TRIGGERnometry - "Don't Let the Unfairness of Life Make You a Victim" - Mikhaila Peterson

Episode Date: February 7, 2021

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Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kition. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our fantastic guest today is a podcast host, Michaela Peterson. Welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's so good to have you. We were just as we were setting up the interview, we were talking about how excited we are to talk to you. Because Francis and I both did a little bit of research as we sometimes do on you. And your life story is just you've had so many difficulties that you've had to deal with in your life. We just first of all wanted to talk to you about that.

Because you know, you go from having a lot of health issues as a kid and mental health issues. Then your dad becomes a superstar. There's a whole, then he's a Nazi. Then there's this whole thing, right? All sorts of things. And the last year you've had to look after him. There's been a ton of stuff going on. And it's incredible how well put together you are.

in spite of all these difficulties. So we would just, you know, we talk about ideas on trigonometry more than anything. But I think mindset is a big thing that we also want to talk about. And, you know, you are an example of a lot of resilience. How has your life been? And just talk to us about all of that. How well put together I appear. Yeah.

Talk to us about how well put together you appear. Go for it. So to give people a brief background about the health issues I went through and just kind of what's happened. I'm 29 now. When I was 7, I was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and it was everywhere except for my spine. Wow.

So I had, at that point, I had 32 joints affected. When I was 12, I was diagnosed with bipolar type 2, mainly really severe depression. When I was 21, I was diagnosed with idiopathic hypersomnia, which is basically narcolepsy. It's just like, we're not sure why, but you're sleeping all the time. I had rashes and I was getting sicker and sicker. When I was 17, I had my hip and ankle replaced from the arthritis that wasn't kept under control with the immune suppressants I was injecting myself with since I was eight. So I didn't, like as a kid, I guess, if you're sick, it's very, because you don't know a lot of other kids, it's hard to tell what the difference between your life and somebody else's is. I had my brother to compare myself to and I was like, well, why me?

Like, why is that me and not him? Because he's like, perfect example of health. It's like, how's that fair? And then when I was 23 and I kept getting sicker and sicker and I was on more and more medication and my skin stopped healing, I thought, okay, I have to figure this out or it's going to kill me. And we have, I have second cousins and a lot of autoimmune problems on my dad's side. And some of those people were really sick.

I had a second cousin who passed away when she was 30 from a skin autoimmune disorder that or something. They're not entirely sure, but she had symptoms that were similar to mine, but she didn't have arthritis. So I thought, okay, I have to figure this out. So I never really thought about myself as resilient because I thought, what other option do I have? I'm just going to, you know, you either learn and survive or you're going to die. That's kind of how I thought about it. I'm also kind of prone to volatility and anger, which is, I think, part of actually what helped me get through the sicknesses instead of wilting away. I got angry.

So if we want to talk about resiliency a little bit, I guess, and mindset and how to get through. That was just the health aspect, right? Right. I'll rewind a little bit. So I got, I started to get healthy because I went on this like insane diet adventure and I kind of got, right? raked over the coals in the media for that. I went super, super low carb, which is more, at least you hear about it now. And that helped a lot of my autoimmune symptoms.

And then I ended up on an all meat diet, not because I wanted to be controversial or only eat meat because it's actually not fun, but because the alternative was having an autoimmune disorder and a mood disorder. And then at the same time, my dad went on the diet. He lost a bunch of weight because he had autoimmune problems and really severe depression. He started feeling better. And at the same time, he got famous and there was all that controversy, which was incredibly stressful. I think even just a positive experience with fame is incredibly stressful. But my dad's experience was a lot of it was negative. We figured out that a lot of the

media sources were lying about him, right? And you can't really tell. what they're lying about, but when a story comes out about your dad about things he said that he didn't say, it's pretty, then you go, well, what, what else are they lying about? Like, is everything I read from them about other people a lie? So I dealt with that. I had a baby pretty, like some of these things, it seems I kind of brought onto myself. I had a baby when I was 24 in a fairly new relationship and that's my husband but it was like incredibly stressful at the time uh and then in the last couple of years my family's gotten incredibly sick so it was like as soon as i got healthy in this insane way that nobody believed that the media made fun of um my mom got this

deadly kidney cancer collecting dot cancer and she almost died but she made it which wasn't supposed to happen but it did and then my dad had had an issue, you could say, with anti-anxiety medication. So it turns out if you suddenly kind of stop taking SSRIs, people don't know about this, but if you suddenly stop taking SSRIs, you can get SSRI withdrawal. And you're not really told that there's SSRI withdrawal when you go on SSRIs. People know about opiate withdrawal. They know about benzodiazepine withdrawal, but they don't really know there's SSRI withdrawal. So part of the neurological problems dad and I both had that drove us towards this low-carb diet were from SSRI withdrawal,

which he ended up treating with benzodiazepines. Turns out that's not a good idea. And he ended up with a side effect called acethegia. And acethegia is the worst thing I've ever seen. and I've seen some pretty gnarly things. Having a hip and ankle replacement isn't great. But acanthesias a movement disorder, and it's a side effect of some psych meds that people don't really know about. So then we dealt with that for two years.

