Episode notes:
This episode is sponsored by Young Health's Probimune. For your first bottle free (plus $6.75 shipping) go to www.Probimune.com and use offer code MENTAL.
For more information on LAPodfest go to www.LAPodfest.com and use offer code HAPPY for $5 off. The festival is Sept 23-25 in LA. Our podcast records Sun Sept 25th at 9pm. It can be watched in person, live streaming or up to 30 days archived.
For more information on the In This Together Festival, where Paul will be interviewing NBA player Royce White, go to www.ITTFest.com The festival is Nov 13th in LA.
Episode Transcript:
Welcome to Episode 296 with my guest, Glynn Washington. I'm Paul Gilmartin. This is the Mental Illness Happy Hour, a place for honesty about all the battles in our heads, from medically-diagnosed conditions, past traumas and sexual dysfunction, to everyday compulsive, negative thinking. This show's not meant to be a substitute for professional mental counseling. I'm not a therapist. It's not a doctor's office. It's more like a waiting room that hopefully doesn’t suck. The web site for this show is, uh, mentalpod.com. Go check it out. There's a forum you can, you can, uh, browse or join and post, and lot of, uh, support there. Huge number of threads on a variety of issues. You can fill out our, um, surveys, our survey area. Not, that's not in the forum; it's separate from that, but, um, part of the web site. You can fill out an anonymous survey. Maybe we’ll read yours on the show. There's a way you can support the show with the web site. And, um … I know I'm forgetting something.
[00:01:02] While I'm thinking of it, I wanna remind you guys about the, uh, We're In This Together Festival, which is coming up November 13th here in Los Angeles at the, uh, The Avalon in Hollywood. And, uh, it's gonna be a really cool event. I'm gonna be interviewing Royce White, who, uh, some of you may know, he's a, um, professional basketball player. He's played in the NBA. And, um, he struggles with generalized anxiety, uh, disorder. And, um, he's now an advocate for, uh, for mental health. We're also gonna have, uh, stand-up comedy by Beth Stelling, uh, storytelling from Sara Benincasa. You know Sara; she's an amazing writer. Was a guest on this show. We're gonna have music by, uh, Deqn Sue and Daniel Johnston. I don’t know if you guys have ever seen that documentary that, that he's in. But, uh, it's about him and his music and his mental struggles. But, um, we're gonna have even more than that. I'll keep you updated on it. But, uh, tickets are on sale now at, uh, inthistogetherfestival.com or ittfest.com. Oh, and another cool thing is that, uh, we're gonna be hosting a support group room, uh, upstairs at The Avalon, and it's gonna be available to all festival goers and to the public. Hopefully a safe place where, you know, people can go find support and resources. And, um, that's through, throughout the donation of, uh, of the festival. So that'll be awesome if you guys can come. And, in a nutshell, the In This Together Festival is kind of a, um, kind of a one-of-a-kind non-profit mental health awareness, uh, event. And, uh, it's, it should be a lot of fun. And I'm really happy to be a, be a part of it. And, uh, also LA Podfest, if you're listening the day this came out, LA Podfest starts tonight. And, um, if you go to lapodfest.com, you can watch live streaming. There's too many great podcasts to even list everybody who's gonna be there. And you can watch the archives for up to 30 days afterwards. And Sunday night of the festival, I'm gonna be interviewing, uh, comedian and friend Murray Valeriano. That's, um … if you wanna it stream live, it's 9:00, uh, West Coast time on Sunday night.
[00:03:27] All right. Let's, uh, let's read a couple surveys before we get to the, the interview with Glynn. Oh, and I wanted to mention, too. The sound quality, uh, was not what I had necessarily hoped for in, uh, the interview with, with Glynn. We had some technical issue. And so, we had to settle for the sound that we got. That being said, I'm pretty happy with it. Could have been a lot worse. Could have been a lot worse.
[00:03:55] All right. Here’s some surveys. This is from the struggle in a sentence survey, filled out by, uh, a woman who calls herself, uh, "Your Mother," (laughs) "(Ha! Just Getting Your Attention.)" And, uh, her struggle in a sentence, uh, she writes, "Growing up with a mother who simultaneously conveys that a girl's worth is entirely based on her ability to seduce, catch, and keep a man; and that men will hurt you, use you, and toss you." Boy, that had to be a mindfuck. Thank you for sharing that.
[00:04:28] "Blanket Bug" writes about her, uh, compulsive shopping. To her, "It feels like slipping into a warm bubble bath and allowing a feeling of warmth and happiness to envelope you as you shop and make the purchase that maybe you can't afford, and then yanking yourself out of the water and being cold, wet, and disappointed." Yeah. I think ANY of us who've ever experienced hypomania or mania certainly know that (laughs), the narcotic that compulsive spending can be.
[00:05:00] "Not Sure Girl" writes about her depression: "Life painted over by opaque, white paint so that everything is vague, dull, and heavy." About her bulimia: "Getting dirty in order to get clean again." Snapshot from her life: "Waiting to be the only one in the apartment, then buying a box of dry frosted cookies at a cheap bakery on the corner, eating them while watching Intervention with no pleasure and with the pure intention, from the beginning, of purging them afterward." Thank you for sharing that.
[00:05:34] "Hopper Is My Hero," which apparently is a reference to Stranger Things, uh, that show on Netflix, which I'm hearing amazing things about. And … about her alcoholism and drug addiction, uh, she writes, "Tonight will be the last night I use, just like last night." To which, I would also add, uh, the, the—cuz the thought I used to have, when I struggling to quit, uh, drinking and doing drugs, was, "Tonight, I will get enough, and it will make it easier to quit tomorrow." That, that was the lie that I just kept telling myself.
[00:06:11] And then this is from "Mad Woman In The Attic." And, um, she gives us a snapshot from her life. And she writes, "I've been depressed and had been fantasizing about suicide. I stood in the pharmacy aisle and tried to find a razor blade that would make a clean, fatal cut to my wrist. At the same time, I took care to select a brand that had not been tested on animals."
Intro
[00:07:40] Paul: Thank you! Thank you guys so much for coming out tonight. I'm SOOO excited! How are ya? (Audience responds) Good. Well, we're gonna put an end to that. (Audience laughs) We're gonna bum you out with, uh, tales of, uh childhood trauma. And you'll, uh, file out one at a time. And, uh, you'll go stare at the ceiling, and, uh, wonder what the fuck went wrong. (Audience laughs) That's a successful show to me. (Audience laughs). First, I want to thank, uh, Jodie Coley (sp?) and, uh, (unintelligible) for putting this together. (Audience applauds) She has she has just been, uh, a gift from heaven, in terms of putting these, uh, these things together. She takes care of all the details. She knows that, uh … anything that requires me getting out of the bed is difficult and confusing. (Audience laughs) And, uh, and she just, uh, I can't, I can't thank her, uh, enough. And, and, outside of this, she's a terrible person. (Audience laughs) But, when it comes to putting events together, she's fantastic! SO, I wanna get our, uh, our guest up here. I'm so excited to have him. He is the host and executive producer of WNYC's Snap Judgment. Please welcome Glynn Washington! (Audience applauds)
Glynn: Hello, Paul! (Laughs) We're gonna stand like this? How ya doin'? Thanks for coming out everybody! We appreciate it.
Paul: Let's paint a picture for the, uh, for the listeners, We're in a … a theater called the New Parkway Theater in, uh, downtown Oakland.
Glynn: It's a beautiful theater.
Paul: And, uh, it is! It's a bit, but it’s funky, too. It's kind of, uh—
Glynn: It's Oakland-ish!
Paul: Is it Oakland?
Glynn: Yeah. (Audience applauds) It's got all kind of people. All kinds of stuff on the walls. It's got, you know, it's got that kind of veneer, that (deep inhale). What we like to call Oakland.
Paul: Yeah. There's, there's graffiti on the walls, all the seating is like comfortable couches and, uh, uh, recliners. I don't think there's a single recliner in here, but, uh (audience laughs), it's just comfy. It's just comfy.
Glynn: We can't have 'em on folded chairs, Paul.
Paul: (Laughs) So, where, do we, where do we start, Glynn? You've been doing, uh, Snap Judgment for—It's such a great show. (Audience applauds)
Glynn: Thank you.
Paul: For the people that don’t know, uh, who you are and how it came to be, uh … tell me how, how it came about.
Glynn: I have a crazy, uh, sort of a entrée into media. It wasn’t my thing, actually. I … I like media, but I consumed it. It wasn’t something I did. And about … eight years ago, I believe it, I was listening to a podcast that had an, uh, a, uh advertisement for … a contest that said be the next, uh, public radio star. And it had Ira Glass and Terry Gross and Click and Clack. And they were like doing their (unintelligible) and, and, and enter. And I found out that the due date was the next morning. (Audience laughs). And so, uh, my little daughter, who was tiny at the time, she came downstairs with her bad little self. And I said, "Sit right there," and I told her a very inappropriate story. (Audience laughs) And I recorded it on my, um, on my lap-, on my, um, on my computer. And I sent it off to this contest. And, um, I didn’t hear, you know, I forgot about it actually.
Paul: You heard from the police. (Audience laughs)
Glynn: I should have. No, it was … But about three months later, I got a call back, and they said, "Congratulations! You're one of 10 finalists nationwide." And I thought, "Really?! Mark, nice try." Click! I hung up on them, because I thought I was my buddy, Mark (audience laughs), playing a joke on me. And I'm no dummy. (Audience laughs). But, they called back and were like, "Uh, this isn't Mark. (Audience laughs) Do you wanna do this?" And I was like, "A'ight!" And, from that point on, they kind of started kicking people off the virtual island, so to speak. And, they (unintelligible) various challenges. And the one I remember was they said, "Okay, we're gonna give you a word. And you have two minutes to riff on it." "Huh?" "Your word is grace." "What?!" "Go!" And, I had to talk about the word grace. And, which, which ended up being for me, um—I'm sure you're gonna get into this a little bit later on, but, um—a word so filled with religious connotations, it was a big, fat, wet, softball right down the middle. And I hit it just as hard as I could. So, I, um, they ended up picking three finalists, and I was one of them. And they said, "Okay, make a pilot. Make a pilot." And (unintelligible), we didn’t know what we were gonna win for this contest. (Audience laughs) (Unintelligible) There was no prize.
Paul: And where were you physically when this—
Glynn: I was in Oakland!
Paul: Okay. And they were in New York?
Glynn: They were in various places around the country.
Paul: Okay.
Glynn: I was in Oakland. Actually, it was the people in this room right here today. I was with some, uh, with my, with my, uh, housemates at the time, my, my wife. And they, um … So, so we, uh, so I made a pilot with Mark. And we, we made this pilot. We didn’t sleep for a week. We made it, and we poured our heart and our soul in to this pilot. And I didn't sl—Like I said, I was tired, and I, we sent it in. And I was like, "You know what? We did the best we could. I don’t know, I don’t know JACK about radio, but we did the best we could." And I went to sleep, and slept the sleep of the damned. And I, I woke up the next (laughs) morning and got a call from the contest organizers. One of the guys said, uh, I'll never forget it; this is a quote: "You have embarrassed me. You’ve embarrassed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. You’ve embarrassed NPR. And you’ve embarrassed yourself!" Click! (Audience laughs)
Paul WHAT?!
Glynn: Yup! I was in a fetal position. I didn’t even know what, what I'd done. I really didn’t. And, um (laughs), and one of the most amazing acts of professional generosity. There's a woman—she's now the head of, uh, KQED radio and news; her name is Holly Kernen. She lives in Oakland, too. All cool people, really, Paul, I'm afraid, come from Oakland. (Audience laughs) But, uh, she gave me my first professional listen. And she said, "You know what, you know what, young Glynn? You are a very shitty radio producer." (Audience laughs) Which was no big surprise to me, (unintelligible) was a nonprofit director. "But, um, you're a pretty good story teller." And she went through and gave me a, uh, minute-by-minute sort of analysis of just basic radio stuff I needed to fix. And, I believe it was on Christmas, but Mark and I, we went through and we, we tried our best to repair this thing. And we sent it back into the ether, just for us. I didn’t know what was gonna happen. But, um, to make a very long story short, they invited me to pitch Snap Judgment … And this is funny, this is funny. So, um, they (laughs), anybody who knows anything knows that it's a bad idea to—We didn't, I was just talking. I was just saying things. I didn’t realize people were taking it seriously that we were gonna make a radio show, a TV show, a stage show, a magazine, a web site, an app, and we were gonna launch it all on the same day. (All laugh) NOT A CHANCE! But that's what happened. And, um (laughs), we had to kind of, uh, you know, calibrate our, our imagines a little bit. But that's what happened. And, and, um … they said, "Yeah. Y'all should, y'all should do that right away." And, um, they did eventually fund our first season of Snap Judgment. That's how it all happened.
Paul: So, had you not won the contest though?
Glynn: Contest was over. They were looking for ideas, I think, and they just decided that this was one that might work.
Paul: Yeah. Did you ever find out who that person was that said that. That—
Glynn: Oh, I know exactly who it was! (Audience laughs)
Paul: Have they ever said anything to you since then?
Glynn: We're friend now! (Audience laughs)
Paul: Are you?
Glynn: We're friends now, aren’t we, uh, if you're listening to this podcast? (Audience laughs) Don’t do (unintelligible) to me! Don’t do, (unintelligible).
Paul: And in hindsight, are you able to see where they're coming from—
Glynn: NO!
Paul:—or do you still think it was shit?
Glynn: I think it was bullshit! I think it's absolutely outrageous. (Audience applauds) Probably he does, too.
Paul: Yeah.
Glynn: Yeah.
Paul: So, let's talk about your, uh … your childhood. You were raised in Michigan?
Glynn: I was.
