0:01

First podcast back from shoulder

0:04

surgery. If you're looking on YouTube, there's

0:06

this beautiful sling. It's

0:09

pretty, pretty massive sling. Uh

0:11

, I've got one more week to go before

0:13

this sling comes off, which is super, super exciting.

0:17

Um, I've been healing incredibly, incredibly

0:19

well, which is a

0:21

total blessing and also a sign

0:23

of how hard I have been working every

0:26

day to use a red light and

0:28

use an e-stim and put different

0:31

kinds of lotions for bruising and for inflammation.

0:34

And there's like a whole thing happening. But

0:36

, um, they did a great job. It's

0:39

doing really, really well and

0:41

I'm really glad to be back. Having

0:44

said all that, the thing I

0:46

really came back to talk about is mental

0:48

health and depression and

0:51

medication for those things. I,

0:58

I made a podcast episode

1:00

on Wellbutrin, which is an antidepressant

1:02

that I started a year and

1:04

a half ago, I think , uh, maybe last June

1:07

in 2022. And it

1:09

is by far the most listened to

1:11

top rated episode I've

1:14

ever put out, which

1:16

is wild to me, but also tells me that

1:18

there is very much a need to be

1:20

talking about these things. I'm so grateful.

1:24

Okay, this is gonna sound wrong, I'm so grateful to

1:26

Covid . But one of the silver linings

1:28

that came out of Covid was a much

1:30

greater understanding of depression, of

1:34

a much more , um, willingness

1:36

to talk about it and a more

1:38

greater willingness to seek help. And

1:42

if you've never struggled with depression, God

1:44

bless <laugh> , you have a beautiful brain,

1:47

keep at it. But for anyone who has,

1:49

and anyone who has loved ones or friends who

1:51

have, I just really want

1:53

to be furthering this conversation. One

1:56

of the reasons I did the Wellbutrin episode is

1:59

because there was a coach that I was following who was also

2:01

an artist who

2:03

always in her email seemed to really have it together

2:06

and was on top of stuff and so positive and so

2:08

manifesting and all that language. And then wrote

2:11

this email about

2:13

how she'd gone through a really long depression

2:16

and finally asked for help and

2:18

got on medication. And it really saved

2:20

her life. I

2:23

was blown away because I had no idea. And

2:26

it was really helpful to me because I

2:29

was also struggling and I

2:31

didn't feel like medication was a right fit

2:33

for me. And

2:36

it was a few months later where I realized I really

2:38

can't do this on my own. And I reached out to a

2:40

psychiatrist. I

2:43

imagine the way that I

2:45

present to people, which is incredibly peppy,

2:48

incredibly energized, incredibly

2:50

curious about the world. I

2:53

think people would find it easy to

2:55

imagine that I am happy

2:58

all the time. I'm

3:00

not , um, I mean no one is, but

3:02

I struggle a lot with depression and anxiety

3:05

and have for my entire life. But

3:07

definitely way, way, way more aware of it. When

3:10

I started college , um, is

3:13

when it got way harder and became

3:15

really clinical and needing

3:18

a lot of help. And

3:20

I tend to perk up when I talk to people. I

3:23

tend to really , um, be excited to

3:25

see other humans because it takes me out of

3:28

my overwhelming

3:30

brain space, my mindscape where

3:32

everything is really tough and scary. And

3:34

so I do come across as very energetic.

3:36

And um, but

3:39

when I'm done speaking with a friend

3:41

or done taping a podcast and I turn

3:43

everything off, I'm back to just huddling

3:46

in my bed , uh, depending on,

3:48

you know, when things are bad. So I,

3:50

I also, I lost

3:54

a really dear friend

3:57

and colleague , um, goodness,

3:59

I think about 10 years ago to

4:03

suicide. And it was the

4:06

most unexpected thing ever. She was beloved

4:09

by everybody. She was known

4:12

for , um, sorry

4:16

I haven't talked about this in a while. Um,

4:20

she was known for volunteering. She was

4:23

considered shy and quiet, but

4:25

wise and outgoing and always willing

4:27

to help. And we had all of these silly

4:29

jokes going at work. We adopted a

4:32

plant together 'cause I was part-time

4:34

and we would trade off watering

4:36

it. And

4:39

then we heard that she had died by suicide

4:42

and it's

4:46

still really hard to talk about. And so, again, I,

4:50

for those who maybe don't , um,

4:53

read as depressed and maybe

4:56

are very good, I'm also very high functioning,

4:58

depressive. I find that going

5:01

to work and doing math and getting

5:03

busy with someone else's project gives

5:05

me a sense of accomplishment and gives my brain a

5:07

place to focus other than the thoughts

5:09

that might be swirling inside of me. So one of the ways

5:11

that I got myself out of a really bad depression

5:13

in my twenties and thirties was by showing

5:15

up to work. It was like a reason to shower and a

5:18

reason to get on a subway. And by the time my legs

5:20

started moving, my brain started moving and

5:23

there was something very clean and

5:25

nice about math. There's always, I do

5:27

finance and there's always like a

5:29

point. It always adds up to something.

