The One You Feed - Therese Borchard on Strategies for Depression

Episode Date: August 27, 2021

Therese Borchard is the author of Beyond Blue and The Pocket Therapist. She blogs for Everyday Health and is an Associate Editor and a regular contributor to Psych Central. She writes about her own struggles with depression.In this episode, Eric and Therese discuss her book, Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad GenesBut wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!In This Interview, Therese Borchard and I Discuss Strategies for Depression and …Her book, Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad GenesHer struggle with treatment-resistant depressionHow she combined a holistic and traditional approach to treating her depressionAvoiding important conversations when hungry, angry, lonely, and tired (HALT)The importance of connecting with others who share the same challengesWhy there are not more depression support groupsThe difference between mental health and 12 step cultureLearning to live with the messiness of life and accepting things as they areTherese Borchard Links:Therese’s WebsiteProject Hope and BeyondFacebookTwitterIf you enjoyed this conversation with Therese Borchard, you might also enjoy these other episodes:Brent Williams on Recovering From DepressionMark Henick on Suicide and DepressionSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In case you're just recently joining us or however long you've been a listener of the show, you may not realize that we have over seven years of incredible episodes in our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that we've decided to handpick one of our favorites that may be new to you, but if not, it definitely is worth another listen. We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Therese Borchardt. It's funny because I met my husband and I told him it was going to be five years before we slept together and it was like the second night. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.

Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really No Really

podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the show. Our guest today is Therese Borchardt, author of Beyond Blue and The Pocket Therapist. She blogs for Everyday Health and is an associate editor and regular contributor to Psych Central. She writes about her own struggles

with depression. Here's the show. Hi, Therese. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me on. We are happy to have you on. You've done a lot of writing about depression, which is something that we talk about on this show a fair amount. You've, uh, you had a pretty popular blog on BeliefNet for a long time, and you've got a book called Beyond Blue, which I really enjoyed. So we will dive into a lot of that stuff, but let's start with the parable like we always do. So there is a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and

fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, grandfather, well, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well, let me say, I love that parable. The first time I heard it was about four years ago at church, ironically, because the sermons usually aren't that good. But this one, it made an impact on me, and I've remembered that, and I've had that in the back of my mind as I go forth with trying to find ways of living around what I call my treatment-resistant depression. I think you always have to be cognizant of those two wolves

because when you are trying so hard to feed one, you don't realize how sneaky the other is. And before you know it, you're feeding the wrong wolf and you're back to where you started. So having in mind those two, I, I try to make a conscious effort on doing the things that are going to result in more love and compassion. It's the same message I think that Viktor Frankl has with his book, The Man's Search for Meeting, that also was a very important book for me to read because I had kind of hit rock bottom and I had tried 50 different medication combinations. I

tried mindfulness meditation, acupuncture, every kind of alternative therapy out there, and I still had these horrible death thoughts. And when I read that book, I realized that he, you know, in the Auschwitz and the concentration camps, I mean, he was, he was there with wolves all around him, just, just trying to eat from his very being that he was just attacked all the time. And yet he found a way to find that wolf of love and compassion and turn that horrible time into a, just a blessing and to a lesson for each of us. And so I've, I've tried to do that and to turning my suffering into service.

And when I do that, I do feel more compassion and peace and serenity. So why don't you tell the listeners just a brief overview of your story that's in the book about your battles with depression. And I would be interested in also where things pick up, because the book was several years ago, right? So I'd be interested in kind of after the book also how, how your ongoing, um, challenges have been with depression. Sure. Well, I, I really feel like I have been depressed from the time that I was born. I was a colicky infant. And, um, when I was a child had, I was very Catholic. And so I had a scrupulosity,

couldn't say enough prayers, couldn't go to enough masses, was afraid I was going to hell. That kind of morphed into an eating disorder. When I was an adolescent girl, I wanted to be a professional ballerina. And that's kind of the culture there is a little dangerous towards the body. And so I got carried away with that. But when I got in high school, I started to drink and so went downhill fast with the drinking. I call liquor the quiet car in my brain. You know, when you're on Amtrak and you're looking for the quiet car because everyone's on the phone. The quiet car for me was liquor. It was the first time that I was able to relax in my own brain.

