Latest / You're Not Too Much / Mute Your Wonderwall Because I'm Clicking Things!

Transcript

Mute Your Wonderwall Because I'm Clicking Things! · You're Not Too Much

• 0:00
  Okay, so we don't usually do this, but we got a review on iTunes, which
• 0:03
  is amazing. Thank you so much for doing that. It says, I find
• 0:07
  it incredibly refreshing to listen to someone talk about things that I thought were only
• 0:10
  being discussed in my own head. There are so many people roaming this planet
• 0:14
  who actually don't have official diagnoses but feel different. And it turns out when you
• 0:18
  start living authentically and doing what makes you feel comfortable, you are different, not broken.
• 0:22
  And that is like 100% what this is about. And
• 0:26
  an official diagnosis doesn't change who you are, and
• 0:30
  it honestly in our country doesn't even really change your access to that
• 0:34
  many services. That's not meant to dissuade you from getting one if it's something
• 0:37
  that's important to you. If you want to pursue that, I 100% support you and
• 0:41
  I'm in your corner, go do it. But there are also people who just need
• 0:44
  to be validated. Like they just need to hear that there are
• 0:48
  people in this world who from a from a very
• 0:53
  almost capitalistic perspective are considered very successful,
• 0:57
  who have the same things running around in their brains that you do,
• 1:01
  and that you can be all of these things all
• 1:05
  at once. You can be complicated and you can be introverted and you can
• 1:08
  be weird and quirky and all of the things that make
• 1:12
  us the tapestries that we are and still have all the things you
• 1:16
  want in life. Maybe you have to modify them to fit
• 1:20
  the world that you need to live in, or maybe you have to approach them
• 1:23
  differently, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. It just means
• 1:27
  that not everything is for everyone the ways that we traditionally access
• 1:30
  them. So thank you to whoever left this. You are a delight,
• 1:34
  and I like you a whole lot. I liked you before you left this, but
• 1:38
  I like, like you like a tiny bit more now. That's not true, but it's
• 1:41
  a little bit true. And It's just nice to see that. But
• 1:45
  to know that some of you who are listening are getting the same benefit from
• 1:48
  it really does mean a lot. So thanks, guys.
• 1:54
  All right, here we go. I'm gonna pretend I'm pushing record because that feels right.
• 1:58
  Okay, I'm pressing record. Boop. Hi
• 2:02
  everybody, I'm Lauren Howard. Welcome to Different
• 2:05
  Not Broken, which is our podcast on exactly that,
• 2:09
  that there are a lot of people in this world walking around feeling broken, and
• 2:12
  the reality is you're just different, and that's fine. Fine. I'm gonna go on the
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  record as saying this, and I will
• 2:20
  not be taking criticisms or feedback at this time about it.
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  You will not convince me otherwise. This is my experience, and I
• 2:28
  believe it is a universal experience, but
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  that also might just be my gigantic ego talking.
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  Loud music makes food taste bad.
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  Full stop. Food does not taste
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  good when your ear holes are being assaulted.
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  You— is impossible. There are people in this world, and I say
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  this not being critical of musicians at all,
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  good for you for getting a gig, good for you for playing,
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  good for you for working on your craft. I'm so supportive of you
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  doing that. However, I did not realize,
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  or did not put thought to, the fact
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  that there are people in this world who go to restaurants with live
• 3:19
  music on purpose.
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  I do not understand this. I support your
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  live music. I might even go see your live music.
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  But if I'm going to a place to eat a sandwich, I
• 3:35
  would like a quiet sandwich.
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  I— my experience is not enhanced by you singing Wonderwall.
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  I'm sorry. I support you singing Wonderwall.
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  I might even like you singing Wonderwall. If you gave me a
• 3:51
  recording or like an iTunes link of you singing
• 3:54
  Wonderwall, I would probably listen to it repeatedly. I was
• 3:58
  gonna say a cassette tape. I don't know if that's a thing anymore.