5:33

Uh, so you can close that loop. I

5:35

think one of the hard things about depression and anxiety is

5:37

a lot of open loops, a lot of unanswerable

5:40

questions, a lot of worrying about the future, which

5:42

no one can know and your brain can just

5:44

spin and spin and spin. So I'm a very

5:46

high functioning, depressed, I

5:49

show up energetic. I crack

5:51

a lot of jokes, mostly 'cause I

5:53

wanna cry on the inside and I find that easier. Um,

5:57

I've also noticed that when I go out into the world

5:59

to pick coffee or you know, chat up the grocery

6:01

store clerk , um, if

6:05

I'm in a really sunken mood, they

6:07

tend to reflect that back and

6:09

it makes my mood worse. It makes me feel

6:11

more, I'm shrinking as I'm talking

6:13

about it, more sad

6:15

and lonely and disconnected. And so

6:17

one of the reasons that I am peppy

6:20

when I talk to people, I don't love that word, but it's

6:22

probably accurate. I feel like a golden retriever sometimes

6:24

I'm like excited by people is

6:26

because when I'm excited and I find a

6:28

way to crack a joke that makes us both laugh, I

6:31

create connection and then

6:34

I feel that glow back on

6:36

me and that helps me in my day. So

6:40

I work really hard to connect

6:42

with people to find a way to

6:45

, um, yeah,

6:47

it's usually tell a small joke or something or notice something

6:49

about someone's hair or nails

6:51

that I can comment on or you know, the song that's

6:54

playing in the grocery store. Just some way to

6:56

kind of break through the monotony of also

6:58

grocery store clerks. Like it just looks kind

7:01

of , uh, deadening in terms of boredom.

7:04

Um, and they just get used to people going through

7:06

the line and it's, you know, kind of, it's like I

7:08

think about the DMV like breaking through the monotony

7:10

of bureaucracy. So way

7:13

off on a tangent, but talking about

7:15

sort of what it is to present to someone who

7:20

seems really happy. And

7:22

I do have a lot of joy in my life, but

7:25

I'm not a fundamentally content happy

7:28

person. I am getting there,

7:30

but mostly because of medication. And

7:33

I've gotta caveat this by saying I

7:37

obsessed with self-development. I was on antidepressants

7:39

in my twenties. They didn't really work

7:42

and they also messed up my stomach. And I've had

7:44

20 years of stomach issues ever since

7:47

then. We actually don't know if it was the antidepressants.

