Latest / The You Project / #2031 The Neurotic Shrink - Dr. Mark Cross
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: I get everyone. Shit, I'm excited to be here. It's
- 0:03Speaker 1: four minutes past three, It's Monday. The good doc Mark
- 0:06Speaker 1: Cross is here. Tiffany and Cook, who is the Coqueen
- 0:11Speaker 1: of typ is here, just battening down the hatches and steering,
- 0:15Speaker 1: trying to keep Mark and Iron line. Basically, how are you,
- 0:18Speaker 1: tiv It's.
- 0:19Speaker 2: A big job, Harps. It is a big job.
- 0:21Speaker 1: Is it raining where you are?
- 0:23Speaker 3: No?
- 0:23Speaker 2: But it looks pretty dark. It was raining earlier, happy summertime.
- 0:27Speaker 1: It's pelting down over here in the very tropical confines
- 0:32Speaker 1: of Bloody Hampton. But anyway, we do what we can.
- 0:36Speaker 1: It's Monday, first day of the week. We're sliding like
- 0:38Speaker 1: piss blokes in a bar towards Christmas. Thirteen days to go,
- 0:43Speaker 1: Oh my god, thirteen days. It's the twelfth. Well, as
- 0:46Speaker 1: we're recording this, it's the twelfth. Are you Are you
- 0:49Speaker 1: going home to step back in time, back to lawn Seston.
- 0:53Speaker 2: No, I guess no, it's not lawn Sestin for a start.
- 0:57Speaker 1: Good shout out tout my tazzy friends. I really love you.
- 1:00Speaker 1: I used to live there. Going it is a bit
- 1:02Speaker 1: of a time warped though, God bless.
- 1:03Speaker 2: This year and next year. This is my plan. I'm
- 1:05Speaker 2: going to go back in February each year. Have a
- 1:07Speaker 2: guess why. I don't know if I've told you, I told.
- 1:09Speaker 1: You, uh, February each year. I know I've got my thing.
- 1:15Speaker 2: My very elite grandfather turns ninety nine this February, so
- 1:19Speaker 2: I'm pushing Christmas out ninety nine.
- 1:21Speaker 1: Not many humans, not many men.
- 1:23Speaker 2: Do you know? Only seventeen percent of men, seventeen percent
- 1:26Speaker 2: of people that reach one hundred and men.
- 1:28Speaker 1: Yeah, that it was elite. Well, we burn ourselves out
- 1:32Speaker 1: because we're dickheads, and we're just we just we just
- 1:37Speaker 1: run a Mark I tell you who, I tell you
- 1:39Speaker 1: he's not a dickhead, and he's probably going to live
- 1:41Speaker 1: to one hundred and twenty, especially because he's sipping on
- 1:44Speaker 1: twenty seven dollars sparkling water. So fucking fancy, Mark Cross,
- 1:48Speaker 1: you paid too much.
- 1:53Speaker 3: I'm trying to work out when I'm supposed to not
- 1:55Speaker 3: to say here, I've got a plotty mouth. I think
- 1:58Speaker 3: you've just beaten me in.
- 1:59Speaker 1: No. Yeah, well let's see. I want you to step
- 2:03Speaker 1: up to the plate. But it is funny because I
- 2:05Speaker 1: do have, as you say, quite a good diagnosis, Doc,
- 2:09Speaker 1: I do have a potty mouth. And but what's funny
- 2:13Speaker 1: is there's something mystical that happens when people, when really
- 2:17Speaker 1: proper refined. Often academics come on the you project. About
- 2:23Speaker 1: halfway through they stumble through the swearing door themselves. So
- 2:27Speaker 1: people who would never in a million years say fuck
- 2:30Speaker 1: or shit or bum or bugger or bitch or whatever
- 2:33Speaker 1: on an interview of any kind, they start swearing, don't
- 2:38Speaker 1: they tiff?
- 2:39Speaker 2: Yeah, look what you've done to me?
- 2:42Speaker 1: Yeah? I know you used to be quite respectable anyway,
- 2:46Speaker 1: Doctor Mark Cross, let me read some of your bio.
- 2:48Speaker 1: Does doctoring differently? The first openly gay man twin Father
- 2:51Speaker 1: of the Year, Marcus also lived experience of one of
- 2:54Speaker 1: the conditions he treats. He's been anxious since he was
- 2:57Speaker 1: for I loved it when I read that. His empathy
- 3:00Speaker 1: humor making one of Australia's most life psychiatrists. He's a
- 3:04Speaker 1: psych with clinical experience spanning three decades. He graduated as
- 3:07Speaker 1: a doctor in Cape Down Yeah bro Shame, specializing in
- 3:11Speaker 1: the UK, and has worked in as a specialist in
- 3:14Speaker 1: Sydney since two thousand and five. There's lots more, but
- 3:17Speaker 1: we'll hear about it from him, Doctor Mark officially, Welcome
- 3:21Speaker 1: to the You project, sir.
- 3:23Speaker 3: Thank you so much. It's just funny that you just
- 3:25Speaker 3: said all that. I swear a lot, but I've just
- 3:28Speaker 3: mentioned before it has been back to South Africa after
- 3:31Speaker 3: three years, you know, COVID all that sort of stuff,
- 3:33Speaker 3: to see my parents. My father just burst into tears
- 3:35Speaker 3: when you huge me. Oh, it's lovely and you talk
- 3:39Speaker 3: about posh, you know, water whatever. I'm a boy from
- 3:42Speaker 3: the Burbs and it's like it's always it's always going good,
- 3:46Speaker 3: going back to your roots. Right. So I'm doing a
- 3:48Speaker 3: documentary with Allison you talk to her, my manager and
- 3:51Speaker 3: best friend. You documentary at my school next year. I'm
- 3:54Speaker 3: forty years out of high school. Wow, lovely school, and
- 3:59Speaker 3: it's we're going to look at we got to go
- 4:01Speaker 3: on from Mardi Gras and growing up gay in the
- 4:03Speaker 3: seventies and eighties. Obviously it wasn't that much fun. And
- 4:07Speaker 3: now at the school they got the first genine you,
- 4:10Speaker 3: toul toilets and trans students going to the metric ball
- 4:13Speaker 3: and it's pretty amazing. So we're going to do it
- 4:16Speaker 3: then and now. But of course I go to the school,
- 4:19Speaker 3: right and all of a sudden, I realized I'm a
- 4:21Speaker 3: person of high net worth to myself. When you talking
- 4:27Speaker 3: about I go w TAF in my head. Every single
- 4:31Speaker 3: time they're looking at me, and we'll be doing very
- 4:33Speaker 3: serious conversations or whatever. I'm going. I rode my bicycle
- 4:37Speaker 3: from the birds to school every day.
- 4:38Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like I'm just an older
- 4:41Speaker 1: version of you? I know you think I'm special and
- 4:44Speaker 1: all that bullshit and clever, but I'm not. I'm just
- 4:46Speaker 1: you in a different time.
- 4:50Speaker 3: It's a weird thing looking at past cells and now,
- 4:53Speaker 3: because it's always part of you, right. My problem is
- 4:56Speaker 3: with the anxiety and the constant need to overcompensate for
- 5:03Speaker 3: all of that. It's a constant sort of thing in
- 5:05Speaker 3: my head. My head never stops, you know, and I'm going,
- 5:07Speaker 3: I really should be doing Benny here, I'm going to
- 5:09Speaker 3: do this perfectly perfection traits and all that sort of stuff,
- 5:13Speaker 3: and then you sit back and go, you know what,
- 5:15Speaker 3: there are some advantages to getting old, and this is
- 5:20Speaker 3: part of it. So now it's sort of like, hey,
- 5:23Speaker 3: I'm getting a little bit more chilled in my approach
- 5:25Speaker 3: to when I see people, and I don't have to
- 5:27Speaker 3: constantly think, oh, I'm going to prove something to them
- 5:31Speaker 3: that there is that, especially when you go back to
- 5:33Speaker 3: your past. Yeah, have to prove something even though you
- 5:36Speaker 3: left it.
- 5:37Speaker 1: And it's funny. In some places, Doc, I feel quite
- 5:41Speaker 1: competent and confident, not over the top, you know. But
- 5:46Speaker 1: and then in other situations, circumstance, environment, people, I can
- 5:49Speaker 1: feel like the biggest fuck with ever, you know. So
- 5:53Speaker 1: for me, it's contextual. It depends who I'm with, where
- 5:56Speaker 1: I'm at, what I'm doing. Like when I started my
- 6:00Speaker 1: HD three and a bit years ago, I felt like
- 6:04Speaker 1: I definitely shouldn't be there. I'm not smart enough, I'm
- 6:07Speaker 1: too old, I'm like every reason to undermine myself, to
- 6:12Speaker 1: self sabotage, to fuck it up. That's all I could
- 6:15Speaker 1: think of. For the first six months. I felt like
- 6:18Speaker 1: a complete fraud.
