Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Connor Franta: Awareness to Awakening

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

Connor Franta (entrepreneur, content creator, author of House Fires) opens up about the impact his sexuality has had on his mental health. He walks us through his coming out journey, from depression and suicidal thoughts stemming from questioning his sexuality through the reactions of his family, friends, and fans upon releasing his extremely popular coming out video on YouTube. Connor explains the ways he has attempted to distract himself from his inner conflicts, the ways in which mental health serves as a touchpoint for every area of his life, and why he hit another depressive spiral after coming out and achieving career success. Mayim and Connor bond over their struggles to balance mental wellness with being public personas, and they consider the disproportionate amount of mental health struggles faced by the LGBTQIA+ community. They discuss the physical effects of suppression, the evolution of the emerging field of content creation, and the importance of putting in the work to tackle mental health struggles. Mayim explains how SSRI’s work in another installment of Ask Mayim Anything. Connor Franta's books: http://connorfrantabooks.com/ BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I was in the closet for eight years in Minnesota knowingly. I was so deep in the closet. I found socks I didn't even know I bought. And then I moved to rainbow crosswalks, drag queens, wigs on the corner. And I thought, yes, queen, I'm right with you. She's gay. It's my and biolics breakdown. She's going to break it down for you.

Because you know she knows it. thing or two. And now she's going to break down. Hi, I'm I'm Biolic and welcome to my breakdown. This is the place where we break things down so you don't have to. Welcome back and happy 2022. My goodness.

We took a little break. We missed y'all. And I'm still missing Jonathan, who's not yet back. But it's going to be me flying solo today. And today we're going to be breaking down a lot of different things. we're going to be talking to Connor Franta. This is someone who I didn't know that I knew about, but I did know about him.

He essentially broke the internet with his coming out video. His video has been viewed over 12 million times at the time of this recording. He is a content creator. He's an entrepreneur. And I'm not just throwing these words out there. He literally is all these things with totally legit bragging rights. He's an author. His latest book is House Fires, which I'm holding right here, which is really beautiful, and we'll talk about that more in particular.

He was a vlogger, and he has used his platform to be an advocate for and spotlight, the LGBTQIA plus community. He wrote a work in progress and note to self, which were really, really spectacularly received. He's the CEO of Common Culture and Heard Well. And he has nearly half a billion views on YouTube. But what's amazing is that kind of everything he does is touched by a tremendous amount of depth and sensitivity. And he's also, he's a photographer and house fires in particular is it's poetry, its prose, and its original photography. And it's a really lovely book. He's done a tremendous amount of public speaking.

He's been on the same stages as Prince Harry and Hillary Clinton. He's worked with Samsung and Calvin Klein and Audible and Google and Nike. He's really, really a fascinating dynamo, really excited to talk to him and to get to hear. His takes in particular on how his coming out experience, which was after high school for him, impacted his mental health. and how mental health still is, you know, a huge, huge touch point for his whole life as a businessman and just really incredible. It is such an honor to welcome Connor Franta to Miami-Bi Alex's breakdown. Break it down. Welcome, Connor.

It is really a pleasure to meet you. As I talked about in the intro, you're a person that I didn't realize. that I knew because you are such, you know, your story is so well known in terms of this video of yours that's been viewed, I think, more than 12 million times. You're an exceptionally accomplished person, and I'm not just saying that because you're young. I think, you know, for anyone's life, the things that you have tackled and been successful at are so impressive. And, you know, I'm holding up house fires just because, you know, happens to be on my desk here. And it's really beautiful. The prose is beautiful. The poetry is beautiful. And I do have a very soft spot for

poets. Jonathan is a poet. Jonathan who's not here. And also the photography is, is beautiful as well. But specifically with the poetry and also the prose, you're able to pour your heart out, really. I mean, you really wear your heart on these pages. And I know that's sort of a feature of you, you're writing, you know, kind of your earlier vlogging and now your later advocacy. But what I'd really love to do is kind of like take us back to where you're from, what kind of house you were born into. Because I'm almost old enough to be your mom. But as someone who has a 13 and 16 year old, like, I want to know how we got this.

Like, this is amazing, you know? Like, I want to know what it looked like early. I want to know. Tell us, like, tell us what your folks did. tell us, do you have siblings, you know, tell us what you were born into. What was Connor born into? Well, thank you for that lovely intro. Wow. I feel very lucky to be here. So thank you. I grew up in a very small town in Minnesota, the Midwest, the only liberal state there at the moment. So it definitely reflects that because I felt like I had a very peaceful, welcoming childhood.

My town at 4,000 people. My parents are still married, have been married for over 30 years. I have four siblings. We're all very close. Two brothers, one sister. I am a middle child. I am a Virgo. I knew there had to be something in there.

A middle child and a Virgo. Oh, yeah. We are emotional and organized. Get ready. Double punch. You can't stop us. My entire family is very, is not dissimilar to that. Like I saw my dad cry because he was compassionate.

He's a doctor. I saw my mom wake up at 5 a.m. to bring me to swim practice in the middle of a Minnesota winter, which can get down to, you know, negative 30. And she would do it without complaining, without questioning. Who's that lady? I know. Maybe I should talk to your mom.

I think elements of that have deeply shaped who I am as a person without me knowing it. And I, because I'm like, I don't think I'm that kind. I don't think I'm that giving. And yet my parents still do that so humbly and so gracefully. But yeah, no, I grew up in a really nice place in the Midwest. I really look back on it fondly. I feel like, I just, I feel lucky to have had my childhood. And at the time, I didn't realize how lucky I was to have it.