7:49

I also was on anti-inflammatories for

7:52

my first two shoulder surgeries and

7:54

those are known to be really hard on the stomach. So

7:57

I could also have a pre-existing stomach issue. No

8:00

one's been able to figure out what the heck's up with my stomach. We're

8:02

making progress by like trial and error, but we don't really

8:04

know. So, but what I did

8:06

know is that my stomach was too sensitive to take

8:08

medication for most of my twenties and

8:11

thirties, so it wasn't really an option

8:13

because I was in pain every day for my stomach

8:15

burning and I couldn't add any

8:17

more to that. And yeah,

8:21

that's like a whew , bad paradox 'cause

8:23

the pain was definitely not helping the depression. So

8:26

even though I wasn't against them, I just

8:28

opted out for myself because I really

8:30

, uh, didn't think my body could tolerate

8:33

them. And what

8:35

I did do was sign up for life

8:38

coaching, take a gajillion workshops, read

8:40

books, investigate, you know, I was gonna

8:42

therapy three times a week when

8:44

things are really bad. Um, I

8:47

have pretty much done everything, a ton

8:49

of woo stuff that I've probably already forgotten because

8:52

I've done so much of it. And when someone asks

8:54

me I'm like, oh yeah, I

8:55

Did that thing. Uh, I'm deeply fascinated

8:57

by the human brain. I'm deeply fascinated

8:59

by why we work against

9:01

ourselves. This is kinda the reason I started the podcast. You

9:04

know, what is it to have a creative drive inside

9:06

of you and then to not put out the song

9:08

or the novel or the whatever it is into the world

9:10

that you want. I'm really, really curious

9:12

about that. And I'm also just

9:14

been trying to solve my own anxiety and depression

9:19

and I've done a ton of work. I journal

9:21

every day <laugh>

9:24

. I know all the tricks is what I wanna say. But the

9:26

tricks don't make you happy

9:29

if your brain is like mine. So

9:32

, uh, if you haven't seen the Wellbutrin

9:34

wins, oh, so this is my other thing. I had

9:36

this phrase called the Wellbutrin

9:39

wins. Um, because I

9:41

found that just when I started taking the

9:43

Wellbutrin, my ability

9:46

to take risks exponentially

9:48

, uh, expounded,

9:51

I the fact that I decided

9:53

to leave Brooklyn and become a digital nomad

9:56

for a year, my friend and I were

9:58

like, that's the Wellbutrin win. There's

10:00

no way I would've considered that a year before

10:02

because I was so anxious about

10:05

not having roots and not being grounded and so

10:07

terrified of , um, yeah,

10:10

of like where I was planted. And so I was very

10:12

kind of huddled in my apartment, which I

10:14

loved and I loved Brooklyn. But when it was time to leave,

10:16

it was very much aided by Wellbutrin.

10:20

And the month I

10:22

remember of August when I told my landlord

10:25

I wasn't renewing my lease and got real

10:27

and I was looking for a secondhand car

10:29

and I was packing stuff up and giving away

10:31

all my furniture. There were days when I

10:33

could not get outta bed. I was so terrified by my own

10:36

decisions and I got a lot of coaching on

10:38

that. And I also started to find

10:40

that Wellbutrin allowed me

10:43

to talk to the panic before

10:45

I had been panicking about stuff.

10:48

And I knew it wasn't rational

10:50

or logical. Um, you

10:53

know, I've just kind of assumed the world is gonna end in

10:57

biblical times, earth and fire , uh, water

10:59

and fire, flooding and fire are the words I'm looking for.

11:01

And I've always felt that way. I've always just felt like

11:03

that's for sure what's gonna happen. And it's not,

11:06

it's not a precise, you know, this event

11:09

is gonna happen. It's more just like everything feels

11:11

like it's going towards a bad end. And

11:14

I could never argue with that. It was

11:16

like, I know that's maybe not true,

11:18

but it feels so true in

11:20

my system. I don't know how to argue

11:23

with that. And what I found with the Wellbutrin

11:25

is that when I was having serious

11:28

panics about leaving Brooklyn and

11:31

organizing everything, I

11:33

was able to talk to my panic and say, whew

11:35

, yeah , that makes a lot of sense right now.

11:38

And I know that

11:40

I have always figured out whatever I

11:42

have set my mind to. And I have moved and

11:44

I have gotten lost in Morocco <laugh>

11:46

. And I have , um,

11:49

you know, I have just traveled a lot.

11:51

I've done a lot of stuff and I've always

11:53

solved the problems in front of me. So I

11:56

totally get panic as much as

11:58

you want. And also I'm gonna be here and

12:00

I'm gonna keep figuring out. And

12:02

that ability to talk to

12:04

the parts of me that felt overwhelmed was

12:06

a game changer because what

12:09

I realized was before I

12:11

was saying all those things to myself, 'cause

12:13

I knew they were the quote unquote right answer, but

12:16

they didn't , um, they

12:19

didn't stick, they didn't sink in the

12:21

complete and utter belief in my bones that everything

12:23

was gonna be terrible and people were scary and

12:26

the world was dangerous. It didn't really matter

12:28

how much evidence I gave it that

12:30

was different to that, it didn't shake.

12:34

So I lived in a scary world in my

12:36

brain and the

12:39

Wellbutrin was an incredible

12:41

gift. And I started

12:43

at 150 milligrams Megs,

12:45

we say for short. I'm hoping that's milligrams.

12:48

Um, and after,

12:51

and I felt, I will also say I was on steroids

12:53

at the time trying to solve my stomach issues.

12:56

And the steroids completely knocked me

12:58

exhausted. So I was already struggling

13:00

with covid and depression. I was caretaking

13:02

an elder relative who I loved dearly and wasn't

13:05

doing well. And then I was on

13:07

steroids and just, I, I I

13:09

just gave up. I had no energy to

13:11

care about anything anymore. And that's when I knew I was in

13:13

trouble. It's when I stopped caring

13:16

about stuff that I knew was in trouble. So , um,

13:18

we started Wellbutrin and I felt in

13:20

, I was lucky. Um, most , uh,

13:23

antidepressants and mental health medications

13:26

take four to six weeks to find out , um,

13:29

how they work for you. Within a

13:31

few days I felt better. And I remember I

13:33

got tickets to the ballet and walked 30

13:35

minutes to bam, which is where um, we

13:38

have a lot of incredible arts in Brooklyn and just

13:40

felt like being in the world again. And I was like, oh , Wellbutrin,

13:43

<laugh> . Um, and then a month

13:45

later when I kind of settled, I realized , uh,

13:49

what had been such a gift before was now

13:52

was like I just started seeing how

13:54

the rest of the world was way less panicked and

13:56

how much work I still had to do to manage

13:58

my anxiety every single day, my panic and my depression.

