If I Were You - 395: Panic Attack

Episode Date: August 12, 2019

In this episode we discuss Jake's mental health, high school, and dry spells.For more advice, check out our Patreon which has bonus video videos every Thursday!See omny.fm/listener for privacy information.

This is a head gum podcast. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Look, look, Jake and the Merman, they made a podcast called If I Were You. I found an advice left and right like a credible couple of Jews.

I can't even lie though on Monday, I'd just be refreshing the feed. When that shit is over, don't worry, there's always a new one next week. Sometimes they help you, but mostly they just end up giving you shit. But that doesn't help me when I'm trying to find me a new tender bitch. Jake is an MVP, he rackin' up golden mics every week. Except for that one time when he said to kill all the dogs that are weak. Sometimes it's time when no other show. I just go straight to these guys, advice, podcast.

Quandry's so good that you gotta ask them for some help. Just hope they reply to you fast. This has been years in the making. It started at their graduation from college of humor. Head gum forever, they're always big time. And a beer keep on stashing them a-cons, you know it. Okay, a little Drake parody. Why not?

By Ryan Compass, a.k.a. Rye Bread. I liked that, and I think it's because I like Drake and I like me. And it was both things combined. How is it you? Well, like he rapped about me. Yeah, so like your favorite rapper, Drake, rapping about you would be the best thing ever. Obviously the best thing. Unless he was coming at me, I wouldn't want like a diss track.

Oh, if he was like, yo, fuck you, man. Oh, I would be so devastated. I would release like my own diss track, but it would just be like, yo, dude, why'd you say that bad shit about me? Yeah, it makes me sad. Would I ever be you, man? Yeah, like that kind of shit. Like, I guess not a diss track, a disappointed track.

That's good. So you're disappointed in somebody else's track. I'm not mad about your track, I'm disappointed about your track. I'm going like, why'd you say that shit about me? You know that it made me sad to hear it. I didn't go outside for two whole days. I wrote the addresses on them. Perfect.

Ryan Compass says, if you have to, the only shout out I ask is that you call up my boy, Jacob Legrand. He's a herb for real, but he's had songs make it on the show before. I knew the name sounded familiar and taught me how to make mediocre music for advice podcasts. Wow. All right. So again, running a little low after 390 some odd episodes. We've had about like 750 submissions for theme songs, but if we haven't played yours yet

or if you've been sitting on an idea, now's your chance. If I were you show at gmail.com, send it on over. Okay, cool. Yeah. The waiting list is as low as it's been in a while. So you have a great chance of getting your song on the show, which isn't to say this one was bad and we had to just play it at the desperation. We really appreciated it.

All right. This is if I were you, the only advice podcast on the web hosted by us. I'm Amir. I'm Jake. 34 years old. 34 years old. 34 years young. That's right.

Does it feel any different from 33? It doesn't, but I don't think I like the number 34 quite as much. That's 33. Yeah. I feel like everything's like over 30, but sub 35 is kind of the same age to me. But I was into the year 33 because I was calling it my Jesus year. That's cool. And I feel like part of like, you know, I guess part of the reason Jesus dying was so

sad. Yeah. It's because it was a man cut down in his prime. Yeah. He was like ready to do some awesome shit. I guess I've just always thought of 33 as like the prime of my life. So this is like, and it's also the exact like third of a hundred. Yeah.

If you're going to do a third life crisis, live to a hundred. Right. This is when that thing would happen. Yeah. And so I did, I guess, but I like, I always think of my birthday in terms of like milestones. Like getting old is always depressing, but it feels like if you're kind of staying on a path of like things good, like good things happening that you're excited about, it's not sad.

Then that's fine. Right. Like I kind of remember having a rough 25th birthday because I felt like I hadn't accomplished anything that I had looked. I like didn't have a lot of money. Interesting. I like was in a weird place in a relationship, I think. And I was like, I couldn't make rent for a month.

And I was like, what the fuck am I doing? What? Like, what am I doing? But, but then when I turned 33. I like had just bought a house. I was getting married that year. So you're like, okay, this, I'm 33, but it makes sense because I was able to do things. And I also remember when I turned 30 is when we launched Head Gum and we shot our pilot.

That's right. The head gum is four years old this week. So, so like it helps to like have milestones happening around your birthday. You did have a panic attack. Right. So I had a panic attack on my birthday. So that like you would think that's all involved in the aging process. Do you think your panic attack had anything to do with your birthday?

I really, so I don't think it did because I turned 34 on Monday. But I had like, I had my party on Saturday. I like had dinner with my in-laws on Sunday. How was that Barty? I forgot to follow up because you were talking about it last episode. You're going to have a Barty and invite people to a bar. Right. So it was, I had been a little stressed.

