Speaker 1: This is the Anxiety Bites podcast and I am your host,
Speaker 1: Jen Kirkman. Welcome to another episode of Anxiety Bites. I'm
Speaker 1: your host Jen Kirkman. Today I'm talking to my friend
Speaker 1: Judy Gold. Judy Gold is a hilarious comedian, just an actress.
Speaker 1: I'll get into all of that in a moment now.
Speaker 1: As you know, this is a podcast about anxiety hosted
Speaker 1: by a comedian, but I don't mean it to be
Speaker 1: a comedy podcast. I certainly didn't want it to be.
Speaker 1: I interview comedians with anxiety, but I have had a few.
Speaker 1: On this season. Judy will be the final comedian in
Speaker 1: my three comedian series. I talked to my friend Andy
Speaker 1: Keindler and Chelsea Handler as well. But I've known Judy
Speaker 1: a long time, and you know, it's just it wasn't
Speaker 1: until maybe a few years ago when we talked about it,
Speaker 1: or I don't remember. I mean maybe not just a
Speaker 1: few years ago, but within the last ten years where
Speaker 1: I realized she had anxiety and depression. And it's I
Speaker 1: don't know why I didn't think that, because I'm not
Speaker 1: saying every comedian has that, but I've again known her
Speaker 1: for a long time, and I'm sure she talks about
Speaker 1: her anxiety on stage. She's just such a big presence
Speaker 1: in that she's and I mean, this is the best
Speaker 1: of ways. She's loud, and she's funny, and she's confident,
Speaker 1: or at least she's doing a damn good job pretending
Speaker 1: to be confident. But I've watched her work as a
Speaker 1: stand up since I moved to New York, and was
Speaker 1: this shaky little thing trying to act like I was confident,
Speaker 1: And and I really looked up to Judy, And I
Speaker 1: know if she were listening to this, she's going to
Speaker 1: be like, you're making me sound old. But Judy was
Speaker 1: always very kind to me. And you know, I'm honestly
Speaker 1: like a lot of times people with anxiety or depression there,
Speaker 1: they're not always just kind to people. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of times you in your own head or yourself
Speaker 1: medicating with alcolors something, and then that changes your behavior,
Speaker 1: or you're really withdrawn and shy, or you're depressed and
Speaker 1: sort of just over it. And and I never experienced
Speaker 1: that with her. So it's not like I was shocked
Speaker 1: when I found out she had depression and anxiety. I
Speaker 1: just went, oh, oh, that's right. Yet another reminder that
Speaker 1: you never can tell you can't judge it by someone
Speaker 1: who doesn't seem freaked out to be on a stage.
Speaker 1: I mean that that's a job. You know, I'm not
Speaker 1: freaked out to be on stage, but I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: like I don't know, driving over a bridge to get there. Anyway.
Speaker 1: Every once in a while, I like to do an
Speaker 1: episode where it's conversational, where you know, we're not talking
Speaker 1: to a neuroscientist or a therapist or someone who can
Speaker 1: explain why everything comes together and forms anxiety, but rather
Speaker 1: more of an experiential thing. You know, someone who's saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I grew up this way and I didn't realize until
Speaker 1: later that this was that, and that was this, and
Speaker 1: that affects this, and you know, there's this um thing.
Speaker 1: I think that happens when when you talk to a
Speaker 1: lot of smart people, if you're listening and you're thinking, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: I guess god, if I had known this sooner, and
Speaker 1: then maybe I could have started to get better quicker.
Speaker 1: And I just don't think it totally works that way.
Speaker 1: I think you just have to live your life, live
Speaker 1: your experiences, and sort of slowly go through life and
Speaker 1: try and fail at different things, whether it's some kind
Speaker 1: of social life, work life, and then start to realize
Speaker 1: what your pathology is or what your habits are, and
Speaker 1: realize are these mine or these maladaptive things that I
Speaker 1: learned from my parents? Okay, now I have to trade
Speaker 1: them in for some new tools. I do think that
Speaker 1: knowledge is power, but knowledge is not everything. You just
Speaker 1: kind of have to live and see and experience. And
Speaker 1: so Judy and I are all over the place, you know,
Speaker 1: we we both have a d H D. And as
Speaker 1: Judy says, she's a d D D D D D
Speaker 1: D D. Like we're all over the place. We're talking
Speaker 1: everything from you know, the generational trauma she experienced too
Speaker 1: when she came out at the closet, and you know
Speaker 1: what society was like back then? Oh my god, she's
Speaker 1: so old. Did I mentioned what society was like? How
Speaker 1: how different you know it is now? What it's like
Speaker 1: being a mom, what it's like being someone who had
Speaker 1: a very anxious mom, who never got treated for anxiety?
Speaker 1: How do you break the cycle? Do you break the cycle?
Speaker 1: And then what does she do now? Um too kind
Speaker 1: of keep the maladaptive behaviors at bay? What does what
Speaker 1: does she do to self soothe? And you're going to
Speaker 1: not be surprised that it's the thing that everybody says
Speaker 1: that we need to do, which is connection with others, breathing, meditating.
Speaker 1: I mean, I hate to say it. I could do
Speaker 1: a hundred more of these episodes and we're just going
Speaker 1: to keep coming back to those basics, right, But it
Speaker 1: was really fun to talk to Judy, and I think
Speaker 1: she's a great example of just keep walking through whatever
Speaker 1: you're going through. Your going to come out the other
Speaker 1: side stronger and smarter. And if you can be as
Speaker 1: funny as Judy while you're doing it, then you've really
Speaker 1: you've really won the mental health battle. So without further ado,
Speaker 1: I hope you just have a fun time listening to
Speaker 1: me talk with Judy and we talk about bullying, which
Speaker 1: is something that I haven't really talked about on this
Speaker 1: podcast before. There is an upcoming episode where I get
Speaker 1: into um bullying a little bit deeper, talking to a
Speaker 1: therapist and author about you know, why why does it
Speaker 1: stay with us when we know we don't actually you know,
Speaker 1: we don't actually absorb the opinions of bullies that were
Speaker 1: mean to us as kids. I mean, maybe we did
Speaker 1: as a kid, but as an adult, we we know better.
Speaker 1: We don't care. We might even see these people on Facebook.
Speaker 1: You know, they seem to have forgotten the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and uh so what does that mean? It stays with
Speaker 1: us so that I'll be talking about that in a
Speaker 1: future episode, but for now, it's a duty. And I
Speaker 1: kind of talking about how bullying shaped us in a
Speaker 1: way where there's this anxiety that comes from not being
Speaker 1: able to control others in that sense of how do
Speaker 1: you get to act like this and and like no
Speaker 1: one's gonna do anything about this, and and then just
Speaker 1: even growing up and seeing these people, like I said
Speaker 1: earlier on Facebook and going so you just get to
Speaker 1: have bullied someone in your whole life and then that's it.