Paul: And, um, what, what was, what was your childhood like? Give me, give me some moments from your childhood that you think kind of inform who you are today and how you feel about yourself.
Glynn: Lord, Paul. (Audience laughs) A'ight! (Sighs) I had a very, very strange childhood. I grew up in an organization, it was called the Worldwide Church of God. It was a end-of-days, apocalyptic, white supremacist, Jesus cult. (Audience laughs).
Paul: I think that sounds like a good time. (Audience laughs) That’s the making of a good picnic.
Glynn: Yeah. (Audience laughs) Now, I didn’t, I didn’t, I hadn’t formulated that conception of it at the time, but, um, but it was a—What I remember, more than anything, actually—was growing up feeling that I was chosen. That … I had special knowledge of the Bible that other people weren’t privy to.
Paul: Even the people in the organization.
Glynn: No. We were part of the chosen. And we were all part of the, this group who were led by a charismatic figure by the name of Herbert W. Armstrong. Old-ass man (audience laughs), uh, who … Herbert, um, is kind of this, is from this group of millennial, uh, utopian persons about the same, um, generation as Ray Krok, McDonald's, um … maybe, uh, uh, the Scientology, uh …
Paul: L. Ron Hubbard.
Glynn: L. Ron Hubbard. By the same … they all look the same, actually. (Audience laughs) Walt Disney. They all look about the same. (Audience laughs) They, uh, and they, they had their various utopian dreams. This one had, it was a, it was an amalgam of, of, uh, Judaism and Seventh-Day Adventism and Christianity and Craigslist. (Audience laughs) And, and so, and so he … I grew up and I thought … it was very, very fundamentalist. And so, we took the Bible on its face; at least on how Herbert W. Armstrong saw its face. And we thought that the world was … We believed, I believed, I was a true believer that a trip to the mailbox was, might be a war between me and Satan.
Paul: Wow! Wow!
Glynn: Demons were behind every cabinet counter—
Paul: Oh, I just thought that you meant your mail carrier was a shitty person. (Audience laughs)
Glynn: (Laughs) That, too. But, you know … It, it was, um, the mail carrier might be possessed that day. They, they came specifically for us. It was a war. We had to gird ourselves against the, the powers that be. And ev-, I felt like I, I felt like everybody else was a muggle and I was Harry Potter. (Audience laughs) And, honestly, one of the things, one of the earlier things about this is that, um, this was one of the, um, organizations that didn’t believe in doctors. And so, one of the, one of—
Paul: It's like they took the shittiest part of every religion. (Audience laughs) You know, everybody already taken the good parts. Let's take what's left over.
Glynn: They're left over. Put it in a bag and shake it up! (Audience laughs)
Paul: Be, be, before you go any further, one question to ask. You're African-American. Why would you get into—
Glynn: DON'T ASK, PAUL!
Paul: —a white supremacist—(Audience laughs)
Glynn: WHY, WHY WAS I IN A WHITE SUPREMACIST JESUS CULT?
Paul: Yeah.
Glynn: I have no goddamn idea! (Audience laughs) Obviously it didn’t make sense to me.
Paul: Your parents—because you were a kid.
Glynn: This is what, I'ma try, I'ma try to answer that question.
Paul: I was trying to remember where we were, so we can come back. But—
Glynn: Okay. I honestly … hmm. So, this is what I think in retrospect. I think that, it was actually … Okay, I'm gonna tell you the truth. Here's what goes down. Herbie, Herbert W. Armstrong, was a genius at creating fear. The, he had one of the most popular, or at least one of the most widely available, uh, Sunday morning TV shows at the time. You could pay to put those on the air at the time. And, what he did was created this image of the, of the final beast hour, an image from Revelation, from the book of Revelation. And, I don’t know how many of you in here are Bible fluent, but if read the book of Revelation, that doesn’t make any dame sense. But if you read it (audience laughs), there, there's these, if you believe that this is the book of, this, this Bible book is the book that, that has its secret truths, it's a very, very scary book. And—
Paul: It that the end of days, uh, lake of fire?
Glynn: Lake of fire, end of days, all of that. And what he did was, this is one of the early computer animation videos. He got, he, uh, he took that, the image of the beast with the four heads and the three arms—I don’t know what the hell it was, all kinds of different stuff—and made a computer animation of it that was scary as fucking hell! (Audience laughs) And he said, "This is the power that's coming to destroy this earth." And it didn’t just scare white people. (Audience laughs) It scared black folks, too. (Audience laughs) And so, they didn’t understand that going into this organization—They didn’t just come and say, "Hey, uh, this is the KKK recruiting office." They didn’t say that. They just said, "Lookie, come on in here. Pay your tithes up. Get your offerings in. Now we're gonna get to some of the more intricate layers of our doctrine." (Audience laughs) Intricate layers had to do with … the missing tribes of Israel. Okay, here's how it works. (Laughs) Goddamn, it's crazy. Okay. So, missing tribes of Israel were found. Herbert found them. They were the first 13 colonies of the United States of America. (Audience laughs) And, they were all, uh, operated by white folks. And, in the Bible, when they said that Noah was pure in his generations, it meant he was pure white. And, Herbie had a line; he was a descendent of the pure white line from Adam to Noah to Jesus and on, unto these 13 tribes. And so, the very select few of the 13 tribes, 144,000, from the book of Revelation, would be brought to a place of safety during the revela-, during the, um, um Apocalypse—
Paul: End days.
Glynn: And those people are gonna be drawn from these, um, 13 tribes. So, it wasn’t impossible for a black person to make it, but you had to stay really close to whitey (audience laughs) for it to happen. I think that's, I think that's the doctrine. (Audience laughs)
Paul: So, it, it was, here's the best you're gonna do. Come with us.
Glynn: Yeah. Yeah. And so—
Paul: It's a shit deal, but it's an even shitter deal out there—
Glynn: Right. But I didn’t make the rules; the Lord did.
Paul: Yeah. (Audience laughs)
Glynn: So, um, (laughs) if you wanna make it, you gotta, IF YOU WANT A CHANCE, we're giving you, we'll give you a little bit of a, of a lift raft of something like that. But, um—
Paul: And I imagine he probably also wanted anybody's money.
Glynn: Oh, yeah! He took everybody's money, you know. You didn’t have to (laughs), you didn’t have to believe to give him any money. But, um, so, but as, as a, as a youth, I didn’t understand all of that. I just understood that we had special keys that, um—And this is, this is actually very, very interesting.
Paul: Give me the age range that you believed this.
Glynn: From zero to 18.
Paul: Wow. And when did you get out?
Glynn: When I was 18.
Paul: Okay.
Glynn: I was a true believer until I was 18. And, even then, in a lot of ways, I had to be drug kicking and screaming. I could get that little bit. But, um, when I was, um, I was a kid … See, this, what they do is they … (laughs) Okay. So, the Bible itself is an interesting book that I think, in a lot of ways, only kids can become fluent in. And they ways that, uh, little (unintelligible) memorize the Koran, we had to memorize the Bible. And so, what the, what the organization didn’t really realize was they were making their own worst enemies, because only kids can get that sort of encyclopedic, photographic thing of the, of the, of the book. And so, the, of course, they start asking questions. And, um, "This doesn’t make any kind of damn sense." "Oh, well, it doesn't say that." But that's kind of what happened, it was they were building, the, the seeds to the demise of the organization were built into getting kids to, to study the Bible the way they, they didn't get it.
Paul: And, how do you think that, that sowed the seeds? Because then the kids, uh, could go over it in their mind and question how it was being interpreted by somebody else?
Glynn: So, I, I'm gonna just say this right off. I think that our organization was fucking bat-shit insane. (Audience laughs)
Paul: I don’t think anybody disagrees. (Audience laughs)
Glynn: But, I don’t know if it’s any more crazy than anything else. So, what they would do is, here's what you do—
Paul: Do you think it's worse than Whole Food? (Audience laughs) Cuz Whole Foods has those people out there trying to get you to sign up for (unintelligible).
Glynn: Look. Look. The CEO is busy saying to get rid of, um, healthcare in America; let him take care of it. So, no, I don't necessarily think it's worse than Whole Foods. (Audience laughs) But, I think that, I think that there's a thing that you do, and it’s a, it's a terrible thing. I think that people want to believe things. They often, they're, they're, they're, um, they're geared towards, whatever tradition you come from, you wanna believe it to some extent. At least you want something to believe in. And, what these cult masters do is like this. It's like, "Okay. You have a Christian background. All right. Hey, Mr. Christian. Let's open up your book, your Bible. In fact, let's, let me turn it over to you right now to Jeremiah 10, verse 3. And it says here, in Jeremiah 10, verse 3, that people who go into the woods, who take a tree from the woods, who put it in their house, that deck it with silver and gold—" This is apparently a Christmas tree. "—these people who do this Christmas celebration, in your book, the Lord says these people have no part in me." "GASP! What?" And you read this, and you go, "Oh my god! This person knows something I don’t." And so, then you … the, the, the problem with, I think, oftentimes religion in general, is that no one has read their own books. (Audience laughs)
Paul: It's very time consuming. (Audience laughs)
Glynn: I have yet to find—I mean, actually, the people I love you come knock on the door, you know, one of them'll convert. People, (unintelligible), of having to memorize the Bible people, we're very, we're not very susceptible anymore, people knocking on our door, trying to convince us to go to whatever, um, church it may be. But, um, the book itself said a lot of crazy things. It talks about, one of the things in the Bible, in the Old Testament, it tells you how to beat a slave. It tells you how to, um, subjugate women. The rules for beating a slave are very interesting. You can beat a slave, in the Old Testament, so that he is not able to rise for three days. But if he's able to, but if you beat him anymore than that, then that's bad, and you get punished. But if you beat him just enough so he can have to stay in bed for three days, that's cool. Now, um … (laughs) people will say, okay, the, uh … the New Testament did away with the Old Testament. Okay. Then why is it quoted 130 times?
Paul: Cuz it’s convenient (laughs) for people's desire for power.
Glynn: Well, all I'm saying is that, you can take any organization and look, and start putting a, a magnifying glass to the belief system. And, like, you know, people say, okay, the, they make fun of the Mormons or they make fun of the … whatever. But (laughs), look at the actual belief systems of any organization, any religion that you want to, and, you know, um … and, and, um, you might, you might, um be surprised at what your own religion teaches.
Paul: Let's talk about … emotionally, what it was like being that kid in this organization in your family. What, what were your parents like? The, the people that were around you every day that influenced you, what were they like emotionally, and what were you like, uh, emotionally?
Glynn: Let me tell you a story.
Paul: This is the perfect podcast for it. (Audience laughs)
Glynn: When I was five or six years old, um, my ear started hurting. And, uh, it felt like I had a … it was a flame. And what we would do in our organization, because we didn’t believe in doctors, was call a minister. And so, three ministers came to my house, and, with my parents, they held me down as I screamed. And, they took an anointing cloth, a special cloth, and they put a special type of blessed olive oil on it. And they laid it on my ear. And they prayed over me. And, again, I was screaming at the top of my lungs … until I felt an explosion in my ear. And, the pain went away. And so did most of my hearing in that ear, for a time. But, everyone rejoiced that … Jesus had come and healed this boy. And I, too rejoiced. I was a, a young kid and I thought, "Okay, um, the pain's gone. The Lord healed me." And when anyone would ever ask about it, I was the first one to stand up and say my healing, my lack of pain, was the result of this anointing that I got. And, um, and so I say that my parents were very, very devout. My father was, uh … very, very old school. My mother was a true believer. And, um, and she, we were raised as true believers. When we were, when I was four years old, we moved out to the country, the middle-of-nowhere Michigan. We lived in a trailer home on 88 acres of land. And we were out there in the middle of nowhere by ourselves. And … the anchor that we had out there was this church. It was that belief system. And I, I, I can't pretend for a moment that I was some young rebel who knew deep in his soul that all this was crazy. I did not. I was there the whole time. I was with them.
Paul: And so, what, what do you primarily remember feeling, emotionally, as a, as a kid? Were you scared? Were you, um … Did you feel fulfilled by the Spirit and at peace and joyful or, what did you, what did you feel? Were, were any alarm bells going off at all in you?
Glynn: I felt alone. I felt odd. I went to regular school. And, one of the things about the church organization was the, one of the many rules was that we weren’t to celebrate our own birthdays. And I remember thinking that that was, that didn’t seem fair to me. And I remember asking my father if, on my birthday, I said, "Dad, it's my birthday. Can we celebrate my birthday?" And (chuckles), he laughed at me. And, that night, I asked him again, "Dad, can we celebrate my birthday?" And he said, "Okay." And he gave me a glass of ice water, and he said, "Happy birthday." (Audience laughs)
Paul: Wow!
Glynn: And, I know he thought it was funny. I didn't. I cried myself to sleep. I thought, you know, I, um … because there was, I mean, it wasn't like, uh, we were on a special compound where everyone was doing the same thing. I had to go and, (chuckles) you know, be the weird kid in school. The weird kid with the, with the pickle and cu-, pickle and peanut butter sandwiches. The, the kid that told all the other kids there was no such thing as Santa Claus. That didn’t go over too well. (Audience laughs) I was just a weirdo. The kid who wore dress socks and gym shoes together. No, understand this, too … it was gonna be tough no matter what, when you move a black family to the middle of rural Michigan in the 70s. Whatever, under any circumstances, there're gonna be some beat downs that occur. But, we amped it up to 11. And I, I felt like, I felt, I think, more than anything, I just felt weird.
Paul: What do you mean when you say you amped it up to 11?
