Don't Blame Me! - Is This Racist?

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

This week Meghan and Melisa give advice on: A friend's drinking problem Moving guilt Trying to get back with your ex Microaggressions Don't Blame Them: Not wanting to go to med school Buy our merch: https://store.dftba.com/collections/don-t-blame-me Follow Us! @meghanrienks www.instagram.com/meghanrienks https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa www.instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa https://twitter.com/sheisnotmelissa @by.meghan.and.melisa https://www.instagram.com/meghanandmelisa Affordable Therapy By State (Curated by Crissy Milazzo): www.tinyurl.com/y64kwdnf Need Advice? www.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

Hello, everybody, and welcome to a brand spanking new episode of Don't Blame Me, a call and advice show hosted by me, Melissa Diamond Montz, and she is just happy to be here. thank you so much for having me mine is second ranked and I feel like I'm about to give away a car or something read the terms and services

hire us to host your next athletic event are you ready to squirt or something just squirt? I thought are you ready to rumble might be trademarked and so I was like maybe if they are listening to this podcast

I don't think they're actively like recruiting thinking of us for sports and so maybe they're like look at these girls talking about sex and like crazy they like look at them being woo so i was just throwing in the little megan and melissa spice into my sports newscaster reel squirting squirting we'll add that when when we have our phone call only fans we'll host the first ever only fans you know what i actually take that back i'm i don't let it go bit squirt i have a hard time with bodily funk fluids that aren't that's what i don't have i i'm fine with people doing whatever they want with their own time like squirt so happy for you like do what you got to do like or just whatever you want to do

but i have a hard time with other people's bodily liquids what if you don't actually see it and you're just reading things off a teleprompter that's fine okay but like see i can't even watch people kiss so like i can't watch someone's i'd be like i'm so sorry i'm here like let me like let me leave like i can't watch someone kiss like a pg movie i'm like ah hilarious anyway what is this show megan this is a podcast where we give you wonderful amazing life-changing advice because what we lack in credentials we actually don't lack in credentials um we are absolutely stacked to the nines we are harvard educated nasa trained that's about it we need for today we don't have time to go into the other accolades and like the fact that you're even questioning us

is sexist um it's racist it's racist for half of us and it's i'm i'm vegetable and you know Reverse race. It's reverse racism to me, of course. And no, it's it's very clearly a thing. Like, don't you know, in some other random countries, white Christians are persecuted because they are uncanny. Well, the fact that you even ask us to defend ourselves just shows that you're so small minded. I don't think that you should be here. so if you are not one of those people and you're here being like oh my gosh let me i kiss the ground you walk on i don't even know you two bitches but here i am bowing what has come over

me why am i suddenly on my knees and to that we say it's just the natural occurrence when you end up in our presence like it's a phenomenon like there's it's a medical people don't know why but it is been talked about as like an otherworldly compulsion to like suddenly just start bowing and kissing our feet as the song goes i get so weak in the knees i can hardly speak i lose all control and then something comes over me in a daze your love's so amazing but we're not loving everybody so no i'll end it there thank you swv for that great song and i think jojo also i was about to say i have no idea who that is but why have i heard it and that's because that and i could not tell you what the words were so i was like was it jojo or anna grande someone who was

it was it's not so much enunciation going on in that moment but beautiful so we are going to give you advice and you might be wondering how do i get in touch with you two goddesses to get your wise wisdom your sage words of advice and to that i would say send us a a voicemail if you are international or leave us a voicemail if you are in the united states i don't know i gave you a british accent for that we just all start speaking imagine we just all start speaking the british accents and gaslighting the uk to be fair i would fucking love that we just are gaslighting the uk being like no this is our accent like you stole it all and they're like oh my god no i don't know there's something nothing nothing gets me feeling patriotic

like coming against them the online wars yes so you can leave us a voicemail 310-694-0976 international listeners you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com both of those you have to keep it under three minutes you will be cut off it is not up to us it is like literally just a function of technology so to ensure that you're making the most of those three minutes we ask that you write everything down that you want to say include your age you have to be over 18 or have your parents permission and parents or guardians permission. Write everything down that you want to say. Please include your ages. If there's multiple people in there, their ages, about a relationship, how long you've been together, friendship,

all of those things. If there's like some specific context that is desperately needed to understand the situation, include that. There's some other like, you know, little fluffs and things that we don't totally need and it won't influence our opinion. But the only thing we can go off is what you tell us so write everything down then time it out a couple times make sure you're under three minutes when you're practicing reading it out loud and then once you finally got it down you've done a little bit of rehearsal clear your throat you hop on in somewhere it's nice and quiet you know nice little audio and record that send it on over to us and if you do a great job you could receive a figurative diamond which is ethically sourced from me an

actual diamond i give a little piece of meat yep she she lays a diamond she just sits she goes to bed at night in her in my adjustable bed and i push the button up and when i rise when a diamond just falls out they're rare though so sometimes i haven't given one out in a long time she's hoarding them is it hoarding or is it being selective or is it enjoying the fruits of your own personal labor you've but you've spent so long making those diamonds that you're like you know what i want to enjoy them for myself for a while and the bar has been raised now someone has to go so above and beyond because people really took that seriously and they did and we appreciate it oh yes i think it makes the episodes a lot um smoother more succinct and like for people

listening but then also for us giving advice there's a lot less guesswork that goes in to it for us so okay everyone hi sorry we took a little break but it wasn't like an actual break it was a break from the show but we were still very much working our little asses off and it was just you know for some of us more pleasant than others some of us were figuratively working our asses off some of us were both figuratively and literally working their asses off and they shared it with everyone on the internet so that's a good time to shout out our own instagrams follow me she is not melissa follow megan megan and i've been more active lately you have been more active i feel like even though our audiences like we have like the crossover from this audience but like

not in the rest of our audiences I'm not posting anything on Instagram and I go well at least Melissa is as if by proxy that means that like I'm living vicariously through that and I'm like well she is and now I have something because I you know what it really is I think I re-watch my own stories over and over and over again but I haven't been uploading them so then I just get to re-watch yours and I'm like why do you re-watch your stories no like the day of I don't watch them like my old ones I just like see what I posted that day don't lie and pretend you don't just like then get back into bed after your whole day out and you've posted all these stories you're like let me see my stories again you don't do that no okay well i think that i mine's a relatable

