Latest / Pete Vs Anxiety!!!!! / The Trimesters of Grief

Transcript

The Trimesters of Grief · Pete Vs Anxiety!!!!!

• Pete: Ever wish you had someone to talk to anytime, anywhere, matter what you're going through? Meet PsychPAL, your 24-7 AI companion, designed to help you process your thoughts, calm your mind, and keep you moving forward. Chat anytime during a panic attack on a restless night or just when you need to vent. Prefer talking instead of typing? Try voice journaling. PsychPAL listens, transcribes, and truly understands. You can even upload screenshots of tough conversations, and it'll help you unpack how they made you feel. PsychPAL keeps life organized, too. It can add appointments to your calendar, track your mood, and even summarize your sessions for your therapist so you'll never lose progress. Plus, built-in crisis resources are always just one click away. It's a privacy-first, constantly evolving, made to complement your professional care, not replace it. Ready to try it out? Head over to the link in this episode and use my code, Pete, at checkout to get 20 % off your first month subscription to PsychPAL. PsychPAL, because your mind deserves a companion too. There we go. I think that's the one I like. We got it. We got it. Boom. peter: but Pete: went to doing like pre-recordings. Well, Keith, we're at the part of the interview where I'm gonna ask you those two questions. All right, Amanda Landes: that I had been kind of like since head for a while about about writing the story because Mia Mason: you are not the only one that experiences thoughts, Pete "mental Health Champ": Well, Dr. Erica, before we start wrapping up, I'm going to ask you Pete "mental health champ": Welcome to another exciting episode of Pete for Excited. Before we get started, let's give a shout out to my partners over at PsychPel Guys. Link will be in the bio as always. seven-day free trial. And then if you want to try it out for your first month, I got you a code use Pete at checkout for 20% off that first month. With that being said, my guest today is an accomplished educator, educator, writer whose work bridges science and storytelling with over 15 years experience teaching anatomy and biology at a community college, high school and high school level. She brings a deep understanding to the human body and the human experience to her writing. Please welcome in the one, the only, Katie Rizzo. Katie, how are you doing today? Katie Rizzo: I'm okay, how about you? Pete "mental health champ": Great, Katie. So Katie is here today. We're gonna talk about her new book coming up, The Trimesters of Grief. But before we get into that, Katie, why don't you tell everybody a little more about yourself? Maybe something they don't know about you. Katie Rizzo: Okay. Well I was born in Colorado. I'm a good skier. I used to teach skiing. I I'm I'm sad that there wasn't a lot of snow last last year. Pete "mental health champ": So Katie, w why did you come up with this book? I know you have a few other books, The Boy with the Bear Tattoo, and then I know at the end we're gonna talk more, we're gonna let you plug when your next your poetry book comes out as well. So what brought this book about? You know, what was the the idea of this book in general? Katie Rizzo: Well, we lost our son about a year and nine months ago. And right before he passed away, we I was writing The Boy with the Bear Tattoo, which is out on submission. And The minute that Nicholas left, I felt like I was in a different world and I had never journaled before and I just started writing stuff down because I couldn't believe anything that was happening was happening and I wanted to remember. and my head was just super foggy. and that kind of became the beginning of this book. I feel like writing helped me figure out what was next, you know, where do I put my foot next. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Katie Rizzo: and so yeah, that's and once about nine months had passed, I sat down and looked through it and I realized how much of grief had kind of mirrored pregnancy and that was the beginning of the trimesters of grief. Pete "mental health champ": Well, first off, so sorry to hear that your son had passed. I it it's it's always hard when Katie Rizzo: Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": it happens. I do like the way you laid out this book because I did went and looked on your website and checked it out and I was looking through it. I think it's very interesting how you how you did it because you break it down. So do you want to break it down for people? Give them a little idea how how you went through the stages of this. This is I think it's really interesting. I like the way it's actually laid out here. Katie Rizzo: Well, you're so sweet. And before I do, I just wanted to say when I stumbled across your podcast, I thought about how important the work you're doing is, is because I think most of the reason that Nicholas got involved in opioids and benzodiazepines, so Xanax, was because of anxiety. And I think the more that people start treating anxiety as kind of normal instead of some Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Katie Rizzo: abnormal condition, I think the world will be a better place. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah, I think I think but mental health in general it needs to be talked Katie Rizzo: Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": about more as well. You know, people say we're talking about it, but if you look at the statistics, it's it's insane. The the level of suicides are going up, the numbers and everything going up, ten to fourteen went up this year. We lost those NFL players that that it seems like they were mentioned but then forgotten, you know, things like that. And these are all young men and things like that too. So I do appreciate you, you know, saying those very kind things. It it's been a it's been a fun journey though. Like I get to host people like yourself that come on and you know And highlight the things you're doing, like like this book. I like I said, I do like the way you set it up though. Cause I was looking at it and I'm like, this is this and it's the title at first didn't catch on to me until I looked at, Katie Rizzo: Mm-hmm. Pete "mental