Glynn: I mean that it wasn’t just that, I couldn’t just be black. I couldn’t just be from Detroit. I had to have a crazy belief system. I had to try to preach the gospel to my third grade class. (Audience laughs) I had to try to tell them about their evil, evil ways and their evil hearts. Everything had to be, cr-, you know, and, um, and it, and what was crazy about that, too, was that I was actually a bright kid. Which ESPECIALLY didn’t go well, um, in that environment. (Laughs) The, um, my teacher, um—I think it was the second grade or whatever—she said, it was me and this guy, this guy by the name of Simon. And she said, "All right. We’re testing the class. Let's see where y'alls aptitude are." And she gave us these tasks. And we kept one for first grade, second grade, third grade. And finally went to, um, the high school level, she said, "I don’t know what to do with you all." And so, she let us, me and Simon, we, all we had to do all day was read the Encyclopedia Britannica (audience laughs) and sit in the back of the class and make paper airplanes. That's how I spent—So, I mean, like it was just weird on top of weird on top of weird, right. (Audience laughs) And, um (laughs), so would be making airplanes and playing little army games. And, um, and I'd be telling him about Jesus (audience laughs), about the 12 tribes of Israel. And, um, um, and, you know, and this was, you know, and then Roots came out. So, um, I wanted to raise my black flag, too. But it was just, it was just a lot.
Paul: What do you remember, um, what were some of the things kid would say to you? What were some of the things that you thought about yourself, uh, back then?
Glynn: What they would SAY to me? They'd say … "Here, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger. Here, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger. Thank you, nigger." When I first, my first day in this, in this area, they would, uh, tell this story often on Snap Judgment. I was getting on the bus. It was a school bus. And, I got on the bus, and, um, someone … everyone's screaming and hollering. And then BOOM!, silence when I get on. And then, um, bus driver's like, "Sit your as-, sit your behind down! Sit your behind down!" And I went to go sit down and someone spit in the seat. And I keep walking and someone SPIT. "Sit here! Sit here! Sit here, nigger! Sit right here!" (Makes spitting sound) And, uh, I was walking all the walk back to the bus, and it was just saliva everywhere. And I get to the very, very back. And, there was a, a girl, and she had her backpack in the seat. "Sit your behind down!" And … I'm sitting there going I can't turn around. The entire bus is screaming. I can't turn around. I can't turn around. I can't turn around. And she moves the backpack. And I sat down. And THAT was my first day of, I believe, second grade.
Paul: Wow! Wow!
Glynn: But, (sighs) how do you say this? The, um, again, as a, as a black kid moving to a rural area, you know, the, the, the, the thing of it is you gonna get some ass-whippings. The ass-whippings's gonna start. You have to try and find a way to stop them. First day, second day, third day. One of the things it made me, I think, become was, um, a little bit of a politician early on. Like, "Hey, how you doing? My name is Glynn. I won't be around at recess later on; maybe we can catch, I'll catch you after the ass-whipping (audience laughs). (Unintelligible) Let's hang out." And so, I’d go and try and build enough of a community so that it, it, it balances out 'til the beatings stopped. And it was—And, and my, and I had a younger brother. I had a brother that was one year younger than me. Essentially, kind of almost a … he was exactly one year younger than me. And, uh, twins in that situation. And, um, we both used the same tactics in trying to protect ourselves and protect each other.
Paul: And so, did you ever form any alliances in that school?
Glynn: Absolutely! No, I couldn’t get beat up every day. So, what, now this is interesting. So, we moved every year. And so, what I learned, by about third or fourth grade: get to a new school, get the first ass-whipping over with first day, and then walk over to the most pretty girl in the class, say "How you doing?" Now, all of a sudden, everybody'd like, "What?!" And she's like, "I dunno. How you doing?" She's very, she's—You have, um, at the same time I'm gonna get an ass-whipping, I still have a little bit of that new kid cache (audience laughs), and I gotta make sure I use it. Now, the dudes wanna … still, still holds true today, the women hold all the power and they control everything. (Audience laughs) So … as far as popularity is concerned. So, if you end up being friends with them, the dudes think it might be a bad idea to beat your ass so much. (Audience laughs) And that's kind of how … that was, uh, yeah, that's, that was one of my, my third- or fourth-grade revelation, and it saved a lot of beatings.
Paul: So what, what changed, um … At 18, what … Well, first of all, be-, before you answer that question, how do you think those experiences, uh, informed … how you feel about yourself today and tools that your learned to, to navigate, uh, the world? I would think, obviously, one of them would be that you had to learn how to be a people person, right?
Glynn: Yeah.
Paul: What …
Glynn: Yeah, I, I don’t know. I … I am talking to my, my wife about this recently. I don’t, I'm not sure that I am a natural, I know I'm not a natural extrovert; I'm probably an introvert. Left to my own devices, I'd read "The Hobbit" for the 50th time (unintelligible). (Audience laughs) That's what I would do. Leave me alone. (Laughs) I don’t wanna see anybody. But, um, how it affected me was … And, I think, actually, in a lot of ways, the cult did me a favor, in that it … convinced me early on that I was special. And, later on when I left it, that feeling didn’t necessarily go away, um, even though the whole intellectual underpinnings of it did. We were, um, (laughs) give you an example (laughs). But I was in the (laughs), high school, one of my buddy's dad, he said, "Look here. I know the date of the end time. I know the date Jesus is coming back." So he went to his, uh, basement and he put up a big chalkboard. And he said, "Okay. So you have the seven signs of Jesus, and you multiply that by 14, and you put the, uh, the book of Revelation, uh, have 11 chapters or whatever, divide that by two, and it's gonna be, uh, uh, July 17th, uh, 1987. That's when Jesus is coming back." And we're like, "Really?!" And what they (laughs), what they said, we were like, "Oh, that's too bad because, you know, that's only in a couple years. We better get our groove on. (Audience laughs) I don't know all about Jesus, but I wanna get my good time on first." (Audience laughs) And so (laughs), and so they, well, I guess they inadvertently kind of made us, um, get out, uh, made me more of a people person than I necessarily would have been (audience laughs) otherwise. Yeah.
Paul: So, did you, uh, experiment with drugs or alcohol? Were you promiscuous or were you just completely straight-laced?
Glynn: That, that was a problem, actually. I actually, I was a good kid. And what happened was, uh, we had a, uh, a university that all the top students would go it. It was called Ambassador College. And I really, at the time, I, like I said, I was a fairly bright kid academically and I thought that would be where I would go. And, one day, um, I saw one of the church ladies at a 7-11, one of my church ladies. I was with some friends. We were, we got some Cheetos or whatever, so we'd go back and play Risk (audience laughs), like (unintelligible) buddies, right. What we did back in the day, right. Big night of playing Risk. (Audience laughs) So, I went to church later on, and there was a pau-, and no one would look at me. No one would talk to me. And finally, my mother called me aside in tears, in TEARS, saying she heard what happened. "What? What? What? What happened?" "I heard the whole thing." "What?" She heard that I had been at a 7-11, and I swung open the door in a cloud of smoke. In the car were three or four half-naked women. (Audience laughs) I walked into the 7-11 barefoot, grabbed a whiskey—7-11 doesn’t sell whiskey—grabbed whiskey (audience laughs) and alcohol, put it all under my thing, walked and WAVED to the cashier without paying, told her to kiss my black ass (audience laughs), got in the back, in the van with the naked women, and then rolled off again smoking bud the whole way. (Audience laughs) That was the story that, um, somehow my (laughs), my night of Risk had morphed into. (Audience laughs) And so … what I was really upset about was like, "Look! If I'm gonna catch this, I wanna do this!" (Audience laughs) Half-naked women with the bud—I never did any of that!
Paul: Boy, their plans just keep backfiring on them! (Audience laughs)
Glynn: And then, and so they actually, at this point, I had a meeting with my pastor. He said, "Under, the light of the recent revelations, uh, you are no longer eligible to attend Ambassador College." (Laughs) And, um, by this time, actually, I maybe wisen up a little bit and thought, "You know what? That might be a good idea," because I heard that the, uh, University of Michigan has a bunch of naked women and, uh (audience laughs), bud. Let me see if I can make some of that stuff happen in real life.
Paul: (Laughs) So the, the, the, uh … Was it when you went to University of Michigan that you left the, the church? How, what, what brought about (unintelligible)?
Glynn: I was sort of coming out—What, what happened was my, uh, my then pastor at the time, which, to his credit, what he did was, he said, "Lookie here." I said, "I don’t understand any of this stuff. This stuff doesn’t make any sense to me." And he gave me a book. It was called, um, "Who Wrote the Bible." And I read it, and I read it again. And, uh, I really was out from that point on. I really didn’t believe anything they were saying.
Paul: Because of the book?
Glynn: The book basically—We were a fundamentalist organization. We believed the literal, every single word. And when you understand the book as a political document, as a, a, something that was written oftentimes in committee, it … it kinda took away, from me, the divinity of it. And then, for the obvious contradictions. And, um, and plus, I don’t think you should beat slaves. Or have them. (Audience laughs) I'm against slavery in general. (Audience laughs) Putting that, put that out to your … (laughs).
Paul: Why do you gotta nitpick? Why do you gotta nitpick? (Audience laughs)
Glynn: But what happened was, um, I was still trying to clear my head … it wasn't like it was instantaneously. And I was walking through, um, the school I was going to, I was talking to the schools in the university, and I saw a sign in, to go to a program to study in China for a year. And, um, I applied, and, and, uh—It was funny. At the time, you had, you had to have foreign languages for anywhere that they would send you, but for the Asian countries, cuz they didn’t teach Asian languages, you didn’t have to have a foreign language. So they let me into the program to go to China. I got a fellowship to go. And my bags were packed; I was ready to go. And Tiananmen Square happened. And they shut everything down going to China, going back and forth. And I was like, "Damn!" And the people came back to me and said, "Lookie here. There's a program in Japan. Wanna do that instead? We can switch the money around." And was a stupid, dumb kid. If you had put a gun to my head and said, "What's the difference between China and Japan," I'm not sure I could come up with anything. But, um, I ended up going to Japan for a year. And it was magical. And then, the first day I was there, um, first, um, I got my first apartment, I was walking inside of it. And I got a phone call. A phone call for a number I could not have told anybody. I literally didn’t know what my number was. I pick up the phone and it was like, "Hello? This is for, uh, the Tokyo branch of the Worldwide Church of God. (Audience laughs) And, uh, we heard y'all are in town and we wanna invite you to service." I was (makes signal crackling sound), "What, sorry. (Makes crackling sound again)" And I hung up the phone. (Audience laughs) Bad connection. But … again, literally, I could not have told you the, I didn’t know the number. And they got me. And, um, but I never, I, that, that year in Japan, um—and I remember trying to explain my beliefs to Japanese people. (Audience laughs) And that's what'll do it to you. When people look at you like, "You are … you do WHAT for WHAT reason?! (Audience laughs)" Japanese people are like, "This, this fool has lost his damn—Come here! Come here a minute! (Japanese word) Come here, come here, come here, come here, come here. Say that again! (Audience laughs) Say that shit again!" And, um, (laughs) and having, um, just, I mean, there was one family. They were, um, uh, this family down (laughs) the street from me, and they had a, um, a, uh, a Korean, um, uh, a restaurant. And they would, the grandmother would be in there, and, uh, she would like say, they would say, "Try to tell her again what you told me." And she would cackle and clap. (Audience laughs) She would cackle (laughs) and clap and said—And they would give me … and for me doing that, they would give me free food. (Audience laughs) So, I loved it. They, I'm sure they thought I was, I was, I was crazy. And, and it really was, was, was a magical time. Also some incredible strivers. And the, the ability to be in an environment like that—There weren’t all the base assumptions in the first place. And having to really explain myself, that pulled me further away from, from the cult. It was great.
Paul: Give me some, just very brief … snapshot moments from Japan that, that you love. Things that, that you remember about Japan that you still think about today. Things that you saw or experienced or—
Glynn: Oh my god! I'ma tell you my favorite story.
Paul: Okay.
