Don't Blame Me! - S7E9: Weird Gifts on the Doorstep w/ Melisa D. Monts

Episode Date: January 25, 2021

This week we're sharing advice on:    Update: in-laws wanting to hang out How to be more empathetic If you should tell his wife Mom's boyfriend being weird Don't Blame Them: having sex dreams about husband's brother   Call Transcriptions   Follow Us! @meghanrienks  www.instagram.com/meghanrienks  https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa  www.instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa https://twitter.com/sheisnotmelissa @dontblamemepod   https://www.instagram.com/dontblamemepod/     Listen to ad-free on Stitcher Premium! For a free month of Stitcher Premium, go to stitcherpremium.com and use promo code 'BLAME,' PLUS exclusive bonus episodes.     Affordable Therapy By State (Curated by Crissy Milazzo): www.tinyurl.com/y64kwdnf    Need Advice?  www.dontblameme.show  Domestic Listeners Call: [phone]   International Listeners Send a Voice Memo To: [e-mail]    … with as much detail as possible under 3 minutes! I'll do my best to share my wonderful words of wisdom. If you're under 18, please get your parent's permission. Advice is for entertainment purposes only, so you can't blame me if I screw up your life. I kid! My advice IS AMAZING. - Want to WATCH this episode as well? Become a patron! https://www.patreon.com/dontblameme   Join the Facebook Group! https://www.facebook.com/groups/dbmsecretgroup Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/join/dontblameme See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of don't blame me if you're watching um patreon hi we love you and if you're listening and you want to join our patreon please do we upload all the videos there for this podcast which i should introduce welcome don't blame me hi hello that's megan and that's melissa dbm eminem letters acronyms welcome oh no i'm loopy me too see that's not mine no you were up very early because you text me this morning and you already had an instagram up by the time i got up and i was up at like nine i consider nine early but you used to wake up earlier yeah i don't do that anymore like whatever happened to that i'm like i had a job you fuck why would i be awake more hours

of the day than i need to be you just transferred them to the night time that's all yes but night time you don't feel like oh i should be i should be like everybody's work like what am i doing with my life night time i'm like yes i am laying down and eating chips in bed and watching tiktok this an advice podcast where we bestow on you our wonderful words of wisdom all of our years um fun fact we are the female versions of tuck everlasting so that's why we give such good advice you don't know the reference we give advice like we give advice to each other to our friends we are very straightforward tough love but it all comes from you know the key word of that is love you know we're doing it from a nice place uh if you are easily offended by uh bluntness and directness

welcome to your this podcast we're gonna break that out of you or you might want to leave well you could do that too but i mean give yourself some credit let it play in the background and as we say if you let us know in your call hey i'm a pisces or hey i'm just like really sensitive go easy we'll go easy on you but you got to give us all that information otherwise hey you can't blame us oh but if you want to call for an upcoming episode you can leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976 and international listeners you can send us an audio message at meganpodcasts at gmail.com keep it under three minutes or you will be cut off not by us but literally by the google voice recording one so write it down practice time it out make sure

everything fits make sure you have all the important details because we usually are yearning for more details and there's a lot of things that usually you can leave out um you got to be 18 or over or have your parents permission imagine that like someone calls in and it starts with being like hi this is uh becky sue's mother and she has permission to call into the podcast and then it goes hi hello i'm becky sue can you imagine well imagining that name is very hard for a child but uh but i would love it i would love it somebody if you're under if you're under 18 please have your parent verbally give consent i love that imagine you just like you do the dad dad's not big uh yeah sound good for sure i signed the field trip form i approve you know how many

field trip forms that i forged just because i forgot to get them signed at home do you know that that was my unpaid job in middle school because i was so good at forging i had a whole like i had a stack of all of my friends parents signatures and i memorized them and then we would pull them out for reference we do that all the time beautiful and they didn't care no they did because it was it would be things that you just forgot to get signed yeah it's nothing wrong with that unless it's something dangerous but if your school's doing a dangerous field trip shouldn't be going yeah um what's new with you how are you there goes my phone um what is that is there something ringing or is that just happening

in my ear do you hear a ringing noise well stop talking for a second i think it's my ear i think it's your ear too so that's what's new with me i'm currently having a ringing in my ear i also i haven't told them yet them either but i also um directed uh one of the founders of black lives matter elisa garza yeah some so it's just like and there's other cool people and she was just i don't know if you saw this other day but she was just uh hey other day i mean yesterday she was just trending on twitter because she called them vanilla isis because she said it on cnn and then everybody clipped it like isn't that the perfect name the perfect name because one we know that vanilla ice

is a trumper and then vanilla isis perfect the layers in that joke yes like you she said it on cnn just like straight lace and just kept going like it was nothing but you knew like you could see in her eye that she knew that she had did something she just dropped it yeah i need to go watch that clip that's fucking hilarious i'll send it to you oh my god i have to tell mox he's gonna die that's so funny wow wow wow wow should we get into the update okay so um I guess my original call was about me I just moved out with my boyfriend a few months ago and um I keep getting invitations to things from his family and also my family and I don't know how to say no because I'm a people pleaser. So I was just calling for some advice on how to say no. And you gave some

