Episode notes:
Follow Jason on Twiiter @Jason23Nash Check out his Vine videos And be sure to check out the trailer for his movie Jason Nash is Married which is available to stream on Itunes or Amazon
This episode is sponsored by Bulu Box. To learn more and get a MIHH listener discount go to www.bulubox.com click on the microphone in the upper left hand corner and use the offer code "happyhour".
Episode Transcript:
Welcome to Episode 183 with my guest Jason Nash. I’m Paul Gilmartin. This is the Mental Illness Happy Hour - two hours of honesty about all the battles in our heads from medically diagnosed conditions, past traumas and sexual dysfunction to every day compulsive negative thinking. This show is 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 check it out. Please join the forum. There’s a gazillion different threads on all kinds of subjects. Join it. Get to know people. You’ll find out that you are most definitely not alone. You can also read blogs on the website and you can support the show financially and other stuff that I always forget...oh, you can search, use our Amazon search portal when you’re going to shop at Amazon and that way we get a little support from Amazon.
Let’s get to it! This is a Struggle in a Sentence survey. This is filled out by a listener who has filled out surveys previously. Cutla (sp?) and Cutla is transgender female and she writes. Her struggles are depression, “I have no energy to do anything, no desire to do anything and no strength to discuss the problem.” That one really hit me – was the ‘no strength to discuss the problem’ – that is so often the thing that makes depression so insidious is that you don’t even want to talk about it. Another issue that she has ‘gender disphoria’. She writes: “Like my body isn’t part of me, I only exist in what I see and think. The rest of me is just my body and not part of who I am”. Snap shot from her life: “Changing the volume on the TV, the number has to end up divisible by 5 or a square of an integer e.g. 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, even if that makes it a little bit too loud. Knocking on a door has to be a pattern that I can acknowledge – not necessarily the same pattern every time, but if I’m in the middle of a pattern, I do need to finish it.”
Same survey filled out by a guy who calls himself Benjy Tutworth (sp?) about his co-dependency. “If you’re mad at me it’s because I’m a bad person” Wow, that one really, really resonated with me. Snapshot from his life: “I’m frequently emotionally unavailable because I don’t know ‘the right thing to say’. When confronted about it, I lock up more and start wishing I could die.”
This is filled out by Lilly. She writes about experiencing racial bias: “I am dark skinned and my family is mostly light skinned. While growing up boys would say things like ‘I only date light skinned girls.’ People always comparing my sister and I etc. Whenever I go to concerts I feel like people are staring at me because I’m usually one of the few black people there. It makes me feel like I’m hated and don’t belong. I’m very aware that I am black and feel hurt by racism all the time because I’m very sensitive.” You know what I would say when you hear guys say ‘I only date light skinned girls’? You should say ‘I only date guys with character’. That would be a nice comeback.
This is filled out by a guy who calls him self Jaded Bitter Joy Crusher. How do I not read his survey? What an awesome name. One of his struggles is turrets. He writes “Like a super volcano in my nervous system but instead of lava, it’s ready to erupt with ‘your mother sucks cocks in hell’ and then punch me in the face literally.” I don’t know if he means he’s punching himself in the face or the person he’s saying that to is punching him in the face. Another struggle he has he writes is “Classic autism: watching more and more people talk about Asperger’s as a ‘gift’ while ‘classic’ or ‘severe’ autism is still a strategy sickens me” Thank you for sharing that.
This was filled out by a women who calls herself pzerofun(sp?) and she’s a teenager and she writes about her dermatilomania (sp?): “I can’t stop picking” – that means skin picking – “I can’t stop picking but I worry about picking so it makes me pick more.” Snap shot from her life: ”Having an anxiety attack in English class a couple of months ago. We were supposed to be taking notes from a video we were watching. I’m usually a good note taker but I just couldn’t concentrate. I sat at my desk while my palms became more and more sweaty, my heart beating loudly, my vision going blurry as I looked straight down at my notes paper which was now covered in large looping squiggles. Despite having 2 more classes to go I skipped and sat outside the rest of the day shivering and fighting the urge to bang my head against the wall. When I told my English teacher what happened the next day, she was actually really understanding and let me watch the video after school a couple of days later.” That could almost be an awful some moment.
This is a snapshot from Alison’s life and she writes “I feel like my anxiety and depression is so overlooked and not acknowledged by a lot of family members that on an almost daily basis I pray that I’ll get cancer. I fell like I need a real reason for my family – specifically my grandparents - to understand how awful I feel. I know that if I had a disease that was physically visible to an outsider, everyone would care.” Boy I think there’s a lot of us that feel that way. And I see that a lot on the surveys as people want a physical manifestation of their soul sickness.
A women calling herself Rainy Sunday writes about her anorexia. “Like an old cherished friend who promises to keep all my dirty secrets as long as I keep her happy.” Wow, that one’s profound. Snapshot from her life: “I have no energy or desire to be around people. I have a job and small social circle and I’m often forced to pretend like I give a fuck and I’m interested in their lives or our lives. Really, I’m not interested. The conversation exhausts me and I can only smile and nod and ask the right questions for so long until I feel like I’ll melt into the floor. All I’m thinking about is when it would be socially acceptable for me to remove myself from the situation and return home to my cat. I love to sleep. I’m happiest in life when I’m just about ready to fall asleep and my body feels warm and tired and my mind is 95% turned off and I know I’ll be unconscious for a few wonderful glorious hours and I won’t have to deal with any shit or think, or worry or pretend. Sometimes I also gain a huge amount of relief when I realize that maybe, just maybe, I’ll die peacefully in my sleep and I’ll never wake up again.” Man, there’s are a lot of people that feel that way, myself included and... sending you a hug.
Evelyn writes about her depression, her bipolar: “Constantly hanging by a thread trying not to constantly fall into either a pit of sole crushing despair or uncontrollable energy while always being reminded I’m not normal and never will be.” Snapshot from her life: “Every time I go out with friends, I can’t quiet the thoughts in my head that say ‘I have too many issues for them to love me’. I put on a facade of happiness while I think about how much I want to kill myself.” I’m sorry these are kind of on the dark side but I print these out and read them based on... on how eloquent I think they are. When I hear somebody read...When I hear somebody write one that just goes right to my core and I’m like ‘Oh my God that’s...’ I can picture it, if not feel it, picture it, I feel compelled to read these.
This guy’s name kills me ‘Jerkface Asshole’. About his bulimia he writes: “Self-hatred – I have no self-control when it comes to shoving it in but I can pretend that I’m in control when I force it out”. About his OCD: “My shoes aren’t tied tight enough, try again. Still, again. The bows are crooked. I need new laces.” Snapshot from his life: “I’m way to good at repression. I cram it all so deep that not even I can find it unless I’m driving.”
Chase writes about self-injury: “I bite myself to make bruises other’s don’t see. It’s a way of coping that stays with me all day like reassurance and proof that I’m real and I matter.” Snapshot from her life: “My parents recently came to visit. They know about my anxiety so my promised they would try not to stress me out. I worked nights and while they were here, from a Wednesday to a Sunday, I got 11 hours of sleep total. When they were getting ready to leave, my mother said pleadingly, ‘Make me proud’. I responded weakly, ‘Probably not’. She replied, ‘Make God proud?’. Even she knows that would be easier.” Wow, that is deep.
Two more.
Leila writes about her anxiety: “I’m so afraid of pain and death that I crave pain and death.” Snapshot from her life: “I spent maybe around 3 months at University. I spent the whole time locked in my room. I had no roommate, avoiding people, crying and eating junk food – it was the best time of my life.”
And then finally, a woman calling herself Sunshine writes about her depression: “Like I’m ice skating and under the ice is a racing river and I’m constantly aware that at any moment, when I’m not looking, the ice could crack and I could be stuck underneath watching everyone skating happily above while I thud hopelessly on the ice below.” About her OCD: “My brain sorts everything I see into categories and patterns and when something doesn’t fit, it gets chucked in a junk bin somewhere in the back of my mind so the front is all organized just so and the leftover bits are too complicated to think about.” About her co-dependency: “If I’m not there when you’re upset to wipe your tears, cook for you, wake you up everyday, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll die. On second thought, copy and paste that into narcissism.”
Intro: Oh God I wish I didn’t need to take meds. Flat out fucking auditory hallucinations. I would literally wake up running from my bed. I’m afraid that I’ll pass my anger on to my son. I thought the gunman was my father. Afraid of not being able to make a living. I know that’s probably going to break his heart if he hears it but that’s the truth. They committed him to Bellevue. There was this fear that if I feel this pain...I wish someone could see what was going on and just help me... that it will kill me and I will die and I will drown. You can’t think your way out of a thinking problem...and I cried the way that a baby cries. I cried like an animal. It makes me so mad at myself that I do that. The burden of perfectionism... and that’s when I got to therapy. Let’s talk about that. I was like, ‘Fuck it, I’m alive! Who gives a shit about anything!’. You are a shining example of what is best about human beings. I’m worried that the Russian militia is coming over the hill. I know that but Alice how are you feeling? I’m pretty good, pretty good...”
P: I’m here with Jason Nash who is a comedian, director, writer. We’ve known of each other for a while but we’ve never sat down and talked and I watched your movie Jason Nash is Married and I loved it and you had been suggested...Jimmy Pardo was like ‘I think he would be a great guest’ and I watched your movie and I was like ‘Oh yeah, this guy is definitely in touch with his neuroses and he’s done some contemplative thinking about his life and his place in the world and relationships and stuff like that’
J: Yeah, I am an open wound.
P: Those are my favorite kinds of wounds!
J: Yeah.
P: Where are you from originally?
J: Boston
P: Ok, where is a good place to start with your story? Are you married in real life?
J: No, I made that all up about married people. I researched married people, I lived with them for... No! Yes, I’m totally, totally married!
P: (laughing) OK!
J: Phew! Wouldn’t that be funny?
P: It had all the details of someone who is definitely married.
J: Yeah! Isn’t that funny when you know you do something and you’re a comic, don’t you have people say that to you, you know ‘Oh Paul, that’s so funny you made that up’. You’re like ‘No, there’s no way I could have made 20 years of you know, drinking..’. You know...like there’s just...I don’t know who makes stuff up. I couldn’t. I’m not that smart...
P: And I think it’s—hold on one second, I just want to... Would you do me a favor and turn your phone—
J: Mine’s off. Mine is off. Yeah I shut it off.
P: OK, alright.
J: Yeah, we’re good.
P: Mine was making some noise.
J: Good on my end.
P: What were we talking about? Oh yeah the detail of...
J: Yeah, I’m married. I’m married and I’ve been married to the same woman for 10 years. First marriage.
P: Kids?
J: 2 kids and was way not ready for any of it. Didn’t know who I was and that’s what the movie is about. It’s about when you find love and you haven’t found yourself and I just was not ready. Jumped into figured ‘Ah—
P: I’ll figure it out
J: --‘everything has worked out for me so far. You know like I went through life a lot of my life that I had this false sense of hope and false sense of confidence like it’s....’Yeah, things are going to be great. I was funny in high school and now, you know, I’ll be a millionaire, I’ll be a billionaire’. With no backup at all, no training...