experience please head on over to our instagram comments and help me feel less alone please tell me i'll go back and look and see who looked at them to see who i was targeting looked at them and then i'll go and then i'm done a thoughtful target i think it's important to note for everybody that we also have a patreon and there are some visual cues looks nuances that you will just not get with audio unless you have previously watched every other episode to understand us and even then some things might slip through the cracks so if you want the full immersive 365 experience might i say they're joining our patreon and i was gonna say if you want to hear more about where we've been what's been going on what's been going

in and out of our bodies um we talk about it tomorrow right yeah we talk about it in tomorrow's episode of see you next tuesday all right here we go with the calls hi megan and melissa i'm calling you today for advice concerning my friend amy all persons mentioned including myself are 24 and use she her pronouns amy and i and our mutual friend madison are going to a concert together this upcoming May. The three of us have been friends for over 10 years. Amy and Madison still live in my hometown but I've moved a few hours away from them. I still speak to them both regularly at least once a week but I only get to see them once or twice a year now. For approximately the past year when I do speak to Amy on text or call or video chat she's very often making herself an

alcoholic beverage regardless of the time of day or situation. When we've been in person she always wants to do something that is centered around drinking. It's clear from her social media and from her own admission that she is now drinking, or at the very least, taking a shot every single day. She's mentioned twice, both me and Madison, in a sort of self-deprecating way that she may have a quote-unquote problem. The last time I spoke to her privately, she did say that she had been talking to her therapist about her alcohol and substance consumption, but because she was aware of her consumption level, she didn't really think it was a real concern. Frankly, I am really worried about her, but I struggle with bringing up the idea of helping

limit her consumption because I don't know if it's my place, if I would be overstepping her boundaries, if I would come across as prudent or lame, or if she would think I was being accusatory to her. Amy and I both come from families with heavy addiction issues, so I'm worried I may be conflating our experiences with what I can only see from afar. But I have recently shared my worries with Madison. She mentioned that whenever she invites Amy over to hang out, her first question is if they will be drinking. If Madison responds no, then Amy almost always declines the invitation.

Madison expressed that she had the same concerns as me, but that she also wasn't sure how to handle the situation. Do you have any advice on how to address this respectfully with Amy? If I or we even should? I'm worried that if we don't say something now, then if there is a real problem, it will escalate. The next time I see Amy and Madison, we'll be in a group setting, just us three, on our trip to the concert. Would it be a terrible idea to address it before or during our trip? For additional context, I have drank in the past socially, but I've been silently sober for about a year now. And Madison drinks often socially, maybe once or twice every two weeks.

Thank you in advance for any advice, and thank you for all the wonderful never-wrong advice that you guys share every week. I truly do think that I've become a more well-rounded more empathetic person in part to you too I love the podcast I love what it's done for me and I love what it's done for others and an extra thank you to everyone who calls in it makes me feel less alone in this big world just to know that others have similar issues just big thank yous all around have a good week bye um am I pregnant because I almost that almost made me tear up at the end that was so kind thank you like that almost made me cry that was like really really sweet and thank you for being a part of this and you are one of the people that you're thanking for being vulnerable and other

people feel the same listening to these calls first of all this is a real problem this isn't like if it is a real problem or if it becomes a real problem it already became a real problem and it is currently a real problem knowing that you're aware being aware of a problem is like just the first step and that doesn't mean that like the idea that alcoholics or anybody who's doing something like has no idea what they're doing and they have no idea how much they're drinking like I knew that I was drinking like that this wasn't healthy and I like I was aware of it that doesn't negate any of the fact that like it is a problem knowing that it's a problem doesn't or knowing that how much you're drinking and being aware of that doesn't doesn't change the actual facts

there I would say it would be a really bad idea to bring it up the day of the concert or going to the concert and it's all three of you together yeah it's a really bad time like she seems comfortable enough and aware like that she's mentioned in passing throwaway self-deprecating you said about like insinuating that she has a problem and then even the fact that you know that she's like talked about it with her therapist so you've been let in to what you need to be let into so thinking that like there's more behind that door which then makes this window into it obsolete is not true so there's nothing else that you would know that you don't know that makes this not an alcohol problem do you what I mean like it can be a more complex problem than this but

you're not reading too much into it and the information you've also been given is from her and a lot of the time we downplay what we're going through what we're doing to other people so it's not an off-basis assumption to assume that it's more than you both know But the fact that she's brought it up, I do think sometimes joking about things and like saying things offhand is one of the earliest steps that people have into having other people hold them accountable or just knowing that these people are aware. I've essentially confirmed it verbally and then they know. And that's like a small step in this. So I don't think at all it's overstepping to let her know that you're concerned about the amount of alcohol that she's drinking and that it's taking a toll on your friendships and that she's not wanting to hang out with Madison when there's no alcohol involved. like that's not a parent or scolding kind of role that's hey this thing that you're doing is affecting our friendship so then it does become about you all and I don't know that it'll totally click for her and it will elicit immediate change but you also express that you

have family history with addiction and you've been quietly sober for a year which congratulations That's great. You also have to protect your own peace. And if you don't want to be in situations with her when she's heavily drinking, and I think it's important to tell people why you're going to distance yourself from them or let them know what your boundaries are. So then they know when they're crossing them, what the, what the, what the consequence of that is. And I think it's just kind of about, about planting the seed. And I think that applies to pretty much every unhealthy coping mechanism and like any struggle we see a friend going through. I've said things about friends, like two friends who I've been concerned about

and it hasn't been received well. Later on, things changed. I've had friends say things to me that I didn't receive well, or I was like, that's not a problem. And I have changed my tune about that and have shifted that. And I don't hold any animosity towards anyone who said anything to me that like was trying to help. But there is a lot of emotion and a lot of ego and pride put into something like any of our coping mechanisms. Like for some reason, they're always it always feels embarrassing. That's like, this is how I'm coping. Like this is how I'm coping with whatever I'm going through. And there doesn't need to be shame in that. But like shame is like what hides. So I think like if you come at it, both of you separately, I wouldn't do it