Did I talk about on the episode how many people weren't in town? Yeah, you were like, everybody leaves in New York on the weekends. And so a lot of people were not going to come and you're just going to be stressed out while you were there to say like, who's going to come and who's not. Yes. So I was not stressed out while I was there. We arrived and I had like a nice surprise with Nick, Rad and Laura showing up because like they have a young baby and Laura had just like had her appendix burst last week. And she showed up in an eye, like with an IV in her arm. Oh God.

So I was like, that's awesome. Yeah. And one of our friends who's a doctor, Presley, who I mentioned on another episode when Ben said that he didn't believe me that I knew a doctor. I still don't. I'll continue. All right. Well, she said to me that I, that it was a nice testament to my character that somebody showed up in an IV to my birthday party. That's nice.

So that made me feel nice. So even though people were out of town, it was like, wow, the people that could show up really did show up. Okay. So yeah, it was great. We had a fun night. So then how did, how did birthday party turn into a panic attack? Oh, okay. So first panic attack.

Right. I was wondering if I had had a panic attack before. And you were also kind of wondering if this was a panic attack. Yeah. I'm not entirely sure if it was a panic attack. I was doing some research and the panic attack appears to be like a vague confluence of symptoms, not like a specific thing that you can test for. Yeah. Okay.

And I, and I, and then we can decide if it was a panic attack. Okay. Um, so I was, I was hyperventilating, scared, bleeding and alone. I'm trying to think when it came, when it started, I think I was like, I was at the office in New York and I was driving to see an apartment. What day of the week? This is Monday. Your actual birthday. Monday, my actual birthday around 11 a.m.

I'm not. I can't think that that's a coincidence. Actual birthday, first panic attack. That seems like too random. Too random. The odds of it being a random occurrence. Oh, so you think that it is set, is set off by my birthday? Not set off, but that was one of the, if like a panic attack is a bucket overflowing, then like that was one of the amounts of water.

I could, yeah, I could, I could see that because, so I'll tell you what my friend, like my mind, my frame of mind was. It was sort of like, there's, I kept, I was, I kept on having the thought of like, this, I'm in over my head. Uh-huh. Which definitely signifies panic attack. Of course, yeah. Like stretch tooth thin. I'm spread tooth thin. I'm burning the candle at both ends.

Yeah. I can't get out from under this. Uh-huh. I can't handle all this shit. A lot of busyness. Right. So it was, it was things like the, we're building out the head gum office in New York. Yeah.

And, and I'm like talking to contractors and, uh, getting quotes and dealing with Home Depot orders and all that stuff. Yeah. Um, and then I was like, uh, I was, I think I was dealing with like maybe the D&D tour logistics, like booking hotels and flights and stuff. Yeah. And then also we were like writing, writing another pilot. It was just like all of these lines of communication that were coming in, like emails that I needed to respond to. Oh, I had, I had, um, a directing job on Tuesday, the next day. Uh-huh.

Um, and they wanted to hop on the phone. They wanted me, they wanted me to address the notes on the script for the thing that we were shooting the next day. Yeah. Like promoting shows, just like all of this, like so many, so many, like it felt like open lines of communication that I, that I couldn't just like archive. It was like they, everything needed my attention and I was in charge of something in some way. Like some sort of emotional jenga. People just kept on adding blocks until. Right.

Asking me for stuff. And like, um, was out of town and needed me to see an apartment for him. Uh-huh. Um, so, yeah. So I was waiting, trying to think what I was waiting to do with the, oh, the contractor, um, we got an order from Ikea, but we didn't have a sink. And the guy couldn't hook up the plumbing to the sink unless we had the actual, all of the pieces. So I like drove the sink to the office, but I also had to give him money for like the second installment of his down payment. So I had to go to the bank.

Of course. Yeah. It was, it was a lot of like email and text and calls, but then combined with like, I have to like actually do errands, like get a sink, get cash, go on, go to an apartment. And it was a Monday, which is the worst day and also an August 5th, which is your birthday. So yeah, maybe that was like all of that, like stressed about all of that stuff combined with like getting a lot of text messages from my family. And like just like love and just, but just like a lot of attention coming in my way. I was also utterly alone. I mean, Jill was there, but like, you know, she wasn't really, if that makes sense.

No, she was at work. My brother was out of the city. I was just by myself in an empty office waiting for the contractor. How was the weather? Um, beautiful day. Perfect day. It wasn't like pouring rain on you. No, no, it was like 80 and sunny, low humidity.

Okay. Um, and I was just, and then I, yeah, I started like hyperventilating a little bit, but not like hyper, like it was just like shortness of breath. Yeah. I was like, I can't catch my breath. It was like, my heart feels like it's beating really fast. This is you in the office. This is me in the office alone. What time of day?