And I still remember the feeling of being able to do that. But, you know, as in all alcoholic stories, it took me down. So once I got sober, I started to really, I was in therapy in college. And she thought I was depressed and wanted to put me on an antidepressant. And I was very opposed because my aunt, my godmother, was bipolar and took her life. And I just remember being so scared that I was like her. And so when she said, you know, I think you're depressed, my defenses went up. And it took about a year and a half for me to come around and to really acknowledge that and start the road to recovery. So I was good for a while until I had my kids. And I think from what

I've read, childbirth can just do a real number on a woman's body as far as hormonally. A lot of people who had depression prior to childbirth end up with bipolar disorder after childbirth. Not a lot, but some do. And so that's what happened to me. After I stopped nursing my second child, I hit a bottom that had been lower than anything I had ever done. And so I went from psychiatrist to psychiatrist, seven in all. And one of them was a very aggressive guy who worked for some pharmaceuticals, and he was just giving me a very dangerous combinations of medication. And so I basically fell into my cereal bowl one morning and was hospitalized

and was hospitalized twice. Actually, the last time was at Johns Hopkins and I met a wonderful physician who guided me from that point to I think where I wrote the book. I had gone through a period where I really tried the alternative ways acupuncture tried to go off my medication and ended up in a ball in my bedroom closet. And my husband said, you know, please do this for me. But with the help of the psychiatrist and with an endocrinologist, because it was also a matter of having a pituitary tumor and addressing that as well. I had two very good years. That's when I wrote the book. Since then, since 2008, I've been struggling again. And this time, I, you know, again,

tried many different combinations. And when I hit like number 50, I, you know, again, tried many different combinations. And when I hit like number 50, I just didn't think that it was that it just felt like I was beating a dead horse with with a toilet plunger, something that was not working. And so I, I have a great deal of respect for my psychiatrist, but I just started to kind of wonder about the field of psychiatry itself. And so I began to see a holistic doctor and inquire more about my diet and see someone who could really concentrate on my endocrine system because my pituitary tumor was still so out of whack and my thyroid is also kind of out of whack. So that journey has been the last year. And I, in the last two or three months, I feel like I finally, you know, I'm still on medication and I still go to my psychiatrist, but with those

pieces in place, I feel like I'm really starting to regain health. And I've had to make some very, um, uh, difficult changes in my diet. I've given up gluten, dairy, alcohol, caffeine, sugar, um, and, um, and, um, take enough supplements that it takes me about a half hour each week to fill them up. And there's one-size containers. But I think it's finally starting to pay off if I do absolutely everything that I can to work towards good mental health. I can't just go to a psychiatrist and a counselor. For me, it has to be the whole body, the whole everything. I found that to be one of the interesting things about your story is that in your book, there's a lot of concern because you've got a lot of people who are pointing you to

holistic sources of healing, as you mentioned, acupuncture, or if you just meditate right or go to enough yoga. And I found it interesting in the book that you were realizing that those things were not sufficient and that they still aren't. But now you've found a way to pair the more traditional medical treatment, the antidepressant medicine and traditional therapy with some of those more holistic approaches? Yeah, I think for me, I need both. And that's, it's been frustrating because those worlds are so different. And if I go to a holistic doctor, most of them are going to say, we don't believe in mental diagnoses. We don't believe in mental illnesses because everything comes from toxins. Everything comes from, you know, they don't believe in that in itself.

And then, but most of psychiatry really doesn't pay a lot of attention to diet, which I think is huge. And so I've been trying to address that on my blog a lot to inform people because I don't think I got well. And I feel confident right now that I'll probably stay well because I have all of these pieces in place. My husband has been really great. When I first just wanted to take the holistic route and go off all my medication, was um he has we have a lot of people in our community who are um new age and they he remembers when he was a kid watching this um documentary on uri geller uh the guy who bent the spoon with his with his thoughts and um thoughts. And finally, when I was so desperate and, but was so stubborn to really accept the health of traditional medicine, he said, I think you've been staring at that spoon for too long.

You know, I've been trying to fix my brain with my thoughts themselves and that it didn't work for me. It might work for other people, but it didn't work for me. It might work for other people, but it didn't work for me. Well, I think it's a very much a matter of degree of depression. I think I talk a lot on the show about the depression that I deal with, and it's never been as crippling as what you describe or other people have. It's more of a consistent, you know, longer term, you know, lower level chronic condition. And so it does respond better to certain things. But But I've come to the same conclusion that you have, which is that I don't think that either of those camps is really sufficient. And I think that the way that we treat depression as a

whole in this country is woefully inadequate. And the only thing that I found for me, it sounds very similar to your experience, is to sort of treat all parts of myself. Exactly. The physical, the emotional, the mental, all those things. If I'm working on all those things, then I end up in a much better place than if I'm working on any one of those in particular. So just medicine is helpful, but not enough. Obviously, just meditation doesn't get it done. I found I have to sort of stack all that stuff together.