And it looks as if things are kind of on the upswing now. So like mom had her near-death thing. Dad had his. I had mine for a really long time. although it was kind of slow and drawn out and I wouldn't say it was as dramatic as mom and dads, but we're hoping that there's a bit of a pause. But I think I got through it by using anger. So instead of being like, this is going to flatten me, it was really, you know, whenever I got that feeling like, oh, I can't, I can't handle this.

Like, how is this happening? This is too much, you know, I'm in too much pain. This is too hard. I can't handle this. whenever I had that I can't handle this pop into my head, then I'd have this surge of anger where it was like, no, fuck you, this is not what takes me out. Like, I don't know who I was swearing at, but reality was just like,

this is not the direction my reality is going to continue in. And then I'd kind of wrangle it back under control and try and push it in a different direction. And I'm writing a memoir at the tender age of 29, just about going through the autoimmune disorder and what happened with my dad and my mom. And it was just a bunch of random things that happened to me. And I realized last week that the kind of underlying theme was maybe resiliency and how to stay like alive if you get hit over and over and over again. And I think especially nowadays, even just experiencing lockdowns that people are,

it's really hard and you can be you know you can be in a pretty good place and in a lockdown and your life can still kind of suck but if you're in a bad place and then you put a lockdown on top of that people need to find how to become resilient

I guess within them nowadays or they're not going to make it so amicalia you use the word resiliency but what does that mean to you because a number of times we use these words and they mean different things to different people? To me it means if you get hit, it makes you stronger.

So it's not just limping around. It's if you get a hurt, you can turn that into something that makes you stronger. You know, one of the things I've been thinking about is if nothing bad ever happened in your life again, you would still be like, I've had my fair share of challenges, right? Like that's how I feel just knowing some of the things you've been dealing with. And it struck me that's kind of like a big theme in your dad's work as well, the idea that life is unfair and you have to learn to deal with it. Like, how do you deal with the fact that life is unfair? You have to, you have to try and find the positives and situations.

And you'll get people who say, oh God, you'll get people who say, you know, you go to a few. funeral and then you come out and you're miserable and someone will go, well, they're in a better place now and you just like, you just want to slap them. So I don't mean like find, find, I mean find good things in like terrible situations. I don't mean that the terrible situation is worth it. I just mean you're going to have a terrible situation happen to you. Like everybody is, everybody experiences death from someone they love. So that at least is probably going to happen. And then there might be more.

There might be disease, which is horrible. Or there might just be, you know, lockdowns, which isn't disease and death, but it's not good. And so you have to try and find the good in it. So for me, having, having, it's easier. I find it's easier if it's happening to you and not to someone you love, because that's really hard to wrap your mind around. But if it's happening to you, then you can say, well, assuming this situation, whatever I'm in,

is going to end, maybe I can stop this from happening to other people. So part of the reason I've been so vocal about the diet that worked for me is because I've seen it work for other people. So if I can stop, you know, one other person from having to live their life in chronic pain, then me having the chronic pain is more worth it. And the more people I can help makes it more worth it. And at the moment, I think that I've helped enough people that I wouldn't take it back. So I think the way you survive really terrible situations is you find the good in whatever

happened and you make whatever happened to you worth it. And that's really tricky when it's like somebody you love dying. Like, that's not another level, but I don't see any other way that you can psychologically survive. And it's a really, really good point. I mean, it becomes even more tricky when you factor in depression, when your own mind is ill. I mean, that is surely the ultimate, isn't it, trying to overcome something when your own mind is conspiring against you? Yeah. So I have a few comments on that, too.

I had, so I had bipolar type 2, but my main symptom was this severe depression. And when people asked what that was like, it was like, it was like a really heavy version of when you're in a bad area and you're walking down an alley and you think you're going to get jumped, but you had that feeling all the time. So it's like constant jumpiness. And that's, but it's way worse than that. It was like walking through tar all the time. Like everything was heavy to lift up except as worse.

I always at the time when I was depressed, I used to be like, you know, it's kind of like your dog died. And you can go to a party, but your dog just died. So you always have that feeling. And then my dog died and I was like, oh, that was not nearly as bad as this depression. So how do you, I think that you have to figure out how to take. tackle the depression because when I was depressed, I couldn't trust anything I was thinking. It was always, you know, I'd have this wonderful opportunity present itself. And now I have a much easier time judging opportunity for what it's worth, but I'd have this opportunity to present itself.

And then I'd think, well, these are all the 10,000 ways it can go wrong. And then inevitably, it would. And I'd be like, well, why doesn't that happen to my brother? Like, he just assumes everything's going to be okay and it is. And I assume everything's going to be wrong. And it always is wrong. So I wouldn't I, why wouldn't I continue assuming it's going to go wrong? But I think, like, this is why I'm a big proponent of diet, to be honest. I think that if you have a psych condition and you're walking around in pain, you need to get the source of the condition under control. And generally speaking, unless it's situational, I think that a lot of that can be handled by less inflammatory diets, so less carbs. And people underestimate how much of a difference that

can make because you go, oh, well, you know, don't eat as much sugar. And it's like, my depression's way worse than me eating sugar. But if you go low carb, I've seen that help a lot of people. If you're situationally depressed because someone near you is sick or dying, then you have to just truck through that until it's over. And you have to remember that these periods of time are awful when they're happening, but they will end. Just have to keep that in mind. Like, this isn't forever. Especially, like, people have that with this lockdown, right? Like there's this number of suicides is devastating. People who are already kind of at risk and then they're just like, I'm isolated, I can't handle this.

