The Blindboy Podcast - Pummeled Duncans

Episode Date: December 23, 2020

Bonus Christmas fun. I was going to take the week off, but Instead, I chat about low self esteem and the family dysfunction of enmeshment Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh get drunk on the Yuletide gunk you pummeled Duncans. What's the fucking crack? Welcome to the Blind Buy Podcast. Um, this, this is technically a bonus episode. It's, it's a bonus episode because it's the 23rd of December. And I said last week I was going to take this week off. Because I've, I've never, I was going to take this week off, because I've never, I was going to take this week off, because it's Christmas,

and I do need a break, but I've never taken a week off, I've never taken a week, I've never actually done it, and I think I'd rather save it, if I ever have to take a week off, I want it to be because I have to, not because I want to, I'd rather save it. If I ever have to take a week off, I want it to be because I have to, not because I want to.

I'd rather save up my week off for if I'm sick or something and literally can't record. That's the main fear I have with fucking, if I was to catch a dose of corona. It's like, fuck, how many weeks of no podcast would that be would that be a month of me not physically being able to record that's mainly what i worry about

so yeah this is a bonus episode um i have a lot of i have a lot of questions from you that i didn't that i that i never answer I did a question answering podcast a few weeks back, but I get so many questions from you, and I never find time to answer them, I try my best when I'm on Twitch, but fuck it, I figure I'll have a lash at it this week, and, because I don't want she cunts be lonely as well I know some people listen to this podcast to, to just feel a sense, a sense of companionship

and to listen, listen to a person, you know, so I don't want to be abandoning ye for a week and it's really no hassle for me to sit down and have a little chat for a small while, you know if you're a brand new listener, what's the crack, down and have a little chat for a small while you know if you're a brand new listener what's the crack we do have a lot of brand new listeners now since hosier was on the

podcast some brand new yanks and canadians hello i'd say to all the new listeners brand new listeners go back and listen to some earlier podcasts all right if you're if you're a regular listener what's the crack you know the story I was thinking today about I don't know the past year look lads it's the end of 2020 2020 has been coronavirus year it's been unprecedented it's been unprecedented

I've never lived none of us really have experienced anything like this. And, like, I'm thinking back, I'm thinking back about the past year and, you know, what went good and what went bad. Like, the stuff, okay, so the stuff that I was terrified of the stuff that i was really really losing sleep over i've been able to cope with right like you know at the start of the year i cancelled a gig in london off my own volition and because of that then I ended up with a lot of debt that I had to pay off and couldn't gig all these all these practical things that I worried about that was really terrified about I ended up coping I ended up coping and actually being completely okay

with those things and I think in general it's it's fair say, a lot of us have as well. If you compare one year later, where we are now, to the kind of terror and panic we would have felt at the start. You know, we all did feel terror and panic at the start, it probably didn't turn out as negatively as our fantasies at the time predicted, all right, now, but what I mean by that, I'm not saying it's been, it's been easy, and loads of people have died, and shit like that, I'm not trying to minimize that, but what I mean is that in the early days of COVID, people were stockpiling toilet paper. People were going into shops and clearing everything of bread. So that means that certain people were fantasizing

about something on the level of a nuclear apocalypse. Okay, if you're behaving in that way, then that was in the back of your mind and that hasn't happened. We've all been able to go to the shop. It's been inconvenient so personally speaking for me i feel i've coped i mean like jesus lads i thought the thought of not not being able to gig was terrifying a year ago because in my entire career all i've ever known is how to earn money from gigging but

with the Patreon and stuff like that you've been so kind to me with that that I've been I've been earning a living through the Patreon and now I'm in a position where whereby even when we go back to normal I'm probably not going to gig as much it made me realize that I was actually gigging too much to the point that I was I was overworking myself so now I'm going to probably gig less when gigs are allowed I'm going to use my time more constructively more creatively to create things because gigs are good crack but you're not creating anything at a gig really, the pandemic forced me to do things that were outside of my comfort zone, I started my Twitch channel, something that I'd been procrastinating for about, for several years

I've been procrastinating live streaming, because of all the technical things I would have had to learn to do it, but I did it, I did it I did it now I've got a twitch channel and I'm able to live stream and I'm very happy with that the main negative for the year for me and I think this will resonate with you um haven't so this this this bothers me and it's ongoing having to care about other people's behavior when i'm in public right around around social distancing around how they wear their masks okay like everything else i can cope you know not being able to gig that's a real negative not being able to do tv work. But I can cope, right?

