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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.
The post Podcast: Is Telehealth Effective? first appeared on World of Psychology. from https://ift.tt/35HkE11 Check out https://daniejadkins.wordpress.com/ 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.
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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” EpisodeEditor’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. 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: 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. from https://ift.tt/3f8JoSW Check out https://daniejadkins.wordpress.com/ 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’ EpisodeEditor’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. from https://ift.tt/3eU3EY8 Check out https://daniejadkins.wordpress.com/ 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.
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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” EpisodeEditor’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. from https://ift.tt/3kgolyS Check out https://daniejadkins.wordpress.com/ 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.
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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’ EpisodeEditor’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. 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 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. 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. 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The post Podcast: Understanding Emotional Abuse first appeared on World of Psychology. from https://ift.tt/3ezUKiv Check out https://daniejadkins.wordpress.com/ Have you seen the Netflix series Ratched? In today’s Not Crazy podcast, we discuss whether the show gives an accurate portrayal of 1940’s mental illness treatments. And to help us out, we welcome Rachel Star Withers, the podcast host of Inside Schizophrenia and a person who lives with schizophrenia, to discuss her views of the show.
Are the lobotomies and hydrotherapy treatments portrayed in the show realistic? Did doctors really do lobotomies on children? Join us as we take a deeper look into this popular miniseries. And Please Remember to Rate & Review Us!
Guest Information for ‘Rachel Star Withers- Reviewing Ratched’ Podcast Episode Rachel Star Withers is an entertainer, speaker, video producer, and schizophrenic. She has appeared on TV shows including MTV’s “Ridiculousness,” “TruTV,” “America’s Got Talent” and is the host of “Insanity with Rachel Star” on Amazon Prime. She grew up seeing monsters, hearing people in the walls, and intense urges to hurt herself. Rachel creates videos documenting her schizophrenia, ways to manage and let others like her know they are not alone and can still live an amazing life. She has written Lil Broken Star: Understanding Schizophrenia for Kids and a tool for schizophrenics, To See in the Dark: Hallucination and Delusion Journal. Fun Fact: She has wrestled alligators.
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 “Rachel Star Withers- Reviewing Ratched” EpisodeEditor’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 the Not Crazy podcast, I’m your host, Gabe Howard, and with me, as always, is Lisa Kiner. Lisa: Hey, everyone, today’s quote is by Bell Hooks. Movies do not just mirror the culture of any given time, they also create it. Gabe: I’ve always really liked that quote, but I wonder, did she say anything about Netflix streaming? Lisa: I think it’s assumed. Gabe: Is it assumed? I mean are? Do you remember when we were younger that there was a really big demarcation between movies. Lisa: Mm-hmm. Gabe: And television? And you’re right, it has all sort of blurred together. But I suppose for Ms. Hook’s purposes, what she means is the things that we consume in popular media, like in movies, either reflect culture or create culture. Lisa: Or do both. Gabe: Ooh. One of the coolest things about hosting multiple podcasts on the Psych Central Network is I get to work with a lot of really cool people. And the other day when I was working with Rachel Star, who is the host of Inside Schizophrenia, a very, very cool podcast, I recommend that you check out. She said to me, Hey, Gabe, have you seen the new Netflix miniseries Ratched? And I said, No, what? What’s that? And she said, it’s the show on Netflix that is a prequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. And I was like, oh, my God. You mean Nurse Ratched, like the most evil iconic nurse ever from pop culture? And she’s like, yeah, it’s that she goes, I liked it. You should check it out. And I was like, All right, well, that’s weird because we tend to look at her, and that movie is very, very evil and villainous. But from a mental health advocacy standpoint, we just tend to look at it is as like an example of what not to do. But, you know, I found on the back of my mind and we went on and we worked a couple of days later, my dear co-host Lisa, who we all know and love because we’re currently on her show, said, hey, Gabe, have you seen the Netflix miniseries and prequel Ratched? And I said, you know, Rachel was telling me about that. And Lisa was like, I hate it. It’s awful. It’s mental health advocacy back like thousands of years. It’s evil. I can’t believe that they did this. And I was like, OK, those are two very extreme views. So I thought, hmm, what can I do with this information? What can I do with two people with differing opinions? I can put them on a podcast. Rachel, welcome to the show. Rachel: Hey, what’s up, Gabe and Lisa? Lisa: Hey, it’s good to have you here. Gabe: Well, I’m very, very excited about this because I have not seen the miniseries like full disclosure, I have not seen it. I am the moderator and no doubt opinionated observer. Rachel: Not sure what you’re waiting on, I mean, it came out like a little bit ago. Lisa: Yeah, plus, you knew this show was coming, so Rachel: Yes. Lisa: It’s not like you couldn’t have been prepared. Gabe: Rachel, you live with schizophrenia, like we should establish a couple of bona fides right now for potential reasons that maybe you saw it through different lenses, you, Rachel, as you live with schizophrenia. Rachel: I do. It lives in the back. Gabe: It’s like a roommate that you can’t kick out, no matter how hard you try the eviction courts, they won’t hear the motion. Rachel: Yeah, she’s cool. It’s all right. Gabe: It’s fine. You’ve gotten used to her Rachel: Yeah, Lisa: She’s hardly ever home. Rachel: Yeah. Gabe: So, as I said, Rachel is over on the living with schizophrenia side. And then Lisa, her advocacy has taken just like I mean, it’s like a blob, right? It’s not a straight line at all. Lisa’s done caregiver advocacy. She’s done family member advocacy. She’s saved my life. She lives with depression. She’s done certified peer support in the state of Ohio. So Lisa’s coming at it from, well, frankly, like 800 different directions, which is very different from the specific advocacy and lived experience of Rachel. And the fact that they’re so different is why I thought that this would be an interesting conversation. Just FYI, there’s spoilers, you’ve been warned. Lisa: We don’t necessarily want you to stop listening to go watch it, but maybe. Gabe: Rachel, I want to ask you the first question since you brought this topic up. You really are on that you thought it was a reasonable portrayal of mental illness. In what year was this show set in? Rachel: I think it’s set in the 40s. I don’t think it’s a reasonable portrayal of mental illness. I think it is of the treatments of that time. I think this is the most realistic, like I’ve ever seen portrayed as far as lobotomies. They actually do hydrotherapy in it; which I know I’ve never really seen. I have it in any movies or stuff and how intense certain things are. And they show actually two different types of lobotomies in great detail. Kind of like you’ve never seen them before. I mean, I’ve read about them. I’ve seen diagrams. But the show, which I wouldn’t say can get kind of gory at parts. It’s a pretty realistic thing. What they show drilling into the brain by hand, the icepick like it’s all pretty. And he’s talking his way through it like it’s very impressive from like especially if I was like a psych student. Yeah. Seeing like, oh, wow, that’s OK. That’s exactly what happened there. Gabe: I have a follow up question to that, but, Lisa, I want your impression, did you think that it was a realistic portrayal of medical treatments in the 1940s? Lisa: Sadly, probably, yes, it probably is, in fact, a realistic portrayal, but it was set up like it’s not supposed to be, I half thought it was a hallucination for the first couple of episodes. So it was set up as if the characters didn’t think it was realistic. The characters are play-acting, so I just found it confusing. Gabe: Ok, so confusion aside, I remember when the movie Saving Private Ryan came out in the 90s and people said that this was the most realistic portrayal cinematically of war. You know, they had people getting shot, people talking to their friends and their friends, getting their heads blown off while they were talking to them, just carrying on. And they felt like this did an excellent job of showing the horror show of what it was like to storm the beach at Normandy. And now and I’ve never been in war, so I can’t compare just I’m assuming, Rachel, you’ve never had a lobotomy, so you can’t compare. But I think Rachel and please correct me if I’m wrong, your point was, look, if you got a lobotomy in the 40s and you were standing in the corner of the room, this is what it looked like. Rachel: Yes, and Ratched is made by the same people who do American Horror Story. So you have to understand, like, yes, you still have some kind of cinematic horror to it. What I liked about Ratched is that there’s no ghost stuff. The scary characters in it are not the people with mental illness. It’s the people like what’s happening, there is no set bad character. You end up kind of seeing the human side of each. One thing I liked is with the lobotomies, the people they did it on, they weren’t just zombies afterwards. One of them like was a kid, which I didn’t realize. I thought there’s no way they would have done a lobotomy on a kid. And then I researched. I was like, oh, wow, no lobotomies were mostly done on women and quite a few children. So that was a pretty normal thing. But yeah, you would be talking afterwards. You could still hold a conversation. Some people some of them did go like brain dead, though, but I’d never seen that. Usually we see, you know, the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s situation where he’s like dead at the end. Gabe: Right, he just like laid there. Rachel: You never really see someone be OK from it and continue on with life. Gabe: Lisa, did you get the same impression? Lisa: Now that you’ve said some of this, Rachel, I guess I am thinking about it a little bit differently. I had trouble looking at it as a realistic portrayal of treatments because I felt like it was such an unrealistic portrayal of the staff and the characters. And like you said, the bad people, the villains are not the patients. Always a nice twist in a movie, by the way. But, yeah, if you look at it isolated as this part of it, has this special realism or even horror. Yeah, OK, never mind. I take back my previous objection and agree with what Rachel is saying now. Gabe: Just like that, Lisa: Well, the other thing. Gabe: Rachel, Rachel, I’ve been trying to do this for 25 years, to have like one succinct argument that Lisa was like, all right, Gabe, I have suddenly been enlightened to your way of thinking. Arguing is over. Let’s have a nice day. What did you do? Rachel is the Lisa whisperer. Lisa: The one part I did really like was, like you said, where they showed these people as being functional afterwards and some of them were not, but a couple of them were. And also there’s this wide variety of people that they’re doing lobotomies on, ranging Rachel: Yes. Lisa: From the people who were clearly very, very ill to people who you’re like, you know. Rachel: Yeah, one was a lesbian. Lisa: Well, one was a lesbian. Rachel: But that’s representative of the time, was they consider that a mental disorder. Lisa: Yeah, and then, of course, one was pushed entirely by family who didn’t like the way that he was. So there’s also this idea of people with mental illness not being in control of their own lives because they’re so overburdened by their families or the state as a whole. Rachel: Yeah, none of them the way it portrayed them were like just these crazy people, like attacking, biting, Lisa: Right. Rachel: You know, drooling in the corner. All of them were, I don’t say normal, but, yeah, you could easily be like, OK, this person is like a problem or two. But I would never think this is how we’re going to fix it. Lisa: Yeah, they don’t have a problem so serious, they need brain surgery. Rachel: Correct, yes, that would never occur to you. Gabe: It sounds like what you’re both agreeing on is you like that the villains were not the mental patients. Like that’s what we normally get in these things, right? It’s just that the patients are the villains. But then who was the villain? Rachel: Well, Lisa: Well, it’s an anti-hero. Rachel: Yeah, and I’d say like each one had good and bad. The doctor in it, good and bad. And what I appreciated with that, there were some intense scenes with him throughout the season where all he wants to do is help, you know, and you’re just like, OK, well, I just watched you put an ice pick through someone’s eyeball, but that’s what he thought was helping at the time. And some of the other things that they show you’re watching like that obviously could never help anyone. You’re torturing them. But the way he’s talking is I want to make a difference. I want to help. And it’s just that kind of warped view where you kind of feel like, oh, man, you know, this guy feels for these people, but he’s also destroying them. So many of the characters were like that. They would have humanity, but at the same time turn around and do something you just couldn’t believe. Lisa: He was wrong, but sincere. Rachel: Yeah, misguided, none of it was hahaha . . . Let’s see what happens when a pop an ice pick through someone’s eyeball. Lisa: Yeah, he wasn’t just torturing for no reason. Gabe: But no, no, wait a minute, though, I recognize that I haven’t seen it, I apologize, but didn’t he like sew a dead person’s arms onto a living patient after he cut off the living patient’s arms? Rachel: You see now, Gabe, you haven’t watched it, so it’s hard for you to make that argument. So the scene your referring to is pretty much he gets poisoned, but it is showing something that they really used to do where they would give patients LSD before therapy sessions. And this is something that I don’t think has ever really been shown in any movies or TV shows, with the exception of documentaries, where they used to give LSD to different people with mental disorders, thinking that would make them, I don’t know, be able to talk better in therapy. Gabe: But they cut off the arms. Rachel: Yes, that’s true. Lisa: Well, but that’s coming back around. Rachel: Mm-Hmm. Lisa: Right? Rachel: Yes. Lisa: That’s something people are doing again. Gabe: Nobody has answered the arms, the arms. Rachel: I just, well, I don’t want to ruin the show for them, that’s like a huge spoiler. I mean, Gabe: All right. Lisa: I found that very disturbing as a scene. Rachel: It is yes, this is not an easy to show to watch, I would say has lots Lisa: No. Rachel: Of trigger warnings. It’s actually Lisa: Yeah. Rachel: Been petitioned by Netflix to have some sort of like beginning part because like the first scene of the season is incredibly disturbing and gory. Lisa: Yeah, it’s very graphic and it was very disturbing. But that was also, I thought, a good part because it’s showing that there’s these horror elements to things that really did happen. Rachel: Yes, that was one of my favorite things is just pretty much the realistic horror of it. Just watching it is intense and you’re like, but then you realize, oh wow, these were actually procedures done on people, you know, and there is no ghost running around. There is no person trying to, like, attack you from the corners. Gabe: Did anybody in this show actually have a real mental illness? You talked about the woman who is a lesbian, etc.? Lisa: Well, but the whole point is that mental illness is culturally constructed. So here are these people that have, for example, lesbianism, which we do not consider to be a mental illness, but was very much treated as one in 1947. That’s part of the appeal of the show, this idea that mental illness is arbitrary and some of these people are just victims of the larger perception of society. Rachel: Because if you go ahead and you look up the show, it’s going to say serial killer because yes, the very first scene is a serial killer. What I appreciated about the show and this isn’t spoiling anything, is that at one point someone pretends to be a schizophrenic to pretty much say this is why they killed all these people. And the doctor calls them out. And there’s a really great monologue where the doctor calls and just says, OK, you’re exhibiting all these different signs, but to perfectly like you’re playing. And I can tell you’re playing. You’re pretending to say you’re this is why you did all these horrible things. And I really like that in the show. They never actually have any schizophrenia represented throughout, or at least I did notice that they did. But I really love his monologue because I think it’s important because so many people think, oh, gosh, serial killer, they must have been schizophrenic. Gabe: And it also points out that a doctor can catch it, right? There’s this sort of misconception in society that all you have to do is pretend and the doctor will just be handcuffed and have to give you the diagnosis. Lisa: First, we think, oh, he’s just evil, he’s just a serial killer, he’s just a bad person, but of course, later on we have more backstory, we have more explanation. And going back to your thing about how the mental patients are not the evil ones or the scary ones or the villains, it turns out