Duncan Trussell Family Hour - Emily V. Gordon

Episode Date: August 24, 2016

Emily Gordon (Super You, Do You Think You're Pretty,) Joins the DTFH and we talk about her work as a clinician, an illness that helped shape her POV, and how to pick a good therapist.  This episode brought to you by SQUARESPACE.COM Go to squarespace.com and use offer code Duncan to get 10% off of your first order.

Hello, sweet friends. It's me, Duncan, and you are listening to the Duncan Trestle Family Hour podcast, and I'm having what we used to call in the oil industry a champagne problem. I've got a bunch of great podcasts, and I can't pick which one to release. So I'm just gonna do it chronologically,

but Jesus fucking Christ, if I've been having some incredible conversations with some beautiful human beings. I've got four podcasts under my belt, four of them vibrating like the Ark of the Covenant and some dusty government warehouse. I just wanna open it up and let those sweet face melting angels fly into your waxy ear holes

and melt the faces off any of those aspects of your personality that are giving you a low grade incarnation. Because come on, let's face it. This thing we're all experiencing right now, even when it sucks, it's pretty amazing. And that's a blasphemous thing to say. I know many of you out there

don't necessarily believe it when I say that. And many of you might say, yeah, sure. Maybe for you, everything feels like heaven. You inherited half a billion dollars from your grandfather. You've never experienced want, hunger, sadness, tragedy, catastrophe, or any problem at all in your life. You're sponsored by Monsanto. You're still making money from some of those oil fields

that you own overseas. And I tell you this, friends, it is true, I am a multi-billionaire who's never experienced want, sadness, suffering. I've never experienced hunger. I don't know what that's like. Sometimes I read about it in books where the protagonist or the antagonist

might describe themselves as being hungry. And I think to myself, I don't even know what that's like. I have food that is constantly shoved into my mouth by legions of erotic servants wearing ballerina outfits, men and women alike who, using a neurological scanning device that's attached to my third eye, immediately know when I'm hungry and come to me and spoon food into my mouth.

Not only that, but I take perfumed baths with lavender and honey. And my nipples are regularly softened, moistened, pulled, tugged, expanded, and iced down by trained doctors and clinicians who live in the sub-basements of my home. I don't know what it is to have insomnia. When I go to sleep, there is a trained anesthesiologist,

not like the one Michael Jackson had, but an actual government-level, MK Ultra-style anesthesiologist who puts me under. And as I'm sleeping, they open up my eyes and drip chamomile tincture into my eyes ensuring that I only have pleasant dreams. I've never had a nightmare. My dreams are filled with angels,

bars of gold, warm mud baths, and a never-ending string of beautiful angelic beings that I copulate with until I wake in the morning and a group of children throw flower petals on my bed and a bugler softly bugles a happy hymn to me. The children acquire, sing to me, and I'm just gonna play you a sample of the beautiful music that I wake up to

every single morning in my Bavarian mansion where I'm currently recording the intro to this podcast. You are beautiful no matter what they say. Words can't bring you down. You are beautiful no matter the same way. That's enough, get out of here, get the fuck out of here. They sing about gratitude and the importance of life, the importance of understanding that this world

and this incarnation is a precious, precious thing that we should all appreciate regardless of our current situation. When they're done singing, I have them dropped into an industrial-sized blender and I drink a delicious smoothie. Nothing tastes quite like an inspirational child's choir after a night of wonderful dreams.

After that, I'll spend a few moments gazing from my balcony upon the Bavarian forests. Wherein lay the hidden cathedrals of some lost and ancient religion, cathedrals that contain within them the skin, flesh, teeth, and heads of saints like John the Baptist. But you don't need any of this

to experience true happiness. Really, all you need is the present moment because that's all anyone has. In fact, that's all that actually exists. And some of my friends who are in the Illuminati have told me again and again and again that the only weapon they truly possess is the ability to distract the human population

from realizing that they are always sitting in the middle of the Garden of Eden, the present moment, the Garden of Eden, the place that cannot be bought with gold, silver, skulls, blood, or bones, a place that you have earned simply by incarnating in this wonderful dimension. Now, if you'll excuse me,

I have to go resuscitate Bono again. We've got a great podcast for you today. We're gonna jump right into it, but first, some quick business. This episode of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour Podcast is brought to you by my patrons over at squarespace.com. Go to squarespace.com and start building a beautiful website today.

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where you can have a monthly, depending on how much toilet paper you need, monthly toilet paper delivered to your door. Look, I live in Los Angeles, so anything that keeps me out of that dark river of numb humans surrounded by goddamn metal, oh, good Christ, Lord, fuck, man, shit. Nobody wants to go into traffic, man,

and especially to go into traffic to buy some boring ass fucking shit that you just need because you happen to be a soul trapped in a human body like a dolphin net to have to drive to a goddamn store through 45 minutes of shit fucking traffic just because you have to buy stuff that you require to tend to the embarrassing combination of molecules

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that instead of spending this precious human incarnation engaged in acts of hedonism, love making, education, or even, dare I say, selfless service to our fellow man, we are spending our life energy inhaling fumes on these concrete river beds as we drive to get halls or hemorrhoid cream down at the local chain store. Fuck that, man, go through my Amazon portal and you will have these wonderful,

yet embarrassing necessities delivered right to your door in a nice brown box that you can open up and immediately smear those creams and oils on your body and get in your car to drive to a local park or the gym or a museum or a bar or your heroin dealer or wherever you go to experience the finger of Jesus as it touches your heart. Don't spend your life in a chain store.

Go through my Amazon portal, won't you? We also have a shop located at dunkintrestle.com. We've got t-shirts, posters. We just ordered some enamel pens and we are going to restock the entire store. Some of our stuff is sold out. So if you want some Dunkintrestle family hour paraphernalia to show your DTFH colors to your fellow meat buddies,

why won't you go to our shop? And finally, dear friends, we have updated the forum. This is, I don't talk about it as much as I should, but one of my favorite places to hang out on the internet, just underneath Reddit, is the forum located at dunkintrestle.com. I'm not going to call it my forum because it isn't my forum. It's just a community of really interesting, cool,

smart people who hang out online. Some of the guests from past episodes are on there and just a lot of really cool people are on there. So if you want to experiment with going to an online forum, why not give us a shot? It's pretty cool, man, it really is. If you've got some idea that you want to develop some question that you're having, or who knows,

maybe you want to see if you can connect with other folks who listen to this podcast. The DTFH forum is the place to go. Go to dunkintrestle.com and click on the forum link and it'll take you right there. Today's guest is an author and clinician who has written an amazing book called Super You. She also has a wonderful blog that I occasionally visit.

Not enough. I'd probably be happier if I spent more time there called Do You Think You're Pretty? It's at emilyvgordon.tumblr.com. She's also on Twitter. She is a wonderful soul who shared a lot of wisdom with me during this brief conversation that we had. I wish it could have been longer.

So now everybody, please welcome to the Dunkintrestle Family Hour podcast, Emily Gordon. ["Welcome, Welcome to the Dunkin' Donuts!" by Emily Gordon plays in the background.] ["Welcome, welcome to the Dunkin' Donuts!" by Emily Gordon plays in the background.] Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming all the way up here. No problemoos, it's beautiful. Coming, thank you.

