against our best interest. But let’s go in a positive direction and say that this is an opportunity to mend fences. It’s an opportunity to maybe build a bridge with mom and dad who we love. Do you love your parents, Lisa?

Lisa: Of course.

Gabe: Nah, is that, is that the, of course, answer like, are you more likely to decline an invitation in June than you are in December?

Lisa: No, you’ve actually complained about that several times.

Gabe: Yeah, but that was back during our marriage when I stole your youth. How do you feel now that your youth is gone?

Lisa: Obviously, all adult children have difficult relationships with their parents.

Gabe: I love how you say that, no, that is not true, not all the, all of our listeners do, but not all adults. I think you’ve been hanging out with a Not Crazy fan base too much.

Lisa: All adult children have difficult relationships with their parents, but, for example, I think mine is less difficult than the average and is less difficult than yours.

Gabe: Are we getting ready to play what I like to call the family suffering Olympics?

Lisa: Ooh, family suffering Olympics. On the one hand, I feel like you’re going to win, but I don’t know, I got some contenders.

Gabe: It’s interesting, though, our families are very different, and when I say they’re very different, it’s sort of amazing to me, Lisa, because they’re actually quite the same. Like you pointed out, we

Lisa: Yeah, they’re actually almost identical.

Gabe: No, I’m not trying to be mean. And I am completely fascinated that you think that we’re similar based on both being from the Midwest. So in your mind, a Harvard graduated lawyer from Columbus, Ohio, and let’s say, oh, I don’t know, a homeless guy from Ohio are similar because they were both born in Ohio?

Lisa: I just feel like the two of us were both the oldest, we grew up in nuclear families, we have younger siblings, you know what I mean?

Gabe: First off, you have younger sibling, 

Lisa: That’s true.

Gabe: I have younger siblings. So my parents already screwed me harder than your parents screwed you. I got two, two, Susan and Gary spawn to contend with. You only have one Leroy and Susan spawn to contend. Ooh, that’s why you think they’re the same. Both of our mother’s names are Susan.

Lisa: That is true, yeah.

Gabe: Huh, I do think this is fascinating that you think that our families are so similar. And one of the reasons that I sort of reject this outright is because once again, my family did not believe in higher education nor have higher education. Your family believed in higher education, had higher education, and from the second you were born, started working on you to go to college. Whereas the second I was born I had a different father because I was adopted. So there’s some major differences. My mother, a stay at home mom. She was a homemaker and proud of it.

Lisa: I guess that is a difference.

Gabe: Your mother makes snide remarks about homemakers calling them non feminists, so.

Lisa: Ok, one, no, that’s ridiculous, feminism is about choosing and you can obviously choose to stay home or not, it does not have any bearing. My mother would never say that. That’s ridiculous.

Gabe: Ok, but she thinks it.

Lisa: No, she doesn’t. She, as I was growing up, most of the people around us did have stay at home moms. And my mom did not stay at home. She worked. And, you know, she got a lot of crap for that. But no, that doesn’t mean she. No, no, no, no.

Gabe: You know, I never thought of it that way. I looked at it as the crap that she was dishing to stay at home moms. You raised a very good point there, that your mother was unique in that she was one of the few working mothers and that the stay at home moms gave her crap for that.

Lisa: Constantly, it really annoyed her.

Gabe: That had to be difficult for her. OK, I stand corrected. Both sides have been seen. You are right. The point that I’m making is look at that. The group that my mother associated with raising me was the group that frankly and I’m not trying to be mean to my mom, but my mom doesn’t like daycare. My mom doesn’t like babysitters. My mom doesn’t like kids being raised by anybody but family members. So therefore, sorry, mom, she looked down her nose at your mom. You raise a very good point. So when you say that our families are the same, you can see why I kind of roll my eyes

Lisa: I.

Gabe: Knowing that our mothers were at direct odds about the best way to raise children. Also, did I mention my mom got pregnant in high school? Your mother didn’t get pregnant in high school.

Lisa: I guess I was honestly surprised to hear you say that you don’t think our families were the same. I feel like our families were pretty much identical. You’re pointing all these things out and they make logical sense. But, yeah, I’m not feeling it.

Gabe: Has your father once raised his voice at you?

Lisa: Oh, God, no.

Gabe: Well, now, wait a minute, hang on a second, you said our families were the same. My father once woke me up in the middle of the night to scream at me because I didn’t hack a satellite dish so that he could get free pay per view. Did your father ever wake you up in the middle of the night to commit a felony?

Lisa: You are really not painting your parents in a flattering light, and they’re actually perfectly fine,

Gabe: You said they were the same, if they’re

Lisa: I.

Gabe: The same, this means that your parents aren’t being painted in a flattering light either.

Lisa: Again, I know you are raising valid points, and intellectually I can agree with this, you’re right, there are a lot more differences than I had thought of before. And I guess some of these are meaningful. But I still have this, like, emotional feeling about it that our families are the same. I’m like, I’m not actually realizing this. No. I feel like we grew up pretty much the same way. But I see what you’re saying. I see what you’re saying.

Gabe: Has my mother ever hazed you?

Lisa: It’s a sign of affection, Gabe. She was trying to invite you into the group.

Gabe: Ok, so my mother invites people into the group by cooking them food. Your mother invites people in the group by being mean to them in public, but they’re the same.

Lisa: She’s making you stronger. She wanted to make sure you could take it.

Gabe: I could not.

Lisa: No, you crumbled, you crumbled immediately, it was ridiculous, yeah, you could not take it.

Gabe: Remember when I fell apart at Christmas,

Lisa: Yes, I do.

Gabe: So this is where this is headed, ladies and gentlemen.

Lisa: Just love the Christmas memories.

Gabe: Thanks for bearing with us. One year at Christmas, when Lisa and I were still married, Lisa’s parents got her a portable DVD player. Now, about a month before Christmas, they had asked me if Lisa would like a portable DVD player, and I said, no, Lisa has a laptop and the laptop has a DVD player and the DVD player will play DVDs on Lisa’s laptop. There’s no reason for a portable DVD player with a smaller screen that’s just a DVD player. Christmas Day arrives. And Lisa, what you get for Christmas?

Lisa: I got a portable DVD player.

Gabe: Lisa got a portable DVD player. Now they pointed out that this portable DVD player did not have a computer built in.

Lisa: I know, you kind of had to be there, but, yeah, there seemed to be a lack of understanding of how the technology worked. Yes.

Gabe: So, Lisa, ever the good daughter was like, oh, thank you, mom and dad, kiss, kiss. Another difference between my family and your family, by the way, because I would have chucked it at my mom’s head and been like, what the hell? I told you I didn’t want this, lady. But again, our families are the same, yet different.

Lisa: That’s ridiculous, you cannot criticize a gift, someone gives you a gift, you say thank you.

Gabe: My family does not do that, my family gets mad, picks it apart and is judgmental as hell. I like this about us. It’s my favorite part of Christmas.

Lisa: Your mother gave me that ugly sweatshirt and I kept it the entire time we were together and made a point of wearing it in front of her, because that is what one does with a gift, you horrible, ungrateful person.

Gabe: That is not what my family does. That is what your family does, proving the differences. But anyways, back to the DVD player. Christmas Day wears on. And Susan Kiner, I do want to take a brief break. Lisa’s parents are, in fact, wonderful people. And they gave me my best friend in the whole world. So I just so I apologize in advance for what’s about to come out of my mouth.

Lisa: Mm hmm.

Gabe: But Lisa’s mom looks at me

Lisa: Oh, for God’s sakes,

Gabe: Now, she’s this tiny woman.

