Speaker 1: I get everyone. Shit, I'm excited to be here. It's
Speaker 1: four minutes past three, It's Monday. The good doc Mark
Speaker 1: Cross is here. Tiffany and Cook, who is the Coqueen
Speaker 1: of typ is here, just battening down the hatches and steering,
Speaker 1: trying to keep Mark and Iron line. Basically, how are you,
Speaker 1: tiv It's.
Speaker 2: A big job, Harps. It is a big job.
Speaker 1: Is it raining where you are?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: But it looks pretty dark. It was raining earlier, happy summertime.
Speaker 1: It's pelting down over here in the very tropical confines
Speaker 1: of Bloody Hampton. But anyway, we do what we can.
Speaker 1: It's Monday, first day of the week. We're sliding like
Speaker 1: piss blokes in a bar towards Christmas. Thirteen days to go,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, thirteen days. It's the twelfth. Well, as
Speaker 1: we're recording this, it's the twelfth. Are you Are you
Speaker 1: going home to step back in time, back to lawn Seston.
Speaker 2: No, I guess no, it's not lawn Sestin for a start.
Speaker 1: Good shout out tout my tazzy friends. I really love you.
Speaker 1: I used to live there. Going it is a bit
Speaker 1: of a time warped though, God bless.
Speaker 2: This year and next year. This is my plan. I'm
Speaker 2: going to go back in February each year. Have a
Speaker 2: guess why. I don't know if I've told you, I told.
Speaker 1: You, uh, February each year. I know I've got my thing.
Speaker 2: My very elite grandfather turns ninety nine this February, so
Speaker 2: I'm pushing Christmas out ninety nine.
Speaker 1: Not many humans, not many men.
Speaker 2: Do you know? Only seventeen percent of men, seventeen percent
Speaker 2: of people that reach one hundred and men.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that it was elite. Well, we burn ourselves out
Speaker 1: because we're dickheads, and we're just we just we just
Speaker 1: run a Mark I tell you who, I tell you
Speaker 1: he's not a dickhead, and he's probably going to live
Speaker 1: to one hundred and twenty, especially because he's sipping on
Speaker 1: twenty seven dollars sparkling water. So fucking fancy, Mark Cross,
Speaker 1: you paid too much.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to work out when I'm supposed to not
Speaker 3: to say here, I've got a plotty mouth. I think
Speaker 3: you've just beaten me in.
Speaker 1: No. Yeah, well let's see. I want you to step
Speaker 1: up to the plate. But it is funny because I
Speaker 1: do have, as you say, quite a good diagnosis, Doc,
Speaker 1: I do have a potty mouth. And but what's funny
Speaker 1: is there's something mystical that happens when people, when really
Speaker 1: proper refined. Often academics come on the you project. About
Speaker 1: halfway through they stumble through the swearing door themselves. So
Speaker 1: people who would never in a million years say fuck
Speaker 1: or shit or bum or bugger or bitch or whatever
Speaker 1: on an interview of any kind, they start swearing, don't
Speaker 1: they tiff?
Speaker 2: Yeah, look what you've done to me?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I know you used to be quite respectable anyway,
Speaker 1: Doctor Mark Cross, let me read some of your bio.
Speaker 1: Does doctoring differently? The first openly gay man twin Father
Speaker 1: of the Year, Marcus also lived experience of one of
Speaker 1: the conditions he treats. He's been anxious since he was
Speaker 1: for I loved it when I read that. His empathy
Speaker 1: humor making one of Australia's most life psychiatrists. He's a
Speaker 1: psych with clinical experience spanning three decades. He graduated as
Speaker 1: a doctor in Cape Down Yeah bro Shame, specializing in
Speaker 1: the UK, and has worked in as a specialist in
Speaker 1: Sydney since two thousand and five. There's lots more, but
Speaker 1: we'll hear about it from him, Doctor Mark officially, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the You project, sir.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. It's just funny that you just
Speaker 3: said all that. I swear a lot, but I've just
Speaker 3: mentioned before it has been back to South Africa after
Speaker 3: three years, you know, COVID all that sort of stuff,
Speaker 3: to see my parents. My father just burst into tears
Speaker 3: when you huge me. Oh, it's lovely and you talk
Speaker 3: about posh, you know, water whatever. I'm a boy from
Speaker 3: the Burbs and it's like it's always it's always going good,
Speaker 3: going back to your roots. Right. So I'm doing a
Speaker 3: documentary with Allison you talk to her, my manager and
Speaker 3: best friend. You documentary at my school next year. I'm
Speaker 3: forty years out of high school. Wow, lovely school, and
Speaker 3: it's we're going to look at we got to go
Speaker 3: on from Mardi Gras and growing up gay in the
Speaker 3: seventies and eighties. Obviously it wasn't that much fun. And
Speaker 3: now at the school they got the first genine you,
Speaker 3: toul toilets and trans students going to the metric ball
Speaker 3: and it's pretty amazing. So we're going to do it
Speaker 3: then and now. But of course I go to the school,
Speaker 3: right and all of a sudden, I realized I'm a
Speaker 3: person of high net worth to myself. When you talking
Speaker 3: about I go w TAF in my head. Every single
Speaker 3: time they're looking at me, and we'll be doing very
Speaker 3: serious conversations or whatever. I'm going. I rode my bicycle
Speaker 3: from the birds to school every day.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like I'm just an older
Speaker 1: version of you? I know you think I'm special and
Speaker 1: all that bullshit and clever, but I'm not. I'm just
Speaker 1: you in a different time.
Speaker 3: It's a weird thing looking at past cells and now,
Speaker 3: because it's always part of you, right. My problem is
Speaker 3: with the anxiety and the constant need to overcompensate for
Speaker 3: all of that. It's a constant sort of thing in
Speaker 3: my head. My head never stops, you know, and I'm going,
Speaker 3: I really should be doing Benny here, I'm going to
Speaker 3: do this perfectly perfection traits and all that sort of stuff,
Speaker 3: and then you sit back and go, you know what,
Speaker 3: there are some advantages to getting old, and this is
Speaker 3: part of it. So now it's sort of like, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm getting a little bit more chilled in my approach
Speaker 3: to when I see people, and I don't have to
Speaker 3: constantly think, oh, I'm going to prove something to them
Speaker 3: that there is that, especially when you go back to
Speaker 3: your past. Yeah, have to prove something even though you
Speaker 3: left it.
Speaker 1: And it's funny. In some places, Doc, I feel quite
Speaker 1: competent and confident, not over the top, you know. But
Speaker 1: and then in other situations, circumstance, environment, people, I can
Speaker 1: feel like the biggest fuck with ever, you know. So
Speaker 1: for me, it's contextual. It depends who I'm with, where
Speaker 1: I'm at, what I'm doing. Like when I started my
Speaker 1: HD three and a bit years ago, I felt like
Speaker 1: I definitely shouldn't be there. I'm not smart enough, I'm
Speaker 1: too old, I'm like every reason to undermine myself, to
Speaker 1: self sabotage, to fuck it up. That's all I could
Speaker 1: think of. For the first six months. I felt like
Speaker 1: a complete fraud.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know that imposter syndrome that I am
Speaker 3: keen sort of you know, board member of committee. It
Speaker 3: does come out right, But I think that makes you
Speaker 3: a bit of You're a better person if you have that,
Speaker 3: rather than being too overconfident, cocky in an arshole. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know that's.
