Speaker 1: In case you're just recently joining us, or however long
Speaker 1: you've been a listener of the show. You may not
Speaker 1: realize that we have over seven years of incredible episodes
Speaker 1: in our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that
Speaker 1: we've decided to hand pick one of our favorites that
Speaker 1: may be new to you, but if not, it definitely
Speaker 1: is worth another liston. We hope you'll enjoy this episode
Speaker 1: with terse Portrait. It's funny because I met my husband
Speaker 1: and I told him it was going to be five
Speaker 1: years before we slept together, and it was like the
Speaker 1: second night, Welcome to the one you feed throughout time.
Speaker 1: Great tinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true, And yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Our guest today is Terris Portchard, author
Speaker 1: of Beyond Blue and The Pocket Therapist. She blogs for
Speaker 1: Everyday Health and is an associate editor and regular contributor
Speaker 1: to psych Central. She writes about her own struggles with depression.
Speaker 1: Here's the show. Hi, Churice, Welcome to the show. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for having me on. We are happy to
Speaker 1: have you on. You've done a lot of writing about depression,
Speaker 1: which is something that we talk about on this show
Speaker 1: fair amount. You've you had a pretty popular blog on
Speaker 1: belief Net for a long time, and you've got a
Speaker 1: book called Beyond Blue, which I really enjoyed. So we
Speaker 1: will dive into a lot of that stuff. But let's
Speaker 1: start with the parable like we always do. So there
Speaker 1: is a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he
Speaker 1: thinks about it for a second, and he looks up
Speaker 1: at his grandfather and he says, grandfather, well, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 1: that you do. Well, let me say I love that parable.
Speaker 1: The first time I heard it was about four years
Speaker 1: ago at church, ironically, because the sermons usually aren't that good,
Speaker 1: but this one, Um, it made an impact on me,
Speaker 1: and I've remembered that, and I've had that in the
Speaker 1: back of my mind. UM as I go forth with
Speaker 1: trying to find ways of living around what I call
Speaker 1: my treatment resistant depression, I think you you always have
Speaker 1: to be cognizant of those two wolves, because when you
Speaker 1: are trying so hard to feed one, you don't realize
Speaker 1: how sneaky the other is, and before you know it,
Speaker 1: you're feeding the wrong wolf and you're back to where
Speaker 1: you started. So so having in mind those two, I
Speaker 1: try to make a conscious effort on doing the things
Speaker 1: that are going to result in more love and compassion. Um.
Speaker 1: It's the same message I think that Victor Frankel has
Speaker 1: with his book, Um demand searched for meeting that that
Speaker 1: also was very a very important book for me to
Speaker 1: read because I had kind of hit bottom and I
Speaker 1: had tried, you know, to fifty different medication combinations. I
Speaker 1: tried mindfulness, meditation, acupuncture, every kind of alternative therapy out there,
Speaker 1: and I still had these horrible death thoughts. And when
Speaker 1: I read that book, I realized that he, you know,
Speaker 1: in the Auschwitz and the concentration camps, he was he
Speaker 1: was there with wolves all around him, just just trying
Speaker 1: to eat from his very being. That he was just
Speaker 1: attacked all the time, and yet he found a way
Speaker 1: to find that wolf of love and compassion and turn
Speaker 1: that horrible time into just a blessing and to a
Speaker 1: lesson for each of us. And so I've I've tried
Speaker 1: to do that into turning my suffering into service, um
Speaker 1: And when I do that, I do feel more compassion
Speaker 1: and peace and serenity. So why don't you tell the
Speaker 1: listeners just a brief overview of your story that's in
Speaker 1: the book, about your your battles with depression. And I
Speaker 1: would be interested in also where where things pick up
Speaker 1: because the book was was several years ago, right, So
Speaker 1: i'd be interested in kind of after the book. Also,
Speaker 1: how how your ongoing um challenges have been with depression? Sure, well,
Speaker 1: I I really feel like I have been depressed from
Speaker 1: the time that I was born. I was a colloquy
Speaker 1: infants and um when I was a child had I
Speaker 1: was very Catholic, and so I had a scrupulosity. You know,
Speaker 1: I couldn't say enough prayers, couldn't go enough masses too.
Speaker 1: I was afraid I was going to hell. That that
Speaker 1: kind of morphed into an eating disorder. When I was
Speaker 1: an adolescent girl, I was wanted to be a professional ballerina,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of the culture there is is a
Speaker 1: little dangerous towards the body, and so I got carried
Speaker 1: away with that. But when I got in high school,
Speaker 1: I started to drink, and so went downhill fast with
Speaker 1: the drinking. I call liquor the quiet car in my brain.
