The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life by Christie Tate

Episode Date: November 1, 2020

Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life by Christie Tate The refreshingly original debut memoir of a guarded, over-achieving, self-lacerating young lawyer who reluctantly agrees to get psychologically and emotionally naked in a room of six complete strangers—her psychotherapy group—and in turn finds human connection, and herself. Christie Tate had just been named the top student in her law school class and finally had her eating disorder under control. Why then was she driving through Chicago fantasizing about her own death? Why was she envisioning putting an end to the isolation and sadness that still plagued her despite her achievements? Enter Dr. Rosen, a therapist who calmly assures her that if she joins one of his psychotherapy groups, he can transform her life. All she has to do is show up and be honest. About everything—her eating habits, childhood, sexual history, etc. Christie is skeptical, insisting that that she is defective, beyond cure. But Dr. Rosen issues a nine-word prescription that will change everything: “You don’t need a cure. You need a witness.” So begins her entry into the strange, terrifying, and ultimately life-changing world of group therapy. Christie is initially put off by Dr. Rosen’s outlandish directives, but as her defenses break down and she comes to trust Dr. Rosen and to depend on the sessions and the prescribed nightly phone calls with various group members, she begins to understand what it means to connect. Group is a deliciously addictive read, and with Christie as our guide—skeptical of her own capacity for connection and intimacy, but hopeful in spite of herself—we are given a front row seat to the daring, exhilarating, painful, and hilarious journey that is group therapy—an under-explored process that breaks you down, and then reassembles you so that all the pieces finally fit.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss hi folks chris voss here from the chris voss show.com the chris voss show.com hey we're coming here with another great podcast we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in to see the video version of this go to youtube.com for it says chris voss hit that bell

notification button and also go to the cvpn you can follow me at goodreads.com for just chris voss and you can follow the chris voss show we have a bunch of facebook groups on facebook but go to facebook.com for just chris voss you can find a lot of the pertinent information there as well today we have a brilliant author and of course we have all of the most brilliant authors in the world that come on the show. Her name is Christy Tate, and her new book is Group. This is a very interesting book that I think a lot of people can learn from. How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life. Christy is a Chicago-based writer and essayist. She has been

published in the New York Times, Modern Love, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and elsewhere. Welcome to the show. How are you, Christy? I'm doing great, Chris. I'm really happy to be here with you. I'm really happy you're here too as well. So give us your plugs for people to look you up on the interwebs and see you. Sure. So I have a writing website. It's christytate.com, very basic. And it sort of compiles my different essays and there's information about the book and of course links where to buy the book. I also mostly hang out on Instagram and that my, you can find me there at Christy O. Tate and I post all kinds of pictures there as one does on Instagram. Instagram is kind of the place to be. A lot of my book authors are over there and doing

their stuff there. So you've put out this book, a group. What motivated you want to write this book and share it? Sure. So I had originally wanted, I set out in my writing career, I wanted to be a novelist. I didn't think that somebody who wasn't famous or infamous could write a memoir. So it wasn't even on my radar at all. And I wrote some novels and they were terrible. And one of them, the one that I stuck with the longest was a story about a young woman, much like myself.

She was a lonely lawyer and she was a high achiever, but she had a bad personal life, just barren with nothing in it. And she ends up representing her therapist. And I didn't know what I was doing as a writer. And I didn't know how to end the book. So I just had the therapist and the character like, have a big romance. And it was really cringy and terrible. And I realized so Oh, so at the time I was I would go into my therapy group and I would complain, my writing is stuck. I'm not good at it. I don't know what I'm doing. And the therapist said, I want you to bring in the big romance scene between the therapist and the woman, which is horrifying because everyone in the group and myself are picturing me with the therapist having some adult time. And I realized that I was never, ever, ever going to finish or open that book again.

And then I realized what was the problem is I wasn't telling the truth. I had a story about a woman and her therapist and all these other people. And the true story, even if I'm a nobody, was better than what I was trying to like turn into a romance novel. And so that sort of got me started about five years ago on the writing of Group. Sometimes the truth is better than fiction i suppose yeah it wasn't my case you know the way to get you mentioned earlier you know you get infamous to write a book you should just go murder somebody and then i thought about it i i if i thought i could cut it cut it out in prison life i would have done it believe me yeah i just haven't that's what i did i just haven't wrote about all the people i killed and buried because they haven't found me yet so i can't

you know uh my attorney keeps telling me it's an admission of guilt if i write a book now but it could be but you could get like a three book series depending on how many people you murdered the things i dream about uh so anyway uh give us an overview, like a kind of a sky view of the book, and then we'll get into the weeds of it. Sure. So it opens, and it's the summer after my first year of law school, and I've just visited the bursar's office, and I found out my class rank. And I'm, instead of happy that I'm at the top of my law school class with this incredible professional future, I become very depressed, like having fantasies of death. And the disparity between this gleaming professional future and my experience in my personal life,

which was, as I said earlier, I didn't have any BFFs that I jetted off to Mexico with. And I didn't have close friends to watch friends with or and my romantic life was disastrous. And I knew what the class rank told me is I'm very bright and I can have a career, but I can't fix what's wrong with me because I'd been trying for years. And I was already in a 12-step program for an eating disorder. So I kind of thought, well, okay, you'll get a career and that's all you get. And that made me want to die. And people started recommending their therapists. And I kept saying, I don't have any money. I don't have, I'm not a trust fund person. I'm not independently wealthy and I'm not a lawyer yet. I'm a student. And so eventually

someone recommended her therapist and she was one of those people who had like a sparkle in her eye and she looked like she was happy. And she said, you should call my therapist. And I was like, hmm, she's like, he does group. It's cheap. And I was like, give me his number. And so I called him. And then my very, like in your first session, you go by yourself so he can assess you probably for sociopathic tendencies. And before he lets you loose on the group. Right. Yeah. Yeah. In case I'm a secret murderer. And he, he was like, what do you want? And I said, well, I want some friends. I want a boyfriend. And I felt like I was so greedy. And he kept saying, what else?

