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Episode Transcript:
Welcome to Episode 404, with my guest Adam Cayton-Holland. Today's episode is sponsored by the podcast, Tilted. Sheryl Sandberg's non-profit, Lean In, just launched a new podcast called Tilted, to explore the gender bias that lurk in unexpected places. It features intimate conversations with some of the world's most powerful women in Hollywood, sports, and business. And in the first few episodes, Sheryl Sandberg answers questions from men on work and sex. And, politicos discuss the women candidates who are running for office in unprecedented numbers this year. So listen and subscribe to Tilted from Lean In, wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:00:42] My name is Paul Gilmartin. This here is the Mental Illness Happy Hour: a place for honesty about all the battles in our heads, from medically-diagnosed conditions, past traumas, and sexual dysfunction, to everyday compulsive negative thinking. This show's not meant to be a substitute for professional mental counseling. (Laughs) I don't know what that, what that little, uh … tone variation was, uh. I'm not a therapist, it's not a doctor's office. It's more like a waiting room that, uh, doesn't suck. We have a great show for you today. We're gonna talk about, uh, in addition to Adam, who's a great, great guest, um, we're gonna read some really fascinating listener emails, um, some … We're gonna talk about the power of caramels—"care-eh-mels," however you wanna pronounce it. We're gonna talk about consent. We're gonna read some great struggle in a sentence surveys. I'm gonna talk a little bit about the new lady that I'm seeing. And we're gonna talk about moms without boundaries. That's kinda like doctors without boundaries, but instead of going, uh, into a village and giving people shots, they just give them a vague sense of, uh, dread (chuckles).
[00:02:09] Wanna remind you, if you are in Minneapolis, or near Minneapolis, uh, Saturday, October 13th, which is, let's see, this airs on Friday, October 12th. So, um, yeah, tomorrow night. (Laughs) I'm going down the rabbit hole! Saturday, October 13th, I'll be in Minneapolis at Sisyphus Brewing, uh, doing two live shows. The first one at 5 o'clock with comedian, Kjell Bjorgen. And, the second one at 8 o'clock with return guest, Nora McInerny. It's gonna be fun. I'll put a link to … info and tickets and all that under the show notes for this. You can also just go to Sisyphus Brewering, uh, Brewery … BREWING (chuckles)! I used to think it was Sisyphus Brewery, and now I'm trying to get it into my head that it's Sisyphus Brewing. And good luck spelling Sisyphus, if you try to go there on your own.
[00:03:09] Today's episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp is an online therapy provider, and, uh, I love it. I love my therapist, Donna. I've been with her for almost two years. And, uh, she really, really helps me with all of my issues. The one that we're working on right now is dealing with my going to worst-case scenario, if I feel like somebody is mad a t me, or they don't return a phone call or a text. And so, she gives me this … gave me this phrase for me to say to myself, which is, "I'm not going to assume I did something wrong. It's most likely not about me. And if it is, it doesn't mean I did something wrong. I will make no assumptions." And I say it to myself in the mirror with a bullhorn—extra, extra loud. So, check out betterhelp.com. Go to betterhelp.com/mental; it's important you include the "/mental," so they know you came from this podcast. Fill out a questionnaire and they'll match you with a betterhelp.com counselor, and you can experience a free week of counseling to see if online counseling is right for you. And you need to be over 18.
[00:04:29] All right. I'm gonna read a couple of surveys and a couple emails before we get to the, um, interview with Adam. This is a struggle in a sentence filled out by "Cassini," and about her anxiety, she writes, "It feels as if every genuinely, compassionate phrase I carefully craft in my head, will be instantly seen as utterly false by whoever receives it." Snapshot from her life: "I stare at tall buildings, because I'm begging myself to climb to the top and jump off. It's one of the reasons why I adore New York City." (Chuckles) Thank you for that. Somebody who's new to the podcast may be wondering, "Why are you chuckling and thanking her for that?" Well, listen to more episodes of the podcast and it'll begin to make sense. You will see that, uh, we are kind of a community: um, the listeners and the guests and I. It's not about wallowing in the darkness; it's about … not feeling alone in the darkness.
[00:05:36] "Warrior Wounds" describes her co-dependency: "Your reaction will tell me how I feel." That is so good. Snapshot from her life: "The Supreme Court confirmation is happening today, and it occurred to me that, for me, depression is pain that had nowhere to go." That is so true. That's what they, that's what they say is, depression is anger turned inwards, and, um … yeah. A, a new level of … fucked-upness, uh, in this country. And, and, that's one of the reasons, too, why I wanted to read, um, this moment, uh, about consent.
[00:06:21] It's a, it's a happy moment, and it was filled out by a woman who calls herself "Enthusiastic Yes." And I just think this encapsulates, uh, so many of the … details of … the after effects of sexual trauma and what it's like for survivors to try to be intimate again after that. That people who've never experienced unwanted sexual experiences … probably can't picture, and why they often minimize it. She writes, "I wanted to share this moment in light of all the conversations around consent and the Me Too movement. In this moment, so many people are re-evaluating what that perceived consent to be, which is so important," (Paul makes a correction) or, "… what they perceive consent to be. But, it perhaps leaves people wondering how to ask for consent, or thinking that incorporating consent into their sexual encounters will kill the mood. So I just wanted to share a bit about a recent experience with a new partner that was so consentful and sexy, it left me feeling safe and cared for, despite my anxiety about sex. This encounter happened with an acquaintance I had known casually for six months or so, but who I'd never spent time with alone until I ended at his place one night after an event at a mutual friend's house. We'll call him Luke. Hooking up with new people is extremely anxiety-inducing for me. No matter how attracted I am to someone or how prepared I feel, it always ends up with my body reacting in awful ways. Often I find myself trying to hide my gasps for air after my body freezes and I cannot breathe or swallow from the sense of panic that engulfs me. I get this visceral sensation that everything can spin out at any moment. Sometimes, it gets to a point where I feel faint, as the world wobbles around me. Even thinking about new hook-ups is enough to start my face tingling and my hands shaking. It is the most unpleasant adrenaline rush. Often people I am with don't even notice, or at least don't comment. That night I went to Luke's house, knowing that I wanted to have some sort of encounter with him, as I'd been interested for a while. After hanging out at his place for a short while, it became pretty clear that we would probably end up hooking up and, thus, my internal freak out ensued. I felt the panic start to bubble up, as I braced against waves of nausea and hid shaky hands in my pockets. At one point, when he had gone to the washroom, I began mildly hyperventilating, and my thoughts raced and my body froze. I determinedly used breathing techniques to stop the hot, dizzy tears from escaping my eyes. My flight instinct kicked in so intensely, all my nerves were just begging me to run. But I stood there breathing, trying to focus my attention on his book collection (which was pretty great). I really liked this guy, and I wanted to stay. I collected myself by the time he returned and was sitting cross-legged on the couch shaking, but only slightly. I am not sure whether or not he noticed. He came and sat next to me, touching his knee to mine, and we chatted about graphic novels and music until I had calmed myself down quite a bit. The easy conversation between us was comforting, and I liked the way he looked at me. At some point, Luke asked if I wanted to go to his bedroom and hang out in there, to which I said yes. So he reached for my shaky hands and led me to his room down the hall. When we were in his room, he asked if he could give me a hug, and I said yes. As he wrapped his arms around me, I felt a bit faint from the anxiety, but also comforted. I breathed deeply. As we stood there in each other's arms for a few moments, he leaned his face closer to mine and whispered that he wanted to kiss me in a way that felt entirely free of pressure or presumption. I responded by kissing him. After the kiss, I sat down on his bed and told him that hooking up with new people makes me extremely anxious and to not take it personally if I needed space or wanted to stop or left abruptly, and to not expect that I would want to have penetrative sex that night. He thanked me for telling him and sat beside me on his bed. Despite my shaking getting worse, we started to make out again. Eventually, I relaxed and the adrenaline wore off for a while. He asked me what I liked and if there was anything I did not like. He asked me if there was anything he could do to make me feel more comfortable. I told him he was doing great, because he was. He asked before lifting off my shirt, and I asked before taking off his. Luke asked for consent in so many ways that were sexy, more than just, 'Can I touch?' He said things like, 'Do you like this?' 'Is this okay?' 'Does this feel good?' 'Is this the right spot?' 'Why don't you show me how?' 'Can I do this for you?' 'Are you down to try this?' And, just as important, Luke waited for me to respond. He made no assumptions about what I would want or what I liked. I, in turn, asked what he liked. We talked about sex more in one night than I had with partners I'd had year-long relationships with. He didn't feel awkward asking, so it didn't feel awkward telling. He was just genuinely interested in what makes my body feel good. It made me feel so comfortable to have someone actually check in with me. It didn't feel like I was part of his fantasy or a role he had scripted that I was just the other actor that night. It felt like we were truly exploring and respecting each other's bodies as unique and complex entities. It di—" I don't know why I (laughs) pronounced entities that way! "It didn't feel like my orgasm was about his ego and his need to prove (Paul chuckles) his sexual prowess. I told him I wouldn't cum that night, and I didn't. But we both had a lovely time. That clichéd adage about how life is about the journey, not the destiny—" (Paul makes correction) "—not the destination, super applicable to sex. Orgasms are great, but not everyone has an easy time getting there, especially with partners, so don't let that take away from all the other great sensations that are involved in getting physical. I still had an anxiety attack in the cab home. But I had never felt so respected, listened to, and comfortable in a sexual situation with a man before (having sex with women tends to be a different experience). I was the least anxious after hooking up with someone new than I had ever felt. The next time I saw him, we did end up having penetrative sex, and I didn't have an anxiety attack after, for the first time ever. Things did not end up working out between us, but I really value that experience as a sort of bar to hold new hook-ups to now. It expanded my own vocabulary for consent and made me realize how much of a difference it makes to my sense of safety. I'm not interested in having sex with people that don't ask me what I like or what I want. PS: If you can't ask where or how someone wants to be touched and feel sexy, you should probably re-evaluate the way you are having sex. Communicating your boundaries makes sex better, especially for those of us that have histories of trauma or complicated bodies due to gender identity, pain, or other experience. So, to all those folks that aren’t sure how to make consent part of their sexual experience, remember that consent is just about listening and respecting your partner. Respect is sexy. Listening is sexy. Consent is sexy." Thank you for that. That, uh … What a beautiful and timely, uh, survey.