together I would do it separately and just you know I'm like really concerned about you and for you specifically saying like I haven't been drinking all year and this I'm like up at a year at this point and I'm really not super comfortable being around heavy alcohol consumption at this point and I really don't want that to affect our friendship and like I would love to do like some fun sober things with you and do those things and kind of leading by example in that sense but knowing that not saying it like if you say something it can affect your friendship but not saying something will also affect your friendship like you're being put in a really hard position and then I think that the choice that you both have to make and it might not be

the same one for both of you but the choice you both have to make is okay this is going to be hard either way and it's going to change our friendship either way so like how can I protect my peace as well like what is the what is the choice that i make that isn't sacrifice sacrificing my well-being or what's the choice i can make that lets me sleep at night you know yeah i agree with everything that you said so amy has brought up to you a few times that she thinks she may have a drinking problem and she's talked to her therapist about it and she's when she's mentioned it to you she's mentioned it with Madison and also one-on-one so I think that she's aware like she's very very much aware of this so I don't think talking to her about it would be much of an issue and maybe even

making this trip maybe not saying this well yeah saying it out loud like like because you've been quietly sober and Madison doesn't drink that much like maybe just mentioning hey this is why don't we just like have fun and not drink on this trip i think saying that like may may ease that for her too like maybe like she might not feel as i don't know if it's like pressure to so one thing about alcoholism and i'm not calling i'm not saying that she is an alcoholic i'm saying as a broad scope alcoholism is a disease and a lot of people don't treat it as such they treat it as just a problem and not a disease that some people have you wouldn't treat any other disease the same way let's say that someone you know has cancer you wouldn't a lot of people wouldn't and

i'm when i say you i mean you as in broad strokes all of us one one wouldn't treat someone with cancer in the same way that people typically treat people in the same way that someone that's an alcoholic or has or has unhealthy relationships with alcohol so I just think like you have you now have a healthy relationship and Amy if y'all just kind of make your own pact it doesn't have to be like specifically bringing Madison in it into it yet but just saying like I'm you if you wanted to let Amy know that you have been sober and just say I'm not gonna drink at all I won't be drinking and you know Madison has expressed to us that she thinks that she may have a problem so like why don't we just not drink at all during this trip and just make it easier yeah the one

thing I'll say is I fully agree with that statement I think I would have that exact conversation with her i would have that conversation with her well ahead of the trip because there are i don't want to say different levels of alcoholism because there's the chemical reliant aspect and then there's the emotional regulation aspect and emotional dependence if you spring on her which i'm not saying melissa's suggesting at all because you're not but to people to you caller and anyone else who might be in a similar situation if you spring on someone who drinks every single day and you're not entirely sure how much they drink that this is like you're not going to drink now today that can be deadly so like giving her ample time to

just be like hey like this is something that like we want to do and sharing it like I said if you're comfortable in the excitement of like I'm coming up on like a year of like not drinking like I would really love to celebrate that with both of you and like you know show you how much fun I've been able to have and how happy I am that I've stopped drinking and like doing this like sober altogether I would confer and like talk with Madison on the side first so she's like well is that you're both on the same page and aware and that gives Amy plenty of time to talk to her therapist to see if that's something that like even talk with like her dog see if that's something that she can do even saying like you know let us know if that's something that like you think that

could be done or if like there's something like that we could do as like a compromise in this sense I just want to make sure like I'm respecting my own boundaries and I don't want to put either of you in positions where you're uncomfortable or I'm springing anything on you I want us to all be in our element and like be the best versions of ourselves I really feel for people who like can see other people in their lives going through something and recognizing that they can't do anything about it and again I've been in both positions and it's really hard and I think the best thing you can do as like a friend and I've done where it's someone like referencing that you know the stuff that they're doing and I'm just like you know I'm worried like and it's very like

I'll end up in rehab eventually like this is all like a joke or whatever like the thing that I've just done is like you know I'm always here and I'm always offering a different kind of social activity like I'm always offering like we're not partying we're not doing anything like that like we're not being reckless in any form and I'm here for you when you need those down days and you need to like decompress and then if those days become more often like I am still here but I'm remaining a constant and I'm not sacrificing because I wouldn't be able to do that if I sacrificed my own mental health and put myself in situations which I didn't want to be in or I didn't like and I end up resenting them so like that's the thing it's like it's kind of it's a marathon in these

kinds of things and it can be easy to want to do like a quick fix and to just want to shake it up and like and have this be like okay snapping snap out and it feels like it might have been a really sudden shift but it's not for most people and it's not a shift a sudden shift out so being like a a safe place not engaging or enabling dangerous behavior in your presence that only works when you're not putting yourself in those situations and then trying to control a set like an event or something that is not your thing that you're a part of that becomes controlling someone's life as opposed to being like here's this other life pop in any time and that stays steady that stays consistent and that also doesn't sacrifice your mental health when you set up those boundaries

like you can't come on any substances like you know this is these things but it's a judgment free zone but it's it's not going to bars with those people and parties with the people and trying to change them in their environment it's about just like showing yours and leading by example I think personally agree yeah and just letting her know that this is like you don't have to like actually say this but creating like this is a safe space so if you don't want to you don't have to like don't feel any pressure over here yeah but a concert's not a safe place the safe place like like the concert itself isn't a safe place but the community of friendship is that's what I mean and I know and I agree with you I think it's the sense that like anything that

you establish needs to like all those conversations and stuff happen in neutral ground happen in those safe spaces and making sure that everybody's on the same page when you're out there because you can't control that situation and if someone is desperate to have something and in a way that they feel like they're going to be judged for it or they're being ostracized from their group you tend when you're desperate for something you tend to put yourself in unsafe situations and that's not what either of you want you want her to be safe and sometimes her like people being safe doesn't mean that they can't get sober at this point like and that's the safest thing for them right now and that's hard because your journey of it's very very different and I think

that with me like stopping drinking all the time like I I think that I think it was a lot easier for me because I wasn't 21. And I don't think that makes it, I don't think that runs the same for everybody, but there's just a different level that we can't apply our own circumstance to every, everyone else and like how they're going to get through, even if it feels like they've been dealt a very similar hand that you have. But I'm sorry, this is rough. And especially because you're long distance, it's like, you're looking forward to this thing without, and there's still a lot of like strings that are there that you're worrying about loose ends. So I hope that everything everything goes smoothly and congratulations again on a year and i'm hoping

that soon you'll be able she'll be able to say something similar all right next call hi megan and melissa i've been a big fan of the show since the beginning i am 30 she her pronouns and i'm married to my wonderful husband who is 32 he him pronouns um this isn't one of those stories where there's a butt coming about him i promise we met about four years ago and got married about six months ago. We met shortly after I moved to a new city and not too long before COVID hit. Due to COVID and my introverted nature, I never really made a good group of friends in this new city. And over the years, I felt increasingly isolated and almost codependent on my husband as my only support person here. I've never just felt at home here. And on top of that,

