Latest / Pod Therapy / #442: Childhood Sexual Abuse, ADHD FOMO

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#442: Childhood Sexual Abuse, ADHD FOMO · Pod Therapy

0:04
Speaker 1: I'll figure it out.
0:07
Speaker 2: I believe in you, Dick.
0:08
Speaker 1: I don't shit, I really don't have any.
0:11
Speaker 2: Populous Las Vegas, Novada. This is pop therapy or real people,
0:15
Speaker 2: real problems and real therapists. You can submit your questions
0:18
Speaker 2: anonymously at pottherapy dot net or email us at pot
0:22
Speaker 2: therapy guys at gmail dot com. And now broadcasting from
0:26
Speaker 2: a studio that has definitely been named.
0:27
Speaker 1: Do we know the name of it? Jerky my chick
0:29
Speaker 1: and pulling my pork studios, that's Whitney.
0:34
Speaker 2: It's time for some pot therapy.
0:36
Speaker 3: Thank you to our studio naming sponsor. Uh, nobody's taking
0:40
Speaker 3: us up on that in a little while. I think
0:41
Speaker 3: it's also because I don't know how to let people
0:44
Speaker 3: do it multiple times, and everybody that did it would
0:46
Speaker 3: have done it again. But yeah, if you have not
0:49
Speaker 3: named our studio yet Patreon dot com slash therapy, you
0:52
Speaker 3: can buy the naming rights to an episode at the
0:55
Speaker 3: store which apparently is just up there, and I will
0:59
Speaker 3: figure out how to add another one.
1:01
Speaker 1: And if you're just joining us again, sorry, this is
1:03
Speaker 1: our rapid fire three episodes in one night to get
1:06
Speaker 1: through the month of June. It was this or we
1:08
Speaker 1: go an entire month without episodes, so we apologize. But
1:11
Speaker 1: this is where we're at. And if anybody thinks from
1:13
Speaker 1: the last episode that we were joking when we're talking
1:15
Speaker 1: about all right, we're going right to the next episode,
1:17
Speaker 1: we were not because I did not take Jacob seriously
1:20
Speaker 1: and I did not even have the script ready.
1:23
Speaker 2: What happens when people don't take me seriously. This is
1:25
Speaker 2: a lesson I've learned. Yeah, he's not ever kidding, and
1:28
Speaker 2: everything he said is serious. It's easier that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
1:31
Speaker 2: I should just find that I don't have to differentiate.
1:33
Speaker 2: I was always telling you, I don't have to think
1:35
Speaker 2: about it. I don't have to come up with things. Officer. Anyway,
1:38
Speaker 2: there is a dead hooker in my trunk. Welcome to
1:40
Speaker 2: the summer edition, as June Old Crew.
1:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, fuck, Derry's another one.
1:45
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, jesus, I'm just so sad that I know
1:49
Speaker 2: it's going to happen.
1:51
Speaker 4: I'll hand that dropping Christ anyway.
1:56
Speaker 3: Our summer program, we are doing some abbreviated episodes, but
1:59
Speaker 3: as we've been mentioned, in the last two nine years,
2:02
Speaker 3: we've never missed, so able to keep that streak alive.
2:05
Speaker 3: If you are a Patreon, thank you for your grace
2:08
Speaker 3: with us as we haven't been releasing our extended episodes
2:10
Speaker 3: for this month. But remember patreon dot com slash therapy,
2:13
Speaker 3: there's a nine year library of stuff that you instantly
2:16
Speaker 3: have access to up there. We do appreciate your support.
2:19
Speaker 3: We worked our asses off on this show in May,
2:21
Speaker 3: so we're taking a little R and R here in June,
2:24
Speaker 3: and we appreciate that you're still with us. We've got
2:26
Speaker 3: some great questions for today's episode, and we're leading off
2:29
Speaker 3: the order today order with daily reminders of childhood sexual abuse. Hey, friends,
2:36
Speaker 3: a really light topic coming your way. Kidding obvious trigger
2:41
Speaker 3: warning for juvenile sexual assault and abuse. I'm a thirty
2:45
Speaker 3: five year old straight female or sorry, straight male. Growing up,
2:49
Speaker 3: my family was and remains friends with a very powerful
2:53
Speaker 3: and influential family in town. I live in a moderately
2:56
Speaker 3: sized American city, and everyone knows this family. Their name
3:01
Speaker 3: is plastered around town as they are benefactors for a
3:04
Speaker 3: lot of our cultural institutions. This fact will become important later.
3:08
Speaker 2: Sure.
3:09
Speaker 3: When I was fourteen, I was friends with one of
3:11
Speaker 3: the kids and their family. We'll call this person Ed Jones,
3:15
Speaker 3: obviously not his real name. Oh my god, I know
3:17
Speaker 3: it John, the Jones Family Ed. Ed was sixteen hard
3:22
Speaker 3: to keep up with. Yes, Ed was sixteen at the time,
3:25
Speaker 3: and I looked up to him as a role model.
3:27
Speaker 3: Ed had me over to his house a lot, and
3:29
Speaker 3: without going into too much graphic detail, at abused the
3:33
Speaker 3: power imbalance and groomed me to have sex with him
3:36
Speaker 3: multiple times, probably ten plus over the course of about
3:40
Speaker 3: a year. I believe his parents heard what was going
3:42
Speaker 3: on in his room and even not try to get
3:45
Speaker 3: us out, but eventually did not do anything and just
3:48
Speaker 3: left us alone, much to my terror. To say that
3:51
Speaker 3: the experience was confusing, losing my virginity to a male friend,
3:54
Speaker 3: the family dynamics, dynamics, et cetera, and traumatizing would be
3:59
Speaker 3: an understated I've been in a lot of therapy over
4:02
Speaker 3: the years, and I think I've healed as much as
4:04
Speaker 3: I can, but God damn it, Ed keeps cropping up
4:07
Speaker 3: in my life in ways that I don't feel prepared for.
4:10
Speaker 3: Just tonight, my wife and I were at an art
4:12
Speaker 3: gallery and I noticed that it was called the Jones
4:16
Speaker 3: Family Gallery, funded in large part by Ed's parents. Just
4:21
Speaker 3: seeing their name on the wall, immediately brought me back
4:24
Speaker 3: to being fourteen and to being violated by him. Other times,
4:29
Speaker 3: my family will bring up the Joneses and how great
4:32
Speaker 3: they are, and I have to stuff the rage and
4:34
Speaker 3: pain as far down as I can to prevent myself
4:38
Speaker 3: from revealing to my family that I was sexually abused.
4:42
Speaker 3: I just don't trust my family with this information. I
4:45
Speaker 3: don't think they'll believe me, and I don't want to
4:48
Speaker 3: negatively affect their relationship with the Joneses. I just never
4:51
Speaker 3: want to see another Jones for as long as I live.
4:55
Speaker 3: I just don't know how to move through the world
4:58
Speaker 3: like this. In a perfect world, I would track Ed
5:01
Speaker 3: down and reduce him to dust. But I just want
5:04
Speaker 3: to proceed with my normal life and move on. What
5:07
Speaker 3: kind of armor can I build to avoid feeling a
5:10
Speaker 3: flashback coming on when I see their name around town?
5:14
Speaker 3: Is it worth telling my family, who I have reason
5:17
Speaker 3: to believe won't believe or support me. Do I just
5:21
Speaker 3: go kick Ed's ass ps Ed has a wife and
5:24
Speaker 3: a successful business now. I would love to ruin his
5:28
Speaker 3: life by making this information public. I doubt his wife
5:31
Speaker 3: has any idea that he was a predator, but ultimately
5:34
Speaker 3: I don't think it's worth it. Thanks for reading anonymous
5:39
Speaker 3: shop one that's rough, very heavy. Some details to make
5:43
Speaker 3: sure that I get out there, because I just want
5:46
Speaker 3: to make sure I read the letter correctly in case
5:48
Speaker 3: anybody forgot it. Writer is a male. I misspoke earlier
5:53
Speaker 3: writers describing a time when Writer was fourteen years old
5:57
Speaker 3: and perpetrator Ed Jones was sixteen years So I.
6:00
Speaker 2: Think we just say perpetrator. Yeah, yeah, there are people
6:03
Speaker 2: named that Jones. Yeah, we could leave it.
6:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's probably somebody's listening to the person to speak
6:09
Speaker 3: for for people with other common names out there.
6:12
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, they're common for a reason.
6:15
Speaker 3: This is the cause Jacob needs to get on. I'm
6:17
Speaker 3: tired of our names all the John does.
6:20
Speaker 2: Of the common names. You have heard of them for
6:23
Speaker 2: a fucking reason. Jane Smith, there's a lot of us. Yeah,
6:27
Speaker 2: we're tired of being I am related to multiple Jane
6:30
Speaker 2: Smith's not a joke. Oh all right, a solid point.
6:36
Speaker 2: We will change this to purp. My uncle was named Bob, Yeah,
6:40
Speaker 2: Bob Smith. Yeah, definitely common enough.
6:43
Speaker 3: So yeah, but I think an important piece here because
6:46
Speaker 3: I know none of us are going to take a
6:47
Speaker 3: position of invalidating Writer, but at the same time, I
6:50
Speaker 3: think it. There's a nuance to this, which is that
6:54
Speaker 3: we're talking about a sixteen year old and a fourteen
6:56
Speaker 3: year old for this. This person now looks back in says, look,
7:00
Speaker 3: this happened ten times. I now look back on it
7:04
Speaker 3: and don't feel it was the consensual kind of thing
7:06
Speaker 3: that a lot of teenagers experience. Writer doesn't say rape,
7:10
Speaker 3: but writers saying the power imbalance. I was younger, they
7:14
Speaker 3: were older. I admired them, they were a famous family.
7:18
Speaker 3: I don't like how this went down.
7:19
Speaker 4: Adults potentially new or probably knew.
7:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I get that that's complex too, because
7:25
Speaker 3: adults who are maybe they're thinking, oh, I think I've
7:29
Speaker 3: just discovered my sixteen year old son's gay and he's
7:32
Speaker 3: having a teenage hookup session with another teenage boy. I
7:37
Speaker 3: can appreciate that. The family, and again I'm not trying
7:39
Speaker 3: to defend the family here, but I want to acknowledge
7:41
Speaker 3: the complexity as we prepare to talk about it.
7:44
Speaker 2: Even if it didn't end with the with the parents innocently,
7:47
Speaker 2: you know, even if they ended not knowing more and
7:50
Speaker 2: more of what was going on, it could have began
7:53
Speaker 2: possibly as some confusion on their end as to what
7:56
Speaker 2: was happening behind closed doors. Obviously we don't know.
7:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, Whitney, you've worked with juvenile sex offenders and
8:03
Speaker 3: that's always been I think an interesting lane for you
8:06
Speaker 3: to be in, even among other clinicians, because I think
8:08
Speaker 3: we're the rest of us. We want to talk about
8:11
Speaker 3: sex crime and we want to take that seriously. We
8:15
Speaker 3: also realize that for the victims, that trauma is real
8:19
Speaker 3: and that pain is forever, and it is extremely complex. Yes,
8:23
Speaker 3: and I wonder if you can teach us how to
8:25
Speaker 3: dance between this, because again I don't know, Like, maybe
8:28
Speaker 3: am I coming out too early to I don't want
8:30
Speaker 3: to feel like I'm defending the sixteen year old, but
8:32
Speaker 3: if there's another listener out there, I don't think you're trying.
8:35
Speaker 2: To defend, but I think you are trying to explain
8:38
Speaker 2: to everyone what an overwhelmingly complicated issue this must be for.
8:46
Speaker 1: Writer.
8:48
Speaker 2: I sue probably other people as well, but you know
8:49
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about the writer.
8:50
Speaker 4: Yeah.
8:52
Speaker 1: No.
8:52
Speaker 4: This reminds me of something recently I saw on a
8:55
Speaker 4: friends social media where they were trying to call out
8:59
Speaker 4: this group of boys who had done really horrible uh,
9:04
Speaker 4: you know, sexual acts with other girls who were all
9:08
Speaker 4: under age, and they said, oh, they they just get
9:11
Speaker 4: they don't serve any jail time. And these victims have
9:13
Speaker 4: to live the rest of their lives with this trauma.
9:16
Speaker 4: And that is correct, like that is a fact, right,
9:20
Speaker 4: But it's hard when you've been in on the other
9:23
Speaker 4: side and worked with perpetrators and seeing that. Living in Nevada,
9:28
Speaker 4: I don't honestly know exactly what the laws are in Texas.
9:31
Speaker 4: I do believe they are different, but you know, coming
9:32
Speaker 4: from Texas living in Nevada now, I actually appreciated that
9:37
Speaker 4: majority of juvenile sexual offenders had an opportunity to, uh,
9:43
Speaker 4: to yeah, rehabilitate you. I was like, I was like,
9:47
Speaker 4: what's that word.
9:47
Speaker 2: Actually, there's there's a case going on three weeks ago
9:50
Speaker 2: now as we're as we're listening to this, but there's
9:52
Speaker 2: a juvenile a person who's been picked up on juvenile
9:56
Speaker 2: charges in Las Vegas over the horse stuff.
9:58
Speaker 4: Did you hear about They have not about that.
10:00
Speaker 2: So recently there was recently, as we're recording this in Nevada,
10:04
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas at the South Point Casino, there was
10:07
Speaker 2: a rodeo event, barrel racing. I believe it was was
10:11
Speaker 2: part of it, and a young a young lady, a child, seventeen, yeah,
10:15
Speaker 2: a teenager, a seventeen year old. Yeah, I don't remember
10:18
Speaker 2: sixteen or seventeen, but yeah, injured some of her competitors
10:22
Speaker 2: horses while they were in the stables, like had some
10:25
Speaker 2: kind of like I don't know if it was a
10:27
Speaker 2: knife or a piece of glass or whatever it was,
10:29
Speaker 2: but yeah, cut them up, stabed them whatever it was.
10:31
Speaker 2: None of the horses died. All of the horses are
10:34
Speaker 2: expected to make full recoveries and be okay as far
10:37
Speaker 2: as that part goes, but there is a large contingent.
10:41
Speaker 2: The Nevada prosecutor has said that they're going to be
10:46
Speaker 2: seeking to try this person as an adult, And boy
10:49
Speaker 2: do I have mixed emotions about them, because it is shitty,
10:52
Speaker 2: like it's terrible to go stab an animal, and you know,
10:56
Speaker 2: cause injury and everything. And you hear about you know,
11:00
Speaker 2: serial killers and world death spots and everything being cruel
11:06
Speaker 2: to animals when they were young and being a sign
11:09
Speaker 2: of things to colm and everything. But I did see
11:12
Speaker 2: one person. I'm sure other people said this as well,
11:15
Speaker 2: but I noted one person mentioning publicly said, you know,
11:20
Speaker 2: we have a juvenile justice system. For this reason, we
11:24
Speaker 2: should let it. We should let it do its thing.
11:28
Speaker 2: And yeah, it is with juvenile sex.
11:32
Speaker 4: That's yeah, so okay, like is.
11:36
Speaker 2: The answer throw a sixteen year old in jail for
11:38
Speaker 2: thirty years. That's a very adult thing to do. Yeah, right,
11:42
Speaker 2: the sex crime part.
11:43
Speaker 4: So usually what we're looking at just some behind the
11:45
Speaker 4: scenes when we are assessing I would say likelihood of reoffense,
11:50
Speaker 4: which is very challenging to do. I'm not saying we
11:53
Speaker 4: just do that lightly, like, oh, you're good, you're never
11:55
Speaker 4: going to reoffend. Sure, but when trying to assess a
11:58
Speaker 4: reoffense or likelihood of reoffense, we are looking at what
12:03
Speaker 4: kind of sexual offense, what was the extent, how long
12:05
Speaker 4: did it go, and what was actually happening? Were their
12:08
Speaker 4: power dynamics like, these are all things we're looking at.
12:10
Speaker 4: So first off, writer, I want to say that this
12:12
Speaker 4: is a very serious situation. This would not be because
12:17
Speaker 4: I've seen the whole gamut.
12:18
Speaker 2: This wouldn't be one that you would, for lack of
12:20
Speaker 2: a better way of saying it, you wouldn't write this
12:22
Speaker 2: one off right.
12:22
Speaker 4: For example, I had one client who was got in
12:26
Speaker 4: trouble for exposing himself to an officer when he was
12:28
Speaker 4: going p outside and like he's in treatment. You know,
12:30
Speaker 4: like that is different than what you're describing. You know,
12:33
Speaker 4: there's that's just a golfer exactly when you were talking
12:39
Speaker 4: about the golf we call that far of course, exposed
12:43
Speaker 4: himself to the Ducks'.
12:45
Speaker 2: Nineteenth hole.
12:50
Speaker 4: By the clubhouse.
12:52
Speaker 3: If there was a Patreon, that would have been the
12:54
Speaker 3: episode title is the nineteenth Jacob's nineteenth.
12:58
Speaker 4: But there are dynamics that play here. And you know
13:01
Speaker 4: what my experience was, and I did not work directly
13:06
Speaker 4: with victims, so I think that is a whole different category.
13:10
Speaker 4: But my experience in working with perpetrators and then collaborating
13:14
Speaker 4: with therapists who work with their victims, is that is
13:18
Speaker 4: that what can happen is there can be processing and
13:22
Speaker 4: a form of closure that develops a lot of times
13:26
Speaker 4: that can be through reunification, which is where through therapists
13:30
Speaker 4: you reconnect. It is a very specific way to do this,
13:34
Speaker 4: a very delicate way to do this. And then the
13:35
Speaker 4: victim is completely in charge. The perpetrator is no saying
13:39
Speaker 4: like I want to see them or I don't, It
13:40
Speaker 4: doesn't matter, it's whatever the person who was victimized what
13:44
Speaker 4: they choose, and so that gives them back that sense
13:47
Speaker 4: of control that gives them back, Yeah, a sense of like, Okay,
13:52
Speaker 4: I can be empowered in my healing journey. Now it
13:57
Speaker 4: gets challenging when you're telling me, you know, I'm thirty five.
14:01
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna lie avoid it went and he was like,
14:03
Speaker 4: why do we still live in the same town? Like
14:06
Speaker 4: I don't hate to be that person, just leave, Like
14:09
Speaker 4: I know it's not your place to leave, but I
14:11
Speaker 4: was wondering.
14:12
Speaker 1: I hear that all the time, like the geographical cure,
14:14
Speaker 1: you don't know, mo away. But I had that thought too,
14:17
Speaker 1: like I couldn't. I don't think I could stay in
14:19
Speaker 1: that town.
14:20
Speaker 2: If they're having the family name on signs around town
14:23
Speaker 2: is tough. That's that's a tough extra, not even that
14:27
Speaker 2: person's name, but their family's name. Like they didn't even
14:30
Speaker 2: do anything to get the name to be a big deal. Dad,
14:33
Speaker 2: that's wrong.
14:35
Speaker 1: There's also Jones is a common name.
14:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is.
14:39
Speaker 4: You know what this was? The aliases.
14:44
Speaker 1: Smith, Smith's.
14:47
Speaker 2: Apologies, the Joneses.
14:49
Speaker 1: Yeah.
14:49
Speaker 4: So those are just things that I'm just kind of
14:52
Speaker 4: going through. Things that stood out to me from your letter,
14:55
Speaker 4: and it does make it more complex, And you're right.
14:57
Speaker 2: What about the I've been in a lot of therapy
15:00
Speaker 2: over the years, and I think I've healed as much
15:01
Speaker 2: as I can.
15:02
Speaker 4: Well, And so that's what that's where my mind went
15:05
Speaker 4: to moving initially because I'm like, well, if you have
15:08
Speaker 4: for yourself felt I I am mostly healed. Like I
15:12
Speaker 4: know things will come up again over time, that's probably
15:15
Speaker 4: very natural. But I'm like, if you feel like you
15:19
Speaker 4: are are pretty good, You're like, I've done the work
15:22
Speaker 4: all of that. You know what's really bothering me when
15:24
Speaker 4: I get to watch them just like live their lives
15:26
Speaker 4: and when I show up at an art event and
15:28
Speaker 4: their name is plastered everywhere. That fucking sucks, Like cause
15:32
Speaker 4: I think.
