The Blindboy Podcast - Savoury Donovans

Episode Date: September 2, 2020

Relaxing mental health episode. I address yere questions about emotions and coping Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Perose the cruise ship's jewellery you gloopy Stuarts. Welcome to the Blind Buy Podcast. There's a strong chance that you're a brand new listener to this podcast. And because of that, I've made this, this episode is going to be accessible and not too strange. But if you want something a bit more fragrant, bit spicier a little bit more piquant then go back to an earlier episode the reason i'm going to have some new listeners this week is because this sunday on rte1 if you live in ireland rt1 i'm on there's a program called the meaning of life which is used to be presented by gabe barn who was like this iconic irish broadcaster who's since passed

but the meaning of life is it's a tv show about about the meaning of life it's about spirituality it's about religion and the new presenter is joe duffy and joe duffy is an irish podcaster or sorry broadcaster who presents the joe duffy show which is like it's what's replaced confession in catholic ireland we all used to go to confession so instead now we have the joe duffy show which is a daytime radio show where people ring up and they complain and joe duffy listens and it's this weird unique irish phenomenon and we all partake in this collective confession and that's what the joe duffy show is well joe duffy is now presenting the meaning of life and me and joe talk for a half an hour about the type of stuff that i usually speak about on

this podcast and the reason i agreed to do this tv show is because i i've never been given an opportunity on rte to speak the way i speak on this podcast I've been interviewed on RTE I've been on talk shows I've been on the late late show but you're only given seven minutes and it's really you're looking for sound bites you can't speak about anything with any level of depth or time or space so I was given that opportunity and it was really fun it was a lot of fun um just talking about death spirituality i mean when i say spirituality meaning talking about meaning and talking about psychology that's what we did so i'm looking forward to that going out and i'm looking forward to you know what i'm looking forward to that going out and I'm looking forward to do you know what I'm looking forward to

me like the first question he obviously asks me is why am I wearing a bag on my head and I will explain it in very rational terms I wear a bag on my head because I want privacy

I'll go through it all and even as I do it old men will get onto twitter and say why is this Egypt wearing a bag on his head I can't take him seriously with a bag on his head and they will say that

while I explain why I wear a bag on my head and I look forward to that so that's Sundayay or sorry no sunday at 10 30 pm on rte1 if you want to see me chatting to joe duffy i'm also on this thursday i don't know the exact time but on rte2 there's a documentary called the origins of irish hip-hop and i'm a part of that documentary speaking about the rubber bandits stuff speaking of rubber bandits this week um we released two fucking

songs on the internet songs and videos if you want to see them go to the rubber bandits youtube page the songs are called bertie ahern and waiting. Over the past two years we were both tipping away making two pieces of music and video. I was cracking away on the music and Mr. Chrome was cracking away on the video and we were both doing it in our spare time because it's just you know music the music industry as I've mentioned it many times you can't earn a living from the music industry it's a very painful industry because to make a song and to make a video is hugely time consuming it takes a huge amount of it takes a lot of of it takes a lot of money it takes a lot of time it takes a lot of effort and then the payback for that is tiny it mightn't even succeed

so the music industry is fucked so one thing we always hated about doing the rubber bandits was making songs and video videos but having to need them to succeed, because if they don't succeed, you don't make your money back, you don't earn a living. This time, we didn't do that. This time, I've got my podcast, I've got my books,

Mr. Crom's got a full-time job outside of art, and we don't need anymore to like do the rubber bandits professionally we don't need that so we decided let's make some new songs new videos just for the joy of making them let's make something because we like it and if if if it doesn't even get any youtube views it doesn't matter it doesn't matter because we don't and if if if it doesn't even get any youtube views it doesn't matter it doesn't matter because we don't rely upon this as our source of income so that's what we did they took two years because we were doing it in our spare time you know how fucking busy i was the past two years like writing a fucking book doing a b BBC series. This podcast. And touring. So on my downtime.

With my cans. That's when I was. Working away on the music. So we're really. We're really proud of the two pieces. Party of Hearn. And Waiting. And they're on YouTube.

But really proud of them. Really happy with them. And. They're weird. And we don't care if. People them or not they're we've made something for for ourselves for ourselves and that's how art should be and it's just shit in 2020 that it's like we have to get to our 30s and to have other streams of income in order to be able to do that because there used to be a time in the music industry when bands would just a record label would fund this shit and a record

label would fund an artist not necessarily to succeed but to have the space to fail there was artists in the 70s signed to six album deals and the labels knew that album one, two and three might sell nothing. But they're like, no, no, no, we believe in the talent and we're going to allow these artists, we're going to fund them to fail because we understand that failure is an essential part of succeeding. But if you're in a situation where you're an independent artist. And it's like.

In order for us to earn money. We have to do a tour. Next September. So that means all summer we have to work on songs and videos. And they must succeed. Sure you can't. How the fuck you can't. As soon as you.