Yeah. Thanks a lot. I like Pasadena a lot. Where are you? What party time are you? Los Feliz. Oh, yeah. It's beautiful air too.

It's great, but it's not as secluded. You're in a full-on seclusion sitch. This is a seclusion sitch. Coyotes at night, howling. My neighbor is like kind of, she's very sweet, but she's a little obsessed with the coyotes eating our dogs. So whenever I- They're very small.

They're very small. But it's one of those things where every time I see her, our topic that we always go to, she's like, I heard the coyotes last night, and I thought, oh God, they ate one of your dogs. Oh, so she's like fully anticipating that your dogs are already being consumed. By the time she sees you, she thinks you're in mourning.

Every single time she sees you. I have to reassure her and say, oh, they're fine. They've not been eating. Look at them. Yeah, look there. I'm walking, I'm walking them, they're right here. So, wow, you are a very busy person. I can be, yes.

But you are doing, you do a lot, you do a lot. You are a producer. You have, I don't know the right word for it, and so forgive me if this is not the right word. An advice blog? Is it therapy blog? I would say an advice blog. I think that's the best way to put it, yeah.

Yeah, an advice blog, and you've written this amazing book, which is, and I want to talk about all of it. Okay. But in particular, what I really like about your book, do you know much about chaos magic? You know, oddly, I do know a bit, because I dated a guy who was a chaos magician when I was in North Carolina.

What was it, was his name Raven? His name was Tom. Oh. Oddly, yeah, he didn't, yeah. And I think the thing that he had joined was maybe not the most legitimate thing, but they all lived together in a trailer. And so I knew a little bit just from going to visit him.

But he moved to a trailer in South Carolina, and then we kind of fell out. I like the idea about, I like the idea that you don't have to worship a thing that is mythologically factual, if that makes sense. In other words, you don't have to tune into the symbols. Yeah. They did the world religions have chosen.

Yeah. You can pick. You can do whatever you want. Anything you want. Absolutely. I've got a friend who taught me about it, who praised a Batman. And that's his deity of choice.

That's his deity of choice. And the way he explained it to me, which I thought was really quite brilliant, is take Ganesh, the Eastern Elephant God. How much do you know about Ganesh, really? Were you raised with Ganesh? When you grew up, did you see Ganesh everywhere? And your parents told you the story of Ganesh?

Or more than likely, you run into Ganesh at a New Age bookstore? Or at a restaurant. At a restaurant. There he is. You think that looks cool. Maybe in college, you learn that this is the decapitated child of Shiva whose head was replaced with an elephant.

But then, when have you seen an elephant? How often? Right? Every symbol attached to the symbol is. Far from you. Far from you. Yeah. So the idea is, but Batman.

We got him. He's everywhere. He's everywhere. We got canon. We don't even know the Ganesh canon at all. At all. We have no idea who's played him. We have no idea what the little suits, different suits,

meant and what they wore. And if they had nipples or not, we got nothing. Nothing. But we know a lot about Batman. Exactly. That's interesting. So that's, and the idea is like, yeah, no shit. Is there really a decapitated deity whose head has been

replaced with an elephant that lives in some ethereal kingdom? Come on. Most likely not. The odds are, slip. It doesn't live in a physical realm, right? Very slim. I mean, infinite universe, multiverse theory, at that point, maybe everything's happening.

Fine. But then we've got other fish to fry. Other fish to fry. I'm not concerned. A lot of other things are real. In that case that we need to start dealing with. So it's really a brilliant concept. And how does that idea connect with your book?

I do think, I kind of started thinking about, I wanted to write a self-help book, and I was trying to. I was kind of talking with my publisher about different frameworks for it. And I've always been kind of really into any kind of narrative, any kind of story, any kind of fictional story. This could be Harry Potter.

This could be anything. But those things always kind of spoke to me more so than the stories I was supposed to take very, very seriously and the stories I was supposed to memorize and sing songs about the Methodist Church I was raised in. So I kind of like that superheroes are this idealized version of ourselves. But one, an idealized version that has flaws

and that we allow them to have flaws. And I thought that was kind of cool because the idea that you're working towards being the best version of yourself but that you are still kind of flawed and that you have to be okay with that and figure out ways to make those flaws work for you. That's true for superheroes

and I think it should be true for us too. So that's kind of where the idea came from. So a lot of religious figures don't have, we don't get to see what their flaws are. Like maybe Jesus farted a bunch. Like we have no idea. Like we don't really get to hear that stuff as much. And so yeah, that's where that came from.

And so I really kind of like the idea that you could just pick a deity of your own and go to town. Yeah, and it's that, this is something I think about the secret damage that TV does to people by- Oh, I think of this all the time. Because you know, from like, I don't know what you think of them.

It doesn't really, I have a small opinion about it, but not much, but like take any host, Jimmy Fallon, Bill O'Reilly, name most of them. And you see this flawless being. And if there are flaws, they're flaws that have been carefully chosen. They're adorable flaws. Exactly, right?

And so this gives the impression to the whole world, here's what health looks like. Yeah, here's what the best version of you could be. Right, well-dressed and someone who really doesn't change over time. Not at all, that's right. Doesn't seem to go through anything. Yeah, not to mention that they're all white men.

So like, then you're like, oh, I guess a white man is what I'm supposed to be aiming for. That, yeah, that over and over and over again. Secretly, that's what it says. Because for so many people, that is the eight, a lot of people consider that to be one of the versions of ultimate success. Yeah.

Not just comedians, but a lot of, when you're a kid, Jesus Christ, David Letterman, whoever it may be, you look at it and you think, wow, that's someone who's really done it with their lives. They've done it. And so that secretly teaches you, here's what a healthy being looks like. Yeah.

And so interesting too, and now I'm thinking, the time that Letterman blew up, the guy that was trying to blackmail him, and just did that on television, that Conan leaving when he got fired from The Tonight Show, was like, hey, listen, I need you to not be, don't let this harden you. Like when they break those molds,

those are the two that I'm thinking of that were like so memorable to me, and it's because they were showing their flaws for a few moments. Yes. And that was it. It's the most powerful moment. When suddenly there's a human there,

and not some kind of mask, and it makes everyone feel better, because all of us are wandering around, going through all kinds of shit. And if we had a team of 30 people making sure that we looked and acted a certain way on television every single day, then we would, that's what we would do.

Be flawless. And then we would just be tired the rest of the time, I imagine. Exhausted and probably angry, and probably doing a lot of weird shit that you never hear about. And this is the, you know, one of my favorite Ram Dass videos.

You know Ram Dass, he's a spiritual teacher. I've heard of Ram Dass for a minute. He wrote Be Here Now. He's awesome. Okay, yes. So when he was at the height of his touring from this incredible book that he wrote, and from his, like, he's just got an amazing story.