15:32
Speaker 1: There's two different Like you can be, you can be
15:35
Speaker 1: I guess you can have gone through therapy and be
15:39
Speaker 1: at peace with something, and that is different than being
15:42
Speaker 1: at peace with something but being constantly reminded of it and.
15:46
Speaker 2: Reminded like, hey, by the way, this person has money. Yeah, yeah,
15:52
Speaker 2: Like at least their family is doing okay. I bet
15:54
Speaker 2: they're doing okay too, Like that's that's a big Like,
15:57
Speaker 2: that's a big jump like, oh, and they're doing.
16:00
Speaker 4: Uh, here's what you actually should do. This my real
16:03
Speaker 4: advice writer. You don't tell the wife that happened to
16:07
Speaker 4: you because they won't believe you. I'm just going to
16:09
Speaker 4: be the meani there like she's just like, oh no,
16:12
Speaker 4: don't believe he'll deny at the end.
16:13
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, no, nobody in his What you do?
16:15
Speaker 4: You go dig around because you know he's got more dirt.
16:18
Speaker 4: Go dig around, Go find what he's doing now, and
16:21
Speaker 4: present the wife with that info. Then you get your validation.
16:25
Speaker 2: I wouldn't do it that way, but I would do
16:27
Speaker 2: it a way that would actually work. I would hire
16:30
Speaker 2: a private investigator to do what Whitney just said. I
16:33
Speaker 2: wouldn't do it myself because you're not going to be
16:36
Speaker 2: able to are you gonna stop?
16:37
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what to do.
16:39
Speaker 2: I feel like the principal hosts, we should do something.
16:45
Speaker 1: Here. I would, but I don't.
16:46
Speaker 2: Want to piss them off.
16:49
Speaker 4: This is how the South hand.
16:52
Speaker 2: I mean, you just get the fucking I mean, you
16:55
Speaker 2: don't have to do anything with that knowledge. But yeah,
16:58
Speaker 2: but if you.
16:58
Speaker 4: Have that knowledge, there's shit in his life right a second.
17:02
Speaker 4: Knowing what you have shared one thousand percent. There's so
17:05
Speaker 4: much shit behind the selles, I.
17:06
Speaker 2: Mean, and they're also for all we know, there may
17:08
Speaker 2: be other victims to maybe yeah, there may be all
17:11
Speaker 2: kinds of things here, but all of that is truly
17:16
Speaker 2: just if you kind of want to, like if you
17:18
Speaker 2: feel like to get out of it, if you feel
17:20
Speaker 2: like you need to do that for some reason, or
17:22
Speaker 2: if someone needs to be protected or something like that,
17:26
Speaker 2: then that's one thing short of that, like what do
17:28
Speaker 2: you go to get out of it?
17:29
Speaker 4: And that is always, at the end of the day,
17:31
Speaker 4: my biggest like what are you going to get out
17:33
Speaker 4: of You don't have to err all your stuff, But
17:35
Speaker 4: I do always get very worried when when people don't
17:38
Speaker 4: know about a person's past like that, and who who
17:43
Speaker 4: are the victims in the future.
17:44
Speaker 3: I guess it's been twenty years, I don't know that,
17:47
Speaker 3: and this person's married their public figure almost I don't
17:50
Speaker 3: know that there's going to be I can now save
17:53
Speaker 3: other people from what we did when we were teenagers.
17:56
Speaker 3: That might be a little bit too vigilante for my taste,
18:00
Speaker 3: but I agree with this.
18:01
Speaker 2: I'm not saying there are other people that need to
18:03
Speaker 2: be saved. I'm saying if that were, if that were
18:05
Speaker 2: something that you were trying to pursue right now, if
18:07
Speaker 2: there were a scenario where that's happening, I.
18:10
Speaker 4: Just want to say there is a high likelihood there
18:12
Speaker 4: are other victims, Like I'm just going to throw that
18:14
Speaker 4: out there for information purposes, and you can be like
18:18
Speaker 4: on the on the positive end of that, like, oh,
18:21
Speaker 4: it's been so many years, but statistically speaking, whether it's
18:24
Speaker 4: before you writer, like, I wouldn't be surprised if there
18:27
Speaker 4: was someone before you or after, But.
18:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you think the chances are that this
18:32
Speaker 1: person the perpetrator was once a victim?
18:35
Speaker 4: That too? One hundred?
18:36
Speaker 3: So what is the deal with that?
18:38
Speaker 2: Like, And I've never what's the deal what's the deal.
18:41
Speaker 3: With airline food sexual abuse perpetrating? So I'm I've always
18:47
Speaker 3: been confused about that because we have all these therapy
18:49
Speaker 3: sayings right like hurting people, hurt people, And I've never
18:54
Speaker 3: heard anybody tell me that that there is a pattern
18:57
Speaker 3: with like sexual perpetrators or vio offenders having been a
19:02
Speaker 3: victim before.
19:03
Speaker 4: It doesn't necessarily have to be a violent offender, but
19:06
Speaker 4: a sexual offense there is usually a high likelihood, like
19:09
Speaker 4: really high likelihood they have experienced something and that can
19:14
Speaker 4: be observing something that can be something done to them. Yeah,
19:20
Speaker 4: there's what we see is that it's a pretty high
19:23
Speaker 4: likelihood that that they've been through something themselves, or I
19:26
Speaker 4: wouldn't be surprized if this is a really high profile family,
19:30
Speaker 4: they might have sexual leanings that they can't express. You know,
19:34
Speaker 4: I don't want to put any stigma on that. You know,
19:37
Speaker 4: I'm not trying to say if if he were, you know,
19:41
Speaker 4: like bisexual or gay like that, that's why he's perpetrating.
19:44
Speaker 4: It's just like if you are repressed and have no
19:48
Speaker 4: other outlet. That's what I saw with the clients I
19:51
Speaker 4: worked with a lot of times there wasn't a sexual
19:53
Speaker 4: outlet or a way to healthily manage their their own
19:58
Speaker 4: sexual feelings, so they acted out inappropriate way. And that's
20:02
Speaker 4: why I support treatment because a lot of times they
20:10
Speaker 4: don't realize how much hurt they're causing, and there seems
20:13
Speaker 4: to be like a big ignorance factor.
20:15
Speaker 3: And we have to be careful, right because you're talking
20:17
Speaker 3: about a very broad thing, right, just like when we
20:20
Speaker 3: talk about like very little information of.
20:22
Speaker 2: This and this.
20:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's my experience. I'm sharing.
20:25
Speaker 3: There's some people that steal because they're hungry, and there's
20:27
Speaker 3: some people that steal because that's their profession, right, And
20:29
Speaker 3: like we can differentiate between all these different types of
20:31
Speaker 3: people without painting in one broad brush. So I don't
20:33
Speaker 3: want any angry letters yet, but like I appreciate that
20:36
Speaker 3: we're being good therapist about it by like explaining the nuances.
20:41
Speaker 3: And you've treated the offender, you know, and like you
20:44
Speaker 3: worked alongside those who were treating the victim, but you
20:47
Speaker 3: could and did treat the offender, and so you did
20:49
Speaker 3: learn to humanize them, to understand their story so you
20:51
Speaker 3: could fix this, Like you wanted them to not do
20:54
Speaker 3: it again, and your therapy was focused on that you
20:57
Speaker 3: wanted to eliminate that perpetual behavior. In order to do that,
21:00
Speaker 3: you had to understand them. And I feel like this
21:02
Speaker 3: is where as a society we don't have the ability
21:06
Speaker 3: sometimes to hold these nuanced and complex conversations about sex.
21:10
Speaker 3: Like even in this case, it's very easy for us
21:13
Speaker 3: just to go sixteen, what a monster? I have sixteen
21:17
Speaker 3: year old child? Like I've taught school, these aren't I
21:21
Speaker 3: still see them as very much children. And to level
21:24
Speaker 3: an adult charge at a sixteen year old and say
21:27
Speaker 3: they groomed me I was two years younger than them.
21:30
Speaker 3: That's that's heavy language that if E were their therapist,
21:33
Speaker 3: if I was the writer's therapist, I would be working
21:36
Speaker 3: on talking through the nuances of that too, Like.
21:38
Speaker 2: How special, Especially when we in most cases anything a
21:43
Speaker 2: sixteen year old says or does, we write it off
21:46
Speaker 2: as them being an idiotic sixteen year old. In this
21:49
Speaker 2: case and in most cases we are correct also by
21:52
Speaker 2: the way, Yeah, so yeah, I agree with you to
21:54
Speaker 2: a degree there.
21:55
Speaker 3: And there is power dynamics. They're two years older than you,
21:58
Speaker 3: and they're a wealthier family. I get that. That's very
22:01
Speaker 3: big in the teenage world, right, And so you're right,
22:04
Speaker 3: your truth was, this is my idol, this is a
22:07
Speaker 3: sixteen year old. They are God. But I don't want
22:09
Speaker 3: you to accidentally continue to give them godhood where you're
22:12
Speaker 3: like now they're forty, Yeah, I'm thirty eight.
22:15
Speaker 2: They are continuing. They are still God.
22:17
Speaker 3: And they've always had this omniscience to understand the consequences
22:21
Speaker 3: of what they were doing and why they were doing it.
22:24
Speaker 3: They were also a stupid teenager. What they did was wrong,
22:27
Speaker 3: and like with a lot of jsos, I think it's
22:29
Speaker 3: easy for us to adultify them and be like, oh,
22:32
Speaker 3: they're a monster, throw the book at them as an
22:34
Speaker 3: adults better right, and like what Jacob said about the
22:37
Speaker 3: horse story, treat this person like an adult, give them
22:39
Speaker 3: adult consequences, assume adult abilities and interest and motivations. But
22:43
Speaker 3: then a therapist who works with them realizes, no, they
22:47
Speaker 3: get also capacity. The big assumption that that makes that
22:49
Speaker 3: I that I get really prickly about is the assumption
22:53
Speaker 3: that the adult consequences are going to act on the
22:55
Speaker 3: child the same way they're made to act on an adult.
