Goes Without Saying - becoming 'unlikable female protagonists': confidence entered the chat

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

why is "self-love" so unlikable?join the conversation every monday.shop our merch: sephyandwing.co.ukcome and chat in our book club.speak your mind on the @sephyandwing instagram. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wendy's Small Frosty is the ultimate summer refreshment. And not because it's cool and creamy and made with fresh Canadian dairy. It's also refreshingly cheap. Just 99 cents until July 14th. It's a treat for you and your wallet. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Nature. I've got a gay rooster named Francois. Here's a show that we recommend. And this is a field guide to gay animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world.

The animal kingdom is queer and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple. Or wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Goes Without Saying. You're listening to Goes Without Saying with Sefi and Wing. I'm Wing. And I'm Sefi.

And this is a really, really wholesome, but quite kind of aggressive at the same time episode all about why is it when you finally start to try and actually like yourself it seems like everyone in your fucking life hates you for it it's the crux it's the question of the moment enjoy hey how's it going it's going well it's again quite early no no i'm not doing a time zone conversation i thought i can't be bothered to do this time zone conversation every week i know same same because it's jarring but anyway it's like nothing's new because i've just woken up so true well how was your sleep any good dreams oh my god i woke up to a bad dream you

know when that happens when you wake up to like oh my god it was oh my god funny because we were just talking about the last of us but it was almost like i was having to like pack my belongings for an apocalypse sort of thing it was like which photo do i want to take genuinely i wish i was going with him it looked like i was going alone alone she's going alone i just i'm team if there's an apocalypse and everyone's turning into zombies i'm sorry i have to kill myself no one's surprised i'm on the brink anyway but i think the zombie apocalypse she's been waiting for an excuse life's not worth living now for sure like there's nothing there's no like mindful there's no meditation that can get me out of this one for sure like there's nothing there's no like mindful there's no

meditation that can get me out of this one for sure well it's like i'm not watching you turn into a zombie and then you try and eat me absolutely not no no no no no before i get to see everyone that i love turn into zombies and i can't communicate with them and everyone's across the world do you know what i mean really i think i'm giving it a go because i'm hoping for like you come across some kind of commune where it's kind of um do you know what i'm thinking it's almost amity from divergent i think you kind of get there somehow of the commune you know you always talk about this world that you rule and it's like kind of token economy and like you've got all these like rules for living i don't need to rule it i just need to be a key member of the like policy the like

political team the queen of the castle i don't need to lead it but i'm not doing like the digging but i'm i'm involved in some kind of you're not playing that's for sure yeah but i think i'm holding out for that i'm like fighting it through but realistically i'm not going to be able to survive but it's fact is that you can't even listen to music imagine a song comes in your head you can't even listen to it no you can't because then you get the scene where you find like a radio somewhere and it's like playing some old song and you dance with like not worth the guy that you kind of met that you've fallen in love with at the shelter kind of thing no i'm out like you had a little meet cute he maybe was gonna shoot you he was like are you infected you're like no you're in fact and then you like you're infected straight from the writer's room of the

last of us um yeah right i'm excited for this episode because i was saying to you earlier it's bit of a burning it's a hot topic for me yeah yeah at the moment because every bloody episode i can't shut up about how i'm like oh i like myself now oh i'm not so bad blah blah i know i just said i was gonna kill myself but i'm telling the lie between being happy and being sad and i was thinking recently you know like trying to like yourself it's quite unlikable and i said to sophie earlier do you ever feel like when you finally like yourself everyone else hates you like sometimes the people in your life and and even just the general messaging from society it does kind of feel like people don't want to see you thrive because for whatever reason it threatens them i think goes against every rule that you've ever been told in

life so i think it's like yeah it's 100 a direct threat and also like some of the ways that people behave when they truly are liking themselves yeah aren't the most likable things it's like we were talking about like the need to like if when you're fully feeling like right i really respect and like love myself in like a true way maybe i need to retreat for like two months and just like spend time on my own it's like that's not a likable thing everyone's like why aren't you coming out yeah you've got no one to come home to after that no one to come back to um you know what i also was thinking it's kind of i mean i'm not vegan anymore but it's kind of a thing that i think is still true obviously and something that i always felt well i just think it's one of the

things of being vegan or when someone says they're vegan sometimes the response that they're met with is like oh no no people kind of get a bit defensive yeah obviously like there are annoying militant vegans in the world fuck them yeah um but when someone says oh i'm vegan it's kind of like well i blah blah blah and i think for whatever reason someone kind of declaring that they've made their own decision to live in a way that doesn't align with yours for sometimes feels like a direct threat definitely because also there's like a there's a there's an idea with especially veganism or like any decision that's like a moral decision it's that you're you've made a sacrifice and you're willing to say like you're putting yourself on like a higher moral kind of plane there's like i'm i'm doing this and you lowly can't keep up

