HealthyGamerGG - Conquering SOCIAL ANXIETY ft. Poopernoodle

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

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Hey, Lou, sorry, sorry for being late. That's all right. That's all right. Don't we run it? Um, okay. Okay. So, thank you for coming on. And you prefer Lou.

Is that right? Um, yeah, you could call me Lou or poo or pooper noodle. Yeah, so what's up with that, by the way? What, why is your, why is your pooper noodle? okay I don't think we'd do this already oh no I mean we don't have to sorry is that something I'm not supposed to ask you about no no no I can I can I can say um

no it's just kind of like it's an odd name no yes so it's a bit weird um basically uh the second time I went to university I was as the title suggests very socially anxious.

I used to, I had a sink in my room. And I used to, I used to pee in the sink because I was avoiding my flatmates. But I mean, it started off okay. Like, fresh as a week was okay, but then I ended up staying in my room on my computer for like a week. And then like I hadn't seen them in a week.

and I was like, okay, it's been a week. Like, if I see them now, it's going to be really weird. So then the weeks turned into months. Anyway, so I didn't go into the kitchen ever. And I didn't use the bathroom. I used to pee in my sink in my room. And I used to make food in my room as well. Occasionally, I would make noodles in the sink.

And in the UK, there's this brand called super noodles. anyway. But I didn't, yeah, one time I, one time I, I, I, I defecated in the sink by accident. Yeah, I didn't, it wasn't on purpose. Normally I would, normally I would shit in like, wait, can I swear? Oh, it was too late now. normally I'd shit in like plastic bags okay um yeah

accident uh yeah yeah um but anyway that's what happened and then the guy I was that who was my boyfriend at the time he made a joke called me poop noodle because it was the same thing that I made noodles in

and it rhyme with super noodle yeah so I mean that's I think that's funny. I also think it's interesting that you, you know, this is not the kind of thing that people would normally advertise. No. No, not really. So help me understand that. I very openly used to talk about this a lot and like make like sort of raunchy, gaudy sort of jokes and stuff and talk about that sort of thing. I felt like sort of wearing it on my sleeve

helps. Does that make sense? Interesting, right. So let's just put a pin in that concept. Right? Because I can imagine that if we're dealing with social anxiety, you know, telling the story that you just did, I would imagine makes your social anxiety worse. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Does it?

I don't know. I don't think so. Interesting. Actually, no. Because I'm saying it to you and I can see your face. Yeah, that's hard. That's really hard. But saying it to like my stream when it's just a bunch of text,

completely different. What makes it hard when you can see my face? I don't, I don't know. Just like your face. Oh no You're Not my face No I don't like

I just I feel like I I pay a lot of attention to Yeah Expressions Yes you do I

I know that I Misinterpret Expressions a lot As negative and I I don't like Looking at people's faces Well I don't like

Looking at your face either. Okay, so we'll talk about that. So paying attention to people's expressions, right? Yeah. And misinterpreting people's expressions. I don't think that you're misinterpreting them, by the way, technically. Okay.

I think what you're able to do is detect dissatisfaction in a face that primarily is satisfied, if that makes sense. So there's actually research on this. So let me explain it from the. top. It's a really interesting study. So I'm smiling at you, right? And then I get mad at you. Like there's a transition. So smiling, mad. And there's like a transition, right? Does that make sense? Like this and then this is kind of halfway and then like this is bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a transition. So if you think about it, halfway between smiling and being mad at you, my face is displaying 50% happiness. 50% anger. Does that make sense?

Yes, I think so. So a normal person, and I don't mean to say you're abnormal, I mean someone who's not as sensitive as you are, like literally your brain has a higher processing power here. Okay. So most people, they're processing power when they see like the half angry, half happy face, they're just confused. They think, I don't know what this person is feeling. Does that make sense? Because it's like half smiling, half angry. It's like, what is that person feeling? I don't know. And even if you think about it, when I'm 80% smiling and 20% angry, most people will think that I'm happy.

Does that make sense? Yeah. But people who have social anxiety or some other, it's not even a psychiatric thing, but there's some other diagnoses that are associated with the ability to detect negative affect or negative emotion in someone's face, even though it's hidden. So you'll be able to detect the 20% anger with the 80% smile. And your brain will tell you, oh, that person is still 20% angry. Does that make sense? So it's not that you, that you're like, you're detecting false things. You're just detecting a small amount of dissatisfaction in spite of the large amount of approval.

And your brain is cluing you in to that signal. But it's not like it's in your head. it's literally that your brain is more sophisticated and can detect negative emotion at very low amounts Okay Does that make sense? Yes, actually.

The other interesting thing is that people who've experienced trauma, especially in childhood, develop this skill. So if you look at people who like have abusive parents, you know, if your parents are abusive and they seem like they're in a good mood. It becomes a survival mechanism to be able to detect storm clouds. Oh, is my dad really in a good mood? Or is he like happy on the surface and like a volcano underneath? And so like their brains literally adapt to detecting like negative emotion underneath positive emotion. Okay. It's almost like they have x-ray vision, which is kind of what you look.

So the thing that you have to be careful about is that your mind will detect 20% dissatisfaction, and that's what your mind will zoom in on, and it'll ignore the 80%. So that's something you have to retrain. But your capacity to detect, you're literally more sensitive. Like you can detect things that normal human beings can't. People with anxiety and people with histories of trauma are like able to detect things because their brain has like told them, hey, like this stimulus is actually important. So let's pay attention to that.

What do you think about that? It made it sound much, much cooler than I thought it is. What did you think about it? I don't, I don't know. My, I mean, my parents were lovely. Yep. So, I mean, obviously there were some things that happened in my childhood, but I couldn't pinpoint like a single thing that sort of, you know,

I have memories of my mom wearing sunglasses a lot. And whenever she was wearing these sunglasses, I always thought she was angry at me because I couldn't see her face. So I always found it quite scary. And so when she wore them, I'd always ask her to take them off because I couldn't see her face. But like, I have fond memories of my parents. Yeah.

I didn't mean to imply that, you know, your parents were abused. I'm just saying that's what. we see. Yes. Sometimes. So there's two camps. There's people with social anxiety. There's also people who have a history of abuse growing up. They both, their brain wires to be sensitive to facial expressions. What are you getting from my face? Um, oh, you look a bit bored. Okay, now, oh, now you look like you're cringing. No. I'm smiling. I'm having a blast. Okay This is my board face, I guess

Does this look like a board face, D? Wait, no, it's because I was looking at the other Because there was a little bit of delay Wait, do the face again Wait, are you, you can't see me on Discord Because you're like really, really pixelated So I'm looking at your stream Because you're not, you're not pixelated

I'm pixelated That's got to be tough Oh, I can see you now. Okay, fantastic. Great. So just look at me. Don't watch stream. And certainly ignore Twitter chat.

I do my best, too. Okay. Sorry for the random-ass tangent. Lou. Okay. No. No, I was just going to say, yeah, sorry about that.

And then, so I think there were a couple things that I really thought were really important about your story. which highlight social anxiety. So one is like this idea that they haven't seen you in a week so you can't see them. Yeah. Right? And then two weeks go by. And then it's like, no, now I can't show my face.

And every week that goes by, they can't see you. And then every week it gets worse and worse. And then you have to become a hermit. You have to just like move out of the apartment at three in the morning. That's exactly what I did. I used to, I had this little pile of cushions that I would put like, right next to the door so I could sit and listen for long periods of time to work out when they weren't in the corridor and I that sounds absolutely crazy doesn't it yeah yeah yeah that's

what happens I mean like what you said about the it's been the weeks and then it's been months thing like I remember one time I was in a quite a long Uber journey and as I got in the car, my seat belt got stuck in the door. So it was like poking out the door. So I was sit in the car, but I didn't want to move over. So I was, I couldn't actually use the seatbelt. But it had been about 20 seconds by that point. And I felt like, oh no, if I say something about it now to him and I missed the window. So I ended up just sat there for the next like 20 minutes thinking that I was going to die because I wasn't wearing a seatbelt because I felt too nervous to actually say, hey, Can I? Yeah.

Yeah. And then it's like, how do you tell them, oh, like five minutes into the journey, like, oh, by the way, I don't have a seatbelt on? Ten minutes into the journey. By the way, I don't have a seatbelt on. And they're like, why would you wait 10 minutes and then tell me, you know? It's crazy. Yeah. I remember one time I'd been out of school for a little while. And then like, since I was out of school, like, I couldn't go back. Like, what would people think. Yes. And then, like, I had missed classes. And then, like, how can you show up?

