Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to Okay f Daily with
Speaker 1: me your girl Danielle Moody recording from my Eastern Shore bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: you know, today get into a conversation with Jonathan that
Speaker 1: starts out with us talking about monkey pox and what
Speaker 1: folks need to know, and then, like most of the
Speaker 1: conversations that I've been having over the last couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: it spirals into a conversation about mental health and emotional
Speaker 1: well being. What I am realizing, just within my own
Speaker 1: friend group and also professional circle, is how many people
Speaker 1: are having a difficult time right now, including myself. I
Speaker 1: you know, I was, I was talking to one of
Speaker 1: my best friends and I said, you know, I'm just
Speaker 1: not feeling well like I You know, for those of
Speaker 1: you who know, I broke my toe about two months
Speaker 1: ago at the beginning of the summer and haven't been
Speaker 1: able to work out, haven't been able to do any
Speaker 1: of the things that I really enjoy that helped me
Speaker 1: alleviate my stress. Right, and you know, doing this work
Speaker 1: and being embedded in politics in this type of way
Speaker 1: is no longer joyful, right, And so being able to
Speaker 1: find different ways to offset this stress and offset the
Speaker 1: rage is really important and for me that was working out.
Speaker 1: So for two months I haven't been able to do that.
Speaker 1: And I have noticed that not only has my weight increased,
Speaker 1: as many people have gained a lot of weight during
Speaker 1: this time, and that is one of the things that
Speaker 1: happens with me when I am under a lot of stress,
Speaker 1: but also just this kind of consistent feeling of this
Speaker 1: It's kind of like this fog of dread. And so
Speaker 1: Jonathan's in our interview today, he talks about the fact
Speaker 1: that he's being asked a lot from different media outlets
Speaker 1: to talk about mental health, to right about mental health,
Speaker 1: and they're asking for specifics like what is the right
Speaker 1: dosage of this antidepressant versus this antidepressant, and you know,
Speaker 1: microdosing and all of these things. And the reality is
Speaker 1: is that initially when we were having really open conversations
Speaker 1: about you know, different types of mental health medications was
Speaker 1: probably around like the mid to late nineties, when you
Speaker 1: had prozac nation and all of these books and kind
Speaker 1: of articles and people really for lack of a better term,
Speaker 1: you know, opening up or coming out of the closet
Speaker 1: in a way about talking about mental health. And what
Speaker 1: I am seeing now, And what Jonathan says in our
Speaker 1: interview is that it really isn't about a chemical imbalance anymore, right,
Speaker 1: It is about the stressors of our outside environment, the
Speaker 1: collapse of our democracy, rights being taken away, the planet
Speaker 1: being on fire. You know, the stress if you're a
Speaker 1: parent or a caregiver of sending your child to school
Speaker 1: and not knowing if they're going to be able to
Speaker 1: come home. I mentioned to Jonathan that I was watching
Speaker 1: television the other day and a back to school commercial
Speaker 1: comes on. And I can remember throughout the years and
Speaker 1: back to school commercials that would come on, even though
Speaker 1: I'm well removed from back to school time. It was
Speaker 1: always like a joyous time. Let's get new notebooks, let's
Speaker 1: get new pens and pencils. And the first thought that
Speaker 1: came to my mind as I was watching this commercial
Speaker 1: was a mass shooting. Because the school year ended with Uvaldi, right,
Speaker 1: And so I can't imagine thinking that just in a
Speaker 1: handful of weeks, you're going to be sending your kid
Speaker 1: back to school across the country and it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if they're in a rural area, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if they're in a suburban area, doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if they're in a city, right that they're just not safe.
Speaker 1: We're not safe anywhere. And what does that feeling of
Speaker 1: persistent unease due to our bodies, to our brains and
Speaker 1: Jonathan will you know, talk about the fact that there
Speaker 1: are times and we're living in them, we're outside. Stressors
Speaker 1: do create a chemical imbalance, do really disrupt our mental state,
Speaker 1: our emotional well being and the ability to be able
Speaker 1: to deal with all of these stressors at one time.