Glynn: Okay, first day in Japan—I told this on Snap, but … it really did change me. My first day in Japan, I went to go and get some groceries. And understand, I didn’t speak a word. And—excuse me—where we were living … was rural Japan, middle on nowhere. And, I'm a little, nowhere in Japan, it's 100,000 people, but, um, small-town Japan. And, so I was going to the grocery store, and I don’t understand anything; don’t recognize anything. And people in this area had never seen foreigners before. You know, they might have seen, uh, a white person here and there; certainly never seen a black person. And, I could walk down the street and cause car accidents. (Audience laughs) So I had to go down that side streets, just to (unintelligible) my whole neighborhood when I first got there. And so, I went to this grocery store, and I'm trying to pick out stuff that looks edible. I've no idea, no CLUE what this stuff is. And this group of older women, and they're following behind me, la-, "HA HA HA HA HA HA!" (Audience laughs) "What's wrong with you?" And I'm going from aisle to aisle. And, um, and they're start laughing at me and laughing at me and laughing. And I'm putting, I'm trying to put these crackers in my, in my, in my cart, and they start screaming at me, "(Women yelling in Japanese)!" This woman, "(woman yelling in Japanese)", she starts screaming at me. And I can't take it, so I just leave. I'm done with you crazy people. I give them a little funny money, and I go back to my apartment. And I'm un-, I'm unloading my, uh, my groceries, and there's a knock on the door. And it's one of those older women from the grocery store, who runs up in my house, starts digging through my groceries, digs in there and pulls out my box of crackers. "(Woman yelling in Japanese)!" "What? What? What?" She's pointing at it, and I see there's a dog on it. (Audience laughs) "OH!" Dog food. (Audience laughs)
Paul: (Laughs)
Glynn: "Good looking out, crazy lady! Thanks a lot." She was trying to save me from eating dog food. (Audience laughs) Next day, she comes by again. This time, she's got a dictionary. And, um, she's like, "You gotta learn the soul of Japan." "What’s that?" "The soul is in the tea." "In the tea? Uh, okay." And, uh, she's like she wants to teach me the soul of Japan. "Uh-uh." In, in Japan, you don’t touch people, you don’t touch people's person. But this time, she was like, she grabs me by my shirt and takes me down to her house, this BEAUTIFUL, old-school, Japanese home. And she's like, "All right. Come on inside. Once you do, I'ma teach you about Japan." And I didn't wanna do it, but I figured what did I go there for. And the minute I crossed that threshold, it was on. Screaming, the hollering, the beatings, um—nah, she didn't beat me … (audience laughs) … nah, nah, that's not true; she did beat me from time to time. But, um, very, very lightly. She was trying to teach me about tea. Tea, you … She poured the tea. I went to drink the tea. "NO!" (Audience laughs) You don’t just drink tea. You gotta, first of all; you gotta stir the tea; gotta smell the tea; gotta turn the tea; lift it just right; say this old, archaic language. And finally, at the end of all of her nonsense, then, MAYBE then, would you POSSIBLY be allowed to possibly (makes sipping sound), drink the tea. And all this time, I'm sitting Japanese style, with my, your legs SCREAMING underneath you. And, um, and so, she, and again, "(Words spoken in Japanese)! Glynn, what an idiot you are. (Words spoken in Japanese!)" And, I can't do it. Again and again, And again and again and again. And finally, one day, uh, like (laughs) one of her endless screamings and hollerings at me, we go to a, like a county fair, and there is a bunch of old guys at a table. She says, "Sit down!" A'ight; I sit down. And they start pouring tea, and I start doing my, turn my thing just right, said language, stirring and pouring and drinking and like that. (Unintelligible) Next day, she comes with the scroll. At the bottom of the scroll, it says, in the, in Roman letters, the only, everything's in Japanese, the only Roman letters are my name, Glynn Washington, the first time, um, someone non-Japanese had been entered into the scroll of tea masters. (Audience gasps and laughs)
Paul: Wow!
Glynn: Yeah! Yeah! What?! (Audience applauds) What?! But she wasn’t trying to give me no love, though. She wasn’t trying to give me no love. It's the (unintelligible), 15th apprentice level thing, but I was in the damn scroll! (Audience laughs) I was there, I could see it. And, um, finally, you know, after a year there, um, I, I, you know, I've been in Japan for a year and I was about to go home, back to Michigan. And my cab came. And she came to say goodbye. And in Japan, the way you show respect is how … bow. You, the one who is showing the most respect bows lower. And she bowed low to me. And I wasn’t gonna have it, so I bowed lower to her. And she bowed lower to me. (Audience laughs) And I bowed low to her! And finally, she tried it again, and I went all the way to the ground. And, um, (laughs) and, uh, and I told her, I said, "Look. You have done this for me. I can't believe it. I'm actually speaking to you now in Japanese. I can't believe this. But I'm not Japanese. I'm American, I'm from Michigan. And in Michigan, I have to give you a great, big, old-style, American hug right now." And I went to hug her. And she said, "NO!" (Audience laughs) She ran, top speed. (Audience laughs) But I chased her. (Audience laughs) As because I'm faster than she is, I caught her. And she screamed an she cried and she laughed. And I TOLD her how much I appreciate that, how much I loved. And I told her that I would never, ever drink coffee, but I'll always drink tea. And I do. (Audience applauds)
Paul: It's so hard to clap while holding a mic in your hand. (Audience laughs) I'm not sure how much time we have left. (Unintelligible) says there's … Jodie, how much time do we have left?
Jodie: (Unintelligible)
Paul: (Unintelligible) Okay, we've got a little time left. So, all of the stuff that, that you … shared with us, um, take us, take us to, to, to when you get home, you go to University of Michigan, and then you get your law degree. Cuz I wanna be able to get the arc of your, your, your stuff in. Where, what's going on inside you now? You're at University of Michigan or maybe you graduated from there. Do you know what you wanna do with your life? What, what are the, um … What is your image of yourself? What do you think about yourself? How do you feel about your future at, at this point?
Glynn: You know, I am, I was lost and I was broken. Trying to understand that I had spent, I had such a misspent youth at the feet of charlatans. I should probably say that, um, the organization I grew up in, um, imploded after the founder died. And, I was just … it was a weird time. And … and two, I was kind of getting a better understanding of how lucky I had been coming out of that organization for a couple different reasons. I guess I still had, I still had my, my wits to some … I had a foil for my entire life and, who was my brother. I mentioned before that my brother was one year younger than me. And actually convinced him to go to Japan. And he actually ended up living there for longer than I did. He ended up staying there for five or six years. I probably have a natural, slight mania. Constant, not manic depressive, but maybe just a slight mania. My brother might have had a natural, slight, um, melancholy that, later on, manifest itself in, um … Well, it didn’t manifest itself. He, later one, it was, uh … he developed, uh, a very late onset schizophrenia. And, um, and, um, knowing that mental illness runs in our family, to see a person who was essentially like, in a lot of ways, my twin, who at one point was a bond trader in Tokyo, and the next year was babbling homeless on the street, was … devastating. And, um … trying to—And, I think … a lot of the, the power of Snap is that … um … because I did follow a crazy person—I'm not gonna say crazy, I know that's not a good word. I know that, I wanna say, um, I, um, a, um … crazy's a pejorative, in a way, I don't wanna mean that. He was a, a, a—
Paul: I think it's an understanding on this podcast. It’s the intent of the, of the way the person uses it.
Glynn: Yes. He was a sociopath, in a lot of ways, the per-, the founder of our organization. But, um, but to have that paired with my, my brother's situation, um, where … this was a guy—I was someone who had followed a cult leader. I was born into it, but I still had believed it. And, um, so, it's very, very … hard—I can't condemn anybody for any of their beliefs. And I think, and I also know that … in my veins is, um, the seeds of myriad mental illnesses. And my brother … you know, you have a certain type of charisma on Snap. My brother had WAY more charisma that I have. In a lot of ways, he was smarter. And he was a, uh … (sighs) a better storyteller. And, um … five years ago, walking here for Easter parade, I got a call from my, my sister, screaming. Screaming. And I knew that he was gone. And it, it was one of those things where … um … I felt like … (sighs) In a lot of ways, when you grow up that close to someone, they're like your repository of memories. And you call them and say, "Hey, how did that go down again?" Or, "What was Joey's wife's name again," or something like that. You, you share, it's like, it's that close that we were close enough to like, like I said, we went to Japan together, we learned things together, we wrote together, we actually did projects with certain businesses together. And, uh, when he was, after he got sick, trying to, myself, I didn't understand, I don’t think at the time, I didn't understand the extent of, uh … (sighs) of mental impairment. Because I had known for so long, as a … as someone who could take care of business. And so, I think that since he did pass, I, I feel like that, to some degree, that melancholy that I never had really was personally touched by, it's, uh, it's burned itself into me, to some extent. And I, it's there's in a way that sometimes I'm surprised by.
Paul: Since then, the melancholy—
Glynn: Yes.
Paul: What … is the hardest, what are the hardest things about living with a relative who has schizophrenia?
Glynn: The hardest thing is remembering. Remembering when they di-, remembering them as a whole person. I got very, very lucky, actually. Right before my brother passed, he, um, he had this moment of lucidity … Before he had, uh, been accusing me of taking his winnings from various investments and buying a bank in Palau. And, (laughs) and, um, and then we're talking, and he's like, "You know what? You didn't that in Palau, did you?" I was like, "Nah, brother." And he's like, "And you never invented that machine, that flying machine, either." "Nope. Didn't do that, either." And he's like, and then he said, "Man, I am messed up in the head!" (Audience laughs)
Paul: Was he on his, the medication when he had that moment of lucidity?
Glynn: No. No.
Paul: Did he ever take medication?
Glynn: Off and on. The understanding, as you know, from this show obviously, the understanding of what schizophrenia or bipolar is is (unintelligible). And I don't think there was, I don’t say these words like they mean something. I don't know what his condition was. I don't, I don't know … I don't know what he had. He was, he just, he was, um, it, it was definitely on the schizophrenic spectrum. But, to say that there was pills that would fix him, I don’t … pretend to say that's true.
Paul: Well there's, I do know this. I don't, I don't know if it's what, uh, he battled. But there is, um … a thing called schizo-affective disorder, which is, uh, has traits of bipolar and traits of schizophrenia.
Glynn: That's what he was.
Paul: Okay.
Glynn: Yeah.
Paul: I have a friend who has that. And when he's off his medication, he, even though he intellectually knows … people aren’t out to get him, he is convinced, his body is convinced at every second, that someone is going to try to kill him.
Glynn: I, I, my brother … I, I, I would say sometimes he was like that. It's terrifying … watching the other you go through something like that.
Paul: I can't imagine.
Glynn: At one point, he called, uh, screaming at night. And I didn't know where he was. The only thing I knew was that the area code was Vegas.
Paul: That's scary alone.
Glynn: Yeah. (Audience laughs) Yeah. And so, we ha-, we didn't know where he was for several months. And so, I went to Vegas … and started walking the streets, looking for him.
Paul: Really?
Glynn: And, he had been, he had been emailing me like … pages and pages of the letter "B," or numbers and stuff. And, uh, I was just walking around (chuckles), literally on the Strip going, where might this be. And I, I was at a Denny's. And I asked the lady where, you know, if you were homeless and you needed to make a, if you want to, uh, get on a computer, where would you do it. She told me about the library downtown Vegas. And I went there, and I asked the, the librarian if she minded if I checked the logs. And she said, yes, she did mind (audience laughs) if I checked the logs. And right when I was there talking to her, trying to convince her to let me look, my brother walked in. And, um, so, and he acted like, you know, "Huh. How you doing?" (Audience laughs) And so, he got into the car. I said let’s go. And, um, we went to Caesar's Palace. At the time, there was a, uh, uh, a buffet there. He just ate, ate, ate, ate, ate. And I was trying to tell him that I wanted to take him back to California. He was kinda trying to hear me, kinda trying to hear me. And we're walking through Caesar's, and he stops. And he says, "They said no!" And it was probably the scariest thing I've ever heard. It was in the middle of the, of Caesar's Palace, and he was frozen. And I said, "Who said no?" "They said go away!" And I was like, "Brother … maybe we need to go outside." And he ran. He ran outside the place. And, then he's just waiting out there for me again like nothing had happened before. And I told him, I said that's the scariest fucking shit I've ever seen in my life. And he said, "That's what I've been dealing with every day." So, we're—
Paul: So it sounds like he had somewhat of a conscious understanding, almost like he could see part of what was going on. Or no?
Glynn: I think that we were groomed to believe that we were fighting demons all the time. And, it manifest in a very real way for him, because of whatever this condition was.
Paul: Did he still believe in the teachings of the church?
Glynn: No, but he believed that we were certainly, um, fighting supernatural battles. That whole thing—In fact, you know, that … He was definitely in that realm. You know, forget about Herbie. It was just like everything was, in fact, a spiritual battle. He believed in magic. He believed, um, in all kinds of different powers. And it was, uh … (sighs) I wonder … if he hadn't had those triggers, if he'd still be here.
Paul: What's that like to contemplate?
Glynn: You know, um … Everyone wants to go back. Everyone wants a, to, to do over. I don’t think it's anything to blame, but it's just one little thing where you … uh, I just wish … (sighs) I wish that we knew … that these things were daggers, and, um, he could be impaled.
Paul: The teachings.
Glynn: The teachings, the belief system, the life, the whole bit. The, the imaginings, the … the lifestyle. He, it, it took, it, um, it was, it just had a fertile ground in a different way with, for him than it did for other people.
Paul: Do you identify with people who have survivor's guilt?
Glynn: Oh, yeah!
Paul: Talk about that.
Glynn: Oh, survivor's guilt. Like I said, you have your … There is nothing about me that's better than him. But I get to have a beautiful wife, um, these crazy, rusty-butt little kids, um, a wonderful, uh, friendship circle, a fulfilling career. I get to have joy. And, especially the last year that he was alive, he was ha-, he had fear. And, we're not any better than him. Probably worse. So you can't help but have that, that, um, that thing, And I that, but—So, what do you do with it? I certainly wanna keep that joy, I wanna have a, I wanna live my life.
Paul: We were talking before we came out. And … tell me what you were saying about the, uh, enjoying the, the podcast. I think I was, I was comment to him on, um, how much, how great it is, how much success he has had. And I watched a video where you went back home to, uh, Ann Arbor, and you performed for 3,000 people. And, uh, tell me what you said.
Glynn: I feel like … for someone who's obviously a little bit … let's just say keeping it together sometimes, um, my, my wife says, "I can't believe that you act sane most of the time." And I was like, "Baby, you know, I have a, uh, a weekly therapy session, um, called Snap Judgment." And I think that storytelling, in general, what's great about storytelling, what's great about this process for me has been that … I get to narratively go back and pick at this kid, this kid screaming in the closet somewhere, and then take him and put him somewhere in a position of power and tell that story. So often, I think that we are, our stories are stocked in trauma. This happens a long, lot of times. You tell your story, "This bad thing happened to me. This bad thing happened to me. This bad this happened to me." Well, um, what you, I, I found very powerful for myself is to say, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Herbie didn't happen to me." I'm gonna take where I was and I'm gonna tell my story about him. I wanna tell you this story about when me and my brother went to the citadel of the Worldwide Church of God one night. In the middle of the night, we went past those red, uh, bars that you're not supposed to go past. We went to this HUGE edifice that was built. It was the Mecca, Medina, the Jerusalem, the Rome. It was ev-, it was the Vatican of our church. And we went there in the middle of the night … and we unzipped our pants (audience laughs), and we pissed on it. (Audience laughs) Now, I so enjoy telling you that right now, I can't tell you. (Audience laughs) I really, really did. But the thing about it is that puts me, again, not in a position of victim but in a position of power. I'm not, I, I, really don’t want Herbie to write my stories for me. And, um, I think that oftentimes, I think that what happens, one of the big, greatest gifts of Snap is to be able to try and go back and seize control of that, of my own narrative. It's been really, really powerful for everything.