I had a lot of close friends. We lived in a safe neighborhood. It wasn't until I started having thoughts about my sexual. which thus turned into thoughts about depression and suicidal ideation because I was confused about that, that that piece was disturbed. Other than that, I genuinely reflect on it with rose-colored glasses. And were you raised, you went to Catholic school until eighth grade, is that right? I did, yeah. So were you raised in a religious home? I went to a small Catholic school in a town of 400 people outside my town of 4,000.

people. The Catholic school was beneath the church. So picture a building on a hillside, three floors, and then on the top floor, so actually four floors, on the top floor was the church, and the school was beneath it. The school was K through 8, had 80 kids in the entire school. And I went there from K through 8. So a town of 4,000 is already very small, a town of 400 where you went to school. That's like literally everyone knows each other. I mean, you can live, like in a town that size, everybody knows each other. There wasn't a stoplight. Yeah. There was barely a stop sign. Wow.

So, I mean, this sounds very idyllic and lovely. I'm happy for you. Feeling real. Not feeling so strong about my stories right now, but, you know, super happy for you. You know, I was actually having this conversation recently. Someone was mentioning that someone was talking to a person who still believed that being gay was a choice. And the question was posed like, well, when did you choose to be straight? You know, like, was that, you know. So I guess, you know, a lot of the times that we as humans do start to think about sexuality is, you know, puberty when hormones start kicking in and, you know, doing the things that they do in our brains and bodies.

So what was your experience? And again, I'm not asking this to try and, you know, be salacious or get you to say naughty things. But I think it's important, I think especially for a lot of people listening, to hear what the natural organic evolution is for humans. Definitely. I mean, listen, traditional America is a very conservative society, especially when it comes to sex and sexuality, especially when it comes to exploration of sex and sexuality at a young. young age as like a young male as a young female it is it is taboo it is confusing it isn't talked about and that makes it even more isolating so as someone who had an ideal childhood when it came to my sexuality there was no representation in my life there was there was no one to go to of questions

were had the internet was a choice but even the internet was still budding at the time so you didn't even really think that you could go there as a safe space um but but But I vividly remember having such close relationships with certain young kids in my life, you know, at the time, like my best friend when I was nine. And in such a way that I think back to now that it felt like what it must have felt like to have romantic feelings, but I couldn't really put the words to it. It wasn't until I was more so 11, 12 when I started putting the thought to, or I guess, like I put it, I put like the sexuality element to it, the orientation to it.

Right. And I think it's important to pause here just to kind of make a note because a lot of the demonization of homosexuality in particular male homosexuality has been this notion that there's a sort of built in perversion around it. And the fact is, you know, I remember having a crush on boys when I was four years old and five years old. So the notion that we would think that that children who are gay, it's, it is the same mechanism of learning to relate to other people, meaning I'd like to be really clear, there's nothing perverse, perverted, wrong, immoral, anything about a four-year-old boy who has an inclination to want to date other boys, right, to have a crush at that age, right?

Meaning I don't want, I just wanted to be clear for anyone who's like, that's weird, It's not because like I had crushes at an age that a lot of girls didn't, but every kid's different. Definitely. And I mean, it becomes weird when adults start placing that sexuality on the child. Totally. You know, I find it so strange that in society or I guess like American society, we put t-shirts on boys that's like lady killer or we put t-shirts on girls like future, amazing. It's so strange when we do that. Also, can people stop referring to female babies as flirting with men?

It's so weird. I'm sorry. Like, I just need to. I've never said this out loud. What is up with that? She's such a flirt. No, she's a, that's a human baby.

Just babies smile at humans. I promise that female baby doesn't know if it's heterosexual or homosexual or if that's a dude or a lady. I know. I know. It's like a weird. It's a weird. I don't even know what to do. I'm like, stop being like stop being.

something about it feels a narcissistic where you're like, that baby is paying so much attention to everyone. Stop putting that on the baby. It is a baby. Leave the baby alone. Okay. So, yes. So in the same sense, you kind of started putting it together later, let's say, you know, in the tween zone. That must have felt disconcerting. It was deep. It was, it was unsettling, to say the least, to have, I've never had that experience in my life where it's almost, like it just the thought pops in your head and you think oh my god oh no like it changes your life where you're like oh no now that i've thought it i can't unthink it oh no i'm i like even it isn't even like you are gay it's like what if you are it's like a question it's like a little thought

cartoon thought bubble floating around in your head what if you're gay i don't even know what it means to be gay well that's what i was going to ask i've never even met a gay right not that you knew of What did that mean to you? That's a, it's a simple question, but that is a really interesting question. I feel like at its simplicity, it was just, I like men. I guess at 11 years old, it's nothing more than that of like, I romantically like men. I don't even know if romantically would be a part of it. It was more of just, I think of men.

Right. Men are, men are not supposed to think of men. Sinful. That's the shirt we need. I think of men. I do. A lot. My M. Bialx Breakdown is supported by Superpower.

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And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention my and Bionlech's Breakdown to help support the show. There's a lot that happened, let's say, in the decade, between sort of these first. I don't want to call them thought. I'm going to go ahead and rewrite the story. The reason I don't want to call them thoughts is that, you know, I always kind of like think of the skeptic.

I do. I think of the homophobic person, right? This was not like, what if we drop these thoughts into people's heads and it makes them gay? That's not how it works. What this was was you had really a new awareness, right? it was an awareness to an identity. I mean, it's a very special kind of self-awareness because it's not the norm.

It's not what you've seen in 99.999% of magazines, pictures, movies, teams, like, everything, right? So a decade passed between that first awareness and you kind of formally coming out. Is that right? Yeah, I am first first thoughts were around 11. Video was posted online for all the world to see around 2021. So about a decade. What would you like us to know about that decade? Because obviously, because I'm like a seven-year-old inside, like, who'd you date? Did you have a girlfriend? Who has it like? Did you like her? Did you love her? Did you have boys? Like, you know, I want to ask all the dumb questions, but you're incredibly articulate and you seem to have a lot of really

well-formed thoughts in your head. So what would you like us to know? Either, let's say you're talking to an audience that there may be people who are questioning or exploring or having awareness about their gender or sexuality, or people who have no idea what that process is like. Sorry, I was too busy thinking about men. I didn't hear a word that you said. It's funny that you think I'm articulate and wise and also hot and humble. I believe that's exactly what you said in there somewhere. I would love for people. I think the simple questions are the best questions to answer because a lot of people are

too shy to ask them. So a lot of these are... Did you date a girl? Did you have girlfriends? Did you kiss a girl? Did you such a boob? Did you? I had girlfriends.

