HealthyGamerGG - How to Deal with Anxiety Ft. AustinShow

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

Stream Schedule: https://www.twitch.tv/healthygamer_gg on Twitch. Youtube: https://youtu.be/s5cjlHMkOUM for VoD Archive. Support us at https://ko-fi.com/healthygamer if you enjoy our content and would continue helping making it accessible to everyone! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's tax season, and at LifeLock, we know you're tired of numbers. But here's a big one you need to hear. Billions. That's the amount of money and refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it guaranteed.

One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast for the threats you can't control. Terms apply. Last time I talked to you, you went by Raj and just a little bit curious about what prompted the change. Well, I had a, there's just like a tremendous amount of people that, I mean, I don't know exactly how many people, but there were a lot of people that felt like that it was like they were very problematic and offensive. Okay. And I know that there was other people that like didn't.

And I mean, I spoke with you. I know you said that you're like, oh, it's just the internet. but I didn't want to leave any real, like, reason for those people within my community to feel like they were excluded because of that offense. And to be completely honest, like, it didn't make sense anyway. Like, I was doing, I was me. I was who I am, you know, it didn't really make any sense. So I wanted to move on.

Yeah, cool, man. I just want to reiterate that, like I said to you, I wasn't defended as a Gujarati Indian. So your name is Gujarati, or your former name, sorry. I grew up around in a predominantly Indian community, like with a lot of Indian friends, but I felt like that didn't justify my use of the name and such. So like I just, I wanted to, you know, apologize to those who that were personally affected or impacted and just sort of move on from it. Oh, and by the way, sorry about the Band-Aid on my forehead.

It's not a Zit, but it's a, I got a biopsy from a, a wart that I had. So that's why I'm in my head on my forehead. No judgment, bro. Yeah. And just about that for a second. So I want to actually like say I appreciate like even though I wasn't personally offended, I really appreciate the change.

And the reason is because first of all, like I know I did and said a lot of things. I don't know when you came up with the name. But like, you know, when I was 19, I did a lot of stupid and offensive stuff. and I think it's like important to, you know, change and grow. And I can totally get, you know, where you're coming from in terms of sort of saying, like, even though it doesn't bother some people and like, you know, is it offensive? Is it not offensive? Just like, you know, just change. And then the other thing is that I think that a lot of times people look to figures like streamers.

And even though the streamer may not be doing something that's like completely out of line, it gives their audience license to, do things that are more out of line. Yeah, I mean, and we, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's sort of one of those things. I mean, you know, as you say, I mean, I've gone through tremendous progression in my own life, my personal life, my professional life, you know, I came out this past year, uh, is gay, or mostly gay, as I say, because sexuality is complex. And, uh, you know, it's, I've realized that there's just a journey. And, you know, when I first, started experimenting with my sexuality at that moment I was like nobody's ever going to know

this is a phase um you know uh that sort of thing so you know i've just been on this sort of journey over the last um bit of time uh and it's i'm happy you know but it it sucks you know you make mistakes and it sucks but uh yeah i i hate that i i i'll be honest you know i i hate that i like i don't want to say i hate myself but like i'm just like god what a fucking loser you were you know Like, what a fucking idiot, you know? No, I'm, I'm with you, man. I mean, I think that's actually, like, what I really respect about what you're doing is because, like, we all make mistakes. And, like, somewhere along the way, it became okay to not make mistakes, you know?

Yeah. And not to say that it is, like, it doesn't justify the behavior, but I think the most important thing to remember is that, like, humans, human beings aren't born perfect. And ultimately, what I look for and what garners my respect is, like, someone's ability to look into their past and say, hey, like I did this then and I didn't know any better and now I do so I'm going to change. And I think oftentimes, you know, people will just like judge people for being idiots, which is sort of fair because you were an idiot. And like, so I get that. But at the end of the day, you know, I think that we should also respect people who are willing

to like change the way that they think and take a step forward because, and I've been thinking about this a lot. Like I don't know what kind of role models we have on the internet. And I think a lot of what we see is because, like, we don't have, people don't know, like, what good looks like. And I've just been thinking about that. Well, it's true is hell not a fucking band-aid on the forehead. I can tell you that much. All right.

And so, what are we talking about today? We're talking about, we're talking about anxiety. Cool. I almost called you Mr. Kay. That's cool. You can call you Mr. Kay. Because you're a doctor. No.

I mean, I'm not offended. Okay. Also, I'm a Mr. Mr. Dr. Kay. People call me Dr. Show, which is not accurate. I'm not a doctor. I don't want. And show isn't my last name.

I don't know where that came from. But I changed my channel name to Austin Show and people call me Mr. and Dr. Show. As a doctor, I am not offended by you being called doctor. I think it's just a question. So I can change. Can I page my name to Dr. Show?

Is that what I can do? Yeah. I mean, the only thing is I would consult with an attorney to make sure that your audience understands that you're not a real doctor. But as a personal doctor and Indian person, I have not been personally offended by either of those. Okay. I mean, there are all kinds of people calling them doctors all kinds of shit. Yeah. Yeah.

That's okay. Yeah. So it's ironic, Dr. Yeah, that I'm anxious to talk about anxiety. It's actually kind of fitting. But I'm ready to be open and transparent with it. And I think that maybe I'm sure there's a lot of people that can relate with anxiety in the chat. But as we go through the course of our conversation, they'll probably understand why I'd be anxious to talk about anxiety.

Yeah. So you want to just start there? Like, why are you anxious to talk about anxiety? I think, I think anxiety and sort of like, you know, mental health in general is a very personal, intimate thing. I guess. I feel like it's something that definitely needs to be talked about because it's a problem that so many people deal with. and I think the solution is talking about it and sort of being open about your emotions and feelings. But I just think that like the anxiety from talking about anxiety is like sort of like the idea of like being feeling vulnerable and talking about things that are just, you know, things that are personal to you that you don't really talk about because you sort of put on like a rough exterior is a is a personality that like you.

you are expected to sort of be more than or like above, you know what I mean? What are you expected to be? Well, I mean, I don't know if the expectation is like exactly set forth like specifically, but I feel like I'm expected to sort of be perfect in some regard. And like sort of held to a higher standard, which I understand why that would be the case, you know, given that I think we are held to a higher standard and rightfully so. We have a lot of influence. And so we should be held to a higher standard.

But yeah, but like, but still, despite that, I still am a human being and I have these emotions and everything. So it's very complicated. Sorry, I don't know if I answered your question. Yeah, man, I think you answered it really well. I think, you know, it's kind of interesting because like, I don't know when we started holding different humans to different standards. like I don't know if that's actually good. Like so, like if you're a streamer, you shouldn't be an asshole. But if you're in Twitch chat, like, it's okay to be a racist asshole.

You know, it's kind of interesting because like everyone says, like, it's the standard thing that everyone says like, oh, like, you know, I should be held to like, I'm held too high. Like, why? Why can't we hold? Like, why can't we expect everyone. to be decent human beings. Yeah, it's a good point. I mean, I've come to the conclusion that we, including myself, is everybody's a little bit of a hypocrite.

Yeah. You know, about the board. Like, if you evaluate everybody's life holistically, is that the right word? Dr. Kay, I'm in an intellectual environment. You're a doctor. Is it holistically the right word? You tell me, man.

Holistically. I don't know what you're trying to say, so I don't know if it's the right word. I was just like trying to say over overall like look at the whole picture. Sounds holistic to me. Everybody's life like on the whole picture. I think you would find that everybody is a hypocrite. Everybody.

Yeah. 100% of the people are hypocritical. Sure. To some degree. I mean, if you really look at it. So that sort of thing. But yeah. Yeah, cool.

I mean, I don't know where I was going. I don't know where I was going. a higher standard than other people. And I feel that way too. Like, I feel like I have to be held to a higher standard. But then, like, there are other parts of me that, like, why do other people get a pass? Why can't we hold everyone to the same standard? Isn't that really what equality is?

Like, and I also think that sometimes what I see is that actually people hold streamers to unfair standards. You know, kind of like you see. I feel like, yeah, I mean, what do you mean in particular? I mean, just like, you know, so if we just listen to some of what you started saying, you were kind of saying, like, I feel like I have to maintain an exterior, right? You feel like you have to maintain something. You feel like maybe other people are allowed to feel, whereas on some level, you may not be, or you may not feel as allowed to feel. Right? And it's unclear whether you're actually allowed or not allowed, but like. let me give me an example of like the the exterior portion um and how that's communicated to the audience because i think maybe the people might not understand exactly where i'm coming from let's say i'm like going through like a like a serious like mental health breakdown or something

like you know and like i need to like i'll like take out a show i'll like cancel a show i sometimes don't feel like and sometimes i'll be like hey i'm going through a rough patch and i'll explain that But other times I feel like I can't really say like, hey, the reason I acted this way was because I was anxious because people like, oh, yeah, nice excuse or something like that. Or the reason I was like, you know, doing this or whatever is because I was anxious. People, you know, I feel like it's just, it's just an excuse or whatever. So. Sounds like you feel judged. Yeah, I mean, certainly.

I mean, yeah, of course, yeah, some degree. For being human? Yeah. Yeah, but look, I mean, I also want to say that I'm extremely extraordinarily blessed to be in the position that I'm in. And like, I feel like, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, hold on a second, Austin. Hold on. Okay, this is weird. So I'm okay. So I said, do you feel judged for being human? And what was your response? To go to basically say that I'm not human. Yep. Or like basically to basically be like, yeah, you're just human.

And then like think of it is sort of like an excuse that you said. Like I thought you saying that was giving me an excuse. It's weird. Right. So I said, hey, man, you're allowed to be human. And you said, but I'm blessed. And there's a subtle, there's a subtle, there's a subtle, there's something very insidious there, which I like really want to point out.

Like I could be wrong about this by the way. Sure. But it's weird. Right. Like I'm saying, Austin, you're allowed to be human. And you're basically saying in your response. I didn't even let you finish. I'm sure you would have said something,

but I just want you to notice what your mind did is you talk about the privilege. And why does someone, like talking about the privilege that you've been given in life, sort of in that moment, invalidates, like your capacity to be upset or hurt or whatever.

I see this a lot with like privileged people where they almost like invalidate. Like that's the standard that you hold yourself too. You see that? It's like you're not letting your, yourself be like a human. And, you know, if somebody else is a Twitch streamer and they say, yeah, like, you know, life is hard. You're going to be like, but you're blessed. That's, that's not what you say to them. You're like, yeah, man, like, you deserve to be, have a rough life too.

Like, even if you're a Twitch streamer, like, it's cool, but it comes with a lot of pressure. But when you think about yourself, you're like, oh, but I'm blessed. It's almost like, it's like the party line that you have to say to like not feel like an asshole. Basically. It's like how I feel because, and I feel like that. And I feel like that has. has to something to do with the culture, sort of like of our, of our, of our industry in general, just culture in general, I think that people that, and I even feel guilty even talking about this because like I feel like people are going to be reacting the same way, but celebrity types, and I'm not a celebrity, but, you know, like people with influence and large audiences,

I feel like the stigma is like, oh, you make a lot of money. You're fine. Like, you're good. Yeah. So let's talk about that guilt. What makes you feel? guilty? Like about like being privileged? Yeah. Um, I don't know. I don't necessarily feel guilty about like being privileged per se. Yeah. I just feel like I can't communicate my feelings without being judged about them, if that makes sense. That makes sense. So like I feel like I have tremendous privilege, but I don't want people to conflate. Is that the right word? Dr. K, I'm using big words here. I don't know what the, I can't answer the question until you finish the sentence.

I just try to get a definition basically. Conflate. What does conflate mean? It means mix up. Mix up. Okay. Good. I'm happy I'm using these words correctly.

I don't want people to conflate me talking about my emotions and feelings as me not being appreciative of the privilege position that I meant. And I feel like often if I were to talk about some of the things that I feel like my anxious thoughts or feelings and it might not be rational. I feel like maybe people would be like, wow, this guy's complaining when he drives a Lambo. And I don't drive a Lambo, Dr. Kay, that's just a meme. But like, oh, this guy's got a, this guy's got a great life, you know. Like, why is he complaining about anything at all? You know, so I try to keep any complaining about anything to a minimum. Yeah.

So let me ask you. People are capping. It's a meme. But yeah. To, to, I just closed Twitch chat a little while ago because I can't. I like reading it actually. I don't know why I just like maybe I mean, I like it too. It's just it.

