Speaker 1: When anything potentially terrible happens to a comedian, we're like,
Speaker 1: how are we gonna make this funny? So I thought
Speaker 1: it was a joke. There was like, there's no way,
Speaker 1: my dad's not my dad, So I'm going to find
Speaker 1: out what's up. But as a joke, I filmed it
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm about to find out my
Speaker 1: family's on my family.
Speaker 2: In this week's episode of The Psychology Podcast, I had
Speaker 2: a really interesting chat with Christina Hutchinson. Christina is an
Speaker 2: internationally touring stand up comedian, actress, and writer based in
Speaker 2: New York City. Christina and her comedy partner Karin Fisher,
Speaker 2: co hosts the critically acclaimed Guys We Fucked, the anti
Speaker 2: slut shaming podcast, in addition to co writing the book Fucked,
Speaker 2: Being sexually explorative and self confident in a world That's screwed.
Speaker 2: This was a really enjoyable chat with a really interesting human.
Speaker 2: As you all know, I'm a big fan of stand
Speaker 2: up comedy, and Christina has a huge interest in the
Speaker 2: field of psychology and is quite familiar with psychological theory
Speaker 2: on relationships. In this episode, we discussed her tumultuous childhood,
Speaker 2: her own struggles with mental health and how she coped
Speaker 2: with a recent revelation she had about her life. We laughed,
Speaker 2: we cried. Without further ado, I bring you Christina Hutchinson. Hey, everyone,
Speaker 2: welcome to the Psychology Podcast. There is going to be
Speaker 2: a new era where I wear this jacket and I
Speaker 2: bring more of my whole self to the table and
Speaker 2: we have even more interesting and stimulating and maybe even
Speaker 2: a little edgy conversations that are relevant to everything going
Speaker 2: on in the world right now. But to kick us off,
Speaker 2: we have Christina Hutchinson.
Speaker 1: Honored to be here as part of your pivot.
Speaker 2: Yes, we're so glad to have you here. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: are many things, so right, I mean I could just
Speaker 2: start saying things like, you're a comedian, You're a spiritual seeker.
Speaker 1: Oh right, just as well of curiosity.
Speaker 2: You're a curiosity seeker. You're an adventure You're you host,
Speaker 2: you co host a podcast I do guys, we fucked
Speaker 2: or we we fucked? And then there's a subtitle to
Speaker 2: it as well, right, like the anti slut shaming podcast?
Speaker 2: Is that the official subtitle of it?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: It is. Okay, Well let me ask you why do
Speaker 2: you start that podcast? Uh?
Speaker 1: So, my comedy partner got dumped by someone at the
Speaker 1: time she thought was the love of her life in
Speaker 1: a Panera bread and that got her spinning emotionally and mentally,
Speaker 1: and in that spiral, she said to me one day,
Speaker 1: She's like, we should just do a podcast where reinterview
Speaker 1: every guy we've ever fucked, and she's called guys we fucked.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's amazing, Yesait.
Speaker 2: Holy right there, so there's already an assumption that you'll
Speaker 2: have enough episodes to do that.
Speaker 1: So right, so you know our numbers are not that hot. Okay, okay, honestly,
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. We started branching out because we were like,
Speaker 1: you know, this is a very vulnerable type of conversation,
Speaker 1: a conversation we probably wouldn't have had if we didn't
Speaker 1: have a podcast about it. But when we started, there
Speaker 1: was no video. So the people that weren't in the
Speaker 1: entertainment industry and had no reason to kind of promote
Speaker 1: their vulnerability, they were willing to do it because they
Speaker 1: could go under a fake name. But now with the video,
Speaker 1: it's all about video now, so it's a little a
Speaker 1: little more vulnerable.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So you started that and then you you were
Speaker 2: in you liked that idea.
Speaker 1: I loved it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you love the idea, and it's done really well. Congratulations,
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of it.
Speaker 2: Why do you think it has done so well? What
Speaker 2: do you think it? What nerve does it strike?
Speaker 1: The timing of it was, I don't. It was a
Speaker 1: fly on the wall conversation about two women in their
Speaker 1: twenties navigating their sex life and their self esteem. You know,
Speaker 1: the directly corresponds with your sexual and romantic endeavors, and
Speaker 1: so we just talked as if we were the only
Speaker 1: ones in the room, and I think we didn't. I
Speaker 1: think when you do something groundbreaking, you never set out
Speaker 1: to be groundbreaking. You just want to be honest. And
Speaker 1: so that was the mentality that we had with it,
Speaker 1: and it struck a chord immediately and people. The cool
Speaker 1: thing was people started writing us and asking us quite
Speaker 1: and then they started sharing things, really intense situations that
Speaker 1: have happened in their life, a lot of them being
Speaker 1: traumatic that they kind of added this caveat of I've
Speaker 1: never told anybody these things, and we're like, wow, we're
Speaker 1: really hitting on something like sharing your life makes people
Speaker 1: introspective and they want to share their life with you,
Speaker 1: which is a big honor.
Speaker 2: It's a big honor. And do you feel like in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways your show has empowered women? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: in sex, sexually, you.
Speaker 1: Know, sexually, and with self esteem. My comedy partner is
Speaker 1: pretty much the only person I've ever met that has
Speaker 1: one hundred percent self esteem. She just was nurtured in
Speaker 1: a very beautiful way by her parents. Met anyone like that,
Speaker 1: I haven't either, And so the irony is I had
Speaker 1: a very traumatic childhood. She did not. Her childhood was
Speaker 1: beautiful and her individuality was really encouraged by her parents.
Speaker 1: And so as we got older and are in the
Speaker 1: world now we are in the public eye, she was
Speaker 1: more traumatized by other people's behavior because she grew up
Speaker 1: in this beautiful surrounded by like love and understanding. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I already knew the world was fucked up,
Speaker 1: So I'm ready to go.
Speaker 2: You already knew the world was sucked up. You weren't
Speaker 2: at a very young age, right, very young age. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And you know in psychology, and you're very interested in psychology.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I almost feel like they need to
Speaker 2: justify why you're here on this podcast, But like, you
Speaker 2: are an extremely interesting case study as well as in
Speaker 2: a highly creative person, and you're a really interested in psychology,
Speaker 2: so I knew we would have a million things to
Speaker 2: geek out. Oh yeah, yeah. So in psychology there's this
Speaker 2: theory that our early childhood is like a weather forecast.
Speaker 2: So what if there's a lot of unpredictability and harshness
Speaker 2: in an environment, our brain kind of wires in a
Speaker 2: way where that's what we expect forevermore for the rest
Speaker 2: of our life, and that could be very hard to unlearn.
Speaker 1: The we projected onto everybody in life were like, what's
Speaker 1: your problem? And you're like, well, what is my problem?
Speaker 2: Shit? Because that's what your Your brain's a prediction machine
Speaker 2: and so very young. Do you feel like, personally young
Speaker 2: in early in your life your brain kind of started
Speaker 2: to predict something about the world.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yeah. I My mother was mentally ill
Speaker 1: and we never knew which mom we were going to get.
Speaker 1: My dad had a pretty bad temper and also too
Speaker 1: spanking fox a kid up like being hit by a parent.