Speaker 1: Are they clinical terms. I'm just I'm taking notes.
Speaker 3: It's in the DSM six that's still.
Speaker 1: That's hilarious. And so when you when you're reflecting on
Speaker 1: you in the seventies and you in the eighties as
Speaker 1: a an overthinking, you know, self conscious gay kid trying
Speaker 1: to navigate life. When you went back to your school,
Speaker 1: did stuff come up for you?
Speaker 3: I think the first yeares because actually I left. It
Speaker 3: was so funny because I'm prenny with Osha Gunsberg, right,
Speaker 3: and I love him. We were on the board of
Speaker 3: Saying together and during the Schizophrenia Week two years ago,
Speaker 3: he said, hey, come let me chat to you about
Speaker 3: you know, schizophrenia and your work as a psychiatrist and
Speaker 3: blah blah blah, and you start the podcast and like you,
Speaker 3: he just turned to me and went, so tell me
Speaker 3: what was it like growing up fucking gay in South Africa?
Speaker 3: That's I said, was supposed to be talking about schizophrenia. Now,
Speaker 3: thanks very much, chat about I did not go back
Speaker 3: to my school or the environment for thirty four years,
Speaker 3: and then seven years ago I got in touch with
Speaker 3: my ex biology teacher. I used her notes in my
Speaker 3: first year at medical school. That's how good she was,
Speaker 3: you know, survivgy on that all and she is an
Speaker 3: amazing woman because she's quite religious. And I thought when
Speaker 3: I wrote to her that it was all my own stuff.
Speaker 3: You know, you got your own stuff from when you're younger.
Speaker 3: And I took John with me to dinner and she
Speaker 3: opened the door, gave me a big hug, and there
Speaker 3: was her gay friends from Amsterdam, who part of a
Speaker 3: charity that she's also involved with for years. She goes, Mike,
Speaker 3: I've always been pretty gay friendly and open, and but
Speaker 3: you don't see that when you're younger and looking inward
Speaker 3: and worrying about your own stuff all the time. It
Speaker 3: was amazing. So yeah, so I've reconnected with my school,
Speaker 3: which I never thought I would.
Speaker 1: How How I mean, I'm sure you've been asked this
Speaker 1: a thousand times, but as ever, as long or brief
Speaker 1: as you want, But what was school like for you?
Speaker 3: High school? You know, I was a prefect, I did
Speaker 3: well and was but it was it was completely hidden.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to acknowledge that I was gay. I
Speaker 3: knew it, you know, in some level. And when I
Speaker 3: was fifteen, in my year ten equivalent, I was bullied
Speaker 3: a bit and it was difficulty at school and I
Speaker 3: actually i wasn't in the top three for the first time.
Speaker 3: That might sound a bit weird to people, but it
Speaker 3: was the only year in the form, and I thought, well,
Speaker 3: I did no one pick this up? Right? But I
Speaker 3: also in looking back, I was quite a strong personality
Speaker 3: kid too. And and to shows you how young our
Speaker 3: teachers were out forty years on, four of them are
Speaker 3: still teaching at my school, and one of them is
Speaker 3: a school counselor. And I'm going to talk to him
Speaker 3: on the documentary next time. He's saying, Mark, I didn't
Speaker 3: think you had any issues. You looked you always looked
Speaker 3: so suave and fine at school and you were in control. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: inside I was going, what the hell I need help?
Speaker 3: But nobody picked it up.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but I think we become and whether or
Speaker 1: not it's we're trying to hide our sexuality or or
Speaker 1: something else, you know, whether or not it's you know, anxiety,
Speaker 1: we're trying to pretend we're confident or or we feel
Speaker 1: inadequate or imposter syndrome. I feel like there's the persona.
Speaker 1: There's the the work persona, the school persona, the public
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and then there's the person underneath it.
Speaker 1: And opening that door and being vulnerable. You know, that's
Speaker 1: the challenge, isn't it.
Speaker 3: It is a huge challenge and one that I've accepted
Speaker 3: because you know, go, what do I want to do
Speaker 3: when I get older? I want to be the real me.
Speaker 3: I want to be open about who I am. I
Speaker 3: want to about who I am to the people I treat.
Speaker 3: And I've had various levels of me saying about that
Speaker 3: or advice that I shouldn't do that. We got taught
Speaker 3: at medical school in the eighties to be stiff upper
Speaker 3: lip doctors. No, bess, don't show anything of yourself. I've
Speaker 3: just ignored that most of my life, but I haven't
Speaker 3: really come out. If somebody asked me, it was it's
Speaker 3: only women who are menic that ever asked me out right.
Speaker 3: It's so funny in my work, and then of course
Speaker 3: I say, yeah, I am. I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 3: But there was that pressure not to be open, certainly
Speaker 3: in the eighties and nineties as a psychiatrist. So's it's
Speaker 3: quite liberating in one level. But I gave a speech
Speaker 3: about it a couple of years ago and the professor
Speaker 3: I'm not friendly with you came up to me and
Speaker 3: he said, Mark you very brave, and I go, well,
Speaker 3: why I'm just being myself. That's not bravery, that's that's
Speaker 3: maybe it is part I don't know's how are we
Speaker 3: supposed to help others with their emotional journey or mental
Speaker 3: health journey if you can't be open about who you
Speaker 3: are and what you are and so many people, most
Speaker 3: of the people I treat, it's trauma, trauma, trauma, traumaun
Speaker 3: and because society doesn't accept them whatever was. Of course,
Speaker 3: I think that's leading away in a way, but because
Speaker 3: it doesn't make it less anxiety provoking.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I agree with you, and I think that
Speaker 1: if you're the best in inverted commas, whatever that means,
Speaker 1: you're the best clinician, the best psychiatrist, the best doctor,
Speaker 1: You've got the highest IQ, you've got the best marks,
Speaker 1: you've got the most knowledge, but you're an unapproachable prick
Speaker 1: and I don't get any warmth from you, and you
Speaker 1: don't seem to care about me, and you've got the
Speaker 1: emotional intelligence of a fucking stamp, and like, it's one
Speaker 1: thing to be brilliant and to understand human behavior and
Speaker 1: all of that, but we as patients, what we want
Speaker 1: from you is we want you to give a fuck
Speaker 1: like I actually want to like you. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how brilliant you are. If I'm not comfortable with you,
Speaker 1: if I don't think you care, if I don't think
Speaker 1: you're genuine, I'm not coming back or I'm definitely not
Speaker 1: trusting you. Even if I have to come.
Speaker 3: Back, I agree, I've got and add to that, I
Speaker 3: could just only openly agree. And I've had to close
Speaker 3: my books because I'm so busy. So being open hasn't
Speaker 3: hurt me professionally in any way, or hasn't hurt my
Speaker 3: career at all, and in fact, it's made it stronger
Speaker 3: and more meaningful. And you know, I want to be treated.
