Sex With Emily - Express to Decompress with Dr. Margaret Rutherford

Episode Date: February 1, 2020

On today’s show, Dr. Emily is joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Margaret Rutherford to talk about her new book, Perfectly Hidden Depression and how it can affect your relationships – including the one with yourself. They discuss where the line is between perfectionism and using it to mask depression, how to recognize the signs you or a loved one might have perfectly hidden depression, and why people need to do their emotional work – because having emotions doesn’t make you weak.Follow Emily on all social @sexwithemilyFind more on Dr. Rutherford HERE.For even more sex advice, tips & tricks, visit sexwithemily.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

there is a lack of congruence between sometimes who we seem to be and who we are. And if you get on Pinterest, if you get on Instagram, that message is getting across to people. I think people are becoming more aware that especially with social media. I mean, I've had people on my couch who show me their Instagram accounts and they are miserable in their lives. Right. They spend an hour or two hours making sure and crafting this Instagram scene that will make it seem as if their life is wonderful. I think it is such a good feeling

and a solid feeling and a stable feeling to realize that as Brunei Brown talks about that you can be open, I had a question this morning about, well, what gives you permission to do that? To be vulnerable to go on and be open. I had a question this morning about, well, what gives you permission to do that, to be vulnerable, to go on and be open about what you struggle with? And my answer to that was, when you realize that your vulnerabilities, what you struggle with, does not define you any more than your competencies. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily.

I'm Dr. Emily and on today's show, I'm joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Margaret Rutherford to talk about her new book, Perfectly Hidden Depression and how it can affect your relationships, including the one with yourself. Topics include, where is the line between perfectionism and using it to mask depression? How to recognize the signs you or loved one might have perfectly hidden depression and why people need to do their emotional work and that having emotions doesn't make you weak. And how the stories in our head are just anxiety. They're the eyes of a man obsessed by sex.

Eyes that mark our sacred institutions. Bit rumies, they call them in a fight on day. Hey, Avaline, you got a boyfriend? Because my man E here, he just got his heart broken, he thinks you're kind of cute. The girls got a hair standard. Oh my! The women know about shrinkage. Isn't it common, Avaline? What do you mean like laundry?

It shrinks. Can we not talk about sex so much? Are you kidding me? Oh my god, I'm off here. So, I'm gone. Being bad feels pretty good. But you know Emily's not the kind of girl you just play with. You're listening to Sex with Emily.

We're talking about sex for relationships and everything in between. For more information check out sexwithentley.com, you're in a lover of blogs, and you can also find me in all social media. It is sex with Emily across the board. You make it easy for you. Okay, intentions with Emily. So what I've been doing this year is inviting you to join me in setting an intention. So what that does, it helps ground you in the moment and think, okay, I'm listening to this podcast, I'm going to make a commitment for an hour. What do I want to get out of it? It could be, huh, I'm a perfectionist. Could it also be part of this, you know, am I also depressed? Or could be, I've been feeling really overwhelmed, and this struck a chord with me. I'm such a perfectionist, and I want to know if something's going on. That's great. Or could just be, maybe there's some tips for spicing it up. My intention is really

hearing about perfectly hidden depression. I thought this is some really new insights that I have not shared to my listeners yet. And I'm excited for you guys to figure out what might be going on beneath the surface of a lot of what might alien you. Alright guys enjoy the show. So excited to welcome my guest Dr. Margaret Rutherford. She's a PhD. We're talking about her book and her work.