Speaker 1: And so I do think that it is important for us,
Speaker 1: you know, right now, friends to be in deep community
Speaker 1: with other people, right to really you know, seek out,
Speaker 1: whether it is the help and assistance of a medical
Speaker 1: professional likeotherapist, like a psychiatrist, or you know, to really
Speaker 1: reach out to your friends, to your family, to really
Speaker 1: be in regular communication and contact so that you know
Speaker 1: that you're not alone. And you know, I took a
Speaker 1: couple of days to come and visit my really close
Speaker 1: friends and you know, just to be outside, to be
Speaker 1: in nature, to just have a break. And I can't
Speaker 1: tell you how important it is for me to be
Speaker 1: able to do that. And I know, again it is
Speaker 1: a privilege, right, It is a privilege to be able
Speaker 1: to say, well, I work from home, I can pick
Speaker 1: up and I can go and just take a break,
Speaker 1: have a change of scenery. But I think that we're
Speaker 1: going to need to be incredibly proactive these days about
Speaker 1: articulating what it is that we need and then going
Speaker 1: after it. So if you need to take a mental
Speaker 1: health day right from work, if you need to just
Speaker 1: stay on the couch or stay in bed, I want
Speaker 1: us to be able to do that and detach ourselves
Speaker 1: from the guilt that we should be doing like we
Speaker 1: should be doing better, or I should be stronger, I
Speaker 1: should be this, and I should be that. And I'll
Speaker 1: go and say one of my favorite lines from Sex
Speaker 1: in the City, not the remake, but the old versions
Speaker 1: that I actually liked. You end up shooting all over
Speaker 1: yourself right about all the things that you should be doing,
Speaker 1: And there is no should in this moment, Like it's
Speaker 1: so fucking overwhelming everywhere that you look. You know, it
Speaker 1: was enough for us to be able to deal with
Speaker 1: and try and wrap our minds around fucking COVID. And
Speaker 1: now you have monkey pocks right where Jonathan is going
Speaker 1: to tell us, by the way that it's going to
Speaker 1: get worse, and that it's not an airborne disease, and
Speaker 1: it's not one that is only going to be targeting
Speaker 1: one community right in the way that it was initially thought.
Speaker 1: It isn't. And so when you're dealing with all of
Speaker 1: these things and you're just on this emotional roller coaster,
Speaker 1: I think that it is really important to tap in
Speaker 1: to strengthening the networks that you have around you, strengthening
Speaker 1: your friendships, your familiar relationships, checking in on people, asking
Speaker 1: people to check in on you. Hey, you know, there
Speaker 1: are some days where I just want to be insular
Speaker 1: and I'm just going to you know, dive into a
Speaker 1: book or dive into a show, and I just need
Speaker 1: to detach. But if you don't hear from me for
Speaker 1: you know, a day or two, please do drop me
Speaker 1: a text, Please do drop by my place, Please do
Speaker 1: give me a call. I think that we all need
Speaker 1: to start to set up for ourselves what our mental
Speaker 1: and emotional care looks like, and then let our community
Speaker 1: in on what that care is. Right. You know, I
Speaker 1: know that a lot of us, you know, don't want
Speaker 1: to put our needs on other people. But if we're
Speaker 1: not looking to those that love us and care about
Speaker 1: us to help bolster us in this time and us
Speaker 1: to be able to do the same for them. We're
Speaker 1: not going to make it. We're just not. And so
Speaker 1: I want to encourage you, you know, this week, as
Speaker 1: we move through this week and there's so much going
Speaker 1: on as per usual, to really think about what are
Speaker 1: the mental and emotional tools that you are using. Who
Speaker 1: are you going to, what is your tribe, what does
Speaker 1: your community look like? You know, who are you checking
Speaker 1: in on? Who are you asking to check in on you?
Speaker 1: Because I think that we need to be more intentional
Speaker 1: about how we are moving so that we don't fall
Speaker 1: through the cracks, right And if you do need more
Speaker 1: aid in terms of medication, then please make sure that
Speaker 1: you are visiting a psychiatrist, visiting a doctor and talking through,
Speaker 1: you know, the feelings that you have so that you
Speaker 1: can get the best treatment that you can. And I
Speaker 1: just you know, I will leave you all with saying
Speaker 1: that we're all living through difficult times. It's unprecedented and
Speaker 1: we don't know the best way and we're kind of
Speaker 1: stumbling through. And so in the comment section, if you
Speaker 1: have found something that works for you and you want
Speaker 1: to offer that, you know, up. Please do I know
Speaker 1: that a lot of you have taken on plant babies
Speaker 1: like I have, or adopted animals, or you know, are
Speaker 1: volunteering or doing something that makes you feel connected. If
Speaker 1: you're doing something that is working for you right now,
Speaker 1: please do drop it in the comments section and maybe
Speaker 1: you can help. You know somebody that is silently struggling,
Speaker 1: but will look, you know and say maybe I should
Speaker 1: try that. We need to give ourselves grace. We need
Speaker 1: to give those around us grace because we're not going
Speaker 1: to make it otherwise. Coming up next, my conversation with
Speaker 1: our friends and our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel.