And he's like, at that time, he was really putting on the way you would expect someone from- What you get your money's worth. He's got the beard, the long hair, he wears like a robe, and he's really committed to the role of being a teacher of Eastern thought,

or someone who merges. He was a doctor of psychology, so what's so cool about him is he was- He actually had science too, yeah. Sensitizing, that's great. You would love him, but he comes out and he's like kind of laughing. He's like, I just yelled at someone backstage.

And he's like, and I'm supposed to be this teacher. And he's like- I'm not the one guy. Yeah. Well, no, somehow that makes him more- Absolutely, yeah. Because you're like, wow, beautiful. So when are we embracing our flaws,

and when are we in denial about our flaws? When are- In other words, this is who I am. Yeah. You know, I'm just this kind of asshole. You know what I mean? Yeah. It seems like it would be very easy to get caught

in thinking, oh no, no, no. These are just my flaws and I embrace them. It's what makes me a superhero, versus I need to change this shit. I think there's this thing of like taking your flaws and moving them to the forefront of your personality and deciding those are your personality. And I think a lot of people get trapped in that

and that's a bad, I think that's a bad trap to it. Like, oh, I just say what I think and I just tell it like it is. Like, you're just an asshole. Like, everyone is thinking these things, just because you say them doesn't make you like somehow more insightful than anyone else. You're an asshole.

So I think there is a thing of like, once you kind of understand what your flaws are, what your less than stellar qualities are, understanding that that doesn't mean that they need to, then dominate your personality. But that you need to figure out, I put them in two categories. The ones that you need to like kind of cushion

and like build a little home around so that they can kind of, you can support them. And the ones that you need to kind of integrate into your personality and be like, yeah, this is part of who I am and it's fine. Like, I'm super overly, overly organized and kind of obsessive about it. And I think for a long time I tried to be like,

well I'm this like punk rock girl and I do whatever and I don't care, I'm cool with whatever. I'm not, I'm not actually cool with whatever. I'm like, I need to be very organized if things start on time, I need them to start on time. And that's a, I'm not even gonna say that's a flaw, but that's a quality of myself that for a long time I tried to deny and act like it wasn't there.

And now I'm kind of, I'm taking, I'm getting jobs because I'm organized in a field that often people aren't super organized in. And I'm the one that's like shushing people backstage and like keeping time for a show and all that stuff. So that's kind of ended up working for me. And it's been a thing that I've considered a flaw for a long time that I'm now kind of working with.

There are other flaws that I have or other flaws, anybody has that, it's not that I wanna get rid of them or incorporate them in my personality. I just realized that like, this is a thing of mine that requires a little bit of massaging. This is a quality I have that like, it's not the forefront of my personality. I don't need to hide it and pretend like it's not there,

but I just need to. What's an example of that? If you could talk about it. I could be overly sensitive. I think I can be in some situations I can be overly sensitive. I'm very overly sensitive about my health and I try to hide from people when I'm not feeling well.

Oh wow. When I'm not well, yeah. That's a thing that I'm like, I work on it a little bit, but it's just part of who I am. You mean kind of like the like John Wayne thing? A little stoic. Wow, yeah. I do that too.

You don't, I don't know. Why do we do it? I have no idea, you know, I don't know. Maybe it's because there's, well there is a superstitious idea that should I start talking about my- You manifest it. Yes, it just amplifies it even more.

And somehow, but then whenever I do talk, when you finally do like, tell someone, I'm fucked up, man. You feel better right away. Yeah, I think, I know why I do it. I said I didn't know, but I totally know. I have always had a thing where I wanna be easy to be around and I feel like if I, if there's anything that like,

makes me even slightly difficult to be around, like I'm sick or I'm not, I'm angry or I'm upset about something, then the people I'm with will be like, well you're not worth the trouble, bye-bye. Yeah, yeah. And I say this, I say this very easily, but it took me like maybe a decade to figure that out.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and you know what's fascinating is, do, are there people like that in the world? Maybe, I have to assume that there are. I've been running from them for my whole life. But it's like, it's like that when you can sit, cause I know when my brain manufactures a being, that then I'm shaping my life to please-

This like imaginary creature. Yeah, another God, another God. And you're worshiping it through your never ending sacrifice of happiness or truth. Health. Health and the altar of this thing. But then when you start thinking like, shit, have I ever met a person in my life

who's been like, you know, that fucking Emily? She was talking about how she didn't feel that good. Fuck that girl. And I think we need to, we need to ex her out of this group. We can't even get out of here. She's done, no one's done that. No one's done that. And if someone said that, you would be like,

what are you talking about? That's some really good reality testing, Duncan, that I have never even thought to do, even though I definitely should have. Isn't it weird? Yeah. Cause all these phantoms exist. Yeah.

And usually all I know is like, I don't know, when I really look into myself, I don't think I know myself that well. Like I like, some days I feel like, okay, yeah, I think I've got this thing. But quite often I'm a little, I don't even want to say confused because that makes it seem even more in focus than it is.

She's kind of a foggy amalgamation of behavior patterns. I'm not sure what it is. You can kind of connect them, but ooh. Yeah, I don't know. Yet my construction of people outside of me, flawless, flawless. You know them so well. So well. I've got them packed.

Like, like, like beautiful little geometric patterns that somehow from my brief encounters with them, I've been with myself for 42 years. Some of these people I've run into for a total of like six minutes. And I am completely, fully aware of everything about them. So it's ridiculous, you know? I'll even hear a little click in my head of like,

they'll tell me one thing about themselves. And I'll be like, click. Oh, now I got you. You got you. I got you. But by the way, do you think those people think that they know themselves? I don't, well, I don't,

I think there's people who, there's some people who may be never, ever, and a lot, like. Oh, don't even give a shit. Don't want to. Yeah, I think that's true. They don't even think about that. They don't even think about like who,

it's like the same way that maybe, like I try not to think about my organs inside my body. I just don't want to think about it. I don't like getting MRIs. I don't like seeing it. You don't want to know. There's a bag of weird things. There's so many bags.

Just a collection of weird bags. Yeah. Bloody bags encased in myself. I don't like looking at it. I know they're there. But in that same way, I think some people, they don't even want to,

they don't look back into their psyche. Yeah. So they're just, you know. Just floating around. In heaven. Which by the way, is it a, it's a luxury to even have the ability and the time and the brain space to look inside yourself.

Cause, you know, evolutionarily, we weren't built, we were built to like run, Right. Hunt, get away from things, gather what we could, live, die. Like we were not, you know, we're just now getting around to like,

we have the luxury to like self, like self reflect. Yeah. That's a luxury that, and a lot of people now don't have because their lives are not set up that they have any spare time or any ability to. So it's a little bit of a luxury,

but I also feel like some of those people do think they know themselves and they just haven't. They, because they know, they've gone like a couple centimeters deep and they're like, oh, got it. I got it. I don't like cheese. That's it.

Got it. I'm a no cheese liking dude. Which by the way, and I'm not even trying to talk down to them because I feel like maybe that could, maybe that is the answer. It's like, do you like cheese? Do you not like cheese?

That's it. What else do you need to know? Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those things where there's a teacher, Chugyum Trumpa, who says, if you can avoid going down this path, don't do it.