Paul: Give me a, um, give me a fear.
Glynn: I'm afraid it's all gonna collapse.
Paul: (Laughs) I am afraid that it will all just feel numb. That I won't feel either … sadness, I won't be able to cry and I won't be able to laugh. That's actually, uh, the place that I like even less than the place where I can cry.
Glynn: I don’t normally think about that.
Paul: No?
Glynn: I would fear that, eventually, if I … thought there was something that I was susceptible to. But, maybe I should take joy in that, um, I don't … At this point, the, the highs and the lows are so intense for me, at this point, the hope-, I … I'm having a hard time imagining them. And I, and I don't even wanna think about it too much, Paul. That's, that's a scary thought (unintelligible).
Paul: Well, let's do, uh, a shitty movie where we switch bodies, and, um (audience laughs) (laughs) … Gimme another fear.
Glynn: Can I give you a love?
Paul: YEAH!
Glynn: I love my wife. And I love it, I love the, um … the … (sighs) the acceptance that I feel sometimes. The, the knowledge—It's one of those things where I think that I'm, I wasn't, I, I wasn’t supposed to be accepted. Because (laughs), as you might imagine, there's a lot of crap back there. And, um, she doesn’t seem to hold it against me. I think that's strange. (Audience laughs)
Paul: I think those of us that have heard you share, I think that's one of the things that makes you more attractive, is because it's made you search your soul to survive. You know, people that I've met that have survived difficult childhoods, and come out the other side and, and learned to develop tools to not repeat the cycle, um, are my favorite people, because they're self-aware—
Glynn: But that's a fear. The FEAR is, okay, we think we've got to a point of help and a point of safety, or something like that. But, uh, what if the cycle is some what if I, I'm trying my best not to pass this onto my kids? What if they're on this danger 20 years in? "That muthafucka was crazy. (Audience laughs) (Unintelligible) His psychosis has become mine, and I wish I could put it down."
Paul: Well, I'll be happy cuz it means I'm still doing the shows. (Audience laughs). Fuck you, it's all about me!
Glynn: (Laughs)
Paul: I love exploring a new city and discovering a great place, um … that has its own vibe, like this theater. You know, walking into this theater and just going, "This is perfect. This is just the perfect venue to, to do the … the podcast." And walking down Broadway in Oakland, uh, today, picking a place to eat. And, just discovering new things. I love the excitement. And I've been in a really good mood, and I, I love being in a good mood and being excited to discover, uh, new things. Cuz when I'm … in my depression, none of that sinks in. It's just everything is an effort. Everything this is just a gray, a gray blanket. So I, I love … feeling that … excitement of new.
Glynn: Well … well, um, I love Paul—
Paul: You can end right there. (Audience laughs)
Glynn: I love, I love, you know what I love? I love—I was in a flow today. I was writing my ass off. It was awesome. I was there, I was writing my ass off, and then I got a text from, um, from my office saying that my dog has shat up the place. (Audience laughs) Said come right away. And, uh, so that I didn't love. (Audience laughs) The juxtaposition, Paul. You see the, you get, you get the ying and the yang, the one and the other. (Audience laughs)
Paul: (Laughs) I love the way, uh, one of my dogs, Ivy, um … QUICKLY will, she’ll be, she’ll be just walking in the backyard, just kind of strolling. And then REAL quickly, she runs five steps forward and shits real quickly, and then runs real quickly away from it. (Audience laughs) It's, it's almost like, uh, it's something that she shouldn’t be doing, and, uh, she doesn’t wanna stick around to get busted for it.
Glynn: She ain't got nothing to do with that!
Paul: Yeah. (Audience laughs) I love … having a gu-, and I'm not just saying this because you're here. I'm not trying to kiss your ass. But I love having a guest … that I'm interviewing where I know I don’t have to worry. They're a great storyteller. They bring the funny. They bring the, the, the deep. And I just kinda get to sit back and en-, and enjoy it.
Glynn: Thank you, Paul. (Audience applauds)
Paul: Let's end right there! Glynn Washington! (Audience applauds)
Glynn: Thank you very, very much.
End of Interview
[01:27:04] Oh, boy. What a, what a great storyteller. I was, uh, really, really happy we got to, uh, got to record him. And got to meet him. So be sure to check out, uh, Snap Judgment, if you haven’t already.
[01:27:17] Wanna give some love to our sponsor this week, um, Probimune. We've talked about it, uh, before, and I'll say it again. The importance of having a healthy gut on your—not only your physical health, but your mental health—cannot be overstated. I lived for YEARS with way too much bad, um, uh, flora in my gut. Not fauna; I did, I was able to clear, uh, the deer out when, uh, (laughs), I don't know why I go to, to the one that sounds like fawn. I guess cuz that's what I always think when I hear fauna, uh I always think of a fawn. ANYWAY, I lived for years with bad, uh, flora, in my gut. And I had no energy, um, my depression was worse. There were certain foods I was intolerant to. And, uh, it is so important to put that good, uh, those good probiotics in your gut. And the people at Young Health do that. And that's why they developed Probimune. It's, uh, it's a liquid probiotic that promotes intestinal health, and it contains a unique blend of bacteria that you're not gonna find in 99 percent of other probiotics. They have an industry-leading fermentation process that ensures the largest number of good bacteria are delivered into your gut ALIVE. Cuz it doesn’t matter how many get in there; it's how many get in there and stay there alive. So, Probimune, SUPER easy to use. You don't have to refrigerate it, which is HUGE so you can travel with it. And right now, uh, you guys can get the exclusive offer of a free bottle of Probimune when you sign up for automated delivery. That's a $34.95-bottle of Probimune free. So, all you have to do is go to probeimmune.com. That's spelled p-r-o-b-i-m-u-n-e. And, um, when you sign up, uh, use the promo code "mental" at checkout. You'll get your first bottle of Probimune free, and you'll only pay six dollars and 79 cents for shipping and handling. Then each month, Young Health will automatically send you your supply of Probimune for $34.95 with free shipping and handling. So, go the probimune.com. Again, that's p-r-o-b-i-m-u-n-e, and use the promo code "mental" at checkout to get your free bottle today.
[01:29:46] Before we get to the surveys, want to remind you there's a couple of different ways to support, uh, the podcast, if you feel so inclined. You can go to our web site, which is mentalpod.com. You can make either a one-time, uh, PayPal donation, or my favorite, become a monthly donor for as little as five bucks a month. It, we GREATLY need your financial support to, to keep this running. There's so many things, um, that, that we need to do, ways that we would like to expand. And right now, we're just kind of, um, limited in, in what we can do, uh, with the podcast. So, uh, go do that. It's simple. It’s easy to set up. You can also support us financially by using our Amazon link, if you're gonna buy something at Amazon. You, if you go to our "Support the Show" page, uh, you'll see, uh, and not only an Amazon link for just browsing Amazon in general, but you'll also see a little, uh, a link that takes you to books and things that we recommend. Books we've mentioned on the show, books written by our guests. All kinds of stuff. So please go do that. And then you can support us non-financially by, um, going to iTunes, writing something nice about the podcast, giving us a good rating. That boosts our, uh, our ranking, brings more people to the show. In fact, I wanna thank the iTunes staff. And, uh, they've, they’ve, uh, been highlighting our podcast the last couple of weeks and brought in a lot of new listeners. And I'm super grateful, uh, for that. So, to any of you new listeners, um, uh, welcome aboard, strap yourselves in, and get ready for my apologizing. (Laughs)
[01:31:35] Oh, one thing I did wanna mention is that I've been getting a little triggered by the, uh, shame and secrets surveys, so I've been backing off them a little bit. They're not gone forever. Some people are probably relieved, cuz they can get pretty fucking dark. But it, it, I just needed to take a little, uh, break, um, from them. So the, the, I think the surveys on, uh … today's show that I'm gonna be reading are, uh, maybe a little less dark. Certainly, uh, sexually, uh, much less of, uh, of that kind of stuff.
[01:32:10] All right, enough of the wind-up; how 'bout the pitch? This was filled out by, this is a struggle in a sentence filled out by "Benny." And Benny writes about his depression: "Why are you all smiling and laughing? Fuck you all." (Laughs) I laughed when I saw that one. I was like, oh my god, I know that feeling. It's the same way that I look, used to look at people that would leave, uh, uh, part of their drink and walk away from it, leave. I, I would be like, how do you … I had never, I could never conceive of not finishing a glass of alcohol. Anyway, uh, about his bulimia: "I better drink more water and throw up again, just to be sure." About his anorexia: "You only feel cold and weak because you have been fighting so hard against your food addiction. Keep up the good work." A snapshot from his life: "Waking up at 4:30 to get to university by 5 so I could study for 12 hours. Falling asleep in lectures because I was so tired, but not changing my habits because I was a good boy. Good boys work hard, despite the fact that they are lonely, tired, and miserable. If they fail to be perfect, then they should cut themselves." You know, my thought—First of all, I wanna give you a hug, Benny. But, um … I'm not a therapist. I have no training. I told dick jokes on TV while I overcooked chicken. But a thought just popped in my head, I've heard other people recommend this. What about going out—cuz it sounds like there's a lot of perfectionism going on there. What, what would happen if you just went out intentionally one day and said, "I'm gonna make as many mistakes as possible, and see if I can live through it. See if it doesn’t, that anxiety doesn’t kill me. You know, you get on the bus, put in, you know, put in the incorrect amount of change or, um, I dunno, you can, you can think of something. But, just a thought. Cuz, uh, perfectionism is fucking, it is a … it is a brutal master, and I hate myself for using that phrase. (Laughs) It sounds so pompous.
[01:34:27] This is an email that I got, um, actually, it's a, um, an awfulsome moment that was emailed to me by, uh, "Shedzeradaze (sp?)." I think I'm probably mispronouncing that. That's, that's my, uh, that's my one mistake for the day. (Laughs) She writes, "When I was 12, my mom began a romantic relationship—"Oh, and for those of you that are new to the podcast, awfulsome is a term we use for a moment that happened in the past that was awful, um, at the time particularly, but in hindsight there's something that was kind of positive or bizarrely funny in a fucked-up way. And so, she writes, "When I was 12, my mom began a romantic relationship with her former son-in-law. My eldest sister is nine years older than I, had married her high school sweetheart young, and had divorced within a couple of years. My mom's relationship with my sister's ex-husband began the year following this divorce. As the love affair was revealed, our family was shocked, but our reaction didn’t prevent the two from continuing their romance. If anything, the family's disapproval fanned the flames of their passion. They grew closer in their outcast state. They eventually married. They’ve been married for over 20 years now. My mother is 20 years older than her husband. Our family eventually accepted the situation as best we could. From my own perspective, I had no choice since I love these people. I couldn’t disown then just because of the unorthodox situation they had created. Over the years, I've integrated their relationship as part of my 'normal,' although I still wake up and think, 'Did that really happen?' I had to reframe the way I thought about my mom's husband and my mom in their new roles. The situation was more challenging for my sister, though, to have a new family tie to her ex-husband, now stepfather. And I imagine it was even more awkward for my nephew, the child she's had with her ex-husband, who by the time he was a teenager figured out he was his own uncle." (Laughs) I think everybody at some point in their life should get a chance to be their own aunt or uncle.
[01:36:46] This is an email I got from "Alex." And, uh, I don’t know if Alex is male or female, but they write, "My mom attends two support groups. And I jokingly mention that she is trading one addiction, overeating, for another, support groups. No, this was not hurtful to her in any way. We have a great relationship, and I'm happy she's going. We both have a very Gilmartin-esque sense of humor." Which probably means they flail at, uh, making jokes and then, and, uh, apologize afterwards. By the way, the best time to apologize, uh, for a joke, is in that awkward second between the punchline and, uh, that person's reaction. "She mentioned that one woman in her support group attends five different types, and I would bet she goes to at least one meeting every day. My mom respects the anonymity of the support groups. We didn’t gossip any further, but I was wondering if you ever heard of anything like this. Obviously, it's a healthier 'addiction' than overeating, alcoholism, etcetera; but it still seems like it's a form of addiction or dependency. I wonder if there's a support group addicts anonymous." And, uh, you know, I think … a really great question. And my thought is, un, while I wouldn’t say that their addicted, um, there are some people, uh, who I know, uh, who go through periods in their lives, uh, by going to meetings all day every day. And, for some of those people early in their recovery, that saved their ass. But I've also seen some people in recovery where they got some footing underneath themselves, and they are kind of, uh, hiding out in, in meetings and not really, uh, living their life as fully as they could. But, I would never call it an addiction, um, be a real addiction is something where the addict can never again have a healthy relationship with what they're addicted to, and support group people can, um, always, in my opinion have a healthy relationship with a, a support group. No, maybe not necessarily one group of people, um, but, um, support groups in general. So, I hope that answers you question. And if not, go fuck yourself. Oh, and to anyone of our new listeners, from, uh, from iTunes, uh, go fuck yourselves, too. That's our kind of, uh … (sighs) that's our old timey, old West kind of way of welcoming you to the, uh, to the show. And if you don’t know where, uh, to go fuck yourself, go to the forum and they'll tell you not only where, but how. Somebody actually emailed me and wants to start a thread in the forum, uh, starting a glossary of terms and inside reference, uh, running jokes, which I think would be a great idea.
