Latest / Free Therapy with Ben & Kevin / Stop letting social media diagnose you #5

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Stop letting social media diagnose you #5 · Free Therapy with Ben & Kevin

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The world is free therapy. Hey everyone, welcome to free therapy.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: I'm Ben and I'm Kevin, And every week we sit
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: down with a different therapist to talk about the stuff
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: that most guys are going through but nobody's saying out loud.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: This week, we brought in therapist Leah Miller to get
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: into one of those topics that everybody's thinking about, the
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: tiktokification of mental health. And while you probably have way
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: fewer problems than you.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Think, Wait really, yeah, amazing, Well okay, so you know
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: those words that are everywhere right now, like he's a
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: narcissist or stop gaslighting me?
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Or why are you always trauma dumping? What do these
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: words actually mean? And are they really doing more harm
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: than good?
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Leah breaks down the nuance that nobody's talking about the
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: true meaning of these words and why she puts it.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: You're not incurable, you're not broken. You're just a human
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: having a normal human experience.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: If you've ever caught yourself stuck in an algorithm identifying
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: with one of these words, Kevin, or if you've been
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: accused of being one of them, this one's for you.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Let's get into it.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Hey, Leah, Welcome to free therapy.
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: Hi, thank you for having me to be here.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: This is going to be a really, really fun episode.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: When we talked to Lea the first time, we were like,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: what should what should we do? Like what topics should
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: we cover? And Leah brought up a great idea. She
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: was like, there's kind of this thing happening on the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: internet where everyone is talking about mental health, which is
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: like a good thing. Like, Wow, mental health is kind
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: of mainstream for the first time. You can be like
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I'm depressed, I'm anxious, I have trauma, I need help,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: like everyone's saying it. And so I would say, as
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: someone who's been like very pro mental health most of
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: my life, I feel like, dang, finally, right, do you
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: think it's a good thing? You think it's a bad thing? Like,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: what's your take on everyone now just talking about mental health?
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah? I mean I think there's like a sweet spot
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: right of Like I think everything in life, but I
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: talk about this in mental health all the time is
• 2:10
  Speaker 5: like the Goldilocks effect. Right, you don't want the porge
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: too hot or too cold, you want it just right.
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: And I think that's true with social media. It's like
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: I think that there's people doing it really well that
• 2:21
  Speaker 5: are really truly destigmatizing mental health. And then I think
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: there's people that you know, not through malice, but it's
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: just sort of watering down medical and clinical terms in
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: a way that's actually not helpful for people that need
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: access to resources and that really like benefit from that
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: destigmatization happening.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I guess like the pendulum swung right because five
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: years ago, pre TikTok twenty twenty six, six, seven years ago,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: pre TikTok, it was like most people didn't even understand
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: what trauma was. In the first couple of years, it
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: felt like it was actually a good thing. I was like, WHOA,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: gen Z is making mental health normal? Yep? I feel seen.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: I feel so like my generation, half of the millennials
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: really try to do mental health and the other half
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: are like, no, I'm good because Gen X and Boomers
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: were like, we don't talk about our problems, like everyone's fine,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and then gen Z just like went in, and I
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: feel like they went so far in that they just
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: started to take it in and then now it's become
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: like you said, oversaturated, and then it's just like let's
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: just blame everybody instead of instead of taking responsibility.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like a middle ground.
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: And I think it's so normal too, Like I think
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: when we see these big magnifications in society, it's magnifying
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: just normal human behavior, right, Like we want to be
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: included as human organisms, Like as animals, we're a tribal animal,
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: and so we want to be connected to our peer group.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: We want to be included.
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: And so I think that's part of the trends on
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: social media with mental health is when it's so oversimplified,
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: it's really easy to identify because it's not a disorder,
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: it's the human condition, right, And so people are like,
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: oh wow, Like yeah, me too, Like I must have
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: that diagnosis too, because I feel that same way. And
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: it's like what we're relating to is our humanity not
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: necessarily a mental health condition. And then you're being mislabeled
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: and misdiagnosed. And then it again makes it harder for
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: people who meet clinical criteria because they're like, oh, this
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: isn't just like a quirky thing I deal with, Like
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: it's significantly impacting my life.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: How do you tell that there was been like disorder
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: and human connection.
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: Well, I think like the threshold, like diagnostically is significant impairment. Also,
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: I'm a professor in a graduate psychology program and I
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: talk to my students a lot, and I joke with them.
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: We take a.
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: DSM class, a diagnostic statistical manual class to learn how
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: to diagnose, and I always joke that whenever you take
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: that class, you walk out of that class.
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: Thinking you have ten different diagnoses.
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: You relate to yourself in every single thing that you read,
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: because again, like we learn, humans learn through self referencing.
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: But the like the delineation is significant daily impairment in functioning.
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: So it's like I might have traits or I might
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: have difficult experiences or even distress for like a period
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: of time, but most diagnoses a are time limited, Like
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: you have to have experienced those symptoms for a certain
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: period of time and then that you have like marked
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: distress associated with them, Like there's actually impairment in your
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: day to day life.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Right on the other side of the spectrum is the
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: people who are talking about this more and never have.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: I feel like they are now self diagnosing and then
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: focusing on all their problems. So how do we talk
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: about our problems without feeding them?
