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Feed the Children, From the River to the Sea · Outside Issues

• 0:03
  Speaker A: No child should ever have food, water or medical care blocked from them. Every child, no matter where they're born, has human rights leaders, parents, celebrities, teachers, anyone who cares about kids. When children's rights are taken away, adults must speak up. It's not a choice, it's a responsibility.
• 0:28
  Speaker B: Welcome to Outside Issues with Audrey and Patrick. We've got a third member of the podcast today, Dewey.
• 0:36
  Speaker A: Oh, what's the guest's name?
• 0:39
  Speaker B: His name is Brady and he's like pretending he doesn't hear us right now. But yeah, he's just getting anxious. I've been working all day and he would like to play and we've got a giant whale called Mr. Whale that he. It's like almost the size of me. Before that it was Mr. Shark. And I gotta show you one of these days the before and after of Mr. Shark. And yeah, it was ill used. We've gone through a few Mr. Shark, so we upgraded to Mr. Whale. That's gonna take him a while. That's like the Moby Dick for Brady there.
• 1:15
  Speaker A: We had a Mr. Worm for our cat. Same story, same story, but There are multiple Mr. Worms and we have no idea where they are. Probably somewhere back in west la.
• 1:30
  Speaker B: We've had like so many rough topics the first few weeks of the show and then I think like the roughest stuff for me is the violence that's visited upon marginalized people or just people in general, you know what I mean? Like marginalized people most of all because they're the first and largest recipients of the abuse. But like just the kind of anti humanity of this politics, you know, this era that we're living through in America. And of course America, you know, sends its abuse, the abuse for America ripples outward through the entire world. And I think if there's one, if there's one issue that's kept me up nights the most over the past few years. And you know, right or wrong, like I, we can talk about some of the disagreements I've had with other liberals or Democrats or people of our ilk, you know, over the last months. But it's been the genocide in Palestine or the genocide in Israel. And how does that issue find you?
• 2:41
  Speaker A: It finds me very disturbed and very saddened. It's something that hasn't been in the forefront of my, I guess, issues radar in the past couple of years. Well, in the past couple of years I've had a lot of personal things happen, like mentally. But I was focused a lot on the police brutality in America against African American people. For, for example, I saw A cop yesterday. I still have a problem seeing cops around, but that's another.
• 3:16
  Speaker B: Me too.
• 3:17
  Speaker A: Another issue.
• 3:18
  Speaker B: There's a whole little conversation we had about that that didn't make it into the cut for our first episode, but I had a feeling we'd be returning to it.
• 3:26
  Speaker A: I feel a little bit selfish because it hasn't been as in the forefront of my mind as it should be. I feel just because I had an incident. There was an incident in grad school where, you know, my best friend is Jewish, and there was some. There was some violence. I think this was before, obviously before October 7th, but. And I think it was before this major, major Israel. Israeli attack.
• 4:05
  Speaker B: But, yeah, before the heat got turned up like a million degrees.
• 4:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, 100%. This was. So. This was in 2021. There was some conflict going on. And my. My. My friend had some family members over in Israel and they posted something on Instagram like, oh, I hope everybody in Israel is okay right now. And they were met with some just horrible anti Semitic comments. And so because they were my best friend, I just. I got stuck on that idea. And I think that's what pushed me away from the issue for quite some time because I was so resentful against these folks. And nonetheless. And it didn't make sense because we were in a social welfare grad. Grad program, learning, and these folks who were making these comments were in the social justice sector of our program, which didn't make much sense.
• 5:14
  Speaker B: So there were. There were colleagues of your. Of yours and your friends who, like, they. They overheard that sentiment and then they said some. Some slurs or something. Response.
• 5:24
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And. And how can you. How can you even think of that when there's a genocide going on kind of thing, which, you know, my friend understands. And we don't really talk about it that much, but.
• 5:40
  Speaker B: Your Jewish friend.
• 5:41
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, we don't really talk about it that often, but there was just a lot of bullying and continued bullying of them and a couple of other Jewish cohort mates. And it took me a long time to, I guess, jump into the activism of what's going on over in Gaza because of that anger and that resentment. And I think also that's something that I needed to work on in my recovery. Is that resentment?