with this shit realistically that's not what's fucking happening at all no but i think it can be interpreted as that so i think there's a thing of like i just love myself now i just really i'm gonna do what's best for me and you fuckers aren't like it's not it's not a likable thing no but is that because the things that often go hand in hand with trying to like yourself just trying to put in some effort and be like all right maybe i'm not so bad or like maybe i should take care of myself those things are often like not very relatable it's not like it's much more relatable to be super self-deprecating like almost i think our culture and like even so much of humor is tied to

declaring yourself as a piece of shit definitely and also it's the easy it's the easy route i have been noticing i think it's kind of more of a british thing oh my god i've been doing that because it's such an easy way it's such an easy way to get a laugh to lighten the mood yeah cheap laugh yeah and then they look at you like huh you need and it makes people uncomfortable i think sometimes but then also it makes people uncomfortable to say the opposite you've got to 100 people want from you is to be so neutral about yourself they really just numb i think people want you to represent yourself in a way that perfectly aligns with their perception of you and anything that you do that subverts their idea of you is going to be jarring to them it's not up to them to decide who you are it's for you to decide

yeah like when you do something that subverts someone else's idea of you especially if you ever get the thing of being like um have you done the revision no no i'm not gonna do it no i'm not doing the homework blah blah and then you get into lesson everyone's done the homework and it's like hang on a minute you snakes you motherfuckers not even lie that's a bad trait to be that person you fucking snaked me but it's like it's nice when you're in your frog era it's nice to feel like you've got some support and it's kind of the thing with influencers as well like with emma chamberlain people being like she's out of touch now it's like you only we only like people when they're small and unhappy and in their flop era i hate to say but yeah do

you know what i mean and relatable it is hard it's hard to accept sometimes that people have grown or especially if it's like they've grown beyond how you see yourself do you know what i mean so it kind of goes both ways or how you saw you with them yeah i think it's like that's why it's with like with a friend it's hard and also then like you can put that into like with an influence that you like ie emma people love her so much because they saw themselves in her then she surpasses what they're obviously doing and it's really jarring because it's like wait but we were a team you were my gal like you were me i thought we were in the pits together yeah how could you do that how could you do that to us yeah but it's not fair because it's like look she to be honest she's not you and also like anyone your friend your fucking cousin whoever the fuck it is that you feel like is jarring you

or yeah or that you all feel like you're jarring it's like look we're not the same fucking people you're not you're that's also one of the brutal truths it's like people do outgrow each other and it is actually really fucking 100 and i also think it's a very human thing to there's obviously a lot of shame around it and it's kind of feeds into the whole jealousy thing of like we're kind of we're told we need to be in constant competition especially like with female friendships i feel like that's not the most inclusive term but that's the one that i know female friendships but i feel like young girls especially are made to feel like they need to be in constant competition with all the other girls that they know including their friends but then also be oh my god so kind and supportive and you need to be happy for her and you need to be graceful and you need to be you can't be a sore

loser and all of these things you know what i mean like i think it's a and you need to be graceful and you need to be you can't be a sore loser and all of these things you know what i mean like i think it's a really human thing to be jealous or intimidated or threatened or confused when someone does something and you read that that makes you feel shit but then also you're totally and you're right obviously i would quite like for everyone here to maybe slowly but surely like make an effort to like themselves and do to like take part in behaviors that encourage that do you feel that when you like yourself you like other people more um yeah but i think i've got a bit of a problem that even when i hate myself i've got a problem but i've got a few actually a few problems um but i'll just

pay you the details i think i have a bit of a problem that even when i hate myself i kind of think i i love everyone else still so like i think oh everyone else is amazing like in my head everyone is always amazing like i always think everyone's doing amazing everyone's thriving everyone's doing better than me so when i'm happy you're not very bitter as a person i'm bitter you're not like bitter like but i think like it's not obviously healthy but i think that is quite a likable trait like that's something that will serve you well in society okay and that you never come off jealous or bitter or any of these things like i even think when you i would have the instinct

100 if i'm feeling shit i would immediately be like and these fuckers are making everything terrible fuck you for doing well like i definitely definitely i find it easier to like other people when i like myself if i hate myself i'm being such a hater on everyone else which i think is really totally projecting but you don't do i don't i do the opposite i i i think everyone else everyone else has got it right and i'm it's it's my self-esteem is't i do the opposite i i i think everyone else everyone else has got it right and i'm it's it's my self-esteem is is i think the self-esteem's a low and like you know it's not like oh well i have a low self-esteem i've been you've been to 10 a reef i've been to 11 a reef my self-esteem is lower than yours blah blah but just like i think it's equal but it's

funny how it plays out differently in different people because i agree i think it's really different yeah my instinct is always kind of the comparison is like how how is everyone else doing this like everyone else is so good why am i so shit do you know what i mean rather than being like fuck you lot but i think sometimes it's like it's not i want to be a bit more like fuck you lot but that's a story for another day well it's not not it's what i genuinely think one of the worst fucking feelings i mean we speak about all the time but that fucking jealous feeling but the feeling of being bitter and like um yeah just unnecessarily judging and hating and all of these things