22:58
Speaker 2: If your brain is not fully developed, sixteen seventeen year old,
23:01
Speaker 2: your brain definitely it's like twenty three or so, twenty
23:04
Speaker 2: four or something like that. I'm still working on it. Yeah,
23:06
Speaker 2: I mean some of us never get their dudes. It
23:08
Speaker 2: takes a while.
23:08
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:09
Speaker 3: I saw this whole thing among women. It was like,
23:11
Speaker 3: thirty something year old women when you were dating twenty
23:13
Speaker 3: five year old men.
23:14
Speaker 2: Do you think they were finished developing?
23:16
Speaker 4: They were still cooking?
23:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't even bother. Yeah, I don't know. It's writer.
23:22
Speaker 2: It's just so so shitty. It is so shitty and boy,
23:26
Speaker 2: and clearly we don't have a good answer for it.
23:28
Speaker 3: Because you're using consequences are real. Your trauma is adult
23:31
Speaker 3: level trauma that stays with you forever. Even if the
23:35
Speaker 3: perpetrator in full like intellectual retrospect was also a child
23:40
Speaker 3: and probably shouldn't be adultified either, it doesn't matter because
23:43
Speaker 3: you get to live with this for the rest of
23:45
Speaker 3: your life. And as Nick pointed out, you get to
23:47
Speaker 3: be punched in the face every single time you see
23:49
Speaker 3: this family's name somewhere. And I don't see the obvious
23:54
Speaker 3: solution here.
23:55
Speaker 1: Well, I will say this, I mean, because the writer's
23:58
Speaker 1: kind of like, Yo, what do I do? How do
24:00
Speaker 1: I handle this? First off, don't become violent because you
24:05
Speaker 1: didn't make the joke? Do I go kick? ADS asked, No,
24:07
Speaker 1: you do not. You won't feel better that you're not
24:09
Speaker 1: going to feel better desire Oh totally. And that's the thing,
24:12
Speaker 1: Like I want to absolutely validate the feeling and the
24:16
Speaker 1: urge that you would have fantasies, yeah, to just absolutely
24:19
Speaker 1: go and destroy this person's life. But like even the
24:22
Speaker 1: writer acknowledges that I.
24:24
Speaker 2: Can't come now unless I picture ed bleeding from the base.
24:27
Speaker 4: I've just attached it to that.
24:29
Speaker 2: So we are my most joyful image you. But I
24:34
Speaker 2: do want to talk a little bit more about the writer.
24:37
Speaker 1: The writer even acknowledges like I know nothing good is
24:40
Speaker 1: going to come with this. Yeah, I know, no one's
24:42
Speaker 1: going to believe me. And if they don't believe you,
24:44
Speaker 1: if you just come out and say it, they're certainly
24:46
Speaker 1: not going to believe you in court after you're fighting
24:49
Speaker 1: an assault.
24:49
Speaker 4: Chart right, And you're.
24:50
Speaker 3: Also right, there's a myth of the validation of a
24:53
Speaker 3: public shame campaign that like allow themselves to believe. And
24:57
Speaker 3: it's a cathartic thing. It's part of how we try
24:58
Speaker 3: to get power back. But the truth is very rarely
25:01
Speaker 3: do you get on the internet have a flame war
25:03
Speaker 3: with somebody and come out the champion and the whole
25:05
Speaker 3: world lights candles and says we disavow Michael Jackson forever. Right,
25:09
Speaker 3: that doesn't happen.
25:10
Speaker 2: Also, actually, let's use Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson is a
25:13
Speaker 2: fine example for this, because none of us were in
25:16
Speaker 2: those those rooms with Michael Jackson. None of us know
25:18
Speaker 2: all of the details of what happened in there. We
25:20
Speaker 2: assume some things that were untoward happened in there. And
25:23
Speaker 2: I think that's a fair assumption, the the idea that
25:29
Speaker 2: you're going to get back at them and do like
25:31
Speaker 2: the whole public flame war. Let's take that to the
25:34
Speaker 2: next step. Let's think about what might happen if you
25:38
Speaker 2: do that. The most likely is that they're just going
25:41
Speaker 2: to deny it, and that there's going to be some
25:43
Speaker 2: kind of fight, you know, in the in the press
25:46
Speaker 2: or whatever it is, and you're going to do that.
25:48
Speaker 2: But let's say that it just works. Let's say that
25:52
Speaker 2: you ruin their life with this, with this public campaign,
25:55
Speaker 2: you tell their family, their family believes you, they you know,
25:58
Speaker 2: they take all the actions that you'd like them to take.
26:01
Speaker 2: And this guy is ostracized, he is removed from society,
26:06
Speaker 2: maybe jailed, uh, maybe just goes out and move somewhere else,
26:10
Speaker 2: maybe commit suicide. None of these things are gonna make
26:15
Speaker 2: you feel better. None of these things are gonna help
26:17
Speaker 2: you in your life at all.
26:19
Speaker 4: This.
26:19
Speaker 2: If this person goes out and kills themselves because they
26:21
Speaker 2: experience such shame that you magnify onto them, that is deserved.
26:28
Speaker 2: It's still not gonna make you feel better. You're still
26:30
Speaker 2: gonna be right, and you're still gonna feel like shit.
26:33
Speaker 3: I think that's called the myth of redemptive violence.
26:36
Speaker 1: I do want to also though, I mean, I'll play
26:38
Speaker 1: the devil's advocation here, and just because I want to
26:42
Speaker 1: send the message to everyone else who is a survivor
26:44
Speaker 1: of sexual assault that this also doesn't mean that you
26:46
Speaker 1: should stay quiet about it.
26:48
Speaker 2: No, No, I just make that clear. Yeah, yeah, no,
26:53
Speaker 2: I'm just talking about the violent part of it. I'm
26:55
Speaker 2: talking about the like going out and trying to get
26:56
Speaker 2: revenge part of it. I'm not even saying you shouldn't
26:59
Speaker 2: do it. I'm saying it won't make you feel.
27:01
Speaker 4: Better, and I think said that's guinely at it.
27:04
Speaker 2: If you feel like you have to go do it,
27:06
Speaker 2: all right, I'm not going to stop you. Yeah.
27:07
Speaker 4: I think that's what Jacob said earlier, is like, what
27:09
Speaker 4: what do you want out of this? If you're like, yes,
27:12
Speaker 4: this is going to help my life feel more meaningful,
27:14
Speaker 4: meaningful and give me some closure to actually make a
27:17
Speaker 4: statement on this, please do that. You know I would.
27:20
Speaker 4: I would definitely talk through that with a therapist. I
27:23
Speaker 4: want you to every step along the way. But yeah,
27:26
Speaker 4: you have every right to be able to do that.
27:28
Speaker 1: I think if I'm in this situation, I'm going to
27:30
Speaker 1: try to look at this from the perspective of like
27:33
Speaker 1: if I'm walking on a path and I've got all
27:36
Speaker 1: of these different like it's like a decision tree where
27:38
Speaker 1: I can make make all of these different choices on
27:41
Speaker 1: what I can do, and I'm trying to predict long term,
27:45
Speaker 1: what's going to be best for me, right, Like, forget
27:49
Speaker 1: everybody else, forget my my family, his family, him, all
27:54
Speaker 1: of the whole community, certainly, forget about this. Yeah, forget
27:57
Speaker 1: about all of that. Just what's going to be most
28:00
Speaker 1: beneficial for me and assure me the most fulfillment in
28:04
Speaker 1: my own life. And that's what I'm after. And you
28:08
Speaker 1: just kind of make those decisions based off whatever that is.
28:10
Speaker 1: And I think working with a therapist to figure that out,
28:13
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be very helpful. But it
28:16
Speaker 1: sounds like you've already done that work.
28:17
Speaker 4: I don't know.
28:18
Speaker 2: You didn't say anything about support groups. I like, I
28:21
Speaker 2: like sexual assault survivor support groups.
28:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have them down at the Edward Jones Center.
28:29
Speaker 2: The family has been very philanthropic. The writer. If that's
28:33
Speaker 2: the case, if the only sexual assault survivor meeting everyone
28:39
Speaker 2: Jones building, forget everything else, we said, tell everybody stand
28:44
Speaker 2: in front of the door with your nail a sign
28:47
Speaker 2: to the church door, to all the things at that point,
28:50
Speaker 2: At that point, move, I got nothing else for you.
28:54
Speaker 3: Wow, a heavy topic, but writer, thank you so much
28:57
Speaker 3: for this feedback to there. Okay good but yeah, no, writer,
29:02
Speaker 3: just this is a very heavy one. I appreciate the vulnerability,
29:05
Speaker 3: the honesty. You know, you know how our show goes.
29:08
Speaker 3: I hope this is not your first episode that you've
29:10
Speaker 3: ever heard in, so like.
29:11
Speaker 1: You know that we try to into having never never
29:15
Speaker 1: heard it in.
29:18
Speaker 2: Without hearing it. Yeah, I visited this website randomly drop
29:22
Speaker 2: a line said, here's the way to solve podcast.
29:27
Speaker 1: I submit this question to every podcast social We did
29:35
Speaker 1: not handle it as well. I heard this on car talk.
29:40
Speaker 2: Anyway. It's the radiator.
29:42
Speaker 3: No, but writer, I mean hopefully you understand that, like
29:44
Speaker 3: we try to work on the problem from every angle,
29:46
Speaker 3: really try to find all the blind spots to just
29:48
Speaker 3: embrace it, to understand it, to talk about it the
29:50
Speaker 3: way clinical therapists would talk about it. And that's you know,
29:53
Speaker 3: something that we hope by doing there's public education. But
29:56
Speaker 3: I hope that nothing I've said gave any kind of
29:59
Speaker 3: energy of like this missiveness or anything like that as
30:01
Speaker 3: we try to embrace the nuance. But thank you for
30:03
Speaker 3: your bravery and writing in telling your story. I do
30:06
Speaker 3: hope that there's some amount of healing available to you.