Maybe I'm like a masochist. Yeah, no, I don't know. I like reading. I like reading. So, Austin, two thoughts. Okay. Okay. First is just think about, you know, what is like you're saying like there's a part of you that says.

And I'm not saying this part is wrong. I'm just saying like, let's look at it. Okay. We can talk about your anxiety at some point if you want to. Yeah, yeah, sure. I think this is all connected, right? It's all connected. I think so.

So if, you know, there's a part of you that basically says, like, you're not allowed to complain, right? Like, you're, and like, I've seen that before and bizarrely, like, I'm not trying to draw a connection here. It's just, it's just weird because, like, really, I hear this kind of dialogue in abusive relationships. Like, people invalidate their own viewpoint. And they say, I'm not allowed to suffer because dot, dot, dot, dot. Are you saying, Dr. K, I'm in an abusive relationship with my audience? There is conflation, my friend. You want to understand conflated two things?

Did I conflate it? Okay. No, no, it's a reasonable conclusion because I said that these teeth, I'm just saying, like, it's, I'm pointing out an observation. I actually don't know what it means. Yeah, okay, got it. Yeah. But, I mean, like, I see this sort of idea that, like, oh, I'm not allowed to complain, right?

And like it's fair in a sense, right, that like you should be grateful for your privilege and you should be grateful that you have things that other people don't have. And I do believe that like I kind of agree with this guy, Gotham Buddha or Buddha, that, you know, suffering is like a part of life and that there's no human that is not going to experience suffering or is it entitled to experience suffering. Do I think that all people experience the same amount of suffering? No. but I don't think that like gatekeeping suffering is like a way forward because that leads to all this weird toxic shit like you know one upmanship and like invalidation of other feelings and like you know just I just don't think that that's healthy. The second thing is are you like you keep on asking me about like using language properly or like are you concerned about being perceived as like not intelligent. No, I don't care. Is that a joke?

Yeah, sort of a meme or joke. I actually don't really mind being perceived as an idiot. Okay, okay. I'd say sometimes maybe like it would get to me, but I mean, oh, people, like, I don't really care too much, like, it doesn't really bother me that much about being, like, perceived as an absolute moron because I think generally Twitch chat across the board thinks we're all stupid, like, and it's sort of like a fun, loving way. Sure.

Yeah, I don't think I'm stupid. I don't have like a, like a, like a. like a complex where I feel like I'm stupid, you know? Can I ask you just one more question about that? Go ahead, yeah. Would it be okay if you did have a complex about feeling stupid? Yes, I think. Hold on, wait.

Let me think about that question. Yeah, I suppose so. I guess it would. I don't know if there's sort of like, I guess that's the way you feel, right? But it's not like something that I, like, maybe like there's isolated moments. Because I think we all have these, right? We all have like these moments where like is, is broadcasters like maybe we're being serious about something

and we don't want to be joking in that moment. And then they then maybe we take it more personally. But to me, it's not like I get off stream and I'm like, oh, God, they think I'm so dumb. I'm not actually dumb, you know. I don't have that problem. It doesn't bother me at all. Okay, okay, cool.

Thanks for answering that. I appreciate it. Now, I do have a problem with saying like a lot, but I'm dealing with it. What do you mean by that? No, it's just like to talk. Yeah, so let's talk about anxiety. Let's talk about it.

So what do you mean by anxiety? That's a good question. Really making me think here, what do I mean by anxiety? The way I define anxiety is just sort of like the physiological response to events out of my personal control. So let's say I'm going on an airplane. My mind will immediately go to the worst case scenario that could possibly happen. I get on the plane. I'm in a seconds to disaster movie.

Next thing you know, we're going down. It's over. You know, because in the, and for some reason my mind, it's hard for me to explain this, but my mind will go to the worst case scenario of anything. Like, let's say I'm going, I went on a trip. I went out of town like last week. And I drove. I drove to this town in a different state.

And on that drive, you go through a mountain pass. And through that mountain pass, you are going through periods of places where you are going to like get, there's like oncoming traffic or whatever that you could, you could cross over the, there's no median. you could cross over and come into a head-on collision. And so every time I drive up there, the thought in my head is, oh my gosh, that could happen to me. I need to be so careful.

And then I get anxious about it. Like, oh, my gosh, what if I get in this head-on collision? Like, I'm going to move. And so as I drive up there, I like, I'm like, during this part of the drive, I'm like holding the wheel very tightly, hugging the right side just in case. and like especially when cars like come the other way and like just making sure that and part of that's being just safe as a driver and be sort of aware but but part of that's like irrational like of course yes that's a possibility to happen but is that really rational and and why would I get worked up

about it I have no idea and even no matter how often I go through this it just for some reason and like try to justify it and know that it's like crazy, I still have these crazy thoughts of the worst case scenario, worst possible thing that can happen. So, so yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think it needs a beautiful picture of anxiety. Can I collect my thoughts for a second? Yes, please. Go ahead. How old are you, Austin? 26. Okay. I'm going to need another. like maybe like a minute. I'm just coming up with a plan to kind of think through and approach this with you. Okay.

How long have you been having these thoughts? Since I can remember. Since I was younger. How young. Gosh. It's gotten worse with age, I'd say. Okay. But I'd say like probably I can't really.

remember to be honest just very early i sort of had like the inclination but it yeah not not anything in particular do you remember what can lee like paint us a picture of what you used to worry about like as a kid is a kid i would worry about they wouldn't be the same i mean sort of similar things like for example you know around like the the i don't know i'm just trying to think of something random from my childhood that Like one time I, a lot of this has to do with planes, which is ironic because I used to want to be a commercial airline pilot. And I still have a passion for aviation. But this one time, like, I was like getting on a plane and I had like a complete mental like breakdown and like anxiety attack. I was with my mom.

We were on like a soccer trip. And I saw like a box board the plane, right? Just like unlike like a box, it was like all taped up and weird and just stuff. and immediately my mind went to, you know, because this was like, 2000s, you know, and, you know, and I was like, immediately my mind went to, oh, shit, like, we're going to go, like, it's going to, like, this is it. Like, that's, that's a suspicious package. It's going to, it's going to, you know, something's going to happen.

There's something in there that's going to take the plane down or something. And I, like, panicked and just like, I didn't want to board the plane at all. Of course, we ended up boarding it as fine, right? But that was where my brain went. Okay, so there's something weird there. So like you said your brain is like, it's a suspicious package and the plane is going to go down. Yeah. Where are you not?

Like it's weird. What's in the package? That's what I was thinking. It was probably the likely scenario is in which it was. It was just some package filled with some stuff. No, no. But why can't you use the word bomb? I don't know.

Because I don't know. Is that what you thought was in the package? Yeah, I thought it was some sort of explosive, yeah. So it's just weird because, like, even now as you tell the story, like, you know, I would imagine that if I had anxiety and like, because we all know you're talking about a bomb. Yeah. But you're not using the word bomb. It's just strange. I don't know.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I don't know exactly what to make of that observation, but like it's almost, I mean, there's like a Voldemort aspect to it where if you like, you know, speak. its name is like somehow. I don't know. It just feels weird. Like it feels like kind of like avoidant to use the, like you're not trying to use the, like you're trying to say it without using the word bomb, which I don't know what the significance of that is, but it certainly seems to be like there. I mean, yeah, I don't know. Maybe I don't know exactly why. Do you see what I'm saying though? Yeah, I get it. Yeah. So, so I mean, it's just like we don't have to understand everything.

Let's just make observations. Then we'll sort out, you know, whether there's some kind of like avoidance. Yeah. Or does it make you feel silly to use that word? Yeah. Well, it, it sort of makes me feel silly that I even thought that, if that makes sense. Yes. It's just silly that I even thought that that would be the case.

So you're judging. Yeah. You're judging yourself for your irrational words. And so like maybe speaking irrational words like makes your thoughts sort of more real and like the silliness increases. Right. So I don't know. Because it is so silly because Dr. K, this was a flight that, if I can remember in particular,

was like a 25-minute flight. Like from, it was like literally like a flight. And like rationally, it doesn't make sense. You know, it just, first of all, it never made sense. But like just the idea that this random flight would be the target of something like, it just doesn't. There's no rationale period from any in anything. But like, it was just so stupid to even think of that in that particular situation.

Okay. So you sometimes, I'm not. So sure, I agree with that, but we'll... Oh, you don't think it's rational? We'll get there, maybe. Okay. Okay. So let me ask you this.

Like, so you basically think about your, it sounds like your anxiety is mostly thinking about catastrophic, very low likelihood scenarios, actually occur. Right. Right. Which I think, yeah, but I think, I don't know, does everybody think like that or in, in the sense that, like, they think of the worst case scenario? I think the thing for me is I will obsess over it. for like I will obsess over it.

I'll lose sleep over it. I won't eat. You know, I can't sleep as soon as, like for example, when I go on long flights, I won't, I cannot sleep at all just because, for the reason that I'm afraid that if I go to sleep, I'm going to wake up to everybody around me screaming.

And if I let my personal guard down, that's just what my thought, my brain goes. If I let my personal guard down, then something's going to happen. If I relax, something's going to happen. If I'm not on my,

if I'm not on alert. What's happened when you did let your, personal guard down. Nothing. Nothing. When I relax nothing, I mean, nothing's happened, I don't think. Is there anything? And so now we've got to be careful because I suspect that, so we're running up against an enemy here, which is your judgment that's going to make it hard for you to speak, right? So has something happened to you that feels super irrational where you let your guard down and something catastrophic happened to you as a result? I can't think of like anything in particular.

Okay. Where that was a case. Can you tell me a, go ahead, sorry. Go ahead, no, you go ahead, go ahead. Can you just tell me a little bit about your upbringing? Yeah, sure. What about it? What do you want to know?

Just where did you grow up? What was that like? I grew up in, I don't, I don't, geographical stuff is like irrelevant, but on the West Coast, Oregon, state of Oregon. I had a pretty good, I had a stable upbringing. There was no real issues. Can you tell me about your parents? Yeah, married. Like they were, I love my, I love my mom and dad.

They've been like, you know, extremely, you know, supportive of me throughout and provided me with the tools I feel like that have created the person that I have today. So. And who's the person that you are today? Well, I mean, I feel like, you know, obviously, as anybody, I've made mistakes and done things, but I feel like I feel like I'm a good person. You know, I feel like I try to do the right thing. I feel like I've made mistakes.

But, you know, I feel like, yeah, I feel like that's who I am. Are they proud of you, Austin? Yeah, yeah, they are. They tell me that they are. Do you feel like they're proud of you? I know they are. Yeah, I do. How does that feel?

it feels good it feels really good it feels good it feels good to know that you know um and i have a hard time sort of communicating um that sort of thing to them or you know i'm i like i have a hard time communicating emotions sometimes or whatever but sure you know i am yeah very sorry i'm getting i get it yeah anyway what are you apologizing for no no nothing just getting uh sort of like crying i guess i don't know what's wrong with that nothing nothing i think i think we should be do you feel like something is wrong with it i think this is just like this whole issue of like being judged i guess it's we goes back to the root of the conversation sure being judged so this is like this is like not okay you can't feel this this is you know i guess it goes back to that yeah it does

What does that feel like? It doesn't feel good because I want to share. I feel like there's people that relate, but I just feel like because of who we like I like the the influence that I have, I sort of have to put on a happy face and just you know what I mean? Yeah. So here's what I'm hearing from you, Austin. You're not allowed to.

Yeah. Like I feel like I'm not like I feel like I'm not. I feel like I'm not allowed to express myself in this particular way. And again, there I go, my mind just went to like a justification, like to try to clear up any. Like my mind at that moment, when you said that, my mind went to, I don't feel this way all the time. And I actually don't really feel like I even need to talk about it. Like, this is just like we're talking about things that happen. And it's not even a big deal.

And, you know, that's where my mind went. Yeah. That's where it went. Even in the context of a place where we're talking about. this sort of thing. Yeah. So it's also weird because like you almost said that you're not allowed to be happy. I mean, sorry, you're not allowed to be, like, because we've been talking about you don't

have the right to be sad or suffer. And yet that part of you that's self-judgmental and doesn't allow you to actually pops up when you're expressing gratitude, appreciation, and good feelings. But you still feel like you're not allowed to. Like you see that, it's weird. Even the rational justification for why you're not allowed. allowed to feel props up when it doesn't even apply, which is like, are you not allowed to say that, like you say, I'm privileged, but what you just showed us is your privilege in its purest

and, you know, highest form, which is that like I had a stable household with parents who loved me and they're proud of me, which is like something that not much of our, not many people in our audience have. Yeah. And yet, you know, you still feel like, like, when you, you can say the words on privilege, but you can't show it to people. Right. It's weird.