Her book is called Perfectly Hidden Depression, how to break free from the perfectionism that masks your depression, out this hit hard. Instagram, Dr. Margaret Rutherford, you can find all of our information to on our website, sexzelmy.com. Everything we talk about is in the show notes

at the top level, link to your book and everything there. Right, thank you. Okay, so thank you so much for being here. I believe that a lot of us are suffering from. I feel like I just said, they said they did like either everyone's anxious or they're masking it or they're depressed and they're going through things and we are not living in a place where I think we are as comfortable or at least many people were not raised learning how to experience our emotions, how to express them in a healthy place. I think you're absolutely correct. I get mad at the television when someone dies by suicide and they put up the different

symptoms of depression that are classic and they say, so you watch for these, watch for these, and what they don't say to parents and other people are, you know, they're model for your children, what it's like to talk about your vulnerability, what it's like to talk about your anger, your fear, your disappointment, your sadness. And that's the way you can teach your children to actually come forward and say, wow, I'm really suffering or I'm thinking about hurting myself or whatever it is, if you have modeled that for them, and certainly as a culture, we don't do that. There are many people who grow up in homes

where they're told, don't be angry, go to your room if you're angry, or just we don't talk about those kinds of things. Exactly. It is rampant, sure. Well, I think it's so fascinating, you're right. You look at the classical signs of depression, but you really break this down in your book,

perfectly hidden depression, about it's not a recognizable diagnosis. Tell me how this shaped in what we can look for in it, because I took the quiz, I mean, I've been in therapy and studied myself for years. I know I've definitely had anxiety and bouts of depression, but I feel like the perfectionism angle of it is fascinating. So if you could talk more about how you got to this because I was like, how do we not

know this? Sure. I actually wrote a blog post back in April of 2014 and I happened to call it the perfectly hidden depressed person, or you won. And I was thinking about some of my patients who I'd seen over the years that literally what stood out about them was they had great difficulty in expressing any emotions. They could describe them. They could say, gosh, I'm really sad, but they could not express them. They couldn't connect with emotions themselves. And I was, as I

was writing about these people, I thought about some other things that were very characteristic of them. The post went viral. And it was on the Huffington Post and I forgot that I'd left my email on the bottom of the post. 200 emails later in 24 hours before saying, this is me. How do you know this is going on? I've never seen anything like this. And there was something about the term perfectly hidden depression that they said, I knew in my gut that something was wrong, but I would look up classic symptoms of depression, and I didn't fit. I'm engaged, I have friends, I'm successful.

I don't sleep all day. I don't have, I'm seen as successful, and people tell me I have the perfect looking life. And so what they would do would be shame themselves for actually considering that something might be wrong. We tend to think of perfectionism as linked with anxiety, and it is. There's no doubt about it.

But what I am proposing is that there is a kind of presentation of depression that presents as this perfect looking all put together, slightly anxious, overly fatigued kind of person, who if they go to a therapist office and the therapist isn't really careful, they will say, well, you know, you need to get more rest. You're just anxious. So take a break, go on vacation, do something with your spouse, and they'll miss the fact that this person cannot express these sorts of painful emotions. I had a woman

years ago, and I've used her as an example often, she came in about the fourth session and she said, you know, you asked me about sexual abuse in the first session. I said, yes, I did. And she's smiling brightly. She was a beauty contest participant. And she said, well, you know, I was raped the week before I was supposed to enter college. But I never really considered a big deal, but since you asked, bright smile, right? Since you asked, I thought I would just answer your question honestly. And I looked at her and I said, do you realize what you just said? If I turned the volume down, you could have been telling me what you were having for lunch.

And so there's this mismatch between what they're talking about and the way they talk about it. And so these are the people I've been writing about and the way they talk about it. And so these are the people I've been writing about now for five and a half years. I started researching what books were out there on perfectionism and depression. There's Brunei Brown's work who is incredible, but she doesn't really go so far as to link this perfect looking persona with actual depression that's underneath. She talks about vulnerability. She talks about shame.

Which is a part of shame. And all of that is really interwoven into what I consider the syndrome of perfectly hidden depression. And just for your listeners, what a syndrome is, it's called co-dependence. It's a group of behaviors or beliefs that hang together and you often find them together. And I came up with these 10 traits of perfectly hidden depression. Tell us do it. Tell me.