• 6:18
  Speaker B: Well, I'll just own it. I mean, I'm a liberal turned leftist. I guess it's a very simplified way I've described my arc. And I think a lot of people have been radicalized, millennials from the time that we grew up. And as believers in anti racism or social justice. It's very confusing to have anti Semitism weaponized in the way that it has been so that supporters of Palestinian liberation, that supporters of that it's framed as tantamount to anti Semit or saying slurs or, you know, being or violence towards Jewish people. I think a lot of us were shocked and horrified at the Charlottesville white nationalist march under the first Trump term and you know, like the recognition that there is a thriving community of Nazis in America and that do want to harm Jewish people and that there is a lot of ridiculous, you know, conspiracies, you know, anti Semitic conspiracies that, you know, still thrive. We want to be, we don't believe in that and we want to be vigilant against that. But that same empathy extends equally to Muslims and to Palestinians and one human does not have preferential treatment over the other. And when I learned that Zionism, it's an ethnic supremacist Zionism and not Judaism, you know, which are distinct and you know, even that fact is, it's really obscured in the west, you know, and in America. And you know, depending on what kind of media you're watching, you know what I mean, like they will deliberately obfuscate, you know, these like, differences to keep us in the dark. It's been something I've been up against as well. You know what you're talking about, this kind of wanting to show solidarity with, you know, our Jewish friends. But then there's this emerging, you know, reality that like we've been so sheltered from our entire lives essentially, you know, that we've got this whole, entire population, the most densely populated place on the planet in Gaza, where they're treated like, like black people in a sundown town. You know, like it's, it's, there's so much resemblance to the way that the Palestinians are treated, you know, in their own country, to the way black people were treated during Jim Crow, South Africa, during apartheid, where you've got people living in their own country and they're treated as second class citizens and there's basically two legal systems and there's not equal voting power and the list goes on and on. But yeah, so that's where you began, I suppose, in your, your connection to the issue.
• 9:25
  Speaker A: Eventually I learned that that was a them issue. This is not an issue connected to the issue, if you know what I'm saying. So with that said, you know, it's, it's their fault, it's them, you know, and if you're watching, you know, who the fuck you are so.
• 9:44
  Speaker B: Oh, the one, the one. The ones who, you know, said the slurs.
• 9:47
  Speaker A: Yes, yeah, yeah, the assholes in the social welfare. Social welfare program. You know who the fuck you are and you're horrible social workers. Let's just say that.
• 9:59
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, not the most ideal candidates for social work, I would say. How about I just, I'm just gonna read some of the stuff I wrote down. Does that.
• 10:06
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 10:07
  Speaker B: And then we could just kind of blast through it and then we can get to some other stuff. Gaza is an open air prison where nobody can come or go. The west bank is still bifurcated. Palestinians are under constant threat from military and settlers who are like roving street gangs or lynch mobs, which we mentioned. AIPAC and Kufi Organization. Zionist organizations like this capture much of Congress, the adl, the New York Times, Hollywood itself are just a few of the institutions here in our country which are Zionist or Zionist sympathetic and aid in a propaganda campaign that keeps politics frozen and, you know, certain realities obscured, which we touched on a little bit. Conditions were created for October 7th by Trump moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and the Abraham Accords. And I wanted to just pause that real quick when you brought up the police brutality, you know, and how that's like, that's your, the one, that's the issue that's closest to your heart in terms of like, it really distirs your passion and your anger, your righteous anger and your sympathy. I just, I might have mentioned when we, we talked about it earlier, the George Floyd video and when they took his body away after he had been suffocated and, and he, you know, he was clearly dead, but they went through the motions and they took him away in the ambulance and just the kind of. I felt just some, this visceral disgust and just horror and like, you know, I'd never seen anything quite like that or seen like a human being mistreated, you know, so savagely. And I see, you know, a similar disregard for Palestinian life and the way that, you know, there is a, it's, you can comfortably call it a police state in Israel because you need to, you need military control in order to kind of like keep that apartheid status quo. We're all connected and we are, we're all deserving of human dignity, you know, both here and abroad. And I just feel like it matters, you know, it matters and especially when our government is so integral, you know, the American government is so integral into this continuing over there that I suppose that's where I connect the two as We've discussed.
• 12:27
  Speaker A: You're talking about, you know, seeing traumatic images of human beings being brutalized and taken out. In this case, taken out of rubble and children literally dying on camera. I think we were talking about secondhand ptsd. Those of us who see those images, and for good reason, a lot of us do need to see those things in order to be informed. I hear a lot of conflicting information or opinions, rather, about seeing graphic videos, but I believe that sometimes you really do have to see those graphic videos in order to understand the gravity of what's going on.
• 13:11
  Speaker B: You know, what I'll say about that? In particular, my dad is, you know, he's kind of like what I call an Oliver Stone liberal. You know, he, like, he's a real big Joe Biden guy. You know, he's a real big Obama guy, but he's also got these vestiges of his hippie past, and he's always been pro Palestine or, you know, like, he would, like, make things awkward at parties because something would come up and he would just be like, no, actually, that's bullshit. And, you know, this is like. And. But even he would notice when I'm just, like, so inundated with images like that and with media, left media just discussing this, the genocide, heavily over the last couple years, he would tell me, like, hey, go outside, smile a little bit. Let's have some joy, or maybe turn it off for a little bit. And I don't think I ever felt like my recovery was being endangered by my following of this story. I think the last time that I really kind of, like, felt that itch was actually during the 2020 election during COVID I probably went through, like, three packs of cigarettes on election day, hoping that Trump wouldn't win that election. And, you know, and since then, it's been like a pretty long, long term, but successful for the moment project of quitting cigarettes.
