Writer Chanel Miller @Chanel_Miller joins Paul to discuss her best-selling memoir Know My Name. Chanel opens up about the sexual assault at Stanford that gained national attention. She shares how the experience transformed her and how community support helped her through it.
Episode notes:
Follow Chanel on Instagram @Chanel_Miller
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Episode Transcript:
Paul: Welcome to episode #530 with my guest Chanel Miller. I’m Paul Gilmartin, this is the Mental Illness Happy Hour, a place for honesty about all the bullshit rattlin’ around in our heads. I am not a therapist. I am not a doctor. But I am a physicist, a lawyer, an astronaut—I’m trying to think of other impressive things. I’m a jackass that tells dick jokes. But I do have a lot of experience in support groups, in recovery, in therapy, and this is not meant to be the solution to your problems, it’s not a doctor’s office. More like a waiting room that doesn’t suck. The website for the show is Mentalpod.com. Mentalpod: also the social media handles you can follow us at.
Somebody writes in the happy moments survey: “I would love to hear more about where you are in your journey of life. I love the little tidbits of information you share about your life, but it always leads me to wanting to know more.” This was filled out by Flabbergasted. Thank you for asking. I do try to sprinkle in stuff about my life. I feel like I always do it in the interviews, in fact a lot of times I feel like I do it too much and I’m making it about me. But thank you for asking.
Here’s an update: I got Covid. I tested positive for Covid, I guess it’d be about 5-6 days ago. Today is Thursday and I tested positive for it on Saturday. I woke up and all of a sudden, I couldn’t smell. Couldn’t smell anything. And I sleep on a pile of trash, so I knew—I knew something was wrong. Flies were buzzing all around me and I couldn’t smell—I couldn’t smell any of the rotting garbage that I call my pillow. But, yeah, I immediately thought “oh, this is probably it”. I went and got tested, and I tested positive, and the weird thing is that’s the only thing it seems to be effecting is my sense of smell. So there you have it. I’m gonna keep this episode—at least the survey parts of this episode—a li’l short and sweet, and we are sponsored this week as always by BetterHelp online counselling. If you’ve never tried online counselling, give it a shot. What do you got to lose? You don’t have to leave your house, they have tons of qualified counsellors you can choose from, they’re licensed in all 50 states, I like it. I like BetterHelp. Been doing it for a couple of years now. So, if you’re interested in trying it, go to BetterHelp.com/mental. Make sure you include the slash mental part so they know you came from this podcast and then just fill out a questionnaire, and if they have a counsellor they think is a good fit for you, they’ll pair you up with one and you can experience a free week of counselling. And you need to be over 18, otherwise they will send you to teencounselling.com.
And then this is the rest of the survey from Flabbergasted, it’s a happy moment for her and she writes: “I remember the Christmas after I came out to my dad (nobody else in my family knew but him). My most memorable gift that Christmas was opening up rainbow-colored socks from my dad. I looked at him and he smiled saying it was rainbow just for me. It was such an intimate moment that I knew he fully accepted me no matter my sexual orientation.
[Intro]
Paul: I’m here with Chanel Miller, who is the author of a really profound and important book called Know My Name.
Chanel: Yeah. Yeah, my first interview was with the New York Times, my first on-camera interview was with 60 Minutes, my second camera interview was with Oprah, and after that I was like “I’m ready to retire, I’ve done the hardest (laughs) ones and just kinda got thrown in” but then after that it was pretty smooth sailing.
Paul: So, the subject of the book is, obviously, something, as you said, in the 60 Minutes interview, that you did not choose that you were given. That the universe said “okay, you wanna be a writer, Chanel? How’s this for a topic?”
Chanel: Totally.
Paul: Give some—I don’t want to spend too much time at this because I imagine you’re tired of talking about it, and to me, it’s not the most important part of the story, but the facts of the—the assault, and how it was presented in the news, and how people might know you from the news.
Chanel: Yeah. So, in January of 2015, I had attended a fraternity party at Stanford University with my younger sister. At the time, you know, I had already graduated, I was living at home in Palo Alto with my parents. My sister came home for the weekend, and we decided to go to this party, and, you know, Stanford was a short drive from my home, I’d grown up going to events there my entire life, so I thought “sure, why not”. We go—I honestly had a great time–we were being really silly, I like, stood on a chair, I was dancing like seaweed, and we were messing around. And my last memory is standing outside, just right outside the back doors with my sister and some other people, having a beer, and I remember saying, you know, “this tastes like pee”, and just handing it to her. So that’s my last memory. And then next thing I know, I wake up in a hospital and a police officer informs me that I’ve reason to believe I’ve been sexually assaulted. And I genuinely think he has the wrong person: I was like “I don’t think you understand, like, I just went to this party for fun, and I’d like to go home now”. And he, you know, said I need to stay and get the rape kit done. And so I went back to sleep, and in the morning when the clinic opened, I underwent a multi-hour forensic exam. After that, they let me shower, they had a detective come and ask me questions about what I remembered, and I couldn’t remember anything and the only thing I’d been told that morning was that someone had been acting strange around me, but that he had been, you know, confronted and arrested. So, I thought, “okay, so there’s some oddball at this party, you know, who obviously sent out some kind of red flag, but he’s been taken care of.” So, I’m sent home with no information. I do know that there had been lots of pine needles in my hair, and that my underwear is missing. And these details were so strange, but at the same time, I was nervous to press further with questions, right? It’s almost like you don’t want to know the answer. So, if they’re not telling me, I’m just gonna let that silence sit. And so I go back to work. And ten days pass. And one day I’m sitting at my desk and I look at the news and I discover that this man, who I will not name, had been found humping my half-naked unconscious body behind a dumpster, and in fact, that’s where I’d been found, and that I had been penetrated, all these things I didn’t know, and was learning at work. And then I also learned simultaneously that he was, you know, an all-American athlete, a trophied swimmer, and that’s when everything began.
Paul: In the book, you talk about Emily Doe, and Emily having a different experience and a different identity than you. Describe Emily Doe: who Emily Doe is, was, and who Chanel Miller was during this time.
Chanel: Yeah, so Emily Doe, to me, was the vessel that had been assaulted, you know. Every time I had to go into court to meet with my DA, I became Emily Doe, and she was quiet, she did not understand this new world, she was nervous all the time, super soft spoken. And then Chanel had, you know, started her entry-level job. She had a nice, sleek laptop. I was driving my Prius every morning, like, making my coffee. You know, My adult life was beginning, and I was really looking forward to this new independence. I had always had a pretty sunny personality, and really insisted on not being derailed. And so the only way to do that was sort of split myself in two and compartmentalize these experiences.
Paul: And Emily Doe, for the listener, was the name that she was assigned in this case to protect her identity.
Chanel: Yes.
Paul: Talk about the decision to—that went in to concealing your identity and the plusses and minuses around that.
Chanel: So, you know, I was 22 when it had happened, and I still didn’t have a very strong sense of myself, right? I was still figuring out who I was becoming, what I wanted to do. And I would read comments online, you know, beneath articles about my case that were so brutal and judgmental, you know, and just said “Emily Doe is an idiot” basically, and reckless.