- 6:20Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know that imposter syndrome that I am
- 6:23Speaker 3: keen sort of you know, board member of committee. It
- 6:26Speaker 3: does come out right, But I think that makes you
- 6:28Speaker 3: a bit of You're a better person if you have that,
- 6:31Speaker 3: rather than being too overconfident, cocky in an arshole. I mean,
- 6:35Speaker 3: you know that's.
- 6:39Speaker 1: Are they clinical terms. I'm just I'm taking notes.
- 6:42Speaker 3: It's in the DSM six that's still.
- 6:47Speaker 1: That's hilarious. And so when you when you're reflecting on
- 6:52Speaker 1: you in the seventies and you in the eighties as
- 6:54Speaker 1: a an overthinking, you know, self conscious gay kid trying
- 7:01Speaker 1: to navigate life. When you went back to your school,
- 7:06Speaker 1: did stuff come up for you?
- 7:09Speaker 3: I think the first yeares because actually I left. It
- 7:11Speaker 3: was so funny because I'm prenny with Osha Gunsberg, right,
- 7:14Speaker 3: and I love him. We were on the board of
- 7:16Speaker 3: Saying together and during the Schizophrenia Week two years ago,
- 7:20Speaker 3: he said, hey, come let me chat to you about
- 7:21Speaker 3: you know, schizophrenia and your work as a psychiatrist and
- 7:23Speaker 3: blah blah blah, and you start the podcast and like you,
- 7:26Speaker 3: he just turned to me and went, so tell me
- 7:29Speaker 3: what was it like growing up fucking gay in South Africa?
- 7:32Speaker 3: That's I said, was supposed to be talking about schizophrenia. Now,
- 7:35Speaker 3: thanks very much, chat about I did not go back
- 7:39Speaker 3: to my school or the environment for thirty four years,
- 7:43Speaker 3: and then seven years ago I got in touch with
- 7:47Speaker 3: my ex biology teacher. I used her notes in my
- 7:50Speaker 3: first year at medical school. That's how good she was,
- 7:52Speaker 3: you know, survivgy on that all and she is an
- 7:56Speaker 3: amazing woman because she's quite religious. And I thought when
- 8:02Speaker 3: I wrote to her that it was all my own stuff.
- 8:05Speaker 3: You know, you got your own stuff from when you're younger.
- 8:10Speaker 3: And I took John with me to dinner and she
- 8:14Speaker 3: opened the door, gave me a big hug, and there
- 8:16Speaker 3: was her gay friends from Amsterdam, who part of a
- 8:19Speaker 3: charity that she's also involved with for years. She goes, Mike,
- 8:24Speaker 3: I've always been pretty gay friendly and open, and but
- 8:28Speaker 3: you don't see that when you're younger and looking inward
- 8:31Speaker 3: and worrying about your own stuff all the time. It
- 8:34Speaker 3: was amazing. So yeah, so I've reconnected with my school,
- 8:38Speaker 3: which I never thought I would.
- 8:41Speaker 1: How How I mean, I'm sure you've been asked this
- 8:43Speaker 1: a thousand times, but as ever, as long or brief
- 8:47Speaker 1: as you want, But what was school like for you?
- 8:52Speaker 3: High school? You know, I was a prefect, I did
- 8:55Speaker 3: well and was but it was it was completely hidden.
- 8:58Speaker 3: I didn't want to acknowledge that I was gay. I
- 9:02Speaker 3: knew it, you know, in some level. And when I
- 9:04Speaker 3: was fifteen, in my year ten equivalent, I was bullied
- 9:08Speaker 3: a bit and it was difficulty at school and I
- 9:11Speaker 3: actually i wasn't in the top three for the first time.
- 9:13Speaker 3: That might sound a bit weird to people, but it
- 9:15Speaker 3: was the only year in the form, and I thought, well,
- 9:18Speaker 3: I did no one pick this up? Right? But I
- 9:21Speaker 3: also in looking back, I was quite a strong personality
- 9:26Speaker 3: kid too. And and to shows you how young our
- 9:30Speaker 3: teachers were out forty years on, four of them are
- 9:33Speaker 3: still teaching at my school, and one of them is
- 9:35Speaker 3: a school counselor. And I'm going to talk to him
- 9:37Speaker 3: on the documentary next time. He's saying, Mark, I didn't
- 9:41Speaker 3: think you had any issues. You looked you always looked
- 9:43Speaker 3: so suave and fine at school and you were in control. Meanwhile,
- 9:47Speaker 3: inside I was going, what the hell I need help?
- 9:49Speaker 3: But nobody picked it up.
- 9:51Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but I think we become and whether or
- 9:55Speaker 1: not it's we're trying to hide our sexuality or or
- 9:59Speaker 1: something else, you know, whether or not it's you know, anxiety,
- 10:03Speaker 1: we're trying to pretend we're confident or or we feel
- 10:06Speaker 1: inadequate or imposter syndrome. I feel like there's the persona.
- 10:10Speaker 1: There's the the work persona, the school persona, the public
- 10:14Speaker 1: kind of thing, and then there's the person underneath it.
- 10:17Speaker 1: And opening that door and being vulnerable. You know, that's
- 10:21Speaker 1: the challenge, isn't it.
- 10:23Speaker 3: It is a huge challenge and one that I've accepted
- 10:25Speaker 3: because you know, go, what do I want to do
- 10:27Speaker 3: when I get older? I want to be the real me.
- 10:29Speaker 3: I want to be open about who I am. I
- 10:31Speaker 3: want to about who I am to the people I treat.
- 10:34Speaker 3: And I've had various levels of me saying about that
- 10:39Speaker 3: or advice that I shouldn't do that. We got taught
- 10:42Speaker 3: at medical school in the eighties to be stiff upper
- 10:46Speaker 3: lip doctors. No, bess, don't show anything of yourself. I've
- 10:50Speaker 3: just ignored that most of my life, but I haven't
- 10:54Speaker 3: really come out. If somebody asked me, it was it's
- 10:57Speaker 3: only women who are menic that ever asked me out right.
- 11:00Speaker 3: It's so funny in my work, and then of course
- 11:03Speaker 3: I say, yeah, I am. I'm not going to lie.
- 11:05Speaker 3: But there was that pressure not to be open, certainly
- 11:09Speaker 3: in the eighties and nineties as a psychiatrist. So's it's
- 11:13Speaker 3: quite liberating in one level. But I gave a speech
- 11:16Speaker 3: about it a couple of years ago and the professor
- 11:18Speaker 3: I'm not friendly with you came up to me and
- 11:20Speaker 3: he said, Mark you very brave, and I go, well,
- 11:24Speaker 3: why I'm just being myself. That's not bravery, that's that's
- 11:31Speaker 3: maybe it is part I don't know's how are we
- 11:34Speaker 3: supposed to help others with their emotional journey or mental
- 11:37Speaker 3: health journey if you can't be open about who you
- 11:40Speaker 3: are and what you are and so many people, most
- 11:44Speaker 3: of the people I treat, it's trauma, trauma, trauma, traumaun
- 11:48Speaker 3: and because society doesn't accept them whatever was. Of course,
- 11:53Speaker 3: I think that's leading away in a way, but because
- 11:56Speaker 3: it doesn't make it less anxiety provoking.
- 11:59Speaker 1: But yeah, I agree with you, and I think that
- 12:02Speaker 1: if you're the best in inverted commas, whatever that means,
- 12:05Speaker 1: you're the best clinician, the best psychiatrist, the best doctor,
- 12:08Speaker 1: You've got the highest IQ, you've got the best marks,
- 12:10Speaker 1: you've got the most knowledge, but you're an unapproachable prick
- 12:16Speaker 1: and I don't get any warmth from you, and you
- 12:18Speaker 1: don't seem to care about me, and you've got the
- 12:22Speaker 1: emotional intelligence of a fucking stamp, and like, it's one
- 12:27Speaker 1: thing to be brilliant and to understand human behavior and
- 12:31Speaker 1: all of that, but we as patients, what we want
- 12:34Speaker 1: from you is we want you to give a fuck
- 12:37Speaker 1: like I actually want to like you. It doesn't matter
- 12:40Speaker 1: how brilliant you are. If I'm not comfortable with you,
- 12:42Speaker 1: if I don't think you care, if I don't think
- 12:44Speaker 1: you're genuine, I'm not coming back or I'm definitely not
- 12:48Speaker 1: trusting you. Even if I have to come.
- 12:50Speaker 3: Back, I agree, I've got and add to that, I
- 12:54Speaker 3: could just only openly agree. And I've had to close
- 12:57Speaker 3: my books because I'm so busy. So being open hasn't
- 13:00Speaker 3: hurt me professionally in any way, or hasn't hurt my
- 13:03Speaker 3: career at all, and in fact, it's made it stronger
- 13:08Speaker 3: and more meaningful. And you know, I want to be treated.
