Don't Blame Me! - DBM: Student Won't Hold Brown Kids' Hands

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

This week Meghan and Melisa are giving advice on: ADHD in the workplace Can't get off from penetration Student being taught racism Leaning on your partner during mental health struggle Don't Blame Them: Getting Your Sister Out of a Bad Relationship (3/25/2024) Book Rec: Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg Follow Us! @meghanrienks instagram.com/meghanrienks https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa https://twitter.com/sheisnotmelissa @meghanandmelisa https://www.instagram.com/meghanandmelisa Affordable Therapy By State (Curated by Crissy Milazzo): tinyurl.com/y64kwdnf Need Advice? dontblameme.show Domestic Listeners Call: [phone] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

well hello everybody welcome to another episode of don't blame me where we give you wonderful amazing life-changing advice and who are we but two mere mortals on beyonce's internet boo ivy's internet the way that like you couldn't tell me shit if that was my mom i would be a terror i need you to watch oh beyonce parent her beyonce parent her one but also the documentary when it i don't know when not the documentary the uh the renaissance movie oh yeah i don't know when it's supposed it still has not come out yet i don't know what beyonce is doing uh she's editing maybe she's like here we go with the visuals finally i actually i will be like i need you to be so fucking serious i know give me a goddamn break

what i think happened was because if you look at the original visuals before renaissance came out it was very cowboy themed oh whoa and so that it must have been cowboy carter that we were seeing and then she was like we're not dropping cowboy carter anymore the way that you're just 100 right no that's actually that without a doubt what's happened and then she went on tour so then she didn't have time to do renaissance bothering me you fucking losers it's coming i just can't tell you and then you're right it's these are the visuals we get yeah because she was all the tiktok designers who were the people who are designers who are saying that like they had she had borrowed x y and z and they didn't get to see it and it was like cowboy attire yep because

she was on a ranch there was horses there were real life cowboys and cowgirls cow women i don't know how y'all like to be um yeah cow people they were like riding around and then nothing really came upon with that stuff but she was playing songs from renaissance on top of that you figured it out you cracked it maybe no i think you're right even if she never releases it because she's over it now like i still think that's what happened yeah wow we're gonna every episode we will be talking about Beyonce so just deal with it we started on Friday here we are now Monday it's just we we're not no one's the same and like you I I know that you also all feel the same way yeah and if you don't Sam doll get off this get out of here I'll talk about you on Thursday you

can loop back in come back on in here well we're Megan and Melissa and we're gonna give you wonderful amazing life-changing advice that will change your life you might be wondering how we're certified how we're qualified to give such impactful advice that will change the course of history and to that i say what we lack in credentials we make up for in big opinions big old fat old juicy opinions and we know when to share them and this is solicited because you call and you ask us for advice and then we give it to you so if you'd like to participate in upcoming episode you can give us a call at 310-694-0976 international listeners you can leave us a voice memo at megapodcast at gmail.com for both of those they have to be under three

minutes long we do ask that you get your parents permission or you're 18 or over you write everything down you practice a couple times time yourself out make sure you've got it all in there all the relevant information you can let us know your pronouns if you would like but we do ask that you include your ages and all of like the key crucial information because you know we want to give you the best advice possible and there's no like follow-ups like that you can call in for like an update but like there's no we don't get any extra info later so give us it all you can also slide into our dms um and all the information about writing in applies 300 words or less we've had a few people send us messages asking how they can ask for advice you guys need to stop skipping

the beginning of the podcast and it's also in the show notes yeah that's helpful too come on we love to give advice and you know you can ask us anything like we can there there's no no stone left unturned unless we don't answer it you know but like shoot your shot and we're not afraid to tell you if you're like in the wrong so if you're like i need someone to be like so real with me that'll be us if you're like i actually need you to be a little bit delusional with me we can also do we can be accommodated to that to an extent i love being delusional your hair or the color right now looks really good really thank you i am because i never my glasses i can like never tell and i'm like is it too blonde no it's good thanks yay i haven't been able to

stop looking at it thank you oh that makes me so happy i also washed it yeah i think last week it wasn't oh and so i could i didn't i haven't i didn't get the full in person because that's one of the crazy things about blonde hair when it's dirty changes the color yep fully changes the color you know all right so let's get into our first thing i believe it is a write-in dear megan and melissa my pronouns are she her i'm a proud 21 year old gemini and i've been listening since 2020 lockdown y'all kept me sane and this is my first write-in slash colin all right thanks i am graduating this may with a ba in communication emphasis in social media and public relations i just got diagnosed finally took nine months with combination adhd and i've recently started

to take Vyvanse. It's working for me and I feel like I'm finally the best version of my quote unquote work self. With that being said, I'm scared about finally starting my career. I've struggled meeting deadlines and staying organized throughout college because of my undiagnosed ADHD until this semester, my last one at that. I feel like a better, more organized student, but I'm worried I won't succeed in a workplace. I'm also afraid that I won't meet expectations in my field because I've only worked as a waitress for the past four years. Side note, Megan, you helped me gain confidence to finally get tested and realize my struggles are not my fault, but related to the fact that I'm neurodivergent. Secondly, this is more for