Because once you start going in, you can't come back. Yeah. Because once you start really. And you can't, yeah. It gets worse before it gets better. Right. Yeah.

It's kind of like in the morning, when you're in the middle of a great dream and you start waking up, you might be able to go back into the dream a little bit, but you're still gonna be. It feels a little dumb when you go back in. Yeah. Yeah.

You're like, I'm trying to replicate. This is having a conversation with this pillow. Oh God, I was on like a lazy river in heaven and it felt so good. I just want to go back to that for a second, but you can't. No. And it really is a lazy river, I think.

As much as it seems nice to not gaze upon the inner workings of the machine that you call yourself, it seems like, I don't know, to not do that is to, well, I don't know. Who's to judge, right? Who's to judge. I think it is hard.

And it's like sobriety. It's like anything else. Like that's what I always tell people when they go into therapy. Like you're not, you're gonna get to a point where you're not enjoying it because it's work. Right. And then the idea is that you keep working

to the extent that like you then get to a place where you're comfortable. That's true in relationships. It's true for sobriety. Anything, like it's not, you have to work. It's not always gonna be fun and easy. And if you're signing up for like, I want to really get to know and dig into this,

but I want it to be really easy and fun the whole time. No. Go fuck yourself. It's not gonna happen. There's nothing like that. Yeah. Learning piano, none of it. Spin class.

Spin class. It's not gonna be fun. Now you, so you're a trained counselor. Yes. And you went to school. You got a. Master's degree in couples and family therapy. Wow, cool.

So that's a lot of edgy. That's a lot of years. How many years is that? It was just two and a half. So I got a master's, I got an undergrad in psychology and then a master's. So six and a half years. Yeah, I guess so.

Yeah. Just six and a half years. Just the six and a half. That's a long time. And also getting a master's degree, it's not like they just give this to you. Like you. Yeah.

It's super intense. It's super intense. You have to do. Cause I have a degree in psychology. So I went for the first four years, but then I remember as you know, the teachers are telling you what you're going to have to do. If you actually want to practice,

it's just so daunting. Yeah. It's a lot of work. It's so much. It's your practicum internships. You have to like write papers. You've got to like take classes. And that's if you don't have to support yourself,

which I did. So then you also have to have a job. Yeah. It was like the most intense, I would say two and a half years of my life. For sure. Holy shit. Where did you intern?

I entered at a couple of different places. I did practicum, which is when you're just observing and not really participating in being a therapist. I did a domestic batterers group, court-ordered. I did a preschool for troubled preschoolers. It was like part of the Head Start program. And everyone that was there was great. We all knew the program was a terrible idea

to like pick out kids in preschool and decide that they were troubled. You're already fucked up. Yeah. So we, everybody in the program was great. They were doing their best to work within like not a great system. And then internship, I interned at a community counseling

center that was just like whoever got brought in for whatever real study intern. Yeah. It was mainly, it was community counseling for like a while. And then I also had to see clients on campus at the like campus clinic. And then I also worked in the writers. There was like a writing clinic on campus.

And that was my job. So often I couldn't remember when I would see people on campus if I'd seen them about a paper or about like a personal issue. Wow. So I just had to have a policy of like ignoring everyone that I saw because I didn't want to like break confidentiality.

But I could have said hi to someone I helped with the paper. No. It was complicated. It's, I mean, I can't remember anyone's name. It's the worst. So in that case, I don't know what I'd do. Just dumb me up. It's great.

But you, you, you're no longer practiced. No. You don't practice anymore. I practiced for almost seven years. Why don't you want to, why don't you do that anymore? I got burnt out. I, I kept taking super intense jobs when I got out of school and I love working really, was really intense populations.

But I just, I was getting burnt out. I went through like a health scare that was kind of intense. And then that kind of made me want to. What was the health scare? Oh, I, oh, that's a hole. I was in the hospital for a month in 2007 and was in a coma for like eight, 10 days. And had a very mysterious illness that no one could figure out.

It took them that long of time to kind of figure out what was wrong with me and then I had to spend the rest of the time getting better. But it was a super intense. Yeah. So I have like this genetic condition that's like very rare, very treatable. They just didn't know what it was.

And it's called adult onset. It's still a disease and it's like a form of arthritis that affects your organs. And I just kept getting sick and sick and sick and people were like, you have pneumonia. You're having panic attacks. And I was like, none of this seems right. So then hospital, very sick.

And when I got out, I went back to work and I was working with all people with schizophrenia, all my clients. I was working at home for people with schizophrenia. And I just was like, I can't, I have so little, I have my reserves are so low. I can barely help myself and I definitely can't help you guys right now.

So I tried to take an easier, easier quote unquote job at like a community, like a mental health center, just like a very, and then I was like just angry all the time. And I was like, I gotta get out of here. If I'm not good for the clients anymore, like I need to go immediately. This is like not, and it was hard.

It was really hard because that was my identity for so long was like being a therapist and I really loved it. But I was like, if I'm dealing with a lot of stuff on my own and if I'm not helping clients, then what am I in this for? Like none of this. Was part of you thinking that somehow you hit for taking on all of this psychic venom had in some way,

I don't, I'm not saying it caused this to happen, but activated it, like the stress may have activated it. That's an interesting idea. I think it had always kind of been there because there were definitely times throughout my life that I'd gotten sick and been like, what a weird, why couldn't I shake this for like, what a weird thing? Anyway, let's keep going through my 20s.

But I do think, I think I wasn't, as much as I was trying to like maintain self-care because that's a big thing they teach in grad school, like take care of yourself because you're not helpful. I was doing my best, but it was just a very intense job that I had. So I couldn't really take care of myself as much as I should have.

So that might be part of it, but that doesn't change the fact that no one knew what this illness was and it took like specialists, seven or eight specialists, like over a week to figure out what was wrong with me. So like working with me 24 hours a day with me on a respirator. So like it's both. Like I think at some point I would have popped off,

but like no matter what, it would have been very hard to figure out what was wrong. I think the effects that really getting sick has on your life, the teaching that it gives you is so potent. I wish I could pass it on to other people. Without having to almost kill them. But when you, that thing,

once you're initiated in that way, then everything, no matter what, forever will be different. Do you have that too? Yeah, I got cancer. I got cancer. Oh my God, yes! Yes, absolutely. So that like, once that's happened to you,

you realize the fragility and impermanence of life and you can't ever go back. And you can't explain it. And you can say the words to people and they're like, yeah, sure, that totally makes sense. By the way, I was living in a reality for like an hour or so that I had forgotten. I had forgotten that you had cancer.

I like that. I mean, I'm now getting to the point where I have forgotten it from time to time. For like a few moments at a time. For a few moments and then it comes back and I'm like, oh yeah, that happens. Your body does break down. And this is a reality of every single person.

And it sounds so miserable when you say it. But people don't realize that it's a doorway to a form of true freedom. It's magical as shit. What can you possibly do to me? Nothing scares me. You can't scare me. You can't fuck with me.

