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Are you who you think you are? · Head Shrink Inc.

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Hey, this is Doc David, Dan Bates with Hedgefrink Inc., and we're we're actually in the same room today, and uh we're gonna talk about derealization.
0:11
SPEAKER_02: It's hard to say.
0:12
SPEAKER_02: I I don't even know what that is, but let's all educate you and let's listen in and be educated today.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: Hey, it's Doc David, and we are um here talking with or I'm here talking with Dan, my bro, and we both have kids and busy schedules, and so we're not often able to get into the same room.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, we're just oh come on.
0:59
SPEAKER_02: Stop.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: My knee is in between his legs next to his crotch, and it just is awkward because we're we're trying to share a mic and then cast gas, so it's so bad.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: All right.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: I kind of want to start over, but I don't because this will make me laugh when I listen to it later.
1:21
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: So, hey, we are two therapists that work with families and couples and talk about life with them and help them figure out relationships and difficult challenges going on in their life.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: And we like to talk about a variety of things.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: Um Dan definitely talks about things that are more uh heady, I guess.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: More he's the deeper thinker between the two of two of us, and I tend to be the more practical thinker.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: That's deep stuff right there.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: Alright, so what are we talking?
1:53
SPEAKER_02: So, Dan, what are we talking about today?
1:54
SPEAKER_02: Derealization?
1:55
SPEAKER_01: Is that what you is that what you so let me let me spin you a scenario?
2:00
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let me flip you a circumstance.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let me float a story by you.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: Float a log my way.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay, float it.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so imagine that you are going through your your normal life and just something triggers you, so you get really stressed, you get really fatigued, or some something clicks.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: You don't know what exactly happened, but something clicks in your brain so that you start feeling that everything around you is fake.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: So you think everything is fake, or you start thinking everything you're experiencing is fake.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: Literally not real.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: You feel like it's not real.
2:46
SPEAKER_02: Like so I I guess so the coffee in your hand that you're drinking, if this was you, you'd be saying I'm drinking nothing?
2:54
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: So like like let's say, so let's say I'm I I this happens to me and you're talking, and I just think like you're not real, or what you're saying isn't real.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: Or or let's say what I'm thinking isn't real.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: So like what I'm feeling, thinking, just my own existence is not real.
3:17
SPEAKER_02: Right.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: Um now you may think, oh, you're at the movie set of one of Christopher Nolan's newest films, like Inception or whatever, but you're not.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: So this is this is a phenomenon called derealization or depersonalization.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: And it's actually something that happens to people after trauma or people who have like a uh organic brain problem, like they're experiencing psychotic episodes.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, it can also be a part of bipolar, like really extreme cases of bipolar, really extreme cases of depression.
3:55
SPEAKER_02: So is it a mental health issue?
3:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's called disassociation.
3:59
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
4:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know what disassociation is.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: So, but it's not, it's so a lot of people hear that and they think DID, dissociative identity disorder.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: This isn't that.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: This is a little different, although it can be a part of DID.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: So disassociation is when uh, and you break it down into two categories derealization, where you feel like everything external to you is fake or not real, or depersonalization, which you feel like your own thoughts, your own self, your own feelings, your experience is not real.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: Um now you may think like, well, that sounds kind of interesting.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'll try that out.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: That sounds kind of weird.
4:41
SPEAKER_02: Try it out.
4:42
SPEAKER_01: But but the the reality is, see how I, you know, reality right there?
4:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: So the reality is people who experience this feel extremely powerless.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: They feel extremely um not frightened, but almost angry because they they don't want to be ripped out of their experience or they don't want to feel this necessarily.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: It's not interesting, it's really an awful experience.
5:07
SPEAKER_02: So so it's interesting because I well what I think is interesting is I just having a conversation in um the supervision group that I lead where there's a woman who experienced like intense physical abuse in her upbringing.
5:23
SPEAKER_02: Right.
5:23
SPEAKER_02: And now as an adult is trying to reconcile kind of herself as a parent and what she does and how she feels when she gets upset.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:33
SPEAKER_02: And um she ends up, she actually takes care of this abuser like it's her dad.
5:40
SPEAKER_02: So she takes care of him, and he's in a nursing home and she goes and visits him and takes care of him.
5:44
SPEAKER_02: And we were just talking about this cognitive dissonance that happens, like there's this part of her that says, Yes, this abuse really happened, and I have kind of disassociated myself with that abuse.