[00:14:43] This is, uh, struggle in a sentence, filled out by a trans-man, uh, who calls himself "Pretty Boy." And about his depression, he writes, "Seasonal depression is like riding the stupidest roller coaster, with the tallest, but slowest drop ever." (Chuckles) That one made me laugh so fucking hard. That is just brilliant. About his OCD: "It's like bruises are on the wrong side of my skin, and everything not done the right way keeps pressing on them." I had to think about that one for a while, but I think, I think I get it. Thank you for that.
[00:15:25] "Quiet Desperation" shares about her depression: "The sudden urge to run random cars off the road, because I'm too chicken shit to run myself off the road. #Mondays." About her alcoholism: "The only thing I am sure to inherit from my family." About her, about being a sex crime victim: "One of the hardest things I've been through, and yet one of the only things I've had wet dreams about." And that is so com-, so much more common than people think it is, and then they shame themselves for it. The, you know, the myriad of ways that … sexual violation sends ripples throughout the rest of our lives and areas of our lives is, um, pretty mind-bending. About living with an abuser: "Home is where the bruises come from." (Chuckles) That is such a fucked up t-shirt. It, that's even over my line of what I would put on a t-shirt. But, um, thank you for a very, uh, … very, uh, vulnerable and witty survey.
[00:16:42] "Can I Be Backspaced From Existence," uh, describes his co-dependency: "It's like my heart is inside someone else's body, but I can feel every beat." God, that is so, that is so good. A snapshot from his life: "In the past few months, I've met or talked to a handful of girls in an attempt to build some confidence. Just about every single one ends up ghosting me. They vanish without a trace and I'm left wondering, hurt, and anxious. It's extremely painful to not get closure or even just an acknowledgment to my humanity. Recently I met a girl, hit it off, connected really quickly. We had sex—it was my first time; I'm a late starter. Woke up the next day and everything's great. When she goes home, I'm blocked from all social media and never heard back from her again. This really fucked up my trust and psyche, and has caused me to go on a bender of days filled with drugs, stupid decisions, and anxiety. I know that no one owes me a reason they didn't respond, but it should be known how much that can fuck with someone's head, and how much it hurt me to have so many nerves left raw." And I'm gonna … I'm gonna give you some tough love here. It sounds like there's some unhealthy drinking going on there, um, because you, I, in your survey, you, uh, mention that you have alcoholism and drug addiction. You describe it as an escape to an equally depressing world, where you're even more fucked up than usual. That, it that's not addressed, the rest of this is pointless. And there will be no healthy, long-term relationship. And, you, you wrote, um, "It really fucked up my trust and psyche and has caused me to go on a bender …" Here's the tough love: it did not cause you to go on a bender; that's the tool that you reached for to deal with your feelings. And, so often the … not hearing from someone—and I'm guilty. I have, I have, um, ghosted people on a dating site, and, and I feel terrible about it. I don't do it anymore. But I didn't know what to say, I didn't want to hear, hurt their feelings. And, and I as well have, have been ghosted. And it sucks, from, from both accounts. But it's usually, um, that that person doesn't know what to say and, so we just, we just avoid it. But if … If you don't deal, if you don't develop some better tools for dealing with your feelings, you're gonna be spinning your wheels for a long, long time.
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[00:22:27] And then, uh, finally, this is, uh, a struggle in a sentence filled out by a guy who calls himself "Dogs." And, uh, about his depression, he writes, "Depression feels like nothing can ever be harmonious again." Ah, that is, that is so good. And then this one I love. About his ADD: "Reading feels like filling a bathtub with a fork."
Intro
[00:23:54] Paul: I'm here with Adam Cayton-Holland. I'm pronouncing it correctly.
Adam: Yeah, you nailed it.
Paul: (Laughs) Not that difficult of a name, but for some reason I get self-conscious—
Adam: People go "Clayton" all the time. People wanna say "Clayton," but it's "Cayton." So, thank you for not bringing an "L" into the situation.
Paul: Do you say to them, "Are you normally not paying attention in life?"
Adam: (Laughs) I do. I do. I have a card that says it, so cuz I'm so tired of saying it.
Paul: You just pull it out of your breast pocket, like a magician.
Adam: Yeah.
Paul: And, is this your foible?
Adam: (Laughs)
Paul: You're from Denver. You're out here for a little while, cuz you have a show called, uh, Those Who Can't?"
Adam: Yep. Exactly.
Paul: And, uh, you also have a book called "Tragedy Plus Time," which is really, really bittersweet book. Getting amazing, uh, reviews, and, uh, understandably—
Adam: Well, thank you.
Paul: It's really heart-felt and vulnerable. And, um, let's kind of chronologically, um, talk about your story without launching into the heaviness of the book yet—
Adam: Yeah, sure.
Paul: —So, um, we can kind of set it, set it up.
Adam: Yeah. I mean, I … Denver, Colorado, born and raised. I was in a, you know, my dad was a civil ri-, is a civil rights attorney. And, my mom was an investigative journalist. And we kinda, me and my two sisters were raised very, uh, empathetic. And, you know, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention type kids. And, they were also hippie parents as well. So there was a lot of love, but a lot of concern for the world. So, you had to be outraged and then be proactive about that outrage, was kind of the mantra in my household.
Paul: You know, as I, as I was reading your book, and you were describing that, uh, kind of positive-negative of having the distracted, but empathetic parent, it, it reminded me of a lot of the stories that I read of people who have a sibling who is disabled, where it takes up a lot of the parents' attention. And the parents are loving, but there is just simply not enough of that, uh … time of being present for those, those kids to, um, feel completely, like …
Adam: Interesting.
Paul: Yeah. I, I, I, don't let me put words in your mouth.
Adam: No. I think that, I think that's an interesting analogy. Especially because, you know, the empathy, especially that my little sister, Lydia, felt for the world, was at times was too much for us to bear. We were very sensitive kinds. And I think, I don't think my parents were in anyway neglectful or too busy; they were there in every regard. But I do think they gave us a real dose of, like, you know, wow, the world is a rough place, and we're gonna fix it. But, gotta go to work. And, uh, you know, we were like, "But, the world's a rough place!" So, you know, there was a lot of that. They equipped us well to handle it. But we each sort of dealt with it in our own way as well, for sure.
Paul: Would, would it be safe to say that there was a base level of anxiety?
Adam: I, yes. And, you know, I can't examine, I can't psychoanalyze my parents, but my dad's definitely got some anxiety, and all of us were very OCD and anxious growing up, as I think many, you know, intellectuals, children of intellectuals may be. There's just many too much, too many synapses firing too fast, and the kids don't know how to handle it as a youngster, so you start doing OCD rituals to, you know, tame the chaos in your brain.
Paul: Right, and talk about some of, some of yours.
Adam: Well, for me, it was this unending—and I kept adding things, uh, that had to do with going to sleep. You know, it was a process of, of, you know—it got better over time. But from about eight to, I dunno, about 14, (chuckles) it was, it, it became a 20- to 30-minute routine of going to sleep. And I'm not talking about just brushing your teeth. Talking about, turning—I had a TV in my bedroom, because I'm a child of privilege. And, you know, there, I had to, used the jump back between channels button, previous channel or whatever. I had to have it set on 04 and the jump-back had to be on 09. And then I had to, like a mantra bit, 04, 09, 04, 09, 04, 09, 04, 09, 04, 09, 04, 09, 04, 09, 04 … turn it off. Then I had to, like, count the bars on my bed, make sure the pillow was perfectly centered. Then I said these very, ritualistic prayers, but we weren’t raised religious, so I just kind of invented prayers to say it, to make sure everything was in check. And, you know, on and on and on—
Paul: Do you remember what the prayers were?
Adam: It was "Blessing—" but like, here's how OCD it was. Like, the one I could, I could remember the upfront. I would say, (chuckles), this is so revealing—
Paul: "God, please bring love to 04, but not 09."
Adam: (Laughs) "And please bring those stations barren of dangerous programming, so nothing bad's going on on the TV while I sleep." No, I would say, "Please bless my mother," you know, "Lynda Cayton, my father John Holland, my sister, Anna Cayton-Holland, my little sister, Lydia Ann Cayton-Holland." And then I would have to say it backwards, so that nei-, so that they all had equal ranking. "Please bless Lydia Ann Cayton-Holland, Anna Sell (sp?) Cayton-Holland, Lynda Page Cayton, and John Robert Holland." So, it's like, in the first round they got one point. In the second round, I got four points. They were all equal; no one was more blessed than the other.