Speaker 3: I treat people like my family, or I think would
Speaker 3: my family if this is a member of my family,
Speaker 3: this is my son, would I want the doctor or
Speaker 3: the team to react in this way. That's why I've
Speaker 3: always practiced right, and it's and I tell my patients
Speaker 3: if you're seeing a psychologist or somebody or even a psychotriage,
Speaker 3: don't have to stay with me, and so we don't gel.
Speaker 3: That's fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, at the end of the day, if you don't.
Speaker 3: Jail with someone, then it's your right to go. This
Speaker 3: isn't working for me. I don't find someone else. The
Speaker 3: problem is sometimes you can't find someone else.
Speaker 1: That's true. And the thing is, and I've said this
Speaker 1: before and on this show, you know, like I said
Speaker 1: to you before we press the go, but not done.
Speaker 1: How We've done over a thousand shows, and I've got
Speaker 1: lots of bullshit and lots of issues self doubt and
Speaker 1: insecurity and overthinking and you know, and it goes in
Speaker 1: waves of where I feel better or worse about myself
Speaker 1: and ego and bullshit. And I want you to love
Speaker 1: me because I'm an only child and I was a
Speaker 1: fat kid, and I was all these things. But the
Speaker 1: more that you know without being too self indulgent or
Speaker 1: boring people to death with your own bullshit. But for me,
Speaker 1: the more honest you are and authentic, the more people
Speaker 1: relate to you. It's like, yes, you're a doctor, Yes
Speaker 1: you understand the mind, and yes you understand the brain
Speaker 1: and human behavior, and yes you're well trained and qualified,
Speaker 1: but also you get them like you get them on
Speaker 1: a personal level, and they get you because you're kind
Speaker 1: of like them, you know. And I think that it's
Speaker 1: ironic that they say, correct me if I fuck this up, Doc,
Speaker 1: But they kind of say to you, be a bit
Speaker 1: of a closed book, don't open up, don't be vulnerable
Speaker 1: with your patients, don't let them really know anything about
Speaker 1: you or your personal life. And that's a directive which
Speaker 1: I think actually produces the opposite of what's required for
Speaker 1: great session.
Speaker 3: And it leads to so many issues in members of
Speaker 3: my profession. You know, surprise, we've got high drug alcohol rates,
Speaker 3: divorce rates, especially in the females, and our professional highest
Speaker 3: suicide rates than the average population. But you still don't
Speaker 3: It's still considered a weakness. You come for help if
Speaker 3: you've got mental health issues, which of course I'm trying
Speaker 3: to break down. Those barriers go back to how we're
Speaker 3: supposed to interact with someone. Yes, you've got to be open,
Speaker 3: and I think COVID showing that right. So look at
Speaker 3: us now chatting. Melbourne's having a great.
Speaker 1: Now I didn't.
Speaker 3: I hadn't heard of zoom before. The guy who invented
Speaker 3: zoom or whatever sold it just before COVID sounds like
Speaker 3: a lovely guy. When do these things happen? But you know,
Speaker 3: we all know what it is now, right, and this
Speaker 3: is how we can can actually interact. I saw all
Speaker 3: my regular patients and consumers on my service in their
Speaker 3: homes for the first time, so you know, they talk
Speaker 3: about the cats and the dogs and the kids, and
Speaker 3: couple were smoking in front of me, going hey, doctor,
Speaker 3: and I can smoke in front of you now I'm
Speaker 3: in my house, showing me that there was even more
Speaker 3: of a connection. I think this medium and what am
Speaker 3: I supposed to do? A couple of times I was
Speaker 3: in my gym jams, I was cold and I'm not bloody,
Speaker 3: changing laugh together and going, well, you know, we don't
Speaker 3: have to focus on that. We're having a nice chat.
Speaker 3: How are you doing. Let's just work out how you
Speaker 3: stay well or we can maintain wellness during this really
Speaker 3: difficult time. But being open with each other and showing
Speaker 3: us I was because you still have to have boundaries people,
Speaker 3: that's very important. You've got to have boundaries, of course,
Speaker 3: but they don't have to be rigid, and they don't
Speaker 3: have to be one sided, you know, one on one.
Speaker 3: Don't have sex with your patients. I think that's quite
Speaker 3: a good one too. You go by you.
Speaker 1: I stick by that, yeah, I reckon. Personal trainers need
Speaker 1: to know that. One to doc, because that doesn't end well.
Speaker 3: Well, trust if I haven't worked in the gym industry
Speaker 3: for many years.
Speaker 1: So I'll tell you what. There's a whole lot of
Speaker 1: the dance with no pants that goes on between trainers
Speaker 1: and clients. Don't worry about that. Oh what, no, fuck off?
Speaker 1: That doesn't. Yeah, anyway, moving on, So I want to
Speaker 1: ask you, doctor Mark, if if anxiety is on a
Speaker 1: scale from say one to ten, could you describe one
Speaker 1: and could you describe ten? And I know this is
Speaker 1: a bullshit scale that I just hypothetically created for this conversation,
Speaker 1: but if there's a obviously it's not. It's not the
Speaker 1: same earth intensity or volume or experience for everyone, and
Speaker 1: somebody's one might be someone else's for I get that,
Speaker 1: but in general terms, what does a one or two
Speaker 1: look like? So what does a nine or ten look like?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Sure, no, that's I ask people to do that
Speaker 3: all the time. So one is you're starting to feel
Speaker 3: that sort of fight or flight sort of heart rate
Speaker 3: going a bit stem, to feel a bit anxious, sweaty
Speaker 3: thinking about something that's about to transpire or thinking about
Speaker 3: something that's not going to transpire. Because that's generalized anxiety.
Speaker 3: It's sort and you're starting to overthink. But then you
Speaker 3: can go, you know what, I'm using my skills and
Speaker 3: I'm going to go and ground myself and go for
Speaker 3: a walk and all those sort of things at work,
Speaker 3: and so it doesn't really affect your functioning because it's
Speaker 3: always a mixture of symptoms and then functioning, right, so
Speaker 3: you're coping. It's affecting you about nothing as sort of
Speaker 3: grounding mindful technique won't sort of help with TO ten,
Speaker 3: which is panic attack, and that is where you are
Speaker 3: so worked up that your heart's and your mouth going
Speaker 3: one hundred and forty miles an hour, your chests constricting
Speaker 3: your pupils, dilating you in that really I'm just about
Speaker 3: to jump the fence with no external danger sort of
Speaker 3: you feel you're dying from a heart attack. And then
Speaker 3: often where people present to the emergency development right because
Speaker 3: they think they're dying, they're about to faint from all
Speaker 3: this horrible stuff going in their bodies and their minds,
Speaker 3: and you cannot talk yourself out of it or use
Speaker 3: your grunting. That's out of the window, and you're then
Speaker 3: walking in an increasingly loop wormhole. You're gotting down. That's
Speaker 3: where I put ten.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess when you're up around that nine ten,
Speaker 1: and then you get overwhelmed by what's going on physiologically
Speaker 1: in a heart rate, adrenaline, all of those things, sympathetic,
Speaker 1: nervous system, dad that are and you then you start
Speaker 1: to think you're going to die. That just as you said,
Speaker 1: that exacerbates. So what's the circuit breaker or is there
Speaker 1: not one? Is it just time? Is it just yeah?