Paul: and blaming you for consuming too much alcohol, as if that just opens the door for someone to take advantage of you.
Chanel: Anything. Correct. And so I was absorbing all of it, I was hurting a lot because of it. And I knew I was just too porous. Like I hadn’t built any internal defenses against these comments yet, there was no dialogue around how to handle victim-blaming and rape culture. I didn’t have any language for this yet, and so I needed to be anonymous to protect myself. And the other thing is that in the case, they ask everything of you. They ask about my relationship with my partner at the time, when we met, when we said I love you, and asked my weight, and showed the naked photos they had taken at the hospital. So it’s sorta like I could feel myself losing everything and the one thing I could hold on to was the six letters of my first name. That’s something that legally they could not expose. So it was very sacred and precious for me to be able to maintain my name as something that’s very intimate to me, and one of the only things that I could say was mine for a long time.
Paul: Talk about some of the comments that you would read, and what you would experience physically and emotionally reading them.
Chanel: Well, it’s interesting because when I first learned what actually happened that night, that my assailant was stopped, and that he couldn’t describe even what I looked like, I thought “this case is very clear. Like, I have no idea who this guy is, he took advantage of me and ran away, which is its own admission of guilt.” And so—
Paul: And we should also mention the two Swedish guys who happened upon this scene, confronted him, chased him down, and held him until the police got there. One of them was so disturbed why what he had seen, he was crying. I think that’s a really important thing for the listener—or anyone—to hear, to understand how cut-and-dried this should have been.
Chanel: Correct. Yeah, and he was even—the two of them—well, first of all, one of them stayed back to check that I was breathing and make sure that I was okay while the other one chased after my assailant. Once he was down and my assailant was struggling, both of them had to sit down on him and pin him down, and they were saying “apologize to her. What the F are you doing?” Which is really incredible. They are—they continue to be wonderful people, and just reminders throughout the whole case that there are good people in the world, right? What’s interesting is that so much of the shame I experienced was learned. It was taught to me through these comments over time, and I was starting to think that the assault was actually a personal failure, right? It was a reflection of my character: about my inability to take care of myself. And that really lead to a deep self-loathing, and I carried that through the entire year after that, and then you get to the trial where so many of the points that the defense attorney brings up is really just confirming those painful ideas about yourself. And in the book I talk about how so many survivors, or people in general, already have these little seeds of self-doubt or self-hate, and the defense knows how to locate those seeds and inject them and grow them until they’re so swollen that you lose the ability to remember why you should be speaking in the first place, why you deserve any care at all. If he can get you to turn on yourself, then they win, right? And that became very clear to me during the trial, and I thought “Chanel, if you don’t learn how to get on your own side and realize you deserve better than this, then they will succeed.” And so it was just completely twisted, and by the time my statement went viral a year and a half later—and I received so many incredible letters telling me that I was courageous, people sent me photos of their daughters saying like, “I want her to grow up to be you”, which is something that never even crossed my mind, an idea like that. I didn’t—I wasn’t able to re-frame who I was overnight. Like, I would read a few letters a day, and really sit with them. And let their words rewire how I thought about myself and just try and say “don’t talk back to the letters. Don’t say ‘no, that can’t be true’, just open yourself to them and really listen to how they see you and what a beautiful thing it is, because it’s so difficult to see what we mean to people.” And I still (laugh)—I’m still learning. But it’s been incredible. I attribute the public to saving me, like all these strangers who wrote to me saved me.
Paul: Talk about community and how that—how that has helped you. I mean, you just touched on it a little bit, but I think for a lot of people who have isolated and allowed the mean voice in their head to tell the story, and they don’t reach out for help, they’re missing out on this thing that is so powerful. But talk about that if you—if you would.
Chanel: Yeah, well I think as the eldest sibling and as the child of an immigrant, I had always prided myself on being independent. And so it was not natural for me to ask for help. I didn’t think I was someone who needed help. I thought I was pretty self-aware, which meant that I could be immune to depression if I could just identify my emotions and stay away from the bad ones, but obviously some emotions are bigger than you, and in order to tunnel your way out of them, you need other people with the tools who can help you do that. And my community was very small; when you’re a survivor, you are so selective about who you tell, because there’s so much at stake, and so for the first year and a half, there were less than ten people in my life that knew what happened to me, and then overnight there were millions of people who knew what happened to me but didn’t know that it was me (chuckle). So, it’s very—it was very strange. But I also wanna just remark on people who played significant roles who I’m not even sure if they knew what they did for me. For example: the court reporter who said to me when we were in the hallway, “If you get scared, look at me” and then she winked. And when I testified for the first time, I had a point of weakness and she winked at me, and that little closing of an eyelid was enough to get me through that torturous period. And so, I think about what we talk about when we talk about saving someone’s life, or, it’s not always these grand gestures, it’s just these little signals to other people that you are attentive to them, that you want them to be okay, and those signals can come in really little forms, and we shouldn’t underestimate the power of them.
Paul: One of the things that really struck me—many things in the book, really hit home how deeply you were suffering as you were waiting for the trial to take place and while the trial was going on. I think it was when you were living in Philadelphia and you were spending a lot of time by yourself, describe your process as the sun would go down.
Chanel: As the sun would go down?
Paul: As the sun would go down, how you would set things up. Was it in Philadelphia that you were living where you would stack the things—you know what I’m talking about?
Chanel: Yes. Oh, maybe in San Francisco? Phase three? (laugh)
Paul: Yes, you were—where you were feeling unsafe and… yeah.
Chanel: Yeah. Yeah. So that was mostly after the statement went viral. I did feel a constant threat to my safety, and it’s interesting, because I was always nervous about safety leading up to the trail, but then after that, since the statement had garnered so much attention, I was also assigned a sort of power, and when a survivor has power, there—or any woman—has power, there are people out there who are determined to undo that power, Especially if they find you undeserving. And so any time the sun goes down, number one, I have to make sure that I’m inside, and I would stack chairs and anything heavy in front of my door. I would triple-check the locks. I was in my mid-twenties and couldn’t sleep by myself. I remember the one night that my partner was going to be gone, I sat down with my therapist and said “I need you to help me mentally stabilize enough to get through this night.” And she would give me grounding techniques like “look around the room, identify things that start with a B, the letter B.” And that night, I was doing my little exercise and all of a sudden, the doorknob started rattling. And I thought “this is it: this is how I die.” That my house is being stormed, my bed was shaking, I was like “there must be a man at the foot of my bed shaking it. But then my wardrobe started whomping against the wall, and I realized that it was an earthquake, and the relief that I felt (laugh) was so, like, it was just this huge breath of air left my body, and I just laid in bed wiggling around. I was like “oh, it’s just an earthquake, and it’s not a bunch of men who have entered my house!” And that’s so striking to me, but even something like an earthquake, it was better because there’s no malice in it, right? There’s no hostility, the earth isn’t trying to be mean to you, but that just says a lot at the time about just how hypervigilant I was all the time. And how difficult it is just to move on from these things. It’s really hard to trick your brain into saying that you’re safe. You know, sleeping becomes a luxury.