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: I think it has to do with action, Like identification
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: is the first step that once we bring something to
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: the surface of awareness, then we can do something about it.
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: But we know that just simply talking about our problems
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: actually doesn't do that much to resolve them. It actually
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: just fires the same neural circuits in the brain, reinforcing
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: the problem. But it's when we do something different, so
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: either like taking an action or actually feeling the feeling
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: instead of intellectualizing the feeling. And that's something that can
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: happen in therapy, but it happens a lot on social
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: media platforms and just in society, is that we get
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: really caught in the narrative and the story and the
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: over intellectualization of the problem as opposed to feeling the
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: feelings associated with the problem or identifying it and then
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: taking a new action.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel like people should not be identifying.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Like if you watch a social media clip, maybe you
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: can be like, oh, maybe that's me. Not oh I'm
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: that I'm good. It's like you should actually talk to someone,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: like go talk to a therapist or like someone who's
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: in the mental health space, like I was see I
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: saw this video and it talked about trauma, and then
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: I was like, I think I have trauma. Yeah, but
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: it's like, do you have trauma, Well, let's talk about it,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: because then you're, like you said, you're just like thinking
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: about it all the time, but you're actually not doing
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: anything about it, and then you're just actually making the
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: problem worse.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: Well, because there's a whole movement on social media that's
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: very nuanced but about the benefits of self diagnosis in
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: the sense of access and like people not having access
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: or resources for mental health care, which thankfully is getting
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: much more broad. But I would suggest if that if
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: actually going and seeing a mental health professional doesn't seem
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: accessible to you, that you at least do research on
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: other platforms other than social media.
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: What a hot take? Don't? And it's like, like what
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: a hot take?
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: Right? But the algorithm works against us, right, because if
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: I watch, if I'm so much as pause on a
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: video about trauma or narcissistic abuse, the next fifty videos
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: for the next five days, unless I scroll past them
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: so fast, are going to be about that thing. And
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: then it's further reinforcing because I'm not actually hearing any
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: alternate perspectives. So like going somewhere that you know, research
• 8:11
  Speaker 5: articles even like a Google search, like other platforms that
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: don't have as much of an algorithm feeding into reinforcing
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: like that one narrow viewpoint.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I saw one video a month ago and I was like, oh, whoa,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: this is so interesting. I was like, Okay, I think
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: that's me. And I'm an over intellectualization person. My mom's
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: a therapist. All I do is just like, think about
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: my problems. I'm working against that. Now I'm doing action.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: But I was so new to me and I was like, oh,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: this is so interesting. And then it was like and
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I would say, now I am so deep in it.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I don't even want to be, but it just happens
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: that I'm like, this is how you know you're dating
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: a narcissist. If you're an anxious attachment person and you
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: think you're with a narcissist, then this is what you
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: should be doing. This is how you know that's insane.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: It's like, and you can't be with a person who's
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: like this, if you're with a person like this. And
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: then it tells me all these things that I'm like,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: is it me? Am I not? And now I'm like, oh,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: this is fucking terrible. It makes me feel so bad
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: about myself because I'm believing something from a person who
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: like even their like profile could say doctor whatever, and
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: they're like a chiropractor, yeah right, like like you don't
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: actually know, like give me a break, right, So I'm like, hmm, interesting,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: they look smart. And then I'm like going to my
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: and I go to my therapist and he's like, the
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: fuck are you talking about? He's like, you just like
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: think way too much, Like you're fine, stop comparing yourself
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: to other people and you'll learn when the time is
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: right and just keep like doing your best. And I'm
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: like that makes me feel so much better about the
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: things I'm worried about.
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I mean, and you're bringing up a great point,
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: which is like I think about and I suggest this
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: to my clients when they come to me and they're
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: spiraling out about like the new diagnosis they think they have.
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: I'm like, what is the motivation of the person making
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: the video?
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: And like, for a large part, social media is about
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: keeping you on social media so we can sell you something, right,
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: And so you can sell people services or programs or
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: packages if they're highly distressed about this one specific thing, right,
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: so people profit intentionally or unintentionally. Right, But the subtext
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: of that is that if you're distressed enough, you're going
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: to buy their program, course, et cetera, and or you're
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: going to spend more time on the app trying to
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: figure out what's wrong with you. So like there's like
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: multiple layers of influence, right of not just like the
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: person providing the content, but also like the app itself,
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: and like the goal is to keep us engaged, right,
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: whether that's news or mental health content. It's like it's
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: about attention and like views of ads.
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: So if you're very distressed and you're like, oh my gosh,
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: I have to figure out this problem, and I'm and
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: it feels like I'm figuring it out by watching these videos, then.
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: That's the motivation, right, Yeah, where you're.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: So distressed that you don't want to sit by yourself,
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: so you're just going to keep interacting yourself exactly. I
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: do all the time, totally.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: I said keV, how is your night? He goes, I
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: picked up my phone and plant down for two hours.
