If I Speak - 29. Has therapyspeak improved our lives?

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

Does knowing your attachment style make life any easier? Moya and Ash tackle a mystery question about our newfound fluency in the language of therapy. Plus: advice for a listener who’s becoming estranged from his sister. ONLY TWO WEEKS until our live show at the London Podcast Festival! Join Moya, Ash and special guest Yomi […]

Hello and welcome to a new episode of If I Speak, the show for yappers, gossips and perennial overthinkers. I'm joined by my co-pilot, my comrade, the CEO of Disordered Attachment Inc, Moya Lothian-McLean. Moya, how the hell are you? It's actually Disorganized Attachment Ash. You know how I am. I'm overthinking. I'm overthinking again uh president of the rumination nation i mean what what have your headlines been it's been a little while since me and you have had a chance to chat the headlines that are really stressing me out i can't talk about and it's not just the things that i've mentioned to you there's other there's other stuff going on all All I will say is some men

are very bitter and they want, and they think that men think they're not bitchy. Some of the biggest bitches I know are men and they want to bring you down and they want to see you fail, but you shall not topple me. Roads shall not fall this time. That's one thing I would say. I want to know what you've been up to. What have you been gallivanting off to? um i want to know what you've been up to where have you been gallivanting off to oh well i went on my first completely work-free holiday for so long so when i say a work-free holiday i mean a work-free holiday where i didn't check slack where i wasn't writing something where i wasn't doing anything remote i genuinely was not working and it was going to Spain for my best friend's wedding which by the way was fucking magical like it's so much more fun when your friend gets married rather than you getting

married because like I remember particularly before the ceremony just being so anxious and like everyone was staring at me in this completely crazy way and I was like I don't I don't know like this is why people elope like I'm not sure if I could do this with like everyone looking at me in this completely crazy way and I was like I don't I don't know like this is why people elope like I'm not sure if I could do this with like everyone looking at me um and you don't have that emotion when it's your best friend because you're the one doing the crazy staring you're the one doing the crazy staring we're like oh my god you're most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my whole life um so it was completely gorgeous at the wedding definitely ran into some if I speak special ones which was great so i was i was to be chatting to people and they'd be like uh you better not put this in your stupid little podcast

and you know what i have put it in my stupid little podcast oh in hurley so that was really really fun i have an update i have an update from a special one oh what it's a good update those of you may remember the special one who wanted to fake their own death i have met the special one who was going to fake their own death um and they did not fake their own death and they said thank you very much for the advice and i can confirm that they are very interesting and engaging in real life and uh they don't need smelly boys to prove that you know what? I knew they were going to be interesting and engaging. Like of all the special ones,

it's not like I read that dilemma and I was like, well, you're going to be really boring. I was like, nah, bitch, you're creative as fuck. Like if anything, too much imagination. But yeah, the one thing about the wedding, which was a bit like, is that thank God after the celebrations, because it's an Irish wedding wedding right so there's two days

there's day one and day two after all the celebrations of day one my best friend the bride broke her foot no which was not ideal yeah and like she sent me the x-ray yesterday and it's like a proper proper break so it really is like something old something new something badly fractured and possibly displaced uh something blue is that a good omen so the day two she was wearing her beautiful outfit and dress and and one really high heel and one flip-flop and then had patched the foot with ice so it didn't stop her oh i'd be bummed out i'm not it's a bum out i'm not gonna lie breaking your foot is that is there a honeymoon will they be going on a honeymoon with the broken foot um i think i think they're gonna have to like do some more scans in that but like and again i think

this is sort of a testament to like when you are determined that you're going to have a good time something's going to be really special you can like push through to a crazy extent so you know there she was with her like foot propped up and like her crutches at this like you know this celebration and I was just like baby are you all right and she's like nothing is going to ruin my special weekend and you know what like fair fucking play to her like a fair fucking play um so yeah I just I'm so delighted for them and I don't know if you get this but like we always talk about vicarious pleasures and vicarious happiness as though it's sort of like a bit weird or creepy or parasocial but I think it was one of those times where I was like oh your happiness is so intrinsic to my happiness seeing you be happy at this point has just flooded my body with happiness and yeah it just it felt

really special so those were my those were my headlines I do get that when I see my friends happy there is a rush of like love and contentment and it distracts me from like my own trivial silly little problems because like oh this is what really matters you know seeing the people you love most in the world find joy whether that's romantically platonically or just something they're doing being around them just literally lifts my spirits to an unheard of degree god friends are great friends are so great friends are so great i've got some questions to ask you hit me let's go with the first one, which kind of fits in nicely. When do you feel most vulnerable? Getting a cervical smear.

I just had mine again. Oh, did you? Yeah, I got that. I got those abnormal cells, haven't I? The HPV vaccine does fuck all. Does fuck all. Don't worry, don't worry. Like with time,

those abnormal cells can just go away. That's what they say. But until that that happens then it's every six months getting and also i was i was very anxious this week so i was i don't i don't really care talking about openly about this i didn't realize that talking about hpv was meant to be a thing like everyone basically everyone has hpv i'm sorry to say you have a strain of hpv and if you don't think you don't have it you probably do 80 of people will have it at some point literally um but i was quite anxious normally i can do my deep yoga breathing and relax during the smear and they tell me i'm a good little girl and i've you know got a low cervix where the fuck it is um this time i was tense and it also it was a guy doing

it which shouldn't really matter and i think on a theoretical level didn't but something in my body was like get your hands away from me um it is anxiety inducing like I had a guy fit my um fit my coil I've got a hormonal coil and it was you know I didn't have a choice like it was a really busy clinic it was a real like now or never kind of thing I'd book the appointment and I was trying to be really cool about it but I was just like no this does freak me out actually like this does freak me out a bit so anyway that's when I feel most vulnerable when the feet go in them stirrups I'm like oh lord Jesus yeah god that is a literal physical and emotional vulnerability okay second question maybe it's a Spanish theme, I don't think so, but favorite pastry.