I go, right, this real bad thing is after happening. It's outside of my control. So if it's outside of my control, what I need to do is I need to cope. But what's having a kind of, taking a toll on me and what I really, really cannot wait to put behind me and something as, it's, I don't feel i have freedom from this being judged but having to be judgmental of people in public when i'm in the supermarket because i need to go to the supermarket because i have to i have to

meet my needs of buying groceries not just buying groceries i i can't i can't just stay in my gaff and get everything delivered going to the shop with social distancing and just being near people right we all need a bit of that even in a pandemic to go to the shop and be in a public place that that's good, to do at least once a week, for me, and I need it, and, just being in like, Aldi, and then you see a person, not wearing their mask properly,

and now I'm angry, and I'm saying to myself, in my head, that fucking bastard, has his mask around his chin, and, how, they're being so selfish and and his actions could really hurt another person if he spreads the virus and i'm just trying to buy bananas i'm just trying to buy bananas right and now i'm angry about the behavior of another human being and this is regular or or

else i'm trying to buy bananas and someone comes too close to me and they're not respecting the two meter distance rule okay and now i'm angry instead of enjoying my shopping or being outside i'm angry with the behavior of human beings not even angry i care about what i have an opinion on what someone else is doing right now i've spent years and years working on my self-esteem to get to a point where i find happiness in in really not giving a fuck about what other people are doing if their behavior doesn't impact me. Like when I was in my early 20s and I was really really insecure I was consistently judging other people, judging strangers, judging their clothes, looking at what they're wearing, looking at what they're doing and then

evaluating their behavior or dress or looks against mine and never never never being fully secure always when you have low self-esteem and i would have had quite low self-esteem in my early 20s and i think everyone kind of does in their early 20s I think having quite low self-esteem and being very insecure is just part of being in your early 20s I don't miss that about my early 20s at all now just just so I'm clear what is self-esteem right self-esteem first it's one of the cornerstones of good mental health right to have high health, right, to have high self-esteem. Now, to have high self-esteem doesn't mean you think that you're brilliant. What self-esteem is, is it's simply your personal opinion of yourself. And it's rarely like, I think I'm brilliant or I think I'm shit.

It's whether you think that you're just okay. High self-esteem is kind of like I'm grand I'm grand that's what high self-esteem is like nobody else is better than me I'm no better than anybody else because to be comparing myself against other people that'd be silly anyway I'm grand so that's high self-esteem and it takes a lot of work self-esteem is not the same as confidence you can have quite low self-esteem and perform confidence confidence tends to be more of a performance it's it's an outward set of behaviors people with high self-esteem tend to come across as confident but it's more of a humble confidence but you can have really low self-esteem

and perform i know loads of people like that very low self-esteem but the ability to perform a confidence but self-esteem really it tends to be whether if if your sense of self-worth comes from within and it isn't like defined by your behavior or defined by what other people think of you right if you start judging your self-worth based on any aspect of your behavior or based on what other people think of you then that's kind of a recipe for low self-esteem but anyway in in your in your early 20s and in my early 20s like you don't have this solid sense of self you don't really know who you are or have a solid sense of self so you're continually checking other humans for feedback and that feedback is is whether what are they wearing what are they doing

and you're either going that's they look like a fucking idiot or what they're doing is stupid or you're going they're better than me their clothes are nicer than mine they're more good looking than me and you're in this continual internal loop of judging and feeding off other people and evaluating it against yourself right and you're also in other people's business even if you're not telling them these things in your mind you're now stuck in other people's business someone else's clothes is none of your business or their appearance or their job you know or what you know their talents it's none none of my business and if you live like that you will have low self-esteem it's that simple if you live your life continually consistently either placing yourself above or below other

people and find trying to find your self-worth and your value and sense of self like a game of tennis like a game of tennis that nobody else knows they're playing, like you're playing this game of tennis with everyone around you and bouncing off them in your own head, that's a recipe for low self-esteem. And in order to get to a place of high self-esteem, and high self-esteem is, your sense of self-worth is not evaluated off other people in any way. There's no such thing as someone being better than you or being less than you because your value comes from inside. That's something, it kind of, it develops slowly naturally as you get older, but you also have to work on it. And I've worked on that