Like, I've, I'd just been skipping class. I was playing video games all day. And then it was, like, halfway through the semester, if I start going to class now, I can still pass. But can you just, like, I didn't know, like, what to think. Like, there are 30 people in the class. And then halfway through the semester, someone just walks in that you've never seen before. Yes. Yes. And they're like, what are you doing here? And you're like, I'm in the class. And they're like, no, you're not. Where have you been this whole time? I couldn't do it. Yeah, I mean, I dropped out of university a few years ago because of, I just failed. Largely because of that. Yeah. Oh, right. So I showed up on the day of my final and then I put my head down and I thought I was banking

on people not noticing because they would be taking their final. Yeah. And then took my final and then walked out. Do you know what grade I got in the class? Can you guess? I don't. How do you grade things? Oh, yeah. So A, B, C, D, and F. Okay. How do you grade things where you are? That way, but I don't know. It might be different. A C. F. Wait, no, did you? Oh, okay. You got an F. Yeah. that's how you fail at class, Boys and Girls. So you never go, and then you show up on the final, and then you do your best, which is pretty awful.

And then I went home and I played a lot of Diablo too to make my feelings go away. That sounds fun, though. It was actually a lot of fun. It was a blast of semester. I really enjoyed it. Alas. Okay.

I did actually have a class that I failed as well because of that, but that was at this university. It was, I was studying Chinese and I went for like the first couple months. And then it dropped off. I have this pattern with everything that I do. It just slowly drops off because I miss one thing. And then I'm like, well, I can't go to the next one. Yeah.

I wasn't at the last one. And what if they asked me what happened at the last one, I wasn't there? So anyway, yeah, the days turned into weeks, 10 to months. I go to the final exam. and I throw up in the room and I get sent home and I failed the exam. Yeah. Wow. It's hard, right?

Like when the only way that you can show up the next day is to have been perfect the day before. Yes. I hadn't thought of it like that. Yeah. What do you think about that? I don't know. I like to be very, like, prepared. Because things have to go perfect.

Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise, I don't go back. Yep. Right? So, like, Lou, I think you're living life, like, these speed runners, for, like, a single mistake and you have to start over. Yeah.

Right? So you never make... And, like, that's great when you're playing the same game with the same levels over and over and over and over and over again. but it's hard in life where like every day is a little bit different. It's like you're trying to speed run a game, but you only get to play it once, and tomorrow there's a new game. Yeah. It's weird.

I think I understand that. Yeah, so chase and perfection. Why do you have to be prepared? Just prepare, you know, for the worst. I've been told I catastrophize a lot. What does that happen? Like, like, I don't know how to describe. Like, for example, I used to go to these, like, spin classes with my dad.

And suddenly, out of nowhere, I would, this thought would pop into my head that, like, I'm going to spin off the front of the bike and, like, die. And, like, the bike will, like, explode or something or something will explode in the room above me. And it happens, like, every time I go outside. Like, I'm trying to cross the road. This car is going to run me over. I'm, like, I'm going to die. Yeah. It's weird to have a mind that tells you that kind of stuff, right?

Does that make sense? I don't, I don't know, because it is, because it is, because it is, because it is, because it is, does everyone not have these thoughts sometimes? Do you have those thoughts? Do you not have those thoughts sometimes? I suppose when I'm drunk. Ah. I don't catastrophize. Okay. No.

Okay. Interesting. And how long have you been catastrophizing? Like forever? Okay. So you've been doing it your entire life? Oh. It feels that way, but maybe not.

Sure. Yeah. Important revelation, right? Let's just think about that. So you just, you just, just said, yeah, I have been doing it. And then you paused. And then you said, it feels like it's been my entire life. Yeah. So has it been your entire life? No. I mean, the past few years. So let's think about that, right? So something, when I asked you the question, there's some

kind of internal calculation that says, yes, this has been going on forever. Like, it gave you that answer. Yeah. like, but it turns out that that's not actually the case. So then if we're being very careful, what we have to recognize is that sometimes our mind produces answers for us that are wrong. Yeah. That's, yeah, all the time. Can you tell us about that?

Um, oh, uh, yeah, like, oh, like this, like just, Like last week, okay? Last year there was a streamer who was quite a big fan of. I'd been subbed to him for a few months, okay? Like maybe six months. I resubscribe and he's like, pooper and noodle. Yikes.

And he's just like a bit of a joker. Like that's his thing, whatever, he farms, they'll w's. But instantly I was like, oh my God. He hates me. I unsubscribe instantly.

I unfollowed him everywhere. I was mortified. I avoided watching any videos about this streamer because I couldn't stop thinking about this time that he was like, pooper in it all, yikes. And like a month ago, he said something really nice about me and I realised that it was just all in my head. Yeah, it looked completely made up.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. How do you understand that? What's up with that? I don't know. It made me think of, like, lots of other incidents where I've just, like, instantly, I'm like, okay, this person wants nothing to do with me. I'm just going to remove myself completely from all of that. So let's talk about that for a second.

Is that cool? Yeah. Yeah. So this person wants nothing to do with me. Hold on. Can I think for a second? Yes. How much of your social anxiety can be captured by that phrase? What phrase?

This person wants nothing to do with me. Probably quite a lot of it. Okay. How long have you felt? How long has your mind been sometimes randomly telling you that this person wants nothing to do with me? I mean, I've always been, like, I've always been quite quiet, like a child growing up. My brother was very social, very outgoing, and he would always make the friends, and then I would, like, play with, like, little toy cars or something. One of us.

Yeah, so that was that was quite difficult as well because sometimes we would do things like as a family and there would be like maybe another family with like kids there and then he would make the friends first and then he'd be like, you know, don't talk to her. She's just quiet and weird and then they would like all go have fun and I'd... But like I liked my own company so it was an awful.

I just wasn't very outgoing and I find it me difficult to, you know, talk to kids and stuff. And then I had some pretty bad experiences in high school like other girls. So then I didn't know how to talk to girls anymore for I still don't. I don't really have any friends now that are girls, Benny, yeah. Okay. So I asked you about, you know, sort of like whether this person wants nothing to do with me has... Oh, no. Oh, you asked me something and I went on complete tangent.

Oh, I'm so sorry. No, no, no. Don't be sorry. I think that's where we learn. That's wonderful. I'm glad you went on a tangent, right? Because you gave us a couple of really important pieces of information. One is that while you may have been socially isolated,

the reasons for your social isolation back then were fundamentally different because I didn't hear this person doesn't want to hang out with me. I heard I was just kind of a quiet, shy kid, and I was okay with my own company. So if anything that tells us that something happened that changed the way that you perceived your interpersonal interactions,

which is great. Like, it's great that you gave me that piece of information because then we actually know that you haven't always been like this. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So, so I, yeah. Yeah, go ahead. I don't know. I just thought that like since I'd been quiet my, you know, whole life that I'd always had social anxiety, but are you telling me that that's not quite the case? I could just been quiet and then something happened along the way that made me anxious about social anxiety. things. That's what I would

hypothesize. Okay. Right? Because what I'm hearing, this person wants nothing to do with me says nothing about the person. It says something about you. Right? Yeah. It has to do with the way that you perceive your

value. Whereas the girl who's content to play with toy cars has no problem with her value. In fact, as you put it, used to think the opposite. I'm a cool person to hang out with all by myself. I'm very good company, right? If you think about it, that's actually the exact opposite.

You're like, hey, this person's awesome. I don't need any of those fuckers. I'm going to hang out with me, myself, and Lou. We're going to play with our toy cars, and it's going to be great. Yeah. And then somewhere along the way, you were like, oh, like, Lou's not worth hanging out with. That's different. Something's changed.

Does that make sense that those are, those feel, very different to me. Yes. Why I had this amazing family, my childhood was a bit difficult because we were moving a lot. So I was, I was born in Thailand in Pouquet and we lived there for six, seven years. And then my dad was a teacher and he got a job then as a headmaster in Chile and South America. So then we lived there for four years. So I was learning different languages. And then after that, we moved to England. And while I did make friends, I was always very different from them.