Speaker 1: You know, when you're on amtrack and you're looking for
Speaker 1: the quiet car because everyone's on the phone. The quiet
Speaker 1: car for me was liquor. It was the first time
Speaker 1: that I was able to relax in my own brain,
Speaker 1: and I still remember the feeling of being able to
Speaker 1: do that. But you know, as in all alcoholic stories
Speaker 1: that it took me. UM took me down. So I
Speaker 1: once I got sober, I started to really I was
Speaker 1: in therapy in college and she thought I was depressed
Speaker 1: and wanted to put me on an antipressent. And I
Speaker 1: was very opposed because my aunt, my godmother, was bipolar
Speaker 1: and took her life. And UM, I just remember being
Speaker 1: so scared that I was like her. And so when
Speaker 1: she said, you know, I think you're depressed, my my
Speaker 1: defenses went up. And it took about a year and
Speaker 1: a half for me to come around and and to
Speaker 1: really acknowledge that and start the road to recovery. So UM,
Speaker 1: I was good for a while until I had my kids.
Speaker 1: And I think from what I've read, UM, childbirth can
Speaker 1: just do a real number on a woman's body as
Speaker 1: far as hormonally. UM. A lot of people who had
Speaker 1: depression prior to childbirth end up with bipolar disorder after childbirth.
Speaker 1: Not a lot, but but some do. And so that's
Speaker 1: what happened to me. After I stopped nursing my second child,
Speaker 1: I hit a bottom that UM that had been lower
Speaker 1: than anything I had ever done. And so I went
Speaker 1: from psychiatrists to psychiatrist seven and all and UM. One
Speaker 1: of them was a very aggressive m guy who worked
Speaker 1: for some pharmaceuticals and he was just UM given me
Speaker 1: a very dangerous combinations of of of medication and so
Speaker 1: I UM basically full fell into my cereal bowl one
Speaker 1: morning and was hospitalized UM and was hospitalized ice. Actually
Speaker 1: the last time was that JOHNS. Hopkins, and I met
Speaker 1: a wonderful physician who guided me from that point to UM.
Speaker 1: I think where I wrote the book UM, I had
Speaker 1: gone through a period where I UM really tried the
Speaker 1: alternative ways acupuncture, tried to go off my medication and
Speaker 1: ended up UM in a ball in my bedroom closet,
Speaker 1: and my husband said, you know, please do this for me.
Speaker 1: But UM, with the help of the psychiatrist and with
Speaker 1: an entrochnologist because it was also UM a matter of
Speaker 1: having a pituitary tumor and addressing that as well, I
Speaker 1: had two very good years. That's when I wrote the book.
Speaker 1: I'm Since then, since two thousand eight, I've been struggling again.
Speaker 1: And this time, I, you know, again tried many different
Speaker 1: combinations and when I hit like number fifty, I just
Speaker 1: didn't think that it was um that it just felt
Speaker 1: like I was beating a dead horse with with a
Speaker 1: toilet plunger something that was not working, and so I, UM,
Speaker 1: I have a great deal of respect for my psychiatrist,
Speaker 1: but I just started to kind of wonder about the
Speaker 1: field of psychiatry itself. And so I began to see
Speaker 1: a holistic doctor and acquire more about my diet and
Speaker 1: see someone who could really concentrate on my enderprine system
Speaker 1: because my pituitary tumor was still so out of whack
Speaker 1: and my thyroid is also kind of out of whack.
Speaker 1: So that journey has been the last year, and I
Speaker 1: in the last two or three months, I feel like
Speaker 1: I finally, um, you know, I'm still on medication and
Speaker 1: I still go to my psychiatrist, but with those pieces
Speaker 1: in place, I feel like I'm really starting to regain health.
Speaker 1: And I've had to make some very um difficult change
Speaker 1: is in my diet. I've given up gluten, dairy, alcohol, caffeine, sugar,
Speaker 1: UM and UM and take enough supplements that takes me
Speaker 1: about a half hour each week to fill them up,
Speaker 1: and those one of those brandy size containers. But but
Speaker 1: I think it's it's finally starting to pay off if
Speaker 1: I do absolutely everything that I can to to work
Speaker 1: towards good mental health. UM, I can't just go to
Speaker 1: a psychia, a psychiatrist and UH and a counsel or.