Right. Yeah. Do you find that you don't, it just seems like most of the people are in one camp or another though. I agree. I think most people are in one camp or the other, which is, I'm, I'm always suspicious of anybody who's in one particular camp. Cause I don't think any, I don't think any issue in life that people have wrestled with for a long time is an easy, has an easy answer to it, or it would have been solved, right? If there was an easy answer for depression, it would be solved by now. If there was an easy answer for how to have healthcare in the US, it would have been solved by now, right? These are complex challenges. And that's why anybody who proposes like, all you have to do is this one little thing I'm always skeptical of.

Right? Yeah. Well, good for you for having a venue where you can really explore this, because I don't think there's enough of this information out there. Yeah, I agree. It's one of the things we try and focus on. A couple things that you talk about in your book and your blog I'm really interested in, and one of them is the idea of our thoughts. You talk about a couple schools of thought out there. There's one, if you take it to its extreme, or the general, which is that what we think about doesn't have much to do with what goes on in our body. These things are fairly disconnected. The other school of thought going to the other extreme is that everything that happens to us is a result of what we think. And I've seen you write in your blog before about how we can get so stuck on thinking that every little thing that we

think or do is the cause of what's wrong with us. Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned that. I love neuroscience for that because it gives you hope that the brain is plastic and you can carve those neural passageways or the neural passageways. But when I am very depressed, it works against me because I'm constantly beating myself up. As soon as I have a thought, I'm like, oh, I just carved that passageway. And then that will go compile against itself. And it's a real nightmare. And that's why someone asked me the other day what I thought of cognitive behavioral therapy. And I think it's very, very helpful. Like Dr. Burns stuff and all that stuff has been very helpful, but I can't do it when I'm severely depressed. When I'm severely depressed, I, I just have to distract myself because the more I try to think, um, of, you know,

and, and, and carve the right quote positive passageways, then the, the more I'm just kind of digging myself a hole because I'm feeling responsible then for my depression, which is making me, you know, feel even more depressed, which is, you know, it's a downhill spiral. But on the other hand, I don't think that it's healthy for people to think that they can, um, that they can, you know, stay in a, in a resentment or a stoop or, you know, entertain, um, a thought that's kind of hurtful and not have their body be affected by that. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth.

Plus, does Tom cruise really do his own stunts his stunt man reveals the answer and you never know who's going to drop by mr brian kranson is with us how are you hello my friend wayne knight about jurassic park wayne knight welcome to really no really sir bless you all hello newman and you never know when howie mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, no really. Yeah, really. No really.

Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. you get your podcasts. I do these mini episodes where I talk for, you know, four or five minutes about just thoughts

I have on different things. It's the usual, let me turn this off now for our listeners, but it's a, I'm kidding, mostly, but I did one on rumination and the idea was simply that sometimes I can't think my way out of that situation.

I simply just have to give my brain something else to focus on. And I think there are, I found some positive techniques for doing that. You know, one would be like, one of the things I do is I call it the alphabet gratitude game, where I have to go through the alphabet and think of something I'm grateful for, each letter. And it's mainly the thinking of something for each letter that's the really helpful part because it gives my brain something to hang on to. But it's got the side benefit of me thinking about things that I think are positive. That's great. So, but I'm with you 100% on that inability when I'm really stuck to think my way out of it. And another analogy that I think is useful in that sense, or another stuck to think my way out of it. And another analogy that I think

is useful in that sense, or another way to think of it is, it's sort of when people are fighting. And once you get to a certain point of being angry, there is nothing positive that is going to happen until you calm down. It just simply doesn't matter what you try and do. It's to a certain extent, a matter of time and, you know, no, no exposure to the thing you're angry at before you're able to think in any kind of positive way. Right. Yeah. No, that's very true. Um, it's like, uh, someone told me that you never say anything important to your spouse before asking yourself if you're hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, you know, the, the 12 step halt. And, um, and I've added one more is, uh, if you're hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, you know, the 12-step halt. And I've added one more

is if you're in the car, because our worst argument when we're in the car, because I'm very nervous. I'm a nervous front seat driver. And so that's a very good one. I've had a lot of really bad fights in the car too. So you wrote an article recently that was about things you wish people knew about depression. And I was wondering if you could maybe share a few of those that if you, if you could tell people about depression, what are some of the things you wish that everyone knew? I wish people knew that you could be grateful and depressed at the same time. You know, I keep on hearing that if you're grateful, then you can't be depressed. And while I've read that research, I disagree with it because I've been physiologically depressed, but grateful at the same time.