But people have to remember that this isn't forever. There's like, there's going to be a way out. So just just wait it out. And a lot of getting through tough things is waiting, unfortunately. Look, I spend a lot of time telling you what's wrong with the world. So let me tell you about something that's actually right. Sleep, specifically getting more of it, better quality. the kind where you wake up and feel like a human being,

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Avocado green mattress.com slash trigger. That's really good point. I mean, we talk to some of our fans every month and the one we did just a couple of days ago. It was, yeah, people are really struggling with these lockdowns. And I think, as you say, that sense of knowing that this two shall pass can be very helpful for very bad times like now, but also actually for very good times. Sometimes you're too high on the immediate success and you also want to take a more measured

approach to, I guess, is what I'm saying. One of the things I'm hearing, McKelley, in a lot of what you're saying, you're talking about anger and you're talking about finding solutions, right? And that takes us very neatly into something we talk about on the show a lot, which is the culture war. How do you, as someone who's been through all of that and has found that the best solution for your issues was to get into action, to do something? How do you feel about what I would describe as people being taught to be victims, being taught to have the exact opposite approach, to make their problem someone else's fault that they just can be sad about instead of actually taken action? And what do you make of all of that? Yeah, I think that could be deadly.

Like, I think that that ruins lives. Like, I was lucky enough to have my father as a father. And when I was diagnosed with arthritis, and I was diagnosed when I was seven. So I was in grade two. And I was really sick. I didn't want to go to school. I was really tired.

I was limping. Like, in grade three, I had a hard time walking. And he told me, never use your illness as an excuse. and I had all the excuses because I had arthritis everywhere and I was pretty miserable and in pain. But he said, like, err on the side of not using it as an excuse. And I think I probably, I think erring on the side of not using it as an excuse at all is safer, even though that's not exactly fair, right? there were times when I probably could have stayed in bed. But it doesn't help people.

And people are taught right now, something unfair happens to them. And it is unfair. And unfair things happen to everybody. And some people, they hit a lot worse, especially people who are sick, right? But telling them, telling them, so that there's a number of problems.

one, telling them that it's someone else's fault means they can't do anything about it. So it takes all the power away from them. One of the issues I had with, I've got issues with a lot of things, but I have issues with the medical system and how they treat chronically ill people because they say, this is a disease and you're going to have it forever. And it takes any hope of getting better away because they say that's not possible. so you don't even look. People don't even look. They go, this is, you know, this is just what it is. I have to live with it. And I think even in that respect, it would be more helpful if you were kind of told, oh, yeah, you're really sick and we can't help you, so you're going to have to figure it out. And if people were told that for these other things that they say are unfair, like if you're not born a white person, if you're female, if you're transgender, whatever, it would probably be better to say, you, you're, you're not born a white person, if you're female, if you're transgender, whatever, it would probably be better to say, You know, you might have a harder time in some aspects, but you're going to have to figure out what to do about it.

Not this is the patriarchy's fault and you're screwed. Like when I took sciences in university and this was before things got really weird in universities. But every two months, I'd have somebody and it wasn't a science student. It was somebody from some student group come in and they'd go, you know, we know all the women in this. class worked really hard to get here. And it was just like, that is so condescending. Like, like taking away. Yeah, I studied hard, as did everybody else.

But being like, I know it was extra hard for you. And just like, screw off with your fake, I don't even know what that is, fake empathy. But I'm, I think the victim mentality that people are being told is the right way to live life is really dangerous and I think it'll end up making people, like harming people, because they won't be able to escape it. They'll just be stuck in this victim box forever. Do you have a website or do you plan to have a website? Well, if you do, then EasyDNS are the company for you. Easy DNS is the perfect domain name registrar provider and web host for you. They have a track record of standing up for their clients, whether it be cancel culture,

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All you've got to do is head over to EasyDNS.com forward slash triggered and use our promo code, which is, of course, triggered as well, and you will get 50% off the initial purchase. Sign up for their newsletter, Access of Easy, that tells you everything you need to know about technology, privacy, and censorship. And why do you think we're being told that? Why do you think we're being encouraged to believe that narrative? I don't have any great conspiracy theories or anything. I don't know if it's coming from the top. I think it's just easier.

Like, if you get sick, lying around in bed, it is easier than continuing to go about life, pretending nothing's wrong. So I think it's an easy sell. And it's easy for groups of people to feel sorry about themselves together. I don't know.

What do you guys think? Do you think there's a reason we're being sold this? Yeah, I think you've hit the nail in the head. I think also people crave a tribe, don't they? We all want to be part of a group. Yeah. And if you put all those things together, and here's a tribe, we can all be victims together. We can all be oppressed together. We can make that the thing that we talk about, the thing that we quote unquote resist or whatever it is. I think people really want that belonging, don't they? And I also think people like simple solutions to complex problems. Yeah. Yeah. See, that's what. where I'd go, I'd say it's just it's easier. It's easier whining about your situation than trying to figure it out. It's really hard trying to figure out a problem. It's a lot easier being like,

this is completely, I'm not able to do this because it's somebody else's fault. And look at all the people around me who agree with me. Yeah, so I guess the tribe is a big part of it too. And for something like, like I originally saw this, because I was sick, there was a lot of catering to being sick. And you see that too with the, say, the fat acceptance movement. I can see where, I can see where it came from. But accepting being sick is really not good. You shouldn't make the norm or everybody will be sick and there'll be no reason for them to get better if they're just like, this is normal. It's dangerous. But we also glorify being sick now, don't we? If you see it, You know, you see it in people's bios, you know, BPD, depressive.