Paul: The other thing that I think is so difficult is to quiet the mean voice in your head. Especially when you are about to share your story with somebody and there is that fear that they are gonna minimize it, or think that you’re a baby, or an exaggerator, and—just talk about that, if you would, and what that feels like.
Chanel: Yeah. I—it’s so—it’s—I just want to say that it is such a gift when a survivor comes to you with their story, and often we worry that it’s a burden. I worried that if I tell the people I love, it’s like setting them on fire, like “here’s this urgent, terrifying thing that you now have to deal with, that you cannot unsee, and I know that it’s confusing and dark.” And that’s why I refrained from telling people for so long, you know, if I can contain the fire and extinguish it myself, that’s how I want it to be. It took me a long time to realize that when you tell someone, that person should almost take it as, like, a compliment. That they’re someone that you feel like you can trust, and that, to me, is a successful person. Like, you are a good person if someone can come to you with the heavy stuff. I don’t care what else you accomplish in life, like, that is what we need to do foundationally as humans. So, just know that if someone comes to your story, it’s very precious, and you need to handle it carefully, you know, don’t drop it, don’t throw it back. And you don’t have to fix it, you don’t have to solve what the next step is going to be, you don’t have to be the ultimate healer, you literally just need to hold that story that they gave you with two hands and say “I’m going to share this weight with you so that you’re not carrying it alone.” And often, just that presence, and just that open listening is enough.
Paul: One of the things that survivors experience is something being taken from them. It’s hard to put into words: it might be innocence, it might be a sense of autonomy or safety in the world or agency over our body. Often a feeling of being an object, or invisible, and when our pain is seen and felt by someone else, it’s the—it’s the opposite of that. And it had never occurred to me that the road to healing was gonna be going through those moments where I was afraid somebody was gonna say “you’re kinda making a big deal of this” or “why don’t you—don’t you think it’s time to—to let that go?” And the times that somebody would sit with me, and especially if—when I would be sharing my story—tears would come to their eyes, it was the most healing thing in the world to me because it went beyond the intellectual.
Chanel: Yes.
Paul: It—I dunno, try to—try to just talk about that if you—if you could.
Chanel: Well the first person I ever told about the assault besides my parents was my boss, and by then a few months had already passed of me just keeping this secret alone in my room and pretending like everything was normal. The only reason I told her was because I was going to have to leave work to pursue this case. And I anticipated reactions like “okay, we’ll have to find someone to fill in for you” like I thought it would go immediately to logistics. And then when I sat down to tell her, I remember a single tear just came out of her eye, and it shocked me, because I thought this type of behavior—especially at work—would reveal “oh, you—this is what you do on the weekends? Like, you drink and party?” I thought it would lead to questioning my abilities, when really, as a human, she was telling me that my assault was sad. And it’s something that I couldn’t even acknowledge in myself yet: how devastating this was. How long term the effects would be. So the fact that she just had that human response told me so much. It was the first sign of “maybe I’m not seeing things clearly. Maybe I’m not even like, feeling them in full yet.” But again, it’s like a drop of water escaping has so—communicates so much to me that I needed.
Paul: One of the things that people share often, either when they’re a guest on the podcast or especially through the surveys that people take anonymously on the website is they will share that the most traumatic things that they have experienced around this is often not the assault itself, but the reaction of other people. A parent, you know, staying silent about it, not confronting the perpetrator, or the justice system.
Chanel: Absolutely.
Paul: Which, in your book, you go into such great detail of describing what it is like. I thought I knew, you know, from having read all the surveys. I had no idea. No idea what you were in for and what you went through. I just wanna—as uncomfortable as it probably is for you to get a compliment, I just wanna commend you on your strength on not giving up.
Chanel: Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah there were definitely times—this is the thing though: I did give up many times. I gave up on myself again and again, but other people didn’t give up on me. They kept showing up for me, and so I think, too, about the term victim versus survivor. Like, yes, I am praised as a survivor now, but it’s not just because I chose to survive, it’s—I think that it is society’s job to help with the conversion of victim to survivor. It is not some journey we take on our own and prevail because we’re a triumphant character, it’s because society is with us every step of the way, and for me, there were just enough people at each stage to get me through and onto the next stage to sustain me. But I, you know, there were many times I thought “I’m done with this. I really can’t do this anymore.”
Paul: I think it’s also surprising that the person that we should be the most afraid of in going from recovery to surviving is ourselves.
Chanel: Yeah. Absolutely. And I—I—that’s part of why I wanted to write the book is to kind of give you a tour of my internal life, because from the outside, you read about my case, and it’s me versus him, and I wanted to also talk about the deeper layer of me versus me, and how horrible I could be to myself. The things I was saying are really upsetting to look back on, and just how long it took me to get to a place where I could advocate for myself. I want people to see that it’s not easy, and that you have to be very patient, and that self-love takes a lot of practice. That I still do. I do talks all the time, especially with college students, and I always say “be gentle to yourself” and I repeat it because I need to hear it. I need an insane amount of repetition in order to really continue to be kind to my own mind and heart.
Paul: I have a friend who has struggled with sobriety for decades, and he can’t stop using cocaine, and we talk almost every day and the shame that he battles is so deep, and the one thing I try to say to him every time is “I love you whether you’re high or not.”
Chanel: Yeah.
Paul: “…You are loveable. You are worthy of love.” And he always says, you know, “thank you, I needed to hear that.” But the fact that I can say that to him every day and every day he forgets that because we think that if somehow we fuck up or something happens to us that sends us into a place of confusion and shame, that all of a sudden we’re not worthy of love, and that, to me, is the biggest hurdle in going from being a victim to a survivor is quieting that mean voice. And when we’re trying to heal on our own, that is home field advantage for the darkness.
Chanel: (laughs) Yeah, that’s--
Paul: It’s—we are fucked. We are fucked, man. It’s like, you know, that mean voice is the most brutal prosecuting attorney, it’s up before we get up in the morning. It’s had an omelette, it is standing over us when we open our eyes and it is saying “you are a piece of shit that slept too long, boy did you blow it.”
Chanel: This is too funny because it’s too real. Oh my goodness.
Paul: And we need a defense team, man! We need a defense team. We are uniquely positioned to be our own best friend, and if we said the things that we say to ourselves to another person, they would get a restraining order.
Chanel: I know! (laughs) That’s correct. You know, for me, it—that didn’t click into place—my self-advocating didn’t begin until the night after my sister was cross-examined on the stand. She came home, I was trying to say “let’s put on some TV: make ourselves feel better.” When I looked at her, she was so vacant. Couldn’t engage. And I saw her withdrawing, and I knew that the defense had convinced her that it was her fault that night for stepping away—for not preventing this, and that she was believing these really poisonous ideas. And in that moment, this defense attorney who I thought was so intimidating with so many degrees, I realized just some old man, probably asleep somewhere with his contacts by his bed and his tube socks on, and I was like “I am going to grab my keys, go—like shoot out the door and just find him,” and really, I just wanted to confront him as a human being like “how could you do this?” And that is when my fear dissolved, because it was always clear to me that my sister should be protected, that she didn’t deserve to be, you know, verbally assaulted like this. That she shouldn’t have to suffer through all of this self-doubt. There was never a question to any of that in my mind and I began to apply some of that really clear, potent, knowing that I gave to her to myself also. And so that’s what helped, I think—I think, my love for her translated into a love for me, and is what got me through the case.