What else? And I'm like, listen, buddy, if you can do that, you can have all my money. And he said, the only way to get where you want to go is to be in a group. And I was like, sharing my therapy sessions with five strangers, six strangers. It didn't sound appealing, but it also, but the price did and his promises. Like he just looked me in the eye and said, you can do it. And we can get, he said, we can get you there. And I thought, well, I'll take that promise.

And as the book unfolds, I have all these adventures where I learned how to be a friend. And I learned how to be a girlfriend and a person who can attach to other people and bring my messy self into my relationships. And I think the problem was I had a lot of secrets about food and past trauma. And I also thought that the way to be in relationship was to never show anyone you had needs or feelings. So people couldn't attach to me. I wasn't giving them anything real. And the process of group taught me how to do that. And it has a, it has a happy ending. Although I do just, I still go to group. So the story continues. Yes. I should probably have been in group all my life, looking back all these years at some sort of therapy.

That or in a mental hospital, one of the two. But I love this book because it's a journey of where you're trying to find yourself and you're really feeling lost. And the secrets are killing you. The secrets are holding you back. The issues that you have, you can't seem to talk to anyone. You're having trouble with intimacy one of the most powerful things i ever saw i think was uh for me was uh um it was on uh it was on the oprah show and and she was talking to two kids that had been molested by or i don't know if molested is the right word but they'd been sexually assaulted i'm going to put it it that way by Michael Jackson. And there was a guy in the audience who stood up and, and he said the, he said, uh, let me see if

I can remember the quote exactly. Uh, he said, uh, the, the only, the, the secrets you keep inside are the thing that are killing you or the, by keeping the secrets that they're killing you. And by letting go and admitting to them, I'm clearly not getting the quote, but you can be free. And so a lot of people are in situations like the ones you're in, where they're struggling with all the different things, and they don't feel like they should be talking to other people, and they really should. Is that correct? I'm really glad you brought that up because yes, I thought that if people knew how I was eating, and then the big revelation is at that point in my recovery from bulimia, what I was doing at night, I would have, you know, my food during the day, which was

uninspired, but not particularly shameful. But at night I would eat like anywhere from six to 10 apples, or like 10 to 12 apples, maybe, maybe more, maybe never less. And so people now when people hear the story, they're like, that's really weird, an apple, but it wasn't like binging on a full pizza and ice cream. And so people don't understand necessarily the quality of that secret. But the fact that I thought if anybody knows, I will be abandoned wholly and forever. So it didn't matter to me in my body because I was holding the secret. If it was ice cream or apples or pizza or celery, I knew it was messed up. And it was why I lived alone. People would ask me to live with them. And I would think, well, I can't, you'll see how I eat. And I'm a savage. I felt like a savage. And so those secrets worked to keep me really apart

from other people. And so I guess I'll just ask the question, did you suffer a lot of childhood trauma or were there things that led you down this way to get into this thing? That's a great question too. I think that it feels like there was definitely trauma. I had an experience when I was in high school that right before high school started. So at this like super tender age, right as puberty is starting and high school and I went to Hawaii with a friend of mine. And while we were there, her dad drowned on the beach, which is terrible. Obviously way worse for her because it was her father. But that when I look back at that, that was deeply,

deeply traumatic. And I was very Catholic. I was in a Catholic girls' school. And that moment on the beach marked the end of all kinds of innocence. It also ended my faith life for many years, because what kind of a God would do that to teenagers and leave us alone on that beach with this father who had drowned. And so that experience was totally unprocessed. And nobody knew, this was the 80s, and nobody knew in Texas, and nobody was, you know, getting us to therapy groups and grief counselors, or we went a few times, but I had a lot of work to do and so much grief and I just stuffed it down. And I think that contributed and I was in ballet for many years.

So a lot of my experiences are the Hawaii experience was not normal. That was very traumatic. But I also had very prosaic experiences that weren't great, like being in the ballet world where my body was never skinny enough and highly scrutinized. Plus, I'm sensitive. Plus, I'm Catholic. You add that all up, I become a 26-year-old driving around. I'm valedictorian, and I want to die. I mean, you seem like you have this really successful life that you're leading.

Scholastically, you're top of your class in law or going into law school. And, you know, you're achieving all these things and markers and stuff. But inside, you're really struggling with, you know, the secrets you're holding and things that you feel people are judging you about. Do you feel a lot of young women go through some of what you're going through? You know, the bulimia. I've dated lots of women in my life. I've had women that were cutting themselves in their teens and at 40 and after several children

were still cutting themselves. I do think, obviously, most of my life, my friends and my intimates have mostly been women. My peeps were all women. And so I did see, I remember the very first time I was in college and we were all driving around. And I said to my friends, I was like, turn down the radio. And there was like five girls in this car.

We're hurtling down a Texas highway. And I said, you guys, sometimes I throw up my food. I have no idea what made me in that moment tell them. And then all five of the girls were like, we do that all the time. I was like, what? I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. And I was like, oh, oh. And then we like never really talked about it again. And the more I've talked to people about my experiences of I was an awesome student, but I could control my studies. I could push myself and drive myself. Those attributes don't work in intimate relationships. And so I know a lot of women from law school and when I worked in law firms, I know them from 12-step programs where their life quote on paper or their resumes, unbelievable. I would give them the first shot at running my company or opening my heart for surgery. But inside there's something missing that's been replaced with achievement addiction and

perfectionism and it's it's horrifying yeah that that that's probably a whole book you could write there because i've seen a lot of that and i see a lot of that on social media too because social media will use you know the veneer that you can put up and and and not be who you are one of the things i i struggled with, some of my secrets, most of my life and held them in. And, uh, one of the things that, uh, I was having trouble sharing was when things died around me and I wasn't sure if I should open up and bleed it out online. And when my, when one of my, well, my, my, what, what I always think of as my child, because I don't have children and I have dogs was my first dog that died and it had been I think 17 or 20 26 years or something uh since someone close had

died around me in fact no one really died around me that I had known it's really weird that I'd gone that long and so I took it really hard and one thing that was interesting for me and I think what what your book achieves is I I I I was going to make this social media post. And I have a huge audience on social media and, you know, a lot of people love me and put up with my crap. And I just bled out online about what the experience was like and the pain I was going through. And it was several posts over the course of the grief period that you go through, the stages. And what was amazing to me was how much it helped other people. And they were able to kind of work through their issues with me.