Speaker 1: It was so accepted when I was a kid, So
Speaker 1: my parents were certainly not the only ones. Every kid
Speaker 1: in my neighborhood got spanked by their parents. But as
Speaker 1: I got older, I'm like, that's messed up to be. Like,
Speaker 1: you're the trauma therapist that I worked with for a
Speaker 1: long time. She goes, when you're in when you're a
Speaker 1: little kid, your parents are one hundred feet tall. They're
Speaker 1: like God to you. And so when that type of
Speaker 1: person who holds that spot in your life strikes you physically,
Speaker 1: it's so confusing, even though it was like an accepted
Speaker 1: form of discipline at the time. So there's so much
Speaker 1: that you could one could do to mess up their kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, true, it's true. But so what else in your
Speaker 2: childhood that you feel comfortable talking about? Oh yeah, makes
Speaker 2: you who you are today, I'll talk about all of that.
Speaker 1: I The way I summarize my relationship with my mother
Speaker 1: is really I don't talk to either of my parents.
Speaker 1: I went no contact, which is really I think people
Speaker 1: go one way or another when they have a messed
Speaker 1: up childhood. They either know it's messed up, or they
Speaker 1: work really hard at convincing themselves that everything's great and
Speaker 1: if something happens that upsets you, it's my fault. You
Speaker 1: internalize it, right, And so I internalized it, and I
Speaker 1: didn't realize things were awry until a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: It was really recent and my world crumbled. For about
Speaker 1: a year and a half. I would wake up scream crying.
Speaker 1: I was just so very suicidal. But how I describe
Speaker 1: my childhood, my mom used, especially my teen years, suicide
Speaker 1: is a manipulation tactic, and I didn't know it was manipulation.
Speaker 2: It's very common among people's borderline personalities.
Speaker 1: I do think when I started learning about borderline, I
Speaker 1: was like, that's what that is.
Speaker 2: It's a very common tactic used.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yeah, And my whole family functioned my mom's mood.
Speaker 1: And so I remember, like my brother. I have an
Speaker 1: older brother who I love so much. He's like my
Speaker 1: war veteran buddy, you know, and uh, you didn't, No,
Speaker 1: I love him. He's thank god I have him as
Speaker 1: my brother. But I remember all of his girlfriends throughout
Speaker 1: the years were all they were always like, what's up
Speaker 1: with you guys?
Speaker 2: On your mom.
Speaker 1: I'm like, don't talk about my mom that way, but
Speaker 1: I would defend her because I thought she was the best,
Speaker 1: my best friend and all this stuff. And so now
Speaker 1: I'm at a place that was really difficult to get
Speaker 1: to where I love her and I want the best
Speaker 1: for her. I want her to be so happy. I'm
Speaker 1: so glad she was my mother because it maybe the
Speaker 1: person I am, but my inner peace would be compromise
Speaker 1: if she was in my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's another reason why you kind of stopped
Speaker 2: talking to them, because you were a sperm you found
Speaker 2: you found a surprise me was that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So my mom was adopted when she was about three,
Speaker 1: and her like her, her biological mother, was so much
Speaker 1: more mentally than she was, which is usually how it goes.
Speaker 1: And she got adopted by a lovely family. But we
Speaker 1: never knew much about our biological side. We knew we
Speaker 1: had some things from the social paperwork she had from
Speaker 1: her adoption. But I got our twenty three MEEKID for
Speaker 1: Christmas one year because I was like, we don't know
Speaker 1: anything about your DNA, so it wosed to be really exciting.
Speaker 1: She didn't want to do it, so I was like,
Speaker 1: that's weird. So I took the kit and did it.
Speaker 1: I got all these results. I found out I'm fifty
Speaker 1: one percent Oshkenazi Jewish. I was like, oh that's cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's greater than a chance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my dad was a Jewish. I was like, oh, mom,
Speaker 1: were Jewish, and she goes, oh, okay. I'm like that's
Speaker 1: a weird reaction. And I started getting messages from women
Speaker 1: that were like, oh, we're half siblings. Do you know
Speaker 1: your dad?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Because I did the I clicked the option where if
Speaker 1: we do you want a DNA relative to be able
Speaker 1: to contact you? And I said sure because my mom
Speaker 1: had simply.
Speaker 2: Get like tenth cousins messaging me in there. Yeah, asked
Speaker 2: hate me up for money.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm like, we're not that related and I.
Speaker 1: Don't know you that well. But and then I called her, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I've taped it because when anything potentially terrible happens
Speaker 1: to a comedian, we're like, how are we gonna make
Speaker 1: this funny? So I thought it was a joke. There
Speaker 1: was like, there's no way my dad's not my dad.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to find out what's up. But as
Speaker 1: a joke, I filmed it and I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: about to find out my family's not my family. And
Speaker 1: then I asked her. I told her about the messages,
Speaker 1: and I go, is dad my biological dad? Obviously he's
Speaker 1: my real dad because he raised me. But she goes.
Speaker 1: She was hesitant, and I'll go, what go, I'm not
Speaker 1: a sperm notor baby am I? She goes, and I
Speaker 1: the thing. You know, I'm still not mad about that part.
Speaker 1: I think it's very disrespectful that they didn't tell me.
Speaker 1: I'm mad about all the other stuff honestly that I'm like,
Speaker 1: I feel like you guys went through great lengths to
Speaker 1: get me here. It's something to be shamed about. But
Speaker 1: I get. I get why you didn't tell me. It
Speaker 1: wasn't the right choice, but I understand. The thing that
Speaker 1: upset me is you saw me take the DNA get home.
Speaker 1: That was your chance to have an honest coversation with me,
Speaker 1: and you allowed me to find out this way.
Speaker 2: Wow, what I mean? That shakes up your world?
Speaker 1: It's it's wild. And my I call my brother because
Speaker 1: their first real their first thing to me was don't
Speaker 1: tell anybody, which I thought is very unfairer. It's my experience,
Speaker 1: it's also their experience, but it all it's mine too.
Speaker 1: And did he know my brother had no idea shocked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my whole situation. He's biologically both of my parents, but
Speaker 1: my whole life. He told me. I was the mailman's
Speaker 1: baby because I don't look like anybody in my family.
Speaker 1: My mom is curly hair, and I have curly hair,
Speaker 1: but my sperm donor is Jewish. He's the Jewish one
Speaker 1: has like a jew raw. I'm like, oh, that's where
Speaker 1: hair it comes from. No, he he passed away. I did. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's one picture of him that I saw that that
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't look anything like him either.
Speaker 1: Put we could He he did die. He died by suicide.
Speaker 1: He died by suicide. And that was an interesting thing
Speaker 1: to learn because my mother had kind of dangled suicide
Speaker 1: over me, her own suicide, potential suicide over me, for
Speaker 1: so long, and that was interesting. That was like a
Speaker 1: poetic realization. I'm like, whoa, that's wild.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, there's so many letter layers. I don't
Speaker 2: even know what the word is. Irony or it's all
Speaker 2: of it. Holy shit, it's all.
Speaker 1: And I didn't process this for a year because I
Speaker 1: was just like what, I just didn't know how to react.
Speaker 1: I didn't know when people were telling me how to react.
Speaker 1: And I was trying to be mindful of, like, don't
Speaker 1: react in a certain way because people are telling you
Speaker 1: should be mad, honestly not mad about that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's cool. I think it's a really unique experience
Speaker 1: to find out one of your parents is not biologically
Speaker 1: your parent.
Speaker 2: It's an experience, it is. It's a unique experience to
Speaker 2: go through in life. Yes, to discover there everything you
Speaker 2: thought you knew about your life is actually not true.