Speaker 1: Rather than I offer answers, why don't you just help us?
Speaker 3: No? No, no, it is are you I mean you talked
Speaker 3: about exercise physiology earlier. I'm really a fan of that now.
Speaker 3: I mean I think in terms of you learn some
Speaker 3: preventative measures, so you cut it off at the past
Speaker 3: before it gets to that point. But then you've got
Speaker 3: measures in place, skills that you've learned. And this is
Speaker 3: for people who've had it before. When first when it
Speaker 3: first comes on, sometimes you're not prepared for it, and
Speaker 3: then it's bloody awful, right, and then the circuit breaker
Speaker 3: often there is getting help. Hopefully you've got somebody around
Speaker 3: who can talk you down and help you, or you
Speaker 3: end up in the emergency department. So the circuit breaker
Speaker 3: is those sort of grounding techniques that we've talk including exercise,
Speaker 3: and maybe one simple way of saying this is I
Speaker 3: said to people, you've got the emotional mind, you've got
Speaker 3: an emotional response, cognition and thinking about things and talking
Speaker 3: through who comes later. At that moment, you have to
Speaker 3: do something physical. And part of grounding techniques is that
Speaker 3: you know, you go barefoot into the mud or sand outside,
Speaker 3: you hold it the ice. You've got to do something physical,
Speaker 3: shock yourself out what's happening to you in your body
Speaker 3: at the time, and then you go, oh, okay, now
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, oh that's right. Mindful techniques or exercise, Let
Speaker 3: me go for a little walk around the block, go
Speaker 3: kill some tree, bark things like that, that real sort
Speaker 3: of physicality that's important, and then come back. Then I
Speaker 3: can look at some of my more intellectual exercises and
Speaker 3: start the positive self talk that be useful.
Speaker 1: Yes, I make yeah, one hundred percent. And also I
Speaker 1: guess like even things like so I'm writing notes as
Speaker 1: you're as you're talking, which is a very bad habit
Speaker 1: for a host of a show, but fuck, could everyone
Speaker 1: live on the edge. I'm taking notes because I'm learning
Speaker 1: because I'm a student. But also things like box breathing
Speaker 1: right as well, if you can manage that or just
Speaker 1: you know that kind of controlled in hold out slow
Speaker 1: like some of that which kind of can hopefully turn
Speaker 1: on the parasympathetic nervous system a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yes, you're looking at by feedback the stuff that really
Speaker 3: is useful. Breathing is amazing. So if you look at
Speaker 3: when I trained, you know, I talked about the relaxation
Speaker 3: techniques and the needs to have relaxation groups. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: looked exactly at this a muscle tensing breathing whilst you
Speaker 3: in that sort of heightened mode. Now I suppose now
Speaker 3: we talk more about the grounding techniques and it's similar
Speaker 3: sort of stuff. Right, So breathing is incredible. So I'm
Speaker 3: a breath holder, so then you even now so I'm
Speaker 3: holding my breath while I'm talking to you. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: there's certain techniques like the holding breath both inhaling and
Speaker 3: ex Yeah, that's a really useful technique, right, absolutely, like
Speaker 3: you just mentioned.
Speaker 1: All right, can I ask you a personal question, it's
Speaker 1: not too personal based on our scale that we did before,
Speaker 1: zero being no anxiety just out of curiosity. What's your
Speaker 1: number right now?
Speaker 3: It's just it's quite low. But it's interesting just to
Speaker 3: add a little bit of a caveat to that scale.
Speaker 3: We're talking about the scales of anxiety. So you go
Speaker 3: from anxiety to panic. Yes, my sort of anxiety, though
Speaker 3: it's slightly different. It's that sort of disconnected anxiety, so
Speaker 3: that de realization, depersonalization where you disconnect but looking incredibly calm,
Speaker 3: also unfocused because everything's going internal, which leads to the
Speaker 3: worst bit of that is that dissociation that people have
Speaker 3: heard about more now, So that's quite I don't associate,
Speaker 3: but I sometimes feel very disconnected and sort of head
Speaker 3: with the head going inwards. I'm not eating that at
Speaker 3: all at the moment. So let's all users scale. But no,
Speaker 3: you've really you've put me at ease. But I hope
Speaker 3: you well make sense of water melon.
Speaker 1: Well, you're really good at this, so and that's not
Speaker 1: me trying to make you feel good. So I want
Speaker 1: to I want to run a few things that I
Speaker 1: think can relate to or have an impact on anxiety.
Speaker 1: And I'm just going to say some words, and you're
Speaker 1: going to tell me about that thing and anxiety. The
Speaker 1: relationship if any Is that all right?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 1: Right here we go Number one, Sleep and anxiety.
Speaker 3: Big, big, big, sleep and mood pivotal. You have to sleep.
Speaker 3: You have to get good grounded's mindful sleep. You have
Speaker 3: to have your circadian rhythms in check. You have to
Speaker 3: have a routine for sleep, early sleep, early wake, and
Speaker 3: keep this saying routine even if you're doing various other things.
Speaker 3: Are going out for another that's sure, wake up the
Speaker 3: same time in the morning, do something. You can go
Speaker 3: back to bed then, But it's that sleep wake cycle
Speaker 3: that's really important.
Speaker 1: Perfect exercise and anxiety or movement.
Speaker 3: Again pivotal. So I look at the lifestyle stuff in
Speaker 3: every single one of my sessions with my patients. Diet, sleep, exercise. Sorry,
Speaker 3: maybe I'm jumping the gun a bit, but in terms
Speaker 3: of sleep and exercise, not only does exercise help your
Speaker 3: heart rate and your energy levels and your fitness, it
Speaker 3: absolutely releases in doorphins, which is part of that lovely
Speaker 3: chain of events, cascades in the neurotransmitters neurochemicals in the
Speaker 3: brain that bring down your anxiety. So that's part of
Speaker 3: it as well, which is also the sort of triggering
Speaker 3: for meditation. And yoga.
Speaker 1: I feel like exercises itself an antidepressant and anti axiotic.
Speaker 3: It absolutely, it's great for any mood. And you know
Speaker 3: even when you feel I see an exercise physologist altho.
Speaker 3: I've taken a break now, but over Christmas. And every
Speaker 3: time you go, like anything, you know with anxiety, you
Speaker 3: feel anxious beforehand, or you just don't feel like it,
Speaker 3: or who wants to get out of bed in a
Speaker 3: cold day? Right the hell? And then you there and
Speaker 3: doing something, And that's a bit like anxiety itself. It's
Speaker 3: always it feels worse than when you actually do something. Anticipation, yes,
Speaker 3: and then you're there and chatting and stretching and doing something,
Speaker 3: and when you're feeling not so great at the time
Speaker 3: because it's actually pushing even the your meaning like Ellen
Speaker 3: getting I don't wanted any cordivescul exercise today, and then
Speaker 3: the whole day afterwards, you're buzzing and you interacting better
Speaker 3: and you're feeling great, and you go exercise does thing
Speaker 3: to work?