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, class, I mean we all do it.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: How is it possible that there's something that we all
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: do and that we all hate that we do and
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: we still do it.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: It's so addicting. It's so dopamine rush is insanely addicting. Okay,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: So this is the Free Therapy Fishbowl TFB work in
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: progress guys, if you have any name suggestions workshopping yea workshop.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: This is the first time we've done this workshop. Here's
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: a bunch of topics on that are happening on social
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: media in the mental health space that we'd love to
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: maybe just like deconstruct and actually talk about what they
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: really are versus what people think they are. And I
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: think there's a lot of misconceptions out there. We've been
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: talking about that, and I think it behooves everybody to
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: actually like understand what these topics really are instead of
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: just labeling it and identify it with yourself and not
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: actually understanding it. The tiktokification of mental health is fucking
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: people up. Yep, Like it was helpful and now it's
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: actually like hurting people. Yeah, it's our responsibility to have
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: more healthy conversations because I don't think mental health could
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: be happy. Like, it can't be a twenty second conversation,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: can't be a viral clip. It's got to be a conversation.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: So there's a bunch of topics in here.
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: You can't love someone until you love yourself. Who I
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: hear this from the most is people who met their
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: partners young and are married.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: I'm like, listen, yeah, that's funny it Kevin, what's going
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: on with this one?
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: I actually have lived for I think a long time
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: with that belief. Okay, Like I heard that and I
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: took it off, and I was like, oh, I actually, yeah,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: I don't love myself enough and I do love myself more.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I love I just touched Kevin's leg for
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: all those lists.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Love you Kevin, Yeah, yeah, Like I think there was
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: a lot of that, and and then every time a
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: relationship wouldn't work out, it was like, oh, like what
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: do I do to differently? Why aren't I open enough?
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Why aren't I it's you know what I mean, like,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: why aren't I enough? That's sort of like what I
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: think that sentence is kind of saying, right sneakily, Yeah.
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: I mean that's I think, like that's it's hard not
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: to take that subtext away, right, is that like almost
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: I have to be perfect and I have to love
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: myself before I'm worthy of someone else loving me, And
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: that's really damaging, right, And again it goes back to
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: like we are tribal animals.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: We're hurt in.
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: Relationship, and we're healed in relationship, and we require other
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: humans and other nervous systems and interactions with other people
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: in order to do our work. We're not supposed to
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: be isolated. We're not supposed to be alone. And like this,
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: I feel like is a very Western idea of this
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: idea of like you have to be comfortable being alone
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: otherwise it's codependent.
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: Where in every other culture and for all.
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: Of human history, we have relied on relationships and like
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: romantic relationships to survive. And so it's like a very
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: almost like privileged notion that like you should be able
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: to survive alone in order it to be worthy to
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: have a relationship.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: It's so funny because I would say I have done
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: all of my healing in relationship, and then I look
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: back and I'm like, how do I learn to love myself?
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: What's like other people loving me?
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: Yep?
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: But I didn't realize that because I was like, oh,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I have problems. I don't And then I was like,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: whoa opening up to Kevin right? Or opening up to
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: other people? Actually made me love myself more. And people
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: think they can just love themselves by doing nothing, by
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: like being lonely or like learning to do nothing, which
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: I think there's value in, like you got to be
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: able to take care of yourself and be alone and
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: you don't like rely on other people. But I think
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: that's such bullshit too. It makes you feel like there's
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: never a you're never enough, makes you feel like you
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: just have to continually just be like look, what do
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: you mean, Like it's a process to love yourself forever? Yeah, right,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: it's not an end goal. You don't love yourself, I'm
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: good next process. It's like it's like, well, who said
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: this life is a curriculum? Yeah, Like I am in
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: a process of loving myself, being nice to myself, being
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: under my entire life, even in relationship or not in relationship.
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: I feel like almost like relationships are like two two
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: level like healing in a lot of ways because having
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: especially romantic partners, any relationship, any human relationship with romantic
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: relationships hold a mirror up to us, right, Like they
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: reflect to us what we still need to work on,
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: and like if we want this like deep abiding, lifelong love,
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: like it requires doing the hard work with our partner
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: or partners, right, like it might we might not have
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: one partner forever, but we get to do different pieces
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: of work with the different partners.
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: We have, and that's so valuable.
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: And this idea that you're just super healed and then
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: you get into a superhealed relationship and then you just
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: like everything's perfect, it's also kind of boring, right, It's
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: like you don't level up in that way, you stay stagnant, right,
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: And so like you learn if if you're open to it,
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: and you have this idea that like every person I meet,
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: in every relationship I have is either love or a
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: lesson or both.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: You can say, Kevin look like he was marinating.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I was just.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Marriating this idea.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Kevin's a good marinator.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I need like a minute I think something to
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: just like something.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Over pathologization, okay, of everyday struggles.
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: I mean it's using mental health terms to pathologize or
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: like make clinical everyday normal experiences like having low mood,
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: being depression, or being selfish or an asshole, as being
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: a narcissist, or being quirky, is being autistic or oh
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: my god, being excitable.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Or being manic Yeah, no one.
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: Gets to be quirky anymore.
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: No one gets to have personality traits without them being
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: some sort of mental health diagnosis in a lot of ways, right, Like,
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: that's like a over generalization in and of itself, but
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: that's how it feels sometimes on social media. Is like
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: I saw a video, actually, I had a friend send
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: me a video on Instagram, and it was a video
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: of someone like rubbing their feet together as they were
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: falling asleep, and the caption or the text on the
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: video said, a sign of narcissistic abuse.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what the fuck?
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: What are we doing?