Speaker 2: It's wild. Not everyone gets to experience that. Yeah. So
Speaker 2: in terms of it's when we get just to comedy.
Speaker 2: Did you like did were you always funny? Naturally? Did
Speaker 2: you start to use it as a defense mechanism? I didn't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't one of those people that used it as
Speaker 1: a defense mechanism. But I was the most joyful when
Speaker 1: everybody around me was laughing, and especially my mom because
Speaker 1: it was just we never knew the mood she was
Speaker 1: going to be in. When my mom and dad and
Speaker 1: me and my brother were all together laughing. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: most blissful moments of my life where even as a child,
Speaker 1: I knew enough to know in that moment like this
Speaker 1: is beautiful and I only want this, and so I
Speaker 1: was always chasing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is a high there. I mean, that's why
Speaker 2: people go into lots of different things related field like entertainment,
Speaker 2: like rock musicians and I think comedians like you both
Speaker 2: kind of have this dopamine reward when you get immediate
Speaker 2: real time because there's something special about real time feedback, right,
Speaker 2: It's like depressing being a scientist and going through a
Speaker 2: peer review where everyone tells you suck, and then you
Speaker 2: have a year before the paper even comes out, after
Speaker 2: it's accepted, and when it comes out, you get feed
Speaker 2: maybe positive feedback from like one person, maybe one person
Speaker 2: reads your paper. So I'm just like, I can see
Speaker 2: how there's a real peel there to be able to
Speaker 2: get real time feedback. But at the same time, do
Speaker 2: you think there's a certain personality that it almost sort
Speaker 2: of needs that real time feedback, Like is there a
Speaker 2: need there that's being fulfilled?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think every person on the planet really enjoys
Speaker 1: media gratification. But that's why social media is huge. The
Speaker 1: posting a picture of yourself or doing something and then
Speaker 1: getting rewarded for it is high and you could see
Speaker 1: the people that get real high off of that, and
Speaker 1: I'm certainly one of them. But yeah, there's definitely it's
Speaker 1: so rewarding to connect with a a group of strangers,
Speaker 1: and it's also really nice. I've been doing it for
Speaker 1: over a decade, so I'm super comfortable with it. I
Speaker 1: can ride the wave, I can crush, I can annihilate
Speaker 1: a twenty minute set or an hour set, and it's
Speaker 1: such a huge accomplishment and it's really exciting. But it's
Speaker 1: also really nice that like people come together, they pay
Speaker 1: and arrange their lives so that they can be in
Speaker 1: a room with other strangers to laugh. That is amazing
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: Well, I love comedy. I mean I even took a
Speaker 2: course in Santa Monica performed it under an alter ego. Fine, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: You're Sasha Fear.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I have. I could say the name of
Speaker 2: my alter ego when people googling the set, but it's
Speaker 2: pretty uh he's pretty perverted, the alter ego. But I
Speaker 2: loved it, absolutely loved it. Yeah, Like I think that
Speaker 2: if I didn't do this job, I probably would pursue
Speaker 2: stand up comedy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's it's uh, it's just it allows you
Speaker 2: to really kind of just like be naked, you know,
Speaker 2: in front of people and just be like this is me,
Speaker 2: you know. And I also noticed there's a tinge of
Speaker 2: self deprecation to almost every comedian I've watched. I it's
Speaker 2: an interesting phenomen I've wanted to discuss this with a
Speaker 2: fellow comedian listening listen to me with a comedian. There
Speaker 2: is that kind of you know, I watched once a
Speaker 2: really strikingly handsome man do comedy and he wasn't funny.
Speaker 2: There was something about like kind of and also he
Speaker 2: came out with this kind of like I'm the best
Speaker 2: attitude and that combination. No one was like, people are like,
Speaker 2: you're not a comedian. It's almost like there's like this
Speaker 2: implicit thing that to be funny you have to almost
Speaker 2: kind of be relatable and.
Speaker 1: Making and self deprecation is I think it's super healthy
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's a way to kind of gain
Speaker 1: control of yourself, and it's a way to accept the
Speaker 1: things about you while making fun of them. At the
Speaker 1: same time. It's so cathartic. I have so many things
Speaker 1: to be self deprecating about, and it's really one of
Speaker 1: my favorite things in comedy is getting roasted and I'm
Speaker 1: so sensitive. Oh my god, I've been.
Speaker 2: Been roasted one of your Comedy Central roasts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not not a common central roast, but in
Speaker 1: smaller versions of that. But I love it. It's so
Speaker 1: that's probably the most Catharsis I've ever received on stages.
Speaker 1: It's getting absolutely annihilated, my character, my look, everything, because
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, this doesn't matter, it's all fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a great humility there, but there's also like
Speaker 2: there's a fragility there I see amongst comedians as well, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: sort of like you know, like if no one's laughing,
Speaker 2: it's almost like what the fuck are you laughing? And
Speaker 2: you have to really miss but you get you know, internally,
Speaker 2: I can see it and upset, like they're upset, like
Speaker 2: why are you not laughing at me right now?
Speaker 1: That's a newbie. Usually that's usually a sign of a newbie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because bombing ruined me for about seven years. I remember
Speaker 1: one time the manager that I have now, he before
Speaker 1: we work together. He got me a set at Caroline's
Speaker 1: on Broadway, which was a huge club, and I bombed
Speaker 1: so hard. I didn't talk for two days. I left
Speaker 1: the comedy club, didn'tal I just didn't say any words.
Speaker 1: And it's a comic's get immediate gratification, but we also
Speaker 1: get immediate dissatisfaction, like and and when you bomb, you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: you don't like what I said or how I said it,
Speaker 1: that's who I am.
Speaker 2: Well, it's almost that you take it so personally, it's
Speaker 2: like you don't like who I am. There, there's like
Speaker 2: the comedy and the and who you are so intertwined. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's also it is really vulnerable putting yourself out
Speaker 2: there like that. And so I think that's a I'm
Speaker 2: and just validate you for a second in that experience.
Speaker 2: I'm such a psychologist. And but it's incredibly vulnable thing
Speaker 2: to go out there and be naked. And I don't
Speaker 2: think audience is really you know if they're heckling, especially
Speaker 2: like they don't get like that's a human on the
Speaker 2: stage there who literally put themselves out there and been
Speaker 2: like like, you know, I'm going to just say the
Speaker 2: most intimate things about my life and and and share things,
Speaker 2: you know. So yeah, it's no, I get it. I
Speaker 2: can get that way. That would be incredibly upsetting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then you do it for enough time and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, come ha me bro.
Speaker 2: And that's the beautiful thing, right when you can handle
Speaker 2: that kind of rejection. I recently took up a hobby
Speaker 2: of magic. Maybe I'll do some magic. Yeah. But and
Speaker 2: I so I set up a shop. I set up
Speaker 2: a table in Santa Monica on the beach path, and
Speaker 2: I started to enjoy the rejection. It's good practice. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, i'd be like, hey, do you
Speaker 2: want to free magic show? No, I'm good.
Speaker 1: You know you don't want to see my magic magic.
Speaker 2: I feel like I told at both.
Speaker 1: But you live through that moment and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I've thrown.
Speaker 2: All the rejections and it got made a reel of
Speaker 2: all the rejections. They're funny, you know. But so I
Speaker 2: think it's like, there's it's great to be able to
Speaker 2: learn that muscle. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I might have abandonment issues, and so being abandoned
Speaker 1: by a group of strangers and getting through that improving yourself.