loads so when I was 20 21 and I'd go to a supermarket like if I saw someone some on my own age wearing like a bright yellow jacket I would find myself all of a sudden having an opinion on their jacket and I'd be saying to myself look at them with their bright yellow jacket they look like a fucking look at them showing off I bet they think they're great with their big yellow jacket fucking prick and these are the thoughts that used to go through my head when I was 21 and it's quite a normal quite a lot of young people think that way you're evaluating other people and now I'm in Dunn's at 21 or in Aldi and I'm angry about someone else's jacket which is the most ridiculous fucking ridiculous now why am I angry about someone's yellow jacket

at 21 now I look back and I go ah I was actually jealous of that person's confidence so that person wore a big show-off jacket i saw it and internally instead of saying the rational thing which is there's a person wearing a fucking jacket it's none of my business in my head i'm saying look at that person with the confidence to wear that big yellow jacket who the fuck do they think they are i bet they think they're better than me they must think they're so much better than me that they can wear that jacket and i'm inventing this fucking fantasy and by the time i've left the supermarket i've made it i've internalized an enemy in my head and all they did was wear a jacket and then i've got cripplingly low self-esteem and i'm highly highly insecure and it's a big feedback loop like Like, we do it a lot.

Like, this is why we, this is why generally if you see someone who's really trendy, like a hipster, you know, and they're wearing clothes that are out of the ordinary, we tend to go, look at that fucking prick.

You don't know the person, you go, fucking prick showing off. And it's like, why would that that piss why does that piss us off ah their confidence we would like to have the confidence to do that right because that's brave but their confidence reminds us of our lack of confidence then we feel insecure but feeling insecure is too painful to feel, so the best way to get away from a painful feeling is to express anger, to direct anger at the object of the thing that made you feel insecure. Before I used to exercise, if I saw a person out running in full running gear, I'd go, look at that fucking prick, fucking runners, runners fucking prick off running look at him with his stupid clothes and now I run all the time and I wear proper running clothes and proper running shoes because I need to because I'm running but like why would that piss me off back then ah because the person is doing loads of running and being healthy. And I'd like to do that. But I wasn't able to get off my arse to do it.

But rather than admit that to myself. It's easier to experience anger at that person. Jealousy. And you know all it did. When I then did start running. One of my fears wasn't the physical difficulty of running. But it was like. Oh fuck. Now I have to be the

person who's out running and someone might laugh at me like I had a friend right I had a friend years ago again we were about 21 and he wanted to do a photography course he wanted to do photography so he organized an interview to apply for the photography course and then didn't turn up for the interview and I remember asking him afterwards why the fuck didn't you turn up for the interview what the fuck was that you wanted to do photography and his genuine answer was I just thinking about being one of those lads at gigs who stand up at the at the front of the gig and they have cameras or sometimes they go up on stage they just look like dickheads they look like wankers and it was just too cringy i don't think

it was too cringy to think of myself of being the person at the gig who's taking the photographs they look like dickheads and we were in our early 20s i I remember thinking it was weird. But it's like, the lad taking photographs at the gig, he's just doing his job. Doesn't even know anyone's looking at him. He's engrossed in his job. We do it with people who go to the gym. Look at those fucking pricks in the gym. They're so fucking vain. Look at them off.

Like, it's a really unhelpful way to live your life. like it's it's a really unhelpful way to live your life you're feeling this continual sense of contempt for other people and you're you're you're experiencing the emotion of anger about another person's behavior which doesn't impact you in any way whatsoever you know and it's a real unhelpful stressful way to live that it's it's it's creates low self-esteem and and then eventually feelings of depression and i used to live like that when i was in my early 20s because i didn't know any better i had bad mental health i hadn't a fucking clue who i was i didn't have a fucking clue who i was as a human being and I work real hard over the years with maturity to not get to that to get away from that place if I'm in a supermarket now and I see

someone wearing a big cool yellow jacket I just I probably don't even notice it and if I do I just say to myself fair play to them they look great but I'm certainly not like I'm not judging them and the experience of seeing another person dressed well or driving a nice car or having a class job like I'm not internalizing any of it as any type of emotion it's just a real passive observation it has fucking nothing to do with me another person's clothes another person's job it has nothing to do with me another person's clothes another person's job it has nothing to do with me it's none of my business i don't give a shit fair play to him it doesn't impact me i'm worrying about me and it took a long time to get to that place a lot of it was work reminding myself every single day don't be evaluating yourself in any way