really great advice. Actually, you informed me more about the pandemic than our government has. So that really helped. But yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it. So what happened after, after you called? Like, what, what did you take? Did you, what did you guys, what'd you do? Did you talk with your boyfriend? Like, what happened after? Well, I had been talking about him or about him. I'd been talking with this to him, like about the whole situation. And he was kind of feeling the same way. We're both Virgos. So we're very similar in that. And we're not good at confrontation. So I was like, you know, I should just call them and like get some confirmation that I'm not insane. And then like, we'll go from there. his family hasn't really invited to us uh like invited us anywhere recently so I haven't listened to the podcast anything yeah maybe maybe um that would be a little awkward um but like I definitely agree with the advice that you gave me of just like setting that boundary now because outside

of the pandemic it's not it's going to be the same thing you know so uh I haven't really had to use my voice in that sense but if anything does come up I now feel more confident too I think I just needed you guys to like hype me up and be like yes it's okay we honestly feel like so I would say a good 50% of the calls are people just like is it okay if I do this like there it's a lot of it is just seeking permission and approval and like hyping up which is I think very very very accurate but his family taking the pandemic like scale from one to ten how seriously is his family taking the pandemic they're like out of five in the beginning they were really really strict about everything and then they

loosened up like they even went on vacation and we were like not down with that yeah we're like what the heck are you doing and then his dad came back and got covid so we're like uh are you gonna do something about this or are you gonna keep being silly you know they continue to be silly so we've kept our distance wow I really appreciated the the advice that you gave me about bubbles because I had no idea like I I've gotten so much conflicting information that I had no idea that just leaving your house to go to the grocery store breaks your bubble and definitely have done that a few times so I'm definitely reigning it in and it's also valid like that's the whole thing that like that's why we call it like essential travel in those kinds of things that

like people think that and like it's not a knock on you at all it's just something that like it is so true that a lot of people and also people get overwhelmed with information there's so much out there that like it can feel really daunting of like what to like believe and what to listen to especially because um our government is like it it's very capital things they release things and don't explain them and the thing is is that they've stopped using bubble if you if you look at any of the official things they don't use bubble anymore but they never explain why they don't use it because now it's households because they needed to specify that it's only people who you're living with and like who like that's a cool thing it's like oh the one person in a

couple designated um and again this is not like about we're not talking about jobs people leaving who have to have to leave because of like their work or anything like that uh but like one person in the household should be getting the groceries and like and even like Mott's and I are in Colorado now and like that's still what we do like there's like Mott's picks up groceries we do the the contactless delivery in the back of the car but he's the only person who goes like it's not his brother it's not like it's not a sister-in-law like he's the assigned person who goes and does all of that kind of stuff and it's it's hard for especially like older people to kind of understand that because it takes a while for them to get comfortable so they got comfortable bubbles

and then it becomes like that's what they rely on is like that term and this thing that they now it took them months to fucking they're finally understanding bubbles and it's like we've moved we've moved so far past all of that kind of stuff so but it's I'm glad that it was helpful and that it gave you guys validation because it's it can be really hard um especially because it's not it's not your parents that like when someone else's parent like people can feel an obligation to their parents and that also like oh well my parents are what i'm assuming more they're probably more uh i'm more considered high risk than i don't know if you you don't have to disclose either you or your partner's uh health history or anything like that or anything but like you're

I'm assuming his parents are like, obviously older than you guys and older than us. And so that's where, you know, comes like more people who should be the most careful based on like where their age are, what their pre existing conditions are, sometimes aren't. And then it can be hard to kind of try and tell other people how to be healthy for them. You know what I mean? And like making as opposed to making those choices for themselves, which we have to do at this point, but it's fucking hard yeah here's the call hi Megan and Melissa so okay this is probably not a question you ever expected getting but my question is how can I be more empathetic um I've been told by friends that I come off as very sociopathic but I know I'm not because I do

cry over books and movies and like things that happen to my friends and family for example I did Baldwin Archie's dad died in Riverdale? Yes, I know. I watched Riverdale because I was like, what if that's my dad? So I was like, well, maybe I'm narcissistic because I have a hard time making friends as I never want to go about asking them about their life. Really. I just want someone to care about me and ask me questions about how I am. I had a, I tried to use Bumble BMS BFS,

like at the beginning of the year before the pandemic. And I just had a hard time like connecting with anyone because I just got tired of like asking them questions. I wanted them to just talk to me about my day. So, yeah. And I feel awful about that, but I just simply feel like I don't care about other people as much as I should. I just feel like I don't take their, like, emotions into account, and I don't really know how to do that. I thought you two would be the perfect people to ask because I see how much you care about other people by your activism and the way you handle the pandemic.

