The Blindboy Podcast - How I navigate my mental health using Turkish arse lozenges

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Coping with stress and burnout through emotional literacy and self compassion  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bend towards heaven, you tender Brenda's. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. If this is your first episode, please consider going back to an earlier episode to familiarise yourself with the lore of this podcast. I've just completed eating a Finnish Arse Sweet. Just now, before I pressed record, I ate a Finnish arse sweet. It's a very strange licorice lozenge that comes from Finland. Turkish pepper they call it in Finland but it has nothing to do with Turkey. If you're a regular listener you'll know

that. About a month ago I did a podcast about Fisherman's Friend Sweets because they don't taste the same anymore. Fisherman's Friend used to taste like a recently washed human anus and now they don't and this upset me so I embarked upon a journey to find out why do Fisherman's Friend Sweets taste differently. And I did a lot of research and came to the conclusion that Fisherman's Friend had changed their licorice supplier. They now purchased their licorice from a dried up salty sea in Uzbekistan. But after I'd done that podcast, someone contacted me and said, have you tasted Turkish pepper? It's this

fucking sweet. It's a sweet they have up in Finland and it's disgusting. It's the ultimate in licorice arse flavour. Now I'd never heard of Turkish pepper but if someone mails me and says up in Finland they eat a sweet that's incredibly disgusting and it tastes like how you describe Fisherman's Friend immediately I had to go online and try and buy some, so I did. So a bag of Turkish pepper arrived into my studio. They're like boiled sweets. They're lozenges. They smell like licorice. You suck one of them and it's quite a pleasant,

sweet licorice flavour. It takes about 4 minutes to suck one of these boiled sweets until you get to the core and then when you get to the fucking core. In the centre of these sweets, in the centre of these sweets is a type of salt, a chemical salt, goes by the name of salmiac, goes by the name of Selmiac, ammonium chloride, a very rare and ancient naturally occurring crystalline salt. It means salt of Ammon. Ammon was an ancient Egyptian god who would go on to become Zeus in Greek mythology. But before the Greeks there was Ammon and in the temple of Amman, which would be in Libya, about 4000

years ago, people used to hitch their camels beside this temple. But the camels used to shit so much that people would collect lumps of camel shit around the temple of Amman and burn it for fuel. And if you burnt enough camel shit indoors and the smoke went up to the ceiling, a crystal like salt would appear. The salt of Ammon, ammonium chloride, and that's what's in these fucking sweets. Disgusting isn't the word. When I first ate one of these Turkish peppers, I genuinely believed I was being poisoned. If you could imagine what drinking a shot of bleach is like, no exaggerations. Drinking a shot of bleach. When I first tasted one of these sweets, my knees buckled. Every one of my gustatory and An olfactory census begged me to reject this sweet. My body registered this as deadly poison.

A solitary bead of the devil's bollock sweat resting on the rim of my lip. I spat the sweet out. Like I went to the back of the packet to make sure is this safe to fucking eat? I went online. I'm like, there's no way this is food this cannot be food what the fuck is wrong with people in Finland what the fuck is wrong with people in Finland that they think that this Turkish pepper stuff is a s- what's wrong with them? There- there's nothing I've tasted food from all around the world. I've eaten alligator in Australia numbing Sichuan peppercorns from China

There is nothing in the palette of any country I've ever visited that's similar to this Turkish pepper shit, this ammonium chloride If you gave this sweet to a person and didn't tell them what it was I would understand if that person then wanted to ring the police. The inside of this sweet, it's not food. Your brain registers it as a very deadly poison and a taste that you should never taste. This was like a week ago. So after eating one sweet, I just said never again,

there was no point in that. I tried it. I sweet, I just said never again, there was no point in that, I tried it. I kind of wish I didn't try it, that was truly...it was more than disgusting. It was frightening. It was frightening. So I locked the sweets away into the cabinet in my office, I locked them away. Didn't think about them for two days, and then two days later I get this strange desire. It's not yum yum I want to taste that again, it's the... it's like wanting to go back and see a horror film that frightened you. I need to re-experience that horrible thing that happened. So I did and I had another sweet and it was fucking horrible. The second sweet

was horrible. It's the sense of anticipation too. This is a licorice lozenge. And the licorice is quite nice. Regular sweet licorice. And you suck away on it. And you know in the center is ammonia salts. Like smelling salts. Like fucking ammonia.

Cat's piss. Very intense. And you know that that's coming. As you suck that sweet, you know that's at the end. And then you suck away that thin veneer of sugar wall coating, and fucking Donald Duck is sharting into your jowls. Your tongue is the rug underneath a Jack Russell's arsehole. What you want me to say?

So by day three I'd eaten about six of them. I know the bag is nearly gone. The bag's nearly gone and I'm probably gonna have to order another one. And if any of my listeners are from Finland, these sweets are a big deal in Finland. They're part of national identity in Finland. The way that in Ireland we've got Tato crisps, in Finland they've got Turkish pepper sweets.

And when people move away from Finland, it's these sweets that they crave because there's no other flavor like it. Unless you want to go fucking lickin' bleach, there's no other flavor like it. Like adults in Finland, right? So Finnish kids, they eat this Turkish pepper growing up. And I've been told too that there's a masculinity to it, in the way that, you know how it's somehow, it's manly to want an extra spicy curry. Like if you're in an Indian restaurant, like sometimes a man in particular will order a

vindaloo or a phal for the performance of how much heat they can tolerate. Almost like a test of strength. Well I've been told that Turkish pepper is a bit like that in Finland. And like on the side of the bag of Turkish pepper it says, can you handle the heat? Like this isn't heat, it's not hot. This is rancid discharge from a very sick animal. But these sweets are a big part of Finnish culture. And then as adults, they have a cocktail. They get two of these sweets, like these boiled

sweets, and they dissolve them in a shot of vodka, and then drink it. I can't imagine how horrible that is. And I'm probably going to do it at Christmas time to be honest. I have to. I don't have a choice. And I'm gonna buy another bag. Do I like them? I wouldn't say I like them. No. No. It's just... I'm stuck with it now. I'm stuck with it now. It's like doing a crossword puzzle with my tongue.

I want another one of these sweets. The way that I want to think about a strange nightmare that I had Just when the memory of that ammonium chloride just just when that memory leaves my mind and I can't immediately recall the taste My brain isn't able to sit with the anxiety of that So I have to eat another one of these sweets to try and understand it. So that's what I've been doing with my week. I encountered the final boss of arse sweets. This Turkish pepper.