P: So many of us move here like ‘I’m going to charm the world like I charmed whoever’
J: Yeah, and I had all these friends who thought I was hilarious, you know. ‘Oh, you’re going to be on Saturday Night Live!’. ‘Yeah! Probably!’, you know, and then I just...things were going good and I came to LA and I had some things going and then I just took a couple of hits and I was like, confidence done.
P: When did that happen?
J: It happened about the time I got married because when I would take hits before I would be like, ‘Ah, whatever. Let’s go out.’ and suddenly I was down and I had to like go look at somebody and I didn’t like that at all. So then I sort of stopped trying.
P: What do you mean ‘You were down and you had to go look at somebody’?
J: So you’d go to like, say you have a big set to get you know, say you audition for mad TV and it doesn’t go well and then it’s like--
P: I don’t have to imagine that.
J: I’ve done that too.
P: I auditioned for it and it did not go well.
J: Mine didn’t go well either, and, I was also drunk at it, but, yeah so that just became like rather than trying to have a career which I hated failing at, I just went into my wife’s life and just led her life.
P: I see, and so did she become the bread winner.
J: Yeah, yeah, she made way more money than me.
P: OK, well it’s interesting because if you could take your ego out of it, that would be awesome—
J: That’ right
P: Because it would be like ‘yeah, even though independently we’re struggling, but together we make this great unit but...
J: Yeah, I didn’t like that. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand myself.
P: Do you think that’s because it’s a male thing or do you think any partner would feel that way?
J: That’s a good question. I’m surprised when I see—this is going to sound horrible— but like, yeah I’m surprised when I see women that are happy to stay home with their kids. I’m surprised that they are and I’m surprised that there are men that want to do that. I can’t imagine wanting to do that. You know it is ego, I guess.
P: I suppose so, and I think society, the way it’s portrayed that it’s OK for women but that we just don’t see that many men as stay at home dads that are, you know, clapped for or said ‘that’s very noble’. Personally I think anybody who can stay home and raise kids, my hats off to them. They must be incredibly patient and...
J: Yeah, I think it’s a great thing. I can’t do it. I don’t have the patience and I didn’t feel... It’s just not who I wanted to be. I wanted to accomplish something in life. My parents—
P: And that’s not an accomplishment, raising your kids?
J: Yeah, I guess I never saw it that it was because my parents, they just failed and failed and failed and always were trying to like keep us above water.
P: Failed financially?
J: Yeah, yeah—
P: Or emotionally?
J: Emotionally, my mother was fantastic, my father was very... was horrible, horrifying and so and also we were like evicted from a lot of apartments and getting kicked out and having to move and I just was like I’m going to do something, I’m going to make a lot of money. I’m gonna—
P: Oh, so it brings all that shit up
J: Yeah, yeah
P: I’m my dad.
J: That’ right like I had a moment with my father probably about 5 years ago where I was like ‘Oh, I’ve got this thing that I’m doing and it’s gonna work, I know it’s gonna work, you know’ and it was like this TV idea and whatever and of course it didn’t work, and he said to me, he sort of cut me off and said “Well, I have this thing that’s gonna work and it’s a real estate deal and it’s down in Providence” and I was just looking at him like ‘Oh fuck’...
P: You can’t even be there for your kid for 30 seconds.
J: and not even that but also just like ‘I am him. Yeah, I turned into him.’. You know and I just wanted it so badly. I wanted... I couldn’t go out... I’m so enamored with comedy—
P: What did you want so badly? Is it affection or success?
J: I wanted respect from my peers. I wanted to do something too. I wanted to contribute something. All my friends... I wanted to feel good about myself. All my friends seemed to be doing things that they wanted to do and accomplishing things and I wanted to do that and so when I was around them I couldn’t even be out at parties and stuff, i would just feel like ‘Well, I haven’t done anything’.
P: I’ve had that feeling.
J: Yeah, you’re right. That’s why I don’t hang out with comics.
P: It’s, especially when it’s comics that are really successful and I don’t—I know there are some listeners that are like ‘Oh God, they’re talking about show business again but just, this isn’t specific to show business, you know—
J: Not at all.
P: Just imagine any field. There’s going to be politics involved, there’s going to be people advancing that you feel are less talented than you, and, it’s not a meritocracy, so it can kill your soul if you expect it to be a meritocracy and when you get in that room of people, that make you truly feel like ‘Oh my God, I am less talented than all these people’ it’s so hard because you feel like ‘I’m never going to get a piece of the pie. I’m never—‘ but don’t you think it’s an illusion at a certain point because then you’re always...? If you can’t decide that you’re going to enjoy your life how it is exactly as it is today, and you exactly as you are today, you’re always going to be looking at that next rung of the ladder and thinking that that’s nirvana and you’re never going to be satisfied. I mean personally, I had to make that decision years ago and I feel like I’m definitely OK. That doesn’t mean I don’t dream about something else happening but I just think it’s such a myth and but it’s so real when it presents itself.
J: I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to be satisfied.
P: Talk about what you feel and think when you’re in that party and you’re starting to feel less than. Do you start to get panicky?
J: Yeah, I’m there and I’m like...well, mostly lately what happens is it’s a lot of conversations about, for the age that I am, it’s a lot of conversations about people who are getting cancer, people dying, my kid took up the violin—
P: You’re 76
J: Yeah, I was at this dinner on Saturday night and I was with a bunch of couples and I was just like ‘Is this it? Are we really just going to talk about people dying for the whole time?’
P: How old are you?
J: I’m 40.
P: OK
J: And it’s just like I want to like have an exciting life, you know what I mean? And I want to be doing new things and so... I’m getting off topic but I guess, yeah, I guess I would go off to parties. Lets say comedy central would throw a party and there was like a feeling of like, maybe it was self-imposed, but it’s not. It’s like you start talking... There’s a group of, a couple of friends of my wife’s, very successful and I will say hello and they will just turn their back on me. This woman did it July 4th at...we were at a thing. And I said – I won’t say her name - “Hey Rachel” She looked right at me. I was like, ‘How many fucking times, over like 15 years are you going to ignore me’ and uh..
P: Not even a hello? Not even a just—
J: Really weird. It’s just a thing. It’s like—
P: Was your dick out? ‘Cause sometimes that does have an effect..
J: I don’t think so...
P: You’ weren’t grabbin’ her boobs—
J: No, I was, I was grabbing her boobs..
P: Ok, fair enough.
J: Yeah, and I had my own thumb in my ass.
P: Yeah, but it was your thumb!
J: It was my own thumb. It wasn’t her thumb!
P: Yeah, so you had respectful boundaries.
J: Yeah, so yeah, I just thought that... so I was just walking around. I just wanted to do something so badly, I wanted to... I don’t know... I guess that’s why, I guess I wanted—it was an ego thing. For sure.
P: You know, something that I try to keep in mind when I have those things, because immediately, I want to go the place of ‘You fuckin’ cocksucker. You think you’re better than me’ in my mind. I try to think—I try to have compassion for that person and say, they must be really trapped in their head. They must be really walking around in fear and they’re just looking for somebody they think can help them and they see me as somebody who can’t help them and if anything, I want to go hug that person more than anything.
J: Yeah
P: But I agree with you. I can’t go to those parties. I honestly feel safer in a support group full of ex-gang members that shot heroin, than I do at a Hollywood party. Now a group of my comedian friends, who are close friends, I feel very safe around them and I have a good time.
J: Yeah
P: But you go outside that half dozen or eight guys and I can’t wait to get home.
J: And that’s exactly right. That’s how someone else explained to me about her was that that’s what she does, she lords her power over people, she ignores—I guess she’s kind of a powerful person or whatever—and you know what, when it happened this weekend, it didn’t bother me as much ‘cause I was like ‘I have the movie, I did the movie’. I have that...
P: Well, let’s talk about who you are and how you feel about yourself underneath the work.
J: Yeah.
P: Who is—this is going to sound really fuckin’ Phil Donahue or whatever or an older reference. Who is Jason Nash underneath the ‘Jason Nash is Married? That’s the worst Phil Donahue ever, I wish Todd Glass was right here so he could do it. Who are you? You take your work your work away and who are you?
J: I’m just somebody who really wants to have fun and make people feel good and just umm...have a constant stream of activity and meeting new people and making other people feel good, that’s really who I am.
P: You know what’s funny is, when I see on social media that you, like I saw that you had this movie coming out and I get this little twinge every time I see that, that somebody’s got something produced by Comedy Central or whatever, and I get a little twinge of ‘I’m not in that league’, so you can also make other people feel that way. I know that’s certainly not your intention when you got the movie, but just know that, that’s the illusion, that there are other people going ‘Oh my God, I wish I could be that successful’ that are feeling unsuccessful themselves, and I know you probably feel that way also—
J: But I spent my entire career up until 2 weeks ago, feeling that way. I mean, you know, 15 years of just depression and—
P: And what happened to—
J: And wanting to kill myself and run away from my family.
P: You said 2 weeks ago or 2 years ago?
J: Well, when the movie came out.
P: Ok, 2 weeks ago.
J: 2 weeks ago the movie came out and it did amazing and we did way better than anyone thought and the people actually like it and then that really changed everything. It made me feel good for the first time, it really did.
P: Is there a danger in that though, because then you’re going to be basing how you feel on how successful your most recent project is? I mean that seems like a recipe for disaster, if you can’t keep those plates spinning.
J: I don’t consider it a danger, it’s my only choice. That danger is what is making me keep going. Like Sunday, I was trying to write on Sunday and everybody was bothering me and I was just like flipped out. I was like ‘I have to do this’. I don’t know why but I need to make the next movie. It needs to be done and I’m not going to be satisfied until it’s done. And I was a real bear to my whole family, I was like, ‘Everybody out. Get out of here. Get out of the room, get out of the office. I’m trying to fucking think.’ And you know, talking to you now, it does, it makes me feel silly, but yeah, I do use that to drive me.
P: The fear.
J: Yeah, I use the danger to drive me. The fear that I’ll be my father, the fear that I’ll only make one movie that just a few people saw.
P: Do you ever worry that you’ll become the disconnected, self-absorbed father that your dad was in trying to pursue that? I mean did you have any movement of self-awareness that—were your kids trying to connect with you or were they just doing their own thing and they were being loud?
J: Well, you know, let’s—I want to be clear, I spend endless amounts of time with them.
P: Oh, OK.
J: I spend all day Saturday with them. I was invited to go somewhere Saturday night, I didn’t go, I took them to dinner. I rock them to friggin’ sleep.
P: Ok. How old are they?
J: They’re eight and five and they’re very attached to me and then Sunday I have them from eight to then at two I was like I am doing this thing and my wife took off—
P: You and your wife are still together?
J: Yeah, we’re still together. Yeah, yeah, yeah... That movie is half true and half not.
P: OK. It’s very detailed in its portrayal of marriage and a relationship.
J: Yeah. Are you married?
P: I am, I am.
J: How long have you been married?
P: We’ve been living together since ’88, married since ’95 and so I thought the portrayal was very nuanced in terms of how people bring their own... how we filter everything, the reality of a situation through our own shit and marriage is basically, how are you going to come to the table and compromise after you’ve both filtered it through your own shit.
J: Yeah, it seems silly to be married, sometimes.
P: It does.