You can't do anything to me. I'm basically invincible to everything except for my own body. This is the radioactive spider, right? This is the universe. Wounding you. And yet from that wound, you gain this new perspective on everything

and life becomes precious. Again, not precious in like a cheesy way and not like it's easier. No, certainly not. It's sad. I get bummed all the time and freaked out and scared. Anytime you get even a little bit sick. Yes, you know.

Yeah, and that's what I was, I like you have no, I was saying this to Camille just the other day. Like you don't know what it feels like to get a little bit sick and wonder is this it? Is this the beginning of it happening again? Is this it?

And he's like, no, I totally know it. I was like, no, you can know intellectually. And you were there. He experienced it in a very real way. Absolutely. He doesn't know. No one understands. No.

And like I just had a nice wonderful health scare. I fucked my back up a while ago and I ignored it because I'm scared of like I just, I've somehow my brain is like connected. It's a really awful thing. Your brain will decide the doctor is what's going to give you cancer, right? It's really bad.

Like before you go to the doctor is the one who literally does tell you. So technically that's true. So your brain just like brings the two together. Like the diagnosis is the disease. Definitely not true. And a terrible thing to think. So, but so yeah, my back was fucking hurting

and like, I'm like, all right, I'm going to have to go to the doctor. This is hurting way too long. I'm looking it up. Of course, anything you look up on the internet, it says cancer no matter what it is. Toast. But anyway, that week, two week period

of waiting for MRI results. I went into the doctor's office. You know this. When you sit and wait in the doctor's office and you listen for the footsteps and your brain is like, all right, what are those footsteps sound like? Are those happy footsteps or those footsteps

of a man about to tell you're going to die? I've got to figure out how I'm going to tell this. I've got to figure out, let me hold on. Let me get my words right. Let me get my words right. He's like practicing before he comes out to you. Yeah. Yeah.

And then, so the doctor like tells me you've got, I have back problems, but I'm like, is it cancer? He's like, no, it's not cancer. I'm like, yes, great. I'll take the fucking goddamn milder. I don't care what it is. Whatever. I don't care.

Yes, great. This is what happens when you experience this. How to, as a therapist, how do we overcome that? This is such an energy drain on us. Yeah. How do you get past that? I don't know, because I think the gifts it gives are so lovely.

And how long has it been since, how long have you been in remission? Oh God, 2013 is when it happened or when I was diagnosed. Yeah, you're still in, honestly, I think you're still in an infancy of a sort. It's been nine years since I was in the hospital. I'm still, I still get sick,

but not to the level that I did then, but it took me like five years before going to the doctor, didn't raise my pulse so much that they were like, are you okay? And I'd be like, I'm so anxious, I'm just terrified. Like you have no idea, I'm just terrified right now. But it'll be, which by the way, I got my blood drawn on Monday,

because I still have to get it drawn all the time to get tested to make sure I'm okay. And I wasn't panicky. And I remember sitting there thinking like, it's been a, I'm not panicking. This is lovely. And of course that's when it'll get you. That's when it gets you.

The back of my head whispers that. But the front of my head, given enough time with like everything going great, everything doing okay, the anxiety level does drop a little. Do you have a person, like I know the kind of cancer I had, the chance of recurrence is minuscule.

Thank God. Testicular cancer is with radiation therapy, very small chance. So I can refer to that person's chance, but even that doesn't work. Even though I think God, there's like that person's chance is so low, lower than a lot of other things

that could happen to me. And yet still you're, so, but do you have like, if I were your, if I were your client, and I was experiencing anxiety when it comes to going to a doctor, what would you tell me? What are some tools that you could give me to use?

And you are, I'm assuming you were a person who has had a major health care, not just like a regular person. I'd be like, fuck and get over it, go to the doctor, you're fine. Yeah. I think for me, it was important that like,

regardless of the anxiety, you still have to do it. And that every single time you do it and things are okay, which they most likely are gonna be, let that be a little bit of a sav on the like, see, it's okay, it's gonna be okay. That doesn't mean,

and it's just literally doing it even though you're anxious. Cause I think the more important thing is getting the checks and getting, going to the doctor and checking things out. Cause I didn't do that for way too long. And it fucked me. And so I think managing that.

And then also like, I mean, and usually when people are anxious, you tell them like, do a worst case scenario. You don't wanna do that in these situations. No, because there is a worst case scenario. By the way, you've already lived through it and you've beaten it. Right.

So I think that's part of it. Like there was a worst case scenario and you, you tackled it and you nailed it. So even if the worst case scenario happens, you've tackled it once. You could do that again if you had to. But the worst case scenario, this is something that really the worst case scenario

for all of us is that we die. And there is something to be said for exploring that. Because, you know, even if a person has not had some illness yet, everyone in Buddhism, it's old age, disease and death. These are all inevitable things. If you are a human body,

you know, you're gonna get one of them, right? No matter what. Maybe you'll somehow avoid two cause you were an aborted fetus. But you're definitely gonna get, I mean, depending on your views on that. Sure, absolutely. I did make a political statement.

Yes, you really, what is it? I don't know. But what I mean is, what I mean is, odds are you're getting one of those things and they're all related to the fear of death, right? Yeah. And so overcoming that seems to me

to be one of the great superpowers. In fact, flying would be awesome. I'd love it. Flying would be, yeah. It'd be incredible. I'd be my favorite. If you have to choose between flying and just imagine that you could be quenched completely

of your fear of oblivion and feel perfectly at peace in the universe. Would you rather be someone who can fly while in the back of your mind there's an imaginary clock taken down towards some terrible doctor's appointment? Or would you rather be someone sitting on a city bus who feels completely and fully alive

at all levels regardless of the impermanence of your situation? I wanna fly. Yeah, fly. I wanna fly. I'm not crazy afraid of death. I'm afraid of long, painful illnesses. Right.

That because I feel like it's watching people watch me suffer is horrible. Me having to suffer is horrible. The oblivion part honestly doesn't really bother me. You're right. No, it is, for me a lot of it's just the fucking inconvenience of getting super sick. It's like incredibly inconvenient.

And it's the definition of inconvenience. And you're inconveniencing everyone around you and it blows, man. But I think behind it though, I know when my pulse increases in the doctor's office and the nurse looks at you just like what you're saying like what the fuck is wrong. You're just sitting here.

Are you a fucking weirdo? Did you just do cocaine before you came in here? I feel that's connected in some way to, even though I do think, oh yes, this is the, it's not the, my extinction I'm worried about, it's the- The suffering. The suffering that freaks me out.

Still in all, I don't know. I think it's somehow connected in some way to that big question mark floating out there. But who knows, maybe it's different for everybody. Maybe so. Did you make, when you were sick, did you kind of go like make peace with like, okay, if this is gonna happen, I'm okay.

I've enjoyed my life. Or were you like fuck, I haven't seen insert country here or whatever. I felt, I mean, I felt a kind of fatalistic excitement over the idea of like wow, shit, this movie's going in a different direction than I expected. Like three is nuts, this is wild. I mean, you do get a like, I can remember driving

to get radiation therapy in, or before the radiation therapy, when waiting for results after, you know, they find it, then they have to find out, well, how far in your body has it gone? You know, is it in your brain? Is it in your lungs? So I can remember like driving to the doctor

and looking around and there's the world. There was like a blimp in the sky, people driving through traffic, and you realize, oh my God, this thing's just gonna keep going, man. I know, it doesn't all go away when I go away. How is that possible? That guy that probably doesn't know I exist.