It delivers on the promise that Fisherman's Friend makes. And I'm very, I'm very, I'm fascinated that the, that hint of arse, that hint of arse that licorice sometimes has, it's from the ammonium chloride and that is present in the smoke of burning camel dung. So I feel very validated in finding out that there's a mephitic fecal putrescence to licorice and that I wasn't imagining it. So for last week's podcast and that I wasn't imagining it. So for last week's podcast, I had a chat with a wonderful, wonderful person called Laura Coleman, who was a psychotherapist and a death doula. And thank you all for the lovely feedback for that podcast. And I was really glad to have a live podcast to put out last week. Because I was experiencing the beginnings of burnout,

neurodivergent burnout. I've mentioned neurodivergent burnout before, or autistic burnout. I prefer to call it neurodivergent burnout. This is something I've been dealing with my whole life, but since receiving a diagnosis, I now understand what it is and can see it easier. So the gist of burnout, first off you don't have to be neurodivergent to experience

burnout. Anybody can experience burnout. For most people burnout occurs when they endure extreme stress, extreme levels of stress. For a long period, most people will experience burnout. For neurodivergent people, the parameters of that stress are different. So in the past month, I've put out two pieces of work. I've put out a short film and a documentary. I've had to promote these things. So I've been doing a lot of radio interviews, speaking to journalists, interacting with people online, navigating an overwhelming amount of online

negativity and aggressive comments. That's just what happens. If you release anything, you're in the newspaper. That's just what happens. But I'm also, I'm a human being, so I don't experience it as pleasant. So my social battery, my social battery, became drained. A social battery, again, everybody has a social battery, you know? You've got introverted people who have less of a social battery,

you've got extroverted people who have a very high, powerful social battery. A social battery is, individual's capacity or their energy level for social interactions and engagement with other people, particularly strangers. So for me, Mr. Autistic Spectrum, my social battery is quite low. I can do it. I can chat to people, I can have crack. I contact body language, waiting my turn to speak. Being normal, being a normal person. I can do it, but I can only do so much of it. So for the past month though, I've done lots of it.

I've been doing a lot of that. And then what happens is I start to experience burnout. Some people describe burnout as a tiredness or an exhaustion. I don't experience it as that. I experience burnout as what's called a loss of executive functioning skills. I don't like that fucking word or that phrase. It doesn't sound human. When I say executive functioning skills, I can hear people switching off.

It doesn't...it sounds like something that happens to a vending machine, not a human being. I become confused and ditzy. I become confused and ditzy. If I have to do too much talking to people, particularly strangers, putting on the performance of speaking to strangers, when I finish talking to people, it feels a bit like I've run a marathon. I'm kind of almost out of breath and a little bit dizzy. And I feel confused. Confused in the... Have you ever been in a city you don't know? And you're walking around a city you don't know.

But you're getting a sense of it. And you have a little mental map in your head of... at least the general direction that your hotel is in. You know, like, well my hotel's over in that direction somehow, even though I don't know these streets. And then you suddenly turn a corner and you feel disoriented. You don't know what direction your hotel is. You don't know what's up or down.

You feel disoriented. I feel a bit like that. After a solid day of just talking to people. And then I start to do very silly things. Something simple like, I stayed in work two hours too late. I usually come home from my office at about half four, but last Monday, I just looked up from my desk

and it was completely dark outside and it was seven o'clock. And it was too late for me to cycle home because it was too dark and I didn't have lights and I had to get a taxi and it was kind of scary it was scary that my head was that far up my arse it was scary to be that distracted it was scary that I leave my office at about half four every single fucking day how was it seven o'clock how did that happen and that there is that's a loss of executive functioning skills that's a loss of executive functioning skills. That's a loss of planning memory timekeeping Now before I knew what that was I used to just call it being a useless and capable

Stupid ditzy bastard who isn't as good as everybody else and then I'd feel great shame and embarrassment and therein lies the problem our society values things like timekeeping, tidiness, remembering things, impulse control, self-monitoring, having self-awareness around making simple mistakes, having self-awareness around your performance, self-awareness around timekeeping. Oh, I've got to be home at half four. Better make sure I do that today. Very simple stuff.

These are skills of executive functioning, and we learn these skills at a very young fucking age. Think of tiny kids. Learning to tie your own shoelaces, learning to go to the potty by yourself, getting to five or six years of age, and learning how to make yourself a very simple snack if you know that you're hungry. Then you're in school, learning how to turn up on time in school, learning when to have lunch, learning when to go home

and have the self-discipline to do your homework, to study, to hand things in on time. If you make a mess, you clean it up for yourself. Learning how to tidy your own bedroom. Learning how to dress your bed. What we're learning there throughout our development, these are executive functioning skills. Learning these things, completing them, they build confidence, a sense of autonomy, a sense of self-esteem, a sense of identity.

We value these things highly in society. If you're someone who's consistently late, if you're someone who's messy, a sense of identity, we value these things highly in society. If you're someone who's consistently late, if you're someone who's messy, if you're someone who's forgetful, you're seen as someone who isn't reliable, someone who can't be trusted with tasks, someone who can't be handed any responsibility, someone who isn't valued within a social system. So we shame these things and we shame ourselves to keep ourselves in line.

We use shame, we use self-shame as part of this internal monitoring to make sure that we're good at timekeeping, that we're tidy, that we're reliable people. But here's the thing, I'm an efficient human being 99% of the time,

but the overstimulation from too much social interaction can take that away from me in a heartbeat. And suddenly I become very confused. Like, when I accidentally stayed two hours late in work last week, I would have looked at the clock multiple times, and I would have looked at the clock multiple times and I would have looked out the window multiple times. None of that internally registered with me. I would have looked at the clock and seen, it's 5 o'clock, I should be home half an hour ago,

and it didn't internally register with me, nor did the darkness outside, and then it suddenly clicks, oh fuck. Oh fuck. Because I've been dealing with this my whole fucking life, I've huge shame around it. I've huge self-esteem issues around it. It takes me back to every point in my childhood where this shit happened and I got myself in trouble. Like I think I've mentioned this one before, but this always comes back to me. I was young, I was about eight or nine in school. A teacher screamed at me for some reason, I don't know what it done, and a teacher screamed at me. And that was too much.

It sent me into that disoriented feeling of confusion. And then later on that day, I walked into a shop and then I walked out, having shoplifted, shoplifted Hagggen-das ice cream, expensive ice cream. And I remember feeling terrified and shameful and embarrassed and embarrassed that I'd just stolen something. Of course I didn't want to steal something at all. I didn't notice I'd taken the fucking ice cream. I thought I was going to go to jail because I was so young. All of that shame comes back to me when I experience executive dysfunction. And then I begin to speak to myself in a terrible, harmful way.

I call myself lazy, useless, stupid, ineffective, not as good as anybody else. If you speak that way about yourself, you're not going to be happy. You're not going to be happy at all. If that's your internal... When I speak to myself that way, when that's how I evaluate myself, for a while then I start to get depression and anxiety, I start to get mental health issues. And that there for me personally, that's where being neurodivergent is difficult. The meaning that I give to experience in burnout. The beliefs that I have about what it says about me as a person to experience burnout,

that's what creates my mental health issues. You lazy, useless, stupid fuck. You ditzy, pathetic cunt. Words that teachers would have said to me over the years, words that adults would have said to me over the years, shaming from peers, whatever. The public shame and chastisement that we as a society apply to people who become unreliable, and then usually it spirals.