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Speaker 1: whenever we have the opportunity to speak with our in
Speaker 1: house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, we get to talk about
Speaker 1: a range of things, our emotional well being, monkey pots, COVID,
Speaker 1: you know, all of the things that are giving us
Speaker 1: anxiety these days. Jonathan, I want to start out today
Speaker 1: with the World Health Organization's designation around monkey pox and
Speaker 1: if you can break down some of the misconceptions, right
Speaker 1: because I think that initially, much in the same way
Speaker 1: that political parties didn't care about HIV and AIDS because
Speaker 1: it was predominantly in the gay mail community at that time,
Speaker 1: they kind of just set up, we don't need to
Speaker 1: really have conversations about this, it's not harming everybody else. Well,
Speaker 1: the who came out and said, actually, it isn't just
Speaker 1: in the gay mail community. Now we have two children
Speaker 1: that have contracted monkey pos as of the time that
Speaker 1: this is recording eight women and there are sixteen thousand
Speaker 1: cases around the world. So I want you to tell
Speaker 1: us your understanding of these designations, not necessarily understanding the
Speaker 1: deep dive into monkeypox, but like why certain things and
Speaker 1: this is only the third disease to get this designation
Speaker 1: outside of polio and COVID. We live in the worst time.
Speaker 1: I mean, like we we live in a time where
Speaker 1: like so I'm just having wonderful fast flax to our
Speaker 1: conversations about the beginning of COVID and everything else like that,
Speaker 1: where it's like people aren't taking this thing seriously. It's
Speaker 1: real and uh, and it's just it just feels like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm sure other ages have end of
Speaker 1: days kind of feeling, but it does kind of feel
Speaker 1: like how many different major ass threats can we deal
Speaker 1: with at one time? And this is going to be
Speaker 1: another one. This is unfortunately going to be another one. Now,
Speaker 1: First of all, change the damn name. I don't want
Speaker 1: to have to say monkeypox everydy, Like it's just embarrassing
Speaker 1: enough to say monkeypox. So I think part of the
Speaker 1: issue of keeping it seriously is like call it like
Speaker 1: the killer tomatoes or something else. But I just think
Speaker 1: that they put the wrong name on this thing for
Speaker 1: people to take it seriously. That being said, I thought, actually, Jason,
Speaker 1: who's filling in form do I read, did a great
Speaker 1: segment on this last night, and his point was basically,
Speaker 1: so what is monkeypox. Well, monkeypox is it causes lesions
Speaker 1: all of your body, tons of pain, different systemic effects
Speaker 1: in other locals. It could potentially be fatal, particularly for
Speaker 1: people who are immunocompromised. It's really painful, it's really obvious.
Speaker 1: It's not like a kind of thing of like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just like the flu. You're not going to have
Speaker 1: like red inflame vesicles all over your face and tell people, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just like the flu. And so part of the
Speaker 1: issue here is that as this thing starts to spread,
Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of panic because, as
Speaker 1: Jason and other people were pointing out last night, um,
Speaker 1: it's it's quite it's quite visual, right, and so it's
Speaker 1: not like you can say, oh, this thing is fake
Speaker 1: or anything like that. And so if this thing does
Speaker 1: start to spread, we're looking at just go watch a
Speaker 1: movie about like the Middle Ages or something like that
Speaker 1: about like you know who, you don't want to date
Speaker 1: in the Middle Ages or something, it was the people
Speaker 1: with like the pustules and the vesicles and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, And so what do we know so far?