really all you're saying is i hate myself basically it's never about that and i always think when i acknowledge like for example if i'm you could literally be like fucking scrolling on fucking instagram any old fucking mindless activity and something triggers you you start feeling jealous blah blah blah start feeling like hateful towards someone in any setting it's the worst feeling in the fucking world and you get so consumed by it but whenever i take a moment i'm just like right oh right okay no sorry you just need a drink of water like it's almost like what the fuck that you got carried away in the thing actually all you needed to do was take care of yourself show yourself some love and all those feelings go away so clearly it was nothing about that person at all

what they did or what they said or whatever happened it was all about the fact that basically you just needed like two hours more sleep yeah you just needed a break you needed to like let yourself feel shit for getting bad exam results or let yourself feel bad for not getting that job or let yourself feel shit about someone just breaking up with you or rejecting you or whatever it is. Like, it's not about this poor person on Instagram. But it does freak me. I get a bit scared because I think,

not to be like, because I'm such a saint, I'm scared of the evils of the world. But almost because that's not my instinct, when I'm around that in life, which I'm around it all the time people just being human obviously and like judging someone or walking down the street and be like oh i didn't like that girl's shoes and i'm just like it oh it freaks me out because it feels really unnatural to me so it makes me feel really uneasy and like unsafe on this planet it is uneasy and unsafe

like that i think that's the truth it's actually really horrible it's such a nasty impulse and i think that's one of the things that i don't know like i think it should the shame of feeling shit and then feeling shit about other people i think that should be taken away like it's not definitely a shameful thing because it's normal but it's also fucking horrible and something that you should challenge within yourself i think there should always be the recognition of like usually if you're talking shit on someone else yeah really just wanting to talk shit on yourself basically yeah 100 have you ever has someone in your life ever been in a good place or said something or been making an effort to like themselves or doing

things that are prioritizing themselves so for example been like oh my god i'm drinking so much water at the moment or like yes i've just got a new job or oh you know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna i'm gonna go on a little solo trip to france and i'm gonna have a nice bath and and you felt a pang of like fuck you i fucking hate you who the fuck do you think you are why do you get to do that like oh i hate what sarah's doing and sarah's really up herself like recently but have you ever um no when i that you kind of flipped on its head for me like i was really thinking like when you're has anyone done anything amazing like are they saying they're drinking more

water blah blah and i was really thinking like the things my friends are doing and stuff and i was just feeling like the the like pride and then and then you're right and then you felt a pang of experience for us recording this podcast like i don't know like i definitely felt jealous in life not even jealous but like in time all right so for example i all the time like and i think i won't be alone here i know in this circle i can imagine a lot of us like our social media like um timelines and feeds and stuff are full of hot girls doing hot girl things and i love that with my whole brain and i love it for them with my whole heart but sometimes i feel like if i take part in those behaviors that must not really be me

like i'm not someone who drinks loads of water and like takes herself on nice walks and and prioritize i'm not that like i can't be someone who does all those good things because i identify with being shit so that would make me like not relatable and like do you know what i mean like oh i can't be for example like the whole that girl thing it's like oh i'm not one of the it's kind of i'm not like other girls i think in my head i'm like yeah yeah no but i i agree that that didn't that that girl shit did not hit me it was not something i wanted no i or like i didn't see that in myself at all but almost if you let's strip it back into like some habits that might make us healthier better

happier people maybe let's name three things what three things that make you better tell us doing yoga consistently consistently perfect next eating basically whatever the fuck i want and talking to the people that i love regularly and seeing them oh stunning right that's my pillars if i can do that every day fucking hell yeah that's good have you got that written down somewhere because you should um no also i yoga doesn't have to be every day that can just be like a okay when i'm doing that when you're doing it consistently but yeah if you were doing it every day it would probably have a positive impact on you my back would hurt a lot less

however i sometimes feel like and i know we do it on this podcast to get a bit like self-deprecating when it's like oh guys like i'm sorry but drinking water is gonna help you or like getting outside i hate to say it is gonna make you feel better but sometimes i think those like conventional kind of pillars of life that are like recommended by your gp and on the nhs list for like mindfulness all those fucking things that feel so fucking dumb and like futile are actually really genuinely helpful for humans on like a human scientific level nourishing for your soul i like to think that like oh i'm sure they do work but like not for me like i'm like an alien like i'm a rare being that i can't be someone that is like i'm not someone who exercises all the time and drinks water and meditates every day and

like i'm not that person but it's like well maybe i am wendy's small frosty is the ultimate summer refreshment and not because it's cool and creamy and made with fresh canadian dairy it's also refreshingly cheap just 99 cents until july 14th it's a treat for you and your wallet. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. In the early 1980s, gay men started to get sick from AIDS. Years before ACT UP, before HIV was discovered, before the history you know, there were people on the front lines of the fight against AIDS.