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: And if you like took the time to read the comment,
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: it was talking about how spontaneous self soothing gestures can
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: be signs of someone who has like essentially a dysregulated
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: nervous system, which is a huge gigantic stretch to this
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: specific thing is a symptom of narcissistic abuse, right, And
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: that's kind of where I see the main problem with
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: overpathologizing on social media is some people do a great
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: job of explaining complex mental health topics in a way
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: that's educational and easy for people to understand and make
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: sense of, and then sometimes it's stuff like that that
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: is so oversimplified and or clickbait, right, But still people
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: see that and identify with it, and then that's something
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: that they take on. And then they start studying narcissistic
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: abuse and maybe best casenario, maybe that is something they've
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: experienced and this is a helpful piece of their healing journey.
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: Worst case scenario is that it's not. And then again,
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: like we go back to their begin looping on this
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: part that they don't actually experience, that can then be
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: very isolating or becomes a label that takes away from
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: their life instead of being life giving.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like I've been depressed before, and then I've been
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: not depressed, right obviously, and I would like wake up,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: not get a great day of sleep, and by two
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: o'clock is like I'm getting depressed again. I'm depressed.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: You would do this shit all the time all the time.
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: Did you used to experience like pretty severe depression and
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: then now there's like a hypervigilance around like if you
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: feel sad, the depressions coming back. So I mean that
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: makes sense, and I think it's that like the hypervigilance piece, right,
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: or just that like if we've been influenced, if we
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: see on social media that these like very basic things
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: are signs of depression. We can over diagnose, which then
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: can make us hypervigilant, and then it's actually not even
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: all that helpful because maybe we're not at like a
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: clinical standard where a depression treatment would even be useful.
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: And if we're don't understand what's actually going on, then
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: we're like, oh, I have like treatment resistant depression, and
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: our mind is very powerful and we can create things
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: in our lives that don't necessarily exist because we're bringing
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: them to the surface and therefore experiencing them. So again,
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: it's like the Goldilocks effect of like both can be true,
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: and it's for like the individual and their support system
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: to like ascertain but like things to be cautious of
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: when we're consuming so much media.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would like consume the media and I would
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: be like, oh that's me. Oh that's not Oh that's me.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Oh that's me, and then I would actually believe it's me,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: and then I would be me right, Like I would
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: just take it because I was thinking about it so much.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, it's me. But then I started
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to like think about I would like pull myself back
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: and this is just helpful for anybody who's been depressed,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I guess, but like after you've been depressed once and
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: maybe you go on meds. I went on meds and
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: I got better and awesome, right, like got out of it,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: super proud of myself. But like the difference between being
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: depressed and being sad, that was like the key for me.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I know we're off topic now, but like being depressed
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: first being sad, and I was able to like look
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: at a teach art and when I was depressed, I
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: wrote down everything that I was feeling, and then I
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: would be like, Okay. When I was not depressed, I'd
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: be like, oh, what's sadness? And now I mean I
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: don't do it anymore, but I know the difference because
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I can label like sadness, was it caused by something? Right?
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Like I just like start doing this and I'm like,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: oh wow, this has been so much easier for me
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: to actually be less hyper vigilant and trust myself that
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: if I were to get depressed again, I could get
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: out of it. Because I think that's like the biggest
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: fear is if you've been depressed once, you just like
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: think it's going to be there forever and it's never
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: going to go away, but now I like have an
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: opposite effect and like bring it on. I was like,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: let's fucking go. You want to come back, like I
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: will own you, right, But like that's just like change now,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: because yeah, I can just change it up.
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: But I think it's exactly on topic because you've done
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: the work to like you had mentioned earlier, like understand
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: the nuance of feelings versus diagnoses, And that's really the
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: core of what we're getting at with this fish bowltop.
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: Is the difference between sad and depressed, right, the difference
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: between stressed and anxious, The difference between like having normal
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: human emotions and then needing full criteria for a mental
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: health diagnosis is like is the work.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Right, The difference between someone asking for what they need
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: and being a narcissist.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Yep, that's a great point, right, Like there are these
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: like clinical terms anxiety, but then there's also like these
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: other terms are just like life. I think you bring
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: up a good point, like I have just said, like depression,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: sadness or anxiety, stress or asking for your narciss and
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: asking for your needs, right, Like those are normal things,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: and I don't think people feel like they're normal because
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: people are clinically labeling them and pathologizing them online.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: It's because our world has lost nuance. They totally completely
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: lost any sense of political and mental health point and anything.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: We just like have lost the sense of like being
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: able to hold two things true at the same time. Yeah,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: they not agree with each other, but both could be true.
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, and like potentially hot take.
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: It's like, if I have a feeling or I'm in
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: the gray area about something, I can take an action
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: to change that. But if I am over identified with
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: a diagnosis, I can stay stuck in that. It's like,
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: while I have depression, that's what depressed people do. While
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: I have anxiety, that's what anxious people do. Whereas it's
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: like I know how to function with sadness or I
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: know how to function with stress. There's solutions to those
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: things we have done. I think a disservice in certain
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: ways in the mental health field of saying these diagnoses
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: are disorders that occur naturally and organically and have either
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: no or limited solutions.
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: For curing them.