Decide to create art and there's this big pressure goal where it's like this has to be popular as soon as you engage in that type of creativity then it's very hard to create good art because you're creating from a place of fear and threat if the threat is these pieces of work that we make if they're not good nobody will come to the gig then that's it you're fucked and the thing is too in the 70s people would buy music so even if like j Christ, I think of an album. Lou Reed had an album called Metal Machine Music, which he literally, he was trying to get out of a record contract, I believe. He just left his guitar on an amplifier for two hours and printed it to two vinyls.

And it sold millions of copies because people didn't know. They're just like, here's reed's new double album and they bought it and it was two hours of a guitar resting in an amp which some people say was incredibly unfair to the consumers and it is to an extent if you're paying money but if a band now puts releases fucking songs and videos you can consume them for free on Spotify or on YouTube and if they don't work and it doesn't mean that they're bad or if they're good, if people don't

like them then that band isn't going to receive any return on their investment when they embark on a tour and they might end up losing money and that's the reality of the music industry and that's what kind of that was my 20s i spent my fucking 20s doing that and ended up living on 50 quid a week and having a few pieces of work that i'm really not happy with because they were created from a place of fear and insecurity

rather than created from a place of what's the best piece of work like that's why I enjoyed my fucking book so much when I wrote my first book in 2017 I was creatively burnt out from rubber bandit stuff and the thing with a book is because a book is something physical that you purchase i had the freedom to make what i wanted to make

it it doesn't with a book kind of the cover sells it you know what i mean or a review will sell it so books are a little bit like the old school record industry so these two new rubber bandit songs anyway you'll see you'll find them on youtube waiting and barty ahern they're both two sides of the same coin barty ahern is consciously abrasive and dark. The influences would be like. Post punk type shit. Like The Fall. Or there's a bit of Pixies in there. Primus.

Barty Arne is abrasive. It doesn't necessarily want to be liked. If you know what I mean. It's. Sometimes. Sometimes. A piece of art is allowed to be ugly. Do you know what I mean. And that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad heavy metal music is ugly music which uses ugly sounds sounds that are distorted are excessively loud or excessively fast so that's what that is and then the other song waiting that's kind of unapologetic

pop now by pop i mean there's pop music and there's popular music popular music is whatever music happens to be popular and whatever music happens to be popular isn't necessarily pop pop is a style whereby you're you're trying to make the catchiest piece of work possible you're looking for maximum amount of hooks it's a kind of a heritage art form in that it abides by good songwriting but ultimately with pop it's like you want to make something that as soon as someone hears it it's stuck in their head for the rest of their day and you want to do that across multiple hooks if you can so waiting is the song and the video are one it's not it's this is very pretentious it's not a pop song but rather it's a piece of art that uses the language of pop in order to achieve its aims as a piece of art and that includes the video

with it a song that's like catchy enough to end up on the radio but they could never play it on the radio because the video is so disturbing so that's what that is and there are two pieces that we made over the course of two years just to make something that we bought like that's it nothing else and if they don't even get any views it doesn't matter there's no consequences there's no consequences it doesn't matter because we have other shit going on i've got my podcast my twitch i'm gonna start writing another book soon chrome's got a full-time job we do not need these people this we don't need this work to succeed we don't even need anyone to like it and that feels fucking amazing and the last time last time we had that was before anyone knew who

we were when we were 19 making music just for the crack of it and putting it up on myspace for free because we never thought anyone would listen to it but then as soon as you start doing gigs and it becomes a career and the internet has taken all possible monetization away from music then you're trapped into that toxic cycle you have to have a hit this has to get half a million views and if it doesn't then you're not making money and you're actually going to end up paying money for what you invested in the songs

support your favourite fucking musicians basically lads if you listen to an independent artist don't just stream them on Spotify do they have a band camp can you buy their march march and band camp right now is very good for artists because there's no gigs it's a tough time so we're we're quite privileged to be able to fucking make these two things to have separate

income income streams and to be able to make a pair of fucking videos we would not have been doing that in our 20s so for this week's podcast i i wanted to create something a bit more a bit accessible for any newer listeners so what i did was i went on to instagram and i asked people um maybe 500 about five or six hundred mostly direct messages because the people asking the questions wants to remain anonymous and overwhelmingly from women rather than men now i don't know why that is it's probably the old classic of men not even wanting to speak out, I just, yeah it is, it has to be, because I've gone to Instagram before and said

do you have questions for the podcast, and it would be 50-50, and men would ask questions about things, but this time I said do you have questions for the podcast which relates specifically to your mental health, your emotional state state whatever's going on with you and then about 90 women are where the stuff is coming from so what i did is i'm choosing questions that i'm ethically okay with answering anything that has to do with like that's too deep into mental health stuff that's related to medication we'll say i'm not going to speak on that that's that would be irresponsible i'm not a professional so i'm not going to speak i'm not going to address any question which should be answered by a fucking professional because that's irresponsible of me so instead

i'm answering questions that are more existential and something that i can relate back to my experience so that when i speak about mental health i'm doing it ethically and safely and with the honest understanding which i'm not qualified i did study a little bit of psychotherapy back in the day. But the only qualification I have is my own mental health and my own personal journey. And how I apply psychology to me. And I'm the authority on me and I'm the authority on my journey. And I'm not an authority on anyone else's mental health. And certainly not anything to do with. Medication. Or clinical psychology.