It's become an identity badge. Yeah. Yeah, it's weird because, okay, so I remember in maybe like 2004 or something around then, there was this big push for anxiety and depression mainly. And they're saying, you know, these are real things people are suffering from. It's not just situational. Like, this is a disease. And I think that was important because it is a disease.

and it's not just people being feeling sorry for themselves, right? There's different types of depression, but the inflammatory depression, that's a serious disease. And then it just went sideways. Like I can understand, again, with the fat acceptance movement, a lot of these people who have tried to lose weight a whole bunch of different ways. And they're exercising.

Like I've known people who are, you know, 350 pounds and run all the time and there's still 350 pounds. And so they go, well, I've tried exercising. It's not working. It's genetic and it's not my fault. So why are people bullying me about it? And that's kind of where the fat acceptance movement came out of. And so I think it's partly it's just people aren't educated on being healthy. And I think the same thing happened with, you know, I have bipolar and now it's in my bio is they honestly don't know to do about it. And so they're saying, well, that's who I am. Don't bug me about it because I can't change it. That's my opinion. I think part of the problem is people don't know how to deal with it.

And that goes back to the issues I have with the medical system telling you that there's nothing you can do about it. You have it for life. Here's some medication. Yeah, because it does seem that very much that, you know, people are in medication. A lot of them, like relatives who are very, very close to me just are medicated for their entire lives. But you really believe that with diet that you can overcome it. So could you just go into that a little bit? Yeah, I'll go into it in like brief detail. So I was brought into like if you have a sick kid, generally speaking, and you're a good parent, you try absolutely everything under the sun to get them better. So I was brought to every holistic practitioner that my mom could find. My dad was like, that's,

That's bullshit. But my mom was like, no, we'll try everything. Like muscle testing, like everything. And so I grew up and what I saw was my mom spending hordes of money. And we didn't have any money at that time. Like we weren't buying magazines or anything because we had like not enough money. My mom was to stay at home mom. And so I thought these are like quacks taking advantage of sick people and charging the money

because they're desperate. And this is so wrong. And it made me really angry. And that drove me away from the more natural route. Plus, the medical system was saying, this is uncontrollable. And were the scientists here? Those other people aren't scientists. But then when I started doing research and I actually looked at the science because it turns out when a paper is written, it takes approximately 30 years to get implemented into hospitals.

So if the people in the hospitals are saying they're scientists, they're also not right. They were scientists 30 years ago. So I started looking into it, and it turns out leaky gut is an actual thing. And that's because of the diets people have nowadays, which are highly processed, high sugar, it does cause a level of gut damage. And when you get gut damage, foods you're eating can escape into your blood. And then that can provoke an immune response because your body's like, what the hell is, you know, a large protein of, grain doing in here. And in certain susceptible people, this can provoke an entire immune response. So they've found out that with people with arthritis, there are proteins called lectins,

which are in grains, they're in legumes, they're in a lot of plants. And your body sees one of these lectins that escapes into your blood and then provokes an immune response, which is a totally reasonable response. But lectins also look like joint tissue. So it can miss communicate and then direct an immune response to its joint tissue. So this leaky gut theory that natural paths have been talking about for 20 years, there is scientific evidence behind it. And if you have food proteins escape into your body, it can just generally cause inflammation.

And there's been a huge link between inflammation and depression. Like one of the most closely associated symptoms, like physical symptoms with depression is low back pain. So it's not just in your head. It's also physical. And I've seen thousands and thousands of people get better simply going low carb. And the reason that seems to work is because there are certain foods that cause leaky gut more than others. And this is probably combined with antibiotic use, medication.

Like our bodies aren't, we're not, like, we can't drink paint, right? We can't eat absolutely everything and not get sick. And you can see that really well by some of the middle states. If you're just there, people are, like, visibly ill compared to places in Europe. And it looks like there's good evidence that a lot of that has to do with diet, which is actually good news because you can change your diet. So it's a more hopeful story than, sorry, you're just genetically predisposed to being 400 pounds. Like, come on.

Is that really an easier situation? sell, then maybe it has to do with what you eat. Francis, do you enjoy social media? Of course. I love spending my days being called a fat bigot by strangers. And do you think the woke bias on social media is getting ridiculous? Yeah, what happened to pilot was a travesty for freedom of speech online? What if I told you there was a brand new social media platform that encouraged free speech?

That's brilliant. Will it be able to show off my sick abs on it as well? Hopefully not. The new platform is called retalk and it is absolutely a. exploding right now. They have discussion forums around any topic, from gardening to ancient history, all the way to current politics. That sounds great, but a lot of these free speech platforms just attract all the worst people from both sides. Or as we call them here, trigonometry fans. Correct. Joking aside, what makes retalk different is it's moderated to keep away extremists,

but instead of being Uber woke, they take a balanced view to moderation. Wow, how did they find so many moderators who don't have pink hair. I don't know, maybe they hire people from all over the political spectrum. Great joke, mate. No big tech company would ever do that. Retalk insists on civility and they're particularly keen to foster conversations for people in the centre and on the centre right. You can even go on there and discuss trigonometry and your favorite episodes. So all I need to do to access this great site is click on the link and it will take me straight there. Yep. And if you're a listener, go to retalk.com. That's R-E-T-A-L-K-com and start having intelligent conversations.