Speaker 1: I mean, not even an apology would do. It's like
Speaker 1: you almost want these people to like have to sit
Speaker 1: down to their family and go Okay. When I was younger,
Speaker 1: I did this, I just judy and I realized that
Speaker 1: one thing we have in common that came from being
Speaker 1: anxious people and people who maybe felt misunderstood or picked on,
Speaker 1: was the sense of justice. I think I talked about
Speaker 1: it with my other friend Andy Killer. Maybe this somehow
Speaker 1: goes hand in hand with being a comedian. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but we just want to make things right that aren't
Speaker 1: in our lives and in the war old and when
Speaker 1: we can't, it's like we don't except that we can't
Speaker 1: control the bigger things in life. You know, it's so
Speaker 1: endlessly frustrating. So people like us, and if you're like us,
Speaker 1: you really need to find ways to self soothe and
Speaker 1: of course laugh. So again, so excited to have Judy
Speaker 1: on this show. And I will stop talking so that
Speaker 1: you can go listen to her. But let me just
Speaker 1: tell you a little more about Judy Gold. She's a
Speaker 1: stand up comedian obviously, as I said, she started in
Speaker 1: critically acclaimed one woman hit off Broadway shows. She's the
Speaker 1: author of Yes I Can Say That When they come
Speaker 1: for the Comedians were all in Trouble. It's a great
Speaker 1: book she wrote years and years ago. Um that sort
Speaker 1: of predicted where we are today in many ways about
Speaker 1: you know, debates about what we can and can't joke about.
Speaker 1: And she is the host of the very funny podcast
Speaker 1: Kill Me Now, where she always asks her guests if
Speaker 1: they're on any kind of mental health medication. Judy has
Speaker 1: acted in so many TV shows. Most recently she was
Speaker 1: on FX is Better Things, and she's in the new
Speaker 1: Showtime series Flotus. So let's go to my conversation. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, oh my god, oh my god. What is it?
Speaker 1: I have this new Bluetooth speaker that I play music
Speaker 1: out of and it is just talking to me and
Speaker 1: I don't like it at all, and if I okay anyway,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to edit that out because I
Speaker 1: think it's funny. So without further ado, my conversation with Judy.
Speaker 1: And you know, you wish you had been there when
Speaker 1: we were just setting up and she's like yelling funk
Speaker 1: while she's setting up her mic. It was delightful, but
Speaker 1: you don't get to hear it, but you get to
Speaker 1: hear about it. But now you get to hear me
Speaker 1: and Judy. Judy and me, you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Don't criticize my grammar. You just you know where a
Speaker 1: lot of your anxiety comes from. Spill it. Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, I think it's genetic. Um, I'm predisposed. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of Jews are predisposed to anxiety because
Speaker 1: of being kicked out of every country. So you know,
Speaker 1: this idea of the Jewish the anxious Jewish mother, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, is all based on trauma of you know,
Speaker 1: knock knock, get out heat, you get out of your dead. Um.
Speaker 1: So I know that a lot of my I had
Speaker 1: had a very anxious mother and very o c D
Speaker 1: father and an anxious father might so I believe that
Speaker 1: my anxiety. First of all, my father lived through the Depression.
Speaker 1: He was born in nineteen sixteen and remembers people we'll
Speaker 1: remember and he's dead. Uh, people like committing suicide. Fuck,
Speaker 1: I turned this off, you funk. Sorry. Oh, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be an interview with you without that. I'm keeping on it. Yeah, sorry. Uh.
Speaker 1: So he he remembered that anxiety from you know, the
Speaker 1: like literally the depression. Um. He was I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: thirteen years old, so very impressionable age. Now, my mother
Speaker 1: grew up on the Upper West Side and she um
Speaker 1: had a brother and a sister. She was the eldest,
Speaker 1: and then her brother was two years younger, and then
Speaker 1: her sisters seven years younger. And one day in June
Speaker 1: I think it was the last day of school. Actually,
Speaker 1: she was walking home from she went to UM Julia
Speaker 1: Richmond High School on the East Side, and Betty Persky
Speaker 1: was in her class. Lauren Call's real name. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I never knew that. Yes, and cousin of Sam Schmo
Speaker 1: Perez who was the Prime Minister of Israel. Okay, fascinating.
Speaker 1: So you get a lot of Jewish information. This is great.
Speaker 1: So she's walking home and uh, she bumps into one
Speaker 1: of her cousins. A lot of us grew up my
Speaker 1: family very New York Upper West Side. And so she
Speaker 1: bumps into one of her cousins and they walk home together.
Speaker 1: And as she gets at off the bus or the subway, whatever,
Speaker 1: she sees her uncle standing on the corner and he
Speaker 1: tells the cousin to go home and brings my mother
Speaker 1: upstairs to tell her that her brother. She walks into
Speaker 1: this house and her younger brother and everyone is just
Speaker 1: sitting um. And her younger brother, who went to Bronx
Speaker 1: Bian's Brooklyn Tech, was playing ball outside on They lived
Speaker 1: on ninety four West eighty nine Street nine and the
Speaker 1: doorman came out and said, told these kids, you can't
Speaker 1: play ball here. And uh, my uncle, my mother's brother,
Speaker 1: had his jacket on the hood of a car, and
Speaker 1: the doorman or the elevator operator grabbed his jacket and
Speaker 1: he and Stewart, my uncle, ran and he and the
Speaker 1: elevator upper ran back into the lobby and was like
Speaker 1: playing keepaway with the jacket, and Stewart reached for his
Speaker 1: jacket and um, the doorman slash elevator opera, I don't
Speaker 1: know what it was, pushed him and he fell back
Speaker 1: and hit his head on the marble floor and died. Oh,
Speaker 1: and I have to tell you I grew up in
Speaker 1: a house where if I was five minutes late, Um,
Speaker 1: I remember my father even taking the train to go
Speaker 1: to work and come home. Um, my mother was a wreck.
Speaker 1: Every time I left, I had to leave the name number,
Speaker 1: you know, when I was coming home. You know. So
Speaker 1: what happened was this huge tragedy happened? And how old
Speaker 1: was your mom when this happened? It up ended all
Speaker 1: of her plans of going to college. She ended up
Speaker 1: just going to you know, junior college. Her younger sister,
Speaker 1: who still live, my aunt Joan, you know, told me that,
Speaker 1: you know, she felt so guilty because she had just
Speaker 1: had pneumonia and they had just come out with antibiotics,
Speaker 1: and she she lived, but she thought she was the
Speaker 1: one that was supposed to die. My mother and my
Speaker 1: and her sister both made a pack. They would have
Speaker 1: three children each, so in so there was always one
Speaker 1: left in case something, I mean, And no one ever
Speaker 1: talked about it. So I didn't even know until I
Speaker 1: was eighteen and I was visiting my grandmother and I
Speaker 1: saw the obituary in one of her drawers. Um, so
Speaker 1: this trauma and no one talked about things, then that's
Speaker 1: the whole thing there was. There was no therapy, there
Speaker 1: was no They they moved to a smaller apartment with
Speaker 1: one less bedroom, and then they moved out of the
Speaker 1: building two first Street. Um, I guess it was too
Speaker 1: painful to even be in. So that trauma. Are those
Speaker 1: two traumas I think um really made or affected the
Speaker 1: way my parents parented. And you know, and the fact
Speaker 1: that we didn't know that it was like, what's the
Speaker 1: big fucking deal. I'm ten minut It is late. You
Speaker 1: know What's so interesting because now, okay, so there's generational trauma.
Speaker 1: Then there's nature nurture, so like we know that anxiety
Speaker 1: comes down in our DNA, whether or not we had
Speaker 1: a generational trauma. Then there's third they're doing everything quote wrong, right,
Speaker 1: so they don't they never talk about the death. They
Speaker 1: don't all so now they're passing down maladaptive behaviors. Um
Speaker 1: so even before you find out there was a death,
Speaker 1: like you're just being created in this lab of anxiety
Speaker 1: of like you know, everything is dangerous, right, And so
Speaker 1: I remember I grew up like five or six houses
Speaker 1: down from my grammar school. Like I literally walked three
Speaker 1: minutes to get to my grammar school. You could see
Speaker 1: the you know, the state the soccer field was like
Speaker 1: in my backyard. But I mean it was anyway the
Speaker 1: minute there was any weather, right. Yeah. They used to
Speaker 1: make announcements on the public address system. I sweart of
Speaker 1: got the first time, like there's a snowstormer, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be this, or there's Judith Gold. Can you please come
Speaker 1: to the office. Your mother's here. And I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I'm already unpopular, and now there's an announcement
Speaker 1: that my mother was the first to pick us up
Speaker 1: to you know, bring us home. Well, you know you
Speaker 1: are a comedian, and we'll mention it a little bit.