Ooh, favorite pastry. Okay, it has to be savory for me. I am savory over sweet all day. And when it comes to my ideal pastry experience, I suppose I would go for something which is more robust than it is flaky even though I do love like a borek you know I love something with those layers of phyllo ultimately it's going to have to be something a bit more robust and so I come back to the humble but mighty samosa any flavors in particular

i love a meat samosa i love a veggie samosa but whenever i'm having a samosa and this is going to absolutely disgust my ancestors i want it dipped in ketchup wow yeah i love it so british that's like the classic like meeting of worlds samosa dipped in ketchup good lord it's actually fusion cuisine yeah that's fusion cuisine you're fusing you're fusing i'm not sure whether it should be a fusion it's the kind of fusion where you're like oh this is going to destroy the world fusion though rather than like rather than a delicious fusion um okay last one a delicious fusion um okay last one last thing you watched on a tv or plane screen oh um that's super easy uh re-watching game of thrones with my husband and my housemate and it's really fun because obviously we've watched it like you know before but now we get to like shit talk throughout which is my favorite activity by the the way. Like, you know,

you asked me when I feel most vulnerable. Like if you're going to ask me when I feel most content, it's watching something familiar with husband and housemate and shit talking. Oh God, that's so nice. That's just such a nice, oh, it's such a nice image.

I want to live in a house with a husband and a housemate. Well, you can, you know what, before you move to Glasgow, before you move to Glasgow, like come over and come ready to talk shit about Lord of the Rings. To be fair, in Glasgow,

I'm moving in with a very old friend who I think would be very up for re-watching and shit-talking and is actually like the perfect kind of homemaking housemate. So I'm quite excited about the opportunities offered for sitting and shit-talking familiar stuff. You know what? Maybe next week we do a homemaking special because i have actually been thinking about this a lot about what does it take to create a home and a sense of home so maybe next episode that's a great idea ash a homemaking special is when you're an iterant renter yeah yeah yeah okay bank that all right so this week we have a mystery question now for those unfamiliar with

the concept of a mystery question our producer chow our shadow director the power behind the throne dings me a mystery question and we are contractually obliged to chew over it like dogs on a pizzle stick so chow hit me my phone is on loud oh okay there's no dinging question from chow wait is it dinged it's dinged okay sorry i didn't even hear the ding. It was a quiet ding. It dinged. Has our newfound fluency in therapy language made our lives better? Ah, this is such a good one. I might just cry. I'm going to cry today. I can feel it in my bones.

I need to be crying. Oh, no, but this is a safe space for crying. This is absolutely a safe space for crying. Do you want to kick off? Yeah. crying this is absolutely a safe space for crying do you want to kick off yeah i mean so i i really swing between the two extremes on this one and it depends entirely who i'm talking to and what i'm trying to persuade them of so when it comes to my mom my mom this is really essential context. My mom was a social worker. So like all social workers I know everywhere, she's like, yes, for other people therapy, for myself, absolutely not. Like every social worker I know is like, other people need counseling. I don't need it. And I would never

need it. And so she has this sort of um skepticism towards it which I think sometimes can sometimes can inhibit her from accessing her own emotions because she's such a tourist all right she's the most tourist tourist who have ever tourist on this planet like when it comes to things being like really really difficult she's like I've just got to like put my hooves on the ground and like keep trucking forward like that's very much her approach and so when I'm sort of saying hey well maybe maybe you can process some of this experience and access some of these emotions and let them move through you and that'll be good for you she's like I think the fuck not so when I'm

speaking to her obviously like I'm a big proponent of not just hey maybe do some therapy but also maybe some of these therapeutic models for understanding your emotions and how your emotions you know reside in your body or get stuck in your body I am a real advocate for that and that's because I'm coming up against against a very very stubborn brick wall but I think when it comes to a form of therapy language where the language and like the vocabulary is being mistaken for actual insight um and awareness is a way of actually not changing your actions or even creating greater permission for behaviors which are annoying or actively detrimental to other people that's where I'm like oh I don't really like what therapy language has done to

our culture and has done for our way of interacting with people like I think sometimes it can take us further away from authentically experiencing or or understanding ourselves and the people around us so those are my two completely contradictory feelings and thoughts about it and maybe maybe through this conversation i can arrive at some kind of resolution because that's called dialectics baby um what do you reckon moya well i think you've hit upon something there anyway which is you say these are my two totally contradicting things as if you can't hold two contradictory thoughts at the same time and you know that in the middle is where the nuance and maybe a

something like a truth actually lies i think the problem with our adoption of therapy language is also fits in that like it's a main it's gone mainstream it's gone mainstream so these are terms that have been very diluted i use them you know as synonyms for something else i'm talking about my attachment theory all the fucking time and like talking about i don't know i'm trying to think about my experiences in talking therapy and things like the drama triangle and these explanations again and again and again but we use them as sort of like binary this is the one thing that explains this one thing and that's the only way i can understand myself or through the world and in almost a very deterministic way whereas

it also depends on the therapy framework like are we talking about talking therapy are we talking about things like somatic therapy which is different cbt like what i think i think we're referring to their talking therapy language here and the certain register that we speak in when you talk about like traumas and responses and things like that um and i don't know i think i think there's a tendency online particularly because it tends to be online spaces that drips into irl which is just to boil things down and pathologize so that it's a one it's a one explanation for one problem which is just to boil things down and pathologize so that it's a one it's a one explanation for one problem which is not how the world works at all like i think i often think about this because i've got lots of friends and i've said this before in recovery for addiction and the addiction