Yeah. I want to highlight something because I don't know if this is the case. It is, I don't, how do I say, about my upbringing because, and I don't know if this is the root cause of anything, because I've done some self-reflection, like on things like that to try to psychoanalyze myself, you know, and things. think. And I'm trying to like wonder if growing up my mom is a tremendous mother. Like she was tremendous and and you know, uh, was awesome, uh, throughout. But one thing she did do is she scared the ever living, ever living shit out of me about things, drugs, um, you know, going, uh,

making sure that you're, you know, you're, you're not crossing the street in, in a certain place or like making sure you're being safe about that where you know very much stressing you know wear a helmet and those are like common things right but like almost too like a like very much like if you don't you like something negative will happen to you sort of thing like you like something negative will happen and I don't know what the association with is but I do do like for example I I have people are going to laugh but I I don't do drug I do I smoke marijuana right but that's the only that's that, you know, it's the only thing that I do that's like a drug. And even that, it took me till I was about 18 years old to even try that, because I was terrified of even that.

But I don't drink. And when I say I don't drink, it's like I don't like, I have maybe a drink every once in a while, but it's very rare. I've been drunk. It's not like I have anything against drinking. But those are things that I feel like I, growing up, I was. told, you know, basically not the drinking part as much, but more like the drugs part not to do. And so I'm absolutely terrified. That's probably a good thing, but I don't know. So, Austin, let me ask you something. So you offered this. You said, I psychoanalyzed myself. My mom used to, your words were, scare the ever-living shit out of you. Yeah. How do you think that's related to your anxiety?

Well, I think that like my mom would describe things, the way that I think of it. And it's weird, like, when I'm conscious of this, but I still have this, the reaction, you know, but the way that my mom would describe things, like, let's say that there was a, you know, like, let's say the helmet thing, right? Like, I don't know, she would go to describe just, like, the traumatic brain injury that could be sustained off of that or the drug-related thing, like, you, it just takes one time and here's a situation where this person died, you know, instantly. And they were just, they were just like you. they just died, you know. And I feel like all these things as a mother, I don't blame her for telling me in these particular situations because obviously it prevented me from doing drugs,

prevent me from wearing a helmet. But like, I wonder if there was certain situations where it was, maybe like sort of went, my mind sort of just goes to everything that I do to the worst case scenario. And I don't know if that's true or not. I'm just sort of wondering if that had anything to do with it because I don't know where this comes from at all. What do you think? I don't know. I just don't know. Where does the thoughts in our house? come from. I have no idea. Okay.

I don't know where they come from. Yeah. And I'm not trying to blame her. See, my mind went again. I'm not trying to blame her. It's not her fault. You know, that's what I get to try to. So be careful.

Would you be okay blaming her if it was her fault? Because I love my mom. I don't think that it would be her intention to do something like that, you know, to like cause me. Nice dodge. Austin. Okay. Beautiful.

See, there you did it. You did it together. I'm blessed. I'm blessed. I'm blessed. Blame has such like a negative connotation. Sure, it does. Like blame, like, she did something horribly wrong. Like, she's a terrible person for that or something like that.

But that, to me, that's not the case. Like, I don't want people to think that if I say it's my mother's fault for that. There's conflation, right? So, so like, let me put it this way. So I'm with you that the word blame carries a bad connotation. Is it possible for her? to be responsible without you blaming her. Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, certainly. If we just talk about it, like straight up here, if something that she did, I guess it could be responsible. Whether what she did was, oh, see, there I go again, Dr. Kay, trying to. Go, go for it. Say it out loud. But like, if what she was doing was wrong,

was it wrong or was it just how I became, like, is doing those things or saying, those things, is that inherently wrong? Or is it just like something that just was a sort of like an unfortunate, like that my brain just happened to work this way. And maybe she was saying it to the wrong kid, basically, you know? Um, so give me a second and then I will have, I believe I may have answers for you. Okay. Okay. Sure. And that too could be a mistake because like, well, let me say I have hypotheses. Yep. Sure. Yep. Okay. I mean, so, Austin, let me ask you something.

Do you think that you're anxious because your mom scared the ever-living shit out of you on a relatively constant basis? My true answer is, I don't know. I don't know if that was the case. I've just, it sort of came across my mind. What does it feel like? A potential possibility. I feel like what? What does it feel like the answer is? I'm not asking for the right answer. I'm asking for the visceral answer. And if the answer is, I don't know, that's fine. It truly is, Dr. Kitt. I don't. I don't know.

That's fine. In my mind, I feel like it's a potential that contributed, but I don't believe that it would be 100% of the reason. But maybe it would be a potential contributor. I'm with you 100% and I would agree with that 100%. I don't think it's everything. I think it's a potential contributor. So let's just talk for a section about where thoughts come from. So I know it's kind of like a basic question, but generally speaking, thoughts.

come from experiences, right? Like, I don't start thinking about unicorns until, like, I see unicorns. Like, I don't start, you know, you can't fall in love with a girl or guy that you've never seen or met. Right. Like, it's kind of simple, but like, you know, you can't want to eat a hamburger until you, like, see it or smell it or, like, see pictures of it or see your friends eating it. Like, the thoughts in our mind are generated from generally speaking are experiences. The other thing is, like, the things that our mind learns how to do, it learns from, like, some pretty common sources. And at the top of the list are parents. Right. So, like, if I'm, you know, if I say please and thank you, that's going to be like something that my mind

automatically generates based on the way that I was raised. If I'm a racist asshole, that also is going to probably be related to the way that I was raised. Right? Like, if you look at, like, I grew up in East Texas where, you know, there were a lot of racist people, and I was kind of racist too. I'm still sort of racist. Like, it's still in me. I can feel it.

I try to like, but like, I was raised in a particular way to, like, think about people in a particular way. And oddly enough, like, some of my racism is towards, like, white people because I grew up with people that I used to call rednecks, right? And so I was like, these guys are uncultured. Like, that's actually still racist. You get that? Like, you know, I'm judging a class of people based on the color of their skin or where they come from.

And I make assumptions about them. And so the first thing to understand is, like, in my experience, anxiety comes from two places. So the first thing is it's not irrational. Like, we think it's irrational because when we judge the thought, we're like, that's not going to happen. But what is completely rational is that our mind is going to generate. our mind doesn't generate irrational thoughts. It generates thoughts as best as it knows how. And even in the objective manner of truth,

those thoughts are irrational. Like you can say that, you know, like let's just talk about sexual assault for a moment. So like when someone is sexually assaulted, they feel like a bad person. And I'll give you just a very visceral, but like I think this is the truest example of this, when a child is sexually assaulted,

so back when kids are growing, up, they don't have something called theory of mind, which means that they don't understand that other human beings exist. Literally, their brain has not developed the capacity to understand that, like, other human beings exist. They're like, they're super narcissistic. Like, a kid, when it's hungry, doesn't understand that, like, a parent is busy or, like, has a phone call. They just know that I'm hungry and, like, there's no food. And they get upset. They're, like, the only actor. And then over time, they develop something called theory of mind. And their theory of mind gets, like, really, really good when they hit teenage years.

And that's why people become so socially anxious as teenagers, because they're like, oh, shit, other people exist and they have opinions about me. And what I do affects the way that they think about me. Does that make sense? Like a seven-year-old just isn't really that concerned with like what people think. In general. Okay? Yeah.

Okay. So imagine if you're the only person in the world and you get sexually assaulted, whose fault is it? if you're the only person in the world and you get sexually assaulted by yourself? It's your fault. Absolutely. If you're the only person in the world. Yeah. So like when you have a four-year-old that gets sexually assaulted, they feel like it's their fault. They feel like they're bad people. Right. And it's bizarre because it's sort of like

when I'm learning, and that's evolutionary. It's like when I'm learning to walk and I fall down and I'm two years old, whose fault is it? That's so interesting. I've never even thought of it that way ever. Yeah, it's shocking. Because a lot of people don't understand it. Because I'm like, how could that be your fault sort of thing? But that's what they say. Like if you talk to them, like everyone knows that victims of sexual assault blame themselves.

And what we all tell them is it's not your fault. But they feel like it's their fault. Right. So like where the fuck does that come from? And then we say like, and then they feel even stupider because there's a lot of people out there telling them it's not your fault. fault, but they're like, but it feels like it's my fault. It's invalidating their perspective. And so it, and sort of, it sort of makes rational sense, right? That it's not your fault that like you were assaulted, certainly if you're not for. But at the same time, that's the way that they

feel. And it, like, the thoughts that are generated by the mind may seem objectively irrational, but the mind has a damn good reason for generating a particular thought. Like, if, our thought, if our mind generated un-useful or unadaptive thoughts, we wouldn't be alive. The first thing to understand is that your mind adapts to circumstances. Like, if you stub your toe, your brain is like,

let's take care of that shit. How can a brain that can teach you how to walk, teach you how to talk, teach you how to like deal with animals, deal with people, understand broad societal movements and why you should change your name, can reflect on like what you've done

in the past. This is the instrument. This is the instrument that you're dealing with and you're just saying like in this one random corner of your mind it's just broken? Like that's not how it works. Right. Anxiety comes from somewhere. And this is the reason why people can't get over their anxiety because you assume that there's a part of your car that's busted when actually it's working exactly like it's supposed to. So any attempts to fix it are not going to work because you don't understand actually what's going on. So, okay. And sorry if I go back to specific examples. Go for it.

As time goes on, I'll be like, because it's kind of like embarrassing some of the stuff that I do to like try to fix. So when immediately when I feel anxious, what I want to do is try to get rid of those feelings of anxiety and enjoy what I'm doing. I'm fortunate enough where, again, here I go, but I'll just say, I'll just talk because I'm sure it's fine. It's okay for you. I'm fortunate enough. My anxiety doesn't normally stop me from doing anything.

It just sort of makes the experience very. unpleasant, like extremely unpleasant. So like for, I'll go back to the plane one because I think it's like an easy example to point to things that I do specifically. So this is my process before I go on a flight. And for the record, I used to want to be a commercial airline pilot, which I'm sure a lot of people are like really, they don't understand how you can have a fear of flying while like wanting to be a pilot.

Sure. Maybe I don't really know the answer to that. But when I go on a plane, you know, I'm scared of all the things that I alluded to. before, but so what I try to do in my head is to work to try to make myself feel better. So what does that mean? And so what I'll do is I'll look up the flight, look up the flight plan. I'll look up the weather forecast. I'll monitor the plane's altitude and airspeed while the plane is flying.

Like I'll sit there and you know like on the airlines on the screen, you'll you'll see like airspeed and like altitude and whatnot. And because of my knowledge of aviation, I'll be like, I'll feel better watching the airspeed, the weather and everything, just looking to make sure it's normal. Because when you're sitting in a plane in the back of it, often you can't really tell what and what isn't normal. Right. So like, you know, like when we're going in for, when we're taking off, I'll monitor the airspeed when we're taking off and I'll look at my phone. Right. I'll look at my phone.

I'll look at the airspeed. I'm like, well, we're in a 737 900. You know, we need to be at, you know, at this time, you know, we need to be at this particular speed or, you know, or like I'm expecting that we're going to turn this. I'm going to ask you a question. Does that feel like you're feeding or satisfying something? It feels in the moment, it feels like I'm like, okay, everything's actually going normal. Because looking at, like I said, looking out the window, it's hard to really judge. It's satisfying, right? So your mind is hungry for something. Yes. And then you provide it with

something. Yes. And then it's satisfied. Right. So what happens to something? that is hungry and then you give it food. It's satisfied. It's full. Yep. And what happens to it over time? You need to eat again. Absolutely.