Um, around 1130 or noon. Okay. Uh, and then midday, midday. And I'm, and I'm sort of thinking like I, I'm like, I can't deal with everything. I, I'm like having this anxiety. Oh, this is the other thing. So then I started thinking about the idea of anxiety and the feeling that I had. And I was thinking like, Oh, my brother sometimes tells us, tells me he gets anxious before a date.

And then I was thinking, Oh, my sister, uh, just put a, an audition on self tape and she's nervous about, uh, hearing back. And like my other sister is like stressed about launching her Kickstarter and my other sister is stressed at work. And like, so, so then I started thinking about other people's anxiety and stress and amplifying that in my head and sort of being like everyone's stressed and sad and anxious like me. And I was like, I need to just go home. I have to go home to Connecticut and curl up on the couch and just tell everybody that everything is off. It's just, we're canceling. Today is canceled. Today and the rest of time are canceled.

Um, and I knew that I shouldn't do that and I couldn't, and I knew that I wasn't going to, but like driving to, from the office to the apartment, every fiber of my being wanted to like take a left onto Rodney, get on the 278 and just drive to Connecticut. Interesting. And be like, I'm checking out. I need like rehab. I need rehab. The worst part of like, then I was doing that and I was thinking like, okay, I was just like, I can just bail on everything. Like my safety net is I can bail on everything. My mom will still love me.

I'll go home. I'll just be a Connecticut guy. But then I was like, oh, you mean like retire. Yeah. But then I was like, well, no, like even that's not an escape because you'll still have to like make appointments for like the dentist and stuff. Like you'll always be a Connecticut guy. You always have communication coming in that you are responsible for. And then you stare at your phone and you're like, this is an evil device.

And yeah. So then I started thinking like, okay, so you have to call Jill now and tell her that you're having a panic attack and that she, and you need help like calming down. That's what you have to do. And then I was like, no, she's, she's at work. She's stressed about her job. You don't want to add that to her. Yeah. Like this will ruin her whole day.

I'm not planning on taking me out to dinner that night. I'm like, and then she's like going to be worried about taking me to dinner. You're going to ruin dinner and you don't even know if you're having a panic attack. You might not have a panic attack and you'll ruin Jill's day. So I was like, just get through this. It's awful. I kept on also saying to myself, you're the man. You can do it.

You're the man. What you've done before. You say that to yourself a lot, right? Every morning or something. I say that to myself whenever I do feel like things are getting too much. But usually I believe it. And like, I remember feeling like this when I was moving out of my apartment and also going to Burning Man. It felt like there was a lot of stuff and I was just like, you can handle it.

You'll just do it. You'll get it done. And I believe it. And I do it. And this time I was saying it, but I still couldn't catch my breath. And I was still stressed. I was still feeling very, very unnerved. All at the office.

All in the car. Oh, now you leave. Because now I've left because I have to get to Micah's apartment. Of course. I have to see a studio for my 26 year old brother. That's what I should be doing. It is your birthday after all. So yeah, I'm there seeing this apartment about to go out.

And I'm like, okay. You're yelling at yourself in the car. I did scream in the car. I was like, just like to try to like reset my heart rate or something. Yeah. Like maybe screaming would convince your body that you're under attack and send more whatever you need to calm down. Yeah. So I was doing deep breaths, screaming.

I punched the steering wheel once to maybe see if that would help. Break your pinky. But then I was just like, just suffer through this, get through this and then have lunch. I think you have to just eat because this is the other big wrinkle is that I had skipped breakfast and I had two cups of iced coffee. What do you usually eat for breakfast? Usually I'll have like a banana or a smoothie or some oatmeal or cereal. I typically always eat breakfast, but this, I had like eaten so much all weekend because people were taking me out to dinner and cooking me lavish meals for my birthday. Of course.

You're the birthday boy, the special boy. You got your treats. That I was feeling that I was like, I'm full. I don't need breakfast. I just want to like work out. So I had exercised that morning at like 8 a.m. And I had not eaten. I had two cups of coffee.

So sometimes having too much coffee makes my heart feel a flutter in the same way. Yeah, it's caffeine. Right. But it's not usually compounded by all of the stress of like communication and dealing with shit. Of course. So I had that, so I had that added to it. So I was like kind of going back and forth of being like, is this a panic attack or is, or are you over caffeinated? And then I had lunch.

Sometimes there's not a lot of difference between the two. No, maybe not. But then I had lunch and I definitely calmed down a lot. I was still feeling like worked up, but I was, I was feeling like, man, that was crazy. You thought you couldn't deal with anything. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.