Speaker 1: For me, it has to be the whole body, the
Speaker 1: whole everything. I found that to be. One of the
Speaker 1: interesting things about your your story is that in your
Speaker 1: book there's a lot of concern because you've got a
Speaker 1: lot of people who are pointing you to holistic sources
Speaker 1: of healing um as you mentioned acupuncture, or if you
Speaker 1: just meditate right or go to enough yoga. And I
Speaker 1: found it interesting in the book that you were you
Speaker 1: were realizing that those things were not sufficient UM and
Speaker 1: that they still aren't. But now you find you found
Speaker 1: a way to pair the more traditional medical treatment, the
Speaker 1: antidepressant medicine and traditional therapy with some of those more
Speaker 1: holistic approaches. Yeah. I think for me, I I need
Speaker 1: both and that's UM. It's been frustrating because those worlds
Speaker 1: are so different, and if I go to a holistic doctor,
Speaker 1: most of them are going to say, we don't believe
Speaker 1: in mental diagnoses, we don't believe in mental illnesses because
Speaker 1: everything comes from toxins, everything comes from you know, um,
Speaker 1: they don't believe in in that in itself. And then
Speaker 1: but most of psychiatry really doesn't pay a lot of
Speaker 1: attention to diet, which I think is huge and um,
Speaker 1: so I've been trying to address that on my blog
Speaker 1: a lot to inform people because I don't think I
Speaker 1: got well, um and I feel confident right now that
Speaker 1: I'll probably wiably stay well because I have all of
Speaker 1: these pieces in place. My husband has been really great.
Speaker 1: He um. When I when I first just wanted to
Speaker 1: take the whole list of rout and and and go
Speaker 1: off all my medication, I was he has We have
Speaker 1: a lot of people in our community who are new age,
Speaker 1: and they He remembers when he was a kid watching
Speaker 1: this um documentary on Eurik Geller, the guy who had
Speaker 1: been the spoon with his with his thoughts, and finally,
Speaker 1: when I was so um, so desperate and and but
Speaker 1: was so stubborn to really accept the health of traditional medicine,
Speaker 1: he said, I think you've been staring at that spoon
Speaker 1: for too long. You know, I've been trying to fix
Speaker 1: my brain with my thoughts um themselves, and and that
Speaker 1: it didn't work for me. It it might work for
Speaker 1: other people, but it didn't work for me. Well, I
Speaker 1: think it's a very much matter of degree of of depression.
Speaker 1: I think I talk a lot on the show about
Speaker 1: the depression that I deal with, and it's never been
Speaker 1: as crippling as what you describe or other people have.
Speaker 1: It's more of a consistent, uh, you know, longer term, um,
Speaker 1: you know, lower level chronic condition, and so it does
Speaker 1: respond better to certain things. But but I've come to
Speaker 1: the same conclusion that you have, which is that I
Speaker 1: don't think that either of those camps is really sufficient.
Speaker 1: And I think that the way that we treat depression
Speaker 1: as a whole in this country is woefully inadequate. And
Speaker 1: the only thing that I found for me, it sounds
Speaker 1: very similar to your experience, is to sort of treat
Speaker 1: all parts of myself physical, the emotional, the mental, the
Speaker 1: all those things. If I've got if I'm working on
Speaker 1: all those things, then I end up in a much
Speaker 1: better place than if I'm working on any one of
Speaker 1: those in particular. So just medicine is helpful, but not enough. Um.
Speaker 1: Obviously just meditation doesn't get it done. It's I found
Speaker 1: I have to sort of stack all that stuff together right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you find that you don't um? It just seems
Speaker 1: like most of the people are in one camp or another.
Speaker 1: Though I agree, I think most people are in one
Speaker 1: camp or the other, which is I'm I'm always suspicious
Speaker 1: of anybody who's in one particular camp because I don't
Speaker 1: think any I don't think any issue in life that
Speaker 1: people have wrestled with for a long time is an
Speaker 1: easy has an easy answer to it, or it would
Speaker 1: have been solved. Right. If there was an easy answer
Speaker 1: for depression, it would be solved by now. If there
Speaker 1: was an easy answer for how to have healthcare in
Speaker 1: the US, it would have been solved by now. Right.
Speaker 1: These are complex challenges, and that's why anybody who proposes,
Speaker 1: like all you have to do is this one little
Speaker 1: thing I'm always skeptical of. Right. Yeah, Well, good for
Speaker 1: you for having a uh venue where you can really
Speaker 1: explore this, because I don't think there's enough of this
Speaker 1: information out there. So yeah, I agree. It's one of
Speaker 1: the things we try and focus on. And you a
Speaker 1: couple of things that you talk about in your book
Speaker 1: and your blog I'm really interested in, and one of
Speaker 1: them is the idea of our thoughts this there's a
Speaker 1: you talk about a couple of schools of thought out there.