30:08
Speaker 3: I think you're doing all the right things in all
30:10
Speaker 3: the right places. Some bells cannot be unwrung, and sexual
30:13
Speaker 3: trauma is one of those that is very very hard
30:17
Speaker 3: to move on from. But I'm glad that you are
30:19
Speaker 3: still living a successful life, and I think that that's
30:21
Speaker 3: got to be the fundamental measurement. How are you doing.
30:23
Speaker 3: There's distress, but you've won. You're living your life a
30:27
Speaker 3: good life, and I'm grateful for that for you and.
30:29
Speaker 4: I that's impressed. If you made this.
30:33
Speaker 2: Happiness and the goal, that's the thing is the goal
30:34
Speaker 2: wants to be just your happiness. That's right, the goal
30:37
Speaker 2: in your life for me? Out think you have anything
30:40
Speaker 2: to do with this other motherfucker? Yeah, like you, you'll
30:43
Speaker 2: want you don't want your life to be about this person.
30:45
Speaker 4: Time you go to those art events, just say fuck
30:47
Speaker 4: you at Jones and.
30:48
Speaker 2: Flip it off again. Apologies that Jones and all the
30:52
Speaker 2: other people with common names.
30:54
Speaker 3: We're going to take a quick break and when we
30:56
Speaker 3: come back. We're answering a question, do I have ADHD
31:00
Speaker 3: or a Reddit account?
31:01
Speaker 2: You're listening to the show.
31:05
Speaker 1: Today's episode is Brossey by Jake Schneider, Maleia, Richard Macy,
31:09
Speaker 1: Sonny Boy, Thunder Cougar, Falcon, Scoom ser Pique, Motherfucker, Sander mcwaffle,
31:13
Speaker 1: Elena Gabriella, dam Adam Warren Dega, New Crimes, and Natalie
31:18
Speaker 1: Pointman aka not here a Nightley And if you'd like
31:21
Speaker 1: sponsor the show, become a therap producer Patreon dot com,
31:24
Speaker 1: slash therapy, Okay, Mental Health Awareness Month, Psychology's wildest moments,
31:33
Speaker 1: all right, all right, Whitney. The American Psychiatric Association removed
31:41
Speaker 1: homosexuality from the DSM as a mental disorder in nineteen
31:45
Speaker 1: seventy three.
31:46
Speaker 4: In the seventies, dang what.
31:49
Speaker 1: Primarily triggered that vote A a landmark nineteen fifty seven
31:55
Speaker 1: study by psychologist Evelyn Hooker that finally achieved into titutional
32:00
Speaker 1: traction B. Legal pressure from the A C l U
32:03
Speaker 1: following sodomy laws were formed in many in several states
32:08
Speaker 1: see a Congressional investigation into APA diagnostic practices following several
32:13
Speaker 1: high profile lawsuits or d years of direct activist disruption
32:19
Speaker 1: at APA conferences by gay advocates, including Frank Camery and
32:24
Speaker 1: Barbara Gettings, culminating in Carnie camminy oh taking the microphone
32:34
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one panel.
32:36
Speaker 2: Wow, I'm sorry, I didn't hear that last option? Could
32:38
Speaker 2: you read that last option?
32:39
Speaker 4: For I feel like this is the test for the
32:40
Speaker 4: longest ones. The writing.
32:44
Speaker 2: I D yeah.
32:49
Speaker 4: Sounds very legit.
32:52
Speaker 1: Struggles with that just sounds really Frank Cammany and Barbara
32:58
Speaker 1: Gettings getting some familiar jim In nineteen seventy three Rosenhan
33:06
Speaker 1: Experiment experiment. The Rosenhan Experiment sent eight mentally healthy people
33:14
Speaker 1: to psychiatric hospitals claiming to hear a single thud sound
33:18
Speaker 1: What happened?
33:19
Speaker 2: Options, no, oh, I know this one.
33:22
Speaker 1: All eight were diagnosed with schizophrenia or borderline disorder, hospitalized
33:27
Speaker 1: in average of nineteen days, and never detected as saying
33:30
Speaker 1: by staff, though several were suspected by actual patients. B.
33:37
Speaker 1: All eight were identified as healthy within seventy two hours,
33:40
Speaker 1: which Rosenhan argued proved diagnostic reliability. C. Three were released
33:47
Speaker 1: within a week, but five remained hospitalized for over a
33:49
Speaker 1: month despite having been completely normal or d The hospitals
33:54
Speaker 1: detected the deception and contract contacted Rosenhall directedly directing that one.
34:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I actually didn't listen well to the question. Okay, no, no, no,
34:06
Speaker 3: I don't need you to read it. What I was
34:08
Speaker 3: going to say is I thought you were saying these
34:11
Speaker 3: people really had this problem. They were all sent to
34:13
Speaker 3: other places.
34:14
Speaker 2: But now I.
34:14
Speaker 3: Understand the question was actually referring to that very famous
34:17
Speaker 3: experiment where a psychologist had people fake having a disorder,
34:22
Speaker 3: tried to get them into hospitals to see what would happen.
34:25
Speaker 3: And I believe the answer is the one where they
34:28
Speaker 3: don't get released even though they're healthy. And I believe
34:31
Speaker 3: the story goes deeper. They identified themselves as researchers and
34:36
Speaker 3: tried to get the hospitals to check the facts and
34:40
Speaker 3: like verify, and several hospitals refused to and they were
34:44
Speaker 3: trapped until like Rosenthal went out and found them and
34:47
Speaker 3: like had to get them out.
34:49
Speaker 1: Correct. It was a yeah. One was held for fifty
34:54
Speaker 1: two days. When this experimenter told a hospital he would
34:58
Speaker 1: send more fake patients. The hospital identified forty one suspects
35:02
Speaker 1: over the following months.
35:04
Speaker 2: Amazing oh no, it's crazy. There are similar cases to
35:09
Speaker 2: that where journalists also also did similar types of things.
35:14
Speaker 2: There's a very famous I can't think of her name
35:17
Speaker 2: right now, but a female journalist did it and like
35:21
Speaker 2: exposes all the sexism and everything else that goes along
35:24
Speaker 2: with it. Yeah, you know, just just all the extra
35:26
Speaker 2: bonus footage there.
35:27
Speaker 3: I think a bonus fact is I believe that this
35:31
Speaker 3: study led to what's called the IMD exclusion. So one
35:36
Speaker 3: of the things that sometimes frustrates people with mental health
35:39
Speaker 3: issues in medicaid is that Medicaid impatient providers cannot keep
35:43
Speaker 3: a patient long term, and a lot of times if
35:46
Speaker 3: they're homeless and they're chronically psychiatrically ill, we're like, what
35:49
Speaker 3: are you doing? Why do you keep releasing them? And
35:51
Speaker 3: this was one of the reasons why ultimately there was
35:54
Speaker 3: a federal policy that said you can't keep these people indefinitely,
35:57
Speaker 3: because there's studies that show that you guys are willing
36:00
Speaker 3: to just throw them in a bed and lock the
36:02
Speaker 3: door and build the insurance forever, and so like you
36:05
Speaker 3: need to rotate them out so that something can happen.
36:08
Speaker 3: And I think that contributed to that law.
36:10
Speaker 2: And of course when a lot of them were still
36:11
Speaker 2: called asylums and things like that. It was even more egregious.
36:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, okay, um, Jacob. The Sanford prison experiment, sure
36:21
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one is cited in virtually every introductory psychology course.
36:25
Speaker 1: I believe it as evidence by as evidence that ordinary
36:29
Speaker 1: people become abusive when given authority. What did investigate? What
36:35
Speaker 1: did investigations should say? Investigative research published in nineteen twenty
36:40
Speaker 1: nineteen reveal.
36:42
Speaker 2: That that the Stanford prison experiment was completely useless. It
36:46
Speaker 2: was poorly set up, and none of the findings from
36:49
Speaker 2: it should be taken with any veracity at all.
36:53
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you points on that, thank you.
36:55
Speaker 1: Audio recordings showed Zimbardo's assistant explicitly coaching to be tough
37:01
Speaker 1: and not let up, uh, fundamentally undermining the conclusions of
37:06
Speaker 1: the experiments.
37:07
Speaker 2: And it was it was more than that.
37:08
Speaker 1: It was.
37:08
Speaker 2: It was a lot of different things in there.
37:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and a lot of the I've had to
37:12
Speaker 3: get options on any of Nick's Yeah. And when that
37:15
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen study came out, they also revealed that the
37:18
Speaker 3: prison guard students agreed to do this like be excessive
37:22
Speaker 3: because they were trying to get the whole thing done,
37:25
Speaker 3: like they're getting paid for it. And it was like, Okay,
37:26
Speaker 3: let's just be crazy because that's gonna be interesting. Yeah,
37:28
Speaker 3: and then we'll get invited back. Like all this other
37:30
Speaker 3: stuff is like a huge scam, and Stanford has not
37:34
Speaker 3: recovered from this blow to their reputation. That's right, and
37:36
Speaker 3: nobody even goes there anymore.
37:38
Speaker 2: I believe they the doors. All right, I'm winning now,
37:41
Speaker 2: like Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty University? Do I have credited
37:49
Speaker 2: still anthem by God? That's the highest form of a
37:56
Speaker 2: graduation you but I can tell I don't think if
38:01
Speaker 2: you understand this, Oh my god. Ten commandments were also
38:04
Speaker 2: credited by gout. Okay, it's very important. I have fifteen commandments?
38:10
Speaker 2: Do I have adhd or a Reddit account?