[01:39:47] "Chameleon" writes about her borderline personality disorder: "It's like living with a teenage brain, but you're expected to act like an adult." That's a great one. Comments to make the podcast better: "You need an app that makes it easy to listen to the podcast. You can't rewind and fast-forward episodes on the podcast app. Plus it would be nice to have the episodes in forum and one place that you can access from your phone." The only place that I, you know, I haven’t really, I don’t know as much about different, uh, podcasting platforms, uh, as a lot of people do. But I mostly listens, listen to podcasts through iTunes because it does list them all right there, and you can, uh, pause, fast forward, and etcetera. So, I'm not sure which podcast app it is that you're talking about.
[01:40:46] This is an awfulsome moment filled out by "Ray." Ray is gender fluid and, uh, 15 years old. And Ray writes, "I've been in therapy for a few months now, and I'm slowly recovering from self-harm. Before my recovery, I was quite compulsive about how I maintained and stored all my sharp objects. I slept with a pincushion in my nightstand, tuck needles into hair ties on my wrist, and always kept safety pins and multiple pairs of scissors on hand. I would get upset if I lost something or someone dulled the blades of my scissors. Over the past few months, I have removed almost all of it from my reach, and this has greatly helped with my compulsions. Just as I completed this cleaning process, my birthday rolled around. My parents bought me a brand new pair of designer haircutting scissors." (Laughs) Thanks for sharing that, Ray.
[01:41:39] Oh, somebody else sent me an email, uh, saying that, um, while they appreciate, um, the … attention, um, I give to, um, trans issues, sometimes I, um, will, uh … refer to a non-binary person later in the survey as he or she. And obviously that's something not conscious on my, my part. But, um … uh, another thing that I should throw myself off a bridge about.
[01:42:17] This is a struggle in a sentence filled out by "Shitty Son." I'm a fan of his right out of the gate! He writes, "My mother died three weeks ago. Felt a little sad, but haven’t shed a tear. Animal abuse or cute dog videos can make me bawl. But my mom has gotten nothing. I loved her, but I'm more happy that she's out of pain and done with her frustration with and fear of my father, who is an angry man. She also felt unseen and unheard, which made her run at the mouth constantly, a characteristic that drove people crazy. Everyone burst into tears the moment she died. They all think I'm being strong, but I'm not. I keep hoping tears will come, but not sure they will. I feel like a total prick. Mom deserves tears." You know, my thought is tears, deserves has nothing to do with it, man. Whatever you're feeling is valid. I, I felt the same way when—and I'm sorry, I'm shared this several times on the podcast, but I couldn’t cry when my dad died. And, um, it didn’t really hit me until months later. And, a, a lot of people I know that's how it is. So don’t judge the grieving process, you know. It's … it's no reflection of who you are morally, how loving of a person you are. It just happens to be the particular way that you process things, no different than your digestive track. What I'm saying is your mom was shit. Moving on. (Laughs) Thank you, thank you for your, uh, your survey. That, uh, that's a really, it's a really important question. A lot of people suffer in silence thinking, "Ah, I'm terrible. I'm terrible."
[01:44:08] This is an awfulsome moment filled out by a guy who calls himself "Cumming in Disappointment." He, he writes, "I went through a really tough break-up last year that was hard to move past. After months of trying to move on, I decided the best thing to do would be to just find someone new. So, a girl I'm interested in comes over to watch Netflix and casually hook up. Once things started getting heated between us, I suddenly jizzed in my pants (likely due to no human intimacy for over a year). I could feel the embarrassment in my spine. I had to come up with a quick excuse to get away, so I said I had to pee really bad. I rushed into the bathroom, took off my underwear, and hid it in the back of a closet, trying to come up with an excuse for why I don’t wear underwear. When I came back out, she said she had to go and suddenly left. She never came over again, and I'm not sure if she realized what happened. I've been so embarrassed of it happening again, that I still haven’t had sex in almost two years." And, uh, I just wanna say I've heard this from many people. And a, a, I heard somebody say one time—I think it was on Love Line—they said if you're somebody that cums really easily, um, masturbate before you, uh, go hang out with that person. And, um, then you'll last longer. But, dude, seriously, do not feel shame. And who knows why she left, you know. She might have been, she might have really wanted to have sex with you, but, uh, you know, had something in her, uh … mind saying that now is not the right time, you know, you, you promised yourself you'd save yourself until marriage. I mean, who knows what she was thinking? But isn't it funny how we automatically go to, "Oh, it must be because I'm unlovable."
[01:45:59] "Chum Bucket 69"—ah, I gotta get your fan letter, cuz I like that name. You're combining, uh, buckets, uh, fish parts …
Mean DJ Voice: And 69.
Paul: OOH, Mean DJ Voice!
Mean DJ Voice: Love 69!
Paul: No idea. It's really kinda … disgusting thinking about … bad DJ Voice locked in a 69
Mean DJ Voice: Oh, not locked. It's slippery.
Paul: Oh, come on!
Mean DJ Voice: TOP OF THE HOUR, BOSTON! More than a feeling.
Paul: "Chum Bucket 69" is agender and asexual, a teenager. And they write about their depression: "Major depression, feigning ignorance about a particular subject just so someone will talk to me." I was also kind of struck by that one because, for many of us, our depression makes us NOT wanna talk to people. But I found that, uh … That's the thing about mental illness is every person's is, uh … an individual, shitty snowflake.
[01:47:13] "Vera" writes, uh, an awfulsome moment. "The death of my father was the most devastating event of my life. Fortunately, his sister and my mother agreed immediately when I suggested which song to play on the cemetery. So when the coffin was let down into the earth, we played Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side" on a boom box. To this day, I get sad in a happy way when I hear the song and so thankful that my family went along with it." I love that. I just love that. That is, man, that is … that made me smile.
[01:47:55] "James" writes about his, um … being abusive: "I haven’t broken the cycle. Just moved it from the highway to the sidewalk." Snapshot from his life: "When I was 15, my mother found my considerable stash of pornography and proceeded to tear my room apart, including all my posters from the wall, while screaming about burning in hell, etcetera. I tried to leave, and she started hitting me with the belt. As I jerked the belt from her grip, the buckle hit her in the neck, leaving a decent scratch. I expected my father to beat me severely, as we had been in a fist fight or two by this point. Instead, he drove me out into the country in silence. He pointed to a cluster of trees and said, 'If you ever touch your mother again, I will cut you into little pieces and bury you over there. No one will ever find you, and no one will ever care.' I wish he would have beat the shit out of me." Man, I am so sorry that that is the dad and the mom that you got dealt … you know. And I'm not justifying you ever being abusive to anybody, but, um … it doesn’t surprise me. But the good news is, is, is we can get help for our anger issues. I used to be the ANGRIEST fucking person. I think I've shared this with you guys before that … the thing that led me to realize I probably needed to go to therapy was I was, I was at a, in my car stuck … at a traffic light that was green, but people were crossing in front of me. And I, you know, wasn’t gonna plow through 'em, I wasn’t that angry. But I'm screaming, "Get the fuck out of the way! What the fuck?! Jesus!" And all of a sudden, like out of nowhere, this guy, like out of a time machine from the 50s with a fedora and a trench coat and a briefcase, all of a sudden his face is like two inches from mine, and he just looks at me with a mixture of … pity and contempt. And he says, "Son, get a hold of yourself!" And then he was, he was gone. And I'd never seen how angry I was until then. It's, uh, it's amazing how addicted to, um … that drug, that adrenaline.
[01:50:23] This is a awfulsome moment filled out by "Is This Something You Can Share With The Rest Of Us, Amazing Larry." I don’t even know what that is a reference from, but I love it. And, uh, she writes, "I spent most of my life trying to reconcile for myself and explain to other how my mom could have been so controlling of and dependent on me throughout my childhood, and then flip a switch and be done with me forever as soon as I started to become my own person. She kicked me out when I was 16. I tried everything I could to build a relationship with her, even just as friends. But she finally told me when I was 20 that she wanted nothing to do with me and I should let her get on with her life with the kids she actually loved. That's all straight-up awful. The good part comes 20 years later. Thanks to this podcast, I learned the concept of emotional incest and started putting pieces together. Our relationship was never one of mother and daughter. I wasn’t disowned; that bitch dumped me! Suddenly, I broke out into hysterical laughter. Convulsive, cackling, chortling, uncontrollable, Muttley-hiss laughter. I finally had peace and healing courtesy of a line from 'Sex and the City:' She just wasn’t that into me." And that book was written by one of our guests, uh, Greg Behrendt. Great, great interview with him. And that was the first love-off and fear-off that, that we ever did, was, uh, was with Greg. But, thank you for sharing that. Man, that's, whenever you guys share that the podcast has helped you with, with something, it’s just, it just makes my day.
[01:52:03] "People Scare Me" writes about his anxiety: "My anxiety can best be summed up by my repeatedly hitting the close door button in the elevator at work every morning because I just can't stand to deal with people, even for a 45-second elevator ride." Dude, I … I had to put this down and just contemplate how much I related to that. It, there is a sublime bliss to nobody making it into the elevator in time, and you getting to, to experience it. Even less than 45 seconds, shit, sometimes it's just three floors, but it's just like, it's just like, it's SO peaceful. It is SO peaceful. You know, to go from that moment where you think you're gonna have to—you know, and this is mostly when I'm depressed, I feel like I'm gonna have to, you know, lift that 500-pound weight of smiling, to oh my god! total silence. It's like a baby deer nursing on a spring day. It … it's like you're licking an ice cream cone, and, and just as you hit a piece of caramel, you see a rainbow. (Laughs) It's, it's like, it's like watching an aquarium just as your Vicodin kicks in. (Laughs) It's like that moment when a cop car goes from following you to passing you. Oh, god! I'm so glad you shared that. I'm … It is the tiniest lottery. That 30 seconds of not having to make your soul lift weights, is a tiny, little lottery. It's like a miniature adult version of the last day of school. It is a blowjob on a recliner. Let’s end with a dirty one.
[01:54:08] This is an awfulsome moment by a "A Woman In A Potato's Body." And she writes, "My housemate had been after me for a while to get our dogs spayed. We just moved into a new house with actual carpet, and the housemate had been very grumpy about the fact that she had found drips of blood on the bathroom floor and in the hall. I didn't tell her that I'd been on my period for two weeks now and was just really tired of having to wear underwear all the time." (Laughs) "Thanks to my dog for taking the hit for the team." You guys are awesome.
[01:54:41] "The Worst" writes about their borderline personality disorder. They identify as, uh, agender. And they write, uh, "Wanting to be the most sick, because if you're not the sickest then who are you?" And then a snapshot from their life: "I wanna hurt myself so that people can see my suffering. As bad as I know it is, I just want my illness to get worse because nobody seems to notice or care about me unless I'm halfway dead. I just want people to care, to worry about me, and to maybe feel just as empty as I do because they know they can't help. I want to outsick everybody, and I know how disgusting that is. It's just so lonely. There's absolutely nobody to talk to about something like that, because if I told just exactly how desperate I am for them to acknowledge my hurt, they'd just see me as an abusive, manipulative monster and wouldn’t worry about me at all. And I think that might kill me." My thought what I read this was, first, wanna give you a fucking hug. And the second one is … some people may react that way, because there's a lot of people in the world that are uncomfortable with emotions, ANY emotions. I think, for you, it's just gonna be a matter of finding the right person or people to open up to. And I would start with a mental health professional. Because you deserve to be heard. Your, your hurt deserves to be witnessed and, um, felt by somebody else, um, you know, in a way that's not forced, uh, on them. I hope I'm making sense. But, the first time I had my … pain, trauma, whatever you wanna call it, witnessed and … had compassion given to it, um, was a DEEPLY profound moment in me getting better.
[01:56:46] This is an awfulsome moment. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna save saying what her name is until I read her awfulsome, uh, moment. She writes, "I was getting overwhelmed at work. On my break, I went upstairs to see what food was left over from the company picnic. The only thing I found was cake, still in the fridge inside the bakery box. I couldn’t find a plate and no one else was in the break room, so a grabbed a fork and bent up the cake box to dig in. just as I balanced a piece of cake on the fork, I heard the break room door open. I was worried someone would see me, had a surge of panic, and freaked out. I attempted to shove the cake in my mouth while closing the box and scooting away from the fridge. The attempt was not successful. I missed my mouth, smearing frosting on my cheek. I slammed the fridge door, but the box got caught and the door wouldn't close. When the operations manager rounded the corner, I was standing next to the open fridge, wide eyed with cake on my face and a fork in my hand." (Laughs) Oh my god! And, uh, the name she gave herself? "Cake Face Cunt." I'm a fan. I think you start touring. You put a band together, um, and, uh, maybe, maybe you get a … a boy band to open for you. Pie Faced Cock. Just, I'm … thinking off the top of my head. And, you know, I started thinking about the way that I eat, cuz I'm not a big fan of cake. But I LOVE fruit pie. And … I, honestly, don’t know how often, I, I might eat … sit down eating the second helping of pie. But I don’t know if I've ever sat eating the second helping of pie. I think because … I have to pretend that I never intended to have that second piece. So, I don’t cut an entire second piece. I just pick at the pie while I'm standing up. And every time I'm taking a bite, I'm telling myself, "this, this is the last bite you need. You'll feel … this, this will be enough." And I don’t even get a plate, you know. Sometimes I will class it up by moving to the sink. (Laughs) You know, for a compulsive eater, managing to pause long enough to get to the sink, uh, that's pretty classy. That's like, you might as well have a maître d' showing you to your sink. That's how much restraint and class it takes. (Laughs) Maybe I should start hiring a maître d' to start showing me to, to, to my sink to eat over. First, have him show me to the bathroom sink, uh, and I can say, "You have anything with a view of the toaster?" And he could take me to the kitchen sink, and then he'll say, "How's this?" And I'll say, "This is perfect." And then he'll stand and watch me eat … and shake his head in disgust.
