Episode notes:
This episode is sponsored by Cards Against Humanity visit them at www.cardsagainsthumanity.com
Episode Transcript:
Welcome to Episode 201, with my guest Noemi. This episode is sponsored by Cards Against Humanity and they’ve asked us not to read an ad, and they just said, “Enjoy the show.” Thank you, Cards Against Humanity.
I’m Paul Gilmartin. This is The Mental Illness Happy Hour—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. It’s not a doctor’s office. I’m not a therapist. It’s more like a waiting room that doesn’t suck. The website for this show is mentalpod.com. Go there, check it out, read a forum… a forum? Read the forum, post in the forum, read a blog. Support the show, buy a T-shirt, a coffee mug. Fill out a survey, let us get to know you. They’re all anonymous, the surveys. Read how other people have filled out their surveys. You can scroll through thousands and thousands of people’s responses to some very intimate questions. Those of you that are regular listeners to the show know that, because a good portion of the show after the interview is reading those surveys.
I got a—an email from a listener named Tierney, and she writes:
“I’m writing because I’m going through a shitty, shitty thing right now, and I don’t feel there’s enough info on it out there: benzodiazepine addiction. I have suffered from anxiety and panic attacks since I was 16, largely due to a mother who suffers from borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder, which she refuses to seek treatment for. I’ve been on and off benzos since I started getting the panic attacks. I started out taking them sporadically, but I’ve been on a half a milligram of Klonopin daily for the past three-plus years, recently up to three-quarters of a milligram. I’ve become addicted even though I never abuse my medication, never chased a high in my life. I decided it was time to stop a couple of weeks ago and I gotta tell you, even working with my psychiatrist doing a slow taper, quitting is just awful. While there’s some good forums out there like BenzoBuddies, et cetera, for support, I think that more attention needs to be paid to what exactly you sign up for when you go on these drugs. I think my doctor made the right decision putting me on them in the first place, but knowing what I know now, I likely would have come off them much sooner or worked at developing different coping skills. I guess I’m just asking you to do a show about benzodiazepines and other potentially addictive drugs. Psych drugs are wonderful if you need them, but benzo addiction is serious business.”
It is. Benzo addiction is very, very serious and people can die from withdrawal from benzos. So, yeah, I would love to interview somebody, if there’s anybody in the L.A. area that has battled benzo addiction and wants to—and withdrawal… Contact me. Shoot me an email.
And if you have a story that you haven’t heard on the podcast yet, especially if it’s a subject that hasn’t been touched upon… I was supposed to record a guy last week who has MS, and I was really looking forward to talking to him but he cancelled. So, I am out there, trying to find different subjects to talk about on this podcast. I know sometimes it might seem like we talk about similar things too often, but I just want you to know that I am aware that’s—to keep the podcast fresh, there needs to be a breadth of experiences so that it doesn’t become repetitive. Or maybe it’s just my fear that the show will become repetitive.
Anyway, let’s get to some—this is a Struggle in a Sentence survey. This is filled out by Ondine, and she writes about her dermatillomania:
“My hands are my worst enemies.”
That’s so profound. She has chronic migraines, and she describes it as:
“Intense pressure. Holes in vision. Wasting my youth. No relief.”
A snapshot from her life:
“When I started a job when I was 19, it was in my chosen field and I was so excited. And as the first day went on, I realized that the lights backstage were making my eyes sensitive. I would walk from a well-lit area to a blue-lit area to a red-lit area to darkness, over and over again. By the end of the day, my head was pounding and my eyes were half-shut. I drove home that night, but had to stop halfway and vomit on the side of the road because of the pressure behind my eyes and in the back of my head. I cried the rest of the way home, for fear that my migraines would be that bad every day of that job.”
Thank you for sharing that. I can’t imagine how frustrating and painful that’s gotta be.
This is—same survey, filled out by a woman who calls herself “Tired” and…about her anorexia, she writes:
“When I feed myself, I feed the voice inside that tells me I’m fat, worthless, and undesirable.”
Again, very… You guys are so good at really nailing it in a sentence.
This is filled out by a guy who calls himself “Fuck You, Humanity,” so you know this is gonna be upbeat. He writes:
“I struggle with my learning disability, bipolar II, anger, addictions, ADD. I struggle daily living with this shit. I’m sure others have it worse, but I hate everyone, which means I hate myself. I’ve done 20-plus years of therapy with no solid results. I fucked up my life and my wife and my kid’s life. I feel and think about death daily and wish for death. I fantasize about someone murdering me in a quick death.”
And then, he writes:
“I cried when I first listened to your podcast, and at times I remember I’m not alone, but I still want to exit the stage.”
And I just wanna send you a hug, buddy. Just wanna send you a hug and say, don’t exit the stage. Don’t—just keep reaching out for help. If therapy’s not doing it for you, maybe try a support group or maybe talk to a psychiatrist, but don’t give up. And we all make mistakes, so don’t get into that hole where you’re just beating yourself up over and over, ’cause that can keep you trapped.
Let’s see. This is filled out by a woman who calls herself “Useless”—[Paul sneezes] Woo! That’s all I’m thankful for on this Thanksgiving, is the fact that I just sneezed. I set my bar very, very low. Yeah, this is filled out by a woman who calls herself “Useless.” About her dysthymia, she writes:
“Forever feeling like I haven’t slept in a week, in a world that is as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as a fucking cartoon dog in comparison.”
Oh my God, do I relate to that! I was over at my friend’s house today—my wife went over to Lisa Arch, who you know was a guest on the show—we went over to her place for Thanksgiving today, and… Although, technically, I think today is already the day after. And…people were just happy and chatting, and I just had these moments where I just look around at people like they’re aliens, like, “How do you…” And I felt those stretches of happiness, so I know what it’s like, but when you’re not in them, the world does look like a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed fucking cartoon dog. And, by the way, the food was incredible. Incredible.
About her anxiety:
“There’s this crazed rodent trapped just under my skin.”
We had rats one time, and my wife—I would imagine, like a lot of people—is just terrified. Terrified of mice, terrified of rats. Couldn’t resist. I would tell her, “Everything is gonna be okay. They’re not gonna get in the house, but if they do, they’re gonna go right for your butthole.”
About her OCD, she writes:
“Constantly apologetically warning everyone that I am contaminating their surroundings so that I can at least sleep at night, failing even at that.”
About her chronic pain:
“Becoming more drained, hopeless, beaten down, and infuriated, even at those around me—even those…even as those around me lose their last traces of empathy. I wish I could leave with them.”
About PTSD:
“No clear memories. So tired of doubting everyone and myself. I want some peace. Why can’t I just stop picking at this wound?”
About her chronic pain:
“If one more well-meaning person offers me unsolicited advice about meeting the pain with a can-do attitude, I’ll—well, actually I’ll do nothing because moving hurts too much.”
Aw. And about her anger:
“Maybe people wouldn’t look at me like I was crazy if they could see the fire charring me from the inside out.”
And then, a snapshot from her life:
“Daily ride in the subway. Cringing with every movement because everything hurts. Involuntarily hissing whenever someone even brushes by me, because touch and closeness are inexplicably toxic and unsettling. Hearing every creak, hum, whistle. The bass coming out of someone’s too-loud earphones. Inhaling a cacophony of smells: sweat, cologne, cigarettes, sour breath, recycled cardboard. And watching amazed as everyone around me goes about their business unaffected by this sensory assault. The light is too bright. Even though I’ve tried and failed already, I think about death again.”
That sounds like a lot on your fuckin’ plate. A lot on your plate, and I can’t imagine what it’s like, but we’re sending you some love. This—and for those of you who have—have or do struggle with chronic pain, listen to the episode with Pamela Martin. That’s a good episode.
This was filled out by my new best friend, who calls himself “Bag of Dicks.” How can we not be buddies? I’m hoping that dicks will eventually be shipped in something other than bags, though, because…they’re—a lot of people at UPS can handle things roughly and… I’m thinking, a box of dicks? Maybe just put those packing peanuts in there. But a bag of dicks—although, a tightly packed bag of dicks—maybe this is… I think Louis C.K. had a joke about this bag of dicks, like that the dicks are coming out of it like French bread. Anyway, he… Let’s see.
He was the—a sex crime victim. He writes:
“Having to talk about it makes it all come back, like reliving that event on a continuous loop.”
Serious health issue:
“Pins in my hip. Two surgeries and one failed. You walk with a cane or use a wheelchair, and people act like you’re just looking for sympathy.”
And then he says, to them he would like to say:
“I will buttfuck your soul.”
That is heavy. That is heavy. And if you’re gonna buttfuck a soul, use protection. Be safe, that’s all I’m saying. But in all seriousness, I’m… I think the last thing people want, that are experiencing a physical ailment, is for people to be compassionate but not patronizing, and to not try to fix them.
All right. This is…filled out by a woman—teenager. She calls herself M.K., and about her dysthymia, she writes:
“Sick, but fake, like my depression doesn’t count.”
About her anxiety:
“Being constantly afraid, but not knowing what it is I’m afraid of.”