I'm rattled for the rest of the evening because I'm like, I don't know how I missed two hours of my day. Now I'm not happy. I'm living in my head. All the stuff that requires very basic executive functioning skills. Answering emails, replying to texts, cleaning up after myself, making my dinner, tidying up, paying bills. These things become frightening and confusing. These things that I had no problem doing last week, these things become frightening and

they become confusing and then I avoid them, I procrastinate. And you know yourself, don't answer a text, don't pay a bill, don't respond to an email. That just grows and grows until it becomes a much bigger problem. And I have found myself in the past, and I've said it on this podcast, I've found myself deeply depressed in my studio that's so messy. I physically can't really move inside there without tripping over and I don't know how to tidy it up. I'm unable to begin the task of tidying my studio and I've unanswered emails and I've

got threatening letters coming in the door from the fucking electricity company because I haven't paid my electricity bill and they're gonna cut me off. And the bills are in a pile, unopened, that I don't know how to sort. And that there, that's the impact of executive dysfunction. That's the impact of that. That will get you fired from most jobs. That will stay in your record when you apply for a new job. That's why I'm self-imed and completely self-directed and having an awareness

around that, that's the most valuable part of receiving an autism diagnosis two years ago. Before that diagnosis I used to just say, I'm just a very introverted person. I'm a really introverted person. I prefer my own company. Now I know that there's a very, very good reason that I'm a really introverted person. I prefer my own company. Now I know that there's a very, very good reason that I'm an introverted person. If I can spend like, maybe 85% of my time by myself, if I can do 85% of my time by myself, then I'm an incredibly functional, happy human being. And this is the strange thing about being on the autistic spectrum. I love people.

Like people very close to me. Family? I can be around family as much as I like. That doesn't drain my social battery at all. I don't have to mask or perform around family. I can be who I am. I also love being around people. I love going to the gym.

And it's not just to exercise. What I adore about the gym, I get to be in this room with tons of strangers and it's socially acceptable for me to have my headphones in at the gym. I can be at the gym, I can listen to music the whole time and the other thing about the gym, small talk is taboo at the gym. Nobody's going to start a conversation with you at the gym. Because if you do that, you might be taking up space with a machine. People are at the gym to work out, not to talk. Talking is frowned upon, and having your headphones in and speaking to nobody is perfectly fine. It's normal. So I love that. I fucking love

that. I can go to the gym, I'm present with all these people, I'm amongst people, but no one's expecting me to speak to them and I'm stimming all the time with music that I love because me personally, I get overstimulated and burnt out from social interaction. Other people. Now recent statistics, I'm talking the past month, suggest that one in 20 people in Ireland are possibly on the autistic spectrum. So that's 5%, that's a lot of people. And then 20% of people, it's estimated, are neurodivergent.

So within that, autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, people who process the world differently and most likely experience this burnout shit I'm talking about as a result of overstimulation. And everybody's different. Someone else might be overstimulated by noise and bright lights. The gym could be a terrifying space for them. They might need to go to a dark room. Excessive bright lights for them could cause burnout and fucking executive dysfunction. Not me. I love bright lights, I love loud noises,

all that shit is fine. People is my thing. I can comfortably manage 15% of my life interacting with strangers in particular. If I go over that 15%, I become overstimulated, like I did this month and then I start to, burnout starts to creep in. I feel dizzy, I'm forgetful, timekeeping is difficult, reading clocks is difficult, thinking about numbers is difficult, planning, initiating tasks, all these things are difficult. So I try to live a life where 85% of my time is spent by myself, then I'm a happy functioning, effective person with good mental health who can achieve goals, not only achieve goals, when it comes to my 15% of social interaction. I'm fucking brilliant at it. Wonderful normal happy life.

I compare it to my asthma. I'm asthmatic. I'm diagnosed asthmatic. I've been asthmatic since I was a small little kid. I don't use inhalers. I don't need inhalers. I don't wheeze. Nothing about my life feels asthmatic. I just I just know that this is a diagnosis I have. Nothing about my life is asthmatic. I love running. I don't get out of breath. But if I smoke cigarettes... Now I haven't smoked cigarettes in... Like as in bought a packet of fucking cigarettes and smoked them.

Now buying a box of cigarettes as a result of pints... Or holiday cigarettes, I'm not talking about that. That's not what I mean. I mean... Smoking actively. Buying 20 a day. A smoker. I haven't done that in maybe 15 years. If I smoke cigarettes regularly, then I'm asthmatic. Now I'm a person, I need a blue inhaler for when I'm frequently out of breath, and then

I need a brown inhaler that I have to take in the morning and the evening just to keep my lungs healthy. So if I smoke cigarettes, now I'm an asthmatic person. Now I'm living with asthma. That's me and my autism diagnosis. If my daily life means having to interact socially loads like I had to do back in school, then I'm experiencing dizziness, executive dysfunction, poor timekeeping. The more challenging aspects of being on the autistic spectrum, as opposed to the wonderful aspects like consistent, intense curiosity and a heightening of the senses that makes

being an artist quite enjoyable. That's how, when I was a little kid in school, the teachers would say, we can't figure him out, this doesn't make sense. He's very smart, but he's failing everything and he doesn't behave himself. Wasted potential, bad attitude, he's bad, he's lazy, he's a bad student. And it's like, no, I actually can't concentrate on anything

because I've just had 15 separate conversations with different people in the past hour. How about, just give me the history book. I'll go off by myself. I can read it myself. I don't need anyone to teach me. I'll go off to a room by myself and listen to music in my headphones and walk around and flap my hands.

And if you let me do that, I'll get an A in the history exam. But that can't happen because what I'm asking for there is, it's fucking ex-sane. It's eccentric. It's strange. And you know, I failed history, I failed my history exam in junior cert. And now, that documentary I made, Blind by the Land of Slaves and Scholars, that was overseen by the Department of Education. So now my documentary is part of the junior cycle in schools now.

13, 14 year olds who are studying Irish history are gonna be watching a documentary that I wrote as part of their schoolwork and I failed it. I fucking failed it 20 years ago. Was I stuck in a classroom forced to talk to people when I was writing that documentary? No I wasn't. I was pacing up and down in my office listening to Slipknot, deeply passionate and interested in Irish history and I hope, I hope some young fucking artistic kid who's studying history, who's interested in it and passionate about it, is going to see my documentary as part of their schoolwork and something about the way

that I tell that story, frees that kid up. So last week, last week the reason I didn't have a hot take, the reason I didn't have a monologue podcast was because I was experiencing the beginning of burnout. And I'd like to speak about how techniques I used to cope with it, because I'm not experiencing burnout now. And you don't have to be neurodivergent to experience burnout, to experience executive dysfunction. Just the triggers would be different. Like, I spoke to too many people this month and now I'm struggling to cope with life.