You know there'll be intelligent conversations because Francis hasn't worked out how to join yet. I haven't. And it's very interesting because, again, with Corona, you know, people were told about vitamin D and we were, you know, we had the government telling us about different things. But no one ever explained why diet can help keep you healthy and help prevent you from getting certain illnesses, especially corona. So if somebody is in that place where they are depressed, what are things that people can do in order to overcome it?

For example, with diet. Okay, so the simplest thing, if you really don't want to change your diet, which is fair because most people don't, I would minimum stop eating gluten-containing grains. And I got told when I was sick to, by natural paths, to stop eating gluten, And I had brushed it off as kind of a California girl fad. And that turned out when I started delving into the science and looking at leaky gut, that turned out to be completely wrong.

So lots of people can feel better simply by removing gluten containing grains. So that's basically all the yummy foods. It's like wheat, rye, barley. So that gets rid of beer, pasta, pizza, cake, donuts, like any type of cake. dessert. It's in soy sauce, so you have to, like, really, it's in Twizzlers. Gluten is in a lot of places, but that can... You've lost Francis already, Michaela, sorry. I'll embrace the depression, Michaela.

That can help, and generally, if you do it for six weeks, this is what I tell people to do. So go gluten-free for six weeks. It's pretty easy nowadays because they make gluten-free foods. They're not as good, but they're there. And then at the end of six weeks, like, have a couple a slices of pizza and just see how you feel over the next couple days. So that's a pretty simple test. Now, that's pretty good for people who aren't like half dead. If you're in the same boat as me, then I tell the, or you have an autoimmune disorder or a really severe psychiatric condition. I tell those people to go like way low carb, get rid of grains, dairy, soy. And if you can manage to get rid of those three things, like as long as you can convince yourself it has something to do with diet,

then you can kind of figure it out. It's the initial hump of being like, does diet actually have anything to do with my health, that I had a problem with? As soon as I limited it, reintroduced, and had this huge inflammatory reaction, I was like, oh, okay, well, I'll look into this. So minimum, I'd say, get rid of gluten.

And if you want to go a little bit more, then get rid of grains entirely and dairy. And that could help immensely. A lot of people who are super, super overweight, If they just stop eating grains, they lose pounds without calorie restricting. Same with mood, but it depends on your level of severity. When I cut gluten, it probably made 10% of a difference. It was noticeable, but it wasn't enough for me to be like diets secure.

It's an interesting point, you make. I mean, I think at this stage of scientific knowledge to suggest that diet has nothing to do with your health or mood is absurd. I think it's obvious. You just have to look at your own life and look at what you eat and how you feel afterwards. Why do you think we're so attached to this idea that diet? Is it just because we like eating the bad food and we'd rather not cut it out? I think so. I would guess so.

I mean, this is where I get a little bit conspiratorial because there is evidence, like there is evidence of large food companies kind of. kind of infiltrating the government or lobbying. Like a lot of grains and soy and corn are subsidized by the government. There have been scientific studies that aren't published because there isn't enough. There's nobody's funding like these. No one's funding those,

but you can get like soy companies funding the ones saying soy is a health food. So that's where I get a little conspiratorial. But I think probably the simplest answer is people just like how the certain types of food taste. And, you know, I find that the foods that taste the best, other than steak, but the foods that taste the best, probably are the ones that aren't as good for you. Like when I started cutting things out,

it was my favorite foods that were making me sick. I used to drink, like, I used to drink a hot glass of milk when I was a kid before I went to bed at night. And dairy was hugely inflammatory for my arthritis. I had sugar and cinnamon. on toast, which is clearly not a health food, but it's absolutely wonderful. And I had bread at every meal, and that was one of the biggest ones. So, like, cheese and bread. And I put soy sauce on everything. And it was cheese and bread and soy that were the ones that were the most inflammatory. And they

were the ones that made me go like, hmm, when I eat them. How sad was it to say goodbye to them? I'm telling you, I would have been in tears. I cried. Okay. So when I, I'm not even kidding. I cut everything out and I was like, I don't know if this will really make a difference, but if I'm doing kind of a rigorous study of why I'm so sick, I have to rule out diet at least. So I did a month-long kind of test where I went really low-carb. So that's like meat and greens and certain like sweet potatoes and parsnaps. It was really low-carb. And I felt a lot better within the first month, abnormally better.

And then I reintroduced. First, I reintroduced Sour Patch Kids because I was like, they don't have any gluten and soy and dairy. And that didn't go particularly well. And then I reintroduced cheese because it was one of the things I missed. And I had such a horrible reaction to cheese that, yeah, I cried. I cried afterwards when I was like, it makes me too sick. And I cried.

So it's really hard. And people get really intense cravings when they stop certain foods. So it's no wonder. plus people get pissy when you're like, hey, that disease you have is perhaps treatable. And a lot of people, when they're talking about diet, presented in a way as if the person they're talking to has done something wrong. Like, that's how it was always presented to me. Well, why don't you eat healthier?