all along he wasn’t the evil one or the other. And these are spoilers. And this is just your own problem, you should watch the show. So he’s not evil or the villain. But everyone looks at him as if he must be violent for no reason, because after all, he’s mentally ill. And what other explanation could there possibly be? He couldn’t possibly have a valid reason for this violence or even any reason for this violence. It must just be because he’s crazy. There can’t actually be any backstory to it. Rachel: One thing I will throw out that I loved was, not the main character, Nurse Ratched, but there was a separate nurse who’s very much seen as, you know, a villain. But you definitely are on the line of understanding because she follows out the orders exact. If they tell her to do something, she does it. Exactly. And it really comes off as torture. And later on, she makes a comment where someone is refusing to do the treatments and she’s like, well, that’s the difference between being a real nurse. You can’t have compassion if you want to help a person. Sometimes helping them hurts them to get there. And I just thought that was really important. You know, when you think about hospital situations and things that have to happen, things you have to do. And I was like, yeah, that’s a really good point. As a nurse, it’s not my job to question what the doctor says. I mean, no one wants to go through a surgery, and thinking back to those times, she wouldn’t have been trained to do differently. Her job is to do what the doctor says and he’s trying to help them. And so is she. Gabe: But it really sounds like you’re trying to make Nurse Ratched out to be not evil, she’s evil. She’s Rachel: No, no Lisa: No, no. Rachel: And I don’t think she was evil in the original movie, either. Gabe: Society agrees that the bitch is evil Rachel: No, Gabe: Really? Rachel: No, she’s not. Lisa: She wasn’t evil in the original movie you don’t think? Rachel: No, Gabe: She was evil as hell. Rachel: No, I watched the movie right before the show, not on purpose, I didn’t realize this was coming out. I didn’t realize that’s why Netflix was pushing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Gabe: She just accidentally watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Rachel: I did. Gabe: You know how you do that. You’re minding your own business, an iconic horror movie comes on. Lisa: Had you seen it before? Rachel: Yes, but like so long ago. Lisa: Because I would think that would be very, very triggering, frankly, I mean, why Rachel: No, because it Lisa: We all know One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is about, you know, why do that to yourself? Rachel: But it’s because I watch him, and especially if you watch it in today’s terms, you really dislike them. I forget that actor’s name, but you really dislike his character. At one point. I mean, he raped 15-year-old girls Lisa: Jack Nicholson. Rachel: Yeah, that’s like a major plot point. One of the reasons the nurse is, like, so protective and there was other things that Lisa: Oh, Rachel: He did. Lisa: Good point that, you know, that gets left out, Rachel: Yes. Lisa: Doesn’t it? Gabe: Yeah, Lisa: It gets glossed over Gabe: We see him as a victim. Lisa: Oh. Rachel: Right. And they’re saying this woman is doing all these mean things and you’re also watching like, well, no, she has a very specific schedule set out for these people. And he’s trying to actively disrupt these people’s treatment like it’s always about him. Gabe: Or he’s trying to allow them to live their life in this culturally constructed thing where they’re not, I mean, these men aren’t even allowed to talk about women without Rachel: No, Gabe: Getting messed up. Rachel: I’m going to say he wants them to live his life, it’s what he thinks. He wants to watch the baseball game so everyone has to watch it because that’s what men do. We watch baseball games. We hang out together. We go drinking. Yeah. And you have these people who are there for a lot of serious reasons who probably shouldn’t leave the mental ward for a day to go sailing around the ocean getting wasted. Gabe: Oh. Lisa: But in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, she’s not really a person, you know, she’s the representation of institutional apathy or institutional violence. Rachel: Yes. Lisa: She’s not really meant to be a human. She’s just an archetype. Rachel: And I feel it’s also kind of like following orders You know, nothing she does in it is illegal, is bad. She’s literally just following orders to a T. Everyone in the movie who doesn’t follow orders ends up screwing everything up. There’s like the night watchman who they end up having this huge party with and everything. And you’re like, oh, well, that’s because he let them party. Again, people in severe mental health hospital situations don’t need to be partying, you know, but it’s easy to watch and be like, man, they’re so mean for not letting them have a good time. It’s like, yeah, they’re also really drugged up. And I think watching the show Ratched, I personally thought they were going out of their way to kind of like reshow lobotomies. Because I do know that electroconvulsive therapy, lobotomies were pictured so bad in the movie. And that’s done like a horrible stigma for ECT. There is no ECT in the Netflix show, but it’s all in that same vein. I just really like that they showed the characters with lobotomies a whole lot better. Like you’re not just this drooling blob. It wasn’t just like a torture. Like we’re going to give this person a lobotomy because haha I can’t deal with this attitude. Lisa: Which is the way that psychiatric Rachel: Yeah, Lisa: Treatments are often portrayed in movies Rachel: Right. Lisa: It is done specifically as a means of torture. There is no thought that this might Rachel: Correct, Lisa: Be beneficial or a treatment. Rachel: Yes. Lisa: And you have a good point about if you looked at, oh, we’re going to we’re going to cut into your flesh and reread your organs. Oh, is that a horror movie? No, that’s a hospital, because that’s what medicine does, because, like you said, it has to hurt to help. Well, that’s what these people thought they were doing. Of course, I would argue that that’s kind of like a whole. Oh, I was just following orders thing. I don’t know that absolves you of moral responsibility, but that’s an interesting point. Rachel: No, I agree, but I also think, you know, then the time, you know, you have someone, the nurses literally I mean, what medical knowledge do they have? You’re still in the dark ages of so much and you have a lot of people who are, hey, let’s see what happens when I do this. Lisa: Well, and at the end, they even have the nurse saying, hey, here comes all these new treatments. Wow, I just I can’t even believe some Rachel: Yeah. Lisa: Of the things we used to do. I just look back on that and think, oh, my goodness. Rachel: Yeah, yeah. Lisa: Like you said, she’s trying to do the best that she can, or that she’s doing the best that she thinks she can. People often talk about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as stigmatizing ECT, which many people think has legitimate medical value and is still done today, etc. Rachel: I’ve had it. Lisa: I didn’t know if you wanted to talk about that. Rachel: Oh, that’s good, because I always stress that because it causes so many issues, so many people are against ECT. And for me, it was a lifesaver. Lisa: Really? Rachel: It’s not for everybody, but I wouldn’t be here had I not had it. And it is always on the docket, like I have no problem having it again, although it’s not a first line of defense. But yes, in the original movie, it’s shown pretty much as a torture mechanism. And even the show Stranger Things just I guess maybe two or three seasons ago, it’s a huge plot point where they use it literally as torture and to erase people’s memories, not as, OK, let’s help this person. That we’re trying to help this person with depression. It’s oh, man. We need to, like, just figure out how we can erase brains and, oh, you didn’t want to do this? Well, let’s turn up the electricity. You don’t just like that. I mean, I’m sure it did happen, but that wasn’t the point. To try to just torture people. Gabe: I mean anything can be used to torture, right? Rachel: Correct, yeah. Gabe: I mean, you know, having your leg cut off, if it’s gangrene or has a flesh-eating bacterium, it’s going to ruin the rest of the body that that is, in fact, something that is medically necessary for some people. We’ve seen it in in trauma surgery. But you can also cut off somebody’s leg just to torture that which we’ve seen in many horror movies. I think the difference is society understands the difference between the medically necessary leg removal and the torture leg removal, whereas society doesn’t understand the medically necessary ECT and the torture ECT. They just think that it’s all the same. Rachel: Mm hmm. Gabe: So that’s like a society issue, right? Rachel: Yeah, and I really felt that that was in the same vein, though, with the lobotomies, I’ve never seen them portrayed as, OK, this is really going to help you guys. Lisa: Well, but ECT Gabe: Ok. Lisa: Is still done today and, you know, health people, et cetera, what about lobotomies? Is that something we should bring back or investigate more, or is that something we should just put back in the trash of history? Rachel: We still do it, although it’s done completely differently and isn’t referred to more as lobotomy, but they still have psycho surgeries, there’s actually a similar surgery that it’s done for epilepsy where they separate some of the lining between the brain and basically a lot of people who have very severe epilepsy that somehow prevent seizures. So we still do these types of things. They’re not as archaic as they used to be. No one’s pulling out an icepick. No one’s getting a hand drill and crunching in there. You know, we have lasers. We had things like that. And you wouldn’t think of them today as being, oh, God, I can’t believe they did that to you. It’s oh, wow. That seems like a really scary surgery. But, you know, you’ll be good. Lisa: That is a very interesting way to look at it, because, yeah, isn’t all surgery that way. Rachel: I mean, you think about like getting your eyes laser Lisa: Yeah. Rachel: Surgery for your eyeballs. Cutting into your eyeball with lasers like that sounds horrific. Like that blows my brain. How do you do that? And you think if they were pulling out knives, doing it, you might be like, whoa, wait a minute, that’s a little bit more intense, but it’s the same exact thing. I have no clue. But Gabe: It’s Rachel: Yeah. Gabe: Fascinating, though, because when I had laser eye surgery, I told everybody I was like the evil villain that lives in the lair in the mountain, shot me in the eyes with a laser, and I was so strong, I just corrected my own vision and then took them down. So, I think people get the idea of this idea that being shot in the eyes with a laser can be scary. And it was the stuff of James Bond movies and, you know, other movies that had evil people living in island mountain lairs. But they didn’t think the doctors were evil for doing it because they looked a little further. Do you think that one of the things that maybe this show portrays well, is this idea that we need to look a little further at why we’re doing these things rather than just paying attention to the thing that’s being done? Rachel: Absolutely. Go back to you have to make money off shows, there has to be a reason people watch or then you’re sitting around with the documentary and it’s not as interesting. So, I say, you know, there’s a good and bad when it comes to media portrayals. There’s only so much you can do to get people to watch it and still be like friendly to everybody. Lisa: Well, it’s the same way that all hospital shows or doctor shows are so dramatic and so over the top and or police or crime dramas, no one actually behaves that way, thank God. But otherwise it’s boring Rachel: So much paperwork, you’d be watching them just filling out, you know, oh, God, we ran after that guy. I had to fill out 10 pages here till what I put in. I said I can’t do overtime. So actually, I’m off the case, guys. Gabe: And of course, when you run after the guy, that that’s all it is, you just you just ran after a guy. There’s no bullets flying. There’s no guns out. There’s just it’s just a boring foot chase that you have to answer a bunch of questions about, fill out a bunch of paperwork and then, you know, Book ‘em, Danno, I guess maybe I guess they did make booking exciting back in the 80s anyway. But you’re right, police work is ultimately boring, but they portray it on television as this very high stakes, life threatening, bullets flying, need military. In reality, it’s just a person walking around. Lisa: Well, but this is one of the reasons why we have these problems, because we all look at the popular perception of it in media and think, oh, look, police officers are under constant threat. It makes sense that they need a tank. Gabe: Ok, well, are we looking at people with mental illness as a constant threat, so they need a lobotomy? Lisa: Maybe. Isn’t that the way they’re always portrayed on TV as violent and scary? Gabe: That is true, but aren’t they portrayed on Ratched as violent and scary? Lisa: No. Gabe: Are they portrayed as, like, kind? Do you want them to come over for coffee with your kids? Lisa: Yes, Rachel: Well, yeah, some you’re watching, Lisa: Yeah, Rachel: You’re like, why is this person there? Lisa: And the answer is because they have no power in society and they’re trapped. Rachel: Yeah, one is ADHD, and, you know, they’re acting like it’s so crazy that this boy’s, you know, easily distracted. We got to do a lobotomy and you’re just like, well, no, I really think that’s a Lisa: Oh, this is so terrible, this is so serious. Yeah. Rachel: That’s what it seems like, a jump that the 12-year-old has distracted thoughts and he’s not even like crawling up the walls as they’re talking. He’s acting like a 12-year-old. Lisa: And the point being that he has no power or agency, he’s trapped Rachel: Mm-Hmm. Lisa: by his parents and what they decide for him. Rachel: Yeah, what they decide is uncontrollable. Lisa: Right. And who gets to define such a thing? Gabe: We’ll continue this discussion in a minute and we’ll be right back. Gabe: We’re back with the host of the podcast Inside Schizophrenia, Rachel Star, discussing the Netflix series Ratched. 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. Lisa: I was actually thinking about what you said earlier, about there’s no horror, there’s no supernatural element. But I kept waiting for there to be. Rachel: Yeah, they definitely play it up. Lisa: Right, I’m waiting for there to be ghosts or demons Rachel: Yeah. Lisa: Or, oh, is she possessed? What is it? Because isn’t that the way asylums work? I mean, when you’re on TV, all asylums are haunted. That’s what asylums are. Another statement about the popular perception of these things that, oh, obviously, there must be demons involved. Rachel: Yeah, there has to be some dead patient ghosts that are like hanging out. Lisa: Right, exactly. Rachel: I mean, although I got to say, though, that if you watch the show, it is visually stunning. Lisa: Oh, yeah, that was the best part. Rachel: Oh, it’s so colorful and stunning, and then you’re like, this hospital is gigantic and there’s like, what, five patients? Lisa: Yeah. Rachel: That was my bag. It’s like, how is this place open? I’m very confused. I mean, they’re talking about shutting it down. I’m like, well, clearly you guys need to. Literally five patients. Lisa: I know. You’re maintaining all of this? How many beds do you have? Rachel: Yeah. Lisa: There’s only like four people here. Rachel: You got like a whole wine cellar that you keep one guy in, like, why do we have a wine cellar in this hospital that apparently stretches for miles? Watching the show visually is just stunning. The way they do all the colors and Lisa: Yeah, Rachel: The sets is just incredible. Lisa: The first couple of episodes, I really thought, wow, I could watch this just for the clothes. Rachel: Yes, even if they’re covered in blood. Lisa: Well, yeah, yeah, well, it wasn’t a perfect system, but Rachel: Yeah. Lisa: It just yes, the cinematography was amazing. And again, like I said, because I’m expecting some supernatural of into it, I thought, oh, that’s why the colors are so saturated, Rachel: Yes, and almost like a dreamlike state, like you were saying earlier, you weren’t sure yet? No, it does come off very dreamlike. Lisa: I was watching this with my husband, and I kept saying to him, I’m telling you, I’m telling you this is going to be a dream. This is a hallucination. This isn’t real. And again, spoiler alert. That is not how it went. And that is a change because, of course, obviously, if you’re having a show about psychiatric patients, it must be because it’s not real. Rachel: As I said, this is made by the same people who do American Horror Story. They also did Scream Queens, they did Nip/Tuck. I mean, so many different shows that have some very gory parts to them, but especially American Horror Story. And that’s definitely a huge trigger type show. Each season is set differently. And it’s funny because the second season takes place in an insane asylum. And that’s my favorite. And everyone’s always shocked because they would think Rachel seems like that would be the one you definitely don’t like and you would have a problem with. But I really think it’s a great representation minus all the supernatural, because they have a ton of demons and aliens and ghosts and everything you can imagine. But I think it’s a great representation because insane asylums used to be run pretty much by churches. That was who it was. You’re going to be looked over by priests and nuns. So how are they going to treat you? Gabe: How are they going? I mean, I think that’s an excellent point, how? Rachel: Yeah, God, so you’re going to have a lot more demon possessions, you’re going to have a lot more starving people things because they didn’t have medications, like how are they supposed to treat you? And they’re very much overrun with people just dropping off every ailment you can imagine. And the family just abandoning them. Gabe: My wife back talks. Here, fix