And there were times where, like, if my friends wanted to exclude me, they would talk in their own language so that I couldn't join in. And, I mean, that happened in all the countries apart from England because I can speak English then, yeah. What was it like to be excluded? Well, it wasn't fun. No. There was quite a poignant moment in high school, actually, in England where I felt very excluded. that I think I don't know how to describe it

really shaped the way I felt about myself I think it sounds really materialistic but I was in this group of like maybe seven girls or eight girls and we were all like best friends but there was a pecking order and I was bottom of the pecking order but it was fine because like it meant I didn't have to sit in the toilet

lunchtime if I hung out with them. And basically every, every birthday, because for our 18th, it was an 18th birthday, so every birthday, everyone would pitch in 20 pounds. And then like the week before, everyone would, would go out and choose a, like, a special charm bracelet with a charm for them and then like a cake and then a little surprise party and that sort of thing. Anyway, you'd probably tell where this story's going. But like four birthdays have. happen. Everyone pitches in, I pitch in. It gets to my birthday. I think really happens on the day. That's fine. People are busy. I wait a couple of weeks. One of the girls invites me around to hers. Um, they, they, uh, um, sorry. Um, when I walked in, there was like half a box of donuts and some deodorant that they were like spraying around. I don't know if that was like a joke. It was like I smell bad or something.

That's probably in my head as well. But these donuts had already started eating. They sang happy birthday. I was waiting for this bracelet. Which, yeah, that makes me sound really spoiled. But it didn't happen. I found out afterwards that between the sort of seven of them, they only managed to get together about five, ten pounds.

So, well, that made me feel pretty shit. Yeah. What does that mean feel pretty shit? What were you feeling? I felt like these people were my friends, and they, like, even though I joined in, all the other, I joined in all the birthdays afterwards as well. Even though I joined in all this stuff, they didn't, they didn't want to do the same for me. And it, I just really feel quite excluded.

Yeah. Like they want nothing to do with you? That's the one, yeah. There it is. Yeah. So I want to point something else out to you, Lou. That's interesting, because you call yourself a material. materialistic when you tell that story.

Yeah. Why do you do that? Because it's quite expensive bracelet. Everyone pitches in 20 pounds. But to me, it wasn't really about the bracelet. I don't think it's about a bracelet to anyone who's listening to that story. Okay. Right?

But I want you to notice what your mind does. even when you're sharing something that is authentic, vulnerable, and that maybe you deserve compassion for, what do you do to try to the kind of the, what do you preemptively do to our compassionate response? Um, to try, try like, uh, squash it. Yes. Yeah.

Right. Interesting, huh? You see how you're doing that? You're actually devaluing yourself. in the story. You're like, look at me. I'm a materialistic little shit. And then you tell the story,

which is not about, I don't think anyone thinks that that's materialistic. I think it's about fairness. And justice sounds bizarre. But like, you know, I think it's about value. It's about being valued, about being appreciated. It's not a story about material things, right? Yeah. Yeah. And yet your mind generates this thought, which is like, oh, I'm so, it sounds kind of materialistic.

I thought we were going to talk about like, you know, everyone had a Louis Vuitton bag and like I didn't have one or something like that. Even then, that's okay, I guess. But, you know, that sounds to me like they, they really, I mean, you were. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't sound to me like they were your friends. Yeah, but I don't talk to them anymore. More things kept happening and then I realised this is just making me sad actually. They used to sort of say that I always make myself a victim, which made, well, the rest of my life really hard. Because whenever anything happened to me, I would be like,

I'm just making myself a victim here, you know, am I overreacting? There it is. So do you see that? If you're if you're just making yourself a victim, what are you doing to yourself? You're devaluing yourself, right? You take the oomph out of whatever complaint you have. Blaming the victim and calling someone a victim is the last refuge of assholes.

Because if you're just being a victim all the time, then like, I'm perfect. The problem's you. Right? It's a very, very, very easy way to dodge any kind of personal responsibility to blame the victim. Or say that, you know, Lou, what's wrong with you? You're a victim, like, you're so victim complex. Like, we got you deodorant and donuts. And the rest of us got charmed bracelets and cakes on our birthday, by the way, or near our birthday.

not as an afterthought. Why are you whining? Why are you making me feel bad for being an asshole and treating you like shit? It's your fault. Yeah, that sounds like what they would say. Yeah. And then you started adopting the victim mentality,

which has to do with... So like if we think about it, like if you start blaming yourself for being a victim, you devalue your own experience. Does that make sense? Yes. And so when you devalue yourself,

like your worth as a human being and your mind decreases. Does that make sense? Yeah. And if your worth as a human being is really low, why would anyone want to hang out with you? That's true. I don't know why anyone was. So I think,

I mean, it's kind of weird, but like this idea of this person wants nothing to do with me, to me feels very connected to this. Ah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the value thing is interesting because I don't know if this was rated at all,

but I used to get my nails done quite frequently before lockdown. And they always turned out okay, but there was this one lady one week who just felt like she just like got a saw and was just chopping my fingers off. Like they were just bleeding. and I was sat there like tears streaming like and she was like oh oh I'm sorry I hope that her and I but I didn't want I didn't want her to feel bad that she was doing a bad job so I was sat there like oh no they're they're fine and then for the following few weeks every time I went to shower they would sting in the shower my nails snapped off I had to wear plasters on them and

I was I was beating myself up over it like you know you're such a twat you should have just you should have just said you know make can you cool off my nails a bit and but I didn't do that and yeah I kept yeah I get myself into these situations a lot so Lou how do you think that's related

you started that off with like I'm not sure if this is related but this thing happened to me so you tell me how it's related why does your mind go there because my thing the pain I was in was worth

less than whether or not she thought she was doing a good job. Beautifully put. Right. And then what do you do to yourself? So like that's true. But then what happens in the shower? What do you do to yourself? Every time you're in pain, what does your mind tell you?

What? Why you're such a fucking idiot? Yeah. Yeah. Right? So like this is kind of weird, Lou, but like you're setting up, you're playing a rigged game. It's a game where Lou doesn't get to complain.

And it's always Lou's fault. Yeah. How fun is that game to play? Um, uh, not, not fun,

though. Yeah. Sounds quite shitty. Yeah. I'm thinking, but also giving you space to speak. Okay. I, okay.

I don't, I don't quite know what to say. I don't know either. So can I think for a second? Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. So now that we've potentially made this discovery, now I'm like, okay, great. Now what?

That's what I'm going to thinking? Okay, what do we do with this? All right, so let me just give me a second to try to figure out where we go from here. Okay, okay. That's fine. What are you thinking right now? A lot of painful memories just came back about those girls. Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me.

I just, it was the same group of girls. There was one time, it was the first time that I'd ever, this is really embarrassing to say. It was the first time I'd have been naked in front of someone. we went to get a spray tan together. I was 18 and it was for like the prom at the end of, I guess it's what you call it. It was called the lever's ball or something.

But we went to get a spray tan together. I didn't actually know you were supposed to get naked for a spray tan. So that was a surprise. But I did. She had hers done and then I went to get mine done straight afterwards and then I went back into the changing room to put my stuff back on, my clothes back on and she

said to me what the fuck is wrong with your nipples they look blue I don't I mean I don't think I have blue nipples but she said that and then she said when you have sex with a guy don't take off your top

because he's not going to want to fuck you and at the time I was trying my hardest not to look upset by this because I knew that she'd call me sensitive so I was just like oh okay who laughs and like jokes along and then when I got home I couldn't stop thinking about it

And it meant that for the rest of my relationship, so I used to just keep my shirt on. Yeah. What do you think about that story now? I think that my nipples aren't fucking blue. So there's something important there. I mean, there's a lot that's important there. But I just want to point something out to you. Yeah.

You look like you're processing still. Yeah. I'm going to give you a second. You let me know when you're ready. Okay. Okay. I'm ready. So if someone says something like that about you, there's a, there's like if someone says something mean about you, there's like this counterpoint, right?

There's like a, no, my nipples are normal or whatever. But the point is when someone puts you down, there's a voice within you that says, no, that isn't true. And what did you do to that voice? squashed it. Yep. And so then what becomes true for you? What's left? What they said to me?

Yeah. And so if we think about it, like when we think about, at the very beginning of this conversation, I sort of mentioned to you that like your mind generates these thoughts, right? And like where do those thoughts come from? They come from like the mind generates thoughts that it thinks are true. But the truth, like the thought generating machines, in your mind, I think were formed by experiences like this, because they were allowed to become true.

Certain opinions about you as a person stood unopposed. In fact, if anything, and be careful, because I'm not blaming you for this, because, but it could seem like an indictment. I could make it sound like it's your fault. So be careful, okay? Because watch out if the victim complex comes up. But you basically stabbed yourself in the back, right? Because instead of fighting against, that thought. And I'm not saying that this is your fault. So be careful, victim complex, don't arise. But if it does arise, you let me know. But basically what happened is for a long time, it sounded like you have some real asshole people in your life that were laying the foundation of the way that you viewed yourself. And so like, go ahead. Sorry.

