HealthyGamerGG - Why Nothing Has Worked For You

Episode Date: July 19, 2026

In this episode, Dr. K provides a play-by-play clinical analysis of his Jubilee appearance, where he spoke with a Marine veteran named Lamar. Breaking down their interaction, Dr. K demonstrates why true therapy is "literally so much more than talking about your feelings," exploring the psychological defenses of combat veterans, the failures of the modern mental health system, and how to reach someone who has completely lost hope. What to expect in this episode: The Trap of "Bucketing": Why the standard psychiatric approach of immediately labeling patients and throwing medications (like Trazodone) at them makes them feel penalized, unheard, and treated like a problem. Reflective Listening in Action: A practical demonstration of why Dr. K refuses to offer Lamar a "solution," knowing that Lamar's defense mechanisms are primed to reject any advice as just more broken promises. Fighting the Hydra: Understanding the exhausting psychological state where every attempt to get better fails, leaving the patient feeling worse off than when they started and simply "running on fumes". Depression vs. Unhappiness: The clinical difference between the two, and why a patient can technically have their life circumstances improve on paper but still feel completely stuck. Turning Away From the Rainbow: A look at the "cognitive filter" of severe depression, where a person actively shuns fleeting moments of happiness to protect themselves from the inevitable disappointment of the "rain clouds" returning. The Betrayal of Doing Everything Right: Unpacking Lamar's deep trauma of sacrificing his youth for the Marines, holding onto the promise that his country would take care of him, only to return to a park bench while the rest of the world moved on. Anger as a Stepping Stone: Exploring Freud's concept that depression is "anger turned against the self," and why allowing a patient to express their deep-seated rage and resentment is a crucial step in the healing process. Disarming Hopelessness: How a therapist's true goal isn't necessarily to provide the "right answer," but to soften a patient's rigid hopelessness enough to make them curious and open-minded about their own future. Dr. K's NEW Guide to Love, Sex, & Relationships is here! Order now: https://bit.ly/4dO3x0VHG Coaching : https://bit.ly/46bIkdo Dr. K's Guide to Mental Health: https://bit.ly/44z3SztHG Memberships : https://bit.ly/3TNoMVf Products & Services : https://bit.ly/44kz7x0 HealthyGamer.GG: https://bit.ly/3ZOopgQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This episode is brought to you by FIFA World Cup, launch edition on Netflix. It's a fast, fluid game where your phone is the controller and your TV is the stadium. You just launch it on your TV, scan the QR code with your phone, and boom, you're shooting and passing in seconds. Plus, it's included in your Netflix membership

with zero extra costs. Go to the Games tab and play FIFA World Cup launch edition now, only on Netflix. Hey, chat, welcome to the Healthy Gamer Gigi podcast. I'm Dr. Al-Ocunoja, but you can call me Dr. K. I'm a psychiatrist gamer and co-founder of Healthy Gamer. On this podcast, we explore mental health and life in the digital age, breaking down big ideas to help you better understand yourself and the world around you.

So let's dive right in. So I was lucky enough to be invited to Jubilee's Surrounded program as a psychiatrist engaging with 20 people with depression. So a lot of people will say, like, I don't understand the point of therapy because what good is talking about my feelings, right? How does that help? And I actually agree. I think just going to a place once a week and blabbing about how your life sucks is not super helpful. There are some cases of something called supportive psychotherapy, which it can be helpful.

But I think what we can do today by kind of doing a play-by-play analysis of the Jubilee video, specifically the conversation with a gentleman named Lamar, is we can see. what the goal of therapy is. And we can see a little bit of it in action. Okay? So not that I'm Lamar's psychiatrist, but we can sort of see, like,

what we try to do as therapists. And I want to show y'all how therapy is literally so much more than talking about your feelings. So let's get started. For me, I can't speak as to everybody's journey at where they've been in life.

But as far as for me, I feel like this is like the conclusion. A little bit of background on me. I'm a Marine. So I've been in major conflicts. I've trained people for conflicts and everything. First thing is already is like, this is the conclusion. These are opening words.