health champ": okay, how you broke it down. Cause you have first, second, third, and then the delivery process was really cool about how you how you did it. You broke it into a whole different aspect of the way you're looking at it. Cause I know grief is a tough subject for people. You know, it it's hard for Katie Rizzo: Yeah. Well Pete "mental health champ": people to talk about it. And I tell everybody the same thing. Katie Rizzo: Yeah, grief is a tough subject. Nobody wants to, I mean, who wants to come over to my house after that happened, right? and yet still people did show up. So, yeah, the trimesters, I so we were lucky enough to have three boys, and grief really mirrored pregnancy. And it was kind of a cruel irony, right? That the first trimesters were you're really nauseous, you you're sleeping all the time, your head is just like feels like it's a billion pounds. you're it's almost like you're underwater. And once kind of my brain kind of caught up with what was happening, then I was in the second trimester. And that's a period when you're not showing yet in pregnancy, but but you are carrying it. And I do feel like Nicholas and my relationship like it is something that we built together. And so with him being not here, it doesn't mean that what we built is gone. And that thing we we built this this little thing called grief. And that thing started growing inside me. And although people during the second trimester were moving on with their lives and my husband had to go back to work and my My really good girlfriend who came out to kind of help me with everything she left and my family left and I was still, you know, nurturing this grief. I spent a lot of time in bed and smelling his dirty laundry and feeling really alone and like I was the only one in the world who'd ever gone through this. and then the third trimester kind of came along where I was showing and although I wasn't physically showing. I was telling everybody, and I needed people to know that my son was this beautiful boy and this light. The world is like a much worse place without him. I started telling, you know, our our anybody who would listen, you know, strangers on the street. If p somebody said, How are you doing? If they just asked it like that, I'd be like, Fine. But if they asked like in an you know, like they really cared, I would I would tell them, you know, my son died in of an overdose. it started at this time while I was journaling, I was writing poetry, which I'd never written before, but it was It was just like short sentences without good grammar and I just there were thoughts that I just felt like I needed the world to see. And I started posting them on Instagram and Facebook and I wanted everyone to know I wanted to sit out like in front of my house and let people to know like my son isn't here and I'm I'm mad and sad and it's it's it's a big deal. Grief was like right behind my eyelids, and I I was just like on fire with it. And I read Nick Cave, who I don't know if you know who he is, but he's a musician, he's an author, and he he lost two sons to suicide. And he wrote about how he had to ask Grief to leave his body. which sounds so woo-woo and crazy, and I was like, God. But I did, and I sat down and I was like, okay, this is my delivery. I need you this thing that Nicholas and I built together, this thing we call grief. Like I need it to sit beside me. Like it doesn't need to leave. It's never gonna go. But it can't just be like so right in in my face at all times. And so I did. And that sometimes I feel like it's a little orangutan that we made, and it will just, you know, demolish a room and just be mad and upset and other times it's okay and you know we'll hold you know, we'll cling on and we'll just, you know, go throughout our day. I feel like that framework kind of helped me to to understand what what I was going through because it just felt so everybody's like, I can't imagine. I know, I can't either and yet I was living it. my husband and I just went Pete "mental health champ": Well, I mean the book will the book seems like it would lay it out though. Now they'll know what your thought process was. You know what I'm saying? Katie Rizzo: Yeah. Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": Like now you can be like, Well, I got a book coming out here. There you go. It's a perfect plug for it. People say, Well, I don't under I I would never understand you into Hey listen, guess what? Got a book coming out. You should check it out. It explains it. See, look, it's a good plug for you though. But like I said though, the way you you breaking it down, it it's great though, because grief is such a tough subject as we all know. You know, and everybody grieves in their own way, but you know, it's it's really interesting because this is from your perspective for people that say those kind of things like, well, I don't know which well, go and read this book because you'll get a better idea of what what it is I went through. This is not how everybody deals with it, but this is how you deal with it, you know, and in like the way you broke it down and things like that, you you know, you have all these really great descriptions for each trimester, which is really cool. I think is really interesting like I said, I like the way this brings down. You know, I I I'm interested to read it 'cause I'm kind of curious. I'm gonna c I I'll definitely be checking out to be honest with you. I don't read a lot of books. I read s I tried to read a book. So let's get that correct. I usually have a bin in the background here where I have all my books I'm send that I tried to read all of them. I don't get to all of them yet. I I have a whole list to go down, but this is definitely something. You know, because I've read a breast cancer memoir before and it was interesting because you got the perspective of the person that writing it of what people deal with. So now maybe people could read this and understand that you know, get a better perspective on what people deal with when they're going through grief. Like, you know, this may be the way you did you were dealing with it, but these are maybe like things that can help people like notify notice these things in other people. But like, hey, listen, maybe, you know, and just try and