5:57
SPEAKER_02: But then there's this other part of her, I need to be a good parent, a good child, and take care of my parent and accept their phone calls when they call.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: And so it's like these it's this weird cognitive dissonance that's happening with her, and it almost like when you're talking about this depersonalization um or the what was the other one?
6:20
SPEAKER_02: The derealization, it almost sounds like that is something for her, like she can't believe.
6:26
SPEAKER_02: I haven't talked to this woman, so it's just like third party that I'm hearing this, but she it's like she can't believe that she's in this situation, but she doesn't know how else to do it.
6:34
SPEAKER_02: Like she disassociates herself from the feelings related to how she really feels about her dad.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, is that no, not not really, because I would say that's more like denying your feelings or like suppressing them or cognitive dissonance.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: It would be more of what I'm saying if she had the feelings and she thought they were not real, like it wasn't a part of reality.
6:57
SPEAKER_02: So, how does that what does that look like?
6:59
SPEAKER_02: Like if if you're in an office with someone doing counseling, or if you see somebody just out in public, okay, uh what would these look like?
7:10
SPEAKER_01: So let let me let me kick you another scenario.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: Okay, kick it.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: So a father and a daughter, and let's say the daughter is having some mental health issues where she's having basically psychotic breaks, she's having these episodes of derealization or depersonalization.
7:28
SPEAKER_01: So, what that looks like is the daughter will become extremely aggressive and basically won't be open to what dad says because she feels like what dad is saying or just himself is fake.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: Like it's not real.
7:43
SPEAKER_01: Like when you're in that state, so people who live in this state for a really long time actually are at risk for suicide because it's you just don't feel like anything's tangible, you don't feel like it's it's actually real, it's it's a horrible feeling.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so like this daughter, for example, will go and use drugs to try to snap herself out of that derealization experience.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: So you you know, extreme risky drug use, or or just acting and behaving in a way, a way that's not consistent with who they were before the episode, because they don't they don't feel like their actions have a consequence in the real world.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
8:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you what you're saying is that it's so like walk in front of traffic, use drugs, uh be abusive towards your loved ones, uh just as just in a like an attempt to like snap yourself out of it because it feels so disorienting.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't feel like it has a real life consequence.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's that's the nutshell of it.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: What you do feels like it doesn't have a real life consequence because you think it's fake.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like imagine the matrix for a second.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: You you you you you snap out of the matrix for a second, then you go right back in with that understanding of that it's fake.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: So you could go kill people or be Neo and fly around and do all sorts of mind-bending things because it's not real.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: So imagine that, but in real life, like someone having the matrix in their own head.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: Like they've they've untethered from reality and then they they think what life is isn't real.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: So I I could see how that's could potentially be closely related to like schizophrenia.
9:29
SPEAKER_02: Right?
9:30
SPEAKER_02: Like voices telling you to do something?
9:32
SPEAKER_01: No, because I think so.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: It depends on the case.
9:35
SPEAKER_01: There are some schizophrenics who have the voice and they know it's fake.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: There are some schizophrenics who don't think the voice is fake, they think it's real and they follow it.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: That's called a um what is that called?
9:50
SPEAKER_01: An imperative voice.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: The voice gives them commands.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: Um and in that case, you know, the schizophrenic is obedient to the voice.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: Or there's other cases, like I said, where they know the voice is there, or um, I heard of a case where the schiz the the pay the client would imagine like a really terrifying kind of deer-like creature.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: They knew the deer was fake, they could throw things through the deer, they could do all kinds kinds of things to disprove the deer was real, but they couldn't stop seeing the deer, and it was a very frightening experience.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: So this is a little different.
10:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm I'm just trying to wonder how to do it.
10:29
SPEAKER_02: But it can't be a component of it.
10:30
SPEAKER_02: So as a therapist, I'm just trying to wonder how that looks.
10:33
SPEAKER_02: Have you worked with somebody like this before?
10:34
SPEAKER_02: I have.
10:35
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: I'm wondering how that looks in my office.
10:38
SPEAKER_02: Like, how do you talk to somebody about, you know, this is real life, but they're saying no, it it's a feeling, or it's like they believe it.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: It's something in their brain that's disconnected them from reality.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: So, like, my experience of working with it in the room is you're talking to them and they kind of give you that look like they think you're full of crap.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: And you like ask them why, and they can't tell you.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: Like they just think like I'm not really like my kids look at me?
11:14
SPEAKER_02: No way.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, a little bit, because like the last session I had with a person who was dealing with this, they they smirked at me.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know what I mean?