Lisa: She’s not tiny, she’s six feet tall,

Gabe: But she’s thin as a rail,

Lisa: She is very thin, yes.

Gabe: She weighs half as much as your 300 pound, 6’3″, young and able bodied, virile husband. Remember, I was younger and virile back then.

Lisa: Oh, this is so wrong.

Gabe: And she looks at me and says, Gabe, did Lisa like the present? And I said, of course, she loved the DVD player. Gabe did Lisa like the present? And I said, of course she loved the DVD player. Gabe. No, she hated it. I told you she already had one, Sue. I don’t know what you want. She has a computer that has the DVD player in with a bigger screen. At this point, Lisa went nuclear. Whatever year it was, if you look at like the radioactive fallout in the world, it went up on Christmas Day. Like what actually happened is I told her mother that she didn’t like the present. What Lisa thought happened is that I killed a kitten. It was it was just like her anger level was off the charts.

Lisa: Because I had specifically told you not to do that, you already understood the gift giving rules, it wasn’t that hard. All you had to do was say yes, what a great gift. Thank you, Susan.

Gabe: I did. Twice,

Lisa: Thank you.

Gabe: She knew. She could see through my soul.

Lisa: Oh, my God. OK, and that’s what he kept saying. I said, what is wrong with you? Why could you not just say, yes, thank you for the gift? And he says, Oh my God, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. Your mother was looking at me.

Gabe: She was looking at me.

Lisa: A middle aged nurse was looking at you and you lost your shit. Really?

Gabe: Your mother, though, now come on, your mother,

Lisa: She was looking at you?

Gabe: Your mother once told me a story of where in an operating room she grabbed a hold of a man’s ribcage during heart surgery, put her foot up on the operating table and started tugging on it as hard as she could. And you wonder why I buckled?

Lisa: You are making that up. That never happened.

Gabe: I am not making that up. She told me that story. She also told me they use Craftsman tools. 

Lisa: All right, I

Gabe: She said they use Craftsman tools.

Lisa: I don’t know if, I assume they probably do, they’re high quality tools. I have a whole set of screwdrivers. I don’t know.

Gabe: See, your mother is scary.

Lisa: Oh, my, are you this scared of all nurses and doctors? Well, never mind.

Gabe: Yeah, what are you talking to? I’m terrified of them, like.

Lisa: Ok, anyway, the point is you lost your shit. You had this whole oh my God, she’s looking at me. I can’t take it. I crumble. I just, I just fall apart immediately, like a Kleenex. I just can’t take it.

Gabe: It wasn’t immediately

Lisa: Really?

Gabe: I held for two times.

Lisa: It would not have killed you to love the DVD player, plus, of course, they would have given us the receipt, we could have returned it, not a problem or taken it for store credit. Not the point.

Gabe: You were sitting right there, you knew I was going to crumble. Why did you not stop her?

Lisa: I was not sitting right there. I came into the room midstream, if I’d been sitting right there, I would have stopped this. Yeah, completely lost your shit. Told my parents I didn’t like their gift. I’m still pissed about that, frankly,

Gabe: Shocker, Lisa is still

Lisa: I’m just saying.

Gabe: Pissed about something that happened when we were married

Lisa: It wouldn’t have killed you to say thank you, Susan, for the gift.

Gabe: The good news is.

Lisa: What point are you getting to?

Gabe: The point that I’m getting to, is that this was a good Christmas.

Lisa: [Laughter]

Gabe: This is what happened when things were going well during the holidays for Gabe and Lisa. We had way worse holidays. Do you remember the holiday? And I’m not going to say whose family it is to give cover. Do you remember the holiday when one of our distant cousins. I think it was a cousin. Just for unknown reasons, just unleashed this litany of racial slurs around the table?

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Like we were just like and then when you and I started to run interference, the other members are like, oh, don’t cause trouble. You’re never going to change their mind. And we were just flabbergasted. And then do you remember the other holiday where a member of the family again, I don’t want to tie this to either one of our families, but who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community came with

Lisa: Yeah,

Gabe: Their significant other and

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: The whole family just lost their shit at seeing this relationship in front of them. And you and I just had to do everything we could to calm people down because.

Lisa: And what do you do?

Gabe: Are you ready? Because there was people in the room who were slightly different from them. Yet, members of the identical family.

Lisa: Well, also, it didn’t make any sense. You knew she was gay. What? What? That made no sense.

Gabe: I got nothing. I can tell you that I do believe good things came out of these hard discussions and these moves from our comfort zones. And Lisa, we were upset about both of those things for a long time, and we

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Took pot shots at each other’s families, which was clearly the wrong way to handle it for a long time. And then we started playing the holiday family suffering Olympics.

Lisa: Family suffering Olympics.

Lisa: There were also some other high points, I mean, you know, you’ve always got that drug addict shooting up in the driveway.

Gabe: There was that.

Lisa: That was a fun year. Yeah.

Gabe: You know, I feel confident in saying that that was one of the ones that happened to both our families, I think maybe it drew us together. I just. 

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: These are hard things. These are hard things to have happen in your family. And they’re hard things to watch and they’re hard things to know how to navigate. And this is where our families are a lot alike, Lisa. You’re right. The way that both of our families tried to handle these things was just to push it under the rug, complain silently to each other behind people’s backs, pretend that everything was OK in person. We never really got a lot of resolution on some of this stuff. We got resolution years later. We did not get resolution on the day. And in fact, whenever you and I would speak up, we would get the don’t ruin the holidays, don’t ruin Thanksgiving, don’t ruin Christmas, don’t ruin the visit. You’re making everybody uncomfortable. And

Lisa: Let’s not even.

Gabe: And this elephant was in the room making everybody uncomfortable, but yet discussing it and coming to some sort of resolution, you became the bad guy. Now, I don’t know how our listeners are, but Lisa and I, we well, we have just a history of not keeping our mouths shut. So we pushed back hard on this, which did, in fact, make the holidays more uncomfortable.

Lisa: But that’s why it’s so annoying. It’s always amazing the hypocrisy of the person who brings up the horrible, terrible thing isn’t the bad one. The person who starts using the racial slurs is not the bad one. It’s the person who objects to it. Yeah, you’re the problem.

Gabe: Lisa, this is a very serious question I’m about to ask you, and I want you to take a beat before you answer. Don’t answer with what you think is going to make you sound best. Don’t answer with what makes you think is going to make me happy. Like like be honest.

Lisa: Uh-oh.

Gabe: Do you think that we could have handled this better? Our tact back then was just to push forward screaming and point out how awful these people were.

Lisa: There wasn’t actual screaming.

Gabe: There was for me. The wrath of Gabe, come on,

Lisa: Well.

Gabe: I am well known in my family for being a screamer.

Lisa: Well, that yeah, that my family doesn’t do that.

Gabe: Oh, but I thought our families were the same.

Lisa: Ok. All right, you’re making many fine points. Yes.

Gabe: One of the reasons that I keep going back on this, just to take in a little aside before we get back to the question is because I think people do this, I think people decide that all families are the same way too easily. You’ve decided that because we’re the same age, because we’re best friends, because our parents are married to each other and because we both grew up in Ohio, that we must be the same. Do you see how dangerous that comparison is?

Lisa: Well.

Gabe: You’ve just determined that my parents are the same as your parents. That is utter nonsense.

Lisa: We’re all in it together.

Gabe: You know, of course, but you realize that you can recognize differences without being disrespectful. You’ve decided that in order to like people or to get along or to find common ground, we must also have agreement. We must be the same.

Lisa: I think that’s way oversimplifying what I’m saying here.