approach it from a whole nother aspect. Because I like I said, I've never seen anybody approach it like this, but I love the idea. Katie Rizzo: Your sweet. Well it'll be out on audio. So maybe if you do audio books you you'll listen to it. Pete "mental health champ": see, audiobooks yeah, I saw that too. I'm I'm very you know, see audio would work perfectly for me since I'm always on the go doing things. So I'm like, yeah, but I will for sure have to check it out because I'm always interested when you get people that come on with their memoirs. Right now I'm reading Erica Horrit's his brother's biography. He had he had a drug addiction and he has bipolar. So you're reading it from the perspective of him because he's writing this, telling you what he's dealing with as he's going through these things, you know, and then she adds in her bit 'cause she's a she's a psychologist, so she adds in her little bits of things too in there. And there's like a little test I think at the back of the book too, she was telling me and things like that. So it is really interesting though when I get authors on, because it's always nice to pick your guys' brain to see like what your thought process as as building this book. I mean, it obviously wasn't easy because, you know, now that he's no longer here and then you're going through it and you're you're journaling these things, you know, and then as you're going and before you know it, you've already got a book going and like you said, you're working on your poetry as well, which that'll be interesting to see as well. Katie Rizzo: Yeah. Well, I think before Nicholas died, I felt like well, addiction is kind of a disease where it's a family disease Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Katie Rizzo: and it's a disease of isolation. So we were trying to deal with Pete "mental health champ": Yes, it is. Katie Rizzo: everything on our own. And this kind of cracked our family open in that like there was no hiding it. and it's been a process thinking about how much shame and and guilt and just embarrassment I all of us went through. I mean, Nicholas for sure, he was very embarrassed of his addiction, but us too. And I wonder how how different things would have been or will be for other people if we can talk about addiction as a mental health problem Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Katie Rizzo: and not as a problem of will or that somebody has That they're trying to do something. la the year that were Pete "mental health champ": Yeah, yeah. Katie Rizzo: 80,000 people who died of a drug overdose, which is equal to one commercial jet airliner going down every day. And I didn't know any of those people. I was, I mean, we go to Al-Anon and went to Al-Anon, which is a self-help group for people who love somebody with addiction, but I didn't know anybody who didn't live. and so immediately we went and found grief groups to try to not just normalize it, not that it's normal, but just to like see is this can we survive? Can our kids survive this? Like, how is this done? Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Yeah. Addiction is a very hard topic to talk about. It's it's a hard one in general for a lot of people to understand what the mindset of these individuals go through. I have a friend of mine, he runs a podcast. It's it's called Rockin' Recovery, and that's what he goes through. He talks about his own recovery and the things he deals with and the struggles he had, you know, because at the end of the day, a lot of times it's they're trying to trying to fix whatever issue they're dealing with. A lot of times they're trying medicate to to fix their problems. You know, I have another friend in Canada that does an addiction show as well. she's got one called Everybody's Addicted, you know, and she would she tells her story was crazy when she was telling me about it. And I also have a co-host. We do another show called Voice of the Voiceless. Maddie and I we do this thing, and Maddie went through the same thing, but she had schizoaffective disorder and didn't know it at first. So she was struggling and doing all these things, and and Maddie and I had had this interesting conversation about, you know, some of the things she got into. She almost she almost got into heroin and things like that as well. You know, all because she was struggling, she didn't understand, you know, and a lot of times these disorders go undiagnosed for so long that a lot of people aren't sure what they are. So we don't have a name for them, you know, in in and a lot of people with BPD as well fall in that category too, because those guys on a magnified scale deal with so many things on a heightened emotion level that a lot of us don't understand, you know. And it's and it's hard. Like I've met a lot of people, I I hang out in a lot of these communities when I'm on like TikTok and some of these other places. I want to better understand something because. I've never dealt with addiction myself, so I want to better understand the mindset of some of these things these guys go through, you know, and and having these other friends have gone through things is great because I can ask them questions about stuff so I can better understand, you know, what it is they they all deal with, the daily struggles and things like that, you know, and then they get demonized too. Think about it like when you tell somebody you used to be an addict, you know how many people look at you in a strange manner, it's like, Okay, well, they're not the same person. Katie Rizzo: Right. And also how many how man our our our health system isn't set up to help people? I mean, you know, I can't tell you how many stories I have of when Nicholas he was trying to get off drugs and how he was just like, you're you're sober now here, you know, take an Uber home instead Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Katie Rizzo: of you know, like that's not dealing with the addiction or if you know, when he went to rehab And he was in outpatient rehab and they ended up kicking him out because he wasn't participating enough. And I mean, I underst I understand that you need people to participate, but when you have somebody who is, you know, 25 in with a bunch of 50 and 60 year olds, and then you're asking them to participate, I don't know, it just our treatments are kind of in the dark ages. I wonder what it would Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Yeah. Katie Rizzo: have been like if we would have treated him with a little bit more kindness and a little bit less shame. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. You know, and well, there's a lot of people these days are doing really great things. One I can think right off the bat is my good friend Massimo has this thing called the sober method he does. He's AA didn't work for him, so he went and did his own thing and he he's sober and he's he's always he's created this great system, you know. There's other other things out there now. Like I I I understand that too. When he was trying to get through it, it it's just like they don't care when you're going through it, and it's like, all right, well We need to help these individuals, but rather than help them, we're just gonna kind of toss them to the side. And it's the same thing with mental health too. Like everybody mentions it, but then it gets swept under the rug. Think about all the school shootings. The NFL players I mentioned in beginning. what happened to all those individuals? They're just forgotten now. Nobody talks about them. But it's like, okay, well, these young gentlemen had issues of some sort. Doesn't matter what it is, insert what it is. You know, one of them I know was grieving from his his lost his mom, so he was really struggling with it. ended up committing suicide, unfortunately, on the side of the highway here in the Dallas Forth area. the other NFL player I mentioned is I believe he played for the Vikings. He was a young guy, 25, shot himself in his own home. You know, and and then you have your son who's who is battling his addiction. And when he was looking for help, they just shit on him and just said, Okay, well, here you go. You know, and it's it's ridiculous to me. It just makes no sense. It's like Katie Rizzo: Right. Pete "mental health champ": everybody says we're talking about these things, but they're but okay, cool. We can talk about but. What are we doing to solve these problems to help these individuals? Katie Rizzo: Yeah. I was just talking to a friend whose daughter passed away and after she had OD'd, they Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Katie Rizzo: they brought her back. She OD'd on fentanyl and they brought her back and then they sent her home without you know, there was no mental health help, nothing, just all right, shipped her back home. She went back home, she used the same exact thing and passed away. and that is it's a common story. Pete "mental health champ": Or does it Katie Rizzo: So you just it It feels like we have our priorities are, you know, our insurance companies need to be paid, the rehab companies, you know, are making plenty of money. the pharmaceutical companies are making a lot of money, but where is like the humanity and the kindness to people and wanting to make sure that the people survive? It just doesn't seem like it's there. Pete "mental health champ": Katie, you made a great point there. Where is the humanity at? we also, mind you, lost a friend of mine, lost her son too. She's a fellow podcaster. She does the emotionally unavailable podcast. She lost her son to drug overdose as well. she unfortunately found his body in her house. And I remember listening to that thing. She called 911, Katie, and they gave her a prompt. I was like, I got so Katie Rizzo: Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": mad. Listen to this thing. I got up and you just could see my reaction. I'm just yelling. I'm like, what the? You know, but you're right though. Where is the humanity of these things? Like, you know, these these individuals that are struggling, you know, and instead of us being kind to them and understand that like what they're battling is not easy, man. It's a demon they're battling and, you know, instead of us trying to help them, we want to demonize everybody. In including if you go online, you know, these people sharing their stories online or their journeys online, you know, and things like that. You get all these people that are just so negative towards each other. And it's like, dude, where's the humanity at? We're all humans at the end of the day. Like, why can't we just be a little nicer to some people? Like, you know, hey, I'm I'm battling an addiction. And then all these hateful comments come in. It's like, dude, go be in their shoes for one day and then we'll Katie Rizzo: Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": see what you think about it. You know what I mean? It's it's it's hard. And it's it's Katie Rizzo: And Pete "mental health champ": really sad though that that's the negativity we're choosing versus trying to be supportive of each other. Katie Rizzo: Yeah. And it's not like we have s any solutions that are great, you know, for opioid addiction, I've seen statistics that people who go to rehab have about a seventy to ninety percent chance of relapse. So, you know, you've just spent sixty thousand dollars on your rehab, you've got a very low chance of it of it taking, and yet we're just tell like, Hey, you gotta do this, like good luck, you know, move along. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Yeah, it's scary. Man, the statistics are scary. You know, me and somebody else Katie Rizzo: No. Pete "mental health champ": were we were me and Maddie were talking about this actually the other day. she was talking about like she can barely her medications are like three thousand dollars, you know? And it's crazy. You three thousand dollars for something she needs. And I was like, So then why don't we have a system in place for something that you absolutely need by doctor order that we can't make it affordable for us to get? Of course not, because it's a greed game now. Now we go to the greed thing, you know. Katie Rizzo: Well I said, everything really is. Pete "mental health champ": Like, you think of think of the G O N Ps too. The G O and Ps are crazy. Like Ozempic's like a thousand dollars for a shot without insurance. But then when you have insurance, Maddie and I both highlighted that she was like, it's some things don't cover anything that she needs. Like sometimes