- 13:13Speaker 3: I treat people like my family, or I think would
- 13:16Speaker 3: my family if this is a member of my family,
- 13:18Speaker 3: this is my son, would I want the doctor or
- 13:21Speaker 3: the team to react in this way. That's why I've
- 13:26Speaker 3: always practiced right, and it's and I tell my patients
- 13:30Speaker 3: if you're seeing a psychologist or somebody or even a psychotriage,
- 13:32Speaker 3: don't have to stay with me, and so we don't gel.
- 13:34Speaker 3: That's fine.
- 13:35Speaker 1: Yeah, at the end of the day, if you don't.
- 13:36Speaker 3: Jail with someone, then it's your right to go. This
- 13:39Speaker 3: isn't working for me. I don't find someone else. The
- 13:43Speaker 3: problem is sometimes you can't find someone else.
- 13:45Speaker 1: That's true. And the thing is, and I've said this
- 13:48Speaker 1: before and on this show, you know, like I said
- 13:52Speaker 1: to you before we press the go, but not done.
- 13:54Speaker 1: How We've done over a thousand shows, and I've got
- 13:58Speaker 1: lots of bullshit and lots of issues self doubt and
- 14:00Speaker 1: insecurity and overthinking and you know, and it goes in
- 14:05Speaker 1: waves of where I feel better or worse about myself
- 14:08Speaker 1: and ego and bullshit. And I want you to love
- 14:11Speaker 1: me because I'm an only child and I was a
- 14:13Speaker 1: fat kid, and I was all these things. But the
- 14:16Speaker 1: more that you know without being too self indulgent or
- 14:19Speaker 1: boring people to death with your own bullshit. But for me,
- 14:22Speaker 1: the more honest you are and authentic, the more people
- 14:30Speaker 1: relate to you. It's like, yes, you're a doctor, Yes
- 14:33Speaker 1: you understand the mind, and yes you understand the brain
- 14:35Speaker 1: and human behavior, and yes you're well trained and qualified,
- 14:38Speaker 1: but also you get them like you get them on
- 14:41Speaker 1: a personal level, and they get you because you're kind
- 14:45Speaker 1: of like them, you know. And I think that it's
- 14:48Speaker 1: ironic that they say, correct me if I fuck this up, Doc,
- 14:52Speaker 1: But they kind of say to you, be a bit
- 14:53Speaker 1: of a closed book, don't open up, don't be vulnerable
- 14:57Speaker 1: with your patients, don't let them really know anything about
- 15:00Speaker 1: you or your personal life. And that's a directive which
- 15:03Speaker 1: I think actually produces the opposite of what's required for
- 15:07Speaker 1: great session.
- 15:10Speaker 3: And it leads to so many issues in members of
- 15:13Speaker 3: my profession. You know, surprise, we've got high drug alcohol rates,
- 15:18Speaker 3: divorce rates, especially in the females, and our professional highest
- 15:21Speaker 3: suicide rates than the average population. But you still don't
- 15:27Speaker 3: It's still considered a weakness. You come for help if
- 15:30Speaker 3: you've got mental health issues, which of course I'm trying
- 15:32Speaker 3: to break down. Those barriers go back to how we're
- 15:35Speaker 3: supposed to interact with someone. Yes, you've got to be open,
- 15:40Speaker 3: and I think COVID showing that right. So look at
- 15:43Speaker 3: us now chatting. Melbourne's having a great.
- 15:46Speaker 1: Now I didn't.
- 15:47Speaker 3: I hadn't heard of zoom before. The guy who invented
- 15:52Speaker 3: zoom or whatever sold it just before COVID sounds like
- 15:54Speaker 3: a lovely guy. When do these things happen? But you know,
- 15:57Speaker 3: we all know what it is now, right, and this
- 15:59Speaker 3: is how we can can actually interact. I saw all
- 16:01Speaker 3: my regular patients and consumers on my service in their
- 16:06Speaker 3: homes for the first time, so you know, they talk
- 16:08Speaker 3: about the cats and the dogs and the kids, and
- 16:09Speaker 3: couple were smoking in front of me, going hey, doctor,
- 16:11Speaker 3: and I can smoke in front of you now I'm
- 16:13Speaker 3: in my house, showing me that there was even more
- 16:17Speaker 3: of a connection. I think this medium and what am
- 16:22Speaker 3: I supposed to do? A couple of times I was
- 16:24Speaker 3: in my gym jams, I was cold and I'm not bloody,
- 16:28Speaker 3: changing laugh together and going, well, you know, we don't
- 16:31Speaker 3: have to focus on that. We're having a nice chat.
- 16:34Speaker 3: How are you doing. Let's just work out how you
- 16:38Speaker 3: stay well or we can maintain wellness during this really
- 16:41Speaker 3: difficult time. But being open with each other and showing
- 16:45Speaker 3: us I was because you still have to have boundaries people,
- 16:48Speaker 3: that's very important. You've got to have boundaries, of course,
- 16:50Speaker 3: but they don't have to be rigid, and they don't
- 16:52Speaker 3: have to be one sided, you know, one on one.
- 16:56Speaker 3: Don't have sex with your patients. I think that's quite
- 16:59Speaker 3: a good one too. You go by you.
- 17:02Speaker 1: I stick by that, yeah, I reckon. Personal trainers need
- 17:06Speaker 1: to know that. One to doc, because that doesn't end well.
- 17:10Speaker 3: Well, trust if I haven't worked in the gym industry
- 17:12Speaker 3: for many years.
- 17:13Speaker 1: So I'll tell you what. There's a whole lot of
- 17:16Speaker 1: the dance with no pants that goes on between trainers
- 17:18Speaker 1: and clients. Don't worry about that. Oh what, no, fuck off?
- 17:22Speaker 1: That doesn't. Yeah, anyway, moving on, So I want to
- 17:27Speaker 1: ask you, doctor Mark, if if anxiety is on a
- 17:33Speaker 1: scale from say one to ten, could you describe one
- 17:38Speaker 1: and could you describe ten? And I know this is
- 17:41Speaker 1: a bullshit scale that I just hypothetically created for this conversation,
- 17:45Speaker 1: but if there's a obviously it's not. It's not the
- 17:49Speaker 1: same earth intensity or volume or experience for everyone, and
- 17:54Speaker 1: somebody's one might be someone else's for I get that,
- 17:57Speaker 1: but in general terms, what does a one or two
- 17:59Speaker 1: look like? So what does a nine or ten look like?
- 18:01Speaker 3: Yeah? Sure, no, that's I ask people to do that
- 18:05Speaker 3: all the time. So one is you're starting to feel
- 18:08Speaker 3: that sort of fight or flight sort of heart rate
- 18:11Speaker 3: going a bit stem, to feel a bit anxious, sweaty
- 18:14Speaker 3: thinking about something that's about to transpire or thinking about
- 18:18Speaker 3: something that's not going to transpire. Because that's generalized anxiety.
- 18:21Speaker 3: It's sort and you're starting to overthink. But then you
- 18:23Speaker 3: can go, you know what, I'm using my skills and
- 18:24Speaker 3: I'm going to go and ground myself and go for
- 18:27Speaker 3: a walk and all those sort of things at work,
- 18:30Speaker 3: and so it doesn't really affect your functioning because it's
- 18:32Speaker 3: always a mixture of symptoms and then functioning, right, so
- 18:37Speaker 3: you're coping. It's affecting you about nothing as sort of
- 18:42Speaker 3: grounding mindful technique won't sort of help with TO ten,
- 18:47Speaker 3: which is panic attack, and that is where you are
- 18:51Speaker 3: so worked up that your heart's and your mouth going
- 18:54Speaker 3: one hundred and forty miles an hour, your chests constricting
- 18:58Speaker 3: your pupils, dilating you in that really I'm just about
- 19:02Speaker 3: to jump the fence with no external danger sort of
- 19:06Speaker 3: you feel you're dying from a heart attack. And then
- 19:09Speaker 3: often where people present to the emergency development right because
- 19:13Speaker 3: they think they're dying, they're about to faint from all
- 19:16Speaker 3: this horrible stuff going in their bodies and their minds,
- 19:20Speaker 3: and you cannot talk yourself out of it or use
- 19:23Speaker 3: your grunting. That's out of the window, and you're then
- 19:26Speaker 3: walking in an increasingly loop wormhole. You're gotting down. That's
- 19:32Speaker 3: where I put ten.
- 19:33Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess when you're up around that nine ten,
- 19:37Speaker 1: and then you get overwhelmed by what's going on physiologically
- 19:41Speaker 1: in a heart rate, adrenaline, all of those things, sympathetic,
- 19:44Speaker 1: nervous system, dad that are and you then you start
- 19:48Speaker 1: to think you're going to die. That just as you said,
- 19:52Speaker 1: that exacerbates. So what's the circuit breaker or is there
- 19:57Speaker 1: not one? Is it just time? Is it just yeah?