• 4:03
  Is that a thing? I don't think it's a thing. If you gave me a
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  cassette tape, I would hold it dear and close to my heart, but I would
• 4:09
  not play it because I don't know how to play a cassette tape anymore. I
• 4:12
  don't have one of those. But that was what in my— actually, I think in
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  my brain I saw like an early 2000s burned mix CD.
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  That's more, but also I don't have a thing to play that on either. Little
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  limited, but I will absolutely
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  consume your music. I will. I bet I'll like it too, because I like a
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  lot of music. But I just want to eat my French
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  fries in peace. And I cannot
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  concentrate on the things my taste buds are telling me
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  when you are in my ears wailing about a champagne supernova.
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  I love you dearly, and again, I support you
• 4:50
  in that. I do.
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  However, loud music makes
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  food taste bad. And so I will
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  not consume my food and your music at
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  the same time, unless it's very quiet. And I don't
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  think you want to play your music very quietly live,
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  because you're not like Raffi singing
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  lullabies. Though, if you
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  were, I might listen to you while I'm eating. I might,
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  because that sounds a little bit soothing. Anyway, this is not,
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  this is not a criticism of, this is not a criticism of musicians, and
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  it's also not a criticism of restaurants that have live music.
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  I'm just saying that I don't, I don't engage, and if you
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  have live music, I'm probably gonna go somewhere else. Or,
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  I'm not going to enjoy my food, and I don't like to go out to
• 5:49
  eat to eat food I don't enjoy. So good for
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  you. I support you in pursuing your art.
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  Also, please just let me eat my sandwich.
• 6:09
  Every fucking time I get on a recording,
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  every goddamn time, these people start messaging
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  me like I'm not available to them
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  200 other hours a week.
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  Hide alerts. Seriously, 12
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  messages in the time that I did that.
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  Ah! Stop.
• 6:54
  No, I'll make it worse. I'll make it worse. One of the first
• 6:58
  messages is, I think Lauren's recording right now.
• 7:19
  Yeah, it's a group chat. It's a group chat. So they think they're bothering each
• 7:22
  other, forgetting the fact that I'm still on the
• 7:26
  group chat.
• 7:33
  Ah, okay,
• 7:37
  okay, I did this one. Okay.
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  All right, this one's a little silly. I don't— this is probably gonna be like—
• 7:51
  I say it's gonna be like 30 seconds and then I just open my mouth
• 7:54
  and start talking and it doesn't end, so whatever. I like hearing my own voice.
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  As you get older, you start to realize— well, you start to get
• 8:04
  more comfortable with the weird things that you do. You stop apologizing for them as
• 8:08
  much, even if they can sometimes be embarrassing. Like, you just stop
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  caring as much. And so there's that. But you also start to— I
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  don't know if— I don't know if we notice them more. I'm much more aware
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  of the things that I do that are just like— I don't want to say
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  not normal because I don't like the idea of normal, but that other people don't
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  do. Let's put it that way. Other people don't do these things. And then
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  you especially notice them, especially notice them big,
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  gigantic, big when you make small versions of
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  yourself and they do them, especially
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  if you haven't taught them to do them. So
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  my assumption, and I could be wrong here, but my assumption
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  is that people in general do not have
• 8:53
  emotional, physical reactions to computer keyboards.
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  I feel like that's probably a pretty solid assumption.
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  There may be a handful of us in the world, but for the most part,
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  people sit down in front of a computer and use a keyboard and they don't
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  think about the quality or size of the keys or the,
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  or the sound of the click that it makes, or how quickly they can type
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  on them. That's probably like a, like, I don't like the word normal.
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  But like, I feel like most people in the general populace,
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  that doesn't come up for. That is not
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  my experience, and it has literally never been my experience.