framework there's a particular framework if you subscribe to it you have to subscribe to it kind of fully in order to get the benefits out of it and it might not even be like i've got friends who are in uh like sex and love addiction recovery and that's that's more of a sticky one than alcoholism or you know narcotic dependence because people don't recognize in the same way and it's like is addiction is it the right thing to even call this addiction though what you're experiencing does it even matter, when the practical therapy that they're going through is actively in helping their lives? So that's the way I think about therapy. It's like, what is the best framework right now to try and help me with my problems? And it might be that it's talking therapy. It might be at CBT. It might be doing

like the 12 steps, even if I don't have a certain type form of addiction. It's like, how do you find a framework that helps you manage your things that you struggle with more and helps you be more content in life and more whole as a person and that i think that's really hard as well because it gets the other bit of therapy language that um i find so difficult i've got lots to say on this so i'll try i'll try and keep it brief and try and like streamline it but i think often and i suffer from this a lot we over intellectualize what's happening to us because we want to especially if you're someone who can account for themselves

very easy if you can articulate yourself and account for what's happening then you can say this is x and this is y and this is this and i talk about therapy and you can create a narrative that sounds really good and really accurate and guess what it might be fucking wrong and it might do nothing to help you uh some of the like often i'll go over a problem in my head and i'll be able to like pick apart exactly how i'm thinking feeling and come up with an explanation for it and it doesn't change how i'm feeling it doesn't change it and there's a gap there between the talking i'm doing and the narrative i'm applying the therapy techniques and actual practical sort of therapeutic maybe methods

that I could be using to help me more and so I think when we talk about therapy language it's like the difference between language and action if the language doesn't translate to like actual action that is somehow addressing the problem you have identified then is it making our lives better or is it just another way to complicate and confuse ourselves a lot of the time you know you say but it could be this and it could be that and then I have this explanation and I'll finish up this little segment even I have lots more to say by talking about a person actually you know there's people who I have known who I think have a very unwell and who have I would say recently done me quite a disrespectful uh injury a moral injury a moral injury I will say is that the right word I'm not sure I've been you know and an injury to

one is an injury to all on this podcast like we truly have like they've tried to do me damage yeah they've tried to do me damage and they have done it out of a sense of hurt feelings and a bruised ego is what i would say and the way they accounted for why they were doing this damage was through therapy speak which i won't i can't get into the problem or why they've done this uh or how they said talked about it because it would mean going into a lot of dirty laundry and unlike them unlike them i'm not about to blow up their spot okay i'm not about to blow up their spot but they are someone who relies on this idea constantly if you say if you call them out and you say i don't think this is healthy i don't think that you are behaving in a well manner and i'm

not sure the way that you're dealing with it is good for you and that's why i think you know we should probably have separate lives. Then they will say, I'm in therapy. I'm in therapy. I'm in therapy. Great. You're in therapy. What does that mean when you lie to yourself compulsively and other people around you? What does that mean when you're in therapy and you can say all these things, but it actually is so divorced from your actions and the way that you behave to other people? It's literally like, I don't know, a fantasy, a fantasy. What does it mean when you can spin a fantasy about yourself and why you're doing the things you're doing? And like, how does therapy help then? How does therapy language help? It

just means you confuse and bamboozle the people you're talking to. And it takes longer for them to pick through and look at the reality of the situation versus what you're telling them. And therapy language has not helped this person in any way shape or form it has made them sicker it has just given them a buffer and a uh a stall it's a stalling tactic it's a stalling tactic and what they really need is like i would say sort of the addictive framework approach which is this horrible practical full-on therapy where you literally have to sit down and confront yourself first of all, because I think therapy can be great. Talking therapy is amazing as a start, like get out what you're feeling and this raw id, but like I've had therapists who literally would just sit there and listen to me and just nod along. And it's like, no, I'm so good at

talking about myself, but that doesn't mean I'm good at actually helping myself. Like I need to be confronted with stuff. And I think talking therapy and therapy language allows you to account for yourself in ways that might not always be beneficial to your own growth so I think there's difference between therapy language and therapy practice right the question from chow very much was about therapy language and the important thing about that is that that is language which is abstracted from practice and is completely decontextualized from a therapist even right it's people who are taking language and concepts and using them in ways which are sometimes useful and also sometimes not right and so you're kind of having to pick through like is that abstraction of language from context actually making society better I think ultimately my

answer to that is no and the reason why is because it's about labels and it's about identity and it's about saying well I'm like this in a way which is fixed and unchanging rather than oh I've realized that this behavior which I felt I lacked control over stems from these things and I'm going to actively change some things about how I live my life or the context that I put myself in so that the connection between this cause and this effect is severed or broken or troubled or I have capacity to control and regulate my emotions and behavior right um the problem is is that like you know me and you have talked about this a lot in fact one of the very very first pieces of content that me and you did over influencer culture was about this is the obsession

with identity and how that's connected to social media social media is an exercise in branding you have to attach recognizable labels to yourself all the time for you to be legible to other people within that context and therapy language very much fits fits in with that like and I understand the temptation and I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I'm better than everybody else like I don't self-brand on social media nope have developed a whole career out of it thank you very much but I think that there is a narcissism and an inwardness and quite frankly something which is deeply anti-social about the way in which these concepts and and labels are deployed it's very much I'm this, I'm this, right? I'm this. These are the