I think it's incorrect to say that people who are depressed don't know what blessings they have in their life. I think they do. I mean, I know that most of the people who I know that are severely depressed do. And that's part of the reason that they feel so bad is they can't celebrate those, but they are intrinsically and authentically grateful for that. That's one of the things. And again, it's that it's the holistic versus medical world issue. I feel like, you know, I was really hopeful when I was reading all these diet and nutrition books that if I eliminated gluten, wheat, or wheat is gluten, dairy, sugar, caffeine, wheat, or wheat is gluten, dairy, sugar, caffeine, that all, you know, these books say in six weeks, you just, you're like a different person, and you've never had a bad thought in your life. And that's, I think, very scary for, I think it's unfair for people to expect someone to just

change their diet and not be depressed. I mean, I changed my diet and I still was very, very suicidal. So, um, to know that that's not, it's not as easy as that. It's not as easy as going to yoga, yoga. Actually, when I, back in 2005, um, I had to stop going to yoga because my, my worst suicidal ruminations happened in yoga. It gave me the room to think, you know, during that hour and a half. And that's dangerous for someone who's that low. So again, it's just not black and white. It's not do yoga, drink a kale smoothie in the morning, and you're fine.

Well, guess what? I've done those things. What if you put vodka in your kale smoothie? Well, maybe that's true. That's the green quiet car. Yeah, that's, that's very good point. And then on the other end, you know, people who I think that medication is the reason why you get well, I mean, I think it certainly can be part of the equation, but I don't think it's fair to say that just because you're, you know, you're on medication and you're seeing a counselor, that means that you aren't going to be depressed. There's so much more work that you have to go into it. Um,

so it's, I guess it's again, that, that, that double whammy that you're hit by between the holistic world and the pharmaceutical world that I wanted to discuss. And also just the, just the amount of trying. I had six years between 2008 until very recently that I had these very loud death thoughts and I would have to go to dinner with people and laugh and, you know, fake and then come home and Google how to get cancer. I mean, people don't realize that we're used to it. You know, people who have been severely depressed for so long, I'm used to, I'm used to a good act. And so that doesn't mean I'm not that that pain isn't any more real. How have you found because you are the leader of a, maybe leader is the wrong word, but you founded a Facebook group

called Beyond Blue that you're a key part of. How has the interaction with that group been different from when you were doing better and when you were struggling again? How did you approach that? Well, I actually started it in May. I had been eating, made the diet restrictions about five months before, and I still didn't notice anything. And I was on the 50th medication. And I basically thought that I was going to have to live with these death thoughts for the rest of my life. And so I better connect with some people and learn how to do it. So I started that. And I think that that's partly also why I'm better today is because I don't feel I'm as unique as I thought I was before. I mean, I don't know anyone in my friend circle or in my family circle who, who deals with what I do, but man, there are tons of people

online who, you know, have to deal with these same thoughts every single day. And to see them, I mean, some of them are so heroic in the way that they do and, and they offer help and they, you know, it's, it's, again, it's Viktor Frankl's turning to service, I think has really helped them and I'm learning from them that it helps me. So I try to, um, I try to get on there and help people for like at least an hour a day, because it's, it's kind of like that one story where the two people are gonna, uh, or the one person is going to jump off a cliff and commit suicide. And then another person comes up and is going to do the same. And she turns around and tries to save the one, you know, right. You forget about your pain when you're trying to sort of do emergency calls there.