Like, on the flip side of everything, I often find myself irritated when other people don't care about other people's feelings and don't take their feelings into association. So I'm kind of a hypocrite, too, because here I am asking people, like, why religious people are sad if someone dies since they go to heaven and they think heaven is so great. Yes, I actually asked my roommate that once, and she had to explain it to me because I didn't understand that that was, like, a rude thing to ask. And I often have to ask her, is this rude to ask someone before I do it? My former roommate. Now I live alone. I don't know why I said it like that. But, yeah, so if you could give me any tips or advice on how to take other people's feelings into account and stop being such a bitch, that would be great.

Also, I don't – because of the roommate thing, we're not living together because I'm – not because, like, she thinks I'm a bitch. But, P.S., I'm also a Leo. I was born one day after Megan, so I often think about you because we're almost perfect twins. But, yeah, that's my question. so you can give me some advice about how to not be a bitch and care about other people more just like starter tips I'd be really grateful thank you we're not shrinks and I think or therapists and I think the only people that can answer this question are therapists well because uh you said your friends refer to you as sociopathic um I can't tell you that you're not

But I can tell you from what I know about, I have a lot of personal experience with someone who is a diagnosed malignant narcissist, which has been speculated as being potentially sociopathic. From my, you don't, you do display empathy for, and you're able to put yourself in other people's shoes, like watching TVs and movies and stuff like that. And so we can't diagnose you with anything at all. I would say, though, that I think there might be a chance that you're a little narcissistic, but I think there also might be a chance you're just having a hard time reading social cues and interacting with other people and bonding on an emotional level. and the fact that you like asking your roommate if this is inappropriate to ask or not that also displays a lot of uh awareness of that and like checking in with that but if prior to that if you have experienced like any sort of like impulse control or something like that um you might want to i would just honestly go to a psychiatrist and have a discussion with them about this and like very much not saying this as like we're diagnosing you at all but we've had a call

somewhat similar to this and we had a don't blame them where someone called back and suggested this and i think it was so incredibly helpful um that this some of these that it you potentially maybe ask a psychiatrist um a psychologist about maybe potentially uh autism spectrum disorder that might it might totally like what you're describing i think i get what you're saying you're afraid that you're coming across like as a bitch and like you care only about yourself or whatever but i think if this is something that you've dealt with your whole life over and over and over again and it's a pattern that you're not um that's not necessarily changing person to person because like sometimes when you're having conversation with someone and i know if i don't

really want to ask someone about their lives or whatever i'm like i just don't really like this i'm not really bonding with this person like this just is not it like if i only want to talk about myself it's usually because the person i'm hanging out with is not that interesting but it's not that i don't find everybody it's not that i don't find anyone interesting do you know what i mean like sometimes it can be like person to person but i think if this is an overall thing that you're noticing then i think that there's absolutely uh i think you'll get the most clarity through a psychiatrist and even if a psychiatrist is like you just might be narcissistic that's something that therapy can also really really really help with i read an article in the new york times

a couple months ago sent it to you um about uh a woman who is a diagnosed sociopath and it was about how her relationship with her husband and her kid and like therapy and just her whole experience and it's wildly wildly interesting um and i will i'll send that to melissa so we can include that in the show notes too that i think that there's i mean we have like a certain youtuber who did a profile on another youtuber with a lot of psychological terms which katie morton was very great at like interjecting with you know not diagnosing and all of that kind of stuff i think people can use certain words as like descriptors and insults which are actually like medical diagnosed like conditions um and so yeah talk to i talk to a professional about this because

i think you obviously display sign you you can display empathy but it's just not necessarily in the situations where it sounds like you want to or understand why that's something that doesn't come naturally to you like it's not necessarily something you need to fix about yourself i think it's just something to like understand more about yourself and see why it is and if there is something that you can do that makes you feel better about it yeah i agree and if you want to talks to somebody and don't want to hear back what's going on in their life they're a piece of perfect place i was gonna say or start a youtube channel just talk to a camera all the time you know um i would also you seem to be taking what your friends say really like without any

sort of offense at all um but if that that would hurt my feelings if my friends like said that in a way that like wasn't but I guess I also don't know their tone if uh yeah I'm not I mean I'm also not a fan of people using psychological terms as adjectives um so in those situations if I mean I would I would let your friends know that like hey this is like I I hear you what you're saying but like that's i'm not diagnosed with that that's not an adjective and yeah i would prefer we didn't speculate if you are you know yeah that always gives me the x but it doesn't it didn't sound like it gave you the x which is fine but yeah again really not trying to diagnose or speculate or anything like that but i think this is a great time you seem like you really want to figure this

kind of stuff out and i think if we can spend more time focusing on why we do the things that we do and like the origin of them versus just trying to fix them like blanket statement wise um i think that would be really helpful yeah to understanding yourself more okay should we go on to the next yeah hi megan and melissa i hope you're doing well love the podcast um all right he thinks short I'm just going to jump in. So I was dating this guy briefly for about a week. And then, but we saw each other like four times within that time span.