But I've never thought of these behaviors as being like exceptionally like healthy. Like because like for me, I feel like. Because they're not. Yeah, exactly. Like going on my phone and connect and buying Wi-Fi to look at all these things. It's just not rational. Yeah, so let's, I don't want you. Okay, so we're going to talk, man, there's so much to talk about. This is fantastic, man. So I think I really want to explain a lot of stuff to you. And I hope that your anxiety can get better. Also, we should talk a little bit about, you know, whether you should actually get into treatment because it sounds like you may have an anxiety disorder. Yeah. Okay. So I would recommend that you actually get evaluated by a real psychiatrist for that. Yeah, absolutely. But let's just talk about the nature of mind for a second and talk about anxiety in general. Okay. So the first thing, this is. is that like, I want you to just think about a scenario.

So let's say I have low self-confidence. And then, like, I'm feeling bad about myself. So what I do is I, like, I DM a friend of mine. And I'm like, hey, like, do you think I'm a piece of shit? And then they say, no, man, you're awesome. And then, like, what happens to my feeling of low self-confidence? Well, I'm hoping that it would go up at that point. But then you would probably, I kind of maybe, forgive me if I'm going ahead of you,

but are you insinue? like later the self-confident would that that was him eating yeah right and filling him up but and then afterwards he has to eat again absolutely right so like like but is that your observation in the world that reassurance to people who lack confidence doesn't really fix the problem it just is sort of like a band-aid that's the hypothesis do you agree with that now the way you describe it yes but I think that a lot of people would think that like constant support in that particular situation would get them to be more confident. Yep, but that's actually not what happens.

Yeah, okay. Right? Because like you guys, y'all will know this if you have either been this person or you have had a friend who's like this, that no matter how many times you tell them that they are awesome people, they need to hear it again. That's so, God, I never, you're blowing my mind because I've never. never thought of it that way because I've been on the opposite end of people that feel that way and me telling them, I'm like, I feel like this is like helping them. Like they're going to feel better.

And they may feel better in the moment in the moment. But then after that, they're just feeding the beast. Exactly. I didn't even, I didn't, I never thought about it that way. I always thought of it is like the solution was to continue to make them feel better. Absolutely. And like, let's just think about that scientifically. If that was the solution, if you did it for a couple months, they should be better. Then like people wouldn't have, if we look at it systemically as a society, people have confidence problems all the time. Everyone's fucking reassuring each other. If that was this good solution, no one would have confidence problems. The solution, so what I really want to encourage you to do, Austin, and we're going to talk about this in a second with commercial pilot and fear of flying.

is instead of taking something that doesn't make sense and adjusting the data, we need to adjust the way that we look at the data for the data to make sense. The data is the data. Just because it's irrational for you to want to be a commercial airline pilot and have a fear of flying, doesn't mean it's irrational. If both of those things exist in your mind, that doesn't mean it's irrational. We need to take a step back and assume for a moment that's perfectly irrational, perfectly rational.

And then we need to develop an understanding. of the mind that makes those two thoughts coexist, because that's actually what's happening in your mind. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. And it's weird, Dr. Kay, because I, in the moment, like, I talk about all the things that I do in the fear and whatnot, but it never would stop me from wanting to go on an airplane. Does that make sense? It never wants to, because I, like, love the idea of flight and, like, like, flying flight simulator. Like, I love that. I love everything that goes into it. I watch plane videos. Like, it's something that I, like, I'm never going to be a commercial airline pilot anymore. Yeah. So,

I still really enjoy it. Sorry, go ahead. So here we go. Okay. So, like, here's the thing. You get on the flight and Austin loves flying. And Austin's mom, whose voice, he's internalized, because that's what we do, Austin's mom's voice pops into your head and is like, you're going to die. And then there's like a conflict between these two things because your mom taught you, right? Like they teach us things. Like I try to teach my kids to like flush the toilet. And so like what's happening in their tiny little mind and like even my, so my youngest daughter does this thing where she likes to get off of the potty and then wipe herself. And then like that makes wiping way harder, right? Like wiping is easier when you're on

the potty. So I like tried to teach her like we wipe on the potty. Oh, I wipe off the potty, Dr. Kay, but I mean, well, actually, I use a bidet now. Yeah, I use a bidet now, but like before I get to stand up, I mean, this is a whole other. That debate. Okay, anyway, let's not even go there. Okay. Okay. Anyway, so. If you want me to judge you for me, if you want me to judge you for being a stick master, we have to talk about your wiping habits. Okay. No, but like, so here's the thing. So now what she does is like when she's on the potty, she literally says the words we wipe on the potty. And I'm like, yes, we wipe on the potty. She has internalized my voice because internalizing the voice of our parents is what we call any idea.

Oh, God. Is this a quiz? Yes, I'm putting you on the spot. Internalizing. Dr. Kishow. Our parents. Voice is something that we call. It's a read-my-mind question.

Oh, I got it. Learning. Okay. Learning. Okay. That's what learning is. Yeah. The hardest questions are the simplest ones.

Right. Got it. Yeah. Got it. Makes sense. So, like, that's literally what learning is. Like, we don't even think about what learning is. Like, we just, like, use the word.

But, like, literally learning is, like, the process of internalizing things around us and, like, making it a part of our thought process. So, like, racism is learned. Right? Like, like, it becomes internal. And then once we learn something, it sort of, like, pops up. It starts generating certain thoughts because, like, we understand it now. And so what I think happened in your case is, and this is just a preliminary thought, right? Is that like your mom taught you, and that's the way I want you to think about your anxiety.

It's not that it's irrational. It's that it's taught. She like literally taught you that like if you put on a bike helmet, if you don't put on a bike helmet, you're going to get a TBI and you're going to die. If you ever drink alcohol, you're going to die. If you ever do this, you're going to die. And then we see that in your mind, there's like Austin. who loves planes and then there's your mom's voice

who's like, you're gonna die. And then what happens is you're like, that doesn't make sense because Austin is like, no, I'm not gonna die.

And then like they have a little war in your head and then you pull out your phone and then you start to pull out all your things. And then what you do is you kind of calm down the anxiety. But actually what you're doing is feeding it because you're not getting

to the root of where it comes from. You're like alleviating it from the top. It's like the root is that is not reassurance, you need to challenge the very idea that you're going to die. That's, and that's, and that for me, that's a challenge because if, I don't know how to explain this, but it's this feeling of if I let my guard down, I'm going to die. Yeah. If I, like, if I'm letting it, it doesn't make sense because let's face it, Dr. K, if I'm flying

at 35,000 feet and I'm going to die, I can't, me thinking, me think, like, it doesn't matter. I'm going to die, right? That's just what's going to happen. If your plane's going down, me in the back with my iPhone looking up the flight and the airspeed, isn't going to change my, you know. Yeah. So this is where we learn how to do things like sit with it. Okay.

So now, like, I'm going to give you an alternate scenario. I think if you want your anxiety to improve over time, first thing that you've got to do is like, let yourself die, bro. Like when you're sitting there, there's like recognize, first of all, that like, Austin loves flying. Like Austin's like, I love this stuff. And then there's this other part of you. So we can call it the voice of your mom, but maybe she's just a contributor.

So the other, so, yeah, I'll talk about that in the second because it may not be the voice of your mom. Right. In the second, there's just your anxiety. So your anxiety, like, I want you to think about it like, Austin's not a single player game. It's like a party RPG. And you've got a bunch of characters in there.

And you've got Austin, right, who's like your protagonist. And then you have your anxiety, which is actually a really important member of your party. it's not actually irrational and bad. It's not an enemy. This is what people think. Like when we start calling it mental illness, which could be applied,

but we think about it as an enemy, but you got to understand your anxiety is helping you out, bro. Your anxiety is the part of your mind, which looks into the future, predicts danger, and makes sure you don't screw up. It's the same part of your mind that is telling you, hey, it's time to start calling myself Raj Patel.

Or Austin. Yeah. Right? Like it's saying like, hey, like, if I continue doing this, bad things could happen. And like, how is that not a good part of your party? Right. You know, like anxiety is protective. That's why we have it.

Like human beings, like, why does the human brain think about terrible things happening to us? Because back when we were like monkeys in the jungle, we were walking around and we would see a tiger footprint. And there were two kinds of monkeys. one monkey was like, oh shit, there's probably a tiger behind that bush. Even though the likelihood that the tiger behind the bush was low, you just need a little bit of information and then you project danger. And then there was a monkey that was like, eh, NVD. And one of them got eaten and one of them did it. Yeah.

And so anxiety is adapted. It's worse. Yeah. Why do we still have those types of people that like, why do we, like we still have those people that like my friends that I like fly with, they get on the plane and, you know, they order a drink and they're just, you know, they don't care. And they just sit there and no matter what happens, what movement, they're just. Yeah. So great question. So now we get to like, okay, where does your anxiety come from? So here are the two hypotheses. One is they didn't have your mom.

Mm-hmm. Right? So like when I had, when I went on a flight, my dad did the opposite. I would be anxious and he would be like, it's going to be okay. And he's like, you know, it's going to rumble for a while. And then also I had like particular experiences that I remember like cognitively. Like I remember I used to be scared of flights. And then I would start playing the Super Mario music in my head. Because sometimes in Super Mario like you'd get launched somewhere. And it would be like, you know.

And so like I started playing like literally in my mind, I started playing the Super Mario music in my head. head and I'd pretend that I was like Mario flying through space and like that seemed to help. I tried something like that. I would turn on, I would try to turn on like happy like music that like would sort of bring me to like a normal place. So I actually like started playing. And I only did this for a brief period of time and then it's frustrating because so I know I'm trying to distract myself. So this is the difference. I wasn't trying to distract myself. I was trying to change, I was sitting with the feeling of flying and changing the framework around it. I wasn't trying to distract myself at all.

Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because when I, when I think, because I tried playing the song, I tried playing the song, Big old jet airliner by Steve Miller. You know, do, do, do big old jet airliner.

And it was like a happy, like, you know, going on the road and doing like fun stuff. And like, I would listen to that on takeoff, which is like the part of the flight where I'm, like most anxious. And in my head, like it kind of helped a little bit, but I just stopped doing it because again, I feel like if I'm actively trying to, and again, I understand what you said, by the way, about what you're, how you were doing it. But in my head, I was like, I know, I know intuitively what I'm doing is trying to take my mind off of the, the anxiety around flight. And in that, in my head, that's letting my guard down. And I must be ready to look at everything and know what's happening all the time.

So let's just clarify for a second. I get that you understood what I said. So I'm going to explain it just as clearly as I can. So when you face anxiety, you've got a couple of options. One is to distract yourself. One is to feed it or reassure yourself by giving into it. Okay? The third option is to be with it, but like not do anything.

And somehow I was lucky enough to stumble on. I think it's just random chance. It's not like I was smart or anything. It was just like I just stumbled on like this way of sitting fully with my feelings. I wasn't trying to move away from them. I just sort of pretended it was like in a different context. And even now I find myself doing that on flights for a few seconds and I still feel uncomfortable. And like I sit with the feeling kind of fully.

And so you can kind of sit with it, which is what I think you need to learn how to do. But that's challenging because it's sort of like sitting with like a hungry stomach. right so like it's going to want things and it's going to like grab at you austin it's going to be like yeah i need this i give this to me give this to me give this to me i have a question when you're yeah no go for why do i feel because i'm not like completely i don't want you don't don't i'm not anxious throughout the entire like there there are moments of flight where i feel calm but not consistently like it just depends right it it varies but flight, right? There are moments during the flight where I am calm, but then, but that's when,

you know, we're flying smoothly. We're at cruise altitude. Everything smooth. As soon as we hit a bump, my heart starts racing. The phone's out again, looking, you know, at the, at the weather, like, what's going to happen? How long are we going to be flying through this? You know, I do things like, I go like, you know, I'm taking you through exactly like. If you're watching me on a plane, I go like this. I like I grab onto myself. Like I claw onto myself. Like I grab on like on to things.

Like I put my hands in my face. I start to like panic during during turbulence and things. And the crazy thing about this, Dr. Kay, is I understand logically that turbulence in the forces on Earth have literally never taken down a commercial aircraft. There was one incident of it. And it was like in the 60s back when planes were made out of cardboard, you know, or whatever. not, but it's just not rational in the modern world for turbulence to impact the aircraft. But for me, the thought in my head at that moment is when I feel the turbulence, I know turbulence isn't crazy, but, but like I can't, like, what if it wasn't turbulence?