I wouldn't dream. Of being so irresponsible. As to say that. All I'd say is. Contact a professional. So. I got some kind of fucking. There's a few.

Few of these questions. That I think. I don't even know how to. How to answer them. But I'm going to read them out. Just so we can see what can I say about them. One that definitely stuck out for me was a message from a woman called Julie. And Julie says, and Judy says over the years I've never dealt with my childhood or adolescent years

which caused me to make so many mistakes in relationships and see no self worth but I spent the best part of a year in counselling recently to overcome my demons and I thought I was in the best mental state I ever was

alas that is now being tested at the greatest possible strength i'm in a new relationship close to a year and i thought it was the be all and end all for me i thought this was it wedding bell central he treated me like a queen in every aspect of our relationship i recently found out he was unfaithful with an ex-partner of his. Now this particular individual is one of the most toxic kind and is gifted at manipulation so I don't have all fault aimed at him. He showed such remorse for his actions genuine pain for what he had done. I feel

stronger because I worked so hard at myself but i don't know if i'm making the right decision by staying in this relationship i love him more than all the stars in the sky he made me feel as though i was like the rarest of gems pulled from the dirt to be allowed to shine bright in this dull world nothing excuses what he's done i know i know this full well but i don't feel as though i can throw it all away because i put my mind body and soul into him he did wrong but he has made such an effort since this became known and i suppose that's something he doesn't have to do either unless he was truly sorry he has told me through endless tears that he loves me and wants nothing more than to share his life with mine and will do all he can to prove that.

I know some listeners, and even yourself, may say, why stay when you've been struck with the utmost betrayal? But I've never felt a connection so strong with anyone in my life. It sounds crazy, I know, since he managed to cheat. But I know he returns those feelings to me i know this is a bit scattered i don't really know what to say at all but i'd appreciate the advice just please help a sister out if you do decide to read this i'd like to remain anonymous please no one needs to know any of this so her real name isn't julie i mean any of this so her real name isn't Julie I mean

right so I can't I can't give any advice around that right I wanted to read it out because I get a sense from what Julie is saying there's just certain words that you're writing down Julie

that let me that let me know that like it's like you know certain shit but you won't say it and you're waiting for confirmation like alright first off

right what's the elephant in the fucking room he's been unfaithful right now monogamy look monogamy is fucking humans aren't monogamous humans aren't monogamous monogamy is really difficult okay if you're to have a long-term adult relationship with someone you do have to both people have to observe their their rules around monogamy by which i mean an adult relationship has to have a degree of flexibility

it's okay to have take it to cbt it's okay to have a strong preference a strong preference that your partner is faithful okay but if you create a black and white rule right in an adult relationship if you create a black and white rule if this person cheats on me they are scum and they don't love me and fuck them if you have that a really really rigid rule about faithfulness chances are it's it's you're gonna end up incredibly disappointed so because humans aren't monogamous humans aren't monogamous and people who really love each other sometimes cheat on each other i'm not saying it's good i'm not saying that it's a good thing to do but it's a reality sometimes it happens sometimes people who really love each other either one person gets fucking drunk whatever sometimes that shit happens and

if you if you want to have an adult long-term relationship you have to have the space where they whereby that can be allowed in without the fear of everything breaking apart right while still maintaining a strong preference for faithfulness right you can still have a strong preference to it it's just i'm bringing cbt into this anytime you have a rigid demand a must and a should then the level of pain you'll experience if it does happen will be quite extreme and then you'll also create these you'll set up these fucking rules for yourself where it's like oh well that's it they were at an office party and they got drunk and they shifted someone but i've got a rule that that that's a line that can't be crossed and now you're in this position where you can't have dialogue to work through it you're now like well i have to break up with him now that's not how life works life isn't black and white like that people try their best to be

faithful but sometimes sometimes people fuck up and i know especially if you've ever been fucking cheated on we've all been cheated on it's not fun very hurtful it's a feeling of rejection it brings up all your insecurities so you're probably listening and some people are thinking no people who cheat are the fucking worst and it's terrible and it's awful well if that's if that's your belief and that's a rule that you carry with you if you try to have a long-term adult relationship you're gonna you're gonna be really really heartbroken instead of having instead you you moved instead of being rigid you move to a place of flexibility and you're still entitled

to not want to be cheated on you're still entitled to request a consensual monogamous relationship and to have that as a strong preference but by by having a strong realistic flexible preference it means that if it does happen there's now at least a fertile ground to discuss what happens going forward instead of a really tense black and white mutually assured destruction that's what it is mutually assured destruction means if that person cheats on me

well that's it, all over, done well how do you do that if you're still in love with the person even if they did cheat so you have to move it to an adult position so that's just a general thing but a few of the words So you have to move it to an adult position. So that's just a general thing. But. One.