• 14:32
  Speaker A: But congrats, by the way.
• 14:35
  Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, we'll see. I can still get it back tonight, who knows, but probably won't. But, yeah, I think that if it were not for those images, the amount of support, wanting though it is, would not have been stirred. It's because of the proliferation of those images on social media that we're able to kind of get around, like, the firewall, you know, on both sides of corporate media here in America, you know, both in, like, Fox News per se and CNN and msnbc, which would not show those images, you know, if you're scrolling on your phone, on Instagram, on Twitter, or you know, places like that, you know, you're going to see people in Palestine who upload from their phones and one reality does not align with the other. But oh my God, like, I mean, some of the worst, worst images I've ever seen. Like, I, I can't really fault anybody for not wanting, for being unable to look because it's as. Even though it's important that we look because it's like beggar's belief.
• 15:47
  Speaker A: It sure is. Yeah. I even have not. Not PTSD related. I actually have a touch like little spice of ocd, little scotch little. Little like. What's that? Meme cheek.
• 16:01
  Speaker B: Oh yeah, I love that one actually. I miss that guy.
• 16:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, of. Me too. Of ocd. And it manifests in. This is so very strange, but it manifests in watching disturbing content online.
• 16:17
  Speaker B: You have a compulsion to watch it or to not watch it, to watch it. Oh yeah.
• 16:21
  Speaker A: My brain tells me, okay, you need to watch that seven times. So I'll watch it seven times. That doesn't feel quite right because I didn't see every single little detail. So I'll watch it seven more times. So that's 14 times. But 14 doesn't feel quite right. So I'll watch it another seven times. So that's 21 times that I've seen it.
• 16:41
  Speaker B: And you're counting like you, it has to be that specific number.
• 16:44
  Speaker A: Counting. Yeah, a ritual kind of thing. And it's, it's very painful.
• 16:49
  Speaker B: Well, I appreciate your honesty about that. I mean, I, I don't know if it's related at all, but like I, I've, I accept the notion that we can get addicted to being angry, you know, and that there is, I mean, I, My addict, my addiction is always in search of the next host. You know, that's just like, I feel like that's what addiction is, you know what I mean? It's like the substance is less important than just like the mechanism. And so like, yeah, you know, like I have such powerful outrage, you know, at everybody involved with the genocid that, you know, I could find myself doom scrolling. That being said, it's important and it's relevant. You know, it connects to so much problems with our democracy, the intractability of our politics. Whenever there are holdout Democrats for any progressive priority in Congress. To a person, I think almost every one of those Democrats takes money from AIPAC or from these Zionist organizations. And you know, we as progressives, we love the squad. You know what I mean? That, that was like one of the success stories of the first Trump term but the squad has not expanded. It's in fact it's contracted and you know, both was Jamal Bowman and Cori Bush were taken out of their races. They were the, they were the most vulnerable members of the squad. And record spending, you know, by AIPAC to make sure that they were not reelected. So I mean that's just one example of how it's, what happens over there is relevant to what happens over here. Most of the time they're well meaning, not all the time, but when people criticize me in my life or they complain that like they don't think I criticize the Republican Party enough, you know, or that I'm too, I'm overly hostile towards the Democrats and I'm not nearly hostile enough to the Republicans. And in my anger comes from you know, as far as like our institutions and like where power really is, the people who make the laws, you know, and have the power to enforce them. If it's not the Democrats, then who's it going to be? Like I, it's just, it comes from my, my sub zero expectation of Republicans and you know, they're, it is clear what their priorities are and they're, they're anti human. So it's the side where there's ostensibly some pro human priorities rattling around where I feel like the energy must be focused and the pressure must be applied. And I think I just felt that so much with the Palestinians is if we can force Biden to do it, if we can't force Harris to do it or whoever it is, then who's going to do it? You know, nobody's going to do it. You know what I mean? Our expectation would be for a Republican to find, to grow a heart, you know, or for, you know, like the hardcore, you know, hardcore right wing, you know, Israeli government to do it. And I would rather not wait on either of those things just to finish it out so we can get back to the good stuff. Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was murdered by an Israeli sniper in 2022. And that was for me like that was my little watershed moment prior to October 7th that I think really like locked me into what this was all about. She was killed by a sniper deliberately. She was wearing a press sign on her flak jacket. And at her funeral Israeli cops came in and brutally beat those in attendance and her casket fell on the ground. And just like seeing that, I mean I just never seen anything like it. I mean I think around the same time there were, you know, there were cops going into mosques, you know, During, I think during Ramadan or, you know, it was during like a holy day. And there was just this flagrant kind of just violence and just bully behavior. I think I was bullied a lot growing up. So there's something visceral about seeing bullies, and that's bullies wearing