Gabe: You are pretty stuck on the idea that our upbringing was identical. I don’t think it’s an oversimplification at all, the minute that I pointed out that my family was blue collar and your family was white collar, that for most people would have been enough to do it. That and that alone. The minute I brought up that I’m adopted and you’re not, that would have been enough to do it for most people. I mean, just on and on and on it is

Lisa: We had the same toys?

Gabe: No, we didn’t

Lisa: We had the same cartoons?

Gabe: No, you didn’t even have cable,

Lisa: Well, no.

Gabe: I had Beavis and Butt-Head and you had reruns of The Brady Bunch on a station that had a clown.

Lisa: A clown? You call him a clown? Superhost was not a clown.

Gabe: What was he? He had white makeup and a red nose.

Lisa: He was, he was himself. He cannot be explained. Anyway, anyone from northern Ohio knows what I’m talking about. Next.

Gabe: But we’re exactly the same. I grew up in the big city, you grew up in rural Ohio, and yet you still maintain that we’re the same.

Lisa: You’re making a good point.

Gabe: How many more differences do I have to point out?

Lisa: Yeah, the TV thing, sometimes I’m at a bit of a loss on pop culture because I didn’t have some of that stuff growing up.

Gabe: It’s really amazing to me that you did not have Beavis and Butt-Head, but you did have Daria.

Lisa: Oh, I had Daria when I got to college.

Gabe: Oh, that’s right. You went to college and I didn’t. Hmm. The similarities just keep mounting.

Lisa: I’m sure it’s different now because people have the Internet, but back then, if you had not had cable TV and MTV and then you suddenly got it when you were 17 for the first time, it was amazing. Oh, so much TV. I could not look away.

Gabe: Now, Lisa, just out of curiosity, when summer came around. 

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: The air conditioning setting. Your family set it at what? My family was like a 78 when my dad wasn’t home, when my dad was home, we set it at 74. Now, your family set your AC on what?

Lisa: We did not have air conditioning, yes.

Gabe: Ok, that’s fine. You know, a lot of people don’t have air conditioning. That’s no big deal. Now, the thermostat for your heat, because you had heat, otherwise you’d freeze to death. What was the heat that you set the thermostat for on your house? What was that?

Lisa: The point he’s trying to make is that my family heated with wood,

Gabe: You mean you didn’t have a furnace?

Lisa: The joke that he likes to make is, oh, what happened then? Did Pa Ingalls bring out his fiddle?

Gabe: Did he?

Lisa: To be fair, my father did play the piano. Anyway. Not the point.

Gabe: Your father plays all the instruments because he’s a teacher.

Lisa: So

Gabe: Remember what my mother said about being a teacher?

Lisa: No.

Gabe: This is an exact quote from my mother. I could never be a teacher because on the second day I would murder the children and go to prison.

Lisa: Your mother actually said that?

Gabe: Have you met my mother? Does she look like she have the patience to teach a bunch of teenagers?

Lisa: Well, so you wouldn’t have thought that my. But apparently he did. He was a very successful teacher, very popular.

Gabe: Once again, your compliments always have this twinge, you know, you wouldn’t have thought so because he’s such a screw up, but he was actually a very good teacher. Let me put this in other words, Lisa.

Lisa: No, because he seemed so quiet, not a screw

Gabe: You know, you wouldn’t think that Lisa was a good friend based on her personality and overall demeanor, but she’s actually quite competent at it. You feel good now, right?

Lisa: Do you remember that time when we were married and I needed some crushed ice, so I took some ice and I put in a bag and I hit it with a hammer?

Gabe: Yeah, that was

Lisa: And it freaked you out? You said, what are you doing? I said, I need crushed ice. And how do you get crushed ice? How did your parents get crushed ice? And you said we had an ice maker like normal people. Yeah, pffft. City people.

Gabe: Really, we’re city people? And that makes you different in some way?

Lisa: Huh? Again, I’m still not getting it. Back, you’re distracting me. Back to the question of how should you handle the difficult holiday thing with your family? And your question was, could we have handled this better? And yes, we could have handled it better by doing the thing that your family now does, which is brilliant. And I’m trying to introduce to my own family, which is.

Gabe: We don’t discuss religion or politics.

Lisa: Oh, it’s more than that.

Gabe: We just avoid basically all of the topics that we can’t agree on.

Lisa: But everybody does that, you’ve got it at a whole nother level.

Gabe: We have worked very hard as a family to figure out all the things that we disagree about and put them off the table and focus on all the things that we do agree about, which there are so many. This was probably the biggest thing that my family did, and it was not easy. And we absolutely fall back into old routines. And I’m not saying that we’re perfect, but we work very hard that when a disagreement comes up, we just shelf it. We’re just like, you know, we’ll talk about that later. And, you know, my sister and I. And I think this is my favorite example. We could not be more different when it comes to politics and religion. And my sister and I have just accepted that about us. But we like the same movies. We like that we have the same dark sense of humor. We, of course, love Eva, her daughter. We love to joke and we love to explore. And I love my baby sister. I just love her so much. And I get a little choked up to think that I could let something like politics or religion come between the relationship that I have with my sister. My family, we’ve worked very, very hard to find the things that we agree about, which is largely Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, at the holidays.

Lisa: Which I’ve never actually seen.

Gabe: And we just amplify that. We love the food, we love the cookies, we love the decorations, we love my mom going over the top and we love the same movies and we love popcorn. We love making fun of my sister for putting salt on popcorn. It’s basically salt with corn on it rather than corn with salt on it. Debbie, you should get help.

Lisa: Maybe she has some sort of vitamin deficiency.

Gabe: We work very hard to expose those things and amplify them, and it’s worked, it’s worked well. Now, that said, I want to give a small little caveat. My grandmother and I discuss politics all the time. My sister and I discuss other things that we disagree about, one on one all the time. Just you need to do this on the holidays? Like really? Like your whole family’s together for the holidays. And you can’t find one thing that you all agree on to discuss? You have to gravitate right to the stuff that you disagree about? Like what’s wrong with our families? Lisa, what’s wrong with your family?

Lisa: Obviously, everybody tries to avoid politics, religion, etc., and I don’t really know how to explain it, but your family has taken this to another level. It’s amazing. You just cut it off at the pass completely. There’s not the whole, Oh, let’s agree to disagree. No, you don’t even go there. It’s stopped long before. It’s awesome. Like I said, I’m trying to figure out your system so I can get that going in my own household here.

Gabe: One of the things that’s really nice is we’ve seen the benefits, right? There are little things that we do. We don’t leave the news on. You know, so many people turn the news on in their house. And I joke it’s just an old person thing. When the family gets together, news goes off. We don’t even risk it. We don’t want to be sitting there and have some, you know, politician come on and make people start making comments about it.

Lisa: I think your mom even takes away the paper, doesn’t she?

Gabe: Oh, we just get rid of all of it and we all work together, if anybody brings up politics or something like this, just it gets shut down. We work together as a group to make sure that this doesn’t happen. But I really think the magic in our system is we saw the benefits. We used to fight about politics. We used to fight about religion. We used to fight about well, frankly, we used to fight about everything. It was just our way. Now, rather than poking each other for being different in some way, we now really try to bring up the stuff we have in common. You know, my dad loves to hear about the podcasts. He loves to hear about my speaking career. He loves to hear about how I’m utilizing the Internet and social media to reach people. Like that’s very fascinating to him. My dad and I also like technology. We love technology and we gravitate toward those things. But then something like magical happens and stuff that we don’t like that we notice that the other person likes, it becomes fun to hear about. We’ve joked before at my father’s love for Ice Road Truckers. I don’t get it,

Lisa: He really loves Ice Road Truckers.