Paul: Why do you think, evolutionarily, our brains are so mean to ourselves, and why it resists taking care of ourselves, saying “you’re worth it, I love you,” you know, all the stuff that we need to heal. I mean, there must be a vestige of something that is important to our survival in there, but for the life of me, I can’t imagine what it is.
Chanel: well, I think our brains can be sort of helpless, just like goopy Silly Putty that is filled with terrible dialogue and that loves to compare you to others and absorb insults really freely, but thankfully, our bodies speak their own language. And so, even if I went into court thinking “I’m gonna be composed and I’m gonna be strong and tell them who I am.” It didn’t matter. As soon as we got to the questions about waking up in the hospital, it’s like the lights went out in my mind. My neck would wilt, and I would just be heaving crying. I couldn’t even breathe, and the judge would have to stop everything and wait for me to go to the bathroom to collect myself, but that was never my decision. But it was my body’s decision. This—we’re gonna do a full stop here because we have maxed out on capacity to tolerate the feelings and memories that are being brought back. And so I didn’t realize it at the time, but my body was dictating so much of what was happening, and thankfully, you know, even when I was writing, sometimes I would get really sick, and I would almost feel relief, like “oh now—now I can ask for a break, because I literally (laughs) can’t look at the screen and there’s like snot flowing out of my nose so they’ll understand.” You know, but luckily our bodies will jump in, but at the same time we shouldn’t have to wait for them to become ill or cramped in order for us to understand that mentally, we need some breathing room or assistance.
Paul: I think especially when we’re dealing with depression, whether it’s related to a trauma or not, one of the most helpful things that I started telling myself when I would say “Oh really, you’re gonna take another fuckin’ nap you lazy piece of shit?” I would say “well, you know, if I had the flu, the physical flu, I wouldn’t be saying that to myself, but depression is a flu of the spirt, the soul, whatever you want to call it, and why shouldn’t I take care of that right now?” I would tell my best friend “go lay down. Don’t beat yourself up, you know, go recharge your battery.”
Chanel: And I don’t understand, you know, when I started writing the book, I thought “I’m gonna write every day for many hours just like a regular job, this is what they’re paying me to do.” And then I would read through court transcripts and often find a lot of information I didn’t even know about, and be totally thrown. Not a--all sense of putting--stringing words together were lost, and I wouldn’t enter my office for days, and I thought “you’re wasting time, like you’re not being productive,” when in fact, I was working. Processing is working. You have to allow yourself at least five days for your body to recalibrate and digest all this disturbing new information. It doesn’t matter when the deadline is. And if you try and show up, your tummy’s gonna hurt and make you sit back down (laughs). So, but I just think we just don’t consider it work when it is. It’s really hard work that often, people will try their best not to do and avoid doing.
Paul: has there come a point where you share your story now and your body doesn’t go into fight or flight mode?
Chanel: Yeah, I mean, that’s what’s so amazing. So again, like, I don’t think these stories, stories of assault, are too hard or dark to tell if the context is right, right? Like I do believe in our ability to handle these stories if the context is nourishing and set up properly, right? So, it’s so strange that when I told the same story in court I would leave feeling hollow, and want to just melt into the ground and never be seen again, whereas when I would sit down for a 60 Minutes interview that was over a hundred questions, multiple hours, I would leave feeling light. Like, where should I go get dinner in New York now, and the reason is because whenever I cried during the interview they would stop, someone would come comb little pieces of hair out of my face, pull tissues from their fanny pack, you know, and refill my water, you know, feed me salad, let me choose extra toppings like wonton crisps and wasabi peas. They spent extra money on that. So, I was being tended to as a person and a human with needs, and that, to me, signaled that I could trust them, and that no one was like, “ugh, this is taking too long. This is costing us.” It was like, “no, shut it down until Chanel feels better because that’s all that matters. She is the center of this story.” So, same story, different context, completely different experience.
Paul: Do you feel like, well, first of all, is there anything else that you would like to share before we dive into some fears and loves?
Chanel: (laughs) Um, no, I just—I love what you said earlier about repetition, and I think that’s so important, that it’s okay if we need to hear it every day, if that’s what we require, if that’s how much our plants need to be watered, that’s how much it takes, so…
Paul: Yeah, healing a wound is never linear, it is never clear cut, it’s confusing, it’s a lot of two steps forward, one step back. There is no one size fits all, but the one thing I don’t think we can ever go wrong doing with whether we’re supporting somebody else or ourselves is love, as corny as it sounds, and it doesn’t have to be, like you said, fixing somebody, it can just be letting them see that you hear them, that you feel them, it’s such a powerful thing.
Chanel: Yeah, it’s the most powerful thing, I think, you can give somebody.
Paul: And sometimes I think that, you know, part—if there is a benevolent force in the universe, we sometimes wonder “why do people suffer, how could a benevolent force in the universe want that to happen?” and, I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that inside everything ugly, there is always a kernel of something that’s beautiful that may or may not get a chance to flourish, but if we do reach out, share our story, ask for help or show up to help somebody else, we get a chance to find that thing when we open that.
Chanel: Totally. That kernel poppin’ into popcorn.
Paul: Poppin’ into popcorn!
Chanel: For everybody.
Paul: Yeah. I will start off, let’s do some fears: I will start off with a fear. I tested positive for Covid on Saturday, but the only thing that it has affected is my sense of smell, and I am afraid that I will never smell again.
Chanel: Wow, that’s very real, and then taste too is gone, right?
Paul: Pretty much, I can taste a little bit. I can taste like if something is sour or sweet, but eating food without smelling, essentially, why have a sense of taste, cause it’s really—yeah
Chanel: Oh my gosh, so you’ve just been eating raw cabbage. Raw lettuce.
Paul: (laughs) I’ve--
Chanel: All the healthy things.
Paul: Yeah, well I had to start doing that before then. I had to make a diet change anyway. But yeah there’s a real sense of kind of dread and foreboding around food, which I’d always just taken for granted that I will be able to enjoy the things I love. And now, that being thrown into—into doubt, you know the catastrophizing part of our brain. I don’t know about yours but mine is alive and healthy. Probably the biggest part of my brain. But yeah, so that’s a fear of mine.
Chanel: Oh my gosh, well I was gonna say I don’t, like, okay I have to reevaluate ‘cause Coronavirus and never tasting savory foods again (laughs) really setting the bar—
Paul: I should not have started off with that—that was totally unfair.
Chanel: I have deep fears, but I was gonna do a little one (laughs)
Paul: Yeah, no, little ones are good, I actually—I like the little ones, ‘cause those are the ones that are like mosquitos following us around during the day.
Chanel: Yeah, oh my gosh, a little tiny fear I have—well, I’m new to New York and so the snow was new and so a fear was always ice: I never understood how to tell where there’s ice or not. And so I walked-- you should have seen the way I walked, it was so strange, just like on my toes with my arms out. I was like “how do New Yorkers balance so well? How do they know how to read the black ice and the sidewalks, and so I’m just a little human trying to get used to the weather over here.