There is already a sentiment of this is over and nothing can change. And I want y'all to pay attention to that theme in his words. So another thing about this video is I'm not going to just lay things out. I'm going to put questions and hypotheses to you. So for y'all to try to do the thinking. Okay. So pay attention to the same. theme. I only had a week on how to adjust to being a civilian again. After that week, I started

sleeping in the closet for six months. So this is really severe. I've worked with dozens, if not hundreds of veterans over the course of my career, and very few of them end up sleeping in the closet for six months. There are some people who are severely impaired. I'm not going to even say ill, but their capability to live a normal life is severely impacted. That I would come back to opportunities, jobs. I came back to a park bench. So I felt like I was kind of like left behind. Well, you were.

I was left behind. So this is another really common experience for veterans. Like, I want you all to imagine this for a moment. You're 22 years old, or maybe you're 18, you enlist in the Army. You're on a tour of duty for eight years. So you come back at the age of 26. So you leave the regular world. You go live a completely different life for eight years.

And then you come back. The people that you knew have moved on. People have gone to college. They've started careers. They've gotten married. And now you are just coming back. And you're kind of starting over at the age of 26. I've accepted everything that I've done as far as like my career over there.

and it haunts me a lot of things, you know. It's taking over my life. When I got out, it feels like it's a starter package. I would talk to a mental health specialist. They would hear the problem. And then it's like they put you in a category and be like, all right, here's your trazidone. Here's your lazepine. Here's your, go out the door.

Here you go. So he comes back and it's hard enough if you've, like, missed eight years, right? The girl that you were crushing on is now divorced with two kids. So like, what do you do about that? Okay. But then he comes back and he has trouble because we all know that veterans have trouble. And then this is really important. There's another theme that I want y'all to pay attention to.

He gets categorized. He gets bucketed. And then this two, one thing we do is psychiatrists. So if you guys want to learn how to be really good with people, okay, you can't just pay attention to their words. You have to pay attention to the themes. You also need to pay attention to the facial expressions and body language. He does this. They're done with him.

It's over. There's a sense of, what does this mean? Right? What does this mean? This is conclusion. This is finished. Okay? I tell you that doesn't work.

It was given to me like I was the problem. It almost seems like I was getting penalized for the medication not working. Absolutely, right? So I'm getting the sense that you sort of got judged that you were supposed to be a certain way. You were supposed to respond. You were supposed to get better. and you didn't get better. No.

And then they label you, they bucket you, they put you on this track, it almost feels like. Yes. Yeah. So what's that like for you? Well, that's why I say it feels like a conclusion because after that doesn't work, my only question is what's next? None of the treatments are working. And when you are struggling with a problem and none of the treatments are working, what do you imagine is the feeling that,

you get, right? Each failure does what to him? It's not just that the illness doesn't improve. There is a story being crafted here of failure number one, failure number two, failure number three, failure number four that he feels blamed for. Clearly, something is left over from your time in the Marines. And then when you came back, they said, okay, for people who aren't able to integrate, take Trazidone, take Loxapine, and then if you don't get better, then do that. this, then do this, then do this, then do this. And you're a guy who tried it all. So this is a really important technique. So he's given me all of this information and I am basically repeating it back to him. This is called reflective listening. I heard his story, right? And I'm not trying to convince him

or anything like that. I heard his story and I just put it back to him. And I want you guys to pay attention to his face. And think for a moment about what are you guys reading from these facial expressions. And if I were to tell you, Lamar, there is something that will help you. How would you receive that? Okay. So now comes a really important thing. This is what we do in therapy. I've reflectively listened to him, right? I've said, this is what happened to you. If I told you something would help, how would it, how would you respond? I'm not even saying, hey, I think something can help. I do think something can help. But I'm not going to say that. What we want to do is understand where he is. And then he says, I would have to categorize you. Now we're getting