I dated maybe three, four different girls between 13 to 20. And I remember, it's such a sad thought now. But I remember actively thinking, eventually I'll find the person that makes this a face. Eventually, I'll find a person to confirm that this isn't me, that I can be just like everyone else. My friends, my family, my siblings, everyone else. I was like, I will find that person and this will be a thought that I never have to share with the world. It won't be real. It won't be real.

And I remember thinking that every minute of every day from 11 to 21. Wow. That's very powerful. What, I mean, like I have like chills in a deep way. So obviously like wanting to be like everyone else, I think I think everyone can identify with. But I want you to hone in on the exceptionalness of what it's like to come to terms with this aspect of sexuality.

Look, I remember when Rock Hudson died, you know, and that was like the, the first time that my parents sat us down and they were like, this is happening, you know. The notion of being gay had a lot of fear associated with it. It was in the media, you know, this notion that like, you're going to get AIDS. Like it was nobody knew, but you're a bit younger. So I'm curious what, how had the fear shifted? I think I was right at the perfect pivotal moment of being aware of its history and its past, but seeing the nuance form before my very eye. seeing people coming out, seeing their faces on magazines, seeing talk show hosts, talk show guests, movie characters.

Everything was unfolding right before me. But it was unfolding right as my story was unfolding as well. So it was empowering, but it wasn't empowering or it wasn't enough necessarily. It was happening just simultaneously as I was experiencing it. So I'm like, there's no way I could be brave enough to be a part of this wave. There's no possible way I could. And like also, what would that mean for me, my future, for again, like everyone but myself. A lot of it was focused on if I were to come out, what does that mean for everyone else?

Isn't that sound? No, it's, no, but it makes sense. I mean, it's a very, you know, it's a very human, you know, kind of frame for it. I think also what's interesting is when I think of, you know, the freedom that many young people do have and find today because of, you know, all of, well, honestly, the shoulders that they stand on, yours and all of these tremendous activists and influencers who have, but, you know, I also still do think of people who are in parts of the country, parts of the world where there still is a tremendous amount of fear surrounding harassment, abuse, threats, stigma, you know, and also there are, you know, there's a lot of cultural

differences in, you know, kind of perception and interpretation of the homosexual experience. Did it ever occur to you, and I'm not proposing this, but did it ever occur to you that like, oh, maybe I'm bisexual? Maybe that's a solution. Oh, my God. What if this moment? I think that would have been a pleasant thought to have in a strange way

to like, in theory, not an actual fact to be like 50% gay. But no, it was, it was, it's one of those things where I just, I just knew, but I was actively turning a shoulder to it. It was right in front of me in bright lights at all times. Like, you are gay. You like men. Women, you're not interested at all in women. Why are you lying to yourself?

But I kept being like, nope. And I would turn away from it. I'd be like, not today. And then turn away from it constantly, just thinking that there's no way it could be true, even though I knew it. I knew it to my core. Was there, and this is not at all. a knock on religion or organized religion. You know, I'm a, I happen to be a person of faith. But

was there also a component, you know, of a kind of like a religious notion of like, this is not what we do? I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't exceptionally present in my direct life. Like my, so I grew up in a Catholic family. We went to church every single Sunday, never missed a Sunday. If we were like out of town for a swim meet or if we were on vacation in a different state, we would find a church to go to every single Sunday. But we were also the type of Catholics that would kind of come back from church and eat dinner and talk a little shit, you know?

Be like, I don't know. Catherine was a little bit pitchy in the choir today. We were devoted, but we were also a little bit cheeky. So I wouldn't say any of it came directly from my family or in my house, but you knew. It was the almost unspoken, the less it was spoken about,

the more you knew it to be true in a strange way. The less I heard about the queer community, the more it felt wrong to be a part of it. Because if no one was talking about it, something was seriously incorrect about it. Or that's what at least it felt like as a young person. Sure. Was there any part of you that could sort of indulge,

you know, either practically or even kind of psychologically in this notion of like there's a Connor in here that's not being addressed? Meaning, you know, did you ever allow yourself to kind of go there, you know, in your head or just be like, gosh, that would be a whole light, like, what would that be like? Or was it really just like, I mean, really denial? It was, it was full denial. There was never, there was never a thought of what happens if I told the boy that I like, that I like him.

There was never the thought of what if I did go on a date or what would happen if I did kiss a boy? What would, like, that was never, there was never a potential for that in my mind. It was this secret that I thought about or this thing that I, like, sat in my bed late at night and, like, looked up at the ceiling thinking about and couldn't sleep. It was only that. There would never be more. I would never allow it to be more. One of the most complicated aspects, I would imagine also about, you know, not just the sort of 10 years, you know, between this sort of like first awareness, as I said, and then you coming out. but, you know, especially I'm imagining the last few years leading up to actually coming out, when did you feel or when did you acknowledge that this was impacting kind of your mental wellness? Like, when did that become more prominent for you? It was in tandem, I feel like, with my rise to success on YouTube and on the Internet. I think the more that I was forced to quite literally look at myself in the camera, in a screen, in a lens,

and the more I was inquired about, I was constantly asked questions and people were curious about me, the more I was forced to think about it, and honestly, the more I was forced to answer disingenuously or slightly skate around my truth to give them a truth that fit what they thought I was or who I was. And the more that that occurred over the years of my YouTube success

from 17 until 20, the more it really tore me down as a person, and the more I just, I felt, I felt like a liar. I felt like, again, disingenuous, completely the opposite of who I was growing up and who I thought I was. And it really started to eat me alive for a while unknowingly. It wasn't like, I lied again today. I feel bad about it.