38:13
Speaker 3: Hello? Nick Whitney, doctor Jacob and the artist formerly known
38:17
Speaker 3: as doctor Jim Artist Dick. Apologies off the bat for
38:22
Speaker 3: the long letter, but I felt the full context was
38:24
Speaker 3: important and couldn't figure out what to cut. I'm a
38:27
Speaker 3: long standing listener and supporter, but I'm writing anonymously due
38:31
Speaker 3: to some of the details I feel are important to
38:33
Speaker 3: include in this letter. I'm a mid thirties male who's
38:35
Speaker 3: been in therapy for over five years. In that time,
38:38
Speaker 3: we've spent most of the time focusing on anxiety, self worth,
38:42
Speaker 3: and body image. I have a very strong connection with
38:45
Speaker 3: my therapist, but have often been frustrated by what feels
38:49
Speaker 3: like a lack of progress. Recently, I was reading a
38:51
Speaker 3: post on Reddit unrelated to mental health. A comment caught
38:54
Speaker 3: my eye when it talked about a behavior I often have,
38:58
Speaker 3: overeating being a less discs got symptom of ADHD. I
39:01
Speaker 3: started researching other less common symptoms of ADHD and was
39:05
Speaker 3: struck by how many I had no clue were ADHD related,
39:09
Speaker 3: and by how many I related to. I started reading
39:12
Speaker 3: the ADHD subreddit dangerous I know, and also listen to
39:16
Speaker 3: your deep dive in one day No less, I'm very
39:20
Speaker 3: aware of the over diagnosis of ADHD and the mainstream
39:24
Speaker 3: co opting of ADHD to explain normal experiences. However, my
39:28
Speaker 3: therapist would also tell you I have a history of
39:30
Speaker 3: minimizing my own struggles and mental health challenges. So without
39:34
Speaker 3: asking you to perform a diagnosis, I thought I might
39:37
Speaker 3: describe some of my experiences that seem to line up
39:39
Speaker 3: with what I'm reading. Can be related to ADHD and
39:42
Speaker 3: see if you think it would be worth pursuing this
39:45
Speaker 3: line of inquiry any further. Here's a rough outline of
39:47
Speaker 3: my presenting picture. I'm a lawyer who by all accounts
39:51
Speaker 3: is successful. I'm usually pretty organized and produce good work products.
39:55
Speaker 3: I've been married for over ten years and haven't had
39:58
Speaker 3: any issues with being attentive in my really relationship. I've
40:01
Speaker 3: also never had a classic ADHD hyperactivity or not being
40:05
Speaker 3: able to sit still. But that's how things look on
40:08
Speaker 3: the outside. My inner world is different. I'm almost always
40:12
Speaker 3: waiting until the last minute to start working on assignments,
40:14
Speaker 3: until the pressure of the deadline is bigger than the
40:16
Speaker 3: inertia and anxiety of actually doing the work. I'm very
40:20
Speaker 3: good at spending time focusing on something I am really
40:22
Speaker 3: interested in. Six hour ADHD deep dive anyone, but for
40:26
Speaker 3: anyone or anything else, I need to be pressing up
40:30
Speaker 3: against the deadline or negative consequences to get going. When
40:33
Speaker 3: I try to work on something without the pressure, I
40:36
Speaker 3: can't keep myself focused and pursue distractions like overeating, scrolling, shopping, etc.
40:41
Speaker 3: No matter how hard I try not to. I react
40:44
Speaker 3: very strongly to sensory stimuli, needing to rip tags out
40:48
Speaker 3: of clothes, hating strong smells, not being able to concentrate
40:52
Speaker 3: if I can see any clutter, social anxiety and rumination
40:56
Speaker 3: over conversations to the point of paralysis, body focus concern
41:00
Speaker 3: mainly through body dysmorphia, skin scab picking and sometimes pulling
41:04
Speaker 3: out hair, virtually, NonStop fidgeting, inability to fully relax, have
41:09
Speaker 3: to be doing even on vacation, and NonStop brain noise,
41:13
Speaker 3: especially at night. I could go on, but I think
41:16
Speaker 3: that paints at least a small picture. I know that
41:18
Speaker 3: for the most part, these are regular parts of the
41:21
Speaker 3: human experience, but I can't help but wonder if part
41:24
Speaker 3: of the reason why progress in therapy has been so
41:27
Speaker 3: incremental is because there's more to the story that hasn't
41:30
Speaker 3: ever been addressed. You may be wondering why I haven't
41:33
Speaker 3: mentioned talking about.
41:34
Speaker 2: This with my therapist.
41:36
Speaker 3: Honestly, I think it's because I'm afraid he'll say I
41:38
Speaker 3: don't have ADHD. The more I read about the symptoms,
41:42
Speaker 3: especially of high functioning ADHD, the more emotional I got.
41:45
Speaker 3: I've been enduring these behaviors for decades at this point,
41:49
Speaker 3: and while I've improved and adapted in a lot of ways.
41:52
Speaker 3: Things are still fucking hard. So the possibility that I
41:56
Speaker 3: may have stumbled on to greater clarity as to why
41:59
Speaker 3: is there appealing. I'm not interested in any kind of
42:03
Speaker 3: work accommodation and medication scares me. But I'm interested in
42:06
Speaker 3: knowing myself better and having the deepest possible understanding of
42:10
Speaker 3: the challenges I face. So with all that said, here's
42:13
Speaker 3: my question. Does what I've described sound worth investigating further
42:18
Speaker 3: with ADHD in mind? And how do I hold the
42:21
Speaker 3: line between genuine self recognition and the tendency to over
42:25
Speaker 3: exaggerate symptoms and identify with whatever framework we're currently reading about.
42:30
Speaker 2: PS.
42:31
Speaker 3: Since I did listen to the whole deep dive, I
42:33
Speaker 3: guess I accepted all the terms and conditions. Jim, I
42:37
Speaker 3: like you contractually most sincerely Jim's anonymous, contractually obligated friend
42:43
Speaker 3: Jack Off.
42:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. In the ADHD deep Dive, that is.
42:47
Speaker 3: Part of it is that if you continue to listen,
42:49
Speaker 3: you're contractually obligated to like me and my friend to
42:52
Speaker 3: make sure that nobody can get through that.
42:53
Speaker 2: It's weird that none of the three of us knew
42:55
Speaker 2: that you said I.
43:01
Speaker 4: I'm still on episode one, I got distracted.
43:05
Speaker 2: That's a half hours. That's fair. It's definitely one to
43:11
Speaker 2: be listening. That's if you're listening it to it double speed.
43:13
Speaker 4: I know it's like I did speak it.
43:15
Speaker 2: It's a solid move.
43:17
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh. The ADHD subreddits. I love ADHD meme
43:21
Speaker 4: on Reddit. That is one of my favorites to go
43:24
Speaker 4: down because, uh it's legit, but just funny like or
43:28
Speaker 4: it looks legit, you know, it's not just ADHD. These
43:31
Speaker 4: are the symptoms that kind of jokes about it in
43:33
Speaker 4: meme forms, So I feel like it's very relatable. If
43:36
Speaker 4: you need a new ADHD Reddit page to follow, writer.
43:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the problem.
43:42
Speaker 4: It's gonna it's gonna help, I swear, no, my I
43:45
Speaker 4: know Jim's the expert over here with his six hour
43:48
Speaker 4: deep dive. But my thing I heard you say was
43:52
Speaker 4: I don't want any like work accommodations. Uh, medication scares you.
43:58
Speaker 4: Uh that's the whole thing what I could shift to.
44:01
Speaker 4: But mostly my question to people who come to me
44:04
Speaker 4: with this type of issue, like, hey, I don't want
44:06
Speaker 4: to be over diagnosed, but these are the symptoms I'm having.
44:08
Speaker 4: I kind of ask them like what if you just
44:11
Speaker 4: did all the things that people do for ADHD with
44:13
Speaker 4: like with or without the diagnosis, Like I know, the
44:16
Speaker 4: diagnosis feels can feel validating, so there's value to that.
44:19
Speaker 4: I'm not trying to like discount that. But if you're saying, hey,
44:25
Speaker 4: I want I want to feel like I have maybe
44:28
Speaker 4: more control over these things or find ways to like
44:31
Speaker 4: improve my life, I mean, maybe just start looking out
44:34
Speaker 4: what do people with ADHD ADHD do, Like, how do
44:38
Speaker 4: they cope? What are some skills they they learn? And
44:40
Speaker 4: there's tons of information out there on that, but that's
44:44
Speaker 4: kind of where my mind goes at the very least
44:46
Speaker 4: if you're not wanting if you're worried about talking your
44:48
Speaker 4: therapist about it. Also, I I'm trying to think if
44:52
Speaker 4: I've ever told a client that was wondering if they
44:55
Speaker 4: had ADHD, you don't have it, Like I don't think
44:59
Speaker 4: of ever done that because I'm not assessing you for ADHD,
45:03
Speaker 4: And if anything, usually I'll meet with them a few
45:05
Speaker 4: times be thinking that and I wait for an opportunity
45:08
Speaker 4: to kind of gently be like, have you thought about
45:12
Speaker 4: like maybe maybe getting assessed if you think it's helpful
45:15
Speaker 4: or whatever. But yeah, I don't. I don't know.
45:20
Speaker 1: I think I was trying to find something that I
45:24
Speaker 1: found this. I don't know if it was a training
45:26
Speaker 1: I went to or something, but I remember taking notes
45:28
Speaker 1: and so I was just flipping through my phone trying
45:30
Speaker 1: to find it. But the instructor was talking about ADHD
45:36
Speaker 1: and just like this deadline thing that needs to happen,
45:41
Speaker 1: there has to be a deadline for things to get done,
45:44
Speaker 1: and kind of this. It's almost like you have to
45:47
Speaker 1: create this panic in order to be able to focus.
45:50
Speaker 1: And the instructor had a really good way of framing it,
45:55
Speaker 1: and I was trying to find it and I couldn't.
45:57
Speaker 1: I could have just not said anything in this time,
46:00
Speaker 1: and where we would be now would be exactly where
46:02
Speaker 1: we would have been had I said nothing. Oh okay,
46:05
Speaker 1: but everyone was looking at me, So I felt like
46:06
Speaker 1: I needed to contribute.
46:08
Speaker 4: Okay, I do, I do relate, Thank.
46:10
Speaker 1: You, Jacobi, judgment, everyone all.
46:15
Speaker 2: Nice.
46:18
Speaker 3: So I think there's a couple of pieces to this.