About her self-harm:
“Feeling alive by way of punishing my body.”
And then, any comments to make the podcast better, she says:
“Any guests diagnosed with selective mutism as a child.”
Again, the Pamela Martin episode—we don’t touch on a lot, but she’s raising a child who has selective mutism. I think it was… I’m almost positive that was her episode.
This is filled out by Amber, and she writes about her sex addiction, she’s addicted to masturbating.
About her anger:
“I’m so out of touch with my anger that I can actually feel it burning inside of me.”
She writes:
“I think everyone lies to me. I think my mom lies to me that she is proud of me, because I know deep down that the only thing she would be proud of is if I quit being an artist and worked a soulless 9-to–5 job. I don’t trust anyone, even my therapist. I think she tells me lies to make me feel better. Every time I get a compliment, I respect the person a little less for lying to me.”
Feels like she’s in my head.
“I don’t trust my friends…”
Well, I trust my friends.
“My family or myself. I don’t know where it comes from. Maybe I’m a liar, after all…I am the liar, after all. It has gotten out of control within the last six months as I have been looking for new work, and I can’t believe anything anyone tells me because everything falls through. I feel like everyone has their own agenda, so they lie to me to help themselves out. If I invite someone over, they hang out—to hang out, I assume they will not show up until the second they are at my door. I find people to be so flaky that I don’t even know what the point of having friends is. I see the lies so clearly and I hate it. It has left me so alone and lonely.”
And then, any suggestions to make the podcast better, she says that she enjoys that I’m a straight shooter. And so, I’m gonna shoot straight with you here and say that…your unhealed emotional wounds are what is probably contributing to your loneliness. Untreated mental illness or unhealed wounds can warp our perception of things. And…I encourage you to get out of your comfort zone and ask for some help that you haven’t gotten yet.
And then finally, this one is filled out by Ellen, who writes about her Tourette’s:
“I rush into the bathroom, and the moment the stall is close, lightning strikes through my body and I begin to tic. Hours of pent-up energy from restraining my Tourette’s boils over through my body, but I don’t mind because I’d rather have one quick flash than hours of small losses of control.”
I would love to interview somebody who lives with Tourette’s, so again, if you’re ever in the L.A. area, shoot me an email and let me know.
I wasn’t sure whether or not to comment on this, because…as I say on the podcast, I don’t… I try pretty hard to keep politics—or at least, things that could go either way politically, but the stuff that happened in Ferguson this last week, I feel like goes beyond politics. And I just—I found myself getting so angry at the coverage that was more about the riots than about the anger and the cynicism that is the source of those riots. And…my feeling is, there’s no excuse for riots, but there’s even less of an excuse for racism, which lasts longer, hurts more people, and is harder to clean up.
Paul (PG): I’m here with Noemi, and… We’re gonna use that as an alias for her so she can speak more freely. You’re 24, you’re Mexican-American, you live here locally, you emailed me, and you gave me some broad strokes on the issues that you’ve dealt with and that you’re currently dealing with.
Noemi (N): Yes, I’m still struggling.
PG: Yeah, and that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on, ’cause a lot of times our guests are people who’ve gotten to the other side and experienced a lot of relief and clarity, and from your email, it sounds like you’re still kind of in the thick of your issues and your struggles and your troubles. What are—share with the listener the things currently that you’re dealing with that are causing you…
N: Well, what I’m dealing with right now is, I’m coming off of bulimia. I don’t know how else to put it. I was binging, purging, five times a day and now it’s—
PG: What?!
N: Yes, five times a day. Now it’s kind of gone for, like, once a month, maybe. So I feel like it’s better. I still binge sometimes, but I try to not purge or anything. It’s one of my ways of trying to get better. But this is a problem that comes from a lot of other issues and I—anorexia turned into bulimia and I drink a lot, to the point of blacking out, so that’s a problem, too. But yeah, it’s just been a rough three years for me.
PG: What do you see as the common link between all of those ways of expressing your emotions or avoiding your emotions?
N: Right. Well, it’s… Once I stop one thing, it’s onto the next thing, and it’s been like that since I started dealing with ways to cope with problems that I’m actually having internally, so…
PG: Yeah. We call that switching deck chairs on the Titanic. It doesn’t make that big of a difference what the unhealthy coping mechanism is, but it seems to be, in the moment, like, Oh yes, this is the relief I’ve been looking for.
N: Right.
PG: Talk about… Let’s talk about the binging and the purging. When did it first start? And with your story, I wanna work backwards. I was—a lot of times as I’m getting ready to record somebody, I kind of meditate on it and think about the things that they’ve shared with me so far, and think about how I want to approach it. This morning I was thinking about it, and for some reason, the idea just struck me: Let’s start where she is right now and let’s work backwards, ’cause we always start with people’s childhoods and then we move forward. And I don’t know what made me think that, but let’s roll the dice and see how that works.
N: All right, let’s do it. So…the binging and the purging started after I was anorexic for about five months. I was living in Spain at the time, so it was really a time when I was just isolated and trying to deal with my problems. So, from the anorexia, when I did come back home, I told myself, I am done with this. I cannot do it.
PG: And you said you were how old?
N: I was 21 when this happened, so… I wanted to stop being anorexic. It was very hard work. And so I started eating—
PG: And when did—had the anorexia started?
N: It started that same year. It wasn’t very long because in my mind… I had started losing a little bit of weight due to depression and a lot of problems I was having, so because of that, I was like, Okay, well, I lost a lot of weight, so I’m gonna be healthy and eat right and work out, but it turned into an obsession where I would count my calories and every day, I’d cut a little bit more and… I became—it’s a little gross, but I started using laxatives a lot and became laxative dependent. So these were things that, in my mind, I was just being healthy, trying to lose weight, look good. And it turned into an obsession that just got worse and worse.
PG: Did you—was there a little part of you that was like, This is not healthy? Or did you—were you completely convinced that taking laxatives was a healthy choice?
N: Well, I’ve always had problems with my digestive systems, so for me, using laxatives was just, Oh, I need it.
PG: I see.
N: But it got to a point where—Okay, you don’t need 15 laxatives.
PG: Wow.
N: You don’t need… And it’s messed with my system now. I need—I go to gastroenterologists all the time—well, not all the time, but I’ve gone and… Yeah, it’s something that I have to deal with now for a while, so…
PG: Did it flush a lot of the probiotics out of your system? I would imagine that—
N: I think it might have. I’m not really sure, but I do know that it’s—I’ve caused some damage because of that.
PG: I’m gonna—I’m not a gastroenterologist, but I am a hypochondriac. And I’m gonna… I went through years of feeling exhausted and short of breath and I couldn’t understand why—and also just, like, my digestive system was totally fucked-up. And I read this book called The Body Ecology Diet and it completely changed my life, and one of things they talk about is returning your gut to a state of healthiness and having the probiotics in there. A lot of times, if you’ve had high doses of antibiotics, it can wipe out the good bacteria in your gut and it—your gut is directly related to your mood and how you feel. Super, super important to have a healthy gut, ’cause I know what it’s like to not have one and it—
N: It really does ruin your mood if you’re having a bad gut day.
PG: It does. It’s debilitating.
N: Yeah, and I think kinda my problem is, I’ve tried to build up my system a little bit better and food is so important, in what you put into your body is how your body’s gonna take it in. But when food is my problem, that approach is really hard to take. When I have this problem with food, I can’t see it as a medicine because it’s my enemy. It’s what I’m afraid of. It’s what I can’t control. So it’s a really tough spot and every day, it’s a little bit better, but still working on it.
PG: It’s hard, man, because you can’t—you gotta dance with the gorilla three times a day, at least.
N: I don’t look—well, now I’ve gotten better, but when I was in the middle of my eating problems, every meal was so stressful because I had to decide if I wanted to eat, first of all, what it was going to be, and I had to kind of prepare myself that I have to stop eating at one point. Because that’s—that was my issue. That’s where the bulimia started. When I stopped being anorexic and I said, I’m gonna eat, I could not stop. It was so hard because everything was just so—I haven’t—I hadn’t eaten for a really long time, so it was really so different for me.
PG: That’s one of the things about addiction—I’m just gonna give you some of this water. Sounds like your mouth might be a little bit dry.
N: Thank you.
PG: That’s one of the things that’s so difficult about addiction, is…we don’t know how to do five. We do zero or ten. And…one of the things I’ve learned about… Even people who aren’t addicted to things, but one of the things they share in their thinking, people who were raised in invalidating environments as children really struggle with (a) recognizing their own needs, but (b) they really struggle with nuanced thinking. Everything is black or white. Do you experience that in your thinking—is your thinking extreme?
N: Absolutely. I’m an all-or-nothing type of person and I knew I was like that with food when I started having my issues, but then I realized I’m like that in every aspect of my life. Like, if I wanna hang out with someone and I say, “Yeah, let’s do it at 5,” and they’re like, “Oh, I can’t till 8,” then I’m, “Well, you know what? Maybe let’s not hang out. Maybe I’ll just be at home alone and feel sorry for myself.” So I’m very much an all-or-nothing type of person.