parameters of interacting with me because I am this. And you don't even think about it as a snapshot rather than like, oh, you know, right now I'm like this. Right now I'm like this. It's very much fixed. And it's almost like saying, you know, I am the sun and you are all planets and you will orbit me in this way you know what guess what like everyone is their own sun right and and functions as planets to other people we exist in the context you didn't just fall out of a coconut tree um like you exist in a system of people and sort of like loop around to the sort of like uh language versus practice distinction there are also different kinds of

talking therapy i mean just just to make the super obvious point um you know you have existential psychotherapy you have psychoanalysis and you also have systemic models of therapy where you literally bring in the other people with you because you're looking at how you function as a social system whether that's friends or relationships or family or, you know, these things all in context with each other. And the idea is you bring everybody in because it's not about these individual labels. It's about identifying the dynamics that you are all responsible for creating. And while I don't have personal experience of doing systemic family therapy, because like I said, good luck bringing a social worker mother into a therapy room right good fucking luck she's like I'm gonna remove all

your kids um no joking she she wouldn't do that willy-nilly um but like I don't have any experience of that but there's something about the systemic nature of it and and the fact that it isn't about labels that's not about labels it's about how we interact with each other and that being the focus that I've got more time for um and with my own experiences of therapy I think I've been I've been quite lucky which is um I've worked with therapists who are very um you know and I think it's because going into therapy I was like this is what I have time for and this is what I don't have time for right like please do not try and fit labels around me because I will just I that does not fit with my value system it's not that it doesn't connect with my sense

of self it's that I'm scared it'll make me too interested in myself um so instead we have talked about emotional states and we've talked about triggers and we've talked about dynamics. And for me, that's just been so much more useful rather than a sort of trying to use, you know, diagnostic labels as though it's like, you know, for me, it's like, it's an elevation of what is like often navel gazing, not always, but often navel gazing not always but but often navel gazing and it's funny that you know you talked about the addiction model because like also one of the things about that the practice of of addiction treatment is to not be so interested in yourself um and an encouragement towards like outwardness because saying like okay well you're going to live in your own rumination it's like well no that's bad like that's living in in your own rumination is one of the things

which drives your compulsive behavior whether it's a sex and relationships or alcohol and narcotics um and yeah again that's so different from from therapy language um but i would be remiss if i didn't point out where that uh you you have sometimes used therapeutic language in relation to yourself when it comes to attachment styles so disorganized attachment that's been your sort of and this is an open question this isn't a like fuck you moya it's like genuine question what about that language has felt useful to you oh i mean this is but this is why i think we shouldn't throw the baby out of the bath water and I did I say that I don't think it's made society better because if I did I want to go

back on that because I'm thinking more about the the impact it's had on therapy language has had sort of the osmosis on my family and the whole idea of like mental health which i think goes hand in hand and i would say i would take any i would take any injury by some random person to me any insult i would i would take that i would absorb that in exchange god i'm about to cry i'm about to cry uh in exchange for like the benefits it's brought to my family um to see them like opening up and being able to give names to things just because of like the mainstream impact of therapy language uh is worth so much more to me than anything any like troll man can try and do to me using the weaponization of therapy language i think um so very emotional um so i so i i think sorry when i was thinking i'm thinking about my family being like you know what it's all worth it it's all all the annoying people online like let's look at the

bit let's look at the bigger picture let's look at the bigger picture because i do think we have a tendency to focus in on, well, I have a tendency, I can't speak for you, to focus in on the things that annoy us and turn that into like the worst of society, the dregs of society, we're all going to the dogs. But like when I think about it, yeah, therapy language has caused great evil in this world.

Greater fronts have been made thanks to therapy language but also like the fact that like my mum and my aunts and you know other members of my family can can discuss things and also approach things in a way that just wouldn't have been considered 10 20 years ago about themselves about people they love like that is just worth that's priceless that's priceless to me um so sorry so I've actually gone on 180 I'm like maybe therapy language I will take it I will take it this is the nuance I'm talking about and when you say like why are these things useful to me um I think because they're useful to everyone the same reason they're useful to lots of people they feel like a shorthand for summing up complex emotions feelings reactions that you might not be

able to articulate bit by bit and when i when you find them bundled together in a helpful little package that's what we're attracted to because it's like that's why we like labels because it again it bundles in all the mess and complexity of being a human and puts us in a little box so you can know instantly I was talking to someone recently and I was saying I can't categorize you and they were like why does everyone want to categorize each other I don't understand and for me it's almost it's a safety because it's like I know I know where to put you in my mind and I know how to approach you and I know how to talk to you and And when you can't categorize someone, it's a lot more difficult because you then have to trust that you're going to have the time to work them out rather than be able to tailor yourself

to meet their needs. I think that's something I'm always trying to do, tailor to meet other people's needs. Whether I'm effective at that, I don't know. And when it comes to saying I have a disorganized attachment or I have this and that it's mostly because those those the bundle of traits that those things describe uh are things that I I find uh validation in I find myself seen in that it's an easier way to sort of talk about something I'm going through than just being like yeah I can't stop fucking ruminating about this silly thing that's happened and that really won't have like a long-term bearing on my life beyond the fact that it happened i feel really bad about it because of you know my attachment blah blah blah but again all these things can be changed all these things can be worked on in some ways i think the thing

that therapy language sometimes misses is as i said we can explain ourselves till the cows come home through language but you might still have the physical reactions. And I think what therapy and what therapy techniques are meant to do is not deny those reactions. It's not about suppressing those reactions. It's about knowing that they will come and how to keep the scaffolding up until you feel okay again, until you feel regulated again. Like it might be a thing that i never i never experienced