I don't feel particularly safe here either. In the last four years, our home has been broken into. My husband's car has been hit and hit and run twice. My car's been robbed three times and the SWAT team raided my neighbor's home at 3 a.m. once. We do live in a suburb of the city and crime is still just as bad as when I lived downtown. I do have PTSD and anxiety and depression as well as seasonal depression, which has been really bad for the last few months through winter. This is not something I had experienced before as I'm originally from the South. Because of all this, I want to move home, which is not where my husband is from. I moved away from my home state for really good reasons.

I was in an abusive relationship, terribly unhappy, which I equated to living in the South and didn't really attribute to the toxic relationship. And I was dealing with really severe PTSD. So I just wanted to start over. I know going home isn't going to fix all my problems, but crime levels are better. I have friends and family there, and we'll be able to get a much better house for similar money to what we are paying here. and we would be moving to a very similar city where I went to college and have a lot of friends.

My problem is I have a tremendous amount of guilt around making my husband pick up his life and move for me. He is more than willing to do it as he experienced firsthand how bad my depression was a couple of months ago, but I can't help but feel like I'm making him sacrifice a life he really enjoys in a nice blue state to move to a place where he only knows people through me. He really enjoys his job here as well and he recently got a promotion. We're not sure yet if they would let him work remotely, but we are going to ask. I know I'm so lucky to have his support. I'm just trying to ease the burden I'm placing on myself of making me second guess myself and my decisions constantly right now. I am in therapy, but I would love another opinion on if I'm doing the right thing

by considering this move or if I'm being incredibly selfish. Please go gentle on me. I am very sensitive and thank you so much bye i don't think that you're being selfish but also if you were being selfish there's a time to be selfish and if there was ever a time this is the time because you don't do not feel safe at a place that you should be feeling safe home should be the safest displace that you feel and right now you don't feel safe you don't feel protected it's adding to your depression and I want you to take that guilt away because this is just I this is something that um you're putting on yourself and it's not something like that you can't you you can't help the way that you feel but I hope that our opinions let you know that like it's so it's okay like this

is okay it's okay to leave because if your husband loves you the way that you say that you that he does and I believe that he loves you and he wants the best for you and being in this situation is not the best thing for you and so you know the the job he loves it but does he love it more than you no like his friends he loves them but does he love them more than than you know if these were the case then he would you know he wouldn't he wouldn't be willing to go with you it could be seen as like so selfless that he's making these sacrifices for you but are they really sacrifices no because again he wants what's best for you so like just take the guilt away like you're gonna yeah moving to the south red states but there are pockets that are fine and i'm sure like if you're

going to a place where you feel safe and protected this is good for you like I want you to to to remove the guilt that you have because you shouldn't be feeling guilty for this at all I totally agree I know you said you're sensitive at the end and like know that like I'm coming at you from a place where I can feel some a very like I feel very guilty asking people to do anything for me. And this was a hard pill for me to swallow. But it has helped me a lot when asking for help and for people to meet my needs where I'm at. Other people aren't reacting to the things that I'm reacting to in the exact same way. So in this situation, the way you're describing it, I'm reading between the lines, you're worried that your husband is going to feel how you felt

here right now. People don't react to the same circumstance the same way. And I have a hard time hearing that because I'm like, so what do you mean? How can someone else just handle this thing totally fine? And it's not my fault. It's not that I didn't try as hard. It's literally like some people's brains, some people do better, do worse in different situations. And something that is like excruciatingly difficult and hard for me it can be absolutely nothing to somebody else and then there are things for me that are relatively easy to do and are just whatever and other people struggle with them and that doesn't mean that your reaction and your experience and your mental state through all of this is your fault or of lack of trying or anything like that

It's the exact opposite. So you need to recognize that you're not asking him to put himself in the situation that you were in. That to me is maybe you grew up and you were like a really big people pleaser. And so in your mind, you would have knowingly sacrificed your well-being for somebody else. And you would have put yourself in something that you knew was going to make you incredibly depressed and like at the slight benefit of somebody else. I don't like to use the word normal, but it's not normal. Like that is not a healthy behavior and reaction. And he's your husband. You've been together for a while. So he knows that if he then becomes extremely depressed, that's not going to help this situation. Right now, this is a family issue. You're not doing

well and you're addressing this as a family. And if the decision that you were to both make would then make him not do well, that wouldn't help the situation at hand. That would continue to hurt the family. Like you are a singular unit. What you go through, he goes through to an extent. What he goes through, you go through to an extent. So he's not going to commit to anything that doesn't mutually benefit both of you. And at the end of the day, if you get there, you're there for a couple months. And it's not as big of a change as you both wanted it to be. It's not permanent. like we can always move to any other like direction and calling and things in life like we have choices for those things and we can't know exactly what's going to help but when there's an

inkling that like I think this thing would help you fucking run to it you go to it and you see because that feeling or that calling doesn't happen that often and you have to listen to that and trust him that if he was being dishonest about all of this, if this is maybe not like his dream thing to do, this also isn't your dream right now. Like you're talking about like, you know, red state to blue state. And you know, I left the South, like all of these things. You're not looking at this. Like I've always wanted to do this. I've gotten this man now I've trapped him. I'm going back here. Like, I don't want to say that you are settling, but you have recognized that where you are at is no longer working for you and you want to go try

out the place you were at before which worked for you at a certain time and then stopped so you're not asking him to give up his hopes and his dreams for you to be on cloud nine and you're running and chasing towards all of your dreams you're asking him to help you cope and do something that you think might help. And he's your partner, like he's there to do that. So I would not only give yourself more credit in picking a partner who is there to support you and cares about you and isn't doing things out of obligation, but is doing things out of love, and give him more credit that he would tell you if this wasn't going to work for him emotionally, because he knows that that would also affect you. And you're both a unit. And as long as you're communicating, and it seems like

you have been this whole way through, you're doing these check-ins and we have to make choices that benefit us in the moment. And then we hope that they benefit us five minutes, 10 minutes down the road, a year down the road, months down the road, whatever it is. Like we can't look into the future and know what the right choices to make are. So we have to go based on where we're at. and this is what's come to you right now and i just say go for it yep okay all right so uh we're going to take a break now Okay, well, next call. So, my girlfriend and me have been together for four years.