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: Right, we talk about treating it and managing symptoms, but
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: the reality is that nearly every diagnosis in the DSM
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: is curable, and it might take a long time. It
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: is different in every person, all of those caveats, But
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: when you tell someone you have an incurable brain disease
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: with no known origin, it's gonna be a lot harder
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: to work towards a solution than Hey, look at your
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: life circumstances, look at your past history. Anyone who's experienced
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: what you're currently experiencing have experienced in the past, would
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: feel that exact same way. And there's a solution, right, Like,
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: we can process that, we can learn to regulate your
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: nervous system, we can get your gut health fix, we
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: can do all of these things. You're not incurable, you're
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: not broken, Like you're having a normal human experience, and
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: we have a solution for that. And like, that's the
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: narrative we miss when we over pathologize and then slap
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: clinical diagnoses on people.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Tony Robbins has a quote and he says, the
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: strongest need in the human psychology is to stay consistent
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: with their identity. Love it exactly, Like you have an
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: identity and like that's who I am, and everything in
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: my life needs to support that belief. Yeah, And Rihanna West.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Of the book, do you know.
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I've heard of her. I'm not super amor.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: She has this concept I'm going to paraphrase it that
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: she goes people try and think their way into a
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: new identity. The problem is that you create your identity
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: based off of lived experiences. So you can't think your
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: way into an identity. You have to live yourself into
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: new identity.
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Here it applies directly to like this idea that what
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: if you identify as any of these things, then like,
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: you can't think your way out of it, yep.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: One.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Two you can expand your identity or it doesn't have
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: to be defined by that. And then three you actually
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: have to act your way through it, which is going
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: back to the beginning where it's all in the action.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, And I think that's true for a lot of labels.
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: Like I am someone who lived with the chronic illness
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: for seven years.
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: I was bedridden for six months.
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: I've been to dozens of different doctors, and that being
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: someone who lives with a chronic illness is an identity.
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: And I think there's a lot of some I work
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: with a lot of people with chronic illnesses and then
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: trauma backgrounds, and I think the chronic illness community sees
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: a lot of the same sort of things we're talking
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: about as the mental mental health community, and it is
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: it's a challenge to let go of that right of
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: like this is who I am? Like you're always like
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: hyper vigilant and you're checking, like I got a cold?
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: Is this the beginning of my chronic illness coming back?
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: Is this a flair?
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: And so much of your actions change to accommodate your
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: illness that you have to when you start acting your
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: way into a different identity, it can be scary.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: Because who am I now and what do I meet? Like?
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: Who am I without this diagnosis or this label? And
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: even working in this field and doing all the work
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: that I've done, it was a significant shift for me
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: intellectually that like I no longer live life as a
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: chronically person, and like I don't introduce myself that way.
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: I don't you know, new partners going on dating apps,
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: like it's not something that they need to know in
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: order to get to know me. You know, that's a
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: part of my story later on, because it did in
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: fact shape me. But it's no longer who I am
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: as a person. But I did a lot of work
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: and had access to a lot of resources in order
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: to make that transition that I see a lot of
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: people getting caught in that trap, right, because it's like
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: I might have a community around that label. I'm like,
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: this is who I am, and letting go of that
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: can be really scary, especially if no one's talking about
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: that there's other options.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: So that makes me so emotional, just like hearing you
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: say that, because like I mean, I first of all,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: like it's so hard to leave the identity that you
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: have convinced yourself that you are based off of something
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: that you didn't do. This just happened to you, Right,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: It's like it feels impossible to be someone else while
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: you're in it, and even while you're trying to get
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: out of it. And I just fucking give you so
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: much props for getting out of it. That's awesome. It's
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: like awesome because I think there's so much beauty and
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: like having that be a part of you and not
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: the whole you, because then it's your superpower. And I
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: think people, especially myself, I never thought I would be
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: able to use something that at one time destroyed me
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: to be something that I'm most proud of. That some
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: people don't even know about unless I tell them. I
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: thought it was forever going to be me. I'm that person,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: that's my life. That's what happened to me. Figure it out,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: and now it's like, oh shit, there's something on the
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: other side of it. But I think that process is
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: it feels impossible. I want to do another one.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: Totally trauma dumping.
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: Oh good.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: So like, yeah, trauma dumbing as a whole.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you got that's got to be the
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: biggest buzzword on social media right now.
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: I feel like trauma is.
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: And then I've noticed in the last couple of years
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: this idea of trauma dumping, and I get where it
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: comes from, but I sort of take issue with it
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: because when it started to really like sink in for
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: me that it might be a problematic term was I
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: would have clients come in that just wanted to connect
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: with their loved ones and like share hard things, and
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: they were like, yeah, but I don't want to impose.