a badge over here or bullies wearing a badge over there. It's people hurting others with impunity is something that really gets to me, especially when the bullies are clothed in authority, you know, like when they, they're people that we should be looking up to, are the people that we should be able to rely on, but instead they're using that power, you know, for oppressive and self serving ends. 1,200 people were killed by Hamas in October 7th. To return it to police violence, the response to George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis, you know, I think the city burned to the ground. You know, there were riots in the streets. And at the time I looked at that and I looked at that at the same time I saw such reluctance of the police force surrounding Derek Chauvin to offer him up and to hold him accountable and to basically like there was like so much institutional resistance and not just there, but you know, at the federal level under Trump to apply justice, you know, on behalf of this man who'd been strangled. When no political solution is available to seek justice, violence becomes inevitable. I never didn't see October 7th as terrible, but I also saw it as a kettle boiling over of, you know, if an entire population is denied any recourse or any democratic solution for their oppression, you know, then they're going to lash out. Hamas did, and this was the pretext for what came afterwards. Under Biden, there was like an escalation. America gave Israel a blank check to basically mete out punishment as much as they saw fit. At the same time, you know, as awareness increased about what was going on, his own voting base just became enraged with him. And there was a real fracturing, you know, there was the uncommitted movement, which I suppose, which I would, I suppose I would count myself. Biden handed the reins over to Kamala Harris three months before the election. And they, they had the convention. No Palestinian was permitted to speak. A continuity, unfortunately, between Biden and Harris. As far as, you know, what the, what the policy was going to be about this ongoing bloodbath over there, I'm not as confident about like how big of a role or how vital that, that a role that played in the outcome of the election, but it definitely played some part and now we know we're under the Trump administration and there's a famine. There's something about bomb, the difference between bombing and starving that I'm noticing and.
• 24:00
  Speaker A: Both at the same time. You know, I think NPR reported on the 22nd. Yeah. Today's the 25th on the 22nd, that there's deliberate shootings at aid sites in Gaza.
• 24:13
  Speaker B: A British journalist, or actually a British surgeon of like, renown has said that at the security checkpoints they're seizing baby formula.
• 24:26
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 24:27
  Speaker B: You know, there's only one way to read that. The Israeli state does not want Palestinians to have a future.
• 24:35
  Speaker A: Right, Right. Take away baby formula, you take away. I take away babies. Take away human life. That's ethnic cleansing.
• 24:44
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it was so sad. Like yesterday I was talking about it with Sueanne. We, we don't see each other much during the week. We just see each other on weekends. And so. But we had our date and we went out and she was just telling me that, like, she just tries to stay away from. She tries not to read as much news, but she's noticed in her YouTube shows or like the non news content that she watches, politics is seeping in because the situation is just becoming so egregious that like, not even the most committed non followers of politics can't bear to look away. And she just feels so helpless, you know, and, and she said something that really I've been thinking about the last 24 hours, which is that, like, I think Israel is going to succeed in what they're trying to do because there is just too little resistance. The, the powerful mechanisms that could hold them to account, you know, being the federal, the US Federal government is just, they're, they're down with this, you know what I mean? And, or at least they're down with this right now. And you know that there's been a blackout. Journalists are not allowed into Gaza to take pictures. And you know, what we have been getting, they're just like little fragments, but like, I can't even imagine what it looks like. You know what I mean? Like, I saw the documentary Northerland, which won the Oscar for best foreign film last year, and it was about the treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank.
• 26:15
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 26:15
  Speaker B: So the, the, like the nice part, you know, of this conflict, quote unquote. And it was, you know, that was hard to look at. So I can't even imagine, you know, after this kind of protracted conflict, so many dead, they stopped counting. You know, I can't imagine what it looks like, but I really Hope that my girlfriend's wrong and you know, I hope that this pressure will continue to build, as you know. And it's like the most painful thing in the world that it had to get this bad before, you know, certain people were willing to look. But I don't know, I just. We've got no choice but to keep looking towards that horizon, you know, and just like to not give up, no matter how dire things look. But you had brought it back and I'm so glad you did this, this subject back to some mental health focus, which is another big part of our podcast. So maybe we could get to your part of the notes.
• 27:17
  Speaker A: Well, something that I discovered and I think you really enjoyed as well, was Ms. Rachel.
• 27:25
  Speaker B: Thank you for bringing her up. Yeah, my mind, it's so much, it's like, I can't believe we got this far in the conversation already. It's like, it's so hard.