I will say quite nasty things about myself. to other people because then it hurts less hearing them Mm-hmm You own it, right? Yeah Why do you call yourself

poop or noodle again? Because I shot in a sink And if you call yourself Poop or Noodle, what does that let you do? I own it Mm-hmm And then it hurts less Yeah

We're going to just sit quietly for a moment. Okay. If you need me to say something, please let me know. Okay. I'm feeling emotions, too. Okay. Tears welling up in my eyes.

That's very nice of you. Okay. Yeah. What are you feeling right now? I don't know. I am, there's something else that I do as well as say nasty things about myself. And I don't know how to explain this. I don't know why I do it.

But I will actively go out sometimes. I'm on a really good day. Sometimes I will actively go out online, search my name and look for the really nasty comments about me. and I would do it to myself and I will look for the nasty things I don't know if it's to like prepare myself or I don't I don't know

but yeah I'd do that quite often yeah that makes a lot of sense to me can I have a moment to figure out how to explain it yes you can I think it comes down to well hold on I'm just going to toss out a random kind of story. Is that okay? Yeah, go ahead. Sometimes people torture themselves on social media before they go to bed. It took me a while to like figure out why they do this, but I don't

know how else to describe it, but like, you know, sometimes when it's like late at night and you may be feeling good about yourself, you may be feeling bad about yourself. But then what you do is you hop on social media and you look at all of the wonderful things that other people are doing. and it just makes you feel like shit but you just sign up for that torture like you log on and you gravitate towards seeing all of these happy people and each person that you see

makes you feel worse and worse but you just keep looking and you know you do it to yourself and you do it to yourself and sometimes you're feeling good and sometimes you're feeling bad sometimes it's sort of like confirming what you already suspect

and sometimes it's like knocking you down a peg because you don't deserve to feel good about yourself. Yeah. And in your case, I think hope is a dangerous thing. Because if hope... Yep. I think hope is a dangerous thing.

Because you've been at the bottom of the pecking order. You know you can survive that, right? Like, it's familiar territory. You know how to play this game. You've played this game before. You're actually really good at speed running this game. When lose at the bottom of the totem pole, you spend so much time knocking yourself down. You know exactly what it looks like.

You can survive that. You're actually quite strong and you know you're strong. You know if people think you're shit. You'll survive that because you've survived it for a long time. I was about to say your entire life, but that's not true. What's dangerous is if you're not at the bottom of the totem pole. Because being at the bottom, you're used to. Falling to the bottom, that hurts so much more.

Yeah. It's the possibility that you may not be at the bottom, which is absolutely terrifying. What do you think about that? Yeah, that's very well put. I thought of it like that. Yeah, I don't know if it's related, but I always been told quite a pushover as well. Sure. Um, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the totem pole thing, I, um, yeah, I, um, yeah, I don't, I, I, I,

yeah, sorry, I'm thinking and trying to speak at the same time. It's not working. I fucked that up on a daily basis. I should use your line. It's a good one. Normally, like, yeah. Normally before, like, doing something like this, I would, I'll drink.

Or, like, like, because, in the past like at a university and stuff I've always been really boring sober and then when I drink the next day people would be like oh you're so much fun when you drink you should do more often you should come out oh you're so funny last night

so then I start to think that I'm like I can't be funny without alcohol I don't drink very often because I don't socialise very often maybe like once a month. But when I do, I drink excessively because I feel like I have to catch up to everyone else's social level

of being, you know, a social person. So, yeah, and then it always backfires because I can't tell you how many people that I've tried to make friends with at university, but I fucked up the first night because they invited me out for drinks and then I drank too much and I, they had to take me home from the club

and I threw up in the taxi and then they never spoke to me again. That's happened quite a lot. I'd ruin it for myself, really, with the alcohol. Yeah. Quite good at ruining things for yourself. Yeah, yeah. Pro.

You know, one of the hardest things about substances. So I don't know how many people know this, but in my day job, I'm actually an addiction psychiatrist. So I work primarily with addictions. Oh. You know, you know what the hardest addiction is to crack? It's when people tell me that when I use the substance, I feel the way that other people look.

I feel normal. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's easy to give up something, but it's hard to give up that. at which makes you normal. It's a big ask. Yeah.

That's what it is, right? You get to be normal. You get to be funny. You get to have people like you. You get to not think those things about yourself that sober you likes to think. Yeah, but then the next day I do. Absolutely, right?

So here's the thing about drinking. It's a good point. You're not actually normal when you drink. You're just taking a loan. You're going to have to pay that back, right? Because all of the self-judgmental thoughts are going to come roaring back. And you're actually going to sabotage your relationships. But man, is it really sweet?

Like, it's just like a loan. It's like when I get like a loan from a bank and I'm sitting on like $10,000 of cash, like, that's awesome. I get to buy whatever the fuck I want. You got to pay it back. I hadn't thought of it like that. Right. And the thing is usually when it comes to substances, as I'm sure you've learned,

you pay it back with interest. Because then those people don't call you again. In that situation, I think it's fair to say. I mean, so don't get me wrong, I want to be compassionate and empathetic. But if you hang out with people for the first time and you vomit in a taxi,

like, I wouldn't expect those people to call you again. Right? You kind of fucked up there. Like, can we be fair? Yeah. They had to pay Lifty quid

Yeah Yeah Like don't get me wrong I don't I mean I blame you for it And I forgive you for it Because we're allowed to make mistakes Right

That's part of life But let's like be clear And like it It's a mistake Yeah Drinking too much Vomitting in a taxi And alienating people

Generally speaking In the grand scheme of life Is a mistake Yeah Now, when someone tells you that your nipples look strange and you laughing it off and believing that about yourself and being self-conscious, that's not a mistake. That really isn't fair for you to think about yourself. And it's really mean that she said that. And the same part of me that, you know, I guess holds you to the standard of making a mistake for bombing the taxi.

He also says that you don't deserve that. Sure, like you deserve the taxi vomit 50 quid. fine. But like this, the rest of the stuff that you do to yourself, you don't deserve. You also don't deserve to believe, and I'm not blaming you for believing this, that you're not a delightful person without alcohol. Because you seem delightful to me. Are you drunk right now? No. Okay. No. Because that would really torpedo my argument real fast, wouldn't it? Just that I'd check.

Yeah. Yeah. I think as interesting that you keep using the word. I'd deserve something happened to me last year. And I wrote about it online and for the whole world to see. And a lot of people said, you know, how did she not see the red flags? What fucking idiot. Like, you know, she deserved this to happen to her sort of thing. And I do, I do sort of leave that. Do you believe what?

That I just deserved this bad thing to happen to me because I was fucking stupid. Yeah. I think about that for a second. Yes. Do you mind if I, and I want you to think about this question before you answer it. Okay. Do you mind if I add some, or ask you some just basic questions about context? Remember, we talked about this?

Yes. So are we going to offer more context or are we going to skip past the context? Whichever one do you want to do? Um, I... Let's skip past. Okay. Yeah? Yeah.

Okay, yeah. Does that feel like the right move to you? Um, yeah. Okay. Okay. You feeling good about that? We good? You're judging yourself again?

What's going on? Your face is changing. I see it. What are you doing? What are you telling yourself? Lou? I'm going to think about this a lot later. That's okay.

You're allowed to think about it. What else? You're doing that lit-biting thing that you do when you're judging yourself. I feel bad that I didn't want to give context And I'm worried that I made your show bad By not doing that There it is. Okay, so just notice what happened, right?

So there come the thoughts again And you believe them to be true. They're telling you they're true. You see that? They feel true to you. Yeah. Are they true? I don't know.

Okay. Okay, good. I'll take and I don't know. But just acknowledge that they feel true. That's totally cool. They feel true to you. Turns out, I don't think you fucked anything up. That's my opinion.

Okay. Okay. But maybe your mind sort of tells you, oh, he's just saying that. And he really... Oh, ha ha. You got me. It's almost like I do this for a living. So, Lou, it's totally fine, man.

I think we can... You don't have to go into context. You're not like a weak person. like, oh my God, she'd be so much stronger if she spoke out, because that's what you're supposed to do. Right? It's, it's, you do you, man. So be careful because don't there you, like, it's there again, too, because you have an impulse, which is like, this is what Lou wants to do. Lou's nipples aren't weird.