Paul: Well, as a Midwesterner I can tell you: look for shine.
Chanel: Shine! See this is the advice I need.
Paul: If it’s shiny at all—yes. But sometimes you will be taken off guard, and I think walking with your arms out is a great idea. Trust me, in New York, you’re not gonna look odd.
Chanel: Yeah, right. (laughs)
Paul: I am afraid as I age and I lose elasticity in my neck and chin, somebody’s gonna look at me from the side and go “oh look, a turkey.”
Chanel: (laughs) That’s funny. Well I don’t know how to relate because I have a beautiful neck. But I do—I always had eczema as a kid growing up, which are like pink, dry spots all over my body, and so, and whenever I stress it would flair back up, and so, for me it’s like “don’t you dare go over the stress level where your eczema returns, you have to preserve these smooth patches.” So I guess I fear eczema.
Paul: That seems like a genuine thing to fear.
Chanel: Yeah
Paul: I’m afraid—this one’s so dark and fucked up, but almost every day when I’m lovin’ on my dog, is I think, this thought pops into my head, “you’re going to witness her dying in a horrible way and it’s going to scar you forever.” It’s such a fuckin’ mean thing, but I think it’s a part of us that when we love, we are risking getting hurt.
Chanel: Yeah. Yeah, I know I’m—I’m so happy we have a vaccine now, but I think we should also be working on a potion that makes dogs immortal. Like it just seems so cruel that we sign up (laughs)
Paul: That we outlive them
Chanel: --to give everything to them and then—they should be lifetime dogs. I don’t know who the heck decided on the average of a 14 year lifespan. Like, when was that put into the calculation? But I feel you on that one. And, you know I—in the book I talk about fostering senior dogs. But that helped reframe everything because, we even had a wiener dog named Squid for a while who had testicular cancer, and if you go in with the frame of mind that you don’t know how long it’s going to be, it’s likely going to be short, but on the flipside, instead of them being in a shelter, they get to eat the finest meats you could offer, and like, high thread count sheets. They can sleep in bed with you, you can give them the cushiest pillows. There’s something actually really joyful and sweet about that even though you know it’s not forever.
Paul: I have to say: my hat is off to people that adopt adult dogs, ‘cause I could not do it. I wish I could. It’s such a noble thing to do. I don’t know how you do it because for me, the fear of pain is so—is so great, especially around animals, that I—yeah, that’s awesome that you do that. Who did the last fear? I think I did the last fear about my dog.
Chanel: I—okay I did eczema and then dog. Oh yeah right, another fear. I mean, well yeah. I mean the fear spectrum is wide, right?
Paul: Wide.
Chanel: We could go very, very dark about all the twisted things that can happen to people.
Paul: I love those, I love hearing those because I feel less alone when I hear somebody else’s catastrophizer firing up.
Chanel: Well, I mean, any--losing anyone it just seems so—I think as a young person I cannot believe that in my lifetime I’ll have to lose my parents, and just—just that that’s going to be natural and I think I used to be very daunted by this idea and wanting to kind of sign off on my life early because I’m like “is life just a series of perpetual losses, like why do any of us do this? Why do we fall in love with anything if we know that everything has an expiration date?” Like, that just seemed so ludicrous and so endlessly painful to me. But I think—but I think what I needed to realize is that you—you just sign up for the pain and it’s not about avoiding the pain, but for me it’s continuing to give language to it. Like I feel very lucky that I have writing to process it. But even after the assault, you know, like, there were a lot of losses that happened, and I-- there’s so many joys in my life now, like the fact that I get to be a writer and live in New York, but that doesn’t mean—I never was able to cleanse myself of a layer of sadness, right? About what happened, and I think that’s okay. I think it’s okay to be sad. For the rest of my life that for whatever reason my life pivoted in this direction. And that doesn’t eliminate any of my joys but I just—I realize that there’s way more room to have these feelings coexist than I thought there was. There’s so much more space for painful feelings to be a part of the everyday.
Paul: Yeah. Another thing I was struck by in your book is the emotional maturity of grasping the idea that people can be both light and dark. That if somebody does something quote-unquote “bad”, they are not necessarily a monster. What they did might be monstrous, but there’s also a part of them—they might be helpful in the community, you know. They might be a great sibling or father or mother, and that’s a really important thing, I think for—not only for society but for ourselves because it’s really easy if we are resenting somebody to go to that place of just wanting to make that person invisible or to say that they don’t exist or that they’re not worthy of life. Even serial killers are worthy of love. They should be locked up for the rest of their lives, but they are still worthy of love.
Chanel: Mm hm. Yeah. Yeah. Just keeping the human component in mind. I didn’t like, kind of, the characterization that took place in the courtroom and in the media. I didn’t like—it’s not just victim versus villain. And I also—I wanted to acknowledge that I am also a nuanced person. I didn’t want to present myself as this polished, good victim, again, as if I was trying to prove that I didn’t deserve what had happened. I wanted to be honest and proud—I’ve had a messy life too, I’ve made mistakes in my life, but you are not allowed to hurt me. And making a mistake is not the same as hurting someone. Yeah.
Paul: Let’s go to some loves.
Chanel: Loves!
Paul: Yeah! I love that first day of spring when you get to wear different clothes and it’s still kinda cold out, but the snow is melting and you can smell the grass and the dirt in a way that you wouldn’t’a noticed five months earlier.
Chanel: That actually happened to me today. It’s about 62 degrees here today in New York, and there was puddles of snow melt on the asphalt and the combination of that water which was full of dirt baking in the sun, there was something so earthy and wonderful about—you know the smell of sun baking asphalt. That reminds me of elementary school, then you combine that with the water from the snow and it was super, super lovely. And I love being surprised by senses. I think they can kind of strike you out of your thoughts for a moment, like “hey, by the way you’re walking down the street as an alive being” and so it makes it impossible to live completely just in your dome.
Paul: Gimmie a love.
Chanel: Mm, I love, I love hashbrowns that are crispy and when you combine them with beans and hot coffee. I love when coffee is served in like, the pot belly—you know what I mean at diners when it’s in that big basin?
Paul: The big glass carafe thingy?
Chanel: Yeah, yeah, the sphere.
Paul: Do you like when a waitress in her seventies says “would you like a warmup, doll?”
Chanel: (laughs) Yeah, that’s sweet. Yeah, I just like, love that full satiation--which isn’t even a word--that just like, that total indulgence, like any time I feel depleted. Yeah comfort foods. But something just so solid and warm on days when I can’t find language, on days where I don’t know how to make myself feel better, like, those are just solid, radiating good things.
Paul: Like that third or fourth sip of coffee, you know, maybe you’re at a diner with some friends and they’re talking and you’re just feeling like, like you’re out of it and you’re not contributing anything and you’re just feeling like “oh god I’m just antisocial, I’m depressed, etcetera” and you get that third or fourth swig of coffee and all of a sudden you wanna talk, and you feel like you’re a part of the scene.
