HealthyGamerGG - Talking with Katerino

Episode Date: May 28, 2020

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So can you tell me, am I calling you Kate or Caterino? I was calling you Caterino when I was first informed that you were coming on stream. Yeah, you can call me Kate? Kate's going. So, Kate, can you tell me a little bit about, you know, what's going on with you nowadays and if there's something in particular that you want to talk about? What's going on with me nowadays? Well, there's a lot. There's a lot of stuff going on.

Okay. Are you reading Twitch chat? No reading Twitch hat. No, okay, okay. They're gone. They're gone. They're gone and not like that. I can't see them.

If I don't get to read them, you don't get to read them. You don't get to read them? That's so sad. And I can't read them because I only have one monitor and I have this full screen. You should really get a second monitor. Okay, anyway. I have one. I can't figure out how to plug it in.

Like literally it's plugged into. It's plugged into the back. my computer, but I don't, it's like, I don't know, anyway, it's, I have three monitors, actually in this room. Wow, look at you. Three monitors, only one of them works. That's, look at me. I don't know.

What's been going on lately? A lot of shit, I guess. I took two months off of streaming recently because of recent events. Okay. Yeah. Do you want to tell me about those or no? We can talk about them. Okay.

Well, it's pretty gnarly, Dr. K. Basically, I, you said you don't know any of this, right? Nope. I didn't even know how to pronounce your name until today. By the way, I'm not laughing about the situation. You should know that. It's just like nervous laughter. Sure. We talk a lot about how laughter is a defense mechanism against terrible overwhelming internal emotions.

Yeah. Yeah. I use humor as a big defense mechanism. That's a really, really big thing. I make lots of jokes that I should not make. But anyway, I guess, well, what happened was I had a boyfriend and I cheated on him with several people. Okay. Yeah. And it's, yeah, that long story short. Okay. Yeah. And I can imagine that the Internet was not kind to you in that circumstance.

Oh, no. The Internet and I were best friends. They love me. The people love me. Okay. No, no, Dr. Day, they're really mad. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, so I think it's not good to cheat on people. And also. I don't know that it's the internet's place to judge. I think the judgment that you really, you know, I think you aggrieved one person, right? As far as I can. I want? Like you really messed with one person, right?

So like your boyfriend. Yeah, but I hurt other people in the process. I can imagine. But yeah, definitely especially the boyfriend, my ex-boyfriend now, but. Okay. Do you want to talk about? this or also not talk about this? I mean, I don't know if there's really much to talk about besides

like, I don't know, what is there to talk about, you know? I kind of. That's a great question. Can I try to answer that? Sure. Yeah. So sometimes I fuck up. And I'm not, I'm not trying to say that you did or didn't fuck up. That's entirely. I did fuck up. Okay. That's for sure. So I think, you know, A lot of times when people make mistakes. Uh-oh. Your sound is quiet compared to curves. My sound is quiet. Okay.

Hold on. Let me try to fix this. She's open now. Hello? Okay. I don't know how I can fix this point, but let me put this here. Okay. Okay.

Maybe hopefully this is better. All right. No, I can also turn up the game. Sorry, Kate. Oh. You're good. Is this better? Oh, yeah.

Fixed it. Hello? Yep. I think way better. It turns out that maybe one of the kids was playing with the game dial on the back of my microphone. But just kind of going back to, you know, why people screw up. I think oftentimes people make a mistake and then they don't really understand what led them to make that mistake. and understanding why we make mistakes in life.

So I think a lot of times what we do is we just punish people for mistakes, right? But we don't necessarily learn from them or what we learn is something like very, very surface level, especially when it comes to something like cheating on a partner, which is like we just learn bad. Don't do it again. But what I've come to appreciate is that when we make mistakes, that they're usually like there's something that's driving you towards that behavior. and I think understanding where that behavior comes from is like really, really important.

Because if you just tell yourself like, oh, I shouldn't do that again, like that doesn't actually change behavior in my experience. Feeling bad about yourself and sort of a moral judgment is not really a great way. I'm not saying it doesn't work, but I'm saying that, you know, when I work with, I'm specifically thinking about I do a lot of addiction psychiatry. So I work with a lot of people who will relapse and then will morally feel bad. about themselves. They'll hurt a lot of people in the process. They'll sell belongings that of their family members for the sake of like, you know, purchasing drugs so that they can get money and do all kinds of things that are morally reprehensible. And at the same time, you know, feeling like a piece of shit sometimes makes them more vulnerable to the addiction.

Yeah. And so sometimes it can, yeah, go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. Well, it's, it's their happy pill. It's what makes them happy. So of course, when they feel, when they feel bad, it's, you know, feeling bad is going to make them want to do some fucking Coke or whatever they're addicted to. Right. So I think that the, the question about, you know, whether this is worth talking about or not really, you know, is about like whether there's something to be gained. I really have no intention of making the internet think worse of you than than they do or anything like that. Thank you. I honestly, I don't think it could get worse. Okay.

So, I mean, otherwise, you know, Kate, if you don't want to talk more into that and maybe try to understand because you said you cheated on your boyfriend with several people. So that makes me think that there was something going on inside you that you were looking. And so to try to understand that, if you think that's valuable and you feel like this is a safe enough place to discuss it, we can do that. Because I think one thing that we haven't talked about much on stream is like, why do people cheat? And it happens all the time. Yeah, okay. Sure. Well, yeah, one thing is I don't want people to think that I'm trying to like garner sympathy, I guess.

Just because like obviously, you know, we talked before this and, you know, I struggle with some mental health issues. And I think that, you know, I made the decision to cheat. you know, I made a decision to hurt those people. I fucked up. It wasn't, you know, my mental health decision. But that's not to say that it didn't, you know, obviously, I mean, as I'm sure you know, like mental health kind of can really mess with your head. Yep.

Yeah. But, yeah. Yeah, I don't get the sense that you're looking for sympathy here or anything like that. I mean, I have no idea if people are sympathetic to you or not. not because I ignore Twitter chat as best as I can while I'm talking to someone. I think the the main question, Kate, is like, what do you feel safest doing? And what do you feel is most productive? Like, I mean, I guess, like, let me put it this way. Do you understand why you cheated? Yeah. Yeah, I took two months off stream and just kind of process things and tried to understand.

I go to my own therapist too, and we talk about it a lot. Yeah, I understand now. But we can talk about it if you want. It's whatever. I mean, I find myself being curious about what you discovered about yourself, because I think that could be helpful for people. Okay, so I, well, for me, I mean, there's a lot of factors and a lot of things, but it's several different.

things. A big part of it was my, my depersonalization was something I really struggled with. What do you mean by depersonalization? Can you explain that to us? Yeah. It's like, depersonalization for me was like feeling like a passenger in my own body, like kind of you know how when you look and when you interact with the world and life your eyes are kind of here you know your vision is here but it kind of feels like when i depersonized like my vision is back here like i'm super on autopilot and honestly i feel like for the past or not now but like for six months it just felt like i was a shell of a person like i wasn't even living you know what i mean and i think no what do you mean by that i don't know what you mean um it just felt like my body was

wasn't my own, I guess. Like, I was there and I was just kind of like passively living while my body just did things, you know? Like I wouldn't, I didn't think about anything. I didn't process anything like that, you know? And that is, uh, I depersonize when I get stressed or anxious. Um, and I think the anxiety of my job, and shit like that, which as a lot of people know, you know. Is a Twitch streamer? Mm-hmm.

Okay. Yeah, which is pretty, pretty, you know, pretty scary sometimes. And then, and then cheating also, the anxiety of that, too. Um,

just triggered my depersonalization stuff. Uh, yeah. So that's... So that's your understanding of it? Mm-hmm. Um, I mean, there's more, but, you know, it's a lot.

Like, you know, obviously I wasn't happy in my relationship, and I depersonize all those feelings away. You know, it's just, it's just mainly what it was to summarize it was, I just kind of told all my thoughts and feelings to fuck off, you know? And I didn't process it anything or I didn't think about anything, and I just, like, totally lived on autopilot, you know. Okay, can I just think for a second? Sure, yeah.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, by the way. How are you doing? I can imagine that this could be rough to share. No, I'm okay. Okay. I'm good. Strong work.

Thanks. I'm going to just think about what you shared and try to piece together a couple of different things. Sure. Are you depersonalized right now? No, I've been trying to work through depersonalizing. I still do sometimes, but it's mostly when I get really anxious or stressed, and I feel pretty relaxed right now. And I have coping mechanisms with it, like grounding mechanisms, you know?

And so I'll like smell something strong or touch something that feels funny. Excellent. You know, like I might fidget cube and stuff. Good, good. or I go outside and feel the ground, literally. So one thing that I want to be careful about is, you know, you mentioned earlier that you don't want, you're not looking for sympathy.

And I'm going to, if it's okay with you, Kate, I'm going to point out where I think that something you say may be misinterpreted and may lead to people hating on you. Sure. So one thing that I want to point out very, explicitly because I don't want people to walk away from this with like an incomplete understanding or an unfair judgment. And if they want to judge you for cheating, I think that that's fair. But, you know, one thing I just want to point out is that sometimes people think that if you depersonalize and you're like watching yourself move, that removes responsibility from your actions. What do you think about that? I agree. But I mean, what can I, I guess I just don't know what to do except for like that's what happened, you know. I did. make the decision to cheat. It was me. You know, that wasn't like my mental health or my depersonalization making the decision.

That was me. But it was stressful and anxiety-inducing, obviously. And so I, like, triggered my fucking depersonalization, whatever. And which is something that I've always had, I realize now. in the past and stuff. And, yeah. So what I'm just pointing out is that I don't hear you saying, although I was afraid that people could interpret.

What you said is it's not my fault because I depersonalized. Yeah, but it is my fault. Okay. So I just want to. You know, like they can exist together. Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly what I want to clarify, because I'm afraid that without understanding that,

we can understand better what that means. But, you know, I just don't want to have people come and cross with the idea that you're absolving yourself from blame by depersonalization. Yeah, I'm not. Yeah, cool. So let's just think a little bit about this. So you were saying that you weren't, you said, obviously I wasn't happy in my relationship.