her. My wife won’t clean, I mean, and these are Rachel: Yes. Gabe: These are true stories, right? I mean, just husbands who would get tired of their wives would drop them off. This is excellent because I never thought about the idea that in early mental illness advocacy or intervention, it was largely driven by the church. And we had medical doctors who we assume have some sort of science background with religious leaders who we assume are going completely from, you know, biblical teachings or, you know, prayer, faith, etc. and those two get together. And I guess lobotomy is the only result? Is this portrayed in the show, this idea that religion is driving a lot of this? Rachel: Not in the new Ratched show I was just referencing yet, that American Horror Story, that that line very much, I think in its 20s or 1910s or something, but it’s even set before that Ratched is in the 40s, I think. Gabe: So in a way, Rachel: Ratched, not ratchet. Gabe: It’s Ratched, yeah, Rachel: Sorry, I keep saying ratchet. When I first saw the name, I was not expecting this to be the show I Gabe: Yeah, that word means something different now, Rachel: Yeah. Gabe: But it sounds like what you’re saying, based on their body of work, that their thinking has evolved or at least their portrayal has evolved because they used to portray mental illness as supernatural, then they portrayed mental illness as, you know, like Freddy Krueger horror movie. And then they portrayed it from the lens of we have to, you know, pray the mental illness away. And now they’re portraying it from early medical intervention and using science. So if you look at their entire body of work, they’re giving you a history lesson with, like, colorful costumes and probably a cool background soundtrack. Rachel: So cool. Lisa: The soundtrack was also very good. Rachel: Yes. Gabe: Is that what you’re saying, though, I mean, is that. Rachel: I think it’s an evolution. I could easily see this being like part two of that American Horror Story season, the kind involving the asylum. Lisa: I have to watch American Horror Story then. Rachel: Oh, you’ve never seen it? Oh, my. Gabe: And the American Horror Story that you’re talking about, is season 2, right? Rachel: Season 2, yes, each season is a stand-alone story. Gabe: Also, a series I’ve never watched, however, I did watch Nip/Tuck because I was dating this woman at the time who loved Nip/Tuck and there was no DVR. So when it came on, we had to drop everything and watch this thing. She loved it. Crazy woman. I forget her name. Lisa: Oh, I loved Nip/Tuck. I don’t remember the name of that actor, but he was so hot. Gabe: You said that constantly, it was not annoying at all. Rachel: The blond one or the brown haired one? Aaron Eckhart, I think was the blond, that I liked. Lisa: No, no, the dark haired one, Christian Troy, he was the hot one. Rachel: Oh, Christina, yeah. Gabe: You would say he’s hot. Rachel: That’s who my mom liked. Lisa: Yeah, right. Gabe: And I would say, why are you saying that? And you’re like, Oh, it’s OK, he’s a doctor. And I would say he’s fake. And you’re like, look at that. Look at his shirt is off again. He interviewed the babysitter with no shirt on. Who does this? Lisa: Well, he would later have an affair with that babysitter. Gabe: Yeah, he would later have an affair with this. Lisa: Hmm. Gabe: I have tried to emulate this behavior. Didn’t work. Rachel: I mean, if you got it, flaunt it. Why am I wearing like six layers if I if I got this sweet pecs? Lisa: Exactly, you know how hard he works on those? Rachel: Yeah. Lisa: He’s just going to hide those? Rachel: Yeah, Lisa: No, I don’t think so. That’s just dumb. Rachel: It’s like driving a flashy car. Lisa: Rachel’s so wise. Gabe: But Nip/Tuck, though, was about plastic surgeons, right, it had it had no mental illness involved at all. Right. Nice trip down memory lane, but not mental illness related. Rachel: Yes, Lisa: Another thing I thought was interesting about Ratched was many of the patients were there voluntarily. And we’ve all been trained to think of mental hospitals or asylums or psychiatric hospitals as being these incredibly scary, horrible places. Why would you ever go there voluntarily? They are places to be avoided at all costs, but here are these people who are so desperate that they’ve shown up. So even though they’re scared, they’re very, very sick and desperate to do whatever it takes. Rachel: And a lot of it was very family oriented, the family is the ones being like, this person needs help. And the person sitting there like I mean, I guess, you know, you kind of like want to question, like, if I was in that position, you know, and my husband is dropping me off there because I talk too much or I’m interested in women and that seems really bizarre. Or I’m dropping my child off because he’s the only kid that won’t sit still in class and everyone’s telling me he’s weird. Where’s the line on things? So, it just makes you think like I feel like a lot of the characters, you could be like, oh, I know someone like that. Lisa: There are a couple of characters that were clearly just suffering so much and they had such faith. Rachel: Yes, they were desperate. Lisa: They were desperate. They tried everything else. They were hopeful that this would be the answer. They tried all these other things. This is going to be the one. This is going to be the thing. Science is going to save us. Rachel: Yeah, I don’t think there’s any involuntary treatment being like they signed up for everything they did, no one was like, you have to have this lobotomy. They pretty much knew what they were signing up for. Lisa: Exactly. Rachel: They might have regretted afterwards, but they definitely went in knowing what was going to happen. Lisa: We couldn’t exactly call it informed consent because they didn’t understand the consequences necessarily, but they did know the specifics of the procedure and they consented to this because they were desperate. Especially the first two people who got lobotomies, because one of them is clearly supposed to be coded as bipolar and you just felt so much sympathy for them. She’s so desperate, she’ll do whatever it takes. Rachel: One thing that’s had a lot of blowback is the character Charlotte, that actress was incredible. I thought she like blew away all of her scenes. But the way they show dissociative identity disorder is the big blowback the by. That’s all incorrect. And I got to be honest, I did some research and I could find every reference that they did. I could find there being a basis for it. So, I don’t know. I know that’s a that’s something that’s going through saying that they did that wrong, that her character is just a horrible representation. But that’s I kind of think what’s so interesting is you’re watching it and you’re not really sure. Is she real? What’s happening here? Is she faking? Is she not faking? It’s just very confusing to watch her. Lisa: So dissociative identity disorder previously called multiple personality disorder, which I am not a big believer in, but the thing I did like about the character was that she comes to this through trauma. Rachel: Yes, she very much so wants to be helped. I mean, this isn’t someone who’s like a crazy serial killer running around killing people and, you know, we have to stop her. This was a woman who is clearly sad and upset and she’s like, I’m losing my life. Please help me. Please do whatever you have to do to help me. And regardless of what the disorder is, she’s a powerful character that she wants her life back. She’s not trying to hurt anybody. She just wants Lisa: Right, Rachel: To be normal again. Gabe: So what is the takeaway? I mean, obviously, it’s entertainment. I think we can all understand that the goal of this was entertainment. But is there a silver lining that people watching this will understand the plight of people living with mental illness better? Rachel, what are your thoughts on that? Rachel: Right after I watched it, because I had never seen portrayals of lobotomies that way, I immediately started Googling lobotomies because I thought the whole scene with them doing it on kids, I’m like, there’s no way that was a thing. There’s no way they did it on someone because they thought they were lesbian. There’s no way they did it because this person was depressed. And it blew my mind what I read and pretty much how common it was that they got up to the point in history where they were doing lobotomies just quickly in the office. It was great. You didn’t have to go to a hospital. The doctor psychiatrist could do it right there. And you’re out. Like they were trying to make that a thing, like a little McDonald’s kind of situation. Just go and get out. You’re good. Nobody has to do anything except, you know, just pop the ice, pick through your idea when could do it. And I just this was things I didn’t realize about history. The other was the hydrotherapy. I, you know, maybe seen a picture or two in a book before, but I’d never actually seen it portrayed. And that was just kind of crazy. And I was like, I have to Google this because there’s no way they would scald people. Oh, no, they did OK. Yeah, no, that was apparently a normal thing. All right. And for all types of ailments, not just mental illness. So, for me, I learned so much that was different than I’m used to seeing it portrayed. More realistic as far as the not the serial killing. But you know what I mean, not the horror type part that of the show. Gabe: Lisa, what are your thoughts? Lisa: I would agree that it was portrayed in a more realistic manner, and I also had never seen hydrotherapy represented, but because it is so surreal and with this otherworldly type thing. So I don’t know that the average viewer is going to say to themselves, oh, my, that’s how it really was. I think they might just think it’s part of the fictional concept of the show. So, hey, people. Yeah. Gabe: It’s all live, right? Your mileage may vary, I guess. Rachel: Mm hmm. Lisa: Well, but if you think about it, that’s the creepy part of it, that you’re thinking, oh, no, this is just for TV, but then you get more information. You’re like, oh, not just for TV basis in real life. Oh, ick. Rachel: Which is one reason I’ve always loved American Horror Story is that every season they base so much stuff off stuff that happened in real life, which was actually horrific things that happened, people that actually existed, but they interweave it, you know, into their stories and stuff. Going back to asylum, one reason that’s my favorite as you watch it and you think there’s no way this is real and there’s a very powerful episode where the reporter sneaks in and does a report about it all, how twisted everything is. And the fact is that really happened, except it was a children’s hospital. And that’s how Geraldo Rivera is so famous. He snuck in a camera. If you ever watch this video, it’s ten times worse than anything that American Horror Story could have even touched on. You know, and it’s just like these places exist. These treatments exist. Real life is scarier sometimes than the ghost, than an alien ship or whatever, Gabe: An alien ship? What are you watching? Rachel: American Horror Story has done everything. OK, they hit it all. Gabe: That’s awesome. Rachel: If it could remotely be scary, you got like, anything they’re going to go after it. Gabe: Anything goes, it’s covered. Rachel, we love hanging out with you. Tell us for a quick minute before Lisa and I talk behind your back what is Inside Schizophrenia and why do you host it? Rachel: If you haven’t it checked out Inside Schizophrenia, it’s not as fun as this show, I got to be honest, Gabe. Gabe: It’s more educational. Lisa: I’ve actually really enjoyed it. Rachel: We don’t have as much fun on that show. Gabe: Way, way to sell it. Rachel: It’s really boring. Lisa: That’s making me want to go watch it right now. Gabe: Tune in, it sucks, I hate hosting it. What’re you doing? It does not have the same feel, it’s an educational show. Rachel: Yes, it is a more educational show. I do have schizophrenia, so we talk very in depth about that. But we also bring on a lot of experts, doctors, people who specialize in areas. I love doing the show because to me it’s so interesting. And I know someone out there is like edutainment. That’s right. Some Lisa: Yes. Rachel: Great entertainment if you want to hear from, like, some really cool different people that you’re would not normally when you Google mental health news. I’d say we’re not like the typical. Gabe: And you can find that over on PsychCentral.com/IS or Inside Schizophrenia on your favorite podcast player. Obviously, the obligatory plug for Inside Schizophrenia hosted on the Psych Central Podcast Network, but what does Rachel Star do? Talk about yourself. Rachel: Well, one thing I really like to talk about is since COVID happened, lots of kids at home, lots of people don’t have access to mental health and kids always weigh heavy on my heart. So at the beginning of all this, I made a comic book line, a mental health comic book line for kids. The first three issues deal with schizophrenia, depression and ADHD, and they are completely free. So they’re free on Apple Books. I think even the adults would like them. And pretty much each one’s a different little kid who becomes a superhero dealing with their mental disorder. So check it out. Lisa: Yeah, they’re adorable. They’re free over on Apple books. The first one is called The Adventures of the Fearless Star and the main character is called Lil’ Star. Rachel: Yes, yes, it’s actually the whole concept is it’s me talking to a younger version of myself, what I wish would have happened as a kid. Gabe: Very cool. Well, I hope everybody checks that out. Once again, Rachel Star, everyone. Rachel: Thank you so much for having me. Lisa: Thank you for being here, Rachel. Gabe: Ok, Lisa. That did not go exactly how I thought it was going to go, because when we discussed doing this episode, you said, I’m really worried about disagreeing with Rachel and I don’t want to piss her off. Yeah, you pretty much agreed with every single thing she said which honestly surprised even me. Did you have a change of heart? Lisa: No, not really, I do agree with everything she said, it’s because when you first discussed let’s do this episode, you said Rachel watched Ratched and says that it’s an amazing fictional portrayal of schizophrenia. And I thought, what are you talking about? I don’t think they’re even are any schizophrenics in that. I don’t I don’t understand. Gabe: I need to defend myself, I believe what I said is that Rachel said that it was an excellent portrayal of the treatments of schizophrenia, which Lisa: That’s not what you said. Gabe: I believe that’s what I said. Lisa: You said it’s an excellent portrayal of schizophrenia and I thought, what is she talking about? I’m going to have to review this. I don’t think there even are any schizophrenics in this. So I don’t know if I didn’t understand what you said or you didn’t understand what she said or it’s like a telephone lost in translation thing. But no, the thing that you said is completely not what we ended up talking about. I maintain that I was right with the original version of what was happening here. But no, not the actual version. Gabe: I’m glad that you fought so hard to make sure that our listeners knew that you didn’t agree with me. Lisa: Well, excuse me for taking you at your word and thinking you knew what you were talking about in the planning stages. Gabe: Lisa, I know we’ve dropped a lot of spoilers here for our listeners, but if any of them are considering watching it, do you recommend them? Like if you were, if you got to be Siskel and Ebert right now, how many stars would you give it? And do you recommend that they tune in for any reason? Lisa: Probably not. There’s plenty of stuff on Netflix that’s better. It was vaguely entertaining. I liked the clothes, as we’ve already discussed. I liked the clothes, liked the soundtracks, I liked the set. I like that actress, although I don’t think this was one of her better works. But overall, yeah, I just didn’t really like it that much. And it had so many twists. You were like, what? What? And in terms of, oh, I want to watch this so I can have a better understanding of mental illness. Only if you went in already knowing a whole lot about mental illness. Gabe: All right, well, I am so glad that I saved 10 hours by just listening to you and Rachel discuss it, and now I can claim knowledge of something that I did not do and all of you can as well. That is the Not Crazy promise. Lisa: Again, it had some good parts, it wasn’t completely worthless, there are certainly a lot of worse things on Netflix that you could watch, but there’s a lot of way better stuff too. Especially, like you said, to give up that many hours. Gabe: It’s also important to remember that Lisa is a middle aged woman, so it is certainly possible that if you trend younger, you might just think this thing is bad ass. It could be Lisa’s advanced age that is causing her not to like the show. Lisa: How do you know it’s not the reverse? Maybe if you trend older, you’re going to love this show, maybe I’m too young for the show. How do you know? Gabe: Because of Rachel. Rachel liked it and she’s younger. Lisa: Oh. Gabe: Thank you, everybody, for listening to this week’s Not Crazy podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I am the author of Mental Illness Is an Asshole, which you can buy on Amazon. If you head over to gabehoward.com, though, and buy it there, you’ll pay less money. I’ll sign it. And I will include free stickers from the podcast and, well, also from me personally. Lisa: Don’t forget the outtake after the credits and we’ll see you all 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: Reviewing Netflix's Ratched first appeared on World of Psychology. from https://ift.tt/2GnnmPk Check out https://daniejadkins.wordpress.com/ Let’s talk about psychotherapy. Why hasn’t it changed much in the last century? And if a patient isn’t getting well, is it the fault of the patient, the therapist or the therapy itself? In today’s podcast, Gabe and psychologist Barry L. Duncan discuss the idea of holding therapists more accountable when the patient isn’t getting better. Join us for a great discussion that sheds new light on how we should be treating mental health issues.