a point where i'm like not dysregulated when you know someone doesn't fucking text me or whatever um but i can deal with the reaction to that and know that it will pass and that might lessen with time and keep just going out and doing the thing like i had a friend recently who went through something very serious and it happens every now and then this pattern and they know now like when they're in it you you think that it's going to last forever but if you have the scaffolding around you and like okay i'm going to go to the gym i'm going to go for like on i like going on buses for a long period to make me calm down i need to go and see like these particular people because that makes me calmer when you finally get out of it like your life

will still be intact around you rather than just burning it all down because you're in a headspace where that seems the only viable option i think that's the difference with like the benefits of therapy language understanding what is happening even if you still feel it yeah i suppose i really hear you and i don't want to dismiss the usefulness of it. And I think, you know, part of it may well be that I've absorbed like To the point where my partner was just like, yeah, you're the most controlled person I know and that's not always a good thing. And he's completely right in that. But I guess I'm also worried

about pathologizing normal human behavior. And that doesn't mean that I think that like everything is fine and just do whatever you want because hey, it's human but I'm worried about saying what is ideal and what is normal is the exact same thing because you know being being like spun out because you know someone hasn't texted you or someone has um you know behaved in in such a way that's made you feel like undermined or disrespected or someone has like actively been out to upset you I mean there are your ideal responses to that but then there are also you're just normal ones where

you're like no I am gonna like have a big cry, no, this has shaken me up and I feel very socially anxious or like, no, I do feel very angry at this person. And the reason why I'm bringing it up is because this was actually something that I was discussing in therapy the other week, which was, I've very often felt that I can't just be angry, that I've learned to have to really, really, really control my anger because the negative consequences of me being angry will be different from what they are for other people

because of what my job is and that it'll become attached to me as being an angry brown woman and I can't just be angry. And I was talking about an example where I was just angry at someone who'd like really really really like set out to needle me and like you know for our party and they were annoyed at me about something and I was like hey I just don't really want to talk to you about this um and rather than just being like okay fine and like

what you know whatever um was like okay well I think you're a vacuous cunt so I was like okay fine and like what you know whatever um it was like okay well I think you're a vacuous cunt so I was like okay well let's just fucking have a fight then let's just fucking go for it um and then they started crying it was a whole thing and then people were like talking about it and like you know like like making out that I'd been like behaving in such an unacceptable way and I was talking about this to my therapist I was just like you know that was years and years ago but it very much stuck with me that that is the cost of me being angry which is that you know I'm gonna see people like sub tweeting about it and I'm gonna see people like you know turning it into this like big thing and I was like no you called me a cunt and like you can't then just

like go off and cry like that's a provocation and I was provoked like sorry they called you a vacuous cunt they called me a vacuous cunt? They called me a vacuous cunt. What did you do? What did you do? Yeah, tell the story. Tell this story. Oh my God. Okay.

So what happened was, I was at this party and this person had dated a very good friend of mine. And me and this very good friend had like fallen out of contact and that was totally on me and I should have handled it differently.

But then they came up to me and they were like, oh, you really upset them. And I was like, okay, but it should be up to them to talk to me and not you like you know they're like but why did you behave this way why did you behave this way and I was like I literally don't owe you an explanation like I owe them an explanation and if they're upset with me they should talk to me but I'm not having I'm not having it out with you and then they were like well you're a vacuous cunt just like straight out and like you know i was at a party so like obviously like you know had had been in bybin put it that way so i like

threw my like you know my backpack down and i took my earrings out and i was like if you want to go let's fucking go and then they like scurried off into the corner and they were crying they were like surrounded by loads of people and there was definitely i feel there was a very very strong racial dimension to it they cried just because you said let's fight you didn't even fight them i didn't even fight them um listen i very i very strongly feel that there was like a racial dimension to it because yes that's why i'm not they start crying they're surrounded by people and then it's like oh like ash is this ash is that like and you know saw like sub tweets about it like years later and like you know did i behave in a way which was like my most mature

and self-controlled no but like you called me a vacuous cunt like i'm sorry like not to be like where i grew up but seriously where i grew up you just expect to get boxed in the mouth for that you don't talk to someone like that unless you're up for being boxed in the mouth that's just what i feel but i was talking i was talking to my therapist about it and i was saying like the lesson i learned from that is that i can't be angry i cannot be angry in the way that other people are angry because it'll be attached to my name it'll be attached to my reputation in a way that it's just not going to for other people and that's to do with race and that's to do with my job and it's to do with all these things like i don't have the same freedoms to be emotionally

unregulated like other people and my therapist was like yeah you know but maybe you know understanding what was the trigger for you I was like the trigger was someone calling me a vacuous cunt like it's not that it's not that deep like that's the trigger um I mean therapist was like oh but like you know maybe it would have been good to do some I sentences like you know I feel this way I feel that way and I was like okay the I sentence there is i feel like i want to punch you in the mouth like and this is the thing about ideal versus normal ideally i'd have done the i sentences talked about my emotions what is normal is to say here's the fucking line and you have fucking crossed it like you have you have been a habitual line stepper, to quote Dave Chappelle. You have Charlie Murphy'd all over my emotional couch.