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  We used to go— there used to be a mall by my house when we
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  lived in Louisiana, and it was a brand new mall, and right by the entry
• 9:37
  was a Radio Shack, and right by the entry of the Radio Shack were
• 9:41
  all the keyboards. And we would walk into the mall, and you would immediately
• 9:44
  lose me into the Radio Shack, where I went in to touch all the
• 9:48
  keyboards because I had to type on all of them and I knew which ones
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  I liked best. And I got people— I used to like,
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  I used to boggle the mind of my computer teacher when I was in middle
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  school because I could already type like 80 to 100
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  words a minute in middle school. Not because I had a reason
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  to type that fast, but because I would
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  just sit down in front of keyboards and practice. Because I liked touching
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  keyboards. I just liked it.
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  I still do. Every now and then I'll buy a
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  new keyboard just to test it out. I don't think that's what people do.
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  I don't think people buy new keyboards just to see what the keys feel like.
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  Shut up. Leave me alone. Shut up.
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  I have a keyboard right now that I think is the best one that I've
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  had. And it replaced the previous one that was the best one,
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  which is the same one, but the previous one had very tall
• 10:45
  keys, and I don't have very big hands, and so my
• 10:49
  hands would literally get tired out typing on it
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  because they were very tall so that you could press down hard
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  and get an extra clicky noise. Because if it's
• 11:00
  not clicky, get the fuck out of here.
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  Give me my keychron with my blue keys or get fucked.
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  Anyway, so I had the other one and now
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  I have— and I eventually, after doing
• 11:16
  an unreasonable amount of research for something I didn't need,
• 11:20
  you would think I was looking for like a new prosthetic or something. No,
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  I was trying to figure out how to make my hands less tired
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  or feel less fatigued. From typing on these big
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  giant keys without losing my clicky
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  clicky clicky. And I eventually found this keyboard
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  that is a low profile keyboard that still has the
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  clicky clicky clicky switches. Oh,
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  it's the best keyboard. It's so good. It's so good.
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  I don't tell people, I mean, obviously I don't tell people about this until I
• 11:55
  say it on my podcast that gets downloaded 5,000 times a day. So apparently I
• 11:58
  do. Tell people about these things, but
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  it's not like I walk around and like share
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  my love of keyboards with people before this very moment,
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  except for like maybe like one, one internet
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  post ever. It's not something that comes up often. This is something that
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  I do by myself without involving people
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  who have slightly more baseline interests.
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  When I— there was a period where I purchased a few keyboards trying
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  to resolve this situation where the keys were too high, and
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  then I had my Apple keyboard and those were too low, even though
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  occasionally I will break out the Apple keyboard because I
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  just— that's how I want to type that day. That's how this brain works.
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  I'm sorry. It's just how it works.
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  And so. I would test them out or there would be a problem with it
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  and I returned to them. And
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  every time I would return them, my now 9-year-old
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  would, would like, as I'm boxing it up, would be like, what are you doing
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  with that? I'm sending it back.
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  Can I have it? No, I don't.
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  I'm, I don't want to spend, we don't need it. You, we don't need another
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  keyboard. I don't want an extra keyboard. It was expensive. Oh,
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  okay. Before you put it away, can I type on it?
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  Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Here. So she would like, oh, okay. She was like, no, you're
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  right. I don't think that one's as good. That's fine. And I would send it
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  back. Now that I've found my holy grail keyboard,
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  that the only thing that could make it better is if it was like, if
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  it was white instead of black, I would like it to be white. That doesn't,
• 13:41
  that's fully aesthetic. It does not change the typing experience. But I would like
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  it to be white. Now that I have found my holy grail keyboard, this
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  child comes into my office fairly
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  regularly and as if there's,
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  as if there's an end date on this, says,
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  are you done with your keyboard yet?
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  No, that's my keyboard. I use it for work. Oh, I just figured. I like
• 14:10
  that keyboard. Can I have, I would like to have that keyboard. Can you get
• 14:12
  me one? No, you have a keyboard and she has,
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  she actually has the other version of this that my husband got for like
• 14:19
  $30 that has the, it doesn't, it has brown switches. These are the
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  things I know. It has brown switches, not blue switches, so it's not as clicky.