And I like got, and I, that was able to like work through my inbox and actually. So there was no like tipping point. There was no breakdown. There wasn't. No, this is, I mean, this whole thing lasted for like two hours. So it felt like that was the breakdown. It was almost not knowing if I was having a breakdown. Well, maybe I had had the breakdown.

Right. But there was no like curling up, sweating, hyperventilating, complete disconnect. Yeah. The closest I got was like really understanding why that happens to people. But I was like, it's not going to happen to me, but I can get why anyone would do it. I do want to curl up, but that sounds nice, but I can't. And I did not. I got it.

And then since then. Since then I've sort of, yeah, I feel, I feel much better. I feel the kind of interest. I definitely feel like this lingering clarity around anxiety and feeling very empathetic for people going through stress. Yeah. And I wonder if that's like related to my panic attack, like my being an empath or something. Oh, because you are now thinking about other people dealing with anxiety and then that stresses you out.

And I always do. Like I always think about like how other people feel and stuff, but I definitely don't do it and then also feel incredibly sorry for them. I wonder if this will change anything in you because everyone says if like, if you're dealing with anxiety, you should try meditating or therapy, two things that you don't really do. Right. Definitely don't do therapy. Do you think that stuff will help you?

I do things that I find that are meditative. Yeah. I'm not like sitting down and being fully like meditative, but I think like running is meditative to me. Climbing is very meditative. And I don't know if I am that interested in therapy. But it couldn't hurt. It couldn't hurt, but it'd be another appointment to keep.

But imagine like you're branding your thoughts as this tangled ball of wires and like you just have to untangle. Have you found that that's what you've been doing in therapy? Yeah. I mean, it helps to talk to somebody who's kind of a stranger that is completely unaware of anything else in your life. So you can be like super honest with this person because they don't know anybody. Right.

It's all your POV. So do you feel like tightly wound? Do you feel stressed out ever? I feel stressed out not to that extent. Though I will say like you have more obligations than I do between D&D and five siblings that rely on you to several degrees. Like my brothers are older. So it's never like, hey, can you help me do this?

Like my doctor brother never says that to me. Yeah. He doesn't text you to do a massage. Can you see a studio for me? You have a beautiful home. Two lovely daughters. I won't see a studio for you. He doesn't need that.

So what was I saying? Oh yeah. I feel like I'm stressed out to the point of panic attack mode. But you know, there are like thoughts that you can't really communicate with people because it's all like biased point of views or about them. So it does help to see and talk to somebody who's also quote unquote a professional. Right. I guess I wonder if even with a therapist that I would still like sometimes like when

I talked to a therapist, if I like complained about someone that I love, I would feel so guilty. Well, maybe this is something I should work with in therapy. I would feel so guilty. I can't remember if I told the story on the podcast or not, but I remember when I was like in fifth grade or something writing a journal entry one time when I was mad at my mom. Oh yeah.

And then you tried to destroy it or change it so that. Oh yeah. I did tell the story. Right. Like she cares about like this house in Brantford. It's so dumb. And then like two lines that are like, there he is. It's not that dumb.

But that's something you could talk about in therapy. But that's what I wonder if I would like, as I'd be talking to a therapist, I would be like, yeah, like I really, my brother was stressing me out and want to see this apartment. But he's not that stressful. He didn't expect me to do it. I take that on myself. It's not his fault. It's my fault.

Yeah. And that's something that's actually come up in my therapy. I'm like, I don't like complaining. And then she's like, why? And then you talk about that and it becomes an interesting thing. Yeah. Why don't you like complaining? I don't want to be negative.

Why is that negative? No, I'm like, yeah. People are asking, she's asking me questions nobody else would. That's it. Yeah. But I want to get fucking cross-examined. Why is complaining negative? I don't know.

I don't know. You're, because you're a fucking quack. That's why. It's shoving somebody. Get off of me. Yeah. I don't know. So what do you think?

Do you think I had a panic attack? I don't know. It seems like you were trending towards it, but it seems like panic attacks last for a smaller amount of time. Like they're concentrated. Like you never quite got to like the full melting point. Oh, okay. So yeah.

I guess I was worried that like all of the, that stuff around the, like the idea of the panic attack was the panic attack because there was definitely not ever like a, like a moment where I, it all felt a shit. Yeah. It seemed like you're one thing away from it. Like if, while you were driving to your brother, I got into a car accident. Yeah.

Maybe that would have crystallized everything. And I was like, nothing matters. Everything's fine. Or if Jill called you, he was like, Hey, where are you? Like we were supposed to go to lunch today. Like that one extra thing. You were almost at the point where the straw broke the camel's back. Yes.