Speaker 1: You're proving yourself you're not going to die, You're not
Speaker 1: a bad person. But I had to go through years
Speaker 1: of tears to build the strength. But the strength that
Speaker 1: it gives you is huge.
Speaker 2: Good on you. I mean, someone of the abandonment issues
Speaker 2: doing comedies. I'm trying to think of a funny analogy.
Speaker 2: But you can think of a funny analogy that it's
Speaker 2: like someone who is scared. I don't know, what do
Speaker 2: you think of something.
Speaker 1: Somebody who's allergic to cats as a zoo keeper?
Speaker 2: Thank you for I needed a comedian all the stot
Speaker 2: to come up with. But I knew that you were
Speaker 2: thinking what I same thing. I was thinking. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: good on you. I really do want to talk about
Speaker 2: the psychology of relationships, the psychology of sexuality. I have
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of questions related to the sexuality to mean,
Speaker 2: but let's talk about relationships for a second. Personally. How's
Speaker 2: that played out for you? Oh? So bad?
Speaker 1: So when I'm realizing this, you know, hindsight twenty twenty
Speaker 1: and especially learning about trauma and the brain. You know,
Speaker 1: to trauma makes you behave in ways made me behave
Speaker 1: in ways that I was really ashamed of. And I
Speaker 1: just blame myself because I didn't understand the neuroscience of
Speaker 1: trauma and I didn't understand that your brain looks different
Speaker 1: in a brain scan when you've been traumatized, like you're
Speaker 1: just your fight or flight. There's nothing I'm wrong with you.
Speaker 1: Your body's actually working correctly, and so that was really interesting.
Speaker 1: So my relationships, when someone would give me a ten,
Speaker 1: I think when you are neglected as a kid and
Speaker 1: kind of emotionally abuse, when someone gives you attention, it
Speaker 1: feels so good and you're like, oh my god, this
Speaker 1: is what it feels like to be seen that you
Speaker 1: don't even qualify. Is this person good? Are we compatible? Emotionally? Intellectually?
Speaker 1: You don't even You skip all that stuff because it's
Speaker 1: such a high. It's like heroin, and so you'll do
Speaker 1: anything to not let that go because I've never experienced
Speaker 1: that before. So I think when you grow up with
Speaker 1: an unstable family life, your relationship life is kind of
Speaker 1: set up to fail in a way. It's not necessarily true,
Speaker 1: but for me it was. And so a lot of
Speaker 1: mind games and manipulations with my first boyfriend, and so
Speaker 1: out of revenge, he cheated on me, which everyone told
Speaker 1: me he was. I'm like, no, he loves me and
Speaker 1: you sheailed me, and as revenge, I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna date your bassist, and I did. Lovely man. He
Speaker 1: we dated for three years. He was so sweet. I've
Speaker 1: never dated somebody who's sweet before. But then after that,
Speaker 1: I was bad again. So the relationship I'm in now
Speaker 1: is the most beautiful, rewarding relationship ever. We started out
Speaker 1: super Yeah, we started out kind of toxic, but I
Speaker 1: greatly contributed to that dynamic because I was projecting him
Speaker 1: hurting me and I didn't realize I was doing that,
Speaker 1: and I was I was. I think anybody can sense,
Speaker 1: like an audience consents when a comic's desperate for you
Speaker 1: to like them. I just kind of projected these insecurities.
Speaker 1: And then I also was so desperate for him not
Speaker 1: to go anywhere, and he was like, I gotta go,
Speaker 1: and so his body was reacting in a healthy way.
Speaker 1: So but yeah, we've gone come to a place where
Speaker 1: it's so beautiful and it's so we feel we're like
Speaker 1: little kids when we're together, and we've carved out a
Speaker 1: really safe space for each other. And so I realized, like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is for you. Thank you. I do too, And
Speaker 1: he's his in Our little kid comes out when we're together,
Speaker 1: My little inner kid comes out and it's safe, and
Speaker 1: so that's a rare. That's very rare for me. So
Speaker 1: but my friendships were really There was one the year
Speaker 1: that I stopped talking to my parents. I also blocked.
Speaker 1: I blocked them, which is crazy but social yeah, social media,
Speaker 1: but also the phone number. Like I had I do
Speaker 1: a bit about it where I'm like, before I press
Speaker 1: press block, I was like, am I allowed to do this?
Speaker 1: Because sew up their ass that it was just unheard of,
Speaker 1: I know, but I stopped talking to them. I stopped
Speaker 1: talking to my best friend of fifteen years. Wow, she
Speaker 1: had borderline and it was just reliving the mom thing,
Speaker 1: did your mom?
Speaker 2: Because I literally diagnosed her at all.
Speaker 1: So, knowing everything I know about border life, I've read
Speaker 1: so many books about it, I'm like, yeah, one hundred percent,
Speaker 1: it's just she always thinks we're out together. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you nailed it, and she always yeah. It's so frustrating.
Speaker 1: And I would get triggered by my best friend at
Speaker 1: the time too because she would behave in the same way.
Speaker 1: So I realized that I was just re You recreate
Speaker 1: the dynamic until you you overcome the dynamic.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and all caveats aside, We don't mean to stigmatize
Speaker 2: people with borrowlying, right, there are plenty people borerline who
Speaker 2: are perfectly wonderful people to.
Speaker 1: Have self actualized ye.
Speaker 2: But there are people who don't do the work right.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of what we're focusing on right now.
Speaker 1: You know, I try. I don't I like diagnose my
Speaker 1: my mother because I don't know. But there I have
Speaker 1: a joke. When I try to talk about our mental
Speaker 1: illness on stage. I'm still trying to find ways so
Speaker 1: that the audience isn't like, oh, that's sad. I'm like, oh, really, fuck,
Speaker 1: but there is one joke that works every time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'm like I was, you know, I always thought
Speaker 1: it was my problem. Like growing up, I'm like, why
Speaker 1: am I so dumb? Because our relationship was so fraught.
Speaker 1: And I was in a bookstore one day and I
Speaker 1: passed by a book. The title, the real title of
Speaker 1: the book was You're not crazy, it's your mother. And
Speaker 1: I was like, huh, oh that book has to say
Speaker 1: And I read the book front to back in three
Speaker 1: bit days and I learned about narcissistic personality disorders. When
Speaker 1: I say in the joke and I'm like, I call
Speaker 1: my brother in the middle of the night, I'm like, DJ,
Speaker 1: Mom's not bipolar, she's a bitch. I cannot know that.
Speaker 1: But narcissism is who like people. I thought narcissism was
Speaker 1: being full of yourself. That's not what it is. It
Speaker 1: is controlling, and it's I mean, there's various types, but
Speaker 1: like like if you how dare you upset me? How
Speaker 1: dare like? That was kind of the attitude I was
Speaker 1: met with by my mom and kind of my dad.
Speaker 2: Well, usually with borderline you tend to find high levels
Speaker 2: of what's called vulnerable narcissism, which is sort of like,
Speaker 2: because I've suffered, I'm entitled to everything around me. It's
Speaker 2: not a because I'm superior to others. I'm entitled. It's
Speaker 2: because I am for fragile and I like and no
Speaker 2: one seems to understand what I'm going through. And usually
Speaker 2: that's correlated with a victim mindset, so like a perpetual
Speaker 2: we called a perpetual victim mindset. Of course some of
Speaker 2: us are victimized, and it's quite right to to acknowledge that,
Speaker 2: but we're talking about perpetual Where she was your mother
Speaker 2: kind of the victim of every kind of situation and
Speaker 2: your own needs.