It was more that lies stacked up over time, and I felt like the weight bearing on my back. The mind-body connection, you know, is a very, obviously a super broad, you know, umbrella term. But the more we persist, you know, in a pattern that isn't us, you know, and that can look like a lot of different things, the more our body is kind of constantly fighting, you know. it is true, you know, that people in the LGBTIQIA plus community, there's often a disproportionate, you know, set of mental health symptoms, you know, and a large component of it is this sort of suppression, right? And the suppression is, there's nothing physical happening, right? But it has then an impact on your physiology, on your immune system. I mean, on all of these parts of you, would you say kind of your teen years were balancing

all of this, like your later teen years? Definitely. I mean, it really, I think I was the perfect example of someone trying to constantly distract himself. You know, I had really great grades in school. And on top of that, I was participating in some sort of athletic or some sort of athletics or sport every month of every year, cross country, then swim team, then track, then preparing for cross-country and doing summers swim team again.

I was a part of a bunch of different clubs. Yeah, this is called Emotions Can't Hit a Moving Target. Exactly. I started making my YouTube videos to do the same thing where I was like, let's just fill every hour of every night. Let's never sleep. Let's just constantly keep this mind busy so it can't think about men. Right.

Even though you're like running with them, swimming with them, showering in the same locker room. Don't get me started on the fact that I went to an all-boys college. So good. Ma'am. Are we writing the screenplay for your movie now or later? What the regret of not being out in an all-boys college haunts me. So was the decision, you know, to kind of make this video that you made?

Was that a long time coming? Was that like, let's wake up and do this? Was this? I'm ready to do this. What, you know, was there a tipping point for you finally? I mean, I'm just going to say, I can't imagine what that must have felt like for you after a decade, essentially, to have that kind of awakening. We went from awareness to awakening, right? To have that kind of awakening and then be able to take your time settling into that and being like, oh my God, like, this is me. I mean, I can't. And then, like, let's put it on video. And just put it out there, I know.

I mean, that's incredible. I'll tell you a quick story about why representation matters. I was in the closet for eight years in Minnesota knowingly. I moved to Los Angeles, California, and within a year and a half, I came out to the entire world. Say that again. Say it again. So for eight years. Eight years in my small, freezing town in the Midwest, I was so deep in the closet.

I found socks I didn't even know I bought. And then I moved to rainbow crosswalks, drag queens, wigs on the corner, and I thought, yes, queen, I'm right with you. She's gay. Within minutes. I mean, it's like, so there's this joke among, I don't know, some women that like, when you're in your hometown, you're like a seven and the second you touch down in Los Angeles, you're a three. It's like, it's kind of like you're, no matter where you are, if you're not in one of these cities, you're straight until you get here. Of course. And just to clarify, I mean, I grew up in this city. My parents are New Yorkers and they were.

reluctant transplants. But I was raised in the Melrose Fairfax area, which is adjacent to West Hollywood, which is our boys town. I mean, called a lot of different things in a lot of different cities. But my parents were, you know, they were bohemians, they were artists. And like, they always had gay friends, like my whole life. I grew up that it was just like super normal. Like I knew that most people weren't gay is kind of how my brain thought of it. But like, they had friends who were couples who had been together for a million. Like, it was completely like normal to me. So, you know, for me growing up in L.A., like it was like, yeah, people were gay.

Like, it's the thing. But literally we have rainbow crosswalks in West Hollywood here. And, yeah, Santa Monica is our, like, it's a fabulous street. And it is often a party. You know, it's a really, it's a very exciting part of town. And that's where, like, our Halloween, you know, the big Halloween, you know, parade is. But I just love this notion that, like, you touch down and it's like, you can feel it in the air. Like, I'm home.

You could. As soon as I saw it with my eyes and I continued to see it and I started hearing it in common everyday discussions and meeting people. It was like, oh yeah, my boyfriend. And like they didn't even have to come out to me. They just said it. I was like, what is happening? What do you mean? You're gay, you sicko? You can't just say that without crying. Right. And it was so confusing, but also immediately liberating, the more I heard it and the more nobody cared. I thought, what have I been doing? Have I been wrong this whole time that it doesn't have to be such a big deal? It doesn't have to be something that I never experience. I never act on. It doesn't have to be bad.

It can, in fact, be something good. Wow. completely shifted my experience within again days. So it's been almost a decade since that, you know, a tremendous part of your life and kind of your maturation, you know, I mean, 21 is still a kid, you know, for many of us who are over 40. You know, much of your time has sort of been building, you know, on the building that you did, right? and your writing is part of that, you know, your entrepreneurship,

you know, sort of putting your money where your mouth is and encouraging others kind of to do the same. One of the things that I respect so much about you, and this is not to say that I don't respect people who, quote, simply, you know, are content creators because I think there's beauty and intelligence and awesomeness to that. But, you know, you've really, you kind of broken the mold,

you know, in a lot of ways in a field that is sort of still emerging, meaning where do we put this generation of people, you know, meaning we have all these incredible content creators and you're given a platform and you're given an audience and it's like so exciting and endorsements and blah, blah, blah, blah. But then kind of like what next, you know? And I always joke like my older son who's 16 is like, whatever I do in life, I just want to make sure that I'm rich. And it's like because they see all these content creators and that's a huge component.

of a capitalist society, which I tell him over and over. But that kind of notion of like, you're a person that I love, you know, to point my kids to say like, look and, you know, like look at all this and then. And one of the things I want to, you know, kind of focus on, you know, so much of your writing is really, really an expression of some very deep emotional work. Call it processing. call it, you know, kind of grieving or like reawakening. Like, I don't want to be poetic about your poetry.