Speaker 1: Now that that's my that's my preamble. And I didn't
Speaker 1: mean to laugh. It's serious. It's serious. It's just like, no,
Speaker 1: it's but it's just so But I get it. It's
Speaker 1: just so U like, you're not laughing at the you're
Speaker 1: not laughing at the illness. It's just the absurdity of
Speaker 1: how many friggin things are we going to have to
Speaker 1: talk about, how many viruses, how many issues, like in
Speaker 1: one lifespan of two years, are we going to have
Speaker 1: to go through? So I get it, and let me
Speaker 1: let me give you another aside while we're assiding. Today
Speaker 1: today is a side Wednesday. But I've been getting tons
Speaker 1: of calls from media about mental health stuff, which I
Speaker 1: haven't gotten in years, and so I got a call
Speaker 1: from Forbes yesterday to do a piece. I'm doing another
Speaker 1: piece with Showtime about all this kind of thing, and everybody,
Speaker 1: all these interviews are asking what's the right antidepressant for
Speaker 1: people to be on, how should they know when to
Speaker 1: change antidepressant? Blah, blah blah, like as if like we're
Speaker 1: living in the nineties or something. This interview or yesterday
Speaker 1: was saying like what's the right dose and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I just kept saying, I understand why
Speaker 1: people are depressed right now, Like there's so much anxiety
Speaker 1: that in a way it's important to get help, to
Speaker 1: go to therapy, to get medication. But there's also just
Speaker 1: a lot of despair in the air right now because
Speaker 1: all these things just keep I mean, planetary destruction, end
Speaker 1: of democracy, monkey pox, you know, COVID, everything else. It
Speaker 1: just feels like it's all happening one time. And so
Speaker 1: in a way, I kept wanting to say, I'm happy
Speaker 1: to do these interviews, but there's just so which despair
Speaker 1: in the air right now that acknowledging that we might
Speaker 1: also be having a normal response to like a really
Speaker 1: stressful moment I think, is okay. Also, yeah, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: you know, no, no no, no, no. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: you know, I actually was having this conversation with another
Speaker 1: friend of mine yesterday because we were all sitting at
Speaker 1: brunch right this is over the weekend, and saying, you know,
Speaker 1: we're talking about I was talking about the rise in
Speaker 1: how many people are on medication for mental distress right
Speaker 1: whether it is you're taking add a roll because you
Speaker 1: can't focus, whether you're taking you know, pack sale because
Speaker 1: you have this, whether you know, whatever it is. And
Speaker 1: so we were all sitting around and saying, are you
Speaker 1: on medication? Are you on medication? And right now none
Speaker 1: of us were, And we're like, we're an anomaly, right,
Speaker 1: Like we're an anomaly of people who are currently you know,
Speaker 1: I'm in therapy, have been for years. I didn't just
Speaker 1: start because of you know, because of the pandemic. But
Speaker 1: it's just this idea that I think that everybody is
Speaker 1: going to be medicated in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: Microdosing is a is a term that we weren't really
Speaker 1: talking about five years ago, and it's now in everyday conversation.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I am happy that outlets are
Speaker 1: calling you to say, can you talk to us about
Speaker 1: mental health, But then at the same time really concern
Speaker 1: about what kind of you know, generations are we setting
Speaker 1: up with people that require so much assistance to be
Speaker 1: able to get through their day to day. And the thing,
Speaker 1: the funny thing was, so I'll just say that it'll
Speaker 1: come out today. But the Four's piece. The reason they
Speaker 1: contacted me was because one of the they just they
Speaker 1: write a lot of articles about what are the most
Speaker 1: searched terms on the internet, and like the top five
Speaker 1: for the past week is how do I switch antidepressants?
Speaker 1: That's like what top five of what people are searching
Speaker 1: for in this country. And I thought, you know, that's
Speaker 1: really interesting. What does that tell us? And she kept
Speaker 1: wanting me to say like, oh, you know, don't take twenty,
Speaker 1: take forty and stuff like that, which I was happy
Speaker 1: to do. And you know, I was actually thinking maybe
Speaker 1: I should go back and get my psychiatry license again
Speaker 1: to start practicing again. There's so much need. But I
Speaker 1: would also say, like the fact that people so many
Speaker 1: people are thinking like should I switch anti precedence, it's
Speaker 1: just it's just like medications aren't good enough right now,
Speaker 1: Like you need a village, right yeah. And so part
Speaker 1: of the issue is what I kept telling her, even
Speaker 1: though they did this isn't what they wanted to hear.