• 27:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, right. I never thought I'd be talking about Ms. Rachel. You know, I'm not a child therapist, my colleagues are and they love Ms. Rachel. But I came across this video of her and a child in Gaza, three year old child. And you know, it was heartwarming. And it wasn't like heart wrenching, it was heartwarming. And what I saw was the child said, all I want to do is like learn and play like every other child in the world. And Ms. Rachel affirmed that. And with child development up till age 5, learning and playing is the most important and crucial thing, the most important and crucial things that you need to do to facilitate growth in children and child development. And the fact that there at least is one little three year old girl saying to Ms. Rachel, like, I just want to learn, I want to play. And you know, and then it's followed by we're hungry and we're thirsty and we don't, we don't want to hear bombs anymore. That of course broke my heart and it broke Ms. Rachel's heart too. When you're inundated by violence at such a young age, your brain changes. Not only does your brain change like adults brain change from trauma. As you know, I think I showed you another video on a calm brain, a normal brain versus a PTSD brain. It's all different and all activated differently. So when you have children growing up in that kind of trauma of war, there's going to be development issues that lead to God knows what else in adulthood. And of course in this situation, who knows if they're going to even be reaching adulthood, which is the most heartbreaking thing that you can think of when it comes to the children of Gaza and I mean, let alone the adults and the teenagers who are, you know, losing family members, watching their family members die, missing their family members, not being able to do what they need to do, go to school, go to work, anything like that, like just surviving, just even breathing. I mean, that's the definition of ptsd is trauma just unadulterated, pure trauma. And if you read the book the Body Keeps a Score, which therapists like myself call the Bible by Besser van den Kolt. I hope I'm saying that right.
• 30:45
  Speaker B: Is she still around, by the way?
• 30:46
  Speaker A: I believe so, yeah.
• 30:48
  Speaker B: You know what we should do? We should ask if she wants to come on the show.
• 30:52
  Speaker A: Ms. Rachel?
• 30:53
  Speaker B: No, no, I obviously would love to talk to Ms. Rachel, but the author of the Body Keeps a Score.
• 30:59
  Speaker A: Oh, he's. I think he's definitely in Europe.
• 31:03
  Speaker B: Oh, he is. Okay. That might be maybe over zoom, but I mean, it's not as far fetched as you'd think. I just talked to a friend of mine who does a great podcast and he was able to get an author on his show and he said that if you email them and you say that you love their book, that that makes a big difference. You never know unless you ask. Right.
• 31:21
  Speaker A: I'd fangirl out if we got Vester Van. His name is hard to say. Van den Kolk on the podcast of the Body Keeps the Score, which is the bible of trauma therapy and just therapy in general. And he starts out the book by talk about his experience with Vietnam War veterans. And just as, as you know, I don't really have to go into a whole history of what a Vietnam War veteran experiences like, experience by just seeing, seeing the atrocities and then coming home and some of them committing atrocities because of the trauma. And that's what he writes about in his book. And like, it's tied to addiction, it's tied to domestic violence, tied to sexual assault, it's tied to all the great stuff that I work with on a daily basis. Yeah, I mean, I would love Vander Kolk's opinion on what's happening in Gaza. Like, I bet, I bet he's. If I were a betting woman, he's probably watching every single little bit he can right now.
• 32:38
  Speaker B: What happened in the Native Americans was so long ago, generations ago for us. And we're witnessing the end of the eradication of a people. And, and so I, you know, the traumatic layers to it are.
• 32:57
  Speaker A: It goes deep, we'll say, like even those Survivors from Gaza who somehow get to safety and Lord knows when this conflict will end. And there's going to be some, some survivors who have lost their entire world, you know, and the body keeps the score. It just, it's the mind, body connection. And even if you are not thinking about the trauma, your body can remember it. It's body memory. So even if you're feeling like you're, like you're literally not seeing that, like there's a bomb exploding in front of you, your body thinks that there's a bomb exploding in front of you because you heard a door close really loudly. And it's, it's, it really, it really connects, you know, the, the, the body memory to the conscious mind. And if there are survivors of this conflict, of this violence, I wonder how much their bodies will keep the score, how high those points will be, because it's got to be out of the roof, like how many points there are in that score.
• 34:10
  Speaker B: One of the many heartbreaks of this last election was really hoping that the election itself could be like a, Like a leverage to use against the resistance to changing anything about this alliance we have with Israel. You know, that like, maybe the fear of losing an election, you know, would move the Democrats on this issue and force a change in policy. And that turned out to not be the case. But I was hoping at the time that it would. I guess it. I was. I'm never. I really don't feel I'm coming from a place of nihilism with any of this, because the best thing for a nihilist to do is just to turn off the news and, you know, go get an ice cream or as I'm.
• 34:58
  Speaker A: Hearing a bike, a motorcycle outside my window right now, and we're maybe tying it back to police. A police state. My. And people who could solve the issue, not, not politicians. But my contention is that biker dudes plus social workers equals people.
• 35:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, I love the idea of. Yeah, just the, what do you call. Just some, Some insurgency. Some good. Some good trouble. Wasn't that John Lewis quote, make some good trouble.
• 35:33
  Speaker A: Make some good trouble. And my favorite thing I've seen over the past couple of weeks, you know, bring up the Epstein files, is the John Lewis bridge over the 5 in Seattle.
• 35:47
  Speaker B: Wait, that's where the John Lewis Bridge is. Is in Seattle?