against other people if you find yourself thinking you're better than someone catch yourself if you find yourself thinking you're lesser than someone catch yourself you can't be your your worth must come from within and i say this to myself every day, so work goes into it. But this fucking pandemic. Now I'm in the supermarket with strong feelings of anger towards people who aren't social distancing. And I have opinions about how another person is wearing their mask. Right? Now the difference is, when I'm 21 and being insecure and my anger is about another person's fashion because their confidence reminds me of my insecurity that's

irrational that's not an appropriate or helpful or compassionate way to operate in a society. And if I was to take that to a psychotherapist and say to them, I went to the supermarket today and another person was dressed really cool and I'm furious about this. The psychotherapist is going to say, can you tell me how this person's jacket hurt you? Do you think that's an appropriate response to another person's jacket? Let's look at why it made you angry that's what a psychotherapist is going to say because that's it's it's a bit of a red flag it's a red red flag for low self-esteem because effectively what

you've done is you've taken another person's behavior personally and that behavior has nothing to do with you but when i'm in a supermarket today and i'm not in my early 20s i'm in my 30s i've got my self-esteem sorted now i'm in the supermarket and there's a grown man walking around and he's wearing his mask around his chin you know what i mean and he's not social distancing and he's might actually kill someone his recklessness by not adhering to social distancing and mask wearing could cause real harm to someone in the supermarket or to me and then vicariously to someone that i love To me. And then vicariously. To someone that I love.

Who. Could be in real trouble. If they got. Coronavirus. So. I'm now in someone else's. Fucking business. Because someone else's.

Behaviour is now my business. And when I'm in the supermarket. I'm furiously angry. But. It's. My response. Is actually appropriate. So I. If I. If I go to a psychotherapist and say, today I'm furiously angry

because there was a person in the supermarket who wasn't wearing their mask during a pandemic, the psychotherapist is going to turn around and say, that's an appropriate response. Yeah, your anger is a measured and appropriate response to someone who's behaving recklessly and you personalizing that is also an appropriate response because if you are in the supermarket and you decide fuck this my mask isn't very comfortable I'm going to pull it down around my chin you're

it's like drunk driving it's in the drunk driving territory you're you're making decisions that impact other people's safety so it's massively inappropriate behaviour but it's widespread

but the toll then that that's taken on me on a daily basis So it's massively inappropriate behaviour, but it's widespread. But the toll then that that's taken on me on a daily basis, just from the perspective of emotional labour, is quite big. Because I, one of the fucking, one of the beauties of being older is I don't have to deal with that insecure 20s shit anymore. I, like I miss my 20s, I fucking miss my early 20s, like I, I miss going to fucking nightclubs, and riding all around me, and doing all that, all the mad brilliant crack that goes along with being in your early 20s, I miss that, now I know you're thinking blind boy now chill out

man go to a nightclub be a mad bastard i don't want to i i really don't want to it's i miss the fun that that was at that age but now it's like you don't have access to that funny if i was in a fucking nightclub now like this is how you know is when you get when you're happens at about 27 you're in the nightclub and you start to worry that the draft from the smoking area is going to give you a sore neck that's how you know you need to fucking move on it's it's like when you're nine when you're nine and you don't want to play with your ties anymore and you're there looking at your action figurines saying to yourself you used to bring me so much joy and now i can't remember what it was i used

to like doing with you that's it's like that except with nightclubs and you can't have that back because it's it's it's not it's not appropriate it's like my hangovers are worse now and i don't want to be in a fucking nightclub. I have different, there's different fun now, but it's not that fun. Like fun to me now is learning how to make kimchi and gaining the trust of stray cats. That's what I'm into now.

I won't be taking any yokes while I'm doing those things, but it hits the spot. It hits the spot. It gives me a sense of meaning. That's what it's like when you're in your 30s and you're thinking back to the crack that was there in your 20s. And I miss that. But I don't fucking miss the insecurity. I do not miss caring about what other people are doing or what they think of me.