46:20
Speaker 3: So first I guess I just want to validate the
46:23
Speaker 3: part of this that is universally relatable, which is that
46:28
Speaker 3: humans go through our experiences and I think we need
46:32
Speaker 3: and benefit from languaging who we are in like with
46:37
Speaker 3: an explanatory power, right, and humans throughout time have looked
46:41
Speaker 3: for this in all kinds of different ways. Am I
46:43
Speaker 3: the way I am because of our ancestry? What are
46:45
Speaker 3: our people like? What's our family tree like? Am I
46:48
Speaker 3: the way I am because Mom was this way? Because
46:51
Speaker 3: of how I was raised or where I was raised?
46:53
Speaker 2: Culturally?
46:54
Speaker 3: My people do this in this part of the country
46:56
Speaker 3: or from this nation. There's all these explanatory forces. This
47:00
Speaker 3: is something that I talk about in the ADHD Deep
47:02
Speaker 3: Dive is that one of the appealing aspects of autism
47:07
Speaker 3: and neurodivergence ADHD is that it presents this explanatory narrative
47:13
Speaker 3: that can capture a lot of different aspects of the
47:16
Speaker 3: human condition. And that's a very relatable thing. I don't
47:20
Speaker 3: want to minimize that. I don't wan be dismissive of that.
47:21
Speaker 3: I don't want to say you're using it wrong. I
47:23
Speaker 3: want to appreciate that words have power, and one of
47:26
Speaker 3: those powers is to give one a sense of explanation
47:28
Speaker 3: and belonging. So powerfully that my very close friend jack
47:32
Speaker 3: Off here is saying and maybe I'm pronouncing it right,
47:35
Speaker 3: Maybe it's jacf Jack ed Jones there.
47:41
Speaker 4: It is jackov Smith j Smith.
47:46
Speaker 3: No relationship, but no, I think like it's very relatable
47:50
Speaker 3: that this person would be like, look, I'm scared to
47:52
Speaker 3: go to my therapist because they're going to take this
47:54
Speaker 3: away from me, and having this idea is comforting to me.
47:59
Speaker 3: It also gives you a community, a sense of belonging,
48:02
Speaker 3: and this is one of the most powerful aspects of
48:03
Speaker 3: ADHD in the Deep Dive because of the nature of
48:08
Speaker 3: being a clinician, I try to validate that that is
48:12
Speaker 3: a normal human thing to want and that this language
48:15
Speaker 3: often offers that, and I get that. But to be
48:19
Speaker 3: a straight academician or clinician about it, you should understand
48:22
Speaker 3: the history of how we invented mental health diagnoses. In
48:25
Speaker 3: the DSM IE we don't even have most of the
48:27
Speaker 3: words we use today. DSM two and three is where
48:30
Speaker 3: we started developing them. And unlike medical diagnoses that explain
48:34
Speaker 3: the cause, with a medical diagnosis that tells you the
48:37
Speaker 3: pain is the result of this cause, in mental health
48:40
Speaker 3: we cluster symptoms and give that a name. We just
48:43
Speaker 3: bouquet groups of flowers, and then we call that particular bouquet.
48:48
Speaker 3: This so a cluster of specific symptoms gives us an
48:52
Speaker 3: eating disorder. Another cluster of specific symptoms gives us PTSD.
48:57
Speaker 3: PTSD is a description of the outcome, not a description.
49:01
Speaker 2: Of the cause.
49:01
Speaker 3: Now in PTSD, we can tell you the trauma is
49:03
Speaker 3: the cause, right, But anxiety there could be all numbers
49:06
Speaker 3: of causes, right, and we have different shapes of anxiety,
49:08
Speaker 3: which is why we call them by different diagnostic names.
49:11
Speaker 3: ADHD and autism occupy a special place in the way
49:15
Speaker 3: we talk about diagnostics because people often use them as
49:18
Speaker 3: a way to language the cause. Everything I do is
49:21
Speaker 3: the result of ADHD, a type of brain everything I
49:25
Speaker 3: do is the result of autism because these are classified
49:29
Speaker 3: as neurodevelopmental disorders, so they seem like a first cause.
49:32
Speaker 3: But fundamentally the way that we created these diagnoses, that's
49:35
Speaker 3: not how they were designed. They are still clusters of
49:38
Speaker 3: symptoms that we gave a name to, and there could
49:41
Speaker 3: be a whole lot of different causes for any amount
49:43
Speaker 3: of those symptoms, and that makes it very complicated, but
49:46
Speaker 3: it doesn't disqualify what you experience.
49:49
Speaker 2: Writer.
49:49
Speaker 3: A lot of the things you're describing in inter that
49:52
Speaker 3: inside list of things you experience. Therapists would validate all
49:56
Speaker 3: of those we may not say, let's call that ADHD,
50:00
Speaker 3: but we might say, let's call that sub subclinical social anxiety.
50:03
Speaker 3: Let's call that motivational impairment. Right, let's call that anhedonia.
50:08
Speaker 3: We have other words to describe things in your life
50:13
Speaker 3: that feel psychological, that are that do matter psychologically, Like
50:17
Speaker 3: we have these other words. We've talked about it in
50:19
Speaker 3: the show where we now have other phrases we use
50:21
Speaker 3: like highly sensitive person or emotional dysfunction, emotional dysregulation, right,
50:28
Speaker 3: and motivational impairment and things like that and motivation are demotivational.
50:32
Speaker 3: You know, I guess I don't have a word for that.
50:35
Speaker 3: These things are real and they can exist completely distinct
50:40
Speaker 3: from finding one of the words in the DSM to
50:42
Speaker 3: capture them.
50:43
Speaker 2: Are you just trying to say unmotivated?
50:45
Speaker 1: There?
50:45
Speaker 4: It is?
50:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the word, right, being unmotivated and or you know,
50:49
Speaker 3: the inability to be self motivated and like you know,
50:53
Speaker 3: independent in that way to require external motivation. We have
50:58
Speaker 3: other words in clinical language to talk that. We call
51:00
Speaker 3: it an external locus of control. Like, we have these
51:03
Speaker 3: other ways to talk about these things. And I see
51:06
Speaker 3: this in relationships too, Like I'm really grateful that relationship
51:09
Speaker 3: psychology is starting to come with other words like attachment
51:12
Speaker 3: styles and avoidan stuff, because it's helping people find ways
51:15
Speaker 3: to language their experience, to find their grouping and then to,
51:18
Speaker 3: as Whitney said, ask that group, how do you solve this?
51:22
Speaker 3: What do you do to mitigate these issues?
51:23
Speaker 2: Do you relate to me?
51:24
Speaker 3: What can I learn from you? There's so much value
51:27
Speaker 3: in all of that. And to that point, if you
51:30
Speaker 3: want to identify as ADHD, I don't have a problem
51:33
Speaker 3: with it. Whitney said, you know something I really agree with.
51:36
Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever had a patient come in
51:37
Speaker 3: and say, will you assess or decide this?
51:40
Speaker 2: I kind of don't care.
51:42
Speaker 3: Like if you come in and say, can you figure
51:43
Speaker 3: out if I'm a Protestant or a Catholic?
51:45
Speaker 2: What are you?
51:45
Speaker 3: You tell me what you want to be, and I'll
51:48
Speaker 3: agree with you that that's it, and then let's work
51:50
Speaker 3: from that word, like what is that word doing for you?
51:52
Speaker 3: What are you trying to describe with that? But if
51:55
Speaker 3: you said, Jim, I want you to write me legal
51:57
Speaker 3: language that somehow gets me accommodation at work because of this,
52:01
Speaker 3: now you're asking for something much more right, now you're
52:03
Speaker 3: asking me to leverage my clinical abilities and license to
52:06
Speaker 3: properly declare this over you so you can go out
52:10
Speaker 3: and use it legally in the world.
52:11
Speaker 2: And that's a different request.
52:12
Speaker 1: And Jim took an oath to use his powers for good.
52:16
Speaker 4: Write whatever language.
52:18
Speaker 3: Nick will write whatever you want. Write you an emotional
52:23
Speaker 3: support animal who has ADHD. He'll diagnose the dogs, all right.
52:27
Speaker 3: You anything you fucking want.
52:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jacob notoriously will write anything you want. Scripts, I
52:32
Speaker 2: got you. But yeah, the writer says.
52:33
Speaker 3: I don't even want medications here, and so for me, writerated, yeah,
52:38
Speaker 3: probably that, and also saying, look, I don't want the medicines.
52:40
Speaker 3: I'm scared of them. Like I'm not looking to use
52:43
Speaker 3: this diagnosis in any functional way. I'm a lawyer, but
52:46
Speaker 3: I'm just saying I relate to it. I relate to
52:49
Speaker 3: the people who talk about having it. There's so much
52:51
Speaker 3: we have in common. Is it okay that I relate
52:54
Speaker 3: to that? I think yes, I think it's fine. I
52:57
Speaker 3: do think you have to be careful though, because there
52:59
Speaker 3: are people that have the clinical definition of it as
53:03
Speaker 3: would be assessed, and sometimes they do get a little offended.
53:06
Speaker 3: They feel like people cause play is having a mental
53:09
Speaker 3: disorder that they struggle with that isn't merely something that
53:13
Speaker 3: they that others relate to. This is a real fucking disease.
53:16
Speaker 1: You know.
53:16
Speaker 3: If somebody says, look, I have anemia, another person's like,
53:19
Speaker 3: I am often tired too.
53:21
Speaker 2: Same Sea's girl.
53:23
Speaker 3: It's like, don't have been in bett Ale day, I
53:26
Speaker 3: just couldn't get up. I'll bet you I'm anemic too.
53:28
Speaker 3: And it's like, hmm, be careful, right, We're talking about
53:32
Speaker 3: a disease that I live with for the rest of
53:34
Speaker 3: my life, that I am validated by in some ways.