Melissa. I'm a very avid reader and my dream job would be working for a publishing company as either a copywriter or on their PR team for book releases and press interactions, but I have no experience yet. Do you have any suggestions on how to break into this field? I'm also trying to write a novel, but I feel like that's a long work in progress. Anyways, thank you both so much. Your podcast has helped me in ways you can't imagine. Being the oldest child, you're both like big sisters never had this is so kind thank you thank you first of all four years as a waitress is not like wasted experience i think that's actually like incredibly crucial experience that you will have a leg up over co-workers yeah you have forward facing with customer service and you

can deal with any type of personality so that's very valuable experience without a doubt i think it's some of like the most valuable i i think like if you can like try and redefine the definition of like what it means to like succeed in the workplace because this is you're just graduating this is going to be your first job it's not going to be your last job so every opportunity is just like to learn more and there might be things that you're like oh I learned that I'm really good at this or I learned that I should never do this again like I learned this this this and this So I would say that like success there is just learning like for you. And I would not disclose that you've ADHD to your work. There's just no reason to do that, especially like very early on. A lot of workplaces like aren't really great with accommodations. And I think like you suss it out and see if they are and if there's something like that. But, you know, one of like my strengths that I found that really helps without necessarily disclosing it, I'm much more comfortable disclosing it than I would be if I worked in like a corporate place.

So I don't want anyone to be like, well, you tell people that you have ADHD. It's just it is just when you're like a freelancer on a contract or something like that, there's not job security there in general. Like it's finishing out that way. But I I'm just like really straightforward people like what I need. Like and instead of like trying to be like, oh, let me figure it out. what people are asking of me and like do it all behind the scenes if you say like okay so you said you want this thing by end of day would you like that end of day east coast west coast time 3 p.m this p.m do you want the final draft done by my day do you want me to check in with this

and like if you start off your job by having those kinds of like check-ins and clarifications early on you don't have to keep doing that but people are primed and ready for that they're not expecting you to know absolutely everything and honestly like people who are just kind of like silent like oh, I can handle this is not really comforting for a lot of people. It's like, well, you're learning. Let's have a discussion about this early on. And being disorganized, I know people who don't even have ADHD who are very disorganized. There are people at all levels, at different levels of organization and all different corporate levels like that. So I think knowing why you are the way that you are is very helpful. That's already one. And then learning what works for

me in a workplace? Like, how does this work better for me? Like even in college, like I knew if in high school I had to do my homework at school or else I wasn't going to do it. Or in college, I if I had an essay, I had to write it the night before because otherwise I was just I would hate it by the time that I get to it. It wouldn't be good or I would never actually finish it. So like going into it, knowing that like this might not look as linear as I think it's going to look or as I've been told it's going to look. But I do think that communications and social media, public relations all of that that is like you'll find a lot of personality hires in that way that like you have to be charismatic and you have to be like a most people tend to be like very good

people people people and so those personal relationships are like the foundation of success in your career it's not always just like metrics and that stuff so I think like if you find your people at least for me it makes me feel assimilating into work a little bit easier especially when I'm friends with people who are like neurotypical and I can like watch how they handle things and see how they do it. And then I feel comfortable asking them a question like, OK, so like what I do that and like, oh, yeah, totally this way. So I think like as long as you're observing and learning, those should be your expectations of yourself versus other people's expectations of you, because like companies will like ask stuff out of you that like it's

physically fucking impossible. So if you view that as like your success metric, I think it'll be a self-fulfilling prophecy that you will not feel successful and you will not be successful. So setting your own personal work goals, I think, is important, too. Yeah. And I don't have ADHD, but I do track everything that I'm doing all day long. When people are talking to me, I write things down. I have a checklist. I also like for me and I don't know like what work environment you'll be in, but I do things that excite me first. like because like if i go in order of what's on my list then i might get stuck on one thing where i'm just like i don't want to do this so i'm not going to do this i just have to go to the next thing yeah instead of getting stuck whatever i'm feeling in that moment as far as like helping breaking into publishing i'm unfortunately i don't have any information

on that i work directing audiobooks and that's completely set all that is already done by the time it gets to me yeah it's completely separate so I don't have any information I don't even talk to those I talk to the people that produce the audiobooks like that's their job I don't even talk to anybody else before that yeah I think if you want to work in publishing the first thing I would ask you is do you have a trust fund because there's no money in it Mons had an internship in publishing that was like one of his like dreams and that is like it's such unfortunately like a very dying career it's a very limited career in like the number of roles there are and therefore they don't have to be incredibly competitive with pay and that stuff and it's a dream job for a lot