11:22
SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, right.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
11:25
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm like, you know, I'm trying to help this person, and they think that I'm just basically kind of a delusion.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: And so everything I'm saying may sound good, but it it for them, their experience of it was like, this is total craziness.
11:43
SPEAKER_02: So it's hard for me to wrap my mind around that because I think it is it a do you think it's an ongoing 24-7 type thing, or it's it it comes and goes?
11:55
SPEAKER_01: It can be.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: So people can have it for a period of a minute to a few minutes to several years.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: And those people who have it for several years typically commit suicide because it's such a horrendous experience.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: Like you would so this client of yours, if they have it just non-stop, it it's like how, yeah, how could you function in the world?
12:16
SPEAKER_02: Why would anything matter?
12:17
SPEAKER_02: That's like exactly why have Christmas, why have holidays, why give presents, why why not beat up on your um your family members?
12:26
SPEAKER_01: So there was a case of a guy a few years, uh actually pretty recent, down at that hotel, Motel 6.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, and he was having a psychotic break due to drug use, and he viciously beat his two-year-old child and threw him out of the window on the second floor.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: So the kid was like in critical care, and the guy was arrested, um, and then he came out of his his drug-induced psychotic break and was like aghast at what he had done.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: So, but he felt like his kid wasn't real.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: Right.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: So, like whatever he did to his kid, even viciously bait his kid and throw him out of the second story, didn't matter.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: Like it didn't have a real life consequence because the kid wasn't real.
13:15
SPEAKER_02: So, within that psychotic break, there was that depersonalization.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it was a drug-induced dissociative dis dissociative state where they felt like things weren't real and they could do things, and and it's almost like it I so I've seen people respond different ways, like they try to do crazy things to kind of test the limits, see if it really is real, almost like a way to disprove it.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: So I think they're still trying to rationally work their way out of it.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: Like, if this if everything really isn't real, then I shouldn't be able to walk in front of a car, so I'll go try it.
13:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, or I shouldn't be able to do this, and so they gotta they they go and try to disprove it.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: Um so the other thing that's interesting about this is you mentioned trauma earlier.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: I think people dissociate in a kind of survivalistic protective way.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: So let's let's talk about this.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: So if you're being assaulted or raped or killed or murdered, or some some terrible physical violence is being done to you.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: Now, not if not everyone has this, but some people will dissociate from that experience and almost watch themselves from like a uh a witness, you know, they're their out-of-body experience.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: They're emotionally numb and they're out-of-body experience.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: Um that's a dissociative state, and in some ways that's actually kind of healthy.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: You you don't want to be having a first-person experience of rape or being beat up or whatever.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, so in that regard, it's it's actually kind of good.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: And people, you mentioned domestic violence and abuse, people are experiencing DVA will have be uh they'll dissociate.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: The problem is is that uh that survival mechanism keeps operating, keeps, keeps going, even when you're in positive, healthy situations.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: So you could be having great pleasure, great joy, euphoria, feeling content, whatever.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: And that um because I think it's that it uses the same hormone system for a stress response.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: So there's something called stress and eustress.
15:34
SPEAKER_01: Eustress is E U S T R E S S.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: It's positive stress.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: You feel it when you do a performance or you have sex or you do something fun.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: I think because that the stress shares the same hormone system, if you're feeling something really good or something really bad, it triggers that dissociative state and it rips you out of your experience.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: So it's it in a way it's a joy killer.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: It's it's a painkiller and a joy killer.
15:59
SPEAKER_02: Well, I can see how a person that um so so with the holidays around how people dread having this one relative around because they just do weird things, or people could people that are people get diagnosed as antisocial when in reality maybe they're just trying to figure out what's real in life versus what's not real.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: Um it's still hard for me to wrap my mind around that.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: Like I I can understand the psychotic break piece, but for people that are in that 24-7, it's like how can they keep jobs?
16:37
SPEAKER_02: They probably don't keep jobs, or they probably don't keep long-lasting relationships because people say, I'm just fed up with your crazy behavior that you're doing.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you're describing the what is it, chronically and persistently mentally ill.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: Right.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: Can they recognize it?
16:54
SPEAKER_01: Like can they recognize that that's something that when you talk to somebody on the street and they're having a conversation with the the light post, and you say, Hey, how are you doing?
17:06
SPEAKER_01: and then they say something about like, hey, I thought you were going to meet me here.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, they say something could totally nonsensical, so you try to reason with them and their responses are more and more irrationality.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: So they can't pull themselves out of that experience.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: Right.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's more or less like kind of that's more about hallucinations and delusions.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: This is something separate, but it can be a part of schizophrenia.