If that sounds fucking nuts, if you can't even empathise with that because it's so strange, then you have a different way of processing the world than I do. Like what would cause a neurotypical person to experience burnout? Stress. Shit to do at work. An excessive workload. A sense of being completely overwhelmed with tasks and responsibilities. A boss who doesn't give a fuck. So now you have a sense that you lack control. So you're overwhelmed and you lack a sense of control over this situation that's overwhelming you. And on top of this, when you do work, you're not receiving any recognition, you're not

getting noticed for the work that you're doing. Excessive worry, excessive worrying, the genuine fear that you can't afford to pay your bills, the stress of, I'm not good enough. Consistently comparing yourself to other people. Placing all your worth, your worth and how you would like to be perceived until that's so fucking stressful that you're overwhelmed and burnt out. Also you could be the complete opposite to me. Maybe in the job that you're in, since the fucking pandemic, you're working from home. You've been working from home for three fucking years.

And now all the deadlines, all the work that you have to do, that you have to focus on by yourself, it's not rewarding or enjoyable anymore because what you used to love was crack all the people in your office who you used to speak to every day and have fun with Your highly social office job where you talk offload Gossip laugh with multiple people all day. That's gone. And now you're forced

To try and be comfortable in in my comfort zone working by yourself Self-directed. But that doesn't suit you. You're a highly social person who gets a lot of energy from social interactions and you love it and you're good at it and you have a big, bright, powerful social battery that recharges the more you socialize. Now you're working from home and you're lonely. You're lonely and you're upset and you're sad and now you feel kind of exhausted and you're detached. You don't experience joy from the things you used to experience joy from. You're very irritable. You're quick to react. You don't sleep because you spend fucking ages

doom scrolling on your phone. Even though you hate doing it, you keep doing it. It's 5 in the morning, you have to be up at fucking 7, and you've done nothing but look at TikToks and you know well that you shouldn't have done it. You don't know why you've done it. You don't know. Like, who listening to this, if you're relating to some of these things I'm listing out here, who listening to this, who might be struggling right now, is not also staying up till 5 in the morning looking at TikTok or Instagram. And you know you should stop, but you're not stopping, you're just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, fully aware how damaging it is, fully aware that you need to sleep.

It's compulsive and you're harming yourself with it because you're not sleeping. That's executive dysfunction, Lack of impulse control. Lack of an internal voice that you can connect with inside yourself to go, hold on a second just put the phone on the other side of the room. No, it's 12 o'clock you can't look at TikTok. You need to go to sleep. Get your phone and put it out of reach and go to bed. That very basic act of impulse control and task initiation. Not as easy as it sounds when you're highly stressed and experiencing burnout. And then difficulty concentrating, negative thinking, forgetfulness, messiness, procrastination. This shit is part of the human condition as far as I'm concerned.

It's just the reasons that trigger it are different for people. And also what I consider burnout to be, personally, it's the beginning of mental health difficulties. If I begin to experience burnout and it goes unchecked, then I know that in maybe two months time, I'm gonna be getting full-blown anxiety attacks or experiencing depression. I know this burnout has an early warning system. So what did I do last week? So that day, when I suddenly came to my awareness and fuck it's seven o'clock, it's seven o'clock in the evening I was

supposed to go home two hours ago how did this happen my first feeling was was fear and shock how did I let that happen where was I for the past two hours how did I look at a clock and not internally register the time am I going insane it was frightening and then it was followed by a really depressing, a really depressing, low feeling. And that was triggered by all the memories of when this has happened before. Oh no, it's starting again. The poor mental health spiral is starting again. I'm going to get depression. I'm going to get panic attacks. There's nothing I can do about this. I don't have control over this situation

This is just how it is. It's starting again now. This is not in my control This is outside of my control and then followed by the intense feeling of shame Self-shaming you lazy useless fuck you can't even read a clock properly and go home in time you stupid prick So I looked out the window and I did notice, I'm like fuck it's seven o'clock it's dark. Shit I can't cycle home. I was feeling like a failure, feeling annoyed that I was so inconvenienced but also I recognized, I recognized these feelings, I recognized ah shit it's happening now, it's happening again. Now because I know my triggers, I kind of have prepared myself for this.

I know that in the month of November, I'm going to be doing a lot of talking to people, so I'm going to have to watch out for signs of burnout. You see I mentioned there that the feelings that I was feeling, feelings of shame, feelings of failure, that sad, dark, depressing feeling that I'm definitely going to experience mental health issues again because this has happened in the past. My internal monologue becoming quite self-shaming. You useless prick, you stupid bastard, you incompetent fucker. What's happening there is called emotional reasoning. Treating feelings as facts. Sometimes when we feel a strong negative emotion,

worry in particular, worry is a strong one for this. You experience worry or shame or a feeling of failure. When you feel this in your belly, we treat that feeling as a fact. I feel like a failure, but therefore I must be one. Because why else would I be feeling this way? I feel like a fucking failure. I feel like a useless, incompetent prick.

This is exactly how I feel. It must be true. It simply must be true. Why else would I be feeling this way? Only because it's true. This simply must be true. Why else would I be feeling this way? Only because it's true. This is reality right now. And the power of those feelings then dominate how I interpret what's actually happening. I forgot to go home. I missed two hours on the clock. This is definitely a sign that

things are going to be terrible now. Because that's how I feel. That's called emotional reasoning. Treating feelings as facts. It's a cognitive distortion. Our brains are trying to protect us from a threatening situation by finding an answer as quickly as possible. The way that I challenge emotional reasoning in the moment when I notice it is self-compassion. The easiest way to enact self-compassion in the moment is you ask yourself what would you say to a friend or a person you loved if they were going through this exact thing right now. If I got a phone call from a friend and they said I'm kind of stressed out at the moment and I forgot to go home from work and I stayed an

extra two hours by accident and now it's dark outside. Alright, okay, yeah, go on. Yeah, and because of that, I think that I'm a useless, pathetic failure who's utterly incapable and kinda not a real human being, like not a real person, not like other people. I'm like a baby man, if that makes sense. I know I look like a man, but I'm a helpless baby, and I'm worthless. What do you think? If someone I care about rang and said that to me, my heart would break for them.

I'd say, oh my god, don't speak about yourself that way. No, no. You're stressed out. You've been busy So what your heads up your arse a bit you need to relax. It's fine. You're fatigued your heads up your arse That's what happens when we're stressed. I'd be like that if I was stressed that that's just what happens You're not a useless pathetic Worthless human being because you stayed fucking two hours late and work This this doesn't even make sense? This doesn't even make sense.

It doesn't even make sense. There's no rationality behind these things that you're saying about yourself. You're a good person. You're a kind person. It's not possible for you to have less work than any other human being. We're too complex to evaluate against each other.