J: It seems really silly. I understand when you had a farm and you needed a couple of people to work it, but now it’s like, it just seems—not that I don’t love my wife and not that we don’t have a good time together, it’s just times when I’m like ‘Hey, it would be nice to just be alone for a couple of weeks.’ You know? But I don’t have that—and you know the other thing that I wanted to speak to too is that I am not financially sound either, so part of me going into my office in my house and shutting the door and yelling at everybody to get the fuck out, is like, I want them to go to college, there’s money to be made in the city and the movie isn’t making me any money, it makes me feel good, it makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, it’s nice when someone says, ‘oh, I like the movie’ but it’s... So now, the next step is to get paid, you know.
P: And get paid because it’s necessary for your family’s future? Or isn’t your wife making enough money that she can put the kids through college?
J: No, she doesn’t make that much money...
P: OK
J: I mean it’s... I guess that is the reason to be married, is you need two incomes these days. You do. So I’m trying to get there before I get too old. There’s this like clock in the back of my head ‘Oh man, you gotta go, you don’t have much time. You already wasted 15 years, so let’s go.’
P: Let’s back up and talk about your childhood. So you were bouncing from apartment to apartment, you were getting evicted, your dad was struggling financially to pay the bills. Was your mom working as well?
J: Yeah, my mom was a housewife and then my father lost his mind and then he... He was doing really well, he had a furniture business and we had like a nice house and then when I was like 5, his business partner was murdered.
P: Wow
J: Yeah, they came and shot him in the middle of the night because they had borrowed money from the wrong people.
P: Oh...
J: And then my dad had like people living at our house with guns.
P: Living at your house with guns?
J: Yeah, like living in the basement just in case
P: Oh, to protect him
J: Yeah, to protect us. And that just really fucked him up. And you know he’s a really smart guy. If he walked in the room right now you’d be like ‘Damn, I want to go have a beer with this guy. This is a fuckin’ awesome dude. This is a man.’ You know what I mean? Very macho, from that era. You know when you watch, like that’s why I love Robert Deniro or like, Harvey Keitel, or anybody like that. That’s my dad. And I’m not like that. I’m real girly. And so he just lost his shit; didn’t want to go like work at a gas station ‘cause he was “better than that” but at the same time we had no money... So my mother started working in cosmetics. She did really well. I was a fat kid. My sister was gay, but she grew up gay and was like tortured so I watched her do that. That was awful, worse for her but awful for me because I loved her so much. We just bounced around from apartment to apartment. Lived with my grandmother.
P: So you just felt like an outcast in every way.
J: Yeah
P: Everybody except for your mom didn’t fit in, in a way, or was butting up against society and bouncing off.
J: Yeah, yeah, but it wasn’t like... That ‘s the funny thing, my marriage is based a lot in money. We live in a moneyed city and we do moneyed things like, you know... I don’t know, when we grew up we had like no money but I can’t say that I’m any happier now. You know what I mean?
P: Well I say it all the time on this podcast, of all the guests I’ve had on the snow, and all the people I’ve met in support groups, I’ve never met anybody who was fucked up to this day because they didn’t get enough stuff as a kid, because they were too poor. But emotional poverty, 99.9% of the people I’ve met that are “fucked up” were because they were raised in emotional poverty. They didn’t feel protected, felt seen, guided.
J: Yeah, I felt seen. They loved me a lot. I was very loved. I was lucky that way. And my father loved me, he was just tapped out. He was very... I had to like... I was the father in a way. I would temper his mood. You know what I mean? Kind of like ‘Hey, what’s going on today, Bob?’, you know, and you’d kind of like get a read on what kind of mood he was in. And maybe he would be in a good mood and he would want to throw a baseball but then maybe not so ‘Alright, well we’ll see you around’, you know, just sort of... that was a big thing I remember when I was little. And him just not... He would just cut your story off, like ‘So then I went down to the basketball court..’ -- ’I used to play basketball’
P: He sounds like a narcissist.
J: Yeah, he is. And so, you know, just very hard to connect to. I love him.
P: You know it strikes me as one of those relationships you know that’s not, to overuse air quotes again... It’s not ‘abusive’ but there’s a lack. There’s a lack, because you just said a minute earlier, you know “my parents saw me” but it sounds like not consistently.
J: No, no, no...
P: Like your dad saw you if it was convenient to see you and I think the job of a parent is to see your kid when it’s not convenient.
J: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
P: I think that’s really important. That’s the thing then that tells you that you matter because you’re seeing your parents put something aside and turn their attention to you.
J: Right
P: And that’s a big.. You know I’m not a parent. These are just guesses that I’m throwing out there.
J: Well what were your parents like?
P: My dad was emotionally withdrawn. Provided for us financially. My dad wasn’t interested and my mom was invasive, in a nut shell.
J: Your dad wasn’t interested in being a dad, and your mom was invasive. What does invasive mean?
P: Just no boundaries. Creepy...
J: OK, no boundaries with kids?
P: No boundaries especially with me. Just like she saw me in my body as an extension of her. You know what I mean? And I became the spouse because my dad wasn’t there.
J: Really? Oh God.
P: It was emotional incest and my dad... I think... yeah, well the mom stuff wounded me in a certain way. The dad stuff wounded me in a way too but it was much more subtle because he gave me my space and sometimes he would talk, but it felt like you were pulling his teeth to get him... There was just never any joy at being a father. I never saw him express any joy, he was never...there was just.. it was....
J: [laughing] Can I tell you something though? My father was like that too and that’s how I feel sometimes. I sit there and I’m looking at them and know they’re so gorgeous and I know they’re treats from God and I’m sometimes, I can’t get it up...
P: Will yourself into enjoying it.
J: I want to. I have these little moments, little moments. For example, we tried to go out for dinner on Saturday night and nobody could agree. My kids don’t eat anything except past and pizza so my wife and I are held to that. We can’t go for Chinese food, we can’t go for Mexican, we can’t go anywhere. And so the 4 of us fought for a an hour and a half. Went to three different restaurants, couldn’t get in, ‘Oh, Charlie won’t eat here’, ‘Why won’t he eat here?’ and we’re yelling at each other. We finally find a restaurant, we sat down and it was an amazing restaurant called Gusto on 3rd Street; never even heard of it. It was great. And then I had about 15 seconds of enjoyment at the end of the meal, I watched them all and that was it. So it’s like an hour and a half of torture for that 15 seconds.
P: Thank you for being honest about that because that’s a pretty hard thing to admit for a parent.
J: It’s awful. You feel like an ass but I don’t know how else to...
P: You’re not the first person, by the way, that has said that on the podcast. There’s been a couple of guests that have said ‘I just struggle to be present.’ ‘I feel like I’m failing, like I don’t have it in me to be that person.’ Would it be fair to say that you feel like something is missing in your DNA or your soul to be that Dad that that you want to be?
J: Yeah, I’m too.. I’m too narcissistic about work. I’m so greedy about like, ‘I want to write a book, I want to make another movie, I want to make a TV show, I want to...’ That is like so important to me and like burning inside of me. When I’m writing, and I just got diagnosed with bipolar and just got on medication, so I’m writing and if somebody comes in and talks to me, that’s it, it’s over, I can’t go back. It’s awful and I’m trying to get better at it so that when it’s ‘Daddy, can you help me with the helicopter’ and I’m just like, ‘Oh God, it’s over. I had it. I had a grove, I had it where I knew where this was going.’ And that movie took me 8 years, you know. So I really.... And then there’s other parts of me that, I want to go to Miami and go out on a boat with my friend Simon, you know, and I don’t.
P: Cause those are the sacrifices you make and you’re OK with that.
J: Yeah, like Saturday night I was invited to go to this birthday party where girls hang from the ceiling, and like Cirque du Soleil, and they server you weird food and I went online and looked at the food and I was like ‘It doesn’t look like not the kind of food I would like anyway’ so I just skipped it. Don’t you just like regular food? You know what I’m talking about? You know you see like fancy food that you see in LA? It’s terrible.
P: There’s so many times we’ve gone out to a restaurant that’s supposed to be great and you pay 4 times what you would normally pay for your favorite restaurant and you go, why didn’t we just go to my favorite restaurant that costs 20 bucks a piece.
J: Yeah, I feel like an old fuddy duddy saying this but Chicken Parmesan, New York steak, that sounds good, pork lo mein, fried rice, that’s all you need.
P: I think those places are fun to go to just to see what the boundaries of food preparation are like but I feel like after I’ve been to 3 or 4 of them, I’m like, ‘OK, there are people that like to pay 4 times the amount for half the size of a portion but ah...’
J: I don’t like it.
P: But let’s get back to the—
J: I think that thing about your mom is fascinating.
P: How so?
J: It’s so human. It’s so human. Of course she made you her spouse.
P: It is super common when one parent is an alcoholic and withdraws. It’s super common.
J: Your dad was an alcoholic?
P: Yeah, and so am I but I sobered up.
J: Did you dad ever sober up?
P: He did and then he fell off the wagon and then he died of cancer shortly after that.
J: He died of cancer. What kind of cancer?
P: Lung and then it went to his brain. It was a cancer that likes to hit the road. It had the traveling bug but he smoked for 50 years. We were shocked that he lived to be 79. I honestly didn’t think my dad, he never exercised, would live to see 70 so...
J: Good life
P: But we had nice moments together, my dad and I.
J: You did? When you were grown or when you were a kid?
P: Until I was 10 with my dad we had some nice moments and then around there... And my mom later told me that she thought that as his drinking was progressing, she shared with me that she told him that she didn’t think he should carry me to bed anymore. And she told me, the reason I said that was because I was afraid that when he was drunk that he was going to molest you. There was no reason for that. The irony being that mom was the one that was inappropriate and had no boundaries and caused all this pain but my dad, I remember my dad specifically disappearing and being less affectionate from that moment on but I think his alcoholism would have pulled him away. I can’t but that on my mom.
J: Was he around the house drinking or was he out?
P: Oh, he hid it. He hid vodka around the house but I never even saw him slur his words. That’s how good he hid his alcoholism. He was insurance executive. Had an office—
J: Like real Mad Men.
P: Oh yeah exactly and he was my hero in a lot of ways because he was successful when we would go visit him at his company, people would were like ‘Oh, that’s Mr. Gilmartin’s children’ and I could see that he was kind of royalty at this place. You know, this big sky scraper, he was like the 4th most powerful person.
J: What City?
P: Chicago. It was a place called C&A Insurance. When you look at the skyline of Chicago it’s that orange building – it’s the rusty orange skyscraper that stands out.
J: I love Chicago.
P: But yeah that was the dynamic but I want to talk more about you and what you’re kind of, what you’re struggling with. This might sound like a weird question but you mentioned God before, do you believe in God?
J: I used to. I think when I was about, I think about 10 years ago, I was talking to my friend Mike (unintelligible) and he was like—this is embarrassing to admit—he was like “You know, you die and that’s it” and I was like “What you do you mean?”, and he’s like “You know, you die and that’s it. It’s over.” And I was like, “What? No, no” and I was like ‘Oh my God, I guess I’ve really been believing in God for a really long time, even though I don’t go to church or temple – I’m half and half – and yeah I guess I don’t. I guess it’s just been instilled in me being around really intelligent people my whole life, who I guess ‘I’ve drank that Kool-Aid’ but yeah I guess it doesn’t really make sense that you would go somewhere amazing, it’s kind of far fetched. I’d like to believe that you go somewhere, I mean I know what my heaven would look like.