Speaker 1: Well? It changes you buy a chemistry, doesn't it. It's
Speaker 1: like doc, when you you get in trouble at school
Speaker 1: and you get sent to the principal's office, and you've
Speaker 1: got to sit outside. You've got to sit on a
Speaker 1: chair outside. This may or may not have happened to
Speaker 1: me thirteen times where you've got to sit outside and
Speaker 1: you're shitting yourself because you're about to get expelled or
Speaker 1: suspended or your parents are going to you know, and
Speaker 1: it's horrendous. And then two hours later the principal walks
Speaker 1: out and says, go back to your classroom. Because the
Speaker 1: punishment was the two hours sitting there, right, he didn't
Speaker 1: need to say anything. The anticipation of the anxiety, the overthinking,
Speaker 1: the visualizing of all the shit that was going to happen,
Speaker 1: Like I punished myself for two hours.
Speaker 3: Yes, but also you're also exposing yourself at the time
Speaker 3: to these so then you realize it's getting wor it's
Speaker 3: getting worse, and then you go, well, fuck it. Whatever's
Speaker 3: going to happen now is going to happen. It's part
Speaker 3: of the exposure, which is which is interesting, right, But yeah,
Speaker 3: so you're building yourself up. But again that's an external event.
Speaker 3: So that's the one thing I'll say with stress and anxiety,
Speaker 3: we've got an external event that's causing an anxiety response.
Speaker 3: And when that goes, things go down, right, If you've
Speaker 3: got an anxiety condition, sometimes that doesn't work and you
Speaker 3: don't have the external response, so you getting this horrible
Speaker 3: response and it's not linked to anything. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 3: worst bit because you can just like free float for
Speaker 3: a long time and you have to work on skills
Speaker 3: sets and whatever you're going to do to that for
Speaker 3: for a while longer.
Speaker 1: Is one of the I don't know if is this
Speaker 1: is the right term, but exposure therapy. Like one of
Speaker 1: the quests I did a lot of corporate speaking. One
Speaker 1: of the questions I get asked a lot or a
Speaker 1: lot over the years anyway, is how do I overcome
Speaker 1: my fear of public speaking? In my answer is by
Speaker 1: public speaking? Right, Like, you can't you can't get good
Speaker 1: at what you're not doing. You can't overcome a fear
Speaker 1: you won't confront, you know, and obviously how you do that?
Speaker 1: You know there are levels and there are sizes of audiences,
Speaker 1: and there are different situations. But is that, you know,
Speaker 1: like just something that creates anxiety, which might be ten X,
Speaker 1: we call that that stimulus, that anxiety producing stimulus ten X.
Speaker 1: If we just open the door on one X, is
Speaker 1: that a good way to start Or is that complete
Speaker 1: psychobabble from a bloke who doesn't know what he's talking about.
Speaker 3: No, it's very clearly know exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: It's you just hit the nail on the head. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the thing about public speaking, but think about anxiety. So
Speaker 3: I actually perform quite well so and I fun acknowledge that.
Speaker 3: So it's a lead up to it that then gets
Speaker 3: so bad for some people that they're and they can't
Speaker 3: go on. It's not actually the event itself, it's that
Speaker 3: things have built up so much at that point that
Speaker 3: they're getting panic and then they just can't do it.
Speaker 3: A lot of people, myself included. When you finally there,
Speaker 3: and that's part of the exposure, you realize, actually if
Speaker 3: you expose yourself and you rank it so you don't
Speaker 3: do the biggest one first, the lowest one first.
Speaker 1: Progressive overload. We call it an exercise physiology.
Speaker 3: And it's similar, and so you rank and you do
Speaker 3: hierarchical sort of exposure, and so you realize as you're
Speaker 3: doing it, oh, this isn't as bad as my you know, prefront,
Speaker 3: all my other parts of my brain that are going
Speaker 3: into overdrive led me to believe. The problem then is
Speaker 3: people don't quite understand or except you've got anxiety to
Speaker 3: go well, and everyone gets anxious before we talk or whatever.
Speaker 3: As I said, no, it's the pre people don't witness
Speaker 3: that often you go talk to my husband and the
Speaker 3: post because then you become a flaky mess afterwards because going,
Speaker 3: oh my god, what did I think I'll talk too
Speaker 3: long when I talked to Craig And maybe I didn't
Speaker 3: swear enough and I'm not part of the and it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, it's all that stuff that happens afterwards at
Speaker 3: two in the morning when you're not able to sleep.
Speaker 3: So you've got to look at all those things, but
Speaker 3: absolutely expose, expose, expose because and the Yerx Dodson curve
Speaker 3: is a lot of name to it. All the slots
Speaker 3: in medicine have been taken. Unfortunately, there's nothing going to
Speaker 3: be named after me. So as you know, you were
Speaker 3: going to do quite well when something's named after you,
Speaker 3: and this is curve. It's exposure over time and actually
Speaker 3: the anxiety comes down.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, it's longer. What about doc the So I'm
Speaker 1: just holding up everyone a candle, right, just because I
Speaker 1: know this is not visual for most of you. So
Speaker 1: I'm holding up this and I go, oh, this, which
Speaker 1: is just a thing. This stresses me, this causes this
Speaker 1: makes me anxious. Right. But there's the thing that we
Speaker 1: say makes us anxious. The stimulus, the external thing. It
Speaker 1: could be having to talk, It could be seeing a spider,
Speaker 1: it could be it could be sitting in for a
Speaker 1: job interview. Right, whatever the thing, the trigger, the stimulus,
Speaker 1: the event, the object, whatever that is, there's that which
Speaker 1: is meaningless and to we're involved, then we give it meaning. Right.
Speaker 1: So what's the space between the thing and then my
Speaker 1: story about the thing? In other words, am I creating stress?
Speaker 1: Or is it creating stress? Is that my stress response
Speaker 1: to an inert thing?
Speaker 3: Again, who knows where it comes from? Right? And it's
Speaker 3: not logical, that's our point. It's illogical. We used to
Speaker 3: call anxiety conditions the neurotic conditions versus like as we
Speaker 3: lose touch with reality. Right. The crap thing about having
Speaker 3: anxiety is that you know it's logical. You know it's
Speaker 3: your own thoughts. You know that all the stuff going
Speaker 3: through your head, all the fears and worries linked to
Speaker 3: the candle, linked to that, are really.
Speaker 4: Quite yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it doesn't change the
Speaker 4: fact that when you're in the middle of it, all
Speaker 4: of that cognition and insight doesn't take away the fucking
Speaker 4: terror or the anxiety.
Speaker 1: Like you might understand what's happening, but you still can't
Speaker 1: turn it off.
Speaker 3: No, it's craps. I'll give you a you know, I've
Speaker 3: got a sleep disorder from the edge of four, I've
Speaker 3: had night terrors, and yes, in the South African context,
Speaker 3: you know, there's not it's not without its own issues
Speaker 3: of crime and whatever. But I'm lying in my house
Speaker 3: in a very safe part of Sydney and I can't sleep,
Speaker 3: and I'm hearing noises of the wind and the roof
Speaker 3: and I know I'm lying there going don't be ridiculous.