But you're also, you haven't fixed anything. It's just like now maybe still laying dormant in you. Yeah. I mean, nothing's really changed. All of, all of the responsibilities are the exact same. This is like that full house episode where uncle Jesse said yes to everybody and it got too much for him. Yeah.

Oh, so I mean, this is going to lead into my unsolicited advice that I want to say for the next, next segment, but also, but this is one other thing that's not that. It also helps me to like remember that all of this stuff doesn't have, have to happen at once. This is something I couldn't tell myself on Monday, but like being stressed about my trip to LA, the directing job, the booking the flights, recording three podcasts in a day. It's like, you don't do all of that in like 20 minutes.

So like after I was done with the directing job, I was like, okay. So now I, that's like, that's completed. Nothing else has been added. So like checking off items on that insane list helped a lot too. Right. Like I have so much shit to do. It's like, yeah, that's what a day is. You do the shit that you need to do in order.

There is time for everything. Right. You just have to, you just have to do it and not worry about doing it all at once or all of it being done. When it's all not done, thinking about all of it being done is insane. But when it's like one thing's done, you're like, oh, now I see, I can understand how things get done. Right.

Second thing's done. It's like, all right, now it's never putting a dent in this. It's kind of like feeling like you don't want to clean anything. And you're like, I'll just, I'll just fold this towel. And then you do that and you're like, no, now I'm in the zone. Yeah, you have to get into a routine. All right, let's take a break and then you can give your official unsolicited advice after we thank these sponsors.

Thank you to Aura Frames for sponsoring this headgum podcast. You know, Aura Frames is sponsoring not just this episode, but the entire headgum network, Jake. Wow. That's correct. I mean, this might be the Goat Father's Day gift. I think it actually is. Yeah.

Yeah, not just Father's Day, but if for any not so tech savvy family member that you need a gift for soon, these digital photo frames might be the best of all time. Yeah. For me personally, these things are perfect. I'll tell you why. As you know, I am expecting my first child. We got one for Jill's parents. Oh, wow.

We got one for Jill's grandma. Holy smokes. We got one for my parents. So there are three of these bad boys in our family right now, but they're great. Really easy way to like stay in touch with your family. You can upload as many photos as you want directly into my parents kitchen. It's really nice. Oh, that's cool.

So you take a photo of anything, perhaps a baby, and then it goes to their digital photo. Yeah. Frame. This is actually how we told Jill's grandma. She was pregnant. We got her the Aura Frame. We plugged it in. Jill's grandma was pregnant.

Really nice asshole. This was actually a really sweet moment for me and my wife. And you're trying to make a joke of it. I was just being goofy a little bit like, this is how I told my grandma she was pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of like she misheard it or something like that. Or the way you said it was kind of like, could go either way.

By the way, Jill's grandma is pregnant. Oh my God. Jill's grandma is 90 and pregnant. It's pretty cool. And you told me with a digital photo frame. Holy smokes. And we let her know with an Aura. Yeah.

Thank you. The Aura announcement. So you can instantly frame photos from any device anywhere and invite the whole family in on the fun through the Aura app. Add me to your Aura app. I'd love to upload just a picture of me like at a pool or something. That could be funny. Yeah.

Like your banana or your dog alongside pictures of my daughter. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You deserve that. You can even preload photos and add a personal video message that will display as soon as your dad or anybody connects to the frame. Yeah.

It's a great gift. A really, really iconic gift. And right now you can save on the perfect Father's Day gift and visit Aura Frames. That's A-U-R-A frames.com. And our listeners can use code HEADGUM to get up to $30 off plus free shipping on the best selling frames. There it is. Oh wow.

This is timely. The deal ends on June 18th. So don't wait. Terms and conditions apply. That's Aura Frames. A-U-R-A frames.com. Okay. Go get your parent something.

All right. And use the code HEADGUM for $30 off plus free shipping. Right on. Thank you, Aura. And now back to the HEADGUM podcast you were listening to. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Thank you, BetterHelp. If you're finding yourself in a difficult, anxious, stressful situation talking to a professional

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Jake, what is your... Oh, it's a letter to the fireman. Mom, I'm coming. Gross. All right. Panic attack related. Yeah. We should say you spent the break sort of breathing into a paper bag.

That's right. Yeah. Crying and sweating a little bit. So the thing that helped me unwind from my panic attack or if I had one or whatever it was, my episode on Monday, there were like a bunch of emails that were people like trying to basically, people that wanted my time in some way or another, like setting a meeting, setting a dinner, like asking me to listen or give notes on something or feedback, whatever. And a responsibility.

A responsibility that I usually do say yes to. I do have a hard time saying no. And I think even though I didn't respond and just say no, I can't do this because there are like responsibilities that are related to the jobs that I have and that I like. So if somebody is like, hey, can you take a look at my student film, I would say no. You would say no. I would say no. Not starting now.