I fucking don't miss that because that was hell but now i'm kind of back there when i'm trying to mind my own business i don't want to give a fuck about what another adult is doing with something on their face i don't want to give a fuck about how close another adult is standing to me like these are all when i used to give a fuck about that stuff that was a sign of me having really bad mental health but now i'm in a in a position in reality where giving a fuck about that stuff is actually the appropriate response but it's like triggering like a trauma or a muscle memory in me it's it's like it's bringing me back to the days of of social anxiety and insecurity so now i'm not i'm forgetting things on my shopping list i'm not like i love shopping

i speak about shopping a lot because i don't i have got quite a fucking boring life and to be honest it's it's all i do i sit around at home making fucking art and then i go to the shop and i like making dinners but i love going to the shop i love selecting vegetables i love mindfully shopping i like thinking about what i'm buying i do enjoy that that's not happening because i'm furious about other people's behavior and i can't use psychology on it because it's it's appropriate for me to be annoyed about it so that's the one thing i can cope with i can cope with everything else with the pandemic i can manage and cope with everything else that's the one thing that has me struggling. And what do I say to myself, you know, to cope with that?

What's my daily thought to cope with that? I say to myself, at least it's not impacting my behavior. At least I haven't headbutted someone beside the apricots. Do you know what I mean? Because sometimes you want to. Sometimes you want to like i understand some people don't wear masks because you know that someone if people who are on the the autistic spectrum some people don't like wearing masks for that reason some people have breathing difficulties i understand that but some of the people i'm talking about it's like nah you don't give a fuck you don't give a

fuck and you're trying to get away with it you're trying to get away with not wearing the mask and you don't care and those people I want to fucking grab them by the collar and pull them out of the shop and fuck them out onto the road. But I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. So I say to myself. I am getting angry. But not to the point. That it hijacks my behaviour.

And puts me into an even. Into a real difficult situation. So. I take something from that. You know. Because if it was really taken over. Like I said. You'd be reading about me in the paper.

You'd be reading about me in the paper. You'd be reading about me in the paper. The horse outside singer today received a lifetime ban from Aldi for kicking a 55-year-old taxi driver into the shins. That's not happening. Okay, ocarina pause. I'm going to play the ocarina and you're going to hear a digitally inserted advert. Don't know what the ad is for. It responds to your algorithm. a digitally inserted advert. Don't know what the ad is for. It responds

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Also, join me on Twitch three times a week at about 8.30pm Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Twitch.tv forward slash The Blind Boy Podcast. Currently, I'm writing live music to an absolutely terrible game

called Cyberpunk 2077. It's a real piece of shit. They really fucked up the game. But it's fun to write songs to. It's fun to write songs to because of all the glitches and mistakes that happen in the game. So come along, join me, you can chat with me. I won't be doing it on Christmas Day. I won't be doing it on Christmas Day, but I'll do it tonight and on christmas eve so some questions adam asked blind by have you

any advice for people who are going home to families at christmas i do i'm not going to make it about the pandemic all right you don't need to hear that you know the facts i'm going to talk about something from mental health and emotional every Christmas I always talk about the threat to our self esteem that's faced by returning to

what's known as our family of origin right when you go back home at Christmas. Right. And you're a grown adult. And you're standing on your own two feet. But you're back home at Christmas. Your brothers and sisters are there.

Your grandparents are there. The family of fucking origin. You can end up falling into old patterns. Old patterns of behaving. Which aren't helpful. I spoke about this before. One thing I'd like to speak about is a concept in family systems psychology

called enmeshment, right? And I want to talk about enmeshment because I think this is quite a common Irish condition because of just being Irish just being Irish means that you are impacted by some type of generational trauma and that's just how it is lads alright

I don't like you know we know the history of our fucking country whether members of your family were. Got fucked up by the church. In some way. And the shit that they were doing. Even look. Like two podcasts ago.

I told you like my grandfather. Found himself in a situation where he was. He shot 17 British soldiers. And then witnessed his. Neighbor being murdered. And that's my granddad. So's that's two generations away my great grandmother was in the famine so as Irish people we're only two three generations removed from quite quite extreme traumatic circumstances and one one condition that can happen in families where trauma is involved is something that's known as enmeshment it's it's a dysfunction that

arrives from dysfunctional ways of coping here's a simple question for you to understand if you might be dealing with some level of enmeshment. When you think about what you'd like to do with your life, when you think of your goals and your dreams of what you would like to do with your life, are they actually your goals or how much of that is making your mother or your father happy like really think of that now because that's something that's something i struggle with like and and now i know i know i go on i don't like to talk about external achievements or external behaviors but i'm just i'm saying this to make a point just for example I have two