And it's now time to drag you out. And I suppose the person who really taught me the lesson about not mistaking what is ideal for what is normal is actually my best friend who got married who is just my like emotional north star like she's taught me so much and I don't know I'll forever feel a sense of gratitude towards her for that um and it's because you know there are times where where she's been wronged and she said okay here's the ideal way to react but I'm actively choosing not to do. I'm actively choosing not to do the ideal thing because this person has to fucking know that they crossed the line of what is a tolerable level of disrespect. This is no longer a tolerable level of disrespect. disrespect um and so yeah i know that this is getting away from the idea of therapeutic language and this is much more to do with what is presented as ideal within a therapeutic context obviously we should always aim for the ideal we should always aim for the ideal um or or bear in mind that there

is an ideal right you should know that there is an ideal but sometimes you're going to make a choice to turn away from that and that's that's okay yeah i also think the weight of the ideal is is so crushing it's like oh you have to be this you have to be that and then sometimes you're like well i'm not that so i might as well fuck it i might as well say fuck it and go low but every time i've gone low i have regretted it i have to say i've uh i've every time i've gone literally against the instinct of like this is healthy behavior this is unhealthy behavior I've chosen the unhealthy behavior then in the long run it has caused a lot of problems so that's all I will say when we're talking about this it's oh yeah and I'm not I'm not an advocate for emotionally dysregulated behavior like I said the lesson I learned from

that is I don't get to be angry like other people like yeah i just don't get to yeah i do think it comes back to this idea of like you will experience that emotional dysregulation you will experience these things the question is is your therapeutic language as you say a therapeutic practice is it something that's helping you just accept those emotions and deal with them rather than repressing them or is it something where you're using it to like like over intellectualize and pathologize very normal human emotions to the degree where you're treating yourself like you're an alien for feeling things and i think maybe that's the line but who knows whatever people find genuinely helpful i'm not here to yuck on anyone's yum, even though as a podcaster, it's literally my job.

But I don't wanna yuck anyone's yum. But the thing that I would consider or encourage people to consider is what actually is helpful? Like, is it just about something that's being helpful to yourself or is it about being helpful within a wider social context,

which includes other people? And I'd encourage people to opt for the latter. Yeah, I think the thing that's most helpful for me often is just seeing my friends and being reminded of the love that I have for them and that they have for me and that connection. It's crazy. When you are on your own, mopingoping self-obsessing just barely trying to

keep the emotional lights on and then you see your friends and you're just rejuvenated by this love and care and it's like wow the world the world isn't terrible and you know what like i'll survive this one very small minor thing that's happened to me or even this big large thing that's happened to me and as it as you always say ash it comes down to human connection we're having human connection with other people and that perhaps is the most healing thing of all but yeah therapy language where do we finally stand are you is it good is it overall net good overall net bad i'm pro therapeutic practice i think i'm anti-therapeutic practice, I think I'm anti-therapeutic language. I think I have to just edge 5842. Is that what it is eventually? I think I'm just about pro-therapeutic language because I think it can be a gateway to the therapeutic practice. And I will take the benefits that that has afforded people that I love and people I don't know over

even the cons, which is it's made a lot of annoying people 10 times more irritating. Okay. Do you want to read a dilemma? Yeah, go on. This is our regular segment. I'm in big trouble. If you are in big trouble and you have a problem which we couldn't possibly make anyone worse, you know what to do. Email us at ifispeakatnavaramedia.com. That's ifispeakatnavaramedia.com. So Moya, take it away with our first problem from a very special one. Dear Moya and Ash, I hope you're both having a wonderful summer and thank you for this podcast it's so thoughtful and has provided me with a lot of comfort through some difficult times you and me both bud uh i was hoping you might be able to advise me on how to deal with an awkward

family situation fake your own death no for context i'm a guy with three younger sisters that are all really close with each other and have a lovely relationship. I also live in Cornwall, about five hours away from my parents and siblings. Please don't come for me, Ash. I promise not everyone here is a bellend. I moved to Cornwall with my boyfriend 10 years ago for university. And since then, I found that my sisters and I have become quite distant. My youngest two sisters speak to me occasionally. And although I'd love to be closer to them, I feel like we have a pretty comfortable relationship when I come up to London to visit them and both parties put in reasonable effort to maintain the relationship. The youngest one has even moved down to Cornwall a few months

ago studying medicine and sees us regularly now. Sadly the oldest of my sisters rarely speaks with me and even when I reach out to ask how she's doing I feel the conversation tends to get shut down quickly. Since leaving London she's gradually become colder and more difficult to talk to. Although she's civil enough when I've come to visit for Christmas, even though it feels like I'm a work colleague. I think it's leaving for London because they go on to say, whenever my boyfriend and I are back in London, she dislikes me spending time with him and his family.

I think we're held to different standards to herself, all my other family members and their partners, all heterosexual, who are able to visit their partners and friends without any rude comments being made. I feel everything I do annoys her from my job, where I live or even how I speak. Although my sister is a very progressive person who has similar views to me, I'm starting to feel, though, that there may be a touch of homophobia directed towards me and my partner. I'm struggling to know the best way to address this with her. Since coming out to her, our relationship hasn't been the same. It could be that she just doesn't like me as a

person and I may be reading too much into the reasons for her coldness. I want to have a frank conversation with her as we're going on a family holiday soon, but she's quite a headstrong, reactionary person. I feel stuck as to how I should approach this without breaking down whatever is left of our relationship or making her feel accused of something she's been quite vocally against on her social media. She's pretty stubborn about being in the right and I think it could be a real delicate challenge to get through to her about the way my partner and I feel. I'm also conscious of upsetting my family whilst away with them as it's one of the few times we're all able to be together. Should I stop being a coward and just go through with the hard conversation

or should I accept that sometimes family members won't get on perfectly and walking on eggshells might just have to be the norm? I have a great chosen family and feel very lucky to have some stunning people in my life and you two always make my week better. Sending lots of love from Cornwall. And don't tell the people, but I agree, Basties are just shit empanadas. Yes, the truth. So I think I just want to say up top that I'm not discounting the possibility of homophobia i'm absolutely not discounting it but i guess there would have to be a pretty big gap between what she thinks and feels and her public facing values and really you've got to make a judgment about how likely that is. Is she generally a person