Speaker 3: This is not it's not harmful. Maybe I shouldn't watch
Speaker 3: Game of Thrones before I went to bed, hey, or
Speaker 3: Stranger Things straight to all those things that I love
Speaker 3: watching A big surprise when coming back to sleep, and
Speaker 3: when you don't watch TV or whatever before the night,
Speaker 3: you sleep better. So I've got to listen to myself.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you're lying there and you're getting more and more
Speaker 3: worked up and you can't sleep because all these irrational
Speaker 3: fears are going through your head, and then you wonder
Speaker 3: why I actually, maybe you do have anxiety and you're
Speaker 3: not a fake after all saying these things because you
Speaker 3: concept you can't scept that is the issue. And of
Speaker 3: course you know there's there's a link. You've got to
Speaker 3: try and unlink it in the various techniques I suppose,
Speaker 3: but some things are pretty hard to unlink.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't finish my list. Okay, so we did sleep,
Speaker 1: we did exercise. Are you kind of opened the door
Speaker 1: a bit on food? Is there any kind of intersection
Speaker 1: between relationship between food and anxiety.
Speaker 3: I'm really into gut health Nation. My passions are rolling
Speaker 3: the eyes of me because that's all I'm talking about
Speaker 3: at the moment.
Speaker 1: I love that you said that I was gonna say
Speaker 1: gut health and microbiome, and I thought you might say,
Speaker 1: shut the fuck up. But we've we had a prof
Speaker 1: on last week who did two episodes and we basically
Speaker 1: talked about everything from gut health to fecal transplants, and
Speaker 1: he's coming back. It's so fucking interesting. Yep, really really interesting.
Speaker 3: And so when I was doing the research in my book,
Speaker 3: you know, trying to overcompensate for my academic condensing and
Speaker 3: all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: Shut up, it's wonderful, you know.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a more practical type person. And sugar
Speaker 3: and gluten really really interesting in terms of mood generally. Yeah,
Speaker 3: sugar really bad and inflammatory path and so even if
Speaker 3: you look at the new sort of search on the
Speaker 3: depression even anxiety, they're really looking at it as an
Speaker 3: inflammatory response. There's this really interesting guy called Bretison in
Speaker 3: the States looking at He looked at this for dementia
Speaker 3: and he's gone, no, it's not the neurofobulary tangles that
Speaker 3: we should be looking at in the brain of somebody
Speaker 3: with dementia. That's the body's inflammtry response to what they're eating.
Speaker 3: And that's twenty six leaky holes he talks about in
Speaker 3: the gut, including sugar and cutting down meat and not
Speaker 3: smoking and cutting down alcohol and looking at the gut microbiome,
Speaker 3: but also looking at your vitamins, minerals and trace elements
Speaker 3: and looking at pill vitamins that actually get absorbed by
Speaker 3: the body that we don't just p out. And if
Speaker 3: we look if we even look at what doctors do
Speaker 3: now that we didn't do forty years ago, three years ago,
Speaker 3: we didn't do vitamins as part of an a usual
Speaker 3: work up for people. We do that all the time. Now.
Speaker 3: It's part and parcel of what people then go to
Speaker 3: see their doctors for and come to absolutely expect. The
Speaker 3: next thing, of course, is a gut microbiome. I think, Okay,
Speaker 3: we know that we're going to look after ourselves, look
Speaker 3: at the diet, make sure we get proper vitamins, minerals
Speaker 3: and that sort of stuff. But now criticism our gut.
Speaker 3: I love that that need to be fed properly, and
Speaker 3: actually the food is not that bad most of the
Speaker 3: time and we can cope. Yeah, why I say is
Speaker 3: roll my eyes. I was. I'm also about balance and
Speaker 3: come on, I just had pizza, wine and chips with
Speaker 3: my kids in front, and they didn't drink the wine.
Speaker 3: But that's a thing of joy, and I think you've
Speaker 3: got to also let yourself just be yourself in Christmas, right,
Speaker 3: we've got to suspend. We've got to suspend all this
Speaker 3: stuff every now and then think go, okay, January, I'll
Speaker 3: go back on the microbiome and wagon. How old are
Speaker 3: your kids, by the way, nearly ten and twelve and
Speaker 3: the twelve year olds already told them in not that
Speaker 3: that takes much and full puberty and young man studying
Speaker 3: high school next to a camp believe it goes so quickly, right.
Speaker 1: No time for liies? Hey everyone, just in case you
Speaker 1: wanted to listen to those after you listen to Doctor Mark.
Speaker 1: Of course, those episodes were Oney and eleven and one
Speaker 1: thy twelve with doctor Bill Sullivan. The title is Pooh, transplants, antibiotics,
Speaker 1: microbiome and bacteria, so Oney and eleven and twelve? What
Speaker 1: about the relationship? And then I'll shut up about the
Speaker 1: relationships unless we want to talk about tiff because there's
Speaker 1: just a fucking oh Pandora's box of bullshit going on there, Doc.
Speaker 1: If we want to open that, let's talk about genetics
Speaker 1: and anxiety. Is some people I imagine genetically predisposed to anxiety
Speaker 1: and depression?
Speaker 3: Again, you know, you're talking about cause and effect, and
Speaker 3: we're talking that age ol. Well, ever, since I was
Speaker 3: a medical school before, the sort of nature versus nurture? Right,
Speaker 3: how much how much is it in our genes? How
Speaker 3: much is it in terms of when we're talking about
Speaker 3: a history, like when I talk about family history, so
Speaker 3: I've got a very strong family history of various things,
Speaker 3: including anxiety and bipolar and depression. And so the more
Speaker 3: modern way of looking at that is that you have
Speaker 3: there's a genetic sort of predisposition or the genetic markers
Speaker 3: for certain things, including anxiety and depression, and they are
Speaker 3: switched on. Now, they can be switched on in certain circumstances.
Speaker 3: That's when nurture plays a role. And so you know,
Speaker 3: you go through a horrible experience like being a refugee,
Speaker 3: and that's why they have a higher one of the
Speaker 3: various reasons why they have a higher sort of a
Speaker 3: lord of mental health issues. And so that's one of
Speaker 3: the hypotheses that I find quite interesting now. But yes,
Speaker 3: especially with the mood effective illness runs in families.
Speaker 1: Just this is a red herring. Do you know a
Speaker 1: lady called Dr Jody Richardson.
Speaker 3: I know the name, Yes, Dr Jody.
Speaker 1: We have on a bunch. She has a podcast called
Speaker 1: well Hello Anxiety, and like you, Doc talks about her.
Speaker 1: We had out we had the U Project conference a
Speaker 1: couple of months ago and Jody was one of our speakers.
Speaker 1: And what I love about her, she's like you, She's
Speaker 1: just real she's down to earth. And I said to
Speaker 1: her after she spoke, and she killed it. She did
Speaker 1: a great job. She was amazing. And I chatted with
Speaker 1: her on stage and I said, what was your anxiety
Speaker 1: level going in? Like and I think she said like
Speaker 1: nine or something like So honest, seven hundred people in
Speaker 1: a room, you know, but just killed it and just
Speaker 1: managed it. And like you just says, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of live with with it and manage it.
Speaker 1: And do you think that mental health, which is a
Speaker 1: very big term, do you think that there are more
Speaker 1: people with mental health issues now than forty thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: or just more information and more awareness, I.