of people and when you have those kinds of dream jobs they know that people would kill to be there and so sometimes like you don't actually get the best benefits or whatever but of everything that you said the thing that I would focus on is like not putting off writing a novel like yeah you can do that at any time yeah and I don't think it needs to take it can take years but I don't think it needs to I don't think you need to wait at all it's writing like you will write chapters that you fucking hate and then you're gonna get rid of and have to start them over like you don't write a book in one kind of go in that way like you will go you will take different takes on it in different spins on it you'll want to change things and do all those things so I would say like getting your

foot in the publishing world that way especially like book talk is so big right now and doing all of that kind of stuff I think like not trying to like put certain life goals and achievements in certain age brackets for you and like waiting until then I'm very guilty of doing that too and like holding off on things until you feel like x y and z but I think like that's something like to work on as a passion project especially right now when you're giving you some escapism also people that work in publishing love posting on LinkedIn I just like get suggested people because or i do work in like directing at the big three publishing and so i get suggested people all the time like you would be interested in this person all the people like they they love talking

about their job so you can get a lot of information by just i would say just following publishing companies and then it'll suggest people for you to follow you don't have to add them i wouldn't add them now like as you're building but just like follow them so that you can get information and that can help you if i like had to if i still had the same brain and i had to like go to school or change whatever the social media communications public relations like i can pick those bitches out of a lineup and i'm going that's who i'm talking to like that's who i find in a room because i find them like-minded people so i think that from what you've said we we are the same people and you are now going to the profession of our people so i think that you know giving

yourself credit of like knowing knowing yourself knowing who you are i just got messed up if you watch the video on patreon you can see me just just messing with the couch so you i think are making a lot of the right choices and even though you just got diagnosed i think you're very aware of your strengths and this is a there's a lot of fucking people i know who work in this side of things who are also neurodivergent specifically have adhd all right we're gonna take a break And we're back, and it is time for the next one. Hi, Megan and Melissa. I am a 29 female who has been dating a 35-year-old male for almost four years.

It took us probably two years to figure out each other sexually. Well, for him to figure me out. I enjoy sex, however, I receive almost zero pleasure from the physical act of penetrative sex. Before my current boyfriend, I had never orgasmed during penetrative sex, ever. I thought something was wrong with my body for a long time. I get off mainly by him giving me a handjob and can only climax during penetrative sex if my clit is being stimulated from outside. from some research I feel like this is actually quite common for females but not accurately portrayed on social media or movies I think my boyfriend thinks he is doing a shitty job but

and not making me happy when he can't get me off from penetrative sex alone when in reality he has figured me out so well I can get off approximately two minutes just from him touching me how do I explain this to him am i alone in this feeling no most women cannot get off from not having their clit touch megan and i like we went we went to see a movie and the photograph and megan literally there's like a sex scene and isa ray's character is like having an orgasm megan turns to me and she's like i can see both his hands there's no way it was so quick i was like you said my girl's acting her ass off what she's doing is lying she's being deceitful yes and i also saw something recently i don't even know where it was i don't think it was even on tiktok shocker where somebody

was also like having a discussion about in media how hands need to be under the yeah out of frame under the covers because like people think that people are getting off just from penetrative sex and that is not the case like i'm not i don't one because there you got to be a certain position you got to get ready for that you have to get do other things to get to the point where you have to be depending on where your your anatomy is located in that way that it's like you have to be close and then on top and then a specific angle and you then there you go i the only way i can do it from penetrative is in no hands that's what i'm saying penetrative no hands specific yeah no angle specific angle but my clit is still rubbing up against them no that's what i'm saying

yes it's just i'm doing it with look look no hands yes um i have never heard someone saying a hand job the way i was like a hand job and clit and i was like whoa what i thought this was like like i was i've never i had never heard that before and i just need to know if that's something that we say so when i was experimenting with my body in my teen years there was this website called jillian off which was a sister website to jackie not i could guess like they operated in the same i believe it was two partners and then one i don't even know what jacking off is i mean i know that no but i didn't know the website oh yeah is it porn no it wasn't it was just information okay it was just informative things where i just learned about the body yeah it was

great and i believe they used the term hand jobs when they were talking about stimulating yeah i don't know why you like it still applies but like i've never heard that i think because people again this is because people are only thinking about fingering which is penetrative sex oh wow good point wow and it is a job and it is a job it's a job i have has this man are you the first person he slept with and or what is his experience like because to me 35 year old man not knowing this is like actually fucking crazy yeah it is a unique situation i will say well you used to always recommend she comes first yeah which has all that information it's written by a man so i feel like men can relate to other men and has all the information about how like penetrative sex is