What if it was, what if something else is going wrong? Yeah. What if we are in that crazy type of turbulence, it could impact the aircraft, you know? Sure. Yeah. So, so that's, so we're going to talk about some, scars and kind of getting um i have had some traumatic experience flying and i i i don't know if that helps or not that certainly hurts oh yeah and i'll tell you it my anxiety around flying has

gotten worse since this one particular experience yeah so describe it to if you want sure sure go for it um i went on a flight from and this might not have even been bad because it just felt bad right i went on a flight from uh los angeles to nashville um and on south Atlas Airlines. And I would, we were in there and the pilot came over and he said, hey, we're experiencing some, you know, we're about to experience some severe turbulence. And the flight attendants are going to be seated. You know, nothing normal, but or abnormal. I don't know if he used the word severe. I can't recall exactly. But he said, you know, some significant turbulence. And we told them to seat the flight attendants. The flight attendants were seated. And then the flight

came over to reiterate how, like, critical it was that you were in your seat, because, you know, some people don't usually take it seriously. And I, and they mentioned that it was a thunderstorm. And this, I was still, I'll admit, admittedly, I was looking at my phone at this time, like, checking weather and still doing those sorts of things. And so I look, and there was a thunderstorm that extended the entire central United States, and it was almost impossible to fly around. And being somebody that knows aviation, one of the more dangerous things to aircraft is severe thunderstorms. That's like something that can actually impact airspeed. And when you impact airspeed, there's a, you know, it's just all sorts of like things that go through my head.

So I'm a little scared, right? I'm a little scared. And but not like crazy scared because, you know, again, this is, this is, you know, I've been through stuff. You know, this didn't seem bad. but immediately we start going through and let me tell you the plane was thrashing people were screaming people i look up the aisle people are holding hands i was holding hands with a woman next to me i was like oh my god i was i was like on the verge of tears there was a guy next to me rubbing my shoulder and other people were freaking out and in that experience i can hear the engines going

because when you're in turbulence and the and the plane is like going through this like pilots often step climb and go up and down altitudes to try to find smooth air. But in my head in that moment, I'm not sure what's going on because I can't see anything. So we're in a black cloud. You look outside the window, it's black out there and you can't see anything. So there's no frame of reference. You feel the plane going up and down. You hear the engines.

And it was just very, very, very, like, scary. Very traumatizing to me. I was shaking. I remember I was so, like, happy that, like, it was over with that I bought, like, the entire people around me drinks. I said drinks on me. I'm so happy to be alive. Who wants to drink? I don't even drink, Dr. Kay. As I said, I don't, I got a drink because I was like, let's celebrate. And so I bought drinks. I said, drinks on everybody. And I bought everybody like, I don't remember what it was, but everybody get drinks. And thank God, the whole plane didn't go,

get, want drinks because then I would have been a serious bill. But that was an experience that I had that was very traumatizing. And I had a similar experience. not as bad, but going into Las Vegas. You know how Las Vegas is from L.A. to L.A. to Las Vegas is notoriously bad for like Charity Burns and stuff. I went into Las Vegas crazy updrafts. And I remember sitting, I was sitting next to this girl, this Australian girl. And she, and I was like going through my panicky thing.

And she looks at me. She says, you're not going to die. And like, you know, like, I was being so irrational. And, you know, anyway. But that's just sort of, I was just. that's just sort of like the experience that I had after the fact. How does it feel to share those stories? Nothing happens but still.

But yeah, that's not. No, no, no, it's not nothing happened but still. But let's start with this. How does it feel to share that? I mean, I've shared it before. I might have even shared it on stream. But it feels like I feel happy to be that I survive that, you know, like even though, you know, I know that we probably were never in danger ever, you know.

But still, I felt like I was. And I feel like I survived it and I feel good about that. So let's think about this. So what does that do to your anxiety? Does it increase it or decrease it? Like when I talk about it? Let's start with the experiences. The experience, like I talk about it and I laugh about it right now because I'm on the ground.

And I'm not going on a plane. But when I get on the plane, I'm not necessarily saying I consciously think about that one particular experience. But when I get on a plane, I start to fear that I'm going to go through that again. Absolutely. And so every time the plane starts to jump or anything, I get really thinking. So here's the thing, Austin, you've just fed your anxiety so much, not your fault, right? But like, because the thing is like the voice, let's just assume for a second, it's the voice of your mom, and we got to go back and kind of talk about how it could, may not be. But I'm just going to call it that. So the voice of your mom is like, just think about all the times that she told you to do something.

and then you sort of deviated off course and how much she like even more flipped her shit. Right. Like she's like, you got to wear your helmet, otherwise you're going to die. And then you wear your helmet. I have an interesting thing about the helmet thing. It happened later in life though.

And I don't know if it really... Let's steer clear stories for a second. Sure, sorry. You know, it sounds to me like you should definitely find someone to talk to because it sounds like you have a lot to say. Yeah, I've got a lot to say. Yeah. Which is good.

Right. So like this is how, no, no, don't apologize. It's just like this is how emotional processing works. Like the stuff has to come out. right it's not like reassurance it's like you just got to like go back to those feelings and actually what you need to do is like sit with those feelings and not and kind of like decompress them so it's almost sort of like exposure therapy where um you know what you do is like if you're afraid of dogs like you just go and you like look at a dog and then you let those feelings arise and then you

don't go anywhere with them you don't run away from the dog and then you don't like force yourself to pet the dog because that's irrational. And so you've got to force yourself to, no, you're just like, sit with it and you let the, like, you let the feelings come up. You let them just hang out for a while and you do nothing. And so sometimes in therapy, like that's something that people do. There's like a technique called EMDR that has, you know, mixed evidence behind it, but some people find it very useful.

Where you like recall a traumatic experience, but you're basically doing sort of like a meditation kind of thing while you're recalling the experience. So your mind can't fully go back into that space. It's sort of like half here and half there, which allows you to sort of like swim in that water without getting some, you know, going under. Anyway, in your case, I think what's happening is like those kinds of things are feeding your anxiety because remember, before that happened, everything was irrational. But now your anxiety is like, but that almost happened. right? It's like, this is everything we were afraid of and like, sure, we made it this time. Like, before that, like, you had a one in a hundred chance of going down in the thunderstorm.

Before the thunderstorm, it was like one in a million. And now your anxiety is like, if that happens 99 more times, we're fucked. Right? The Las Vegas is like one in 2000. But like the thing is, it's like, it's reinforcing the basic idea that your anxiety has that, like, things can go wrong on a plane. and this is the other really weird thing is that your knowledge of aviation, do you think that makes your anxiety better or makes it worse? I've, I've, I, I almost wonder if it makes it worse because I know a lot, I know what can go wrong on a plane.

Yeah. And it's not perfect. So, so this is where, this is where I want you to just, oh man, there's just so much to explain. But, okay. So, like, I want you to understand that, like, what happens is your knowledge of the airplane is hijacked by your anxiety. That which should reassure you because you know all the statistics actually somehow gets

like hijacked by the air, like the anxiety to like be used against you. It's like Austin knows like, oh, like actually flying is safe and like, you know, I can't, I've never met a person who knows when the last accident related to turbulence was. I like literally never met that person before. It was in Fiji in 1960 something. I forget exactly. So that's what anxious people are like. They have all kinds.

They understand what they're anxious about in and out. And it only seems to make things worse. Right. Whereas we have this assumption that the more you learn about something, the more your anxiety should go down. You should be reassured by knowledge. But if we actually look at the data, that's not how it works.

Knowledge. And by the way, it's like if you read less about airplanes, I don't know that your anxiety would be less. I think it just, it's just like it uses it. It uses, your anxiety is going to use whatever it can in your mind because anxiety is a feeling and it's going to wrap whatever logical shit it can to like bring into itself. It doesn't matter.

I have a question. Yeah. I want to know if this is unhealthy because I generally enjoy it. It doesn't make me anxious in the moment. But I do watch like aircraft disaster things. like disaster you know YouTube video you know see those okay like I do that because I enjoy like the educational portion of it

like what happened what went wrong um but like I don't know like I don't know if this is like a like a sort of like a I know it sounds so dumb like why would you watch that if you're afraid of it but it's almost like I want my justification in my head is number one I like enjoy like seeing the aviation portion I like it But number two, I want to know what went wrong and what steps they took to fix it. So like now I know when I go on a plane that the likelihood of that particular situation isn't going to happen again sort of thing.

Yeah. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So the short answer is like yes and no. Is it a good idea or bad idea? So it's fine because remember that Austin likes aviation. That has nothing to do with your anxiety. Right. Like if it's not triggering for you, I think it's fine to watch it.

And we see the second piece too, which is that the reassurance piece is actually feeding your anxiety, but anything you do to reassure yourself is going to feed anxiety. Right. You see that? Yeah. And I'm not actively thinking about these disaster videos in flight. Like, oh, I'm going to be that flight. Yeah. So, I mean, it sounds like it's like, I think that I think that the solution to your anxiety does not involve in a significant way, stopping to watch YouTube videos about aviation. Okay. I think the solution to your anxiety is like pretty simple and it's like the solution to like most anxiety, which we'll get to a second. But let's go back to the origin for a second, okay? So is this the voice of your mom? That's what it sounds like, right? That's the best example of a smoking gun that we've got. But there are a couple of other things which I want to clue people in on. So first of all, really interesting study. Okay. So they took kids diagnosed with anxiety who had parents who had a diagnosis of anxiety. And they found that treating the parent,

actually treats the child. Even after the fact or just while they're a child? No, no. So like if I take a child like a 10 year old with an anxiety disorder and I take their 35 year old mom with an anxiety disorder and I give the 10 year old medication. And I in one group I give, I medicate the child. And in the other group I medicate the mom, both results are the same. Wow. That's incredible.

Crazy. Because the source of the anxiety is the theory that the sort of the anxiety came from the mother or the person with the anxiety? Yeah, sort of. Like that's what the data suggests, right? So then there are a couple of other things. So we know that anxiety disorders run in families. So there is an inherited component. So there may just be something.

And I do think, I don't think it's just your mom. So I think your brain, Austin, as evidenced by your professional success is very good at projecting catastrophe, which actually helps you succeed professionally. Because your brain is capable of considering ups and downs that the average person may not be able to consider, which is adaptive and beneficial to you. So you've avoided certain pitfalls. And you've also capitalized on some low possibility things because you were able to predict them. Because all anxiety is is your predictive capability, right? The better you are predicting, the worse your anxiety is going to be. Yeah, I can see that.

So one thing is that, like, you may just have an inherited component, which may not be, like, due to the environment of your mom. It could just be, like, genetically, your neurons are sort of wired to be, like, a little bit more anxious. You probably have high trait neuroticism, which is another personality component. Sure. Second thing is that... Go ahead. No, you go ahead. No, please.

So the second thing is that like... I need to learn to listen. Sorry. Second thing is that, you know, I do think that it sort of makes sense to me that you were taught to be fearful. You were taught to be fearful. So that's how I would reframe your anxiety is like this is your conditioning.

It's not irrational, it's conditioning. And conditioning can absolutely be irrational. Like then you're like, why am I this way? It's because you're fucking conditioned. And that solves everything. It's weird. I'm starting to think because my mother, like,

But my dad is also kind of paranoid. Like, he's kind of paranoid, too. Like, I'm not saying, I don't think my, when I think of somebody that has anxiety, I think of my mom because she, she, like, shares many traits with me in terms of, like, my personality and stuff. But my dad is also paranoid in, like, different areas. Like, my dad will walk on a plane and, you know, he'll eat an edible and he'll be passed out and doesn't care, right?

doesn't care, doesn't give a rip, just chilling with his coffee, you know, chilling and, you know, whatever, or he'll go someplace and not worry about anything, you know. Yeah, now everybody knows where I got it from. No, I'm just kidding. But my dad, like, he's also very, like, paranoid about other things. Like, he's, like, different things that are different from my mother. Like, it's different aspects of life. I'm trying to think of, like, an example. And is your mind a combination of those two? People often say that I have my personalities like my mother and my like more, people say like my more like, if you will, like, I'm trying to think of it.

Like personality mother. People say that my dad is very much like a like sort of like my more, my more rational side, if you will. Like I don't want to say my mom's irrational, but like my more. Yes. Like if I hadn't, and I'm not saying my mom. I'm stupid, right? But if I had like a more intellectual, like critical thinking side, it would be from my dad, right? Not to say, my mom's not that way, but that like my, my habits. Sorry, go ahead.