And we recently took a break. This meant that, you know, we would kind of take time from seeing each other or speaking to each other. It doesn't mean that, you know, obviously, like, we would go out and talk to other people. Like, it's just a break from each other. So obviously, you know, I don't want to go into it too much because it would be a long story. But basically, I like to think that I was the cause of this break. I have a lot of unresolved mental trauma and have anger issues because of it. Nothing violent, nothing like that.

It's just more verbal, a lot more kind of just arguments that I start. I mean, obviously, some arguments were justifiable, I would say. But most of them were kind of just things that I would say out of the blue. and there's a lot of anger that i have built up from just mental trauma and we decided that a break would be good for us that way i could heal properly and she could heal properly i guess my advice is like do you believe that this is a correct decision that we should be doing if not then you know what what should we do obviously we both still love each other very much and i still truly believe that you know there is a second chance for us i still truly believe that

she'll be the girl that I'm going to marry and I know that she will be the same thing with me and I guess if I can go a little more in detail with the arguments it was more about like I would basically just argue over anything and it happened multiple times and it was times where I would say I would change and I wouldn't but I think after this break I finally realized it was time for me to actually step up and instead of just verbally saying I'm gonna change I actually put into action because i think my actions showed that i there weren't any consequences until she bombed and break but anyways thanks megan uh hope to hear from you soon on the podcast and and give up good advice thank you whose boyfriend is this whose boyfriend is this

i'm telling you right now that this is some one of our listeners you're on a break with this man and this is a plea that he is trying to get to get us on his side and he knows that she's fucking listening are you sure no but that's what i feel in my soul he said that he just started listening so that makes me think that he was listening to old episodes because because he didn't say my name one time during that well that's my other part so if he just started listening and it was like very old episodes then i mean the first if he started with the first season then see my mind is that his girlfriend listens she's probably been like oh listen how great this podcast is and she's tried and he's been like okay whatever whatever he's listened

to like maybe an episode he went back and like remembered my name or something like that and then just called in from like the website and figured this out because he didn't met that's what i'm saying like you you're giving him the benefit of doubt that he just started listening to the first one i'm getting the opposite where i'm like he hasn't even he's listened by proxy and that's why he didn't say your name but if he was listening by proxy then he would have listened to like maybe newer episodes yeah but then he doesn't put the effort in to see i want to give i'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt because i think we should give advice from that perspective i agree i think we should give advice to him and then i would like to indulge

my conspiracy theory and give advice i don't you said girls i don't think that's fair to him no that's no no i think that's totally fair but i think like in the sense the girlfriend has called in before and has asked our advice okay like we gave advice to her from that perspective of you know we don't know the other party so we shouldn't be giving him advice from that perspective but i do think it's true that in most calls we do a lot of the time we'll enter talk about the other person's perceived point of view so i guess i don't have to give her advice in in what i'm saying to him it will also involve a lot of what her thought process and her choices could be you're right you're right so we've got two different experiences with what we think the

origin of this call is okay here's my thing is you said that you're working on yourself but how are you specifically doing that is it that you're just recognizing that you have anger issues in your words or have you you know if you're able to go into therapy or talk to some type of mental health professional have you read a book from someone that's has certifications that not just like a self-help book from some rando that you might feel connected to but like somebody that actually has like a license in therapy or something like that have you listened to you know other podcasts about mental issues and i think it's like how what specifically are you doing that will be different why like you still love her you say that this is going to be you

want her to be your future wife but you didn't mention any specific things that you're doing to change your reactions how you react you also mentioned that like you don't you get angry but because of trauma that you haven't dealt with have you dealt with that trauma yet you also said that like your anger issues aren't violent but what you mean is physical violence because words can also be violent and I think that that's another thing that you need to recognize and also does she actually still want to be with you you want to be with her but does she still want to be with you if so then if you're getting like help with your own issues are you open to going to couples counseling as well because that even if before you revisit getting back together

because that can be that can be very helpful so again I want to know what specific things that you're doing to make things better to make yourself better to make your relationship better yeah I agree with all of that that's everything I was going to say is that like you're talking about this like there were finally consequences which some of the language you're using is to me very much, I don't mean this in like a belittling sense, but is very much in work in progress language. And so saying things like, you know, there weren't consequences there. It's like, okay, so consequences, that's something a teacher gives you or a parent gives you. Like that's, that's not like a partnership in that the, oh, okay. She finally taught me my

lesson. Like she doesn't have, like, she's not there to teach you lessons. Like that's, she's your partner and this is not supposed to be a unpaid position for her to teach you things so to me that is like you're at the first step at like you finally realize like oh shit I can't get away with this stuff anymore but that's not all the work that is you just discovering that you have to do the work and you have to do the work before you try to get to do anything to move on with her to move on with anybody else to do whatever like the work you have to do is not for her the work you have to do is for you and then if you have done all that work she's seen that change and she decides that that is something that she would like to try again on then you do

the work for both of you and that's couples therapy the other word to me that was like okay there's still a lot to go and if you are really are committed and you really want this to work out with her I would tell the same thing to my friend like don't do it now because you're gonna ruin it and that's like you said like some of the like Melissa said like violence is not just physical and having that distinction there you're equating that one's worse than the other in your mind and you don't know how how that is for her you don't know if that's her truth you don't know how that is and how she's received that and if she would say the same thing it's downplaying someone else's reactions to your actions which not okay and the throwaway line of like well you

