Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Ask Mayim Anything #3: Sex & Love Addiction, Repressed Memories, ADHD and Imposter Syndrome

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

It’s another episode of Ask Mayim Anything! This time, Mayim answers your questions about ADHD, hoarding, and what it really means to be triggered. She breaks down misophonia, Borderline Personality Disorder, and the importance of taking news breaks. Mayim shares tips for combating imposter syndrome and burnout, advice for new parents, and how to get the most out of therapy. She explains the effects of mold poisoning on mental and overall well-being, the differences between mood swings and bipolar disorder, why some of us cry when we’re angry, and sex & love addiction. Stay tuned to the end to hear Mayim’s insights on the truth behind midlife crises, trauma and repressed memories, and her recommendations for hippie content! BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you move forward with your therapist when you get to a point where you feel like you have nothing to talk about? Well, Brie. You have two choices. Figure out what you actually want to talk about that you're avoiding talking about. Or look for a new therapist and see if there's a different lens to what you're experiencing that you're more comfortable sharing with that therapist. I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but there's never nothing to talk about. Like if all else fails, just pull out your first uncomfortable. memory. Your first memory of not feeling listened to. And if you had an amazing childhood,

that's fantastic. But there's a reason that you went to therapy in the first place. And I guess I'd be curious if there's something that you're nervous to talk about. It may be unconscious. It could be that a different style of therapy might be more helpful for you. And most importantly, talking to your therapist about not knowing what to talk about with your therapist will probably reveal a lot more than you even imagined. And good luck. It's Miami-Biolic's breakdown. She's going to break it down for you because you know she knows a thing or two. And now she's going to break down.

Hi, I'm Maya Bialik and welcome to my breakdown. This is the place where we break things down so you don't have to. We're doing something fun today. I'm flying solo, everyone. It's time to ask Miami anything. and anything is what you have asked me. We have many, many questions, and I'm the kind of person, like, if you give me one question, I will give you an hour lecture on it.

That's not what we're going to do today. Today we're going to essentially try and cover as much ground as we can. Here are just some of the topics that we're going to cover today. Always ADHD. Misophonia. What's that? You know when people annoy you when they're chewing really loud? It's called misophonia.

Imposter syndrome. taking news breaks What does it mean to be triggered? Borderline personality disorder. Is burnout a real thing? Why do I want to take my children's TVs away and should I? Sex and love addiction, trauma and repressed memories, and the hippie era. I think you're going to want to tune in.

Ask my anything. Yeah. Let's get right to it. First question. How does ADHD look different in females rather than males? Alexandra wants to know. We actually went into this a little bit in the Jody Sweeten episode. So this is not going to be like, hey, watch this episode to answer your question.

But I do think that if you haven't seen the Jody Sweeten episode, you absolutely should check that out. So boys generally are about three times more likely than girls to receive an ADHD diagnosis. At least to my current knowledge or the current knowledge of research, this isn't because boys necessarily are more genetically predisposed to ADHD, although there may be differences in males and females in how we're seeing it. But what we know is that the symptoms in boys tend to be much more externalizing, which are things that often get flagged earlier and therefore easier to diagnose. So what are the things we think about? Impulsivity, like acting out, what we generally think of as hyperactivity. With girls, what you'll often see is more internalizing behavior as being withdrawn, having low self-esteem, anxiety that might not present the same way as boys. So it's very, it's very. interesting because the limitations are going to be very similar. The challenges that boys and girls present with may look the same, but the diagnoses may be different. And also, there's a huge cultural component of how we expect behavior from boys that in many cases we try and regulate differently than we do in girls. So thank you, Alexandra, for that question. This is a great

lead into our next question. Stephanie asks, can caffeine help people with ADHD? and spectrum disorders. I often hear caffeine can have a calming effect on people, especially children who are hyperactive, but science-based evidence seems weak. Well, Stephanie, sometimes science-based evidence is weak. In this case, here's the deal. And I hope this does not sound like I'm being captain obvious. The medications that are typically given for ADHD are stimulants, which might sound kind of counterintuitive because like ADHD, ADHD, it's like, oh, you're so sped up and you're so stimulated. One of the issues with ADHD is an inability to filter, meaning an inability to filter what's kind of valuable information, meaning information you need to attend to,

and what's less important information. So for someone like me, I'm very, very easily not just distracted, but thrown off course by stimulus that comes into my brain and into my world that I'm not able to filter out effectively. What caffeine does and what stimulants do that are used to treat ADHD is they essentially help the system focus on less categories of things with the same importance, meaning those drugs are meant to help you narrow your focus. So if you've ever heard any of the either like jokes or, you know, stereotypes about when people take amphetamines, like narcotic amphetamines, you'll often hear like, oh, you know, like I retiled my roof last night or things like that.

It's not simply that those things give energy, which, you know, amphetamines will. they allow for a very specific kind of focus. There are many side effects to those medications, especially for children, and caffeine itself is a drug and an addictive one at that. So especially for young developing minds, many people do use caffeine to focus like that and to give them that kind of specific boost of energy. But it is not a coincidence. So thank you, Stephanie. Gloria asks, please break down misophonia. Well, Gloria, this took a little research on Valerie and my part because,

misophonia is kind of a funny one. It is a disorder in which certain sounds trigger emotional or physiological responses that some people might perceive as unreasonable. So if you've ever heard someone say that a certain sound drives them crazy and they're not just kind of speaking colloquially like, oh, it drives me crazy. There are people for whom certain sounds make them feel a level of discomfort that feels unbearable to them. I've known people with misophonia and it often looks like extreme irritability from a certain sound, meaning some people might be driven crazy to the point of irritability by someone like me who's constantly like tapping something or moving my leg or chewing with my mouth open. I'm told I do that and it makes people crazy.