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: I don't want to trauma dump. All this stuff has
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: so much nuance because yes, do we want to be
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: like like have no self awareness and just like like
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: we've talked about like replaying the problem and replaying the
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: story over and over and like dumping on people. No,
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: we don't want to do that, but that's really different
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: than sharing what we're going through, getting support or like
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: having some self awareness, but being like, hey, loved one,
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: like this is what I'm going through and it's really hard,
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: and I feel like we already are so disconnected in
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: our modern Western society, and we lack so much community
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: despite there being so much buzz around community, and like
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: if we have one more barrier of like, oh, I
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: have to suffer this alone because I don't want to
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: be trauma dumping, it just doesn't benefit either side, right,
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: And that also places the onus on the distressed person
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: to know when like they're being too much. That's a paradox, right,
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: Like if you're in that much distress, you probably are
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: not in a place to be like have that level
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: of self awareness. And then so it's like a shared thing,
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: I think, right of, Like if someone is trauma dumping
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: on you, it's also the responsibility to the person hearing
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: the trauma dumping to set some boundaries in some kind
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: of way of like exiting the conversation, slowing the conversation down,
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: pausing it redirecting it, like taking what they need to
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: take care of themselves is just as important as the
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: other person developing the self awareness to not be doing
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: the trauma dune.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Right, Okay, So can we pull to that first part
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: of the person who has stuff they feel like they
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: need to share. They're struggling with something and they have
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: someone life they can share it with, but they're not
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: doing it because they feel like they would be trauma
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: dubbing if they were. What are some maybe thought processes
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: or questions to help them become more comfortable with the
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: idea of, oh, this is actually a good thing to
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: do to share.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: I think one is like checking in with yourself first,
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: Like we were already talking about of do you have
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: an observer on board, even enough of an observer to
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: say like, hey, this might like do you have capacity
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: for this before entering a conversation.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Dude, we do that a lot.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: We started doing this.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: It's amazing, Hey, good John, do you have space for
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: this right now? Yeah? Do you have five?
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: And then oftentimes like, honestly do I don't? And then
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I feel better because I don't get cut off or
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: I don't like, yeah, my thing isn't being heard, which
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: is like the worst feeling when someone just is like
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: not listening or they have to rush off you like,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: but I have some much to say.
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you're advocating for yourself in that moment too, of
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: like one, you're checking with the other person, so you're
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: like being thoughtful of them, and then two you're also
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: advocating for yourself in the sense of like I actually
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: like am worthy of someone receiving this information, and so
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: I'm going to like set up so that we can
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: both like join each other in this instead of like
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: they're being an inequality there, and I think.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's worth just like for me, trauma dumping and
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: like oversharing, right, Like there's a difference between like talking
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: about abuse or an illness or something like that you
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: have that actually like is a big T trauma or
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: a little TA trauma or just being like talking about
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: how crazy your last two weeks have been and then
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: labeling the oversharing as trauma dumping and now we're like
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: actually taking away from people actually have trauma.
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, there's a big difference there between and also
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: the intimacy of the relationship. Right if it's like I
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: just met you and I'm telling you my deepest, darkest trauma,
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: and that's like not our dynamic, like you're not my therapist,
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: or like it's also evaluating like where the relationship is at,
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: and then like the subject matter, right.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I used to, like I'm a cancer survivor, and
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: I used to need to have people see my pain
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: to validate my own pain. It works through that. So
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: I would go on dates and talk to people and
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: like right away there'd be like a profile picture and
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: I would just start talking about cancer and then I
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: would hate their response and then I would fucking hate them.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: But I was essentially trauma dumping on them without knowing them.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: They had no idea who I was. I had no
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: boundary up and then I resented every person in front
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: of me, but it was all me And I wasn't
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: even aware that by doing that, by sharing my trauma,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: it actually wasn't ready to be shared. And I think
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: people need to like acknowledge that, like, if they're pain,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: it's actually worth maybe thinking about talking about it instead
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: of thinking that just sharing it is going to make
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: you feel better.
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: I feel like we keep coming back to this topic
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: of like noticing what's happening for us and giving ourselves
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: validation and understanding how like what we're doing in the
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: external world is a manifestation of what's happening in the
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: internal world. Of like even the observer role right of
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: like is this about me?
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: Or is this about them?
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: Because like a lot of times when we get really
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: angry like that at someone else, is like, what is
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: this telling me about me? And like letting it point
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: me back to myself because that's ultimately where the healing happens.
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: Like there can be people in my community, I can
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: have a therapist, I can have like all these external resources,
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: but it only is beneficial when I internalize that.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: So was the shift not being more selective with who
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: you shared it with and when you shared.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: It for sure, and understanding the experience that I was
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: trying to share. I don't think I fully understood the experience.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I don't think I felt the feelings. I don't think
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: I acknowledge the pain. I was just saying it because
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: it was a part of me and I wanted people
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: to know me. But I was unclear of that experience.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: And I think real trauma dumping is quite painful if
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: you're actually going to trauma dump, like if you can
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: use the word trauma, like that trauma has is in
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: your body, that trauma causes really tough emotions, or just
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: like saying it in a way it's like you're actually
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: doing yourself a disservice because you're not feeling the experience,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: you're just like saying it. And I think people who
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: have been through trauma actually, like some people have processed
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: it and they can talk about it a lot, but
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: most of the time it's actually like hard to get
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: to that place that makes you connected to the experience,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: and being connected to that experience is painful. It's really
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: painful in that situation.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: I think like maybe there's even an opportunity to share
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: that I don't know how to talk about this that
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: feels more vulnerable and open than dumping something.
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think, like going back to the trauma dumping,
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: the other problem I have with it is it feels
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: really stigmatizing because, like you said, like when you're in it,
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: you don't even realize that you're in it. And if
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: it's really truly trauma dumping, it's like your deepest pain.
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: You're like ripping your heart out of your chest and
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: being like here and then someone's like, ew, you're trauma dumping,
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: and you're.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: Like, which is the craziest thing to respond?