PG: What’s your social life like?
N: It’s good. I… When I went to college, I came out with this really great group of friends. For me, family is really important, and my family is not very together. It’s not really—
PG: That’s shocking to me. Given your issues, I would have thought that you came from the most stable, the most nurturing environment… And, by the way, there are people who are addicts who do come from safe, stable, nurturing environments, so there’s your genetic factor in there. But, from the stuff that you’ve shared with me, too, about your relationships—the struggle you’ve had with relationships and being in abusive relationships—that… I’ve yet to see somebody who endures abusive relationships that didn’t have an abusive childhood. I’ve yet to meet them.
N: Right.
PG: Talk about… And there’s many things I want to go back and touch on, but because we started talking about the anorexia and the bulimia, take me through a typical day in your life where it’s a struggle, and give me the details about what you’re thinking and feeling.
N: Okay. So, it starts right off the bat, when I wake up and look in the mirror. I look so gross and fat. I can’t believe I let myself get to this point. My clothes are too tight. I’m gonna be good today. And by “good,” meaning, I’m gonna eat as little as I can, and I’m gonna work out and I’m gonna be fine. So, I’ll go through my day, lunch comes, I already know what I’m gonna eat. It’s already pre-packaged. I know the calories in there. I know I’m not gonna go out to lunch with my co-workers because they’re gonna go have something that tastes good.
PG: And no breakfast?
N: Breakfast—I do eat breakfast now, but when I was in the height of my issues, I would skip that, but… And then I’ll work out, and at the end of the day, if I do binge and purge—
PG: What would a typical lunch be?
N: A typical lunch—a salad with no dressing, no cheese, no nuts, no…anything bad for me. “Bad.”
PG: That’s so funny, how you can call that “bad.”
N: Yeah, yeah. I get—
PG: That’s like a car showing up to the gas station and saying, “Oh, I don’t wanna put any of this bad fuel in me.”
N: Right, it—food scares me sometimes. And so, by the time I’m done eating my lunch and my snacks and working out, I am starving at the end of the day. And if I’m really being good and I’m restricting myself, I’ll just go to bed and—
PG: As soon as you come home from work?
N: No, I mean, like, after working out, and if I’m reading or whatever I’m doing, if it’s—I’m hungry and I don’t want to deal with that hunger, I’ll just go to sleep. And if not, then I’ll buy everything that I’m craving, eat it in one sitting, and then purge. So it’s either I’m overindulging or I’m restricting. It’s one or the other, but I’m having less days like that. So, it’s been tough and—
PG: So, it sounds like…in your mind, you’re either the victor or the vanquished. There’s no in-between. There’s—you have—you’re standing on the podium, feeling thin and, at least for that day, feeling like you’ve defeated the enemy, or you’ve given in to it and you’re a piece of shit.
N: It’s a lot about control, and it’s whether you have it or you lose it. And when you think you have control and you think you’re being good and you think you’re restricting and… That’s not control. That’s this disorder controlling you. It’s so false, that feeling of, I am in control of my body.
PG: Does your place—when you have the day when you’re—you restrict your food “successfully,” does the world and your place in it feel safer, in your mind, because of that? Do you feel stronger? Do you feel—I’ve heard people describe it as, I feel strong, I feel clean.
N: I guess you could say that, yeah. I definitely feel that I’m—I feel accomplished at the end of the day, like, This is the one thing that I did today that was good.
PG: Okay. That makes sense to me. “Accomplished.”
N: And even when I was in the height of my bulimia—and a lot of it was anxiety. All day, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, thinking about not binging, not purging, going home, binging, purging five times in a row, and feeling, Oh God, I did something good today. Even when I was binging, that was bad, but I purged. Now I’m good. I’m accomplished. I did something.
PG: So purging gives you the sense of accomplishment, not—
N: Not necessarily, but—
PG: Not as good as food restricting?
N: Yeah. Well, I mean, when you binge, you feel like shit, so purging makes it a little bit better. And even if you feel gross—well, not—this is how I feel. I would feel gross and, like, Ugh, I can’t believe I did it, but at least it’s not in my body, so that felt good, that part of it. The act itself is disgusting and embarrassing and it was my deepest secret for a really long time.
PG: It almost sounds like food is like poison to you. Not something that nurtures you, but something that poisons you.
N: Yeah. It was very hard, and I… If I ever went out to eat, that was the hard part, too, because I knew I couldn’t purge after, at a restaurant. So I’d spend the whole time—I’d be around friends, around a boyfriend, around my family, and I wasn’t even mentally there because I was thinking about how much I was eating, how much other people were eating, what everyone was ordering. You’ve—I felt like everyone could—was looking at me. Oh look, she’s eating so much. Oh look, she’s not eating. How could she order that? And this is all made up in my mind.
PG: I used to feel that way about ordering alcohol, when I was still drinking. I would feel such shame because I would be looking at the bottle of wine that the table was sharing and thinking, If I just drink my wine a little bit faster, I’ll be able to get another glass before—I would be measuring everybody else’s glass and think, Who’s gonna pour theirs next? ’Cause I’ve gotta—to feel okay, I’ve got to get another glass of wine in me. And when that bottle’s gone, am I gonna have that excruciating thing where I’m the only one that wants to order another bottle of wine? And just feeling like a Martian because nobody else is looking at it that way. And I’m completely out of the moment, I’m not able to be in the conversations that other people are having, and just feeling like, What in the fuck is wrong with me? And after I got sober, I realized, Oh, there’s feelings that I’m running from. This isn’t about the wine. And, I’m sure you know, this isn’t about the food.
N: Right. I actually…started going to therapy in November of this past year, but I—it’s not something I’ve stuck with. I’m still kind of testing the waters right now, but I think that was one of the things that really… For the short amount of time that I was there, it helped me realize that, Okay, food is not the problem. It’s everything that’s underneath it. And I’d never realized that.
PG: Until you got in therapy.
N: Until I got in therapy, yeah, because I always thought it was just—I didn’t know where all these food issues were coming from. I didn’t have this before. I was fine. In my mind, I was fine. It was a shock to me to see myself basically killing myself with food. And therapy made me realize it, because when I did go to therapy, I went on the suggestion of my boyfriend. He was the first person I told about the bulimia, and he was kind of…not telling me I have to do it, but pushing me in that direction. And when I went, I was like, “I’m not as bad as I used to be. I don’t belong here. I don’t have”—I would tell my therapist, “I feel like I think I have a problem, when in reality, I don’t have that big of a problem.” In other words, I was feeling sorry for myself. That’s why I’m in therapy. And she was, like, telling me, “It’s not about the food. It’s about everything that made you get to that point.”
PG: And just because you aren’t in a month of binging or purging, that doesn’t mean that those feelings went away. They’re still there, it’s just that we go through cycles of control and lack of control, but… What did you think when she first said this is about the feelings underneath? What did you think or feel?
N: I knew that it was that, because I had a really bad relationship with a boyfriend I had—that I was with for six years, and he was a meth addict. And I thought it was feelings from that relationship. I thought everything that happened in that relationship has led me to be—have these problems with food. But then I realized that he was a crutch I was using before that for things that were going on with my family. So that was really strange, because here I—I’m going to therapy and I thought, Oh, I’m gonna talk about this relationship that fucked me up. This guy was an asshole, and I’m gonna go and tell her everything, and we don’t even talk about him! It’s all about my family and my childhood and things that I never thought would affect me. And I just realized, as bad as the eating disorder is, that was what this boyfriend was. He was my crutch, just like the food and alcohol and everything else. So that was—therapy shocked me in a lot of ways.
PG: Yeah, I would imagine it’s—his drama gave you something to focus on, much like your obsession with food gave you something to focus on. And all of that kept you from thinking about the wounded little girl inside of you that was terrified and hurt and probably had rage or whatever—whatever the things are that we bury because, as kids, we weren’t allowed to express emotions. We were told that certain emotions are okay or all emotions are bad… It—I don’t wanna work backwards too quickly. Let’s talk about the relationship with this guy and any kind of seminal moments where your thinking changed or you looked at yourself and said, “What the fuck is your problem?”
N: Okay, so I started dating him when I was 14 years old, so I was very young. We were both very young. And I had known him for a year, but he was just totally different from what I was. I was always a straight-A student, an honor student, and he was kind of failing everything, getting drunk at 14. He was kind of a mess and he had a lot of daddy issues. He—his dad left him when he was—excuse me—when he was two, so he was carrying a lot of that baggage. Well, I also—when I met him, when we started dating, we started dating because there was problems at home and my parents got in a dispute and the cops had to come and it was really just a mess. And I didn’t have anywhere to run and I start talking to him and from that day on, we start dating. So we both were just two fucked-up kids—
PG: Sounds like you trauma-bonded.
N: Yeah, so, and…it worked for—we were together for six years. For the first three years, it worked.
PG: And was he roughly your age?