So that, too, is not obvious to me. Well, I mean, if you're cheating on someone, you're probably not happy in your relationship, right? A lot of people, a lot of people think that. But in my experience that being unhappy in a relationship is not the only reason that people cheat. It's a common one. But sometimes people cheat out of ego or narcissism or the fact that they feel like they can. Right.

So in some really uneven power relationship, like in uneven power dynamics, I've seen one partner cheat just because they feel like. they're entitled to. Wow. What the fuck? That's crazy. Yeah, I work with a lot of executives. So, yeah, I mean, not to, you know, bash executives as a whole, but sometimes people tend to be a little bit.

I also work with a lot of physicians. So. Yeah. So let's just think about this for a second. So I'm going to try to unpack what I understood. So it sounds like you had some feelings and those feelings were hard for you to tolerate. right? And yeah, I'm really bad at processing and experiencing my emotions and feelings. I use humor as a defense mechanism and I am really bad at processing sadness as an emotion. Great. You know

who else is bad at processing their emotions? Everyone? Pretty much. Twitch chat. Right? So I think what happened, what sounds like you had some, you know, authentic feelings of unhappy. or maybe insecurity or God knows what else. Yeah. And then as you started to depersonalize, you kind of shunted those feelings off to the side. And then what I'm guessing is that cheating somehow,

um, you know, balanced or covered or helped you forget about the negative feelings. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think when you're in a long relationship like that, feelings of,

oh god i can't end this you know like it i uh you know i don't want to say stuck but you know what i mean like when you're in a long relationship and you even if things might not be working you want to keep working at them you know what i mean because you know you care about that person and you've been in the relationship for a long time yeah um can you tell me a little bit about the relationship Yeah. Well, he was, he was, we dated for a long time, and I met him before I started streaming everything. And I guess we had a little bit of a, I don't know, we had a little bit of a, I don't know, we. what does the long time mean?

Is that long time by boomer standards or streamer standards? No, no, Zoomer standards. What does that mean? A couple years. Okay. But. That couple means two? Yeah.

Okay. And we, we, yeah. Especially because, you know, we started dating when I was young. So, and when you start dating someone, you're really young. And I also started dating him, this is actually kind of, of important to know, I think, for you at least, someone analyzing my brain. We met months after my dad died. And so kind of in the wake of that, we started dating. And how old were you when you started dating? 18. We met on my 18th birthday. Yeah. So I was 18 when we started

dating and uh yeah uh a few months after my dad died and he was very comforting um but i i don't know two major things were lacked in the relationship um one i have vaginismus and so our sex life was pretty not good wow i'm really being open about this can you explain to us what vaginismus is yeah vaginism is basically like, so it's a, so it's a mental thing, like a lot of people who are sexually abused have vaginousness, and it's like,

basically, it's can I have to explain. It's like a mental thing where basically, vagina broke, it don't work. It's hard to fit things in there. Let me try to give a different definition of it. Sure, yeah, you should. do that. I'm very good at. I'm not very eloquent. No, I think you're doing great. It's just, you know, vagina broke is, you know, I think you did a wonderful job of explaining what depersonalization is.

I think you've explained a lot of things really well. I mean, so. There are two issues that I have with, with your definition of vaginismus. First is vagina broke. And second is that you think it's a mental thing. So in my experience, vaginism is, is not purely a mental thing. So vaginism is. I mean, of course, there's like, yeah, well, you physically, it's a physical thing too, but I think it's caused by mental stuff usually. But how my therapist and I have talked about it is like, I guess it is a physical thing too, because we talked about it like when you're, you know, sexually abused and you, it's like muscle tension there. I don't know.

Kate, I'm going to just interrupt you and explain why you're saying your vaginasum. And then we can talk about how you and your therapist have talked about it. So vaginismus is spasm. of like the muscles of especially the entrance of the vagina. So essentially what happens is like, you know, your body has a lot of muscles and, you know, different kinds of openings. Like, I know this word reminds me of Beavis and Butthead,

but literally it has sphinctor's. And sphincter is like a circular muscle that contracts and relax. This is going to get so taken out of context. But it really is important to understand. Dr. Kay out of context. No, no, I'm not worried about it being taken out of context for you. you. I'm worried about the guys that are going to take... Dr. K. K.A. Context clips. I know. It's... I'm giving him so much ammo.

But seriously, I mean, this is important to understand because I think vaginismus is something that's not like not, like people don't... A lot of people, a lot of women will have vaginismus and they don't understand. They just think that they're... They think actually exactly like you think that my vagina is broken, but it's not that your vagina is broken. It's just you have a medical condition that needs some kind of treatment and then you're able... Anyway, so what happens is essentially you have spasm. of the, I think mostly the outer muscles of the vagina, which make essentially your vagina like clamp down and then you can't really, you know, insert anything into it. And when you do try to have sex,

it's often very, very, very painful because. Or just doesn't work. Or doesn't work because that muscle is like clamped down very hard. And so you just can't engage in any kind of sexual relations. And so it's, it's, so I really think about it as muscle spines something. is really what it is. And, you know, Kate is spot on that a lot of times vaginismus, I think has, if you look at like the population of people who have vaginismus and now I'm kind of curious about like how common of a problem it is and I think it's important for people. I think it's pretty common.

Yeah. Sometimes. Sexual abuse as a kid is really common too. Yes. So a risk factor for vaginismis is the sexual trauma. And this is where once again, we kind of. to get to the fact that like, you know, a physical thing is not just purely a physical thing, nor is it purely a mental thing. It's like her body has trained or has been programmed to like

have that that muscle spasm in sort of a protective way or whatever. It may have a mental component to it in terms of as you get anxious, then your body is going to start to spasm more. You may, you know, you may have like an anxiety attack or something like that, like your heart rate increases, blood pressure increases. Mental stuff in your head has all kinds of physical effects on your body. Yes. Yeah, that's what I meant by a mental thing. Yeah. So vaginismus is one kind of vulnerability that a particular body has to respond to a mental stressor. And we each have our, each of our bodies is like a little bit unique in the way that it responds to stress. So when we're mentally stressed, depending on the kind of stress that we feel, our body is going to do

different kinds of things. Some people will get butterflies in their stomach. Some people will start to hyperventilate. Some people will have a panic attack. Some people will emotionally shut down or depersonalize. Some people will have vaginismis. Some people will, you know, piss themselves. Like the body just does all kinds of crap that like we don't want it to do because we're just, that's just the way our body works based on mental stuff. And so, so it sounds like you have vaginismis. Yeah. And I forgot how we got on to that.

So it sounds like you started dating your boyfriend when you were 18 after your issues. Your issues. Okay. My issues and my relationship was my vaginism, so our sex life wasn't very existent. Okay. And also we weren't, we didn't. I don't know how to word this. I wasn't, well, I'm really bad at accepting my emotions and processing my emotions already.

and I think that he wasn't good at doing, you know, he also wasn't good at that. Sure. And so I guess we didn't talk about our emotions at all, which was my fault because I wanted, you know, I wanted someone who was there for me emotionally, I think, subconsciously, but I didn't admit that to myself. It was a lot of like feelings I had, but then just kind of pushing them away, like, what were the feelings that you had? Like, I want to have sex, but like, whatever.

or, you know, I want to have someone who's there for me emotionally, but whatever, you know, just kind of pushing it away. Was he not there? It sounds like he was very comforting after your dad passed away. Was he not there for you emotionally? No, because the thing is, when my dad died, like, I dealt with things in a humorous way. So I would just make jokes about it all the time. So then, you know, and I'm also pretty, I don't know, I'm pretty good at dealing with. emotional trauma had practice.

That's sad. Sorry, I'm laughing nervously. But yeah, we weren't, I guess we just weren't really, we didn't really connect emotionally, just not very good at helping me with my anxiety, which was the biggest thing. And I had a lot of anxiety. What were you anxious about?

I had relationship anxiety a lot, which is like, you know, uh, what does that mean? Really annoying. I don't know. I guess just like I had relationship anxiety like thinking maybe he wouldn't like me anymore or you know, maybe he wouldn't, maybe he's going to lose feelings for me or you know, whatever. I think in the beginning of the relationship, I latched so much onto, I want this to last

forever. I want to marry this person that anything that could threaten that scared the fuck out of me. And, and then, which is why as it moved on, even though I, know I should have ended the relationship like a while ago, I didn't because it, one, I was depersonalizing. So I was like, whatever problem doesn't exist. And two, I just wanted to make things work because when I was fucking 18, I decided I'm going to marry this guy.

So, you know, yeah. But why did you want to make things work? Because I loved him. And I cared about the relationship. and I think, I don't know, my thing, I think because he was the person who was there for my dad died, like he kind of filled the void that my dad left, I guess, in a way, you know, someone who spent time with, who was there for me, who took care of me, you know, he would cook for me sometimes. And, you know, like, he was very, very caring and very, you know, like, yeah.

So I guess it was. Did you feel like you owed him? Um, yeah. I guess I owed it to him to keep my promise, I guess. What was your promise? That I, that we'd get married and that we'd never break up. This is so weird to talk about on the street. What's weird to talk about?

I don't know. This is the most emotionally vulnerable I've ever been on stream. Like, this is shit I only really talk about. I'm like therapists. Do you want to stop? No, it's whatever. It's good. It's good to talk about things.

I think, you know, maybe I have a slight advantage over you because since I'm a boomer, sometimes I forget we're on stream. I was forgetting too. I think that was why I was like, oh, what? This is crazy. Like, dude, I don't know what I can you talk about my relationship. It only helps to ignore the thousands of people who are watching. Yeah.

I guess it's also scary because I don't want. want to embarrass my ex-boyfriend because maybe his friends are watching. You know what I mean? So that's, that's effective. Sure. So you don't want, sure, good. I mean, I think it's good that you don't want to. I mean, it's not like he's coming on stream. No.

So he didn't sign up to be. Yeah. So let's just think a little bit. Because I think, so let me say this, Kate. I think that a lot of what people are going to be taking away, I hope that what they take away is not specific to you or your boyfriend. I think the whole reason that we stream to begin with is because what we feel applies only to us actually applies to a hell of a lot more people.

Like if there's a single person who's watching who actually has vaginismus and is super, super embarrassed because they're 18 years old and like just thinks that their vagina is broken, like just think about if you're a woman who feels like your vagina is broken, like how much shame comes with that. And the fact that like... Oh, shame is a big one. How so? I don't know.