like the last step it's not the first but i don't how do you explain it to him is he not like physically aware that like when y'all are you said he can get you off in two minutes yeah so like you said he you think that he thinks he's doing a shitty job does he think he's doing a shitty job or is he like like what what is he he thinks i think that he thinks penetrated sex is is the only way to have sex and then anything else is just like extra and so he thinks that he's bad at sex because he's only thinking of sex in the penetrative way that's so crazy to me because like why do you even care what's making this is two minutes of your day two minutes of your day that then you can get me to come but it's not in the way that you would because like uh i think he's

thinking too like i get off the fastest when i'm inside of her so like i want to be a little more why can't she do the same when i'm inside her 35 yes also is he like hand jobbing you giving you a handy jay while he's inside you too because that's also like double the pleasure double the fun does he realize he can do them both at the same time is are you coming after him always is he feeling like oh i have to fit it because i didn't because right now i'm getting that this man's like not that bright and also maybe a little bit selfish in bed and so i think that like you shouldn't be if you're if he's like not taking this as an answer this is from you and he's like not taking it upon himself to google like to be like oh this corroborates what she's

saying this just sounds like a a little bit of a temper tantrum like for what and for why yeah because like we're both getting off who's unhappy here right he's not like he he's not trying to educate him no no so i think this is like a this is like with love and this is like no knock on you i think this is like a little willful ignorance at 35 to kind of like be pissy about this and then not listening to your partner when they're saying this and then not googling to follow up so i don't really think you need to worry about his feelings in this way because like these feelings like all feelings are valid these feelings to me are like not valid like you're still getting like you're still having an orgasm and you you enjoy having sex with him it's just

the penetrative part that he's doesn't realize he's getting you off in two minutes that is a skill that's what i mean like he should be patting himself on the back for that and before your current boyfriend you'd never orgasm during penetrative sex ever and then i'm only i i get off mainly by this during like in only clinics during penetrative sex my clit is being stimulated from the outside like you are getting off from penetrative sex it's an anatomy lesson yeah get the book yeah get the book this man is 35 years old and he's getting you off in two minutes and he wants to complain shut up yeah and you're there's nothing wrong with you don't feel bad about yourself like you're good yeah this is everybody's body this is like and then people

who can get off from penetrative sex more it's just about where the same things that they have in your body that you have are located and then also how different things on his body are located your proportions like all like they're flexing all of those things yeah yeah just tell him is he the best sex you ever had you can tell him that you can tell him that if it's a truth or not but like i feel like he's trying to complain he wants to go like what is the solution what does he want here what is his ideal i want you to be able to get off at the exact same time that i'm orgasming so like i don't have to spend two minutes twiddling these thumbs also you didn't mention oral sex at all are you into oral sex and is he going down on you his man should be just like stoked yeah

why are we complaining not you him you did nothing wrong it just seems like he's inexperienced it does which is fine but like educate yourself literally we all have the same internet and he's been on this earth six years longer than you yeah google with those google with those those hands that get you off into a mess. All right, next one. Hi, Megan and Melissa. I'm a long, long time listener. I've been listening since it was just Megan when I was probably in about seventh or eighth grade. Now I'm an adult, unfortunately. So I'm calling about a situation that I have been having at work. And there really is no solution. I just really want to know your guys' opinion, what you would do, what you think about this. Like Megan, I grew up in Southern California. I grew up

very, very, very liberal. And then I came to college in Oregon, and it was surprisingly not as liberal as I thought it would be. So that kind of taught me to get out of my comfort zone in the sense of having conversations with the other side, learning about the other side, being able to debate, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that being said, I feel like I have a pretty well-rounded view of how people, specifically parents, would feel about a situation like this. So let me just it, right into it, even though I didn't. I work in early childhood education. So I've worked with two-year-olds for a really long time, but more recently I started working with preschool and K-preps. And one of my K-preppers, so she's about, she just turned four years old. We have a new

teacher and we've gotten really close and she comes to me today at work and goes, so-and-so will not hold any of the brown kids hands watch and she goes she will hold you know her white friend's hand but she would not hold any of the other children of other ethnicities hands now when this happened I was just you know floored but kind of shocked and didn't really think anything of it and then later in the afternoon this same three-year-old got a table full of other three-year-olds to stretch her eyes something that I have not seen since I was in elementary school and even then I thought that was absurd and her parents really don't see this as a big deal and even think that talking about race and early education is absurd so I just kind

of wanted to get your advice see if you think it would be beneficial to talk to my bosses and set up the meeting with her parents or if this is kind of a live and let be if is that possible i guess i'm asking thank you so much for your help no no no no this is not a live and let be situation not at all not at all because you have other parents who are there this problem needs to be solved so this is not an issue because other parents of their kids don't want to put their kids in the receiving end of this child's taught racism yes that's not fair this is obviously being taught because, I mean, racism isn't something that you're just inherently born with.