So the issue is not simply that someone's like, oh, I don't like that or that's annoying. There's a physiological response and an emotional response that goes with how. having to hear those kind of sounds. It's often repetitive sounds, finger tapping, keyboard tapping. I'm also a very loud type. I sound like an annoying person that anyone would be annoyed by, but especially people with misophonia have spoken to me about this. And you sometimes will find misophonia in other syndromes. There's comorbidity, as we call it. Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, which is different than obsessive-compulsive disorder. People with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, I've experienced anecdotally a lot of comorbidity with that. A mild reaction to this would be like, that's annoying or like, that's disgusting. Where the urge to flee, which I think is just Valerie and my memoir title together, we're going to write a book called The Urge to Flea. Severe symptoms or severe reactions that you would find in people with misophonia would be really rage. Like panic, it can even cause some fear.

In terms of treatment for misophonia, there are ways to try and desensitize yourself to certain sounds. A lot of people either find ASMR helpful or, not helpful. It really is going to depend on kind of what floats your misophonia boat. Anything in general that lowers anxiety is going to probably, in many cases, be helpful if you have misophonia. And now that I know that people have misophonia, I do try and be more sensitive to how I behave around them because I am a person that does create a lot of repetitive sounds. And for that, I apologize to people with misophonia. Ho asks, please discuss mental health under severe political pressure.

What are some tips for combating excessive bad news and feelings of sadness, anger, and hopelessness, especially for those who don't have access to therapy? This is an enormously complicated question, and the answer is really beyond the scope of what I can even imagine to cover, because I'm experiencing this in particular. And it's really the reason that Jonathan and I started this podcast was because our mental health was taking a hit, largely because of political pressure and what was going on with COVID and, you know, a lot of misinformation. You know, this is one of those things that for me, I'm not proud of it. I have really had to go on a variety of news breaks.

And, you know, I think it's important for people to hear that if you are feeling stressed and overwhelmed by the state of politics, the state of the world, the state of the environment, that's normal. It's normal to feel distressed when there are so many distressing things in the news, especially if you're listening in the United States. There have been many, many weeks, you know, of this year alone with shootings. It's very intense. It's very, I would be worried if you weren't feeling sad, angry, hopeless. While I wish I had more resilience, I have done enough experiments to know that I do need to take news breaks. Obviously, I need to know what's going on in the world to whatever extent is appropriate for me or my lifestyle. And I hope that would be true for you as well. But I'd like to encourage people not to white knuckle it through. Do not think that trying to tough it out or feeling like, you, you know, you know,

you will be desensitized by repeatedly exposing yourself to upsetting news that that will necessarily make it better. It really just depends on who you are, what your temperaments like, and it is okay to be sensitive. I also highly recommend listening to the episode we do with Barry Weiss. You know, Barry Weiss is a person who's really taken, taken the news very seriously, left a prestigious job at the New York Times to start her own forum for media. And honestly, I find it a lot gentler on my mental health. It's really placed in, I think, a very healthy context. And so be careful where you get your news. I also, you know, had to go on strike just from sort of like popular celebrity news and gossip news and things like that because for me, I'm like a compare and despair person. And so that's just me, like,

piling on complexity to what I see. So, you know, I think being an acceptance of your sensitivity is really helpful and not trying to white knuckle it. My NBi Alex breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful. Maybe they're like, you're fine, drink more water. There's no real data. There's no game plan.

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Head to Superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention My Ambiotics Breakdown to help support the show. Through. Omkar asks, do you have any advice for gaining confidence at work while combating anxiety and imposter syndrome? Oh, man. No.

Sorry, I shouldn't say no. Yes, but I've actually been experiencing this in a lot of regions of my life. You know, I was a child actor and then I went to grad school and I went to even my undergrad. People were like, oh, but you're an actress. Why are you here? And I know that's a very specific example, but I think we all have those experiences of feeling like, what am I doing here? Do I deserve to be here? Is it right to be here?

If there's so many other people who can do this better, why me? Why am I trying to do this? You know, I've talked a lot here about that science did not. come easily to me. You know, I started studying science and trying to even make up math requirements in my teen years and really even into my time at UCLA. And college was not easy and grad school was not easy for me. And, you know, then I went back to acting and then it's like, well, you have a PhD in neuroscience. Why are you here? So I definitely, I've experienced a lot of this and I'm not trying to make it about me. I'm trying to give examples of things that at many levels of life we experience,

do I belong here? And, you know, it's an existential question that will find you wherever you are. Here are seven strategies that I'm going to drop in here. This is adapted from the American Psychological Association. Learn facts. Think about the facts, the objective facts that support you being wherever you're at. Number two, share your feelings. Make sure to share these kinds of feelings because hearing from someone else who can be kind and gentle with you is a very important part of not sinking into, for me, what can be a lot of despair. Number three, celebrate your successes. This is not a small thing. Many of us think that if we celebrate our successes, we're being egotistical or too proud, but it's important to balance that out and it can go a long way towards combating

those kind of feelings. Number four, let go of perfectionism. Many people who have imposter syndrome or dealing with these kind of feelings feel that they have to do everything perfect and everything right. Also a really strong emphasis in Western culture in particular. So not surprising. Number five, cultivate self-compassion. Use mindfulness. Shift from an external locus of self-worth to an internal one. Highly recommend meditation apps that are about self-love, self-appreciation. Number six, share your failures with a trusted group or other trusted individuals. It's okay to not get things right. It's okay to mess up. I do it all the time. And number seven, acceptance. find a way to appreciate progress and not perfection.