Well, I guess because I was sexually abused as a kid, you know. And a lot of shame came from that. Like, I remember, this is stupid. I mean, it's not, but it, you know, it's silly, I guess. I have this memory of when I was a kid, and I was looking at these like apples to apples cards. and I was like probably like seven or eight or something and when I was actually abused I was like it was from like four to six it was like for a couple years and um I was looking at this like apples

to apples card and it was it said um pure and I remember thinking I looked at it and I was like crying thinking that I'm not pure and I'll never be pure because of what happened to me and I guess that memory just sticks in my head of like shame, feeling ashamed for something that I didn't ask for, you know? Yeah. It's a powerful memory. It's a gnarly one. Don't click around.

Okay. Kate, close your eyes. No, no tea. You're going to make, like, you've got to take 15 back. Just close your eyes. Sure. Okay. tell me what you feel it's hard to keep i feel like it's hard to keep my eyes closed absolutely i want

look i know you want you want to look so so looking so let's explain why we close our eyes when we meditate you feel vulnerable uh oh yeah so i hadn't thought about that so if you if you want to open your eyes to feel safe by all means open them okay sorry for interrupting you go ahead sorry for what i interrupted you with you no no it's good i'm glad you did because because you just taught me something about, you know, when people have a history of sexual abuse, closing your eyes can make them feel vulnerable, which is something that I should remember.

The reason that I was... Huh? I didn't know that about myself, that closing my eyes made me feel vulnerable. Well, that's what we're here to do is learn, right? The reason I was asking you to close your eyes is because I think generally speaking, so here's what I see.

You don't, it's hard for you to sit with what's on the inside. And if we think about our sense organs, the purpose of our sense organs is to take our attention and put them to the outside. Right? That's like literally what they do. Like if I open my eyes and I see something, then a fraction of my mental attention goes to the outside thing. So what instead of closing your eyes, since that maybe makes you feel a little bit vulnerable, I want you to take your teacup and place it in front of you. And I want you to look at the grains of the wood on the teacup.

Just stick. Yeah, so just stare at the grains of your teacup and then tell me how you feel right now. I guess I feel relieved, like to be talking about something that I guess I feel, I feel happy because I know there's so many victims of sexual abuse who probably watch this stream. And I feel happy that they're not alone. Like, I don't know, because it's scary. It's scary to talk about that stuff. But if I was watching this, I know I'd be like, wow, that's really cool, you know, that someone who went through something similar to me is, like, I can look at them.

But I guess, to be honest, I also feel kind of guilty because this kind of comes off weird, I think. but I feel bad anyone who has to relate to me because I don't want them to think that they're a bad person because they have stuff in common with me. And you feel like you're a bad person. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.

Keep looking at the teacup. Okay. Now what do you feel? I don't know. So I'll ask a leading question now. Is this the feeling that you had when you were seven, years old and you looked at the apples to apples card and it said pure um i guess yeah ashamed i'm like tainted and i feel like i'll never be the same i feel like i have like you know

the scarlet letter the book uh-huh i feel like i have like an a on me forever you know yeah do you think that you're cheating on your i'm going to ask you another leading question okay so feel for you to say no. But do you feel like you were destined to hurt people because you are tainted? No. I'm happy to hear that. Now I'm going to ask you sort of a weird question. Why not?

Because I think everyone has a lot of good in them. No one's truly evil or a bad person. And I think everyone at their core is like, maybe not everyone, but most people want to do good. I think I'm one of those people. Where did you get that idea? Where did you get the idea that you have a core of goodness? I guess it's something that you kind of know, something that only you can know because of,

you can only know if someone's good. You only know if you're good based on your actions when no one else is watching. And I guess I'm there when no one else is watching. And so I think I'm a good person too, I guess. I guess I think both at different times, you know? Both what? I have a good and a bad person.

Okay. But I guess we all are too. So, Kate, I'm going to push you a little bit further, okay? So, and if this is hurtful at some point, you let me know, and I'll look it back. The pain is important sometimes, I think. So I'm going to put together a version of you, which is going to be like just half of you, right? this is the person who looks at a card that says pure and then thinks deep down that this doesn't apply to them, that you're tainted.

The person who has a broke vagina, the person who, you know, cheats on someone who supported them and comforted them. And there's that person. How can that person feel like they're good? Because that's not all there is to them. So tell us what else there is. What else? What have you?

Show me the rest of it. I don't know. I like to cook for people. That sounds so stupid. I don't know. It makes me happy to make other people, like, feel good and, like, take care of them. Sure. I like to show people music, make them happy.

I like to drive people around. I like to help people when they're sad. I love when people come to me when they're sad or anxious. It makes me really happy to help them. Why? Because they trust me and I guess I know that I have a really hard time opening up to people and trusting people, and I'm glad that they have someone to trust

and open up to, and I'm also glad that I can be that. I'm glad that I can experience that side of, them because recently I've been trying to open up to myself more and to everyone else and really talk about my feelings because I'm really bad at being sad. And it's because of my PTSD, you know, and all my past shit because, you know, like that was really hard. And then my, my papa died. It was my mom's dad when I was 11. And then my dad died. And, you know, it's just like a lot, you know, for someone young to go through. And so from all that, I guess I just became really good at like depersonizing and like pushing all my bad feelings away and not thinking

about them because it was easier now that I'm really trying to open up and process my bad feelings and tell people when I'm anxious and sad and like not just deal with it on my own I guess no I don't remember I was talking about lost my train of thought oopsie dais yeah I don't I don't think you lost your train of thought I think your train of thought is forming. No, I mean, I think the thoughts in your mind are not like a train that you lose. It's like a tree that's growing. And so thoughts start to sprout and then they're kind of like half formed, but they're not like really fully formed yet.

And you're just in the process of like growing your understanding about yourself. That's really beautiful. Yeah, I'm big about nature analogies. Yeah, I love analogies too. I love it. No, it's interesting though, right? So we blame ourselves for not speaking clearly or not understanding ourselves. We expect of ourselves an omniscient understanding and also a perfect articulation.

But we're just figuring ourselves out as we talk, you know, like we're learning about ourselves while we're explaining ourselves to other people. Yeah. Which is why it's so important to talk about your feelings because you can learn so much about yourself, too. Yeah. Opening up feels really good. Can I ask you a couple? Sure. So you mentioned that your grandfather passed away when you were 11.

Can you tell me about that? You said that's a lot for a kid to deal with. Yeah. I mean, obviously, but, you know, what was? He was like my main father figure in my life. My papa is what I called him. He was my mom's dad. And I lived with him up until I was like seven or something.

So we, and I didn't live. My parents, my mom's a lesbian. My parents got divorced when they, I was six months old. And so my dad always lived like two hours away, but he was always very, like, it was never the dynamic of like, oh, does my dad care about me? It was always more the opposite, which makes me feel guilty now too, especially that he's dead, that he was always kind of looking for my affection rather than me looking for. for his. Oh, interesting. But my pop, yeah, my papa was, um, was, yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

I'm just, no, I was just curious. So in what ways was your dad looking for your affection? You would try to, like, buy me stuff or try to like, I don't know, he just, I think he always felt that he cared about me a lot more than I cared about him. And I think that was true to a certain extent. And I think a big part of that is because I was really young and dumb. And I really wish that he could see now that he's gone, like how much I fucking care about him, you know? Like, even when he died, like, I don't think my brother thought I cared that much, you know? It was just like, I guess that was another wake of call of, like, God, I'm so terrible expressing my emotions and, like, how I feel about people that, like, my own brother thought that I

didn't really care that much than my dad died. Like, God, I'm fucking shit at that. But I'm getting better. Why didn't your brother think that you didn't care that your dad passed away? I think because I joke around a lot. Kyle does too, though, my brother. But I don't know, I guess because I was the fucking shithead. I was 17 when he died, you know?

Like, I was a senior in high school. I was just like not focused on him. When I was in plays and shows, I would forget to tell him about it, even though that's all he wanted to do is just see me perform and sing. and, you know, whatever. What are you feeling now? I guess kind of stressed out. Yeah, you seem amped up.

So go back to looking at your teacup. Uh-oh. Okay, nothing just discord lagging. Just look at your teacup for a second. And then tell me what you feel. Look at the grains. Okay. grains. I feel like I should go back to explaining about my papa. I also, I don't know. I think I just

lost my feeling. I have a habit of doing that. Yep. Trying to make myself laugh or feeling something else really quick and then losing the feeling, which is why I have a lot of trouble crying. If I ever feel like crying, I like cry for like 20 seconds and then it's done. It's really hard for me to cry. Unless it's out of joy or... Kate, can you hold on a second? My two-year-old seems to be having a meltdown. I'm going to be right back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, no problem. Go pee if you need to. Yeah. Sure, I love it. Hey, friend. How are you doing? I'm doing swell. Okay. Strong work so far. How are you feeling? Yeah, good. I just, you know, had a little bit of a in the bathroom, but it was good.

It felt good, you know. Yeah, what was the... A little bit of like a... Like, oh, my God. What is that? I'm going to... Anxiety. That's not a real word.

What are you... What were you anxious about? I feel, um, maybe it wasn't... I guess anxious wasn't really the right feeling. Maybe I think it was, I was overwhelmed with my... emotions and also I feel good because I opened my discord um and I just saw a message from like a viewer that just said like like I I love you and I just I don't know and then my moms are watching and they're they just they text me and said they're crying and they love me and they're proud of me so so I

guess it's like overwhelmed but happy yeah so it sounds like there's a lot of positive emotion and a lot of negative emotion that's swirling around inside you like a washing machine. I love, I love analogies. Okay, so let's go back to your pop, pa. Papa, yeah. Tell me about your Papa. He's pretty cool. He's kind of epic.

Cool guy. He, my mom was at work a lot growing up. So she definitely like, my mom and I were really close growing up, but my dad was, you know, I see him like every weekend pretty much. My mom worked a lot, but we were so really close. But my papa was like always home when I was home, you know? And when you're like, when you're really, really young, that's when you're home the most often. And he was just always there for me. My brother and I talk about this a lot, like how my dad more raised my brother and my papa more raised me.