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  And she doesn't know these things. She just knows that it does
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  not feel as satisfying to her as the one on my desk.
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  And according to her, there's an expiration date on the one on my
• 14:40
  desk where it becomes hers. And so anytime
• 14:43
  if I set up a new computer, sometimes I have to set up computer for
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  staff, computers for staff members. If I get in a new keyboard that
• 14:50
  like has to go out with somebody, if I pull one out of our, we
• 14:53
  have like a tech closet that sometimes we use to, for staff and things.
• 14:58
  If I pull one out of there, she'll come up. Can I try it?
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  Yes, you can try it, but this is not the, this is not the the
• 15:07
  trait that I wanted you to get. I have a handful of really good
• 15:11
  traits that I would love if you had. Some of them you do, but this
• 15:14
  is not the one that I wanted you to have. The other day I made
• 15:18
  her flippin' day because I bought a new mouse. It
• 15:21
  was $10 cuz my old mouse, the scroll wheel stopped working because I
• 15:25
  might, I might be a little aggressive with my technology.
• 15:29
  Maybe a little bit. Shut up. Anyway, and so I bought a
• 15:32
  new mouse. And it was $10 and it was fine and it was very
• 15:36
  clicky, very satisfyingly clicky, but the scroll wheel was
• 15:40
  very slow. And my, if my brain
• 15:43
  works faster than your scroll wheel, we have a problem. And that's
• 15:47
  a lot of pressure to put on a scroll wheel because my brain works insanely
• 15:50
  fast. But for the most part, we figure it out. Anyway, this one was not
• 15:54
  fast enough. So I bought another $10 mouse, different. This one's kind of
• 15:57
  cute. It's got flowers on it. Anyway., and I put the old one to the
• 16:02
  side. When this child walks into my office and goes to go get a piece
• 16:05
  of paper off the printer, walks past me, sees that there is
• 16:09
  an unattended mouse, leaves her course that she
• 16:12
  is supposed to be charting, goes right to the mouse and starts clicking it.
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  And she's like, oh, this is a good one, mom. Mom, this is a good
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  one. And I was like, well, I'm, I'm actually done with that one. Do you
• 16:23
  wanna use it? The look in her face, you would've thought it was
• 16:28
  Christmas. You would've thought it was her birthday and Christmas and Hanukkah
• 16:32
  all wrapped into one. She was like, I can really have this? I can really
• 16:35
  put it on my computer? 'Cause it's so clicky and I want it to be
• 16:38
  that clicky when I do my schoolwork. Go for it,
• 16:42
  kidlet. I made her entire day. So anyway, I don't
• 16:47
  think that the general population— I'm trying really hard not to use the word normal
• 16:51
  'cause normal is bullshit, but I don't think the general
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  population has these feelings about keyboards. If you
• 16:59
  do, let me know. We could start a
• 17:03
  club. It will be a very small club, but we will love it.
• 17:07
  But this is how my brain works, and I'm going to make the
• 17:12
  assumption that many of you, though not
• 17:16
  keyboards, many of you have a thing along
• 17:20
  those lines. That you are an inexplicable expert
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  at, that you know everything about and have a
• 17:28
  lifelong fixation on. This is not a hyperfixation. This is
• 17:31
  a lifelong fixation. I could tell you these things about keyboards when I
• 17:35
  was 8 years old, before we like
• 17:39
  regularly used computers for everything. Thankfully, I had
• 17:42
  a dad who was a giant nerd, and so I, I was born
• 17:46
  in 1986 and we had a computer in our house in
• 17:51
  1986. Uh, because he just liked nerd things. I, we had, I
• 17:54
  still somewhere have an original Commodore 64 and all the
• 18:00
  games. I don't have anything to plug it into, but I do have
• 18:04
  somewhere a Commodore 64. And my dad being my dad, we
• 18:08
  had the little, literally the floppy disk, the big floppy disk box,
• 18:12
  not the, not the hard disks that we called floppy disks, 'cause that was
• 18:15
  stupid. The big floppy disk box of every game
• 18:19
  you could imagine. So this is— maybe this is his fault, maybe this
• 18:23
  is some version of passed down generational trauma, I don't know. But
• 18:28
  anyway, there's a thing that you do that is like this,
• 18:32
  and I want to know about it.