Tell you. Tell you about it. Dr. Margaret Rutherford, I think everyone's to be good. Be tech out of your book, perfectly hidden depression. And if you have any questions, triple eight, nine, four, seven, eight, two, seven, seven, please run down because I sure. Yeah. Well, I probably won't do it perfectly, but I can even look and we have some things here.

But sure, it's perfectionism with a shameful voice, you know, striving for excellence is one thing, but when it's fueled by shame, I must do this well. I cannot fail when it's tingeed by shame and you've got this constant running, constant, constant. Then that's a problem over responsibility and seeing yourself as valuable because of your accomplishments, discounting painful emotions or experiences, in fact, denying their importance. Actually, being highly engaged with other people and being a great friend, but really when you talk to your friends, I say, you know, I've never really known so much about her childhood.

Yeah, then how does it go to,, I think we all know people like that. Yeah. How then what are the signs then? If they're not telling anybody, I guess it's more like it has to be like a self-diagnosis in a way. It does. One of the problems with it of course is with classic depression people are saying, you know, you don't seem yourself what's going on.

There's alarm, there's concern. But actually these people have to begin to awareness is the number one step where you say, wait a minute, I know something's wrong, but it doesn't fit what I'm told is depression. And this awareness, which I'm hoping the book and these shows like yours, which I so appreciate being on, that there is this problem and it's growing. The suicide rates are emerging and increasing at, not so fantastic, but horrible rates in every age group, except those 65 and older. So what do you think that just has to do with our, I mean, talk about perfectionism, that we have to represent ourselves online. I know that's part of it or we have to,

I don't know, there's people are more visually seeing us so there's more obsession with that. There's just, and also, yeah, I think that would be part of it. But I want the thing that you're saying about parents have to model this for kids. It's interesting because I find this with the sex talk, right? I have parents calling in saying, how do I talk to my kids about sex?

But in I explain it, we talk about it a lot, but if they haven't even dealt with their own emotions around sex and their own traumas and their own things, and then their parents didn't talk to them about it. So I think what you're saying, because I grew up in a home where emotions were not expressed. Like, I never saw my parents cry. There was never any emotion.

I had to like kind of toughen up and do my own thing and not feel. And I actually want to know how could, I mean, any emotion I had to like kind of toughen up and do my own thing and not feel. And I actually want to know how could, I mean, parents even, if we've never saw it, to start learning to feel emotions, I know for me it's been through therapy and through just realizing that it's a problem, that it's not okay, but that's all I saw modeled. So how do we learn it if we never even saw it? Like, I know those people we were talking about, the woman just said says they're like,

oh, this thing happened to me, but it's painful. So that might be a way to spot it in a friend too. Yes. If you're friends sitting across from you or your partner or a friend or something like that. In fact, people have written to me and say, I think this is my wife or I think this is my husband because she never, I mean, her best friend died and she never cries about it. So it's or she doesn't get angry when something really, that would provoke anyone to anger, it doesn't.

So it is some awareness and some tuning in from other people. But mostly, I think it is this growing unhappiness. You know, I was, several people reached out to me that I interviewed for the book. And I asked them why they had because a lot of them were in their garage talking to me secretly or at work behind closed doors and they said, because they said, I don't want anyone to live the life I have lived. I am so lonely, I'm so despairing, I'm not connected. We've seen that lack of engagement with other people is a huge problem not only as you age, but just that's what's problem with iPhones and we've not as engaged with people. And so what they do is they isolate themselves not, but they don't look like they are. They're at every function, they're chairman of this and, and, and, uh, chairperson of that.

So they are very active, but there's just this lack of reality and intimacy in their true relationships. Okay. Well, let's talk about this, the intimacy and the reality, because I often say this, and I believe like, it's hard to connect with people who haven't done this kind of emotional work before. I mean, I don't think we're perfect. I don't know if we ever fully get there, but I, I know what you're talking about lately. I've been having these experiences of where I'm out with people or, and I just maybe just the work we're doing, but I notice that you just can tell right

away, especially in this work of people who aren't authentically feeling emotions who aren't intimate, who aren't ever expressing everything's fine, everything's okay. My reflection on it is it seems like it's more common than not that people are showing up blocking their emotions, not being authentic, not being, and then as a result of that they don't have intimacy. So, how do you explain what this is? I don't know. I'm just, I'm very excited about this.