But the group has really, it's been good for me in that way. I do have to watch the compassion fatigue because there's some people that, you know, we're not a suicide hotline, and so when you get to the space where you're just really in danger, it's not, I don't think, a good place to be our site because I'm not a mental health professional. Thank God, because if I was, I'd probably be responsible for all these people, and I'm a theology major, so thank God I'm not. But I do have to watch that line of getting compassion fatigue and watching, you know, just being good to myself. But some of the people just really blow me away with their compassion and their resolve and the way they just trudge through every day and just, you know, put one foot in front of the other. It's good for me to see that I'm not alone. Yeah, I had no idea the group was that new. And it's a really interesting group. My reaction to it is, I usually have a couple of reactions. One is, it can be a heartbreaking place to spend much time because there's a lot of people

struggling. And yet you're right, there's so much beautiful compassion between those people that is there. And I think when you think about a holistic approach to depression or really mental health in general, whether that be improving your mental health from where it is to better or moving out of depression, another one that I think is frequently overlooked is exactly what you just said, is the connection to people, but very importantly, connection to people who can understand you. Yeah, exactly. I think all of us have in common that loneliness. I think that's the worst part of this depression is that loneliness of no one really getting you. And so that, I mean, it's been really, really cool to see people come in who were suicidal and now posting funny videos

and, you know, a woman who now has the energy to take care of her grandkids and to see that progress just from nothing's changed except that she's communicating with other people who understand her. It's amazing. So I'm in the process right now of building a site for that, so it's not on Facebook because Facebook has its limitations. Yeah. Yeah. Every once in a while, somebody will post something they mean for the group on the main part of Facebook and be mortified. I have a question for you, though. This is similar because I've wondered about this for a long time. And you come from a 12-step culture, so you're familiar with what all that is like. I've always been curious why there is no such thing as depression support groups

in real life. Or let me rephrase that because I know there are some, but there's very few of them. They're not well marketed in any way. I kind of wonder, is it just by the nature of depression that people don't, you know, part of that is an isolation thing. But I've just been curious, because if you think about the power that comes from being online in that group, if you could translate that into the face-to-face power that you get in other recovery programs, it would be really helpful. Yeah, that's funny that you ask that because I actually am putting together a foundation right now. It's called Beyond Blue Foundation to get funding for the new site. But also one of the

programs that I really want is called Find Your Tribe. And it's, it's based on that quote that when you find people who, um, don't think that you're weird, but, but, um, react and, and joy and say, me too, you have found your tribe. Um, and I love that because I, I feel like that's what we are on tribe GBB or group, um, group beyond blue. So I, I want to be able to do that. And I think if the site gets big enough, then, you know, we'll have people in different cities and can kind of form, um, have the, the online community actually become a real community outside. I've been to NAMI meetings and while I'm a big supporter of NAMI, I, the meetings have not really been, I think it's more for support for parents and family members of people who are depressed. I haven't received that much support for, like you said, people who are going

through it. I don't know if it's anonymity or, you know, the 12-step culture clashes a little bit with mental health culture. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal?

The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening?

Really, No Really. Yeah, really. No Really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or limited edition signed jason bobblehead it's called really no really and you can find it on the iheart radio app on apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts let me lead us into that discussion by reading something you wrote because i thought it was really really good and i'll read it and then we can kind of go into it a little bit more you said the difference between sobriety culture there said the difference between sobriety culture, there's a difference

between sobriety culture and mental illness culture. In the substance abuse culture, the person is generally viewed as the agent of the problem, and they are held accountable and have consequences for the relapse. In the mental illness culture, the person is often viewed not as the agent of the problem, but as the victim of their illness. And we tend to hold people a little less accountable for biochemical processes. Yeah, I got into trouble with that when I first got sober. And I was in college and I was struggling with my depression at the same time. And whenever I tried to voice my desperation that, you know, I had these horrible suicidal thoughts, death thoughts, they don't be like, you know, pour me, pour me, pour me a drink,

you know, write your gratitude list, write your, and it was, I learned that I can't talk about my depression in AA or else I, it's, it's something that I've done to myself, which made me more depressed. So I actually stopped going to the support group meetings because I just didn't, you know, some, and my sponsor said that if I take antidepressants, those are happy pills that are going to compromise my sobriety. And so, yeah, I, there's, there's a big clash there and maybe that's the reason why the 12 step movement has never taken off, um, health because it is, it's, it's almost more like a cancer survival group than it is like an AA group. Yeah. So that is, it's something that I really want to work on because I have a few people who I met through the actual group Beyond Blue. We get together every once in

a while. And just the human connection, the in-person connection does lend itself to so much more. So who knows, maybe you and I can start that movement. Yeah, I'm certainly I am. I'm very interested in that idea. I do think that the overall recovery or sobriety culture has changed a fair amount from probably when you were in college. Not that I'm insinuating that that was a long time ago. I'm just saying that. I got somewhere 25 years ago. It is. When I, I mean, I first became exposed to recovery culture about 20 years ago, and I heard a lot more of that sort of stuff than I ever hear these days.