And I had people write me and they would go, hey, man, I realized I didn't have closure with my dad after I watched what you went through and witnessed your just open heart bleeding out online. And I suppose a lot of that maybe is what group therapy helps with. A hundred percent. I was thinking that the whole time you were telling that story, what I experienced in group was I remember early on when I the first secret that came out in my tenure as a therapy patient was the doctor looked at me and he said why don't you tell the group what you ate yesterday and instantly I popped out of my chair I was so afraid because I knew at the end of the day I was gonna have to say well I ate seven apples last night and those had become nuclear inside of me. And I thought I will tell you anything. I'll tell you about the stupid things I bought at TJ Maxx or how I, who I thought about when I touched myself. I did not want to talk about my food. I would have done it. Exactly. Exactly. And one of the things I said was, so the therapist

was like, tell the group and you'll let go of some shame. And then every night I want you to call this other group member and tell her what you ate, which to me was like complete torture. And I said, well, will this cure me? And I wanted a cure. Everyone who goes to therapy wants a cure. That's what the doctor's for. And he said to me, you don't need a cure. You need a witness. And that was really powerful. And that's, it was honest. I wanted a cure though. But what I got instead was witnesses to my pain and they brought their light. And we, every time I turned it over, it put the shame in half. And that helped me move forward in my life. But there was no poof moment of never again. Probably like your sadness with your lost beloved dog. It's always there.

It's always in your heart. But sharing it is a way to connect with others and not be so alone. Yeah, yeah. So you talk about your book. Let me ask you this. Did you, in your family life, was, it seems like one thing you're, you're, you're going through is, is the loss of intimacy or, or a challenge of finding intimacy or being intimate maybe with yourself and, and therefore with other people. Was there a lot of intimacy growing up was there with your parents and stuff i there wasn't there wasn't i mean there was a real sense of everybody sort of stay in line which sounds very sterile but like we were all my i have two siblings we all made good grades

we went to church on sunday there was a real sense that feelings of the, and I was a very sensitive kid who was very, I had all my feelings come in size 10, like 10, 10 out of 10, right? And so my feelings were so big and so overwhelming. I think I got the message subliminally or however, that just keep it tamped down, especially because I was a girl. And especially because maybe just that was the sort of repressive Texas Catholic thing. Just stay in line, do your thing, say your prayers. And so I had gathered inside of me the notion that it's bad to cry. It's really unfeminine to be angry.

And so I just, I remember I was like in my 20s. I was in group in my 20s before I really let myself go full bore with my anger, which means when I went to group, I had to go through all the stages. I was like a toddler having tantrums, and I had to grow up in a 20-something-year-old body in front of all these witnesses. And I bring that up and ask that question. I know it's a hard question to maybe talk about, but a lot of people may be going through that same thing. I went through a very religious sort of – it was the Mormon cult.

I went through the same sort of strong, you know, the guilt and the control. And, and of course I, I, you know, the same sort of thing, the non-emotional intimacy sort of loss, trying to figure out who you were. And then there's the guidelines and the guilt and, you know, you're doing this wrong and shame on you, the shame, shame, shame. And there's a lot of shame in religion. And I imagine a lot of people go through the same sort of experience that you and I are talking about and they end up maybe down the same roads.

And this gives them a kind of roadmap to how to get out of it. So tell us how you got into group therapy or therapy as it were and you go on this journey. Sure. got into group therapy or therapy as it were and you go on this journey sure so when my friend sort of suggested her cheap therapist who did group I went to go see him and he was the first thing I noticed about him was that he was really sharp and really confident and I had that feeling that I'd never had with a doctor or any kind of authority figure at all, which was he was not afraid to say anything to me. You know, I had the sense he was noticing things about me. And as soon as he thought them, he said them. I'm sort of in my first session, for example, I'm sort of going through my dating history, a lot of alcoholics, a lot of boys and men who really like marijuana more than me. And I'm sort of tossing these off, you know, and he says, oh, you love alcoholics.

And I was like, I don't I definitely hadn't used the word alcoholic. And he I was like, well, maybe. And he was like nodding like, yeah, that's what I see. And then we went along a little farther. And I said something about why I went to law school, which was so that I could have something to show for myself, because I knew my relationships would never be the thing. And he's like, Oh, yeah, you picked law, so you would never have to deal with intimacy. And I was like, Well, yeah, but like, ease up, dude. You know, he was like, but there was something about that confidence that made me think he knew me and he

had seen me before and other patients. And it's like if I'd gone to a doctor about a wonky knee and they were like, oh yeah, you tore your ACL. I would feel comforted and we would move forward. And I had that sense with my mental health. And he said, you know, I think group's where you need to go. And I was definitely afraid, but I also trusted him. And I was like, I didn't have anything to lose. What I was doing was not working. I probably was more predisposed to do a group because I had come of age with, by then I had been in 12-step program, a 12-step program for my eating disorder for like five years. So I believed that groups get well together. And so I might've been particularly primed. And by the time I had three individual sessions and he was ready to put me in a group, I was curious, like, what happens behind the curtain here? Like, what's it like when other people talk to this are these people? Who are they going to be? And he said,

I'm going to put you in a group of professionals. So it's all doctors and lawyers. And I thought, oh, I'm going to be like at the big kid table because I wasn't a lawyer yet. And it just felt like, well, who are these doctors? My curiosity turned out to be a real asset that I think really helped me show up for the first meeting and then keep coming back because the people were interesting. They were smart. They were clean. They were insightful. And I just sort of wanted to see. I wanted to know their stories.