Elizabeth asks, can you break down hoarding and its recovery process? Hoarding is a tricky one. Hoarding is something that we often see for those who are diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Actually, one of my features of my OCD is hoarding. There are many levels of hoarding. There's, you know, literally mild, medium, and maximum hoarding. and hoarding has a lot of different purposes. And so when you talk about recovery, it's really important to understand what purposes that hoarding serves.

Some people hoard what are called useless objects. I find that offensive as someone with OCD who does hoard useless objects because I think useless is very arbitrary. But there are people who hoard objects that don't otherwise serve a purpose. When I was a kid, my father of blessed memory would, we would go for walks. And often in the rain, we would take fun rain walks. lived in, you know, a part of Los Angeles that had alleys. And we would walk in the alleys because sometimes you'd find like little trinkets or you'd find change. And so I grew up as like a little bit

of like, it was fun. It was like a scavenger hunt, you know. And that's just, it's a part. It was a part of my dad's personality. It was a part of my personality. Some people will hoard things to feel safe, to feel comfortable. And the way that you really can tell if you're hoarding or just like to collect things is to try and get rid of them. If you've not read the life changing magic of tidying up. That's the Marie Condo book. It's very, very interesting. And if you try and do the things that she recommends, you will quickly be able to tell if you are collecting or hoarding. And there's a lot of shame associated with hoarding. There's a lot for some people about cleanliness and hoarding. So it's often something that we see in other arenas as well. I do not recommend trying to stop being a

hoarder on your own because the feelings that come up and the discomfort that comes up when asked to part with things that you have hoarded for a kind of clinically significant reason can be scary, can be really scary and uncomfortable. So this is something that is important to analyze and bring up with a professional. Many things that I thought were collections actually turned out to be things that I was hoarding. And I have undergone kind of various stages of a process of coming more to terms with my hoarding. It's much more manageable, I would say, very organized about it. And if you haven't followed me on TikTok, you probably should if you'd like to see some of my my special collection.

Please explain the difference between being triggered and feeling confronted, challenged, or uncomfortable. Julie, I love this question. I kind of wish I could talk to you, Julie, because I'm so curious, you know, where your curiosity comes from. So I'm curious about your curiosity. Triggered is one of these terms that we're hearing so much. We are definitely hearing it more. in the vernacular and it's powerful. And when I think about the difference between saying to someone, I don't like that you said that and you're triggering me, it has a really specific purpose that I think

in many cases is very useful. In mental health terms, a trigger is something that affects your emotional state significantly by causing extreme overwhelm or distress. A trigger affects your ability to remain present. It may bring up specific thought patterns. It can influence your behavior. In many cases, triggers can stimulate trauma. So this is one of those words and one of these phrases that as an annoying neuroscientist, I like to be really, really careful about because things can be annoying, things can be challenging. You cannot like things. But when we talk about triggers, it's a very specific thing that we're talking about. Triggers, just for a point of reference, they can be internal, they can be external, absolutely specific phrases, odors or sounds

can trigger people, especially people who have experienced trauma. Substance use disorders often involve triggers, and there's a lot of really interesting research that I remember learning about when I was in grad school about the kinds of things that surround drug use are often more significant than the drug themselves. The social environment, the rituals involved with many kinds of drug use can kind of serve as triggers of sort and being around those situations can trigger specific cravings. So very, very interesting. And, you know, as always, tread lightly when using the term triggered. Fiona asks, can you please break down the neuroscience behind borderline personality disorder?

What are the physical differences in affected brains versus neurotypical brains? Borderline personality disorder. So some people just call it borderline, but not to be confused with the term, borderline. Borderline personality disorder involves an intense fear of abandonment with people often going to extreme measures to avoid real or imagined separation or rejection. What does that look like? A lot of difficulty maintaining relationships. A lot of difficulty maintaining friendships. A lot of difficulty maintaining work relationships or jobs.

A pattern of unstable, intense relationships, meaning not intense relationships that are unstable, but a pattern. of relationships that are both unstable and intense. Idealizing someone and then turning around and believing that they don't care. The angel devil syndrome happens a lot for those with borderline personality disorder. Also rapid changes in self-identity and self-image. Often alcoholism is not unusual, but obviously it's not unusual in a lot of places, but often people with borderline personality disorder will have drug problems or binge eating, spending happens a lot, you know, trouble managing money will often happen.

Impulsive behavior, risky behavior. You will often see wide mood swings usually because of all the changes in relationships and things like that. And what I'd love to say, Fiona and anyone else who's interested in borderline personality disorder, you can have a lot of these things and not have borderline personality disorder. These are umbrella terms that categorize very, very generally, but that is a very specific portrait. How is borderline personality disorder different from like, oh, say, bipolar disorder, you're not going to get those kind of large swings between depression and mania.

You may, but that wouldn't be specifically from borderline personality disorder in particular. But I definitely think that those kind of hallmarks are a pattern of unstable, intense relationships, and that kind of angel devil, that fragmenting that people often do. Very, very complicated disorder. In terms of physiological differences, regions that may be implicated or the amygdala, which is the center of the brain associated with kind of fear and that sort of ragey fear. Hippocampus, which is interesting. The hippocampus is usually placement, placing things in space.

and it's an interesting, an interesting region of the brain to have in continuous hyperarousal in some examples. Cortisol is the hormone of stress. And so that's often, you often will see abnormal levels of cortisol for people with borderline personality disorder. That kind of means everything's overwhelming. I'm a person who has cortisol issues, interesting. But I don't have borderline personality disorder, at least not that I know of. And prefrontal cortex is implicated in borderline personality disorder because that's impulse control. And so that is a region that you're going to see different in those with BPD.

Rebecca with a KAH asks, how can indoor mold poisoning and mycotoxins affect physical, mental, and emotional health? Rebecca, this is a great question. This is something that used to be kind of reserved, kind of in hushed circles. You know, we holistic hippies used to talk about this. And then you'd see a case in the news about like mold taking over someone's house or life or health. And it is something that people are talking about a lot more. Many of the symptoms that we now know can be attributed to mold toxicity in particular, they're often misdiagnosed.