Speaker 1: I'm really I really hate like analyzing comedy and anxiety.
Speaker 1: It's just so boring and nobody gets it right. But
Speaker 1: one of my favorite routines that you do routines, one
Speaker 1: of my eight is the one about your mother. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a classic Judith did you fall down? She's yelling
Speaker 1: out into your answering machine. We just give us a
Speaker 1: sense of that because it's so funny. Uh. Well, and
Speaker 1: I have a I have a bunch of them. But
Speaker 1: uh so my eye had. This is the eighties, um,
Speaker 1: and I had gone pre cell phone, and I was
Speaker 1: at my agent's office and I called my mother on
Speaker 1: the phone because it was free. I used to talk
Speaker 1: to my mother every day and and it was free
Speaker 1: because we used to have to pay it. And you know,
Speaker 1: she lived in New Jersey and I was in New York.
Speaker 1: Uh that was also a sore spot with her that
Speaker 1: she had to move to New Jersey because of my
Speaker 1: father's job, and she hated it. But so I called
Speaker 1: her in New Jersey and we're talking and my elbow
Speaker 1: hit the you know the thing on the phone. So
Speaker 1: we got disconnected and I didn't call her back. Um,
Speaker 1: and I got home and I forgot to tell her
Speaker 1: is that my agent's office. And I got home and
Speaker 1: there was this message on my answering machine where she
Speaker 1: is literally screaming, where are you? I'm a wreck. I
Speaker 1: don't understand it. Then she's going to call the neighbor
Speaker 1: to find out what happened to me, and she's screaming,
Speaker 1: and then there's a pause and she says, so long.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's so and I and I heard this,
Speaker 1: and I thought, and I had so much material about
Speaker 1: my anxious mother, and I think that's how I processed it,
Speaker 1: probably now that I'm talking to you, the the anxiety
Speaker 1: and um and and her over the top no, because
Speaker 1: it was It wasn't like I had to exaggerate it.
Speaker 1: I was just telling these stories and I thought, I
Speaker 1: gotta play this on. No one is going to believe this.
Speaker 1: And it became like this signature bit of mine, playing
Speaker 1: this answering machine message. And my mother and I have
Speaker 1: a bunch of them, I you know, through life, um
Speaker 1: of the messages she left me that are so like,
Speaker 1: there's one, okay, there's one where there was this dart man.
Speaker 1: Some people remember this bit. There was a guy in
Speaker 1: the subways, and I think it was in the eighties
Speaker 1: or nineties, and he was throwing darts at women's asses,
Speaker 1: and and there was like this big scare because it
Speaker 1: was the AIDS you know crisis, So everyone was like,
Speaker 1: oh no, what if the darts are infected? Whatever? So
Speaker 1: it was on the front cover the paper, the dart
Speaker 1: Man and I got home that afternoon and there was
Speaker 1: a message from my mother on the answering machine and
Speaker 1: it said, Judith, we're thick clothes. Uh. It's like this
Speaker 1: is right now for me. See. I think anxiety is
Speaker 1: funny because it's it's an exact like we all have.
Speaker 1: You know, people say to comedians, so you say what
Speaker 1: I just think? Right, So we all have exaggerated thoughts
Speaker 1: and we worry, and that's part of our evolution. We
Speaker 1: have to be always scanning and keeping ourselves safe. And
Speaker 1: some of the things we have to think and do
Speaker 1: in order to do that we're wrong about. And those
Speaker 1: errors are funny. Hence I think like talking about someone's
Speaker 1: anxious thoughts are very funny. It's just it's like if
Speaker 1: she wasn't doing something that maybe you've even thought, it
Speaker 1: may not even be fine. I don't know. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's also that you know, the thing about it is
Speaker 1: so over the top, but it's based in love and vulnerability. Right,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be funny if she was mean spirited wanted
Speaker 1: to have a terrible life. It's like, here's this woman's
Speaker 1: idea of loving someone to her best ability and keeping
Speaker 1: you safe in the world, and it is just potentially
Speaker 1: could actually do the exact opposite. It could make you
Speaker 1: so crazy that you fall down, and so you're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you're out of your mind. But you know, there,
Speaker 1: I still have one on the machine about not buying
Speaker 1: Romaine lettuce at a certain uh if you go to
Speaker 1: this gross do not buy, you know. And it was
Speaker 1: her way of, you know, sort of staying connected and
Speaker 1: also yeah, protection and and love. I mean she never
Speaker 1: said I love you. My parents never said I love
Speaker 1: you or hugged me. Um, but I knew they loved me,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And I knew And you know,
Speaker 1: the thing that got the most um, I guess positive
Speaker 1: reinforcement was a clever quip or sarcastic, like a funny
Speaker 1: line or something like that. You know, they definitely appreciated
Speaker 1: humor and sarcasm. Uh. But yeah, I mean they didn't
Speaker 1: show love in those traditional ways. Uh, but I knew
Speaker 1: I was loved. Now you're a mother, and how have you?
Speaker 1: Have you broken the cycle? Oh? Absolutely, because I've been
Speaker 1: in therapy for so long. But uh, well, first of all,
Speaker 1: I recognize it like I can identify it. I've been
Speaker 1: through cognitive behavioral therapy and I've been through regular therapy. Uh,
Speaker 1: and so I at this point. Now, first of all,
Speaker 1: if you look, you know, like I do the picking
Speaker 1: of the cuticle thing, which is one of the most
Speaker 1: common forms of anxiety, till my fingers bleed and I
Speaker 1: stopped doing that. I mean, I've been doing that since
Speaker 1: as far back as I can remember, and I over
Speaker 1: exercised for many years because of the endorphins. Um. But
Speaker 1: as a parent, I do remember the worst case scenarios,
Speaker 1: Like I remember one time I had one of the
Speaker 1: teachers or helpers at daycare pick up Henry and we
Speaker 1: had the and he took him home and we had
Speaker 1: the time wrong, like I thought they were coming home
Speaker 1: at five or he thought it was seven, and I
Speaker 1: was fucking freaking the I started walking down the street
Speaker 1: like I had these scenarios that he was abducted. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm calling the school. You know. It was crazy, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's like I have to say that's not you know,
Speaker 1: when they started driving, I'm like, I always have this
Speaker 1: this worst case scenario thing, and I had to learn
Speaker 1: to know that, like identify that is that real or
Speaker 1: is that anxiety talking? And so that's what's so great
Speaker 1: about cognitive behavioral therapy is that you can label the feeling.