Joe Sonnabin. Michael Callen. Bobby Campbell. I'm Dane Stewart, and in the new season of my podcast, Resurrection, I tell the stories of heroes of the early AIDS movement. Like the story of a cabaret singer and a sex worker who invented safe sex and saved millions and millions and millions of lives. Go check out Resurrection wherever you listen to podcasts

a cast helps creators launch grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere a cast.com but the thing is i feel like what makes those things feel like they're not for you is maybe the fact that they've been like aestheticized and turned into thinking like this is what the pretty girls do and it's like oh well i can't be the girl that's on instagram doing all these shut the fuck up or like this is what the perfect girls do and i have this like thing that i need to be perfect all of this stuff it's like it's a shame that general healthy habits or like like as you just said things that are like on the nhs of like drink enough water yeah i'm would you be feeling that's not for me if that

was marketed as not as a thing that like 20 year old girls should do drink more water skincare routine blah blah blah bullshit bullshit bullshit or if it was marketed towards um 53 year old men um drink more water drink more water they're not being fucking told this shit in any other in in any other way than just like it's good to drink more water we're being like literally slapped in the face with like drink more water you piece of shit 10 step fucking skincare shit do yoga all this shit has been yeah it's been branded within an inch of its life it's now unrecognizable from like actual health makes you feel good and now it's just like do all this shit patriarchy stream

or like well do all this shit to be worth something i agree i think that is the perfect point but i think for me personally it's not even about i think it's not even about it marketed being look being like to look a certain way i think it's like the the kind of headline of all of these behaviors are i value myself and i will take time to nourish myself and i've always felt the opposite of that like i've always yeah i've always thought on like a deep soul level i can't care about myself i don't care about myself i will act in private and public accordingly to the notion that against my interest against yeah honestly against my better interest and i wouldn't be caught dead doing something that would bend like i wouldn't let it's like that's not me

what put an effort into myself that for you neither anymore so yeah no no i think that's the thing it's like obviously i've just seen immense growth in you in the in the few in the however years we've known each other what five six years i just got no idea um yeah i actually have no idea i'd love to work that out um it's really simple maths we can do it uh seven eight nine twenty one twenty two this is our seventh year of knowing each other i mean that's pretty crazy is that including the two years that we like knew yeah yeah that's like knowing your face and your name yeah knowing that there's a girl that looks like yeah yeah thank you um but yeah i don't even think it's about a marketed thing of like this isn't

for me because i think if anything it's like oh this is probably my category not that you were saying earlier the pretty girl thing but like a young girl who's kind of in the space and like i like skincare and it's like yeah that feels like my realm that feels like i'll fit in there sure but the the like sense of commitment to themselves and like almost being proud and like i mean turning it into their whole brand is one thing but yeah i just see that as disingenuous i'm not seeing it as health it's giving me an unhealthy energy but you need to drink water and then take a video of it and make a real and sponsored by water company it's not doing it not that but like in real life not the whole that girl thing but like in in life the people who take care of themselves yeah it's like yeah what there's no reason why that wouldn't be me there's no reason it's like i know all the things i do all that i mean there's no reason apart from the fact that i've actually made such an effort over the years

to like abandon any care for myself and like actually neglect myself like on a physical health soul level just on every level yeah i've really put myself and i think that's part of like being young and being in your 20s and like being in your early 20s and just being like fuck it i'll just do whatever i'll do that i'll do the things i know are bad for me because who cares and blah blah blah because it's fun in the name of fun though in the name of that's what's the thing the youthful element is like i'll drink a load of shit i'll smoke i'll do all of this bad stuff exactly in the name of i'll do things i shouldn't do in the name of fun but sometimes it's i'll do things i shouldn't do i'll drink i'll smoke in the name of self-destruction or self-neglect that's the

difference yeah that's the difference my friends yeah well because it's not um it's not motivated by love basically it's just motivated by because i think like if you're doing the self-destructive behaviors in the name of fun it's like that isn't your best that is in your best interest exactly you're doing that to better your life to give you experiences all this stuff if you're just sitting on your sofa not eating just because you're neglecting yourself what's that in the name of in the name of the devil in the name of death in the name of yeah yeah that's horrific so i also think it was interesting when we put on the story saying like okay guys when you make an effort to prioritize yourselves and try and like like yourselves a bit how is it what's the response like what are you met with in

life like your friends and family and the people in your life and just general society are they supportive of you or are they unsupportive of you yeah um because stephanie and i've had this conversation a few times of like when we kind of try our best to really radically embrace ourselves and do things that we want to do that feel really aligned to like the truest form of ourselves and like really deeply make us feel good and that feel really true to us and not a reflection of something that a teacher said to us when we were six or what our parents want of us or yeah some version of us that society has created when we try and do something for ourselves unfortunately it's not met with love yeah it hasn't been met with love it's actually been