Once. A few of the words. That you're using there Julie. Like. One thing that would jump out to me there. That I would take a look at. If I. If I had written this.

And I was you. He. Your. Your fella. Got with his ex-partner right and i quote he treated me like a queen in every aspect of our relationship i recently found out he was unfaithful with an ex-partner this particular individual is one of the most toxic kind and is gifted at manipulation so i don't have all fault aimed at him that's the bit now that if i found if i caught myself saying that i i would analyze that aspect of my language all right he's an adult even if

your one is manipulative even if she's conniving even if she's sought him out he's an adult he made a choice okay you can't it's like you're minimizing heart you're minimizing heart and trying to yeah he's an adult he made a choice all right and you have to hold him accountable to that choice if you intend to move forward and have rational dialogue around it but julie i think you wrote that because you know it and there's a few things that you've written in your message to me and i think you write them because you know them to be true um one thing in particular i love him more than all the stars in the sky he made me feel as though i was like the rarest of gems pulled from the dirt to be allowed to shine shine bright in this

dull world world i mean you're referring to yourself there as as a dirty gem why are you calling yourself a dirty diamond a filthy rub ruby? A beige jade? You know, you're knowingly and poetically, symbolically referring to yourself as something which doesn't have intrinsic value. Like, you're not. You're a human being. And we're all shining gems every one of us we all

have wonderful beautiful intrinsic value that can't be taken away from us right that we simply have for being alive and you can't compare yourself to other people all you can be is the best version of you but you can't we all have intrinsic worth so there's no such thing as i mean if you're referring to yourself there as as you know you you are you feel like the rarest of gems allowed to shine bright in this dull world allow yourself to be a gem that shines bright in the dull world but no one's pulling you up from the dirt there's no dirt to begin it with you're not a dirty ruby you have intrinsic worth and another person and your attachment to another person and your relationship to another person that can't

improve your intrinsic value aspects of yourself and you can learn and you can grow with another person but another person can't improve your intrinsic value that's yours and that can't be diminished by any aspect of your behavior so there's no such thing as a gem pulled from the dirt you're just a gem we're all gems intrinsic worth. And you can shine bright as you want. Without another person shining a fucking torch behind that. You know what I mean? But again. It's elements of your language.

It's like I can tell. You know this shit to be true. Otherwise you wouldn't fucking write it down. When you say. He makes me feel as though i'm the rarest of gems pulled from the dark to be allowed to shine bright in this dull world that tells me that you're placing your self-worth in this relationship that your sense of worth isn't coming from inside In this relationship. That your. Sense of worth.

Isn't coming from inside. That. Your sense of feeling good about yourself. Is dependent upon. The love and approval of this other fella. And. We all know from listening to that podcast. Again that's an unrealistic position you know.

And I know it's hard. I know it's fucking difficult. I'm not saying it's easy. But. If you place your worth. In a relationship. You can't. It's hard then to have equal footing. Two people have to exist together.

As shining diamonds. Alongside each other. On a journey. But if one diamond. Is dirty. and requires the other person to polish it there's already a weird power dynamic going on in there which is a toxic cycle so should you stay with him i'm not going to tell you that how the fuck am i supposed to know i don't know him um you know did he did he cheat on you once and that's it i don't know what i'd be looking at there is if clearly from your language right and this is your own words if you feel like a dirty gem and that your proximity that

that he's somehow pulled you he has pulled you from the dark and allowed you to shine that all this language that you're using which is handing your worth and power over to another person right if that is is your internal feeling okay then how do you truly know if if what you have then is love or is it merely a feeling of safety and assurance and and and external worth do you get me? It's like. The lens. Do you know what's dirty? Not. You as a gem. But the lens that you're looking through.