Gabe: But I have to say, and I’m being very genuine here, if I had a choice between listening to my father describe an episode of Ice Road Truckers scene by scene or arguing with him about some political point that we don’t agree on or a social justice issue that we don’t agree on or religion that we don’t agree on, I’d rather hear about Ice Road Truckers. It gives him so much joy. It’s fun to watch how much he likes this, even though I don’t, I don’t get it for nothing. 

Lisa: Is that show even still on?

Gabe: I have no idea,

Lisa: How many times has he seen each episode? What did you buy him like the box DVD set or something? I mean, what is going on there?

Gabe: I have no earthly idea. But the holidays can be hard to manage because we get so many personalities together and we have such high expectations about it. But I think maybe the magic of my family is that we just gave up expectations. We’re just like, you know, whatever happens is going to happen. And slowly and accidentally, almost, the high-end things started rising to the top. You know, my mother never knew how much we loved Christmas until several years ago.

Lisa: Really?

Gabe: She didn’t know that we got a kick out of it. She did it because she loved it. And then everybody would come over and fight about stuff. Well, when everybody’s coming over to pick on each other, disagree, point out their shortcomings, nobody is actually acknowledging the things that we like about the holidays. Well, since we’re no longer fighting, we had to fill space. You know, suddenly it’s stories about Christmases past, Thanksgivings pasts, and.

Lisa: Gabe’s mother does Christmas hardcore.

Gabe: Oh, you’ve never seen anybody, there is not anything in their house that’s not decorated for Christmas,

Lisa: It’s amazing

Gabe: It’s incredible.

Lisa: She even has the little toilet paper cozies that look like a candle and it’s red and green with the holly berries. It’s amazing.

Gabe: She wraps the pictures and the doors to look like presents,

Lisa: She does.

Gabe: Multiple Christmas trees,

Lisa: I mean, I like Christmas, etc., but

Gabe: Every surface.

Lisa: Yeah, she really goes all in and apparently has done since you were a kid.

Gabe: Oh, ever since we were kids and we just completely took it for granted and never told her, never told her because we just thought she knew. Right. And then when we get together, we’d fight and I.

Lisa: She prepares for Christmas year round,

Gabe: Oh, yeah,

Lisa: It’s amazing.

Gabe: And I want to tone down the word fight. I don’t want people to get this idea that my family and I screamed at each other and threw stuff or, you know, got to fisticuffs or.

Lisa: Oh, no, there’s obviously never any violence or throwing, but there is a lot of screaming.

Gabe: Yeah, there’s a lot of yelling and there’s a lot of debating and there are hurt feelings, even if they’re just subtle hurt feelings and people get up and leave the room and then we’re not together anymore. Once we just started focusing on the other stuff, it really did start rising to the top. And I’d love to tell you how we did it, but it really just started with us just setting ground rules, no religion, no politics. And frankly, we all work together to change the subject when we come to something that we disagree on.

Lisa: I think that’s what does it that you’re all working together to enforce the rules, as it were.

Gabe: It was very important to us at one point to get over this because, well, frankly, people were just stopping to come and I didn’t want to come. I felt that I was always fighting with my family. And I was. I want to be clear, I was, and a lot of these arguments were started by me, like I want to take responsibility here for some of the unrest at Christmas. I have to take responsibility for starting a good many of these disagreements. But the point is, is while we were disagreeing. We weren’t agreeing. So even though we liked my mom’s decorations, we liked my mom’s food, we liked our holiday traditions, we liked Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, we liked Fraggle Rock. We liked all the Christmas specials.

Lisa: Her pies are amazing.

Gabe: Her pies are amazing. Nobody spent any time on this because we’re arguing about what? The president, a local politician? I mean, really, I don’t want to give the idea that my family and I don’t openly discuss things like politics, religion or things in the news because we do, but.

Lisa: But not necessarily at Christmas.

Gabe: Yeah. Why does it gotta be on Christmas? And, you know, sometimes it’s is better one on one. You know, I love, love talking politics with my grandma. Now, part of the reason is because my grandma and I agree a lot, not going to lie. But when we disagree, nobody yells and we’re not doing it at Christmas. We need to get to a system like that. You know, maybe the entire family doesn’t have to be in on the discussion that you and your uncle are having about which politician is better. Maybe this is an opportunity for you and your uncle to agree to have coffee after the fact. For me, this is only for me, Lisa. I started to realize that I didn’t really have a good reason to push this. I think I just wanted to fight because I was uncomfortable and the fighting filled the void.

Lisa: I don’t think that’s necessarily fair, though. When someone says something incendiary, why shouldn’t you respond? They got to say it. Why shouldn’t you get to respond? Not to mention there’s a whole silence implies consent thing going on. So the secret really is to not have that initial volley, to have it not be brought up in the first place, because then you don’t have to make this decision about, oh, God, do I just let him keep going? What do I do? That is the secret.

Gabe: That is the secret, that is the secret, you know, sometimes it’s

Lisa: And that’s the hardest part. Getting people to not respond, I think, is a little bit easier, but getting people to not go there in the first place seems to be much more difficult.

Gabe: It’s kind of fascinating to watch my family work when somebody says something, you know, somebody will say something. They’ll be like, oh, I really love a and of course, we’re sitting at a table full of b’s and everybody wants to jump. Right. Like, you can almost see it, but somebody will just change the subject. Oh, I really like a. Hey, anybody see that 1 was on TV last night? And suddenly we’re all talking about 1 and that sort of sends this message to the person who brought up a, hey, dude. Nobody wants that. It’s not perfect. Obviously, the worse it is, the harder it is. I wish that I did not have racists and homophobes in my family sincerely. I really do. And I’m not close with those people. And I never miss an opportunity to pull them aside and tell them that that’s unacceptable. The old Gabe Howard would have done it publicly. The old Gabe Howard would have made a scene right there and I’m not sure that that was the best way to do it.

Lisa: But the old family dynamic would have had that person explaining in detail, but now they don’t even go there, they don’t even start.

Gabe: They don’t even start and if they do start, it’s shut down immediately.

Lisa: Right, so that you don’t have to respond.

Gabe: The old dynamic was to let that person go on for a half an hour. The new dynamic is the person says it, everybody changes the subject in concert together, and that kind of shames that person and that person stops bringing it up. Unfortunately, they still hold the belief.

Lisa: Well, but you only have two choices, either you decide, OK, that’s it, get out, you are no longer welcome here. You are so incredibly over the top that you have to go. Or you find a way to tolerate it. And most people are not willing to kick out a member of the family. And even if you’re willing, there might be other family members that aren’t. Like maybe you’re willing to have one of your cousins or your aunt or just whatever, be exiled forever. But your mom isn’t. Your grandmother isn’t. You know, the cousin’s brother isn’t. So you’re stuck with these people unless you’re willing to cut them off completely. You’re trapped. You’re going to have to figure out a way.

Gabe: As much as I hate to say it, the worst abusers in our family are gone, they’ve passed away and I’m not rooting for anybody to pass away, but

Lisa: There is a generational aspect of it, yes.

Gabe: There really is. And it’s difficult. And I try to put myself in the shoes of why people are tolerating this. You know, your mom did a good job of explaining to you why she was tolerating this behavior. Your mom pointed out that when she was younger, this person was her savior. This person was there for her and that this person helped her and that this person helped craft the woman that your mother became, who she’s very proud of. And obviously the woman that your mother became allowed her to get married and give birth to my best friend. And now we have a podcast and.

Lisa: The world turns.

Gabe: Yeah, your mother didn’t like what this person was saying, but your mother was willing to accept that this person can be two things. This person can be horribly wrong and still her savior, a person who was very relevant to her childhood. Now, we don’t have that same emotional pull to this particular relative. Right. We. 