somewhere. So this is really important to understand. He got bucketed. And what does he do in turn? He buckets us. You're just like all of the other psychiatrists to say, something will help, something will help, something will help. So now we have a challenge. I started Healthy Gamer to help people, particularly my people, who are often left behind by the mental health system. As we've grown Healthy Gamer, we've also started working with partners to help us keep things affordable. And that's why I want to tell you about Rebound. Rebound provides specialized virtual trauma treatment with expertly trained therapists. It was founded by a team of survivors and psychologists who know firsthand how difficult it can be to live in survival mode and who believe that everyone deserves to heal from trauma. This is very

different from standard talk therapy. It's a highly structured treatment designed to safely and effectively help your brain reprocess past trauma so you can release what you've been carrying. You're supported throughout the process by a team of survivor advocates, many of whom have lived experience themselves, so you're never alone throughout the process. Rebound is available in all 50 states, and they accept many leading insurance plans like Aetna, many Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, and more. To see if specialized trauma treatment could be the right next step for you, head to hellorebound.com where you can check your insurance, book a free call with one of our care specialists, and find out more. Rebound.com slash healthy gamer, and the link is in the description below.

So here is someone who has been bucketed, treated unfairly, has severe problems. He was overseers for eight years. Reminds me this movie Interstellar where, like, you're time traveling and then you come back and your daughter is like older than you are. Like you've been unplugged from life and you come back and you have all kinds of autonomic problems and things like that. And everyone tells you this is going to work and nothing works. So how do you help this person?

who the theme here is, games over. He's going to bucket us. And when I'm working with someone who is so sure about something, it's not just talking about our feelings. A big part of the work that we're trying to do is to make people less rigid.

Can we get them to be curious? Can we get them to look at things in a different way? But that is not easy to do. We can't present them with evidence because he's just going to knock it down. But let's keep watching. So now we have a different kind of problem, which is that you have learned

that something won't work. I think I was taught. That's a little work. The reason people can't fix one problem is because they have an adaptation to that problem that complicates things. So this is a scenario where it's like, okay, not like he showed up, tried thing one, tried thing two, tried thing three, tried thing four. But once you develop hopelessness, once you think things are over,

it becomes really hard to try again, right? People are really burnt out. So now I have two goals. In order to get them to even try something, I have to disable the hopelessness on top. The reason nothing is working is because I don't think anyone has really understood what you struggle with. This is why patients stay stuck because they have subconscious patterns that create the problems that they deal with day in and day out. So I tell them, hey, I think the problem is that no one has understood you. I think the problem is that you got bucketed.

And anything that we do after you get bucketed isn't going to work because nothing we've done. after you got bucket, it works, right? That's the data you're giving me. I'm just giving it back to you. And then what's his answer? So now what? What do I do? What do I do?

What's the answer? What's the solution? Right? And I don't know if this makes sense, but the whole problem is that someone kept on giving you solutions. So if I say the solution is do this, it's game over. I'm caoed. I'm knocked out.

So I'm not going to do that. So where do we go from here? We understand you, man. Now he starts talking again, right? So look at his facial expression from, so what's the solution? now and watch he was swinging a KO like it's a KO punch what do I do but I don't want to take it I want to get him to keep talking I don't want him to quit I don't want him to give into the hopelessness my job description changed from heavy mechanics and helicopters to now I'm 03 heavy machine

gunner then I switch again to intel now I'm doing interrogations throughout the night now he's sharing I say what do we do we understand you right and he kind of pushes back Okay, now that way, if we understand you, then what, then what, then what? But what is he doing? We're starting to understand him. I don't think anyone can help you unless we understand the ways in which you're broken. You get me, man? There's no way people sort of labeling you and sort of saying, oh, like, Loxapine is going to fix this and Trasidone is going to fix this.

That doesn't even begin to touch the surface. So now I'm using an interesting technique, which is I'm zeroing it on my point again. I'm kind of driving, hey, we can't fix this unless we understand you. and then I'm using examples that he's used, right? People have tried that before. I'm suggesting a solution, but I'm pointing out to him at the same time that when people didn't try to understand you, it didn't work out. But to understand on that surface level, I don't think I've came across that.