But a lot of it is, it's deeply emotional. It's deeply emotional. And also, that's not to say that all people who are gay are deeply emotional. I don't want to make it like, look, gay people are deeply emotional. I mean, they may be, but maybe not. I don't know. I think you're on to something there. I don't know.

But I think like that's sort of the question that I'm asking is, you know, you go from a place where you're kind of pouring your heart out, you know, in terms of your process and coming out, you know, and all these things. And what you've transformed it into is a very different, you know, exercising of a medium. You know, it's poetry. You're bad for me and I know it's true. My brain is drowning in old thoughts of you. You know, a lot of these are, they're musings, you know, and there's longing. There's longing. There's, there's, there's longing. There's love. There's a lot of intimacy of both a physical and an emotional nature. And I'm curious, was this just something that you felt this is what I want to do next? This is where I want to put, like, because also you're just allowed to be a person who's like, oh, also I'm a poet. You know, I don't mean to make everything like, what's the mission that Connor is on? But I'm curious. Was this just like, oh, P.S. I write. I take photos. And I'm going to do that. So, I mean, this is my third book. I've had a. a little bit of a practice, I guess, in the medium.

And the first one was an accident and a gift, I should say, because the first one was presented to me at the time of, hey, have you ever thought about writing a book? We could get you a book deal. Right. Welcome. Enter in management and agent. That's it.

You became corporate very quickly. Of course. And I thought, you know what? I have always enjoyed writing. That sounds interesting. let's talk about it. So I'm really glad I had that conversation because that's not saying my first book is anything amazing,

but it introduced me to a new direction that I may otherwise not have gotten into. And after the first one was received, so while I thought I loved that entire process. I loved the years it took to write a book. I loved the emotional exploration it took to write a book and the gratification of really putting my full soul into something so, with so much depth compared to, you know, a quick five-minute YouTube video

that you produce within a few hours, you edit within a few days, and you upload, and it's gone from the zeitgeist within a few days again. It's like the idea of putting out something that is potentially almost forever in a strange way sounded so exciting to me. So after doing that first one and then doing the second one, I started thinking, what's a modern take on a piece of writing? What is something that can both be true to that medium, but also be true to the times that we're in? And the times that we're in is that people like short form, people like variation, people like pretty, pretty pictures. So I thought, I'm going to combine all of my interests, essays, poetry, short musings, film photography, and I'm going to bring it into one piece of art that fully exemplifies who I see myself to be as a human.

And it may not be standard. It may not be the process that everyone goes through, but I'm going to put my full art into it and just how it works out. Talk a little bit about sort of your mental health journey because it feels like it's woven, you know, in particular in house fires. Like it's kind of like woven throughout. What did it look like for you? your mental health journey and sort of how did we get from there to this kind of processing? So after posting my coming out video and it being received exceptionally well, it was like every trending topic on Twitter, there is now almost a million comments on it or a million likes

and hundreds of thousands of comments. And seemingly the thing that I had been so attached to that it caused me so much anxiety and so much depression. It was seemingly done. It was a very interesting point to find myself in where I then got to go forward with my new life, but I still carried all the baggage of that decade unknowingly. I didn't realize that that would now be a side effect of a successful coming out story.

It's like, oh, no, it's still, the trauma is, still there. You still need to put in the work to fix that. It is still going to affect you. You can't just simply shed that skin and walk forward. So years, I mean, days, but like years after coming out, I really hit a deep depressive spiral seemingly out of nowhere. I mean, things were still great. I was still very successful. I was still moving forward in my career and my life and had great relationships and friends and everything, but I just kept feeling like it was catching up to me. It was almost like I had a jump start after coming out and I got to run away from it for a moment and it finally came back to me. So I had a very deep depressive spiral. My anxiety was peaking like never

before. What did that look like for you? Like are you a person who like couldn't sleep, slept too much? Couldn't eat too much. You know, like what was it for you? Listen, I can never sleep first of all. Okay. It is a rare night if I ever. I put up a poll on Twitter the other day. Like, who sleeps through the night? Tell me, everyone, except for me, apparently. I never. Anyways, like a real deep depressive episode for me looks like the most exhausted you've ever felt, the most unmotivated you've ever felt.

I lay on the couch. I curl up in a ball. I can't move. I don't care to move. Nothing matters. There is nothing in front of me or behind me. It doesn't matter. I just sit there and, like, melt into the floor.

floor. And that is that is true depression for me to the point where I can't even remember certain years of my life because it affected me so heavily. I look back and think, what was I doing then? I don't know. I have no idea because I was so caught up in this muck. And what did your anxiety look like? My anxiety formulated at different times. I feel like they were never fully together, but when I wasn't depressed, I was anxious. And when I was anxious, I wasn't depressed. So my anxiety kind of manifested itself in trying to have control of every situation possible. And if I felt out of control, I would immediately like panic and and cancel things. Or I would, if I didn't know what I was getting myself into, I would, I would stress about it for days, hours.

I wouldn't go to places that I didn't know exactly who was going to be there, what was going to happen. And I would think about it for hours on end. And it would just, it would just make me feel like I was losing my mind. So what did it, what did it look like for you to kind of, did you get help? Did you, are you a therapy person? Are you a medication person? Are you a yoga person? What's your, what kind of helped over time?

I need, I honestly need to send a thank you, like a thank you. I was going to say a thank you note. Wow, that is the Midwestern mom and me. I need to send her handwritten little thank you note to one of my friends. I had a few friends in therapy, but one of the, I was going to say you know, in particular gave me his therapist number and I texted her and set up an appointment. I honestly can't tell you how I got to that point, but I know that eventually I think he just realized I was something, I was something that was going on. So he just said, this helps me.