So, I'm kind of like, but how do you explain what this is so we can spot it? But I also think that people don't even know that it's them. So it's almost like this is going to be a wake up call for people. Well, I hope so. I hope to wait because I bet everyone in this room and those listening know someone that has died by suicide that everybody said, but I saw her at the grocery store a month ago. And she was on the top of the world or you know, he headed up my son's soccer game and he was the coach and he was wonderful and he cared so

much about the kids and now he's gone. So it is a problem and I think sadly and tragically the more that happens the more we're beginning to say that there is that there is a lack of The more we're beginning to say that there is a lack of congruence between sometimes who we seem to be and who we are. And if you get on Pinterest, if you get on Instagram, that message is getting across to people. I think people are becoming more aware that especially with social media. I mean, I've had people on my couch who show me their Instagram accounts and they are miserable in their lives. Right. But they spend an hour or two hours making sure and crafting this Instagram scene that

will make it seem as if their life is wonderful. Right. I think it is such a good feeling and a solid feeling and a stable feeling to realize that as Brunei Brown talks about that you can be open, I had a question this morning about, well, what gives you permission to do that, to be vulnerable, to go on and be open about what you struggle with? And my answer to that was, when you realize that your vulnerabilities, what you struggle with, does not define you any more than your competencies. Exactly. I have a PhD after my name. That's great.

I'm proud of it. But I also can be impatient. And I have a quick temper sometimes. And I've been divorced twice. And I have panic disorder. I have all these things that I've struggled with or that are, like I say, to use the word over again, my vulnerabilities, certainly in the past they were. And so, but my take on that after having written about it for now years is that I was so

afraid when I did that, that people go, well, why do I want to go to hers as a psychologist because she got through that till she can't solve any issues. I mean, she got divorced twice. She still has panic attacks. But actually, the opposite has occurred. People are drawn to listening to me, my podcast, or to reading my stuff because they say, you're real. You're actually real. And the more people risk being real like that, and those are the people we're beginning to see as the people we want to emulate, then that will be where we go.

I think this is so 100%. I feel like it's the direction that we're going in some ways. I've been to some people who are like, I think Renee Brown was great in her show. People are being. Her Netflix special was incredible. Her flick special was amazing, but can we talk about first off, the different kinds of perfectionism, like you have self-oriented, others oriented, socially prescribed? Yeah. Because there's sexual connotations to that too, because if you get into self-oriented perfectionism

or perfectionism with sex, is that you're expecting yourself to really do everything well sexually and you You you never can can you know you you live for your partner saying that was the best blowjob you ever gave Exactly This is it and so then then there's other oriented Which we don't have pleasure because we're trying to please our partner and then you want to have a partner who says Well, you're not doing enough for me. You expect you know, they expect you to be perfect and so and then You split that relationship around. It's called partner prescribed perfectionistic sex, and that you believe you can, that their

expectations of you grow and grow and grow, and that you never can actually achieve intimacy. And so, you get very, your self-esteem plummets, and your anxiety goes way up. And so you're right. The more generalized term of that, the self-oriented, other-oriented, and then socially prescribed, research has shown that people with socially prescribed, which means, again, that you believe that these expectations are never going to stop, that the pressure is so great that those of the people who are most dangerous and can get where they want to take their lives.

Because it also becomes a coping mechanism, because usually we adopt these habits of self-parenting as a child because we didn't have that kind of, perhaps for many people, I know I didn't, I didn't have parental support or I had to raise myself, I had to, I mean, they were there, but like emotionally and stuff and in a lot of ways. But I feel like it's a lot of this that people can't stop it because it's been adaptive, it's been a, you know, you're right. So it's so deeply in our neural pathways, how do we, it does feel like that.