But at this age, it's even being just mimicked. Yes, like, them doing, like, stretching the eyes out is, like, something that they've seen before. Yes. And the parents not thinking that it's a big deal or that race needs to be taught when they're clearly teaching it at home is, like, a problem.

Like, it's a serious problem that needs to be dealt with. It's not something that needs to be swept under the rug because this child children influence other children yeah and so this child can come to the school and then influence other kids to be hateful towards the brown kids that are there yeah and then you not saying anything makes you part of the problem the other teacher they're also not like saying something to you y'all talking amongst yourselves that is a problem You need to report this to your supervisor. Yeah, immediately.

I technically grew up in Northern California, but I grew up in a predominantly like overwhelmingly predominantly white area. And despite being liberal, it's very limousine liberal. And so like not a lot of not a lot of awareness about microaggressions or macroaggressions. Like it's a lot of people who are like we're obviously we vote Democratic. Like, we're obviously incredibly, like, liberal. So therefore, because we're liberal, we must not be racist or contribute anything to that.

And one of the biggest issues that my school had was there was not a huge amount of diversity there. So if things happened, kids said or did things that didn't know, again, mimicked or mimed what they saw at home or things that you saw on TV without any cultural or contextual education about race or what things mean,

it would be like oh well no one's being harmed here so like it took like until we were adults and some of my friends never like holy fucking shit like these adults were just like well no one's being harmed here because we're in a predominantly white area and therefore let's just these are kids like live and let live like the education is something that like people who think they align themselves with a way of voting it's like an implicit like inherent thing in your body that therefore it's the same vibe as like i couldn't be an asshole i'm a christian and it's like yeah whoa those things are not fucking related at all and so as a white kid who's grown up in that instance I look back on teachers and adults who let quote-unquote kids be kids

that I'm like if any of us had known what so-and-so was saying or so-and-so was doing or whatever other kids then mime other kids there so the kid who is originally doing this does not know the origin of this. They don't know why they're doing it. They're not coming from a place of hatefulness. The other kids who then will start to participate with the other kid are not doing it from that. There's no origin of hate. The kids who are on the receiving end, that is immediately an origin of hate. Like that's not the point of like the learning thing. Yes, those kids can learn and they don't have malintent initially. But the first person on the receiving end of it, there is malintent on their like there is like you you are the impact of that is negative and

that negativity is not a learned behavior that's the part that is like so fucking important and like letting kids learn and letting kids understand is something that as an adult you have to aid in it's not something that is just they are being taught one way they have to be actively taught the other way they have to be you have to unlearn those things you have to be taught the opposite it not just this this will grow out they don't know what they're saying they don't know what they're doing because kids don't stop miming that like they don't stop that unless someone tells them or unless they have like their own conflict with their parents or whatever and they're like things that like you know you hear the adults in your life say when you're a kid

that you don't question but when those adults question other adults that's really fucking helpful because it tells you as a kid that oh not everyone is i can't trust what everyone says everyone has different opinions here and you're doing so you're doing you're you're just doing that all of these kids such a fucking disservice i don't believe in teaching a child a lesson when the lesson is the expense of other people right whatsoever and like again i don't even i don't even like the fact that like people at my school that was something that it was like not touched on because it was like oh there's no there's no harm being caused inherently there I think it's also patronizing to to let kids go around saying and doing hateful things knowing

that they don't know it's hateful and letting it and letting them keep doing that like especially when you work in early childhood education like you know kids are smart you know this kid doesn't have malintent but you know this kid if you told them that like hey that is not something we do that can really hurt people that kid doesn't want to hurt people but you're letting them do that and then you're letting the other kids be hurt as a result as a lesson and then you're also asking the lesson to be taught by the other kids who are hurt and being like look how hurt this person is doesn't make you not want to do it anymore and you're making that child play the role of educator yep yeah talk to your boss and i think if your boss doesn't do anything i would talk to the

parents of the other kids and be like you should go to the school district take it to the local news it doesn't say you tell the parents you pull a an avid elementary uh janine when she's saying that the district's not going to approve the uh interpreter and saying hey this is what's going on here you should let you know as a source for you this is you have to protect all the kids here and the kids who are causing harm it's the children who are receiving the harm who need to be the priority, even if they don't know it at that point, because they will. It's an inevitable thing that they will know. Yeah. All right. We're going to take a break. we're back from our break the next one is a google voice and we do have like a