I've written two best selling books of fiction and if I'm being really honest I kind of feel like a failure because I'm not a school teacher now, I'm not shitting on school teachers I'm just saying

I, it's hard for me to I'm not shitting on school teachers I'm just saying I it's hard for me to feel right I'm a professional artist I'm a professional artist and in terms of how success is measured

as a professional artist I'm doing pretty good and sometimes deep down if I'm really honest I can't feel secure because I don't have a job as a teacher I don't have a secure

kind of the thing with my job my job could literally disappear next year literally alright I work in a very fickle industry twitter or instagram could change a button new technology could come along and all of a sudden podcasts aren't a thing anymore and all of a sudden i can't reach people i'm an independent artist and i'm doing all right but it could literally be all be gone next year that's how

it happens that's what my job is it's so unpredictable but I was raised by my ma in particular continually told that the the only measure of success is not the job you have but the security of it and something like being a teacher being a school teacher or a college lecturer because it comes with it's essentially a civil service job where you can't be fired and you you have it it's the security of it and she is that way because she's nearly 80 so she remembers and her her parents would have been grown up in the war of independence the trauma of a really really uncertain insecure Ireland she grew up with the the anxiety and trauma of that where the only good Irish job is a secure job civil service priest guard all these things that can never be taken away in a culture where things are taken away by a foreign power all the time are a culture where where people are taken away either insecurity of a job meaning you you have

to emigrate and emigration back then means people literally disappear or people get taken away by the church if they don't go by the book women got taken away these are national generational traumas that most of us probably have and I'm still dealing with that because if I'm being really honest deep down I feel like a failure because I don't have a secure job and it doesn't matter how much I achieve deep down I have to really struggle with that feeling and I've got four brothers and three of them are teachers two of those three are artists but they're not professional artists they do art in their part-time and their full-time is teaching so that to me like there's a pattern there that to me suggests a type of enmeshment as it's known regarding careers and security and things like that and it's something i have to be aware of

because i'd kind of like to feel like i'm doing well i know that sounds mad right i know I'm doing well, sure didn't I celebrate 25 million listens, a few, last week, but I, it's a difference between, I can say it to myself as much as I want, but when I wake up in the morning, I, sometimes I still have a little ball of terror in my belly, because what I'm doing isn't secure and it's not rational that's not rational it's it's an irrational ball of terror like if podcasts disappeared in the morning I could get another job doing something else so therefore there's no no reason to have an irrational ball of terror in my stomach therefore it's it's not rational and it's something deeper that i need to figure out in myself and i i keep ringing my ma and telling

her how well i'm doing and i'm not doing it for me i'm doing it because i i need her to tell me that i'm successful but that's not going to happen because the enmeshment will not let it happen like for example like i said this before like i've 25 million listens on my fucking podcast and she opened up the paper once and saw that the local community college in limerick, were now doing podcast courses, and she rang me up with the suggestion that I quit my podcast so that I could apply for a job teaching night classes in how to podcast.

And I think this was like a week before I was going to Australia for a sold-out tour of my podcast. And I had an actual serious think about it. I really, I had a good think about it. Maybe I should quit my podcast to go and teach podcasting in Limerick. So that's utterly dysfunctional. That's two people operating on a line of thinking that is

informed purely by deeply insecure and irrational emotions and in me it's manifested itself, I don't know is it a good or a bad thing, in an extreme sense of overachievement

so if you were listening to this podcast in 2019 you know in 2019 i i ended up getting really fucking sure didn't i fucking i ended up getting really sick from overworking myself i ended up getting really sick from overworking myself because i was writing a book writing and appearing in a tv series doing this weekly podcast and doing a world tour of gigs all at once and not sleeping and continually working all the time and yeah it impacted my physical health so i physically made myself sick from doing that much work and i love doing work and i love i love creating all the time but i think that's as a result of enmeshment what i'm doing is i'm trying to if I when I overachieve or if I try and do too much I'm trying to fill an

unfillable hole I'm trying to fill the unfillable hole of feeling like I'm okay or I don't think the term is it's feeling secure I'm not looking for I want to feel like a success I want to feel secure and the thing with enmeshment is what it is is it's a blurring of boundaries so I don't know do I actually want to feel secure and the thing is too security like i'm a risk taker like the the this podcast the stories i write i paint myself into corners i make strange work that isn't secure or mainstream if i was a secure person who actually sought out security in the industry i'm in. I wouldn't have a plastic bag on my head, I'd be wearing suits, I wouldn't be expressing any political opinions and I'd be licking everyone's arse up in RTE so that I can get a secure job in RTE as a presenter who does nothing risky whatsoever,