I mean, I would pretty much always say no to something like that. The things that I say yes to are like an agent emails me to meet with a client and look at their podcast pitches or something like that. But because I've had this trip, I had another job and it felt like everything was too much. I responded to a bunch of emails that it seemed like weren't incredibly timely and I was just like, let's circle back on this in September. Just pushed everything that could be pushed a full month instead of being like. So you didn't say no.

You just didn't say no yet. Yeah. Well, because these are things that I have already said yes to that are like ongoing. Got it. It wasn't fully like, hey, are you around to do this? For those things, I did say no. But yeah, for people that were following up on threads or continuing work, I was just like, this isn't going to happen.

I basically just became okay with the fact that I wasn't going to get everything done. In the timeline, I had set for myself arbitrarily and I was like, you're going to prioritize the things that need to happen in August and the things that can happen in September. I'm just going to fully move them to September. So I'm like, I'm out of town the rest of this month or I'm busy the rest of this month. Well, let's check in in September. You are going on two vacations. Yeah.

They seem to be very good timed vacations. The last two weeks of August. Yeah. I definitely need these vacations. The second vacation is one that's causing me a lot of stress. Second vacation is just a job. You've taken up an accounting internship in Alaska. The second vacation is me and Carnell and Jeff Rosenberg going to Alaska together.

Is that true? Yeah. Why did I think that was a Jill vacation? No, no. It's me and Carnell and Jeff. It's going to be awesome, but Alaska is so huge and vast and it requires so much research and booking and getting gear. So I'm like, I'm like a computer dealing with all this shit and then also just like

somebody from Denali Creekside Cabin being like, do you want to book a heli-hike? I do, but I can't now, Christ. I have to look up nine different heli-hikes and see which one is the best one. Did you ever buy those socks I recommended to you? I did. I was wearing them yesterday. Pretty good, right? They're good.

They're really good. I know you sometimes like to keep tabs open on your computer for months at a time. I did. I kept those open for a long time. I got a couple different. I got Bomba socks and I got the, what are the yours called? Balega. Balega socks.

So you're doing something. I got some sand socks. Yeah. Doing sort of like some sock research. Got it. Let us know what you end up with. Cool. Not that we're selling any ads about socks.

No. Well, someday we might and then I'll say that I like those ones. What about you? Do you have any unsolicited? No. Wait. What was your specific unsolicited saying no to things? I guess it's like, it's, I mean saying no to things, definitely.

I also said during my panic or during my episode that I was going to start saying no to things and that helped a little bit. But I also think that it's fine to like, to basically move your responsibilities further down the road if they're causing you a lot of stress, if they can be, I think you can, I think it's totally fine to, because everybody is, everyone really is just putting the onus back on somebody else. Yeah. Like all of my emails weren't like, hey, like let's get together and finish this right

now. It's like checking in on the status of this to like, it's, it's really just getting it out of your inbox and onto somebody else's plate. So I was doing a lot of just like taking, taking it, but also being like, we're not going to, we're not going to ping pong this for the next three weeks. I can't deal with that. What do you do with people you don't know emailing? Do you respond with no or do you not respond at all?

Cause what I end up doing is like, I'll answer this later, later, later. Oh, this was four weeks ago. I'll just delete the email. Yeah. I wonder if it's healthier to just delete it right away with a no or just delete it right away and not respond. I don't let anything linger. So if I'm not, I, I make a decision as I'm looking at it, if I'm going to respond or

not. So it's like, Hey, I went to your old high school and we're doing interviews and I'd love to pick your brain about stuff. Yeah. I really try to do a little like, so here's maybe an example of something like that. I wouldn't respond to somebody emailing be like, Hey, I got your email from so and so I'm trying to make it as a writer. Do you have any suggestions?

I'm just like, no, I don't like that's, that's somebody that is doing the laziest thing that is basically saying like, do you have an idea for me? Like that I can do. Do you have a shortcut for me? Hi, I want to be a writer. Do you have a shortcut? And I, so I don't like emails like that. But if it's somebody that's like, here's, here's a pilot that I wrote.

Here's a, this is, nobody fucking emailed me. Your pilot is listening, but if it seems like they've done a lot of work and they're willing to do a lot of work and it's not just like asking for a shortcut, but a stranger asking you to read their pilot, you would do that. No, I wouldn't just read a random pilot. So would you respond and say, I can't do this or would you archive right away? I think I would really just, I try to deduce every single time, if it's somebody asking for a shortcut or if it's somebody who's done a lot and like, is willing to

put in effort and work and wants to hustle. Yeah. So I, I basically, I guess I just, I'm identifying if there are a jackass or a hustler, and I respond to hustlers. I like that. I appreciate it. So sometimes I do respond to random people to get my email address, but jackasses get the archive, no response forever.