Speaker 1: There's one if you take it to its extreme or
Speaker 1: the general, which is that you know, what we think
Speaker 1: about doesn't have much to do with what goes on
Speaker 1: in our body, right, these things are fairly disconnected. Um.
Speaker 1: The other school thought, going to the other extreme, is
Speaker 1: that everything that happens to us as a result of
Speaker 1: what we think. And I've seen you right in your
Speaker 1: blog before about how how we can get so stuck
Speaker 1: on thinking that every little thing that we think or
Speaker 1: do is the cause of what's wrong with us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny that you mentioned that. I I love neuroscience
Speaker 1: for that because it gives you hope that the brain
Speaker 1: is plastic and you can carve those neural passageways or
Speaker 1: the neural passageways. But but when I am very depressed,
Speaker 1: it works against me because I'm constantly beating myself up.
Speaker 1: As soon as I have a thought, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I just carve that passageway, you know, and then that will,
Speaker 1: you know, go compile against itself, and um, it's a
Speaker 1: real nightmare. But and that's why someone asked me the
Speaker 1: other day, Um, what I thought of cognitive behavioral therapy,
Speaker 1: and I think it's very very helpful, like Dr. Byrne
Speaker 1: stuff and all that stuff has been very helpful, But
Speaker 1: I I can't do it when I'm severely depressed. When
Speaker 1: I'm severely depressed, I I just have to distract myself
Speaker 1: because the more I try to think um of, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and carve the right quote positive passageways, then
Speaker 1: the more I'm just kind of digging myself a hole
Speaker 1: because I'm feeling responsible then for my depressure, which is
Speaker 1: making me, you know, feel even more depressed, which is
Speaker 1: you know, it's a down hill spiral. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, I don't think that it's healthy for people
Speaker 1: to think that they can um that they can you know,
Speaker 1: stay in a in a resentment or a stoop, or
Speaker 1: you know, can entertain a thought that's kind of hurtful
Speaker 1: and not have their body be affected by that. I
Speaker 1: do these mini episodes where I talk for you know,
Speaker 1: four or five minutes about just thoughts I have on
Speaker 1: different things. It's uh, it's it's the usual. Let me
Speaker 1: turn this off now for for our listeners. But it's
Speaker 1: a I'm kidding mostly, But I did one on rumination
Speaker 1: and the idea was simply that sometimes I can't think
Speaker 1: my way out of that situation. I simply just have
Speaker 1: to give my brain something else to focus on. And
Speaker 1: I think there are I found some positive techniques for
Speaker 1: doing that. Um you know, one would be like one
Speaker 1: of the things I do is I call it the
Speaker 1: alphabet gratitude game, where I have to go through the
Speaker 1: alphabet and think of something I'm grateful for for each letter,
Speaker 1: and it's it's mainly the thinking of something for each
Speaker 1: letter that's the really helpful part because it it gives
Speaker 1: my brain something to hang onto. But it's got the
Speaker 1: side benefit of me thinking about things that I think
Speaker 1: are positive. Um so, but I'm I'm with you on
Speaker 1: that inability when I'm really stuck to think my way
Speaker 1: out of it. And another analogy that I think is
Speaker 1: useful in that sense, or another way to think of
Speaker 1: it is it's sort of when people are fighting, and
Speaker 1: once you get to a certain point of being angry,
Speaker 1: there is nothing positive that is going to happen until
Speaker 1: you calm down. It just simply doesn't matter what you
Speaker 1: try and do. It's it's to a certain extent a
Speaker 1: matter of time. And you know, no long, no exposure
Speaker 1: to the thing you're angry at before you're able to
Speaker 1: think in any kind of positive way. Right. Yeah, that No,
Speaker 1: that's very true. Um. That's like someone told me that
Speaker 1: you never say anything important to your spouse before asking
Speaker 1: yourself if you're hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. You know
Speaker 1: that the twelve step halt and um. And I've added
Speaker 1: one more is if you're in the car, because our
Speaker 1: worst argument thought when we're in the car, because I'm
Speaker 1: very nervous, and I'm a nervous front seat driver, and
Speaker 1: so that's a that's a very good one. I've had
Speaker 1: a lot of really bad fights in the car too.
Speaker 1: So you wrote an article recently that was about things
Speaker 1: you wish people knew about depression, and I was wondering
Speaker 1: if you could maybe share a few of those that
Speaker 1: if you if you could tell people about depression, what
Speaker 1: are some of the things you wish that everyone knew.
Speaker 1: I'm I wish people knew that you could be grateful
Speaker 1: and oppressed at the same time. You know, I keep
Speaker 1: on hearing that if you're grateful, then you can't be depressed.