she's gotta pay out of pocket a little bit for stuff. And it's like, Okay, so what's the point of me paying for my insurance if you're just gonna make me still pay something? Aren't you supposed to be covering this? Isn't this the whole point of insurance? You know what I mean? Katie Rizzo: Well, it's just become a cruel game because Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Katie Rizzo: my s my younger son just had a head CT, he's fine. and he lives in New York and we got the bill back and he has insurance and the insurance billed us two thousand dollars. And on their website, if you were uninsured, the same service is less than a thousand dollars. So my husband called and said, Can we just have the non insured fee? Like we're p we're spending more. Because we haven't met our deductible, then if we wouldn't have been insured. And it's been about a year and a half of bickering back and forth. And just recently he the one of the healthcare advocates said, Well, where did you find that number on the on the screenshot it to me and send it to me? Let me see if that's real. And we're like, What like so he did, but it's it's a game. It's a game of cost and Pete "mental health champ": It's it's crazy though, because it's like without insurance it costs me less. And then what's the point of having insurance then? You know what I mean? It's like I I don't get it. You know, and it's the crazy thing, because Maddie said it when we were talking about her her whole thing in her 20s, she's like, Yeah, when she had to go eventually, she had to pay her deductible before they would cover anything. And I'm like, What? I'm like, she needs this. Katie Rizzo: Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": It's not like she doesn't need it, she needs this stuff. Schizo Effective Katie Rizzo: I agree. Pete "mental health champ": is a very very complex disorder, you know, in it's not like she she hurt her knee or something else, you know, something minor like that. It's it's something serious where this is like affecting her day to day. You know, she'd be in states of psychosis and, you know, all these other things she go through. She get very manic, which we all know people in the state of manic is just it's insane. As Maddie was describing it to people, it's it's like you're on an ultimate high. There's no, this is a bad idea button. It's a ain't there anymore. They're just going for it. Full throttle. Like it's like an adrenaline shot. Guide on Podi it's it's Katie Rizzo: you look at how much yeah look at how much we spend on you know the homeless problem and how many people in prison I've heard it's up to 70 to 80 percent of people in prison are addicted to some substance so it's like we're we're we're spending the money we're just not spending it in the front Pete "mental health champ": Exactly. Katie Rizzo: right we're waiting until we're we're working on all the bad effects of of not spending the money right Pete "mental health champ": So a scary comment that Maddie had made to yesterday when we were having a discussion, we were recording. She told me she met with this senator because Maddie is really big in the North Carolina area. She's she's got her own support group and things like that. Got to meet some politicians. One of them, and I quote, told her that mental health isn't an issue. When Maddie had laid all the statistics out for him, this person, I don't know who it was. She didn't say she just said the person had told her that. And I was just like, that's insane. Like what are you what are you talking about? Look at all the statistics out there of what people are dealing with. You know, addiction falls right in that same category with mental health, you know, and and everything else. And it's like you're telling me there's not a problem, but look at the suicide rates. Eighty percent of them are men every year. And then the ages of ten to fourteen year old boys had gone up this year alone. And Katie Rizzo: Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": it's it's crazy. And then when we add in social media, which another podcaster and I were discussing early on. He was like, you know what? A funny ske an actually scary statistic was twenty-two percent of suicides in young boys went up when social media was introduced. Because now we have to look at it that you you can now bully people digitally. You don't have to see them face to face or call them on the phone. You know, and and I get together weekly with a bunch of other podcasters too, and we discuss these kind things and we actually came across a scary statistic. 54% of adults have all said that social media has negative impacts on kids social on their mental health. Katie Rizzo: Mm-hmm. Pete "mental health champ": Okay, so now countries like Australia and Canada are implementing things that are are supposed to be cutting it down, like, you know, and then they're like, Well, how are you gonna police that? My thoughts are you have to have an ID to get online then. You have to literally have someone send their picture ID copy back in front to verify something like that, to ensure that they can't get on the internet if they're underage. That way we can, you know, start combating this stuff, you know, because it's not good for Like there's all these things, Snapchat, Facebook. TikTok, Instagram, the things these people say are just the wildest things you've ever heard. You know, and and things like that too. But it's like we all know it's a problem. So, you know, I know that Facebook recently had gotten held accountable for everything that they were doing because they didn't want to police their own site, but now Meta has to. And that's why you got the whole Instagram for kids now, because now parents can monitor what their kids are doing or who they're talking to. We should have had that a long time ago with these statistics, the way they're going, especially at the beginning of this year when they're on the rise. It We should be having more access as parents to what they're doing online in monitoring. Until they're adults, they they technically have no say. So we can sit there and watch everything they're saying to people and all these things. And I think any of these apps, you know, Snapchat, all of them should have that feature where we