Paul: So, kind of like a snake draft—
Adam: It was a snake draft (laughs).
Paul: —football to make sure everybody gets an equal—
Adam: I snake-drafted my prayers every night, to make sure there was equal distribution of goodwill.
Paul: Wow! You even brought your parents' sense of civil rights into your OCD.
Adam: (Laughs) I guess, man. I'm lucky that it got easier as I went on. The one that I still do, which I write about in my book that my little sister did—and this just make-, it just says a lot about her: if she dropped anything one the ground, a piece of trash, a Goldfish cracker, you would then have to immediately drop another one so that that one wouldn’t be lonely for whatever new path it was on. And that just made a lot of sense to me—I mean, I was at a baseball game the other day and I dropped a peanut. And I surreptitiously dropped one peanut. And then I felt bad that I only dropped one, cuz I think of me of my sisters as a trio, so I dropped another peanut. So there is just, like, it's still firmly embedded—
Paul: And does that relieve the tension in that moment?
Adam: Yeah, because I totally dropped the second one, and then I kind of forgot about it. But then, in the back of my head, I was like, "You gotta drop another one. It's, like, you and your sisters are a trio, man. Like, drop the third one." So I … and that wouldn't go away. I kind of tried to fight it for a minute, cuz I know it's ridiculous, but it wouldn't go away. So I dropped the third one, and then it was done.
Paul: Isn't it interesting, the, the divide between the intellectual and the emotional?
Adam: Yeah, totally. Yeah, I mean, the intellectual is a good game (chuckles). It was, it was a lot of action going on. But I was not present; I needed to emotionally drop the third peanut.
Paul: And is there a, uh, particular, uh, thought of what would happen if you didn't do that, or is it just a general feeling of, uh, doom is gonna descend?
Adam: I think now, it's, it's very much an academic/emotional split. And now I know nothing's fine. And even in the emotional, I've dropped one peanut, so they're good. It's not lonely. But (chuckles) it's just almost like, uh, like, the writer in my is kind of like, "But it's a better adventure if there's three of them!" (Laughs) "They can have more characters, more opportunities!" So, I drop a third, you know?
Paul: And, is, is it the reason it's still there? One of the reasons it's still there is that they're not as complicated and burdensome as they were when you were a child? So it's like, "Well, you know, this is no … big deal."
Adam: It's crippling, when I was a kid. And I remember going off to a soccer camp, and having a roommate when I was in, I dunno, eighth grade or something. Never had stayed with anybody. And he was kinda looking at me, like "What the hell are you doing over there?" And I was trying to do it on a low-boil, but it, you know, amounted to 15 minutes of your roommate over there fidgeting. He probably thought I was jerking off or something. But I was just (chuckles) trying to, like, do a low-tier repetition of my routine. So, it almost shamed me out of it, you, and I got to college and started having girlfriends and stuff. I, I just realized this might not be the sexiest thing I could possibly be doing in this moment.
Paul: (Chuckles) You didn't find the right girl!
Adam: (Laughs) Right! Well, my wife would understand, and she allows me whatever ones I have to do now. But, yeah, it definitely … I dialed it back. And the ones that remained are the easier ones. Little things I have to do on airplanes to make sure the plane doesn’t go down. I gotta touch … you know, as you walk through that door, I have to touch the, the fuselage on the outside. I just, always have to touch it. I dunno why, but I have to.
Paul: When I, when I was a kid, my dad would carry me, uh, to bed. And it was, like, one of the few moments where I felt, like, a bond between my dad and I. And we would walk up the stairs, and I'd just realize that now, that this was a really special ritual to me, is there was a point where the ceiling would come down enough on the stairs that I could touch it. And it was actually, there was dirt on it from my hand touching it so many times. And then my dad just abruptly stopped, uh, carrying me. Not for that reason; my mom shared with me (chuckles) a couple of years ago, is because she was afraid, uh, that because my dad was drinking he was going to molest me—
Adam: Oh my goodness!
Paul: —and so she said, "Please don't have any physical contact with him anymore—"
Adam: Wow! What a harsh reversal. Cuz that's the sweetest memory. It's your own pieta at the Vatican that you're hitting every day.
Paul: But it just occurred to me now, that that was really important to me, that I touched that every, every night. But, getting—
Adam: Wow, that's amazing!
Paul: Yeah. So, was it on your parents' radar? It had to be that you kids were doing this, and how did they react?
Adam: I think they laughed at it. And, I—because I think they had, they knew they had their own things like that. They never viewed it as anything troublesome. I think they're like, "Look at our neurotic kids." And then they were probably like, "Well, look at neurotic us! What do you think?" So, it was never, uh cause for sincere concern or anything.
Paul: So, it wasn’t a malicious laughter. It was more of a, kind of they didn't understand the seriousness that there is … kind of—
Adam: I think that the-, you know, I don't know how much seriousness there was behind it. I think it was just, young minds trying to make order out of the chaos they perceived in the world, before they learned how to be adults and use their faculties to try to counteract some of this stuff. I think they probably laughed at it and said, "God, I wish they wouldn’t do it to that degree, you know, but they’ll grow out of it." I think that was probably their approach.
Paul: Was there ever any talk of going to therapy?
Adam: I mean, I went to therapy early on. I don't really know—
Paul: Was it your initiative?
Adam: No. When I was, like, four, when Lydia was about to be born, I just stared drawing very concerning drawings, and I started seeing those Sally Struthers commercials with starving African children. And, they just knocked me out. And I was like, "I wanna die. If they're dying, I wanna die. I don't see why they die and I live." It was just, you know, a four-year-old trying to—But it really sunk me. It wasn't, you know, you're four. It's not affected; it was sincere. So they took me to a therapist to sort of help with some of that. And I don't remember anything. I remember the therapist had a, um, punching doll, like those clown dummies you can just punch over and they come back up. And all I remember was punching that thing (laughs). And, at some point, they're like, "All right, he's fine." And I moved on from there.
Paul: Did you apologize to the clown? Say, "Listen, the world is a terrible place—"
Adam: (Laughs) As long as it's a white clown (Paul laughs). They had a black—I couldn't. I could only punch the white clown (laughs).
Paul: And you had to make sure it was a straight, cis-gendered male—
Adam: And any other clowns. And I found it. I found the right clown to punch, they (chuckles) had a line of clowns, and I chose that one (Paul laughs). I think Anna went to some … She was a really great, uh, figure skater. So, so great that she was, I mean, Olympic track. She went and trained with Nancy Kerrigan's coach when we were young. She was very good. But then her hips were so injured from falling after years and years. By, like, 15, she's getting cortisone injections into her hips, and the pain just became too much and she had to stop. But I mean, this, my sister'd invested years of her life. And it was close enough to taste. So I remember her going to some therapy after that. And, you know, a dark year or two for her, where she was working through that. And now, she does, she won't watch figure skating. She's just over it.
Paul: Yeah. It must, it must be hard.
Adam: Yeah. And not on her level. I played soccer and got cut in college. And, I watched World Cup and … I love soccer; I'm all about soccer. But for her, it's … I think she was a little closer to it, being a reality, so it's, it's hard for her.
Paul: Do you recall some of the things that your parents said about the world that made this anxiety so real to you, and at what ages they—
Adam: I'm hesitant to say that they inflicted this anxiety. I think they're DNA and their empathy just oozed out of them. And I, I don't think they withheld any—I mean, there's this story in the book about going through photographs, you know, before digital cameras. And, my dad was a civil rights attorney, and one of his main bread and butter was taking down nursing homes. He just assassinated nursing homes, cuz, you know, I mean … He 's, he has a clause in his—
Paul: Cuz the abuse is incredible.
Adam: And he was early on in, in sorting to help prevent that. He has a clause in his will, that if any of us put him in a nursing home, we don’t see a dime (chuckles). So, he's, he's a badass. But, before digital cameras, there was no separation of photographs. So, you go through, the, you get the photos back from the photo mat, and it's like, "Birthday party!" "Soccer game!" Like, "Bed sore! Horrific bed sore!" it's like, "Okay, that's Dad's evidence. That's Dad's evidence." Like, "Okay, evidence, evidence, evidence. Oh, there were are, playing," you know, "Riding a horse!" So, it's that firmly embedded in, in us as children, that like, "Okay, so there's awful shit. But, also, good stuff, good stuff." You know.
Paul: What a, what a metaphor—
Adam: I know!
Paul: —for …
Adam: That's the house I grew up in. That's the household I grew up in. And we all worked at my dad's law office from when we were young, when we were, you know, old enough to make copies and answer the phone. So, we were, we were aware of everything. Yeah.
Paul: Okay. Yeah. And I … apologize, if it seemed like I was trying to throw your parents under the bus. I was just trying to understand how you absorbed all of this—
Adam: Yeah, no—
Paul: —information.