And it really helped to be curious. You were five years into your, in your 12, into your 12 step program at the time. So was it working for you at all? That's a great question. Cause sometimes I feel like I'm betraying it because I'm, this whole book is about, I needed more and I was a person who needed more. And for years I sat in, so I got into recovery when, when I was 19 and I was in college. And at the time I was binging and purging out of control. And one day I fainted in the shower and I thought, I'm going to die. I'm going to die. People die like this. I'm going to be that person. And somebody told me very like shortly thereafter, you should go to the 12-step

program for eating disorders. And I was like, oh, I didn't know it was a thing. So I went to my first meeting. I did all the things you do. Like if you were in AA, you get a sponsor, you go to meetings. And I stopped throwing up that day. And so in that sense, it did work. And I did get way, way better. But for me, there was deep trauma work and extra. I just needed some extra, which I really am conflicted about because I feel like money's tight for people. And at the end of the day, as cheap as group is compared to individual, it's still a luxury of time and money. And I believe I saw people getting well in 12-step program and they were getting, they were stopping anorexia and bulimia and they were getting married and having babies. But I was just circling the drain and I was glad to be above the drain line, but I was going to go down personally. And, and, and y'all of us are different. We, we, you know, we all have different traumas and things

that we carry. A lot of people go into rehab, end up bouncing back because they never, like, they never get down deep with, with what's truly at issue. They never patch or heal whatever that wound is. And you kind of bit her bottom, I guess you talk about in the book where you felt almost suicidal or you felt suicidal. Tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, I definitely did. One of the things, there was sort of a mind trick going on, right? Like I went to, I was very dedicated to my 12-step meetings. I went religiously and I had a sponsor and I still felt terrible. And so it felt like, oh, now mind you, I wasn't telling them what I was doing at night with food. I wasn't telling them everything. And I knew that a bedrock principle of the program is

honesty and I still held back. So, you know, had I gone there and told a more unvarnished truth, maybe I would have had better results. But the end results, what happened when I hit bottom was, I'm doing all the quote, right things. I study hard. I get to go to law school. I, you know, I paid for it myself. I'm scrappy. I'm smart. I'm going to have a great, a great life professionally. But inside, I feel not even just dead inside, I felt great despair. And I would look at other people and think, how do they do that? How do you have a boyfriend? Like, I had a law school classmate. And were in these small groups and two of them became a couple. And I just saw them like have fun and be light and they'd study and then they

would go to the movies. And all I did was study and I felt so imprisoned and I could see it was by my own choices and by my own actions. And I could not stop. I could not make decisions that brought me closer to other people. And you really had a problem with intimacy, with, you know, how to, how to be in a relationship and engage other people. And I bring this up because there are people that are going to watch this and listen and go, I'm, I'm experiencing that right now. And hopefully they'll get on the journey that your book takes them on. So you get into the therapy, what starts happening for you? What do you start learning from that? Right. So one of the first things was this notion of telling, like, tell your secrets. Like,

I mean, you can't do it all at once. So I not this process took many many sessions um so one of the first things we addressed was my eating and i experienced so much relief in just telling them i eat you know i eat almost a hundred dollars worth of apples every two weeks you know like um so we sort of we tackle laugh at that and also i mean even beyond the apples which is sort of like that's like a at least it's healthy i mean that's true i mean my teeth were great um and things were working in my body it was a little bit like of a fructose overload but beyond that i also was super super. Like there was a myth, a list a mile long of things I wouldn't eat. And so I was so controlling, people would invite me to dinner and I'd be like, I don't think I can eat anything there. So now I can't even do the most basic of human things to

create community and incidency is food. And I've just X all that out. So we dealt with my food. And then I was having trouble sleeping. Because all of a sudden, I just was like so wired. And I had, I was so stimulated by starting this group. So then I got a prescription every night, call a group member, and he was going to give me an affirmation to help me go to sleep. And I called this old guy, Marty, and he was probably in his late 60s. And I'd say, Marty, I need my affirmation so I can sleep. And he'd say, you have good legs, toots. Thank you, Marty.

And I started to sleep a little better. And, you know, eventually I wanted to start like, once I cleaned up some of the trauma, we went through my trauma in Hawaii. And I let the group know exactly what had happened on the beach that day. And I let out this primal howl. I don't know another word for it. It's the first time I ever screamed from just grief in front of other people. And the therapist was going to go away on a vacation. And I was afraid in my mind, he was going to the beach and he wouldn't come back, which of course is born of my trauma. And we have no idea where he went. He just went somewhere. And, and so I screamed and cried and I was so scared to let go. And the whole group was looking at me with love and compassion, like, surely you have some feeling to get out. And then after I screamed, when I was walking to my office after group, I was like, I feel

like so much lighter, like literally so much lighter. And I had not had that kind of experience. Like something had come out of my body and now I could be different in the world. And then, you know, more advanced group things I experienced was like learning how to date. You know, I was, I would date anybody who would give me the time of day, which is not a very esteemable approach to dating. And I had really bad relationships while in therapy. And I had to learn what I deserved. I had to learn to ask for more and to, to walk away from situations where I was starving for attention and intimacy. I started there and then I had to learn to walk away so I could find another relationship that would give me something. Do you feel like a lot of women go through this?