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it might not be my responsibility to me. You're
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: like bleeding heart, but it's a bleeding heart none the last. Yeah,
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: And like it's not very compassionate to be like, oh,
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: you're deeply traumatized, and we're going to continue to like
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: stigmatize and harm you by being like, ew, trauma dumping
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: is cruel, right, And like the whole like benefit to
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: social media is supposed to be destigmatizing, but the people
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: who need the destigmatization the most are still being stigmatized
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: because your trauma's too much, your dysregulations too much. And
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: it's like, by its very nature, trauma is painful and
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: traumatic and disregulating, and like we continue to retraumatize traumatize
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: people in the society over and over an organ and
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: punish them for what happened to them.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: Can you talk about big TA and little T trauma
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: for people that might not know?
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so, like big T trauma would be events. It's
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: just like a simpler way to explain different types of trauma.
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: And big T trauma is like things that you could
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: point to if someone asked you, like, have you had
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: a traumatic experience? And you're like, I've had a car
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: accident or an assault, things that like a single event
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: that you could say this was a traumatic event. Little
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: T traumas are typically more pervasive and relationally based, and
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: they're much harder to identify, but just as impactful. Be
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: someone that grows up in a home with a chronically
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: ill parent or.
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: A parent with a mental illness. This could happen.
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: To an individual whose parents have their own attachment issues
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: or dissociation that live in chronically stressful environments where they're
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: daily living is traumatic, but in such a pervasive way
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: that when asked like have you had a traumatic experience,
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: they're like, no, I had a great childhood, Like I
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: had a roof over my head and food on the table,
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: and like that isn't the threshold for like emotional care
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: and appropriate parenting, right? And so little teas are things
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: that happen pervasively, and they both you know, can happen.
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: You can have big tea in little T trauma.
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: You could have just big tea or you can have
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: just little tea, but there's still like an impact to
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: both of those events.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Are this type of events in the reverses frama dumping.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: I feel like there's I know a lot of people
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: maybe like are less open and vulnerable because they don't
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: want to compare their little tea trauma to someone's big
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: T trauma. It's difficult to be like, well, I had
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: something as well. It's a very very interesting dynamic, right,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: It's like, how do you talk about your stuff without
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: comparing it.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: I relate to this so much. This is like the
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: biggest thing for me because I've had big TA trauma
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: a lot. Right, I've had like cancer three times, I've
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: had two bone marrow transplants, and it's been really hard
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: for me. And a lot of people know this about me,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: and they feel like they don't want to tell me
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: things that are hard about their life because well they'll
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: literally say like, I mean, you've been through way too much.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: I don't even want to share it with you. And
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: I'm like, and I literally I asked my mom about this,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: and she goes people just are like uncomfortable because they
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: don't know how hard it was for you or then
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: and then my Mom's like, we don't compare problems. Everyone's problems.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Someone's little te trauma could be the worst thing that's
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: ever happened in their entire life, and that's really sad
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: for them. And my big T trauma might be the
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: worst thing that's ever happened. But it's like they're not.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: They're both just big problems mm hm. And so every
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: time someone says that, to this day still I will
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: literally say, yo, dude, it's all good, Like your problems suck,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Like your problems are bad. I'm so sorry you have
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: your minor bad too, but like yours are bad. Also,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: we don't compare problems. Yeah, And I like I said
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: to a friend last week on the phone, like he
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: was he went back home because he was dealing with
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: some shit girl broke out with and whatever. He's like,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: I don't want to, like, you know, do this to you.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, first of all, it's been twelve fucking years,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: like give me a break, and two like it's all good,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: like it's it's problems are problems.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: So clinically you would see the big TM little seat
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: have can have the same impact on someone's life.
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: Oh absolutely.
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: And there's just no way to define, like there's no
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: hierarchy or spectrum to say like this trauma is better
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: or worse than another trauma because there's so many factors.
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: Not only is it like the experience itself, but it's
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: also the environment that you're in, right, like your resiliency factors,
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: the amount of support that you have, and everyone's like
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: lens through which they view themselves in the world is different,
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: and so something that was highly highly traumatic and distressing
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: for one person could not be that distressing for someone else.
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: But like, clinically as a therapist, I always direct my
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: clients back to like, all you know is your lived experience, right,
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: and if that is distressing to you and that is
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: problematic for you and you're showing symptoms, it doesn't really
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: matter what someone else went through because they're not in
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: your body and you're not in theirs, and you can
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: have empathy for them. But like, ultimately, the only thing
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: we have ownership over, to control, to heal or to
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: like hold is our own stuff.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: This is another term that gets they're around like holding space.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: It's like another like kitchi whatever. But I do think
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: there's something to say about actually someone talking and you
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: just not even needing to respond to soothe them or
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: just actually like sit and listen, like there has been
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: many times, many times where I will be like, yo,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: can you come over? Vice versa both of us, but
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: like he'll come over and I'll be like, I'll share it,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: and it's so easy because I'm on one couch, he's
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: on the other couch, and I am just talking. He's not, well,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: that's crazy, Oh oh my god, what that really happened?
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Like there's none of that, there's no interjection of your anything.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: It's just me sharing. And then when it's done, it's
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: just like a damn dude, that was a lot. It
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: isn't it's just a it's not a label. It's just
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: a presence of I'm with you, and that is more
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: helpful than anything, Yeah, than anything.