- 20:01Speaker 1: Rather than I offer answers, why don't you just help us?
- 20:04Speaker 3: No? No, no, it is are you I mean you talked
- 20:06Speaker 3: about exercise physiology earlier. I'm really a fan of that now.
- 20:09Speaker 3: I mean I think in terms of you learn some
- 20:11Speaker 3: preventative measures, so you cut it off at the past
- 20:15Speaker 3: before it gets to that point. But then you've got
- 20:19Speaker 3: measures in place, skills that you've learned. And this is
- 20:22Speaker 3: for people who've had it before. When first when it
- 20:25Speaker 3: first comes on, sometimes you're not prepared for it, and
- 20:27Speaker 3: then it's bloody awful, right, and then the circuit breaker
- 20:30Speaker 3: often there is getting help. Hopefully you've got somebody around
- 20:34Speaker 3: who can talk you down and help you, or you
- 20:36Speaker 3: end up in the emergency department. So the circuit breaker
- 20:41Speaker 3: is those sort of grounding techniques that we've talk including exercise,
- 20:47Speaker 3: and maybe one simple way of saying this is I
- 20:52Speaker 3: said to people, you've got the emotional mind, you've got
- 20:55Speaker 3: an emotional response, cognition and thinking about things and talking
- 20:59Speaker 3: through who comes later. At that moment, you have to
- 21:03Speaker 3: do something physical. And part of grounding techniques is that
- 21:07Speaker 3: you know, you go barefoot into the mud or sand outside,
- 21:10Speaker 3: you hold it the ice. You've got to do something physical,
- 21:14Speaker 3: shock yourself out what's happening to you in your body
- 21:18Speaker 3: at the time, and then you go, oh, okay, now
- 21:22Speaker 3: I'm thinking, oh that's right. Mindful techniques or exercise, Let
- 21:25Speaker 3: me go for a little walk around the block, go
- 21:27Speaker 3: kill some tree, bark things like that, that real sort
- 21:30Speaker 3: of physicality that's important, and then come back. Then I
- 21:34Speaker 3: can look at some of my more intellectual exercises and
- 21:39Speaker 3: start the positive self talk that be useful.
- 21:45Speaker 1: Yes, I make yeah, one hundred percent. And also I
- 21:48Speaker 1: guess like even things like so I'm writing notes as
- 21:51Speaker 1: you're as you're talking, which is a very bad habit
- 21:53Speaker 1: for a host of a show, but fuck, could everyone
- 21:56Speaker 1: live on the edge. I'm taking notes because I'm learning
- 21:58Speaker 1: because I'm a student. But also things like box breathing
- 22:04Speaker 1: right as well, if you can manage that or just
- 22:06Speaker 1: you know that kind of controlled in hold out slow
- 22:10Speaker 1: like some of that which kind of can hopefully turn
- 22:13Speaker 1: on the parasympathetic nervous system a little bit.
- 22:16Speaker 3: Yes, you're looking at by feedback the stuff that really
- 22:20Speaker 3: is useful. Breathing is amazing. So if you look at
- 22:23Speaker 3: when I trained, you know, I talked about the relaxation
- 22:26Speaker 3: techniques and the needs to have relaxation groups. Yeah, it
- 22:29Speaker 3: looked exactly at this a muscle tensing breathing whilst you
- 22:34Speaker 3: in that sort of heightened mode. Now I suppose now
- 22:38Speaker 3: we talk more about the grounding techniques and it's similar
- 22:42Speaker 3: sort of stuff. Right, So breathing is incredible. So I'm
- 22:46Speaker 3: a breath holder, so then you even now so I'm
- 22:50Speaker 3: holding my breath while I'm talking to you. Yeah, and
- 22:54Speaker 3: there's certain techniques like the holding breath both inhaling and
- 22:59Speaker 3: ex Yeah, that's a really useful technique, right, absolutely, like
- 23:05Speaker 3: you just mentioned.
- 23:07Speaker 1: All right, can I ask you a personal question, it's
- 23:10Speaker 1: not too personal based on our scale that we did before,
- 23:15Speaker 1: zero being no anxiety just out of curiosity. What's your
- 23:19Speaker 1: number right now?
- 23:22Speaker 3: It's just it's quite low. But it's interesting just to
- 23:24Speaker 3: add a little bit of a caveat to that scale.
- 23:28Speaker 3: We're talking about the scales of anxiety. So you go
- 23:31Speaker 3: from anxiety to panic. Yes, my sort of anxiety, though
- 23:36Speaker 3: it's slightly different. It's that sort of disconnected anxiety, so
- 23:40Speaker 3: that de realization, depersonalization where you disconnect but looking incredibly calm,
- 23:47Speaker 3: also unfocused because everything's going internal, which leads to the
- 23:52Speaker 3: worst bit of that is that dissociation that people have
- 23:56Speaker 3: heard about more now, So that's quite I don't associate,
- 24:01Speaker 3: but I sometimes feel very disconnected and sort of head
- 24:06Speaker 3: with the head going inwards. I'm not eating that at
- 24:09Speaker 3: all at the moment. So let's all users scale. But no,
- 24:12Speaker 3: you've really you've put me at ease. But I hope
- 24:15Speaker 3: you well make sense of water melon.
- 24:17Speaker 1: Well, you're really good at this, so and that's not
- 24:19Speaker 1: me trying to make you feel good. So I want
- 24:22Speaker 1: to I want to run a few things that I
- 24:26Speaker 1: think can relate to or have an impact on anxiety.
- 24:30Speaker 1: And I'm just going to say some words, and you're
- 24:32Speaker 1: going to tell me about that thing and anxiety. The
- 24:35Speaker 1: relationship if any Is that all right?
- 24:38Speaker 3: Sure?
- 24:39Speaker 1: Right here we go Number one, Sleep and anxiety.
- 24:43Speaker 3: Big, big, big, sleep and mood pivotal. You have to sleep.
- 24:47Speaker 3: You have to get good grounded's mindful sleep. You have
- 24:51Speaker 3: to have your circadian rhythms in check. You have to
- 24:56Speaker 3: have a routine for sleep, early sleep, early wake, and
- 24:59Speaker 3: keep this saying routine even if you're doing various other things.
- 25:02Speaker 3: Are going out for another that's sure, wake up the
- 25:05Speaker 3: same time in the morning, do something. You can go
- 25:07Speaker 3: back to bed then, But it's that sleep wake cycle
- 25:10Speaker 3: that's really important.
- 25:12Speaker 1: Perfect exercise and anxiety or movement.
- 25:18Speaker 3: Again pivotal. So I look at the lifestyle stuff in
- 25:23Speaker 3: every single one of my sessions with my patients. Diet, sleep, exercise. Sorry,
- 25:27Speaker 3: maybe I'm jumping the gun a bit, but in terms
- 25:30Speaker 3: of sleep and exercise, not only does exercise help your
- 25:34Speaker 3: heart rate and your energy levels and your fitness, it
- 25:38Speaker 3: absolutely releases in doorphins, which is part of that lovely
- 25:43Speaker 3: chain of events, cascades in the neurotransmitters neurochemicals in the
- 25:48Speaker 3: brain that bring down your anxiety. So that's part of
- 25:52Speaker 3: it as well, which is also the sort of triggering
- 25:57Speaker 3: for meditation. And yoga.
- 26:01Speaker 1: I feel like exercises itself an antidepressant and anti axiotic.
- 26:08Speaker 3: It absolutely, it's great for any mood. And you know
- 26:14Speaker 3: even when you feel I see an exercise physologist altho.
- 26:17Speaker 3: I've taken a break now, but over Christmas. And every
- 26:20Speaker 3: time you go, like anything, you know with anxiety, you
- 26:23Speaker 3: feel anxious beforehand, or you just don't feel like it,
- 26:25Speaker 3: or who wants to get out of bed in a
- 26:27Speaker 3: cold day? Right the hell? And then you there and
- 26:31Speaker 3: doing something, And that's a bit like anxiety itself. It's
- 26:34Speaker 3: always it feels worse than when you actually do something. Anticipation, yes,
- 26:40Speaker 3: and then you're there and chatting and stretching and doing something,
- 26:45Speaker 3: and when you're feeling not so great at the time
- 26:47Speaker 3: because it's actually pushing even the your meaning like Ellen
- 26:49Speaker 3: getting I don't wanted any cordivescul exercise today, and then
- 26:53Speaker 3: the whole day afterwards, you're buzzing and you interacting better
- 26:58Speaker 3: and you're feeling great, and you go exercise does thing
- 27:01Speaker 3: to work?