To assess. What is a genuine human connection. With another person. Because that becomes difficult. When. Your self worth. Appears to depend upon this person's love and approval then the lens through which you can assess what an actual loving long-term human connection is that lens is now distorted so an adult relationship right is for two people an adult relationship is where two people can exist

separately right separately as independent adults with each of you having your own intrinsic worth you're in each of you having your own internal sense of sense of self-esteem each of you having the autonomy in a relationship to each have a separate sense separate identity to be have the confidence to be separate from each other but at the same time come together fluidly but like if things like jealousy envy all these things come into a relationship between two people then that means there's there's a an unequal footing in this weird kind of toxic cycle do you know so i i don't know what i can i'm not going to tell you what to do what i can do is i can point out some of your language which i think you know where you're placing your self-worth

being in this relationship and in which what you got to do is work on work on your self-worth intrinsic value intrinsic value and and sometimes what can happen too sometimes there's a there's a pattern sometimes people can find themselves drawn towards relationships where the where the other partner cheats and people some people feel that like oh i just get cheated on a lot and they keep seeking these relationships where their partner cheats all the time and are not just cheating some people can repeatedly find themselves in relationships with people and the same negative shit happens over and over with different people and often what that is is is when your self-esteem is is low

you miss the warning signs you miss the red flags you miss the warning signs and you could even be drawn towards the negativity as some weird type of unconscious self-flagellation and the key out of that cycle is genuine self-esteem and self-worth and when you have genuine self-esteem and self-worth your capacity and ability to spot when someone else is on a different journey and when someone else isn't right for you or when someone else might be bad for you when you have that real genuine a grounded sense of self what it means is that your lens for viewing other people is now healthy and you can spot the person who's going to be manipulative or you can spot the person who might be a be manipulative or you can spot the person who

might be a cheater do you know what i mean you don't miss the signals and you tend to want to be drawn towards someone who's healthier and that healthiness tends to mean two people being able to exist autonomously while also being a couple you don't have to change any aspect of who you are to keep another person happy now you can change aspects of your behavior all right that's i mean when people become couples you learn and grow and your worldview changes your taste in music can change because you're learning with another person but if you're changing parts of yourself because you're you want approval or scared of disapproval then that's a weird imbalance so i think you know the answers to the question you

fucking asked me julie i think you know the answers I know by the way you wrote it down but what you want is to have those reflected back at you look at your own fucking question look at your own fucking question honestly alright because the answers are in there you've written them down

and anyone listening don't be getting pissed off at me saying blind boy is pro cheater blind boy loves cheaters no what i'm saying is that uh human existence contains rejection disappointment all these things these are unavoidable tenets of human existence people are going to lie to you people are going to cheat on you people are going to manipulate you people who love you are going to lie to you people are going to cheat on you people are going to manipulate you people who love you are going to do this and it's all part of the complex tapestry of being a human and what i'm saying is we can't create rigid rules about it because

rigid rules aren't realistic so what you do is you move to strong preferences i have a strong preference that i don't get lied to i have a strong preference that i don't get manipulated can you have a strong preference that you don't get rejected you can't really have that because people people are entitled to reject you people aren't entitled to manipulate you. People aren't entitled to lie to you. But people are entitled to reject you. You know what I mean? So there you go. That's nice and cheerful.

Time now for the shaker pause. I'm going to shake a little lunchbox full of popcorn kernels. And you're going to hear an advert for some bullshit. Alright? Here we go. Evil things of evil. It's all for you. No, no, don't. The first omen. I believe girl is to be the mother. Mother of what?

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So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca That's sunrisechallenge.ca That was the shake or pause so you didn't get startled by a digital advert. Sometimes there's sponsorship on this podcast, sometimes there isn't. The podcast is sponsored by you, the listener via the patreon page right this is a hundred

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and you're taking something from it, just consider paying me for the work that i'm doing if you're consuming it and all i'm looking for is the price of a pint or the price of a cup of coffee once a month patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast sign up and become a patron um if you can't afford it you don't have to you can listen for free and then someone else pays for you it's a model based on soundness all right everyone's fucking happy it works fantastically um but please do consider becoming a patron because i can't gig during the pandemic i'm not going to get any television work my fucking paperback and my book came out couldn't sell a lot of those because the

fucking shops were closed it's been a bad year for people in my industry and the podcast is my sole source of income that's what pays all my bills so when you become a patron it's it's a big deal it's a big deal for me so if you can afford it if you're working if the pandemic has like meant that you're not paying petrol to go to work anymore just give me the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month if you're consuming this and enjoying it all right and chill out if you can't afford that your grand um another way you can support the podcast is just everyone go and leave a review leave a comment on whatever fucking podcast app you're using,

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and you can talk to me in real time on twitch.tv forward slash the blind boy podcast Wednesday, Thursday, Friday nights guaranteed and then intermittent at the weekends also there's a little lottery for patrons if you if you join up on the patreon i pick one person once a month and i draw this person a customized drawing and i send it to them in the post another question that came in tonight

well multiple people asked this one question. Or variations of this. This was by far the most common question. People wanting me to speak about. Social anxiety. And agoraphobia. During COVID. During what we're living in right now. And.