Speaker 1: You know, first you get the feeling of anxiety, and
Speaker 1: then you if you just stop and say what am
Speaker 1: I anxious about? But you know, I think the soothing
Speaker 1: comes from, first of all, I music. I play piano. Um,
Speaker 1: it's the music soothes me in a way nothing else
Speaker 1: I can. As someone with a d D D D
Speaker 1: H D D D D D d D that was
Speaker 1: never diagnosed, it was diagnosed as an adult, the one
Speaker 1: thing I can focus on is music. I can literally, um,
Speaker 1: you know. Sometimes it's it's annoying because if I know,
Speaker 1: I play a lot of classical music, and if I
Speaker 1: know the piece, I can't focus on my writing because
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I love this clarinet solo, and you know,
Speaker 1: so I have to sort of, you know, play stuff
Speaker 1: that I'm not that familiar with. But um, some music exercise, UM,
Speaker 1: meditation and therapy and just being aware. And I realized,
Speaker 1: you know, in high school and college, when I was
Speaker 1: just smoking pot all the time, it was just self medicating,
Speaker 1: of course, yeah, you know, um, but it's an awareness,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Because you know, some a
Speaker 1: mother who was listening and might not have anxiety might
Speaker 1: be like, well, that's perfectly normal. I don't want my
Speaker 1: kids to drive and you know, hit a tree. But
Speaker 1: there's something about, Okay, look, bad things are gonna happen
Speaker 1: everyone in this life. If I can predict it, then
Speaker 1: I don't have to feel the feeling. There's no worse
Speaker 1: feeling than the surprise of bad news. It's like it's
Speaker 1: so overwhelming in the body. So it's like, let me
Speaker 1: predict it. I won't have any surprise feelings. I won't
Speaker 1: be overwhelmed. Right, the poo poo poo thing. But here's
Speaker 1: the thing, the pooh pooh pooh like, um, well poopoo
Speaker 1: who is a very Jewish like you don't want to
Speaker 1: jinx it. There's this sort of mysticism like you know,
Speaker 1: you'll say oh, and then I'll yeah, well then I'll
Speaker 1: probably you know, you know, fall off the whatever the roof,
Speaker 1: and you know, and then it's like poopoo pooh, don't
Speaker 1: say that, don't put it out into the universe, you know.
Speaker 1: So there's that, but then there's that other part of
Speaker 1: it that's if you don't say it, it's gonna happen,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. You've got to let the
Speaker 1: universe know you. But I always, you know, like my
Speaker 1: my partner A Lisa, is very anxious, very anxious, and
Speaker 1: it's always about plan, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan. And
Speaker 1: when you're a mom, I think this is universal for mothers.
Speaker 1: You realize plans are just hopes and dreams because you
Speaker 1: don't know what the fun I can't tell you how
Speaker 1: many times I had my full week planned out and
Speaker 1: then I get, uh, hi, Judy, it's Nancy the nurse,
Speaker 1: not an emergency, but this one fell off the thing,
Speaker 1: or this one has a hundred and five fever, and
Speaker 1: you just have to stop. And I think I think
Speaker 1: that's what the pandemic did. It made people stop and
Speaker 1: realize what the funk am I doing? All the time?
Speaker 1: You know, because if you don't have control, you have
Speaker 1: to you have to realize, you know, you can plan
Speaker 1: it out as best you can, but it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it's gonna happen. We'll be right back. So taking it
Speaker 1: back to when you were younger, because I was. You know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I was bullied to and I just I
Speaker 1: don't know. I didn't realize how much it affected me
Speaker 1: truly until I was an adult in my forties and
Speaker 1: I saw it coming out in ways where like I feel,
Speaker 1: I'm really obsessed with justice, you know, and it could
Speaker 1: be justice from like one mean person on the internet
Speaker 1: to you know, Vladimir Putin, you know, and uh, and
Speaker 1: everything is of equal importance and my body right, So
Speaker 1: so take me through. Um, let's relive your bullying. It's
Speaker 1: fun to do in the morning. But you from what
Speaker 1: I know of my research, that you were what six
Speaker 1: ft tall the eighth grade, and that you felt invisible
Speaker 1: except for that part you can call people I went
Speaker 1: to high school with. It was relentless. It was first
Speaker 1: of all, I couldn't wear clothes. You know. My mother
Speaker 1: made a lot of clothes and shoes. So there was
Speaker 1: one store in New York that had um shoes for
Speaker 1: people for women sized ten and above. And I was twelve.
Speaker 1: When I was twelve, so we used to come to
Speaker 1: the city. I was the fourth generation of my family
Speaker 1: to go to the shoe store, and as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: the shoes were not attractive. And I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: so first of all, I I can't find clothes and
Speaker 1: I'm gigantic, um and you know, it's like all you
Speaker 1: want to do is sort of blend in. But I
Speaker 1: was taller than my teachers. I was taller than the parents.
Speaker 1: I was taller than the rabbi when I got bought mitzvahed.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's so I went through. And it's so
Speaker 1: funny because my kids, you know, I have a son
Speaker 1: who's six seven, and his experience opposite of mine, athletic, popular, handsome,
Speaker 1: funny like. And I used to constantly say to my kids,
Speaker 1: if anyone's getting teased, you go, you rescue them, you
Speaker 1: stand up for them. And they're like, mommy, no one
Speaker 1: does that in New York City and I'm like whatever.
Speaker 1: So um. So I have to say that my entire
Speaker 1: childhood and all through high school, every day I was
Speaker 1: called bigfoot, susquatch orca um. It was constant. Even when
Speaker 1: I was walking home from school, it was it just
Speaker 1: never stopped. And uh, I think that I had some
Speaker 1: sense of that of you know this. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: a star and you're all gonna be you know, like
Speaker 1: I had some of that, but I but it was constant.
Speaker 1: It was constant. And later in life and my mother
Speaker 1: told me to ignore them, never pay any attention to them,
Speaker 1: as if they don't exist. And later in life, my
Speaker 1: therapy said, no, you should have, you know, used your
Speaker 1: wicked sense of humor. Um, like I was feeling. But
Speaker 1: if you don't have a wicked sense of humor and right, so,
Speaker 1: but I have to say that when I moved to
Speaker 1: New York, uh, when I was twenty one, right after college,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't walk by a schoolyard until I was in
Speaker 1: my thirties because I thought I would cross the street
Speaker 1: i went, you know, I would hear people laughing behind me.
Speaker 1: I was like no, please, no, please no. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: I was so PTSDD and sometimes I was right actually
Speaker 1: they were like, oh you know, but um, until my
Speaker 1: kids went to school, I was very uncomfortable around you know,
Speaker 1: school age children and you know adolescents and high school kids. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know this. I hope you um, I hope
Speaker 1: you relate to this. I recently realized that humiliation that
Speaker 1: sense of oh god, this is so humiliating. Um, you
Speaker 1: know when I feel that when I'm at an event
Speaker 1: on the red carpet and and they're like you are, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's so humiliating. And it's the same feeling of like
Speaker 1: it's it's invalidating, it's it's so I don't know how,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel that when I go to events
Speaker 1: and I feel so good about myself before I leave
Speaker 1: the house, and then I get there and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: this isn't the right clothes, this is like fancy enough.
Speaker 1: It's just like it's also yeah, it's also being a comedian.
Speaker 1: It's like you can do you know, the Tonight Show
Speaker 1: or the Late Show and have a great set, and
Speaker 1: then the next week you're standing in front of twelve
Speaker 1: people in a basement, you know, right, So it's very humbling.