- 27:02Speaker 1: Well? It changes you buy a chemistry, doesn't it. It's
- 27:06Speaker 1: like doc, when you you get in trouble at school
- 27:12Speaker 1: and you get sent to the principal's office, and you've
- 27:14Speaker 1: got to sit outside. You've got to sit on a
- 27:16Speaker 1: chair outside. This may or may not have happened to
- 27:18Speaker 1: me thirteen times where you've got to sit outside and
- 27:25Speaker 1: you're shitting yourself because you're about to get expelled or
- 27:29Speaker 1: suspended or your parents are going to you know, and
- 27:32Speaker 1: it's horrendous. And then two hours later the principal walks
- 27:36Speaker 1: out and says, go back to your classroom. Because the
- 27:40Speaker 1: punishment was the two hours sitting there, right, he didn't
- 27:43Speaker 1: need to say anything. The anticipation of the anxiety, the overthinking,
- 27:48Speaker 1: the visualizing of all the shit that was going to happen,
- 27:51Speaker 1: Like I punished myself for two hours.
- 27:55Speaker 3: Yes, but also you're also exposing yourself at the time
- 27:57Speaker 3: to these so then you realize it's getting wor it's
- 28:00Speaker 3: getting worse, and then you go, well, fuck it. Whatever's
- 28:02Speaker 3: going to happen now is going to happen. It's part
- 28:06Speaker 3: of the exposure, which is which is interesting, right, But yeah,
- 28:08Speaker 3: so you're building yourself up. But again that's an external event.
- 28:11Speaker 3: So that's the one thing I'll say with stress and anxiety,
- 28:14Speaker 3: we've got an external event that's causing an anxiety response.
- 28:17Speaker 3: And when that goes, things go down, right, If you've
- 28:20Speaker 3: got an anxiety condition, sometimes that doesn't work and you
- 28:23Speaker 3: don't have the external response, so you getting this horrible
- 28:27Speaker 3: response and it's not linked to anything. Yeah, that's the
- 28:31Speaker 3: worst bit because you can just like free float for
- 28:34Speaker 3: a long time and you have to work on skills
- 28:37Speaker 3: sets and whatever you're going to do to that for
- 28:39Speaker 3: for a while longer.
- 28:41Speaker 1: Is one of the I don't know if is this
- 28:45Speaker 1: is the right term, but exposure therapy. Like one of
- 28:49Speaker 1: the quests I did a lot of corporate speaking. One
- 28:51Speaker 1: of the questions I get asked a lot or a
- 28:54Speaker 1: lot over the years anyway, is how do I overcome
- 28:57Speaker 1: my fear of public speaking? In my answer is by
- 29:00Speaker 1: public speaking? Right, Like, you can't you can't get good
- 29:05Speaker 1: at what you're not doing. You can't overcome a fear
- 29:07Speaker 1: you won't confront, you know, and obviously how you do that?
- 29:13Speaker 1: You know there are levels and there are sizes of audiences,
- 29:16Speaker 1: and there are different situations. But is that, you know,
- 29:20Speaker 1: like just something that creates anxiety, which might be ten X,
- 29:26Speaker 1: we call that that stimulus, that anxiety producing stimulus ten X.
- 29:30Speaker 1: If we just open the door on one X, is
- 29:33Speaker 1: that a good way to start Or is that complete
- 29:35Speaker 1: psychobabble from a bloke who doesn't know what he's talking about.
- 29:38Speaker 3: No, it's very clearly know exactly what you're talking about.
- 29:42Speaker 3: It's you just hit the nail on the head. Yeah,
- 29:45Speaker 3: the thing about public speaking, but think about anxiety. So
- 29:49Speaker 3: I actually perform quite well so and I fun acknowledge that.
- 29:54Speaker 3: So it's a lead up to it that then gets
- 29:58Speaker 3: so bad for some people that they're and they can't
- 30:01Speaker 3: go on. It's not actually the event itself, it's that
- 30:05Speaker 3: things have built up so much at that point that
- 30:08Speaker 3: they're getting panic and then they just can't do it.
- 30:13Speaker 3: A lot of people, myself included. When you finally there,
- 30:15Speaker 3: and that's part of the exposure, you realize, actually if
- 30:18Speaker 3: you expose yourself and you rank it so you don't
- 30:21Speaker 3: do the biggest one first, the lowest one first.
- 30:24Speaker 1: Progressive overload. We call it an exercise physiology.
- 30:29Speaker 3: And it's similar, and so you rank and you do
- 30:32Speaker 3: hierarchical sort of exposure, and so you realize as you're
- 30:38Speaker 3: doing it, oh, this isn't as bad as my you know, prefront,
- 30:43Speaker 3: all my other parts of my brain that are going
- 30:45Speaker 3: into overdrive led me to believe. The problem then is
- 30:50Speaker 3: people don't quite understand or except you've got anxiety to
- 30:53Speaker 3: go well, and everyone gets anxious before we talk or whatever.
- 30:56Speaker 3: As I said, no, it's the pre people don't witness
- 31:01Speaker 3: that often you go talk to my husband and the
- 31:04Speaker 3: post because then you become a flaky mess afterwards because going,
- 31:07Speaker 3: oh my god, what did I think I'll talk too
- 31:10Speaker 3: long when I talked to Craig And maybe I didn't
- 31:13Speaker 3: swear enough and I'm not part of the and it's like,
- 31:15Speaker 3: you know, it's all that stuff that happens afterwards at
- 31:18Speaker 3: two in the morning when you're not able to sleep.
- 31:21Speaker 3: So you've got to look at all those things, but
- 31:22Speaker 3: absolutely expose, expose, expose because and the Yerx Dodson curve
- 31:29Speaker 3: is a lot of name to it. All the slots
- 31:31Speaker 3: in medicine have been taken. Unfortunately, there's nothing going to
- 31:33Speaker 3: be named after me. So as you know, you were
- 31:36Speaker 3: going to do quite well when something's named after you,
- 31:39Speaker 3: and this is curve. It's exposure over time and actually
- 31:44Speaker 3: the anxiety comes down.
- 31:46Speaker 1: Right, yeah, it's longer. What about doc the So I'm
- 31:53Speaker 1: just holding up everyone a candle, right, just because I
- 31:56Speaker 1: know this is not visual for most of you. So
- 31:58Speaker 1: I'm holding up this and I go, oh, this, which
- 32:01Speaker 1: is just a thing. This stresses me, this causes this
- 32:05Speaker 1: makes me anxious. Right. But there's the thing that we
- 32:09Speaker 1: say makes us anxious. The stimulus, the external thing. It
- 32:12Speaker 1: could be having to talk, It could be seeing a spider,
- 32:16Speaker 1: it could be it could be sitting in for a
- 32:20Speaker 1: job interview. Right, whatever the thing, the trigger, the stimulus,
- 32:24Speaker 1: the event, the object, whatever that is, there's that which
- 32:28Speaker 1: is meaningless and to we're involved, then we give it meaning. Right.
- 32:32Speaker 1: So what's the space between the thing and then my
- 32:36Speaker 1: story about the thing? In other words, am I creating stress?
- 32:41Speaker 1: Or is it creating stress? Is that my stress response
- 32:45Speaker 1: to an inert thing?
- 32:48Speaker 3: Again, who knows where it comes from? Right? And it's
- 32:53Speaker 3: not logical, that's our point. It's illogical. We used to
- 32:58Speaker 3: call anxiety conditions the neurotic conditions versus like as we
- 33:02Speaker 3: lose touch with reality. Right. The crap thing about having
- 33:07Speaker 3: anxiety is that you know it's logical. You know it's
- 33:10Speaker 3: your own thoughts. You know that all the stuff going
- 33:12Speaker 3: through your head, all the fears and worries linked to
- 33:15Speaker 3: the candle, linked to that, are really.
- 33:17Speaker 4: Quite yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it doesn't change the
- 33:22Speaker 4: fact that when you're in the middle of it, all
- 33:25Speaker 4: of that cognition and insight doesn't take away the fucking
- 33:30Speaker 4: terror or the anxiety.
- 33:32Speaker 1: Like you might understand what's happening, but you still can't
- 33:35Speaker 1: turn it off.
- 33:37Speaker 3: No, it's craps. I'll give you a you know, I've
- 33:39Speaker 3: got a sleep disorder from the edge of four, I've
- 33:42Speaker 3: had night terrors, and yes, in the South African context,
- 33:45Speaker 3: you know, there's not it's not without its own issues
- 33:48Speaker 3: of crime and whatever. But I'm lying in my house
- 33:53Speaker 3: in a very safe part of Sydney and I can't sleep,
- 33:56Speaker 3: and I'm hearing noises of the wind and the roof
- 33:59Speaker 3: and I know I'm lying there going don't be ridiculous.
- 34:03Speaker 3: This is not it's not harmful. Maybe I shouldn't watch
- 34:06Speaker 3: Game of Thrones before I went to bed, hey, or
- 34:10Speaker 3: Stranger Things straight to all those things that I love
- 34:13Speaker 3: watching A big surprise when coming back to sleep, and
- 34:16Speaker 3: when you don't watch TV or whatever before the night,
- 34:19Speaker 3: you sleep better. So I've got to listen to myself.