can see what they're saying to people because we don't know what they're saying in these conversations. And a lot of people don't have open conversations with their kids. You know, and and then it becomes a problem, you know, and then there's something that goes wrong or they get into, you know, unfortunately, like your son got, you know, got caught up with drugs and then we lost him, unfortunately. Same thing with my friend Melissa. You know, and it's it's scary, man. It's it's just a scary place out there these days. And then let's add in the top of the the the unlimited information of just random things these people are telling our kids. hey, this is how you're supposed to treat women. This is how you're supposed to talk to them. Hey, you have to dress like this to look get boys' attention. It's like It's it's a war out there. Like you're at a constant battle all day, you know, and we used to give the helicopter parents hell about that. But listen, hats off to them. Because you're Katie Rizzo: Mm. Pete "mental health champ": you're combating it though. Think about it, because if they're constantly checking what they're doing and what they're getting into, they're more likely to catch them talking about some things that may be concerning or things are getting said and you know, all the other kind of stuff that you can get into. We we we all know what we were doing as kids. We were getting into trouble. These guys Katie Rizzo: Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": these days are just taking it to a whole new level. Katie Rizzo: But not only that, I think what's dangerous too is just looking on there and seeing this these people who are quote happy and attractive and Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Katie Rizzo: doing quote well. I mean, who knows who they are, but I mean, even somebody like me who's in their fifties got caught up in that, like just like, I have a son who has addiction. I don't want to pr present that out to the world. I really want everyone to think like we're doing okay. And I think it's a much more honest place to live by telling the truth about yourself and saying, you know, no, you know, my son's struggling with his addiction. and or he, you know, he he passed away from his addiction. And that other stuff, that's not real. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. Yeah, no, you're right, Katie. I I think you you hit it right on the head when you said a lot of times you didn't want people to know what was really going on. Because that's what the one thing we did talk about too is that how people present like everything's okay, but we really don't know what's going on. You know, a lot of covert narcissists work that way too. They'll make you think that they're there's nothing going on. they're the greatest person ever, this and that, da da da, you know. But really in the back scene, there's a lot of darker things that are going on. I had an author on, Mia Hanks, and my god, her story was crazy. Mia h husband had fallen in the category of a covert narcissist. And that's exactly what he would do. He'd go out there and present to the public like everything's okay. But really in the back scene, he's very controlling and things like that. And no one had ever known until she had wrote this book about what had happened. But Mia had come on and it was interesting because it was the first time I dealt with somebody that couldn't be on the camera for their own safety. And I was like, okay, this is an interesting conversation now. turned out Mia and I actually lived very close together around the time this whole incident had happened too. I was really shocked because I'm in I'm currently in Texas. I'm getting ready to move back to Illinois with be closer to my daughter's. but Mia had lived like maybe 30, 40 minutes away from me in an area I knew exactly where she was because we had talked about it off camera. And I was like, damn, I was like, Mia, I'm I used to live and work in that area. I know exactly where you're at, you know. But it was it was it was crazy though, because when she put the book out, so many people are just coming after her because, you know, she's telling the truth. You know, but if we look at a lot of these other individuals, you know, and we look at what they're really like, you know. I guarantee half of them are either putting on a show or they're not really real what they're yeah, really not what they're trying to say. You know, they're putting on that image, false imagery of the whole thing's so great. You know, that's Katie Rizzo: Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": why I like certain celebrities. Like I like the bunny and shelly roll thing because they're so open about everything. They're like, Hey, we got problems, even though we're we may be uber famous, we're still people at the end of the day, you know, and things like that as well. Katie Rizzo: Yeah. There is something very beautiful about putting yourself out there in the world and being Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Katie Rizzo: real. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah, yeah. With this podcast, in the beginning, I wasn't really so open about talking about my personal life. Now I'm everywhere. So anybody that gets into relationships with me, I tell them I'm like, listen, I I need you to understand that I am everywhere. I am everywhere you can find. Like my life is open. If you're not okay with that, you you need to I need you to understand that this isn't nothing against you, you know, because my life is very open. That's how I run this show. I'm very honest about things I deal with. Like I I've talked about my own suicide attempts. How I told my ex wife I was gonna kill myself, and she told me to make her the thirteenth reason why. When that came out, she was pissed. It's like, why are you telling everybody? Because I the reason why this show is so successful as it is, is because I'm real honest about everything that goes on in my personal life and things like that too. I lied for a big part of the beginning of it because I just didn't know how to tell people. I was struggling and so bad at depression in the beginning that people didn't even know. She didn't even Katie Rizzo: Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": know either. She she may had an idea and just didn't care. I I don't know. I couldn't tell you based on what you know her responses are. but you know, then I want to start opening up a lot of things. It it's just the show just we just exploded from there. You know, I've always had a lot of popularity. People wanting to be on the show and discuss their own issues. And we've talked to a lot of interesting individuals on this show. we had a guy in the beginning of the first season. 