Adam: No apology necessary. I just think it really was sort of osmotic, and we just knew about it. Our parents didn't hide, you know, anything from us. You know, we were … I, I, I wrote about this. But, my dad was also really big in the Americans with Disabilities Act, and there's this great handicaps'-right group called, they're called ADAPT now; they used to be Atlantis. It's the premier national handicap rights group. Started out at Denver, and it started with this guy, Wade Blank, who is, for lack of a better term, the MLK of handicap rights. And Wade was inside this nursing home, where they had all these horrifically disabled people and were just kind of warehousing and abusing them. And he saw the abuse going on, and he sort of been like, "Why can't we get these people their own apartments? Why can't we take some of this Medicaid money and get it to these people directly, instead of, like, keeping them in warehouses?" So, Wade—
Paul: Cuz that's not profitable.
Adam: Exactly. So Wade got in touch with my dad, and they became buddies on that case. Wade was sort of the whistleblower and provided my dad the information. And my dad sued the shit out of everybody. And then, Wade and my dad went on to, like, attack RTD. Like, literally—which is the, um, the public transit company in Denver. You know, these handicap people surrounded the buses, and just locked them in, demanding to have accessibility to the buses, to be able to ride. So, Denver was the first place to make buses handicap accessible. So, anyway, Wade was just this awesome man. And when I was 12, Wade drowned saving his son, who was Lydia's friend. And it was just, like, the first dose of, like, "Oh my god." Like, the world is a … fucked up place. Like, Wade is the embodiment of, of good and morality to all of us. And, like, he got taken out early. And that stayed with my whole family for a long time. Still does.
Paul: And, did that kind of attach a danger to wanting to do good in the world?
Adam: No. I think it just attached a general danger to everything—
Paul: It's just chaos.
Adam: Yeah, and that sense of gloom. And it's like, if it can come for this guy, like this beaming force of light and good, then it's, it's out there coming for everybody. I mean … yeah. This is the first time the darkness sort of descended on our sunny, little clan in a very real way. And that stuck with all of us.
Paul: And how old were all of you?
Adam: I was 12, 11 or 12. Lydia was seven or eight. And Lincoln, the child who died, was, uh, like a very dear friend of Lydia's. It, you know, it messed us up. It was a, it was a rough one. It messed my dad up REAL good. It was a, it was a tough one.
Paul: And how do you remember people reacting, uh, in the, in the house?
Adam: I remember my dad, like, howling in anguish when he got the news. Like, just devastated. And I remember my mom—and I remember it scared us, cuz we'd never seen our dad like that. And I remember my mom being, at some point, being like, "You need to talk to the kids." Like, "They're scared for you. They don't understand this." And it's … I wrote about this, but it's a beautiful moment where my dad—and it's my, to this day my religious world view. My dad, like, pulled a book off the shelf; I believe it was photographs from the Hubble Telescope of, you know, deep space and quasars and wormholes and comets. And then, he kind of just showed it to us, and he's like, "We don't know why any of this exists. We barely understand it. Yet, we're in the middle of it existing. And that in itself is a miracle, and that's the best we have." And I was just like, "Huh!" And so, that's kind of my religion. That's all I got.
Paul: I have a friend who did not believe in god, until he was in rehab, and he was still saying, you know, there, there is no god. The Big Bang caused everything. And a woman came up to him and said, "But what caused the Big Bang?" (Andy laughs) And in that moment, he realized, "I can't explain everything." And he just surrendered to the idea that there might be something.
Adam: Yeah. It's a—And, you know, I never say I'm an atheist. I always say I'm an agnostic, and, and yearning spiritually. Because how boring and arrogant to think you know it all. You got it figured out, man?
Paul: That you know one way or another that there is a god or there isn't. I don't know if there is, but my life works better for me if I act as if there is one, just kind of through trying to live a principled life.
Adam: Totally. I didn't have any religion growing up. My wife is Catholic and early on that was a problem for me (chuckles). I, but I, you know, all that I've been through and, and, sort of taught me to believe whatever you need to get through, I'm not gonna judge you for that. You know, I'll judge your church for certain things, but if you find a spirituality and a beauty in a code of good behavior out of this religion, then what's the problem?
Paul: Right, And there are many atheists—and a shout-out to, uh, Ann from Berlin, who wrote a beautiful thing about that, and she is an atheist. But she leads an beautiful, principled life. And that, to me, if church, is god, or the, the pursuit of wanting to connect to something greater than ourselves. Which would be, to me, the energy of love. That's what my, kind of god or higher power is.
Adam: Totally. And atheists get a bad rap. But I love a good, positive, like, "Hey. I have my own code that's beautiful and kind. I don't need to believe in god to have that code." Like, that's awesome.
Paul: Yeah. So … back to how you remember, kind of the, uh, shockwave through the house. Your dad was howling, um … Do you remember … any kind of visible effects it had on you or a, what was your middle sister's name?
Adam: No, I'm the middle. So Lydia was the baby. I'm the middle. Older sister's Anna.
Paul: Anna. What do you remember, how each of you dealt with it?
Adam: You know, I … and I've thought about this a lot lately. Lydia internalized it. And I, And Lydia's teacher reported that she, you know, would, like, mumble about Lincoln, the child who died, in class for months after that. And then, she'd be like, "What's that, Lydia?" And she's like, "No, nothing," you know. And Anna, and when she went to high school, uh, joined Atlantis, started volunteering there, you know. Anna's now a civil rights attorney, with my dad. So Anna's always like, "I'm gonna be proactive about this." I don't really know how I dealt with it (chuckles). I was just sad and, I remember snapping on a kid in fifth grade, cuz in fifth grade it was, like, the height of the, of the retard comedy boom. And the "Booo!" And doing the "retard" voice, and, like … It was just like, that was everybody's humor in fifth or sixth grade. And I just remember snapping on a kid and being like, "You don't do that anymore," like, you know. Cuz this was the people that Wade had fought for. So I was like, "You don't get to so that." And I remember being, like, mocked for theat. But I was like, "I don't care." It just pissed me off. Yeah, it gets me teary-eyed thinking about, cuz I was just, like, so angry about it.
Paul: What, what …
Adam: So I went a little bit into the, uh, you know politically active in the hallways of my fifth-grade class, but …
Paul: And why, why do you feel like that brings up tears?
Adam: I dunno; it just is (chuckles). I think I, I think there's a lot of it missing that, that, feel bad for Wade and just that family, um, still. But … yeah.
Paul: Do, is there any kind of grief for the little you that was … alone in many ways in his morality and view of the world?
Adam: It's … maybe, maybe. Cuz, you know, I look—Right now, I'm, like, this comic, and I'll, I'll, you know, do the most cynical joke. Like, there's nobody that can, you know, we're comics. You know, we bust balls. It's like, I don't go blue. I'm not one of those, like (makes goofy sound), you know, like, I'm a goon comedian. But, I definitely, there's not much that offends me. And I understand if people are clumsily navigating offensive material to get to, hopefully, a better place in comedy. I understand that's an unfortunate chapter of a open-miker. But, yeah, back then, I was very, I guess I'm maybe am sad about the pureness of that Adam, like. Cuz I love what I do, but I was like, "You should have put that into more activism or something like that." Cuz I really admire my sister and my dad, like, you know. I always say I get to tell dick jokes cuz they’re out there being the change. So (chuckles), maybe, I dunno. I dunno what that's about, but it just made me emotional.
Paul: So, would it be fair to say that you feel like you have kind of come up short in what your parents expected, or you expected of yourself to, uh, foster change in the world?
Adam: I dunno. I don't feel—No. Because my-, I don't think I've come up any short in any way, cuz my parents are, like, so proud. And, like, my dad comes to all my comedy shows. And this book is very hard and personal about the family, about my mom, you know, when I signed the book deal, is like, "I'd like to go to New York with you," and, like, you know, goes, "Go to Simon and Schuster, and, and, you know, have this literary experience," or whatever. So, you know, she was a writer and her son's writing. And, they're very proud. And I, my sister are proud, I know. So I don't know what that is about. I mean, I think, I always would like to be more active. I'm always doing charitable shows with the mental health center of Denver. And, uh, you know, maybe down the road or something, but it's definitely in my DNA. I feel like, you know, if you're not doing something, especially in this climate, you're kind of like, "So, what, you did a 10-minute spot tonight? Cool." Like (laughs).
Paul: So, let's—unless there are any seminal moments, uh, we're skipping over—let's fast-forward to the, um, the big break. The big breaks that you, you got with, uh, Montreal Festival and your show idea coming, coming to fruition.
Adam: Sure. I mean, you know. I was a comic in Denver and I had two very good friends who I still have, Ben Roy and Andrew Orvedahl, and we were a little troop called The Grawlix. And, uh, we did live shows that we kind of the only alt-comedy in Denver, is, you know, 2000s. We were the face of all comedy in our little corner of the comedy world—
Paul: How old are you?
Adam: I'm 38. So, you know. In my 20s, mid-20s, doing all this stuff. And, um, making a lot of videos, and those were getting some attention. And we wrote a script called "Those Who Can't," about inept teachers and, it's started getting some attention in Hollywood. And, and, right around that same time, I got accepted to be a new face at the Just For Laughs-Montreal competition, which I, I could say is, you know, it's kind of like being drafted into the NFL. It's like, "Welcome to big leagues, kid." Like, "We, we, we think you got talent and we're drafting you." It's a BIG deal for a comic, especially one from Denver, you know. You … In these second-tier centers of comedy don't get nearly as much love as New York and LA. So, to make it out of there, you know, everyone in Denver is losing their minds. Ben Roy had been the year before. I was there that year. Andrew wound up going the next year. It's like, we were, we were doing something. We're making some noise in the comedy landscape. And, uh … Yeah, went to Montreal and had, did great. And then I came back home and life took a real hard left turn.