- 34:21Speaker 3: Sometimes you're lying there and you're getting more and more
- 34:25Speaker 3: worked up and you can't sleep because all these irrational
- 34:28Speaker 3: fears are going through your head, and then you wonder
- 34:31Speaker 3: why I actually, maybe you do have anxiety and you're
- 34:34Speaker 3: not a fake after all saying these things because you
- 34:36Speaker 3: concept you can't scept that is the issue. And of
- 34:39Speaker 3: course you know there's there's a link. You've got to
- 34:44Speaker 3: try and unlink it in the various techniques I suppose,
- 34:49Speaker 3: but some things are pretty hard to unlink.
- 34:54Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't finish my list. Okay, so we did sleep,
- 34:57Speaker 1: we did exercise. Are you kind of opened the door
- 35:01Speaker 1: a bit on food? Is there any kind of intersection
- 35:04Speaker 1: between relationship between food and anxiety.
- 35:08Speaker 3: I'm really into gut health Nation. My passions are rolling
- 35:11Speaker 3: the eyes of me because that's all I'm talking about
- 35:13Speaker 3: at the moment.
- 35:13Speaker 1: I love that you said that I was gonna say
- 35:16Speaker 1: gut health and microbiome, and I thought you might say,
- 35:19Speaker 1: shut the fuck up. But we've we had a prof
- 35:22Speaker 1: on last week who did two episodes and we basically
- 35:25Speaker 1: talked about everything from gut health to fecal transplants, and
- 35:29Speaker 1: he's coming back. It's so fucking interesting. Yep, really really interesting.
- 35:34Speaker 3: And so when I was doing the research in my book,
- 35:36Speaker 3: you know, trying to overcompensate for my academic condensing and
- 35:39Speaker 3: all that sort of stuff.
- 35:40Speaker 1: Shut up, it's wonderful, you know.
- 35:44Speaker 3: You know, it's a more practical type person. And sugar
- 35:49Speaker 3: and gluten really really interesting in terms of mood generally. Yeah,
- 35:54Speaker 3: sugar really bad and inflammatory path and so even if
- 35:58Speaker 3: you look at the new sort of search on the
- 36:02Speaker 3: depression even anxiety, they're really looking at it as an
- 36:06Speaker 3: inflammatory response. There's this really interesting guy called Bretison in
- 36:11Speaker 3: the States looking at He looked at this for dementia
- 36:14Speaker 3: and he's gone, no, it's not the neurofobulary tangles that
- 36:17Speaker 3: we should be looking at in the brain of somebody
- 36:19Speaker 3: with dementia. That's the body's inflammtry response to what they're eating.
- 36:24Speaker 3: And that's twenty six leaky holes he talks about in
- 36:27Speaker 3: the gut, including sugar and cutting down meat and not
- 36:31Speaker 3: smoking and cutting down alcohol and looking at the gut microbiome,
- 36:35Speaker 3: but also looking at your vitamins, minerals and trace elements
- 36:41Speaker 3: and looking at pill vitamins that actually get absorbed by
- 36:46Speaker 3: the body that we don't just p out. And if
- 36:51Speaker 3: we look if we even look at what doctors do
- 36:53Speaker 3: now that we didn't do forty years ago, three years ago,
- 36:57Speaker 3: we didn't do vitamins as part of an a usual
- 37:01Speaker 3: work up for people. We do that all the time. Now.
- 37:04Speaker 3: It's part and parcel of what people then go to
- 37:08Speaker 3: see their doctors for and come to absolutely expect. The
- 37:13Speaker 3: next thing, of course, is a gut microbiome. I think, Okay,
- 37:18Speaker 3: we know that we're going to look after ourselves, look
- 37:21Speaker 3: at the diet, make sure we get proper vitamins, minerals
- 37:23Speaker 3: and that sort of stuff. But now criticism our gut.
- 37:26Speaker 3: I love that that need to be fed properly, and
- 37:31Speaker 3: actually the food is not that bad most of the
- 37:33Speaker 3: time and we can cope. Yeah, why I say is
- 37:38Speaker 3: roll my eyes. I was. I'm also about balance and
- 37:40Speaker 3: come on, I just had pizza, wine and chips with
- 37:42Speaker 3: my kids in front, and they didn't drink the wine.
- 37:45Speaker 3: But that's a thing of joy, and I think you've
- 37:50Speaker 3: got to also let yourself just be yourself in Christmas, right,
- 37:53Speaker 3: we've got to suspend. We've got to suspend all this
- 37:56Speaker 3: stuff every now and then think go, okay, January, I'll
- 37:58Speaker 3: go back on the microbiome and wagon. How old are
- 38:03Speaker 3: your kids, by the way, nearly ten and twelve and
- 38:07Speaker 3: the twelve year olds already told them in not that
- 38:09Speaker 3: that takes much and full puberty and young man studying
- 38:14Speaker 3: high school next to a camp believe it goes so quickly, right.
- 38:17Speaker 1: No time for liies? Hey everyone, just in case you
- 38:20Speaker 1: wanted to listen to those after you listen to Doctor Mark.
- 38:24Speaker 1: Of course, those episodes were Oney and eleven and one
- 38:28Speaker 1: thy twelve with doctor Bill Sullivan. The title is Pooh, transplants, antibiotics,
- 38:35Speaker 1: microbiome and bacteria, so Oney and eleven and twelve? What
- 38:40Speaker 1: about the relationship? And then I'll shut up about the
- 38:44Speaker 1: relationships unless we want to talk about tiff because there's
- 38:49Speaker 1: just a fucking oh Pandora's box of bullshit going on there, Doc.
- 38:53Speaker 1: If we want to open that, let's talk about genetics
- 38:57Speaker 1: and anxiety. Is some people I imagine genetically predisposed to anxiety
- 39:04Speaker 1: and depression?
- 39:06Speaker 3: Again, you know, you're talking about cause and effect, and
- 39:08Speaker 3: we're talking that age ol. Well, ever, since I was
- 39:11Speaker 3: a medical school before, the sort of nature versus nurture? Right,
- 39:15Speaker 3: how much how much is it in our genes? How
- 39:18Speaker 3: much is it in terms of when we're talking about
- 39:21Speaker 3: a history, like when I talk about family history, so
- 39:24Speaker 3: I've got a very strong family history of various things,
- 39:26Speaker 3: including anxiety and bipolar and depression. And so the more
- 39:33Speaker 3: modern way of looking at that is that you have
- 39:35Speaker 3: there's a genetic sort of predisposition or the genetic markers
- 39:39Speaker 3: for certain things, including anxiety and depression, and they are
- 39:44Speaker 3: switched on. Now, they can be switched on in certain circumstances.
- 39:48Speaker 3: That's when nurture plays a role. And so you know,
- 39:53Speaker 3: you go through a horrible experience like being a refugee,
- 39:58Speaker 3: and that's why they have a higher one of the
- 40:01Speaker 3: various reasons why they have a higher sort of a
- 40:03Speaker 3: lord of mental health issues. And so that's one of
- 40:07Speaker 3: the hypotheses that I find quite interesting now. But yes,
- 40:11Speaker 3: especially with the mood effective illness runs in families.
- 40:15Speaker 1: Just this is a red herring. Do you know a
- 40:19Speaker 1: lady called Dr Jody Richardson.
- 40:22Speaker 3: I know the name, Yes, Dr Jody.
- 40:25Speaker 1: We have on a bunch. She has a podcast called
- 40:27Speaker 1: well Hello Anxiety, and like you, Doc talks about her.
- 40:33Speaker 1: We had out we had the U Project conference a
- 40:35Speaker 1: couple of months ago and Jody was one of our speakers.
- 40:40Speaker 1: And what I love about her, she's like you, She's
- 40:43Speaker 1: just real she's down to earth. And I said to
- 40:47Speaker 1: her after she spoke, and she killed it. She did
- 40:50Speaker 1: a great job. She was amazing. And I chatted with
- 40:54Speaker 1: her on stage and I said, what was your anxiety
- 40:58Speaker 1: level going in? Like and I think she said like
- 41:02Speaker 1: nine or something like So honest, seven hundred people in
- 41:07Speaker 1: a room, you know, but just killed it and just
- 41:09Speaker 1: managed it. And like you just says, well, you know,
- 41:13Speaker 1: I kind of live with with it and manage it.
- 41:16Speaker 1: And do you think that mental health, which is a
- 41:20Speaker 1: very big term, do you think that there are more
- 41:25Speaker 1: people with mental health issues now than forty thirty years ago,
- 41:30Speaker 1: or just more information and more awareness, I.