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Guest information for ‘Barry L. Duncan- Therapist or Patient’ Podcast Episode
Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D. . is CEO of Better Outcomes Now and a psychologist, trainer, and researcher with over 17,000 hours of face-to-face experience with clients. Dr. Duncan is the developer of the clinical process of the evidence based practice, the Partners for Change Outcome Management System (PCOMS), a process that ensures that clients are privileged and therapy is accountable. Barry has over one hundred publications, including 18 books addressing client feedback, consumer rights, and the power of relationship in any change endeavor. Because of his self-help books (the latest is What’s Right With You), he has appeared on Oprah, The View, and several other national TV programs. 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 ‘Barry L. Duncan- Therapist or Patient’ EpisodeEditor’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. Barry L. Duncan. Dr. Duncan is the CEO of Better Outcomes Now and a psychologist, trainer and researcher. His self-help books, the latest is What’s Right With You, have led to appearances on Oprah, The View and several other national TV programs. Dr. Duncan. Welcome to the show. Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: It’s great to be here again. Thanks for having me. Gabe Howard: Today we’re going to discuss holding therapists accountable and their need to evolve. Now, as a person living with bipolar disorder, I can tell you that patients are always encouraged to change our way of thinking and to evolve. But in some ways, therapy hasn’t really changed all that much in the 20 years that I’ve been involved. Now, I’ve been involved as a patient. But Dr. Duncan, what are your overall thoughts on that? Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: Well, I think you’re right on the money with that, I mean, as a profession, we really haven’t changed a heck of a lot in the last hundred years in a lot of ways. I mean, there’s a lot of these models and techniques. In fact, there’s over four hundred models and techniques now. But a lot of things about psychotherapy have not changed, like, for example, who’s in charge and how the hierarchy works and who calls the shots and how collaborative it is. And all of those things are pretty much the same as it’s always been. And that’s why we do need for therapists and the field itself to evolve to be a bit more accountable than it’s been in its last hundred years. Gabe Howard: It’s interesting to me that you say it really hasn’t evolved in the last hundred years because everything’s evolved in 100 years. I can’t hang on to a cell phone for more than six months before it’s considered outdated old technology. So for something to last a hundred years, was it just perfect or are we really using this antiquated method that isn’t giving us our best results? Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: There had been an evolution of different models and techniques and ways of understanding people’s problems and way of treating people’s problems. The only problem with that is that no one approach now developed is any more effective than the approaches developed 50 years ago. Gabe Howard: Gotcha. Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: All approaches work about equally well. That means, then, that psychotherapy as a treatment endeavor has not improved. It was as effective 50 years ago as it is right now. That’s the disconcerting part, and that is because we have not been results oriented. We haven’t been accountable to the client, the consumer or the patient, whatever you want to call that person sitting in the room with you, we haven’t been accountable to what they think would be a successful conclusion to the therapy. Gabe Howard: And is that who you think that therapist should be accountable to? Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: Yes, it would be totally accountable to their perception of their own benefit, their perception of their experience of the therapy itself, rather than feeding the therapist, the provider, the psychiatrist, a psychologist, whoever they’re seeing, instead of fitting their viewpoint of how the therapy should go, how the patients should wind up, it should be taken from the construction, the perception of the person receiving the treatment. Gabe Howard: Do you get a lot of pushback when you say that, because I know people living with mental illness or even people with mental health concerns, we often feel like whenever things go well, it’s because we have a great therapist. And whenever things go poorly, it’s because we’re not listening to our great therapist. That’s our world. But you’re over on the other side. Do your colleagues like you saying this publicly? Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: Actually, a lot of them do, but there’s a portion that don’t like that arrangement where they blame the client when there’s no change and take credit when there is, I would like for that to be spun around completely, 180 there. And when there is change that the client take credit for making the changes because they’re the ones doing it. And when there’s no change, it’s about the treatment model and how the treatment model interacted. Is the right fit for the person receiving it rather than putting the blame on the client’s shoulders, which is what psychotherapy has done since the beginning. Right. When there’s no change, it’s because of the client’s psychopathology. Think about how we organize our profession. If you change, it’s because I’m so super brilliant and I’m a great practitioner, if you don’t change well, you are quite sick. This is going to take more time, more effort, more drugs, more therapy. That’s been the kind of mentality. I think that kind of story is reaching its end at this point. And people are starting to realize that they’re far more fruitful ways of going about this. Gabe Howard: A lot of my listeners don’t know this, but whenever we set up a guest on the show, we always ask the guests to submit some questions because they know the questions that they get asked most of all. And I can’t know everything as much as I tell my wife that I do. And one of the questions that you submitted, I think it might be my favorite question ever. The question is, what does the death of George Washington have to do with our topic today, Dr. Duncan? Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: Actually, it is the perfect story for our situation today, because here’s what happened to little George after he retired from the presidency, right? Right. His Mount Vernon estate every morning. And on a cold, blustery December day in 1799, he got back from his ride and he got a sore throat and a cough. And so, they put him to bed and they summoned the area physicians. The first physician got there and administered the standard of care of the day, and Washington’s condition grew worse. The second physician got there, re-administered the standard of care of the day and Washington lost consciousness. And then finally, the third physician arrived later that night, re-administered the standard of care to an unconscious George Washington, and by the next morning, George was dead. Now, what was that standard of care? It was bloodletting. And while medical historians quibble over whether or not the bloodletting hastened his demise or outright killed him, the fact of the matter is that they continue to apply the same treatment despite direct evidence from the patient that it clearly was not working and making it worse. And that’s exactly what people do today. They will continue to administer the same treatment to a client despite direct evidence that the treatment isn’t working. That code creates chronicity in clients. It causes them to get worse over time. We used to call that bloated files syndrome. It was more about the person who’d been in so many unsuccessful treatments, more so about that than about the person themselves. The people began to have a mentality about themselves, that they’re untreatable, they’re too sick, they’ll never get better rather than having it look to the outside and saying, gosh, maybe the treatments I’ve been getting or not what I am needing and let me try different people, different treatments to see if I can get to a better place. Gabe Howard: I think that this leads to patients just giving up. I hear the word quackery a lot. I hear that they the therapist just wanted to talk to me and it didn’t do any good. And you hear a lot of terms to describe therapists from the disgruntled. Do you think that part of that disgruntled-ness comes from what you’ve just described? Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: Absolutely. People become disgruntled when there’s no change and when they see no possibility for change or no hope for change, one of the factors that makes treatment beneficial for people is that it inspires hope. A very famous psychiatrist, Jerome Frank, had a very nice perspective on this. And he thought that when people come to treatment, they are demoralized by their lives and they believe that every day is going to be just as miserable as today. But what therapy does is, in his words, re-moralizes or gives them the possibility that’s not true. And then that inspires people to catalyze them into action. And then they do things to make meaningful changes in their lives when it’s not helping. Therapy can make you quite disgruntled and start to believe that you’re unchangeable, which is the worst conceivable outcome. Gabe Howard: So this begs the question, Dr. Duncan, how do we get therapy, which, as you stated, hasn’t really changed all that much in the last hundred years? How do we get them all to change? Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: There has been a movement within psychotherapy, this called systematic client feedback, and Michael Lampert is the pioneer of this. And he had this idea that why not measure in each encounter with a client’s believe they’re benefiting from their therapy and then those clients who aren’t benefiting will be identified so that the therapist can then do something different with them? That’s a great idea. But there’s a more radical side that really appealed to me. And that was that don’t make it an expert kind of a process. Don’t make it to where it just gives information to the therapist. Why not let it be a collaborative process that’s done together with the client and the provider and have that process of monitoring outcome to see whether or not the person is benefiting and then collaboratively figuring out what else can be done and or to move them on to greener pastures with somebody else, if indeed they can’t collaboratively come up with different ideas to be beneficial to the client. The relationship is called the Therapeutic Alliance, which if the alliance isn’t good, it’s very unlikely for anything good to happen in the therapy. We also check in with people in each and every encounter about how was this experience for you today? Are we talking about the right stuff, the approach that we’ve taken to address your goals? Do you really think that’s going to be helpful to you? So we check that out with these two four item scales. Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: It takes less than five minutes. And when you do that, you identify the consumers who aren’t benefiting. Because an important thing we know, Gabe, is that who is providing the service accounts for most of the change of any treatment being administered. Now, what that means is that it doesn’t matter whether your psychodynamic or your cognitive behavioral, who you are as a person accounts for much more how change happens with clients than the models and techniques that you use. If that isn’t in line with the clients, the best thing you could do is to fire yourself and let the person see someone else. Gabe Howard: Let’s step away from therapy for a moment and even step away from mental health treatment and into physical health treatment or just patients versus doctors. There’s a huge movement in America right now for patients voices to be heard. And again, I want to be very clear. This isn’t a therapy relationship or even a mental health relationship. This is all of patients feel that they are not being partnered with. And when I say all of patients, they don’t have the downside of having the discrimination or the stigma of being out of their mind or crazy or not thinking straight or we need to do this for their own good, because after all, they can’t advocate for themselves because they’re sick. And I point that out because if it’s happening over on the quote unquote, physical health side, meaning for somebody with cancer, for example, what hope does the mental health side have? Because we’re much easier to ignore? Can you talk on that for a moment? Because I know that many patients are like, look, even in the best of circumstances, we’re not believed. Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: From a medical point of view, it’s really the same dynamic that exists, you have an expert and the patient who needs the help of the expert. What you find is that relationship and medical treatment is also predictive of eventual outcomes, even with biological markers has been a recent research in the last five years that when patients believe they have a good relationship and good communication with their medical provider, they get better outcomes and even biological marker better outcomes. So the same processes could be helpful in medical care. In fact, my colleagues and I have developed measures for primary care docs, so the same dynamics exists there. So we validated our measures in primary care science and our next step is to actually try and see if it improves outcomes. Once we started measuring outcomes and doing this collaborative process with clients and psychotherapy to solicit their views and whether they’re benefiting and solicit their views of how the experience of therapy was going. We then started doing randomized clinical trials, which is the language of science, where you compare clients who didn’t have the support of their treatment and clients who did. And we’ve done eight randomized clinical trials now and it doubles overall treatment outcomes for those clients who have systematic client feedback as part of their therapy. Gabe Howard: I don’t know why we separate mental health and physical health out, but for the purposes of this conversation, moving it out of the physical health realm and into the mental health realm, patients know that we have to be involved. We see a therapist one hour a week and then all the other hours or hours. Essentially, if we don’t participate in therapy, it does not work. We know that hard stop. You cannot send an unwilling person to therapy and expect it to do any good. They’ll just sit there and ignore you for an hour and then go off and do whatever they want. So knowing that is an absolute fact, why do you think you’re getting any pushback whatsoever? Is there I’m going to use a mean word. Is there just an arrogance among therapists that they can convince people who don’t want to listen, to listen, or is it just deeper than that? Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: I think there’s certainly an arrogance there, but I think that there’s I call organizational apathy toward doing anything, that it’s a change. We like to work the way we’ve always worked. That’s always worked for us before. They see it as adding to what they’re already doing. A lot of therapists believe that they are overworked and underpaid. The master’s in social work and master’s in counseling are the two lowest paid master’s degrees in the United States. It’s different in Europe, but here in the US, it’s a very low paid master’s degree. People feel up against it a lot of times. And so when they’re asked to do more, know someone comes in from the outside and said, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread and it improves outcomes and decreases dropouts. It’s a way to be collaborate with people like. Oh yeah, I heard that was the last paradigm shift. So people tend to hunker down. Implementation is a long term process for people and it takes training and use and supervision. And I basically tell people when I’m implementing an agency that about twenty five to thirty three percent of therapists will say, I really like this, I’m going to do it. I see the benefit from it right away. But then everybody else has to be brought along. And most people learn from their own experience. So they need to have the experience of it being useful to them before they’ll completely buy in. Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: Arrogance is certainly part of it. And there’s that, that this is an old old idea, back and from the beginning, the sanctity of the closed room, nobody else in there except me and the client, no outside influences. And this is this private time. And I don’t want to let anybody else or anything else in and doing any measurement process or formally soliciting the client’s voice. It’s not what I’m about. The really sad part is that a lot of therapists and this is the arrogance or believe that they know what the client needs and wants without ever asking them. That’s the part that drives me crazy. They think they already know the answer. You did an RCT in Norway, and the person I was working with, Morten Anker, he is a good friend of mine. He did a survey of the therapists before we did the trial and there were ten therapists. And he asked them, do you think that getting systematic client feedback about the client’s view of benefit and their view of the alliance? Do you think that will improve your effectiveness? All ten said no. We already know whether people are benefiting. We already know whether we have a good alliance with people. And guess what happened? Only one of the ten was correct because nine out of ten improved their effectiveness with this systematic feedback from the client. Gabe Howard: Stay tuned and 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 Howard: Welcome back, everyone. We’re here with Dr. Barry L. Duncan, discussing how to hold therapists accountable and their need to evolve. Dr. Duncan, is that you’re met with this resistance and you are able to overcome it, but what do you say? There’s this knee jerk reaction in me to say, hey, I told you that this would be better for your patients. Why are you arguing with me? But I know as an advocate, yelling at people doesn’t ever work. So I’m curious as to your method, because, as you said, you’re overcoming years of thinking and people’s ways of doing things. Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: Yes, we’ve implemented many places. In fact, we have one point five million administrations of our measures in our database, so there are many people doing it there. Thirty thousand registered users on our website. But there is this kind of initial response. And I first started training people. I was shocked that they didn’t say, wow, this is such a great idea. We’re going to do this right away because it identifies our people who are benefiting in mixed therapy, more collaborative and honoring the client’s voice and all of these values that people are always reporting that they have, that when push came to shove, they wouldn’t actually do it. And I was shocked by that. I had to develop ways of inspiring people rather than mandating people do this. And what really got me into it was it’s about social justice and client privilege and making sure that we level the playing field with clients and we got them engaged and involved. But other people get on board for other reasons. It identifies the people who are likely to drop out before they drop out. It improves effectiveness. It’s been proven in real world settings to raise the bar of everybody’s performance. It involves the known predictors of how people change. My kind of go-to in helping win people over is to show them the work. Therapists really like to see the work itself, because then I go from being a talker about it to showing them. Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: And I, of course, releases from my clients and anonymize the videos. But I show them the actually doing this with people and people’s comments about liking being involved in the process, liking being involved in all of the decisions, liking how transparent the process is and getting better, recapturing some people that would have otherwise not benefited. I have a video that’s very popular with therapists where it’s a client who I was not successful with. I really wanted to be successful with her. I really liked her. She was a great young person, couldn’t have wanted her to work through her struggles more, but I was not the right fit for whatever reason. And then I do a consult with one of my colleagues who took over therapy, and then she changed quite rapidly. So the message is that we all have clients who don’t benefit and there’s nobody that’s one hundred percent effective, the very best therapist on the planet, or about two thirds effective, which means that one third of their clients do not benefit, that if we identify who those third are, we can either change up what we’re doing or we can get them in front of somebody else. That is a better fit. In the old days before I started doing this, I think I would eventually figure out that I wasn’t being helpful to people, but they may have dropped out by the time I figured it out. Gabe Howard: Right, and then you can’t refer them. Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: They can’t be referred, and it means they walk away saying therapy wasn’t helpful rather than saying therapy with Barry wasn’t helpful and it could be helpful with somebody else, with different ideas, different trainings, different kind of personality, whatever. It got me to the end of right away with people from the second or third encounter saying, does it look like things happened? What do you think we should do about that? And that conversation is really cool because it does comment on the partnership. And we can get to maybe if there is something that’s holding us back, have a frank conversation about it and move on, or we need to change approaches altogether or think about it in a different way. Gabe Howard: Dr. Duncan, is there any downside to holding therapists accountable and to your method? We’ve talked a lot about the positives, but let’s be fair. Does the pendulum swing back the other way? Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: There could be potential downsides, for example, if the payers, managed care companies, insurance companies use this as the sole decision to throw people out of their you reach maximum gain, no more sessions for you rather than that being. This is information, the decisions made between the client, the therapist, about when therapy should end or when it should be cut back or what have you. It also could be a downside if management decided to use it in a punitive way. For example, to say you’re your therapist, Gabe, and I say to you, well, we measure outcomes here with this system. And if you don’t attain 60 percent effectiveness with your clients, you’ll be reprimanded. Or if you get 60 percent, I’ll give you a raise. That would be a really horrible consequence. So in all of my contracts and all of my agreements, I spell those things out that it can’t be used that way. It can’t be used to reward or punish therapists. It can’t be used as the sole determinant, whether a person continues in therapy or not, because, again, those decisions are far more collaborative than that, than a number from a scale. But the number from the scale, it’s our insurance policy in that it keeps us honest so that we have those conversations with. And one thing that I really is troubling to me as I look at therapy across many organizations and many therapists, is that therapy can devolve into a place where there’s only a processing of the client’s life. Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: It’s just an ongoing commentary on what’s happened that week with no thematic connection to a change that is being tried for. That winds up happening because it’s a much easier thing for people to do rather than being accountable for making a meaningful difference in people’s lives. And that’s why measuring outcomes is very important. You can prevent that. I do implementation a lot of agencies that wind up doing supervision and I’ll say, what are you working on? And I’ll say he’s been through a lot. And this is a place where you can come and get support and say, so what’s the end game to providing support? This is the only place that he can get that. I said, wouldn’t it make sense to have a discussion about a goal that he could get support in his real world because you’re not going to invite him home for Thanksgiving dinner? Right. Gabe Howard: All right. Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: We’re not really a support system. Not really. We’re temporary support system for people. We hope that they can get support systems in their natural world and that we are not a replacement for those things. And that’s what happens. A lot of time therapy can become replacement. And we’re not that kind of relationship. And those lines can get really blurred when those circumstances when you’re not accountable to person, to clients and first to there being some results that come from it, we can have these endless process oriented, support oriented therapies now in saying that there’s nothing wrong with process or support, but there shouldn’t be that change component. That’s a part of it. Gabe Howard: Dr. Duncan, as both a patient and a mental health advocate, I like anything that improves outcomes for patients because that’s me. I want outcomes to improve. I do believe that therapists want outcomes to improve as well. It’s just we’ve always done it this way. Why do we need to change? Change is scary. It’s the kind of thing that you often go to therapy for. Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: Absolutely. You know, one of my favorite agencies of working with, they’re called Wesley Community Action, and they have a big poster in their waiting room and it says, We pledge to have as much courage as the people that we serve. We have to be courageous ourselves as therapists to make changes that we know are for the better, rather than saying the way we’ve always done them, because that’s where our comfort zone is. And we ask clients to make changes all the time. We ourselves aren’t willing to do it. Sad commentary on us, basically, but it takes courage to do things that are different. It’s hard for some therapists to get feedback that therapy is not helping. OK? Wouldn’t you rather know? It’s not helping them believing that it does and then the client drops out. You don’t know why some therapists are squeamish about getting direct feedback about the relationship. Those are incredible things for people to say to you because they’re trusting you enough that there won’t be some negative consequence by their being candid with you. And that’s exactly what we want clients to be with us is as candid as possible. It’s a gift when clients say things negative to you, because if you can work through that with them, it will build the alliance even stronger and the client will be more likely to benefit from the service. Gabe Howard: I like that, I like that a lot, Dr. Duncan, do you have any last words or comments on the topic? And also where can people find you online? Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: BetterOutcomesNow.com is the Web site, BetterOutcomesNow.com and there’s a section called Resources and there’s all kinds of free resources there, articles, videos about a lot of the stuff we talk about there, brief videos about. Lots of free stuff, in fact, 253 downloads are on the website. Gabe Howard: Wow, lots of cool stuff. Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: And something I’d like to leave you with is if you were a client in therapy, if you would like for that therapy to be accountable, it would be a nice thing to bring up to your therapist. And you could tell your therapist that he or she can download the measures for free from the website. BetterOutcomesNow.com and watch a video and could learn how to use them quite readily. They want to go so far as to read a book. They can do that too. In my book, What’s Right With You, which is written for a general audience, I recommend that you monitor the progress of your own therapy. Even if your therapist says that you do it, you monitor your own progress so that you have a sense from session to session whether or not you are gaining. And of course, that book tells you how to do that. There’s also stuff online that would help you how to do that. That’s a free download. Gabe Howard: And advocating for yourself as a patient is something that, well, Gabe Howard, Psych Central and pretty much every organization that I’m involved with highly recommend. Steer your own bat. I think that’s really the bottom line. When we wait for stuff to happen to us, we’re not really in control. And when we advocate for ourselves with our doctors, our medical teams and even in our own families, workplaces and general society, I think it really does impact our outcomes, our mental health and, of course, our overall lives. Barry L. Duncan, Psy.D.: Absolutely. Gabe Howard: Thank you, Dr. Duncan, and thank you to all of our listeners for listening. 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 for less money over a gabehoward.com and I’ll even throw in stickers from the show. Remember, we have a super secret Facebook page over at PsychCentral.com/FBShow. I recommend that you sign up for that. If you have any topic ideas, please, please, please send them to me at [email protected]. Wherever you downloaded this podcast, please, please subscribe. Use your words and tell other people why they should subscribe. Ratings are powerful 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.
The post Therapist or Patient: Who's in Charge? first appeared on World of Psychology. from https://ift.tt/35NIsPL Check out https://daniejadkins.wordpress.com/ Openly sharing our personal mental health stories can help others know they’re not alone, especially when it’s a rarely-discussed or taboo subject. In today’s Not Crazy podcast, our guest Rachel Steinman, a podcaster, writer and mental health advocate, discusses what it’s like to host a podcast where she shares her family’s mental health secrets.
By talking openly about her family’s four suicides, mental illness, substance abuse, family affairs, and more, Rachel is changing the narrative and replacing it with love, compassion, and understanding. And Please Remember to Rate & Review Us!
Guest Information for ‘Rachel Steinman- Value Mental Illness Stories’ Podcast Episode Rachel Steinman is a Los Angeles native who received her Masters in Education and has taught every elementary school grade, K-6. She’s even been the school librarian, a job she adored. Rachel never set out to become a writer, a podcaster, or a mental health advocate but that is exactly what she proudly calls herself after discovering her beloved grandfather’s unfinished memoir 24 years after he jumped from his high rise. Rachel is sharing her family’s story to rid the shame and stigma that come with family secrets and generations of mental illness. By talking openly about her family’s stories of four suicides, bipolar, depression, substance abuse, family affairs, and more, she’s changing the narrative and replacing it with love, compassion, and understanding. She’s also cutting generational trauma so she doesn’t pass it onto her precious daughters and to inspire others to share their stories openly. Rachel is a lead presenter for NAMI speaking about ending the silence to discuss mental health warning signs and offer resources and hope to middle and high schoolers as well as their parents. Rachel hosts and produces the Dear Family Podcast celebrating our complicated families and overcoming obstacles to find mental wellness. She lives in Studio City with her husband of 20 years, two beautiful, bright, and musical teenage daughters, and her adorable rescue puppy.
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 ‘Rachel Steinman- Value Mental Illness Stories’ EpisodeEditor’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. You’re listening to the Not Crazy podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I’m your host. And with me, as always, is Lisa Kiner. Lisa. Lisa: Hey, everyone, today’s quote comes to us from Ryunosuke Satoro, and he said, individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean. Gabe: I like quotes like this for so many reasons, but there’s lots of quotes like this, right? You know, just like. Lisa: It translates nicely into a poster. Gabe: Yeah, yeah, we do have the kitten doing the hang in there thing. Lisa: I love that one. That’s my favorite. Gabe: But isn’t it so overdone? Lisa: Yeah, but it’s a kitten. Gabe: But isn’t like the stronger together thing overdone as well. Lisa: Together, everyone achieves more. Gabe: Together, everyone does achieve more, and what makes me sad is not the glurge-y nature of the quotes or the simplicity of it or just the ughhhh of it. It’s the fact that we don’t know this. Like, do we really need a poster or a quote to tell us this. Is this not just like basic common sense? Like why don’t we have a quote that says, hey, if you hold your breath, you’ll die? Lisa: Good point, I never actually thought about that, why do we have all these quotes and the answer is because, yes, people do actually need it. Gabe: We also need a place for kittens hanging off stuff to get work. Lisa: Good point. Otherwise, what jobs are they really qualified for? Gabe: They could just be our little cuddlies. I don’t Lisa: Good idea. Gabe: I don’t know why. Lisa: Good idea. Yeah, that’s awesome. Gabe: I think it’s a good idea. You know, Lisa, we get mail. We get mail, comments just. Lisa: And we appreciate all of it. Gabe: We do. Thank you, everybody. And one of the things that keeps coming up is they ask us why our guests never share personal stories. And in fact, they referenced us saying, hey, we don’t have guests on to share personal stories. We’d rather debate a subject or discuss something or share their point of view. And the question specifically came up, so are you saying that personal stories are bad or are they stupid? Do you not like them? And first, I want to say unequivocally, if I couldn’t share my personal story, I would not have a podcast. Lisa: Good point, you’re sharing your story constantly, it’s a job description. Gabe: So there’s this little piece of me that thinks, hey, we made the decision because I don’t want the competition. That is not, in fact why I made the decision. The reality is personal stories are extremely valuable. And I encourage all of you to share. They’re just so well represented in the space. But you know what’s not well represented in the space? The opinions of people living with mental health issues and mental illness. I want to tell people what I want. I don’t want to tell them my story and hope that on the strength of my story, they get it. You should not treat me like shit. Why not? Because I am a person and deserving of respect. Rather than you should not treat me like shit. Why not? Hang on. Let me tell you a story of when somebody treated me like shit and it made me feel bad. We wanted to get into why we developed these opinions and how we want the world to follow us. Lisa: So, you don’t want people to have to infer what you mean, you want to just tell them. Gabe: Oh, yeah, that’s a much faster way of saying that. Lisa: Yeah, well, if it were up to me, it’d be a lot shorter show. Gabe: So, listen, I decided that we would invite our good friend Rachel Steinman over to discuss the power of storytelling. Rachel is the host of the Dear Family podcast. She’s an awesome mental health advocate and she knows a lot about getting people to share their stories and, of course, the value of that. So, Rachel, welcome to the show. Lisa: So nice to have you here. Rachel: Thank you. I’m thrilled to be here. Gabe: As I just mentioned, you are the host of the Dear Family podcast, can you briefly tell our listeners what that is? Rachel: Sure, it is a podcast where we celebrate our complicated families. We find mental wellness, and I interview inspirational people who have overcome obstacles and we talk a lot about family members that have mental illness or people that have mental illness and how they’ve overcome it or how they’re dealing with it. And we also talk about family secrets and the importance of just sharing stories and having open dialog to rid stigma and shame and find love and compassion and understanding. Gabe: And, Rachel, that’s exactly why we wanted to have you on the show. We’re all mental health advocates and in this case we’re all podcasters, which is kind of rare for us. It’s a unique occurrence, right, Lisa? We don’t have a lot of podcasters on our podcast. Lisa: Yeah. Oh, so meta, Gabe: I just wanted to set you up to use meta. Lisa: I know. I have to use that at least once an episode. Gabe: But, Rachel, we’re all mental health advocates, but we go about it very differently. Lisa and I believe very strongly in people with lived experience, sort of viewing the world and translating it for people who haven’t been there. And you believe very strongly in people sharing their stories and talking about what happened to them. And what I really like about your podcast is you really, really dig deep. It’s not fluff. It’s like you said, it’s no secrets. You dig into the family. There’s just a lot of debate about which one is right. And I kind of think it’s a stupid debate because I think they’re both right. Rachel: Well, I definitely appreciate your platform and I can see why it’s so important, but I’m coming at it from a daughter whose mother has bipolar, whose grandparents both died by suicide, whose brother was addicted to crystal meth and ended up homeless. And all these years of shame and no one really talking about mental illness. I wanted to change that narrative. I wanted to openly talk about it because I don’t want to pass this on to my daughters. I don’t want that generational trauma continuing. If we don’t talk about it, then that shame may continue or they may not feel comfortable speaking out. This really all began when I started writing and I wrote an essay called Grandpa and Anthony Bourdain, and it was after Anthony Bourdain took his life by suicide. And I talked about my family and so many people, private messages or publicly came out of the woodwork that I had known from high school and on and said I had no idea that you had that family. You hid it so well, I have something similar, or my mom or my brother or my husband or myself. And I realized literally everyone has a family member dealing with the mental health issue or they themselves are dealing with it. And let’s talk about it. Lisa: How specifically do you feel that telling these stories of other folks living with mental illness is helping people who do not live with mental illness? Rachel: I think it’s hugely helpful. I have heard and I love hearing this and I’m sure you hear this, that it really helps others find compassion for those that are suffering and maybe even find compassion for themselves. And that there’s no shame in asking for help or seeking therapy or talking about it. The more we talk about it, the more others talk about