P: You know for me believing in something greater than myself is about today. It’s about making the quality of today—I honestly don’t really think about where I’m going after I die that much ‘cause what’s it gonna—I have not control over it. I think part of trying to stay sober is what do I have control over and do I not have control over and try to let go of the things I don’t have control and try to say how can practice good principles in dealing with the things I do have control over. And that’s where God exists for me, in the principles of what I do have control over. It’s more of a God consciousness. I don’t believe in a dude in the sky with a beard. I don’t believe people go to a cloud afterward, but I believe in positive energy. And I don’t know what happens after we die but I do know that when I can be present and happy in my life today, I can feel a little shot of ‘Well this pretty cool’ cause I don’t need much. I don’t need much at all. And that to me is ‘heaven’.
J: I think I could feel that way if I didn’t get myself so far into a marriage and children. And I think I’m so far in that I have a hard time enjoying anything. But if it was just me and you just spent 8 hours writing and there’s no more to write let’s go out with your girlfriend or your friend - if life was simpler. There’s so much pressure to be a good father, make money—
P: To be a good husband
J: Be a good husband—
P: You haven’t even talked about that.
J: Be a good husband. I mean my wife is an unbelievable person. That’s the only reason I married her because I really wouldn’t even think to get married but she was so great and so cool and fun and like my best friend so I was like ‘Ah, I’m going to marry her, I guess’. You know?
P: Do you feel trapped?
J: Yeah, for sure. You know?
P: Have you told her that? I think she could probably, haven seen the movie...
J: She knows. I mean--
P: Does that hurt her feelings?
J: Um, I think so but, here’s the thing, it’s not like, there’s trapped and you can do something about it or there’s trapped and it’s like ‘Ah, it’s not that bad’. You know the option would be to leave and I don’t think that would be a good option either, you know? So I try to enjoy things but I have a very.... I’ll tell you something I really enjoy. My mother raised me and, like your mother, we were really close because it was just the two of us, my sister was out of the house, living her life and then it was just us and it was like, I mean, talk about, she’d go to work, come home and spend time with me. You know she would work all day at the mall, grab me and we would go for dinner at Appleby’s or whatever, amazing, amazing. It did so much for me and when the movie came out, she’s in the movie, there was a lot of promotion to do. They put me on the red carpet at Critics’ Choice and my mom came to that and wore a gown and interviewed celebrities and that was the best. That as the highlight of my life, really. And she said to me. She said “Oh my God, if I died tomorrow, this was it.” And that was amazing. But see it’s like, I don’t even, now I’m not even enjoying that, I’m just crying, you know what I mean? So it’s weird—
P: Isn’t that enjoying it?
J: No, no. Crying feels like pain.
P: Describe the feeling that made you cry just now. Where, what were the feelings underneath it? It was not that you were touched by that? Or do you feel that there’s not enough of that in your life.
J: No, I just feel like she did so much for me. Just bent over so much, like oh my God.
P: What’s wrong with that?
J: Because, like she was abandoned. She had no choice. My father wasn’t around and you know, I just... to go through all that... And then of course there were years when I wasn’t doing anything where she’d call me from Boston and be like “Oh well keep trying. I’m behind you 100%.” You know? And to be able to like finally do something that had weight or meaning or to be able to look her in the eye and say ‘It worked’, you know?
P: Do you feel like, I finally made her proud?
J: Yeah, she was always proud of me, of course but I couldn’t feel that. I couldn’t look her in the eye and feel that.
P: And now you were finally able to look her in the eye and say ‘This isn’t false what you feel.’ And you were able to connect and celebrate that together.
J: Yeah, finally, finally. It was nice you know before she... you know she’s in great health but you know what I mean? It was just nice that she got to see that, I mean she went to Jimmy Pardo’s podcast and just the minute she walked in he just started railing on her and she loved it. It was the absolute best, ‘Jason, if your mom talks again, I’m going to punch her in the face.’ And she loved it, she loved it.
P: Was he doing a show in Boston or was he doing it here?
J: No, no, I went and did his podcast. There was like a week that mom was here to see the premiere, to do all these things. She went to Serius XM with me, I just brought her everywhere. I was like ‘You’re coming’ you know?
P: And were you doing that because you wanted her there or because you wanted her to feel a part of, or both?
J: I wanted her, I know that if she could do her life over again she would have been a publicist or a producer, she just loves what we do, you know? I swear to God by the end of the week she was asking me, “How hard is it to get a podcast, I mean...” And I was like, ‘You could probably do it, I mean I’m sure you could do it.’ “I mean me and my friend Paula, we sit around and we talk a lot” and I was like ‘Yeah, you should do it’ and I just know that she would love to have done what we do so it was just great to take her to meet Greg Fitzsimmons, you know she was on the red carpet and like, she was useful, so my job on the red carpet was to talk to celebrities, and I was failing, like to talk to RuPaul, like RuPaul wouldn’t come over. My mother just started grabbing people by the hand and bringing them over. She grabs Collin Hanks by the hand, brings him to my booth and he’s like ‘Hey, your mom says I had to come over here’ and I was like ‘Yeah, Ok can you shoot this quick video?’
P: Isn’t funny how moms still have like this power over us where it’s like well I can’t say know this, it’s his mom.
J: [laughing] Laura Prepon, Billy Bob Thornton, you know. It’s like, hey, yeah, so that was something I enjoyed. I enjoy going out with males a lot. I love going out with my guy friends. I don’t like talking about remodeling, I don’t like talking about grown up stuff, it’s boring. I don’t know how you find that. Do you like to talk about remodeling?
P: No, no. If you looked at our house, you would say ‘Clearly he doesn’t like to talk about remodeling.’ We, with the exception of two rooms in our house, we have not repainted our house since we bought it 20 years ago.
J: My wife is so into the house: moves furniture around all the time...
P: There was a question I wouldn’t to....
J: Sorry
P: No, that’s OK, Ummm. Talk about bipolar. When were you diagnosed?
J: Last year I started, like... I think I did a lot of drugs and I think it fucked my brain up...
P: Did a lot of drugs previous to that or last year?
J: No, no, no, like for the last year I did a lot of drugs, like a lot of speed drugs and so by around last year, I started like the whole front of my head would be blacked out by like 7pm by like a crazy headache or I would be just insane. I would be just insane if somebody would try... I was always trying to finish the movie and if someone talked to me I would be like ‘I can’t, I can’t’ and I don’t know if it was the drugs or not, I’m not sure so I just started to be like going to bed at 7pm and wake up, like 7 to 9am really.
P: You were sleep a lot huh?
J: Yeah, I would go to 8 o’clock and then I would have like 12 hours of the day where I was OK. And my wife was like ‘Are you going to live like this, you know you can’t...’ and so I was just really depressed, and that was the other thing is, I would have really high, high moments. I was doing this app called vine and what you would do is get together with a bunch of people and in like an hour you would shoot 6 vines and they would all go out and you would be like this one did great, that one did great and you would get so high and I would get so high off of the immediate reaction of more followers and this one is doing really well and then crash.
P: And do you think the dream underneath that was ‘This is going to kickstart my career.’
J: This is going to bring money. Yeah, yeah. That was great. And same with stand up you know I would go do stand up and I would be like ‘Oh fuck ya, that was fuckin’ awesome! Wow, wow!’ and then like ‘ugh...’ And so I don’t think there was anything blocking my adrenaline. So then I got on the medication and I didn’t even want to take it. I had these two friends that like pulled me aside and were like ‘you have to go. Go. There’s something wrong with you. I had the same thing. Just go get the medication. You’ll be fine’ I took it and I was at a bowling alley party, I was a at a kids birthday party and I was hating being and my kid was off having a good time. I was like ‘Oh, I’ll just take it, take the medication.’ It was suppose to take two weeks. I took and I swear to God, like three minutes later, everything just went [unintelligible] like slow, looking at the bowling, looking at the 20 lanes, the ball. It was all just like, literally like a wave from left to right, slow.
P: Like in a good way?
J: Oh, in a great way. Like for the first time in my life I was like I had died and gone to heaven and then like I remember, I saw my son and I was like ‘Hey, how’s it goin’. And he was like ‘Hey’ and everything was really slow and good and then we got back in the car and I was like ‘so what do you want to do now?’ and he was like ‘I don’t know’, ‘Do you want to go and get frozen yogurt?’ and was like ‘Yeah’ and I was like ‘yeah’. I could drive a car and everything. I wasn’t like high, high. It was great.
P: It sounds like your energy was just in synch with the universe instead of fighting it
J: Yeah! And so now I take it every day and it’s like great, really great and I can get very focused. At night I get a little rasable. They just upped the dose last week.
P: What are you taking?
J: I take Lamotrigine.
P: That’s what I take
J: You take that? Alright!
P: Yeah, it’s generic Lamictal.
J: Yeah, he said there are two things I can give you. One you won’t get hard, the second one you lose your hair and then there’s the third one.
P: And they warned you about the rashes
J: They warned me about the rashes but I don’t get any rashes.
P: They’re like, if you get a rash from this, call us immediately because it can be fatal and that’s the mixed bag of taking meds ‘cause you know there’s the 0.1 percent of people where it’s just a horror story of what they go through with it.
J: That’s what he said to me. He goes ‘This stuff is great. Don’t go off it because a lot of people are suicidal if they go off cold turkey’—
P: And I have
J: What happened?
P: I got suicidal
J: Are you serious?
P: Oh yeah, this was the previous meds—
J: How many days?
P: Well here’s the thing that fooled me was that it took 5 minutes because I had been taking it for years so it was really built up and I thought well if the problems are going to happen, they’re going to happen within 3 months so after 3 months, I felt great. So when it presented itself, I thought ‘Oh no my life really does suck. I really do need to kill myself’ and I was seriously thinking about it. I’ve shared this before in the podcast but a guy in my support group was sharing about attempting suicide in his van after relapsing and blood was spurting out of his body and he looked to the heavens and said ‘Father, I’m ready to come home’ and I was crying and I was jealous that he had the, you know, the drive to commit the act and that’s when it occurred to me that ‘oh, this is the darkness, this isn’t reality’ and I got back on them and 3 days later, I felt fine. And that was made me realize I had to do this podcast because I was like ‘I was on meds and in therapy for 8 fucking years and it fooled me. Imagine how many people are out there who have never experienced talk therapy, have never experienced meds, and I’m not saying that meds are for everybody, but I was like this needs to be talked about, people need to be, the podcast would be the perfect medium to discuss this in a detailed, nuanced way because you can’t cover it on the news in a minute.
J: Yeah, Dr. Oz isn’t going to get to it, he won’t be able to get that deep.
P: But it was like going off a cliff. That’s the way I describe it. It was like... and my psychiatrist warned me! He said ‘I strongly urge you to not do this’ and I was like, ‘what does he know. He want to Harvard Medical school and I was premed and I cooked chicken on TV.
J: I said to my wife, ‘I feel good. I don’t think I need it anymore’—
P: There’s often a high right when you go off it. So you think ‘What the fuck was I doing on those things.
J: Running to CVS every 30 days. I mean what do I need that for? Geez, you going to be a slave to some lady in a white jacket? And then he gave me Klonopin last time and I took some that and it just puts you to sleep. That’s not good, I don’t think I really need it. It doesn’t do anything for me. Right? Have you ever taken that?