53:38
Speaker 3: It does have explanatory power and if I could wish
53:40
Speaker 3: it away immediately, I would, and I don't want to
53:43
Speaker 3: be the same so writer, and we talk about that
53:46
Speaker 3: in the series, which I appreciate you, you know, vouching
53:48
Speaker 3: for and listening to. I want to just announce it
53:51
Speaker 3: is a very complex thing that on one hand, I
53:53
Speaker 3: have no problem with you identifying with a word that's
53:55
Speaker 3: a cluster of symptoms because we invented these fucking words
53:59
Speaker 3: to describe groups of symptoms. So you're not doing anything
54:01
Speaker 3: different than the clinical community did over the last six DSMS.
54:04
Speaker 3: I'm fine with that, and At the same time, I
54:06
Speaker 3: like that you're showing a proper amount of respect for
54:09
Speaker 3: the legal clinical definition of the disease and your decision
54:12
Speaker 3: to stop short of obtaining that, but choosing to identify
54:16
Speaker 3: with it for the purposes of finding solutions and having
54:19
Speaker 3: a community to associate with, and the explanatory power it
54:21
Speaker 3: has in your own life. I have no problem with
54:23
Speaker 3: any of that, but it is a delicate balance, and
54:26
Speaker 3: I'm glad for this question because I think it gives
54:27
Speaker 3: us a chance to kind of reflect on that. And
54:31
Speaker 3: if you need a letter, right into the show Pod
54:33
Speaker 3: Therapy guys at gmail dot com.
54:35
Speaker 1: The letters are already written. Just I just need a name.
54:37
Speaker 1: I'll just type check you just write you write your
54:40
Speaker 1: name on the back of one hundred dollars.
54:41
Speaker 3: Bit there it is car talk box blob blobby writer.
54:47
Speaker 3: Thank you for this question. Really nuanced, really really good,
54:50
Speaker 3: which is real quick.
54:51
Speaker 1: Though, what do you think I mean? Going on Reddit, Like,
54:55
Speaker 1: I get like the how nice it is to know
54:59
Speaker 1: that there's a communit out there. I also worry sometimes
55:02
Speaker 1: that like you find what you seek, yeah, you know,
55:06
Speaker 1: and if you're in red and like what other crazy
55:09
Speaker 1: symptoms are there of ADHD? It's like, oh, yeah, they're
55:12
Speaker 1: going to be around. Oh you will find them.
55:14
Speaker 2: Somebody will say a thing, oh delivered, No.
55:19
Speaker 4: We haven't had dinner yet.
55:21
Speaker 2: We're vulnerable.
55:22
Speaker 3: She knew she came in with her cookies anyway. But no,
55:26
Speaker 3: you're that's a great point. There's a positive or what
55:28
Speaker 3: is it an affirmation bias that, Yeah, you're going to
55:31
Speaker 3: find what information buyer it is, You're going to find
55:33
Speaker 3: what you're looking for, right, And again it's it's tricky writer,
55:36
Speaker 3: because like to me, I always ask myself when a
55:39
Speaker 3: patient says I think I have ADHD, they list the
55:41
Speaker 3: symptoms they're looking for me to like work with them
55:43
Speaker 3: on that. I ask myself, are they looking for my
55:45
Speaker 3: true clinical validating opinion or are they looking to work
55:50
Speaker 3: on this? And we're using this word as a placeholder
55:52
Speaker 3: because it it's a basket that we can hold enough
55:54
Speaker 3: things in that they relate to. And if it's the latter,
55:57
Speaker 3: we use that.
55:57
Speaker 4: In the book. I will say I there's one time
56:01
Speaker 4: I had a teen that came in and the mom
56:04
Speaker 4: was like, I think you know she has ADHD, da
56:06
Speaker 4: da dada, And so I was meeting with the girl
56:08
Speaker 4: and I just wasn't quite getting ADHD vibes. But sometimes
56:12
Speaker 4: there is like the inattentive type. You know, it can
56:14
Speaker 4: be hard to see, So try to work with her more.
56:17
Speaker 4: And I'm like, I just see a lot of anxiety.
56:19
Speaker 4: And some of these symptoms can overlap quite a bit,
56:22
Speaker 4: where it's like inability to focus or freezing up or
56:25
Speaker 4: like like delaying things. Yeah, like all those things where
56:31
Speaker 4: we put things off, Like those can also be things
56:34
Speaker 4: like anxiety, depending on the person's age and what you're seeing.
56:37
Speaker 4: And so it was hard. That was a tough one.
56:38
Speaker 4: I wasn't like, oh, she doesn't have it. I was like,
56:41
Speaker 4: I mean, this is what I see right now. We'll
56:42
Speaker 4: keep looking. But yeah, it can be complicated cause and.
56:45
Speaker 3: Those are complicated cases because sometimes when a parent's coming
56:48
Speaker 3: in then you don't feel as lucy goosey about it.
56:50
Speaker 2: Be like whatever word works for you.
56:52
Speaker 4: Man, they're in school, Yeah there's school.
56:54
Speaker 2: There's consequences to this.
56:55
Speaker 3: You might put this child on emphetamines, and like that's
56:58
Speaker 3: when I'm going to refer you out for assessment. If
57:00
Speaker 3: you're asking me those hard questions, I'm going to say,
57:02
Speaker 3: go talk to one of my psychologist's colleagues who love
57:04
Speaker 3: doing assessments for a living, they will throw the book
57:06
Speaker 3: at this. If any of you listening are wondering, what
57:09
Speaker 3: is the ADHD assessment? How does that look? I outline
57:13
Speaker 3: it in one of the ADHD episodes, which is Assessment
57:16
Speaker 3: and Treatment, and it just talks about here's.
57:18
Speaker 2: Exactly Yeah, you can skip right to it.
57:20
Speaker 3: There's an episode that just talks about here's exactly how
57:23
Speaker 3: we assess for this, here's what it looks like. If
57:25
Speaker 3: you're curious about it, you can listen to that. And
57:28
Speaker 3: if that's something you want to go out and get
57:29
Speaker 3: assessed for.
57:30
Speaker 2: Go for it.
57:30
Speaker 3: I'll tell you you don't need it to get the medicine.
57:33
Speaker 3: And so if you're just looking for the medicine, go
57:35
Speaker 3: to your doctor Jenner, they'll probably do it, or a psychiatrist.
57:39
Speaker 3: It's a pretty quick write up to go here.
57:40
Speaker 2: You go try this.
57:41
Speaker 3: Let's say if it makes it better. So if that's
57:43
Speaker 3: something you benefit from, go for it. I have no
57:45
Speaker 3: beef with the medicines unless somebody is contraindicated because they
57:49
Speaker 3: have an addiction problem, then I think I'd rather you
57:52
Speaker 3: live with ADHD and not addiction. Then you can focus
57:56
Speaker 3: and amphetamines could like spiral your life out of control.
57:59
Speaker 4: Okay, maybe this is a stupid question too. Can you
58:03
Speaker 4: be addicted to add and when you have ADHD?
58:08
Speaker 3: Like yes, yes, I mean you can also be addicted
58:12
Speaker 3: to pain killers when you have real pain.
58:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that keeps going like amphetamines like tree, but
58:18
Speaker 4: I don't know, like you don't want to keep taking
58:20
Speaker 4: it just helps you like feeling. I mean, they just
58:24
Speaker 4: talk to the wrong ADHD.
58:26
Speaker 3: Induced anio with people who they do affect people with
58:30
Speaker 3: ADHD differently.
58:31
Speaker 2: That is so awakening of the executive.
58:35
Speaker 1: Functioning at low doses and then with higher doses or
58:39
Speaker 1: stronger amphetamines.
58:41
Speaker 4: Sure, strong are different than like whatever.
58:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've had we've had folks with adhd D who've
58:49
Speaker 1: been you know, addicted to methaphetamines, cocaine.
58:53
Speaker 3: Oftentimes they'll get exposed to this at an early age
58:57
Speaker 3: and then it's that that's fine, if they stay within
58:59
Speaker 3: their dose, they'll be fine, right, But then the day
59:01
Speaker 3: comes where they abuse it. One day they take too
59:03
Speaker 3: many and they're like, oh shit, that felt great, And
59:05
Speaker 3: that's where that addictive potential could be realized.
59:07
Speaker 4: I just haven't been exposed to that yet. With all
59:10
Speaker 4: my friends with ADHD. I just like to feel normal.
59:13
Speaker 1: You need to find new social groups.
59:16
Speaker 2: Square. Yeah, no, I wouldn't.
59:18
Speaker 4: They don't want to take the ADHD meds because they
59:20
Speaker 4: feel boring.
59:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree with you. I don't.
59:27
Speaker 3: So here's my here's my lived experience. I don't often
59:30
Speaker 3: see somebody who is diagnosed the ADHD and has been
59:32
Speaker 3: taking the meds for years suddenly become addicted to it.
59:35
Speaker 2: I don't usually see that.
59:36
Speaker 3: What I see, on the other hand, is somebody I've
59:38
Speaker 3: been treating for addiction. They've been sober for a little while.
59:41
Speaker 3: They're like, hey, I've been looking up on Reddit. I
59:44
Speaker 3: noticed that I'm tired and unfocused. I think i might
59:47
Speaker 3: have ADHD. I'm gonna go get amphetamines. And I'm like
59:50
Speaker 3: the fuck you are And they're like, no, no, no,
59:52
Speaker 3: it's really important that I be focused. And I'm like, no, no, no,
59:54
Speaker 3: it's important that you don't have narcotics. Like, I'm sorry,
59:58
Speaker 3: but no. And this is the biggest fight ever gotten
1:00:00
Speaker 3: into with a psychiatrist, was me and a psychiatrist arguing
1:00:03
Speaker 3: because they were like, their ADHD must be treated. I'm like, sir,
1:00:06
Speaker 3: this is a detox and inpatient facility. And if you
1:00:09
Speaker 3: give this person.
1:00:09
Speaker 2: Amphetamine, we cannot fucking treat.
1:00:11
Speaker 3: Them anymore, right, Like, don't you think we should save
1:00:14
Speaker 3: their life? They were overdosed seven hours ago?
1:00:17
Speaker 2: Like what the fuck?
1:00:18
Speaker 3: So shut the fuck up. Yeah, doctor Smith, whoever he is.
1:00:22
Speaker 3: We're gonna tick quick break and when we come back,
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