know some of it was justifiable it's never justifiable to be screaming at someone to use emotional violence or physical violence that reaction is never going to be okay in these circumstances so when you're saying things like well you know some of it was justifiable like that's not to say that like you can't be upset with your partner if they do something that hurts your feelings you can't then hurt them for hurting your feelings that you can't think that you were justified in doing that because that's not a healthy relationship that becomes tit for tat and that becomes like keeping track for things and getting even and that is unresolved trauma like that's that's you're keeping score and you're keeping record of that and I'm glad that you

acknowledge that you've got those things to work through but like Melissa said how are you working through that like and so also when you say like when you're talking about you know at the end of the day like I want to marry her and like I really love her I know she really loves me love isn't enough and this picture that you've painted and both of you have probably indulged and talking about your future you need to drop that and you need to let go of that because it's basically feels like it's a means to an end like well we're gonna end up here and however we get there is how we get there and it takes away the daily decision making and agency within that and so like right now the goal is not to look at her and just be like well we both know we're

gonna end up together we both know we love each other all that the goal is to be someone who she can trust be someone who she can trust emotionally be someone who she can be someone who can be her safe place and if that follows up with being her safe place the next day and then the next day after that and the next day after that that's great and if that's then you're her date for a work party amazing if you're her date for a wedding amazing if you're the person she called and she gets a promotion amazing and the marriage and the life together and all of that like those are choices that you make far way farther down the road not like this is the person I want to marry so that's gonna happen and we're gonna get there how we get there it's no be the person that she

wants to marry and you might have been that person at some point she that doesn't doesn't mean that like you she's always going to be that person to you that like in a couple years that but like so when we have those things in that vision and idea we have tied to it becomes like really hard to know if we're making choices for what we want right now or what we think we want and if we're envisioning who we are in the moment and who the other person is in the moment so like she's not subscribing to potential and you can't be subscribing to potential either so you also wouldn't want that like you wouldn't want someone who marries you because that's what they envisioned for their life versus someone who knows you're going to be an amazing partner because you have

been you've shown them and that they really want this in the moment right now and not just oh maybe in a couple years you'll get your shit together like that's not beneficial for either of you So trying to rush that process or trying to smooth over or sugarcoat this experience and like her experience with you and how you've treated her as like a well, I love you. I would tell her that you love her. And then I would say, I love you. And I'm really sorry that I've how badly I've treated you to make you think that those feelings came from love. because people who love you shouldn't treat you like that. I love you and I'm like dealing with my own shit and I need to get my shit together before I subject you to that anymore because I don't want you to feel like what I did was love

because it wasn't love. And if you keep using it as a justification, you're telling her that you're doing those things out of love and I don't think that you feel, I think you're having shame for how you have treated and like those things. You're recognizing that it's trauma. now think the more that you pad that with the flowery language and all of this love you're

telling her i did that because i love you that's not why you did that so don't let her like you have to do the harder work and not just try and smooth it over and fast track this to being better because it's just not gonna work yeah like i've said before love isn't just a feeling it's an action and so if you're not doing the best that is possible as our Ariana has said I saw potential without seeing credentials so you know you can't just it's just not like who you hope to be it's who you are in this moment and if who you are in this moment isn't the man that anybody would want to be married then this isn't the time to be reaching out to her yeah i mean i always hate the whole thing of like how can we humanize women to men by telling them to think of women in other

circumstances and situations so i'm not going to tell you like would you let would you be okay with your mom or your sister or another woman in your life or your future child having a partner who treats them like this i would just a friend like would you be okay with a friend or if you were reading a book and this was like the story like would you look at that and be like I want to be like him like and the rushing of this hurts everybody and if there's a part of you that wants to do this as fast as possible there's a lot of reasons why it can be the shame it can be that it's very uncomfortable to sit in these feelings of like wow I did a lot of things that hurt someone and and some of these things I did to hurt someone I hurt so I wanted someone else to hurt

Or the fact that you think that if you take too long, she's going to move on. That's something that you need to let happen then. If it takes you a long time that she'll move on, it's inevitable what's going to happen. The timeline does not ensure that it will work. If you're relying on speed and quickness and top of mind as the catalyst for salvaging this relationship it will never work it will implode it will end and it would do you a disservice as well to go through this process of trauma work with her expense there because you're gonna feel like you know if you're taking a therapy appointment at home you don't want her

overhearing like there are things that like it's messy it's uncomfortable and she's been victim to some of the shrapnel from this and you need to have time to like heal and work on your stuff so then you can be someone who can then heal your relationship with her but until you heal yourself you are not going to be able to be a good partner for her or anyone and you're also then in turn not going to have a good partner because you're not going to be able to provide that for somebody else so I'm not against breaks they're not just like sitting in limbo like Melissa said like there has to be action there and it has to just come from you and not like oh should I asking her should I do this should I do this like approval like no like do your thing and you recognize that the

problem is you and that's the problem that you can work on and the problem that you can fix yeah all right last call hi megan and melissa i got a little tripped up on my words the last time recorded this so i'm going to try again i-29 she her was recently listening to an archive but am i wrong regarding grammar and spelling correction and ableism megan said something about a person her dms along the lines of you don't get to argue when someone who is disabled says something is ableist. As a disabled person, this really resonated with me. Megan articulated herself so well in those messages, but the conversation got me thinking about racism as well. As a person of color who's married to a white man, I have noticed a lot of people feel oddly comfortable with saying

racist things to me. Recently at a birthday party for a friend, a Jewish girl, 30 she her, asked me, so have you always been into white guys? I was a little taken aback. I couldn't help but feel that this was racist some other people privately said that it was but that she didn't mean it she said she asked because her other friend who is also Indian is also attracted to white men others said it was not racist because she's Jewish I don't mean to ask you to do the labor for me but I really struggle with gathering the words to explain this to others at most I can only manage to articulate that she didn't ask any of the white men in the room, nor did she ask my husband, so have you always been into Indian chicks? How do you go about talking about these things or when

you feel something is racist and others tell you it's not? Similarly, I've had my husband's old roommate call every Indian movie they've seen me watch, Slumdog Millionaire, and felt that that was racist, but others who heard it said they didn't think it was because the person didn't know any better and genuinely assumed every time he walked in and saw me watching a Hindi movie that it was actually Slumdog Billionaire, which my husband and I think is a bullshit excuse and a microaggression. I grew up in a predominantly white community and never really developed the rhetoric for these dialogues.