14:01

And so we solely went up , um, to

14:04

300 milligrams and then we did 5,

14:06

450 milligrams , um, which is the max you

14:08

can really take in Wellbutrin. And uh,

14:11

every step of the way was just this extra

14:14

little protection

14:16

and softness and ability to

14:18

, um, trust

14:20

myself ability to go

14:23

out into the world. And I remember

14:25

when I first started Wellbutrin, I remember very

14:27

clearly feeling like this bubble

14:30

came around me and all of a sudden

14:32

I could understand that other people's

14:35

emotions and words and problems and

14:37

desires for me or desires for themselves

14:40

were theirs. And I was inside

14:42

my bubble and I could hear myself

14:45

a little bit, a little bit more loudly

14:47

than I could hear them in

14:49

my entire life. I've been told I'm too sensitive and

14:51

I'm too enmeshed and I'm whatever. And I'm like,

14:54

but I don't know how to change that because I feel

14:56

everyone's stuff and I hear everyone's stuff all

14:58

the time. And so I understand it's

15:01

not healthy and I want to be different, but also I

15:03

don't know how. And I

15:05

literally was like, oh, this is what normal people experience.

15:08

Like your sense of self, your

15:10

desires, your dreams for yourself, your goals

15:13

are louder than other people's and you

15:15

just get to be in this bubble. Not to say that I don't

15:17

feel everyone's else's stuff or can connect or

15:19

have empathy, but just I

15:22

get to hear myself. And I

15:24

was like, wow, this is incredible. So

15:27

that was my experience with Wellbutrin. And um,

15:34

fast forward I left Brooklyn and

15:36

I got on the road and uh,

15:40

about two months into it kind of fell

15:42

off a cliff again. Part of it had to do with

15:45

family stuff that came up. Um,

15:48

and we tried a different medication and it

15:50

did not work. It completely knocked me on my and

15:52

all I was doing was sleeping all day. And I was like, this is not a functional

15:54

medication. I need something different. And

15:57

so , uh, I asked my health coach and

15:59

she had said that Lexapro and Wellbutrin work really,

16:01

really well together. And

16:05

so I asked, can I have some Lexapro? And

16:08

my psychiatrist was like, yeah. So

16:10

I started Lexapro about a year ago last

16:13

actually I think last October, really a year

16:15

ago. And um, and

16:18

the experience I remember of Lexapro because

16:20

I was, it

16:22

might have been November when I started it 'cause I remember it

16:24

was really dark and really cold and I

16:27

was in an apartment on my own in a town I'd never been

16:29

in again, digital nomad. So I was traveling a

16:31

lot and I wasn't meeting friends all the

16:33

time or making new friends depending

16:35

on where I was. And especially when I was already

16:37

depressed and the sun was going down at four o'clock and there

16:39

was snow everywhere. I wasn't going out to

16:42

be social. So it was a very lonely time

16:44

to go through winter. I

16:46

now learned winters are not the best time to be digital

16:48

nomads in new cities. And,

16:51

and I remember feeling

16:54

like I landed in my body

16:57

and feeling like all of the emotions

16:59

that I felt were swirling around me, but

17:01

they no longer were the tsunami that was sweeping

17:04

me away. I was suddenly grounded

17:06

in my body. And I remember

17:09

a few weeks later, I don't know if we'd increased it a

17:11

little bit by then, but a few weeks later waking

17:13

up and thinking I fundamentally

17:15

feel okay in my body. And

17:18

I think I'm someone who's been dissociated

17:20

from her body for a long time and

17:22

working on that for a long time and doing a lot of somatic

17:25

therapy, which I've really been a game changer for

17:27

me and really helped me heal. But

17:30

I'm also someone whose brain is very fast,

17:32

whose brain is very strong and loud and I

17:34

can hang out in my brain for forever. And

17:39

I think it's like a chicken and egg where I

17:41

think the anxiety makes you wanna hang out in your brain

17:43

'cause it feels safe, but then your brain just spins more stories

17:45

of anxiety. And so a lot of

17:47

the practices for calming anxiety are to

17:50

come back into your body. And people

17:52

are always telling me to do that. And I was like, I don't know what that

17:54

means. I'm like, I'm trying but I don't know what it means. And

17:56

I literally woke up and thought, wow,

17:59

like my body is here. It

18:01

is solid, it is currently unbroken. I'm

18:04

okay fundamentally like whatever happens today, this

18:07

is okay. And I was like, I've never felt that

18:09

way . I've never felt like I woke up. I

18:11

mean I would wake up in a panic like first

18:14

hour or two in the morning was just trying to function

18:16

through my panic so I could actually start my day.