• 35:50
  Speaker A: Yes. Right by my, My, My work.
• 35:52
  Speaker B: Yeah. That's famous. Wow. I should have, I should have gone to it while I was there. Maybe next time.
• 35:56
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, it's, it's, you know, you can just see it when you're like driving on the freeway, but the somebody said like, grab him by the Epstein files on the John Lewis Bridge. And I was like, this is my favorite meme now. I hope that somebody else does it on the bridge and I happen to be driving to work or something.
• 36:15
  Speaker B: We gotta make friends with some bikers.
• 36:17
  Speaker A: When I was living in the South Bay in California, like I certainly did go to Torrance Alano Club and I don't know if you've been there, but there's quite a few biker dudes.
• 36:28
  Speaker B: Yeah, tlc. They're actually, there's a biker meeting which I have not been to yet, but I would love to. And they seem really nice. I always see them out there.
• 36:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. So there's quite a few biker dudes over there and you know, they're in recovery and they're social work friendly as far as I know. You know, I described what I wanted to do when I lived over there because I wasn't a social worker yet, but that was my plan. And they all high fived me and drank some coffee with me and were like, hell yeah. So I mean, let's all get together and cause some peace. Some good, troubling peace.
• 37:07
  Speaker B: There's some, some liberal friends that I really love a lot. One that I'm kind of amending things with mostly just by not talking about it, who is, I would, I would describe as more of like a liberal Zionist who just, you know, he just didn't, he didn't like, he felt like I was picking a side that was anti Jewish somewhat. And so, you know, he backed off for a while, you know, and I wasn't getting a response to my text and we had In n out burger the other day and so that was, that felt really good.
• 37:42
  Speaker A: Missed an out burger, by the way.
• 37:45
  Speaker B: Yeah. God, I mean, you know, it's a double edged sword. I heard they might be going national, which I mean for real now because there's always that rumor circulating, but I think it's actually happening. So you might, you know, you might get some in and out where you're at sooner rather than later, which if they can, you know, keep the standard of quality, is it good thing like home? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then there's. Yeah, there's another friend who, my roommate from college who, you know, he, I think that he was, he was 100% correct that like, you know, that Trump had to be kept from office, you know, and that that was like the main goal of 2024. And I think he saw anybody, any, any contrary Opinion or anybody that was, like, coming at. Coming into this with an energy that was trying to kind of fracture that intent, that direction, you know, seeing that. Seeing that person as like, an opponent and an obstacle. And, you know, he didn't tell me exactly that he wasn't going to be my friend ever again. But, you know, he did say that he, you know, he blocked me on social media, and he said he'd have to stop talking to me for a while.
• 38:55
  Speaker A: And I always tend to default back to sort of the. What they call the yes and policy. I think they teach this a lot in mental health school, but, you know, they're where there can be two things existing at once that matter just as much. Instead of saying yes but or no but, you say yes, this is true, and this is happening.
• 39:24
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 39:25
  Speaker A: So, you know, I. I used it.
• 39:27
  Speaker B: I think it's not a binary.
• 39:28
  Speaker A: Yeah, right. Yeah. I used it today with a. With a client, I believe. I think I was taught they were talking about how a family member was sort of like, ousted out of the family, and they had a lot of love for this family member and were ostracized for keeping in contact with this family member. And, you know, they're like, what. What should I say to my family? You know, because they'll. They'll disown me if they know that I'm still talking to this other family member. And I'll, you know, it's kind of like, say, yes, I care about your opinion about this family member, and I support you. And I keep in contact with them because they're my family. And that goes back up to setting boundaries and setting limitations around your. Around your own communication style and your own. Your own personal life, so it can be applied to politics as well.
• 40:23
  Speaker B: I hope I'm getting better. I think I am just about, like, just taking my, you know, my crazy addict brain and, you know, and my. My passion for politics and just trying to always, like, massage it into some container that's constructive and, you know, and not. And. And where I'm not just isolated from other people, I'm actually connecting other people. And that's like, part of the gift of getting to do this with you is that, like, you know, we do this and then I do some editing, and then, you know, we share it with other people. And, you know, hopefully in time there'll be a bit of an audience and, you know, we can kind of like, can keep this, Create. Continue this project of kind of creating more and more community around social justice and, you know, compassion for fellows with addiction and mental health struggles.
• 41:14
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And even politics itself, because, you know, you can call yourself. It's cute to call yourself a political junkie, right?
• 41:25
  Speaker B: Yeah. No, no. Yeah, that's. That's over. I mean, like, you know, yes, but, like, that just doesn't quite fit the bill, I don't think.
• 41:32
  Speaker A: Sure, It's. It's a. It's an endearing term, but I think it's. I think it is a possibility to get addicted to politics. And I've been following politics like a junkie for the last 10, 12 years. You know, I can get addicted to having my opinion put onto somebody else. Like, for example, I have a very close person in my. In my Life who supports RFK Jr and Me Too.