And what do you do to that impulse, right? So now I want you to really notice that that's just your reflex of devaluing the way that you feel. You're putting, you're knocking Lou down to the bottom of the totem pole for the sake of the show. But I don't give a fuck about the show. You certainly shouldn't give a fuck about the show. Oh, all right. Something changed.

I don't know. I just thought it was quite funny. That's all. Right? So how did we do that? that. Like, how are you feeling right now? Uh, uh, exposed. Okay. And how does it feel to feel exposed?

Um, I'm worrying about what's going to happen later. Okay. Okay. I think you're allowed to do that. But, but what I'm hearing is something, so let's just track through what happened through your mind, right? So I asked you, should we ask more context or provide more context or not? And then you didn't want to, which is totally fine, right? Because I think it's actually not that important. We can get a lot out of this. Okay.

And then you started to judge yourself. And then you were thinking like this, Lou is bad in the moment. She's fucking things up now. And then we sort of noticed that, that you're like beating yourself up again, that you're devaluing yourself. Remember, the show is more important than your feelings. Like, you did it again. Yeah.

That same program. It's like a bot. that's just like auto-run stuff for you. And then we noticed it and now you started worrying about the future which I think is a different bot

but it's not the same bot. Does that make sense? Yes, yes. You weren't like devalue yourself you were like just maybe now you're catastrophizing or something like that. Yeah, yeah.

But beating yourself up and devaluing yourself is not the same as catastrophizing. Agreed? Yes. But now, yeah. Oh, no, I forgot what I was going to say. It's okay. What I'm talking about is quite abstract and hard to hold on to.

Yeah. I also get the sense that you're doing, by the way, you're doing really well. I think it's hard for people to learn so many different things that are new all at the same time and are able to keep up. Yeah, I feel like maybe like 20% of it is going in. That's fine. Yeah, I think it's probably closer to 80, but that's you doing it again. You see it? You're going to take 80 and you're going to turn it into 20 in your mind.

Oh, yes. Do you see how like it's automatic, man? How do you notice it so well? I don't notice it at all. Yeah, well, I mean, now we're going to get to red flags. So the reason I notice it well are two reasons. One is I'm on the outside. Uh-huh.

Right? The second thing is I practice. So you can learn to notice it too, because you can notice it if I have pointed out to you. So all you have to do is you have certain things. programming that has taught you to take opinions about yourself and knock them down. In the same way, you can start to program being able to notice opinions about yourself and recognize that these are not actually fair opinions. This is just your programming. You have internalized the opinions of that group of girls. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Sorry, I'm bouncing around while. You can also internalize what I am. telling you. It just takes practice. So you can learn how to know this too. You have to forgive me. I'm an academic, so when I sometimes, I could say things simply and then instead I make them

complicated and hard to understand. Sorry. It's the way we feel good about ourselves, because then we feel smarter than everyone else. When we say something in the rest of the world doesn't understand, it just means we're brilliant and they're idiots. And they're like, When actually we're the ones who are stupid.

Because if we're teachers, our job is to help people understand. Do you think I'm understanding? I think you're understanding a lot more than you give yourself credit for. Okay. I'm not making it easy on you, by the way. No, this is great. This is very informative. Cool.

Should we get back to it? Okay, yeah, go on. How are you feeling right now? real quick. Oh, what did I say? That I felt exposed. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm worried about later. What? Okay. No. You know what? I'm not going to skip past it. See, look at what you just did.

Yeah. Last year, I was assaulted by someone and I wrote about my experience online and I had a lot of people reach out to me afterwards about it, people that I hoped I would never hear from again For example, those girls from high school read my stuff and reached out to me, exes that I hope I'd never speak to again, reached out to me. It was weird, it was really weird.

Some guy that I went to school with, who I only spoke to, like, maybe two times, sent me a message on Facebook, book say, hey, I read your Twitter longer. If you ever need someone to talk to, I'm here. Like, I don't, I mean, I know these people, they mean well. But I think that's why I feel exposed right now, because I'm thinking about later, like, what's what happened? Yeah, like, who's going to reach out to me and be like, hey, I saw your interview, you know. Hope you're doing okay.

I, if you so want to talk, like, but there's people that I don't want to hear from. That's, yeah, that sounds really ungrateful. But, oh, no, I did it again, didn't I? Ah, how did you learn how to do that? Because you made a face. You went like... Well, I fucking face all the time, Lou.

Okay, it's true. Some random pile of faces. You really can't blame me for that or credit me for that. I think that's you learning. That's what learning looks like. Because I make, I'm making a face right now. Like, what does mean? No one knows.

Yeah, I can't tell. Yeah, I think of it. My face is about as RNG as you can get. Okay, so let's try to put some, I'm going to try to organize our discussion a little bit. Is that okay? Yeah. Do you want some time to think? Nope. I'm good.

Do you want some time to think? No, I'm great. Okay. Yeah. So I see a fork in the road. We can either talk about, like, you know, what you're experiencing now, about, like, what is it that makes you not want to hear from people? What is it that makes you worried about the consequences of this conversation?

Or we can go back to this idea of not seeing the red flags, feeling stupid, feeling like on some level you may have deserved it. Which direction do you want to go down? The deserving one, actually. So let's start with red flags. Can I tell you a story? Yes. One of my favorite stories.

So when I was an intern, I just finished medical school. And I was an intern. So like when you're an intern, I'm a psychiatrist, but when you're an intern, you do all kinds of like physical medicine. So I was working in the ICU and things like that. learning how to treat heart attacks and strokes and pneumonia and all that kind of stuff. So I one time had this patient that was an elderly woman who had pneumonia. And like what happens is you start your shift at like seven in the morning and it ends at seven at night.

So you're in the hospital for 12 hours. So you're in the hospital 12 hours a day, six days a week. So, you know, we're taking care of the woman and she starts. to do a little bit worse. Her breathing gets a little bit worse. Like, you know, she starts to have her white count, which is like her cells that fight infection kind of jump up. A couple of things are happening. We're kind of monitoring very closely throughout the day because she seems to be moving in the wrong direction. So then when shift change happens around 7 p.m., my colleague shows up at 6.30. And then I start telling my colleague about all the patients that they're going to have to

watch overnight, including my patients. So you kind of tell them about all the patients. And so I tell him about this woman. I said, hey, you know, we've been watching her where, like, she may need to go to the ICU at some point. She's not doing as well. And then he kind of takes a look at her, like, data and stuff. And he's, like, listening to the story. And she's like, and he starts freaking out. And he's like, dude, she needs to, like, she needed to be in the ICU hours ago.

Like, look at this, man. Like, she's not breathing well. Her white count is up. She's like, like, like, just look at her O2 levels, her oxygen levels. And he starts, like, freaking out. And then I start to feel like really, really bad because as he's like as he's repeating this stuff back to me, like it sort of like makes perfect sense because he's like listing the data that everything that I literally just told him. And when he like packages it and gives it back to me, I'm like, oh shit, this lady needs to be in the ICU. And then and then he starts like really panicking and then he kind of like riles me up.

And then I feel terrible because I and I kind of tell him that, you know, when you're an intern, you have two supervising doctors. So I kind of tell them, hey, like, you know, I talked it through with, like, the two supervising doctors. And, like, they felt like, we just talked about this lady, like, two hours ago. We went and saw her two hours ago. We decided that we didn't think ICU transfer was appropriate. And he's like, well, that's just idiotic. Like, she absolutely needs to be in the ICU. So he starts paging a bunch of people and, like, people show up and they, like, take her to the ICU and stuff.

And, like, I feel like a complete dumbass. Because I'm like, how did I miss this? It's so obvious. And so then later I went to one of these, like, older doctors in the hospital, like, he's a super wise guy. You with me, by the way? Have I lost you? Yeah.

Okay. No, no. And then I kind of tell him like one day after like we have this conference and then at the end of the conference I kind of tell him, hey, like I think I kind of screwed up. And he's like this nice guy that you go to when you have problems. And I said like, I don't know how I miss this. It happened right in front of my eyes. And what the doctor said next blew my mind.

And he says, well, that's why you didn't see it. And he's like, the hardest things to see are those that happened right in front of you. right when you're inside something every step of the way you don't see the big picture you just see like one step at a time and you're stuck in it and that's how you you miss it like if you think about things like abusive relationships or grooming or stuff like that each step of the way feels okay it's when you zoom out that everyone's like how can this person be so stupid and like literally if you if i put this in front of my eyes like i can't see any right The closer you are to something, the harder it is to notice.

Even if we think about your thought process, when your thoughts, when you're really fused in your mind, they feel true to you. And they're not opinions, they're facts. They're not thoughts. They're not emotions. They're not feelings. They're facts. You tell yourself, Lou just isn't that good of a person. It feels like a fact.