Paul: Talk about the …
Adam: The left turn (chuckles)?
Paul: The left turn, and—
Adam: Well, you know, the … During this whole time, my little sister, Lydia, was starting to spin out. And, growing up, Lydia and I were very close, and especially with humor. We formed our senses of humor together, you know. Anna was involved. Anna was close with all of us; we all laughed together. But there was something about, you know, Anna going off to figure-skating practice, and me and Lydia sitting in front of the TV and riffing off the stuff we were seeing that was made, really, I, I consider my sense of humor wrapped up in Lydia, and vice versa. We would do characters and bits and. Then when I got moving in the comedy world, or the Denver version of it, Lydia moved back home and was so into it. And she was a little punk rocker chick, but comedy became her new punk rock. And she's like, "I love this." And so, she's, she would help me make flyers. She would run tech at the show. She would go over my material with me, in an intimate way that you only allow a comic to do. But, I didn't know anybody funnier than her, and this is my little sister. And her notes were always, like, dead on. And, severe. Like, "That's fat! You can trim that fat." And it's just (chuckles), like, really good advice. And, but, she started breaking down. And, you know, she was suffering from depression. And she had several ugly episodes. And, by the time I got back from Montreal, and two days later, she took her own life. And it was, you know, you think you're on top of the world, King Kong coming home, kissing his muscles. And, then, something like that happens. And … you don't care about any of it anymore. Your life changes completely. I was devastated.
Paul: Talk about the, uh, last interaction that you had with her, about her behavior, the night before.
Adam: Yeah. It's was really sad. It was, you know, I got back home. My friend, Andrew, called me, who's in Grawlix's cohort. And he was like, "Hey, man." You know, I thought he was gonna call me to congratulate me about Montreal or whatever. And he's like, "I was at the bar last night. Your sister was acting insane. She got kicked out. She was yelling; she was screaming. It was insane." And I was like, "All right. Thanks for letting me know." And, you know, there'd been a lot of … not like that. But there's been some, enough, you know. She'd been to the psych ward previously. There'd been two overdoses at this point. So we knew she was on delicate ground. So I called her and I was, like … But, you know, but, also, she would be good, bad, good, bad. Normal, insane, normal—I, I don't mean to say insane—normal-behaving, you know, manic and out of control. And, it was very frustrating to watch her bounce between them. So, and only in hindsight do you realize the severity of it all. But anyway—
Paul: Had she been diagnosed with bipolar or anything, or—
Adam: Yeah. But she, you know, she was a … She died when she was 28. These diagnoses were, were private, and we didn't know what she had, per se. I mean, we knew … I, she was outfoxing shrink after shrink after shrink, and getting the prescriptions that she needed and moving on to the next shrink. And she was a fiercely sharp girl. And I, I think she was just … entertaining these therapists to get whatever she wanted out of them.
Paul: Was she getting medication she needed, or medication she wanted to cope with it in a non-therapeutic, long-term way?
Adam: Both. I think both. And I, you know, she wasn't, like, this pill popper. She never did those drugs … previous for any recreational reason. But I think her brain was, you know, abandoning her in ways that scared her. And so, she found some that felt good, perhaps in a clinical way, and some that felt good in another way. And she went down whatever road she felt was the right road, not probably what was being recommended at the at the time.
Paul: I see. So it's fair to say she was self-medicating in some ways?
Adam: I think so. I think so.
Paul: And were drugs or, uh, street drugs or alcohol—
Adam: No. No. Never. Teetotaler. Just didn't like it. Until she'd started seeing therapists and taking pills and, you know, I'm, I'm not gonna, I'm not qualified to talk about that. But, I remember after her first overdose, I was like, "We're throwing all these away, right?" And she's like, "Oh, yeah. Right." You know.
Paul: Was it an intentional overdose?
Adam: Well, she had, she had one—She's very tiny. And, so she had one that, she was having a lot of trouble sleeping. And so, she convinced us that, you know, it was a misdia- … a miscalculation in body weight and, "I did too much and I'm sorry." And we're like, "Okay." And we wanted to believe that. The second one was crystal clear that she was—She said she wasn't trying to kill herself, but she was trying to be asleep constantly, which is, like, what's, what's the difference? And that one—
Paul: Oh, I can map that out for you (chuckles)!
Adam: Yeah I bet you can (laughs)! I bet you can. So, anyway, that one was like, "Fuck, word, this is bad!" And … um … So, yeah, she … I called her up and I said, "Andrew says you're acting crazy." And she just kind of started crying, and she's like, "I can't stand that people would say that about me." And, and I was, you know, just hysterical. And I was like, "Well, come over here." And she came over to my house and just kind of, like, collapsed on the floor. And I was like, "It's all right." Like, "You're going through a rough patch. It's okay." Like, "You just acted nuts last night." Like, "No one's … there's no permanent damage. This was out of concern; not anger." She was only eating Belgian waffles for that last month. So, I took her to her favorite Belgian waffle spot. We had, we had waffles. I picked her up; I dusted her off. And then I went home and crashed, cuz I'd been up for, like, 30 hours partying at Montreal and just being a fool. So I, I just kind of handed her off to my sister. I was like, "Lydia had this today. Here's today's update." You know, "I'm going to sleep or whatever." And then, I think I might have talk to the night before a little bit, like, "You're a'right?" And she's like, "I'm a'right." And then the next day, she, you know, sent an email out, said, "Love y'all." And, and then that was that. Yeah.
Paul: (Pause) Are you comfortable talking about … going to her place?
Adam: I mean, on some level, you know. I wrote the book, and, and I wrote that out in great detail. And, I went to EMDR (chuckles) for the trauma of this memory. So, you know, I'm comfortable getting into it a little bit. I we-, I we-, you know, I went to find her, and I walked up the stairs and there she was lying in bed with the gun in her hand and having taken her own life. And, you know … every word to describe the trauma is fitting. It was total and complete, and I called my sister and, you know. It's just a flash: ambulances, EMTs, family pouring in, dogs howling and crying, and, you know, neighbors wondering what's going on. This summer'd been really hot, all these wildfires and this, like, just storm moved in, and just doused the neighborhood for 30 minutes. And we were all just like, "That's Lydia," like, "There she goes."
Paul: Saving the world.
Adam: (Chuckles) Saving the world. Giving us one last little dose. Yeah, and then there was just … you know, a hell scape for months.
Paul: The, the moment when you saw her, you describe in the book, physically, what you experience. Can, can you share that?
Adam: Yeah, I remember writing, um, and remember feeling that, you know, they say you go out of your body in that moment. But, in that exact moment, there was no out-of-body. It was the most—I felt like, you know, in medieval times, when they're trying to take down a big castle door with a battering ram? It just felt like that in my solar plexus. I, I probably fell over, you know. It was … so complete … hurt, and a physical hurt. Like, where emotion bleeds into physical. I'm, like, it, it was just pain. And I didn't feel, in those moments, any, like, betrayal or anger or any—It was just, like, hurt. Yeah, it was shocking. I would never felt anything like that.
Paul: And I would imagine some of that hurt is for how she hurt, that she … that solution was what she chose.
Adam: Yeah, I think so. I don't know. I haven't really thought about the origin of it in that moment. But, yeah. I mean, certainly now—
Paul: But don't, don't let me put words in your—
Adam: No, no. I think that, you know, it was … I think you name a type of hurt. It all came with the force of a battering ram right, right then.
Paul: Yeah, it’s hard to get subtle.
Adam: It's hard to get subtle (laughs). In, in, in gradations of hurt, uh, it was just totally, you know … yeah.
Paul: When, when people criticize, uh, someone who's taken their life, I always think of the … sorry to get so heavy, but, uh, you know, we're talking about it. But I always think of the people that jumped from the burning building in 9/11. And I tend to think of … that, that it's … That was not their first choice.
Adam: What a great metaphor! It's a painted-into-a-corner. I reached this conclusion writing, and I don't, you know, this is kind of the whole crux of the book for me, so I don't know if I'm getting to it too early in this interview. But, you know, Lydia—We talk about empathy in my family. And Lydia felt that more than any of us. I mean, truly. She, not just Lincoln, her buddy, dying. But, you know, she was sad for ants that got stepped on. And she really felt every ounce of life and empathy. And what devastated her the most was when her family was sad. Cuz she was—The way, same way that I doled out prayers on the equal snake draft system. Lydia was in love with our family. And, to hurt us would devastate her. If one of us was hurt, she'd do ANYTHING she, she could to get us away from that place. And for her to put us in a place of hurting, you know, cue the shame and the, whatever-I-can-do song-and-dance to get you out of that place. And, knowing now that Lydia was so mentally ill and saw so few options for herself, that the only thing she could think to even do to escape it was hurt us profoundly forever, uh, I truly understand how little of a choice she had. Because that was her last out. It was 9/11, people jumping to avoid the flames and wreckage. That was Lydia's, like, "God, this is gonna hurt my family. But this is the only way I can get out. Cuz it's the only I can stop the hurt, which is trumping the hurt that my family's gonna have." And I, and I understand. And when you get to that place, there's no anger or, or, uh resentment. It's just sad. It's just really sad you got to that place, Lydia.