I don't really have an answer to it. Because that's what I'm living. Right now that is what I'm living right now that is what I'm living and that is the number one cause of discomfort in my life right now so what I mean and what people mean when they're asking me this is I've got a history of social anxiety I once suffered from agoraphobia which meant that being in public places was terrifying for me it would trigger anxiety attacks so I would become a recluse I'd stay in my house I wouldn't leave to leave meant possibly getting a panic attack and that was at the time the worst thing that I

thought could happen so I have done huge amounts of personal work on myself to not live the life of someone with agoraphobia i still have social anxiety because it's it's it's part of who i am as a person but it's okay to be socially i can be socially anxious while still feeling comfortable in social situations and still enjoying being outside it's just that's not my energy it's not my comfort zone but i can step outside the comfort zone and be perfectly happy happy functioning adult so i've done tons of work on myself over the years with being in a crowded restaurant being in a crowded bar and saying to myself even though you feel anxious even though you feel afraid there's actually nothing to be anxious or afraid of this feeling of anxiety is a fabric of your it's part of your

imagination it's irrational you have to challenge it you have to face it down you have to think flexibly and rationally and also alongside agoraphobia and social anxiety you become obsessed with germs not not a given but i would i used to carry hand sanitizer around myself i used to be mindful of touching door handles because for me it wasn't like i had this terrible fear of becoming sick they were safety behaviors it was a way to try and control if i'm going to a pub and this pub is terrifying me being around people makes me feel like i'm going to have an anxiety attack then in order to cope we develop what's known as in anxiety talk we develop safety behaviors so a safety behavior for me was like i've got asthma but it's not that bad all right i haven't gotten an asthma attack since i was a child but i know my anxiety is bad if i'm carrying my blue inhaler

around with me all the time because i don't need it all right I don't need my blue inhaler I need to take that inhaler once a year and only ever because I fall off the wagon and smoke cigarettes but if my anxiety is high I will carry around with me my inhaler and I have to be mindful of that because the inhaler has nothing to do with my asthma it has it's a safety behavior to control and manage my anxiety and sometimes that is just a distraction it doesn't deal with the core problem hand sanitizer was a way for me to manage anxiety it was a safety behavior ripping the fucking labels off beers tearing up beer mats all safety behaviours so I would recognise those signs I would conquer them

I would change my behaviour I'd change my thoughts until I became a functioning member of society now because of fucking coronavirus all the triggers and red flags that would have been conducive with me being in a state of mental unhealth are now a rational part of existence. When I go to a restaurant, I'm fearful of people. When I'm in a restaurant, I feel anxious and I'm hyper aware of where people are, what they're doing and I feel unsafe and I feel afraid. The thing is, I can't use CBT on that because I should be afraid and I should be wary.

Because there's a pandemic and I have to maintain social distance and people might be carrying coronavirus. So it is rational for me to be in a restaurant and to be anxious of people and that's weirdly triggering for me because I've done so much work on myself to challenge exactly that thought because in an in a non-pandemic situation that would be irrational in a non-pandemic situation it's like so what you're going to catch a cold and you might what are you doing afraid of people why do you care where they are I would challenge all these thoughts and I've had to rewire my brain so when I'm in a restaurant the anxiety that I feel no it's not anxiety because anxiety is unhealthy what I feel I feel a healthy amount of caution and a

healthy amount of fear because it's a rational response to human beings in a pandemic so the negative unhelpful emotions that come in i feel a lot of shame i'm feeling a lot of shame recently so when i sit in a restaurant and feel anxiety because of people I feel shame that the feelings that remind me of my social anxiety are coming back so I now have to be use CBT on the sense of shame by which I mean like I was in a restaurant the other day because I wanted to have a nice lunch I wanted to get out of my house I wanted to sit down I wanted to have a nice fucking lunch and I'm sitting there and I'm not enjoying my dinner because I don't think that the man beside me is is two meters distance and now my dinner is not enjoyable because he's not two meters away a year ago if i would have said that exact sentence to a counselor they would be very

concerned um and they would they'd be they'd be investigating that with counseling or recommending medication if outside of a pandemic situation how was your lunch blind by i couldn't enjoy my chicken because i was concerned that the man beside me was not within the two meter limit. Outside of a pandemic, that is red flag shit. That's how I used to think at the height of my anxiety. Okay, but now that's how I have to think and it's how I should think. Ways that were once dysfunctional, ways of thinking and relating to other people that were once dysfunctional ways of thinking and relating to other people that were once dysfunctional are now fully functional but for me then that brings on shame the shame

of regressing even though i'm not and that's a that's that's a tough one i'm not regressing back to anxiety what i'm actually doing is behaving appropriately and cautiously for my safety and other people's safety but my brain doesn't recognize it as that my brain says ah that's it now all the hard work you've done on social anxiety you're returning back to it man you're worried about someone being two meters away from you or finding myself and this is another one that really fucking pisses me off and makes me feel shame and makes me feel frustration is simply giving a fuck about what strangers are doing when i had mental health issues when i had depression and i had anxiety if i went to a pub or I went to a restaurant I can't exist as as a confident being I can't like when I had bad anxiety