P: I’ve heard of Klonopin before but I’m not familiar with it.
J: Because your kind of edgy at night right?
P: Is that a benzo, a benzodiazepine?
J: Yeah
P: You gotta be really careful with those man, ‘cause those are not meant to be taken daily as a solution to things. I think those are meant as a stop gap thing to be used once in a while.
J: Really, cause it says take it once every 8 hours as needed. That’s what it says
P: I don’t know...
J: I haven’t been taken them at all. I took it twice and it just put me to sleep so...
P: Well, again, we’re not experts on this podcast. This is a waiting room, not a doctor’s office so...
J: Yeah, totally, don’t listen to me. I also work out like a fiend.
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P: Is there anything else from when you were a kid or an adolescent or even in your twenties, any kind of seminal moments that you feel like were transformative, painful, life defining, or just etched into your memory for some bizarre reason?
J: I remember a really bad moment. I was looking at my father’s Playboys and I remember him rubbing my face in the Playboys. That was awful...
P: How old were you?
J: I was like 5, 6. He was really mad. He could obviously tell that I had been looking at them cause they were maybe moved around. They were on top of a closet. That was really bad. He did a lot of fucked up things to me.
P: Did you feel shame in that moment?
J: Yeah, I guess so. I probably felt shameful, yeah.
P: Did you wonder, why is this such a bad thing that I was doing this or did you know that that was supposed to be just for adults when you were a kid?
J: I don’t think I cared. I think I just wanted to see it. I don’t think I felt shame about the sex part of it, I just felt like it was a shitty thing to do. And he would like hit you and stuff for no reason, spill your milk at the table, rip your pants, that—
P: He would do that or—
J: So you would go to school and you’re like clumsy as hell because you’re in second grade, fall, rip pants, so then he’s going to pick you up from school and you know that you’re so screwed cause you have these ripped... and it’s doubly bad because the reason why he’s angry is that he can’t afford new pants. So that was bad, I remember a couple of moments like that.
P: It sounds like such a narcissistic way of dealing with it, is he can’t put himself in your shoes to say ‘He might have been hurt falling down’. Maybe I should ask my kid ‘Is your leg OK?’
J: Yeah, yeah, yeah, never
P: But he goes to the place of—
J: And even when I am a jerk to my kids, I apologize right away. I grab them and I go ‘I’m so sorry. I’m not feeling like myself today. I’m so sorry.’
P: And how do they react when you say that?
J: Oh, they make you feel even worse because they say ‘You’re the best daddy in the whole world’
P: Isn’t that good though?
J: It is great, it is great but you feel like—
P: How could I have mistreated this child.
J: And also, you don’t know how fucked up I am. I’m not the best Daddy in the world, you know. I’m trying but—
P: I think that’s all they want though.
J: I guess so but yeah—
P: I don’t think—well, I don’t think there is such a thing as the perfect parent.
J: No
P: Parents are going to fuck their kids up in some way but I think it’s just a matter of how deep is that wound and I think the parents that do the good job, I think the wounds are just little tiny things that you work through and you talk through....
J: Yeah... I’ve set up monsters, actually because I’m trying to make up for my father not being around so now my kids are like ‘What are we doing today? Where are we going? Are we going to Lagoona today? Or the zoo?” and I’m like ‘Oh, yeah, OK. Let’s find something to do’
P: So you feel like you’ve set a bar that is unsustainable.
J: Yeah, like we play street hockey in the cul de sac at night and all the other parents sit and drink wine and then I play the frickin’ street hockey. And I don’t want to play but they’ve got me...
P: That’s your role. You’ve painted yourself into a role.
J: I’ve got myself in a corner. I guess a lot of it to go back to what I enjoy... This is enjoyable, but it’s self-imposed. A lot of my problems are self-imposed. You know if I’m trapped I should leave but I would never have the balls to do that.
P: But is that the right thing to do?
J: I don’t think it is. I don’t think it is.
P: You know my thought is that unless your relationship with your wife is really toxic—
J: It’s not. It’s not at all.
P: Then my hunch is that your just experiencing something that all parents experience, they just don’t voice it. You know I bet we’re going to get a lot of emails from parents after this episode that will say thank you Jason for voicing my inner life.
J: Because it is nice to be a unit, to be together the four of us. I wouldn’t want to like. Drop Daddy off and then pick Daddy up and Daddy will see you on Monday. Whatever thing that I’m yearning for I’ll forego to...you know... And the other thing is that I have been to some parties lately at like the Play Boy mansion and stuff like that and I was really excited to go to this party with a lot of naked girls and stuff like that and I got there and I like—
P: It’s kind of a sad place.
J: It is a sad place.
P: I got to go there like 14 years ago or something and it was just kind of a sad---
J: Yeah, it’s not what you think
P: It’s almost like one of those, you see a movie set and you walk around behind it and you see that it’s just plywood and two by hours... It felt kind of like that. Like there was a lack of reality to it. Almost like everybody is just playing roles there. Nobody is really real.
J: Yeah, and even when I was single and I would go somewhere, I’m not the alpha guy and the alpha guy does there guy. And I can’t hold a conversation with a playmate you know?
P: I went there to do a fund raiser for--Bill Marr had dropped out of this—
J: Were you doing stand up?
P: Yeah
J: At the Playboy mansion?
P: Yeah. No sorry I was MC’ing a fund raiser to raise money for a fund that helps parrots because they often outlive – they life to be like a hundred – so they often outlive their owners and so it was this thing, and I joke, you know they call to ask ‘Could you MC this thing. It’s a fundraiser for parrots’ and I was like ‘I don’t know, my schedule is pretty busy’ and they’re like ‘It’s going to be at the Playboy mansion’ and I was like ‘I’m pretty free’ and I joke that parrots are kind of like playmates. They’re exotic, they’re beautiful to look at and I couldn’t either of them to say a fucking word to me. It just felt like that feeling we were talking about being at a party with peers that are really successful, I just felt less than the entire time. I just felt like why would anyone at this place want to talk to me. Plus I was married when I went there so it was almost like a zoo to me in many ways. I’m not going to do any touching or—
J: What about drunk Paul?
P: Um
J: Would that be easier? Would that be a good time at the Playboy mansion?
P: You know what...
J: Well you know, not drunk but—
P: Drunk and single and twenty? I probably would have had a blast before I met my wife but I was even drinking when I was there and it was... It was just....
J: I’ve done ecstasy at parties like that and it’s great because my walls are gone. There’s no inhibitions and you’re like, you don’t even care how they react and before you know it you’re in like a really deep 15 minute conversation with somebody and then you’re like ‘Hey this is Joe. Joe meet Sarah’ That was what I loved about drugs.
P: Yeah, it was easy to be sociable.
J: I mean it was a blast. Alcohol doesn’t do anything for me so I like drugs.
P: What was your favorite drug?
J: I loved to do ecstasy. Loved it. So much fun.
P: How many times have you done ecstasy?
J: Oh God, too many times. A lot
P: More than 50?
J: No, no, no. No, probably twice a year.
P: Oh, that’s not much at all. ‘Cause it can really fuck your brain up long term
J: I know.
P: I wish I had tried it before I got sober. That and heroin. I kind of wanted to know what both of those were like.
J: Heroin I never did. I think it’s too scary.
P: I smoked opium once and it was one of the best highs I ever had. I was 16 and I felt like I was about 6 inches off the ground. It was floaty and delicious. It tasted perfumy when we smoked it. It had like a perfumy smell.
J: It did. Where did you get your hands on opium?
P: I don’t remember. There was just a friend somehow got some and it never came through again I’m glad because I would have become an opium addict absolutely.
J: Really?
P: Oh yeah, I would have become an opium addict, absolutely. I love opiates.
J: So is that like smoking crack?
P: No, it’s like smoking heroine. It’s what heroine is made into.
J: Oh Right, right, right.
P: And if you’ve ever done Vicadin, that’s also a narcotic like Opium and I used to love Vicadin and weed. That was a combination—
J: Together?
P: Oh cause weed would give you the kind of super detailed mind obsessive thing and the opiate would take away the body tension and the paranoia so that was a sweet limousine of deliciousness.
J: I smoke cigarettes too.
P: Still?
J: No, I mean sometimes but I loved... Get ecstasy and smoke cigarettes? Oh, it’s like inhaling God, it’s so good, it’s so good. You’re whole body takes the nicotine. It’s so satisfying.
P: So what else do you want to talk about?
J: I don’t know. It’s been good so far. Real good. I guess... I have this urge to get out. Get out of my life all the time. This constant urge. We were sitting tonight, sitting on the stoop with all the neighbor’s and this woman is talking about buying a house and ‘Oh, I might go to Escrow’ and everyone’s got their wine and the kids are yelling at me to play street hockey and I tried to get a street hockey game together but then somebody started crying and threw their stick and then my son is like ‘Why aren’t we playing street hockey’ and I’m like ‘Well there’s no game. It’s not happening, the game isn’t happening, don’t come to me.’ And then ‘Daddy...’ so that’s not enjoyable and then I sit down with the adults and that’s not enjoyable. And it was too early to come here, I was looking at my watch. I had to be here at 8, it was 7 and I was like ‘Ah, I’m not going to be there for 7:30 and wait outside’. You said if I was early, you wouldn’t be able to let me in so I’m just always trying to get out of my life. I was just wish I was... Like when you go home to your wife—I think it’s cool that you don’t have kids.
P: I gotta say I love it. Dude, last night I watched 4 episodes of Orange is the New Black.
J: I’ve never seen Orange is the New Black and I want to see it.
P: I went to bed at 5:30. It was light out when I went to bed.
J: You did? Good for you!
P: But I struggle with the same feelings of—I go through these periods when it feels like part of my soul is missing. You know when you see in a movie hen somebody has a metal piece that fits into another metal piece and it like clicks in? It’s like where is that other metal piece to my life.
J: I think it’s a primal thing possibly. It’s a piece that none of us have because we don’t kill food and we don’t leave for weeks on end exploring. I think that might be it.
P: And maybe because we’ve grown beyond the village where everybody’s roles and you could see how you were deeply connected and dependent on each other? And now it’s like you’re that fuck that’s in my way at Whole Foods. You know what I mean?
J: Right, exactly and I think because my father was always running and the familial experience was never good when I was a kid that when I’m in it, I’m like ‘Disney Land? How is this enjoyable?’
P: I’m the same way
J: I never went to Disney Land when I was a kid. This is awful, you know? So that’s just my struggle all the time. Trying to enjoy what everyone else is enjoying. Sports! Oh my God! World Cup. Male, female, the gardener, the kids ‘Are you watching the World Cup?’ No, I could give a fuck. I was I cared. They had a big party on Sunday and everyone is so content drinking wine, watching the game and I’m sitting in the corner—
P: Jumping out of your skin.
J: Jumping out of my skin... and then I got in the pool and played with the kids and that was fun....
P: What are some of the dreams when you dream about escaping your life? Where do you dream about escaping too? What are some things that you can say out loud and in public?
J: I would just like to be on a boat going around the world
P: By yourself? Sailing? With friends? Solo?
J: No, not solo. With friends and with new people, new women, foreign people, people from other countries. That’s what I would like to be doing.