Like if I lose control, I drop one ball, then it's all going to fall apart. That's exactly the way people do. Jamie, my heart has been reading our books. So, you know, if I drop a ball, it all going to fall apart. That's exactly the way people do. Jamie might be falling really in your book. So, you know, if I drop a ball it's going to fall apart. We're very similar in that way. And it's like, I feel like this is, I mean, because I know it's depression, but I feel like it's even more than that. It's a lifestyle, right? I mean, it can stem from that, but how do we stop it?

I think that there's a couple of levels of this perfectly hidden depression. Part of it is called high functioning or smiling depression, where you know you're depressed, but you hide it. You consciously hide it. But there's this subgroup, and actually I think it's a large group of people, like you say, who they've been doing it for so long that it's actually an unconscious process. Nobody gets in their car and thinks, now how do I drive this? It's an unconscious process, Nobody gets in their car and thinks, now, how do I drive this? You know, it's an unconscious process.

It's habit. And there's so many people that have done this since their childhoods that for whatever reason, maybe they were, excuse me, maybe they were reared by an alcoholic parent and they had to take an adult role with their children or maybe, I mean, with their siblings or maybe they were screamed at, you're never going to amount to anything or quite conversely. Maybe they were the star of their family and they were screamed at you're never going to amount to anything or quite conversely maybe they were the star of their family and they were told by parent you know you please me all the time because you're so special and you're so

good at everything guess what they feel like they have to continue being good at everything. That just described most of the people I know. So there's lots of rooms. So how do I know right? And it's recognizing and acknowledging you know so many people believe that therapy is about blame. Oh, I'm going to go back and blame my parents or blame the coach or blame my teacher or blame, blame, blame. It is not about blame. It's about acknowledgement. And if you acknowledge

something, well, gosh, what would be anybody's response to growing up in that kind of environment? I can see that in myself. And the book is, I have like 60 exercises in the book to try to actually do what the psychoanalysis of people have said for years you have to do is to make the unconscious conscious. And basically it's to bring to the surface these things that you're not even particularly aware of. But actually when you begin to take it apart, you realize where you learned it, why you're still doing it, what rules you're following that are really non, they don't have to exist anymore.

Because if you drop the ball, you know what? Nothing happens. There may be some natural consequences of dropping the ball, but healthy people are not going to judge you for that. They're going to say, well, gosh, you missed this time. Healthy people. You're not no longer living in your childhood. All right, guys, we're going to take a quick break and we come back even more with Dr.

Rutherford. So let's talk about, when you said about therapy, and I think it's so true, and going through different stages of talk therapy, I've been in EMDR, you know, it's not that you're going into blame. It's like you just say, you know, your parents are the best they could with what they were given. And then you have information now about where things originate. So what would you say is like the, um, the first step in, it would be going to a therapist perhaps doing the exercise in the book, which I think these are, I have every book on the plan

about this stuff and I love your exercise in here. I think that they're very helpful to kind of ask yourself these questions and just be like noticing. Well, I'm a therapist and I'm a therapist because I got good therapy. I also got some bad therapy. Same, right? So, not all therapy is really helpful. But I think that therapy is certainly an option.

Self-help books are an option talking with friends. I love this person's story that I worked with that she said, she had this group of friends that they met annually. And they ate her nine or 10 of them would go whatever and they were college friends and they would talk about things. And I said, what do y'all were college friends and they would talk about things.

And I said, what are y'all talking about? Well, you know, we talk about just facts. We talk about the things we're doing with the Cacations. We're taking our children. I said, well, do you tell each other like your son has a weed problem or that, you know, you, you, I mean, the lady you called just a few minutes ago that she's having trouble having sex with her partner. No, we don't talk about that. Nobody talks about that. I mean, the lady who called just a few minutes ago that she's having trouble having sex with her partner.