met with dare i say hate of the highest form i think that is to the highest power also we were talking about like we've learned this lesson time and time again that it's like whenever you feel like you're prioritizing yourself suddenly it feels like kind of the microscopes on you and everyone's kind of what the fuck is she doing and i feel like it's just such an enduring timeless universal topic that it's like i feel like we're gonna learn this lesson time and time and time again actually also when we were talking about it i was thinking like we've yeah we've learned this a few times and i feel like a time that you probably really learn it is when you have a kid i feel like that would hit in the like deepest way in that it's like something takes a

priority like larger than you that it's like okay now my whole life is about this thing and like protecting this thing and all of this stuff it's the most unlikable thing you can do is like you become completely unavailable completely obsessed with this thing essentially completely boring um you don't really look like yourself anymore all of this stuff like you're just in you're in this shit like any new mothers out there sending love for the brutality you just your whole vibe is this thing now like you've lost your personality you're just this thing or like ouch hopefully you don't lose your personality blah blah blah but like something is taking on a greater importance than all your friends all of this shit there's a thing that's much you're feeling judged i feel like that you would really learn the lesson of like people don't really want

you to be happy in like they fucking no but they want you to serve them you know what it's kind of what i was saying in the in last week's episode which if you haven't had to go back to hear the breakdown that i was having but yeah it's kind of we've had this conversation before about which i seem to say in every episode we've had this conversation before it's like oh we're just regurgitating dry content then sorry guys but yeah this conversation does often come up of are you treating yourself the way that you would treat someone that you love are you treating yourself like a piece of scrappy shit on the floor and kind of i was saying like i'm in a point of tension i think with how much with just my place like in the space on the podcast and just who i am and like where i'm going and how much i want

to share and just the price of being vulnerable on the internet boohoo i guess but and it's kind of the thing that we're saying of there was i think i've tied this to her before but samantha maria who i love so much googled most beautiful woman on the planet and her face pops up yeah honestly i remember she was talking about when she had a daughter actually this is why you reminded me and she was saying like someone i think had asked her like what if your daughter wanted to make content on the internet yeah and Samantha Maria Sammy was like I would hope that she doesn't because it's such a scary painful thing to do which then begs the question why am I happy to do it for myself when I wouldn't want someone that I love so unconditionally to do it and that's kind

of i think what i was trying to convey in last week's episode is like i love this with my whole heart but i don't know if i would encourage someone that i love i would i would want them to know that there are like huge risks and that it's important to weigh up if you're in a position to take on those risks or not yeah and we've also people have sent messages before like i remember someone sent a message saying like it adds an additional layer onto the conversation of it's a shame that as women we find it so hard to value ourselves that we have to think of ourselves in relation to being a daughter yeah or like a mother someone else's property which is insane it's kind of you but it's kind of not you it's just like a mother someone else someone else's property which is insane it's kind of you

but it's kind of not you it's just like a more like a version younger version of you with value yeah it's you but kind of mixed with someone else but better yeah just like no yeah it's so fucked it's so stupid but that's what i'm kind of feeling like at the moment is that i think as well something stephanie and i were laughing like when we put that story up of like how do you guys feel when you guys do something to prioritize yourself are you met like do your friends and family support that of you because in our experience often they don't and we were like you're all gonna come back and be like yeah my friends are so supportive like they're the best and we're gonna be like oh okay yeah but i also think as if it was you were saying this earlier that sometime i think there's a kind of measurement of like okay but how radically are you loving

yourself because i think if you saw me a couple of years ago i would have been like yeah i'm making an effort to like prioritize myself and oh yeah like i know that that's the thing that i should do kind of in that i'm on the internet and i listen to podcasts way like yeah i care about like taking time for myself yeah like tick me like that's kind of the box i would take in the survey but i wasn't actually practicing or like understanding it hadn't hit me yet properly yeah and i think now i'm at a point where i feel almost quite passionately about it to the point where I don't have any other personality for some reason. Like it's taken over my whole life, if I feel like. Yeah, I want to ask you some questions about it in a minute.

Okay. But now that it just feels like such a huge, it feels like a big priority for me. It's like, there's really no way around this now. Can't go over it. Can't go under it. I have to go through it. I have to go through it. There's no way around it. That is way around it i've got to face the

final boss the final pokey master i need to deal with the final hurdle of nothing else is going to matter if i can't get to some conclusion of like not hating myself so deeply and like all the self-esteem shit like i i need to i need to draw a line under this now it's getting silly do you know what i mean like where am i going with this i think i can pack this in my bag and take it everywhere i go absolutely not it's kind of like i've packed my bag packed my luggage i packed my snacks i've got cheese and crackers in my bag and i've also packed this rat i packed it's gonna eat it's gonna get right into the cheese and crackers and i'm like oh i've always had this rat me and this rat like the rat is the only thing i know but everywhere i go i open my bag god i've got less cheese less crackers this rat is actually eating me alive and i'm so attached to this idea