• 42:02
  Speaker B: They really like him for whatever reason.
• 42:05
  Speaker A: So much fun. It's so much fun. They. They want to go skiing with rfk. Good for them, you know, but not letting my. My addict brain of. I need to be right. I'm the right one. Like. Like, you're. You're so fucking wrong. That's where the behavior needs to stop. And I need to collaborate with this person and not let my addict brain that says that I'm right because. Well, let's. I am right. Like.
• 42:36
  Speaker B: Well, yeah, about this. I mean, for sure. For sure.
• 42:38
  Speaker A: RFK Jr. Yeah, absolutely. I think he took something out of the flu vaccine the other day.
• 42:45
  Speaker B: Did he really?
• 42:46
  Speaker A: Yes, he does.
• 42:47
  Speaker B: He's like Walter White in there with the beakers, fiddling with the formula.
• 42:51
  Speaker A: Yeah. And my. My thing is that as soon as Trump got elected, I heard that RFK Jr. Was going to ban uncrustables, like the little sandwiches. So our freezer is stocked with uncrustables. Ever since I heard that, I will buy uncrustables at the grocery store.
• 43:11
  Speaker B: Wait, wait. What are those, though? Those are like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but without the crust.
• 43:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, the little circular. Circular things.
• 43:20
  Speaker B: That sounds really good. And they're frozen, so you can just like, heat them up anytime you want.
• 43:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, you just. Well, you thaw them. So like, just put them in the fridge or something and you just get these, like, 24 count, like, things of uncrustables. They have, you know, like strawberry jam, grape jam, honey, Nutella. It's. It's great. So, you know, as soon as I heard that, it's probably. Was probably like an onion article, but who knows? At this point, I just stock up on them because.
• 43:48
  Speaker B: So for real, they're banning those?
• 43:50
  Speaker A: I have no idea. I just heard it. I heard it Like I, or I read it somewhere, like, you know, it could have been like a parody, but everything sounds like a parody nowadays. So I'm about to like, I'm taking things seriously and I'm serious about uncrustables.
• 44:08
  Speaker B: They can pry the uncrustables from your cold, dead fingers.
• 44:11
  Speaker A: Yes, they can pry the uncrustables from my cold, dead hands. Don't tread on me, rfk. Don't tread on my peanut butter and jelly.
• 44:19
  Speaker B: I thought it was really important step in our dynamic, which is that when you had a mental health crisis that you were able to ask for what you needed and then we were able to like, come to a quick arrangement about that and then plan something different. You were taking care of yourself when you called me and said that you were going through something. So. Yeah, I mean, do you want to just like talk about what, that, what happened and everything?
• 44:42
  Speaker A: Sure. I, you know, it's funny because I don't really remember what the trigger was at, at this moment, but I do remember having this wave of negativity just come over me and like, kind of engulf me because I would, I would consider myself now in a depressive episode. Earlier, maybe a couple of months ago, I was in a hypomanic episode, which is like, you know, not quite full blown mania, which is, you know, ending up in the hospital or ending up on the streets or something like that. But hypomanic is more like big ideas and you're going dancing in the, like in the, in the kitchen, like by the fridge, two in the morning, like, I don't know, but you're still functional. And so I had that a couple of months ago. And then I had a period of stability. I went on some new meds. But a depressive episode for me at least, it sort of creeps in. I start thinking, I start getting paranoid. Like, am I in a depressive episode? Am I getting depressed? Am I getting depressed? Oh, God, I hope I'm not getting depressed. Um, but then ultimately I kind of feel this little bit of a. A little bit of a crash. You, when you talk to bipolar people, you'll. You'll hear the word crash a lot. Crashing down from that high. It's, it's not like, because I'm on, I'm on the right medication, it's not so much a huge crash, but it's more like a, a landing onto some, on, on the ground. I often, I don't know if I've mentioned this to you, but I often describe bipolar depression as being Like I'm part of the floor. Yeah, that low. And.
• 46:33
  Speaker B: And you can. And you've built like a landing pad. I mean, or over time you've kind of like figured out how to make a landing pad so that when it happens you. Things that bad. Right.
• 46:42
  Speaker A: Sure. I think now it's more I'll land on the pad, but there'll be like still an imprint. You know, I still like fall face first, but it doesn't like hit the ground. And I don't break bones or anything like that. But I. Yeah, I don't know what happened, but I just had this big, big wave of negativity and I just started crying and I know something happened, but I don't know what.
• 47:16
  Speaker B: Is it important to figure out what it was or is that kind of not the issue really?
• 47:20
  Speaker A: It's sometimes, sometimes it is because you want to avoid whatever situation triggered it. But at this moment, I don't even remember what it was. It must have because it was so intense.
• 47:33
  Speaker B: When your arm's on fire, you're not thinking about what the spark was. You're just thinking about how the hell do I put this out. Right.