No, we don't talk about that. Nobody talked about that. And so she risked when she was in the car with one of them, who she trusts more than everybody else. She said, you know, I'm not the person that I look like I am. And there was kind of quiet in the car. And then the woman said, I'm not either. And they began this discussion. Well, it was

like a domino effect because they basically started talking about it in their text with their friends and sure enough, everybody started opening up about, well, I've been on any depressions for two years or, you know, we went to Merrill counseling because my marriage is about to fall apart. And it's as if you risk one person at a time that it can be this opening up and acknowledging of what really is life like. And it's hard. There's so hard things about it. I think if you just, you know, one of the steps is to find that one person that you think, I could risk with her him. I could open up, I'll never forget this guy. He was a young guy who'd come into therapy

because he lost a good friend, a sudden car accident. And he began to work, he came back and worked on family issues. And I won't go into the treatment of that. But he walked in one day, now he's this big strapping Arkansas boy who's probably six, four four and big guy works in construction and he goes you know you never know you'll never know what I did this morning and I said what you do this morning goes I made a guy for coffee about 630 and I said great why we talked about our depression yeah what so Jamie here producer Jamie hello, producer Jamie, I read this book.

I did. It was really yet. And we've been, I mean, David, are you cool? Yeah, I'm, but so I've been, Jamie's worked with me before years. Jamie has grown into this amazing, which I would say was 22 was an intern for me.

Wow. Just 26 now. And we've been in this, you know, it's been a lot, I, I, I recognize a lot of, stuff that she's been going through because Jamie had it together and she didn't express a lot of stuff that she's been going through because Jamie had it together and she didn't express a lot of emotions in the last year. So there's been some more feeling we've been talking about Jamie going to therapy and so tell me how.

I've been microdose. I like to put it as microdosing my mental breakdowns because I just only let them out every so often. And I don't really know why this ever started because my mom was very expressive. But my dad was articulate, but I don't think I saw now in his older age, like he is more emotional. But I think when I'm growing up, I was blind to it or I didn't see it.

So, and I resonated more with my dad than my mom. And he thought that your mom's, you were saying that your mom's emotions you thought is a weakness, so that's why you should. They got labeled them as, yeah, they got labeled as, oh she's too emotional. Right, right, right, right. Yeah, exactly.

So, and then, I don't know, just now, me, I am that friend that I'm like, I'm always up beaten, I'm always great. And I'm like the friend that people come to with their problems. And I like want to be there for people, which is also why I resonated with this job and with Emily Emily because she's helping people all the time. And it's a field that I really like. But then it's like, I don't know how to ask for help. I don't know how to stop. I don't have to, I don't know how to like not go too, like not put too

much on my plate. Yeah, you don't know how to put something on your plate and then take something off. Exactly. Right. Which is what healthier people do is that they say, oh sure, I'd love to do that. Let me see what I need to not do so that I actually have the energy to do that. Well, that's interesting and I love your micro-dosing. I mean, I think that's a great strategy. It is a great time.

Because I don't want you to shame yourself because of that, because it is a step. And shame is a huge component here. People believe if they shame themselves, if they think, well, I'm not the person I should be or want to be. And so I'm just going to let that shame keep me in check. I'm going to, I've made a mistake. I'm going to say, I'll never make that mistake again and shame is just ever, ever present.

Rather than saying, this is a journey, it is not a destination. This is a process that may take me a decade or more to actually begin to feel comfortable with. And that's all right. This is what ever strategy you had either was to connect with your dad through that or whatever it was worked and so it's like You know if you think I use this in the book if you think of that game of Jenga and you're trying to figure out which piece That you can take out without the whole thing falling apart

Yeah, exactly and you have to and sometimes it does feel like it's good and it does fall apart that you can take out without the whole thing falling apart. Yeah. Exactly. And sometimes it does feel like it's going to end. It does fall apart. So someone who's beginning to make these changes has to make them in a supportive environment where they think, okay, this was great that I risked this. Now, let me kind of sit with those feelings and then make another risk.