And, but I noticed that he gave me a fake name and was married and had the kid. I ended up confronting him about it, but somehow he managed to convince me that he was divorced by showing me like these digital, like divorce papers that can honestly be Photoshopped. and that he wanted me in his life and all of these things and he was making a huge effort and whatnot. So I just gave him the benefit of the doubt and I gave him a second shot.

Big mistake. We ended up spending a lot of time together. He was sleeping over like more than once a week and I spent his birthday with him and even took him like took time off of work to go on a long weekend trip with him. this was all within like a month and a half time span um but he ended up breaking up with me like right after that trip um through a voice note which was super contradictory in a lot of ways but

looking back honestly like the whole relationship was super toxic and very manipulative and very much on his terms and it's just and he continues to text me sometimes like going like I miss you and all of these things. It's just very manipulative. At this point, I've just kind of ignored his messages and now I've actually blocked him because I do not need that in my life. And I'm very happy with that being done with.

But the real reason why I'm calling is that the day he broke up with me, I actually noticed that his ex-wife, or what I thought was his ex-wife, had posted a series of pictures for fall and one of them included his hand pointing at his ring finger with leaves on the ground um and he honestly gave me no reason to believe him or trust him so I'm not even going to try to justify and say like oh it might be

an old picture or something no I definitely think he is married now um and but what I'm conflicted on is whether or not he was cheating on his wife or not I I don't know if it's if if he is cheating I feel like a responsibility to reach out and tell her because I know I would want to know if my partner was cheating on me or if my husband was cheating on me. But I also know just like based on her social media, I know she deals with depression. So I think morally I want to tell her, not because I'm trying to get this man back, but it's more of he should know the full picture. But I also worry about my personal safety because he knows where I live and I live alone. so I think I'm a little concerned about this backfiring on me so any help would be useful I think if you're concerned with your personal safety then that's what you should prioritize

and don't do anything yeah until you said that I was like tell her but if you're concerned with your personal safety I think there's also a reason that she would be concerned for her personal safety and so i don't think that not telling her will hurt if you're afraid for your safety i think not telling her will also help her safety yeah but the whole thing is awful and what a manipulator trap don't believe men yeah just like don't like this these stories of these things that are like oh well blah blah blah i can't like if your fucking man speaks so much shit about an ex and like talks about how awful and crazy she is and all of that kind no no if you can't take any

sort of responsibility and that stuff like you could talk about a toxic relationship but if you like place blame on someone and like all that kind of shit like i just i can't i mean i think like this will inevitably blow up in his face but you have to like we said you have to prioritize your safety first and like i as we always say with these kinds of things like you have to do what you would want someone if what you what you would want to happen if you were on the other side of it and i get how that can probably feel really frustrating for you because you would want to know and you would want to tell them but like you have to put yourself in her shoes in the same way that you're you'd be afraid for your safety that like

that's the priority yeah and i think you should block her on social media too and stop looking at her stuff yeah i just what did he oh that makes me so sad because like obviously sad for you but it's manipulating someone that you've like been married to like all that like as a child with like how do you like he could have told you on his birthday that he couldn't hang do you mean that like it would have been so much less suspicious but like that's someone who like gets off on that that like you were spending all this time with him like around his birthday and going away and doing all of that shit when like he doesn't have that obligation to you but he has that obligation to his wife and the mother of his child that poor fucking woman must be so like

unless she knows but like if he's this manipulative and shit with you i'm gonna bet it's not like a very okay and consensual open relationship um also like he gave you a fake name you already figured that out so like did you ask him about the fake name or did you continue just to call him by his fake name even though you knew that's who he was wait when did you find out about the fake name it seemed like it was pretty early on because she said they um what'd you say she said that she said she said that she found out about the name and uh that he lied but then he somehow manipulated her to get back together this man is a serial killer if someone can convince you after you find out that they've been using a fake name ma'am you dated ted bundy

like that's terrifying like not a knock on you in the sense of like because obviously like you know you've you've got this clarity now of being like wow holy shit but like someone who is able to manipulate you into being like yeah that was my fake name but like we're still gonna date that's terrifying that's so fucking scary yeah see if it was me no that's a lie if i lived in this city that you lived in i would just i not you i megan as someone who is excuse me someone who has he has no idea who i am i would fucking stalk that shit figure out what he's doing i'm not suggesting for you to do that i'm just saying if you live in um not now but in a couple months if he lives in los angeles area let me know i will follow him with my car there