So autoimmune disorders, there are many autoimmune specialists who believe, and there is research to support this. I can't say to what extent. There's absolutely research to support the fact that autoimmune disorders are, in many cases, impacted significantly. It's a bold thing for me to say like mold causes fibromyalgia because I don't think it's that simple. But for those of us with autoimmune disorders, and I do have one myself, this is an arena that many holistic and kind of naturopathic doctors will look to to see if mold is a thing. I will say I had one instance in my life when my kids were little when we had a window in our home that I did not know had molded.

It was behind a curtain that was always closed. And we had very, very specific symptoms. I was divorced, so it only happened at my house. And I couldn't figure out what was happening. And my fear was that I was causing it, meaning that there was something emotional happening that was giving my children this reaction. And literally, it was mold.

So there are sometimes easy ways to fix mold. In that case, we remove the window. There are certain people who are more sensitive to mold. I love to use myself as an example for, many things. You know when you collect food on the counter because then you're going to compost it later, there are certain people who within often hours or a day will start having intense allergic symptoms. And I did not know that this doesn't happen to everyone. So if I have produce, my throat would start itching like from the inside out in a way that like you couldn't even

satisfy the itch. And it turned out I am a person who's very, very sensitive to the mold that grows like on fruit and vegetables like that when, you know, even when they're in a covered container. So when I think about that, I think about all the other ways that our bodies are sensitive. And for those of us with autoimmune conditions, we are in many cases more more susceptible to allergic reactions like that. Lauren asks, what's the difference between mood swings and bipolar disorder? Great question. Mood swings can be part of bipolar disorder.

So not everyone who has mood swings has bipolar disorder. but most people who have bipolar disorder will have mood swings. So mood swings are changes in the mood, meaning anytime that you are aware that you feel like you're literally swinging from one extreme to the next, a lot of that happens and it doesn't mean you're bipolar. If you've ever been a teenager, you know that mood swings happen. And those are often a result of hormonal fluctuations, many of which are just organic. and, you know, for me when I'm in a hormonal stage of life, be it monthly or, you know, in different

phases of life, especially for women, you can find yourself having a lot more mood swings. But bipolar disorders is going to have a period of depression and mania that are alternating with a particular frequency. Great question, though. Really great question. Sarah asks, what's happening in our brain when we're dealing with burnout? I'm starting to come back to life after a long stretch of burnout. My brain is sharper, clear, and more creative, my brain also feels more synchronized with my body. Well, first of all, Sarah, that sounds amazing. You know, burnout is a chronic stressful state that starts to blunt your ability to deal with kind of normal stressors in life, which means that if you're in a position to recover or be in a

recovery phase after burnout, it means that you've allowed a lot of your body and brain systems to kind of reboot. And, you know, in sort of kind of human terms, what it means is you've given yourself the rest that it needed so that you can return feeling sharper, clearer, and more creative. I would like to say, Sarah, that that's the way I always would like you to feel. And I know for anyone who has experienced burnout, it can also feel like that's eternal. Like you're always going to be there. But being able to allow rest and recovery is really the gift that you give your system so that it can come back stronger, as it were.

Nicole asks a fantastic question. I want to make a radical change in my household and get rid of all TVs. Yes, Nicole. Do it. I'm scared of my two kids' reactions. Five and eight-year-old boys. They're going to be so mad. Any advice on transitioning or how to handle resistance?

Should I discuss it first or just do it? Just do it, Nicole. No, I have no idea what's right. for you, Nicole. What I will say is, children are allowed to have opinions. Children are not allowed to, in my opinion, be the adults in the situation. Meaning, I would say the radical change may be extremely challenging. You may want to think about modifications. I don't know what's right for your house. Like if you know that you want to get rid of all TVs, you don't need permission to do it. You're the grown up and you can do it. I don't.

do think a discussion is important. And I think you really want to be careful about finding things to replace what that TV stood for. And the reason that I can't weigh in is I'm not a therapist. I don't know you. If you have a family that is structured around the television, for example, it's on in the morning, the kids watch throughout the day, they get to watch right after they come home from school, they watch all night until they go to bed. That's going to be really interesting to just cut them off cold turkey. And depending on your situation, Sometimes a family therapist, even a consult with a family therapist, might be helpful in assessing what's right for you. Generally speaking, my philosophy just for me as a mom is you get to do what's right for your kids.

They may not like it. They may protest. If you find that they're in a state of anxiety or misery, I would say that it's an indication that more needs to be explored in terms of what the television meant for them, what sugar meant for them. I mean, what any number of things meant for them. And I think also you want to be really clear on what your motivations are. So is it that? We want more family time. We want more time to get exercise.

I'm tired of my children's eyes glazing over and ignoring me. It's a great reason. But I also would maybe have you do a little bit of soul searching to find out what that radical change is for, meaning is limiting or setting some healthy boundaries around it, something that might be reasonable for your family. But again, if you know that you are done with television and would like to live a life without television, yes, you're going to get a lot of resistance. I recommend Adventures in Gentle Discipline, which is a really wonderful book about sort of how to tackle these kinds of things with confidence and compassion. Kind of a related question. Someone is asking advice about raising an authentic child. I mean, because it depends on your definition of authentic.