I believe you, man. Yeah, but I'm saying like, even though you believe me and all this, what does it do for me? He's frustrated. He's like, man, this guy, like, so what? What do I do? And this is another thing that we do in therapy is like when people get frustrated, we have to handle it in a particular way. And what I notice is that he says, I go back, right? So you're this guy, this fucking guy on this TV show. And now I go back to my life. And then I pick up on something else, which we've kind of already noticed a little bit of, is isolation, which is going to be another important theme to pay attention to.

Here's my experience. I've done a lot of work with veterans. First thing that I learned is, y'all don't come back the same. Each and every one of you comes back a little bit different. So now I'm doing something kind of interesting. I'm not going to take the bait. When he says, what do I do? How does this help me? Not going to take the bait. Instead, what I'm going to do is share, right? Share a little bit about what his situation is like. I'm going to try to speak his truth. Second thing is, I don't know that there's anything that I can do or anyone else can do that will actually help you. So this is a weird thing to say, right? I don't know if there's any way that I can help you. And I want you guys to pay attention to his face. What I'm here,

hearing is that people haven't really understood you and that you've been doing this alone. Watch the facial expression, right? There's changes. What are you guys seeing? If I take my car to the shop and no one understands what's wrong with it and people start fixing it, that's what people have been doing with you. They've been saying, hey man, this is going to work. Hey man, this is going to work. Hey man, this is going to work. Now, as I say this to you, what are you feeling, Lamar? I see you shaking. I'm shaking because like I said, after hearing the same thing, it feels repetitive. It feels like I'm in a loop.

Like, it just feels like a loop. Okay, so now he's smiling. But what kind of smile is it? Can you guys tell? What's it like to be stuck in this loop? Every day I feel like it might be my last. Like, you know what I mean? Right?

So now there's emotion coming to the surface. And now something interesting happens, right? He says, I feel like this might be my last. It's not what he's saying. It's his attitude towards speech. This is what we do. So this guy struggle. every day with my guess, I don't know, chronic suicidality is my guess.

He's like, every day could be my last. But if I gave him an answer at any point, we never would have gotten here. So now we're getting to something important, which is like as I speak to him about, you know, how potentially doomed he is and I may not be able to help him and how things are so hard, anxiety comes to the surface. He gets frustrated. He says, I'm in a loop. And by the way, any moment could be my last.

So when he shares this emotion, my play is going to be once again. Let's signal to him that we heard. Lamar, I'm grateful to you. And I know it sounds kind of weird. I can see that you're really struggling. I can see that every day, on the one hand, it feels inevitable. And on the other hand, it feels like one day you're going to be off the loop and you're never going to come back, right?

It feels that way. And I think the beautiful thing about this, and I know it sounds weird, to call it beautiful is it blows my mind how many people feel the way that you do. There are a lot of people out there that have come back from war, have been cops, have been firefighters, and when they look at you, when they see you, I think what they see is someone who is like them, that they're not alone in this world. And I don't know if we can fix you, man, but I certainly know that if you're alone, it's going to be way harder.

This is my anxiety riders sometimes. So this is tough. We're bringing a lot of stuff up. Let's see what happens next. In my opinion, that most therapists are psychiatrists don't truly believe in the ways in which to help. It's almost like you go to school long enough for something that you feel like you can't turn around now

like you've been in it. So let me just go forward and let me just play the game almost. You know, I hate to push stuff the way I think it. But it's like a game. It's just how I feel. But I've heard what you've told others. And it's some things that I found to be quite out there. So he smiled earlier, but how is this smile now?

Is this a defensive smile? The other thing is, this is another thing that happens a lot, right? This is why it's hard. I don't think he's, most people are not aware. This is what we see in therapy is now he's saying, look, I'm coming to a psychiatrist and I'm saying, I think y'all delude yourselves into believing stuff can work, right? And he knows it's like kind of a disrespectful thing to say to someone's face. your profession.

Y'all are all delusional, bro. So once again, there's a certain, if I'm not careful, I'll fall into this trap. Out of everyone that you've spoken to today, do you truly feel as if you've helped anybody at all? Do I feel as if I've helped?