When you gain distance from it, when you learn to see it from the outside is when you learn to see it from the outside is when, when it becomes a red flag, when it becomes a problem, when it's no longer true. Yes. So the first thing is that other people can see red flags from the outside, but like, that's because they're from the outside. The hardest mistakes to see are the ones that we make, not the ones that other people make. I mean, take any fucking person on the street. They can tell you a thousand things that you're doing wrong.

Ask them, what are they doing wrong? They've got no answers. So the first thing is, are you stupid? I don't think so. What do you think? You're allowed to say yes. I think I'm fucking stupid. What makes you feel like you're fucking stupid?

You're allowed to believe that. I, I, well, if I feel stupid like your story, I missed a lot of seemingly quite obvious things, but I didn't want to believe that this person was bad. I wanted to believe that they were a good person. It was harder for me to believe that they were capable of doing something bad. Okay. So what I'm... It's going to sound silly, Lou, that doesn't sound stupid to me. Let's just listen to your words. I wanted to believe that this person was better than they were. That doesn't sound like idiocy. That sounds like faith in humanity. And maybe you can say that faith in humanity is stupid. But like literally, Lou, what makes me good at my job is believing exactly what you believe. Anytime someone walks in, into my office, I want to believe that they can be better than what they're suggesting.

Yeah. I want to believe that you are worth more than you tell me you're worth. Does that make me stupid? I don't know. Are you stupid? I don't know. Whether I'm stupid or not, I choose to believe it anyway. People can call me stupid for having faith that you have value as a human being.

I know it sounds a weird sentence. but you know like like I don't think I don't think you wanting to believe that someone was better than what you what they could have been I don't think that makes you stupid I just don't or if it does I think stupidity is a good quality and I do think that like I mentioned earlier it's like you get lost in stuff because it's in front of your face yeah I mean generally speaking I haven't seen any evidence that suggests that like you know victims of sexual violence. Like, it's not about IQ. It's about emotions, power dynamics, kind of like predatory behavior. Like, victims aren't stupid. They're victims. You know, I, it doesn't, I just don't accept that.

I mean, you may be stupid. Like, maybe you're stupid, but that has nothing to do with you being a victim. It's just like, those are different things. What do you think? Um, I feel like I am, I feel like I'm not allowed to be happy because I mean, I've had to people message me or say things before like, you know, this is a girl that looks way too happy here. She's obviously lying about the whole thing. So I feel like I'm not allowed to be happy because then. um be bored won't believe me and you want people to believe you more than i want to be happy that's interesting so let's think about that for a second right so i thought that was a very authentic representation so what do you think about someone who wants to be believed more than

they want to be happy that they're stupid probably I can see why you would come to that conclusion. I think, though, so what that tells me, Lou, is that I don't think it's stupid at all. I think that I laughed because I sort of walked into that one in terms of your response. Because, like, of course, like, why wouldn't people choose happiness? But I think it tells us a lot about you, right? So I think this goes back to, like, you being seen and accepted for what you are. And your entire life, you've been sort of like trying to be you and people have been swatting you down.

And now with something so important, you want them, you don't want to swat yourself down. Like you want people to believe you. Like you want to say like, you know, take your pick. Like six donuts is not okay. You know, my, I was about to make a comment about your nipples, but that's just going to get taken out of comment. But like, you know, take whatever, whatever, you know, context, like whatever story. Like, there have been lots of times where you've taken what you are on the inside and you've said, I defer to the rest of the world.

What I am gets second place compared to like what you all think. But what I'm hearing you do is like put your foot down, draw your line in the sand and say, when it comes to this, I'm not going to compromise. And I need to be able to you. And this did happen. And if happiness is the sacrifice that it takes to be, like, authentic and accepted, then so be it. Yeah. That doesn't sound stupid to me at all.

What do you think? I feel, um, I, I put a lot of pressure on myself because I, I worry that if, if I, if I, if I, if I, heal and I am happy and someone is like she looks way too happy to clout chason hall clearly lies about the whole thing then what if they discredit other people's stories as well because because it seems like I am lying and then suddenly I think I'm catastrophizing sort of sure See, there you did it again. Look at that. Yeah.

What are you starting to do? You're gaining distance from your thoughts. Because you were about to like you were boarding that train and it was like the seatbelt isn't on. It's starting to chug away. And you're like, hey, hey, hold on a second. Can you pull over? I need to put the seatbelt on. That's what you just did.

You just did it. Yeah. Yeah. I did. Yeah. Interesting. What happened to that train of thought? once you're like, oh, I'm catastrophizing again.

I can't remember what I was talking about. There you go. Pull the plug on it. So if anyone here is watching, this is the way you pull the plug on anxiety. She's like, I can't even remember. Like, just imagine if I could give you a pill that would make you literally forget your anxieties because that's what we just saw happen. You literally forgot your anxiety.

Like, that's what you can't even remember what you were talking about now. Yeah. Oh, no, I just remembered. See, it takes work, though, doesn't it? Yeah. Okay. Good. Because the more you remember, the more you can practice forgetting. And when you get really good at forgetting, when you get really good at noticing, then you'll be in control. But keep going.

You want to finish your thought? No. Okay. So if I notice these things, what happens? Like, I notice it and then what? Does it still happen? Yes. Except every time you notice it, you gain a little bit of control over it.

Right? So if I notice my facial expressions, if I pay attention to them, I can control. Well, right? And if I'm not aware of what I'm doing, then I don't control it. So awareness proceeds control. If you have ever had dental work done and you've had your mouth numb,

can't control anything in there because you can't feel it. You're not aware of it. You don't even know where your tongue is. And so once you become aware of something, then you can do something about it. Okay. Does that...

How do I do that with social anxiety? Same way. It's just, it can be harder. Right. So I'm helping you do it. And your mind is in a very aware state right now. And you're going to be exhausted after this. I'm going to be exhausted too.

Yeah, I am. Yeah. And then what happens is like you're going to do it again and you're going to do it again. And you may have someone to help you. Like therapists may be a good idea in your case if you don't have one already. And then you're going to practice. this. And then what's going to happen is like maybe when it comes to, you know, but I think in social anxiety, it's the same. Like you're going to notice yourself catastrophizing. You're going to notice

yourself like you're like someone's going to invite you over. And then you're going to have that thought pop in your head. Oh, they don't actually want to see you. They just want your 20 quentin. And then you're going to notice that thought. And you're going to be like, no, actually, that's not true. They do want to see me. So it's the same thing. So it's the same thing. sometimes the stakes can feel higher and so it can be harder to overcome there certainly is like level one level two level three level four in terms of difficulty

but it's the same yeah yeah something happened like a couple weeks ago where I like everyone at the moment playing this game among us

right and a couple weeks ago I'm in all these lobes and I tried to join this random one and there were the streamers in there who I thought I was friends with so I felt comfortable going in there I was only in it for like

maybe three games but I just I had this really embarrassing moment where I went into this call and like in my head this was a disaster

but in the call I can imagine anyone in there probably doesn't remember this at all. But there was this one guy who was calling everyone by their names and then he was calling me by my colour instead of my name. He kept calling me orange instead of Pooper Noodle. And it really upset me. And eventually I was like, hey, my name's Pooper Noodle. And then it looks like a little bit.

with a lull. It went a little bit quiet and then everyone just carried on. But after that, I couldn't say, again, I just, I closed the game, left the call. I didn't want to make a scene. I was like, I got to go. And, and then I just, I spent like the rest of the day just crying about it, about just getting cold orange. And it was pathetic. Yeah. Okay. So I'm guessing that the reason you brought that up is because we're going to use this as a pace for understanding. Is that fair? Let's analyze it. Okay. Is that?

That's what I'm seeing is the clearest relevance to me. Is that okay? Yes. I think it's a great example. I think it's a beautiful example. I think it ties together everything we've been talking about today. So what would you rather have than happiness? We were talking about this, right? Because you felt stupid because you wanted. I wanted to be believed. Yeah, right? So this goes back to this idea that there's like two kinds of loos. There's the real loo and then there's the loo that everyone else sees.

There's a part of you that yearns to be seen and accepted. And you're willing to sacrifice that part for the most, most of the time. But there are some things that you're not willing to compromise on. Does that make sense? Yeah. This is like the real you that's like fighting to say, I don't have blue nipples. I am a good person. I'm worth more than six donuts and deodorant.