• 18:36
  And you can tell me about it at
• 18:41
  differentnotbroken.com/voicemail. Where you can also call in and tell me about all the spectacular things
• 18:45
  you've done on our brag line. Anyway,
• 18:49
  what— I want to know what weird thing you do. It's not
• 18:53
  weird, it's particular,
• 18:56
  and I want to know about
• 19:20
  it. We have a question from Kayla in Tallahassee,
• 19:24
  Florida. I noticed that when I finally slow down, everything I've been
• 19:28
  avoiding emotionally shows up at once. It makes rest
• 19:32
  feel dangerous. How do you rest without opening the
• 19:35
  emotional floodgates every single
• 19:44
  time? If you have that much
• 19:48
  backlog, then that's actually the issue you should be
• 19:53
  discussing. Why— not why, I understand why,
• 19:57
  but, you know, you deal with stuff like that by chipping
• 20:01
  away at it a little bit at a time. You know, how do you eat
• 20:04
  an elephant? One bite at a time.
• 20:07
  And if you're, if you're
• 20:11
  being deluged by all of these
• 20:15
  things that you have not processed every time you try to turn
• 20:20
  off, then you probably need to start processing. And
• 20:23
  that doesn't mean that that should replace your rest, but it does mean that it
• 20:26
  might be time to look for some good help. To talk through those
• 20:31
  things because your brain in general doesn't torture you with
• 20:35
  things for sport. Like, it might feel like it does, but there's
• 20:39
  usually a reason why, some sort of
• 20:42
  psychological or whatever reason why. And maybe it's something
• 20:46
  that you need to go to therapy and figure out how
• 20:49
  to manage those thoughts better so that it's not— so that they're not torturing
• 20:53
  you. Or maybe it's Medication, maybe there's a diagnosis for it.
• 20:57
  Maybe there's unprocessed trauma. Maybe there's all sorts of things that you, that you would
• 21:00
  need to talk to a clinician and somebody who actually is
• 21:04
  qualified to talk about these things. But you
• 21:07
  should not be hit with a tidal wave
• 21:12
  of things that you have not processed every time you try to shut
• 21:16
  off. And that doesn't mean like, there are a lot of people in this world
• 21:18
  who are just bad at shutting off, who feel like they should be productive all
• 21:22
  the time and feel guilty when they're not productive all the time. And it, and
• 21:25
  it becomes like this vicious cycle. But that doesn't sound like what you're describing. What
• 21:28
  you're describing sounds like every time you
• 21:33
  stop, you try to stop moving, the things you're running away from are standing right
• 21:38
  there. And that's because that's running away doesn't—
• 21:41
  you can't run, you can't outrun trauma, you can't outrun grief. It's always
• 21:45
  there. We think we're smarter than it, but we're not. So it just sounds to
• 21:49
  me like it's time to go talk to somebody who can give
• 21:53
  you actual clinical direction. And the direction might not be clinical. They might say
• 21:58
  like, nothing wrong here. There's just, you know, you just
• 22:01
  don't deal with this type of stimulation well. And if you have this, you'll be
• 22:06
  fine. But more than anything, it kind of sounds
• 22:10
  like there's a lot of unprocessed stuff there. And the only way to get rid
• 22:12
  of unprocessed stuff is to process it. And that's gonna be
• 22:16
  a whole lot more work than trying to shut off for a few hours on
• 22:20
  a Saturday. Aw, somebody liked my Avenue Q
• 22:28
  reference. I do know who Amy P. is. She is a somebody who I
• 22:31
  truly adore.