Now something interesting has happened. He used to be closed off, and now he's curious, right? Have you helped? And my answer is this. I don't know. So one of the key things I've learned in my life, Lamar, is to not trust what I feel, to act independently of what I feel. What do you do with those who just seem like they can't find a way out?

Now he's asking, but what about me? What about me? You know, what do you do for the people who are hopeless? Right? So he's really looking for answer, guidance. Now he has asked me three or four times. I mean he's the fourth time he said, what should I do? What do we do?

So once again, what we're trying to do is he has this idea of what psychiatry is. They have all the answers and none of them work. And one of the key things as a therapist is oftentimes we do have answers. But someone is not ready to hear them. When we have an idea of what's right, we are skilled at getting you to see it. Or it's not even see our solution. We are skilled at getting you to be a little bit more open-minded. look at your own beliefs, question them.

Ultimately, the right answer comes from you. And then I'm going to offer something else, which is like, now that he's open-minded, now that he's asking a question, I'm going to plant a seed of an answer. So one of the challenges that I have is I don't know when to give up on a patient. Let's say that we start working together and I work with you for two years and you don't get better at all. Do I give up at that point? Or is three years, maybe three years could do it.

There's a conversation we'll have, which is like, okay, therapy does not work. Psychiatry does not help you. What now? What are we going to do? Are you willing to not give up with me? I guess up to a certain point, but like I said, we just keep on hitting our head against the wall. Then it's like, at what point is it? Like I said, I don't know what words these, but at what point is it stupid?

So now this is a really great interaction, right? Because he's saying, like, well, what, what do you? Can you help people who are unhelpable? Like, what about the hopeless people? And then I say, and now I do something kind of interesting here. So when he's faced with this question, I put a question to him, right? And what I'm trying to do is get him to think about it. Because if I say, yes, I can help people.

A couple of things will happen. One is he'll be like, he'll be like, okay, sure, you can help people, but you can't help me? You guys, can y'all predict that? Right? That's what he would have said. So instead I say, you know, it's an interesting question. Here's what I struggle with is I don't know when to stop. If you do things for two years and then like, what if it takes three?

Like, should I quit it two? but what if things work at three? So we're trying to enter the realm of curiosity. And then there's also something very, very subtle in his answer. One word that he uses, that he has never used before in this conversation. And that word is critical to the efficacy of therapy. And the word just for the editors is we, right? So now he's saying we instead of I.

Yeah. So like I said, I've had three patients in my career, okay? and I've seen somewhere between probably 500,000 people that I really don't believe I've been able to help. Those are the three that I tried everything that I knew and learned a bunch of other stuff. So he's kind of skeptical. He's like, look, can you really help people?

And I'll say, look, there are three people that I've been unable to help. And I'm giving him the option of being number four. Maybe you're in that category of unhelpable people. Those people absolutely exist. See, the nature of depression is that even if you're getting better, you won't notice it. So this is another point where now I'm planting another seed.

This is a function of Jubilee once again, like not their problem or anything like that. But if Lamar were my patient, I would not have gone down this road at this point because he's not ready for this. But also in therapy, a big part of what we want to do is when someone is open-minded, you have a chance to plant a seed. And that's basically, and when I'm on Jubilee, I'm not just talking to Lamar. In the back of my mind, what I'm talking to is everyone who is in Lamar's situation. I had a patient who came into my office once, a couple years in, and he said, Dr. Kay, I'm just as bad as when I showed up. And then I asked him, I said, well, how's your work going? Because they had trouble with work.

And they said, work's fine now. I'm not getting in trouble anymore. They started taking their cholesterol medication. There are many things in their life that had improved. But they didn't feel like it had improved. And then I told them that day, I said, you know, I think you're not depressed. I think you're unhappy. And there's a big difference between those two things.