who has a public persona, which is very different from what she's like privately? Because if so, then maybe that does play a role. But if that's not a generalized trait of hers, where there is a big gap between public persona and privately held feelings and thoughts and values. Then I would maybe say, look more at the specifics of your family dynamics. I think that it is often the case with people who leave whatever context they're in, whether it's a family context or a friendship context,

they move far away which is sometimes they have an unrealistic expectation of things staying the same and by that i mean a sense that like you'll just be as close and you can be as part of people's lives whereas the fact is is that you know people people move on right and and there is a sort of like lack of object permanence which is when you're not in a context where people can see you that that does have an impact on on how much they can you know include you with with what's going on in their lives there are ways around that um but that involves developing a practice of communication which isn't just checking in with people and it's not just about the odd like how

are you text it's about having like real emotionally intimate conversations which are remote um and a way in which like me and i keep talking about my best friend who got married but it's just because i love her so goddamn much um but like a way in which me and her do it is we send each other really quite lengthy voice notes which we call podcasts where we're just talking through all of our thoughts and feelings and perceptions and what's going on and the benefit of that is that we don't have to be available at the same time which is hard right it's hard to do even when you live in the same place and it's really hard to do when you don't live in the same place um and so i wonder if it's about that i wonder if it's about the fact that like

you moved away and you have a partner who you live with you know your your life is operating in this geographic relief and and the lives of your sisters are as well. And there's an expectation of things being the same without having that kind of emotionally intimate, regular communication. That would be the thing that keeps you together. Because yeah, it's not that you're gonna feel a certain way and then the emotional intimacy will come. It's actually kind of the other way around.

You kind of have to like force that kind of communication. And that's gonna be the connective tissue which holds you together um again i'm also not discounting the idea that there's like specific problems that your sisters have with you or your partner i guess i would encourage you to open up a conversation not with you guys behave these ways but going hey I've been feeling this way and it might just be that I feel isolated from you guys because of where I live you guys are all living in London but this is the vibe I'm detecting and opening it up like that don't have an expectation that one conversation is going to do it all at once sometimes these things are iterative but the benefit of family is that you are always stuck with each other um so even if one conversation goes very badly it's highly unlikely highly highly unlikely that that's going to be what it is forever so i'd say give the

conversation a go my gut instinct is that it's about the geographic distance um but there might be other things as well i don't know what do you reckon i think it's hard i mean there could be underlying latent homophobia there it doesn't matter what she says in public it's there's there's lots of different factors that can add up to make someone more hostile to a person even if it's not the main factor it could be your gender you said you've got your sisters apart from you uh so there could also be like a resentment there against like a brother for whatever reason and that also plays into maybe the latent homophobia there could be lots of different things going on that also uh combine with what might just be she has moved to london and for whatever reason she doesn't like you very much like that that's that's the thing that happens with family

sometimes like you're born you're born and you're like forced to get on and then you move away and it might not be fair and you might not have done anything but she just might have decided that she's like you don't gel that much like you thought and all those things could create this hostile environment where she's forced to interact with you out of a place of like relation and that's making her even worse and because you haven't been able to discuss it or get it out just like this this resentment's built up and you've done nothing wrong like you could have done absolutely nothing wrong doesn't mean she won't resent you for whatever reason you do have to have the conversation it has to start

with a conversation and i shouldn't get you to start with a one-on-one conversation um physically together if you can phone if not before a holiday and it doesn't have to be like let's go over the x y amount of things i think it just has to be a look i don't know if our relationship is like the greatest and i don't know why that is and i want to open the floor for you to tell me honestly how you feel about me and any resentments you might have and then you can say stuff that you feel but i think you need to hear her account first just so you know what you're really working with and how much that aligns with what you've actually witnessed from her in terms of actions but this kind of stuff can be totally irrational like totally irrational and you might never get

to a place where you have like a friendship but you can get to a place where you're civil and you understand each other and underneath it all doesn't mean there's not care for you doesn't mean there's not this love for you often we have this like sufferance love for relatives that might not have emerged in any other context but the fact that they're family but it's still there and it's still important it just might mean that on an interpersonal level, you're never going to be mates. You're never going to be friends. And that's okay. It's just like, how do you accept that? And how do you get to a place where you have like a friendly relationship? And I think when the pressure's taken off it to have the sort of like sibling

bond that people talk about all the time that you might have with the other siblings, you'll find that it's actually a lot easier for that to come um but it needs to be aired out in the first place i do think and i don't want to discount any reasons why she might be feeling this way towards you because as i said it might be a multi-factor if you think it's sometimes easy to pin it down to one like you saying i think it might just be homophobia i don't think it'll be one thing i think there'll be several different reasons that have come together and things she might not be able to admit to herself without a bit of a prodding but the first thing is to have that conversation with her um and if you can sense that she's off with you then she

is off with you but she might not even be able to admit to herself that she's being off with you and that there's something that's built up there until you talk to her about it um and I speak from experience I think like one last thing is also have in mind some things you can offer as solutions. So have in mind something like, hey, I was wondering like maybe your way around this is like maybe we can voice note each other or like maybe we have like a call that we do every week or something like that, right?