And that caused a lot of differences in us in an interesting way. And one thing is like my dad was kind of, he was an alcoholic. And so he wasn't always that nice to my brother. And, you know, kind of would, he just wasn't that nice or supportive a lot of the time. You know, he was judgmental of him. And, you know, the kind of parent who would be like, I don't know, I wasn't there. But long short, he wasn't that nice to him. And my Papa just treated me, like, I don't know, I think he's the reason I'm so, like,

extroverted and bubbly and curious now. Like, the reason I, I, I'm, he treated me so patiently. He taught me to read when I was, like, really young, really, really young. Like, I think I started reading when I was, like, two or three or something, like, really young. He just answered all my questions, was always so patient, encouraged me to be curious. I really like dancing and singing as a kid and acting and stuff. So I would like dance and sing on the fireplace for like hours. And you would never, ever make me stop.

He would just sit there and support me and encourage me and, you know, make me slipie soup. And he was just so... He cooked for you? Yeah. He was just so amazing. And then he got dementia, which was holy shit. Like, wow, you know? He got dementia.

Hold on a second. Yeah. What is holy shit wow? Let's translate that. Okay. Holy shit wow is roughly translated to that was very hard for like I don't, I think it went on by like two years. So like nine year old Kate to process?

Sure. I mean, I would say. He was my best friend. Like we were two peas in a fucking pot. It was always Katie and Papa. always together. And what was it like to, I mean, what did you understand back then? Understand?

Yeah. What did you think was happening? I don't know. I just knew that I was watching the person who raised me and, wow, I was watching him deteriorate. And I didn't understand it. and he died when I was like 11. It was like two weeks before I started middle school, I think. And I remember everyone like flew down, all my family flew in.

And he was in the hospital. We all knew he was going to die. And it was like a long, long process, you know. Sure. Where, you know, like, I'm sure you or, you know, a lot of people watching and probably dealt with, you know, people they know, having dementia are Alzheimer's. And so hard,

seeing them like forget about you. Of course, like as a kid, I didn't really understand it, but I'd also, you know, gone through a lot of the kids. So I think mentally, I'd already learned how to depersonalize and how to push things away. So it was like, you know, I didn't feel like I was that at the time.

Yeah. And, but I remember when, whenever, when he was in the hospital and everyone knew he was going to die like that night, everyone knew how close Papa and I were, but everyone is in his hospital room. There's like a lot of us. And I remember they're all taking turns saying goodbye to him and holding his hand. And everyone kept telling me, go, go hold his hand, Katie. I wouldn't. And I just would not.

I just kept saying, no, no, I don't, I'm okay. I don't want to. And I think obviously, like, that makes a lot of sense with how I've handled things now, just like pushing things away. It's not real. Don't worry about it. Just don't. Help us understand what makes sense to you now.

Because of. It makes sense now because how bad I am at expressing and processing my emotions. So I just kind of ignore them and focus on something else. When you say you're bad at processing emotions, is that like basically, like you saying my vagina's broke. Like, are you just someone who's got a broken emotional processing unit? No, I used to actually, when I was in high school, I used to think in my brain like a broken clock. Like I just did not understand.

Like, I just did not understand how to process emotions or how to how to be. And it was just, I think it was just because of like the sexual abuse thing really, really set me up for failure in that department, I think. I think so too. So can I just say something? I don't think that you're bad at processing emotions. What do you think about that? I don't. Maybe I'm open to your interpretation and opinion.

So here's what I think happened. I think when people get sexually abused and I know this is going to sound kind of weird, but I'm not even so sure that there may have been more there than that. Like I don't want to point to that as the smoking gun. But I think what happens is so the reason that you depersonalize is like, So this is well understood and people who have trauma from a young age that they dissociate and they depersonalize. And that's essentially a protective mechanism. Yeah, it is.

And so I think rather than thinking about it is you being bad at processing emotions, what I want you to understand is that you almost have like an emotional resistance. And every time like with sexual trauma, essentially what it does is it like jacks up your emotional resistance. And so you're like immune to any kind of emotional damage. The problem is that that also makes you like colorblind to all kinds of stuff. And what I'm hearing from your life is that you essentially like are leveling up your depersonalization skill. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what I was like. It's like, oh, like let's let's like let's love like let's buy this skill when you're sexually abused. And then when Papa dies away, it's like, yeah, let's dump some more points into that skill. And then your dad passes away and it's like, yeah, let's dump some more points into that skill. And then the tricky thing in life is that like what makes life hard is that we use the skills that we're best at, which sort of makes sense, right? Like that's how shit works. Like you just do what you're kind of good at because that's what you lean on.

It's not like you wake up one day and you're like, I'm going to, instead of walk, I'm going to swim across the ground. You just don't do stupid things like ignore things that you're good at. Your body's like, this is how we move from point A to point B if we are on a. a solid surface. And that's the skill that we use because that's what we've used our entire life. And what I'm hearing from you, and I think it's really awesome that you piece this together for yourself, but I want to kind of even dig a little bit deeper and recognize that you're not bad at processing emotions.

Being resistant to your emotions has been a survival skill for you. Yeah. Because watching... Yeah. So watching your best friend in your primary Kate, caretaker start to crumble from the inside and like him to not recognize you like that shit is enough to traumatize you know even without the sexual abuse and and the sexual abuse is enough to traumatize you and then and the dad and like fucking just dump all this and then any one of those

any one of those any one of those is enough to fuck you up for the rest of your life Yeah, fuck that bitch's shit up. Like, she's fucked forever. Yeah, right? And then you toss in like a little bit of that vaginismus, and now her vagina's broke. And her emotions are broke. It's like, ah. Yeah.

Awesome. And then get the internet hating on you. Yeah. Oh, that's great. Love that. Honestly, though, I'm so lucky that I'm good at the survival instinct of, you know, dealing with my friend. Or else, like, I think.

I was suicidal if I wasn't like, yeah, so I want to explain this. This is exactly my point is it's not luck. It's like, it's not luck that you're good at this. It's something that you have, your brain has,

and psyche and stuff has, is, like, leveled up. It's like, you're not immune to emotions because of luck. You're immune to emotions because you've leveled that shit up your entire life.

Yep. And. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, so you're, I mean, you've got a lot of hurt in there. Somewhere. In the old noggin. But, yeah.

I think when I lost my papa, like the, it was really hard to, I don't know, that's when I started becoming like a weird kid, you know. Like, I, not that these things are weird, but people. I also went to a Catholic school, so that was really hard, too, because I saw all the same people. all the time and they were really judgmental, especially like I had a lesbian mother, so they all fucking hate, like, judge me because of that. And I dealt with that a lot in middle school and elementary school. And then I also, like the sexual shit, they didn't know about that stuff, but because I grew up in a Catholic environment, it made it way worse that I felt super impure, you know, and I felt even more ashamed because of all the Catholic stuff. But I also got really into

like role playing online, you know, like I got really into the internet life when my Papa died. You know, like I naked penguin. I got really into Wizard 101 in Tune Town and making internet friends because I didn't like the people that I met in real life, you know? Or I got really into horror movies. Welcome, sister. Embrace us for We are your brother.

We are the internets and you belong here. I got really into the internet shit. Yeah. And I got really into horror. Like I loved horror movies, gore. I love that stuff. And I think it was because death at a young age, you know. And then I got.

You keep doing that where you say death death. I don't know. What is that mean? I don't know. Okay. It's just something I say. I think there's value to what you say. I just, I'd like to understand the rest of it.

I don't know. Okay. I think it's just saying, you know, fuck see I like that's a way for me to connect with people when I talk to them

to make sure they're on the same page as me maybe I don't know um you know okay so you

you became one of us yes and I got really into that and now actually through all this like the last two months I've realized that I when my papa died

so handling my papa's death which I didn't even realize I was handling that until I went to therapy and I talked about like we talked about history of depression whatever and I talked about how I was pretty depressed in middle school and I didn't know why until she was like when I did a prop died and I was like oh right before I started middle school she was like I was like oh right like that's why I was so fucking sad in middle school my papa died right um and I feel like losing him versus dealing with my sex abuse versus dealing with my dad dying versus like this. I would compare my papa and this situation dealing with these last two months the most similar to each other, how they feel. And a big part of that is because I guess I've kind of taken to, like, I want to watch

horror movies again and, you know, like scare myself again. I don't know why I'm talking about this. Okay. No, I mean, I think it's just, it's growing that, that tree's growing. That's all. Yeah. So tell me when you say, when you say this is the most similar that you felt to, I mean, this feels the most like when you're your Papa died, how do you feel right now or over the last two

months? Or, you know, how has that been for you? Well, it's really weird. It's really weird. I guess they're not like super similar. I would just compare it to that more than the other stuff that I've gone through. And you know, when my dad died, I also was going through my first real breakup at the same time, like we broke up. like just a little bit before. So that was very hard. So it sounds like this most recent relationship was coming off of the back of a breakup and your dad passing away?

It was months after, but yeah. Okay. Okay. It was pretty good time. Can you tell me a little bit about your dad's passing and what that was like for you? Yeah. So I was at, I was sitting in high school. And I actually had just seen him that weekend.

We, my brother and I, he lived where I live now in the town. I used to live two hours away. And we would come up here sometime because I live in Orlando. That's not a secret. To go to Disney and stuff. And we would stay at his place. And I would, or I don't know, we would stay this place and we would just spend time together. And the last time I, the last time I ever saw him was Friday.

And he died on a Sunday or a Monday. it was the 16th of October 2017. And we had gone to a hockey game and spent the whole weekend together the weekend before. And then that weekend, Kyle and I went out to go to Disney and he cooked us breakfast and it was really nice. And it was really good. And I remember feeling like, wow, my relationship with my dad right now

is really good. Like, I feel good. And for a while, I actually thought, I thought I, he's bipolar. And I thought I was bipolar as well for a while. But then I was like, no, I'm not bipolar. And then now my therapist thinks I might be, but anyway, that's beside the point. I was really relating to him based on like how he felt emotionally.