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: I imagine that’s very difficult. I often think, like, what happens if Lisa goes crazy? Lisa still saved my life, so I’m always going to love you. But what happens if you take some awful position that I just can’t get behind and I have to cut off communication? Am I willing to do it? This is the difficulty in families. Yeah, we don’t like Cousin Bob. You know, Cousin Bob is an asshole and we hate him. But maybe the reason that we’re tolerating Cousin Bob is because of something Cousin Bob’s dad did or because when we needed Cousin Bob to take us to the emergency room when we were sick, Cousin Bob was the only one that was there.

Lisa: People can be two things, they can be horrible and also have this good side, or the reverse.

Gabe: So one of the things that I think I would encourage people to remember when they’re looking at loved ones that are mean to them and they’re wondering why is the family tolerating this person? This person is clearly horrific to me. They well may be horrific to you and you may well be right. But maybe they were kind to somebody that you love. And that’s some common ground right there, right. I don’t think that Gabe Howard and Lisa Kiner’s parents are ever going to be besties, but our common ground is Lisa. Just point blank. Our common ground is Lisa. I am very grateful to them that they decided to get married and have kids. Right. That’s a very powerful thing that they did for me.

Lisa: I’m sure they totally had you in mind the whole time.

Gabe: But they still did it. My life would be incredibly different if not for the decisions that they made, but yeah, we’re never going to agree on politics like. Right. Like Gabe Howard and the Kiner’s are never going to sit down and be like we see things the same way because we don’t. But is that really what we need to spend our time talking about when we have you to discuss? Oh, my God, could you imagine if me and your parents joined forces, how we could fix you?

Lisa: Oh, yeah, maybe I’d finally go to graduate school

Gabe: Maybe

Lisa: Anyway.

Gabe: It’s my fault you didn’t go, you know

Lisa: You’re still not over that, are you. Anyway. Yeah, and he thinks I hold a grudge. I do feel, though, like we’re going to be remiss here about, yeah, everybody has terrible people in their family, but you could usually suck it up for a meal. And you and I are lucky in that way, that we overall have decent families.

Gabe: We do, we do.

Lisa: But there’s certainly plenty of people out there whose families are just completely toxic.

Gabe: So let’s talk about that for a moment. You are right, our families are the same in that they annoy us, but we love them and that we want to go to Christmas. We want to go to Thanksgiving. We want to show up for holidays. What about if you don’t want to? You know, so many people that I talk to, they’re like, look, I just don’t want to go. I’d rather be alone during the holidays than tolerate my family. But the pressure of the holidays is such that I don’t feel that I have that right. Lisa, what are your thoughts on that?

Lisa: It’s not that they don’t feel that they have that right, they feel that they don’t have that choice. I did not have an abusive childhood. Right. So you meet people who had these horribly abusive childhoods and they still have contact with their families. They still have contact with the abuser or their parents. And you think, what is the problem here? Just cut these people off completely. Move and never tell them where you go, just be done. That has always been very hard for me to understand. Why do you still have contact with these people at all? Why are you talking to this person at all? But I guess this is just something I don’t understand. I had a good relationship with my parents. For people who don’t, it’s just much more complicated. And the vast majority, at least that I know, do not end the relationship.

Gabe: But is it OK?

Lisa: Well, apparently, this is human nature. For whatever reason, people, in general, don’t do that.

Gabe: Yeah, I know people in general don’t do it, but that’s not the question that I’m asking you. Think back to the beginning of the show. When I said, hey, listen, in March, April, May, June, we’ll cut off our family no problem. Because we understand that they’re toxic and we will avoid them like the plague. No issue. And like how we thought we avoided the plague before there was an actual plague. And it turns out we don’t avoid it at all. But sincerely, is it OK to skip seeing your family over the holidays?

Lisa: Of course, it’s OK, but it’s not necessarily realistic for many people.

Gabe: Nah, nah, that’s not just stop, stop. It’s realistic to do it in June. So is it realistic to do in December if you make the decision this is not in my mental health’s best interest. This is not what I’m going to do. I’m making the decision for my own self and my own self care. Don’t tell me it’s hard. I know it’s hard. Is it OK? Are you a good person? If you don’t see your family, who is hurting you and your mental health over the holidays? Is it a smart and good choice? And are you still a good person if you do it?

Lisa: Are you actually debating this? Of course. You’re not actually debating this question, are you?

Gabe: I think many people are debating this question.

Lisa: Well, that’s dumb.

Gabe: I think that there are people sitting there right now that believe that in order to be a good, ethical and moral person, they are obligated, obligated, morally and ethically to see their family on the holidays. What say you to that?

Lisa: No, absolutely not, you have absolutely no obligation to people who are harming you to do anything for them,

Gabe: Even if they’re your parents?

Lisa: Especially if they’re your parents. Although I do feel that parents have this unending obligation to their children, even with their adult children. No, you didn’t choose your parents. You have no obligation to these people. You can cut them off in a heartbeat if they’re not doing right by you. Go ahead. But again, you’re asking me if this is morally right or if this is morally acceptable. Of course it is. I don’t think there’s any debate on this, but I don’t think it matters. It’s not necessarily practical.

Gabe: I think that it matters very much because I think there are people that know that there are certain family members that they can’t see because of longstanding abuse, because of trauma. But they feel that in order to be a good person, they have to see them. And, you know, you and I are

Lisa: Well.

Gabe: Lucky. Lisa, you know, our vantage point is of parents who are overbearing or who we disagree with or who we fight with or who frankly just made us feel bad. But our vantage point isn’t abuse. Our parents didn’t traumatically abuse us. There was no physical abuse, sexual abuse. But there are people that we talk to that this is their reality. And all of our advice has just discounted that completely. We’re like, oh, our parents talk about politics and religion and they don’t believe in mental illness over the holidays. What should we do to fix that? OK. That’s a very important discussion and one that I think that we’ve beaten to death. But what about the people who in their childhood, in their adult life have seen trauma and sexual assault and violence from their families or from a member of their family? They’re debating whether or not they should see these individuals and society is pushing them in that direction. Oh, it’s the holidays. Now is the time to forgive and forget. And I think this is sending the message to them that they are unable to say no and they feel that they must spend the holiday with their abuser. And I’m very specifically using abuser, not, you know, a family member that you fight with, but abuser. And that message gets so muddied because even we do it. Oh, call your mom. It’s the holidays. But we never bothered to ask why they don’t want to call their mom. Talk directly to those people for a moment because they don’t feel like they have a choice, because well-intentioned people like us are telling them, oh, just go and agree not to talk about it. But this is a whole other level.

Lisa: Yes, exactly, it is a whole other level, and this advice is not remotely applicable to that level. Many of these folks do not cut off contact with their families. I think this is just a blind spot that I have. I don’t get it. It does not seem like a difficult choice to me. It does not seem like that would be that hard to do. But apparently it is. And I just simply do not understand this. So when you start talking about, oh, is this the moral choice, really? I don’t feel like this is even remotely a debate. I don’t feel like this is something you would need to give a second thought to. The answer is obvious, but again, apparently, that’s because I’m just missing the whole picture here.

Gabe: Do you think it’s fair to say that the majority of the advice that’s floating around in the podcast world and the blogging world and the well-intentioned friends and family, they don’t understand what happened. And most people aren’t asking. They just assume that you’re fighting with your mom because you wanted to have short hair and your mom was hoping that you’d have long hair and now you’re ruining Christmas over it. Do you think that people just have this blatant misunderstanding, that there’s a level of trauma and abuse that is absolutely unforgivable and the moral choice is to cut those people off?