So now I put the seed to him, which is, hey, there's a difference between depression and unhappiness. And now we're still doing well because then he responds with, doesn't one lead to the other? And I want y'all to think about the attitude there, right? Like pay attention to him over the last couple of minutes and then the first time that we talked to him. So I'm not providing answers, but he's asking a lot of questions. That's where the progress is made. And one of the interesting things is that if you weren't in therapy, would you potentially be worse? It's hard to say because I've taken therapy and feels like, you know what I mean?

There is another principle in therapy that sometimes feel like people feel like therapy isn't helping. But the way in which they're sinking, they're on a downward trajectory. And the first sign of therapy working is a stabilization of the decline. So it goes like this and then we stabilize. and then we start moving up. It's like a hydro almost like one head, chop one off and two more grow back. And so I think you're dealing with a profound sense of skepticism.

I wouldn't even call it hopeless. But I think you've learned that nothing seems to help. A couple of important things here. One is I'm kind of talking over him, which is a bad move. But we have another really interesting tidbit, which is that he says it's a hydra. So now we understand what his experience is.

What's the experience of fighting the hydra? The experience of fighting the hydra is you make progress and you are worse off than when you started. The more you do, the worse things get. Now, I want y'all to think for a moment about if someone believes that the more they do, the worse off they are, what does their life look like? What does their future look like? What does their day-to-day existence look like? The biggest problem that people have had dealing with you is that they label you really fast and they think they know what will help.

I think so, too. But I've seen too many people in your situation who have gotten better. And so I stupidly, foolishly, I know it's dumb. I choose to keep trying because when I'm hopeless, I could be wrong. And when I'm hopeful I could be wrong too. So then we're left with one basic question, which is, when we don't know what's going to work. We don't know.

Is it going to work? Is it not going to work? How are you going to respond to that uncertainty? I don't think there's no direct answer to any of that. Like, I think at this point I just roll with punches. Like, I just rock with punches at this point. Now I'm trying to frame for him the fundamental problem that he has to solve first. We haven't even gotten to why he's in the closet, you know, for six months being fed meals,

what his day to day is life, what the hell happened when he was overseas and doing interrogation? We haven't touched any of that. But I've framed the fundamental problem for him is like, look, there's no way to know what can work. And he's asked me several times, like, what do you do? In my situation, what do you do? Can you help these people? And the fundamental problem that we have to grapple with is how are you going to engage with the problem? Right?

Not what is the problem and how to solve it, but for a hydro, what's the right way to approach a hydra? Could be hopeless, could be hopeful. And I want you all to pay attention to his face and his answer. I'm really running off of fumes in this last little bit of my life. Like, I truly believe that. Yeah, I mean, you've been running on fumes for a long time. Fighting the hydra empties you of all energy. There's no way to win, but you keep on fighting.

You get tired, tired, tired. Now I'm pushing a little bit more than I would if I was his therapist, right? Where I say like, but you've been running on fumes for a long time. And I think y'all can also understand that basically, and y'all may have experienced this, where you feel like you're running on fumes constantly. And then he even says something really kind of scary, which is in this last little bit of my life. They can carry you way farther than you may have ever realized,

which is what's insane, dude. I think, but see, that's the point. It used to be I persevered through it, like, no matter what happens. As long as I'm breathing, I keep on going. Even though we're talking about the bleepness, he's running out of fumes. Look at his face now. Look at how he's talking. What's his manner?

I don't hype myself up, hype myself up, hype myself up. Doesn't work. It doesn't work no more. It ain't always rainbows and gumgrops. So what we're doing here is actually really important because even though we're talking about the negative, he's not defensive, right? He's sharing. I get you, man.

I see what you're saying. It's hard. You know, I didn't say it's hard. That must be so hard for you. You don't want to use, don't use that ever if you're trying to reflectively listen. It just tunes people out. But what he's, remember my, my big issue or my big perception of him is that. that he's isolated, he gets categorized, he gets bucketed, he gets labeled.

How do we fundamentally solve that problem? We got to get him to open his mouth. What is your experience like, right? And he's sharing, he's sharing, he's sharing. It's not all rainbows. And then I try another interesting technique. When was last time it was rainbows? Can you even remember?