• 47:39
  Speaker A: You can print. Great analogy. Yeah. It's an intense illness. It's. It's unfortunate I didn't get diagnosed until age 34.
• 47:48
  Speaker B: I love the way you put it. Like when you, when you talked to me about it, you said this was your disability.
• 47:53
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 47:54
  Speaker B: Which is like nothing to be ashamed of. And like, it helps others to understand where you're at.
• 47:58
  Speaker A: And that's the, that's the disabled part. And that's why I'm so grateful to both my job now, my current job, and in grad school at ucla where I'm able to get accommodations and understanding of when I need, like, extended deadlines. Like, for example, in grad school, I was able to, you know, submit papers like a week later than everybody else because I would have. I would have some flare ups.
• 48:27
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 48:28
  Speaker A: And now with my, like, you know, my clinical notes, I'm able to turn them in. Technically, we're supposed to turn them in or have them done 72 hours after the session, but usually I can do it a little bit after that, which is very helpful. So I'm very grateful to accommodations, which are so essential for people who have both visible and invisible disabilities.
• 48:58
  Speaker B: I was talking about perfectionism in a workshop a couple hours ago, and I was describing my difficulty with writing, which is something I care a lot about, I'm very passionate about. But it takes me a while to get the plane in the air, you know what I mean? My process involves a lot of throat clearing and hair pulling and. And, of course, a lot of trial and error. A lot of, like, just fumbling around with the words until they start to resemble, like, a readable paragraph. And whereas before, I used to be so hard on myself about, like, that staggered process of getting to the finish, you know, and then. And, you know, I think I was. A lot of. My addictive behaviors, you know, I mean, would kind of, like, they would flare up around that, but as I get further and further in recovery, I can kind of recognize that, like, well, this is just my particular process. You know, you have your process to kind of get your. To get your own clinical writing done and your work and to kind of. You know, it's like, you can't. We can't live life like somebody else lives life. We can only live life like we know how to live life, and we just try to optimize the best we can, you know, within the limitations of who we are. In my experience, you know, like, shame about. This stuff never gets us to a better place. It only delays that.
• 50:21
  Speaker A: And, you know, I'll be the first to admit that when I have a crash or if I have a mini little moment, it goes back to my recovery. I absolutely. I want to get high. I want to. I don't know about drunk at this point, because the smell of alcohol literally makes me sick. But I definitely think of, like, oh, if I just had this pill, then everything would be okay right now, and I could do what I need to do, but that's just not on the table. It hasn't been on the table for me as. As a. As a coping mechanism for eight years now. And so I deal with it, as painful as it might be.
• 51:01
  Speaker B: I love that you brought that up. You know, it's like, I'm just gonna confess here. Well, I've confessed to other people, but, like. So I've been dating Sue Ann for a year and a half, and she has behind her mirror in her bathroom, all these, like, bottles of, like, past prescriptions of all these, like, tasty drugs. And I used to be the guy who would look behind people's mirrors when I'd go over to their house and pilfer treats, you know, and. Yeah. Yeah. And so for as long as I've been here, you know, those. Those bottles have been there. And, you know, like, I told a friend about them, and I've told different people about it. It's just a mental exercise because, like, you. You know, however however much the fantasy of being able to use like I used to, you know, will, like, enter my brain. It's just a policy. Like, I don't use. I don't drink anymore. You know, I've got to figure something else out. But, like. But yeah, there's that part of me that, like, still finds the whole thing very appealing. And, you know, I think it's just, like, over time, I've just been able to kind of dismantle. Dismantle, you know, whatever. Whatever. Used to take that fantasy and then carry that forth into action and behavior. So I'm excited. Our next episode, if we can manage it, we might need to reshuffle the deck a little bit, depending on our schedules, but I would love to talk about the new movie Eddington with you.
• 52:24
  Speaker A: Yes. Yes. I need to get my ass together. Get my therapist ass together and see it.
• 52:31
  Speaker B: It's a film. See, I've seen it once, and I'm going to watch it one more time before we sit down and talk about it. But it might as well just be like, a catalog of, like, all of the online kind of cultural flashpoints of the last five years, because it takes place during 2020. And so we might as well just, like, we'll have our bulleted list out and we could just talk about. All right, QAnon. Okay. You know, Anti Vax. You know, Black Lives Matter, you know, it's got, like, a ton of, like. It's a real, like, cultural cross section. That's what's why I thought it would be interesting for us to get into.
• 53:05
  Speaker A: Agreed. Agreed. I do see Fantastic Four tomorrow, so maybe there's.
• 53:11
  Speaker B: You know what? Okay, here's the thing about that is because I love. I'm a huge nerd. So I love comic books. And, you know, I like the new Superman. I will see Fantastic Four if you like it, because you're a good litmus test for that. If not, I'm not even going to bother with it. I wasn't going to anyway. But if I get a positive Audrey review, then obviously in the next week, so.