Yeah. So, so we'll, so Austin, I'm just noticing there's a lot left to talk about. So we'll talk about how to talk about what's left to talk about. Because we, you know, I want, I don't want to give you the sense that I'm not offering you complete picture. I'm giving you like 10%. Because there's, you know, individuals are like, I'm going to share a couple of principles. with you. We can talk a little bit more about that. But I want to get to a couple of other things just about generally speaking the origin of anxiety. So one is that we can think that you are conditioned. So the other big place that anxiety comes from is actually what I asked you earlier about like, so you can learn you can learn to be afraid of catastrophe in two ways. One is that you can be taught to be afraid of catastrophe by like your parents or you can actually have faced catastrophe before.

And then your mind, then it's no longer theoretical, right? Because if it's happened to you, then it's actually a possibility. And so I'll just give you like an example of a patient of mine who has allowed me to share this component because she thinks it would be helpful. So she's someone who had anxiety for like 17 years and then had this like and it was irrational, right? Like she would always like think about horrible things going wrong. And the more that we kind of talked about her was just so she had lost. her father due to cancer. And so, like, that had been explored in therapy as well.

And, like, she had kind of talked about the loss and how that was, like, sad and grievous and all that kind of stuff. And so she sort of been like, okay, so like lost dad, like, sometimes that leads to an anxiety disorder. Didn't seem to be the case. She was actually anxious before she lost her dad. So the question is, like, when did you become anxious? So, like, it turns out that the root her anxiety is that when she was, like, six or seven,

she knew her dad had cancer. She like knew something was wrong and everyone told her everything was okay. But in her heart of hearts, she felt like something was true and she was taught that she was irrational. When in fact, she's been right all along. And so her sense of what is real and unreal got fucked up at a young age. And the second she, not the second, but over the course of a couple of weeks, is she realized that like her freedom from anxiety, was not in calling it irrational, it was in recognizing that it's actually very rational.

It's the opposite. And then she got better. Because she's like, oh, like these feelings that I have are not wrong. They're actually right. And that allowed her to sit with them. And it's like your fears are real. They're not wrong. And the whole reason that her anxiety never gets better

is because she actually like invalidates her feelings and she assumes she's irrational. She assumes something is broken when actually it's working fine. And then like how the fuck, like no wonder you can't drive your car properly because you're pretending like you have a flat and your tire is fine. Right. So anxiety in my experience comes from two places, either conditioning or an event where the catastrophe actually happened. And then it's like no longer irrational for you.

It's a reality. It actually happened. So this is why like, you know, people who have bad shit happen to them. develop anxiety disorders. Because like something happens where that one in a million thing, like I had another patient who was like attacked in a gas station bathroom by like a 13 year old male patient who was attacked in a bathroom by like a 30 year old truck driver. Like sexual people.

Like in a gas station bathroom. And like after that he's got anxiety because think about the worst thing that you could possibly think about when you're 13. And think about how irrational it is for that shit to happen. And then this happens to you. And the low likelihood of the world getting hit by a meteor is actually like, this is way worse. And the worst thing can happen to you.

I have a question. Yeah. Is there such thing as a combination of both? Absolutely. Sort of. Okay. So that's why like I. So I think if you feel like your mom is not all of the picture,

I don't suspect one of the hypotheses is that something happened to you that felt incredibly catastrophic, that because of the way that your mind tends to discount the way that you feel because you're irrational and you just invalidate yourself all the time, I don't even know that you're able to like go back there because you probably felt like it was so stupid and insignificant. And that my mind, that I can't even remember because I wrote it off. Exactly. Exactly. And this is exactly what happened with the other patient, which is that she thought that actually losing her dad is so much more of a logical thing that should contribute to anxiety than knowing that your dad was sick. Because like her actual memories where the anxiety was born was like seeing like they would like her dad wouldn't go into work one day and he'd like go to the clinic and they'd like drop him off to get chemotherapy.

And then she'd be like, what, why are we here? And they're like, oh, not everything's okay. Everything's okay. And then her dad would like come back from chemotherapy and he'd, be like, he'd look sick. He'd be like sunken and he'd lose weight. And she's like, what's wrong with that? And they'd say nothing. And actually, that's way worse than losing him because she was six. And then when she was like 18 and her dad was actually dying, she could understand what was happening. And also they were like, they were telling her reality. Right. Her disconnection,

if you think about anxiety, you keep on saying it's so rational, it's so rational. That disconnection from reality happens at six because she actually got disconnected from reality. And so it's not irrational for your mind to be disconnected from reality because that's what you learned. You learned that everything that you feel is not actually correct. That's what she learned. Right. And somewhere along the way you learned this stuff. You're not broken, man. Like it's just how your mind has learned how to function. So there may be an experience somewhere in there where like you felt like it could be something dumb like forgetting your homework and it could be something where like you were afraid are you getting emotional

no i'm good like it's very powerful what you said because i've always thought of it is saying it's irrational i've always thought irrational rational rational rational and i've hearted on that and i thought that was a productive thing to do like my fear is irrational that's that's all that I thought that that was like a solution to. No, but. So, Austin, I return you to what I said earlier about being scientific. Everyone thinks that their fear is irrational and what does it do to their anxiety? Doesn't help it.

Absolutely. So that's not a useful framework because data suggests it doesn't work. So let's stop thinking it even though we think it's right. It sounds rational for us to approach. anxiety is irrational, right? But it's just not because it doesn't work. It's not, it doesn't mirror actual reality. So we need to be more open-minded. Right. I'd never thought of it that way, ever. Yeah. So maybe I heard it in passing, but this is like. So the last thing is that, you know, are your parents to blame? Because I think in order for you to understand where this comes

from, you have to let your parents take some responsibility for this. So I want to help you do that. And let me just say this. No matter how good of a parent you are, there's going to be collateral damage for your kids. Doesn't mean that they did a bad job. It's clear that they did a great job. And they're not perfect, nor should we expect them to be perfect. And they kind of screw you up in some ways, which is what parents do. Like my kids are going to be screwed up in some ways. It doesn't, like, there's just no way to avoid that. Like, it's just like, the goal is for parents to be like good enough, right? It's not for them to be perfect. And it's okay. Like my parents, Like, I'm a pretty healthy human being, and I'm grateful for my upbringing.

I think my parents are awesome. And they screwed me up in some ways. That's just part of life. Like, there is no parent-child relationship I have ever seen, no matter how good the parent is, where the child is not a little bit fucked up. Just how it works. You know, they do the best that they can. And then you try to, because I'm sure there are some things you've already decided

that you're going to do differently from your parents. If you ever have kids. I don't know if you have kids. And everyone thinks that. And that doesn't make your parents bad. It's just like they're not perfect. And I think, you know, we definitely see it's interesting because when we hear about your mom and in this kind of, you know, this conditioning and all that kind of crap. And it's actually borne out in evidence as well that like if maybe your mom had treated, had been treated, you may not have had the anxiety that you do today. We don't blame her for that because she did the best that she could. Right. It's in the same way that we don't blame you for calling yourself Raj Patel a while ago because you didn't know any better. Like is it wrong? Sure. But like, we don't blame you for it. Because it, you know, in the same way, like, could she have done better, sure, but we don't blame her for it.

Like, she did the best that she did a really good job. We could be grateful and be like, oh, okay, so like now we know that. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. So I do have a question now. Yeah. And this is the hard part that I have with this in associating blame to my parents because and this is sort of in the process of getting older and maybe people can relate to this.

But when you grow up, you sort of have a perfect image of your parents and they can do no wrong, you know, that sort of thing. And the idea to like say blame, it's just like, I don't know why. And I understand what you're saying, but in my mind, my mind immediately goes to as soon as they, I would say blame to my parents, that would implicate them as like being just bad. Just because like how people perceive, if that's the only thing people have heard from my parents that they were the reason why I'm so anxious, I'm afraid that they would think that they're bad parents. And you, logically, you being who you are, I understand that you wouldn't get it that way. But I don't want anybody else to think that way or like the public image of them being like a bad parents.

You know what I mean? Sure. Yeah. So I mean, I think that's just where like as human beings, we need to be more nuanced. Right. Right. So like I'll share with you another story if that's okay. Yes.

I had another patient who also is, you know, okay with me sharing this. Like, so he also, you know, lost a parent. when he was young. And then I would ask him about, like, you know, what was your other parent like? And he said, my other parent did the best that they could. And I sort of like thought it was weird that like, you know, okay, fine. They did the best thing. Of course, right?

That's what all parents do is. They did the best that they could. But like, you know, how's your, how's your dad? He's like, he did the best that he could. And then we kind of talked a little bit. And turns out that, like, after work, his dad would like usually go to the bar and, like, have a couple beers with his friends. and that was like kind of a daily occurrence

and he was grieving and stuff like that. So patient to really blame him, he's like, you know, he's like, the dude lost a wife. It's got to be tough. He did the best that he could. Funny thing, though, is that, like, he never says that his dad did a great job. He says that his dad did the best that he could.

Right? So there's like, there's no blame. But there's also, like, a subtle under the surface acknowledgement that, like, I mean, his son had lost a mother and he, instead of coming home, because he had certain needs of like dealing with his own emotions, like I'm out at a bar.

And it's really hard to blame him for that. But it's really important to do that. Right? It's one thing, because here's the problem that he had. He couldn't forgive his dad because you can't forgive someone unless they did something wrong. And in his mind, he was making excuses

so, like, there's no chance for forgiveness. So oddly enough, His path forward was to acknowledge that, like, his dad did the best that he could. I don't blame him for that and forgive him for being not a perfect parent. And now he's fine. Like, it's, like, been settled. Like, he doesn't hold a grudge. He doesn't talk shit about his dad.

No one thinks his dad is a bad person. That's where conflation happens. That's where, like, pitchforks come out. Right? And you can, like, and this is where, like, you have to, I think it's healthy as a child to recognize that your parents are flawed because they're not perfect. It's healthy. You have to grow into.

recognizing that your parents did the best that they could and you don't blame for that. But they could have fucked a couple of things up and like that's actually okay. Like we need to live in a world where instead of expecting people to be perfect, we need to like understand that they're not and like actually be okay with that. It's about sitting with it. Right? Not making it go away. Not treating it.

Not discounting with it. Just sitting with it. And saying that's the way they are. They're not perfect. and I'm grateful to them. I mean, I think there's no doubt in anyone's mind who's watch this whole stream that you are incredibly grateful to your parents

and they're incredibly proud of you. And just because your anxiety is related to them doesn't change any of that. We need to be able to hold two contrary concepts in our mind, which is not something that we're good at as a society. I love planes. I have a fear of flying. Those can absolutely coexist.

Right? Someone is a bad, person. And I mean, this is going to be kind of controversial, but like this is just what I, you know, when I, when you work with criminals sometimes, you begin to see that people can do deplorable things, but it doesn't make them absolute incarnations of evil, right? That sometimes, like it's bizarre, like when you work with someone who is a sexual abuser, who in turn was sexually abused. Does it absolve them of responsibility of their actions? Absolutely not. Should they be punished? Absolutely. And like sometimes there should be room for compassion. I'm not asking anyone to do that. That's been my personal experience. That I have come to deal with people. And the more that I see the world is less black and white,

I'm not trying to be an apologist for rape or anything like that. I mean, I think they deserve to be in jail. And also like once they're in jail, you know, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't. I personally choose to try to be compassionate towards as many people as I can, which I'm not expecting other people to do. but what I want to say talk about things being misinterpreted

and conflated in the internet targeting and feathering you you know but what I want to say is that we should be able to hold two things at the same time right that like that your parents did a wonderful job and they weren't perfect and that like you need to get your own anxiety

disorder if you have one treated if you get kids yeah I have a question I've been very much medicating myself for anxiety. And I know I don't smoke weed for my anxiety. In fact, sometimes it makes it incredibly worse. I smoke weed because it makes food taste good and, you know, and other other stuff feel good, you know. But I've been very against medication. Do you have like a particular stance on that? Sure. I think if you're against medication,

don't take medication. Fair enough. I feel like it's cheating. And I'm like I'm almost anxious to take Like, this is kind of messed up. Have you seen a psychiatrist or like had an evaluation for anxiety? No. It's just sort of known that I have it and like it's a problem. Okay. So I would start there. Okay.