N: Yeah, he was a year older. And I kind of—in my mind, I was thinking, Okay, I’m gonna be with you, but if this is going to be serious—at 14 years old, I don’t know why I was having this conversation with him like this but, “If you wanna be serious with me, you have to get your act together. You have to do better in school.” And he did. He graduated with a 3.5 instead of failing everything, he had his mind set on college now. And so I thought, Okay, this is good. This can work. And I really did love him and—
PG: Did you ever feel like, I am the reason why he turned his life around? Or a big part of why he turned his life around?
N: When I was young, when I was still 14, 15, 16, I did. I thought, If he hadn’t met me, he probably would still be failing everything, into drugs and alcohol. And he switched his life around, but then I went to college and he kind of slipped back.
PG: What did you think or feel when the thought occurred to you that, I’m influencing or I’m changing this guy? Was that kind of euphoric? Was that like a high?
N: It… I just felt good about it. I felt good about it because—and maybe some of it was for selfish reasons, that I wanted to feel like I changed this person’s life. I was good for him. But a lot of it was that I really did love him and I wanted the best for him. I wanted him to do well in life.
PG: What did you love about him?
N: Everything. We just got along so well. We—I thought we had similar personalities. Things—memories that I have with him—we were growing up together.
PG: Share some of those.
N: I don’t know, just… We were—I can’t really think of exact things. It’s been so long.
PG: Can you describe some of the feelings that you would have when you would be around him when the moments were good?
N: Just knowing that he was the one person who could ever understand me. That—and I still, to this day—I have another boyfriend and he’s the best person. And I still have these moments of, I really miss what I had back then. And I do feel guilty about it, but I mean… Three years into our relationship, he started getting into drugs like cocaine and he became a meth addict, and to me it was—I think the reason I still look back fondly is because I don’t see him as he betrayed me. It’s almost like a death of someone I knew. Because I’m still mourning his death and…it was just…the one person that I grew up with, that understood me, and he’s gone. And he’s still kind of—he called me on Monday. It was really strange because I—he’ll come into my life, in and out sometimes. And it was just really weird, because here’s this person I’m always thinking about and that has influenced me so much, and he still won’t get away. And he’s alive, but he’s not the same.
PG: He’s still in his addiction?
N: He’s still—he’s… I’m not too sure about him. I know he’s relapsed a few times. But it’s just really hard because it’s like I said, he’s dead to me, but he still tries to come into my life sometimes.
PG: Has he gotten help?
N: He’s gotten help because he’s gotten into—he got a DUI a little bit ago and—well, a couple years ago now. And he had to go to… He had to do things that were forced on him, and he kind of was the type of person that would try to quit cold turkey. So I think if he did stop, it’s mostly because of him, because that’s how he was.
PG: You know, there’s two different—there’s many different types of quitting, and I think the most common one that gets people in a cycle of failing is, they quit until the heat is off. And then they forget, and so they’re like, Oh, my life’s back on track. I can have—I can shoot up. I can—whatever. And they never have that epiphany like you had in therapy, where it’s like, Oh, it’s about what’s underneath it. The drug abuse is just the pimple on the surface. The real issue is underneath the skin. You said it got pretty abusive with this guy.
N: Yes, right. So, when I went to college is when he started doing the drugs and things were getting pretty rough. He would grab my arm, he would choke me. That was the first bad sign for me, like—
PG: Was he high when he did it?
N: I’m—you know what, he hid his drug use from me for a very long time, so I don’t know when he was high and when he was not. And there were—once I started realizing like, Oh, you’re acting a certain way, so you’re definitely high, it just seemed like he was in that state of mind all the time. And from when he did come clean to me and say, like, “Yes, I’m a drug addict,” he did let me know that it was just an all-day thing. He was always high, so he would—another thing he would do is, if we were in a car and we were fighting, he would say, “Well, we’re gonna fuckin’ die right now and I’m gonna drive this car into oncoming traffic!” And stuff like that, just really scary, unstable shit. And so I—
PG: I’m pretty sure that that would get you a ticket. I’m pretty sure that is breaking one of the rules of the road. I remember that on the driver’s test. You’re in the car with your girlfriend. Is it illegal to swerve into oncoming traffic after threatening her?
N: I wish there was a cop at that moment, but—
PG: That must have been terrifying!
N: Oh God, it was so scary! It was so scary and… And he was so—I still don’t know why I stayed with him after that. I stuck by his side a hundred percent.
PG: Do you wanna know my opinion?
N: Yeah, sure.
PG: That was—I didn’t like how half-hearted that was! That was insulting and yet, I agree with you!
N: No, I didn’t mean it like that!
PG: And yet, I have to agree with you! I’m tired of my opinions—
N: No, I wanna know your opinion.
PG: But I can’t resist—I think it was because you didn’t wanna feel what you were feeling. I think it’s because you didn’t wanna… You didn’t wanna be in your skin, and anything that allows us to obsess gets us out of our skin.
N: Yeah, and at this point, he was just terrible to me. I’m very insecure and I’m pretty sure a lot of it has to do with that relationship, because he would tell me—he would convince me that if we broke up, I would never find anyone else, that “no one else would put up with your shit.”
PG: Did you believe him?
N: Oh, absolutely!
PG: What was your shit that he put up with?
N: I’m not gonna sit here and I say I wasn’t perfect in that relationship because I wasn’t. I was learning, I—we would—he was very jealous, so he would go through my phone, so my response was, “Well, I’m gonna go through your phone, and you can’t talk to this person and you can’t talk to that person.”
PG: Wow. Wow.
N: I was—very toxic relationship. We were both very bad for each other. I would never do that now, but when I was 15, 16, that was all I knew. That was my first relationship. He did to me, I’m gonna do it back.
PG: And it probably, on a certain level, felt like love to you because, in a sick way, you’re invested in each other but it’s enmeshment, it’s not love.
N: And I never cheated on him or did anything, but he would always—I could not have guy friends without him saying, like, “Oh, you just wanna fuck them,” and, “Why are you talking to them? What do you even have to say?” Like, “They just wanna get with you and you don’t even know.” And this whole time, he’s cheating on me.
PG: Naturally!
N: Yeah, so I—I’m going through his phone, so I find out and… And I had caught him once. I caught him cheating on me. He was at his house with a girl when I was supposed to go to his house. Like, How do you not think about this? Like, Can you cheat a little better? You didn’t even hide it!
PG: What did that feel like when you walked in? Were they…
N: They were just there, together. And it was very clear that they were chatting it up. I don’t know what they were doing, but I was—I felt this rage that I’ve never felt in my entire life, and I actually—it was not one of my proudest moments, but… I just wanted to talk to him and this girl was, like, standing behind this sliding glass door just, like, flipping me off, she knew I was his girlfriend and, like, blowing kisses at me, and I lost it. I punched the glass door, shattered everywhere, and just went for her. And I’m embarrassed by it because I would never do that now, but that’s how pissed I was. That’s how upset about it I was.
PG: Did she run?
N: She didn’t run, no. There—it was only, like, five seconds of, I got her. She’s gonna get it, but then he broke it up and I’m just crying, bleeding. It was a mess. And it was—that was the day I’m like, “I’m breaking up with you,” and he came back and told me, “I need help, I’m a meth addict.” And so, I stayed with him. And not only did I stay with him, but he moved in with me after that! Because he lived next door to his dealer—
PG: I gotta give you an awfulsome high-five. That’s an awfulsome high-five.
N: Right, so it’s… He cheats on me, he’s a meth addict. Our solution is, Come and move in with me!What am I thinking? But I loved him, in my head.
PG: Did you feel, on a certain level, like if you abandoned him, he was going to die or he was gonna spiral down?
N: Oh, absolutely. He would tell me if—we broke up constantly, of course, because it was just a ridiculous relationship. And he would tell me after every time, “I’m gonna kill myself, I’m gonna kill myself.” And that’s how I kind of would get back with him and…I knew that if I—and I always felt like I turned him onto the meth. I always felt that our relationship was so bad that he had to find a crutch and he went and did meth, and if he wasn’t dating me, he probably wouldn’t be doing meth.
PG: Man, it’s amazing how those of us with low self-esteem can have such grandiosity about our impact on other people. It’s such a bizarre—mental illness is such a bizarre dichotomy of grandiosity and low self-esteem.
N: After he moved in with me is when I got pregnant, and I had an abortion. And I was extremely depressed and… Two weeks after I got my abortion, I saw on his phone that he was talking to that girl again, that I caught him with. And to me, it was like, Here I am feeling like shit and you’re making this girl feel awesome. And that was the day I was like, “No more, you’re out, I’m done. That’s it.” And obviously, the abortion isn’t a good thing, but it saved me from staying with him because it made me realize how crazy he was. He just did not give a shit. It was a lost cause at that point.
PG: Do you—and I’m not making any kind of judgment one way or the other, ’cause I honestly don’t know where I stand on abortion. I feel like until I’ve had a fetus growing inside of me…I just wanna keep my mouth shut. I am trying very hard to have an ass baby, but I’m not having much luck. What do you think, looking back on—what did you feel at the time about having an abortion?