Yeah. That's cool. But then, I mean, then there's also things that are just like, I, I can't deal with this and I'll, I'll archive it. It, it runs the game, I guess, from no, all the way to yes. And I'm having a panic attack trying to help you. Yeah. I mean, those right now would probably just be like, I'm, I don't have time for

this, but I appreciate it. All right. Well, speaking of things we have to do, how about answering a question on a freaking advice podcast. It's about time. Uh, we're out of time actually. Wow. Back next week.

Now let's see if we can get to a few. Um, but hopefully this was therapeutic, not just for you, but for other people listening. Yeah. I, I feel so much better. Um, all right. Uh, here's one from a dude that seems to be in a crazy predicament as well. Cool. Uh, we'll call him, I don't know, Mike, because you're going to Alaska

with Mike. Yeah, baby. So last week, my girlfriend and I broke up. I wouldn't let her break things off. So I kept talking to her, hoping we could realize things flash to the weekend where she wants me to go to a party with her, but I decided I probably shouldn't because I didn't want to mess things up just as we were patching things up at the party. Her and her ex kissed, but she ran out crying and called me telling me to come over.

We then spent the whole weekend together and then she told me about what happened. And I don't know what to do. I'm not mad, but it seems like every time she's around this guy, he tries to pull a move. She's insisting on being friends with him. What should I do? She wants to get back together. Uh, should I leave this girl?

Please help me. Thanks in advance for reading this. Yes. Yes. You guys absolutely break up. Every sentence in this email was wrong. Yeah. And it was a full paragraph of it.

And I didn't like, it's weird because at the onset, I thought he was insane. And then I, now I think she's insane, but I guess they're just both insane. This strikes me as like a young romance or like everything just fucking crazy. And you have no basis of it. It's, it's funny to imagine people that are in like these kind of bad relationships. Like, I can't get it. Like, it feels almost like they're in a, in a Sims video game where you're like, you can't escape this person's orbit.

You're right in the world, but like, that's not the way it actually is. But when you're like 19, that's all you know. Right. But the world's so big, you just don't have to be next to someone driving you insane. Yeah. You do not have to share space with somebody that gives you grief. I think your world grows as you get older. Like when you're a kid, it's just your family.

Then it's like your family and friends. Then it's high school. You start to meet other high schoolers like, well, this is getting kind of crazy. I know 12 people. Then you go to college and you're like, there's like 400 people. So like, you still feel like you're in the circle. And then you graduate from college and you're like, okay, now I'm in the world and I can go anywhere in the world.

Right. You can even leave a city in the world. Yeah. Once you're in the world, you can move anywhere in the world. The world's big. The world's big. Except for North Korea, I feel like you can go anywhere in the world. Right, definitely.

And if you're in North Korea, you can't go anywhere in the world either. So I don't know if you're in high school, college or after, but it seems like you should just break up with this lady, which I think you already did. But then you kept talking to her so she could realize things. She also kissed another guy. So it seems like there's a lot there. There's a lot of drama. It's weird to, like, I understand somebody being like, I want to be friends with my

ex, but if you recently kissed them and they're actively trying to get back together with you, being friends with them doesn't seem like it should be a priority. Move to Canada. I don't know if you're in Canada or what, but that's my suggestion. This is absolutely like an Australia question. That's a complete restart. This has to be from Brisbane. You're moving to a completely new country.

It's a whole new, it's a whole new restart. It's a refresh. Yeah, no matter your age or location, definitely break up. This is a terrible situation and it doesn't have to be. Yeah. All right. One last question. This one also seems to be from a younger dude.

Who is your best friend at age 15? 15? What grade was I in? Ninth. Actually, you were still in third, right? That's right. Yeah, I stayed, I stayed back and stayed back and stayed back. Then I skipped ahead, but then I went way back.

Who was your best friend at 15? Rami? 15, yeah, high school. Jesse, Rami, Ofer, the same people I'm friends with now. Cool. Haven't aged at all. We'll call this guy Jesse. Hey guys, I'm a huge fan of the show and I'm having a little bit of a dilemma.

I'm in high school and I have not gotten with a girl for over a year. I'm a pretty normal guy, not weird or anything, but I just realized I've been such on such a dry streak that it's starting to freak me out. No matter what I do, I cannot get with a girl. Are my standards too high? I'm certainly not ugly, but I'm not the greatest looking guy. Should I lower my standards and just scrape the bottom of the pale for literally anything I can get?