Speaker 1: And while I've I've read that research, I disagree with
Speaker 1: it because I've been physiologically depressed but grateful at the
Speaker 1: same time. I think it's incorrect to say that people
Speaker 1: who are depressed don't know what blessings they have in
Speaker 1: their life. I think they do. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: that most of the people who I know that are
Speaker 1: severely depressed do, and that's part of the reason that
Speaker 1: they feel so bad is they can't celebrate those but
Speaker 1: they are intrinsically and authentically grateful for that. Um, that's
Speaker 1: one of the things. And again it's that it's the
Speaker 1: holistic versus medical world issue. I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: I was really hopeful when I was reading all these
Speaker 1: diet nutrition books that if I eliminated gluten wheat or
Speaker 1: wheat as gluten, um, dairy, sugar, caffeine, that all, you know,
Speaker 1: these books say in six weeks, you just you're like
Speaker 1: a different person and you've never had a bad thought
Speaker 1: in your life. And UM, that's I think very scary
Speaker 1: for I think it's unfair for people to to expect
Speaker 1: someone to just change their diet and not be depressed.
Speaker 1: I mean, I changed my diet and I still was
Speaker 1: very very suicidal. So UM, to know that that's not
Speaker 1: it's not as easy. Is that it's not as easy
Speaker 1: as going to yoga. Yoga. Actually, when I back in
Speaker 1: two thousand five, um, I had to stop going to
Speaker 1: yoga because my my worst suicidal ruminations happened in yoga.
Speaker 1: It gave me the room to think, you know, during
Speaker 1: that hour and a half, and that's dangerous for someone
Speaker 1: who's you know, that low. So again, it's not and
Speaker 1: it's it's just not black and right. It's not do yoga,
Speaker 1: drink at Kale smoothie in the morning and you're fine, Well,
Speaker 1: guess what I've done those things? If you put the
Speaker 1: vodka in your Kale smoothie, well, maybe that's true. It's
Speaker 1: the green quiet car. Yeah, that's that's a very good point.
Speaker 1: And then on the other end, you know people who
Speaker 1: I think that medication is the reason why you get well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it certainly can be part of
Speaker 1: the equation, but I don't think it's fair to say
Speaker 1: that just because you're you know, you're on medication and
Speaker 1: you're seeing a counselor that means that you aren't going
Speaker 1: to be depressed. There's so much more work that you
Speaker 1: have to go into it. Um. So it's I guess
Speaker 1: it's again that that that double whammy that you're hit
Speaker 1: by between the holistic world and the pharmaceutical world that
Speaker 1: I wanted to discuss, and also just the just the
Speaker 1: amount of trying. UM. I had six years between two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight until very recently that I had these
Speaker 1: very loud death thoughts and I would have to go
Speaker 1: to dinner with people and laugh and you know, fake,
Speaker 1: and then come home and google how to get cancer.
Speaker 1: I mean, people don't realize that we're used to it,
Speaker 1: you know, people who have been severely depressed for so long.
Speaker 1: I'm used to UM, I'm used to a good act.
Speaker 1: And so that doesn't mean I'm not that that pain
Speaker 1: isn't any more real. How have you found because you
Speaker 1: are the leader of uh maybe leaders the wrong word,
Speaker 1: but you found it a Facebook group called Beyond Blue
Speaker 1: that you're a key part of. How has the interaction
Speaker 1: with that group been different from when you were doing
Speaker 1: better and when you were struggling again? How did how
Speaker 1: did you approach that? Well? I actually started it in May. UM.
Speaker 1: I had been you know, eating that made the diet
Speaker 1: restrictions about five months before, and I still didn't notice anything.
Speaker 1: And I was on the fiftieth medication, and I basically
Speaker 1: thought that I was going to have to live with
Speaker 1: these death thoughts for the rest of my life, and
Speaker 1: so I better, I better connect with some people and
Speaker 1: learn how to do it. So UM, I started that,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's partly also why I'm better
Speaker 1: today is because I don't feel I'm as unique as
Speaker 1: I thought I was before. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: anyone in my friend circle or in my family circle
Speaker 1: who who deals with what I do. But man, there
Speaker 1: are tons of people online who, you know, have to
Speaker 1: deal with these same thoughts every single day. And to
Speaker 1: see them, I mean, some of them are so heroic
Speaker 1: in the way that they do and and they offer
Speaker 1: help and they you know, it's it's again, it's Victor
Speaker 1: Frankel's turning to service. I think has really helped them,
Speaker 1: and I'm learning from them that it helps me. So
Speaker 1: I try to, UM, I try to get on there
Speaker 1: and help people for like at least an hour a day,
Speaker 1: because it's it's kind of like that one story where
Speaker 1: the two people are gonna or the one person who's
Speaker 1: going to jump off a cliff and commit suicide, and
Speaker 1: then another person comes up and it's going to do
Speaker 1: the same, and she turns around and tries to save
Speaker 1: the one. You know, you forget about your pain when
Speaker 1: you're trying to sort of, um do emergency calls there.