You know, I'm a cool person. Like it's not about popularity or anything like that, but like I'm a good person and I deserve to be seen. I deserve to be treated and judged for who I am as opposed to who people think I am. That's why that person isn't going to take orange from anyone. you're not going to you're not going to be orange you want them to see who you are yeah

yeah so I think it's that same part of you and it speaks up it says damn you I'm pooper noodle and I would like you to address me as such right and then something really funny happens so when you do that and you stand up for yourself

when you tell the driver to pull over because your seatbelt isn't on. Then it runs very contrary to all of this programming, which has like you've been telling yourself, you've practiced really, really hard, you've leveled up a lot in terms of devaluing yourself. But there's this part of you that's like, it's trying to break through this like hard soil and like start to bloom, which is like who you really are.

And then sometimes it pops its head up. and then you enter this period of intense conflict. Because it runs against all of the programming that you've been doing. Which is no, no, no. They get to call you whatever they want, Lou. Why are you inconveniencing them with your name? Yeah. How dare you?

How dare you inconvenience them? And so it's like, like, there's this part of you that wants to come up, and then there's this part of you, and then you're crying all day because, like, then you're just kind of conflicted. And that takes time to sort of work through, right? And that too comes with distance, with sort of taking a step back and recognizing what's going on.

Recognizing that for a long time, this part of you that knocked yourself down, also I know this sounds really bizarre, also protected you. Because if you knock yourself down and you hurt yourself, no one can do, can outdo you. And if you're the one knocking yourself down, at least you're in control.

And what you want more than anything else is control. Stacked up pillows against the door and listening, what are you doing? You're trying to get control. You're trying to control the circumstances. So this is the hard thing about anxiety. You've got to let go of control. You got to let people judge you. And it's terrifying.

Yeah, I care a lot about other people's opinions. Like, like, way too much. So let me ask you a crazy question. What's harder? Knowing that everyone doesn't like you or not knowing if everyone doesn't like you? Not knowing. Right? It's weird.

Yeah. Anxiety is a strange beast in that way. You're looking for certainty. Even you'll take, you'll take a certain bad thing over an uncertain bad thing. Yeah. Which is like, then how the fuck? Like, no wonder you feel the way that you do. Because it's like, I give you two choices.

100% chance of failure. 50% chance of failure. Which one do you pick? You pick the 100. Yeah. And then it's like, no wonder you're where you are. Yeah. But it takes courage to take the 50.

People look at that and they say you're stupid for picking 100% chance of failure. No, they just don't understand. That's not how psychology. works, you're not stupid. It's that the other way to think about it is control versus not control. And are you stupid for picking control? Right? Yeah. Yes. I just know what the answer was. Yeah, I don't know. Sorry. This is what I get too abstract.

Some people follow me. Some people can't. It's not a big deal. It's more on me than it's on you. Okay. But does that make sense where you sort of, at least when you beat yourself, up, you control the pain. Yeah. And you can survive that. You're used to that. Yeah.

So I think the orange story is a great one. Because I think it's sort of like, you know, you kind of fight against yourself. And then like that thing comes roaring back. And so the next time, I would say the next time you stand up for yourself, be aware that the part of you that has made yourself a pushover so that other people will like you will be very upset. there's one part of you that's like I'm going to let other people do whatever the fuck they want to me because then they'll like me and then there's another part of you that's like

nuh because you were upset that everything went quiet yeah oh my god I inconvenienced them I'm sorry lady who's doing my nails that you're putting me into physical pain

did I inconvenience you by telling you that you're physically hurting me and my nails are bleeding I'm so sorry yeah yeah that's exactly what goes on yep and if you if you would have told her then what would you do to yourself afterward

what do you think would have happened if you told her to stop I'd have been thinking about like how awkward it was that I had to tell her to stop and I'd be like analysing her face like was she sad about it was she upset that she was doing her nails my nails badly I'm terrified of like a confidence You'd be torturing yourself. Yeah.

You see, so any time Lou tries to break out of the surface, there comes anxiety. It's like, how dare you? How dare you be a person, Lou? How dare you have feelings? How dare you have value? Yeah. Thoughts? Questions?

Yeah. No. Oh, nothing's going on right now. Yep. At all. I think we're close to being done for the day. Okay. How does that feel to you?

I'm tired. Yep. I can tell. I'm ready for bed. Yep. Yeah. Wait, do I look tired? There it is.

No, I can tell you that you're cognitively spent. Okay. I'm cognitively spent too. How do you feel about me? saying that. Bad. Yeah. See? That's okay.

Is that not a bad thing? Do you normally get cognitively spent? Yes. Okay. I'm out of mana. You're out of mana. We've been casting spells for a while. That doesn't make us bad people. It doesn't make us weak. It doesn't make us stupid. It just means we're out of mana.

We've been doing the shit for like an hour and a half now. Oh wow Yeah Yeah Straining your Your cognitive Straining your brain for an hour and a half Is going to make you oom

Yeah Do you want to learn how to meditate? Um Ooh Okay Go ahead What was that ooh? Um

I've tried to do it meditation before. But two things. I'm very lazy. And also I find that it doesn't maybe I've not been doing it long enough, but it doesn't

it isn't quiet to down my thoughts. I'm terrified of being alone with them. Yeah. Okay. I think that's reasonable. Can I think for a second? Yes. I may need longer than a second. I may maybe a minute or two. Oh, okay. Do you, do you want to do you, if you don't want to

learn how to meditate, we don't have to do anything. First thing. Okay. Okay. What do you think? What's the second thing? Is if you do want to learn something, then I'll try to teach you something. I'm wondering if you're going to take the out for both of us, because I'm not sure what to teach you. But I'll figure something. I have an idea. Oh, I, I, I just, I think, I feel like I'm doing it wrong because it's supposed to help, isn't it? And it just makes things worse. Am I doing it? I thought maybe. No, you're, you're not doing it wrong. You're being taught the wrong kind of meditation. Okay. Okay.

Right? It's kind of like if I walk into the shoe store and I put on a pair of shoes that's my size, the problem isn't that my feet are, or like, let's say I put on a pair of shoes that's too big. The problem isn't that my feet are too small. It's that the shoe isn't the right size, right? You have to do meditation that fits for your mind. So I'm just trying to think about what have you tried? Do you, like what kind of meditation doesn't help?

Let's start there. Um Mindfulness Yep Mindfulness is going to be terrible for you Oh like mindfully eating And like

looking at the little grape So let me Oh I'll keep that fucking like this So So let's Let's think about why mindfulness is not going to

I mean we can do a mindfulness practice if you want But mindfulness tends to be sitting back and observing. There are two kinds of meditation. There's a focusing meditation and an observing meditation. One is where you watch what your mind does. And then the second is when you tell your mind to do something. So in your case, if you're feeling like pretty anxious,

I think there are a couple of breathing techniques that could help you. But I sort of feel like breathing techniques isn't the right fit. Bizarrely, I want to teach you something like a mindfulness practice. but I want to teach you a very structured one. Okay. Even though I don't think it's really great for you, but we're going to try something because I think you actually have a talent for it in a particular way. We try something a little bit unusual?

Yeah. Okay. I reserve the right for this to not work, and then I want to be able to try to teach you something else. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I want you to close your eyes.

Okay. Okay. So today, Lou, we've been talking about the different programs in your mind. Right? So there's like the Lou that wants to come forward and like wants to be believed, wants to be seen,

wants to be heard. And then there's the Lou that tries to swat her down. Yeah. So what I'm going to do is I want you to watch carefully now. I'm going to make a statement. And I want you to... Nope. How do I watch?

Listen, carefully. Good point. Like I said, I, I deserve to fuck this one up. I mean, I reserve the right to fuck this one up. Okay. So I want you to listen carefully to what I say, and I want you to watch your mind and watch your mind's response.

Okay. And just notice for a second, I'm just going to speak words, but those words, they're just words. It's like, you know, my name is red. I like balloons. Words are words. They have no meaning. Yeah.

But I want you to see how. the words that I speak are going to evoke responses in your mind. Okay? And tell me what the responses are. Ready? Yeah. You are a wonderful person. Do I tell you?

Yeah. Tell me. What happens in your mind when I say that? Um, that, just trying to be nice. That you were trying to be nice? What happens?

Eyes closed. Oh, sorry. Whoever saying that is just trying to be nice to me. Okay, so you notice how your mind responded to that, right? Yeah. You swatted it down. Yeah. Okay.

Now, number two, you are a terrible person. What does your mind do in response to that? True. Okay. So that's kind of interesting, right? You see how your mind responds differentially to those statements? Yeah. So now what I want you to do is try to figure out where do those thoughts come from.