Or should I stay patient? Any advice is great. That's a good question. I don't know. He's dry. He's a dry in high school. Dry guy. Can you have a dry streak in high school?

I feel like high school for me was all desert. There was no dry street. Yeah, there wasn't a lot of it was just dryness. There were, I mean, mostly, I guess mostly, I wasn't cool enough to be like, I haven't gotten with a girl in a while. I'm in a dry streak in fucking 10th grade. Yeah, no way. I definitely, I think in high school, like once a year was about good.

It's an oasis. You like, you can capture these smaller miracles as they come, but I wouldn't call the time in between getting with, which I'm glad that's still a slaying that people are using. I thought that was antiquated. Getting with it was like when I was in, no, when I was in high school, the late 90s people said getting with. Right.

It's still, it's still happening. That's true. That's although this email was written in 1999. That's fair. So did you, we used to say like, Oh, I'm like talking to so and so I'm talking to Danielle and that would mean hooking up. Really? Yeah.

No, we're talking. We're talking. Seeing each other seems to be the most passive one I've ever heard. Seeing each other means dating. Oh, well, seeing, seeing each other is definitely like that implies everything. But you're like, Oh yeah, like me and her are talking. That's like, yeah, that you talk to a principal. Yeah.

Are you, and I only looked up with her once. Are you talking to all the tall? We're chatting, but I don't know if we're talking yet. Did that get based on text, aiming? Is that what talking? Maybe it was in, I mean, it was definitely in before text, but maybe it was an aimed thing. Should I lower my standards and scrape the bottom of the pale for literally anything?

I just, like, I don't feel like his standards are that firm regardless. Yeah. Like, I sort of get the sense from this question that he would hook up with anything. If he's calling it a dry streak. Yeah. I think that all you can really do, because lowering your, I don't, I just don't think that lowering your standards actually gets you laid any faster. It's hard not to be ugly in high school too.

It's the ugliest time. Right. Everyone's ugly. I think all you can do is be patient. Like you'll hook up with somebody eventually. Or you won't. There'll be a party. It's a summer time.

That happens. You can also try masturbating. That's like kind of hooking up, but you don't have to get anybody else involved. Well, that's interesting. Yeah, it still feels good sexually. I wonder if any of our listeners have thought of something like that. Yeah. So like, if you try jerking off that way, it's like, you get the release.

I should have done that when I had my panic attack. Oh, yeah. Why didn't you just J.O.? You were already trembling the last thing that you can do it. You get caught in the office. All right. I just have to freaking not. I think I'll all feel better after that.

You're currently viewing a studio for your brother. Can you at least go into the bathroom? You think he's going to apply or not? Can you be his guarantor? I don't know you four year old acidic man. I just have to fap in the bathroom quickly. All right, let's give him his time. If he can J.O. in the bathroom, then his brother is going to live here.

Did your brother end up taking that place? He applied and he, he didn't get it. So you saw the studio. It was good. He liked, yeah, it was a good, it was a good spot. He liked it. He tried. It was actually the place where John Carlo and John Grimm used to live.

Oh, really? Remember that? Off the ground. Yeah. Above Kim's grocery. Yep, which is gone now, I think. Is it the same exact unit? No, that was like a two bedroom.

No, they had a two bedroom, but it was the, it was, it was on the same floor. So you have jerked off there before. That's right. Because we had that Christmas party there. Right. We did this. We did the circle jerk super, super bowl party. That's how we filled out our square.

We shot one of our first, we actually, we shot one of our first video. If I were used there, I think the first video, the first one. So, you know, it's all full circle, I guess. So yeah, relax. However, that may translate to you, high schooler. God, I can't imagine being in high school today. Too much stimulus. Yeah, no, I would not like to be at a high schooler with an iPhone.

I wouldn't last, I wouldn't last four years, let alone a day. All right, that's it. That's our episode. We crammed two questions in after a lengthy discussion about mental health. Yeah. Thanks for letting me indulge and talk about myself for so long. And you, looking forward to your next birthday. Jesus.

All right. If you have your own questions, your own theme song, send them to if I were you show at gmail.com. This episode will come out either when you're in Nantucket or in Alaska. So hopefully we hear the what happened there. Hopefully it was a calm, a calm vacation for you guys. Yeah. Follow me on Instagram.

You could see all my vacations. I'm actually trying to get as many followers as I mean. We will be back next week. I got to pick up 30 K. Wait a minute. The closing theme song. All right. Opening theme song was written by Ryan and this closing one derailed by the bit

was written by Joshua Leach. Joshua Leach. Nice. Thanks, Joshua. Thanks, Ryan. Thanks to you guys for listening. Follow Jake on Instagram. We'll be back.

Bye. That was a hate gun podcast.