N: Well, I am all for—if you wanna have an abortion, have an abortion, but personally, I never thought I would have one. I love children. I always thought I’d have a family and, up until that point, I always thought I’d have a family with him, so… I—it was very hard for me. And then, when I caught him and I broke up with him, I realized it was the best thing I could have done. It’s the best choice I’ve made in my whole life, because he was just so toxic, and that was just going to keep me—or keep him in my life if I didn’t go through with it.
PG: Did the thought ever occur to you that you were in a state of sickness, and that it would have been a really dicey decision to bring a child into your chaos, even if he wasn’t in your life, or were you, at that point, convinced that all your chaos was caused by him and you were healthy?
N: I never thought about myself apart from him, so I don’t think I was thinking about—
PG: Boy, is that enmeshment. That is enmeshment, but go ahead.
N: So, I don’t even think I thought about my feelings at that point. It was just, everything is a mess, and that was the main reason we made our choice. We both made the choice, because he was trying to recover from being an addict and I was still in school and I was going to go to Spain and it just wasn’t gonna work out.
PG: What did you study in school?
N: I studied business.
PG: Okay. Have you ever been in a relationship where you don’t lose yourself in somebody and lose your identity and kind of merge and try to be one?
N: Right. Well, the relationship I’m in now. He’s very independent, and I struggle with it sometimes because I feel like—
PG: I was gonna say, that must be really triggering.
N: It—yeah, it’s so hard because he’ll—I’ll take everything personally, like, Oh, he doesn’t even like me that much because he doesn’t want to spend every second with me. And…I think it’s what I need. I need to learn to be alone, because I feel like a lot of my eating disorder was me dealing with loneliness. And it’s so hard right now for me because I’m losing all the crutches I have, which is awesome, but it’s so hard. And I think having an independent boyfriend who still loves me is the best thing that could happen to me. I’m not trying to say he’s—he saved me and he’s healed me, but it definitely has been a huge part in my road to recovery.
PG: Yeah, the thought occurs to me, as you’re sharing that stuff, is You gotta face the monster when you… Being forced to confront our loneliness could be the greatest gift that we ever have and yet, it’s so—we feel like we’re gonna die. We feel like—I mean, it’s what the fetal position was made for. It’s—it… Ugh. Let’s talk about your childhood. Where do you think the enmeshment and the fear of being abandoned comes from? Or just talk about your childhood. We don’t have to…
N: Well, my—both my parents are immigrants. They’re from Mexico. And we grew up struggling with money all the time, but my—I have an older sister and we’re just one year apart, and we had everything we ever wanted. Our parents made sure of that. Even if we had the knock-off version or…whatever, we had everything. And they were very loving, but my dad is very emotionally distant. I don’t think he’s ever said “I love you” to me, ever. He’s carrying—I know he loves me, but… The other day I got a text message that said “I love you” from him and I was so shocked and I told my sister. And later, he told me—he called me to tell me, “Oh, that was your mom on my phone,” and then, “She didn’t want me to tell you because she felt sorry for you, but it wasn’t me.” And I was just like, “Why would you tell me that? Why?”
PG: Did that break your heart?
N: It was kind of funny. I thought it was a funny thing, like, Oh my God, my dad. He’s so unaware of how he affects us. I think he just doesn’t think we care.
PG: How can that—and maybe this is why the—having the obsessions and the unhealthy coping mechanisms makes sense, but how can that not break your heart? That breaks my heart, hearing that, that the first time you get that from him, he has to clarify that wasn’t him. I mean, that…
N: I think it didn’t hurt me—it didn’t hurt my feelings because he—it’s been a really long time. I already know he would never say that to me. So even when I got the message, I was thinking, This is a little strange. He’s never said that.
PG: So the—so there’s no kind of hope, in your mind, that he’s going to suddenly speak an emotional language with you and open up and…
N: And he’s been like that my whole life. My mom is the total opposite. She’s very emotional. And it was a struggle—they always had that. He’s just so distant and he was a musician. He plays in a mariachi band, so he was always out. And my mom was left raising these kids and he was out for holidays, and one of my earliest memories is of a holiday, sitting at our kitchen table with a Thanksgiving meal, and my mom crying at the table because my dad wasn’t there. And it was hard because we watched this, and I think that’s where my need for someone came from, and my sister’s the same way. She breaks up with her boyfriend, gets another boyfriend. She’s never okay by herself, and I think it’s because we watched our mom struggle with being alone. That—it’s made it hard for us to have a healthy relationship with men.
PG: Do you ever feel like your mom goes to you for things that she can’t get from her dad, emotionally?
N: When we were growing up I didn’t realize it, but now that I look back, I think so because she was very loving and caring, but she was very strict. She wanted us to do well, she wanted us to go to college, she wanted us to have good jobs, so she would always… She would always make sure that we were on the right path and she was a very hands-on mom. Well, when we get into high school, we start making friends, we start wanting to go out, we start getting boyfriends, and that was really hard for her because she didn’t have her husband at home, and now she’s losing her daughters. And she kind of went through a mid-life crisis at that point. She started going out and drinking and trying to get attention from my dad and saying that we were abandoning her and that she was lonely and… And it was really hard because it made me feel guilty, and I still feel guilty. They ended up getting a divorce when I graduated from high school, but I still feel responsible for their loneliness.
PG: Wow, what a burden. What a terrible burden. And it sounds like, intellectually, you know that’s true, but you can’t stop carrying your mom’s pain. And I know nothing about that. It’s—it is awful, carrying a parent’s pain. It’s like, when you get programmed to do that as a kid, it is so hard when you’ve cared about that person’s pain your whole life and that’s mattered to you more than your own pain. To see them in pain and to know that you can’t give them their sick fix…it’s—I don’t have words for it. Talk about it.
N: It’s hard for me because I’m—the way I see it is, Ineed support. I need a support system, I need help, but I’m so—I don’t have that because my parents need help. They need support. They need this. So I’m stuck feeling kind of selfish, and I feel like all I can think about is my struggle when I should be focusing on what they want, or what would make them realize that, I’m here for you. So it was—it’s just been hard because I keep everything to myself. Like, they had no idea about my boyfriend problems and the abortion and the bulimia. They don’t know, because that would just add to their stress and they already have a lot to worry about.
PG: It’s so ironic, too, that your mom wanted to guide you and mold you into all of these things and yet, the very thing that is most important to your child, which is to be there for them emotionally and have this open line of communication where they can tell you anything—that’s the very thing that is off the table.
N: Right. And it’s something that kind of always existed with us, where she wanted to be our friend, she wanted us to tell her everything, but she was so strict that if we told her something that she didn’t like, we would be punished or it was—you can’t expect us to come to you when you’re going to get upset with us. It’s just… It was just really strange, and especially when my mom was going through all her stuff and she moved out, just… It almost felt like, because we were doing well in school and getting good grades, everything else didn’t matter.
PG: I think that might be one of the most common forms of—I don’t know if this term exists, but I’m gonna make it up if it doesn’t—covert abandonment, where the parent is physically there but they’re—the boilerplate needs of the child are not being met, but because the practical needs of the child are being met—you got stuff, they care about your grades—you think, I’m raised in a happy, safe environment. The problem must be me.
N: Yeah, and in her mind, I’m sure that she felt, Oh, I’ve done my job. They’re doing well. And it’s—I don’t care about my grades. I want them to be good, but I—it’s not what’s gonna make me happy. And I keep having these moments because I think I was raised that way when I was going through everything, like, Oh, once I graduate from college, everything will be okay. All my problems will be solved. I graduated—no, everything was still shit. Oh, once I get a job, everything will be great. No. It’s—I keep setting these ways to measure my happiness and I never get there.
PG: And we never will until we can have compassion for ourselves and be okay with who we are, where we are, every day, no matter what our external circumstances are, and it’s hard. It’s really hard, but I can tell you, I have experienced moments of that, stretches of that, and it’s beautiful. And that’s when you realize, Oh, there’s an authentic…“us,” inside every one of us. The work is uncovering all the stuff that has covered that up because we were—we believed it’s not okay to feel this, it’s not okay to say this, it’s not okay to express the authentic “us.” Little kids express the authentic “you” and… Therapists have told me, “They need to be mirrored. They need to be—feel protected. They need to be able to explore their independence, and to be guided and not shamed for exploring their independence.” And… Woo! It’s—are there any other snapshots from your childhood that you feel like informed who you are today, or that you struggle with, or were tragic or traumatic, or life-changing or positive?
N: I think it was just seeing that my whole life, of my dad being absent and my mom trying to raise these two kids as best as she could, and not getting the love that she wanted. And I think that is what fucked me up.
PG: It’s a profound, profound thing. And I don’t know what causes addiction. My belief is that it’s a genetic thing, but it can lay dormant in a—in the right environment. But in a stressful environment, it can be a switch that can kind of be flipped. Who knows, but the important thing is to say, “What am I gonna do now?” And I wanna say the—you’re away from therapy now, and is it because of finances?
N: Well, I was—I found this center that works on a sliding scale, so they were pretty affordable but… And I was—it was helping a lot. My last session was talking about my dad. And I started bawling, and I think it scared me and I made excuses to stop going. I can’t afford it. And I know it’s just my excuses and I know I still need it and I know it was helping, but I’m in the middle of my problems right now and it’s just… I’m not—I’m still trying to cope with how I’m going to fix myself.