just good old secure reliable entertainment that can't fail if i was truly someone who at my core seeks security then why am i not doing that in my industry why do i continually seek risk and failure so by that rationale is the feeling of security what i want Is the feeling of security what I want? Or is it what my ma wants? And I lack individuation. I am unable to tell the difference between my ma's needs for me and my needs for myself. And because I have this blurring of what my actual needs are i now have an unfillable hole that i'm continually trying to fill with success and success and success and it's never ever achieved it's never

filled it's never filled i still wake up in the morning feel is failure too strong a word i wake up in the morning feeling unsafe feeling like everything could be taken from me i'm feeling insecure and i don't mean insecure in the way i spoke about earlier as in my self-esteem i mean I mean insecure like like the roof will be taken taken from above me I'll be thrown into chaos at any moment that's the feeling that I wake up with no matter how much I achieve and I still keep trying to fill that hole with sometimes really irresponsible amounts of work so basically my ma's needs and desires for me and my needs and desires for myself have become so enmeshed and intertwined that i can't confidently know what i actually want now for some people that unfillable like with enmeshment like addiction is tied in with enmeshment for some people that unfillable like with enmeshment like addiction is tied in with

enmeshment for some people that unfillable hole needs to be filled by substances do you know maybe i'm fortunate in that i'm trying to fulfill this unfillable hole with overachieving maybe i'll drop dead from a fucking heart attack when I'm 50, I don't know, but what I'm describing there is known as enmeshment, and it's something I've only really become aware of recently, it's something I've only really become aware of recently, because I ring my ma all the time, and every time I ring her I just tell her about how well I'm doing, because I'm not seeing her you see because of the pandemic, so if you can relate to that, if you can relate to, when you think about the concept of you being okay in your life, is it actually what you want, or are you fulfilling what you think your parents want,

are you fulfilling what you think your parents want then you have that's a that's a that's a type of enmeshed relationship an enmeshed family relationship where you have genuine difficulty understanding where your what what are your needs and what are your parents's needs and are they relevant to you as an adult and what you gotta do is when you return to your family this Christmas you gotta look out for the behaviours how important is it to you you're a fucking adult

I'm a fucking adult grown adults how important is it to you right that your parents or your siblings pat you on the head? It's not even thinking you're a success. Pat you on the head and make you feel like you've done good.

How important is that to you? Can you take it or leave it? Or are you crushed if you don't get it? Or waking you crushed if you don't get it, or waking up terrified if you don't get it, and, if it's a struggle, if it is having an emotional toll, then,

it might be a meshment, it might be a meshment, the, your, your sense of identity, is depended upon, and wrapped wrapped up in meeting another person's needs and that's not a very helpful way to to live and i need to figure some shit out of myself because i'm only after coming across this recently i need to figure some shit out of myself. I'd like to. I want to connect.

I'm able to look at. Things I'm doing. And able to see that I'm. Doing my job well. And I want to be able to connect that with my belly. Do you get me? I want to feel that feeling. As achievement.

I want to complete a gestalt. As I mentioned a few weeks back. I don't feel that feeling. As achievement, I want to complete a gestalt. As I mentioned a few weeks back, I don't feel it. I don't feel it. All my achievements are on paper. The only time I feel achievement and feel good is when I'm in the process. When I'm lost in flow. When I'm lost a million miles away in flow, if I'm in the middle of making a song, in the middle of writing a book, the act of doing, then I've got

my contentment, then I've got my happiness, but once I'm out of that, and I'm just looking at things I've done as statistics on paper, I don't, I still feel like this is bullshit this is messing this isn't a real job this isn't a real job I'll be fucked in the morning do you know what I mean and I reckon enmeshment is really common in Ireland and in its many kind of manifestations in families and signs of enmeshment like and even if you if you yourself are the parent and you're wondering holy fuck how do i not raise my child in an enmeshed relationship like an enmeshed so a parent in an enmeshed family they'd like they expect their child to follow their beliefs and values right they discourage their child from following their dreams and a meshed parent's self-worth depends upon the child's achievements you