Speaker 1: But I remember when I really wanted to be drum
Speaker 1: major and uh in order to be drum major, and
Speaker 1: I was perfect because I was a musician, nerd band,
Speaker 1: nerd and uh and I was tall, so you know,
Speaker 1: And I remember we had these auditions for drum major
Speaker 1: and you had the principle was there, and I think
Speaker 1: the superintendent in the head of the music whatever, and
Speaker 1: you had to conduct the star Spangled banner. And when
Speaker 1: you conduct, you do this upbeat that means instruments to
Speaker 1: the mouth, and then as you're going down, there's this
Speaker 1: period of going to the downbeat. And once you hit
Speaker 1: the bottom is when the music begins. So it's like
Speaker 1: up and then uh whatever. And I did the up
Speaker 1: and as I was coming down, someone yelled sasquatch, and
Speaker 1: I had to continue to conduct that piece, uh in
Speaker 1: front of the heads of the school after, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was just and it's just you remember these
Speaker 1: horrible I'm sure that person doesn't remember. Well, Okay, so
Speaker 1: this is what I want to talk about. Three points
Speaker 1: to make about bullying, but I want to get into
Speaker 1: how it felt in your body, and I want to
Speaker 1: talk about the cruelty of it. This is what I
Speaker 1: don't understand. The people who have been bullied grow up
Speaker 1: into being grown adults who can't walk by a playground
Speaker 1: or still feel this way about whatever. And it caught.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's causes some kind of mental illness in
Speaker 1: the bullied person. Why isn't the bullier like they seem
Speaker 1: to get off scott free. I remember this boy right,
Speaker 1: this boy who bullied me there on Facebook, they have
Speaker 1: families and it's like, do you know that you were
Speaker 1: sociopathically violent to a child and that just goes away
Speaker 1: and that's just okay. I don't I literally want a
Speaker 1: doctor to explain this to me, like what happens in
Speaker 1: their brain that that just magically disappears, because to me,
Speaker 1: that's that's so. I would be very worried if my
Speaker 1: kid was beating up girls. That's he's stipping me. Boys
Speaker 1: would beat me up, like that's insane. But I don't
Speaker 1: I know that they that they don't remember that they
Speaker 1: they don't have any idea the effect this had. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's definitely. I have to tell you, if someone says bigfoot,
Speaker 1: even in a conversation, I still it's like, oh ping,
Speaker 1: you know, I get pinged sasquatch Bigfoot, Like it's still
Speaker 1: I mean to hear it every fucking day of your
Speaker 1: life for years, as you're walking down the hall and
Speaker 1: we didn't have headphones where we could, I had to
Speaker 1: purposely act like, oh right, I forgot something in the
Speaker 1: other hallway. I'm gonna walk the opposite direction. But yes,
Speaker 1: it's so interesting that you know, I remember before my
Speaker 1: mother died. Uh, and she really well in this. She
Speaker 1: loved like, you're gonna show them, you know, and oh,
Speaker 1: I have the best story. I have the best story
Speaker 1: for you. So uh. But I remember the like the
Speaker 1: day my mother the day before my mother died, two
Speaker 1: days before, I was visiting her and uh, I said, oh,
Speaker 1: guess who tried to friend me on Facebook? And it
Speaker 1: made her so happy? And it's like, do you realize
Speaker 1: how fucking nasty in that's so? Yeah? Yeah, but here's
Speaker 1: the best part this. I told this at her funeral,
Speaker 1: you know. Uh. When I did Questions for a Jewish Mother,
Speaker 1: I had a rave review in the New York Times
Speaker 1: and it ran for years off Broadway and then it
Speaker 1: toured and it was, Um, it was a great show,
Speaker 1: great show. And I had this rave review in the
Speaker 1: New York Times and in this my home paper in
Speaker 1: New Jersey, the Star Ledger, which is now called something
Speaker 1: Else New Jersey dot com. So anyway, that reviewer gave
Speaker 1: me a terrible review. Uh and not and not not
Speaker 1: worthy of a terror. I mean it really was. It's
Speaker 1: a great show, um. And he gave me a bad review.
Speaker 1: And at the bottom pre of course, pre cell phone,
Speaker 1: pre computer, pre email. Um, he had for any comments
Speaker 1: or questions, you can write to me at or call
Speaker 1: me at. So I'm at a photo shoot and the
Speaker 1: publicist for the show runs up to me and it's like, Judy,
Speaker 1: I have to talk to you. I have to talk
Speaker 1: to him, Like what's going on? She said, your mother
Speaker 1: apparently left a message for the reviewer at the Star Ledger. Um,
Speaker 1: you know your mother. If you get a not a
Speaker 1: great review, your mother can't call them. And and I said,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm so sorry. Again again never says
Speaker 1: I love you, but calls you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And so, uh, I called my mother and I said, Mom,
Speaker 1: you can't if I get a bad review, you can't
Speaker 1: call the reviewer. And she said, well, Judith, actually he
Speaker 1: wrote his review and then put his phone number about
Speaker 1: any comments or questions. So I heard what he had
Speaker 1: to say, and now he can hear what I have
Speaker 1: to say. And um, and I said, he's not gonna
Speaker 1: He was afraid to call her back. He was afraid
Speaker 1: of her. And the next one person show I did,
Speaker 1: he actually gave me a good review. Um, but it
Speaker 1: was the It's the ultimate Jewish mother And she was right.
Speaker 1: How do you argue with that. She's not don't leave
Speaker 1: your she said, don't leave your phone number for you
Speaker 1: don't want to hear my comment. I had to listen
Speaker 1: to you what your thoughts were. You can listen to mine.
Speaker 1: We'll continue the interview on the flip side of a
Speaker 1: quick message from our sponsors. You know, I was thinking
Speaker 1: about like going back to the justice thing, and it
Speaker 1: sounds like your mom and a sense of justice when
Speaker 1: people writing letters. Let I am writing to the president,
Speaker 1: and my kids make fun of me all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you're not eating a chick flake, You're not
Speaker 1: doing this, You're not end I That is definitely passed
Speaker 1: down from Yes, absolutely always writing a letter to the
Speaker 1: top person. Yeah. Well, it's funny because like the thing
Speaker 1: that bothered me about being bullied and maybe, you know,
Speaker 1: someone could say you're just intellectualizing it so you don't
Speaker 1: feel their feelings. Sure, but it was less, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you're hurting me because I actually had this really good
Speaker 1: sense of self and they bullied me because I was
Speaker 1: acting funny and siddy. I didn't act funny as a defense. Um,
Speaker 1: I thought I I was I thought I was nailing
Speaker 1: it in life. I thought it was so creative and
Speaker 1: coming to school, like I came to school dressed as
Speaker 1: Mozart once, no change of clothes, and I was just like,
Speaker 1: this is a great idea. Yeah, and you know my
Speaker 1: parents encouraged it. Yeah, my mom, friends friends, Yeah. And
Speaker 1: so when kids are making fun of it, there was
Speaker 1: part of me that felt sad, but more like, huh, okay,
Speaker 1: why I did not see this coming? And then that
Speaker 1: would happen over and over. But how can people be
Speaker 1: so cruel? If I saw some wondrous as Mozart and
Speaker 1: I didn't like that, I'd probably be like weird, but
Speaker 1: I'd move on. And I didn't understand. It showed me
Speaker 1: that there are just cruel people in the world, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't handle knowing that. But it's also like they
Speaker 1: would never think of doing that. They probably didn't even
Speaker 1: know who Mozart was, and they're like, you know, you
Speaker 1: should be and not being like everyone else is the
Speaker 1: greatest gift in the world, you know. I remember years
Speaker 1: ago they asked me to talk to tall teens. How cute? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And they were all these kids in high school who
Speaker 1: were really tall and not athletic, and they asked if
Speaker 1: the parents they didn't want their mothers there, their parents there,
Speaker 1: the kids and because only someone who And I was like, look,
Speaker 1: these people, high school is their peak. You know, this
Speaker 1: is it. They have four years. You're gonna get it.