Paul: We did an interview with Kevin Briggs, who was a, um, uh, highway patrolman who, uh, patrolled the Golden Gate Bridge for years—
Adam: Oh, man!
Paul: —and so, he talked a lot of people, uh, off … of the ledge. And … sometimes he wasn't able to. But the conversations that he had with them, the one thing he said they all shared with him is that they felt like a burden. Which … is … to me, such proof that there is a distortion, a mental illness going on there, that that, that is one of the lies that it tells you. And that doesn't mean that you haven’t ever put someone through the wringer. But, they would rather have you … here—
Adam: I know. And that's so amazing that's what he said, cuz that's, that's Lydia's thinking … There'll be—I remember her … I don't know what she wrote this or said it, but , you know, you'll be sad for a while, and then it'll be easier for you, because I'm such a burden. And, you know, how … That shows how off your thinking is. Because I'd prefer the burden for the rest of my life. I'll take it. I would have you be a burden until we're in our 90s, and that's my old little burden little sister (chuckles) over there, with the varicose veins. No problem. I'd take that.
Paul: Well, this would be good time, or a terrible time, to talk about the, the burden that sometimes is there, when you have a loved one that has mental illness. And to be clear, you know, this is just a … um … I, I so don't want (chuckles) somebody who is suicidal right now hearing this and going, "So, it is real! I really am a burden!" But, it's also important for, I think, people who lived with a loved one who has depression or whatever, to know that what they're experiencing sometimes is real, um—
Adam: I, I, I think it's hon-, I think it's helpful to have an honest portrayal on every side of the coin. And I hope anyone who is suicidal can see how devastated I am, and, you know, if you think that your family would be better off without you, you're dead wrong! And, you're gonna leave a wake of, just, permanent hurt in your family. And it's not anger at you; it's just sadness that you're gonna create in them. But, listen, I think it's also important to be honest about the flip side. I think portrayals of grief and suicide are very two-dimensional, and it's like this wounded, hurting person. And, this family or, or friend that just, god! wish if, coulda do-, couldn't do any more. You know, I coulda-, I wish I coulda done some more. We did EVERY single thing we could possibly do. We're a family of means, that, you know, tried to do everything to help. There's, of course you're gonna feel guilt for not having done enough. But, there's sometimes where there's nothing that can be enough, and I think it's also okay to sent-, be honest about frustration. And, you know, a person who's very clinically depressed and suicidal is also very navel-gazing and just me, me, me, me, me. That's not a fun person to hang out with (chuckles). And if you love 'em to death, literally, you're hanging out with them all the time, trying to cheer 'em up, and all they're talking about is, "Woe is me." It's okay to get frustrated. That's a natural thing. And it's okay to bitch about that to your other family members and be, like, "(Sigh) It's a rough day with Lydia. It's like, god, I wish she wouldn't be a flake today." But, it's okay. But then go back a do another shift.
Paul: And … I think an important think to talk about here, too, is the importance of, um, the person, the loved one, getting support, being honest with, uh, the person who is suffering, uh, about the need for them to do what they can to get help. To be able to say, to say to them, "If you need help making an appointment, I'll, I'll help you with that. But, you need to help yourself, for me to hang in there with you, You need to also invest in this, because otherwise it's draining for, for me to keep putting out this wildfire, um, when you're not making an effort." And, also, to say, "I understand you're struggling to get out of bed. I understand how hard the idea of going for help is." And to, and through that, setting boundaries, I've had to set boundaries with people who were clinically depressed, but refused to get help, because I, I said, "I love you, but I can't stand by and watch you destroy yourself, because it's, it, it's too painful for me to do that." And sometimes I think that, that tough love, um, can be a catalyst, sometimes not. But, ultimately, we can't control what they do; we can only express, um … what it is that we're experiencing, to try to break that navel-gazing.
Adam: Yeah, and you have to look out for yourself as well in this, you know. I, I was there every step of the way, and I'm still broken that it happened. And I still wished I'd done more, but I don't know what more I could’ve done. I've, you know, not, far less than you, but I've had to talk a lot about mental illness lately. And, I've talked to some friend of mines at the mental health center, Denver—my buddy, Adam—and he was like, I was like, honest, "Give me some language, dude. I'm gonna be talking about this. I don't wanna sound like an idiot. Like, help me out." And, what, he told me a lot of things. But what really helped me and, to understand actually, is, is just thinking of mental health as a, on a spectrum. And, like, no one's 100 percent perfect. Like, see ya next year! And no, and, and there's, you know, you're, you're either … you're not sane or insane. You're all somewhere in between, trying to figure out our brains, which are complex. And the only, you know, to people who are suffering, the spectrum moves. It shifts. You're in a bad spot now. In three years you might be in a great spot. And just like physical health, everybody pats you one the back for doing push-ups and eating right, it's totally great to be working on your mental health and to be honest about, "I'm working on my mental health." And friends of people—Like, if you're in a good spot, recognize you're in a good spot, and be there for the people who aren’t in a good spot. And, it's just not, it's just not eternal. It's not a life sentence. It's, it's malleable.
Paul: And, and it can feel eternal, and—
Adam: That's the scariest part.
Paul: The lack of empathy, uh … people get sometimes when they're suffering, um, you know, if you were to equate it to the gym, uh, because I, I went for years with being unable to get a handle on my clinical depression, despite going to psychiatrists and trying different meds. I have treatment-resistant depression. And it would feel like I was going to the gym every day, and I was getting more out of shape. And it, it can be so frustrating, and in those moments it is so important to have patience with the process, lay down when you feel like it. Don’t apologize for what it is you're going through. Try, try to keep moving your, your feet forward, but be compassionate with your, with yourself. And, you know, it, it, it took years for me to find the right combination of meds—and I'm, I feel, still feel like I'm not completely out of the woods. I probably never will be. But my quality of life is great. And it took, it took years to get there, and I'm so glad I hung in there, because now I can have conversations like we're having, and I can share that experience with other people and let them know, "You're not alone. It's really important for you to not only understand you're not alone, but to not go through this alone."
Adam: Which, as you know, some people who are probably resistant to that line of dialogue—cuz they're hearing it from their loved ones—to be able to plug in a podcast like you're doing, and just hear it alone, without someone in their immediate circle who's there questioning their motives or whate—It's such a valuable thing. It's really a valuable thing.
Paul: And if you can't get that support from your immediate family or friends, there are people who will support you. There are support groups, mental health professionals. There is a, um, a web site called helpguide.org that lists, um, every kind of resource imaginable, from, you know, support groups for trans teens to people with bipolar, people with addiction, etc., etc. But, um … It's complicated.
Adam: (Laughs) Yeah, buddy. Super complicated.
Paul: You, we were talking, before we started, uh, recording, about looking for … the pockets of beautiful and the … awful and mundane aspects of life. Is that … something that you try to be conscious of in your, in your daily life?
Adam: Absolutely! You know, I'm at a good place, and writing this book helped me, because … you know, and I was very careful to not make this this horrible, sad tale of death and depression and mental illness. Lydia was a unique force. And, she was weird and funny and really smart and a joy to everyone who knew her. For, you know, 26 years of her life, and in the last two, some switch is flipped in her brain. And she was even a joy then. There was just a lot of darkness and a lot of happiness, and it's all wrapped in there together. So, it's taken me a lot of therapy and thought to get to a point where … those two years at the end don't dominate the narrative. And I'm focused on the 26 … gifts of years that I had with this pretty awesome lil' sister. And I've gotten back to celebrating that, and that is like a profound journey for me to even be there. So, in a way, it's made me more optimistic. You know, my, we're talking about religious world views earlier. And, like, I've kinda come to the place through talking about my father, actually, that it's like, "Okay, if you believe in an afterlife, then we've got a short, little amount of time on this planet." Infinitesimally short, if you think about it in Big Bang terms. "And, uh, and you'll be reconnected Lydia and whatever cosmic form that is, in a blink of an eye. So why be sad for this whole time you're here? And if you don't believe in an afterlife, and it all just goes to black, and this is just some weird, short, infinitesimal (laughs), limited amount of time we have on the planet, and that's it! Why're you being sad the whole time?" And I've just kind of gotten to that place, and I've really just chosen to be optimistic. And I got a kid on the way, and I really love my family and community in Denver and I'm, you know, I'm planted a garden for the first time (chuckles) this year. And I pulled a radish out, and I felt this sense of satisfaction that bigger than any career achievement ever. I was like, "Me, dumb Adam, made a piece of food that I gre-," you know, little things like that. I just, I, I focus on that, and celebrate that stuff.
Paul: To wrap up, let's—unless there's anything else that you would like to share.
Adam: No. This has been great.
Paul: Again, the, the book is, uh, "Tragedy Plus Time." And, uh, I'll put links to that and to your show, uh, "Those Who Can't," on TruTV, starting it's third of fourth season?
Adam: Starting its third season later this year, yeah.
Paul: And congrats on, on that—
Adam: Thanks.
Paul:—that success. Let's take it out with some fond memories of, uh, Lydia.