No, not actually like, I'll be in survival mode so long that when I see something that may potentially be a happy moment, I shunned away from that shit because I feel like it's a fleeting moment. Like, it's not for me. Oh, wow. There are absolutely moments in his life that have been positive. But it is a really important data point for me and him to realize that, oh, my God, that was so far in the past that I don't even remember it. It was from a different era, a different age, back when the world was innocent.

And Rome was the largest city in the world. world, right? That's how far it is away from him. Now, if you think about it practically, I think that he's had good things happen to him, that he's just not able to access. But one of the signs of progress in therapy and one of the kinds of things that we try to do in therapy is try to help you realize that there were rainbows, to access those rainbows, to connect to those rainbows. Because right now, his life is all clouds, all gray. And the work that we want to do, what does health look like? It's not just talking about your feelings. It's helping you see. the rainbows that happen, by the way, when the storm clouds clear, right? In order to see a rainbow,

we need a lot of water vapor or we need rain and we need sunshine. So rainbow here is a beautiful analogy, actually. And the work is to help people to see the positive in their life. This is not gaslighting. This is a removal of cognitive bias, but that takes time. And once people are able to genuinely see the good in life, their whole attitude changes. But we run into a really interesting problem. Yeah, I'm not going to laugh. So even if there's a fleeting moment of happiness, you turn away from it? I turn away from it because I've been dealt shitty hands.

You know what I mean? Like, when the sky starts to open up, the sun comes out, I'm looking at like, where's the rain cloud at? Not only is it that their rainbows don't exist. Now we see another problem that is layered on top, which is that even if a rainbow exists, he turns away from it. But before we get to the why and how and these are the adaptation, This is the work of therapy is like you have this bad thing and then you build survival mechanism that protects you from it.

But survival mechanism causes problems. And then you build second survival mechanism on top, which causes additional problems. And I want you all to think about what is going on here. So I ask him, when was the last time you saw a rainbow in life? And he says, I can't remember. And then about 30, 60 seconds later, he's like, when I see a rainbow, I turn away. So this is kind of interesting because if you say there's rain and, in my life every day, but you discount the data points. You actually turn away from the data points that are

in the positive direction. We know this happens in depression, that people have literally something called a cognitive filter, which when something good happens, they don't register it or they push it away. Anytime there's a W, I don't register it. Anytime there's an L, I do register it. What is the picture that my life becomes? And this is really, tricky, right? Because his life feels so bad, and I have no doubt that it is, but there is a thing here that we can change. This is not talking about your feelings. This is a cognitive retraining to at least register your Ws. I'm not saying that there isn't one W for 99 L's. Could it be very rare Ws, one out of 10. Who knows? But the key thing here is that for some reason, he's not even willing to register them.

damn how it is because why everybody's like this? So when someone turns away from the sun, how dark do you think their life is going to be? I'm pretty sure it gets darker, but if when the sun is out and it's still dark, though, you know what I mean? You're the one who's turning away. Yeah, because I've already been, I've already been, I guess, conditioned.

I want you to think about that for a second, Lamar. I don't doubt that you believe this for a good reason because you've learned, right? That even though there's sun, it ends up being rain clouds anyway. Yeah. This protects you from being disappointed. It is. But it traps you.

Yeah. There's pros and cons in it. Most definitely. It's pros and cons. So let's talk about turning away from the rainbow. So why does someone turn away from the good things in life? Because there's a sense of the other shoe dropping. So in life, we have a certain amount of hope.

We have a certain amount of drive. And over time, if we get punished for hoping again and again and again, at some point we decide that the right adaptation for survival is to stop hoping. And this is the problem with a lot of like depression is that, see, you can have two goals in life. Your goal can be to survive or your goal can be to thrive. And when circumstances happen to people like Lamar, where he's overseas for eight years, and then like he comes back at some point thriving is like no longer, is not no longer.

It stopped working a long time ago. So the only option that we've got is survive, running on empty. In these last few moments, I'm running on empty, running on empty, running on empty. I tried and tried. I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired. Right.