P: It sounds like you feel like your tethered and you want to explore.
J: Yeah
P: What about, is it? Maybe this is ignorant of me as a childless person to say. Is it inconceivable for you to go take a trip on your own? To go explore something? Is it just stupid to ask that?
J: [laughing]
P: ‘Cause my friend Mike. He goes on vacation with the kids but then he’ll do a guys skiing weekend, you know sometimes he and I will go you now up to Mammoth for a week and it’s a great way to recharge and I’m wondering wouldn’t that...That wouldn’t help? Or would that just go over like a lead balloon?
J: [laughing] I just love the way you’re presenting it. You’re presenting it so rationally and it sounds good the way you’re saying but if you only knew the only side of it. ‘You know maybe you could just talk to your wife and present this case to her and...’ No. I mean maybe but I get jobs in New York and I have trouble going. I have to go to New York for a week for this job. ‘Ah, you don’t have to go’ ‘No, I do. It’s for my job. I have a job in New York. I’m going.’ She’s ah...
P: She just feels overwhelmed when you’re gone with her job and then she’s got to take care of the kids?
J: Yeah, it’s impossible. It’s impossible to take care of two kids. I mean, it is and it isn’t. It’s more of that initial, ‘Oh, I’m going to be screwed. I have the kids’ and then it’s fine. Once you get into it, they’re fine. One person can handle it. There old enough now. They’re not babies. But yeah, I hope to be able to do more stuff.
P: You know I think of my dad who’s dream was always to go on an African Safari and he had the money to do it, the time to do it. He was retired and he couldn’t... He knew that my mom would be upset, now mind you they were separated, they separated the last 30 years of his life. They didn’t live together but he was so afraid of hurting her feelings ‘cause he didn’t want to go if she was going to be with him. And I remember saying ‘Well, why don’t you just tell her that you want to go. Why don’t just you and me go’ and he was like ‘Oh, I could never do that to your mother.
J: Oh my God.
P: And I was like ‘Dad, that’s fucked up. That is fucked up, man.
J: Your dad never had another girlfriend or anything?
P: Not that I know of
J: And your mom never had another...
P: Not that I know of.
J: Wow, so they just separated and that was it.
P: Yeah but he couldn’t
J: Yep, separate places.
P: Yeah, they lived in separate places but they would still be there together for the holidays, the would go out for dinner together. They remained married but my Dad knew he just couldn’t stay sober if he had to be under the same roof as her. And she was extremely...their marriage really, since I was around, she was extremely resentful of him.
J: She was
P: Oh yeah.
J: Is she still alive?
P: Oh yeah, she’s alive.
J: She’s alive.
P: Yeah but talk shit about him constantly, but it just broke my heart that my dad had this dream that he was so afraid of hurting her feelings that he—and my dad never spent money on himself.
J: That is so interesting. Really?
P: He would buy a new Cadillac every 5 years and that was it. That was it.
J: Wow. No suits or anything, vacations
P: No, he was the least materialistic person I ever met in my life but also one of the saddest people.
J: Would your mom—would her feelings have been hurt do you think?
P: Yeah, especially if he and I went together. I think she would have been OK with him going by himself to do a Safari but she would have been extremely threatened....
J: Oh, that’s messed up.
P: I remember one time having dinner with them and my wife was there thank God. It’s always nice to have a witness when you leave there to go ‘Am I going crazy or was that a little fucked up?’ and my dad mentioned that he was in the Air Force. And I said ‘I didn’t know’—and this was 10 years ago, 15 years ago and I said ‘I didn’t know you were in the Air Force’ and he was like ‘Oh yeah’ and he started to talk about it and my mom cut him off and said “Oh, I don’t want to have to listen to this again’’ and my dad stopped talking. And that in a nutshell—
J: That was their whole relationship right there.
P: That was their whole relationship.
J: I don’t want you taking him to bed because you might molest him. I don’t want to hear your story about the air force...
P: ‘Cause that’s gonna you know.. I want to devour him myself or, whatever... I think she was abandoned so badly as a child by both of her parents and even the family she was raised by in some way I think she just felt invisible. I think she still feels invisible and any thought or feeling of being abandoned or shamed is just like hot fire on her skin. So I have compassion for her but I just can’t—
J: That’s amazing that you’ve figured that out about her.
P: It took a long time and it took looking at my shit first to get there because before that it was just rage.
J: Yeah, I don’t have any ill will towards my dad. He was like in a gang, and he was like attacked.
P: What do you mean in a gang.
J: He told me he was in a gang, like in Boston, like a criminal gang.
P: Really?
J: Yeah, my dad is like tough as shit. Like he’ll fuck you up. He can fuck people up.
P: Wow. How old is he?
J: He’s probably... he was born in 44 so he’s 70 but he’s in phenomenal shape. He looks great. He still smokes but he’s got this great way about his life. He has control over everything in his life. Just a little bit of nicotine, a little bit of scotch, a little bit of red meat. Whereas I’m like ‘I’ll have the tub of ice cream’
P: Do you ever wonder if you’re an addict?
J: I think I am because I have food addictions, drug addictions. I’m fine now, I mean, I never had a taste for alcohol... My weight goes up and down. I actually had to cut out sugar this year because I thought that was part of my brain problems – that I was like eating sugar to stay awake.
P: Have you ever see Ray Donavan?
J: Can I tell you something? I watched him for the first time today.
P: Did you...Looking at the dad character did it remind you of your dad?
J: Yeah
P: Cause when you were describing your dad I was like that sounds like the John – what the hell is his name – the John Voigt character.
J: Yeah, it was kind of like that. It was kind of like that and he knew Whity Bulger?sp and all those people.
P: Wow
J: Yeah, it was weird. So I don’t have any ill will toward him. We were in Martha’s Vineyard two, three years ago and he was like ‘I want to take you for a beer’ and I was like ‘All right, I don’t really feel like’ I didn’t say this but I was like I don’t really feel like having a beer but OK, I’ll go muster a beer down with you. So we go out there and I said, ‘We don’t have to get a beer. Let’s just go to the point.’ There’s a point there in Martha’s Vineyard. It’s unbelievable. It’s like, it’s just a point. I don’t remember what it but it’s where all the boats come in, I think it’s Oak Bluffs, but he just said – I couldn’t believe he said it. It took so much for him to say it – he said “You know I wanted to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything, everything that happened. I feel like I fucked you up so badly and I feel terrible”. You know... And oh God I was so touched by that. And I said “Oh, God don’t worry about it. I’m so fine.” And he said “Really, really are you fine?” And I said something to the effect of ‘Yeah, ‘cause what you made me is what I am and I like who I am. I draw on who I am in my art and it’s made me an artistic person and it’s made somebody who stops and thinks and is emotional and thinks about other people but also knows the side of violence’ and I let him off the hook, you know? And it wasn’t like--it wasn’t any skin off my back is really how I felt.
P: You didn’t feel like you were being false.
J: I didn’t feel like I was being false at all. I felt like... I just felt like it was a friend that fucked up and you love that friend so much that you’re like ‘don’t worry about it. It’s all good.’
P: I’m glad you said that because I think that’s all kids want. No matter what the parent did, unless that parent has consistently thrown that hook out there just to get the heat off and then gone back to the same old ways and they’ve done it a hundred times and made that false apology, I can understand that child saying ‘You know what, fuck off, we’re done.’ but you know what, in the absence of that, I think there’s a lot of kids that just want that moment with their... They want to know that that parent really understands, to say I see who the real you is and you’re a good kid and you didn’t deserve that, you know that’s the apology I dream of getting from my mom and I had to lay that dream to rest and I dreamed of getting that from my dad too but he never apologized for being a withdrawn alcoholic. That’s all I really wanted but I never wanted to say that to them because I wanted it to come from them.
J: Right, right...
P: And I just want to say that to any parents that are out there that worry about damage they’ve cause there kid that it’s never too late for that man. A heartfelt apology and just trying to be conscientious going forward. There’s nothing that that probably can’t help.
J: Yeah
P: Well that seems like a good note to end on unless you’ve got something else you want to share.
J: No, I think that’s good.
P: Thank you for bringing it man.
J: Yeah man, that was fun.
P: I really appreciate it and where can people find.. I watched it on iTunes. It’s called Jason Nash is Married.
J: Yeah, iTunes is a great place to get it if you have iTunes and Amazon if you don’t have iTunes is good and those are the two places to get it.
P: And a great supporting cast. Like a whose who of comedians, really funny improvisers.
J: All people we know from UCB...
P: It’s a beautiful incestuous family, isn’t it?
J: Unbelievable how nice everybody is – talented and nice. I used to think growing up – well anyone who is really talented is probably a real jerk and then I--I don’t know why I thought that, I just thought that famous people...And then I got to taking classes at UCB and...
P: The majority of those people are sweet and funny and talented.
J: Amazing
P: And gentle
J: And gentle. That’s right. So that was a really nice surprise.
P: Well right on buddy thank you...
J: Alright.
Many, many thanks to Jason. I want to remind you guys to please help the Mental Illness Happy Hour stay free to download by completing a short anonymous survey – it takes no longer than 5 minutes – and your answers help match our show with potential advertisers that best the sensibilities of our podcast and listeners like you. And listeners who complete the survey will be entered into an ongoing monthly raffle to win a $100 Amazon gift card. We will not share or sell your email with anybody. We won’t send you email unless you win! So go to podsurvey.com/mentalpod, that’s podsurvey.com/mentalpod and I would really appreciate it if you could do that. I want to remind you guys that there’s a couple of different ways you can support the show in addition to taking the survey just mentioned. You can go to our website mentalpod.com and make a one time PayPal donation or the one that I really love, cause it’s the foundation that keeps this show running is becoming a recurring monthly donor via PayPal. Super easy to fill out and you can sign up for as little as $5/month and that means the world to me. You might think that $5 is not worth filling it out for but it adds up and it helps me keep doing this thing. Also if you’re going to buy something at Amazon, enter through our search portal. It doesn’t cost you anything. You can also support us by going to iTunes and writing something nice, giving us a good rating or spreading the word about the podcast through social media.
This is a survey filled out, this is the I Shouldn’t Feel This Way survey filled out by a woman who calls herself Yellowbrick Dumbass. She writes “I think of myself as gender neutral so a-gender” – not sure what... I guess that mean like asexual. She is a bisexual, she is in her 20s.
What would you like people to say about you at your funeral: “She was a kind and genuine person in a tough world. She made her friends’ and family’s lives better while still being independent and tough as nails.”
How does writing that make you feel? “Like a fucking disingenuous poser. I’m none of those things. I’m cowardly and rotten inside.
If you had a time machine, how would you use it? Check to see if my memories of sexual abuse are distorted or if it really was as bad as I thought.”
“I’m supposed to feel happy and free about leaving my emotionally abusive relationship but I don’t. I feel lost and obsessive. I cut her off months ago and I still think about her everyday. I don’t know if I’ll ever love someone so much even as she mentally tortured me for a year and a half.”
“I’m supposed to feel disgusted about that fact that my ex manipulated me into having sex but I don’t. I feel like she’s the only person who knew how to get me off even as she verbally abused me if I left the house in a short skirt. How fucked up is it that the women who screwed me over the most is the one that I’m most attracted to.” That might be love addiction.