Maybe it'll help you. And from that point on, I started putting in the work to get better. I started, you know, I guess being courageous enough to figure out why I was so lost or feeling so broken at the time. And that was through the form of therapy every week for years on end, eventually in the form of medication. And then eventually in the form of, you know, like, what do I, what do I see my future as? Do I actively want to be better? Because if I do, I need to, again, put in the work. I need to, I need to really want to be better, not just hope it will get better. And what does that work look like? Meaning, For some people, it means a weekly therapy commitment.

For some people, it means writing. For some people, it means exercise. You know, what have you found? Like, what is that work for you? At the time, it was a combination of it all. It was really, it was being honest in therapy. It's easy to show up for therapy. It's very difficult to actually be honest while you're there.

When people say, like, I tried therapy, it doesn't work. That usually means they may not have been entirely ready to be honest. I've gone to my therapist for years And there are times where I'm like Oh yeah, I didn't tell you that one thing That was absolutely horrible Oh yeah, that was totally by accident That I haven't ever told you that one thing

That was absolutely horrible I just forgot Totally Yeah, it's difficult to go into therapy And really want to be truthful Because the truth isn't pretty all the time Or the truth to yourself is scary So it's hard to do that

So allowing myself to really step into whatever it is my truth was at that time. But then also after I left therapy, working on it. You know, if I, the whole anxiety around losing control, I had to start finding ways to just realize that that's a part of life and that's okay. And it was taking it a step at a time. It was not cancel, not canceling the thing, actively going even just for a minute and then leaving

and taking little steps to getting, better. I had an experience actually just today. I got a series of, I was on a break. I work on a television show and I was rehearsing and I got a series of texts about something that like wasn't dire, it wasn't imminent. It was something regarding things that need to be handled in the next, you know, 24 hours, right? And I felt my body tense up and I was like stressed because like we were on a five minute break and I shouldn't have really checked my phone because exactly what happened. and I felt my body tense up and like I felt instantly impatient.

Like whatever else was like just happening in the world on the set. Like I instantly felt irritable. And then I was like, I didn't eat enough at lunch, but that's separate. And what I realized was that like there's a choice that I can make now. And the choice is

I can completely catastrophize this and like be texting for the rest of the day in between every time I have a second. or I can know that this is going to be okay and I can handle it in the next two hours after I finish whatever I had to do work, right? And it was like, it was in that moment that I was like, that's how simple it was right now.

That's how simple it was. And like I don't mean, and I know people are listening and they're like, well, duh, but for me, not duh, because my brain is wired to grab onto it and to hold onto it and to squeeze it. And I'm like, what is this even serving? And it was just so weird. I don't know why today was different.

But I was like, what if I could do this? What if I could do this like more, you know? And it's just so interesting that you said that because that's kind of what it is. It's like that's an example of that's work. It's a rewiring. Yeah. I've been in therapy a long time,

but she's not with me all the time. every day. But like that's, if I were to say to her, oh, I got these tests, she would say, breathe, take a deep breath, nobody's dying, no one's sick, thank God. Like, everything's okay. The vulnerability, you know, especially in house fires, like the vulnerability that you have, do you feel that that's kind of a result of this kind of mental health journey that you've been on? Like, do you feel like this is an expression of that? Does it run parallel with it? Definitely. I mean, the more I figure myself out, the, the older I get, the more I realize I, there's no reason fearing the truth. The truth is,

is as it is. There's no reason to fear it. It exists. So you can spend your entire life running away from it or you can spend your entire life trying to change it or you can just accept it as it is and know that it could be fluid. So for me, I don't see, I try not to see any point in letting things like that ruin my day or ruin my mental health. I try to actively avoid situations that will put me back in that negative space like the plague. And I think that that has resulted in the vulnerability that I've been told that I have because, you know, what's someone going to say that was too truthful?

Like, you know, like I just don't see, I don't, I feel like it's a waste of time to be nothing but myself at this point because I wasted so much time trying to be somebody else. And it's incredibly cheesy, but it's true. When you say avoiding, you know, going back to places, let's say that don't serve, you know, your optimal mental health, you know, you operate in a world. And I guess I do too, to a lesser extent, that is, you know, inherently open to other people's comments, opinions. judgments, accusations, threats, right? How do you balance that? Meaning, you know, I mean, for me, I have had to significantly cut back on the amount of exposure I have. You know, I feel like a little bit of a weak person. Like, I wish I had more strength. I wish I did. I wish things didn't hurt me as deeply as they do. I mean, I just, that's my own journey, which you're now on.

But how do you balance that notion of like, I know what's healthy for me? I know the things that are not healthy for me. And also, I mean, we live and die by likes. We live and die by views. I mean, I don't mean live and die. But I'm saying like this aspect of your career, you know, and mine as well. I'm really asking for myself. So help.

How do we deal with the pressure? I mean, I think luckily I've been in the game. so long and I've been participating in this wild world we call the entertainment system for a while so I understand what it takes to to have longevity and I understand what it takes to keep myself wanting to be a part of it so it's not even about setting firm boundaries of like this won't happen and this will happen it's it's I guess practicing it's you know I don't I It's like it's almost second nature to me at this point that it's hard to even fully articulate what it is. I just know that like I don't go out seeking negativity for a while there.

I would try and find the negativity myself or I would get stuck on that one negative comment and a C of a hundred comments. And the way I get over it now is if I do see it, I either, you know, acknowledge it and be like, ha, that's funny. Move on. Say something to make myself feel better. Ah, they're just jealous. Yeah, definitely. They're totally jealous.

And then just move on. or I will like acknowledge it in the world of like what they said does have some validity and it doesn't matter and then you move on. But it's all, you know, it's all a practice. It's all an individual cycle because it really does mess with your brain if you get a few less likes on an Instagram photo. If there are. I'm always like the algorithm.

Something's off with the algorithm. The algorithm. Or like I'll say something wrong in a podcast and not even something wrong like to a super negative but I'll like mispronounce something. Or I won't know a musician. And you'll get a few comments of like, I can't believe you don't know. People lose their minds, yes.