Lisa: Well, I don’t think you should frame it in the question of morality, it is perfectly moral to cut these people off and it’s perfectly moral to not. It’s up to you. The point is that you get to decide. There is just so much social pressure to pick one choice and that is the choice most people pick. I don’t get it. Once again, I feel this is a very straightforward question. It does not require debate. But yeah, if you are an outlier, for example, you had a horribly abusive childhood, which most people do not, almost no advice is for you. All advice is general. All advice, all blogs, all Christmas specials, all sitcoms are designed around this theoretical average. And if you’re not within a few standard deviations of that average, yeah. It just isn’t applicable to you. You’re going to have to just chart your own way.

Gabe: Lisa, I think that that is incredible advice, and I think it’s advice that these shows are almost always lacking as the beginning of our show was. Hey, here’s how to get along with your family and let bygones be bygones. You’re saying that that the general advice of forgive and forget does not apply to all situations. It may not apply to your situation. And if it doesn’t apply to your situation, that’s OK, because you get to decide.

Lisa: Yes, excellent summary, Gabe.

Gabe: You know, I’m not known for summaries,

Lisa: All right, that’s actually one of the funniest things you’ve ever said. Yes, yeah, that’s true. You are not.

Gabe: Lisa, when it comes to families, would you say that they are just complicated? Well, it’s OK to get, you know, advice or a perspective from other people that ultimately the way that we manage our own families is just that. It’s the way that we’re managing our own families.

Lisa: All the Christmas specials, all the movies love it when the family that’s always had trouble getting along comes together, but that is because they don’t get along because they disagree on politics or they’ve always given that guy a hard time about his clothes or something stupid.

Gabe: It’s always simple.

Lisa: Yeah, it’s always simplistic because that’s how pop culture works. It’s not meant for people who have these deeply entrenched problems and trauma, yet we all act like it is. And that’s just so incredibly unfair, as if it wasn’t already bad enough that you have this burden on you. I feel a little bit bad that we might be contributing to that by saying things like, oh, just get along with your family, you can do it. That is just so incredibly simplistic and not good advice for many people.

Gabe: It seems like what you’re saying is that if Hallmark made a movie about certain people’s lives, the happy ending would be that they walked away and never looked back.

Lisa: Yes, absolutely.

Gabe: I know that Hallmark is never going to make that movie, but

Lisa: Yeah, we’re not going to see that one.

Gabe: But if they were making a movie about certain people’s lives, they’d be like, look, you overcame, you broke free, you walked away, you chartered your own course, and you put those people out of your mind and never saw them again. And that would get the light snow fall and the piano music and the fade to black. Rather than what we usually see, which is a family sitting around the table eating Christmas cookies and laughing.

Lisa: Right, right,

Gabe: And that’s OK.

Lisa: That’s 100% OK. Yes.

Gabe: I kind of want to make that movie now.

Lisa: No one is going to fund that movie

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: Because it will have to have such a sad start. No one cares about the happy ending if there’s a really sad start.

Gabe: What about Lifetime?

Lisa: Huh, well, never mind. Good point. So the message that we’re trying to have here is life isn’t actually a Hallmark movie and sometimes the cute sitcom ending doesn’t actually happen. And that’s not only OK, but a good thing.

Gabe: Yeah, I think it’s important to understand that well-meaning and well-intentioned people are going to give you all kinds of advice based on things that they did not go through and based on a life that they did not lead. And they are mistakenly believing that their life mirrors yours. And in reality, it is quite possible that the things that you went through with your family are frankly just unforgivable and that you don’t want them and then it’s OK. It’s also quite possible that what you went through does mirror that advice and it does mirror Gabe and Lisa and the DVD player is not a reason to cut off your family. It’s up to you. I guess what I’m really saying, Lisa, is that not enough of these podcasts and articles and YouTube videos actually say this phrase. If you want to forgive your family, here are some ways to do so. And if you don’t want to forgive your family, then don’t. Chart your own course. Both are equally moral, equally ethical and entirely up to you. And the important thing is that it makes you happy and that it’s your choice. Go forward, do what you want and have a happy holiday.

Lisa: Excellent advice, Gabe.

Gabe: Hey, thank you so much and thank all of you for listening. Look, whatever you do for the rest of the year, I hope you make it great. And I also hope that you remember that Mental Illness Is an Asshole is a book I wrote and makes a great holiday gift. You can, of course, get it on Amazon.com, but you can also go to gabehoward.com and buy it there. And I will sign it and I’ll throw in a bunch of show swag, like stickers, and Lisa will package them and mail them.

Lisa: You’re welcome.

Gabe: Wherever you downloaded this podcast, please subscribe, please rate, rank and review, and if you have any ideas for future shows, hit us up at a [email protected].

Lisa: And we’ll see you all back here next Tuesday.

 The post Podcast: Families and Holiday Survival first appeared on World of Psychology.

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Podcast: Understanding Emotional Abuse

What are the signs of emotional abuse? Can you be a victim or a perpetrator and not even know it? In today’s podcast, we welcome psychotherapist Beverly Engel who explains how emotional abuse can sometimes slide under the radar and may even be mistaken as care. In truth, it’s all about control.

Join us for a nuanced discussion on the many forms of emotional abuse and how to detect it.

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

  Guest information for ‘Beverly Engel- Emotional Abuse’ Podcast Episode

Beverly Engel is an internationally recognized psychotherapist and an acclaimed advocate for victims of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. The author of 22 self-help books, her latest book is entitled, It Wasn’t Your Fault: Freeing Yourself from the Shame of Childhood Abuse with the Power of Self-Compassion. Engel is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and has been practicing psychotherapy for 35 years.

Beverly’s books have often been honored for various awards, including being a finalist in the Books for a Better Life award. Many of her books have been chosen for various book clubs, including One Spirit Book Club, Psychology Today Book Club and Behavioral Sciences Book Club. Her books have been translated into many languages, including Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Greek, Turkish and Lithuanian. 

In addition to her professional work, Beverly frequently lends her expertise to national television talk shows. She has appeared on Oprah, CNN, and Starting Over, and many other TV programs. She has a blog on the Psychology Today website as well as regularly contributing to the Psychology Today magazine, and has been featured in a number of newspapers and magazines, including: Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, Marie Claire, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, and The Denver Post. 

She regularly conducts training workshops throughout the United States and the United Kingdom, for both professional and lay audiences.    

 About The Psych Central Podcast 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. To learn more about Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Beverly Engel- Emotional Abuse’ Episode

Editor’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 the Psych Central Podcast, where guest experts in the field of psychology and mental health share thought-provoking information using plain, everyday language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Psych Central Podcast, I’m your host Gabe Howard and calling into the show today we have Beverly Engel. Beverly is an internationally recognized psychotherapist and an acclaimed advocate for victims of sexual, physical and emotional abuse. Beverly is a marriage and family therapist and the author of 22 self-help books and frequently lends her expertise to national TV shows including Oprah, CNN and Starting Over. But today she’s here with us. Beverly, welcome to the show.

Beverly Engel: Thank you, I’m glad to be here.

Gabe Howard: Today, we are going to be discussing emotional abuse. Now, this is one of those phrases that everyone has heard, yet most people don’t really understand. It’s often mocked when abuse victims seek help. And this, of course, provides cover for the abuser. Beverly, from an expert point of view, would you please define emotional abuse and maybe give us some examples?

Beverly Engel: Sure, technically, it’s any non-physical behavior that is designed to control or intimidate or punish or isolate another person, and it can be through the form of degradation and humiliation and fear. Good examples are verbal assaults, dominance, isolating, ridicule. One interesting one is the use of intimate knowledge for degradation. It’s like getting to know someone intimately. When we first get involved, we tell each other our stories and an emotional abuser will often throw our past in our face. They’ll use intimate knowledge that we’ve shared with them for the purpose of degrading us and the overall purpose of emotional abuse is to control their victims.