Speaker 1: But um, the group has really it's been good for me, um,
Speaker 1: and that in that way, I do have to I
Speaker 1: do have to watch the compassion fatigue because there's some
Speaker 1: people that you know, we're not a suicide hotline, and
Speaker 1: so when you get to the space where you're you're
Speaker 1: just really in danger, it's not not I don't think
Speaker 1: a good um a good place to be our our
Speaker 1: site because I'm not a mental health professional, thank god,
Speaker 1: because if I was, I'd probably be responsible for all
Speaker 1: these people. And I'm a theology major, so thank god
Speaker 1: I'm not. But um, I do have to watch that
Speaker 1: line of getting compassion fatigue and watching watching you know,
Speaker 1: just being good to myself. But but some of the
Speaker 1: people just really blow me away with their compassion and
Speaker 1: the resolve and the way they just trudged through every
Speaker 1: day and just you know, at one ft in front
Speaker 1: of the other. It's good for me to see that
Speaker 1: I'm not alone. Yeah, I had no idea the group
Speaker 1: was that new and it's a really interesting group. You're
Speaker 1: My reaction to it is I usually have a couple
Speaker 1: of reactions. One is it can be a heartbreaking place
Speaker 1: to spend much time because there's a lot of people struggling,
Speaker 1: and yet you're right, there's so much beautiful compassion between
Speaker 1: those people. Um that is that is there. And I
Speaker 1: think when you when you think about a holistic approach
Speaker 1: two depression or really mental health in general, whether that
Speaker 1: be improving your mental health from where it is to
Speaker 1: better or you know, moving out of depression. That another
Speaker 1: one that I think is frequently overlooked is exactly what
Speaker 1: you just said is the connection to people, but very
Speaker 1: importantly connection to people who can understand you. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I think all of us have in common that loneliness.
Speaker 1: I think that's the worst part of this depression, is
Speaker 1: that loneliness of no one really getting you. And so uh,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's been really really cool to see
Speaker 1: people come in who were suicidal and now posting funny videos.
Speaker 1: And you know, a woman whom now has the energy
Speaker 1: to take care of our grandkids and to see that
Speaker 1: progress just from nothing's changed except that she's communicating with
Speaker 1: other people who understand her. It's um, it's amazing. So
Speaker 1: I'm in the process right now of building a site
Speaker 1: for that. So it's not on Facebook because Facebook has
Speaker 1: its limitations. Yeah. Yeah, every once in a while somebody
Speaker 1: will post something they mean for the group on the
Speaker 1: main part of Facebook and be mortified. I have a
Speaker 1: question for you, though. This is similar because I've wondered
Speaker 1: about this for a long time and my you you've
Speaker 1: come you come from a twelve step culture, so you're
Speaker 1: familiar with with what all that is. Like. I've always
Speaker 1: been curious why there is no such thing as depression
Speaker 1: support groups in real life, or let me rephrase it,
Speaker 1: because I know there are some, but there's a very
Speaker 1: few of them. They're not well marketed in any way.
Speaker 1: I kind of wonder is it just by the nature
Speaker 1: of DEPRESSI and that people don't you know, part of
Speaker 1: that is an isolation thing. But I've just been curious
Speaker 1: because if you think about the power that comes from
Speaker 1: being online in that group, if you could translate that
Speaker 1: into the face to face power that you get in
Speaker 1: other recovery programs, it would be really helpful. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: funny that you asked that, because I'm I actually am
Speaker 1: putting together a foundation right now. It's called Beyond Blue
Speaker 1: Foundation to UM get funding for the the new site.