Speaker 1: What needs, Yeah, I felt I despised my needs. I
Speaker 1: despised if I needed help with anything. I despised needing guidance,
Speaker 1: which is that hurt me.
Speaker 2: So how did you learn to trust yourself? Because in
Speaker 2: that kind of situation, a lot of people grew up
Speaker 2: and they were and they kind of describe it as like,
Speaker 2: I feel like I have no bottom, no center, no
Speaker 2: center of being. I don't know who I am. Did
Speaker 2: you ever go through that period event?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, about five years of I mean I
Speaker 1: didn't know who I was the whole time, and that
Speaker 1: was jarring because you're like, was this all I was?
Speaker 1: Just putting on a mask?
Speaker 2: Fuck?
Speaker 1: And then you have to do the hard work of
Speaker 1: excavating yourself from the rubble. But I would cry in
Speaker 1: my therapist's office so often, like I don't know who
Speaker 1: I am, and she's like, that makes sense. Of course
Speaker 1: you don't know who you are. You've been told who
Speaker 1: you are by your family. They tell you and it's
Speaker 1: and instead of going no, that's not me that somebody
Speaker 1: with a sense of self would do, you bought into
Speaker 1: it because you wanted to be loved by them. It's survival,
Speaker 1: so you're these mechanisms were in place to keep you alive.
Speaker 1: But I am just now getting to know myself. Oh
Speaker 1: the past year.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, who are you? Oh?
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm so curious. I'm one of the most
Speaker 1: curious people I know. I believe in magic. I believe
Speaker 1: in aliens and ghosts and the transformative power of psychedelic drugs,
Speaker 1: and I believe that life can be fun all the time.
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, you left something out. You're also into extreme weather.
Speaker 1: I love tornadoes. I know they're incredible. I want to
Speaker 1: do it. I missed out on it this season because
Speaker 1: the spring is almost done. But you can do tornado
Speaker 1: chasing with storm chasers, being in front of a tornado,
Speaker 1: like seeing I least live in Virginia Tonado.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's emotional.
Speaker 1: Yeah, doc, I mean, you're very correct, But there's something
Speaker 1: so awe inspiring and humbling. Nature is so humbling, it's
Speaker 1: so necessary. And I believe plants are sentient. There's all
Speaker 1: these experiments about this. One guy did an experiment that
Speaker 1: I learned in a in a workshop with Laurelan Jackson,
Speaker 1: who's a renowned psychic medium. I'm obsessed with her, where
Speaker 1: they hooked plants up to an ekg. The guy, the scientist,
Speaker 1: left his studio and had a timer set where he
Speaker 1: found this animal. He wanted to find an animal that
Speaker 1: only lives a couple of days, and there's a certain
Speaker 1: shrimp at the bottom of a river that only live
Speaker 1: about a day or two. So he didn't feel bad
Speaker 1: killing them, so he dumped them. Once the timer went off,
Speaker 1: he got out of his studio because he didn't want
Speaker 1: to affect it. He dumped the shrimp into boiling hot water,
Speaker 1: and the EKG on the plants was going nuts. And
Speaker 1: so there you go. Plants are sentient like they and
Speaker 1: I think that is the most interesting, beautiful facet of life.
Speaker 2: Well, we do discuss in this podcast different theories of consciousness,
Speaker 2: and I do feel like we're we've opened up fifty
Speaker 2: different threads at once and haven't closed any.
Speaker 1: But that's my mom. Let's say what conscious plants feel?
Speaker 1: You know? What do you say plants feel?
Speaker 2: You know feel? You know? Well, But there is a
Speaker 2: certain theory of consciounce that consciousness is fundamental, that it's
Speaker 2: you know, we're It's more that we are tapping into
Speaker 2: a universal consciousness. It's not like we have our own
Speaker 2: consciousness that is completely circumscribed in our brain. Right. So
Speaker 2: there are some really interesting theories that that do We've
Speaker 2: opened real scientific possibilities for everything to sort of have
Speaker 2: a certain level of consciousness all you know, biological organisms
Speaker 2: and whether plants are conscious. I think it's still open
Speaker 2: for really legitimate scientific debate and discussions.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but can narcissism be cured?
Speaker 2: The narcissism and the extent to which it can change
Speaker 2: really depends on what kind of narcisism you have. So
Speaker 2: if you score really high in what's called grandiose narcissism,
Speaker 2: which is like I am, that's like the braggioso kind
Speaker 2: of narcissist, like the Kanye West, you know, like literally
Speaker 2: literally I'm Jesus or whatever. If you believe you're Jesus.
Speaker 2: It turns out those people it's very hard to change them,
Speaker 2: Like you know, I'm a This is coming from mysts
Speaker 2: from Scott Berry Kauffman, who's like a humanistic psychologists. I
Speaker 2: believe in the fundamental potential for growth for everyone. But
Speaker 2: with that said, the ones that end up in clinical
Speaker 2: therapy either tend to be the grandiose narcissists who've been
Speaker 2: forced to be there by their girlfriends or this is
Speaker 2: a fact, there's only two types of narcists. You will
Speaker 2: see it in a clinician's couch. Is the one that
Speaker 2: the grandiose narcissist who's been forced and and and and
Speaker 2: really doesn't change at all. They're resentful that they have
Speaker 2: to be there, or the vulnerable narcissist who has reached
Speaker 2: a point of depression and anxiety, because you do tend
Speaker 2: to find anxiety and depression quite high in those who's
Speaker 2: high in vulnerable narcisism. We we've done work on this.
Speaker 2: We've rerit a paper on the clinical correlates of different
Speaker 2: types of narcissism. So we know that the real, big, vulnerable,
Speaker 2: vulnerable one is vulnerable narcissism because if you're not getting
Speaker 2: that attention and validation, because you you kind of feel
Speaker 2: broken inside a lot of people scriding vulnerationis they don't
Speaker 2: feel they're superior at all. They feel like they are
Speaker 2: fundamentally worthless. It's I call it the entitlement paradox. I
Speaker 2: coined that love that you like that love the title
Speaker 2: in paradox? Do you like the phrase great because on
Speaker 2: the one hand, you feel like, Okay, Gregg GERALDO, you
Speaker 2: know the comedian.
Speaker 1: We share the same manager share.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, he's rest in peace.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a great, great comedian.
Speaker 2: I have a quote from him in my new book
Speaker 2: on I'm writing a book about vulnerable narcissism, and I
Speaker 2: have a quote from him. He says, my whole life,
Speaker 2: I've felt like a piece of shit at the center
Speaker 2: of the universe. And I think that perfectly encapsulates the
Speaker 2: vulnerable narcisism kind of mentally as well as a lot
Speaker 2: of comedians I think feel that way. Do you resonate
Speaker 2: with that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so self aware the years of work that
Speaker 1: when I get into the victim mentality, I know it
Speaker 1: right away and I go, we're doing the victim thing again?
Speaker 1: Does not do this dance?
Speaker 2: Amazing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. It's great. One other thing a theory
Speaker 1: that I've kind of come up with that I'm curious
Speaker 1: of your thoughts about narcissism and borderline not things like sociopathy,
Speaker 1: because I have friends who are teachers who teach like
Speaker 1: three year olds and they're like, no, you could show up,
Speaker 1: you border sociopath. I've seen it. I've seen it, and
Speaker 1: they've told me stories. I'm like, oh, okay, yep, you can.