of this ratty perspective of hating myself that it's actually destroying my food and my sustenance and and my whole life and my whole livelihood do you know what i completely fucking agree i think that's a great analogy because i definitely have a little remy in my bag too yeah do you know what i mean like just fuck this motherfucker i've got greedy old emil in here exactly yeah ask questions you were gonna ask me something yeah i was gonna say like in the way that you asked me like what are three ways that you show yourself you love yourself blah blah what are the things like in this new phase that you're in right now of like really deeply i feel like you're really like

respecting yourself and like giving yourself time and you're not um they're not necessarily the simple things like drink water blah blah blah it's like i feel like you're in like a in like almost like a quiet if i was gonna go to down a tarot road you're quite um hermit card um really kind of deeply allowing yourself some time what yeah would you say are the things like the actual things you are doing like what does that look like how does it manifest in your day okay how does it manifest in my day well i um i think the biggest thing is i'm really it's all so woo woo that like everything i say is just going to sound empty and it's going to be the thing of seeing all that going scrolling through the nhs thing and being like boring like

i think unless you're at this point where like you really are trying to care but like almost this is my this is my top line for me of like right now it's there's that it's the only thing that i can do almost like nothing else fucking matters though does it because literally this is life or death for me now do you know what i mean like yeah bottom line nothing the crux is that nothing else matters or it's like without this you can have nothing else like almost this is the gateway to anything else like exactly this is the baseline of like basically yeah life or death it's like to survive you need to learn this fucking thing and then then you can have everything else all the fun shit but it's like you actually like

it's like you can't you can't you don't get any of the good shit without actually realizing that you're worth something like that is um it's just completely necessary yeah i have been just trying to sprinkle it's so obvious that it just feels so mundane and like empty but i'm really just trying to it was actually something that my therapist was talking about as well weeks ago my old therapist i now have a new one which i'm really excited about because i'm i'm really quite you know when it's like oh i'm in love with you now like can i come over can we snuggle like it's so hard not to be in love with your therapist when they're good oh god oh when they're bad get fucked but when they're good boy they're good they're good um i've had one session with them by the way also i did i looked and i was like oh you're married

you've got a ring on your finger and then i thought why have i just looked at your finger i never do that why have i like oh you've spoken for i've noticed that you've got a ring on it's so weird that's really funny psychotic um it's also funny because now therapists kind of work from home you can see a bit their bedroom it's like let me in pan the camera you're looking at their belongings their belongings also it's like my one's like candles and things it's like god no nice taste you can't not put on a show for them as well this is why it doesn't work for me because i'm just putting out all the stuff exactly yeah i'm tallying up the laughs that i get from her it's embarrassing um i'm trying to make sure that every

day i go into i've set myself up with multiple things that i enjoy and that are easy to do um you could call this behavioral activation which means like things that are easy for you to do yeah easy to implement not too like challenging or too much pressure around it there's no like torturing if you don't get around to doing it it's just purely there to give you like half i was gonna say half an hour but i meant 30 seconds i guess either works i'm just bad at maths i understand the logic is 30 30 yeah exactly just see what i mean see where i was going um so do you want to know some examples definitely that's i'm there's all i want to know okay so this is quite a weird one which i'm actually not doing right now but i was doing it before and if you're

at a really low point harry i now speak directly to you if you're like hanging on by a thread hope you're okay sending love um if you can't get out of bed if you can't have a shower if you can't go and make yourself a cup of tea all of those things you can't reply to people blah blah if you're really in the pits with a capital p yeah um and a capital i t s yeah exclamation point exclamation point um god i'm so in love he looks so good with that exclamation point cutie boy take us back to the role of a lifetime being the exclamation point um something that is a good way to get yourself out of bed out into the bathroom wash your face brush your teeth make tea all those things she was like have she actually said biscuits which i was like a bit much but have i had little um like clementines like little easy peeler vibes by my way to make something delicious and fun so shit clementine

do you think you don't know they're so nice but that's not like a treat a clementine is like so okay let me tell you having a segi sorry segment or a fucking segi i would be like i literally say can i have a joke stop it you don't genuinely like if someone was eating oh yeah can i have a segi genuinely a segment of your orange a segi i would be like you could have a segi or you could have the whole thing they're only little they're like oh they're like what kids eat you know i mean they're really diddy yeah diddy diddy segi so she was saying biscuits because she was like you have biscuits and milk she even said i'm drawing the line here biscuits and needless needless to say i've got a new therapist but i'll pass on her her idea anyway have biscuits she said a lot of people like this which i can't personally vouch for but

i'm i put my own spin on it but hers was biscuits and milk as soon as you wake up can you imagine as soon as you wake up in the morning but look i'm i'm not judging you guys some of you might like this because she was like if you it gets worse if you have a biscuit as soon as you wake up and then you have some milk it's like like all the bits in your mouth like you need to brush your teeth yeah that was the vibe around it so it's like oh now i can't stay in bed i need to get up and brush my teeth because it's so disgusting in your mouth an orange is really gonna do that well exactly that was why i was like i don't really want to wake up like almost like you an orange is giving wait i'm santa claus so i was like i want something fresh