Speaker 1: Is the reason I think a lot of people are
Speaker 1: thinking should I switch medications is because there's a lot
Speaker 1: of despair. And it's not just because there's a chemical
Speaker 1: imbalance in their brain. It's because people are living among
Speaker 1: a lot of stress about all of these existential threats,
Speaker 1: including monkey pox and so and so I just think
Speaker 1: that in a way, I just think we need to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that, like there's no there's we can't even mourn
Speaker 1: like the COVID desk because they keep happening and there's
Speaker 1: another crisis every day. And that was kind of what
Speaker 1: I thought was, you could, we could, we should uhould
Speaker 1: be on the right medication, but you could switch medication
Speaker 1: until two weeks from Tuesday, and it still wouldn't change
Speaker 1: the fact that there's just so much external stress. It's
Speaker 1: almost like a you know, Durkheim that you used to
Speaker 1: talk about anomic stress, like the fact that like the
Speaker 1: world is collapsing that people felt around World War two,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like we're in that era. And so
Speaker 1: I feel like psychiatric drugs are made for nineteen nineties
Speaker 1: level stress. So either we need better drugs or we
Speaker 1: need to fix some of our social and political problems.
Speaker 1: You know. But it's I think what you just said
Speaker 1: is is really interesting. So I want to stay there
Speaker 1: for a moment, which is that initially when you're going
Speaker 1: on medication, right, you just said it is about a
Speaker 1: chemical imbalance, right it it's about your serotonin levels. It's
Speaker 1: about you know, being able to regulate and have some
Speaker 1: I'm assuming some type of neutrality or you know, or
Speaker 1: at least a little bit of a bump in terms
Speaker 1: of um your your serotonin levels. But that's not the
Speaker 1: case right now, like you're saying, it's it's external factors.
Speaker 1: It's not to say that there's still a significant amount
Speaker 1: of people that are on medication because of a chemical imbalance.
Speaker 1: But Jonathan, when it's not a chemical imbalance, right when
Speaker 1: you're saying, like, you know, I was looking at a
Speaker 1: report from express Scripts, who does you know, the pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: company that you know, kind of keeps tabs on how
Speaker 1: many prescriptions are are going out in the country. They
Speaker 1: said forty there's a forty two percent increase of kids
Speaker 1: between the ages of thirteen and nineteen. There is, you know,
Speaker 1: a forty percent increase between you know, those that are
Speaker 1: you know, in their thirties and forties. And so when
Speaker 1: it isn't, when it isn't about internal imbalance, it's like,
Speaker 1: you're right, how how are you? How how would a doctor?
Speaker 1: How would a psychiatrist then evaluate what it is that
Speaker 1: you need if it isn't about your own internal you know, navigator,
Speaker 1: and and just to complicate that a little more, because
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly that's exactly the point, right, Um,
Speaker 1: external factors can cause internal chemical imbalances, right, I mean
Speaker 1: I don't really often use the term chemical imbalance because
Speaker 1: it was made up by a marketing company, but I
Speaker 1: would say that external factors. But that's fine, it's very useful.
Speaker 1: It was a good phrase. But I would say that
Speaker 1: external factors um create chemical imbalances in your brain. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not like there's just either it's internal external, Like
Speaker 1: there's always a relationship between external and internal world. And
Speaker 1: so again I do think people should get medication if
Speaker 1: they need it, And again I think we need much
Speaker 1: better medication to deal with the shit we're dealing with
Speaker 1: right now. But I would also say that there there's
Speaker 1: it's also like an important time for community and community
Speaker 1: support and re ignizing that Like I'm not going to
Speaker 1: call it depression. If you're worried about sending your kid
Speaker 1: to school because of a mass shooting, for example, like
Speaker 1: that's a that's a reasonable response, Like anxiety is actually
Speaker 1: a normal response in that, you know, And so the
Speaker 1: answer is also maybe political engagement or hope or all
Speaker 1: these things we kind of feel like we can't have
Speaker 1: right now about thinking about, gosh, how can we make
Speaker 1: the world better and safer for us as opposed to UM,
Speaker 1: as opposed to not. And so the question I've been
Speaker 1: kind of running in the back of my mind is like,
Speaker 1: once the met gate side feels like they're winning, right,
Speaker 1: more guns, no abortions, you can be sexistent public and
Speaker 1: you know, all these kind of things. So I would
Speaker 1: be it would be interesting to see if they're feeling
Speaker 1: depression now. Also, you know, in other words, is it
Speaker 1: your friends? And why would they because they're because they're
Speaker 1: the ones winning the world's there's monkey box for everybody.