18:19

And I woke up and I realized what it is

18:21

to I'm necessarily live in

18:24

your body. I think an embodiment thing as a

18:26

whole separate, but like to really just feel

18:29

solid in the world in a way that,

18:32

yeah, my emotions were not bigger than me. I

18:35

will say for some people, and I know this is a lot of

18:37

the fear around taking medication, there's

18:39

this fear that it's gonna dull your emotions or

18:41

it's going to make you lethargic in general

18:44

in life. It can. Um, there's

18:46

a lot of different classes of , um,

18:49

antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication.

18:52

And by classes we mean different ways that they work

18:54

on the brain in order to help. There's

18:56

a lot of them we don't even understand entirely. Most of them

18:58

honestly, we don't really understand entirely how they help, but they

19:00

do. In fact, I think when

19:03

my psychiatrist gave them to me and

19:05

I was like, I feel so much better. He is like, that doesn't make sense. It's

19:07

supposed to be for anxiety. And I was like, yeah, I can't, but

19:09

it's working. Um, so there is

19:11

a lot of trial and error involved in finding

19:13

the medication and I

19:15

definitely am someone who did not want to feel

19:17

less , um, just wanted

19:19

to feel manageable. And

19:22

there are some medications depending on your reaction

19:25

to them where your sense of, you

19:28

know, people sometimes get a foggy head. I had a

19:30

friend who tried Wellbutrin and ended up feeling like a

19:32

zombie or like, okay, that's not a good thing for you. But

19:34

I tried another medication in college and I remember

19:39

like vivid moments sitting at a computer

19:41

, uh, in my Friday day

19:43

job and we were on like the 12th

19:45

floor and just thinking about jumping out the window. And

19:48

I was like, this is not me. I am , I'm

19:50

not suicidal, this is something else. And

19:53

I was really lucky that I heard that and I was like, we're stopping this medication.

19:55

'cause weirdly, in paradoxically some

19:57

medications make people more suicidal.

20:01

Can't explain the brain guys. Um, so

20:04

it is really important to be tracking your own

20:06

reaction to stuff and to be seeing are

20:09

there side effects? Do you feel better? Do you feel worse?

20:11

I definitely get dizzy when I first try

20:14

medication . So I was dizzy a little bit the first week

20:16

or two and then it kind of settled. Um,

20:19

that's why they say to try something for four to six

20:21

weeks. They really wanna see how your body does metabolizing

20:24

that medication. Um,

20:26

so there is no one size fits

20:29

all , which I know is the most devastating

20:31

news when you're already in a really bad place and

20:33

you're really desperate for help. And then you're being told,

20:36

well, we gotta try one thing and see how it

20:38

does. And then if it doesn't work, we've

20:40

gotta try something else. It can be really, really hard

20:42

to hold on for that. And so the one of the reasons I

20:44

wanted to come here and talk about

20:47

Wellbutrin wins and Lexapro

20:49

Landing as I'm now calling it, is

20:51

, um, to give hope to

20:54

those who are maybe considering trying medication

20:56

but have been afraid who have tried something

20:59

and it didn't work for them. Um, I'm

21:02

definitely not saying everyone needs to be on medication,

21:04

I don't think, I don't think any one

21:06

thing solves everything. I don't think therapy is

21:09

a solution to all things or all people at all

21:11

times. I have a lot

21:13

of different modalities. I'm in a couple different

21:15

programs. Every time I learn something, I apply

21:17

it. So I have a huge toolbox of things

21:19

and I've worked a lot with therapists and

21:22

life coaches and so I have, I

21:25

I sometimes I'm like, you know, maybe it's

21:27

a priest or a rabbi or an imam that you need to

21:29

go to. I don't know who it is who

21:31

can help you. I don't know if it's talking to somebody

21:34

who's trust that you trust. Um,

21:36

oftentimes it can be a combination. There's also

21:38

some research that taking a 20 minute walk

21:41

can be just as effective as antidepressants.

21:44

So those are other things that I do. I

21:46

have a whole checklist of taking a walk

21:49

and , um, being social and

21:51

making sure I sit in the sun. Like all

21:53

of those things are also really, really important. So again,

21:56

I'm not, I'm not a doctor and I'm

21:58

not advocating that everyone needs to be on medication.

22:00

But what I am saying, if something feels really, really

22:03

wrong for you and your brain, I

22:06

would offer , um, to reach out

22:08

to a psychiatrist. And I think even you

22:10

can talk to often , uh, PCPs,

22:13

a general practitioner, if you've got like a , just

22:15

a regular family doctor or an internist, there's

22:17

a lot of them. Um, even psychiatric

22:19

nurses I'm finding can, especially

22:22

like Wellbutrin and Lexapro tend to

22:24

be very, I

22:27

wanna say class A, but I could be wrong, whatever, whatever

22:29

class of drugs the government is not worried about 'cause

22:31

they're not addictive. So there's like harder

22:33

drugs that the government really have to go through a psychiatrist

22:36

and you gotta make sure that you're tracked because they're

22:38

really addictive or they can be

22:40

made into meth. I don't know guys, I don't

22:42

know enough about what people do with drugs, but Lexapro

22:45

and Wellbutrin are some of the easier ones, which,

22:47

and they tend to work on a lot of people and they

22:49

tend to be easy on the body, which is also an incredible gift.