And we were like having deep talks finally about our emotion. Even though, you know, sometimes he was one time for it, he was drunk. And I was very uncomfortable about that. But whatever. after that when he died, I remember, because I had gone through the breakup, right? And after the breakup, I was like, because it was a long distance relationship too. So after that breakup, I just kind of wanted to go, go, go, go, go, go. I never want to be home, kind of scared of being alone, scared of being in my room,

because that's where we always talked on, you know, on fucking Skype. And so I was go, go, go, go, go for however long it was, like a month or two. and then when my dad died it was like oof everything kind of stopped and I didn't have energy to go go go anymore how did he pass away

hypertension and alcoholism was though okay so like he was like acutely or was it like did he just he drank himself

like he drank his whole life but the thing was he had just gone to the doctor like a few weeks before and got he was bragging to everyone like clean bill of health it was sudden i mean it was sudden we we all kind of we tossed around the idea of like god dad drinks a fuck ton and he smokes a fuck ton and like you know geez you know but it was sudden i was very i was surprised i guess i knew it would happen but i did not know what happened then which is i guess what death is you know it's going to happen but you don't know when

Kate, can I ask you, and sorry if this question is insensitive, but if your mom is a lesbian, how did your parents get together? Where did you? Do I get that question? I gave a vagina. Sorry, that was stupid. Anyway. It's a great answer. So my mom was Catholic as well, and she was raised that being gay is wrong.

And so she fell in love with my dad. And how she describes it is she's not bisexual, because I've asked her this question because it's confusing. she describes it as basically she fell in love with my dad who he was as a person but she was always like attracted to women you know what I mean more and they had sex and they had children but it wasn't until after they got divorced and she actually divorced him because of his alcoholism not because she was lesbian after they got divorced she was like I'm a lesbian I'm going to live my life as a lesbian

so yeah I hope that explains though it is kind of a confusing it was just it was just sort of You know. And my mom has been with the same woman, Dawn, who is my second mom for like 10 or 11 years now. So she's been here for a while and she's, is really nice. Sox going from three parents to two, but, you know, I still got two. It's okay. Yeah.

Okay. So you just, so how are you feeling right now? Good. You look like you feel good. Anything in particular that you want to talk more about? I don't know. I mean, I guess there's a lot of stuff to talk about, but I don't know what. I don't know.

Is there anything you were like anything that stuck out to you? Yeah, so let me try to explain how I understand what this conversation has been like, because in a sense, it's been all over the place. Yeah, but that's kind of cool. Yeah. And I think that that's okay. So like sometimes, you know, when we talk to people, there's like a particular thing. But I think in your case, the main theme that I'm getting at is, you know, this idea of emotional processing and the avoidance of emotions.

And for us to try to understand that like it's not that your brain is broke. And it's just that, you know, vaginismus, I think is one example of emotions being manifested in the body. So I talk a lot about this because people don't understand what their emotions are. I don't think you understand what your emotions are. You know, you feel a lot. And I think that you're just not ready or capable yet of sitting with what that feeling is and putting words to it. But I'm getting the sense that there are large pockets of emotion that have been present through many parts of your life. Because we'll see you get emotional and kind of tear up.

And like you can, you have like stories. You have pictures, right? So it's almost like the way that you describe your life is. depersonalization. So you can't tell us how you feel, but you can paint us a picture of a seven-year-old girl looking at an apples-to-apples card. You can paint us a picture of an 11-year-old girl, and I know you're feeling things. I'm just going to keep plowing forward, okay. Good. Go fucking go for me. So you can paint us a picture of an 11-year-old girl who doesn't want to tell their grandfather goodbye. And I imagine that you feel some degree of guilt over

that. You know, you can, like, like there's a, there's a, there's a parent who's, who longs for your affection and, and, you know, tried to win you over. And you didn't honor that in the way that maybe you should have. And so you feel guilt over that. And, and so you can paint us all these pictures. And that's, that's, I think, actually is a really good representation of what your life has been like. You don't know exactly what the person in the picture is feeling. But you can get as far as, yeah death sucks am i right and like that's kind of like where you are right now and i think it's great that you're you know at least you're accessing them and so it's sort of like i don't know if you ever been to like a really delicious restaurant where you eat something like you know maybe like really

good guac and then like you don't know exactly what's in there but you know it's really delicious and you're like is that a little bit of garlic a little bit of lime little bit of cilantro is there like some onion powder in there and and so so what i've got it exactly experience like that actually, the best marineros house I've ever had. And it's like what's in there, right? What's in there, dude? Exactly. And what I'm seeing from you is that, you know, you've figured out that like there are emotions in these areas and you can connect to some degree of shame or some degree of being impure. I was actually really happy to hear that, you know, you do have a sense of your goodness and that you can sit with this like dichotomy of,

like, yeah, I can be a piece of shit sometimes, but I'm also like a fundamentally good person or I can believe that about myself. Yeah, but this, this experience, like with that was so hard. I thought I was a bad person for a long time. And then in high school, I realized like, no, I'm not. I am just emotionally closed off because I thought it was a bad person in the sense that like, you know, girls that I'd be friends with would be like, your asshole, you know, you're insensitive. because I'd make jokes that were mean. Or I was just like, I was just really bad at expressing my emotions, you know? And so they thought I came across as really cold.

Like, I will never forget. There's this one fucking girl. I'll never forget this. She said to me, or she said to someone else, actually, Kate has no empathy. And that is burn in my head forever, especially because, God damn it, I have held that girl's hair while she threw it. up, no one else would. I am so bad at watching people throw up, but fuck, like she would, she would throw up and I would hold her hair. I've done it like five plus times. That bitch,

dude, I have empathy, okay? I just don't express the same way as everyone else. Yeah. But yeah, I realized I was a good person later. It's interesting because do you get sick when other people throw up? That's an expression of empathy. Yeah, exactly. So I think, you know, as is common is that a lot of people who have, you know, are emotionally closed off will have physical manifestations of their emotions like vaginismus or like, you know, sickness in their stomach or like they'll have GI problems or things like that oftentimes. But anyway, just kind of going back to, go ahead. I was like, on the train of thought and then I got sidetracked by that story.

Do you remember what it was? Oh, well, I was talking. So I was just talking about your sense of goodness. And I think you were you were kind of thinking about, oh, yeah, this bitch thought that I wasn't a good person, but I was because I held her fucking hair while she peoped. And how dare she? How dare she? And I think it's really remarkable that you do have a sense of goodness because I've met many people who have been through half of what you've been through and they're pretty convinced that they're utter pieces of shit on the inside. essentially that that seven-year-old girl in the way that she felt kind of carries with them.

So I'm kind of curious about really two or three things. Then I can offer a couple of other topics. One is like the one emotion, it's kind of interesting. There's one emotion that I think has been very, very absent over the course of our entire conversation. And I'm kind of curious if Twitch chat can figure out what it is. I'm going to look at Twitch chat. Is that okay? Yeah, I want to look at them.

Let's see what they say. Okay. Ah, beautiful. They got it right away. What was it? That's what I was thinking, too. Yeah, I'm not an angry person at all. Wicked's here.

Aw, that's one of my friends. That's so good, Twitch, chat. I'm very impressed because it's usually the emotion that we see the most of, actually, on this stream. Yeah, I do not, I do not. I'm not an angry person at all. Yeah, so that's not how we work. Right? You're up.

So let me just. I was really thinking of a kid. Like, when my papa died. I had anger issues. Like I was, oh my God, wait, that's important, actually. Can I tell you about this really quick? Sure. I was a kid. I was like terrible. I was a terrible kid. Really, really bad angry outbursts, like a lot, a lot of really angry outbursts. Like, uh, I would just have these meltdowns just like, don't touch me. Ah, like really terrible when I was a kid. But then they just went away. Like I don't feel them anymore. I feel, I think, I don't know. I mean, I get angry sometimes,

but I think I'm good at expressing my anger in a way that's not angry. That makes sense. Sure. But do you feel anger? Sometimes, yeah. But I don't feel anger about any of this stuff because it's just sad. Okay. So, you know, not, I mean, different people experience different levels of emotion.

I feel anger towards that girl who fucking said. I see that. There we go. Good. Yeah. Fucker. And so, you know, if I want to ask a, like, so here's the first thing. So let's just think about this for a second.

So you say that I don't really feel angry. And sure, you have bits of anger here and there. But generally speaking, I think that, you know, some people feel certain emotions more than other emotions. And it just seems like there's a remarkable absence of anger in so much of what you're saying. Like, I know this sounds kind of weird, but oftentimes children who have parents who die are angry at their parent for dying. It's not logical. I never felt. Yeah, it's not.

But it's oftentimes how people feel. You know, oftentimes people who end up in relationships where they feel stuck, which it sounds like you felt stuck. And we're not saying that that justifies anything that you did or didn't do. But oftentimes people will feel anger towards the person who keeps them stuck. Or they will feel anger towards themselves. I'm curious, do you feel? anger towards your ex-boyfriend or towards yourself?

I feel anger towards myself sometimes. That's been really, really hard. Oh, I wanted to talk to you about that. That's been really hard over the past two months, like dealing with, because I've dealt with trauma before, but dealing with when my dad died and my boyfriend broke up with me, you kind of know how to deal with that stuff. You know, like, okay, this shit happened to me. I didn't do anything wrong.

I just have to sit and be sad and I can do whatever I want with that sadness, with those emotions. People understand what I'm going through. I just lost a parent. You know, like, it was hard, but this is so different because I fucked up. I made the bad decisions. I'm the bad guy. I'm the villain here. There's no way that this story can make me be the good guy. I'm the bad guy here, you know? And I said it again. And I guess that's just so, been so hard to deal with. And it's been it's really hard to grapple with being angry with myself because I think I've always been really good at loving myself throughout everything pretty much. Also a skill you leveled up, by the way. Also a skill you leveled up, by the way. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think I'm very

confident and good with myself, which is good, a very good skill to have. It's rare. Yeah, I'm very proud of myself for leveling it up. But I've felt like, because I guess when you go through all this trauma and you're bad at expressing it, the person that you feel like is always there for you, the only person you feel like you can trust is you. And so I guess I just gained a lot of confidence in myself in my, uh, can you tell us how you leveled up your self-love? Because I think that's something a lot of people struggled with. Yeah, people ask me this a lot. It's really hard. I remember when I was in middle school and I really, really was dealing with it. I think I just, like kids just looked at me like I was.

weird, you know, they were not very nice to me. And it was hard for a while and I really didn't like myself for a while. But then, the way I did it was just fake it to you make it. I just, really, like, I just acted like, I used, instead of using self-deprecating humor, I've always been a very person, you know, comedy-focused person. So I always have used jokes and humor to cope with stuff and whatever, as you can see, obviously, he's joking a lot. But I, I, was I would make jokes about how I was the best. Make jokes about how I'm the shit, you know? And maybe that's not the best way to go about it.