I'm not nearly as involved, but I think it has softened to some degree. But I think very similarly to what we were talking about before, I think either side of that camp is wrong. fault and it's yet still whether whatever causes it mental ill if it's mental illness or you still are responsible for your own path to getting better and so it's it's neither it's both those camps again seem to me to be on the extreme yeah no i agree with you i agree with you 100 yeah it's um we we run into that in the group a little bit, you know, you gotta, people are there to support each other, but you also have to want to get well yourself. And I'm not sure that that's there for everyone. So, yeah. I saw that discussion. Uh, I don't remember where it was you had about, so you're on the group beyond blue. Yeah. Uh-huh. I am. That's so cool. I don't post very much.

I mainly just am kind of hanging out watching and reading and liking some things here and there with the occasional comment. But I'm fairly not too involved. I didn't make the connection between the Eric Zimmer of the show and the, yeah. Okay, now that I think I have seen. That's great. Yeah. I'm a, I, I'm in disguise in there. I've got a, it's, it's a, it's a clown suit that I picture you see me in, or I just put, I put Chris's picture in for anything that I'm, I'm a little bit nervous about being involved in. in. The guidelines, the rules have been kind of difficult to uphold. And that's, you know,

AA is really good about that, about, you know, you're responsible for yourself. So. Yeah. There's a lot to learn in any sort of group dynamic from AA because they got a lot of things really right to survive as long as it has and to the scale it has. It's kind of amazing, but I think I have plenty of challenges with it. I think the same as a lot of people do. So one of the things that I wanted to, we're kind of coming to the near the end of our time, but one of the things I wanted to ask you about is you have a quote in your book. That's one of my favorite quotes and it's from Rilke about loving the question. So can you tell me a little bit about that quote and what it means to you? Um, I love that quote because I grew up as being so black and white. And I think if I had to say what I've learned through my journey, it's to appreciate the gray.

That quote is similar to Pema Chodron, the Buddhist nun. And she talks about, you know, you think you're, you're always going to fix things, but then they fall apart again. And then you fix them and then they fall apart and you have to learn to exist where there's room for misery and room for joy and that to me is what I try to aim for because with the mental health when I'm trying to fix it so that I don't have a symptom, then I'm setting myself up because, you know, the way I made my biochemistry, I'm going to have this stuff for the rest of my life. But if I can learn to live with my symptoms and live with the questions

and address all that gray matter as it comes, then there's going to be a lot less frustration and I might be able to help a person or two along the way instead of cower and a quarter in a temper tantrum for not, you know, getting it perfect. So it's funny, I was a theology major. And when I was writing a paper, I was so black and white that I wrote this paper on, I still can't believe this paper, on why everybody who had premarital sex would burn in hell. And I mean, I was so like, like off the charts, you know, black and white. And so my, my teacher, my teacher wrote, um, wrote in the, in the bottom, she said, I hope you learn a little nuance in your life. And five years later, my dad had died and, and it was just a mess. And, you know, I started to, to know that things are just messy.

They're just messy. So I came back and knocked on her door and I said, yeah, thanks. Although I've always believed in premarital sex. So, um, well then it's funny cause I met my husband and, um, I told him it was going to be five years before we slept together. And it was like the second night, you know, on our first, one of our first dates, he said, where do you see yourself in five years? And I said, as a missionary and nun and third world country. And he's like, oh, interesting. He was like, we better get this done quickly then.

Yes, things, things are messy. Things are messy. And, and being okay with that is a big help. We talk on the show a lot about feeling bad about feeling bad or this idea of just all the stuff that we layer on top of the pain that's already there. And I think that's another way of doing it, which is this believing that things should be really different than they are. It's one thing to want them to be different. It's a different thing to think that they should be different. Right, right.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I do think you're doing a lot of great work and helping a lot of people out there with your blog and your book. And it's clear the group is helping a ton of people. Well, thank you. You too with this great podcast series. ton of people well thank you you too with the with this great podcast series yes well thank you so much and uh thanks for coming on the show

and we'll talk again soon okay thank you all right bye you can learn more about therese orchard and this podcast at one new feed.net slash therese that's t-h-e-r-e-s-e