I mean, a lot of men, we struggle with intimacy and everything else. I mean, we're just the way we are. But we need to work on it. But do you think a lot of women go through this where they struggle with intimacy and value of themselves, having a value inside them? Yes. I have never had conversations with women, certainly straight women, when we pull out our dating histories. I've never talked to a woman who didn't have a relationship of varying length, right, where they were like, I paid his rent. I let him use my car. We're secretly, we know we're being used or we're dating in a way that is not in line with our values or our understanding of ourselves or our desires, but we hang in there for all kinds of reasons that

are not, they're not valid. I mean, they're like smoke screens. It's like, well, I was busy. Who wants to do online dating? Like there's all kinds of reasons, but the end of the day, I and many women I know made choices to stay and pursue relationships because we were afraid of intimacy. That's what I learned in group. I always thought, well, healthy guys don't like me. The truth is they liked me fine. I didn't give them the time of day because I was distracted chasing a drug dealer, an alcoholic, a guy with no job and is clinically depressed. Those people lit something inside of me. And so when just a nice guy wanted to take me out for grilled cheese, I was like, ew, that sounded so boring, so boring. And so the big myth I had was,

oh, I like unavailable men, poor me. But the fact that I liked unavailable men meant I was unavailable. Sometimes when we're damaged people, we're attracted to other damaged people. I think that, or we see people that were, were fathers or mothers or whatever the whole psych psychological thing is there.

I'm no psychologist clearly, but you know, we're attracted sometimes to the people in our lives that we, that we got our losses of intimacy from. And I heard a long time ago, I don't, I don't know if this is true. And like I said, I'm not a psychologist, so I'll just put, throw this out there. But I read a long time ago that one of the things that we do in our relationships is we try and resolve the parental issues that we experience from our parents. And if they had whatever their issues were with each other and their relationship, we try and replicate them sometimes in our relationships. And then we try and resolve them. And unfortunately, a lot of times, the dynamics of what was making our parents' relationship not work with each other is it was just a function of just the merits or the formula just was not there.

They probably shouldn't have been together. You know, my parents are wonderful people. They should not have been together when they got divorced. All of us as kids went. It's about time you guys got up with the program because we've been here for years. You know, my mom was like, you sure you're okay with me and it was like you guys should never have been together and i don't know if that's the case for everyone but you know and so sometimes we're seeking out those damaged broken people so we're just like we're just like those people walking

around going hey i have a bag of broken glass that's my intimacy and you have a bag of razor blades let's get together and see if we can make this shit work yes yes a hundred percent i know this uh good so you you the great part about the book is you talk about what this is going through and this this really is going to help a lot of people especially people that maybe want to explore some different things or see some different things in themselves and have that mirrored back to them and go, wow, I should maybe explore this. And what I love about it too is group is a more inexpensive way to get therapy because getting therapy is expensive. Like right now, I'm trying to figure out what sort of therapy dial up app I'm going to have on November, on the 9th of November 3rd. You know what I mean? Yep. Yep.

I do try to try to get my, I'm moving all the sharp objects out of the house. Exactly. Yeah. I'm a Raiders fan. So I'm used to this by now. On every Sunday you take the sharp objects out of the house because you know that the Raiders are going to lose. So anyway, how long have you been in the group therapy and what has it really done for you? That's a great question. So I started in late August of 2001 and I still go. And so I first crawled to the therapist's office in the book I call him Dr. Rosen I crawled to his

office because and I told him if I don't have any intimate relationships and I I meant for sure I meant like a boyfriend a husband a partner but I also meant friends like friends just to come over when I have like zit cream on you know know, like I really was hungry for intimacy. So I wanted those relationships in my life. And I said, if you can't do that in five years, I'm going to kill myself. And he said, okay, see you next week. And so it took a while. Like my first intimates were my group mates. They knew about my food and the guys I had a crush on at law school, who was a smoker with a very serious girlfriend and I loved him so much. And they were like, what are you doing? And so the reasons why I keep going back are different than the reasons

why I came. But what happened over that period is I became very attached to my group mates and to the therapist. And also, I just believe in the process now. I think whatever anybody is facing, are you like, I'm no longer suicidally alienated from the human race. But there's things I want in my life, I want to have sane relationships with my children. I want to deepen the intimacy I have with my husband, who wouldn't be in my life if I hadn't gone to group. I want to explore my creative life. I want to learn how to be a daughter of parents who are in an aging situation. those are all very stressful. This is all before a pandemic. And all of those things I want in my life have to do with relationships. So in my mind,

just last night, my mom said to me, does anyone ever graduate from your kind of therapy? And absolutely, people do. People go on and they live happy lives and they do other things. But for me, this is a formula that works. And I want support for whatever I'm doing, even though it's not for suicide anymore. I'm not on suicide watch, but I want my group to help me experience becoming an author or having children in puberty. If that's not a cry for support, those situations, then I just think that one of the problems in this country around mental health is we think of it as something for triage in an emergency situation. And I recognize again, that it's a privilege and a luxury to be able to do this, but there's nothing I'd rather do with my, my disposable income than continue to have support so I can function in the world. And this is really important because I think a lot of people go through this. I like what you said about how people need to realize it's sometimes it's not just that immediate triage.

For a lot of people, especially people of trauma, it's a lifelong thing. You know, I mean, it took me just from my relationship with growing up in the Mormon cult and getting the whole religion and guilt and shame and all that stuff washed out of my system. I carried that for years. There's probably still, sometimes I sense there's different things that I carry with that that come up. And I'm 52. And I left the church at 16. So that's how long we've been trying to cleanse all that stuff out of the backwoods of the brain.