Speaker 3: Have to say, so, I just say I'm managing it
Speaker 3: a bit better. My husband wants me to take more
Speaker 3: things to manage it easier because he has the brunt
Speaker 3: of it. So shout out to cares when we're talking
Speaker 3: about these sort of things. Yeah, and sometimes I don't
Speaker 3: feel I'm managing it. Well. I suppose with experience, you
Speaker 3: get there and it's so I don't want to minimize,
Speaker 3: you know. Just that's why I leave everything quite to
Speaker 3: the last minute, even talking to you guys. I don't
Speaker 3: want to look too much because then you build yourself up.
Speaker 3: So I've learned the uniques, right, that's what that's what
Speaker 3: you're really talking about in a way. With the rates
Speaker 3: of mentally onnes no, I don't. Yes, there's more now
Speaker 3: because I think we're talking about it more right, acknowledging
Speaker 3: it more so. My mother even I took me to
Speaker 3: write my first book for her to finally talk about
Speaker 3: her brother has BiPOL and my uncle and two of
Speaker 3: her cousins are suicided and one I think was because
Speaker 3: he was gay. That's another long story that's never been unearthed.
Speaker 3: You know, families don't talk about these things, talk about
Speaker 3: these things. And of course you just had COVID. So
Speaker 3: twenty twenty University of Queensland led research seventy six million
Speaker 3: people worldwide developed anxiety, fifty three million depression. That's a
Speaker 3: twenty six percent increase from twenty nineteen measure twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: Yet twenty two wasn't such a great year, was it.
Speaker 3: So rates are increasing and you talked about the genetics.
Speaker 3: I think there are other factors involved in that society.
Speaker 3: Look at our young you know you're talking about their kids,
Speaker 3: and have you got kids?
Speaker 1: I don't know now I've got too many issues. Thank
Speaker 1: God I didn't produce any kids, so I.
Speaker 3: Wasn't going to look sort of further.
Speaker 1: And now it's a fair assumption.
Speaker 3: But don't look at me as a gay man. Now
Speaker 3: I've got to worry about that. The school. So I
Speaker 3: never thought i'd have to worry about things like that, right,
Speaker 3: So at least I can go to dinnapology and talk
Speaker 3: about the same ship. But going back.
Speaker 1: To the question, you know, I would love to see
Speaker 1: you doing fucking kin to drop off and kin to
Speaker 1: pick up. That would have I would have laughed my
Speaker 1: ass off.
Speaker 3: No, to know what, We've got four parents, right, so
Speaker 3: the two mothers and the two days. Right, I changed
Speaker 3: and happiest twice. I will just acknowledge.
Speaker 1: That on you need to try harder.
Speaker 3: Thank god, my husband decided he was maternal and he
Speaker 3: was going to do all this sort of stuff. So
Speaker 3: I put them to bed and I take them to
Speaker 3: school by So, no, it is wonderful. I don't wonder
Speaker 3: I don't want to minimize that. It is the most
Speaker 3: wonderful thing being a parent. To pretend that I'm mister perfect,
Speaker 3: I'm certainly not. But you know the difference now and
Speaker 3: I know this isn't quite what you are. So we're
Speaker 3: talking about parenting. It's being able to say sorry and
Speaker 3: that you're wrong and letting your kids tell you when
Speaker 3: you're wrong. I mean, we would never do that in
Speaker 3: the seventies eighties. We were just got a backhand, an
Speaker 3: absolute backhand. And I even mention that to my parents
Speaker 3: that just love said yes, it was a different time,
Speaker 3: no shit, but it is lovely cuddling your sons and
Speaker 3: going yeah, I was a bit grumpy earlier, and hey,
Speaker 3: let's debrief about it. And I love that aspect of parenting,
Speaker 3: even if I didn't want to change nappies.
Speaker 1: I think it just means you're you know, you're a
Speaker 1: bit more evolved, and it's like, this is a this
Speaker 1: is probably a selfish question, but fuck it, I've got you.
Speaker 1: Why Why? And I know it's generational and there's no
Speaker 1: I'm not trying on any level to be critical. I'm
Speaker 1: more curious, like, why can't some you know, older people,
Speaker 1: they seem not to be able to tell their kids.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's like my mum tells me
Speaker 1: she loves me regularly. My dad never those words have
Speaker 1: never come out of his mouth, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: he clearly loves me, clearly proud of me, loves me.
Speaker 1: What do you think that's? And I will say, like
Speaker 1: I spoke to them last night. We're talking about plans
Speaker 1: for Christmas. They're both still around, thankfully they're both eighty three.
Speaker 1: And I said, anyway, I see Christmas day, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: Mom's like love you and I go love you both,
Speaker 1: and Ron's just in the background. It's like silent. What
Speaker 1: do you reckon? That's about that inability to say to
Speaker 1: someone that you love I love you? What is that block?
Speaker 3: It's it is an older generation, you know. That's that
Speaker 3: Philip Blake and Pome. You know your parents fuck you up.
Speaker 3: That don't mean to, but ever fucked up in that
Speaker 3: time by people wearing frock coats. You know that it's
Speaker 3: that really difficult thing when they would and I don't
Speaker 3: lot of them. I don't know if your dad was
Speaker 3: a vet, all those things. You know that these guys
Speaker 3: come back from the wall weren't even acknowledged. It wasn't
Speaker 3: acknowledged that they had issues. And in terms of that disconnection,
Speaker 3: I think that really that really didn't help. Plus the
Speaker 3: whole masculinity stuff, you know, sports, you go out, do
Speaker 3: you have to, you know, be the breadwinner for the family.
Speaker 3: Men don't talk, you know, we just have beers and
Speaker 3: then go back to how you know they're the old
Speaker 3: family scenario. It's a sign of weakness. It's so sad
Speaker 3: that being emotional is still seen as a sign of
Speaker 3: weakness in us. Men. And a friend of mine runs
Speaker 3: this guy, this organization called mister Perfect actually Victoria and
Speaker 3: New South Wales Terry and he he was called mister
Speaker 3: perfectcause he's a good looking at his lovely wife and
Speaker 3: mass car house kids, you know, the Australian dream. He
Speaker 3: was with these mates in the bar one night, four
Speaker 3: of them, and they were just chatting an event. He
Speaker 3: just said something clicked on my head and I went, guys,
Speaker 3: I can't do this anymore. Last week I was suicidal
Speaker 3: and I've I'm on medication. And the one guy goes, I've
Speaker 3: meanting a psychologist for three years. The other guy goes,
Speaker 3: I've been medication as well for three years. They never
Speaker 3: talked about this stuff. Wow, this stuff and again, but
Speaker 3: coming to the emotional it's men are so emotionally disconnected
Speaker 3: because they weren't taught. They were taught that it's wrong
Speaker 3: to It's like makes you vulnerable. And that's so sad,
Speaker 3: isn't it. It's a real.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's hard when you've been programmed with that,
Speaker 1: and not only is not only you're not encouraged to
Speaker 1: talk about your feelings or but you're you're literally discouraged.
Speaker 1: And it's it's analogous, as you said, to weakness, like
Speaker 1: it is a bad thing, and then you wake up
Speaker 1: one day and you're eighty three. You're not going to change, right.