For Nicole, authentic means no TV. But are there any parenting books you recommend that touch on this? What is an authentic child, first of all? Something that's a real goal of mine is to be an authentic person and by extension to raise children who feel like they're living an authentic existence. What that means is like, or at least what it means to me, and I hope whoever asked this question agrees, the notion that I would like to raise children who feel confident, expressing their needs, comfortable having needs, even if it makes other people uncomfortable,

and a sense of understanding their place in the world exactly as they are. One book that I do recommend is kind of a classic in this arena, raising your spirited child. So this is especially appropriate when you talk about authentic children. This is often brought up with kids who might seem intense or sensitive, children who seem to be very perceptive or persistent or energetic, or in many cases difficult as diagnosed by other people. So this is a book that I really recommend.

Some people are like, oh, that's a strong-willed child instead of, my child is so difficult. This book, Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Shidi Karsinka, is a really great place to start. Understanding your child's temperamental traits and also yours, sometimes you'll get a child who's kind of a mismatch with their parents, not in a negative way. But if you're a person, for example, who's very introverted and you get a child who's an extreme extrovert, that can seem really challenging. If you're a person that considers yourself very mellow and easygoing and you have a kid that tantrums a lot or that has a lot of emotional challenges, that can be a difficult match. And this book is really helpful, especially for that. A lot of kids who are sensitive or even living kind of an authentic existence, they'll often have power struggles in ways that other kids don't. And this book is just a really great way to learn kind of how to handle that if it looks like tantrums or a lot of ways power struggles can present with spirited children in particular.

Aloma asks, what are some ways to cope with anxiety and fear of getting it wrong as you become a first-time mom? Oh, Haloma. I mean, part of it is, you know, we've talked when we often talk to people who work a program here. We have guests who have worked a 12-step program, awareness, acceptance, and action. Many people feel anxious or fear that they're doing something wrong, so they try and like fix it, act different. do contrary action and like do the opposite of what you think because then no one will know that I'm anxious if I pretend that I'm not. But what that middle A is for awareness acceptance action is trying to be in acceptance that you're going to get it wrong. And even the notions of there being a

right and wrong in parenting is for me a little bit like being a good or bad mom. It's not that simple and it's not that binary. So in terms of coping with the anxiety and fear, coping with anxiety and is something you're going to do around every region of your life. But in particular, having that awareness, being an acceptance that you don't have to do it right, for me that alleviated a lot of anxiety. And the more that I can do to care for my own mental health, the better I am able to manage what is, I think, a normal anxiety of being a parent and fear of getting it wrong. Another thing that I've found, because I do get it wrong a lot, is admitting that you get it

wrong to your children, which sounds like, oh, then they're not going to trust me. They're going to think they're in charge. I have actually found it to work in the exact opposite direction. When I'm authentic with my kids, when I'm able to say, I got that wrong or I don't know what to do, it takes the pressure off me because it's not that I'm coming down to their level as like, I don't fucking know. What it is is it's saying, we're all figuring this out together and it takes all of us to get it right. I think that's the other thing. I definitely don't think of my children as my friends. They are my children and I'm their mom. But I do want them to feel like we're on the same team and that team is our family. And the notion of being anxious and fearful often leads to me

trying to show them. Like, I'll show them. Like, look, I'm in control. I'll show them. I'll make it strict. I'll make it uncomfortable. I'll punish, you know. And that's something that doesn't go away. My kids are 14 and 17 and it doesn't go away. But the more that you can kind of come to terms with the fact that You're not going to, you don't have to get it right. And they're going to be okay. I think the easier it will be. Agi, how does sleep deprivation impact new parents? Horribly.

What are your tips for improving sleep as a new parent? I have none. So sleep deprivation is a real thing. One of the things that women who are pregnant report in the third trimester is a lot of difficulty sleeping. Part of that is physical because, like, you literally like cannot move your whale of a body if you're like me and become a small whale when pregnant. But what I like to remind people is that to actually practice, it can be used as practice.

The third trimester is not a time to plan to get rest because what's going to happen next is you're going to have a newborn mammal. And here's the thing about newborn mammals. They don't know when it's day and night. That lasts usually a month or so. And even when they do learn what day and night is, you know, mammals are used to being fed. mother's milk, which is metabolized about every two hours, which is about when the hormones of connection, bonding, and attachment need to be refreshed. So before you think like, I don't breastfeed, it's not about breastfeeding. It's not about breastfeeding. What I'm saying is that the mammal

brain, the mammalian brain, the mammalian body is primed to be in contact with a caregiver, approximately every two hours, 24 hours a day. You are welcome to say that you don't want that. babies don't care. Toddlers also don't care, but many people do follow sleep training protocols, which whatever works for you is what works for you. I can speak for what worked for me and what, you know, I think neuroembriology and kind of the attachment philosophy believes, which is that sleep deprivation is a very, very unpleasant and an normal part of the first, you know, six months to four years of a child's life. But what I will also remind people is that the thing about mammals is we were not designed for a man mammal and a lady mammal to live in a house by themselves. And

sleep deprivation was something that was managed for, you know, most of primate history very differently. And if you look at how other primates live and parent, you know, the life of a new mom, a mammal mom is cared for intensely, particularly by other women in the community. And all Often other people would nurse your child. So while we don't do that, I mean, some people, I guess, still live in communities where people often do share, you know, nursing responsibility. Sleep deprivation is horrible. It makes you grumpy. It can make you feel nauseous.