But yeah, it's a journey of life uh and certainly there are times in my life where i've had to go in for uh use i resolved my issues with uh well it used to be vodka uh but i resolved my issues with uh zoloft i think it is um when things got really bad sometimes but But I think it's important for people to realize that it's not shameful to ask for help. It's not bad. There's no one judging you if you ask for help. There might be, like, I don't know, maybe the parent that put you there saying,

this is shameful what you're doing. You're embarrassing the family, maybe. I don't know. But to me, asking for help is one of the most important things. And I've gotten really good on social media about sharing stuff. I've actually had two occasions where I just shared some positive stuff and people had known some of the intimate things that I'd shared of trauma in my life or my dog's dying, my father passing away, other issues I'd had.

And I'd just seen the results of how that it actually helped more people than it helped me. And that, that kind of gave me some power to share it. And I had two people write me and say, I was thinking of committing suicide today. And when you said, turn me and you saved my life today. And I had no intention of writing that. And that's the beautiful thing about what the book is that you've written is people, people see this and they go, wow, that's me. I'm going through that right now. And they have that aha moment and, and they wake up. Uh, I, I brought up the line that I was, uh, looking for that I, I, I had shared here. That was, uh, something that was important for me. Well, one of them, I'll just read this one as I'm trying to find the other one.

Forgiveness isn't a line that you cross. It's a road that you take. Have you forgiven them yourself? And that really had a huge impact on me. And this is from, I believe, the Oprah show after the, I think it was the Neverland documentary series of the two young boys. But this is the thing that hit me like a ton of bricks because I'd carried a secret most of my life. And it was, you're only as sick as your secret. And basically the thing I learned from that was

carrying your poison is the thing that's making you sick. And until you release that, until you be honest and start talking about these things like you did in group, can you be free of that poison? And it's incredibly amazing how freeing that can be to start talking about those secrets that you keep inside. Like for you, the seven apples, the eating disorder and the different issues that you had.

Be able to talk about those things and share them. And then you ruminate them with other people and you realize that you're not alone. And that's probably one of the more beautiful parts is you realize you're not alone in the world and you feel like you're a part of human race. Absolutely. I think that that's such a good point too.

And I think sometimes, I love that quote, we are only as sick as our secrets. I've heard that. That's almost like a slogan too in the 12-step programs, which I find is so gentle, such a gentle reminder. And I know sometimes when I think of that, I think, oh, what comes to mind is like the big steamy secrets that would be on an Oprah show. But I had myriad little secrets, little niggling secrets that I had sort of just thought I knew they had shame. Like I had when I was a kid, I had a condition called pinworm. And it's a parasite. And it's really uncomfortable. It takes place in their private parts and it would always happen to me and not

to my siblings and in my mind I had it all through childhood and I probably realistically had it three times but it was so shameful because it involved private parts and it felt like there was something wrong with me like why didn't my siblings have it and I had to go tell the doctors like where it itched and during the day I would be terrified what am I going to do in kindergarten I remember sitting in circle time like if it starts to itch I'm gonna have to leave the room and we weren't really allowed to and I think about that like that's not a secret I knew that was potent but of course I was never going to tell anyone about that. That's so gross. And what group taught me is that there's a lot of ways that we can like take a secret,

make a secret and hide it away. That is not just the big headlines of your life. It could just be one little episode, something with your, you know, an adult or a friend that it was confusing. It could have just been confusing. It might actually be funny, but because it's a secret or unspeakable, because it's unspeakable, it takes on this weight that prevents me from ever laughing. Now I think pinworm is hilarious, as long as I don't have it. But at the time it was like, it was like a proof that I was disgusting. And now I'm like, oh, that's not what that was., it was like proof that I was disgusting. And now I'm like, oh, that's not what that was. But I didn't have that perspective until I could talk about it.

And maybe the root of that was more, um, I don't know what it was. I'm just going to guess it was the intimacy issues you were having, like a lot of these different things that, and it, like you say that the seven apples, like to me, when you say I was eating seven apples a night, I'm like, well, she's really working and being healthy. I wouldn't think of that as like, I should shame her. But, but you know, that's, that's an example of what you perfectly just said. You, you take some of these small things and you, and you shame them, but really the issue is something much deeper, correct? Yes, yes. I think it's a pattern. For me, what it was was a pattern of feeling like there's, at my core, there's something wrong with me, something dirty or disgusting, like little girl words come to mind when I

think about that. And I had to hide any proof of that. So then I'm walking through my life, having my life, getting pinworm, making straight A's. Nobody wants to kiss me. Then Joe kisses me ninth grade, and I didn't really like it. So what does that mean? And like, everything becomes evidence to confirm what I think is a dirty core of myself, which I think culture helped create that and religion, like we talked about. I think there's a sense like if it was my original sin, my stain, I took that pretty seriously. I was a very sensitive, devout child. So of course, I think

I'm dirty. I need God's love. I prayed for the stigmata because I just wanted some salvation from all my dirtiness. Like that's a heavy load for an eight-year-old. Yeah, it definitely is. And, you know, it's interesting to me, we've had a lot of religious people on and we've talked about different religious things. And there's always been this thing with the, with the Adam and Eve story. And it's, it's becomes this narrative of filthiness and women. I've always felt personally that women are treated as second-class citizens and in religion. Uh, but you know, I, even my Muslim,

one of my Muslim friends, you know, she says, when we're on her period, we can't, we can't go to church. And there's actually, there's a special place for them, I guess, in the back or like a separate unit. Um, but, but they're not allowed to pray. And she says, we're just deemed as dirty. And I'm like, well, that's an ugly thing to do over something that's just a human biological nature thing. or the stigma of of that in religion and and a lot excuse me i think a lot of people uh and and probably women grow up with that because they see those images and displays and you know the preachers are all male and they're barking up the you know some sort of toxic masculinity sometimes right right and there's there's all those subtle messages too. Like we were supposed to be worshiping this all-loving God, except we had to pray and do penance and try to earn it at the same time. Meanwhile, as a woman in this culture, and I don't think – I like to think we've made progress.