And I was like, what the hell? You think my, like, whether or not I eat healthy has to do with me having my joints replaced, you asshole? Plus, I was eating like rice and chicken and broccoli and milk. Like, I wasn't eating terribly. And so it depends how it's presented. You can't be like, eat healthier. You're just, you know, lazy.

That's why you're sick. That's not going to go over well. Yeah, yeah. Well, you're losing Francis rapidly. He can just see himself crying at the point of cutting out anything to do with carbs. It goes away. And it would do with chips. small fries as you would say.

Sweet potato's fries would be better. They're good, man. The cravings... This is the conversion of Francis live on airhead, Michaela. This is what's happening here. You have to be suffering pretty hard to start dropping foods. Or you have to be one of those freaks that exercises all the time and just chooses to do it. But I don't identify with those people.

No, I've met some of them and I've avoided them on principle ever since. I was going to ask you, do you get a lot of shit from vegans, Michaela? You know what? Not really compared to, like, there are some other carnivore doctors, and what they do is preach this carnivore diet, and they get harassed all the time, I think, or at least they talk about getting harassed all the time, but I don't really get bummed.

But mostly I think it's because I'm saying, like, I was really sick and now I'm not, and they're kind of like, okay, that looks like it was true. true. So maybe it worked for her. But I also get a lot of, I just get a lot of hate across the board. So I also kind of, I might ignore some of it. It doesn't seem, vegan gains has been an issue. He's a, he's a, he's a disaster of a human. But other than that, not really. You said you get a lot of hate all around. What, what have you done to get hate? Why do you get hate?

Well, it started with this meat diet, and so I can understand where that came from because it was like, oh, girl goes around saying meat diet cured her disorders and that it can help other people. And that probably would have made me angry too before I gotten healthier. So I can kind of understand where that's coming from. Plus, it's way easier to get mad at that than to be like, yeah, that's reason. reasonable, especially if you don't understand it at all. And then after that, well, when my dad got really sick and we had to bring him to Russia, I can understand why that made people mad because people were like, why the hell did you go to Russia? And they don't know the backstory and why we ended up doing it. So it's easier being angry. And then I think that there are also just people who live in

the basement for most of their lives and have nothing better to do than insult people who are perhaps doing more with their life than they are. And I think that's probably where the majority of my hate comes from. I don't like those people. I just think there are better targets for those people, surely. Like, I find it very strange that people would come up to you. But it's equally something your dad is, I think he was asked recently whether he would have a run for office,

and he said that he wouldn't because of the amount of cruel behavior that you receive as a public figure. And we do live in the strange world, don't we? where the moment anyone sticks the head above the parapet, whether it's him or you with the diet or anything, suddenly you just become just so many of our guests, like we get them on the show, and then I look at our Twitter afterwards

when they've retweeted it, and they just have people whose only thing seemingly is they follow one person around the internet and post crap on anything that that person shares. How, I don't get it. Like, do you not have anything better to do? No, they don't And they're very sad people

Like those people aren't I can't imagine that's a happy person Not that that makes it okay Like you can get You can have terrible things happen to you And you become this like Evil human being That just you know

Why was I put through so much misery Why am I in so much pain Let me inflict pain on everybody around me Right? You get those people That go through horrible circumstances And end up like that Or you get people who go through horrible circumstances and then they try and help other people to avoid the same kind of suffering.

And so the people just like following people around on Twitter or the people who've probably been through some shit and just feel like it would be better if they doled it out instead of trying to limit the amount of suffering in the world. Yeah. And we seem to believe now that being famous or being a public figure for a lot of people, they crave it because they believe that it will sort their problems out, that once they become famous, it will be act as a medicine for whatever ills that they have in this life. But as somebody who is in the public eye, but has seen your dad catapulted to this

stratospheric level of fame, you must have seen the other side of it. Yeah, it was just completely absurd. Like, honestly, I mean, I think that the reason he got so sick was pretty much purely because of this, it was a benzodiazepine, acethesia caused by a psych med. Like a lot of people have said, was it all the stress that he was under? Was it because he did, you know, he did like 130 city tour in 200 days? He was like flying every day. He was doing lectures at night.

Like, he was on fire. And then my mom got sick. And this acathia started from these benzodiazepines. And that nailed him. Right? Like the illnesses hurt him. I don't actually think it was the fame that hurt him. Now, at the beginning, when there were questions about him losing his job, and he was very worried

about that, that was a very stressful time. Or when there were protests when he was going to universities, that was really stressful. So that was 2017, and that's part of the reason he actually started taking the anti-anxiety medication. Other than the fact there was SSRI withdrawal. was all that stress. But then when he kind of started avoiding universities and started touring, it was overwhelmingly positive.

So he's had, it's been overwhelming, but I wouldn't say that his experience has been negative in the whole. Like when we get people approaching him on the street, there 99% of it is positive. So it certainly doesn't make your life less complicated. And it doesn't make it simpler. Like, it's not like you get famous and then you get more money for no reason. And then you're happier. But, you know, what happens, I think, is if you get to a certain level of fame,

then you're presented with a ton of opportunity. And if you grab those opportunities, then you can make money. So it's not just because you're famous. It's because you're working. But you do have more access to opportunity. And then I think that can go in whatever direction, but it certainly makes more people hate you, no matter what you do. And it doesn't make your life any simpler. It's definitely stressful.