I know. And I'm like, calm. It's almost like I'm talking to my younger stuff. I'm like, calm. It's not that big of a deal. Like, it's almost sad that you think this is such a big deal. Right. And whether that's true or not, that's how I sleep at night.

Those are the nights I do sleep. What are your siblings like? They're all so different from me in terms of, I guess, like the life paths that they're on. It's really quite great. My sister works in the culinary industry. My little brother was a Peace Corps volunteer for a while. My older brother works at an athletic company.

And so like we're all very different in that sense. We all live in different states at the moment. And the only, I mean, we have a lot in common. But like the major commonality we have is that my entire family runs. We're all marathon runners. Wow. Which is very unique. That doesn't really have.

happen for a lot of people, especially something. Genetically, if you inherited good marathon genes. Someone will always be like anti or be like, nah, I'm not that. But all of us somehow embrace it. So we're that weird family that, you know, we don't go home for Thanksgiving to do the turkey trot 5K. We skip that and we do a morning half marathon by ourselves. Of course.

And just because that's what we would do even if it wasn't Thanksgiving because it's just fun in some sick way. How did your parents react or was there a significant kind of reaction to you coming out? I came out to the first person ever in January of 2014. So for reference, I posted the video to the world in December of 2014. So that's how quick my timeline was there. I came out to one person in January. It was very difficult.

I practiced in the mirror. It made me cry my eyes out. was doing like the ugly crying in the mirror of like, you're going to be fine. It's so hard. It's horrible. Kept my friend up until like 4 a.m. And finally just told him.

And then after that, and after his reaction was so normal. So just like it doesn't have to be a big deal. I realized that I didn't have to give it that much power. I could slowly release the gates and tell more people. And one of those was my mom. She came to visit L.A. a few months later. I naturally waited until the very end of the trip to tell her this very important detail.

I was dropping her off literally at the airport. What? And she was, this is how, like, stressed I was because I'm like, God, how do I even say these words? These words are so new to my lips. So you mean you're, like, pulled up at LAX? Like, the, like, hotel meter LAX. Like, not fully, like, someone's honking their horn, move, move, move. But, like, in cue, she's flung.

You're a screenplay version of your life. Someone's honking, move, move, move. Of course. It's very ladybird. Yeah. So, she's just doing extra laps. But so I drop her off and she gets out of the car. We hug goodbye in the car or out of the car.

I can't remember. And she leaves and she's walking away and I'm sitting in the car. Very teen movie, me gripping that steering wheel so tight thinking, I can't believe you didn't do it. This was your chance to do it in person. You have to do this. And within a few seconds, I just. got the, I just got up the courage to literally throw my body outside of that vehicle and

run after and say, I need to tell you something and just like scream it. And she's kind of like, okay, what? I just stand there looking at my feet, pointing my fingers like, I'm gay. I am gay, like just like whispering, whimpering, don't even remember what I said. And the best part of it was she, her response was, that's okay. Are you seeing someone or it was so loving and so compassionate that she didn't even have. Her question was about my life. It wasn't about what I had just told her. It was curiosity.

I was met with curiosity. I wasn't met with anything else. It was purely just, how are you? What are you doing? What is the side of you that I didn't know existed? And I am so thankful that that was her. reaction because it just further confirmed that it wasn't a big deal. It should almost be celebrated. And she didn't even know that what she did at that time was, I'm sure that was just a thought.

Well, also, it so normalizes it, you know. I mean, I'm asking all the questions because, you know, that's kind of like the format here, but it's really beautiful and it's very heartwarming and not to sound like your mother. But I am curious, do you talk about relationships? You know, Are you a person who, you know, sees a life as a parent one day? Like, do you have a sort of picture for yourself? Not that you have to any more than anyone else should or shouldn't. I wrote about this in the book because it's a really, it's the first chapter in the book because it's something I've been pondering a lot lately, how, you know, to what we talked

about earlier, it's not universally this and it's not even collectively this in the United States. But to a certain extent, we're in a turning of a turning of. the tides. We are in a changing moment where suddenly being queer, being LGBTQ is far more accepted than it ever has. And it seems like it's trending towards even more acceptance. So you're now allowed to be born and live a quote-on-quote normal existence as a queer person. Again, if you're lucky, that's speaking from a place of privilege. Sure.

What does that look like? That has never happened in human history. and we are living in that moment right now, what does it look like for me to be a gay man in a gay relationship with a gay life for my future? I've never, you know, I haven't seen that or I have seen it, but I've never, like, lived that or I've never lived around it.

And it's so interesting because it can be anything I want, and there's almost something so daunting about that that I've never, I don't know the footprint. I don't know the blueprint. I'm creating it for myself, and I'm creating it for anyone in my circle in a way. So for me, I definitely like, I love the idea of love. I love the idea of, you know, like a lifelong partner,

a monogamous relationship, kids, all of that. It's just so hard for me to envision it because I haven't experienced it or seen it versus like my siblings can see it played out with my parents. Right. Well, I was going to say it's kind of exactly like your parents except both people would be male. But I know, but like there's something like you add like. Yes. Yeah, there's just yeah. Oh my God. My God. Picturing my mom with a woman, my dad with him. Whoa. Weird. I don't like that. But yeah. So it's it's just a little bit different enough that it adds layers. It adds layers to it that should be exciting. But at the moment it's just like confusing. Yeah. For sure. I guess this is a little bit. something Jonathan usually asks, and if he was here, he'd probably ask it, if you could kind of like speak to that frustration and sort of that hardest part, you know, of your struggle. You know, what's sort of

your inspiring message, you know, that you would like to communicate sort of based on what you've gathered, what you've learned and what you feel you can offer? I want people to be as curious about the world as I find myself becoming. I want people to be more accepting. of difference and embracing of it because I think ever since I came out as gay and I've experienced a little bit more of the world and met a gradient of different types of human beings. I just think it's so cool and so we're so lucky

to live on a planet where there are 7 billion different types of people. Like that is so exciting. So every time I meet someone with a different story, with a different, you know, struggle in their story, a different triumph in their story. I just think that's so fucking cool that, like, you are a unique person

with completely unique perspectives and I don't know anything about them, but you can teach me and you can tell me that. And I want to hear about it. And I want everyone to approach the world that way because I think it's a much more fun way to approach. It's much easier to love everything and love everyone than to put in the energy to hating something that you don't even know.