[01:59:49] "Jamie" writes about his alcoholism: "Trapped. Whenever I try to stop drinking or drugs, I very quickly realize why I was self-medicating in the first place." Oh, that's so true. Snapshot from his life: "About seven or eight years ago, I was going through a bad bout with suicidal ideation, and I mean BAD! The best example I've ever been able to come up with was being at work one night and actually having the thought that, if I could get to the point when I was only thinking of killing myself only once or twice a day, I would be happy." (Laughs) "Like somehow in my head, that's how normal people thought. You know, I will never forget it as that thought, for me, illustrates how fucked up I actually was at that time." That is fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. That's, that's awfulsome. That's a good awfulsome moment, actually. So I'm actually gonna, uh, cast you to hell for writing that in the struggle in a sentence survey when it really belonged … in the awfulsome moments survey. Oh, I cast you deep, DEEP to the bowels of hell. You're going so deep into hell, that, that … the view of Hitler just whizzes past you … and he's shaking his head, he's that disgusted at you for filling out the wrong survey. I might be overreacting.
[02:01:15] This is an awfulsome moment, uh, filled out by "Kale Bitch." And, um, she writes, "Laying in bed until 3 in the morning, with thoughts going 4,000 miles an hour, compulsively making notes in my phone of fractioned poems or ideas. So inspired, can't wait for the next day. Continue to add things in my shopping cart on eBay that's up to 15 items, despite having little money. Decide to Google bipolar type 2 symptoms by a friend's recommendation. I find out hypomanic episodes include flying from one to the next, hyperactivity with increased need for sleep, impulsive spending such as online shopping. Under the blankets with the information/glow of my phone on my face, I laugh and feel both insulted and relieved, then saddened because I knew this state will be gone soon." And that's what garage sales are for. I mean, when we have a garage sale, shouldn’t, instead of it saying garage sale, shouldn’t it really say, "post-manic apology?" (Laughs)
[02:02:31] "Bridge Sitter" writes about her depression: "Waking up with ambition, only to have it collapse right after coffee." Oh my GOD, yes! Oh my god! But if depression's really good and it's really honest, hard-working depression, it doesn’t even care that you just had coffee. You can still fall asleep again. About her anxiety: "Getting out of the car and running alongside of the car because the car it too slow." Yup. I assume she's, that, that she's using that as an analogy, that she doesn’t actually do that. But if she does, she'd be very fit. About her codependency: "Checking on my girls every day to see if they're fine, because then I know I am." Boy, I bet there's a lot of parents that share that. Honestly, one of the things that makes me relieved that I never had kids is … I would worry so fucking much … about myself, not them. Fuck them. They're replaceable. (Laughs) How many new listeners … tuned out three seconds after Glynn, Glynn's, uh, interview was done?
[02:03:56] This is a happy moment filled out by "Baby Steps Are Balls." And he writes, "After a decade of my partner telling me that he just can't hold me and let me cry when I'm depressed because he 'shouldn't have to baby me,' he has finally started comforting me. The first time he grabbed me and pulled me in so I could cry, I finally felt heard, loved, and thankful he could grow emotionally. It was like a breath after holding it for years. The look on his face as I cried told me how sorry he was. I still worry it will go back to how it used to be, but whenever I express this worry, he tells me, 'Now I have all the patience and love in the world for you, and it will never run out.'" Wow, that's beautiful. That is beautiful. This is a great question. He asks, "How can someone be supportive and helpful to someone whose depression manifests itself as anger and irritability. Any suggestions? I don’t let it hurt my feelings when they get irritable, but I see their pain and wanna help." My thought is don’t try to change them, but have firm boundaries about what kind of, um … how you … the limits of them expressing their irritability, uh, towards you. You know, like if … it involves them saying, you know, "You're a fucking piece of shit. I don’t know why I live with you," that, there's no mental illness, mental illness is justification for that. So, I think learning for them to communicate what they're feeling in a way that, that doesn’t attack you would probably be a good thing. And maybe, I dunno, maybe joint counseling. You could also try doing, um, support groups for loved ones of people who, uh, live with mental illness. I know, uh, nami.org—n-a-m-i, uh, .org—has a lot of support groups for loved ones. And there's a great, um, nonprofit web site called helpguide.org—h-e-l-p-gu-i-d-e.org. And they have, um, links to EVERY kind of resource that you can imagine. So, uh, I'd look into that. I'd look into that. That's, that's a really tough line to strike sometimes between how, where does compassion end and where does being a doormat begin. I don’t know, but probably in front of the door somewhere. That might have either been a great joke or a horrible joke, so just to be on the safe side, I'm gonna cast myself, not to the bowels of hell, but actually to the upper deck of hell. And, uh, I gotta say, it's even hot up there. I hate myself.
[02:06:42] This next survey is filled out by "False Gods." And, uh, she writes, about her love addiction: "Having feelings a thousand times more intoxicating for my ex who treated me like complete shit, than for my current partner who is loving, supportive, and the best kind of man. Why is healthy so less attractive?" Sixty-four thousand-dollar question. Yeah. It is … My guess, uh, from what I've read and people I've talked to and what I've experienced is, because somebody who's healthy is emotionally available any ready to see you. And deep down, you don’t feel that you're lovable, so somebody who is unhealthy is emotionally unavailable so you're not going to have to truly get close to that person. And you don’t risk being seen or overwhelmed, you know. Because a lot of times, it's, um, that fear of intimacy comes from having a bad experience with a parent who was, um, either inconsistent in their love, um, not available at all, or, um, was invasive and didn’t respect boundaries. And, in a nutshell, a history of, uh, bad experiences with intimacy.
[02:08:16] This is a, a, an email, or a, uh, survey, a happy moment, filled out by "Trixie." And, uh, she writes, "My meds are working, and after four years, I finally feel so much better. It a whole new world. I now go on the app Whisper, find people who say they're suicidal—there are quite a few—and try to help them." That's so beautiful. That's so beautiful. And, the thing is … people who've been through the hell of depression or mental illness or addiction, um … before, before they come out the other side of it and start to feel better, it’s so important to know … that you can be such an important person to other people who are at the stage that you used to be at. Cuz, I mean, think about it. Like, if you were stranded in the Amazon jungle, who would you want to lead you out of it? Would you want somebody who's live there, walked through it every day and knows the trees, which ones are poisonous, which ones are medicinal; or would you want someone who's looked at, you know … a map of it a couple of times on Google Maps on their phone? So it … it can be a good thing having to lived something in a painfully detailed way. It can become really useful. But, you know, if we never get help, then we don’t get to learn the tools to pass on to other people. And we don’t, we don’t get to experience them and use them.
[02:09:59] This is a struggle in a sentence filled out by, uh, "So?" And he writes, um … He was, he was molested at nine, um, by some older kids and they took pornographic photos. And his snapshot from his life, he writes, uh, "Revealing to family aunt that I was molested. Her response: she slammed her hand on the table while yelling, 'So what?'" Just when you think you couldn’t hear anything more fucked up than you had in five years of doing the show. Buddy, you deserve to be heard and felt and seen and your pain witnessed and validated. And fuck her. And … there is lots of love out there. It's just, our job is to try to, or our mission is to try to find it. And there's a lot of places.
[02:11:11] This is … an email that I got from, uh, "Maria." And she writes, "Usually, all I need to say is my son is almost 16, and I will undoubtedly get the sorrowful head nod that supposed to communicate empathy, pity, and the 'you're just fucked for the next six years' response. But it is so much more than that. It's the fact that my son refused to take his meds for depression. He refuses to see his psychiatrist or therapist. It's the fact that I homeschool him—his choice, not mine—and getting him to study is like having an appendix removed without anesthesia. It's that he's one of the most intelligent, funny, and sensitive human beings I've ever known. It's the fact that I try so many things to help him. I try to encourage and praise him wherever I can. I try taking things and privileges away. I try listening without judgment. It's the fact that he won't speak to his stepfather/my husband, and my husband just wants to be his friend. I wake up every morning dreading the day. Dreading talking to him about school. Trying to get him to study. Dreading looking at the garbage piles in his room—my son is an undiagnosed hoarder. Dreading asking him to PLEASE brush his teeth and shower. I probably wouldn’t surprise you to know that I've been diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I take medication daily and have seen a therapist consistently for the past 12 years. I spend a good deal of time worrying obsessively that there's something I'm not doing for my kid. And, because of that, one day he's going to 'figure out' that most of his issues stem from something I did wrong or neglected to do when he was little. I worry that I'm gonna get that call from him when he's in his 30s that I am a crazy bitch and he no longer wants to have contact with me. My brain knows that my fears are irrational, but I just can't seem to get them in check. I had a crazy, rough childhood. Both of my parents were emotionally abusive. I believe that my mom suffers from depression and dissociative identity disorder. When I confronted her couple of years ago about things she had done when I was a kid, she quickly responded, 'I have no memory of that.' We've never discussed it again. Paul, do you know about any online parenting support groups?" I don't, offhand. But I would check out helpguide.org. You could also try posting that question in the forum. You could go to nami.org … you know, for loved ones of, uh, uh people with, uh, mental illnesses. And, um … and I'm sure there's some highly recommended parenting books, um, that you could read. But, you know, the important thing is that you care and that you're trying. And it sounds like you're open to, um, finding out if there's something that you could be doing better and changing it. And, and that's huge. That's huge. But I can't imagine how hard that's gotta be. That's gotta be SO overwhelming. And the fear, yeah, that that, that … that there's something that you're missing. Yeah.
[02:14:35] This is a, uh, an email I got from "Harmut Tikeman (sp?)." And he writes: "Compliments of the day. Haven—" Not heaven, haven, h-a-v-e-n, and it's capitalized. "Haven gone through your business profile adverts. I would like to assist you as an investment broker and financial facilitator." Wow! That's nice. "I have investors who are willing to fund and facilitate any business that is capable of generating four percent return on investment (AROI)." Thank god; that sounds fantastic! "Equity loan financing can also be considered. I have contacted you on this, hoping I will discuss with you on the possibility of my clients placing these funds with you for management either in your existing establishment or other ventures to be undertaken at your discretion under terms to be agreed upon. Let me know your thought. Look forward to hearing from you." My god! You guys, this is really exciting! He's … he's got people that are willing to give me money, and he hasn’t even met me. And he doesn’t know how many amazing ideas I have. Every morning after I get up, but before I meditate, I hit my head with a hammer, uh, because if I don’t do that, the good ideas don’t come out. And here are some of the ideas for businesses that I have written down over the last six years. This is just the good ones. Making hats that have turn signals. Making church organs, uh, but instead of, uh, the big pipes, uh, it's bongs, cuz then you can get teenagers interested in church. This one, I don’t know why, but I wanna get a poodle elected … you know, not to a high office, not something ridiculous. Just like a mayor or something. I wanna sell earplugs door-to-door and do it by jetpack. Hear me out. Here's what's gonna happen. The person is gonna hear the jetpack hovering over their house. Their gonna come out and go, "What the fuck is going on?" And it's gonna be so loud, because of the jetpack, what are they gonna need? Earplugs. Who's got 'em? I do. Right here, on the little pouch on my jetpack. And then here’s the real winner. Here’s the real winner idea I think Harmut and his associates would really like, is I wanna merge … angry kids with paintball guns and homeowners who are strapped for cash, and create a really, really cheap, really slow way of getting your house painted. I hope to hear back from him. I may, I may be a little compulsive, but I'm already spending the money that I expect to get the revenue stream.