is no way he's not like doing i think he's a serial killer people fake name fake divorce papers you don't do i mean holy shit if you just do that to sleep with women you must you must be bringing absolutely nothing in the bedroom right so when when you confronted him about the fake name because you confronted him about the fake name about having a kid about being divorced he showed you this like just miraculously have his divorce papers on his phone and showed them to yeah and showed it to him maybe you know lawyer sent it via email i don't know doc you signed yeah but like he had that but what was his reasoning for a fake name i can get a guess and we need an update call so you need to call us back so we can talk about this I am going to guess that

it was I'm my ex is so crazy I have been so nervous like she just like she attacked me I've been fearful for my life like I I just needed to know that I could trust you because that's where the manipulation comes in that you've won now knowing my real name and then when he pulled up his divorce papers did you check to see what name was on the papers yeah did you zoom in did he hand you the phone or did he flash it to you or did he offer to show it to you and that that i mean that's that's one of the oldest tricks in the book i'll show you you don't have a shit you just know that me thinking that you're saying that i'm like oh well he's definitely telling the truth i've got the divorce paper right here

like here it is you know they do the little half flash maybe he google searched it also what I want to know and again when you give us an update we're not going to include it obviously I want to know what the fake name he used was and then I want to know what the real name was and are we even sure

that that one was his real name right that's why I was asking about the divorce papers but if his like wife is on is she tagging him in things because how else did you find her true well i mean you could hey it's us you don't need to be tagged i know but i'm just i know but i'm

just saying if uh he would have like if he's in the photo or like if she gave if he gave her the real name that's how he was she was able to like follow the steps to find the wife that's true that's true that's true because like if he just kept going with the fake name and how did you find out that he had a it was his fake name i just have questions about his name so many I also really want to know what it was. Yeah, call us back with an update, please. Wow, okay. We're going to take a quick break, guys, and we'll be right back.

Okay, we are back from our break, and let's get into the rest of the calls. Hi, Megan and Melissa. But I am a 22-year-old turning 23 girl that lives alone in Los Angeles, which doesn't really scare me. I'm pretty independent. I'm an Aquarius, so I'm used to being, like, super independent on my own. And I've never been freaked out by living alone until this week. So on my doorstep were three gifts individually wrapped with no note, no name on them, nothing to indicate who they were from or what. And so I opened them up thinking it was from my building manager or my landlord or something.

And inside were two books. I'm looking at them right now. One of them says 52 questions for relationships. The other one says me, you, us, a book to fill out together. and that one is a drawing of a girl and a guy like hand drawn in and then there was also a crystal I practice witchcraft so I use crystals a lot but it's so weird like I don't have anybody that left these here for me I called everyone I know I called my landlord and was like this is weird there was no note left here and like it's making me uncomfortable and weird like how does this

person know that I use crystals or what and so I had to check the cameras and then he tells me that the cameras weren't working like hello am I going to be murdered or something and then when the police come they don't have any cameras and he sent out an email to all of the tenants to see if they knew anything and no one has responded and the whole situation just kind of put me on edge a little bit and made me a little bit uncomfortable and I don't know if I should reach out to my landlord again and be like one for sure get the camera fixed please but also I don't know if I feel safe living in this building and my lease is coming up I don't know it's just I need advice on what I should do or any other tactics to just feel safer I have bars

on all of my windows and i work from home and i like never leave besides to like go to the grocery store so i oh i don't know it just put me in a weird headspace and i would love some advice um yeah anyways thank you so this is the third woman from the last call he's a fucking serial killer oh my god are you sure it was for you did the drawing look like you because that is a good question yeah do you know who lived in the building before you um because i mean like crystals i feel like every other gal in la is into crystals so like them leaving a crystal isn't like a red flag for me but like um are you are you absolutely sure it's for you here's the thing though it doesn't really matter

if it's like whoever this is for he's stalking whoever this is for it's inappropriate and scary and sketchy unless it was somebody that like was supposedly expecting it like what if like somebody like they left it at the wrong place let's say no card let's say like it was like a task rabbit thing like they hired somebody to go drop it off and they accidentally dropped it off at the same at the wrong place and like the person who actually like it was meant for they had the they it was like text it like hey um i just had somebody drop off something for you and then it didn't happen because it went to the wrong place but i i do like that as the option i like that as an option i don't know i don't know but i just want to give you like a like a little bit

because she asked how she could feel like a little bit more comfortable maybe it wasn't meant for you yeah um i'm gonna give you an action list first thing you do you do tell your landlord you need to get these camera fixed or i'm gonna report you you have to do this immediately um and i need to this needs to be done with and then i need to see this like once these are done um and in the interim i need the names and contact information for every person who lives in this building and then email that to me give that you can't do that he if he can't give but he has you can't give the name and contact information of everybody lives in the building you can't do that she's not on any of these so he she but she has that's the thing that's like so fucking frustrating with