But eventually it's like when people, when you force people to view you as confident by telling them you're confident, then you become confident. And that was probably not the best way to go about it. but I think it was a combination of that and trust in myself after dealing with so much shit that I can always get through it and I have the power to get through this. And I don't know if that explains it very well. Yeah.

So I think how did you develop the trust in yourself that you're going to get through it? Experience. Not like because I have. So I. That I can get behind. Yeah. Cool. So you were saying something about anger towards yourself because you are at fault here.

So in the past, you survived. So just to kind of catch people up. So here's what I remember the frame of the conversation. So in the past, you've been able to get through it because you recognize that like this wasn't your fault. This was just bad shit happening to you. And you've survived it before. So you can survive it again. But this time it's different.

Because it's not bad shit happening to you. It's you, you're the villain. And so it's not the same. I'm the bad shit. Yeah. It's really, it's been so hard to deal with. Not that I. What's been hard to deal with?

I guess going through something really hard, but I'm not the victim. You know? Does that make sense? Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. So what's hard about going through something when you're not the victim? Very impressive, by the way, that your psychology has not done some sort of mental gymnastics to make you the victim.

That's usually what people do. Seriously, that's not a joke. It's like... Yeah, no, I'm not... I'm not the victim. The hardest part is definitely the hurt I put these people I care about through. because I cared so much about the people that I hurt, and yet I still did it.

And getting, wrapping your head around that and just the regret and the hindsight is 2020, you know, looking back and thinking, God, I fucking could have done it differently. And I didn't. And just kind of, it's easy to be upset with yourself. It's easy to hate yourself. It's easy to not trust yourself because no one else can. So why should you? And it was really hard because I had been the only one there for me the whole time

through all my whole life. And now am I even there for me anymore? Like do I even love myself anymore? Do I even trust myself anymore? You know? And that was the main thing I struggled with, I'd say. Struggled? Yeah.

You use the past tense for that. So have you come to some answer? Yeah, I have forgiven myself. It was like everyone else around me had to forgive me. And I did too, which was weird. That was something I never dealt with before. I thought I'd deal with. How did you forgive yourself?

Understanding. What did you understand? Why? And that I won't do it again. I think that's the biggest thing. Having confidence that I won't do it again is the thing that helped me forgive myself the most. And I have that confidence now. Where does that confidence come from?

Understanding. What did you understand? Why I did it and how to. Well, lots of things. Feeling stuck, not communicating. my feelings, not processing, what I was feeling, choosing to push that away. And now I'm making a point to be brutally honest, which is not always the best option, but, you know, my therapist says it's like a pendulum.

So when you have so much force and resistance one way and you're like fucking lying about shit all the time, and then you just, you'll, you know, swing the other way. So right now I'm in a more of a brutal, honest kind of area where I want to, I over. I overcommunicate, which is I'm trying to work on finding a balance. Sure. Right now. I don't know why I started talking about it. Well, I was asking you, you know, why did you do what you do and what did you

understand about yourself? And so it sounds like you felt stuck. Yeah, I felt I felt stuck. I felt, I felt a lot of things. but. But no anger. Anger towards myself. I guess it's like,

the anger I feel is very, like, God, Kate, you're such an idiot. But then when I feel anger, a lot of times I'm able to just, like, feel it for a second, I just kind of laugh about it. Okay.

Okay. Because it's like, fuck. I'm a dumb bitch. Like, I fucked up. Holy shit. But, you know, sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself, and how fucking stupid you are sometimes.

Yeah. And I think that's important. I think, you know, I'm noticing something that I think is maybe where your confidence comes from. I think you own who you are. Yeah. Yeah. I accepted, I guess I accepted that I was a liar.

I accepted these labels. I accepted that I was a liar, that I was a cheater. I accepted that I did not prioritize anyone but myself. Even if I didn't do it from a malicious place, the outcome hurt people very badly. I accepted those things and I accepted that I did it. And accepting that, I'm able to forgive myself because I didn't push the blame on to anyone or anything else except for me. And accepting that blame makes it easier to move on because it's, it's like that. like it restores balance, I suppose.

Yeah, I think that's a very, very important principle, which is that if you, you know, if you blame, I don't even know how exactly to say this, but if you blame someone else for your problems, you, first of all, aren't in control of your life because it's their fault, not yours. Definitely. And the other interesting thing is that if you make excuses for yourself

or other people, then you can't forgive. because if there's an excuse, there isn't a sin. And if there isn't a sin, there's no capacity for forgiveness. So I think a big problem that I hear a lot from our community is that like how they ask like, how do I commit? I mean, how do I forgive myself? How do I mourn? How do I move past this? And the first problem is that they make excuses.

And so if I make an excuse like there's nothing to move past from because there's, it's not my fault. There's no need to accept who you are. And it's a really powerful thing to stop making excuses for yourself. And also a very hard thing because a lot of times not making excuses for yourself is to let that part of you that feels like you're tainted, take control, and then beat the shit out of you, which is not the same. It's a really fine tightrope to not let your shame take over, but like let it have a seat at the table. Because a lot of times what people will do is they're like, I'm a piece of shit. and then they start like this whole like rant about how they're awful people. And that's not mourning or acceptance.

That's just you ranting. Yeah. I guess the reason I'm not angry with myself anymore, the reason I don't blame my, or I mean, I blame myself, but you know, the reason I'm not, I understand myself. And I think I think I learned that especially in the past, in the past months specifically, I deserve understanding just as much as everyone else does. The understanding that I give to my friends when they come to me about a problem or a mistake they made, the understanding I give to people in the internet who make mistakes,

the understanding you get to anyone when they are honest and vulnerable with you. I deserve that too. And I deserve to give myself that. And I think by allowing myself to understand myself, it was a lot easier for me to move on from it. Do you deserve forgiveness from others? Maybe not. I think that's a person by person. You know, I think that's up to everyone to decide.

That's the right answer. Yeah. I think sometimes they will. I have a lot of friends that I lost through it who will never forgive me. And that was awful. Like people that I love, love now who will never talk to me again. But that's okay. It's consequences.

Yeah. Like people, people from my life outside, you know, who had nothing to do with Twitch, not my roommates. My roommates have been wonderful. But other people, like I, one of my best closest friends, there were two weeks where he didn't even talk to me. Now, since then, we have become very, very close, but, and not like that. I know there's like a joke like, I've got to suck another guy. No, it's not. But, but I think there's just so much loss in such little time. of respect for myself from other people. I felt like my job was gone.

My, so many, my, you know, longest relationship was over. My other relationships were gone. Like, so much loss. And the biggest one was the loss of respect for myself and love for myself. But I gained it back and I feel good now. And I accepted that I'm the reason I lost those things. And I can gain them back if I want to. Strong words.

Thanks. I kind of feel like that's a good place to end, but what do you think? No, no, yeah, we can end whenever you want. No, I mean, it's just a, you know, I, I really like what you said there because it's sort of like, so I like that you don't feel like you're entitled to anyone else's forgiveness because I don't think you are. Yeah, no, not. I think it's fair to expect others to try to understand.

And we've had, it's interesting because I, I, I, remember actually we had a stream with this guy named LS now a couple of months ago and there was this one point where he was kind of sharing so he would he was like bad as a kid and would like I think he was like in court or something as a child and I don't remember the exact or maybe it was a school like tribunal or something and then everyone was kind of trying to figure out like what to do in terms of punishing him and then there was only like one person in the room who was like we need to be asking ourselves why this kid is doing this shit. in the first place because people don't usually do this.

And I think a lot of people are very quick to judge. And I'm not saying that people should not judge. I'm not saying you're entitled to forgiveness. But I do think the world would be a far better place. If along with our judgment, we try to dose of understanding. And I think it's a really tricky. I mean, you're really walking a tightrope, Kate, which makes me think that you really have grown and I respect you.

because you don't believe that you deserve forgiveness from other people. Because you don't. No one deserves forgiveness. Forgiveness is for someone else to give if they want to. You're not entitled to shit from anyone else when it comes to forgiveness. And I do think you should try to forgive yourself, but that too is not something you're entitled to. Yeah. I have forgiven myself.

Yeah, I see that. That's abundantly clear to me. and, you know, just in terms of, you know, so I know that there are concerns about how the internet feels about you. I have no idea what's going to happen after this. And I hope that, you know, you, they don't attack. No, that's fine. I hope they don't attack you. Yeah.

I mean, it hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure it will one day. Knock on board. And, and, you know, if you do kind of struggle from some of this stuff from from time to time, then, or if there's some kind of aftermath, then we can support you through that. Feel free to let us know. But overall, I think it's been awesome talking to you. I think it was awesome that you shared as much as you did about so many different things. It was nice.

So sometimes I teach people how to meditate. Are you interested in that? Yeah, when I have panic attacks, I meditate. I'm good meditation kind of. Yeah, I can see that. So in a sense, I actually already taught you a technique. Do you have a sense of what I'm talking about? No.

So like when I was asking you to look at the cup, and I don't know if you noticed, but I think you're more emotionally accessible and you're able to articulate sometimes a little bit better when you're looking at the cup. And maybe that's just my perception. But so I'd say maybe,

so I'd recommend a sensory technique for you because it sounds like you do those already. Let me think. What's funny? The cup. What's funny about it? It's just my little cup. It's so, he's so small and it's my,

it's my buddy, you know. It helps me out. It does help you. It does help you. What kind of tea are you drinking? Green. I just got this like really nice, authentic Japanese green tea leaves and you're so good. Let me just think.