it. Right. Truth begets more truth. And my mom has bipolar. She was not diagnosed until her mid 60s. And for all those years, I was ashamed of my mom. I was embarrassed by her eccentricities and her vulgarity and her swinging moods. And now that I understand that it truly is a mental health disorder and it affects her brain, I have so much more compassion. And it’s made my mom and I so much closer. Lisa: And then how does your mom feel about that, how does she feel about you telling her story? Is she OK with that? Rachel: Well, at first, she was not at first, actually, when I started writing essays, because that’s how it began. She was not thrilled about it. She also saw things differently. And I think at one point it pushed her into a manic episode, which did not help. And then I felt guilty and there was definitely some tension because of course, here I am sharing her story publicly. Is it really fair for me to do that? Maybe not, to be honest. But then after my mom started reading them and realizing that there was value in sharing the story, she actually came to me and I’m so grateful. And she gave me her blessing and she said, you’re doing what I wish I could have done. If our story can help one person, then you have my blessing. And I have to say what a beautiful gift. Lisa: How long would you say that took between the time when you started and when your mom came around? Rachel: Not too long, I would say about a year, and I wanted my mom to be my first podcast guest because my podcast’s called Dear Family, and she said absolutely not. I don’t like my voice. I’m not interesting, all of these excuses. But I didn’t push it. And I ended up having my brother, but my mom ended up being my fiftieth episode. And it was so special. She was so open. She’s come so far. So in a way, I think me having this platform made her realize the importance of her voice and the importance of sharing her story. Gabe: Thank you for being so candid about telling your family’s story, because this is something that I struggle with, not with my family, because they’re OK with it. We apparently just have no scruples whatsoever. But the other people around me, I am surprised that sometimes I’ll see things on Facebook or I’ll get emails from somebody that I knew way back when. And they’ll be like, I heard this on the podcast or I read this in a blog that you wrote and I knew you were talking about me and I don’t like it. Take it down. Now, I don’t mention people’s names. I remove identifying stuff. But even though nobody could possibly figure out it was them from it, they knew it. And that was enough to really make them anxious or fearful or angry. How do you get around that with other folks? Because with your family, hey, you’re a member of your family and you’ve made a decision. But what about like a friend or if you saw your mom interact with somebody else and you’re like, well, this is a story that’s worth telling what my mom did to the store clerk, for example. And I’m just literally making stuff up because while you’re OK telling your mom’s story, are you OK telling the store clerk’s story and does it still have value? Is it just hey, these are paparazzi rules? It happened in public. Rachel: I want to answer your question, but I have a question first for you. Did you end up taking it down? Gabe: No, Rachel: OK, good. Gabe: No, I never did. No, of course not. And thank you for asking that follow up question. I didn’t take it down because hey one, I made sure that they couldn’t be identified. And plus, this is just life. And three, they did it. But moving all of that aside, where does that end? I mean, how much ret-conning of the past can I possibly do? How much editing and how much revisionist history? I mean, if I can start revising my past, I mean, I’m going to take aim at other things. Yeah, but I did feel bad. I guess that is the part that I want to say. It did make me feel uncomfortable. This idea that I was drudging up unhappiness for this person, I chalked it up to collateral damage. But how reasonable is that? Rachel: This all began when I was 40 years old, and it was twenty four years after my grandfather had died by suicide. My grandfather was a big real estate mogul in Manhattan and he had to, you know, the outside world, a perfect life. He had kids. He had grandkids. He had money in the bank. He was traveling. He had his physical health to still golf and play tennis. And yet he jumped out of his 14th floor balcony, actually, and died by suicide. I was 16 at the time. Twenty four years later, when I turned 40, his third wife passed away and I was allowed back into this high rise and I found his unfinished manuscript. His father died by suicide. His brother died by suicide and his wife. So that would be my maternal grandmother. Rachel: My mom’s mom also died by suicide when my mom was just 14 and no one ever talked about it. I found this manuscript and it blew me away, but it was incomplete. There was a lot that was never said, especially, the really important things. There was a lot of business acumen and all of that talked about. But what I was really searching for was missing. It set me on this journey to become his ghostwriter. And I started finishing his story and I realized I had a story to tell. And I am still working on this double memoir that spans five generations. But as I was writing it, I’m digging all this dirt. I’m talking about my family like you cannot believe, right? Talk about opening up a can of worms. I’m talking about my uncles, my mom, my dad, my childhood, my life, things I did that wasn’t right. But if you want to be authentic, you have to tell the truth. And this is my truth. I ended up writing this essay. Well, my family on the East Coast got back to me and were very upset, very angry with me. How dare you talk about Grandpa or my dad that way? They were very, very upset with me. Fortunately, Medium has it’s kind of like an RSS feed. You can change it and it updates. I was able to just say grandpa and get rid of the last name and that appeased them enough. But that was an awful feeling, knowing how upset my family was with me. And yet I totally stand by that essay to this day. I mean, if it’s my truth, it’s my truth. Lisa: So how does it turn out with your family now, are they still upset about that or have they also come around? Rachel: So, I’m an open book, so is my mom, some of the other family members are not. I also just recently my cousin was upset about how I mentioned her dad. And yet I know deep in my soul, I can sleep at night because it’s true. And that’s just kind of what I go on. I don’t know if all of them have come around. Maybe it’s selfish of me to say, but I’m OK if they haven’t. Gabe: How do you feel about the concept of it’s true to you? I think about how I see people and, you know, Lisa and I have this constant struggle and this constant debate about how Lisa sees her parents and how I see her parents. Now, they’re not changing for me, for her. The difference is, is I knew her parents only as an adult. And, you know, obviously they don’t like me very much. I divorced their daughter and there was a lot of turmoil. But in Lisa’s case, they raised her. They birthed her. So when I say, well, you know, your parents are mean and she’s like, no, they’re mean to you. So if I wrote. Lisa: They’re showing loyalty to me. Gabe: Right. So if I wrote an article called The True Story about Lisa’s Parents, I wouldn’t have to tell a single lie to make them look bad. But the reality is, is it’s incomplete. Right? I’m only telling the things that they did to me that I don’t like. And I’m therefore and I’m making air quotes, guys, speaking my truth. Do you think that people understand that? Do you think that when people read an article or listen to a podcast by Rachel or by Gabe or by Lisa, they understand that that is that person’s take and that it’s certainly possible, and in fact likely, that somebody else has a completely different take? Rachel: I love this question so much, because I think that that’s one of the things that writing taught me that helped me in podcasting, is that you have to make the person you’re interviewing a round character. They can’t be flat. That if someone read my article, they would find sympathy for my grandfather. It has to show both angles. So, Gabe, if you’re writing an article about Lisa’s parents, you need to include that part about how great they raised their daughter. And otherwise, it’s not, again, that word authentic. It’s not authentic. So one of the things that writing really helped me do is look at my grandparents, look at my mom, look at my brother, and not just see them as, oh, they just did this and they suck. It helps me look at the past. It helps me see how they were affected. My grandfather, his dad was a narcissist. He learned that from him. His dad died by suicide. So looking at someone as a three dimensional character, finding compassion for them, understanding the history, understanding from where they came is such a better story. Like some of the best storytellers, there’s a villain, and yet you can find sympathy for them. Gabe: Darth Vader, you’re describing Darth Vader, Rachel: Right. Gabe: Right? I just this Lisa: It was so sad when he died. Gabe: He terrorized people for three movies, but then Lisa: Well. Gabe: We saw him as this flawed character that got, I don’t know, Lisa: Redemption. Gabe: Just. Well, I mean, yeah, I guess it’s a redemption arc if we’re using fiction words. I like what you said there, Rachel. You know, the reality is this is an advanced life skill. People can be two things. I was very much angry about the divorce. I was angry that I had caused more problems. And then, you know, here’s this. These other people, they’re coming in and they’re essentially shedding light on their truth, which is that I was a bad husband, so I didn’t like that. Then in reality, you know, I learned that, hey, they can be two things. They can both not be very nice to Gabe, which is, you know, they’re right, I guess. And Lisa: Loyalty to me. Gabe: Exactly. And of course, they can be exceptional parents. That gave me my best friend and the woman who saved my life. Well, now what do I do with that? And I think that people struggle with this. And I think this is, to your point, Rachel, why these stories are so important to get out there, not because of our versions of it, but because of the discussions that come up around them. See, right now, when it comes to, you know, bipolar disorder and mental illness, especially in families, it’s never been discussed. I actually think that it is a real bonus that the whole family is emailing you and calling you and telling you that you got it wrong, that you mess this up, that you’re making us look bad, because while that discussion may be aggressive or even angry and hostile, it may well be the first discussion that any member of your family has had about these events in potentially their entire lives. And I think that gets us to a good place. Rachel: I totally agree. The moment that happened, I thought this might be the first time they’re all discussing this tragic event kind of with open eyes. What you said about the two sides, I actually think sometimes there’s three sides. I think there’s your side, their side and the truth. Gabe: I like that, I like that. Rachel: And the other thing that I will point out, I think that is a huge saving grace is forgiveness. By seeing the true picture and being able to step back, you are able to look at your family members’ past and find forgiveness. And that is so healing taking that weight off your shoulders. I was able to forgive my mom first for things that she did because I was able to understand that was her bipolar. My mom was able to forgive me for separating and pushing away from her because that was my coping mechanism. Having these conversations and being able to find that compassion leads to forgiveness. And I think if you can forgive, it’s your gift. Lisa: We’ll be back in a minute after these messages. 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. Lisa: And we’re back discussing the power of personal stories with podcaster Rachel Steinman. Gabe: Let’s talk about the next step in the evolution of open discussions or let. Lisa: I have a question. Gabe: I haven’t asked mine yet. Lisa: So do you feel that this has been beneficial to your family? Rachel: Absolutely by me kind of opening up the can of worms and forcing some discussions, like I said, my mom and I have never been closer. I was ready to kick my mom out of my life. She was just so erratic. And then once I started really digging deep, that helped me find that compassion and that understanding. It was almost like I put on new lenses and saw clearly for the first time. And I’m talking about going back multiple generations to my grandparents and to even their parents who I never knew, and seeing how this generational trauma can get passed down, how if you don’t talk about it, it can fester. So, yes, I’m so glad that I went on this journey. And if nothing else comes of this, which I don’t believe is true, it saved our relationship. Gabe: I like what you said about seeing things clearly, but I still worry about how clearly change is. And I again, I think about my own life and I have probably the most ridiculous example of this. Are you familiar with the TV show King of the Hill? Rachel: Yes, I don’t watch it, but I’m familiar with it. Gabe: Yeah, I loved King of the Hill. I loved that when it was on, I watched every episode when it was brand new. Now, when it was on, I was you know, I was young. I was I think it premiered when I was like 17 years old. And, you know, it ended probably when I was around twenty three, twenty four. And, you know, now with COVID and we can’t do anything, I decided to pop open Hulu and literally watch it from scratch. Now, for those who don’t know, you know, King of the Hill is about this conservative Texas family. This guy, his name is Hank Hill. He sells propane and propane accessories. And he’s this real quiet guy who likes football. And his son, who’s 12, is named Bobby Hill. Now, Bobby is the exact opposite and he talks a mile a minute. He’s a chubby kid. He hates sports. And he’s just a weird, funny little kid. And when I watch it the first time, I very much related to Bobby Hill. Right. He’s just trying to be who he is and make his way in the world and live his best life. I’m 43 years old now and I watch the exact same show again. Gabe: It didn’t change one iota. And I’m watching it. And I just completely related to Hank Hill. You know, here’s this guy who’s trying to live his best life. He has a kid. He’s got this idea in his head of what being a father is. And he doesn’t know how to connect to his son, who’s the exact opposite as him. And he’s just desperately doing his best. And nothing seems to be working. It’s the exact same show, Rachel. They didn’t change anything. The only thing that changed is I got twenty years older. I think this is why openly discussing our stories and talking about them and keeping them in, whether it’s the public consciousness or the family consciousness, is so important because as Lisa and I have discussed a million times, our parents were dumb as shit when we were kids. And then the minute we turned about 35, we realized they were geniuses, that nothing changed Lisa: So what you’re saying is then part of the benefit is that you’re able to reinterpret it with new eyes at a later time? I’m not quite sure what you’re saying, Gabe. Gabe: I think the benefit is that age provides perspective. I could not see things the way that my parents saw things because I was not under the pressures that they were under the reasons that my parents made, the decisions they did when they were raising me is because, well, they had other children to think about. They had a mortgage, they had jobs, they had other responsibilities. Gabe had no understanding of that. I just thought that my dad thought that I was weird and didn’t want to connect with me. And that’s why I liked the Bobby. Well, once I became older and I had my own struggles with managing work and making friends and connecting to the children in my life, I realized that, oh, hey, it’s not that my dad thought that I was a weird little kid that he didn’t like. It’s that my dad just had no idea how to connect with me either. And that’s what I saw in Hank Hill. We often talk about things right when they happen because it’s fresh and the crisis is right there. Can you believe mom did this? Can you believe Gabe said that? Can you believe this bad thing happened? And then we take the whole thing and we ball it up and whatever age and place we were in the world is the only way we ever think about it for the rest of our lives. So, however, Rachel saw her grandfather’s death at 16, becomes how she sees her grandfather’s death for the rest of her life. But by discussing it, by seeing that manuscript, by talking to other family members, you start to realize that there were things that 16 year old Rachel didn’t know. Now, again, I’m speaking a lot for Rachel all of a sudden. What are your thoughts on that? Rachel: So I interviewed a woman named Dani Shapiro, she is a New York Times best seller and she’s incredible and she’s a memoirist, which it stayed with me. She talked about how when you write about trauma, you can’t write about it right after it happens. The only people that can do that really are poets. You need time and space to look at things. And I definitely agree with that because if I had just thought about my grandfather the way I did when I was 16 and didn’t understand why somebody would take their life, when I thought they had everything, then I would still be stuck in that place of, in a way, feeling like he was selfish. And now, of course, I don’t think of that at all. I understand how somebody could take their life, that there’s so much pain that you wake up every morning, you feel like, what’s the point? And I never could have understood that at that age. Now, again, talking about how we change with age and how there’s that wisdom as we grow older. I remember looking at my parents, too, and thinking like they’re [beep]. Sorry. That they’re idiots. Rachel: That they’re idiots because they don’t, they don’t know. And I never want to be anything like them. And now I have teenage daughters and they will say things to me that I just laugh at. Like you don’t know or you’ll never understand or things like that. And I know that in 15, 20 years, they’re going to change the way they look at things. But yes, there is something really amazing about looking at things after having more experience. And I have to say being a parent definitely changes things. I’ve talked about this. I was a kindergarten teacher straight out of college who used to judge parents because they didn’t have time to read to their kids, or they would bribe their kid with candy. And I remember thinking, I will never do that. And then cut to I have my own kids. And so and then I feel guilty for judging them. But I think that, yes, the importance of storytelling is to see different views from different ages, also to talk about it. So, for example, my mom now has a label. We know she’s bipolar. Well, my girls know she’s bipolar. She’ll grow up looking at things differently than she would have had we not been able to talk so openly about it. Lisa: Ok. Uhm, Gabe: Hold up, let me say thank you real quick. Gabe: Thank you so much, Rachel, I really appreciate that. Rachel: Of course. Lisa: Oh, I didn’t know that’s what you were going to do, OK? I thought you were going to say thank you for being here. I thought, why would you do that when I have a question. But I understand now, never mind. Gabe: Rachel, I love so much that you don’t have a co-host like that, that’s how you set that up. You got to Lisa: See how much her life is