17:33
SPEAKER_02: So um what so you let's say you know somebody that has that kind of issue, mental health issue, what do you do?
17:41
SPEAKER_02: Like how how do you interact with them?
17:45
SPEAKER_01: So I think I think there's a couple things you can do.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: Definitely get a psyche vow and then go see a prescriber.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: So you need medication at that point, you need to be under psychiatric care.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: Um be at a hospital, be at an inpatient treatment center, go to a psych ward.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: You need care.
18:06
SPEAKER_02: Um it's something that can be regulated with medication.
18:11
SPEAKER_02: I think so.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: And I think there's also other behavioral things you can do because I've I've worked with people who, for all intents and purposes, are perfectly normal, but they have these dissociative states.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, so they're not psychotic, they're not schizophrenic, they're not having severe mental health issues, but they've had trauma in their past, and so they will dissociate if they get too stressed, or even at times they're not even anticipating.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: So at that point, if you're kind of that lower level dissociative disorder, um, there are things you can do behaviorally to work your way out of it.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: I think part of it is uh you have to uh you know, at very first blush, uh just recognize that it's happen happening.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: You can so like you said, there are those cases where the people can't recognize it's happening.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: There are other people where it's it's a lower level of severity and they can intervene on themselves.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: They can recognize, okay, I just dissociated right there.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: Um, or this is okay, this is crazy that I think David's not real right now.
19:20
SPEAKER_01: Or it's crazy that I think I'm not real or my feelings aren't real.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I recognize that that's irrational.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: And then you take an additional step.
19:31
SPEAKER_01: So I think at that point you do some basic DBT things.
19:35
SPEAKER_01: Um DBT is dialectical behavior therapy, and it's it's really effective for high and low mood swings, uh, really intense emotional states.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: So I think what you can do is just do radical acceptance, accept that you are having a dissociative state.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: Because if you try to fight against it, I think that actually gives energy to the dissociative state.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: If you try to push against it, if if you resist it, you know, you don't like that it's happening and you don't want it to happen.
20:03
SPEAKER_02: So it's interesting you're saying you're talking about this because every once in a while, like when I'm at home with my kids, I I think I I have I'm not saying that I'm disassociative, but I think I can't believe I have am I really I have this many kids and I'm this old.
20:21
SPEAKER_02: It's just I I I don't feel like I'm 46, and I realize, wow, I've got a lot of kids and I've been married a long time, and I just kind of think, is this even real?
20:32
SPEAKER_02: Right?
20:33
SPEAKER_02: I'm not but now I'm sounding now I'm sounding like I'm disassociate disassociating, right?
20:39
SPEAKER_01: But I don't but I think actually I think it's it's actually a broader experience that a lot of people have.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: So I I think there's some legitimacy to that.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to be psychotic to relate with this.
20:53
SPEAKER_01: I think everybody's experienced it on some level.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: The problem is when you can't work your way out of it.
20:59
SPEAKER_02: Well, I just am wondering, I was just interacting with a couple last night where the guys may be having a midlife crisis, and I wonder how it relates to midlife crisis when you start kind of contemplating where you're at in life and where you thought you were gonna be when you were eight, you know, when you were 18, you thought, oh, when I'm you know 35, I'm gonna be in this place and then you're 35, and then you're not in that place.
21:20
SPEAKER_02: And instead of dealing with the realities of the commitments that you have in life, you think, oh, I don't like it, and so then divorces happen and affairs happen and things like that.
21:31
SPEAKER_02: Now, I I'm not saying that that's disassociating necessarily, like the mental health thing that we're talking about, but I I think the mind is I mean, mind is a powerful thing, yeah, definitely.
21:42
SPEAKER_02: Um you have a blog post about it?
21:47
SPEAKER_01: I have a blog post about it.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: It's on uh DanielBates.co.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: Um and uh yeah, I've got more suggestions on things you can do, but you can definitely check that on the blog and I I think for for myself what it comes down to is uh just putting the message out there that if you are struggling with that um there is help and it's not a hopeless situation.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: You can do things to intervene on yourself or you can get outside help.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: So you don't if you are experiencing it, you don't have to just accept it as this is gonna be your life, this is your destiny.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: You can change it.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: And the reason that you might want to change it is because people who live in that state for long-term periods of time commit suicide.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: Because you know imagine if you couldn't trust reality.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: That is it's not interesting.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: It's not a uh kind of a fun supposal or whatever, it's a really horrible experience.