Speaker 1: But also one of the programs that I really want
Speaker 1: is called find Your Tribe, and it's it's based on
Speaker 1: that quote that when you find people who don't think
Speaker 1: that you're weird, but but UM react and enjoy and
Speaker 1: say me too, you have found your tribe UM. And
Speaker 1: I love that because I feel like that's what we
Speaker 1: are on Tribe g BB or group Beyond Blue. So
Speaker 1: I want to be able to do that. And I
Speaker 1: think if the site gets big enough, then you know,
Speaker 1: we'll have people in different cities and can kind of
Speaker 1: form UM have the the online community actually become a
Speaker 1: real community outside. I've been to NAMI meetings, and while
Speaker 1: I'm a big supporter of NAMI, I the meetings have
Speaker 1: not really been I think it's more for support for
Speaker 1: parents and family members of people who are depressed. I
Speaker 1: haven't UM received that much support for, like you said,
Speaker 1: people who are going through it. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's anonymity or you know, the the twelve step culture
Speaker 1: clashes a little bit with mental health culture. Let me
Speaker 1: lead us into that discussion by reading something you wrote
Speaker 1: because I thought it was really really good, and I'll
Speaker 1: read it and then we can kind of go into
Speaker 1: it a little bit more. You said the difference between
Speaker 1: sobriety culture, there's a difference between sobriety culture and mental
Speaker 1: illness culture. In the substance abuse culture, the person is
Speaker 1: generally viewed as the agent of the problem, and they
Speaker 1: are held accountable and have consequences for the relapse. In
Speaker 1: the mental illness culture, the person is often viewed not
Speaker 1: as the agent of the problem, but as the victim
Speaker 1: of their illness, and we tend to hold people a
Speaker 1: little a little less accountable for biochemical processes. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: got into trouble with that when I first got sober
Speaker 1: um and was I was in college and I was
Speaker 1: struggling with my depression at the same time. And whenever
Speaker 1: I tried to voice my desperation that, you know, I
Speaker 1: had these horrible suicidal thoughts, death thoughts, they don't be like,
Speaker 1: you know, poor me, poor me, pour me a drink,
Speaker 1: you know, right, your gratitude list, right, you're And it
Speaker 1: was I learned that I can't talk about my depression
Speaker 1: and a A or else I it's it's something that
Speaker 1: I've done to myself, which may be more depressed. So
Speaker 1: I actually stopped going to the support group meetings because
Speaker 1: I just didn't you know. Some and my sponsor said
Speaker 1: that if I take antidepressants, those are happy pills that
Speaker 1: are going to compromise my sobriety. And so yeah, there's
Speaker 1: there's a big clash there. And maybe that's the reason
Speaker 1: why the twelve step movement has never taken off with
Speaker 1: the mental health because it is it's it's almost more
Speaker 1: like a cancer survival group than it is like an
Speaker 1: a a group. Yeah, so, um that is It's something
Speaker 1: that I really want to work on because I have
Speaker 1: a few people who I met through the actually group
Speaker 1: Beyond Blue. We get together every once in a while,
Speaker 1: and just the human connection, that in person connection does
Speaker 1: lend itself to so much more. Um So, who knows,
Speaker 1: maybe you and I can start that movement. Yeah, I'm certainly,
Speaker 1: I am. I'm very interested in that idea. I do
Speaker 1: think that the overall recovery or sobriety culture has changed
Speaker 1: a fair amount from probably when you were in college.
Speaker 1: Not that I'm insinuating that that was a long time ago.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just saying that I got ago. It is
Speaker 1: when I I mean, I first became exposed to recovery
Speaker 1: culture about twenty years ago, and I heard a lot
Speaker 1: more of that sort of stuff than I ever hear
Speaker 1: these days. I'm not nearly as involved, but I think
Speaker 1: it has softened to some degree. But I think very
Speaker 1: similarly to what we were talking about before, I think
Speaker 1: either side of that camp is wrong. It's not all
Speaker 1: your fault, and it's yet still whether whatever causes it
Speaker 1: mental ill if it's mental illness, or you still are
Speaker 1: responsible for your own path to getting better. And so
Speaker 1: it's it's neither. It's both. Those camps again seem to
Speaker 1: me to be on the extreme. Yeah, now I agree
Speaker 1: with you. I agree with Yeah. It's um. We we
Speaker 1: run into that in the group a little bit. You know,
Speaker 1: you gotta people are there to support each other, but
Speaker 1: you also have to want to get well yourself, and
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that that's there for everyone. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw that discussion. I don't remember where it was
Speaker 1: you had about So you're on the group beyond Blue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so cool. I don't post very much. Um, I
Speaker 1: mainly just am kind of hanging out watching and reading
Speaker 1: and liking some things here and there with the occasional comment.
Speaker 1: But I'm I'm fairly um, not too not too involved.