And we'll never know. Yeah, and then it's like somewhere in there, everything got very tranquil and beautiful, and it's like, wow, this beautiful thing keeps going, and there's something in that that's somehow so sweet and poignant. At least soothing. And soothing, yeah, and then you're a little swirl

of problems seem less problematic. Man, I did not mean to go there. No, I'm happy we did. I don't get to talk to other people that have had that experience very often. I don't really get to talk to anybody who does, so. Thank goodness, right? Yeah, it's better that way.

I guess it's better that way. But you, so your blog, you give advice to people right in, you give great advice to people. Thank you. Do you follow this advice yourself? Sometimes, I try to be honest with people when I don't, when I'm like, I'm telling you, I usually will post a very lovely like,

this is what you should do, and here's what you should do it, and then at the end they'll say, I'm saying all this knowing that it would be very hard for me to do this myself, and I don't know that I would do it myself. I try to be as honest as possible, and I try, I do my best to try to only give advice

that I would actually do myself, because I do think it's very easy to sit on a, like a throne of like, well, you definitely shouldn't be doing this, and you should do this instead. When I know I would never actually do that, and that's a really hard thing to do, so I think acknowledging how difficult it is

to actually make any kind of change, big or small, is very important, because often when I've been given advice or when I've seen certain therapists, I just feel like they're preaching to me, and that they feel like they're, you know, somehow so much better than me. I'm down in here with you, like I'm not,

I don't, I'm not any better than anyone who writes me in. I've just had more education, and more training in this specific field, but I'm not, I don't make great decisions. I just try to push people to like, even if you're making really bad decisions, make them with intention, make, know what you're doing, know why you're making the decisions you're making,

even if it's for the worst fucking reasons, just so that you know yourself a little bit better and that you get to know the demons who are making you make bad decisions inside yourself, just don't be like, I don't know why, keep sleeping with this guy, it's great. Yeah, I mean, there's part of you that knows, and if you don't know, you need to figure that out.

I'm not saying you need to stop sleeping with this guy, I'm saying know why you're sleeping with this guy, who's a bad guy. Right, so. Why don't we wanna explore our intentions? Why is that something we try to conceal from ourselves? Sometimes it messes with your ego a little bit to know that like, you are doing something

for attention seeking, or that bad attention feels better than no attention at all, or there's a million reasons why we do stuff that's not great, picking fights with a boyfriend when you just to feel like there's something exciting happening in your life, like you've got some drama for once, like there are all kinds of reasons we do things that aren't the most like, cool sanctimonious reasons,

but that's okay too. I'm not even saying that you have to change those things, just like, let's just be more aware of them. Cause I meet a lot of people that I feel like are like, it's so crazy, this stuff keeps happening to me, and you're like, you're making them happen, like you do, even if your decision is to abandon control, that's still a decision you're making,

and at least be aware that you're too freaked out by your life to even make any decisions right now, and then you can start working on the actual problem, which is that you are terrified to control your life, rather than like talking about how like the life world keeps just like tossing all these weird things at you, like, no, you've made a decision to let anything just come, and knock you around.

Right. Yeah. Because it's harder to act. It's so much harder to act. It's easier to be a victim. Absolutely. And it's easier to be, I guess, some kind of robot or something at that point. If you're not analyzing your intention,

you're just an autopilot creature. I talk about autopilot a lot in the book, and I also, I do think that autopilot is an okay way, it's a coping mechanism sometimes, I think. If you're going through a rough patch, if you're in a rough, if you're in a rough patch, I think it's okay to kind of go into autopilot for a bit, just like, I just need to get through

the next few days, next week, whatever. But I think a lot of people get stuck in it, and just a year goes by, and you're like, what have I done? What's happening? It's really easy to stay an autopilot, I think. So I think it's a good, you shouldn't torture yourself if you're in it,

but we should always be aware that like, I'm doing autopilot right now for a reason, and at some point I'm going to have to pull out of it, and like start figuring things out. Is there a hierarchy of intentions in your mind? Like, better intentions, worse intentions? I don't think so. I don't think so.

I mean, obviously, good is better than bad. You know, having an intention that's like wanting to, like make your life better, and wanting to improve yourself. Sure. It's a poorly worded question, but what I'm trying to get at is, is there some kind of, you know, like the Dalai Lama says, you can always be,

try to be kinder. You can always be more kind. So the, what I mean is there's some kind of intention that all of us could adopt. Where in other words, I'm, let's say I am angry. Let's say I've got a, just a cloud of anger and depression hanging over my life forever. Indogenous, shitty depression.

And so that means that my readout in the imaginary spaceship that I'm piloting with my hopefully a soul is all wrong. Yeah, you're gonna, it's all like foggy and clouded and weird, yeah. Right, so I can't make navigation decisions based on, this is a great analogy. Based on that fucking thing, right?

Yeah. But I know I want, I can, outside of feeling, I can think, man, I bet being compassionate and kind to people is better than hurting them. Even though I don't feel that at all. Yeah. Are you a fraud at that point? If you're faking.

Yes. I don't think so. I think sometimes you have to, people think that like motivation comes to them and then they decide to change everything as a result. But sometimes behavior change comes from making the change and then waiting for your feelings to catch up and waiting for your, the thought process to catch up.

I mean, if you, you know, when you're depressed and you're like, oh, I should want to work out and then working out will help things. I like just taking a walk around the block. Don't wait for the motivation to come. Just take a walk around the block and then if you do that enough, eventually the endorphins will kind of kick in

and you'll start feeling a little bit differently. But if you wait for the like, today I am motivated to exercise. You're gonna be waiting a very long time. So I think kindness is like that too. I do a weird thing, like if I know a friend has something big or weird coming up, I'll write down in my like,

I have a paper day planner because I'm a nerd. I will write down, check in with this person on this day. And then I was having a conversation with a friend and they're like, is that good or bad that you had to write down? Would a true friend have remembered on their own? The fact that you have a little reminder, hey, check in with this person about their surgery,

their whatever, is that better? And they weren't like dragging me. They were just like, it's an interesting. And I was like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it makes me a better friend or a worse friend, but I do know. I'm the one that checked in with that motherfucker. And you didn't.

Right. So. So it worked. Yeah, like I don't know if it's important. I don't know how important it is to like, know all the like, I just remembered because I was thinking about you versus, I wrote it down because I like you

and I wanna make sure you're okay, but I probably wasn't gonna remember it on my own. I don't know. It's confusing. Yeah. I mean, like it's something so much of what I do. And I think what a lot of people do is emotionally driven.

It's like you feel like doing a thing, but sometimes the thing you feel like doing sucks so bad because it's based on anger or fear. And so, but that means that you have to weirdly make a decision to start operating on a completely different set of GPS coordinates that are, you're kind of like someone who's completely blind at that point.