What are we going to teach you in terms of meditation? What do you want to, is there something in particular that you want to get better at or learn? There's so much I want to get better at and learn. Holy shit. toss a couple things out there well honesty is a big one communication i think i'm getting really good at those though i think i'm getting really good at being honest and communicating um and i think or something else i really want to get good at is uh processing my emotions you know like really really thinking about what i feel why i feel it and expressing those emotions to other people i have a

really hard time with that and I'm getting better. But that's a big one. I want to get better at not depersonizing. Because that's, it just makes life feel so dull. You know, like, I don't remember half of the, like, the last six months. I mean, it's not that I don't remember it, but it's, it just feels, like, looking back at it, it feels like, like it feels different, you know, if that makes sense. sense. Sure. So I think we're going to try to build on, I'm going to give you a focus, but I think

let's build on your teacup because your teacup is your buddy. So your teacup will help you. The only thing that I'm struggling a little bit with is sometimes I ask people to meditate along, basically, to have our viewers meditate along. I think it's going to be a little bit trickier because I'm going to ask you a couple of specific questions, which it's not going to apply to them. So what I'd like you to do is sit up straight and actually refill your teacup, but don't drink it yet. Sure, sure, sure. And we'll also give people, actually, I'm going to run to the restroom. And I want everyone else to grab a sensory object that they can look at and or something that they can drink or eat, preferably drink.

So something that you can take a sip of that has flavor. Oh, doesn't need flavor. and then grab a sensory object that you can look at that has a lot of well yeah just yeah we're going to meditate together yeah we're going to meditate together that's so cool group meditation yeah so why don't you guys grab that i'll we'll just take a really quick break i'm going to run to the restroom and then we'll get started can i turn off my camera while i got a little bit turn off your camera while you meditate is that good no while i go to the bathroom oh yeah yeah while you go to the bathroom absolutely i wasn't doing

everyone fuck up your overlay or anything. Okay, I'll be right back. I'm not sure if it's going to fuck up my overlay either, but let me do this. Hopefully not. Oh, no. Wait, it dropped out of the call when I did that. Okay. I'm going to leave that here for a second. And then I'll be right back. Okay. Hold on. I'm going to go eat. All right, Titch Chatton. Oh, do you go back? Oh, wow. A lot of people watching. Okay. All right. Let's see. I'm eating owl mans.

Mm. Chew. Be able to do ASMR. Meditation. Does she returneth? Because guys, grab your stuff. Uh-oh. Am I doing something on?

Oh, one second. I think she returneth. Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? All right. So, um,

okay, so what I want you to do, so we're going to go ahead and begin. So I want everyone to sit up straight. So you, I notice you sit with your knees up. I want you to just pause for a second. Close your eyes unless you feel vulnerable again. And I want you to feel the curvature of your back. Yeah.

Like my hand? No, no, just with your sense of self. Seds. And then what I want you to do, I don't know if you can do this or not. But you're sitting cross-legged. Or yes? Okay. I want you to take, so when you sit cross-legged, it's hard to see. What I want you to do is take your, which of your legs is on top? Is your left leg on top or your right leg on top? My left leg. Okay. So I want you to take your right ankle and I want you to put it if you can above your left hip. Like it's all the way up.

Uh-huh. Yes. Now what happened to your back? when you did that? It's straightened. Weird, huh? Okay, good. So can you hold that for a little bit? Sure thing. Good.

So now what I'm going to ask you to do is, so I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. And essentially what this technique is going to be is I want you to pick the focus of what you're going to look at, okay, and place your focus in front of you. And then I'm going to ask you to evoke an emotional memory. Emotional memory? Yeah, I'll tell you which one to pick. Okay.

But for people at home, so just like think about a point in your life that was emotional. And then as you, what we're going to do is you may experience feelings and try to like work through that memory. And if the feelings get to be too much or they feel overwhelming and you can't separate them out, I want you to focus on the object that you're looking at. And as you stare at that object, start to process those feelings and explore them further because as you... So the reason that things feel overwhelming is because you're getting a flood of emotions all at once. And when you direct your attention towards an external object, your attention is not looking at the overwhelming amount of feelings anymore. And so what it does is narrows the spectrum of what's overwhelming you to things that is then going to be hopefully understandable, is,

long as you keep your attention on the cop. Does that make sense? I don't know if that makes any sense. But, okay. So I want you to think about your, your papa being in the hospital. Okay. Okay. And think a little bit about, you know, they're coming to tell you that, you know, it's time to say goodbye and maybe you should come and say goodbye and everyone's taking their turns. and think a little bit about how you felt when that was coming and everyone was kind of going in and out and then they came to you and they said what?

You can answer. They just told me to go hold his hand. And think about how you felt when they said that. What did you feel? I guess I was in denial. That's not a feeling. feeling, that's you reflecting back. I guess, I don't know how I felt.

What did you feel like doing when they said, come hold his hand? Running away. So I guess I felt scared. Good. Right, so good, you're doing it. So like you're looking at the cup. And so you've identified an emotion, which is sort of as obvious in retrospect. but like you it's the I felt like running away that's the experience of the emotion it's not a

hypothesis it's not like an analysis I was in denial no you weren't in denial you were afraid right and what were you running away from what would have happened if you had gone into the room and held his end I'd have had to say goodbye and I would have to let my family see me in an emotional state. And you didn't want them to see you that way. Why not? Because I want to be viewed as strong. And I have trouble being vulnerable emotionally with people.

We're getting into analysis, but good. So I want to be few to strong. No, that's okay. So I'm going to point these out to you, right? So do you see the difference between I want to be few to strong? That's from in here. that's raw and then there's the analysis on top

can you tell the difference between those two things right one is like it's like a raw feeling of like I want to run away I want to be viewed a particular way and then you can dig into that you know the why and the how and the what with your therapist do you want to continue exploring

or you're good okay so just tell me what else so what did you say to them when they said come home to say? I just kept saying, no, I'm okay. I don't want to. And how are you feeling? Each time they said, hey, it's time.

It's really, I wanted them to ask me again. Because I wanted to say yes. And what kept you from saying yes? I was scared. Of what? Saying goodbye. Why did you want to say yes? Because I knew I had to say goodbye.

I don't want to. Now close your eyes. Sit with those feelings. What are you feeling? You can describe a physical sensation if that's easier. Vulnerable. I'm sad. Regretful.

Did you say goodbye? No. You want to give it a shot right now? Uh, no. I think I did over the years in a way. Yeah, so I don't think you're ready yet. So what I saw there was fear. I don't know if I'm not thinking of watching. Did you feel it? Came up again. Like you opened your eyes, they flashed open. Do you feel it? Yeah, there it is. There it is. That was fear, right? I asked you, do you want to say goodbye and what did you feel? There. Absolutely.

You're not ready to say goodbye, but you absolutely have to when you're ready. But I don't think that he needs to, you don't need, you can still say goodbye when you're ready. That makes sense? Yeah. Yep. Yes. All right. So now you get to drink your tea and just taste it for a moment.

So before you do this, before you taste it actually, I want you to just as you taste it, recognize that everything that you just felt is just a piece of you. And in a weird way, I want you to try to depersonalize a little bit. As you taste the tea, just notice what's real and anchor yourself in the reality of the taste of the tea. Okay. Refreshing. Yeah. And where is the fear?

Where's the fear of saying goodbye? Not there. okay, where'd it go? I drank it. It's weird, huh? So that's okay. So I feel like this was way easier than I was expecting it to be. I don't know if why.

I don't know because I mean, I think, you know, we access some very real emotion, especially when I asked you, you know, are you, do you want to say goodbye now? Not like you saw it. At least I could see it. But I think you did a really good job because I think you, you know, by focusing on the cup, oddly, you manage to uncover a couple of things, which are sort of like obvious. But like, you know, the fact that the way that other, that your parents perceive you or your family perceives you, like that's been important to you. You know, and there's a lot of actually really important stuff there to explore further. And I think about meditation is like sort of a complement to therapy. It's not necessarily a substitute. And a couple of. things to further explore ideally with your therapist or on your own or through meditation or however you want to do it. One is this idea that you wanted them to keeps asking you. Right? And there was a part of you that did want to say goodbye or not that want is not the right word. There's a part of you that still knows that you need to say goodbye, but that you absolutely don't want to.

and when I think when it comes to you know all of the emotions that float around and guide your behavior and trigger your depersonalizations now I'm actually going to teach you something that'll help you okay so as long as you're carrying around this fear of saying goodbye to your grandfather your threshold to depersonalize is going to be higher sorry lower so I want you to think about depersonalization is like a bar, like a debuff bar that fills up. And if it fills up all the way, then you depersonalize. Yeah. This stuff around your grandfather is like, it like fills up your bar at 20%.

So all you need to get is 80% to tip over into depersonalization. It's like a 20% fills up your, you know, your poison meter or whatever. And like after a certain amount, then you get poisoned. Yeah. Yeah. So this is why it's important for you to let go of this stuff because, you know, I don't, oh, I don't think that saying goodbye is going to be nearly as bad as you think it is. Yeah. And I think that in a bizarre way, saying goodbye is going to be a way for you to actually reconnect with your Papa.

Yeah. Yeah, maybe. But I don't think it's, I don't think you can understand that until you do it. Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. I think I, I think saying goodbye is necessary and I will. You know, I guess it's just hard. Yeah. Loss is so hard to deal with.

Like in general, not just people dying. Yep. It's really hard to deal with. You look spent. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of tiring to talk about your emotions for a while. Yeah.

Yeah, that's kind of cool. It's kind of fine. Any questions for you before we wrap up for the day? No, I just want to say thank you so much. This has been a really cool experience. You have a really cool way of delving into people's brains, and I feel really good, and I'm glad I came on. So thank you very much.

You're very welcome, and thank you for coming on, because I think, you know, I think the whole point of this is it's not me that's doing it, right? It's you or us. And, and, you know, talking about things like I'm, I'm really happy that, you know, we had a chance to talk about something like vaginismus, because that's one of these problems that like literally people just go their entire life, believing that they're broken. And let me just say this to you guys. If you feel fundamentally broken in some way, shape or form about your body, your mind, your being, your worth as a human being you should definitely go talk to probably actually start with a doctor because the number

of things that make people feel like they're not like other people and that they feel like they're fundamentally broken. So here's the really cool thing. Decent chance that some kind of doctor somewhere can actually help you with that shit. And then you don't have to be broken anymore. But the problem is that you never tell anyone about it because you feel so shame because of how broken you are on the inside. And sometimes that stuff is like actually physical. Like, you know, you can get treatments for all kinds of stuff. I had a guy one time who had gone his entire life with, it's going to sound kind of gross, but like basically anal leakage. And, and, and, you know, he just, yeah, it, it sucks because he would just, you know, and, and, and like, that shit got fixed and his life was

different afterward. And so he just thought he was an incompetent human being because, like, people don't go around shitting themselves and he does. So, like, he's a piece of shit. Sort of makes sense. No pun intended. And, and, you know, like, so get stuff checked out. Like, even if you think it's, like, super, super embarrassing and, like, you're completely

alone and no one ever has this problem and something is fundamentally wrong with you, if you think that something is fundamentally wrong with you, get that shit checked out. Yeah. Life knowing what is. wrong because everyone has their own struggles that they're always going through. Everyone does. Knowing what is wrong is the first step in improving yourself. Cool. Yeah. Yeah, I can get behind that. Awesome, Kate. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Good luck. Thanks. And I hope that the internet does not

hate you and also feel sympathetic for you because you didn't want them to do that. Yeah. It's fine. They can do whatever. You know, they've got to mind their own. They're just, well, but they're showing. Take care of Kate. Thank you so much, Dr. Day. Adios, yeah. Bye. Bye, chat.