Speaker 1: I promise you, you're gonna get out. Like the night
Speaker 1: before I was going away to college, I was so
Speaker 1: anxious that I was going to be living in a
Speaker 1: dorm that I couldn't even because at least I had
Speaker 1: my room in my house and where I could go.
Speaker 1: You now not get teased. Um, I thought, oh god,
Speaker 1: now I'm gonna live on the floor and it's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not even able to walk out of my room.
Speaker 1: It's just gonna be constant. And my guidance counselor had
Speaker 1: to come over the night before I was leaving to
Speaker 1: tell me it was you know, I was so anxious.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, god, now you live in school,
Speaker 1: so there's no respite, and uh, it's that was it.
Speaker 1: And I was always really funny, but and only the
Speaker 1: people that I was friends with knew I was funny.
Speaker 1: But thank god he came over, and the next day
Speaker 1: my whole life was changed because no one gave a
Speaker 1: ship and they thought I was pretty and tall and skinny,
Speaker 1: and you know, wow, it's it is literally a moment
Speaker 1: like that that can change. And I know that you. Um,
Speaker 1: so you went to therapy, right did you go for
Speaker 1: the first time at the eighteen and you you realize
Speaker 1: you were gay and you confess. I told my therapist.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, do you did you know the story?
Speaker 1: I knew that you you told your therapists. And then
Speaker 1: the therapist was like, okay, also, I'm leaving being a
Speaker 1: therapist or moving something. Yeah, I said to her. I
Speaker 1: was like, all right, I gotta tell her because I'm
Speaker 1: just sitting here like going around, and I said, I
Speaker 1: think I might be. You know, I have to tell you.
Speaker 1: I remember I've prefaced it with okay because I had
Speaker 1: built up the confidence. I'm gonna tell her today. So
Speaker 1: I went in. I was like, okay, I just want
Speaker 1: to say I have to tell you something. She goes, well,
Speaker 1: I have to tell you something to you go first,
Speaker 1: and I tell her I think I'm gay. I mean,
Speaker 1: I knew I was gay when it was like three whatever,
Speaker 1: And and that's another anxiety thing, like can you imagine
Speaker 1: hiding that whole thing? And so I said I think
Speaker 1: I'm gay, and she said, and I said, what do
Speaker 1: you have to tell me? She said, I'm moving to
Speaker 1: Florida and today's our last session. I was like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: typical Judy Gold, typical j J. Well, I know that
Speaker 1: it said here, Um, it said here, Liza, I didn't
Speaker 1: take my own notes that you had a breakup and
Speaker 1: you were so sad about your breakup, but you can
Speaker 1: tell anyone because you were still I remember I had Yes,
Speaker 1: I had a girlfriend ish you know, in high school,
Speaker 1: uh and college, you know, beginning college. And it broke
Speaker 1: up and I never told. No one knew. It was like, um,
Speaker 1: you're in this. I mean it was high school whatever,
Speaker 1: whatever it was, you know. To me, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: we're performers, were artists. Everything is heightened, every feeling is
Speaker 1: heightened to the m degree. And we broke up, but
Speaker 1: no one knew I was gay or that we had
Speaker 1: been fooling around. You know. Oh god, I was so skinny. Um,
Speaker 1: and I basically got like a bleeding peptic ulcer, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, holding every feeling in did you feel it
Speaker 1: in your body in the sense that you were actually
Speaker 1: feeling anxiety about being in the closet or what did
Speaker 1: it feeling. It's like you're so uncomfortable because you're playing
Speaker 1: a character, like you're you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: it's like here I am at this frat or this
Speaker 1: party or you know whatever, and everyone I know is straight.
Speaker 1: It turns out between my junior and senior year in college,
Speaker 1: it was my father called it the summer of forty two. Um,
Speaker 1: I lived on campus and all of my friends sort
Speaker 1: of came out of the closet, which was I was like,
Speaker 1: you're gay too, Oh my god, you know, but I'm
Speaker 1: living in a dorm. First of all, you live in
Speaker 1: a straight world. And even like that's why they don't
Speaker 1: say gay thing. It's like no one said gay when
Speaker 1: I was, you know, and you don't say right. But
Speaker 1: it was also like and we're all gay, so we
Speaker 1: that doesn't work. Um, But it's being in the closet
Speaker 1: is the most painful, um because everyone zooms you're someone
Speaker 1: you're not and you have to sort of play along
Speaker 1: and oh my god. It's so funny because I remember
Speaker 1: this guy Scott, who I really liked him, and I
Speaker 1: used to go visit him and his frat um and
Speaker 1: he had pot all the time, so um, and he
Speaker 1: was tall, and you know, it was always like, oh,
Speaker 1: look at that tall one. You know, my mother was like,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh god, tall men hate tall women.
Speaker 1: They want short women. Short guys love tall women. Short
Speaker 1: guys who are confident and you know, love tall women.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I remember this guy Scott, and I uh,
Speaker 1: I was friends with him, and I know he wanted
Speaker 1: to date me, and you know, it's just it was unnatural.
Speaker 1: And I had a boyfriend in college too, who um,
Speaker 1: and you weren't bisexual, you were just trying to I
Speaker 1: here's the thing. This is what's so interesting. Oh you're
Speaker 1: gonna love this is that my generation of gay it
Speaker 1: was such a horrible, horrible hard life that you had
Speaker 1: to try to be Can I at least try and
Speaker 1: and be straight because life will be so much easier.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people in my generation did that,
Speaker 1: and it was so unnatural for me. It was literally unnatural.
Speaker 1: I had this boyfriend and he was lived in my
Speaker 1: dorm and I was like, no, I'm not, I mean
Speaker 1: lived downstairs and I wouldn't sleep in his room. Well
Speaker 1: I was like, I can't. And I felt even even
Speaker 1: having sex was like I felt like I was being
Speaker 1: assaulted because I was like this, I hate this. I
Speaker 1: hate it so much. Um talk about anxiety and uh,
Speaker 1: and so I don't know if you know this. There's
Speaker 1: this term in the gay community called gold star. I do, yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: do you know that what the platinum means? No? I know,
Speaker 1: gold star means you are a lesbian has never had
Speaker 1: or a gay man, has never had straight sex with
Speaker 1: the opposite sex. What's platinum? There? There's a term platinum
Speaker 1: that is so offensive to women. I can't even believe.
Speaker 1: Platinum is a gay man who is gold star but
Speaker 1: is the product of a C section, so had never
Speaker 1: even gone through a vagina. It has never gone in
Speaker 1: or come out come out of a vagina, has never
Speaker 1: had any contact with a vagina. That's called platinum. Ridiculous
Speaker 1: and funny. Yeah, you know. And also it's like, first
Speaker 1: of all, what else do teenagers talk about except I
Speaker 1: have a crush on this person. I so you missed
Speaker 1: an entire developmental stage of your fucking life by having
Speaker 1: to keep your everything and quiet. May not grow in
Speaker 1: a brain chemistry? Oh please? It was awful. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I remember, you know, coming out and admitting
Speaker 1: and finally talking about it. I'm telling you, it was
Speaker 1: like an out of body experience. I was like, I
Speaker 1: felt like I was looking at myself from above, finally,
Speaker 1: you know, letting go of this. And you know, you
Speaker 1: just didn't know, you know, you would play this character
Speaker 1: for so long. I remember when I came out to
Speaker 1: my sister in therapy and then she freaked out because
Speaker 1: she had no idea. First of all, I'm dressing as
Speaker 1: a boy, um my entire like up until like six
Speaker 1: or seven years old, like everyone, you know, no one
Speaker 1: was surprised. I made everyone call me Robert or Ringo
Speaker 1: was a kid. My cousin still calls me Robert um.