Speaker 1: There's climate change for everybody, whether you acknowledge it or not.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I guess the is this The
Speaker 1: other question I had about this changing antidepressants thing, was
Speaker 1: was it that just me and you and the people
Speaker 1: we know and the people in our circle, if I
Speaker 1: went to the middle of the Panhandle or Arkansas or
Speaker 1: something like that, would people would feel feel euphoric and
Speaker 1: uplifted and stuff like that, and so I don't know
Speaker 1: the answer to that is, are we also feeling like
Speaker 1: political despair because our side is not doing very well
Speaker 1: and the issues we care about are not doing well.
Speaker 1: So it's just I think a mental all This is
Speaker 1: very complicated, it's very relative, it's very political, But I
Speaker 1: don't think it's an abnormal response right now. You know,
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting question because I would say this
Speaker 1: right I was watching like a clip of one of
Speaker 1: the right wing you know, rallies, and obviously you go
Speaker 1: to these places all the time and you talk to
Speaker 1: these folks, but I would argue that they aren't feeling
Speaker 1: more at ease. The more they actually win, the more
Speaker 1: unsettled and angry they become. It actually doesn't make any
Speaker 1: rational sense to me. But what I have what I'm
Speaker 1: watching is like I'm seeing you're getting all of the
Speaker 1: things that you've ever wanted, and somehow you still feel
Speaker 1: like you're under attack. Somehow there's this sense of like,
Speaker 1: you know, deep knees, and they're still coming to take
Speaker 1: my guns, even though you are able to get a gun,
Speaker 1: like you know, as easy as you are a slurpee,
Speaker 1: Like they're coming to take X Y and Z. And
Speaker 1: you have Marjorie Taylor Green talking about Christian nationalism like
Speaker 1: the Nazi she is. And you know, and yet these
Speaker 1: people seem more unsettled and more unhinged. So what do
Speaker 1: you what do you make of that? Well, it'll be
Speaker 1: interesting to see what I mean. It's it's almost like
Speaker 1: a kind of OCD that like, no matter what the
Speaker 1: stressor is, it's we're under attacked by liberals and reframing
Speaker 1: everything is like we can't say what we want, we
Speaker 1: can't have our tradition, we can't have our country. And
Speaker 1: so it's a state of constant resentment and and and
Speaker 1: and it's powerful. I mean, as I showed in my book,
Speaker 1: you could be dying and still still be blaming other people. Um,
Speaker 1: and so I don't know. I guess, you know, I
Speaker 1: hadn't really thought about it until our conversation today, But
Speaker 1: I guess what's the mental health of that? Right? In
Speaker 1: other words, do people across the board this is a
Speaker 1: total generalization. Do they feel you for it because their
Speaker 1: owning libs? Is that? Is that a kind of euphoria?
Speaker 1: Is the is the masochism of always feeling like you're
Speaker 1: the victim? Does that? Does that create your own mental health,
Speaker 1: Like what is mental health? What is mental health in
Speaker 1: the context of that version of Bread America? And I
Speaker 1: don't know, God, what an interesting research question, right, um,
Speaker 1: because because you know, in a way, your mental health
Speaker 1: is dependent on continually casting yourself as the victim and
Speaker 1: being under attack. And does that make you you know,
Speaker 1: misery is happiness or something. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: like you kind of can't and I that there is
Speaker 1: monkey box, but we'll talk about a sec here or
Speaker 1: climate change, like, you know, it doesn't really matter what
Speaker 1: your view is. Those things are happening and so and
Speaker 1: mas and mass shootings, right like, all everybody is still
Speaker 1: sending going to be sending their kids to school come
Speaker 1: you know, the end of August and September, and you know,
Speaker 1: funny enough, not funny. But I'm was watching you know,
Speaker 1: a TV yesterday and I'm seeing the beginnings of the
Speaker 1: back to school commercials, and Jonathan, the only thing that
Speaker 1: I see is like you have this you know corporation,
Speaker 1: and this corporation like, oh, sending the kids back to school.
Speaker 1: All I kept thinking about was mass shootings, right Like,
Speaker 1: I don't even look at these you know commercials that
Speaker 1: are trying to sell people backpacks and pencils to their kids.