Gabe Howard: It sounds a little bit like emotional blackmail or well, frankly, it kind of sounds like actual blackmail, like they take what you have and threaten to maybe expose it or use it against you in some way to get you to do what they want. Is that a reasonable analogy?

Beverly Engel: Not really, that’s another form of emotional abuse, the intimate knowledge thing is just daily to put you down, not necessarily threatening that they’re going to tell somebody else. It’s just a way of reminding you of your past or a way of using something against you on a daily basis.

Gabe Howard: Gotcha. So a good example would be, can I drive the car today? No, because you got in a car accident five years ago and you almost killed everybody in the car. Is that. I

Beverly Engel: Yeah,

Gabe Howard: Know that’s.

Beverly Engel: And that would even, and that would be a very direct way of saying it,

Gabe Howard: Gotcha.

Beverly Engel: An emotional abuser will say something like, are you sure you really want to drive with your history? With your driving history? It’s more subtle. It’s a little less blatant.

Gabe Howard: Ok, I’m starting to understand now, and that actually makes a little more sense to something that you explained to me while we were preparing for this show, which is that often people who are emotionally abused don’t realize they’re being emotionally abused.

Beverly Engel: In fact, I would say almost always they don’t realize it. That’s what’s one of the major obstacles in the way of a person being able to actually end an emotionally abusive relationship is that they don’t know what’s going on with them. One of the most damaging aspects of emotional abuse is that it confuses the victim. The person ends up feeling confused. They end up feeling off balance. They’re not quite sure what’s going on. They tend to blame themselves because the emotional abuser, of course, is either subtly or overtly blaming them all the time. And yet the confusion is a major obstacle for people who are being emotionally abused.

Gabe Howard: Now, this sort of sounds a little bit like another concept that we hear a lot about, and that’s gaslighting. Is emotional abuse a form of gaslighting? Is gaslighting a form of emotional abuse?

Beverly Engel: Yes, gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse. Gaslighting is purposely trying to confuse the victim, purposely trying to make the victim doubt themselves. And it’s based on the movie Gaslight. It’s an old 1938 movie. And in the movie, the husband is intentionally trying to make his wife feel like she’s going crazy. And in those days, the houses were lit by gaslights and he would lower the lights. He would lower the amount of gas coming in and she would say, what just happened? The lights are dimming? And he would deny it. And so gaslighting is doing something purposely to make the victim feel crazy, denying that something happened, denying that he said something, saying that she did something when she didn’t do it. That’s what gaslighting is.

Gabe Howard: And all of this is designed to control your victim, really. That’s the motivation of the abuser. So emotional abuse is about control. Is that a fair statement?

Beverly Engel: Absolutely, yes.

Gabe Howard: I understand that emotional abuse is one of those concepts that’s a little bit nebulous or difficult to understand, but isn’t being controlled something that people innately understand? And the reason that I’m asking this question is because I know a lot of people who are being emotionally abused stay in the relationship. Don’t they realize that they’re in a very controlling relationship?

Beverly Engel: No, no, it can be very subtle, it can be as subtle as always, having your opinions dismissed. So you’re in a conversation with friends and your husband or wife and everybody’s talking freely. And so you say your opinion and your husband says, oh, no, that’s ridiculous. That’s that. What a stupid idea. So constantly being dismissed, perhaps your partner rolls his eyes every time you say something or makes fun of you, makes fun of your clothing, makes fun of how you talk, makes fun of what you cooked. It’s very subtle. It’s not obvious at all. And the more it happens, the less the victim trusts her perceptions and trusts her feelings. That’s again, another intention is if I can get you to second guess yourself and really not have a sense of security and even what you say and do, then I’m going to have control over you. It’s much more subtle. It’s very difficult for a lot of people to figure it out, actually, that they’re being emotionally abused.

Gabe Howard: When they figure it out, how do they feel? It sounds like it’s something that happens slowly. So you’re unaware of it, but it also seems like something that reaches this critical mass. And then suddenly you reflect back and realize that this has been happening to you for months or even years. What’s that like for the victim of the abuse?

Beverly Engel: Some get angry and realize it and get angry and want to do something. But what happens with emotional abuse that happens so subtly over such a long period of time and the victim has grown to distrust her feelings and perceptions, is she can get it one minute and the next minute talk herself out of it and the next minute feel like, well, maybe I’m exaggerating. Maybe this isn’t really happening. That’s that confusion again. So the confusion and being disoriented and not trusting your feelings and your perceptions that can last for a long time where the person goes into it saying, OK, yes, I got it. And then they will distrust themselves and they’re constantly blaming themselves. They’re being blamed all the time by their partner. And so they say that this is happening. It must be my fault. I must have done something.

Gabe Howard: If I understand correctly, it seems like shame is the primary motivation of the abuser.

Beverly Engel: Absolutely, absolutely. I’m generalizing here, but most abusers are very insecure people and they feel very inadequate. But what they’ve done with it is they’ve covered all that up with this air of authority or this air of entitlement. They’ve kind of pushed themselves up to look better than they are. And so they’re actually very fragile themselves. So what they do is they go about trying to shame and to control their partner so they can gain control because they don’t have any other way of feeling confident in themselves. The only way they can feel confident is to put another person down. And the thinking also goes like this, although it’s not conscious. If I can put you down before you put me down, then I’m ahead of the game. So a lot of abusers have been deeply shamed themselves and they’re desperately afraid of being shamed again. So if they’re constantly shaming somebody else, then they feel more secure.

Gabe Howard: Originally, I felt that emotional abusers did this intentionally, but based on what you explained, is it possible that some people are not aware that they’re emotionally abusing their loved ones and they’re unaware of the harm that it causes?

Beverly Engel: I work with a lot of, and I’m saying man as the abuser, but women can be abusers, too. But I work with a lot of women and men who did not realize they were being emotionally abusive toward their partner. And very often they don’t realize it until their partner has gotten to the place where she says, OK, I’m being emotionally abused. I’m going to get out of this relationship. And then suddenly the abuser will say, whoa, what’s going on? And the reason for that is that some abusers are doing it unconsciously. 

Gabe Howard: You raised a really good point there, when we think of victims of emotional abuse, we think of women. But you mentioned that men can be victims, too. Now, can men be victims from other men? Can, I guess what I’m really asking is I really think of emotional abuse being something that a husband does to a wife, I imagine that’s very archaic thinking.

Beverly Engel: Yes, I have a lot of male clients who are being emotionally abused by their partner, whether it’s their wife or in a gay relationship. It’s actually quite common and we don’t talk about it very much. But it’s actually a serious problem. And I’m generalizing here again. But males in general really want to help. They want to protect their partner. They want to help their partner. And if they discover that their partner has a serious problem, which often female emotional abusers do. They, usually starting in childhood, they were deeply abused or deeply neglected. And so, they act out their problems from their childhood, in their marriage. And the husband or the male partner will often feel compassionate toward her and know that she was very damaged in childhood and he will be extra patient and he will put up with a lot more than he really should. And he can get really trapped then in a situation where he’s being constantly emotionally abused. But he is excusing it based on her childhood.

Gabe Howard: It almost sounds like they’re accepting the abuse as a way to make up for something bad that happened to somebody that they love, is that sort of the ecosystem of emotional abuse? I feel bad for you, so I’ll tolerate it.