- 41:35Speaker 3: Have to say, so, I just say I'm managing it
- 41:37Speaker 3: a bit better. My husband wants me to take more
- 41:40Speaker 3: things to manage it easier because he has the brunt
- 41:44Speaker 3: of it. So shout out to cares when we're talking
- 41:47Speaker 3: about these sort of things. Yeah, and sometimes I don't
- 41:50Speaker 3: feel I'm managing it. Well. I suppose with experience, you
- 41:53Speaker 3: get there and it's so I don't want to minimize,
- 41:56Speaker 3: you know. Just that's why I leave everything quite to
- 41:58Speaker 3: the last minute, even talking to you guys. I don't
- 42:00Speaker 3: want to look too much because then you build yourself up.
- 42:03Speaker 3: So I've learned the uniques, right, that's what that's what
- 42:07Speaker 3: you're really talking about in a way. With the rates
- 42:13Speaker 3: of mentally onnes no, I don't. Yes, there's more now
- 42:18Speaker 3: because I think we're talking about it more right, acknowledging
- 42:21Speaker 3: it more so. My mother even I took me to
- 42:24Speaker 3: write my first book for her to finally talk about
- 42:27Speaker 3: her brother has BiPOL and my uncle and two of
- 42:30Speaker 3: her cousins are suicided and one I think was because
- 42:34Speaker 3: he was gay. That's another long story that's never been unearthed.
- 42:37Speaker 3: You know, families don't talk about these things, talk about
- 42:40Speaker 3: these things. And of course you just had COVID. So
- 42:45Speaker 3: twenty twenty University of Queensland led research seventy six million
- 42:50Speaker 3: people worldwide developed anxiety, fifty three million depression. That's a
- 42:54Speaker 3: twenty six percent increase from twenty nineteen measure twenty twenty one.
- 42:59Speaker 3: Yet twenty two wasn't such a great year, was it.
- 43:02Speaker 3: So rates are increasing and you talked about the genetics.
- 43:07Speaker 3: I think there are other factors involved in that society.
- 43:11Speaker 3: Look at our young you know you're talking about their kids,
- 43:14Speaker 3: and have you got kids?
- 43:15Speaker 1: I don't know now I've got too many issues. Thank
- 43:18Speaker 1: God I didn't produce any kids, so I.
- 43:21Speaker 3: Wasn't going to look sort of further.
- 43:23Speaker 1: And now it's a fair assumption.
- 43:25Speaker 3: But don't look at me as a gay man. Now
- 43:27Speaker 3: I've got to worry about that. The school. So I
- 43:29Speaker 3: never thought i'd have to worry about things like that, right,
- 43:33Speaker 3: So at least I can go to dinnapology and talk
- 43:35Speaker 3: about the same ship. But going back.
- 43:40Speaker 1: To the question, you know, I would love to see
- 43:44Speaker 1: you doing fucking kin to drop off and kin to
- 43:46Speaker 1: pick up. That would have I would have laughed my
- 43:48Speaker 1: ass off.
- 43:49Speaker 3: No, to know what, We've got four parents, right, so
- 43:53Speaker 3: the two mothers and the two days. Right, I changed
- 43:56Speaker 3: and happiest twice. I will just acknowledge.
- 43:58Speaker 1: That on you need to try harder.
- 44:00Speaker 3: Thank god, my husband decided he was maternal and he
- 44:03Speaker 3: was going to do all this sort of stuff. So
- 44:06Speaker 3: I put them to bed and I take them to
- 44:07Speaker 3: school by So, no, it is wonderful. I don't wonder
- 44:12Speaker 3: I don't want to minimize that. It is the most
- 44:14Speaker 3: wonderful thing being a parent. To pretend that I'm mister perfect,
- 44:18Speaker 3: I'm certainly not. But you know the difference now and
- 44:22Speaker 3: I know this isn't quite what you are. So we're
- 44:24Speaker 3: talking about parenting. It's being able to say sorry and
- 44:28Speaker 3: that you're wrong and letting your kids tell you when
- 44:30Speaker 3: you're wrong. I mean, we would never do that in
- 44:33Speaker 3: the seventies eighties. We were just got a backhand, an
- 44:36Speaker 3: absolute backhand. And I even mention that to my parents
- 44:40Speaker 3: that just love said yes, it was a different time,
- 44:42Speaker 3: no shit, but it is lovely cuddling your sons and
- 44:46Speaker 3: going yeah, I was a bit grumpy earlier, and hey,
- 44:48Speaker 3: let's debrief about it. And I love that aspect of parenting,
- 44:53Speaker 3: even if I didn't want to change nappies.
- 44:56Speaker 1: I think it just means you're you know, you're a
- 44:58Speaker 1: bit more evolved, and it's like, this is a this
- 45:02Speaker 1: is probably a selfish question, but fuck it, I've got you.
- 45:09Speaker 1: Why Why? And I know it's generational and there's no
- 45:15Speaker 1: I'm not trying on any level to be critical. I'm
- 45:17Speaker 1: more curious, like, why can't some you know, older people,
- 45:23Speaker 1: they seem not to be able to tell their kids.
- 45:25Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's like my mum tells me
- 45:28Speaker 1: she loves me regularly. My dad never those words have
- 45:33Speaker 1: never come out of his mouth, despite the fact that
- 45:35Speaker 1: he clearly loves me, clearly proud of me, loves me.
- 45:39Speaker 1: What do you think that's? And I will say, like
- 45:41Speaker 1: I spoke to them last night. We're talking about plans
- 45:44Speaker 1: for Christmas. They're both still around, thankfully they're both eighty three.
- 45:48Speaker 1: And I said, anyway, I see Christmas day, blah blah blah.
- 45:51Speaker 1: Mom's like love you and I go love you both,
- 45:54Speaker 1: and Ron's just in the background. It's like silent. What
- 45:58Speaker 1: do you reckon? That's about that inability to say to
- 46:01Speaker 1: someone that you love I love you? What is that block?
- 46:06Speaker 3: It's it is an older generation, you know. That's that
- 46:08Speaker 3: Philip Blake and Pome. You know your parents fuck you up.
- 46:11Speaker 3: That don't mean to, but ever fucked up in that
- 46:12Speaker 3: time by people wearing frock coats. You know that it's
- 46:16Speaker 3: that really difficult thing when they would and I don't
- 46:21Speaker 3: lot of them. I don't know if your dad was
- 46:22Speaker 3: a vet, all those things. You know that these guys
- 46:23Speaker 3: come back from the wall weren't even acknowledged. It wasn't
- 46:27Speaker 3: acknowledged that they had issues. And in terms of that disconnection,
- 46:33Speaker 3: I think that really that really didn't help. Plus the
- 46:37Speaker 3: whole masculinity stuff, you know, sports, you go out, do
- 46:40Speaker 3: you have to, you know, be the breadwinner for the family.
- 46:45Speaker 3: Men don't talk, you know, we just have beers and
- 46:49Speaker 3: then go back to how you know they're the old
- 46:53Speaker 3: family scenario. It's a sign of weakness. It's so sad
- 46:57Speaker 3: that being emotional is still seen as a sign of
- 47:01Speaker 3: weakness in us. Men. And a friend of mine runs
- 47:06Speaker 3: this guy, this organization called mister Perfect actually Victoria and
- 47:09Speaker 3: New South Wales Terry and he he was called mister
- 47:12Speaker 3: perfectcause he's a good looking at his lovely wife and
- 47:15Speaker 3: mass car house kids, you know, the Australian dream. He
- 47:20Speaker 3: was with these mates in the bar one night, four
- 47:23Speaker 3: of them, and they were just chatting an event. He
- 47:25Speaker 3: just said something clicked on my head and I went, guys,
- 47:28Speaker 3: I can't do this anymore. Last week I was suicidal
- 47:32Speaker 3: and I've I'm on medication. And the one guy goes, I've
- 47:37Speaker 3: meanting a psychologist for three years. The other guy goes,
- 47:40Speaker 3: I've been medication as well for three years. They never
- 47:42Speaker 3: talked about this stuff. Wow, this stuff and again, but
- 47:47Speaker 3: coming to the emotional it's men are so emotionally disconnected
- 47:54Speaker 3: because they weren't taught. They were taught that it's wrong
- 47:59Speaker 3: to It's like makes you vulnerable. And that's so sad,
- 48:04Speaker 3: isn't it. It's a real.
- 48:08Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's hard when you've been programmed with that,
- 48:12Speaker 1: and not only is not only you're not encouraged to
- 48:16Speaker 1: talk about your feelings or but you're you're literally discouraged.
- 48:20Speaker 1: And it's it's analogous, as you said, to weakness, like
- 48:24Speaker 1: it is a bad thing, and then you wake up
- 48:27Speaker 1: one day and you're eighty three. You're not going to change, right.
- 48:32Speaker 3: It's interesting among dad's eighty five, and he would have thought,
- 48:36Speaker 3: like the whole gay thing, they just did not It
- 48:38Speaker 3: was just not even discussed, right, Yeah. And in fact
- 48:41Speaker 3: I remember him saying when I was eleven, any gay
- 48:43Speaker 3: men masturbator something? I don't know that put my masturbation.