Chanel: Totally. Part of the scene. And like sometimes you just realize you were upset because you were hungry. (laughs)
Paul: Is it my turn? ‘cause that was yours. I was just piggybacking on yours. I love the feeling of a pen that writes really smoothly. Especially when you’re sitting down to do something that you don’t wanna do, like, I dunno, journaling or something that’s quote-unquote “good for you”, and you realize “oh, this can actually even feel good on my senses”
Chanel: Mm hm. Yeah. Even, well I think about signing receipts sometimes. Receipts can be really smooth, slippery surfaces and when the right pen signs it, it’s very satisfying.
Paul: That’s a good one. That’s a good one.
Chanel: But yes, I’m very, very invested in my pens. I have my book signing pen, which is a felt tip. Yeah.
Paul: I imagine the line for the book signings has been—have you been able to do it with Covid?
Chanel: I did a few right before lockdown. I did a couple. Yeah.
Paul: It must’ve been really moving.
Chanel: Really, really moving. And it’s interesting, a lot of people do cry, and then will quickly apologize, and I try and—
Paul: And you say “you should be ashamed of yourself for crying.”
Chanel: Yeah, I say “get outta here. Stop wasting my time.” No, I just—I just try and make it as clear as possible that if there’s any place you can cry, it’s here, now, and I never want them to leave feeling embarrassed or like they spilled something and need to clean it up because I hated being made to feel that way, and it’s, again, it’s such a gift if they can allow themselves to feel that in front of me. It’s such a signal of trust, and I do my best to just make space for that, so I really do miss that.
Paul: Well I imagine that you’ll get back to it once the—we’re out of this, right?
Chanel: Yeah, I hope so. Although I also hope I’ll be working on—I am working on other projects, you know, I think that’s what I love doing now is sort of writing fictional stories for younger kids and really exercising my imagination and realizing like not all writing has to kill you in order to be good. (laughs) So, at first I was like “is something wrong? Like, is this not a worthy project if I’m not like, gutting myself every day?” but, I think the fact that joy has felt so foreign to me means something and that it actually means that I need to be doing this project more, that it’s in fact really important that I execute it. And just feel like “oh, life can also be lighthearted and wonderful too.”
Paul: That’s one of the things that I think made your book so effective is the injection of humour into it in a really organic way. I found myself laughing out loud at passages in there where it just got so silly, and I think anybody reading it understood that this is coming from a place of necessity, like I need to find that light because it has been too much dark. And it’s always there! I think you cracked a joke with your sister on the way home from the hospital if I’m not mistaken and I think anybody who has gone through something similar will probably recognize themselves in that.
Chanel: Yeah, yeah that morning my clothes had been confiscated for evidence and this wonderful organization called Grateful Garments had provided sweaters and sweatshirts, but I put them on and then when my sister picked me up, I remember sort of doing a model walk through the parking lot and saying that I looked like a P.E. teacher and just, you know how ridiculous I looked at the time. Because like you said, we cannot survive without moments of levity. Yeah.
Paul: Who did the last love?
Chanel: Well, technically, I said I love working on books for younger readers.
Paul: Right, oh right, yes. I was gonna ask you: do you ever anticipate doing standup again?
Chanel: That’s a good question! Yeah, I had done it out of a need, and something I appreciated at the time was that because I was so miserable it made me really fearless, like I was like “nothing can be worse than what I’ve already been through” and then I think as time passes, I get in my head again, I get more self-conscious and precious about what I put into the world. But I do—I do think—it’s not out of the question that I’ll return to comedy to discuss these more difficult topics because I think people also hear it better sometimes.
Paul: Absolutely, and I think it’s a much more welcoming environment than it was say ten, fifteen years ago. I think—yeah, I think—I think you’d make a great standup comedian.
Chanel: Thank you. That’s very kind.
Paul: I really do. Let’s see, love. I think I’ve done this one before but I’m gonna do it again. I love when you find a series on Netflix or something else and you watch the first episode and it ends and you’re like “oh, I’m totally watching all eight episodes before I go to bed.” Especially if you have nothing planned for the next day. It’s like Christmas.
Chanel: That’s so true. Yeah, when you’ve found something you’re ready to invest in, that’s very true. And it’s like you get to be a little citizen of a different world for like a day. I love—again, this is new to living in New York, but coming back from like, grocery shopping or anything in the winter and the feeling of just like putting down your bags and taking off your mask, then unravelling your scarf and taking off your gloves. It’s like, I’d never known so many layers, but it’s that more—so much more satisfying to take each one off, and then at the end you’re like this little liberated person in a warm apartment so that’s quite fun for me.
Paul: I love the feeling of shelter when you walk in someplace warm after it’s really cold and windy outside.
Chanel: Totally, yep.
Paul: Alright, let’s do one more love each. I love watching a comedy special with my girlfriend and seeing her laugh uncontrollably, and even if what she’s laughing at didn’t make me laugh initially, I find myself laughing because I so enjoy watching her laugh.
Chanel: Yeah. That’s so fair. So contagious. And I love when it gets loopy, like to the loopy level. That’s like the perfect pitch for laughter. Well, I love that it’s a Tuesday afternoon, I can spend an hour sort of revisiting what I consider the most dramatic parts of my life, and then after this, you’ll feel alright, and feel actually better for having had this conversation and then go make my dinner and continue on with my evening, you know I think it’s such a beautiful thing that it’s—that before revisiting, this meant that I would be out for a week, or that I would have to sleep for a week, whereas now it’s just such a part of my everyday life. It’s something that feels so casual now, but something that I truly could not have envisioned a few years ago, so I don’t take my visibility or these conversations for granted, and I know that my old self would just be like, stunned at the fact that I’m doing this, so that’s something that I love.
Paul: Well, I love that, and think that also speaks to how our body can be our best friend by telling us, “this energizes you” or “this depletes you” And that gives us information that can be helpful for us as we navigate to say “do I wanna hang out with this person that drains me? Or do I need to reexamine my relationship with them?” or “boy, I notice when I go to that support group, I always feel better about my life afterwards. I always feel a sense of being invigorated” and yeah, I love that.
Chanel: Totally. Paying attention. Like I’m always checking in with my body during interviews, like “how am I positioned? Is my stomach tightened up or do I feel just calm like a bean bag, you know? So it’s wonderful.
Paul: Well, Chanel, again, congratulations on a really, really great book. I mean, you, not to blow smoke up your ass, but you have left a legacy at the ripe age of—what are you? 26?
Chanel: I actually--I just am 28 now.
Paul: 28.
Chanel: So I’ve been inside this story for six years, which is also—but I wrote the book between the ages of 24 and 27.
Paul: Yeah, well you’ve left, even if you did nothing else, you left a really great legacy that will be helpful for generations to come.
Chanel: Yeah well I’m just so, I feel like I’ve been so taken care of by the world and so the book really was a thank you note in many ways to all the people who sustained me over the years and never gave up on me and continue to help elevate my story like you, so thank you Paul, for having me here today.
Paul: Aw, It’s been my pleasure.