And I would start there. And then, you know, I would listen to the option. So be careful about the kind of like mental health treatment provider you go to because some psychiatrists or psychopharmacology. which means that they will see like three to four patients an hour and they basically prescribe medications. That's literally what their job is. Like it's like a psychopharmacology position.

So in my experience, so just a couple of things about data. Okay. So let's talk about data for a second. Psychotherapy is about as equal as effective as medication. They're just as good. Psychotherapy plus medication outperforms either one alone. In my personal experience, I prescribe medication. to about 20 to 30% of my patients.

So sometimes, like, the question, the real question about medication, it's not like a value judgment or anything like that. I think it's just like a tool in your tool belt. And you shouldn't have a bias against it or think that it's like, people do think it's sort of like a crotch or a weakness or things like that. I mean, I prescribe medication depending on what's going on. I'm not afraid of it being like a stigma. I'm just like afraid of what it would do to my mind.

Sure. That's a valid. Yeah. Or if I want to withdrawals associated with it. Yeah, so I think that's something you should bring up with your providers. I get that fear a lot, and I manage it pretty well. I'll tell people, okay, like here's what I understand about withdrawals and things like that. So the first thing I would tell you is that for the most part, your brain is developed. So developing brains are more vulnerable than developed brains because your brain is like growing with this chemical around, right? Still, at the same time, like, you know, sometimes 16 year olds get prescribed antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications, that's fine. I think generally, yeah. Is it weird that like I'm afraid to take. And I'm not prescribed it, but like the idea of taking like, what do they call that medication that just like it's like one of those you're not supposed to take it all the time. It's an anxiety medication. Oh God.

Xanax. Yeah. I'd be afraid to take it because I'd afraid that it would kill me or something. Even though like it's a, even if it was prescribed to me, I'd be afraid that it would kill me or like something would happen bad. Yeah. So that is I, okay, this is kind of a loaded term. that's an irrational fear, right? So most fear, by definition, is irrational because it's an emotion.

It's a different part of the brain. At the same time, I think it's completely reasonable and rational for you to have that fear. Right? So, like, fears aren't rational by their nature. I think you should be concerned about Xanax. So I do my level best to never prescribe Xanax personally, because it's high. Addictive. And it works entirely too well.

That's that's part of my fear is that I would get addicted to it because it would work so well. Yeah. If you're anxious, I would take it and it would get away my anxiety and just the frequency of how often I am I would be taking it every time I felt like in one of these. So in my training program, like they really taught us, conditioned us to fears annex. Okay. And like there was like there's a there's a pit in my stomach. I remember when I would work like inpatient, like so when people get hospitalized, when I look at the patient's medication list, anytime I saw Xanax, I would like like my like I would feel a pit in my stomach. I was like oh fuck.

Yeah. It's going to be hard to deal with this person because it's hard to get off the medication. It's not the person's fault. Right. Right. Is X prescribed usually as like as needed or is it like a like sometimes prescribed like generally? Generally it's supposed to be used as needed. And they're there like a handful of people.

for whom you can really get away with Xanax. And like those people are people who have like fears of flying or like public speaking where like, you know, the as needed is not something that by definition can happen every day. Like someone who needs Xanax like two to three times a year would be the kind of person that I would prescribe Xanax for. Like there are other medications. And it's completely reasonable for you to be afraid of medications. I have been prescribed something like, I'm sorry.

I interrupted you. Go ahead. Go ahead. I've been prescribed, not Xanax, but some or other hydroxazine. Is that the correct? Yeah. Hydroxazine is a typically used as like an anti-allergy, but it also is used to be treated as anxiety. And also it's sort of in the same family as Benadryl, just stronger, correct?

I don't know about stronger, but yeah. Okay. Everything else is correct. Okay. Yeah, so that's one of the things that I've. The reason that a lot of people will use hydroxazine is because it is an anti-anxiety agent that acts quickly. So there are two kinds of anti-anxiety agents. Those that lower your baseline level of anxiety. So those are not as needed medications. Those are things that you take every day.

So if we think about heart disease, for example, there are medications that you take for your heart that will, like, lower your blood pressure on a daily basis. And then there are some acute blood pressure agents that will use to like in seconds, if you're having a heart attack, drop your blood pressure so that your heart can pump normally. Or anyway, that's not actually how they work. But so that they're like in medicine, we have acute agents and then we have like long term agents. And for anxiety treatment, they're both kinds. They're the kinds that you use for acute anxiety.

And then there are those that you use to lower baseline levels of anxiety that people experience from day to day. The reason that a lot of people use hydroxazine is because hydroxazine is not habit forming. So it's not addictive like Xanax or benzodiazepines, which are addictive. They're basically like alcohol in like pill form and modified. And so, you know, it sort of makes sense. It signals to me that the prescriber who prescribed that to you is probably doing generally speaking a good job.

Yeah. And I also express my like fear of those that. Benzos. But Austin, I would really recommend that you get a thorough mental health evaluation because there's a lot of information that we haven't talked about, which is actually really important in determining whether you have a true anxiety disorder. And that includes, like, we haven't, I don't ask some basic questions. Like, how often do you have anxiety? You know, like. What question? Did you want to mean? I'm just giving that as an example. Right. So there's a lot of other stuff. Like, I haven't asked you. So sometimes anxiety is related to actually physical conditions. So, endocrine imbalances, like if you have your thyroid hormone is too high, there's a lot of other due diligence that needs to happen before someone diagnoses you with anxiety. What I tried to do today, and I guess now I'm sort of explaining myself, is explain that dealing with anxiety as a medical illness is actually a completely different thing than helping a human being understand how

anxiety and their mind interact. Both of those will hopefully alleviate anxiety. but one is like more educational and like in terms of treatment it sounds like you really do need an evaluation so i would strongly encourage you to get i really want therapy for the because like it's anybody anybody that has anxiety like i have moments of clarity and it's not like an everyday thing like there i go again see trying to justify that it's not it's okay it's it's absolutely crippling it's crippling and it's it sucks you can't enjoy certain things that you want to enjoy because it's absolutely crippling to you and it sucks. And I want it to just be a way. I just don't want to have to worry about shit. Yeah. So, Austin, here's my general thought about

medication, just strategically why I prescribe it. Okay. There are different options for you to no longer make it crippling. If you can engage in those, then I don't think you need medication. If you're unable to engage in those, that's what a pill is for. Right. If you can meditate and do yoga and exercise, adjust your diet, get a nice Ayurvedic diet going and all this kind of crap, go to your therapist, and there aren't any like houses burning down. And you can afford to deal with the damage from anxiety while all this other stuff works because that stuff takes time. Then you don't need medication. The reason that I recommend medication is because, first of all, sometimes people have lifestyles where they can't do the other things, the non-pharmacologic treatments or anxiety.

So depending on what your life is like, you may not be able to. to do that stuff. The second reason is because there's a certain acuity. So sometimes if someone is depressed and they're on the cusp of getting fired, they don't have six to eight months to start doing all this crap. They have to like do something now. Students is another good example. Like if you're a sophomore in college and you're depressed, you don't have nine months of, you can't be depressed for two semesters because that's going to tank your GPA. And then you're going to have to deal with that for the rest of your life. So it's like a very individual conversation. about your circumstances, risks, benefits, and for you to make the right choice, like, given all of

these things. And you should probably also, as part of that, you know, anxiety evaluation, get, like, certain lab tests and things like that. Because the last thing that you want to do is be talking to someone about your feelings when your thyroid hormone is way too high. Because that's just- Does they test those in general? Like, physical? It depends. In general, it depends. Okay. Generally speaking, I test a lot of stuff for people with depression, less stuff for people with anxiety. Okay.

Because they can just ask you other questions that like if your thyroid was out of whack, like you'd have other symptoms too. Right. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. It's interesting you mentioned, well, I don't want to tell my family. That's probably not something I should get into. Yeah.

And that's why this isn't medical advice, right? Yeah. Yeah. If I was your doctor, we would definitely have to talk about that. because there is no way to make an accurate diagnosis without all of that information. Is the thyroid associated with anxiety? Sure, if it's too high. Interesting.

I don't, yeah. Too low leads to depression, two high leads to anxiety. Interesting. It's just interesting. I'll share that with you off stream while that's interesting from the other time. But yeah, it's interesting. Share it with an actual doctor, bro. Yeah, I will.

to yourself of favor. They know this, but I don't, like, I've never had, like, a psychologist or anything like that. It's more of, like, been a general, general care physician. Yeah. But, but it's more of like a, yeah, like a, not me personally, I don't know. But, see, I don't even know if my, my thyroid's been checked about that, that sort of thing. Yeah, you can talk to your general, your primary care physician about it. Yeah, I thought that they would just do that in, like, a test given, and also, like, my mom and I shared the same doctor for,

an extended period of time. And they knew about my mom's history. So you would think, but anyway, sorry, that's probably another conversation. Yeah, so here's what I just say real quick about that, is that, like, there are a lot of things that doctors should do. And the reason that oftentimes they don't do them is not because they're bad doctors, but because they've just got way too much other shit to do. Mm-hmm.

And it's hard for them to analyze their patients to the depth. Yeah. So I think it just sort of depends on, like, I think it's good to have a conversation with your doctor about it and like, you know. Can I tell you, I've learned through this? Yeah. My tendency to push things away and say, I'm not, it's not a problem or try to like be like, it's not an issue. I'm good. Like most of the time I'm good.

That tendency has been communicate, like, because of that, it's how it's impacted the way I've communicated with doctors and people, professionals and people in my life. So nobody really, like, I've pushed it off as an issue. So I really haven't talked about it. And maybe that's a problem. Like, I've talked about it. But I haven't really like, every time I talk about it, I push up. I'm like, well, yeah, I have these anxious things and it's really bad. But like, I can be, I can still live my life and I can still do things.

Like, so maybe. Yeah. It's good that you recognize that because as a doctor, I can tell you one of the most difficult things is having a patient who has a problem that they minimize. Right. So then like, if they say like, hey, sometimes I get anxious. I'm like, oh, does it like, how bad of a problem is? And you're like, it's no big deal.

And I'm like, I really thank you for that because I didn't. Think about it. Like an epiphany. I didn't even think about it that way ever. Yeah. What are they supposed to do with that? Are they supposed to take it? Are they supposed to test your thyroid?

Because you're kind of saying it's not that big of a deal. Right. Does anxiety have anything to do with control? Sure. Like wanting control. Is that what it's all about? Like wanting control. All about?

No, no, I don't think so. But I think that. control is one of the foods for anxiety that we talked about because if you can control then you don't have to worry but it doesn't deal with the source of the right so like if you think about when you pull out the cell phone even though you're not controlling it's in the same vein as control right like you're like giving yourself order

around your fear to reduce your fear right and and so Can people get better? Like, that's a stupid question. Of course they can. But like, I can't even in my head being so consciously aware of the problem and like even being conscious of like maybe even a solution to fix it.

It's hard for me to go through the like the gymnastics to say that's going to get, that's going to improve because I'm conscious of certain things. Okay. Awesome. Let's talk about this for a second. You said that's a stupid question. Is it a stupid question? I guess not. Why not? Because I'm thinking that's in my head and I'm thinking it.

Good. Excellent. Great place to start. So now the question becomes, why are you thinking that? Because I feel like if I'm aware of what's wrong, it shouldn't be a problem. If I'm aware of the problem, why shouldn't, why can I fix it? So beautiful. So like, I'm going to phrase it a different way. I think that's a manifestation of what I'm about to say. The reason it's not a stupid question is because you have no experience of having fixed it. Yeah. So why on earth would we expect you to believe that something is fixable if you've lived it your entire life? Yeah. It's like telling a deaf person like, oh yeah, you can hear. And they're like, that sounds dumb. And so if you've lived with anxiety your entire life, it's completely normal to feel skeptical that this kind of change is possible.

Because like in your brain, like you've been conditioned to have anxiety all the time and for it to be crippling. And you did your research on the internet and you looked at this and you looked at this and you looked at this. And you've been fighting against it for decades and it's still there. And we want to call you irrational for thinking it'll never go away. No, man. It's completely rational. And it happens to be the case that you can get rid of it. it's just I haven't taken those steps I need to take those steps I want to take those steps sure

because you know I'm sure my audience sees um it affects my people call me you know especially like one specific example my professional life is my tendency to be very almost too much with the TOS on Twitch because of getting banned like I'm very very very very very very very aggressive in moderating that. And they see that, but that's rooted in my anxiety surrounding making sure that the platform stays up, you know, up and it doesn't go down or get banned or whatever, or somebody doesn't say the wrong thing or somebody doesn't get hurt by what somebody says. It's all rooted in that, which is, as now I've learned through this, which is rational, but it's so, sorry, it's so complicated, but like maybe, maybe I overreact a lot on certain things.