Any help navigating is greatly appreciated. And if this is in fact not racist, please let me know as I really trust your guys' feedback and I know I can be a little sensitive sometimes. Thank you. Love the podcast. Bye. i think the issue is the friend group it's racist it is racist and it's the friend group and i will say i grew up in a predominantly white community as well and when i was younger i did not know how

to express things these things and i don't i don't i don't even think it might have been in the last 10 years that i like it were it would be a lot of things would be feelings but i didn't know how to properly express the feelings that I was having. Like, for example, when I was in high school, this guy that just moved to my area asked me if I smoked weed, because from where he's from, all Black people smoked weed. And I was like, no. And I just didn't know how to properly say that. And oh, and then my friend who thought that she was defending me said, Melissa is not like other black people. But keep in mind, I'm probably like the only black person she knew. So it was a stereotype.

No, OK. No, it was she was basing it on stereotypes because there were not any other black people at our school. And so these are people that are giving or who are saying racist things, who are using micro regressions, who even if like somebody is Jewish and they're a white Jewish person, they can still be racist. Anyone can be racist like it doesn't stop you just because you are part of a marginalized community that doesn't stop you from being racist. so the way that helped me was that I I think by I think what really helped me was finding friends and like specifically like seeking out people that had similar circumstances with me and hearing them express their thoughts and feelings is how I learned to strengthen my own voice. And it helped me a lot because I felt like I couldn't say anything, even though I could.

And the point of microaggressions is to make you feel smaller. Even if people aren't actually aware that they're doing it. Some people think that they're asking legitimate questions and they're not, or they're saying things that they feel like it's coming from a good place and it's not. And let's say you didn't feel comfortable saying things to them then you know it's not you don't have to say anything but you're specifically coming and asking like how do I find my voice to say and is this actually racist if you feel like it's racist towards you it's racist and so I would kind of just take take steps in knowing your comfortability and honestly if your husband is white, I feel like he should be calling it out just as much as, or calling it in just as

much as you are, because these are people that look like him. So I think this is work that y'all need to do together. It shouldn't just be on your back. And this is, these are things that he's allowing. So it could, the thing is like, you have to find where you're comfortable saying things. I was out with a group of people and someone said something that was very ignorant and racially charged. And this other person that I was with, the black woman immediately like said, that's not true. Like she immediately shut, shut it down. Where for me is that I'm a little bit more careful with the, about the way that I go about things. And, you know, I had a lot of respect for, for her for doing that. But that's not my specific style. So it's about finding your

own comfortability in it and calling it in and letting them know, but in the way that you specifically feel comfortable doing it. So, I mean, I can recommend some books by Black people, but they may not be the specific. I think that it'll help because it is, you know like something that most people of color go through but they are specifically written for and by black women or for and by black people but like they're i'm sure there's books by people in your own community that have this have similar information but will be more specific to you and if anyone has recommendations like caller if you're not in our facebook group you have been given a golden ticket just hit us up slide into our personal dms we'll get you in there and we can

have you make a post or we can make a post if you don't feel comfortable making a post immediately there you can also now in oh anonymously facebook you can do anonymous posts too so which is great so we don't always let people do anonymous posts because we really value um shared i don't want to say intimacy but like making sure that nobody has the upper hand of gaining knowledge or information about other people we don't let people just like be in the group and lurk but we give people a grace period of joining in before they start participating but i'm sure that like crowdsourcing that that would be there would be lots of people in the group who would be able to offer some specific suggestions that either are very applicable to your exact situation or like

similar to melissa saying that are maybe not the exact same breakdowns but have similar through lines the only place I can come from this is as a white woman so I want to really stress to you that like unless your husband unless you have specifically told your husband that you do not want him saying anything and you don't want him like making quote-unquote this causing waves or anything in the moment he should be saying something immediately and there's a level of intentional ignorance and like of white privilege of being like oh like i didn't pick up on that i didn't know that at all but that already not an excuse already something embarrassing and not okay and has fucking expired for like he's married to you

he knows you he if he hasn't done the work in understanding like specifically what microaggressions could be done towards you like i was mortified when i like had realized so many things were coded as anti-semitic and i had no idea and i grew up with like almost all of my friends growing up were jewish and the fact that like there were things that i'm like oh someone could have said something and i would have had no idea that that meant something or like certain things that are racially charged, that are microaggressions or like tropes or specific things that I'm like, I didn't know that that's where that came from. But it's my responsibility to go out of my way to research those, to know what those things are and not wait for the moment

where I'm watching them happen in real time with a real person who's on the other end receiving that. That's not the time to learn about it. And he's married to you. So he should be taking that steps and that initiative. And the other part is the friend group. I understand and I'm not here to tell you like, don't call these people out and then call them in and work on this. I would also give yourself permission to be done and to quit if this isn't progressing and this isn't serving you. And even if you start trying to call them in and you're realizing that this experience is really not good for you like you don't owe them that and I really don't like that in this group of predominantly white people that they're all telling you that this isn't racist I don't

like that group collective like I wouldn't feel comfortable even if I didn't know the origin of a specific trope or if I didn't know the microaggression like I wouldn't feel comfortable grouping together with a bunch of other like our entire white friend group if someone a person of color in our group was saying that this was offensive to them I wouldn't feel that way and I don't think the person in the friend group who's Jewish would feel that would I think they'd feel the same way about that like think if I was if I was the only woman and it was a group of men I wouldn't feel okay with them saying to me that that's not sexist and there's a mob mentality with whiteness and weaponizing that and I really just don't like that that's happening in this even if

it's unintentional so I'm not obviously again against you calling them in and having these conversations with them but I would really keep in mind that you don't have to do this because these aren't your only options for friends like this isn't like something you're gonna have to go through with every friend you make and calling people like melissa said like i obviously can't relate in a race sense but when you mentioned like me talking about responding to someone in a dm about like being ableist that's similar to melissa said like that was a safe place for me and i knew that that was a safe place for me and then i knew coming on to the podcast and talking about it i know melissa is a safe place for me to talk about this but that doesn't mean how i interacted with