this which I don't doubt that like you're basically at the at whatever your landlord tells you he's going to do so him saying I'm gonna email them and do all of that so maybe it's I oh if you know anyone who lives in the building who knows anyone else who lives in the building if there's a way that you can through the people there that you know and trust kind of compile a list of people or um and find out who lived there before you put up a picture of the drawing of the man that's in the picture because that might be the sketch like a police drawing it's really it's a stick figure oh my god but no this is this is so fucking crazy and yeah i you should move you should 100 move even if it is a fluke and it's

not it wasn't meant for you and it was meant for someone who knew it was coming and it was like not a creepy thing at all um there's also like if I sent a gift that could be mistaken as creepy I would follow up so often with my friend until they got it and if they didn't get it I would then figure out what went wrong and pick up the present or COVID nobody's gonna want to come pick it up because of COVID but at the very least I would have been like where did you drop it off and then i would have left a note and been like i'm so sorry i dropped a gift off here that was meant for somebody else like not even asking for it back just like for that but i think i mean i know um listen keep lights on when you go to sleep if that makes you feel better um maybe insert a

ring so you have your own camera um get one of those um they're on tiktok i've seen but i mean they're not on i saw it first on tiktok but uh they're like rings and apartment lock system there's rings but then there's also like apartment uh lock systems that you can do that are like safer and more secure for like apartment buildings that like don't affect you don't have to reinstall anything you're talking about that thing that you put on yeah i bought one doesn't fit my door oh really yeah fuck it sucks yeah it doesn't fit my front or back door damn well if you can measure yours yeah and i mean if you slide into my dms i will send you mine it would be there in a day because it's sitting in a box i'm serious like i'll send it

and if it works for you then it works for you yeah and you're la based so like i'm saying like yeah yeah if there's like i also i would if you can think of not to criminal minds this but if you can think of people that you've gone on a singular date with someone that you rejected someone that you're blah blah any of that kind of stuff if you can kind of make that list and try and narrow it down and aside from it sounds like you've done the list of all of the friends who could have sent it to you. If you can go down the list of people who wouldn't that, that you're not considering a friend that you wouldn't really think anything necessarily of someone who's maybe had a crush on you for a really long time or someone at, um, anywhere. But I would also say,

um, I, again, I come from a place of absolute paranoia all the time and, uh, watching too many crime shows switch up the grocery stores you go to take different routes when you drive home um and make sure your friends she's working from home she's not going anywhere yeah but from the from the grocery store like switch up those things be aware of your um surroundings and if you do you said you do live alone if you have another friend who lives alone and is also working from home maybe crash at their place and stay there and don't expand anymore but if it was and this is the only people like we're only giving this advice for because she's in la you're not supposed to be with anybody outside your house but like this is only like dire need because this might

be an emergency type of advice don't want other people to take the advice and no with it and also i'm as someone with mental health issues i'm not giving that advice to someone who has mental health issues like no that's physical health killing people is also going to affect your mental health like yeah but in this case if you have someone who is is is doing the version of what you are doing and then only one of you will go get groceries or one of you do i mean like we'll do a lot of stuff like you consolidate um yes do that and then uh just to be i mean yeah i i think you you do need to really like be very stern with your landlord too about this and look for a new apartment um and all of that but if you have any like if you need any

apartment still open yeah move into her building she'll protect you my freaking neighbor dolores knows everybody that comes in and out of here you will not need you would not like need to worry about anything because she knows everybody that she knows melissa's packages she knows what melissa receives in her clothes packages she's on top of it yeah but if you need any sleuthing help or anything please feel free to um reach out to us i'm always happy to do some internet deep diving um because this is yes an unsettling feeling yeah but yeah tell your friends and your family and don't downplay like the Jamie like there is a level of like not succumbing to those anxieties because it's debilitating and really scary and that's how I

think you should live your life like at your daily I don't think you should I think you should do whatever you can to make yourself feel comfortable in your apartment and not think about it all of the time but I do think you need to have a serious conversation with your friends and family and not downplay it and send pictures of everything that was sent to you um and all of that so then they're just like well informed um but this is terrifying time for the last call yeah hey Megan and Melissa I hope you are both well I am 18 and a Gemini so basically in August 2019 my mom asked my dad for a divorce it was quite a toxic relationship my mom can be a bit of a bit of a Karen and my dad can be quite controlling manipulative especially as it earns a lot of money stereotypical white

rich middle-aged guy basically. Anyway around the same time I was getting quite ill with anorexia and my dad made some really damaging comments about my eating disorder and it got to the point it was so bad that my therapist told him he had to move out in February 2020 otherwise I was going to be put in hospital. He moved out even though my mum had been asking for a while anyway and about two weeks later we went into full lockdown in the UK because of how ill I was I was on bed rest and we were shielding we weren't allowed to go out the house anyone in our family anyway in April my mum sat me down at the table and I knew something was off I'd felt the vibes for a while and she told me that she'd met a guy in July of 2019 at a club and he'd confessed he had feelings