“I’m supposed to feel flattered about men showing interest in me but I don’t, I feel bitter and physically repulsed even though I know it isn’t fair to them. There are so many good guys out there so why does having sex with one make me feel like I’m losing a piece of myself.
I’m supposed to feel proud about my orientation but I don’t. I feel like a vestigial, like evolution’s mistake.”
“I’m supposed to feel proud about doing well in college but I don’t. I feel like a fraud who is pulling one over on everyone by doing well.”
How does writing your feelings out make you feel? “Self conscious and ashamed.”
Do you think you’re abnormal for feeling the way you do? “Yes, but I’m probably not which makes me a self-absorbed bitch”
Boy, you are so not any of these things. You are so hard on yourself.
Would knowing other people feel the same way make you feel better about yourself? “Maybe, I think I’d have to talk to them first.”
You know it sounds to me that when you feel pain in your life, you turn it on yourself. Maybe try finding better coping mechanisms or setting boundaries. Just a thought. Sending you a hug.
Same survey filled out by a straight guy in his 20’s who didn’t call himself anything – how dare he...
What would you like people to say about you at your funeral? “He knew me as well as he thought he did. Also ‘What a sexy mother fucker’”
How does writing that make you feel? “Disconnected from the people I think don’t know how much I really care. It’s hard to understand that the person that lives entirely in their head cares more about what you think than anything else.”
If you had a time machine, how would you use it? “I’d go back to when I was a baby and tell my parents ‘You need to quit getting hammered and raise this kid properly. You’ll see why in 23 years.’”
“I’m supposed to feel crazy from withdrawal but I don’t. I feel focused and energetic but I still want to quit quitting and wake up tomorrow thinking ‘I’m surprised I survived, again. I can handle more.”
“I’m supposed to feel happy about my new relationship but I don’t. I feel trapped and uncomfortable. Now I know how my ex felt.”
“I’m supposed to feel tired and sad like usual but I don’t. I feel like a terminator without the blood lust living tissue over an endoskeleton of computers to keep me chatting and smiling.”
How does it make you feel to write your real feelings out? “I feel the same as I have for the last 4 or 5 days, just meh, whatever...”
Do you think you’re abnormal for feeling the way you do? “I think people are supposed to feel feeling but lately I don’t. It’s abnormal to be on autopilot all the time if you’re not high”
Would know that other people feel the same way make you feel better about yourself? “I know other people feel or don’t feel the way but it doesn’t help. The light at the end of the tunnel can go fuck itself. That asshole takes fucking forever to get to”. Thank you for sharing that.
This is a mild awfulsome moment sent to me by Frank, he says “Hi Paul, I wanted to share with you an awfulsome moment that I did not feel that I had a right to post to the website. A few months back, my former sister-in-law – she’s still family, good family – was visiting her mother. Her mother announced that she had weighed herself recently and had lost 4 lbs. My sister-in-law asked to weigh herself on that same scale when she discovered that she had lost 20lbs, her other exclaimed ‘It must be broken!’.” Awfulsome.
This is a Shame and Secrets survey filled out by a guy who calls himself Brian B. He’s straight but he writes “But I fantasize about shemales. I have no interest in men. Weird, I know” Well first of all, I would encourage people to not use the word ‘shemales’, it’s a derogatory term. Transwomen would be a better term to use and being attracted to a transwomen has nothing to do with homosexuality. The first time I saw a transwoman with a penis I was very turned on and it confused me as well and then I found out that... I guess that means I’m a little homophobic if I worried that that made me gay. I don’t know... I don’t know what that would qualify as but dude embrace it...embrace it.
Ever been the victim of sexual abuse? “Yes and I reported it. I was molested by a priest at the age of 13. I suppressed it for years until the weight of carting his shame buckled my legs and brought me to my knees. Through a year of weekly therapy sessions, I’ve finally realized that it was not my fault and can talk freely about it. It’s an amazing and freeing feeling.” Good for you, man.
Ever been physically or emotionally abused? “Been emotionally abused. Was in a loveless marriage for 13 years but got 2 great kids out of it.”
Any positive experiences with your abuser? “Had some good times with her but it’s always drifted back to that loveless feeling”
Darkest thoughts? “Torturing and then killing the priest who molested me. Having sex with a transwoman. Thoughts of hurting myself where I’d have to be hospitalized so that I wouldn’t have to go through my daily routine.”
Darkest secret? “At 37, I fucked my wife’s 22 year old niece almost daily for 2 months. Cheated on her many other times. Made out with one of her best friends.” Might be some sex addiction in there which is really common among people who were abused as children.
He was raised in safe but stable environment.
Sexual fantasies most powerful to you? “Sex with a transfemale. Fucking my girl in a public and in a club with people watching. Sharing that makes my balls tingle.” You might be too close to an electrical outlet. You might want to double check that before you sign off on the fantasy.
What would like to say to someone you haven’t been able to “I’d like to tell people off but I don’t have the balls to” Well, because they’re busy tingling!
What, if anything do you wish for? “For my anxiety, panic attacks and performance anxiety to go away forever.”
Do you share these things with others? “Yes, my therapist and some of it to friends and family but very little because people that don’t suffer from these illnesses really don’t understand what we go through.”
How do you feel after writing this stuff down? “Mix of good and bad. Anything you would like to share with someone who shares your thoughts or experiences? “Just to sit and have dinner with someone who suffers like I do. Someone who gets what I’m going through” Thank you for sharing that.
This is an awfulsome moment shared by a woman who calls herself Agon. She writes: “When I was about 7, I confided in my dad how I was scared about making mistakes and failture – yes with misplaces ‘t’ and all he said was ‘It’s failure stupid’ and promptly went to sleep. Ah a summary of my childhood in one sentence.”
This was a Shame and Secrets survey filled out by a women who calls herself Silly Me. She is straight, in her 40’s raised in a totally chaotic environment. Never been sexually abused. Been emotionally abused. She writes: “I got my PTSD diagnosis 15 years ago. I had a little bit of therapy but I’ve not done much with a person 1 on 1. I guess it’s the shame or embarrassment. I never tell people I have PTSD because the first thing they say is ‘why?’. Seriously, I just feel worse when they ask. I just say I don’t talk about it. Today I step outside the box. My husband who I have been married to for 24 years is the cause of my PTSD. I still love him when I’m not hating him and he’s a good father to our 3 children and I think he’s a good person for the most part. He was buying sex from strangers for years even while I was pregnant with our 3rd child. I begged him to come clean with whatever he was doing. He did and I was devastated. He has always been a good husband since then and has a great job. We have a modest home and he has done a lot of work on himself. He always listens to my sad stuff and has promised to spend the rest of his life proving he is a good husband. I’ve always prided myself on my honest and integrity and I’ve been a totally loyal wife to him though I lie all the time for the man I love and the family that loves him.” Not sure what she means in what way she’s lying. Oh, I guess by not saying that his cheating on her has caused her harm.
Any positive experiences with the abuse? “Yes, everyone thinks he’s a great guy who provides a great guy for me and our children and I’m that crazy bitch that loses her temper and acts strange. I want me kids to keep loving their dad. They all adore him and never complain about him. People always assume I’m selfish and shallow because they associate my mental instability with me having to move and give up my big fancy house, the list goes on. He’s the prince that does no wrong, it’s me that looks like I’m ungrateful and demanding.”
Darkest thoughts: “I would like to tell everyone in the world how he wronged me and stole my joy but I never do because I have the need to protect him. I would like to pay him back and lie and cheat and server only my needs. My integrity won’t allow it and I know I would only feel worse. I would like to leave him to teach him a lesson but it would devastate my children and I’m scared that they would blame me and think badly of me. I’ve never forgiven him and don’t feel now that I need to. I can’t stand to hear the words hooker or prostitute and I almost puke if I can’t run away from the show or conversation. I hate being so weak that way. I wish I had left him and showed everyone what a jerk he is and that he is the reason I don’t cope very well. I want everyone to know my pain and how I suffer because of the selfish man I married but I chose to protect our children and him. I’m gutless, I guess”
Darkest secrets: “I’ve spent a lot of years blaming him, hating him, yelling, crying and making him feel terrible for the things he did when I realized that a lot of my PTSD symptoms would never go away I was devastated. I thought it would go away. I thought I would quit sweating at night or having nightmares. I don’t trust him. I look like an ungrateful, selfish woman and he looks like a guy who puts up with a lot of his crazy wife’s behavior. I hate that. Nobody ever knows what he did. It’s my burden. I lose my head around my birthday every year because that’s when he came clean. I have contempt for our wedding anniversary because I feel like it doesn’t matter. I hate weddings. I’m cynical. I don’t feel comfortable much. I am so sensitive to liars, cheats and thieves that I don’t fit into society at times.” And by the way she mentions that her upbringing was totally chaotic and my feeling as I read this is that I’m so sorry that you had to experience that betrayal but I think most therapists would tell you that the spouse of an addict is usually....has as many issues unrelated to what the spouse is doing that can be very bit as serious and every bit as difficult to get a hold of and see clearly. And it sounds like there is a lot of that going in there and you’re putting it on your husband. Not to minimize what he did, it’s just my gut tells me that if you get into therapy or get into a support group or something and really, really go full bore at it and try to be really open and honest about your side of the street as well as the stuff that happened to you in childhood in that chaotic environment, maybe you’ll get to a place where you don’t feel so much hatred at your husband and where you don’t feel as agitated. Just a thought.
This is a Shame and Secrets survey filled out by a woman who calls herself But I’m Normal, I Swear. She’s straight and in her 20s raised in a slightly dysfunctional environment and...
Ever been the victim of sexual abuse? “Some stuff happened but I don’t know if it counts”
Darkest secrets: “When I was 17 I gave my best friend’s boyfriend a ride home from work. He invited me in and told me that his girlfriend would be coming home soon. I hung out for a while waiting for her and he and I had a couple drinks. After a few hours it became apparent that she wasn’t coming over and as I was feeling a bit drunk I asked him if I could stay the night. He said that I could take his room. He walked me over to it. I sat down on the bed and then he sat beside me and he handed me another drink. I tried to decline it but he insisted I take it even taking my hand and putting the glass to my mouth a few times. The next thing I remember is him having sex with me. When I realized what was happening, I shoved him off, ran to the bathroom and vomited. I don’t know if I was so sick from the alcohol or if it was from the realization of what had just occurred. He told me that we should never tell my friend what had happened and I agreed because I didn’t want to lose my friendship with her. That is the only time I’ve ever blacked out from drinking and honestly don’t know if I consented to him or not but what he did was wrong either way. Years later long after they had broken up, he told my friend that he and I had slept together while they were dating. She confronted me about it but I denied it. I felt such terrible guilt and shame and I still blame myself for getting into that situation in the first place. She initially believed me that nothing happened between her ex and I but a few years later she ended our friendship telling me in a letter that there were some things that had happened between us that she just couldn’t get over. All this stuff happened many years but I still dread running into her in our small town. I haven’t told anyone about this – not even my husband.” I think every single person that just heard me read this went ‘She was drugged and raped.’ You bear no blame for that. You went over there thinking your friend was going to come there... Ugh, I just want to give you a hug.