Speaker 1: And you know, my sister said to me, I need
Speaker 1: to process this because you're not the person I thought
Speaker 1: you were, and I need to greet you that person.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh my god, really, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I have so many friends. I played tennis and I'm
Speaker 1: in Provincetown. I played doubles, and there's so many of
Speaker 1: these women who were eighty in their late seventies, who
Speaker 1: were married, they have kids, they have grandkids, and they're
Speaker 1: finally living their authentic life and so happy. And the
Speaker 1: fact that they had. I mean, I'm glad they have
Speaker 1: kids and grandkids, but the fact that they put their
Speaker 1: life aside because they would have had nothing that you know,
Speaker 1: old maid, um spinster. Uh, it's just you know, you're
Speaker 1: playing this character and then all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: don't have to hide anymore. It's the greatest feeling in
Speaker 1: the entire But I'm telling you the constant Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you get you're with people and you're hearing them say
Speaker 1: shit about people or talk about oh my god, don't
Speaker 1: you want to have and you're like, it's just like
Speaker 1: you know, that feeling in the top of your stomach
Speaker 1: of oh god, here we go. Gotta play this fucking
Speaker 1: game and it's not comfortable. And that's why you know
Speaker 1: you have to be out and proud. Anxiety Bites will
Speaker 1: be right back after a quick little message from one
Speaker 1: of our sponsors. Okay, so here you are bullied in
Speaker 1: the closet. Now you're getting older, you're growing up, you're
Speaker 1: coming into your own. When did you start going to therapy?
Speaker 1: And who put a name to the word anxiety to
Speaker 1: you for the first time? Was it a therapist? Oh
Speaker 1: that's interesting, I mean, I hate I hate the first time,
Speaker 1: biggest moment questions because who the funk knows, but was
Speaker 1: there like a period in your life? Yeah? So I
Speaker 1: went to this the first therapist to move to Florida,
Speaker 1: m and then, um, she said to me at eighteen,
Speaker 1: I think you should go to an analyst, a psycho analyst,
Speaker 1: because I think you're more complicated than just like a
Speaker 1: social worker. I went to the Jewish Family Services because
Speaker 1: I said to my mother, I want to go to
Speaker 1: therapy and she's like, I will go to the Jewish
Speaker 1: Family Savors. And uh. I went to this analyst and
Speaker 1: I remember, oh, he was so bad because they don't
Speaker 1: say anything, you know. And I'm eighteen nineteen and I'm
Speaker 1: going to this analyst and I cut my hair short
Speaker 1: and I remember going in and he's like, why did
Speaker 1: you cut your hair short? And I'm like, I'm not
Speaker 1: fucking telling you anything. Like I had him and it
Speaker 1: was in his house and I was it was this cow.
Speaker 1: I know. I wasn't ready for that. And then I
Speaker 1: fell in love with another straight you know, it's just
Speaker 1: awful because no one's out and you fall in love
Speaker 1: with these these these straight women. And I went to
Speaker 1: Pure counseling and counseling at college, and I just kept
Speaker 1: seeking out counseling. But I think, you know, once I
Speaker 1: went to I moved to New York, I had all
Speaker 1: this stuff done and I was always diagnosed with general
Speaker 1: anxiety disorder, you know, on my my health insurance and stuff.
Speaker 1: And uh, I had a nervous breakdown slash clinical depression
Speaker 1: in two thousand ten. And I had never I had
Speaker 1: diurnal depression, so during the day I could not function
Speaker 1: at all. At night, when the sun went down, um,
Speaker 1: I would it would lift and I could probably have
Speaker 1: like a protein chick again, so thick. But I really
Speaker 1: threw that emotional breakdown that I always have a hard
Speaker 1: time during the day. You know that the anxiety is
Speaker 1: worse during the day, and when the sun goes down,
Speaker 1: I feel at peace. And if I go back, I
Speaker 1: remember now that I'm so aware of it, the alarm
Speaker 1: going off in the morning and oh no, you know,
Speaker 1: to wake up as a kid and be like fuck,
Speaker 1: I gotta go get teased all day fucking long. You know.
Speaker 1: Um oh, I didn't even know about this kind of
Speaker 1: depression diurnal. So Williams. Stry On had um nocturnal depression,
Speaker 1: and I had it during the day and I still
Speaker 1: have trouble sleeping a little because if I let myself think,
Speaker 1: the breathing exercises are great. Tell us what you do.
Speaker 1: What's your breathing exercise for anxiety, so you know, mindful breathing,
Speaker 1: focusing on that breath and and being I mean, it
Speaker 1: takes so much practice and having those thoughts come into
Speaker 1: your head, identifying them and saying but by now, but
Speaker 1: by now. But it's like you have to learn to
Speaker 1: identify it, what's real, what's not real. So I'll start
Speaker 1: with the breath. And if I have a bad meditation day,
Speaker 1: I just give myself a break. But it's like, go
Speaker 1: back to the breath, Go back to the breath. I
Speaker 1: have lists. I write lists all the time because that
Speaker 1: helps with my anxiety. Like all this stuff. I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh God, you have to do this, you have to
Speaker 1: do that. So I write it down and then I
Speaker 1: can let it go. So I do. I have all
Speaker 1: these tricks that I do. Work, exercise very important. Um
Speaker 1: also that feeling. That's why I loved quarantine, you know,
Speaker 1: because I loved it so much. I was like, no pressure,
Speaker 1: no one's doing anything that that feeling of having no control,
Speaker 1: that feeling when the nurse called and I was like, sorry,
Speaker 1: I got to take care of my kid. Like I
Speaker 1: loved that. I think that people don't understand that like
Speaker 1: it is exercise is mindfulness exercises. They want like one
Speaker 1: answer and they want some kind of oh no that
Speaker 1: you know. I feel like when people write to me
Speaker 1: and they go, well, no, no, that stuff doesn't work
Speaker 1: for me because I have it really bad, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work. Work you have to practice, yea. And
Speaker 1: there are some days where I'm like nothing's gonna I'm
Speaker 1: in a bad place, and I will text Gary Gulman
Speaker 1: or all text another person and I know deals with
Speaker 1: this stuff and just say I'm having a And I
Speaker 1: know now because I'm fifty nine years old, it's gonna pass.
Speaker 1: But when I was in that clinical depression where I
Speaker 1: could not speak, if someone said go get a quart
Speaker 1: of milk. This is someone since I'm in my early
Speaker 1: twenty traveling all over the fucking country by myself, you know,
Speaker 1: doing you know, if someone said go get a cord
Speaker 1: of milk at the store, I would have been like,
Speaker 1: you know, it was horrible, and I couldn't speak, and
Speaker 1: I realized, oh, this is why people commits or you
Speaker 1: take their own lots so segments with but um, this
Speaker 1: is why you know people harm themselves. But I never
Speaker 1: wanted to. I never did it. I had kids, but
Speaker 1: I knew that feeling and it changed me as a person.
Speaker 1: Um because my also, if you went to the doctor
Speaker 1: and you took my blood, my blood work was completely
Speaker 1: different than when I wasn't depressed. Oh really, what does
Speaker 1: it affect? Does it change like immune white bloodstion of
Speaker 1: certain vitamins. It was very chemical and so you have
Speaker 1: to realize it is an illness. And I hate the
Speaker 1: fucking stigma. UM. And I have to say, like on
Speaker 1: those days when it's I'm like, oh boy, I'll call
Speaker 1: a Lisa and I'll say, yeah, I'll have it very bad,
Speaker 1: and she will be like, Okay, you know, you gotta
Speaker 1: reach out. You gotta reach out because there's other people
Speaker 1: who are in the same situation who have you know.