that person, I would have said the exact same thing or done the exact same thing if the circumstance was different. If I'm outnumbered, if I'm with people I don't know, if I'm something as simple as if I'm traveling by myself, if I'm at a hotel, I have to be in a place where I recognize I'm physically and emotionally safe to do something like that. And so knowing that how you react to something in one moment doesn't have to be matched to how you react to something in a in a different one you don't have to hold the same standards and expectations for yourself for that because you have to protect your well-being and your safety and sometimes it's not that moment and that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt you it doesn't mean that what they did was

okay or you're like fine with it or justifying it you can be just as mad and call it out or respond in two vastly different ways, like minutes between each other. It's just about the safe place. And I think if you recognize after trying whatever you want, like however long that your friends group is not a safe place, your friends should be the safe. Like if any place is the safe place, it should be with your husband, your partner, and your friends. I'm really sorry. This really sucks. And I think even if you maintain this friend group, which I'm not saying not to again for the thousandth time i would additionally seek out some other friends just like to have more people in your life where have some friendships that are easy some friendships

that are just there's not there's not work being put into it because you're not going to reap the same benefits of friendship in this moment when this is like a learning and educating process regardless of how much you're investing into that you still need friends and right now they're not the friends you need and they can still be your friends but you need to find some some friends that have that like okay weight off my shoulders releasing like unmasking like i'm just okay you don't have to be you don't have to feel like you have to be like careful around them saying or doing or watching things like you can just be yeah so i'm sorry you're going through this all right so um now we're going to take a break

and we are back for don't blame them this is where one of you a listener you call in and you leave your own advice pertaining to a call that we had on a previous episode so maybe you have personal experience with it it's relates to your profession or you just have some additional insight that maybe we didn't touch on in the original and you would like to share with our audience and the original caller hi megan and melissa i'm a 25 year old female using she her pronouns i'm a little sick so i apologize about that i'm a second year medical student um calling in for the most recent don't blame them episode with candace king i'll be sharing insight regarding the caller not wanting

to go to medical school so first of all i just want to say i'm really sorry you have to deal with this stressful situation. It's very tough to have that pressure and also regarding medical school. I want to touch on you saying, should I go anyway to keep my mother? Medical school is the hardest thing mentally that I've experienced so far. On the really hard days, the only thing that gets me through is that I love what I'm learning and I'm excited to care for patients at the end of this. If you don't have that passion, which it sounds like you don't, which is also completely fine, you'll be sacrificing a lot mentally for something you don't even want to do. So I would highly suggest against that. In terms of what Melissa

touched on, while in theory taking the MCAT and applying to medical school to satisfy your mom until you're financially independent is, you know, good in theory, that process will be mentally taxing and very expensive. Depending on how involved in your life your mom is, you're going have to make it seem like you're studying daily, buy the study materials, and at the end of it, take an eight-hour long exam that is so grueling and is over $300 to even take. Plus, you can't really fail the MCAT. You just receive a score that determines what schools you should apply to based on the metrics of their accepted students. So, if you took the MCAT to purposely get a low score depending on whether or not your mom will know about your score, she may want you to retake

or if she doesn't know much about the scoring system, she may have you apply to schools anyway. Taking the MCAT and applying to medical school is an incredibly expensive process altogether. I ended up spending thousands of dollars on studying materials, the MCAT itself, and applying to different schools. She said you're currently financially dependent on her, so assuming you use your mom's money to do this, you'll have to keep her in the loop about what schools you're applying to, what score you got, etc. It just feels like a very tough life to maintain and it will mentally drain you to fake your way through the process it's a super tough situation and i think the best bet for you is to buy time until you're financially independent like

megan and melissa said you could tell her the school you really want to get into values research or clinical experience so you need a year of that experience in order to apply or something along those lines uh good luck the the headaches i've seen from like people who've like a like they talked about like there's even some that in between you take your MCAT and you do your like residence or whatever that like it's even like frowned upon to take breaks like the whole thing like it's it's a lot and I think that I'm glad that someone who has gone through it could call in and talk about not just like the financial aspect but like the emotional toll of like you know keeping a charade up and having to still go through an eight-hour test is

is a lot but thank you for your insight and good luck in school I know I took the DAT the D-A-T the dental test but I don't even remember anything about it yeah well also for a lot of those things like you're studying for tests not like the anything that's like applicable like knowledge for it it's like you think of that with like the bar people talk about that all the time like you're studying how to understand to take the test and like yeah i mean it's more it's a lot of like chemistry and science stuff on it but still that is it for our episode that came from your throat we hope you all enjoyed sorry jump scare i hope you're not listening in the morning or am I waking you up? We hope you all enjoyed this episode. If you would

like to participate in an upcoming one, give us a call, leave us a voice memo, all of the details that we said at the beginning of the episode. You can also check out the description bar, the details, the show notes, and it will tell you what to do and how to do it. Again, our Patreon for just a dollar a month, you can get the video version of this podcast. And then, you know, the tiers go up from there. So you can get the video version of this podcast and our other podcast or just our other podcast or you can have both or you can just do our live streams where we do a live stream twice a month it's very fun it's literally just like a zoom hangout with friends that you maybe have never met before but people like literally have made legitimate friendships

they visit each other they hang out they spend time together in person and not in real life um and they text each other yeah they haven't included us on their group chat it's like really rude like we've been begging to be so mean like it's so fucking mean like you guys don't and every time i bring it up they shut me down too so they're like oh my god like we don't want them on our group chat and it's like wow okay like i guess like we're just uncool like just trying to just like cling on and it's like oh okay so whatever whatever i promise they're really nice aside from that like it's just so fucked up meanies the amount of dms are about to be like you fucking assholes you've said a thousand times you don't want to be in it like what are you

talking about anyways so yeah it's a fun time and you can also support the show that way and you can also support the show if you are a company and you work for said company that does podcast ads pitch us put us on your decks we have so many cute pictures of us we look great like target get ripped off our entire shtick for a fucking greeting card like they did hallmark yeah your company should be clamoring like they should just be like desperately trying to get the melissa and megan stamp of approval so we'll be eagerly waiting for you and we'll see you next time goodbye bye 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 and music by giacomo picasso and ryan hunter