And so this is where I always get confused because I think, well, shit, do you just sort of like, I don't, I understand writing something down, but if I'm, and this isn't really from my life, I'm just making something up. Let's say you're with somebody, you're having lunch with someone, a friend who's having a rough go of things, right?

And you're such a self-absorbed asshole that you can't stop thinking about, oh, I don't know, your fucking podcast studio, you know, or your new graphics card that you wanna install on your computer or something, right? This is the pollution that's filling up your brain. How do you, how do you fix that? Teach me, how do I connect to-

Wait, I thought you said this wasn't you. It's not me, not at all. I don't wanna be selfish, but what if I am? But I think everybody is selfish, but the cool thing is nobody knows how selfish you are, except for you. Right. And so-

That's cool. You can find yourself to be selfish, but that if you're forcing yourself to be unselfish, I think that motivation alone makes you unselfish, because really selfish people aren't even thinking, stop thinking about your graphics card and focus on this asshole. Really selfish people are like,

anyway, that graphics card, like, there's a difference. That's the greatest T-shirt. That's really a great, I hope someone who hears that, just please make that into a shirt. You're very confusing to most people. That's us. That's us. Not to anyone who's ever played video games.

Yeah. I love it. I love that idea. I think that that's a very compassionate way to look at yourself and it's great, because we aren't at the point in augmented reality technology. Not yet.

We're hovering above us as an asshole meter. Thank God. I'm out when that happens. I'm moving into a cave. I'm done. I'm done. I'll burrow down into some muddy hole and I'll just die. So you have a fantastic podcast.

Thank you. And it's not just a video game oriented, but that is a part of it. Yes. So I just wanted to ask, are you playing any great games right now or are you find yourself? I just started a game called Stardew Valley

that was a steam game that was only for PCs for a while. It just came out for Mac and I don't have a PC. So I just started playing it and it's just this one guy created it and it's just a relationship sim where you, it's like the graphics are very room entry and it's like you inherit and I just started it. So if there's a twist, I haven't gotten to it yet.

You inherit a farm and you, when your grandfather's, none of this is a giveaway, it's all in the opening. Your grandfather gives you a letter and says when you find yourself feeling like you want to escape your life and that you're miserable, open this envelope.

And then it cuts to you like at a cubicle years later and you're like so bored and upset. And these are all rudimentary graphics. So it's kind of great. You open the envelope and it's like, hey, by the way, I gave you a farm. Go move to the farm. That's where you need to be.

So you moved to this farm that's in this community called Stardew Valley. That's it. And you just get to know people and you farm and it's just a lovely game. It's just a lovely game. Is it text-based or is it? Yeah, it's mostly text-based.

And there is crafting involved, which I haven't even, because I just started, I haven't even gotten to that. So I think it's a little like, a little bit of Minecraft, a little bit of like, get to know these people and make friends and figure out what your relationships are.

But the way that he's written the text, the way he's written the dialogue is just better than most games I find and kind of more compelling. So I've been really enjoying it. We also just played a game called Inside that I highly recommend. Did you play a game called Limbo at all?

Yeah. It's from the people that made Limbo. And it feels like a, it's not a sequel to Limbo at all, but it feels like it came from the same universe. It's gorgeous. It's like a platformer. It's like an adventure game.

And I highly recommend it. So do you ever think you're gonna get a PC? I need to. I literally, my friend Thomas over the weekend was like, what the fuck is wrong with you? And I was like, I know, I need, it's so stupid that I don't have one. I just did the, I just did the switch.

And it, watch out. Cause it is a money pit. That's the other thing I've heard. Yeah. It's a money pit. You can just keep spending all of your money. You get possessed by some irrational demon that for no reason at all,

wants you to start, it appears to be. Now, I don't know. Do you ever read any Terrence McKenna? No. Cause you'd love him. He's fantastic. And he's practically a God. And I would pray to him.

I haven't prayed to him yet, but I would pray to him. There we go. We found a demon for you. He along with a few other people have this cool idea that I've ever heard of Taylor Deschardon. I always say his name on, but so these, basically the idea is we're being drawn into a state of maximum complexity and maximum harmony.

So we're ultimate harmony and ultimate complexity. Meet, this is the singularity. This is the apocalypse. This is the, it's all of it. And we're getting drawn into it. And the closer we get to it, the more advanced technology gets. I was like, I can't wait to see

how this can be expected in the future. How it connects. Cause technology is the physical manifestation of the form that we're being drawn into down the river of time. And so when you start messing around with a PC, you feel this pull to build a thing that perfectly simulates reality.

And, you know, I don't need dual GTX 1080 graphics cards. I don't need that. Certainly not. I am not running some kind of like weather simulator to determine global warming in the Arctic. But, and yet, I now am like, I have a, I just got my GTX 1080 and now I'm like, well, fuck, I'll just get another one and I'll build the thing.

So anyway, the point is, you are someone who clearly I'm gonna get into it. Loves games. But you love games in the right way because you see beneath the graphics. Because really who gives a fuck about the graphics? I do not. Who cares until you have a great graphics card?

It's also interesting that you're creating, you're building something in a way that I don't know if you do woodworking or anything, but like, you're building something. We don't really get to build things very often. Then we put them together as modern humans. Right. Yeah.

So you get to have your own little outchemical laboratory. Yeah, exactly. And these new PCs, they're like liquid cooled. Yes. So you have like a thing that actually has its own sort of circulatory system. So you're not just hearing this huge fan sound constantly,

which is how my life used to be. Yes. Yeah. Right, so I highly, highly recommend going down that path. I need to. You guys would fucking love it. And it's so absolutely, unbelievably satisfying.

And then VR comes. Which we talked about that for a second. You, what's your view, what's your take on VR? I'm totally into it, absolutely into it. I will say, I have a lot of friends who are like pretty obsessive about it in like a great way. And I have not seen anything yet that has made me go, made me as obsessive as they are.

But also I haven't done it as much as they do. Do you play Minecraft? I don't anymore. I did for a little while. Did you like it? I loved it, of course. Okay, after this, if you have time, we'll go into Minecraft and VR.

See if you really see what it looks like inside that fucking universe. I think you're gonna break me. This is not gonna be good. It's, I think I'm partially afraid of like what, how sucked it. I think that's part of it. Well, yeah.

It is a monumental time in human history for a lot of different reasons. One of them, and the one that I'm the most interested in is the fact that we're all about to have access to alternate realities instantaneously that are fully immersive. And there's a lot of therapeutic value in that. It's not gonna be just for games.

It's gonna be- Oh, I think it's gonna change a lot of things. I think that will be amazing. That part will be amazing. Now, finally, I've got one last question for you. Okay. Because you're great, man. I wish you were still doing therapy,

and we weren't friends. Because I would sign up, man. Oh, goodness. The world needs you. Oh, that's such a lovely thing to say. Here's my question. Okay. Now, this isn't like one of those things,

like it's a friend of mine, it's not me. It really is a friend of mine. Okay. He's having this kind of like a recurring depression. And he's the sweetest guy ever. But he's getting depressed. He's a sober person. So like ketamine treatment isn't an option.