When I moved to Fable Arkansas from Dallas, I was in therapy. I told my therapist there, I would never tell anyone I've been divorced twice, moving back to a small southern town. I just wasn't going to do it. And because of my own shame and because of lack of self-acceptance on my own part, well, sure enough, there was someone sitting on my sofa. I don't know how many, five years after I moved there.

And she said, you know, I'm getting a second divorce. And then she looked at me, she said, but I know you wouldn't know what that was like. And out of my mouth popped, well, you're about to join a club that I've been a member of for years. And I was like, oh my gosh, I've left this out. Right.

Oh no, oh no. And then I realized, no, I did something very important for myself. I risked, I took that jingle piece out and I did not fall apart. And she didn't run out of the room and say, you're a fraud. She just said, wow, thank you for sharing that. And so these things that we carry around that I don't know what are the things that you don't want to talk about or that struggle to talk about, we build up these stories about what will happen if we do.

And maybe some of them are true. I'm sure that there are very conservative people who don't even believe in divorce that are in favourable Arkansas, who heard that I would have been divorce twice, would say, well, no, I don't wouldn't go to her. Okay. But people who live more in the gray would welcome that. So there might be some natural consequences, but typically what we fear and what we dread does not happen, not in people that we really care about having relationships with. It really doesn't happen. 99.99% of what we worry about isn't really gonna happen.

But still, it's the, it's difficult to like, I mean, it's like I recognize it, but I don't feel it too much. And then it's like there's been a couple times where like there's a couple of friends that I can kind of open up to. And there's been a couple times that have been just like kind of nonchalantly like said something about feeling depressed or whatever and people are like, oh, you're not depressed. And I'm like, oh, okay.

And I just stop. Exactly. And that's one of those affirmations that you might risk looking for when you have this perfectly hidden oppression. And people don't give it to you because I get you. I tried to talk to somebody at, you know, we tailgate. And this guy's known me for seven or eight years and I was, I'm gonna risk.

And because I also, I have some panic sometimes when I'm at these tailgates. Because there's a lot of people and I don't do very well with that. so I walked up to it and I said you know Jim I'm I really have I struggle with anxiety and you just start laughing he said you you seem so extroverted so comfortable you don't have panic and just shut down the conversation and I walked away thinking well you know there you go right so you're right You have to convince people that no, they need to listen to you.

That this image that you portrayed is not all of you. It's some of you. You are. You do have competencies. You do have strengths. And one of them is, for example, being able to put up with a lot of stress and organize and stay focused. And that's a talent you have.

But when you're doing that to the detriment of recognizing, wow, I also am tired. I also feel overwhelmed. I also don't, I'm beginning to pummel myself with the idea that I'm not a good mom or I'm not a good friend. And I'm feeding myself shame. Then that's what you got to address. It is getting there. Good for you. I'm feeding myself shame, then that's what you gotta address. Yeah, it is. It's like getting there.

Good for you. I mean, I'm good for you. I guess what we're saying is what vulnerability means, like in these definitions, and I think what you're saying is almost like the things that we are keeping the most secret from others, the things that we think that makes us awful people are actually the things that it's gonna,

we're gonna be the most connected to others once we share that. Like whatever we think is our darkness will allow like the light to come in. You know how when you share is when people it's like when women you're in a bath and I love your shirt. Thanks. I got it for $10. It's like we all want to make ourselves that in that little moment we want to connect.

And I think that it's the same thing that goes with emotions when you share with your friends, the right friends. And to be honest, I admit this point in my life, if someone can't have a real conversation and hand it like all my text threads are like us talking about all the shit we're going through. But I don't know how to even have the superficial where we're going on vacation, what are we doing conversations and eventually I think when you start to do the work, people like that won't even be interesting. You get to weed it out if they're not going to go there and live an authentic life. It's harder to connect with those kind of people. You know years ago, I noticed that I have a pretty good memory for facts and details about people's life because I've been talking to people for so long.