Whether you were late going home or not, you still have the same fucking worth and value. Who cares? Get a takeaway, get a taxi, who gives a fuck? So that there is legitimately how I would speak to someone I care about if they rang me up and said the things that I said to myself. So that there is an exercise in self-compassion. And the easiest way to do it, like I said, is you imagine how would I treat somebody else if they were speaking about themselves

the way that I'm speaking about myself. And I did that little exercise with myself in the moment and what it does is the self-compassion, it dissolves that emotional reasoning that I was dealing with a few minutes previously. dealing with a few minutes previously, I feel like a failure. I feel like a bad person, therefore I must be one. The calming slowness of self-compassion immediately dissolves that type of reactionary thinking, because that's what it is. I feel uncomfortable so I need to arrive at a solution as quickly as possible, and the easiest answer is I feel like shit therefore I am shit. The complex answer is throughout my life and from society I've internalized quite a lot of negative beliefs and shameful beliefs about not being on top of shit but I'm a bit stressed out

at the moment so I'm going to need to be a lot more flexible, flexible with the meanings that I apply to situations. And you can try that too. Writing it out on a piece of paper makes it a lot easier, but if you're not sleeping, cause you stayed up till five in the morning, scrolling TikTok, how are you self-flagellating yourself? What mean things are you saying to yourself

because of this behavior, because you feel like shit? Are you gonna speak that way to your best friend, if they tell you that they stayed up till 5 in the fucking morning? Or maybe because you're stressed out you're not answering text messages? You have a friend who's sending you text messages and you're not answering back. You don't feel like it? Or else you're worried about something so your head isn't in that space?

You're forgetful that the person... Like that's a big one for me. That... I will watch an a big one for me. That... I will watch an email or a text message, I'll watch it come into my phone. An important email, an important text. I'll see it arrive into my phone. And it's like I just gloss over it. And then three days later I'm like, what the fuck am I doing?

I really needed to respond to that person, that was really important. How the fuck did this happen? And I'll experience great shame because it feels like I'm losing my mind. It's more than just avoiding it. It's like every single minor stress when I'm experiencing burnout, every single minor stress is registered in my mind as not now later, not now later, everything not now later, until it snowballs and snowballs into a much larger problem. So the reason there was no hot take last week is I said to myself, I need to focus only on the small

tasks, not researching and writing a big monologue podcast but put a live podcast instead. What I'm gonna do, just for tomorrow, is I'm gonna focus intently and exclusively on all the very simple, boring tasks that I have to do. Proactive mode. When I finished eating my dinner, I saw those dishes, my brain said, not now, later.

I said, no, it's just a plate. Rinse it off, clean it. We're just gonna do that one thing now. And that's what I did. I washed the plate. I washed the fork and the knife. I put them back in the cupboard. It felt fantastic.

What I would have done is left them there, messy, and went on Instagram for a half an hour and then woke up the next day feeling like shit because yesterday's dishes are there greeting me in the morning. Didn't do that. Just cleaned the dishes. Tiny, small task. Then that evening, if someone texted me, I fucking texted them back. Texted them right back. Made a point of it. I noticed what my brain said. Not now later. No, text them back right now. All of these tiny little victories build my confidence. They're tiny little victories. Bedtime. I'm physically putting my phone out of my reach. If I want to get my phone, I have to leave my bed. So I'm putting my phone out of reach and I'm going to read a book.

I want no lights shining directly into my eyes. No fucking screens. Read the book. Fell straight asleep. Woke up the next morning very happy with myself. That I'd just gotten like seven hours of sleep. Thrilled with myself. What's the first thing I wanna do?

Lie in bed. Open up Instagram. Open up TikTok. And waste 40 minutes sitting in bed, mindlessly Instagram, open up TikTok, and waste 40 minutes sitting in bed, mindlessly scrolling, feeling like shit. No, not happening. I'm going downstairs and I'm having my breakfast and I'm leaving my phone upstairs. And then my job today is to only answer boring emails. That's all I'm going to do today. I'm going to answer fucking emails. And then I'm gonna do today. I'm gonna answer fucking emails. And then I'm gonna pay outstanding bills.

All that boring, stupid shit with card readers and manually typing in the last fucking eight digits of a bank account, having to count backwards. That's what the fuck I'm doing today. That's what my fucking job is. The tiny boring things that require basic executive functioning skills. I'm only doing those things today because it's the earliest stages of this burnout and if I put it all on the long finger in a week's time I won't be able to do these things. It'll have gone too far. And once this shit gets done, later on tonight, I'm gonna do something nice for myself.

So I did all that shit. I did all that shit in, I had it done by about two o'clock in the day. The things that I avoid, when I feel too stressed or burnt out, those little things, I made a point of that that's my only fucking goal. And you know how I felt?

I felt fucking amazing. I you know how I felt? I felt fucking amazing. I felt confident. I felt happy. I felt accomplished. I felt hopeful. I felt in control. I stopped burnout in its tracks. Cleaned the dishes. Answered the emails. Fucking paid a lot of bills. I'm not forgetful now. I'm not glossing over things. If someone texts me, I'm cool to respond normally. Now that I feel happy and accomplished, I'm in the position to think about what my reward is. What can I do later on that's really gonna heal me? That's really gonna help me to rest and to relax

that's unique to me. Now all that stuff I just mentioned there, that's part of the human condition. Nor a divergent, nor a typical, whatever the fuck you want. That's human condition shit there. That's the experience of navigating, being overwhelmed and stressed out. And the tools I've used. Self-compassion, bit of mindfulness, emotional awareness, thinking critically about my emotions. And these are tools and skills, and they're tools and skills that I've been, jeez I've

been doing this for a long time. So I'm very practiced in whipping those tools out when I need them. I'm conscious that some of you listening, this might sound a little bit more difficult, that the concept of examining an emotion in real time, listening to and noticing your negative thoughts, how you're speaking to yourself, understanding that just because I'm really feeling like a fuck up and a failure right now, just because, like, I feel terrible right now, therefore it must be true. It takes a lot of effort to critically analyse emotions. When your body is releasing fucking stress hormones like cortisol, when we're stressed out.

Our brains don't want us thinking critically. Our brains are looking for the path of least resistance. But if you're not practised in these skills, your best friends are breathing and the path of least resistance, but if you're not practicing these skills, your best friends are breathing and a pen and paper. Like if you want to try that self-compassion exercise in the moment, what would I say to my friend if they were speaking about themselves the way that I'm speaking about myself right now? The first thing you have to do is breathe. Diaphragmatic breathing.

Put your hands on your belly. Breathe in through the nose slowly until you feel your belly expand. You do that and it will naturally calm you down and it will bring your brain to a place where you can think critically about your emotions. Then you get the pen and paper. And I say pen and paper. I mean, you'd get away with typing it into your phone, but the physical act of pen and paper,

in my experience, there's way more healing in pen and paper, because it's so physical. You're doing, you're making a mark on a page. It's cathartic. So what I would do is I'd get my sheet of paper, I'd draw three fucking columns. The head of each column is A, B, C. A is activating event, B is beliefs about the event, C is consequences. So for my situation for A in the first column I would write A activating event. I didn't notice the, and I accidentally stayed in work two hours late

B. Beliefs about the event Now when you're writing shit in the B column, you have to be as honest as possible No one is ever going to see this sheet of paper You can flush it down the toilet, you can burn it When it comes to the B-Callium, hold fucking nothing back. Your deepest, darkest insecurities, you write them down on the B-Callium. I feel useless. I feel pathetic. I'm a failure. Being late means that I'm irresponsible. I'm incapable. I'm not a real person. I'm not a real person like other people. Write down

the words of your own internal bully as honestly as possible. If that's what you're saying to yourself inside your fucking head, write it down there in that B column. Now it's there in front of you on a piece of paper, all the nasty things that you're saying to yourself inside in your head. Because of A. The activating event. Now you move to the C column. Consequences. This is emotional language. I feel really shameful. I feel embarrassed. I'm feeling hopeless I'm worried that I'm gonna spiral into mental health issues Notice your facial expressions notice how you're holding your body

My brow is furrowed. There's a frown on my face. My neck feels really tense. I'm gritting my teeth. Oh, I'm angry, am I? Oh, I didn't spot that one. Better write down anger, because I'm gritting my teeth. Who am I angry with? I'm angry with me.