22:52

So find

22:54

out what your resources are, if this is something that

22:56

you're struggling with. Um, and

22:59

I say this because about

23:03

three weeks ago I had to go back to my psychiatrist

23:06

and say, I'm not okay anymore. I

23:09

think I need more something. And so

23:14

there's, there's

23:16

different kinds of depression. There's , um,

23:18

situational depression, which often means that

23:20

something happened to you , uh, maybe

23:22

you moved or you changed jobs or you

23:24

got divorced or you got injured.

23:27

And it, it just kind

23:29

of shocks the system and it can be really hard

23:32

to figure out how to get your grounding. Again.

23:35

I had shoulder surgery , uh,

23:37

five weeks ago, but for the two months before

23:39

that I was pretty much in daily pain and we

23:41

did not know what was wrong. It took

23:44

'em like two months to get an MRI approved and get an

23:46

MRI and figure out what was happening and then decide on surgery. So

23:50

by the time I had surgery and then spent another

23:52

four weeks in pain, it had gone

23:54

on for three months and I

23:57

just ran out of giddy

23:59

up . I had done, again, a checklist of things

24:02

to take care of my shoulder and ways to rehab

24:04

my right shoulder so it didn't break. And ways

24:07

to like checklist upon

24:09

checklist, I was giving myself gold stars for taking

24:11

walks for drinking water, for putting

24:13

anti-inflammatories on. Like , uh,

24:16

there's this topical anti-inflammatory that I use for

24:18

my shoulder so I can save my stomach , uh,

24:20

the pain of , uh, medication. And

24:23

I just reached a point where I,

24:26

it just, it's like, it's

24:28

like my brain broke. And one of the

24:32

best ways that I know that I'm in trouble is

24:34

when I start thinking why Monday? Like

24:37

literally why is, why is anyone

24:39

having breakfast? Why is anyone making

24:42

plans? Why do you go to work? What ? Like

24:44

nothing makes sense and there's no reason

24:46

to do anything and I can't remember why I cared before

24:49

and that's when I think I don't know how

24:51

to get through this. And so that is very

24:53

much situational depression. Mine

24:55

was coming up against the fact that also

24:57

I get seasonal depression when

25:00

it gets dark. And I don't know where

25:02

you guys live in the northeast. The sun starts

25:04

going down at five o'clock and

25:06

by winter is down at four o'clock

25:09

and it's bloody freezing out. So

25:11

you , no one wants to go outside. It's hard to walk and

25:13

move your body 'cause it's so cold and

25:16

it's dark and the dark can

25:18

affect a lot of people. I don't know if

25:20

it's everyone, I'm always amazed that some people aren't affected,

25:22

but the dark affects a lot of people and,

25:26

and it makes me more depressed. I have a , I

25:28

have a light box that I turn on in the morning and

25:30

the evening. Again, I have so many tools, but

25:33

I knew I had another,

25:36

you know, I had six weeks total in the sling and

25:38

then six weeks of physical therapy where I

25:40

think we just only stretch my arm and don't do much

25:42

else. And then in January my arm

25:44

should be fully healed and my shoulder and then we

25:46

start strengthening. So I was gonna have to

25:48

go through the entire winter without yoga, without

25:51

salsa dancing, without a lot of

25:53

movement. And I

25:55

just knew that was gonna be really rough when I was

25:57

already feeling so rough. And that's

25:59

when I reached out to my psychiatrist and said, I'm

26:02

not okay. Like this is, this

26:04

is not enough. And I think it's, you know, I don't necessarily

26:07

wanna be on it for the rest of my life. Maybe this is

26:09

a , we increase Lexapro,

26:11

which what we decided to do, we increase it

26:13

through March. You know, we get me through

26:15

winter and we get me through rehab

26:17

of my shoulder to a place where I,

26:21

the sun is back and I can go to yoga.

26:23

You know, yoga for me is community yoga

26:25

for me is moving my body in community, which are my

26:27

two of my favorite things. Salsa, dancing, same thing. It's being

26:30

in community and being able to move my body.

26:33

And those are also

26:35

very easy ways to be social when you're

26:38

traveling a lot and you don't have a set group of friends in

26:40

the place where you are. I zoom with a lot of friends, I've

26:42

maintained a lot of friendships by zoom and it's a blessing, but

26:44

it's not the same as having your body in a

26:47

space with other bodies. And so yoga and salsa

26:49

to me are two ways in which I can show up. They

26:51

can be total strangers, we don't even have to get to know each other. But

26:54

on a animal

26:56

of the body level, just being

26:58

around other human bodies is

27:00

very grounding. It's very good for the immune system.