Speaker 2: There's a particular phrase for that, because you don't label
Speaker 2: those kids a little psychopaths. It's called like a you know,
Speaker 2: like like impulsive avoid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, but yeah I can say that. But borderline
Speaker 1: and narcissism is a response.
Speaker 2: We don't want to self fulfilling prophecy with these kids?
Speaker 1: Is that why I behave? It's like if you think
Speaker 1: your boyfriend's cheating and you keep asking them, he's like, well,
Speaker 1: now I'm going.
Speaker 2: To put a label psychopath and a three year old
Speaker 2: they won't grow up.
Speaker 1: But borderline and narcissism are response to an event or
Speaker 1: to being treated a certain way.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh well, everything's a nature nurture mix everything, So
Speaker 2: you can't put some things in a box that's like
Speaker 2: purely socialization and not genes and say those are just
Speaker 2: purely genes and not everything.
Speaker 1: Actually, would you argue narcisism is genetic? Can it be genetic?
Speaker 2: Everything including narcissism? One percent? There's a genetic basis to it,
Speaker 2: everything including your introversion, extroversion, your You can go down
Speaker 2: the list of all your personality traits, whether or not
Speaker 2: you're open to new experiences or not, they all have
Speaker 2: a genetic basis, which just simply means a temperament. You
Speaker 2: know that you you certainly, certainly you can acknowledge that
Speaker 2: there's a continuity of temperament you've had your whole life,
Speaker 2: even though you word and grow traumatic. Yes, you know,
Speaker 2: even though you've been on this amazing journey, there's still
Speaker 2: a temperament. There's still like an inner core to you.
Speaker 2: And when narcissism is true, it shows it shows itself
Speaker 2: very early. Really yeah. Yeah, some of these clusters of
Speaker 2: traits tend to show themselves very early in life and
Speaker 2: can be amplified by the environment.
Speaker 1: Then if you are raising a child and you see
Speaker 1: signs of narcissism in your child, can you steer them
Speaker 1: in the other director?
Speaker 2: You can? I really do think you can through nurturing
Speaker 2: and off and uh and real firm parenting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and showing them, like I think, proving to them
Speaker 1: how good it feels to connect with people, and how
Speaker 1: good it feels to like, you know, my girlfriends and
Speaker 1: I we always just pump each other up. We're like, yeah, page,
Speaker 1: you're two any bait Like that feels so good?
Speaker 2: And when you wait, I want to be one of
Speaker 2: your girlfriends.
Speaker 1: Yeah that no, But my group of friends are amazing
Speaker 1: badass I believe, like truly, like I've one of the
Speaker 1: one of the biggest modalities of healing that I've engaged
Speaker 1: in for myself is getting a group of friends that
Speaker 1: see me and hear me and go up and be
Speaker 1: a little psycho today. But hey, girls, sometimes psycho like
Speaker 1: it's okay.
Speaker 2: I have my friends like that too, And there you've
Speaker 2: got a treasure.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But psychopathy is an interesting one because you can
Speaker 2: have the brain of a psycho path and not develop
Speaker 2: any outward behaviors that are bad or moral because you
Speaker 2: had a really caring, nurturing family that you grew up in.
Speaker 2: It's the combination that's particularly bad.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you another psychology question?
Speaker 2: To ask me anything? This is something that's this is
Speaker 2: the psychology podcast.
Speaker 1: Okay, perfect, I'm so glad I'm here. I don't have
Speaker 1: a therapist right now.
Speaker 2: By the way, this is a chill pill and you
Speaker 2: can have this at any point.
Speaker 1: Thank you so doing. Guys, we fucked for ten years
Speaker 1: getting all the emails from people. I almost felt a
Speaker 1: little silly for being naive to this, but we we
Speaker 1: just get thou I mean, we probably have hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of emails. That's not an examination. I exaggerate everything
Speaker 1: from people who were raped or from people who are
Speaker 1: abused as children sexually abuse. Pedophilia fascinates me because I
Speaker 1: can look at the people I know in my life.
Speaker 1: Eighty percent of them were affected by pedophilia. It is
Speaker 1: so rampant. Yeah, they either as somebody in their pedophile
Speaker 1: in their family. Really yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the base of the population, it's.
Speaker 1: Crazy high to the point where I'm like, this is wild.
Speaker 1: And so it's been happening since a lot for a
Speaker 1: long time with the history of humanity.
Speaker 2: It was normalized in the Greek era, right, a little boy,
Speaker 2: you know that, the status social status.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and like, well, you know Alice in Wonderland,
Speaker 1: that's one of my favorite books. But the Lewis Carroll
Speaker 1: wasp like he was in love with Alison. Yeah you sorry,
Speaker 1: Well no, I didn't know that when I fell in
Speaker 1: love with Alice in Wonderland and I was talking about
Speaker 1: holding opposites, right, sorry, but you can still enjoy it.
Speaker 1: You ruined it for Well, my brain isn't a trauma
Speaker 1: brain anymore. So it's not black or white. It's not
Speaker 1: you're either good or bad. So I can hold that,
Speaker 1: like somebody can write this beautiful book and also be
Speaker 1: a better vile But I'm like, this is such a
Speaker 1: rampant thing, and it's so interesting. I think one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why it's so rampant is because everybody's so
Speaker 1: scared to talk about it. And I think I find
Speaker 1: that very interesting given that so many people in my
Speaker 1: life are affected by it.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, I'm really sorry that many people in your
Speaker 2: life have been affected, But I didn't. I didn't. That's
Speaker 2: very high. I have noticed a very high number of
Speaker 2: comedians joke about pedophilia. Just topped the other day, I
Speaker 2: went I went to the Naked Comedy show. I was
Speaker 2: telling you about that. Yeah, first time I've ever been
Speaker 2: to such a comedy show. And I thought they were
Speaker 2: so brave to go. I was like, I'm not that
Speaker 2: I admire them, you know, like, but but but the penephilla.
Speaker 2: That was a topic that's just like it seems to
Speaker 2: be something. It seems to be like we use humor
Speaker 2: in a way to really process and well, what is it?
Speaker 3: You can explain it to me, Well, and you look
Speaker 3: at the psychology of a joke that's like kind of
Speaker 3: you know, a joke that's edgy or you know, from
Speaker 3: a comedic standpoint, from a writing standpoint, the victim of
Speaker 3: whatever you're talking about can never.
Speaker 1: Be the butt of the joke. That's just because that
Speaker 1: it's not. And that's why you know, people get pissed off,
Speaker 1: comedians will get canceled. But it's but if you take
Speaker 1: zoom out from the canceling and the politicizing, you go,
Speaker 1: it's not funny when you're just kicking someone when they're
Speaker 1: down right, But when you can make when you are
Speaker 1: the victim of something really tragic and you make a
Speaker 1: joke and you put the perpetrator in their place in
Speaker 1: a way that makes other people feel validated who've been
Speaker 1: through that, it's the most healing I think it is.
Speaker 1: I could think of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great point.
Speaker 1: Hurt people. Hurt people is kind of bullshit because most
Speaker 1: of the cases I was hurt and I I mean,
Speaker 1: of course we're all going to hurt people in our lives,
Speaker 1: but nowhere near the damage that was done to me,
Speaker 1: because because being hurt made me feel so bad, I
Speaker 1: would never want.