Maybe I'm a bit angry with all the people who shamed me throughout my life, when I got like this when I was a kid. Maybe I'm angry with the teachers who said this shit me throughout my life when I got like this when I was a kid. Maybe I'm angry with the teachers who said this shit to me when I was four, but I can't even remember it. Now, if you're actually doing that in the moment, you're doing that ABC form, you're breathing, you're going to start to feel very nice, because catharsis, the practice of verbalizing, are deeply uncomfortable, conflicting, frightening emotions. Writing these things out using language in front of us, outside of our body, that we can look at and read, that feels fucking amazing, it feels astounding, it feels like washing the inside of our heads. And you can read this sheet of paper, and ask yourself, what would I say to my friend

if they said all this shit about themselves, if these were the beliefs and meanings that they had for this activating fucking event, and you can pick at all the things you wrote down in that B column, I mean useless pathetic failure, you can recognize that as it's simply a belief that you have about an emotion. It's just a belief It's meaning that you're applying to something, but you can change that meaning you can form alternative beliefs

So I'm a useless pathetic failure because I stayed and worked two hours late can really become Being late It's not nice, but it doesn't make me a fucking failure as a person. And I'm stressed out. I'm very stressed out at the moment. I've been taking a lot on. So that there, that's mindfulness, that's cognitive psychology, that's self-compassion in action. Very, very basic tools of emotional hygiene. As basic as brushing your teeth for your emotions. Shit that we should have been taught in school. And the reason I'm speaking about that there is, so that's what you would do if you're not practiced at this shit.

I'm practiced so I don't need the pen and the paper anymore. I can do this internally in my head. And I do that. That's step one. That calms me down to then being able to put plans into action. See after that, I don't feel like a worthless piece of shit anymore. So when I get home, then I'm able to go, right, let's clean the dishes. Let's do these small tasks. This isn't a big deal. We know what this is. You're not a worthless piece of shit.

You're stressed out. It's grand. We'll deal with it So what was gonna be my unique reward that night? Well, the first thing I was gonna go online and seek out it's gonna source some Turkish arse sweets I think this was last week. So I'm like, I'm gonna I'm gonna find Turkish arse sweets I'm gonna buy them and I might do a little deep dive. That's what I did, but I did more I'm gonna buy them and I might do a little deep dive. That's what I did, but I did more.

After talking for 50 fucking minutes there and I forgot the ocarina pause. Now I don't think forgetting the ocarina pause, that wasn't executive dysfunction. I was in a state of flow there and I didn't want to interrupt it. But now we'll have the ocarina pause. You know what, let's have a Turkish arse sweet pause. You know what, let's have a Turkish Air Sweet pause. I'm gonna, don't think I can full on suck a Turkish Air Sweet. I'll have some. You don't need to hear this, you don't need to hear me making Turkish Air Sweet noises.

I'll do it at a distance from the mic. There's gonna be an advert here for something. Alright, I'm eating a Turkish Air Sweet. I do it at a distance from the m- there's gonna be an advert here for something. All right, I'm eating a Tarker's Arse sweet. Oh my god. Recently, I felt like I was getting sick, but I downloaded Maple, an app that lets you see a real doctor on your phone in minutes 24-7. You can even get a prescription if needed. So I quickly got to see the doctor, discussed my symptoms, and she prescribed medication. Starting my

treatment earlier means I'm feeling like myself. Ah, earlier too. Get Maple. Get well sooner. Download the app or visit GetMaple.ca. Get ready for the movie event of the year with Disney's Mufasa the Lion King. or visit GetMaple.ca. Let's get in trouble on December 20th a kingdom of adventure awaits We can do this. We're busy. Let's hustle Disney smooth Fossa the Lion King in theaters and IMAX December 20th So I'm currently eating a Turkish are sweet, I I just sped up the process there and I bit into it. So that horrendous ammonium chloride shit. Fucking hell that's awful. So look that was the Turkish arse sweet pause.

Turkish pepper. You'd have heard an advert there for something I don't know what for. Fucking hell, I'm taking a drink of tea. That's like something from the Old Testament. Fucking hell. All right, support for this podcast comes from you, the listener via the Patreon page.

Patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast. If you enjoy this podcast, if it brings you Mart merriment. I haven't done a mental health podcast in fucking months. So hopefully this is bringing you solace or helping you to open up a more literate dialogue with your own fucking emotions. That's what we're talking about here. This is emotional literacy. That's all this is. Regardless, if this podcast is doing any of that shit for you,

please feel free to become a patron. Please feel free to financially support this podcast because this is my full-time job. it's how I rent out this office, it's how I get to spend time researching and writing this podcast and delivering a TA on time each week. That's my fucking job, and it's how I pay all my bills. So all I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month, that's it. And if you can't afford that, just listen for free. You can listen for free. The person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free. So everybody gets the exact same podcast. I get to earn a living. It's a wonderful

model. And most importantly, it keeps the advertisers at bay. Advertisers can't control the content here in any way. If they advertise on this podcast it's on my terms. Most advertisers, they don't want to associate their products with a Tarkus R Suite mental health episode. That's not what they're interested in. And that's fine. They don't get to come in and tell me they're not interested in that. They can just, they can go somewhere else. They can leave. This is a 100% independent podcast. Funded by the listener for the listener. Upcoming live podcasts. I'm doing fuck all until January. I have some delicious time off. So, I've added a second date in Vicar Street there on the 27th of January. Vicar Street Dublin.

Is that a... It's a Monday night. Oh! A hot Monday night gig. Vicar Street gigs are cracking, lads. So come along to that on the 27th. All the promoters want me to tell you that these tickets are wonderful Christmas presents. And then...

Glamorous stuff. I'm in Galway, in Leisureland. I've got a cracking'm in Galway in Leisureland. Got a cracking guess for Galway. Then on Friday...oh we're in February now, sorry. February the 9th. I'm in Galway, Leisureland. Friday the fucking 21st. Crescent Hall, Drogheda.

More glamorous stuff up in Drogheda. 28th of February. Belfast. March. The Ainec down in Killarney, is it? Fuck it, yeah. The 7th of March. 13th of March, the Cork Opera House. That mightn't even be on sale yet.