Speaker 1: And the I think the worst part of being a
Speaker 1: uh AN artist and having depression is that we're so
Speaker 1: in tune with our feelings and we have such strong
Speaker 1: feelings that if we really think hard about it, we
Speaker 1: could go back to that feeling, you know, and so
Speaker 1: that fear of it happening again. If if I actually
Speaker 1: sat here and thought about it, I can really sort
Speaker 1: of gathered all that horrible shit and start feeling like
Speaker 1: that again. And I don't want to, but I live
Speaker 1: in fear that it will happen again. Although I've taken
Speaker 1: some medical tests and they say it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: they took my DNA and RNA and p n A whatever.
Speaker 1: But you know that to your point, that is perfect
Speaker 1: proof that getting help getting better. If it's medication, you
Speaker 1: need therapy, Uh, you will not lose your unique thing
Speaker 1: that makes you an artist. If you think you need
Speaker 1: your refresh anxiety, be an artist. No, you can call
Speaker 1: it up any time that you might need it for
Speaker 1: an acting scene or you know. Yeah. And it's also
Speaker 1: I remember when they first wanted me to go on ANTIS, like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be funny, but I couldn't take it anymore.
Speaker 1: Like the amount of time I spent in my apartment
Speaker 1: just being anxious, just sitting there, not being able to
Speaker 1: get anything done, just with my head, with my thoughts.
Speaker 1: You know, I wasted. I would have I would have
Speaker 1: years I would definitely have at least a year of
Speaker 1: doing nothing of the time that I spent picking my cuticles, worrying, worrying, worrying, worrying. Um,
Speaker 1: and now because of therapy, because of meditation. I mean,
Speaker 1: everyone has their thing that that can work if you
Speaker 1: just allow it to work and you practice practice, and
Speaker 1: if days it doesn't work, it does not mean to break.
Speaker 1: Give yourself a break and don't assume it means anything,
Speaker 1: and reach out and reach out. Yeah, I hope you
Speaker 1: had fun hanging out with me and Judy. Judy and me.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, here I am again with that. Let's
Speaker 1: just go over some of the takeaways from my conversation
Speaker 1: with Judy Gold and don't forget. If you want to
Speaker 1: send an email to the show, please do so. Anxiety
Speaker 1: Bites weekly at gmail dot com. I don't think I
Speaker 1: won't be doing another fully only listener email episode, but
Speaker 1: um sort of scattered throughout episodes coming up, I will
Speaker 1: read a few emails that I think are pertinent, So
Speaker 1: please do that. Please give the show five stars. Can
Speaker 1: do that on Spotify and Apple podcasts. If you don't
Speaker 1: want to write a review, that's okay, but five stars
Speaker 1: really helps pushes the algorithm up, makes more people find
Speaker 1: the podcast. More people that find the podcast, Well, maybe
Speaker 1: I could get to do more episodes after season one,
Speaker 1: and the more people are getting help for their anxiety,
Speaker 1: and that's always a good thing. That makes your life
Speaker 1: and my life better. All right. My takeaways from my
Speaker 1: chat with Judy Gould, Most importantly, Lauren but Caall's real
Speaker 1: name is Betty Purskey or Perky. I think it was Persky.
Speaker 1: Judy believes that one of her mother's symptoms of anxiety,
Speaker 1: like the constant worrying about Judy's whereabouts, was although it
Speaker 1: was anxiety and very intrusive, it was based in love
Speaker 1: and vulnerability. Judy leaves that her anxiety came from a
Speaker 1: combination of genetically being Jewish, the generational trauma, as well
Speaker 1: as her father having an undiagnosed o c D and
Speaker 1: her mother having suffered a trauma of losing her brother
Speaker 1: at an early age and never discussing it. Cognitive behavior
Speaker 1: therapy is what ultimately helped Judy the most with her
Speaker 1: anxiety disorders. For her, it's the act of labeling the
Speaker 1: feeling and being able to stop in the moment and
Speaker 1: ask yourself, what am I actually anxious about. For Judy,
Speaker 1: music is a non clinical way of self soothing and
Speaker 1: one thing that Judy finds she has an easy time
Speaker 1: concentrating on despite having a d h D. As a mom,
Speaker 1: Judy has learned that she has to accept that plans
Speaker 1: are just hopes and dreams because you never know what's
Speaker 1: going to happen. You have no control. You can plan,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean it's going to actually happen. Judy
Speaker 1: was bullied in school for being tall, and she does
Speaker 1: still feel a PTSD trauma response in her body when
Speaker 1: she hears words like big voters, sasquatch, or even walks
Speaker 1: by you know, a playground with middle school or teenagers.
Speaker 1: Judy's advice to anyone in high school being bullied is
Speaker 1: to keep in mind that the bullies are at their
Speaker 1: peak right now in high school. When they leave high
Speaker 1: school without their little group of people validating them, their
Speaker 1: lives may fall apart. Whereas Judy's began. Judy got a
Speaker 1: peptic ulcer from being in the closet and holding in
Speaker 1: her feelings when she broke up with her first girlfriend,
Speaker 1: and so it stresses the importance of having someone to
Speaker 1: talk to if you have anxiety if you feel like
Speaker 1: you are hiding something from others, whether it's that you
Speaker 1: are in the closet, or that you're just swallowing your feelings,
Speaker 1: afraid to feel them because they scare you, or just
Speaker 1: afraid that they're not normal. Another thing that contributed to
Speaker 1: Judy's anxiety was the uncomfortability of her whole life being
Speaker 1: in the closet. It was less of fear of people
Speaker 1: finding out, but more how it felt to play along
Speaker 1: with who everyone assumed. She was just not getting to
Speaker 1: live her authentic life. Judy had a nervous breakdown with
Speaker 1: clinical depression in and was diagnosed with diurnal depression. She
Speaker 1: could only function after sundown. She's doing much better now,
Speaker 1: but has worries you know what if it comes back
Speaker 1: and for her staying connected to friends and doing her
Speaker 1: daily cognitive behavioral therapy exercises keeps her on the up
Speaker 1: and up. Judy does breathing exercises for anxiety. She practices
Speaker 1: identifying the thoughts in her head and saying by to
Speaker 1: them as she refocuses on the feeling of her breath.
Speaker 1: When Judy has a bad meditation day, she gives herself
Speaker 1: a break, writing lists helps calm Judy down and she
Speaker 1: gets the anxiety of what she has to do out
Speaker 1: of her brain and onto the paper. Exercise is really
Speaker 1: important to duty for staving off anxiety. Exercise does create endorphins, which,
Speaker 1: when used responsibly, I mean, there's exercise addiction, but that's
Speaker 1: what we're talking about, but when used responsibly, can actually
Speaker 1: flush a lot of the anxiety out of our body.
Speaker 1: Judy keeps in mind when she's in her anxiety or
Speaker 1: her depression that it will pass. It always has. But
Speaker 1: in those moments she reaches out to friends who understand her.
Speaker 1: It's important to reach out and stay connected. And I
Speaker 1: hope you will stay connected with this podcast Anxiety Bites.
Speaker 1: What a segue that was. And don't forget Anxiety Bites,
Speaker 1: but You're in control. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.