15 minutes in the interview was telling us that he had plans to kill himself that morning. And I was like, Katie, I was freaking out. I'm like, shit, we're on YouTube. We're on we're live. And I'm like, no, this this is gonna get us flagged on YouTube. I don't I don't know what YouTube's restrictions are. You know, I I don't know. I didn't know much in the beginning. Now it's like I moved to these close, intimate settings now because now I can have pro these conversations because last season alone we had some interesting conversations. Walked to that door. we had a girl come on and say she was sexually assaulted, didn't know it. until in the later late thirties. She had no idea she got sexual assaulted when she's six. And then her brain cut off the memory, but her body kept the memory and knew that something wasn't right. So when she was doing hypnotherapy, the hypnotherapist kept telling her, Hey, listen, I gotta tell you something. I gotta tell you something. And then she revealed this whole conversation about how, you know, she was she was assaulted and how she didn't remember it because it had been cut off. But her deep subconscious mind remembered everything. So she was going into it. And and like I said, when we hit record in this studio, these conversations get real. And you know, and that's always been my thing to people is like, you know, I want to make sure it's a safe space that people that come in here understand that they're able to share whatever they like and they're not gonna be judged by anybody. Because I I'll be the first one to defend them all because I'm like, you came in here to talk to me, you're telling me these intimate stories about yourselves and things like that. You know, we've had Kimberly Lou on, she's she's been on ESPN, Dr. Phil, some major names. And let me tell you, she was the coolest person I ever talked to. And she just sat there and just started sharing all these stories with me and things like that as well. So, you know, it's it's been interesting since day one. But you know, it was like that for a bit. I didn't really tell people a lot of things. But then when I opened up more about it, it became more interesting. And people are like, I didn't know you're my my own family members, what is it? My brothers and sisters are like, Well, you didn't you're so intelligent. okay, cool. How do you think I'm supposed to take that part? Okay. Katie Rizzo: Mm-hmm. Pete "mental health champ": But you everybody's really supportive of everything as I've been doing it. My mom and dad are really supportive too. They they love what I do. They literally give me the time to do this, you know, where I'm at now and all that kind of stuff like that. Everything I've got here has been donated by people that believe of what I'm doing too. When I started this thing, it was just me, a laptop, and a and a donated microphone. Now I've got another one that somebody donated to me. I've got new new equipment and things I'm just getting from people that are donating to it because they believe the cause of what we're doing here. So, you know, it's great when I get to meet people like yourself though. They're touching a topic like grief. we've had some interesting characters on here for that one too. last September we met a woman who had to tell our kids that her dad had killed himself. But the way she did it was so interestingly and it made sense that they understood, you know, it it's it's always interesting when we get to meet people. So it's an honor having you in here though. Katie Rizzo: No thanks. Pete "mental health champ": So, well, KD, we're getting close to that point. We're gonna ask those two questions. So I did wanna I was gonna wait, but I wanna dig into this the poetry book a little bit. It is coming out soon, Katie Rizzo: Okay. Pete "mental health champ": is it not? Katie Rizzo: It is. It's in November. So my poetry Pete "mental health champ": Okay. Katie Rizzo: is something that I just started putting words out there that I just n kind of needed the world to know. And I put it on Facebook and on Instagram and I thought I really thought people were gonna say, Hey, you gotta cut it out, or we need to institutionalize you, like you've lost your mind. But instead I I I had the opposite. Like people have really embraced me and Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Katie Rizzo: allowed me to kind of say my thing. Even my two sons who were in their twenties and I thought that maybe they'd feel like I was embarrassing them. I feel like it's given them I don't know, I can't speak for them, but they both have been very supportive about it. So there's Pete "mental health champ": Yeah, that's awesome. Katie Rizzo: something nice to put your s put your put your your realness out there and and let the world do with it what it it will. Pete "mental health champ": So Katie, I did wanna ask you really quick, what is the boy with a bear tattoo about? I'm kinda interested. I like the title. so what how did you come up with it? And and what's a little bit about the book so we can let people know. So in case they wanna go check it out as well. Katie Rizzo: Well it's that on submission and I'm I'm hoping that a publisher will pick it up, if not Kohler. Pete "mental health champ": Okay. Katie Rizzo: Hint, hint. so it's a book about a young girl in the Rocky Mountains who comes across a national disaster with the Roaring Fork River and Pete "mental health champ": Mm-hmm. Katie Rizzo: sets out to figure out who who did it. and obviously the boy with the bear tattoo kind of plays a big role in that. It's a YA, Pete "mental health champ": Yeah, it's really cool. Katie Rizzo: which is young adults novel. Pete "mental health champ": That's good though. if you've Katie Rizzo: Mm-hmm. Pete "mental health champ": ever interested in self-publishing, I do have some communic some contacts. I met there's a woman and I Katie Rizzo: Thanks. Pete "mental health champ": did an episode about self-publishing. Michelle, I can get her email for you and I can shoot it over to you. And then you like I said, you can reach out to her. So I can I could definitely get you connected with her. Katie Rizzo: Okay. Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": She was on she was on the show. We had did a special episode where we were talking about it because I was interested because I I considered writing my own book. And then I had somebody offer to ghostwrite a book for my own memoir. I was like, you know what? I might have to take that off because that'd be kind of cool to say. You know, I have my own published piece out there Katie Rizzo: Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": about me and everything else too. So, well, Katie, we are at that part of the interview where I told you about those two questions. Okay. So the first Katie Rizzo: Okay. Pete "mental health champ": question to you is kind of a fun one. I borrowed this from my friend who runs a podcast called The Shit That Goes On in Your Head. So the question that she asked Katie Rizzo: Mm. Pete "mental health champ": me, and I'm asking you, is that if your mental health had a song, what would you say that song would be? This is a fun one because the last person that answered this question. Said grandma got ran over by a reindeer. Okay. And I died laughing Katie Rizzo: That is something. Pete "mental health champ": the minute they said that. I was like, no. Katie Rizzo: I think it'd be one of Taylor Swift's songs, but probably It's Me, Hi, I'm the Problem, It's Me, something like that. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah, I like that. That's awesome. Yeah, you know, and it's a fun question because music plays a big part for a lot of us in our mental health. I host a lot of aut mus I I host a lot of musicians and stuff. Yeah. Katie Rizzo: for sure. It's been great and great. Yeah. Pete "mental health champ": Do you got any songs that remind you of him at all? You know, anything like that too? Katie Rizzo: I do. I'm trying remember, it's the something in the butterfly. Irish Goodbye by Casey Musgraves. Pretty much any love song you can turn into a song of a mom to our son. So that's that's what makes it yeah. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. I love it. All right, Katie, here we go. The final question and the reason I started this podcast is if you could break the stigma about mental health. Now what I'm asking Katie Rizzo: Mm-hmm. Pete "mental health champ": is it's something that just obviously upsets you that you hear people say every day, and it could be anything you want, it could be multiple things. There's no wrong answer to this question. What would you say that one thing would be? Katie Rizzo: That addiction is a problem with somebody's self control. I would love to change that. I would love to change the thought that so that's one thing, I'm gonna give you another one, that that Pete "mental health champ": Right ahead. Katie Rizzo: grief is something you get over or you get through. Pete "mental health champ": Yeah. I think that's that's great statements, honestly. I think they both are really great. Katie, thank you so much for coming to hang out with us. Before we start closing this thing out, go ahead and let people know where they can find you. I know the book is already on pre-order for Amazon and everything else like that, and wherever you can get your books at, all that kind of stuff. So you want to let them know what social media is, website, any of that stuff, you're more than welcome to plug it all for them right now. Katie Rizzo: Okay, so you can find me at www.katierizzo.com. my book, The Trimesters of Grief, is available anywhere books are sold. And then None of Them Are You is coming out November first, and that's gonna be a book of my poems. you can find me on Instagram at Katie Rizzo007 or you know, Double O seven. so that's that's my stuff. Pete "mental health champ": I love that 007. That's so cool at the end. So, Katie, when does trimesters come out? Is it is it coming out October 6th, right now? Right, red, right? All right, guys. Guys, Katie Rizzo: Yep, that's right. Pete "mental health champ": and listen, I will put all these links in the bio course if y'all are listening at home or listening on the go, things like that. And then again, Casey, thank you or Katie so much. All right, I got I'm off my own world here today. Sorry, Katie Rizzo: Mm-hmm. Pete "mental health champ": Katie. Thank you so much again for coming. I look forward to the book coming out. like I said, I'll definitely have to check it out when it comes out. I'll definitely check out the poem book too, 'cause I'm always interested in checking different things out. It's pretty cool. so I can suggest it to other people to check out and things like that as well. Katie, before we sign off, do you have any final last words for anybody out there that may be grieving? Do you have any mo words of motivation for them or any advice? Katie Rizzo: Sure. if you're grieving, find a grief group. There's some really good ones out there, especially for parents who've lost kids to addiction. I can't tell you how important that's been to me. exercise, which is something that just sounds terrible, but it it's it's very helpful. connect through through art. My husband has been playing the guitar, I've been writing poetry, but I don't know. Don't give up. Pete "mental health champ": Love it. Thank you again, Katie. guys, with that being said, we're gonna wrap up this episode of Pete for Sanxy. Guys don't want to find me Pete for Sanxiety. I'm an X all the way down to TikTok. I'm on Spotify all the way down to Pandora Radio. And now we are officially on the Pep Radio Network in the Pennsylvania area. Guys, if you're there, you can download the Live 360 app to get us there as well. guys, and as always say, cost nothing, absolutely not to be kind to somebody. One kind actor you can do can save their life, or hell you can make their day. I'm Pete for Sanxiety. Sign off saying, Don't ask how your day is today. Say, hey, how's your mental health?