27:03

It just like resets a lot of my depression.

27:05

It's like, oh, they're humans, we're human.

27:07

We can do this <laugh> the world is still spinning.

27:09

I'm okay. So I,

27:13

yeah, I , I went up on Lexapro about

27:15

a week and a half ago , um,

27:20

and I immediately started feeling

27:22

a little bit better. And then I had a stomach flare

27:24

up , so I was sick again and my stomach was

27:27

burning for three days and I just realized how

27:31

hard it is to be in constant pain. And

27:34

weirdly I'd forgotten, which I guess is a blessing.

27:36

And um, how also

27:39

it's so hard on the mental health to

27:41

be in pain all the time. It's

27:43

just, it feels inescapable

27:46

and it's one of those things that , um,

27:49

wears you down. It's, it's

27:51

hard to explain if you haven't been in it because most injuries

27:54

for most people are short

27:57

term . You know, someone breaks their arm , someone

27:59

twists an ankle, it's bad for a few

28:01

weeks, it gets slowly better and then it gets strong

28:03

again. And then you go back to your life. Um,

28:07

imagine those few weeks being a few years,

28:10

it's, it's, I actually

28:12

should think about what this would be like because I, it's

28:15

like having, it's like stepping

28:18

on a push pin inside your shoe

28:20

every time you step and just

28:23

every time it just never goes away and there's nothing you can do.

28:25

So that sense of hopelessness, there's nothing you can do, it's

28:27

just gonna always be there. You can't stop walking.

28:30

You need to walk or you could, but then you wouldn't

28:32

have a life at all. Um, no

28:35

one knows what's causing it. No one

28:37

seems to be able to have a solution for

28:39

you. So they're just telling you maybe you should meditate

28:41

or maybe it's all in your head 'cause they

28:44

can't see the pushpin. So you just have a pushpin causing

28:46

pain all the time. And

28:51

there are times when you're like, okay, I'm gonna do this.

28:53

You meditate. And there are times when you're

28:55

just, I am in so much pain and I just

28:57

don't know how to make it stop and I can't make

28:59

it stop and I don't wanna be here now in

29:01

terms of I just don't wanna be in this physical pain and I don't

29:04

know where else to be. And

29:06

they're also discovering that a

29:08

lot of your happy chemicals either

29:10

get made in the stomach or your

29:13

stomach communicates to the brain to make them. So when

29:15

you've got a stomach disorder, you're

29:17

also missing out on that. And I was like, that makes sense.

29:20

So I

29:22

do talk a lot about having a chronic illness. So if

29:24

that is something that you struggle with, I am so

29:26

sorry, it can be really, really rough.

29:30

Um, it's, I definitely think people who

29:32

are in a chronic illness situation

29:34

, um, my

29:36

totally un doctor opinion is

29:38

look into medications , uh, mental

29:40

health medications. If you haven't, I think it's incredibly

29:43

hard to go through a chronic

29:45

illness where there are no answers and

29:47

it is a very slow recovery or possibly

29:49

a not recovery. And it's completely interrupting so

29:51

many life things like being social, like

29:53

going outside, like sitting in the sun. Um,

29:56

it takes away so many ways in which we

29:58

heal ourselves that it can

30:00

just really darken the brain and the

30:03

mood. Some people are more susceptible

30:05

to depression than others. I

30:07

definitely am. I have a friend who's gone through a ton

30:10

of and she's just like, kind

30:12

of basically fine. Like she's gotta work through her and

30:14

we talk about that, but her brain doesn't default to the

30:16

world is ending. It's gonna be bad, which

30:18

is what my brain used to default to. And

30:22

the other thing about depression, another reason why

30:24

I think medication can be really important

30:26

is that depression has

30:29

been shown to be sort of like a groove that

30:31

you put into, I'm gonna date myself

30:34

a vinyl disc . Um, or

30:36

let's say you're ice skating. I don't, I hope

30:38

you guys are, I'm like a Canadian who's

30:40

old <laugh> . I'm like, you might not know ice skating

30:42

and you might know vinyl discs , vinyl records, but

30:45

essentially like a groove that repeats itself, right? You

30:47

put a line in the sand and it keeps going and going and

30:49

going. And the more you stay in depression, the longer

30:52

the deeper the groove gets, the more you're,

30:54

you're pushing that stick into the sand and the

30:56

more you are making that groove deep.