***
Paul: Really enjoyed talking to her and if you have not read Know My Name yet, really, really recommend it. It’s a book that I think should be required reading in school for kids. We are sponsored this week by BiOptimizers. They have a product called magnesium breakthrough, and when they approached me about sponsoring the show, I said “I can definitely talk about magnesium supplements because I’ve taken them in the past and some are more effective than others.” And something that I didn’t know is a lot of the cheaper magnesium supplements only have two forms of magnesium and they’re synthetic and the magnesium breakthrough that BiOptimizers has has all seven magnesium forms. And magnesium helps you with your sleep when I’m low on it, man, I get restless leg, I feel on edge, I don’t get that sense of calm that I like to feel. So, try magnesium breakthrough, you just take two capsules before you go to bed and you probably like how you feel. So, for an exclusive offer for you guys, go to magbreakthrough.com/mental and use “mental” during checkout to save 10% off and you get free shipping. That’s magbreakthrough.com/mental and then use offer code “mental for 10% off any order. We are sponsored this week by the Jordan Harbinger Show. Jordan’s been a guest on this podcast and he’s a great guy, he’s a great interviewer, I’ve been a guest on his podcast as well, and he’s been crushin’ it for years. His podcast was named one of the top podcasts by Apple in 2018. He has really fascinating guests. Couple of recent episodes he had Dwayne Wade the NBA superstar on who talks about having imposter syndrome. He had Richard Clark on who is kind of a foreign policy anti-terrorism expert who’s written some amazing books. Slough of amazing guests and Jordan’s just, he’s a great guy. Very smart, very funny, and I think one of the things that makes his podcasts great is that he always pulls little nuggets of wisdom from the interviews and he really helps people cultivate critical thinking. So, check it out. You can’t go wrong with adding the Jordan Harbinger show to your rotation, it’s incredibly interesting, there’s never a dull show. Search for the Jordan Harbinger show, that’s H-A-R-B as in boy, I-N as in Nancy, G-E-R on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Let’s jump into some surveys. This is from the fears survey filled out by… Bebby? Beebee? B-E-B-E? Bubba? And she writes: “I have a fear of falling off the edge of society and becoming a hermit unable to provide for myself and at the mercy of public funds. Even though I have a master’s degree, I’m uncertain about my skills in the quote ‘real world’. I haven’t yet obtained my first real gig as an adult and I wonder if there’s anything out there that I can do. The problem is that I’m not without skill, it is that my skills might only fit on a small shelf that’s hard to find, meaning I don’t want a regular job, I want the right kind of job that’s right for me. Is it too much to ask? I fear I’ll never find my shelf.” Is that a typo? No, I don’t think so because she referred to shelf earlier. Oh my god, slow this down more, Paul. Sweet mother of god. Thank you for sharing that, and I think a lot of people have that anxiety about “I’m not where I’m supposed to be in my life, and I might never be there” and that is understandable. Sending you a hug, some love. I think it’s so important to follow our passion, because a lot of times, and this is advice my parents gave me growing up that I’m really grateful for is they would say “If you do what you enjoy for a living, there’s a change you will do it well and you will be able to make your living from that.” And, tip of the cap to the parents.
This is from the back in time survey filled out by a guy who calls himself Remarks. And he writes: “I go back to when I was 14. My bipolar mother and I were literally homeless. The family member we were living with died and his house was claimed by the city for back property taxes. I lost many of my belongings because we didn’t get of all our stuff moved out in the house before they put padlocks on the doors. I would say to a 14-year-old me that this is not normal. It’s okay to feel like your life is a mess. It’s okay to feel something, anything, just don’t shove it all down and ignore it. One day things will get better but you’re gonna have to deal with this shit before you can move on. You don’t have to be the strong one all the time, you’re still a kid.” Thank you for that. Man, that had to be so hard. I can’t imagine, I can’t imagine. Any comments to make the podcast better? “You can never promote the forums too much. There are some great people on there, but we can always use more.” Thank you for reminding that. If you go to our website mentalpod.com, there’s a forum there and there’s just tons and tons and tons of threads that you can join or you can create a thread of your own, but a lot of really, really supportive people there.
This is from the loves survey filled out by Jellyfish, and they write: “I recently started fostering cats for a local animal rescue. We already have two cats and I would love to have a third but my partner thinks it’s too much for our one-bedroom apartment. We’re also both slightly allergic so his resistance is more than logical. Fostering is our compromise. Most of the cats have been abandoned or are strays and the majority of them are very shy and startle easily. We’ve only fostered a couple of cats so far but I love bonding with a new cat. We keep the foster isolated in the bedroom away from our resident cats for the first two weeks so they have a quiet space to get comfortable. One or both of us goes in and does a quiet activity for a couple hours a day to help them get used to our smells and the sound of our voices. Usually I read on the bed or on the floor or I talk quietly on the phone. Depending on the cat you might not see them at all for the first few days. I love the moment when a little nose pokes out of a hiding spot you didn’t even know existed. I love when you wake up in the morning after the first night with a new foster cat and see that they’ve eaten all their food and used the litterbox, even if you currently have no idea where they are. I love getting a cat excited by a toy or watching them experience catnip for the first time, and best of all, I love the first time they accept a pet from you, or in the case of our new foster: demand a belly rub. Watching these scaredy cats come out of their shell has been my greatest joy of 2020. Aw, that was, that was, you know I’m a sucker for pets, so those always get to me.
This is from the shame and secrets survey. This is filled out by a guy who calls himself Pork Chop Champ 2015. Oh, that was probably the closest year in the porkchop championships. It was neck-and-neck. He identifies as straight, he’s in his 20’s, was raised in a slightly dysfunctional environment. Never been sexually abused, not sure if he’s been physically or emotionally abused. Darkest thoughts: “If we’re talking about specifically dark thoughts, and I would have to say that sometimes I randomly have a realization that I could very easily just grab a random sharp object, any sharp object, really, and jab it into someone’s eye and nothing could stop me. It’s fucked up, and I don’t actually want to do that but that is something that randomly pops up into my head.” And I think those thoughts are super common, and the fact that you don’t wanna do that means you’re normal. For some people, they can’t get those thoughts out of their head, and they have no desire to do it, but I’ve had many therapists on this podcast talking about compulsive thinking, and the more you worry that you’re thinking those thoughts, the more fuel it gives to them. Listen to the episode with Kimberly Quinlan, she’s a great therapist and talks really really eloquently about “pure O” as they call it. Darkest secrets: “I used to be an alcoholic and dur—” my understanding of alcoholism is that you are or you aren’t. That there is no—you may used to have drank alcoholically, but my understanding of alcoholism is that it is--there’s a saying that it’s--if you think of yourself as a cucumber, an alcoholic is like a pickle. You can never go back to being a cucumber again. Anyway, continuing, “—during that time I was so embarrassed by the amount that I was drinking that I didn’t take out any of the cans of beer. The amount eventually accumulated into a literal mound of cans that made walking around my room impossible. The mound reached the height of my waist and covered the entirety of the room. Bugs began to infest my room. When my roommate found out, I took it upon myself to clean everything out and move out. It took around ten to fifteen garbage cans full of empty cans to clean it out. I don’t talk to my roommate anymore out of shame and why would he want to talk to me anyways? I still struggle with addiction, but not as badly as I used to. After that alcoholic episode I stopped drinking, but I then became a stoner until that became a problem. I quit smoking weed more recently, I still think about drinking until I black out or smoking until I get panic