I've just developed that skill. And yet, there were people that I recognized, you know, I would always have to check my notes to see, now, what's going on with them? And where are they? And where are they in the process? And what struck me, finally, was that it's because they don't show me who they are. I don't expect them to solve it, you know, on the sofa, the first time they come into therapy, but literally when they walk out the door after the third or four sessions, I still don't know much more about them.

Other than the facts about them, then I did when they first walked in. That's exactly true. I get that. It's reminding me of this time when I was like, I don't know, like 20 years ago, I was in my 20s, I was in this group therapy for like, they said you had to commit to a year. And it was 90 minutes every Tuesday, six to seven 30. And for me, this was like a huge commitment.

How am I ever gonna do it? You know, I ended up being this group for like five years, but I remember thinking it was two therapists, seven women, and they said to me once, Emily, you're saying that you're sad about this breakup or whatever it is, but I don't see it in your face and I kept coming up. I'm like, how do you not see it? And then that's when I started realizing like, I, people don't often know what I'm feeling. I wasn't feeling the range of emotions.

And so I think that that's, you were describing it, but you're describing it. Connecting with it. Right. Yeah. And that research has shown that it's very true of perfectionists. There's some wonderful researchers out of Canada that I've discovered that are doing some great borrower of perfectionism. And that's one of the things that they have identified that's a strong, strong indicator of that when perfectionism is getting dangerous. Because when you really think about it, if you can't connect with those emotions, they just grow in potency. Because you can say, oh yes, I am sad or yes,

I am angry, but it's never released. So we got to release it. So through the process of healing this perfectionism, what are some of the other things? Like compassion, meditation, mindfulness, slowing down, definitely talking to people to therapists. Well, you know, New Harbinger, the publishing company that published my book, when I was first written, I was just describing what this was. And they looked at me and said, when you need to come up with a treatment strategy and needs to be in two weeks, and I was

so, two weeks, you got to be kidding. weeks. I'm so, I'm too weak. You got to be kidding. So, what I did was I sat down and thought, what do I do with every patient? And I came up with these stages, which is consciousness, which again, you have to just be aware that something's a problem. You listen to your gut, you listen to the term and you think, wait a minute, you say the term perfectly in depression, you say, this, I think this is me. Then you have to deal with commitment issues like, you know, as soon as you make a mistake or as soon as someone goes, well, you don't look like

that to me, then you go, you shut down. And there are kinds of things. Right. It's unsafe. It's unsafe for me. Perfectionists will pick something way too hard for them to do. And then when they don't do it, they'll go, ah, we'll see this'll see, this is not worth it. You have to look at the rules you're living by. I told a funny story in the book about, and actually I called it Juliet, but it was actually me. My mother told me that I needed to curl my eyelashes, that I sleepy if I didn't curl my eyelashes.

So I curled my eyelashes until I was like 44, and then finally I had this five year old running around. I said, to hell with that, I've got to just stop curling my eyelashes until I was like 44 and then finally I had this five year old running around. I said to hell with that I've got to just stop curling my eyelashes and I thought everybody the next day was going to say gosh you're so sleepy you look so tired and you know not a person said that to me. Right nothing right that had been my mother's release a silly little thing. No but it's very indicative of that. Challenge of thoughts that you're still caring about with you the stories that no longer serve you.

Sure. Thank you so much for being here. very indicative of that. Challenge of thoughts that you're still carrying around with you. The story isn't no longer a serve you. Sure. Thank you so much for being here. You guys, everyone check out our book, Perfectly Hidden Depression. Dr. Margaret Robinson, Rutherford, great book. There's exercise. I think it's a great place to start, you know, if you're trying to figure out where you've been stuck, perfectionism, this resonate with a lot of us.

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