30:59

And so it gets harder to come out of a

31:01

depression the longer you stay in it. And what they've

31:04

also found is that the longer you

31:06

stay in it, the easier it is to fall

31:08

into another one later on. So if anyone

31:10

has a recurring , um, depression,

31:13

it can be just so much easier to fall into

31:15

it. So it's, it's one

31:17

reason why psychiatrists and mental

31:20

health specialists advocate for really

31:22

treating it soon. And if

31:25

medication is needed, it doesn't necessarily mean you're

31:27

gonna need medication for the rest of your life. It might be for

31:29

six months for a year just

31:32

to get you out of that, just to bump you

31:34

out of that deep groove in the sand so that

31:36

you're back to normal and then your brain will kick

31:38

in and remember how to do normal again. And

31:41

that can often be the experience. So

31:45

Wellbutrin wins and Lexapro

31:47

landings, I've been incredibly

31:49

blessed that these medications worked

31:52

for me, worked pretty much right away,

31:54

worked in a way that I could recognize

31:57

that I have access to them, that I have health insurance

31:59

that makes 'em very affordable and

32:02

a psychiatrist that I can call when things are bad.

32:05

Um, but

32:07

these are still

32:10

things that I think are hard to

32:12

talk about. I think this

32:14

feels very vulnerable. You know, if I had diabetes

32:16

and I was talking about my insulin, I think I would

32:18

feel very different than saying, this is how

32:20

my brain actually looks. It's, it's

32:23

a really hard thing to say. This is the inside

32:25

of my thoughts and it's not pretty. It's

32:28

in fact incredibly dark. And I

32:31

know, 'cause I've had friends tell me that it can be hard because

32:33

all you wanna do is argue and say, but you know,

32:35

you're not a bad person. You know, the world isn't gonna end.

32:37

I mean it is , but like, you know, <laugh> , you're

32:40

gonna be okay until whatever, you know, it's

32:42

not gonna end in your lifetime. Um,

32:45

and arguing doesn't help. It

32:48

doesn't matter. It doesn't, it's not, it's

32:50

uh , depression is not logical. Anxiety is

32:52

not logical. It does not respond to logical arguments.

32:55

It is not super helpful. In

32:57

fact, it can be quite detrimental to argue with

32:59

someone who is struggling in this way because their

33:02

brain believes those things

33:04

so wholeheartedly that then to

33:06

have someone argue that actually they're

33:08

fine and everything is fine, can feel really,

33:12

really dismissive and makes

33:15

someone feel even worse. And then they're

33:17

gonna feel like they've gotta pretend that everything is

33:20

okay so that you don't have to worry about

33:22

them. So there are a lot of

33:24

ways in which talking about mental health, and

33:26

if you're not someone who struggles or have someone who struggles,

33:28

it can be hard to hear that and to know, well, what level

33:31

are you at and how bad is it? And how dangerous

33:33

is it? And are taking , are you taking care of

33:36

yourself? You know? So I do think those are questions

33:38

you can ask. There

33:40

was research , um, from the suicide,

33:43

I don't know who, if it was the Association of Suicidology

33:45

or someone else that showed

33:47

that one of the best ways to actually prevent someone

33:50

from taking their own life

33:52

, uh, was to ask them if they had

33:54

a concrete plan, which

33:57

sounds paradoxical, but

34:00

they said that either

34:02

someone is like thinking about it. There's a thing called suicidal

34:04

ideation, meaning you're thinking about dying,

34:06

but it's more as a relief from the pain that you're

34:08

in. And it's not something concrete where you've made

34:11

a plan for a certain date with a certain tool, but

34:15

those who have made that plan or have been considering

34:17

that plan, you know, maybe what pills they

34:19

would get or access to a handgun they

34:21

have or something else

34:24

and are thinking about this certain date being

34:26

asked and being heard about that

34:29

plan. And then being able to talk about

34:31

it with someone who's not freaking out, who's

34:33

like, okay, okay, maybe it's time.

34:35

You know? And then recommending that that person gets help

34:37

, um, can, is like

34:39

one of the best ways to interrupt

34:42

someone's , uh, desire and pattern to

34:44

take their own life. And so again, the paradox

34:46

of being able to talk about this, especially

34:48

because these things are considered so shameful

34:50

and feel so vulnerable and shameful,

34:53

that being able to listen to someone in a tough place

34:55

without judgment really

34:58

listen and just listen sometimes or

35:00

listen and make sure that they've got support that

35:02

they need, is the game changer.

35:04

And it is the hardest thing to do. I myself come

35:07

from a long line of fixers. I am a

35:09

fixer. I often jump in with advice before

35:11

anyone is asked. It is something I'm trying to

35:13

change. But

35:16

the ability to hear where someone is at without

35:18

correcting them or trying to cheer

35:21

them up or any of that stuff is , um,

35:23

it's a way of a walking the path

35:26

alongside another human. And

35:29

strangely, one of the best, most powerful gifts

35:31

you can give. Okay.

35:34

I think this episode has been long enough. I

35:37

really hope wherever you find yourselves today that you

35:39

are, well take care.