22:49
SPEAKER_02: Right.
22:49
SPEAKER_02: And I think that people uh even as you're talking about it, it's hard for me to wrap my mind around it.
22:54
SPEAKER_02: I know it's a real thing.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: But I think uh a typical response from people would be, well, that's just dumb.
23:00
SPEAKER_02: Of course, this is real life that we're dealing with.
23:02
SPEAKER_02: And I think that a response like that is not helpful because it doesn't address it.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: This is like an internal brain thing.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, people who say that have a functioning brain.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: Um their rationality is operating.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: Um there was another case where uh it was interesting, a guy um he had some brain damage, and so the part of his brain, the limbic system, was severed, was damaged, so it wasn't operating.
23:31
SPEAKER_01: So he was he described himself as a pure logical being.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: He had no feelings or emotions.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: And he committed suicide because when you don't feel so so think of like the depersonalization part of it.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: If you can't trust your feelings, then why feel at all?
23:48
SPEAKER_01: It's a moot point.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: Feelings are misleading, they're lies.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: So you have to kind of sh be shut off emotionally, you not yourself.
23:56
SPEAKER_02: Well, and I think a guy like that, I mean, he knows he's supposed to feel right something, and if he tries and tries, and he just and you can't intellectually do it.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: Um people have Asperger's they feel something, yeah, at least.
24:12
SPEAKER_02: Now it may not be appropriate to the circumstance that they're currently experiencing, but wow, to not feel it all so this was this is a different case where he had it's like a brain damage.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: It's an emotional feeling, it's not like a physical touch type feeling, is it?
24:27
SPEAKER_01: No, not tactile, emotional.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: So the the limbic system is is what's responsible.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: It's a very primitive part of the brain that's responsible for basic emotion.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: And his brain, that there was a severing essentially from the his cortex, his neocortex, and uh that emotional part.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: So he he was kind of just a pure, he was like a spark.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: Um and what he quickly found out was it was a horrendous experience.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: To not feel anything is awful.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: And and really emotion guides a lot of almost everything you do.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: The logic piece of you, the analytical piece is is kind of almost the secondary piece.
25:11
SPEAKER_01: Um and that fits with brain science because so this is is this is it if you accept the evolutionary theory, but I think people who don't accept the theory can also still kind of accept these statements.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: But so in your brain, you have your brainstem, which is like a basic body function.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: Right.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: Then you have the paleocortex, which is the white matter of your brain, and it is the basic primitive operations of hunt, kill, breathe, fight, flight, emotional center of your brain.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: But then you have the neocortex, the gray matter, which is responsible for executive functioning, your your intellectual self, your creative self.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: It's higher order operations of the brain.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: So it was almost like that primitive part was separated from the logical higher order part.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: So it was just higher order, and he didn't see a reason for living.
26:09
SPEAKER_01: He wanted to commit suicide.
26:11
SPEAKER_01: I think the cases I've seen, but most people do, um, because you need to have an emotional response to even morality to you you have to feel things are good before you realize they're intellectually good.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: Um so this is that that I'm just mentioning that case as kind of a a corollary to depersonalization and how awful it is.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, like I said, check out the blog.
26:38
SPEAKER_02: Um your contact information there.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
26:42
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've got different tabs.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: You can click on the counseling services tab or you can just read the blog.
26:49
SPEAKER_01: Um check out the podcast, you know, Head Shrink Inc.
26:52
SPEAKER_01: We cover a lot of topics.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: Um plans for the holidays.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna go see my brother in Texas next week.
27:04
SPEAKER_02: We're looking forward to that.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I am haven't seen my nephews in a while, haven't seen my brother, and they have a new baby.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: So I want to go see my niece.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
27:15
SPEAKER_02: Well thanks for finding time for me this week.
27:19
SPEAKER_02: Appreciate it.
27:21
SPEAKER_02: Hey, that's been another episode of Head Shrink Inc.
27:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, if you like what we said, contact Dan or contact me.
27:26
SPEAKER_02: You can contact me at Headshrink Inc.
27:29
SPEAKER_02: and you can contact Dan at well, I you can contact me at Headshrink Inc at gmail.com and you can address an email to both of us because we'll both um you know respond potentially.
27:41
SPEAKER_02: But then to for Dan specifically, you can contact him at uh Dan at lachamascounseling.com.
27:49
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
27:49
SPEAKER_02: Have a great weekend.