I'd be sitting in a pub or anywhere public and and you you you'd look across at a stranger and you might feel contempt for them you might feel angry you might convince yourself that that person has got opinions about you all of a sudden you're concerned with strangers what they're doing you're you're feeling strong emotions about strangers you're projecting thoughts into their head that person thinks they're fucking great look at them with their cool clothes or i bet they think i'm a piece of shit why are they staring at me with no evidence because i'm in a state of mental unhealth and this is how i used to be when i had bad anxiety when i had bad depression okay concerned and heavily emotionally invested with toxic emotions for fucking strangers and

then when i got to a place of mental health and high self-esteem then it becomes all compassion i sit in a pub and restaurant and i see someone sitting across the way and I have the self-esteem and personal boundaries to allow that person to exist I don't give a fuck about their pants I don't care about what they're reading I'm not making assumptions or judgments about their character I'm not projecting into their heads negative opinions that they have of me I'm simply I'm here in the restaurant i'm having a good time and i'm looking at everybody around me with positivity and and they are allowed to have their boundaries to be separate human beings i can't do that anymore in the coronavirus pandemic

because i'm consistently judging people on whether their behavior is within the best practices of safety so when I walk down the road when I'm on my run and my run is for my mental health I fucking love my run but I'm running all right trying to listen to music trying to get into that meditative beautiful fucking state of running the dragon that i'm chasing and 50 meters ahead of me are two people walking towards me and they're they don't look like they're going to get out of the way and give me the two meters that i'm affording them so now that 50 meters of running is me in my head slightly irritated with two fucking strangers and then i pass him and i say to myself you fucking pricks you selfish pricks are you gonna

are you trying to kill us all with your coronavirus did you not see me coming you're not so but you're supposed to get out of the way when i come we're supposed to give each other social distance why didn't you do it so now that's three minutes of my run where instead of being mindful being meditative enjoying my run being in the here and now i'm now angry with strangers and i can't cbt that away because i should be angry with the strangers it's okay for me to be irritated with people who aren't respecting social distance because they could kill someone and i don't know how to use my psychology on that i don't know how to use my self-help techniques on that but then then i feel shame i feel shame, I feel shame because I know that outside of a pandemic, no pandemic,

if I'm going on a run and I'm worried about where other people are standing on the footpath and I take that to my counsellor, that's a red flag, I'm going back into all patterns of anxiety, my self-esteem, what that would tell me outside of a pandemic if I'm feeling angry about strangers that's my self-esteem that's me projecting a bunch of shit but ultimately it all ends up with me being unhappy so these are the fucking challenges that I'm facing and that a ton of other people are facing regarding mental health and coronavirus and i know from all the messages i'm getting um and i don't know what to do with it it's definitely it is taking a toll on me i'm i'm fee i'm what am i feeling right now it's six months into it lads i'm feeling fed up okay now i'm not not going to

come on here and and be unnecessarily negative and make things shit for you but i'm fed up all right that's what i can say six months i i can say i'm fed up of coronavirus i want spontaneity it's making me realize too i'm a hugely introverted person i don't leave my house very much i don't do a huge amount of socializing but i certainly realize i've taken for granted the importance that human interaction has had in my life I can't have meaningful spontaneous connections anymore the closest I had I can't remember if I even mentioned this I can't remember if I said this on Twitch or if I said it on the podcast but I appeared on a guest podcast recently a friend of mine alison spittle she's a comedian and she herself and farn brady and i did a zoom call for their podcast and i ended up feeling sad afterwards and it's like why do i feel fucking what's that about i just had a lovely chat with al and Fern and then I realized oh fuck it reminded me

of bumping into someone I hadn't seen in a while having a pint and having a spontaneous conversation it reminded me of that and that's what's gone spontaneity is what I miss I want to go day drinking I want to meet someone in a smoking area I want to do these these things that I took for granted and I want little human interactions I want to meet someone I haven't seen in a while I want to hug people I want to do unplanned compassion and intimacy that's what it is unplanned compassion and fucking intimacy when you meet someone that you haven't seen in a while or even if you chat to a stranger in a fucking smoking area you shake someone's hand it's it's unplanned compassion and intimacy and i've never in my life been in a

situation where that's been taken away now it's been taken away and i understand how valuable that is to my mental health and to how my thought processes work to my creativity to everything and all other interactions are planned i can schedule a zoom call with a friend i can ring someone up i can do all this but it's all planned and it's cautious and the spontaneity is gone the humanity of that is gone so that shit has me fed up you know um how do i deal with it i mean i'm coping of course i'm coping i know i'm coping because even amongst all that i do have my mental health it's okay to be fed up it's okay to be disappointed it's okay to be angry it's when these things become unhealthy and they start to influence into into into