PG: You’re trying—you’re… It sounds like you are trying to figure out a way that you can heal without feeling pain.
N: Yeah, and I’ve done a lot by myself, from the anorexia to the bulimia. When I did go to therapy, I was already a little bit better, but…so I still have this mentality that if I just deal with the feelings, I’ll be okay at the end, but I can’t do it by myself. And I’ve learned that, especially my boyfriend now—he’s the one that showed me your podcast. And it has taught me, helped me—it’s been so important to me because it makes you realize it’s okay to have these feelings and these issues and it’s—you just need to face it. And I would have not been sitting here and telling anyone any of this. So, for me to be sitting here and telling you, it just makes me feel like, that’s how amazing it is that we have this space where it’s okay, and where getting better is—even if it’s not in the near future, it’s there.
PG: It’s there for all of us and it—it’s probably the most common thing that I, when I email people back, is to encourage them and say, “Don’t run from the pain. The pain is what makes us grow. The pain is what gives us insight. The pain is what allows us to connect to people on a deeper level.” The moment that you and I shared 15 minutes ago, when we talked about having a parent whose needs came before our own… Being able to share that with somebody else and know that they know what I’m saying and what I’m feeling, it makes—it eases the pain. It eases my pain. It eases—and I hope it eases your pain—
N: It does, yeah.
PG: To know that you’re not alone in feeling that and that it’s a real thing. You don’t have to be beaten or fucked or have a hot iron put on your back to be really damaged. But it’s not a death sentence. These things happening to us are not—they’re not death sentences, but I think they can be if we don’t work through them, if we don’t—and we miss out on having great conversations with people, miss out on having laughs about horribly inappropriate jokes. I hope you’re gonna go back to therapy.
N: I know I need to, and I’ve seen how it affected me in a positive way, but I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m thinking. I don’t know how I’m feeling.
PG: What about a support group for the addictions? Have you thought about going to a support group for the eating disorder?
N: Yeah, I actually—that’s what I was interested in when I first started going. I wanted to do that but it was already—it had already started and I couldn’t get into it, so I did therapy but I…
PG: What had already started?
N: They had started the support group and they didn’t wanna introduce someone else new until they got a new group, something like that.
PG: Oh, okay.
N: Yeah. It was just the way it was run.
PG: This doesn’t sound like a 12-step group, ’cause 12-step groups aren’t like that.
N: No. I don’t think it was, but… But now, at this point, I’m in my head again, saying, How can I go to these groups and pretend I have an issue when they’re probably way worse than—not to say they’re doing bad, but they probably feel their issue is more… I don’t know. I just get into my head and…yeah.
PG: No. Bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
N: I’m giving myself a reason not to go.
PG: There are—yes, you are, and you will never—your brain will never run—your ego will never run out of reasons to tell why you need to sit alone and think about yourself and try to figure it out without experiencing pain. Every—just about every addict, not all addicts, that I know, myself included, do go through periods where—before we got sober or whatever—where we did have the illusion of control. And it would only come back even—when life’s stressors pop back up or for whatever reason, and we eventually sink lower and lower and lower and lower, so… Nip it in the bud. Nip it in the bud before you damage your body! Bulimia’s so bad for your teeth, you can blow up capillaries in your eyes, you can create ulcers in your esophagus. I mean, I’m probably telling you all stuff that you know, but…go get help. And plus, we’d love to get an update from you. There’s nothing I love more than getting an email from somebody, a year down the road, that says, “Therapy’s going great. I cried my ass off and I feel lighter and I’m learning how to set boundaries with people that are toxic and I’m learning how to love myself. And the urge to cut or binge or drink or be in abusive relationships is becoming less and less.” I just love that, and it helps other people.
N: Right.
PG: Yeah. That was my boilerplate—I’d like to use the word “boilerplate” more before the episode is over. Is there anything else you wanna share?
N: I think that we covered a lot of it.
PG: Yeah. Well, I’m really glad that you contacted me, and I know I say this about every person that I record, but I am. I just—I never get tired of… I never get tired of seeing people get vulnerable. It’s like one of the most beautiful things in the world, and I think when we get help, our ability to be vulnerable—it’s like it goes to the gym. And then, we get to carry that out into the world and be an example for other people and we make it safe for them to open up.
N: And this has been a very safe place, even just listening to it. You created that.
PG: Thanks. And I just—I didn’t come through it through any genius stroke of my own. This is all conversations that I witnessed happen from people that told me, “Hey, this is… Come with us.” And I watched them talk like this, and so I started to talk like this. Not to mimic them, but it was coming from a place that was real. And… Yeah. Thank you so much.
N: Thank you.
Many, many thanks to Noemi, and as you know, I like to get updates from people—’cause we recorded that back in May and so, what’s this, nine months later, something like that? And so, when I let a guest know that I’m going to air their episode, I usually ask them for an update. And she emailed me back, which I will read in about one minute.
Before I do that, I just want to remind you guys, there’s a couple of different ways to support this show, if you feel so inclined. You can go to our website, mentalpod.com. @mentalpod is also the Twitter handle you can follow me at. But you can go to the website, you can make a one-time PayPal donation or a recurring monthly donation, which is really a huge—you can do it as little as five bucks a month, but that is the financial footing that keeps the podcast going, and super easy to sign up. You can also support—who’s jingling? Is that Ivy? Somebody’s… Ivy’s looking around my office, going, “When are you gonna clean this shithole?” You can—I’m tired of…saying the different ways you can support the show. It’s Thanksgiving. Let’s take a break from my tireless…solicitations. Let’s get right to the—and—but, by the way, there’s so many things that I am thankful for—friends and family and my relative health—but mostly the community that you guys are helping—you and my guests are helping me build with this podcast. It brings so much meaning and purpose to my life. It’s—even in the bluest of blue days that I have, it’s just kind of a light that never goes out, and it’s really nice.
Anyway, right after Noemi and I recorded, I actually got this, and I wanted to read this first. So this was, like, two days after we recorded, and she writes:
“I’ve listened to the podcast enough to know that it’s common for your guests and even you to feel like their episodes could have gone better. I’m going through that phase at this moment, and even though you said it would take about a year for the episode to air—and in my mind, I’m beating myself up for feeling like it was so shitty that you’re going to decide not to post it when you revisit it—I felt the need to just express why I’m feeling insecure about it. I don’t regret anything I said while we recorded, but I do regret what I didn’t say. I think it was a combination of nerves and my focus on telling you the story of what led to my eating disorders that I felt that I didn’t really do a great job of explaining the true struggle of it. I’m now feeling that if it did air, others with bulimia wouldn’t feel a complete connection to the story. I now understand what you meant when you asked me to walk you through a day of dealing with a disorder. I didn’t explain the feelings of desperation and loss of control, the haziness while binging, the relief after a purge, the feeling of being in a living hell that only death could release you from it, the feeling that it will go on forever and that there is no end in sight. I never understood before it happened to me that throwing up after binging isn’t a choice when you’re bulimic. There’s just no way to escape it and, worst of all, it’s the heaviest secret to keep. When I started recovering from bulimia—two to three times a week, instead of five times a day—I felt anxious all the time. I didn’t have a coping mechanism, so I started drinking more. This has been my current struggle, because now that I’m trying to reduce my drinking, the anxiety and depression are starting to surface. These points are something I thought I would be sharing with you, but I let my nerves get the best of me.”
I think you made that part clear.
“I think that it’s impossible to touch on every point in an hour-long conversation, but I’ve been beating myself up by keeping this in, and I’m already feeling a bit better sharing this with you. I know I can’t keep wishing I could go back and do it differently, but I thought I’d share my thoughts instead of letting them control my thinking.”
And then, after I let her know that her episode was going up, I got this email from her today:
“Paul, so great to hear from you. After recording, I spent so much time being hard on myself and thinking I didn’t have a story that was worth telling. I convinced myself that I didn’t want my episode to air, but now I realize how much sharing my story has helped me move in the right direction towards recovery. I still have major body issues and I occasionally have a binge-purge relapse, but I’ve stopped convincing myself that I’m not sick enough to seek help. You helped me realize that I need to stop making bullshit excuses and just try to get the support that I need, both through our conversation and through other episodes of the podcast. I’ve attended support groups and found a new therapist that reinforces the idea that my eating issues are a symptom of a problem, instead of seeing it as a problem itself. This has helped me focus on the deeper emotional issues I struggle with. Although I’m trying to get better, I still feel as fucked-up now as I did when we recorded. I still get anxiety attacks and feel overwhelming feelings of loneliness. Shortly after we recorded, I went through a really rough phase in my life and constantly thought, I can’t do this anymore. What’s the point? What’s the fucking point of living? I shared these thoughts with my sister and she got upset and immediately told my parents and boyfriend that I was threatening to kill myself. I was livid and didn’t speak to her for months, but it forced me to come clean to my parents and tell them about my eating disorder. They were so understanding and have given me support through my recovery. However, I still have not told them how they’ve contributed to be mental instability. I haven’t told my dad that his emotionally distant attitude has caused me to have abandonment issues, and I haven’t told my mom that her strictness and need for perfection manifested itself in my eating disorder. Regardless, coming clean to them was a step in the right direction. Apart from my parents, I’ve also received a lot of support from my boyfriend. He’s still very independent and I continue to struggle with this because I feel like I need him to be my emotional crutch. He’s helping me learn how to connect with myself and be okay with being me, but it’s so fucking hard. I’m so used to being in a co-dependent relationship that I don’t know how to deal with the healthy relationship I’m in now. There was even a point in our conversation that I told you I missed my ex-boyfriend and you asked me why. I couldn’t give you an answer then, but now I realize that it’s because I don’t miss him, I miss using my relationship as my emotional safety net.”