If you're a person who really likes sleep, just let you know right now that that's not going to mix well with a mammal newborn. And it's very unpleasant. One of my main tips, which, you know, took, I'd say the better part of the first year of my life as a new mom, was a turn the clock around because my obsession and fixation with how little sleep I was getting actually became more of a problem than the fact that I was not getting a lot of sleep. And that is just a testament to the human brain and the set of human emotions surrounding, especially being a new parent. So in terms of improving sleep as a new parent, minimize your social activities, minimize your desire to return to a life that looks like it was

before you had children. And I don't mean your life is over. Being a parent is super freaking awesome, but you likely, while meeting a child's needs and a baby's needs, are not going to be able to have extended champagne brunches with girlfriends or, you know, take romantic trips with your partner. It is a different life. And part of that adjustment is something that I believe our Western culture really has eliminated preparing people for. And I think that's really sad because I think so much of the challenges people have specifically around sleep regards a lack of information, which means incorrect expectations. And, you know, there was that Saturday Night Live skit lowered expectations. It was a dating site. It was like a parody dating site. You know,

when you lower your expectations, you're disappointed a lot less. And so that was a big part really of the first year of my life as a parent. And, you know, we got through it. I'm not always proud of the way I behaved or the way I, you know, treated my spouse or people around me or even my own child. And the struggle is real. That's, that is for sure. Someone anonymously would like us to explain the causes of and possible brain hacks for bursting into tears when confronting someone about something I'm angry about. Is there a trick I can do to distract my tear duct so that I can be taken seriously in these moments? I'm not laughing at you anonymous, but I'm really, I empathize very deeply. So some people are brought to tears in situations that other people are not brought to tears in.

There are also people who laugh when things are uncomfortable, meaning everybody has different. ways that they're wired. Building up resilience so that a confrontation does not have tears, it is a difficult muscle for many of us to exercise. I often envy people who can have, you know, confrontations without crying or shaking. And for me, I have found that writing out what I'd like to say beforehand can be helpful so that I feel more prepared. For some people, the need to cry is important because it releases like an element of tension. I don't believe in apologizing for crying or for having emotions, but sometimes when I have to have a meaningful,

difficult conversation, I will literally say up front, this is a hard conversation for me to have because it allows me to not pretend that I'm okay when I'm not. And not that it's not okay to cry, but what I mean is it's important for me to present authentically so that I'm not needing to constantly convince myself that the way I'm feeling shouldn't be felt. So sometimes saying it out loud is helpful.

And I hope that that is helpful for you. Anything you can do to lower your anxiety or your stress is going to make this less of a concern and less of an issue for you. But also keep in mind that there are really good things about being sensitive. It's actually not a defect. It's an asset. but if allowed to run amok, it can obviously feel like a defect, but it's okay to be sensitive. It's okay to have that reaction.

It just happens. Someone recently said that to me. She's chosen to not be on psychiatric medication at this point in her life. And I said, well, how do you deal with it? Aren't you like crying all the time? And what she said is I do find that I cry a lot more, but she said it's not sadness. It's overwhelm. and she said that she's kind of made a decision to learn how to compartmentalize that

and to not try and push it away or pretend like it doesn't exist, but to give it a home where it can safely be released. And I really admired that, and I hope that's helpful. Bree asks, how do you move forward with your therapist when you get to a point where you feel like you have nothing to talk about? Well, Bree, you have two choices. Figure out what you actually want to talk about that you're avoiding talking about. or look for a new therapist and see if there's a different lens to what you're experiencing that you're more comfortable sharing with that therapist.

I would like to argue that most everyone would and could benefit from therapy. And I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but there's never nothing to talk about. Like if all else fails, just pull out your first uncomfortable memory, your first memory of not feeling listened to. And if you had an amazing childhood, that's fantastic. Even people with amazing childhoods may have what to talk about. But there's a reason that you went to therapy in the first place. And I guess I'd be curious if there's something that you're nervous to talk about. It may be unconscious.

It could be that a different style of therapy might be more helpful for you. And most importantly, talking to your therapist about not knowing what to talk about with your therapist will probably reveal a lot. lot more than you even imagined and good luck. Can someone with anxiety and depression be a successful therapist? April asks. Absolutely. I think many people who are therapists are what we call wounded healers. They're people who have experienced things and have a range of life experience that makes them want to connect with other people and be helpful to other people. And based on statistics, I'd say, statistically speaking, many therapists are experiencing anxiety and depression or other mental health issues themselves.

I think what's important to keep in mind is that if you, for example, and I don't know if this is your story, April, if you are interested in becoming a therapist and are concerned about your anxiety and depression, that likely means that there's some work for you to do, no matter what you decide to do, meaning I would not want my therapist to be. actively feeling compromised in their ability to manage their own emotions. And that is one of the really challenging things about being a therapist. I have two close friends right now who are studying to be therapists. And it is, I don't think I would have the resilience for it.

So you absolutely need to know your own issues, the roots of your own anxiety and depression, before you can be helpful to someone else, or at least it's part of the simultaneous process when you learn to be a therapist. Stephanie wants to know, are midlife crises real? It feels as if everything is the same on the outside and changing inside, but impossible to make changes. Well, Stephanie, I guess the definition of midlife has changed as we are living longer and longer. But roughly speaking, midlife crises happen around, I think we normally think of it as 40,

like just completely anecdotally when I think of like, oh, they're going through a midlife crisis. And when I was a kid, I remember this was really exclusively talked about for men. I don't know what they thought women were experiencing. We've always been experiencing things. But most of this was like, he got a sports car. He got a young girlfriend. Like that was kind of the, I don't know, just the stereotype. But what we know is that midlife crises are real for men and for women.