Yeah. It's interesting because I had an experience a couple of years ago where I was in every newspaper in the country for a week, just a week. And then it was over. It was over, right? And it wasn't necessarily particularly critical or whatever. Most of, you know, a lot of the stories were positive, a lot of the comments. were positive, etc. But he was unbearable all the way through that.

I'm still unbearable, as you can see. But the one thing I really, well, two things actually I learned from that. Number one is what you said earlier, which is you look at the media and you go, even the people who are writing positive stories about me are not writing about me accurately, right? So what does that say about everyone else? And what I, you know, and that was the moment I decided never to make up my mind about somebody until I'd spoken to them personally.

and I got to know them. That's such a good rule. Yeah, I have that rule too. Because even what they post about themselves on social media, sometimes that can come off as extremely annoying. And that's completely wrong too. So, yeah, that's a good rule. Right.

And the second thing I learn is, I don't think our brains evolved for that level of attention. I agree. You know, you can be, you know, I think psychologically one of the most grounded people that you could find, I found it so difficult that period of time. And it took me months to adjust to the idea that suddenly, you know, loads of people have an opinion about me. So I can only imagine what it was like for your dad and for you as well, by extension, just the fact that

you suddenly find yourself, loads of people have an opinion about your family based of that. Our brains didn't evolve for that. They really didn't. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think That's one of the problems. That's one of the problems with social media. I mean, even a small following, even getting, like, I remember when before I had any following, you watch, you know, how many likes you get on photos and you watch this kind of thing because it's a social metric for what people think of you, which is important if you want to kind of evolve, right?

But then if you start getting, I would say even thousands of followers. Like I don't even think we're evolved to be used to thousands of followers. followers, let alone hundreds of thousands or millions. Like even thousands of followers, you get one negative comment about any aspect of your life. And you're like, oh, well, is that true? It's like, who is the person commenting? You don't know who they are. You've never spoken with them. But for some reason, the one negative comment. And then, of course, when you have more followers than that, then it's literally going to be impossible to not have negative comments. You're not going to have all positive comments. I don't think we're wired for it at all. And I've spoken. I've been fortunate enough

to talk to a lot of people who have millions of followers on my podcast and they all had a difficult time with it, even though their fame was, let's say, not as controversial as somebody like my dad. Like, even just being recognized is hard, even if it's positive. And so then, you know, it's funny. I used to have more, I get, it was probably, jealousy, to be honest, about celebrities. It was probably jealousy, but at the time, I wouldn't have called it that. It was just like, you know, it was misunderstanding maybe. I remember Eminem came out with a song a while ago, and it was like, he was complaining about the media approaching him when he was just trying to have dinner with his family. And he, like, freaked out about it. And I was

like, come on, if you're going to be famous, you can't really complain about that. And I've changed my I understand that now. Like, it's hard, like, people are all just people, and it's hard to be recognized or to have strangers approach you, even though it can be, like, exciting and positive. Like, I get it. It's still stressful. It's just an interesting, it's a really interesting experience. I wouldn't change it, but I do, because there's not a lot of opportunity that comes

with it, but we're not wired for it. Absolutely. And then you take into account, you know, the type of. you know, fame that you and your father have, which, you know, you are figures where, you know, that create a lot of strong emotions. It's different, you know, if somebody's in, you know, like, are you leitering in a pop band where if you don't like the music, you don't listen? But everybody nowadays seems to have an opinion, whether it's positive or negative about you both. Yeah, true. I guess it's more politics, right? That would happen with people in politics,

which my dad is definitely actively trying to avoid. It's like, oh, no, that's way, that's way too much stress. But I guess it's weird. We have this new type of communication, like podcasts like this. And it's kind of the same thing, I guess. You don't have people voting for you at least, but you kind of do, I guess, with popularity. It's a weird time. Yeah, but I think that this long form lends itself to a very different type of conversation.

You know, you mentioned Twitter or politics. that's all conducting these very short sound bites, isn't it? And it's all about tribalism. I feel like with conversations like the one we're having now, you could be saying anything right now. I don't know what you're going to say. We don't know each other well. And I'm open to hearing it.

And I think likewise you're open to hearing what we have to say. And I think that changes the nature of it, which is why I have to ask this question. When is the world going to get your dad back? Well, he's coming out with a book in March. So I would guess around then Yeah He's not going to go full blast

But good But good Yeah like I don't think as a family We'd let him go full blast anyway He likes going full blast but that might take a bit And obviously like I know he was touring and things And those are in the works too But we have COVID

So everything's kind of on pause anyway but his book's coming out in March beyond order. It's available for pre-order in case anyone wants to check it out. Some people are going to check it out, believe me. But it's exciting because I sort of half-joked the other day that Jordan Peterson took a year and a half off or however long it's been.

And look what's happened to the world. Yeah, we've got that bit. Worse of a place. But I just saw him starting to comment on things online and I just think a voice of sensible moderation that is equally brave in rejecting extremism is exactly what we need right now. So from both of us and from a lot of our fans, I'm sure,

we sent him and your family best wishes, and we look forward to having them back. Thank you. Yeah, so do I. So do I. It'll be fun. Things will get going again, but probably March. That's exciting. Michael, listen, it's been great chatting with you. I think you yourself, you know, we obviously talked about your dad,

because he's such an important public figure. But you yourself have had such an interesting life and I think some of the attitudes you formed and also, of course, the diet as well. It's important to talk about those things in a constructive way because we have this conversation like, we don't talk enough about mental health. When we talk about mental health all the fucking time, you know,

and just to have a constructive voice on it, I think is really important. So it's been great talking to you. Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. And I've been looking forward to it. And the one question we always finish our interviews with is always the same, which is what is the one thing we're not talking about, but we really should be?