Wow, that’s profound.
“I just feel so lucky to have a boyfriend now who understands my struggle and who is so patient and loving. I’m trying to deal with all these issues in a healthy way without turning to alcohol, but I still occasionally drink to the point of blacking out. I haven’t tried to stop drinking because I hope to one day have a normal relationship with alcohol, almost in the same way that one day I hope to have a normal relationship with food, but I guess I don’t know what the definition of ‘normal’ is anymore. I can’t tell you enough how much the podcast has helped me and I’m sure all the listeners feel the same. I try to listen to your podcast every day during my evening runs. You say you’re not a therapist, but I considered this to be my therapy away from therapy. Even on my shittiest days, I always feel better after that 40-minute time slot of my day. I only hope my episode will give listeners the same feeling.”
Well, mission accomplished. I think it did. It’s… I wouldn’t have aired it if I didn’t think it was a great episode, so thank you. Thank you, Noemi. And I hope people get as much out of it as I do.
Let’s get to the surveys! These are mostly focusing on people who have experienced sexual trauma, so if you feel like the podcast talks about that too much, this might be a good time for you to wrap up this episode, but… I used to feel apologetic about the fact that I focus on this so much in the surveys, but I’m—I don’t feel apologetic anymore because I feel like it’s such an important topic that is so rarely discussed in-depth, with nuance, particularly stuff that happens in an area that feels gray to the person who is on the receiving end of the abuse. And so… There you have it. Maybe I shouldn’t even say anything, but… Anyway.
This is filled out by a guy who calls himself “Papa,” and he is 20. He’s pansexual. He was raised in a slightly dysfunctional environment.
Ever been the victim of sexual abuse?
“Some stuff happened, but I don’t know if it counts.”
And, by the way, all these surveys aren’t about it, but I’d say, maybe if there’s six here, four or five of them are. He writes:
“When I was in college, a girl who I’d been flirting with all day fed me liquor and fooled around with me while I was blacked out. I told her all day that I was not interested in anything. I was in a two-year relationship at the time. I felt confused and embarrassed. This stuff took place with other people in the room, and she treated me as though I had wanted it and now was being distant and cruel. My girlfriend was apoplectic, until a friend who I was with assured her that I was ‘just drunk.’ This cast a pallor across the rest of our already troubled relationship. Now I feel sick and wrong about it. I don’t think about it a lot, but when I do, there are days when I cannot stand to be touched or flirted with.”
He’s been emotionally abused. He writes:
“My college girlfriend has bipolar, but did not stick to treatment. She was inconsistent, manipulative, and prone to violent outbursts where she would threaten to kill herself to get her way. Sometimes she would leave for days on end and then return home, annoyed at my relief and fear. She was prone to minor delusions that me and our friends were colluding against her, and often coerced me into cutting friends out of my life whom she did not approve of. One time, after a fight, she cut her wrists very deeply, and while I drove her to buy bandages, she told me she would never speak to me again if I took her to the hospital. I’m still scared of her and I’m largely incapable of trusting other people, including my wife. I still have a lot of the defense mechanisms from that relationship.”
Well, thank God that you’re out of that relationship.
Any positive experiences with your abusers?
“When things were good, they were good. We collaborated on projects, played music together. We would go on day trips and larks across town.”
I love his verbiage.
“We had a similar sense of humor and sensibilities, and I miss that deeply. I still love the person she was when she was healthy, and that makes me sometimes believe that the abuse was my own fault.”
It is so not your own fault.
Darkest thoughts:
“When I am angry and at the end of my rope, I will think litanies of hideous, bigoted epithets.”
He is a walking thesaurus, this guy.
Darkest secrets:
“I once pulled a knife on someone that I was fighting with. I struggle with the very real possibility that my earliest sexual experiences were not entirely consensual.”
Sexual fantasies most powerful to you:
“I want to completely control someone and dominate them in violent and degrading ways. I want them to submit to me totally, and I want to see their fear, love, and admiration for me. It is the idea of being submitted to totally, removing any pretense, removing any resistance.”
What, if anything, would you like to say to someone?
“I am sorry.”
What, if anything, do you wish for?
“For my life to come into focus, and be able to see myself in the world I inhabit in total clarity. I want everything to make sense.”
Have you shared these things with others?
“Not everything. My secrets are things that I just cannot bring myself to acknowledge to others.”
How do you feel after writing these things down?
“I feel better to see them in writing. They no longer feel so mysterious and strange, because their inhabiting a different medium gives them a life apart from me that allows me to understand them more.”
Anything you’d like to share with someone who shares your thoughts or experiences?
“You aren’t a bad person for your thoughts. There are people out there who understand and care. Get help, just so you don’t feel so alone.”
And then, any suggestions to make the podcast better?
“Try not to go on so many tangents.”
I so wish I had a tangent to go on right now. By the way, the thing that happened to you in college when you were blacked out, that is sexual abuse. That’s rape. You write that you don’t know if it counts. That is, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the struggles that you’re dealing with right now stem from that. The fact that you… When you’ve been thinking about it, you can’t stand to be touched or flirted with. Those are red flags that something very, very serious happened, and what happened to you was very, very serious. And just because she was female and you’re male, doesn’t mean anything.
That’s also one of the reasons why I think it’s so important to talk about this stuff, because…in my mind, ten years ago, my idea of what sexual trauma, abuse, whatever was, was so binary. It was so clear. It was something a male did to a female and it was very overt and both people knew that it was wrong. And since doing this podcast and exploring my own life, I discovered most of this shit is—doesn’t fit into any of those clear things.
This is an Awfulsome Moment, and this was filled out by—and, by the way, the guy that filled that out, thank you for your survey, because it was not only heartfelt and vulnerable, but really, really articulate. Sending you some love.
This is an Awfulsome Moment, filled out by a woman who calls herself “Say What?” Or I guess I should pronounce it, “Say Whaaat?” She writes:
“A few months after a failed suicide attempt and subsequent hospitalization, I found a very good therapist who has been helping me tremendously. After a few short months of working with her, she got sick with an upper respiratory infection, for which she had to take a steroid, which made her very restless. At the end of one of our therapy sessions, she mindlessly remarked, ‘These steroids are driving me crazy. I’m gonna kill myself.’ I stood there with my mouth open. Did my therapist who’s supposed to be making me feel safe after a suicide attempt just say she’s gonna kill herself? I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I pointed it out to her and she explained it was the steroids. She didn’t really mean it. I sure hope not, because then we might have to jump together.”
Thank you for that.
This is an email I got from a guy who calls himself Adam, and it’s a very long email. And I’m not gonna read the whole thing, but I just wanna read one section to you. He was writing, talking about watching the movie The Graduate recently, and he found himself getting really angry watching the Anne Bancroft character, the middle-aged woman, pick up on the recently graduated from college, innocent Dustin Hoffman character. And he was going on and on, kind of sharing these things that bother him… Red flags are going off in my head, like, Something happened to this guy. Older woman did something. And, sure enough, later in his email, he writes:
“The main thing that I—that bothered me about the ‘you do this, I do whatever I want’ control I was witnessing in the movie was how it reminded me of time my mother cupped my balls. I’ve only ever told my current girlfriend of this incident. I was getting ready to go to elementary school with my sister, around maybe grade four or five, when my mother put her hand in my pocket and playfully said, ‘Pocket pinball,’ while bouncing my testicles around, smiling thereafter and acting like it was a great joke/thing to do to your child. I’m not sure if I have any more instances of this sort of thing, but it is enough to give me hurt feelings and a sense of grossness when I find old/young female combos online that claim to be real mother-daughter scenes. I know some of them are not real, but I’d really rather not think about that when I’m trying to get a boner. I remember seeing my mother completely naked in a family changing room at a public pool, but I don’t remember how old I was. She changed in plain sight to the far end of a room—a rectangular room, which I got way too much a sight of. It was scary and gross, and she made me feel like a horrible pervert by her reaction.”
And… I just think, the fact that we live in a society where people could view that—a mother putting her hand into her son’s pants and bouncing his testicles and making a joke—or a father doing that to his daughter, like the episode we had with Lindsay, where when she would walk up the stairs in front of her dad, he would do this thing that she called “credit carding” her, where he would take, like, the edge of his hand—he would stick his fingers straight out and take the edge of his hand and run it—bump it up against her vagina, and laugh about it.