Now we've lowered the goalpost so much because that's not possible at all. That future is gone. All that's left is survival. The other thing is I want to just think about this with me for a second. So he has tried to fix his life. and he's been punished for it. Things have not worked out. So I think there are a couple of things here that I kind of want to highlight,

and I'm trying to find the words for them. The first is that he has a lot of disappointment in what's supposed to work. So usually when I hear this calcified of a lack of hope, a loss of faith in the system, of being bucketed by psychiatrists, I suspect that there is one really important nitis of this. belief. So there's one really traumatic thing that happened to him. And I'm going to, I know this is kind of abstract. So I'll give you all an example. When I worked with people like this in the past, they go off to war with the hope of something to return to. You know, when I come back, I'm making

all these sacrifices. But when I come back, someone else will meet me halfway. And someone else will help me get back into life. I'll have doctors for medications. My sweetheart will be there. But when I come back, what I discover is that all of it's gone, right? And just think about how crushed you are. Think about how you see the world now. What is the point in trying? You tried and you sacrificed. And here's the scary thing about Lamar. He did everything right. We haven't even touched that yet. But if you pay attention, he did everything right and look at where it got him. And now some fucking Harvard-trained psychiatrist with all of his knowledge and all of his credentials is going to tell me, no, no, no, this is the right. This is the right. This is

the right. He's heard that before. It's spaghetti against a wall. So this is what we have to get out, man. We have to let this out. Let that anger out because he's carrying it all alone by himself because as long as that anger is there you're not going to be able to engage in life i try to be that marina comes back to shitty man it's this shit it's not what was told to me like you do this get the honorable discharge and america take care of you like all this type of stuff so i've been fed all this i believed it whole hardly there we go like i'm i held onto that hope just to be shattered man just to be shattered in a way that touched with my my Achilles hill i want you all to pay attention to the emotion, right? The pent-up emotion of being let down. Ain't nothing you can really

tell me at this point because now I'm in piss mode, really. I'm pissed. Ah, look, we predicted the anger as well. Once again, I cheated, but I honestly didn't remember it. This is a common pattern, okay? So Freud said that depression is anger turned against the self. So one of the steps in depression is you feel really depressed, you feel really hopeless. We've got to convert that into anger as part of the healing process. So when you try to come in with the niceness, and okay, that's cool, but in my mind, that shit temporary, we ain't got no connection like that. Notice his face now. Now it's coming out, right? So now, so he was open for a little while. He was smiling. He was asking questions. Now, no more. I'm glad you're sharing your anger with me. You've been told a thousand times,

do this and it'll work, and it's never worked. It's never worked. So what's the play here, right? Now the play is, we're going to reflect back. So now that he's, closed off again. We can't plant any more seeds. And then there's this whole business about turning away from the sun. I think what's going to be really interesting is I don't know how to help you. I believe you can be helped. Look at his face, right? Now we're back. We've almost regressed. And I think there's something that I'm going to kind of leave you with, which is this is going to be a video that's going to be watched by millions of people. And all those people are going to watch you and they're going to think something about you

and they're going to say something about you. I think what they say about you and what they think about you is going to be profound. So now what am I doing, right? I'm saying like, look, this is going to be seen. People are going to look at this and they're going to see you.

And I want you guys to like look at his face. Does he like what I am saying, right? Can he handle what I'm saying? And now comes the best question, the final question. which is in his mind, what does he think people will think about him, right? What do y'all think? Let's see if you all can figure it out, right? Does he think, I'm not even going to give you all answers, but this is like, this is really important to understand.

I wish there was a way that I could flip a switch in your head and have you receive that the way that normal human beings get to. So I want y'all to just think. How are people going to perceive him? Does he know? And what is his reaction to that? And how do you understand that? And that's why therapy is helpful. Because what we end with is when a human being receives something from other human beings and this is their reaction, right?

Imagine what their life is like. And fixing that is way more than just talking about your feelings. Thanks for joining us today. We're here to help you understand your mind and live a better life. If you enjoy the conversation, be sure to subscribe. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if?

Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home.