i want something that really wakes me up and then she also i've also been looking into nutrition which i was telling you about because she's given me this huge list like kind of um encyclopedia of all the different foods and like foods with different chemicals and stuff that like um kind of motherload rosebud like hack like cheat code your brain yeah into giving you a little bit of happiness i have to take what i can get in this life so i thought look let's try an orange see how that goes and it put me in a good mood to be and i felt like a kind of little old lady peeling an orange and popping it do you know what i mean it's just like look here i am it's kind of oh my silly little orange my silly little seggy and my silly little bed my silly little life it just is a little bit silly do you keep it next to your bed and then you yeah i would say put some put some on your

bedside table i love that so much how i love that's chocolate on the pillow energy that's hotel exactly yeah yeah um so i did that i also think for me and a non-negotiable sorry can i just say was she suggesting you keep a glass of milk on your bedside table yeah like a flower overnight was the word that she used so look thumbs down thumbs down she's off her nut what the hell i had to get like not for that reason but there are a few things stacking against her tea and biscuit or like a cookie and milk i could have like a chocolate milk hi rudolph honestly like i just thought we're on different we're on different wavelengths here so if you don't yeah yeah no she stepped me up but anyway um what's i saying

yeah something that's quite non-negotiable for me but on my own terms in quite an annoying way is seeing people that i love and feel really comfortable with and spending time with people or even just messaging people like yeah a lot of my friends will do like five minute voice notes back and forth like yeah it's like i'll send one at nine they send one at 12 i'll get back to them at half i mean like just throughout the day it's like when anyone's got a minute you're just peppering in some social interaction you're just peppering in you're saying hey how's it going i've had my segi of orange i've just done this oh i'm feeling a bit blah blah blah and it's just honestly like a brain dump so maybe i mean it really does have to be with people that you're

like fully close with yeah yeah like on that level with where like you care to hear their inner workings and you're happy to share yours with them yeah you want to hear about their orange like most people i wouldn't care to hear about their morning orange certain people right i'm sure that's how lots of people listening feel i'm totally to be honest and you're justified guys you're justified but little things like that so i'm making but then i also something else i've come up with sorry i'm really rolling my mouth now but i was saying this to you sephi the other day was that i thought in my head what would be quite helpful for me because i can be quite um i'm taking things day by day i'm taking things minute

by minute and i am a person who also has like these separate struggles so it's me and the struggles and we're going through things and my brain is coming up with all these things it's me and the rat and it's like right i i've noticed some behaviors in this rat like for example it quite likes the wheel running around like a little hamster it quite likes the cage it quite likes i'm trying to kind of wrangle i'm trying to like be a bit of a cowboy like sheepdog wrangle this rat into the most convenient way for me and sometimes it's just going to be completely unpredictable and gnaw through my bag and fall out on the floor screaming and sometimes it's going to be snoozing away and we're fine and i can do my life and everything's good what was i saying oh yeah one thing i came up with because i thought sometimes i feel like i'm

completely like at mercy like i'm defenseless to this rat to this ugly shit in my brain and i've like got i've not got hope in hell basically and i can't deal with things can't reply to sephie can't do the things that i love like can't make tea and get up those sorts of things like real just like god i'm not in a place where i can live my life i'm ill i'm ill i'm an ill person i'm unwell something i thought was it would be helpful for me and i'm in the luxury luxurious position of being able to do it is to be like i'm just going to take a weekend even if it's a tuesday i love this i know this is well it's like it doesn't work if you're working if your work schedule is not going to give you a

weekend so for that i can only apologize but for the girlies on their gap year or um working from home in a job that doesn't seem to your boss doesn't know whether you're working or not if you have when you can decide that your weekend is a tuesday wednesday for example exactly if you have some flexibility which is a very luxurious position to be with be in um and has its pros and cons if you're mentally ill but I just think being able to be like I'm gonna take a weekend and it's just I've got the rest of the day and I've got tomorrow to just do whatever my rat needs to do to sort itself out just to give my brain some space because the guilt and the shame is absolutely that's just i can't honestly say it's half the issue like 100 more

than half like the work we always talk about it but like adding the guilt and the shame to an existing issue i do feel like the weekend thing when you um sort of told me about this i do think it's it's such a good way to like for example like there's something you need to do on the monday you can't do it rather than just basically you're not going to do it on the tuesday and you're probably not going to do it on the wednesday exactly yeah you're just going to feel fucking shit shit shit that's your daily routine for those days if you give yourself a weekend as you were saying it's almost like okay so even if it's like you can't take time off work out of the shit totally but it's like i'm going to give yourself a weekend as you were saying it's almost like okay so even if it's like you can't take time off work all of the shit totally but it's like i'm gonna give myself a weekend from