So here's what I'd leave you with Austin, okay? Because I think we should probably wrap up. So the first thing is that I want you to try to notice the, for lack of a better term, it may not really be the voice of your mom, but notice the voice of your mom as it's up. So like in that moment where you're like concerned about TOS, is that Austin speaking or is that Austin's mom speaking? And then the next thing to do is if it's Austin's mom, then see if you can like just listen to her words without doing anything about it. As best as you can, just sit with that fear and acknowledge to yourself that like if you're on a plane and you're like, okay, here we go again. This is the part of my mind that's going to activate and is going to be terrified about all these things.

and if I open up my cell phone and I look up things, that part of me is going to feel better. And now this is where people start to jump to conclusions and they say, don't open up the phone. Incorrect. The most important thing is that you see like, okay, can I get away with not opening the phone? Or does this part of me really need this right now?

And if it really needs it, like, you don't want to be an asshole to that part of you. Like, because there's a chance that there's a six-year-old to whom something catastrophic happened, and now the six-year-old is just paranoid because they're afraid catastrophic things are going to happen. We don't want to be an asshole to that six-year-old. We got to understand that sometimes the six-year-old needs things

that are a little bit irrational and aren't great in the long term, but sometimes they just need what they need because they're six. And so as best as you can, just play with that and sort of be like, okay, can I get away with not doing this or do I really need this? And if you really need it, go ahead and do it. And then this becomes the important thing. watch what happens to the voice of your mom. See where it goes.

Does it go away? Does it feel better? Does it feel relieved? Is she yelling at you about helmets? And then you put on your helmet and then she kind of calms down. And the second you take off your helmet again, there comes the yelling. I put on my helmet. I went for a ride around the neighbor with my friends.

I came back and my helmet was off. That's the jolt. That's the turbulence. And then she comes out of the house and she starts yelling again. She turns on and she turns off. So what happens when I do this? Start to become familiar with that part of your mind. Understand in what ways it works and at what ways it does it.

And it's through familiarity with who we are and how we function that we gain control over ourselves. We're living a life where we're blind to like who we are. We don't understand how we work. And then we get confused and we call ourselves irrational. We have invalidated ourselves because it doesn't make sense. because we don't understand. Like, no, there's nothing about you that is false. Like, I don't know how to say this, but like, reality is real.

Like, you're real. Your thoughts are real. They're just thoughts. They're not facts. They're not reality, but they're thoughts. You're real. You actually exist. This is a problem that you have.

Irrationality is just a lack of understanding. Because nothing in the world is irrational. Like, people thought that, you know, like gravity and all this kind of crap, there's order everywhere. Economics, medicine, physiology, psychology, orders everywhere. Nothing is irrational. And the better you understand that you were like a human being and your mind can be understood, your anxiety can be understood.

You just have to look at it because you never looked at it. You're so busy judging it and dismissing it. You got to look at it. And that shit is O.P. man. Because it's like you're trying to play League of Legends with a blindfold on and like you're just getting bodied right and left. Like, no wonder. Because you never look at it.

I would get bodied if I played it at all. But yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you very much for allowing me to do this. It's been a tremendous experience. Thank you to your audience and for listening. It was sort of in the beginning, I was very anxious to say the least to talk about it. I feel very calm now and collected. Yeah, thank you very much. So one last thought. So people, I sometimes let people slip away without meditating. Do you want to learn meditation? Are you interested in that? Do you meditate? I don't. I'm open to anything. Is your nose clogged? You have like allergies and shit?

I think I have allergies and shit. Is there a booger that you've been looking at for the last couple of hours? No, just based on your Ayurvedic constitution, I'm assuming that it's going to be harder for you to do nasal breathing practices. Hold on here. I have a little bit of a running nose. Yeah. Yeah. I think I have allergies.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what it looks like. Allergies and anxiety related, by the way, in Ireland. Really? Yeah. If your anxiety gets better. Your seasonal allergies as a kid ever?

It's just general like a to be kind of crap. Yeah, like a little scratchy throat. I lost my voice. I don't know what's going on there. Yeah. Can you lose your voice with allergies? Huh? Do you lose your voice with allergies?

Have a raspy voice? Generally no, but I think you've just got atopic stuff going on. Do you have like eczema and stuff too? Like dry skin, oily skin, like different parts of your skin are all. I had severe acne, moderately severe acne growing up. So 10. On the oily side. Okay.

That was treated with acutane. Anyway, so I'm thinking that maybe nasal practices aren't going to be great, but we're still going to have to use the nose because you're going to breathe at some point. So let me just think. How do you feel about chanting? We haven't done chanting in a while. Chanting? Yeah.

Very anxiety-provoking, huh? Yeah, it sounds scary, but what is the, yeah, sure. I mean, what is, what is it? So this is great. So I'm going to show you, we're going to do om chanting. We haven't taught this in a while, so we'll do it. So om is composed of three syllables. Ah, ooh, and mm.

Okay. Ah, and mm. And so basically the way to think about it is like, if you start with a completely open mouth, um. Oh, you cut out actually. Oh, sorry. Ah, oh. Um, do I stop?

No, yeah. So just go from like open mouth to close mouth, right? Do you see how, like that's the syllables. Um, sorry, I'm so sorry. You keep cutting out so I don't know exactly. Discord does this. Okay. Yeah, it just keeps cutting out.

So I'm just like, ah, yeah, I think that's right. You're cutting out for me too. Okay, so I go, ah, and then I shut my mouth. You go ah, then you go ooh, and then you go, mm. And then you shut your mouth. Yeah. And then when you shut your mouth, you go, mm.

Okay. Ah, oh. Great. Yeah, I think it's something with like auto detect voice algorithms with Discord that we can't hear you either. So I do that, but how long do I go? I'm going to demonstrate. I'm going to teach you. Hold on.

Let's start with this. Okay. Because my noise gate is Okay, so we're going to do Hold on. Voice activity Let's do push to talk. Okay. I'm going to Oh, hold on, you can't hear me anymore. So does this transmit better if I do push to talk?

Let's try. Yes. Okay, great. So I'm going to demonstrate for you. Now I can't hear you because you're pushed to talk. Oh, shit. I forgot it. Okay. So I'm going to demonstrate. So I'm going to show you one round.

Okay. So what I want you to do is sit up straight, take a deep breath. Okay. Do you want me to push the talk? No, no, no. It's okay. I'll transmit because it's okay. The chat will follow me.

Okay. Do I close my eyes? Yeah. So I'm going to demonstrate first. Okay. So I'm going to demonstrate two rounds. So I'm going to take a deep breath in. Oh.

One more time. Okay. And we'll talk before we have you do it. Because I can see you're anxious. I'm, uh, I'm trying not to, you know. Don't try not to be anxious. The whole point of this is that we want you to be anxious. I'll explain that in a second.

One more, one more observation, okay? Oh. Why do I feel compelled that like giggle? Giggle. I can't hear your start to push down. Giggle. Like, I, like when you were doing it, I wanted to laugh, but I didn't want to be disrespectful.

Just giggle, man. Because I know this is like an actual thing. Just giggle. Giggle. Okay, we're going to do it again. Well, now that you say that, now I'm not going to laugh. So that's like one of the things. No, no, no, just giggle.

Just see what happens. Notice, notice it within yourself and just do whatever you want with it. Okay, we're going to do one more time. You can giggle if you want to. No big deal. I don't need to probably because now you know. Let's see. Okay.

Ready? Oh. Giggle. No. See, that's so, you taught me another thing is when you can like call out the fact that you have a tendency to laugh on something that maybe you shouldn't be laughing at. And what's, what was interesting is I felt like I shouldn't be laughing at that, but I didn't find it funny. It was just that I was laughing at the fact that I shouldn't laugh. Is that weird? Yeah. And then when we call attention to it, you gain awareness of it. And I tell you to giggle what happens to your desire to giggle. You need to giggle anymore. That's what you need to do with your anxiety. Just goes away. way. If you look at it, it just goes away. That's the whole fucking point. Okay, so now we're going to do that

with chanting. And what I want you to do is pay attention to your anxiety because everyone else is going to be giggling at you. Got it. Right? You see that? I might giggle. It's going to be silly. And they're going to laugh at you, Austin, because Austin is a silly boy. Okay. Okay. And so notice that feeling in yourself and then close your eyes. And what I want you to do is take a deep breath in and I'll walk you through it. Okay. And then what I want you to do is don't focus on the sound. Focus on there. It's good. So silly. See it. It's not even funny. It's okay. It doesn't need to be funny for you to laugh. Don't control it. Don't dismiss it. None of that. Okay. Okay. Okay. So notice it within yourself

And then when you're chanting I don't want you to focus on the sound Focus on the vibration I want you to pay attention to where in your body Do you feel the sound? Okay Okay, it's fine smile Okay, so close your eyes, sit up straight

Okay, deep breath in Ah Great, There it is Okay, good We're going to do it again. Eyes closed. No breaking character.

That's the only thing. You can giggle, but no opening the eyes. Just keep, keep. If I giggle just like in a performance of any kind, you just go, you move forward. Yeah, you just giggle, but sit with your giggling with your eyes closed. Make giggling your meditation if that's what happens. Okay. So we're going to do it again.

So deep breath in. Oh. Good. Again. Deep breath. Oh. Look at the. silliness for a second. Just look at it. Eyes closed. No opening. Silly? Again. Third time.

It ticks a little bit. Is that normal? That's fine. We're going to do three more. No talking. Eyes closed. No talking. Giggling is allowed. Observing giggling is allowed. Nothing else is allowed. Okay. Three more. In succession. Okay. So I'm just going to do a breath, chant. Breath, chant. After the third, chant, we're going to just remain silent, no talking, no opening your eyes. Feel the person that you are when you're left over. Okay? Here we go. Again, third one, make it count. Don't stop it. Just be. Eyes closed, just feel it. Feel yourself. We'll do this for about another 30 seconds, okay? Try to feel the residual sensation of vibration. And now we're going to take a couple of deep

breaths. So I want you to breathe in for three seconds and out for three, in for three, and out for five, so slow it down, and then in for three, and out for seven, real slow. And when you're ready, open your eyes. That was actually, I feel very calm. When I was, I was nervous in the beginning because I was afraid that laughing was inappropriate and like it just feels very like I feel very relaxed what happened to the anxiety it's gone for now but yes it's gone in this moment yeah yeah but wasn't it there before we started the practice yes when did it go it went away after this was after like I acknowledged through this process that it was okay to laugh in this moment I could giggle. I could chuckle at the fact that we were going, oh, I'm, and then I acknowledge that.

And then is that, is that the practice? Is that literally, is this, is this something that you find people giggling at all the time? Or is it just like my personal experience with it? Or maybe it's irrelevant, but. Yes, that's the right thing. It's irrelevant. Okay. Because it doesn't matter, really. It worked for me. So why would I care about it? Yes, Austin. And here's the thing. So there's a couple of really important things about this practice. What have you cognitively been doing for the last two hours? Like, what's that thing that you catch yourself doing that I taught you at the very beginning? I catch myself, like, trying to tell, like, explain that, like, it's like, it's not a big problem or things aren't a big problem.

Or all kinds of, all kinds of restrictions of who you are, what you think and what you feel. And there's that restriction with the giggling. If you can learn how to giggle, all of those restrictions are going to go away. You can just be you. That's the whole fucking point. And people think like, oh, you shouldn't laugh during meditation. What do you guys think the point is? Laughing during meditation is like the best outcome.

It's not serious. Like, what are we doing this for? Anand. Bliss. If you can laugh during meditation, when Zen masters become enlightened, the first thing that they do is laugh. So laugh.

Let it out, buddy. Just let yourself, like, if it's silly, like, go for it. Silliness is irrational. It's the nature of irrationality. So who the fuck cares? Embrace it. Laugh. Be at peace.

Let yourself be yourself. Thank you. You're welcome, man. I really think what you're doing is tremendous. Yeah, thank you. You're welcome, bro. Take care. Take care, Dr. Kay. Thank you so much. Bye, guys.

All righty.