it'll like write a transcript and it's not always accurate but it says hey m&m except this one is spelled like the rapper and i'm loving it and the fact that like i assumed this was a write-in someone wrote in like that no but google voice said eminem i know him marshall mathers i know that man yep hey eminem been listening for a while i'm a little nervous to do this but a trigger warning for suicide being mentioned i'm 25 female and i'm with john 30 male and have been for almost four years so i'm in graduate school in a five-year program and about a year off from finishing, and I'm currently 150 miles from my hometown, close to my friends and my partner. I'm currently struggling with mental health after a childhood

friend that I had lost touch with committed suicide, and overall having increased anxiety from lots of other factors like school. My boyfriend has been so supportive and came to the very hard visitation. School overall, I'm an overachiever and push myself to do and be the best in my research, but I struggled to get through the day because I put so much energy into it. So I had started feeling a lot better the past few weeks, and we had been out to the bars with some friends this past weekend, had a great time, drank a little too much, got a little frisky when we got home, but it all kind of went south.

I ended up crying and being really emotional while we were, you know, like a bit tangled, like big sob crying, like not knowing what to say. I kept saying that I thought I was doing better, and it was so supportive, but I feel like it was a lot, and it was a lot of emotions even for me. So talk about a really awkward Sunday brunch date after. We talked a little bit, but I still feel really weird about it. I'm trying to reframe my mind, but I'm still feeling super anxious about everything. Like I'm asking myself, do I even still love him?

Do I love myself? What's going on? We have had issues in the past where we therapize each other. I previously did go to therapy, but cost and time are a big issue because of grad school. I've been trying to find one. It's just a tough market with my needs. so when I'm asking how do I have this conversation about where I'm going to be without freaking him out or therapizing do I wait to have this conversation until I equalize my mind

and my nerves this is the person I really do see myself with I just don't know where my head is right and if I wait for that I know everything will be easier when we can live together once I graduate we make more of a life together but right now it feels like a lot since I have a second um i'm a leo and he's a pisces thank you damn i do hate that fucking combo as a leo son with a pisces man it is so rare that the advice i give is like keep it to yourself but i'm gonna say keep it to yourself because you need a therapist and i totally understand that right now that is like not something that is achievable but if it is not achievable you then it is not achievable and like with love I need you to like Pandora's box your emotions up until you are ready

for that because the alternative right now what you're doing is then having him act as a therapist and that's not cool and you know if I had a friend who was going through this if they like primed me and they're like hey i'm like going through a lot i like cannot afford therapy right now if there's any chance at any point and like you can say no if i can just like come and vent to you for like an hour about things like i would really appreciate that i would be like for sure like totally can't do it today not feeling like i don't have the stamina or energy for that but like come on over this day like we'll do that but i saw this analogy on uh reddit and it's not exactly the same but it was talking about like someone who's at like the um there's like turmoil

or something going on and like heightened emotions and from all different points and if you draw like a circle around the whole circumstance in the situation and everybody who's in the circle is like involved and the people the closest they are to the middle are the ones who are like the most directly affected by it and those therefore those people are all not necessarily catalysts but they're all people who are involved in the stress that is going on in your life so therefore they are not the people that you talk to about it like if they are in that circle they are involved so you cannot involve them in this way to talk about because they are they have skin in the game so you say that you want to be with him you see a future with him and all that thing so like

the rhetorical questions of like do i love him do i even love myself those are not questions that he needs to hear because the response to that from him is do you want to break up and you're like no so then why does he know that information I think it's just opening up a whole you're feeling really lost and confused and the solution to that is not to make him also feel super lost and confused I think everything you're feeling is totally normal totally valid when like a really traumatic thing happens where when you're already so stressed and you don't have the time to process that thing it's just hard it makes like all of the fuses a lot shorter it makes all the relationships a lot more tense but I think if you cannot find a therapist at the time reading a

lot of books about grief reading a lot of books um about you know mental health therapy stress all of these things utilizing I know you're in like grad school if there's like any programs that they have they're like doing anything you can with that free time to focus on that because he your your boyfriend is already involved because he is with he's uh attached to you by proxy he's he's involved in all of this and so to turn and use him as a therapist that is like it's like complaining to uh a lot of people this doesn't apply to my life so if it doesn't apply to your life factor it in a different way that would but it's like when people will complain to their parents about their partner and then ask their parents to not have any feelings about that and

to be totally moved on from it, removed from it. And so then you get in this horrible fight and then you tell them everything. You're like, I fucking hate him and all of that. And they're like, God damn it. I hate him too. I can't believe he said all of those things. And then you make up and you never tell all the good things to your parents. And then you're asking them to just be cool with that and to not hold on to any of that. So he is involved in this with the relationship so he's not unbiased if you throw a hypothetical question there out that involves him or involves like your future or whatever that is then he's spiraling and then who's he supposed to talk to about that you know yeah i just don't there are even times like when like i think the