Beverly Engel: Yeah, absolutely, especially in the case of men being abused, in fact, a lot of us go into marriages and relationships with the idea that I didn’t get this or that in my childhood. And now it’s your job to give it to me. OK, we often do that unconsciously, but in relationships with men who are being emotionally abused, that’s very often the idea. He feels badly about what she didn’t receive. He tries to make up for it. But what he finds is he can never please her no matter what he does. He’s not ever going to please her. And he keeps trying because he thinks that’s his job. Like you said, it’s his obligation to make up for what she didn’t get. And he feels badly for her. He sees how much she suffers because she is suffering, but she’s taking her suffering out on her partner, which is not OK.

Gabe Howard: We’ll be back in less than a minute after we hear from our sponosrs.

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Sponsor Message: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe Howard: We’re back with author Beverly Engel, discussing emotional abuse. Now, in your research, you’ve identified three major strategies abusers use to confuse and control their partners. They’re lying, projecting and gaslighting. Can you give an example of each one, please?

Beverly Engel: Yeah, the lying is self-evident, but there’s some ideas behind the lying, there’s some concepts behind the lying, some concepts like I’m smarter than you, so I need to advise or teach you. That’s a huge lie that emotional abusers use. They don’t necessarily say those words, but it’s a constant. It’s again, this idea that I’m smarter than you, I’m having to put up with you as I roll my eyes and dismiss what you say and you don’t know what you’re doing. And so I have to advise or teach you. And that’s one of the reasons why people who are being abused don’t even know it because their partner seems like he’s being helpful, is constantly advising them. You know, honey, you don’t look that good in that outfit. Why don’t you wear this outfit? I like your hair a lot better with that. Or when we went to that party the other night, I noticed that you were flirting with people. I know you probably didn’t mean to, but you were flirting and you really have to stop that. So this is kind of a constant advice and teaching that goes on. And that’s based on the lie that I’m smarter than you, that I should have a right to teach you or advise you because I’m better than you. That’s a huge lie. OK, another lie like I was just referring to. I had a horrible childhood. So you need to make up for what I didn’t get. And women and men will come into the relationship with that idea that poor me, I had this horrible childhood.

Beverly Engel: So you now need to be the good mother, a good father I didn’t get. And that’s a lie. Your partner is not supposed to have to feel obligated to make up for what you didn’t get. Another lie is you can’t be trusted. I’ve discovered that you can’t be trusted. So I have a right to watch you. I have a right to follow you if I want to. I have a right to check your phone. I have a right to go into your personal belongings. I have a right to do anything I want to because you can’t be trusted. And how did the partner determine that? Probably out of their own head, probably. They have an issue with feeling insecure. They have an issue with jealousy. And so they determined that they can’t trust you. And it may not be true at all. It probably isn’t true. You probably are trustworthy. So that’s a huge lie. Another lie is you need to satisfy my every sexual need. This is a really huge problem in some relationships. If the partner insists that you’re my partner and you have to do what I want sexually, whether you want to or not. And by the way, if you don’t, I’m going to go elsewhere. And again, whether they say that or not, that’s the threat. So those are some common lies that are permeating the relationship.

Gabe Howard: I want to take a moment to say that if you have any of these issues in your relationship, let’s say you and your partner are quibbling, we’ll use quibble, about sex. It doesn’t mean that you’re being emotionally abused or gaslighting, right? You could just be having an intense discussion where you’re both working together to resolve something. I think that sometimes people hear emotional abuse and they think that any argument is an example of emotional abuse. Can you clarify that for us?

Beverly Engel: When you say argument, why would you be arguing around sexuality. If you are willing to listen to me when I tell you that I’m not interested in doing that sexual act with you, that should be the end of it. There shouldn’t be any argument. I should be able to say what I want and you should be able to listen. Now, if I’m saying I don’t want to have sex at all or sex has got to be super limited, that could be a problem. But our partners need to listen to us when we say we don’t want to do something; we should not feel pressured to get involved with any kind of sexual act that we are not comfortable with. And too often, partners pressure each other or make each other feel like there’s something wrong with them if they don’t want to engage in those sexual acts. So there really shouldn’t be an argument. Unfortunately, there often is an argument around that, and often there’s one partner demanding it or threatening to go elsewhere, and that’s where it crosses the line into emotional abuse.

Gabe Howard: Thank you so much for explaining that, and I do agree, if you are pressuring somebody or getting angry that they’re saying no, I realized about halfway through that was probably a bad example. Let’s say that we swap the example out just ever so slightly and say that it’s an intense discussion about where to go on vacation. My wife wants to go to Disney World and I want to go to Las Vegas and we can only afford one vacation this year. So, there’s a lot of back and forth. When would that scenario turn into a difference of vacation opinion versus one partner emotionally abusing the other?

Beverly Engel: Ok, if we, I want to go to Disneyland, and I don’t really care if you want to go somewhere else because I want to go to Disneyland, and if you don’t go to Disneyland, I’ll go ahead and go where you want to go. And I’m going to pout the whole time and I’m going to be critical and I’m going to make your life miserable or I want to go to Disneyland. And if you don’t want to, we’re going to go anyway, because I’m the head of the household and I’m the one who makes the money. And by God, we’re going to go where I want to go. Those are examples of emotional abuse.

Gabe Howard: Gotcha. That makes a lot more sense.

Beverly Engel: A more subtle one might be, you know, honey, I know you want to go to Disneyland, but don’t you remember last time we went, you know, you got a stomach ache on the rides and you didn’t feel good and you’re not as strong as you used to be, and I just can’t see you on those rides. And it’s hot there. And you have a problem with sun. It’s probably better if we go somewhere cooler, but saying it all for the purpose of manipulating the partner. OK, not really saying it out of concern for the partner.

Gabe Howard: That makes excellent sense. Thank you so much for clarifying that. Now, once you realize that you have been a victim of emotional abuse, you have that shame. And if I understand correctly, you have a five-step shame reduction program. Can you go through those steps for us?

Beverly Engel: Yeah, what I talk about in the book is that people who are emotionally abused are actually brainwashed, like somebody in a cult, and so they have to be deprogrammed. And a lot of the first part of the book is really defining emotional abuse and defining how people feel, but also going through how they’re being lied to, the types of lies and really advising people to stop giving their partner so much power. Don’t always believe everything your partner says. Number one, maybe you need to check out with friends and family whether or not you actually are doing the kinds of things your partner accuses you of. As we know, with physical abuse, people who are emotionally abused tend to become very isolated. Their partner can be jealous and doesn’t like them to be around their friends. Their partner maybe decides they don’t like their family. And so slowly they become more and more isolated and don’t have as many people around. But if they do have some people around, I encourage them to ask their friends and family, is this who I am? Is this how I act to get some outside feedback that can become the beginning of the deprogramming process is to get some outside feedback. So I go through different ways of deprogramming yourself.

Gabe Howard: Beverly, thank you so much. Now the name of your book is Escaping Emotional Abuse. Can you tell our listeners where to find it?

Beverly Engel: You’re going to be able to find it on Amazon.com or any, if there are any bookstores open, or online bookstores, any bookstore, you can get it.

Gabe Howard: Wonderful and, Beverly, do you have a website?

Beverly Engel: www.BeverlyEngel.com.

Gabe Howard: Wonderful. We hope all of our listeners check it out and listen up, listeners, if you loved the show, wherever you downloaded it, please subscribe. And if you can do me a really big favor, I would appreciate it. Please take a moment to rate it. Just use your words, tell people why you like it, and that will help us gain following. We really appreciate your help. My name is Gabe Howard and I’m the author of Mental Illness Is an Asshole, which is also available on Amazon. Or you can get signed copies for less money and I’ll throw in podcast swag. Just head over to gabehoward.com and remember, you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling, anytime, anywhere simply by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. We will see everybody next week.

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