You're not going to be able to. So just give me what you got. When I tell you to figure out where they come from, what happens? How can you look for where they come from? I don't know. They just come from me. Okay. So where from you?

Good. I don't know. Okay, good. Would it, okay, so good. So you're doing it right. I know it sounds weird. So now I want you to think about, so when I say you're a wonderful person, try to find wonderfulness within you. Okay. Do you have wonderfulness anywhere in you? Yeah. Yeah. Where? I really like dogs.

Okay. And now, so where do you feel that? right is that a is it a thought or a feeling first of all that's a feeling and what does that feel like wonderful and where does it where do you how how can you know that you're feeling wonderfulness what is your experience of wonderful is there a right answer sort of not really i've i've no idea okay good okay now i'm going to tell you something else are you starting to feel self-conscious? Yeah, because my eyes are closed. Good.

Notice that self-consciousness. Where is that feeling? Where is that feeling? Everywhere. Good. What does it feel like? Tell me. Like, I'm going to fall off a building or something.

Yep. So there's a sensation, right? Of like something terrible is about to happen. Notice the lack of safety. with your eyes being closed. Yeah. It's like what are people thinking? What is he doing?

What's his face doing? Oh my God. What do they think? I don't even know where the computer is. Am I sitting in the right place? Yeah. So notice that all of those thoughts actually come from the feeling, not the other way around. I want you to notice the vulnerability is generating thoughts in your mind.

Does that make sense? It's almost like a fountain. That's just generating all these fucking random thoughts. Like, is my camera still long? am I sitting in the right place? What are they thinking? What are they saying? You see how it's like a fountain.

It's just spewing out these random ass thoughts. Yeah. But somewhere there's a feeling within you. Notice that vulnerability. You may feel it somewhere in your body. What do you feel in your body? Um, um, but what? Can, can you, can you, can you, can you, question?

Yeah. What do you feel in your body right now? What does vulnerability feel like in your body? I'm sweating. Okay, good. What else? Pay attention to your throat, your chest, heart, stomach. I feel a bit dizzy.

Okay. So now I want you to, in a moment, I'm going to ask you to open your eyes. But before I do that, I want you to take a snapshot of the way, take a screenshot. of the way that you feel. And then we're going to open your eyes and we're going to see how you feel afterward. Open. Okay.

What's happening? Oh my God, that's so weird. Where am I? What's weird? Tell me. I can see. Everything's much smaller than I imagined. Okay.

So by smaller, you mean your fears, right? I mean the root. Okay. Cool. Things are smaller. Okay. Yeah. Awesome.

That means you're doing it right. So. Okay. What about your fears? Yeah, that too. So interesting. So now we're going to do it again. I know we're at both Oom, but raid bosses at 10% we're going to keep going.

You ready? Okay. Yeah. Close your eyes again. Okay. What comes up? Um, I can't see again. There we go. Good. So notice that. You can't see again. So things are getting bigger.

Yeah. Your fears are magnifying. The room is getting bigger. Yeah. Just notice that all of that stuff for a moment. Right? Notice how bad it feels. And now open your eyes. And now what's happening? It's gone away. What's gone away? the scariness Okay So guess what you just learned how to do

Was that meditation? No, yeah, sure You just learned to make the scariness go away meditation technique That's what we're going to call it Okay But I want you to really pay attention So you can try this

I think this has actually a good technique for you So I want you to just This is going to be your technique. know that's going to work for anyone else. But what I want you to notice, and you got to tell me if I'm wrong, okay, Lou, you can't please just don't tell me what I want to hear. What I want you to notice is that the size of your fears grows and shrinks, depending on what, your eyes being open or closed. Yeah, how vulnerable I. That's fucking dumb. Your eyes being open and closed has nothing to do with the fears in the world.

It has to do with your feelings. Has to do with your sense of vulnerability. But the fear is the fear. The actual probability that something bad happens is not going to change. It's not going to alter wildly in the span of 90 seconds, whether you're doing this or doing this. Does that make sense? Yeah. But how does it feel?

It feels like the fears become bigger. even the room becomes bigger. The microphone is like in your face. Right? Like everything is like pressing in on you with your eyes closed. And so what you're doing is like the world is like coming in and then you open them and it zooms out. Everything feels smaller. Bigger, smaller.

Bigger, smaller. And so if you do this practice, so you start by doing it by yourself. and then if there's someone that you trust, do it with them in the room, and it's going to make it way harder. Okay. And then go and do it in a public place. Oh, no.

Right? But here's the crazy thing, Lou, like, stay with me now, okay? Try really hard. You with me? Do your best. Okay. All you're doing is opening and closing your fucking eyes. The world doesn't change that rapidly.

Do you see how your fears will literally grow or shrink depending on whether your eyes are open or closed? What if I get hit by a car? Well, I mean, okay, so let's worry, let's not worry about the public place yet. Let's just focus on in the room and with one person you trust. Okay, okay. I mean, what if you get hit by a car?

I'm not saying you do it while you're driving, okay? Okay. I'm saying like if you have a balcony like go out under the balcony or something like that okay but what I really

I don't know if you're getting this or not which is fine because I know you're Oom and I'm out of Oom so I'm asking a lot of you but what I want you to notice is that literally your fears can grow or shrink depending on what your eyelids are doing and do you see how like that's just not literally like how the world works

like my chances of getting hit by a car don't in well maybe they do increase or decrease if my eyes are closed but bad example or a good example on your part real five head play there but generally speaking you know the fear or your value as a human being or all of these other things that you're worried about shouldn't change over the span of 60 seconds if you open or close your eyes does that make sense yeah but the feeling changes rapidly and so if you do this practice, literally what you're going to gain is control over your fear. You're going to learn the process of shrinking your fears or growing them. And you're going to see how the mind shrinks fears and grows them.

Yeah. And as you learn that, you're going to get literally, you're going to get control over your fear. Because you'll learn cognitively how to shrink it. It's like a shrinkomatic for your fears. I like that. So even if what I'm saying to you right now doesn't make sense, that's okay. It doesn't need to make sense right now. Just do the practice.

Do it a couple times a week. Just like go and like close your eyes. And just notice like it's like closing your eyes is like opening the doors to your fears. And then opening them is like putting them all away. Yeah. And yet it's still, you still have within you the capacity of putting them all away. Yeah. Questions?

I really like that. No, that's. that sounds much better than what I was doing before. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I'm glad it worked. I guess I don't have to come up with a backup then.

Oh, sorry. No, no, that's good. Did you not expect that to work? No, because I just, I didn't know because it's actually like a high level meditation technique. It's not like a novice meditation. Oh. Yeah.

Does that make me an expert? in meditation? What is that thought evoking you? If I were to tell you, Lou, you were an expert at meditation. What happens? I don't know. It'd be pretty cool. Yes.

So the short answer is yes. Yeah. Let me explain it to you this way. You spend so much time in your head, so you're actually going to be pretty good at meditation. Yeah. Right? Because from a very young age, when other people were interacting with the outside world, who were you interacting with? Me. So you started leveling up meditation very young.

You've leveled up a skill. You just haven't found the right gear until today. And so practice it. Okay. Any closing thoughts or questions before we wrap up for the day? How do I not care about what other people think of me? You do care about what other people think about it. You don't not care. You just let yourself care. Caring is fine.

What I want you to learn, Lou, is not to not care what other people think. It's to gain distance from the caring. Okay. Right? You're allowed to care what other people think. but it doesn't have to control who you are. Okay. You're perfect the way you are.

You don't need to change. You just need perspective on V4. And that's a weird concept. Okay. Do you feel like he's just saying that? I don't know. It was just quite nice. And now I'm crying.

I don't know why. So that's pretty, so you know what's cool about that? Is I just called you perfect. and your mind didn't respond with he's just saying that. You were able to feel it. It was able to sink in. And I'm not saying it to be nice.

I think it's genuinely true. I think you're amazing exactly how you are. And that your life has been a confluence of circumstances to make you into a perfect and unique human being. And that just because you have flaws doesn't mean that you aren't. perfect and that's part of life. It's part of the journey of growth. And I wish you all the best. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Do the practice three times a week for two to three minutes, okay? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for coming on, Lou. Thank you so, thank you so much for having me.

Yeah. Do I leave now? Is that? Sure. Do I, okay, right. Okay. Bye. Dude, you want to just tell us about your channel before you go? No, no, God, no. Bye. Fuck. So, I guess, don't check her out.