doing my asos parcel if that's the thing yeah that's your barrier that's your block but it's like okay i'm gonna give myself a weekend from replying to that text it's like you then don't feel shit on the tuesday wednesday thursday yeah it's like you don't have to do it it's not on your to-do list until fucking thursday or whatever and the security of that is it's only a weekend so for me personally that feels like it will work or if that feels right for me right now because it feels like for me personally a long enough time that i have to let my brain do whatever it needs to do but it's also you've kind of got the security of it's only like a day and a half it's only like two days max so if there's an email i can get back to it in two

days rather than putting it off and then not getting back to it for like seven days which is an issue well and then it makes it work and the cycle reinforces so it's like i'm giving myself just giving yourself permission bloody time just basically showing yourself some respect that it's like yeah you there's no need to feel shit for two days when realistically the same the outcome is going to be the same but one of them the perception is that you've failed to do it every second that goes by as a failure to do that task and one of them is like oh well i don't need to do that until like midday on fucking wednesday i do also think the biggest thing for me and the only reason why i'm at this weird and not honestly annoying unlikable point where i can't shut up about

taking this time for myself and just doing things that make me feel good and all of this stuff the only reason i'm at this point i think is because i feel like for the first time in my life i have the clarity of oh you're not just someone who like needs to get over it and just pull yourself together like everyone else can do it pull yourself together it's like no you're actually dealing with an illness and be fucking reasonable and logical and give yourself the space to deal with it at the end that changes everything yeah it's really like god it doesn't have to be that dramatic like you're just someone like it's dramatic in a different way it's dramatic in a different way because it's like it doesn't make the feelings of it any less shit if anything it's like right now there's a fucking whole thing

to work on but it's like at least you can see clearly like you're not in the dark with it it's like when you acknowledge that it's like this is actually it's like a medical problem it's like right now there's a fucking whole thing to work on but it's like at least you can see clearly like you're not in the dark with it it's like when you acknowledge that it's like this is actually it's like a medical problem it's like okay so then it becomes so much more manageable because there are fucking textbooks on this shit like i don't know that like i definitely think like just to say my own fucking piece on it is that like when i realized that it's like right okay so body dysmorphia is the thing you're struggling with here not just a feeling of perpetual um fatness and like you're not good enough you need to lose weight that's the answer it's actually like yeah oh then you can read books on it and that will reflect your life back to you and all of this stuff it's like oh so then you can

actually like there's very there's basically a clear set pathway from the fucking nhs and fucking doctors to like overcoming or living manageably with this fucking thing you being like okay so what i'm dealing with is depression or whatever fucking shit you guys have i'm talking now to harry like whatever you have it's like when you actually get that i'm not even going to say diagnosis but that understanding of yourself of like that i know that that is what i have and i recognize it and all this stuff it's like there is actually i mean people have been working on this shit like whilst we've been sleeping and shit people have been writing essays they've been doing their dissertations they've been going to school on

this it's like who do you think you are as the anomaly that like oh no i just must be fucked i couldn't yeah what the chance is condition that everyone else has the same symptoms as me everyone else has the same thing blah blah blah blah no i must be just a weirdo yeah no no they're literally like it's so funny like i i find that such a relieving moment for people when i've seen that like um one of my friends got therapy recently and like you know when they send through like a little leaflet like the nhs basically sends you like basically a pdf of like um for example ocd like here are the symptoms of ocd and here's a little like little booklet that you can read through in the meantime before you get the stuff

and it's so nice watching someone kind of that like feeling of recognition of like oh my god like the behaviors you're listing it's my most shameful i'm not just a piece of shit yeah yeah it's i'm not just a fucking weird dick no i've got this one with this issue yeah job done isn't that crazy it's half the yeah no and then it's a whole that opens up a whole new host of fucking issues you've got to deal with this fucking impossible exactly but at least you can look it in the face and you can see that it's got some fucking letters it's got a name and it's like that's what i'm dealing with i think the journey of that is shit and difficult and all of those things but i don't think we'll ever be as hard as being in the thick of the symptoms of your issue and not knowing not even understanding yeah just like almost thinking

you're almost like you know you've got it but like you're not taking it seriously you're not giving yourself the validation and the space that you need and it's embarrassing you need to pull yourself together guys not embarrassing you need to sort it out seriously because you're wasting your life i'm sorry but you are wasting your life you honestly like you deserve happiness and you can go and get it i believe it you know what's so fucking true so fucking true because also that's the thing it's like the scariest bit you're so right is that moment before you choose to actually do anything like as soon as you're in the fucking process of doing something it's like look you're looking at it head on and it actually is i just think it's so much easier when you know

what's going on problem shared is a problem halved so fucking true with a stunning therapist that you can just look at all their candles in the background oh my check if she's wondering what her dress was like gorgeous right it's getting weird yeah let's go um nice episode lovely episode thank you so much for doing it thank you so much for doing this with me and thank you so much yeah thanks guys see you soon well if you don't hear from us