What my daughter faces is different than what I faced, you know, 40 something years ago. But culture worships thinness and straightness and blondness and beauty and things that I could tell we were actually worshiping and gregariousness and smiling and all of those things. And if you don't match, what is a kid, a young person supposed to do with that mismatch? If there's no support and there's nothing to rush in and fill it, there's no alternative, then where are you left? There's nothing to do but hate yourself. I mean, that's just kind of where I came out on things. It's probably even worse now, I don't know, with young women because I look at Instagram and especially with the filters and the makeup. Like I've seen the makeup that they use on YouTube and Instagram,

it's almost complete catfishing. I'm not being negative because a lot of incels get after badger women about your catfishing. I think it's fine that women can put on that kind of makeup and, and feel good about themselves. And that's, that's cool. But I think if you're a woman who's growing up and you don't look like the perfect 10 whether the perfect 10 is there is the real person the makeup or not but you're seeing like these thousands or tens of thousands of images on tiktok or instagram or social media and then one thing we've always talked about in social media for the last 10 years is that fomo experience or or you know, I heard the joke one time that when an archaeologist digs up our era of, of, of, of our, you know, from, from the dirt and goes, Oh, look what these guys did.

They're going to find all these pictures of us smiling. And they're going to be like, these guys were always smiling and always happy. They were never sad. And so a lot of people look at that. They really, and I think women, especially young women growing up, uh, because they're so self-analytical, um, and they, they see that and they just go, well, his life is perfect. And, and then later you find out they're not, you know, I see a lot of celebrity, these Instagram celebrity, uh, people get divorced or YouTube people get divorced. And then you just find out that they've been just putting up a front the whole

time. Like it's kind of like one of those preachers that says I'm against gay people. And the more they bark, that does protest too much. Yes. The more they're hiding it. And you find that with a lot of the foam on social media. So,

but I think this is good for a lot of people because money's tight. Do you think, you think with COVID more people need in this isolation need more group therapy i do i really i i sound like a proselytizer but i really do know i know what it's done for me and the transformation and beyond even if someone's not looking for a transformation that that's kind of a big word, but company. That's what you get from a group. You get people who they have your back. They, too, are committed to the process.

So you get to watch them do their work. And here's one of the most gratifying parts of group therapy. I'm super happy that I learned how to date and be intimate with people and have friendships. And I celebrate that every day of my life. But also I have watched my groupmates face and conquer other challenges. Like I have a groupmate who had struggled very seriously with insolvency and to watch him buy a house and now have enough money to go on vacation and really, really come from rock bottom to a different place, to go to a different place. I can celebrate and see progress in him as much as myself.

And sometimes I can see it better in my group mates who work through bad marriages and they either stay or they go, but they're doing the hard work and their lives change just like mine. And we get to do it together. And also it's entertaining as hell. These people have, people have stories. Like if you think about it, people who are going to go to therapy, they have a story. And it's so interesting to watch it unravel, to watch it. Oh, I know this about Christy. This is why she's reacting this way, because I know what is behind her curtain. Right.

And so one of the things that I never did did I didn't do a ton of individual therapy but I never laughed my ass off in inner in individual therapy unless I mean I'm cracking jokes because I think I have to entertain but in group therapy you don't have to carry the conversation you're you're not it's not the Christy show there's things I do and I take up space, but we laugh so hard and we cry hard and we laugh hard and it's extremely entertaining, which I feel like, you know, I don't know if individual therapy can be entertaining. I'm sure it can, but you'd have to generate the entertainment, right? I've seen people, I've not seen it, but I've known people that have talked about their experiences going into personal therapy. And a lot of time they do do what you're talking about.

They're trying to either entertain, but usually they're trying to deflect. So they're trying to tell stories about everyone else when they really should be talking about themselves. But they're trying to keep the other person on, the interviewer, the psychologist on offense or defense or whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah. But in group, I imagine you can't get away with that, like you say. And then you get the sharpness of honesty. Like, you may talk to your friends about your issues and they may go, we still love you, but you're just a broken child.

But a group will probably be more honest with you and be like, no, you're just a broken child. But, but the group would probably be more honest with you and be like, no, you're really fucked up. Yeah. I mean the, the tacit agreement, if we've all landed in this circle and we're going to pay this money and we're going to set aside this time, you know, session start at seven 30 in the morning. If I'm going to get my ass downtown to Chicago downtown at seven 30 in the morning, we came to play. That's what the commitment says. So when I go in there with a song and dance, if everybody knows, I've just done something really hard. Like I've confronted a sibling who's not that into me. And we've had a hard conversation. And I was in there talking about my awesome job coup. They're going to call BS within the first two minutes because what are you doing?

What are you hiding? The people in group know where the bodies are hidden. And so you can't go in there Monday crying about your dating life and then Friday not tell them about the date you went on on Wednesday. Like that's not, we've all agreed to pay attention, to notice and speak up. And so if that doesn't sound good to you, that probably won't work, but that's actually where the goodness is. Cause I already have friends. I mean, I didn't at the time, but you can find someone to co-sign whatever it is you're up to. Do you have a group of people who will challenge you?

That's harder. I like that concept. Maybe I should have gone into group therapy years ago. When I got medicated for high anxiety and extreme ADHD, I went in to see a psychologist. And I remember wanting just to punch him in the face for the hour over and over again, endlessly. He told me a lot of hard things. And I was just, you know, I had a problem initially. Like I remember when I went to the emergency room the first time and I thought I was having a heart attack or some sort of brain seizure and I was just really amped up with anxiety. And the guy goes, you have anxiety.

And I go, yeah, I have fucking fear and, yeah, a whole mess of other ton of emotions. Thanks. Thanks. I have anxiety. Seriously? And she goes, no, like it's a thing. And I didn't know it was a thing at the time. And I just, she was naming emotions.