attacks all the time. I just don’t enjoy being sober.” Buddy, I relate. I have lived in that in-between place where you don’t wanna get fucked up anymore, but you don’t wanna get sober, and it is a terrible place to live, and in my experience, support groups were the only thing that filled that hole in me, and I didn’t think it was gonna. Thought it was gonna be lame, and I was surprised. But I know it’s not—it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but you might check out some support groups and, you know, maybe go in there open minded. Sexual fantasies most powerful to you: “Teens are the main one, and I don’t think that’s too abnormal but I think the reason why is abnormal: I’ve never dated anyone. I’ve been on dates but not many with the same person. I’ve had sex twice. I am 30. I think I am attracted to teens because I never fucked those hot girls back when I was a young man. I do also find women of other ages attractive, but teens are for sure a main attraction, and I do not share this information with anybody.” What, if anything, would you say to someone you haven’t been able to? “I need help with the basic functions of daily life. I’ve always been alone, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, I don’t tell people because people don’t give a fuck, they have their own problems to deal with. Quote: ‘man up’.”Uh-uh. And on that I call bullshit. People do give a fuck, you just gotta find the people that give a fuck. And in my experience they are often the people in support groups, because they have a shared struggle, and they understand to a depth that other people can not understand, and, you know, the “man up” thing? That’s not manning up. Ignoring your feelings is running from your feelings. That’s not manning up, that’s a man or a woman stops and faces their demons and says “I’m gonna get into action and do something about it.” The mature response is to reach out for help. If a general was losing in a battle, they wouldn’t be a good general if they said “Well, you know, we’re just gonna let everybody die ‘cause we don’t wanna look like wimps by calling in reinforcements,” no, they would call in reinforcements. What, if anything, do you wish for? “I wish that I could be more comfortable with myself.” Have you shared these things with others? “I do not. I don’t because again, no one cares.” And again I will call bullshit. How do you feel after writing these things down? “The same.” Anything you’d like to share with someone who shares your thoughts or experiences? “We’re not unique, everyone struggles. The difference between us and everyone else is that they were willing to take risks and actually try to make the things that they want a reality. We don’t. We take the safe route out and give up on trying. It’s easier that way, that is why we are the way that we are. The only way to get better is to actually try.” Yeah, and think about baby steps. You know, if you are an alcoholic, one of the things that alcoholics and drug addicts struggle with is black and white thinking. It’s like “oh I’ve gotta either completely devote my entire life and every moment of the day to recovery or I have to ignore it and just keep getting loaded,” and it’s neither. It’s neither of those.
This is from the back in time survey filled out by MChristopherD and he writes: “Around age seven to tell myself to be honest with my parents about my health and to not hide my distress. Would have saved me a lot of pain and discomfort then and into my adulthood. I don’t know why my little brain was like that and now reminds me of a hurt dog running off from the pack to hide its wounds.” That is such a great analogy and so, so true. Thank you for sharing that and I’m glad that you had that realization as an adult. But I’m sorry you had to go through that as a kid.
This is also a shame and secrets survey filled out by Someone’s Son. He identifies as straight, is in his 20’s, was raised in a stable and safe environment, ever been the victim of sexual abuse? “Some stuff happened but I don’t know if it counts. An older girl groped me on a bus randomly, I didn’t know what to do. It was the first week of sixth grade.” What are your deepest, darkest thoughts? “I always think of fucking people, alive and dead, young and old, guys and girls, my own family members, always wish that I had the ability to know what people’s kinks are just so I can know.” Darkest secrets? “I fist myself. I’ve sucked my own penis and came into my mouth multiple times. I’ve jerked off behind people at work.” You know, I was gonna make some jokes about the cumming into your mouth multiple times, but I don’t wanna minimize the fact that you’re in pain and you know, the jerking off behind people at work is, the stuff you do by yourself is the stuff you do by yourself, and there’s no shame in that if you’re not hurting anybody. But obviously, jerking off behind people at work, that can traumatize somebody, and, um, not trying to be-- get on my soap box, but I just wanted to point that out. Sexual fantasies most powerful to you? “Fisting and getting fisted with an older woman with saggy tits, long nipples that are lactating and big labia who squirts. It makes me fee like a weirdo sharing that.” You’re not a weirdo, buddy. Everybody is turned on by what they are turned on by and it’s what we do with it, and shaming yourself is not gonna change what turns you on, but asking yourself how you can express your sexuality in a way that doesn’t forsake your moral principles, I think, is an important way to explore your sexuality and, you know, come to a place of self-acceptance. What, if anything, do you wish for? “More money, happiness, and health.” Have you shared these things with others? “I haven’t shared most things because either I’m too embarrassed or not in the person’s life anymore.” How do you feel after writing these things down? “It’s making me feel different.” I don’t know if you mean different as in isolated from other people or that you’re feeling relief from writing this down, but anything you’d like to share with someone who shares your thoughts or experiences? “All you can do is try to live life and hopefully find someone who will help you with those things.” Thank you for sharing that, man, and I really hope that you get to a place where you can accept yourself as you are, and that doesn’t mean that we give up trying to grow and become the person that we wanna be but you know it’s not like a touchdown where it’s complete failure until you cross the finish line, it’s a process. Why are they always such generic fuckin’ responses? Oh. That’s the Covid talking. I’m gonna blame that one on the Covid.
This is from the happy moments survey, and this was filled out by Fucking Finally, and he writes “Found the courage to go to therapy for the first time listening to six-ish hours of your podcast a day kind of twisted my arm, thank you, Paul.” Buddy, that made my day. That’s why I started this podcast. You know, I felt like there was a need for something out there to encourage people to get help. You know, I don’t have a degree, I am not qualified to be in the—on the front lines like the therapists and the social workers and the doctors, but I thought, you know, “I can be a cheerleader.” And I love when the podcast inspires somebody to reach out for help.
And then finally, this is from the loves survey filled out by No Way Jose, and they write “I love the smell of rice cooking. I love rice cookers. I love when a work of art stops me in my tracks. I love how warm the bed is with flannel sheets on.” Oh, that’s a great one. “I love being really thirsty after hard exercise and a big glass of water is the most satisfying thing in the world. I love when I’m able to pay a bill off early. Love the moment when I write the last check to pay off a large bill that I have been paying off for a while. I always worry about the cat’s safety when he’s outside, and I love when his little face pops up in the window and he’s made it home safe to me again. I like the feeling I have after watching some movies when for a little while afterwards I can sustain the belief that the world is a good place where things turn out okay. I love laughing so long and hard that I feel limp and fatigued afterwards and every little thing re-triggers it. I love when I can think of exactly what I want for dinner and have the money to go get it. I love the feeling of success when I fix my own appliances by watching YouTube videos. I love being able to sleep in. I love that humans make art and music for each other, and I love knowing that I will never in my life run out of books to read.” Oh, those are awesome. Thank you for those. Well, if you’re out there—Oh! We’re right at the 90 minute mark! (laughs) as if that means something. If you’re out there and you’re struggling. Don’t give up. Just, for some reason I just thought of that 70’s song Don’t Give Up On Us Baby by David Soul. Oh, you are so lucky that I didn’t start singing that. Anyway, if you’re out there, just never forget that you are not alone, and thanks for listening.
[Outro]
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