Speaker 3: It's interesting among dad's eighty five, and he would have thought,
Speaker 3: like the whole gay thing, they just did not It
Speaker 3: was just not even discussed, right, Yeah. And in fact
Speaker 3: I remember him saying when I was eleven, any gay
Speaker 3: men masturbator something? I don't know that put my masturbation.
Speaker 1: Okay, super guy. Then it was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: who say shit like that?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: So who says that to an eleven year old? Firstly,
Speaker 1: who says that? But then who says that to an
Speaker 1: eleven year old?
Speaker 3: I get hurt? Fine, I mean it was a Although
Speaker 3: we were quite open about nudity at home, it was
Speaker 3: like the sex thing. You just could not talk about it,
Speaker 3: and I.
Speaker 1: Don't don't talk about pooing, don't talk about masturbation, yeah,
Speaker 1: not all.
Speaker 3: Those icky things. So it was and he and this
Speaker 3: is the man. So I finally came out. Oh my god,
Speaker 3: I wrote them in a letter when I moved to London.
Speaker 3: That's why.
Speaker 1: How old were you at this stage in sex?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Wow? You wait?
Speaker 3: And they wrote back this letter and I'm going to cry,
Speaker 3: so you know. And he my mom wrote, and now
Speaker 3: you're going to get AIDS and I'm worrying about you
Speaker 3: will He was there in the early nineties, right, And
Speaker 3: what you wrote it the side was I don't care.
Speaker 3: I love you, You're my son.
Speaker 1: Oh I love that, and I love that over in.
Speaker 3: Nineteen ninety four. So I was like, what twenty nine?
Speaker 3: And I took them everywhere we were on the tube.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget this, and my father nudges me, go huh,
Speaker 3: he goes, look, goes with the he goes, look look, look, okay,
Speaker 3: what I think that guy is eyeing you out?
Speaker 1: So here was your wingman. He was trying to find
Speaker 1: you some action.
Speaker 3: I said, God's sake, he is thanks anyway, I noticed
Speaker 3: him five minutes ago. But thanks for thanks for that.
Speaker 3: I just thought that was such a like we never
Speaker 3: really discussed anything, but he was. I love him to be.
Speaker 3: He's just this guy who changed and now he does.
Speaker 3: Like Derby and Joan, they live in this little cottage
Speaker 3: in their their you know, retirement village, and he's just
Speaker 3: washing up in the lawn round there is the white
Speaker 3: South African god. I mean, you know, in terms of man,
Speaker 3: he didn't even make his own bed and now so
Speaker 3: there is there is capacity to change. And the way
Speaker 3: you talk about your dad now he's in the background.
Speaker 3: He's not minimizing it is then showing more and love
Speaker 3: is an action. Actually, I quite like that term. He
Speaker 3: can say things, but I think it's also good showing
Speaker 3: things and emotions as actions are easier to deal with.
Speaker 3: And I'll bet you if you give him my hug
Speaker 3: over Christmas, he'll hug you back. Right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I hug him. I hug him. I have
Speaker 1: to chase him around, but you know, I just pin him.
Speaker 1: I'm like a fucking gorilla. I just bring him in,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't.
Speaker 3: It was stopped the don't do you know?
Speaker 1: My dad? Actually, I think loves deeply, but he can't
Speaker 1: express you know, my dad is proud of me. Mum says,
Speaker 1: he's always talking to his friends about me and other
Speaker 1: people and all of that stuff. Not that I think
Speaker 1: there's lots to talk about, but he does. And you know,
Speaker 1: he's I don't think he even understands what a PhD is,
Speaker 1: but he's quite chuffed that I'm going to become a
Speaker 1: doctor of something. He thinks that's I don't think he
Speaker 1: gets what it means. But anyway, Hey, you're a ripper doc.
Speaker 1: I love chatting with you. So your most recent book
Speaker 1: is called I Love This. Everyone listening to this title
Speaker 1: anxiety expert advice from a neurotic shrink who's lived with
Speaker 1: anxiety all his life. Fucking best title. How has it gone?
Speaker 1: The book? I know it's a couple of years now,
Speaker 1: How has it gone? Has it been well received?
Speaker 3: It's great? You know it came out as it literally
Speaker 3: came out as COVID hit. I was asked the GP conference.
Speaker 3: I was talking at the stupiest setup. I thought it
Speaker 3: was joking, but he said, did you wait until the
Speaker 3: pandemic started?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well, you said, you know, I know some things, but
Speaker 3: I don't know when a global pandemic is going to
Speaker 3: hit our shawes.
Speaker 1: I'm not a profit.
Speaker 3: It just happened, so that did help. I have to say,
Speaker 3: some people buy books and anxiety when the world's burning
Speaker 3: and plaguing, right, So it has done quite well. Thank
Speaker 3: you for asking. And I'm serously writing my next one now.
Speaker 3: But I'm managing to avoid it as usual. So we're
Speaker 3: talking about avoidance and all those sort of things that
Speaker 3: I'm not very good and I could even avoid talking
Speaker 3: about it another going definitely. I have to say I
Speaker 3: haven't met someone who I thought could beat me for
Speaker 3: imposter syndrome. But bloody old Craig is doing very well.
Speaker 1: I do my very best. I do my best. If
Speaker 1: there's a scale, if there's a if there's a winner,
Speaker 1: I'm winning. Hey, how do people find you? Follow you,
Speaker 1: connect with you? Doc?
Speaker 3: So yeah, I do this podcast. It's not a podcast,
Speaker 3: that's not a direct competition with you guys. So it's
Speaker 3: it's a Thursday night. We do a live half an
Speaker 3: hour chat on Facebook. It's also on then it goes
Speaker 3: onto YouTube and I'm via LinkedIn. I do various things
Speaker 3: and that's a nice one. It is a nice way
Speaker 3: to stay in touch. And I do community stuff and
Speaker 3: this is a community. A lot of my patients come
Speaker 3: on family and during COVID, I think we read something
Speaker 3: like a million people and it was it was incredible
Speaker 3: because it was obviously struck a chord with people going
Speaker 3: through anxious times and just a big thing for me.
Speaker 3: A big thing for me is connection and staying connected
Speaker 3: with people. That's the people. Sometimes what can I do?
Speaker 3: How can I how can I stay well? In some way?
Speaker 3: You have to be connected. We are connected people as humans.
Speaker 3: So that's that's one way of doing it.
Speaker 1: Love it anxiety expert advice from neurotic shrink who's lived
Speaker 1: with anxiety all his life. And also, you've only written
Speaker 1: two books, haven't you? Yeah, and your first book is
Speaker 1: the doc's first book is Changing Minds, the go to guide,
Speaker 1: the go to god to mental health for family and friends.
Speaker 1: So go and buy ten of each of those everyone,
Speaker 1: if you would. Because Chrissy is coming and the doc's
Speaker 1: got a plant. You know, he's got some expenses coming up,
Speaker 1: so fuck it, live on the edge, stay on the call, Doc,
Speaker 1: But we'll say goodbye officially here and say goodbye off
Speaker 1: here in a moment. We appreciate you being on the
Speaker 1: new project. You're a superstar, great communicator, great teacher, and
Speaker 1: up duper believable and we fucking love you. Guts, thanks
Speaker 1: for everyone, Thanks for being had, Thanks Steve, Thanks guys,