Speaker 2: So that's a myth that hurt people, hurt people think
Speaker 2: is a myth most people. There are a lot of
Speaker 2: myths about like trauma, and I'm actually writing a whole
Speaker 2: book on this right now.
Speaker 1: That's great because the Instagram community trauma influencers know, there's some.
Speaker 2: Really trauma is such a shit show.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's not an excuse for you to be
Speaker 1: a piece as ship.
Speaker 2: Well that's the that's the main thesis of my book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's very much needed.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I can't wait to share it with you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: not because you, Yeah, I think you enjoy this. But
Speaker 2: I mean everything is a combination of nature nurture, right, So,
Speaker 2: I mean I think there are certain you know, genes
Speaker 2: contribute to urges, you know, just like there's genes for
Speaker 2: alcohol urges, right, Like, but what can all these people
Speaker 2: who overcome all sorts of tendencies and urges they have
Speaker 2: for you know, those who are predisposed genetically towards alcohol
Speaker 2: tend to have family who were addicts. No shit, you're
Speaker 2: getting their genes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you have it genetically and you have a model,
Speaker 1: and you're.
Speaker 2: Getting the environment. If you get both the genes and
Speaker 2: the environment, that could be really tough. Ye. But but
Speaker 2: the most the hurt people hurt people. Think I think
Speaker 2: most people who have been through terrible things tend to
Speaker 2: have develop a greater empathy and sensitivity. Usually the siblings
Speaker 2: of those who have the full bown illness tend to
Speaker 2: have a watered down version of it that is more
Speaker 2: caring and empathetic. And you see that with creativity as well.
Speaker 2: I've studied the mental illness link to creativity for twenty years.
Speaker 2: I've studied that topic, published neuroscience papers on it, and
Speaker 2: you do find that children descendants of those who had
Speaker 2: a full bown mental illness, as particularly schizophrenia. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but the children get a water down version called schizotippy,
Speaker 2: which is a personality trait. It's like schizophrenia light.
Speaker 1: Oh that sounds fun. He's just cookie.
Speaker 2: I got a little of that myself, to be honest.
Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, schizophrenia is no joke. Man.
Speaker 2: Well I don't have schizophrenia, but schizop schizotippy I think
Speaker 2: has really fueled my creativity and imagination.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you could be goofy, you could be a
Speaker 1: little off, which I love people.
Speaker 2: With imagination as well.
Speaker 1: Totally totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I may have a really rich imagination. That's schizophrenia
Speaker 2: full blown cases. Your imagination is so great that you
Speaker 2: can't differentiate. If you haven't light, then that means that's
Speaker 2: kind of fun. I can go through I go into
Speaker 2: like a real fantasy world and be able to know
Speaker 2: that it's fantasy.
Speaker 1: Yes, and get yourself out of it. So Laura l
Speaker 1: and Jackson was talking about earlier. She has two books
Speaker 1: that are just amazing. I was introduced to her from
Speaker 1: the Netflix docu series Surviving Death. That show changed my
Speaker 1: life and got me on the wormholes that I'll be
Speaker 1: on for the rest of my life. But I've taken
Speaker 1: a lot of workshops with her. I've seen her do readings.
Speaker 1: She integrates a lot of science into her abilities. She's
Speaker 1: had ekg's while she's giving a reading, and her brain
Speaker 1: scan reads as if she's in a coma while she's reading,
Speaker 1: which is really interesting. And she co taught this workshop
Speaker 1: that Oh, they shared one thing. I want to I
Speaker 1: would love to see what you think of this, but
Speaker 1: she said schizophrenic. This is her spiritual explanation. So well,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll never know. But she's like, we're all, well,
Speaker 1: we're born, you know, we're spirits incarnating in a body.
Speaker 1: We have to like lower our vibration to be in
Speaker 1: a bot because the Earth is just a very low,
Speaker 1: heavy dense energy. But with skits of a lot of times
Speaker 1: when people are born schizophrenic, we're all born with a
Speaker 1: Dunce cap that kind of caps all this universal knowledge
Speaker 1: because if we if we had it all at the
Speaker 1: same time, we would be completely overwhelmed our nervousys and
Speaker 1: would be fucked with schizophrenia. The Dunce caps tipped a
Speaker 1: little bit and stuff's getting it and it's just a
Speaker 1: extreme overwhelming of the nervous.
Speaker 2: Well, that's actually really scientific accurate. It's called reduced lead
Speaker 2: and inhibition.
Speaker 1: To tell her the techniculture, Oh, I don't know, you
Speaker 1: talk about it. I'm seeing her in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: My whole dissertation was about, well not the whole, but
Speaker 2: a big part of my PhD dissertation was on the
Speaker 2: link between reduced lean inhibition and creativity. And it turns
Speaker 2: out that those with full blon and schizophrenic episodes, they're
Speaker 2: leading inhibition is solo that they really can't filter out
Speaker 2: things that they should be filtering out as irrelevant. So
Speaker 2: there's lots of things in our environment that are relevant
Speaker 2: to the goal that we have in our mind. But
Speaker 2: people with schizophrenia they find meaning in everything. Everything becomes relevant.
Speaker 2: So that that thing's talking to me over there, Suddenly
Speaker 2: it's relevant that Corona is what corona? Why you look
Speaker 2: at me like that, you know what I'm saying. But there,
Speaker 2: you're you're, you're, you're kind of drowning and meaning. Oh
Speaker 2: quite put it that way. But there is beauty in
Speaker 2: finding greater meaning. So if you can lower the dial, basically,
Speaker 2: don't throw the baby out in the bathwater, is what
Speaker 2: I'm saying. I don't like stigmatizing people, right, and a
Speaker 2: lot of the ones that.
Speaker 1: I've met, I'm like, you're sweet and kind and totally God.
Speaker 1: I bet you would write a killer script if you
Speaker 1: could just dial it down for a second.
Speaker 2: What we want to help them do is not become
Speaker 2: someone else, But we want to dial that down a
Speaker 2: little bit. Let them be able to ground themselves in reality.
Speaker 2: It's called reality monitoring. They suck it reality monitoring.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, But.
Speaker 2: If we can help them with that, then they can
Speaker 2: still keep their rich imagination. They can get they get
Speaker 2: to keep, you know, seeing life with a sense of
Speaker 2: meaning because being able to infuse your life with such
Speaker 2: meaning can be a source of transcendence.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Yeah, And we're the only creatures on
Speaker 1: the planet out of all the animals that like need
Speaker 1: meaning the way that we do. Another fascinating thing that
Speaker 1: I'll remember until I died that I learned in this
Speaker 1: exact workshop. She co taught it, like I said, with
Speaker 1: a scientist. I have his name in my email if
Speaker 1: you're interested. But I'm like, this is worthy of looking
Speaker 1: into on a large scale. They did a study of
Speaker 1: nonverbal autistic children, and they showed video footage from their study.