muscle talking about something and i'm like i'm like so like i'm here for i like all here in the venting this i don't think i can offer you any like constructive advice because i'm like burn their fucking house down i'm like you should talk to x y and z person to get some like constructive like ideas or advice about what to do for this because i'm this is not my expertise but like i'm fucking here to rally with you it's like listen when you vent like knowing where your capabilities are and knowing like oh this is not a conversation for this person i'm wondering since you are in grad school do they have like a someone in the health facility that you can talk to and that's usually free or very low cost I know when I was in college one of my friends was

murdered and they had someone that we could specifically talk to that dealt with like a therapist that we could talk to that dealt with grief and then they there was also other therapists like for other things that we needed so I know sometimes they are like grad students but you can ask specifically for someone that's licensed as well. So maybe look into what services are available at your health center and talk to your advisor, too, because they can probably also point you in the direction of any information that you may not be aware of. Yeah, I think he's he's a non-starter for people to have this talk with, like talk with your friends, talk with a class and talk with a teacher talk with the TA like talk to like he is he's not even an option

on this and that's not deceitful that's not hiding anything that's like not being truthful and honest because like you're having a hard time right now with I don't want to say like your grasp on or like your sense of self you're having a really hard time with that and he doesn't need to know that also once you tell him that he is also free to make his own decisions and he might not be comfortable with, with that information because he can only know it in the way that he would perceive that. So he can't be in your brain. And I just don't think that it would be beneficial or even filtering it to him. I don't think it's beneficial and it's not deceitful to hide it. Um, I did recently see on Reddit, someone had suggested, and I don't know where it's all

located. So that was, I was trying to figure out what I was Googling this. Oh, I think it's everywhere yeah so open path collective and they can provide you names with therapists who offer sessions between like just like less than like 70 a session 40 a session oh we also in our show notes we also have a list of places that offer therapy on like a sliding skill too yeah so i know you said that like you were not having like it was hard for you to find even like with like the time and all that stuff but like even a therapist like to meet your needs i think at this point pursuing therapy even if it's like this one session didn't work this other set okay keep trying and maybe settling for a therapist who is not like a perfect ideal long-term solution

but like you need something right now and as long as it's not destructive it might not be the perfect fit initially but it's just it's imperative that you you get it now and it can be a step to another therapist who is a lot better but like when we're in like times of crisis like this and like I just don't think people take stress seriously enough like especially when stress compounds with all these other things like it's it's all consuming and it's not just like a you know grit your teeth and bear it kind of thing so yeah I think that needs to be your like absolute priority and as like a partner I would totally understand you know being like no like you focus on this I'll help you find therapists like psychology today is also great

but yeah open path collective you might want to meet in person but like if you have to settle for online settle for online like i just think that you need something right now yeah and i'm so sorry and you're gonna get through this and it like sucks but it did that feeling of all that questioning is it's not permanent thankfully yeah you've got this now it's time for don't blame them this is where a listener will call in or write in with their own advice pertaining to a call or write we had on a previous episode. So they might have professional experience. They might have personal experience with it or just some ideas or insight input that we did not mention that they would like to touch on. Hey, Megan and Melissa, I'm calling in for Don't Blame Them

regarding the recent update call about the girl whose sister's boyfriend sucks. I have a lot of experience with this and I wanted to share my perspective because it's a bit different from the advice that you gave. Basically, when my sister was 25, she started dating a guy who was 50 so twice her age they worked together and he was also dating someone for the first few months of them knowing each other so for a variety of reasons she kept this relationship a secret and isolated herself from me my family her friends her band everyone and even moved out of our apartment building when we eventually figured out what was going on myself my family and our friends did a lot of what you discussed made their opinions on him the situation known didn't want to

be around him accused of being an unhealthy relationship decided to give her space to figure it out on her own etc and i can see now that those things only pushed her away from us and closer to him she probably felt like everyone was against him and their relationship and that no one understood or was on their side which made her become defensive protective of him and feel like she only had him and i'm sure that she told her boyfriend everything that was said so then he really didn't want her around us anymore i also think that all of this happening at that age made it worse because she was trying to be an adult and a certain dependence in her life but also was very much still figuring it out because it was her first serious relationship. I haven't seen

my sister in five years and we don't talk. We used to be best friends so it's been really hard to watch this happen and to try so many things all for them not to work. If I could go back and do things differently I would listen to anything she wanted to tell me. I would bite my tongue on my opinion of him when possible, focus on supporting her. I would encourage her not to move out especially if it's three hours away and just try to keep her talking to me. I would do my best to have her view me as a safe, judgment-free space so that maybe if she sees things start to turn bad in the future, she would come to me. Now, I'm not saying you have to be a cheerleader for him or their relationship, but I think there's a big difference between that and reminding her