destructive behaviors or destructive emotions that's when you've got mental health issues i don't have that because i'm absolutely coping but it's okay for me to acknowledge have that because i'm absolutely coping but it's okay for me to acknowledge i'm fed up at the moment i'm disappointed i what i don't need to be feeling is shame that's irrational that's dysfunctional it's not conducive reality i i should not feel shame um because fucking being inside in pubs is reminding me of what it was like when i had anxiety that's no cause for shame so i have to analyze and take responsibility for the part of myself that's feeling shame and how do you tackle shame self-compassion and a good way to access self-compassion is is to be compassionate for other people if our animals if if if you are kind and loving to another person or another animal that act of of in interpersonal compassion opens you up a little bit to intrapersonal

compassion which is compassion for yourself and compassion for yourself sometimes an easy way into compassion for yourself as well as you think yourself as a little child you know you think of yourself as a little toddler and you say nice things to yourself, instead of me thinking of me feeling shame, I imagine myself as three years of age feeling shame, and that's easier then for me to, what I need to do is I need to move, I tell myself in my head,

there's no reason for you to feel shame, you're being too hard on yourself um allow yourself fallibility allow yourself love it's easier to do that when i imagine that i'm a little kid if you get me so we've got another question here this is another one where i don't, I think the person knows the answer and it's one that I don't really have the answer to, but I think I'm going to read it out. This is from Annette, not Annette's real name. My partner had an affair. We broke up. He spent lockdown with her in Kerry. Came back home to Dublin when it was lifted.

He goes down to her every weekend. We still live together. In Dublin in rented accommodation. I can't move out. He can't move out. We're stuck in the same place. Right, so that's, you need to,

you need to have a contract, or something, you need a strong agreement there, that's, he's been a bit of a fucking gull there, you know what I mean, like, alright, two things, so,

you're in rented accommodation, you both can't move out, because it's, I understand, it's Dublin, it's renting, so now, essentially, against your will, both of you are living together in a house, but you're broken up with each other.

He's had an affair, and now he's gone down to Kerry, to your one, and coming back up. You need to have a fucking contract man if you're entitled if him doing this is really really hurtful and even though

if you're fucking broken up and you're still living together you're entitled to honestly say to him this is really hurtful you going down each weekend it's also not safe it's fucking coronavirus what's he doing man doubling to carry every weekend come on we know we can't be doing that shit everyone knows you can't be doing that shit that's not safe that's so there's there's that i wouldn't even pull that one out you need a fucking contract and an agreement because you don't here's the thing you don't have agency if if because of the rent situation because of accommodation in dublin you are living in a house with this person you now don't you don't have agency so normally what are you gonna do

if the relationship is broken up all right you get the fuck away and if he wants to go down to your one at least you don't know about it. The relationship is broken up, that's his business. But if you're living there, and this is a repeated thing every weekend, and you know he's going down to Kerry, and it's hurting you, you're entitled there to have emotional boundaries, and entitled to say,

I know we're broken up, alright? And I know you're free to go down to your fucking to your new girlfriend i know this stuff but it's still really fucking hurtful and in light of me not having the agency to move out are you not having the agency to move out do we really need to continue. Do you need to continue operating in this way. Which is incredibly hurtful to me. And that would be a conversation.

That needs to happen there. A contract. Because that doesn't sound fair to me. You don't have the option. To turn away. From that. You don't have the option to turn away from it. That's.

That's not nice's that's not nice that's not nice and most people would say that he he's behaving in a way there that's selfish and cruel okay you need to have a contract and you need to let him know that's hurtful as fuck and he shouldn't be doing it anyway with coronavirus

you can't be doing that you can't be going out to Kerry every fucking weekend to meet someone during coronavirus it's just you could be dragging it up and down the country

no one should be doing that really to be honest it's not essential that's a tough one Annette that's a tough one thank you for sharing that one but that's what I'd say I sit down on a contract

about what's okay and what's not and your feelings are valid and you're entitled you're entitled to have that discussion because you can't fucking you don't have agency so that's what i'd say there so we're coming up to an hour now i've only answered three questions as as is always the case i promise myself I'm going to answer ten questions and I end up answering three

but apologies if I didn't get around to your question but I do feel that the three that I answered I gave them a lot of thought alright and I hope that you got some solace from them or insight I got some insight myself so

next week I'll be back with a hot take I imagine I wanted to keep this week's episode quite pedestrian quite easily, quite accessible I get asked questions I answer them, we speak about the human condition, because I've got new listeners who've arrived from seeing me

on Joe Duffy on RT1 and I don't think they need the full, bizarre assault of a hot take we'll save that for them alright God bless, mind yourself have some self compassion be sound, rub a dog, rub a cat

rub a cat if you can and I'll talk to you next week. Thank you. 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. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.