for her she'd met up with him secretly a few times oh and he is 28 so 20 years younger than her and lives three hours away I felt really confused at this and didn't really know what to do um especially she's still married to my dad and still is today anyway she then told me a few weeks later that she needed a break from my brother and I um me especially and I understood that um and she was going to go stay with him basically even though we were in the middle of a lockdown and none of my family were meant to leave the house anyway I knew she needed a break but still felt very like reserved about this like not sure what to do she and we're meant to be hiding this from my dad by the way she's since then seen him several times he she's even brought him to the house despite

the fact that I've said very clearly that I feel very uncomfortable with him being here whenever she talks about him it's quite awkward because she knows I don't want to hear it but like he's clearly a big part of her life I really just don't like the guy which I think is I don't know if it's unfair or not but I just get bad vibes from him she says that he's never going to replace my brother and I but I don't expect that it's just the fact that she's breaking lockdown so many times blaming it basically on my illness even though I'm doing a lot better now and saying that she needs to break I understand that because she'd not do it somewhere else anyway every time we argue now it just kind of gets brought up and I feel very awkward about it she just says when

she needs a break we're in another lockdown right now she wants to go and see let's call him Tom and I'm just like if you if it's so hard to live with my brother and I why don't you just go and live with him I don't say that but it's causing a lot of resentment on my behalf and I'm slowly trying to build the relationship back with my dad anyway any advice on how I should approach this my mom and if i'm in the right or wrong would be really helpful thanks so she's a bit of a karen she's a bit of a karen i love your accent i love your accent so much i love your accent i want to ursula steal your voice i just i'm sorry i've never heard a british person use the term karen and just like a bit of a carrot i made you irish in that are you irish no you're british

definitely british i made you irish in my um she lives in the uk well some parts of ireland are in the uk not all of them true i learned that when i went well i had hold on before you start you've a joke too so when he said that he wasn't going to replace you guys was it like as a sibling as her son thank you thank you that was my runner up that was my runner up like that's not what like I guess that people say something kind of like that but that usually like I've seen that in like movies but that usually happens when they're marrying someone who has other kids yeah and it's like this family won't replace my family but him being like don't worry i won't replace you guys

and well you're fucking our mom and that's not something we do yeah wow your mom is being reckless as fuck because you are high risk and she's just leaving and coming back and going with this dude all the time and bringing him back to the house that is just irresponsible and disgusting and rude and uncalled for as a mother yeah um i understand that she's going through a hard time but we all are uh and she's risking your health to do it um and does like i know that your parents aren't divorced but um like they're i mean he moved out they're clearly not together they're not separated so like her being like dating someone else doesn't really bother me that much is the fact that she's

risking your life to do it yeah I do wonder though uh if it's easier for you to be mad at this guy than it is for you to be mad at your mom because you have a lot of empathy for your mom when your mom doesn't really have that for you and that's a really like sad thing to say and a very hard thing to hear but you being aware that your mom is going through a hard time because of COVID And then also because her daughter was just hospitalized and is in recovery. She's having a hard time because you're having a hard time and that's you're cutting her slack for that. And she's not recognizing that she's dealing with this in a way different way than you are. and she's like blaming you for all of this stuff and like making you question like your recovery

when you and like even you having the ability despite your mom being in your ear telling like get talking shit even after that you still having the ability to recognize that you are like making progress and like you are like working at that like that's that's like very remarkable and really impressive. But like, I think this sounds like you've had your dad was shit for a long time. And your mom was your rock. And now your dad's not around. And because now your mom's kind of a shit. And I think that's fucking hard. That's really, really hard to deal with but I think it's okay to be mad and it's okay to be angry and like you don't you don't have to kind of stomach that like if you like want to be like I'm pissed at you say I'm pissed at

you like you don't have to do this like internal monitoring and essentially parenting of this I'm gonna check my emotions and I'm not gonna talk about how I feel because I'm taking into account how she's feeling and I'm just gonna swallow this and I'm gonna deal with this she's not doing that and that's not helping either of you i think you need to say how you feel and when and make your stance clear you've said you've made it abundantly clear that you do not like that he's there and i don't know what your relationship is like with your brother maybe this is something where when this dude comes around you and your brother like you ask your mom you're like hey give us we need a schedule we need to know when he's going to come get a mini fridge

for your room like have it so like you're staying you're not going out into a common space like you and your brother on top of it and you can kind of prepare for when this dude is arriving even though they're breaking quarantine and it's like very unsafe like if you can stay in your room um you've got food you've got uh like tv you've got stuff to do you have something so you can make a safe place for you so you feel safe and comfortable you should feel safe and comfortable in your own home but if you can't at that time making it so your room is and um so you have your brother and you guys can if you guys are close but having someone who you guys can like who you can talk to about this because yeah it's frustrating and also you have every right not to like like the