I don't even know if I'm supposed to tell you that. Australia, sold out. Fucking New Zealand, sold out. Oh man, Limerick. I'm in the University Conc Oh man, Limerick. I'm in the University concert hall in Limerick and the 23rd of April 2025. I hope people show up to that. You can never tell about Limerick. You can't. Why would I just can't understand it? Like why? I don't understand why anyone from Limerick would want to come and see me in Limerick doing a gig. It doesn't make sense

to me. But if you want to come along to that, University Concert Hall Limerick, my biggest ever Limerick gig, I mean fuck it do. Although the last Limerick gig I did I fucking loved it. I spoke to Donald Ryan, the author, that was fucking amazing. Alright, silly billies, the silly billies in England and Scotland. I can't wait for this tour, it's in the middle of June. I'm looking forward to some hot English countryside, that's what I want. I got the horn for England after playing fucking Assassin's Creed Valhalla, which is set in 8th century England.

That video game is the only reason I'm gigging in York. Because I want... it's... York is a former Viking... Viking city called Yorvik, and I want to visit York. So listen, in June... I'm in Bristol, Cornwall, Sheffield, Manchester, Glasgow, York, London, East Sussex, Norwich, and I feel like I'm missing two there. Glasgow and Edinburgh. Did I call them out? So anyway, those tickets are fein.co.uk forward slash blind buy. And this podcast, this is really a British podcast at this point like most of my listeners are over in in fucking England Scotland and Wales

So that tour is setting out really really quickly. So if you do want to come to that tour, it's June Now is the time to get the tickets if you do if you're definitely come and get your tickets now But don't wait because if you wait you might be disappointed because it's it's selling quicker than I expected to be honest. So there you go there's my gigs. Also follow me on social media, Blind by Ball Club on Instagram. And I've just joined Blue Sky. Blind by Ball Club on Blue Sky. Wonderful new fucking app. Twitter has gone to absolute shit, or X as it's known. Since Trump won the election, huge amount of people have been leaving X. And also, The Guardian left it, and I think the European Coalition of Journalists, fuck loads of journalists just said we're not posting on X anymore. The burnout

that I experienced last week, very much brought on too by just the stress of being harassed. Like, people sending me death threats. People threatening to kill me because I released a documentary, because I wore a plastic bag on my head. And this is just what happens. This is just what happens. I haven't done anything bad, I haven't said anything inflammatory. I haven't hurt anybody. This is just what happens So with the way Twitter is gone It's mostly now only negative and and kind of decent more thoughtful people

They're just not posting anymore, but blue sky blue skies really fucking nice And it was founded by Jack Dorsey who founded Twitter It was founded by Jack Dorsey who founded Twitter. Blue Sky is the first app for fucking old people. It's the first social media app for old people. I say old people, I include myself in that. It's for fucking middle-aged people. It's for millennials. Millennials, elder millennials like me.

We grew up with social media. We remember Bebo, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace. We've done it all. Unofficially Blue Sky is the first app made for old people. Now I know you might be thinking, Facebook? Facebook? My grandmother's on Facebook. Facebook was co-opted by old people.

It became a space for old people and older people. Blue Sky is the first one that's made for middle-aged people. There's no fucking for old people and older people. Blue Sky is the first one that's made for middle-aged people. There's no fucking 20-year-olds there. They're over on TikTok. Blue Sky is just, can we just calm down a bit? Can we all calm down? It's like a quiet pub. It's the quiet pub you want to go to in your mid-30s. No one's doing coke in the jacks and they play LCD sound system at a reasonable volume. That's what Blue Sky is. But what I adore about it is, tonight there was a mad coup.

Not a coup, there was a fucking...they declared martial law in South Korea for like an hour. The president seems like a bit of a prick. He declared martial law for an hour, then they repealed it. Didn't happen. But on Blue Sky, you could reliably watch the events unfold without bad actors or sock puppets or fucking fascists or fake nose. It was like Twitter 10 years ago. And I miss nose articles.

I miss going onto social media and just seeing interesting news articles about topics that excite me. Elon Musk killed all that, killed fucking journalism on Twitter. But on Blue Sky, you can see interesting news articles. So follow me on Blue Sky or join it and if you do join it, follow me, please. Blind by Boat Club. This podcast feels like a phone call even though it wasn't a phone call Because I did have a planned out what I wanted to speak about before I leave you go was So basically I tackled burn out in in one day in one day I tackled the onset of burn out and I'm very happy with myself and I feel fantastic for having done that

So as I mentioned I used self-compassion and emotional awareness, then I put a simple plan into action to only do the boring executive functioning tasks that I wanted to ignore. And then finally, I was gonna set some time to do something enjoyable and relaxing. So the first thing I did was, I ordered the Tarka's R sweets, as I mentioned. The first thing I did was I ordered the Turkish R sweets as I mentioned.

The second thing I did was I really really wanted to be alone. I wanted to experience intense solitude. Quietness. I wanted quietness, but not not physical quietness. I didn't want to go anywhere. I was driven towards an physical quietness. I didn't want to go anywhere. I was driven towards an online quietness. Now usually, I go to fucking Wikipedia for that.

I love Wikipedia because I don't have to read people's opinions on it. There's no comment section on Wikipedia. And when I'm experiencing burnout that's brought on by the stress of social interaction, even internet comments can be too much for me. Or if I'm playing video games I can't play, online games with other people has to be solitary gameplay or something else that can set me off. And this sounds mad. Reading my Kindle and then in the middle of the book I see that something has been highlighted by 30 people. I can struggle with that. I can feel overwhelmed by that. It's like my private space, my book, the book that I'm reading has got 30 people highlighting a

sentence. I have to turn that setting off. So I wanted to feel as alone as possible on the internet. So I went to a website called Forgotify and that's what I wanted to do for the evening. I wanted to use this website called Forgotify. And what Forgotify is, it's wonderful. It's a website that trawls Spotify. So Spotify, the music website that has pretty much every piece of music that has ever been released. Millions and millions and millions of songs. Forgotify would play you a random song that nobody has ever listened to. There's songs on Spotify that get uploaded. There's songs on Spotify that have zero plays. Nobody has listened to these songs.

And Forgotify will randomly play you a song. And when you hear that, you're the first person to ever listen to that song on Spotify. So that's what I did. And I felt so drawn to the feeling of privacy. The feeling of being completely alone online. I'm listening to music that no one else has listened to. So my plan was I was going to listen to these songs that no one else has listened to and then research the artists and find out who they are. Who are these artists that are uploading music that nobody has ever heard?

And at a beautiful moment of synchronicity, after flicking through a few songs, this song came up by an artist by the name of Brotus Faust. I'd never heard of Brotus Faust, hadn't a clue, and now I'm listening to his music. I can't say the music was particularly good Wasn't terrible. What I enjoyed is that Brotus Faust sounded elderly. He sounded like an older man And he sounded like he was He was he was trying to sound like old Bob Dylan like Bob Dylan in in his 60s time out of mind Bob Dylan And I haven't heard any artist try to replicate that but I didn't care I didn't care what the music sounded like when I went to Brotus Faust's Spotify page it had one monthly listener just one listener and

it was me and that struck me because it means that like Brotus Faust himself isn't even listening to his own music, nor are his friends or his family. Just me. I felt like I was floating in fucking space. I'd finally found somewhere on the internet this busy cacophony of voices and I'd found somewhere for I was alone. It was just me listening to the music of Brutus Faust and nobody else was listening to it or hearing it, just me.