How do we educate people that this is sexual abuse? Not only the people that are doing it, but the people who are receiving it and say, “I don’t know if this was wrong.” I don’t know but… I think what’s been bothering me lately, too, is I’m seeing so many of these stories on the Web, of teachers taking advantage of boys who are 13, 14, 16 years old, and if they’re—if the women are attractive, I’ll read the—and I’ll read the comments section, and if the women are attractive, mostly men—very few women—comment how lucky the kid is. And…it just makes me so sad and angry. It just makes me so sad and angry. But I guess this is my way—this is my way of speaking out.
This is a survey that’s also about childhood sexual abuse, and this was filled out by a woman who is now a therapist. And she calls herself “Fox,” and she is straight, she’s in her 20s, was raised in a pretty dysfunctional environment. I’d say more than that.
Ever been the victim of sexual abuse?
“Yes, and I never reported it. It wasn’t until a little later in life that I remembered how my father used to have me sit on the edge of the bed while he put baby cream all over my vagina. I asked my mother about it very casually, just wondering if maybe she knew about it and had a good reason, but she said she didn’t remember him ever doing this. I recall it happening pretty frequently for a while, and always with the door closed, just the two of us. I don’t remember my age, but maybe kindergarten. We also took showers together, either me and my dad or me and my brother. My dad likes to joke in a really gross way that he kept—that he stopped taking showers with me because I kept grabbing his penis. He thinks this is hilarious, but I just feel gross and ashamed. Later in life, in my tweens, my brother started getting curious. At first, it was just spying on me in the bathroom, then he would hide in my room when I got out of the shower to watch me, and then he started trying to touch me. He would hold me down as if to tickle me innocently, but he would touch me down there. He invited me into his room to watch porn and showed me videos of girls who he said looked like me. With all of this as a wonderful foundation to help me grow into a confident and sexually healthy human being, it isn’t any surprise that I became extremely sexually promiscuous. I was raped when I was 15 by an older guy I had a crush on. We got really high and did whippets and I blacked out a little. It wasn’t violent. I remember leaving my body and just watching the scene unfold. I think the actual physical rape wasn’t as hard on me as just the idea of my loss of innocence and the shame of feeling responsible for allowing this to happen.”
That is such a profound statement, and so many people experience themselves leaving their bodies. And I think maybe that’s why there’s so much misunderstanding around sexual trauma—people that haven’t experienced it that—because they think it’s about something being forced into something and it being about physical pain, when that’s usually the last thing that sticks with you. It’s the—it’s you being denigrated as a human being, and from then on, seeing the world as an unsafe place where anything terrible could happen to you. That’s the ripple of sexual trauma that really is hard to heal from. Anyway, she writes:
“I’d been a huge believer in the Disney storyline of sex being this huge, magical fairytale that comes with a soulmate and a ‘happily ever after.’ Well, clearly that wasn’t true. I was crushed. I went to school the next day and had a math test. I was sitting at my desk, looking around me at all these happy teens laughing about something stupid, the teacher yelling at us to finish up our tests, and I just retreated into myself. The contrast between my inner and outer worlds was too much. I dropped out at the end of that year. I started hanging out with older guys, doing drugs, and letting people take advantage of me. I gave out blowjobs with a kind of Miss America desperation—”
That is a sentence.
“I gave out blowjobs with a kind of Miss America desperation, as if every male was a judge of my self-worth. I remember one almost comical instance where I gave head to a 27-year-old guy. I was 16 or 17. He had a tiny little penis and it happened very quickly. Afterwards, he picked up a guitar and sang me a song about falling in love and how it was time for us to part—”
Oh my God, that is an awfulsome moment! That is so fucking awfulsome.
“As if he thought I was in love with him after sucking his miniature prick and needed some extra emotional support to cope with his departure. How do I feel about all this? I hate how ingrained so many of the unhealthy thoughts and feelings are in my identity. I keep trying to think—I keep thinking that I’m ‘older and wiser’ enough to not let the past affect me, and yet I find myself doing stupid, dramatic shit—like getting drunk and cheating on a boyfriend—because I’m scared nobody will ever love me, so I might as well share my body with the world. Or having a bad dream that plummets me into a pit of despair and I have to fight with all my willpower to suppress the urge to kill myself. A little awkward if you’re supposed to be in a therapy session later that day as the therapist. And I’m also sometimes grateful to have had all these experiences. They’ve made me who I am. I have no idea who I would be without all the pain and darkness, because with it came so much joy and light. At least these painful experiences blew a spark to life that is now a raging fire of passion to help other people, to protect other children from experiencing a similar fate or provide them support while they try to make sense of their own trauma story. And I found that most people have a part that feels broken. In some weird way, our broken parts are like puzzle pieces that allow us to connect to other people’s strange shapes. Or, I think I’ve heard this before, but something like, ‘Our holes are where the light comes in.’”
That is so beautiful and fucking eloquent. I don’t think you should ever say “fucking eloquent,” ’cause that’s like… That’s like eating gourmet foods and saying, “That’s fuckin’ deliciously fancy!” Let’s see.
Any positive experiences with your abusers?
“I’ve always been torn between a puppy dog-like desire for my brother to like me and a disgust with how he sexually abused me. Because we have similar interests, we ended up hanging out in the same group of friends for a while in college. When I finally told my parents later in life what he had done, they didn’t believe me and said I was willingly—and said I willingly hung out with him now, so clearly I couldn’t really be upset about anything.”
Deep breath, Paul. Deep breath.
Darkest thoughts:
“I think about dying a lot. Maybe that’s not so dark. Hmm. I am turned on by rape scenes. I sometimes wish I had a penis so I could completely dominate a weaker female, cause her pain and suffering, hear her scream for me to stop. I used to fantasize about being a mad scientist with a laboratory so deep underground that nobody could hear people scream. In this place, I would tie people to machines that let me control their movements, so I could force them to have sex with each other in any way I wanted. I still randomly think of this place, especially when I find myself hating anyone who is in a position of power. It’s my way to bring them down a notch, even if it’s just in my head.”
Deepest, darkest secrets:
“I was playing hide-and-seek with two little kids that my brother and I were babysitting. One of the girls still sucked her thumb. We told the girl she could hide underneath my brother and tried to convince her to suck his ‘big thumb’ that was really his penis. She wouldn’t do it and ran away. I really hope she never told her parents.”
Sexual fantasies most powerful to you:
“Ha, that was my dark secret. Beyond that, tentacle rape.”
I’m not really sure what that is. I think I know what that is.
“I joke about it sometimes with friends, so I doubt any of them would ever guess that I actually search for tentacle rape porn and get aroused watching it.”
Is that where, like, a…octopus—an octopus touches you?
What, if anything, would you like to say to someone you haven’t been able to?
“I want to yell at my brother, my father, the 27-year-old man who let me give him head, the guy who raped me and took my virginity, my high school teachers and classmates, all of the people in my life who are unnecessarily cruel and callous. I want to shake all of them and tell them about my pain, ask them how could they have treated me that way. I want to tell them that I am human, that I am trying my best, and I know they are probably doing the same and that in some strange way, I love them.”
Wow! I had printed this survey out maybe about a month ago, and so I hadn’t read it—I’d forgotten what a lot of it contained. This is so beautifully profound.
What, if anything, do you wish for?
“I wish that I was more in touch with my heart and body—”
Boy, it sounds—really sounds like you are.
“That I knew more so what I wanted. I don’t know how, but somewhere along the way, I just lost touch with that basic body reaction of ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ That sounds crazy, but I often don’t even know what I do or don’t want.”
Well, I guess that makes sense now. It feels like you’re in touch with your heart, though. Maybe—I mean… Anyway, continuing.
Have you shared these things with others?
“I tried telling my best friend about what was happening at home and she told me it wasn’t a big deal. And then she decided she had a crush on my brother and stopped hanging out with me.”
How do you feel after writing these things down?
“A little angrier and less calm than I did before. I don’t like to focus on my past abuse because I know that I am more than my abuse and these stories of my past.”
Anything you’d like to share with someone who shares your thoughts or experiences?
“It is so, so, so very important to get help, if that’s with a therapist, a group, or just your own personal journey of healing. Even if it hurts more at first, in the end, it is so, so worth it. While no amount of healing is going to make pain disappear completely, it can make it feel beautiful and soft.”
That is so beautiful. That is so beautiful. And you know, I was gonna read a couple more surveys, but that is—that feels like just such a good one to end on, ’cause that’s—it’s just like a little capsule of life. Painful and beautiful and confusing and articulate and… Yeah. That’s like a little movie, in three pages. Thank you so much for sharing that.
And I hope you guys have a good holiday weekend, and I’m so grateful for your support for the show. And I hope if you’re out there and you’re feeling stuck, you know that there’s help if you’re willing to get out of your comfort zone and say, “Please help me. I don’t know how to do this.” It’s the best thing that ever happened to me. And just remember that you are not alone. You’re never alone, no matter what your head tells you. And thank you so much for listening.
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