Adam: Oh, man! I love that. Thank you. I … Okay. Well, there's just so many. Like … (laughs), uh …
Paul: It must be hard to find one to say, well this is, uh, you know, this is the one that I want to represent …
Adam: Okay, well here's one that I haven’t, like, really shared that I really like. And it's very simple. But, when I moved back, when I graduated college, I was 22. Lydia was 18. She was going off to college, but I moved back that summer to figure out my next move. Back home in Denver, Lydia's 18, going off to college. And, like, we both just loved the White Stripes. We thoughts the White Stripes were the bees goddamn knees. And it was, you know, early White Stripes period. And, I was, had been playing guitar in college, and I didn't know she could play drums. But she had been teaching herself drums. So we just sat in the basement that summer and went through the White Stripes catalogue, like, "White Blood Cells." They're all pretty easy. And we taught ourselves every single song. And we, you know, CRANKED it, made some much noise down there. And remember my friend, not that the White Stripes have a bassist, but—my, I, we were trying to write a few other songs. My friend, who played bass in a real band in Denver, came over and, like, just kind of sat in for a little bit. And we didn’t know what we were doing. Never, neither one of us had played with a band. And, uh, we played a few songs. And he just (chuckles) looked at us, and he goes, "Man. You know why I like playing guys? Cuz you just FUCKIN' rock!" (Laughs) It was, like … so, and we'd never done anything with it beyond that. But, like, I just like me and Lydia in the basement, fucking rocking out for a summer was, was great.
Paul: Wow.
Adam: Yeah. It was nice.
Paul: What a, what a great memory.
Adam: Totally.
Paul: Well, Adam. Thanks … thanks for coming and sharing this. And, uh, your book is, is great. And, um, I appreciate it.
Adam: Yeah. I really appreciate, I'm such a fan of the podcast. And, thanks for having me and I think it's a special, special thing you do.
Paul: Thank you.
End of Interview
[01:15:58] What a nice guy. Before we take it out with, uh, a bunch of surveys—I, I got an, um, a note from somebody that is frustrated trying to read the surveys. You know, when you go on our web site, you can, there's about a dozen surveys that you can take, all anonymously. And, uh, you can also read surveys, and see how, what other people have filled out. And, so, what you would need to do it, you click on the link, uh, to say, read surveys. And, it may take a while to load, because so many people have taken the surveys. So, you'll see the little, kind of spinning thing. Don't worry; it will show up. Sometimes it'll take, like, 10 or 15 seconds for some of the surveys that are, um, you know, for instance, the shame and secret survey, like 9,000 people have, have filled that survey out. So, it's gonna take a while. And then, uh, to read each individual survey, you would click on, towards the top when it loads, click on "Individuals Responses," and then you can just page back and forth, um, and read as many as you want.
[01:17:12] All right, um … This—Oh, and I'd talked about, uh, caramels. I always feel uncomfortable pronouncing the word caramels. It just sounds so, like I should ha-, be wearing an ascot. I've always said "car-mel," but at some point I felt stupid. So, for me, there's really no way to address this candy without sounding like an idiot or somebody wearing top-siders (chuckles), smoking a, uh, a cigarette, like, uh, (chuckles), what's that old cigarette ad, where it would just showed, like, a guy on a yacht, smoking in, like, the least masculine way you could smoke a cigarette. And, uh, it just always made me laugh.
[01:18:11] So, "Charlie" sent me an email. And he said, "Somatic experiencing and caramels. So, sucky candies can be a part of somatic experiencing, as the sucking and swallowing unclenches and soothes the jaw, neck, and throat muscles, where trauma is trapped from chronic silencing. I use chewy and hard caramels; it works as advertised. Also, there's something about sucking and swallowing that activates the social engagement mechanism, where oxytocin flows nicely." That's good to hear. I had mentioned that I had been doing somatic experiencing, um, for a while. And, uh, still doing it; not as often as I did before. But, uh, it's really good for in-person, um, trauma releasing. I was a little, I was kind of skeptical of it at first. But, um … yeah! Gonna get right on that carmel thing. Did I say carmel? You idiot! Caramel. Argh, you uppity, blue-blood!
[01:19:21] This is, uh, an email that I got from "Anna Mae." And, she writes, "Hey, Paul. I just wanted to tell you how much I love and appreciate the monologues you do sometimes in the beginning of the podcasts. One of those monologues really got to me and was exactly what I didn’t know I needed to hear. You said, 'I was thinking about shame, and I thought it really is kind of a form of fantasy, because we tell ourselves that by shaming ourselves, it a way of disciplining ourselves, so that we don’t do something again.' But it's not really necessary. It's like, 'I'm gonna go wake somebody up.' If would you just keep shaking them for five minutes after they immediately woke up. No. Your conscience just needs to be awakened; it doesn’t need to be pulverized." Nice thing about having a bad memory is, I don’t remember saying that. I'm like, "Oh. I kind of like that." She continues: "I'm a 20-year-old bisexual/pansexual woman, with a huge preference for women. Eighty percent of my crushes have been women, and last week, for the first time in my life, I admitted to myself, and my therapist, my deepest, darkest fear. I couldn't verbalize it, so I wrote it down. I begged her not to read it out loud. Thing is, my mom breastfed me 'til I was eight years old, even though she wasn’t lactating after the first year. And when I started realizing I'm not straight, I started obsessing over that fact. What if that's why I like girls? What if I'm re-enacting that when I'm with women? What if I'm actually in love with my mom? But fact is, I don't like my mom. As soon as I became aware of my attraction to women, I stopped looking at and touching her chest, started showering on my own, stared covering up and wouldn't let her see any part of my skin that she had access to before. I stopped hugging her as well. She never forced anything on me. I know that it wasn’t sexual for her; it was innocent bonding, but left me utterly confused and full of shame for my entire adolescent years and even today. When I wrote it down on a paper for my therapist to read, it triggered such a horrible meltdown, she barely managed to calm me down. And for the whole 35 minutes, I just sat there sobbing hysterically, covering my eyes from shame, and then time was up and I had to leave. A week later, today, I heard your words in the podcast. I realized that I'm awake and conscious and need to stop beating myself up for something that isn't my fault. It was her responsibility as an adult to establish proper boundaries and stop breastfeeding me after a year. It's not my fault, and my sexuality doesn’t correlate with what happened to me. The only thing it did to me, sexually, is make me uncomfortable and grossed out to touch breasts, because it reminds me of my mom and disgusts me." I have to wonder, though, why was your mom, if she wasn’t lactating anymore, why was she breastfeeding you? "I tried doing research to better understand how what happened affected me, but found absolutely nothing. No research, no similar cases, nothing on forums. The only thing that would come up is how breastfeeding for too long affects mothers. Nothing about children. Your words were exactly what I needed to make peace and accept my past. They sort of guided me to a path that seems less shameful and freeing than the one I'm currently walking on. My therapist had asked me at least three times before if I'd been sexually abused. Not necessarily raped or molested. Maybe even just touched inappropriately, and not once did I ever mention my mom. Each time she asked, my mom did cross my mind. But it's as if I were to mention my mom, I'd be calling her a predator or something, and it would destroy the only family relationship I had left, which explains why I always try to belittle and forgive every little or big mistake she makes. I'm always on her side, in fear of losing the only person that ever loved me. I fear that if someone knows all about my sexual fantasies and experiences, they won't ever be able to love me. That somehow, it makes me unworthy. I always tell me partners that in no way does one sexual preference make them any less lovable. Yet, when it comes to my own self, I have a hard time listening and believing my own words." Thank you so much for that. And, uh, if, if you're out there and you have experienced, um, a lack of boundaries from your mother that feels, um, um, questionable, feel free to email me and, um, and I'm talking about, like, uh, where you're being treated like a partner or, uh, there were no boundaries around nudity or your body or her body. It is a really common thing, and until I started talking about my experience, which is slightly different than a lot of the other experiences here, um, it's … I didn't realize how pervasive this is. And, um, there is a private, uh, support group that I can connect you with, um, where you can find a lot of people who get it and get you/us. Thank you for that.
[01:25:17] "Ladybug Laugh" describes her bipolar I: "It feels like I never know on the inhale if my mood will be the same on the exhale." About being a sex crime victim—this one is so fucking heavy. And those of you who follow, uh, the show on Instagram and Twitter, you may have seen this one already. I have a … somebody, there's a volunteer named Brooke who is so good at posting struggle in a sentences on Instagram and Twitter. So if you wanna get those, um, follow, follow the show @mentalpod on, uh, on both of those. And, this one is about being a sex crime victim: "How do you answer, 'How did you lose your virginity?' when you were four and it was your uncle?" That is so fucking heavy. About her self-harm: "I started at age seven. What normal seven-year-old self-harms, gets caught, and instead of getting me help, was told to just not leave a scar?" FUCK! And if anybody listening to this podcast is feeling like … my stuff isn't enough, these are so heavy, you know, what am I complaining about. It's not, it's the feelings inside that matter. You know, I tend to read the things that are more dramatic, because it, it makes for, in terms of, uh, a podcast, more, a more compelling podcast. But, it doesn’t make somebody's experience, who was mild, any less, any less valid.
[01:27:08] "Emca (sp?)" has depression, and shares, uh, a snap-, and self-harms, and shares a snapshot from her life: "It was a guilty pleasure of mine, that whether I was at my own home or even my boyfriend's, I would gather the razors and pick which blade I wanted that day. I knew the dangers of using another person's razor, but it didn’t even matter to me. I just love the process of picking the perfect one and pulling the blade out." Thank you for that. And, addictions, sometimes I think the ceremony, you know, the ritual of the tradition, can be as much of a high, or more, than what follows it.