And for women, I think it's going to be more variable depending on if you've had children, when you've had children, what your body looked like before, during and after. which is not to say that women are only concerned about what their bodies look like. I just mean that a lot of the reevaluation of life that happens for women, at least in my experience, can come in relation to, did I have kids? Should I have had kids? For many people, a midlife crisis can be really significant and it can affect, you know, your career and your relationship and your self-confidence and how you see yourself. So it is a real thing. And I think in many cases, you know, it comes down to, you know, it comes down to, you know,

What you thought your purpose would have, should have, could have been and what it is in actuality. I think that for kind of the first 20 years of many of our lives, we're kind of working towards like, I'm going to be an adult. And I'm going to figure out what that thing is that I'm going to do. And then you kind of have another 20 years of seeing, how'd that go? And not shockingly, for many of us, by 40, we kind of just feel like giant teenagers. And I think that's been a huge component just in my experience and the experience of a lot of people that I know. many of us thought we'd have things figured out by 40. And it turns out you just kind of keep figuring things out. But in our culture and especially with our changing culture, there's a really specific

set of pressure around earning and around what your life is supposed to look like. If your emotional distress surrounding expectations regarding middle age is impairing your ability to sleep, if you see that it's affecting your appetite or you're having trouble concentrating, definitely would be the time to explore it a little deeper. And If you haven't thought of therapy, it's a really wonderful opportunity to talk some of this out. That could be really helpful. Angie loves to listen to audiobooks, mainly self-help books, as she sleeps. She wants to know if she can subconsciously learn while she does this.

If so, when I'm in a conscious state, can I recall said information? We know that we consolidate memory in our sleep. In terms of learning information, I think it's a little more complicated. I'm going to go ahead and say that many people have a particular holistic bent do believe in the power of listening to things and being able to incorporate them unconsciously, like literally. I don't know if I'm a believer in that per se, but I do know that, for example, there's a lot of information in music that our brains can take in and process. And I do believe that for some people listening to music can help consulate. certain things, but I'm going to go ahead and say that I don't think listening to books is going to make you able to recall that information when you're not sleeping.

Larissa wants me to talk a little bit about sexaholism, sex addiction, and how it can affect relationships. Well, before I get into a little bit about this in particular, I do want to mention that there is an organization called SLA, S-L-A-A, that's Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. If you are a person who's familiar with 12-step programs, this is a 12-step program, and you can go to their website if you'd like to learn more about them. But I did want to mention that there actually is a 12-step program for people who have either sex addiction or love addiction. What is that? Love addiction is people who create fixations and compulsions that can play out in really unhealthy ways.

Some of the symptoms of love addiction, and in many cases this is going to overlap with sex addiction, is feeling a compulsive need to be in love. putting other people on a pedestal, obsessing and ruminating over people you're interested in romantically, often to the point that it disrupts your daily functioning. And this is different than like when you first meet someone and you're like, oh, I want to text them all the time. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about often you'll find people, you know, obsessing over people that they don't know

or people that they barely know and kind of building a fantasy relationship around it. There are also people who experience literal cravings and withdrawal. Euphoria went around this partner, but also often intense dependency and codependency. A lot of people in this category will believe that all of their problems would be solved if only they had love. I think many of us, probably all of us at one point or another, maybe thought that that might be a solution. Like, oh, what I'm really missing is like if I just had a partner, that is normal when it becomes. a case of setting aside warning flags or red flags because of the need to believe that a person is something that they're not. That's when it can be dangerous. An inability to be alone.

This is a hard one because like I'm a person who really doesn't like to be alone. Is that pathological? I don't know. And I think that's for everybody to kind of explore on their own. But there are people who are okay being alone. I don't know how those people were made. But what I know is that we, we as humans, don't want to have an experience where we have a compulsive need to be with someone, even if it's unhealthy, simply because you don't want to be alone. There's a lot of factors, genetics, trauma, and also, you know, just kind of social environment can play a factor in this kind of addiction.

Many times you'll find people who have other drug or alcohol addiction who kind of shift their addiction to sex and love. you know, sex is a very, very significant and important part of the human experience, absolutely. And there are wonderful chemicals that are released in your body when you're in love or when you're in lust. And when you have attachment to someone, physical, intimate attachment to someone. But but but but but but but if you find that you're using sex as a weapon or sex as a tool, it's something to look into. And all these definitions kind of shift also as generations have different interpretations of what is, you know, reasonable or what is, quote, acceptable behavior. Meaning in the 1940s or the 1950s in certain circles, you know, the fact that people had sex out of wedlock was very shocking.

And, you know, in our day and age, it's not definitionally so. But these kind of sex and love addictions go much deeper than that. It's a very interesting field. I'm very interested in this. Many people do use therapy to work on these issues. Learning about attachment styles is really important. I highly recommend the book Attached, the new science of adult attachment,

by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. There's a lot of things that I think relate to helping us understand more about our attachment styles and how those can lead to obsessions and codependency and in many cases love and sex addiction. And again, I do recommend looking up SLAA, if you feel like you might have a problem in this arena. Here's an intense question, but a really important one, Jared asks,

is it possible to have trauma but no memory of it? Yes. When people first started talking about repressed memory and memory retrieval, I mean, I first remember hearing about it in, you know, I'd say the late 80s and the early 90s when I was a teenager, and it was this really, really hot button topic. And like, if you have no conscious evidence, like, you're just making it up. And people were accused of, you know, imagining things.

and horrible situations that people were trying to heal from or confront. And it was met with a lot of resistance, you know, especially in kind of public, you know, public media arenas. I remember many prominent stories touching on this from when I was a teenager. What we know now is that there is not one way that people respond to trauma, especially if a child is experiencing trauma. but what often happens is the brain will create a protection system. And in many cases, what we kind of now know is that there are ways that the normal,

normal, typical way that memories are stored is not activated during trauma. It is in many cases a protective mechanism. It's a tragic and devastating protective mechanism because it means that the experience, was so painful, difficult, horrendous that the brain and body try to protect. Now, what we know is that people who have trauma but no active memory of it will often, often, often present with evidence of having experienced trauma. And it's this, you know, it's this very, very complicated puzzle that so many devoted doctors and psychologists and therapists have have been piecing together, you know, over the last