dude that's allowed you're very allowed to he's being reckless too yeah and weird like fucking weird and like i'm just like they met at a club i know it's like imagining her mom going to the club like abitha was it even like at 28 i think going to the club is old wait that's actually my thought process was you met a 28 year old at a club and i go oh wait she's not even 28 like i'm thinking like a 28 year old at a club but like she went to the club as maybe different culture it's different but doubt it because no this is this is shit and this is also like i'm so mad for you that like you are going through recovery in a fucking panoramic and like a pandemonium you're in a

you're in a panda express going through recovery and like this is like so the fact that you you're like i this just pisses me off because like regardless of how long this is how much of a process this has been for you and how much of a journey have all of this has kind of been for you like i don't fucking care i don't fucking care if your mom is fucking tired i don't fucking care like your fucking kid yeah and your fucking kid needs you and needs you at the bare minimum to not be fucking reckless with their health that's the bare fucking minimum and you can't even fucking do that like that it just pisses me the fuck off that you're putting the work in in recovery and doing this and like that your parents your dad historically was not supportive and like

was shitty and then now your mom's being shitty and like do i want to say that i relate yes but like i just it just makes me upset and like it's you you it's about finding those things that you can do in the moment that can make every day go by smoother and make you feel seen and heard and make you feel as safe as you can feel hello guys my name is welcome to don't blame no um don't blame them is where a listener will calling with their own advice from a previous episode. So they heard something

and they were like, Ayo, that applies to my life. I've been there. Or they're just like, Ayo, I've opinions. I've got opinions. Guess what I have? An asshole and also an opinion.

So this one here is from season seven, episode two, where the gal, she had just had a baby and now she's been having sex dreams about her partner's brother.

Her brother-in-law. There's an easier way to say that. I couldn't remember if they were married i couldn't remember i don't think that matters i thought it was because it's not technically your brother-in-law if you're not married i guess that's true all right here we go hi megan and melissa um i'm calling to give advice for the most recent episode the woman who is having sex dreams about her husband's brother um i don't have experience

having sex dreams about my husband's brother, but I do have experience with intrusive thoughts. And I think even though that's not an intrusive thought, if she wants to apply some of the strategies I've learned to deal with intrusive thoughts, to deal with her dreams, I think it would be really helpful. So the way to deal with intrusive thoughts that's been most helpful for me is you simply do not engage with them. You just let them float on past you. Like you don't wrestle with them. You don't think, oh, that's not how I feel. Where did that come from? That's so messed up. You just, they happen and nothing. You don't engage with them. You don't think, you just let them float on past you. So I think if she wants to deal with her dreams that way, it would be

really helpful. So like if she has a dream about her husband's brother, she wakes up and she doesn't think, oh, I'm not attracted to him. Why is this? This is so messed up. She just wakes up, has the dream she's like okay and just let it float on past her because it's not it's not real it's not representative and the more you try to wrestle with it the more present it will be in her mind so I actually think if she like goes to bed actively trying not to think about it that it will make it worse like that's at least that's how intrusive thoughts can work and I know that these aren't necessarily intrusive thoughts but just my two cents so thank you have a good day i think that's good advice yeah it also not something i would ever think to apply

you mean like to this that it does make sense so good on you for making that connection that they might be similar in that way yeah thanks i have nothing to add that was great thank you well guys that's the end of our episode that's the end of the episode melissa and i've been recording for so many hours how many hours four and a half four and a half hours and i also got ready an hour early because i thought it was an hour earlier um well we hope you enjoyed this episode if you did leave us a review head on over to the podcast app um we do read them and it is always nice when the first one i read is not one star being like this libtard blah blah actually it's usually more of like so cringe

they like uh don't they don't agree with anybody that has different opinions from them that's literally what when you have a different opinion from someone you don't agree oh my gosh definition shocked just get ready they like hate all republicans and like they think like all republicans and white people are racist so like it's just not an inclusive environment for me somebody who like doesn't see color and just loves everybody because jesus told me to i'm jizzing on you and like not in a nice way like as if i had a dick if you want to call in for an upcoming episode you can leave a voicemail at 310-694-0976 and international listeners you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com again 18 or over or your parents

permission and keep it under three minutes write it down practice all that stuff and um follow us on instagram don't blah meme pod also our own individuals and check out the patreon we have um all of our videos that live there now it's only a dollar a month it's so affordable and it helps us continue to do this show because as you can tell um we are not a part of barstool sports so we do not have millions of dollars oh god um uh oh yeah patreon we also do live streams twice a month uh five dollars really fun it's literally just like a zoom us all hanging out talking about random shit um and just having a good time and we love that community and we um we love you guys and we appreciate you uh stay golden pony boy and wear a mask stay inside don't kill anybody you fucking

murderers goodbye don't stop with your fucking tooth no it's too sexual stop it i'm not looking i'm not looking end the episode i'm turning my mic off goodbye bye guys i'll see you later i'll see you later i love you so much goodbye don't blame me is a production by me executive produced by melissa de monts edited by katrina henning and music by ryan hunter and giacomo picasso