What sexual fantasies are most powerful to you? “I really don’t think about sex very much. I’ve been married for many years and just had my first child and I feel like I have absolutely no sex drive and I know my husband would like to be intimate more often but a few times a month is all I can muster. When we do have sex, I have a difficult time getting into it. I can’t seem to stop my mental ‘to do’ list.” Which is super common for victims of sexual trauma.
What if anything would you like to say to someone but you haven’t been able to? “I would like to tell my husband about the incident with my friend’s boyfriend but I don’t want to put my baggage on him. I know he would be supportive but I don’t want to put my baggage on him. I feel like this would make him feel guilty for wanting to be intimate with me and it would strain our sex life even more thereby straining our otherwise wonderfully happy marriage.” I strongly encourage you to share this with your husband and share it with a mental health professional because what happened to you is very, very serious and not wanting to be intimate with somebody is one of the byproducts of sexual trauma and what your experiencing is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. What happened to you with that guy, with the rapist, and working through this and inviting your husband into your emotional life and allowing him to love and support you could be the best thing that happened to your marriage. That’s my 2 cents.
This is an awfulsome moment filled out by Didi. She writes: “When I was 16 I signed up for an after school typing class. One day as I was headed out the door for class, I grabbed a stack of paper from my parents’ printer. At a stoplight I noticed some writing on the paper. To my horror, it was a scathing letter my mother wrote to a woman my dada was having an affair with. Complete with references to fingernail scratches on my dad’s back. I turned the car around and put the paper back where I found it. I didn’t tell anyone about the letter for more than a decade. I quit the typing class and still blame that damn letter for my inability to type.” Oh, that is awfulsome, thank you for sharing that.
P: This is a Shame and Secrets survey filled out by a women who calls herself Journey. She was sexually abused and never reported it. She’s straight and in her 20s and raised in a totally chaotic environment. She was emotionally abused. She writes “ My mom gets into moods where she can’t control her emotions – anything will set her off. As a kid if I was hungry and she didn’t want to bother feeding me at the moment, she would freak out or if I giggled too loud or dropped something, she would start yelling. Then I’d say, ‘I didn’t do anything. Don’t yell at me.’ It would turn into a barrage of how I’m a manipulative little shit then she would drag me down the hall into her walk-in closet, sit down on her little blue stool, muscle me onto her lap, pull my pants down and with her special wooden spoon, go at it until she was sobbing. Then she would apologize, ‘Please forgive me. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Please don’t look scared. Why are you scared of me?’ and hug me and cuddle me. I’d be so happy and relieve that she wasn’t mad at me and we’d spend the rest of the day together, happy until the next day and we would do it all over again. If she started yelling at my little brother, I’d get myself into trouble. I’d pick a fight when she was in a bad mood because after spanking me and sobbing, she was kind and loving. When I got too big to discipline physically, it became verbal. There was a lot of other shit that happened but I’ll just save it for a book.”
Any positive experiences with the abuser? “When she was in a good mood it was surreal. It was like I was meeting a brand new person, a stranger. I’d get choked up and think I wish this was my mom. She has the capacity to be dynamic and really funny. She’d make me laugh so hard, I’d pee my pants. She’s an artist and she made my brother and I some awesome toys, Halloween costumes, birthday cakes and decked out our rooms. In my mind I separate out her two sides. I wish she’d sought help for her mental illness.” Oh, that breaks my heart...
Darkest thoughts? “I imagine killing myself more often than I realize and the thing is I would act on it, I fantasize about it. Sometimes I have to fight those thoughts. When I driving, I think about how easy it would be to slam my foot on the gas pedal and crash into those cement walls on the side of the freeway. It would only take a few seconds. Or I imagine stabbing myself, cutting myself open and taking out my organs. That one I probably wouldn’t ever do. Someone would have to clean up the horrific mess and that’s just inconsiderate.” Oh, you are awesome.
Darkest secrets: “It’s not much of a secret because I’ve talked about with therapists. I know that on the full spectrum of sexuality this leans toward the virginal prude side, but I’m still ashamed. I had my first kiss at 22, a few months later I got drunk with some friends at a bar and I met a guy. He was hot and we made out all over that bar. Then he and his friends came home with us. We made out some more then he got my pants off and ate me out. I don’t remember much other than him keeping my legs up in the air the way you hold a baby’s legs during a diaper change. I didn’t feel violated but just like an idiot – like a giant adult baby and I laughed the whole time.” I wonder when a baby gets its diaper change if it thinks ‘Well this is weird, I feel like someone is eating me out’ Oh do I love not having bosses.
What if anything would you like to say to someone but haven’t been able to? “I’d tell my mom that I love her but she’s really sick and needs to get help because my brother, father and I will spend the rest of our lives undoing the damage she caused.”
What if anything do you wish for? “I wish my mom would get help. I wish she’d pursued help in the past. I wish that she was able to love.”
Have you shared these things with other? “I told her but she screamed and then sobbed uncontrollably so it didn’t go well.”
How do feel after writing this stuff down? “Exhausted, drained, glad the past is behind me. I look forward to the future.”
Anything you would like to share with someone who shares your thoughts or experiences? “To those from abusive families, I say ‘Pursue counseling and don’t stop. The cycle of abuse stops here. Please don’t give up.’” Thank you for that. Sending you some love.
This is filled out by Laura. It’s an awfulsome moment. She writes: “When I was in my late 20s my now ex-husband left me and I lost my job the same day. I didn’t react well. I took a bunch of Zanex and started cutting. Someone called an ambulance. I don’t know who and I wound up spending a couple of weeks in a mental hospital. While I was there I talked to my mother on the phone. My staunchly feminist, shelf full of Gloria Steinam and Germaine Greer books, protest-attending, Ms subscribing mother, she said that if I had not cut my hair so unfeminenely short, my husband might not have left me.” Wow, wow.
P: This is filled out by Nick, it’s a Shame and Secrets survey. She is straight, she is 17, raised in a totally chaotic environment, never sexually abused, she has been physically and emotionally abused and it’s a pretty long laundry list of it but I don’t feel it’s necessary to go into it but it’s very bad physical and emotional abuse. Mostly by her, I think it was her mom or her dad.
Any positive experiences with your abusers? “Yes, I’m conflicted because they bought—“ Hold on one second. It was both of her parents. She writes “Yes, I’m conflicted because they buy me things and because the thing my parent has been through including cancer. They even hold it against me when we get into fights so I feel like the only reason they buy me things is to get on my good side and so that they know what to hold against me.” Yeah, I wouldn’t call those positive experiences at all. You know, there’s a vast difference between being provided for financially and being provided for emotionally and the two should never ever be conflated in my opinion.
Darkest thoughts: “Suicide is always on my mind. I would never do it but it is always there ever second of the day. For example when I’m in my room I just imagine myself hanging from the ceiling and quickly close me eyes. Or when I walk by a bridge I can see me throwing myself off of it but it scares me and I start panicking because I shouldn’t ever be thinking that I should off myself.
Darkest secrets: “I’ve had an eating disorder for a long time now. It switched from over eating to not eating at all. I’ve cut myself since around 10 but have been self harming...” I’m not sure if she meant to say she hasn’t cut herself since around 10 or she has...
Anything you’d like to say to someone but haven’t been able to? “I’m one of those people who are too nice. When someone hurts me I just go on with my day and don’t say anything back or try to defend myself. I just would like to tell my other parent who left me high and dry that they are a dick and have hurt me in ways that I’ll never be OK with. They broke my heart in ways that can never be explained. I’d like to tell the parent that I’m stuck with that I hate that I still love you, that I’m so pissed at the fact that I’m scared of you yet scared to leave you.”
What if anything do you wish for? “I wish that I never existed. I wish that the only people that treated me like a human being and like I was important to them were still here and not 6 feet under. I wish I could make my parent happy. I wish I could make everyone happy and proud and help everyone that I ever let down. I just wish I could make this world a better place.”
Have you shared this wish with other? “A few people I thought I could trust and only one of those people made me feel like I was OK and that I wasn’t just a lunatic who is overly sensitive but they have recently passed.”
How do you feel after writing these things down? “I still feel the same because I know after writing this that I’m still going to be me and still going to have my life and my problems will still be here but it’s nice to write them down, I guess.” Nick, you’re 17 and I pray that you’re able to soon leave this house and this insanity and this abuse. You’re not going to be able to change those parents. The important thing to focus on his talking to someone who is equipped to listen to you share about your pain that is very real, that you are not exaggerating and you deserve happiness. It is there for you, it’s just going to take some work. Hang in there. You’re not alone in that.
This is a Happy Moment filled out by Nic. Different Nic. That Nick was ‘n-i-c-k’ this Nic is ‘n-i-c’ and she’s 23. And her happy moment she writes: “In an effort to get out of the house more often I’ve taken up going for walks again. I typically go out headphones on, volume blasting and silently mouthing the lyrics as I go. Some days I stop my silent singing as I approach people but lately I’ve been trying to continue my habit because I like doing it and I want to work on being less influenced by the opinions of people I don’t even know. Anyway, I was out on a Saturday evening and heading down a quiet little lane where the street is paved with bricks. It had rained recently and I was caught off guard by a little snail crossing the sidewalk in front of me. I wanted to stop and look at this little fellow but was concerned another pedestrian might pass by and think something of it. I only got 2 steps passed the snail when I thought ‘Fuck it. I want to see that snail.’ So I turned around and knelt next to it trying to encourage it to climb up my index finger. I didn’t like the idea and kept cruising the way it wanted to go. I stayed for a couple of minutes observing its amazingly colorful spiral shell, still glossy and shining from the day’s rain showers. I eventually decide to continue on myself. I took a couple of steps forward and caught up to the lyrics of the song I was listening to when I realized a group of guys had been sitting on their porch watching me. I managed to keep walking staring right back at them and continued to silently sing along to the song I was listening to and when I was past them I didn’t even care about their impression. I realized I was having a good time so fuck the rest. It made me absolutely giddy for the rest of my walk.” God, that is so beautiful and moments like that are so attainable for us everyday. You know we think that we have to get a promotion at work or find a perfect partner or get everybody that isn’t happy with us to be happy with us and that’s just... I love reading stuff like that so thank you for that.
I want to.. I normally don’t like telling joke, jokes but somebody sent me this—I think Dina, listener Dina sent me this video of this grandmother sharing this joke with her grandson. Her grandson is in his 20s so it wasn’t inappropriate but the joke goes. A little boy is sitting on his grandfather’s lap and the grandfather is smoking a cigar. The little boy says ‘Grandpa, can I have a cigar?’ and the grandfather says ‘Does your dick reach your asshole?’ and the little boy says ‘No’ and then grandfather says ‘Well then you can’t have a cigar’. The next day they’re sitting on the porch and the grandfather is having a beer and the little boy says ‘Grandpa, can I have a beer?’ and grandpa says does your dick reach your asshole and the little boy says ‘No’ so grandpa say ‘Well then you can’t have a beer’. The next day they’re on the porch again and the little boy has a plate of cookies and grandpa says “Can I have one of your cookies?’ and the little boy says ‘Does your dick reach your asshole?’ and grandpa says ‘Yes’ and the little boy says ‘Well go fuck yourself, grandma made these for me’. I hope you enjoyed that. I hope you enjoyed this episode and that if you’re out there you know that you’re most definitely not alone. That help is out there. If you’re willing to get out of your comfort zone and ask for it. Thanks for listening.....
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