Speaker 1: I didn't make the connection between the Eric Zimmer of
Speaker 1: the show and the Yeah, okay, now that I think
Speaker 1: I have seen that's great. Yeah, I'm I'm in disguise
Speaker 1: in there. I've got a it's it's a it's a
Speaker 1: clown suit that I picture you see me in, or
Speaker 1: I just put I put Chris's picture in for anything
Speaker 1: that I'm a little bit nervous about being involve of DIN. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: the guidelines, the rules have been kind of difficult to uphold.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, is really good about that about
Speaker 1: you know, you're responsible for yourself. So yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lot to learn in any sort of UM group dynamic
Speaker 1: from from A because they got a lot of things
Speaker 1: really right to survived as long as it has and
Speaker 1: to the scale it has, it's kind of amazing. But
Speaker 1: I think I have I have plenty of challenges with it.
Speaker 1: I think the same as a lot of people do. UM.
Speaker 1: But so one of the things that I wanted to
Speaker 1: we're kind of coming to the near the end of
Speaker 1: our time. But One of the things I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you about is you have a quote in your
Speaker 1: book that's one of my favorite quotes, and it's from
Speaker 1: Rilka about loving the question. So can you tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about that quote and what it means
Speaker 1: to you. Um. I love that quote because I grew
Speaker 1: up as being so black and white, and I think
Speaker 1: if I had to say what I've learned through my journey,
Speaker 1: it's to appreciate the gray. Um. That quote is similar
Speaker 1: to Paima quod Run, the Buddhist nun, and she talks
Speaker 1: about you know, you think you're you're always going to
Speaker 1: fix things, but then they fall apart again, and then
Speaker 1: you fix them and then they fall apart, and you
Speaker 1: have to learn to exist where there's room for misery
Speaker 1: and room for joy. And that to me is um
Speaker 1: what I try to aim for, because with the mental health,
Speaker 1: when I'm trying to fix it so that I don't
Speaker 1: have a symptom, then I'm setting myself up because you know,
Speaker 1: the way I made my biochemistry, I'm going to have
Speaker 1: this stuff for the rest of my life. But if
Speaker 1: I can learn to live with my symptoms and live
Speaker 1: with the questions and address all that gray matter as
Speaker 1: it comes. Then there's gonna be a lot less frustration,
Speaker 1: and I might be able to help the person or
Speaker 1: two along the way instead of cower and a quarter
Speaker 1: um in in a temper tantrum for not you know,
Speaker 1: getting it perfect. So it's funny. I I was a
Speaker 1: theology major and when I was writing a paper, I
Speaker 1: was so black and white that I wrote this paper
Speaker 1: on still can be believe? This paper on why everybody
Speaker 1: who had premimable sex would burn in Hell and Jesus,
Speaker 1: I mean I was so like, like off the charts,
Speaker 1: you know, black and white. And so my funny teacher,
Speaker 1: My teacher wrote, um wrote in the in the bottom,
Speaker 1: she said, I hope you learn a little nuance in
Speaker 1: your life. And five years later, my dad had died
Speaker 1: and it was just a mess. And you know, I
Speaker 1: started to to know that things are just messy. They're
Speaker 1: just messy. So I came back and knocked on our
Speaker 1: door and I said, yeah, thanks. Although I've always believed
Speaker 1: in pre marital sex, so um. Well, then it's funny
Speaker 1: because I met my husband and I told him it
Speaker 1: was going to be five years before we slept together,
Speaker 1: and it was like the second night you know. So
Speaker 1: on our first one of our oars states, he said,
Speaker 1: where do you see yourself in five years? And I
Speaker 1: said as a missionary and none in the third world country.
Speaker 1: And he's like, oh interesting. He was like, we better
Speaker 1: get this done quickly. Then. Yes, things, things are messy things,
Speaker 1: and and being okay with that is a big it's
Speaker 1: a big help. But we we talk on the show
Speaker 1: a lot about feeling bad about feeling bad or this
Speaker 1: idea of just all this stuff that we layer on
Speaker 1: top of the pain that's already there. And I think
Speaker 1: that's another way right doing it, which is is this
Speaker 1: believing that things should be really different than they are.
Speaker 1: It's one thing to want them to be different. It's
Speaker 1: a different thing to think that they should be different,
Speaker 1: right right. Yeah, Well, thank you so much. I do
Speaker 1: think you're doing a lot of great work and helping
Speaker 1: a lot of people out there with your your blog
Speaker 1: and your book. And it's clear the group is helping
Speaker 1: a ton of people. Well, thank you you too with
Speaker 1: the with this great podcast series. Yes, well, thank you
Speaker 1: so much, and thanks for coming on the show, and
Speaker 1: we'll talk again soon, Okay, thank you, all right, bye bye.
Speaker 1: You can learn more about Therese Portard and this podcast
Speaker 1: at one new feed dot net slash Therese. That's t
Speaker 1: h E r E s e