And I'm like, thanks for that. Really? What are you here for? And so it was hard to deal with it, but I can imagine if you go into group therapy, you've got a lot more people backing up the psychologist and going, no, you really are fucked up. You really need some help here. and you know so there's a therapist there and there's five other people and everybody sees it a little bit differently which is actually so helpful it's really helped me become a more nuanced thinker because in my own world in my own head I see things the way I see them and I think I'm right I don't have any reason to doubt myself. But like if I come in and report a conversation I had at work and I'm like, isn't my boss a jerk? Then somebody may say,

well, it sounds like he's trying to help you. And then someone else will say, well, it sounds like you didn't speak up. And somebody else will say, yeah, he is a jerk. And that's my favorite person for the day. But the truth is, there's so few things that are not nuanced in the world that in my interpersonal relationships, which is what I take to group. There's so few things that don't require a little interpretation. And for me to get out of my own way, it's hard to do because I think I'm right. And a lot of times, even if, even if I'm right, like let's say my boss is a jerk, but if I can get some more gentleness in my own heart and just open up my own mind, it doesn't matter what his intention was anymore. What matters is I'm not locked into a narrative that's making me miserable.

That's super helpful. Definitely, definitely. These are great things we've discussed that people can take away from and hopefully utilize in their own personal life and possibly search out group therapy. I'm giving it some thought now. Is there anything else in your book that we haven't touched on maybe that would be important for readers? I guess I would just want to say to readers, future readers or listeners, that for me, when I had to really address my, I guess, mental and emotional blocks, problems, issues, whatever, I felt a lot of shame that I couldn't clear things up in about 30 days, six months. It just took longer than I thought. And I felt a lot of shame that I couldn't clear things up in about 30 days, six months.

It just took longer than I thought. And I felt a lot of shame about it. So I guess I offer my story just to say it took me a while to get the relationships I wanted. I gave Dr. Rosen, I gave him five years to get me where I wanted to go. And I got a lot of what I wanted within five years. But I still, I remember my five year anniversary, I said to him, I was dating a guy who wasn't super into me. And I was trying to force myself to like him, still five years into therapy. And it took another 18 months to really lock into a partnership that would become my marriage that I was really seeking

all along. So if you're struggling and you haven't turned your life around in a year or even two years, you're not alone. Some of us, it just takes longer. And so take heart, keep doing the work. It will happen. I think one of the, I love that. One of the things that I, uh, hard lessons I had to learn was, uh, to me, it was always about the destination. I was very goal-oriented and I was very destination and achievement oriented. But like, like you talk about in your book, there was stuff missing inside of me. I was, I was looking for, you know, money, success, business, being the CEO of my own company. own company but but one of my none of my goals were like how to be more intimate with your partner and accepting of yourself and you know

like all that was being buried in this whole search for these these material if you will sort of things that i thought would heal me you know i grew up poor i thought that getting money would heal me that yeah i didn't when i got rich and i was left there um and then and then you're like well what more is there and so i think it's really important people have to realize life is is a giant journey and i used to people used to say that to me all the time they used to say chris you know it's not about the destination it's about the journey and i'd be like the journey is right now i want to punch you in the face and yes i went for years with that where i was just like if you said that life is just a

journey it's not about the destination chris i'd be just like can i choke you because that sounds like a journey i want to be on right now um and i used to hate people that used to say that um and and so one of the hardest things for me to learn in life was that it is about the journey and it is a journey and it's it it's, uh, it seems like we spend all of our lives going down that journey and that road. So I think it's beautiful what you share in your book and we shared on here. So thank you for sharing that with us. We've reached the end of our hour though. So we'll have to reschedule. That sounds great. It was wonderful to talk to you. I love your show and I love what you do with your platform. It's really,

it's awesome. Thank you very much. And I hope people read what you do with your platform. It's really, it's awesome. Thank you very much. And I hope people read your book, get it. You know, you find yourself in some of the sort of issues that we've talked about here and stuff like that. Again, help, feel free to call somebody if you need to. There's 1-800 numbers, of course, if you're thinking about suicide, but I think group therapy is pretty awesome. I love how you described it. And like I said, I've known people that have gone into one-on-one therapy, and they've kind of gamed the system. And they haven't really gotten help, even though they've spent years in it, because they're doing the whole PR thing. Right. Where with group, it seems like you just can't get away with that.

So give us your plugs one more time as we go out, Christy, where people can look you up on the interwebs and order your book. Sure. You can find me on Instagram at Christy, where people can look you up on the interwebs and order your book. Sure. You can find me on Instagram at Christy O. Tate. My writing website is christytate.com and group. My memoir is available certainly on Amazon, but also at any indie bookstore near you that you love and that supports your community. Thank you very much for being on the show. We certainly appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. Check out the book, guys. You can go to Amazon or any of your local books. Group, How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life. I encourage everyone to read books like these. Get out there. Remember, the only secret is the secrets that kill

you. So getting them out of your system, it's kind of like when you have one of those festering wounds and it goes getting green and it just gets worse and worse. And until you bleed it out, until you clean it out and clean that wound and get rid of your secrets, you're just never going to be whole or never feel healed. At least that's my opinion. Thanks, Amonis, for tuning in. To see the video version of this, go to youtube.com,

fortune.chrisfoss, hit that bell notification. And also go to goodreads.com, forward slash Chris Voss. You can see the books I'm reading, the reviews that we have of books, and all that sort of experience up there. You can also go to facebook.com. The Chris Voss Show is the forward slash after the Chris Facebook. I don't know why I can't butcher that right. Anyway, guys, thanks for tuning in.

Thanks for Chris for being here. Be safe, stay safe, wear your mask, and we'll see you guys next time. Thanks again.