Speaker 1: This woman has had three kids. One of them was
Speaker 1: non verbal autistic. They taught that son a communication method
Speaker 1: with a It was a piece of paper that looked
Speaker 1: like a keyboard, and he could spell out words. He
Speaker 1: could totally communicate. He was super smart, very funny, like
Speaker 1: his personality came out once they had this. And her
Speaker 1: youngest son, who does not have he's neurotypical. Right is
Speaker 1: the word? She goes, Mommy, Mommy, I forget what the
Speaker 1: autistic child's name was, but let's say, Dan, if you
Speaker 1: go upstairs on the third floor of our house and
Speaker 1: write a word on a piece of paper, Dan will
Speaker 1: tell you what the word is. He's like psychic And
Speaker 1: she's like what, So she did it. She went upstairs,
Speaker 1: or he said, if you word. She was like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is weird. So she went upstairs and wrote a
Speaker 1: word on a piece of paper, came down to her
Speaker 1: nonverbal autistic son in the kitchen, and he told her
Speaker 1: exactly what the word was, and they they from there
Speaker 1: did this study where they tested it wasn't psychic abilities,
Speaker 1: but they're so sensitive. Nonverbal autistic people have such a
Speaker 1: beautiful sensitivity. And I'm like, whoaoa, whoa. They can pick
Speaker 1: up what you said. That is mind blowing. That's mind blowing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Have you do you know anything.
Speaker 2: About Oh yeah, I do quite quite amount of work
Speaker 2: with twice exceptional kids who are gifted and autistic. Scientific
Speaker 2: director of Bridges Academy, which is a special school for
Speaker 2: kids who are twice exceptional. And these twice exceptional kids
Speaker 2: are extraordinary in they hold together paradoxes that society tends
Speaker 2: to treat people. You're either gifted or you're orning disabled. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but you know a lot of kids are so not
Speaker 2: just sensitive, just so brilliant at connecting dots and seeing patterns.
Speaker 2: Pattern detection seems to be a real a big plus
Speaker 2: from autism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think autistic people could save the world. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, look, can we all not sleep on that, Like,
Speaker 1: let's look into this more and figure out how.
Speaker 2: They feel body on musk. But he's certainly on that
Speaker 2: autism spectrum. Yeah, he's done a lot for this world, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: And and uh Zuckerbergo is openly autistic. Oh is he?
Speaker 1: I didn't know that, I think, so it makes sense, yeah,
Speaker 1: not to diagnose people, but yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Then there are and then there are plenty of women
Speaker 2: who are on the auto spectrum, but they have shame
Speaker 2: over it because it's not as like accepted if you're
Speaker 2: a woman in this a mask a lot, and I
Speaker 2: think that's really sad that they have to they feel
Speaker 2: as they had the mask.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I I there was a point at one point
Speaker 1: in my life where someone was like, are you autistic
Speaker 1: or I'm like.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: But then I looked at all these videos of me
Speaker 1: as a kid. I would always flap my hands and
Speaker 1: it's almost like I'm autistic, and that's like the marker.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, okay, But and I try to take
Speaker 1: an online test, I'm like, that's not the way to
Speaker 1: go an online.
Speaker 2: Honestly, only almost every commune I've ever met, eventually, after
Speaker 2: talking to me, becomes convinced there yeah, Neil Brennan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you can make a case.
Speaker 2: But he took a test, right he I we got
Speaker 2: him to a whole panel of things.
Speaker 1: What is the Is there a marker for autism in
Speaker 1: terms of because there's such variations of it, but like,
Speaker 1: is there one or two things that if you check
Speaker 1: off these things?
Speaker 2: Like it's more complicated, there's a lot of it's a
Speaker 2: big checklist. Yeah, it's not just I would never mention
Speaker 2: just yeah, it's thorough. I would never just mention one
Speaker 2: or two things. You know, But you are good at
Speaker 2: looking me in the eyes. Oh yeah, I don't. I
Speaker 2: don't get it all just to GI vibe from you
Speaker 2: for what That's where I get a little neurotic, a
Speaker 2: little do I know what I get from you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's.
Speaker 2: I get a little neurotic. I get a little insecure,
Speaker 2: but but like immensely confident at the same time. I
Speaker 2: feel like you're a parent walking paradox. You walk around
Speaker 2: like I don't know which side is going to come
Speaker 2: out when you know.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: But maybe a lot of that comes down to who
Speaker 2: you're with and whether you feel comfortable. You know, I
Speaker 2: feel like if you don't feel comfortable around someone, you
Speaker 2: probably like shut down.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm a totally different person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my prediction about you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's accurate.
Speaker 2: It's it's been such a delight talking to you today.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, we don't have much more time.
Speaker 2: There's just one one more thing I want to bring
Speaker 2: up because I've been really enjoying watching your stand up
Speaker 2: and I feel like there's a lot of psychology. I
Speaker 2: really recommend people watch you who are interested in psychology
Speaker 2: because you bring up a lot of psychological insights that
Speaker 2: just off the cuff, like you don't realize it, but
Speaker 2: but you I'm like, she nailed it. You know. Cool
Speaker 2: this one, I I thought you nailed it. You talking
Speaker 2: about how are boys and girls? How do they raise differently? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And then you made this joke about how the wires
Speaker 2: got crossed. Oh yeah, it kind of points to the
Speaker 2: socialization processes as we have as boys and girls. Can
Speaker 2: you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the joke. I love this joke.
Speaker 2: I love it too, I really love it. I say,
Speaker 2: you nailed it.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I appreciate that, So I say, I go,
Speaker 1: I talk about like, I'm a straight woman, and if
Speaker 1: anybody in here thinks people could pick their sexuality, talk
Speaker 1: to them. You're a straight lady. We wouldn't pick this.
Speaker 1: We're tired. And I talk about how I think it's
Speaker 1: a miracle that straight people get along and let alone
Speaker 1: find love, because we're raised to be such polar opposite people,
Speaker 1: even though we have so much in common. And I go,
Speaker 1: you have little boys growing up being told by the
Speaker 1: world you can be mad, but you can't be sad
Speaker 1: because that's chickshit. And then you have little girls growing
Speaker 1: up being told by the world you could be sad
Speaker 1: and cry, but don't get mad because that temper will
Speaker 1: scare everybody away.
Speaker 2: True.
Speaker 1: And then as a result, you have these men walking
Speaker 1: around going, oh, I'm so sad, and these women are like,
Speaker 1: I'm so angry.
Speaker 2: What do I do?
Speaker 1: And the wires are crossed?
Speaker 2: And that's that explains social media content. Gendered content. Yes,
Speaker 2: all the all the you know, the bros. You're you're
Speaker 2: not fulling anyone, bro.
Speaker 1: Grow to a drug store. Look at the deodorance. The
Speaker 1: man's deodorant is called wolf thorn and the women's deodorant
Speaker 1: is Lilac.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Okay. See that's why I like, I secretly
Speaker 2: want to be a comedian because like when I call
Speaker 2: out things like that, people I get pounced on. I
Speaker 2: made a joke I made. I tried to make a
Speaker 2: joke on my Instagram about like, you know, most of
Speaker 2: Instagram are well, guys trying to convince each other they're strong,
Speaker 2: like saying they're strong, and women saying that they're worthy.
Speaker 2: Yea yes, And I was like, that's basically what I'm
Speaker 2: seeing on my feed. Yeah, you know, but I got
Speaker 2: trouble from that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Only good people cause trouble. You're like leading edge people
Speaker 1: cause trouble. Yeah. And also it makes sense for you
Speaker 1: to be a comedian because you actually have a front
Speaker 1: row seat to the human condition.
Speaker 2: I do, and it's absurd.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so you see the absurdity for your job
Speaker 1: under a micro scope, and that's what comedians are trying
Speaker 1: to do, so you can live a double life.
Speaker 2: Should well. Thank you so much for being on the
Speaker 2: Psychology podcast. Thank you were awesome.
Speaker 1: Thanks