It felt like I'd found an old gravestone, like I was tenderly cauxing the lichen away from the limestone of a worn epithet, cleaning the grave of someone who is gone and has no one else to clean that grave. So you do it yourself. I mean, we've all done that. We've all been in a graveyard and felt sorry

for the grave that no one's looking after. So you give it a little wipe, or you rearrange the flowers. That's what my ma does when my ma visits my dad's grave. She's been going there for years and there's graves there that are like my dad's neighbors and she just knows them by name but there's certain graves and nobody's turning up to clean them anymore so she does it. So I felt wonderfully calm and peaceful listening to music on Spotify that no one else was listening to, only me.

And then I went researching Brutus Faust, expecting to find fucking nothing, because who's this person who's uploaded an album that nobody is listening to at all? And then it turns out that Brutus Faust, it was a secret project, and it's actually the artist Andre Serrano, who was an artist, Andre Serrano made a very famous artwork called Piss Christ. Andre Serrano is a photographer and Piss Christ is a photograph. It's a photograph of Jesus, a little crucifix of Jesus Christ, floating in piss, floating in the artist's piss. That's what it is, a photograph of a crucifix floating in piss.

And it's called Piss Christ, and it's from 1987. And I've written essays in college about Piss Christ, and what I adore about Piss Christ is that it's a very provocative piece of art. It's a photograph of... It's Jesus Christ floating in piss. It's Jesus Christ floating in human piss. But what I find fascinating about this artwork is the art isn't necessarily the object itself, but it's people's reaction to it.

It's the conversation that arises because of this artwork. Like I did my master's degree in socially engaged art or social practice art. My master's effectively was about completely rethinking what art could be. We tend to think of art as object-based. A painting, a sculpture, a song. And often this definition of art, it services capitalism. Here is a thing that the artist made and you can purchase it. And you the observer observe the art and there's no in-between it's this binary relationship that services capitalism and what I love about Piss Christ is yes it's a photograph of a crucifix floating in piss but it's so offensive that that any time that they've tried to display it in a gallery, it's been

vandalized and attacked. It's been attacked with hammers, hatchets, governments. Anytime the piss Christ has been, they've tried to display it in museums. Like this happened in Australia. The Supreme Court tried to stop Piss Christ being displayed in a gallery. Everywhere that Piss Christ travelled, everywhere it was displayed, it became incredibly dangerous. People were afraid for their lives, they were afraid of terrorist attacks. And in 2011 it was finally destroyed beyond repair. They put it in a gallery and someone smashed it to bits and destroyed it beyond repair.

But it's a photograph. It's not a crucifix floating in piss. It's a photograph of a crucifix floating in piss. So even though they destroyed piss christ in 2011, they just printed another one. It fucking resurrected like Christ himself. Piss Christ was sold in 2022 for 130 grand, like it finally ascended to heaven. It's just a beautiful piece of work. And what I adore about it and why I was writing thesis about it in my masters was it's an example of a

piece of art becoming a socially engaged piece of art. The artwork isn't this photograph of fucking crucifix floating in piss. The art becomes the people who smash it up. It becomes the anger. It becomes the conversations. Those people who walk into the gallery and smash piss Christ up, they become performance artists in that moment. They become part of the artwork as performance art. In 2017, I went on to, there's this TV show called The Late Late Show in Ireland, and I went on to The Late Late Show, and I don't know what I was talking about right, but I referred to Communion Wafers as haunted bread, because that's what it fucking is.

It's a piece of bread that's haunted by the ghost of Christ, it's haunted bread. But because I said this on The Late Late Show, which is the national broadcaster RTE, the church in Ireland went fucking ape shit. And a bishop, a bishop down in Kerry I think it was, got all his parishioners to sign a complaint. And the church brought a huge, a blasphemy, blasphemy complaint to the Broadcast Authority of Ireland because I had called. Communion wafers haunted bread. An RTE on the Late Late Show. Now Ireland in 2017 actually did have a blasphemy law. Blasphemy was against the law and punishable in certain circumstances. In 2018 there was

a referendum and this removed blasphemy from the Constitution But when I called communion waifers haunted bread and the let let show I was a little bit worried I was a little bit worried because Thousands and thousands of people had signed Signatures to have me done for fucking blasphemy and to bring it up with the BAI So I had to form an argument in my defence. And my defence was, like if you look at the Irish blasphemy law at the time, artistic expression, a work of art, could not be blasphemous under the Irish blasphemy law.

You had to say it. And the charts were going. He went on the Late Late Show, right, sitting beside Ryan Tuberty, and he called Communion Wafers the host, this thing that we consider holy, he called it haunted bread. This is fucking blasphemy. So I defended, I defended my statement by saying that. Because I was wearing a plastic bag on my head when I called Communion Wafers Haunted Bread, that I should be considered a type of living sculpture, that I'm an ongoing perpetual piece of performance art and even while I'm on the Late Late Show, while I'm wearing a plastic bag on my head,

I'm participating in socially engaged theatre with television as my medium, so it's performance art. And I used Piss Christ, I used Piss Christ as my example of blasphemy versus performance art. And because of that, it was legally found that the blasphemy law hadn't been breached. And because the Broadcast Authority of Ireland upheld it. If you're ever on RTE, if you ever get the opportunity to be on RTE, if you want to call Communion Way for haunted bread, you can now. You can, because of that.

And I found that synchronicity particularly healing. You know, going onto a website, fucking Forgetify, and it feeds me a random artist that literally nobody is listening to. And I feel like I'm cleaning Brutus Faust's tombstone. And then I do a little bit of research and it's a secret project for Andrei Serrano, the artist of Piss Christ, a piece of work that's very important to me. That whole process, that was very healing for me. I experienced just wonderful yungian, synchronistic meaning from that. I came away from that with a feeling of hope. It felt like the universe came down and gave me a little tickle. Bizarre coincidence. Alright, that's all I have time for this week. I hope you enjoyed that podcast. That was

half...that was a bit phone cally. That wasn't a podcast for first time listeners. That was one for the...that was for the 10 foot Brenda's and their perpetual declans. I'll catch you next week. I want to do something Christmassy for December. I want to go deep into Christmas lore. Christmas crackers are calling me. I feel like a Christmas cracker podcast might be in order. They're just really strange. It's an improvised explosive device that delivers jokes and requires two people to operate it. And the only other explosive that requires two people to operate it would be the only other explosive that requires two people

to operate it would be an intercontinental ballistic missile. One person can't launch those, two people have to agree to launch an intercontinental fucking ballistic missile. So there's something going on with Christmas crackers. There's something unique about Christmas crackers and I think I might do a deep dive. Might end up with nothing, but that's where my thread

of curiosity is leaving and that's what I'm going to do. Tomorrow morning I'm going to get up nice and early and come into my office and start researching Christmas crackers and we'll see what we have. Alright, dog bless. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What's your perfect night? Is it curling up on the couch for a cozy, peaceful night in? Therapy can feel a bit like that. Your comfort place where you replenish your energy.

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