Speaker 1: All I keep thinking about is, oh my god, like
Speaker 1: they have to go back to school soon. The only
Speaker 1: reprieve that you have from thinking that your kid isn't
Speaker 1: going to be shot up is like the fact that
Speaker 1: it's summer break, but you could still take them to
Speaker 1: a parade or the grocery store, and that's still be
Speaker 1: the case. So regardless of whether you're in the reddest
Speaker 1: of red states or you're in you know, the bluest
Speaker 1: of blue suburbs or cities, like, you still have the
Speaker 1: same level of fear here. Right. It's just that it's
Speaker 1: just like, what's your narrative around that fear? I think
Speaker 1: it's kind of the issue, right, So, I mean, I
Speaker 1: know before, like I was interviewing people who were losing
Speaker 1: family members to gun suicide, and their salvation was like
Speaker 1: getting more guns, which makes zero sense to me or
Speaker 1: you or probably anybody listening here, but for these guys,
Speaker 1: it was kind of like any threat, the answer was
Speaker 1: more guns, and so getting more guns was kind of
Speaker 1: how they how they tell with it. And so we
Speaker 1: say go get therapy and like microns and they're like,
Speaker 1: let me buy another a R fifteen and that'll make
Speaker 1: me feel safe. I mean, I follow a lot of
Speaker 1: very conservative people, and I talked to a lot of
Speaker 1: very conservaive people, and every time there's a mess shooting,
Speaker 1: they're like, and this is proof that everyone needs to
Speaker 1: carry a gun and knows how to use it, Like
Speaker 1: that's the answer to every single thing. Um. And the
Speaker 1: fact that there are places that they've never been that
Speaker 1: they can't carry their guns they find to be like
Speaker 1: an affront to their whiteness and stuff and so um.
Speaker 1: But again that side is winning because it's a very developed,
Speaker 1: um political I don't, I don't like. I'm like, I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't even know. Um, let's go let's go back
Speaker 1: to um to monkey pox for a second and the
Speaker 1: context Yeah okay, yeah yeah, so okay, so monkey pox,
Speaker 1: so basically monkey pocks. The frustrating thing is there there
Speaker 1: has been some version you know, we eradicated smallpox as
Speaker 1: a society. There's been some version of something like monkey
Speaker 1: pox circulating around Africa for quite some time. Um, but
Speaker 1: it didn't like come over here, and we had all
Speaker 1: the means to defend ourselves and blah blah blah bla
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, there's a version of monkeypox
Speaker 1: that is not playing by the same colonial rules, and
Speaker 1: it's spreading, and it's spreading more than we even know.
Speaker 1: It's spreading through unprotected gay sex. Is as you were saying,
Speaker 1: was the first version. But the problem is, social designations
Speaker 1: don't really matter to monkeypox or viruses, you know, treatments
Speaker 1: like that, illnesses like that. So it turns out, how
Speaker 1: can you get monkeypox where you get it from close
Speaker 1: skin contact? You get it from if it's true like
Speaker 1: smallpox surfaces that have not been clean because smallpox could
Speaker 1: like live on surfaces for you know, seventy five reruns
Speaker 1: of The Golden Girls, and you get it from animals.
Speaker 1: Animals were also reservoirs, And so in a way, if
Speaker 1: it's following the same rules roughly as smallpox, then this
Speaker 1: thing is not just going to be a gay people's
Speaker 1: disease within like four minutes ago. And so the problem is,
Speaker 1: and this is really different from COVID. There is a massive, massive,
Speaker 1: massive short shortage of treatment. There's only one company that
Speaker 1: makes the vaccine. It's Bavarian Nordic something they you know,
Speaker 1: New York has seventeen thousand doses that we're gone in
Speaker 1: twenty one minutes. And so the difference is if you
Speaker 1: think about COVID, I mean, beside the difference of the
Speaker 1: illness itself. With COVID, it was like there's vaccine for everybody, everybody,
Speaker 1: please get the vaccine. But that's not what we're going
Speaker 1: to see with monkeypox. I'll tell you right now. Monkeypox,
Speaker 1: there's going to be like a war for the vaccine,
Speaker 1: like there's nowhere near enough vaccine. And so it's the
Speaker 1: exact opposite. It's the austerity narrative of the treatment. And
Speaker 1: so as this thing starts to spread and people start
Speaker 1: to kind of see the impact and people might see
Speaker 1: it in their social circles, there's just going to be
Speaker 1: a lot of anxiety. And I'm just predicting it's going
Speaker 1: to be the said of the COVID narrative, where actually
Speaker 1: people are going to be fighting for the vaccine because
Speaker 1: treatment aside, it's just it's an austerity narrative. Now, what
Speaker 1: can people do? UM will certainly be careful right now
Speaker 1: because we don't know how much of this stuff's around. UM,
Speaker 1: wash your hands a lot, clean your hands a lot. UM,
Speaker 1: don't go to a bathhouse, um don't um, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because like I'm not saying anything about sexuality,
Speaker 1: Like I love the bathhouse and Williamsburg. And after I
Speaker 1: got COVID, literally I it too. Yeah, me too. Know,
Speaker 1: it's super fun. It's like it's like all these fun
Speaker 1: saunas and parties and hot tubs and everybody just kind
Speaker 1: of hangs out. Don't do that because now it just
Speaker 1: sounds like And the thing is, I was excited after
Speaker 1: I got COVID. I'm like, Okay, let's go to the
Speaker 1: bathhouse because they've read this cool dinner party. And now
Speaker 1: I'm like, nah, I'm not going to do that. But
Speaker 1: but I would just say be wary because actually, remember
Speaker 1: we remember when we were careful of like wearing riever
Speaker 1: gloves and washing our hands for this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: That's what you want to do. Also because it's it's
Speaker 1: spread through contact and so it's not airborne, so just
Speaker 1: be careful about surfaces. And I would bet there's going
Speaker 1: to be a lot more information about about this coming out.