[01:27:56] This is, uh, a survey about, um, a younger male, uh, being violated by an older female. And, and I wanted to read this one because I don't believe that this is, um … abusive, what this woman is, is feeling. Nothing happened in, in real life. But, I'm, I'm just gonna read it. And she calls herself "Stereotypical Librarian." And she writes, "I work with a younger man. He is 32 and I am 51. And I fantasize about having a sexual relationship with him. I feel like there is a connection between the two of us. There's a great deal of flirting and sexual innuendo that occurs. It's an equal back and forth. My fantasy feeds on this and his behavior towards me. I am not imagining his flirting and sexual banter and teasing. However, I can't determine whether it's just playful or that it could go further. I fantasize that it could. We talk through the day. We will spend time talking and hanging out. It seems as though we are developing a closer relationship. Then, he will walk by my room and not stop to talk or say hi, or unlike most days, he will go home and not say goodbye. When this happens, I start to question my interpretations of our relationship. I begin to think maybe I'm imagining everything. I tell myself I'm an idiot for thinking any relationship is there, or interpreting our interactions incorrectly." And then she goes on to say how she criticizes herself, and that it's a cycle of, um, being drawn in and then shaming herself and feeling deluded. And, um, I just wanted to say that, that, you know, I, I don't think there's any … I think that the thing to focus on here is not the age difference between the two of you, because that doesn’t strike me as something that's, like, wrong. But, his attention determining your feeling of self-wroth is the thing to focus on. And that's the thing that I would work on. And he, who know? Maybe he's just a flirt, and he gets a high from seeing, uh, a woman, um, engaged and excited to … interact with him. And, you know, as my therapist would say, what are the facts on the ground? And the facts on the ground are, that there is no deeper relationship beyond this with him, and the only way to know is to ask him or just put the potential of that to, to rest. Or, I think you're gonna keep driving yourself crazy with this. And … You know, a lot of people, their sense of power is from flirting and seeing how it stirs up other people. And, many of them are not even aware of it. And it's a coping mechanism for them, when they begin to feel dead inside or, you know, some type of uncomfortable emotional, and it's how they soothe themselves. And it's possible that that's what's going on here, or maybe he really does want a relationship with you. But, um, again, I think the most important thing is that you find some type of help or support to begin to deal with part of you that feels empty and, and, um, is made or broken by someone's attention or lack of attention.
[01:31:55] This is an awfulsome moment filled out by (chuckles)—love the name—"The Smiths and Peanut Butter on a Dark Winter Night." It is so easy to picture your teenage years with that name. She's in her 30s, and she writes, "Every winter, since I was 12, I've been overrun with seasonal affective disorder. My first memory of it taking hold of my brain, was on a slushy November day. I had drudged home from grade school, through melting snowbanks, as the insufferably long night began to fall around me. I was sodden by the time I got home, but I didn't see the point in taking off my wet coat and snow pants. I shrunk down onto the stairs and sat there crying. My mom wasn’t home yet, which was a good think, because crying was either mocked or earned you a back hand if you caught her in the wrong mood. Unfortunately, I was still crying by the time she got home. Much like I felt resigned to sit around in a wet snowsuit, I couldn’t work up the willpower to pull myself together for her arrival. She asked me why I was crying. Not in a kind way, but I decided to answer her honestly anyway. 'I'm crying because the world feels like too much. I feel stupid and ugly and worthless, and I just wanna die.' My mom responded wearily, 'I bought you the hair curlers you wanted. What else do you want from me?'" Thank you for sharing that. Aw man, those days, those November, December days, when you live in a northern city, and it's just gray and it's … ugh! Ugh! That is a particular, particular kind of … depression. It's just like you were wandering through … just … It's like you're living in a vacuum, and there is just nothing. And it fe-, it feels, it feels like, you feel like a ghost. Like nothing is … like everything is real to everybody else, but it's just a … decoration. Umph!
[01:34:30] "Susan" … sent me an email. "Hi, Paul. I'm an avid listener to your podcast. I love the diverse group of people and the not-so-pretty topics you discuss freely and openly. I have pretty severe PTSD from childhood trauma, and I've been through therapy for quite a while, but it still gets the best of me sometimes. Two nights ago, I lost it. I was suicidal. The police showed up. I was taken to the crisis center, where I was put on a hold. Anyway, it was around two in the morning. I'm sitting in one of the cheap, vinyl recliners and my paper scrubs, trying to keep warm because it was fucking freezing in there. It was dark, and I felt like I had hit the absolute bottom of my life. And then, I heard your voice in my head saying, 'You're not alone.' You know what you say at the end of the podcast. It made me feel like I wasn’t the only one sitting in a mental hospital at 2 AM on a Tuesday morning and that I was going to get through it. Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you. You touched my life with your positivity and honesty and truth. Keep up the important work." Thank you so much for that. That, that made my day when I read that. Just absolutely made my day. And, you know, if, if this podcast ever feels like a one-way street for you guys, let me tell you, it brings so much meaning to, to my life. And there's so many times that my life it helped and made better by the energy that I get back from, from you guys.
[01:36:16] "Whoops" gives us a snapshot from his life. "On my co-dependency: I met a girl and have only hung out with her a few times. And when she invited me out to her art show, I saw her being touchy-feely with another guy she works with. I maintained my composure, but on the way home, I bawled my eyes out walking to the subway, punching signs I walked by out of frustration. I continued to sob on the subway ride home, and I also cried a bunch when I made it home. I barely know her." The power of fantasy is un-fucking-real. You might check out the book, "Facing Love Addiction," by Pia Mellody. It's, uh, it's kind of the bible of, um, fantasizing about, you know, being in a relationship with somebody without even really knowing them. And, um … Cuz what it's really about is not about that person. It's about us escaping from the feelings that we're having in the present moment. And they're just a vehicle for us to distract ourselves or numb ourselves. Not that that woman is not terrific, but, um, her art is terrible. I'll tell you. I don’t know who she is, but her art is terrible.
[01:37:45] This is a happy moment filled out by "Chris," uh, who is agender. And they write, "We have DID—" which is a dissociative identity disorder; used to be known as multiple personality disorder. "We have DID. We were at a birthday party—" And by the way, "we" is how, uh, they refer to it, um, because they have, uh, multiple, uh, personalities or identities. "We have DID. We were at a birthday party, and I switched into the body, and my friends instantly recognized me as me and not the host personality. Being validated and recognized when you share a body felt so good." And to anybody who hears that and kind of rolls their eyes, um, let me tell you, DID is fucking real, and, um, it is also fascinating. We've done a couple of episodes, uh, with it. I wanna say our last guest that had it was Melanie, I believe. But it is, it is fascinating. And, um, thanks for sharing that.
[01:38:57] "Sisyphus—" Speaking of Sisyphus Brewery … BREWING!—shares about living with an abuser. "Growing up with mentally ill, violent, alcoholic, emotionally incestuous, single mother. Is a cruel to reduce her to that? She had a very hard life. I wanna defend her, yet not dismiss my own pain. Tricky." And it's not one or the other. That's one of the things my therapist pounded into my head, is people can be both dark and light. And it's about giving weight to what you're feeling and what you experience, not about putting the other person on trial or determining, you know, assigning a number from 1 to 10 on the overall, you know, value of, of that person. My mom was abusive, and yet there were many things about her—and are about her—that are wonderful. And great things that she gave me, and great things that, that she taught me and instilled in me. And that's the part that is the mind fuck. Thank you for sharing that. She's also struggling, um, to be around her, because if she's given weight to how she feels, she's angry and doesn't want to be around her and her skin crawls and she wants to leave. And, yet, she also wants the comfort from her mother. And she's also searching for that mothering from someone else. And I just wanna say that is textbook … feeling, or feelings of confronting the truth about having an incestuous relationship with a parent. Whether it's emotional incest or physical incest or anywhere in between, that is, that is what I experienced when I started to recover.
[01:41:01] And then this is a happy moment. And … it's filled out by, uh—(chuckles) I love this name—a guy who calls himself "God Got it Right with Cowgirls." And he shares, uh, his happy moment: " I don’t know if anything makes me happier than going to see a movie with my kid when the theater is more that's three-quarters empty." I love those little moments, and I love when they're moments with a parent really being there for their kid. And, you know, I talked about my mom. One of my happiest memories of childhood is going to see Willy Wonka in the theater with my mom. And, she saw how much I loved it. And she turned to me, after it was over, and she said, "Do you want to stay and watch it again?" And I said, "Yes." And I felt so seen and heard and, um … It was just such a happy moment, and it is possible for that person to also be the type of person or be the same person—I hate to use type of person, but—the same person that can deeply, deeply wound somebody. And, um, it's hard to wrap our heads around that, but … that is, uh, there it is. How's that for (laugh), how's that for a running-out-of-steam way of wrapping it up (chuckles). Anyway, I hope if you're, you're listening, uh, that you realize that you're not alone, and that there are people who can, who can help us and that we, that human connection is so, so much of what makes life worth living to me. And I'm glad I stuck around, cuz, um, I get to have deep conversations with people. And I wouldn’t be able to talk about those things if I hadn’t experienced bad things, and if I hadn't been an asshole and felt shame. Yeah, it's … it's so complicated. Anyway, you're not alone, and thanks for listening.
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