So I already mentioned diet, so I'm going to just talk about this isn't like the one thing. I don't have that. But this is something that I discovered recently that's really pissing me off. Turns out, my best friend called me yesterday and she goes, she's about to have a baby. And she goes, I have to wear a mask while giving birth in a problem. private room. And I said, there's no fucking way that that's a thing. Turns out it's a thing. So in Canada, in a lot of hospitals in the U.S. right now, I don't know what Australia is like. I don't know what Europe is like, but I'll bet you the U.K. is bad. When you're giving birth,

you are seriously pressured into wearing a mask the whole time. And when you're told, when you go, you know, I'm not comfortable with doing that because giving birth is actually really hard. you're told that you're not keeping the people around you safe. And that pisses me off because I had a kid and I can't admit. And that's not cool. Like that's, I would say that's verging on against human rights, especially if you've been tested negative and you still have to wear a mask while given birth.

So I'm about to make a big stink about that because that's really not cool. And I'm concerned that when all of this ends, I don't know when masks and hospitals are going to end, right? And currently, if you test negative or if you've been vaccinated, you still have to wear a mask giving birth in hospitals in Canada. And I think that's like, I don't even want to be part of a society that makes women do that. So that's what I think we should be talking about now.

I don't know if it's the big thing, but it's not cool. Just as an extension to that. And look, this is just an outsider's point of view, but Canada seems to be going nuts at the moment. Is that correct? Yes. I would say it's correct. I would say it's correct. I mean, we're on a mandated stay-at-home order, and it's...

I mean, the UK is crazy, too. But... Yeah. But, yeah, it's not good here. You're not allowed to see family. If they wear a mask giving birth. I mean, right now, you don't have to... You don't have to wear a mask outside.

like to give our premier some credit, he is slightly conservative. So I think the pressure is coming down on him to do these things. But I mean, a mandated lockdown, yeah, I would say Canada's not not doing so hot, but I don't know where is doing hot right now. I'd like to go there, wherever that is. Yeah, we'd like to go there when we find out as well.

well. But I think actually you probably meant on more than just lockdowns as well, because we've seen a large uptick in Canadian viewers of our show. Really? Yeah. So we're sort of starting to think, maybe Canada, you know, a lot of people in Canada are suddenly realizing the impact of, you know, all this stuff we've been talking about, social justice, all this woke stuff. It seems like there's a big increase in awareness in Canada of these things. And you've got the first transracial premiere as well, which which is great news.

Do we? I didn't catch in what? What is this? Like, I don't even pay attention. Like, I pay attention to the states and whatever happens there, we just do five years later. Yeah, we do the same thing here.

Yeah, you guys, yeah, yay. You can just slowly watch things crumbling from afar. Oh, God, that's going to get to us. Yeah. So it's way worse than it was in 2016 here. Oh my God. My husband and my dad walked by a playground the other day. And it said, this is so creepy. I'm not even going to get it exactly right, but I'll get part of it.

It said, play fair, play inclusively. That was in the playground. And it's like, that is so dystopian. It's so creepy. So yeah, we're definitely going in the right direction. Well, on that happy note, Mikhailis. It's been absolutely pleasure speaking with you. Where should people check out your work?

Your podcast is fantastic. And you, although you know, you and I and Francis talked about culture war stuff, actually you talk about other stuff. And I think it's, you'll be interesting to a lot of our fans. So tell everybody about your podcast where they can find you online as well. So I have a podcast that people seem to listen to, which I can't really understand why to tell you the truth. I don't really like podcasts.

But, however, I usually do some sort of interview form and, I don't, I just ask questions that, wow, I'm the, I'm the worst salesman for this thing. I've had some pretty good guests on. I had Jocco on, had Dan Crenshaw, and Matthew McConaughey. Those were like big ones. And we talk a little bit about health, but mostly we talk about politics, psychedelics, culture, comedy. Like, it's pretty open. I'm doing a Joe Rogan style style interview, I would say. But it's short, an hour. And that's at

Michaela Peterson videos on YouTube. You can just type in the Michaela Peterson podcast and my name's M-I-H-A-L-A. And then I'm Michaela Peterson on Instagram

and Michaela Alexis on Twitter because Michaela Peterson is too long. Well, that was the most uncomfortable self-plug we've ever had in the history of the show. I'm very British.

That was So British. I mean, I've got this podcast. I don't even know a podcast and why am I even promoting it? Anyway, anyway, let's just promote it. Oh, I feel so bad inside. Thank you. It makes them so happy. Look up, please, dude. That's it. That's what being British is. Yeah, well, yeah, I might have that too, too far. I've always been bad at that, but people do seem to watch the podcast. No, it's brilliant. That's as good as I've got. Not only is a good podcast, you do get some very interesting guests on. So thanks for much and thank you for watching. We will see you very soon with another brilliant interview like this one

or a live stream. All of them go out 7pm UK time. Take care and see you soon, guys.