lacking. Poor thing, I feel so sad for you. Gabe: No, her life is great. I’m just teasing, Lisa Rachel: Although, you guys definitely seem to have fun together, and I love that, it’s impressive. Gabe: I owe her a life debt, like I’m Lisa: Like Chewbacca, Gabe: I keep trying to get away from her, but I’m not allowed. I’m Rachel: She pulls you back in. Gabe: I mean, that part is kind of true. Lisa: I try. Gabe: In a way. We’re joking, right? But as you know, Lisa and I, we are divorced and that is unusual. They’re like, well, if you’re still friends and you like each other, why couldn’t you be married? As if as if Lisa: We get that a lot. Gabe: Marriage and friendship is are identical things. But in a way, Lisa knows my whole story with mental illness. That makes her extraordinarily valuable. I think it’s why people want to stay connected to their family so much, because your family knows like your entire childhood, like that’s a lot of bonding. I I’m not trying to say that Lisa and I are only friends because she saved my life. But I think Lisa and I might only be friends because she saved my life. That’s like an incredible thing to connect to people. It’s hard to break. I mean, she also likes Star Wars and that’s pretty bad ass. And we like the same restaurants. That’s Lisa: No, we don’t, Gabe: That’s true. We hate it. Gabe: Us. Trying to pick a restaurant is Lisa: No, we just go there because you’re too picky, Gabe: You will only eat at, like these weird restaurants that even Yelp won’t review. Lisa: All everything you pick is so boring. Gabe: And yet popular. Lisa: Any who Rachel: I love it, I love it. Lisa: Question for, a question for Rachel, question for the person here. So you’ve talked about the importance of sharing your story publicly on a on a large scale, on a podcast or online or in an article. What about do you feel there’s any value in maybe something on a smaller scale, like sharing with your coworkers or talking to the person standing next to you at McDonald’s? Rachel: Absolutely, I mean, that’s probably the most powerful right face to face, one on one, that’s like a true connection. And sharing your story by being vulnerable, by opening up yourself, it lets other people take their guards down and open up to you. I say this all the time, but by showing how people can overcome obstacles, like I love highlighting people that have hit real low points whether they were homeless or addicted to crack or whatever it is, and how they were able to ask for help, which feels weak but is actually the strongest, bravest thing you can do and then turn their life around. It’s so inspirational and all you need to hear is one story that can move you into action. So, yes, definitely. I think that’s so powerful that one on one connection. Gabe: Lisa, I really liked your question and Rachel, I did like your answer. I think that sometimes people believe that things only work on a grand scale. You know, if you can’t have a podcast like Rachel or a podcast like Gabe and Lisa or if you can’t have a huge following in a newspaper or. But that’s like so sad, right? I mean, could you imagine if Lisa would have seen something wrong with Gabe and instead of telling me her story or discussing with me, she would have just let it go and written a blog like that that wouldn’t have found me where I was. I wasn’t searching out this information. So in that way, Lisa is one on one conversation was infinitely more valuable than even the most popular podcast, because I wouldn’t have searched for it. I wouldn’t have read it. I wouldn’t have listened connect it. I thought that was for other people and not for me. And Lisa is one on one conversation with me connected to me where I was. I sincerely think in this age of, you know, how many likes do we have, how many followers, how many hits people forget that one on one conversations have just a tremendous amount of value, especially to the person that you’re having it with. Rachel: You talking about the connecting one on one, it just made me think of a story about my husband, who is a entrepreneur, and he’s been in the business world since college and has had some success. And I’m just very proud of him. And someone asked him who his mentor was and who he looked up to. And I would have come up with 10 other people and he mentioned his mom’s friend, this man named Myron, who he’s had multiple conversations with quietly. And it really kind of blew me away that that this one person made these connections and it was those the separate phone calls. And it just goes to show how reaching out and having those conversations one on one is so powerful. And I sometimes get private messages from people. And I have to say, look, I am not a therapist. I just have lived experience, but by me connecting one on one with them privately and making them feel like I do care about them and that they are important and that they can find help has been so impactful for me. Gabe: My sincere question is it really seems like every single person who has a mental illness or knows somebody with a mental illness immediately thinks that they need to start a podcast, write a memoir or a blog. And I don’t want to stop anybody from following their dreams or putting their information out there. I’m just wondering if some of those people are doing it out of obligation or because they think that’s the only way and are missing out on other ways for them to share. One of the examples that comes to mind is, is somebody hosting a podcast right now that would much rather lead a support group. And instead of leading the support group, they believe that they have to reach more people. And therefore, even though they’d be an incredible support group facilitator, they’re sitting behind a microphone and editing software miserable because after all, they’re reaching more people. Rachel: There’s probably countless podcasts dealing with mental wellness, I will say the fact that Lady Gaga and it’s every celebrity now is talking about their anxiety or just look at Tic Tok and the teenagers. I mean, it’s almost like Gabe: It’s very popular, Rachel: Cool to talk about Gabe: Yeah. Rachel: That, what you’re dealing with and struggling with, which, by the way, is fantastic that our kids are talking about it. But does everyone need to be have a podcast? No, probably not. And that was partly why I wanted to make sure that my platform highlighted other people’s stories, because it is important to get stories out there. But, yes, I totally agree with you. I think that there are other platforms that people can share their stories without having to start a podcast. And yeah, absolutely. We do need more support groups and we do need more probably like therapists, especially people of color. We need more cultural sensitivity training. And I would encourage that for sure if you are considering getting in the field and wanting to help. Lisa: Well, Rachel, thank you so much for being here today, where can our listeners find you Rachel: So my website is WriteNowRachel.com, that’s write, with a W and I am on all the social media platforms and my podcast is on all the podcasting platforms. Just search Dear Family. Gabe: It’s an awesome podcast I highly recommend it, and I hope you will check it out on your favorite podcast player or head over to WriteNowRachel.com. And remember it’s write. Like you’re writing. Rachel: Exactly, and I’m so excited because I’m having Gabe as a guest on my podcast coming up very soon, and we’re going to talk all about him and his family. Gabe: Yes, Rachel: Yes. Gabe: Turnabout is always fair play. Rachel, thank you so much for being here and listeners, stay Lisa: Yes, thank you. Gabe: Tuned, because now we’re going to talk behind Rachel’s back. Rachel: Awesome, I can’t wait to hear it, this later. Gabe: Of course, again, you can always tune in. Lisa: Again, Gabe: In. I don’t. It’s like our favorite joke. You know, we’re going to talk about your behind your back. It’s Lisa: It’s not our favorite joke. Gabe: It’s my favorite joke. Lisa: Why is Rachel interviewing you on the show and not me? Gabe: Well, Lisa: Aren’t we a package deal? Gabe: No, no, no, we’re divorced. Lisa: Fair. Gabe: The package deal part of the Gabe and Lisa relationship has long since ended by rule of law. Could you imagine this poor woman? Like she already spent a couple of hours in the studio with us to do this interview, and then we Lisa: She did. Gabe: Show up again on her show? For, for real? Lisa: Ok, there’s a point. She was very patient with us, Gabe: Do we dislike people Lisa: Very good sport, Gabe: That much? Lisa: Not her specifically Gabe: I’m the Star. Lisa: You are. You’re the Star. Gabe: Hey, Lisa, we went back and forth a lot when we were designing our show about the personal stories, and I know that I felt a little hypocritical not letting the personal stories on it, because that’s literally my career. I share my story for a living. It’s, that’s my keynote address. It’s literally called This Bipolar Life. And it’s about my life living with bipolar disorder. So I felt a skosh hypocritical. But at the same time, we looked around and there just wasn’t any shows where people were just tackling life or the subject matter through the lens of people living with mental illness. I just want people with mental health issues and mental illness to tell people what they want, advocate for it and fight for it and not be ambiguous. I think that has just as much value as sharing our stories. Lisa: Of course it does, but why does it have to be one or the other? The whole point is we can have two approaches to this problem. Gabe: This is the most fascinating thing that we deal with on this show, where people hear that you advocate for one thing and they immediately believe that you are against something else, could you imagine this playing out in the real world? Gabe, what do you want for dinner? Pizza. Oh, you hate spaghetti? You anti-spaghetti? You marching against spaghetti? No, I. I just wanted pizza. I’m not giving any thought to these other things, nor am I trying to push them down or not pay attention to them. And when appropriate, I like spaghetti. I like spaghetti a lot. Lisa: You just want to make clear that just because this is not something we’re focusing on here; we don’t have anything against it and we support others focusing upon it. Gabe: Yeah, we also don’t talk about Marvel movies, which I’m obsessed with, but it’s not the space for it. Lisa: Gabe, your point is that promoting one idea or one approach does not mean that you’re bashing another one. Gabe: That’s exactly what I’m trying to say. We coulda saved the whole hour. Lisa: Yeah, Gabe: This show could have been 10 minutes. Lisa: Yeah. Gabe: Hey, you’re listening to the Not Crazy podcast. This is Gabe. I’m here with Lisa. Lisa gives a quote. Hey, just because we promote one idea does not mean we’re bashing another. There’s room for multiple pathways to recovery. We need to be open to things. Yay! All right. Hey, everybody, thank you for listening to The Psych Central Podcast. Shit. Lisa: That would be a very odd show for us to have. Gabe: Yeah, Lisa: Yeah. Gabe: This is what happens when your host more than one show, but sincerely, sincerely, all I want people to know is that personal stories have incredible value, as Rachael established better than we ever could. The power of getting in touch with your past, of sharing it with like-minded people, of, she didn’t use these exact words, but of finding your tribe, of making amends with family members. Like this is what openly discussing our stories can do. And it was sad, Lisa, when we got the emails where people were saying, oh, so you’re saying that these stories have no advocacy benefit or that these stories are not a good idea, that you don’t encourage people to promote their stories? I was very bummed that people got that message. The reality, Lisa, is we need them both. Remember when I testified in front of the General Assembly and Lisa: Mm hmm. Gabe: Here are all these senators, and if I gave them a fact, their eyes glossed over, if I told them about something bad that happened to me because of these laws or lack of resources, then all of a sudden, their eyes widened like, oh, my, how could this happen to a person? And you and I learned very quickly that the marriage of fact and personal story, the personal story grounds it, the fact gives them an entry point of something to fix. So I am fascinated by this idea that the two things would ever be at odds given how intrinsically connected in my mind they are. Facts are valuable, saying what we want is valuable, advocating for ourselves is valuable. But the reason we do it is always connected to, frankly, something bad, traumatic, or awful that happened to us in the past that we want to ensure doesn’t happen to anybody else ever again. And I think that’s worth discussing. Lisa: Well, the personal is political. Gabe: Exactly, I just don’t think it’s worth discussing on the show, not in a bad way. Lisa: [Laughter] Gabe: Thank you, everybody, for listening to this week’s Not Crazy podcast. Wherever you downloaded the show, please subscribe. Also rate it, rank it, review it use actual letters to form words to tell people why they should listen as well. I am Gabe Howard. I am the author of Mental Illness Is an Asshole and Other Observations. You can, of course, get it on Amazon, but if you go to gabehoward.com right now and buy the book, I will sign it and I will give you a whole bunch of Not Crazy podcast stickers absolutely free. Don’t believe me? Lisa will hold me to it. Lisa: Lisa will actually be mailing the books, so no worries, there’ll be stickers in there. Gabe: Stick around for the outtake at the end of 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: Value of Personal Mental Illness Stories first appeared on World of Psychology. from https://ift.tt/3oyXf9c Check out https://daniejadkins.wordpress.com/ What’s the worst that could happen? And who will you still be regardless of the outcome? In today’s podcast, Gabe talks with author Shira Gura about her newest method CLEAR, a tool we can all use to prepare for an upcoming event or situation that is causing anxiety. Worried about an upcoming exam, a date, or a party where you won’t know anyone? Join us to learn a great method to help CLEAR your head before you go.
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Guest information for ‘Shira Gura- Mentally Prepare’ Podcast Episode
Shira Gura is an emotional well-being coach. Her background as an occupational therapist, yoga instructor, and mindfulness teacher led her to create two powerful self-help tools: The unSTUCK Method® and The CLEAR Way®. She is the author two books: Getting unSTUCK: Five Simple Steps to Emotional Well-Being (which was awarded winner of the 2017 International Book Award in self-help), and most recently The CLEAR Way: Five Simple Steps to Be Mentally Prepared for Anything. Through her coaching, courses, and community, she guides people to live more deliberately. She lives in Israel with her husband and four children. 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 ‘Shira Gura- Mentally Prepare’ EpisodeEditor’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 Shira Gura. Shira’s background is as an occupational therapist, yoga instructor and mindfulness teacher. And it led her to write the book The CLEAR Way: Five Simple Steps to Be Mentally Prepared for Anything. She’s also the host of the Living Deliberately Together podcast. She makes her home in Israel with her husband and four children, Shira, welcome to the show. Shira Gura: Thank you so much. It is so great to be back. Gabe Howard: Well, I am very glad to have you back again now, given all that is going on in the world with COVID-19 being mentally prepared for anything seems more important now than perhaps at any other point, at least in my lifetime. How does your book fit in with everything that’s happening in the world? Shira Gura: Yeah, I actually think obviously when I was writing the book starting last year, this is before COVID hit and I had no idea that the publication of the book was going to come out at the same time during the hit of this pandemic. And it is a wonderful tool for the time period that we’re in right now, because as we’ll get into in the podcast, it’s a tool that helps prepare you before you go into any future moment. It really helps ground you and helps you be ready. Gabe Howard: It sounds like a great, happy accident, and I’m one of these people that I try to stay away from the extremes, you know, black and white thinking has gotten me personally in trouble. It’s interesting to me, because if I would have read the title of your book a year ago, Five Simple Steps to Be Mentally Prepared for Anything, I would’ve been like anything? Really, anything? But as we did the pre work for the show, I was like, look, if it works in a global pandemic, we might be as far along the path to anything as we can possibly get. So I’m so glad that you wrote the book. Shira Gura: I am, too. Gabe Howard: All right, as we mentioned at the top of the show, you’re a returning guest, so I want to spend just a couple of moments on your previous book and your previous episode where we talked about getting unSTUCK: Five Simple Steps to Emotional Well-Being. Just real quick, sort of baseline it for long time listeners to the show that have heard both episodes. What’s the difference between the unSTUCK method and the CLEAR Way method? Shira Gura: Both tools are really used for emotional well-being, but the unSTUCK method you would really use for something that happened in the past and the past could be a minute ago and it could be 10 years ago. I got stuck on anger. I got stuck on frustration or I was stuck on guilt, are things that already happened. And I’m stuck on them because I have an emotion attached to a story that already happened. I use the unSTUCK method in order to get myself out of the hole, out of that stuck spot. But the CLEAR way is a tool that you use for the future. If you are going into a presentation, if you are anticipating a difficult conversation with someone, if you are about to go to work, if you’re about to work with a client even and you want to just get clear for yourself before you start work, this is where the CLEAR way would be used. They are both powerful self-help tools that are step by step because they’re both based on acronyms, but they are really used for two different purposes. Gabe Howard: Can you give us some examples of where you would want to get clear in your life? Shira Gura: If you can think about any situation where you have a feeling of worry or concern or anxiety or fear going into that moment, this would be the tool that you would use. For example, I got clear before we started this interview. Gabe Howard: Nice. Shira Gura: I got clear. Yeah. And it’s not that I was having so much anxiety. I do interviews a lot. But again, it’s a future moment that I’m not sure what to expect. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if the Internet is going to work. I don’t know if I’m going to stumble on my words. So I need to get clear. Gabe Howard: Thank you so much. And when you pitched being on the show, you said, hey, would Gabe be willing to be a guinea pig and give his own problem and be walked through the CLEAR way? And I thought, hey, why not Shira Gura: We did it on the first episode, and it worked well with getting unSTUCK. Gabe Howard: We did, and it was a lot of fun and I learned some stuff about myself, and I really think that the listeners understood the example, so we’re going to try it again. So can you walk me through the CLEAR way? Shira Gura: I would love to do that, the first thing that we need to know is what do you need to get clear about? So you can think of anything. But we need to pinpoint one example in your life where you have feelings of anticipation, of worry, of concern, of fear going into a future moment. Gabe Howard: I think that’s perfect. I have my first live speech since March coming up in a week. Obviously, I’ve done virtual stuff and continued hosting the podcast, but Gabe Howard in a room with an actual audience whom could throw tomatoes at me, first time in many, many months in a week. Shira Gura: That’s fantastic, that’s a great example. Let’s do that. OK. Gabe Howard: Excellent. All right, what’s step one? Shira Gura: So this is an acronym, five steps, C L E A R, so the first step is C is for calm. It very much relates to the unSTUCK method with the first step, S, was stop. It’s basically the same thing. This is a step where you take a moment to redirect your attention away from the story, away from the future, away from all of the emotions that you’re feeling. And we’re going to bring it to the present moment so that you can allow your mind to rest for a moment. So we’re going to eventually deal with the emotions and kind of go to rational thinking. In order to do that, we really need to get ourselves in a place of calm. And this doesn’t need to be long. It doesn’t need to be a 30-minute meditation. It could be just one deep breath or a few deep breaths, but something even symbolic to say, OK, I’m getting clear. I’m going to start. And the first thing that I’m going to do is get calm. Gabe Howard: Yeah, I’m going to take a real big, deep breath. I don’t know if it will come through on the podcast, but I want to assure the listeners that that I’m doing it. Shira Gura: Ok, and while you’re doing it, if you want, you can close your eyes and you can imagine yourself in the place where you’re going to give the speech, you’re about, let’s say, to walk up the steps to the stage and you’re going to give your speech. And in that moment, you say, I’m getting clear. I’m going to first, I’m going to get calm. Gabe Howard: All right. Shira Gura: All right, the next step is L and that’s for Lighten. When you are going into a future moment, when you have all of these emotions, you probably have emotions that are feeling heavy, right? Emotions of fear and worry and anticipation. Those are heavy feelings and they affect us physiologically. So the next step L for Lighten is we uncover what are the thoughts that we have about the situation as we’re going into it? And then we see if we can lighten our thoughts by slightly changing our language. We’ll do this together. See if you can uncover a thought that you have that says something like, I know something is going to happen, some sort of negative thing is going to happen. Gabe Howard: I know that I’m going to be out of practice, I know that I’m going to stumble over words. I know that the delivery is not going to be as pristine. I mean, it’s been months. There’s just no way that it could be. Shira Gura: Yeah, great. Perfect, and that’s so important for you to uncover what those thoughts are, because they’re there. They’re there in your mind Gabe Howard: Yeah, they are. Shira Gura: And oftentimes we don’t even know or just it’s unconscious. So we’re uncovering them. Now, you’re saying I know I’m going to be out of practice. I know I’m going to stumble. I know my delivery isn’t going to be perfect. And the question is, do we really know that? Do we know what’s going to happen in the future? The truth is, we don’t know. We have no idea what’s going to happen. Right? And so we change our language to it might happen. It’s a possibility that might happen. But we take away like the I know, which is a really heavy thought. And it really kind of creates that reality, like I know it’s going to happen. So that’s what’s going to happen as opposed to I have a feeling that might happen. But you can even hear in my voice, it lightens. It lightens your thought and it affects you again physiologically. Can you try one or two of those changing the language? Gabe Howard: I’m pretty pessimistic by nature, but I can say that you’re right, saying I know is arrogant, right? I can’t see the future, so I can certainly see for Gabe Howard changing it from I know this is going to happen to I think that it might happen or even I’m concerned that it could happen, which I can hear the difference. I’m worried that something will happen. Is a far cry from I know it’s going to happen. I worry about a lot of things that don’t come true. Shira Gura: Yes. Gabe Howard: So you’re right. It does feel significantly lighter. Shira Gura: But the language that we use in our lives is so important for our emotional and mental health. I think it’s something that people just don’t even think about. But it is really important how we use our language. Let’s go to the next step, which is E and this is for Expect. And so here we’re going to uncover what are your expectations, what are your hopes, what do you wish for? What do you want to happen? Gabe Howard: I want, like a standing ovation and fireworks and people cheering. Reasonably, I want a good speech, a good presentation, an engaged audience, I want people to laugh at my jokes and, you know, nod at the serious parts. I want engagement, but I want the audience to behave how I expect the audience to behave. Shira Gura: Awesome. Those are wonderful uncovering of your expectations and it’s so important to uncover your expectations because this is typically what gets us stuck when our expectations aren’t met. You want a standing ovation, you want fireworks, you want cheering. You want a really great speech. You want engagement. That sounds like the most important thing is you want the engagement. You want the nods and the laughter and the Gabe Howard: Yes. Shira Gura: Ok, awesome. Right now we’re going to go to the next step. You ready? This one’s kind of tricky. OK. A is for Accept. In this step, we are going to radically accept the opposite of what it is that you want so that if the expectations that you actually want aren’t met, you’re not going to get stuck because you will have accepted in advance the possibility that that was going to happen anyway. In this step we’re not wanting, right? We’re not saying, we’re not wanting the opposite of what we want to have, that’s not what we’re doing. We’re just accepting the possibility that the opposite of what we want may happen because it might. And if it does, and that’s reality, what are you going to do with it besides accept it in that moment? Gabe Howard: So just to clarify a little bit, you know, in my case, I could accept that the crowd would boo and get up and leave, but I think that that’s too far, too extreme. I don’t really see any, I don’t, I don’t see any scenario where that would realistically happen. Realistically, the worst-case scenario is that the audience is bored. It’s probably important for somebody doing this method to not go so extreme. Like I’m going to accept that the audience throws tomatoes at me. That’s probably not a good use of the method. I’m going to accept that the audience is bored. Would that be better? Is like reigning that in smart? Shira Gura: Yes, amazing, so I hope that I’m going to have amazing engagement, right, and I can radically accept that I might not have amazing engagement. Right? Gabe Howard: I’m accepting that there ho-hum. They’re going to be polite. I’m not giving a speech to a hostile crowd, no matter how bad I am, they’ll give the cursory applause at the end. And yeah, I’ve never had tomatoes thrown at me and I’ve never been booed. But I’ve certainly looked out at the audience and seen a lot of people checking their phones and watches and that has happened before. If so, that’s the absolute worst-case scenario and it doesn’t happen very often, but it feels crummy when it does. Shira Gura: The question is, can you accept that now? Can you accept that that’s a possibility that might happen? Gabe Howard: I can, I can, Shira Gura: Ok, great. Gabe Howard: Yes, I can accept that, that they will think that I am ho hum. And they will politely golf clap as I leave the stage. Shira Gura: Good, so I can accept the possibility, right? Gabe Howard: Yes. I can accept the possibility that they may be bored. Shira Gura: Yeah, it’s just a possibility, right, again, not what we wanted Gabe Howard: Yes. Shira Gura: It, but it’s a possibility, Gabe Howard: Yes. Shira Gura: You can’t move forward if you’re being held back behind. So it’s really important that you can be able to just accept it as a possibility, which you did. Great Gabe Howard: We’ll be right back after we hear from our sponsors. Gabe Howard: Hey, Psych Central Podcast fans, before we get started, we’d love for you to take a brief three minute listener survey so we can better understand our audience, which is all of you. Go to PsychCentral.com/Survey20 to complete it now. Everyone who completes a survey will automatically be entered into a drawing to win one of two $75 Amazon gift cards. Special thanks to Savvy Co-op for their survey support. And that Web site again is PsychCentral.com/Survey20. Void where prohibited by law. And now, on with the show. 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 speaking with Shira Gura, the author of The CLEAR Way: Five Simple Steps to Be Mentally Prepared for Anything. Shira Gura: Last step, R. This is for responsibility. This is where you take responsibility for your way of being, not your way of doing and not your way of having, but your way of being. Who is it that you want to commit to being in an adjective form? So that no matter what happens, there’s not engagement, they don’t laugh at your jokes, you stumble, no matter what happens, you still stay grounded and committed to your way or ways of being. This is where you take responsibility for yourself and you release responsibility of anything outside of you that you don’t really have control over. There’s endless ways that we can be maybe one or three words. What kind of speaker do you want to commit to being? Gabe Howard: I want to commit to being a confident, professional, unflappable speaker. I really feel that the best speakers are ones that don’t attack their audience or their clients or. The best speakers also understand that let’s say that there’s 100 people in the audience and it only takes about 40 or 50 percent of an audience to make the audience seem like they’re uninterested. It’s certainly possible that you got through to 20, 30, 40, 50 percent of the audience. I like what you said about taking responsibility because so often I see speakers get angry at their audience. And I think that’s, that’s not the way this works. They don’t owe you anything. You’re there for them. They’re not there for you. So I like the take responsibility. I like that. I want to be a professional, unflappable speaker. Shira Gura: Good. Awesome. Now, wait a sec. Gabe Howard: Who projects confidence. Shira Gura: Awesome, awesome. I want you to know what you just said again. I really believe language is one of the keys to mental health. I want to be a professional, confident, unflappable speaker. That’s the last thing you just said. Right? I want Gabe Howard: Yes. Shira Gura: To be and listen to how different it is from I want to be that kind of speaker to I am committed to being that kind of speaker. You hear the difference? Gabe Howard: I do, I do. I want to be a good husband versus I’m committed to being a good husband. Like, who do you want to be or who do you want to marry? Somebody who wants to do it or somebody who’s committed to doing it? Shira Gura: Exactly. Gabe Howard: I think of my own relationships and yeah. Yeah, I don’t want somebody that wants to be in a happy marriage. I want to be with somebody who’s committed to being in a happy marriage. Shira Gura: Exactly. Gabe Howard: I think we all understand that in relationships. We’re spreading that out. Right to everything else. I know I’m asking a lot of like questions in between, but yeah, I, you’re right. If my wife came to me and said I want to be happy in our marriage, I think, oh, that doesn’t sound good. But if she said I’m committed to being happy in our marriage, I’d be like, all right, all right, let’s do this. Arm in arm. Let’s go. Nice. I like it. Shira Gura: It’s a different story, right? Gabe Howard: It is, it is. Shira Gura: And it’s like one word, it’s one word, but it changes the world, it really changes the world. So your ways of being are like an anchor to a ship. OK, that is how you are grounding yourself. They are in your ways of being. That’s who you are. So no matter what comes your way, if you’re on a ship and there’s going to be waves and there are going to be waves, right. Things are going to happen. It’s not going to be a smooth run in your marriage or in the talk or in this interview or whatever. Nothing is ever 100 percent smooth. So no matter what happens, your ways of being are your anchor. And so it’s exactly what you’re saying. It’s like I’m committed to doing this. It’s not that I want to be these ways, because if I just want to be these ways, the anchor is going to get unleashed. You know, you’re going to float away. But if you are committed to being these ways, that anchor is going to stay in the ground. So it’s perfect, it’s exactly what you said. And so that’s the last step. And of course, if you want to go more into this work in that last step, what you could do is you could visualize your future self. So what does a confident speaker look like? What does a confident speaker say or act or how does he behave? The next level would be creating your future self ahead of time, seeing yourself ahead of time, being that person and then manifesting it. Gabe Howard: I like it and I can see how it fits together now. Now, just to recap, CLEAR stands for? Shira Gura: Calm, Lighten, Expect, Accept, Responsibility. Gabe Howard: And again, it’s for stuff that’s coming up in the future, so this is what I’d use for my first day of work or my wedding day or even something as simple as my parents coming to visit or my spouse coming home from work. It’s broad appeal. Shira Gura: It could be anything. I worked with my kid last night, he started a new school and he’s 12. The kids in his school have been together since the age of three. And he’s the new kid on the block. And he tends to be shy and he wants to make friends. And no one is really approaching him. And he wanted to approach kids to ask them if they want to play baseball, because here in Israel, nobody plays baseball. They don’t even know what baseball is. But my kids have baseball mitts and they have a baseball. And he wanted to say, does anyone want to have a catch with me, but he was stuck. Right? He was stuck on fear of rejection. And so I sat with him last night before he went to sleep. I said, let’s get clear. Let’s get clear on who you’re going to be no matter what happens, no matter if they reject you and they say no or they say, yeah, let’s have I’d be happy to have a catch with you. Gabe Howard: I like that example a lot, so how can our listeners learn these tools, are they difficult to learn? My question is, is it difficult to learn? My listeners’ question is, is how can they learn? Shira Gura: Yeah, the tools are not difficult. They are simple, right? That’s one of the reasons I created these tools. I created them actually for myself. And then I of course, I teach them to other people, but they are simple to learn. And it’s not so much are they easy to learn or difficult to learn. It’s more of how can I get practice in using them? It’s one thing to acquire a tool. It’s another thing entirely to say I practiced in it. I know how to get unSTUCK from anything. I know how to get CLEAR from anything. And that doesn’t happen overnight. That happens over time in community with people, working with people. That’s really how this happens. So in terms of where you can learn about it, I have two books. Gabe Howard: Yeah, where do they find them? Shira Gura: You can find them on Amazon and you can find them on my website, ShiraGura.com. But what you can also find on my Web site is a course called The Living Deliberately Blueprint. And inside of this course are videos of me walking people through both tools step by step. There are worksheets. There are guided meditations. And in addition to lots of other goodies that are inside of that course, anyone who enrolls is invited into my private Facebook group and free monthly gatherings. So it’s a community, and then it’s, again, the practice. Gabe Howard: Shira, thank you so much for everything. Thank you for helping me with my speech. Next week, I’ll drop you an email and let you know how it goes. Shira Gura: I would love to hear and I would encourage you to get clear minutes before or half an hour before whatever. It’s not enough that we did it here. I would encourage you to do it again, like really have it fresh in your mind and really see yourself on that stage before you go up there. And good luck with it. Gabe Howard: You know, I really like that, and I like that it also becomes something to occupy your mind. As somebody who suffers from anxiety, my mind often ultra focuses on the worst-case scenario. It sounds like by going through the CLEAR method, I can keep my mind occupied on that. Now, again, if you don’t have anxiety or, you know, your mileage may vary, but for me, it gives me something proactive to do to concentrate on. Do you find that in your work? Is that accurate or am I just making stuff up? Shira Gura: No, absolutely, absolutely. In fact, I’m leading a challenge right now inside of my private Facebook group and every person in the challenge is practicing to being one thing. This is broad range. So one person is practicing to be a non-overeater, one person is practicing to be a nondrinker and one person is practicing to be friendly. I mean, it’s really broad. And what I recommend them to do is every single day wake up and affirm out loud who are you being? Because if we’re practicing to be somebody that we’re not typically being, then we’re going to forget. We’re just going to be our default selves. As you wake up every day, and you said, I’m committing to being a loving wife. I am committing to being a nondrinker. You really set the stage for the day by affirming who you are being every single day when you wake up. It sets you up for the day. And like you said, it gives the mind something to rest on in a positive way so that your mind doesn’t slip back into that default place of negativity, which happens for everyone, because that’s just how the human mind works. Gabe Howard: Anything that prevents people from slipping into negativity, I think is its own success. Once you start to think poorly about something, you create a self-fulfilling prophecy. At least that’s been my experience. And certainly, being able to distract your mind with something proactive and positive, I have to imagine, creates a powerful end result. Shira Gura: It totally does, and I’m doing the challenge, by the way, I’m participating and I am committing to being a loving wife. It’s not that I’m like a mean wife or something like that, but I’m probably not like the most loving wife I could be. And I said, you know what? This is what I’m going to work on for 30 days. And I’m constantly finding myself saying this throughout the day. You are committing to being a loving wife, right? Because sometimes it’s not easy. And I just keep saying to myself, in the morning I say it, when my husband comes home from work, I say it, and I just and it’s great. It’s so helpful to have those words in my mind as a reminder, who is it that I want to be? Gabe Howard: Shira, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate having you. Shira Gura: Thank you so much for the interview. It was really great to see you again. Gabe Howard: You’re very, very welcome. Hey, everybody, 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. 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