Speaker 1: But the problem again is there's a massive short shortage
Speaker 1: of vaccines and anti viral medication, and so it's going
Speaker 1: to be more like the Hunger Games than it was, like,
Speaker 1: you know the thing and I remember we said it
Speaker 1: on this show. If there was only enough COVID vaccine
Speaker 1: for half the people, all these white people would have
Speaker 1: been like killing people for the vaccine. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: about the treatment. It was about the fact that everybody
Speaker 1: could get it, including people who were not white. But
Speaker 1: in this case, that's not going to be the case,
Speaker 1: and so at least for a very long time, and
Speaker 1: so in a way that we're going to see the
Speaker 1: opposite social phenomenon as we did with COVID. That's my prediction.
Speaker 1: I mean, is this do you think, Jonathan, that this
Speaker 1: is going to end up being something one where a
Speaker 1: couple of months from now, we'll be like, remember when
Speaker 1: we said there were only three thousand cases in the
Speaker 1: United States, and now there's three hundred thousand cases in
Speaker 1: the United States. Is this going to be something that
Speaker 1: like the Biden administration is going to have to think about,
Speaker 1: you know, instituting the Production Act in order for us
Speaker 1: to be able to get more vaccine. Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1: I mean the thing is, so we're going to need
Speaker 1: to get more vaccines somehow, and the vaccine treats it, right,
Speaker 1: So it's not like we don't we have a treatment.
Speaker 1: It's just because we didn't really give a hoot about this.
Speaker 1: Only one company makes it, and it's like mom and
Speaker 1: pop and grandma and so and so we're going to
Speaker 1: need to change that as quickly as we can. But
Speaker 1: that takes a long time, right to just make a vaccine.
Speaker 1: You can't just you know, flip a switch. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can't just dy it, you know, like you actually have
Speaker 1: to do it. And so it takes a long time
Speaker 1: to make that production. And then companies are probably going
Speaker 1: to wonder, are like, oh I got burned by COVID,
Speaker 1: you know, because like vaccine company stock went way up
Speaker 1: and then they went way down. Um so so there's
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons why it's not just like making
Speaker 1: a lot more vaccine. It's going to be complicated. But
Speaker 1: but I would say you're right that we are going
Speaker 1: to see a lot more cases and people are going
Speaker 1: to get quite nervous. But again the reminder, this is
Speaker 1: not an airborne illness, right, This is not an airborne illness.
Speaker 1: This is a surface illness. So it's a totally different
Speaker 1: mode of transmission than covid uh, and so the things
Speaker 1: people do to stay safe are going to be are
Speaker 1: going to be different. Unfortunately, it's about touch touching things,
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of thing, Oh, Jonathan, another uplifting conversation.
Speaker 1: I mean coble we cover the wee. Yeah, just like
Speaker 1: monkey boxes. Uh. Donam as always, we deeply appreciate you
Speaker 1: and pray to God that the next time that we
Speaker 1: talk next week, that there won't be yet another virus
Speaker 1: for us to be talking about. And if we are
Speaker 1: talking about this, just call it something else so we
Speaker 1: don't have to say the word monkeypox for the next year,
Speaker 1: like MP yeah, something like yeah, the rambo virus, I
Speaker 1: don't really care, or just something else. Oh, Dear God,
Speaker 1: we appreciate you. Indisputable with Doctor Rashad Ricci is one
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