On the chatting. When chatting is finished. All righty. Oh, my God. I see a $10,000 donation. What the fuck? Okay. Hey.

You check the Twitch script because this is a really major question. Also, I'll have a lot of get to this case. Okay, I will check. Okay. So, call me Carson Pog.

Absolutely, man. All right. So, first of all, man, so many different things to say. I just need to pause us for a second. I'm feeling overwhelmed.

So the first thing is, like, I don't want you guys to go through life, like thinking you're fucked up, right? And it's, like, really sad. Like, I can just, because that's what happens.

right? Like I remember feeling this way when I was in my early 20s. And I guess I thought of it. It's hilarious, by the way, that she was like, yeah, two years ago, I was young. And it's like, lady, you're still young. You're like 20. Oh, man. But, you know, it's, it's, I just wish that I could read people's minds and like see people on the street who think that they're broken on the inside and just tell them like no you're not broken like that's just not true right and I want you guys to think about you know seven year old kate and um you know looking at like an apples to apple's part such a powerful story and then just seeing pure and just like thinking like that's not going to be me like i'm not like that the thoughts and feelings that we have the things that we

believe to be true about ourselves. The aspects of worth that we treat as facts are born in such insidious places. And then they just grow like our entire life. And I think Kate is really in the minority here because she's incredibly resilient. Usually people get way more fucked than she is like by if they have what happened to her. And I just don't know how else to say that. It's just like I've seen complete train wrecks. This is what we used to call shit life syndrome. Anyway, but, and like, so just stop and think about if you feel like you're an awful piece of shit or like a waste of space or that other people are better than you and you don't deserve forgiveness or any of this kind of crap, you don't deserve to be happy because you're a waste

of space and you just sit there and play video games all day and like all this kind of crap about yourself. Just, no, that's just not true. Like, I understand that you feel that way. And just like Kate did when she was seven, she felt like she was never going to be pure or is not good. And, like, I don't, we can't blame her for feeling that way because she had things happen to her, which made those feelings feel true. And you guys have had shit that's happened to you, which makes your feelings feel true. And I'm not saying that your feelings are wrong. What I'm saying is that you shouldn't form a conclusion about who you are as a person based on that feeling.

Right. Of course she feels tainted for the rest of her life. And of course she feels weak for not saying goodbye to her grandfather. And she's still not strong enough. And she's not strong enough right now. And that's fucking okay. Why do she need to, why do we expect ourselves to have, have all of the strength that we're going to gain over the course of our life now.

Like, where did we set up that expectation? It's okay for her to not be strong enough. And it's okay for you to not be strong enough. Right? Like, and do what she, do what she did. Like, how did she, like, start to love herself? It was sort of like, you know, accepting that she's, like, she was like, yeah, I'm kind of a dumb bitch. and that's not like her beating herself up.

It's actually like a positive sort of thing. And it's kind of like, I think that's the answer. It's not fake it till you make it because that's not really how it happens. That leads to imposter syndrome. It's not getting other people's validation. It's actually like accepting that you are flawed in some way. And we see this in like Alcoholics Anonymous where they start every meeting with, you know, hi, I'm so and so and I'm an alcoholic. Well, when was the last time you had a drink 34 years ago?

It's like, how are you still an alcoholic? And it's like, no, man, I'm still an alcoholic. And so I want you guys to really just stop and think about, you know, do you feel broken and do you feel like you're unredeemable and recognize that those feelings are real and they come from a very real place, but they come from a place that is incomplete. They come from an understanding they're born at the age of seven after you've been sexually abused. It's born in a seven-year-old's mind cannot understand the nuance that is life.

And that feeling in you is primitive because it doesn't have qualities and it's not logical and it like doesn't make sense. But it feels very real. It feels factual. It feels real. And start to explore it and see where that came from. And don't just because you feel that way and it feels true does not mean it has to determine your destiny or the next phase of your life. It doesn't have to. And all you have to do is, you know, take your teacup and look at it.

it and go back to like exploring where where was that feeling born for you where did it come from yeah because it's just not fair for you to live your life like that and you just don't need to and i just don't think it's fair and i don't want you to do that to yourself because you deserve better you deserve to treat yourself better and you deserve your like this is the problem right it's like so many things so many of the people that we work with like they start to get better and then they don't believe they deserve to be better, so they actually stop trying. And it's so fucking mean.

Right? Like you guys have actually spent times of your life where you've started to become good people, but then you stop and a voice inside your head tells you, I'm not a good person. And like, I don't deserve that, so I'm going to stop. And it's so fucking insidious. I hate it so much.

Oh, my God. But it happens. We did an interview many, many months ago when we were a tiny, tiny stream with this guy named Crucif. And I think he illustrates that well. But and like, I mean, come on, dude. Like cut yourself some slack.

Because if, I mean, as long as you believe you don't deserve to be better, you're, there's, I mean, people are like, how do I put my life together? You start by acknowledging that you deserve a life that is worth living. Like, that's where you start. Do you believe that about yourself? Do you believe that you deserve to be happy? Or at least that you deserve a chance at happiness. And if the answer is no, like that's your fucking problem.

Where did you learn that? Where did you learn that you don't deserve a chance to be happy? Anyway, I don't know where to go from there. I'm spending it too. Oh, chat. I have to work today. After this. Okay.

Think about this. Okay. So let me just collect my thoughts for a moment. Here. Boomer is learning. Boomer learneth. Okay. So, okay.

So call me Carson, you magnificent bastard. You're fucking $10,000 donation. So now I'm going to say something, okay? So you guys don't think you fucking deserve help. Well, Paul me Carson fucking disagrees. And he says you guys absolutely deserve help. And he's

giving $10,000 to us so that we can give you what you fucking deserve, which is help. You magnificent bastard, thank you very much. And for all of you guys who believe that you don't deserve help, call me

Carson, Night Vision and Sprim, fucking beg to disagree. And they're putting their money where their mouth is. And so, y'all, if you think you don't deserve help, like, I'm not going to accept that excuse because a lot of people disagree. So yeah, for those of you who don't believe that you,

you know, for those of you don't believe you deserve help, you can go fuck yourselves. I'm putting words and call me Carson's mouth. and also Night Vision and everyone else who's donated. And we also don't want to forget, like, all the other people who are, you know, have donated $6.90. Nice one, Konogaijin. But, you know, like every little bit helps.

And we're really grateful for it. So, so. And then Moses is also saying, he was saying he's was so fond he put himself on the altar of sacrifice for Twitch we're going to make him a fucking bio data and we're going to send it

we're going to like tweet it out and we're going to see what kind of person on the internet wants to have a date with Moses then we're going to do a virtual date and then we're going to pop us some fucking popcorn and we're going to eat it and enjoy it is he giveth of himself Oh man, it's going to be so good. I think we may actually hit 100K.

Okay. So thanks to Orlando Blakely for all the gifted subs, bro. And just a reminder that, so we actually hit our full funding goal for the month. So we're really grateful for that. So massive amount of subs, Orlando Blakely, thank you very much. And yeah, so let me just share a couple things. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And we've been streaming on Twitch for like six or seven months now.

And we try to raise awareness for mental health issues, like every time we stream. But we're really asking for some support to build some of the services that we think our community needs. And at the top of the list for the services that we think the community needs, one is that like one on work matters. And I think that I just can't, you know, streaming is powerful and important. but I think that everyone sort of, you know, deserves the opportunity to have what people who come on here on stream of, which is that for a compassionate and authentic human being to like listen to what they have to say and try to support them through it through it. And I can't do it for all of you.

I just like, it's like literally time and space constrain what I can do. So I'd love to do it for each and every one of you. If our community is 20 people, it'd be awesome. We'd be done. but it's bigger and I'm sort of glad that it's bigger because that's what that's what we need right now right like that's who we are. I wasn't kidding when I was trying to virtually embrace Kate when she was like 11 and joined the internets and came home to her people because that's us and we're all a little bit broken and we all deserve a little bit help a little bit of help and that's what our coaching

program is there for. So we'll see if this grand experiment works. I wouldn't have asked for money until we knew it was working, basically. So we collected a bunch of data. I designed a study. I designed a lot of, you know, Harvard, Andy instruments. And I'm confident that it actually can help people, which is why we're actually doing it. So, you know, all the testing and stuff was on our end. But now that I've, now that we've actually helped, we had people enroll in our beta program and they worked with coaches for eight months and those people felt like it was helpful. And so now that I have, now that I'm confident that this can help in some way, shape, or form, like now it's about actually providing it for you guys. So it's fully funded now. So thank you guys very much. At 100K,

we start a scholarship fund and we're going to have Moses's E-date. So the other thing guys, is anything else we raise after 75K is actually going to subsidize free coaching. And so we recognize that a lot of people, so we're making coaching super cheap. You know, it's going to be like way cheaper than going to a therapist because it's not therapy. But, and we're still committed to offering, you know, services to people irrespective their ability to pay. And we're kind of working on that. And so, yeah.

And so we're committed to that. And, you know, we really try to make our content as easily accessible and available as possible. And then one last thing to think a little bit about is that on Friday, so I don't know exactly what we're doing on, why is everyone saying Keemstar? Is that a person or is that like a word? I can't tell See, I don't know if you guys are talking about people Or like

Is that like Pog? Like do you guys see how that's confusing Because when you're like Pog Champ Like I don't know if Pog Champ is a person Or just something that people say Because Pog Champ kind of sounds like Kemp Star Like is a Keem Star a thing?