decades and decades. So if you'd like to know the terms for these things, there is something called dissociative amnesia. When a person blocks out certain events associated with stress or trauma, there's a lot of research from people who have lived through war or specific disasters or accidents that have shed a lot of light on this. And Freud, actually was the first to connect childhood trauma with memory loss or the notion of repressed memories. And Freud was wrong about a lot of things, but right about a few. And this is a very interesting one. Freud also tended to lean very heavily on the role of the mother, which I think is a little bit more complicated and sort of beyond the scope. But if you are experiencing symptoms

of trauma and you have no memory, the notion is also that it's not our responsibility to like find a therapist who brings it out or just, you know, look through a list of things and see if it applies. The brain and the body release what they need to when they need to. And it's very, very important to know that if you have experienced something that you're being protected from by your own brain, you want to honor that. And when the time, if and when the time is appropriate for you to be able to learn more about it, I encourage you to trust that process and not rush it. And we can't force memories to come. There are some really, really interesting workbooks for people who've experienced trauma that help you create a safe space around getting memory to become clearer. But the notion is always that if you're being protected, we want to really honor that and respect that.

We're going to round out this Ask Myam Anything with, I mean, a fantastic question that I was just so excited to start giving some thought. Anne asks, do you have any book recommendations on the hippie era? Specifically, there are philosophies and teachings that have inspired you. You know, the word hippie is probably outdated and I'm sure I use it wrong a lot. But what I've gathered here is some of my favorite progressive hippie-infused books that really run the gamut. So here's my favorite, my favorite, favorite, favorite things to recommend if you'd like to learn about what it is Jonathan and I talk about when we talk about hippies. First thing that came to mind was a book called The Web That Has No Weaver by Ted Kepchuk, I think is how you pronounce it. And I

believe this was the first Western book to explain Chinese alternative medicine. It is a really great read. It talks about healing practices, both from the West and the East. But it is the first book I ever read that literally explained scientifically what it meant when you say that like there's not just one kind of pulse, right? Like in Western medicine, there's like, they take your pulse, right? Like, they put their fingers and they take your pulse and they count, right? Or you're taught to count. I remember in elementary school, it was like, count in 10 seconds and we would learn. So in Chinese medicine, there are dozens of types of pulses that they perceive and they mean different things. So it's, it's things like that in this book, but it's very, very, it's a very beautiful book.

It's not written in the hippie era, but it was the first thing I thought of when I thought about the things that have inspired me about teachings inspired from a progressive philosophy. This is a funny one, which you know, you might think, well, I don't want to have a baby or I'm not pregnant. But there's a book called Spiritual Midwifery by Ina Mae Gaskin. And Ina May Gaskin is the mother of modern midwifery. She's a woman who ran a farm called The Farm, where women were encouraged to come if they believed in natural birth in the proper hippie era. and she was, she's the only midwife that has had a procedure named after her. When babies get stuck in labor, which sometimes happens if their shoulders are broad, it's called shoulder dystotia.

She has a method that was named after her. It's called the Gaskin method to free babies. And this book that she wrote is indeed about what it was like running this farm. But what it really is about is kind of the human experience and how to honor the experience of the human body, both for men and women, meaning she talks a lot about the role of couples and how families are built around literally this process that we all go through one way or another. Howell by Alan Ginsberg, I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, also a line of a they might be giant song.

But Howl by Alan Ginsburg is, you know, one of the hallmarks of Beatnik philosophy. And he's a poet and he's a thinker. And there's a lot of complexity around Alan Ginsberg, which I am. not setting aside. However, it is an incredibly important part of literature from that era. He was friends with Jack Kerouac and kind of that whole gang and a very important figure. And yeah, that's Howell. Do It, Scenarios of the Revolution by Jerry Rubin. This is one of my dad's favorite books, which he gave me when I was a teenager. It's wild. It's super out there. It's a declaration of war between the generations. He calls on kids to leave their homes, burn down

their schools, and create a new society upon the ashes of the old, partly tongue and cheek, but also a specific message for a specific portion of the, of the political hippies of that era. And on the road by Jack Kerouac, you know, this is a classic beatnik literature. And Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassidy literally went on the road. And it's a true portrait of Americana and really interesting aspect of that era. Also have a couple soundtrack suggestions. Dylan and the Dead was released in 1989. But I recommend that as part of this era because,

While I believe that you should listen to all of Dylan and The Grateful Dead, this album is a really sweet, a sweet soundtrack for learning about this era. And it tells a lot musically about what was going on that led to those two musical movements. Go ahead and listen to Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band. Please listen to it in order, start to finish. It was released in 1967. For many people, this was the album that really transformed and really expanded their consciousness. Yes, for many people, this was.

as an album that was experienced, I think, by many along with Pot. And it is an album that touches on drugs and mysticism and expanding consciousness. And this album is extremely important historically, I would say, as a really important portrait of that era. And one final thing, George Carlin's American Dream is a documentary that was released last year, it is something that I was like, I don't, like, I know who George Carlin is, but like, I don't know. I highly, highly recommend it if you're interested in understanding not only that era, but the evolution of what it was like to exist in the 1950s and 60s and what that transition

looked like for an incredibly important comedian and thinker who kind of lived on both sides of that era. So those are my hippie suggestions. I hope you have enjoyed this episode of ask Miami anything. I've had a really great time getting to think about all these things and hear your questions. We do get dozens of questions daily, so we're doing our best to get to all of them. Thank you for your patience. And thank you for your questions. Thank you for coming and trusting me to at least muddle through it with you. I don't have all the answers and I'm an expert in very few things. Mainly my children and even then they would be like, you're not really an expert mama. But I do appreciate you letting me learn with you. And thank you so much. And from my breakdown to

the one I hope you never have. simple time it's my and beaulics breakdown she's going to break it down for you she's got a neuroscience phd or two one fiction one and now she's going to break