- 48:47Speaker 1: Okay, super guy. Then it was like, oh my god,
- 48:51Speaker 1: who say shit like that?
- 48:52Speaker 3: Right?
- 48:52Speaker 1: So who says that to an eleven year old? Firstly,
- 48:56Speaker 1: who says that? But then who says that to an
- 48:58Speaker 1: eleven year old?
- 49:00Speaker 3: I get hurt? Fine, I mean it was a Although
- 49:02Speaker 3: we were quite open about nudity at home, it was
- 49:04Speaker 3: like the sex thing. You just could not talk about it,
- 49:06Speaker 3: and I.
- 49:06Speaker 1: Don't don't talk about pooing, don't talk about masturbation, yeah,
- 49:10Speaker 1: not all.
- 49:11Speaker 3: Those icky things. So it was and he and this
- 49:15Speaker 3: is the man. So I finally came out. Oh my god,
- 49:17Speaker 3: I wrote them in a letter when I moved to London.
- 49:19Speaker 3: That's why.
- 49:20Speaker 1: How old were you at this stage in sex?
- 49:23Speaker 3: Oh?
- 49:23Speaker 1: Wow? You wait?
- 49:25Speaker 3: And they wrote back this letter and I'm going to cry,
- 49:28Speaker 3: so you know. And he my mom wrote, and now
- 49:30Speaker 3: you're going to get AIDS and I'm worrying about you
- 49:31Speaker 3: will He was there in the early nineties, right, And
- 49:34Speaker 3: what you wrote it the side was I don't care.
- 49:38Speaker 3: I love you, You're my son.
- 49:40Speaker 1: Oh I love that, and I love that over in.
- 49:43Speaker 3: Nineteen ninety four. So I was like, what twenty nine?
- 49:47Speaker 3: And I took them everywhere we were on the tube.
- 49:50Speaker 3: I'll never forget this, and my father nudges me, go huh,
- 49:54Speaker 3: he goes, look, goes with the he goes, look look, look, okay,
- 49:58Speaker 3: what I think that guy is eyeing you out?
- 50:03Speaker 1: So here was your wingman. He was trying to find
- 50:06Speaker 1: you some action.
- 50:07Speaker 3: I said, God's sake, he is thanks anyway, I noticed
- 50:11Speaker 3: him five minutes ago. But thanks for thanks for that.
- 50:15Speaker 3: I just thought that was such a like we never
- 50:17Speaker 3: really discussed anything, but he was. I love him to be.
- 50:22Speaker 3: He's just this guy who changed and now he does.
- 50:28Speaker 3: Like Derby and Joan, they live in this little cottage
- 50:30Speaker 3: in their their you know, retirement village, and he's just
- 50:33Speaker 3: washing up in the lawn round there is the white
- 50:35Speaker 3: South African god. I mean, you know, in terms of man,
- 50:38Speaker 3: he didn't even make his own bed and now so
- 50:43Speaker 3: there is there is capacity to change. And the way
- 50:47Speaker 3: you talk about your dad now he's in the background.
- 50:49Speaker 3: He's not minimizing it is then showing more and love
- 50:54Speaker 3: is an action. Actually, I quite like that term. He
- 50:58Speaker 3: can say things, but I think it's also good showing
- 51:00Speaker 3: things and emotions as actions are easier to deal with.
- 51:06Speaker 3: And I'll bet you if you give him my hug
- 51:09Speaker 3: over Christmas, he'll hug you back. Right.
- 51:10Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I hug him. I hug him. I have
- 51:13Speaker 1: to chase him around, but you know, I just pin him.
- 51:16Speaker 1: I'm like a fucking gorilla. I just bring him in,
- 51:20Speaker 1: but he doesn't.
- 51:20Speaker 3: It was stopped the don't do you know?
- 51:24Speaker 1: My dad? Actually, I think loves deeply, but he can't
- 51:27Speaker 1: express you know, my dad is proud of me. Mum says,
- 51:31Speaker 1: he's always talking to his friends about me and other
- 51:33Speaker 1: people and all of that stuff. Not that I think
- 51:36Speaker 1: there's lots to talk about, but he does. And you know,
- 51:40Speaker 1: he's I don't think he even understands what a PhD is,
- 51:43Speaker 1: but he's quite chuffed that I'm going to become a
- 51:46Speaker 1: doctor of something. He thinks that's I don't think he
- 51:49Speaker 1: gets what it means. But anyway, Hey, you're a ripper doc.
- 51:53Speaker 1: I love chatting with you. So your most recent book
- 51:55Speaker 1: is called I Love This. Everyone listening to this title
- 51:58Speaker 1: anxiety expert advice from a neurotic shrink who's lived with
- 52:01Speaker 1: anxiety all his life. Fucking best title. How has it gone?
- 52:07Speaker 1: The book? I know it's a couple of years now,
- 52:08Speaker 1: How has it gone? Has it been well received?
- 52:11Speaker 3: It's great? You know it came out as it literally
- 52:14Speaker 3: came out as COVID hit. I was asked the GP conference.
- 52:18Speaker 3: I was talking at the stupiest setup. I thought it
- 52:21Speaker 3: was joking, but he said, did you wait until the
- 52:23Speaker 3: pandemic started?
- 52:25Speaker 1: Yeah?
- 52:25Speaker 3: Well, you said, you know, I know some things, but
- 52:29Speaker 3: I don't know when a global pandemic is going to
- 52:31Speaker 3: hit our shawes.
- 52:32Speaker 1: I'm not a profit.
- 52:33Speaker 3: It just happened, so that did help. I have to say,
- 52:36Speaker 3: some people buy books and anxiety when the world's burning
- 52:38Speaker 3: and plaguing, right, So it has done quite well. Thank
- 52:43Speaker 3: you for asking. And I'm serously writing my next one now.
- 52:47Speaker 3: But I'm managing to avoid it as usual. So we're
- 52:49Speaker 3: talking about avoidance and all those sort of things that
- 52:52Speaker 3: I'm not very good and I could even avoid talking
- 52:54Speaker 3: about it another going definitely. I have to say I
- 52:57Speaker 3: haven't met someone who I thought could beat me for
- 53:00Speaker 3: imposter syndrome. But bloody old Craig is doing very well.
- 53:03Speaker 1: I do my very best. I do my best. If
- 53:06Speaker 1: there's a scale, if there's a if there's a winner,
- 53:09Speaker 1: I'm winning. Hey, how do people find you? Follow you,
- 53:13Speaker 1: connect with you? Doc?
- 53:16Speaker 3: So yeah, I do this podcast. It's not a podcast,
- 53:19Speaker 3: that's not a direct competition with you guys. So it's
- 53:21Speaker 3: it's a Thursday night. We do a live half an
- 53:24Speaker 3: hour chat on Facebook. It's also on then it goes
- 53:27Speaker 3: onto YouTube and I'm via LinkedIn. I do various things
- 53:33Speaker 3: and that's a nice one. It is a nice way
- 53:36Speaker 3: to stay in touch. And I do community stuff and
- 53:39Speaker 3: this is a community. A lot of my patients come
- 53:41Speaker 3: on family and during COVID, I think we read something
- 53:46Speaker 3: like a million people and it was it was incredible
- 53:49Speaker 3: because it was obviously struck a chord with people going
- 53:52Speaker 3: through anxious times and just a big thing for me.
- 53:56Speaker 3: A big thing for me is connection and staying connected
- 54:02Speaker 3: with people. That's the people. Sometimes what can I do?
- 54:05Speaker 3: How can I how can I stay well? In some way?
- 54:10Speaker 3: You have to be connected. We are connected people as humans.
- 54:15Speaker 3: So that's that's one way of doing it.
- 54:19Speaker 1: Love it anxiety expert advice from neurotic shrink who's lived
- 54:22Speaker 1: with anxiety all his life. And also, you've only written
- 54:26Speaker 1: two books, haven't you? Yeah, and your first book is
- 54:30Speaker 1: the doc's first book is Changing Minds, the go to guide,
- 54:35Speaker 1: the go to god to mental health for family and friends.
- 54:38Speaker 1: So go and buy ten of each of those everyone,
- 54:41Speaker 1: if you would. Because Chrissy is coming and the doc's
- 54:43Speaker 1: got a plant. You know, he's got some expenses coming up,
- 54:45Speaker 1: so fuck it, live on the edge, stay on the call, Doc,
- 54:50Speaker 1: But we'll say goodbye officially here and say goodbye off
- 54:53Speaker 1: here in a moment. We appreciate you being on the
- 54:55Speaker 1: new project. You're a superstar, great communicator, great teacher, and
- 55:00Speaker 1: up duper believable and we fucking love you. Guts, thanks
- 55:04Speaker 1: for everyone, Thanks for being had, Thanks Steve, Thanks guys,