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: I'm laughing.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Is I used to be so bad at this.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: I used to be so bad at holding space, Like
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: it was my friend's biggest complaint that I would always like,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: just try and dude, stop trying to help, stop trying
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: to say things, and I'm like, and I already get nervous.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: I would get so nervous when someone will start to
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: open up to me because like I didn't know what
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: to say. Yeah, And the only examples that I had
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: were like not great examples growing up of like my family,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: like they would just tell, you know, people just it
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: was no, you're good, it's okay, and.
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: I don't cry, don't cry all that.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Ship And I knew that wasn't right, but I had
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: no get so stressed out and I wouldn't say anything
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: or would say the wrong thing.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: And you're the best at it, right, you dude.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that so much because you should stressed me
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: out so much. And I think the biggest thing I've
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: learned is like, one, I don't have to talk. And
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: the one thing that always now stresses me out is
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: like when someone I've been in group setting where someone
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: shares and and then people just start talking and they
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: start bring their own ship up all of a sudden,
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, WHOA, give him some fucking space, yeah
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: to share what he just shared. I'm like, I feel
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: so bad this person just opened up like their heart.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: And then now this other person's like.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I feel you. Man, when I I know
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: someone that went through that, I.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: Also went and I'm like, WHOA, I want you to
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: share also, But you know, it's so interest saying. It
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: takes a lot of like.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Patience and there's no better there's no better skill. There's
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: no better skill than actually just like not like just
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: doing that it's the best.
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: It just goes back to like everyone's imperfect, right, and
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: like we're all just like clumsily trying to figure this out.
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: Do they think again?
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: Like my point like even about the like you have
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: to learn to love yourself before you can love anyone else.
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: Like you're all of us have had those moments of
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: bumbling through it or saying the wrong thing or making
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: it about us or but like it comes from such
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: a good place at the time.
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: It's like you want to connect, you want.
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: To support you, you want your body to feel better,
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: and like that's also really beautiful. And that's what I mean,
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: Like we're all learning how to do this together. Like
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: Ronda said, we're just walking each other home.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we are. Like if you're the friend who's
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: trying to share and your friend just like bumbling through it,
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: like stumbling through supporting you, I'm only like this because
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: my friends were like, hey, when I share something, you
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: don't need to try and compare to something you went
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: through or help.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: But they didn't label you a narcissist.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: That's the fucking point. It's like, yeah, like maybe they
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: were a little frustrated and sat and upset not to
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: deal with that discomfort of like making my friend who's
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: already going through something hard like a little more upset.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: But on the other side of it, they were like, hey,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: you can just listen. I really just need someone to listen,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: and I just need and then you actually learn and
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: then maybe you do a couple Like this is where
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: I think, like AI can be really supportive, not to
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: like solve your problems, but to be like, hey, my
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: friend's going through something, how can I support them? What
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: a great fucking question.
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think there's some great applications for that as well.
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: But like going back to the commune as so, because
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: like your friends had enough grace and like cared enough
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: about the relationship to be like, hey, it would actually
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: be more supportive of me for you to do this
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: instead of like pathologizing you, right, or like I'm cutting
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: that person out of my life because they're toxic.
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: Like, instead you're having a conversation.
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: And if you have repeated conversations where like then there's
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: still harm, like real true harm being caused, then we
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: consider you know, like setting some stronger boundaries and ending relationships.
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: But like a lot of the narrative I see is
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: around like, well I shouldn't have to educate you, or
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: like I don't want to have to have hard conversations,
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: or you're this and that allows me.
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: To do that.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: So you mean you're you're basically saying to let them.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Theory isn't the best.
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: It's not my favorite.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've met one therapist I think that
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: is a good concept.
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not my favorite.
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: I see I see a lot of clients read it
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: and come to session and you just really struggle with
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: like these very oversimplified and unhelpful ways of being that
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: leads to more fragmentation and more rupture than repair.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, people do want that reductionistic type furbiage to actually
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: consolidate some them complex and the something that's easier, which
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: I can totally relate to. I would love for it
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: to be simplified. But I think anything around growth or
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: relationships is actually never going to be easy. Like it's
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: actually the hardest thing to do is to work through
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: a trigger, to work through codependency, to work through an
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: attachment style, And I think reducing it to a term
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: or to saying that labeling it it actually like makes
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: it one hundred times worse because then you have a
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: mislabel and you still have to do the work.
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and going back to like it just being so oversimplified,
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: like that's I think the real again, Like, in order
• 47:31
  Speaker 5: to like do well on social media, you have to
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: be a sound bite, right, And you can't take something
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: as complex and beautiful and diverse and nuanced and like
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: this like gorgeous kaleidoscope of the human experience and make
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: it a thirty second post. It's not possible, Like you
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: can't capture the complexity of humanity in such a simplistic form.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: That's a good point.
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: This is an awesome thing. Thank you so much for
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: having me.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: This is a great conversation. Yeah, thank you so much.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: How can people find you?
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: You can find me on my website at Leammellertherapy dot com.
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: That's the best way I have social media, but I
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: don't like to use it.
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: It'sn't clear from this conversation.
• 48:16
  Speaker 5: Liam Miller Therapy is all of my all my socials,
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: my website.
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: That's the best way to find me.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: We appreciate you, Yeah, amazing, Thank you for coming off
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: free Therapy. Hey, thanks for listening. We appreciate you.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode and us embarrassing ourselves and
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: talking about our feelings, you are definitely going to like
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: everything else.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: Follow on on Instagram at free therapy and we'll see
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: you next time.