And also, you know, something that I like to remind people, it's really none of your business who has sex with who and how. And the fact is you don't have to participate in a lifestyle that's not for you. Meaning someone can be gay that doesn't make you gay. It doesn't look like that. So, you know, I like to point out, that, you know, the true perspective of a liberal society is one that tolerates all different opinions, not just the ones that are yours.

Totally. I mean, it's how I feel about religion is that, like, for a while, I was, I really drifted away from religion and, you know, I was so far from it that I thought it was ridiculous to be religious. It was, you know, I was so the opposite of how it was brought up. But, again, the more older I get, the more I think, like, is cool that it's. some people are religious. It's cool that some people aren't. It's cool that some people believe in God. It's cool that some people don't. No one has the right answer to that. So who am I to say someone's

silly for believing it or who is someone to say I'm silly for not believing in it? It's just another fact of life. It doesn't have to be much deeper than that. Just accept that people have different beliefs and don't push them on people. It doesn't affect you if someone believes in God. You know, right? Until they make it affect me and that is my business. That's right. Connor, thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing this time with us and being so open, so vulnerable. Thank you for house fires and obviously your other books as well. But this one in particular, just really, really such a beautiful combination of elements and yeah, the love poems really working for me right now. So thank you. Hey, thank you for having me. This was so lovely.

It was really, really nice to be a part of. Have a great night. Maybe I'll see you in West Hollywood sometime. Oh my gosh, yes. That was a really interesting interview. I mean, that's a special human. I have so little experience with like someone who is that articulate, that put together. Like his thoughts are so well formed. And I just, you know, it makes me feel very old when I talk to people like that because so much of his countenance, you know, so much of the way he is and the way he holds himself is,

it's very polished, but he's so sincere. I was really moved. I know it's hard to, like, reflect on my own without Jonathan here, but I just want to say how moved I was, you know, by his journey and his openness and, you know, his ability to really walk us through. So many of the details emotionally of what that struggle was like, I can't imagine, you know, when he talks about being closeted, you know, for eight years, that's, it's unbelievable. I highly recommend house fires. It's really lovely. His photos are beautiful. And the poetry really is. I mean, it's exactly what he said it is. It's a combination of all the things that he is good at and all the things that he likes and, you know, kind of all of his deep thoughts and feelings and just really, really enjoyable.

So we're not going to do an ask my am anything unless Scott, do you want to ask me anything? Ask my am anything. Yeah. You know, this is a great question. Scott from Los Angeles asks, how do SSRIs work? I feel like we may have talked about it very, very early, but I think it's a great opportunity to do a little refresher. So SSRIs are kind of one of the most common and most prescribed, typically antidepressants. The initials stand for selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor. So serotonin is like the feel-good chemical, feel-good neurotransmitter in your brain. And, you know, typically speaking, more serotonin, more happy. Let's just keep it simple. What happens is that when serotonin is kind of spilled out into the spaces between neurons, between brain cells, it gets brought back into the cell.

And it gets kind of recycled and repackaged and things like that. So serotonin gets spit out and it comes back in. So when serotonin's floating about is when it actually acts the most to make you happy. So what an SSRI does is it takes serotonin and it inhibits the re-uptake of it back into the cell, which means it leaves more serotonin floating around to be used to make you happy. I'll do that again just a little bit, just to make sure we're all on the same page. So serotonin is spit out of a cell and then it kind of floats around and does things. And one of the things it does is it makes you real happy.

And SSRIs keep that happening for longer. It makes your cell not scoop it back up to repackage it and spit it out again. It just stays out there in the cleft, the synaptic cleft. Zoloft and Paxil, those are SSRIs. Lexapro is an SSRI. But what's interesting is that SSRIs don't work for everyone. And a lot of people try Zoloft. or Prozac. And it, quote, doesn't work, so they decide that medication doesn't work. But the most

important thing, and this is something that typically psychiatrists are more, you know, kind of trained to talk about, explain, and medicate is that not everyone's depression is specifically going to be improved by a serotonin drug. So there are different kinds of drugs. And yeah, it's kind of a drag to have to try a bunch of them. And I've tried a lot. as we've talked about. There are now drugs that work on both serotonin and norapinephrine. Sometimes those work better for certain people's chemistry. And some people need atypical, atypical medications, meaning non-SSRIs. SSRIs can make some people manic. That's right. You go beyond happy and into manic and that's actually not healthy. It's not healthy for your physiology and it's not

healthy for a lot of the behaviors that come about when you're manic. So finding the right medication is extremely important, take-home message, and that's a little bit about SSRIs. They are not the only medication. They don't work for some people. That doesn't mean medication doesn't work. It means you may not have found the right dosage or the right medication for you. Great question, Scott. Thank you. I think that's going to wrap it up. Go to Biolic Breakdown on Instagram. We're posting all sorts of things there. If you haven't checked out our merch store, do so. Jonathan and I have worked very hard with our team. Special shout out to Aaron for helping us get our

merch store up. We have some pretty adorable, comfortable things and also some fun stuff. That's kind of what Jonathan and I wanted to do. We wanted to provide comfort and fun. That's what we do here. So I think that's it. Follow us, like, subscribe, all the

things. We miss Jonathan. We will see him when he's back. From my breakdown to the one I hope you never have. We'll see you next It's my ambiolyx breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. Fun fiction.

And now she's going to break...