every time she brings him up that you don't like him, don't want to hear about him, and don't want him around. At this point, the caller's sister knows how she feels about him, so there's no point to keep saying it because it will push her away or she won't want to talk to the caller about him anymore. I understand that it's hard when he's around, but I'd rather be around my sister's shitty boyfriend rather than never see her again. I get Megan and Melissa's point of letting her figure out how shitty he is on her own and hoping that she'll eventually dump him because sometimes people do just need to learn on their own but I think it's important to be by her side while she figures it out and also recognize that maybe she just won't figure it out but you have to love her

anyway. I also had a similar situation with a friend and after they broke broke up that friend told me that they appreciated my approach because it gave them a space to talk out their feelings and talk through things with me without feeling judged and that that was very different from how other people treated the situation I've tried everything to get my sister back and nothing has worked so I just really want to try to help you keep yours I hope this was helpful or at least gives you something to think about devastating that's devastating and hearing you say like she might never figure it out damn you're right and that's something that like I I didn't even think about because I don't you know like you don't want that for anyone the way that I

call her read between the lines of what I'm saying I said something off mic to when we got the update from this original girl about what i wished for that man i wish it for your sister's man can you want to hear how crazy my brain is with math i went this man's still alive 55 million good god what do you mean i was like he's still a lot like wow yeah yeah wow i guess right just figure do what you think is best because i had the opposite experience yeah yeah you know your sister better than anybody so totally and i think it's also like it's innate based on like who you are and this is an instinct that you had and you were able to do it with a friend and a sister and some people don't have like i don't have that capability i don't have that like

bandwidth like that like i can't fake it no and like i will drive myself insane and then i'm no longer a good friend i'm not a good support system even if i'm pretending it i'm not it's not benefiting you because like i'm i'm my heart's not in it and then i'm avoiding you and then i don't want to see you and then i'm actually not there so yeah i i don't i don't know if the original caller if this resonates with them but i hope they're listening to this because this is like so not us and it's always really good to get like totally different advice in the sense i hope for the thing that i didn't say if you can read between the lines but i really hope for you and your sister reconciling and i i wouldn't hold any regrets if i were you like i think that

like no matter what you people know what people know that you love them you know like when when it comes from that place and i don't think that this is like permanent or the end of it yeah also because he is 50 gone horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible all right well that's the end of our episode we hope you all enjoyed if you did you can leave us a review on the podcast app or on spotify you can also support the show on patreon you can watch the video versions of all of our podcasts because it's not just this one we also have a see you next tuesday which is our little like catch up talk talk chatty chat which comes out on Tuesdays you guessed it Wednesday we give you a bit of a break Thursday we're back with but am I wrong where you know we call that like

ethical gossip shit talking and we we touch on everything and of course we'll be talking more about Beyonce and then we have Friday which is Fisting Friday which we read the results of the previous episode of Don't Blame Me and if you're confused by that just hop onto the archives like check the little back catalog familiarize yourself and just know that you've got us four days a week and if that's not enough you can join our patreon to not only get the video versions but you can also join our live stream speaking of should we do one a live stream yeah 100 okay so um yeah we hang out we chit chat we talk we we have so much fun we play monopoly go all together we trade stickers you can join our little if you join the patreon you can join our little we got a little

we got a little facebook group too specifically for trading stickers but then we have another big facebook one where we all hang out and talk and chat and it's a great time it's like a really great way to like seek input from other people of just like hey i'm trying to find like a wedding dress i mean like a bridesmaid's dress in this color like what should i do for this um traveling to the city i don't have any recommendations of restaurants or you know moving it does anyone know any jobs in this area or whatever and people have like met up in the same cities or when they're traveling which is always really fun and i'll say that i just let a bunch of people in to the facebook group so that's fun letting people in let the light in isn't that a bible song this little

light of mine i'm gonna let it shine is that a bible song yeah are there songs in the bible there's a um book called psalms p-s-a-l-m and and yes and the those are all like poems and that can be songs i just realized like where are we getting those songs from they're pulling from quotes in the bible and then making those songs i want to share someone wrote something on spotify from a don't blame me episode the one um i don't want to get married and in that episode someone asked about like how to make friends at work and someone commented thank you melissa for validating that not all of us want to spend our lunches with co-workers they already see me seven hours now they gotta have my break too so thank you for sharing i love when you you read that as if you

wrote that like the entire attitude behind it like mine did yeah well we hope you all enjoyed thanks for hanging out with us and um i'll see you soon tomorrow really yeah see you on tuesday and then the next tuesday and then we'll see you the next tuesday goodbye don't blame me is a production by me megan rinks and me melissa d montz plus diamond imprint productions post-production sound and editing by coco lorenz production assistance by melanie d watson