consistently reward the child for behavior that fits with your values rather than their own and a classic is is putting a child if if a child expresses their own individual desires or needs you put it down like for me like obviously i was i was allowed to create art and stuff as a child, I was allowed to do the creative things, but it was never really valued, it was like, it's messing, this stuff is, this listening to music, making music, painting, writing poems, all this stuff was, it's fun, by all means do it but it's messing it's not serious it won't lead to anything it's not serious and that message was hammered into me it's not secure it's not secure you have to follow something secure and then how do you know if you're wondering fuck it

i wonder am i enmeshed in my family in some way if you're wondering the kind of the telltale signs are don't have a strong sense of who you are even though you're an adult um and that's like i said that's what i'm realizing recently i thought i was 100 percent internal locus of evaluation but then i'm thinking more and more and like it's all peeling back layers like an onion and in my journey of mental health I think I've gotten to somewhere and then I find more layers underneath and I really need to explore what I expect of myself in life me what I expect of myself in life so that which means to be honest I don't have a strong sense of who i am i have an idea of who i'd like to be but i don't i don't feel it if i'm waking up in the morning feeling

like everything if i'm waking up in the morning not feeling like a success and continually chasing and overachieving then i need to do some mindful reflection on myself um another sign is you're not thinking about your needs you're focusing on what other people need the thing with enmeshment too and all this shit with psychology if you have this relationship with a parent you can then end up projecting that onto other people so now what what if you have an enmeshed relationship with your ma or your da and you don't feel secure unless you're meeting their needs now you have a fucking boyfriend or girlfriend and now you're now you're doing this with them you you need to find out what their needs are and now you're now you're doing this with them you you need to find out what their

needs are and now you're trying to meet their needs continually pleasing them and pleasing them and pleasing them and that can sound lovely but the other person didn't necessarily ask for that and that's now not an equal relationship you've brought family dysfunction into an interpersonal intimate relationship with another adult you're you're there you're trying to have an adult relationship with another person but you're the needs that you're trying to that you're trying to meet are childhood needs and this other person is a adult who knows nothing about it and and one big issue that can arrive with enmeshment is people who have enmeshed relationships in their families, they can end up completely avoiding conflict of all descriptions.

Now, conflict is a necessary part of being a human. Conflict doesn't have to mean fighting. Conflict means having to disagree with someone to meet your needs but if a person doesn't understand what their actual needs are because you're living your life through the needs of a parent then when you don't have security in your needs then you can't do conflict properly because you don't know what your needs are and then people like if you have real difficulty saying no to people if someone asks you to do something and you know damn fucking well that you can't do it but yet you still can't say no you do it anyway to please that person to meet their needs instead

of meeting your own then you might have an enmeshed relationship somewhere in your family what's what's the opposite of enmeshment in a family well simply boundaries that members of the family kids growing up are allowed to find out for themselves who they are and are allowed to themselves who they are and are allowed to kind of explore what their needs are and meeting their needs so if a child decides that they want to fucking they're interested in cooking that a parent doesn't say no no no you can't cook you shouldn't cook you shouldn't do this this is messy that if a child thinks they want to cook let them explore themselves whether or not they like cooking and having the confidence and security in that relationship to trust a child with what they think their needs are and don't protect them from failure maybe the child maybe the child is going to be a shit cook

and they go on and try and bake some buns and they burn them and they realise they don't enjoy the process. But at least they've learned for themselves that, oh, yesterday I thought I would like to be baking buns, but then I did it and realised that it wasn't that much fun

and I didn't really enjoy it. But now the child has autonomously learned something about themselves But then I did it and realized that it wasn't that much fun and I didn't really enjoy it. But now the child has autonomously learned something about themselves and no one has stepped in and tried to protect them from the failure. That's the opposite of enmeshment. So there you go. Thought I was going to answer a lot of questions. Didn't. I think I answered one there.

Classic question answering podcast from Blind Boy. Absolute. You know, at this stage, let's just stop pretending. Stop pretending that a question answering podcast is going to be me answering any more than two questions. Because they send me off

on hot takes. Have a fucking lovely Christmas. Have a lovely Christmas, you Santa Claus cunts. Enjoy yourself. I'll be back next week. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday april 13th when the toronto rock hosts the rochester nighthawks at first ontario center in hamilton at 7 30 p.m you can also lock in your playoff pack right now to

guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play Thank you. Thank you.