You can sort of say, so it's not just about identifying and agreeing on what the problem is because you may identify problems. You may not agree with what the problems are um but you might be able to agree a way forward um and that would be my last piece of advice shall we should we do one more problem yeah let's do it okay read it out dear if i speak i've recently got back with my ex the short version is we met nearly 10 years ago and dated casually for a couple of years while seeing other people. We then entered a monogamous long

distance relationship which went on for a few years culminating in living together for nearly three. We broke up early 2021 as he wanted to settle and have kids and I wasn't sure about either. We were also arguing a lot. He's pro-cop and pro-capitalism and I'm anti-both. We got back together about a month ago after seeing each other casually again for a couple of months. We had a long conversation about what went wrong last time and both agreed to work on the interpersonal issues we had had. I've come round to the settling down idea, having reassessed my career and life goals. I'm open to settling down and having kids. The issue is we still argue slash debate about our political differences. I've thought about your previous advice with regards

to treating each other with respect and I think we do. We get along well otherwise and enjoy each other's company. Plus the sex is good. I just find the relitigating of our differences quite tiring. Some background, I'm a 30 year old guy passionate about my career in science which hampers settling down in one place and pretty left wing. He's 28 doesn't offer his job to pay the bills and is quite family focused he's left wing but much closer to the center than me my dilemma is can you have a long-term relationship when you disagree on fundamentals of your politics and philosophy is there something we are missing to make these differences easier other than one of us biting our tongue for the rest of our lives moya what do you reckon yeah why are you with someone where you have different values why are you with someone where you broke up once already about different values you claim

that you've changed your mind and you've you know compromised has he compromised on his stuff you're already tired you're already tired now Imagine how tired you will be X years in with three kids running about when you're literally at your most stressed, you're most stressed, you're most exhausted, you're most drained. If you're tired now, how tired will you be then? I just don't think this person is for you. I want to understand what made you get back together with them. Why them? Because you haven't written about that. I think that's telling. You've written, we had a conversation and agreed to work on the issues, but why did you want to get back together with them why them because you haven't written about that i think that's telling like you've written we had a conversation and agreed to work on the issues but why did you want to get back with this person so much after dating casually is it because you decided you want to settle down you knew this person would settle down at some point i don't

i don't see this relationship as one that's going to go the distance if you already broke up over fundamental differences and i don't think it's just the politics i think you might have different values and that's more important than having different politics per se even though those two tend to overlap yeah i mean so i obviously am with someone who's politically very very similar to me that does not mean that we do not have quite intense political disagreements for example the role of the anarchists during the spanish civil war we had a very good disagreement about that uh on our holiday um so you'll find political differences even when you're similar and i think that in this case it isn't actually about the politics because some people find political differences and kind of hashing them out kind of sexy and exciting

or other people go yeah we're different in these ways but ultimately we're so aligned on everything else that I can live with these differences I wonder if you're coming back to this idea of are our differences and outlook and values and maybe what we want out of life are they are they just too big right you know and you're saying that you've come around to the idea of settling down and having kids but you're also like well I've got this career and that makes it really difficult it sort of sounds to me that that isn't as much of a done deal as you would like it to be and I think you know Moyer's right in that what isn't in the dilemma is as telling as what's in it right so it's all about the differences

between the two of you and all about the incompatibility very little about what it is that you have that's holding you together you know yes the sex is good and you get on well but you know if you made the decision to get back together together then it has to be more than that right because like can't just be like you know um good sex and being amiable and so the fact that those deeper things aren't in there but there are actually some pretty profound differences which are there for you it sort of makes me wonder if these things aren't as resolved as maybe you're saying that they are and that for me is the the revealing thing i'm not saying break up i'm saying really really get into it and

examine what the differences are i'm saying break up life is too short break up break up now don't get back into a long thing where three years down the line you've decided that your fundamental differences are too much for the second time around break up it's better to be single than be with someone and building a life where in the future you will look over when the sex has stopped and you've got the kids and you want to go do something and they completely disagree and you all the love has gone and you're not aiming able to put each other anymore you're like why did we do this the differences were there from the get-go break up now why when the love is gone does my heart keep holding on um great song don't know that one i'm like no idea what that one is so many

motown songs uh an emotional truth is contained within um i i guess the reason why i'm a bit like i'm not necessarily saying breakup is that I think that relationships aren't static and differences aren't static and differences aren't static, like within the context that you choose to create together. And there's something which like me and my partner have had to navigate in various ways where it's like, you come up against something which feels so, so difficult and like irreconcilable at the time.

And it's not necessarily that you reconcile it it's just that all the other aspects of your relationship and what holds you together are so much more than this difference which which may have felt so big and so insurmountable at one point um so it's possible but you can't do it without really really examining what those differences are within the context of everything else and the fact that there was very little on the context of everything else and a lot about the differences i think that itself is telling a story but all stories must come to an end as ours has or at least this chapter before the next chapter which will be next week um moya that was an emotional one but i'm glad it was yeah i mean just perpetually down at the moment what's going on with ash where will i feel better again i'm

fed up of being emotionally spent i don't want to i don't want to i don't want to like be a hostage to fortune but i just bet you will be next week yeah maybe we'll see yeah i'm sure i'm sure i'm sure i'll cover i'm sure i'll rally there's so much to rally about just a stressful period you know anyway maybe i'll send in my own dilemma that we can answer you're gonna be like i'm in big trouble it is me i know i won't reveal who it is we'll just send it in anonymously and then get you to answer it and see how i feel or maybe you could be like if I speak, you're the two most beautiful, clever, intelligent, insightful women who've ever existed. You know full well that if I sent in an odalynoma,

I'd be so hard on myself. You'd be like, listen up, you dumb bitch. I got a problem. Yeah, literally. Anyway, I've been Moira O'Day-McLean. You've been a dumb bitch. See you next week. Aw. Bye.

Bye.