[02:17:52] This is, uh, from the babysitter survey. And this was filled out by "Danny, Are You Okay?" And, um, let's see, Danny is, she's straight, she's in her 20s, raised in a pretty dysfunctional environment. She writes, "When I was nine, I was babysat by my 15-year-old stepsister while our parents were still working afterschool. My stepsister had moved in with us temporarily because her mom couldn’t 'handle' her anymore. My stepsister came from a very rough area in a different state, and I'd never been exposed to anything 'rough' until she moved in. She openly discussed the types of sex and drugs she had already been exposed to. Her stay didn’t last long because my stepdad at the time couldn’t handle her, either, and sent her back to live with her mom after staying with us for about six months. I remember we found some porn VHS tapes in our parents' room, and we started watching them. I'd never seen any porn, but that curious part of me was still interested. I knew we were wrong, but nobody was home and there was a part of me that was intimidated and afraid to tell my stepsister we needed to stop because it was wrong. I didn’t want to be uncool to her because I wasn’t sure what that would result in. I was intimidated by her. I'd never been exposed to anything even close to porn. I think I'd only ever seen a scientific diagram of sexual organs up until that point. As we were watching the videos, my stepsister suggested we get onto the bed in the same room and hump each other with our vaginas to one another's vaginas. She placed a black blanket over the top of us and we did. We started humping with our vaginas touching skin-to-skin. I remember knowing that it was wrong, and I had never done anything like that before, but there was a part of me that was scared to say no because my stepsister had a much rougher life than me and I wasn’t sure what she was capable of. No was never an option. It also felt good to me and I didn’t know how to stop it, so I just kept letting it happen. I'm pretty sure I got close to orgasm, but that shame was too much for me to truly 'finish.' I never told anyone until about two months ago at the age of 30. I told my therapist and my boyfriend. Up until about a year ago, I had way too much shame and guilt to admit the incident to anyone because I felt guilty. I didn’t even consider this incident to be abuse until I started therapy and listening to the podcast. Throughout my adult life, shame has surrounded my sexuality, and I believe it stems from this incident. I have also always felt the pressure to consent to sex with previous sexual partners because I was intimidated or scared to say no. I would have sex out of an obligation, which I think comes from this incident. I also have found myself fantasizing about scissoring other women, but have never acted on it. I also really enjoy lesbian porn, even though I consider myself straight. Thankfully through counseling, I'm becoming much more aware that this incident was sexual abuse and have been able to work through the shame of sex and have learned to have a say in when I wanna have sex, rather than giving in to doing it all the time. Even though I have worked through some of these issues in counseling and have told a few people close to me, I still feel regret and shame. I am disgusted and disappointed in myself because I didn’t say no to my stepsister's persuasion. As an adult now, I can have some compassion towards my nine-year-old self, but I still feel a little dirty when talking about the incident. I'm even more disgusted that I fantasize about reenacting this incident in my adult life because it feels like a sick though to have." It is actually a really common thought to have. It's just something the brain does and then, long-time listeners of the podcast know that this is … this is, um, one of the more common things that we read on the podcast. But, um, I think it's just so important to, to talk about it because people … you know, for me, 48 years—I guess, since I was 11 at the time, 37 years—um, I lived with shame of things that, you know, happened to me that involved … adults or … kids who were much older. And, um, you can get to a place where you don’t feel shame about it anymore. And it has affected my sexual fantasies. And that's okay, cuz, you know, I, I don’t hurt anybody in them. And that's, that's all that matters. And, um … Do you feel any damage was done? "I feel this incident was when my innocence was broken. It opened the door to shame, guilt, fear, and confusion surrounding sexuality." Has this incident influenced how you view your children being babysat? "I don’t typically use a babysitter for my kids, and I don’t let them spend the night at their friend's house because I'm always worried something similar could happen to them." And then, she writes, "I went through a phase of being very promiscuous, and I believe I was date raped more than once. Waking up, not knowing what happened. There was one time a man encouraged me to snort a line of coke so that we could have wild sex. Once more, I was afraid to say no. I was also coerced into having sex more than once without my consent. I honestly can't count the number of times that I didn't wanna have sex and allowed someone to take advantage of me." Another thing that I wanted to read, which is it's SUPER, super common for people who have had their, um, boundaries violated, um … um, sexually, to go through periods of promiscuity and periods of completely withdrawing from sex, and often going back and forth between the two. And I'm one of those people, and I've struggled with it my whole, and I didn’t know it was a real thing until I got into support groups and therapy. And, um, I guess that's why I'm always singing the praises of therapy and support groups, is, because it, not only did it save my life, it's given me a life where I can feel comfortable in my skin, for the most part, um, and, uh, and sane. And it's, I look back now and I think, man, I was just living in a fucking prison in my mind. And you don’t have to.
[02:24:23] This is happy moment filled out by, um—Oh, this is our friend, "Is This Something You Can Share With The Rest Of Us, Amazing Larry." I gotta find out what that's a reference to. And, um … she writes, "At the end of a particularly trying work week, my friend ran up and told me to cancel whatever my plans were because Rufus Wainwright was gonna do a free show at a really big bookstore accompanied by his mother, the legendary, now sadly-departed, Kate McGarrigle. Rufus told the story of being a little kid when his parents would throw amazing parties with brilliant and glamorous musicians and artists, and how his mom would play piano and let his sing his favorite song for all the guests. She started playing, and then he belted out the most beautiful rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" that I've ever heard. I felt hot tears start to run down my cheeks and looked around self-consciously to see that every single man, woman, and child crammed into this bookstore was in the same boat. I've never felt such comfort, acceptance, and connection as I did standing shoulder to shoulder in a crowd of 200 strangers crying together. It was a beautiful expression of pure emotion, made sublime by the fact that we could all share it without having to explain what was going on inside." That's beautiful. Thank you.
[02:25:46] It's a struggle in a sentence filled out by "Living In A Pumpkin Spice Hell." And, uh, she writes about her seasonal affective disorder: "Every summer getting to be who I really am, and every winter losing her in the dark." Oh my god. This is another one that I just had to … I just had to … just sit and think about for a minute. Cuz it's so hard to put into words the feeling that hits. Like when, when you hit that, that part of fall, usually like mid-November, where there's no more leaves, and it's dark by 5, 5:30. And … I dunno, there, it, it's, it's like … For me, it, it's like it scoops something out of my chest, you know. I … It's like my mu-, interest in hearing music is gone. And then the thing that makes it really confusing, is when you smell, um, a pile of leaves, that like decaying smell, which is … for me, connected to happy moments of playing in the woods as a kid and hiding in a pile of leaves and … But now, smelling it, I'm in a state of depression. And the thought that comes up is … I used to be happy. Oh my god, I will never feel happy again. Oh my god, there is some, something about fall, about fall depression. It'd be interesting to see how, um, it goes this … this fall with a new med adjustment. But thank you, uh, for that. And I'm sure I won't even bother to tell you about the, you know, the lights that, if you know the, the term seasonal affective disorder, then you know that there are lights that you can … you can sit in front of that, uh, supposedly help with that. Actually, they do. I've done it before.
[02:27:55] This is from the vacation argument survey. Rarely, this is like a rare wine, this survey. But, uh, I love some of this stuff people fill out on this one. This is filled out by "Victor," and he writes, "My boyfriend and I went on a road trip to visit my family. While we were out with friends, he told me he had kissed one of them. So, in retaliation, I told him I had been cheating on him for years. In a rage, he flipped a table and was arrested. Because I didn’t want him to be alone, I asked to be arrested as well." (Laughs) OH! FAN-TASTIC!
[02:28:37] This is, uh, struggle in a sentence filled out by "Anon," and she writes, uh, "I told my boyfriend about my depression and experience of sexual abuse as a child multiple times. He told me everyone has depression and he didn't know mine was so 'nuanced.'" I don’t know what he meant by that. "He also said—" And, by the way, no, everybody doesn’t have depression. Everybody's been sad, but, as I like to say, thinking you understand clinical depression because you’ve experienced situational sadness is like thinking you understand Italy because you’ve been to the Olive Garden. "He told me everyone has depression. He also said that because there was no penetration in the abuse that I remember, he thought that is 'could have been worse.' I took me 10 years to tell anyone what happened, and although a few people know now, it hurt so much to hear my biggest secret and most hurtful and formative memories and how I feel about them devalued. It's my biggest fear that when I tell someone, either they won't believe me or they won't care. He doesn’t seem to care." To which I say, get the fuck out of that relationship. You deserve better. You deserve compassion. You deserve somebody that cares for you and loves you and sees you. And, I'm not saying he's a bad guy, but he is emotionally ignorant. And you need, after being through that, you need somebody that is emotionally intelligent.
[02:30:08] This is a awfulsome moment—I love this one—filled out "Once Upon A Time In Mexico." And he writes, "My mom has always has a terrible diet, and spent the last few years slowly dying of ignored diabetes—" I mean, doesn’t that sound awful, or, uh, fantastic right out of the gate? "—one amputated toe at a time. She was dirt poor and living with my sister in Mexico when she final passed away. They don’t typically embalm bodies down there, so I hopped the earliest flight and arrived less than 24 hours after I got the phone call. My sister was still taking the death very hard. My sister and I go into the room where my mother had been staying and sat on the bed, the same bed my mother had died on the day before, holding hands in silence. The room was really bare and depressing. The only items in the room were a wheelchair, a walker, and some pictures and candles of Jesus. After couple minutes in silence, in my most serious tone, I said, 'I wasn't looking forward to this conversation, but we need to have it at some point. We need to divvy up the assets. I get the wheelchair; you get the walker.' She burst out laughing and eventually crying from laughing so hard. I don't think I've seen her laugh that much since we were kids." Fantastic. Thank you for that.
[02:31:32] "Too Emotional" writes about her depression: "It's like walking through a bowl of Jell-o that my parents keep putting in the freezer." That is a good one. Snapshot from her life: "A co-worker had mentioned to me, after hearing me discuss my relationship with my parents, that it sounded like emotional neglect. I argued that my parents were amazing and did everything to provide me with a better life. My co-worker suggest I read a book called 'The Gifted Child.' A week after finishing the book at a family dinner with my aunt, uncle, and parents, my mom started talking about how every night after visiting, I would end up in tears, then said, 'You're too emotional.' It was timed so perfectly." Maybe that's a good book for, uh, the people to read about, uh, a parenting book. Even though I know that book is meant probably for the child who's now an adult and has issues, but maybe, uh, I dunno, I've never rid it, read it. But, uh, I've never rid it either.
[02:32:39] "Glad Girl," um, writes about her, uh, borderline personality disorder. "On the bad days, it feels like wearing ballet slippers on an ice skating rink. The smallest slight against me, whether real or just perceived, can send me crashing down. Sometimes, there's someone there to catch me before I fall, but other times I reach out blindly and pull someone else down with me." That was like a little poem. Thank you for that. That's really, um … I dunno what the word is. Really helped me understand, um … (chuckles) I guess I've run out of words for the night.
[02:33:29] We got two things left. This is an awfulsome moment filled out by a guy who calls himself "People Scare Me." And, uh, he writes, "When I came out to my mom three years ago, her reaction wasn’t great. She said I could never bring home anyone I was dating or even married to. She repeated the same mantra I'd heard my entire life growing up in the Pentecostal church: You're going to hell. And she cried over the fact that she, in her words, would never have grandchildren. Last October, my mom took her life, an occurrence that's only increased my anxiety and depression and added in some PTSD to the rest of my mental health issues. But, two weeks before she died, she acknowledged I was gay for the first time. She used the word gay in a sentence, and it didn’t have that masked hatred or disgust as it rolled off her tongue, a subtext I have unfortunately gotten used to living in the Bible Belt. But this time, it was casual. That meant the world to me. And later that week, we bonded over a cute male contestant on 'The Voice.' Both of these things are very trivial, but to me, they're the largest acts of acceptance I received from my mom before I lost her the following Friday. And though I did lose her—and that is a pain I will never get over—I know that, in the end, she accepted me, even if it was in her own, small way." You know … that's … I would, I would qualify that as a, as a happy moment, actually. But I guess … you probably feel like a dick for putting, you know, a happy moment in something that, where your mom took her life. But, I guess that's, that just warmed my heart so much. Shut up and move on, Paul. (Sighs)
[02:35:38] This is, uh, an email I got from a woman who wants to call herself, um—And, and, you know, I apologize if, um, this last thing I read comes across as a little self-serving. But I wanna read it anyway, cuz it made me feel good, um, even though there's parts of it that are … um … dark. Not about me, but about—Ah, just fucking read it! I am Ed Norton, circling around the table. Just sit down. Just fucking sit—Put the bandana down and sit! She calls herself, uh, "I Just Wish Paul Had Had This Podcast 40 Years Ago When My Children Were Born." And I wanted to read this because … you know, parents get blamed A TON in this podcast. And … maybe I don’t say it often enough, but I don’t expect ANY parent to not make mistakes. Even really fucked up ones. And I just want any parent who's listening to know the most important thing is how you … feel about learning from your mistakes. How willing are you to accept responsibility and learn how to not repeat it in the future. That, to me, is what matters. With that in mind, she writes, "Dear Paul. I've written you before after my daughter's first suicide attempt. I started listening to the podcast two years ago because I was hungry for information about drug use, addiction, depression, anxiety, ADHD, bipolar disorder, personality disorder, the many meds she takes, the struggle she was going through. In the process of listening to your guests and you talking about mothers, I shockingly realized that I myself am a raving codependent and have OCD. I did not know how to listen to my daughter or respect her boundaries. Wow, humbling! Your podcasts have taught me how to deal with my issues: going to support groups, therapy, plus admitting my issues to my daughter and apologizing for my bullshit, as well as how to listen to her and create a safe space for her to talk to me. How to respect her boundaries, even though I know they might lead to suicide (and did lead to an additional suicide attempt last year, and continue her addiction; unspeakably painful and against all my instinct). She used to cut me out for periods of time; now I understand why in listening to your podcasts. But now, we have a much closer relationship because of what I have learned about how to respect her and never judge her, how to offer her comfort instead of being a know-it-all, and especially how to listen and accept—"Accept, not except." —to say …" Oh, no. She meant, she misspelled it. She meant to say except, e-x-c-e-p-t; she spelled it a-c-c. "—and especially how to listen and except to say, 'I'm here for you and I love you. How can I help?' Or sometimes, just a hug." Sorry, I (laughs) fucking stumbled through that thing. But that … that is just so beautiful to me. I, I, I guess these last two that I … The things that move me the most are the things that have … a light buried in a fucking big, dark ball. Because in my experience, that's been life so far, is just trying to find the light in, in … the ocean of (laughs) darkness. And … the previous survey, the guy whose mom finally accepted him in her small way, and her finally looking at herself and being willing to feel that shame as part of love for her child, is so fucking beautiful to me. And I think the other reason I wanted to read it is because I wanted that from my mom. I WANTED my mom to be, to do that. And I could never get her to do that. At least in a way that was consistent and remotely felt safe to me. And so I just want any parent out there to, to know, um, your kid … probably doesn’t expect you to be perfect. They just want you to be real when you see you fucked up. And … I dunno. I'm babbling now.
[02:41:12] I hope you head something that moved you, entertained you, made you laugh, made you cry, made you wanna cast me to the bowels of hell—which I refuse to go to. Again, I will go to the upper deck of hell. And by the way, that is the best place if you're gonna get hell hotdogs, don’t try going down to the mezzanine. The line is crazy. I lost my fucking train of thought. (Laughs) I hope, if you heard this episode, there was something that … in it, if you're struggling, that made it a little easier for you to reach out to someone, be it a therapist, support group, a trusted friend, or just a, maybe even just write your thoughts down. Sometimes that's a good place to start. Cuz no matter what you're going through, what you're feeling, how you're feeling about yourself, there's somebody else that knows that, that has felt that, and that is in that right now. So you're not alone. And, um, thanks for listening.
End
No Comments