A lot of people are saying that really works. And I know a lot of people listening have got the blues. And so what do we do? Can you give us in a few minutes, just some real world, if I'm somebody who's depressed right now, and I'm just not feeling it, what are some things I could do

right after this podcast ends to begin a way out of this pit? Okay, it's a pit. That's exactly what I was gonna say. It is a pit, and it is a pit that wants to keep you in it. And I think I try to tell people to think of depression as not you. It is something that has attached itself to you.

It's not you. So I think it's important to first externalize it, a little bit. And it can give some gifts. That's what's weird. People who are depressed to kind of think more analytically, they can really sit with their feelings, which is a thing a lot of people are terrified to do.

So it's not, it's an external thing that like, I try to think of them like as big dumb dogs that like jump all over you. It's like trying to do stuff for you. It wants to help, but it just doesn't know what it's doing. It's kind of an idiot. So it wants to have you be more analytical.

It wants to have you kind of sit and ruminate and think about your feelings. It just is not great at it. And it kind of ends up swallowing you a little bit. Not great, we don't want that. So first realize it's not you. This is not who you are. This is a thing that's happened to you.

It will get better because depression does go in and out. Even if you don't treat it at all, there will be a point where the cloud will break. We just want it to break a little bit sooner because we have lives to lead. And we don't want to feel like this all the time. I don't hate medication. I don't hate medication for depression specifically

because it is just such a, sometimes you just, like you said, that pit, you need someone to just give you like a hand. What is this, booster? Booster hoods? Booster hoods. That you can step into and pull yourself out, but you can't rely on the medication to do all for you.

And you also can't, but I personally don't think it's terrible to have medication be the thing that helps you. I've seen it help a lot of people. But as a talk therapist, I think you need to see a therapist immediately, make an appointment, tell them you want sliding scale so that you get,

and don't go through insurance in my opinion, do private pay out of pocket because if you do that and sliding scale, then you end up paying way less than you would if you go through insurance. That's my personal advice. Go in and talk to someone. Make a list of the things that help you care for yourself

the very basics of like showering, going for a walk, writing down how shitty you feel, talking to someone that you care about, watching a show that makes you feel very comfortable. Make a list and make sure you do two of those things a day, just two. Start with one. Two's too many, start with one.

I think it's just hard to, when you're in a pit, it's hard to even pull yourself out enough to do anything else. You have to just start small. You can't go from being super depressed to being like fine again. Just start small and if you make little tiny changes,

get into a therapist, little tiny changes, you'll start to see things are changing but it does take a little while. How do you find a good therapist? I personally, I really like psychology today, their website has a thing called find a therapist. I just happen to like it because they collect data for all over the country and you can check off stuff like,

this is what I personally do. I'm not a lesbian but I always check off gay friendly. I always check off working with fluid gender identities because I want someone who matches kind of how I feel about the world and matches like is willing to see this. If you're more conservative, take those boxes because those exist too. And find-

Filled with hate, close my, I'm looking for a close-minded person who's filled with fear and hate. It's Sylvia, great, go see Sylvia. Tick the boxes that not even if they match who you are but match a worldview that you kind of believe in. And then I always tell people audition a therapist. Go into that first session.

Don't assume that that's gonna be your therapist from now on and slug through it even if you hate the person and don't like listening to them talk. It's not supposed to be painful. It's supposed to be uncomfortable. It's not supposed to be painful. So get into that office. If you feel uncomfortable, that's okay.

If you feel angry, like don't be in a situation that makes you feel like you are not gonna get anything done. But it's supposed to feel a little uncomfortable because you're telling your truth to a stranger. It's weird. I can't afford a therapist. What do I do? There are places that do free therapy.

There are places that do super, super. I'm talking very, very cheap. You really need to ask around about sliding scale because I know a therapist that will charge $10 a session. That's too sweet. Yeah, because they want to help and they know even if you don't make any money, they're good people.

They're often overworked, but they're good people. There's also terrible ones out there. They're not all the same. But just keep checking around. But that's what sucks is that you do have to put the effort into it. And often if you're depressed, the last thing you have the energy for, it's hard.

It's really hard. If you can't afford a therapist or don't want to go to one, I mean, if you're religious, you can seek that out because that's often free. You can seek out a friend who has had depression and kind of check in with them. Often there's group therapy you can do

that's completely free for like depression or anxiety. They'll like be group sessions. It's hard. It does require effort. No one's gonna swoop in and kind of help. You gotta save yourself. This is what it is. There's so many tools out there that can help you,

but you do, yeah, you gotta. You gotta make that decision, that existential decision out of nothingness, not based on emotion, right? Just do it. Yes, make the decision. Just try, just that alone can start this awesome cascade. That's what I'm saying.

It's a small thing. Making the decision that like I want to get better is a small thing. I think it'll feel huge to people, but it's a very small step. And then you followed up with another step and you followed up with another change, and it's not, you don't ever go like,

today is the day that I will be better. No, that's not gonna happen. And then you'll just be disappointed and you'll go back to being depressed again. Small changes, small, tiny changes, little handholds, and then you'll get out of that pit. God bless you. Thank you so much for coming over here.

How can people find you? Come to my house, we're just kidding. I am, my Tumblr, where I do the advice stuff is emilyvgordon.tumblr.com. And I always tell people, I am not a therapist on that. I just give advice. Like I can't claim to be your therapist from there. Great advice.

You've just heard how talented she is. It's great. I'm also, I'm on Twitter at the Jynomite, within another, T-H-E-G-Y-N-M-O-N-O-M-I. Okay, T-H-E, thank you, sometimes I can't spell. And yeah, I... Indoor kids. Indoor kids is on hiatus currently.

How long has it been on hiatus? Little bit, little bit. Because Camille and I, my husband, who I do the podcast with, we made a movie together and then we had to make a TV show together. Would you guys remove all the back episodes? We didn't do that, you can listen to back episodes. That's true, absolutely.

So we just were too busy to record for a little bit. So we're currently on hiatus. And... You gotta get back in there. We're, yeah, I know. I know, it's fun. Get the PC, recognize what has happened, and then you will have a 7,000-hour...

Our lives will be... I'm telling you, both of you will love it so much. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm really into LED lighting on my computer. You want it to pulse. I don't know what that means, but I'm excited for you. These computers come with LED lighting systems

that like pulse like it's breathing inside. Cause it's a creature that you're building. That's it. Yeah. Thank you so much. All links to find Emily, you're gonna be at, in the comments section of this episode. It's been a wonderful time.

Absolutely, this has been great. Thank you for listening, my friends, and thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring this episode. Go to squarespace.com, use offer code, Family Hour, to get 10% off a brand new website. And don't forget to bookmark our Amazon portal, and don't forget to give us a nice rating on iTunes if you like us, but most importantly,

don't forget that none of that stuff really matters because there's only one moment, the present moment, which we're all experiencing together because we're all one thing temporarily divided up into a bunch of meaty, confused bodies. Hare Krishna, I'll see you very soon. We've got some incredible podcasts on the horizon. Dr. Bruce Daener, being one of them,

along with Conor Habib, Cole Marta, and a great many others. I can't wait to show them to you. See you soon. Hare Krishna.